Yes, we started the dreaded potty training yesterday. I was planning on waiting until Katie's 3rd birthday to start. Since we are on break from schooling for a week, I decided to give it a try. I wasn't expecting much, since she has never shown any interest at all! She did get very angry if you called her a baby and told her that big girls wear panties. Yesterday morning, Katie woke up with a dry diaper. I asked her if she wanted to go pee-pee on the potty. She said yes and went right away. She wore panties the rest of the day with only one accident. She wore a diaper during nap, but woke up dry. I just purchased about 8 more pair of panties for her so we don't run out. Two of them are waterproof for when we are out and about. I don't know how well they work but I'll give them a try. I also bought another potty seat to fit our toilet downstairs. She can use the potty without the extra seat, but I think it's a bit more comfortable than having to balance to prevent from falling in!

I just wanted to wish all of my fellow homeschoolers a blessed 2007. These are my resolutions for the year~

Read through my 365 day Bible.

Create and use my prayer journal.

Lose weight. UGH!

Get pregnant. Yes, this one is not up to me. I guess I will add this to my prayer journal regularly. Hopefully losing weight will help.

Get organized. I plan on working on organization for 30 minutes a day during the week. Right now my house looks like someone ransacked it. It's REALLY bad right now. Christmas gifts, New Years decorations, and unoccupied children (and husband) are destroying my house!

Nathan wrote a special book for everyone on Christmas morning. He also made a large banner with different verses and such. I thought I'd publish them here for all to read.

The Story of Jesus

Mary brought forth her first born baby. Mary called him Jesus! Jesus grew up to be tall. His Father loved Him very much.

Jesus was really perfect. He pleased the Lord. He did not brag. He just walked by.

He is the son of the Creator. Jesus died on the cross. Someday He will come back to Earth.

Jesus followed all of the commandments! God was very proud. Jesus healed many people.

The End

Next was a banner that he hung in the dining room for all to read. He made it by taping several sheets of paper together. Each page had a picture, verse, etc. on it.

~Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.

~Happy Holidays! (with a beautiful Christmas scene)

~(A picture of Jesus in the manger.)

~Happy Christmas day Grandma, Grandpa, Katie, Mom, and Dad and Happy Birthday Jesus!

~Isaiah 49:2-3 He made my words like a sharp sword. He hid me in the palm of his hand. He made me into a sharpened arrow. He took good care of me and kept me safe. He said to me, "You are my true servant Israel. I will show my glory through you."

~Psalm 135:1  Praise the Lord.  Praise the name of the Lord.  You who serve the Lord, praise him.

~Psalm 133:1 How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in peace!

~Psalm 134:3 May the Lord bless you from Zion. He is the Maker of heaven and earth.

~Isaiah 40:28 Don't you know who made everything? Haven't you heard about him?  The Lord is the God who lives forever.  He created everything on earth. He won't become worn out or get tired. No one will ever know how great his understanding is.

~(A picture of the world and space.)

~God gave me a house. (picture of our house)

~God gave me a bed. (picture of his bed)

All in all, it was a great Christmas. We enjoyed our time with our family and are ready for some well deserved rest!

With HSB being so terribly slow and my life so terribly frantic, I haven't had a chance to update my blog recently. Well, I'm not that frantic but just plain busy with Christmas plans, school, work, and all the rest of life.

Ken had an interview for an underwriter position at his current place of employment yesterday. It wouldn't mean more money right away. In fact, we may end up making less for about 3-6 months because they work less hours. After that time frame, the pay goes up and it can be substantial. We are praying that if this is what the Lord wills for us, he will get the position.

Nathan and Katie are both doing fine. Nate has finished his Beta math book and I just ordered Gamma. He's been practicing his multiplication tables and is doing well for just starting. He is definitely math minded like his momma.  We just finished school for the rest of the year and will restart the second week of January. That gives me a few weeks to prepare my lessons. We're kinda all over the place with Sonlight, so I'm going to try to get us all on one week again. Nathan also decided that he wants to be graded to help stay accountable. I purchased his report card for this next semester yesterday. I never thought a kid would be excited about a report card, but the concrete numbers help motivate him. He also began a spelling program online at www.spellingtime.com. He's really enjoying it and since spelling is not a difficult subject for him, I have no problem letting him go at it alone. His spelling test results are emailed to me and there's some games on the site that he gets to play after completing his assignments. Did I mention it's FREE? The owner of the site was very helpful too when I had a problem. We have found some other educational sites where he can play games and take quizzes. He loves it even when he's learning since he doesn't get much video game time. We don't have any of the video game systems except a gameboy which is only allowed about once a week.

