Home-centered

I have been very home-centered the last few days.

Thursday I completed my first project. Everything went really well until I realized that I had overlooked one minor thing on the first half, which had me going back and re-doing 3 hours of work. So I got it all done :) and sent in. Then I just wanted a break from the computer for a little while.

Since MB will be leaving on her two-week trip soon, I have narrowed her summer school work back to writing, phonics and math (money). She completes her sit down work in less than an hour and we spend the rest of the day, until 3:30 with her pursuing whatever interests her for the day. Lately it has been enjoying some of her Kindergarten CD-Rom games and magnet science. I am treating this like kind of her vacation because when she returns we will be starting our organized, approached purposeful homeschooling. I have a lot of organizing to finish up while she is gone.

Friday we completed schoolwork and the rest of the morning was spent in domestic education. I had MB work with me in giving the bathrooms a good cleaning, while also showing her how I expect them to be cleaned weekly. When she comes back, her newest chore will be to wipe down the girls' bathroom (clean sinks, counter, brush toilet, clean mirror, and sweep). She enjoyed it, but we will see when I start expecting in from her several times a week.

I was in the mode, so after the bathroom lesson was over I continued cleaning. All bedding got a wash and I attacked our disorganized kitchen. I also pulled back out of the garage an old desk we had and set up the laptop in the family room. This gets it off the kitchen table where I was working, while also keeping me in a place that I can keep an eye on the girls no matter where in the house they are. It is also available to MB to use if she needs it for her school work. The drawer space is going to be nice to have. I now have a drawer to store my work, and a drawer for MB's weekly school work.

Last night I was so tired that I crashed. I woke this morning feeling better than I have for several weeks. Today, DH had a golf date, so I took the girls grocery shopping, which I have been putting off, but we were out of way too many fresh things. I kept wanting to do something with potatoes and haven't had any.

I found through Candy a wonderful website about homeschooling with preschoolers, Preschoolers and Peace. Very useful read for me as I prepare to embark with a preschooler and crawler/toddler in tow.

Enjoy your weekend!

Peace,

Amy

{YAWN}

Warning - Boring Post Ahead!!

We are busy, but with nothing very interesting. School is finally becoming 'normal' for MB we have not had any moments over it recently. We also have finished up the Oregon Study. We still have a few books to read if we feel like it, but basically the study is over until MB leaves for her trip (in less than 2 weeks). As filler we are just picking up a few science books and projects until the trip. Reading books about puppies and dogs and going to visit the puppies across the street every couple of days. As of last night two had their eyes open!! They are so cute at this stage, you almost want to take all of them :)

Today MB 'caught' a new pet. She got one of the Katydids that is decimating our garden. She is keeping it in a glass jar and watching it eat. It is pretty neat watching those jaws work, and they can tear through some leaves. She is feeding it the broccoli leaves because those are pretty much a lost cause.

By the way, if anyone out there is having a little too much rain for their liking, you can send some of it this way. It is much to hot/humid and dry for my liking. Although last night we had a very neat lightning storm. The way the lightning was going off, it reminded me of the cheesy, fake lightning bits in movies.

Tonight we went to a swim party for church. It was a lot of fun, although I never did make it into the water. Hubby did the Daddy thing and took them all swimming, including little EM for a bit. I blew up one of those riding floats for K, which made her happy and freed up hubby's arms. I along with 5 other mothers sat on the deck chairs and read Harry Potter. They all had older children and told me that the only time they can read the book is when their kids are otherwise entertained. My only excuse is that mine just arrived today!!

I did take the job, and have started it. It is the perfect one for me. No phone calls, no set hours. Here is the work, wordprocess and return by a specified time/day. The guy told me today that there could be more down the road if I want it. So we will have to see, it would be nice to set some money away with all the birthdays we have in December. The only drawback is I have to watch my lazy time more and really try to concentrate on what I am doing the days I have work. It is an adjustment, but we made a household adjustment with homeschooling and we will make one for this too.

That is about it.

Peace,

Amy

Praying

I do not generally pray outloud. This isn't normally a big issue for me, as I feel very comfortable in my method(s) of prayer. There are so many ways that one can speak to our Lord, that I feel like everyone should find the way they feel most comfortable and do it. But leading a bible study one of my responsibilities is an opening and closing prayer. It is more uncomfortable to me than even getting up and leading the group, and that is outside of my comfort zone.

Praying for me is such and awesome thing. I always feel different when I go to prayer and the feelings and silent words tend to flow from me. So, when I have to pray outloud I become self-concious about it. I stumble over words and fall silent for periods of time so that I can find the words to explain my thoughts (so to speak). Last week when I did this I know that some people were a little taken aback with the shortness of the prayers, but I just couldn't do it, not in words.

I only voluntarily pray aloud when I pray over my girls. I didn't even used to do this, but started when MB asked how does one talk to God. I had always prayed over the girls from the first time they were placed in my arms, to praying for their safety as they slept peacefully in their cribs. But the only prayers MB had ever heard aloud were those that I had read from those wonderful poetry/prayer books. Those are beautiful, poetic prayers but they do not really teach a child how easy it is to just sit and talk to the Father. So I began praying over them aloud. Showing her how easy it was and how you don't always have to have the right words and that it is just like talking to her father and myself.

I pray a lot, sometimes catching myself almost doing it unconciously. But always silently. My favorite method of prayer is writing. I write in my journal almost every night. And most nights it is really a prayer concerning something that is going on in my life. It is the place where I can feel, more easily, the Holy Spirit moving in my life. I do a lot of freeflow writing there, and boy can things pop up out of that. Sometimes I ask questions and even get directions or answers or comfort back. Praying is comfortable for me, except when I have to do it front of people I only generally know.

So I am trying to figure out how to make the outloud prayer thing easier for me to do. And, easier for others to listen to.

Peace,

Amy

I've Been Quiet

There really has not been much to write about these past few days. We have stayed busy doing much of nothing. School with MB and K have continued going well. This morning MB even asked when we were going to start. K has been living in her princess dress recently and having tea parties. It has been very cute to watch her play.

MB's attitude has improved so much recently that it has been wonderful to watch. The arguing has not totally stopped, she doesn't do it nearly as often and when she does it doesn't last. She is helping me do just about everything and at this moment is making cheese sandwhiches for her and K.

The doctor was correct about EM's teeth. Last night she did not sleep well and keep wanting to chew on a teether. I expect we will see something in the next few days.

I rewrote the second week presentation for my Holy Spirit bible study, but then we ended up postponing it when most of the people who wanted to attend already had previous engagements. So we will continue that next week.

I guess the biggest news is that I have picked up a short-term work-at-home gig. When I left my job a couple years ago it was with the intention of working for my company part-time from home. But after nine months the market had not picked up enough and I was basically laid off. At that time I was pregnant with EM and not really interested in pursuing anything else. So we tightened our belts and focused on trying to make it on hubby's recently reduced salary.

We have done okay, but over the last few months it has become apparent that with gas prices and food prices steadily going up we were basically in reverse. So I have been looking and we began doing work on the house in case we did absolutely need to move.

I knew exactly what type of work I wanted to do and have been very picky in pursuing leads. This weekend I got a call back and after discussions with hubby and the company, I took the project. It should only last about a month to six weeks right now, with possibly more in the future. It is also something that I can do during nap times and free play time, and a little in the evening. Today I did the very first piece and it went very well. We still had time to do our school work and to get down and play.

The money is good enough that we should be able to pay off a few bills and start re-nesting our egg. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it continues to go well, as it is a decent opportunity.

Other than all that we have been trying to stay cool, watching the many birds and waiting for our copy of HP that we ordered on-line and will be delivered sometime this week. While I wait I am re-reading book 5. I am most excited about the book on CD that I ordered also (birthday present). I love the other two that I have on CD. Jim Daly does a very good job.

Peace,

Amy

A-Gas

I almost fell over today when I realized that we needed gas in the van. I am lucky that our van is pretty reasonable on gas mileage and that most of the places we need or want to go are within 5 miles of our house. I generally don't have to put gas in the van but every 2 1/2 weeks or so. This time I haven't had to put gas in my van for over a month because hubby did it for me last time.

$2.29/gallon!! The last time I filled up it was around $1.70. I know that in other areas of the country it is much worse, but :cough:cough: that was really, really hard to absorb. Now I know why we keep struggling month after month, even with hubby's overtime. All of his paycheck is going into his car.

I turned off the air conditioning and drove across town to my warehouse store, with the gas tank beeping at me the entire way, just so I could get gas for 10 cents cheaper. And we will be going out in the car even less for the foreseeable future, which means in the car-burbs where I live we will be staying home. At least until the temperature drops back to a comfortable range to walk in.

Peace,

Amy

Gratuitous Picture Post

Since I am a mother and believe that my girls are the cutiest things, I had to share these pictures.


