Snap Circuits!

For Christmas, Jenna received the complete Ramona Quimby collection. She was so excited to receive these books and treasured them. She has already read them. I bought her a Junie B. Jones book. She flew through the entire book in 20 minutes.

She's a machine.

So I looked in my basement. Did I have anything Jenna could read? I had a Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (grades 6-8 reading level) and the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (grades 3-6 reading level).

She finished A Wrinkle in Time. She loved it and she knows what is going on and can explain it to me. Should I mention she is in first grade?  I don't even bother with the books she brings home from school. They are too easy for her.

She is also blowing math out of the water. In her math group she is adding three digit numbers and working with fractions better than some of my students.

To top it off she has tons of friends and really loves school. I hope she has this attitude for a long time.  It's so exciting that she loves school so much.

Sarah is doing great in school also. I can only imagine what she will be doing when she is in first grade (calculus, writing her college essays....)

Matthew is improving so much from the speech therapy.
Here is a list of words Matthew can say:
Mama
Dada
on
uh oh
num num (m&ms)
ee ha (tick tock)

Here is a list of signs Matthew can do:
bath
all done
elephant
more
shoes
belly
eye
milk

He's getting there!

Devry is hosting HerWorld pretty soon and I will be involved teaching the girls about circuits. This event is to encourage girls to pursue science, engineering, and technology as careers. I got snap circuits from Devry to test out and see hhow they worked.

The girls first snap circuit

Snap circuit with sound

The girls loved the snap circuits and I got to teach them about the flow of electricity and short circuits. It was a fun experience!

68 points on Quiddler today

My Greatest Love of All

Lent starts on Wednesday February 22. It is a time of fasting and sacrifice - an act of penitential self-denial.

This year I will be giving up something that will be harder for me to give up than coffee, pizza, candy, and even chocolate.

What is this beloved item you ask?

It is none other than peanut butter.



Oh peanut butter how I love you? Let me count the ways...

 I will also be giving up chocolate nut butter. So I can eat almond and cashew butter during lent but not chocolate almond butter.

Here is an example of my eating patterns:
Breakfast:  Cereal, toast with chocolate almond butter
Lunch: Pasta or whatever we are having for lunch, a reeces cup dipped in peanut butter/spoonful of peanut butter with M&Ms or hershey kisses dipped in it
Dinner: Peanut butter and honey sandwich, string cheese, banana (when I'm teaching). When I'm not teaching I'll eat whatever we are eating plus some form of peanut butter/chocolate nut butter with some other dessert combination.

I eat peanut butter or chocolate nut butter for EVERY meal. My day really isn't complete unless I have some form of nut butter.

This lent season will be difficult for me. But I can do it!  This past week since I've made the decision to give up peanut butter I've eaten so much peanut butter that I've made myself sick on occasion. PB overload baby!

In other news:

1. David and Becca are having a baby girl!  David tortured me for almost an hour trying to make me guess but he finally told Jenna (not me!) they are having a girl. Yipee!
2. Our book club finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. I really liked this series and am SO excited for the movie to come out.
3. I finished Watcher of the Dead by J.V.Jones. This is a fantastic series but the last book isn't written yet. On her website she admitted to being a slow writer so she's not sure when the next book will be published.
4. I just started Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman. I really enjoy her writing so am looking forward to this book.
5. I also started reading the Mercy by Beverly Lewis. This is the third book in the Rose trilogy. This series is about a boy who wants to go to college which is apparently taboo in the Amish culture. That's a bummer since I teach at a college.
6. Since I've signed up for the triathlon (which is in just a few weeks) I've gone running twice to practice. Both times I ran for 20 minutes at 6 miles/hr (if you are good at math that is 2 miles). This is definitely not competitive. Unfortunately I found out that the order of the triathlon is swimming, biking, running. I really wanted biking to be last since that is the easiest. At some point I'll have to practice swimming but I'm not worried about it since I know I can swim - I'm just slow. Really I guess I'm slow at everything :(.
7. I'm sad Whitney Houston passed away. I grew up listening to her music and just loved her. The songs I liked were Greatest Love of All and How Will I Know. 
8. 52 points in Quiddler today. I lost the Q

Pink Carnations and Red Roses

For Valentines day I decided to be all crafty due to Pinterest and have the girls make their own Valentines. I found this butterfly pattern on the site (pictured below), had the girls cut it out (see Sarah's cutting job below), decorate it and put a sucker in as the head of the butterfly. The picture on Pinterest was much cuter but this is pushing the limits of my craftiness anyway.

