Loving Life

Hey guys! Guess what?! I have hands! They're so cool! I can look at them and hold them. They are also really good to chew on. Other than that, they still seem pretty useless to me. But I still think they are pretty and really like looking at them and admiring them. Every once in awhile, Mom puts me in a tub of water and gets me all wet. I really don't know if I like it all that much. She always tells me this joke every time she puts me in my tub: "How does a Mennonite girl take a bath? First she fills up the tub... then she turns on the water." Mom grew up Mennonite, but I'm not sure why she always tells me this joke and then giggles about it as she looks at me in my little tub. I'm clearly not amused by it. Another thing I like doing is sitting in my bouncy chair. I often sit there and tell David what to do with his school work. Mom tells me I shouldn't be so bossy when David isn't working on school work, but David doesn't see...

Before I get on with this post, I would like to report that my Christmas tree is finally down and put away until next year. Yea me! Last week, Keilah had a number of fussy days and had a hard time staying asleep during her naps. I wasn't sure what the deal was until I realized that I had been drinking a bit more coffee than usual. I was drinking half-caffeine, half-decaf, thinking we could manage that, but apparently not. When I cut that out of my life, she went back to her peaceful little self and hasn't had issues with her naps since. So I guess it's good-bye coffee for the next while. Sigh. The things we do for love. I'm beginning to wish David was old enough to drive now. Three days a week, he has band practice at the middle school, which is in the next town over. So I pack up and head over there for an hour those days. On one of the days, he has a lesson after band, so Keilah and I often hang out at the local coffee shop (don't worry, there are other thi...

Ana was on the food committee for her class' Halloween party.  She volunteered to bring brownies, suckers, and candy monsters.  She was most excited about making candy monsters.  Here's a sampling of her work. I know it's hard to tell what everything is since they are all bunched up together, but they turned out super cute.  Each one is different.  She couldn't wait to go to school today to share them with her classmates. These are currently the best things ever. Caramel Pear Scones. My recipe made 10 of them.  There are currently nine left.  I want to soon make that eight.  If someone tries to help me not over-indulge in these lovely things, they may get their hand bitten off. Someone needs to teach David to put his school work away as he finishes it instead of moving to a clean spot on the table for the next subject.  This is the table at the end of his school day. This is baby's stuffed doggie and blankie. My mom has bought ea...

My kids love to read and that makes me happy! The best way to get David to go to town with me is with a promise of a trip to the library. The girls are coming home from school excited to read books they got from school.  Ana is on a mission to read all 21 selected chapter books by the end of the school year so she can earn a Barnes and Nobles gift card.  She has read two books in two days.  I think she's well on track to accomplish that goal.  : ) Speaking of school, the girls are still loving it.  They come home every day excited to tell about all the fun things they did and learned.  The skip off happily to school every morning as well. It makes my heart happy to see their excitement for this new adventure in their life. Ana told me the other day that it seems like she's the only one in her class who really enjoys going to school.

Since I didn't do a good job yesterday in filling you all in about the girls' first day of school, here is a more complete overview along with pictures taken by my dear husband. As I said before, they were both a little nervous about going, probably Ana more than Abby.  But Abby takes her cues from her beloved big sister and was parroting most of the worries Ana was speaking. Heading out the door! Beginning to short walk to school Aaron walked with them the first day and he said by the time they got to the top of the hill leading down to school, they had found some friends and went happily scampering off to school. Ana is more introverted than Abby, so once she got home, she spent a couple of hours just quietly reading and getting some quiet and alone time.  Once that was out of the way, she told me quite happily about all the fun things they did and about her class, teacher, and classmates.  I think she will have a good year, though she's a bit sad that she onl...

The girls had their first day of school today!  They were both very excited, but also very nervous. We got to go to school last night to take their school supplies and unload them in their desks, meet their teachers, and eat ice cream at school.  What a great thing - if I equated school with ice cream, I'd be happy with it too!  This morning, I unfortunately was unable to see them off on their first day of school. I had to take David to his physical - one that you schedule four months ahead of time when you don't know that it will be the first day of school.  : (  However, Aaron did a fine job of seeing them off and he even took some pictures.  I will try to post them soon.  They both had an enjoyable first day and were excited to tell me all about it. As I said, I took David to his 12 year check-up/physical.  He used to be at about the 80th percentile on the growth chart for his height.  But now his is officially off the top end of it...

We had a great first day of school with David!  I think he even enjoyed it and was happy with his work.  I love starting off a school year on a good note like that.  I worked very hard the past few weeks in getting the lessons all mapped out and written down.  I'm not sure how many hours I poured into it, but I hope that it will free up many hours in the future of this year. I told David that this planner is now his life for 7th grade.  He must take good care of it and it will lead him well. He will learn to use it and rely on it to keep him on track and keep him organized throughout the year.  While I told him he may not get everything done in one day that's listed, he should have it done by Saturday at the latest. Here's our nicely organized school cupboard.  The most encouraging part of today was our writing class. That is the one subject we have butted heads on the most.  He despises writing and acts as if I'm trying to kill him when I h...

