A funny thing happened the other night....

The boys had already been in bed long enough that I thought they were sleeping.  I was in my room reading and the husband was working out of town for the night.  I heard the pitter patter of little feet upstairs and heard doors opening and shutting.  I waited, thinking one of them got up for something but would (hopefully) soon be back in bed.  A little time went by and I kept hearing the little feet running around and more doors opening and shutting.  I finally got out of bed and went upstairs.  As I went down the hallway, I noticed B's door was open (they always sleep with their bedroom doors shut so the cats will stay out).  I went into his room.  His lamp was on and his bed was empty.  I walked through their bathroom, no sign of B.  I poked my head into N's doorway and there was B, standing right next to N's bed and leaning over his head, brushing N's hair with a blue baby brush that was theirs when they were babies.  N was sound asleep.

When B saw me, he came trotting over immediately and headed toward his room, with a sheepish grin on his face.  As he went by me, he accidentally dropped a pair of plastic play tweezers that go with their doctor set.

The next day he told me that he had also built a 'bed' next to N's bed, which was made of two large stuffed animals and a couple of blankets.  He made it in the small cubby spot between N's bed and the wall.  I asked him why he had the tweezers and he said he was going to use them to remove the ear buds from N's ears so he could take his CD player and listen to some CD's.  I guess I came in before he had gotten that far in his plan.

B is usually asleep when his head hits the pillow so I'm not sure what was going on in his little body that night.  At the time I was annoyed because I was tired and he was suppose to be in his, not running around playing and he could have awakened N.  In hindsight I think the whole thing is hysterical.  I don't know what he thought he was doing brushing N's hair with a baby brush while N slept but it was so funny to see him doing it.  I can still picture it so clearly and I wish I had a picture of it.    Funny kid!

In other news, I have not really been in the mood to update the blog lately.  Did you notice?  Things here are about the same.  We are still doing school.  The husband is in the process of opening his practice, working on advertising and getting the word out there.  In the meantime, he has finished his last day at his old job and he just finished his first two days at one of his new part-time jobs.  This one is an urgent care.  It is about an hour and a half from here though so when he works there multiple days, they pay for his overnight stay in a hotel.  The other part time job that he has secured but has yet to start is with a small ER.  It is also a ways from here and when he works there he will work a 24 hour shift (I think).  He is waiting to hear back from at least one other part-time job.  He will likely need at least three of them to get the number of hours he wants.

B is still playing the violin and getting ready for his second recital in May.  He will also be playing with the local youth orchestra at a couple of performances in May.  We will be taking the month of June off of school and B will not have any violin lessons or practice that month either.  I think N was suppose to start his piano lessons in June but I am going to see if we can move it to start in July.  Our neighborhood pool is going to open in early May so we will be doing school light in May, taking June off completely and having fun.  We will start back to school after July 4th, although I may try to lighten the load a bit for the summer months.  Some of it we will play by ear and go with the weather. 

School is going pretty well these days.  It seems that adding history and science to the mix has really helped improve the boys' attitudes about school in general.  They both really enjoy these two subjects.  Last week we were studying Egypt and they did a coloring page of Tut's mask.  Then we decided to make our own masks.  We tore up some newspapers and used a mixture of glue and water to paste the strips of newspaper to one side of a blown up balloon (one for each child).  We let it dry overnight and repeated the process the next day.  After it was thoroughly dry, we popped the balloons (the boys really liked this part).  I cut the edges of the masks to make their shapes a bit more mask-like.  They came out really good.  Now we need to paint them and decorate them. 

The other thing that has probably helped a bit with improving school-related attitudes is that they are getting better at writing.  B really likes to write, especially if he is using cursive.  He has finished his cursive curriculum and is getting pretty good at writing in cursive.  N is getting closer to being finished but still has a bit to go.  They also still practice their manuscript writing every school day.  I have noticed they are getting faster at it but also more sloppy so I need to start sitting with them again and watching them so they will take their time and do a better job.  N, in particular, still does not care to do too much writing.

This school year we have spent an inordinate amount of time on adding and subtracting numbers from 0-10.  We have spent so much time on this that I thought for sure they would have them memorized by now.  I have tried to do some flash cards with them but I was probably not as organized about it as I should have been and we also did not do it often enough.  I have done some reading about how important it is for them to have these basic math facts memorized so I feel very strongly that we need to do this.  I have read that children who do not have these basic facts memorized will be slower at math, as it gets harder, and they may end up hating math or thinking they are bad at it.  It will also make math harder for them because they will still be having to calculate what 5+3 is while also trying to do harder algebra problems, for example.  So, I learned about a computer program that helps kids to memorize these facts.  It makes it fun with games and has some great reporting for the parents.  The boys have been playing it every day and B especially has already mastered almost half of what he needs to learn by instant recall.  N is further behind but he is definitely making progress and they have been doing this for less than a week.  The great thing is that they get really excited about it and really want to play these games and they are playing these math games instead of the Angry Birds or whatever games they were playing before.  So I am hopeful that doing this every day for the summer will get them to where they need to be on their instant recall of addition and subtraction math facts.  The math game is called Reflex, in case anyone is interested in checking it out for their kids.

On to another topic.  My mom was here for about a week.  My sister came to get here last Thursday and she bought the boys each a pair of roller blades while she was here.  They are loving them.  The husband also decided to change his membership at the YMCA to a family membership so the boys can participate there a lot now.  They have a great swimming pool there, very fun for kids with an awesome slide, so the boys are loving this.  That is where they are now, while the dad is swimming his laps.  Anyway, back to mom.  She did pretty well while she was here, although she was having some bad dizzy spells every once in a while.  My sister took her to an ENT on Friday because we were thinking it had something to do with her inner ear and a really bad knock to the head she had a couple of weeks back when she took a bad fall in her kitchen.  The ENT said it could have been that but he didn't find anything wrong.  Then Mom fell again yesterday, although I have not heard how bad it was yet.  She sure is falling a lot lately though and we need to find a solution for this before she really hurts herself badly.  She is also not acting like her normal self a lot of the time so we are hoping to have her seen for that also.  And she struggles with losing her independence and her freedom and has had some difficulty accepting that.  It is a hard time for her and it is hard for us to see her going through this and not be able to do more.  Getting older is just not an easy thing.

