Oh no, it can't be!

I went to bed last night and my heated mattress pad was not working. NOOOO!!!!

If you don't know, this is the best thing about winter!! Really, it is. It is the greatest invention ever!!!

When my bed was cold last night, I almost couldn't stand it. I love my nice, toasty bed at night and all night long.

I didn't sleep well last night, so after Matt got up this morning, I went over to his side of the bed and turned his heater on. It was awesome!!

Tonight, I switched cords to see what was causing it and all of the sudden, something started to smell. I had shorted out Matt's side when I swtiched them! Now his didn't work either!!

UGH!!

I think this is an emergency and calls for a trip to Penney's (or wherever) tomorrow to get a new one! I'm glad we have some Christmas money!

Thoughts on a new schedule

Last fall was our trial run for homeschooling. My goal was to make it to Christmas, which I did, but certainly with some bumps along the way. I knew it was going to be a huge change, but I didn't think it would rock my world as much as it did. :)

With one semester under my belt and one to go for the year, I know what works for us, what doesn't, and what I would like to change in January.

Things I would like to change:
1. Give the girls more time together.
Courtney went to preschool in the morning and we had school in the afternoon with Megan, they didn't get much time together. This was a big reason why we homeschooled! They would finally get to play when we were done with school about 4:30-5. During the afternoons lately, Courtney has just been wondering around the house trying to find something to do. I think she gets bored while we school. I enjoy it when she joins us,but she doesn't always want to.
2. Give myself some more down time. For the last 8 years, I have enjoyed some quiet/ nap time in the afternoon, I need that! Maybe I can teach Megan in the morning while Courtney is at school. I get this at the gym twice a week, but I would rather have it at home.
3. Get involved in some more homeschooling groups. I have been to two events this fall, I heard that these groups in Omaha were SOOO active, but really, where are all the activities? I am highly disappointed. I admit, it has been hard for me to do things in the afternoon (which many things are) or over the noon hour (when I have to pick Courtney up), but really, there isn't much out there.


My proposals:
1. Instead of teaching Megan in the afternoon, teach her in the morning. I can drop Courtney off at preschool and come back home for 2 hours.
I would achive two of my goals. 1. Courtney and Megan would have more time together in the afternoon. 2. I would get to enjoy nap time again.
Of course, I would need to entertain Christian while I am teaching Megan in the morning, which might be a challenge.
2. I would then need to find a different time to go to the gym or give up my gym membership all together. Exercise has done me a world of good, so I definitely need to keep that up, I just don't necessarily need the gym membership. Megan also took classes there, but they were with preschoolers, again, not high priority.
3. Get involved in a homeschooling group somewhere, somehow! This may mean messing with an afternoon nap, but he doesn't nap good anyway half the time! I have two different options figured out. They have PE classes at the gym on tuesday/ thursdays from 1-2, these would be free with my gym membership or $6 a time without. I could also have the girls take a class at the Homeschool Learning Center on Wed. afternoons. I really need to connect with other moms, I really need the support!!
4. I want to add about a half an hour a day to teach Courtney how to read this semester.
5. Get Megan involved with more kids her age, we need to have more playdates or something.
6.. Need to figure out how to fit in dance and swimming lessons (signed up, but optional). don't forget about AWANA on wed. night, groceries, errands, trips to the library.

Now if you know me, I want a weekly schedule. I want to know what is going on and where I am going. I don't want my days packed full and I like a little flixibility, but I definitely need to try something new. I could maybe even do school on only Mon/ Wed/ Fri and take tuesday and thursdays off from school and do all the kids' activities and run errands. I would need to make the extra day up on the weekend or evenings, but homeschooling is about flexibility, right?

This may take some time to figure out, can you tell I've been thinking about it for awhile?

Christmas Eve Picture

The kids right before we opened presents on Christmas Eve!

The Camera!

Ok, of course, we all go downstairs to open stockings and I say, "Wait, I want to get a picture of them first."

I turn the camera on and it says "memory card full". Yes, this was full last night, but I didn't download the pictures then or earlier this morning when I should have, so here I am, downloading them now while the kids are waiting to open their stockings.

I just had to laugh!

Merry Christmas!

Yay, we can sleep in!!! I am sooo thankful. And yes, the kids are still asleep. We opened presents last night, but their stockings are filled this morning. But really, we've had a crazy couple of days and it's only going to keep going today, so I am going to let them sleep. Even Christian, who is usually up by 7:30, is still sleeping. :)

We had a whirlwind of a day yesterday and things did not go according to my plans, but they still worked out. And I did not get stressed out about it. :)

Yesterday morning about 9:15 am, we headed out to Matt's parents (after having a fun-filled evening the night before at my parents!) for their Christmas party. We had brunch, the kids played, we opened presents, and had a good time.

About 2:30, we headed back to Omaha. My plan was to leave around 2, so we would have time to clean the house before church (Have I really not vaccuumed since we put the tree up about 3 weeks ago?) I really like to have the living room/ piano room clean for Christmas, I just like room to open presents and I like things to look nice for pictures. :) We got home about 3:30 and we had to leave for church at 4. I wanted to get two things done in this time- clean and get our meal started for after church. I had hamballs, hash brown casserole, green bean casserole, sparkling grape juice, and ice cream all planned out. I was going to get out the good dishes and goblets to drink out of- make it a special event!

Well, here is where plans changed. Since we didn't leave Matt's parents' until about 2:30, we didn't get home until later, which meant I did a fast cleaning job and we had to head out the door again. I really like to dress up for church on Christmas Eve, but that didn't happen. Matt, Megan, and I all wore jeans to church. :( Courtney and Christian were actually dressed up. The sad thing is that 1/2 the people at church had jeans on! Ok, anyway, I didn't have time to get anything ready for our meal. I was kind of bummed that we were so rushed.

So, we finally left our house at 4:15 and church was full! We found a spot with 3 chairs and squeezed 4 of us in! Christian ended up going to the nursery. Church was very nice and when it was over, I said to Matt, "What do you want to do now? It's 5:30, nothing is ready at home, we're all starving." His response, "Let's go out to eat." Ok, it's not really want I wanted to do, but I wasn't going to stress myself out about it either. I said, "Great, let's go!" I also wasn't going to argue because along with having nothing ready, my kitchen was a complete disaster!! So off to Texas Roadhouse it was! Megan didn't like our plan AT ALL, but we went anyway. It was very crowded, but we got right in. We left the waitress a nice tip and then we headed home.

Now, in my ideal world, Christmas presents would've been put out before we left so when we got home the kids would say, "Ah look at all those presents!!" and get all excited. But no, didn't work that way either! So I said to the girls, "Ok, you need to go hide out in your room so the presents can magically appear." And they did! Matt and I rushed upstairs to get the presents (which I had wrapped the night before at 10:30 pm) and brought them downstairs. We got the girls and I got my "Aha" moment when they saw the presents.

We opened them one by one, of course, we weren't on top of things to get the video camera out or anything, so I just took pictures and movies with the camera. It worked. The kids all like their presents but then the girls said, "Wait, I thought we got three presents, I only got 2." I had bought them three and they knew they were going to get three, but where were they? Ok, silly mom again! I ran back upstairs and didn't see anything. I went downstairs and looked at their presents again and didn't see anything either. Then I went and consulted my notebook where I had been keeping notes about Christmas. I saw that I was indeed missing a present for Courtney and Megan. Christian had opened three.

Now that I knew what I was missing, I ran back upstairs to my closet and found that I had wrapped Megan's but not Courtney's. I couldn't decide between two things what to give Courtney the night before, so I had just left it and went to bed. I was going to ask Matt in the morning. Oops, that didn't happen. So I quick made a decision, wrapped it up, and took the last two presents down to the girls. They opened them and were happy. :)

Matt had also decided to get the whole family a Kinec for the XBOX, so the rest of the evening was spent playing the new games. Oh wait, Megan kept getting mad that her avatar kept turning into a boy.

Finally around 9:30, we kicked the kids to bed! I think everybody was exhausted!! But of course after they were in bed, we had to try out the new walkie talkies that grandma Lu had given them. What a great idea! It was so much fun talking back and forth between bedrooms!

8:30 and the kid are up and anxious to open thier stockings. I hope this goes well. Too funny that they am were with me when I bought everything! Hopefully they won't catch on....

No time to relax

That will be my next 3 days- who is ready to do this with me??

Oh wait, I can't go yet. I don't have ANY presents wrapped yet or food made.

Yikes, better get going. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!!!

School for the Holidays

I decided to keep going on school. We are going to slow down for a bit and take some time off here and there, but I really need to keep going. I am on week 17 out or 36, if I don't keep going, we will be in school until June- which was half the point of homeschooling! Megan is also begging me to have "school", so we might as well keep working. I think she just really enjoys it!

Yesterday, we read three lessons in our readers, two lessons in our read-aloud and did a lesson in history. This took about 2 1/2 hours, but now, we are ahead in readers and we can spend time on other subjects. I love the flixibility of homeschooling!

