Life As We Know It: Sneak Peak

If you are in the St. Louis area, enter the code:

QYG5FPPJ at www.gofobo.com/rsvp

If you are one of the first 50 people to enter the code, you will receive free admission to the upcoming movie Life As We Know It, with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel on Saturday, October 2nd.

 

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT sneak

AMC West Olive

Saturday, October 2, 2010

7:30PM

Branson Vacation: Part 2

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 of our annual Branson trip.  I forgot to mention that there were three families on this trip:  My Mom, Dad and younger sister.  Then my older sister, her husband and 2 boys.  And me, Dave and Abby.

Day 3

Saturday was another gorgeous day.  The weather was beautiful, nice and sunny, but not too warm.  We always go to Silver Dollar City on Friday and Sunday, because it's less crowded.  After breakfast (if that's what you want to call it), me, Dave and Abby headed to Tanger Outlets.  Abby was very eager to get to the Disney Store.   We haven't had one here in St. Louis for several years.

 

Abby with Dr. Porkchops from Toy Story3

Abby had a great time picking out a few things to buy.  For months, we have been telling her to "save her money for Branson".  She was so excited on the way down to Branson, that I'm pretty sure she told everyone she was going to share her money with them.

We then meet up with the rest of my family at Branson Landing.  Every year, my Mom and Dad let the kids make Build A Bears!  This is obviously another highlight of the trip for the kids.  Abby picked Chococat and Matthew was so excited to see some new Star Wars outfits were out.  He made the owl.

 
Abby and Chococat

After Build A Bear, we all had lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ.  Abby and Matthew opted to bring in some Auntie Anne's pretzels, LOL!  I had a cup of their chili and it was awesome!  My Dad and Mom said that my Dave's BBQ pork is better than "Famous" Dave's.  HeeHee!

After more shopping, we headed back to the hotel and the kids went swimming with Dave and Bill.  I did some much needed laundry.  It was getting late, but Abby was hungry, so Dave made a run to McDonald's for her.  Dave hates McDonald's, but Abby loves that they have Strawberry Shortcake right now.  He even made sure to get one she didn't have yet.

Does this look like vacation or what:

Sorry this pic is so bad


Day 4
Brrr!  Sunday ended up being chilly.  The high was 63 and the sun was supposed to come out, but it didn't.  Still better then rain though.

Here's me and  Abby bundled up at the entrance of Silver Dollar City:



Thank goodness I keep a fleece blanket and some jackets in my trunk!  I had 4 layers on in this pic.  LOL!

We decided to eat breakfast at Silver Dollar City, since the hotel's wasn't very good.  It was expensive, but so worth it!  The buffet was awesome.  I just love breakfast buffets!

We were cold most of the day, but still had a great time.  We ended the night by having Mazzio's Pizza for dinner.  YUM!

Here's another slide show with more pics:

We left Branson on Monday and Abby was so excited to come home to see our cats.  I bet they missed being harassed by her ;)

Branson Vacation: Days 1 & 2

We are back from our 4th annual Branson family vacation!   We all had a great time and are already looking forward to next year.

Day 1

Thursday, we meet up with everyone so we could follow each other down.  Branson is about 4 hours away from us and it's nice to all stop together.  We stopped by McDonald's to get Abby a happy meal, but the rest of us enjoyed lunch at Schlotzsky's.

Andy being silly at lunch 

We then headed to our hotel, where Abby immediately wanted to go swimming!  I really don't care for swimming and didn't even pack my suit, so I stayed behind to work on unpacking some things.  I have a question:  Do you unpack into the dressers at a hotel or do you live out of your luggage?  I've never unpacked our clothing from the suitcases, but I guess people do. 

Matthew and Abby enjoying the pool

Day 2
Abby woke up at 6:30, ready to go!   We went down for the free breakfast at our hotel and we were bummed to find there were no tables left and the food wasn't what we were expecting. Most of us went back to our rooms to eat.


