My first deal post!!

Ok here's my CVS deal for the week! I got the 4 Soy Joy Bars (there were 4, we already ate 1!!), the Schick Inutuition razor, the Rohto Eye Drops, and 3 Christmas Village pieces. Here's how the deal played out:


Soy Joy was on sale for $1 each x4 = $4. I used 2 $1 coupons making it $2
Rohto Drops on sale for $4.99
Schick Razor $8.99, used coupon for $2 off
Christmas Village $2.97 (.99 each, I needed a couple more dollars for my coupons to work!)

I used a $4 off $20 that I got for signing up for emails, and a $2 off $10 (they used both of them)

I then used a total of $9.58 in ECB from previous purchases and it ended up being $1.37.

Then I got back $12.99 in ECB'S!!! ( 4 from Soy Joy, 4 from Schick and 4.99 from Rohto) So I paid out a total of $10.95 in ECB's and cash and got back $12.99, so I made money and got the products!! I was excited about that one!!!

How'd I do??

Native American History

Here's some pics of our learning adventure on Native Americans. We started with Cherokee where we learned they made a lot of baskets and mats, so we weaved placemats, and that they used corn and cornmeal a lot in their cooking, so we made cornmeal cookies. Noah read us the recipe where he learned more about fractions and how to read recipes. They both love cooking and baking!! I let them take turns putting the ingredients in and stirring. The cookies are actually pretty good, they are like a cross between a corn muffin and a sugar cookie. Today we talked about the Shoshone Indians. They lived in the Great Basin area (Nevada, parts of California, Utah, Oregon and Idaho), and they moved around a lot looking for food, so they lived in tipi's so that they could take their homes with them. So we made a tipi in the kitchen around the breakfast table. We ate lunch in there (yes, even Daddy ate in there with us!!) and then read more about the Shoshone and made bread beads for necklaces all while we sat in our tipi!! That was fun, something I think the kids will remember! They will probably ask me to build a tipi all the time now!!! After our bread beads dry overnight, we can paint them and then make bead necklaces with them. It's been a good study so far. Next week we're going to visit a few of the Indian Mounds that are local to our area and then the following week we're going up to the Sunwatch Indian Village in Dayton. The kids have been excited for this unit study and it shows in their willingness to participate and learn. It's really a good study!!

Dancing baby!

Doing well today. The carpet is still drying. The beauty of the carpet tiles are that we can flip them over and let the pad dry as well and then just flip them back. The ground underneath the carpet is now dry. So that's good. Yesterday Abby had observation day at her dance class so Noah and I got to watch her and take pictures. She's in the B level of a pre-dance combo class. It combines, tap, ballet and tumbling in a one hour class. She was in A level last year. It's always fun to see what she's learned in there. It's a good school. They really seem to know how to teach the girls that are that young. So here she is!!!

This is the bathroom floor in the basement. The bathroom is on the complete opposite wall of where the unworking pump is located, probably 20-25 feet away, so you can see the water just went completely throughout the floor!

update

We're doing much better now. We got the pump working and the drain finally working. The whole floor including the theater, Bengals room, bathroom, closets and unfinished space had two or three inches of water covering it. I took pics and video I'll show you some later. We now have the all the big amounts of water gone and we're just working on drying everything out. There were lots of boxes in the unfinished space and all of those have to be thrown out, hopefully there's not much in them to worry about, I don't think there is. Most of the important stuff is safely in plastic tubs. It's mainly the carpet we're worried about and we've been vacuuming it for the past 21/2 hours and it's much better, basically just a little wet or damp in some spots. We'll probably have to have someone out to professionally clean so it doesn't get mold or anything. Well thanks so much for the prayers. It's all working out now. Steve's Mom is bringing us two more giant industrial fans (she used to not have central air and she used them to cool her house), and my Mom came by earlier to bring another shop vac and she helped for awhile. So we feel blessed to have that help and that nothing important seems to be ruined. It's all stuff anyway!!! Thanks again!

please pray for us, our basement has completely flooded, all of it. pump stopped working apparently.

