Looking Up

Well, finally things are starting to look up! Kirsten is nearly back to normal, and by the grace of God no one else in the family got sick with it. As anyone with a family knows it seems that sickness always gets passed around. It's the one thing that kids will share without having to be told!

Johnathan has had a good week at school. I think it's partially thanks to his Taekwando instructor, who is fabulous, and partially because of the new "Extreme Work". Here I was worried that he would want to do it. Nope... every day I've given him the option to do it or not, he always says no! So now I'm wondering what I'll be doing with the $30 worth of books I bought for him. I'm thinking they'll get done during the summer. :)

I am afraid however that my relationship with his teachers has been damanged. One in particular, she voiced her concern about me pulling him out of school having a negative affect on him socially. She's always been so plesent before, she'd smile and say hi, so very friendly. But the last three times I've seen her this week, that has not been the case. Now granted she very well could have been preoccupied with other things going on, but I don't know. I do love his teachers, I mean, I'll be the first to admit, Johnathan can be one stubborn boy, he hasn't been very nice to them. But he is my son, and I have to fight for him to get what he needs. If his needs are not seen to now, it's only going to lead to bigger problems in the future.

I have Parent Teacher conferences on Thursday. I plan on bringing up the fact that according to his progress report he's mastered near everything. A couple of those he hasn't, he did have mastered for his first testing before the school year. I mean really, how does a kid forget how to read three letter words? There's something going on there. If they refuse to move him up a level I want to present them a written formal request for an IEP. The thing is I'm not sure what exactly I should request. Do I simply ask for an IEP? Or do I ask that he be tested? And then tested for what? I do know that Kansas uses the term IEP for all sorts of individualized stuff, it doesn't have to be that they're slow, they use that termonology for those that are advanced as well.

Anyhow, I'm just thankful that he's starting to straighten up. Here's hoping it continues and he's gotten all this nonsense out of his system!

Memory Lane

When my friend Lisa was here, she told me a bit about snapfish. I had heard of that website before, I was just never so sure on if their prints were actually of good quality. Now that I heard from someone I know and trust, I thought it wouldn't be such a bad idea to use them. In the day and age of digital photos, I never print out my photos anymore. Which means lots of family and friends don't get to see them. So I thought this way, family could go to my album and print any pictures they want to actually have. And even if no one wants them in their hands, this way I have another place my pictures are kept. When we moved back stateside, my hard drive in my computer had quit and for a good week it looked like I had lost all my beloved family pictures. I was a total wreck man! Thankfully my computer savvy husband messed around with it and saved my pics. I never want to feel like that again!

So anyhow, the other night I grabbed my digital photos and thought I'd start uploading them, year by year. We got our first digital camera back in 2004! Looking back through these old pictures had me reminiscing. At the time I thought my kids were getting big already. Now, five years later, I see how little they really were. I miss them!!

So I'm warning you, some of my favorite old pictures will be making their way to my blog. It is so incredibly hard to pick just one favorite picture of my kids out of a whole year's worth, but I tried....

My favorite 2004 pic of Caitlin:

Caitlin was born in March of 2004. This is later in the year, when she had begun to try to feed herself. I just love her chubby cheeks.

My favorite 2004 pic of Johnathan:

Every now and then God blesses me with a gem like this. I am no photographer, (unlike my hubby's cousin who has talent oozing out of her ears!), but I love the expression on his face as he's gazing out the windows of our house on the third floor. I have no idea what he was looking at, but it's just a great soft picture.

My favorite 2004 pic of Kirsten:

Though this pic seems a little grainy, I love the action in it as she looks over her shoulder. It reminds me of the sweet little spirit she always had as she played carefree. Always one to show her big brother she could do anything he could, she was on the go a lot!

And finally, my favorite 2004 pic of Michael:

Even though he's holding his new little sister, he truly is the focus of this picture. His big brown eyes, and that wide little grin. You can see the goofy looking boy he's about to become, but he still has so much baby in him!

