Recipes

I found this website on facebook and it looked interesting. I am always looking for food that is dairy free, egg free, and gluten free. Those seem to be our top intolerances in our household.

http://theprettybee.com/2013/09/31-days-gluten-dairy-egg-free-comfort-food.html

As I was looking through the recipes, I found one for macaroni and cheese. I think we may have to try it!

Switching Bedrooms!

Now that Christmas is over, I can relax this week! HA!

Actually today did fell very relaxing. I am really enjoying this time off from teaching!

The girls have been talking awhile about getting their rooms back and today they informed me that they  really do want their bedrooms back. Our breakfast conversation was how we could make this happen.  When Megan was in kindergarten (in 2009), we made Courtney's bedroom into the playroom and put the girls together in Megan's room.  Here we are, five years later, and they want their rooms back.

The problem is that in order to switch, we would need to clean out the playroom! We would need to get rid of quite a few older toys and pack some things away.  I am ok with this.  The girls are past the dress up/ barbies/ polly pockets/ kitchen stage and there really is no need to have this stuff out anymore.  I would also need to move the bookshelves out of the playroom, which involves taking all the books off of them! Courtney and Megan both have little tables in there, but Megan is way too big for hers, so I would need to figure out something to do with it. Courtney still uses her table all the time, so that would stay put. There are many other items we would need to move, get rid of, sell, or just pack away.

After the playroom is cleaned out, we would need to start moving Courtney's furniture back to her room. Courtney's furniture consists of her bed, two dressers, and a fish tank. It is quite a lot for her little bedroom.  Megan's bed would stay in her bedroom and her dresser would need to get moved from the playroom back to her bedroom. (Did anybody notice here that it would be a LOT easier to keep Courtney's furniture in Megan's bedroom and just move Megan's bed to the playroom? I think it would be fun to switch rooms, but they aren't having any of it!)

I also thought that while the rooms were completely torn apart, we should paint them!! They are still white from when we moved in 6 years ago! I called our neighbor today who paints and asked her if she could give us an estimate. (I also want my bedroom painted, so that is going to come first!) She said she could come over tomorrow and do it for us.  When I approached Matt with the idea of painting the bedrooms when he got home, he said he wouldn't mind doing them! WHAT?? He has been against painting anything in our house for a long time and now he's willing to paint a bedroom??  He is not willing to paint the master bedroom though!

I don't quite know when the girls want to start on this big project.  We are taking this week off of school yet.  All day today, I said, "If you girls want to get your rooms back, then you need to start cleaning up." They didn't clean up at all today!

Honestly, I would like to get this room business done before I put Christmas presents away! But I don't know how long I can stand them being in my kitchen!!

Christmas is over!

This last week was relaxing, yet crazy. Is that even possible??

I used the first part of the week to finish up Christmas shopping. Maybe I should start earlier next year and then maybe I won't have to go out the night of the 23rd??

Christmas Eve we spent by ourselves.  Matt was able to get off of work early and we made it to the 4:00 pm service at church.  Courtney was part of a video that they played during the service and she did incredible! I had many positive compliments afterward.  After church, we came home and had a fancy meal, i.e. ate in the dining room with real dishes and had sparkling grape juice in wine glasses.

After our meal was over and dishes were done, we opened presents.  It was a great night as a family celebrating Jesus' birthday.

Christmas day took us to Lincoln to celebrate Christmas with my grandma. There were many people, along with two pets, in a house and it was a little tight, but we managed. People seemed to spread out more than they have in the past years and it actually didn't seem so crowded.

Friday was a day to do nothing. :)

Yesterday, we headed out to my parents' so we could have Christmas with my immediate family.  We ate a yummy meal and then proceeded to open presents from everyone. The kids loved everything they got!

Today we headed out to Matt's parents for Christmas.  Again, we ate our meal, which had a little bit of a twist to it, and then opened presents.  We got home about 7 tonight.

I will definitely be busy this week reorganizing the house and finding places for everything!

I think Christmas is officially over for us, now to get ready for a wedding next Saturday!

Goal for the next 2 weeks...

My goal for the next two week is to DECLUTTER my house!!! I started this project about a month ago when I attacked the attic.  I took pretty much everything out, went through it all, and repacked it back into the attic.  Except that not everything went back in the attic! I found really nice towels that I have never used. I also found very nice blankets that CAN be used! I found clothes that I hope will never fit into again, these are clothes I wore while I was teaching and was 30-40 pounds heavier.

During this project, I decided what items I wanted to donate to the Open Door Mission here in town and what I wanted to keep. Honestly, I decided that if I haven't used them in about 15 years or can't fit into them anymore, they were leaving my house! I bagged all these items up and Matt took them to the Open Door Mission this morning.

I also went through mine and my children's bathroom cupboards a couple of weeks ago.  Since we don't eat anything with artificial colors, I decided that we aren't going to use anything with artificial colors in our products anymore either.  I had two boxes full of products! I personally do not like Bath and Body Works items, so those all got donated.  The children also had shampoo and soap that was bright red, obviously filled with red dye. We both had lotion and other products that we will never use---good bye to it all!

Lastly, I went through my kitchen cupboard. I don't know why I have items with yeast, artificial sugars, or food dyes in them, but those also got donated to the Open Door Mission.  I am not going to eat them and honestly, my children shouldn't be either. 

Now, the next step! Continue to declutter!

When I cleaned out the attic, I have items that I don't quite know what to do with.  For instance, I have 5-7 really nice sweaters that I wore when I taught middle school.  Should I sell them or donate them? They are a size too big, so I don't fit into them anymore.  I also have really nice skirts and dress pants, sell or donate??  These are in a pile on my bedroom floor at the moment.

I need to continue to find a place for our blankets and the children's blankets. They have so many, but many are handmade, so they are worth keeping.  Do I find a place for them in their rooms or pack them nicely in the attic?

After I get our items back where they belong, I want to get my office/ school area organized. It is a chaotic mess right now!

Have you heard the saying that stuff causes stress? That is how I feel right now!!

I have been looking forward to Christmas break just to achieve this project. Honestly, after I find my room/ office space again, I would LOVE to paint it, get new curtains, put pictures up, and look like a real bedroom. :)

Done!!!

We are done with school for at least two weeks! The girls are pretty excited and so am I!

I have plenty of other things to keep me busy, such as Christmas, so I probably won't have time to miss the late night lesson planning or reading chapter books to keep ahead.

I felt a load off my shoulders today as I closed the last book at the end of the morning.

Homeschooling is pretty stressful, but well worth it (in my opinion!)

Jumping Fish??

We had a fish emergency today. Megan went into her bedroom this afternoon to do her homework and discovered that one of Courtney's new fish, which we have had about a month, was on the floor!! I heard her shriek and asked her what was wrong. She said that there were only three fish in the tank instead of the usual four. I went upstairs to investigate, but in the meantime, Courtney started to cry.  She has had a real hard time keeping fish alive lately. She loves them with her whole heart and can't stand it when any of them die!

When I went upstairs, there was definitely a dead fish on the floor. I nudged him a little bit and he didn't move. I called Matt because I had one girl crying her eyes out and another girl refusing to go back into her room because the fish "freaked her out." Christian was the only one who wanted to go in and find the fish.  Matt said to pick the fish up and flush him down the toilet.  Courtney didn't want that to happen, so I scooped him up into a little paper cup and put him in the kitchen to wait for dad to come home.

I eventually got Courtney settled down and Megan off to do her homework. Life was well again, except for the dead fish.

 Tonight, we went to Petco and got Courtney another new fish.

Apparently fish can jump out of aquariums in the middle of the night??

Science Lesson on the Sun

Before we head out for Christmas break, we have one more science lesson and it is on the sun. As I was reading through my teacher's notes, I actually came across something that I could use tomorrow! (Usually I read through my notes and don't do anything they suggest!)

The teacher's guide mentioned a song called "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" by They Might Be Giants.  I looked it up and it is hilarious!

Here is a slow version with the words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me06I9GDM_k

Here is a much faster version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y

Matt pointed this one out to me. It's topic is "What would the earth be like without the sun?" Again, quite interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rltpH6ck2Kc

An article on whether the sun is good or bad for you.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-sun-good-or-bad-for-you/

I think we may be watching these tomorrow in science class!

