DONE!!!!!

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0600

The room is done! There is even some furniture moved in already. It came out great, a little bit smaller than we had hoped for, but GREAT none the less... The whole experience was great! The contractor was super GREAT! The workers were great! The project came in $600 under the proposal so we had some additional work done. Our contractor went out of his way to get us deals. He went two counties away to get us bamboo floors that were sitting in a barn ~ the leftovers of a business that had gone under. We got them for $1 a linear foot ... they retailed for over $5 a linear foot. They are perfect!! He also looked our house over and found a few things that were in desperate need of repair and fixed them for almost no cost. Let's put it this way. Part of our home had to be jacked up because of a failing support beam. He did the job for $76 ~ the cost of the beam and a little extra to pay for his helper. The mess was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be .... So, you all want me to stop carrying on about how great it was and let you see the results for yourselves!?!?

Yay! Well, this is all you are getting right now. The big reveal will be just after Christmas. This year we are giving no toys (except stocking stuffers) so that we can decorate the children's bedrooms. I'll show you all the rooms once we have curtains up and such.

In the meantime we will be painting the rest of this room. We decided to paint the floor insted of refinishing the wood becuase it is so costly if you have a professional do it. My dh has refinished two floors in our home, but it was a really grueling project, and they have not held up as well as we would have expected. So for now we will paint this floor instead. We will need to do all of the trim work and no furniture can go on it for a week.

That is all for now!

Blessings,

Dawn

A Reading Party for Goldilocks

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:35:00 -0600

What an amazing day we had today! Goldilocks has been struggling to learn to read for 2 years now. Most of the time, it seemed like we were spinning our wheels and making no progress. We have switched reading programs five times and tried all kinds of different games with very little improvement. Then today happened ... Goldilocks sat down for her lesson as usual and said she wanted her reading party today. I said that she had to finish the entire Storybook Treasury of Dick and Jane (1st grade) to have her reading party. She said she was going to finish that book today and have her party. Mind you, she had only previously read the first page of the 193 page book when she sat down with me this morning!!! Over the next 2 1/2 hours she read the entire book!!!! All 193 pages!!! I would have never believed it was possible!!! This is the child who can take 40 minutes to write 3 sentences in her copywork book and has spent the better part of the year screaming, hiding and crying about reading 3 pages in a Bob Book. I switched her to Dick and Jane about a week ago. She seemed to like it more than other programs. Then I decided to start giving her hard boiled eggs and Kiwi each day (brain food) which is supposed to help with ADHD symptoms and improve a person's IQ. I can't say what happened differently today but AMEN!

This picture was taken when Goldilocks was on the last few pages. Kids were piled up everywhere to see her make it to being a READER!

Reading the last page!

Goldilocks with her book and certificate ....

Goldilocks had a confetti cake with strawberry frosting and a black sugar bunny in the corner!

Blessings,

Dawn

my4sweetums - Homeschool Blogger

DONE!!!!!

A Reading Party for Goldilocks