Enjoying vacation!

It is 8:19 am and my children are ALL still sleeping. This is vacation!!! Can you hear the peace and quiet at my house??

We are all ready for a vacation! After working hard at school for four months, we celebrated Christmas.  This was no small task because we had four parties in four days.  It was almost like a marathon!! Yesterday was our first day with nothing to do, and I was exhausted and just wanted to do nothing! To add to it, my feet hurt. :(  I wore my boots for two of our parties and kept them on all day; they aren't exactly gentle to my feet. Then on Christmas Eve, we had a some friends over for dinner, so I spent all day on my feet getting that ready. About 5:00 that night, my feet really started hurting! Luckily by about noon yesterday, they were feeling better, but that was so weird!

As for the next two weeks, we are going to try to get some stuff done around here.

1. Yesterday afternoon the boys and I cleaned their bedroom. Things had gotten out of control in there. :(  We are also looking to buying Christian a loft bed and giving his bed to Micah.  If and when this happens, I don't want a big mess in there!

2.  I also want to get my sitting room cleaned up. This is out of control also!! Megan does her homework in there at my desk, but Matt wants her to move to her room. This means either moving my desk into her room or buying her a new one. She obviously wants a new one!! I also have old curriculum all over the floor that I need to sell or put away for the next kid.

Courtney has also brought all her clothes that don't fit and all her stuffed animals that she doesn't have room for anymore into my sitting room and just dumped them all in a pile. :(

I wanted to do this today, and I may be able to get started, but I signed Courtney up for a basketball clinic today from 12-3, so I need to play taxi driver.  Megan might have clarinet lessons this afternoon, and tonight, and Matt's aunt is taking Megan out for her birthday. Whew!

3.  I also need to get all the Christmas presents put away and the tree taken down. I kind of want to leave my Christmas decorations up though since they are so pretty!

4.  Did I mention I am starting two new curriculums after break? I need to read up on those.  I also need to go through all our homeschooling books and get everything ready for January! Megan is picking up concert band at the local public school (along with her other two classes), so our whole schedule is going to be new! Anybody ready to get up an hour earlier??

I hear children moving around. Time to go!

Living it out!

Today I picked Megan up from school and like usual, she started telling me what happened in her classes.  Finals are starting tomorrow at her school, so they have been reviewing all week.

Today in her biology class, they played a game as part of a review session.  They play games quite a bit as a review, and Megan usually is one of the top placers. She currently has 3 free ice cream cone coupons on our fridge! Today was no different. She said that as they were playing, she could see on their computers who was leading. At one point, it was Megan.

At that moment, she decided that she didn't want to win, but would RATHER let somebody else win, so she entered a wrong answer and dropped herself to 11th place. She said the three people who did win (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) were kids who don't usually get a prize in that class.

On the other hand, she said she also did this because she doesn't want to be known as the girl who always wins the games in biology class.

I was kind of mad at first, "What do you mean you were letting somebody else win??" But then I thought about it again. "Wow! You are thinking of others! Way to live out your faith!" I was proud of her for giving somebody else a chance to win and not just thinking about herself!!! She said she knew the right answer, but purposefully put in the wrong one just to drop herself down in the standings!

Now hopefully she will do a great job on her final tomorrow!!!

It's the most stressful time of the year. :)

I haven't blogged in a very long time.

I am just not into it lately. By the time I get done grading homework in the evening, I just want to go to bed, and I don't want to do anything more!

But this week, we are taking a break. This mama needs it.

Most public schools are out on Friday, including the one that Megan attends. If you are a teacher, when do you have time to get things ready for Christmas, which is the following Tuesday??

I really think school districts should give the week before Christmas off, not the week after. I don't need time AFTER Christmas to get things done. I need the week before!!

We are going to do math everyday this week and if that is all we get to, then that is fine. I am not going to push it.

My poor body cannot handle the stress this time of year.  I have already broken out in a rash, had several allergic reactions (one where my throat was tingling), anxiety, rapid heartrate, was short tempered, and the list goes on. My adrenals are working extra hard this holiday season. I can tell when they are burned out for the day because I lose ALL my energy and I just want to sit and do NOTHING!

People tell me to "control my stress." How exactly do I "control" my stress?  My chiropractor told me to exercise and to journal, which helps, but when I am done, the stress comes back.  I just think about what I all need to get done and my heartrate jumps.

The only way I have learned to control it is by eliminating it.  The main thing I eliminated is school.
Today was the first day that I eliminated 95% of our homeschool subjects, and I was not as stressed as I was last week!! I figured I had to do something before my body went into a full-blown revolt!

And since I have very little homework to grade, I can return to my blog. :)

Merry Christmas!!!

It has been a long time!

I am not very good at blogging anymore! It has been almost two months since I have been on here! Googl.e is going to delete my blog if I don't keep something up here!

I think one reason I don't blog anymore is because Courtney films quite a bit around here and makes vlogs. She is great at capturing moments and then putting them into a video. Check her channel out on YouTube- "Courtney's Life". :)

At the moment, Matt and Christian are on their way out to Grand Island for Husker Harvest Days. They are travelling with grandpa. This has become a yearly tradition, and Christian looks forward to it every year. We were even in a consignment store yesterday and he found a pair of bib overalls. They fit great, so I bought them for today. He was pretty excited to show grandpa!

In the meantime, I will be at home with Megan, Courtney, and Micah. It will be quiet here today. Micah will have nobody to fight with, and Courtney will have nobody to pick on. Megan usually gets involved too somewhat during the day, but not as much as the other two. Micah will have all the toys to himself! Christian is really a good kid, but he just needs to listen. :) It is something we work on daily!

Megan and Courtney will go to school like always. We started school about a month ago with these two. We decided to dual enroll Megan this year. She is taking Latin and Biology up at the local high school, so she goes up there in the afternoon. This works out great! We just need to get all her work done by noon. We have been carpooling with another family in the neighborhood, so that has been super helpful.

Courtney and Christian (and Micah) are here in the afternoon, and we get quite a lot done. These two are still at home full-time. Matt says that when they are smarter than me, then they can go to school. There was no way I was teaching Megan Latin!! She is taking biology because science is hard to do at home. It was challenging to find all the science supplies and get everything done. It took Megan two years to get through one book. I told her now that she is in high school, she needs to get everything done in one year. There is also a rule where we live that if you take two classes at a school, then you can participate in extra-curricular activities. I told her to get involved!! She really gets the best of both worlds (public and homeschooling).

Since I only have the girls home today, I am letting them sleep in! I will get through things a lot faster without having to stop to break up fights all day!

I should go wake them up though- it is 8 am! Usually Micah is awake by 7:15 am, and he isn't up yet either.

Off to another fun-filled day!

Productive Weekend!

We finally had a weekend where we had NOTHING planned!

We thought we would take advantage of it and get things done around the house, and boy did we get things done!!

We had two main things to get done- trim the trees in the backyard and clean the basement!

Matt had gotten a trailer from his dad earlier in the week, so he was outside about 9 am with his saw and was trimming branches. Our trees had taken over our backyard! Some of them were hanging down to the ground, some were hanging over the slide, some were in the way of the swings, and the biggest problem was that the grass underneath the trees was dying because it couldn't get any sun!  Matt trimmed ALL the trees so he could stand underneath them again and not get hit by branches!

By the time he was done, it looked like a huge wind storm had come through because we had huge tree branches all over our yard!

Megan and I helped Matt haul them to the front of the house where he cut the branches up even further and put them in the trailer. He ended up making two trips out to the local dump (costing $17 each time!) to dump the branches.

Our back yard looks so much better!!!!

Our other goal this weekend was to clean the basement. Courtney and her slime habit had taken over down there, and it was a disaster!!  Our basement is not fully finished either, and Matt said he cannot work on it anymore until it gets cleaned up.  About 2 pm, Matt, Courtney, and I headed downstairs to work. It was amazing how much slime we found everywhere.  It was stuck to the cement floor in many places, stuck on her table, in the kitchen area, and just in places it shouldn't be!!

