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

One thing leads to another!

Well, here's where we're at at the end of work day one! The kids and I are going to Nana's tonight so Josh can tear out the ceiling. He didn't want the kids here because it a lot of OLD insulation. Bye for now..........

What did you do with your Saturday?

Here's what we did!

Here's the cabinet before....

Here's the lights and tile before....

Here's the pink bathtub before....

There it goes....

All gone...

My job was the tiles in the bathtub and then going back and taking all the nails out of the 2x4's and getting all the little pieces of drywall off. It's actually been a good day.

When we bought our 1921 home 2 1/2 years ago we knew this was part of it. This is our fourth major project on the home and there are a LOT more. We replaced all the windows with the help of my grandpa from CA, Josh rewired the entire house except the kitchen (that's still a work in progress), Josh gutted what used to be a kitchen when they added on to the house in the 50's to make it a duplex...now it's our office, and now the boys bathroom. We call it the boys bathroom because we have two full bathrooms right across the hall from each other because they made it into a duplex at one time. So one got deemed the girls bathroom and the other the boys. We said a prayer before we began this morning and off we went.

We have puppies!

Three cute little mini schnauzers! Yesterday was a long day....At midnight of Thursday night I went in to check on Sophie and saw that she was in labor. I stayed in with her for over an hour and then decided to just get a blanket and sleep on the floor beside her since I didn't know how long it would take. She just wanted me to rub her head all night long. I felt for her! Really I did! I saw those contractions coming and it brought back memories of having Javon and Reagan. All the while, Jack is comfortably sleeping on his bed in the family room without a clue of what is going on!!!! Men!

At 4:30 AM Sophie wanted to go outside to go potty so I took her out and then at 6 AM I was woken up by the sound of her eating the afterbirth off of the first puppy. Not a sound that I want to wake up to every morning. It made my stomach turn a bit. Josh got up and we watched her have 2 more pups. We both work on Fridays so Mom came over to puppysit for us. She called at 8:30 AM frantic on the phone because there was a 4 puppy just born and it's intestines grew on the outside of it's abdomen.  I won't go into the details, but she got the still born pup away from Sophie and it took a while for Mom to recover. :-) The three pups are doing great and Sophie is a wonderful mother. 

Reagan named the girls "Frannie" and "Fergie" and Javon named the boy "Loopy".  I have no idea where those names came from, but so it is. :-) I'll get better pictures in a few days. 

Daddy/Daughter Time

Reagan loves to go bike riding with Daddy now. They go a lot on Monday's. Now that Javon is not in co-op they probably won't go as much because it's a tight fit with both kids in the trailer but I'm sure they'll carve out some quality time together. 

Josh is totally into his bike riding right now and it's actually been very nice. :-) It' s almost like having another car...well, for me that is! :-) Because I don't have to ride it!!!!!! He's been riding it to work every day and then other times as well. In July, he's going to do the "STP" Seattle to Portland bike ride to raise money for Speed the Light our youth missions program. Every Saturday he's been riding to Seattle and back which is about 60 miles round trip. He enjoys it and it's been really good for his health. 

Free Fishing Day-No License Required

This is really cool! June 7 & 8 is free fishing day in Washington state. No license required. For free dates in your state, head over to www.takemefishing.org

Christian Bookstore/Library

So here is my "Works for me Wednesday" idea. 

I love going to the Christian bookstore, but mostly just to look around because it costs too much to buy all the things I want. We have a Family Christian Bookstore here that always has great coupons and $5 kids days which is great, but still.......

I was sitting at my computer one day going through the mail and started looking at the Family Christian Bookstore catalog that came in that day. I was longingly looking at all the great books, DVD's, CD's, etc. When this thought hit me, "Why not look and see if the library has any of these?" I love the library and use it all the time, but this was a new idea to actually look for items based off of the Christian bookstore ad. Usually I just randomly look around and put holds on items. Anyways, I opened the ad and away I went typing in all the great books and items that I wanted. It was amazing! Book after book and movie after movie all began to pop up. Ones that I never would have thought the library would have. Things like Adventures in Odyessy books and DVD's, Bibleman, and Gigi for the kids. Books like Passionette Housewives; Desperate for God (P.S. A fabulous book!), The power of a positive mom, Have a New Kid by Friday (I haven't read this one yet...we'll see! :-)

So now every time the Christian Bookstore ad comes in the mail I run to the computer and start placing holds. Sometimes the newly released books have a long hold list so I pass on them, but other times there is no wait at all. Not every book is available, but most are. 

Some of my favorite finds today were - Let's Go On a Mommy Date by Karen Kingsbury

Raising Unselfish Children in a Self-Absorbed World by Jill Rigby and a Larry Boy Chapter Book series that I didn't even know existed until I typed in Larry Boy and found it! 

Next time your Christian bookstore ad comes in the mail...head to your computer and start placing holds. It's a lot of fun. If you don't get ads in the mail, go to www.familychristian.com and write down some titles.  

Some of my favorite things...

Last weekend it was summer in Seattle! Yes, it only lasted one weekend....but here are some of the things we did:   

Had a teaparty outside.... Went to the water park on Friday night....
Went back to the water park on Saturday...
Wore sunscreen...lots of sunscreen...because we're not used to the sun!

Sat and watched the sun set and rain clouds roll in....

Bye Bye Summer :-) 

A must read for every mother of a teenage daughter!

Raising Maidens of Virtue: A Study of Feminine Loveliness for Mothers and Daughters    by Stacy McDonald

Wow, this book is fabulous! I had seen it on a homeschool website and got it from the library. Within two days I devoured this book. It is written with the intent of mothers and daughters reading it together and then answering the "Sharing Your Heart" questions after each chapter. I really enjoyed it though. If you have a teenage daughter (or a 3 year old that will one day be a teenager) you need to get this book! There are some fabulous questions/topics to discuss in this book. Even if you don't completely agree with all the ideas, it opens up dialogue that can lead you and your daughter to a place of understanding each other. Seriously, don't take my word for it. Get the book. :-) 

www.raisingmaidens.com

Almost wordless Wednesday :-)

Reagan went to her first Teddy Bear Tea party at church last week. She had a lot of fun! Nana went with her for the first 30 minutes while I did youth worship and then I went down and joined in the fun. She especially liked the BonBons! We drank tea, ate yummy snacks, listened to a missionary story, colored, and made a pillow for her teddy! It was fun....