Happy Memorial Day

I hope everyone is having a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend! 

We had a BBQ on Saturday at our house and another one at my Mom's on Sunday!  I'm not sure what we'll be up to today.  Just relaxing and enjoying the day, I guess.

Have fun if you are headed out to the pool.  Ours opened around here on Saturday and it's been plenty hot enough!

What My Child Is Reading

This week, Abby checked out many books at the library!

We started Ramona Quimby, Age 8
 after finishing up Ramona and Her Mother early this week.  I can't believe we only have 2 books after this one left in the Ramona series.  Abby loves these.

Abby also enjoys reading the Mo Willems books, such as Today I Will Fly! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)and What's Your Sound, Hound the Hound? (Cat the Cat)

For her birthday this past weekend, Abby received a Biscuit Phonics Fun books set:


There are 12 books in this set and she has read 3 to me so far without any problem!  She's so proud of herself too when she's reading them.  It's great!

For more What My Child Is Reading Books, head to Mouse Learns Mouse Grows.

Ready Set Vignette

This month, I have worked on my mantle again.  After I took off all of the Easter decorations, I was looking for something more Summery.  We recently went to Florida to visit the in-laws and we brought lots of seashells home.  I filled the two apothecary jars with a bit of sand (clearance at Micheal's months ago) and the shells.



Then I got out my stars.  I didn't know what to do next, but after visiting a few thrift stores I found another small jar that matched the others I had.  Perfect!

I then decided to spray paint a few frames white and put some of our beach pics in. 

Here's the before vision I had:

This is after I sprayed the frames:



I didn't know what to put in the frame on the left, so I just put a piece of textured scrapbook paper.

I like how this  turned out.  The beach-y feel is very relaxing!

For more Ready Set Vignette link-ups, check out The Stories of A to Z.

Wordful Wednesday: Happy Birthday, Dave!

Yes, it's birthday week at our house!  Today is Dave's birthday!

Dave is such a great Dad and husband!  7 years ago we were celebrating Dave's birthday in Kona.  I wish we could be there again today!  Dave is at work, so we'll go out to dinner tonight together.

For more Wordful Wednesday posts, head to Seven Clown Circus.

 

Abby's Birthday Party

This past Saturday, Abby turned 6!  We  had a birthday party and Abby chose to make it a Strawberry Shortcake theme.

I really don't like cake anymore and Abby is allergic to tree nuts, so I decided to make cake balls!  I've mentioned before that I made some for Halloween, but this time they didn't go so well.  Even with the Wilton candy tools I bought!  The white ones didn't look too bad, but the chocolate ones were hideous!  They were almost too bad to serve.  They tasted delicious, but were so UGLY!  The chocolate coating did not cover them well and dried speckly looking.  I then covered them again and put sprinkles on top in hopes of disguising them.

For the favors, I made "6" shaped cookies.  This was my first time using royal icing.  It wasn't too bad.  It went a lot smoother then the cake balls.

I printed the Strawberry Shortcake tags from an activity page on their site.  I just printed page 2, 3 times and cut out each figure, punched a hole at the top and attached them to the bags.

Abby's strawberry dress was from  JcPenney's and was only $11!  It matched the theme perfectly! 

Lauryn (top left corner), Abby and I played a game of Strawberry Shortcake Memory I found on sale around Christmas time at TRU.

Lauryn was really good at this!  There are 2 of 36 different cards, it was hard to remember where they were!  It says 3 and up, but we were joking it was college level!  Seriously, Lauryn sat through the whole game and concentrated on each piece.  Abby on the other hand, could not possibly sit that long.  She'd leave and then come back, obviously not getting many matches.  LOL!  I did ok, but Lauryn had the most matches.  Most of mine were pure luck.

Even though the cake balls were ugly, the party turned out great.  We had a nice time visiting and I especially enjoyed seeing all of the kids together.  It was so fun to watch and listen to them play.  Kako was a good sport and let the kids push him in a stroller for a LONG time!  Uma hid under the couch.

Of course, Abby loved her bike and ALL of the presents she got today!

Here's a few more pics:

Today is Abby's 6 year check up, I hope there are no shots involved.

Happy 6th Birthday, Abby!

I can't believe Abby is 6 today!

Abby is well, Abby!  She's sweet, funny, often times sassy and is always up for a party or sleepover.  Of course, she is very excited about her party today.  She will be even more excited when she finds out we bought her a bike.  She's been using a tricycle since she was 2.  We figured it was time for an upgrade.  LOL!  

I'll post party pics next week.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

If you like birth stories, I posted it last year on her 5th Birthday.

Last Day of School

 Today is officially Abby's last day of Kindergarten.  It feels very uneventful, since we haven't done much "school" type work since Christmas.  We've been more of unschoolers lately.  

