It keeps going...

About 5:30, I couldn't find Courtney. She had disappeared before this, but didn't think anything of it until I went to get the mail and there was a letter for her. I went up to her room and I thought she was just playing up there by herself. but no, she was curled up in her bed sound asleep!

Odd, very odd. I think she took about a two hour nap, Matt went up there at 7 and she was just waking up. I don't think she is going to go to sleep for awhile tonight.

Oh and Christian broke out in a rash all over his abdomen, but this isn't so unusual, he usually breaks out after he has a fever.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow...

The fun continues...

Once Courtney got better, Megan began to get sick.

About 2:15 pm, she decided to throw up. I thought she was well!

She felt a lot better afterwards and her color came back and she was my cheery old Megan again. Even though she hasn't moved off the chair all day and is still in her pajamas!

Oh and even the dog has to get in on the fun. 5:15 pm, clean up dog puke off the kitchen floor.

This really is my day!

Courtney's problem is solved!

About 10:30-11 am, Courtney perked up. She was laughing again, her stomach felt better, and she was being goofy Courtney again.

This made me think- was this the flu like the rest of us have been experiencing or was this something else? Was it really the bite of hot dog bun from last night?

I called her doctor and asked her if one bite of hot dog bun could cause such bad GI issues and then two hours later, she is just fine. She said absolutely! Since Courtney had such high numbers on wheat and yeast, she is going to get a reaction right away and she sure did!

Obviously if this was the case, she is not ready to get back on wheat or yeast anytime soon!

Then I asked her doctor how Courtney could escape having the flu when everybody around her was having it. She said that since we took everyhing away that was causing her trouble (her foods), her immune system was probably very strong and that's why she fought it off like she did.  She has always been my healthiest kid, so it doesn't surprise me any.

It finally hit Courtney. :(

Courtney came into my room this morning with a very sad look on her face, she said, "Mom, my stomach hurts."

I replied with, "Do you feel like you have to puke?"

Courtney, "No, but I have bad poopies."

Great! That makes us all! But of course she is convinced that it was the bite of hot dog bun she had last night. I'm not thinking that was it.

Fun Germs!

I wish the flu virus would leave our house. We are going on day five of somebody not feeling good.

Matt had it first, he went to the dr. and got the official diagnosis of the flu. They gave him tamiflu and he's great now, just a little back pain yet, no big deal!

Myself- I am just a little light-headed, some stomach pain, little lack of energy, but not too bad.I find that if I keep something in my stomach, I actually feel better. I almost feel worse overnight. I have been taking matt's tamiflu, he saved it for me. :) He says he needs me around here!

Megan- Some light-headed, dizzy, pale-looking, lack of appetite. She's getting over it, I think.

Courtney- She has the best immune system of all of us! She hasn't had one symptom and hasn't been sick at all!!! Wonderful! We told her a couple days ago that if dad and mom are both sick, then Megan is in charge. If dad, mom, and Megan are sick, then she is in charge. She made the comment yesterday that she is in charge of the house!

Christian- Tuesday night- puked 4 times, Wednesday fine, Thursday fine, Friday morning- diahrrea and puking within 5 minutes in the morning, Saturday fine, Sunday- diahrea and puking again within 5 minutes. What is going on? and he acts just fine in the meantime!

What can we do to get rid of this virus?? or two because obviously there are two different viruses going on in our house (one is achy, dizzy, the other is GI issues like Christian)

If there is any time to get sick, then we should get sick during Christmas break!

Much Accomplished!

I was a busy-beaver yesterday.  We had nothing to do and I didn't really want to take the kids anywhere because Christian was still a little sick the night before, so I decided we would clean the upstairs. It has been a disaster for awhile and it was a good day to get it done!

The girls had cleaned their room about a week ago, but it needed another good cleaning. They put in some "Adventures in Odyssey" and got to work. Honestly, it was mostly Courtney! Surprise, surprise!

I set to work in my room.  I started with my bathroom, cleaned all the usual things, vacuumed the floor, scrubbed the toilet, etc, etc. Then I started in my master closet. This is where I had been hiding and wrapping Christmas presents, so I had to get all that stuff put away along with all the Amazon boxes! I also had clothes that needed to be hung up. With a little help from Christian, I got that accomplished!

Then it was onto my bedroom. Now my bedroom was very bad.  For about the last two weeks, whenever I had needed a laundry basket, I would take the clean clothes that were in that needed basket, dump them out onto my floor, and go refill that basket with more clean clothes. Let's say that when you have at least five baskets of clean clothes dumped on the floor, you have a HUGE pile of laundry that needs to be put away. You know it's bad when you say to your kids, " You have clean clothes, just go look on my floor!"  Yes, bad, I know. 

I also had other parts of my floor covered. When I clean downstairs, I usually take all the items that need to go upstairs and again, when I need that basket, I dump the items out onto my floor. I have a bad habit, don't I? So in front of both of our dressers, we had piles of stuff. Stuff that goes in the playroom, the girls' bedroom, Christian's room, our bathroom, just a little bit of everything.  I had to sit down and sort through all this stuff!  I found some things I had been missing, but I got to the bottom of the piles and got everything in new baskets. :)  It is amazing that there was carpet underneath there!  Even Matt said this morning, "wow, I can walk right up my dresser now!" Yes, you can and hopefully it will stay that way for awhile.   After a little vacuuming, the bedroom was clean!

Next up was the hallway. Same story, second verse.  Again, I got out my baskets and by this time, things were going into four main baskets. 1. Girls' bedroom or playroom  2. Open Door Mission 3. Back downstairs  4. Trash can   I can't tell you how many times I filled up our little trash cans yesterday!  There were game and puzzle pieces in the hallway, legos, Christian's cars, etc. After awhile, I got this floor cleared too!

Next up was Christian's room. His room was pretty clean, but I finished cleaning it, vacuumed it, and we were done. I even put away his changing pad and his diaper pail. It kind of made me sad, but he is pretty good at going potty, so I think we are done with those items. I also put his baby gate in the attic.

Finally, I went into the girls' bedroom, where they had been cleaning/ playing all afternoon.  They were about 90% there, so I helped them finish it up.  I pulled out the dressers and had Courtney get everything from behind it. We are missing a library book, so I am hoping that it is stashed under a dresser somewhere. I did pull one out, but not the missing one. Courtney had already cleaned under her bed, so that was done. I vacuumed the room and it looked better!

I then mentioned to the girls if they wanted to take their Dora and Princess stickers off their walls and put their new ones up that we had bought awhile back. They did! Again, it was a little sad to see Dora and Princess go, but they are both past those stages. Megan had bought puppy and kitty stickers and Courtney had bought butterflies, these both fit the girls so much better! Once these were up, I declared my cleaning day done! Plus it was 6 pm and time for supper!

Today we have to get to the library and do a couple of errands.

Maybe Saturday we will get to the playroom and the girls' bathroom. Yikes!

Did I mention that we still haven't cleaned up the mess from opening presents on Christmas Eve?? And we still need to put the tree away and all the other Christmas decorations. Hopefully we can get this all done before we get school started again.

Vacation!

Anybody know how hard it is going to be to get back into the routine of school?

We slept in until 9 am this morning!!!  And I let the kids play all day, we don't really have a care in the world right now! (except I REALLY want to get this house organized before we start back!)

I don't even know when we are going to start up again! Maybe next week, maybe the week after, we will see!

But as for now, let's enjoy vacation...and get rid of the flu!

The flu!

Matt ended up going to the doctor today because he was convinced he had strep throat. Nope, the flu!

They gave him a prescription for tamiflu, which cost an arm and a leg, so it better work. :)

Christian was feeling good all day until about 6 pm, the he took about an hour nap and got warm. We gave him some advil, so hopefully that will help.

Please pray that us girls don't get sick!!!

Continuation throughout the night

....I finally got Christian to bed at 11:50 last night.

About 2:10, I heard some thunking noise.  This was actually Dell down in the bathroom, but while I was somewhat awake, I heard Christian start to cough again. Matt and I were both out of bed pretty quickly.  Sure enough, Christian had thrown up in his bed.  I visited the bathroom quick and by the time I got out, Matt already had Christian in the bathroom and was heading downstairs to see what was going on with Dell.  He said, "I can help you now, I feel much better!" thanks!!

After letting Dell outside, he came back up and we got Christian's sheets and clothes changed.  I went back downstairs to put his clothes in the washer and discovered what Dell had done- like we needed any other troubles at 2 am! Dell had eaten some of our bathroom rug! She had ate the stiching half way around and she put a hole in it- she ate the rubber backing! Stupid dog!! She has slept in our bathroom at night for about the last 2-3 years and has never ate the rugs!  (When she has an upset stomach, she usually eats a whole lot of grass outside and then pukes everything up. I think she couldn't eat any grass because of the snow and decided to eat the rug instead!)

Once I discovered this, I took it upstairs to show Matt. I went back to the bathroom and took out the other rug that she hadn't ate yet. Matt let her back in and put her back in her bathroom without any rugs to sleep on.

We headed back upstairs and got Christian back to bed.  yay! But then we heard Dell pushing around Christian's stool in the bathroom, so Matt visited her again and put the stool and her food bowl up. Now maybe we can sleep in peace!

