I'm back!

Well, I 'm back....but I can't post any pics right now of our trip to CA. We had a great time and really enjoyed spending time with my grandparents. The best thing of the trip was watching the kids enjoy it so much. Javon had more freedom there to ride his bike back and forth between houses (less than a block apart). Reagan had a room full of Barbie dolls to play with. We all went 4wheeling almost every day and had a blast. And the swimming pool was so nice. Living in Seattle area we only have an indoor swimming pool, but I love outdoor pools. It's just different. 

As far as school goes, we're done for the summer except a Summer Bridge Book that Javon is doing 2 pages a day in. I got his curriculum for next year in the mail while I was gone and had fun going through it all. He has several more subjects next year but he's getting faster at his work. I'm the most excited about his Lit and Creative Writing. It looks really good. 

Well, I'm going to go for now, but just wanted to check in and say HI.

Blogger Failer!

I have failed as a blogger! Not only have I failed myself, but my fellow blogging world! :-) To all those who look at my blog on a daily, weekly, bimonthly, or annual schedule....I apologize.:-( When you click on "blessed mommy" and see the same picture day after day after day I know that you get angry, upset, frustrated, but most difficult for me to stomach - disappointed. Yes, disappointment that I seem to have nothing going on in my life worth writing about. Disappointement that I have not taken pictures of my beautiful children in the past week. Disappointment that I have not cared enough about my friends and strangers to bring joy into their life when they look at my blog which has absolutely no valitity to anything pertaining to their life. For all of that, I am deeply sorry! :-)

Well, here are a few of the things that have been going on in my life over the past week that I have failed to report mostly because I didn't have any pictures to back up my stories!!!

June 5th - 9 year anniversary....great night with my hubby. Probably the best anniversary ever. We were both being sentimental and just talked about some of the stuff that the years have held over dinner. Then we went to see Chronicles of Narnia and then home. My sis' watched the kids. Thanks

June 6-8th - Ladies Retreat....all I can say is "What happened at Sambica - stays at Sambica!" There were some funny times, but there were also some great times spent iwth the Lord. I also really enjoyed hanging out with the ladies. My age and older alike. It was fun.

Cars - Our car broke down and we have spent the past 2 weeks figuring out what to do. Thanks to lots of support and help from friends and family we have 1 car up and running and another on it's way! Thanks everyone!

Puppies - Taking care of the puppies has been a family project. Reagan has renamed the dogs. The boy now has 3 names. Josh calls him Maleak, Reagan calls him Jack and I call him J.J. for "Jack Junior". It's a good thing that his new family will give him a real name. :-) Then the girls' names have changed to Paint (because it looks like her toes were dipped in white paint) and Cherry (because Reagan saw my bag with cherries on it and thought it would make a good name). They are getting sooooo chubby and cute. Their eyes and ears opened this week.

Homeschool Convention - Saturday we had so much to do but I couldn't give up going to the Homeschool Convention. I use A.C.E. Curriculum and am very happy with it, but I love to look around at all the other stuff. Some of my finds outside of my curriculum for next year is a calendar book for Javon which I love. It has 2 years worth of daily calendar projects. You chart "something" for an entire month....life the shape of the moon-the tempurature-what kind of clothes you wore-snowfall amounts-all kinds of stuff. Javon did a weather cart for a month and loved it. I think we'll have a lot of fun with this. Both the kids got a recorder (flute) and I've had fun playing all kinds of songs on it, Reagan loves playing it while Javon plays piano, and Daddy is about to through them both out the window! :-) I also found a really cool penmanship and drawing book in one. Anyways, it was a good day just looking around.

Father's Day - We had a good day at church. Kids' church was busy but fun. Then we went to Longhorn BBQ for our annual "beef day" for daddy.

Now I'm busy getting ready to go to California to visit my grandparents for a week. Neither set of grandparents have a computer let alone the internet, so once again you will see this same post for a week. I told you I am a blogger failer. If I were a hard core blogger I'd drive the 60 miles to Reno and find an internet cafe or something. Oh yeah, I don't have a laptop! Well, it looks like I'll just have to say goodbye for now! Have a wonderful week!

Wrestling is great for Javon!!!

"I love you Couch!" is what Javon wrote on his card that he gave his wrestling couch during Teacher Appreciation Week. It was really cute. He really does love going now. At first it was tough and he wasn't sure about the whole thing, but now he is doing great. 

Here's some things that Javon says he's learned in wrestling:

1-How to "push-throw"

2-How to "knock someone down"

3-How to "run around"

4-How to "stand on my hands"

5-How to be "tough"

From my point of view he has learned:

1-Focus

2-Patience

3-Better listening skills

4-How to work with others in a team environment

5-That you can't give up even when it gets tough

6-Respect for his couch

There are other things as well, but those are some of the things that wrestling has helped him with this past 8 months. 

Crazy Busy Week!

So Wednesday was spent in the vet and mechanic's waiting rooms!