Herald or Herold?

Today we were learning about kings in our advent devotional time and our book kept referring to the song, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." 

In the background, I kept hearing Christian say, "Herald isn't an angel, he's a helicopter!"

Would anybody else get this mixed up or is it only my 4 year old son who relates everything to trains or cars??

Phases of the Moon Project

We are studying phases of the moon tomorrow and since we already have the paints out from this mornings finger painting project, I figured we would use them again tomorrow.

http://learncreatelove.com/printable-moon-phase-craftactivity/

Finger Painting!

Today my kids had a lot of fun making their doves out of paper plates, I found them another craft to do tomorrow. We are going to talk about "incarnation" or how God became man to live among us.

This is going to be out project.

http://www.craftymorning.com/baby-jesus-in-manger-fingerprint-craft/

It looks fun and messy!

Third Time is a Charm, right?

It's Christmas season again and this means it is time to get out a Christmas card. Usually this is not a problem for me.  I usually have too many pictures to choose from or a very nice family picture we took in front of the tree. But not this year! I went through every picture about three times from this last year and found only a few that were nice enough to put on a Christmas card!

I picked about six of the best ones and started to make cards on Walmart.com.  I made one card and didn't like it, so I started again.  I made a second card and again, it didn't turn out the best. I went through my pictures again HOPING I could find some pictures that would work.  I have many pictures from last year, including the pictures from our 2 1/2 week trip to Illinois/ Kentucky, but there were none where all the children are smiling at the camera, or I found smiling kids, but there were other kids in the picture! I couldn't even find a nice family picture!

Tonight, I was determined to get this done! I pulled up some pictures that were nice of the three kids, but I needed a specific card to put them into because they were full body pictures.  Since Megan is so tall, I needed a space where her head or feet would not get cut off. I eventually found a card that worked and plugged some pictures in! After the third time, I finally settled on a card and ordered them!

Thank goodness that is done! Remind me next year to try to get some decent pictures throughout the year, so I have some for Christmas cards!

And that letter, I don't think it's happening this year!!!

Dove Craft

We are going to make these today in school because dove is a symbol of hope and peace. That is exactly what we are going to talk about today in our Advent devotional.

http://www.catholicicing.com/holy-spirit-craft-make-a-dove-from-a-paper-plate/

Another Homeschooling Article

LOVE IT!!

http://www.mariannesunderland.com/2014/12/08/why-homeschooling-good/

I forgot to socialize my homeschoolers!!!

If you are a fellow homeschooler, you will laugh out loud at this picture!

 

Whenever we mention to someone that we homeschool, the first question I always get it, "What about socialization??" If you don't know, this questions gets VERY old VERY fast!  Why am I accountable to YOU about what I do with my kids? I am not asking whether YOUR kids are socialized, do I?? I could go on about how this one question irritates so many of us, but I won't. Just know that many homeschooling students do NOT lack socialization!!

Apollo Space Program

This is another blog post for school tomorrow. :)

We started our unit on space last week and we are going to continue on this unit for another five weeks.  Tomorrow our lesson is on journeying to the moon and they talk a little bit about the Apollo missions to the moon. I thought we could go more in-depth with the subject!

Since I wasn't around during the time of the Apollo mission, I had to do a little research.

I thought this gave a great overview of the program.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/index.html

We might just have to watch the takeoff of the Apollo 11 mission!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGNryrsT7OI

This one is in color, but has no sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSLRMdYSA9M

The astronauts landing and stepping out on the moon for the first time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTBIr65cL_E

Wow, that would have been so interesting to be alive at that time!!!

Dentist visits today!

Today I took the three kids to the dentist. It had been six months and we were due to go.  I wasn't too pleased that the appointment was at 11 am, which is right in the middle of school, but we made it work.  We did 1 1/2 hours of school work and then headed out. We got some school work done this afternoon, but not as much as I would have liked.

Once we got to the dentist, each of us got called back one by one.  Courtney and Megan had chairs right beside each other and Christian and I were beside each other.  This was Christian's 2nd time at the dentist and he did great last time, so I assumed he would do great again.

I was wrong!! He did not do well at all!!! As I was getting my teeth cleaned, I could hear the lady kind of struggling with him to keep his mouth open and get his teeth cleaned.  I asked my hygienist if she was having a hard time with him and she said, "Yes, but nothing she can't handle." The hygienists at our dentist are great with kids, so I stayed out of it.

When I was done, she was still trying to get in to clean his teeth and I looked over there and met eyes with him. I was not happy! I think he knew it too! Instead of threatening him to behave, I bribed him! I told him we would go to Target and get a new little matchbox car if he let her clean his teeth.  He didn't go for it.

I ended up going over there and she explained that he had tarter build up around his gum lines on his bottom front teeth and she needed to get it cleaned off. He also had it behind his teeth.  I asked her if it was anywhere else and she didn't know.  He wouldn't let her look anywhere else.

In the end, she wanted me to stop pushing him, she said they want coming to the dentist a positive experience, so they don't push kids. I was more mad that he wasn't listening to her! He did so great last time!

In the end, I rescheduled it for next week with the dentist.  I think half of his problem was that we didn't prep him very well for the appointment, I just assumed he would do well. I was wrong. We have to work on this before next week.

In the end, the girl and I have NO cavities and we all look great! My dentist didn't even push Invisalign like he has in the past.  He has probably assumed that I cannot make up my mind on what to do, so I am doing nothing.  I did tell him that I went and saw an oral surgeon and that he suggested surgery. His reply was, "Of course he did, he's a surgeon!"

I think it is funny that the kids and I have ZERO cavities and we are the ones that don't eat the sugar and sweets and Matt had TWO cavities when he went a couple of weeks ago!!! Guess what he eats all the time?? Sugar, sweets, cereal, candy, etc.  hmmmm.....

Weekend is gone already?

Wow! I think this is the first time all weekend I have sat down and have had a thought to myself! It was a busy weekend!  It is almost 10 pm and I am still planning for school this week.

Yesterday I did get to sleep in and get a few things done around the house, but once lunch was over, Megan and I went shopping! I had to get her a few things and we also ended up buying a Christmas present for Courtney and a few others on our list.  Our most exciting part was at Kohl's.  I have NEVER seen that place so busy, the line to check out was halfway to the back of the store! Luckily, it only took us 15 minutes to check out, but you could tell by people's faces that many of them were not too happy!

After shopping, we had a birthday party at a friend's house in north Omaha.  Since I have had to restrict Courtney even more on her milk, gluten, and eggs, Matt swung by Pepperjax on the way there to get Courtney and I something to eat.  The host was serving pizza and unfortunately, neither of us could eat it last night.  We got home about 9:30 from this party.

This morning, we had a change of plans from our usual Sunday ritual.  It was the only time my family could get together to do "cousin pictures," so we met at Portrait Innovations at 10 am and got that done.  The kids were super cute and did such a good job! It helps that they are older and that they have done this a few times!  After spending two hours at the picture place, we all had lunch together. It's always nice to spend some time with my family. :)

Once this was all over, we headed over to Best Buy. Matt had been thinking for awhile about getting a new computer for the kitchen.  We had a laptop there and it worked fine, kind of.  The sound didn't work and it was too small to teach all the kids from at once.  Matt also thought it was too slow, but I think it was fine.  We ended up buying an HP all-in-one for that area.  Matt says its the family Christmas present, which is fine with me!

With the new computer in tow, we headed home.  We were expecting some friends about 2:30.  This was the same family that held the birthday party the night before! They were coming over for the afternoon because there was a church meeting in the evening and they didn't want to drive back to the home in north Omaha and then back to church.  They have girls that are my girls' age and a seven year old boy, so it is almost a perfect match! They are in our small group and also homeschool. 

They were going to head out at 5:30 to go to the meeting, but since they didn't have childcare lined up, the mom and kids stayed at my house and Matt and her husband went to the meeting. It worked out great! We made chili, played legos, and perler beads.  The girls have also been working on a newspaper, so they had some time to finish their latest edition!

