Rubber Chicken Anyone?

Soon (probably Saturday evening or Sunday), I'll be showing you how to save money cooking rubber chicken...

photo by wili-hybrid @ flickr.com

Well, NOT that kind of rubber chicken. More like this kind...

photo by ninjapoodles @ flickr.com

So, if whole chickens are on sale at your local store this week, go ahead and pick one up because I'm going to show you how to make that chicken streeeeeetch. While you are there, might as well buy two so you have one waiting in the freezer for the next time you have it.

We'll be making three meals with this one chicken. If you have a large family (or extremely hungry eaters, you may want to adapt and buy two chickens).

Saving Money with Chicken Breasts

I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my cooking a lot and have found a few tips for saving money with them.

1. Always buy them on sale and stock up if you can. It's better to buy them on sale than to pay full price later. Albertson's sells them fresh at the butcher's counter for $1.88 a pound on a regular basis. I ask them to wrap my chicken breasts with two breasts (the photo below is one breast) per package. This saves money for me because I don't have to repackage them at home. Safeway sells them for $1.99 a pound when they are on a good sale but they are prepackaged in sets of 8-10 breasts. This means I spent a little extra repackaging them. Costco sells the flash frozen chicken breasts in a bag for $2.15 a pound. Most people think Costco is a good deal!

2. Cut them into bite-sized pieces whenever possible. About 1 inch pieces are good. When serving a whole breast, most people serve an entire breast for each person. When you serve them in bite-sized pieces, you can easily feed 4-5 people with only two breasts.


3. Many pasta and rice recipes that call for chicken breasts can be adapted for chicken pieces instead. Chicken Fetticini Alfredo (homemade recipe coming soon) can be served this way. I have a recipe called Southwest Chicken and Rice (recipe coming soon) that is served this way, too. Tonight I cooked a recipe called Easy Chicken Paprika from the can of Chicken and Mushroom Soup that called for four chicken breasts to be cooked, added to the sauce, and served over noodles. I used two breasts and cut them up into pieces before adding them to the sauce. It worked out fine.

4. Popcorn Chicken goes a long way. Try following my recipe or any fried chicken recipe only use half the amount of chicken you'd normally use. You'll be surprised at by the size of the pile of chicken.

A Little Tired

Please ignore the stains on the carpet. It will get replaced some day.

Changes

We've been living through some financial challanges the last two months and planning some major changes in how we live and work. I've been itching to blog about it for a couple of weeks now but could not let the secret out until now.

Scott took a new job last December that looked like it had a lot of promise. His job paid base plus commission. Based on what they told us, it looked good.

Only it wasn't. Over the course of the past year, changes in policy and pay cuts have lead to our incoming dropping a total of $1000 per month on average.

So, what are we going to do? THIS IS THE BIG PART that I've been dying to write about. Scott quit his job. His last day is tomorrow. He's striking out on his own.

Finances are going to be tight for a while until he can build up his own client base. In the meantime, we cashed out what was left of his IRA (it lost several thousands of dollars to the market recently anyway) to supplement any income he generates for the first few months. Between that and our expected tax return next year, we believe we have enough money to get us through to about April or May. Hopefully, it will be enough.

So, do you want to help us out? There's a few things you could do:

1. Those of you who pray could add us to your prayer list.
2. If you are subscribed to my blog, you could read the blog from the site instead of the reader/email.
3. You could also click on the eHow button on the right side bar and check out my eHow articles and rate them. You'll find stars at the top near the title. I'm focusing on making learning fun and money saving tips/recipes. Maybe you'll find something helpful there. I only have 8 articles up so far but I'm working hard on putting more up as fast as I can. Ultimately, I'd like to build up a decent income from content writing and, eventually, freelance writing.
4. Finally, if you are local and need computer work, drop me an email. My husband works on servers, PCs, and laptops and charges considerably lower rates than the competition and does better work too.

On a positive note, you can bet I'll be perfecting the art of saving money and sharing what I'm learning with all of you.

Saving Money on Groceries

This month was a tough one financially. I started the month knowing we were $300 short for paying the bills, keeping the cars running, and feeding the family. With the end of the month just a few days away, I can say that we made it.

One of the things I did was watch my food expenses very closely and use a few money saving techniques that I've learned. Out of curiosity, I looked up what the US government says an average family of five spends on food so I could compare it our totals. Here's the totals.

The monthly food expenses for a family of five on a...

liberal budget spends $1,272.10
moderate budget spends $1, 046.70
low cost budget spends $850.20
thrifty budget spends: $581.50

We spent $528!

My total includes all food, household products, diapers, wipes, dining out (3 meals), and taking a friend out for a birthday dessert so our actual food expenses would be a bit lower than that.

So, are you wondering if we ate Ramen every day? LOL Not at all.