We had two HUGE sacks of garbage and everything (various craft supplies, tools, etc.) back in its place by about 5 pm.  Matt had even taken the initiative and put up some woodwork! I was thrilled!!  He only needs to finish the woodwork and then we can put down some flooring. It has been stuck like this for at least the last five years! I would love to make it into a usable space, especially this winter when I will have two boys bouncing off the walls!

We just need another weekend down there, and we could probably finish the cleaning. I am not sure what Matt wants to put down for flooring.  I just want it done, so we can use it...and maybe turn it into a school room??

We are almost done and new beginnings!

My poor kids won't get much of a break from school.

We have been working all summer on math! Megan and Courtney each have about 10 lessons left and Christian has about 40! How did I get so far behind with him?? We have been doing two lessons a day lately just to finish. He has been a pretty good sport about it!

Anyway, one of my homeschooling rules is that I like to be done with our "grade level" curriculum before we start the new year in the fall. I think we will make it!  This is usually math and English. I feel I can just roll over the other subjects, and it doesn't matter!

Another reason I need to get our work done is that I need to get Megan ready for high school this year!  I told her we need to start all her subjects new this fall, and she needs to finish them or get close to the end this coming year. We cannot keep going with them in the fall. We need to start counting credits this year! I can hardly believe she is in high school!

Since it is almost August and school goes back in two weeks, I have been working here at home to finalize our curriculum for the coming school year. I am actually changing a few things and starting a few new curriculums. I hope it won't be too much of a change!

I am also one to pick and chose my books from a variety of curriculum companies. Many people pick one company and do all their subjects; I have never found that to work for me! I usually like one subjects and not the others. For example, I have LOVED Rod and Staff math and English, but I didn't care for the other subjects. I am not sure if I would be labeled an "eclectic" homeschooler because I pick and chose!

Here is what I have lined up for Megan:

Bob Jones Fundamentals of Literature
Writing with Skill Book 1
(NO GRAMMAR OR VOCABULARY THIS YEAR!!!)

Mystery of History Book 2 along with the historical fiction literature from Sonight Core G

Bob Jones Algebra 1
Apologia Physical Science (which she did 1 chapter in last spring)

We are also looking at letting her taking Latin up at the local high school this year.  This would be for her foreign langauge credit.

I am also going to give her a half credit for PE/ Health. I went to a high school seminar last spring,and they said colleges like to see this on the transcript. It shows that the students aren't lazy. :)

She also has been teaching herself piano, so I am going to throw a half credit of piano on her transcript too.

Along with her studies, she will be participating in Homeschool Teen Serve and serving at the Homeschool Learning Center. These will count towards volunteer hours, which I am going to require of her. :)

She also will attend youth group at church.

This should keep her plenty busy!

Actually she is kind of worried that she will be too busy! I said you are in high school now- you are going to have to step it up and just maybe do homework in the evening!

100%!

Micah has been wearing underwear 100% of the time lately. He wears them during the night and day and EVEN when we go out!

Honestly, I ran out of pullups and didn't want to buy anymore. Plus he always did great when we were out and about and never peed in them anyway! 

Being out and about was almost easier than being at home. Since he is always with me, I can always tell when he has to go potty, and I can take him right away. At home, I just let him do his own thing and don't watch him very closely. This is when he has accidents.

At home the last few days, I just take him every few hours, and we haven't had any accidents!

On Thursday, we were at the airport and as we were getting into the car, he started dancing. I asked him if he needed to go potty and he said yes. I was kind of stuck thought because I didn't want to haul him plus the other three back into the airport! I buckled him into his carseat and he held it all the way home!! Yay!!

This may have taken almost a month, but I think we are finally getting it!!!

Amazing!

Micah is still working on this potty-training thing.

Whenever I ask him if he needs to go potty, the answer is always, "NO!!!" 

But yet whenever I take him, he always goes. Hmmmm.

This boy refuses to tell me when he has to go. If I do not take him at home, he will go in his underwear and say, "Mom, I peed on your floor!" or "Mom, I peed in my pants!" This happens every.single.time.  Obviously he knows when he goes potty!  He always wears underwear at home, so he always has to change his clothes.

If I set the time at home for every 2 hours or so and take him, he is great! I literally have to drag him to the bathroom kicking and screaming sometimes, but he goes! It is those in-between times when he just goes in his underwear. :(

As for when we are outside of the house, he is great because I take him every so often. I do not know the last time he had an accident outside of the house.

He is great at bedtime too! I don't think he has woke up wet in the last 2-3 weeks. Last night, I put underwear on him for bedtime, and he woke up dry! He has been waking up in the middle of the night, so I usually take him potty and put him back to bed. This seems to be working!

Good bye diapers!!!

I also only have 1-2 pullups left; I don't think I am going to buy anymore. I think we will just be in underwear 100% of the time!

Side effect of having their own rooms!

I have learned a new side effect of the girls having their own rooms.

They now have room to have friends over for sleep overs!!! I know this is kind of minor, but before, there was no floor space to have any friends over, plus I wanted to wait until the girls were older.

Now, they are having sleepovers almost every week.

We have become pretty close to another family from our church and they have two girls the same age as Megan and Courtney.

Last night, we were at ANOTHER family's house (along with this family from church) and as we were going out the door, the two girls who are always over started begging for a sleepover, since they hadn't had one this week yet!! It was 10 pm!!

My girls came to me and said, "Dad said it was up to you." I just shrugged my shoulders- why can't these girls plan it any earlier?? Courtney took my shoulder shrug and ran off to tell everybody I said yes, which I didn't technically say! They all got excited because they had talked us into it yet AGAIN!

In the meantime, there was this other family who also has 4 older girls (they have 9 kids in all), and they were all standing there. They have also become friends, so I said, "You can't invite one family and not the other family!" I extended the invite to them too.

Guess how many extra girls we brought home last night? 5!!!!

My girls thought it was great because Matt and I both had cars there, so we had extra room.

The 2nd group of girls ran off to get their stuff, and everybody piled into the cars! I asked them where everybody was going to sleep, and they said they would figure it out! I now had 7 girls sleeping at my house (5 friends and 2 of my own!)

I just laugh about it because if I was 11 and 14, this would have been super fun!!

I told the other moms that they will not be in bed before 1:30 am, and they were both fine with it.

I heard them come upstairs around 1:40 am last night! I am not sure what they were doing downstairs, but they were quiet! How can 7 girls be so quiet that I couldn't even hear them upstairs??

Anyway, they are all still sleeping now and will probably sleep until 10 am!!

There are three girls in Megan's room and four girls in Courtney's room. They paired off by age.

How fun!!!

A Little behind?

Wow, I have fallen off the blog bandwagon! It has been about a month since I pulled this up. Either my life is extremely boring or busy lately; I am not quite sure!

This last week, I entered the stage of potty training with Micah. I wanted to wait until summer to do this AND I needed to do it when I wasn't really teaching school. I kind of forgot how much time it takes. :(

I do believe in putting children in underwear, giving them lots to drink, and then when they start dancing or showing signs they need to go potty, take them into the bathroom.  This works if you can keep an eye on them.  I will say this sort of worked this week!

 We started last Saturday, and Micah went through at least 15 pair of clothes that first day!  This was our first day, so it was ok. Everyday got a little bit better. It has been a week now, and I have learned a few things about him and potty training.

