Twas the week after Christmas...

Wow! It's been a wild month!! Whoever said that homeschoolers don't get enough socialization, were OUT OF THEIR MINDS!! We've had Christmas Parties, Park Days, Bowling Days, and Library Days. Somewhere in there, I had to fit in some Christmas shopping, tree decorating, hosting a Christmas Eve dinner with our family on my husband's side, and volunteer work. I think it's fair to say that I'm WHUPPED!

All the stress and excitement associated with Christmas always leaves me feeling sort of lost in the days after. I get very overwhelmed with birthdays and holidays, and it all comes to an end the day after Christmas. I love Christmas time! I love the decorations, the food, the music, the scenery, and sharing stories with the kiddos about the birth of Jesus and what His sacrifice means for us. I love eggnog and sugar cookies! I love getting down my Christmas China, and filling it with Brown Sugar Glazed Ham and Mom's Dressing!

The truth is, I love everything about Christmas...except the end. I hate taking down the tree...it's so depressing!! I hate storing all the decorations and the giant inflatable Santa in the front yard. I hate how bare my living room looks without all the strands of cranberry garland and glittery white lights! But most of all....I hate January. I hate the dieting, the bitter cold, and the lack of interesting homeschool arts and crafts ideas!

The only upside to January is that it's the opportunity for a new beginning - a new chance to start anew with resolutions to be better people than we've been in the past. So in an effort to avoid the feeling of hollow emptiness that surrounds me after Christmas, I have decided to JUST GET OVER IT!

I will make a pledge to get off my butt and make some resolutions that I probably won't stick to. I pledge to search the world over for the coolest January crafts (no pun intended) for our homeschool lessons. I pledge to put away the tree and the eggnog, and light a fire and make some cocoa instead. I pledge to continue sharing stories with the children about Jesus and the man he became after his birth.

In the days to come, I will sit down and come up with some things that I will resolve to either begin or end. My life has a lot of room for simplification, and I think that's where I am going to start. I want to figure out the things that I can do without first. Then I will think of some things that I need to focus more of my attention on.

Even though my beloved Christmas season is over, from the bottom of my heart, I wish everyone a very Happy and Blessed New Year!!

Been a Long Time...

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post until I started talking to the hubs last night about possibly starting a blog for him. I started telling him about all the ins and outs, and how much time it takes. Then it hit me....I've been so busy driving myself crazy that I haven't had the time to write about ANYTHING in over a month!!

So, for those who are interested, here's what we've been up to in the last month.

Some of you may have noticed that I have a business making baby gifts and gift baskets, but I also have branched out into baby shower/event planning. In May, I got my first "gig" as an event planner!! It was a baby shower for the daughter in law of a former co-worker. It turned out beautifully, and I can't wait to do another! Everything went so smoothly - I couldnt' believe there were no last minute crises to take care of! It took a lot of time, but I have to say....my OCD and over-organizing actually paid off this time!! :)

On another happy note: the hubby's diet is going GREAT!! He has lost over 40 pounds doing the low carb diet. Me? Well, not so much. I lost 5 pounds in one week after I made the vow to get back on (and stay on) my thyroid medication. However, as evident in the past, it's too difficult for me to diet my way while the cooking for the hubs on his low carb diet. I HATE the low carb diet. I would much rather do a low cal/low fat diet. But it's just too difficult!! I know - I'm a wienie!!

I'm not blaming him whatsoever - in fact, I'm sooooo proud of him for sticking to his plan! It's just that by being at home full time, I'm responsible for making his lunch and dinner. He calls me on his way home from work and asks me (very politely) if I would mind frying him some bacon and eggs (my favorite), or a ham and cheese omelett (another favorite) with some sausage (another favorite). I'm weak...I admit it. But I haven't given up. It's just going slower than I had wanted.

I even tried doing the low carb diet since it was evidently too difficult for me to cook his meals and try to stay on my diet as well. You know? If you can't beat em, join em, right?? But after a few days, my blood sugar dropped and I started shaking and seeing stars. I figured that was no longer an option. SO....I've decided to take a few days, do some soul-searching and a lot of praying, and try to figure out what my best plan of attack should be.

I have continued to work on my menu plans to incorporate things that both of us can eat, but I haven't had time to post them, as there has been another huge project I've undertaken.

My in-laws' swimming pool needed resurfacing, and my father-in-law is not the type to hire out work. He's the incredibly talented builder of the family and has always been up for a challenge. It's just that this particular challenge needed more hands on deck than he had. So, I've been over there every day for the past 10 days scrubbing, plastering, sanding, re-plastering, re-sanding, and vacuuming just to get the surface prepared for a new liner. Then we dropped the liner in, got it all nice and perfect and then realized it was in backwards. Ya heard me! Backwards!!! UGH!!!!!

