Boy Oh Boy!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

2012-02-12T20:50:00.000-08:00

We have a lot going on around here lately. I don't remember how much I have already mentioned so forgive me if I repeat myself. The two biggest changes are:

1. Dear husband is starting his own cash-only (meaning he won't be accepting insurance) practice. He would like to keep working where he works currently (an urgent care clinic) as his new practice ramps up. He discussed it with one of the owners recently and it did not go so well. We are waiting to hear what they decide they want to do moving forward. Dear husband has already signed a lease contract for office space. He is working on the many details and hoping to start seeing patients around May-ish.

2. My mom is going to be moving in with us. She has been here with us since Wednesday and we have been discussing some of the details for her to move here. This is something we had anticipated and planned for since we built this house and the main reason we made sure our guest room is on the first floor. With some of the issues she has been having, it seems that this is the right time. My sister and I both expected that, when this time came, there would be some resistance from mom. Surprisingly, she is very excited about the move and seems to be really looking forward to it. That is a nice surprise. She tended to not get out enough when she lived alone and so she really ended up spending too much time alone and I don't think it was healthy for her. I am hopeful that we will all be able to adjust to this move fairly smoothly. I think we will.

Both of these things are huge changes for our family so we would greatly appreciate your prayers.

In other news, school is going well and we continue to chug along.

Above is our finished salt map. We had a lot of fun with this project.

These are Egyptian serpent headed throwing sticks. The boys had a lot of fun painting them. Boys, such as Moses, growing up in Egypt practiced throwing serpent headed throwing sticks at targets. When they got good enough at it, they hunted with them. Although we did not read this, I am guessing that the original throwing sticks were quite a bit longer than this and might have possibly had a sharp point on one end:).

Above is a picture of our messy kitchen and dining room during one school day. It does get quite messy around here at times.

Last week we had our first day of adding a new spelling curriculum to our day. It was not received with much excitement but I am hopeful that, once they are used to it, they will enjoy it. I need to do a better job of planning and implementing our science. I am not very impressed with some of the experiments so my excitement for doing it has waned a bit. Must work on that. Overall school is going very well. Our current read aloud is Charlotte's Web and we recently finished The Borrowers. Reading aloud is pretty much our favorite thing...for all of us. I love it too:).

Break time! ....and bed time for me. Hope you have a great week. Good night!

Happy Thursday!

2012-01-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Well we are finished with school for today and we have eaten lunch and the boys are playing outside. It is a beautiful, sunny day here and the temp is around 55 degrees or so. I'm sure it feels even warmer in the sun.

Yesterday we decided to take a day off of school so we had a free day. We traded it with Friday this week because we are not having co-op this week so Friday was free. It was nice to have a break mid-week and we all came back at it today refreshed.

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room and I kept wondering why I was smelling smoke so strongly. We had made a fire in our fireplace the night before, for the first time (it was lovely and we need to do that more often) and I kept thinking I was smelling the results of that. Finally, I happened to glance outside and noticed smoke wafting past our house. I got up and looked next door and saw a large plume of smoke coming up from a huge pile of trees that had been knocked down and piled on the other side of the lot when they started building a new house. I didn't see anyone around so I decided to put on my shoes and coat and walk over there to see what was going on. N went with me and we found that, sure enough, the huge pile of trees were on fire and nobody was around. We came back and told the husband and he called 911 to report it. Not long after there were several smaller red trucks (not true fire trucks) with tanks in the back bed that came to put it out and watch it for a while. I guess they save the big trucks for the big jobs. It was not a very big fire yet but it was really smoking and it took quite a bit of water to put it out. The boys really enjoyed the whole thing.

I am so far behind on posting pictures that I don't even know where to start. I will put in a few here though.

This (above) is what happens when boys get a hold of the camera:).

Here is our house, decorated for Christmas.

The dad was helping the boys make their gingerbread house.

We made a big batch of Christmas cookies that were quite yummy.

I was out Christmas shopping on this day, I think. They set the camera up on a tripod.

This was taken just before we took the Christmas tree down, which we did quite early this year. I was ready for the house to get back to normal.

Here is Tinkerbell. She is really getting big these days and a bit chubby too. This is how she looks when she is getting ready to attack something.

Here is one of my beautiful nieces, having a treat with the boys.

This is a salt map we made, while learning names of various landforms. It has taken it about a week to dry completely. We should be able to paint it soon. This was a very fun project for the whole family.

An after dinner dessert for two goofy boys.

Here the boys are doing a science experiment with the dad. We are studying the human body right now so the dad (being a dr.) enjoys joining in for the experiments. Here the boys are blowing into the tube, which forces water out of the 2 liter bottle, showing how much air they can hold in their lungs. They did this twice; once with a regular breath and once with a great, big breath so they could see the difference in how much their lungs hold. It was a fun project and we all joined in and tried it.

This is how we make our daily schedule. The laminated cards have velcro on the back to attach them to the strap. There is a pocket at the bottom to hold the cards. The boys and I decide what order we will do our subjects each day and we put the cards on the strap in that order (click on the picture to see a larger version). As we finish a subject, they take turns taking the card off the strap and putting it into the pocket. This is really working out very well for us and the boys are quickly getting use to the additional workload. We are normally done by noon, except on Tuesdays when we have to go to violin lessons in the mornings.

That's it for today as we have to get ready to go to swim lessons. Hope you are having a great day!

Health Update +

2012-01-11T22:09:00.000-08:00

I can't remember how much of this I have shared before so forgive me if I am repetitive. For many long years now I have had major issues with heart burn and/or GERD. This has really had a huge negative impact on my life in so many ways. I have been taking Raninidine (?sp) for many years, two pills in the morning and two with dinner and I would still end up eating TUMS all. day. long. And sometimes I still felt miserable. There were good days and bad days but, in general, it has been a thorn in my side for many long years.

So, the other night I was reading the education forum I read frequently and I happened to run across a thread about heart burn/GERD. The original poster was discussing her issues with this and what she should do, as she didn't have insurance. Several people posted that she should make sure the issue she was having was due to too much acid (HCl) in her stomach, rather than too little. Several people shared experiences about this where they actually had too little HCl so their food did not digest well. They said all of the symptoms were the same and the docs just tended to immediately assume their issues were from too much acid and put them on medications to reduce the acid levels.

I started researching it and boy was it an eye opener. I discovered that, due to my age, I was at least 40% likely to have too little HCl rather than too much. I also discovered that it can cause gall bladder disease. I had to have my gall bladder removed a number of years ago. It can also cause thyroid disease and I also take a low dose of thyroid medication. The more I read, the more interested I became and the more it made sense.

It was pretty easy to try this out to see if this was my problem. After reading more about it and discussing it with my doctor husband, I decided to give this a try. I bought HCl dietary supplements and started taking them with meals. I am absolutely amazed at the results. At this point, there is no doubt in my mind that my issue is (and probably always has been) that I have too little HCl in my stomach. I already feel so much better and have had very few problems since I have started taking the supplements. I have not taken any Raninidine since I started taking the supplements and I have hardly had any heart burn/GERD symptoms at all. I am still playing around with the dosage so I have had to take some TUMS a couple of times but, oh my goodness, not even close to the number I would have taken in a day before the added HCl.

I am obviously very happy about these results. I have also started taking a B12 supplement, as people who have been suppressing their levels of HCl to this extent are normally very low on B12. I probably need to have some testing done to see what else I may be low on. When the HCl is so low, the body does not absorb the vitamins and minerals very well. No wonder I have felt the way I have for so long. Amazing. I am absolutely amazed that I went to so many different specialists and not one of them thought of this. One Gastro doc even told me that I was swallowing too much air and I needed to stop doing that (low HCl also causes bloating, belching and such...lovely huh?).

I really can't believe how much better I feel already. And I have so much more energy too. I can't help but wonder how much damage has been done to my body over the years because of this. It has been at least 10 years, if not 11 or 12.

I am just so very thankful to God that I finally have a solution for this and I am feeling so much better now.

In other news, we had a great day with school today. We have added almost every subject now for 1st grade. The only other things we will add are Explode the Code, which we will use for spelling and phonics review and also Wordly Wise for vocabulary. We did Science today for the first time and the boys really enjoyed it. We are studying the human body and this week they are learning about cells, blood vessels, veins, arteries, and organs. They loved it. We will do an experiment on Friday (we are schooling Friday this week because we missed Monday). Tomorrow is a history day and we have two history projects to do. We will likely do one of them on Saturday, along with our first art project. I know they will really enjoy that.

They are doing really well with their narrating. I am astounded at how much they remember about what we read and they are really good at forming their responses in complete sentences. Currently I ask them questions about the passage I read aloud so I am walking them through how to narrate a paragraph or short story. Eventually, they will be able to do it without the questions from me.

I had better sign off, as it is much too late and I have teacher, mom, wife, housekeeper, patient (I have a dr. appt. tomorrow - skin issues, which can also be caused from low HCl), cook, daughter, sister, etc. duties tomorrow.

School - Moving from K to 1st

2012-01-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

There was a discussion on a forum I visit regularly about plans for 1st grade. This is something I have been working on for a while. The boys are older K'ers so they are currently doing 1st grade level work in the three R's. Currently I am trying to work through (and test out) the best way to add subjects to our day with the most excitement and the least resistance (more school and less play is not always met with a cheer at this house:).

Currently we are doing the following:
-- I read aloud for probably at least 30 minutes (they always beg for more). Our current read aloud book is Little Pilgram's Progress and it is awesome.
-- Leading Little Ones to God devotion and scripture memory (one verse per week)
-- Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading: we have maybe 1 to 2 months left to finish the book. Once we are finished, I will replaced this with All About Spelling Level 1.
-- Math Mammoth 1A: We have recently started this, after spending the first semester using Right Start A and Singapore Math 1A. They did not work out for us, for various reasons but MM seems like it is going to work out well for us (at least so far). We also use some of Miquon for extra practice or a different approach to a type of problem. For now, I am having them do 2 pages of MM a day, although they could probably do 3 because it is pretty easy for them right now, since we started back at the beginning.
-- Hand Writing without Tears Cursive / Reading: One child does a page of cursive work while the other reads aloud to me from a 4th grade Pathway Reader and then they switch. One child is stronger at writing and the other is stronger at reading so this actually works out very well for us. The boys had already finished HWT K and 1st books this school year. After doing some research, I decided to move them on to cursive, although they will still practice their printing with our writing program, for now.

The way we have been doing school, they are finished at this point. We usually start around 9:00 or 10:00 and they normally have snack time at the beginning of school, during our reading. The work above normally takes about 1.5 hours, although it would be closer to 2 hours if they were doing math that was more their level. Since we started at the beginning of MM 1A, it is pretty quick right now. We are schooling Monday through Thursday and go to co-op on most Fridays for P.E., choir and general play time with others. We read aloud from their Bible at bedtime and they each pick a book for us (my dh or I) to read aloud at that time also. They are also in swimming and soccer once a week, although they will finish swim lessons in May. B is still taking violin lessons so he has violin practice some days (should be every day but we are not quite that good:). N would like to take piano lessons and will hopefully be able to start sometime soon-ish.

Below are the subjects we will be adding for 1st grade. We have done a few lessons of each so I could get a feel for them:
First Language Lessons 1: Poetry memorization, learning parts of speech and narration.
Writing With Ease 1: Copy work leading to dictation and narration.
All About Spelling 1: We have done a lot of this but, in retrospect, I probably went through it too fast so we will start from the beginning and go through it more thoroughly.
Tapestry of Grace Year 1: Currently studying about ancient Egypt and what it was like when Moses was growing up. We do related read alouds, geography map work and vocab work and some type of craft project.
Noeo Biology: These bottom two are the ones we have not done yet, although we will start science tomorrow. I have looked through it and we will be doing read alouds from interesting books and experiments. I have to determine where we should start since the author assumes it will be taught starting in the fall and part of the work needs to be done in the spring.
Usborne Art Treasury: I bought all of the art supplies yesterday. N is especially excited about this.

We will still school Mon through Thur, year round, taking off time as needed. For K, we have normally started school around 9:00ish or 10:00ish, depending on the day, and we are finished within 1.5 to 2 hours. When we add these new subjects, I plan to start earlier. I will read the fun read aloud while they are eating breakfast. I think the rest of it may look like this:

Math Mammoth
All About Spelling
First Language Lessons
Writing With Ease

Snack/Play Break

Leading Little Ones to God + scripture memory
History(MonWed)/Science(TueTh)
HWT Cursive/Reading

Lunch and Play Break

After lunch, we will do Tapestry Of Grace Geography or a craft/project on Mondays and Wednesdays and a Science experiment on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The boys will have time to play for a while and then we will have our quiet time, during which they will do some independent reading for 15 to 30 minutes. Art will probably be on Saturdays or we may fit it in during the weeks we don't have a science experiment.

In addition, B has to practice his violin each day and N will (hopefully) soon have piano practice. Both boys play soccer and take swim lessons once a week, although swim lessons will be finished in May.

Well, that's it! That's the plan. Of course, the actual and the plan do not always line up exactly so we will see how this works out. Prayers are always appreciated!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

We have had a very merry Christmas at our house. We opened gifts first thing this morning and then spent the rest of our time before church working on putting together the Lego police station, which was a very popular gift. We went to church and they did not have Sunday school or children's church this morning so the boys were with us in big church. I really enjoyed having them there and especially enjoyed hearing them sing. I really think Christmas should be on Sunday every year. It is just so special. Our pastor had gave such a wonderful sermon this morning and three people were also baptized. The boys had never seen a baptism before so I was really glad they were there to watch and they were very interested.

After church we did our normal, every Sunday after church thing and headed to one of our favorite places to eat. After driving around, we saw that pretty much everything was closed, which I kind of expected. Sonic was open and they were being slammed. We went there but it didn't take long for us to realize that it would be a long time before we were waited on and served so we headed home.

As it happens, I had bought a wonderful honey glazed ham so we cut off a few slices and heated them up, along with some baked potatoes and veggies. It turned out to be a pretty good Christmas lunch and it was pretty quick also, which was good because everyone was getting pretty hungry by then.

Back to the presents. The boys were very excited about all of their gifts, although some more than others, of course. They got some fun science-y things in their stockings (a submarine that you put baking powder in and it makes it dives and come back up, magnet toys, a small volcano that requires baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt and a few other things. They also got a Lite Brite an I Spy puzzle, a wrist watch walkie talkie, a pirate/treasure hunt maze book and another fun puzzle type book, a wood kit where they build and paint four wood projects (a jet plane, a bird house, a race car and a bird feeder) and their big Lego police station. Last, but not least, we got a basket ball goal but we have not put it together yet so it is not on the radar. I think the dad will put it together tomorrow. As it was, the dad and I both ended up spending the majority of the day helping the boys with one thing or another. It seems that the majority of the gifts needed some kind of help or another. It was nice though because we really spent a lot of family time together today, which was a wonderful way to spend Christmas day.

My dear husband went above and beyond for me this year. My big gift was a new, wireless printer. It is not only a printer but it is a do-it-all kind of printer. It prints in beautiful color and can print pictures. It also faxes, copies and scans. My biggest want though was for a wireless printer that could print in color. It was a big surprise for me and dear hubby already had it set up and configured. He had me open an envelope that had a letter in it that told me to print a Word document from my laptop, which happened to be sitting on the island counter. Then I went to his office and there was my printer and the paper I had just printed with no connected wires! Yay! I can't tell you how nice this will be for me. I have always had to take my laptop to his office and connect it to the printer to print something. It will be so much more convenient and how lovely that I will be able to print in color now. This will definitely be great for all of the school stuff we will be doing.

The other gift from dear hubs was a new blender. The one we had was mine from about 30 years ago and it had a short so it was becoming more unreliable. The new one is quite nice and may even make me want to bake a bit more often. I also had some new kitchen utensils in my stocking, which we desperately needed. I am a very practical person so I really like gifts like this:). I was quite pleased and thankful for all of my Christmas gifts and also thankful for such a thoughtful husband.

I got the hubs a new router and a jig saw. As it turns out, he already has a jig saw so he will return this one and put the money towards something else. He got some nice office supplies, candy and some yummy cinnamon covered pecans in his stocking.

All of this is in addition to everything we all received when we celebrated Christmas with my family down at the farm yesterday. It was so nice to see everyone and we even got to talk to my nephew who is a chaplain in the service and is currently stationed in Kuwait. It was so good to hear his voice.

Above all, we are all healthy and were able to spend our Christmas with family, which is such a blessing. Our sons are growing up too fast. I think they skipped size 6 in their jeans and went straight from a size 5 to a size 7. What's up with that?

We are going to be taking a vacation in the next couple of months. We are going to go on a cruise and we are all very excited about it. The husband has been on one before but this will be the first for the rest of us. I am excited for the boys to get to see the ocean for the first time and to play on a beach for the first time. I didn't get to do either until I was in college so this has been one of the things that I really wanted them to experience while they are younger. It is so fun and exciting to have something like this to look forward to. It will definitely make the time fly by.

Speaking of time flying by, we took most of this week off of school. We schooled on Monday and I had planned to school another day or two but other things kept popping up. The dad is off work Monday and Tuesday but we will plan to school at least Wed and Thurs and possibly Fri, although we will likely have co-op that day.

I have been spending a lot of time learning about the curriculum we will be using for history, geography, literature, some writing, church and art history and I can't remember what else it covers. It is such a wonderful product and I am looking forward to using it with the boys. I have been learning so much from it already and I know they are going to enjoy it and we will do some fun projects. It is called Tapestry of Grace and I have been researching it forever. I am so hopeful that it will work for us and that we will all enjoy it and learn a lot from it. I'm not quite sure exactly when we will really start it but I plan to do at least a couple of weeks after the new year so I can really get a handle on how best to prepare and deliver the lessons. I have already placed a hold on the library books we will need for the first week of study. We start out studying about ancient Egypt.

I was excited to learn about this library elf thing, where you can sign up to have this application send you emails in advance, telling you when your item on hold is ready and when your items out are due back, or overdue. I am going to really love this little elf helper and, hopefully, I will never have another overdue item. I have not been too good about that in the past. I also found a ton of eBooks listed with our library that are are available for download to Kindle with no expiration date. I will definitely be loading up on some books for me and the boys for our vacation.

So far we are having a pretty mild winter here, which I love. Today it was nearly 60 degrees and it was a beautiful, sunny day. I think the next couple of days will be even warmer. We definitely need to get out and enjoy it.

Well, enough of a book for one posting probably. I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Recital/Orchestra Pics

2011-12-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

Below are the promised pics that go with the last post about the recital and orchestra concert;).

B, violins and red bow ties

2011-12-17T20:33:00.000-08:00

B has been playing violin with a local youth orchestra. This week they played at three elementary schools and a hospital. This afternoon they played at a church, after they had their winter recital. He and a few other youngsters are not actually members of this orchestra yet but they were invited to play anyway. This younger group only played three or four songs with the orchestra and then they had to sit quietly for the remaining part of the concert. He is the youngest one of the group and it was challenging for him in many ways but he came through with flying colors.

At each of the elementary schools, they passed around a microphone and each of the kids who were playing in the orchestra stood up, one by one, and introduced themselves. Without hesitation, B stood up and introduced himself each time, telling his name, age, grade and how long he has been playing the violin. He was excited to get to talk into a real microphone, as he had had lots of practice with the play one that he has at home.

He was the first one of the violinists to play for his recital this afternoon. The piano recitals went first so he was able to see what it was all about before it was his turn. B played Jingle Bells and brother N accompanied him by shaking some jingle bells. They were so cute together.

All of the boys playing in the orchestra had to wear black pants and shoes, a white shirt and a red bow tie. B absolutely loved his red bow tie. They had a practice session yesterday afternoon and snacks were provided after. After snack, he wanted to go to the restroom to wash his hands, but I wet a napkin to wipe them instead because I knew if he went to the restroom to wash them he would get his sleeves wet. As we were walking out to the car, on our way to the hospital where the orchestra was to play, B said "I wish I would have had more time to admire my tie". This was the real reason he wanted to go to the restroom...to admire his tie:). He is so cute.

Since N was to accompany B at the recital, he thought he should wear a white shirt and bow tie too. So, even though he was not in the orchestra, he was dressed like the orchestra boys. They both looked adorable.

They sat next to each other on the front row for the longest time, waiting for their turn. There were a lot of piano students before it was time for the violins. B and N definitely set a record for sitting quietly...and not only were they sitting quietly, they were sitting next to each other...quietly....for a long time. It really was a sight to behold. They normally can't sit next to each other for 2 minutes without starting to pick at each other and either get real silly, start wrestling or get upset with each other and start fighting over something.

B took $5 of his own money with him to the recital. He wanted to buy one extra red bow tie so he could play with it at home but his violin teacher would not sell him an extra. She said they were for the orchestra only. I will definitely have to find another one for him to play with. Both boys also got their first belt - and it matched their black shoes - so they were very excited about that too.

Overall it all went very well. I am so proud of B. He did such a great job. I think it also helped N to desire to start playing the piano soon. I need to get busy tracking down a piano teacher for him.

I know this post should have had lots of pictures with it but I have not downloaded them from the camera yet. I will try to do it and post them asap.

Night!

Kindle Fire & more

2011-11-25T19:46:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading my first book on my new Kindle Fire. I must say, I really enjoyed using it.

Now, I do so love holding a book in my hands so I was a bit skeptical but I knew there were lots of free classics available on the web and it can also be used to read library ebooks so I thought it would be useful. I also thought it would be good for the boys to get used to reading this way, as we will likely see more and more of this going forward.

I really did enjoy using it and will look forward to reading many more books this way. Some things I enjoyed...

It is very convenient to carry around, much more so than a large book or even multiple books. The size of it is perfect.
I loved the little bookmark feature. So quick, so easy.
It turns on so quickly. Just like opening a book.
I could read in bed at night without having the light on - however, if you fall asleep while reading and let it fall forward onto your face, it doesn't feel so good:). (I reversed the color so that the background was black and the words were white. Generally, I found that easier on the eyes.)
As long as I had wireless connectivity, I could also access any web site so I could use it to read the news sites I keep up with, weather, facebook (although I don't really use this one), twitter, or any other web site you might want to use. The little keyboard is quite easy to use too.
It was easy to purchase a book, which is great. However, just after I did that, I figured out how to check out books from my library and noticed they already had the book I had just purchased. I thought it normally took libraries a while to get new releases but, I guess not. Next time, I would definitely look there first!
It has awesome features that I will likely never use, such as the ability to watch movies, play music and play games, although the boys like to play the game angry birds with it.
If you subscribe to any eMagazines or eNewspapers they can be automatically delivered to your kindle every month/week/day/whatever.
If you have an Amazon Prime membership, there are tons of books and movies you can check out for free.
It comes with a one year Amazon Prime membership.

My favorite thing will definitely be to use it for reading books but it is awesome that it can do the other things also. I understand it doesn't have as much memory as some others but it has access to the Amazon "cloud" where you have lots of additional storage. The downside to that is that you have to have wireless connectivity to access the cloud.

Anyway, overall, it is pretty easy to use and I really like it.

In other news, my mom had to spend a couple of days in the hospital and she is doing much better now. Her lower extremities were very swollen and it was causing her to stumble and fall a lot, which is very dangerous for her as she takes anti-clotting medication. They were able to treat her and get her swelling down very quickly. They also did a lot of tests on her heart. They did not find anything significant, although her test results will go back to her cardiologist so he can compare them to the tests he did this past summer and see if there are any significant changes. I think we all learned a lot through this whole experience (preventative) though and hopefully my mom will not be falling every day now that the swelling has gone down.

I am very tired and sleepy as I spent the past couple of days at the hospital with mom. Both mornings I woke up early (3:30 and 4:00 am) so I could get to the hospital early and I didn't come home until late. My sister's daughter stayed with the boys and even taught them their lessons those two days. She made cookies with them and cooked for the boys and the husband. She was really an answered prayer, as my sister had to work and my mom really needed me to be with her. The husband was actually off those days but it was still so wonderful to have my niece to help out at home.

Today the husband was back at work and it was just me and the boys. We took it easy and just had a fun, relaxing day together. It has been quite some time since I have been away for any length of time and they were so happy to have me home. They were very cuddly and loving and sweet and I could have just eaten them up! I missed them bunches too and it made me realize that it would probably be beneficial for me to be away a day/night or two once or twice a year. It is good for me and for them. It makes us all appreciate each other more. I definitely need to plan another trip to a homeschool conference in the spring. I didn't go to one this past year because of building the house and moving. I definitely need to plan a trip for the spring.

Tomorrow we are having our Thanksgiving at my sister's house. We delayed our Thanksgiving celebration because my sister had to work and it turned out to be a good decision because mom was in the hospital. I am looking forward to tomorrow though. It will be nice to spend time with the family and visit with everyone.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-21T20:33:00.001-08:00

Well, I noticed it has been a while since I have posted so I thought I would get a quick one in now. Things here have been quite busy. We have pushed forward with our schooling and we are also getting over colds. We are mostly over them now, just in time for Thanksgiving (Yay!).

School is going pretty well these days. We are now starting our school day off with read-aloud time. We are currently reading two books from the Mother West Wind series. One is the Where book and the other is the Granny Fox book. We are almost finished with them and have really enjoyed both books.

After reading about three chapters of our book, we read from Leading Little Ones to God. We are also going through a booklet from our church children's program that has scripture reading & memorization and also some other related stories. We just recently started this and I think we're really going to enjoy it.

Next, we do our memory work and after that we do phonics. We are actually doing four phonics lessons in one sitting on most days now. Now that the boys are reading so well, we have stepped up the pace a bit. We do two review lessons and then we do two new lessons.

After phonics we move to the kitchen island to do math. Sometimes they sit while I teach something using the chalkboard. Other times I sit in the middle with a son on each side of me while we work through problems. After math we do reading and penmanship. One of them works on his writing while the other one reads to me and then they trade places.

It is currently taking us about 2 hours to go through everything. I am contemplating when to start adding other subjects and time, ramping up slowly towards more of a 1st grade work load. I think I will probably start adding other subjects after the new year, but I have not made a final decision yet and I still have some things to purchase. We will eventually be adding history, geography, literature, grammar, writing composition, science and art....I think that's it. It sounds like a lot but it will all be at a very age appropriate level. Grammar and writing composition start out very slow and gentle and take very little time for 1st graders. I will wait to add that in until we are finished with phonics, which would be sometime in the spring (last time I checked). The two subjects together would take less than we currently spend with phonics so that won't be a problem. I still have to work out a schedule and figure out where we might be able to multi-task.

Anyway, that's school. Right now, all of our subjects are coming along quite nicely and it is very rewarding to see the results.