Cute butterfly craft from Pinterest

My version of butterfly craft.

 Both girls had Valentines parties at school. I always loved Valentines parties growing up. The girls loved looking through all their Valentines. Of course the girls got pencils. I never liked getting Valentines pencils. Seriously? Who wants a pencil?  Who ever REALLY WANTS a pencil? Not me.

Sarah's Valentines party at school. She is doing a Valentines craft also from Pinterest

Sarah reading a book to Scruffles

Sarah and Jenna with Valentines carnations they got from Daddy

Last year Erik bought the girls flowers for Valentines day. Purple flowers for Jenna and white flowers for Sarah. Sarah promptly told Daddy that she did NOT like white flowers. She even reminded him that she does NOT like white flowers. Who knows why? Anyway he bought them the same color pink carnations this year.

Erik got me red roses and a reeces peanut butter heart. He loves me!  He has gotten me roses every Valentines day even before we started dating.  I love roses and Erik!

I took a video of my manly husband chopping wood.  I have been also honing my wood chopping skills. Erik keeps telling me I need more speed and power but I think I have plenty of speed and power. You can be the judge.

85 points on Quiddler today

Arbonne vs. Erik

My neighbor sells Arbonne products. When Matthew was born she gave me some diaper rash cream that I love! It works really well and doesn't smell like diaper rash cream (bonus!).

Since I loved it so much, I bought some more Arbonne diaper rash cream.

$14 for 5 oz

Seriously?? For diaper rash cream?

I have a friend who has made her own laundry detergent and other cleaners. Could we make diaper rash cream?

Erik took on this challenge since it is healthier and cheaper than storebought products. Diaper rash cream is not nearly as exciting as Heather's homemade products but is less than $14 and works well (picture above)!

Diaper Rash Cream
5 oz olive oil
1 oz grated beeswax
1/2 oz zinc oxide powder

Thanks Erik! Although we hopefully only have a year and a half of diapers left.

In other news:

1. I registered for an indoor triathlon. I won't be competitive but it will still be fun! I'm doing the triathlon with one of my friends. Hopefully I can jump in the hot tub after it's over. Swimming, running, and biking all in one day!


2. Our Coo* book club has finished reading Catching Fire and are moving onto MockingJay. This is a good series and I'm looking forward to the movie.


3. This semester I have two onsite classes and two online classes. The demographic in my onsite classes is rather uniform. In fact, in my two onsite classes there is only one female student. I have been trying to come up with interesting examples and decided to use football (since I think guys know about football). And I've decided that I love Tim Tebow. Yep. Really do. So my class jokes a lot about Tim Tebow and he is in pretty much every example we use. I even had to cheer for the Broncos when they played the Patriots even though Erik is a serious Patriots fan! Too bad he's not in the superbowl.


4. 61 points on quiddler today
   
   

My friend

Comfort. That is the word I am holding onto right now for my good friend. She is 31 years old and has two children (7 and 4) and was just diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. Last week was the worst week of her life as she said.  Her 7 year old is Jenna's best friend at school.

What is strange is that she has no risk factors. No family history, she does not drink, smoke or consume any caffeine. She exercises regularly (goes to spinning class with me!), and she does not have diabetes. Those are the risk factors. So this was a complete shock.

It's strange how cancer works like this. It is indiscriminate.

So I'm praying for comfort for her now.

Her website is: http://thelittlelump.blogspot.com/