The first is EM. We will soon be missing her toothless grin that we have fallen in love with over the past 7 months. I took her for her 6 mos visit (1 month late) and the doctor noticed that she has two teeth about ready to break through.



Here is K, she is going through a princess, dress-up kick right now.


And finally, a really good picture of all three girls. I haven't had one of these since EM was a month old.



Peace,

Amy

Oregon Trail Map

I wanted to share pictures from this weeks project for the Oregon Trail. We made a relief map of the western states using salt dough. Then MB painted the map showing the different habitats that the pioneers moved through. It turned out better than I imagined. We had a lot of fun reading about the trail itself while we worked on this project.

MB building the map



Painting the map



Finished map



The project was really very easy. I am so glad that I went ahead with it even though I had my doubts about how successful it would be.

Peace,

Amy

White Board

Christine at Routon Homeschool asked me about my white board and how we use it for organization. I have to begin by explaining that we do not tend to be organized, scheduled people here. We are very much spur-of-the-moment, how do we feel type of decision-makers about our days. I have tried various schedules and daily plans, yet they always seem to stress us out. So I have developed a plan around how things normally flow in the house, not planning how the household should flow. This works for us, but I am sure not for everyone.

I have one master cleaning schedule, very simple and broken up by days of the week.



I do try to sit down on Saturday and make up our weekly menu based on what we have in the pantry for the week and have some general idea of the weather for the coming week (this is to schedule what nights we might want to cook out or in the winter, what night would be good for a stew). I keep that list in a notebook. I generally go grocery shopping on Thursday morning and shop according to sales fliers, I have also found at the grocery store I go to, I can find meat marked down at this time.

The white board is our daily To Do list. At the top of it is the week's verse for the household. Then I list the day's schoolwork for MB. Then is my to do list, incorporating the daily cleaning schedule and whatever else I see that needs to be done. Then is our menu for the day. At the bottom is the running list of home projects that we are working on. Our board is fairly small, maybe 12"X24".

I use the whiteboard for 2 purposes. First it is a reminder, because I am incapable of walking from one room to another without forgetting where I am going and why I am there. Secondly it gives both MB and I a sense of accomplishment to see our list gradually marked off as we move through the day. I normally take a few minutes the night before to do the next day's board. It generally doesn't take me any more than 5 minutes.

The most important thing for me is to remember that if I don't get something done one day my world is not going to stop spinning. I just put it at the top of the list for the next day.

Peace,

Amy

Joining up

I admit, I am a lurker. Whether on-line or in real-life I tend to lurk around the edges. I am not a joiner. I am extremely shy and not very comfortable with my interpersonal communication to make sure that I don't break any etiquette rules. I don't lurk for any strange or negative reasons, just because I tend not to have anything to add.

I have, in general learned to live with this particular quirk. But, now I am homeschooling and I know it is becoming much more important that I reach out and contact others that maybe in the same position I am. In real life I have joined our local hs group to be able to participate in coops and playgroups, but as of yet have not made any real personal connections with anyone. Co-ops have come up that I thought would be interesting, but I am frozen when it comes to actually contacting the leader to sign up. This is not good for MB and K, but I just can't seem to gather up my courage to do it.

I also need to join the state organization so that I can receive my hs card, which will save me $$ on museums, activities and at stores in the area. But, I have not done it yet. This maybe more procrastination than being shy.

On-line, it is also a problem. I love to read through the WTM board, and have posted a couple of times, but I don't feel comfortable posting that much. Homeschoolers there have such wonderful insight and experience, that I learn a lot. I am kind of scared of being yelled off the board for doing something wrong. Instead, I read through, often finding others with similar experiences and then hunt up resources or books that are recommended to others. If I am faced with a problem I generally head off for research, rather than ask another person.

I also love to read blogs. I rarely comment. It never bothered me that I did that until I started my own blog and realized how strange it feels to watch the counter go up, yet never hear from someone else that is reading my thoughts. And, yet I still rarely comment because I feel like my comments come out making me seem like a total turd.

Anyway I need to start joining-up and coming out in the open. It is no longer just me, but now it is my own children's education that is affected. I hereby make a committment to join the state homeschool group by the end of the week. I will also comment on at least 2 blogs a day. So watch out someone may get a run-by Hi! soon. The connections I make could be wonderful.

And, as far as WTM board, well I think I will just keep reading for now. Some of those homeschoolers are tuff :)

Peace,

Amy

Marking Things Off

In an attempt to regain a better grip on our daily life, I have re-inacted my cleaning schedule and have put the whiteboard back to its original use. At the end of today I was able to step back and feel very good about the day because everything had a mark through it!!

MB is continuing with her willingness to do her schoolwork while I continue to try to understand her learning style and incorporate that into our day. It has been difficult picking up on her learning style as, like most things with her, it flitters around so much.

Today I was not expecting things to go very well as it is the first day of school for year-round children that she plays with. I was really expecting some type of discussion, foot-stomping reaction from her over this. But, she seems resigned to homeschooling for right now. She even went so far as to mention to her friends this afternoon her trip to Oregon that she will be taking while they are in school. This would have been her first day of school, probably (or within the next few weeks) if we had sent her to school. I like the year-round idea better than traditional for organized group education.

Our homeschool today, was very close to my imagination, barring the whole we would sit cuddled up together reading wonderful stories that would perk imaginations (I am learning that this will never happen with my two active learners). I spent time last night and developed our week's goals and lesson plans. I also pulled together all the materials we would need so that everything was ready to go this morning. When MB and K woke up the list for the school day was up on the board. This allowed me to move so much more smoothly from one activity to another, while also allowing me to quickly assess and determine if we were done for the day an the girls could go on to their 'elective' activities.

K's elective was to actually play some of our computer games. She is amazing with what she can do by herself on the computer at almost three. She mostly played the Dora Animal Adventures game, playing pieces of it that I have never seen MB do, and doing them correctly and appropriately. She even had MB asking her how she did something.

While K contented herself with the desktop computer I ended up setting the laptop up in the office also for MB to use. She switched back and forth between DK Amazing Animals CD-ROM and playing spider solitare (counts as math and critical thinking).

After computer time we made a "telephone" out of old icing containers and some string. MB had been wanting to do this for awhile, since she saw it in one of those How things work books. I actually never made one of these as a child and had some doubts about it actually working. But, MB found the containers and the string and asked to make it. It actually works!! MB and K had great fun talking to each other via the 'phone.' I had a lot of laughs watching them figure out when the container needed to be at their mouth or ear.

It was a nice day, one that we only had a few glitches in attitudes. And I guess for right now as we continue to work on some of those we will have them. And to be really honest I expect that since they are human creatures, I will always experience some attitude problems from time to time. But it was one of those days that when we came back from running a couple quick errands I asked myself why I don't take them out more, but then I had flashbacks and received my answer for the time being.

MB actually prayed aloud tonight, totally voluntarily. This is big as she has always refused to pray aloud, chosing instead to have me continue to pray over her then joining me for The Lord's Prayer. But tonight she started the prayer for us with her thanksgivings for the day!!

It seems I have many thanksgivings to go give for the day also.

Peace,

Amy

Saturday Rambling

I will say that I was correct that the peace, tranquility and productiveness of my household would change. But it didn't go too badly downhill. My body hit the tired part of my cycle and I just did not have the energy to invest in being involved the 95% of the time that such days require. I needed some down time.

I also finally ordered and received Creative Homeschooling:A Resource Guide for Smart Families and wanted to dig into it. So like Kim described in a recent post, I spent my time reading trying to figure out what to do, instead of jumping into the midst of the kiddos. The book did help me in thinking through how I might be able to use various approaches better considering MB's learning style(s).

Here is the main issue for me - I love the material listed/covered in a Classical Approach and I really like the four year rotation of history/science/literature. I think it is a wonderful approach and would really give the type of education I want for my children. But right now in MB's development I am not sure that she could handle a classical, rote learning style. She balks at too much 'teaching' and is very much I want to figure it out on my own type of gal. I think unit studies where I can guide, and we can stay on a topic for longer to let her "experience" it would be a better fit for where she is developmentally now. So I believe that I am going to try to combine the two and see how it works.

The Oregon Trail study we have been doing is going really, really well. We do not necessarily do something on the trail each day, but see how it flows. I have been able to do a lot of craft type things with this study.We do one thing each week, for example this week we are going to talk in more detail about the route of the trail. I have a chapter from a book that is written for 5th graders I am going to read. The chapter discusses the various routes in detail and talks about why some chose the various routes, all while using language that I am sure MB will be able to comprehend. Then we are going to map the trail on a blank map of the US. Then using salt dough, we are going to build a relief map of the trail and paint it. All while talking about differences in the vegetation along the trail and new animals the settlers would have seen on the trail.

