Saving My Way Out of Debt

Finally Home

2014-12-10T09:34:00.001-06:00

Elliott and I got home last Thursday, after staying over a week longer in Missouri than we had originally planned. Someone very important to me was in the hospital and ended up passing away. It was definitely not the best vacation extension. And it brought back a lot of memories of our unplanned trip last August/September when my dad was in the hospital and then died.

Since we've been home, it seems like we have been rushing from one thing to the next, without much time in between. I think that's pretty normal for December, though. Saturday one of Elliott's best friends had a birthday party 30 miles away. Sunday was church with a few extra things thrown in. Monday was the Christmas concert for Elliott's friends that are still at his old school, so we went to that. Yesterday afternoon we had meetings that I had to attend. In between those things, I've finally managed to get everything unpacked, although I do still have laundry left to do. Our car was really loaded down with stuff on the way back up, since we had all of our souvenirs, a bunch of Christmas presents from back home, plus the stuff that I bought on black Friday, along with all of our clothes and other items that we took down. My husband drove home the week before in his Dad's car that we are trying to sell, and had it pretty well loaded full, too. I guess that means I would have spent a small fortune in shipping other wise. :)

While we were on vacation we had a great time, though. We went to Lego Land, Sea World, and Walt Disney World. The weather was good almost every day. Rain only changed our plans one day. There were two days that were "cold" by Florida standards, but with a hoodie on, we were definitely warm enough. I'll try to post more about our vacation soon, including pictures. Right now we have to get back to school, though. We kept up on it somewhat while we were on vacation, but we definitely need to get adjusted back to a more structured day.

What a Month!

2014-10-28T13:50:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've posted on here. I had been doing so much better, too! :) But things have been incredibly hectic here. I've barely been home long enough to homeschool Elliott lately, so I haven't had time to do much else. In fact, I think today is only the second day in the last 4 weeks that we haven't spent the majority of the day away from home. And we leave for vacation tomorrow, so it will be a long while before we are home again!

Between my husband and I we have been to the doctor 7 times this month. We're both fine now, but it has included way too much time in waiting rooms. Elliott says the waiting rooms tire him out immediately. Haha. Carl has needed a driver for the majority of his appointments so Elliott and I had to go with him.

Somehow it slipped my mind until about 3 weeks ago that we were going to be gone the week of collection for the Operation Christmas Child boxes. My sister and I set a goal of doing at least 50 this year, so we have been really busy working on those, too. We had over half the stuff already, but still had to go buy quite a bit more stuff. Then we spent several hours sorting and organizing. I am happy to report that we got almost all of them done, so my sister just has to pick up puzzles for a few of them, and hard candy for all of them and they will be ready to go. :)

We've also been busy with all the regular things that homeschool families have to do. It's been unseasonably warm, too, so we've tried to take advantage of that and do more of our lessons outside. We don't normally have pretty autumns here, but this year it's beautiful. We've done a few fun fall projects with leaves and other things we've found in nature.

We leave for vacation tomorrow, too! So of course there are all the plans that go into that. I am definitely a planner, so I have spent an unreasonable amount of hours planning and budgeting, and replanning things on our vacation this month. Haha. It's paid off, though, I think.

I will try to update my blog at least once while I'm on vacation, but no guarantees. I haven't tried blogging on my new phone (which I also got this month!), so I'm not sure how that will work. I can use my tablet if I am somewhere with a decent wifi connection, though.

Typekids.com Review

2014-10-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago my family was given the opportunity to try typekids.com. We had been looking for a typing program for Elliott for a while, and had just decided to give up for now and wait until next year. Then I received notification about typekids.com. I decided to have Elliott try it out, and he LOVED it. He says it is the best typing program he's tried, and he tried several before this one. After I looked it over and watched Elliott do a lesson, I agreed with him. It was the best one we had tried.

One of the things that I like about it is the way it moves from lesson to lesson. He isn't done with the program yet, but so far he hasn't had much trouble learning the new stuff in each lesson. The lessons do get progressively harder, but they build well on stuff that has already been covered. It seems to be set up better than the last typing program we did in that aspect.

Another thing that I really like about it is that the graphics are appropriate for his current age and interests. It's pirate themed, but not too busy. We like the theme and feel like it really is age appropriate for the intended audience of 8-14 year olds. Elliott isn't especially into pirates, but still thought that everything looked cool.

One of Elliott's favorite things about the program is the games. There are cool little games that can be unlocked after he finishes the lessons. That is by far his favorite part. He really likes the shark attack game. He says he likes it because of all the action. He likes the other games, too, and is looking forward to unlocking them all!

We received this program free of charge in exchange for an honest review. The full price of the program is $89.95. The program consists of 30 lessons. Would we have paid $89.95 for this program? Quite possibly, since after trying the first free lessons Elliott couldn't wait to continue. After trying more lessons, we do really think it is worth the cost, too.

