Dice, Dice, and more Dice

The kids didn't have school today. So I had my 3 home and babysat for a friend of mine.

The 2 bigger ones played legos most of the day.

The 4 younger ones played Wii for a little bit. Then they decided to play the dice game.

My girls made it up the other night and have become obsessed with it.

They start off by rolling 1 dice and they record that number in a notebook. \

Then they roll it again. They record that number and add it to the previous one.

Example: 1st roll is a 5
2nd roll is a 1
Its recorded like 5 + 1 = 6

Then the other one does the same.

On their 2nd turn they roll 2 dice. Add those together and record that number. Then roll the 2 dice again, add those together, and then add that number to the previous recorded number.

Example: 1st roll was a 4 and a 3 which equals 7.
2nd roll was a 5 and a 3 which equals 8.
Its recorded as 4 + 3 = 7 and 5 + 3 = 8.
Then they add those 2 numbers together - 7 + 8 = 15
Then they right all the numbers down 4 + 3 + 5 + 3 = 15

Each turn they add a dice, so turn 3 had 3 dice and so on.

Each turn is recorded the same.

After the last person rolls and adds up their 5 dice they then add up the totals.

This can get a little tricky, so I taught them to break it down into adding 2 totals at a time.

The person with the largest total wins.

If they have a tie then the tie breakers is rolling all 5 dice and person with the largest number wins.


It sounds a little tricky until you play it.

I must admit I even enjoyed playing it with them. When I play, they "help" me add up my score.

In just a few days I can already see an improvement in their adding, especially double digits.

Eventually we will turn this game into a subtraction one, but I figure we need to master addition first.

Saving Money, Saving Energy

Last night I got on to see when my electric bill was due. To my shock I found out my bill was only $16. Apparently they were ordered to repay their customers, and instead of sending out that many checks, they took it off the current bill.

Awesome!

I've had a few people ask how my bill is so low in the first place.

Everything is unplugged. EVERYTHING. Cable box, tv, surround sound, and dvd player are all plugged into the same strip. So unless something is set to record during the day (which is very very rare) that strip is unplugged in the morning.

The video games are unplugged and put in cabinet and only plugged in when in use.

This house has a ton of windows, so its bright enough during the day, so the rule is no lights on until around 4:30 or 5.

This is a must read article for anyone looking to save money with their energy bill.

If anyone has any other habits they've gotten in please share with us.

I'm hoping in the future to be able to convert my house to solar energy.

We need heat!

Just before summer our furnace stopped working. We put off on having it fixed until later in the year. We weren't going to need it and figured that it would give us time to set aside some money to get it fixed.

We knew that it would be expensive considering our furnace is an old in the floor, 1920 or so furnace.

We started out by having the thermostat fixed. That didn't work. Then we had the gas company out here to look at it. They told us that we had a weak pilot generator. So we called heating repair.

They came out today to fix it. It worked for about an hour after he left, then it decided it wasn't going to work again.

We have the thermostat cranked up to 90 and its not kicking on.

They are coming back on Monday to see what else needs to be done to it.

I'm thinking it might be cheaper to replace it than trying to fix this one.

Awesome job!

This week is conference week. The kids get out early all week. Yesterday I had conference with the girls' teacher. Awesome news. Both have improved tremendously since the beginning of school. My son's conference was today. He's doing great, exceeding standards in everything. Needs a little help with writing, but his teacher said its still pretty good.

So yeah, I'm a proud mommy once again.

Rude people

Yesterday we went to the aquarium. Now I'm reminded why we don't normally go on weekends.

There were a ton of people there. Normally crowds don't bother me, but it seems like every rude person in the area was there on the same day.

Seriously, is it really asking that much to let kids stand in front of you? You're taller and can see over their heads.