So then we had to start all over. Finally, we got the liner in and began stretching, pinning, pulling, smoothing, and filling. Did I mention that he owns the largest residential swimming pool available?? It was, and remains a NIGHTMARE!! If I have any bit of advice for anyone thinking of taking on a project like this, it would be: DON'T!!! Please hire it done! It will cost more, but it will save you many headaches and muscle aches, not to mention sunburns from the depths of hell!

They have a cabin that my father in law has built from the ground up, and have decided to make it their permanent residence. So we have decided to purchase their house. If for no other reason than to enjoy the fruits of our labor on the nightmare of a swimming pool! LOL! That means we have to get our house ready to put on the market. So we've got lots of projects to accomplish this summer. Hopefully, we'll have a post in the next year about our brand new house with the accompanying swimming pool!

So I guess I won't be posting very much this summer, as I am also homeschooling Trey throughout the summer months. We are very, very busy bees this summer!!! I wish everyone a very happy and relaxing summer!!! Please pray for us as we have soooo much work to do! :)

Tot School - March 23-27, 2009

If you read my post, New Preschool Curriculum for Lindsay, you already know that I bought a new Preschool Curriculum for Lindsay. I bought it from Mary Robinson at http://www.preschoolplanner.com/. So far I really like it. Some of the ideas listed below are my own, some are Mary’s. As I previously posted, I do not feel comfortable sharing the details of her ideas – even if I’ve tweaked them a little. So if you have questions, please refer to Mary’s website or her blog at Preschool Planner 101. I like it because it focuses on weekly themes, which works for us. And since I bought the ebook, I receive periodic emails from her with even more ideas. I just recently found her blog, and noted there were a lot of free items, so you might want to check that out first.

My teenage step-daughter, Tracy was on Spring Break this week and she came down on Tuedsay to spend the week with us. So we didn’t get a whole lot done because we like to spend as much time with her as we can because we just don't get to see her as much as we'd like. She's a busy, busy teenager living with her mom about 200 miles away. :( So, I'm sure you'll understand why Tot School was a little sparse this week. But here’s a little bit of what we did earlier in the week and this weekend.

Theme: Teddy Bears

We didn’t focus on a particular letter, shape, or color this past week. Lindsay has already mastered all of her shapes and colors, and I wanted to focus more on the alphabet as a whole as opposed to one specific letter this week.

Book Focus: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We did a Teddy Bear Show and Tell. Lindsay brought several of her favorite bears to “Floor Time.” We charted them and afterwards arranged the bears on the floor according to size. As an afterthought, I also tried to show her how to arrange them in alphabetical order by their names. I didn't think ahead or I would have charted them in alphabetical order to help her visually, but there's always next time I guess! I knew that skill was going to be difficult for her – she’s 3 and doesn’t have the entire alphabet down yet. She still skips the letter N and still can recognize a few of them when I present them out of order.
We also did a Teddy Bear Parade…we walked all over the house and let the bears wave to the parade-goers (the non-teddy-bear-stuffed-animals, dolls). She wanted to throw candy, but mommy had to veto that one!

We took to the internet and researched different types of bears and where they live in the world. I found this website very helpful. http://kids.poisson.org.uk/bears/types.htm. It listed the 8 different types of bears, photos of them in their environments, and a map of where they live. We talked about what different bears eat, and noted how some bears like cold weather and other bears like hot weather. I asked her to tell me what kind of weather each one of her stuffed bears liked. I was glad to see that she had a very diverse group of bears!

Addison helped Lindsay with a Puppet Show of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Goldilocks is a brunette in our house…lol. I was blown away with the thought and imagination that they put into this puppet show. They’re selling tickets for the “afternoon matinee” later on today. I wonder if they’ll give me a discount!

Pay no attention to the little grimey fingerprints on the TV behind them!

I ALWAYS forget those during clean-up!!

Music: We learned a new song called Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear by Jack Hartmann (this is in Mary's Ebook - I know this isn't a top secret song, because I used to do this with my preschoolers years ago, so I'm sharing it). I think it can be adapted to fit almost any theme. :)

Lyrics:
Teddy bear, teddy bear - turn around,
Teddy bear, teddy bear - touch the ground
Teddy bear, teddy bear - shake your hips,
Teddy bear, teddy bear - blow a kiss

Teddy bear, teddy bear - jump up high,
Teddy bear, teddy bear - see me smile
Teddy bear, teddy bear - give a hug,
Teddy bear, teddy bear - lots of love

Oh la, la, la, la, la love my teddy bear

This has nothing to do with Tot School, but I also took the kids outside yesterday morning (it was freezing) to get some pictures of them all together! Here are a couple of my favorites!

Tracy and Lindsay at a little park in Downtown Texarkana, AR.

All four of my kiddos!!

Lindsay, Tracy, Trey and Addison

For more Tot Reports from other moms, visit Carisa's blog at 1+1+1=1!