They left about 8:15 and I am exhausted! We got kids to bed and now it's finally time to pull the school books out and try to plan for this week.  We only have two more weeks until Christmas break and honestly, I am kind of excited for a break! But of course, life will only get busier in other ways!

Down one car...

We haven't had  car troubles in a very long time! This ended yesterday. I was on my way to taking the kids to the homeschool learning center and our car started to smell like burnt plastic! I turned the heater off and it went away, but every time we got out of our car, you could definitely smell it.

I called Matt and he told me to call the car dealership.  I called and they thought it was probably the drive belt and that I should get it over there as soon as I could.  Matt took it over there last night and by noon, they had called Matt back and told them the problem.  A plastic sack had gotten stuck to the exhaust pipe and was melting! The technician said he tried to pull it off, but couldn't get it because it was melted so bad.  He said we will just need to deal with it until it all burns off.  Thankfully they did not charge us the $107 diagnostic fee!!

Now we need to get our van back and I can have my freedom again!

Honestly though, it's not hard to stay home. I am thankful that we homeschool and we have school to keep us busy!!  We just did more schoolwork today than I originally planned.

Earth out of cookie dough?

We are two lessons into our unit on space and I am already finding that some information is a repeat from last year.  Today's lesson was on how earth was so different from the other planets and how only earth is capable of sustaining life.  Our book also talked about the layers of the earth  Since we knew a lot about how earth was unique, I decided to concentrate on the layers of the earth  I found a worksheet that explained the layers and then we did a little edible experiment to make a model of the four layers.

We took chocolate chips to be the inner core, a marshmallow to be the outer core.  I made cookie dough earlier, so we then wrapped the inner and outer core in cookie dough.  Finally, I ground up almonds and used that as the crust  We had a complete 4-layer earth! It was pretty neat!

When we were done, I tried to cut mine open to show the layers, but the marshmallow just flattened, so that didn't work so well.  I then let the kids eat them!  Megan ate hers up right away, but Christian and Courtney did not. I don't know if this is because the marshmallows weren't exactly fresh or if the cookie dough was just too sweet for them. It used a lot of sugar that we are not used to anymore! They actually left their "earth" on the counter to go play, which was very surprising.

I will bake the rest of the cookie dough into cookies and save them for another day.

Unit on Space!

We are down to out last six weeks in Core E of our Sonlight Curriculum!  In addition to Core E, we also have 6 weeks left of Core E Language Arts for Megan and 1st grade Language Arts for Courtney.  We have also been doing Sonlight First Grade Science and since I have kept these four subjects all aligned, we are down to six weeks left of that too!  I am pretty excited to finish this because we have been working on this curriculum since the end of September 2013.  We started this when we got back from our 5 week trip to the east coast last year. I am planning to wrap it up about the end of January!

But until then, we still have a lot of learning to do! We are up to the end of World War II in history and we will go until current times.  Megan and Courtney have both improved tremendously in their writing and are ready to go onto the next level.  In science, we are going to finish the last six weeks with a unit on space.  We finally finished our unit on the human body and this will round out our study.  I have learned soooo much in science this year and hopefully, my girls have too!

We are going to be using this book for the last six weeks.



I am pretty excited! To go with each lesson, I will continue to supplement what they want us to learn. 

Our first couple pages are general thoughts about space and what we find up there.

They also get into lack of sound in space.  Why is that?? I didn't know myself, so I had to do some more research.

http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/space-environment/1-is-there-sound-in-space.html

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=8

I will try my best to explain to two girls that there is no "air" in space.  It's kind of hard to understand, but hopefully they will get it!

We are also going to talk about how light travels through space.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-does-light-travel.html

I totally did not understand this whole article, but I think the part that I can understand will be good enough!!

Lastly, how do we see light as humans?

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5025645_see-light.html

Now this all might be over my girls' heads, but it always helps me to study in pretty in-depth before teaching it, so I can understand it fully. I have to be ready for any questions!

Need to go shopping!

Now that Thanksgiving is done, I should start to get ready for Christmas.  But this year, there is something more added to the holiday season.  We have a wedding on January 3rd and I am thinking I should get busy.

Here's what I have to buy yet:

1.  Matt needs a suit. He either has to buy one or rent one, he hasn't decided yet.

2.  Christian is a ring bearer, so he needs an outfit.  The bride does not want him to wear a tux, which is fine, so I think we can get him a little outfit with pants, shirt, sweater vest, and a tie from Kohls/ Penneys, etc.  He will also need little black shoes.

3.  Megan is reading Bible verses and she already has a dress. She needs nice tights and shoes.

4.  Courtney is a flower girl.  She also has a dress, but will need tights and shoes.

5.  As for myself, I should probably get a new dress too!

Which should I buy first? Christmas presents or clothes for the wedding?? What a crazy (and expensive!) time of year!!!

Ready for a break!

I am ready for a break from school.  I decided that we are going to take tomorrow afternoon and Friday off, I am ready for it and I think the kids are too!  We are trying to finish some things up this afternoon and then we won't open our books up again until Monday! It will be nice! I don't quite know what we are doing on Friday yet, but even if it is just putting up the Christmas decorations, that will be just fine with me!

More virus trouble!

We just cannot get rid of this virus at our house. It has been here since September and it needs to go back where it came from!!  We just keep passing it around!

Last week, I had it again, so I went to my doctor and asked if she had anything that could help boost my immune system. Since she is a chiropractor, she cannot give a prescription, which I didn't want anyway!  She gave me some great stuff that had lots of vitamin C and A and some other vitamins and herbs in it. I took quite a bit the first day and by day 2 or 3, my voice was back to normal and I was feeling better!

Right when I was starting to feel better, Christian started getting the sniffles.  If you know him, you know that sniffles usually equals bronchitis. I couldn't give him the pills my doctor had given me, but I had some elderberry extract that she had suggested earlier.  This is also an immune booster and has antiviral properties.  I started giving him this stuff and it did not turn into bronchitis!! He has a runny nose, the sniffles, and we were up overnight giving him albuterol, but I didn't hear him wheezing! Today, he was actually full of energy and seemed kind of wired! So odd! He's supposed to be sick!

Now to get us 100% better and get the virus gone for the rest of winter!! At least I know what works now!

PE Class

This semester, a couple of friends and I decided to start a PE coop for our kids to get out, play some games, and exercise.  It is so much fun!! The kids have a great time and so do I!

Lately, we have been meeting in a meeting room in the local library, so we have been limited on what we can play, but we still make it work. Today we played "animal" games. We played leap frog, walked like a crab and a bear, hopped like a rabbit, and waddled like a duck.  We had 8 kids there today, so we played relay games with four on each team. 

After we did our animal games, we played wheelbarrow the same way! That was hilarious!

A friend of mine also has a big rope, so we have been ending our time with some jump rope. I LOVED jumping rope when I was in elementary school and these kids seem to love it too! Every single kid wants to take a turn over and over! It's fun to see the kids so eager to play. Even though we just have one big jump rope, every kid waits patiently for their turn and it works out well. My girls have figured out how to jump rope in just one week. I want to go buy a big rope now!

I am kind of sad that PE is over until next year. We decided to take a break over the holidays, but we still might get together and play on Thursday afternoons.  The kids look forward to seeing each other and so do us moms!

Now, we need to start planning for next semester!

Teaching me right from wrong!

I took my kids shopping today because we needed some warmer clothes for winter and apparently, my kids have been listening to me lately!

1.  We were in the dressing rooms and the kids were trying on clothes.  We were done and we had a pile of clothes that we were not going to get.  I said to Megan, "Just leave them in the dressing room."  She looked at me and said, "No, we are supposed to put them on the rack at the front of the dressing room." So we picked up our piles of clothes and returned them to the rack, just like we are supposed to! 

2.  We were walking out and there was a cart right in the middle of the entry way. Without even being prompted, Megan took the cart and put it away! What a way to take the initiative and put it away without even being told!

These two examples show that our kids are watching and listening to what we are doing! Sometimes I don't do the "right" thing and am just lazy about putting clothes away after trying them or even not returning a cart to a cart corral at a store. My kids are watching and if we want them to do the right thing, then we have to do it too! And it's pretty humbling when they catch you not doing the "right" thing!