It sounds very ambitious, but I have tried to take the things she enjoys and incoperate it into the plan. MB loves maps, so she will enjoy coloring in maps. She loves playdough and sculpting things, so with a lot of guidence (the relief map is just as much a project for me as for her) we can make the 3-D map. Painting is a highlight of her week. And anything about wildlife is enjoyed.

Next week we will talk about family life on the trail, and I have a couple of Oregon Trail cookbooks I plan on using and we will be doing some cooking for that week. I also hope to have the shawl finished for MB.

So why am I doing an Oregon Trail study with a 5 1/2 yr old? She is going to Oregon with my mother to visit my sister and neice. While she is out there they are taking her to the Oregon Trail Interactive Museum, and I want her to know what the Oregon Trail was, where it was and to have some sense of how difficult it was (because I am sure that it will be pointed out at the museum). More or less I want her to have a sense of the trail, not necessarily the details of it. Otherwise the museum visit would mean little or nothing to her.

Tomorrow evening I have the first installment of the Holy Spirit study I am presenting at church. This is the first time I have ever been in a 'teacher' type role at church and am nervous about it. Mainly because I just become nervous when I am in front of a group of people. This is going to run for the next three Sunday evenings and we are going to be examining the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and New Testament. It is not anything in-depth, but more of to give more of a background or reference for the Holy Spirit when it comes up in other situations. Basically that the Holy Spirit is more than the bearer of spiritual gifts.

Have a great Sunday all.

Peace,

Amy

Experiencing a miracle

Today MB and I were able to experience a natural miracle. We were able to watch our neighbor's golden retriever give birth to nine beautiful puppies, one of which my husband has decided that we need. Before the birth the neighbors had already offered a puppy to us for free. The great thing is that our neighbor is a vet tech and was able to teach both MB and I while she helped out her dog. It only took 3 hours for the entire litter - pretty quick according to the neighbor.

Here is mama waiting on numbers 5 -9.


Very fun and interesting!!

A little picture of the magical moving baby. The most I have ever still seen her actually do is roll from her back to her stomach. Nothing else - yet we are aware that she transports herself from one place to another. Here is something new:



I had placed her on the sheet to go find a few of her toys to play with, when I came back she had managed to roll herself up like a mummy. I just thought it was too cute.

Peace,

Amy

Awesome Days

Warning - Gloat Post

A good fairy must have waved her wand over my house this weekend. I have been walking around wondering if I am even in the right house. The girls are getting along resonably well, and are not even trying to push my buttons for the last two days. MB has been willing and cooperative in helping me do the chores and K is not screaming "No" at me when I ask her to do something, instead is replying in this too cute little voice "No, thank you." She has even started putting her pants back on by herself when finished with the potty. Which is big as she would rather run around bare.

MB is continuing with the self-led kick, and I am just sitting back and enjoying it right now. We started off the day today with toe nail painting while listening to the phonics cd. Then the two big girls pulled out every wooden puzzle we own and actually took turns doing the puzzles. My heart twittered watching MB help K with them.

Then MB came to me and asked me what her school work was today, and I had planned nothing since I have been enjoying her play so much, so I gave her the assignment to copy the memory verse for the week. I am working with her on writing in lower case letters since preschools only seem to teach upper case. She pleasantly wrote the verse and then recited it for me. While MB was doing that K was in the bedroom listening to a story from her LeapPad.

When MB was done she went back to the bedroom to play with K. Together they built a huge train track around their room and down the hallway. They continued playing like that for most of the morning.

After lunch MB and K began to play pirate, making a huge treasure map using the brown paper inside gift wrap rolls. Which led them to playing outside for awhile.

During rest time MB came to me with the "Dressie Bessie" that K had been given and she wante me to help her tie the shoe. After a few demonstrations, MB then told me to go away while she did it. Shortly there after I heard her yell for me. She was jumping up and down celebrating, she had done it. For the next hour she ran arounf the house trying to find all the tie-up shoes she could to practice on, which are not many this time of year.

The other exciting thing, for me, is that MB is doing her nightly reading again. On her own, after our conversation last week about when she would read she picked back up the pre-primers (from the 1950's). She has already read through the first two and is working on the third. It is like she never even stopped reading for a month or so. She doesn't drag out every single word in the sounding out stage, instead she is taking her time and trying to figure out the word before she says it, using the picture clues and just all in all having a much better and positive performance. I don't know what to do next because all I have are the pre-primers and up till now the readers from the library have been overwhelming to her. I guess I shouldn't worry about it, as MB has been pretty good at telling me what I need to know recently.

I just had the share how much fun and how exciting it has been recently. Of course I am putting this down in words it will change, but hopefully I can hang on to this memory when things start getting tough again.

Peace,

Amy

A Flower, a book about flowers, and other really uninteresting things

I will start off with a picture of a glad that bloomed today. I think it is one of the prettiest of the 5 I have gotten this out of how many bulbs. I ran out to take the picture right before we had a thunderstorm, not knowing how well it would survive.



Last night MB and I finished reading The Secret Garden. She made me read all of the last three chapters last night because she had to find out what happened when his father came home. I was really surprised how much MB got into this book. I started reaing this book when I was young no less than 3 times and never really could get into it. But it is totally different reading it out loud and answering the questions MB had. This was a Children's Illustrated Classic, so it was abridged and it had pictures on every other page. A very enjoyable read for all of us.

I don't know what we will begin reading tonight, yet. It is a toss up between Ramona the Pest, The Wizard of Oz, and Treasure Island. Since Ramona the Pest is actually a library book I will probably push for us to read that one. My mom is planning to take MB to the Beverly Cleary landmarks around Portland while they are out there next month, so I thought MB would enjoy hearing at least one of her books. At one point in my life I had all of the Ramona books, and I imagined myself as a 1980's Ramona. I guess my mom sent those books out to my neice, because I have not been able to find any of them in my storage boxes.

DH finished the shower last night, it looks great and I can't wait to try it out. We have to wait a few more days for it to finish 'curing.'

School today has been child-led, and adult hindered. Today was errand and chore day. MB and I started off the day curled up watching the Tour de France together and talking about the scenery. Then she found a cooking show and dug into that, asking me about all types of meat and about the fresh meat market the chef was shopping at. Then it was magnets, I had to pull down the magnet box and she happily played with that for awhile so I coul start chores.

Then I dragged her away from this spontaneous learning so I could got to the bank and go buy us some food. After we returned I had to clean the frig and then re-portion the food and put it away before it warmed up too much, I almost laughed when I found myself saying, "I can't teach you that right now, go play." So much of the time I feel like I am pushing and pulling, then on days like this she just goes.

She has invented her own game for learning sight words. We take the sight word cards then she stands at some starting point on our vinyl tiles, or brick tiles outside an for each word she knows she can move forward. I added that when she misses a word she has to spell it before we move on to the next word. She has enjoyed playing it so much that she has asked for it every day this weekend.

Better go, the natives are getting restless.

Peace,

Amy

Starting to see a trend

Wait seven years, then try to get it all done in a few months. I wonder if my husband is pg, because he sure is nesting a lot lately. I bet these last two sentences are very, very confusing...

I am talking about all the home improvments that we knew we needed to do 7 years ago, but have just started on recently and everything seems to be such a rush. Two weeks ago we painted the house (had it painted I should say), last weekend hubby decided that it was a good day to lay our new vinyl floors, and this weekend: my new shower.

The shower in the master bath had this horrible wallboard that was desinigrating off the wall. It was NASTY. He has spent today tiling the shower. He will not be done until tomorrow, but it looks wonderful. We have been truly blessed in that by using 6" square tiles, we will only have to actually cut the tiles around the shower hardware. We have not had to make any cuts on the wall to fit :)

Picture of the shower so far - one more wall to go.



This is wonderful hubby, sweating to death in the totally airless room that is our master bath and doing a wonderful job.



Next week I will lay the new vinyl floor in the bathroom, and then we will be on to our kitchen.

The kitchen will take more time and scheduling. My dad has to come up and disconnect our drop-in stove and put in an outlet. Buy a new stove and have it here when my dad comes up. Then have contractors come to measure our countertop, order countertop, wait on countertop. Once the countertop is installed then paint. Not a weekend job...

And all of this is just so we could put the house on the market if we find something we really like. Of course by the time we are done (1) I am going to like the house too much to want to move (gas prices, who cares about gas prices) and (2) we will be too broke to move (what do you mean the only house we can afford looks just like ours before we spent all that money to fix it up).

Peace,

Amy

Up way too late

I am up way too late tonight. I pulled out my knitting this afternoon and evening when I unexpetedly found myself at home with just EM. DH had a 4th of July picnic this afternoon/evening at a coworkers house, and by the time he was back from doing some other work and ready to go I had a pounding headache and really did not feel like going anywhere and being nice to 50 people I don't know, while at the same time trying to keep K from drowning. So the honey-that-he-is offered to take K and MB by himself and let me just stay home with EM. Truthfully MB and I needed the time apart today as I did not feel well and she woke up alternating between whining and hyperactivity over the party.