We will be doing another review in a few more months after Elliott has finished the program. We haven't moved as fast through it as I thought we would, because things have come up and we have been super busy lately. We haven't had time for much more than the basics lately and Elliott has been doing a lot of his school work in the car or while we are waiting for an appointment. Things have finally started calming down, though, so we are hoping to find time for it more regularly when we return from our vacation.

Wordless Wednesday: Minnie the Math Cat

2014-10-01T10:47:00.002-05:00

It was hard to get a good picture, but this is what happens anytime Minnie is around at math time. She just loves to be in his books, but especially his math book.

Wordless Wednesday, Snoopie

2014-09-24T00:27:00.000-05:00

To celebrate Snoopie's birthday (yes, we celebrate the animals' birthdays at our house), I thought I would share one of my favorite pictures of her. This one is about 2 years old, but it's one of my favorites that shows her face.

My sister had both of the dogs wearing these glasses this day. Snoopie didn't seem bothered at all.

Vacation Planning Fun

2014-09-23T12:32:00.001-05:00

We are getting really excited about our upcoming vacation now. We've made reservations for our hotel stays and we've made a few dining reservations. We've spent hours looking at Disney maps trying to decide how much time to spend in each park. We have made outlines and plans and budgets and revised them all several times. In some ways, I think planning may be the part that Elliott and I like the best. :)

The view from our hotel patio last time we were there. We'll be at the same hotel for a short time again this year.

Now that we are getting closer to the time we leave (just over a month until we leave for Missouri, and we'll be heading to Florida 10 days later), we are solidifying more of our plans and getting even more excited. We've started doing a few Disney themed things in school this week, too. Elliott has been doing Disney themed coloring sheets while I read aloud (I've discovered if Elliott is coloring he listens better if he doesn't have a book to follow along in), and I've made a few worksheets that are Disney themed, too. They have been a hit and have been the best part of the day according to Elliott both today and yesterday. He doesn't even seem to mind that he's doing more advanced work than he thinks he can do on his own. ;)

Elliott has been really excited about helping with the planning this year. He helped me decide on a rough schedule and helped make decisions about where we should eat and when. It actually means we are eating meals at odd times twice, but I actually agree with Elliott that it's worth it to eat at those times if it means we get to eat at the restaurants he chose. :) Last time we went to Disney World we only made dining reservations for a character breakfast, and chose counter service meals the rest of the time. This time we want to try a few different restaurants that we thought looked cool.

We had breakfast with Minnie and the gang last time, but are opting for Lilo and Stitch this year.

I think it's more fun doing the planning this year with Elliott being so excited about it as well. My husband is kind of a by the seat of his pants guy, so he just rolls his eyes when Elliott and I get excited about plans. Haha. He does admit that my planning does help us make sure everything gets done, though, and admits that things wouldn't go nearly as smoothly if he was in charge.

Scholastic Reading Club Sales

2014-09-18T14:12:00.000-05:00

Elliott has been saving his money carefully over the last few weeks. He had been saving most of his money for a 3DS, but when he saw all the Scholastic book sales this month and last month he decided to wait a while on the 3DS. He had a really long list of books that he wanted, so he saved every penny he could, and even did a few extra chores to make extra money.

Since we have a homeschool account (it's really easy to sign up for one if you are a homeschooler!), we get the same bonus points and teacher opportunities that any other teachers get. That means we get a lot of free books with our regular orders. The back to school sales have historically always been some of the best of the year, and this year is no different. The bonus points go really high if you end up with a fairly large order. Plus there are coupons for free books for the class, and a free 10 pack of books for the classroom library.

I told Elliott that he could use all the bonus points he earned on his own order on whatever books he wants, and I wouldn't give him a hard time, even if I think the books he picks out are overpriced. Haha. He was pretty excited about that, because apparently I tend to tell him he could use his money better elsewhere. ;)

If your kids go to public or private school and get Scholastic book orders right now is a fantastic time to order books. The teachers will get more bonus points than at any other time of year, and they can use them to build their classroom library or get other nice things for their classroom. Plus there are more $1 and $2 books in the back to school flyers, and more great deals on larger packs.

We just placed our first order of the school year (most of the stuff was Elliott's, but we actually did have a friend who ordered stuff for her kids this time, too, plus I ordered a few things for gifts and for the giveaway I hosted recently). We ended up spending about $2 on each book on average. We also ended up with a lot of great freebies, like free book coupons, posters and stickers, along with enough bonus points to get over $300 worth of books free on future orders!

We love Scholastic book orders because they have such a great variety of books, and most the time have reasonable prices. We literally have hundreds and hundreds of books that we have bought from Scholastic over the years, and many of them are among Elliott's favorites.

$60 Fila Shoes For Just $8

2014-09-16T10:19:00.000-05:00

Elliott needed new shoes again this weekend. Usually we try to buy them ahead of time, but this time he moved so quickly from one size to the other that I hadn't had any time to look for the next size up yet! Luckily, I received a $10 Kohls coupon in the mail last week, so that was our first stop in our quest to find shoes on Saturday.

