It's official--I shop at Children's Place too much!!

Dan and I went on a date last night. We first went to Macaroni Grill (which was really, really good--though not as good as Grisantis) and then headed over to the mall (right next door). I needed to stop at Children's Place because I had a $30 coupon to use which expired at the end of the month. The coupon is part of the rewards program at Children's Place, so obviously, I've been shopping there a lot. But it is about the only place I can find clothes to fit Ellie that aren't inappropriate and are affordable. Plus, we never buy anything there unless it is at least 1/2 off. And I usually have a 15% off coupon and I also get an extra 10% off. So it's not like I am completely breaking the budget by shopping there.

Anyway, back to my story. We had been in Children's Place for a little bit when the manager came out of the back. She immediately recognized us, asked how we were, and asked where the kids were!! It was nice to be recognized, but, ummm, maybe I should cut down on my shopping there. :-)

On a positive note, the manager there is great. The last time we went there she asked me if I had my receipt from the last time I had bought stuff there. She took the receipt and adjusted it for things that were now on sale more, taking $60 off the previous bill. This time, I asked her if there was any way to extend the $30 coupon I had. I only got it a couple of days ago and it already expires Oct 31. She said no problem. They'd honor it whenever I brought it in. Yeah! They aren't currently having a good sale so I didn't want to buy something just to spend my $30. I did find Ellie a pair of jeans for next year for $3.18. So I just paid for those.

I entered a pie contest--and lost!!

Dan's work had a pie contest yesterday, and I decided to enter. There was a $5 entry fee per pie with no limit, so I made 3 pies--a caramel apple crunch, a lemon meringue and a french silk. But, alas, I didn't win. Dan was a bit ticked I didn't win (not at me) and he didn't understand why the pie that won, won. It was a strawberry pie. However, it isn't strawberry season and he said it was just strawberries with that bright red glaze. Who knows. It was still fun to make them and they had a pie social afterward. The highest I placed was 4th with my lemon meringue. Here is a pic of the pies:

Weekly update

Math: Kara got through about 10 lessons in her math this week. I have ordered the next level of math for her which she will probably start in about 6 weeks. Ellie did 4 lessons this week learning about number placement and division with a remainder.

English: Ellie finished chapter 3 on nouns and Kara continues with OPGTR. Ellie also started working on the story ending she is writing for a Focus on the Family writing contest. We still have quite a bit of work to do on that yet.

Reading: Ellie continues to read A String in the Harp and we are reading The Horse and His Boy for read-aloud. Ellie of course reads several other books per week on her own that aren't assigned.

History: We learned about ancient Africa and heard the ancient African tale of Anansi the spider. We also finished our chicken mummy project. Here are a few pics from that:

Science: We are continuing to learn about the earth and why we have seasons.

Spelling: Kara finished 2 lessons in her Spelling Workout and Ellie finished 1 lesson this week. She learned how to spell ukulele. :-)

Art: This week we started learning about Mary Cassatt. We'll be learning about her for the next 3 weeks also. We reviewed the previous artists' works we had memorized, memorized Mary Cassatt's "The Bath," and they each colored their own Mary Cassatt work.

It's a small, small world

Last night was the annual fundraiser banquet for New Life Family Services here in town. Dan and I had decided awhile back that we wanted to go but had quite a bit of difficulty finding a sitter. Just so happens that it was one of the high school's homecoming last night. But at last, the daughter of Dan's boss was able to babysit.

So we went down to the event center where the banquet was held. While we were perusing the items at the silent auction, I saw somebody that I swore I grew up with. I managed to get a glimpse of her name tag as I walked by and then knew that I had. She was busy talking with some other people so later, when she was free, I decided to go up to her and talk.

Now get this. She and her husband have been living here for about a year. I happen to work with her husband (he is a doc who works on our unit sometimes) and she mentioned that she just started homeschooling this year!! She has 3 kids and her oldest son happens to be in choir with Kara. She is an ultrasound tech and volunteers at New Life doing ultrasounds of pregnant mothers. Then she told me that her sister now lives in Winterset (mere miles from mom and dad) and her parents now live in Ankeny (also not that far from mom and dad). The other thing she said was that they had visited our church a few weeks (?) ago and she saw me there, went home, called her parents and told them that she thought she saw me.

We should be seeing each other more frequently now since our kids are in choir together so hopefully we'll be able to get together some time.