My nephew (my sister's son) will be graduating from high school in May and getting ready to head off to college.  I also have two nieces who will be graduating from college in May.  My sister's daughter is becoming an English teacher and is already teaching at her new job not far from where she went to college.  My brother's daughter is planning on continuing to get her Master's degree in Accounting and is planning to become a CPA.  My sister and her husband and their son and daughter are all going on a big vacation to Hawaii in May.  With their daughter graduating from college and their son graduating from high school and heading off to college, they have planned this big vacation as their last real family get away together before the kids are off doing their own things.  My mom will be staying with us while they are gone.  I enjoy having her here but it is definitely a lot more work.  It turns out that it is probably a good thing that she didn't want to move in just yet because I don't know that I could have handled it full time.  It seems to work pretty well when she stays here for a week every now and then, when my sister is having to work many days in a row and we don't want mom alone during the day for that long.  It gives my sister and brother (who lives in mom's house with her) a break too, which they need.

Well, time to sign off.  I must go get some things done.  Bye for now.

Update

As you can see by my post title, I'm feeling extra creative today.

My skin surgery for the cancerous spot on my eyebrow was yesterday and it went very well.  They only had to cut one 'slice' in order to cut it all out.  The chance of recurrence in this spot is about 5% I believe.  I have about 13 stitches and a nice bulky dressing for now.  I cannot open my left eye completely.  Yesterday most of the swelling seemed to be from all of the deadening medicine they had to use, as it generally takes a lot to deaden me.  Today it seems to be just swelling from the incision, which is normal.  Overall, the whole thing seemed to be somewhat of a non-event, although I was pretty stressed out about it beforehand and during.  I am also very concerned because I think I could potentially have a lot more of these areas, which means I really need to stay on top of the situation and make sure I have them frozen before they can become cancerous.

In other news, my mom has decided she is not ready to leave her house yet and she moved back yesterday.  I can certainly understand where she is coming from.  She was completely dependent on us to go anywhere and I think that was hard for her.  I was sad to see her leave but I totally understand.  I would guess she may come for a few days to visit here and there, when my brother or sister are busy or out of town or something like that.

The husband has several plausible leads for part time jobs, which is what he is looking to do while he works towards starting his new practice.  I think he is feeling much less stressed now because there are so many possibilities.  It looks as if having two part time jobs might be the best way for him to go right now, so he can be more flexible with the hours he works and also so he could quit one and still supplement with the other, as his practice picks up speed.  Last week he was very stressed about this so it is good to see him back to his normal self and more upbeat again.

The boys are both doing very well.  We took yesterday off because of my surgery and my sister came to take care of the boys, as the dad had to work.  I am so thankful for my sister.  She is such a wonderful friend and is always there for me when I need her.  We took today off too, because I am still feeling very tired and my half-shut eye is very annoying.  Hopefully we can start back tomorrow but, no pressure, as we are ahead of schedule and the boys are both doing great in school.

We are really enjoying our history and science lessons these days.  We have started doing them in the mornings, before our break, as we do a better job on these subjects then.  We are now using Story of the World (SOTW) as our main history book (or 'spine', as the homeschooling community refers to it).  We use the SOTW Activity Guide for doing our questions/answers after we read the text and also for the map work.  When the Activity Guide provides a coloring page, the boys color while I read.  I keep a list of library books recommended from SOTW and also from Tapestry of Grace (TOG) and I order them ahead of time.  We read as many of these as we have time for and find interesting also.  We choose a project from either SOTW or TOG and do them here and there along the way, not every week because we also do projects or experiments in science, but when we have time.

In science we just finished studying a section on our solar system.  I purchased a set of Styrofoam planets, sun and rings from a local store and we spent a day painting them, using pictures from this wonderful planets book we have as models.  After they dried, we hung them down the long hallway upstairs, using a guide for an approximate scale to determine how many inches or feet each would be from the sun.  The boys had so much fun with this.  They especially enjoyed the first half hour or so of the painting (and then it was up to me to finish it, although B actually helped most of the time) and they really enjoyed measuring the distance from the sun for each planet and double checking it to what I had written on my list.   It is not perfect but it is good enough that both boys were totally impressed at how far away from the sun many of the planets are.  They also seemed to take personal exception about the decision of Pluto no longer being a planet.  Neither of them are willing to accept that at this point and they have some pretty strong feelings about it.  It was actually kind of funny.

All of our other subjects are going just fine.  Right now I believe history/science and spelling are their favorites.  They also enjoy doing narrations, where I read to them, ask them questions and then have them tell me something they remember about what I read.  B loves practicing his cursive.  N does not love it but he does an excellent job.  After watching him last week, I have decided that he might be a bit of a perfectionist and not want to try if he can't get something perfect, at times anyway.  I recently picked up a 5th grade reader so they are practicing reading from that aloud to me 1 to 3 times per week or so and they are doing very well with it.  We only have one final chapter in our phonics book and it is a short chapter for learning to read very long, multiple syllable words.  They had some of these in past chapters but the last chapter goes on to include even silly ones, like su-per-cal-i-fra-gi-lis-tic-ex-pi-al-i-do-tious....(spelling? - you know, from Mary Poppins).  That is the very last word they read in the phonics book.  We will get to that last chapter eventually but I'm not too concerned about it because we will also be covering multiple syllable words in spelling.

Well, enough of this book for today.  Our quiet time is over so I need to sign off an fix lunch.  Hope you are having a great day.

We're back!

We are back from our vacation.  We drove from Oklahoma to Houston and spent three days visiting friends and enjoying the museums and restaurants in Houston.  We were also able to attend church at Second Baptist Church in Houston, which is where the husband and I met and where I went to church for many years.  It was so nice to be back and to hear Dr. Young again.  I really enjoyed it and it was nice to take our sons to church there.