Anyway, with the house quiet I decided to pull back out my knitting bag that I had put away about 7 months ago when EM was born. I put it away mainly because K could not keep her hands off the yarn while I was trying to knit (kind of like a little kitten jumping at the moving string). My hands are so out of practice, especially considering that I had never reached any sort of proficiency with it prior. So now my ring finger on my left hand is killing me. That is the finger that the arthritis has decided to settle in for me and boy is it screaming tonight.

I am making a shoulder shawl for MB to use with her dress up stuff. She wanted a prairie costume with a bonnet, but I am just not that talented. So she will have to make do with a shawl over one of her own dresses. I am using some really soft purple acrylic for the shawl, that way it will be washable. If it doesn't come out looking like a total disaster I will post, but don't hold thy breath as my knitting bag has been known to be put away suddenly for long periods of time.

By the way if anyone is reading my blog using Internet Explorer, please let me know if you are noticing any problems with reading the entries, like cutting off suddenly and refusing to scroll down. I have tried to fix it and it looks okay to me, but I never know.

Have a blessed Sunday,

Amy

The breeze is blowing and it only feels about 90

I am relaxing on my deck as I write this, watching the flame of the bug candle dance in the breeze. It is a comfortable 90 degrees, compared to the 100 (had to be) earlier today. Yes, it is July.

For days I have been writing little posts in my head as I walk around the house. But have been so caught up in the day-to-day stuff have not had a moment to sit down and unload. The week has been very nice. We have been busy, but it has been a good type of busy. We are finding a rhythm again to our homeschooling, one that has been missing with MB going out of town so much. My attempts to make things fun and hands-on have been met, well not exactly joy but at least not with groans and arguments.

I believe I am finding my way through the whole phonics thing. After torturing both MB and I with the various sit-down programs such as 100 Easy Lessons and then just throwing aside phonics for awhile, I have finally found something that seems to work for us. Since sitting still and listening closely frustrate MB's learning style, I decided that I would be sneaky and play some phonics music CDs in the background. She caught on to the sneakiness almost immediately, "This could help me learn to read." Said as she dances, off beat, around the room singing along to the songs. That is being mixed with some worksheets, since they involve writing and coloring, and with various computer games. She is learning and no longer seems frustrated by the whole phonics, breaking down words into sounds thing. K is even enjoying the songs and I catch her (my musically intelligent child) b-bopping along as she plays.

We worked on counting by 5's this week, along with grouping and breaking larger numbers down into sets of five. I had that tingly feeling about it today, when waiting to check out at a local bookstore, MB and I overheard a boy counting $5.00 toys to see how many he could buy after his mom told him he had $20.00 to spend on presents. She turned to me and said "he is counting by 5."

We also worked on a Geography lesson teaching MB how to find the USA on a world map, find NC on a US map and find our town on a NC map. It was fun and we also branched off in finding and talking about Oregon, a trip with her Mamaw that she is very excited about.

And of course we did the Prairie Schooners (below) and read some more books on the Oregon Trail.

I am learning to keep lessons short and put as much hands-on into as possible. I am finding when I drop a topic when she is obviously tired of it, there stands a much better chance of coming back to it at a later time than if I just keep pushing at it to get it done. The short spurts are actually resulting in better retention.

In my ongoing mission to have MB read, I asked her today how I could help her learn to read. What does she want me to do? She looked at me and said, "I will teach myself, like I taught myself to ride a bike." Struggling not to smile, because this is so true of MB's personality, I asked her when and thoughtfully she replied, "Oh, at about 10." Then I did inform her that it was likely that if she waited that long K will be reading before she is (K is very much interested in the letter sounds and words on the page of a book now). She replied, "well maybe before then."

The whole conversation was a bit funny, and kind of scary for me. Because first of all, when MB says she is going to do something, she will do it when she says. When she was 15 months she informed me that she no longer wanted to wear a diaper. Although she had shown no interest in training up to that point, she immediately potty trained and from that day forward did not wear a diaper. She has never had an accident that I remember. Then, with the bike it was nearly the same thing. I had been mentioning trying without the training wheels for a few months, and she would just say "No." One day she came to me, asked that the training wheels come off, and within a few hours of trying by herself, she rode. So, it worries me that she doesn't want to read until she is 10. Secondly, I realize now that there will be nothing I can do to help MB read any sooner. I am doing my best to teach her the rules and skills, but she will not read until she chooses to. That does not mean that she is a non-reader. She writes very well for her age, spelling most words by herself. I have also caught glimpses of her reading ability, especially when she is trying to get my attention, she will read something to me, then stop and tell me that she cannot read.

So basically my 5 1/2 year old is telling me what I have been reading all along. I have taught and can continue teaching her the basics, but until she is ready to let go and read on her own, she won't, so "Stop Bugging Her." I am just finding it very hard to let go of my dreams of a reader. Another person, who loves as much as I do, to just curl up with a good book. Also I just worry about handicapping her enthusiasm to learn. She loves to learn things, but unless I am free and available to stop everything and read, it goes un rewarded. I want her to be able to walk over to the shelf and pick up a book and read, be fascinated, be transported.

I did tell her today at the bookstore that while I will continue buying her books for school, I will no longer buy her fiction books to read unless she is prepared to read them. Before anyone thinks I am cruel, we have so many early reader and short chapter books that I have to alternate shelving and storing them. I am not keeping her away from any reading material.

It no longer feels comfortable out here, and my battery is starting to flash.

Peace,

Amy

Prairie Schooners

In continuing our study of the Oregon Trail, we made models of Prairie Schooners today. MB came up with this by herself, she saw the shoe boxes and said that they looked kind of like the wagons in the books we have been reading.

We used some shoeboxes from Walmart that have an angle to them as the wagons. Then using pipe cleaners and construction paper made the covers. The wheels were made from toilet paper tubes and toothpicks. MB chose to paint her wagon red and K chose blue. MB helped a lot, although most of the gluing fell to me since we used a hot glue gun. I think they turned out pretty well considering the complexity of the craft and the age of the girls.







It was really neat seeing how MB's brain was digesting all the Oregon information. She told me when things looked wrong and came up with some of the details. She says that they are still not done. She wants to make baskets and bedding to put in the back of the wagons. She also wants to make horses, but I have no idea how that will happen.

Peace,

Amy

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday, and I just found out that I was reviewed today. Thank you for the nice things you said Kim.

My mom came up for my birthday and asked me what I wanted to do. "Take the girls to the museum." So we invited one of MB's friends and headed up to the Museum of Life and Sciences, a favorite of mine.

It was very, very nice!! The butterfly house was excellent and for the first time did not feel like I was going to die of heat exhaustion when we were in the house. The displays the butterflies put on were wonderful and I only wish I could have taken a picture, but I was to caught up in the moment to think about it then.

Having a friend with MB was also great and really allowed my mom and I to divide and conquer K and little EM.

Tonight we will be having take out from my favorite restaurant, I really did not want to go out to eat and would rather spend the time at home with the family.

Here are the pictures from today.

The first one is for Tenn and her son.



MB watching an insect eat through a microscope.


A Baby Bear and his snuggli


A Woodchuck saying Hi!



I have to say the animals were extremely active today. Much better than when I normally go and all are sleeping.

We have been getting back in track with school some this week and except for today's field trip we have completed math, phonics and geography everyday. MB is so much better when she has something to do, even if she doesn't act like she wants to do it.

Peace,

Amy

Book MeMe - I was tagged

Lisa tagged me for the book meme. I was a little worried abuot this as I am afraid to try to guesstimate how many books we own. But here it goes...

1. Total number of books owned?
I have no idea???? I have books everywhere, double and tripled stacked on shelves, in baskets, on the floor, on any flat surface, in storage. Muliple thousands of books.

2. Last book bought?
I went out last week and bought a bunch of books. Some for me and some for read alouds for the girls. The last one I picked up was Fame by Karen Kingsbury. I love her Christian romance/family novels as just good escapism reading. They only take me a few hours, but I don't have to think.

3. Last book read?
Homeschooling the Challenging Child by Christine M. Field. Read this over the last few nights as part of my preparation for the fall.

4. Five Books that mean a lot to me:
Ohhh, this is hard. Because, almost every book I read means something to me. Here is the list. It will undoubtedly reveal to all my deep psychosis and multiple personality.

First of all is my Bibles. I have multiple translations, mainly because I love to see how each translation reads different passages. Along with this is my Daily Text which is my morning devotion book that is put out by the Moravian Church.

The Chronicles of Narnia. I was introduced to these as a child and enjoy reading them today. I have even begun reading a few of them to my children.

