Funny how life works out

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you plan to do nothing and then all of a sudden you have something every single day? That has been us this week. It's our first week of school so I had a planned a quiet week at home getting CJ into a nice little routine but as is life, that has not happened. Monday and Tuesday went basically as planned. Tuesday I was just exhausted though! Do you ever have those days? You wake up tired and nothing you do makes you have more energy? Well that was Tuesday for me. We did spend an hour or so up and down from the table coloring and practicing writing his name. We started writing the letter C but he insisted on finishing it out and writing CJ instead, but that's ok by me. I did little to no housework Tuesday though. Wednesday we made a day of it and went down to see my Mama. My van has been in the shop so I went to pick it up and spent the rest of the day with her. We went and got some goodies from a local bakery and met a cousin to loan her a Moby wrap for her new little one. On the way home I picked up KFC for supper (Thanks Mama!), came home, ate supper and did little else the rest of the day.

So then that brings us today. My husband was unexpectedly home today so I took advantage of having an extra pair of hands and got a few things done that I couldn't do myself. The backseat of our van has been sitting in our living room since we moved into our house in June and CJ's bed frame has been sitting on the front porch waiting on a 2nd coat of paint. It's just been way too hot to get it painted though! Both of those things are now in their proper homes. Then last minute we were invited to lunch with his parents for his aunt's birthday. My house was a mess and I needed a shower so I opted to stay home and clean while he took CJ with him to lunch. My house thanks him for it too. I had about 6 loads of laundry to do, dished piled up and a living room that looked like a tornado went through it. I'm almost done with my to do list though, just waiting on the washer and dryer to do their thing, so I sat down to plan next week's menu and blog.

Tomorrow we're planning to spend most of the day out at the lake with my best friend and her little girl and have a picnic lunch, then CJ is supposed to spend the night with my parents so I might get to enjoy my clean house for at least a day!

Days 1 & 2

We completed day 2 of preschool today. So far so good. We worked on writing the letters A,B & C, we colored a picture of a farm, worked on recognizing letters and practiced walking in a straight line touching toe to heel. Here's a few pictures from the last 2 days.

Kitchen organization

The kitchen has to be one of the hardest rooms to organize. It needs to be functional while still being pretty. Ours serves not only as a cooking space but also our dining area and school room so I'm constantly trying to figure out a new way to make it that much more organized. One of the hardest things to organize are my spices. I have lots of bottles of spices but they are just kind of everywhere. I can't use a spice rack because all my bottles are different sizes and shapes. So currently my most used spices just sit on my counter and the rest are in a plastic container on top of the fridge.

Today the plan is to get in the kitchen and do a little more organizing so I'm not constantly back tracking and everything flows a little better. So tell me how YOU organize your kitchen to make it more functional for you and your family.

Week 2 Detailed Guide

Here is our Week 2 detailed guide.

Theme- Under the Sea
Life Skill- Table Manners
Physical Skill- do the Hokey Pokey
Cooking- Help make muffins
Vocabulary- Letters D & E
Reading/Oral Language- Read a book out loud together
Math- Numbers 1-5
Hands on- Trace Square
Handwriting- D & E
Craft- paper plate Fishbowl

Monday-
Introduce life skill- Table Manners: sitting at the table properly, asking to be excused, etc
Handwriting- Show how to write letters D & E. Practice writing these letters
Coloring- Color a picture of sea life. Talk about different types of sea life

Tuesday-
Physical Skill- Dance the Hokey Pokey
Vocab- Recognize letters. Worksheet- find and circle the letters D & E

Wednesday-
Math- Sort shells into groups of 1-5
Reading- Read a book outloud. Encourage child to repeat words or sentences.
Craft- Make a Paper Plate Fishbowl (color a plate blue and draw fish or use stickers)

Thursday-
Hands On- Trace Squares
Cooking- Make muffins together
Bible Lesson- Read the story of Jonah. Color a picture and talk about the story.

Friday-
Review the lessons for the week

Menu Plan Monday

Yes I realize today is Sunday. But I'm putting my menu up now while I have a minute since we have company coming later. Over at orgjunkie.com Laura has Menu Plan Monday. I will be participating in MPM this week! Any blogger is welcome to join so if you menu plan I recommend joining.

Sunday- Beef chuck steaks, mashed potatoes, Eclair Cake
Monday- Taco Salad
Tuesday- Chicken & Rice
Wednesday- homemade Pizza
Thursday- Sloppy Joes, homemade fries
Friday- marinated chicken, potato salad


And just a little self promotion here. lol We have a brand new Facebook page if you want to become a fan HERE

And one last thing, We are raffling off a Red Bilibo on AMH! Bilibos are great toys to get your child(ren) using their imaginations. You can find out more info HERE

Adding Bible lessons and some worksheet links

I decided to make a change to our Thursdays. I am adding a Bible lesson to this day. We are using the Alice in Bibleland books as the guide for our lessons. If you don't have these books or don't want to use them you can easily use the Bible to read the story or any other Bible story books.

So week 1 we are going to do the story of Creation. We will read the story, do a coloring page and talk about what the story was about.

Here are some coloring pages you can choose from:
http://www.coloring.ws/creation.htm
http://www.theideadoor.com/Coloring%20pages/fr07feb33_creation.jpg
http://i2.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/draft_lens9573001module85423571photo_1266469126Genesis_coloring_pages.jp


And here are some worksheet printables that we'll be using this week as well.
http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/pre-print/pre-print-horizontal.htm
(except cutting we'll be tracing)
http://preschoolpalace.org/images/scissor%20skills%20-%20straight%20line%20fall%20theme.gif
http://www.ziggityzoom.com/images/activities/letter_A.gif
http://www.ziggityzoom.com/images/activities/Alphabet_b.gif
http://www.ziggityzoom.com/images/activities/letter_C.gif

Grocery budget for this week

Last week I was over in our grocery budget. I spent $75 (including the chicken I posted about the other day) at Food Lion and $17 (pullups and a few snacks for the house) at Dollar General. We opted to save the gas money from driving an hour to Walmart and stick to shopping near home. It cost a little more but it evened out with the gas.

This week however I was visiting my family so I was already near WalMart. I did pretty good this week. I spent $72 but that includes some school supplies and sunscreen that I needed as well. I stuck to my grocery list though so I'm proud of myself!

What I bought:
Lettuce
Tomato
Bananas
bell pepper
2 big packs of top sirloin that were on sale for $5 each
loaf of bread
box of tea
bag of rice
cheese
gallon of milk
cool whip
Jello (4 boxes, to make Jello jigglers)
Jello pudding (to make a chocolate eclair cake)
graham crackers
pack of cookies
chocolate frosting (for the eclair cake)
bottle of marinade
paper plates
plastic cups
box of apple pies (groan. My son begged for an apple pie all day long. I don't know where he say apple pie or why he wanted some but all day he asked to eat apple pie. So I picked up a box of those apple pie snack cakes)
2 cans chef boyardee
pk of juice
tortillas
2 pks toilet paper
jiffy cornbread mix
salsa
pencils
modeling clay
folders
glue
paint
paper bags
notebook paper
sunscreen