On Sunday we drove to Galveston and caught our seven day cruise on the Carnival Magic.  Our first two days were spent at sea.  The weather was a bit chilly, overcast and windy on the first day.  The boys went to Camp Carnival for 2 hours in the morning and they enjoyed it a lot.  I can't remember what we did in the afternoon that day but I think we may have played Foosball, putt putt golf, pool and ping pong.  The ropes course was closed because of high winds and it was too chilly to use the water slides / water park area  and pools.  The second day was a bit warmer but still a little chilly, windy and overcast.  The boys went to Camp Carnival for two hours again in the morning and spent the afternoon playing in the large hot tubs.  We probably played putt putt golf again later too.

We spent the third day in Jamaica at an all inclusive resort that had huge swimming pools, water volley ball, water slides, and a river area where one could ride large inner tubes around.  They also had a beach, beach volley ball, kayaks, lots of other water sports plus all the food you could eat.  Unfortunately it rained off and on but that did not seem to slow us down a bit and it cleared up after a couple of hours. 

We spent the fourth day on the island of Grand Cayman, which was beautiful.  We took a boat out to a reef for snorkeling.  These boat guys also fed the sting rays on a regular basis so they were swimming all around and people could pet them and feed them.  It was a beautiful day but it was very windy so the water was a bit rough.  We all had a good time anyway though.  The water was amazingly clear and beautiful here.

We spent the fifth day at Cozumel, Mexico, where the water was just as clear and beautiful as Grand Cayman.  We took a cab to a nearby beach which had lots of amenities and we spent the day there.  It was my favorite day, by far.  It was a perfectly beautiful day and a perfectly beautiful beach.  We all had a wonderful, relaxing time.  The boys really loved playing on the beach and in the ocean so much, it was sad to leave.

Our sixth day was a ship day and was again somewhat overcast and misty at times.  The boys were looking forward to going back to Camp Carnival and spent two hours there in the morning and another 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon.  The husband and I spent that time together, enjoying each others company, visiting, reading and also going through a book that we are reading together.  It was a really great, relaxing day and we all, once again, enjoyed ourselves.  We spent that afternoon making sure everyone had a shower (the shower on the ship was surprisingly really good, albeit small) and packing.  We arrived back in Galveston early on Sunday morning and were in our car, heading for home by around 8:00 or 8:30am.

Every day we had all three meals together and did less snacking between meals than we normally do because we were so busy.  There were lots of places to choose from for eating.  Some of the places were only open during certain times of the day and others were open 24 hours a day.  You could choose between a buffet type of help-yourself meal or a sit down and be served meal.  They had soft ice cream and yogurt available with cones or cups 24 hours a day (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla).  I think I had a small one about 2 or 3 times a day:).  You could choose what type of dinner program you wanted.  We had dinner at the same restaurant every evening.  The food was awesome; the desserts were awesome also.  Every evening except two, we had the same waiter and he was so friendly and sweet.  We loved him too and were sad to say goodbye to him and also to our steward.  Our steward took care of our room and he was so friendly also.  When we went to dinner, he prepared our room for sleep by lowering the boys' beds (they were in the ceiling) and leaving us a very cute animal made from towels every night.  He was really good at creating the towel animals. 

Before we went, I was concerned our room would be too small and confining.  It was actually perfect for us and I did not have one complaint about our accommodations at all.  The boys loved their bunk beds and, even when they were down, we still had plenty of room to move about.  All of our beds were comfortable and very roomy.  Before we went, I had read that if we were going to use the bunk beds, then our bed had to be separated into two twin beds.  We found this not to be true.  Our bed was two twin beds put together but they were very comfortable and roomy and it seemed more like a king than anything.  We had small night stands on either side of our bed, each with a small reading lamp.  We would all watch a little television together and each read our own books before we fell asleep at night.  The rooms were very well insulated and we never heard our neighbors at all.  We sometimes heard people in the hallways but I was never awakened by them.  Our bathrooms were also very well insulated.  Both the bedroom and the bathroom were far better insulated than any hotel I have ever stayed in, and I have stayed in some pretty nice hotels back in the day when I traveled a lot for work.  So, overall, I give our room an A+, which was quite a nice surprise.  Also, I loved that we got to go to three different stops and enjoy each one, but we never had to pack and unpack.  And our room also had plenty of drawer and closet space so we were able to unpack everything when we first got to our room and put our suitcases under our bed, not to be seen or needed again until we were ready to repack at the end of our cruise.

The only real downsides I found about taking this cruise was that the main attraction for adult entertainment was gambling, drinking/partying and some sometimes R rated comedy shows.  They had some other shows too but we were usually tired by the time we finished with dinner and our sons normally go to sleep around 8:30ish.  I was very surprised that the cruise line offered child care for even babies until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.  Camp Carnival was during the day, from 10:00 to noon and then from 1:00 to 4:00, or something like that, and it was free.  Additional child care was provided after dinner and it was pay-by-the-hour. 

There were also a surprising number of smokers on the ship, although they were only allowed to smoke in certain areas.  It was still sometimes annoying when we were sitting outside and someone was smoking nearby.  Sometimes I got tired of the number of people that were constantly about, but one could go to their room to get away and if you looked hard enough you could likely find a spot in a corner where you could recline in peace, watch the beautiful view of the ocean and read or just relax.  You had to be patient when getting off the ship on shore days but the lines moved pretty quickly.  I never felt sea sick at all and actually enjoyed the slight rocking of the ship during the windy times.  It was never very bad, although there were times when you had to hold on to something if you were up walking around.

Overall I found the cruise to be a great vacation.  I loved not having to worry or even think about what anyone was going to have to eat for any meal and it was nice that most of the food was included in the price we paid for the cruise.  The only meals not included were when we had lunch at the three stops.  Every other meal/snack was included.  I loved not having to pack and unpack at every stop and we had tons of amenities on board the ship.  I also loved the relaxing nature of a cruise and that pretty much everyone was in a great, happy mood and most of the crew were very friendly, fun and helpful.  Most of the guests are also very friendly and ready to visit during wait times.  The other thing I really liked was that everyone was disconnected from the Internet and phones.  You could get on the Internet for a fee but we never did.  We had a television in our room but it received limited channels, although it did get CNN, some movie channels, Discovery, ABC, CBS, NBC, and one or two cartoon channels. It also had a map channel that showed where the ship was and gave the temperature and there was a channel that showed a real-time camera view from the front of the ship.