Allergy Problems Solved!

I took Courtney back to her doctor yesterday after her four different reactions last week (anaphylaxis, headaches, uncontrollable coughing, and an upset stomach).  I showed the doctor Courtney's food journal from that weekend and she said, "I see your problem. You overdid wheat, milk, and eggs! No wonder she reacted like she did!" Courtney went from having wheat, milk, and eggs every four days to having it four days in a row! Yikes!

I kind of knew she was overdoing it that weekend, but I just wasn't strict with her as much as I should have been. I knew she had a piece of cake here and there at Megan's parties, but I didn't think it was too much. I tried to serve other food besides wheat and milk just so she wouldn't overdo it. She also had a birthday party last weekend (a friend of Megan's) where pizza and cupcakes from a bakery were served. That alone was probably too much for her! We also went out to Spaghetti Works for Megan's birthday and that just added to the overdose!  Way too much within four days!

Her doctor told me to not give her any wheat, dairy, or eggs for at least a week to let her stomach calm back down.  I mentioned that we have a wedding shower and a birthday party this weekend and she looked at Courtney and said, "You can have a little piece of cake at each party, but you really need to stay away from it for a little bit." I am glad that our doctor understands that "life" happens!

Along with rotating foods every four days, I have greatly reduced any processed sugar, artificial food dyes, and any other "non-whole foods."  Can you imagine if my kids would overdue artificial food dyes or processed sugars? Actually I know what happens, they will be sick the next day!

With many holiday parties coming up, I need to keep an eye on my kids and what they are putting in their mouths. You can call it "fussing" over my children or even micro-managing what they are eating, but you know what? I don't want them sick the next day! Why would I want them sick?? So they can lay on the couch all day and feel terrible? So life can stop for a day as we get them back to health? Why would I do this?? Even if our hosts make a lot of "junk," it doesn't mean we have to eat it.  A little bit is fine, but they cannot overdo it.  I don't want another anaphylaxis reaction in my house!!

My children have been told "no" many time to things they cannot eat and they are really good about it. I do not believe they need to eat everything that is served or that others should tell them what they can or cannot eat. Nobody else knows their diets as well as I do, and it probably looks like I am always the bad one when I tell them "no." They are just fine and will survive without that artificially dyed jello or the drink made completely out of artificial sugars.

I would like them to get to the point where they can make decisions for themselves and I don't need to monitor them. We have talked about nutrition A LOT and I want to be able to trust that they are making wise decisions when it comes to food.  Megan and Courtney both know about what food is good for them and what is bad for them, but when temptation is staring right at you, it's hard to turn it down! Especially Courtney! She just craves wheat and milk!!

Everything is a work in progress and I believe that is what food is to us. We are not perfect in what we eat and we will fail, but we can try our best to feed our bodies what is best.  Obviously, we know what happens when we don't!!!

Allergies are Back!

Courtney was doing so well when it came to her food allergies. She has been back on everything for awhile except peanuts.  We try our best to rotate foods every four days and she has not gotten sick.

This all changed last Sunday.  We were already staying home from church Sunday morning because Christian and I were sick on Saturday.  Courtney had some eggs and some peaches for breakfast and after awhile, us girls went upstairs and I showed them some of my old scrapbooks. When I did this, I stirred up some dust and had gotten some on her clothes and around where she was sitting.

About a half hour later, Courtney started complaining that her cheeks hurt.  We thought this was kind of odd, so we asked her whether it was her teeth and she just kept saying it was her cheeks.  After a couple of minutes, she started crying because her cheeks hurt so bad! I felt them and they were definitely swollen!

 It was lunch time, so we sat down to lunch, but Courtney just sat and the more we looked at her and listened to her say what hurt, we figured out it was an allergic reaction.  Within an hour, her cheeks, nose, and eyes were swollen and she was taking deep breaths. I was scared her throat was going to swell and we were going to have to run to the ER!

Matt and I gave her some ibuprofen for pain and then Matt ran to Baker's to get her some Benadryl.  We gave her that and she collapsed on the couch for the afternoon.  She got a bunch of blankets and just hung out there while the rest of us cleaned for Megan's birthday party that afternoon. 

By 4 pm, she was still swollen and pale, but the pain had gone away.  She ran around at the party and by the time the party was over, she looked a lot better. She also had a headache with this reaction.

She slept great that night and Monday, she also had a small reaction.  We were at the kitchen table doing phonics and within 10 minutes, her whole demeanor changed from happy go lucky Courtney to "I have no idea what you are talking about." She was trying to do phonics, but had no idea what she was reading. She had brain fog and a huge headache!! Again, I gave her some ibuprofen and she laid down for a couple of hours.

I called her doctor later that day and she thought it was a combination of the eggs, dust, and maybe some peanut cross-contamination from some store-bought cupcakes she had the night before. She said it definitely sounded like an anaphylaxis reaction, which Courtney has never had before!! She told me to keep an eye on her and call her next week. She wanted me to expose Courtney to these things one at a time to see if she would react again.

Things have been well until today. Today she woke up and complained of a stomach ache.  She went to the bathroom a couple of times and told me things were not good. She laid on the couch all morning and finally about noon, she got up to take a shower. Now she says she feels a lot better!

Now that she is better, she gets to go to school this afternoon. :)

I did call her doctor back this morning and I am going to take her in next week. We may need to do another food allergy test to see what is bothering her.

100 Ways to Honor a Veteran

I was looking tonight for something for us to do for Veteran's Day tomorrow. Last year, we wrote letters to an uncle to thank him for his service and I wanted to do something similar this year. I came across these articles and we might steal a few ideas tomorrow!

http://nowurthinking.com/100-ways-to-honor-a-veteran/

http://www.operationgratitude.com/get-involved/write-letters/

My children give me JOY!!!

Last night, we had a homeschooling/ church friend party for Megan.  We had school in the morning and then used all afternoon to get ready for the party.  We had a Halloween party here last week, so a lot of cleaning was done, but there was some to do yet.

Here are some phrases I heard throughout the day:

1.  (this one took place at 7:30 am) Megan: "Mom, what can I do to help?" Me: "Hmmm. The playroom needs to be picked up." Megan: "Ok" and she ran off to clean the playroom at 7:30 am!!!

In the afternoon, I heard much of the same.

2.  Megan: "What needs to be done yet?" Me: "Your bedroom needs to be picked up." Megan: "Ok" and off she goes.  She and Courtney both picked up their bedroom, made their beds, and finished cleaning the playroom.

3.  Courtney :"Can we decorate? Please?" I gave them a roll of streamers and told them to decorate whatever they wanted, but they had to work together! They put streamers in every doorway, around the banister, and even around the chandelier in the dining room!

4.  Megan and Courtney both helped clean up their perler beads off the dining room table and Christian got on the floor and picked those all up.

5.  They also cleaned up the lego mess in the living room.

6.  Later I heard, "What else can we do?"  "You can put all the plates, forks, cups, and napkins out."  They knew exactly what to do, and they got the job done!

7.  You know how Christian helped? He was Chef Christian!  I noticed that he kept wanting to "help" the girls, but was really only getting in their way, so he put on his apron and helped me make cupcakes! He's a great helper! He also helped by cleaning out the bowl after I made the cupcakes!

8. Once everything was done, they continued to ask what they could do. Seriously, are these MY children??  I felt bad that there was nothing left to do!!

At the end of the day, I was very proud of my girls (and boy).  If I was 8 and almost 11 and I knew my mom was cleaning the house for a party, I would've tried every trick in the book to get out of helping. But not my children- they WANTED to help!! I was so proud of their attitudes and their eagerness at the end of the day!

We had a lesson last week at church during D6 about our attitudes on  parenting. They had notecards on the tables and we were supposed to write down one word that described parenting to us.  My first thought was to write down a negative word, such as tiring, challenging, and hard, but I decided against it.  Honestly, yes, parenting is challenging and hard sometimes, but in in the end, it gives me joy. I wrote down "joyful" because that's what I think it is to me and yesterday, my girls (and boy) gave me lots of JOY!!!! 

Long Night and Big Day!

