Santa has spoken

to Kelsey: Portable North Pole message for Kelsey

to Logan: Portable North Pole message for Logan

Answered prayer!

It looks like we found a house! Of course we haven't actually seen it in person yet, but in our online search, we found that housing prices are considerably higher in Cincinnati than they are here. In order to maintain our standard of living we'd likely have to pay hundreds more per month on a house payment. Or we could live in a tiny little, less-nice-than-our-current-place home. Neither option was enticing.

Then we found it. {cue angels singing} The perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, for the right price (exactly the same as we pay now, in fact). Even better than our current house. Right next to a big grassy field. Bike trail to the YMCA. Neighborhood pool and playground.

Only one problem: someone else beat us to it. So we went back to square one, but we couldn't find anything that compared or even came close. Then Jason called the realtor on that dream house and found out the people who beat us to it, fell through. So we quickly put in a good faith deposit and found out last night that it's ours. Only after a couple days of praying about it. And I really trusted God on this one. Sometimes I trust Him but at the same time worry that what He has planned for us won't line up with what *I* want. This time, I just *knew* that whatever He had for us would be perfect for us. As if I could ever doubt such an awesome God!!!

I won't publicly post the listing but I'll add pictures to the blog later once we have a chance to see it and finalize details early next week.

Groupon + Redbox!

This is a great deal on Groupon. It's good until tomorrow so run and sign up if you use Redbox. We are planning to rent some movies for the trip to Ohio, then return them once we get there.

$1 for 3 rentals. Click here if you don't have a groupon account.(and I'll love you forever because I think I get some sort of kickback for that) Click here if you do and just want to grab the deal.

Good News and Bad News at the Dentist

So I found a new dentist for the kids. They all went in for their cleaning and xrays. I did my part and sent all my insurance info up front, 3 weeks before the visit. All looked good.

We showed up. They cleaned. They took xrays. No cavities. Grant might not even need braces! They think that once his adult eye teeth come in, they might push the front top teeth together and close the gap. Other than the gap his teeth are nice and straight.

The bad news: My bill was $452!!! After they picked me up off the floor, I paid it, then passed out again. Okay not really. But I paid it. Here's the thing, I have never had to pay anything for the dentist. Nothing. We get full coverage for preventative care. She showed me what they charged and what was covered, etc. Today I finally got around to calling the insurance company. Turns out this dentist is out of network for us. GEE, thanks for telling me, people! Why the hell would I see you and PAY HUNDREDS for something I can get for FREE???!?! You are not all that!!!

Of course I begrudgingly have to take partial blame because I didn't ask if they were in my network, but I have had providers tell me in the past that they weren't, and this group was very organized about getting all my insurance information 3 weeks before the visit so I guess I thought they would alert me that they were not network providers if they weren't. It honestly did not even occur to me to ask. A very costly mistake indeed. Right on top of Jason's Christmas bonus coming in at less than half of what his boss told him last week that it would be. I guess I am just feeling a little burned by that. Don't lie to him. So between those two items, we can subtract a big fat $2500 out of what I thought would be in our bank account right now. For the move and our big upcoming trip to Ohio next week. Crap.

Anyway, I got our Christmas shopping done so that is a plus. As long as the van doesn't crap out on the trip.

Ho ho ho!

It's official...

We're moving to Cincinnati.

I have fought this for the kids' sake (and for mine, to be honest). I don't want to move again. I love my neighbors. I like it here. I don't love it, but I like it. More than that, I just don't want to move. Unless it is to Albuquerque. Albuquerque is home. We have so many memories, such good friends, such involvement. I would walk back into that tomorrow if I could. Without looking back.

But Cincinnati? I am excited to be a reasonable drive from family, but it's still 4 hours. Not a day trip. We will still be strangers in a strange town, once again trying to find our place. Trying to fit in. Ugh. I HATE moving. HATE it. Especially when the destination is just not exciting.

So now I go from praying that we can go back to Albuquerque to praying that it all works out. And that we can go back to Albuquerque soon.

I finished my Disney scrapbook and it arrived today. 74 pages. I love it! The kids love it. It will really keep the trip alive for us. I don't know if we'll take that trip next November because we might not be homeschooling next year.

And I miss my mom.

Disney Scrapbook

I have done enough pages (47 so far) to order for my scrapbook. I use the kind that you can add pages to, so I will just add more as I get them done.

I uploaded all my pages to the site where I order the 12x12 pages, so you can see them here.