In other news, I have to be quick now because I am getting sleepy. My mom has been falling a lot lately so we are trying to figure what is making her do this. She is fortunate that she has not broken something already. Thankfully we have a very good RN and a very good doctor in the family to help. I hope we get to the bottom of it soon because this falling thing is very scary.

The weather here is finally getting cool enough to require jackets on some days, such as today. Dancer has been begging to go outside every day but I'm not feeling to badly about it because he was just so so skinny when we finally got him back home again. Little Tinkerbell is not so little anymore. She is growing up quickly but she still acts ALL kitten, including the continued attacks on poor Dancer. She is relentless.

I got a new toy the other day. I bought a Kindle Fire and it is really great, so far. I just need a few more hours in my day though. There is just not enough time to do everything I want to do. And, on that note, I must turn in for the night. I have been staying up too late and I'm running on empty.

He's Back!!

2011-11-10T18:40:00.001-08:00

We were having dinner this evening and I received a phone call from a lady saying she thought they had our cat. She said she knew he was a special kind of cat because of his coloring and markings. She and her husband found Dancer in their garage. I didn't get the whole story but they had also seen him outside, swatting the neighbor's dog, when the dog got too close and nosy for comfort. She had asked a couple of neighbors if they were missing a cat and the second one she asked told her about my signs. Her husband went out to get the phone number off of the sign and he said when he saw Dancer's picture, he knew that was the cat.

I'm not sure how long he was in their garage or when they found him. He sure is thin though and he went straight for his food dish when he came in the house. I gave him some special treats too. Now he is curled up asleep in his basket next to my bed.

I am so happy and thankful to have him home. Thank you all so much for praying for him. I truly do appreciate it. I had been so sad over the past few days, wondering what had happened to him. It is such a relief to have him home safe.

Heavy Heart

2011-11-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

If you are so inclined, please pray for my old friend/cat Dancer. We have not seen him since Sunday afternoon around 2:30pm. I have put up signs around our neighborhood, posted flyers at the local shelter, on facebook and twitter and at many of the vets offices around here.

We have been having lots of hard rain and thunderstorms for the past couple of days so I am hopeful that someone might have taken him in, will see our signs and call us.

This is really the sweetest cat I have ever known. However, he has always, always wanted to go outside. He was his hearts desire. He was an escape artist and would constantly watch for opportunities to catch people coming in and out of doors unawares. Over the years, he escaped more times than I could count.

He loved going out into our garage and exploring out there and it was a place where he could get some respite from the attack kitten. About a week ago I let him go out in the garage, not realizing the husband had left the side door to the backyard open. About 3 hours later we realized he was outside somewhere so I quickly put on my shoes and started for the back porch to go out and look for him. He was sitting on the back patio, just outside the back porch door, waiting to come in. He had been exploring the back yard for all that time, I guess. After that experience, he was crying and howling all the time to go outside. He was constantly waking me up at night and I even had to put him in the laundry room one night. Finally, I decided that maybe we should start letting him go out. After all, he is almost 14 years old and he has been wanting to go out all his life. We live in a pretty low traffic area now, with lots of open areas (pastures, fields and forests) so it seemed like a relatively safe environment for him to be out.

When I was growing up, all of our cats were indoor/outdoor cats. They came and went as they pleased. They did not have nearly as long lives as Dancer and Zoe have had but they lived for quite a while.

The first time I let him out, he stayed in the back yard for a couple of hours. The boys were playing out there most of that time and they kept going over to him and petting him. He was so happy. He was walking around with his tail straight up in the air, smelling everything and eating grass.

The next time he went out, he was gone for about 4 hours or so. He spent some of that time in the back yard and then was off out of sight for the rest of it. When he returned, he came to the front door so I felt pretty sure that he knew where his home is.

Then on Sunday after church he went out. This time he was wearing a collar because I wanted to make sure people knew he had a home. He never returned. It stormed really badly that night and has done so off and on since then. I am so heart broken. I feel so guilty now for letting him go out at all....but then I remember how happy he was too. So I feel guilty for letting him out and I felt selfish for keeping him in. Either way, I am heart broken and I miss him so much. Please pray for him, if you are so inclined.

Earthquake! It was 5.6!

2011-11-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well this was a first for me! I was just sitting here, doing some on-line reading while watching an old episode of Friends. Suddenly, I heard a low rumbling noise that seemed to get louder and louder and then the house started trembling and then it was really vibrating! I reached over and woke up the sleeping husband and we were both just shocked. My heart was really beating fast.

This morning I had read that Oklahoma had had 5 or 6 earthquakes starting around 2:00 am-ish and going until mid-morning. The biggest one was the first one and it was around a 4.2. It will be interesting to see how big the one we just had was. Edited to add that it was a 5.6 earthquake!

What a really strange experience.....not something you really expect in Oklahoma!

Pictures!

2011-10-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Guess who turned 6 years old? B!

Happy Birthday B!

The afternoon sun warms up this bathtub so it is Dancer's favorite nap spot.

Playing a phonics game, Cross the River. They have to cross from one side to the other while only stepping on the cards with a certain vowel sound.

Poor Tinky had a little surgery so we won't be having any kittens. She can't seem to leave her stitches alone so this is what she is living with these days.

Hopefully the stitches will come out Monday or so.

Sparky the dog and Sparky the cat at work again.

Dancer climbed up behind the husband and started loving on him.

I love you I love you I love you! (or, at least, I love your hair!)

Patient, cat-loving man, my husband.

Tinky loves to play in any sink.

Tinky loves to play. She is very cute and fun to watch.

B and N playing doctor.

Isn't she pretty?

The dad salvaged this keyboard from an old computer so the boys could play with it.

Does she look happy to you?

Hello Fall!

2011-10-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful lately! It is cool to chilly in the mornings and then it warms up into the 70's or 80's. Absolutely lovely, although we are still very low on rainfall.

We have had a lot going on around here and I really need to post more often to capture more of it. The latest update on the kitten saga is that Tinky went to the vet on this past Thursday to have surgery so she would not have kittens:). B was asking questions about this and I reminded him why she was there. He said he thought it would be nice to let her "lay" some kittens. Hmmm. Looks like we need to add more animal study to our homeschool:).

Tinky has not been the ideal patient. We brought her home on Thursday afternoon and pretty much had to turn around and take her right back because she was aggressively trying to pull out the stitches. They put this blue collar around her neck so she would not be able to reach the incision. It was made of a felt-like material. She had taken it off before we got home from the vet's office. They told me to tie it tighter so, when we arrived home, I did that. She had it off again in no time at all. She could dig her claws into the material so there was pretty much no way this thing was staying on. Back we went. This time they wrapped her and we all decided it was best if they kept her overnight. To make a long story a little shorter, she ended up staying a couple of nights because it took a while for them to figure out the best way to keep her from taking out the stitches. She was able to get the wrap moved up enough to pull out two of the stitches. They put staples in to replace them, left off the wrap and put a plastic collar around her neck. This thing stuck out soooo far, it was pitiful. It was definitely meant for a larger animal but it was the smallest plastic collar they had. This ended up working but she sure looks miserable.

This afternoon we all went to see her and the husband and I stood there discussing how we might be able to bring her home. The problem was that she could not be in a room where she could jump up on something because she could really hurt herself with this hard plastic collar. (Think satellite dish around her neck.) But we also did not want to leave her there in this small cage for another week to 10 days. She could not really move without bumping into something with the collar-dish and, while standing there petting her, I noticed she was drinking a lot of water...and then I noticed that if I shut the cage door, she could not reach her water dish with the satellite-collar-dish. No telling how long she had been without water and she has been drinking a lot since she came home.

We ended up going to the pet store and purchasing a large dog kennel-cage thing, which is much roomier than the small cage at the vet's, and she is now camping in the living room. She is not happy about the cage thing but she is definitely happier than when she was at the vet's. She is very verbal so she yells at us a lot and let's us know how horrible this whole situation is. Poor girl. It's going to be a long 7 to 10 days.

Did I mention that she follows me around the house all the time, just like Zoe did? I have missed her since she has been gone but then I feel a little guilty because Dancer has been really enjoying the extra attention without her around. He definitely enjoys being an only cat and he was not happy to see her today, even confined to a cage. He hissed and growled at her. It took a while for him to realize she would not be attacking him while she is in the cage.

In other news, B turned the big 6!! He was so excited. And he also lost another tooth so he is now missing the two middles on the bottom front. This time he did not swallow it. He put it under his pillow in a small plastic baggie and it was exchanged for $2. The next morning he wanted it back so he could keep it in his keepsake box. Back to the 6 thing. N has such a hard time with B getting to have his birthday first every year. It is very hard for N, who still believes he should be first at pretty much everything. He is also not happy that he has not lost a tooth yet.

Tonight they are sleeping upstairs in the loft area in the dad's big tent with the dad. They have been asking to do this for a while now so tonight is the night. They were so excited. From the sounds of it, they are all asleep already, which is a huge surprise, especially since they were all downstairs not too long ago, sitting around the island in the dark kitchen with their flashlights having an ice cream cone. The last time they tried to do this, they could never settle down so they ended up back in their beds for a late bedtime. Looks like they are going to make it this time and the dad is a heavy sleeper so he will probably be there until the wee hours of the morning.

Homeschool continues to go well. We are moving right along with our reading/phonics lessons, math and writing. This week we will be finishing up addition to 10 in math and moving on to subtraction. They have also memorized a lot of Bible verses. Last weekend our homeschool co-op rented out the local YMCA for our back to school party. It had been delayed due to weather, or something. The husband had to work so I took the boys and they really had a fun time. They spent most of the time swimming in the indoor pool. It is a really nice pool; more like something you would see at a resort, with a large play structure with slides in the very large kiddie pool area and a huge, curvy, enclosed, tube slide that is actually outside of the building. You climb up stairs inside of the pool area and you climb into the slide in the pool area (up high) but the actual tube slide part is curving outside of the building and then it dumps you back into the pool inside of the building. It is really neat, although the boys were too short to use it. They also had this island area where the water swirled around the island fast, like a river current. And then they also had two long lanes for swimming laps and all of these different areas were part of the same swimming pool so you could move from one to the other without getting out of the water. This is the same place where the husband goes to swim laps and work out too.

After the boys had finished swimming, they got dried off and dressed and then we went across the way to the volleyball/basketball courts. The boys had a good time trying to make a basket for quite a while. Then we hit the snack tables (everyone had brought snacks) and loaded up two plates full of stuff for the boys to eat on the way home (it was past bedtime). They ate every bit of it and went straight to bed and was asleep in no time at all. Fun evening and very nice people. We had a large turnout.

Did I mention that I really love our Bible study class on Sunday mornings at our church. Our teacher is great and the group of people are really wonderful. I always look forward to it. It will be nice when our church finds a pastor. The boys are really enjoying the K class and being with the older kids now. The only thing I don't like is that they spend the first hour in a group setting, having a children's church type thing where they sing and have a short 'sermon'. Then they go to the K area for the second hour where they have their Sunday school lesson and they rotate from room to room, where they have the various centers to keep them busy. I wish they had the two hours were reversed, where they went to Sunday school first because I had planned to have them in our worship service with us, so we could worship together as a family. Now I can't because they will miss their class and I feel that is really important for them. Oh well. Maybe they will change it up in the future.

I know there are many things I am forgetting to post about but it is getting late, we have school tomorrow and I need to get some sleep so time to sign off. I must post pictures soon. We have some of Tinky with her satellite dish collar on; poor thing. Have a good week!

Kindergarten 101

2011-09-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, Kindergarten is still going very well for us. We are in a pretty good routine with it these days, which is great because everyone knows what to expect.

The boys are both reading at somewhere between a 2nd and 3rd grade level, although N is definitely still ahead of B. B is still ahead of N with writing but N is really catching on quickly. Handwriting Without Tears has definitely been a good fit for N and B is enjoying it also. They are now working on lower case letters and they do 4 pages a day (2 pages, front and back), 4 days a week. They have about 2 more weeks before they finish this version of HWT, after which we will start copy work.

We continue to alternate days for phonics and spelling and both are coming along nicely. The boys enjoy writing their spelling words on the chalkboard. One will call out the words while the other writes them and then they will trade places. I'm still thinking of changing to Spelling Workout though.

The boys seem to really enjoy worksheet type of work, which surprises me. We have been doing some math worksheets so today I decided to mix it up a bit and play some Right Start math games. At first, they seemed like they would rather have their worksheets back. But once we started playing, they seemed to enjoy it until the last game, which was going swimmingly until N realized he was losing and B was winning and then he was very unhappy. After that, he was not so into that game anymore. I really like the games though because they make learning about math fun, although if a child has issues with losing it can become not so fun very quickly so we will have to tread lightly there. The good news is that it seems they are getting the math so we will continue to move forward with Singapore Math 1A, although we will move at a slower pace than normal.

Violin practice is going well again, at least for me and B. N has not been participating lately:). We are practicing a couple of very simple pieces that (I think) we will be playing in some type of orchestra recital around the holidays. The boys are starting to sing Christmas songs in our homeschool co-op choir, which they are really enjoying. Tomorrow we have Zumba and choir again so it will be a fun day.

Today the boys wanted to do a craft project so I pulled out one of my craft idea books and they picked out this santa craft. The book rated it as very easy and doable with household items. We did part of it but the glue had to dry before we could do the next step. It took forever to do the small part that we did and the boys needed a lot of help to do it. It has left me with a very negative feeling about my ability to do crafts. I am definitely going to have to work at getting better at this. I think the first step would be to start planning some crafts for them in advance so I will already be prepared and know exactly what to expect....sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it?

I forgot to mention that B lost his first tooth. He was eating cheerios when it came out and he swallowed it. After the shock wore off, he realized that he didn't have a tooth to put under his pillow. He looked at me, near tears and with lip trembling, and said he really wanted to put it under his pillow so he could get some money. I quickly reassured him that he didn't need to have the tooth in order to get the money. I teased him about the tooth fairy knowing about it and he let me know that he didn't believe in the tooth fairy but he was relieved about not needing to have the tooth to get his money. He keeps reminding us and others (everyone we meet, anywhere) that the reason he lost his tooth before N is that he is 6 weeks older than N.

We're over the worst of the colds now but still have some residual junk left...but feeling better every day. The weather here is beautiful now, finally. Today it didn't get above around 63 or so and tomorrow is going to be cool also and then we will be back into the mid-80's. The boys are spending tons of time outside playing. Now that I am thinking about what we will be covering in 1st grade, I wonder how we will ever fit it all in. It just seems like there is already not enough time in the day to do everything we want to do. We may have to get an earlier start on our day.

We will likely stop swimming in December though. Today they did testing and the boys both passed and will be moving to the next level so they have their basics down very well. They can easily swim under water back and forth across the pool, bobbing their head above water when they need to take a breath. They can swim under water, turn over on their back to take some breaths, turn over again and swim, etc. all the way across the pool. They can float on their back and they can dive to the bottom in the deep end of the pool to retrieve a ring. They have been practicing various other strokes, like a side stroke and others. So, I'm feeling pretty good about ending lessons in December.

Well, it's getting late so time for bed.

Just keep swimming...

2011-09-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

We're still here! Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. I will try to do better. I have pictures to post but that will have to wait for another day. The boys and I all have colds and I have not had a good night sleep for three nights in a row. So, we have just been taking it easy yesterday and today.

School is going pretty well. We are just chugging right along in all of our subjects. The jury is still out on math, whether we will have to drop back to K math or we will keep going with 1st grade math. I should have a better idea and be able to make a decision within another week or two. Their writing is coming along very nicely and I only wish I could memorize things as quickly as they do. Reading and spelling are going very well. We are zipping through All About Spelling Level 1 fairly quickly and I am researching what we will use next. I am considering switching to a more workbook approach with spelling and I think we will be trying Spelling Workout, which is recommended in The Well Trained Mind.

I have also been researching how we will do science, once we are ready to start first grade work. After looking at the different available curricula packages, I think we are going to follow The Well Trained Mind's recommendations for this also. So, for first grade, we will be studying living things, specifically animals, the human body and plants. We will use the DK First Animal Encyclopedia to study animals, the Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia to study the human body and Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening to study plants. Each of these books will be out 'spine' from which we will start studying the various topics. We will also get books on each topic from the library and we will do hands on projects, where possible. We will do the animal study for 20 weeks, one animal per week. I will let the boys each pick 10 animals from the table of contents and then we will make a plan how to best study each one. We will probably make some trips to the aquarium, the zoo and the farm during this study too. I think it will be a lot of fun and we will all enjoy it and learn a lot. For our botany study, we will do it last, in the spring. We were already planning to start a garden then so it will fit in quite nicely. This book looks really great, with lots of smaller, interesting projects the boys can do too. I'm still thinking about the human body study but we should be able to come up with some interesting ideas and doctor dad can help too.

Now I need to spend some time looking at how we will study history. I'm pretty sure we will use Story of the World and the accompanying activity guide. I am thinking I may also incorporate some of the first unit of Tapestry of Grace Year 1, since I have it and would like to start getting to know it a bit while the kids are young, during the Grammar Stage, before we really start using it more heavily in the Logic Stage.

I also still have to think about how we want to study art. Our co-op is offering an art class this year but I didn't want to do that during K. We may do it next year or I may just teach it myself at home, which would be fun too and I know I would learn a lot. That's one of the things I really enjoy about homeschooling...that I get to learn so much too!

Also in first grade, we will start First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease. I already have these so we can start them when we are ready. I will have to review The Well Trained Mind again to see what I am missing but this (all of the above) is the meat of the 1st grade year, plus the math and spelling, of course.

In other news, did I mention that I have my own, adult size violin now? Surprise! I am really enjoying it, although we have not been practicing the last day or two, while we have been sick. N has decided to start joining us for practices again and says he wants to do lessons again. He has to practice with us for this month before I am going to sign him up again though. So far he has done very well but the jury is still out.

The boys are really doing wonderfully in their swimming lessons, which means we can stop them soon. They are pretty solid swimmers now so we will either stop their lessons in December or May, I'm not sure which yet. But it will be good to have the extra time in our schedule when they start first grade. That's one less thing for which we have to drive into the city.

Our homeschool co-op experience has been very positive so far. The boys are really enjoying the P.E., Zumba and choir classes. They also rearranged the classes a bit to make them a little smaller so the boys are now with the 6 to 8 year olds, which is interesting. They will be six so soon that I hated to put them in with the 5 and under crowd and then have to move them so soon. The choir teacher said it was good to have them in the 6 to 8 year old class because she needed more boys and also because the younger class has children as young as 3 in it so she thought they would get more out of the older class and I agree.

Well, the natives are becoming restless so I must sign off for now. I will try to start posting more often and hope to have some pics up soon.

Kindergarten: End of First Week

2011-08-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a pretty good first week. I had some push back from N on the first day (major push back) and the last day (more minor push back) so we are half and half on the first week.

Did I mention that we are schooling 4 days a week during our K year? I guess technically we could count tomorrow as a school day also, since we will be doing P.E. and childrens' choir, B will practice his violin and we will go to the library and pick out books to read and likely read some of them when we get home. I will probably have the boys read aloud to me and I'm sure I will read more of Plum Creek to them. (I read a couple of chapters to them while they were eating lunch today. I'm just as into as they are:).

Anyway, you get the drift. During so much of our day, they are learning something at this age. And we divide up the work we do during the week over 4 days instead of 5. So it is the same amount of work. We just do more over the 4 days than we otherwise would have. It will be nice to have Fridays to do catch up or whatever we need to get done that day, although we will be going to co-op for at least 3 Fridays in each month.

I mentioned in my last post that N is no longer taking violin. He was having a really hard time making himself practice. I knew I would have enough to do to keep him going on regular school work that is not optional. So we decided to stop his violin lessons. He was very sad about it for a (very) short amount of time, even crying at one point ("I'll forget everything I've learned" - I felt so bad for him that I almost cried with him) but I knew in the long run it was the right thing for him right now. It is more important for me to have a good relationship with him and not have to fight with him over practicing every day. Now that we have started school, I am even more convinced it was the right thing to do.

B is still taking lessons and he is doing really well and moving right along. It is harder to find time to fit in practice now that we are schooling. I'm sure we will hit our groove though. It just takes time for them to get use to having less play time. Today we fit practice in just before quiet time, which was just after lunch.

We will be getting our piano when the weather cools down. N is thinking he would like to take piano lessons. I think it would be really good for him to have his own thing so they are not always competing on everything, but we will have to see how he is doing with his self control before we start lessons again. He still has issues with controlling his temper. I have been praying for him regularly and I think he really is trying to do better. It is hard to find things that help motivate him in this regards. One thing that definitely motivates him is being able to play soccer. He is loves soccer and is happy to be back. B enjoys it too and both boys normally work really hard while they are playing. They really go for the ball and try their best. It is so good for them. I know there would have been good things about gymnastics too but I am glad they decided to go back to soccer.

I have been having a regular quiet time every morning for a few weeks now. I really look forward to it and I have been doing it long enough that it is now becoming a habit. I purposely leave my laptop in my bedroom in the morning and it does not come out until lunch time, unless I have to look something up. But I don't get on to read news or check email or read blogs until at least lunch time these days. It was a very positive change for me. I get a lot more done and, after spending time with God, my day always goes better and I am a better mommy and person.

That being said, I now have only about 15 more minutes before quiet time is over and we have to get ready to go to town for swimming and soccer. So I am going to do a bit of catching up my reading right now. See ya!

First Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

The boys started Kindergarten on Monday of this week so today makes our second day of school. Yesterday I helped B and N create an All About Me page, including a first-day-of-school picture and some information about what they like at this age.

N:
Age: 5 and 3/4 Height: 45 and 1/4 inches Weight: 44.8 pounds
My favorite food is: Cookies and toast with peanut butter
My favorite toy is: Legos
My favorite sport is: Soccer
My favorite thing to pretend is: anything with Aunt Kathy
When I grow up I want to be a: policeman

B:
Age: 5 and 3/4 (actually, he will be 6 at the end of Sept!)
Height: 46 and 1/4 inches Weight: 48.4 pounds
My favorite food is: Cookies
My favorite toy is: Legos with police and jails
My favorite sport is: swimming
My favorite thing to pretend is: The sick man lying on the side of the road and N and Aunt Kathy find me and take me to the doctor and the doctor (Aunt Kathy) bandages me.
When I grow up I want to be a: policeman with a police truck

So far, this is how our routine goes. We start our school day around 9:00ish. This gives the boys some time to play and me some time to start a load of laundry or fold one, if I left one in the dryer the night before, and unload the dishwasher and clean up after breakfast, etc.

We start with a devotion and prayer, while sitting in the living room on the couch. On Mondays we read from an ABC Bible verses devotion book. I really like the Bible verses they use so we are going to be reading one devotion per week from this book and memorizing the Bible verse. The rest of the week, we read our devotion from the book "Leading Little Ones to God". The boys are also working on memorizing one character card per week. N is memorizing self control and B is memorizing perseverant.

After our devotion, we move to the kitchen island counter and work on writing. The boys each have a calendar notebook and they add the number for the current date on the correct day of their calendar. Then they update their 100's chart with the number for how many days we have had school so far. When we get to 100, we will go do something special together. After that, they do two pages of writing, each page is practicing one letter of the alphabet. We are using Handwriting Without Tears for this. Sometimes they first practice writing the letter on a small slate before trying it on their workbook page.

After writing, we do phonics and/or spelling. I had planned on taking turns, every other day and I may end up doing that at some point. For now, phonics is going pretty fast for us so we are doing a little of each. We are still using The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading for phonics and we are using All About Spelling (Level 1) for our spelling program.

The last thing we do, for now, is Math. We are using Singapore Math 1A, which is actually a beginning first grade math program. The first unit was suppose to last a week and we finished it in two days but I think we will really slow down on the second unit. It will likely take us longer than what they estimated.

So far (only two days in:), the boys are really enjoying school. Of course, it is still new and interesting at this point so I'm sure there will likely be some push back at some point....maybe. Who knows, maybe not so much if we keep it moving and keep it interesting.

We are also reading another Little House book. We had already read the Big Woods and on the Prairie so now we are reading on Plum Creek. We usually read a couple of chapters before bed. We need to make some additional time for the boys to each read to me but we also need to get to the library to get some books for them to read. We are at a point where I have a hard time knowing what would be a good book for them to read. They were each taking turns reading a book about sharks the other night before bed. I think it was an I Can Read book, or something like that, and it was rated for 1st or 2nd grade. They did pretty well with it but there were some large words they had never seen before that they required help with, which is fine. I guess we just need to go to the library and look around and maybe ask the librarian what level she thinks might work. I think they are probably at about a mid to end of first grade level but I'm not really sure. I will also encourage them to read to themselves during the first 15 or 20 minutes of quiet time, once we get some library books.

Since they boys are ahead in reading and that is really my top priority for Kindergarten, I am planning to do school 4 days a week this year and our 5th day will be used for library trips, homeschool co-op and anything extra we find interest in, such as geography, science and history type stuff, although we will not be using a formal program for these. We will also be doing some work with music theory, since B is taking violin lessons. N is no longer taking lessons, for now. I will write another post to discuss this further but it was the best decision for us right now. He will still join in when we are learning music theory at home though and he will have to go to violin lessons with us when the dad is working, every other week.

At co-op on Fridays, the boys will both be in a p.e. class and also a childrens' choir, two Fridays of the month. The fourth Friday of the month, the boys will be doing some sort of community service project with co-op. I can't remember what the first Friday of the month is but I don't think we are doing anything that day. The boys will also still be in swimming lessons and soccer, both once a week.

So, that's it. Both yesterday and today we all had a fun time with school. We had some not-so-fun moments around and between lessons, which I will discuss in another post, but school itself was fun. Today, when I told the boys it was almost time to start school work, they both shouted down from upstairs, "OK, I like school" "School is fun!". So far so good. The question is how long will it last?

Picture Catch Up

2011-08-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thought I would catch up on a few pictures, since it has been a while. The boys are really growing up. Way too fast, it seems. They will both be turning six in the fall (end of Sept and mid-Nov). Here are some updated pics of them:

This is B:
This is N:
They have been very engrossed in playing Rok-N-Bok (?SP?) lately. We packed it away when we moved from the old house and did not get it out at the rental house. So they had not seen it in quite some time. The good news is that they are now old enough that they can do it without help and they really enjoy it a lot. This set was bought for my nephew for Christmas many years ago. My sister saved it all these years (my nephew will be a senior in high school this year) and now my sons are getting to enjoy it too. So nice. The other thing they are very into these days is Legos. Thankfully we had lots of those given to us also from my nephew.
And they still love to play dress up. Games are also very big on the list these days.
Practicing in front of the mirror.
I really love the sound of the violin. I am considering taking lessons myself, although I have not discussed it with the husband yet. I have learned so much with the boys but they are getting to a point where they are going to speed ahead of me. B is doing very well and he now enjoys it more and wants to practice. N is hit or miss but normally does not want to practice. I am ready to end his lessons because I don't think it is worth the battle and I would rather focus on a good relationship between us and only fight battles that must be fought. He and I are doing pretty well these days and getting better every day. But practicing the violin is a constant issue and he is starting to fall behind B. When I first told him that we should just stop his lessons, since he does not want to practice, I expected him to jump up and down and cheer. To my great surprise, he does not want to stop his lessons.....but he does not want to practice either. So, I'm not sure what we will do. Maybe I will take his place;).

