Happy Labor Day

We did school this morning and Justin worked on his dissertation, so it wasn't a major holiday around here, but we've found that having things stay fairly normal tends to make the day more enjoyable, since the kids aren't out of sorts. We grilled hot dogs and corn on the cob and had watermelon and ice cream today to celebrate.

Baby boy liked the corn.

He also really liked banging the cob on his tray!

He didn't like watermelon though, go figure.

Deal!

I'm not a very good deal seeker. I suppose part of it is the time involved and having to shop at different stores with little ones. But I hit on a major score, so I had to share.

Amazon has a deal that if you subscribe to them for diapers (You tell them how often you want them delivered, and you'll be automatically billed.) they will give you 15% all the time and a total of 30% off your first order, so that was $10.76 off of my $35.88 order (of 204 diapers). I had a coupon (from one of my parenting magazines--I wish I could remember which one it came out of) for 20% off of diapers so that was another $7.18 off. So a box of 204 diapers only cost me $17.94, plus no shipping!

It's definitely worth looking into if you have something that you buy regularly. The extra 15% is on diapers, but you can get the standard 15% off your regular purchases and free shipping on all sorts of things--paper goods, razor blades, OTC meds, even laundry detergent, not that I need laundry detergent anymore because the homemade stuff is working amazingly! I think it is a great deal--and I don't even have to leave my house or carry the big box out to the car while juggling the three kiddos, while I leave the cart inside so no one has to bother with it. I guess maybe I should just get over that silliness, but I hate taking a nearly empty cart in the parking lot for someone else to have to drag back in later...

Oh, if you decide to buy something that way, let me know--'cause I'm nosy like that. Or don't--'cause I'm nosy like that.

*Not a paid plug at all, I just thought it was a great deal!*

Threes

Good things come in threes...like my three munchkins.

This week there are a few things that came in threes...like a three day weekend. Nate started last week with three teeth, but he got three more this week! He also took his first step this week, but as of last night he was up to three of those too!

* * * * *
Even the tooth fairy Kate-isms come in threes:

Kate: I'm too tired to work.
Me: You were in bed all night.
Kate: No I wasn't.
Me: Where were you then?
Kate: I'm the tooth fairy. I was out getting teeth last night.

A few days later:

Kate: I can't wait until I lose a tooth.
Me: Why is that?
Kate: So that I can get money for my tooth.
Me: Aren't you the tooth fairy?
Kate: There are several of us.

Today:

Kate: Is the tooth fairy real?
Me: What do you think?
Kate: Did you get money when you lost a tooth?
Me: I found money under my pillow after I lost a tooth.
Kate: Then the tooth fairy is real! Does Santa believe in Jesus?


Have a great week of threes!

What if...

As I was completing the most glamorous task of humankind scrubbing the floors the other day, I was contemplating a totally random question...if I had a whole week all to myself what would I do? My family is all gone doing something without me and the normal restraints of finances, practicality, and people being able to say, "no," don't apply. Seeing as I haven't had five minutes without a member of my immediately family in the building with me since we left Kansas a couple of months ago (yes, really--I've searched my mind, but there hasn't been a time yet--there was once it was just me and Justin for a couple of hours (for a school function), but other than that it's also included at least one child), I guess it's one of those things that crosses a person's mind.

This is one of those cases of dream big or go home (or stay home, since I am at home?). So, what would I do? Sleep in past 5:00, certainly, but that's not too big, at least not for normal people (though it's been 9 months since that happened here). Hmmm...sing on Broadway. How much fun would that be?! I love to sing, but SAHMdom doesn't call for much past the difficulty of "Twinkle, Twinkle". I'm not Broadway quality by any stretch, but I loved to sing in choirs and in high school musicals. I've sang in a few praise bands for churches and had maybe a dozen solos at churches over the years. It was fun to lose yourself in the music and pretend to be someone else. I wouldn't get any great views, but maybe I could keep from getting booed of the stage. I never got cast as anything big, but when I was teaching the school's choir director asked if I had been cast as Sandy (in my H.S.'s production of Grease) when he was accompanying me for a talent show, so maybe I'm not too horrible.