Tomorrow begins a new season in our lives.  David starts 7th grade tomorrow! We are starting school a little earlier this year than normal since we'll be taking a lot of time off in December to welcome a new little girl into our family. I always get excited and nervous at the start of each new year. This year is no exception. I decided to try planning out my entire school year in advance instead of my usual week by week approach.  I'm hoping that cuts down on my workload as well as my days of feeling unmotivated and not doing school, and that it will give David more responsibility in getting his work done.  But I did try to make sure to plan in some wiggle room days so that it's not all work and no play.  Second semester has more wiggle room than first semester.  We're going to try to hammer down the first semester and get a lot done so that we can relax a little more once baby is born. The girls start school next week. I have som...

We've had a busy last week or so.  Here's some big news in Abby's life.  She lost her two front teeth. They came out about four days apart.  She truly lost the second tooth and wasn't able to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy apparently isn't as vigiliant about leaving money when there is no actual tooth to collect.  But after a few days, our tooth fairy remembered and finally slipped some money under Abby's pillow along with an extra quarter for having to wait so long for her to decide to show up.  At the same time, David had a tooth under his pillow for about three weeks waiting for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy finally had to visit during the day when he wasn't in his room, when she finally remembered to pick up the tooth.  It's hard on the tooth fairy to show up when David stays up later than the tooth fairy does these days.  Here's Abby's new look: She's also delighted with the fact that she doesn't ha...

I had a lovely weekend here in my little corner of the world.  My Friday was awesome.  It was the first time in weeks that I felt like a normal human full of energy with no nausea.  It was glorious.  I now have hope for the next week or so as I finish out this trimester that I will again feel human.  Let us hope that this pregnancy follows the example of my previous ones! I enjoyed my Mother's Day.  I have given Aaron permission to not stress about making the day perfect and buying my expensive gifts.  I really don't want  Aaron to buy me something because he "has to do it".  He's good at doing sweet things for me throughout the year just because.  Those mean WAY more to me than anything else.  I saw on the news that the average American spends $154 on Mother's Day.  Really?  That's the average person - which factors in people like us who don't do anything that costs money.  Wow!  The thing we did do was...

Day one of full time school was a success for the girls!  They came home excited to tell me about what happened during their day.  It was fun to hear about all they did.  They even were excited about the bit of homework they had.  It sounds like they are learning to navigate the school and learn how things work.  Ana was very excited to have her own desk and a place to store her stuff.  And Abby got her own place to hang her supplies on her chair.  All of that made them each feel like they belonged instead of being a visitor.  Tomorrow's clothes are already laid out next to their backpacks in anticipation of another good school day.  Now onto things that are constantly on my mind - food.  I struggle in my first trimester of feeling good and enjoying eating.  It's usually a feeling of being sick if I don't eat, but feeling even sicker when I do eat.  I spend much time everyday trying to think of something that sounds good to e...

Today is the big day!  The day when the girls begin their journey in public school!  There was a lot of excitement this morning as they got ready.  There was also a fair amount of nervousness too.  I've never gotten to do the whole obligatory pose with your backpack on your first day of school picture before.  But today is the day to make it happen!  So here you go - pictures of my two favorite girls on their first day of school. We went garage sale shopping last weekend and found a very nice backpack for Ana.  It has all sorts of pockets that she fell in love with.  It's always fun to get new school supplies! Here they are pretending to trudge to school. Their classmates were all excited to see them arrive.  One little girl in Abby's class had made her a little heart out of  pipe cleaners and was all excited to give it to her when she arrived.  I think they will have a good time and though the adjustment phase might be a lit...

So I knew I hadn't posted in awhile, but didn't realize it's been over a month.  Whoops!  I guess time got away from me yet again.  So in the last month or so, two big changes have occurred that I need to tell you about. Change #1 - We have decided to send the girls to public school next year.  To help them transition into that idea, they will be finishing out this school year with their classes starting next Wednesday, May 9th.  I think in my last post, I had written that we were considering this option.  I've really struggled a lot this past year with having all three in school and trying to teach them with quality while still trying to get all my other things done that I am responsible for.  I felt like I was too stretched to be able to do a good job with anything going on in my life.  While in a perfect world, I think I would continue to homeschool my kids, it's just not possible right now.  There are too many things going on ...