History took about an hour yesterday. Usually it doesn't take that long. But we covered 1. the emperor Nero who was the most hated emperor in the Roman empire, let's just say he loved tormenting Christians! 2. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 (which was prophesized in the Old Testament) and 3. the destruction of Pompeii by a volcano in AD 79. Now do you think I can just read the information out of our textbook and let it be? NO!! I want to dig further! I got out books and we read some info on the internet. I I found a short documentary about Pompeii the other night on Netflix and I want to watch it with Megan. These were three huge and very important topics covered in one day! I think it is so interesting!

I'm so glad Megan is interested in history!! How would I feel if she wasn't? Would I be disappointed? I think I would be, but I also have to know that every kid is different and I need to cater to his/ her needs.

We also need to do some catching up on math. We are on lesson 67 and I want to be to lesson 80 (halfway done) by the time we end week 18 (halfway done) with our other material. We may be doing two lessons a day-good thing Megan likes Math too!

I am also still on a search for something to teach Courtney to read. We have decided that we are going to keep her home next year. (We got a letter the other day from Millard Public Schools on how to register her for kindergarten. ) She says she doesn't want to homeschool and she doesn't want to go to school, she just wants to play all day. Wrong! My mom mentioned a site to me yesterday called www.readinga-z.com and I checked it out. It is almost exactly what I am looking for! After seeing how Megan was taught to read in school, I am looking for something similiar. I want phonics based, a variety of activities, plus short books to read as you go along. This one fit all my criteria. It is about $85 and you have to print everything off yourself. I got a week's trial, so I am going to check out the lessons.

I am just debating, there are 68 lessons so I am just wondering how to set it up if I go with this program. Do I start after Christmas and work with her and then have her reading by next fall? Or do I just work with her out of her preschool books and start to teach her how to read next fall? She already knows all her upper and lower case letters and she knows most of the sounds, so I think I need to keep building on her enthusiasm. I also need to find time to fit her in.

I may redo my schedule next semester. Maybe do some school in the morning and maybe do some homeschooling activities in the afternoon. Christian hasn't been a very good napper lately, so maybe he's giving up his naps already. This is good and bad. I also need to fit an hour or so into the day where I can have some down-time. I have a couple of weeks to think things over. I also enrolled the girls in swimming lessons on Tuesdays at 4:15, so that will take some time out of our day. I may need to reconsider doing this, it may be too much.

Anyway, time to get ready for the day. Lots to do today before our big Christmas weekend!!!

Cars

Wherever I look, there are matchbox cars in sets of two or three laying around my house.

This is because Christian usually has two cars in his hands (or 3 lately) and when he gets interested in something else, he will put them down right where he is. I saw three different piles of matchbox cars this morning just in the kitchen and living room.

too funny.

I think after Christmas I am going to rerrange his toys. He rarely plays with the ones downstairs, so I might just pack those away and bring down some of his cars and books. I am also going to pack his baby toys away. He rarely touches those too!

I am also going to go through the playroom and get rid of some of those!


Don't you know stuff equals stress??

New Words

I heard these out of Christian today:

1. horses
2. owl
3. cow (a couple of days ago)
4. ruff, ruff as he was playing with a puppy

Are we finally getting somewhere??

Stories I may not want to forget

1. The other day when Christian woke up and kept saying "ball, ball" as he was crying and pulling on his pajama feet. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say and then I got it. He was frustrated because he didn't have his football pajamas on. I asked him, "Do you want your football pajamas?" and he nodded yes and pointed to his pajama drawer.

2. Last Saturday at the Ruwe Christmas, Courtney had gotten a gift that had a large plastic candy cane filled with M & M's. She had decided that she was going to sell them to people there. Her deal was that you got one for free, but you had to buy the rest. She made almost $2 by selling her candy! She thought it was all fun (it was great because we had only paid $1 for the candy!).

It was not so funny when we got home. She was in tears because she wanted her candy back! I mean, she was really upset (it was also 10 pm and this was our second late night!). Matt tried to tell her that she still had half her money PLUS the $2 she made from selling it, she could go buy two more candy canes full of candy!

Matt promised to take her to the store, so Sunday after we all got home, Matt decided that he needed to go back to the mall to get some pillows, so he decided to take her along to get her some candy. I thought they were going to stop and some store and buy some more, but Matt thought otherwise. He just had her stop at the candy machines in the mall and buy some! She came home with a handful of assorted candy! She also had some money left, I think this made her happy! I just want to say, "Don't sell your candy then!"

Crazy Weekend- Thankful to get back to Normal

This last week, my grandma passed away pretty unexpectantly. We were all pretty sad about it.
But as everybody knows, when somebody passes away, life gets turned upside down for awhile.

Last Tuesday (13th of December) Matt left at 6 am to work in Des Moines for 3 days. We are getting pretty used to this, but about 3 pm, I got a phone call from my mom telling me that my grandma had passed away. My immediate thought was that I should stop teaching Megan, wake Christian up from his nap, and head out to Scribner to be with the family. My mother stopped me. :) It was rainy and foggy and I was home alone with 3 children. I stayed in Omaha! But I kept in close contact with everybody back home throughout the evening.

Wednesday was preschool for Courtney and school in the afternoon for Megan. We met some of Courtney's preschool friends for supper before AWANA that night, so that was a nice break in the week.

Thursday was crazy busy with two appointments for me in the morning, dr. appt. for Courtney in the afternoon for bronchitis, groceries, then dance. I am very thankful that grandma came and helped out all day. Matt also got home about 7 that night. No time for school for Megan.

Friday was preschool for Courtney and I didn't have school again with Megan on Friday afternoon. I needed the afternoon to catch up and get things ready for our busy weekend. Friday evening was my grandma's viewing back home, so by 4:30, we were ready to leave. We got to Scribner and we saw grandma. It was pretty sad for everybody, but on the other hand, it was nice seeing everybody again. I don't make it home for the Hasemann Christmas, so this was my chance to see all my relation. Many people showed up that I hadn't seen in years, but I will say the saddest part of it was towards the end. Grandpa had gotten up and just stood beside my grandma's casket, I just wonder, what was he thinking? What would he say to her? I got choked up! It was so sweet when Megan and Abby walked over to him and they were all looking at grandma. If only I could've heard their conversation! He was married to her for 65 years! Just amazing!

After the viewing, we went out for supper. It was so nice getting out of Omaha and away from all the chain restaurants. I really appreciate the small town feel and just everything that is so low-key out there. I should really visit more often! Anyway, we pulled into our garage about 10:30 pm and yes, all three kids were asleep.

By 7:30 Saturday morning, all of us were up and getting ready to go to my grandma's funeral. It was another hour drive back to Scribner. We got everybody dresseed up- even I had to get dressed up! I wore some clothes I hadn't worn for a couple of years, but it felt good to wear something besides jeans and sweatshirts! We attended the funeral and it was amazing! I thought the pastor did a great job, my grandma's huge family was there, and everybody had nice things to say about her! She always had a smile on her face, always welcomed you into her home, and always thought of you before herself. What a great lady! I will say the saddest part was seeing my grandpa cry after the commital at the cemetary, I don't think there was a dry eye anywhere around!

After the funeral, I had a chance to take my kids around my old stomping grounds-AKA St. Paul's Lutheran Church. We found secret stairways, climbed the bell tower, wondered around the cemetary and read tombstones written in German from the 1880's, and even found my old confirmation pictures! Again, I really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of the old country church. It is nothing like I attend now. But I think it is funny that the SAME people sing in the choir as did 15 years ago, the SAME lady is playing the organ as when I went to church there, and the SAME ladies helped serve the meal afterwards! I just had to laugh! Only a few things had changed, like they had added on an elevator and maybe there was new carpet, but really not much!

After the meal, we took my kids over to grandmas and Matt and I headed up to West Point to get gifts for a Christmas party we had at 5 in Hooper. On the way home, we stopped at my brother's house, who lives in my grandparents' house now, to see what he's done with. I think it looks great! A lot of upkeep is needed, but it will all come in time.

Lastly the Ruwe Christmas party at 5 in Hooper. More food, presents, lots of conversation. We didn't leave until about 8:30 pm (I think, it might have been more like 9?). We got home, put the kids to bed, and went to bed ourselves!

Sunday we said we were going to stay home, but that didn't happen. We went to church and little Christmas shopping til 2:30 in the afternoon! We had to finish school for the week for Megan and make some cookies for Courtney's program tomorrow at preschool.

This upcoming week is super-busy too, but the following week, I think we are going to take off from school and just take a little break. Matt also has a couple of days off. Won't that be nice for everyone?

I was wrong!

I was wrong, Courtney doesn't have croup, she has bronchitis.

I really think she had croup first, she was barking like a seal last night and this morning, but then she wasn't barking anymore, but she just kept on coughing. I'm glad she was still coughing when I took her into the dr. at 1:30 this afternoon. Poor thing, she said her chest hurt so bad. The dr. said the virus probably just moved down her throat into her lungs.