About 4:40, we hear some more coughing. Yet again, Christian had thrown up in his bed.  I got Christian changed and Matt took care of his bedding.  I think this is his 4th or 5th pair of pajamas!  Got him cleaned up and he didn't want to go back to bed.  I didn't care at this point, I put him in his bed, laid him down, and turned his light off. Too bad!  Matt and I got back to bed...again!

All was fine until Courtney scared me at 8:30 this morning, but all the kids are up and playing great. Christian had some applesauce for breakfast, but is playing like he normally does.  Megan and Courtney were fine all night and made it clear to me that they, "did not throw up" even though I made them sleep on the floor.I told them that they may be sleeping there for a couple of nights!

Now, I really hope I don't get this, I washed my hands over and over yesterday, but my stomach doesn't feel 100% this morning and I don't feel like doing anything- of course I was up half the night with Christian!!

The Flu has hit our house. :(

I thought we were immune this year. HA!

On our way home from Lincoln today, Matt told me that he didn't feel good. He was cold and felt like he had a fever. When we got home, he kind of checked out and went and laid down for the night.

Everybody else was feeling great! We had supper, we opened some new toys, and watched some TV.

It was about 9 and I got Christian ready for bed and we were reading books.  He kind of started coughing right after I picked up a second book, so I asked Megan if she would bring him a cup of water.  About a second later, he pukes all over! Luckily, he was on my lap with his blanket, so the blanket caught most of it. I was totally unprepared for this!

Now remember, Matt is sick himself, so it is up to me to clean up the mess and take care of the boy!
I get him cleaned up, myself cleaned up because of course, it was on my clothes too. I then got the girls into bed and I went and rocked him for awhile.  I put him into bed about 10, but he still wasn't happy.

I figured if I was going to hold him for awhile, I might as well watch TV, so I brought him downstairs and we watched the news together. He had two new blankets at this point.  He coughed a little bit about 10 minutes later, but nothing worth getting worried about, but then about two seconds later, he threw up again!  I was ready this time. I just picked up his blanket and said, "Puke here!" and he did. He still got  a little bit on my clothes again and on the couch, but not bad!

Again, we go back to the bathroom to clean everything up. We are now on our 3rd set of pajamas and all his favorite blankets are dirty. 

It is now 10:35, he is playing with legos because I just let him play while I put all his clothes, my clothes, towels, and blankets in the washer.  He seems to be feeling fine and wide awake! It might be a late night!

On the side note, since us ladies are the only ones left, I made the girls sleep on their sleeping bags on their floor. No stuffed animals!!  I told them that since I am the only parent not sick and if they happen to puke overnight, I am the one that has to clean it up. I would like the easiest clean-up possible, so I told them if they had to puke, then puke on their blankets and sleeping bags. Courtney was actually in tears because I wouldn't let her sleep with her stuffed animals, but tonight, I think she will survive.

Now to see if I can get Christian to bed AGAIN!

Potty Training

I think I can say that Christian has been the easiest one to potty train.

He woke up completely dry last night. I am amazed.

He's only had about one accident a day.

I am really trying to teach him to tell me when he has to go potty and then I will take him, I don't want to take him every couple hours or so without him telling me (get it?). I did this with Courtney and it took her awhile to recognize the need to go herself, we had accidents for a long time.

Hopefully soon we can trust him outside of the house and in his carseat. With almost a week of potty training, I'm not quite there yet. As much as I don't like pull-ups, they will work for those "outside of the house" situations.  At least there's Lightning McQueen on them and he doesn't want to go potty in them. :)

Accomplishments

Megan and Courtney each got a set of legos yesterday from grandma and grandpa.

Courtney's had 415 pieces and Megan's had 416 pieces.

 Both sets were put together by 11:30 this morning!

They worked about 1-2 hours last night and another 3 this morning.

Megan did hers mostly by herself and Courtney did about half by herself. She had a little help from dad towards the end.

What an accomplishment!!

Being a boy!

I was cleaning up the living room today and Christian was running around and screaming.

I asked him what he was doing. He replied, "I'm being a boy!"

I asked him again, "What does a boy do?"

"He runs...and screams!"

I'm up!

One way to get your mother out of bed in the morning when she doesn't really want to get up.

"Mommy, I have to go poopy!!"

Christian, I am very glad you are doing so well at potty training, but please, let me sleep!

I think we are going to turn his bed into a toddler bed today so he can get up whenever he needs to, but of course, he still needs help in the bathroom.But then, he can also go find his dad. :)

Oh Ice cream, how I have missed you!!

During my free time lately, I have been cleaning out a few of our cupboards. Yesterday I found a package of ice cream mix to go with an ice cream maker we have.  I immediately thought that it would contain milk, so I was going to give it to my brother (yes, Shawn, you!), but before I gave it away, I thought I would read the ingredients.  I about fell over- there was no milk in it at all! Just a bunch of sugar!!! I could hardly believe it!  You had to add 4 cups of milk to make the ice cream, but I could easily use rice milk, right??

The girls wanted to know what I was looking at and I said it was an ice cream mix to make in an ice cream machine. I mentioned that we have one downstairs and they took off to go find it! With a little help from Matt, they brought it up and were immediately trying to open it!  Let's just say it was still sealed with tape from when we moved.

We got it open and I thought, "Can I do this? Will this really make good ice cream?" But I put the mix in, poured the milk in, put the machine together, dumped in ice and rock salt, and plugged it in. Yes, it works!

The next mystery was to see if it really made ice cream with the rice milk.  I was pretty sure it would since rice milk works with everything else.  About an hour later, the machine stopped and I opened it up.  I tasted the ice cream and it was WONDERFUL!!! I was thrilled!  I went off dairy at this time last year- Christmas Day- so I have not had ice cream in about a year and if you know me, you know that ice cream is one of my favorite foods!!

I savored every bit of my ice cream, it was so good! Even Matt thought it was good...

I then went online to see if I could buy more packets of Rival Ice Cream mix and you can! How awesome is that??

Christmas Songs

You know your two-year old has been listening to us sing in the morning, I just heard him say," We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year!"

Day off for the kids

I think we are done with school for awhile.

We have been doing half days for the last two weeks and it has decreased the Christmas stress around here.  I also have spent most of the mornings learning about Christmas.  We have sang Christmas carols every morning, read a few Christmas books, learned about something, and made some kind of craft. I hope my kids have learned a lot because I sure have!

On Wednesday, we learned the history behind the Christmas tree.  I found some sites that explained that ancient cultures would put green tree boughs in their house starting on the winter solstice (which is today, by the way) to remind them that spring was coming and to ward off anything evil. During the 1500's, Martin Luther in Germany was the first one to put a Christmas tree in his house.  This started the tradition of putting up the Christmas tree.

It's funny though because it never caught on in England.  When the Puritans and Pilgrims came to America, they would actually fine people if they put a tree up or celebrated Christmas in any other way than going to church on Christmas. I can't believe these people- first they killed the Quakers and now they're fining people for decorating their houses! They believed that Christmas was a very sacred event and shouldn't be mocked with decorations.

Then around the middle of the 1800's, Queen Victoria of England posed in front of a Christmas tree in England and then the tradition took off in England and in the new world because everybody wanted to do what the queen did!  Can you imagine life back then? If you were German, you loved the Christmas tree, if you were not, you got fined for it.  Quite the opposites! I guess I never questioned why I put up the tree- must be because of my German heritage!!

Yesterday I took a break from Christmas and we learned about snow, we talked about how scientists discovered that snowflakes had six sides to it without a microscope.  I gave Courtney one of her presents early (magnifying glasses), so we could try to see the six sides and we couldn't, partly because the snow was melting too fast.  We did a cute snowman project where we glued cotton balls onto paper to make a snowman, even Christian got to participate and make a snowman! They turned out really cute!

Today we continued to sing Christmas carols and we probably read about five books about the holidays. I then said, " We are done!" Done for the week and maybe done for awhile.  We finished up all their schoolwork yesterday and they even sat down and did their homework, so that is done!

I am debating about giving them next week off or to keep moving forward, I guess we will see next week! 

Snow Day

Do homeschoolers get snow days???

In this house, no, not today. We have 1/2 a day worth of school and then we are done for the week. I think we are going to work and get it done today.

I think we are going to take next week off or do 1/2 days again (take two weeks to do one week's worth of school work.)

We need to take some time and organize the house (bedrooms, playrooms, kitchen), it is a little bit out of control and with Christmas presents arriving soon, we need to find places for everything. I still have Thanksgiving things that need to be put away!! The girls also want to give some items to the Open Door Mission, so this would be a good time to go through everything. 

But the snow is beautiful and the children already have plans to get outside today!  (after school is done!)

Potty Training!

Snow days = stuck at home= potty training!

Thomas the train and Cars underwear are wonderful! Who knew it would inspire a little boy to go potty in the toilet!

Christian has had on underwear all day with only one accident!

Yay!!

I love Progress!!

today = Progress!!

If anybody knows me, they know that I like lists and I like checking things off my list.

Our daily schedule white board for school has turned into my place to put my list.

It is full. I have many things to do and many things on my mind right now, but today, I got a few of the big ones erased!

1.  After painting my laundry room last Monday and putting my dryer in my kitchen, Matt finally got a chance to get a new dryer vent and put everything back together today! I was thrilled!!! I didn't really mind having the dryer in my kitchen- it actually gave me more counter space. :)  But everybody was starting to run out of clothes, including myself. Christian hasn't had socks for a couple of days (this boy is getting more socks for Christmas!), so I was stealing Courtney's!  We were also on our last towels and I had been out of kitchen towels for a couple of days too. I was using bathroom towels in the kitchen. Let's just say the washer is going now!

