It is a rainy day here today. I was going to take the boys out to do some grocery shopping but then it really started pouring rain so I changed the plan. I was really craving a soda today, since we don't buy them anymore to keep at the house. So I rounded up the boys to run out quickly to the nearby Quick Trip so I could get a soda. I have done this before. The boys stay in the car and I run in and it only takes me a minute to get one can of soda, pay and go back out and the boys would not get wet because they would get in and out in our garage.
As I was getting out of the van at the Quick Trip, the boys were asking me to bring them something. It was now raining pretty hard. I pulled on the hood on my hoodie jacket and ran, locking the van with the key faub as I went.
I went into the small store, walked straight over to the fridge with the single cans of soda, went from there to the candy display, across from the counter where one pays, walked over to the chips display and grabbed a small bag of cheetos for the boys and went back to the counter to pay. All of this took approximately 2 to 3 minutes and very few steps, as the store is small.
There was one person in front of me so I didn't have to wait very long to pay. After paying, I started looking for my keys, which would normally be in my jacket pocket. My cell phone was there but not my keys. I didn't have a purse with me but I had a fanny pack. I searched through it and still did not find my keys. I was starting to get nervous and started praying. I dumped everything in my pockets and the fanny pack on the counter, still no keys. Now I am really panicking and praying the whole time and on the verge of tears. I retraced my steps and carefully looked on the floor and shelves, still no keys. Now I am in a full scale panic. I asked people working at the counter, they had seen my keys. I retraced my steps again, multiple times, and also searched my pockets and fanny pack again, multiple times. My keys were absolutely nowhere to be found.
At some point, in the midst of all of this, I called my husband and told him what had happened. Thankfully, he was not seeing patients so he left work right away and headed home to get the extra set of keys to the van. In the meantime, I went to the van several times and told the boys what had happened (I yelled through the window that I had lost the keys and daddy was coming to help us.) They really handled it much better than I did:).
It was lunch time when we ran out and I thought we would be right back. So I knew they were very hungry by then. Still, neither of them got upset and they pretty much just sat and watched the cars and people come and go. A small mail truck pulled up alongside our van. He backed in so the boys were sitting right next to the mailman, while he ate his lunch. I think they stared at him the whole time. They must have been locked in the van for about an hour, by the time it was all over.
After searching thoroughly multiple times and not finding anything, we concluded someone must have stolen the keys. The people who worked there also helped us look and there was just not that many places that they could have been hiding. I was wearing a zip-up sweatshirt hoodie that has lose pockets and there was a guy standing next to me while I was paying. I am wondering now if he might have lifted my keys from my pocket. Who knows but I am pretty sure someone stole them somehow.
We are going to change the locks on the house and on the van too. It will likely cost a fortune but we feel as if we have no choice.
In other news, I think I forgot to tell you that there was a fox outside our house a week or so ago. It was a Sunday and we had stayed home from church because we were sick. I happened to look out the kitchen windows and there was a fox, trotting up our driveway toward the garage. When he discovered he was fenced in, he turned around and trotted back down our driveway, took a left and trotted down the road. It was pretty incredible to see in the middle of this small city where we live. I don't know where he could have come from, as we are a ways from any area where foxes might live, as far as I know.
The other wildlife event at our house is we have a squirrel that keeps getting on top of our bird feeder and helping himself to a good dinner. It is funny to watch, as he lays across the top of it with his head and front paws hanging down and eating the food, while he holds on for dear life with his back paws and tail. I still haven't figure out how he gets on top of the feeder because it is mounted on a steel pole. The pole is in the ground and the feeder is about the height of my head so I don't think he could climb it or jump that high. I think he must be jumping off the roof of the house onto the feeder but have yet to see him do it. We saw him out there for the first time yesterday and I have already seen him there twice today.
In still other news, our quiet time is going very well. We have been doing 30 minutes a day but today we are shooting for 45 minutes. I would like to work up to one hour but may need to do it over a longer period of time. We'll see how today goes.
We have started reading our first chapter book. It is a book called Three Tales of My Father's Dragon. We have already read the first tale and are in the middle of the second one. The boys are really enjoying it and I am too, since I have never read this book before either. It is a really cute book. Nick never wants to stop reading but, after a while, Ben usually says that's enough for now. I am surprised they were into it actually. I had started it with them several times in the past and each time they were not interested. But I happened to pick it up the other day and started reading it to them while they were eating and they really took an interest in it. I will have to find some other chapter books for kids their age when we finish this one. If you know of any chapter books for the 3 to 4 year old market, let me know.
Well, we have a little under 10 minutes of quiet time left and Ben has fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. Nick is no longer looking at books but is flipping and flopping on the small couch in the library. I wish he would take a quick cat nap but I don't think it is on his agenda for today, even though I think he typically needs it more than Ben does. I better go now. Hope you are having a good day.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
April 27, 2009
The husband was off on vacation last week so we planned to take that trip to K.C....you know, the one that was canceled due to the big, two day snow storm we had in March. So we planned to go for a long weekend, the first weekend of our vacation week.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post or not but I started getting sick on Wednesday, April 15th. Turns out that the following Saturday and Sunday were my two worst days, when I was feeling especially terrible. I ended up losing my voice and getting a sinus infection on top of everything else. My voice really just came back to normal yesterday. So we once again moved our trip out, thinking that by the end of the week I would be feeling good again. I think it might have been around Wednesday that the husband came down with whatever illness I had. His worst day by far was yesterday (Sunday).
In the meantime, Ben came down with the other virus that has been working it's way through our family. This is the one that the husband had first, then I got, then Nick and then Ben finally got it. It is the strangest virus I have ever seen. We all had the same symptoms. It starts out with an eye infection that requires antibiotic eye drops. It quickly moves on to cold-like symptoms. Fortunately, by the time Ben got it, we recognized the symptoms very quickly and got the eye infection under control within two days. He only had a light case of the cold symptoms so he never missed a beat really (neither did Nick when he had it - they recover so quickly).
So we never made it to Kansas City, much to our disappointment. We were all really looking forward to spending time with our friends but we will have to plan another time.
We are all relieved that, it seems, we are finally getting over all of this. The husband and I are both still taking antibiotics. Our symptoms? Fever, body aches, coughing....your basic flu-like symptoms. The husband actually went to work one day to take the flu test, just to make sure. It came back negative though. He took it again today, just to be sure, and it came back negative again. So, we're not sure what we have had but, thankfully, it was not the flu.
Not much else to report around here. We had a very low key week, since we were not feeling well. The boys really never missed a beat so the dad and I were juggling our time with them by who felt the worst at any given moment:). Fortunately we were not both feeling at our worst at the same time so the juggling worked out pretty well.
Well, gotta go. Time to get boys ready for bed:).
I'm not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post or not but I started getting sick on Wednesday, April 15th. Turns out that the following Saturday and Sunday were my two worst days, when I was feeling especially terrible. I ended up losing my voice and getting a sinus infection on top of everything else. My voice really just came back to normal yesterday. So we once again moved our trip out, thinking that by the end of the week I would be feeling good again. I think it might have been around Wednesday that the husband came down with whatever illness I had. His worst day by far was yesterday (Sunday).
In the meantime, Ben came down with the other virus that has been working it's way through our family. This is the one that the husband had first, then I got, then Nick and then Ben finally got it. It is the strangest virus I have ever seen. We all had the same symptoms. It starts out with an eye infection that requires antibiotic eye drops. It quickly moves on to cold-like symptoms. Fortunately, by the time Ben got it, we recognized the symptoms very quickly and got the eye infection under control within two days. He only had a light case of the cold symptoms so he never missed a beat really (neither did Nick when he had it - they recover so quickly).
So we never made it to Kansas City, much to our disappointment. We were all really looking forward to spending time with our friends but we will have to plan another time.
We are all relieved that, it seems, we are finally getting over all of this. The husband and I are both still taking antibiotics. Our symptoms? Fever, body aches, coughing....your basic flu-like symptoms. The husband actually went to work one day to take the flu test, just to make sure. It came back negative though. He took it again today, just to be sure, and it came back negative again. So, we're not sure what we have had but, thankfully, it was not the flu.
Not much else to report around here. We had a very low key week, since we were not feeling well. The boys really never missed a beat so the dad and I were juggling our time with them by who felt the worst at any given moment:). Fortunately we were not both feeling at our worst at the same time so the juggling worked out pretty well.
Well, gotta go. Time to get boys ready for bed:).
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
April 22, 2009
The boys have been having a ball playing outside this week. Every time they go out, Nick comes in covered with dirt. Ben gets a little dirty, especially his hands, but his clothes do not get as dirty as Nick's. I was standing at the window, watching them play outside the other day and I noticed that Nick plays outside just like he plays in the house.....meaning, he plays on the ground, just as if he were on the floor or rug in the house. He jumps around on it, trying to do hand stands. He throws himself down and rolls down the small hill in our yard. He lays down in the sand box, while making trucks drive around the sand. He is very comfortable outside and he really makes himself at home.
When he comes in, I always have to change his jeans. If it is early in the day, I sometimes put them aside in case he wants to go back outside again later that day. I am having to do laundry often:). And now, as of today, it is time for shorts. So, now it is time for them to go straight to the tub when they come into the house.
Ben is still resisting shorts and short sleeved shirts. Today I finally insisted because it was so hot outside and he was sweating so much.
My mom and sister came to visit today. We cooked burgers and fries out on the grill and we all sat on the patio and had lunch together. It was very nice but it is really warm here today...to the point of being uncomfortably warm if you are in the direct sunlight this afternoon.
We once again made plans to go to K. C. this week. We were going to leave tomorrow. We were going to drive through the town where my niece is going to college and surprise her with a visit, and then head on to K.C., spend the night in a hotel and go to this really fun farm place where we took the kids once a couple of years ago. That evening, we were going to hook up with our friends in K.C., stay with them and do lots of visiting and catching up and just having fun being together again. We were really looking forward to this small vacation.
Yesterday evening, my husband started feeling as if he was coming down with a fever. Sure enough, today he has a fever and is not feeling well. It seems he is coming down with what I have had. I am really still not feeling great myself. I think allergies are likely piling on to the virus I have had and it is making it harder to recover.
So, it seems once again that our trip to K.C. has been canceled. I have lost track. I think this is the third time we have had to cancel in two months. I am really bummed but I would rather go when we are all feeling good. Hopefully we can plan something for later in the year.
Hope you are having a good Wednesday.
When he comes in, I always have to change his jeans. If it is early in the day, I sometimes put them aside in case he wants to go back outside again later that day. I am having to do laundry often:). And now, as of today, it is time for shorts. So, now it is time for them to go straight to the tub when they come into the house.
Ben is still resisting shorts and short sleeved shirts. Today I finally insisted because it was so hot outside and he was sweating so much.