 I would definitely do a cruise again and I suspect the second time would be even better than the first because you learn a lot the first time around.  When we were at dinner on the last night of the cruise, some of the waiters/waitresses put on a little show for us and sang a goodbye song to us (to the tune of Leaving on a Jet Plane).  It was very cute and funny and made us a bit sad that it was our last night.  B, who had mentioned several times that he was homesick and that he missed his Legos, even started crying that last night at dinner.  He was kind of smiling and crying at the same time.  It was very sweet and it was how I felt too.  We were all very ready to go home but we were all a little sad to be leaving too. 

Yesterday we spent most of the day driving back home and today was laundry day for me.  The boys spent the day playing all the stuff they missed playing while we were gone.  Tomorrow we will start back with a bit of school and work towards ramping up to a full/normal school day be week end. 

The husband continues to work on getting his practice off the ground and also looking for another job he can do while his practice ramps up.  By week end, life should be back to normal around here:).  And we came home to absolutely beautiful weather.  It is in the mid-seventies here today and is suppose to be in the 80's tomorrow.

Oh, and we went off and forgot our camera in our car.  We bought two disposable cameras on the ship so we have very limited pictures.  I think when we get them developed we will try to have the pics put on a CD so hopefully I will eventually be able to post some pics.

Hope you all had/have a nice week!

The Willpower Instinct

I recently received this book in the mail from Amazon.  I thought dear husband had ordered it under my name because I had signed up as a Prime member of Amazon.  So, I quickly opened it, threw away all of the packaging and put it on his desk.

A couple of days later, he brings it out of his office and asks me where I got it.  Then we went through the "I thought you ordered it", "no, I didn't order it, I thought you ordered it" and we discovered that neither of us ordered it.

It just so happens that I also had a birthday that week.  So I started thinking it might have been a gift from someone but I threw away the shipping paper that came in the box several days earlier so I couldn't look at it to see.

So if some nice person sent me this book, please shoot me a quick email and let me know.  And thank you.  I have already started reading it and it looks like it is going to be really good.

When it rains, it pours...

I have a rash on the right side of my face that is spreading rather quickly toward my eye, down my neck and toward my ear.  It is red and a bit puffy.  In the middle of my left eyebrow, there is a bump that is also growing.  I went to a dermatologist in January and she froze it, along with several other places on my face.  All of the other places look much better but this bump on my eyebrow is still growing.

Thankfully I had a follow up appointment this afternoon, which happened to be good timing for these two issues.  She thinks the rash is an allergic reaction to something but we have no idea what.  She prescribed a stronger steroid cream that is already making a difference.  She also shaved off the bump thing and is sending it off to see exactly what it is.  We may hear something by Friday or it may take up to seven days.  I have a bald spot in my eyebrow that is likely permanent and my brow and lid are swollen and will likely turn black and blue but at least the bump is gone.  I am hoping for a good path report but concerned it may not be, considering all of the really bad sunburns I have had over the years.

Also, the husband has a bad cold, although he might be a bit better today.

In other news, we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary yesterday, my birthday is this week and we are preparing for our upcoming vacation.  I think I mentioned we are going on a cruise.  I have purchased swim wear that provides more protection from the sun, along with a wide-brim hat.  We are all looking forward to our vacation.

Mom is here but I will be taking her back to her house this week, where she will stay until after our vacation.  My brother is moving into her house so she will still have someone staying with her.  She seems pretty upbeat about moving in with us.  Tomorrow she is getting together with a friend from her school days, which is nice.  Her friend lives fairly close to us.

Well, time for sleep.  Hope you are all well.

Just enough

Just enough snow for two little boys...........

 ...to try out their new sleds

 ...to build a snowman

 ,,,more sledding...

 Later B told me he got really hungry so he ate the snowman's carrot nose.

and ....to build a snow fort.  Awesome morning!

They had their fun and then it was melted and gone by the afternoon.  Tomorrow is suppose to be in the 50's.  Now this is a truly wonderful winter:).

Then they came in, ate some yummy homemade stew and cornbread and started on school work. 

Hope you had a great day!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

We have a lot going on around here lately.  I don't remember how much I have already mentioned so forgive me if I repeat myself.  The  two biggest changes are:

1.  Dear husband is starting his own cash-only (meaning he won't be accepting insurance) practice.  He would like to keep working where he works currently (an urgent care clinic) as his new practice ramps up.  He discussed it with one of the owners recently and it did not go so well.  We are waiting to hear what they decide they want to do moving forward.  Dear husband has already signed a lease contract for office space.  He is working on the many details and hoping to start seeing patients around May-ish.

2.  My mom is going to be moving in with us.  She has been here with us since Wednesday and we have been discussing some of the details for her to move here.  This is something we had anticipated and planned for since we built this house and the main reason we made sure our guest room is on the first floor.  With some of the issues she has been having, it seems that this is the right time.  My sister and I both expected that, when this time came, there would be some resistance from mom.  Surprisingly, she is very excited about the move and seems to be really looking forward to it.  That is a nice surprise.  She tended to not get out enough when she lived alone and so she really ended up spending too much time alone and I don't think it was healthy for her.  I am hopeful that we will all be able to adjust to this move fairly smoothly.  I think we will.

Both of these things are huge changes for our family so we would greatly appreciate your prayers.

In other news, school is going well and we continue to chug along.

 Above is our finished salt map.  We had a lot of fun with this project.

These are Egyptian serpent headed throwing sticks.  The boys had a lot of fun painting them.  Boys, such as Moses, growing up in Egypt practiced throwing serpent headed throwing sticks at targets.  When they got good enough at it, they hunted with them.  Although we did not read this, I am guessing that the original throwing sticks were quite a bit longer than this and might have possibly had a sharp point on one end:).