We headed straight for the shoe department, and Elliott immediately found these shoes. As luck would have it, they were even in his size, and on clearance. They were $60 shoes, marked down to $23.99. Clearance shoes were an additional 25% off, making these $17.99. With my $10 coupon, I only ended up spending $8.53 with tax.

Elliott was definitely excited to find some shoes that he thought were cool, and I thought were super affordable. I had told him on the way in that if we spent very much money on shoes that would be directly coming out of our souvenir money for Disney World, since we are currently saving all our extra money for that. I was happy to find shoes, too. We showed up with him in snow boots because they were the only shoes he had that he said didn't pinch his toes.

Winner Announcement

2014-09-15T11:26:00.001-05:00

My first giveaway here ended last night. The two winners of the giveaway were Kristy of Hopeful Threads and Kim of Home Is Where the Heart Is Academy. I really hope both families enjoy their books as much as Elliott enjoyed offering them!

We're already coming up with ideas for our next giveaway! Thanks to everyone for entering and sharing about our giveaway.

Eating Dye Free

2014-09-14T20:33:00.002-05:00

We've been eating completely dye free since February 2014 now. When I say we, I guess I really mean just me, since my husband and son have both slipped up occasionally since then. When Elliott does, it's pretty obvious fairly quickly because it really changes his behavior, and definitely not in a good way. My husband doesn't notice much of a difference, but is pretty good about sticking with dye free, because he knows that dye is bad news, plus it causes a pretty uncomfortable reaction for me.

I started having bad headaches nearly every day in late January. Then by the end of the first week of February I was breaking out in hives on a fairly regular basis as well. After keeping close track of everything I was eating and drinking, we decided to try eliminating all artificial dyes that say color number __. The hives completely cleared up and I didn't have a headache for several days. Just to make sure that the dye really was the issue, I tried eating something with red number 40 again, and immediately had a terrible headache and hives all over. I haven't had red 40, blue 1, yellow 5 or yellow 6 since, except once in a cross contamination issue. So after that, we got rid of every single thing at our house that had any of those colors and haven't looked back since!

Within about a week of going dye free, Elliott's teacher asked him what had changed since he was being SOO good. Within 2 weeks, other teachers were even commenting! I think in the last 3 months of the school year, Elliott had 4 or 5 yellow days combined. While he was still eating dye, he would average 2 a week.

At first we had a little trouble eating dye free. As time has gone on, we've discovered that we don't really miss too many foods that have artificial dye after all, though. It just took us a while to check automatically for food dyes. We miss M&Ms, Mountain Dew, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and Doritos. Since those are all obviously junk food, it's better for us not to eat them anyway. Haha.

The removal of food dyes actually fairly closely coincided with our switch to more organic foods, too, though, so that made it easier to make the change. Organic food can't have artificial dyes anyway, so that made it easier. We knew we didn't have to switch away from anything organic, and were able to replace some of our old standbys with organic choices anyway. Like macaroni and cheese, we actually like Annie's better than Kraft now anyway! :)

Going dye free and eating healthier options has been so good for us in so many ways. I don't think we would go back now, even if I didn't have strong reactions. I only wish we would have tried it sooner!

Giveaway Reminder

2014-09-08T12:56:00.001-05:00

I just thought I would post a quick reminder that I have a giveaway ending next week here. There aren't many entries right now, and lots of different ways to get entries, so your chances of winning are high.

There are some great books you can choose from if you win the giveaway. We've read most of them, and really enjoyed them. If this giveaway goes well, we will be doing some more, so help me make this one successful! :)

Is a Sam's Club Membership Worth It?

2014-09-06T20:24:00.001-05:00

We don't have any warehouse stores in Minot. Sam's Club is the nearest one, and it's located in Bismarck. That's about 2.5 hours away, and a place we don't have reason to go very often. Recently there was a Groupon available, though, with a Sam's club membership, $20 gift card, and some coupons for free food. We actually did have a trip planned to Bismarck in the next 2 weeks anyway, because we had to have some title work done on one of our cars. So we decided to go ahead and try Sam's Club.

We spent about 2 hours looking around at Sam's Club. We found some great deals, some okay deals, and many things that we could get cheaper elsewhere. One of Elliott's favorite finds was a 6 lb bag of gummy bears that were dye free. I have a feeling we won't make it through the whole bag of them, but they were cheap enough that it won't be a big deal. Dye free gummy bears are usually really expensive. He was also excited to get a box of individual bags of Funyuns. We don't eat a lot of chips at our house, so that added to the excitement.

We found a good deal on Schick razors for women. Elliott found some good prices on books. And we got a good deal on a few supplements that we take. Several of the supplements weren't a good price, but a few were. We also bought a few giftcards that were discounted, so they were obviously a good deal.