My mom and sister came to visit today. We cooked burgers and fries out on the grill and we all sat on the patio and had lunch together. It was very nice but it is really warm here today...to the point of being uncomfortably warm if you are in the direct sunlight this afternoon.
We once again made plans to go to K. C. this week. We were going to leave tomorrow. We were going to drive through the town where my niece is going to college and surprise her with a visit, and then head on to K.C., spend the night in a hotel and go to this really fun farm place where we took the kids once a couple of years ago. That evening, we were going to hook up with our friends in K.C., stay with them and do lots of visiting and catching up and just having fun being together again. We were really looking forward to this small vacation.
Yesterday evening, my husband started feeling as if he was coming down with a fever. Sure enough, today he has a fever and is not feeling well. It seems he is coming down with what I have had. I am really still not feeling great myself. I think allergies are likely piling on to the virus I have had and it is making it harder to recover.
So, it seems once again that our trip to K.C. has been canceled. I have lost track. I think this is the third time we have had to cancel in two months. I am really bummed but I would rather go when we are all feeling good. Hopefully we can plan something for later in the year.
Hope you are having a good Wednesday.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
April 18, 2009
Have I told you about my wonderful husband? He really is an amazing man. He has so much patience and is so diligent, it amazes me.
He is a doctor of family medicine so he has to re-take his boards every so many years (7? - can't remember?). He has been painstakingly studying for his boards for the past almost-two years. He will re-take his boards in July and he started studying for them two years in advance.
He divided up the amount of material he had to study in such a way as to be able to make two passes through it all. With the first pass, he summarized and took notes and now he is studying his notes for the second pass. He has been waking up early almost every morning, for close to two years now, to do a little each day.
When it comes to his profession, he is a detail person. He is very thorough and he always goes the extra mile, even if it means he has to give up personal time to do it. He is constantly reading and studying and learning new information that comes out in the various medical journals during is personal time. It is not just a profession for him. It is an integral part of who he is. He is definitely the kind of doctor you would want to go to.
He is very diligent about working out. He works out every other day. He very seldom misses a workout. If he misses a day or two because we are on vacation or he is sick or something, he quickly gets right back to it as soon as he can. (Actually, he normally works out even when he is sick.) He keeps track of his weight and has a range within which he stays. If he sees he has moved to the upper level of his range, he cuts back until he is back where he wants to be. He definitely has a lot of self control and discipline.
He is also very diligent about keeping up with repairs around the house and with our two vehicles. He is always fixing something around the house. Right now it is the crown molding, which is in need of some re-caulking and painting. The people who lived here before we moved in had the house built and then lived here for 6 years or so without doing any maintenance work, or so it seemed when we moved in. So my husband has spent lots of time and effort over the years we have been here repairing, caulking, painting, etc. You name it, he has probably fix it. Last night, after he put the boys to bed and before he came to bed, he cleaned all of the crown molding in the foyer. This morning, he was up before anyone else and he re-caulked it all.
He is also wonderful about spending lots of time with our two sons and he is so patient with them. He spends hours reading and playing with them. Most Saturday mornings find the dad and his sons out running errands together. Today they went to a huge garage sale near our house that started at 8:00am. After that, they went to the tire place to have new tires put on our van. If they get finished with the tires in time, they will go to our church where they are having a special fun event for preschoolers today.
He takes care of all the finances, including researching and managing all of our investments. He keeps track of car repairs and mows and trims the lawn. When we have to make a large purchase, whether it is four new tires for one of our vehicles, a new camera or whatever, he researches it thoroughly to ensure we get the best deal for our money. He is a very busy man but he never complains and he never nags.
He is almost always in a good mood and is a very upbeat person in general. He loves to read, as do I, although most of his reading is about medical or financial information or a Bible study, unless we are on vacation when he might read a novel. He hardly ever watches television. He would rather be doing something, fixing something or reading something. He likes to spend his time doing something productive. Neither of us listen to much music, unless we are in the car and then it is usually the kids' music. I have a CD of classical music that I like to listen to in the kitchen and the husband and sons like it too so we listen to it when we are eating. Other than that, we don't listen to music.
Before I was married, I prayed often for the man I would marry. I am so thankful that God did not just give me what I prayed for:). I would never have thought to pray for so many of the wonderful character traits that my husband has and that God knew I would need in a husband. He is such a thoughtful, caring and giving person. He is so easy going and I don't think I have ever known him to hold a grudge. He is very slow to anger and, when he does get angry about something (which is very very seldom), his anger is always a calm, controlled kind of anger. He may raise his voice a little, more with inflection than volume, but he does not yell. I think he is probably the easiest person to get along with that I have ever met.
Our disagreements usually end up being more like discussions than arguments. Thankfully, we don't have them often. We went to many weeks of premarital counseling before we were married and I know that helped to prepare us a lot. We had to discuss so many things and we also had to create a budget together. I highly recommend this type of premarital counseling to anyone who is considering marriage. It really helps you to discuss so many important topics BEFORE you get married.
I think one of the reasons we have so few disagreements is that we have so many of the same beliefs and values. We have the same religious and political beliefs. Before we were married, we had already discussed and knew that we both wanted children, even though we were marrying late in life. We knew that we were both open to adoption and we knew and had discussed that we both wanted to homeschool our children. We knew approximately what our budget would look like but, more importantly, we had agreed to a philosophy of how we would manage our money. This could easily have been a problem for us in our marriage, had we not already discussed it, because we came from families who handled money very differently. In the first two years of our marriage, we had many more discussions about how we were handling our money and some were tense and took some long walks together to work through them. But we worked through it together and came out stronger on the other side. Before marriage, we also had many discussions about children and we have similar beliefs about how to raise our children. I think having agreement on so many of the important things in life really helps to reduce the number of disagreements that might pop up in the future.
Don't get me wrong. We are not perfect. We do have disagreements from time to time. But we have a very strong foundation for our marriage. The most important thing, by far, is that God is at the center of our marriage. That is most important for a strong foundation for marriage. We also both agreed before marriage that, if at any time during our lives together, one of us felt that we need to go for counseling, the other would go. We had both seen the value of counseling in our lives at times when we were single so we felt it was reassuring to know that the other felt the same about this.
I love my husband so much and I thank God for him often. As I have said, my husband is an early riser and a hard worker, so he normally falls asleep at night very quickly. There have been many nights when, as I watch him sleep, I pray to God, thanking Him for the awesome blessing He has bestowed on me with the gift of my husband. Just thought I would share with you what a wonderful man he is.
Hope you are having a great Saturday.
He is a doctor of family medicine so he has to re-take his boards every so many years (7? - can't remember?). He has been painstakingly studying for his boards for the past almost-two years. He will re-take his boards in July and he started studying for them two years in advance.
He divided up the amount of material he had to study in such a way as to be able to make two passes through it all. With the first pass, he summarized and took notes and now he is studying his notes for the second pass. He has been waking up early almost every morning, for close to two years now, to do a little each day.
When it comes to his profession, he is a detail person. He is very thorough and he always goes the extra mile, even if it means he has to give up personal time to do it. He is constantly reading and studying and learning new information that comes out in the various medical journals during is personal time. It is not just a profession for him. It is an integral part of who he is. He is definitely the kind of doctor you would want to go to.
He is very diligent about working out. He works out every other day. He very seldom misses a workout. If he misses a day or two because we are on vacation or he is sick or something, he quickly gets right back to it as soon as he can. (Actually, he normally works out even when he is sick.) He keeps track of his weight and has a range within which he stays. If he sees he has moved to the upper level of his range, he cuts back until he is back where he wants to be. He definitely has a lot of self control and discipline.
He is also very diligent about keeping up with repairs around the house and with our two vehicles. He is always fixing something around the house. Right now it is the crown molding, which is in need of some re-caulking and painting. The people who lived here before we moved in had the house built and then lived here for 6 years or so without doing any maintenance work, or so it seemed when we moved in. So my husband has spent lots of time and effort over the years we have been here repairing, caulking, painting, etc. You name it, he has probably fix it. Last night, after he put the boys to bed and before he came to bed, he cleaned all of the crown molding in the foyer. This morning, he was up before anyone else and he re-caulked it all.
He is also wonderful about spending lots of time with our two sons and he is so patient with them. He spends hours reading and playing with them. Most Saturday mornings find the dad and his sons out running errands together. Today they went to a huge garage sale near our house that started at 8:00am. After that, they went to the tire place to have new tires put on our van. If they get finished with the tires in time, they will go to our church where they are having a special fun event for preschoolers today.
He takes care of all the finances, including researching and managing all of our investments. He keeps track of car repairs and mows and trims the lawn. When we have to make a large purchase, whether it is four new tires for one of our vehicles, a new camera or whatever, he researches it thoroughly to ensure we get the best deal for our money. He is a very busy man but he never complains and he never nags.
He is almost always in a good mood and is a very upbeat person in general. He loves to read, as do I, although most of his reading is about medical or financial information or a Bible study, unless we are on vacation when he might read a novel. He hardly ever watches television. He would rather be doing something, fixing something or reading something. He likes to spend his time doing something productive. Neither of us listen to much music, unless we are in the car and then it is usually the kids' music. I have a CD of classical music that I like to listen to in the kitchen and the husband and sons like it too so we listen to it when we are eating. Other than that, we don't listen to music.
Before I was married, I prayed often for the man I would marry. I am so thankful that God did not just give me what I prayed for:). I would never have thought to pray for so many of the wonderful character traits that my husband has and that God knew I would need in a husband. He is such a thoughtful, caring and giving person. He is so easy going and I don't think I have ever known him to hold a grudge. He is very slow to anger and, when he does get angry about something (which is very very seldom), his anger is always a calm, controlled kind of anger. He may raise his voice a little, more with inflection than volume, but he does not yell. I think he is probably the easiest person to get along with that I have ever met.
Our disagreements usually end up being more like discussions than arguments. Thankfully, we don't have them often. We went to many weeks of premarital counseling before we were married and I know that helped to prepare us a lot. We had to discuss so many things and we also had to create a budget together. I highly recommend this type of premarital counseling to anyone who is considering marriage. It really helps you to discuss so many important topics BEFORE you get married.
I think one of the reasons we have so few disagreements is that we have so many of the same beliefs and values. We have the same religious and political beliefs. Before we were married, we had already discussed and knew that we both wanted children, even though we were marrying late in life. We knew that we were both open to adoption and we knew and had discussed that we both wanted to homeschool our children. We knew approximately what our budget would look like but, more importantly, we had agreed to a philosophy of how we would manage our money. This could easily have been a problem for us in our marriage, had we not already discussed it, because we came from families who handled money very differently. In the first two years of our marriage, we had many more discussions about how we were handling our money and some were tense and took some long walks together to work through them. But we worked through it together and came out stronger on the other side. Before marriage, we also had many discussions about children and we have similar beliefs about how to raise our children. I think having agreement on so many of the important things in life really helps to reduce the number of disagreements that might pop up in the future.