Above is a picture of our messy kitchen and dining room during one school day.  It does get quite messy around here at times.

Last week we had our first day of adding a new spelling curriculum to our day.  It was not received with much excitement but I am hopeful that, once they are used to it, they will enjoy it.  I need to do a better job of planning and implementing our science.  I am not very impressed with some of the experiments so my excitement for doing it has waned a bit.  Must work on that.  Overall school is going very well.  Our current read aloud is Charlotte's Web and we recently finished The Borrowers.  Reading aloud is pretty much our favorite thing...for all of us.  I love it too:).

Break time!   ....and bed time for me.  Hope you have a great week.  Good night!

Happy Thursday!

Well we are finished with school for today and we have eaten lunch and the boys are playing outside.  It is a beautiful, sunny day here and the temp is around 55 degrees or so.  I'm sure it feels even warmer in the sun.




Yesterday we decided to take a day off of school so we had a free day.  We traded it with Friday this week because we are not having co-op this week so Friday was free.  It was nice to have a break mid-week and we all came back at it today refreshed.

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room and I kept wondering why I was smelling smoke so strongly.  We had made a fire in our fireplace the night before, for the first time (it was lovely and we need to do that more often) and I kept thinking I was smelling the results of that.  Finally, I happened to glance outside and noticed smoke wafting past our house.  I got up and looked next door and saw a large plume of smoke coming up from a huge pile of trees that had been knocked down and piled on the other side of the lot when they started building a new house.  I didn't see anyone around so I decided to put on my shoes and coat and walk over there to see what was going on.  N went with me and we found that, sure enough, the huge pile of trees were on fire and nobody was around.  We came back and told the husband and he called 911 to report it.  Not long after there were several smaller red trucks (not true fire trucks) with tanks in the back bed that came to put it out and watch it for a while.  I guess they save the big trucks for the big jobs.  It was not a very big fire yet but it was really smoking and it took quite a bit of water to put it out.  The boys really enjoyed the whole thing.



I am so far behind on posting pictures that I don't even know where to start.  I will put in a few here though.

 This (above) is what happens when boys get a hold of the camera:).

 Here is our house, decorated for Christmas.

 The dad was helping the boys make their gingerbread house.

 We made a big batch of Christmas cookies that were quite yummy.

 I was out Christmas shopping on this day, I think.  They set the camera up on a tripod.

 This was taken just before we took the Christmas tree down, which we did quite early this year.  I was ready for the house to get back to normal.

 Here is Tinkerbell.  She is really getting big these days and a bit chubby too.  This is how she looks when she is getting ready to attack something.

 Here is one of my beautiful nieces, having a treat with the boys.

 This is a salt map we made, while learning names of various landforms.  It has taken it about a week to dry completely.  We should be able to paint it soon.  This was a very fun project for the whole family.

 An after dinner dessert for two goofy boys.

Here the boys are doing a science experiment with the dad. We are studying the human body right now so the dad (being a dr.) enjoys joining in for the experiments.  Here the boys are blowing into the tube, which forces water out of the 2 liter bottle, showing how much air they can hold in their lungs.  They did this twice; once with a regular breath and once with a great, big breath so they could see the difference in how much their lungs hold.  It was a fun project and we all joined in and tried it.

This is how we make our daily schedule.  The laminated cards have velcro on the back to attach them to the strap.  There is a pocket at the bottom to hold the cards.  The boys and I decide what order we will do our subjects each day and we put the cards on the strap in that order (click on the picture to see a larger version).  As we finish a subject, they take turns taking the card off the strap and putting it into the pocket.  This is really working out very well for us and the boys are quickly getting use to the additional workload.  We are normally done by noon, except on Tuesdays when we have to go to violin lessons in the mornings.

That's it for today as we have to get ready to go to swim lessons.  Hope you are having a great day!

Health Update +

I can't remember how much of this I have shared before so forgive me if I am repetitive.  For many long years now I have had major issues with heart burn and/or GERD.  This has really had a huge negative impact on my life in so many ways.  I have been taking Raninidine (?sp) for many years, two pills in the morning and two with dinner and I would still end up eating TUMS all. day. long.  And sometimes I still felt miserable.  There were good days and bad days but, in general, it has been a thorn in my side for many long years.

So, the other night I was reading the education forum I read frequently and I happened to run across a thread about heart burn/GERD.  The original poster was discussing her issues with this and what she should do, as she didn't have insurance.  Several people posted that she should make sure the issue she was having was due to too much acid (HCl) in her stomach, rather than too little.  Several people shared experiences about this where they actually had too little HCl so their food did not digest well.  They said all of the symptoms were the same and the docs just tended to immediately assume their issues were from too much acid and put them on medications to reduce the acid levels.

I started researching it and boy was it an eye opener.  I discovered that, due to my age, I was at least 40% likely to have too little HCl rather than too much.  I also discovered that it can cause gall bladder disease.  I had to have my gall bladder removed a number of years ago.  It can also cause thyroid disease and I also take a low dose of thyroid medication.  The more I read, the more interested I became and the more it made sense.

It was pretty easy to try this out to see if this was my problem.  After reading more about it and discussing it with my doctor husband, I decided to give this a try.  I bought HCl dietary supplements and started taking them with meals.  I am absolutely amazed at the results.  At this point, there is no doubt in my mind that my issue is (and probably always has been) that I have too little HCl in my stomach.  I already feel so much better and have had very few problems since I have started taking the supplements.  I have not taken any Raninidine since I started taking the supplements and I have hardly had any heart burn/GERD symptoms at all.  I am still playing around with the dosage so I have had to take some TUMS a couple of times but, oh my goodness, not even close to the number I would have taken in a day before the added HCl.

I am obviously very happy about these results.  I have also started taking a B12 supplement, as people who have been suppressing their levels of HCl to this extent are normally very low on B12.  I probably need to have some testing done to see what else I may be low on.  When the HCl is so low, the body does not absorb the vitamins and minerals very well.  No wonder I have felt the way I have for so long.  Amazing.  I am absolutely amazed that I went to so many different specialists and not one of them thought of this.  One Gastro doc even told me that I was swallowing too much air and I needed to stop doing that (low HCl also causes bloating, belching and such...lovely huh?). 