The best deals were in the baking and fresh produce departments, though. Because we weren't going straight home, we couldn't buy as many fresh things as we would have liked, though. We had soccer that evening and we knew we wouldn't make it home in time to drop everything off and still make it back to base on time, so we had to stick with what would fit in our cooler.

We still ended up buying mushrooms ( a family favorite at our house, we consume pounds of mushrooms every week here), a veggie tray, and a few fruits.

In the baking department, we bought yeast, vanilla extract, and lemon extract, all significantly cheaper than what I've found elsewhere. When it's not too hot outside, I do almost all of my baking from scratch, including breads, buns, muffins, cookies, etc. So I use a lot of yeast and vanilla extract.

Over all, for our family, I would say our membership was worth it, just for the savings on the baking stuff. I'm not positive we will renew right away when our membership expires, though, just because of the drive time. We usually only go to Bismark 2-3 times a year, but will probably make it a point to go at least a little more often while we have the membership, especially if there is anything else we want to do in the area.

Weekend Plans

2014-08-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

My husband has a four day weekend this weekend, so we decided Elliott should, too. :) Today is actually my birthday as well, and last year my dad passed away on my birthday. We're trying to keep the day happy and upbeat, but we will see how well that works. So far it's going okay.

Elliott gave me the birthday presents he's been hiding from me first thing this morning. I already knew what they were, since I was with them when they bought one of them, I was actually the one to order another, and the third one I specifically asked for and showed everyone the picture. Haha. I guess Elliott was afraid I would read the book early if I knew where it was, though. ;)

My husband is cooking breakfast right now. He's making pancakes from scratch, which is a new experience for him. I almost always make them from scratch, though, so I had a couple recipes for him to look at. Elliott's still unsure how that will work out.

My sister should be here soon, too. We're going to all go out for lunch together, and maybe do a small amount of shopping this afternoon as well. We're trying to do something to keep us from sitting at home all day, so the day will be easier.

Then the rest of the weekend will include farmers markets in the morning, followed by other grocery shopping, church on Sunday, and a sleepover on Sunday night. We should also be moving our bedroom furniture back into our bedroom at some point this weekend! Carl finished the floor in there last night, and now just has to attach the trim and we will be good to go. That is so exciting for me! That's another step closer to having a classroom finished, and having all the extra stuff out of my living room so I can attempt to keep it clean again. ;)

Farmers Markets

2014-08-25T17:01:00.001-05:00

My family loves going to the Farmers Markets. We have two here, and neither are huge, but they both attract a fair amount of people. The season is fairly short here, but we try to go every Saturday when they are going on. Sometimes Elliott and I go back on Tuesday or Thursday if we didn't buy enough the Saturday before, but usually we are able to plan appropriately. If we miss it on Saturday, it somehow messes up our entire week.

This weekend we went to both of them. We mainly went for zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, and snap peas. We ended up getting all those things, plus tomatoes, okra, carrots, yellow squash, hot sauce, and homemade pie. When we find that many veggies we want at the farmers market I consider it a great day. It makes shopping for veggies for the rest of the week easier, and Elliott is much more likely to eat the veggies from the farmers market without a fuss. We buy mostly organic when it's available here, and since most of the farmers at the market farm organically, it's great for our family. Plus the prices are typically pretty close to the same as what is available at the grocery store, only at the grocery store the stuff isn't organic!

We had a potluck at church yesterday and I made a veggie tray, and zucchini muffins to take. Since my son and I are both on a pretty restrictive diet, I always try to take healthy choices that we can actually eat. :) That's easier to do during summer when fresh veggies are plentiful.

That picture is just part of what we ended up buying. We bought a couple of large zucchini that aren't in the picture and another bag of ones that are about the size of the ones in the picture. We eat a lot of zucchini at our house when it's in season. This is the only time of year that I have no trouble getting at least six or seven servings of veggies into everyone in my family without any complaints, so I take advantage of it. :)

Do you go to farmers markets? What are your favorite choices?

Third Grade Read Aloud List

2014-08-21T16:06:00.000-05:00

On the giveaway that I posted this week, I mentioned that Elliott and I have finalized a list of 20 books that we plan on reading this year as part of our school day. This will definitely not be the only 20 books that we read throughout the school year, but I thought 20 would be a good starting point. :) They are all chapter books, although we plan on using some picture books this year, too. We do use Reading Street for language arts as well, and that has a picture book each week that we read together and do worksheets about.

When we were picking books out, we kind of went all over the place. We picked some classic books, and some new books, and some in between. We chose books that appeal to 2nd graders, and books that appeal to junior high kids. We chose books that will take us about a week to read, and books that will take closer to a month. We didn't really have any set parameters, because this reading is for fun, and I wanted to make sure that it was all stuff Elliott would enjoy. He purposely picked several that have film adaptations so that we can watch the film and compare and contrast as well.