Don't get me wrong. We are not perfect. We do have disagreements from time to time. But we have a very strong foundation for our marriage. The most important thing, by far, is that God is at the center of our marriage. That is most important for a strong foundation for marriage. We also both agreed before marriage that, if at any time during our lives together, one of us felt that we need to go for counseling, the other would go. We had both seen the value of counseling in our lives at times when we were single so we felt it was reassuring to know that the other felt the same about this.
I love my husband so much and I thank God for him often. As I have said, my husband is an early riser and a hard worker, so he normally falls asleep at night very quickly. There have been many nights when, as I watch him sleep, I pray to God, thanking Him for the awesome blessing He has bestowed on me with the gift of my husband. Just thought I would share with you what a wonderful man he is.
Hope you are having a great Saturday.
Friday, April 17, 2009
April 17, 2009
Believe it or not, I am sick again. This is so frustrating. I have some sort of virus that started off as a bad tummy thing on Wednesday evening and, that night, also moved to a very sore throat. My stomach is now better but my throat is still very sore and I hardly have any voice left, plus all of the sinus stuff, head ache from the sinus stuff and very low energy level. I feel sorry for my kids right now because I know this has not been very much fun for them the past couple of days.
Additionally, because I am sick again, our trip to Kansas City has once again been delayed. I am bummed because I was looking forward to attending at least one day of their homeschooling convention. But, oh well, it was not meant to be and I still have plenty of time.
The good news is that the dad is on vacation all next week, so that will be very nice. He has to give about 4 months notice before taking vacation time. Fortunately he gets a lot of vacation time so we normally just pick some months and he schedules some time and then we decide later what we are going to do. This time, we will likely have some very relaxing family time around here and we will hopefully make it to KC for a couple of days at some point.
I have been researching various home school paths and products. There are some really great products out there for homeschooling these days.
Currently I am planning to use My Father's World for kindergarten, although could change. It has a very good, age appropriate Bible study and character development study which will be good for all three of us:). I am also planning to use Right Start Math, possibly supplementing with Singapore Math, and I am still working on what else we will be doing. Of course, we still have a ways to go, since the boys are only three and a half years old:). I do enjoy planning ahead though.
One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we can tailor it specifically to their learning style and pace. Of course, one of the very best things about it is that we can also provide our sons with a great Christian education, a classical Christian education no less, and we can do it all relatively inexpensive. There is just so much freedom with it. I am so thankful that we have the freedom to do this and that it is an option for our family.
We are still planning on going with the classical education approach. I am currently going back through parts of The Well Trained Mind book with a fine tooth comb, taking notes. I am also researching Tapestry of Grace and My Father's World in detail, among various other products, and looking up books at our library's web site to get a feel for how much we will be able to rely on them. So far, it is looking pretty good. I am very impressed with both TOG and MFW and am enjoying researching their products and others.
We have decided it is time to give up naps. The boys did not take a nap on Wednesday and they really did very well. They took one on Thursday, mostly because I was feeling so sick and needed the break, but they did not take one today. I'm thinking this will be a good week to go nap-free, since the dad will be around to help out.
The boys have had a blast playing outside this week, which has been nice. I have started working towards planting the seed of "when we don't take naps, we have a quiet time" and explaining what that means. We had a short quiet time today but I really need to work on figuring what our new daily schedule will look like with no naps.
Our potty training had been going so well until just the past couple of days. Nick had two accidents yesterday and three today. The only thing I can think of is that I have been sick those days, I had not been reminding him as much and I have not been much fun. I hope this is just a fluke and he will be back to using the potty tomorrow. I was just so surprised that he did this because he had really been doing very well.
Well, I was only going to write a couple of quick sentences but I guess I should know better. I am not a person of few words, as you know:). Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Additionally, because I am sick again, our trip to Kansas City has once again been delayed. I am bummed because I was looking forward to attending at least one day of their homeschooling convention. But, oh well, it was not meant to be and I still have plenty of time.
The good news is that the dad is on vacation all next week, so that will be very nice. He has to give about 4 months notice before taking vacation time. Fortunately he gets a lot of vacation time so we normally just pick some months and he schedules some time and then we decide later what we are going to do. This time, we will likely have some very relaxing family time around here and we will hopefully make it to KC for a couple of days at some point.
I have been researching various home school paths and products. There are some really great products out there for homeschooling these days.
Currently I am planning to use My Father's World for kindergarten, although could change. It has a very good, age appropriate Bible study and character development study which will be good for all three of us:). I am also planning to use Right Start Math, possibly supplementing with Singapore Math, and I am still working on what else we will be doing. Of course, we still have a ways to go, since the boys are only three and a half years old:). I do enjoy planning ahead though.
One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we can tailor it specifically to their learning style and pace. Of course, one of the very best things about it is that we can also provide our sons with a great Christian education, a classical Christian education no less, and we can do it all relatively inexpensive. There is just so much freedom with it. I am so thankful that we have the freedom to do this and that it is an option for our family.
We are still planning on going with the classical education approach. I am currently going back through parts of The Well Trained Mind book with a fine tooth comb, taking notes. I am also researching Tapestry of Grace and My Father's World in detail, among various other products, and looking up books at our library's web site to get a feel for how much we will be able to rely on them. So far, it is looking pretty good. I am very impressed with both TOG and MFW and am enjoying researching their products and others.
We have decided it is time to give up naps. The boys did not take a nap on Wednesday and they really did very well. They took one on Thursday, mostly because I was feeling so sick and needed the break, but they did not take one today. I'm thinking this will be a good week to go nap-free, since the dad will be around to help out.
The boys have had a blast playing outside this week, which has been nice. I have started working towards planting the seed of "when we don't take naps, we have a quiet time" and explaining what that means. We had a short quiet time today but I really need to work on figuring what our new daily schedule will look like with no naps.
Our potty training had been going so well until just the past couple of days. Nick had two accidents yesterday and three today. The only thing I can think of is that I have been sick those days, I had not been reminding him as much and I have not been much fun. I hope this is just a fluke and he will be back to using the potty tomorrow. I was just so surprised that he did this because he had really been doing very well.
Well, I was only going to write a couple of quick sentences but I guess I should know better. I am not a person of few words, as you know:). Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Monday, April 13, 2009
April 13, 2009
I didn't say a typical day because it really isn't a typical day. I'm not sure we really have a "typical" day around here, or that is the way it seems anyway. But today is rainy and dreary so we stayed inside and focused on some preschool tasks. The boys were really focused on playing and having fun but I was focused on some preschool learning:).
We all got up right at 7:00am this morning, which is unusual. Ben usually sleeps 20 to 30 minutes longer than Nick. The first thing I did was to clean Nick's eyes and put drops in them, as he has that cold and eye infection that I had a couple of weeks ago...and the dad had it a couple of weeks before I had it. It is a tricky little infection. Just when you think it is gone, it rears it's ugly head again.
After taking care of Nick's eyes, I helped the boys get dressed. They can take off and put on their pants and underpants now but they sometimes need help with snapping their jeans and also taking on and off their shirts. Then we ate. Today we all had toast with cream cheese/butter and juice.
I cleaned up the kitchen while the boys played. Then I started looking at email but I overheard the boys talking about which is more 3 or 4 (they were debating how long the timer lasts, 3 or 4 minutes; we have two small 3-minute hour glasses that they to take turns when they are both wanting to play with something; we keep one in the living room and one in the library and we sometimes have to take one outside with us; the nice thing is they can do it by themselves, which eliminates a lot of arguments:) so I got the pegs and pegboard so we could play and learn about which is more/less for a while.
After that, I did a couple of chores (made beds, etc.) and they started playing with those little square blocks that have the letters on them.
And then, a little later, I overheard them talking about letters and letter sounds so I took the Phonics flash cards with me and went in to play with them again. We reviewed the 9 letter sounds that we have been learning and then went over 9 new letter sounds. Ben was doing so well with this that I got out the book to go over a little letter blending with him. Nick was not very interested. Ben is catching on to this pretty quickly. He was able to blend an, man, in, inn, lam very well and he was so happy about it. Nick wanted to try a little but mostly played while Ben and I worked on it. We did not do blending for very long before Ben had had enough too and wanted to read. I read four books to them and then it was time for snack.
After snack they decided they wanted to "do school". So we sat at the table and they did some mazes from one of the Critical Thinking books (Visual Perception Skill Building Book 1). They are both really doing a good job of holding their pencils correctly these days. After the mazes, they wanted to color for a while so they colored with markers and crayons and also did a bit of cutting. As Nick was cutting, his scissors going open and close, open and close, his mouth was following along, open and close, open and close. It was so cute.
I started fixing lunch while they played with their toys again. While we were eating lunch, we read two of the devotions from their daily devotions book. Each one includes a devotion, a scripture and a prayer. It is a very sweet little book and the boys love it. I would like to get into a routine of doing our devotion at breakfast time. Hopefully I will get this going sometime soon.
After we ate, I cleaned the kitchen while the boys played with their matchbox-size cars and trucks on the back of the couch.
After I vacuumed the floor in the kitchen and surrounding areas, it was time to start putting away all of the toys so we could get ready for nap time. The boys did a great job of helping to pick up toys and put them away.
Now I am sitting in their room while they fall asleep. Nick has been asleep for a while and Ben is almost asleep. When they wake up, they will likely watch a 30 minute movie, have a snack and we will either read or play a game or they will possibly go outside to play if it is not raining.
Then it will be time for me to fix dinner. Tonight we are having soft tacos and tostados. These are very popular at our house so everyone is looking forward to dinner. The dad will arrive home around 6ish, he will quickly change clothes, look through the mail and play/talk with the boys a bit. I will finish up dinner and we will sit down to eat around 6:00pm.
Once we are done eating, we will all help to clear the table and I will load the dishwasher and finish cleaning up while the dad and the boys play or read together. When I am done cleaning up, I will likely go to my room for a short break and will probably read more about homeschooling options. (I am taking a look at Singapore Math and considering buying some of their books that are very popular and are going out of print soon.)
Soon it will be time to start getting the boys ready for bed (around 7:30 to 7:45 pm). They will pick out their pajamas and go to the bathroom and we will help change them. The dad will brush their teeth while I close the blinds and clean up a little. They will kiss and hug the dad goodnight, since tonight is my turn to put them to bed. We will go upstairs and they will each pick out a book to read. We will sit in the chair together and I will read the two books they picked out and then we will read two stories from their Bible. After that, we will say prayers, get a small sip of a drink and then go to the bathroom one last time before climbing into bed. I will give them each a big kiss and bear hug and then I will sit in the chair and read, while they start settling down and fall asleep. Around 9:00pm I will head back downstairs to get myself ready for bed.
So, that's pretty much it. That's what we are doing today at the Pisarik house, just in case you were wondering. Ben is asleep now so I am going to go downstairs and make a couple of phone calls. Hope you are having a great day.
