I am not really complaining about my lack of time to come and blog, but more just stating the facts!  We are in the thick of the crazy time and I have rarely been on this blog.  I do hope everyone is well.  We are doing well here.  We have actually had weather in the 70's.  I even have some serious weeds popping up!  You know, those pesky, pokie kind.  The apple trees are getting their leaves, as are the blueberry bushes and the peach/cherry trees!  We are getting our eggs from the little hens like clockwork.  They are so cute.  And that rooster - we call him Rambo, he is still quite feisty.  Although he has not attacked anyone lately.  My friend Lori was attacked by one of her roosters though and he poked a hole in her leg that oozed for 24 hours.  Lets just say that her roosters went to live down the road with someone else who wanted them.  They will probably become fox dinner, as the lady who wanted them said she wanted them because her roosters were taken away by some pesky fox.  By the time Lori was bleeding from the leg in two spots, she was all, "So when do you want them?"  I digress.

We are trying to wrap up the school year here soon.  We have our testing next week and the kids are just giddy with excitement (hahahaha).  It is always so hard to do school after testing.  We all seem to just fade away.  Do you know what my consolation package to myself is?  "Well, kids that are in school are having field trips by the droves, field day, movies in class, class parties, help the teacher clean out the room, etc . . .*"  I know some of you must surely do that too?  Right? 

*I know this to be true because Josh was in school for first grade and also the second half of his 6th grade year.  Believe me, it happens.  I am not trying to be mean, just stating the facts.

We received our two books in the mail, Why Gender Matters, by Dr. Leonard Sax, and The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto.  Really great books.  Rodger is reading Gatto's book right now and I am reading Sax's book.  Wow is all we can say.  Get them for yourselves and give them a good read.  You'll not regret it.  I am still amazed at the amount of physiological differences between boys and girls.  Truly amazed.  I never learned any of this stuff in nursing school.  Let alone the owners manual I got with Josh at the hospital after birth!

Another random thought:  two gals at church had babies about a month ago and so I was out getting baby gifts for them.  Can I tell you it makes me want the have like, 10 more kids everytime I go to the Carters store or Children's Place.  Or OshKosh B'Gosh! 

Well, Rodger seemed to think I had tons of blogging fodder, but I might be in the midst of a writers cramp since being away for so long.  Hopefully I will get it all back.  Soon.

I'm just closing with the above photo of yours truly.  I took this of myself whilst coming home from MB last October.  You might not be able to see all the frekles up close, but the original is quite apparent.  Meanwhile, after a long vitamin d (sun) deprivation from our long winter I looked in the mirror.  Wow.  I am the embodiement of whiteness.  I was thinking I would get some sun here soon, and low and behold, I was burned just the other day.  Apparently this Ohio sun is quite fierce.  Or maybe I am just to pale. 

Well, have a wonderful week and hopefully you are getting some nice weather wherever you are. 

Blessings, Tammy

I had a lovely entry earlier that detailed what we have been doing.  Apparently it did not enter?  Sometimes I love the cyberworld!  A Lot! 

I had done such a quick entry that I can't even remember what I had written.

Oh, yea, it was about how our lives have entered the twilight zone.  Meaning, it is soccer season!  We will see the light of day in a calm way in about a month. We have games for three kids and two kids are doing ballet.  One child is doing soccer and ballet - Chloe.  For all of the craziness that goes on, I do enjoy soccer.  It is good to see the kids get out and play.  I enjoy getting to see moms that have been holed up in their homes all winter.  It is good catch up time. 

This week we had a fellow come over and clear about 1/2 an acre of land.  While he was pushing trees over, Rodger was using the chainsaw to chop them up.  Note to chainsaw users:  Always use safety helmet you REQUESTED for Christmas.  Why?  Because sometimes when you are sawing a tree you might hit an area of high tension and get a little kickback reaction.  Translated:  you might almost cut your entire head off!  Yes, that happened to Rodger this week.  He was sawing a tree branch off and the aforementioned tension occured and his saw kicked back on him and knocked him over.  Fortunately his Echo chainsaw has a device that turns the chain off when this occurs.  What was Rodgers reward?  Only a slight knick on his forehead.  Lets just say that he was looking for his safety helmet post-haste.  We are giving thanks to God for watching over him and for keeping his guardian angels on duty that day.  He was pretty sure he cut his head off before he realized that all was still intact.

I am now off to finish up some housework.  My lot in life - laundry.  I won't know what to do with myself when there is only Rodger and I left to do laundry for.  Maybe I will offer to go to some tired moms house and do her laundry because I will miss it so much!!  HA!