After breakfast, we headed to Silver Dollar City!  The weather on Friday was beautiful!  Partly sunny and 82.  The sun did feel pretty hot at times, but I was just glad it wasn't raining or 92 degrees.


 
Abby and Matthew sharing a double stroller

I think this was the last year for them to be able to share it.  My sister and I like to split the cost of the double stroller, bummer!

If you love pics, here's a slide show of the first two days:

Bill, Dave, Abby and I also went on the Marvel Cave tour at Silver Dollar City.  We were told it would be a strenuous 60 minute tour, but my feet just stopped hurting from it!  Mostly, it was the back of my calves from the 700 stairs we had to climb both up and down, at times.  Abby did very well with it. 

Our feet my have hurt, but we enjoyed the tour.  After Silver Dollar City, we headed to Montana Mike's for a yummy dinner.  I love their nachos!  If you are in Branson, go have some! 

Unfortunately, Abby started feeling sick to her stomach.  I spent awhile with her in the bathroom and then the 3 of us headed back to the hotel.  Dave was able to finish his food, but I boxed up my nachos.  Abby ended up being fine, we just think she got too hungry and too tired, too fast!  I am happy to report that the nachos still tasted great cold later that night!  LOL!

That's it for the first two days, I'll post about the rest of our trip soon!

I don't have a Homeschool Weekly Review post for last week, because we only did school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.  We did Math, Handwriting, Reading and Social Studies, but will pick back up with our regular homeschool stuff next week!

Links I Like: Oops!

Unfortunately, I got behind this week and wasn't able to finish up my Links I Like post.  However I did want to share this:

Awhile back my sister, Heather emailed me a cute site called Kitteh Roulette.  I just love checking it out every now and then and browsing through the cute videos.  Here's my favorite:

Hilarious!

Have you been to this site?  If so, leave your favorite video link in the comments.  I just love these!

Have a great weekend!

Coming Soon: Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey FUNundrum

The Greatest Show on Earth just got GREATER with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents Barnum's FUNundrum!  This event celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of the legendary P.T. Barnum.  The audience is invited to leap aboard the Ringling Bros. Express and go on a FUNtastic adventure to meet exotic characters and witness thrilling performances.  130 performers from six continents are featured!

 photo from Feld Entertainment


Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents FUNundrum

Scottrade Center in St. Louis

Thursday, October 14- 7 PM

Friday, October 15- 10:30 AM (no preshow), 7 PM

Saturday, October 16- 11 AM, 3 PM, 7 PM
Sunday, October 17- 1 PM

Come an hour before the show for an all access FREE pre-show.  Audience members can get up close and personal with the Ringling Bros. performers to take pics, get autographs and learn circus skills.

Tickets are on sale now at www.ticketmaster.com.  Use the code MOM 

for Opening Night Prices on Thursday Oct. 14th as well as $11 on Friday at 10:30am and $4 off all other shows. This code will be active until Oct 17th. Includes everything except Circus Celebrity, Front Row and VIP.

 

Would you like to get into the show for FREE?  Ringling Bros. joins Kidsmart in an effort to collect P.E. equipment for youth in need.

Donate one of the following new items: basketball, soccer ball, volley ball, 

set of 3 Hula Hoops, or a set of 3 jump ropes, and get one FREE ticket to a select performance

of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Presents Barnum’s FUNundrum! playing at

Scottrade Center, October 14-17. 

(FREE tickets are valid for Thursday, October 14 at 7

PM; Friday, October 15 at 10:30 AM; and Saturday, October 16 at 7 PM. Limit one per

family.)

Bring the items to the Scottrade Center Box Office, 1401 Clark Avenue, St. Louis MO 63103

between Monday, September 20 – Friday, September 24, 2010 

(Normal hours are 10 AM– 5 PM / Extended hours on 9/21 and 9/24 are 10 AM – 8 PM)

A ceremony to present items collected during the drive and a donation of circus tickets from SAFA is scheduled for Thursday, September 30th at Meramec Elementary, 2745

Meramec St.