We all got up right at 7:00am this morning, which is unusual. Ben usually sleeps 20 to 30 minutes longer than Nick. The first thing I did was to clean Nick's eyes and put drops in them, as he has that cold and eye infection that I had a couple of weeks ago...and the dad had it a couple of weeks before I had it. It is a tricky little infection. Just when you think it is gone, it rears it's ugly head again.
After taking care of Nick's eyes, I helped the boys get dressed. They can take off and put on their pants and underpants now but they sometimes need help with snapping their jeans and also taking on and off their shirts. Then we ate. Today we all had toast with cream cheese/butter and juice.
I cleaned up the kitchen while the boys played. Then I started looking at email but I overheard the boys talking about which is more 3 or 4 (they were debating how long the timer lasts, 3 or 4 minutes; we have two small 3-minute hour glasses that they to take turns when they are both wanting to play with something; we keep one in the living room and one in the library and we sometimes have to take one outside with us; the nice thing is they can do it by themselves, which eliminates a lot of arguments:) so I got the pegs and pegboard so we could play and learn about which is more/less for a while.
After that, I did a couple of chores (made beds, etc.) and they started playing with those little square blocks that have the letters on them.
And then, a little later, I overheard them talking about letters and letter sounds so I took the Phonics flash cards with me and went in to play with them again. We reviewed the 9 letter sounds that we have been learning and then went over 9 new letter sounds. Ben was doing so well with this that I got out the book to go over a little letter blending with him. Nick was not very interested. Ben is catching on to this pretty quickly. He was able to blend an, man, in, inn, lam very well and he was so happy about it. Nick wanted to try a little but mostly played while Ben and I worked on it. We did not do blending for very long before Ben had had enough too and wanted to read. I read four books to them and then it was time for snack.After snack they decided they wanted to "do school". So we sat at the table and they did some mazes from one of the Critical Thinking books (Visual Perception Skill Building Book 1). They are both really doing a good job of holding their pencils correctly these days. After the mazes, they wanted to color for a while so they colored with markers and crayons and also did a bit of cutting. As Nick was cutting, his scissors going open and close, open and close, his mouth was following along, open and close, open and close. It was so cute.
I started fixing lunch while they played with their toys again. While we were eating lunch, we read two of the devotions from their daily devotions book. Each one includes a devotion, a scripture and a prayer. It is a very sweet little book and the boys love it. I would like to get into a routine of doing our devotion at breakfast time. Hopefully I will get this going sometime soon.
After we ate, I cleaned the kitchen while the boys played with their matchbox-size cars and trucks on the back of the couch.
After I vacuumed the floor in the kitchen and surrounding areas, it was time to start putting away all of the toys so we could get ready for nap time. The boys did a great job of helping to pick up toys and put them away.Now I am sitting in their room while they fall asleep. Nick has been asleep for a while and Ben is almost asleep. When they wake up, they will likely watch a 30 minute movie, have a snack and we will either read or play a game or they will possibly go outside to play if it is not raining.
Then it will be time for me to fix dinner. Tonight we are having soft tacos and tostados. These are very popular at our house so everyone is looking forward to dinner. The dad will arrive home around 6ish, he will quickly change clothes, look through the mail and play/talk with the boys a bit. I will finish up dinner and we will sit down to eat around 6:00pm.
Once we are done eating, we will all help to clear the table and I will load the dishwasher and finish cleaning up while the dad and the boys play or read together. When I am done cleaning up, I will likely go to my room for a short break and will probably read more about homeschooling options. (I am taking a look at Singapore Math and considering buying some of their books that are very popular and are going out of print soon.)
Soon it will be time to start getting the boys ready for bed (around 7:30 to 7:45 pm). They will pick out their pajamas and go to the bathroom and we will help change them. The dad will brush their teeth while I close the blinds and clean up a little. They will kiss and hug the dad goodnight, since tonight is my turn to put them to bed. We will go upstairs and they will each pick out a book to read. We will sit in the chair together and I will read the two books they picked out and then we will read two stories from their Bible. After that, we will say prayers, get a small sip of a drink and then go to the bathroom one last time before climbing into bed. I will give them each a big kiss and bear hug and then I will sit in the chair and read, while they start settling down and fall asleep. Around 9:00pm I will head back downstairs to get myself ready for bed.
So, that's pretty much it. That's what we are doing today at the Pisarik house, just in case you were wondering. Ben is asleep now so I am going to go downstairs and make a couple of phone calls. Hope you are having a great day.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
April 12, 2009
I tend to write about things of which I have taken pictures but I have not uploaded the pictures to my laptop yet so the pictures come later. This is another one of those. Pictures to catch up with the posts and a few fresh ones from this morning.
I think it was Thursday that we had a play-in-the-sink day. The boys had a blast. We normally save that activity for when our babysitter comes but it has been so long that I decided to surprise them with a special event.
Nick making bubbles with soap in a sponge.
Ben thought that looked like fun so he did it too.
And here is the behind-the-scenes picture, so you can see how we keep the water from getting all over the floor. Actually, they both do a pretty good job of keeping it in the sink these days. I have heard the boys say 'actually' at the start of a sentence a few times lately. Very cute. The other day, one of them said about the dad "he's a really nice fellow", or something close to that.
And here is Nick, pretending to be the leader of the band, as he also plays the cymbals. Don't you just love his band leader's hat?
Here is a picture of the very old barn that I mentioned in the last post. The back half of the shorter building in the forefront was where my grandfather used to milk cows. I'm not sure what he used the front half of the building for back then. When I was little, they stored saddles and feed in there. The taller portion of the barn, just behind the building in the forefront is where the haylofts are and, just behind that, the shorter part is where my grandfather used to store things like his lawn mower and a bunch of other stuff.
This is the inside, where grandpa used to milk the cows. There would be feed in the long trough with the slatted boards just in front of it. The cows would stick their head between the slats to get the feed and someone would move the slat into a position where the cow could not pull her head back out. Then they did the milking by hand. I think that little ditch that runs across the room was just below where the back end of the cow would be, so they could just hose the cow poop down the ditch and out the back door when they were finished. Aren't you glad I included that bit:).
This picture shows the ladder going up the wall where we used to climb up on top of the hay. That little door next to the ladder would be block completely by hay so the only way in was up. We had so much fun climbing around on the hay back then.
Here is the old potato cellar (on the left) and the old tool shed (on the right). Grandpa was forever going in and out of the tool shed, when he was working around the farm. The old house used to sit just in front of these two buildings. Us kids spent many hours playing around the house, playing hide-n-seek, climbing the trees, trying to tame the wild kittens and just running around after grandpa. I wish I had a picture of the old house. I will have to go through all of my old pictures and see if I can find one to scan in and keep. The front room of the old house was once a little cabin all by itself and it had been added to over the years.
This is the house that my grandparents built before they tore down their old house. They used to enjoy sitting in that blue two-seater slider swing thing and watch the great grandkids play in the yard.
And, last but not least, here are a couple of pics from this morning.
"I found one!"
Checking out the stickers in my egg.
We like Easter candy!
Happy Easter!!
I think it was Thursday that we had a play-in-the-sink day. The boys had a blast. We normally save that activity for when our babysitter comes but it has been so long that I decided to surprise them with a special event.
Nick making bubbles with soap in a sponge.
Ben thought that looked like fun so he did it too.
And here is the behind-the-scenes picture, so you can see how we keep the water from getting all over the floor. Actually, they both do a pretty good job of keeping it in the sink these days. I have heard the boys say 'actually' at the start of a sentence a few times lately. Very cute. The other day, one of them said about the dad "he's a really nice fellow", or something close to that.
And here is Nick, pretending to be the leader of the band, as he also plays the cymbals. Don't you just love his band leader's hat?
Here is a picture of the very old barn that I mentioned in the last post. The back half of the shorter building in the forefront was where my grandfather used to milk cows. I'm not sure what he used the front half of the building for back then. When I was little, they stored saddles and feed in there. The taller portion of the barn, just behind the building in the forefront is where the haylofts are and, just behind that, the shorter part is where my grandfather used to store things like his lawn mower and a bunch of other stuff.
This is the inside, where grandpa used to milk the cows. There would be feed in the long trough with the slatted boards just in front of it. The cows would stick their head between the slats to get the feed and someone would move the slat into a position where the cow could not pull her head back out. Then they did the milking by hand. I think that little ditch that runs across the room was just below where the back end of the cow would be, so they could just hose the cow poop down the ditch and out the back door when they were finished. Aren't you glad I included that bit:).
This picture shows the ladder going up the wall where we used to climb up on top of the hay. That little door next to the ladder would be block completely by hay so the only way in was up. We had so much fun climbing around on the hay back then.
Here is the old potato cellar (on the left) and the old tool shed (on the right). Grandpa was forever going in and out of the tool shed, when he was working around the farm. The old house used to sit just in front of these two buildings. Us kids spent many hours playing around the house, playing hide-n-seek, climbing the trees, trying to tame the wild kittens and just running around after grandpa. I wish I had a picture of the old house. I will have to go through all of my old pictures and see if I can find one to scan in and keep. The front room of the old house was once a little cabin all by itself and it had been added to over the years.
This is the house that my grandparents built before they tore down their old house. They used to enjoy sitting in that blue two-seater slider swing thing and watch the great grandkids play in the yard.
And, last but not least, here are a couple of pics from this morning. "I found one!"
Checking out the stickers in my egg.
We like Easter candy!
Happy Easter!!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
April 11, 2009 Part 2
Today and yesterday were chalk full of busy-ness for us. Yesterday we took a drive up to see my family. First we went to my sister's house and saw her, my mom and my niece and nephew. The boys had a fun time and we all had lunch together. After that, we drove around the area where they live for a while looking at the various neighborhoods. N fell asleep for a little while and B sang songs.
After our drive, we went to my dad's house. Actually, first we went to my grandmother's house because I wanted to take some pictures of the old barn where my cousins and siblings and I used to play on rainy days when we were kids. It is a very old, rickety barn now and looks as if it could fall apart at any minute. That's why I wanted to get pictures of it before it falls down or someone knocks it down. My husband told me to be careful because he was afraid it might fall in on me.
A very long time ago, my grandfather used to milk cows in that barn. It has a couple of very tall rooms that they used as hay lofts and that's primarily where we played, climbing over the hay. Back then, those rooms seemed soooo big. Yesterday they seemed rather small but still very tall.
I also took a couple of pictures of the old tool shed and the potato cellar. The entrance to the cellar was once inside of a large screened-in back porch, which was attached to a very old house, and the tool shed was just behind the porch. The house and porch have now been torn down and I never got any pictures of it before that happened. It was a very old house that had a lot of great memories in it. A new house was built near by and it is not so new anymore. I took pictures of it too, just to have them. It was the first time I had been over there since my grandmother passed away a while back.