This week in pictures

For Sonya: Next is a movie with Nicolas Cage in it. I got it because Steve always says I get girly movies and I purposely was looking for one that looked more manly. It had Jessica Biel (hot girl) and a big fireball (lots of action) on the cover so I thought it was perfect. I dreaded watching it, but was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It had a really good story and only a little of the action. The ending was awesome. I would recommend it!




It's big boy!!!!




Doing our lapbook on trees and leaves. There will not be any closer shots of it because it didn't turn out as well as I hoped. At least the kids liked it!!!




Going on a train ride to get pumpkins at Kings Island.




Outside the Creation Museum. I didn't get any pics inside it was just insanely crowded and we agreed to come again and then I'd get pictures,




Abby's absolute favorite at Kings Island is Swipers Sweepers!




Some of the goats in the parade.




Circleville is such a cute little town.





A few of the cute dogs in the parade.




The kids on stage during the puppet show singing Old Mr. Burger's Farm




Noah doing a book report




My pumpkins in the pumpkin patch




Waiting for the puppet show






More pumpkin pics



On the hayride at Parky's

recap

Well it's been a crazy week here!! We've just been really busy with all the fall festivities and school and some family things. Where to start...well last Friday (two fridays ago) we went to Parky's Halloween Nights where you all know we saw Sonya and Crystal. I really enjoyed it although it seemed that others didn't as much. I just think it's so cool to be at night, all the other things we do are in the daytime and I really love when it's dark. Saturday we went to Burger Farm where we did the hayride and the puppet show and saw the animals, oh and we also got to meet Frisch's Big Boy!!! That was so exciting, he even gave us two halloween coupons!!! No characters at Disney give you coupons for free food!!! Sunday was pretty normal with church and football. We've been getting rental movies a lot lately because we have a gift card for 40 free rentals so we've watched a lot of movies. I liked Evan Almighty ( alot!!), Next (which I thought I was going to hate, but really enjoyed), Perfect Stranger (just ok), Music and Lyrics (alot, Pop goes my Heart!!!), Wild Hogs (entertaining, but not great!). I miss Charity's movie reviews!! I feel lost at Blockbusters now!! So anytime we get a chance we'll go down and watch a movie. That's been nice. During the week, we continued our unit on trees and leaves and Abby continued on her 100 lessons, she's on 10 or 11 now. She's sounding out three letter words now. I really think this method is genius. It works so well. Noah's doing addition with carrying now. That's what he learned at the end of the week. That's going well. They both got their flu shots on Wednesday. Noah had Karate twice and Abby had dance. We started Christmas shopping. We just pick up things off our list when they are on sale. I'm excited because Thanksgiving is early this year and that means I get to put up the trees and decorations early!! I love decorating for Christmas, love it, love it!!! Also this week, I began my obsession with the moneysavingmom!!! Like I needed one more thing to obsess about!! It's really fun and an adrenaline rush!! I got all the couons organized now and all my ads together so I just have to decide what I want to with them!! I did get some good stuff this past week, so I'm pretty happy about that. This weekend we went up to Circleville (close to Columbus) for their big Pumpkin Show. It's a big festival in the downtown area. It was VERY crowded!! We went up on Friday to see the pet parade and we got there just in time. The kids loved it as I thought they would. There were tons of animals in costumes, even goats!! It was fun. We ate pumpkin pancakes, ice cream, donuts, and pie. All very yummy!! Then we drove home and stopped at Kroger where I got my best deal yet. I got 4 boxes of Quaker Sweet and Salty Crunch Bars, One Pepperidge Farm Garlic Bread loaf and a box of 100 envelopes (to organzie the coupons) for a total of .76 after tax!!! Steve was very impressed with that one!!! Saturday we went to the Creation Museum with Steve's Mom's church. We didn't stay with the church people in there, it was way too crowded to do it anyway. I had been wanting to go there and she offered to take us with her, so that was nice. I really want to go again maybe during the week sometime when it's not so crowded. I couldn't read everythiing because I would've had to wait forever to do it. It's very interesting and though provoking though. I liked it. After that we came home and did a little housework, made dinner and then watched a movie. Yesterday we went to Nick or Treat at Kings Island after church and then watched the Bengals game!! Yay a win!!!! We had a good time at all of those! Well that's a recap for now, I'll put up a few pics today too. Have a good one!