I hope to see you there!!

Wordless Wednesday

I took this pic of Dave and Abby before we went into the Disney On Ice, Princess Classics show.

For more Wordless Wednesdays, check out:

Go Graham Go

J. Leigh Designz

5 Minutes For Mom

Tag Game

Liz from Sugarplum Creations has tagged me in a fun game.  She has 8 questions for me to answer and then I'm supposed to think of 8 new ones and tag some blog friends.

Here's her questions:

1. Where were you born?   I was born in St. Louis, MO. 
2. What is your idea of the perfect job.  If you could do anything what would you choose?  That's a good question.  I always wanted to be a Mom and I am.  Now, if I could get paid for that or at least get a tax deduction?  LOL!
3. What is your favorite food?  That depends on what day it is.  Often it is chocolate related, like Muddy Buddies.  For salty food, it would be nachos!
4. If you had all day to  yourself, what would you do?  This has only happened to me twice in the last 6 years and it was just a few hours, not all day.  I managed to get a lot done though!  If I had all day, I'd probably sleep extra late, go out shopping, eat lunch out and come home for a nap.
5. What is your favorite restaurant?  Montana Mike's
   
6. What is your least favorite chore?  Taking out the trash, I just don't want to touch it.
   
7. What is your favorite movie of all time?  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
8. What is your happiest childhood memory?  Anything with my Memaw!  She watched us 5 grandchildren every day.  The first thing that comes to mind is her bringing us a platter of fruit with sugar to dip them in.  Then, minutes later her banging on the kitchen window at us to be quiet, or "someone will call the police".  Amazingly, the police never showed.  My Memaw always did fun stuff with us.  I remember painting, making bread dough beads, baking cookies, etc., etc.

I'm tagging:

Christy at Superheroes and Princesses

MaryAnne at Mama Smiles

Susana from Our Homeschool Fun

Beth at The Stories of A to Z

Christianne from Little Page Turners

Jolanthe at No Ordinary Moments

Valerie from Frugal Family Fun Blog

Angie at Many Little Blessings

Here's my questions:

1. What was your favorite childhood show/cartoon?
2. What does your child/children want to be for Halloween?  (At my house, this changes daily, so just use their latest idea)
3. What's your favorite color?
4. What is your go to recipe for parties or get togethers?
5. What's your favorite website?
6. Do you have a favorite family tradition?
7. If you had an extra $500, what would you do with it?
8. Has your child/children started their Christmas list yet?

Have fun and thanks for playing along!

Homeschool: Week 9 Review

First, I want to say Happy Birthday to my Mom!  Today is her 57th birthday.

 
My nephew Andrew and my Mom

This past week seemed to go by pretty fast.  We started watching my sister's youngest (Andy) for her to go to a class.  We watch him on Tuesdays for just a few hours.  He sat at the table with us as we did our homeschooling.  He enjoyed drawing with markers and putting monkey stickers on his paper.

We also went to the mall, the library and Disney On Ice last week. 

Math
Abby did Horizon Math Lessons 41 to 45.  These covered:  equal and not equal to, before and after by ones, days of the week, word problems, double digit addition, time by the half hour and quarter hour, pennies and dimes, fractions (1/2), greater than and less than, before and after by tens, a calendar page and addition of 3 single digit numbers.

Abby is still not loving math, but now that I let her sit ON the table, she seems to be more interested in at least trying to pay attention.  LOL!

Science
I did a separate science post the other day.  Abby learned about the life cycle of sunflowers this past week.  Check out the Science Fun post from the other day to see a cool sunflower game we played and what else we worked on.  Here's a pic of a sunflower she made with paint dabbers:

Reading
I started reading The Best Sight Words Book Ever and did the sight words checklist this week with Abby.  