Now onto an antibiotic for the next 5 days!

Croup

After listening to Courtney cough all the way home from church tonight, I am pretty sure she has croup again. I can A. take her to the doctor (again) and get her a prescription for some steroids or B. let it be.

I gave her some medicine tonight to help her breathe, hopefully it will work. (You know that stuff they took off the shelves awhile ago because parents couldn't read the bottles right!). I have some that you can give kids who are 6 and older, I think Courtney is old enough. I just lower the dose a little bit. We'll see how she does tonight.

And of course, I was just at the pedicatrician on Monday with Christian!

Decorating for Christmas

I promised pictures for last Saturday, so here they are.

1. Matt and Megan putting up the Christmas tree. I admit it, this is a point of contigency between Matt and I. Every year when we do this together, it just doesn't work out right. I mean, I can never do it right. :) So, I was glad to hand this duty off to Megan this year!!

2. Courtney had the job of setting up the nativity scene on the bookshelf. We believe it needs to be in a prominent place where everybody can see it.

3. Courtney putting the angel on the top, right after she got it up, we heard a "crack" and then a couple more cracks and the tree started falling to the side! Matt reached out and grabbed it quick before it fell over!! 4. It was the base that broke on the tree, so Matt went downstairs and rigged a new stand together with wood. I guess this is the last year for the tree!

The tree standing after Matt fixed it, we never did get the angel back on the top.


5. My job was the fireplace, I think it looks great!

6. I also gave the garland to Courtney to decorate the railings on the staircase. Well, she came up with a new plan. Instead of putting it on the railing, she decided to CUT the garland in half and decorate her bed. I didn't know about her plan until it was all over...I guess her bed looks cute, right?


There you go, I think we are ready for Christmas. Maybe I should go shopping now and get some presents under the tree??

Swimming Lessons

Today is registration day for swimming lessons.

I could've registered online at midnight last night, but forgot about it. Matt was leaving this morning for Des Moines, so my mind was on that.

Until 7:30 this morning when I woke up. I thought, "It's Tuesday, I better register for lessons." It's a first come, first serve basis.

I had two different times picked out for lessons. They are free with our gym membership, so we might as well do them.

I registered for Saturday morning at 10:45, both girls at the same time. We did this is the fall and it worked out pretty good. I got an email back that said both girls were on standby. NO!!

So, I tried my second option. Courtney Tuesday nights at 4:15 and Megan Tuesday nights at 5. I got in!! This won't work as well at Saturday mornings, first, because both girls are not at the same time, lessons only go for a half an hour, so I will have a 15 minute break between the two girls. I also give piano lessons on Tuesday nights, so we would need to rush home to eat before my lessons come over. Again, ideal situation, no, but better than any other option.

The good part of this though is that during the winter, it will give me a chance to get out on a Tuesday. I usually stay home during the day now and catch up on things around the house and I really need that time!! (I didn't stay home last Tuesday or Thursday and by Saturday, the house was out of control!!) But this way, when we're stuck at home during the winter, we have an excuse to get out!

I guess we will see how it works, if not, we can pull out...maybe.

They are also starting gymnastics at the gym this semester, but those times were Monday from 6-7 or Saturday mornings from 9-10. Yikes, I don't want another evening taken up (Tuesday, Wedneday, and Thursday have things going on) and I really don't want to be at the gym by 9 am on a Saturday. That is our only day to really get up as a family and eat breakfast together. Courtney has been begging me to take gymnastics though, so I guess we will see what works out. Gymastics were not free either, but dirt cheap. $35 for 10 45minute sessions. $20 for the second child and yes, Megan wants to take them too.

Oh and I can't forget swim team either this semester. Those practices are Tuesdays from 7-8 (when I give piano lessons) and Saturday mornings from 9-10! Not doing that either!

Christmas tree is up...but down!

Yesterday we had a little incident with our Christmas tree.

It cracked at the bottom and almost fell over, but that is for another post that I can include pictures.

After it cracked, Courtney said, "I can fix it with my super powers. Wait, I might not have Christmas tree super powers..."

The Weekend

My goals for the weekend...I'm not sure if it is realistic to get these all done, but I may try.

1. Get Christmas cards ordered- check
2. Write Christmas letter- check
3. Pick up Christmas cards, Christmas paper to print off letters, stamps
4. Print off Christmas letters, address all envelopes,stuff envelopes, seal envelopes, put everything in mailbox---Why are Christmas cards so much work??

5. Put up Christmas tree!
6. Put up other decorations and with a happy attitude. :)

7. Clean up kitchen counters and do dishes
8. Clean off my kitchen island, I think the pile is 2-3 feet high by now. :)
9. Clean off dining room table, we haven't ate there in about a month...

10. Get the three baskets of folded laundry put away
11. Finish washing clothes

12. Clean my sitting room. Thanks Christian for destroying it again!

13. Oh children- make sure they are dressed and fed. :)

14. And because I don't want to end on an odd number, I need to add one more. Attend the Westside Christmas Pageant tonight!!!

But mom, I promised!

Poor Courtney is taking her AWANA lessons to heart lately.

Everyday, I let her have an "ice cream break." Actually this is my way of giving her a little attention in the middle of homeschooling Megan in the middle of the afternoon.

We usually start school about 1:30 and by 3, Courtney is begging me, "Is it ice cream break yet?" I think she gets tired of playing by herself and this is something for her to look forward to, plus who doesn't like ice cream? Megan and I are usually due for a small break too, so it works out good.

Today, I saw the kids snacking quite a bit and I kept putting off "ice cream break." I thought they had eaten enough. She also can't read the clock yet, so I kept delaying it, hoping she might forget about it. About 4:20 though, she caught on. "Mom, is it ice cream break yet?" Then she went on, "I PROMISED daddy I would bring him some ice cream." She started to cry and continued, "I promised him!"

I said to Courtney, "Well, it's kind of past ice cream break time Courtney, but if you promised him, then you better take him some." She cheered up right away, we got the ice cream out, and she delivered some to Matt who was working in his office and of course, she had to have some herself.

Our lesson for AWANAS this week was on God's promises and when we say we promise something, then we better do it! (I don't know if this was what she was thinking, but this is the first thing I thought of!) Keep up the servants heart Courtney!!

Yearly Reviews

This is the week of yearly reviews.

You know, those times once a year when you go in and talk to your insurance agent and your financial manager.

We sat at State Farm last night for an hour and a half, I am very glad they have a little playroom set up for the kids, but really, does it have to take that long? At leat I feel like we accomplished something, like added more finished square footage to our house so incase it burns down, we can get enough money to rebuild. Or put Christian on our policiy, I guess that one is important too.

Tonight we sit at Edward Jones. Finances (roth IRA, 401K, investments) are things that I do not understand very well so I get easily bored. I just have a hard time understanding all the big numbers and the big picture on it, Matt understands it really well, so I just let him take charge. I will keep an eye on the kids and try to follow along, I mean, nod my head whenever they ask me a question. :)

With those two appointments done by Tuesday, we still have a busy week. I heard back from a doctor about what it would take to fix my jaw (I have TMJ pretty bad) and the final figure was $5500 for one option and $8500 for another option! Ouch! And of course, we can't fit it in this year anymore since we're almost out of time and they can't bill me until AFTER the services have been rendered (and they can't get those services in this year, of course). Thanks for taking your sweet time to get back to me. So Wednesday, I am going to my chiropractor to get a second and probably much cheaper opinion. I'm not counting the very expensive option out, I just want to see what my chiropractor thinks, I know he is a totally opposite opinion. But who knows which one is really better...

Wednesday night we are back to AWANA and Thursday, we have dance.

Every night is busy this week, anybody want to fill Friday night for us??

Very Low-Key Weekend

What did I do this weekend? about nothing. :)

Thursday and Friday was crazy busy, so I am glad we had time to relax and recooperate.

I'm glad it snowed on Saturday, it gave us a good excuse to stay home.

I'm glad we had church today, it gave me a good reason to get out, for at least a little bit.

Even now, the family is sitting and watching a movie. Very relaxing.

Yesterday we were supposed to have Megan's private horse riding lesson that Matt and I gave her for her birthday. We called and rescheduled.

We were supposed to go to "Junie B Jones" down at the Rose Theater with some homeschooling friends. I didn't order tickets, so we didn't go.

We also had the opportunity to go "Walk through Bethlehem" last night at our church. We had plans to go with some friends of Courtney's from preschool, but again, I put off getting tickets and when I went to get some, they were gone.

Oh well, it was nice to stay home. We played outside TWICE in the snow. Christian is obsessed with the snow blower, he calls it a tractor and he was MAD when I brought him in yesterday. The poor boy was chattering!

We had church this morning and we could've went to the Wells Fargo Family Fun Day downtown, but again, didn't go.

We can go to Walk Through Bethlehem yet tonight, I doubt it because it is already 5 and we haven't gotten tickets yet.

Hmmm. Nice night at home? I think so.