1.  He will NOT tell me when he needs to go. I either have to catch him dancing or just take him every so often. He knows how to go potty now, so that is a huge plus!
2. He will rather have the microwave tell him to go potty than me! He is kind of stubborn and doesn't like to be told what to do.
3. I cannot ask him if he needs to go potty because the answer is always "no." I need to say, "It's time to go potty."  He still usually responds with "no," but then I say, "We say 'ok, mom', not 'no.'"
4. He wants to do everything "by myself!"  He wants to get his pants and underwear off, get on the toilet, get off, and get everything back on. Usually after he goes, I lay his underwear and his pants out on the floor and walk out. He is successful about 90% of the time! Sometimes he gets very frustrated and I ask him if he needs help and he says, "NO!"  Sometimes I just help him anyway!
5. If I leave him unattended while he washes his hands, he dumps my whole bottle of soap down the sink and lets the water run to the top of the sink. He must be supervised!

6. I am still struggling with what to do when we go out in public.  Since he won't tell me he has to go yet, I have just been putting a diaper on him and not taking him potty, but I know this is not the right thing to do! I may give in and buy pull ups just for this training period! I really don't like pullups, but I cannot have him peeing through his clothes while we are out in public!!! Honestly, when he pees, there is usually some on the floor! This CANNOT happen in public!!  (Last night, he was outside riding his scooter and he peed. "Mom, I pottied on my scooter!!"

7. Oh, and going #2 in the toilet. That is totally not happening. I wish it would though!

Hopefully within the next week or two, we can get him trained to the point where he will tell me he needs to go AND I can take him out in public and not have accidents.

Micah quotes!

Last night, we were outside for awhile and our neighbor boy pointed out the moon to Micah.

Our neighbor said, "Is it a half moon or a full moon?" I could clearly see that it was a half moon.

Micah responded with, "The moon is broken!"

__________________________________________________________

Micah also had a late nap yesterday, so he was still pretty wired at 9 pm. I still put him to bed like usual, but after he laid in bed about 30-45 minutes and didn't go to sleep, he decided to get up.

I told him it was not time to play, but time to go to bed! He responded with, "I slept last night!"

Apparently he didn't think he had to go to sleep!

What do you do??

Yesterday we finished up Christian's phonics books. We had been working on these since January 2016, and we finally finished in May of 2018!! 

I have the 2nd grade program, and I asked him yesterday if he wanted to start these. I kind of talked him out of it because honestly, I want to start wrapping school up for the year.

Today when we were doing language arts, he said, "What about phonics??" I told him that we were done, and I just wanted to wait until next fall to start the next book.

He said, "Really? Can't we just start it now??" 

I guess we can! I pulled it out, and we started it!

What would you do????

Everybody is moving!

It is a bittersweet day in our house today. Everybody is switching bedrooms.

My nursery is being turned into a teenager room.

The room that Megan has slept in for TEN years is being turned into a little boys' room.

Courtney is finally getting "her" room back after being gone for about seven years.

We are also going to move  Micah into a toddler bed.


This is all started because Courtney has been begging for her own room for about the last six months.  Megan and Courtney have been sharing a room since Megan has been in kindergarten, but about six months ago, Courtney decided that she wants to go to sleep early.  This means that she wants the light OFF.  Megan, on the other hand, likes to sit up and write in her journal and read.  To compromise, Courtney would go to bed with the light off and Megan would sit in the hallway and write and read.  When I went to bed, I would turn the hall light off, so Megan had to go into her bedroom. At this point, she would pull out her kindle and continue to read a book until whenever she went to bed! Well, even though Courtney was in bed, she would often lay awake until Megan came in and then she still struggled to get to sleep with the kindle light on.

For the last three months or so, Courtney would often gather up all her bedding and go down to the couch to get to sleep. She was always in her bed in the morning, but this really became a nightly issue as of late.  She felt like she was being kicked out of her own bedroom, which she was really not, and she started begging us for her own room.

We told her that we have four children and three bedrooms, and someone has to share! I told her the only option was to put the boys together and when Micah had a consistent bedtime, the boys could go together.

This brings us to last Sunday. Matt went to Seattle for five days, and I was alone for bedtime.  I told the kids we would try some switching around while Matt was gone. I took Christian's mattress and put it on the floor in Micah's room. I wanted to see how they would do together.  I then took Courtney's mattress and put it on Christian's bed.  She now had her own room, and then Megan got her room to herself to stay up late at night.

Needless to say, there was NO drama at nigh for five nights!! There was nobody in my room crying because she couldn't sleep. There was nobody sitting in the hallway until I went to bed. Nothing! Bedtime was peaceful!!!!

On top of that, the boys played all week in Micah's bedroom together. They actually got along!!

Is this a win for everyone?? Even mom and dad?

Christian and Micah work on their relationship.
Courtney gets her own room.

Megan is not so happy about the whole thing. She has slept in that one corner of her room for ten years, but I think she is willing to move.  She said she doesn't want a blue room; I don't blame her, but we are not going to paint  it. :(

I took them to Hobby Lobby yesterday and we got some new room decorations to help them.

So that brings us to today- moving day!

End of School is in sight!

Just like every other student and teacher in Omaha, I am anxious to wrap up school for the year! I know my children are itching to be done too, but it looks like we will be going at least until the end of May and maybe into June a little bit.

Even though we homeschool, and we can quit when we want, I don't just pick and a day and call that our last day. I like to be at a good "stopping point" in our books.  I rarely finish a curriculum in one year, so I just need to stop somewhere (like a unit break), and then I pick it up again next fall.  I will continue in math and English though until we are done. I really do like to finish our "grade level" items, so we are ready to go on to the next grade level in the fall. I think by looking at everything, we have about six weeks at the most.

Megan starts high school next year, so I am trying to get things lined up there.  

Prealgebra- She has about four chapters left, so we will be trucking through that book for awhile yet. She will start Algebra I in the fall.

English- She is on her last chapter of her 8th grade book!! Her last chapter is on reference sources, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases. I am always torn whether I should teach her these or not. I want her to know what they are, but honestly, will she ever use one??   On anther note, she is disappointed that she is done with grammar and has asked that she can continue to diagram sentences next year! She is crazy (but in a good way!)

Greek/ Latin roots- She will continue with this book next year, and then do the next book in the series. I am going to give her half credit for high school for this vocabulary study.

Writing- She finished her writing book awhile ago, so I said we would replace that with the writing assignments in her English book, but we haven't done them yet. We will get to them before the year is over! She really wants to go over the poetry section.

Reading- She has been reading books to go along with our history, and she will probably get a couple books in yet before we quit for the year.

History- She just started the 2nd quarter in her history book. I told her when she gets to the semester break that she can be done for the year. I think she has about six weeks to go. Very manageable!

Science- She is FINALLY finishing up her science curriculum that she started at the beginning of 7th grade! She is set to take the last test tomorrow. I have her next book all ready to go. She wants to start it this last month, but honestly, I wish she would just wait until next fall to start. She will be doing physical science her freshman year. 

Courtney is kind of right beside Megan in many things.

She is on lesson 107 of 170 in her math book. We will keep going all summer. She really wants to move in prealgebra next year because 6th grade math is too easy, according to her! I am not sure if she is ready for prealgebra, so we may just combine the 7th and 8th grade math books for next year. Megan does not want her only a year behind her in math! I guess I will see how the rest of the book goes. I really thought 6th grade was harder, but apparently it isn't for Courtney!

On the other hand, she only has two chapters left in her English book. She is a great sentence diagrammer!! 

She also finished her writing book awhile ago, and we are doing the writing lessons in her English book for writing. She doesn't have near as many as Megan, and they are pretty easy for her. 

She is currently reading "Ginger Pye" for reading. She will probably read one more book before the end of year. I need to figure up something for next year. 

History is also not a favorite subject for her. She is a week behind Megan in history, and I also said that when she gets to the semester break, she can be done for the year! I think that means there are about seven weeks left for her. 

As for science, she is finishing a unit on plants and will start a five week unit on invertebrates next week. Again, when she is done with that unit, she can be done! She is about in the middle of her book.

The same goes for her spelling. She is on week 31 of 36. When she finishes, she can be done! 

Christian has completely different subjects.

