So our weekend was filled with a yard sale (that was moved into the garage for fear of space issues in our front yard) Its all set up like a little boutique and he spent our time bouncing babies, chasing toddler/preschoolers and refolding the clothes people unfolded and tossed in a pile. I now have new found respect for those working in soft lines at Walmart, kmart, sears, target, ect. its frustrating!
Our sale is to fund a new washer since ours is leaking horably, and new dryer since the drum is coming apart and starting to rustm and there by ruining our clothes. We have made about 1/3 of what we were told a used set will cost, so hopefully we can do better next week.
On to school! Sam has been doing so good with his workbooks, on Friday he did them without me having to tell him how or which to do! I was SO proud when I saw his math workwork page done and he had connected all the right dots. Good job Sammy! You are a super star. Now off to let him explore ABCmouse.com some more!
Monday, June 17, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Health & Family
As many may not know my partner in life, love, and family works in Alaska in a processing plant, he left on June 2 until Early november. Also as many may not know our 9 month old son has severe chronic anemia, not the low iron anemia, but the critically low red blood cell count that leads to blood transfusions, which is very scary for a baby so little. On wednesday we had an appt with his hemotologist and his counts were so low that he needed an imediate transfusion, which ended with a night in the hospital and a sleepover for Sam with my cousin and her family. My sister even drove up to be with Sam.
As parents you can imagine how scary it is for us to have a child that is ill and not have a full diagnosis yet. But it's even harder for Justin to be in another state and know that he can't be here when he is needed, like he was this week, and how scary it is for his parents that live across the country in Georgia. Tiny (our 9 month old Lucas) is doing fine for now. His doctor wants to send us to a Diamond Blackfan (one of the diagnosis options) specialist in Seattle WHEN (not if) his levels go low again. So a diffucult situation is going to get more complicated and more difficult, and we could use thoughts and prayers from everyone.
On a brighter note we are holding a multi family yard sale this weekend (and likely every weekend this month/summer) to raise the money for a new washing machine. And I am going to start packing Sam a mini back pack when we go to doc appts with his school stuff so that he can have everything just in case we have to be away from home during school again.
As parents you can imagine how scary it is for us to have a child that is ill and not have a full diagnosis yet. But it's even harder for Justin to be in another state and know that he can't be here when he is needed, like he was this week, and how scary it is for his parents that live across the country in Georgia. Tiny (our 9 month old Lucas) is doing fine for now. His doctor wants to send us to a Diamond Blackfan (one of the diagnosis options) specialist in Seattle WHEN (not if) his levels go low again. So a diffucult situation is going to get more complicated and more difficult, and we could use thoughts and prayers from everyone.
On a brighter note we are holding a multi family yard sale this weekend (and likely every weekend this month/summer) to raise the money for a new washing machine. And I am going to start packing Sam a mini back pack when we go to doc appts with his school stuff so that he can have everything just in case we have to be away from home during school again.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Busy Busy Mommy
So it has been a heck of a week. As well as being a stay at home mom to Sam who is nearly and Lucas (aka Tiny) who is 9 months, I am also a WAHM (work at home mom) and make creatures, cloth diapers, and so, so much more. So this week on top of schooling with Sam I have been busting my butt doing laundry and sorting things in our house for a yard sale, and my nights after bedtime are full of working on little creatures so there hasn't been much time to update here.
Monday We had a normal school day, tuesday we played hooky from school work for the first sunny day in weeks and went to the playground with our friend and her son and they had a blast, then went out to my sister's house for dinner and smores, wednesday we finally didn't have a doc appointment for the baby and did the school work from tuesday. Thursday was more school work as well as going out to my grandmother-in-laws house because my brother-in-law are visiting from Georgia. They are 10 and 13 and its always a blast to spend time with them, friday we had a very tense playdate after school and then went back to see my BIL, Sam said he thought they were his cousins and they are his friends, so we call them his uncle-cousin-friends, that night he went to my sisters and I played catch up while the baby slept, then Saturday (yesterday) I worked even more while the baby napped in the morning (since that is the only time he ever naps for any length of time these days) and then had our friend and her kids come over to hang out in the shade out back and just have fun. Today is supposed to be the day of rest, but I have a feeling it wont be very restful. I still have a pile of laundry, ok blankets, that need to be washed, diapers that need to be folded and put away, move everything for the garage sale to the actual garage, and then to work on my orders as a WAHM. I wonder if I'll have time to eat! I hope every one else has a great day today! I will try to be better about keeping up with our blog with pictures and crafts
Monday We had a normal school day, tuesday we played hooky from school work for the first sunny day in weeks and went to the playground with our friend and her son and they had a blast, then went out to my sister's house for dinner and smores, wednesday we finally didn't have a doc appointment for the baby and did the school work from tuesday. Thursday was more school work as well as going out to my grandmother-in-laws house because my brother-in-law are visiting from Georgia. They are 10 and 13 and its always a blast to spend time with them, friday we had a very tense playdate after school and then went back to see my BIL, Sam said he thought they were his cousins and they are his friends, so we call them his uncle-cousin-friends, that night he went to my sisters and I played catch up while the baby slept, then Saturday (yesterday) I worked even more while the baby napped in the morning (since that is the only time he ever naps for any length of time these days) and then had our friend and her kids come over to hang out in the shade out back and just have fun. Today is supposed to be the day of rest, but I have a feeling it wont be very restful. I still have a pile of laundry, ok blankets, that need to be washed, diapers that need to be folded and put away, move everything for the garage sale to the actual garage, and then to work on my orders as a WAHM. I wonder if I'll have time to eat! I hope every one else has a great day today! I will try to be better about keeping up with our blog with pictures and crafts
Our day of "rest" June 1, 2013
So it was nice but not sunny and Sam asked to go for a nature walk. And since this was the first day since my other half left for Alaska I decided to take it one step further and take him to the park for "squirrel hunting" we LOVE squirrels, it must be a loeft over feeling from my childhood watching squirrels in my grandparents back yard. So this was our amazing day, we saw 2 squirrels, though it may have been the same one since the sightings were an hour apart.
