July 22, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 6, 2011

We got our new kitten over the weekend and she is very tiny and so adorable. She is currently living in the dad's office, as she is too small and young to let roam. When I have taken her out of his office she very cautiously went a few steps down the hallway and then quickly ran back to her room. This is actually working out very well because our 14 year old male cat, Dancer, needs some time to get used to her. He is slowly but surely adjusting, or so it seems. He is certainly progressing nicely but the question is whether he will ever get to the point where he accepts her. Eventually we'll see but, for now, they live in separate worlds, although they can see each other through the french doors into his office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 28, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 16, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, time for dinner. Have a nice evening.

May 31, 2011

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

Isn't that a pity?

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

May 30, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 16, 2011

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

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

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

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

Here she is, caught in the act:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 13, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 7, 2011

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

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

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

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

May 6, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 4, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 24, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 12, 2011

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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



The following three pics are from the master bath.

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


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

March 26, 2011

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

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

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

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

I had mentioned in the past that our new neighborhood has lots of boys. They were having spring break last week and we saw that some of the neighbor boys just behind us had put up tents so they could camp out in their backyard. The next day when I was at the house I notice one of the windows in the back of the house had a b-b-hole in it. The b-b broke through the outer pane of glass and hit the inner pane, cracking it, and it was laying inside of the window between the panes of glass. Our builder said he would talk to one of their parents to alert them to the b-b-gun activity.  The neighbors behind us and their sons are very nice people though and boys will be boys:). I'm sure when the parents hear what happened they will discuss it with their sons and try to prevent it from happening again. I'm actually more concerned about one of my sons or pets being shot than I am about the house or windows.

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

March 15, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a few of the latest pictures:

March 4, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 13, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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