Alpha-CHECK!

Katie finished her Alpha level book for Math-U-See today! I am so very proud of her!

She now gets to move on up to Beta!!!! YAY!!!!

This level of Math has proved to be our first real challenge as far as school work goes. Although she can technically do some things that are more difficult than this level, we started it in February to reiterate and relearn some methods that will make math easier in the long run. So, toward the end of the level..the last 4-5 lessons or so...it got to a spot that was extremely frustrating to her and me! But, after some encouraging words from a friend (experienced Math-U-See user with a child older than Katie), I relaxed and moved on. Turns out that when we moved onto the same concept in what was supposed to be a more difficult application, it finally clicked and she breezed right on out of the book! I gave her the "final test" today to make sure she retained the info over a full weekend, ha ha, and she passed with flying colors! The Alpha level covered single digit addition and subtraction, and time. Doesn't sound like a lot, but Math-U-See pretty much teaches all the way to algebra with it, so she was even doing solving for an unknown value and two step story problems using the single digit adding and subtracting.


Beta covers quite a bit more material. Some of it she has already been exposed to, but others not so much... so we'll see how it goes. I had hoped to be starting into Beta last week according to my plans, but we're only a week behind...totally fine considering we now have 32 weeks to finish 30 lessons in the Beta level. I am finding it a little easier to breathe now. :)

Update: Katie's Eyes

Katie in her first pair of glasses, December 2007

I already posted once today, but then I remembered I had something extremely important to update, so please scroll down to chime in on my health insurance post from earlier.

Katie had an eye exam. She had not been since December of 2008, and was due this past December but because of many different circumstances, we just made it in for an exam yesterday. You can read the history of our experiences with her eyes beginning HERE. And more updates here and here. The last update was last December HERE. Then you will be up to date for this post. To recap from the last post, here are the vitals from that post:
Katie's vision in her "good" eye with her glasses is now between 20/30 and 20/25. She could do part of the 20/25 line! And, in her left (worse) eye, she is now 20/40 with her glasses! She was at 20/60 last time!

Katie now has 20/25 vision in BOTH eyes with her glasses!!!!
(She is 20/400 without glasses)

I am so thrilled and happy for her! We took her to a new eye doctor this time, the husband of one of the moms in our homeschool play group. Corey had seen him before, so we took Katie to him this time. It went GREAT! No break-downs, and she was completely comfortable and happy, even when they did the drops for dilating her eyes. The doctor took a lot of time with her, fine tuning the prescription until he got it as good as possible to help her see clearly. We ordered new glasses (which are SUPER cute Vera Bradley frames) on our way out and I will be excited to see how she does with the new lenses. It has now been a little over two years since Katie has truly been able to "see" and she is doing great. I will never forget how her beginning reading skills (which were fantastic for a young 5 year old) just skyrocketed into third-fourth grade level within months of getting her glasses. And how she pointed out things we hadn't known she couldn't see before....just read those links to my first updates to read all the details, but what a blessing glasses have been in her life.

I just wanted to post our thanks and elation still over this wonderful blessing in our lives. We are so proud of her! Look for a photo of Katie in her new frames as soon as they come in!

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Happy 7th Birthday Katie Grace!

We have had a very busy past few weeks and I am regretful that I didn't get Katie's birthday post up on her birthday. So..here goes!
Yesterday, we celebrated Katie's 7th birthday!
Katie lost her first tooth on the day after her birthday last year, and has also since then gotten new glasses, and her hair cut off for locks of love. I knew her photo this year would be so different, because she has also lost 6 MORE teeth since then, and has her "big" teeth in front now. WOW, what a change she has had this year! Look at the comparison. Both of these photos were taken ON her birthdays.


(click to view larger!)

We started the day with a visit to North Point Mall...
Katie opening her gift from Mommy, Daddy, and Noah...
an AMERICAN GIRL STORE gift card!

Showing off her purchase:
With the gift card and cash she received from my mom and dad and grandmother, she was able to get:
Ta da! KITT KITTREDGE! (the depression era doll, book, and accessory kit!)

Katie and her loot in front of the store on the way out.
We went into a Sephora store to look for something and Katie told the lady that it was her birthday.
Turns out, it was the store clerks birthday also! She gave Katie a free mini lip gloss!

We had lunch at Pappsito's. It was our first time there. They make FRESH flour tortillas (you can watch them being made) and have delicious fajitas! Mmmmm!
We tried a new dessert, a surprise choice from the waiter who insisted we try it.
It was called Tres Leches, and was WONDERFUL!

Katie and Noah on the porch of the restaurant.

Beautiful seven year old Katie.

Today was another busy day. Downtown Cartersville hosted trick or treating this afternoon.
Noah was BATMAN!

Katie was Belle.

We had such a fun time yesterday and today!
Happy Birthday to my sweet seven year old girl!
I can't believe how smart, beautiful, and grown-up you are becoming!

Laughing at myself!

Tomorrow is Katie's turn to take snack for her Daisy Troop Meeting. Since it is her birthday month we volunteered to do this week so we could share a birthday celebration snack.

I had high hopes! I even picked up some various sized pumpkin cookie cutters for the occasion! Well...... The cookie cutters and I were not friends today. A total mess.
So, I decided to just make balls and create a pumpkin out of the circle cookies.
The dough really is a very nice shade of orange, it just doesn't look like it here.

I was SO very proud of myself when I thought of using candy corns to make a stem for the pumpkin by inserting them into the cookies sideways like so.... I was very excited about what they were going to look like in the end!

