Monday, June 02, 2008

Photobucket Things that made this day great!


Josiah and Jamin both had the day off work! YES.

Stacia woke me up at 4:30 a.m. and so I had lots of quiet morning hours once I got her to sleep.

Mike passed another ACSC test. (I never remember what that means but it is a class he has to take as a Major. If you are lucky you get to go spend a year in AL and take it in residence. If not, you get to run a Protestant Program or deploy while you do it correspondence. ::snort::)

We are making real progress in school. I'll confess I fell asleep reading "Famous Men of Rome" to Arielle and Nolan - but Arielle kept on and they got it done. I am seriously thinking of letting Arielle go on on her own and Nolan and I dropping back to Lower Grammar books which look much more interesting on Rome than this Famous Man book. Nolan is in 3rd grade and we would have been doing Lower Grammar all along if he didn't have a sister a couple of years older.

Josiah drove Nolan, Zander, Stacia and I around town picking up supplies for our newest project...so photos below.

I received an email that my application as a homeschool teacher for the Teacher's Toolbox at Smilebox was accepted.....scan down to the first post with layouts and you'll find the link. I just put G Homeschool for name of school, my personal email, my address....anyway - they KNOW I homeschool and still let me have it. I'm glad that I don't have to make my decision between them or new software in the next two weeks now. LOL

We had dinner TOGETHER - grilled steak, salads, huge fruit selection, corn on the cob, tortiallas..... yum.

Jamin and Jared had an end of the year pool party at the ministry they volunteer for.

I finished 10 more scrapbook pages....making 52 since Friday. I don't think I'll get any more done tonight because I need to go to BED.

Funnies from the day:

*I ran into Albertsons as they had milk on sale. They also had peaches, cantaloupe and grapes on sale. I picked some up. I thought I'd help the checkers by doing the self check out......the machine squawked and insisted I get assistance after EACH of the 8 gal of milk.

*While out shopping a "man in a purple shirt" smiled and talked to Stacia. On the way to the parking lot she said, "That man in the purple shirt smiled to me."

"Yes, Stacia."

"Does that man LUF me?"

"No, Stacia, not every stranger that smiles at you loves you."

Projects of the Day:

Our United order is on. I've still not been able to go back and put my order in.....but I've been fielding questions.

THIS......I was going to wait until it was up and we had before and after shots...but this entry needs some photos.

Early this a.m. Jamin and Josiah took down the trampoline. I'm not sure why ZANDER is in the photo.
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Finally on the North side of town we found a store that wasn't sold out....
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Of THIS! It wasn't the size I wanted (it's bigger) but it was the only metal framed one we could find.
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Which led to THIS...
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and an AMAZING moment when I looked up and realized I have grown men for sons...and they were all pitching in for this big job.....leveling our sloping yard which is more unlevel than we thought. LOL
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THIS little boy wants desperately to help the other G boys.....he found a shovel left in the garage, which he doesn't seem too impressed with....but....
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he dug in!
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Tool time
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Zander waited ALL DAY for the pool....but we are still leveling....maybe tomorrow.
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I really felt bad that this project mushroomed into such a big one. I think, even Mike, was surprised that we had to do so much digging. Poor Mike came right home from work and worked until he broke for dinner and then worked until after 9 p.m. What a hero.

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Photobucket Giveaway Winner

We drew Jodi as the winner of last week's giveaway, Skid.

I'll try to get it in the mail tomorrow, Jodi.

I just realized I have no other books in the wings to review for Multnomah or Waterbrook. Oh my......It appears I may have to go buy some books from the authors I've been meeting and enjoying. ::snort::

Congrats to Jodi.

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Photobucket Simple Pages

My pages have been fussy. I wanted to be sure you know that Smilebox does allow you to do simple pages too. This "storybook" design template is simple and less fussy.....I wish it had more options to customize the layouts, BUT they are done. LOL I hear that smilebox is very open to suggestions....

Stacia woke up at 4 and needed ME and I can't go back to sleep....so I did 7 or 8 pages from Religious Education. These two I can share because they are either my children (or Debbie said I can show her family) or adults.

If I had a program I could manipulate Ivan there and the text box would be switched....

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AND I would add text or some title to the white space here....
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I also realized sometime in the night that I have MY writing ready to scan and send to Darcy to get my OWN writing in a font. With a program I THINK I could use my own writing for journaling and I would like that.

I signed up for a 2 week free trial at smilebox. The learning curve is about zero. I have made 49 pages in 3 days. I plan to keep making them, saving them, and searching for somewhere to print them. I am quickly noting that I like digital scrapbooking. I'm debating if simply doing these quickly with design templates saves me enough time that it is worth the lack of total choice....or since I enjoy this so much I would perfer to learn a program that allows me to do just what I see in my mind. LOL In other words I am trying to decide if I will want to learn the program softwares in the next year or if I'd be happy using templates for a year or so. LOL It is nice to have new design templates pop up every week or so.....

The great thing about smilebox is that if I see nothing in my mind - I can simply put a photo in THEIR vision and wala - it looks fussy and fancy. ::snort::

I hear stirring so I must head to the gym.

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Moms of Many Exercise Challenge Weekly Fitness Goals (click button for more info)



Weekly Goal - 300 Minutes (60 minutes most days)
Total Weekly Minutes - 125 minutes

Annual Goal - 11,700 minutes
Minutes to Date - 5,317 minutes

Hmmm....so much for giving it my all. I fell off the exercise wagon Wed - Fri. Mike and I did a powerwalk on Saturday but Sunday is hopeless.

Ah well - it's about LIFESTYLE change - not one week.

It is amazing to me how quickly it becomes routine NOT to work out. I thought I liked to work out but I haven enjoyed having that extra 90 minutes in my day......and that is not a good discovery. ::snort::

Update- I weighed at the gym today to be sure. I've lost 1 1/2 - 2 lbs this last week. BUT I WASN'T WORKING OUT - SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???? ::snort:: 2 more to go and I'll be back down to my post-thyroid-storm HIGH. Ah well.....it could be worse I could still be gaining 3 - 4 lbs a week. LOL

Monday - 55 Minutes (25 min ARC, 30 min weights)

Tuesday - 40 Minutes (20 ARC, 20 min bike)

Saturday - 30 minutes (Power-walk outside Mike)

To read accounts from more participants - click here. To join us, click the icon above.....

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