We haven't had Luther tested for Dyslexia. It would cost $1200 and *if* we were to spend that much I'd rather have him work with a Davis Dyslexia cure person (whatever they are called!). So we are plugging along and slowly he is making progress. We switched his Math curriculum to RightStart, and we started that today. It went well and he likes that there aren't very many worksheets ( I suspect he has dysgraphia too).

Howard has lost lots more teeth-it's a wonder he can eat! His toothless grin sure is cute though. I am beginning to suspect he has dyslexia too however and I am convinced Kate does. *SIGH*

Kate has learned that it is a bad idea to put clay into her ear. When we went to the doctor, she had to have her ear irrigated. It took two nurses and me holding her down for the doctor to be able to get the clay out. I don't think she'll do that again.

I go to the doctor to see if I can get medication for my ADD tomorrow. I am hoping it helps me focus and be more able to complete tasks. it would be nice to not loose everything, too. I really think that my whole family would benefit from a mom who can concentrate! I also finally found the cord for my Palm so I could charge the battery. I think that may help too, assuming I don't loose it again.

Jason and I decided to go to Saguaro Lake and have a picnic for Labor day.  I packed up the cooler with sandwiches, boiled eggs, grapes,  and sodas, suck an old table cloth in a paper bag with the Pringles and paper plates & towels, loaded the children into the car and we were off.....almost

Jason noticed that one of the tires on his car was flat & wanted to change it in the hope that he would be able to have it repaired. So after a slight delay we really were off.

We drove to the lake and got everything unloaded. I spread the table cloth and handed out food. Kate and Luther didn't want to eat, so they were just going to have sodas. They opened the cans and then we had bees. Not cute fuzzy bumble bees.....we had aggressive africanized bees everywhere! I took stock of the situation, and moved Luther's bee infested soda a little way away thinking that it would keep the bees happy and they'd ignore us. At the same time I decided the perhaps the flowered  vinyl table cloth was a poor choice, so I flipped it over to the white fuzzy side.

While I was dealing with the bees,  Jason took the children to change into their swimming suits. Luther was elated when they returned, "Guess what Mom?!?! We saw a girl getting arrested!" Oh, my.....

We still had lots of nasty bees, so we decided to walk to the lake shore. I was blessed with a grandmother who had a lakeside cabin in Minnesota where I got to spend my summers as a child. Now that is what a lake should be-spring-fed crystal clear and sky blue. In Arizona, we have glorified mud puddles: large, but still just a mud puddle. I was standing ankle-deep in the "lake" and I couldn't see my feet because the water was that muddy. EW!

So after about 5 minutes of that Luther says, "I want to go home!" Jason and I seized this moment and had everything back in the van in under ten minutes.

As we were driving home, Jason pulled over to let a police car pass-it was going really fast. And a few miles down the road we see the same car with a cop squatting behind the door, his gun pointed at a young man who had his hands behind his head. Not 50 feet farther down the road was another car pulled over, the driver and passengers all standing with their hands on the car, and another policeman with his gun drawn.

We made it home, filled up the wading pool and barbecued hot dogs....I think next time I suggest a picnic, we'll just have it in our back yard.

My dd asked for a guinea pig for her birthday last March. So now we have 2 very cute "piggies", who get a lot of attention from her. Princess Cutie-Pie and Princess Pinky live in the school room. They get "venchtables" (vegetables) every evening or whenever she thinks they need them. They are awfully cute, but who would have thought that a rodent or two could be so lovable?

Pinky is albino ( or "has albino" as Kate puts it). She is the biggest guinea pig I have ever seen. We often call her a ROUS (Rodent of unusual size). Despite her size, she seems to eat less than Cutie-Pie. She does like to chew however. She has the funniest reflex: when you scratch her rump or her back she chews whatever is there. Silly piggy!

Cutie-Pie is a voracious eater. She likes all kinds of "venchtables". She also is quite fond of popcorn. :) She will steal food from right under Pinky's nose and take it to the other side of the cage to eat. She will, I'm sure, be glad when it is cool enough for her to go outside for a little nibble of grass again.