Last week, I sent the kids on separate field trips.  They each attended a day of public school with a friend.  David went with a 7th grade buddy (David is technically in 6th grade, age-wise) and had a decent time.  His first and foremost complaint was that his lunch was too small and he was still hungry after he finished his lunch.  Do you think the boy is growing???  He came home being happy about being homeschooled.  He did enjoy PE because they got to roller skate.  He also enjoyed the study hall where he could do what he wanted to do, which was see how high he could go in the Mayan number system we had studied earlier in the week. So the day was pretty uneventful for him.  He said he doesn't think he wants to try out public school right now. The girls were a different story.  They each went for a half day with their respective friends that are in their grade.  They came home bursting with excitement over how much they lo...

I was reminded last night by some friends that I have not posted anything new on the ol' blog for a few weeks.  Hmm... I guess it's time to post something.  I have posted many things in my mind over the last few weeks, but obviously none of those posts have made it from my mind to the internet.  So here we go in a random, no particular order, with bullet points, post about what's been rolling around my mind. I survived my 21 day vegan diet  with my mom.  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (though I did cheat once with ice cream).  My mom lost about 11 pounds.  I lost about 3 1/2.  We took about three weeks off and ate a little more normal (i.e. lots more ice cream).  I'm going back on it for another three weeks or so again with her again.  I might not be ultra strict, but when I have the choice, I'll choose vegan again.  But I'm positive this won't be a permanent lifestyle change for me. Life skills week in schoo...

So I obviously didn't post pictures as soon as I had hoped about our sewing project day.  Sorry to those who were anxiously awaiting my update.  Our sewing day was only for the girls last week as one of my sewing friends was sick, so I couldn't do all three at once.  The girls each decided to make a kitty.  I let them pick out the fabric of their choosing and my dear neighbor Miriam came with her sewing expertise to help us.  Abby's role was a little less than Ana's due to being little and the pattern was a little harder for little fingers.  But here she is happily stuffing her kitty. Ana did more of the work by herself.  I helped guide the corners and curves as she sewed.  She did the rest. The almost finished product.  We still have to sew on eyes, nose, whiskers and mouth.  The girls are delighted in their kitties. David started his sewing project today.  He is making an organizer that hangs over the seatback of the car.  ...

I get antsy and discouraged with school around this time of year every year.  So this year, after talking over ideas with my supervising teacher, I decided we're going to take a week off of "normal" school and do a week of "life skills".  So far it's been pretty fun.  We started off learning about how to budget and pay bills and keep a check book.  I created two little scenarios for David and Ana (Abby is living with Ana while she goes to college).  They have a hypothetical monthly income with house payments and all that go with real life living.  I tried to keep it fairly close to real life.  It's been interesting watching their reactions from being excited about starting with so much money and seeing it being eaten away by regular living expenses.  We are 2/3 of the way through our bill paying and will finish it up today.  They will each end with around $200 left and we'll talk about what we could do with that extra money.  Here are t...

I saw a fun idea in a magazine awhile ago and thought I would give it a try with the kids.  Artist Trading Cards.  The idea is to make small cards on plain white cardstock.  They suggested baseball card size, but I happened to have sleeves for business card size, so that's what we went with.  Once you get that, get busy decorating!  You can design cards however you want using whatever medium you want.  Once you get a base of cards, you can start trading them with each other so you have a large variety of cards - just sign your name on the back so you can keep track of your various cards and who designed them.  I have to say that this idea was a HIT!  The kids absolutely loved it and spent many, many hours creating various cards.  They sent out cards to distant relatives in hopes that they'll get some back from them.  We haven't gotten any yet (if you are a relative reading this who received your cards, ahem, the kids are waiting...)....

This year I planted some fall lettuce again.  It took awhile for it to grow because I forgot to water it and we had a very dry end of the summer.  But it eventually rained a few times and my lettuce grew!  I love having fresh lettuce from the garden.  Unfortunately, I didn't plant enough of it.  I am sad about that.  I may get one more cutting from it, but it is mostly done for the year. I am happy to report that my tomatoes are done.  I probably could have gotten a few more, but I have a small pile to still work with and have canned all I am able to can.  I don't know where my final count is for what I canned with tomato products this year.  I wish I could find it.  Perhaps if I clean off my desk I will.  All I know is that I reached my goal of having enough tomatoes.  I haven't had enough in the past few years since my tomato plants all died after the first round of production.  Not this year.  Plus I planted about...

Last Friday, the kids and I took a day off from school to have a field trip day to Bloomsbury Farms.  We had gone there last year and the kids kept begging to go back there again this year.  The day was a beautiful warm fall day (once the morning chill was gone).  We had a great time.  I took my camera, but got tired of lugging it around with me and dumped it in the van after a few pictures were taken here and there. We had fun playing in the giant rocking chair. This next picture does not at all do this thing justice.  It's part of a little maze you go through and you enter the end of this tunnel with a walkway through the middle of it.  The tube around the walkway is covered with lights and is spinning around so that when you enter, you feel as though you are about to fall over.  If you notice David leaning to the side and Ana hanging on for dear life to the railing, that is how you walk through the tunnel.  It's such a fun sensory overload ...