Gone With The Wind. I love historical fiction, and this is a classic. Every year in the spring I pick it up and read it again. It is a quicker read each year.

Riverside Shakespeare. All of Shakespeare's works in one handy college text. Leftover from college, but I still refuse to part with it.

The last is my collection of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books from when I was in elementary school. In my opinion very few of today's juvenile literature are as good as these. Funny, without being stupid and gross. These are my childhood books and they are dog-earred .

I don't even have room to get into my picture book loves - Authors like Virginia Lee Burton and Robert McClascky.

There you go. No need to inform me of my strangeness, I already know.

I tag... Aine, Jess, Scooby and ....


Peace,

Amy

High-lites from the weekend

Just thought I would give a few high-lites from thias weekend. A lot happened, but nothing earth shattering.

Saturday:

DH worked all day. MB went to spend the day and night with her aunt. I puttered around the house and worked on some summer units for MB. Saturday evening I watered the plants outside and was attacked by yellow jackets who did not like the fact I was spraying water (unknowingly) into their nest. Had 10 stings, ran inside yelling for help (those suckers will follow you anywhere). DH gave me two Benadryl, spread some lotion on the stings and sent me to bed. I was asleep by 8 pm and slept straight through until 8 am this morning.

Sunday:

10:15 AM
Took K with me to church and left EM at home with DH. I had nursery duty and played with three toddlers (mine included). The two that were not mine were very serious and quiet and only wanted me to read books to them. While my own was climbing furniture, building and destroying with blocks, and generally loud. Yep, that is my child. At least she did not freak out this time when I held other children on my lap.

1:30 PM
Come home from church and was informed by hubby that he had decided that today was a good day to lay our new kitchen floor. So he took K and to the store to get vinyl tiles. I stayed and cleaned the kitchen so that we could move furniture around. When he returned we prepped and began laying tiles.

3:00 PM
MB returned. I visited with SIL for a little while. Played with MB for a few minutes then she wanted to help daddy. So we laid more tiles while the two little ones slept. Lay tiles, play with children, lay tiles, listen to children.

5:45 PM
Realize that we have 15 minutes to get to church for the meeting. MB and EM go with me so that DH could continue to lay tiles.

8:30 PM
Come home just soon enough so MB could join K in the sprinkler. Return to helping DH lay tiles. Girls come in and get ready for bed.

9:15 PM Put all three girls down for night. Went back to laying tiles. Realized that we are a box short. Floor all tiled except for the entry way. Decided I would head out tomorrow and pick up another box.

11:00 PM
Wendy's drive-thru picking-up dinner for DH and I.

12:20 AM (Monday)
Typing this entry and heading to bed.

Peace,

Amy

The house is Painted!!

Just a couple of pictures of my newly painted house. Very excited.

It used to look kind of like this..


Now like this...




Peace,

Amy

Neat Lessons Today

Today we began our Oregon Trail Study in preparation for MB's trip to Oregon later this summer. I wanted to give MB a concrete feel of the trail. So we began by putting together our US State Map floor puzzle. Then we borrowed K's little people and I told an interactive summary of the Oregon Trail while MB moved the people along the trail. Here is a picture after the people made it to Oregon. You can see the number of things that were left by the side of the trail along the way, including wagons and animals.


MB had a lot of fun and it was a good introduction before we start reading some books about it.

In order to keep them occupied on this last day of painting I pulled out the modeling clay. MB made this really neat elephant.


Good Day.

Peace,

Amy

MB's Note to me

While MB was in the mountains she wrote a note to me. She wrote it on a post-it note, and I understand that she only needed help with the word 'beautiful.' Her handwriting is coming along, and looks much better when she writes small. We are working on correcting the whole uppercase letter thing, but I am very proud of my girl.

Now if she can write like this, why is reading such a struggle?

Peace,

Amy

The magical? mobile baby

Last night I laid EM on the floor to play while I washed K's hair. A few minutes later when I came back she had moved 4 feet diagonally across the carpet to another toy. "Oh my gosh, EM is really mobile." So I moved the toy away from her again and sat to watch her in motion. Nothing. Minutes ticked by, and there she laid flapping about like a beached fish.

So, off I went again to dress K. I come back, and again EM has moved herself across the carpet to reach the toy. So I sit to watch again. Nothing and this time she determined that if I was going to be in the same room with her I should also pick her up.

So EM is mobile, although I haven't actually seen it with my eyes. For all I know she could be blinking, a la Jeannie, to move herself from one spot to another.

Peace

Amy

Not much really

I thank everybody for their comments to the post below. I do know that we are doing the right thing for our family by homeschooling. I guess I am just becoming a little nervous with all the planning, arranging and having to discuss it with family members. But at least they are asking questions about it instead of being judgemental and ignorant. I love my in-laws, and the fact is they love us and the girls a lot, but the idea of homeschooling is absolutely brand-new to them and I guess a little 'off.' In fact my mom-in-law did not realize that the compulsory education laws do not even apply to my daughter for almost 2 more years. She thought, as many I believe do, that 5 year olds must be in school.

The past couple of days we have been busy. The contractor has come out and begun the repairing and prepping of our house to be painted. My birthday present!! For three years we have talked about doing this and now I am watching the work happen. DH told me last night that I can even get a new front door. I have never like the front door, and it swings the wrong way for the way traffic moves in our house. Yeah, I have picked it out and it is beautiful to me. We are going to paint it red. I have always wanted a red front door. I will be posting pictures when all is done, because, well I am just so very happy about this.

I also finished the slides and research gathering for the bible study I have been working on since March/April. I took them to our Pastor, who is also a closet graphic and layout designer. He is going to help me with the whole "presentation" thing and also help me to weed through the oodles of information and narrow it down into talking points.This is designed though to be a little different then your small group discussion-based bible study. It is more of a seminar, information-sharing format, with introspective questions. I will be giving it in July and am very nervous about it, as I have never done something like this. I still have several logistical issues to work with, but feel good about the whole thing.

This is also the week where we find out where our congregation will be 'going.' A while back I mentioned that the larger church government had some issues with our new church and was going to replace our very much loved pastor, and become more involved in the everyday runnings of our church (totally against the laws of the church, but hey we are dangerous) {snark}. Our view point was the larger church was placing specific cultural customs (historical, not biblical) before the work of God. OUr music is more contemporary, we celebrate communion weekly and that sort of thing. But it also revolved around the fact that our congregation is made up of a lot of young 30's, twenties and college students*. Most who are very, very involved in the church community and larger community, but who don't have the deep pockets. (Big pet peeve of mine about churches and money) Anywho, we were told that we had not been growing in the appropriate direction. Excuse me, anytime you can attract that age people, not only to sit in the chairs but to show up early on Saturday and Sunday mornings for service projects and band projects, to participate as teachers and caregivers to the children, that is wonderful. I only wish I had started off my adult life the same way, it would have saved me a lot of heartache.

Okay, I got way off the point. This week is when they meet with our church board to discuss our future. They met with the Pastor on Monday and meet with the board tonight. When I saw the pastor yesterday he looked more chipper than he had in the previous six weeks. I am hopeful.

MB is back from her visit with the grandparents. She had a lot of fun, and the grandparents gushed about what a wonderful, smart and interestng child she is. Great time for all. Of course she came back with all sorts of new things, grandparents will do that.

Today, my job will be entertaining the children enough to keep them out of the way of the workers outside, because that is way more interesting than our normal life :). Hopefully tomorrow the workers will be at the stage that I can leave for a few hours and take the girls out to park day with the local HS group.

Have a great day.

Peace,

Amy

* We do have some older members; grandparents, empty nesters and parents with teenagers. It is just that nearly half of our congrgation are younger and just getting started in their adult lives.

Late Night, Tired Morning

I was up too late last night stressing over hmoeschooling for next year. Doubts are beginning to creep in. Will we be able to do it? How can I make MB interested in it? Am I up for the initial fight? Am I expecting to do too much? What is the best approach for both MB and I?

Then there are the thoughts about the other girls. Is it unfair to them that spend a lot of time worrying about MB?

Then the self-inflicted berating; "What can I do about the bad habits I have let take hold?"

I know that homeschooling is the best option for MB. This article that I found last night confirmed it for me. The author's description of her son could be written about my daughter. In fact recently I have been wondering lately if I should take her to a psychiatrist to have testing done. Not for drugs or long-term therapy, but maybe find out if there is something I could do to make her mood swings easier to deal with for all of us. Wondering if there might be some sort of disability that I am missing that maybe I could take into account with my planning.

No, this is her temperament. In social or public situations she is a wonderful child, but behind the closed doors of our house, where she feels comfortable, she breaks down in such ways that I often do not know the trigger (and I am not sure that she does either). It is something that maturity will help, along with a lot of love.

Of course it doesn't answer my question about what will be the best method, approach for schooling this next year. It is not so much the subjects that are worrisome for me. But how to do it so that we don't spend the first few months in battle. Battle's that will wear me down and take away my time and energy from doing things with the younger two.

