Wednesday, September 15, 2010

September 15, 2010

I have not been too good at updating the blog lately. I think of things to write about but then get busy and forget. Here are some of the things that have been going on around here:

- The boys were rough housing while with the dad and they knocked the lamp off of the coffee table. It actually still works but is quite broken and crooked. Oh well. The funny thing is that I seem to do much better with things like this if I am not the one in charge when it happens:).

- We had a 'cat-astrophy' the other evening. This rental house has two doors upstairs that lead into the attic (two very large, separate attic spaces). The boys have been told that they are not to go into the attic without an adult and, up until now, we had not had any issues with this. A couple of days ago, Mr. Ben decided attics are interesting, I guess. He opened the door and let the cat in. I let him know that this is not allowed but, very unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, he ended up doing it again later that evening. I went into the master bathroom and I heard a cat meowing very loudly. After looking for her (Zoe), I quickly realized that she was IN THE WALL between the shower and the toilet. I ran up stairs to find the attic door was not tightly closed, my first clue as to how she had managed to end up in a wall. I went into the attic and called her, thinking she might be able to climb back out the way she got in. My other cat, Dancer, came out of the attic while I was calling Zoe. 2nd clue that the attic door had again been opened. The dear husband ended up having to cut a whole in the wall to get the very unhappy cat out. While I read to the boys before bed, dear husband was changing out the attic door knobs to a kind that lock, so we won't have to worry about this again.

- We had a meeting with the last builder yesterday and it went very well. We really like these builders a lot and I believe we will end up going with them. They are currently coming up with some suggestions of how we might reduce the cost a bit more. I am hopeful we will come to a final agreement within a week or so. They said that we could start clearing the land and preparing for the foundation work within a week after we sign up with them so I am hoping we will start within the next two weeks. I AM READY! We are close.

- We have started visiting churches in the town where we will be building our house. We visited one church the week before last but quickly knew that we had major doctrinal differences. We visited another church this past Sunday and I really liked it a lot. I think this will probably be the church where we will attend and I am excited about getting involved there.

- We are slowly moving ahead with learning to read, using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I slacked off a bit for a week or so, although the boys were still reading to us from their readers. We started back up this morning and did lesson #53. Last night I prepared lessons for us through #70, or something like that. Basically right up to where they would start learning long vowel words. I am anxious for us to get to the long vowels because, without them, we are very limited with our readers. The readers cover short vowel words first but then they cover long vowel words next. In OPGTR, they cover short vowels and then lots of beginning and ending blends and digraphs before they get to long vowels. So, for the most part, we can't practice the beginning and ending blends and digraphs using our readers until we get through long vowels. I find that frustrating, although the boys are really get good at short vowel words.

Well, that's long enough for today. I can't think of anything else to write about right now. I need to start thinking of what to get the boys for their birthdays. Ben's birthday is just around the corner now. If you have any good ideas for a 5 year old, let me know.

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