We did finish our homeschooling lessons this afternoon, so we are ready to go tomorrow. Matt is working from home this week too, so that will be nice.

Any suggestions?

I am currently looking for a program to teach Courtney how to read. Matt and I have pretty much decided that we are going to homeschool her next year too, so why not get started now? If she was going to school, I would just let school teach her how to read, but if she stays home, I think we are going to start working on it next semester.

We have already been working on her letters. I found her letter flashcards and we have been working on those pretty hard. She has the most trouble with lowercase and uppercase I, J, and lowercase d. She had trouble with lowercase q until I had to her think of "cutie patootie" and now she never misses it. :)

I think the next step up is sounds, but this is where I get stuck. I want her to learn short and long vowel sounds along with hard and soft consonant sounds. I want to teach her right from the beginning, not just teach her and then go back and reteach her the proper rules.

I have been looking all over the internet for a program and I just cannot find one that fits my needs. Here is what I want:

1. Phonics based. Short simple rules, learn different sounds of vowels and consonants
2. Simple, yet challenging. I want a simple page layout, nothing too busy that is overwhelming.
3. Short stories so Courtney could practice reading as we learn the words
4. Some writing to go along with it.
5. Not a program that teaches letter by letter, we already know our letters.
6. Something that moves along pretty quickly. not 160 lessons.

I actually want something that I can teach her how to read next semester. I could then start her in some readers next year for kindergarten instead of taking another year to teach her how to read.

Any suggestions??

New Week

Thanksgiving is over.

The 4 day weekend is over.

Sleeping in is over.

Time to get back to reality

Matt is out of town this week from Monday to Wednesday.

Courtney goes back to preschool and Megan needs to get back to homeschooling.

It was fun while it lasted, we had some great family time this weekend with a couple of family parties, a night at the Western Heritage Museum, and an afternoon at the Joslyn Art Museum.

Time to get going!

More words please.

Ok, Christian needs to add more words to his vocabulary soon.

All I hear all day is either "tractor" or "football"

He can also say "dada" very well along with "chair", "more", and "water."

I can't forget "choo, choo" for a train or "vroom, vroom" for a car.

I'm sure there are more than these, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. He can understand a lot more than he can say. I just would like to know what he's talking about half the time!

Connections to School

Ok, for the third time today, I am going to write on my blog. I can never seem to sleep anymore, so why not just blog some more??

Ok, today I didn't have school with Megan, but in a sense, we still had it.

We went down to the Western Heritage Museum tonight for the annual Christmas tree lighting party. We parked about a half mile away, enjoyed the trains for awhile, then missed it when they turned the lights on the tree in the main reception hall. It's ok, it was crowded with people and wouldn't have seen much anyway.

Besides that, we brought what we have been learning in history and made some connections to the city of Omaha. (I am just so amazed at how much we are learning in school!)

Here is how:

We had been studying about the ancient Greeks this week in school and we are at about 500BC now. For those of you who don't know, this is about the time of the Greek Golden Age. Everything was going great for the Greeks. Their city had just been burned down by the Persians (Megan can tell you that story) and the Greeks were rebuilding their city and a whole new level of culture was arising. They built the Parthenon, created money, and established their theatre. There were many new modern thoughts and they had some great leaders at the time (Until those Spartans came in and ruined everything 50 years later.)

Today we were at the museum and we were in the Byron Reed collection, which is a huge collection of money from all over the world. I am usually bored with this section, so I really didn't pay much attention, but just today, I looked over and saw "Greek money." I said, "Megan, Megan, come over here!" We sat there together and read how each city-state in Greece had thier own insignia on their own money. They had an example there from a city-state in Greece, unfortunately, it was not one that we have been learning about, but I still thought it was so cool that we knew what a city-state was, we knew that money was pretty new at that time, and we just knew the culture. It was fun to bring it all together!

Below the Greece money, there was money from the Roman empire. I know we are going to be studying that next week, so we might need to go back.:)

At another section of the museum, they had displays about the first buildings and their architecture here in Omaha. There were some theatre masks displayed on the wall and some columns on the other wall.(I still don't know why these were there when they were talking about architecture?) Do you know where theatre masks and columns on buildings orignated? Greece you guess? Correct! We had just studied the different kinds of columns that the Greeks used in their buildings on Wednesday. We also talked about how the Greeks made their theatres and how they would use masks that would signify their moods. These masks are what you often see around theatres these days.





Awesome, isn't it??

Oh wait, it gets better.

On our way home, we stopped at Subway (against Courtney's wishes) and as I am sitting their eating, I notice that their windows are in an arch shape. Any guesses here? Ok,I will tell you then. The Romans invented the arch that we see ALL OVER THE PLACE!! Like I said, we start studying about the Roman empire next week.




Do you see why I love homeschooling??
1. She would not be learning any of this at public school.
2. Even if she was learning it, would I know she was learning it? As a parent last year when Megan was at school, I didn't know what she was learning half the time.
3. Because I am the one teaching her, I can point things out as we are out in public and I can let her make the connection. Like I did 4 times today!!

I really can't wait to teach American history next year!!!

In case you are wondering, I really like teaching all the other subject too and if I can, I like to make connecttions anyway I can. (Like when Megan says, "What time is it?" I reply with, "You can read a clock, what does it say?)

Ok, one more example just because it is funny. Here's another "connection". It's not so important to us, but to a farmer, it is very important.

We are reading a book called "Strawberry Girl" for school and in this book, the family makes a field, puts a fence around it, and puts cows in it. They want to grow strawberries in there to sell later. Now, why would a person put cows in a field that they want to grow strawberries in??? Oh yeah, the cows "fertilize" the soil so they can have better strawberries!!

This one took a little bit of explaining to Megan- poor city girl! But never fear, we got a real live example yesterday. We were driving out to my parents for Thanksgiving and out in the country, we saw some cows out in the corn fields. Of course, I say, "Look Megan and Courtney, there are cows out in the fields? What do you think they are doing out there besides eating the leftover corn?" Fertilizing!! Same concept as in the book we are reading!! I just had to laugh!




Ok, the end of my really long blog. :)

Day off..

I got talked into, I let Megan have the day off. I think she is enjoying it.

She has been in her room all afternoon listening to "Adventures in Odyssey."

Now we have to do school this weekend, but it is soooo nice to just sit around today!

Plan for the Day :)

1. Black Friday Shopping

2. Husker Football Game

Haha! None of the above!!!

The REAL plan is to sleep in, eat breakfast, sit around a little bit, shower the children, shower myself, and then do something constructive.

The girls' playroom has been a disaster for about 2 weeks now, so that is first on the agenda. This is Courtney's agenda for the morning.

Matt is, of course, watching football. I'm surprised he hasn't turned the Husker game on yet.

Christian is playing very nicely in his room.

Megan is working on her homework, so when that is done, she gets to help Courtney with the playroom.

Then lunch.

After lunch, the teacher of Ruwe homeschool says we are going to have school today. I know it is a vacation day, but I have one day left of school for the week. I can either do it today, tomorrow, or Sunday. I figure, let's just do it today and get it done with!

And of course, we will need to do something family-friendly today since Matt is off. (Maybe he will work on the basement while I am teaching Megan this afternoon?).

I think we are going to head down to the Western Heritage Museum for the annual tree lighting ceremony. They have a lot of family-friendly activities down there, Christian is really into his trains lately, plus we have a family membership, so why not? Oh, it might be packed with people, but I think we are going to try anyway.

Then we have the weekend free and we have nothing planned, so hopefully it will be nice and relaxing!! (But of course, Matt goes back to Iowa on Monday and I am on my own again until Wednesday.)

Vacation Days

I love days off.

I love it that none of my kid are early risers, Matt is, but he gets up and lets me be!

It's so hard for me to get out of bed unless I have to.

It's 8 and we are usually all up by now for preschool. It's 8 and nobody is up yet (except for Matt and I).

If we homeschool both girls next year and don't need to get up for preschool, how am I going to get motivated in the morning???

(We didn't get anywhere yesterday and if we don't go somewhere this morning, we're pretty much stuck here all day again. I would like to get to the gym this morning, so maybe I can kick everybody out of their beds and get going!)

Football?

I think it's funny that Christian, at 17 months of age, brings me the TV remote and says, "football?"

Open Door Mission and Wal-mart

Yesterday we had one goal. Make a trip to the Open Door Mission.

Our goal was two-fold. Megan had collected toys for the kids down there for her birthday. It was a great idea-instead of bringing Megan presents, the people brought gifts for the Open Door Mission. It worked out great! This was something Megan wanted to do for her birthday. Don't worry, she still got presents for herself, just not as many.

The second part of the plan was to clean out the storage section in our basement and take everything that we weren't using/ didn't need/ will never use again down there too. This also included items that I have been putting in piles throughout the house- old clothes, old shoes, old small appliances.

It took a couple of hours to clean it out, but we got it. It is amazing what we found down there! For instance, Megan has been begging me to find this porcelain doll that grandma Jo had given her when she was a baby. I looked in every box in her room and I just couldn't figure out where it went! Well, it was in a box in the basement. She was about in tears when I found it!