Here is our new family member.
She is a cutie. I think her behavior is improving, although she still attacks Dancer relentlessly. We are working on that. A little spritzer bottle of water has gone a long way in teaching her some better manners but we still have a long way to go.
She is growing so fast and it is amazing how much higher she can jump from one week to the next. She is especially very sweet when she is sleepy;).

And, finally, a few pics of the house. It was not particularly neat the day I took these pics but they are probably pretty realistic of day to day life around here.
Living Room:
Living Room, looking out on screen-in back porch.Kitchen:
Kitchen in foreground; Dining Room in background. The extra table is now gone but we will likely be doing a lot of our homeschooling stuff in this area. We practice violin here too and the boys' small desks are on the wall to the right. It is a delightful area to be in with all of the windows, as there are windows on the wall on the right, looking out on the back porch.Library/Play Room: This room is an awesome play area for the boys. It is right off of the kitchen/dining area. The desk on the left is going away and that is where our piano will go.
And stairs going up to the boys' rooms, the exercise room, a small loft play area and the attics. There is an adjoining staircase the goes up from the back foyer (coming in from the garage).That's it for today for pics. The heat here is still relentless. We finally had a little rain yesterday evening and it was so wonderful. We stood out on the front porch and just watched it and appreciated it greatly. We are hoping for more soon.

The neighborhood pool opened a few days ago. The dad and the boys are there now and they went for a short time yesterday. It is really nice and very close by so I am sure we will be regulars.

The boys said they would like to start school tomorrow but I am not quite ready. I still have a few more things to iron out before beginning so I think maybe one week later would be better. Additionally, my niece who has lived with us this summer is moving out tomorrow, back to her dorm at college, and we will be helping by taking a van full of things over there for her. Another niece will be flying in tomorrow late afternoon, after having been gone to California for half the summer. She has been on staff with a Christian camp. She wanted us to meet her at the airport. So I think waiting to start school for a bit longer will be best.

Well, the boys are back from swimming so I had best get busy.

HO HO HO

2011-07-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Are you wishing for Christmas and winter weather these days? I don't know if it has anything to do with this extremely hot weather we are having but it seems like the boys have been talking about Christmas a lot lately. Today B was telling me what he thought would be a good Christmas dinner, beginning with a roast. Isn't that funny?

We are doing pretty well around here. We are all well now, after a couple of weeks of colds and some strep throat. The worst thing about that was that N seems to have developed an aversion to taking any medication. We have always had a challenge with this with him, while B, on the other hand, likes it too much. But this time was much worse than normal and we went round and round, trying to get him to take the antibiotic for the strep. It was not a good thing and, in retrospect, we should have just taken him in for a shot. We discussed it and he was very anti-shot too, of course, but, in hind sight, it would have been the lesser of two evils.

In the end, we basically forced him to take it three nights and the doctor dad decided that would probably be enough of this particular kind of antibiotic to do the trick, thankfully. Since then, N has been very angry at me. Not all the time, of course, but it comes up and he will blow up over seemingly nothing at times, directing his anger at me. I am learning how to best handle it though and I think we are now making some really good progress again, thankfully. The last time he started getting angry, he was able to get himself under control quickly, which was a huge step in the right direction for us. The incidents are becoming farther apart also, which is a good sign. Hopefully we will be past this soon. We have to hope he does not come down with something where he would need a lot of medication.

I even bought a pack of orange tic tacs and tried to teach him to swallow a pill but he couldn't do it. He is the kind of kid that gets easily frustrated if he does not learn something quickly. Yes, I have my work cut out for me, in regards to homeschooling him. It will definitely be a growth opportunity for us both.

The weather here is so hot that we cannot really be outside much, unless we are playing in water. The good thing is that the boys are taking gymnastics twice a week and swim lessons once a week, plus violin lessons, so that keeps them busy. Between that and just generally running errands and grocery shopping, they are happy to be indoors at home, especially since they are sooooooo into Legos these days. They are definitely the number one toy in our house right now. As a matter of fact, the boys both agreed that we could give away our train table, tracks and the large collection of Thomas the Train trains that we have. They were all given to us so we will be happy to pass them on to someone else who will enjoy them. We have another set of tracks and Thomas trains where the trains run on batteries. It is a large set so it has to be set up on the floor. The boys like that one better so they said we can give the other one away. I'll be a little sad to see it go, on the one hand, because they have played with it a lot of the past couple of years. But, on the other hand, it does take up a significant amount of space so, in that regard, I won't be so sad to see it go. Now I just have to find another child who would like to have it.

The boys are almost done with their gymnastics lessons for the summer. After their lesson yesterday, we talked about which they would rather do, gymnastics or soccer. The dad and I had discussed it and we both felt that soccer would be best for them (cardio exercise, team work, staying competitive with their age group). When I first asked them, they both said they wanted to do gymnastics. I told them that the dad and I had discussed it and thought soccer would be best for them. I expected them to whine a bit or whatever but they both asked why we thought soccer would be best for them and so I explained what the dad and I had discussed and they both immediately said they wanted to do soccer again. So we drove right over and signed them up. They got to see their coach again and they are both very excited to get started. They will do soccer for three weeks in August and then they will be off for two or three weeks before starting again.

So, when we start K, they will have one swim lesson a week and one soccer time a week. This is why I really like the place where they play soccer. They meet only once a week for an hour. The coach spends part of the time going over drills and then they split up into two teams and they scrimmage for the rest of the time. But we don't have to go to other practices or games during the week/end. Eventually they may end up on a team that requires extra practice/games but, for now, this is really nice. We will also be meeting with our homeschool co-op at least once a week. I think this will likely be plenty for us to do, when added to everything else and just free play time inside and outside with kids in the neighborhood.

There is not much new going on around here. I am trying to get organized so I can be ready to start K with the boys sometime next month. I have not picked a date yet.

The new kitten is growing very fast. I can't believe how quickly she has grown. She is going through a phase where she is quite ornery. And poor Dancer. She just won't leave him alone. He bats her around pretty good and sounds real fierce but she just keeps coming back for more. He cannot walk through the house without her attacking him. He looks like he is biting her but I can never find any wet spots or anything on her afterward and she never acts hurt at all.... quite the contrary actually. He is probably not being tough enough on her. She gets very upset when we are eating at the island and she does not get anything. She climbs up on the back of the chair nearest the island and watches, while licking her lips. She hates that Dancer can jump up high on things and she cannot. I sure hope she settles down a lot when she gets a little older. I don't remember Dancer or Zoe acting as ornery as she does. We play with her a lot but she wants us to play with her all the time. If we get busy doing something, she will climb up and scratch and bite (playfully but it still hurts), trying to get us to play with her again. I have clipped her claws twice (which was not easy at all) but they seem to get sharp very quickly.

She has really made me appreciate Dancer all the more:). And I feel for him and do not like how she treats him. She also has very little time these days (next to nothing - one or two seconds) for being loved on and cuddled, which is a bummer. So, this must be like the terrible twos and I will be glad when they are over. She is currently climbing into the back of my recliner, as I sit and type this, and has been running all over me and scratching my chair. I finally put a sheet over the other recliner, as she has been scratching and biting it terribly. She is a little terror right now, but a cute one. For once I am glad they grow up quickly.

The new house is great. It fits us quite well. I changed the library around a bit again and I like it much better. It allows more floor space for playing, which is always nice. It is really a play room and a place to keep all of our books and homeschool materials. When we get our piano from my sister's house when it cools down in the fall, it will also be in the library.

I have gone around and around in my mind about where we will do what as far as homeschooling goes. I think we will likely use the dining room table, the kitchen island counter and the living room couch for most of what we do. The boys will also probably do some reading in the library but I have stopped reading to them in there because the small loveseat couch is too small for us all to fit comfortably. I really want one of the large chalkboards on the wooden stand that is on wheels and can be moved from room to room. I think we would use it a lot. I also really want some maps that roll up into a holder, where you can hang it on the wall above the white board or bulletin board, can pull the maps down when you need them and then they roll back up out of sight when you don't need them. These are the two big things on my list but I have not been able to find used ones and the new ones are a bit on the high side. I am still hopeful though that we will eventually get them.

The funny thing about homeschooling is that I have been preparing for it for such a long time and now that it is almost here, I am a little nervous and dreading it a bit....but looking forward to it at the same time. Isn't that odd? And I know I need to appear confident in front of the boys (most especially N), even if I don't feel it.... which makes me a bit more nervous. I'm sure after we get the first week or two down, we will fall into a good routine and everything will be fine. Right?

General Update

2011-07-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

We got our new kitten over the weekend and she is very tiny and so adorable. She is currently living in the dad's office, as she is too small and young to let roam. When I have taken her out of his office she very cautiously went a few steps down the hallway and then quickly ran back to her room. This is actually working out very well because our 13 year old male cat, Dancer, needs some time to get used to her. He is slowly but surely adjusting, or so it seems. He is certainly progressing nicely but the question is whether he will ever get to the point where he accepts her. Eventually we'll see but, for now, they live in separate worlds, although they can see each other through the french doors into his office.

We are in sick city around here and have been for over a week now. B caught a bad cold virus which included lots of fever and strep throat. He started recovering nicely and was almost finished with his antibiotic when N came down with it. N seems like he is finally fever free today but he still has 3 more doses of antibiotic for the strep.

N hates, hates, hates any kind of medicine (quite the opposite of B). So trying to get him to take the antibiotic the last two nights has been a total nightmare (both the kid's liquid form and a crushed up tablet in applesauce). I was crying by the time we finished yesterday evening. Today I bought some Tic Tacs to see if I can teach him to swallow a pill. We have not tried it yet but will soon. I hope he can learn it quickly so this won't be an issue for him anymore. My heart really goes out to him.

We had a pretty tame 4th of July because of all of the sickness (did I mention that I now have a sinus infection and it will be a miracle if I don't end up with strep). The dad took the boys to see the fireworks display in our neighborhood, which is actually pretty good (we went last year). I stayed home because I was tired and not feeling well. They enjoy it and I enjoyed catching up on some sleep.

The husband has Thursday and Friday off this week, which means he doesn't work at all this week because it is his light week, so we are trying to get a few things finished up around here. I made a trip to my favorite large nursery today and bought a van load of plants, shrubs and flowers. I didn't count them all but it sure was a lot. That van can really hold a lot.

When I arrived at the nursery I thought it was closed because nobody was around. They weren't. It's just that nobody shops for plants in the July 100+ weather. I was the only one there, which is so nice because I get all the help I need and can get out quickly. It gets very hot in there. I brought all the plants home and unloaded them and placed them in the different beds, around where I think they should be planted. It looks nice and, once these are planted, we should be almost finished. There is a small bed back by the garage but we are not going to plant anything there until after our fence is up because the fence cuts right through it. So we have a few more things to plant after the fence is up and then we are finished.

We just received two quotes for the fence so I think we will be moving on that pretty soon. We are so close to being finished and I can't wait to be completely done....just in time to start weeding:). I am satisfied with the inside, although I still have about 3 or 4 boxes that have a bunch of junk (odds and ends) in them that I need to sort through. I will do that next and then I should be finished with the inside.

My next thing is really starting to prepare for starting Kindergarten. I follow The Well Trained Mind Forum and I am always seeing posts where people show pictures of their homeschool rooms. Some of them are so great that it makes we wish I could have had school there! I need to at least get organized around here. I had started it a while back but then some things came up and I have not looked at it since. So I have a bit of work to do in this regard.

As for our K work, we will keep it pretty simple and I am hoping to do about one to two hours of work, 4 days a week and then we will join the homeschool co-op on Fridays. I am planning to do an age appropriate Bible devotional with the boys and then we will cover phonics, reading (they each read aloud to me and I read aloud to them), spelling, math, learning to write their letters and then practicing through copy work and practicing the violin (we are taking a bit of a break for illnesses right now). We will throw in some crafts projects and some fun geography lessons here and there for fun, along with fun cooking projects. Additionally, they will still have their violin lesson once a week, swimming once a week and one other sport (soccer or gymnastics) once a week.

The other thing is that I have not had the boys doing any chores really since we moved here, other than picking up their toys. So I really want to make this part of our new routine when we start school. Simple chores like spreading up their beds, emptying trash, helping to put away dishes from the dishwasher and clean clothes, and also helping to clean up after meals and sweep the floors. I need to work on a chore schedule.

So, that's my plan but, you know, the best laid plans.... There is the plan and then there is the reality. What I have learned is that when I am teaching N, things tend to take longer than I had thought they would. Hopefully this will not be the case when we start K but, if violin practice is any indication, I won't be holding my breath.

I suppose after the plants are in and the fence is up, the tree house might be next on the list of to do's. Possibly. The boys haven't mentioned it in a while because it has been too horribly hot to be outside much but, I know when it cools down a bit, they will be asking about it again.

Oh, and we should have the new camera up and running very soon so hopefully I can post some pics in the near future. We still have not found the old one.

So, that is about all I can think of for now. Until later then.

Eventful Day and Picture of Our New Baby

2011-06-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today was an eventful day because we bought the boys their first real Bible. They were very excited and took turns reading from them on the way home. As part of our Kindergarten this year, I want to read the Bible and I thought this would be a perfect time for them to each have a Bible and they can take turns reading and also follow along. It will be a good way for us to start each school day.

Here is the latest picture of our new baby:
Isn't she a cutie? We will be going to pick her up and bring her home on Saturday so we are all getting excited about it and are starting to prepare for the new addition. Her name is Tinkerbell. The lady who has her has a son who actually named her this and we think it is cute so we are going to keep the name. She kind of looks like a 'Tinkerbell' and Peter Pan is one of our favorite books so it fits. It is actually kind of funny because we had already been thinking of names from the book Peter Pan, so it works for us. She reminds me so much of my Zoe when she was a kitten. I still miss her so much. It will be refreshing to have a cute, funny little kitten running around the house. Hopefully Dancer will adjust to her quickly. He seems to be enjoying his 'only cat' status though so I'm not sure how happy he is going to be to have to share his domain again so soon.

Not much else new around here, except that it seems we might have lost our camera. We went to a work picnic and have not seen it since so not sure what happened to it. We actually have a new one that we bought just before we moved but we have yet to get it out and learn anything about it. Seems that we need to do that now:).

We have been working hard around here, in the hot, hot sun, trying to get everything planted in the beds out front and watering the beds out front and the new grass in the back tons and tons. Yesterday it was 103 when I was outside watering. I prefer to do it early in the morning or late in the evening but we had planted lots of stuff that morning and had not yet watered it and some of it was looking a bit puny. We still have probably another two van-loads of stuff to get and plant before we are finished. We have already planted two van-loads.

I finally bought some curtains for our living room windows. We had ordered the curtain rod and it was on the garage floor for quite a while. I had to iron all six of the curtains, which was no small feat, as they are about 50 inches wide and 108 inches long. The rod was very heavy and long but the husband did an awesome job of hanging it. It is perfectly straight. When we ordered it, the people who we bought it from were concerned that it would bow because the expanse if so long and it only has one support in the middle and one on each end. But it does not bow at all. They were also telling us that, when the curtains are pulled back, the stack would be so big it would cover about one third of the end windows. As it turns out, the stack does not cover the windows at all. There is enough room beside the windows for the stack and it fits perfectly. I am so relieved that is done and it turned out pretty much perfectly. Although I have already seen teeny tiny holes some of the curtains on one side where Dancer-the-cat clearly tried to climb them, at night while we were sleeping. At least they are hung very well so we don't have to worry about them falling down. Hopefully the cat found out it was not much fun and will not try it again. But then, there is the new kitten..... no telling what she will do.

Oh, and the other news is that I went to my 30 year high school reunion. I had not planned to go, as I am just that type of introvert, but an old friend called and said I should go and I did not really have a good excuse. So, I took a quick shower and headed up to where they were. I arrived just as they were finishing taking turns standing up and telling a little about themselves and their lives so it was my turn! I had not heard anyone else so I was not sure exactly how much information or what information everyone was sharing and I was a bit nervous and trying to figure out who everyone was.

I came from a very small town and we only had 43 students in our graduating class. Many of us had gone to school together since first grade. They did not have Kindergarten when we started first grade. There were 21 of us there and I really did enjoy seeing everyone. They had had a 10 year reunion that I did not attend and they had not had a 20 year reunion so I am really glad I went to this one. I was able to catch up with some old friends that I had not seen in many years. It was really fun and I didn't get home until around 12:30 that night, which is really late for me! What a good time though.

That's it these days. Not much going on. Just trying to get everything done and settled around here before we officially start Kindergarten. Almost there...sooo close. We still have to hire a fencing company to come out and fence the back yard. I need to do that now. Later.

Another day, another storm

2011-06-16T13:45:00.001-07:00

Actually, we are past the worst of the storm season but we started today off with a bang and it looks like it could start up again anytime. The nice thing is that it is a very cool day today, relative to what we have been having and also to what they say we are about to have for the next 5 days or so. It is suppose to be unseasonably hot here over the next 5 days or so but I think that is what they have been saying since summer got started around here so maybe this is how it is going to be all summer long. I am thankful for air conditioning.

I am also very thankful for our new house. It is quite lovely and it just feels like home. I really love the house and the neighborhood and hope we will be here a very long time. The boys can actually cross the street here by themselves, as the traffic is really very very limited. They ran over to the neighbor across the street the other day and rang the doorbell to see if their little friend could come over and play. He had been here earlier in the day but the boys were out with the dad. He could not play that day but he was over a few days earlier and they all had a ball playing here at our house, both inside and out. I think the boys really like the new house and neighborhood too, although B said that when he grows up he is going to buy our old house and live in it.

B does not care for change much at all and he expresses himself quite well. When I had my long hair cut off, he made it clear to me that he did not really like it and then he said "that's OK mommy, it will grow back". When I painted my toenails on Sunday, he asked why I did that and let me know he liked them better the old way. A week or so later, he asked me how I would get the nail polish off and, after I explained, thought I should take it off then.

As B came downstairs the morning that the boys would go to gymnastics for the first time, N very excitedly told him they would get to go to gymnastics that day. B's response did not come close to matching N's enthusiasm and he said he thought he would just watch. As I reminded him of how he cried a little when waiting for his first swim lesson and thought about sitting out and watching N at the first soccer lesson, a small smile played around on his face and had fully grown by the time I finished. He did not say anymore about it and ran into the gym with N, very excited, when the time came. He has loved swim lessons, soccer and gymnastics from the very first lesson and has always looked forward to returning but he was uneasy about them all before the first lesson. He does not care for the thought of big changes or new things but he seems to adjust to them quickly when they come.

N has learned how to swing himself and can even get started on his own. He absolutely loves to swing too. B has not quite mastered it, although he tries hard and can keep himself going for a little bit. Sometimes N will push B and get him going and then he will get himself going so they can swing together. I love watching them do that. It is so sweet. They both love to sit with the dad with books like I Spy or Where's Waldo or any kind of search type book like that and search for the things together. So lately I have noticed that they will sometimes do this together when the dad is not home. They were actually doing it this morning when the dad was in his office. N usually holds the book because he wants to pretend to be the dad. It is really cute to see them huddled up on the couch together, searching through the book. I love that they have such a special friendship.

N has come such a long way and grown so much with his self control. He went through a period where he could not control his anger very well and he would hit or throw things and it took me a while to learn how to deal with it effectively. He is doing so much better now. He will sometimes flop himself on the floor if he does not get what he wants and he really does not like to be told no. He will sometimes hit his brother if he gets angry with him, although that goes both ways at times. Thankfully neither of them hit very often. N still does it more than B but not nearly as often as he once did and he hardly ever throws things when angry or just loses it when angry. He does a pretty good job these days of maintaining control when he is angry about something. N is also minding better and, when necessary, will also go to time out when told. Thankfully, we very seldom have to use time out anymore. He really has come a long way and B has always been more of a pleaser and has always minded pretty well.

They are both very sweet boys and are really coming into a very sweet and more thoughtful age. I am really loving this age and I hope it will serve us well when officially starting Kindergarten in the fall.

So, what's new around here? The boys and I just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we all really enjoyed it. We are now reading The Indian in the Cupboard and we are also enjoying it. There are so many wonderful books for children and there are so many that I have never read. So I am enjoying our read-alouds as much as they are.

We now have bushes and stuff in our flower beds and they look so much better, as does the house and yard. We are still going to plant more, as the landscaper only did the foundational planting, but it already looks so much better. I need to take pictures again of the house inside and out and of the boys. It has been too long. I first need to find our camera.

We are mostly in and unpacked. I still have three boxes about which I have been procrastinating and then I found six more boxes of books in the attic the other day, after I thought I had unpacked them all. No telling what else is in the attic that still needs to be unpacked.

We had a small party here the other day to celebrate my niece's birthday. She invited some of her college friends, the dad cooked out on the grill and I made sure everyone had what they needed and clean up after. It was nice and everyone had a good time. The boys had fun and were meeting everyone at the door, shaking hands and introducing themselves. It was funny. We put the ping pong table out on the screened back porch and some were enjoying that also. Not sure how it will do out there though because it is not meant to get wet but it did during the thunderstorm the other night. Not sure how long it will remain out there but we'll see.

Two weeks and four days until we go get the newest member of our family, our new little kitten. I am looking forward to it. I really miss my Zoe and I think having a new kitten will help with that a bit. I am concerned about Dancer though. I don't know how he will handle a new addition to the family and what he may see as competition. Hopefully we can make him feel very loved so he won't feel as threatened. I hope and pray it will all work out OK.

I can't believe we only have two more weeks of July left. This summer is going by so fast. Kids start back to school here in mid-August so we are quickly speeding towards that date. I am working on our plans for starting school. I know it is 'only' Kindergarten but I feel that I really need to start off 'school' with the boys in a disciplined way. It is easy to let up later but I think it will be much harder to start off in a less disciplined way and then try to add more discipline to our day later. The other thing is that, because of their age (they just missed the cut off by 1 month (B) and 3 months (N) so they will be older K'ers) and that they are already reading at a 1st grade level (maybe beginning of 1st grade but somewhere in 1st), I feel we should be doing a bit more than a typical K program but a bit less than a full 1st grade program.

Well, time for dinner. Have a nice evening.

It's a pity

2011-05-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

Ben is crazy about batman and robin right now and has been for a while now. Yesterday at Target I got the boys each a small batman and robin coloring book / activity book. This morning, he was coloring in that book and said to me, "Mommy, you know what's a pity? I only have one more batman to color in this book". I had to ask him, in case I had misunderstood what he said, "It's a pity?" and he said yes and then repeated it again.

Isn't that a pity?

He catches me by surprise like this every once in a while, by using a word like this that is not a common word in our house or with anyone else that he sees frequently. When he hears a word that he is not familiar with, he always asks what it means. He stores it away and, eventually, he will use it, just out of the blue and seemingly without fore thought. Isn't that funny?

We're still here

2011-05-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

We have not blown away, although we were close to going to the storm shelter the other day. I have not posted lately because I just have not felt like it.... plus I am still finishing up a few things around here, such as hanging pictures, so we can feel settled in and at home. I'm almost done. Just a few more touches and that will be it, thankfully.

Not much new going on around here really. The boys are still taking violin and we had a very good week with it this week. They are now learning to use their fingers on the neck of the violin and they have learned several new notes that allows them to play the beginning of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and all of Hot Cross Buns, or at least all of the version that is in the book we use. I'm sure it is not the entire song. This is the first week that they have been able to play something they recognize and they have been so excited about it. It is fun to see them get excited about it and I am hopeful that it will mostly be downhill from here.

They are taking the summer off of soccer and next week they will start gymnastics for the summer instead. After the summer, they will have to choose which they want to do for the school year. They have had two weeks out of swimming lessons but will also start that again next week. They are both doing very well with swimming now. They can both jump off the diving board and swim over to the ladder or to the side of the pool. They can also swim across the pool, coming up to take breaths when needed. So they are doing pretty well but I would not call them strong swimmers, by any means. We are planning to have them continue to take swimming lessons through Kindergarten and possibly through next summer and then we will reevaluate.

My goal is to have them in only one sport, plus violin lessons, when we start 1st grade. However, if we really feel they need to stay in swimming lessons, I'm sure we will manage to fit it in. I just know that we will have a lot on our plate then, so trimming out everything we can would be best. We will also be adding a once a week meeting with the homeschool coop and once a month field trip with them, so we will have plenty to keep us busy.

I started looking through our Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading today to see where we left off several months ago. It has been quite a while since we have done any lessons but I would like to start up again soon. N is really reading very well these days, definitely past where we left off in the book, but I know he will progress even faster when we start lessons again. And B is reading very well but probably a bit behind where we left off in the book. He is so into pretending that he is not very motivated to pick up a book and sit down on his own to read. N is always reading something and stays up reading something or looking at pictures after we tuck him in at night.

Speaking of bedtimes, I am quite surprised at how late the children in our neighborhood are up in the evenings. There are two little boys who live across the street who are around the same age as B and N and I know at least one of them definitely stays up much later than B and N. Our schedule is that they normally start getting ready for bed around 7:00 to 7:15ish. Then we sit and read for a good amount of time and say prayers. Then we go upstairs and brush their teeth, tuck them in and give them hugs and kisses. Our goal is to have them tucked in around 8:00ish. We try to stay with our schedule most of the time but there are times when things come up and we run late....or if we are reading a really good book and just can't find a good stopping place for a while. But the vast majority of the time, they are in bed sometime between 8:00 and 8:15 and they normally sleep until 7:00am. The two boys who live across the street both have older siblings so I am sure that plays a big role in the schedule they keep. But I do often wonder how they can be getting the amount of sleep their bodies need.

I still miss my Zoe, although the painful part of it all is not as bad, of course. I do still have my moments and one of them was just tonight, when I saw her picture on my blog. When I let myself really think about her, my heart hurts so much and I miss her so very much. It is so sad to think that I will never see her and hold her again. I am very blessed though that I still have my Dancer boy. He has decided that the screened-in back porch is his new favorite place. He sleeps out there most of the day in one of the two lawn chairs (we really need to buy some new outdoor furniture and are looking for some). I have to make him come in at night so I can lock the door. I'm glad he is enjoying it so much.