We already had most of the books in our shelves, but will be ordering a few as well. I like to have a copy of the ones that we read together, so we can check another copy out at the library and each hold our own copies while we read together. In fact, there are 2 or 3 books that we actually own a second copy of because we got the second in a bigger pack from scholastic. Even though I pulled these from our own shelves, most were books we hadn't read yet. We have always had the problem of buying more books than we have time to read in the past, but I'm hoping that phase is over now that we have so much more dedicated time to reading together!

This is the stack of books that we want to read together, or I plan on reading out loud to him. We also have the Chronicles of Narnia set, and the Harry Potter books that we will try to read if we get a chance, but we might wait until next year on those. Others that we don't have yet, but plan on reading as well include the Sarah, Plain and Tall books (I believe there are three?) by Patricia MacLachlan and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

There are also a number of books that Elliott has already read that he wants to read again, like the Runaway Ralph series, and the Fudge books. So, in other words, we have a lot of reading planned. :)

We are almost finished reading Charlotte's Web right now. I think the next book we start will be Hotel For Dogs. When Elliott was younger, the movie was his very favorite. I think he was probably about 3 or maybe 4. I'm not sure exactly how old he was, but he was little enough that he called it "Hofer Tail Dogs" instead of saying it the right way. We are pretty excited to read the book now!

Homeschooling Full Time

2014-08-19T06:28:00.000-05:00

We started homeschooling this summer, but only a few days a week. I wanted to ease into it, both for my sake, and my son's. I wanted him to still have plenty of time to play with his friends over the summer as well. He's pretty lucky that most of his best friends live close enough that they can ride bikes to each other's houses. The one that does live in the next town over has a pretty cool mom, who is willing to bring him over here, or pick him up from here, or even both if she needs to. So he really got to see all of his closest friends quite a bit over the summer. I'm really hoping that continues, even with them starting school this week. I think since we are going to be making the effort, it shouldn't be a problem. The parents are all on board with planning play times and sleep overs through out the school year, so Elliott is pretty excited about that.

This week Elliott's friends go back to school, so we start going full time, too. We plan on following the school calendar pretty closely, other than while we are on vacation in November. He also gets a 4 day weekend for Labor Day instead of just the 3 day weekend his friends get. That Friday is my birthday, though, and also the one year anniversary of the day my Dad died, so I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to teach very well that day anyway.

We are both pretty excited about homeschooling. Elliott has learned a lot of stuff, and really enjoys most things we do each day. To me, the biggest issue is getting everything out and putting it all away again. We don't have a designated spot to work on it right now, because my husband is working on the flooring in our bedroom. That means we are sleeping in what was supposed to be the classroom since we can't have any furniture in our bedroom. After our bedroom is finished, we are going to move Elliott into the old classroom and work on the flooring in his room. We might just leave him in the old classroom, though, and turn his current bedroom into the classroom. We haven't decided for sure yet. Either way, I'm hoping that at some point in September I have a better place to work. :) Right now, my living room couch looks something like this during the school day.

We start out with his books in a neat stack. As the day goes on, Elliott certainly doesn't keep everything nice and neat. He digs through the pile to find the next subject, and things become a mess. It doesn't matter what order I put his things in, we will end up doing them in a different order that day anyway. Haha. This pile doesn't include everything he does. He also has Bible, Spanish, handwriting, and social studies, that just didn't make it into the picture for some reason.

Even though we have a chaotic mess in our living room every day, and some days it drives me crazy, we are really happy with our homeschooling adventure so far! I feel more at peace with this decision than I ever did about him being in public school. And it's just amazing to me when he learns something new that is supposed to be well beyond his years. Don't get me wrong, we have our moments (and sometimes entire days!) when one of us is unhappy with homeschooling. We've had tears, frustrations, and over all bad attitudes more than I care to admit. But more often than not, at the end of the day, we can both say we learned something, and homeschool is the right choice for us.

Back to School Giveaway

2014-08-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

Elliott and I have spent the last 2 or 3 weeks finalizing our list of must reads for school this year. We ended up coming up with 20 books that we will read for sure this year. We read together for about 30-45 minutes every day, and I read to him for another 15-20 minutes during snack time. He also reads to me most days of the week. So 20 will almost certainly not be enough books to last all school year, but I think it's a good start. Plus it gives us the opportunity to watch for more must reads as we learn about different things.

In honor of school starting, and preparing our own book lists, Elliott and I decided to do a book giveaway of our own! All the books will be brand new scholastic books. There will be two random winners, and each winner will get to pick the prize pack of their choice.

