12/31/09

As I listen to the numerous and explosive sounds of fireworks being released in my neighborhood, I just want to scream! I feel like such a fuddy duddy who hates anything fun but I am beginning to hate fireworks! It never bothered me until I had children and sleep became a precious gift to me.If they weren't so loud then perhaps they would be alright but they waken my sleeping babes which in turn wakes me and makes me highly irritable. But I digress because I really do like fireworks . . . I just like my sleep more. Happy New Year!

12/16/09

“Success is waking up in the morning, whoever you are, wherever you are, however old or young, and bounding out of bed because there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that you’re good at – something that’s bigger than you are, and you can hardly wait to get at it again today.”
Whit Hobbs


I love this quote because it describes perfectly how I feel most days. When I wake up, my first thoughts are on my kids and our day ahead. I love being a mom. Their smiling faces light up my day and bring tears to my eyes. Its amazing what an impact they have in my life. There are the days that they drive me crazy making me want to dive off a cliff into a boiling lake of lava while singing 'I'm a little teapot'. But those days are few thankfully, leaving me to enjoy their spunky and curious nature.


Its amazing to me that I am in this place at all. Prior to meeting my husband, I wanted nothing to do with marriage or kids. My life's goal was to either be an FBI serial killer profiler or to join the peace corp - which I realize reside on opposite ends of the job spectrum but either way there was no room for a family in my vision. Isn't funny how God changes you? Here I am today a happy wife with the usual 'close the toilet lid' complaints, a excited mother who occasionally drifts over to the cliffs of insanity and my children's teacher which I surprisingly love. I thank God frequently for giving my all that I have which is a hidden treasure of love, joy, happiness with touches of bewilderment and frustration. But I love it all and I look forward to every day.

11/5/09

She is finally here! I began wanting her desperately almost two years ago and God has finally brought her into my life. She was born just hours after her expected due date which surprised us all since her siblings were both a week late and she had shown no signs of arriving early. My labor started around midnight but I didn't believe it could be the real thing so I took something to help me sleep. When I woke three hours later in excruciating pain, I realized that I may have been mistaken. I timed the contractions, called my wonderful doctor and we drove to the hospital at five in the morning. My husband and I were discussing the possibility of false labor when our six year old daughter interrupted us and boldly told us that we needed to pray. With proud smiles, we listened to the prayer of our first angel who prayed for mommy to be okay and her sister to be healthy. That was a proud moment for us and one we will never forget. By eight in the morning we were listening to the wonderful sounds of our daughter being born and I was nursing her by nine. She is the most beautiful baby and so very sweet. I feel extremely blessed to have been given the honor of being her mommy. Welcome to the world, little one.






10/18/09

It was a beautiful day with fall temperatures, a lovely breeze and sun shining through the trees. We loved that so many friends came to help us celebrate both of our birthday kids. I just can't believe that they are already four and six, it seems just like yesterday that I was dressing them in their special outfits to go home from the hospital for the first time. We started off with Benjamin's craft choice of filling pumpkin necklaces with orange and yellow sand, then proceeded to Tiffany's craft choice of painting ceramic pumpkin planters. We played a fun game of Ring the Pumpkin and gave everyone who tried homemade pumpkin necklaces. Then we ate pumpkin cake which I was surprised to learn was actually pretty good. Then we let the kids play at the park and cleaned up. When we got home, we opened our presents and got to hear a number of screams of joy at seeing their wonderful presents. It was a wonderful for all of us and especially the kids. Nothing makes me happier than knowing I was able to give them one wonderful day

10/3/09


Life's journey sometimes take us places we never thought we would go, at least without putting up a really good fight. That is how my homeschool journey has been. I never thought that there was anything outside of public school with their substandard cafeteria food and slightly maniacal teachers. My experience wasn't good either at school. I had trouble with grades, self-esteem and hung out with the loser druggie crowd so I was picked on often by the totally cool and awesome kids who were only cool and awesome because they had better fashion sense then I did wearing my grandmother's 1920 dresses and my sister's hippie rejects.