UPDATE: up to 55 pages. I want to get this book done and printed in time to show off at Christmas. And it is so much fun when the kids look at the pages I have done so far- they actually forgot about some of those details already! Every time they see a new page it sparks memories. We get to relive the trip each time we look at the scrapbook. It will be worth all the hard work. Now if only I ever scrapped pages for our day to day life. I'm only like 3 years behind on that.

We're going back!

I just updated my Disney trip ticker on the top of the page. This time it's a real trip! (I was using it before as a temporary ticker until we knew our exact travel dates). The homeschool group set their next trip and we are jumping on again. The savings are unbeatable. We'll pay about half what we would pay on our own. The countdown begins!

Noteworthy

I just saved $80 at the grocery store. All my hard work and research is paying off. My first trip, I saved $16. Second trip, $32. Now I think I am finally in the game. It took me two hours to prepare for the trip, and sweat was trickling down the back of my neck by the time I was ready to leave for the store, but it's all good. I managed to score at least a week's worth of groceries, including all the fixings for Turkey day dinner, including the bird. On top of that I have a $5 rebate to mail in for the turkey. Not too shabby! I spent $122, so it would have been over $200 without the savings.

Bee City

Two field trips in one week is a little unusual, but so it was for us this week. I actually really needed to get out, personally. Sometimes the school week can be a bit of a drag. It's not the school work, it's the fighting that gets to me. Mentally, it was a perfect week for me to be in the "world classroom" this week.

Bee City was alot of fun. We learned much about bees. We made candles, bottled our own honey to take home, and make wax figures. There were so many animals at the petting zoo. That was really our favorite part. Particularly enchanting were the lemurs. We fed them "monkey-o's" (aka cheerios) by handing it to them. We all just loved how their little hands felt as they took the food out of our fingers.

The capuchin monkeys had little buckets on a pulley system. You drop a monkey-o in the bucket, and the little guy pulls the bucket to where he could reach it and grabs the treat. It was really cute.

You can click (twice, I think to make it even bigger) to see the page better. It is a busy page but I have been waiting a long time to use this honeycomb page template, and I had alot of pictures to put in it.



And look- Kelsey finally got to sit on a horse since we left NM;)


In other news, Jason felt sorry for me in all my depression, anxiety, etc that I have been experiencing lately and came home from Georgia the other day with my Christmas present, albeit extremely early. However, he insisted, and I am now the (co) owner of a shiny new iPad. I say co owner because there is not a living creature in this house that can keep their hands off of it. I have to say, it is very cool. Possibly even habit forming.

How do you measure up?

We finished up our unit on sea turtles today with a behind the scenes tour of the sea turtle hospital at the South Carolina Aquarium. That's one good thing about living near the coast. We have been able to witness the release of several rehabilitated turtles at the beach on Isle of Palms. Today we got to see them in the hospital.

I'll share more pictures later, but for now we just got home so here is one. I love how we can size up in comparison to the 4 turtle species that are found off our coast. Last week we drew the leatherback in chalk in the driveway to scale so we could see how huge they are, but I really like how this picture illustrates it!

Resolutions

Is it too early to make resolutions? I don't think so. Just trying to beat the crowds, so to speak. I have been reading alot of blogs lately that focus on frugality and saving money, particularly on groceries. This is a really weak area for me. Saving money and groceries. Put the two together, and you've got a major money pit. I don't make a list, I don't clip coupons, though I dabbled in it for a short stint.

My church did a free coupon class a few months back. I went. I took notes. I bought into it, hook, line and sinker. In other words, I spent $30 on a fancy binder with a pretty ribbon tied to the front and clear plastic pages for coupons. It had dozens of categories to file coupons under. It was going to save me tons of money.

Then I left the church. I walked out to the parking lot and noticed something was not right with my van. I mean, more not right than usual. I had a flat tire. $100 later, me and my shiny new binder were on our way home.

I purchased 2 copies of the Sunday paper, so I would have double the coupons. I clipped away my Sunday afternoons for a few weeks. And then it happened. The binder found a new home on the shelf in the hall closet.

Fast forward to today. Something has been nudging me to try again. I pulled out the binder, and found that all my coupons were expired. I have a fresh copy of the Sunday paper (just one this time). I discarded all my old coupons. I am trying this again, but not in such a labor intensive way. I am going to keep my coupon inserts from the paper, filed by date. I will refer to helpful websites such as I heart Publix to help me with the match ups. And hopefully I will save tons of money on my groceries. Oh, I also plan to make a list according to what is on sale that I have coupons for.

I'll report my success story here:)

Another resolution: exercise. Daily. I am signing Grant up for football and the other 2 for gymnastics. They will get a discounted rate if I sign back up for my gym membership. No excuses now, right? And we will be eating healthier too. I am sick of being tired and depressed. I need to get over myself and just do it!

