Madison and I have been reading both the Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade.  These books are great.  Even with Madison only being four, we are able to do activities out of both of these books.  The first thing I love is that we can write with our felt tip pens on these books and then erase when we are done with the activities.  The activities are also very age appropriate.  We are able to do some of the activities, because they worked on them in preschool.  However, there are a lot of things we will be working towards.  In the kindergaren book, there is a list of skills that we should be working on with Madison like knowing our address and phone number, taking turns, and recognizing your left and right.  Now, Madison knows a bunch of things on that list.  However, there is a good chunk of things she doesn’t (like knowing her left and right).  There are a lot of skills in these books that we will be working on all summer, so she’s set for preschool again in the fall.  I’m glad we have a fun way to work on them.

How Its Made is a show on the Discovery Channel and The Science Channel. It is show that all ages can watch and they show you how things are made. You can see everything from cheap glasses to candy canes. I have to admit that the candy cane show was one of the coolest. They didn’t make it they way I though they would. It starts off as huge chunks (like 100 lb. chunks of candy). I find it interesting to learn how everyday items (and some not so everyday items) are made. Madison even enjoys this show!

Want your youngster to read? This is the video for you. Leap Frog - Learn To Read At The Storybook Factory teaches the love of reading, chunking, matching written and spoken words, punctuation, story comprehension, and helps them to understand character and plot. The characters of this video act out the story of “The Three Little Pigs”. Madison now goes around reciting this story for us. Again, another great introduction to reading for her. The ages this video is geared for is 3 - 6. These are skills she will need when she goes to school, and I am glad I can give her a little head start.

Even though this store is farther away from me than Menards and Home Depot, I think Lowe’s is my new favorite store. As far as prices go, I think they are pretty much in line with everyone else. However, there are some very specific things that stood out for me when we made a trip out to Orland last week.

First, we were looking for a very specific vanity. I only have room in my bathroom for a 24″ one, Bill wanted oak, and I wanted it to have drawers. That does not sound too picky. However, to get a vanity that small, it was very difficult. I was able to go onto Lowe’s website and see what choices were available. It also allowed me to enter my zip code. It told me what stores were the closest to me. The part that I was impressed with was that it told me that my local store had the inventory for what I was looking for. Nothing is more frustrating than either having to call or go to the store to find out that they don’t have any (just happened with Home Depot). They also had way more choices for vanities there (not in the size I needed but in general). We were also able to pick up a medicine cabinet that we did not find anywhere else.

Their customer service rocked. Once we were there, we did not have to search someone down to help us. They immediately asked us if we needed help. Also, Bill even loved the next thing I am going to talk about. On every display, they listed where in the store you could find the item. It told you the row, column, and shelf to look on. I cannot tell you how much time that saved. I loved it!

Overall, this was a great shopping experience. Lowe’s got a good chunk of our money last week, and we will be heading out there again this week to pick up a few more odds and ends that we need to finish the bathroom. I would highly recommend Lowe’s for your home remodeling needs.