2.  Last Tuesday night, we bought a new Christmas tree. If you remember last year, our stand broke on the old one just as we were putting the angel on the top. We gave that one to Goodwill, so we had to buy a new one this year.  We got the new one home and last Wednesday, the girls and I put it up, but we realized that one of the branches was hanging lower than the others, so we thought we were going to have to take it back.  Matt finally decided (yesterday) that he could just fix it, so we decorated it today. It looks wonderful!! Not bad, it's only 10 days before Christmas!

3.  We painted the living room last May and have not gotten the pictures back on the wall yet. Guess what Matt did for me today?? yep, put all my pictures back on the living room walls!

4.  We took a little errand trip today too. I have had money that has been on my fridge for over a month, so that finally got put in the bank and I had to make a quick stop in KMART. I ordered a present for Courtney from there, but they sent me the wrong thing in the mail, so I had to take this wrong item back to the store. I got my money back and was on my way!

5.  I also got a bunch of presents wrapped today.  Well, ones that my children could see anyway. Now that we have our tree up, let's get some gifts under it!! I'm still getting boxes in the mail from Amazon, so hopefully everything will get here before Christmas! I have a few things to get in the store, but that is alright.  I got almost everything online this year and loved it! Now I need to find time to sneak away and wrap my kids' gifts, I have had to keep the door locked to our master closet because the kids know their presents are back there. Courtney is the sneaky one, so we just thought it would be better to lock the door. :)

6. Last, but not least, we paid off my school loans! Thank you Doane College for my wonderful education! ( I really think some of my time at UNO was part of my loans too, but Matt didn't think so.)

What else can I get done today??

Walked out. :(

I don't usually leave field trips in the middle of them, but yesterday I did.

We went to this horse barn and they were going to teach us all about horses and then give the kids rides.
We were also supposed to bring lunch because it was going to go from 10-2.  They said we were going to be in a barn most of the time.

My expectations were wrong.
1.  It was 40 degrees out and the barn was as cold as it was inside.
2.  We were not inside at all!
3. I was expecting a nice, heated barn. HA! It was an old run-down wooden barn.
4. I thought we would actually be learning about horses. HA AGAIN!
    We got there at 10 and had to sign in.  I thought the people who were leading the field trip would start around 10 or shortly after. Yah right!! They didn't even call everybody's attention until 10:30!!
In the meantime, the kids were supposed to look at the horses, all 4 of them!
Once they got started at 10:30, the only thing they did was take 3 kids into a stall AT A TIME to brush a horse.  Let me remind you, there were three other people working there, but they weren't doing anything.
Guess what the other kids did during this time? And there were about 30 kids here...they ran in circles! This head lady had nothing for them to do!

Luckily, my kids were the first ones in the pen to brush the horses and then they were done.
Soon the kids were running all over the lady's haystacks and she was beginning to get mad at them, so she opened up the gate to the pasture and said they could run around in there!

It was now about 11 and Courtney is freezing and bored out of her mind (she didn't want to come in the first place), Christian is bored and I don't want to give him freedom to run in the pasture because there was farm equipment in there, and Megan is actually running around and having fun.  I am bored and cold myself.  I'm starting to think that we are not getting much out of this field trip and start to consider leaving.

I didn't know what else this lady had planned, but if it was anything like brushing horses for half an hour, I was not going to stay.  They were going to ride horses too, but who knows what that would be like. Probably one by one and would take at least two hours!

About 11:15, I pulled Megan away from her running and talked to her. I asked her if she would mind that we left. I told her that her brother and sister were cold and bored and we weren't really learning anything anyway. We had been there for almost an hour and a half and all we have done is brushed a horse for about a minute.

I asked her if it would really bother her if she didn't get to ride a horse and she said no.  Thank you!

I went up to an assistant lady and told her we were going to head out because we had many other things to be doing.  She went and got the head lady and I kind of told her what was going on without making her feel bad.  She gave me the "well, this is my first field trip with so many kids, I need lots of time." ok, ok, but this just isn't working for us. I told her that private horse lessons would probably work a lot better for us and I got her phone number and walked away!

Who knows what happened for the next 3 hours or where everybody ate lunch, I didn't even see any bathrooms around!!

I am very glad we left, I have so many things swirling around in my head that I have to do now, I didn't want to waste my time at this horse farm learning about nothing!! I didn't go there so my kids could run around in a pasture!!

5.  I obviously did not dress my kids warm enough. When we left our house, I thought it was kind of nice out and THINKING we were going to be in a nice warm barn, I had the kids grab their spring jackets and then we all ran back in to get our winter coats.  I didn't bother to grab gloves or scarves! I should have! We were cold.

6.  Another reason I walked out is that during the day is "school time" and I want the kids to be constructively learning or at being productive. While I am not against having some time to run around, this was not part of the plan and I was not happy that these people were wasting my time.

7.  Good thing I didn't pay for this! This field trip was free, but a bunch of moms were going to go together and give her some money.  I didn't even offer. sorry! Improve your field trip and it may be worth some money to me and my kids.

Again, I felt bad that we left only an hour into it, but I was very glad we did!

Word mix up.

Ok, I have to admit I messed up on our Christmas letter and there are only a few people who I think will figure it out.

I wrote "etymologist" instead of "entomologist."

Who knows the difference???

I did print out half my Christmas letters with the right word and half without. I felt terrible, but I didn't want to print them all out again, so I put them in the mail and hopefully nobody will see my mistake. :)

Pick out your pajamas!

Tonight after Christian's bath, I let him pick out what pajamas he wanted to wear to bed.  He sat there for awhile and stared at all of them, but didn't pick anything out.

I said, "I'm going to count to three and then I'm going to pick them out. 1.....2.....3," and I reached down and picked out a pair and shut his drawer.

His first words out of his mouth, "No mom, I wanted 4!"

Apparently he wasn't mad about the pajamas, but that I didn't count to 4!

Christmas Decorations

Yep, we're totally skipping school today to put Christmas decorations up!

Do I feel bad? Nope!

The girls did a great job cleaning and they helped put things up. 

We also put up a new tree we bought last night, but I am not sure if it is good enough, so we left it for Matt's approval before we put the ornaments on. Instead, the children have chose to play with the ornaments until the time comes to put them on the tree. :)

I also realized the other day that the only Christmas exposure my kids are getting are what I will be teaching them! Wow! I made some new plans and now we are doing an advent calendar, singing Christmas songs, reading Christmas stories, and doing Christmas crafts everyday!

Megan is so funny, she doesn't want to do anything that doesn't have to do with Jesus!

School?

I had planned on taking the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's off of school, but I'm beginning to think differently now!

I think we need to take the two weeks BEFORE Christmas off!!

I have so much to do around here. Put up the Christmas tree, decorate, take down thanksgiving items and put those away. Shop and wrap presents, etc, etc. etc!!!

It is already Wednesday and we only have one day's worth of school done this week!!

I think we are going to take these two weeks and do one week's worth of school and then do the same for the following two weeks.  Then we won't lose all that we have been learning.

Did I mention that I got my laundry room painted the other day, so I have baskets of dirty laundry in my dining room and my dryer in my kitchen? I haven't had time to mop that disgusting laundry room floor yet, I want to get that done before putting everything back.

Plus we are having some friends over tomorrow that we are just getting to know, so of course we want a clean house!

UGH! Anybody want to come and help me???

Wrong Subject

We are in the process of changing the way Christian asks for things.

When he wants something, he says, "My would like..."  We need to change that to, "I would like..."

Sounds very much the same, but when you are teaching your 3rd grader proper subjects, I need my two year old to follow propor grammatical rules!!

Cookies

On Saturday, Megan had made cookies for her and Matt.

When Megan makes cookies, Courtney usually wants to make cookies too because we need to use special butter, egg replacement, special chocolate chips, and oatmeal flour. And if one gets something, the other does too, right?

I didn't have any butter on Saturday, so after getting groceries this weekend, we made cookies today.

Christian made me laugh though.  Before we even got the batter mixed up, he was at the silverware drawer getting a spoon to eat the batter! He knew we were making cookies because we were getting the mixer out.

He sure has learned young! (the best part about this cookie dough is that there are no real eggs in it, so I don't feel bad eating it at all! Or even letting my children eat it!)

New Schedule

I have been thinking of a new school schedule to start after Christmas.  We are running into a few problems that are causing school to take longer than usual.

1.  My lack of being able to get up in the morning and get started before 9:15 or even 9:30.
2.  Too many breaks.
3.  Too many interruptions.
4. Kids don't have time to do homework at night.
5.  I am not getting all the subjects covered that I want to cover.
6.  We are spending too much time on subjects.

My proposal is that I am going to make it more like a school day. We will do certain subjects from one time to another and if we don't get done, we will have to move on anyway.

If I limit my time on certain subjects, then I can add subjects in that I want to cover, but haven't been able to get to this semester very well (art, health, German, music).

I am going to work with Megan in the morning instead of the afternoon, then she has the afternoon to do her homework while I work with Courtney.

I am just going to be more strict about the breaks. :)  Maybe not allow the kids to leave the kitchen while we switch books between subjects and when the new books are on the table, they need to be back in their chairs and ready to go.