I am sure you now know more about Kate's pets than you really wanted to know! They are really cute however. :D

Why does this take so long? Today Luther worked from 9-2:30 and finished math, language arts and reading. We watched half an hour of Muzzy Spanish during lunch. I'm exhausted! In part I'm sure my exhaustion is due to my sinus infection (I think I'm *finally* starting to get better). We are falling behind in history, science and art because I am so tired by the time the basics are done. I'm sure once I am healthier I will get more done. But will Luther ever work faster?

Jason and I have decided to Have Luther formally evaluated for dyslexia. It runs in both of our families, so I think he probably does have dyslexia. That is the only thing that would explain to me why a very intelligent child would have such a struggle with reading. He gets so frustrated (and I do too). Seeing my son struggle is very hard for me, even when I *know* I have done everything in my power to help him succeed.

Luther seems to be enjoying his classes at Eagleridge, especially chess. I bought him a board today (got a great deal on a wooden set at Tuesday morning for $4!). Spanish seems to be harder for him. He was complaining that the PE teacher was actually making them exercise, silly child.

Howard hasn't said much about his teacher, but there is at least one child in his class that was last year. The boys have different recess/lunch times now, so they don't see each other during the day.

In other news, Jason should finish the last of the flooring today (he has a little bit of trim to do) and then we'll move the rest of the furniture back. We all love the new floors, but I need to get some rugs now. So I still don't have school-room  photos.....

Our trip to San Diego was fabulous! We stayed at Paradise Point again, which is an awesome resort. We spent lots of time sitting on the beach, playing in the water, collecting shells and making sand castles. We did go to Mission Beach as well. Paradise Point is on a bay, so the water is very calm. We had to go to "The Big Ocean" to have waves.

The boys had a great time playing with boogie boards and such. Howard's board hit him the face and knocked out his loose tooth. He was bummed that he couldn't find the tooth, however. I thought it was a fun way to loose a tooth-what a great memory!

So we got home and my beautiful school room was empty. Jason put down new flooring, which is really beautiful, BUT all of my bookcases, supplies, and books are in the garage! :O So I moved a few things yesterday and we started nevertheless. It wasn't a total loss, but getting back to reality after a great vacation is hard to do. I am hopeful that this year will be a chance for my children to learn a lot of new things and develop new skills. :)

Yesterday's entry disappeared into cyber-space, so here's a recap: Kate has 10 more days of antibiotics because she *still* has ear infections, poor girl. I am wondering (thanks to my Sonlight friends) if I should look into food allergies.  I am afraid that I'd find out she's allergic to chocolate milk, and she would be terribly unhappy about that. :( 

Luther has been working hard pulling up carpet. It's slow going, but he's done quite a bit actually.

Today we are going to a birthday party for a friend from church. He's turning 5. He has the same name as my dear pooch who retired last year to my mother's house, so we have to say "Spencer the boy" and "Spencer the dog" to keep them straight. I hope that I can convince Spencer's older sister to babysit tomorrow night. :)

I've made very little progress on  The List. Somehow the time slips away from me! BUT I did manage to get both big black trash barrels filled and out to the curb, so that is good. They were *really* heavy, too.

I had a weird dream last night: A friend (just one of those random nameless people that turn up in dreams sometimes) had a house in which weird things were happening. After several weeks of this my mother and I were in her back yard talking about what was happening and I suggested that they find an exorcist. I said that the Roman Catholic church still has some as do some other denominations (I honestly don't know if that's true, but it was in my dream!). My mother said she didn't believe in demons , possessions or anything like that. We discussed  the issue for a while and then she decided I was possessed and she wanted to have an exorcism for me. ????? The next scene was me in a shower a la "Psycho" and then I woke up. Weird, huh?

Thursday is one of my favorite days! Lisa is here cleaning my house :) Hooray! Have I mentioned that I detest cleaning? It is, in fact, one of my least favorite tasks. I am fortunate because Jason is understanding and we agree that for us having Lisa clean is the best solution! Have I mentioned recently how wonderful my husband is?