Eventually, I escaped the confines of public school and went on to college where I did well in the majority of my classes. I loved being at college. I don't why since I didn't really make friends there but I loved learning, listening to the lectures and getting a different perspective of things. My major was sociology but as I inched closer to graduation, I began to shift my interests to education. Where this came from I have no idea because I knew that I did not want to work with kids. But eventually I saw this as God moving in my life and I reluctantly accepted it. I didn't change my major but I did take some courses on teaching which I enjoyed immensely, even with the crazy media professor teaching us of archaic machines that can help us teach.

After college, when my parenthood began, I would plan out lessons in my head about things I wanted our kids to know. Things like astronomy, art and why the Beatles are historically important (I'll save that for a future blog) among many other random topics swirled about in my mind. I would also buy numerous workbooks ranging from Pre-K basic skills to fourth grade history anytime I saw them on sale. Why would I do this I could never figure out, after all what would I do with them but I bought them all none the less. Then I met a friend who had been homeschooled and planned on homeschooling her own kids. I always respected her choice but I knew that I would never do that because I value my freedom too much and because my kids need socialization. Isn't it funny how we make our plans without consulting the one who made us only to have Him come up and pull the rug out from under our feet and point us in a different direction. That is what happened to me. I kept saying that I would never homeschool for a variety of reasons and then one day I couldn't wait to start homeschooling. Hold on! What happened? Did nobody understand my plan? Incidentally, the same thing happened when I had my second child. There was nothing that could have made me want to endure pregnancy a third time yet here I am nine months pregnant wondering how I got here. Last year I knew that I would never homeschool or have a third pregnancy and now God is looking down smiling at me thinking, 'Never Say Never'. I'm sure that my stubborn nature will say never to God somewhere down the road.

After months of looking at various curriculums, I finally found the one I think will work best for my daughter and myself. When the package came I could not contain my excitement and immediately immersed myself into her school. I also found some things for my son to do to keep him busy figuring that he would rather play than do school work. How wrong I was! My son loves school and doing the worksheets, in fact I often run out of things for him to do but my daughter is another story. These were my expectations - my daughter would love the individual attention coupled with learning to read and my son would color one picture, get bored and run off to play. So she and I have been struggling with attitude, discipline and just getting her work done. Every week we get a little closer to finding a solution and every week I want to hit my head on the wall or just shake her a bit until she stops complaining. But I love hearing her telling daddy about what she has learned in extreme detail which tells me that its working just not the way I imagined it. Every day will get better and soon we will both be having fun.

8/25/09

Puddles

Yesterday, my sweet boy called me into the bathroom because he needed help (I'll leave the details to your imagination) when I noticed a puddle underneath the footstool. It looked like he couldn't make it to the potty so we had our 'talk' about where we go tee tee at and like the sweet boy he is, he said that he was sorry. So today, when he said that he had to go potty, I gently reminded him that we don't go tee tee on the floor. His response almost caused me to have an accident of my own.

"But mommy, I didn't go tee tee on the floor . . . I went tee tee in the footstool".

He said it with so much pride that I couldn't even get mad at the intentionality of his naughty behavior. Boys!

8/24/09

Our future ballerina has been so excited because she has moved up a grade in ballet. She is now in the big classroom with older girls and couldn't be happier. She learned some new moves that she says are hard but with practice she will get good at them.

Our newest ballet dancer (I don't think we should call him a ballerina) was excited before we left our house and even more excited after he was done. His over exuberance in telling me about his class and teachers brought tears to my eyes. He was so happy. Even the moms next to me said that based on his excitement they couldn't wait to see the performance.
My sweet little ballet boy.


Here are some of the dancers together.




Here are three short videos of the ballet boy.
He did really good considering this was his first time.



This is a short video of our sweet girl with the bigger kids.
Its brief but she really arches her feet well.


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