We also found a couple of boxes of more items that we had received for our wedding that could go in our China hutch- glass bowls, goblets, flower vases, etc. I found old scrap books and a crate of piano books (that's where those went!). I also found a box of school books. Somewhere along the line, my mom had found these elementary English books. They are full of stories and I thought Megan would love reading out of them.

We got rid of a lot of stuff too. Our old microwave that we took out of kitchen last year went to the mission. We had intended to sell it on Craig's list, but never did. We had old towels we were never going to use, some flower vases that we have doubles of, and some other household items. I am so glad these were all going to nice organization that will give them to people who need them. The mission does such good work in Omaha and starting in December, I think we are going to start serving down there as a family. This is one thing I really want to incorporate as part of the Ruwe homeschool. :)

So as Matt and Megan were delivering items to the Open Dorr Mission, Courtney and I decided that we wanted to make some banana bread. Well, you can't make banana bread without eggs, so that idea was thrown out the window. Next I decided to find something to make for a thanksgiving get-together that we have Sunday afternoon. After looking through my pantry, I decided I had nothing to take. Plus it was Matt's birthday on Sunday, and we hadn't gotten a gift for him yet. So I made an executive decision and Courtney, Christian, and I were off to Wal-Mart!

Shopping went great, except I am beginning to dislike going grocery shopping on the weekends. Unofortunately, the trouble started at the check-out lanes. Christian was being good in the cart like usual and then he spotted the tractor. Wal-Mart had set up this big section of bikes and riding toys for young kids like Christian and Courtney. They were right by the check-out lanes too! There was a John Deere jeep and a couple of race cars that were for boys. Christian spotted these and almost jumped out of his seat!

The whole time he was saying, "Tractor, Tractor!". I would say, "Do you want to ride the tractor?" and he would get even more excited! I had let Courtney go play on them and other kids were on them, so he was not too good in the cart. The cashier was even saying, "I'm going as fast as I can!"

I got all done checking out and I took him over there and he was all smiles! He got on the green jeep and was thrilled! Then he got on a car, back to the jeep, then over to a race car. He was having a great time!! (How was I going to get him out of here?)

He got out of the 2nd race car and headed back to the jeep when another boy came along and got into that race car that he was just in. He immediately got jealous and he screamed at the top of his lungs! He has a tendency to do this, he thinks that once he's played in it, the toy is his. So I picked him up and we headed to the door. Poor thing needs to learn to share!

While I was buckling Christian into his carseat in the car, I looked over at Courtney and she looked kind of sad. I said, "Courtney, we had to leave because your brother was being naughty."

She looked at me with her big brown eyes and that were welling up in tears. She said, "He was NOT being naughty, he was being very good" and she started crying! Poor thing! She wanted me to tell the other boy to get off the car so Christian could ride it again! She does not like it when Christian gets his feelings hurt, expecially by other kids!

I tried to explain to her that Christian has to share and he was being very good until that moment. She said, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." Fine Courtney! I love her heart!

So anyway, we got home and Matt and Megan were back home and it was a very peaceful evening! Too bad those Huskers lost.

The stove is fixed!

About a month or two ago, we realized there was a screw missing off the side of the door of the stove (that came out because I lean on the handle all the time.)

The screw was completely gone and now my door was hanging about an inch open on one side. It was hard to get to an appliance store to get a screw specifically for our stove, so fixing the stove was put on hold. Until last Saturday.

We made a special trip to an appliance store at 72nd and Dodge and ordered the $4.50 screw. It wasn't even a half inch long.

So today, Matt picked up the screw and while I was gone tonight, he fixed my stove!!

Wow, does it look so much better! Maybe now I can open the door without thinking the front glass is going to come out and shatter everywhere!

Thanks Matt....now onto finishing the basement.:)

Random Thoughts from the Week

1. I love Tuesdays and Thursdays. No reason to get up and out the door by 8:45. We sleep in, a little bit and enjoy the morning. Wait, I catch up on housework and the laundry. But stil...

2. Christian and Courtney are such buddies lately!! When I put Christian down for a nap at 1:30 so I can teach Megan for a couple of hours, Courtney says, "Mom, do you HAVE to put him down for a nap? I want somebody to play with." She is really starting to get bored by herself while I am teaching Megan. She can't wait for him to get up so she can play with him. I have offered her to sit down and do school with us, but she doesn't want to. She usually ends up wondering around the house until Christian wakes up. Oh and interrupting us about every 10 minutes to see if it's 3:00 yet so she can have her "ice cream break." She was so good about playing by herself during this time! What happened?

3. When Christian is awake, dump truck rides are usually what Courtney and Christian are doing. Christian will get in the dump truck and Courtney will push him around the house as fast as she can. Christian loves it!!

Now if Megan were to touch the dump truck while Christian was in it, he would have nothing of it. Them two don't play together very well and I think it is because Megan doesn't "play" with Christian, she is usually teasing him, irritating him, laying on him, etc. He doesn't really like her close to him.

4. Matt is gone in Iowa again this week. He was supposed to go next week and we had a nice vacation planned. We were going to go along and stay at a hotel that had a waterpark! But unfortunately, his company doesn't want him in Iowa next week, so no more vacation. :( It would've worked great during the week of Thanksgiving because Courtney doesn't have preschool on Wednesday.

5. I sat at the kitchen table for 4 hours yesterday teaching kids!!! 4 hours!!!
I started school wtih Megan at 1:30 and about 3, Courtney was begging for her "ice cream break" (like usual) This works for me too. :) We took about a half hour break for ice cream and to get Christian up. Then I finished with Megan about 4:30.

Then Courtney wanted to do school! I love sitting down with her because she is soooo eager to learn lately. We sat at the table for another 45 minutes or so working on her preschool books. I was begging her to be done, I had had enough talking and teaching, but the other two were gone playing, so it was perfect timing. Ahhh, when she decided we were done, I got up and vegged in front of the TV for awhile!

If we decide to homeschool Courtney next year, how will this work?? It will definitely help that I will not have her preschool schedule to work around!

6. Megan's favorite two subjects are history and Bible. Anybody can ask her and this will be her reply. I am with you Megan!

I have to admit, we are learning world history this year and everything we are learning lately, I was never taught in school, so I am learning right along with her. Right now we are at about 500 BC and yesterday we learned how King Xerxes of Persia invaded Greece. We learned the whole story of how the smaller Athenian army defeated the huge army of Persia! Wow! I am a history buff, so I am loving this!! Megan is too!

I think it's awesome that when we open our Bible to do our lesson there and we are learning about the same people and places as in history class. On Tuesday, we were talking about King Darius and Persia and how he tried to invade Greece (the 2nd attempt, King Xerxes was the 3rd attempt). Well, we flipped our Bible open to the book of Daniel and guess who we are talking about - King Darius of Persia! I love it!!!

Really, who thought I would get excited about the Perians, Greeks, Spartans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians, the Indus Valley, China at 500 BC??

And would Megan be getting ANY of this at public school? NO!! (But is it important that she learns history in 2nd grade? Should we be doing more reading and writing and math like they would be doing in school? Obviously I don't think so. :)

7. Did you know that the $150 million bond issue for Milard Public Schools failed this week? Yes, the voters voted it down, which included Matt and I. Would you vote for a tax increase when your kids did not go to school there?? But I do think that higher security and doors on their elementary school classrooms was a good idea, I do not think artificial turf is. This is a district that took bussing away for 900 students and yet wants to add artifical turf. Hmmm.

8. Courtney is making some really good friends at preschool this year! One of her main friends is a girl named Livi. Yesterday at pick up her mom said to me, "Everyday Livi asks if there is preschool because she can't wait to come and play with Courtney." Isn't that sweet?? We definitely have to have them over to play.

9. I am loving my gym membership. Two hours completely by myself two days a week is great! Courtney is at preschool, Christian and Megan are in childcare. Yesterday I was in the pool for about an hour and a half. Seriously, it is so relaxing. Exercising plus having time to myself! Two things that are great for me right now!

10. Ok, so I didn't really mean to write to 10, but if you know me, I like even numbers, so I just can't end at 9. :) Don't even ask me about my fettish with even vs. odd numbers (yes, having 3 children drives me nuts)! Anyway, off to get the kids up...

Megan's quote of the day

Today, I was struggling to get Megan to do her math homework, again.

It was about lunch time and I finally said, "Megan, you need to get your homework done before I will let you eat lunch!"

Her response was, "What? You care more about my homework than your starving child??"

Yes Megan, at this moment I do! :)

What would you do at 3 am?

I just had to laugh. This was one of the questions for a game at the baby shower I attended yesterday.

What would you do at 3 am while you are up with the baby?

Seriously now, are you really going to watch TV, catch up on reading, check facebook, listen to music???

First of all, you might need both hands to do some of these things and if you are breastfeeding at 3 am, that may not be possible.

