It has been a crazy week. My husband was out of town for part of it, which is always hard. Then last night my dad found a screw in my tire causing a slow leak so we were at Costco today trying to get it fixed. We waited for over an hour, then went to my grandparents for lunch and a visit and headed home for naps - two hours later than usual. So my window of work time is closing here pretty rapidly and I've got nothing to show for it. So I'll keep this short and sweet and then I'll have blog post checked off my list.
We survived camping last weekend. We managed to fit all of our stuff in our car. It was tight but we managed.
The girls had a good time which I guess is all that matters. It was challenging to say the least. Keeping the kids contained in our site and not going near the road, keeping them quiet for other campers when they were up with the sun at 6am (two hours earlier than normal), trying to get them to sleep in the same tent when it was still light out, etc. The other problem we ran into is that it was cold at night. Like in the 50s. We weren't exactly prepared for that and slept in layers with as many blankets as we had. Needless to say, my husband and I didn't sleep too well all weekend but we survived and had fun being outside with the kids. We got some hiking in (that turned into carrying).
We saw Lake Huron and the girls played on the sandy beach in sweatshirts and jeans.
We also had campfires and roasted marshmallows and Starbursts. Lots of fun but definitely glad that we kept it short with just a weekend trip.
I spent some time getting ready for summer tutoring this week. They will be using my summer review packets as homework (at their mom's request, not mine) and I decided to have them printed somewhere. Last year, I printed all three packets from home and blew through a lot of ink and paper. This year, I printed them, along with math fact practice, at
Best Value Copy. I learned about this site from
Lindsay Perro's blog when she was creating personalized planners. I ordered a planner and had it printed there and was really happy. They are really reasonable and fast. I already have confirmation that they have shipped my order. I think the shipping is a little pricey (because I am used to shipping everything with Amazon Prime) but it is worth it for the cheap cost of copies. I paid $22 for my order and $14 of that was shipping. I had a coupon code for 20% off shipping - can't remember if I used the code or not. Ha! Regardless, I didn't have to print it on my printer or go to a store.
Speaking of my printer, I signed up for HP Instant Ink this week. Does anyone else use this? I am sick of running out of ink and making the trip to Costco to get more (like I'm not already there all the time anyway). I'd heard about this program and it seems awesome. You pay a monthly fee and your printer (you have to have a certain kind) sends them a message when you are running low on ink and they send you a new one before you run out. They have 3 different price levels based on how much you print. This is where I struggled...I have no idea how much I print (soon I will because they keep track) and it can very from month to month depending on what I do. You get charged for pages printed that go over your monthly amount. That part is kind of stressing me out still. I'm going to see how it goes for a few months and see if I need to go to the next highest level. Even at the highest level it is $10 a month (assuming you don't go over) which would still be cheaper than what I spend throughout the year on ink. I just don't want to be afraid to print something because it will cost me money on my own printer. Once I get a feel for how often I'm printing (or how many mistakes I make when printing things) I will probably calm down about it but for right now, I am excited about the idea of ink just coming to me whenever I need it.
We did a little more "school" time this week. I guess this is called tot school. I've seen it on Instagram but didn't know it had a name. K hadn't been too into working on her letters the way we had been doing it so I mixed things up a bit. Instead of using a glue sponge and torn paper, I let her use washi tape to work on the letter D. She loved that and so did little sister. And I tried not to be sad about all the wasted washi all over my house. Then, she did the sticker find that she has been loving. Finding Ds were kind of tricky. After she was done, I gave her some
laminated tracing papers that I got during the last TpT sale from
Intentional Momma. I was skeptical that she would be able to do them since we've never tried anything like that and she did them with no problem. Even the more challenging ones with zig zag lines or diagonal lines, she seemed to figure out. I was impressed and she was excited about "school work." She's even sat down a few times on her own to practice the lines.
I got a few more things checked off of my Vegas to do list. I ordered buttons from Zazzle with my logo on it. I also bought a phone charger so I don't need to be plugged into a wall to charge. This Vegas trip is adding up but I am SO excited.
We did a little more "school" time this week. I guess this is called tot school. I've seen it on Instagram but didn't know it had a name. K hadn't been too into working on her letters the way we had been doing it so I mixed things up a bit. Instead of using a glue sponge and torn paper, I let her use washi tape to work on the letter D. She loved that and so did little sister. And I tried not to be sad about all the wasted washi all over my house. Then, she did the sticker find that she has been loving. Finding Ds were kind of tricky. After she was done, I gave her some laminated tracing papers that I got during the last TpT sale from Intentional Momma. I was skeptical that she would be able to do them since we've never tried anything like that and she did them with no problem. Even the more challenging ones with zig zag lines or diagonal lines, she seemed to figure out. I was impressed and she was excited about "school work." She's even sat down a few times on her own to practice the lines.