I saw a lady at Sam's Club earlier this week who looked so much like my grandmother. It made me long for my grandmother so much and also remember such sweet things about her. Brought a few tears to my eyes, then, and again now. Oh how I miss her.
Anyway, sorry for the side track. After the picture taking, we went to my dad's house and visited with Papa and Mimi for a while. One of my brothers came by and brought us a power washer that we wanted to borrow. Then we headed back home and got home just in time for dinner.
Today I went to the used home school curriculum store and looked around a bit at a couple of things I have been considering for future use. Later in the day, we all went to the store and bought two sets of training wheels and two helmets for the boys. When we got home, the dad put the training wheels on the bikes while I put some chicken and squash on the grill. After we ate, we colored some eggs. It was the first time we have done this with the boys and I would say it was not a stellar event. We were out of vinegar so we used the method which does pastel colors and it did not work as well as I would have liked. But the boys had fun and we can let them put on the stickers tomorrow. We will hide Easter eggs tomorrow after nap, although we will likely have to do it indoors as it is suppose to rain.
The boys are asleep now, earlier than normal. They took a shorter than normal nap today because the power washer woke up Nicl, who then woke up Ben. I have to go do some ironing for church tomorrow:).
Happy Easter!
After our drive, we went to my dad's house. Actually, first we went to my grandmother's house because I wanted to take some pictures of the old barn where my cousins and siblings and I used to play on rainy days when we were kids. It is a very old, rickety barn now and looks as if it could fall apart at any minute. That's why I wanted to get pictures of it before it falls down or someone knocks it down. My husband told me to be careful because he was afraid it might fall in on me.
A very long time ago, my grandfather used to milk cows in that barn. It has a couple of very tall rooms that they used as hay lofts and that's primarily where we played, climbing over the hay. Back then, those rooms seemed soooo big. Yesterday they seemed rather small but still very tall.
I also took a couple of pictures of the old tool shed and the potato cellar. The entrance to the cellar was once inside of a large screened-in back porch, which was attached to a very old house, and the tool shed was just behind the porch. The house and porch have now been torn down and I never got any pictures of it before that happened. It was a very old house that had a lot of great memories in it. A new house was built near by and it is not so new anymore. I took pictures of it too, just to have them. It was the first time I had been over there since my grandmother passed away a while back.
I saw a lady at Sam's Club earlier this week who looked so much like my grandmother. It made me long for my grandmother so much and also remember such sweet things about her. Brought a few tears to my eyes, then, and again now. Oh how I miss her.
Anyway, sorry for the side track. After the picture taking, we went to my dad's house and visited with Papa and Mimi for a while. One of my brothers came by and brought us a power washer that we wanted to borrow. Then we headed back home and got home just in time for dinner.
Today I went to the used home school curriculum store and looked around a bit at a couple of things I have been considering for future use. Later in the day, we all went to the store and bought two sets of training wheels and two helmets for the boys. When we got home, the dad put the training wheels on the bikes while I put some chicken and squash on the grill. After we ate, we colored some eggs. It was the first time we have done this with the boys and I would say it was not a stellar event. We were out of vinegar so we used the method which does pastel colors and it did not work as well as I would have liked. But the boys had fun and we can let them put on the stickers tomorrow. We will hide Easter eggs tomorrow after nap, although we will likely have to do it indoors as it is suppose to rain.
The boys are asleep now, earlier than normal. They took a shorter than normal nap today because the power washer woke up Nicl, who then woke up Ben. I have to go do some ironing for church tomorrow:).
Happy Easter!
April 11, 2009
I promised pictures of my little project of recovering the little stools, so here they are:
Here is one of the stools with the old fabric. I had already cut it loose so the fabric looks looser than it did normally. I wish I knew how old these little stools are. They have to be at least 45 years old or more, possibly even 50.
This is the layer of material under the fabric. Each can has been individually covered with this material and then one piece was fitted over the top. (I didn't do this part. It was already there.) It is holding all of the cans together.
Here is what it looks like underneath.
This is the new fabric I am using to recover them. I used wax paper to trace the top of the stool and then cut out a pattern.
I used a straight piece of fabric for the sides, hemmed it and then sewed it by hand to the top piece.
Then I used the same kind of thick thread that had been previously used to hold the fabric in place. Here is a picture of the underneath again.
I have one finished and the other one just started. I have cut out the fabric and now need to start sewing again. I know if I had a sewing machine and knew what I was doing this would take about 5 minutes. It takes a bit longer by hand:). I do end up with a nice feeling of accomplishment though. Oh what a change has taken place in my life. This project is oh so different than the kind of projects I did when I was working outside the home:). (I have still never missed my old job though!)
Here is one of the stools with the old fabric. I had already cut it loose so the fabric looks looser than it did normally. I wish I knew how old these little stools are. They have to be at least 45 years old or more, possibly even 50.
This is the layer of material under the fabric. Each can has been individually covered with this material and then one piece was fitted over the top. (I didn't do this part. It was already there.) It is holding all of the cans together.
Here is what it looks like underneath.
This is the new fabric I am using to recover them. I used wax paper to trace the top of the stool and then cut out a pattern.
I used a straight piece of fabric for the sides, hemmed it and then sewed it by hand to the top piece.
Then I used the same kind of thick thread that had been previously used to hold the fabric in place. Here is a picture of the underneath again.
I have one finished and the other one just started. I have cut out the fabric and now need to start sewing again. I know if I had a sewing machine and knew what I was doing this would take about 5 minutes. It takes a bit longer by hand:). I do end up with a nice feeling of accomplishment though. Oh what a change has taken place in my life. This project is oh so different than the kind of projects I did when I was working outside the home:). (I have still never missed my old job though!)
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
April 8, 2009
Nick: "Mommy, do you like my camp fire? I build it myself."
There is a road on the other side of the fence behind our house. There is a little hole in the fence. Every time a loud vehicle drives by, Nick makes a wild dash to the fence to peek through the little hole and see what it is.
Both boys are enjoying the beautiful sunny day, driving their little cars around and parking them, pretending to go somewhere and come back, getting out and pretending to go in to a store. They have vivid imagination these days.
Nick still sings all the time. At church Bible study, one of the ladies says one of the boys was sitting by himself, while others played, with a book in his hands, singing his little heart out. I'm sure it was Nick. He sings constantly. More often than not, he can think of a song to sing and he sings many different songs that we listen to while driving the car. If he can't think of one, or if he just feels like it, he makes one up. In this case, the words may not be understandable.
He was singing "I've got peace like a river", while they were banging on the pots and pans, which was anything but peaceful. I'm sure it was music to our Lord's ears though.
Ben is having a "ta daaaa" moment, as he finishes up a special piece:).
They both talk about Jesus and God a lot. Ben just ran in to the garage where I am sitting, singing 'and the rains came down and the floods came up' over and over again.
Everything is in bloom here now. The trees are getting their leaves, the Japanese Maple trees are a beautiful, deep red. The dogwood is striking against the large trees hugging in around them. The red bud trees, which are really purple (still can't figure this one out; whoever named them must have been color blind), are still in bloom, although some are starting to turn green. The forsythia has already bloomed and is quickly turning green. My azealas are just getting ready to bloom. They are covered with buds that are so very close to bursting open; a few around the bottom have already bloomed. I have pointed out all of the beautiful blooming bushes and trees to the boys so much that they are now pointing them out to me.
Now Nick is making letters with sticks. He is good at H and A:). Now both boys are making various shapes out of sticks on the garage floor. I asked Nick what he was making and he said "Jesus". Hmmmm. What an imagination. We are all happy to be outside today. I think...I really think that THIS time, the cold is finally over and we will have warmer weather going forward. We'll see but I am going to put the coats away again and hope for the best.
The boys are still taking naps these days, although now, they are consistently napping in big boy underwear. They have been doing this for at least a week or maybe two now and neither of them have had an accident yet. They will still wait too long to run to the bathroom at times, especially Nick, and end up making a mess, but this is happening less and less frequently as the days go by. Overall, they are really doing terrific. They only wear pull ups at night time now. Ben is waking up with a dry pull up most of the time and Nick does at times also, so we are almost there.
Here is Ben eating a slice of apple into the shape of an animal.
Here it is. I think he said it was a dog. Not bad eh?
Nicl is very proud of himself because he spread the cream cheese on his toast all by himself. He did a pretty good job for an almost 3.5 year old.
And here is Ben in action, spreading the cream cheese on his toast. They are both doing very well with this and they also spread peanut butter on crackers for snack sometimes.
I feel like my little boys are becoming big boys so quickly that I don't even recognize or know them at times. I can't keep up. They are changing so quickly. They can do so much for themselves these days and they are such big helpers.
There is a road on the other side of the fence behind our house. There is a little hole in the fence. Every time a loud vehicle drives by, Nick makes a wild dash to the fence to peek through the little hole and see what it is.
Both boys are enjoying the beautiful sunny day, driving their little cars around and parking them, pretending to go somewhere and come back, getting out and pretending to go in to a store. They have vivid imagination these days.
Nick still sings all the time. At church Bible study, one of the ladies says one of the boys was sitting by himself, while others played, with a book in his hands, singing his little heart out. I'm sure it was Nick. He sings constantly. More often than not, he can think of a song to sing and he sings many different songs that we listen to while driving the car. If he can't think of one, or if he just feels like it, he makes one up. In this case, the words may not be understandable.
He was singing "I've got peace like a river", while they were banging on the pots and pans, which was anything but peaceful. I'm sure it was music to our Lord's ears though.
Ben is having a "ta daaaa" moment, as he finishes up a special piece:).
They both talk about Jesus and God a lot. Ben just ran in to the garage where I am sitting, singing 'and the rains came down and the floods came up' over and over again.
Everything is in bloom here now. The trees are getting their leaves, the Japanese Maple trees are a beautiful, deep red. The dogwood is striking against the large trees hugging in around them. The red bud trees, which are really purple (still can't figure this one out; whoever named them must have been color blind), are still in bloom, although some are starting to turn green. The forsythia has already bloomed and is quickly turning green. My azealas are just getting ready to bloom. They are covered with buds that are so very close to bursting open; a few around the bottom have already bloomed. I have pointed out all of the beautiful blooming bushes and trees to the boys so much that they are now pointing them out to me.
Now Nick is making letters with sticks. He is good at H and A:). Now both boys are making various shapes out of sticks on the garage floor. I asked Nick what he was making and he said "Jesus". Hmmmm. What an imagination. We are all happy to be outside today. I think...I really think that THIS time, the cold is finally over and we will have warmer weather going forward. We'll see but I am going to put the coats away again and hope for the best.
The boys are still taking naps these days, although now, they are consistently napping in big boy underwear. They have been doing this for at least a week or maybe two now and neither of them have had an accident yet. They will still wait too long to run to the bathroom at times, especially Nick, and end up making a mess, but this is happening less and less frequently as the days go by. Overall, they are really doing terrific. They only wear pull ups at night time now. Ben is waking up with a dry pull up most of the time and Nick does at times also, so we are almost there.