Anybody else up last night from 3-5 am?? I was woke up at 3:15 am thanks to a kid who had to go potty and get a drink.  I got him back to bed and about a half hour later, he was coughing pretty hard, so I went into the girls' room and got the vaporizer we had been using for Courtney and put it in Christian's room. Ok, back to bed again.  Fifteen minutes later, the boy is still coughing and I am tired, so I decide to pull out the albuterol. I know I shouldn't use this, but we all needed sleep! Two puffs and about five minutes later, he stopped coughing and was back to sleep.

Not so for myself, I was awake.  About 45 minutes later, I heard this unusual metal grinding noise and I turned to matt and said, "What was that??" He also heard it.  He got up and headed downstairs to inspect. It was the backflow preventer on the sprinklers! He had turned them on to run so they wouldn't freeze up, Matt hasn't winterized them yet, so he wanted them to run. I'm not sure how the backflow preventer is part of this, but apparently it is!  Everybody back to bed again. By the time this was over, it was about 4:30 am.

At 4:52 am, Matt got up. Apparently he couldn't get back to sleep and just got up for the day. Not me!! Once he got up, I eventually got back to sleep! When my alarm when off at 7:15 am, I was out! I am glad I set it!

I have to get up and get going because today is a big day! We're having school this morning and then Megan is having a church/ homeschooling friends party tonight, so we need to get ready for that!

It should be fun! It's birthday weekend, so the parties will continue until the big birthday on Monday!

Election Day

Have you ever thought about what you need to do to be able to vote in this country? I am going to make a lesson out of it tomorrow!!

http://www.ehow.com/list_5929466_qualifications-voting-rights.html

We're also going to talk about the history of election day. Fun, fun!!

Food Around the World

We are getting very close to finishing our unit on the human body in science and we are doing our last lesson on food tomorrow.  It is on food around the world, usual food, and different ways to eat.

I thought this site would be fun to see food in specific countries.

http://whatfoodlookslike.com/

This is an article that describes "food staples" and what the main staples are around the world.

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/food-staple/?ar_a=1

An easy intro to staple foods.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5414533_main-staple-foods.html

Update on the pets in our house

Things have changed in regards to our pets lately and it hasn't been a happy change. :(

1.  Last week, our pet fish, James, died.  He was a red beta and Courtney had him a couple of years. She took such good care of him!! She was really, REALLY upset when she realized he had died.  He had floated to the bottom of his tank and his gills were not moving. It was pretty sad.

Matt came home at lunch that day and we had a funeral for him in the backyard. He is now buried under our lilac bush.  Courtney wants to get another fish real soon!

2.  Our praying mantis has also died.  We knew this was coming though because she laid her egg case about two weeks ago.  We knew she was getting close to dying when she would just kill the boxelder bugs we gave her and not eat them. She stopped moving little by little and by yesterday, we could take her out of her terrarium and she wouldn't go anywhere. Right now, she is just laying on our counter.  We took her eggs, put them in a paper sack, and put them in the freezer.  We will pull them out again next April and hopefully have baby praying mantises.

3.  The grasshoppers are still alive! There is one though that is slowing down, but really, he only has four legs! The other two are still moving and eating! Courtney also loves these things and takes very good care of them! She was even bringing them to do the table to have school today, but I said they needed to go back to the counter.

I still think Courtney might be an entomologist some day or work in conservation, she does have a heart for animals!

Resistance in World War II

This is for school tomorrow. :)

We are continuing to make our way through American history and we are in the middle of World War II.  We are going to be talking about the resistance to the Germans tomorrow and I wanted to look at this topic a little bit more in-depth.

I want to stop on this topic because there is this place in Paris, France called the Catacombs. These are underground burial spots, but during World War II, the French Resistance set up headquarters there.  Matt and I visited the Catacombs when we were in Paris on our honeymoon, so I want to pull out my pictures tomorrow and show the girls.  Here is also an article about them.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20121025-exploring-the-history-of-catacombs
.
http://www.davidbarber.org/france/catacombs/index.html

Even though resistance took place all over Europe, there was another pocket in Munich that was also significant.  A young college girl named Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans distributed leaflets at the University of Munich and were eventually killed for their actions.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html

a short video https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv1-yie9&p=sophie%20scholl%20and%20the%20white%20rose&type=

Halloween Party!

There are a few things I miss about my girls going to school. One thing is the holiday parties! But never fear, us homeschoolers can have our own holiday parties!!

I got together with a few of my friends these last couple of weeks and we planned a party!  There are about 20 kids coming to my house tomorrow for a Halloween party. We are going to have crafts, games, and even a piñata! Don't forget the food too!

I like hosting parties at my house because it gives me a chance to clean my house pretty thoroughly! And that is exactly what I have been doing all day. I spent about two hours in the playroom tonight and I told the kids that I don't want anybody in there until the party tomorrow! I threw away two bags of trash out of that room!

I still have a few things to do in the morning, but hopefully it will be a great time for everyone!
I am looking forward to it!

Science Class

I often talk to other homeschooling parents and read online that science is usually the first thing to go if a parent is out of time during the day.  I plan science whenever we are home in the afternoon and I really look forward to it. I have learned soooo much this last year and I am still learning things!

We are finishing up our unit on the human body and we have been talking about food lately.  Today the topic was to talk about where our food comes from, such as the food chain.  We have talked about food chains before, so it was sort of a review, but we got to tie it in with food.  For our activity, I gave each girl a piece of paper and split it into four sections.  At the end of each section, I had them draw a picture of themselves eating their favorite food.  They then had to draw the food chain back to its original source (the sun.) 

I totally thought the girls would not be happy with this little exercise, but I have not laughed so hard in science class for a long time! Wow!  Courtney picked ice cream as one of her foods, the food chain started with Courtney- ice cream cone- milk- cow- grass- sun.  Of course, she can't just draw a gallon of milk or even a cup of milk, she drew somebody milking a cow! Her picture was a classic!  Both girls were also drawing pictures of themselves in odd places, such as on a Ferris wheel and eating a banana upside down!

During this project, we also got to look up pictures of the plants where our food grows.  The girls choose bananas and grapes, so we looked up banana trees and grape vines.  They also had great fun drawing the sun on each section, they weren't just normal suns, but they were suns with mean faces and they had little "suns" all around them!

They were having so much fun, they wanted to flip the piece of paper over and continue on! I said they could draw more later, but I love it when we can work, learn, and have fun at the same time!!

Food Article and my thoughts.

I had a friend forward me this article this morning and I LOVE IT!!

http://www.omaha.com/momaha/pay-attention-to-what-you-re-putting-in-your-mouth/article_8693aea2-5d1a-11e4-a380-001a4bcf6878.html

It sums up about exactly what I am trying to do with my children and food. I am teaching them ABOUT food so in the future, they can make decisions for themselves on what to eat and what they should avoid in regards to their health.

Yes, my children CAN eat about anything they want. Yes, they have all been food tested and at this moment, there are no restrictions, except for Courtney and peanuts.  BUT does this mean they should eat whatever they want, whenever they want?? Absolutely not!

I want to teach them about food and what it does for or against our bodies. I want them to be able to go to a party where there are sweets galore and limit themselves. I don't want to always be over their shoulder telling them what is good and what is not good, and I certainly want them to have the respect that they won't be sneaking things behind my back. I also want them to be able to stand up for themselves if others are encouraging them to eat something that they think is not good for them.

I want them to know what food is good for our bodies and what is not.  Last week, we had a lesson in science on "junk food."  The very first thing I had the girls do was to pull all the junk food out of our cupboards, fridge, and freezer and put it on the stove.  They thought it was great! Honestly, I wanted to see what they would pulled out! Have they been listening to me for the last couple of years?? After they had everything on the stove, we talked about it all.  They had everything that had any sugar (mostly processed), anything with wheat, anything with salt, and artificial food coloring. I was impressed! We then talked about everything and why it is bad and what would be a good alternative.

As the article says, I also do not feed my children according to the USDA's food pyramid. I kind of flip the pyramid upside down and we eat a lot of fat (good fat), fruits, and vegetables.  We limit our sugar and grains during the day. Are we perfect in what we eat? Absolutely not, but we are certainly try to eat healthy.