So I will be busy with those projects, plus school which is ongoing and always keeps me busy. We hit a milestone last week: 1/4 way through the school year! We are up to 50 days as of the middle of this coming week. We started out great but lost 3 weeks due to our Disney trip (which was so educational on so many levels but I could only count one day of that as school- their field trip day.)

I am also working on some fun design work for some great friends. Website, tshirts. It keeps me creative and I love that. I hope to pretty up my own blog one of these days but that is so low on my list.

That about sums up my rambling thoughts for tonight. TTFN!

Homeschool History Days

Whenever we go on a field trip or other educational activity, I try to make a page to summarize it for their portfolios. I also *try* to assign the kids some sort of follow up, but with our already full school schedule it doesn't always happen. Thus being the case for this trip. I worry, too, that field trips will turn into groans of "oh, no! Another field trip. This means we'll have to write a paper." So rather than have them do something on paper, I let them make more butter. Fun. And tasty. Though admittedly it is much easier to buy sticks of butter from the grocery store.

Anyway, we try to go to the homeschool events at the Charleston Museum as much as possible. It is a wonderful museum and we've learned so much about local history.

Here's our portfolio page for October's homeschool day.



I should credit my brother and sister-in-law for gifting us last Christmas with a family Museum membership. I didn't know about this museum or its homeschool program but thanks to Doug and Barbara we have this wonderful membership which we have enjoyed all year long!

Working for Peanuts

I like to inject a little fun into our homeschool routine. I keep several file folder games handy for each of the kids. Logan was learning about compound words so I pulled out Working for Peanuts, a game that allows him to put compound words together and then write them using a dry erase marker. They enjoy opening their workboxes and finding a fun game to break up the routine.

Click to see larger.



I find most of my file folder games on this site: File Folder Fun. They are free to print out and easy to put together. I did invest in a laminator for $20 which makes the games reusable. I hope to pass them down so that is important to me.

A taste of our favorite place on earth...

...in October. The Galloping Grace Youth Ranch Pumpkin Patch. For the past 2 years we have been blessed to be a part of it. But not this year. Oh how painful it was to buy pumpkins from the grocery store. That is just wrong! I used to walk past the big pumpkin bins at walmart and glance at them with distaste, muttering things like, "ours are better", and "why would anyone buy pumpkins from a store?!?".

This year, I had to actually buy some. From a store. Not from walmart though. I walked past those, muttering under my breath. But when we peeked into the pumpkin bin at Publix, the pumpkins looked okay. Then I saw it. The sticker on each pumpkin. Could it be? Really? Here out in far east South Carolina?!? ?? ?



Heaven sent, those pumpkins were. Kelsey fervently exclaimed that the Wades sold them to Publix for us to buy. Well, maybe not, but close enough. We quickly picked out the 3 best (ie closest to the top) pumpkins and placed them in our cart. Now pumpkin carving could take place. All was (closer to) right with the world. At least our little corner. Which is so far from their little corner.

That was yesterday. Let's go back a few days. Trish asked me for my address in an email. I responded, jokingly adding, are you sending me some pumpkins? HA! Little, oh how little did I know. They did better than that. They sent me the pumpkin patch!

When the mail truck came by, we were eating lunch. I saw it from the table. Thought nothing of it until I noticed the mail lady walking up the driveway. I got to the front door and was greeted by a huge box on the porch. I saw Koester and suddenly remembered that she asked for my address. That was fast, and what in the world...?!?

Much excitement ensued as I grabbed a knife and opened the box. As soon as I saw what was inside I just started crying. No warning, nothing. Just lost it. Those girls do that to me every time. I was really missing them and missing the time we used to spend at the patch. Especially since we just bought our pumpkins and decorated for Fall.

They literally sent us a taste of the patch! The new country store is apparently offering a variety of local (NM) goodies to complement their usual offerings of thousands of pumpkins, gourds, and other Fall items. I have enjoyed the privilege of being a small part of it through designing their new website, brochures and signs. I also came up with a simple shirt design, which they are also selling. Fun!

Anyway, here are some of the treats in the box:



They also threw in shirts for each of us, and a cozy soft sweatshirt that I am wearing right now <3





Kelsey is wearing the one I designed. I love how it came out! That is our neighbor next to her. Grant is checking out the jalapeno jam and wondering how spicy it is. I think we'll find out tomorrow morning!

There was some local cherry cider.


Which I am enjoying right now.


I must say, it is yummy. Shhh, I didn't tell the kids I opened it. LOL.

Coffee. Cannot. wait. til. morning.


