Project Complete

A friend of mine had posted several ideas using maps for home decor. One of them piqued my interest and I loved it since we are a military family and life is full of moves and new homes. The one she posted actually embroidered the shape of each state and used a heart button to pinpoint where home was. My friend painted each state. However, I decided I didn't want to take that much time even though all of those looked wonderful. Instead, I used a cricut to cut out the shape of the states out of white cardstock and mounted them on beige cardstock. To complete the look, I used heart puff stickers from our local all-stuff-mart and frames from the same place. I loved the look. Plus, there is room for the next move....when ever that may be.

Times Have Changed

Kindergarten just isn't the way it used to be. First of all, Luke goes to school all day. I think I was at school maybe 3 hours when I was in it and that is just the beginning of all of the changes. The things he is learning in school are very surprising to me since I probably learned them in first grade. Luke has a rough working knowledge of reading...and it's not even spring break (improving all the time!). He's also been bringing home papers like the one above for quite some time. I just learned recently that he is spelling these strictly by sound. It is not a spelling list that he brings home that I go over with him. He obviously has a few to work on, but I couldn't do this when I was in kindergarten. I don't remember learning as much math in kindergarten either. He's been working on counting to 100, counting by fives and counting by tens as well as counting money and the early stages of telling time. I'm pretty sure I was in first grade or later when I learned these skills. When he began the year, Luke didn't even know all of his letters and couldn't count to twenty. Needless to say, he's doing well in my mind even though the standardized tests may have a slightly different opinion. I think he'll fully catch up in the near future and I'm not the least bit concerned. He's doing great from what I can tell! I'm a proud mama!

Painted Grass and Other Oddities

"Painted Grass"

OK, for all of those that live here, I know the grass really isn't painted, but doesn't it look like it?! In the photo above, the brown grass at the bottom is our yard and the green belongs to our neighbor who just had his yard sprayed with fertilizer. When we were here a few years ago, it took me forever to realize that people weren't really painting their yards....it just looked like it. I'm not exactly sure why this is the only place we've lived that this is done. Or maybe this is the only place that has such brown grass that any fertilizer will make it green. Who knows!

Another oddity...this past week, we had our first snow fall since we moved here. It was very odd to me that they didn't use any salt. It would have taken care of the snow in minutes. Instead, they used pea gravel, not sand, at the intersections. Again, that was a very interesting item for them to use...at least for this gal who grew up with salt covered roadways.

Finally, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Sometimes you think you've seen it all. I drove past a church here in town that was offering drive-thru wedding vow renewals. I don't think I should say any more on that.....

An Explanation

Once again, I haven't been on here too much recently. However, this time around, I have a reason. I do have a few posts in mind, but we are having technical difficulties with our card reader on the computer. Under normal circumstances, this would not be a problem for my techy husband to fix and this time will be no different. But, it will have to wait just a few more weeks. Chris is spending nearly every moment of his down time (aka home time) finishing up his Master's course. It involves a huge paper to be written in a very short amount of time.

Soooo, if you think of it, you can keep him and us as a family in your prayers as he finishes up. Then, it won't be long until I'm back to regular programming here on the blog.

By the way, if you do see pictures on here over the next few weeks, they will be taken with my phone. I apologize for the poor quality in advance!