We finally caught a bird on camera, sort of
SQUIRREL! We had a blast going super slow trying to get close enough to take a decent picture of this guy
Ducks in the pond
And on the far shore
We went done on the stone steps to see if we could find any finsh swimming, we found a dead one and we aslo found a little girl named Sophia and her grandpa finishing. They were on their last worm since the fish had eaten and ran on all the others, and after quite awhile this is what they puled up.
Sam drew a picture (well, colored in a fish he aked me to draw) then drew a rod sand line its attached to.
After Sophia and her grandpa went home we continued our nature walk adn found a stump, that Sam played king of the stump.
from the otherside of the pond, these are the steps we fished off of
Another squirrel just as we were walking to the toys.
We had a blast finding mroe animals at our local park (one that actually has trees as well as toys) and then playing on the toys. Sam still hopes to run into his new friend Sophia some day.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Animal Hunt
It was finally sunny today! So we took a nature walk and hunted for animals. We live in a normal neighborhood (for washington) and down at the end of our cross street is a family that raised horses, but we didn't start down there, we went around a loop street that doesn't have many pets and we found quite a bit.
Baby birds in a tree that we could hear but not see, and a dog on a porch that was too far from the road to picture, but as we came around the first corner we found this
Baby birds in a tree that we could hear but not see, and a dog on a porch that was too far from the road to picture, but as we came around the first corner we found this
this is a small pony with 3 other horses in the back ground tethered to a horse trailer by the side of the road
We then found a few butterflies but they were also too far away from to get good shots but we did catch this guy
And don't even get me started on photographing birds, this is the best bird picture we got today
LOL, I would love to see your faces right now, it really was the ONLY picture of a bird we got today, but we did find a nest, in our own backyard, its right outside my window so our cat goes CRAZY in the morning when the babies start chirping
The best part about nature walks is that our 8 month old gets to go too, since I wear him even when its cold he can go and i just zip my coat around him too. Today he was SO excited to see all the bright colors and fun new things
ABCmouse.com
So many of us have watched the Spout channel and have seen the commercials for ABCmouse.com and have heard tales that someones 2 year old was reading, writing, ect. I brushed it off even though time and again my 4 year old has asked to go to ABCmouse like the tv says, he also thinks we NEED everything in the comercials including coolers and lunch pails. But for some reason today I listened, and I signed up. Warning, it is NOT free. It is a monthly subscription for 7.95 but the first month is free, so we are testing it out to see if it's worth it. I LOVE the way it is set up, it even has a mouse tutorial for kids (like mine) that have never touched a computer. I love that they have 3 ways to learn, a step by step program (more on this soon) a free for all where the kids get to pick what they do and when, and a parent guided lesson plan where the parent takes control of what they learn when. All of these are available at all times so you can't miss out on anything.
Step by Step:
Sam LOVES this. There is a map with stepping stones, each step has 4-6 lessons in it, when all of the lessons are completed the child earns a prize.
This step by step goes from toddler to age six and this is the second map of the preschool 3+ level. San is having fun and interacting in a way I haven't seen him do before. Even watching things like Super Why on PBS and other interactive shows on Sprout. He has fun listening to the stories and trying to sing along to the songs, putting puzzles together and painting by numbers.
Free for all:
this allows the child to decide what they want to do instead of following the lessons plas set either by parent or program. When Sam got bored of following the pathway he did this.
Evenutally he clicked on the little Avatar of himself and found this page:
and if you can see there is a way to change the way he looks (kids earn tickets for lessons and games completed and the prizes they earn in the step by step can be clothes as well as other relavent things on this page) here he can change his clothes with prizes he earned or things he bought with tickets earned. The next is "My Room" also something that can be customized by your child with prizes and things purchased with tickets they earn. "My Aquarium" is just that, a virtual fish tank where they feed and care for virtual fish, and there are learning games attached, and last but not least here (at least in this section) is "My Hamster"
Meet Boulder, hes the cute little guy in the bubble near the middle. This is Sam's virtual hamster, he used all his tickets today to build this habitat for him, everything that isn't pink (6 of the pieces) and the bottom cage, were things he bought today, we worked together to put it together, though he did quite a bit himself. When he ran out of tickets to buy things for Boulder he went back to his lessons to earn more. I'm confident in saying this is Sam's favorite part of the program. I have a feeling that we may end up keeping the subscription.
Sam playing today.
Step by Step:
Sam LOVES this. There is a map with stepping stones, each step has 4-6 lessons in it, when all of the lessons are completed the child earns a prize.
Free for all:
this allows the child to decide what they want to do instead of following the lessons plas set either by parent or program. When Sam got bored of following the pathway he did this.
Evenutally he clicked on the little Avatar of himself and found this page:
and if you can see there is a way to change the way he looks (kids earn tickets for lessons and games completed and the prizes they earn in the step by step can be clothes as well as other relavent things on this page) here he can change his clothes with prizes he earned or things he bought with tickets earned. The next is "My Room" also something that can be customized by your child with prizes and things purchased with tickets they earn. "My Aquarium" is just that, a virtual fish tank where they feed and care for virtual fish, and there are learning games attached, and last but not least here (at least in this section) is "My Hamster"
Sam playing today.
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