He is even further behind in math because at the beginning of the year, he was only doing half a lesson for awhile. I think he just got to lesson 85 of 170. We might need to double up on lessons or skip a few to get done before we go back in August!! 

He has also been working on a 1st grade phonics program since January of 2016!! He has four more lessons and we are done with this curriculum! I will probably pull out the 2nd grade program and have him start that in May. Might as well get ahead!

He is only on week 21 of 36 on spelling, so when we get to a review lesson (24), I said he can be done for the year. I won't make him continue spelling over the summer.

Next fall, I am going to start the same type of writing book for him as I did for the girls. He is going to finish up his sight words in about a week, and then I thought we could work out of a 1st grade one that Courtney started when she was in 1st grade! We will only go until the end of May and then put it back on the shelf. I will start him in the 2nd grade one next fall. 

As for reading, he has been reading short excerpts about animals and answering comprehension questions. I may just keep using this for next year. I also have a curriculum in my basement that Megan used in 2nd grade. It uses chapter books; I may pull that out for him for next year. 

AH! I think that is it!!!  

Princess Shoes?

Since it has been nice out lately, Micah wants to go outside ALL THE TIME!1

I am usually teaching a kid, and he has learned that Megan will usually take him out.  I hear "DeeDee, outside little bit?" all day long. (DeeDee is Megan.)

The other day, Micah was begging to go outside and he knew Megan was upstairs doing homework. I saw him go over the door and get her brand new sandals I bought her for church. He took them all the way upstairs to her, so she would put them on and take him outside.

Megan came down a little bit later and said that Micah had brought her her "princess shoes" because he wanted to go out!  They are a little fancy to play outside, but Megan thought it was cute that they called them her "princess shoes!" I haven't heard that phrase in this house in a long time! They do look like "princess shoes," don't they?

Sleep Much??

I am really hoping Micah sleeps through the night tonight. I don't know what is up with him, but he has been up the last THREE nights! This is not funny anymore!

This all started Monday night. He fell asleep on my lap in front of the TV, and I put him into bed about 8. This happens frequently, and is not a big deal. I was just ready to turn my light off at 10:30 pm and I heard him crying. I went in there, got him a drink, and he went back to sleep pretty easily.

He was up again at 12:30 am! This time though, he had woke Courtney up and she came into my room looking pretty irritated! I think her exact words were, "Are you going to do anything about him?"  I looked at her and said, "You are up; you can take care of him! I am tired!" She didn't think I was so funny and just continued to glare at me! Finally I got up and got him back to sleep again.

2 AM came and here he was crying and screaming again! What this time??  I just let him cry and cry and cry. I was tired!!! I am not used to this anymore! Courtney was also up again, but I heard her shut her door. He was saying, "Time to get up! Time to get up." After awhile, I finally went in there and rocked him a little bit. He really thought it was time to get up! It was about 3 am before he got settled back down in bed.

7:00 am came too early for me Tuesday morning!

He fell asleep on my lap Tuesday night again while we were watching "A Case for Christ."  I put him into bed again and hoped he would sleep all night. Well, I was wrong. He woke up about 2 AM again and Matt jumped up right away to deal with him. He said he gave him a good "talkin' to" and he went back to sleep. Thank you for letting me sleep! :)

Last night was round 3. He fell asleep at 6:15 PM on our way home from dinner. I held him on my lap until about 8.  I was kind of hoping he would wake up for an hour or two, but he didn't. Eventually I put him into bed and said good night.  Again, I had just turned my light off about 10:30 PM when he woke up. I could hardly believe it! Again, "Time to get up!" I went in there and said, "No, it is NOT time to get up. It is time to go to bed." He had already been sleeping for four hours.  I rocked him and eventually got him back to sleep. I went back to bed about 11:30 pm. I didn't see him until 7:30 this morning. 12 hours! NICE! 

He has not had a nap today, so hopefully I can put him to bed like usual. I enjoy reading him books before bed and going through our night time routine. He is still awake at this time, so that is good. Maybe he will sleep all night tonight?? I sure hope so!!

Reading time!

To finish up the school year, Courtney is just reading some various Sonlight books to make it to May. We finished up "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" program about a month ago, and I didn't want to start anything new in April. This was the reading curriculum that went with our Heart of Dakota curriculum. I want to start something new next fall, so we just need to finish out the year.

Today, Courtney finished up the book "Island of the Blue Dolphins" that she had picked to read from Core F.  I read this book to them right before Micah was born, so I didn't assume she would remember much and she really didn't! She read it and enjoyed it.

After we finished discussing that book, I asked her what she wanted to read next. I am not being too picky, but I prefer that she picks a book from Sonlight since they provide comprehension questions.

She looked at me and said, "You know, that one about a dog! I want to read that one!"

I responded with, "A dog? I have read many books about dogs in the past few years. Which one are you talking about?"

"You know, the dog one. He gets saved in the end. That one was my favorite!"

At this point, I was thoroughly confused because the only dog book I remember was "Old Yeller" and that dog dies in the end!

She ran downstairs and I saw her go into the storage room where we store our old Sonlight cores. By the time I got down there, she had found the book. She said, "This one!" She had pulled out "Ginger Pye."

I looked at her and said, "Ginger Pye? Sure you can read that book."

Do you know when I read this book to my girls?? It was when Megan was in 2nd grade!!! It was the first year of homeschooling! Courtney was 5, and she is now 11!

How in world did Courtney remember this book out of ALL the books that I have read in the last seven years?? And to say that it is her favorite?? I will never know!

A little distracted??

Today we had a full day of school. I started where I left off yesterday (we do a "loop schedule"), so the first thing up today was Christian's math.  Once we were done going over his lesson, I set the timer for a 5 minute break, and then I expected him to sit down and get it done.  I always encourage him to get his homework done as soon as he can, and then he can have the rest of the day free.

Well, apparently, I didn't keep close enough tabs on him after his five minutes because he didn't have it done by lunch time. I sent him back up to his room after lunch to finish it.

I continued going through lessons with the girls and after I had gone over his language arts, it was nearly 4 pm.  I asked him if he had his math done yet, and he said no.

At this point, he started telling me about all the plans he had for the hole in the backyard that he was going to dig.  I said not until your math is done!! My motto lately is, "No fun until your homework is done."  I sent him back up to his room to finish his math, again.

I ended up making a few phone calls, and I kind of forgot about him. The kids were outside and all was well.

I just went to tuck Christian into bed tonight (at 10:15 pm) and Megan says to me, "Hey, did you know Christian snuck outside today. He said he had to sneak out because his math wasn't done yet."  SERIOUSLY!!!! This is while Christian was sitting there doing his math at 10 PM!!!

This made me upset; he deliberately disobeyed me! I went into Matt who was already half asleep and told him what Christian did. I asked him what I should do and his response was to take his perler beads away. He has LOVED these lately and this would hurt! So I did!!! I cleaned them all up right in front of them and put them in my bedroom. Then I told him he needed to GO TO BED! He went, but he wasn't happy!

Tomorrow will be a new day.  I need to find a better way to force him to do his homework. Having him take it up to his room to do it is not working; he gets easily distracted. But sometimes I have to have him take it up or else he and Micah are constantly fighting.  He also gets easily distracted downstairs and bothers everyone else. It is a no-win situation!

New Chores and Chart!

As part of a family, we expect our kids to help out around our house, but some of my children don't like being told what to do (who does, right!).  I can really use the help, but I got complaining every time I asked them something. This just became a circle of arguing, and Matt came up with a solution!

He said he could write a program that gave everyone their chores, and he would use the program Trella, which they use at work to divide up tasks.  He bought a new computer, and he mounted it on our wall in the kitchen. He then wrote this program, and he assigned certain chores to certain children. The kids can now EASILY walk up to the computer and see what tasks they have to do for the day WITHOUT ME TELLING THEM! Yay!  When they are done with their task, they go to the computer and move it to the "done" column.  If it is not done by the time listed, it goes to "uncompleted" on its own.  They kids have required tasks, such as bringing down the laundry,  and optional tasks, such as helping with Micah.

