December 8, 2008

Lots of stuff going on around here. The other night, I accidentally super glued two of my fingers together. I think that was the craziest thing I have ever done. It took me a while to get them apart and it really hurt. Don't try this at home folks. It was not fun.

The other crazy thing I did the other day was, I was cleaning up the kitchen, wiping down counters and the table. The boys and I had eaten some Christmas cookies at the kitchen island and some of the little sprinkles were there so I picked them up and ate them. Yummy;). Then I went over to the table and started cleaning up there. I saw what looked like a sprinkle and, without thinking about it, picked it up and put it in my mouth. I forgot that the boys had been playing with play dough at the table, not eating cookies. Yuck! It was quite a yucky surprise.

I ordered a series of workbooks from Kumon recently and we started using them today. We have the cutting, folding, stickers and pasting, coloring, mazes and tracing books. I think that's all of them. The boys really enjoyed it. When we finished and we were eating lunch, Ben told me that he wanted to "do school more often". We have been spending more time sitting at the table "doing school" lately, at their request. I basically leave it up to them to lead it and we quit or change what we are doing when they want to, for the most part. We spent 2 straight hours in the morning on "school" a couple of days recently and they just keep asking for more.

I am using these new Kumon books to work on having them listen to and follow directions. I am also using these books ("our special books") to persuade Nick to try and hold his pencil a little better. Today he did very well. I only make him try on two of the books, when we are using pencils to do mazes and tracing. If he doesn't want to try, he can color or cut and paste or whatever using other books that we have but he can't do the Kumon mazes and tracing books unless he tries to hold his pencil correctly. As I said, today was our first day and they were very excited about these books. They are very fun books so he was quite motivated to try. Both boys did a great job at all of the things we did today and we all had fun.

I still would like to put together some type of schedule for us to follow but I have not gotten around to it yet:). I am normally not a New Year's resolution type person but this year I think I will have some new goals for the new year. One of them is to start working out again and lose some weight (as a friend of mine said recently about herself, I am quite the chunky monkey these days and I'm not liking it one little bit). Another one is to have a schedule for us to follow and, most importantly have a time set aside every day for quiet time with God. I have been flying by the seat of my pants for too long now and I think the boys are old enough to slide in to the right schedule easily enough.

Tonight we have the Christmas party for my husband's office. It is a family Christmas party and it is always very nice. We have to get there a bit early because we will be caroling with a group of folks, as everyone enters the party. We did that two years ago (before we had kids!) and it was fun. Last year the party was cancelled because of snow and ice, or something like that. I am really looking forward to this tonight and I love that they include the whole family. They have a kids room with toys and they serve a dinner buffet and some of the wives bring the desserts. I am bringing brownies (yeah, I know, very exciting, but that's all I had time for) but I think they might be over cooked. They were not done before I got into the shower so I set them for 10 more minutes and asked the husband to take them out when the timer went off. When I got out of the shower, he told me that he did the toothpick test and they had to cook for another 25 minutes before they were done, according to his toothpick test (he even started to explain the toothpick test to me; what a funny man:). So, I am pretty sure they are way over done, since he cooked them about 30 minutes longer than the directions indicated. I know our oven tends to cook a bit slower than most directions call for but I think that is stretching it a bit:). Oh well, it is what it is but I think I will tell everyone that he cooked the brownies:). (just kidding).

We also have a dental appointment tomorrow for dental cleanings for both boys. Later this week we have a follow up visit with the heart specialist for B's heart condition. I can't remember the name for this but he has a small hole in his heart. We had it checked when he first came home and they said it may heal itself but, even if it doesn't, he should not require surgery. But they also wanted us to come back for a follow up. And then next week, we have a follow up visit for the scar on B's face.  It will be interesting to see what the surgeon thinks of it. I hope they do not recommend doing it again. I can't imagine putting him through that again and, also, the scar gets a tad bit bigger each time. So, I am hoping the surgeon will say it will continue to look better and better over time.

Well, I must get up and get moving. I have some ironing to do before we go to the Christmas party. Merry Christmas!