Here is Ben eating a slice of apple into the shape of an animal.
Here it is. I think he said it was a dog. Not bad eh?
Nicl is very proud of himself because he spread the cream cheese on his toast all by himself. He did a pretty good job for an almost 3.5 year old.
And here is Ben in action, spreading the cream cheese on his toast. They are both doing very well with this and they also spread peanut butter on crackers for snack sometimes.
I feel like my little boys are becoming big boys so quickly that I don't even recognize or know them at times. I can't keep up. They are changing so quickly. They can do so much for themselves these days and they are such big helpers.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
April 4, 2009
Well, with spring comes all of the garage sales again:). We have been wanting to get the boys a small bike so last night I looked on Craig's List and found one that was in a garage sale today for $15. The lady held it for us and we went to get it this morning. It is a bit bigger than I had intended but I think it will do. Then, on our way home, we stopped by another place and found one exactly like I had in mind, a bit smaller than the first, for $12 and it was in perfect condition (the first one had couple of small torn places on the seat but was otherwise fine). So two little boy bikes for $27 and no tax. Not bad;). I love to get a great deal.
The wind is really crazy here today. When we were on our way back home, I said to the husband that I have a very low tolerance for wind. He said "I noticed". Part of the problem was that I was not dressed warmly enough. It looks like it would be very warm outside and it is really not too bad but, with the wind, I could have used a heavier jacket.
In other news, potty training is going great. Yesterday the boys even wore their big-boy underwear when they took their nap and they both stayed dry. I think we have only had one accident in three or four days now. I am hopeful that the current package of pull ups will be our last ones to purchase. Regardless, we are definitely going through them very very slowly these days, which is great.
Well, I don't really have much to say today. Isn't that a surprise. We are just hanging out. The dad is doing some touch up painting around the house. I have been working on some of my little projects. I finished erasing the pencil marks in two maze books that the boys really enjoyed and I thought they could do again. I also finished sewing a new cover for one of two little stools. I think I mentioned this once before. They are made out of tall cans and one of my great aunt's made them back when my brothers were just little tykes. All the kids have used them so much that they are looking pretty ratty and the material that covers them is falling apart. I will post some before and after pictures soon. I still have to recover the second one.
The other thing we did this week is the boys and I had a fun day with papier mache. I cut some shapes out of a cardboard box (square, circle, star, rectangle, triangle) and I also made a ball and a giraffe. It was the first time I have ever done this and I really enjoyed it. The boys had fun too, although I ended up finishing some of what they started, which is to be expected for 3 year olds. We have not painted them yet but we will have a fun day of painting sometime soon.
That's it. Not much other news. Hope you are having a fun Saturday. I will post pics soon.
The wind is really crazy here today. When we were on our way back home, I said to the husband that I have a very low tolerance for wind. He said "I noticed". Part of the problem was that I was not dressed warmly enough. It looks like it would be very warm outside and it is really not too bad but, with the wind, I could have used a heavier jacket.
In other news, potty training is going great. Yesterday the boys even wore their big-boy underwear when they took their nap and they both stayed dry. I think we have only had one accident in three or four days now. I am hopeful that the current package of pull ups will be our last ones to purchase. Regardless, we are definitely going through them very very slowly these days, which is great.
Well, I don't really have much to say today. Isn't that a surprise. We are just hanging out. The dad is doing some touch up painting around the house. I have been working on some of my little projects. I finished erasing the pencil marks in two maze books that the boys really enjoyed and I thought they could do again. I also finished sewing a new cover for one of two little stools. I think I mentioned this once before. They are made out of tall cans and one of my great aunt's made them back when my brothers were just little tykes. All the kids have used them so much that they are looking pretty ratty and the material that covers them is falling apart. I will post some before and after pictures soon. I still have to recover the second one.
The other thing we did this week is the boys and I had a fun day with papier mache. I cut some shapes out of a cardboard box (square, circle, star, rectangle, triangle) and I also made a ball and a giraffe. It was the first time I have ever done this and I really enjoyed it. The boys had fun too, although I ended up finishing some of what they started, which is to be expected for 3 year olds. We have not painted them yet but we will have a fun day of painting sometime soon.
That's it. Not much other news. Hope you are having a fun Saturday. I will post pics soon.
Monday, March 30, 2009
March 30, 2009
I was in the bathroom with Nick today and was telling him what a big boy he was for going to the potty and pulling up his pants by himself. He said "When I get bigger, I wear your underwear." I explained to him that boys and girls wear different kinds of underwear and that he would wear underwear like daddy when he got bigger.
Why is it that so many of the funny things they say are said in the bathroom?
One of their funny things to say now is "that's very terrible"...although it comes out like "that's berry terrble", or something like that. It is very cute and always brings a smile to my face. They come up with the funniest things these days.
I have been researching homeschooling curriculum again. I enjoy reading about the different programs. I think I already said this once before:). Today I got the boys the first book in the Getting Ready to Explode the Code (or something like that) series. Nick woke up from nap first and immediately wanted to do some of it. I am going to control how much of it they do at a time so they will always finish when they are still wanting to do more. I want to keep it very positive.
I also found a very cute book with black and white pictures of little kids (drawn) doing motions to memorize scripture verses. I am going to start doing this with the boys so we can memorize some scriptures together. I think they will really enjoy it.
Yesterday I found the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, which I had been meaning to pick up for a while as I had heard it is great for learning phonics. They wanted to watch it for their 30 minutes of TV time both yesterday and today. When they finished today, I started asking them what the various letters "say" (A says ahh) and, between the two of them, they knew every letter in the alphabet, although I didn't do Q. They need more reinforcement and we will continue to play the 'word game' (what letter does the word _____ start with). They really like to play that. We'll just keep playing games and having fun for now. They are not quite ready to start blending yet.
Hmmm, I was going to write something else about the boys but now I can't remember what it was:). I hate when that happens.
So, all of our snow is gone and we actually had to use our air conditioner in the house this afternoon, believe it or not. It was sunny and warm here today and our house does not have any windows that open on the first floor.
Isn't that funny? Yesterday morning we had so much snow they cancelled church. By the end of the day, it was almost all gone and it continued to melt all night, since the low was in the 40's. Today was in the 60's but very windy. We had a nice long weekend, since the dad was off work today, since we were planning to be in K.C. this weekend. Saturday the weather was so bad that we had to stay home and we stayed home part of Sunday too. It was actually very nice because we had some very nice family time together. It is not often that we all spend an entire day here together, just hanging out, playing, reading, eating, sleeping together. It was nice. Tomorrow we join the world again and everything goes back to normal:).
Time to get the boys ready for bed. We are going to try to put them down early so we can watch a movie we rented. I say try because it seems that no matter what time we put them to bed, they don't fall asleep until around 9:00, give or take 10 minutes. Nick almost always falls asleep 10 to 30 minutes before Ben but Ben does not fall asleep until around 9:00ish. We'll see if we gain any time by putting them down early.
Hope you had a nice weekend.
Why is it that so many of the funny things they say are said in the bathroom?
One of their funny things to say now is "that's very terrible"...although it comes out like "that's berry terrble", or something like that. It is very cute and always brings a smile to my face. They come up with the funniest things these days.
I have been researching homeschooling curriculum again. I enjoy reading about the different programs. I think I already said this once before:). Today I got the boys the first book in the Getting Ready to Explode the Code (or something like that) series. Nick woke up from nap first and immediately wanted to do some of it. I am going to control how much of it they do at a time so they will always finish when they are still wanting to do more. I want to keep it very positive.
I also found a very cute book with black and white pictures of little kids (drawn) doing motions to memorize scripture verses. I am going to start doing this with the boys so we can memorize some scriptures together. I think they will really enjoy it.
Yesterday I found the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, which I had been meaning to pick up for a while as I had heard it is great for learning phonics. They wanted to watch it for their 30 minutes of TV time both yesterday and today. When they finished today, I started asking them what the various letters "say" (A says ahh) and, between the two of them, they knew every letter in the alphabet, although I didn't do Q. They need more reinforcement and we will continue to play the 'word game' (what letter does the word _____ start with). They really like to play that. We'll just keep playing games and having fun for now. They are not quite ready to start blending yet.
Hmmm, I was going to write something else about the boys but now I can't remember what it was:). I hate when that happens.
So, all of our snow is gone and we actually had to use our air conditioner in the house this afternoon, believe it or not. It was sunny and warm here today and our house does not have any windows that open on the first floor.
Isn't that funny? Yesterday morning we had so much snow they cancelled church. By the end of the day, it was almost all gone and it continued to melt all night, since the low was in the 40's. Today was in the 60's but very windy. We had a nice long weekend, since the dad was off work today, since we were planning to be in K.C. this weekend. Saturday the weather was so bad that we had to stay home and we stayed home part of Sunday too. It was actually very nice because we had some very nice family time together. It is not often that we all spend an entire day here together, just hanging out, playing, reading, eating, sleeping together. It was nice. Tomorrow we join the world again and everything goes back to normal:).
Time to get the boys ready for bed. We are going to try to put them down early so we can watch a movie we rented. I say try because it seems that no matter what time we put them to bed, they don't fall asleep until around 9:00, give or take 10 minutes. Nick almost always falls asleep 10 to 30 minutes before Ben but Ben does not fall asleep until around 9:00ish. We'll see if we gain any time by putting them down early.
Hope you had a nice weekend.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
March 28, 2009
So, we did not end up going to Kansas City after all. Instead, we are having a snow storm. Yeah!! Actually, I could have done without it but the boys are really enjoying it and it is our first real snow this year and the first time the boys (or actually the dad:) got to build a snow man. The picture above was taken well before the snow was finished. We must have 6 inches at least by now.
(Yep, that's a cowboy hat on our snow man. I couldn't find anything else:).When it first started it was half rain and half snow. I went outside and tried to cover up all of my azaleas with tarps and I put trash bags over the crape myrtles. The azaleas already have buds all over them and one or two have already bloomed. They are ready to bloom any day now. The crape myrtles are already starting to get some small leaves or buds that are getting ready to be leaves. I hope I saved them but we'll see. It is suppose to get down in the 20's tonight and then tomorrow it will be in the mid to high 50's. The rest of the week, it will be even warmer. So the snow will not be around for long. After it had snowed for a while, I went out again and knocked the snow off of our two pretty Japanese Maple trees. This is the smaller one in the picture below.
The husband had to do it again later or they definitely would have lost branches to the weight of the snow. It s a very wet, heavy snow and everything was very wet to begin with. Since these trees already have their leaves, they become weighed down very quickly. They are so beautiful right now. I hope they will make it OK. I was able to cover all of the azaleas except two so we will see how well the ones that are covered do compared to those that are not.I am feeling a bit better today but I seem to still feel much worse in the evenings. Hopefully this evening will be better. I definitely slept better last night. The good news is that, so far, nobody else has caught it.