Matt has also written the program so that each task is assigned a dollar amount, for instance, they earn a quarter when they empty the dishwasher. When a task is moved to the "done" column, the program will give them their set amount of money.  This has been the biggest motivator! Now the kids can see how much money they have earned as the time goes along. We have been doing this about three weeks now, so they have a running total until we pay them. 

Everybody that comes over to our house sees the computer on the wall and asks what it is about. We show them and then everybody says, "Hey, I love it. Can you do that for my family??" We have yet to have a family seriously ask Matt to make one for them, but he should really sell it! It has been amazing!!!

One a side note, Matt just added another part to the program.  It will take money away from the kids if they do not do their required tasks. Hahahaha!! This is because they have been doing about half the chores and leaving me to do the rest. The whole point of this was to help mom out!!! 

It's been a long time!

I think I am falling off the "blog" bandwagon. I haven't blogged in about two weeks.  It isn't that I don't want to, I just get to the end of my day and don't have the energy anymore. I spend my time in the evenings grading papers and by the time I am done, I just want to go to bed. But guess what? Tonight I am not grading papers! Tomorrow is Wednesday, and we are only having two hours of school, therefore, I don't need to have anything graded for tomorrow. Of course, I will spend tomorrow night grading everything for Thursday.

We have been chugging away in school lately. Just last week, we hit the midterm in Megan's and Courtney's math books. I know, it is kind of late in the school year to be hitting a midterm, but that is just where we are! I know there are only about two months of school left, and there is NO WAY we are going to get through our books before then. My children get the lovely privilege of going to summer school at the Ruwe Home Academy! I don't mind stopping history or science at the end of May, but we will keep plowing through our math and English until we are done.  I always like to start the next school year at the correct grade level.  I also know that I do *not* need to finish our books, but I like to. I find that there is material at the end that is important.  Last year, I had to just stop where we were because we went on vacation. I think we will keep going this year! Christian just hit lesson 70 of 170 lessons in math- 100 more to go!

As for English, Megan and Courtney are getting closer to the end of their books, much closer than math! I have been skipping the writing lessons to do later, so it looks like we are further than we are.
It is also nice that English has 40 few lessons than math!  We have been using Spectrum Writing books all year, and the girls are on the last assignment, which is a persuasive essay. When these books are done, I will go back through our English books and do the writing assignments.

As for history, we recently switched to Mystery of History Vol. 2, and the girls are enjoying it! We finished our Heart of Dakota Curriculum, and it is already sold and out the door. I am not sure if I will use Heart of Dakota again, but it was perfect for the last couple of years. Along with Mystery of History, we are reading the literature from Sonlight Curriculum. I really missed all the great literature of Sonlight, so we are back! (I used Sonlight for five years before switching to Heart of Dakota, and now I am switching back!) At the end of May, I will put history on the shelf until next fall. Megan has mentioned that she wants to keep doing it through the summer, so we will see what she decides.

Courtney and Christian are also enjoying their new science curriculum. I was teaching them together out of an Apologia book, but it was too hard with such an age gap. Courtney is now working through Biology on her own, and Christian is doing Earth Science with some help from me. Even though Courtney told me she would rather do NO science, she is still learning quite a bit! She is on a 6 week unit study of plants, and today she learned about ferns. I don't know nothing about ferns, so I am glad I get to help her through it. She is not as thrilled about learning about ferns as I am, though. Christian LOVES earth science. Our next unit is on weather, and he is so excited. This boy could watch the weather station all day if you would let him, but since we don't have cable anymore, that isn't an option. :(  He is currently wrapping up a unit on the planet earth, which includes volcanoes and earthquakes. This is perfect for him!

As for Micah, he is FINALLY to the stage where he can entertain himself during the day. He likes to take our bucket of crayons and put them in the blender and make "apple juice." He will then get a cup for everybody and give us "apple juice", which is really a cup of crayons.  He will also get out my pans and make "sausages" with the same crayons. I love how he plays pretend these days. The other day, he had taken his baby outside for a walk. It was nice out and the baby only had his underwear on. I was inside on the computer and all of the sudden, he came running in saying, "diaper change, diaper change!" He went up to his room and got a diaper and took it outside to the baby. Apparently the baby had pooped in his underwear and he needed a diaper change! I followed him outside and he had already taken the underwear off the baby, and the underwear were sitting on the driveway beside the naked baby. Once we got the diaper on, Micah took the "dirty" underwear and put them in the washing machine. I am so glad we got that taken care of!!!  I wish I could bottle this stage up and keep it around!

Looking forward to Wednesday!

I think Wednesdays are my favorite day of the week lately.  We don't have anywhere to go on Monday or Tuesday, and almost our entire day is full on Wednesday.

The days kind of drag now that we don't even have basketball on Monday or Tuesday nights anymore. It's been too cold lately to get outside after school is done, so we just are cooped up inside the house!

Tomorrow,we will have school here at home from 9-11 am. At 11, we will eat lunch and around 11:30, we will head to the Homeschool Learning Center for the kids' classes. We will hang out there from 12-2 om. Between 2 and 3, I usually take the kids to the library to pick up books that I have reserved and to take other books back.

At 3 pm, I drop the girls back off at the learning center for middle school play practice and then I usually head home.Tomorrow though, I am going to take the boys and go to Sam's for groceries. When we are done there, I will head home.

At 5, Matt will pick the girls up and usually we meet at Pepper.jax for dinner. Tomorrow, Matt will probably pick the girls up and then he will take Megan right to church. They are having a "hangout" time before youth group tomorrow and she wants to go.

I am meeting a couple friends for dinner tomorrow night (YAY ME!!!) and then Matt will go pick Megan up from youth group around 8:15 pm.

On Wednesdays, Megan leaves the house at 11:30 am and doesn't get home until 8:30 pm! She is usually wired when she gets home from youth group, so it takes her awhile to calm down and get to bed.

On Thursdays, we are back to school and Friday is the last day of the week!

No Basketball today?

For the last eight weeks, we have had two basketball games every Saturday. Christian usually played at 8 or 9 am and Courtney usually played at 3 or 4 pm. 

Basketball season is over and we actually have nothing to do today! There is NOTHING on the calendar!  Honestly, it is kind of nice!! (Even though I do miss the basketball games!)

Spring break?

Everyday this week, I have said to myself, "We should have just taken this week off!"
We did not get much school done, BUT on the other hand, we were able to do a few things that we don't usually do.

Every year, the local homeschool basketball team puts on clinics for kids in our area. My girls have always gone, and Courtney wanted to go this year.  They were on Tuesday and Thursdays from 9-10:30 am.  This meant getting the kids up and out the door (which we don't usually do), and then I had to find something to do with my other three during that time. Luckily, the clinic was at a gym right beside a mall, so we spent time there in the play area.  The boys loved it! Unfortunately, we couldn't do much shopping because none of the stores opened until 10. By about 10:15, we had to leave to go get Courtney!

We usually didn't get home until 11 or so (depending on how long I chatted with other moms). Today we got home about 11:15. By this time, the kids were starving, and it would have been useless to try to get settled down for schoolwork just to stop again within 30 minutes!

Today we didn't get anything done before lunch, but got in some work this afternoon. Megan and I had orthodontic appointments at 3, so we had to stop at 2:45 to make it there on time.

This is pretty much how Tuesday and Thursday went this week! Wednesday was a crazy day itself, but I did manage to get two hours worth of school done in the morning. The kids have classes at the homeschool learning center from 12-2, and then Megan and Courtney have middle school play rehearsal from 3-5 pm. At 5, I picked them up and we all went to Pepper.jax for dinner.  After we were done eating, I dropped Megan off at church for youth group at 6:15. Luckily, Matt was able to pick her up around 8:15 pm and bring her home. It is a long day for all of us!