For breakfast, we tend to eat cereal, breakfast burritos, eggs & pancakes, and other cook breakfasts. We even splurged on our BFG-inspired royal breakfast which included fried eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, toast and jam, and orange juice.

For lunch, we usually have a variety of sandwiches (turkey/cheese, ham/cheese, egg salad, tuna, pb&j, grilled cheese, and homemade subs), leftovers, or simple meals like angel hair alfredo.

For dinners, we had different kinds of burritos (the fillings change), Mexican platters, taco salad, chicken taco salad, chicken tortilla soup, southwest chicken and rice, burgers, bbq ribs, shepard's pie, herbed pork roast, roasted chicken, breakfast, homemade pizza, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and I can't remember what else. Some of these, like the burritos, are family favorites so we have them more frequently.

For dessert, we had brownies, cake & ice cream, cookies, apple crisp, apple pie, and chocolate pie.
So, as you can see, we eat a fair variety of foods we enjoy.

So, my question is...are you interested in posts explaining how I save money? Or is there already plenty of that on the Internet? Do you want me to stick with just homeschool and family stuff? You're my readers. What would you like to see me write about more?

Tacoma Kids Weekly: Week of 27, 2008

Hi, everyone! I have a treat for those of you who aren't local. I began writing at eHow recently and have been centering a majority of my first few articles on how to find free and local events in your area. This will be a great resource because I can't research events in every city. Though I wish I could.

I think everyone should be able to have as much fun as we do on a tight budget. We've spent about $40 on entertainment this month and we've enjoyed a wood-working clinic with the kids, a play, a trip to the zoo, and a day at the park. There were other free and very low cost things we could have done but we chose to stay home. We spent another $70 eating out three times. That's pretty good when you consider we were feeding five people. We used to spent almost that much on a single dinner out.

So, keep on eye on my eHow articles. I'm hoping to add new ones every day. An easy way to find my list of articles is to click that eHow button over on the right sidebar.

Now for the local list....

Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Henry Art Gallery is free today. Visit their website for directions and hours.

Friday, October 31, 2008
It's Halloween. You know what you do every year so go have fun. If you are looking for ideas, you can go trick or treating, visit a local church that's hosting a harvest party (there are many), hit the Tacoma Mall or South Hill Mall, or stay home.

Saturday, November 1, 2008
Home Depot is hosting their monthly kids clinic today. Stop by any Home Depot store between 9am and noon and help your kids make their very own leaf press. This clinic is free. All supplies, tools, and a Home Depot apron are included.

Visit Michaels between 10am and noon and let the kids complete a craft. This week's craft title is "Winter Wonderland". You can see it at their website. Sessions start every half hour and cost $5 per child (supplies included).

Try your hand at calligraphy at the Seattle Asian Art Museum from 11am to 2pm. Admission is free the first Saturday of the month for families with children under 12.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Learn about El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Day) at the Tacoma Art Museum. Today's free event includes traditional dance, food and music, a procession, and sugar skull decoration. The event takes place from 12pm to 6pm.

Bloggy Giveaways - Fall 2008

It is time for the Bloggy Giveaways. Over a thousand bloggers will be offering giveaways this week. Each blogger will be offerring something different. The prizes include gift cards, homemade items, books, and more. Be sure to stop by Bloggy Giveaways for a list of the other bloggers offering prizes this week. Stop by as many as you wish, leave them a comment, and cross your fingers and hope you win. Have fun.

My Giveaway

Four Episodes of Hunters in the Sky

Are you studying World War II? Do you know a World War II enthusiast? Does a family member enjoy learning about historical airplanes and their pilots? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you'll like this giveaway.

This giveaway is for the first four volumes of Hunters in the Sky presented by Bob Dole. Each VHS tape is new, in its original plastic packaging, and suitable for giving as a gift. Below are the episode descriptions from the back of the boxes:

Volume 1: What Separated the Hunters from the Hunted

Knights in the Sky

Defending the Realm

The Battle of Britain

Volume 1 details the flory of Ameria's pilot heroes as well as the terifying antics of Luftwaffe, Red army, Royal Air Force and Japanese aeronautical legends. You'll get a bird's eye view of the fighter pilot's personality, as survivors from all sides tell their stores of troubles, tactics, and triumphs. See the famous Battle of Britain, military history's most significant air conflict, in this thrilling video anthology which shows exactly why he who rules the sky will dominate the battlefield.

Volume 2: Waging War in the Heart of the Reich

Big Friends, Little Friends

Struggle for Supremacy

Volume 2 spotlights the struggle for supremacy in the war-torn skies over Europe as, from the first to the last, nations frantically seek to give their fighter pilots the winning edge in planes, engines, guns, and tactics in ferocious aerial combat by day and night. Now equipped with long-range fighters, American aces escort heavy bombers to distand targets in the ehart of the Reich, and the Germans shock the Allies by winning the race to commit jet and rocket fighters to the battle--a race won too late. Herman Goring sees P-51s over Europe and admits that, for the Third Reich, at least, the war is lost.