The new cat news is that we are getting another bengal girl cat, well, kitten actually. She is just a baby kitten and she is a lighter colored bengal like Zoe was. The soonest we can get her will be July 2nd. I am very excited about it but I also feel a little guilty when I think about Dancer and I wonder how he will react. I know his initial reaction will likely not be very positive, which is natural, but I am really hoping and praying that he will come around to like her and be nice to her.

In other news, we have been enjoying our new neighborhood and yard a lot. Bike riding around here is great. The boys and I biked over to the nearby elementary school the other day and they enjoyed playing on their playground. We took the boys to the Renaissance Fair on Saturday. They enjoyed it and there were parts of it that were good but, overall, had I known then what I now know, I probably would have skipped it. There were just too many things that were not kid-appropriate, in my humble opinion. Oh well. Live and learn. Our neighborhood pool is under construction so, hopefully, by the beginning of July, we might be able to start using it.... that's what they say but I seriously doubt that it will be ready by then. I have really enjoyed being home more since we move here. I'm not sure when I became such a homebody but I sure am. Who'd have thought??

Time for me to get some sleep. Sorry I have not been updating as much. Maybe I'll have more to write about once we start schooling.

Feeling better each day

2011-05-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

As expected, I find that it is a bit easier each day. Of course, I still miss her a lot and there are moments when something happens that really brings it home again but I am having a lot more moments of fond memories too. Thanks so much for your heartfelt calls, emails and comments and also your prayers. I really appreciate them.

This morning I was looking for something in my night stand drawer and I found about 8 or 10 straws that I had collected there from Miss Zoe. She used to love to play with straws. They were pretty much her favorite toy, straws and pens. The boys have straws and connectors for building structures and they are always missing some when they put them away. Zoe would always find them and have a ball playing with them. I would sometimes give her a drinking straw too and she loved those. She would carry her toys from room to room, following me around, so she could play in the room where I was.

She was also always stealing pens from the husband. He has a basket on his night stand where he puts whatever he has in his pockets when he is getting ready for bed. He always has pens in there and also there are always pens on his desk. Zoe was a little snooper because she discovered that he kept pens in that basket and she was always taking them from there and also from his desk. She sometimes knocked the whole basket to the floor, while trying to steal a pen.

We would come in from being out somewhere and there would be a pen in the hallway and/or one in our bedroom or on our bed. She would carry them to where ever she wanted to play. I picked up at least two pens a day normally, sometimes even three or four.

Here she is, caught in the act:

The reason I had so many straws in my night stand drawer was because she would find one at night, carry it to our bed and start playing with it on top of me. I would wake up, take it away from her, tell her "no no Zoe" and go back to sleep. There was a night or two when I had to take two or three of them from her before she quit bothering me. After that, I made sure the straws were picked up when the boys were finished with them. Even then, she found them on one of the bottom shelves of the bookcase and we had to relocate them to a higher shelf so she could not get them, the little snooper.

She was quite a character and had a wonderful personality. She was a bengal cat, as is my other cat Dancer. They are really a wonderful breed of cats. I have had cats all my life but I have never had a cat like a bengal before. They are really a very different acting breed, as cats go. They are very social and very smart and many people say they have a lot of dog-like qualities. I don't know about that but I do know they are very unique. Some of them have very very soft fur, more like a pelt. Zoe had fur like this but Dancer does not. A lot of them like water and enjoy playing in it, such as in a bathtub with a small amount of water in it or just playing in running water. They are also normally stronger and can jump higher than a normal cat. Dancer used to really like to play with wads of paper.

I spend some time yesterday gathering all of the pictures I have of both Zoe and Dancer and putting them in one folder. Here are a couple of my favorites of Zoe.

She used to love to lay down in this bowl. I would have to quickly clean it out for her or she would use her paw and do it herself. She had not done this in such a long time and then she did it again just recently, after we moved into our new house. She was a funny girl and frequently did things to make me laugh.
Sleeping in the sun, a favorite:

I had forgotten about this until I ran across this picture yesterday. When I had a broken foot last year, she wanted to ride with me on the knee scooter, even if it meant being uncomfortable in the basket.

And this is the last picture I took of her, when she was sleeping next to my bed and feeling pretty bad, not wanting to eat or get up for very long.

I love this picture of her. It is so Zoe and she loved that blanket. I carried her to the vet's on that blanket and she was laying on it in my lap when she fell asleep, before the vet took her away to give her the medication that would put her down.

For those of you who really don't like hearing about my cat, I am thinking this will be the last post about her but I can't promise:). I find it very therapeutic to write down my thoughts and I also want to remember these little things about her. So, I don't plan to write again but I cannot promise that it won't come up. It probably will but hopefully in smaller and smaller spurts.

Today was my first full day of not crying and I was actually fairly happy all day. I'm making progress.

Rest in Peace Zoe

2011-05-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

My little kitty (the one on the right), who was not little and was actually 13 years old, died yesterday. She had a few good days after coming home from the hospital last Saturday and then she took a turn for the worse again. She was spending almost the entire day in her bed and was barely eating anything. She was losing weight very fast.

I think taking her to the vet to be put down was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. She was my first baby. She was my buddy, my faithful companion. She loved me unconditionally and she loved me so much and showed it every day.

When I woke up in the morning, she was sitting on my bed, waiting patiently. When she saw I was awake, she would frequently start meowing at me and come over for a pet or a cuddle. When I went into the bathroom to get ready for the day, she came along and sat up on the counter watching me. She would drink some water out of the faucet while I was putting on my makeup. She followed me from room to room as I did my morning chores, hoping I would pick her up or simply talk to her. She was very talkative and, when I spoke to her, she would normally meow back at me, usually loudly (she was very opinionated). When I picked her up, I normally carried her up high, with her front paws on my shoulder and her back paws in my hand, cradled next to my chest. She would purr so loudly and, when I pet her, she would make the funniest sounds, telling me again how much she loved me.

She normally slept from mid-morning to late afternoon and then our routine would start all over again. She would sit nearby while I made dinner. She would sit next to me in my chair if I sat down for a bit. She would talk to me a lot, mostly because she really wanted me to pick her up and carry her around more than I had time for right then.

When I came out of the boys' room after putting them down for bed, she would be right outside of their door, waiting for me. She would immediately start meowing loudly, wanting me to pick her up and carry her downstairs, which I always did. When we got downstairs, I would put her down so I could turn out lights, close blinds, finish putting things away and gathering my things in preparation for some down time in my room. She would again follow me from room to room, knowing the routine and looking forward to retiring to the bedroom.

Once in the bedroom, the morning routine was repeated, only backwards. She looked forward to her drink of water (the cats do have a little water fountain they can drink from but she preferred the faucet, if she could talk someone into turning it on for her). She would sit on the counter, watching my every move. When I was finished, I would usually carry her back to the bedroom and put her in a chair or on the bed and she would settle in for the night.

If I left the room for a quick refill of my water, she would stay put and wait for me to come back. But if I left the room for a longer period of time, she would come find me and meow at me loudly, as if scolding me. If I did not return to the room soon after, she would start running back and forth through the house as if her tail was on fire and then she would play wildly with something for a few minutes and then start following me and meowing at me loudly again. She did not like it when I varied our routine. On days/nights when the husband works, she was quite happy because I kept to the routine most of the time.

She was actually a very demanding diva cat and would meow quite loudly when she was not happy about something, such as noisy boys who came too close to her or boys who were trying to irritate her in some way, or if I was not picking her up when she wanted me to or if I was not going to bed at the normal time. But she was my diva cat and she loved me completely. Her life revolved around me and I loved her so much. I feel as if there is a big hole in my heart and in my life. My stomach and my heart hurts. If I stay busy, it is easier. And I frequently have to remind myself that she was not feeling well and was not acting like herself for the past two weeks or so. She was clearly not a happy girl and I could see it in her face and body language.

I have never experienced this feeling before. I have always had cats, since I was just a little girl. Many pictures that were taken of me when I was just 3 or 4 show me holding a cat. I have had many cats that have died, as they were all cats that went outside and they just don't live that long. I got Dancer and Zoe when they were both little kittens. I was single and so they were my first babies. They were with me through thick and thin for so long. They have adjusted to so much over the years - me getting married, which was no issue because they both love the husband, moving from Houston to Oklahoma, adopting two little baby/toddler boys (this was the biggest adjustment by far) and then moving two more times. They have been through a lot with me and have always loved me and trusted me unconditionally.

And now my little shadow is gone. When I walk into my bedroom, bathroom or closet, somehow my breath is kind of taken away and I don't completely understand how it happens but I know it is because she is not there. There is such an empty hole in my daily routine and in my heart. It physically hurts and I don't like it. I miss her so much and I have questioned and doubted, wondering if I gave up on her too soon or if I didn't try hard enough to determine what was wrong so maybe she could have lived longer.

But, when I am thinking logically, I know that God provided the exact time and circumstances. When she first got sick last week, I thought I would have to put her down then and I was really really not ready. It took me a while and some prayer but, before she came back home from the vet, I was finally in a position that I was thinking more of her welfare than of my feelings and emotions. It took me a day or so to get to the point where I was thinking of her and not wanting her to suffer.

When she came back home from the vet, she was almost like her old self. She was happy and playing and enjoying life again and she was totally loving me, wanting to be with me all the time. The only thing was that she was not eating very much. I thought she had just had some sort of infection and the antibiotic took a couple of days to really kick in and that she would be completely back to normal in no time. But I never could relax. I watched her like a hawk, looking for anything that just was not right, mostly because I knew she was not quite back to her old self, even though she was pretty happy for a few days. It did not last long.

But God had given me time to adjust to the idea of her dying and He had given me a few extra days to enjoy her. My mom and sister had already planned a visit for yesterday. They come to visit us about once every two weeks and that just happened to be the day they had planned. I had no doubt that God had orchestrated it such, so I would have someone to watch the boys (my mom) and someone who understood how much Zoe meant to me to go with me (my sister).

It was definitely the hardest thing I have done, to let them give her the shot to put her down. It is hard being without her. I know it will get better but, for now, it is just hard and I am sad.

Kitty update - good news:)

2011-05-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

My kitty is home and seems to be back to normal, although much thinner. They xrayed her again this morning and said everything looked fine. She ate and drank during the night and this morning. They said yesterday she hid under her blanket all day and peeked out at them but this morning she was standing at the door of the cage and letting them scratch her neck.

She was very happy to see me and purred a lot on the way home, in between wandering around the van and meowing loudly. Her fur looks back to normal today also. Yesterday it was fluffed up and a friend of mine said that was because she was dehydrated. She drank a lot of water after we got home. Then she wandered around the house for a long time meowing very loudly. I'm not sure what that was all about but I was glad when she settled down for a nap.

The vet thought that maybe she had some sort of virus and it just took a little while for the antibiotic to start working enough for her to start feeling better. Hopefully we will not have any other issues and it is good to know that her overall health appears to be very good for her age.

Jana, thanks for your sweet message and your prayers. Much appreciated. We miss you and love you bunches!

My sick kitty

2011-05-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

So my little Zoe girl is very sick right now. She recently turned 13 years old, although I am told that indoor-only cats often live much longer than that. She started acting sick on Wednesday evening, although not enough for me to be positive that she was sick.

Thursday morning I was positive and I took her to the vet. He checked her out and took some blood to run some tests. He really thought she was diabetic because that is quite common with older cats (although this was new information to me). He quickly determined this was not the problem.

The other things that he rattled off that could be the problem were all big things, such as renal failure or liver problems. The tests would come back the next morning. He also gave her an antibiotic shot that would act for two weeks, just in case she might have some sort of infection. I was concerned she might have a UTI, as she had had one once before, albeit a very long time ago. She was not running a fever though.

I took her home yesterday morning and she spent the next 24 hours sleeping, hanging out in her bed and sometimes wanting me to hold her. I never saw her eat or drink anything though and I could tell she was becoming dehydrated and growing weaker.

When she was not better by yesterday evening, I really thought she was dying. I prepared myself for bad news from the vet on the blood work and that I would likely have to have her put down this morning. I spent a good deal of time crying. She is such a dear, loyal little friend. She has been my little shadow for so many years now. She sits on the counter, watching me put on make up. She follows me everyone, including into the bathroom. If I shut her out, she sits outside and meows at me quite loudly or she tries to get in. She just loves being with me or near me. If I am relaxing in bed, watching tv or reading, she is either on the bed with me or on me, or she is sitting in a nearby chair.

I woke up at 2:00am this morning and could not go back to sleep. She was curled up on a soft blanket next to my bed. I felt physically sick thinking about taking her to the vet to be put down. I really had to pray about it to make the switch from selfishly thinking of how much I would miss her to thinking about her and how she was feeling or what she might be experiencing in the way of pain or miserable-ness. The husband had to work today so I would also have to take the boys with me to the vet. I was not looking forward to it.

The vet called me soon after opening and gave me the great news that all of blood work came back really good. Nothing to be concerned about at all. After I told him that I thought she had probably gone 36 hours now without food or drink, he said to bring her back as we were clearly missing something. So the boys and I took her back and the boys behaved quite nicely. The vet examined her again and still found nothing. He decided to keep her for a while, take an xray of her abdomen and give her a B12 shot and some fluids. He called later and said the xray looked good. There was one thing they wanted to watch and do another xray tomorrow morning. I think there are concerned there might be an obstruction in her bowel. We agreed the best thing to do would probably be to let her stay there for the night so they could observe her. It is hard for me to see exactly how much she might be eating or drinking or using the bathroom, since I have another cat here too. Plus my attention is also on the boys much of the day.

I am hopeful that tomorrow morning will bring good news and my little buddy will be feeling better. I will be praying for her and hoping for the best. Hopefully I will also sleep a bit better tonight, knowing she is in good hands.

I hope she will get to come home tomorrow. I really miss my sweet little shadow.

I'm back!

2011-05-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

We finally got connected to the Internet - just now! I have had withdrawal pains:).

We are in the new house and have been for a week and a day now. We are all adjusting quite well and the unpacking continues. We have most of what we moved from the rental house unpacked but still have lots of stuff (junk) to go through from storage. Until we finish, we cannot park in the garage, so we are very motivated. We are giving lots of stuff away.

The new house is awesome. What a wonderful blessing. This neighborhood is so incredibly peaceful and beautiful. I think my blood pressure went down quite a bit after the move.

Our yard is still dirt/mud, depending on the weather. They started putting in the irrigation system today so, hopefully, sometime next week we will have grass. Until then, the boys are quite happy to play in the dirt.

This house seems quite a bit smaller than our old house, although larger than the rental of course. The husband assures me that it is close to the size of the old house but it sure does not seem so to me. Most of the rooms are smaller than the same room in the old house, although we do have an extra room upstairs so I guess that makes up the difference. I'm not complaining. I am happy to be getting rid of tons of stuff and living life a bit lighter on stuff. I am trying to figure out how to sneak out some toys because we have too many but B has a real issue with letting things go.

My favorite room in the new house is actually two rooms, the living room and kitchen. I love being in here and having the screened in back porch is awesome. We can open the doors and enjoy the breeze and the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves and there are lots of windows so we see lots and lots of green. It reminds me so much of when I was a kid at my grandma's and grandpa's old house. The cats love going out on the screened porch also. I moved one of their basket kitty beds out there and Zoe is hanging out there now.

The boys are loving being here too. We are all so happy to be able to stay home and not have to be driving back and forth all the time. It is very clear to me that our overall stress level has gone down tremendously.

The boys love having their own rooms and we have not had any issues with that at all. I had thought N might have an issue staying by himself but he really loves it. I made a big deal about letting them each pick out their own bed-side lamp and that they can stay up for a little while and read a book at bedtime. N does this every night. Last night he was up too late and I had to talk to him about being responsible about it if he wanted to keep his lamp. He loves to read and I frequently see him reading books throughout the day. B is capable of being a very good reader but is behind N on ability currently, as he is just not the type to want to sit and read by himself much at this age. He is Mr. Pretend and that is how he spends the majority of his day. He loves to be read to and he enjoys taking turns reading with N when the dad or I sit down to read with them. N wants to read everything these days so, even if we sit down to read with them, if it is close to his level, he wants to help read it. I really believe B will eventually love to read because he really enjoys a great story and loves to be read to. His constant pretending has been very good for N too. I don't N would have been quite so much into pretending if it were not for B. They are both very good for each other in so many ways.

I am going to catch up on some online reading now. I have been away way too long and need to catch up on what is really going on out there:). Have a great day.

Move Day Approaching Quickly

2011-04-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

Move day is Tuesday so we are very busy packing, making daily trips to the house to check out how the final things are coming together, trying to keep the rental house somewhat in order because they are showing it and trying to keep up with our day-to-day regular tasks, such as fixing meals and doing laundry. I can't wait until this is over.

When I am here at the rental house I feel overwhelmed, disorganized and stressed. When I am at the new house I usually feel very calm and happy. It really is a wonderful, calming place. It is very quiet and serene and has the sounds of country living (minus the cows and chickens and such).

The new house has come together quite nicely. I was a bit skeptical they could finish everything in time. It is a good thing we decided to move on Tuesday instead of Monday because it would not have been quite finished. They still have a few final details to take care of on Monday and we still have to do a walk through with them. The final inspection is also scheduled for Monday, although at this point I think it is pretty much a formality.

Last weekend the people who do the clean up started cleaning. They did all of the windows, removing all of the stickers and cleaning them so nicely. They really look great. They were there off and on throughout the week and they were there again on Saturday.

There is a water leak in the yard just in front of the house that they are working to repair. The yard is currently all dirt... actually, it is now all mud - at least what is left of it, as it has been raining here non stop for quite a while now. We were having one of the worst droughts in many years here and then the rains and severe thunderstorms started and now it seems it will never stop. We are to receive over 4 inches of rain in a few days, from last I heard on the weather channel. I checked today and they are showing cloudy but no rain for Tuesday so I am hoping they are right and we have a good day for moving.

The irrigation guy is suppose to start work at the new house on Wednesday but I'm sure that depends on what the weather brings. I am hoping he can because the sooner he is finished, the sooner we will have grass. Until then, all along the bottom of the new house, the rock/brick will stay covered with splashed up mud and dirt. Actually though, the bigger issue is that the boys have no where to play until the grass goes in. They enjoy riding their scooters on the driveway and sidewalk but that does not last very long.

Today I thought B was starting to waver on wanting his own bedroom. He was talking about how they would not be able to have pillow fights if they had separate rooms. N just thought of reasons they could still do it and seemed to still want his own room. I asked N if he thought he would be OK sleeping by himself in his own room and he thought he would. We'll see. I am not convinced. He frequently will not go into a dark room by himself and does not want to be alone in a room away from everyone else.

What else is going on in our lives? This house thing is so all consuming. We have not had any reading lessons in a long time. The funny thing is that the boys are reading everything these days, especially N. I can hear them both reading to the dad right now. They are upstairs, reading stories before bed. More and more they want to read them to us. Today during quiet time N was reading some of the readers we use for our reading lessons so B started reading some too. B tends to do it in response to N doing it. N seems to do it because he really enjoys reading and books. B likes and enjoys books too but he stays very busy in pretend land most of the time. Pretend land these days includes a lot of Batman, Robin, the Joker and the Penguin, Peter Pan and anything to do with castles, tree houses, jails and hand cuffs and dressing up as a police man or a pirate. Those are the most popular things lately. We are once again listening to Peter Pan in the car so he is on the radar again.

The boys are still in soccer and swimming once a week and violin lessons, although we will miss violin on Tuesday and they have not practiced in a couple of weeks. I think, after the upcoming week, we will all be looking forward to getting back into a nice groove, having a bit more structure in our lives and having more of a routine. We will start our daily violin practice again and we will also start regular reading lessons again. Sometime this summer, after things settle down again, we will start doing a bit more school, at least three days a week or so.

I am looking forward to having more time. My new hair cut has inspired me and I really want to start walking or working out on the EFX and lose some weight. My response to stress includes ample eating/snacking so, once the stress is reduced, losing weight should be a little easier (I hope). I really love my new hair style. It is so so easy and quick and it makes me feel better about myself. And the husband loves it too. He has surprised me by how much he really likes it and how often he comments on it. Even when I think it looks bad, he still thinks it looks great. Can't beat that.

It has been a long day and time for me to turn in. Hope you all had a Happy Easter.

I got all my long hair cut off. What do you think?

2011-04-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

I finally got up the courage to cut my hair short. Here is a picture of how it looked right after I came home from the hair dressers.
It has been dried straight here but I actually like it better when it is curly. If I remember (and find the time), I will take another picture after I wash it and leave it curly so you can see how it looks curly.

I will include a house update with pictures below but, in the meantime, here are a couple of pics I took of my handsome guys.

Aren't they such cuties? Now for the house update.

We are still on track to move in the last week of this month. I'm not quite sure when it became the last week of the month, since we had heard the middle of the month but that is now where we are. We are all holding tight to that date, since we have already given our notice that we will be moving out of this rental house.

We were up there today and they were moving the large piles of dirt around the yard. After that, it should be ready for the sprinkler system and then for sod. Today we met with the landscaper to discuss where the flower beds will go, although this will definitely not be complete when we move in. He is going to provide us with a master plan. His guys will put in the big stuff, such as trees and large bushes, and we are planning to put in the smaller stuff, according to his plan. The husband is also considering to put in the sprinkler system for the backyard himself to help stretch the budget a bit more. He has good knowledge and experience with working on them in the past so hopefully this will work out.

On the inside, which is what HAS to be completed for us to move in, they have most of the knobs and pulls on the cabinets and drawers and handles on many of the doors. The electrician has been working on putting up all of the ceiling fans and light fixtures and it looks as if most of them are up. He has left the largest and most difficult to last so I am anxious to see them, hopefully tomorrow. The painter was there yesterday, putting the final coat of paint on the bathrooms so the plumber was there today, starting on all of the plumbing fixtures. The security guy was there today and I think he might have finished his part.

I'm sure I am leaving somebody/something out. There are so many things going on right now that it is hard to keep track of everything. One thing I have noticed is that there are no air conditioning units outside of the house, on the concrete pads that have recently been poured for them. So I am wondering when those are going in. I'll have to ask about that tomorrow. We are scheduled to have the carpet put in on Monday. Hopefully, by that time, the only big remaining indoor task will be to finish the floors and finish the clean up.

We are definitely in the home stretch. Here are some pics.

The following three pics are from the master bath.

They were also putting the gray coating on the brick, as you can see in the picture above.
Below are my outdoor boys. They absolutely love playing outside at the new house. They will really miss these big mounds of dirt. I have a feeling they will no longer be there when we go to the house next. "Mommy, take a picture of my stick!"

The big tree in the distance is where the dad is planning to build a tree house for the boys. They are so excited about it and they have very high expectations. They have seen the movie The Swiss Family Robinson. The first thing on B's wish list is a dungeon or jail. Both boys have talked about a slide coming out of the tree house and also a zip line. This may be a multi-year project.Give them some sticks and a bunch of dirt and they can stay busy for hours and hours.
That's it for today. Hopefully, after we move, I can start posting a bit more often. I hope your weather has been as nice as ours has this week. Later!

2011-03-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

Lately I am enjoying listening to the boys while they are playing, pretending and talking to themselves. It is so cute. As I type, N is playing alone with playdough and just talking away to himself. It is adorable and I wish I could just capture this moment in time and get to watch/listen to it again when he is older. Unfortunately, at this age we can no longer sneak up on them with a video camera and tape them without them knowing. I just heard N singing (he has a very high voice) and then stop and say "mom, it's no time for singing".

B is also playing right now and talking to himself as he plays, although I cannot hear him so well. He is playing with Batman and Joker and the Joker's hideout, which the boys recently bought after saving the money they earned from violin lessons and practicing. They were so proud of themselves for saving up for it.

One of my nieces just came for a short visit and we really enjoyed having her here. She played lots and lots of games with the boys, which they love, so they had a really fun time.

The house is coming along quite nicely. We are still on track for moving in mid-April. There is a lot of work going on right now. They are laying tile in the bathrooms and still have to finish the backsplash tile in the kitchen and laundry room. They are finishing up all of the painting work on the outside and are laying the stone for the headwalls at the entrance of the driveway, which are required in our neighborhood. They still have to lay the stone in the living room around the fireplace and the columns. In the middle of next week they are going to start sanding and finishing the floors so we won't be able to go in from Wednesday through the weekend. They will also be grading the yard and getting it ready for the sprinkler system and landscaping.

I had mentioned in the past that our new neighborhood has lots of boys. They were having spring break last week and we saw that some of the neighbor boys just behind us had put up tents so they could camp out in their backyard. The next day when I was at the house I notice one of the windows in the back of the house had a b-b-hole in it. The b-b broke through the outer pane of glass and hit the inner pane, cracking it, and it was laying inside of the window between the panes of glass. Our builder said he would talk to one of their parents to alert them to the b-b-gun activity. I actually thought it was funny, although I probably would not have thought it was so funny if we had to pay to replace the window. The neighbors behind us and their sons are very nice people though and boys will be boys:). I'm sure when the parents hear what happened they will discuss it with their sons and try to prevent it from happening again. I'm actually more concerned about one of my sons or pets being shot than I am about the house or windows.

Just a short update today as it is lunch time and I need to feed the little guys. Hope you are having a great weekend. We are all doing great here, although we are still undecided about which church to join, which bugs me. I want to be settled. I will be praying about this though and hopefully we can make a decision soon. Happy weekend!

Exhausted...

2011-03-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

We are all so tired. We have been running constantly, picking stuff out for the house and doing this and that, here and there, for the house. I never imagined that building a house would be so much work, especially when someone else is managing the actual building of the house. It really is amazing how much there is to do and how much time is required to do it all.

I picked out all of our light fixtures and was concerned that the light above the island would not be sufficient. Our builder confirmed that the other day, along with the light above the stairs, which hangs too long for the space. So, I have to go back and pick new ones for those two spots, along with the fixture above the kitchen table because it won't look right when I change out the one above the island. The two kitchen fixtures are the hardest ones for me.

We picked out all of the door and cabinet hardware yesterday. The guy from the store went to the house this morning and counted the number of pieces we needed and then we found out we are way over budget with that. So, I need to figure out what made us go over and determine what we need to do to mitigate this issue.

We are in the middle of picking out carpet for the upstairs, the downstairs bedrooms and the library. Fortunate the dear husband is taking the lead on this one and it has required a good amount of research work on his part. We think we have it narrowed down to two and either one is fine with me. He is doing the final research on these two. I am meeting the installer at the house tomorrow morning so they can measure all of the rooms that are to be carpeted.