Last of all, I love this statement right out of the article:
"I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, chemist or biologist; so don’t look to me for a micronutrient breakdown. I’m also not telling you how to eat, how to feed your family, or what to believe- so hold off the negative comments and mean-girl attacks."

I know some people do not agree with me on how I feed my children, and they do not like it that I limit sweets, grains, rotate food, etc.. I have heard you loud and clear, but please, these are my children and I am their mother. :) I gave birth to them and I will decide what they will and will not eat. I am not the bad person here. I am doing the best I can, just as we all our. I may just take it more seriously than others because we have had a lot of food issues in our family and I don't want everybody sick again.  I can also see side effects of everybody eating junk, like my children behaving very badly after they eat artificial food coloring. Just please believe me and stop encouraging them to eat junk and going against my wishes! It doesn't make this mama very happy! (There, I am done venting now!) 

Anyway, food is amazing! It has been a huge challenge to get our health back and we have used food as medicine. I plan on continuing what I am doing and I look forward to our future as we continue to strive to eat healthier than we did a few years ago!!!

Pickup Basketball Game!

Everyday about 4 pm, I try to chase the kids outside. We are usually done with our schoolwork (except for homework) and the public school kids are usually home about at that time, so it's a great time to get outside for some fresh air.

We were out there today and saw a neighbor mom bring home a bunch of the neighborhood kids. We were outside playing basketball and her daughter decided to come play with us awhile, it was great  because we were able to play a true basketball game! We had two fifth graders, Courtney, and myself.  It was nice because we had two on each team. Today we were only able to play until somebody got five points, but really, it's 1. exercise 2. teamwork and 3. getting some fresh air! What else do we want??

Now to get the kids to finish their homework!

Saturday!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Saturday mornings??

I love that there is no need to get out of bed, no need to rush to get started on school, Matt is HOME, and he's not racing out the door to get to work!

It's just a very relaxing atmosphere and we usually spend half the morning watching a nature show on TV.

We usually get dressed about 11 am because my rule is that you need to be out of your pajamas my lunchtime.

It is just a time when everybody in their family can do their own thing!

I love it!

Update on our Pet Bugs

Here is an update on our pet bugs.

1.  Our hornworm turned into a cocoon, but there are about three holes in the cocoon, so I am pretty sure he didn't make it.  Courtney's teacher for her bug class on Wednesdays told us that flies probably laid their eggs in their and we should throw it away, so we did.

2. Our praying mantis finally laid her egg case! Now we don't know if the eggs really contain baby praying mantises or not, we are not sure that she got "married" as the girls say! She has it attached to the top of the terrarium.  She did not eat for about 3-4 days before she laid the egg case and now she is starving! And her abdomen is much smaller!

We thought she would die when she had her eggs, but she didn't, so we still need to feed her.  Matt wanted to let her go because he doesn't want to keep buying crickets, but then we had a crazy idea. What if praying mantises ate boxelder bugs?? We have about a million of them on the front of our house right now!  We looked it up and they eat them! YAY! Courtney and Matt collected a few and she ate them right up! That's easy enough! And free!

It sounds like if her egg case does not contain fertilized eggs, then she will continue to put them down until she dies (which is when it gets colder).  Our grasshoppers do the same thing.  I'm not sure how this will end since she is in a nice, warm house.

3.  We are now up to four grasshoppers in the other terrarium.  The katydid died, so we had a couple of tears.  Courtney continues to feed the grasshoppers grass whenever she gets the chance, she loves watching them eat and fight over the grass!  I get updates on them every so often!

Some people think bugs are gross, but I have really found an appreciation for them since there is a collection of them in my house right now. God made some amazing creatures!!!

Science Lesson on Taste Buds

Tomorrow we are learning about what makes you hungry and about our taste buds in science.  Some of the information is new, but some is not. 

We have already had a lesson on taste buds, so we are going to watch this movie instead of doing the same experiment on tasting things that are sweet, sour, salty, and bitter again.

http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/tounge-movie.html?tracking=K_RelatedArticle

I think it's a cute little movie. :)

Too Many Books at Once!

My head was spinning this week. I am reading more books than usual for school and I am getting them all mixed up!

Every week for school, I read the girls a chapter book out loud that goes along with what we are studying in history, these are called our "read-alouds, and Megan also has one to read to herself, which we call her readers.  These also have to do with what we are studying in history.  In addition to the read alouds and readers, we also have a history book that we are reading. In addition to these three everyday, we have also thrown in a chapter book for Bible class this week! At night, I have started reading Megan's "reader" for next week, so I have been trying to keep straight many books this week and unfortunately, a couple of them are overlapping! (If you missed it, that is five books right now!)

Here is why my head is spinning:

1.  Our book for Bible class is Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World.

We just finished a unit on friendship and this book is about a missionary family who moved to Taiwan (right next to China) from America.  The first three chapters so far have been a lot about the differences between American and Chinese culture and how the main character, Amy Kramer, just wants some friends.

2.  This is Megan's reader for next week.

This book takes place around the end of WWII when Jackie Robinson is playing baseball. This story is about a young girl who moves from China TO America!! (See why I am confused after I read the Peanut Butter book!)  I have read about half the book and again, a lot of the reading is spent on comparing the two cultures! It's funny to see the overlap between the two books.


In addition to these two books, I am reading this book to them too as their read-aloud this week.

We just finished a section on the Great Depression in history and this story is about a young girl and the struggle her family is having to earn money during this hard time.  The main character actually writes a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt answers and helps the family! We have twenty pages left as of yesterday and of course the girls were saying, "Just finish the book! Just finish it! We need to know what happens!" I didn't finish it, so it will have to wait until Monday.


Last week, we finished this read-aloud.

This about the struggle between whites and African-Americans in Mississippi during the 1930's. It was a GREAT book!  You felt like you were right there within the struggle and your heart went out to these people that were being discriminated against! (This book is one reason why I would much rather teach history from a chapter book than from a textbook AND one reason why I continue to teach from Sonlight curriculum!) At the end of the book, a young African-American boy got accused a killing a white store owner and the book never really says what happens to this young man.  They hint around that he was going to be killed for it, but don't say exactly.  We do know at this time that many African Americans weren't even given a trial and were usually punished right away, even if it wasn't fair because that's just the way things done in the that time and place.

I was talking to another mom last week who has also read this book and they said, "Don't you know that there is a sequel to the book?" I had no idea there was a sequel! I was very interested because I also want to know what happens to the young man!

I went home and looked online and there are four books in the series! Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is actually book #2.  I found book #3 and after reading the summary, I found out what happened to the young man, but I refused to tell the girls.

The library did not have it to borrow, so I just ordered it off Amazon for $3.  It came in the mail the other day and both girls, at the same time, said, "When can we start??" 

Looks like we have a story to read at bedtime now because I don't think I can read anymore during the day!

Beautiful Weather to play outside!

A friend of mine and I have started a PE coop that meets every Thursday afternoon.  We have a couple goals with this group.  One is to learn those group games that you can't really do at home with your brother and sister (unless you have a really large family!) and another goal is that when someday your friends say, "Hey, let's go play a game of soccer," our children will have somewhat of an idea of the rules and how to play!  Plus it's great fun to get together with your friends every Thursday afternoon!  Don't forget the added exercise.  Good all around!

Yesterday we met for PE class and introduced kickball. We used Frisbees for bases, had about 10 kids involved from ages 3-10, and even involved the moms! It was fun!! We played two innings, which was enough for these kids, and everybody got a chance to play.  Even Christian kicked the ball and ran around the bases (with some help of course!)

After we were done with PE time, we went over to a nearby park to play for awhile.  But since it was so nice out and everybody was having fun, we played for almost two hours!  Another family stayed too, so it was just a great time! It's great for the kids to use their imagination as they make pies in the sand and even play hide and seek among the playground equipment. I got to sit and talk to the moms- that is so refreshing! We planned a Halloween party and just talked about life!  Like one mom said, PE is not only for the kids, it is for the moms too!

Next week we are going to try t-ball with the kids, but I have already had some older children in my family who don't want to play t-ball, they just want to hit the ball without the T.  This may be possible! I am glad they are having fun!