There are 170 sight words covered in this book.  She was able to read 104 of them.  This week we will work on the activities in the book for the words she doesn't know yet. 

We also are almost finished with The Littles Go Exploring.  I just love The Littles books, they are just as fun to read to Abby as they were for me to read when I was a kid!

Handwriting
Abby worked on the letters: v, w and t and the number 10.  I made a new chalkboard for the lowercase letter practice.  

This is the chalkboard from Handwriting Without Tears.  I made ours to look like this.


I just used a $1 chalkboard found at the Dollar Tree and a silver Sharpie to draw the lines to look like they do in her workbook.  The only light color I had was silver, but I like how it turned out.  White might be too bright and distracting.


Social Studies
Abby is on Lesson 9 in Heritage Studies.  I was pretty excited when she said, "I want to do social studies next to see what Christopher Columbus is doing!".  I thought that was cool.  I didn't like Social Studies at all.  I think it's the way it was taught in school. Heritage Studies is so hands on and fun.

We wrapped up learning about Christopher Columbus and talked about the New World and the things he found versus the items he was trying to find when he was looking for the Indies.  Abby did a cut and paste notebook page to demonstrate this:

Exercise 
 I missed exercising on both Thursday and Saturday last week.  That makes me think of the movie Office Space.  Remember when Peter said:  "I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob".  ROTF!  That is seriously a funny movie!

Anyway, I did do a 4 Mile Leslie Sansone DVD on Wednesday, because I knew I'd miss Thursday.  We were gone all day Thursday with gymnastics, the library, taking my little sister to work and then the Disney On Ice show.  Saturday, I had all intentions of exercising, but my daughter had other plans.  Dave was out of town for work and she wouldn't go to bed.  I finally let her lay in my bed and I decided to just go ahead and take my shower, without exercising.  

On a strange note, I had a little girl at the mall lift my shirt and ask me if I had a baby in my belly.  I thought it was kind of funny and I explained to her that I had just eaten and that makes my tummy stick out more.  I laughed, but it did give me a bit of a complex.  Sure she was only 3 or 4 and it must have been on her mind, but yikes!  Her mother never did make eye contact with me.  LOL!

This week we have lots of errands to run to get ready for our upcoming Branson trip.  We are all looking forward to a vacation!

6th Annual Homeschool Blog Awards

I can't believe it's been a year since the last blog awards at The Homeschool Post!
 

This year's Homeschool Blog Awards, began on the 17th of September when the prizes were posted.  Start thinking of your favorite homeschool blogs, because nominations begin October 15th for the following categories:

Best Homeschool Mom Blog

Best Homeschool Dad Blog

Best Blog Design

Best Photos

Best Crafts, Plans and Projects Blog

Best Family or Group Blog

Best Encourager

Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog

Best Homemaking or Recipes Blog

Best Teen Blog

Funniest Homeschool Blog

Best Special Needs Blogger

Best Curriculum or Business Blog

Best Variety

Best Thrifty Homeschooler

Best SUPER-HOMESCHOOLER

Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog

Best New Homeschool Blog

Best Homeschooling Methods Blog

and this year there will be a new secret category added soon.

Go to The Homeschool Post for more information about the categories and to get updates as they come! 

Links I Like: Edition 22

Yesterday, I talked about our Science curriculum and shared some links for sunflower related lessons.  I forgot to share a few butterfly links from our first lesson.  Scroll down on A Butterfly In Transformation to watch an amazing video progression of the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly.  I've seen the metamorphosis before, but never in this much depth.  The video is about 15 minutes long, but it is truly awesome!  Abby and I both loved it.  I wouldn't say I'm the most spiritual person, but you really feel a connection to God when you see this.  How else could it be so perfect?

There's also a Cecrepia moth metamorphosis on that page, but it wasn't as beautiful.  LOL!  Moths just aren't as cute as butterflies. 