Here are some additional pics:
The dad, reading to Ben, while wearing 'the beard' although not quite right. The book is about the beard and how it jumps around from person to person. It is quite funny.
Ben reading a book to Nick. It is cute to hear him 'read'. He remembers much of the book and he has fun talking through it.
The dad playing Candyland with the boys.
The dad was in his office this morning reading a book when he was joined by the boys and their book:).
I think this was last weekend. The boys were painting these little cars they got for Christmas in their stockings.
Here are some other things we did recently when we were 'doing school'.The boys glued the lower part of the faces/beaks on the animals here.
And on these, they glued on the nose, mouth, eyes, etc.
Once again, I have started reviewing home school materials, trying to decide what to do and when to do it. I enjoy looking at all of the packages and tools out there. There are so many and they look like so much fun. It is hard to choose between them though. It actually works out well that we did not go to KC this weekend because we are now planning to go in April and it just so happens it is the same time as their home school convention:). So I will get to go to that again this year, which will be fun.
It is almost 2:00pm and it is still snowing. It started around 8:00 or 8:30 this morning. The flakes are smaller now though so I think it is starting to let up a bit. It is really a beautiful winter wonderland but I am thankful that tomorrow it will all disappear very quickly. Hope you are having a good weekend.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
March 26, 2009
I have a bad cold and don't feel much like doing anything.....although mom's don't get sick days so the bed is made, the kid's are dressed and fed and the laundry is underway.
My mom, sister and niece came for a visit on Tuesday and spent the night with us. The boys had a great time playing with my sister. She loves to play with them and keeps them very busy. They left yesterday around 2:00ish. It was good timing as they kept the boys busy while I was able to take it easy a bit and nurse my cold.
We are suppose to be going to Kansas City soon. I hope I am over this cold by then.
The boys are climbing on their jungle gym more and more these days. They are really starting to enjoy it now. Right now they are sitting in a chair together looking at books. They have been busy playing with their cars, trucks and parking garage this morning. I can definitely tell they are starting to stick with something longer and longer these days. They are talking up a storm and say so many funny, cute things that I can no longer keep up with them.
We are still on the no pull ups unless they are napping or at night time thing and it is going very well. I'm so glad that I finally did this. Nick has asked to wear a pull up several times and has shown some resistance at times but he is really doing very well with potty training and has had very few accidents. He went three days in a row without any accidents but I think he may have had one accident on the 4th day, in the afternoon. It was a day with no nap so that probably didn't help because he gets very tired. Ben puzzles me because I have seen him go many days in a row without an accident in the past but he has been having more than I expected. They are both at a point where they are dry when they wake up from nap but I still use the pull ups just in case. They are more often than not wet in the mornings still.
Not much other news. This cold is making me very tired as I am not sleeping well at night. I hope to see big improvements by tomorrow.
My mom, sister and niece came for a visit on Tuesday and spent the night with us. The boys had a great time playing with my sister. She loves to play with them and keeps them very busy. They left yesterday around 2:00ish. It was good timing as they kept the boys busy while I was able to take it easy a bit and nurse my cold.
We are suppose to be going to Kansas City soon. I hope I am over this cold by then.
The boys are climbing on their jungle gym more and more these days. They are really starting to enjoy it now. Right now they are sitting in a chair together looking at books. They have been busy playing with their cars, trucks and parking garage this morning. I can definitely tell they are starting to stick with something longer and longer these days. They are talking up a storm and say so many funny, cute things that I can no longer keep up with them.
We are still on the no pull ups unless they are napping or at night time thing and it is going very well. I'm so glad that I finally did this. Nick has asked to wear a pull up several times and has shown some resistance at times but he is really doing very well with potty training and has had very few accidents. He went three days in a row without any accidents but I think he may have had one accident on the 4th day, in the afternoon. It was a day with no nap so that probably didn't help because he gets very tired. Ben puzzles me because I have seen him go many days in a row without an accident in the past but he has been having more than I expected. They are both at a point where they are dry when they wake up from nap but I still use the pull ups just in case. They are more often than not wet in the mornings still.
Not much other news. This cold is making me very tired as I am not sleeping well at night. I hope to see big improvements by tomorrow.
Monday, March 23, 2009
March 23, 2009
Spring is here and so the rains are beginning. So far today it has just been very windy and cloudy but we are suppose to get quite a bit of rain this afternoon, tomorrow morning and then again later in the week.
We had a great weekend. I had some time to go by myself and run some errands. The boys got to spend a lot of time with daddy, which they were really craving. The dad got to work out and do the things that he likes to do on the weekends. The boys spent some time with mommy and we did a bunch of painting and cutting and pasting. They had these little wooden cars they had received in their stockings and they were ready to be painted but we had never done that so I let them paint their cars. They had a lot of fun with it. (More pics coming:). And we all went to church and out to eat on Sunday. So all is back to normal in our world, at least until the dad has to do hospital duty again in May.
It was such a warm, pretty day here yesterday afternoon that the dad decided to go for a bicycle ride. As soon as the boys heard where he was going, they both wanted to go too. He had taken them once before and rented one of those little kid-hauling trailers that goes behind the bike. He is such a great dad. He helped them get ready real quick, put some sun screen on them and off they all went. I enjoyed my quiet time while they were gone:).
When they came back, both boys came running in to my room to see me. They were both quite happy and said they had had fun, when I asked them. A bit later the dad came into the room with a not-so-happy face and said "The next time I say I'm going to take them with me, please talk me out of that idea." After taking the time to load up his bike and go over to the rental shop, rent the trailer and get it all hooked up, they only rode for about 5 minutes before both of them were saying they wanted to go home. The thing that really bothered him was that he really wanted to get some exercise and did not get to after all. Oh well, they will enjoy it a lot more once they have their own bikes to ride. We are hoping to find them each a bike either at a garage sale or on Craig's list sometime this spring.
This morning after breakfast, I read to the boys for a while and then we played a couple of games. They love to play "Mother may I":). They have been very interested in letters lately and in guessing with what letter a word starts so I decided to go over letter sounds with them. We had not done this in quite a long time so I was not sure how they would do. I have these flash cards that came with this Phonics program I purchased at the home school conference in Kansas City last year. So I got them out and we went through them all and they did really well. I was impressed with how well they did and how many sounds they can make very well now. They still have trouble pronouncing a few, like the letter f for instance, but I think they know the sound they just don't have all of the muscles in their tongue yet. Overall they did very well.
Yesterday we decided to forgo naps after church. We went to a huge nursery instead to buy a replacement for a bush in our yard that died. When we got home, we spent the rest of the afternoon outdoors playing and doing yard work. It was very warm out but also very windy. It is incredibly windy here this time of year. I don't remember that from my childhood. When we put the boys to bed last night, they were WIRED. It was the dad's turn and he had a bit of a time getting them to settle down.
Today at lunch the boys did a great job cleaning up after themselves. I was still eating, since I started later. They both cleared their plates, dumped uneaten bits in the trash and loaded their plates and forks in the dishwasher. They have been clearing their dishes for a while but today was the first day I had them dump the debris in the trash and put their dishes in the dishwasher. They are learning to be very good helpers.
I bought a book at my favorite used bookstore this weekend. It is by Larry Burkett and it is about raising financially responsible children. I can't remember the exact name yet but it looks like it is going to be a very good book. He lays out a really great plan for teaching your kids about money....what God says about money, making good family rules about money and lots of other things. And, you can start as early as three years old so I bought it at the perfect time. I am sure I will also learn a lot from this process:).
Today we are doing nap again. I have noticed in the past that when the boys missed their nap, they were sometimes extra tired the next day. So I am thinking maybe I should ease into giving up naps by doing every other day. Not sure but I have a dr. appt. this afternoon and wanted them to be in a good mood for it. So they are taking a nap today but not sure what I will do tomorrow.
I have such mixed feelings about the nap thing. On the one hand, I am thinking this is the perfect time because I want them to be able to spend lots of time playing outside this summer. On the other hand, I really enjoy the break:). What mom doesn't, right? I need to figure out a plan for teaching them how to have a quiet time without it seeming like some sort of punishment. I'm thinking that if we gave up naps but had a one hour quiet time, that would still give me a break. I'm just not sure how to have them do that. They can't do it in their room because they share a room, it is upstairs away from everything and it only has some stuff animals and books in it and nothing else. If I put them in here by themselves, they will go wild, running and jumping around. So I need to keep them downstairs, separated and where I can see them and I need to give them things to do. That is about as far as I have gotten so far.
We had a great weekend. I had some time to go by myself and run some errands. The boys got to spend a lot of time with daddy, which they were really craving. The dad got to work out and do the things that he likes to do on the weekends. The boys spent some time with mommy and we did a bunch of painting and cutting and pasting. They had these little wooden cars they had received in their stockings and they were ready to be painted but we had never done that so I let them paint their cars. They had a lot of fun with it. (More pics coming:). And we all went to church and out to eat on Sunday. So all is back to normal in our world, at least until the dad has to do hospital duty again in May.
It was such a warm, pretty day here yesterday afternoon that the dad decided to go for a bicycle ride. As soon as the boys heard where he was going, they both wanted to go too. He had taken them once before and rented one of those little kid-hauling trailers that goes behind the bike. He is such a great dad. He helped them get ready real quick, put some sun screen on them and off they all went. I enjoyed my quiet time while they were gone:).
When they came back, both boys came running in to my room to see me. They were both quite happy and said they had had fun, when I asked them. A bit later the dad came into the room with a not-so-happy face and said "The next time I say I'm going to take them with me, please talk me out of that idea." After taking the time to load up his bike and go over to the rental shop, rent the trailer and get it all hooked up, they only rode for about 5 minutes before both of them were saying they wanted to go home. The thing that really bothered him was that he really wanted to get some exercise and did not get to after all. Oh well, they will enjoy it a lot more once they have their own bikes to ride. We are hoping to find them each a bike either at a garage sale or on Craig's list sometime this spring.
This morning after breakfast, I read to the boys for a while and then we played a couple of games. They love to play "Mother may I":). They have been very interested in letters lately and in guessing with what letter a word starts so I decided to go over letter sounds with them. We had not done this in quite a long time so I was not sure how they would do. I have these flash cards that came with this Phonics program I purchased at the home school conference in Kansas City last year. So I got them out and we went through them all and they did really well. I was impressed with how well they did and how many sounds they can make very well now. They still have trouble pronouncing a few, like the letter f for instance, but I think they know the sound they just don't have all of the muscles in their tongue yet. Overall they did very well.