I took the pups first thing in the morning to get their tales docked, but there was an emergency CSection on a cat which took 2 hours. Anyways 3 hours later we had three crying pups and headed home. Javon and Reagan did really good though. We went and got Javon a haircut since he was getting "shaggy" as his Nana likes to say. 

Then I had to take our car to the mechanics since it was smelling of gas really bad. We knew that it was dying, but it seems as if it is now dead. Yeah, another two 1/2 hours waiting, but this time we walked to Dairy Queen and had lunch and ice cream. That made the time pass much quicker. Then it was home for a quick nap, clean up, and off to church. 

I won't be blogging over the weekend because I'm off to a Women's Retreat with church. I told Reagan that I would be going and she started to cry. Then I told her that Daddy was going to take her and Brother to see Kung Fu Panda on Saturday and if she went with Mommy then she couldn't see Kung Fu Panda. She stopped crying and very seriously asked if Daddy had enough money to buy her popcorn. :-) I said that I would talk to Daddy about buying her popcorn and she said then it was okay if I went. :-) Last night she informed her Dad that they would be buying popcorn at the theater! Reagan has a great memory so I'm sure he will hear about the popcorn a dozen or so times before Saturday!

Coupons are worth the time!

I just saved $52.50 in hand-in coupons alone! That does not include the $47.00 I saved on Buy 1 Get 1 Free items!!! It does take some planning, but it's so worth it. 

I've been coupon clipping for a long time but never was really "into" it like I am now. I was a casual couponer. But now I'm "hard core" baby!!! :-) 

Tonight at Safeway I got 16 bottles of Ken's Salad Dressing for......Drum roll please! FREEEEEEEEEEEEE plus I actually made almost $4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been hanging on to the $2 coupons that I got in the paper and my mailbox for some time now because I knew a great deal would come along. The coupons were for $2 off of Ken's Salad Dressing and $2 off of Ken's Spray Spritzer Dressing. I had more than normal because I got 2 Sunday papers that week, my mom gave me her Sunday paper, and then I got the coupon insert in the mail that week. So all together I had 7/$2 coupons each. Not on sale, Ken's Salad dressing was $3.69. I was waiting for it to go to a 2/$5 deal so I would only have to pay .50 per bottle, but when I saw that it was Buy One Get One Free I was over the moon! :-) Because you can use 2 coupons even though one was free since they are manufactures coupons and the BOGOF deal is from Safeway. I had several other great coupons, but once again I scored on cereal. 

I got 3 boxes of cereal for $.48! 2 boxes of Kashi cereal that was on sale for$2.24 each (originally $4.69 each!) with 2/$2 coupons so I paid $.48 cents for two boxes of Kashi cereal. They were the big boxes too, not little ones. Then I got a FREE box of Live Active cereal with a                                                                                                 $3 coupon from the internet and it was on sale for $3. 

Yeah, it was a good shopping night. I'm always amazed when I walk away with such great deals. One of my things is that I don't obsess about it. I'm sure some do, but I don't want to spend so much TIME that it takes away from the frugality of it all. I always shop at Safeway so I know the store and the layout. I take advantage of their store coupons and then try to match it up with a manufactures coupon. That is an easy way to get a GREAT deal! I shop once a week, but every other week is simply little items like special store deals for that week. So I only have to do SERIOUS grocery shopping about twice a month. It has worked great for me. Another thing that has been really helpful in saving is going to a cash envelope system. I have $35 per week for groceries and $20 per week for milk, bread, fruit, water, dog food, and anything else from Sams club. When it's gone it's gone. This helps to make me use my coupons to stretch it. Remember though that we haven't had to buy any meat for months now. That is a huge help! 

Enough about my "shopping high"! :-) I just had to share and say give it a try - you might just get 16 bottles of free salad dressing. Looks like we'll be eating salad with dinner! God is good though and takes great care of us. We are trying really hard to not spend any extra money on "things" since we have 2 cars that need fixed and a bathroom that is gutted to the studs! Thanks President Bush for that tax break! Thanks Sophie for 3 puppies! :-) And mostly, thank you Lord for always providing!

Read Naturally Program!

Okay, so many of you know that I sub in the public school system on Monday's. I see the good, the bad, and the ugly. I won't get into it...but yesterday I was working with an elementary reading program called Read Naturally. It was excellent! I came home and looked it up on the internet to see if they have a "home" version. They did. It is called "One Minute Reader". It is $99 for a year long course.

The idea is to improve kids' reading skills and comprehension by timing them as they read. They do a "cold read" first and underline any words that they are struggling with. You right down how many words they read. Each line of the story is numbered to tell you how many words they are at. Then they listen to the story on CD at 3 different speeds to practice getting faster at reading. Then they answer a "Quick Quiz" sheet to make sure they comprehended what they read. After they have practiced their reading on their own they do a "final read". You time them for one minute and their words-per-minute must improve from their cold read. It sounds complicated once I wrote it all out, but it really isn't.

I know that this isn't right for everyone, but I really enjoyed the program and wanted to share the information with you. You can check out several sample pages at their website if you are interested.

www.oneminutereader.com (Homeschool version)

www. readnaturally.com