The picture above is from the Monarch Butterfly Website, which is also a great resource.

I also came across The Children's Buttefly Site.  They have some great pictures, coloring pages, stories and more.

Now onto some neat Fall themed craft projects.  Little Page Turners shared a cute and fun Apple Pie Playdough recipe.  

 I can almost smell it!

Superheroes and Princesses shares her take on another cute apple playdough activity.

I also found a few more cute Halloween projects this week:

eighteen25 posted these Frightfully Fun Frames for Halloween.  What a cute idea!  

And Jen from Tatertots and Jello is at it again, making awesomely cute Halloween projects:

Creepy Specimen Art and Reversible Candy Corn Buntings?  Seriously, I wish I had an ounce of Jen's creativity!

I am good at eating, does that count for anything?  Especially sweets!  The Idea Room posted these delicious looking Peanut Butter Cup Cookies:

Um, I need these now!  How about these adorable Cookie Sticks from Amanda's Cooking?

Too cute and probably very tasty!

Maybe I should follow those up with this Fat Loss Workout.  I've actually tried this and liked it.  One problem I ran into was when you get to the part about counting the 60 punch combination set.  Apparently, I am not coordinated enough to do these and count at the same time.  LOL!  Give it a try though and let me know if you had better results counting those reps!

Disney On Ice: Princess Classics

Thanks to the kind people at Feld Entertainment, we got to see Disney On Ice Princess Classics!

We all loved this show!  The Chaifetz Arena is a great place for this kind of event.  Not too big and not too small.  

Here's a few pics from our night:

Abby got to meet Cinderella!

 Aladdin and Jasmine

 

This one turned out blurry, but the "glow-in-the-dark" feel of the scene was one of the best parts.   

I can't forget Cinderella's coach!

The show had 7 of the princesses:  Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine and Mulan. 

If you are in the St. Louis area, we recommend seeing this show!  Tickets are still on sale for this weekend.

September 17:  7 p.m.

September 18:  11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

September 19:  1 p.m.

The Chaifetz Arena, St. Louis

You can use the code MOM in the promotional code box upon checkout at www.metrotix.com to save $4 on these weekend shows.

Thanks again to Feld Entertainment for giving us the opportunity to see this show!

Feld Entertainment is also having contest for the upcoming Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey FUNundrum show at Scottrade Center on October 14th to 17th.

Text BARNUM to 57561 to enter a chance to win a $250 gift certificate and VIP Family Four-Pack of tickets to see Ringling Bros. and Branum & Barnum & Bailey FUNundrum!  Go to www.feldmobile.com/barnum.php for complete rules.  This contest ends Sunday, September 19th.

Science Fun

I usually discuss what we've done in science in my weekly homeschool post, but this science set I got from the book fair is just so awesome! 

It's the Creative Teaching Press Life Cycles book set and resource guide.  I may have gotten mine for under $4, but knowing how much we are enjoying it, I have to say I would probably pay full price.  

We are on week 3 of using this set.  The first week was about the life cycle of monarch butterflies.  Next was the life cycle of beans and now we are on the life cycle of sunflowers.

First, we read the corresponding book from for the lesson.  The resource guide has 3 activities per lesson and a few journal questions.  Some of the activities, we do not do.  Such as planting sunflowers.  First of all, it's not the right season. Secondly, the deer would eat anything we planted!  LOL!

Here's one of the activities from this week that we have been playing several times a day:

I used the instructions from the resource guide to make a sunflower game.  The point is to roll the dice and build a sunflower from the root up.  If you land on AIR, WATER or SUN, you can add a piece to your sunflower.  If you land on BUG or CATERPILLAR, you take away a piece. 

I followed the instructions and bought foam sheets, but used a pipe cleaner for the stem.  You could also use construction paper, to make this game cheaper.  I wish I would have thought of that, LOL!