An invite

I just wanted to invite those who live close ( or those wanting a drive!!!!), our church is having Trunk N Treat on Sunday October 28th at 5pm . In case you don't know what it is, you bring your car and park it in the lot with your trunk facing the lane. You open the trunk, you can decorate it if you want and you sit there and hand out candy while your kids walk to all the other cars. It's a nice safe way to trick or treat in the daytime and you get tons of candy and no scary costumes. Last year I walked with the kids while Steve handed out the candy. We got tons really!!! We don't usually hand out candy because we usually all go out trick or treating (and we still do even after trunk and treat!!) so this was a way for us to be able to hand out as well. It's a lot of fun. If you want to come, let me know and I'll give you directions. It's very easy from Tylersville or Fields Ertel (just don't ask Sonya, she had horrible directions last time!!!)

We're goin' back to Cali!!

This is Abby at WDW. We waited in line to see Captain Hook and Mr. Smee but she didn't want to see them, she was afraid so we told him that and he walkd across the way and picked a flower and came back, got down on a knee and gave it to her!! It was so sweet!! She still wouldn't see him though!!





Well it's official, we're going back to Disneyland in California early next year. We've been thinking about it ever since we got home from Florida and our biggest push was that our son is so crazy about Legos and on our last trip we didn't go to Legoland, that I wanted to make sure we took him there while he was still crazy about it. We went through our budget and squeezed it to get the money. Plus it's an off season so it's not the most expensive time of year and we have two free plane tickets from frequent flyer miles and the other two are just 209 including tax and everything. We'll be there 7 nights and we just booked our hotel last night. The actual Disney hotels are just too much for us to afford right now, but we scoured the internet for reviews, accomodations, best prices, etc...and we chose one directly across the street from the entrance to Disneyland. We're actually going to keep it a secret from the kids for now and surprise them with it at Christmas. Noah's been begging to go to Legoland for at least a year now and I can't wait to see his face when he finds out we're going. Oh, they're also having a special on the park hopper tickets where if you buy a 3 day you get two extra days free, and we have coupons for free kids admissions to Legoland. And we have a microwave and refridgerator in our room so we'll be able to save some money for food with that, plus the hotel has free breakfast. We just decided we have to cut some corners in order to be able to afford it in such a short time and that was worth it to be able to go at all!!! My Mom may also be going with us, she hasn't decided yet. She's been really wanting to be with the kids at Disney and see how much they love it and she's more interested in visitng California than Florida. We'll see if she comes or not. So we have the five days at DL, plus Legoland and we always squeeze in a visit to the beach and Hollywood. We love the Disney Soda Shop in Hollywood. Maybe this time I'll make him drive me to Beverly Hills, I haven't seen that yet!! Well we're so excited now and I only have two months or so until I get to tell the kids.

Did I ever....

Show you pictures of our Gatlinburg trip?? Well here's some. We went over Labor Day weekend with my parents, sister in law and nephew Riley. My brother had to work. We rented a cabin in the mountains. The cabin was awesome. It had three floors each with it's own bedroom suite with full bathroom and on the lowest level, there's was a second family room that had a set of bunk beds in it. We took the whole bottom floor for our family, my parents were on the main floor where the kitchen and dining room was and Tiffany and Riley were upstairs where the pool table was in a loft part of the third floor. We also had two balconies one on the main floor and one on the bottom floor each looking straight into the mountains and trees. It was just so awesome. We also had our own hottub on the upper deck. The little cabin community had a pool, stocked pond with free fishing and free mini golf. We did all of that!! Plus we spent time in Gatlinburg the town, in the Smoky Mountains national park doing several driving tours and we walked the .5 mile ( I know that doesn't seem long but when it's almost straight up, it feels like a marathon) to Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in Tennessee. That was really hard. I mean we walk that much all the time in our neighborhood, but this a very steep incline and it was really rough!! But we all made it, I felt so good at the top, like I had accomplished something. It really was a great trip and we are now making it a yearly event to get together for a trip. It was just so much fun!