As I started decorating the results were not what I had in mind.
The pumpkin lines were looking more like spider legs. So I experimented with faces instead.
The faces did NOT make me very happy. ha ha. You will see...
I gave it time thinking that when I added the "leaves" at the top it would just complete the look and they would be adorable! HAHA HAHA HAHAHAHA!

The pumpkins aren't THAT bad. They really look better on here than they do in person!
I wasn't able to get everything quite as "orange" as I would have liked.
I didn't have orange food coloring and was adding a good bit of red and yellow. I really don't like to use dye at all, so when I got to a color that would pass for orange I decided to let it be.

And here is why I am laughing at myself.
Doesn't the one in the middle look like an orange Pillsbury doughboy with a party hat?
HA HA HA HA!
I guess great cookie decorating only came around once in a lifetime for me!
Check out those fuzzy green eyebrows!
Oh well...
they taste good!

Pumpkin Patch Party!

We celebrated Katie's 7th Birthday this weekend!
Her actual birthday isn't until the 28th, but being so close to Halloween it becomes tricky to plan things with friends. So, we celebrated early with a Pumpkin Patch party! (the one I have been working for this month)
Here is the party crew....

And a silly shot of the party crew:

First, we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl.

Here is an up close shot of the Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes.
The big ones are chocolate with buttercream cheese frosting. The little ones are pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Of course, they are all topped off with a candy pumpkin (like candy corns).
The scarecrow is propped on a sign that says "Happy 7th Birthday Katie."
I drew green pumpkin vines on the white parchment paper, but it doesn't show up well on here. In the top left corner you can see the caramel/chocolate apples that were party favors.

It was VERY windy out! Here they all are enjoying a cupcake and juice.

Then a QUICK go at gifts. It was so windy and cool,
we wanted to get on to the activity area!

First, face painting...

Then, the petting zoo!

Stick horse racing!

And the hay maze!

Some "bull roping" fun...

And last, the hay ride.
On the way through the line to get on the hay ride, Katie got a splinter off the fence.
It was a BIG one! And went DEEP into her finger.
After several minutes of crying and wailing, we were fortunate to have one of the dad's help us get it out with tweezers. He is a police officer (used to be EMT) and was wearing his official jacket which I think helped Katie stop crying and let him work on it! ha ha!
SO, after holding up a few other people who were waiting for us to start the hayride, we finally got going, but not after Katie had cried off half of her face painted balloon.

It ended up as a fun hay ride after all!

It was a very fun day for everyone, in spite of the cold weather and wind!
I can't believe she is turning 7 years old this month!!!!!!
Happy Birthday Party Katie!

Soccer in the rain...Tellus in the rain....

Noah posing before his soccer game. It ended up raining again.
Not terribly, but enough to need an umbrella and change of clothes afterward.

You can see his hair is a little wet.
He was actually not "in" during the heaviest rain and was under an umbrella.

Before we left this morning, I got on facebook and saw that a few people had posted that they were going to visit a local museum as part of the Smithsonian's Free Museum Day. All we had to do was fill out a form, print out a pass and it was good for one person plus a guest. I signed both Corey and myself up and we decided to head over for a visit after the game and lunch. This museum opened up this past spring (I believe) and we had not visited yet. I was so glad that my friends posted that they were going because I had totally forgotten that it was free day.

It was VERY soggy when we arrived. They were directing traffic into the hotel parking lot next door because it was so crowded and we hiked across a VERY wet field around mud puddles and water to get to the door. When we got there, a sign on the door told us that only one pass was allowed per family. I was slightly annoyed because we had trudged across the muddy field and would not have come on such a very crowded day if we had known we were going to have to pay for any of us.
Well, as we were standing there calculating how much it would cost, a man came over and said, "If you will come over here we had another line where they are trying to expedite the process."
The man at the end of that line came over and asked for our pass and asked how old our kids were. We told him and he said, "Do you have an extra pass?" And we did, because I had printed one for both Corey and myself. He said, "Each pass is good for two people." And he gave us stickers for all four of us to wear, so we didn't have to pay after all! YAY!!!!!!

The Tellus Museum has a little bit of everything. Our first stop was the dinosaur exhibit.

Katie and Noah enjoyed getting to touch some fossils. Katie even touched what they said was dinosaur poop! lol. She touched it before he told her what it was! Then Noah didn't want anything to do with it!

This was Katie's pose in almost every single photo today. Not sure why....

They also had a room with transportation exhibits, with buggies, a replica of the Wright brothers airplane, a helicopter, and space rockets.

There was also a kid's section with all kinds of interactive displays but it was VERY crowded in there! We were telling ourselves that it really didn't seem that crowded for being free day, and when we got in that part we knew why! Everyone was in there! We didn't get to do the gemstone mining area or the fossil dig..the line to get in those classrooms was EXTREMELY long and not moving! We also didn't do the planetarium. I guess we will have to go again when it isn't free day to do the rest.
UPDATE: I have since heard from a friend who works at the museum that they had 3700 visitors yesterday!!!! She said a typical Saturday runs 900 and a busy day around 1100.
WOW! The great thing is...she invited us to come another day as her guests!!! Yay!

Here is a picture of when we were leaving. Corey had gone to get the car and drive it up because it was POURING rain! But, there was nowhere near the door to park at all, so he just parked in the parking lot this time and brought umbrellas. The umbrellas did NO good though, because it was pouring so hard that they ground was just puddled up with water and our pants and shoes got soaked through! The rain was pouring off the edge of the umbrellas and soaking our sleeves. The parking lot was flooding too and it was just miserable trying to get out! Ugh!
It was a fun visit though...a true value! I am so glad I checked on facebook this morning to see my friends were going so we knew about it.