How excited am I?

Fresno Unified School District was just given a 3.18 million dollar grant to use towards the implementation of four new magnet schools. Two of those schools are Awahnee Middle School and Hoover High (the schools our kids will go to). Now, granted, these programs will be open to all Fresno Unified students on an application basis. But if our kids were to choose to apply, the program at Awahnee Middle school is...what? Environmental science (studying air, water, wind, and solar power)! To read the article from the Fresno Bee this morning, click here.

Other green stuff

For those of you interested, I read an interesting article today about a family of 3 in New York City that went completely carbon-neutral for a year. If you don't know what that means, you should definitely read the article. Click here for the link.

Green Idea of the Week

Install energy efficient shower heads. We have switched our showerheads over to low flow models, a cheap fix (about $20 each). It uses less water, and therefore, less hot water from your water heater...and then your water heater doesn't have to use more energy to heat up even MORE water. Since Randy likes HOT showers, this really helps us save. Saving energy and water at the same time! What a great idea!

Big Stuff!

So in the last post I mentioned that some big things have happened in our house this week...Audrey on two wheels is one of them! She still has a bit more balance to achieve, but she finally had the courage to even try! She got a new bike (used off Craigslist actually) and the training wheels from her old bike didn't transfer well. So we're starting to learn without 'em.
Isaac had his first official dentist appointment this past Monday and did GREAT! He went in with me about 2 months ago to see the office and sit in the chair and meet the dentist. But this time they cleaned his teeth and everything! He did so good! No tears or whining at all!I (Jamie) completed a fun project this week as well...a quilt for Baby Carly Bergen. About 4 months ago, Jennifer Ogawa and I started talking about doing a quilt for the baby and wanted to include as many women from the church as wanted to quilt. I actually have a quilt that a bunch of ladies from Visalia First Baptist Church made for my mom when she was pregnant with me...so we took the idea! Fifteen women from our church made a block for a baby quilt and then Jennifer and I gathered them all together, arranged the blocks and pieced them together. Then I took it home and tied it, and bound it. The above picture is just the top, there are 9 other blocks on the back, and a matching pillow with two more blocks! It turned out really nice! It was nice to quilt again too! I haven't finished a quilt since Christmas 2004 (for Grace Isaac). I have a quilt for Randy and one for Isaac that are both half done. Maybe this will inspire me to get my sewing machine out more often!Randy received his new "baby" in the mail today, allow me to explain. For those of you who don't know, Randy has become quite the hand percussionist in the last 2 years. He started with a small set of bongos, and quickly knew he would like playing. He invested in a conga (middle drum) and quinto (on the right). He plays them at home and at church in the worship team. Well, this Fall, he noticed in the Gon Bops catalog that they were discontinuing his style of drums...and there are three in the set. So...even though he had originally thought it would be quite a while until he would purchase the third drum in the set (the tumba, pictured at left) he had to hunt it down on-line before he couldn't buy it anymore (the local Guitar Center already couldn't order it). Well, he found one. And it took three weeks for them to get it in stock, but they finally received it and shipped it, and it got here TODAY! Now Randy can make it big...tour with the big names! We're so proud of our "juero conguero".And Miss Violet...she continues to try sitting on the potty. It definitely helps that she has two big siblings that use the toilet! She peed on the toilet twice yesterday! And she's been coming to me, telling me she needs to go "poo poo" right after she's filled her pants (hey, it's a start). I'm so excited to almost be completely done with changing diapers!!! A couple more months and she'll be old enough to use the toilet ALL the time! Good job Violet!

Welcome Baby Bergen!

This has been an exciting week...and it's not even over yet! There have been some fun things going on in our own house, but I will post about those this weekend. This post is just for Baby Bergen. As most of you know, our good friends, James and Marcy Bergen (James is our lead pastor at North Fresno Church, and they live around the corner from us), have been expecting their third child since the beginning of the year. This past Tuesday, just before 1 a.m., Carly Grace Bergen was born! Marcy and Carly are both doing great and came home from the hospital yesterday! We are so thankful for God's protection and grace through the delivery and in the past few days! We pray that Carly will grow bigger and stronger each day, and that she will enjoy many years to come with her loving family! Welcome Carly Grace! We are so happy you're finally here!