Speaking of ready to go, no getting water, no getting ice, and no bathroom breaks in the middle of class, no running upstairs to get something. Drives me nuts!!

I think I may need to do something to entertain Christian more. When I am working with both kids, he interrupts quite often because he has nobody to play with! maybe Thomas the Train would help. :)

Megan and I both love her read-aloud, but this takes a huge amount of time. I think that once school is done and Megan has her homework done, we can read her book. I want this to be an incentive. Leave this for the end of the day instead of in the middle.

Oh yes, really try to get out of bed earlier and get the kids up earlier! (But isn't that the joy of homeschooling- you can start whenever you want...)

I am going to put an excel spreadsheet together later with the new schedule.  I really hope it works.

Christmas shopping

I have changed my ways around here.

I am no longer going to the stores to buy Christmas presents- I have rediscoverd amazon.com!!!

Why I loved this so much:

1. I did not have to go to the store with three kids in tow and face the crowds.
2.  I could buy things and not have three children with me.
3.  I could put things in my "cart" and then think about them awhile and either keep them or buy them later.
4.  There was much more variety of gifts online. I found things I didn't even know some things existed!  I found gifts that I would've never found in a store!
6.  Shipping was free!!!
7.  Things have already started coming in the mail and the girls aren't even asking what is in the packages.
8.  If I didn't find something on amazon, I went to walmart, if I didn't find it there, I went to another store.  I actually did this for a gift for Courtney this year, I ended up getting it from Kmart.
9.  I can price compare and know where I am getting it the cheapest.
10.  I can shop after everybody goes to bed and not have to take time away from the family or school to go to the stores!

Any other year, I would get a list of what I needed and where I was going to buy it. I would head out about December 23rd (yes, seriously) and shop as fast as I could and get everything bought within a couple of hours.  I am actually going to get shopping done early this year.

Maybe I will have the presents wrapped and under the tree before Christmas Eve this year...

John Hancock

Thanks to our study of the American Revolution and reading Johnny Tremain, Megan and I have been learning a lot about the founders of America and this includes John Hancock.

This is funny because everyday when we do math, there is a place for Courtney to put her name and I always say, "Put your John Hancock on your paper," never really knowing what it meant, I just know that it means to put your signature on your paper.

Today Courtney thought she was funny and actually wrote "John Hancock" on her paper.  Megan helped her spell it as they both laughed hysterically!

Christian Quotes of the day

Christian kind of redeemed some of his bad behavior this morning by making me laugh tonight.

1.  I was putting a turkey in the oven for supper and he said, "Mom, turkey died."  I just had to laugh.
But we have to be careful around here when we say things like this, it brings tears to Courtney's eyes!

(Yes, I know Thanksgiving is over, but I got a turkey for pretty cheap and it was really easy to make at Thanksgiving, so I bought another one! I think this one I made today was better than the one we had at Thanksgiving.)

2.  At supper, he refused to eat his supper. "Mom, turkey gross."  Then Megan reminded him that the turkey died, so he continued "potatoes died too."  Where does he get this stuff??

3.  Tonight at bedtime, he didn't want me to read him books, he wanted Megan! So Megan sat down and read him three books, he was mad when it was time to go to bed. We told him that Megan will read to him again in the morning, but he still didn't want to go to bed. He already had another book in his hand. I love this bond they are building over books!

Oh Sunday...

I have been thinking about this blog all morning, so I thought I would write it out.

It is really entitled, "How to get to church on Time".

Here is the story.  We decided to go to early service yesterday and church, but we didn't quite make it on time.  Here are the lessons I learned.

1.  Set your alarm clock.  Waking up with 50 minutes until you have to leave does not work well. Especially when 3 children wake up at the same time.

2. Do laundry the day before.
A. Megan had no church clothes to wear, all of her dresses were in the washer.  I tried to get them washed and dried the night before, but I failed.  She does not like to wear anything but dresses to church, so that took about ten minutes to convince her to wear jeans, which were actually clean. Then we had to find a shirt to go with the jeans, then we could FINALLY get dressed.

She also needs to put her shoes where they go, we couldn't find her shoes when we were rushing out the door.  Courtney is usually the one looking for her shoes at the last minute, not Megan.

B. Courtney was actually ready on time. She likes to wear jeans and she didn't have a problem wearing jeans to church. She found her shoes and got ready! Yay, Courtney!

C. Christian knows what his "church clothes" are and which clothes are not "church clothes." Of course, none of his church clothes were clean, so I had no option but to put some different pants and a shirt on him. This was trouble! I had to fight him to get dressed and he was crying and saying no the entire time. I felt terrible!  He also had mud on his shoes from the zoo the day before, so those just went in the car.

3.  No TV, video games, computer,or  anything electronic should be on while we are trying to get out the door. I need all the help I can get, especially with only 50 minutes to get out the door.

In the end, we made it with five minutes to spare!

Oh Monday!

I don't usually have trouble having school and dealing with the kids that are not "in school" at the time, but today it has been a little bit of a challenge.

The kids have discovered legos and they are all over my living room floor, which is great, but when you have three kids together trying to play with something, it doesn't go well. Two kids goes well, but I can't do that around here.

And plus the fact that Christian is a boy and is Mr. Destructo- he throws the legos, tears instruction manuals, throws the lego box, breaks the girls' creations, etc. If I hear "Christian, stop that!" one more time, I am going to scream.  He is also putting legos in his mouth, which has earned him three trips to time-out already this morning, which of course, interupts our learning and school takes only longer!

Ugh!

Christmas Ideas

I keep getting questions about what to get my family for Christmas, so here is a quick list.

Megan: anything to do with horses, ballet, American Girl Doll books, sewing kits, science kits, size 8-10 shirts, kids cooking books, legos, sewing kits

Courtney: anything to do with bugs or penguins, legos, art supplies, size 7 shirts, chapter books or easy reader books, sewing kits

Christian: anything to do with trains, trucks, or tractors, 3T shirts, 2T pants

Charla- I would really like some new cupcake pans! (hint, hint!), non-slip cutting boards, history books, historical fiction books, gift cards to bookstores or Kohl's

Matt- anything, he isn't picky at all, but he does need some new jeans. (34 X 32) , giftcards to Menards, Best Buy, XBox points

A Taxi, Bubble machine, Markers, and a Jesus Book

Here are some random stories from today.

1.  We were driving home from AWANA tonight and there was a taxi beside us.  Courtney says, "Hey mom, do you think that is a taxi they use in "The Amazing Race?" I looked inside of it to see if I could see anybody."   You know you have been watching too much "Amazing Race" when your daughter starts to notice the taxis in town.

2.  Christian has had a cold lately and at night we turn on his vaporizer. But this isn't a normal vaporizer, it is his "bubble machine" and he LOVES his bubble machine.  He asks me to turn it on and he will turn it off in the morning. I just think it's cute that he calls it that. :)

3.  I was teaching Megan today and Courtney comes running downstairs and said to me, "Mom, Christian went into the playroom and got some markers and now he is drawing on his windows! You better go look!" Sure enough, he had gotten some markers and drew on the windows.

Why did he do this? We have some window colors that we often use to write on the front door or on a mirror around here, apparently he put it together and figured he could write on his window with markers!

Luckily it came off with window cleaner!

4.  This morning right after I woke up, I was in my room doing something.  I had already woke the girls up, but I hadn't gotten Christian out of bed yet.  I went to his room and saw that he was not in his bed.  But then I turned and saw him and Megan sitting in his glider reading his "Jesus Book" together.  This is his Beginner's Bible.  I wish I would've had my camera!  It was so sweet!

Monday is here already.

Don't you hate it when you have a nice long weekend, but yet Monday comes and there are still piles of dirty clothes all over the house, dishes are stacked high in the kitchen, dirty of course, and the house is just as dirty as it was on Friday?

But instead of catching up on housework, we have school to do, so this will all have to wait...until later. :)

Things I have learned lately along with the girls!

I have been really amazed lately at the amount of information that I am learning right along with my girls.

Here's what I mean.

1.  I am 35 years old and I just learned the difference between a turtle and a tortoise.
If you are wondering, turtles lives in water and tortoises live in land. You think I would have known that by now!

2.  I was also a history major in college and not once did I learn the difference between the Quakers, Pilgrims, and Puritans! Did you know that the Pilgrims actually killed Quakers??  They all came to America for religious freedom, but they wanted everybody to follow their religion! They actually killed each other over it. Yes, God-fearing Christian men and women! It is amazing because here in 2012, we are talking about religious freedom and this is exactly what they were dealing with back in 1620!

3.  While we're on the history subject, did you know that the Quakers were Pacifists? (I think I actually know this at one point).  They wouldn't even defend themselves in a fight. No violence allowed at all. Other religious groups would burn the Quakerss houses down and they would just stand back and let them do it. They also ruled the Pennsylvania government at one time and got kicked out because they wouldn't let the colony raise a militia or even put any money towards it.

4.  I also figured out the difference between asking "who" and "whose." Again, thanks to 3rd Grade Rod and Staff English, I am now well aware of my subject and predicate pronouns and when I should use them properly. And yes, I have caught myself this weekend using them wrong and have corrected myself!