The counter tops are suppose to be installed tomorrow and I am hoping the timing will work out so I can be there to watch. They have already laid the tile in the laundry room and are waiting for some tile to arrive tomorrow to do the other bathrooms.

The outside of the house is almost completed. I included some pictures below. The house looks kind of white-ish in the pics but it looks very different in real life. It is a very creamy color and turned out to be just perfect to match the rock. The stucco guys will finish up tomorrow and then there is some final painting to be done for the trim, garage doors, shutters, front door, etc. They also paint a thick coating of something on the brick.

We have given our notice for this rental house, that we will be moving at the end of April. We are hoping the new house will be done in mid-April, but I will be a little surprise if it is really done in four weeks. We'll see. I'm skeptical.

The husband and I have both agreed that we would likely never build a house again. It is just way too consuming. I feel blessed and fortunate to be able to do this but I also feel it has required us to put our lives on hold for quite a while. Everything has revolved around this house and it is really getting old. I am ready for our lives to get back to normal. I constantly feel bad that I am not doing enough teaching for the boys. We have not done any reading or writing lessons for quite a while now and we are doing good to practice the violin 3 days a week, although one day is a lesson so we don't practice that day anyway. Still, we should be practicing 5 days a week, very constantly, so it becomes a better habit. Also, I have not been good about teaching the boys to do their daily chores, which I know I will regret later. I just keep putting everything off thinking we will start once we have moved. Oh well. We are in the home stretch now so not too much longer and we'll be done.

Please forgive my complaining. I know we are very blessed to be able to do this and I do appreciate it. I'm just tired tonight. I don't think we have adjusted to the time change yet.

Here are a few of the latest pictures:

Busy days

2011-03-04T19:02:00.001-08:00

We have been so busy here lately that my head is spinning half the time. So, this post is a general update on what we have been up to lately.

My birthday was last week, which is always nice. Well, the part about getting gifts and attention is nice. The part about being a year older is only nice relative to the alternative. My mom's birthday is the day after mine and she and my sister came over and stayed the night with us. So we all celebrated my birthday and mom's birthday together and it was really nice. Every birthday celebration is more fun with children around. They get so excited about blowing out the candles, eating cake and opening gifts, even when it is not for them. It's too cute.

We went to Kansas City the week before last (did I already write about that?) We had an awesome time and the boys really enjoyed playing with the daughters of my friend, who are also from Volgograd Russia. All the kids really got along exceptionally well. They were all very cute together.

The boys are still growing, learning, changing daily (surprise!). Funny how that happens. They are getting so leggy lately and N's hair is really getting dark. For the past week or two, there are times when I look at him and have to look twice because he just looks so different to me. It seems to me that it has happened very suddenly.

We finally bought new bikes for the boys yesterday evening and they are so excited. Their old bikes are so small (12 inch) that B was actually having trouble riding sometimes because his knee would hit the handlebars and he was afraid it would make him have a wreck. Their new bikes are 16 inch and fit them perfectly. The small 12 inch bikes were excellent for allowing them to learn to ride without training wheels though. Those are the bikes that I bought off of Craigslist and one of them is a girl's bike. The boys still did not give a hoot that one was a girl's bike though. If the subject came up, they thought it was funny that they had a girl's bike. Other than that, I don't think they ever thought about it. But they are both very happy to now have their own new bike. I found them at Academy Sports for $35 each a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, by the time we decided to go ahead and get them (we had thought about waiting until we moved), the price had changed to $49. But the funny thing was that the price had gone from $35 to $42 to $49 and, when they changed the price from $42 to $49, they only changed it on one bike that was hanging on the second row up. Hanging on the third row up, were 7 or 8 bikes that still had the $42 price tag on them. So I found someone to help me get them down and I told him that I wanted two of the $42 bikes on the third row up. They acknowledged their mistake and gave me the lower price.

These bikes came with training wheels so the dad removed them and put on a kick-stand. They are also very excited to have a kick stand. It is fun to see them enjoying their new bikes. They are a bit wobbly on them, as they become accustomed to the difference in size. Hopefully we will all enjoy many bike rides together this summer.

The other popular thing here currently is games, especially for B but N likes them too. But B thinks that everyone should be willing to play games with him pretty much all day, or at least anytime he asks. One new favorite is Monopoly Junior and we also just got an I Spy game too. I bought them these two games with birthday money:). The great thing is that the Monopoly Junior helps them practice adding. We even keep an abacus nearby so they can use it to add if they need to. It is perfect for their level. The next favorite game is Shoots and Ladders. The boys will bargain. N will agree to play Monopoly Junior with B if B will play Shoots and Ladders with him.

Violin lessons are going pretty well. We are increasing the number of times a week that we practice, albeit slowly, but we are getting there. They are working on memorizing their first song this week. It is VERY short; only 18 notes and 5 rests, or something like that. I wanted to get them excited so they would really do their best to try to learn it this week so I upped the ante. I told them they could earn an extra dollar at their lesson on Tuesday if they could do a good job of playing the little song from memory for their teacher. So they are very excited now and I think we will get some very good practice time Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Once they can see their own progress, when they learn the first song that they know (such as Old McDonald, or something like that), then I think they will own their excitement, rather than me trying to think of incentives to build their excitement. So, we'll see how it goes.

The house is really coming along, now that all the trim is finished and all the cabinets are in. All of the staining is finished, along with the trim, and they are now caulking closet shelves, taping off the trim and painting walls. Next week they will start laying floor tile, the master bathtub will be delivered and installed and the granite people will come out to make a template so they will know how to cut the granite for the countertops.

We are done picking colors, although we are still debating what paint to use on the garage doors (dark trim color, light stucco color, or both). I am voting for light stucco color but I told the husband that he can make this decision because I have made to many lately. I met with the lighting people and spent HOURS looking for the right lights for various spots in the house. I also met with the plumbing and picked out plumbing fixtures. And then I had the plumbing people calling me over and over to verify this or that or tell me about an issue with something or whatever. I also had the tile place calling me to verify what we had picked out and I thought we had finalized that weeks ago. There are way too many things to pick out when building a home. Having a budget helps because it keeps you focused on a smaller set of choices...but then, I have expensive tastes and inevitably will pick out the most expensive thing in the store. We still need to pick out a pedestal sink for the powder bath, review how the back splash should look on the wall behind the cook top and pick out carpet. I think that might be all. I hope it is and I really hope we are happy with the wall colors we picked out for inside the house. We tested it on walls but you just never know until you see it on the walls.

On the outside, they have one last stucco coat to apply, the one with the color. Then it is painting trim, pouring concrete sidewalks and driveway, grading the lawn, landscaping, etc. As long as the house is finished, we can move in before the lawn work is done.

Oh, and we are now targeting mid-April for our move in date.

Well, those are the highlights. I am falling asleep as I type so please forgive anything that doesn't make sense. Goodnight!

Funny Boy

2011-02-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

Today we went to church and then out to lunch. We had been home for a few minutes. N was coloring at the art table. I was puttering around in the kitchen and getting ready to go sit down and rest for a few minutes with a book. B said to me he was ready to do some more school, which meant that he wanted to work on writing his letters again. He is very into this lately. I told him I was getting ready to sit down and rest for a bit. He said, "Nobody wants to do what I want" and I said "yes, I guess that's true". He looked at me surprised and said "you sound like you think that's OK". I can't remember exactly how I responded to that but it was just so cute, I had to write it down.

We are having beautiful weather here now and will have this week. It is 56 degrees and very sunny right now and it is suppose to get up into the 60's and 70's all week, I believe. I'm loving it. It is such a nice change after back-to-back snow storms.

I was up at the new house on Friday. The painters have started caulking and filling in nail holes and stuff, preparing to stain the cabinets and paint the trim. The trim guys are still working on trim. I didn't ask but I'm sure they probably have several more days worth of work, if not a full week. He was in the process of putting trim around the large windows and french doors in the living room. He is also working putting the wood treads and risers on the stairs and putting up the rails, which is nice. I will be glad when the rails are up. It has made me nervous having these big areas where someone could fall and hurt themselves badly and I have to watch the boys like a hawk when they are there, although they are pretty careful about it.

I am anxious to see the kitchen cabinets but they are holding off on those until last because they have their big saws set up in the living room / kitchen / dining areas and they need some room to get around with these long pieces of trim. Hopefully they will have them in by the end of this week. I am so ready for this to be done. With the bad weather we received, we know we have definitely moved out to April for our finish and move in date. I am hopeful it will be early April but who knows at this point. I need to call our builder tomorrow and discuss where we are, how much we have left and deadlines for remaining items we have to pick out.

We have ramped up our reading around here lately. It seemed that the boys had gotten to where they were so busy playing, they were not into having us read to them as often. I had not been getting as many books at the library and the used bookstore because we have so many that we have not read yet. I started getting a few here and there and now the boys are very into it again. We just finished listening to The Trumpet of the Swan in the car and we just finished reading the second book about Ralph and his motorcycle by Beverly Clearly. We all really enjoyed those two books and we have one more to go. We listened to the first one in the car and then I realized I had all three of them in my stash. I keep a stash of good books that I want to read with the boys but then I forget about them at times, as some of them are still a bit above their level. Many of them are not though now so we have some fun books ahead of us.

Well, time to get some things done around here. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Blizzard of 2011: Round 2

2011-02-09T09:01:00.000-08:00

Well, here we go again. Our city is so unprepared to handle this much snow. The neighborhood streets are still in terrible shape from the last round and we are now getting a significant amount added to it. The kids were out of school around here all of last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week, due to the snow storm we had early last week. Because of today's storm, they will be out of all of this week and possibly much of next week. Actually, even without today's storm, they probably would not have been able to go back to school for another day or two or possibly not even until Monday. With this new snow, it may be sometime into next week before they get to go back. My sister was wondering if they would cancel spring break at this point because they have already been out so much and it will really extend how long they have to go this summer.

We did have a couple of days this week when we were able to get out and get a few things done. We made it to the library and got some books and some audio books. We listened to The Mouse and the Motorcycle and the boys loved it. Turns out, I had that book in my stash, along with the sequel so we are now reading the sequel. We are also now listening to The Trumpet of the Swam in the car and the boys are really enjoying it. I checked this one out a year or two ago and the boys were not quite old enough to enjoy but I really did. I am enjoying it a second time and happy to see they like it a lot too. We had some small chalkboard slates and chalk so they figured out a way to hang that from their neck and have been having fun pretending they are Louie.

We have started working on writing again. I started this with them back in August but I pushed them to do too much in one sitting and they ended up not liking it and not wanting to do it. Can't blame them. I am still learning the best way to teach:). We started again and I cut back on what I expect and now they think it's fun. Funny how that works, isn't it? They also worked on adding to their number chart and they are doing very well on learning to write their numbers.

In reading, we just finished lesson 79 and will do lesson 80 sometime today. They are really enjoying their reading now. As long as I give them 15 minutes notice before we begin a lesson, they are perfectly fine with doing it and are usually on the couch ready before I am. We went to the used bookstore the other day and we picked out a number of books that are at their level. A couple of them are old books that have some cute jokes and riddles and N especially likes reading these. He picked this book for his book to read last night before bed and every time I started to read it, he would cut in and say "I can read this part". It was really cute. And then he and B started taking turns reading it and I would get to read every once in a while.

The first thing N did when he woke up this morning was to get that book, plant himself on the couch and ask the dad to read it with him. B joined them and they took turn reading it again. N continues to read pretty much every thing he sees. B does sometimes; he can but is less likely to think about doing it. N seems very motivated to read. I think he enjoys the independence of it all. He is definitely a guy who likes to do things for himself.

I forgot to mention that N had minor elective surgery this past Friday. The surgeon corrected his left ear so it now matches his right ear. N never had any pain with it at all. I thought for sure he would need to take some medicine after the surgery but he never did. He was playing and acting as if it had never happened. We had a follow up appointment yesterday and they took the wrapping off of his head. They had wrapped his head up so it looked as if he was wearing a helmet. It even went under his chin. They said that was pretty much the only way to keep the dressing on an active child's ear and it also had some padding in case he bumped it. It looked like he had had brain surgery or something major, the way it was wrapped up. He never showed any indication that the wrapping bothered him at all though. The day before they took it off, his head started itching a little but that was all. It really felt good to him to have it taken off though.

I had very mixed feelings about the whole thing. Now that it is over and it was so uneventful, I am glad it is done and I think he will appreciate it when he is old enough to understand. What made it worse though was that the surgery was on Friday morning and the streets were still very bad. It took us an hour to drive what would normally take about 15 or 20 minutes. Even worse, it started snowing again while we were there. When we came out, with a sleepy child that had a tummy ache (he drank a whole can of apple juice very quickly when he woke up from the anesthesia), it was snowing very heavily, the visibility was very poor and the streets were even worse than when we had driven there earlier. I was very unhappy about this situation as I had wanted to cancel and move it out because of the bad weather (and because I had mixed feelings about the whole thing). I was also concerned that he might start hurting before we could get him home and get his prescription filled. As it turned out, once we got home, he started playing again and was perfectly fine the entire day and night, never needing any pain medicine at all. It was quite amazing.

The boys are now dressing up in the dads shoes, boots and his big winter coats. They are having fun. They need to get outside and wear off a bit of energy though. It is challenging when the weather is like this. I am ready for spring...and it should be here soon. On Monday it is suppose to be in the 40's or 50's and should be in the 60's by next weekend. So we are going to have a very warm week and all of the snow will melt quickly....and they can start making some progress on our house again too, which will be nice. We are now looking at moving in sometime in April:).

Hope you are having a great day!

The blizzard of 2011

2011-02-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

For the second day, we are stuck at home. I'm not complaining though. It is actually nice to be at home, have all the chores done and just have time to relax and have fun together with no demands from the outside world.

We probably got around 10 to 12 inches where we are. At our new house, they got around 22 inches. The husband shoveled out the driveway yesterday and the boys had a very fun time playing in the huge snow drifts. We saw several four-wheel drive vehicles out yesterday and a few today and many of those were getting stuck or could not make it back up a hill. The roads are pretty much impassable to a two-wheel vehicle. The major highways had been shut down but I think they are probably trying to get all of the major highways and streets plowed today. The temperature is 8 degrees so the wind chill factor is quite low today.

There is a snow drift in our backyard that is almost as high as the fence. There is another one against the front door that is probably about three feet tall. The way the wind blew the snow across the front yard makes the snow look like it has waves. It is really beautiful. I would love to see what it looks like up at the new house. With 22 inches of snow, they must have massive snow drifts (for Oklahomans anyway:).

The boys have been playing lots of games. The dad has been teaching them to play checkers and chess and we recently got Sorry and Battleship, which they have enjoyed.

I am guessing we will likely not be able to get out and about until at least Friday because the snow is so deep in the roads in our neighborhood. In our old neighborhood, we always had plows come through pretty quickly after a snow but the roads were owned by the homeowners and we paid for it through our association dues. I do not know how it works in this neighborhood where we are renting. If there are no plows, it may be later than Friday before we get out. It is suppose to stay very frigid for quite a while I think so there probably won't be much melting.

Not much else to report around here. Hope you are staying warm!

What we are up to these days

2011-01-25T13:48:00.001-08:00

We are staying very busy these days, to the point where I may be spreading us a bit thin, but we are also having a lot of fun.

I have just started a Bible study at a nearby church and I think I am really going to get a lot out of it. The boys and I have visited this church twice now and the dad has visited once and we all really like it. It looks like we might have found our new home church, although we will have a bit of a drive once we move to the new house. I think it will be worth it though.

The boys are currently still in soccer and swimming and doing well, although their classes were all canceled last week due to the 1 to 3 inches of snow we got (depending on where you lived). I was totally shocked that these places closed down. The boys and I went to the swimming place without a thought that they might closed. When we first signed them up for lessons, they had told me that they hardly ever shut down and the weather has to be pretty bad before they close. I beg to differ:). Must be an Oklahoma thing but their idea of bad and my idea of bad are very different.

The boys have also started taking violin lessons and so far so good. We have only had a hand full of lessons so far. I need to be better about having them practice during the week the things they are learning in their lesson. I am having a hard time keeping up because I have to make all of the flashcards we need for playing the games.

So far, they are learning their stance (they have a foot chart to stand on so they know how to position their feet) and learning how to hold both the violin and bow properly and how to take care of them properly. They have learned the letters for the strings (E, A, D and G) and they are learning how to run the bow across the strings properly. They have a tendency to want to go back and forth with the bow in quick, small movements, rather than run it all the way down the bow and all the way back as it is meant to be. Today their teacher put a small piece of tape on each end so they can visually see where they should start and end while they are playing.

They are also learning what a quarter note is, what it looks like, that it is just one beat and the same type of info for whole notes and quarter and whole rests, etc. Their teacher plays games with them on the carpet to learn this. They play the memory game and each time they turn one over they have to say what it is and how many beats/counts it gets. They also do what she calls "composing on the carpet" where they lay out a number of quarter notes, whole notes and quarter rests, etc. and then they clap them out to the beat of a slow song. Through this they really learn what it means to say "it gets one beat/count" or "it gets four beats/counts". They have enjoyed it so far. They have each picked a song that they want to learn first. B picked Mary Has A Little Lamb and N picked Jesus Loves Me (I think).

During this beginning time, when their attention span can wander at times, I have told them that they will each earn a dollar if they work hard during lessons. This includes paying close attention, participating with a good attitude and minding the teacher promptly. This is a magic charm for now. So far they have worked pretty well with me at home but I have kept it very short and sweet. We will eventually work up to 15 to 20 minutes of practice at home per day tops for this age.

We continue to plod along with our reading lessons, albeit very slowly because of me:). I think we are around lesson 75 in The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I think the half way point is around lesson 94, at which time it is recommended we start spelling lessons. Today I decided to institute a new rule for our quiet time. They have to pick one of their readers to read to themselves during quiet time. While one is reading his reader, the other practices violin with me and then they switch. After that they can do whatever they normally do (usually they play with quiet toys, work puzzles or look at books). They are choosing their reader from the readers they used when they first started learning to read, so these are very easy for them and they can read through them quickly. It will be good practice though and help improve their fluency. N is now constantly noticing that he can read various signs, book titles, labels, etc. He is always excited about it and reads everything he can out loud to me. B does not seem to notice much, although they both do equally well when we practice our reading. I think B's attention is just drawn to other things. He is always thinking about something and I know this because he talks to me a lot;).

Upon completion of The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, a child will be reading at the 4th grade level. From what I have read, most homeschoolers tend to finish this book anywhere between K and the end of second grade. There is a very wide range to when homeschoolers begin teaching their young ones to read. Currently we are only doing one to three lessons a week normally and there are weeks when we don't do one at all. We are very relaxed about our preschool learning here at the Pisarik Academy:). Much of this has to do with building the new house, as it tends to take up a lot of our time and, well..., they are only in pre-K this year:). I am also still spending a lot of time reading about what other homeschoolers are doing and investigating homeschooling materials, still working through how we are going to do what we want to do for our homeschool and what materials we want to use. This really is one of my hobbies now:).

We have played around a bit with some beginning geography and they love it. When I get it out, they always want to do several pages at a time. The lessons we have done so far are about how to read a map.

I have created number charts for them to give them more practice writing and recognizing higher numbers. I put a big chart on the wall for each of them and we decorated them. I marked rows on the chart and then cut out 2 inch by 2 inch pieces of paper. They write a number on a piece of paper and then paste it to the chart in the correct place. They have written 1-30 so far. They have been doing 10 at a time so they have only done it three times so far. For numbers up to 30, they practiced them in a Kumon book once or twice and then they wrote it on the chart. The Kumon book only goes through 30 though so now they will just write on the small piece of paper. I made a lot of extras so they can try again if they don't feel it is their best. So far they are having fun doing this. B is usually finished first, as he has practiced writing a lot more on his own. He is always coming in to the kitchen to ask me how to spell something and he writes little notes to my mom and sister a lot and also to me and the dad. N tends to take more time but also seems to maybe be a bit more exact about what he is doing.

I recently ordered them a great Melissa & Doug coloring pad for boys and a bunch of new markers with 100 colors to choose from. I also happened to find a coloring book at the used homeschool curriculum store we go to that had lots of knights and their horses. So they have been coloring tons and it has been so good for N because it has given him or strength in his fingers. He can color or write for longer periods of time now. This is where I have been seeing a difference in their approach. N tends to take a lot longer to finish a picture and he does a better job of staying within the lines. B tends to get done very quickly because staying in the lines is not as important to him. They both like to pick very bright colors and seem to have no interest, most of the time, of coloring something the 'right' color (the horse might be several different bright colors, including bright pinkish legs and an orange body in the front and green in the back, etc.) They know the right colors but I guess they think their picks make it look nicer. They really do look very nice most of the time. If I can find some inexpensive frames, I would like to frame some of them for their new rooms.

Today I was introducing them to addition with some tally sticks. I was showing them how to write the equation that went with what we were doing with the tally sticks (0+1=1; 1+1=2; etc.) using a spiral notebook I had. N asked for some pages out of my notebook when we were finished. He went into the next room where we keep our supplies and he stapled it along the left side to make his own book. He came back and said this was his dictionary. He wrote his name on top and asked me how to spell dictionary. I wrote it on the white board for him and he copied it and then proceeded to write words that he knew, such as dad, doc, mom, mop, etc. He thought of quite a few, although I think they were all three letter words, whereas they can now sound out and read words up to 6 letters I think...maybe even a couple with seven. We have done very little with spelling but he was just sounding out the words like he does some words when he reads. I was quite surprised because it is normally B who spends time writing. N seems to be doing more and more of it lately. The other day, he was in the other room being quiet for a while. Eventually, he came to me and showed me his piece of paper where he had taken the time to write the alphabet in upper case letters. He got most of them correct, with a few small exceptions, such as his J was hooked to the right instead of to the left. He really surprised me because he had shown no interest in doing this sort of thing, while B had been doing it for quite a while now. I have to remind myself that N is almost 2 months younger than B and, even excluding that, all kids just develop differently when it comes to reading and writing.

N and I are doing much much better these days, thanks be to God. I am so, so thankful. A while back I read a book that made me finally realize the impact to them when I lose my temper and most especially to N, as he would respond to my anger by escalating his anger/fits. I am so thankful that I have been able to put that behind me and I see the results every day which greatly encourages me to keep that temper behind me. N is so much better behaved and he is so much more loving towards me. It has made such a huge huge difference, I can hardly believe it and it is priceless. I only wish I had realized this and learned this a long time ago. But I am extremely grateful that I have now learned it and that God has helped me to change and grow in this regard. I really can't do justice when trying to describe the difference it has made between me and both boys, but especially N. He is like a totally different child. Thanks to God!

Time to close this book. I started writing it at quiet time today and now it is bedtime and I am tired. Goodnight.

Memory Lane - Four Years Ago

2011-01-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

Edited to add one additional picture, including our CWA facilitator in Moscow.:

Four years ago we were in Russia and had newly become parents of two beautiful, precious little boys.

My first time to dress N, as I was getting him ready to leave the baby home. As it turned out, our agency people were in a hurry to get to court with another family so we were rushed. The husband had to run to dress B and we did not get a picture of it.
First stop, passport picture place.
Next stop, home to the Hotel Volgograd. This was after we had given them their first bath and they smelled so baby fresh.
They really enjoyed standing here and looking out the window.
And then, off to Moscow.

And then home to Oklahoma. The perfect match. B was still learning to walk so he really enjoyed pushing this little ride-on toy. N was already walking so he was very into riding it.
About a month after they had been home, they already had chubby cheeks and chubby everything else!

Look at that belly!
Within a month of being home, B had learned to walk and to feed himself.

Our thumb sucker. At some point he ended up getting a boo-boo on his thumb which required a bandaid. That was the end of the thumb sucking.
Best buddies! Great memories! Looking forward to making many more!

House update: A tour through pictures

2011-01-13T02:31:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the latest pictures taken of the house. I think these were taken a little over a week ago so things already look a bit different on the inside. I have not posted inside pics because they were hard to tell what's what before the sheetrock went up. So I thought I would post some. Not sure if you can tell what's what but I will attempt to describe it.

These first two are of the outside and the rest are inside. They are preparing to put on the stucco. They have been delayed with this quite a bit lately because of the cold weather. I am not going up to the house as often these days so not sure exactly how far they have come now.

On the inside, things have moved along nicely since these photos. They have hung most of the doors and installed many of the cabinets. They have also finished most of the trim work upstairs, including the closets. They have finished some of the trim work downstairs but will likely make good progress on the rest of it this week. The last time we had an update on an estimated finish date, they predicted mid-March. Now for the tour.

The pic below was taken as I was coming into the house from the garage. You can see the wood floors are down, although they wait until towards the end to stain and finish them. To my immediate right will be the mud area. The first doorway to the right will be the laundry room and the second will be the powder bath. The last doorway on the right will be to the husband's office. The lighter area just through the hall door straight ahead is where it opens to the main living room on the left and the front door on the right. The doorway all the way at the end leads to the master and guest bedrooms.

Standing in the same spot as in the first pic, looking to the left. From the landing that you can see at the top of this section of the staircase, you can see into the library and there is also a staircase there so you could go down into the library or on up the stairs. The door next to the staircase will be for the small pantry, as the kitchen is just to the right of the pantry.
Now you can see the door to the kitchen.
Here, I have stepped into the door to the kitchen and this is straight in front of that door, looking through the kitchen and into the main living room, which has a cathedral ceiling.
Now I have moved into the main living room, to the right of the fireplace and I am looking back into the kitchen/dining room. The kitchen is more to the left and the dining room to the right. The double door opening leads back into the library. The windows in the main living room look out onto the screened back porch.
In this picture, I am still in the main living room only now I am standing to the left of the fireplace. So the windows/screened back porch are behind me and the kitchen is now to my right. You can see the front door and just to the right of that is the husband's office. There is a small coat closet on the right side of the picture. The larger door to the right of the coat closet leads back down the hallway that was shown in the very first picture. The large square hole in the wall up above is in the upstairs hallway and will have a railing;). Looking to the right side of the balcony opening, you can see in through the door to B's room.
Here I am still standing in the same place. The windows looking out on the screened porch are to my right. The kitchen is straight ahead and you can now see the door I walked through when I came into the kitchen from the garage and through the hallway. You can see the stairs that are in the earlier picture also. The thing on the left wall just inside the kitchen that looks like a doorway is actually where the refrigerator will go. The black thing sticking up in the middle of the kitchen floor is the plumbing for the sink that will be in the island. The wall oven and microwave will be right next to the refrigerator and the cooktop will be on the back wall, just across from the sink.