I worked on putting lesson plans into Homeschool Tracker yesterday (no, it isn't on "The List"). I need to figure out a way to get more schooling into three days a week. The boys go to an enrichment program 2 days a week, so that leaves three for the rest of the things I need to teach. I suspect that I'll need Luther to do 3 lessons of math & reading a day because he's  behind  in those subjects.  HMMM I'll have to think about this. We're going to do history on Mondays and Wednesdays and science on Fridays. Art will be one day a week, too. Spanish (we're using Rosetta Stone) we'll do every day, but that's an intense program for the children, so I'm planning on doing just one lesson a week of that. Sigh, so much to learn, so little time! :)

Well, I'm going to go look at math now-I hope I can figure out how to make it work without making Luther detest math! :O

I am hoping to get lots done while he's gone. I have that long list of things to do, after all.

 I thought I'd start with my MOTH schedule and found that somehow my children have uninstalled WORD and I don't know where the disk is. ARGH!

How could they even figure out how to do that?

This brings back memories of my high school days. My dad had a Mac and I was using it to type a paper. Well, I still don't know how I did it, but somehow I erased the systems disk! EEK! I had such a computer phobia after that. My dear sweet dad (probably in an effort to keep me away from his computer ) typed all of my papers for me for the rest of high school. I love my computer, but I still don't really understand it at all.

But if I am really going to accomplish lots of things while Jason is gone, I'd better get dressed :O It's 11:15 and here I sit.... I really just prefer wearing pajamas to almost anything else. I wonder if that's why I am a FLYlady drop out?

I still have things on my to-do list that are from last week. Darn. I was so hoping that I'd get everything done. But today is a new day.

This week Jason will be gone (he leaves this afternoon) at a Seminar on some computer stuff I can't even pretend to understand. I am hoping that I will be motivated to get lots done while he's gone! I am also hoping that I get back on track with my diet. I did exercise yesterday. :D

To get to the point however, (insert drum roll here): The New To Do List!

To Do

1. De-clutter Kate's room
2. Paint the trim in the hallway
3. Clean my closet (to be honest, this has been on every list I've made for a year-so don't hold your breath!)
4. Organize Kate's school work (I *think* I'm prepared for Luther & Howard)
5. Prepare for our trip
6. Find the charger for my Palm
7. Re-create/re-vamp our MOTH schedule to fit this fall.

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing weekend.  Here's what's happened here since last Thursday:

Howard's lip is healing nicely, but he isn't really happy about having to put sunscreen on it all the time.  Maybe I'll be able to convince him that hats are cool.

This weekend Jason bought the laminate flooring he will install while the children and I are in San Diego with my mom. It's a medium oak color and will be a HUGE improvement over the carpet. My schoolroom is now filled with 50+ boxes of flooring, so once again pictures will have to wait. But should I ever get them taken, the floor will be new & pretty. We'll start school the Monday after we get back from San Diego, so maybe I'll take "First Day of School" pictures.

Mondays here are usually days to catch up with things I let slide during the weekend, so I cleaned the guinea pigs' cage and I will finish the laundry & dishes too. I hope I have enough frozen meatballs for dinner tonight because I really don't want to go to the grocery store today.  If we don't I will have to come up with  something else for dinner and the children will be annoyed that for the second week in a row we skipped "Meatball Monday" :D

Yesterday (Wednesday) Howard had an appointment to see the plastic surgeon to get his stitches out. His office is 30 mi. away so I printed out directions from mapquest as well as talking to the receptionist. So as I was driving along. I ended up on the freeway going the wrong way. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll exit & get back on going the other direction". Well, after I got off there was no entrance to the freeway going the other way. So I drove parallel to the freeway looking for a way to get on. I didn't find one. Eventually, I called the doctor's office saying I'd be late. Then I continued on my merry way. I was still lost, but I was *sure* I could get back on the freeway and all would be well. I was wrong. I called Jason & asked for directions. Then I missed the turn he said I should take. I was now 45 minutes late for the appointment, so I called again. The receptionist gave me directions from my  current location and said I should still come because they'd had a cancelation (where's spellcheck when I need it?!?!?). I did eventually coast into the doctor's office parking lot  with the buy-gas-now light shining ever so brightly. So over an hour late, we made it. Howard got his stitches out and all is well, once again. We went out for Chinese (as we usually do on Wednesday), so dinner wasn't an issue.