My parents with Riley in the park




An old home in the park. The people who lived there had 9 children. It was two rooms with an exterior hall between them. One room was for cooking and the other for sleeping. They lived there only a hundred or so years ago. Think about in Cincinnati there are houses that old, but in the mountains the people lived a lot differently. It was very humbling to think of how hard it must've been to have such a large family in such a small place and with no heat or a/c. We really do have it good now!!




When I visited the Smoky Mountains as a child with my best friend, her parents took our picture in front of the sign and I wanted to do that with my kids too, so here they are!!




Our awesome cabin with the mountains right behind it.




Abby at one of the pulloffs along the road in the park. The views were just breathtaking!




Abby and Noah at the lookout on top of Clingman's Dome after our very rigorous trek!! It was chilly up there!! Some of the trees are dying because a certain bug had accidentlaly been released there (I think it's native of Europe) and it eats the trees up there. It's kind of sad to see so many of them dying, I wish they could stop the bug!




The kids in the bunkbeds!!




Another beautiful scene in the park. There are lots of creeks to play in and see the many salamanders. It's just a beautiful place.

I feel like I'm fallin' for Fall!!

Here's some pictures of the things we've been learning in our one room schoolhouse!! There's pictures from our field trip to the Air Force Museum, our field trip to the Zoo, Abby's first book that she can read and some shots of the fun from today. At the air force museum we saw several Wright Flyers and Noah was especially thrilled for that. Boy he loved learning about the Wright Brothers and their first flights. I think he found it especially interesting because they were from Dayton. So that was a lot fun especially being Homeschool day. It's really been a huge blessing to teach my kids. I love that they are learning by doing and going and seeing, not just reading about in a classroom. Now don't get me wrong, we read a ton too. We average four books a day just on the subject of our unit study. Plus, a book here and there for fun, one at bedtime and Noah is always reading a chapter book for Book-It (Pizza Hut's reading program). I love books and the kids do too, but they just learn so much more and remember so much more by getting out and doing!! So we're learning plant/tree/leaf classification right now. I chose to do this in October when the leaves are big news. It's a two week study, so one more to go. We collected a ton of leaves at the zoo to go home and classify. That was fun. Some of the nicer specimens I laminated and plan to use in a project, just not sure what yet. I'm also working on a lapbook for this study (my first, Charity ideas would be helpful!!!). I found some websites with layout ideas, so I'm using their input as well an my own. We'll see how it turns out.

This weekend should be a terrific fall weekend. We're doing Parky's tonight too, I think half of blog world will be there!!! We always do a Friday night and next Friday we're going to Circleville for the big pumpkin show and the following Friday is the one right before Halloween, and we didn't want to wait that long, so it's tonight!! Plus it's nice and chilly, just like I like it for a nice Halloween festival!! Tomorrow, Noah has skills asessment and uniform sizing for Upward basketball and then we're going to Burger Farm, I absolutely love going there. We went there when we first moved back to Ohio and have been going every year, eventhough now it's a good 45-60 minute drive. And then of course it's church and football for Sunday!! Well I hope everyone enjoys their evening, I know we will!!



We made these today. The trunk is their arm, the leaves of the tree is their hands, the grass is their fingertips, the pumpkins are their thumbs and the stems on the pumpkins are their pinkie fingers. I thought they turned out really cute!




Abby insisted I take her picture with her new friends!!




We always have good experiences with the polar bears. It's a really good exhibit.




Hangin' out in front of the 'hive!!




The elephants were really close and we got some good pics!




Abby's first read!




A huge bee diagram in the insect house.




Would you let these two, direct your plane??




Wow, that plane is very "stealthy"!!





Both kids loved their turn in the cockpit of a jet!




Abby's proud of her paper airplane, that she made in one of the free classes.




Noah is getting answers to the scavenger hunt we did at one of the displays of a Wright Flyer.




They made gyrocopters in a class, and they worked really well, spinning all the way to the ground!




Noah's paper airplane did very well!!