Shumway Family Blahhhg

School Links

Monday, February 2, 2015

MY kids need to practice their math facts so they can get faster. They answer the questions correctly at school, it just takes them longer to do it. I'm not going to lie. I'm thinking it's because my kids were born with molasses legs and do everything extra slowly. especially the Megster. SO, I'm compiling this list of sites for them to use after their homework is done everyday. I'm also throwing in other education sites for them to try out. I thought I'd post this on here in case any of you people need something like this for your own kiddos. Here goes:

STEM
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/

MATH
QUICK FLASH II
http://www.multiplication.com/games/play/quick-flash-ii

MULTIPLICATION TIMED TEST- this one come with a sticker chart you can print, too
http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner123/2013/01/01/multiplication-timed-tests/

TIMED MULTIPLICATION TEST- This one has a lot of other math tools like budgeting tools and business calculators
http://www.free-online-calculator-use.com/multiplication-quiz.html

MY KIDS' FAVORITE MATH SITE
https://prodigygame.com

THEIR TYPING SITE
https://www.typing.com/

OTHER TYPING/KEYBOARDING GAMES at learning games for kids- there are a lot of other types of learning game on this site. Check it out.
http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html

BBC BITSIZE DANCE MAT TYPING- this one is a guided tour by a British sheep. if your kids like animation I'd start them here. Also, if you click where it says BITESIZE on the site, it will take you to a lot of other learning games sorted by level.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr

FREE LANGUAGE LESSONS. THE KIDS ARE LEARNING PORTUGUESE
https://www.duolingo.com/

YOUNGER KIDS:

STARFALL- learn to read. My kids are too old for this one, but I put it here for anyone with young children
http://www.starfall.com/

ROSETT STONE KIDS READING- this is another for preschool age kiddos.
http://tinyurl.com/kdnvapw

Pumpkin Cookies- Hey, it's fall!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Hey friends! I thought, since it's fall, that I would post a fallish recipe every so often. So here is a great recipe for Pumpkin cookies from our Matheson cousins:

Glazed Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups sugar (make sure this is all white sugar)
1 small can pumpkin (15 oz)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 cups oat flour (blend oatmeal in a blender)
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups crushed pecans (the original recipe called for 3c chocolate chips, but I thought it was too sweet with the glaze and I love pecans, so there you go.)

Mix wet ingredients, then add the dry ingredients; mix well.

Bake at 375 for 8-9 minutes. While baking, make glaze:

Glaze

2 c powdered sugar
4 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
1 Tbsp. milk

Mix well and immediately frost warm cookies. (If this seems thicker than a glaze, just add a little more milk- I can't attest to the consistency if you're somewhere drier than Dominica)

Enjoy!!

I'm back. Again.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Ha! You thought I was back before but I was just teasing. I'm not going to make any promises of regular blog posting, but I'll simply say that I'll try to post a little more often.
What's going on??? Well, a lot. Not all of which I'm going to post today, but I will give you a mini run down. We are in Arizona living with Aaron's parents until he takes his 1st board exam and gets assigned a rotation track somewhere. Possible destinations: Bakersfield CA, Chicago IL, Cheverly MD, Brentwood MD, Queens NY, Far Rockway NY, Pontiac MI, and Saginaw, MI.
Aaron's first choice is CA but we shall see where we end up. The rotation tracks begin in December and January but unlike Aaron the kids and I are waiting until school ends in May to move. It kind of needs to happen that way since we don't get any loan money until he's been in rotations for a month and a half. yipes!
Right now Aaron is studying for his first board exam which is suuuuper stressful, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

The kids are both back at the charter school they attended before we left which is nice since they already knew people when they re-enrolled. It's a great school anyway so we are very happy it was so easy to get them in (not so easy when Meg was a kindergartner). They are both now in orchestra with Meg on the violin and Matthew on the cello. The teacher is taking things sooooo slooooowly. They haven't touched their bows at all and they only know how to pluck like 6 notes. They get super frustrated about it. I would, too. The kids are both very excited about Halloween- I got the stuff to make their costumes at SAS. Megan is going to be a white wizard and Matthew is going to be Starlord from Guardians of the Galaxy. I ordered his mask and gun on amazon and he's already worn them a few times. Now I just need to get started making his maroon leather jacket and Megan's dress made of 10 yards of fabric. oy! Of course I will post pictures when I have them.
Other than all that stuff we have been cultivating our garden in the back yard, Meg and Matt enjoy their cub scouts and activity day activities respectively, and I will be singing with Geek Empire again soon. Fun times!

Snorkeling Toucari Bay

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Aaron is officially done with his 3rd semester of med school and we are on our two week staycation before 4th! Here are a few pictures from our first snorkeling trip this break :) Friday morning we met a few other couples at the med school's front gate and negotiated a taxi ride with "Mr. Brun" to and from Toucari Bay [TOO-coddy] (15 minutes north) for $7.00EC each, round trip (~$2.60US). The water was clear and the jellies were definitely present, but not plentiful or aggressive enough to keep us away! Good day!

Megan putting on her son, Owen's, goggles :)

This is a Smooth Trunk Fish

Balloon Fish

Caribbean Blue Tang (Dory's Caribbean cousin)

Cool sponge

Owen, and his dad, Nate Russell, getting ready to dive

The Dynamic Duo

Blue/Grey Tang

The other Dynamic Duo

Cool spikey vase sponge

Barrel Sponge

Aaron's head at Toucari

Playing with the jellies

Megan Russell

Blue-Headed Wrasse

School of brown and blue Tang

Squirrel fishies

That is a piece of coral/sponge that I accidentally broke off. As soon as I put it back down a bunch of fish came to check it out and eat little newly-exposed organisms that were invisible to me

Blue-Headed Wrasse

Coney Fish (Part of the Grouper family)

Pretty reef life (Blue-Headed Wrasse)

A little island under the sea...

Those things that look like palm trees are called Feather Duster worms. The top "flower" is the crown of a sea worm that lives in the tube and is both a feeding apparatus and a breathing gill. If you wave your hand by it or touch it the worm reflexively withdraws into its tube

Laughing fit

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Oh my goodness. I had a good 5 minute laughing fit just now. I was bawling. Tears were streaming down my face. I read a website of iphone texting auto-correct confusion just now which I can't share on here because some of them were inappropriate but Oh My Gundersnatch. I couldn't stop. My friends, Sara and Lacey, were looking at me like I had lobsters coming out of my ears.
Laughing is the absolute best exercise ever. Im pretty sure I was so out of control because I was tired and boy did my stomach hurt when I was done (I had to close the webpage to stop). That is all. I love to laugh. I need to do it more often. :D

She's baaaaaack

Friday, July 19, 2013

Yeah yeah- It's only been.... oh crud. a YEAR. It's been a YEAR since my last post! In that time we have moved to a tropical island (then moved again due to a rat infestation), Aaron has completed a year of medical school, I opened a bakery, became and expert snorkeling photographer, and we have learned a lot about making do in this third world country! WE LOVE IT! We have two more semesters to go here and will be returning around the end of April 2014 for rotations- hopefully in Atlanta, but the location part of it is up in the air.

There are a few reasons I decided to come back and blog- some big and some not so big, but I'm glad to be back :) I will be updating the look of it since I no longer have those two little bumpkins in the header picture. I now have an 8 and 10 year old that are twice that size! They love it here! Today at their summer school program they are horseback riding and sand castle building all on the beach. Tough life.

Here are a few random pics por toi.