Volume 3: Who Will Prevail?

Hell in the Pacific

Assault on the Fortress Europe

Volume 3 lives through the United States' stunning triumph at Midway--as Japan lost 4 carriers, 300 planes and over 3,500 mean. See why the introduction of the outstanding F4U Corsair and the Lockheed P38 Lighting blazed the trail toward VJ DAy and forever changed the course of aeronautical history! Watch as the Allies take the offensive as the tide turns against the Axis in the Mediterranea and Europe. The fury of the war in the air takes a heavy toll on attacker and defender alike but the undermanned and outgunned Luftwaffe is definat in the face of certain defeat.

Volume 4: Flying in the Pacific

Closing the Ring

Victory in the Pacific

Volume 4 shows how the Marine valor paved the way for the aerial assualt on Japan. During the relentless march westward, the rivalry heats up between top aces Dick Bong and Toy McGuire, and Admiral Yamamoto is the victim of aerial assessination. After the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, Japenese air power declines as American fighter pilots in the Pacific reac the zenith of their deadly profession.

There is one more volume in this series but I don't have it to give you. If you wish to complete the series on your own, you can find it here at Amazon.com. It is only a few dollars plus shipping.

Please Read the Fine Print

One comment per person please. Please be sure to leave your email address or have it easily accessible via your profile so that I can contact you if you win. Entries without contact information will be ineligible. The comments will close at midnight Pacific time on Friday October 31, 2008. Winner will be selected randomly and I will notify the winner by email on Saturday. Winners have 3 days after I notify them to reply with their shipping address. If I do not receive your shipping address within three days, the prize will be given to the next randomly drawn name. This contest is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike. This contest is open to those with domestic and international addresses. Shipping will be via the least expensive method so be patient with shipping times.

Saving Money on Entertainment Is Easy

Sometimes I wonder if you all think we have a lot of money. I mean, we are always going somewhere, right? It's expensive to go to all these places... children's museums, art museums, history museums, living history musuems, fairs and festivals, live theater, concerts, and everywhere else we go come with steep admission rates. Not if you know how to find the free days, special discounted events, and coupons. I've written a basic article about How to Save Money on Entertainment Without Staying Home on ehow.

I'll be adding more articles in that series that discuss each suggestion in more detail. I'll update you here as I post new articles. You can also check this post listing all of my published articles; it will be updated after each new article is published. Another way to stay up on what I'm writing is to click on the eHow button on the right side bar. It will take you to my profile at eHow.

Making Literature Fun for Kids

If you've read my blog for long, you may have noticed that I like to add fun activities to our studies. We don't just read the textbook or novel, we live it. It is the addition of these kid friendly activities that makes history, science, and classic literature enjoyable.

When it comes to reading and studying literature, there are many ways to add to the enjoyment of the novel. Strategies as simple as being comfortable and reading every day at a consistent time are easy to implement. Other strategies such as reading aloud using voices, acting out a scene or character, and discussing the book using well-chosen questions may take you out of your comfort zone. Enriching your experience by watching the film or live theater adaptations or going on related field trips take research and preplanning. Regardless of what strategies you use to make reading classic children's literature to your children more enjoyable, it is worth the extra effort.

To read more details about these strategies, read my eHow article How to Make Literature Fun for Your Homeschool Child.

Bears Still Don't Hibernate

I recently blogged about how we were learning about bears. One of the things I was shocked to learn was that bears don't hibernate. According to our text, and a few Internet websites, they go into a state of dormancy rather than hibernation. Well, folks, I'm here to tell you that I recently learned that bears neither hibernate nor go into dormancy. It's true!

The kids and I went to Woodland Park Zoo on Monday for their homeschool day. One of the programs that they offered were docent led tours of specific areas of the park. Since we had yet to visit the "Northern Trail" area of the zoo, I chose that tour.

Well, that tour included the grizzly exhibit. Thinking I was oh-so-smart, I raised my hand to ask if the zoo's bears go into dormancy each winter. Notice I didn't ask if they hibernated. The docent was quick to correct me. "Bears don't go into dormancy," he said. "Bears don't hibernate either," he said. "Bears go into a state called torpor," he said.

Torpor? Huh?

Torpor.

My understand, which is actually a complete lack of understanding, is that all three states (hibernation, dormancy, and torpor) are similar and vary slightly in definition. Regardless, bears are still not true hibernators.

Regardless of what bears actually do, don't mess with a sleeping bear. According to our guide, a bear can wake up and be fully back to a normal, alert state in 4 seconds. Not much time to run away now, is it?