Katie's been busy getting into trouble. She is a two year old terror on the loose. Her favorite activities are cleaning the carpet with Windex, drinking toilet water from her tea cups, and saying "but Mom..." to me after every request. She still has no interest in potty training. In fact, she's quite content with sitting in a dirty diaper for hours if I don't notice the smell right away. When she's not getting into everything and being a complete brat, she's lots of fun and quite adorable. She recognizes about half of her letters and is doing better with shapes and colors. We are using and enjoying the Brighter Vision materials that come to our house once a month. I also purchased Get ready, Get set, and Go for the Code for her to use. We won't start until the summer or later if necessary. Oh yeah, I finally ordered the Leapfrog Letter Factory and Leapfrog Math DVD. I've heard such good things about these DVD's. I was going to make it a Christmas present for Katie, but everywhere I went, they were sold out. Finally I ordered them online along with Schoolhouse Rock. Yeah, the one we all grew up on is out on DVD with the 46 original songs and lots of extras for less than 15 dollars. I was so excited listening to clips of songs with Nathan that we had to order it.

The Lord has blessed us recently with some extra money which has been put to good use. We were able to have gifts for the kiddos, pay down some bills, and I was able to buy some of next year's curriculum. I know that seems way too early to buy, but I have to do it slowly so since we had the money that is what we decided to do.

So everything here is going well. It's odd to have almost 60 degree weather the week of Christmas. We've had one bad snow so far this winter and the rest of the weather has been pretty mild. This week was quite rainy, so I was thankful that the temps were all above freezing so that we didn't have to deal with the snow and ice. Although I wouldn't mind a white Christmas, I really would prefer the weather being nice for my job.

I pray that everyone has a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Last Friday, I told Nathan that there was no Santa Claus. Now, of course I told him in a way that was loving, and I tried to respect his emotions. We read through the story of St. Nicholas. I explained how legends are created as stories are passed down from generation to generation. He seemed to understand what I was saying, but when I told him that Santa was a created character based on St. Nick, he just closed down. He said that he believes that Santa is real. I was ready to drop it right then, but I could tell that he was frustrated and confused. I couldn't leave him in that state of mind. I explained that the gifts given in the name of Santa were really from mom and dad. We were giving anonymously just as Saint Nicholas did in the 3rd century. This is when Nathan became excited. He said, "So you and dad bought me my gameboy last year? And the basketball hoop in my room?" He kept going on and on about all of the many gifts we've given over the years. He said, "Wow, those things are EXPENSIVE! Thanks!" He realized that the parents who love him are just as great as Santa. I then added that this year he gets to be Santa Claus to some needy children too. We're going to buying books for a local homeless shelter, and Nathan is going to buy a present to take to the local firehouse that collects gifts for needy children. He knows that this will be giving anonymously like Saint Nicholas did. He's excited to help other kids, but I think he's a bit more excited about going to the firehouse.

I'm a huge Christmas fanatic. I just love celebrating the birth of our Saviour and building memories with my family. Yesterday we put up our tree. Nathan helped pull apart the branches (artificial, of course) and he put the entire tree together. He also helped put the lights on. I then added the garland and Ken put the angel on. We played Christmas music while decorating and had a great time. I served Christmas cookies and punch to all those who helped. Of course, everyone helped so we had a nice treat afterward. This morning, I added the glass bulbs and Nathan put most of the special ornaments on the tree.

My parents came to visit today. Mom and I picked up The Adventure of Christmas by Lisa Welchel. I haven't had a chance to check it out too much, but it gives reading for each day of Advent and different activity ideas. Nathan left to spend the week with my parents, so we won't be able to begin until he gets home. We also bought an Advent calendar with chocolate inside. The kids will take turns each day getting a piece of candy. They also had the Stephen Curtis Chapman Christmas CD on sale for $5, so I picked that up too.