Addison

Sweet Addison!! She got an EZ Bake Oven for Christmas from her "B," and couldn't wait to get started!! She loves to cook and bake in the kitchen with Mom, but she was especially glad that she finally got to do something all by herself! She had a blast!!

And drum roll please..................................................................................

The finished masterpiece! I showed her how to use a sandwich bag as a pastry bag and she was off!! She frosted her cake with pink icing, then made a white icing so she could pipe on little white polka dots. She even put on little flower sprinkles for a finishing touch! Now, I know that this looks a little like puke on a plate, but I'm thrilled that she has a joy for cooking and can't wait to see what she'll come up with when she's using more than a light bulb to bake with!! LOL!! As Addie puts it, "This is really delicious practice!!!"

Goodbye 2008!!!!

I'm so glad that 2008 is over! Last year was not the greatest year for my little ones. Addie was diagnosed with (and subsequently teased at school about) Alopecia. She has 1 large and about 5 smaller bald spots on her head now, and was the target of teasing at school. She has the most beautiful thick black hair that I've ever seen, and it's so sad to watch her cry every morning getting ready for school. She's a trooper and wants to keep going anyway. So I'm blessed that she's such a strong little girl!


Of course, earlier last year, Trey was diagnosed with having developed a heart condition due to the ADD medication he was on. He is homeschooled now because things didn't really go so well at school once we took him off the medication. He's doing great at homeschool, but misses having friends to play with. We really want to sell our house and move into a neighborhood with at least SOME other children. The old folks in our neighborhood are sweet, but not very good at climbing trees. :) With the economy and housing market the way it is, I doubt that we'll be able to sell anytime soon, though.


Then for the last few months of 2008, Trey started complaining of back pain. I originally thought it was either his bed, or maybe he pulled a muscle working in the garage with Granddaddy. When I finally came to the realization that 9 year old kids shouldn't be pulling muscles, I made an appointment with his pediatrician.


On Monday, she diagnosed him with Scoliosis. They did some x-rays to make sure he doesn't also have Spondolythiasis. We will hear back either today or tomorrow with those results.


While I can't help but ask, "What Next??," I still know that none of these conditions are life threatening, and that all of my babies are still healthy!! Thank God for that!! I know it could be so much worse. There are so many other kids out there fighting for their lives, and I can't imagine how their parents are able to hold it all together. I could have literally drown in the worry that flooded my soul on Monday. But when the doctor said that he only has a 5% curvature, and that he should be fine, I knew that God was in control, and that I shouldn't worry.




Trey and Lindsay swinging on the swingset last week...Lindsay just woke up from her nap and made Trey take her outside to swing. She loves her Trey!!

It's Party Time....again...and again...and again!

For the exception of Tracy, all of my little ones' birthdays fall in either November or December. We didn't exactly PLAN it that way, but God did, so I don't complain. Lindsay's birthday comes first (Nov. 9), then Trey's on November 22 (sometimes it falls on Thanksgiving). Today was Addison's birthday (and coincidentally, also my mother in law's birthday). It's difficult for the kids to get birthday presents and then get excited about getting more presents on Christmas. But...they don't get a lot of presents throughout the year, so you'll not hear them complain!

Since Addison is my middle child, and sometimes gets a little overlooked because she's such a good girl, I always try to do something a little special for her. The other two got homemade birthday cakes and parties at home. But since Addie shares a birthday with her Grandmommy, we all went out to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner last night (since Daddy would have to work tonight). Addie loves to be the center of attention and informed me well ahead of time that she wanted everyone to sing Happy Birthday to her at the restaurant so everyone else would know she was a Birthday Girl. She's so funny that way.

She had no idea that the whole staff would come out and do their usual shout-out for the whole restaurant to give a big "YEE HAWWWW!" She fully enjoyed herself. Then today, since she had to go to school, I took cupcakes for her class. They sang "Happy Birthday to You, CHA CHA CHA!" Dad had to work tonight, so she and I spent the evening baking together. I think she had a really great birthday. She'll be disappointed in the morning when she wakes to find that her birthday is over. :(

Here are some pics of last night's fun!

Grandmommy and Addison

Cousin Cyndi and Addison (aren't they cute??)

Misconceptions about Homeschool

I had to share something that happened to me the other day. I was at work (to help out until they can find someone), and I just had to brag on Trey a little about how well he's been doing. Then someone said, "Wow...that's got to be real hard with his MOM as his teacher. And I bet you're not the slightest bit biased, are you?" I laughed it off, because working in a police department has taught me that most of what people say shouldn't be taken personally; because most of the time, those types of comments are made without much thought. After a day or two, though, it hit me that this may very well be a common misconception some folks have about homeschoolers. So I wanted to take a minute to assure those folks that homeschooling is no "easier" than public school. The academic content may actually be even more difficult, as well as the expectations of "the teacher" being higher if only because she knows your true potential.