Okay... I'm like officially home sick now. Why do we allow time to go by so quickly? Life seems like it's filled with trouble after trouble, and indeed it sometimes is. This has been my reminder to slow down, don't fret the small stuff, and enjoy my kids while I have them.

Love my Daughter

I just wanted to take a minute to point to an entry on my daughter's blog.
Help me Celebrate Jump Rope for Heart's 30th Birthday.

Obviously the whole post is not her original words, it was taken from a template provided by the American Heart Association. But none the less, my daughter is excited about this. Even her big brother is doing extra chores around the house to sponsor her!

I know times are tough, I don't expect anyone to give, but wanted to do my part to encourage and support her.

Happy 2009

Happy 2009 y'all! Sorry I haven't been around much. With the kids out of school, and all their extra activities put on hold this week, we've been living a relaxed lazy life. It's been good to have some unwinding time. It hasn't all been easy though, Nahla decided to put a 3" hole in our carpet while we were at church last Sunday. You know, most puppies chew on furniture or shoes. Not ours, no, she hasn't destroyed a couch or chair, not a single shoe has been harmed despite there being 8 pairs sitting in the living room. Nope, instead she puts a hole in our carpet. Needless to say, our restraint was seriously challenged!

Lately I've been trying to work on my website. Finally got Magento installed. That thing has so many bells and whistles, it's like a little kid in a candy store. But unfortunately all those bells and whistles make it's learning curve extremely steep. I have spent days on this app, and I'm still not close to being able to launch it. Hopefully I'll get it up by the end of the month. We shall see!

So unfortunately, my beloved hobby of card making has kind of gone on the back burner for right now. Next week the kids go back to school, and all their activities start up. Kirsten will be going to a different gymnastics school. This one with older equipment but far more experienced and qualified coaches. I am looking forward to that! Michael starts the basketball season, he's completely stoked about that. And we're trying to transfer Johnathan to a different location for his Taekwando. It's owned by the same person, but has different instructors and I'm not quite so thrilled with that. I have the highest of regards for his current instructor, he is really talented at what he does and knows how to interact with a trying seven year old boy. I worry that I won't be happy with anyone who's slightly less capable of juggling so many roles.

So that's what's going on. Not a whole lot, and I'm enjoying it. The crazy hectic life is due to resume on Tuesday, we'll see how I survive. lol

A dog sorta day

Today's been a longer, yet relaxed day. Although, it didn't start that way. This morning I woke to sounds of our puppy's paws on the kitchen floor. There was a lot of foot steps for so early in the morning. Little alarm bells went off in my head. So I got out of bed and what did I find? Clothes everywhere!! I have a laundry basket in the living room of clean but unfolded clothes. It's like a pit of socks that I just can't force myself to fold.

Well, at least they used to be, until my dog decided she would spread them out all over the floor. Boy, was I not happy. And boy did she find out. After grabbing a hold of her, spanking her hind quarters and dragging her out to the back yard I forced myself to take stock of the damage. Surprisingly they were wet from dog slobber, but there were no tears or holes. Go figure, she played with them, didn't tear them apart. Labs are listed as retrieving dogs, is that what she was doing?

Now I'll have to decide, do I lock her up in her Kennel where she's guaranteed to wake me up super early, or do I hide the basket of clothes and take my chances with her retrieving something else?

Needless to say, I wasn't in the bests of moods. Thankfully I got a great e-mail from my friend which boosted my spirits. The morning hours were then spent crafting. Nothing to show for my efforts yet, but I hope to complete them tomorrow. This afternoon I had Parent - Teacher conferences to go to. Thankfully they went well. Johnathan is finally going up a level in reading class. He had started in the higher class, but because of his behavior, they moved him down. Though he still struggles with his behavior, he has improved enough they want to put him back up. I'm worried that the change in teachers and the change in routines is going to stir up some problems, but I'm hopeful that having work that isn't a cakewalk for him will help as well. The boy acts up when he's bored, so this just might help!