Yesterday we decided to forgo naps after church. We went to a huge nursery instead to buy a replacement for a bush in our yard that died. When we got home, we spent the rest of the afternoon outdoors playing and doing yard work. It was very warm out but also very windy. It is incredibly windy here this time of year. I don't remember that from my childhood. When we put the boys to bed last night, they were WIRED. It was the dad's turn and he had a bit of a time getting them to settle down.
Today at lunch the boys did a great job cleaning up after themselves. I was still eating, since I started later. They both cleared their plates, dumped uneaten bits in the trash and loaded their plates and forks in the dishwasher. They have been clearing their dishes for a while but today was the first day I had them dump the debris in the trash and put their dishes in the dishwasher. They are learning to be very good helpers.
I bought a book at my favorite used bookstore this weekend. It is by Larry Burkett and it is about raising financially responsible children. I can't remember the exact name yet but it looks like it is going to be a very good book. He lays out a really great plan for teaching your kids about money....what God says about money, making good family rules about money and lots of other things. And, you can start as early as three years old so I bought it at the perfect time. I am sure I will also learn a lot from this process:).
Today we are doing nap again. I have noticed in the past that when the boys missed their nap, they were sometimes extra tired the next day. So I am thinking maybe I should ease into giving up naps by doing every other day. Not sure but I have a dr. appt. this afternoon and wanted them to be in a good mood for it. So they are taking a nap today but not sure what I will do tomorrow.
I have such mixed feelings about the nap thing. On the one hand, I am thinking this is the perfect time because I want them to be able to spend lots of time playing outside this summer. On the other hand, I really enjoy the break:). What mom doesn't, right? I need to figure out a plan for teaching them how to have a quiet time without it seeming like some sort of punishment. I'm thinking that if we gave up naps but had a one hour quiet time, that would still give me a break. I'm just not sure how to have them do that. They can't do it in their room because they share a room, it is upstairs away from everything and it only has some stuff animals and books in it and nothing else. If I put them in here by themselves, they will go wild, running and jumping around. So I need to keep them downstairs, separated and where I can see them and I need to give them things to do. That is about as far as I have gotten so far.
Friday, March 20, 2009
March 20, 2009
This is a picture I took last Friday when our friends were here for a play date. Something big was driving by and the boys were excited to watch.
Resident tricycle mechanics.
Resident cookie makers and eaters.
We had play date today at our friend's house. We all had a fun time and all of the boys got along well. The boys were still wearing their big boy pants full time (except for sleep time) and Nick went all day today without one accident for the first time ever. Ben had two accidents which really surprised me. Yesterday both boys had one accident each. We will keep this up and hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will see most accidents disappearing. The good thing is that all accidents are pee accidents. The boys are responsible for removing their soiled clothing and putting it in the laundry room. I help them clean up a bit and then they get dressed. They are pretty good at it. Our struggle is still with wanting to take the time away from playing to go potty. One day at a time:).
The dad was home at a very reasonable hour and both the mom and the dad were very happy that the weekend is now here. The boys will be very happy about it tomorrow morning when they wake up to find the dad at home. We are looking forward to having a normal weekend. I really don't know how families do it when one parent has to travel a lot.
Resident tricycle mechanics.
Resident cookie makers and eaters.
We had play date today at our friend's house. We all had a fun time and all of the boys got along well. The boys were still wearing their big boy pants full time (except for sleep time) and Nick went all day today without one accident for the first time ever. Ben had two accidents which really surprised me. Yesterday both boys had one accident each. We will keep this up and hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will see most accidents disappearing. The good thing is that all accidents are pee accidents. The boys are responsible for removing their soiled clothing and putting it in the laundry room. I help them clean up a bit and then they get dressed. They are pretty good at it. Our struggle is still with wanting to take the time away from playing to go potty. One day at a time:).
The dad was home at a very reasonable hour and both the mom and the dad were very happy that the weekend is now here. The boys will be very happy about it tomorrow morning when they wake up to find the dad at home. We are looking forward to having a normal weekend. I really don't know how families do it when one parent has to travel a lot.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
March 19, 2008
We are having a gloomy, chilly day here today but we were ready for it. Much to everyone's delight, we made cookies. Yum! The boys enjoyed helping and I did very well with their help most of the time but after a while, I was ready to finish up on my own:). We all enjoyed nice hot cookies, straight from the oven though.
They (doctors) say that sugar does not affect the way children behave but I beg to differ. Nick most especially is sometimes very impacted by sweets. I was a little late in getting the boys to nap and they are really having a hard time getting to sleep. Nick has not been able to calm himself or be still since he had his cookies.
Potty training is going very well. Yesterday Nick had only one accident all day and Ben had none. Today Nick has not had any and Ben has had one. Ben is a bit of a difficult one to read sometimes. I know all kids have accidents but this little boy seems to have great control and then, when he does have an accident, he sometimes tells me with a big grin on his face, as if he is happy about it...which leads me to believe it really was not an accident after all. There have been times when he had an accident and was upset about it and I knew, without a doubt, that it was indeed an accident.
The boys have both really missed their daddy over the past two weeks of him having to work so many hours. This morning when Nick came downstairs, he look at me with sleepy eyes and said "where's daddy?". I told him that daddy was at work and he immediately started crying and said he didn't want daddy to be at work anymore. I am thankful that tomorrow is Friday and then we will have a normal weekend where they will get to spend lots of time with daddy.
We had another first yesterday: Our first GRASS STAINS! Nick came in with grass stains on his jeans after playing in the yard. I saw them when I was helping him get ready for bed and I just smiled a big smile. There is just something all American about a little boy getting grass stains on the knees of his jeans.
I am working on taking more pics and will post some soon:).
Between yesterday and today, I have been asked three times if the boys have started school or are getting ready to or something along those lines. I guess their little back packs make people think they are going to school or something because that's when it started. I find it interesting that pretty much all kids go to preschool these days. I didn't even go to Kindergarten and I think I came out OK:). As for the boys, I think they are pretty much on target for their ages. I think their main focus right now should be playing and pretending. We have educational toys for them too so they learn about letters, numbers, shapes and stuff like that while playing. They can almost count to 20, although they still seem to miss 15 and sometimes maybe 16 too. They can count items up to at least 14. They know the alphabet and have really become interested in what letter words begin with. Ben usually instigates this game but they both enjoy sounding out the first letter of a word and trying to figure out what letter it starts with. Ben is very good at it already. They know the basic shapes and colors. We have not worked on our "school work" in a while though. We have done more cutting and pasting lately than anything else and just lots of reading books.
We'll keep doing what we are doing and, at some point, we will start being a bit more formal about it but not yet. Not sure when we will start that but definitely not yet. It will either be in the fall or maybe the next fall. Age-wise, we don't have to start anything formal for a while yet though so we will enjoy our freedom while it lasts. I especially enjoy the days when we have nothing planned and we can just do whatever we feel like doing, like today:).
They (doctors) say that sugar does not affect the way children behave but I beg to differ. Nick most especially is sometimes very impacted by sweets. I was a little late in getting the boys to nap and they are really having a hard time getting to sleep. Nick has not been able to calm himself or be still since he had his cookies.
Potty training is going very well. Yesterday Nick had only one accident all day and Ben had none. Today Nick has not had any and Ben has had one. Ben is a bit of a difficult one to read sometimes. I know all kids have accidents but this little boy seems to have great control and then, when he does have an accident, he sometimes tells me with a big grin on his face, as if he is happy about it...which leads me to believe it really was not an accident after all. There have been times when he had an accident and was upset about it and I knew, without a doubt, that it was indeed an accident.
The boys have both really missed their daddy over the past two weeks of him having to work so many hours. This morning when Nick came downstairs, he look at me with sleepy eyes and said "where's daddy?". I told him that daddy was at work and he immediately started crying and said he didn't want daddy to be at work anymore. I am thankful that tomorrow is Friday and then we will have a normal weekend where they will get to spend lots of time with daddy.
We had another first yesterday: Our first GRASS STAINS! Nick came in with grass stains on his jeans after playing in the yard. I saw them when I was helping him get ready for bed and I just smiled a big smile. There is just something all American about a little boy getting grass stains on the knees of his jeans.
I am working on taking more pics and will post some soon:).
Between yesterday and today, I have been asked three times if the boys have started school or are getting ready to or something along those lines. I guess their little back packs make people think they are going to school or something because that's when it started. I find it interesting that pretty much all kids go to preschool these days. I didn't even go to Kindergarten and I think I came out OK:). As for the boys, I think they are pretty much on target for their ages. I think their main focus right now should be playing and pretending. We have educational toys for them too so they learn about letters, numbers, shapes and stuff like that while playing. They can almost count to 20, although they still seem to miss 15 and sometimes maybe 16 too. They can count items up to at least 14. They know the alphabet and have really become interested in what letter words begin with. Ben usually instigates this game but they both enjoy sounding out the first letter of a word and trying to figure out what letter it starts with. Ben is very good at it already. They know the basic shapes and colors. We have not worked on our "school work" in a while though. We have done more cutting and pasting lately than anything else and just lots of reading books.
We'll keep doing what we are doing and, at some point, we will start being a bit more formal about it but not yet. Not sure when we will start that but definitely not yet. It will either be in the fall or maybe the next fall. Age-wise, we don't have to start anything formal for a while yet though so we will enjoy our freedom while it lasts. I especially enjoy the days when we have nothing planned and we can just do whatever we feel like doing, like today:).
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
March 18, 2009 Part 2
I'm sitting outside, enjoying the beautiful weather we are having. The boys are playing in their sandbox. This is the first time they have really stayed in there and played nicely together for a long period of time this spring, but then again, this is the first time I have sat out here with them, which they like.
Nick informed me he is making cookies (in the sandbox). He has cookies on his mind because we were going to make them before lunch but discovered we did not have one of the ingredients. He was disappointed but we will make them later.
A little time has gone by and I have made a trip into the house to retrieve requested measuring cups and spoons for the sandbox cooks. A little later, they are both loudly singing Happy Birthday. I'm sure they have prepared a beautiful birthday cake for some blessed person.
And now, Ben has poured a large bucket of sand over Nick's head and is having to spend a short stint in time out. He is insisting "I going to be nice now" and I am sure he will, once he can be quiet and "nice" long enough to get out of time out.
Nick is still cooking...or something.
They are so funny and they are such good kids.
Nick informed me he is making cookies (in the sandbox). He has cookies on his mind because we were going to make them before lunch but discovered we did not have one of the ingredients. He was disappointed but we will make them later.
A little time has gone by and I have made a trip into the house to retrieve requested measuring cups and spoons for the sandbox cooks. A little later, they are both loudly singing Happy Birthday. I'm sure they have prepared a beautiful birthday cake for some blessed person.
And now, Ben has poured a large bucket of sand over Nick's head and is having to spend a short stint in time out. He is insisting "I going to be nice now" and I am sure he will, once he can be quiet and "nice" long enough to get out of time out.
Nick is still cooking...or something.
They are so funny and they are such good kids.
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