Second, are you really going to stimulate yourself so much that you are going to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep? Why would you do this, especially if you have to get up and go to work in the morning?

Third, when I was up at 3 am, I wasn't up long enough to really do any of these things. Catch up on reading? watch tv?

Ok, here's my answer. When you get up, turn a night light on, keep the room quiet, do not stimulate yourself or the baby with any bright lights!! Do not stimulate your brain at all. Really, who wants to think at 3 am?? I don't! Feed the baby, change the baby, put the baby back to bed. Put yourself back to bed. Nothing else! (Somebody said they should pray during that time- that is an excellent thing to do while feeding the baby at 3 am too!)

Now, if the baby thinks he/ she wants to be a night owl and be up for hours, sure, go ahead and watch TV/ read a book/ etc. I totally understand. If you're going to be up, might as well do something. But really, try your best to get everybody back to bed!!

That is my answer about what to do at 3 am!
(Can't you tell I never did any of those things??)

5 Parties in 4 Days

Ok, all I can say is that I am tired of "parties", tired of cake,tired of chit-chatting, and tired of singing happy birthday! This week/ weekend was a little much. I am very happy for everybody and their birthdays, but I am D-O-N-E!I just want to curl up and spend some time alone!!

Thursday night- Megan had her family birthday party.
Friday night- Megan had her friends party.
Saturday- my niece's first birthday party
Sunday morning- our church's 30th birthday party (yes, they threw a party for our church)
Sunday afternoon- sister-in-laws baby shower

I am exhausted, but I still have to make supper for the family and teach Megan tonight. I let her have Thurday and Friday off from school because it was her birthday and we had to get ready for her parties, but she is not getting out of it. I told her we were going to make it up on the weekend and we will. I love the flexibility of homeschooling, but I don't like having to do school on the weekends, especially on a Sunday night. Everything from last week has to be done before we go to bed tonight, my rule!

Tomorrow we start our week over again!

Chaos!

Yep, that's what you get when you invite nine girls from ages 7-9 years over for a 2 1/2 hour birthday party!

Hmmm. What notes should I take from this year to apply to next year?

The Big Birthday!

Yesterday was the big birthday that Megan had counted down to for months. She was patient through Christian and Courtney's birthday. She always wanted to know why her birthday was last, we say, "We saved the best for last."

A couple days earlier, she had told me that she didn't want to go to school on her birthday. With homeschooling, we could do that, but I didn't really have any other time this week to sit down with her for school. I had told her that I needed to do school on her birthday, so we could take Friday afternoon off to get ready for her friends' party. I have 4 day lesson plans, so taking a day off each week seems to work out really well.

I usually take Tuesday and Thursdays mornings to just stay home and catch up on things like housework. So yesterday, we did that. I made Megan waffles for breakfast, we all got dressed, and we cleaned up a little bit. I didn't want to clean the entire house on Friday afternoon, so my idea was to get some done on Thursday morning. We did and I was happy with the progress.

We went out to CiCi's for lunch, per Megan's request, and then we headed over to Kohl's for a little shopping. I had 30% off coupon and Megan wanted a couple more fleece shirts. Before we headed in though, Matt had mentioned that we should see a movie that afternoon and soon I stared reminded him that we had to do school and that I didn't have any other good time to do school before Sunday night. His response, "But it's Megan's birthday, let her have some fun!" Ugh, go ahead and ruin my plans, but he had a point.

We got our shopping done and I gave in. It was her birthday and Matt had decided to take the afternoon off to spend it with her, he just didn't tell me until then! We decided to see "Puss in Boots" at Village Pointe. So much for school. :(

The movie got over about 4:30 and we headed home. About 5, we had some friends stop over and by 5:45, we needed to leave to go to Megan's party at Godfather's. (I thought I could get math or reading in during this house, but that didn't happen either!)

Megan's party at Godfather's was a great success! She's old enough where she doesn't need a big party at our house anymore, but I still wanted to do something for her. I had her uncles and aunts asking me about her party and I knew people had bought her gifts already. We rented out the party room at Godfathers, just invited immediate family, bought everybody pizza and pop, and had a little get-together. I thought it turned out well, except for when Megan was spitting as she blew out her candles! We will have to work with her for next year. :)

Megan and I also came up with the idea that she should donate her presents to the Open Door Mission. I am so glad that the family supported her little service project and bought things for them. She got a couple of presents from grandmas and she will get presents tonight with her friends' party.

I think she had a great birthday and I better get busy and start planning her party for tonight! Yikes!!

A night off from AWANA

I haven't stayed home from AWANA in the last four years that we have been going.

Christian hasn't been feeling good all week. He's had a runny nose, but last night and today, he's felt a little warm. Tonight Matt and I decided, at the last minute, that we should keep him home. He didn't have a very good nap today because I had to take the girls to the dentist at 3. You could tell he was tired. While we were eating supper tonight, he just looked miserable!

We decided that I should stay home with him because Matt has missed the last two weeks of Cubbies with Courtney. They left about 6 and I sat down in front of the TV with Christian was on my lap and he didn't move! This is not like him at all!!

About 6:40 I put his pajamas because he was yawning and by 6:45, he was asleep on my lap! Poor thing!

He is in bed now, but I'm not sure if he will sleep all night or not. I hope so, he needs to sleep to get better.

Now I have the next two hours to myself!! I should really do something I want to do, BUT Megan is having 9 friends over Friday night for her birthday party and I don't have much time to clean between now and then. Unfortunately, I am going to enjoy my peace and quiet and clean!

As for the dentists today, both girls got glowing reports. Well, Megan needs to brush better, but neither one had any cavities! The hygenist wanted to put sealants on Megan's teeth and Megan would only let her do one, she closed her mouth and wouldn't let her do anymore.:( Now I have to take her back in about a month to finish them. Courtney's teeth were great and she has one six-year molar in already. They want to put sealants on that one the next time we are in. Sounds good to me!

I think I started something...

Courtney has been begging me to teach her to read. I want to teach her because her excitement to learn is so great right now, but I'm having a hard time finding time to sit down with her.

Tonight I got to put her to bed. We were doing connect the dots with the alphabet and somehow we got on the subject of her wanting to learn to read. I had also found some alphabet cards while I was sitting there, so I decided to test her and see what she knew.

She knew almost all the alphabet, so I went through again and started teaching her the sounds. She knew some really well, like the ones she had learned in preschool, but others not so much.

I wanted to push it further. I got out a piece of paper and wrote the word "fun" on it, wondering if she could figure it out. With much prompting, she did! You should've seen her eyes light up!!

We turned fun into sun, which she also got. Then we went to it, then sit, then hit. (We could do the whole word family!)

I think once she figures out the sounds to words, she will take off in reading!

I think we might be doing more of this tomorrow! Good thing I kept a lot of Megan's kindergarten readers and word family papers! I might need to get those out soon. And add some Courtney reading time to our school time in the afternoons.

Good News!

Wow, it's been awhile since I have been to the doctor and received some good news!
(I don't write about any of my health problems on here, if you haven't noticed.)

I went to the dentist today and came out with a great report!
No cavities, no need for a crown, no need for a root canal, nothing! YAY!!!
There is something going on with one of my front teeth, but nothing showed up in the xray, so the dentist said to let it be.

This is good news!

Even though my teeth are good, doesn't mean that my jaw is good....

Very peaceful :)

While I was making dinner tonight, it seemed very peaceful in the house.

Nobody was being crazy, nobody was fighting, nobody was being left out!

Do you know why? They were watching a movie!

(I don't know the last time they watched a movie, I usually don't even have the TV on during the day, but I was gone at the dentist and they conned daddy into letting them watch a movie! Wow, I should do this more often :)

Homework troubles again!

Tonight,like any other night, Megan had homework. She had 5 pages of handwriting and two pages of math to get done before school tomorrow. She has 2 to 3 pages of handwriting everyday. Since it's not a daily "lesson", I usually let it slide until Sunday night. Then she has to have everything from the previous week finished.

Well, it came to be 7:45 pm tonight and I reminded her that she had homework to do. So she immediately started to complain. She did pull out her math and finished that in about 10-15 minutes without too much trouble.

About 8 pm, she pulled out her handwriting. She was sitting in the living room with us til about 8:20 and had 1/2 a page done. By 8:30, nothing more was done, except a lot more complaining and moaning about it.

About 8:35, Matt and I had had enough complaining and I was determined that she was going to get it done before she went to bed. We had already told her that if it wasn't done by 8:30, she would get no books for bedtime.

I also know that if I put Megan in a room all by herself, she will get busy. This is probably the one thing she hates the most in life, but I had no other choice! There is nobody to distract her and nobody for her to talk to. So I took her handwriting book and pencil and took it up to my sitting room off my master bedroom. She went in and I told her she could not come out until it was done and I shut the door behind me. Wow, she was not happy with this situation!

Within ten minutes, she had everything completed! I knew it would work!
(I knew it would because I've had to do this before for a math test). If we continue to homeschool, we need to have our own "homeschool" room where she can go and do homework or give her her own room back with her own desk.