Now I have walked through the kitchen / dining room, through the double doors that lead to the library. The kitchen is now to my left. The landing at the top of the first section of stairs is the same landing in the picture taken above, where I had just come into the house from the garage. The door to the left of the stairs leads to the storm shelter. The double door to the kitchen / dining room is to my left.
This picture was taken from the top of the staircase, looking back down into the library. You can also see the set of stairs that lead down to the hallway in front of the door to the garage.
Now I am standing in front of the attic door, looking down the upstairs hallway. The stairs to go down are just to the left. The area to my right, with the slanted ceiling, is the loft area.
Now I have moved down the upstairs hallway and am shooting this picture from that big balcony opening above the main living room, looking down and to the left. You can see the kitchen, dining room, part of the main living room and some of the windows that look out onto the screened back porch.
This picture is taken from the same spot as the last picture, now looking straight ahead. These are the windows in the main living room that look out on to the screened back porch. You can also see the two Solatubes in the ceiling. They look like lights but the lights are not yet working so this is just the sunlight coming in through the Solatubes. You can also see the scaffolding on the porch, which they will use to do the stucco.
Again from the same spot, now looking down and to the right. There will be built-ins on each side of the fireplace and the fireplace will have stone around it up to the mantle.
Now I am standing in the same spot but I have turned, looking back down the hallway from which I came. You can see a large linen closet to the left and the loft area further down. The work out room is to the right; you can just barely make out the edge of the doorway to the work out room on the right side of the hall. B's bedroom is on the left, just before the linen closet. N's is behind me, also on the left. Their bathroom is between their bedrooms and does not have access from the hallway. The only access to their bathroom is from their rooms. The door at the very end of the hallway is the door to the attic, where I was standing when I took that first picture above of the upstairs hallway.
This picture was taken from the landing, as I was coming back down the stairs and is again of the library. I really like how the ceiling turned out in this room. You can also see the windows that look out on the back yard. The wall to the left will be all built-in bookshelves. As I am standing on this landing, the storm shelter is underneath me. The double door to the kitchen / dining room is down and to my right.
And here is the double door to the dining room / kitchen, which is down and to my right:).
Now I am back in the same doorway in the kitchen where I took one of the first pictures up above, looking out straight at the fireplace in the main living room. Now I have turned to the left a bit so you can see the windows from the dining room that look out on to the screened back porch. You can also see some of the windows in the main living room that also look out onto the screened back porch. You can once again see the pipes for the sink that will be in the kitchen island.
Now I am standing in the hall doorway that leads to the master bedroom (to my immediate right) and the guest room (to my immediate left). Straight ahead of me is the hallway that leads to the garage. You can see the doorway to the garage at the end of the hallway. The front door is to the left, the main living room is to the right and you can see just a bit of the kitchen.
Another picture from the same spot, looking right into the main living room / kitchen / dining room.
From the main living room, looking up. You can see the cathedral ceiling, the Solatubes and also the ceiling of the screened back porch, which is a nice wood that will be stained a pretty color.
Standing in the kitchen, looking up at the opening to the upstairs hallway. You can see the doorway to N's bedroom. You can also see the front door again. I'm really sorry we chose so much glass for the front doorway. Too much exposure. But we'll make it work.

That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T13:14:00.001-08:00

Yes, we are still here. We had a wonderful Christmas and we are having a relaxing New Year's day. The boys received fun stuff for Christmas. It was good pretend stuff and games, both of which they are very into these days. It seems they got just the right amount, not too much but not too little.

We took our Christmas tree down the day before yesterday. My niece was visiting and she watched the boys for us so we could get out and go to a movie.

Yesterday I took the boys up to the new house to take a look around and see what had changed. We are not going as often these days, as the changes are not quite as dramatic from day to day. It was a very pretty day and not too cold so I thought it would be a good day for them to be outside. They have a lot of freedom there and there is much to do outside so they were very excited about it. We were just about to leave when N came in wet from waist to toe. He had slipped while running and fallen into a mud puddle. He was very muddy and very wet.

What I did not realize was that the temperature was dropping very fast while they were outside playing. They were dressed warmly enough so that was not an issue but it sure was cold while I was helping N strip down out of the wet clothes. Fortunately we had a hoodie sweat shirt in the back of the van and we still had his good shoes and dry socks. We have gotten to where we now keep the dirty play shoes and a clean pair of stained play socks in the back of the van for when we go up to the house and they want to play outside.

I helped him out of his wet clothes, dried him off with a towel (we also keep a couple of clean towels in the back of the van:) and helped him into the dry sweat shirt and socks. I wrapped the towel around his hips, tucked him into his car seat and got the heat going as quickly as possible. He was fine and both boys thought sitting in the car seat with only a towel covering his private parts was quite funny.

The boys had received a coupon for a trendy frozen yogurt place nearby and had been asking to go there so I had planned to take them but now we had the problem with a half naked boy. I told N we could still go if he wanted to put on the snow pants/bib in the back of the van. He was fine with that and it worked out well. It was so cold by then that I think he was probably happy to have them on. I had quite a mess to clean up when we got home though.

The house is coming along quite nicely. They are now thinking they may be finished with it in mid-March. I let them know my birthday is towards the end of Feb. and it would make a mighty nice birthday present:).

they poured the concrete for the front and back porches on Thursday and they are finishing up the mudding/scimming of the sheetrock now. I think they are planning to spray the orange peel affect on most of the walls on Monday. The walls in the main areas of the house will have a bit fancier finish with some sort of trowel affect. We saw it in their model house and really liked it so that will be in the living room, kitchen, dining area, foyer and the hallway areas that can be seen from the foyer/living room. I think it might be in the husband's office too but can't remember for sure.

As soon as they finish spraying on the orange peel stuff, they will start laying the unfinished hardwood flooring. I think they may start laying tile in other rooms while the hardwood floors are being installed.

We have already picked out all of the tile and granite but are still waiting to hear where we came in VS budget on that stuff. If we are too high, we may need to consider some substitutions. We still have to pick out all of the lighting, hardware for cabinets and doors, carpet and paint/stain colors. All of our trim work will be white-ish but most of the shelves and cabinets will be stained. So we are very close to being done with picking out stuff, although we will still have to pick out stuff for the lawn and also window coverings of some sort I suppose.

It is really starting to look like a house on the inside now. I need to take some more pics of the outside. We had lost our camera for a few days so we have no Christmas pics this year, although we did get some footage on the video camera. I have yet to see anything we put on that camera over the years come back off so that seems to be a black hole of some sort. N found the camera in the console of the dad's car the other day so now we can take pics again. They have not started the stucco on the outside yet because it has been too cold but hopefully they will be able to start soon. We actually had a couple of days where it was very warm. The boys even wore short sleeves and shorts one day, which was kind of strange at this time of year. They loved it.

I am so ready to finish the house and get moved in now that the waiting is becoming more difficult. I just have to keep my mind on other things for the next couple of months.

Did I mention that the boys are going to start violin lessons? They are so excited and I think the lady who teaches them has a very good feel for how to teach kids this young. We will play lots of games together so I can learn too and can play them at home. They are only required to practice 15 minutes a day at this age so I think the boys will be up for this. We'll see. They are still in swimming lessons and will be until at least the summer and possibly beyond that, depending on how they are doing. They are still in soccer and are really starting to get it. B made his first real goal during a scrimmage during their last practice and he was so happy and excited. And it was right in front of me so I had a great view of it and of him and his great big smile. Priceless.

So, overall, not much to report these days. Things are good here. We are all healthy and happy and ready for the new year. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's!

Funny Boys

2010-12-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

Overheard just now, while the boys are playing: B: "Bow down to me!". N: "I will not bow down to you!" They were using their little men to play and this is what the men were saying to each other.

This morning the boys were playing with an inside type of ball, throwing it back and forth in the hallway. N had a baseball glove but B did not so he went to look for it. And then I heard: "Mommy, I can't find my mitten!" So I let him know that it is a baseball glove, also sometimes called a mitt, and I helped him find it.

Every time we go out to the new house, they end up finding some other stick or pipe or pole or something that they MUST keep in the van. The van is not looking so good these days. To be fair, it has not looked so good since soon after it came home. We clean it up every once in a while but I would guess that my long time friends who knew me well when I was single would be quite shocked to see the messiness of the vehicle I drive these days:). This also applies to our home quite often. Although, after a few warnings I finally got out a trash bag the other day and started loading toys from the floor into it, with the intention of putting them in the attic for a long period of time. The boys were quite upset about that and things have improved drastically since then. I am now able to walk around the house without having to step over toys all the time. If things start looking bad again I simply say "looks like I need to get out my trash bag" and the toys are picked up quickly without complaint. Once we are moved into our new house this might not be as big of an issue. In this house we are living in the floor space for walking from one place to another is also the floor space for playing, for the most part. They do have their bedroom, the upstairs playroom and the guest room where they can play and leave things out more but they tend to want to play in the main room and hallway. I am soooo looking forward to moving.

The new house is coming along. They are hanging sheetrock now, the garage doors are suppose to be put on tomorrow and the gas is suppose to be turned on so they will be able to turn the heat on, which is good because they will need it for most of the next steps. After the sheetrock has been hung, the next crew will come in and do the floating. After that, they will put down the unfinished wood floors and will also start installing the tile in the bathrooms (we still need to pick out the tile).

We are now working with a designer who will help us with some of the selections. She is the same person who started helping to stage our old home when we started working with a real estate agent. We ended up not using her then but we knew we would use her with the new house.

We have a bunch of errands to run today so must go now. Later!

Pictures!!

2010-12-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

Click on any picture to see a closer view. The first picture shows the rock that is going on the front of the house. It will be wainscot across the front and the side where the garage doors are. It will go to all the way up to the roof on the two areas of the house in the front that stick out further, one with the windows to the garage where the scaffolding is and the other at the other end of the house.
The picture below shows the house from the back and part of the side. The brick will be painted with a coating of something (can't remember what they call it but it is thicker and more durable than paint). It will be a bit darker than the stucco that will be over the remaining parts of the house. You can see in the pic below where the screened in porch will be and also where the outdoor patio will be. I have not posted any pics of the inside yet because it is just too confusing to look at pics of stud walls. I will post some once the sheetrock goes up.
N had his birthday last month. We were singing happy birthday to him and he had this really cute look on his face, as he was watching his brother sing to him.
Opening birthday gifts is always a team effort:).
Trying to have a fierce look, like a real pirate.
And here is our happy pirate.
And here they are both trying to look fierce. Aren't they scary? They love to play dress up and have been playing in these pirate costumes every day since N's birthday. The boys are both 5 now, much to N's delight. He really hated being 4 for the six weeks when B was already 5. That was very hard for this child who always has to be first...but also probably good for him;).
This was just one day in November when I caught them looking at books together.
It is impossible to get a good, candid photo of them these days and, when they see me coming, they are either not very cooperative or they give me these real cheesy grins.
B watching a movie. I love this picture of him.
And N watching TV. They get so engrossed that they don't even notice my picture taking:).
That's it for tonight. Christmas pics coming soon! Merry Christmas!

Things are looking up

2010-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

I just read my last post and, boy, was it a downer. Things are much better here now. I am fully recovered and can hear again. My mom is doing pretty well, considering. As it turns out, she broke 4, maybe 5 ribs. She is still sleeping in her recliner chair but we are hoping she will be able to move back to her bed towards the end of this week.

While I type, the boys are busy painting beautiful pictures and the dad is out buying a tarp to put under the Christmas tree, since we can't find the one we normally use. It is probably in storage. The tree is outside, just waiting to be brought in and decorated.

The boys and the dad went to the Christmas tree farm this afternoon and cut down the tree. On their way back, they stopped off at the new house, where I met them. We were expecting to see good progress on the spraying of the insulation but, alas, nobody was there. I called our builder and he said the insulation guys had said they were delayed but thought they would be there by noon. Not so. Hopefully they will start tomorrow. This morning the builder had thought they would be ready to start sheet rocking later this week but who knows now.

The rock and brick are looking very nice though. I took some pictures and will post them later this evening, as I still have to download them from the camera and I am resting now before fixing dinner:).

It is 42 degrees here now, although even a slight breeze makes it feel much colder and it is getting very cold at night. All of the rock/brick work at the house stops when it gets this cold at night. They have already finished all of the brick work though and they don't have much left for the rock. Not sure when they will start the stucco.

In other news, my two cats are now 15 years old. I can't believe they are that old. I hope they live long enough to move to the new house because I am planning to let them outside some there. The male cat has always wanted to go out and will try to get out anytime the door is open and has escape many times. They still act as if they are young kittens at times and seem to be in very good health so I think they will make it.

In still other news I have been reading Glenn Beck's book Broke the last few days and I think it is really good. Sometimes he can be a bit over the top but I think he hit the nail directly on the head with this book. I have had a hard time putting it down so I have not be online in a few days and have not checked email. I had a couple of friends who were wondering what happened to me so, sorry to have scared you. All is fine and I will do a better job of checking in.

Not much new going on here. It is just so wonderful to be back to good health and have energy again. My poor sons and husband deserve a medal for putting up with me while I was sick. N just showed me the picture he painted and said it was a picture of heaven. Isn't that sweet?

Their finished painting so time for me to get busy. I will post a couple of pics of the house later.
Merry Christmas!

Quickie Update

2010-11-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

I'm sick, still. I have been sick now for at least a month and a half. I JUST got over having a fever, which started during the night and I woke up with it last Thursday morning. Last night my right ear started hurting and I started losing my voice. Today, I have very little voice and a raging ear ache...but no fever, thankfully. I am so tired of being sick....and my ear is killing me.

In other news, my mom fell in her garage and broke two ribs. She was carrying in groceries and fell backwards into the garage from the top of three stairs. From where she fell to where she landed, it is quite a miracle that she was not much more seriously hurt. She stayed on the floor for at least 15 minutes, screaming and crying for help. She finally decided that she would be there for who-knows-how-long if she did not manage to get herself up so she did. After seeing where she landed, it is really a miracle that she was able to get up. I think I would have trouble getting up from there, especially with two broken ribs. Her garage is small and crowded and she was kind of trapped between the water heater and the washing machine, with her legs and feet up higher on the first step. The only way out was getting the rest of her body up on the steps. I know God was watching over her. There is no other answer to how she got up and why she was not more badly hurt.

She has to go back to the hospital today for a follow-up XRay because one of the broken bones nicked her lung and caused about 5% collapse. They want to make sure the bones are not moving around and causing more damage.

She has fallen a lot this year. We will be buying the service where she has a bracelet with a button she can push if she is hurt and needs help. It is hard to see parents getting older. I am so thankful she was not more badly hurt.

Prayers are appreciated.

Decisions Decisions

2010-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

I am overdue for posting more pics. I meant to take some today but did not have time so I will try to do so tomorrow and post them soon.

Monday we had a very long meeting with the builder and electricians to go through the house and decide where all fixtures and switches go. It took quite a long time but I am glad we have that finished. Tuesday we had a long meeting, but not as long as Monday's, to go through the house and discuss all of the cabinets.

Today I took our friend and real estate agent (the one who, with her husband, sold our old house and found us this rental we are in now) up to the house and she had some good suggestions. I also went to a local store and finalized our selection of the tub that will be in the master bath. We will hopefully finalize our selection of appliances on Friday. Earlier this week, we also (finally) finalized our decision on the fireplace that will go in the living room. I am soooo glad to have that one finished.

They have had people out to clean up the work site and it was really looking much better today. The house is very close to being dried in. There are some very large windows that go up high in the living room and the screened in porch that are suppose to go in this week and the front door is suppose to go in this week too, I think. After that, I think we will be dried in.

The electricians have already started putting in the electrical stuff in the house. Between this week and next week, they are suppose to have all of the electrical, heating and air and the plumbing all in. After that is inspected, they will be ready to spray in the insulation and then will come the dry wall. We still have the dead trees laying all over the place, although a huge portion of them have been cut up into firewood and taken away by several different people. I think they will be taking out the large tree root balls and all remaining tree remains either this week or next. I think after that they will be ready to start working on the stone and stucco for the exterior.

Things are going extremely well so far. The only issue we have encountered is it seems we may have defective shingles, as they are not laying down as they should. The builder and roofer have talked with the manufacturer and they are sending someone out to look at them sometime this week. It looks as if maybe they got a bad batch of shingles or maybe they were left in a warehouse too long or something. So, they will likely have to rip them all off and re-roof the house. I'm not too concerned about it though because I know they will do the right thing and, if they do have to re-roof, it won't take too long. I think it only took about a day and a half to roof it the first time.

So, that is the story of the house. I am exhausted. All I do these days is go go go. I am craving a day or two of just staying home but that will not be happening any time soon. I think the boys are feeling it too as they have really been at each other lately. N's birthday is this week so he is very excited to be 5 like B. He is already having a fun birthday week, as we had to celebrate early because they dad will be working on the true day. But my mom and sister will be coming to celebrate and my sister is bringing one of her absolutely wonderful homemade apple pies, so I am really looking forward to that:).

The boys had personal safety day at their swimming lessons on Tuesday. They had to wear jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt on top of their swim suit. I thought they would have this safety lesson thing at the beginning of the lesson and then they would take off the jeans and shirt and continue on with their swim suits. They did do a good safety lesson at the beginning but then they had them do their entire lesson while wearing the jeans and T-shirt. They really struggled to swim in those clothes.

That's it for today. I'm exhausted and need to go to sleep. I will post more pics later this week.

Framing: Week 2

2010-10-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

I continue to be amazed at how quickly the house is going up. These framers are really good at what they do. The foreman on the job told me today that the shingles will go on next week and they will probably be putting the windows in on Tuesday. He also said that his framing crew will be all finished by the end of next week. After that, they will be ready to start working on the stone and stucco on the outside and the plumbing, electric and heating and air stuff on the inside. I'm not sure when they will put the septic system in but it may not be until they are finished with the stone and stucco.

The boys are excited about it and are talking about decorating their rooms. B has said several times that he would like to have his own room so I think we are going to shoot for that and see how it goes. I predict we will have some issues with N being frightened to stay in his room alone and we may have to sit with him until he falls asleep for a while, but I'm sure we can work through the issues. I think it will be good for them to have their own rooms and N may find that he really enjoys it.

B had a fever and head ache this evening, N and I both still have bad allergies and coughs and we have had them so long now that we are thinking it might be something else...especially since I have recently started feeling much more like sick than allergies. Something is going around here and hopefully we will get rid of it quickly. Moving on to the house....

Here is the progress made on framing the house this week.

The boys are never bored when we are at the house. They can play happily for hours.
We were in getting in the car, preparing to leave, when the builder came over to our car to talk about a couple of things. We ended up talking for a while and the boys were in the back of the van trying to find things to keep themselves busy. They took the camera and took tons of pictures of all kinds of things. I ran across this one below this evening and it had me laughing out loud. This is the inside of N's mouth. Kids are so funny.
The pictures below this point are all from today. I could not get over this guy working up so high. He was amazing to watch. He would put the next sheet down, hammer it in on one side, measure the next piece and call it down to the guy on the gound who was cutting the pieces, finish nailing in the sheet and then he would slide down to that little piece of board that stopped him, kind of like riding a skate board only on his shoes. I held my breath every time he did the slide thing but he did fine. I'm sure he has had lots of practice. This is the same guy who was always standing up on the very top when they were framing the roof. He must have really good balance.
This guy in the overalls is the county inspector. He is cutting wood for his wood stove. The builder is waiting to haul off the downed trees until the inspector is finished cutting all of the wood he wants. I think it might happen sometime next week. If not, definitely the week after.
These last two pictures were taken today, just before we left for home.

One week later...

2010-10-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how much builders can do in just one week. First, here is the final picture that should have been in the last post but we left that day before they finished the foundation. This picture was taken the next day, Oct. 15th. The builders took the weekend off so nothing changed on Sat. & Sun., the 16th and 17th.
We were not sure if the framers were going to start that Monday or Tuesday. So, on Monday, Oct. 18th, the boys and I drove up just to see if anything was going on and we found this:
When we left that day, before the builders were done for the day, it was looking more like this:
For some reason, I did not take any pictures on Tuesday, Oct. 19th. But this is what we saw when we drove up on Wednesday, Oct. 20th:
And, when we left that day, it was looking more like this:
I didn't take any pics on Thursday, Oct. 21st. We ended up arriving later in the day, after the builders had already left. As it turns out, we arrived just as the storm shelter was being unloaded. That was quite a feat to watch. It is extremely heavy and it was a bit tricky getting it into the spot where it needed to be.

Today (Friday, Oct. 22nd) when we arrived, this is what we saw:
Here it is a bit closer in. This is the front of the house. The first two windows are in the garage. The third window (see pic above) is the laundry room. In the picture below, you can see they are building out the bedrooms on the second floor. Just below that, they are started to frame out the front porch.
Below is a view from the back of the house. The large window in the back is the master bedroom. The square window on the side of the house will be above the tub in the master bath. The four little windows will be, one each, in the, master shower, toilet room, master closet and guest bathroom.
Another view from that same corner of the back of the house. First window is that same window in the master bedroom again. Outside of this window there will be a concrete patio. Next to the concrete patio, you can see where they are starting to frame out the screened back porch. Looking through those windows facing the camera is the eat-in dining area of the kitchen.

Below is a picture looking in through what will be the screened back porch, into the living room. The eat-in dining area is through the windows on the right and you can see there is also a door leading from the dining area to the screened porch. On Monday, they will start building the cathedral ceilings above this living room and screened porch.
And moving down further, to the right of the dining area in the picture above, the picture below is of the gameroom/family room/library/class room/whatever room. Hopefully we will know what to call this room someday. You can see the storm shelter being framed in below the staircase landing. Behind this staircase is the garage and there will be another staircase near the garage entrance to the house that will also lead up to this same landing. They were building it today when we were there but it was not done yet when we left. They are also planning to start framing the catheral ceiling for this room on Monday also.
The boys and I got to walk up stairs and take a look around today, very very carefully, always holding hands and we didn't stay long. But we all enjoyed getting to walk through what will be their rooms and bathroom.

Can you believe this? All of this framing work is only one week of work! I can't believe they work so quickly. They will be starting to frame the roof in the upcoming week, which I know is a big job. And the windows will likely go in the week after that. They predicted two to three weeks of work for framing, which included windows and doors and roof (not shingles), basically getting it to the dried-in stage, depending on the weather. They certainly seem to be on schedule, or maybe even a bit ahead of schedule.

This is so much fun to watch! B said something to me the other day, indicating he had not really understood when we talked about building a house but now he gets it. It was really cute. They love going up there and watching. They find loose nails on the ground and use scrap wood to pound them into the dirt or other scrap wood.

In other news, we had an appointment today with a hand specialist to have N's pinky checked out. We are so happy to find out we are not too late with the splinting and it should work if we continue to do it correctly, which we were not really doing. The doctor showed me how to do it and made it very clear that it has to stay completely straight at all times, even while changing the splint. If anything, the last joint should be slightly hyperextended. Since it wants to bend, it pretty much takes two people to put a new splint on while ensuring it does not bend. And, we have to do this for six weeks. But this is much, much better than having surgery to correct the issue so we will certainly do what we need to do, to the best of our ability.

The bummer is that it seems N may have to skip 6 weeks of swimming lessons. He could swim with the splint on and that would be fine. The issue is when he gets out. The skin on his finger would need to be completely dry before putting a new, dry splint on. If it is the least bit damp, the skin on that finger could start to break down and get sores on it. To make sure it is completely dry, I would have to sit and hold it perfectly straight for about 15 minutes. When they get out, they are pruney so it takes a bit of drying out for the skin to really be dry and returned to normal. Keeping him still and his finger perfectly straight for 15 minutes might be pretty much impossible. If the finger bends, we are starting the 6 weeks all over again. I was hoping maybe we could put some sort of glove over his hand with some water proof tape or something but, I don't know. We'll see. Still, this was a huge answer to our prayers and it just put me in the best mood this morning because we thought for sure he would need surgery.

In still other news, my allergies have been extremely bad for the past couple of weeks. Really bad. I don't recall ever having them this bad for this long. One morning I woke up coughing and choking and I could tell I had aspirated. So then we were very worried I would end up with pneumonia again. The dr. husband called the infectious disease doc and they decided I should start an antibiotic. I had finished taking about 5 days worth and had been off of it a couple of days. One night I started having a lot of pain in my chest/lung and it became worse as the night wore on. It kept me a wake much of the night. It really scared me because it felt just like when I was getting pneumonia before. So, after talking to the infectious disease doc again, I went for a chest XRay and blood work up and started another round of antibiotics. Thankfully the XRay and blood work came back normal and I have not have any further chest pain.

When I was in for the blood work, I got a steroid shot, as the husband doctor thought that might help my allergies. I have had them before and they have worked so I was hoping it would make a difference. I felt really good the next day (Wed) but not so much yesterday and today. It really has me perplexed because I have never had it drag on for this long at this extreme level of miserableness. I think being around where they are buiding the new house probably aggravates it a lot too and we have noticed that N's allergies have also been worse than normal for the past couple of weeks too.

We sure are having lovely fall weather these days though. I always forget and think we should be having fall weather in September but it seems it is more an October thing here. The trees are now really just starting to turn. We are in the 70's most days but still getting close to 80 degrees a lot of days. We are definitely still in shorts weather, although we sometimes need a long sleeve shirt or sweat shirt in the mornings (really only a couple of days so far though). It is beautiful.

Tiredness is setting in. Must read, relax and get ready to sleep. Goodnight!

We have a foundation

2010-10-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

Wow! The house is really coming along quickly, considering we are only 2 weeks into it, as of tomorrow. But first, a little something from our little somethings.

N riding his bike without training wheels. He goes as fast as he possibly can and tends to be a bit reckless but he sure has fun and he has not had any bad wrecks so I guess he is doing OK.

And here is B, riding his bike without training wheels. He is more steady and also goes just as fast as his little legs can pedal. Yes, he is riding a girl's bike. They are now old enough to know it is a girl's bike but they don't care. If anything, they think it's funny. When I talked about getting them bigger bikes, I think it was B who said he wanted to keep the girl's bike too.And back to our house story. Since I posted last, we have watched them dig and pour the footings.