Now that Nathan is gone, I'm going to spend the week deep cleaning my house. Tonight will be spent making 900 copies of my Christmas card to go out to my newspaper customers. Katie is spending the night with her Aunt June and cousins and Ken is going to work with me tonight. He's not very excited about it, but is willing to help me since I wouldn't finish on time otherwise, and our Christmas tips pay for all of our Christmas gifts and help us to catch up on bills.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and meaningful Christmas season.

I haven't blogged lately because life around here is just plain boring. I've come down with something once again. Sore throat, body aches, cough, congestion, nausea. So far, Nathan has had a mild case of whatever it is that I have. Katie hasn't caught it yet, but she just doesn't understand why she can't kiss me on the lips.

School has been going pretty well. We are not going as fast as the Sonlight Instructor Guide would have us go. We're not too far behind though. We're reading Sign of the Beaver as our read aloud, and it's a pretty good book so far. Nathan is reading Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims and seems to be enjoying it. One of our science books that was on backorder just came in as well. The pictures are so great in this book, Nathan flipped through the whole thing but promised not to read it since he didn't want to spoil it for us later. We are also growing our radishes right now for science as well. They are turning out nice, but we aren't doing all of the experiments suggested. It's very time demanding and since it's for grades 3-8, I'm sure Nathan is getting enough for 3rd grade.

Katie's doing well too. We're not doing much for preschool yet. I bought a preschool kit through Berry Best Preschool. I'm not crazy about it. It's supposed to be a month's worth of activities and crafts. It will probably take us 6 months to do it since we only do about one a week instead of one a day. She's so young though. She definitely doesn't need any formal work yet. We still read almost daily and she's getting pretty good at drawing and writing lines and stuff like that. Her fine motor skills are either advanced, or I'm just used to the natural delay of boys in the fine motor skills department. If my scanner was working, I'd show you the picture of a lion that she drew the other day. It actually looks like a lion. Not bad for a 2 year old.

Everything has been pretty much the same here with Ken and I. Ken's been going to the gym a lot lately. He takes the kids with him about 2 times a week, which Katie especially enjoys. Nathan's getting a little too big for it, but they have some decent video games that he likes to play. Everything with Ken's job is pretty much status quo. Although we would always like for him to be able to move into a higher paying position, he does like where he's at. He's thinking of going back to school either in the summer or next fall to get a business degree.

Besides my being sick, I'm doing well. I'm definitely looking forward to the holidays. Thanksgiving is being held at my in-laws' house. My MIL is a great cook and they live rather close, so I'm pretty happy about it. Christmas eve will be at my in-laws' as well and Christmas at my house with my parents. I just purchased my first two gifts for the kids. I'm also getting my Christmas unit ready for the month of December. So far, I have two books for Christmas around the world. One is actually a coloring book. I have a book of great Christmas stories from the Christian book store. A few other Christian Christmas books. We are waiting for our advent book to arrive. We also have some Christmas music that we are going to learn and sing on Christmas. The only things I have left to prepare are the ornaments that we will make and I'm having a hard time finding a book about St. Nicholas. Maybe I'll just find the story of St. Nick online.

My quick update turned out to be longer than expected. I need to go rest my weary body.

We had sooo much fun yesterday at Boo At The Zoo! The kids dressed up in the Halloween costumes and we met Grandpa there. First, we went to the Fragile Desert, which was one of our favorites for the day. Then we saw the lion who walked right toward us and was staring us down. He let out a great roar and Katie quickly roared back in her lioness costume. What a beautiful creature of the Lord! We saw the bears, other big cats, and then off to the Fragile Rainforest. The python was of course another big hit. We also saw the sea lions, walruses, seals, and dolphins.

Next was lunch time. After the kids ate, Grandpa took them to play on the playground and then they went to watch the magician. Next, we all went to the beginning of the parade. The kids and I walked in the parade but halfway through, Nathan saw the children's museum and asked if we could ditch the parade to go play. We hung out at the children's play zoo for a while where Nathan checked out the Nature Swap and Katie went missing. Thankfully we quickly recovered the roaming lion.