Recent Tidbits

Sometimes you have funny things that happen that don't make a whole post on their own....

Today I found and bought Josh a new shirt on clearance. It said, "This is my timeout shirt. I wear it all day long. It made me laugh out loud when I saw it. Mika and I both thought it was perfect for Josh who keeps us all on our toes. Scott thinks I'm going to give him a complex with these kinds of shirts.

While a chicken leg at dinner tonight, Sammy piped up, "My favorite part of the drumstick is the meat!" We found it terribly funny.

At the end of dinner tonight, Mika laughed at something which made Sammy and I laugh too. Josh saw us all laughing and joined in laughing hard. He had no clue why he was laughing but he sure was having fun.

Wright Park on a Fall Day

Last Sunday, it was a perfect Fall day: sunny, not rainy, cool, but not too cold. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you know how rare those perfect Fall days are. So, we took an unplanned visit to the park. While we didn't have a lot of time to spend there, we had a nice visit.

Wright Park is a large park located near downtown Tacoma. It was designed over 100 years ago and is home to the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory which hosts live music the second Sunday of each month. We haven't been there in several years. We tended to avoid it, preferring parks in better areas with fewer riff-raff. It has undergone some renovations recently and we were presently surprised by what we found.

Here's a photo that I took from the play area looking down one of the trails. Isn't it beautiful? The Fall colors were in their full glory and squirrels were everywhere.

Mika and Sammy headed straight for the playground. Mika wanted to pose at the top.

Josh decided to act older than his age by trying to climb this semi-circle set of bars. Scott spotted him from the underside which was a good thing because he slipped once. On one of his attempts, he got pretty much to the very top before deciding he didn't want to go down the other side.

Sammy enjoyed spinning on this spinner-thing. Many of the local parks have been install similar spinners.

Then Mika took her turn. Can you tell she was having fun?

Then Mika spun some more.

Scott even tried it out. He was surprised by how much it pulls you even when you aren't going all that fast.

Before long, we left to walk around the pond. The pond underwent a major remodel. It's very nice now, featuring a small island with a statue of three children running along on it. One part of the pond is elevated higher than the other side. A small waterfall was created between the two halves under a bridge that goes across the pond.

The duck population is obviously used to people feeding them as they immediately headed our way when they saw us at the top of the bridge. Josh enjoyed pointing them all out.

On our way back to the car, we came to this large hill just begging to be rolled down so I suggested that the kids do just that. Mika said something about it being wet. Thinking it was just a little wet, I told her to do it anyway. She did. When she got to the bottom, she was soaked!

I think we'll have to head back to Wright Park. It was a beautiful park and the kids enjoyed the playground. Of course, the wonderful Fall weather helped with that a lot.

Tacoma Kids Weekly: Week of October 20, 2008

Halloween events are picking up this week. There are many to choose from; some are free, some low cost, and some are more than I care to spend. I've featured a few of the free or low cost ones here.

Various farms continue to offer fall festivals complete with corn mazes, pumpkin patches, and petting zoos. Plan ahead and choose which farms you visit carefully because you may find youself spending as much as $100 for your day at the pumpkin patch.

Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Puyallup City Library is having an event for toddlers, preschoolers, and their parents called Sing Into Reading at 10:30am. Learn about pre-reading skills in a special concert featuring Nancy Stewart. This event is free.

Friday, October 24, 2008
Fort Nisqually Living History Museum is holding an event called Bonfires, Beaver Pelts, and Bogeymen from 7pm to 9pm. Celebrate Halloween the old way with ghost stories around the bonfire. Nineteenth century music and storytellers will begin with gentler tales. After a break for cidar and cookies, the stories will get scarier. Dress for the weather. Tickets are $4 for adults and $2 for children. This event is more than just a fun time, it is educational too. Kids will experience 19th century music, dress, and culture as they listen to stories told long ago.

The Bellevue Arts Museum is having a BAM-o-Ween, featuring Halloween crafts and activities, cultural performances, and a haunted auditorium, from 3:30pm to 7:30pm. This event is free. Costumes are encouraged.

If you've ever wanted to check out the KidsQuest Children's Museum in Bellevue, Friday nights from 5pm to 8pm is the time to do it. It's free.

Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Knack, Michaels kid's program, offers kids ages 5-12 a chance to explore their creativity through crafting. Each Saturday morning from 10am to 12pm kids (sessions begin every half hour) can make their own craft for $5 per child. All supplies are included. This Saturday participants will be making a mini scrapbook.

Bonfires, Beaver Pelts, and Bogeymen takes place again tonight. See Friday for details.