We had tree trimmers out to cut out damaged tree limbs and we have selected a great tree for the future tree house.
Every time we go to the lot the boys have so much fun. They love playing around and climbing on the huge trees that are still laying around the lot, although today B fell and scraped his arm on one and he was pretty upset about it. He has such a low level of pain tolerance. The dad was cleaning it and putting bandages on it and he said to me under his breath, let's hope he never breaks a bone. Based on how he acted today, I think he might just pass out if he broke a bone.
Here they have put up the forms, roughed in the plumbing and they are putting in the fill dirt.
Below is a view from the front corner. The part without the form is the entry to the garage.
These two little dogs really bark up a storm. Unfortunately, the tree that seems to be the best for the tree house is right next to their fence. Hopefully they will get to know us and quit barking at us all the time. They are really cute though. I think my cats are bigger.
N playing. Never a still moment the entire time we are there. He is never ready to leave and always covered with dirt. Such a boy!
B has been wearing his sun glasses a lot because he injured an eye the other day. He was jumping across the ditch in front of the house and, when he landed, he was bent over at the waist and a long piece of grass poke him in the eye. Fortunately it was on the side of his eye, in the white part, because he scratched it pretty good. We are doing antibiotic eye drops until it heals a bit.
Here they are hauling in and spreading out the fill gravel.
They leave an empty area along the edge, which they will fill with concrete when they pour the slab. This will make the concrete around the edges of the slab thicker.
This is what it looked like today. They had the boom to pour the concrete for the slab.The contractors are all so nice and friendly. He was showing the boys how to use this device to operate the boom. He even let them use it to move the boom around. They thought that was pretty neat.
This was fun to watch. The concrete comes out of the boom thing really fast.
The rest of the guys were moving the concrete around and spreading and smoothing it out.

We ran some errands and then stopped back by to see it again and they were almost finished with pouring the concrete. They were still smoothing it out. We left the camera in the car though so I will have to get that shot next time.

They believe they will start framing either Monday or Tuesday. Is that fast or what?

Pictures!!

2010-10-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

I intended to post these a couple of nights ago but never got around to it. Better late than never:). Here are some pictures taken over the past month or two. The order is wacky but I'm too tired to mess with it today.

This first picture is of the boys playing in the little sandy beach at the 100 acre lake in the community where we are building our house.
This is the same lake and they allow fishing, although it is catch and release. This community is being built on 3,000 acres and there are many ponds around the place. Residents are allowed to fish in any of them but they are all catch and release.
The people running the bulldozer on our lot over the weekend made sure to stop and let the boys climb up for a picture moment. I think they might have been kind of scared because they look like they are hanging on for dear life.
Here we are back at the lake . This is the running/biking track that goes by the lake. I think it will eventually go all the way around.
This little rockery mound is next to the lake. The boys love climbing all over this. The building in the background is a new elementary school that just opened in 2009.
Our new community has an outdoor concert once a month (I think - we have only been to one and that was for the July 4th firework celebration. The band sets up under this small pavillion thing. The land in front of it slopes upward so people can see the band better. There is a huge empty area to the right where kids can run and play and the rock mound is real close by also.
Here are the boys climbing on the rocks again.
Another shot of the small beachy area.
Boys running on the small beach. I think it is kind of odd that they put in the beach but people are not allowed to swim. I guess it is another thing the kids can do while the parents are watching the band.
This is across the street from our lot. It is one of the small ponds and it is even much smaller right now because of the very hot summer.
Here is the bulldozer, taking down trees on our lot. It is sad to see them come down but exciting to see work begin towards building the house.
Putting in the culvert for the temporary driveway that will be used during construction.
The boys really enjoyed pulling the rope to blast the horn on this huge dump truck.
The poor cats have to find anywhere they can to escape from the boys at times. This is Zoe, the one who fell down through the wall from the attic recently.
The boys were so happy that they both got a play rifle and an umbrella for B's birthday. I knew they would love this rifle that has a strap on it to carry on their shoulder. Both gifts were a huge gift for B. He has played with them constantly since his birthday and tells everyone about them. He still wants to know how old he has to be before he can have a real gun. It is so odd that such a young child can be so crazy about guns when his parents have none and never talk about guns at all.
Another picture of the bulldozer clearing our lot. They had to remove over 28 trees, although I lost count at some point.

Another picture of the area across the street from our lot. All of the lots are one acre lots, so far. I think they are planning other areas where they will sell smaller lots intended for townhomes or smaller homes.
N made this "pirate hat and patch" himself from a paper bag and played with it for the longest time. He is trying to look very serious and mean, like a pirate.
A picture of B when we went to the Oklahoma City zoo.
Here is the hole that the husband had to cut into the wall in our master bath to get the cat out, after she had fallen through the wall from the attic.
The husband stuck the camera into the wall and took a picture upwards so we could see the inside of the wall where she fell. It really is a wonder she was not hurt.
This is a sample of the stone we have picked for our new house. It will be used, along with stucco, on the front of the house. It really looks different in person. The lighter colored stones look more peachy and light brownish in places and the gray colored stones look gray in places and almost blue in other places.
They ended up needing extra dirt for the pad so they hauled that in earlier today and the bulldozer is suppose to be back this evening to finish the pad. The concrete guy is suppose to start on the footers tomorrow morning. Moving right along.

Quickie what's up with us

2010-10-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of pics I will try to post later today. I don't have a lot of time these days, as the dad is out of town and I am on my fifth day of single parenting. My brother is spending the nights with us lately, as he has a friend who has been in the hospital and is now in rehab for a week or two and he is helping him out. That works out great because I sleep better when there is a man in the house.

Yesterday was a big day! The bulldozer came and cleared out all of the trees that were to be removed for building the house and we got to watch. They did not have time to take the trees away yesterday so they moved some of the to the back of the lot, some to the front of the lot and some to the neighboring empty lot (with permission) so they would have the space needed to build the pad.

They also put in the culvert and made the working driveway, to be used during construction and which will eventually be turned in to our new driveway. And then the dump trucks came, dumping around 20 loads of dirt for the pad. We finally left before they were finished but they were suppose to be done building the pad by the end of the day. I'm not sure when they are suppose to start the footings for the slab but I am hoping it is tomorrow. The sooner the better.

I spent most of the day watching the activity on the lot and taking pictures. The boys found lots of friends to play with and spent most of the day playing with the neighbor-boys. We are moving into the dream neighborhood for any boy. There are many many boys within a block in any direction of where we are building our new house. We met the ones directly behind us and the boys played there for a short time. Then we met the ones across the street, to the right of the pond, and the boys played there for hours. Then they went to the left side of the pond and played with the boys who lived there.

They rode on two zip lines, played on a trampoline and one of those big, wooden play structures, played lots of games, like red light green light and tag and hide and seek and played with a couple of dogs. They had a ball and met some very nice boys and I met their very nice moms.

When it was finally time to go, after hours of playing, N started crying because he didn't want to leave. Today he asked me if we needed to go see the lot, only because he wants to play with the boys again. He is our son who would spend all of his time outdoors, if he had someone to play with and B is our guy who doesn't enjoy the outdoors as much and even asked me if he could go into one of the neighbor's homes yesterday because he was bored outside (there were about 10 kids and tons of stuff to play with!). So I predict that we will seldom see N once we move into our new house.

We were planning to put a fence around our back yard but, after seeing how all of the kids run from one yard to another playing, we are now thinking we might not want to do that. We will definitely wait and live in the house without a fence for a while before we make that decision.

I have been purging and, thankfully, much of what I am getting rid of is going to be sold via the used homeschool store near here. We are always buying things there so that will work out nicely. I still have more toys and books to get rid of though. With birthdays and Christmas upon us, it is time to get rid of lots and lots of stuff.

The dad comes home late tonight but then has to work 12 hour shifts Mon and Tues, so it will be 7 days straight before I really get a nice mommy break....although yesterday was wonderful, being outside all day and the kids having others to play with. It made for a bit of a break for me and I enjoyed watching the activity on the lot. Hoping there is more activity on Monday:).

House News: Progress

2010-09-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that we have finally selected a builder. We are meeting with them tomorrow morning at our lot, along with our favorite arborist, to take a look at which trees will have to come out for the house. The arborist will take a look at all of the trees that will remain and decide which are not healthy enough to keep and which ones can be cleaned up and kept. He will also provide us with additional info on how to keep the trees that remain alive and well, as much as possible, during and after the building process. If it is not handled properly, it is quite common for many of the remaining trees to die out over the first year after the house is built, mostly from too much shock to the root systems from large trucks running over them, from digging the foundation and cutting through roots, sometimes from a lack of water, among other things.

We will also meet with the builders tomorrow to sign our contract and go over the detailed specs. We spoke with them this morning and they said their excavation guys were standing by and ready to start preparing our lot for the foundation work. It looks like work will begin this week. I am very excited as I thought it would likely be at least a week or two before anything would begin. The sooner the better. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will be moving into our new house in February or March of 2011.

A friend of mine called me today (the one with the twin girls) and, for a variety of reasons, she has decided to pull her girls out of public K and homeschool them. I am happy about this as it gives me a local friend who will be homeschooling. I am confident that when we join our new church and get involved, we will likely meet other homeschoolers in our new city but it is nice to have a local friend now who is already homeschooling.

In other news, the boys have both learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels and they are so very proud of themselves. They are still using the little bitty 12'' bikes, as it made for easier learning to ride without the training wheels. It is so funny to watch them because they pedal really really fast, so fast that their little feet look like they are going up and down. It looks like a cartoon or something. Very cute. They love riding and it has given me a bit more exercise, as I walk the neighborhood with them while they ride. My bike has another flat tire so I can't ride with them yet.

The weather finally turned cooler here and it is lovely. I think I may have to go shopping for additional clothes soon though.

We are planning to get up to my sister's house soon and bring the piano back here. I made room for it in the guest room, as that is about the only place it will fit, although we need to measure and make sure it will fit down the skinny little hallway first. I am hopeful to find a piano teacher who teaches using the suzuki method.

We are still plugging away at reading and the boys are doing great. We recently finished listening to the audio book of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The boys liked it so much that we checked out the boof from the library and I am reading it aloud to them now. We are all enjoying it. We actually have at least two copies of this series but they are all somewhere in storage. Thankfully we have the library, which we use often and really appreciate. We normally go there about once a week these days.

This is birthday celebration week for B. He will be five years old this week and he is very excited. We are taking the boys to Incredible Pizza this evening for an early celebration but they don't know that yet. They are going to be so excited, especially B. He has been asking to go there often since the last time they went, when I was at the homeschool conference in the spring. It is his favorite place, lots of great food and lots of games to play. It will be fun evening.

The dad is off today and tomorrow, works Wed and then leaves for a medical conference on Thurs so we will do some early celebrating with him. My mom and sister will be coming to see us towards the end of the week to celebrate also. So B will have a couple of different celebrations. In about six weeks or so, we will have two five year olds. Yikes! They sure grow up fast!

Funny funny boys

2010-09-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

The boys and I recently listened to Little House in the Big Woods on CD and we are just at the end of the last chapter of Little House on the Prairie now. Lately the boys have started pretending about this a lot and it is so funny. I was just sitting here eating my lunch (the boys have already finished and gone off to play) and I overheard one of them saying "Ma?" to the other one. So they are "pretending Ma and Pa"; this is what they tell me when I ask what they are doing.

This morning, they came downstairs and N was carrying a teddy bear and a stuff frog and he was telling B that they were Mary and Laura. B walked by carrying a stuffed duck that was wearing a pull up and he said, "this is Baby Carrie, the duck".

Now it sounds like they are pretending they are hunting.

I recently checked out a DVD of the old TV show Little House on the Prairie because I thought they would get a kick out of seeing all of the characters in action. One day last week, it was B's turn to pick their movie and he was tired of watching it so he picked something else. N was very disappointed because he wanted "to see what Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie were doing". So I let them watch one episode of Little House on the Prairie after they watched the movie that B picked (David and Goliath). After the movies were over, B looked at me, smiled and said, "I don't which one to pretend first".

Funny funny boys!

The delinquent poster

2010-09-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

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 fo days ago, Mr. B. 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. B's birthday is just around the corner now. If you have any good ideas for a 5 year old, let me know.

Not Meniere's

2010-08-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

I forgot to report that the ENT doc said I do not have Meniere's disease, thankfully. I have some hearing loss but it is at the high end of the frequency and, with Meniere's, the loss would be at the low end. So that is good news.

He said he believes it is a virus that is causing my ear ringing and clogged up feeling. It is not uncommon and he sees this, on average, about once a month, although they normally come in clumps. He said he had two or three more people coming in that day with the same thing.

Even though he thought it was from a virus, he thought it prudent that I have an MRI to rule out a small, benign tumor on the nerve, or something like that, that can also cause these same symptoms. I think I will be having that this afternoon sometime.

The ENT doc said that in one-third of these cases the symptoms will go away, in one-third the symptoms do not go away but do not get worse and in one-third they do get worse, in which case they would do more investigation into auto-immune type causes. I am supposed to go back in three months to have my hearing tested again to see if it is better, the same or worse.

So far, it seems the same to me, for the most part. I actually think my hearing is a bit better now than it was when it first started, as back then I could not listen on the phone with that ear and now I can the majority of the time. Maybe that is good news. We are praying for a complete recovery.

Must start the day. We have swimming lessons today, the dad is off work and I'm sure we will be busy busy, although my cold has me feeling YUCK today. Hope you have a good day.

Homeschool update and a few pictures

2010-08-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

We took a couple of days off of school work because the boys were really complaining and throwing fits about it and, of course, that is not how I want it to be. After giving it some thought, I have cut way back on how much we do so that their lessons are very quick.

Now we will do a lesson in OPGTR on one day and then practice reading the next day. And we will learn how to properly write a new letter one day and then practice writing it more the next day. We will move through things more slowly overall but I think it will work out better for us. Eventually they will build up more tolerance and then we can start extending lessons a bit more. We started this today and it went very well.

Another thing I started doing was typing up the OPGTR lessons so I could leave out all of the instructions to me. This makes the lesson seem much shorter to them. When they would look at the page in the book with the instructions to me, it would be a bit overwhelming to them. It made them think the lesson was much bigger/longer than it really was. So I did this today and I printed out a page for each of us to hold, which they loved. Then I had a highlighter and I would highlight some words/sentences for B to read and some for N to read. They really liked this. Of course, for children their age, novelty is fun and exciting so everything is great the first time we do it. We'll see how they are doing with it a week from now.

They love doing our Bible devotional so that is not an issue. They love being read to so that is not an issue either. Today we started re-reading My Father's Dragon. It's been quite a while since we read it and I think they had forgotten parts of it. They really enjoyed it today and kept wanting me to read more.

We are still listening to the unabridged version of Peter Pan when we are riding in the car. We have all really enjoyed this so much. I think we have probably listened to it 10 times by now and I think I have enjoyed it as much as they have, most of the time. I really enjoy the accent of the guy who reads it and the way he does the voices. It sure makes for quiet car rides. I just ordered two more audio books, Little House in the Big Woods and Treasure Island. I hope we will enjoy these as much as we have Peter Pan. We also listen to Just So stories and a CD of poems by various authors. The poems are ones that boys in particular would enjoy and we have all enjoyed those too. We listen to Peter and the Wolf, various classical composers and scripture verses that have been put to music while we are in the house, usually while we are preparing, eating and cleaning up after meals, while I am doing chores and the boys are playing, etc. We all enjoy that a lot too.

I was also thinking about how to give them incentive to read aloud more to us and to also strive for better behavior. So today I introduced the marble jar and a large bowl of marbles. They get to put a marble in the jar when they read a book (Bob books and some other readers I ordered from Modern Curriculum Press). This is great because they immediately wanted to read more books to us. They ended up reading two or three books to me and then another two or three to their daddy. I am amazed at how well they are both reading. I have ordered some more difficult books that have the more recent ending blends we have already studied.

We have continued to see issues with N, losing his temper and throwing things or hitting or whatever. So today I caught some grand behavior on his part and gave him a Best Behavior card that he could use for 15 minutes on the computer or a short movie or a game or something. This was before I thought of the marble jar thing. When I saw what a positive impact the Best Behavior card had on him (and B) I immediately hunted down a jar to do the marble thing. So, when we see a child displaying positive behavior (obeying right away with a positive attitude, taking toys back upstairs to be put away without being asked, which is what N did today, being kind to one another, etc., then the child gets to put a marble in the jar.

When the far is full, we will go do something fun together as a family. My thought is that if we use this incentive for a couple of months, the more desirable behaviors will become habit and we can start phasing out the jar. Or we may want to use it for something else. My one concern is that the jar may be too big but we'll see.

We also have an appointment with a counselor on Wednesday morning. Hopefully we can gain some insight and maybe come away with some additional tools to help us manage N and help him better learn about actions and consequences.

In other news, they are really into this children's charades game that they picked up at a garage sale recently. It is really fun for everyone and it is funny to watch them try to act things out.

And, in still other news, we are hoping to receive estimates from three different builders this week. We have actually already received one but need some clarification about it. Another one has said he is ready to meet to go over his numbers and we are trying to coordinate a time. The third one I happened to see out at a burger place on Sunday afternoon and he said they are hoping to have their numbers ready this week too. Who knows, maybe we will actually be ready to make this decision within the next week. I hope! It is very interesting to see how this has evolved and where we have ended up. I have no doubts that God is in control and is leading this effort. I am at peace knowing His timing is perfect and He knows what is best for us.

Odds and Ends: The boys and I have colds. We went to the church near our old house for the last time yesterday. We plan to start visiting churches in the town where we will be building our new house now. The boys are doing well in both swimming and soccer and are enjoying both. Both are once a week now. When it cools down a bit, we are planning to move our piano from my sister's house to our rental house. Hopefully by then I will have found someone who gives piano lessons using the Suzuki method.

Here are a few more pictures of the boys. I really need to start taking more pictures. I have not been as good about that lately. Must do better.

These pics were taken just before we moved. I think this was their last bath in our old house. I told them to show me their muscles and these were the poses I got.

This was when B was totally into shooting his bow and arrows. He is actually quite good at it. Their cousin gave them this shirt and they use it for dressing up like a hunter.
I need to get some things done while the boys are out running through the sprinklers. Until later.

Lots of learning going on around here

2010-08-24T14:56:00.001-07:00

The boys are doing very well with their reading and writing lessons and we are enjoying our daily devotionals. We are at lesson 50 in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, which is where we start learning the beginning two consonant blends (TR, FR, etc.). We just finished the ending 2 consonant blends and they are reading 4 letter words now. We try to spend some time with them reading to me also.

Yesterday was not a very good day for us, for several reasons. But one thing I am learning is how much is enough for them and when to stop. It is easy to fall into that mode of "let's just finish this lesson" because I like to finish things:). But it is better to leave them feeling successful and wanting more. So, I need to remember that and make our lessons a bit shorter.

I need to remind myself that they would not be going to Kindergarten until next year so there is no reason to push. Everything they learn this year is gravy and really next year too, as we really don't HAVE to start homeschooling here until 1st grade.

It has continued to be 100+ here most days. Combine that with our new back yard, which is not very big and is sloped to the point that we cannot put up the swingset, and you get two little boys that are not spending enough time outside and not getting enough exercise. We try to get out to the parks first thing in the mornings but we can't do it every day and we really have not found a great park near here. Some OK ones but not great. We may need to drive further.

Well, short post because quiet time is over and boys need some attention from mom. Later.

...and life goes on...

2010-08-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

(Can you tell I am having trouble thinking of post titles lately?) We are getting back in to our routines around here and that feels nice. I can tell everyone is feeling a bit more settled and behavior has improved greatly.

I am noticing a number of changes as the boys approach the 5 year-old mark.

They are now spending time each day very contentedly playing alone. Typically this means that B is pretending something, which is what he spends the majority of his time doing, and N is building, coloring or playing with some type of vehicle.

Behavior is improving in ways I have read about for 5 year olds, that generally they tend to want to obey and please more.

They are really getting tall and really looking like older boys rather than little guys. Maybe it is just that they recently got their hair cut and it had gotten so much longer but they just look so different to me.

I am constantly amazed at how much they can do for themselves and how well they do it. It is a pleasure to watch them. What a blessing it is to watch them grow and change each day and, my goodness, how much I learn and change along with them.

In other news, something very annoying is wrong with my right ear. It is ringing and feels clogged up and my hearing is not very good. I have also had some bouts of dizziness, the worse on being today and lasting for a good couple of hours. I happened to look up the symptoms on the Internet today so I was already prepared when the husband suggested he thought it was might be Meniere's Disease. I had just read all about it and my symptoms definitely matched up. I have an appointment with an ENT but could not get in until about 2 weeks from now (it would have been October if we had not known the guy from church and if the husband was not a doctor).

In the meantime, I am going to try to cut down on salt in my diet and start taking a dieretic, as that is one of the first things they normally try, if it really is Meniere's. It really bothers me the most at night because that is when everything is more quiet and I am being really still and the ringing in my ear sounds like it is terribly loud. I am hopful that it is not really Meniere's but just a stopped up ear due to allergies or something. I guess only time will tell. It is not too bad if I am not experiencing the dizziness.

We had a long meeting with our potential GC guy. In short, he is still coming in very high on his numbers, although he is still gathering numbers and trying to fine tune them. He ended up staying in our guest room Friday night and we all drove up to the property on Saturday. We had a chance to go through a house that is being built so he was able to see how these homes are really being decked out. We also had a chance to pick up a flyer at the office that listed new homes for sell and square footage, so we all saw how overpriced his numbers were. It was definitely what we all needed to see. So he is reworking his numbers and we have contacted three local builders who have all built multiple homes in the community where we own our lot. All three of them are going to provide bids and we have also just received a new bid from another SIP dealer. This is all great because it ensures that we will end up getting a decent, fair price for the SIP materials and also for the rest of the materials and labor. The husband and I are both feeling much better about the situation this week. I am just hoping that we can get these numbers together quickly so we can get moving. It would be nice to have the house dried in before winter weather hits.

Of course, we are still dealing with 100+ degree weather around here. This is the hottest summer we have experienced since moving to Oklahoma. It is so hot that you really just can't stand being outside unless you are swimming or playing in water in some form or another. Even if we go out first thing in the morning, it is not long before the boys are wanting to come back in because they are too hot. It really is brutal. I have lost track of how many consecutive days we have had of 100+ degree weather but I would not be surprised if we are setting a record. I really feel bad for the boys because I know they miss playing outside and we all end up feeling a bit couped up. I try to think of things that we can go do but I know they are not getting the exercise their bodies really need. We still have swimming once a week and soccer once a week so that helps a little...but not enough.

I am just so very thankful that we have air conditioning. I can't imagine going through this without it. I don't know how we did it when I was a child because we did not have air conditioning until I was in 7th grade. We slept with the windows open and the fans on, but the world was a safer place back then, or at least it seemed like it was (of course I was living in a small town of around 900 people at that time, where everyone knew everyone).

Oh, the other news worthy thing is that we have started having an official reading lesson every day. Now, we have only done this for three days so far but it has really gone well. The boys are really enjoying it and B even asked to do it this morning. And they are both doing extremely well with it too. Today we were learning about words that end with 'ck'. One interesting thing is that N seems to be catching on very very quickly right now and B is sometimes struggling to remember something basic. When we first started learning letter sounds and blending letter sounds together to make words, B was exceptional at it and picked it up so quickly and N was really struggling. I know I will have to get used to this and I will eventually see this as normal, that they switch back and forth as to who is catching on more quickly. I am guessing that B is in the middle of learning something else right now and his body is more focused on that. He is doing very well with learning to read too though, just not quite as quick at it as I had learned to expect him to be.

Regardless, it is so fun to see them learning to read and to watch them get excited about their successes. They really enjoy learning to spell also so that is probably the next thing I will introduce 'officially', once we get a routine down with the reading lessons. I am starting slow and adding on as we go, a little at a time, and we will be keeping it fun and lessons will be short. Today we finished our reading lesson in probably about 10 or 15 minutes tops. Yesterday's was a bit longer. Tomorrow they are so short we will probably be able to do two but I will play it by ear and see what they are up for, as I don't want to push too hard.

I am just so relieved that we have this year to learn to read and start getting used to the idea of doing school. Hopefully by next year, when they officially have to start K, it will be easy for all of us because we will already know the routine and we will simply be adding some additional subjects.

One other thing, I just purchased Sue Patrick's Workbox System and I think it is going to help me a lot. I am still reading her book but she has a lot of suggestions that I believe will really make life easier around here and make school fun. We may not stick with all of it forever but I really needed some help getting started so I think this is really going to be a good thing for us.

It's late. Time for bed. Goodnight.

What's up with us...

2010-08-05T18:55:00.001-07:00

We are just starting to get back to a somewhat normal routine. We closed on our house last Friday, which was such a relief. It was a relief to be finished cleaning it and watering the plants every other day. I was so done with that. The buyers have big plans for remodeling and updating pretty much everything. From the sounds of it, it will be very beautiful and up to date when they are finished. I hope they will be very happy there.

We are now living in a rental home and I think it is going to work out very well for us. It has the same number of bedrooms and baths as our old house, although it does not have an office so we are using one of the bedrooms for the husband's office. The rooms are all smaller across the board, with the exception of the master bedroom which is huge.

We are using the small dining room as a school room / arts and crafts room. It is really coming in very handy to have an extra table set up with all of the crayons, markers, glue, etc. that does not have to be put away before every meal. The boys are in there drawing, coloring or making something at least a couple of times a day, if not more.

The downside is that there is much less floor space for the boys to just get down on the floor and play. There is a nice sized playroom upstairs and they do play up there regularly but, unless I am up there, they spend much more time overall playing downstairs and they bring their toys downstairs to play. Even though it means things are a bit messier, I am really OK with that because I enjoy having them nearby. So, we are making it work.

We have put tubs of some of the most used toys under the ottoman in the living room, we still have the two big baskets of toys in there but we are still constantly having to tote things back and forth between upstairs and down. It really is not too bad though. We place things on the bottom steps and the person who goes up next is suppose to take a load with them. It's working for us and I am more patient about letting things be a bit more strewn about.

Overall, it is a great rental house (although the yard is not) so I am very thankful to be able to live here for now.

The boys are still in swimming classes. They took lessons twice a week during June and July and just switched back to once a week in August. They have had some great instructors at this place. One in particular was a favorite this summer. Mr. Michael stole their hearts at the first lesson in June when he pretended pirates with them. They had him all through June and most of July and then he left to get ready to go back to college. He was so fun and they really learned a lot with him.

They are now back with the teacher they had last fall, whom they love, so we are happy about that. Funny thing is that I ended up kind of having a preference for the men teachers (they have had two men and two women so far) because they seem to push them a bit more. Also, I think the boys tend to prefer them more because they would throw them in the air a bit when sending them off for a swim. I think they were a bit more rough-ish, in a good way, for the boys and they will likely miss that a bit.

They are both swimming under water for about 5 to 7 feet. B requires less assistance then N currently, although this tends to switch back and forth. N was having an issue with trying to go too fast and ended up thrashing a lot but Mr. Michael was able to get him to slow down a bit and he is now improving fast. They are learning to dive (sitting and kneeling on the side) and they jump off the diving board and swim to the side.