I really can't believe how much better I feel already.  And I have so much more energy too.  I can't help but wonder how much damage has been done to my body over the years because of this.  It has been at least 10 years, if not 11 or 12. 

I am just so very thankful to God that I finally have a solution for this and I am feeling so much better now.

In other news, we had a great day with school today.  We have added almost every subject now for 1st grade.  The only other things we will add are Explode the Code, which we will use for spelling and phonics review and also Wordly Wise for vocabulary.  We did Science today for the first time and the boys really enjoyed it.  We are studying the human body and this week they are learning about cells, blood vessels, veins, arteries, and organs.  They loved it.  We will do an experiment on Friday (we are schooling Friday this week because we missed Monday).  Tomorrow is a history day and we have two history projects to do.  We will likely do one of them on Saturday, along with our first art project.  I know they will really enjoy that.

They are doing really well with their narrating.  I am astounded at how much they remember about what we read and they are really good at forming their responses in complete sentences.  Currently I ask them questions about the passage I read aloud so I am walking them through how to narrate a paragraph or short story.  Eventually, they will be able to do it without the questions from me.

I had better sign off, as it is much too late and I have teacher, mom, wife, housekeeper, patient (I have a dr. appt. tomorrow - skin issues, which can also be caused from low HCl), cook, daughter, sister, etc. duties tomorrow.

School - Moving from K to 1st

There was a discussion on a forum I visit regularly about plans for 1st grade.  This is something I have been working on for a while.  The boys are older K'ers so they are currently doing 1st grade level work in the three R's.  Currently I am trying to work through (and test out) the best way to add subjects to our day with the most excitement and the least resistance (more school and less play is not always met with a cheer at this house:).

Currently we are doing the following:
-- I read aloud for probably at least 30 minutes (they always beg for more). Our current read aloud book is Little Pilgram's Progress and it is awesome.
-- Leading Little Ones to God devotion and scripture memory (one verse per week)
-- Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading: we have maybe 1 to 2 months left to finish the book. Once we are finished, I will replaced this with All About Spelling Level 1.
-- Math Mammoth 1A: We have recently started this, after spending the first semester using Right Start A and Singapore Math 1A. They did not work out for us, for various reasons but MM seems like it is going to work out well for us (at least so far). We also use some of Miquon for extra practice or a different approach to a type of problem.  For now, I am having them do 2 pages of MM a day, although they could probably do 3 because it is pretty easy for them right now, since we started back at the beginning.
-- Hand Writing without Tears Cursive / Reading: One child does a page of cursive work while the other reads aloud to me from a 4th grade Pathway Reader and then they switch. One child is stronger at writing and the other is stronger at reading so this actually works out very well for us.  The boys had already finished HWT K and 1st books this school year.  After doing some research, I decided to move them on to cursive, although they will still practice their printing with our writing program, for now.

The way we have been doing school, they are finished at this point. We usually start around 9:00 or 10:00 and they normally have snack time at the beginning of school, during our reading. The work above normally takes about 1.5 hours, although it would be closer to 2 hours if they were doing math that was more their level. Since we started at the beginning of MM 1A, it is pretty quick right now. We are schooling Monday through Thursday and go to co-op on most Fridays for P.E., choir and general play time with others. We read aloud from their Bible at bedtime and they each pick a book for us (my dh or I) to read aloud at that time also.  They are also in swimming and soccer once a week, although they will finish swim lessons in May.  B is still taking violin lessons so he has violin practice some days (should be every day but we are not quite that good:).  N would like to take piano lessons and will hopefully be able to start sometime soon-ish.

Below are the subjects we will be adding for 1st grade.  We have done a few lessons of each so I could get a feel for them:
First Language Lessons 1:  Poetry memorization, learning parts of speech and narration.
Writing With Ease 1: Copy work leading to dictation and narration.
All About Spelling 1:  We have done a lot of this but, in retrospect, I probably went through it too fast so we will start from the beginning and go through it more thoroughly.
Tapestry of Grace Year 1:  Currently studying about ancient Egypt and what it was like when Moses was growing up.  We do related read alouds, geography map work and vocab work and some type of craft project.
Noeo Biology:  These bottom two are the ones we have not done yet, although we will start science tomorrow.  I have looked through it and we will be doing read alouds from interesting books and experiments.  I have to determine where we should start since the author assumes it will be taught starting in the fall and part of the work needs to be done in the spring.
Usborne Art Treasury:  I bought all of the art supplies yesterday.  N is especially excited about this.

We will still school Mon through Thur, year round, taking off time as needed. For K, we have normally started school around 9:00ish or 10:00ish, depending on the day, and we are finished within 1.5 to 2 hours. When we add these new subjects, I plan to start earlier.   I will read the fun read aloud while they are eating breakfast. I think the rest of it may look like this:

Math Mammoth
All About Spelling
First Language Lessons
Writing With Ease

Snack/Play Break

Leading Little Ones to God + scripture memory
History(MonWed)/Science(TueTh)
HWT Cursive/Reading

Lunch and Play Break

After lunch, we will do Tapestry Of Grace Geography or a craft/project on Mondays and Wednesdays and a Science experiment on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The boys will have time to play for a while and then we will have our quiet time, during which they will do some independent reading for 15 to 30 minutes.  Art will probably be on Saturdays or we may fit it in during the weeks we don't have a science experiment.

In addition, B has to practice his violin each day and N will (hopefully) soon have piano practice. Both boys play soccer and take swim lessons once a week, although swim lessons will be finished in May.


Well, that's it!  That's the plan.  Of course, the actual and the plan do not always line up exactly so we will see how this works out.  Prayers are always appreciated!

Merry Christmas!