The University Place Fire Department is having a Fall Fun Day from 10am to 2pm. This free event includes free pumpkins to the first 300 children, pony rides, a petting farm, Halloween safety bracelets and bags, and more. Donations of nonperishable foods will be collected to help area families. Wear a costume (hopefully one that won't scare the kids) and enjoy the day.

If you missed the salmon run at Cedar River, you'll get another chance today. Volunteers will be available to answer questions at four different locations along the river.

Learn Who Goes Bump in the Night with the Tacoma Nature Center. Experience a guided night hike and visit with nocturnal creatures from the Pt. Definance Zoo. Tickets are $2. Please register for this event.

Blissfully Domestic

I received a nice surprise in my inbox recently...

Blissfully Domestic, an online magazine for women, asked me to be a contributor for their homeschool channel. It's pretty exciting! I never really expected my blogging to amount to anything but me journaling our activities for myself and a few readers. And here I am now with a nice base of subscribers, more hits than I imagined, and an invite to write for an online publication. You all make my day! Thanks for reading and commenting.

So, what should you do now? Well, you should check out this great e-zine! There are "channels" to interest anyone...food, family, home, health, photo, and of course, homeschool, to name a few. Who knows, maybe you'll find an answer you've been looking for or new inspiration for a project you've been wanting to take on. So... Go. Read. And come back here and tell me what you think.

Alltop Finds the Top Stories

Have you seen or heard of Alltop yet? It's this cool website that finds all of the top stories in a topic and posts them all in one page as a series of links for you to peruse. It looks like a great resource.

The homeschool page at Alltop has a ton of great blogs and websites listed. There's many links that I have yet to discover. I'll be spending some time there, looking around and finding some new reading. You should check it out. Maybe you'll find something interesting, exciting, useful, and those other great adjectives.

Eleven Things to Do with Toddlers

Someone on a message board that I am involved with just asked the question, "What kind of schooling should I be doing with a toddler who is one and a half years old?" I'm jumped in because I immediately knew the answer having been through teaching two toddlers already.

The funny thing about this is that I'm been struggling with this same question myself. My youngest is driving my batty with his constant go, go, go and climb, climb, climb. What do I do with this kid? I would think. How do I keep him occupied? What can I "teach" him while the bigger ones are doing school? Duh! I knew the answer; I guess I just needed someone else to ask the question to trigger my memory of what I did with Mika. (I left most of Sammy's preschool to his public school teacher which I regret now.) So, what do you teach a toddler? It's simple really....

1. Read picture books. Usually, reading at that age is just pointing to pictures and naming them. If the child knows some of the names for pictures on the page, ask them to find them. Any book with good pictures will work. I like ABC books because you usually get a lot of good pictures and can point out the letters, too. In a People House is another good book with lots of pictures.
2. Teach him body parts by pointing to his and your parts and naming them. It's as simple as, "Where's your nose? Where's Mommy's ear?" My 19 month old can now name eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, ears, head, hair, fingers, hand, feet, toes, belly, arm, leg, and elbow because we've been playing this game for a while.
3. Teach colors by pointing to things and naming their colors. This can be done by pointing to pictures in books or things in the house, store, etc. I also like to draw colored circles while we are coloring together and name the colors together.
4. Teach counting by counting everything. My daughter could count to ten when she was two simply because we counted literally everything...fingers, toes, flowers, buttons, anything. In picture books, I look for pictures that have more than one things on the page. If the picture has four birds we count the birds. Five flowers means we count the flowers. I have a Little People lift the flap book; it also has animals, colors, and shapes.
5. Teach letters by pointing to them in ABC books or drawing them. I like to use a Magna Doodle for numbers and letters. We have a travel size one and my toddler likes me to write letters on it for him to erase. He knows a few of them. My daughter learned basic sight words this same way. I like taking it on long car drives when I'm not the driver and pass it back and forth with my child. I also used the magna doodle for counting by drawing different numbers of shapes and counting them together.
6. Teach basic feelings by drawing (on paper/magna doodle) faces that are happy, sad, angry, surprised. Model the look on your own face too.
7. You can start learning spatial concepts by pointing, drawing, and reading books like Go Dog Go. We start with up and down, over and under, left and right. Go Dog Go is a good book for this, colors, and counting.
8. Work on tactile stimulation and motor control by playing with play dough, clay, paint, coloring, rice, water play, beans, pasta, etc. Use non-toxic paint or pudding for painting. You can also use a paint brush dipped in water on construction paper for mess-free painting. Rice is great to scoop and pour into bowls, muffin tins, measuring cups, and spoons. I sweep my kitchen floor well before setting out the rice. When he's done, I sweep up the rice to use for another day. When it gets too dirty, it's inexpensive to replace. Watch your child carefully when playing with choking hazards like dry beans, pasta, and small blocks (mine likes linking cubes).
9. Have him "help" you with things. A toddler can carry in groceries. He can carry a single, lightweight item into the house. He can help put laundry in the washer/dryer, dry plastic dishes, help make the bed, pick up toys, throw away trash (ours throws away most of his own diapers), and clean with water and a towel.
10. Involve him with the big kids' learning. When my older two build pyramids out of sugar cubes, I helped my toddler make a mini pyramid of his own. When we do our nightly read alouds, he is right there with us. He'll get the pillows he and I sit on (the older two lay in their beds) and hand me the book. He'll look through a picture book, wander around the room playing with toys he finds, or fall asleep but he's still getting the exposure. He's listened in on Where the Red Fern Grows, The BFG, and now Danny The Champion of the World.
11. Take him places not normally considered a toddler friendly place. I have successfully taken all of my kids to museums, science centers, concerts, live theater, children's events, and specialty stores from the time they were infants. With more rambunctious toddlers, like Josh, it may take some preplanned and cheating. I take along a stroller to carry our things and to serve as a bed for when he gets tired. Often, it has no child in it though. If we are going some place in the evening requiring kids to be quieter, I'll limit his nap so he's tired and more likely to fall asleep. I also bring a drink and non-messy snacks. If the venue is one that requires attendees to be very quiet (ie. symphony), I've given him chamomile in his drink to help calm him. Sit on the end of the aisle if you can and be ready to leave with your child if he gets squirmy or loud. He'll get the exposure and gain the ability to sit longer with time.