5.  I have also looking at our language differently. When you are teaching some little girl phonics, you tend to notice silent e's and all the crazy rules the English language has that we need to follow. I really appreciate knowing how to read!

6.  Did you know that dinosaurs are actually reptiles? I thought they were mammals for some reason. Wrong again!

7.  Megan has a book about Ben Franklin that she is supposed to read this week. Did you know how many things Ben Franklin did for our country??? It is amazing!  Matt also said that he is the one that discovered how electricity works, but got it completely backwards, but they still make all the charts backwards today.

8.  Do you know where the phrase "Room and Board" came from?? I do!! From the colonists.  They would often have hotels in the colonies and instead of having tables and chairs, they would eat by boards with stools.  So, you paid for "room and board."  How do phrases likes this stick around for so many years?

Tomorrow we are going to learn about amphibians in science and talk about how Georgia became a colony for poor people from England. Now that is definitely something I don't know anything about!

The Grasshoppers just keep coming...

Even though Mr. Grasshopper passed away Thursday night/ Friday morning, Mrs. Grasshopper decided to lay some more eggs on Saturday.

Interesting, isn't it?  This is her 4th set of eggs.

We are going to have so many baby grasshoppers in the spring!

And then there were one...

We had a grasshopper tragedy here last night. One of Courtney's grasshoppers died. :)

We got home from our family party yesterday and Matt and I both noticed that Courtney's littler grasshopper wasn't moving or doing anything. He was kind of on his side in her pile of grass. He is usually on the ceiling of her terrarium or someplace odd, so Matt and I both thought something not so good was going on, but we didn't mention it to Courtney.

She must not have seen them because as we were getting Christian ready for bed, Courtney appeared in his doorway with her eyes full of tears.  We asked her what was wrong (because we figured it had to do with the grasshopper) and she said, "My grasshopper is dead. He's not eating and he's not moving!" (insert sobs here!)

We both went and gave her a big hug and went downstairs to see.  Sure enough, the grasshopper had not moved since we saw him earlier.  We asked Courtney if she had fed him and she said, "Yes, I got some grass and he didn't grab on like usual."  Courtney usually gives the grass right to the grasshopper and eats it right away. She must've tried this and he didn't respond.

We took the grasshopper out of the terrarium and set him on a paper plate. We tried to get him to move, which he did a little, and we gave him a little bit of lettuce to eat.  He did this half-heartedly. But through all of this, Courtney is crying her little heart out! 

We put a cup on top of him and told her that we will know more in the morning. We put her to bed because it was almost 10:15. I think she was pretty tired too.  I think she cried herself to sleep.

This morning we got up and Mr. Grasshopper was not moving at all. He had ate half of the lettuce piece and then died overnight.  Courtney shed a few tears, but nothing like last night. 

She has been smiling all morning and picking the dead grasshopper up and looking at him.  I guess she had promised him that she would not put him in her bug box, so we're not sure what we are going to do with him. 

We still have the mama grasshopper and three sets of babies to keep the generations going!

Courtney got this grasshopper from bug camp at the beginning of August. She has had him almost four months.

Now that we only had one grasshopper left, Matt thought it was a great time to clean out her terrarium. So he did that and picked out all the eggs and put them together in a cup and then put the bigger female grasshopper back in the terrarium. I am really anxious to see these hatch in a few months.  But now we have a widow grasshopper, which the girls think is pretty funny.

May he rest in peace, this one little grasshopper sure made one little girl so happy!

Signs Your 2 year old is ready to potty train. :)

1. I tell him, "You don't go poopy in your diaper, you go in the toilet."
So then I ask him, "Where do you go poopy? He replied, "in toilet" Correct!

2.  You walk into his room in the morning and he says, "Mommy, poopy in my diaper."
I ask him," Where do you go poopy?" He replied, "In the toilet, not in diaper."

(PS I have caught him quite a few times and we have gone on the toilet.")

3.  He wants to sit on the toilet every opportunity he can. Like for a half an hour after bath time last night. I knew he had to go, but nothing. :(  I knew he had to go because he was passing gas during his bath and thought it was funny. typical boy.

4.  He brings you a new diaper and points to the one he has on and says, "My diaper yucky Here new diaper."

5.  I bribe him with Thomas the Train underwear and one day we put them on over his diaper.  I told him not to go poopy in his underwear and he told me when he had to go poopy and he went in the toilet!

6. Whenever he passes gas, he tells me, "poopy!"

Ok, so we might have the poopy part down, but the potty part is not there yet. He hasn't once gone potty in the toilet and if we put underwear on him, he goes in them and doesn't even know or care.  Hmmm.

I think we are going to take the two weeks around Christmas time and potty train this boy! I don't have time for it now with school, but I will when I take two weeks off in Christmas. I don't want to miss this opportunity.

Moving Slow this morning..

After a weekend of moving non-stop, I am not ready to get going this morning. We hosted Thanksgiving and it went great, but it was a lot of work!

We are back to school this week, but I'm tired. Just plain exhausted.

We are already about a half hour behind schedule and I am almost thinking we should take the morning off, but we can't.  We have only four days to get school done this week.

Even the kids are moving slow...Good thing we are homeschooling and we can take our time getting to school this morning!

Pilgrim bonnets

I have spent the last two hours of my life sewing pilgrim bonnets.  These are for our play we wrote to perform for Thanksgiving.

Megan loved it, Courtney didn't so much.

Now hopefully they will wear them during the play!

PS They turned out pretty cute!

Dentist and doctor reports

There was another reason we took school of this week.

We had dentist and doctor appointments.

We'll start with the dentist.
1. Megan got a good report, even though she needs to brush better. Her 12 year molars are coming in.
It was really cool to see her adult teeth pushing out the baby teeth on the x-ray, I bet she doesn't even know what is going on in her mouth. No cavities.

2. Courtney got a good report too. She does a great job at brushing her teeth, her only problem was that one of her sealants came off, so they had to redo it. She got that one replaced plus another two put on yesterday.  And of course, we have to pay for them to replace that one! No cavities.

3.  I also got a good report! No cavities, no root canals needed, and no crowns needed! Well, I do need jaw surgery, but besides that. :)  I also got told that I floss good because my gums were not red at all.  I floss because my teeth are so crooked and that is the only way to get food out. I make it a point to take care of my teeth.  I also talked to the dentist about jaw surgery and he really didn't have much to say. He told me different ways I could calm my jaw joint down right now because it's been pretty bad lately. I also told him I might need to sit with this for awhile because we can't do surgery for awhile (due to funds!) plus I need to sit in braces for about a year.

Doctor report

Megan had her 9 year check up today and passed with flying colors. She gained 6 pounds this year and grew 4 1/2 inches! The doctor said that is more than usual! She checked her all out and said she looks great! Since she grew so much, she made sure her hips were still aligned and they were, so that is good. I will take her back in a year.

Now, there is so much to do around here to get ready for Thanksgiving on Sunday, where do I even start???

Oh Children!

1. You know you have been studying too much about witches when you see all three children riding a broomstick around the house saying, "We are the witches of Blackbird Pond."

We just finished reading that book.

My reply, "Please don't hit my walls!"

2.  I was in my bedroom sorting laundry and I hear Christian dump out his ENTIRE box of blocks.  I go in there and ask him what he is doing and he says, "Making a mess!" Yes you are!!!  I asked him, "Who taught you to do this?" Guess what he said? "Courtney!"

Of course, Courtney comes along and says, "Let's dump out your container of balls too and make a bigger mess!"

As I write this, I can hear even more toys being brought out of the closet.

I hope they have time later to clean the mess up!

( I just heard Megan say, "Let's dump out all your books." If they take all his books off his bookshelf, they will SURELY be busy later.)

Courtney just came to me and said, "You should see Christian's room, what a disaster!!"

Our Week...

Our week is going great, we are taking a break from full-time school this week. We are still doing a little bit everyday, but not everything.  I figured that we have a really crazy week and we need some time to catch up on everything else that is going on. Most public schools will get some of next week off, so I figure we need a break too. We are going to be back to full-time school next week, especially when we have nothing going on!

I guess I could say that we are doing a different sort of "school." The girls have gotten out some art supplies that Megan got for her birthday and they have been busy making pictures. (Art class)  We have also written out Thanksgiving play and have practiced it a few times. The girls are having a blast! (English, math, creative arts, reading). Hopefully we can get this put together by Sunday, I think we will. Matt and I may need to play some Native American parts, but that is ok, we'll make it a family affair. :)

Crazy Weekend is over!

We had four parties this weekend and celebrated Megan's 9th birthday.

1. Megan's swimming party.
2.  Party at our house afterwards.
3.  Nephew's baptism.
4. Neice's birthday

I think I am partied out! But really, the fun is only beginning!

I am hosting Thanksgiving at my house on Sunday and this may be more work than Megan's birthday parties!  I am anxious to do it and am looking forward to it..

Along with getting ready for the Thanksgiving on Sunday, our week is filled with other activities! How does this happen?? So many things are going on that I may take a break from our scheduled curriculum and work on some other things with my girls this week to lighten the load.

We still need to learn our AWANA verses and continue to work on Phonics with Courtney.  We need to finish history for Megan from last week and we have two chapters left to read in The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  I think we may also keep going on Math for both girls and English for Megan.

But otherwise we have nothing today, we give four piano lessons tomorrow night and grandma may come in. Megan also has a dance class from 3-4. On Wednesday, we have our class at the Homeschool Learning Center at 11, a Pioneer event at the library from 3:30-5:30, and AWANA at 6:45.