Next, we stopped for ice cream sandwiches and popcorn. Just what we needed in the 48 degree weather! Next off to the Living Coast to see the penguins, vampire bats, fish, sharks, and the great wave which frightened Katie out of her wits! At this point, Nathan was getting a little wild and I had to punish him. Finally, he calmed down and we saw Ibex mountain and Baboon mountain.

We were starting to slow down a bit. Katie was getting tired and we were a bit frustrated with Nathan's earlier behavior. Then we went to the Pachyderm house which turned out to be another hit. We saw quite a few hippos and rhinos. The zookeepers were bringing them inside to clean the outside area. I think we spent 30 minutes just looking at the 8 or so animals in this house. The big hit was the 51 year old Nile Hippo, although he smelled horrible.  While we were there, a lady asked to take Nathan's picture with her one year old son. This boy was dressed up like Jack Jack, the Incredibles baby boy. Nathan was Dash, the older son from the Incredibles. They looked so cute together! I took a picture too.

After that, we saw the kangaroos, wild boars, and emus. Then the boys went to the Austrailia house while Katie and I bought a ticket to ride the carousel. The boys made it back in time for Nathan to ride also. The kids were reenergized, but Grandpa and I were ready to leave. We took the kids to McDonalds to eat and rid themselves of any remaining energy. Then we headed home. It was a wonderful day. I'm looking forward to going back in Novemeber for their tree trimming. Different organizations can sign up to trim a tree for their "Holiday Magic." I found an organization to join called Homeschoolers for Jesus. Let's pray that the weather is not too nasty for this activity.

Seriously, it has overtaken my home. I don't know when it happened, but I'm frightened. Right now I'm trying to make a plan to capture it and quickly destroy it, but I think it knows my own thoughts and is mocking me. The clutter monster has a few accomplices. The dust bunnies are planning an attack on all flat surfaces. Soap scum and hair balls have turned my once beautiful bathrooms into war zones. Dirty dishes overflowing in the sink, paper piles piling up, toys placed like land mines throughout the entire house, and of course the ever growing laundry monster is quite frightening.

So what's a working, homeschooling, exhausted mom to do? My gut reaction is to call Clean Sweep to have them make an emergency visit to my home. After realizing that I am being irrational, I decide to call a cleaning company. One woman cannot possibly handle this mess. Okay, okay, I am poor! Not an option. Now what? First things first...join Flylady! Isn't that what every respectable American woman does? Of course, I'd much prefer if Flylady would just make a visit to my home and wave her magic wand.

So here's the plan. I MUST make room for my car in the garage before snow hits. I MUST organize my bedroom so that I have a larger path from the doorway to my bed. I MUST rid the house of unused, broken, and outgrown toys before Christmas. I must kill all forms of dirt, dust, and filth in an orderly manner. I MUST train my children how to attack these nasty monsters.

Please pray for me. I can't let the monsters take over any longer. I must make my home a sanctuary for myself and my family.

Even though I am still schooling on a regular basis, my mind has been elsewhere. I'm struggling with a disorder called PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). It causes all sorts of problems including:

Weight gain

Insulin resistance

Anovulation

Acne

Hair thinning/male pattern baldness

Excess facial and body hair

Infertility

Depression

I pretty much have all of the above symptoms (minus depression, thankfully) and now that I am losing my hair, I oftentimes feel like I might get depressed. So, the reason my mind is so occupied is that I am taking an active role in fighting this syndrome and am trying to conceive another child. I don't think I've ovulated since I gave birth to my daughter almost 3 years ago. I am in a forum called Soul Cysters. It is the best group for those with PCOS. The advice and encouragement is great. I am now on a low cal/low carb (South Beach-like) diet. I am also taking cinnamon to help with my insulin resistance. I am charting my cycles once again and will be taking soy isoflavones to help with ovulation. I have not been taking an active effort to help myself and I know that if I don't do this, I will waste my baby making years. My husband and I would like to have at least 2 more children. He's actually been making comments lately that he's ready for another and he wants me to try to lose weight and see what I can do to conceive again. I feel a lot of pressure, but now I've decided to take that and do what I can. That way, I either end up with more babies or I can say I did everything I could do. If doing this the natural way doesn't help me, I'll reluctantly head to the doc and ask him for some medication help.