Talking, interacting, and showing a toddler these things will go a long way towards giving him a head start for school. In fact, there's a good chance he'll be ahead come time for kindergarten.

And have fun!

Whoo Hoo, I Saved $75

More than a year ago, Sammy decided that he wanted his head shaved. I used hubby's beard trimmer to do it. It took a couple of hours to finish the job because I could only do a little bit of the job before the clippers had to be recharged. They obviously weren't intended to cut a full head of hair.

At the time, I thought he would tire of the cut quickly. He didn't. He's still sporting the same 1/8th inch long hair. I've gotten busier with Josh ransacking the house behind me and it has been hard to keep up with Sammy's hair cuts. So, I took him to the local children's hair place that my kids love so much. Five minutes later, I was $25 poorer. Actually, $50 poorer because I also let Mika get her hair cut. Ouch!

So, I went out and bought myself a pair of hair clippers. I made my money back the same day by cutting Sammy's hair, Josh's hair (his first hair cut), and Scott's hair. Any other hair cuts done with the clippers would be money saved.

Monday, I saved my family $75. I shaved Sammy's hair with the 1/8th inch attachment. Then I moved on to Josh and cut his hair down to 1/2 inch. He sat nicely for it, too, unlike the first time. Then I took a gamble and cut Mika's hair. She wanted it shoulder-length.

Here's Mika sporting her new haircut. Looks like I've finally figured out how to cut hair well. I'm glad because those awful uneven cuts I was giving previous were pretty sad.

Something Silly

I did something rather silly today and the kids loved it.

We had just finished reading our chapter in Apologia's Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 about bears, otters, skunks, and raccoons. At the end of each chapter there is a" What Do You Remember" section. I had the kids stand in the middle of the room. There instructions were to start jumping up and down if they knew the answer. Then I'd call on one of them to answer the question. If they were wrong, I made a wrong answer kind of noise and asked the other one. They were having so much fun they didn't want to stop and made me find more questions to ask. We ended up having a nice little review of the chapter.

Don't be afraid to try out some silly things!

A Royal Breakfast

Saturday night we were reading The BFG for our usual bedtime read aloud when we came to a chapter called "The Royal Breakfast". The kids didn't want to stop reading but it was 10pm and I had already been reading for an hour. So, I made this deal with the kids:

I would make a royal breakfast of our own the next morning, serving the same foods that the BFG and Sophie would be eating with the Queen of England, and read the chapter while we ate.

They agreed. The next morning we enjoyed fried eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, and toast with jam. I substituted orange juice for the coffee. In between bites, I read the chapter, which we enjoyed immensely.


Here we are enjoying our royal breakfast. Hubby joined us. BTW, he was sticking his tongue out until he realized I'd probably post the photo anyway, so he thought better of it.

We've now finished the book. We enjoyed it very much. We're reading Danny The Champion of the World by the same author next because it has a whole chapter with the BFG in it. Sounded like fun.

Appropriate is Not How I'd Describe It

A group of California public school first graders were taken on an extra special field trip this past Friday. If you've looked around my blog any, you'll know that I'm all for field trips. I think they are a great way to excite children about learning and that the learning they do during the field trip will be more cemented into their memory that plain textbook reading.