Tomorrow should be calm and we can hit the books again. We all have chiropractor's appointments at 3 pm. Matt is starting a new job, so we want to use our current benefits while we can! It looks like we are going to get some snow and freezing rain tomorrow, so it is a great reason to stay home and get some schoolwork done! We will see how the roads are by 3 pm!

She made the team!!

Courtney has been waiting patiently for the last few days while we wait how she did at tryouts on Sunday.

The coach called last night and she MADE THE TEAM!!! She was sooo excited!!!

Select basketball...here we come!

Science Test at 8 PM??

We call it one of the benefits of homeschooling. Taking your test whenever you want!

Courtney had been working hard all day on studying for her science test. This is a new curriculum, and taking a science test is something new for her.  I gave her a review sheet with everything on it, and she reviewed it tonight with me and with her dad. I was thoroughly impressed with how much she retained!! She was reviewing with me about 7:45 and I said, "Do you just want to take your test now instead of waiting for tomorrow? You are doing a great job!"

She said, "Can I do that?"

I replied with, "We homeschool. You can take your test whenever you want!"

I gave her the test about five minutes later! I also pulled an old trick from high school. She had a couple sections that were giving her trouble, so I said she could have her notes for three minutes (We used to do this in freshman world history class!)  I was upstairs at the time and I knew she was downstairs working on her test. I heard the timer on the microwave go off, and she said she set it for her three minutes. Soon after that, she brought her test to me and was done!

She got a 91%! Very well done!

Basketball Tryouts?

Courtney loves basketball! And she is pretty good at it too. :) She certainly did not get her "sports genes" from me, but it is something that she really has a passion for and strives to do better every single week.

Because of this drive and because she is not challenged with every league we sign her up for, Matt and I decided to let her try out for a select team today.  This team is associated with the local high school (which she would attend if she ever went to public school), and it is a feeder program for their high school basketball program. 

I have been looking around at select teams and realized that this certain team would work out the best for us.  I know of another parent whose daughter plays for this team and she loves it. It is close by our house and is one of the cheapest select teams around, seriously, one team I found was $650 MORE than this team!!! No WAY!! Sorry, kid!

I also emailed this coach a couple weeks ago and talked about one main issue we have with select sports. This is the fact that she (and we as her parents) will need to choose whether she will do sports on Sunday morning or go to church. For many, many years, Matt and I have had a rule that there are no extra-curricular activities on Sundays.  Before we had kids, we drove by a baseball field on Sunday mornings on our way to church and there were always games going on. We told ourselves way back then that our children's spiritual health is MUCH more important than sports and we would not allow sports to take over Sundays.

I talked to the coach about this over email and he seemed to be receptive to the idea that she would not be able to make any games, especially on Sunday morning. Matt and I can allow a game once in awhile on a Sunday afternoon, just not every Sunday. Our Sundays are busy enough with small group and families get-togethers! He said if she missed 2-3 games out of the 32-40 that they will play, she will be ok.  He said that mostly tournaments would be scheduled on Sundays anyway, most of their league games will be on Saturdays. If they did have a league game that was scheduled on Sunday, they usually request that it is put after 1 pm. 

Because of all this, we let her try out today. She will know on Tuesday if she made the team.  Matt took her today and said there were some players that were better than her, but yet some that were not as good as her. She was about in the middle.  The coach is going to call personally if she makes it. I am anxious for Tuesday!

Broken Train!

The other night we were in Fremont and we saw a train stopped on the tracks. Obviously, we were able to turn around and go the other way, so we did, BUT this led to an interesting conversation about WHY the train was stopped.

Christian thought for sure that the train had crashed or the engineer had fallen asleep.

Micah, on the other hand, thought differently. He said, "Change batteries! Daddy get home!"
In other words, he thought the train needed to change its batteries and dad would do that when he got home. Whenever something doesn't work at home, Micah has learned that it usually needs new batteries.  Why wouldn't we apply this same concept to a train that "isn't working?"

Yesterday morning, we were on our way to church and we saw a train that was moving. Micah said,"Changed batteries! Yay!"  In his little mind, he thought that the two trains were the same and somebody had "changed the batteries" in the train and made it work! He was thrilled watching that train move!

Oh the mind of a two year old!!

And of course, thanks to "The Little Red Caboose," Micah told us which cars were the coal cars, the flat cars, the oil cars, and the box cars!

New History book!

I am so excited around here lately. We get to start new books for school. :)

Yesterday we finished up our final lesson in our Heart of Dakota curriculum. We started this in August of 2016 and after 35 weeks of lessons, we are finally done! We studied the program entitled "From Creation to Christ."  I picked this curriculum at the time because I needed something easy with Micah, but now that he is older and more manageable, I am going to move to something more challenging.  This curriculum was also geared towards 4th-6th graders with an extension pack (nine extra readers) for the older kids, which I thought would work well, but really didn't (in my opinion) Megan was not really challenged when it came to daily work and even though she was supposed to read the nine extra books, she really didn't.

The girls (and I) learned a lot, but I am not going on with the next program in Heart of Dakota curriculum. I need to find something more challenging for both girls! Courtney actually told me today that she wanted to do the next program because HOD is "really easy." I don't want "easy" for my kids! Another reason I am switching it because it is too expensive. I got this program at a pretty good cost (for used), but I can't seem to find the next program at a reasonable price.  HOD is still pretty new, and there is not a huge used market for it yet. The notebooks for the next program are also $40 a piece (plus $10 shipping), so I would spend about $90 just on two notebooks! Too much for me!

To take the place of this program, we are switching to a book entitled "Mystery of History, book 2."

This book is going to pick up where we left after Christ's resurrection and take us through the Middle Ages.  I like this book because even though there is a reading section for each chapter, the author also gives extended activities for younger kids, middle school kids, and older kids. This activities range from acting out a play to researching something you learned about. I am going to be able to challenge Megan quite a bit and stretch her knowledge! There are also tests and other quizzes throughout the book. I actually bought a copy for Megan and a copy for Courtney. I told Megan that she gets to write all throughout her book and do whatever she wants. I really want her to do it independently because she will be a 9th grader next year. I still haven't decided how I am going to approach it with Courtney. I told her she could do it on her own and I would expect less from her, but she kind of wants me to read it to her. I don't mind doing this because then Christian will hear the info too! I guess we will just start it and see how things work out.

In addition to using this book, we are going to pick up Sonlight Core G and start about week 18.  I am going to use the read-alouds and readers from this program to go alongside Mystery of History. Sonlight uses a different history book for their program, but I don't really like it. It is written towards a younger age group and I need something more challenging. :) So I am replacing their book with MOH!

I think this is a great plan! There are four volumes altogether of Mystery of History, and we are starting in volume 2. I would really like Megan to get through volumes 3 and 4, but I also know she only has four years of high school. She will need a year of American history and a year of government, so we will need to see how this will all work out! She loves history, so maybe she can double up a few years. :)

Gotta Love a Good Deal!!

Awhile ago, my oven stopped working properly.  It would not regulate the heat and when I baked something, the oven would just burn it because it just kept getting hotter and hotter.  Matt took the back off and determined it was the computer. After looking online, he saw that we could replace the computer board for $325, which is a little bit less than a new stove. Our stove is over ten years old, so we decided to just buy a new stove.

A couple weeks ago, we went to an appliance store and checked out new stoves.  Matt really wanted me to get a gas or an induction stove, but I really like my flat top. It is super easy to clean and I like the flat surface. I said if "I" am the one using it, I want to get what I want! I did not like the look of the gas stoves and all the grates on the top.

Today we determined that we finally needed to get me a new stove. (I have been baking everything in my microwave because it doubles as a convention oven.)  He really wanted to get an induction oven because they are new, and he thinks they are kind of neat, but they are pretty expensive.  I told him I am ok with a cheap stove; I didn't really want anything fancy.