Time Change!

Anybody else love laying in bed until the kids decide to wake up? I'm loving the extra hour of "down time" for me, I don't get it very often!

It's 8:02 new time, which means 9:02 old time, and my girls are still sleeping!!
Christian is awake and talking in his crib.

I loev that my kids are not early risers!!

But I should probably go wake them up, we have church this morning!

I survived.

Matt was gone another 3 days this week and I survived again.

I had to rearrange a few things this week because we were behind in school from the previous week, but we are all caught up now. I am really amazed at how much Megan is picking up! For instance, I think I gave her my cold. I asked her this morning, "Do you remember from health what we are supposed to eat when we get sick?" She responded,"an apple!" (I was really looking for vitamin C, but an apple contains vitamin C, so she was correct!)

We are also having great fun reading a story about a Chinese missinoary Gladys Alyward. She is a lady who flunked out of missionary school in England, but was still determined to be a missionary in China. After travelling 6 weeks to find an English missionary in China, her dream comes true, but only after many trials that only God could have gotten her through! We are at the part in the book now where she has become a local foot inspector. Her job is to go to local villages and make sure parents unbind their little girls feet. What is feet binding, you may ask? Well, ask Megan! It's where the Chinese would fold little girls' feet over and then wrap them up like that so they grow crooked. They did this because they thought men didn't like "big" feet. The women could only hobble with bound feet. Megan and I looked up pictures of bound feet on the internet and we have really learned a lot about this terrible custom the Chinese used to do.

During this time in this book, the government made a rule that bound feet are illegal. Gladys had to go from village to village to make sure everybody under the age of 10 had unbound feet. By age 12, your feet were stuck that way. :( Gladys was picked because she could actually walk. She was not from China and her feet were not bound. Everyday when I ask Megan what subject she wants to do first, she always said, "Read Gladys!" I'm so glad she is enjoying learning! It is a very interesting book and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Anyway, sorry about that tangent, but I love to see my girls love learning!

Magic Powers

This morning, Courtney came up to me and said, "If I use my secret powers from my secret hiding place, can I change this candy so it is good for me and then have it for breakfast??"

No Courtney!!!

I thought that was very creative and a very sneaky way to have candy for breakfast!!

6 am

Matt left for Des Moines this morning at 6 am. I am on my own for the next 3 days!

Homeschooling lessons for me

I can tell I'm a little bit more relaxed about homeschooling these days. I am not exactly going "by the book" anymore.

I have four day lesson plans for Bible, history, read-alouds (chapter books I read to Megan), and language arts.

I have five day lesson plans for math, readers (chapter books that Megan reads to me), and handwriting.

When I started homeschooling with Megan, I would do everything on Monday that I was supposed to do on Monday. I would do Bible, history, read-alouds, language arts, math, readers, and handwriting. I didn't go ahead, I didn't make up from the day before. Right on schedule. The rest of the week would work the same way.

Sometimes this didn't work and we would get a little behind for the week. Maybe I would get my four days done, but still have math, handwriting, and readers I had to squeeze in over the weekend or something. (Seriously, I thought I would have plenty of time to teach Megan! HA!)

My theory was that as long as I had all the work from the previous week done by Sunday night, then I would be good! I have week-long lesson plans and they need to be done a week at a time.

Well, last week, I didn't teach Megan on two days because of some other things that came up, so I assumed we would get it done over the weekend. Well, that didn't happen. It doesn't help that she had a ton of homework to catch up on. Like 2 assignments of math, 5 assignments of handwriting, language arts, science, and I really try to get piano lessons in once a week.

So when I got up this morning, I knew we had some catching up to do, since we didn't get it finished over the weekend. My new goal was to have her homework done by 1:30 (when we usually start school), then we would do the last few lessons from last week (our spelling test, one more lesson in math, and Bible), do our AWANA verses, learn a little about Halloween, and then start on anything for this week.

So we did! It is amazing, Megan managed to get her math done this morning along with her handwriting. Really, I told her she couldn't come eat lunch until she had it done- and she did it! She still has language arts and science to do, but I didn't exactly need those done by today, so I let them slide...until tomorrow.

So now we are back on track with everything, mostly anyway. We got through our AWANA verses today and learned about Halloween. I even started some work for the upcoming week.

The funny thing about this is that even though we were behind in some things, we are 5 days ahead in our reader. We've been reading this detective book and today we were supposed to read chapter 6, then tomorrow, chapter 7, and by Friday, we were supposed to read chapter 10 and finish the book. Well, we just finished it all today. We sat down to read and since the chapters are only about 5-6 pages, Megan kept saying, "Just one more chapter?" If things were going good with Christian and Courtney, we would keep on reading! So we read all 5 chapters and finished the book. Amazing.

I'm learning about flexibility. Now tomorrow we won't have to do readers, so I might have some time to do two lesson in history. It's kind of nice to be able to work ahead or save some lessons for later. This doesn't work it all the subjects, but some it works really nicely.

I really like it that if she has an interest in something she is studying about, we can stop and research it a little bit more on the Internet. We are reading a chapter book about a missionary in China and how she encountered women who had bound their feet. So what did we do? We stopped and looked up bound feet on the Internet and did our own little research. It's amazing all the things I am learning too!

New Carseats

Can you tell which Ruwe kid did not like their new carseat situation??

Don't worry, she was much better about it the next day. Change is always hard, isn't it?

Football

Ok, the Nebraska football gave has been over for about 2 hours now...they won, blah, blah.

About 4:15, I informed Matt of the win and he said, "What, the game is over?" Yes Matt, it is.

Well thanks to X-box live, we can now rewatch the entire game.

Can you guess what the two boys in my house are doing right now???

Too much money!

I just checked our claim of benefits page to see what health care bills have came through and my jaw dropped. I know health care is a lot, but seriously, I think this is getting ridiculous!

Last week, after Megan fainted, I took her in for an office visit. She had never fainted before and I wanted to get her checked out. Usually an office visit is $128 after insurance, now I think that is crazy enough to see a doctor for only 10 minutes! Guess what Megan's was? $186.42 after insurance!!! (It was $193 to start!) Seriously!! It was a regular office visit just like everything else. I am tempted to call and see why it was so much more than usual!

Since we have met our deductible for the year, we are only paying 10%, but wow!

Changes in Carseats!

Ok, I am going to get on my soapbox about carseats on this entry, so just bear with me. This is my personal opinion and you do not have to agree with me if you do not want to.


Today we did the big switcheroo in the carseat department. Megan got moved to a high-back booster seat, Courtney gets Megan's 5 point harness carseat, and Christian gets moved into a convertible carseat and out of his infant carrier.

Tomorrow is the first day that Megan will ride in a high-back booster seat.

Ever since the day we brought her home from the hospital, she has been in a 5 point harness carseat. And she is almost 8.

Are we over-protective when it comes to safety? Why didn't we put her in a booster seat 4 years ago? Why does every other kid ride in a low-back booster seat and our children are still harnessed? Why you ask? IT'S SAFER!!!

I often cringe when I see 4 year olds in a low-back booster seat (Did you know high back booster seats are 70% safer than low-backs?). I cringe when I see kids not in booster seats that are the same age as both of my girls! I cringe when I see booster seats in the front seat of cars. I cringe when I see carseat buckles/straps not tightened. I cringe when I see kids with thick winter jackets on in carseats, whether booster seat or harness mode. How about one year olds who are front-facing? Christian will probably stay backwards until at least 2 or 3, thanks to new research that kids can actually break their neck when they are faced forward too early and are involved in an accident.

Honestly, I just don't get it. If there is a safer way to have your children ride around in your car, why don't you give that to them? Why do some parents move their kids to a low-back booster seat AS SOON AS THEY CAN just for convenience? Yes, booster seats are MUCH more convenient than harnessed carseats that you need to install and be kept in one car. Trust me! But they are not very safe. I will take the safety of my children anyday over convenience!!

To add to it, we bought Megan a high back booster seat that actually latches into the car, so if we get into an accident, she will not have the force of the carseat on her, unlike other booster seats that just sit on the seat. And this is why we had to buy a Honda! We had to have enough latches and tethers for three carseats! Seriously, if Megan was in a low back booster that wasn't latched in, we could've spent a whole lot less on a new car! But no, we want our children to be safe.

And just to remind everybody, Megan, or any of my children, will not ride in the front seat until they are 12 and they will remain in booster seats until they are 4 ft. 9 inches, like the carseat recommendations. Seriously, why do I see 8 year olds riding in the front seat? Do the parents not know that the air bag can kill their children if they are in an accident? I know these parents love their children, but why do they not make sure they are safe in a car? Honestly, I just don't get it.

I will get off my soapbox now. :)

"Something's roaring"

Courtney woke me up at 3:45 this morning with tears in her eyes saying, "There's something roaring in my room."

I said, "Ok, go get your blankets and sleep on my floor," so she did.