Abby also made a sunflower with paint dabbers and I cut it out and pasted it on blue paper.  The craft in this lesson called for brown tissue paper squares and I just couldn't find any!  I saw a cute sunflower craft idea at Enchanted Learning that is similar.  However, I never made it to the store for sunflower seeds either!

I did supplement the lesson with a few books from the library:

These next few books weren't at my library in time, but I wanted to share in case anyone is having a sunflower lesson soon:

Next week's lesson will be the life cycle of the wood frog.  I'm picking out some library books now and I'll let you know how it goes.

Is anyone else loving their science?  We started out with a science we didn't like, but I'm so happy to have found this set.

Wordless Wednesday: Someone's Been Sleeping In My Bed

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, check out:

Go Graham Go

J. Leigh Designz

5 Minutes For Mom

Homeschool: Week 8 Review

This past week sure seemed like a short week and I guess with the holiday, it was.  I think most people are off for Labor Day, but I love that Dave works at a bank.  Bank holidays are the best, it seems like he gets one a month :)

Math

We continued with Horizons math, but took the double digit addition slowly.  I introduced it to Abby and we did a few problems together each day.  Also covered last week was:  counting by 2's, nickels, pennies, word problems, place value, fractions, sets, changing horizontal problems to vertical and a calendar page.  Abby also had a test this past Friday.  She did well on everything but the addition.  She can't do more than 2 or 3 problems at a time and still needs a number line.  I'm fine with that though.

Science

Our life cycles studies involved BEANS last week.  I read the Bean book that came with the set, then Abby examined several beans and did a journal page.  I had bought fresh green beans and a bag of 15 bean soup, for Abby to see the different varieties of beans.  She decided to make her own bean soup:

For the next lesson, I purchased some bean sprouts.  We examined them, tasted them and then Abby drew one in her Science journal.  I helped her label the parts.  I also found a book at the library, Beans by Julie Murray:

It went well with this lesson.  It talked mostly about Soybeans.  I then had Abby pick something out of the pantry and I showed her how soybean oil was one of the ingredients.  She was quite disgusted to see that the yummy box of brownies would have plants in them!  LOL!

On Saturday, Dave and Abby did a Build  Your Own Arctic kit we had.  I was still in bed, but here's a picture of the finished set up:

The kit made snow and glaciers and Abby got out her Rudolph figures to play with.  I felt the "snow" and it reminded me of what happens when you get a diaper wet.  You know that jelly, gooey feeling.  Do diapers still do that?

Handwriting
Abby worked on the lowercase letters c, o and s.  She then did a page in the Handwriting Without Tears workbook about making words into plural, by adding an s.

Social Studies
We are still learning about Christopher Columbus.  Abby learned how to use a pictograph for information and also did a notebook page on the order of the events in Columbus' life.  I cut them and she put them in chronological order:

Reading
I have been forgetting to update on our chapter book reading, but we finished our second Littles book this past week:  The Littles Go On A Trip.  We have started The Littles To The Rescue.

I also had made several sight words cards and Abby reviewed them.  Do you remember the Curriculum Clean-out that Homeschool Creations hosted a few weeks back?  I'm so excited that I won a sight words book from Journey through Homeschooling.  I'm looking forward to using it this week with Abby.

Exercise
I continued to exercise every day this past week!  I did more Leslie Sansone dvds:





I recommend both of these, they really were a workout.  The 5 Day Slim Down has a warm-up, cool down and 5 different mile walks.  This was great for variety.  I have been sticking to mostly Leslie Sansone workouts, because they don't hurt my knees.

Also, on Thursday I had to hurry and get ready to take Abby to gymnastics and found that all of my capris were in the wash machine!  Yikes.  I went through my drawer and found last year's and one pair actually fit me again, whew!  I was pretty excited.  Now, I just need to get pants for Fall to fit :)

I'm looking forward to reading your weekly reviews.  It looks like most of the homeschoolers have started back this past week and are doing some fun things!