Local jams. I've had Heidi's before from the Corrales farmer's market. I already know how good that is. I'm guessing it will be perfect on toast with a cuppa pinon coffee. Oh and the pinon cocoa. The kids noticed that right away. Grant opened it and it smells wonderful! Might have to hide it.



There were gourds, Indian corn, stickers, and candy. Sopaipilla mix...OMG! A sweet note from the bestest friends anyone could ask for.

Thank you so much, Trish, Michelle & Max, and Melissa. I love you guys. So much! Thanks for sharing the fun with me. I wish I could share some of the hard work you guys are doing too.

Fit for a princess

My favorite sight after a 6 hour drive south:

What a monster! What a shark!

SO the kids' main goal (besides riding lots of rides and spending all of our money) at Disney World was to meet as many characters as possible and get their autographs.

We met Mike and Sully at Disney's Hollywood Studios.



My main goal was to snorkel with sharks. And rays. And various colorful fish. And I did. So did the boys. Kelsey would have done it. She is a strong enough swimmer this year. However, the mask would not fit on her face tight enough to make a seal. She was a good sport about it, and patiently waited for me as I selfishly proceeded into the water without her. And then did it again. Next time we'll bring her own mask. Disney's masks are one size fits all.

Wanna know a secret? I literally hyperventilated in my snorkel the first time I attempted to do this. The cold water, the {DEEP} lagoon, the sharks (no, I don't even think the sharks bothered me). It was the fact that I have never put my entire life in the hands of a small rubber tube. I freaked out trying to breath through it and had to turn back. On my second try I did great. And then I went back for more. I was just a little shocked and ashamed at my little anxiety attack. The boys acted like they have been snorkeling with sharks their entire lives. Way to make mom look bad, guys.

IllumiNATIONS

We saw fireworks nightly- we could see Epcot's nightly show from our hotel, and if we were at the Boardwalk, we could see both Epcot and Magic Kingdom. We went to both shows at the parks, but only once. The crowds are unspeakable during fireworks.

For Epcot's show, called IllumiNATIONS, the fireworks are best viewed from World Showcase, looking toward the lake. My camera stinks, but you get the general idea.

Some more adventures

Besides rides, shows, parades, fireworks, and food, there are some "hobbies" that are easy to get sucked into while visiting the world. Fortunately for us, our kids were into the free one: character meet and greets. The competition was fierce: Who could get the most autographs? Logan and Kelsey got the upper hand almost immediately: on our second park day, while Grant was at his homeschool class at Animal Kingdom, the 2 conspirators were at the front of the crowd at morning rope drop. We quickly made our way into Camp Minnie Mickey and met up with at least 6 or 7 characters (pictures to come later). Within a few days, Grant had found those characters and caught up.

Since we mainly travelled in a pack, they continued to be neck and neck. The autograph books were filling up fast, along with our photo pass and my memory card.

Then came the turning point. One evening at Magic Kingdom, someone handed us 5 fast passes for Space Mountain. We thought we were done with Space Mountain, as Kelsey's very first experience at Disney world was to be whisked unwittingly into this vortex. She came out crying, we made nice and promised never to go near it again.

Fast forward to the fast passes. This was pretty amazing to us, because about a week earlier, we handed an unsuspecting, adventurous looking family of 5 our fastpasses to Expedition Everest, because while 4 of us thought that ride was the best thing around, one certain little girl decided she was NOT going to ride it a third time. So when we were randomly chosen to receive someone's fast passes to Space Mountain, well we had to accept them. Guess who started crying at the thought of being dragged on that ride once again? Yup you guessed it. And Kelsey cried too (I kid, I would have done it again!)

We decided to split up. The boys would get hurtled through space in pitch blackness, while Kelsey and I had girl time. We headed straight for the princesses. 3 princesses and 3 fairies later, Kelsey was the undeniable winner in the autograph category.



The other hobby that many get into? Pin collecting. We abstained until Jason bought Grant a safari type hat with several pins on it. The only problem was that Grant didn't really want to wear the hat. I think it was one of those things Jason really liked so he used Grant as the excuse to buy it. The cool thing about pin trading is that most (if not all) of the Disney cast members wear pins, and will trade with you. If you see a pin you want, just trade with them for one you have but don't want. They will take anything and they'll let you trade for any of their pins. Next time, before we go I am going to try to find a bunch of Disney pins on ebay for trading. They are just too expensive to buy in the parks.

Besides the theme parks, we also visited Disney's two water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. Here the kids are posing for me as we entered Typhoon Lagoon.



I'll have much more on the water parks. We had so much fun at both of them.

Disney kicked our ...uh, rear ends.