On Thursday morning, us three girls get the joy of visiting the dentist and Megan has dance at 4:15.
Megan is supposed to have her 9 year checkup at the doctor at 9 am Friday and we have a field trip to the Omaha Community Playhouse at 10 am.  I have to change something here.:)

Busy week plus I need to get ready for Sunday. I need to figure out how to cook a turkey (this is one of the reasons why I want to have Thanksgiving!) and get all the other food I need.  I also want to set the tables nice, so I need to get out my good dishes and get them all washed up.  The girls would also like to do some crafts and write a Thanksgiving play.  This definitely falls under the "school" category.  I have a play in mind and we just need to sit down and write it.  This will also need props, so we need to get busy, but I am excited about it! It will be great public speaking practice for my children.  We think we are even going to give Christian some parts!

We have been studying about the first Thanksgiving in school.  I think I finally know the difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans! And so does Megan (and actually Courtney because she listens to history more than we think!).  Our American history is so interesting! What a great week to study it!

Bedtime

It seems a lot lately that when we get home from something in the evening, Christian is sound asleep in the car and I just put him to bed with his clothes still, I do not put his pajamas on.  Do I want to wake him up by putting pajamas on or just put him in his bed and let him sleep?

Last night was one of those such occasions.  We got home from church about 8:45 and Christian was sound asleep in his carseat.  I took his coat and shoes off and laid him in his bed.  His diaper wasn't too wet, so I let that be.

When he woke up this morning I had to think twice about why he still had his clothes on from yesterday.  He didn't seem to care.  I'm glad he's still little and doesn't care!

PS The other day he showed us how he can get his foot up to the top of the railing of his crib.  Megan sometimes gets him out of bed and this is how he "helps" because she is not tall enough to pull him out. He puts his leg over and they work together! We need to switch to a toddler better really soon!

Third Time is a Charm...

The third time to the orthodontist means hearing the same thing again.  This advice was yet different from the other two orthodontists that I have visited.

Orthodonitst #1 said to break my bottom jaw.
Orthodontist #2 said to break my top jaw.
Orthodontist #3 said I need both broken!! Yikes!
This last one also said I would need to be in braces about 1- 1 1/2 years before surgery (the other ones only said 9 months), then surgery, then another 6 months in braces.  It would be about a two year ordeal.

He also said if I don't get this done, things are going to get worse. I may ruin my jaw joint and I will continue having pain along with cracking my teeth. 

Surgery would involve a day in the hospital or surgical center, maybe overnight, liquid diet for about 6 weeks while my jaw is healing, they would rubberband it shut with "surgical hooks" on my braces (They do this so you can take the rubberbands off to brush your teeth).  I would need about 5-6 weeks for full recovery.

Surgery would include 1. top jaw. they would split my top jaw down the middle to expand it.
2. bottom jaw, they would break the back by my molars and add filling to bring my jaw forward.

Sounds like fun, huh?? Again, anybody have a chunk of money sitting around? Not only is it a lot to endure, I have to pay an arm and leg for it!  But do I want pain the rest of my life? It is under consideration.

Who will I vote for??

This pretty much sums up who I will be voting for today. 

Again, I stole this from Facebook because I loved how they put it. Thanks Jimmy Lee. 

For whom will I vote? I will vote for the most pro-life candidate, because God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Proverbs 6:17). I will vote for the most pro-Israel candidate, because God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who don't (Genesis 12:3). I will vote for the most pro-debt reduction candidate, because the borrower is servant to the lender (Proverbs 22:7). I will vote for the most pro-work candidate because God says if a man does not work, let him not eat (II Thessalonians 3:10). I will vote for the most pro-marriage candidate, because God is for marriage (defined in Genesis 2:24). I will vote for the candidate who most closely believes government's purpose is to reward the good and punish the evil (Romans 13). I will vote based as close as I can on God's Word (II Timothy 3:16), knowing that whoever gets elected, God is the One who puts all men in authority (Daniel 2:21). As that late man of God, Dr. D. James Kennedy said, "Lord, giveus the leader that we need - not the one we deserve!" ~Jimmy Lee

math lesson...for me!

• 
  

  As of Nov. 1, the total national debt was $16,221,685,381,838.28, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt. On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, it was $10,626,877,048,913.08. Thus, during Obama’s presidency, the U.S. government debt has increased $5,594,808,332,925.20.

  
  

  I saw this posted on facebook and I stole it.

  
  

  I wanted to see if Megan could read the number the correct way, wait, I wanted to see if I could read it the right way!  I finally figured it out.

  
  

  Who knew our national debt was so high that it really had to take some brain power to read it correctly??

Bob Kerrey what??

We were driving in the van today and out of the blue Courtney starts talking about Bob Kerrey. We don't watch a lot of TV at our house, but apparently, she had heard enough.

Then I hear her say, "I am Bob Kerrey and I approve of this message."

I cracked up! What inspired her to say this?? Oh, it's election season!!

Homeschooling- Number #1

The other night I went out with a bunch of my friends and got me thinking, why do I love homeschooling so much? I have become an advocate for homeschooling lately because I have seen such good things from it, it has been a huge blessing in our household and I am very thankful that God softened my heart a couple of years ago and showed me that this was the way to go!

Here are some of my reasons:

1.  Time in school.

Requirements for homeschoolers: 1032 hours a year
Requirements for public schoolers: 7 1/4 hours a day, 188 days a year = 1363 hours a year

That is over a 330 hour difference! Now, my question is...if the state only requires us to go to school for 1032 hours, where do the public schools get the extra 330 hours? That's an extra 45 days of school!  I think they get it from money. Last year, Millard added on an extra half of hour to each school day- why? So they could get more money from the government to help "improve their schools." Have the schools improved? I'm not sure, we pulled Megan out. :)

Here is what my kids do here at home.
Courtney- takes about 1 1/2 hours for spelling, handwriting, reading, phonics, and math
Megan- takes roughly 2 hours for her read-alouds, math, history, English, writing, handwriting, she does reading on her own.

Together-takes maybe 1- 1/2 hours for science and Bible class

If I was just teaching Courtney kindergarten, she could be done in less than two hours a day.  We also use four day lesson plans (like many homeschoolers), so technically she goes to school about 8 hours a week.  That is as much time as public school kids sit in school in one day! And she learns just as much!

Megan takes a little bit longer because she has more subjects, but still, she goes to school about 2-3 hours a day.

Now you may be asking yourself...if they only go to school 8 hours a week, how does that add up to 1032 hours a year? 36 weeks x 8 hours a week =288 hours. that leaves about 750 hours left.

Yes, but school is much more than sitting at the table learning out of books!

Here is what we do:
1. Play basektball outside- PE class
2. Take dance/ gymnastic class- PE
3. Painting a picture- art class
4.  Learning how to brush your teeth- health
5. Taking a class at the homeschool learning center- history
6. Attending AWANA- Bible Class
7. Attending Sunday School- Bible Class
8.  Reading labels on cereal boxes- health class
9. Learning how to take care of ourselves when we are sick- health class
10. Singing along with the radio- music class
11. Singing and dancing as mom plays piano- PE and music class
12.  Learning the German alphabet as we drive in the car- German class
13. Learning why birds are slamming themselves into our windows at home- science class
14.  Learning what to feed Courtney's pet grasshoppers- science class
15.  Going on a field trip to the zoo- science class, PE
16. Visiting John Brown's Cave in NE City- history class
17. Making real corn tortillas- history
18. Writing a play about the first thanksgiving- history class, creative arts
Etc...

This is where we make up that extra time! Homeschooling is a lifestyle- my kids are learning all the time! If I technically kept track of all the hours that my kids are "learning", I'm sure we would hit the 1032 hour mark!

As for the times that my children are not "learning", they have time to be kids. Go play and be creative!! Life is not all about school, especially when you are a kid. You are going to have responsibilities soon enough! Go enjoy life!

2.  Interests

My children can pursue what they are interested in.  I do not have to do science with Courtney, they don't have science in the public schools until 2nd or 3rd grade, but since she has a huge desire to learn about science, I found a curriculum for her level and we are doing science this year! I can also combine Megan and Courtney's science class and do it together (since she didn't get much in public school anyway).

In addition to science class, we can also go to the library and check out books on things that she is interested in, we can find science experiments, we can visit the zoo, we can go on nature hikes, etc, etc.  I have time to do all these things!

As for Megan, she is my little historian (A girl after my own heart. :)
We can read about history for school and then we can dig a little bit deeper into the subjects. Again, we can go to the library, we can pretend play, we can do hands-on-projects to learn about history, adn go on field trips.  The possibilities are endless. 

4.  We now have time for school AND outside activities.  Since we have school four days a week, we have time to pursue outside activities during the day.  Megan attends dance during the day. We can go on field trips during the day.  We can have some downtime between school and evening activities, so we are not running from one activity to another without a break.  We have time to sit down and eat supper as a family before our activities.  We are not restricted to anybody's schedule but our own.

Megan :)

Usually I write about how Courtney is so compassionate helpful, but I think Megan has taking lessons lately.

1. Megan was heading upstairs last night and I asked her to take Christian his blankets. I figured she would just throw them in his room because he was already in bed sleeping. I went up there later to check on him and she had actually covered him up with a blanket!  How sweet of her!