Trey was really struggling in public school, and not because of the academic content. He was struggling because the school was unwilling to provide any modifications for him due to his ADD. For instance, they would put all of the math word problems at the top of the page instead of at the bottom. He would get stuck on the first one and was never able to move past it. Instead of nudging him to keep moving, the teacher would let him run out of time, and he would end up failing the test. This was very hard for him (and us) to swallow, because we know how smart Trey is.

Because he is now at home, I can nudge him to keep moving along. If he doesn't know the answer the question, I can nudge him to skip it and come back to it later. I do not give him the answers, and if you ask him, he'll surely tell you what a challenge it is, because when I ask a question, he can't hide in the back of the class hoping that someone else is going to raise their hand.

I test him weekly on the lessons that we have covered in his boxed set of curriculum. There are "Self Tests" at the end of each section, and there are 3-4 sections in a unit. The self tests are NOT open book, and he must score above an 80% to be allowed to move forward. On the rare occasion that he scores below an 80%, I make him review the entire section, and then I give him a separate quiz to insure he has mastered the material before moving on. He has 4 core subjects (Language Arts, History/Geography, Mathematics, and Science), and we also do Spelling and Vocabulary, and extra Enrichment activities that usually consist of experiments, Library visits, mini-units, etc. He doesn't do near as much reading as I would like him to, so I am considering starting a Boys Only Book Club through TEACH so that the boys can have something to challenge them to WANT to read.

Last week, he completed his first round of Unit Tests. He received high A's on everything. I give 2 bonus spelling words a week (just like public school), so his AVERAGE in Spelling is 110%. I couldn't be prouder of my little man! The only drawback seems to be the socialization factor so far. But there are a lot of sweet little boys in our homeschool group (TEACH) that he will get to play with a few times a month, so that will help. And Trey has never been one to have a lot of friends. Due to the insensitivity of most of the teachers he's come across, he has been made out to be the "problem child" and so most of the kids in the public school classrooms didn't want to have a lot to do with him. I realize that he's a challenge, but he is such a joy! He really loves people. He prays for people, even if he has no idea who they are.

I know I've told a lot of folks this story already, but when Trey was in the 2nd grade (last year), a dear friend of our family (Lindsay's babysitter, Karen) had a medical scare. I told the kids that we needed to remember to pray for Ms. Karen. Trey immediately asked us all to meet him in the living room. He instructed us to join hands and go around in a circle one by one and pray for Ms. Karen individually and then altogether. The next day, he went to school and had the entire 2nd grade praying for Ms. Karen at recess.

That is why I am so thankful for him (and all special needs children). Because they end up teaching us far more than we could ever imagine!

Tie-Dyed T-Shirts

I totally forgot to post photos of our Halloween T-Shirts. We borrowed this idea from Jenny at Little Acorns Treehouse (http://www.littleacornscds.blogspot.com/). She has such great ideas on her site. I think she said she borrowed this idea from Family Fun magazine. We used some of Trey's old undershirts that he had either grown out of or were stained. That way, we didn't have to purchase new ones...I love re-purposing! Anyway, here are the photos!

The kids drew on the designs for the jack-o-lantern faces (Lindsay had a little help from mom). And then I used black and green fabric paint to fill them in. They turned out soooo cute!

I'm so excited!!!

I can hardly contain myself! Lindsay is finally showing signs of being potty trained this century!!! She'll be 3 in a couple of weeks, and up until now, has been totally defiant against anything having to do with the potty. That is until I tried this new method by Lora Jenson, a stay at home mom (and potty training expert). It's called the 3 Day Potty Training method. It cost me $24.99 to download the ebook from the website, but I have to say, that was the best investment I've ever made! I would recommend it to anyone struggling with potty training...in fact, I would recommend it to anyone who is about to start. Why go through all the other junk first, if you can get them trained in a matter of days?

I am a very skeptical person by nature...I used to not be that way, but working in law enforcement will do that to you. And with our new budget restrictions due to my new homeschool mom/teacher status, I was very tempted not to purchase it. But then after another hour of getting screamed at by Lindsay just for suggesting the word "potty", my mind was changed. So I clicked the "Order Now" button, and 6 hours later, my little stubborn toddler was coming to tell me she had to go potty. I couldn't believe it. It was really half a day yesterday by the time I ordered it and read it, so today is really our first full day, and she's been totally accident free!

Is this the same child who would sit on the potty and scream bloody murder (no really...I had to shut the windows for fear that the neighbors would call the police), and pull her own hair and scratch herself out in a fit of outright rage?? She now loves the potty and even stayed dry all night last night! I would kiss Lora Jenson if I could!!!

Here's a link to her website if anyone's intersted: http://www.3daypottytraining.com