I haven't done much scrapping since my last post. I have done ALOT of:

walking
riding rides
waiting for busses
walking
fighting crowds
waiting for boats
spending money
getting some sun
getting wet
riding more rides
walking
waiting on line
taking pictures
meeting some real "characters"
waiting on more lines
did I mention walking?

4 more days of magic and then we head home.

Needless to say, we are all completely and utterly exhausted. I did one scrapbook page... I couldn't resist snapping this picture of L and K sleeping peacefully. Click to see larger and read the journaling:)

Disney: Our first 3 days in the world

It has been crazy, busy, fun, amazing, exhausting, and overwhelming. I know I will forget the details if I don't write it down. This is an epic, once in a lifetime kind of trip, so I want to create a memory book. I decided to start now, while we are still "in the magic".

I am going to do journaling pages that chronologically tell our day to day adventures, and then I'll create pages for all the major events, parks, characters, etc.

The first 3 days: (click to see larger)


A few more pages I have done. Today was especially long and tiring so it will be a few more days before I get those pages caught up.

River Sweep

Yesterday Grants Webelos 2 den participated with the boy scouts with picking up trash along the waterways in Charleston at the Beach Sweep River Sweep clean up event.

We found lots of trash that had been thrown overboard by boaters. It was hot and dirty, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to teach the kids about doing our part to take care of the environment.

I'm trying to get my scrapbooking caught up, so I whipped up this page to scrap yesterday's clean up.

Homeschooling

One of the reasons I set up this blog was to share some of my homeschooling ideas that are working for us. Since we are in the full swing of the new school year, I am going to share 2 of my favorite ideas to make our homeschool experience easier and better organized.

The first one I came up with totally on my own, and I'm rather proud of it. It is a lifesaver, argument preventer, and major task helper. I have grabbed it to bring along to doctor appointments, grandma's house, or just about anywhere that we want to do school on the go. This one item, along with my canvas Sonlight tote bag filled with a few books or worksheets, is all we need on the go. At home, it sits in the middle of the dining room table where anyone can reach it.

It's our supply caddy. (link is similar but not exactly the same as mine).Purchased from Walmart a year or so ago, I have also seen it (for more money) at Michael's. It is advertised as a scrapbooking caddy. It has held up to our abuse remarkably well and has no shortage of pockets, both flat and zippered, as well as internal elastic pockets which I use to corral the markers and colored pencils.

Without further ado:



On the side we store all of our scissors (plenty to do crafts with friends and no fighting over scissors!) and pencils.


On this side we keep all our dry erase markers and erasers. We use these alot for handwriting, clock practice, and for fun. We have several tablet sized dry erase boards, with and without lines, that fit right in the middle section of this caddy for on the go fun.


Elastic pouches inside each section corral markers and colored pencils so it's easy to grab the color you are looking for. On the other side there is room for glue and glue sticks, and it comes with a velcro pouch to hold erasers. Rulers go in the middle.


Math manipulatives like protractors and small rulers fit in here.


There is even a big zippered compartment for index cards, small post it notes, and card games.


My other favorite favorite homeschool help is workboxes. We just started using them this year, and it has transformed our homeschool. I just simply don't know how I coped before they came into the picture. Well, I know I was much less organized. Here is one quick picture of our workboxes. I will add more in another post:)

Blogging... again!

I decided to start a blog back up in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Disney World. A trip we can't afford. Except that the stars lined up one day. And J found out he had a two week training class in Orlando. I wished we could come along, because the hotel would be paid for. And travel expenses. All we would have to pay for would be park tickets.

And then I remembered that the Carolina Homeschool group was planning a Disney trip. I wondered if the dates would be even close. Guess what? Uh huh, those stars were in a straight line. (Okay I don't really believe in stars lining up, clearly it was all God!!!) So anyway, the dates lined up and the group rate for tickets was a fabulous deal. We were able to get 8 day park hopper passes, which will keep us very busy for the two weeks. At prices way cheaper than I thought possible.

Now if only we didn't have to eat while we are down there. because man! The food prices are right up there with those lined up stars. So I have an elaborate plan that includes the in-room fridge that comes with our room and cheap breakfasts and lunches to carry in to the parks. I hope it goes according to what I have built up in my mind.

We have started walking in the evenings to get our feet ready for the onslaught. I hear you can cover 5-10 miles a day walking around the parks. My Disney book has a whole section on blisters. Guess I better take that seriously. We all know how painful blisters can be. And I know how whiny I the kids can be.

SO there is the start to my blog. I hate to post without a picture, so I guess I'll give you one from our one and only previous Disney trip- circa 2005.

Three very tired kids after one very long day at Magic Kingdom.