Prize pack 1: Early Chapter Books

Horrible Harry in Room 2B by Suzy Kline
A Jigsaw Jones Mystery: The Case of the Stinky Science Project by James Preller
Ready, Freddy! The King of Show-And-Tell by Abby Klein
Cam Jansen and the School Play Mystery by David A. Adler
Junie B., First Grader: One-Man Band by Barbara Park

Prize Pack 2: Early Chapter Books

Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park
Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid by Megan McDonald
The Bailey School Kids Jr Chapter Books #5: Dragons Do Eat Homework By Debbie Dadey
The Kids of the Polk Street School: The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room by Patricia Reilly Giff
Herbie Jones and the Second Grade Slippers by Sami Sweeten

Prize Pack 3: Chapter Books

Third-Grade Detectives #1: The Clue of the Left-Handed Envelope by George E. Stanley
Judy Moody by Megan McDonald
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
Third Grade Angels by Jerry Spinelli
Stuart Goes to School by Sara Pennypacker

Prize Pack 4: I Can Read! Picture books

Little Critter: To the Rescue! by Mercer Mayer
What's That, Mittens? by Lola M. Schaefer
Mittens at School by Lola M. Schaefer
Little Critter: This is My Town by Mercer Mayer
Dixie and the Class Treat by Grace Gilman
Dixie by Grace Gilman

This giveaway isn't sponsored by Scholastic. We just chose Scholastic books because we love them so much and want to share them with others! We've read more than a dozen of the ones that are offered as prizes and liked them all.

Entry -Form

Summer Is Almost Over

2014-08-11T12:10:00.000-05:00

Since we are homeschooling now, we didn't take a traditional summer vacation. We are taking an extended vacation in November, so we did enough schooling over the summer to be able to take as much time off as we want in November without running behind. We do still plan on doing some school work, but only a day or two a week while we are on vacation.

We took it pretty easy this summer with school work, though. We did full days, but typically only 2 or 3 each week. There were 2 or 3 weeks where we did 4 days. We just did whatever we had time for, while still giving Elliott ample opportunity to spend time with his friends. It worked out well for us, too. We ended up with at least 20 sleep overs at our house, and half a dozen at his friends' houses. He also got to go camping with his friend's family. In addition to all the sleepovers, there were countless hours spent playing with friends at home, at our new land (referred to as the big lawn by Elliott and all his friends for some reason), at the park, or at friends' houses.

His friends go back to school next week, though. Elliott is sad, but excited at the same time. Soccer season just started and two of his besties are playing on his team, so he will still see them at least twice a week. He's also already made arrangements for a sleepover next weekend. This weekend one of his friends is having a sleepover in a tent in his backyard and inviting Elliott and 2 or 3 other boys. They are all looking forward to it as their last big sleepover of the summer.

Talking to his friends, most of them are kind of excited about going back to school, but also sad. Two of them have repeatedly said they want Elliott to go back to public school because they don't know what they will do without him. Haha. Elliott keeps saying he will miss his friends, too, but he is loving homeschool. Even on days that we struggle with a part of homeschool, we are both still happy with the choice overall. Even though we have only done homeschool 20 something days, he's already learned an incredible amount of stuff!

Soccer Season

2014-08-08T12:17:00.000-05:00

Outdoor soccer season officially started last night with the skills assessment and team picking. Elliott is playing on base this year, and really looking forward to it. I mentioned it to one of his friend's Moms before the deadline, so she signed her son up. I misplaced another friend's mom's phone number or I would have called her as well. We ended up seeing her this week, though, and Elliott mentioned it then. I told her to call the next morning to see if her son could still join since they hadn't made teams yet. He was able to join. The boys were soo excited! Their other close friends aren't part of military families so they can't play with them, but three kids works out nicely for carpools and such.

Elliott convinced his dad to sign up as a coach. He thinks he may be in over his head, because he doesn't remember the rules that well. He's done some training now, though, and was reminded of rules he had forgotten. He also has two other guys that are supposed to help him coach (although neither of them showed up last night, so hopefully they prove more reliable in the future!), so maybe they will know more about soccer. For seven and eight year olds, it's more about having fun and practicing team work anyway, though.

Since the coaches did the assessments together and then sat down and picked teams, Carl was able to get both of Elliott's friends on his team as well. Since we have a 20+ mile drive it's great that they are all on the same team so we can carpool. Plus the three of them are all good friends, so they are excited to play together, since they don't know any of the other kids (the vast majority of the kids playing live on base).

Camping Without Me

2014-08-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

One of Elliott's best friends goes camping a lot during the summer. Sometimes they use a tent, and sometimes they use an RV. They are going this weekend, and Elliott is going with them. When I first asked Elliott if he wanted to go, he was super excited. Then last night he decided camping was going to be scary and he didn't want to be away from me for that long. We talked about it this morning, though, and he decided to go ahead and give it a try. They aren't going to be too far from home, and him and this specific friend are together A LOT (He's spent the night at our house at least a dozen times this summer, and Elliott's spent the night over there 3 or 4 times as well). So it will be the perfect chance to spread his wings a little and be away from me for two whole nights.

