HELLO

Hi. I'm Amanda...a happy wife and mom to three awesome guys. We've lived here in Fort Collins for more than 20 years and are proud to call it home. Before moving to CO, I worked at a city attorney's office, making use of my law and Master's degrees from Duke. After settling in Fort Collins, I homeschooled my three (now teenage and older) sons and was delighted to experience music classes, soccer, karate, swim team, archery, Science Olympiad, First Lego League, parkour, and climbing (not all at the same time!). From 2005-10, I was also a contributing editor for a national scrapbooking magazine, authoring a book and a couple of monthly columns. From 2009-10, I founded and ran the Good Grief Blog. I enjoy learning new things, spending time with my family, volunteering with The Matthews House, traveling and indoor rock climbing.

CATEGORIES
CURRICULUM
SUBSCRIBE
ARCHIVES
SEARCH THIS SITE
Powered by Squarespace
Wednesday
Mar052008

Five for Wednesday

Yes, more randomness from me today. :)

1. If you're like me and can totally appreciate getting a bunch of scrapbook layouts just plain done, check out March's Kit of the Month through Creating Keepsakes. Some very fun (and great looking) layouts and super easy! (Gotta love easy!) I hear it's almost sold out already, so act quickly. I bought mine last week and am anxious for it to get here!

2. Did I ever mention that I contributed to an awesome book by Hillary Heidelberg? Well, I did and it's in stores now and worth every penny! It's called Scrap Simple and is full of fabulous inspiration!

3. Can anyone tell me why, as of this morning, Noah has lost four baby teeth and all of them have had to be extracted at the dentist's office? Yup, had to go have two more pulled today. He had two pulled back in August (or was it September?). All of them had to come out because the permanent teeth were starting to come through with no signs of the baby teeth leaving (and thus the permanent teeth were coming in crooked). Sigh. The dentist even told me today that this is unusual, particularly in a mouth like Noah's with plenty of room...says it's more common in "crowded" jaws (um, like Asher's and Micah's...yeah, what are the odds we're not going to go through this another couple times at least?). Methinks the dentist may be planning a Caribbean vacation on us given the amount of business he's been getting just from our three boys. ;) (Fortunately, he's a really good dentist and we like him.)

4. It snowed again last night. Nothing serious and it'll be gone shortly, but really. Was that necessary? :)

5. For anyone who cares, I'm pretty proud of myself. I took heaps of photos this February...much improved over years past with very few photos in January and February. Specifically, I took 817 photos...with 228 edited to be potentially used. (Can't find my earlier post about how I take way fewer photos this time of year, but you know what I'm talking about.)

Okay, that's it for now. Shall I tell you also that the boys and I have a fun and exciting surprise we're working on? Or shall I make you check back later? Bwaahaaahaaa! ;) Sorry, that was mean, particularly since I probably won't share the news for another couple weeks. But do check back. :) 

 

Tuesday
Mar042008

Two quick and random things...

First, this just cracked me up. Micah was recently granted the great honor of being allowed to watch movies on his Uncle Zach's PSP (is that what those are called? those portable game things that apparently can also play movies). Uncle Zach set it up for him to watch "Finding Nemo" on it while his big brothers were doing something else. The next day, Micah promptly followed Uncle Zach back to the basement and requested the same treatment. He came waltzing back upstairs (proud as could be) carrying the coveted PSP (we don't own any forms of video games personally) and again watching Nemo. The other two immediately crowded round and ended up watching the show like this:

03-02-08psp.jpg 

Never mind that we own the "Finding Nemo" dvd and they could easily watch it on the television (which was right behind them from where this picture is taken)...or that they'd just watched this on the tv the night before because of Micah mentioning it...or that previous to that they'd been adamant that they didn't like Nemo. Guess the novelty of a new toy will always win out. ;)

Second, I'm told it's March already (wow!). So, does anyone have any good ideas for Easter baskets for three boys? Last year I went with a pirate theme and it was adorable (had three little pirates swashbuckling around and yelling "Argh!" at me). I've also done sand toy themes in the past. Any other ideas? I'd actually kind of like to avoid toys this year, as we have more than enough. Hmmm...methinks I might have an idea or two now that I think about it. But, I'd still love to hear yours!! (Please share!) 

Sunday
Mar022008

March in Colorado...

So, yesterday was beautiful and we took advantage of it...headed out to fly our new "jet fighter" kite:

03-01-08kites.jpg 

For what it's worth, we saw lots of cool kite designs where we found this one, but Noah declared that this one was "more us" even though the other designs may have been better. Couldn't say no to that. :) Fortunately, this one also turned out to be a pretty darn good flyer.

Course, today it's supposed to snow. Yeah, really. 

Friday
Feb292008

What do you think?

Trying out a new blog banner thingie and title...for those not in the know, "btw" means "by the way"...

So, what do you think?

Friday
Feb292008

Leap, leap, leap...

Did you know it's not the easiest thing to get three boys to jump all at the same time? :)

02-29-08leapday.jpg 

Yup, fun "leap" pictures this afternoon...gonna try to work up a layout this weekend and will share it when I'm done!