Monday, July 28, 2008

Bloggy Giveaway- $15 Amazon Gift Certificate

Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival Button

********THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED*********

Random.org picked:

Lydia said...
I would use it to help buy the camera equipment I need.delightfulconfection[at]gmail[dot]com

Congrats Lydia! I am sending you an e-mail to verify your e-mail addy :)



It is Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival from today July 28 through August 1! There are tons of great giveaways going on!!

I am participating and giving away a $15.00 gift certificate to one of my favorite stores: http://www.amazon.com/

Here are the rules:

1. Leave a comment telling me what you would buy at Amazon with the GC
2. One entry per person
3. You must leave an e-mail to contact you
4. Giveaway ends August 1 at 5pm CST
5. Winner will have 24 hours to confirm after I send the winning e-mail
6. Gift certificate will be e-mailed to the winner upon confirmation of valid e-mail address

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Great sale at JcPenney!


Since the kids are gone for a couple of days camping with dad and visiting grandma and grandpa I decided to go shopping today and found some GREAT deals at JcPenney! I bought my oldest son's whole summer wardrobe for next year (12 shirts, 7 pairs of shorts, and 1 pair of swimming trunks) for $38.55. They have an excellent clearance sale going on in the Baby/Toddler section, up to 5T!

Farmer's Market


I love the Farmer's Market but I just don't go often since it is way on the other side of town and takes about 40 minutes round trip to get there. I went today though since I was in that area anyway and got lots of veggies that I am sure my children will be thrilled about (neither one of them are big veggie lovers).

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Menu Plan Monday


I ran across the "Menu Plan Monday" idea on the I'm An Organizing Junkie blog. Looking at the various menu plans has given me a lot of great dinner ideas!

In MOPS a couple of years ago we made Weekly Menu/Shopping List boards to hang on the fridge. I use the shopping list part of it but haven't used the menu part in some time. Lately I have been a last minute meal maker which doesn't always result in the best dinners! My family is gone camping this week but next week I would love to plan ahead and fill my menu board.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Learning to Read

My oldest son has been very interested in learning how to read and I have been looking for some fun ways to help to teach him. While browsing on http://www.education.com/ I came across the idea of labeling things in your house. This sounds like a fun way to teach everyday words!

Here is the full article from http://www.education.com/activity/article/labels_preschool/:

"Have you ever heard someone read aloud and it sounds very choppy? When readers pause to sound out each word, they lack fluency. Building fluency is the key to learning to read smoothly, and learning sight words can help. This activity lets you and your child go label crazy! You’ll pick a set of words to work with, and then play a series of games to help your child remember what they look like.

What You Need:

construction paper
markers
tape

What to Do:Put your kid in the driver’s seat. Ask him to point to a set of ten items around the house that he’d like to learn to “read”. Or, if you’d rather start with a set of suggested sight words, here are a few to consider: dog, bed, eyes, clothes, water, ball, boy, book, food, fire, window, door, tree, desk, table, toys.

Write each word with your child’s help. Talk about the words, by pointing out the letters as you write them. You can also discuss the shape of the words and their letters.

Stick a piece of tape on each of your words and ask your child to help you label the house. Once the words are in place, try these games:

Listen Up!: Say a word and ask your child to hunt for its label. Be sure to emphasize the different sounds that make up the word, to make spotting it easier.

Can You Guess?: This time, instead of just saying a word like “bed” and asking your child to find the corresponding word, give clues to help lead them to the answer. For example, “I’m thinking of a thing you sleep on and it starts with the “buh” sound.”

Rhyme Time: One of the best ways to give kids a boost towards reading is to give them practice rhyming. For this game, instead of saying the word, or giving a clue like the one above, say a word that rhymes with the clue in question. For example for bed, you might say, “This word rhymes with red.” For table you might say, “Try to find me. I rhyme with label!”
Once your child can recognize all then words by sight (without seeing the object attached), add more words to your list. And remember, when it comes to sight words, you can never have too many labels!"

Friday, July 18, 2008

Homemade Pasta


On Freecycle the other day someone had listed a Marcato Atlas 150 Pasta Maker (http://www.marcato.net/cambialingua-eng.phtml) still in the box. I have always wanted to try making homemade pasta so I went to pick it up.
I made homemade Fettuccine tonight and it was SO good! Of course my sheets of pasta weren't near as neat looking as the ones in this picture, so my fettuccine noodles weren't the most perfect strips, but it all tastes the same anyway. I don't think that I will ever go back to dry pasta in a box again! This was so much better!

I found a fun giveaway today that I would love to win for my bug obsessed children :) What a great teaching tool!

*** Discount Home School Supplies is holding a contest to give away a microscope. You can choose between one of the three following miscroscopes from my website, an MSK-01 Microscope, an MFL-06 microscope, or a SMD-04 Microscope. Just blog about the contest and link back to Tami's Blog. ***One winner will be chosen at random sometime on July 23, 2008. This will give me time to complete order processing from my sale. I will announce the winner here on my blog sometime on July 23, 2008, Lord willing!

You can enter here:
http://www.tamifox.com/2008/07/anniversary-sale-and-microscope.html


Good luck, but keeping fingers crossed that I win! :)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

My Very First Blog Post!

So I have finally decided to join the blog craze with my very own blog! I read so many others on a regular basis and always had thought about starting my own but just never got around to it- until now. The name of my blog comes from my two sons' favorite foods- blueberries and peanut butter. Anytime you ask them what they want for lunch they will always answer "peanut butter" and for dessert they will never pass up blueberries.

 
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