 August 17, 2009

Sometimes I have felt worried that we didn't do enough.  Then I see how much Abby has learned through everyday things, without workbooks.  For a 5 (almost 6 year old) everything is a learning experience.  Abby is always asking us questions and we are all learning new things.

I just found an article at Leaping From The Box that really sums up how we've been doing school the last few months:  Do You Need To Teach Kindergarten? 

I will say that while we've enjoyed the freedom from "school" stuff, we will be doing things differently for 1st grade.

I mentioned it before, but we will most likely start school in July and do 6 to 8 weeks sessions around holidays and our scheduled vacation.  We will then have a week or two off between them for me to plan the next session.  I'm looking forward to this type of schedule.  I think it will help us for the following year, 2nd grade, when we legally have to homeschool in MO.  

So you may wonder what cool plans we have for the last day of school?

Cleaning, baking and shopping!  LOL!  

Abby's birthday party is on Saturday and we have so much to do!

Wordless Wednesday: Cleanest Cat On Earth

Uma likes to take a bath with Abby every night!  

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to: 

Go Graham Go

5 Minutes For Mom

J. Leigh Designz

For some reason, there is no longer a copy and paste option when I right click.  I can't get any links to show up!  I finally was able to drag them to link them, but does anyone know what the copy and paste options would be gone on my right click options?  How annoying!

Links I Like: Edition 15

Isn't that cute?!  Beverly at A Happy Journey made it for me.  Check out her blog, she takes great pics and I like the editing/processes she uses on her pics!

Until tomorrow (May 18th), Barnes & Noble is offering 25% off workbooks and teacher's aids.  This would be a great time to pick up a few workbooks for this Summer or next school year.  

 On a side note, why can't I add links to pics anymore?

There is also an extra 30% off on educational games, puzzles and toys from Learning Resources and Educational Insights.  You must have an educator account for this to apply.

This Summer, Borders is doing a Double Dog Dare reading program.  While that is a seriously annoying name, I like the idea.  Kids 12 and under must read 10 books by August 26th, fill out the form and bring it in to Borders for a FREE book.  See above link for more information and for the form.

Many of you know that we are currently doing the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace courses.  We just have 2 weeks left.  Right now many of Dave's books are on sale, including Finacial Peace For Kids.  It's half off at only $10!

Have you used this with your kids?  I would really like to get this for Abby.  She is almost 6 and is starting to understand money more.

This coming school year, I would like to change our homeschool schedule.  This year we've followed the public school calendar, but I have found it difficult to have time for planning.  I recently saw Five J's Scheduling a Low-Sress School Calendar and really liked her idea of doing school in 6 week terms.  What kind of schedule do you use?

Last, but not least I have to share these adorable treats:

Aren't they cute?  They are Vanilla Oreo Truffles from Me and My Pink Mixer.

I have to make these sometime!  I'm making chocolate and white cake balls for Abby's birthday party next weekend and I found in the comments on that post, that she uses Wilton's Candy Dipping Tools to help her keep the truffles smooth. 

I bought a set of these at JoAnn's the other day and I'm looking forward to trying them.  I made cake balls once before and they weren't so smooth.  Yummy, but not pretty.

I'll let you know next week how the candy dipping tools worked and hopefully I'll have some pretty cake balls to show you as well!

I'm Lovin' It Friday:

Today I'm lovin' my new camera lens!  On Mother's Day, I broke my 18-55mm lens and I just replaced it with a 35mm.

I just got it yesterday, but already I can tell it's awesome!  Here's a few pics I took yesterday.



Our new cat is so fast that it's almost impossible to take pics without a flash.

Nice scooper growing out of your head, Uma!  There is no time to look at the background when you take her pic!

For more I'm Lovin' It Friday posts, head to Tidy Mom.

Love My Library

Little Page Turners is hosting a Love My Library link up.  Love is a strong word and I was thinking more along the lines of my library is ok.  I've seen worse and better.  However, when you see Christianne's library, you will know why she LOVES it!  I would too!

Abby and I went to our library yesterday and I took a few pics.  I had to use my old Sony Cybershot, because my lens broke the other day.  I did order the 35 mm on Amazon and it will be here tomorrow!

This is part of the Juvenile Non-Fiction section:

 Abby was looking for books about ducklings.  She wanted to know how long it takes them to hatch. 28-34 days we found out!

Here is the children's area:

There are more bookshelves and book cubbies on the left of this picture.

As I said, we don't love our library, but we do visit about once every other week.  Recently, they have started carrying more and more children's books.  I also like how we can search for books online and have them held.

I lost count, but I think Abby picked out about 14 books yesterday!  LOL!