2.  Every time Christian gets hurt, Megan is the first one to run up to his room and get him his blankets to make him feel better.

3.  Every time I start to cook something, I hear, "Is there anything I can help you with?" coming from Megan.  She then says, "I love to cook!" She can make cookies herself and tonight she made half of supper.  I'm going to lose my job pretty soon!

4.  Every time I ask any of the kids to clean up their messes or to help out lately, it has not been a battle at all.  Every Tuesday we clean the house because I give piano lessons.  Each girl takes a room and they clean it WITHOUT complaining.  They clean it and have fun while doing it.  What happened to my children??

5. Homework has been a huge imporvement from last year. I don't think she has stomped, slammed her door, or threw her pencil across the room once this year. She gets her homework and she does it! I think it has helped that I purposefully give Courtney some homework so she has a little competition.

I love homeschooling because it has really taught my kids to be compassionate and to care for others. Like I said, Megan is not really the compassionate one, but she heading in that direction and I love it!

Pictures..

I am having trouble loading pictures on my blog, so I just decided to put them all on facebook.

Enjoy!

Straight Teeth!

I took Megan to an orthodontist yesterday. With all my teeth problems, I wanted to get her in and looked at and they say the kids should see the orthodontist for the first time between 7 and 9.

I was kind of scared of what they were going to say to me, but in the end, her teeth look great! She does not have a cross-bite, which means no pallette expander, and her teeth are coming in straight!
Very thankful!!! 

The orthodontist wants to see her in a year to monitor her and he said she may need something when she is a teenager, but he wants to just wait and see.

Thank you!!

I am going to go see this orthodontist next Tuesday.  I have been to two different orthodontists and they both agree I need jaw surgery, but one says to break the bottom jaw and the other says to break the top. I want to see what this one says. This is my final orthodontist appointment. I am not getting anymore opinions, I just want two opinions that match.  I think my next stop may be the oral surgeon. :(  But if I had surgery, I would need to wear traditional braces nine months beforehand and then wear them during surgery and then for about six months afterwards, so I would still need to see an orthodontist. Ugh. 

Anybody have a money tree anywhere??

Trouble at the Library...

Yesterday after our crazy busy day, I decided to add one more stop at the library.  Megan and Courtney had some books on hold and they were just DYING to pick them up. It was about 5:15 and the library closed at 6.

We went in, got our books off the shelves, and of course stacked up on many, many more books that we will use for school this week.  I didn't take the stroller in because I thought that would help restrain myself, but then I realized that little girls can help carry books too, so that didn't really help.

Anyway, I went to check out and I had somebody different check me out this time.  I filled one card up and I gave the lady another card, she said, "This one is filled up too." I just looked at her because I thought, surely she will just keep adding them to the card.  I had about 10 books on the counter that needed to be checked out yet.  Remember, you are only SUPPOSED to check 40 items out per card.  But usually, this guy named Bob, let's me go over.  I looked at her and said, "Well, they usually let me check out more than 40 and it hasn't been a problem."

Her response," Well, we're really not supposed to do that."

I replied back, "But he (pointing to the man) let's me go over. I homeschool and I really need these books for the week."  I was so used to that one guy letting me go over, I was actually arguing the rule!

She said, "Do you have anybody else who has a card?"

I said, "Yes, I have one, but I haven't used it in a very long time." (Now, do you really think I need another library card where I can check out 40 MORE books?? NO!)

So she asked for me ID, I gave it to her, and she found my account. She then gave me a new library card. I asked her when was the last time I used that card and she replied with "2005."  I quit using it because I had a fine on it.  I checked out the last 10 books and left.

I checked this morning and of course, the $3.00 fine is still on my library card!

Is it all about the food??

As many of you know, Christian, Courtney, and I have been on strict diets for awhile. Courtney's and Christian's started in May and mine started a couple of months ago.

These diets have included no dairy, no eggs, no peanuts, no gluten, no yeast, no soy, and no citrus for the kids. I am off everything else except the citrus, but add black pepper and garlic.

Why have we done this?  For our health. But trust me, it hasn't been easy.

Last May, I decided that we should try to eat "healthier." I decided to start buying only 100% juice and switch out bread to "whole grain" breads without any high fructose corn syrup. I also wanted to not eat so much boxed food and try to eat the fruits and veggies more.

In a way, my plan backfired.  We were eating whole grain bread, but soon Courtney started to not feel well.  By the end of the week, she was sick as a dog!  I skipped my pediatrician (I will not get into that now!) and went to a new doctor that I had been seeing, she is a chiropractic physician and she seemed to be helping me with my issues, so I took Courtney in to see her.  She thought she had a food intolerance, which I would've never guessed, so we did an allergy test and all these things came up! I could hardly believe it!  Christian was also having some bowel trouble, so we put him on the same diet.

So began my life of not eating anything I used to eat and figuring out how to feed my children a whole new diet!

But I will say, it has helped tremendously!!  Courtney eats so much better now and she is not as picky. She does not curl up in a ball on the recliner after every meal. We always used to laugh at her too, whenever she would jump up and down, you could hear everything in her stomach jiggling. It would do this night and day. Guess what? It doesn't jiggle anymore! I asked the doctor yesterday what that was all about and she said that the jiggling was the inflammation in her stomach and now that it's not inflamed, it doesn't jiggle anymore!
Really, was she that affected by what she ate?? We are starting to get her back on foods now, but it is just amazing.

Why did I go on the diet? Many of you know that I have been dealing with anxiety for the last couple of years.  It was getting worse (along with a bunch of other symptoms) and I was going from doctor to doctor trying to get answers.  All they ever wanted me to do was go on anti-depressants.  None of them ever wanted to get to the source of my problem.

Then I found this chiropractic physician last March.  I called her up as a sort of "Let's see what she has to say."  I needed a different perspective and I really wanted to figure out what was going on.

The first thing she did was did an adrenal test and we found out that I had stage 3 adrenal fatigue. This means that my adrenal gland was burned out.  I was under so much stress that my adrenal gland gave up making cortisol.  This explained many of my symptoms!  So now what? We tried treating my adrenals, but as I was taking the supplements, I was getting worse!

I called the doctor back up and she looked over my test results again.  She determined that something inside my body was causing my adrenals stress.  She suggested to take a food allergy test.  This is about July or August now.  Her theory was that if I was eating something that my body didn't like, it was going to fight it.  This would therefore cause stress on my body and cause all my symptoms. I went ahead and did the test and  many things came up for me just like Courtney!

I have been off all this food for two months and it is like night and day difference to how I feel! I went back and saw my doctor yesterday and told her that I sleep so much better at night, my blood sugar is more stable and I am not taking naps in the afternoon anymore, plus I have more energy and my moods seem to be more stable.  I was amazed that I have improved so much in such a short amount of time!

I still deal with anxiety, but I know how to deal with it.  I also noticed that if I eat something I am not supposed to (like yesterday I had French Dressing which contains garlic), it will cause all my symptoms to come back again.  If I eat exactly what I should be and not drift away from the diet, I feel great!

So in the end, food can be our enemy or our friend. In my family, changing our diets has made a huge improvement.  Now that I have more energy, I am finding new meals to make and cooking is fun again.  We eat lots of fruits and vegetables and very little processed food. We can only eat out at buffet with a salad bar or we need to know exactly what is in our food. We ate at Qdoba the other day and I had some symptoms afterwards, maybe I should've asked for an ingredient list. :)

Anyway, life is good again. My adrenals are returning, anxiety is going down, I have well children, and it all boils down to what we are feeding our bodies.  Amazing!

Done with school!

For once,we finished up school in four days.

I kind of had an inspiration. The girls have a Halloween party tomorrow morning and I didn't want to do any school on Friday afternoon.

I don't think I have ever achieved this before, at least not this year.  It is a great feeling to not have to have school until Monday!

More grasshopper babies?

Courtney got up this morning to check on her grasshoppers and she saw more eggs in the terrarium!  I had taken the eggs from a couple of weeks and put them in a safe place, but now there are more!

How many times do grasshoppers lay eggs??

No Jury Duty!

About three weeks ago, I got a summons in the mail that I was being called for jury duty for the district court here in Omaha.  As much as I want to be on a jury, I didn't quite know how this was going to work.  As a stay-at-home mom, I could probably make it work to serve on a jury, but now that I homeschool, how would that work? If I got called in, my children could not go to school.  I was also going to be on call for a month, which added to the problem.

I filled out the forms and filled out the "Petition to get out of jury duty."  I wrote that I am a homeschool teacher and my children would not be able to go to school, I also added that I cannot hire a substitute.  In Nebraska, there is a state truancy law that says if your children miss more than 14 days of school, your name gets turned into the county attorney for review. I did not want this to happen! (remember, I could be on a jury for a month.)

I called in today to check my status and it said, "Your request to get out of jury duty has been granted!"

I was pretty happy!!

So to all you homeschool moms, if you get called into district court, you just might get out of it!

Oh Courtney!

Courtney never ceases to amaze me. Here's two of her latest stories:

1.  She has two pet grasshoppers that she just loves!  She checks on right before she goes to bed and right away in the morning, during the day she is always checking on them and seeing how they are doing. She talks to them and feeds them all the time. Today she said that one had his hand over his heart and she was reciting "The Plege of Allegiance" for him.

