Saxon Math 1 Meeting Printable

Since I made one for me I'm sharing with you too!  There is a generous lady online who has a 33 page document with each of the meeting strips available to print. That is a lot of ink, but a big time saver!  I wanted something my littles could work on with a marker and reuse each day so I went a little different route.

I made a 2-to-a-page printable with a little customization for what we are working on in Math 1.  Hope some of you can use it!

Hey Peoples!

I'm going to try and do a little better here :)  I think you may all have given up on me! I had to switch Google accounts and in the process lost almost all the pictures accompanying my posts.  Not sure why, since it wasn't all of the pictures, but I'll be trying to find them on my hard drive and reposting them.

So what's new with you?  Here it's the same old, same old.  We finished up the living areas (mostly) in the basement and so now we've moved Ashlyn down there and also have our family room and school space down in the basement. 

I've started a new Better U Challenge (this is my 3rd!) to help get me back on track and part of my daily tasks is to organize for 15 minutes a day, spend 6 minutes in my "hot spot" (the places your clutter accumulates), and purge 5 things a day to Goodwill.  I love the Goodwill part!  I also chose to try and get down to my goal weight this challenge and I have about 7 pounds to go. 

Let me tell you about these challenges.  I started almost a year ago at 199 pounds.  Ridiculous, even for a 6 ft gal.  I was *not* going to hit 200, heck when I delivered my babies I was that heavy!  My "healthy" range is 140-188 and I wasn't even close.  Anyway, so for the first time in my life I was overweight.  Coupled with the depression I had after Megan my life sucked.  Then I saw a msg on Facebook from an acquaintance I knew from when I had served with the Young Women at church.  She was inviting everyone to join a challenge she was starting a few weeks.  These challenges are run by a group of sisters.  They have daily tasks that we all accomplish and mark a point on a shared online spreadsheet if we do it that day.  We pay some money (usually $25 or so) to play for 8 to 10 weeks.  Each week we vie for small prizes ($5 to Bath and Body Works or Jamba Juice or Sonic, or a $10 Amazon.com GC) and at the end the people with the top placings get money.  The competition is just what I needed and the tasks are so good and in line with what I know God wants for me - no freaky carb-cutting or eliminating entire food groups or anything.  Just getting fruits and veggies,  exercising, reading scriptures, getting rest and being accountable for what you're eating.  So now I'm happily floating in the middle of the healthy weight range, can see the muscles on my arms for the first time in my life and loving it!  Well, I wish my jeans fit, but that probably won't happen no matter what size I am.  The joy of being tall and having a butt.  Anyway, I'm excited to have a reason to declutter this round.  I've been able to clean out my craft/laundry room again and we're all working on the garage currently.  I'd like to park a car in there just for kicks!

We're also working on getting rid of our baby stuff.  Oh, my, that is hard!  It's so hard to admit you're done with babies.  I miss them desperately.  I'm just not sure I could do it anymore.  Since I had a worse time after each baby another might put me in the looney bin.  Ah well, four is good!

School is going well.  We're still schooling at home.  I'd love to be able to find a neighborhood school that could accomodate my kids but I have to say there isn't one close by.  I have some great curriculum and my kids love it.  We still do our Friday co-op where they're gone all day.  Ashlyn is doing Art, Writing, History, Science, and Drama.  Nathan is in P.E., Science, Art, Music and Writing.  We do Spelling, History, Math, Writing, Grammar, Science, Scripture Study and they also write in their journals and read independently each day.  I have to say I love the reading time they get!  They finish as early or earlier each day than their public school counterparts but will have read for an hour or so.  They are so lucky! 

Well, off to find some pictures.  Glad you're still with us!

Fantastical Places

I come across all of these fun things to do and then promptly forget them.  This is mostly for my use (like the cookbook blog) to organize things - places we've been and places that sound fun.  Maybe I'll give this it's own blog later on but for now it's a post that I can refer to when needed.

Lair O' The Bair Park - shady walking trails, streamside.  Picnic spots with BBQs abound.  Easy for kids.  Wading spots!  FREE

Littleton Historic Museum - historic park in downtown Littleton.  Farm buildings, schoolhouse, animals, blacksmith shop, homes and farm/garden/orchard.  Indoor museum with exhibits on site.  Kids section of museum is great for toddlers and preschoolers.  FREE

Chatfield Gardens - working farm, historic buildings, lots of trails.  ADMISSION (but look for free days from SCFD)

Other things with Free Days from SCFD - Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver Art Museum, Denver Center for Performing Arts

Summer Reading Program from Jefferson County Library  - AWESOME and FREE!  From Jun 1 to the end of July read 8 hours (for kids) and get a free book and coupons for activities.  Each year you get a coupon when you sign up and another when you finish for Lakeside Amusement Park.  One is for free parking and the other is for unlimited rides so use them together for a completely free day!  The park is a little run down but they have nice rides for the kids and our family looks forward to our day here each year!

Jefferson County Library Culture Pass - free passes to local museums for library card holders.  Passes for the Butterfly Pavilion, Byers-Evans House Museum; Denver Firefighters Museum; Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls & Toys; Dinosaur Ridge, MCA Denver, Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.  They also used to have the Wildlife Experience but I'm not seeing it currently.