And if I hadn't forgotten my appointment this morning, I'd be feeling pretty sure TODAY  I was capable of  being "responsible, reliable and right on time" today at least. Maybe tomorrow I'll do better? *SIGH*

1) finish painting the trim in the hallway

2) de-clutter in Kate's room

3) get all the laundry put away

4) wash sheets

5) figure out how to get to sleep at a reasonable time

6) Keep up with my diet/exercise

You may notice that some of those goals are last weeks'. *sigh* Ah well, I have made progress. I feel like Bill Murray in "What about Bob?" I just keep telling myself "Baby steps, baby steps"

Howard has an appointment with the plastic surgeon tomorrow and I see my cardiologist on Thursday. Then we'll be done with medical appointment until Aug 22 when the children have dentist appointments. My children LOVE to go to the dentist. I find that quite odd,  but to each his own, I guess. But then too, they have never had any cavities, so I'm sure that makes a difference.

For dinner tonight we are having chicken (crockpots are awesome!!!). I think I'll season it with poultry seasoning and some marsalla wine. It should be good.

OH good news! I've finally started loosing weight again! I've lost now 15.5 lbs. since the start of July. Hooray for me!!!

Today started slowly for me. I'm trying to get the laundry all caught up. I need to fold & put away (my least favorite part). We are having fish & potatoes for dinner. I have the potatoes in the crock pot, and I'll add the fish later. I have some corn on the cob for the children, and we'll have salad too.

I had a check for my AICD (automatic implanted cardiac defribulator). I was way over-due for it too be checked, but it has never done anything  (it can act as a pacemaker if needed or shock me like a "regular" defribulator). I haven't been to worried about not getting in to the clinicto have the information downloaded. In my experience they get all excited about things that the cardiologist later says are "nothing".  When the battery needs to be replaced he'll probably just remove it, because I don't really need it anymore. :)

All in all, this is a pretty dull day here, but sometimes dull is a relief. The weekend was excitement enough for a long while.

Howard didn't need to have his lip re-stitched! The plastic surgeon said he wants to do a re-check in a few days, but thinks it will heal up fine with minimal scarring.  Hooray!

We did have a nice time catching up with people we only see once a year or so, and the children had fun swimming. In fact the party was great until we were headed home. I was in the kitchen saying goodbye, when our hostess brought a bleeding Howard into the kitchen. Their oldest dog bit his face. :( We thought at first that he'd lost a chunk of his upper lip, but he didn't.

So Jason dropped Howard and me off at the ER and drove our other two to a friend's house to spend the night (thank God for good friends!). We were in the ER until about 1:30 or 2 AM. He ended up with 2 temporary stitches and an appointment to see a plastic surgeon today (again at the ER because there were no ORs avaliable in time for  him - there's a 24 hour window for this type of surgery to work).

Howard was so sweet last night and so good. The doctor was really great, trying to keep him calm. When she came in she said, "So I hear a dog went crazy on you!" And sweet little Howard replied, "No, she only bit me once". 

So Howard and Jason are at the hospital now.  I'm praying Howard will hold up OK. He was so good last night, but I know he was worried today before he left. Jason promised him a trip to Toys R Us afterwards.

I awoke to the heavenly smells of bacon frying and fresh coffee. What a great way to start a weekend!

Yesterday's trip to SuperTarget was an expensive success. Luther has clothes that fit and Kate has her own copy of "High School Musical", which is the cutest children's movie I have seen in a very long time. Alas, our Target trip was expensive, so IKEA will have to wait until after next payday.

Tonight is Jim's annual summer BBQ. He fosters dogs and has a couple of his own, so there is plenty of entertainment for the children, especially because he has a wonderful salt-water pool. With the weather as hot as it is, being outside only is possible if one is soaking wet. Jason is getting hot dogs to take for the children and we will have the fish I bought yesterday.