He had to run into Home. Depot today to get something, and he happened to see a stove, just like what we need, in the clearance section!! It was reduced by about $200 because it was a floor model and had a pretty good dent in the bottom drawer. He called me right away and texted me some pictures. I thought it looked good, so he asked the employees if they would take an extra $30 off to fix the drawer and they said they would. He ended up buying the stove!! And wasn't an expensive, extra-fancy one either! Plain and simple!

He went back to the store with the truck and brought it home and put it in. I cooked on it tonight!

I am anxious to get baking things again in a REAL oven!!

Christian's picture

Today Christian brought home a picture from church and since it was rolled up like a scroll, I did not look at it at church. Once we got home, I unrolled it and looked at it.  I kind of laughed. He drew the earth with it's magnetic fields around it!

I asked Christian what it was a picture of, just to make sure I was right, and he said it was the earth with it's magnetic field PLUS the equator around the earth.

What other first grader would draw the earth's magnetic field?? Apparently somebody has been paying attention in science class!

Oh Micah!

Micah's language has been exploding again lately. He can repeat about everything we say and can count to 12 by himself. He can even count backwards from 5 to 1 (thank you to the time on the microwave!)

Yesterday I was cleaning his room and all the barbies were out and most of them were naked. I asked him why they were all naked. He responded with, "They take showers!" Ummm. Ok!! They all needed to take showers! Now, can we put some clothes back on them??

I love it when he lays out a blanket on the floor, puts a baby on the blanket, and sings the baby to sleep. He will sing her "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Jesus Loves Me." He will then kiss the baby and tell us all "shhh. baby sleeping."  Melts my heart every time. :)

He has also been potty training his baby lately. We have a doll that we call Big Baby. He is about the size of a newborn baby. This baby used to wear diapers, but now he wears underwear (Micah's size 2-3.) Micah is not potty trained yet, but he knows about underwear and going potty. Micah insists that this baby needs to go potty, so he will take off his underwear, wipe his bottom,and take him potty. He will put the potty seat on the toilet in the bathroom and set the baby on the toilet. Often times, he will walk out at this point. The other day, I walked into the bathroom and the baby was still sitting on the toilet going potty!

He has also learned his manners a little bit too much. When you do something for him, he will say, "thank you, you're welcome" instead of just "thank you." I haven't quite figured out how we are going to fix this yet!

He also refuses to wear a bib anymore, so when he spills on his shirt, he will say, "shirt off, shirt off!"  Try telling a two year old that you are not going to change his shirt until he is completely done eating- it doesn't work so well!

I really love this stage!

A dead battery. A new watch.

For the last couple of weeks, the battery in my watch has been dead. I finally decided to stop at Wal.mart yesterday to have it fixed. I didn't know I would be walking away with a brand new watch!

I gave it to the lady across the counter and she was having a hard time getting the back of my watch  off so she could switch the batteries. All of the sudden, it popped off and we heard it go "ping, ping" off of some shelves.  We looked around and we could not find it!! There were two employees there who were looking and I told Christian I would pay him fifty cents if he found it.

After searching for about ten minutes and no luck, one of the employees went over and took a brand new watch off the shelves and decided that I was going to get a new watch! The price tag said $37! (Honestly, this was only fair since they did break my watch!)  They called over a customer service manager to ring it up at the cash register. She asked me if I had a receipt. I said no. I have NO idea when I bought this watch; I have had it quite a few years! She decided that we would do a "no receipt exchange." I would get a new watch and they would take my old one and "damage claim" it. She said, "I hope you don't have any sentimental ties to your old watch." I did not really! Even though Christian wanted to keep it to take it apart, I had to give it back. Wal.Mart probably got some kind of credit for my broken watch. I hope they did!

There are good people out there! Even at Wal.mart!!

Long Day!

You know those days when you get up at 7 am with the kids, teach them all day, feed them dinner, do science experiments at 8 pm, and husband/ dad finally walks in at 9:45 pm?  Then after all the children are in bed, you stay up and grade papers until 10:30 pm.

As much as I want to enjoy the PEACE AND QUIET, it is now 11 pm and I get to start all over tomorrow at 7 am. (But luckily Matt will be home by 5 pm tomorrow!)

Crazy Day!

January is kind of boring around here. We don't have many activities going on, but on the flip side, we have gotten a lot of school work done this month! Today though, we had a few bumps in our day that made life interesting.

1. My alarm went off as usual, but I turned it off and slept in an additional hour! (Good thing we go to school at home! We would have missed the bus!! haha!)

2. Everybody needed a shower this morning, except Micah! This always takes longer.

3. Because of these two events, school started an hour late.

4.  As I was doing some research on the computer and getting things ready for school, a big blue screen came up and asked for my Microsoft password. I didn't want to touch anything, so I texted and called Matt to see what I should do and of course, he didn't answer or write back. Everything I needed to do for school was on the computer. I had to put all that on hold. Since the girls were showered and ready, I decided to read some school work to the kids while I waited for Matt to get back to me. (In the end, it was somebody "fishing" for my information and I just had to reboot the computer.")

5. And if starting the school late and my computer acting up wasn't enough, Courtney stopped me as I was reading and said, "Isn't that Christian crying?" (He was in the shower.)  I said, "No, that is just him singing in the shower again."  All of us stopped what we were doing and sure enough, it sounded like he was crying. I went upstairs and into the bathroom to check on him. He was kneeling on the floor with a towel around him and said he could not stand up. He was just sobbing. It mad me so sad. :(    He kept pointing to his hip bone and saying it "really, really hurt!!!!"  I didn't know what to do! He couldn't extend his left leg or sit up straight. I helped him get dressed very carefully and got him downstairs. I called our doctor and our chiropractor. While I was waiting on a call back from one of them, he was able to extend his leg and sit up. I was sure he had a muscle spasm, and it was affecting his leg and back.

Our chiropractor was the first to call back, and she said it sounded like a muscle spasm and to put ice on it. Luckily I had an appointment already scheduled for this afternoon, so she said she would look at him then.  Our doctor's office also called back and they thought maybe it was a virus that had settled in his hip joint. They wanted me to check him for a fever. I said, "He does not have a fever. I am not even going to check!"  He was back to normal within 20 minutes! So weird!



After our morning drama and not getting much done, we had lunch and went back to the books a little bit in the afternoon.

At 3 pm this afternoon, Courtney had tryouts for a middle school play that she wants to be in. While she was there, I took myself and Christian to the chiropractor. She checked Christian out and said he was still SUPER tight on his left side. She definitely thinks it had something to do with his muscles. We both got adjusted, and we were on our way.

I had plans to go to Sam's during this time, but since I spent so much time at the chiropractor, I ran out of time before I had to go back and get Courtney. Instead I decided to take the kids over to Barnes and Nobles. The boys love the train table there and Megan just loves books. (A kid after my own heart!) The boys had about twenty minutes to play, and they kept fighting and fighting! UGH! Finally it was time to go, and I just picked up Micah and said we were done. He was not leaving that place without a fight! He screamed the entire way out the door! Of course, Megan had found herself a book she wanted, so I made her stand in line by herself while I took the boys out. She said the people in front of her were making comments about the screaming kid! I asked her if she said it was her brother or not. She didn't!

After the bookstore, we headed to Pepperjax to get dinner. Matt picked Courtney up from the play rehearsal, and we had a nice peaceful dinner that I did not have to cook. :)

We ended our day with a worship night at church. It was pretty cool! I love watching our junior and senior high kids raise their hands and worship God! This is our next generation coming up in the church and my child is up there with her hands raised too! Makes this mama proud!

Now instead of staying up and grading papers and preparing for tomorrow, I am writing this all out on my blog! Tomorrow may just be another crazy day. I think we are going to start with "Operation Clean the House." It is getting a little bit out of control!!