How About Quarterly?

Not so good at the updates am I!  Hmmm.  I'm not sure what to do to catch you up - maybe I shouldn't try.  Here are the biggies - Megan is now ONE!  She is tiny, but maybe that's Rick's fault for naming her after her 5ft 6in great aunt instead of her 6ft and 3/4in mommy.  She is just barely 17 pounds (2%) now and just in the 65% for her height.  But since the other kids were all in the 30s for weight and 90s for height maybe I could just subtract the weight% from the height% and say she fits right in, just smaller!  She's standing and cruising and jabbering and I am completely in love with her.  She loves me best - unlike the others - and I enjoy that!

We are now HOMESCHOOLERS!  I am thrilled.  Almost 8 years ago I gave up classroom teaching to nurture my growing family and I am really looking forward to combing my passions more formally and not losing those precious hours with my children each day.  I know we will tinker a lot over the coming year but I have a plan and my kids are good sports so we will get through it.  I am excited to be able to provide my kids with the respect and education they deserve.  'Nuf said.  : )

And because I love to see what other families are doing I'll tell you what I know so far and update as I solidify our schooling choices.  I'm starting with Saxon Math all around (A in 3rd, N in 1st), The Story of the World for History, and then we'll do some reading/spelling and whatever we feel like researching for Science.  The oldest 2 will be doing a Homeschooling Co-Op on Fridays where N will do Kindergarten and A will be taking things like History, Science Labs, Writing and fun things like that.  It's not a full course, just fun enrichment activities.  We'll also do a smattering of Spanish, Art Appreciation and I'm toying with beginning Latin.  Don't you wish you could go to school here?  And we'll absolutely mummify chickens when we study Egypt.  We are that cool.

We just finished up swimming lessons.  My kids will not release the instructor from the death grip and therefore don't actually "swim".  Now that our days will free up and the babies are growing up I feel like we can make family swim a more prominent feature of our lives and work on this.  Of course, I really have no room to talk here about having Chicken Children.  I am the girl who couldn't be PAID to do a somersault in Junior High PE because I was too scared to be upside down and look dumb in front of my peers.  Yes, my PE teacher's assistant Rhamu McCoy offered me $5 to do it and I refused.  I spent our gymnastics unit in PE in a separate room from the class, sitting on a mat refusing to roll. I know, that is crazy.  And sad.  Yet it is true.  So I'm not too hard on them!

We have two sibling weddings and a Washington trip coming up - pictures of our adventures to come!  I'm thinking our Australia trip will be postponed until 2011 when we can save up vacation since Rick will be starting his new job next month (!) and won't have built up any vacation.  Hope my Oma can stay healthy another year and see her great-grandbabies!

I started exercising a little.  I would love to do more.

We have a patio now!

We have wood floors!

My front yard looks nice!

Rick and I just celebrated our 12th anniversary and I gave him the COOLEST present.  (An awesome photobook!)

I got a haircut for the first time in over a year - wowsers this has been a ridiculously trying year of mommyhood for me!

Still to do:
finish basement
homeschooling area
backyard
go on dates - I'll take anything!
move to the beach

Weekend of Crafts on the Cheap

First - just take yourself over here. Kristine McKay Designs is such a fantastic place to get fun ideas for crafts and decor. I have to say it's one of my favorites. Here are some of the reasons I love her: (dearly not queerly as Kim would say!)

1. She has great taste. I find many sites where I like something they've shared but the majority of the crafts are just not my style. Not so with Kristine! I love it all!

2. She shares. She has created these lovely things and then she explains them! And shares files so you can copy her exactly! It is so irksome to see a "craft blog" with just pics and no explanations of how they did it. I'm not a creative gal, just a copycat so I appreciate directions! And really, her downloads so you can have the same graphics she used are such a bonus!

3. She does things that are easy and reasonable in cost. This is very important to me as I just can't spend lots of money without getting hives - or the heebies at least. :)

I have to say there is a bad side to all this craftiness... I now want a Silhouette cutter. Badly. I need vinyl.

So here is a wreath for next year based on Kristine's Easter wreath made with supplies from the Dollar Tree. Check out her post at the site linked above. My wreath definitely needs a little something to perk it up. I have no idea what that something may be. Ideas?

And here is the Easter wreath. Disregard the bow. Please. I'm bowtying-deficient. I'm trying!

The wreaths at JoAnne's (speckled eggs on Spanish moss) were $30 a piece. I kid you not. I cheated and didn't spray paint the Dollar Tree eggs like Kristine did, I just bought a package from JoAnne's (on a tip from Kristine) for $3. And comparing the 2 wreaths I'm thinking I may rearrange my eggs. But I did it while watching Twilight. I was distracted. ;)

And here we have my next attempt at crafting. I'm hoping that this...

plus this...

will equal this.

This is from this site. The plaque she bought (Happiness...) is from the Dollar Tree as well. She painted everything and then antiqued it. I have a plaque as well that I did this to - just has a different saying.

Aren't these hideous? Why would you put yellow stripes down the sides? Silly people.