Now, I don't want to run off to New York or anything, but it sure is fun to think of while I'm scrubbing the kitchen floor! And while I've not sang in public since Kate was born, maybe I'll take it up again some day--you know in all that free time I have. Well, off I go to sing another round of "The Arky Song," after all I have the best audience in the world right here.

Fun in the Sun

I'm boring predictable. I'm not uptight about having to change my schedule, but I generally keep one, unless it's interrupted. We school immediately following breakfast, we run errands in the late morning if they need to be done, we eat lunch at the same time everyday, we have a rest time after lunch, more school and free play in the afternoon. Plenty of time in our day to do each of the tasks before us, but not much in the way of excitement.

About as wild and crazy as it gets is that we do our library time in the afternoons because as soon as we get those new books there's not much chance for the more formal school work to occur, as we'll definitely be doing a lot of reading and looking at our books in the afternoon, so there was great excitement in my house when I told the girls to take a good rest Thursday because I had plans for us.

We're getting to the end of the summer, but it was a nice sunny day so, once everyone was rested, I pulled out the swim suits. We went to "The Water Sprayer" as they call it. Kate loves to run through the different sprayers, man the giant water cannons, and stand under buckets that fill and then dump on her head. Gabby is more timid. She likes to get wet, but hates that the water is in her face and eyes. Nate, well, he wasn't too impressed at all, but he got to go along for the ride. I'm willing to guess that next summer, when he's walking, that he will be a wild man. It was the first time I tried taking all three of them someplace like that alone since Nate became mobile--grocery store, sure, but turn them loose and let them run, while trying to keep up with them--yikes. It turned out to be easy, though that's mostly because two of them were glued to my side. I think it's really more practical than the playground, with all the things to climb on, that make it hard with three children to spot for, no pieces of bark for Nate to eat, and of course the benefit of keeping cooler. It was also nice that we were there before the big kids were all out of school yet, so there weren't a bunch of people there yet.

It meant I had to rush to get dinner on the table, but it was fun to be a little less...boring.

You Create: Culture Chart

I've been very busy working on a project for our school this week. I made a pictorial chart for Kate to fill in about our studies of different countries.

Down the side I made a place to represent each of the six countries we'll be studying.

Then along the top, I put a picture to represent our questions, such as, "What is the weather like?" and "What do people do for fun?"

Kate has some rudimentary writing skills, but writes too large for small spaces, plus pictures are more fun (and easy to 'read' even for a beginning reader)! We're working on her cutting skills, but she's not quite there yet. Hopefully in the next few months she'll get to cut out any pictures we use for charts.

Earlier in the week, we sat down with our list of questions and our library books and answered them in written form.

I also made pictures (from clipart) to represent the answers for each of the countries. I can only keep our library books for two weeks, so I made graphics for Italy and Israel to print out (since I have those books and know how they answered the questions). She had two choices for each of the questions today as she fills in the chart.

She had fun with the glue stick, as she placed each of the answers in the appropriate block, she even remembered several of the answers without looking at our sheet.

When it's complete, in October, we'll be able to see all of the countries we're looking at all together and see how they are the same and different.

Laundry

I am finishing up a box of laundry detergent.  I bought it before we even arrived at our new home, so I decided to go ahead and try my hand at homemade laundry detergent.

 There are a lot of recipes out there.  Many require 5 gallon buckets of goop, but I'm trying a simple 1:1:1 mix of laundry soap, borax, and washing soda, since I don't want to commit all that space if I can avoid it.

By far, the hardest part is grating the soap, but I'm sure that it could be done more simply if you have a better tool than a cheap grater.

We dumped in the ingredients in a dish, mixed it, and put a lid on it.

 That's the amount it should take (in the green cup from my regular  laundry detergent).

We should see how it works this week.  Here's to hoping it turns out better than the dish detergent!