Clean bill of health!

I took Christian back to the doctor today and he has a clean bill of health! His lungs are completely clear and the pneumonia is GONE! Hip hip hooray!

I asked the doctor if we are going to be battling bronchitis with him all winter again with him and she thought not. She said that maybe these antibiotics kicked it all out of him! I hope so!

Now to get the Megan and I to stop coughing and we will be one healthy family!!

Columbus Day!

It's Columbus Day tomorrow! You know what that means, it means my children will be getting a lesson on the holiday!

The website from the History Station usually has great write-ups about these holidays, I am going to use this article for information tomorrow.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

After learning about Christopher Columbus, we are going to do a little craft.

http://www.brainpopjr.com/socialstudies/holidays/columbusday/activity/

It's fun because Christian has been joining us for a lot of crafts lately, it may be too childish for Megan, but I think she will want to do it anyway!

Onion Rings

As I was flipping through my cookbook from the library, I saw a page on making homemade batter and it had a picture of onion rings on the opposite page. Do you know what I have not been able to have in over two years because they are always covered in wheat? Onion rings! I am so excited that I can make a version that I can eat!

I also contacted the internet to help me too, I have never made them homemade, but they don't look so hard!

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Onion-Rings

Scheming Courtney

Matt and Courtney have been scheming around here lately.  I limit a lot of wheat in our house and Matt eats all the wheat he wants, which encourages the children to ignore mom's rules sometimes and go with dad.

Last night, I heard this conversation between Courtney and Matt as I was sitting in bed reading a book.

"Dad, I have a plan. Tomorrow morning when I wake up, I am going to come get you...very quietly so we don't wake mom up.  Then we are going to make ourselves some waffles, using the pancake mix in the cupbard (wheat, of course).  When we are done, we're going to wash all the dishes and when mom offers of breakfast, eat a little bit, but just tell her we're not so hungry. How does that sound??"

Courtney thought she was being sooo sneaky, but then I ruined her whole plan and said, "I heard that!!"

Then I heard, "Shucks!"

Honestly, it would be fun to see if they could pull it off! Last week when I got up, Matt was making them hole-in-the-middles (bread with the middle cut out and replaced with an egg.)  The kids need time with dad too, so honestly if it includes wheat here and there, it is worth it! I can step back once in a while and let dad take over!!

New cookbook I found!

I have never found a cookbook that I have been 100% happy with in the last two years.

My main food sensitivities are milk, gluten, eggs, and sugar and none of the books were specifically aligned with these dietary restrictions.  I have checked out many books from the library and have looked at many websites online and I often still find myself trying to substitute ingredients in a recipe.

I found this book at the library the other day and I could hardly believe it!

Do you see the print underneath the title?? Gluten free, dairy free, and egg free!!! And the best part is that she doesn't include any processed sugar in her recipes, they all use natural sugars, such as honey or maple syrup!

I found a cookbook that I can make every single recipe in!!

The best part is that there are recipes in this book of foods that I have not had in a couple of years because I couldn't figure out how to make them, such as pizza crust, waffles, bread, English muffins, etc.  Now, I have a solid recipe in front of me and I can make every single one of them and not have any reaction! I noticed that I would have to use yeast in a few of them, which I have been off for about two years, but I think we can try it again! I feel sooo much better!

Guess what we are trying tomorrow? Waffles!

Honestly, I may go to Amazon and buy one for myself!

Tired of the germs!

We are going on the 3rd week of battling germs in our house. It all started the Friday that we went to Vala's. Megan had a low grade temp that night and has been coughing every since. Her cough was not so bad, so I just let her be.  On the other hand, Christian came down with pneumonia the following week.

Now we are about done with his antibiotics and I think we are home free, but guess what? Now I have a sore throat! I woke up yesterday and it hurt so bad to talk! The kids thought they were getting a free day off of school, but luckily, it cleared up and I was fine.  Today I woke up and it wasn't so bad, but still hurt.

I got an email from one of my friends this morning and she said she had been up since 3:30 am with a daughter who was puking.  These are some friends that we saw yesterday afternoon.  About an hour later, my stomach starts burning! It hurt pretty bad! I had added a few new things into my diet this week, but nothing that should make it burn!  I cancelled our afternoon plans and said we were just going to stay home and chill out.  I could use the rest anyway!

So here we are, at home for the afternoon. We got all our schoolwork done this morning because we had plans for this afternoon, but our new plan is to catch up on a little housework and watch "Back to the Future 3."  I really should sit down and rest.

In the meantime, I had to put off plans yet again to go see my new niece who was born over a week ago!

Germs, germs, go away!

My children and underwear problems!

I have another underwear story from today and it just made me laugh.

I do not help Christian get dressed in the morning. He can now do this all by himself and he usually gets dressed while I am getting ready, so I don't really pay attention to what he is doing.  I lay out a pair of pants, a shirt, and a new pair of underwear.  As long as he has new clothes on, he is good to go!

Today he got dressed as usual and we started our day. About 3 pm, we were in the middle of doing a duck puzzle with him and he had to go potty, so he ran off to the bathroom. When he was done, he seemed to be having some trouble because he kept saying, "I am having trouble with my underwear!"  He never has troubles with his underwear, so I went into the bathroom and saw a pair on the floor, then I looked at him and he had a pair on! I had been in that bathroom several times and there has never been a pair of underwear on the floor.

I said, "Christian, what are these?" pointing to the pair on the floor.

"Those are my old underwear."

"What are you wearing?" I asked him back.

"My new underwear," he replied.

I said in a very inquisitive voice, "Did you have two pairs of underwear on?"

He replied, "Yes."

I said, "Did you not change underwear this morning? Did you just put your new underwear on top of your old underwear?"

"Yes!"

UGH! So since he was having so much trouble with his underwear at this moment, he decided to take his old pair off and just wear his new pair!! Little stinker!

Maybe I need to start checking his underwear in the morning!!

You know you are behind laundry when...

Laundry has not been my friend this past week. Neither have many other things!

The laundry basket in the kids' bathroom was so full that the kids started calling it a "mountain." Let's just say that mountain was about up to the window!!

My laundry basket was overflowing and there was just miscellaneous piles of dirty clothes all over the house.

I got two loads through yesterday, but not enough to even put a dent in the pile!

Last night we got home from the football game about 11 pm from a friends house and I asked Megan, "Do you have any clean underwear for tomorrow?" I know this might be an issue because she couldn't find any clean ones Saturday morning! She replied with, "no." At 11:15 pm last night, I threw a big load of dirty underwear, socks, and t-shirts into the washer so they could be ready to dry right away this morning.

But what happened this morning? I forgot to put them in the dryer! I remembered them when Megan was heading upstairs to get dressed and we had 25 minutes until we had to leave!

I told Megan to wait about 20 minutes and to see if they would dry, but by that time, they were still pretty wet. I told her she just couldn't change underwear and she would just have to wear the same ones again (I know, gross, right?)

Her reply, "But mom, I have already worn this pair for two days!"

You know you are behind in laundry when your child has already worn the same pair of underwear for two days and you are asking her to wear them a third!!!

(The clothes should be dry now that we are home from church and she can change, but it just shows how behind I am in laundry!!!)

My goal today: conquer the mountain!!

Ready for the Weekend!

I am soooo ready for the weekend.  This has been a long week! Just when I think we are going to be able to get to a schedule and really get going on school, somebody throws a wrench into my plans!

The wrench this week was Christian's pneumonia.  Not only did I spend 2 1/2 hours at the doctor on Monday (and who knows how much $$), he is still not much better and it is almost Friday!  We have been up every three hours at night giving him albuterol because he is coughing so hard.  This has happened for the last four nights and I really struggle to get out of bed in the morning! He is also still running his low-grade fever on and off. 

So not only do we start school late every morning, but I am dealing with a sick kid on a daily basis.  I will say that he is worse in the evening, nighttime, and in the morning. This morning I was upstairs and he drug himself up the steps because he had no energy and told me "My blanket is sooo heavy." He had brought his blanket upstairs with him. I told him to go lay down in bed and I was going to go back downstairs and start school with the girls (because it was already 10 am and way past time when I would like to start).  Apparently he didn't want to be upstairs by himself, so I had to come back upstairs and carry him down. Poor thing! He was better a couple hours later though.

