Lots of Summer Reading

Elliott has been out of school for three weeks now.  We have been working on school stuff for a little while everyday, and playing outside every day as well.  We've also taken several small local trips.  But Elliott has still had plenty of time for reading.  He's still reading a lot of the same series that he's told you guys about before (Nate the Great, Black Lagoon, Stink and Judy Moody, etc), but he does have one series to share with you guys today that he hasn't yet.




Elliott started reading Jigsaw Jones (by James Preller) at school this past year, but until last week, I had never read one.  He checked one out from the library on base, though, and we read it together.  Elliott likes detective stories, so he loves it that Jigsaw Jones is a kid detective.  He thinks he is funny, and he likes his friends as well.  He thinks it's crazy that Jigsaw has a large family (3 or 4 brothers and a sister).

Elliott thinks Jigsaw Jones is probably most appealing to grades 1-4.  The lexile measure is 450, which is approximately an end of second grade/early third grade reading level.




We are also currently rereading the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder together.  Elliott is really enjoying the books this time around, and almost always asks for another chapter when I'm done for the night.  We are rereading them right now, and plan on visiting at least one of the places that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived this summer.  This is probably one of our favorite sets of older books to read together.

He thinks that they are going to be most appealing to kindergarten through 4th or 5th grader for listening, but for reading on their own, he thinks about third gradeand up, because they are so long.

Weekly Grocery Spending June 7-13

This week we are still working on clearing our our freezers.  We actually didn't go to the grocery store at all this week.  Instead of the normal fresh veggies, we have been eating frozen vegetables, and trying to clear them out.  That means we will be in for a few expensive shopping trips later in the year, but we wanted to make sure and use what we have before it goes bad.  So this week all we bought was water (we have a water cooler that we use for all of our drinking water) and a loaf of bread.


We spent $8.43 on groceries this week.

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1874.07.  

 We are 23.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $475.93 under our budget for the year.

Wordless Wednesday:The Danish Windmill

We went to the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot over the weekend.  Elliott loved the Danish Windmill and had to have his picture taken with it.

Weekly Grocery Spending May 31-June 6

We're trying to clear out our freezers right now, so we can defrost them. So we had another great week this week, as far as saving money.  My husband went to the commissary twice this week. Both times it was mainly for produce, although he did end up picking up a few more things as well.  The first time he spent $11.84 and the second time he spend $20.29.

Our weekly total this week was $32.13

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1865.64.  

 We are 22.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $384.36 under our budget for the year.

Summer Reading Programs

Have you signed your kids up for any summer reading programs yet this year?  Elliott is so excited about the one on base this year.  There was a kickoff party on Saturday, but we missed it because we were busy with other stuff.  We were able to make it to the library on base a few hours later, though, and get signed up.  They still had t shirts, pencils and bracelets available, so Elliott was excited to still get those things.  This year the t shirt has the llama from the Llama Llama (Mad at Mama, Red Pajama, Misses Mama, etc) books by Anna Dewdney.  Those were some of Elliott's early favorite books, and ones he still hasn't given up yet, even though he is way beyond them in most ways now.

One nice thing about the program on base, is that they encourage parents to participate as well.  I think that part of the reason that Elliott likes reading so much is because he watches me read, too.  He's excited that we got matching shirts (although he won't want to wear them at the same time out in public, I'm sure).  And he wants to have a competition to see who can finish the 36 hours the fastest.  He also wants to  see who reads more books during that time, and said he would only count chapter books.

He gets an incentive prize if he reads for at least six hours I think, and also gets his name entered into a drawing for a big prize for every six hours he reads.  Then if he reads a total of 36 hours, he gets a bigger prize.  He read for about 40 minutes later in the day on Saturday, and then for over an hour yesterday.  He's already read for more than 90 minutes today, so he is well on his way to his first prize. 

We did the summer reading program on base last year as well, but we were on vacation when it ended, so he didn't end up getting the end prize.  Last year we were went on two different vacations, though, so it was a really busy summer, and we didn't do a great job of keeping track of his reading the whole time, so he was a little bit short, when we went on the second vacation.  This year we are only going on vacation to see my parents, and he will end up reading a bunch there I'm sure.  He thinks he might even be able to finish the 36 hours before we leave for Missouri next month, so we shall see.