My older two have improved a lot since first getting there. They had big adjustments to make from having only been homeschooled to now being in public school. I adore my kids' teachers. They're all fantastic ladies.

This evening we have gymnastics class and Taekwondo. I'm planning on taking the kids out to a new fast food place that just opened up; Freddy's Steakburgers and Frozen Custard. I've never heard of it before, I hear it's just a tad expensive, but they deserve it!

Sweet Science...

Well, no crafting yet today, instead the kids and I have worked on cleaning up the house (yet AGAIN) and doing their science projects. They've been learning about the scientific process of doing experiments, and they were to come up with their own to do at home.

My daughter (the smart one) decided she would compare lemons and oranges to see which has more juice. Yeah, so it seems like a no brainer, but it's the sort of blonde idea she comes up with.

I was surprised that her arm held up through the juicing of six fruits (3 lemons + 3 oranges). The favorite part for her, was when it was all done...

I found out that you have to add a whole lot of sugar to make lemon juice drinkable!

As for my son... I swear, he can't leave his stomach out of anything! Including science! His project... finding out which has more candies in it, a bag of Skittles or a bag of M&Ms. I know... not very scientific. But he's able to do the scientific process with it, so the teacher said it counts. (I know you're dying to know... over all M&Ms had more, but not by much.)



So yeah, you can bet they're anxious to eat those six bags of goodies!

Before all the "science" activity going on, we were cleaning up the house once again. When I found out that hubby is NOT going to be home for Thanksgiving I felt that there's no reason to celebrate. I mean, it's just me and my kids, why cook a gigantic meal? You cook for hours making a ton of food that takes a whole fifteen minutes to sit and eat then you get the hour plus of cleaning to do. I wanted to just skip Thanksgiving all together.

But as I took stock of how things are, this morning I decided to stop being a party pooper and I brought out my fall decorations. I'm glad I did. Sitting in a cluttered house really does put a damper on your spirit. With the pretty fall items around me I'm in the mood to cook and just accomplish general household stuff. Let's see if that hold's out till Thanksgiving. For some reason I highly doubt it!

Getting better

I am so completely shocked with myself right now. After I got the kids off to school this morning, instead of going about my usual chores and business I climbed back in bed. That is so not like me. I stayed there for about three hours! That also is so not like me! I've never done that before, but now that I have I feel like myself again. And I think I understand why I've been slowly getting back into that funk that totally took over yesterday. I'm the type of person that needs a solid eight hours sleep. I can function well enough off of seven, but less than that and I am not at my best. Ever since we got our dog over a month ago I've been averaging five to six hours a night. I think it's been taking it's toll on me, and I just don't have the energy anymore. I really should be getting in bed earlier than I do, but I just don't want to. With hubby deployed I find myself wanting to just stay up so late that I literally pass out with the TV on. It's not healthy, but I just can't force myself to go to bed at 10pm. Stupid emotions... why do I have to let them rule?

So, I'm getting a late start to this day, but hopefully I'll get more done around here!

Last night was my kids' concert at school. It was folk songs across America. I love living in this little town! (Have I mentioned that before?) :p The music teacher mentioned at the beginning that she strives to have an important role for each and every kid, and as far as I can tell she accomplished it. There were approx. seven songs and throughout them different kids came and sang solos or with one or two other kids, or played the big bass xylophones. Michael got to keep beat during Polly Wolly Doodle, which we found out, has roots here in St. George! Kirsten sang a verse at the mic on Clementine. Unfortunately I didn't get the best of pictures. They were too far away and the lighting wasn't so great that my camera did a less than stellar job of capturing moments. But they had fun and they did a good job. I caught some of the last song on video, I wish I had caught it from the beginning. Can you tell what song it is?



During one part I zoom out and you can see near all the kids. That's all of third and fourth grade, not quite a third of the entire school. Next year, all four of my kids will invade it! Kindergarten, second, fourth and fifth grade! lol Watch out St. George Elementary!

I'm here...