But how would you feel, if you knew that your tax dollars were spent taking those children to their teacher's wedding? This I cannot support. There is nothing educational about a wedding. It isn't tied to their learning plans; it isn't going to help them read better or compute addition better. If the parents just love their child's teacher, let them take their kids to the wedding themselves.

Finally, what if the wedding was a same sex wedding and the kids (at least some of them) were wearing political buttons advertising that people should vote "No" on an upcoming proposition which will eliminate same sex marriages if it passes? Additionally, the couple completed their wedding day by touring the city in a trolley with banners proclaiming "Just Married" and "Vote No on Prop. 8" on its sides. Isn't this both a political maneuver and an attempt to indoctrinate the kids with the idea that all sexual partnering is acceptable and good...when it isn't?

Of course, parents were notified of the field trip and could opt their children out. Even with the opt-out, I'd be furious.

Tacoma Kids Weekly: Week of October 13, 2008

Recommended activity: It's salmon spawning time! Head out to the Cedar River this weekend to see them heading up river and learn more about their life cycle from volunteers on site to answer questions. See Saturday for more information.

Thursday, October 16, 2008
Head down south to the Olympia Family Theater for the Thrifty Thursday showing of The BFG. They did such a great job last year on James and the Giant Peach that I can't wait to see how they are going to portray everything in the book. The show starts at 7pm. Tickets go on sale just after 6pm and are first come, first serve for $5 each.

It's time for the Third Thursday Artwalk in Tacoma. Quite a few galleries and museums will be open free tonight. Tacoma Art Museum is free all day. Washington State History Museum is free in the evening, as is the Museum of Glass. Check out the website for a list of participating venues.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Kidsquest Children's Museum is free tonight from 5pm and 8pm.

The Willard Geer Planetarium at the Bellevue Community College is offering a tour of the solar system tonight. Shows are for ages 6 and up and take place at 6pm, 7pm, and 8pm. Tickets are $3.25.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Lakewood Parks and Rec is having a trucks and tractor day at Ft. Steilacoom Park from 9am to 12pm. For $5, kids get to climb through the trucks and tractors, receive a hard hat, get a hay ride, and decorate a pumpkin.

Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle is free today. Their hours are 10am to 8pm.

See the salmon on their journey up the Cedar River in Renton. Volunteers will be available at four different sites to answer questions from 11am to 4pm. Follow the link for more information and directions to the sites. It is suggested that groups carpool due to limited parking.

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Volunteers will be available to answer questions as you view spawning salmon on the Cedar River. See Saturday for more details.

Another Trip to the Museum of Flight

Our first trip to the Museum of Flight was a hit so when I had the chance to take the kids back up there for free, I jumped at it. They were having an Educator Open House and they extended their invitation to home educators and their families. I'm grateful they included homeschoolers. We had a great time and I learned about some educational programs that I didn't know they had.

During our last trip, we focused on the space exhibits and great gallery. This time I tried to steer the kids towards the exhibits we missed last time and found that the museum has more than enough to do for two visits. Between the two trips, we spent 9-10 hours at the museum and I feel like we didn't spend the kind of time exploring each area like we could have. There are areas that I'd love to go back to without the kids so I can take the time to read all the explanatory signs.

The museum had special educational classrooms open, special seminars to attend, and various kid-friendly activities going on as part of the open house. We started out heading for a planetarium show; it was inside an inflatable planetarium. We never made it. Instead, we were distracted by a robotics activity for the kids. There were a variety of parts, motors, and controllers available. I know nothing about robotics so we needed help getting started but once we got started, the kids enjoyed the VERY simple robots we created.

Here are the kids playing with the sample that the volunteer used to show us how things worked.
Next we headed to the red barn which told the history of Boeing. This was probably the least interesting exhibit in the museum but it did have these cool wax (I think) men demonstrating old machinery. This one was working on an old wood lathe.

At this time, the museum has no facilities for those bringing their own lunch. Fortunately, it was a sunny day and not too cold so we were able to eat lunch outside without being uncomfortable. Notice Josh holding his lunch in both hands. He ate two bananas and a cookie but refused his sandwich, as usual.

Of course, we had to make a stop at Mika's favorite section of the museum...the air park. You can walk through an old Airforce One. Everything is protected by Plexiglas so you can't sit or touch, but it is still interesting to walk through. One interesting artifact is President Kennedy's pipe rack. Another interesting area is the now very antiquated "state of the art communication center".

They also have a concord you can walk through. The Plexiglas domes that protect the fine leather seats leave very little room to walk through. As we walked along the aisle, we found little snippets of information about the concord.

Finally, we visited the Wings of Courage exhibit. The first floor was all about World War II. For the WWII buff, there were probably a dozen different restored aircraft and other flight-related artifacts. There was also a section devoted to the women of WWII.