We have them signed up through December and will likely have them go through the spring also, with plans to make sure they get plenty of pool time next summer. We'll see how it goes. I would not mind if one or both of the boys decided, at some time, they want this to be their sport and would like to do competition swimming. But, everyone has their own favorites so I will wait until they are older and see what they choose.

Their soccer lessons will be over in another couple of weeks and I'm not sure right now if we are going to sign them up for the fall. I have to talk to the dad about that. The boys are game, although I think B is a bit half hearted about it at times.

We are planning to start a bit of 'official' schooling soon. The boys have friends who are starting kindergarten this year so they want to start school too. We'll see how much they really want to do it once it becomes more routine. I think B will be into it but N might not. I am thankful that we have another year before they are officially required to start so we can play it by ear this year. We will be focusing on learning to read, write and spell this year. Once we get going and get comfortable with our new routine, we will likely throw in some math also.

I was unpacking all of the homeschool materials the other day and N saw the readers. I had put them up a while back, when they had lost interest and we were too busy with other things. I wanted them to be out of sight for a while so they would be fresh and new when we brought them back out. N was so happy to see them, he sat down and read 3 or 4 of them in a row to me and then read another one to the dad, while B was reading one to me. I was very impressed that they really had not lost anything we had learned, even though we had not done anything in months. If anything, N was reading better than before. They have amazing memories and such a natural desire to learn, it is awesome.

We have so many letters and books and learning materials around that they are always learning even when it is not my focus. They are both wanting to learn to read so I think they will be into the reading lessons we do. They are also always asking me how to spell words, as they write notes or lists or whatever. B knows how to write all of his capital letters and is working on lower case. N probably does not know how to write all of his capital letters yet but he knows many, if not most. Today he showed me that he had learned how to write a small h. He was so pleased with himself. It really is amazing how much they learn just because they are interested. I think if I keep giving them real life reasons to learn to spell and write, they will be into that also. Today I was telling them that once they learned to write and spell, they could write secret notes to daddy and sneak them into his lunch or briefcase and he would find them at work. They absolutely loved that idea and were wanting to do it right away.

We will continue to use The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. We will be using All About Spelling, Zaner-Bloser Handwriting and, if we get to it, Right Start Math. We have some other fun things to add into the mix for literature related art projects and some phonics workbook pages, just in case someone wants to do them here and there. B did one today but N was busy doing something else. I am planning to meet up with a local homeschooling group, who meet together for P.E. and field trips and other things, so that will also keep us busy.

Add to all of this, the building of the new house. We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning with the potential GC to go over the detailed estimates he has developed. This should be an interesting meeting. I am very hopeful that we will be ready to move ahead after this meeting but it would not surprise me if we have to revisit a few things first. My mom, sister and niece (and maybe my nephew) are coming tomorrow for a visit and will play with the boys while we meet with the GC.

Well, it's getting late and, as usual, this is getting very long so I had better sign off for now. N will most likely be up sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 in the morning, no matter what time he got to bed, so I need to get some rest:). Goodnight.

Pictures

2010-08-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have posted any pictures and the boys have really grown. These are from this afternoon at soccer practice.

Below is B. Hasn't he grown? His hair is longer than ever, I think. Funny enough, I am really liking both of the boys with longer-ish hair right now, although I think the dad is planning to cut it this weekend.

Cousin Jana got the boys these cricket jerserys when she was in India recently for a mission trip sponsored by her university. It was good timing because they have worked out perfectly for soccer.
Below is N. He was not very interested in posing for me so I just took some action shots of him. This kid is an enigma. He is all action and movement or he is all sit and read/color/play with legos, etc. He is all happy-go-lucky or he is all angry/fit-throwing/yelling (reminds me of what they said about Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, which we listen to often when driving in the car). His behavior seems to indicate that he has struggled with adjusting to the upheaval of the move, although I think we may be leveling out now. He really needs a lot of consistency and routine or at least lots of notice when our schedule is going to change. Last minute changes, unless they are exciting and fun, are difficult for him. I am learning and we are working on it and I think we are making good progress.
He loves loves loves anything to do with sports.
N had stopped long enough for me to take a quick picture. As soon as B saw this, he stepped into the picture also. Just as I was snapping the picture, N started to put his arm around B. How sweet is that? They are the best of friends. They play together for long periods of time and then, at times, they also purposely irritate each other (and me) for long periods of time. But, they are definitely the best of buds.

This is a start; more to come....

Busy Busy Busy Busy

2010-07-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

We are crazy busy around here these days but things are going well and we feel very blessed indeed. We made it through inspections and we are finishing up a few fix-it type things the buyers requested around the house. We have leased a house in a neighboring town. It is smaller than the one we are in by about 1,000 square feet but it is much bigger than the first house we considered leasing so I think it will do quite nicely. The husband saw it for the first time this evening and I think he was pleasantly pleased. We spent some time going through the house and figuring out where we would put everything, what would have to go to storage and what could come out of storage. We have movers scheduled for one week from tomorrow, although we don't close until July 30th, so we have plenty of time to get this place cleaned up....and we will need it because the husband has a limited number of days off between now and closing.

The back yard at the rental house is not very big and it also slopes downwards away from the house. This might be a bit of a challenge for the swing set, jungle gym, swimming pool and sandbox. We may not be able to set the swimming pool up at all and, as much as I really want to bring the sandbox, I think the husband would rather not. So, we'll see. However it works out, we'll make it work, one way or another.

We are so looking forward to getting this move over with and not having to worry about maintaining this house, while we are working towards building the new one. It will be very nice to be able to just focus on the details of the new house and to also be able to put some focus on a little homeschooling also.

The boys are doing pretty well with everything so far. The hardest days for them (and us) is when we are so busy that we don't have enough time for relaxing, reading and playing with the boys. They have been playing together very well though and they are also getting to the point where one might be playing with something in one room while the other is playing with something else in another room, totally by their own choice. They did that for a good amount of time this morning and it was so nice. I think it is really good for them and I am glad to see them start doing this.

We have talked a lot about the move so I think they have a good understanding of what to expect. Their new bedroom is much smaller than their current one though. It might be a bit of a challenge to fit all of their furniture in but I'm sure we can make it work.

We have decided to use a general contractor to help us build the new house. He is doing it on a cost-plus basis and we will also be assisting quite a bit. After seeing how helpful and important it has been to have the real estate agents helping us to sell our house, we decided (with much prodding from them) that we need a professional to help us build our new house. After discussing many of the details during our first meeting with the GC, the husband and I were both agreeing that this was the right decision. Actually, we have met with him before a couple of times. He is spending the first two weeks putting together a detailed cost estimate for us so we should be getting something back around the end of next week.

More to come. I'm so tired. Time for bed.

Big News

2010-06-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

We sold our house! Yay!

After 305 days of trying to sale it by owner, my husband and I both felt, at the same time, that it was time to use a real estate agent. When God decides it is time to move, He moves in a big way. Five days after they listed it on MLS (which is where we had it listed for 305 days), we had our first showing, they put in an offer and we closed the deal last night. Absolutely amazing. We were just getting ready to drop some decent money on doing some upgrades when these people came to see the house. They requested that all work (except the removal of wall paper in the bathrooms) stop and I guess they are going to proceed to do their own upgrades after they move in.

Our closing date is at the end of July so we have one month to find a rental house and move out... AND start ground breaking on our new house (ideally we would like to start as soon as possible after we close). Yikes! It is going to be a busy month.

So, that's our big summer news. In other day-to-day news, the boys are doing great and growing like little weeds. I think B must be going through a major growth spurt because he is really clumsy right now. He fell down while we were out walking yesterday evening and skinned his hip and elbow. Poor little fellow. He has the lowest pain tolerance so it is quite an awful experience. N's behavior has definitely improved, although I have seen bits of the more volatile bahavior during the past week, when we were very busy making suggested changes to the house. He has a hard time dealing with this type of activity but, hopefully, we are learning how to help him get through these times a bit easier. He is such a fun, happy child. It makes me sad to see him start acting out, while knowing it is due to the changes and chaos going on around him. Yesterday we just stayed home, relaxed, played, teased, tickled, cuddled and had a fun day and he was his old self again and he is doing well today too so I know that helped. Now that I am aware of the pattern, I think we can take steps to help him through the majority of the upcoming major changes.

The dad has been taking one of them with him when he runs errands. I find it interesting that, most of the time, it is B who wants to go and N who wants to stay home with me. N has always been a real daddy's boy and B tends to be a bit more of a mommy's boy right now, so this has surprised me.

A week or two ago, the dear husband and I split up and each of us took one child out for breakfast. He took N to IHOP and I took B to The Village Inn. The waitress was talking to B (he is such a non-stop talker these days) and she asked him how old he was. He said "I'm four and she (pointing to me) is 47. Half the time he has told whoever he meets everyone's age, that he and N are not twins but are brothers, are adopted, from Russia, etc. within the first 3 minutes of meeting them. People really get a kick out of him.

Must go now. Sorry I have not posted any pictures in a while. I will try to do that soon.

The time has come. The time is now...

2010-06-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

(for all of you Dr. Seuss fans out there:).

Well, after attempting to sell our house on our own (for sale by owner) for almost a year now (it will be a year in August), we are seriously considering listing it with a real estate agent. I am ready but the final decision is up to the husband and he is checking into it as I type. It sounds like he is ready too. I think a lot of people are just not comfortable going with a 'for sale by owner' listing, for whatever reason. We only have about a month and a half left here before school starts again (mid-August) so we decided we had better consider this if we really want to sell it. So, we shall see where this leads us.

In other news, I have been doing a lot of research on the homeschool front, trying to get prepared for August. I was just talking to the husband about how difficult it is, as a newbie to this, to pick a curriculum. First I have to determine whether or not I think I can teach it. After reviewing many, many different options and considering this is all new to me, I think I need to go with something that is pretty well laid out and scripted. After using scripted materials for a year, or a few years, I may very well be able to move towards a more flexible, less scripted type of option but, for a newbie like me who is still a bit unsure of myself and a bit nervous, I think going with the scripted options are probably a pretty good approach for now. Then I have to try to determine which options might best fit the learning style of the boys. During these younger years, my best guess is that the more fun, hands-on, games type of learning (where possible) will be what they would enjoy the most. These typically require more mom time but, at this age (non-readers), everything requires mom time anyway.

We are planning to 'officially' start homeschooling in the fall. The boys and I have discussed it several times. I think B is definitely ready but, the other day, N said he just wants to play. Of course he does not turn 5 until November so I may just need to be very flexible with him until after the new year and gear a bit more then, if he seems more ready. I will play it by ear a bit with him and see how it goes. When he sees B learning, he may just decide he wants to do it too. Regardless, I plan to start out slowly, probably only doing Bible/devotion/memory work, phonics and handwriting work to begin with, with some artwork thrown in.

There is a children's Bible I have been wanting to order for the longest time, as it seems to be mentioned every where I look, it has been around for a long time and people rave about it. I found out today that the owner of the used homeschool bookstore has a copy she was planning to resale so she is going to sale it to me. It is the Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos so, if it is as good as the reviews indicate, I plan to start out using this and also my regular Bible, along with some children's devotion materials we already have. We have always read from the children's Bible at bed time and we may still continue to do so, as it will be one less thing that is added to our school day and it is a nice way to end the day. So we may just start out our school day with a devotion and some scripture memory work.

For phonics we will continue on with the OPGTR, along with some little phonics games and time for them to read to me, only we will begin doing it on a daily basis.

For writing we will be using Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K.

I am planning to create a book basket of good literature I have selected for us to read during the school year. I will set aside at least 30 minutes each school day for read alouds and we will likely spend more than 30 minutes, since the boys really enjoy this.

I might finish the day with some sort of art project, since they really enjoy this and it will seem like a treat to them. I'll play this by ear because, by the time we get to this, they might just be ready to go play, but you never know.

My initial thought is that I will work with one while the other one plays quietly in another room or outside and then they can switch places. If this doesn't work, I might have to find some file folder games to keep them busy.

So, we will do this for a few weeks, until we get our routine down. We will likely start out with shorter time frames and we will build to 15 to 30 minutes each for Bible, phonics, handwriting and read alouds. I don't have a good feel right now as to what the optimum teaching time will be for them. It will depend on whether they really enjoy it or whether they are not so into what we are doing. I will adjust accordingly this year, since they are technically still PreK4.

After we are comfortable with our new routine, I will add in Right Start Math (possibly sometimes supplemented by either Miquon Math or Singapore Math) and All About Spelling. We will again start off slowly and build up our time to 15 to 30 minutes.

I think my overall target for time will be 2.5 hours (or less) in the morning for Bible, phonics, handwriting, math and spelling. Bible, math and spelling we can all do together and then I will need to do phonics and handwriting separately, I think. I may find that we could do handwriting together but math and/or spelling has to be done separately. I will adjust as necessary. I am thinking we might save read aloud time for the afternoons but we'll see how it goes.

So, I think that's it. I think that's the plan, for now. I plan to be very flexible and possibly push some of it off until January, if I find they are simply not mature enough yet. They have both shown that they are ready cognitively to learn to read so I won't be as flexible with that.

And with that, quiet time is over and we are late today so I need to go wake up N. Otherwise he will be wide awake when it is bedtime. I have tons of pictures I need to post...and many other things I need to do. I will get to eventually:). Bye for now.

Our latest

2010-05-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

Not a lot going on around here really. The dear husband started his new job last Monday. It is going to take some getting use to, since the hours are random, or so it seems so far. The husband says a pattern will emerge so we will see. So far, he worked two days (Mon, Tues) was off two days (Wed, Thurs), then worked three days (Fri, Sat, Sun), is now off today and tomorrow, will work again on Wed, Thurs and will then be off Fri, Sat and Sun. It really throws us off on what day is which. Today seems like Saturday to us, although the boys and I went to church yesterday so it is really confusing. I keep having to remind myself what day it is. The husband has worked these kinds of schedules many times before in the past but I have always been on a Mon-Fri work week. Once we get used to, I think we will really like it. I think it will be nice for homeschooling too. But first we have to get used to it:).

In other news, we put a For Sale By Owner sign on the lot we purchased last year. Since our house has yet to sale, we decided to put the lot on the market and just see what comes of it. We are now kind of hoping both the lot and the house sells soon. Our new thought is that we might actually end up building a house out at the farm. "The farm" is 400 acres that my family owns in N.E. Oklahoma. It belonged to my grandparents and they passed it down to my father and his brother. My father passed it directly on to his 5 children so my uncle owns 200 acres and my siblings and I own the other 200. My brother raises cattle on all 400, plus other acreage that he leases.

There is a nice hill on our property that overlooks a very large, beautiful lake and we are considering building our home there, if we sell our house in the near future. There are many pros and cons to this so we are still considering it and praying about it. The company that the dear husband is now working for just happens to have two clinics that would be within decent driving distance from the farm so he would have to discuss this with his new employer and find out if working from one of those offices would be an option.

In other news, the boys finished their swimming class and will start another session two days a week in June. I can tell B is a bit nervous about a new class and possibly (probably) a new teacher because he keeps saying he does not want to do more things. I think he will do fine though. I also signed the boys up for an introductory soccer class and they (especially N) are very excited about it. They will start that in June also and it runs through August. It is only once a week for 50 minutes but I think that will be plenty since they will be swimming twice a week in June and possibly July.

The husband had a week off between jobs so we went to Branson Mo for a couple of days last week. Unfortunately it rained quite a bit but we were able find a break in the rain and make it to Silver Dollar City one day. We all had a great time and the boys especially loved it. We also took them to play mini-golf and they absolutely loved it. They keep asking to play again so we'll have to find some time to fit it in again soon. We purposely picked a hotel that had an indoor pool and it also had a water slide so we were very excited. Although the hotel was nice and served a wonderful complimentary breakfast buffet, the pool and slide were a bust. Even though they were indoor, the water was not heated and was just too cold for the boys to enjoy it. The slide would have been a ball if the boys had been a couple of years older and more confident swimmers but it was too fast for them right now plus, again, the water was too cold. They had fun in the very large hot tub though and they continue to have a lot of fun in our bath tub at home:). They wear their googles and they go under to retrieve things they have put there, pretending they are in a swimming pool.

My dad's wife was able to go home from the hospital rehab center just before Mother's Day, which was a huge blessing. She has had some difficulty getting back her appitite but seems to be doing pretty well with it now. She is still having to go for dialysis but we are still hopeful that she won't need to forever. When she went one week they told her they didn't think she would need it much longer but when she went back the following week they were not so sure when/if she would ever be able to quit. The primary change during that week was her not being able to eat much and she had lost more weight. She is now doing well with that so we hope that her kidneys will kick back in again. She is definitely getting stronger every day. We went to visit last weekend and she was able to get up and walk around the house a bit, which was amazing to me. She has come along so far but still has so far to go. The boys always remember her in their prayers. They crack me up with their wording but I know what they mean and I'm sure God does too.

This week has been head ache week for me. I think it started because of all of the bad thunderstorms we were having. They really mess with my sinuses, for some reason. My sinuses start swelling, I guess in response to the changes in air pressure or something. Anyway, I end up having migraine-like headaches and it is just really hard to do anything and to be patient and kind. I finally got a break yesterday and did not have any but it is back today. I can remember having these when I lived in Houston, when we would have really bad thunderstorms too. I think I would have been ok today but I read an email that made me cry and I think that messed up my sinuses again. Hopefully they will be back to normal tomorrow though.

The boys are doing great. A friend of mine once said that she could see major changes in her young ones every 6 months and I can definitely see that. They are doing so much on their own and are always asking to help do whatever we are doing. They love helping me cook. They are quite the little sponges and are always cracking me up with the funny things they say. More than ever before, they really are such little, independent people with their own opinions and things they want to discuss and do. B has an amazing vocabulary and is always interrupting to ask what a word means. Last week two different people mentioned what a great vocab he has. I think he just likes words. He was the first one to use 'rubbish' in a sentence when he was barely three, or something like that. He picked it up from Thomas the Train stories. He is constantly using large words and it is so funny to hear him try to say them. He does a pretty good job, good enough that I understand what he is saying. I was doing something the other day and he came in and said he wanted to sit next to me because he wanted to have a conversation. I had just explained that word to him not long before. It is as if he purposely seeks out opportunities to use new words and he has a mind like a steel trap.

Both boys are still doing very well with reading cvc words and learning how to write their letters. We do this in a very hit or miss way, just when one of us thinks of it and they are in the mood. They have said they want to start doing formal school in the fall, when the kids go back to school. They have a good friend who will be starting K in the fall so they want to be like him. He is only 3 months older than B and 5 months older than N but they missed the cut off and he didn't. I am thankful they did because it gives us some slack. We don't have to start formal schooling officially until 2011. Hopefully by starting some of it this fall we will be a bit ahead which will take some pressure off of me, the newbie homeschooling mom. I am a bit nervous about it because N tends to be the kind of kid who does not want to be shown how to do anything. He wants to do everything his way and he always pushes to find out where exactly the boundaries are in every situation. (His daddy says that someday N is going to be a wonderful leader.) So I'm going to have to figure out how to manage that. B will likely be pretty easy because he is a bit more of a pleaser and is very willing to take instruction. The hardest person to manage will be me:). I have to be more disciplined, sticking to a schedule, following through, being consistent, etc..... I have had it pretty easy for a while now, getting to play and have fun and just do whatever we feel like doing when the mood hits us. Homeschooling will change that a bit. Hopefully since we are starting this fall, we can start slowly and ramp up and get used to it before we really have to be doing it formally. Honestly, I don't know how I will do when I have a headache like I have had today. I'm sure we'll work through it and just get the must-have's done on those kind of days. Thankfully it does not happen very often and we are normally pretty healthy, except for regular old colds and a bout of pneumonia every other year:).

This is becoming a book and I am tired so off to bed.

And life goes on...

2010-05-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have not been updating very regularly lately. I have simply not been very motivated, for whatever reason. I think this is the first time since I started blogging that I have felt this way. There are other things I want to be doing and blogging is taking a lower priority these days.

At lunch today the boys and I were looking at their baby pictures on my laptop. They love to do this and it sure brings back many sweet memories. We are now having our daily quiet time and B is on the couch in the living room, pretending he is a baby once more and playing with pillows. He saw pics of himself and N doing this when they were babies and he wanted to pretend it.

We really needed our quiet time today because we all had to get up early today. I had a bone density scan and, as it turns out, I have very healthy bones. The place where I went with my broken foot recommended I have this done and my mom and sister have been wanting me to have it done also, as I never drank milk or ate much cheese when I was growing up. Thankfully, I have the bones of a young adult. Not bad for a 47 year old woman who has been in menopause since around 42 or 43 years old.

My foot is doing pretty well these days. It still hurts at times but, for the most part, it is fine (as long as I don't run or jump rope or any such thing that tends to slam it to the ground to hard:). I have been walking in the evenings for the past week or so and I am on my third consecutive day of no soda. That's pretty good for me, considering I have not exercised purposefully (for more than a couple of days) in quite some time. Also, I have Pepsi in the house, sitting in the fridge, and so far I have been able to resist the temptation. Funny enough, I think having the soda in the house is better than having none here. This way, I have to purposefully think about it and want to resist it, rather than it not being here and me wishing it was here and I could have some...or something like that. For some reason, it seems to work better this way, much to my surprise. (Thanks be to the Lord for giving me the strength and determination and thanks be to CEP for challenging me to be her accountability partner for a few months.)

Yesterday the boys and I went to Target and bought a slip-n-slide. The boys had a blast on it yesterday afternoon. Today N went outside while I was still putting sunscreen on B. He was trying to hook the hose up to it and he tore a great big hole in it. So much for that. $20 down the drain. Maybe that is why it said it was for 5 and up...although the boys can normally use toys that say 5 and up these days, since they are at or over 4.5. Oh well. Win some, lose some.

We had two house showings on the weekend and then two yesterday. It is interesting how they tend to come in spurts. We are still hopeful we will sell it soon. Time will tell. If not, we have some tentative plans for making this house more energy efficient and staying here.

Tomorrow is the husband's last day at his current job. He will be off next week for a short vacation and then will start his new job the following week. He has been very busy this week, finishing up some last minute things he wanted to finalize. I think he will still be an associate professor at this university and will be able to continue to do some research or something with them in the future. Hopefully it will work out the way he wants it to.

The new twin bed frames that we ordered for the boys came in the other day. The boys were very excited and the bed frames really look nice. I am very pleased with how they look, considering the low price we paid.

The boys will finish up their swimming lessons on Tuesday. They have done very well and are now swimming very short distances under water. The other two students did not show up on Tuesday so the boys had the entire time to just them. It was really nice. I have signed them up for the next set of lessons which will start in June. They will go twice a week for the month of June and we might do that for the month of July also...not sure yet. I think they go back to the semester lessons of one day a week starting in August. Not sure how long they will continue to go but I really want them to keep going for a while longer so they really learn to swim. I think if they quit now they would regress quickly.

Well, must go read my news now.

What's up?

2010-04-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

I can walk again so we have been very, very busy around here. It is so nice to be back to normal, or almost normal anyway. I still have some pain, especially if I walk too much. Overall it is doing pretty well though, even though I had a bit of a set back the other day when I tried to show the boys how to jump rope (not quite ready for that yet;).

I was able to go to the homeschool conference in Ohio and it was wonderful. They have so many classes and there were tons of people there. My friend and I really enjoyed our time girl time together and a short break from real life but we were both very anxious to get home to our families. I was suppose to arrive back home late on Saturday (I left early on Thursday) but ended up missing my flight accidentally (it's a long story). The earliest flight I could get back arrived at noon on Sunday. I was really homesick on Saturday night, when I there on my own.

It was so nice to get home to my family. The boys were very excited to see me and I was very excited to see them and my wonderful husband. He did a great job keeping the boys busy while I was away. I brought everyone a T-shirt. My says Homeschool Rocks!, the husband's says Homeschool Athletic Department and it has that 'athletic' T-shirt look and the shirts I got for the boys say CAUTION Unsocialized Homeschooler;). I also picked some books for the boys and some CD's that have Jim Weiss telling the stories of some of the classics.

The husband's one comment about parenting alone for the weekend was "I didn't realize how difficult it is to keep the house picked up". So, it seems they did pretty well while I was away, and I knew they would. He is a great daddy.

I have not been very motivated to write in a while. We have been so busy, getting out and about, making up for lost time, that I have just not taken the time. This afternoon it is cloudy and grey and a bit on the rainy side. This morning was cloudy but it was not raining yet so we went shopping for new sandals for the boys. After a late lunch, we are not having a lazy Friday afternoon. The boys are watching Winnie the Pooh and I am catching up on some computer time.

We had a couple look at the house on Wednesday. The real estate agent called today and they want to see it again tomorrow at 2:00, which is nice. It really is in great condition right now. We have fixed pretty much everything that needed to be fixed and it looks very nice. Everything outside is blooming, including my beautiful azaleas so the yard looks really pretty right now. I really think we will sell it sometime soon. Time will tell.

My dear husband has accepted another job with an urgent care group so he will be leaving his current job with a university. The new job will pay more and he will work less hours so that is a great thing all the way around. The only bad is that the new hours will be 12 hour days (8am to 8pm) but only three or four days a week, but he will also have to work his share of weekend days, as they are open on Saturdays and Sundays. The benefits package is good though and, overall, he will work less hours for more money so that is great. I am debating how to adjust our day so that they boys might be able to spend some time with their dad on those days he works. I'm sure we'll figure something out.

My step mother is doing much better, although she still has a long road to recovery. She is now out of ICU and is in a step-down unit. She is still on the respirator, although they put in a trach so now we can see her face and she can actually talk with it some, which is nice. They are still weaning her off the respirator and believe it will be easier with the trach. She is still on dialysis and we are all praying that her kidneys will heal and bounce back. They say she has a 50/50 chance. All prayers on her behalf are welcome.

She is very weak and will likely have to go to rehab but she is definitely looking better. We saw her yesterday and it was the first time I have seen her when she was awake and aware of what is going on and she talked with me and the boys. We are praying she will make a full recovery.

Last but not least is the latest little boy funny, for those of you who made it this far. Today I was fixing lunch for the boys and I asked them if they would rather have peas or broccoli with their sandwich. They both said broccoli and I repeated it in kind of a questioning, 'you're sure?' kind of way. N was sure he wanted broccoli and said, "Peas make my ears itch", which was news to me. He was the one who suggested peas for dinner a couple of nights ago. Peas making ears itch is a new one for me. Not sure where he came up with that one but it was pretty funny.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend.