Fun at 4-H

The boys' Cloverbud 4-H meeting was last night, and we did a program about rabbits. A boy in the club bred his rabbit and had it had 5 babies. They photographed and documented their growth and taught the children all about rabbits. They really enjoyed it, and of course the best part was when they got to hold and pet them. I heard a lot of,"Mom can we get one?" Right now 6 children, 3 dogs, and 59 chickens are quite enough.

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2 Week Old Chickens

Our Chicks were 2 weeks old on Friday and they are doing great! They are growing more wing feathers, and tail feathers, and are starting to fly. They have grown so much that we will have to split them up into two boxes very soon so they will have enough room. The boys have been helping their daddy build the chicken pen that they will move to when all of their feathers have grown in.

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That's Some Great Teamwork!

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Back to School

I have a new picture of our chickens that I am going to post for this week, but there is something wrong with my camera USB cord. It is bent and I am pretty sure there are teeth marks in it (really? who would have put the cord in their mouth?) So I will try and fix that later. In the meantime Spring Break is over and we are back to work. There is about 8 weeks left in the school year. Here is an update of what we have accomplished and what we are working on now.



Chelsea 7th grade Sonlight Curriculum and Alpha Omega Math- Chelsea works independently on her schoolwork and goes at her own pace. As long as she is staying somewhat on track for the year I let her do as much as she wants. Right now she has worked so far ahead that she only has 2 weeks left in Sonlight. We have 2 Life Packs left for math so we should finish on track. After she finishes up her Sonlight, I have some 8th grade Abeka textbooks that she will work on until the end of the year.



Nick 2nd grade- We have finished 2nd grade Abeka Science and History. We are still working on Language Lessons for the Very Young and I think we should finish that on time. We have started on Abeka Health, Safety, and Manners and should go through that in a couple of weeks. Nick is very interested in History, and right now we are learning about each of our Presidents. So far we have made it through number 17, but we will complete this before the end of the year. In Math he is working on fractions, multiplication, and Roman Numerals. We are reading Charlotte's Web and will finish that up next week. After we are done reading we will watch the movie. The older children have seen it before, but it has been awhile.

Alex K- Finished Abeka K Science (and listened through 2nd grade Science and History) Working on Math Subtraction. Alex also listens in on Charlotte's Web and discussions on the Presidents. He is not reading yet, so we are still working on phonics sounds and blending letters. I read aloud to him and the little ones quite a bit.

Next week we will be working on a Spring lapbbook I downloaded for free from www.eggheadacademics.com called Blooms, Bugs, and Babies.

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Our Grocery Shopping Trip

Some of you may already know that I am a big fan of www.moneysavingmom.com. Through her website I find lots of links to coupons, free samples, encouragements, and other ways to save money. Her recent series 31 Days to a Better Grocery Budget has got me back on the money saving bandwagon especially when it comes to food and grocery items. Over the last couple of months I had not been paying as close attention to our grocery budget and could not believe how much I let it get off track (especially on take out food.) So this month I am determined to turn it back around. I spent some time clipping coupons, checking out sale adds, and money saving mom for deal match ups. Then I wrote out our Monthly Meal Plan. I usually buy enough dinners and household supplies for one month and do a weekly shopping trip for things like bread, produce, milk, and lunch meat. I went to Alps yesterday to buy the items I needed out of their sale flyer. Today we headed to Texarkana TX to do the rest of our shopping which is a 1 hour and 20 minute drive, but we had to go anyway for supplies to work on the family room. There is also no tax on food in Texas and a much better variety of stores with a bigger selection. Our trip went great! We split up the children and I took 3 shopping with me and Art took 3 to Lowes. I will not bore you with all the details of everything I bought, but I saved $32.75 in coupons, plus no tax, and the items I bought on sale. Some of my best buys today at Target were: free band aids,free Johnson's Buddies Soap, .50 toothpaste, and 2 pks of Huggies Diapers for $5.99 each. Some of my best buys at Walmart were: $1 Baby Wipes, .37 cream cheese, .50 mustard, .50 yogurt, $1.00 Jelly, and .50 Lunchable. Not to mention that a gallon of Milk was only $2.77 there compared to $3.43 here (we go through about 6 gallons a week.) It was definitely worth the trip and will probably continue to head to Texarkana once a month to go grocery shopping.

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Spring Break

This week our local public schools are on their Spring Break. We don't always follow the school schedule, but we are ahead for the year and at a good stopping place so we decided to take the week off. I also wanted to have an opportunity to get some spring cleaning done and gather up items for a yard sale. Usually we take days off when we go out of town or have special plans or an appointment. This week I had absolutely nothing planned so I was a little worried about the children being bored, but so far they have had a great week. The weather has been great so they have spent quite a bit of time outside. Chelsea got to go on a day trip to Little Rock with 4-H yesterday to go to The World of the Pharaoh Exhibit and The Clinton Library and she had a wonderful time. Since it is raining today, I am going to enlist the children's help in sorting toys in the playroom. Wish me luck!

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Pizza Party!

We had a great time at our DiGiorno House Party on Saturday. The children had a great time and Lily even stayed awake for the whole thing. I had an earlier post about our House Party but I wanted to explain what this party was for and how I got chosen because a number of people have asked me about it. I am a member of Kraft First Taste. This is a Kraft website where they post new products and allow members to print off free or high value ($1.00 off or more) coupons on new products. On this website I also found out about their new promotion called House Party. On the website you will find a listing of current and upcoming house parties (ex. Digiorno, Maxwell House, 100 Calorie snack Packs, etc..) you fill out an application that takes about 10 minutes and agree that if you are chosen you will agree to : host a party, invite guests, use their party website, fill out a survey, post pictures and videos of the party on the website, and give coupons to your guests. I was chosen for the Digiorno Party. They have a new product selling pizza, bread sticks, and marinara dipping sauce. in the same box. There are 3 different kinds; cheese, pepperoni, and supreme. The pizzas sell for $6.25 at our Walmart. I received in my party pack 6 free coupons and 15 $4.00 off coupons to give to my guests, so not only did they get to be among the first to try the new product, they get to buy their own for $2.25 a piece. The pizza and bread stick combo was very good and much less expensive than delivery. I very much enjoyed the entire House Party experience and would do it again. Signing up for Kraft First Taste is free for more information click here.

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