Blessings for your week, Tammy

*I am in need of some direction on why my links to all my highlighted areas are not working.  What on earth am I doing wrong?  Apparently I missed the memo that I am not doing it correctly.  So PLEASE leave me a little memo as to what I am doing incorrectly.  Thanks, Tammy

How does one manage to go to a homeschool conference and miss tons of opportunities to take pictures with a camera?  The camera I took specifically to get some pictures of us at the conference.  But, alas, I managed to forget the camera in the hotel room every single time we went out.  

The conference itself was good.  We heard Todd Wilson from Family Man Ministries.  Terrific sense of humor with very encouraging message for wives and husbands.  Andrew Pudewa

We heard of Institute for Excellence In Writing.  Again, a very powerful speaker.  He had an excellent session on "Teaching boys and other children who would rather make forts all day."  I am still processing what he said and infact, I bought the cd of that session to listen to again.  He recommended three books to read.  Go to your death $5,000.00 in debt if you have to just to get these books and read them (tongue in cheek)!  #1, a one Dr. Sax.  Don't remember the title to his book, but it is a good description of the boy/girl differences (addendum: Peduwa does not believe/agree with everything that is in this book, but nonetheless, it is an excellent book).

#2, John Taylor Gattos book called, The Underground History of Education.  Now, you should probably be willing to go $10,000.00 in debt to add this book to your collection (again, tongue in cheek).  But READ IT.  You will be a better person and definately depressed about the lack of hope of the institution of public school.

*editors note: I realize that there are many good teachers in public schools, and in fact, there are some really good schools out there, but that does not mean that there is not an agenda.  There is.  Go here to see what is happening in bigger cities and will be coming to a school near you soon.

#4, To round off your reading and to bring you back to the light, finish off your reading of #2 with, "A Thomas Jefferson Education".  It is not just about Thomas Jefferson, but more about he and his contemporaries' education.  More of a classical bent to the book.  If any of you have used the IEW program, drop me a note and give me your opinions.  Before I decide to use this program, I would like to get some feedback from others who have been in the trenches with it.  Thanks in advance for any feedback

Oh, when going to a conference of this magnitude, one hopes to be encouraged and refreshed.  Not to mention a small platter of guilt.  Anissa and I knew it was a success when we walked out of one of the sessions and we had guilt!

Seriously, there was some conviction about being nice to other peoples' kids but not our own.  Ouch!  A really good reminder that because my kids "know" I love them, it does not mean I get a free license to be a booger-head to them.  Because if the truth were to be told, I am hard on them at times.  Harder than I need to be. 

One of the highlights of being there was the vendor hall.  So, Anissa and I prepared ourselves for this overwhelming joy/excitement/nirvanah like experience by having our own paper bag ready.  Last year it was ugly!  We both walked in and BOOM!  It was all there.  LampLighter books, Rainbow Resource(my favorite), Peace Hill Press, Sonlight (which, by the way, as we were pulling out of our driveway, Rodger grabbed the mail and there it was!  My new catalog!), IEW, Memoria Press(not that we actually did  our latin).  And many more.  Check out the website of the convention to see all the vendors.  Indeed, it is an experience to behold. 

Jeannie Fulbright was there, but I did not get to hear her speak.

Jessie Wise was there, but I did not get to hear her speak either.  Or rather, I chose not to go to her because she had titles that made me think she might just be repeating what the book already says (Susan did that last year). 

I have to confess, that last years line up was a little better than this years, but overall it was still wonderful.

We had THREE dinners without any children!  The hotel we were at was the "Not so Comfortable Inn".  We had St. Mary's LaCrosse team with us the first night.  They took their fish nets out in the hall at 1/2/3 am and were practicing for the next days big game.  Oh, that was after the NCAA basketball game was over.  How do we know that an NCAA b-ball game was on you might be wondering?  Well, those little morsels were right under us and we heard it all!  Then, last night we had a Detroit Basketball team with us.  They were out till 2/3 am yelling around the hallway area.  So really, it was just like home with all the lack of sleep.  The pillows rocked though!  They were so cozy! 

We had another couple from our church who were there without their three littles and they lead us to a fine dining experience of ecclectic Italian.  The restaurant was somewhere in Cincinnati.  We then stopped at Graeters Ice Cream shop across the street to end the night.  Ahhhh, living in non-reality was fun for a few days .  So now we are back home and the kids are still with aunt and uncle for the night.  They will be back tomorrow sometime.

Shhh, don't tell Anissa I told you so, but her husband took us to Dayton on the "way" to Cincinnati.  Apparently he was in the midst of such stimulating conversation that he missed his turn. We all had a good chuckle about it.  I mean, it was only 48 miles out of the way.  Really, it is a non-issue.  Just don't tell her I told you! 

O.K. here are some of the pictures I said I would get posted:

 This is Monty, the "Barrel around the neck" dog.  He is a friends dog.