This year we did kindergarten while she also attended a three-day morning preschool. It was easy and very, very relaxed. I would say a kind of child-led aprroach. I would introduce something and if it didn't take hold put it away and come back later. Most of our schooling revolved around art and science, with whatever I could sneak in. I felt as if I was doing a lot of flank attacks when it came to certain things. It was fun, and towards the end the battles were limited. I also did not have to prove anything to anybody. Nobody was looking over my shoulder and examining her skills and development.

Next year it changes. We are going to be put under a microscope and examined by many people in the family including DH. When I plan for next year, I just feel this heavy rock of responsibility sitting on my shoulders. I still want us to be relaxed, but with goals for each week. I have to be able to plan. MB does seem to do better when she sees a list of things to do. So we will use the family white board to list out daily assignments.

If I just want her to meet the requirements for 1st grade, I wouldn't be so stressed. But that is one of my reasons for homeschooling. I want her exposed to so many more things, I want her to learn to think.

A tentative plan that I worked on last night for MB. I thought about how she loves to be read to, do hands-on projects and even workbooks. So here are my thoughts for the day.

Fall Semester - to begin August 29
Math: RightStart Level A (second-half of book), Then reassesss for next level math to begin in January
History: SOTW I
Literature: Ancients - using recommended reading list from WTM and corresponding to history lessons.
Science: Life Sciences: Sept-Dec Birds, Felines, Canines, Bears
Jan-Mar Human Body - Muscles, Bones, Circulatory, Digestive, respiration, Diet and Exercise
Apr - Jun Plant Life- Tree Identification, Bulb vs. seed plants and garden planning.
**Phonics/Reading Skills: Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading
Giant Basic Skills Workbook
The Complete Book of Phonics Workbook
Any other way that I can think of to sneak this into her program
Writing Mechanics: Cursive Writing continued(we have started this and she enjoys it much better than having to relearn the print mechanics that preschool messed up on)

Other: Art appreciation, drawing, piano lessons, gymnastics, music appreciation
Tools I want to use: Narration, Copy Work

** This is the toughest subject for us. MB will fight against doing this more than anything I have ever seen. I have tried Pathways to Phonics and 100 Easy Lessons with limited results. What I have found to work so far are a few worksheets a week and games. Sight Word games, phonics games, computer programs like Study Dog and Starfell.

I am praying so hard over this right now. I don't want to screw up my girls for anything in the world. I feel such pressure over this.

Better get back to the laundry - no thinking required.

Peace,

Amy

Question for computer people

I have a question for you blogger pros/ computer gurus out there. I normally use Netscape on my desktop for blogging, but since I finally got my laptop back I have been doing a few things on there using IE. This morning when I went to my blog using IE, the sidebar is all messed up, it is all the way down on the bottom of the page; but on my desktop it looks fine.

Readers out there: Is my blog layout messed up?

Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks,

Amy

Fun Trip

We returned last night from our trip, but with my post-driving headache the most I could do was do a little reading before bedtime. We had a lot of fun and were able to visit with people we only see once a year.

I took the girls up early so that they could spend some time with their grandparents before the reunion. That was nice, although I am still never really comfortable around my in-laws with my girls. They are older, and more old school than my folks, and well I cringe over some things that the girls do that to be honest wouldn't bother me so much at home or we would laugh about around my parents. For instance, MB has started doing this thing where she will call people by the name she hears others saying. I call my father-in-law by his name, so she started calling him by his name. She means no disrespect, she just thinks it is funny. So several times I had to sit own with her and explain that he is her grandfather and a very good man, he deserves to be called by 'grandfather' and it is a sign of respect. I believe she heard "blah, blah, blah, call him whatever you want." If something like this happened with my father the two of us would probably chuckle about it and I would remind her that she needs to say 'grandaddy' and that would be the end of it. Up there when it would happen, I saw pursed lips and shaking of heads. So my 'gotta-be-liked' drive kicked in and I stressed over things like that.

The girls really did very well and they had a lot of fun. MB is even staying up there a few more days and will be coming home with the in-laws on Wednesday.

Thursday I was able to get away by myself for a quick shopping trip to the outlet mall, manly to pick up the clothing that DH asked me to get him, but I came home with something for everyone. Friday I spent with the girls. We headed down to the town in the valley below the in-law's cabin and played in the town park. This park was one that time forgot. And, before I go into detail don't get me wrong I like my children to be safe but I do notice that sometimes parents have made things so safe that children no longer get to experience things. So this was a park that has not been updated in about 40 years. It was located behind the town library - wouldn't that be neat a trip to the library and the park at the same time. The equipment was all metal - the hot burning type of metal, if it actually got hot up there. There was no awful mulch to get in the girls' shoes, just a soft carpet of grass. On one very steep hill the town had fashioned a very long slide down the hill, almost like at bobsled shute. No steps back up the hill just a very steep climb. Picnic table located here and there under old shady trees and a small creek ran through the center of the park. The girls had a blast. Like most of the other children there, they were drawn to the creek (because here at home if there is water near a park it is fenced off). They could lay sticks in the water an watch them float downstream over the rocks and small water falls. They took off their sandles and felt the cold water between their toes.



After the park we headed back into town and went to the Cheese Factory where they could watch cheese being made. At the Cheese Shoppe I picked up a block of my favorite cheese and some fudge for the girls. We had just finished reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the night before and at the end of the book it gives a basic fudge recipe, and MB asked what fudge was. She has had it before, but did not remember. Then we went back to the cabin and waited for DH and my sis-in-law to arrive.

Saturday we had the family reunion over at the church camp that my brother-in-law is the director of. Every year less people show up, mostly the 20-somethings who have so much going on in their lives, but it is nice to catch up with people we only see once a year. This year was special because we had three babies born within a week in December. Three six-month-old cousins (not real cousins - 2nd, 3rd, once removed and all that jazz that I can never keep straight. We have decided to keep it simple and if you are not directly an aunt/uncle/grandparent you are considered a cousin). The big girls had bigger cousins to play with - generally involving rolling a ball down a hill then chasing it down. But we also had a chance to head out in canoes. Very fun. DH and I took K out in one and bil took MB out in another. I haven't been in a canoe in almost 20 years - we had a blast.


MB in the canoe



K along for the ride


Little EM wearing her baby gift and looking cool. K is blowing bubbles in the background.

DH's trip to the US Open was canceled so he was able to stay with us for Sunday's breakfast with the family that stayed the night. Then we headed homeward.

It was a wonderful trip and a great get-away. Today I will be doing all the post-trip unpacking and laundry. I will also be trying to get things ready to have our house painted later this week (yeah!!). Also I have to put the finishing touches on my bible study to send to our pastor tomorrow. I am trying to read and catch up with everyone - but it seems so overwhelming right now. I can spend nearly 30 minutes at each blog.

On last picture for the day - Little EM turned Six months yesterday. She is such a sweet little baby and is fast becoming mobile - trying to catch up with the big sisters I believe. Happy half-birthday EM and I can't believe that we have been blessed with you for this long already!



Peace,

Amy

Gone Visiting

I am off with the three girls to go visiting for the rest of the week. We are looking forward heading to the mountains and getting out of this heat and humidity for a few days. We will also be attending a family reunion for my husband's side of the family.

DH will be joining us Friday evening, but will be coming home Saturday night because he was given a ticket to attend the final round of the US Open in Pinehurst. So he will be spending his Father's Day doing one of his favorite activities!

I am taking my laptop, but don't know if I will be able to jump online or not - I hope so even if it is just to read.

Have a blessed week!

Amy

Rhythm

Today we tried to get back into some sort of rhythm, although by the time it was over I wondered why I even tried. MB is in town, out of town, in town and then we will all be out of town. It is hard on everyone, although she really is having some wonderful experience and I also am able to get larger projects done while she is gone.

After her first trip when she came back everyone was refreshed and ready to go again. Her attitude was good and my frame of mind was very positive. This last trip I really concentrated on getting a number of projects done or at least a good start made while she was away. We worked on the projects through the weekend, but still spent some time individually with the girls, including MB. But I noticed today that she was really clingy with me. The constant touching and incessant talking. All signs that she is craving my attention and that she has a little too much undivided attention and just a little spoiling recently.

It has totally blown the rhythm that I thought we were achieving out of the water. Correction again is being met with tantrums and she believes that she can argue with me. All while my attention is still being divided with K still recuperating (cranky) from her recent cold, some household issues that have to be dealt with this week and the bible study I am under the gun for right now.

All that being the case I can say that today went well enough. Again, I am so very happy to have my laptop back. Otherwise I believe that I would have run screaming to my room at some point today.