To get this boy better though, the doctor prescribed some antibiotics. But why do they have to make them so disgusting??  I tried to give him some Monday night and he about spit it back out at me! We have put it in applesauce, ice cream, and tonight we put it into apple juice. I don't blame the kid for not wanting to take it, I wouldn't want to either! If I knew what was in the stuff they use to flavor medicines, I might take it back to the pharmacy and pay $1.99 for some grape flavoring, but I bet it's high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes, not exactly what I want to give my sick child! 

After not noticing much of a difference from two days ago, I got on the phone today and called our pediatrician just to see when we should start seeing improvement.. They just said to call them back if his fever went higher or if he started vomiting. She said it could be 3-5 days before we see improvement!  They also told me not to give him so much albuterol because it will make his heart race.  Sorry, but it breaks my heart to see my kid coughing until he gags and his eyes watering so much. The albuterol is working, so I am going to keep giving it to him! Am I just supposed to let him cough all day long?? How miserable is that...not just for him, but for everybody in this house!

I also asked today if he is contagious or not.  We have been taking him places, but have not let him play with kids his age, such as to Sunday School.  The nurse said that the cold that gave him pneumonia is contagious, but the pneumonia is not. Interesting!  I did not know that...

In the midst of school, no sleep, fighting a kid to take his medicine, and his sickness, I have totally let the house get out of hand! Seriously, it is very bad right now and honestly, I don't have the energy to clean it or to have the kids to clean it at the moment! Maybe Saturday....

Is it the weekend yet???

A Different Disease!

I can no longer call Christian bronchitis-boy because he has a new disease- pneumonia!! I took him in today and after the doctor listened to him AND sent him to the hospital to have a chest xray done, she finally concluded that he had the beginnings of pneumonia.  She said most kids will get a really high temp and will be vomiting before the parents bring them in, she said if we had not brought him in, we would've been there in a couple of days.  I'm thankful I took him in today!

So now we are on antibiotics for the next 10 days. We also got a refill on our albuterol  and we can refill it up to 6 times!! Wow! That would be awesome because we got through a lot of it!

I kind of laughed today when the nurse asked me which pharmacy we use.  I don't remember the last prescription we had filled, so I had to think about it for a moment!

I am ready for the coughing to be done!

Sick Kid in the House!

Christian has been sick the last week or so. At first, I thought it was bronchitis because of his history,  but I don't think so anymore  I am actually taking him to the doctor today because I was up half the night with him breathing weird and coughing until he gags. It's not fun!

Anyway, with every sick kid, there are always recommendations of what you can do from other people. One of those most common recommendations is to give your kid Gatorade or pedialyte to help replenish those electrolytes lost.  That is a great recommendation, but have you looked at the ingredients of Gatorade lately?? High fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes!! Why would I give this to my kid when he is sick when I try to avoid these items when he is healthy?? I just couldn't do it this time.

Today I was scrolling through facebook and saw this post.  This is a lady who won't give her kids all these fake additives either and actually has a recipe for homemade Gatorade.  Guess what? It only has 3 ingredients and they are water, sugar, and salt!!!

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/01/31/homemade-pedialyte/

Now, that I will do!!

New Pets in the House!!!

This has been the week of collecting new animals from outside and calling them our new "pets."

1.  About a week ago, Courtney caught a grasshopper and called it her own.  This is something that happens every fall. Courtney will catch a grasshopper, feed it, and keep it alive until about December The problem was the first grasshopper she caught this year died within 24 hours. Courtney was so sad. :) But lo and behold, Matt caught her another one the same day! This one is about twice as big as the one that died and it is nice and healthy because it poops a lot! (According to Courtney!)

2.  Last Monday when we were out at my uncle's house after my grandpa's funeral, one of my brother's reached down into the grass and pulled up a hornworm.

 

My brother had recently taken an entomology class and knew exactly what it was. He was going to go put it behind the barn where it wouldn't get stepped on, but I stopped him and said, "Courtney would love that worm!" So he put it in a glass and we brought it home with us.  He said that we should put it in a bucket and give it 2-3 inches of dirt, rice krispies, etc. anything that it can bury itself.  He said they will go into a cocoon and come out a moth.

 

We gave it about 3 inches of rice krispies and at first, I thought he was dead because he stopped moving, but that is exactly what they do.  He is now turning brown, which means we will have a moth in about a month. So exciting!

 

 

 

3.  Yesterday Megan and Matt were out for a walk and when they came home, they presented Courtney with a katydid.

 

 

Now her grasshopper has a friend! But at first, we didn't know this was a katydid and she thought it would eat grass, just like her grasshopper. Courtney was kind of confused because it wasn't eating the grass like the grasshopper! After some research, we found out what it was and that it does NOT eat grass, but rather leaves. She fed it a leaf and it ate it up!

 

4.  Tonight Matt and Courtney were outside playing some baseball and Matt saw a praying mantis crawling across the driveway. Matt caught it right away and now we have a third insect in the mix.  Except if we would have put the praying mantis in with the grasshoppers, they would have been its lunch!  So instead, Matt and Courtney went off to the pet store to get another terrarium and some crickets for this guy (I mean lady, as we later found out!)

 

 

 Courtney was all excited about this praying mantis and it didn't even bother her that they needed to buy crickets to feed this insect.  Matt said she was doing well with it all until the way home. It was then that she realized how "cute" the crickets were and did NOT want to feed them to the praying mantis.  She was actually in tears by the time they got home. (We caught a praying mantis when we were in Gettysburg, PA last year and watched him rip crickets apart while they were still moving!). 

 

Matt didn't feel so bad about it, so he dumped the new crickets and the praying mantis into the terrarium and the praying mantis got to work.  They bought six crickets and there is only one left in the terrarium as of now.  That gal was hungry!!

 

I don't know how long the praying mantis is going to last here, we either need to let him go or buy more crickets at a time! I don't know how long Courtney will be able to stand it either!

 

5.  Last, but not least, we have our red beta fish, named James, who has been a part of the family for awhile and doesn't eat anything alive or take any real effort!







A Little Culture!

This last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Megan a little bit about science fiction through her language arts assignment.  Her job was to write a dialogue and it was supposed to incorporate science fiction.  I began to list some movies or TV shows that she could maybe relate to, I came up with the normal "Star Trek," "Star Wars," but then I mentioned "Back to the Future." I know it's probably not true science fiction, but a little bit in my opinion.

Last night, it was just Megan, Christian, and I and I thought it would be fun to watch a movie together. I asked Megan if she had any thoughts and you know what she said, "Let's watch 'Back to the Future!'" I told her to go get it (we have it on DVD) and we put it in.  Now, in my defense, I saw that it was PG, but I didn't know there were so many cuss words and some parts that were kind of on the line with my 10 year old! I fast forwarded through a couple of places, but even with skipping a few parts, she still loved the movie!  It was fun watching her trying to figure it all out! Even I was catching a few things that I don't remember!

We watched half of it last night and finished the rest tonight after we watched "The Amazing Race."  Now I want to watch the sequel!!

It's back...

I have been counting down until tonight for awhile. It's the season premiere of "The Amazing Race!"

Courtney informed me today thought that she doesn't want to watch this season, I was a little heart-broken!! She's my "Amazing Race" partner!! She said she only wants to watch it if the Afghanimals were in in again! Unfortunately, they are not in it this season, hopefully she can pick a new pair to cheer for!!

Poor kid!

I forgot how bad it was for Christian to have bronchitis.  He hasn't had it for a long time and now this week, he has it again. It's kind of been lingering on this week, but last night and this morning, he has had a fever and coughing until he gags! Poor kid! We got out the albuterol and advil and started giving that to him.  That is what any doctor would tell me to do! About 10 minutes after taking those, he is back to normal again.

Matt and I laugh because a couple of years ago, he had bronchitis 10-15 times within six months. During this time, we would literally have to hold him down to give him the albuterol. Now he is begging for it and takes it great! We have came a long ways!!

What kid gets bronchitis when it is 80 degrees out??