When I dropped him off at their house around noon, he and his friend were both so excited they could barely hold still while his parents finished loading everything up. I bet he will have a blast! My husband is off early today and on his way home right now, so he's excited as well. Our last kid free weekend was the one before Elliott was born. ;) We don't have much planned, but Carl is still looking forward to some time with no kids.

I have a feeling I will have a harder time with Elliott being away than Elliott will. He'll probably miss me a little at bedtime, but be perfectly happy the rest of the time. At least that's what I am hoping. He's already decided that if he has fun with his friend's family this weekend, he is going to convince his dad to take him soon!

We Got a New Car

2014-07-28T06:16:00.002-05:00

On Friday we bought a new car. We weren't without a car payment very long, but it was long enough to save up a little bit of money toward this one. We didn't end up trading ours in either because my husband thinks it will be easy to sell it private party and make more money that way. There's nothing really wrong with it, other than a windshield wiper issue that my husband will be fixing this weekend. It seems to be a magnet for rocks, though, and that's really the reason we stopped driving it much. I just hope we don't have that issue with this new car! We have had the Impala 3.5 years and have replaced the windshield twice, and it has a crack again. We live right off of a dirt road, but most of the cracks happened when we were out on the highway instead.

We have been researching cars for months now, trying to decide what we wanted to buy next. I think my husband would have preferred it if I would have been willing to get an SUV and get rid of our minivan, but our minivan still runs great and hasn't given us much trouble at all. Plus an SUV comes with a much larger payment than a car, especially with all the features that we wanted. And we don't even need something that big most of the time. We have a truck to haul things in, and only one child, so unless I'm taking a group of kids somewhere, a car is big enough for most of my driving. So that's the main focus I've had. :)

Walt Disney World in November

2014-07-21T15:31:00.000-05:00

Recently I posted about an upcoming trip to Florida. We have decided on November and started making our reservations now. We will be back up here in time for Thanksgiving so my sister doesn't have to spend it alone, but will be gone for the month up to the day or two before Thanksgiving. In fact, we will be leaving here at the end of October, and spending Halloween in Missouri. Elliott has decided that he wants to see Casting Crowns in Missouri instead of trick or treating, so if we can get tickets, that will be our Halloween plans. Since Elliott can't have anything with artificial dye anyway, I can see why trick or treating would lose some of its appeal. We'll just take him and buy him a bag of his one of his favorite dye free candies instead. :)

As for our time in Florida, we will be staying 11 nights. Part of them will be on Disney property, and part of them will be nearby in Celebration. We'll be going to Disney World, the Disney water park that is open, and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas. We'll also be visiting Sea World (we all get in free through the military appreciation program) and Lego Land (Carl's ticket is free there as well) while we are there.

Elliott and I have been having a lot of fun planning our trip. Almost every day when we take a break from school work, we work on vacation plans. Elliott has been putting together a list of must rides, and characters he must meet. We met many of his favorite characters last time, but he's looking forward to seeing many of them again. Plus there are characters that we missed that he wants to see this time. Then of course there are also some new characters that weren't there 3.5 years ago.

As for rides, last time we went he was barely 5, and was afraid to ride a lot of the rides. He was also really afraid of the dark. This time he will be almost 9, and is no longer afraid of the dark. There are still several rides that he thinks would be way too scary, but his list is much longer this time.

Last time we didn't make it to any of the water parks, and that is on Elliott's must do list this time. He's pretty excited about some of the rides there as well. He hasn't ever been to a water park, but has really enjoyed water slides at hotels we've stayed at, and birthday parties he's attended. One of the places we are staying has a water slide at one of their pools. Elliott's really looking forward to that.

Over all, we can't decide what we are most looking forward to, but we are all definitely looking forward to our vacation!

Throw Back Thursday: Walt Disney World March 2011

2014-07-17T13:20:00.001-05:00

Since we are currently planning another trip to Disney World, Elliott and I have been going through our pictures from last time over the last few days. We thought we would do a throw back Thursday post with a few of our favorites. We literally have hundreds, so it was hard to narrow it down, but for various reasons, here are a few of our favorites.

Waiting in line to meet one of his favorite characters.

He loved Chip and Dale and never missed an opportunity for a picture.

This was the first character hug he initiated.

Handy Manny was the only Disney Junior character we got to meet, but that was fine, because he was Elliott's favorite at the time.

When Elliott looked at this picture he told me that he almost completely disappeared into Lotso's belly!

Pooh was another favorite to hug.

Elliott had a lot of fun with Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen. Here Prince Naveen is asking if Elliott is trying to steal his princess after she hugged him.

Elliott's response was "maybe"

Naveen decided they could still be friends, because Elliott had an awesome name, just like their friend, the dragon (from Pete's Dragon)

Pluto was the first character Elliott went up to by himself (he had already met Snow White and Daisy Duck, but wanted an adult with him for those)

He couldn't believe it when Cinderella wanted to dance with him.

Dancing with Cinderella

All smiles after their dance.