We have had a very merry Christmas at our house.  We opened gifts first thing this morning and then spent the rest of our time before church working on putting together the Lego police station, which was a very popular gift.  We went to church and they did not have Sunday school or children's church this morning so the boys were with us in big church.  I really enjoyed having them there and especially enjoyed hearing them sing.  I really think Christmas should be on Sunday every year.  It is just so special.  Our pastor had gave such a wonderful sermon this morning and three people were also baptized.  The boys had never seen a baptism before so I was really glad they were there to watch and they were very interested.

After church we did our normal, every Sunday after church thing and headed to one of our favorite places to eat.  After driving around, we saw that pretty much everything was closed, which I kind of expected.  Sonic was open and they were being slammed.  We went there but it didn't take long for us to realize that it would be a long time before we were waited on and served so we headed home.

As it happens, I had bought a wonderful honey glazed ham so we cut off a few slices and heated them up, along with some baked potatoes and veggies.  It turned out to be a pretty good Christmas lunch and it was pretty quick also, which was good because everyone was getting pretty hungry by then.

Back to the presents.  The boys were very excited about all of their gifts, although some more than others, of course.  They got some fun science-y things in their stockings (a submarine that you put baking powder in and it makes it dives and come back up, magnet toys, a small volcano that requires baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt and a few other things.  They also got a Lite Brite an I Spy puzzle, a wrist watch walkie talkie, a pirate/treasure hunt maze book and another fun puzzle type book, a wood kit where they build and paint four wood projects (a jet plane, a bird house, a race car and a bird feeder) and their big Lego police station.  Last, but not least, we got a basket ball goal but we have not put it together yet so it is not on the radar.  I think the dad will put it together tomorrow.  As it was, the dad and I both ended up spending the majority of the day helping the boys with one thing or another.  It seems that the majority of the gifts needed some kind of help or another.  It was nice though because we really spent a lot of family time together today, which was a wonderful way to spend Christmas day.

My dear husband went above and beyond for me this year.  My big gift was a new, wireless printer.  It is not only a printer but it is a do-it-all kind of printer.  It prints in beautiful color and can print pictures.  It also faxes, copies and scans.  My biggest want though was for a wireless printer that could print in color.  It was a big surprise for me and dear hubby already had it set up and configured.  He had me open an envelope that had a letter in it that told me to print a Word document from my laptop, which happened to be sitting on the island counter.  Then I went to his office and there was my printer and the paper I had just printed with no connected wires!  Yay!  I can't tell you how nice this will be for me.  I have always had to take my laptop to his office and connect it to the printer to print something.  It will be so much more convenient and how lovely that I will be able to print in color now.  This will definitely be great for all of the school stuff we will be doing.

The other gift from dear hubs was a new blender.  The one we had was mine from about 30 years ago and it had a short so it was becoming more unreliable.  The new one is quite nice and may even make me want to bake a bit more often.  I also had some new kitchen utensils in my stocking, which we desperately needed.  I am a very practical person so I really like gifts like this:).  I was quite pleased and thankful for all of my Christmas gifts and also thankful for such a thoughtful husband.

I got the hubs a new router and a jig saw.  As it turns out, he already has a jig saw so he will return this one and put the money towards something else.  He got some nice office supplies, candy and some yummy cinnamon covered pecans in his stocking.

All of this is in addition to everything we all received when we celebrated Christmas with my family down at the farm yesterday.  It was so nice to see everyone and we even got to talk to my nephew who is a chaplain in the service and is currently stationed in Kuwait.  It was so good to hear his voice.

Above all, we are all healthy and were able to spend our Christmas with family, which is such a blessing.  Our sons are growing up too fast.  I think they skipped size 6 in their jeans and went straight from a size 5 to a size 7.  What's up with that?

We are going to be taking a vacation in the next couple of months.  We are going to go on a cruise and we are all very excited about it.  The husband has been on one before but this will be the first for the rest of us.  I am excited for the boys to get to see the ocean for the first time and to play on a beach for the first time.  I didn't get to do either until I was in college so this has been one of the things that I really wanted them to experience while they are younger.  It is so fun and exciting to have something like this to look forward to.  It will definitely make the time fly by.

Speaking of time flying by, we took most of this week off of school.  We schooled on Monday and I had planned to school another day or two but other things kept popping up.  The dad is off work Monday and Tuesday but we will plan to school at least Wed and Thurs and possibly Fri, although we will likely have co-op that day.

I have been spending a lot of time learning about the curriculum we will be using for history, geography, literature, some writing, church and art history and I can't remember what else it covers. It is such a wonderful product and I am looking forward to using it with the boys.  I have been learning so much from it already and I know they are going to enjoy it and we will do some fun projects.  It is called Tapestry of Grace and I have been researching it forever.  I am so hopeful that it will work for us and that we will all enjoy it and learn a lot from it.  I'm not quite sure exactly when we will really start it but I plan to do at least a couple of weeks after the new year so I can really get a handle on how best to prepare and deliver the lessons.  I have already placed a hold on the library books we will need for the first week of study.  We start out studying about ancient Egypt.

I was excited to learn about this library elf thing, where you can sign up to have this application send you emails in advance, telling you when your item on hold is ready and when your items out are due back, or overdue.  I am going to really love this little elf helper and, hopefully, I will never have another overdue item.  I have not been too good about that in the past.  I also found a ton of eBooks listed with our library that are are available for download to Kindle with no expiration date.  I will definitely be loading up on some books for me and the boys for our vacation.

So far we are having a pretty mild winter here, which I love.  Today it was nearly 60 degrees and it was a beautiful, sunny day.  I think the next couple of days will be even warmer.  We definitely need to get out and enjoy it.

Well, enough of a book for one posting probably.  I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Recital/Orchestra Pics

Below are the promised pics that go with the last post about the recital and orchestra concert;).

B, violins and red bow ties

B has been playing violin with a local youth orchestra.  This week they played at three elementary schools and a hospital.  This afternoon they played at a church, after they had their winter recital.  He and a few other youngsters are not actually members of this orchestra yet but they were invited to play anyway.  This younger group only played three or four songs with the orchestra and then they had to sit quietly for the remaining part of the concert.  He is the youngest one of the group and it was challenging for him in many ways but he came through with flying colors.