I'm here... and there... and everywhere. *phew* What can I say except for I feel like I'm split in a hundred different directions. I feel like there's not enough hours in the day to do what I want, but when I honestly backtrack over how I spend my days, there's a lot of time that's not so productive. I'm just so unorganized, so yesterday I sat down and made a schedule for myself. Trying to fit in time for chores, church duties and quality family time, it's quite a juggle. But hopefully this will be a good launching pad to get my time better spent, for I must admit, I'm a procrastinator and really don't get nearly enough work done. This will also help me to make a decision regarding cutting out a responsibility on more facts and less feelings. After all, if there's one thing I know about me for sure, it's that I can be rather emotional and make rash decisions based on those emotions.

Anyhow... yesterday Johnathan tested for his camo belt. That boy is so psyched up. He's thrilled that now he'll get to participate in sparring and weapons training. I'm riding on the coat tails of that excitement as long as I can and trying to use it to influence his behavior at school. Today is his show and tell day at school so he brought all four of his belts to show off.





Unfortunately two of the pieces of sparring gear that I bought used are too big for him. So the good news is he'll grow into them and use them later if he sticks with it, bad news is, I need to find proper sized gear super quick. This stuff is so expensive!!

Today I get to watch my daughter's gymnastics for the first time since the gym reopened after the tornado. Usually I have to drop her off and run to something else. I'm really looking forward to that and just wish I could be more involved with her. *sigh* Yeah, some responsibility needs to go, cause my kids are growing fast, and they are not getting the attention and time that they deserve.

Blessed

Hola. It feels like it's been ages since I've been on, but really it hasn't been that long. I was trying to get on earlier, but couldn't log into my google account. I ended up updating my browser (firefox all the way baby!) and that did the trick.

Yesterday the kids had a day off of school so the teachers could get their rooms together in the new school. It was the perfect opportunity to celebrate Kirsten's birthday. We headed out to Pizza Hut for lunch, and then went bowling. I was kicking myself because I had left my camera at home. After a game she opened up her gifts, we went to Sears to spend some of her birthday money on clothes and came home to do her cake and icecream. She was absolutely tickled pink about the cake I made her.



I am so thankful for my girl. It's scary that she's 9 now. She's growing so fast, but she's still so sweet. Since today is her actual birthday she brought cupcakes to school which was well received. Caitlin and I went down and ate lunch with her at school. It was all in all a good day.

Now we're talking!

This post has been relocated to here.

Tuesday... and counting

You know, I think I had a bunch of pointless life ramblings to type about today, but now I can't remember any of them! I think that's a sign of old age (and I'm scared)! I DO know that I have a small video clip to share for this "Tickle Tuesday". I'm not sure it counts as tickling, but this is my blog, so if I want it to count, then it counts, dag-nab-it!

Yeah, so we have a little fun at our poor puppy's expense. The good thing is she's completely oblivious to the fact that there is now a video of her on the internet! She won't care.

Anyhow, the big event this week is Johnathan's birthday on Thursday. I'll be busy tomorrow making cupcakes to take to his school. The good news is he did much better at school on Monday. Hopefully it'll stay that way!

My daughter's birthday is later this month, and I'm just so thankful for my girl. I was asking her what she wanted for her birthday and she couldn't think of anything. So I asked her questions, "You couldn't possibly want more ponies could you?" (My oldest daughter is loves My Little Pony and has been collecting them for years!), she replied that she would like pony stuff, but not until her little sister is older and can play with her better.

So I asked if she wanted craft stuff, (another hobby of hers).
"No, I don't need any more."
"How about necklaces, bracelets, nail polish and stuff like that?"
"No that's too girly."
I laughed and said she wasn't helping me out. Her reply? She gave me a hug and told me she was happy with what she had. It about made me cry.
Her older brother chimed in and said, "How about Magic Tree House books?" (The school got them hooked on that series.) My daughter jumps up, "Yeah! I want books for my birthday!!"

I tell you, I am so thankful that my children give me snippets of hope that I am doing something right in raising them! Others may think we're odd, but I like us that way. :)