Jills Amazing Food Tricks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYjamLN5A68&feature=BFa&list=PL0C7DAE2D36BE4580

You have to check these out they are awesome! Great tips for cleaning, toddler size boo bos, and removing crayon from wood! I have to say these are Amazing!
Check them out!

Health Care Update.

So after Multiple phone calls armed with the part number the NDC number and the item number. Even after calling the manufacturer, my insurance companies mail order pharmacy, and a bunch of specialized pharmacies I was still hitting a brick wall.  No one carries salt water in vials.

A few pharmacies said "We'll call you back, we don't have it, maybe we can get it."
I called medical supply places that resale for Pima but they can't sell to me, they only sell to nursing homes.
It was so discouraging.

I got very good customer service this time from Cigna a cheerful woman who after concluding they can't help me was like ummm ummm uhhh good luck, so sorry... Sigh... 
I told the lady at Cigna I think I just needed to pray.

Ok lets be real my prayer was a very Nehemiah prayer Helppp!!! Lord Helppp! not all "Holy Dearest Father in Heaven Above", very much more like a child crying out to her daddy in frustration "The round peg won't go in the square hole!" kinda prayer.

Well the very next phone call I get the sweetest tech. AND they can order it  AND it will be in tomorrow woot!!!  She also ran it though the system and it is cheaper. *big sigh of relief*

BUT...

Seems there is a BUT... to everything these days. The doctor wrote the script for 3x a day, we have been doing only 1x a day due to cost. Our insurance will only cover 2x a day, after that we have to pay full price. I started thinking... My insurance only covers what the average is, not what the patient needs but what is fair.

This is such a far cry from the Connected child philosophy of everyone in this family doesn't always get what they want but they do get what they need within the best of our abilities. It made me think we are already rationed in our health care right now due to the cost... even with the insurance we still can't get to the ideal amount still due to cost. Suddenly I lost all hope for the future of health care it just drained away.

It made me sad.

CTC Unit 7 In Review

My daughters math tutor thought the Ephod project was really cool.
She had always wondered what that would look like.

The only tooth paste we had at home was gel tooth paste so we decided to not make the air dry clay and use our oven bake polymer clay instead. I helped dig out tiny pieces from the mess they had made of the clay bin. Little Miss Sunshine used up all the red for just her jewels because "Mom it's first come first serve." Had to have that talk on treat others as you yourself would like to be treated.  So here are our rocks and jewels ready to be put in the oven. I stood by and gave advice on how to mix up the colors to match the pictures. 

Sweet Potato gluing them down.  

Little Miss Sunshine is saying "Mom I'm in my pajamas!"  I told her no one would ever know if she hadn't said that. She was sick all last week but not so sick she got behind in school.
Gotta love home school, Oh your bored of all your books, here read your history.

All done! 

I love the "I Was Right" at the bottom of this page. 

 Notebooks pages this week

 Little Miss Sunshine's painting 

Sweet Potato's painting. she initially did one tree in the middle, and dribbled the eye dropper all over her tree top. Then she picked it up still wet and brought it over to me to see. As she brought it the paint dribbled in creative ways. and she was not happy her painting was "Ruined." I have to admit I was baffled, Since she took the photos for the blog post this week yet wasn't able to follow the book or my instructions. Now we had a painting dribbling orange paint on the floor. It's true you know the shoe makers son never has shoes... it's not because the shoe maker never has time to make shoes. It's because the kid refuses to wear them! I blotted the painting as best I could while she cleaned up the floor. When it had dried we added more trees to cover up mistakes made.  Handy the way the paint can do that. With a bit more guidance aka Mom standing next to her asking "What are you going to do next?" she made other types of trees in her painting. 

On Saturday Sweet Potato and My Knight In Shining Armor went to a car show at Irving Bible Church. I get a call from Sweet Potato saying "MOM I won a car!"  Imagine my moment of happiness we could sell the new car pay off the car we just bought and... and... and... and...  Put the rest in a college fund.

Oh ..

Wait...

It's

this

car

There she is calling me about her win.
Practical Jokers!!! 

CTC Unit 7 Watercolor Tutorial

Day 2

Here is all the "stuff" you will need to do today and tomorrows painting. 

I happen to own a sea sponge I love this sponge and I've had it since college so its seen better days. If you do not have a sponge you can use a crumpled up paper towel, or even an old rag. Little Miss Sunshine is sick today so her sister is my photographer today.  Thanks Sweet Potato :-)

 I discovered we did not need the "wide" paint brush.  

 Tape down your paper. 

Squeeze out a large pea size blob of paint. 

 Add a drop of water, mix and load up your brush with all the paint. 

Paint about 1/4 of the way down in yellow,
this really helps you to have yellow paint at the bottom of the page. 

Dip your brush in water and keep painting, the yellow will fade as you paint down the paper.  

 See just a hint of color at the bottom. 

 Sweet Potato giving it a try. 

 Off she goes... 

 Now set aside your painting to dry in a safe place. 

Day 3

This sponge is too big so I'm going to rip off just a small piece
If you don't have a sponge like this see the bottom of the blog post
for other stuff you can use to make the leaves. 

 If you don't have an orange paint tube I suggest you use yellow and scarlet. 

Add a few drops of water to the brown and mix smooth. 

 The trunk should have 4 lines thick on the bottom and thin at the top. 

 Here is my last trunk line. 

 I added branches as my fancy decided. 

 You can make them any way you like.
Feel free to go look at a tree before you start to see how branches grow. 

 Here I'm putting in a branch behind the first limb. 

 Adding a branch on the side. 

 I only filled them in a little bit so they matched the trunk. 

 Add in smaller branches and twigs to your tree. 

 Twiggy

More twigs 

 Ahh I like that. 

Now take your eye dropper.  

 drop water on to your trunk. 

 See lots of drips. 

 Now I'm ready for my yellow paint. 

 Oopsie I started with orange my bad... Dip your sponge in the yellow. 

 Dab dab dab.. be sure to avoid the water drops. 

 After you have done a layer of yellow leaves, clean off your sponge. 

 Mix up your yellow and red to make an orange. 

 Oooo I like that orange. Don't forget to clean your brush, and don't leave it in the water cup :-) 

 With your now clean sponge dip it in the orange. 

Dab dab dab over the yellow leaves.  

 Let the branches show through. 

 Now go back and dab another layer of yellow. 

Carefully use a paper towel to soak up the left over water, on the trunk. 

 Don't forget to sign your master piece. 

Set aside to dry in a safe place. 

 Clean up and put away your supplies.

Here are some options if you don't have a sea sponge at home

A kitchen sponge (ripped), a crumpled paper towel, a cotton rag.

 Use the inside part that has holes.

 This delivers a lot of paint.

 Here is the crumpled paper towel.

It is lighter but makes more fluttery leaves.

Here is the cotton rag. Wetting it helps to keep it from soaking up all the paint.

 It delivers paint some where in between the kitchen sponge and paper towel.

 Now for the orange.

 Paper towel, no need to clean it for this :-)

 Well that's not too bad.

 Make sure you really hold it tight to keep it crumpled.

 Notice how the pattern repeats a lot. Nice if you want your leaves to all look alike.

So there you go 3 more ways to make leaves.

Update: There is a 2 week break In the guides between Units 8 and 9,
so the next tutorial picks up on Unit 10 :-)