1 on 1 with Ellie

This morning Ellie and I started what I hope will be a tradition. We both got up this morning at 6 so that we could have some time together, just the 2 of us. Ellie has been asking for this for awhile in some form or another. She initially was asking if she could go out for breakfast with just me since she does this with Dan. However, that was logistically difficult since we don't really have that many free Saturday mornings and if we threw it into the rotation of Dan taking Ellie, Kara and Darin out for breakfast, then they would have less time with Dan. So we decided that instead of doing breakfast, Ellie and I would just have some alone time at home. She already usually gets up at 6 to start her schoolwork so we just decided that one morning a week, instead of doing schoolwork, she would come upstairs and we would discuss whatever was on her mind.

She has been having lots of questions lately about growing up, body changes, etc. so we are going through the book "What's the big deal? Why God cares about s*x." It is the 3rd book in a series called "God's Design for S*x" put out by Navpress. Jay and Emily gave us the set awhile back when we watched their kids while they went to a Family Life Marriage Conference.

It was a sweet time this morning and I'm glad we have finally started doing it. I hope that we will be able to continue it and that she will be a willing participant throughout her teenage years. I am also hoping it will help to avoid the tumultuous teen years I experienced. Plus, she's such a sweet girl and she really likes to spend time with her mommy. :-)

Natalie and string cheese

The kids are eating lunch right now and one of their items is string cheese. I just found Natalie over by the garbage can putting all the little strings of her cheese in the garbage. "It's falling apart!" she says. Yes, I said. It's string cheese!! :-)

Week in Review

I can't really call this our weekly report for school since we didn't get much school done this week. We did what we had planned on Monday and part of Tuesday, but Wednesday morning we left for Rock Valley, IA for Dan's grandma's funeral. We came home Thursday afternoon in time for small group. It seems like such a long time ago that it was Monday. Since I don't have the schedule in front of me, I can't even remember what we did for school.

We had a good trip to NW IA. Dan's sister Sara had flown into Minneapolis so Dan picked her up and she rode along with us. Evan and Mandy also came out from Chicago. While we were in Rock Valley, I went to a great consignment shop there. I didn't know it existed but Mom told me about it so I went shortly after we arrived. They will have been open 2 years already this coming January, but we aren't in NW IA very often. I found some great deals while I was there. I was in desperate need of some new winter clothes since I am 2 sizes smaller than last winter. So I found a pair of brown corduroy pants, a denim skirt, a pair of Nike running pants, a sweater and a long-sleeve T. I also picked up a set of 7 fiction books for Ellie and Kara that were published by Focus on the Family. And I only paid $47 for the whole lot!! I was quite happy. Later I went back with Kara and got her a pair of jeans.

After the burial on Thursday morning, we all went to Pumpkinland over by Orange City. The couple that owns it is Gar's cousin. They have a corn maze and a petting zoo. The kids had a blast and Grandpa bought them each a prize. I'll post pictures later. While we were there I saw an old friend from high school/college (Carrie (Ver Heuven) Borchers for those of you who are wondering). We were in the barn where they have the gifts, etc that they sell and I looked over at her and she waved. I said, "Carrie?" She said, "Yep." Couldn't believe it. I never expected to see someone I knew while we were there. She also has 4 kids--ages 1, 4, 6, and 9. She stays and home and runs an in-home daycare part time. They just got back 6 weeks ago from China (they adopted their youngest from there).

After that, we headed to Sioux Center to eat lunch at Pizza Ranch and then headed home. Dan brought Sara back to the airport and we went to small group.

Yesterday we did our monthly grocery shopping and running errands. I menu planned last week so I had everything ready to go. We stopped at the Indian market cuz I am finally going to make some of the things that I learned in the Indian cooking class Emily and I took together in January. We also made runs to Target, Aldi and HyVee. Ugh. I wish groceries would get cheaper, not more expensive!! I do, however, like having my menu planned for the whole month and only having to do grocery shopping once a month (except for milk).

Today we are on our way to the cities for the marathon. This is the one I was planning on running in; however, my body had other ideas. I've been plagued with knee problems (interestingly only on one side) and I can't run more than 5 miles so a marathon was pretty much out of the question since there are a whole lot more than 5 miles. :-) Before we check into our motel today, we are making a quick run to the Albertville outlet mall and Cabela's in Rogers. The Albertville mall has a Children's Place outlet (our favorite kid clothing store) and Cabela's has zip-up fleece sweatshirts on sale for $9.99. And the kids love to go to Cabela's anyway. They have lots of cool animals on display and a shooting range (not a real one) that Darin loves.

Well, that's about it for this week. Have a great week!