Fun Friday: Greenleaf State Park

 We continued our state park trips with a day at Greenleaf State Park, which is just about an hour south of us.

 It kind of looks like Jack is in the water here, but he really wasn't.  I didn't want to go down and see how close he actually was!

 It was much colder than we thought it would be but the kids had a good time playing anyway.

 

 There is plenty of space to run, which is always a good thing.

 We got to take a wagon ride all around the park.

 Steve Evans, the naturalist at Greenleaf, gave us a tour while we were riding.

 All that green stuff in the tree is mistletoe, which is Oklahoma's state flower.

 

 We saw several deer, too!

 Back at the nature center we got to see some snakes.  While the naturalist was telling the kids about the snake, the snake started crawling through his belt loop!

 Alice was really not sure about it!

 Jack thought he really wanted to hold the snake until he held the snake.  I think he was about three seconds from throwing it across the room.

 Did I mention there was plenty of room to run?

 

 Alice and her walking stick.

 We also got to try out the mini-golf.

 Alice went with the raking technique.

 Checking out a lamp inside one of the mini-golf structures.

We finished up with some time on the walking trail.  It was cold and we came home completely worn out, but we had a great time!

Oklahoma State Parks

 When we got a new car a few months ago, my old car was still running but Jay thought I should have something more dependable for going out of town.  Road trip season is upon us now and I am really loving having a radio again!  Today we visited several state parks for an upcoming issue of MetroFamily Magazine.

 

 We started the day in Jay at the Delaware County Historical Society Museum.

 Half the stuff they showed us Jack would say, "My grandma has one of those!"  And he was usually right.

 Both of the kids remembered what this was from the museums last year on our Route 66 trips.  Even Alice is pretty good at identifying early 20th century household items.

 I was able to tell how this car started because I read about one like it last week.

 An old baby walker!

 The next stop was Disney State Park.

 

 It was cold!

 Then it was on to Cherokee State Park.

 We played for a bit to warm up.

 Our last stop was Bernice State Park.

 We walked on the trail.

 And checked out the observation towers.

 And spent quite a bit of time by the water.

 Alice found this fish skeleton!

Jack found what looks like some kind of fossil or imprint.

We had fun, but after almost ten hours on the road we were exhausted!  There's more to come!

Learning Together: Mailing May & Freight Train

 We just wrapped up Mailing May (for Jack) and Freight Train (for Alice).

Mailing May is based on the true story of a little girl who was mailed to her grandma's house for a visit.  We started our lessons on the 99th anniversary of her trip!

 

 This book that we checked out from the library had an interesting section on old mail trains that went right along with the story.

 This Bobbie Kalman book is also a great go-along.  I may or may not have bought this on my honeymoon.  Doesn't everyone go to bookstores and look through children's nonfiction to celebrate their marriage?

 You probably know Rosemary Wells best for Max and Ruby, but she has all kinds of books.  The House in the Mail tells about a girl whose family gets a house kit in the mail.

 We learned a little about stamps and even made our own stamp glue that I'll tell you more about soon!

If you want to see how your mail travels from the post office to its destination, watch the Reading Rainbow episode of Hail to Mail!

 As I shared earlier, we played Rivers, Roads, & Rails just for fun.  I picked this up at a consignment sale for $5 and it was a great buy.

 Alice did some train school, too, though not exactly like Jack did on our first go-round.  She really enjoyed Inside Freight Train which is a fun pull apart companion to Freight Train.

 

 We got out the train I made before and she had a good time lining up the cars to match the ones in the book.

We also put together this alphabet train puzzle several times and then Jack got in on it by hiding some of the letters for her to find.  He would hide them in spots that were related to the letters, like the C train on the cat's bed or the G train on the gate upstairs.  (I linked to Amazon to show a picture but you probably find it other places for less.  I got it for $6.98 on clearance at Target but the original price was only $9.99, so shop around!)

 

 We had The Caboose Who Got Loose from when Jack was little and we picked up Two Little Trains at a book sale last week.  We also really liked Clickety Clack, which I found at our library.

 We worked on T and t with an Alphabet Maze from 1+1+1=1.  Alice enjoys these and I like that all you have to do is hit print!

Alice and  I read a few books about letters, too.

 

To wrap up our time with trains we headed back to Ollie's.

The entire restaurant is full of trains--even over your head on three different tracks!

These don't have anything to do with trains, but I thought they were funny.  That's a gumball in Alice's cheek.

Next up: Angelo and Ask Mr. Bear!

Peace at the Grocery Store

 Back in January I told you my word for 2013 was peace.  I am feeling pretty good about peace in my home, but when it comes to grocery shopping, that's another story.  Until now.  In the past I have always planned our menus week by week, writing in recipe titles and cookbook page numbers on a calendar.  It was a lot of work, because each time I sat down to plan, I'd have to drag out all the cookbooks and then write down the ingredients on my list.  When I finally got to the store, my list wasn't in any particular order, so I'd often overlook something or it would get left off the list accidentally.  

Around Thanksgiving I took the Plan to Eat plunge.  They were running a sale for a year-long subscription for around $20, so I thought it was worth it to give it a try.  If you've never looked at the site, the quick version is that you enter your recipes on the site and then can plan your menu with a few simple clicks.  Then you can print a shopping list that shows all of the ingredients and has a key so you know which recipe the items are for.

The first couple of times I went shopping after I started seemed a little easier, but not significantly easier like I was hoping.  There were a few glitches on my end such as not choosing the right dates to print, but the list was more organized.

The last three times I've planned and shopped it's been a breeze (except for the two small people who accompany me) so I thought I'd share what works for me.  It's kind of time consuming so it may not work for you, but while I'm doing more work before I go to the store, the actual shopping trip is much quicker.

I plan menus at least two weeks at a time.  PE days are almost always crock pot meals or something from the freezer.  We also run errands on those days, so I don't want to cook something huge and involved after running around all afternoon.  I also plan around Jay's work schedule.  Once I've got my menu planned, I print my list, which is what you see in the first picture.

After I have the list, I go through my pantry to see what I already have because every single ingredient is listed, down to salt and pepper.  There is probably an option to not print everything, but I like to see it so I don't assume I've got it and then be stuck without in the middle of cooking.  If I don't need it, I cross it off.

The last thing I do is make my new list (the second picture).  I sort everything into categories so that my list is set up in the same order I get to those items in the store.  So all I have to do is walk in and start shopping!  I don't have to backtrack and I don't think I've forgotten anything in the last six weeks, so even though this takes some time I am so happy with it!

(And now I feel old because not only am I so excited about my new grocery shopping plan, but I even blogged about it.  Next thing you know I'll be telling you what I think is great about toilet paper.  Oh....)

This Friday

 This Friday was not a fun one.  It was the day of my Great Aunt Nettie's funeral.  She and my grandma are twins--my grandma couldn't tell which was which in this picture.

She and my grandma did almost everything together.  You've seen her on here before, like the time we had a Mar-Gra's night, or just on ordinary days.

 It's sad for us that she's not here anymore, but she is in a better place and we are better for having had her in our lives.

On a less somber note, we watched Horton Hears a Who.  That little creature that inflates and floats off is weird.  I had a vague recollection of people saying they didn't like it, but I couldn't remember why, but then I remembered it was because of the psycho homeschooling (or pouchschooling) kangaroo.  So please know we're not all crazy.  At least most of the time we're not.

Happy Friday!  I'll be back later this weekend to share some fun stuff we did with trains and the mail--at least I'm hoping that by telling you it will be up this weekend that I will actually do it!