Green Idea of the Week

To decrease energy use and save money on your energy bill at the same time...switch out your "regular" light bulbs to energy star labeled ones (also known as CFLs). A current PG&E commercial states that if everyone in the U.S. would switch out 5 of their lightbulbs, it would be like taking 4 million cars off the road! These bulbs are more expensive, but will more than make up the cost because they last 10 times as long, and use less energy too! You can even get a PG&E rebate for buying these bulbs!

Academic improvements

Although Isaac doesn't sit down and do crafts or activity/coloring pages with me like Audrey used to do...he sure does observe and learn! I've been challenged to use different methods to teach him...using everyday activities to reinforce academic ideas for his age level (ie. shapes, numbers, colors, alphabet, size differentiation, etc). So we count things a lot! Yesterday Isaac counted up to 49 all by himself! Wow! And Violet is finally starting to make some progress with her words. She imitates all kinds of sounds and one syllable words (like wee, uh-oh, um, no, see, two/too, etc). Yesterday on a walk she said "geese" over and over as some passed by overhead! She's also getting really good at defending herself against Isaac these days (not always in good ways though). I can only hope that this will teach her to stand up for herself and not give in to peer pressure later in life. I'm always glad to see my kids learning and growing!

A whole new room!

After months of thinking about how to rearrange the rooms, we had a family meeting on Saturday morning to decide where everything would go. The consensus of all 3 kids, with a resounding "hurray" was that they all wanted to sleep in the same room. So three hours later, the bedrooms now look like this (sorry I don't have a wide angle lens). We hope to get a "big girl" bed for Violet in the next 6 months or so and then we'll have to rearrange again. But until then, the kids are enjoying being all together. The sleeping room...with two beds, a crib, a tall bookcase in the corner by Violet's crib, and the dresser in the closet. The playroom...with the second dresser (on the left wall), second bookcase (on the right wall), desk, and all the toys!Audrey now has a desk in the playroom on which to do her homework during "quiet time".Violet's getting to be such a big girl!

Green Idea of the Week

Ok...this seems simple. But every little bit helps, right? That's why our energy bill for the month of July was a mere $57...yup, that's right. And we DON'T have dual-pane windows or solar-panels (both great...but big investments we can't afford yet). So, want to know some small ways to make a big difference is conserving energy in your home (like we've done)?

When you fill a pot with water to heat up to a boil (for a soup or pasta noodles), put the pot under the faucet and turn only the hot lever to fill (if you only need a little water, it may not have enough time to get hot, but for a stock pot it would), and put a lid on your pot when you put it on the stove to heat. The lid (and already semi-hot water) will cut down the time needed to get to a boil and save energy!

Check in over the next few weeks...we'll have some "small" green ideas to help you save "big" in our next few GIOTWs.

Labor Day

Ever since we got back from our vacation to Kansas it has been in the triple digits here in Fresno...last week we even got a freak thunderstorm that, although neat to experience, brought some nasty humidity with it! It is NOT fun to have a 105 degree day with 50% humidity. All this to say that Labor Day was our chance to escape. We headed to Pismo Beach for the day with the Wiens family (check out their blog for even more fun pictures). After some clam chowder and fish and chips at Splash Café, we set ourselves up for an afternoon on the sand. The kids loved playing on the beach for a couple hours! Charlotte was an absolute riot to watch...she crawled all over! She would have gone straight into the waves if Aaron hadn't stopped her, no joke! Violet loved playing in the sand, but clung super-tight to me when we went out into the waves. Isaac and Audrey both love everything about the beach...they were wet and covered with sand everywhere by the end of the day! After we showered up, we walked around town, down the pier, and to dinner before leaving. What a great day! Thanks Aaron and Christa for thinking of it! The girls enjoying the sand. Randy heading out into the waves with the kiddos. Who needs a nap anyway? Everyone's diggin'!