But yesterday morning, she made me laugh more than usual in regards to her pet grasshoppers.  She was eating some Berry Captain Crunch for breakfast and she knew that grasshoppers eat green things, so she was picking out the green berries to feed her grasshoppers.  She had a pile of them on the table. I don't think she ever fed them to them, but I think she was serious about it! I just laughed!

2. Today I went to go get the dirty laundry out of the girls' laundry basket and realized that only Megan had put her dirty clothes in there. Can you guess where Courtney's dirty clothes were? On her floor? No. Under her bed? No. Back in her drawer? (this has happened!)No. Stuffed in her closet? No. They are IN her bed. Along with her many blankets, penguins, pillow pets, barbie clothes, and many books. I only know this because I went to dig the library books out of her bed this morning and I saw one of her good Sunday dresses in a ball beside her pillow. I then proceeded to see outfits that I know she wore a couple of days ago in her bed too.

Do I make her be responsible and take her own dirty clothes out of her bed? (of course!) Or do I do it for her? (no way!)

I think I will not say anything and when she runs out of clothes, maybe she will learn that dirty clothes go in the laundry basket and not in her bed!!!

(Her dirty clothes are in her bed because she always changes while standing on her bed because then she can see herself in the mirror.)

Matt and I think she will definitely need some organization skills in the future!

This week...

1.  Christian took a 2 1/2 hour nap yesterday and as not happy about it! But after sleeping for 2 1/2 hours, he was in a much better mood! This is the boy who hasn't taken a nap in his bed in the afternoon for a couple of weeks. Honestly, it's so much easier to let him stay up and play with Courtney in the afternoon.

2.  I made banana bread for the first time yesterday with oatmeal flour. It got approval from my family!! It was really good.

3.  Today Megan starts a mini- dance camp with a different dance teacher who is working with her dance teacher. It is for the next three Tuesdays from 3-4 in the afternoon, I hope we can be done with school by 3 pm!

On top of dance class now, we still have piano lessons and gymnastics tonight.  I don't have one student coming tonight, so instead of piano lessons, we are going to go get family pictures done, thanks to a groupon I bought. :)  It expires on Halloween, so we need to get it done.  But before we have family pictures, I need to get Christian's hair cut an pick out clothes. Yikes!

4.  One of our friends has invited us to her homeschool coop's Halloween party on Friday. Do you know what that means? I need to get three kids fitted into Halloween costumes by then! Usually I tell them to just go to their closets about an hour before we go trick or treating and find something. I'm not sure I can do that this time. I need to sit down with them, look through their closets, and then maybe make a trip to Goodwill to see if I can find something cheap.   One of our friends said that Christian could borrow some train engineer overalls, so I think he is done. As you can tell, I don't try really hard on costumes. :) 

Ride the Tractor?

Today we are heading out to grandma's house for the annual harvest party.

As we were eating lunch today, I said to Christian,"You better eat your lunch if you want to go ride the tractor at grandma's house."

Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Megan: You want to ride the tractor with Uncle Andrew, don't you?
Christian: No, with Uncle Shawn.
Me: Uncle Shawn is watching race cars today.
Christian: Race cars?
Me: Do you want to go watch race cars sometime?
Christian: Yah...(with a big grin!)
Me: If you want to ride in a tractor today, it will have to be with Uncle Andrew.
Christian: No, Uncle Shawn.
Me: No, Uncle Uncle Andrew
Christian: No, Uncle Shawn.
Me: What about Uncle Shane? You want to ride the tractor with him?
Christian: No, I ride combine with Uncle Shawn!

Cookies

You know what we were doing an hour before bedtime last night? Making cookies!

Megan started it. :)  She asked if she could make cookies earlier in the day and we didn't have time because we were leaving, so I said she could do it later.  Later ended up being after supper!

And since Megan made herself and  her dad some cookies (with wheat flour, margarine, real eggs, and semi-sweet chocolate chips) I made myself, Christian, and Courtney some cookies (with oat flour, dairy-free butter, egg replacement, and very expensive dairy-free chocolate chips from Whole Foods) .

Fair is fair, right?

Plus I don't feel bad eating my cookie dough, I don't use real eggs, so I don't have to worry about getting sick!!

For Future Reference...

We don't cook with wheat flour much because Christian, Courtney and I are gluten-free. I found this chart on somebody else's facebook page and thought it would look very useful!

Lately, I have been grinding up oatmeal into oatmeal flour and using that, but this mix of different flours and starches works too.

Another quote...

I had to go get some groceries tonight and as I was checking out, the cashier (who was very SLOW!!!) noticed that I was buying quite a few canned goods.  He said to me, "What are you going to do with all these canned goods? Having a canned good yard sale???"  He was totally serious.

 I responded, "No, we are going to eat them." I thought his jaw was going to drop.  (BTW- Vegetables were 37 cents, wouldn't you stock up too?)

Then he said, "How often do you go grocery shopping?" Even though I go every 1-2 weeks, I told him that I go every two weeks.  He replied with, "Oh, ok."

So we eat a lot in our house and I am not ashamed of it!  We also don't eat much processed foods or dairy, so we don't get filled up on those as fast and instead we eat a lot of fruit and vegtables. 

PS You should never stand in the check out lane longer than you are in the store!!!

Who knew??

I admit, I have never made tacos here at the Ruwe house. Never ever.

I LOVE tacos, but Matt has always told me he doesn't like the meat sauce, so I've never made them. :(

Well, lately, he has told me that it is really not so bad, so I thought I would give it a try. I am always looking for new recipes that we can use for our dairy-free, peanut-free- gluten-free,egg-free, and citrus-free diets around here.

Tacos were perfect!! I just couldn't believe it though. The kids ate and ate and ate like they were the best things in the world! I made twelve tacos and they were all gone. (Christian was napping though, so he didn't get any!) The meat sauce was gone, half the salsa was gone, and the tomatoes were almost gone.

Who knew tacos would be such a big hit?? I would've made them years ago!!

You know...

you have been studying about history too much when:

A. You find your daughter outside grinding up corn with a rock and then together, we proceed to make corn tortillas.

B. You overhear your two daughters playing Little People and their conversation is,  "Everyone has scarlet fever, we need to get them to the doctor's office! "

Chaos!!

That is what is was here about 15 minutes ago!

We have a neighbor whose dog is in our yard once in awhile. His name is Hank, he's a beagle, and we know exactly what to do when he is in our yard. We put him on Dell's leash and take him home!

Today, Hank was in our yard again. Dell noticed this and went crazy! I saw Hank back there so I went to go get the leash. In the meantime, Megan and Courtney are yelling at Dell to "Be Quiet!!"  This is to no avail.  I am instructing Dell to go to the basement so she won't go running out when I go get Hank, but while I am reaching for Dell, I knock over the grasshopper terranium. Yes, it dumped out onto the floor, grasshoppers and all. Actually only the mama grasshopper came out plus most of it's contents. The other grasshopper held onto the lid and stayed put! Thank goodness!

So once Courtney sees the grasshopper on the kitchen floor, she decides to scream at the top of her lungs! So this in turn scares Christian, so then he begins to scream! All the while, I finally get Dell downstairs.

So now I still have to find Dell's leash and get Hank, but first I need to trap the grasshopper under a cup so he won't get away. I got that done  and I got Hank taken home, and then I came back and had to clean up the mess on the floor. 

This is somewhat good because we saw the mama grasshopper eating the grasshopper eggs about an hour ago. I was trying to think of a plan to get those eggs out of the terrarium and this was perfect. (Courtney was pretty upset when she saw this!) The eggs were now all on the floor! I carefully picked those up and put those in another plastic cup and carefully reached into the terranium and picked the few that were in there out without letting mister grasshopper out. Again, mission accomplished!

Now Hank is home, mess on floor is cleaned up, grasshoppers and grasshopper eggs are saved.

I think chaos is over...for the time being anyway!

Grasshopper babies?

As many of you know, Courtney has had a pet grasshopper for over two months. A couple of weeks ago, I caught another one for her on the front sidewalk, now she has two.  We went to Petco one night and got her their own terranium and now she drags that around everywhere and she loves those grasshoppers!  (I think the penguin phase may be going to the side and the grasshoppers are taking over!).  Courtney will talk to them, read them books, and they even join us for science experiments!

A couple of days ago, we noticed something in her terrarium. It was this pink thing that was about an inch long and looked like foam.  It also had little things in it that looked like little pieces of rice.  We weren't quite sure what they are. It didn't look like poop and we knew it had to come from the grasshoppers.  We also knew that one grasshopper was a male and the other was a female.  We figured that the female had laid eggs, but we weren't quite sure.  We tried to look grasshopper eggs up on the Internet, but didn't really find anything.

Yesterday we went to the zoo and I told Matt that the people who work in the Butterfly Pavillion are really knowledgable about bugs and that we should ask them, so we did.  The person there said they are grasshopper eggs and they will probably hatch in 3-5 months.  He also said that the mama grasshopper will probably die. Most grasshoppers freeze to death before winter- it is just how it is.

We were also worried about what we were going to feed these little insects all winter.  Matt and I were kind of stumped because Courtney just feeds them grass.  What do we feed them when the grass dies???  We asked the guy yesterday at the zoo and he said that we could feed them lettuce all winter. That solved that problem.

Anybody want some pet grasshoppers in about 6 months??