For more Love My Library posts, head to Little Page Turners!

Wordless Wednesday

My nephew, Andrew.  He's the sweetest!

For more Wordless Wednesdays, check out:

Go Graham Go
5 Minutes For Mom
J. Leigh Designz

Our Weekend Impulse Buy

We headed out to look at a retired 3 year old Abyssinian female, but came home with a 12 week old fawn Abyssinian.  Oops!  LOL!

The retired cat was also a fawn and gorgeous, however she would be perfect being an only cat.  She was quite the princess.  Her and Kako probably wouldn't have gotten along.  The good news is there was a lady coming after us, specifically for her!  While we had first pick, she has no other cats and we thought she'd do much better in the other lady's home. 

Now we had no idea there were kittens availble.  In fact, the breeder said she had just decided to make 2 kittens available to us.  The first was 5 months old and is a perfect show quality cat, but hissed at the judges last time.  Too funny!
 

This little girl just turned 12 weeks old yesterday and can't be shown, because her ear set is too high.  Abyssinians do have big ears, so that is normal.

She is so fast and her name should be Squirrel-y!  However, Abby has named her Uma.  Uma is also from the show Oobi!

Uma is on the bottom left and Kako has the red hat.

Seriously, wasn't that the cutest show ever?  Why don't they make it anymore?

Anyway, Uma went for her check-up yesterday and she's 2 pounds 8 ounces and very healthy!  She hates being confined in the office, but we are to keep her there for 2 weeks.  It's going to be hard!  She flies out of the room so fast whenever we open the door.  Dave even put up a baby gate and within a few hours, she learned to just jump up over that as soon as the door opens as well.  

Kako is very interested in why there is a cat meowing in the office and we are sure they'll have so much fun together!

Links I Like: 14th Edition

How was your Mother's Day weekend?  We had a nice lunch at Red Robin and then the family came back to our house for some apple pie and ice cream!  The weather was beautiful and it was a nice day.  Dave got me a hard drive for my notebook and now it has twice as much memory!  He and Abby also got me some delicious smelling Tahitian Gardenia Body Wash and Perfume.

This stuff smells just like Hawaii!  I love it! 

If you remember last year on Mother's Day, I got the Nikon D40.  This is an awesome camera!  Well yesterday, I was taking pics and put the camera away.  Awhile later I grabbed the bag and the camera fell out, lens down.  The focus mechanism is broken!  I took it to the local camera shop and yep, the lens is a goner.  How upsetting!  

I had an 18-55 mm lens on it, but now I'm thinking about replacing it with this:

Do any of you have this lens?  What are your thoughts?

Abby's birthday party is in less than 2 weeks and I really want a camera to take pictures of it!

Speaking of Abby, I have found a great printable resource for us to use next year with our homeschooling.  These Printable 1st Grade Sight Words from Classroom Jr. are great!  Check out Classroom Jr. for more printables.

Also, I think I shared this link last year, but I really like this Homeschool Sample Schedule.  In Missouri, between the ages of 7 and 16, we must log 1000 hours in a school year.  600 of them must be in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies and science.  400 of those 600 must occur at the regular homeschool location.  This has always confused me as to how I should schedule these hours.  I just found Missouri Homeschool Daily Log, which has great archives on daily log planning in Missouri.  Scheduling Those Hours was a great post about the break down of hours depending on how many weeks and days of school in your school year and how many hours a day you'd like to do each day.  I have another full school year before I am requirred to log hours, but I want to practice this year with how I want it to go.

No onto something different, Tatertots and Jello made the coolest rug runner for her kitchen!

What a genius idea!  Check out Jen's Runner Tutorial for instructions on making your own.  Actually, I would just go through all of Jen's posts.  She is so creative and makes the coolest things!  Another of my favorites is this Ruffly Pillow Cover.

Isn't it adorable?!

Besides the broken camera lens, gardenia stuff and hard drive, we also got something else this weekend.  Come back tomorrow to see what it was ;)

Happy Mother's Day

 

 A four generation picture of my Mom, Memaw, Abby and me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day!

After church, we are meeting up with the rest of the family at Red Robin. Yummy!

Bloggography Challenge: Perfect Focus

This week's challenge was to practice keeping our subjects in focus. 

I may be an idiot, but I didn't realize the red flashing boxes are where the camera focuses.  I thought they were just for helping to arrange the picture.  I reread a few parts of the Nikon D40 Digital Field Guide about focus and here is a picture I took after I learned about the red flashing boxes.  I put the center one on Abby's eyes:

The only editing I did was to resize it to fit here.  How could I have not known this before?  Look how awesome her eyes look!

Check out Manic Mother and Better In Bulk to participate.