Here are two pictures of the kids doing eggs.

Chloe's Opus Magnum. . .

Josh.  What else can I say?  I know God has got great plans for this boy!

So, we went, we saw, we conquered.  I shopped for a few things, although I am not exactly sure of everything we are doing next year.  I need to finish this year first.  We joined HSLDA for the first time ever.  Gary DeMar spoke and just listening to him makes me want to give him my money.  In the form of a book purchase, of course! 

I will probably pull out snippets of the weeks happenings as I process it all.  Hopefully I will not forget everything I heard. 

Have a wonderful week and feel free to leave a comment on the IEW  program.

Blessings, Tammy

I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter Day with your families.  Ours was a very low key day.  My sister-in-law was up for the day with the cousins(brother-in-law could not make it).  The cousins were here on Friday and spent the weekend.  The kids all had fun.  I ended up having ALL 11 cousins at my house on Friday (11 includes my four) for some egg decorating and play time.  They all did well.  Unless you count my youngest male nephew.  He is somewhat of a terrorist and enjoys chasing the ducks/chickens.  Apparently he had visions of Jedi Knighthood and slaying my birds.  He was chasing them with a large stick of sorts and got ahold of one of the ducks.  Josh set him quite straight!  You see, Josh may get chased by the rooster but he is quite fond of the birds and can't stand to see someone chasing/hurting them.  I was pulling for Rambo Rooster to get Caleb.  But he didn't.  By the way, we now call our rooster Rambo.  We were swaying between Rambo and Terminator.  Rambo has won.  Anyway, we decorated eggs and had cookies and wreaked havoc on my home.  The pics. will come but I have not gotten them on the computer yet. 

We went to the dollar theater on Saturday night and saw National Treasure part two.  Way good show.  And it was P.G.  If you liked part one you will like part two.  Of course Rodger, being the eternal realist, did not like it that Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) could figure stuff out so quickly.  It just is not real.  But who goes to the movies for a reality check?  Not me.  The world needs realists like him though. 

Tonight we had our kids Talent Show with our homeschool group.  Zach played piano and Sophie did a little skit with her friend Mackenzie.  Rodger looked at me after the first song and said in a VERY quiet whisper, "This is going to be a loooong night."  Yep.  I have to say that overall it was a good night and so many of the kids got up and did something in front of a lot of people!  I could not have sang a song in front of all those people!  I would have sweat bullets and turned like, 20 shades of red.  I can talk in front of people, but don't ask me to sing! It was cute to see them showing off their talents. 

Hey, an update on Jenny.  Today her incision on her head began leaking fluid and her husband took her to the dr.  She has to go in tomorrow for another surgery to place a shunt in her brain to re-route the spinal fluid that is going into her brain area.  If the Lord reminds you, please continue to pray for her and her family.  She will also be seeing an Oncologist who is known to be very upfront and not the most positive.  He tends to give you all the negatives and then hope for the best.  I do not think this is all a bad thing for them.  Her husband is still in a kind of denial (I do not begrudge him what he is going through, just stating where he is emotionally).  Thanks for praying for them. 

Well, have a great week.  I will be off to the Midwest Homeschool Conference in TWO DAYS.  Of course I will miss my children.  I will probably loose sleep and need to come home early.  I know it is time for a little get-a-way when my "rose colored glasses" came off and Rodger actually bothered me.  Hmph.

See ya on the other side of the conference. 

God Bless, Tammy 

Me:  Josh, would you please go and feed/water and collect eggs from the chickens.

Josh:  Sure.

*fast forward a little bit*

Josh, bursting in the house.  Obviously disgruntled and/or other fuming emotions spilling forth

Me:  What on earth is the matter? 

Josh:  I want that rooster dead! 

Me:  Well what happened (I confess to my desire to know when the rooster attacks.  I have to blog about something.  And when I'm irritated it gives me a vision of something to laugh at)?

Josh:  He ruffled his feathers at me!!!

Me: Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

end conversation

Seriously.  The rooster ruffled his feathers at Josh!  My nearing 100 pound child is upset because the rooster ruffled his feathers at him. 

Rooster - ll        Josh - 0. 

I think I'll post this on our dry erase board.

*Please be in prayer for a family in our homeschool group.  They have 3 children in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades and also the mom's teenage sister lives with them because the mother/younger sisters mom died a few years back.  The mom in this family was just diagnosed with brain cancer and had surgery to remove it last week.  Her family is reeling with shock and they are very scared.  The mom, Jenny, is paralyzed on her right side (don't know if it is permanent or just a temporary thing).  The 8th grader is trying to care for the mom right now.  They also are disconnected from a church right now.

God bless, Tammy