We found this scene of three soldiers playing cards and discussing war trophies. We like these kinds of scenes where you can be a fly on the wall in a moment of history. A nearby sign told how pilots liked to collect war trophies. The trophies also lent credibility to their conquests. After shooting down an enemy airplane, they would often land, borrow a vehicle, and rush to the crash site to collect trophies before others got to it first. (The Washington State History Museum has several of these types of scenes, only their people are three dimensional statues rather than the cardboard cutouts seen here. It's one of our favorite things about that museum.)

Another fun find in this section of the museum was a flight simulator. There were five or six choices of simulations. The one we chose was a landing simulation. After attempting to land the aircraft, we got to watch what our flight and landing looked like. Sammy's plane was made of rubber as it bounced multiple times before finally crashing. Mika successfully landed the plane but forgot to brake and ran into a tree. We had fun laughing at our flying abilities, or lack of, that is.

Upstairs we found the World War I exhibit. Again, this exhibit was focused on flight and how it affected the war. We found restored aircraft and other artifacts. In the middle of the room, we found a mock trench, complete with a plane crash. Here the kids are pretending that their hands are gas masks.

Each World War exhibit had a theater playing a three film loop. The first film for each war gave a fifteen minute overview of the war. The second film discussed the pilots of the war and the third discussed the aftermath of the wars.

We watched the overview films for each war. These films were both interesting and disappointing. The interesting part of the films were some of the statistics about some of the battles that I had not learned in school. It really gave me a sense of perspective about the wars. For example, the Battle of Verdun was ten months long, during which there were almost a million casualties (about half of those were fatalities) and neither side gained anything. Another statistic mentioned was the loss of 58,000 people in a single day of battle. I don't remember which war that was, though. Finally, the thought that roughly 72 million people died in World War II is staggering.

I was a bit surprised to find that the WWII overview barely mentioned the Holocaust and atomic bomb. It was mentioned that Hitler played the race card to unite the Germans under the idea that they were the superior race destined to rule the world. At the end of the film, it mentioned remembering the war so we don't repeat the Holocaust. But that was the extent of it; the word Jew wasn't used once and there wasn't a single photo or mention of the concentration camps. It did not tell the viewer about the 6.8 million Jews killed at all. The atomic bomb was mentioned as the "secret weapon" used reluctantly in an attempt to shorten the war and reduce casualties. There was footage of mushroom clouds but that is it. There were no photos or mention of the effects of the bomb upon the people on the ground when it hit and weeks later as radiation poisoning took affect. Someone viewing this film without prior knowledge would leave the film with no clue as to the horror of the Holocaust or the devastation of the atomic bomb. I think that the growing trend to ignore certain significant historical events when teaching history, including the Holocaust and the effects of the atomic bomb, is a dangerous one.

Our Possessed Microwave

Our microwave is about ten years old now and for most of that time, it's been possessed. (I'm using that term lightly as I don't really think it has a spirit inside it. LOL)

I'll never forget the day it first showed it's true colors. It was the middle of the night...somewhere in the vicinity of 2am...when my husband and I were shocked out of our slumber by a high-pitched persistent beeping. Upon inspection, we found our microwave going haywire. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...it just kept going at the same rate as if it were telling us it was done cooking something. Only it hadn't been cooking something and it didn't stop after a couple of beeps. Even stranger was the fact that with each beep, the display would flash some new set of odd characters and lines. It wouldn't stop so we unplugged it. It was F-R-E-A-K-Y!

We have since figured what causes our microwave to behave in such an odd way. When our house drops to 64 degrees or below, the microwave throws a fit. Since our house drops below 64 degrees nearly every night between October and March, we have to unplug it before we go to bed each night.

Getting it started again in the morning is another thing altogether. The house hasn't quite warmed all the way up yet, but over the magic number of 64 degrees, and the microwave somehow knows it was cold overnight even though it was unplugged. It immediately starts beeping as soon as it gets power. Because it is warmer than 64 degrees, we can get it to stop beeping by simply pushing a button. However, it takes a bit more finagling to get it to work properly. Usually, this takes pressing a few of the upper row of buttons until we can get it to read 3.50, which I think is one of the reheat settings.

This afternoon at lunchtime I had a harder time than usual getting the microwave to work. Josh was hungry, getting into everything, and crying/throwing a fit. I was desperately trying to get the microwave to work so I could reheat some leftovers for him to eat. That's when the microwave did this...

It was very strange. In fact, it was so strange I just had to take a photo of it and tell the story. I was also on the phone with my credit card company and had to tell her all about it too. She'll be looking for this post later because she wants to see the photo of it. Hi, nice credit card lady!

I was wondering whether the microwave was trying to tell me to stop messing with it and take care of my child or it was complaining about the noise my child was making.

Or, perhaps I accidentally activated the microwave's child lock that I didn't even know it had.