The Completed Toy Box

There it is. Finished. It's cool to have something in our home that Brandon and I worked on together to make for Calvin.

remote difficulties

Ever since we moved to our new place the remote for our dvd player no longer works. Since the dvd player has only 3 buttons on it that has left us reliant on our universal remote to do anything more than press play. However, finding the correct code has been tricky. For now we are working with code 1087, which makes our dvd do things, but not what the buttons say. (see post-it) We feel like we are at full functioning level with the remote and can select any option we need to with our code sheet.
For example, last night we were watching a movie that was a little hard to understand. No problem, we pressed left arrow and subtitles showed up. If someone walked in and said, "hey, I missed chapter 17, can we go back?" to which I would reply, "why, of course" and hit 5 and then 1. Piece of cake.

Layers of Learning

I have a friend that participates in this great blog where some home schooling and education minded moms share ideas of how they teach their kids in creative ways, including how to elaborate on the ideas depending on how much you want to get into the subject. I really liked this video they posted a little while ago about government.

I don't do a whole lot of teaching, but I have been tutoring a couple girls in a few subjects, mostly math. They both struggle with fractions (who doesn't?) so I have been looking for ways to make it visual as my friend suggested.

I made some pie crust that we rolled out into several small circles and would use a pizza cutter to divide them up and I would ask her questions about the fraction, have her write it out, and then add some of them together, etc. She had a lot of fun with it so I felt pretty successful.

The next week we made pizza because I knew we would need a lot of fractions to work with the recipe. As she added ingredients I would ask her about the different measurements and how to get the amount we need. (ie: 1/4 tsp. to make 1/2 tsp.)
After it was cooked we cut up the pizza and I asked her more questions about how the slices in terms of fractions.
While the dough was rising we went over some concepts using this site and then she played some games on the computer from this website. Some of them were too complicated. She did really well with the balloon game, the flower game & the butterfly game was her favorite.

So if any of your kids have a hard time with fractions this year, there are some ideas for you. And LOTS of ideas at layers-of-learning.blogspot.com

Successful partying

On Saturday night we went to Brandon's work party. It was a nice dinner and live music and lots of awesome prizes, like a plasma screen or a foosball table. Brandon even won something! A crock pot. ooooh. Although the crock pot isn't that exciting, it was still cool to win.

Selfish

I'm not sure if I understand selfishness. I feel like everything I do is coming from a selfish perspective, even the stuff that seems like I'm doing service or being generous. I don't think I would go out of my way to help other people if I felt lousy for it. Even if the task is a miserable one, I still feel better about myself for being a good person. I can't think of anything I do that doesn't have a selfish intent. Or anything anyone does for that matter. There must be something I'm missing.

Jackson Hole

We just got back from a fun vacation to Jackson Hole with Brandon's family. It was a surprise vacation for Brandon's dad to celebrate his 70th birthday with all of Brandon's siblings and their families. We stayed at an awesome house and did lots of great outdoor stuff. Great weekend.
And as far as I know, that is the last of our many vacations this summer. It has been awesome. New York & D.C. with friends, then the ocean in Washington with my family, Jackson Hole with Brandon's family. I have a feeling next summer might be kind of lame compared to this one.

Trouble

We are loving our new apartment. However, there are always some things that aren't exactly the way you'd like them, right? For example, the fixtures around the place are new and nice, but the door handles are a PROBLEM. They are so convenient to open, so convenient even a one year old can open them! It takes some effort, some standing on his toes, but he has opened a few doors now and he loves it. And I don't.

Brick, Wood, Sheep, Wheat, & Ore

Some of you may remember my post about Cupcakes of Catan awhile back. We had some friends visiting from out of town and it seemed like a good occasion to make it happen. You might be wondering - did it make the game a little tricky? yes. did it take awhile time to make? yes (which was fun as well). Was it worth the extra effort? YYYYeeeesss!a few added notes: If you can't tell from the pictures, it's graham crackers for wood, twizzlers for brick, & neccos with red gel icing for the numbers. I had an old art board I threw some paint on for the water. We used skittles for houses, gummy bears for cities, cut up air heads for roads and a picture of a thief on a toothpick for the robber. Good times... if only we had won!

Broiler Bandits

That is what Brandon has named us, with the plan that we will accidentally take the broiler pan from the oven out of every place we ever live in. Right now we have three broiler pans. Although I plan to return one to the apartment we just moved from. Hopefully we'll get by okay with just the two.