Stitch was Elliott's favorite character to meet, but we only got to meet Lilo the one time, he was soo excited!

Vacation Planning

2014-07-12T16:34:00.000-05:00

Ok, so anyone that knows me knows that I like to plan A LOT in advance for any expensive vacations. I'm totally fine with waiting until the last minute to do something under $1000, like going to visit family, but anything more, I want plenty of time to plan. Our last vacation besides to Missouri was in July and I started planning in March, and that was the latest I've ever waited. Last time we went to Florida I planned for nearly a year (I think I started planning in early May and we went in late March).

So I think my husband was pretty surprised when he came home from work the other day, and Elliott and I had been looking at Disney World and Universal rides and comparing them, trying to decide which was better. We tentatively had a trip to Missouri planned for September, to see family. After thinking about it, and looking around online, I decided that we should extend it and go to Florida as well. We have a time share sampler thing that we bought last year that includes more than enough points for 10 nights in Celebration, FL, and they had openings for when we wanted to go. I told my husband I wanted to do it, fully expecting to have to talk him into it (last time we went to Disney World, he said that would most likely be the only time we went), but instead he liked the idea. He's been wanting a real vacation for a while because of some of the things going on at work. And I think it would be great for our whole family as well. We've had a pretty crazy year!

Carl checked his schedule at work, and it looks like he can take off the full 25 days we want, as long as he requests it soon. But then the same day he checked it, we got the soccer sign up information, and it turns out that the season is starting late this year, so Elliott wouldn't be able to play if we go then. So now we have checked out the stuff going on at Disney in November, and made sure that we would be able to get a suite at the resort and everything as well. Carl hasn't been able to check at work yet to see if he could get that time off, but Elliott is really pushing for that time instead.

There are definite advantages to going in November, like how much cooler it will be. Elliott and I are both wimps when it comes to really hot weather. November in Orlando is typically similar to July in North Dakota (our hottest month of the year). September will seem incredibly hot to us. No matter which time we go, we can go to one of the special night time parties at Magic Kingdom. I think I would like the Halloween one better, but Elliott is pushing for the Christmas one. Waiting until November would also give me more time to plan and save. So I have a feeling that if November works for Carl's work schedule that is when we will end up going.

I've already checked with my mom (she's who we stay with when we are in Missouri) and she said she doesn't foresee any kind of problems with either dates. And she can watch Snoopie while we are in Florida as well (Darla will keep Trixie, and the cats will go to my father in law's house, or stay with the house sitter). I'm getting anxious to know when we will go so I can go ahead and start making reservations and real plans!

Bath and Body Works Online Sale With Coupon Code

2014-07-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

My son and I both love Bath and Body Works. Before we removed all artificial dyes from our cosmetics and toiletries, we used a lot of their body washes and lotions. Elliott loved several of the scents in the guy collection, and also enjoyed a few of the fruitier ones as well. Now we can no longer buy any of the body washes, and only a few of the lotions, but that hasn't put an end to our shopping there. We still buy wallflower scents, candles, and car air fresheners there. They have so many different choices, and even Carl has come on board and is willing to go into the store to pick out his own scents for the truck, instead of just trusting Elliott and I to do it for him (although I think the real reason he now is willing to go in there is to keep a closer eye on our spending!).

Last week when we were at the mall anyway, we went in to see what was on sale. They had a bunch of body washes, lotions, etc for 75% off, and the wallflower 2 pack refills for $5. We ended up buying 2 bottles of lotion, and I think 8 2 pack refills. We also bought a few of the scentportable refills (for the car) and a new holder to add a second one to the van.

Watermelon Lemonade is one of our favorite scents, we were disappointed that there was only one left in our local store.

I know it might seem crazy that I then started looking online to see if I could find more of my favorite scent (watermelon lemonade is a favorite of everyone in my house) on sale, but that's exactly what I did. We have wallflower nightlights plugged in in Elliott's room, the upstairs bathroom, and the hallway. We have just regular ones in our room, the downstairs bathroom, and the living room. Sometimes it's kind of a pain to make sure all the scents on one floor work together, but it's worth it to keep our house smelling fresh instead of like animals (we have four pets that we love dearly, but they all stink).

It turns out that the online sales aren't necessarily as good, but they are still pretty good. Plus there's a 20% off coupon (BBW20JULY) you can use to save more. One bad thing is you can only use one coupon code per order, so you still have to pay shipping, but it's a flat rate of $5.99 so if you are buying several things it's still worth it.

Many wallflower 2 packs are on sale for half price ($6.25), the big 3 wick candles are on sale for $12 (normally $22.50) and the scentportable refills are on sale just the same as they usually are in store, buy 4 get 2 free. The 20% off makes both them and the candles a better deal than the sales that were going on in store last week. Also there are some great deals to be had if you are in the market for lotion and body wash. The prices start at $2.75 for full size bottles (making them just $2.20 after coupon)!