No snow days for my kids!

Every public school kid in our area got the day off, again! This is the 3rd snow day in three weeks! And it really snowed pretty bad this time! They needed to be off!

But then there are my homeschoolers who will NEVER get a snow day off! haha!!!!

Of course, they complained a little bit this morning when I told them everybody was off and that we were still going to school. They don't mind too much that I make them go. They know that when spring comes around and we want to take a day off, those will then be our "snow days."

We started school at 9 am this morning and ended at 4:20 pm. This is about an hour longer than usual, but I had so many interruptions by my sweet boys this morning, that everything just got pushed back later. I was determined to get everything done today and I did!! I really need to figure out how to keep my two boys separated during school. They cannot be in the same room together without irritating each other. Unfortunately, my best strategy at this point is to just put Christian in his room while he isn't working with me. Sometimes Micah finds his way up to his room and then we are back at square one. :(

Broken oven :(

I am so sad; my oven in broken.  :(   If you know me, you know that I bake A LOT!!

I actually learned my oven was broke the hard way. I put an apple crisp in one morning, smelled something burning, opened my oven and smoke billowed out plus I had a burnt apple crisp.  This was about 15 minutes into the bake time.  The apple crisp was salvageable, but there was something clearly wrong with my oven.

After Matt took it apart a little bit and did some research online, he thought that my temperature regulator was bad. He checked that specifically, but that was still good. The temperature regular leads back to the computer panel, so we are pretty much assuming that the computer panel is bad. After looking online a little bit more for a new part, we found out that it would be $325 to fix!!! That is about the price of a new stove!

We went and looked at new stoves last night. We looked at flat tops, convention ovens, gas ranges, etc. and I don't really know what I want. Matt doesn't want to spend an arm and a leg either, although I think he would prefer to get a gas range with a convention oven. We will do some more research on them.

Until then though, I have been using the convention oven in my microwave to bake items! I haven't used it in years, so I forgot how it worked! Once I pushed a few buttons and figured it out, I got it working! I made granola in there yesterday and today I am making some jellied rolls. This is the best I got until I get a new oven! Hopefully that will be soon!

Micah's new "thing"

Micah is at the age now where he pretends play and has a great imagination! Some days he is hilarious, but other times he makes more work for me with his imaginary play.

Last night was one of them.  He loves pulling my small appliances out of the cupboard and playing with them. This would involve the waffle makers, blender, toaster, and crock pots. He really does no harm and as long as I keep an eye on them, he is fine.  He doesn't plug them in and just plays. It keeps him busy. :)

About a week ago though, he had found a bucket of crayons and decided to fill the pitcher of the blender up with crayons. I said he was making a "crayon smoothie" for me. He was so cute because he was saying, "Cover your ears. It's loud!" And then, "Want some?"

Last night though, he took it to the next level. I was grading papers and not watching him very closely. He decided to put crayons in the toaster. :(  By the time I saw him, he had it pretty full. Have you EVER tried to get crayons out of a toaster?? Well, it doesn't work so well!!!

He was also putting the crayons in a pitcher and calling it "apple juice." Last night, he got me a cup and poured me some of his "apple juice." It was so yummy! :)

As I write this, he is back at it. He put crayons in the crock pot last night and is moving them into the blender this morning. He is counting the scoops as he goes (one, two, three, etc.) I guess he wants his "crayon smoothie" for breakfast!! "

(And yes, before we use any of these appliances, I will wash them and get all the crayon stuff out of them!)

Hives again?

We have been on a roll lately. The last time Micah broke out with hives was last June from grandpa blowing raspberries on his tummy (weird, right?). I have been very careful with what he eats and it hasn't really been an issue.

Last night we were over at  friends house, and they let their dog out into the area where all the adults were.  In the past, Micah has been allergic to dog dander, but just recently, we had him retested and his numbers went WAY down! About a year ago, we were over there though and this dog licked him and he broke out in hives on his face.  I kind of assumed he had outgrown this since his numbers went way down.

Last night, I looked over at Micah and their dog was licking Micah on his face! I told the dog to get away, and then told the owners that Micah will break out in hives.  The owner then told me that dog's saliva is sterile, and that it won't cause hives. I just responded with, "Well, it has happened before."

Not even five minutes later, I looked at Micah and he had hives on his face, right where the dog licked him!! I said, "See?? He broke out in hives!" Again, the owner said, "Well, he was rolling on the carpet a little bit ago." HUH?? I think he was assuming that the hives came from the dander in the carpet and not from the licking. I beg to differ.

So, apparently, Micah is still allergic to dog saliva! I may call the allergist and just reaffirm this!!

Getting back to Normal!

We started school back yesterday and it has been crazy. I have two boys who constantly want to touch and irritate each other, so I am constantly being interrupted. :(  I also have a two year old who thinks he needs to be entertained all day long. Somehow he is always trying to get onto my lap while I am trying to teach somebody. Today I got the money out to practice with Christian and Micah wanted to play with it...on my lap! I said "no" and gently put him on the floor with the money. That did NOT go over well!   When I put him down, he cried and then a certain 11 year old told me that I was not being compassionate enough to him! I just want to teach my children!!

As for school, we are able to pick up right where we left off before break. I had everything graded, and we were at good stopping points in most subjects.  I always try to do tests if I can before a long break, but in Courtney's English and Megan's science, we were unable to get the test in even though we were super close to the end of the chapter. We were able to get the reviews in today, and they will take their tests tomorrow. The older two girls were also in the middle of research papers.  They had all their research done before break, so we sat down today and wrote outlines. I think they wanted a break from them anyway, so it worked out well!

I am looking forward to ending some curriculum here shortly and started anew. Courtney and Christian finished their science book, so they are going in separate directions in a couple of days. I think it will be for the better. Courtney is going to do biology, and Christian is going to do earth science. We are close to finishing our history curriculum, so that will be a big switch too, and I am looking forward to it. As I look back at what we were doing, I realized how many books we didn't read and how much of the curriculum we didn't use. I am thinking about selling it because I probably won't use it again. Plus I already have somebody interested in it! Bonus for me!

Along with school, basketball started up this week, so we are doing that for the next two months up at a local church. Courtney and Christian are playing with the Upward program again, so they are excited! Christian started practice last night, and Matt said he was the tallest person on his team. He is also a very old 1st grader, so he is probably one of the oldest too! Courtney starts practice tonight. She is going to be too good for Upward, but it is still fun for her. She really loves basketball!

Youth group also starts back up for Megan this week. She thoroughly enjoys that!

Since we are back at school, I am back to grading every evening. So guess what I get to do tonight?? Grade schoolwork!!

Holidays are over!

Wow! We have had a great time celebrating Christmas and the new year. We let all four children stay up on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year.  The two year old lasted until 11:15, the seven year old lasted until about 11:30, and the rest of us made it until 12! We passed the last hour by playing Phase 10 and enjoying root beer floats! (Yes, at 11:30 pm!, I figured we were all so tired that the sugar might not affect us too bad!)

I had told the girls last week that I wanted to get back to math and English this week. As I went to tuck the girls in last night, Courtney said, "Mom, I am really dreading tomorrow. We have to go back to school." I said, "School? No, we aren't going back to school yet." She jumped for joy! I told her I needed some order back in my life before we went back to school! Our kitchen was a disaster and the whole first floor of my house needed some order. 

Guess what we did today? We got the place back in order! Even though that is done, there are still a couple of things I want to get done before we go back to school! I want to get the sitting room clean, get some old curriculum sold, and get some pictures on the walls. I am not asking for much, but I just want it done!

Today we cleaned in the morning and then this afternoon, we went out and got groceries. It was cold, but we survived! Tomorrow we are having some friends over, so we will probably just get a few things done in the morning. Maybe Thursday morning we will try to pull out the math and English. I just tell the girls that the more we do now, the less we have to do in the summer!