This morning I managed to wake up before the girls and was able to actually read my morning devotion in quiet reflection while sitting outside on our clean deck. After breakfast MB helped me start some laundry while I hopped on the computer to fix some of the damage to my blog from yesterday. Then we all got dressed since I had someone come by to give us an estimate on painting our house.

While the guy was here I totally came across as one of those mothers one might see on SuperNanny. The big girls were playing in the driveway while he and I spoke about what DH and I wanted to do. MB left K in the driveway alone and came over to see what we were doing. When I turned around I saw K's tricycle but no K. So the hunt for K began. I first glanced in the van since that is often the place she will try to head for first but didn't see anything so MB and I headed over to the neighbors to see if K had gone visiting. The gentleman was working up my estimate in his truck and I heard him honk his horn, he pointed at the back of my van and I saw something move. It was K, she was "play hide seek" from me. After locking the van I dragged all the girls back inside and again went over the rules for playing outside and how the van is a no-no (especially now that it is getting hot).

Once I was done with the painter we tried to actually get our day going. After EM went down for her nap I sat down with the big girls to play some dice games. This was kind of a on-the-spur game but it worked for our math for the day. I gave MB and K each two dice. Then worked up a sheet of paper with 2-12 listed, the first person to roll all 11 numbers would win. MB had to add her two dice together to come up with how many she rolled, then she could count to check her answer. K counted her dots to determine how many she rolled. We had fun playing it together.

After "math" we went outside in the backyard to play without waking EM up. I sat on the deck and worked on the bible study to prepare for the meeting I have tomorrow morning and could watch the girls run around at the same time.

After lunch MB and I worked on her 'Map Skills' something I will count as geography and her reading for today as she really worked at reading the directions by herself. Then she went outside to check on the mole family that we found last night while K and I read a little bit before K's nap.

I sent MB off for some free time - something I guess MB did not really want today, but mommy needed. So that I could work on the bible study a little more, but gave up after only a few minutes because MB was in and out constantly and eventually woke EM.

The afternoon was spent yo-yo-ing between MB, EM and the laundry. I finally got back to the study late this afternoon when I took all the girls back outside to play.

Tonight we read a couple more chapters in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. MB is so funny, halfway through the first chapter for the night she was soooo bored and didn't like the book. But when we finished the chapter we just had to read the next chapter because, "I can't possibly sleep not knowing."

Then all the girls were asleep in their own beds. Quiet, peace and quiet. And you know what the day really was fairly productive.

Peace

Amy

Now look what I did...

I was messing around with some of my settings and blew out my links. So I figured why not go ahead and change the background. Can't really find anything that fits, but that is another story.

Anyway I am having to recreate some of my links and my reading list. So if you come by to visit and are normally on my list and don't see your name - don't get mad or anything. I am working on it as quickly as I can, but it is midnight and I am bushed. So sometime on Monday I will get back to it.

Peace,

Amy

YEAH! I am wireless again

It has only taken a year, but we finally got around to having our old laptop fixed and it cost us much less then expected. Double yeah!

Thanks to a friend I have a working laptop with all upgraded systems and programs. We can finally put our wireless network I invested in to use and I don't have to work on the computer away from the girls unless I want to.

I am a happy camper. We have been digging in the dirt and finishing household chores all weekend. I am sore from pulling out some ground cover plant that was starting to choke plants that I actually want. I also yanked out three bushes that kept growing over and blocking the walkway. I figured I was done with the constant trimming and just took them out.

The house, exterior at least, is starting to look better. We have someone coming by tomorrow to give us an estimate on painting the house. We are finally moving along. Of course all I have to do is get in some manic mode and bring DH along with me.

MB is back from her visit with my mother and a lot of fun. It is nice to have all my babies at home again for a little while. Although I just got a call from my mil and they would like MB to stay up there with them following our trip next weekend to visit - so we will be without MB for 3 more days.

I better get back to working on my bible study - no more excuses now that I have my laptop back.

Peace,

Amy

My gross tick story

Tis' the season for ticks as I can see in my recent blog run and by the fact I have removed ticks from almost every member of my family. Since I have lived in tick land all my life it generally does not gross me out. I knew that this summer was going to be a bad one for mosquitoes and ticks because we never really had a cold snap.

This week I had to remove a tick on myself from the most unlikely of places: between two of my toes. It went easy enough, all the tick came out and it obviously had not been on me very long.

Well, over the past couple of days I have developed an infected abscess where the tick was. Okay now I am freaking out, what horrible disease do I have...

I have researched it and have come to find out that it was not a result of the tick, really. That the webbed area between a persons toes has one of the highest concentrations of bacteria on the body, no matter how clean you are. And the tick bite allowed a point of entry of said bacteria into my skin.

So tonight my poor hardworking husband who is now, in the dark, applying a protectorant to our newly washed deck will be helping me solve my toe problem. And next time I will know to triple disenfect the area between my toes.

That is my gross, ugh, disgusting tick story to add to blog land.

Peace,

Amy

"An Energy Burst, Captain"

I do not know what is up with me but I have been riding an energy burst. This week has been really productive and I keep looking around and trying to figure out what other projects I can do.

In the past couple of days I have completed:

Heavy, clorox cleaning of two bathrooms
Rearranging/Cleaning of MB's and K's room (Considered ripping up the carpet to expose the hardwoods underneath but figured I could not complete that job before MB came back this time)
Powerwashed more of the deck that DH had not finished and all deck furniture
Cleaned and reorganized kitchen, then stood around and tried to figure out what color I should paint it when we have the new countertop exposed. Still not sure.
Normal cleaning and laundry
Played, fed and loved to little girls.

I am not bragging, but just wondering where this energy is when I really need it. Like when all three of the girls are home, it's 90 degrees and they want to go to the park.

I have made up a list of the "big" projects for the house that dh and I need to do. Unfortunately I can't do any of it by myself...I have to wait on others...painful...painful. Can you tell I am one of those that makes a plan and is ready to go and get it done.

We go and pick up MB tomorrow. I have missed her this trip. We talked on the phone daily and she has had a lot of fun at the daycamp. Today my mom took her to a local museum for a special program they had on snakes. She was able to hold a corn snake and my mom said that she asked lots of questions so I can't wait to really hear about it.

Tomorrow we are meeting at another nature museum that is about half-way between our two towns. It should be fun. I have never been there but mom says that it is very centered on the wildlife along the Neuse River (Eastern NC wildlife) and that it is a very interactive museum.

Looking forward to having MB home again for awhile as this is her last scheduled trip until August.

Peace,

Amy

Rearranging and Sick Kiddies

Yesterday morning little EM woke up with a fever and then by mid-day K was also hot. I could have blamed the red faces and dripping sweat on the weather, but no, DH insisted that I turn on the AC the night before. I can't understand, it was only 91 degrees and 93% humidity in the house.

The girls only symptom seemed to be the fever and a general lack of energy. So they had a quiet day around the house. I took advantage of the energy lull to do some rearranging between cuddles.

Recently I found a rug (finally) for our family room to go over the laminate floors so there is something to cushion our rears when we sit on the floor. I had also been paid by Wally World to take home a play mat that I found on the clearance rack. One of those neat carpets that have roads, stores and houses printed on them. I thought it would be perfect for K to play with her "Little People" on.

About a year ago we moved the two older girls and ALL of their toys into a shared bedroom. There has never really been enough room for everything to stay neat. Plus the girls do like to play in the family room. So I succumbed to the natural instinct of our family and yesterday I rearranged an area of the family room to accomodate a play area where all the "Little People" toys could be stored for easy access and the little playmat to play on. So far it has been great for K. Because she didn't have to go back and forth between the family room and the bedroom she was easily able to clean up and put away the toys.

I was able to put a small table back into the girls' room to accomodate MB's writing and art work that she likes to go to her room and do. I still need to get in there and organize the room a little better from the shuffling.

I also organized the two little 3-shelf narrow bookcases to stand up on the fireplace which holds current kiddo reading books and puzzles. These are two more bookshelves in addition to the two in their bedroom and the two large built-in shelves in the family room, two large bookshelves in the den and a bookshelf in my bedroom. And we still have books in baskets and boxed up in storage.

I even tried my hand at making tortilla shells thanks to mellinium hippies. They turned out alright, edible but not very pretty. It seems I am incapable of making anything resembling a circle out of dough. But rectangle-like shells do okay for making cheese quesadillas too. :)

It was a pretty decent day yesterday, all things considered. This morning little EM woke up without a fever and seems very happy. K is still warm and kind of cranky, but she also came down with it later. I plan to spend another day cuddling and seeing to whatever I can get to. My level of expectation is fairly low. Which is fine because there is absolutely nothing I HAVE to do today.