When I woke her up this morning, I asked her why she was on my floor. She replied, "There was something roaring in my room last night, it was Megan snoring!"

math homework

Today, we're going to go to the Children's Museum for awhile. We haven't been there in a long time and Courtney doesn't have preschool, so we have some time.

I told Megan though, before we went, she would need to finish her math homework, so when we got home, we could have school. Courtney and Christian were distracting her quite a bit, so finally I saw them two go into the bathroom. I got Megan by the kitchen table and set the timer for 5 minutes because I was tired of telling her to get it done. Little did I know that Christian and Courtney were having so much fun in the bathroom, it actually gave Megan some time to get it done because once they were out of sight, she got right to work.

I'm not sure what they were doing in there (I heard the toilet flush twice, so I think Courtney was showing Christian how to flush) and I usually don't encourage playing in the bathroom, but it was a good thing today!

You know you are not so worried about things anymore when...

1. You run out of milk last Friday and really don't worry about when you are going to get more. Luckily, grandma brought pink and chocolate milk for the girls last Friday and that is what we drank all weekend ( I saved some white milk for Christian).

2. You really know there is nothing in the kitchen to eat for breakfast, but really, we will find SOMETHING!! (How about canned oranges, apples and peanut butter, the last cheese stick, and chocolate milk??)

3. Food, isn't it overrated anyway??

4. I am not so worried about following our homeschooling lesson plans word for word. We are slacking a little in school today. We were busy with Matt home. Am I worried? Not so much, but yes, I need to get back at it tomorrow (If Megan EVER complains about having to go to school, I will remind her that she goes to school less than half the time her classmates do everyday AND she usually gets a day off a week. And yet, we still cover everything we are supposed to. :)

5. My jaw does not hurt anymore, which means my stress level has gone down because I am not clenching my teeth at night....but why am I getting migraines now??

6. You can't see the girls' bedroom floors for weeks at end. We cleaned it Sunday, didn't we??

7. I don't really care that we eat off of paper plates anymore. Seriously, why didn't we do this earlier??

8. What? You don't have any clean clothes? Why don't you look at the three baskets of clean and folded laundry? There's probably something in there. What? You want me to put those away too? What's wrong with just getting your clothes out of the baskets?

9. I can go to bed the night before and know roughly what I am doing tomorrow. We have finally settled into a somewhat schedule for mornings and afternoons. Why I am so schedule-orienated??

10. People ask me how school is going and I can give them a postive answer! It is going much better!!

Poor Courtney!

Matt left tonight for Des Moines and poor Courtney cried til she couldn't cry anymore.

She kept saying, "Who is going to go with me to Cubbies??" She didn't mention anything about him being gone the 3 days, she was just worried about Cubbies. So she called grandma and asked her to come. :) She has been great all evening! I love it when we have nothing to do (for now!)

Sunday Afternoon

It is almost 80 degrees out today and guess what we were doing?? Cleaning!

I had almost no "down time" this week to catch up on housework, so it had to wait until Sunday to get done. Seriously, when Megan said, "I have no clothes to wear!" this morning, she really didn't!

Most of what needed to be done today was that the girls needed to clean their playroom, bedroom, hallway, and bathroom. I don't think I have seen the floor in the two bedrooms in a long time! When the floors get covered, they start playing in the bathroom and hallway, and when that is disaster zone, then it is time to clean. We haven't been able to stay on top of the cleaning every night like we would like to with the girls.

They started about 1:30 and didn't get done til about 5. In the meantime, I tackled the kitchen. :)

We really should've made Courtney's middle name "disaster" because she is the expert! Almost 90% of the mess today was Courtney's, but Megan didn't have very good attitude today when we got started, so she got the privilege of helping Courtney clean it all up.

The most interesting part of the whole afternoon was seeing what Courtney cleaned off her bed. This happens everytime she cleans up her room. I don't really know why she stockpiles things in her bed at night, but she does. It's not just stuffed animals and books like her sister, today I found paint, paintbrushes, box of colors, cut-up paper, library books, her own books, many stuffed animals, dirty clothes, blankets she doesn't even use, toys, etc. I just shake my head and throw it all on the floor for her to put back to it's respective spot!! It amazes me every single time! I usually have to pull her bed away from the wall and their is even more "stuff" that has fallen along the wall!

Finally, we could see the floor in both rooms and I declared that Christian and I were going outside, I couldn't stand being cooped up anymore! Soon, the rest of the family joined me and we met up with a neighbor family outside and talked to them for awhile. Their daughter is one of Megan's good friends from school and they also have a baby girl Christian's age. It was nice to get out and get some fresh air! I think the girls enjoyed playing with their friend too!

Tomorrow Matt is leaving for Des Moines for three days. He will be working out of Des Moines for at least the next six months. Thankfully, he will only be gone a couple days at a time and not even every week and then he will be able to work from home the rest of the time. Poor Courtney, she cries at Matt every night, "Dad, why do you have to go to that other country?? I'm going to have bad dreams while you are gone!" Hopefully all will go well around the Ruwe house while he is gone!

US Debt

So you will need to click on this to be able to read it. Sorry, I don't know how to make it any bigger.

This is for all my political friends (Angela Stevens!), I saw this on Facebook and thought you would get a chuckle out of it like I did!!!

Vasovagal Syncope or heart arrythmia?

Ok, so I am having a little fight with my doctor right now, it is worth blogging about to me and it all goes back to Tuesday when Megan passed out.

In the afternoon, I took her to the doctor, she diagnosed her with Vasovagal syncope. She said it is very common in this age group and adolescents. Megan was laying in a hot bathtub for about 20 minutes, she stood up, she fainted. She had the typical signs of fainting and everything made sense.

But at the end of the visit, our dr. mentioned she wanted to do an EKG on her to check her heart. At the time, I agreed to it. I didn't have any reason not to. I had an appointment made for Friday afternoon at Children's Hospital. But since I had from Tuesday to Friday, I had plenty of time to think about it, ask around, and get people's opinion on this.

I personally did not want to do it. It was at Children's and it would take up half my afternoon, I would have to pay for it and even our doctor sounded doubtful that it would show any results. Pretty much, the results will be normal, BUT LET'S CHECK ANYWAY. (seriously, anybody else tired of hearing these words in the medical field?)

So after talking to a couple of nurses and some other people about it this week, Matt and I decided against it. I called Children's Hospital and cancelled the appointment for Friday afternoon. Well, little did I know, that Children's Hospital would call my dr. and tell them that I cancelled it! I got a phone call about 11:30 from a nurse at my doctor's office asking me why I cancelled it and it is a really, really important test that I should call back right away and get rescheduled. Ugh!!!

So I call them back and I am not so happy. I said something like "My daughter fainted once after laying in the tub for twenty minutes, I'm not convinced that it is her heart. But if you want me to consider rescheduling it, please call me back and give me some more information on it." So about two hours later, she called me back and said the doctor really, really wants this done because she wants to check for a heart arrythmia and I need to call back and reschedule right away! (talk about the guilt trip!) I never did call her back.

Ok, so maybe I should do it, yes, I respect my doctor's opinion and all. I think she is a great doctor and I have never had any trouble with her before. Yes, she is thinking of my daughter's health. BUT I also think she is covering her butt! I think having an EKG after fainting is protocal, but I guess the problem I have with it is that are as follows:

1. Megan has only fainted once and it was after a bath- seriously, this is why she fainted!
2. She has NEVER had any trouble with her heart before.
3. What are the signs of a heart arrythmia? Taken off mayo.com
A fluttering in your chest
A racing heartbeat (tachycardia)
A slow heartbeat (bradycardia)
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Lightheadedness
Dizziness
Fainting (syncope) or near fainting

She's never complained of these, ok, except for the fainting this week.

4. I get tired of wasting my time doing and paying for medical tests which are "just to make sure" when even the doctor said that it would probably come back fine. I would have to find a babysitter, freak Megan out by gettting her heart checked at Children's Hospital, pay for it, and take time out of school to do this.

Yes, if this was more serious, I wouldn't even doubt having her take the test. Seriously, if she was just walking along and fainted, I would definitely have it done. If she keeps passing out, yes, I will have the test done. I will not neglect her healthcare. But in this case, I don't think we are there yet.

I take Megan in again in two weeks for her 8 year checkup. I will talk to our doctor more about it then. What ever happened to be conservative in healthcare? What ever happened to letting the parents make the decision? Yes, I know I am not a doctor and I should just stop fighting about this and take her advice and maybe I will eventually, but I am not there yet.

I also don't want to ruin the relationship I have with my doctor, I've been going to her for over five years and she knows my kids well! I may say something like this when I talk to her in two weeks, " I respect your opinion greatly, but I am not ready to run off and get her an EKG after one faiting spell. If Megan continues to have fainting or dizzy spells, I will not hesitate and get her an EKG." I also want to ask her if Megan has ever exhibted signs of a heart arrythmia, what other symptoms did she have that day that would point her toward that diagnosis? Help me understand it better and let me make an informed decision.