Today will be a lazy relaxing day, which is in my opinion, the best way to spend a weekend. I will probably feel compeled to work on decluttering a little, but with plenty of breaks and fun squeezed in as well.

I have indeed finished the school room! Hooray! The books could be neater (the extras, not those for school this year), but it's done.  Well, I haven't moved the aquarium, yet, but I need Jason's help because it's heavy.

I am thinking I need to head off to Target today. Luther's clothes are all too small. Kate seems fine, so I am not concerned about her right now. The children let me sleep in so I'm getting a *really* late start today. I'll make some lunch before we head out to shop.

I am very disappointed in my diet. I haven't lost any weight this week or last (on the plus side, I didn't gain any). I have been sleeping poorly, so perhaps that is part of it. I need to redouble my efforts, I guess. Loosing weight is hard.

I had a bad headache yesterday afternoon (a migraine I staved off with Advil) and burned my soup. Jason saved the day with porkchops in marsala sauce (I tell you that man can cook!!!).  But Oscar (the dog) got the chicken from the soup. It's no wonder he's gaining weight.

Tonight is pizza night. I can't mess that up! I don't think we have any frozen pizzas, but we're out of milk too, so I'll stop at the grocery store too.

Have a blessed weekend!

I

But I am hopeful. I want to finish the school room today. With Kate sick, we won't be going to IKEA as I had hoped today. :(  Maybe on Saturday we can go. Luther is too tall, I think for the playland area, so I may try to sneak off and leave the children with Jason. We'll see.

Kate has an ear infection that may rupture her eardrum and is wheezy. She's on albuterol which kept her awake until after 11 last night. But she could breathe, so I am thankful that I was able to give her the breathing treatments she needed. I am very tired now however.

I think I'll make chicken soup for dinner, and press the bread macine into service as well. Isn't chicken soup supposed to make you better? I hope so because Kate will make me nuts if she's not well soon. And her older brothers are no help. They are annoyed that she gets to eat popsicles and watch tv.

Today, Lisa will come & clean, which is the bright spot in an otherwise frustrating day. My house will be clean!

While I'm speaking of Kate, here's a cute story about her: Last night I went out to buy the aforementioned popsicles, and when I came home she was very excited. She had named two of the fish!

        "What did you name them?" I asked.

         "Yes-buddy", she replied. This really confused me because I was expecting her to say princess-something, to match the names of her guinea pigs.

         "What's the other one named?" I asked, hoping that would shed some light on the way she'd come up with the name. I wasn't disappointed.

         "Nobody", she replied.

I still haven't gotten the painting done in the hallway-I think Jason can do that on Saturday. But the schoolroom is coming along nicely. The guinea pigs are moved, so they are no longer on the floor, and I hauled out a huge black trash bag of old papers & used up workbooks.

I am thinking of moving out aquarium into the school room once I get the dresser in there. Right now it is in a place that makes it hard to see the fish. We have guppies, and it is fun to see the fry (babies). Most of them get eaten  but we are enjoying the changes in our fish population anyway. I just hope we don't end up like Henry Huggins.

Kate has a cold & didn't sleep well last night and Howard is getting his 6yo molars, so he was up the night before....I am a very tired momma.  This makes it hard for me to want to do *anything*, especially when it's so hot. It rained last night, which was great then, but it's muggy now. The kids wanted to go out & play with their neighbor friends, so I am recovering from being out in the heat.

The plans for today are 1) finish re-arranging/de-cluttering the school room; 2) move Jason's empty dresser into Kate's room and put her clothes away; and 3)finish de-cluttering the family room. We'll see how I do. I suspect that I won't get all three done, but I'm going to try!

And, of course, I need to think of something for dinner. Jason made hamburgers-oh wait it's Wednesday-we can go out to our favorite Chinese restaurant. Darn, I forgot that Kate's sick, but maybe Jason can get take-out from them on his way home. I'll have to call him. I'd better do that now, because if he doesn't want to do that I'll want to stick something in the crockpot so I don't have to heat up the kitchen. Is it October yet? I am ready for cooler weather!!!