At each of the elementary schools, they passed around a microphone and each of the kids who were playing in the orchestra stood up, one by one, and introduced themselves.  Without hesitation, B stood up and introduced himself each time, telling his name, age, grade and how long he has been playing the violin.  He was excited to get to talk into a real microphone, as he had had lots of practice with the play one that he has at home.

He was the first one of the violinists to play for his recital this afternoon.  The piano recitals went first so he was able to see what it was all about before it was his turn.  B played Jingle Bells and brother N accompanied him by shaking some jingle bells.  They were so cute together.

All of the boys playing in the orchestra had to wear black pants and shoes, a white shirt and a red bow tie.  B absolutely loved his red bow tie.  They had a practice session yesterday afternoon and snacks were provided after.  After snack, he wanted to go to the restroom to wash his hands, but I wet a napkin to wipe them instead because I knew if he went to the restroom to wash them he would get his sleeves wet.  As we were walking out to the car, on our way to the hospital where the orchestra was to play, B said "I wish I would have had more time to admire my tie".   This was the real reason he wanted to go to the restroom...to admire his tie:).  He is so cute.

Since N was to accompany B at the recital, he thought he should wear a white shirt and bow tie too.  So, even though he was not in the orchestra, he was dressed like the orchestra boys.  They both looked adorable.

They sat next to each other on the front row for the longest time, waiting for their turn.  There were a lot of piano students before it was time for the violins.  B and N definitely set a record for sitting quietly...and not only were they sitting quietly, they were sitting next to each other...quietly....for a long time.  It really was a sight to behold.  They normally can't sit next to each other for 2 minutes without starting to pick at each other and either get real silly, start wrestling or get upset with each other and start fighting over something.

B took $5 of his own money with him to the recital.  He wanted to buy one extra red bow tie so he could play with it at home but his violin teacher would not sell him an extra.  She said they were for the orchestra only.  I will definitely have to find another one for him to play with.  Both boys also got their first belt - and it matched their black shoes -  so they were very excited about that too.

Overall it all went very well.  I am so proud of B.  He did such a great job.  I think it also helped N to desire to start playing the piano soon.  I need to get busy tracking down a piano teacher for him.

I know this post should have had lots of pictures with it but I have not downloaded them from the camera yet.  I will try to do it and post them asap.

Night!

Kindle Fire & more

I just finished reading my first book on my new Kindle Fire.  I must say, I really enjoyed using it.

Now, I do so love holding a book in my hands so I was a bit skeptical but I knew there were lots of free classics available on the web and it can also be used to read library ebooks so I thought it would be useful.  I also thought it would be good for the boys to get used to reading this way, as we will likely see more and more of this going forward.

I really did enjoy using it and will look forward to reading many more books this way.  Some things I enjoyed...

It is very convenient to carry around, much more so than a large book or even multiple books.  The size of it is perfect.
I loved the little bookmark feature.  So quick, so easy.
It turns on so quickly.  Just like opening a book.
I could read in bed at night without having the light on - however, if you fall asleep while reading and let it fall forward onto your face, it doesn't feel so good:).  (I reversed the color so that the background was black and the words were white.  Generally, I found that easier on the eyes.) 
As long as I had wireless connectivity, I could also access any web site so I could use it to read the news sites I keep up with, weather, facebook (although I don't really use this one), twitter, or any other web site you  might want to use.  The little keyboard is quite easy to use too.
It was easy to purchase a book, which is great.  However, just after I did that, I figured out how to check out books from my library and noticed they already had the book I had just purchased.  I thought it normally took libraries a while to get new releases but, I guess not.  Next time, I would definitely look there first!
It has awesome features that I will likely never use, such as the ability to watch movies, play music and play games, although the boys like to play the game angry birds with it.
 If you subscribe to any eMagazines or eNewspapers they can be automatically delivered to your kindle every month/week/day/whatever.
If you have an Amazon Prime membership, there are tons of books and movies you can check out for free.
It comes with a one year Amazon Prime membership.

My favorite thing will definitely be to use it for reading books but it is awesome that it can do the other things also.  I understand it doesn't have as much memory as some others but it has access to the Amazon "cloud" where you have lots of additional storage.  The downside to that is that you have to have wireless connectivity to access the cloud.

Anyway, overall, it is pretty easy to use and I really like it.

In other news, my mom had to spend a couple of days in the hospital and she is doing much better now.  Her lower extremities were very swollen and it was causing her to stumble and fall a lot, which is very dangerous for her as she takes anti-clotting medication.  They were able to treat her and get her swelling down very quickly.  They also did a lot of tests on her heart.  They did not find anything significant, although her test results will go back to her cardiologist so he can compare them to the tests he did this past summer and see if there are any significant changes.  I think we all learned a lot through this whole experience (preventative) though and hopefully my mom will not be falling every day now that the swelling has gone down.

I am very tired and sleepy as I spent the past couple of days at the hospital with mom.  Both mornings I woke up early (3:30 and 4:00 am) so I could get to the hospital early and I didn't come home until late.  My sister's daughter stayed with the boys and even taught them their lessons those two days.  She made cookies with them and cooked for the boys and the husband.  She was really an answered prayer, as my sister had to work and my mom really needed me to be with her.  The husband was actually off those days but it was still so wonderful to have my niece to help out at home.

Today the husband was back at work and it was just me and the boys.  We took it easy and just had a fun, relaxing day together.  It has been quite some time since I have been away for any length of time and they were so happy to have me home.  They were very cuddly and loving and sweet and I could have just eaten them up!  I missed them bunches too and it made me realize that it would probably be beneficial for me to be away a day/night or two once or twice a year.  It is good for me and for them.  It makes us all appreciate each other more.  I definitely need to plan another trip to a homeschool conference in the spring.  I didn't go to one this past year because of building the house and moving.  I definitely need to plan a trip for the spring.

Tomorrow we are having our Thanksgiving at my sister's house.  We delayed our Thanksgiving celebration because my sister had to work and it turned out to be a good decision because mom was in the hospital.  I am looking forward to tomorrow though.  It will be nice to spend time with the family and visit with everyone.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!