So if you are reading this, please pray for my health and for strength only the Lord can give.

About every 6 months or so, our son is in need of a tune up. Usually it's an attitude adjustment that is required and this time that is exactly what he needs. We're trying an attitude chart. He starts each day with 15 stickers on his chart. Each time that he shows attitude (rolling eyes, complaining, talking back, etc.) he loses a sticker. He gets to pick which sticker he loses. Each sticker has a value. There are ten things that we consider privledges and five punishments. If he loses a sticker, he either loses a privledge or can take a punishment. Here's the list.

Computer time

TV time

Outside time

Gameboy

snacks, dessert, candy

toys

late bedtime

nightlight at bed

reading before bed

special time with Mom or Dad

extra chore

extra chore

extra school work
Bible verses

early bedtime

The chart then takes into effect the next day. I'm hoping it will help him be more aware of how he treats others and helps him to show some more respect.

Now that we are in October, it's time to start thinking about Christmas. Since I purchase all of my gifts from my paper route tips (please tip your paper packer!), I can't buy anything until the end of November, but I've been looking for ideas. Christmas is the only time of the year where I truly spoil my children. I don't do it for their birthdays or any other time of the year. I think I have such great memories of Christmas morning that I want to replicate that for my children. So, here are some of my ideas so far for the kiddos:

Nathan~

Excalibur Castle by Papo

Papo figurines (dinosaurs, knights, pirates, etc.)

Lots of educational games (blokus, goblet, In a Pickle, Pentago, Apples to Apples)

dinosaur fossil kit

model airplane

some sort of building toy (kinex, lincoln logs, legos)

CD player for room

Alarm clock

Gameboy Game

Texas Three Shooter

Air Burst Rocket System

Crossbow and darts for kids

Books

Katie~

Evangeline Doll from the Beautiful Girlhood Collection

Dolly Madison book and Outfit

Art Set

Pretend and Play doctor set

Dora something!

Fun 2 Learn Preschool Center

Puzzles

Books

Doorway Puppet Theater

Puppets

Some building toy (probably the larger lego set)

Papo figurines (princess, prince, animals, etc.)

So this is my list so far. Of course, I'm not buying everything on my list but I wanted to know exactly what I was looking for.

Another thing I'm doing this Christmas is breaking the news to Nathan about Santa Clause. I've decided that I don't want to teach Katie about Santa. Well, actually I just want her to understand that he's not real. I'm not going to avoid Santa altogether. So my plan is to do a Christmas unit study during the month of December. We are basically going to read a lot of books about Christmas (birth of Jesus, Christmas around the World, story of the real St. Nick).  I'm hoping he asks lots of questions and it comes out in discussion. We will discuss the meaning behind some of our Christmas traditions like Christmas trees and caroling. We'll do fun crafts to celebrate Christmas and we'll earn a certain amount of money to give to Angel Tree. I'll let Nathan pick out the gift, too. We'll use an advent calendar and he'll help me decorate for the season. I hope it's lots of fun.

We also celebrate Halloween, but I'm careful what I expose the kids to. I let them dress up (dress up is a favorite around here year round) and we trick or treat with family. We are getting a pumpkin and carving it with funny faces. I don't really decorate for Halloween. I prefer to decorate for fall in general. The scary decorations aren't appealing to me.

So these are our plans for the holidays. Of course, we'll have Thanksgiving. This year it's with Ken's family. That means we'll be going out to eat so not much planning. Yeah!

I am so super thankful to the Maxwell's for writing Managers of their Homes. It is (so far) a huge blessing. Not that we weren't accomplishing things before, but it's nice to know exactly what we are to do next. It's like having a good plan of attack. Today went great. I didn't get up at 7:00am though. I slept until about 7:20 because Katie slept in so I had to rush a bit in the morning. Also, since we have our co-op on Mondays, our schedule is a bit different on these days. I realized I forgot to add in read-aloud time and personal reading time for Nathan. We managed to fit it in today, but I'll have to move things around to get it to fit. I'm not willing to give up school stuff for our co-op, so it fits or the co-op goes. Nathan really likes his OT Bible class, so I hope we don't have to give it up.