Peace,

Amy

Classical Unit Studies

My mom and I were talking earlier today about how we are starting to see MB's brain working. Both of us commented on how we notice that MB takes in the information she is told or discovers, but is generally unable to immediately put it to use. Instead she takes that information and mulls over it for awhile. It may take just a couple of hours or a couple of weeks, then she will come back totally understanding the information or ready for more in-depth study. She likes to concentrate on one area until she is suddenly through with it.

Both she and I have enjoyed the 'unit' studies we have done this Spring. But I also really like the progression of the classical method. So I was thinking that I may try to do unit studies with science and history/literature next year. I was thinking a science unit (2-4wks depending on interest) then a history unit (2-4 wks) and then science again. Her other subjects would continue like normal, most of which would be combined some way into whatever we are studying at the time. I was thinking this would give her time to process what she is learning before we move on, without also feeling like I am repeating myself until "she gets it," which would pretty much send both of us up the wall.

Has anyone ever tried something like this? Any suggestions?

Peace,

Amy

Bigger isn't Better

Saturday night DH, the little girls and myself went to a birthday party for the wife of one of DH's longtime friends. We had been out of touch with them for awhile, partly because they had been busy for the last two years building their new house.

Their house is beautiful. Old brick and curved lines. It is also big. And I feel very sorry for them. I can look at their house and realize how in debt they probably are. The rooms are filled with expensive furniture, all brand new. Their only daughter (age 7) has a large suite and another large playroom, all designed to be as far away from the parents as possible. The husband has an office and a large den and the wife has her own rooms. They are rarely home as they are either working all the time to pay for this or shuffling the daughter around to all of her activities.

Yet, as DH and I were catching up wth his old high school friends I kept getting comments like, "baby making machine" and "aren't ya'll busting at the seams in that little house?" and "Will you be going to work when the girls are in school?" I actually just began to zone out. It stopped being worth my time to try to explian.

But I will let all of you in on a secret I have learned, Big Houses are not better. I look at their house and admit that yes it is a beautiful house and the decoration is also very nice, but it looks like a lonely house. A show house.

My 1500 sf house on the other hand would never be described in that way. But I like to think that it is a happy house. We don't separate and go off to our own space very often. We have to do things as a family, we have no choice. The girls have to grow up learning to respect each other's personalities and need for time alone, like they will eventually have to do.

DH and I have considered finishing off the garage and making another room out of it. To use as a playroom or maybe another bedroom. We have even gone as far as having estimates done. But when it came down to it we realized that right now the girls like to play where we are and that means the family room. We could build them a room, but if it was away from the other family happennings they would not use it. So we have put it off.

We talked about moving since DH is now working in another town and has a fairly long commute. But we looked around, and even though we could probably get something a bit bigger, we could not find anything we liked as much as our little house - warts and all.

Other reasons bigger isn't better:

that much more space for the kids to wreck
that much more space for me to try to keep clean (5 bathrooms - 5 toilets to clean)
imagine the power bills as the cost for power keeps rising
property taxes
big house - itty bitty yard

I did come back with a little envy though. Her house was so clean and my house has not known the true definition of cleaned and organized since before EM was born. So yesterday DH and I went to work.

I cleaned an organized the toys and books in the family room. Cleaned off the kitchen table. Added casters to a cedar chest that serves as a coffee table in the den (it has to be moved when the sofa bed is opened), and put away all winter clothes.

DH borrowed a power washer and went to work on the outside of our house. It looks so good. He plans on finishing the deck this week.

Today I hope to clean out a built in bookshelf that serves as a resting spot for everything that doesn't have a home and clean the kitchen. If I can still move after that I may start tackling the girls room again.

Have a blessed day,

Amy

I'm Dreaming

After the past two days I am dreaming about finding a house, any house, out in the middle of say 4-10 acres. I am so tired of living in a neighborhood, especially my neighborhood right now.

I feel as though I live in a glass house right now when it comes to the neighbors. We are pretty much the only family left living here with young children on a full-time basis. I am constantly asked why I let my children do some of the things they do, like it was any of their business. I am asked about MB riding her bike, and so often I want to ask them to repeat to me the bicycle safety list because I am sure they can't but MB can. It is not like we live on a busy road, the only place safer would be at the end of a cul-de-sac. Where am I when they are outside, why I am either outside with them or sitting just inside the house with total view of them.

I am totally expecting all heck to break loose next year when they see that MB doesn't climb on the yellow chariot. Because they will notice, the nosy buggers.

Truthfully, I don't really care what the neighbors think. But what bugs me is that they feel as though they must tell me.

Then there is the time of year. School is out and children are visiting grandparents and non-custodial parents. In the case of the children visiting parents, these children are being left home alone during these visits. Lonely elementary-age children are finding their way to our house to play because I am one of the few adults around and we have toys. Unfortunately I have become so wary of their play I have to be on top of it every second they are around and I get nothing done.

I feel bad that these kids are alone and have nothing to do, but call their parent every hour to check in. I have tried to be friendly and helpful because I have been there. But I am over it now. When MB returns from her trip at the end of next week we are just going to put the kabosh on the whole thing. I am worn out mentally and MB is stressing out again. It is just too much for the two of us.

Sorry for the vent, I am just at the end of my rope. We did not get the card made for my grandmother that we are going to see in the nursing home tomorrow and I am still trying to do laundry so that I can pack MB's suitcase. I have to fill out the medical forms for her day camp and I really need to do some household bookkeeping. At least I do not have to worry about dinner, my in-laws before they headed out of town gave us four tickets for the BBQ fundraiser their church was having today so I headed over there this afternoon and picked up our plates. Eastern North Carolina BBQ a true delicacy, with hush puppies, german coleslaw and boiled (buttered) potatoes. A heart attack waiting to happen - but so good.

Just fyi in North Carolina "barbecue" is a noun and you have a "cookout" when you cook outside.

Have a nice evening.

Peace,

Amy

A lesson learned the hard way

There is no doubt that my 5 yr old must learn by doing and experiencing, She has proven it over and over again. When MB was around 3 years old she burned herself twice. She remembers both of them and will tell me all about them to this day. She burned her hand on a humidifier after we had told her over and over again to not touch it, then one night she snuck out of her bedroom and into the nursery where she promptly but her hand over the steam vent. The second time was on the stove. It was one of those split second things, but she had burned her finger by trying a burner after I had told her HOT, stay away.

She has been very helpful and safety conscious when she has been helping me in the kitchen lately, so I left her alone cutting hot dogs (with a table knife) while I changed EM. I heard the scream.
MB: K bit me! K bit me!
Mom: Let me see!
I take a look and see a blister forming.
Mom: That is not a bite, its a burn.
MB: Sobbing K pushed me and my finger touched the burner.
Mom: Trying to console and get MB to the bathroom to run cool water over it. Its okay, Its okay. Take another look at the burn and it is on the pad of the index finger, realize the only burner on was in the back of the stove. Obviously she had to reach out with the finger to test what I said. Even as she kept blaming it on her sister she kept saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I know she is lying about it because lately that is her thing. (She told me she killed a rattlesnake last week at mom's house) But she is in pain so all I can do is comfort her and hope that three burns may finally convince her that when I say don't touch - DON'T TOUCH.

Peace,

Amy

Nature Walk today

Today we had our nature walk with the local hs group. We got ready to go and it started to rain, the spitting, drizzly type of rain and MB started to become upset thinking that we were not going to be able to go on the walk. I told her that it was not raining that hard and often times it may rain in one area and not in another so we hopped in the van and headed over to the lake.

It was still doing the half-way rain thing, but I figured that I wouldn't melt and we all had hats. So we meet the rest of the group. I figure we had about 15-20 children there with there mothers. The guy who did it is a homeschooling dad who has advance degrees in ecology or environmental science. It was very informative and fun, even for me a parent. Three things I learned today:
1. Virginia Creeper can be used to neutralize poison ivy if you end up in a patch. And Virginia Creeper can almost always be found near poison ivy.
2. You can tell how old a fish is by looking at the underneath of their scales and they have rings like trees do.
3. No matter how much your 2 1/2 yr. old begs you not to take the stroller, take it anyway. My shoulder is killing me between carrying little EM in the sling, my backpack with everyone's paraphernalia and K for half the trip. I could have put one of those three things in the stroller.

The weather ended up being okay. It never rained hard enough that we felt it once we were in the trees. It also stayed really cool and did not have to worry about being overheated.

I ran into my old friend and got to catch up with her. MB hit it off with her son, so we will definitely be getting together again.

When we came home we took it easy. We had lunch and the girls asked to watch Jungle Book for quiet time today, and since my shoulder and back were begging for a lie down I gave in. K and little EM promptly passed out, while MB sat there for the entire movie. It was nice and quiet.

Tomorrow will be a rainy, messy day so I am trying to decide what interesting thing to throw at them so I don't set myself up to be driven to distraction.

Menu for tonight
Salad
Italian Sausage Spaghetti
Cheesy Garlic Bread

Have a nice evening.

Peace,

Amy