My favorite part of my schedule is meal time. Katie is my helper for breakfast and Nathan is my lunch helper. They both help for dinner.  They both love being helper, and it really does help me. Maybe not as much with Katie. She helped me make eggs and french toast this morning. Nate helped make hot dogs, ramen noodles, and corn (short on groceries). We were lucky to go out to dinner tonight. They help me set the table, get out ingredients, help with the cooking as able, clear the table, wipe down the table, put food away, and sweep the floor under the table. I really just like the time with the kiddos.

I pray that tomorrow will go well too. Thankfully, tomorrow is a slower day with a few more breaks. I am scheduled to go to bed in 15 minutes and I am so ready!

Here's my MOTH schedule for TWR since those are the days that I'll be home. There are alterations to make room for our co-op on Monday and Friday. Also, we have fun school on Fridays. It is less scheduled. I tried to keep everyday as close to this schedule as possible. Weekends are not scheduled.

TIME      Mom                 Nathan               Katie

1:00       go to work              sleep                   sleep

2:00          work                    sleep                   sleep

3:00          work                    sleep                   sleep

4:00          work                    sleep                   sleep

5:00          work                    sleep                   sleep

6:00           nap                     sleep                   sleep

7:00      morning prep.           sleep             morning prep.

             and read w/ K                            and read w/ Mom

7:30        free time                sleep                     TV

8:00       devotions             devotions                 TV

8:30       breakfast        dress/teeth/meds.      breakfast

                                          breakfast              helper

9:00    shower/dress           Play w/ K           Play w/ N

9:30          chores                 chores             chore helper

10:00         Bible                   Bible                  Bible

10:30   LA and Math help    Lang. Arts            Art

11:00    Preschool                 Math               Preschool

11:30      Science                 Science               Music

12:00   Organization             Science            quiet time

12:30       Lunch                Lunch Helper         Lunch

1:00    Outside time          Outside time        Outside time

1:30        History                  History                 Nap

2:00        History                  History                 Nap

2:30        chores                    chores                 Nap

3:00      read aloud              read aloud             Nap

3:30       free time                   read                   Nap

4:00       free time                computer               Nap

4:30    bath/teeth/prep.         free time         bath/teeth/prep.

            for bed w/ K                                   for bed w/ M

5:00         dinner                dinner helper       dinner helper

6:00    time with Ken            Play w/ K          Play w/ N

6:30       read to K               tidy room           read w/ M

6:45      Bible/pray               Bible/pray           Bible/pray

7:00          sleep               bath/prep. for bed  free time

7:30          sleep                     read                 free time

8:00          sleep                   free time             free time

8:30          sleep                   free time             free time

9:00          sleep                     sleep                  sleep

Everyone around here is pretty much better, except me. I'm still having a hard time fighting off this cold. I've been living off of Nyquil, which means I've been sleeping my days and nights away for about 5 days straight. I'm getting bored and the kids are antsy too. We are finally getting out of the house to go to our co-op today. I'll actually be dropping Nathan off and then heading to the library, consignment shop, and bookstore with Katie. I really enjoy my special time with Katie. We like to read and put puzzles together at the library. I have a bunch of clothes to return to the consignment shop that I purchased for Nathan. I thought he was a size ten, but it turns out he's still wearing an eight. I have to try everything on him though because he's tall and some of the 8's are too short on him.

Next week, we start Sonlight. I'm pretty excited. I've changed things once again in our schedule. We'll be having Fun School on Fridays (co-op, field trips, Konos activities, games, etc.) and regular school the rest of the week. It just worked out better for our schedule. Hopefully we can finally settle into a decent schedule.

Nathan asked me how much school we would be doing together. He loves to spend time with me and I know he'll enjoy school if we do it together. I told him about half of it would be together. I think that's a pretty good estimate. I scheduled 3 hours of time with him for school and 2 hours of time for independent work. I don't think it will take that long, but I wanted to make sure we had enough wiggle room. I am also devoting 1/2 hour to preschool and 1/2 hour of reading to Katie.

I've gone way off topic for this post, but this is what's going on around here. Just trying to feel healthy again and preparing for the upcoming week. I hope everyone has a blessed weekend!

Everyone in our household is sick. This really stinks because my sister is in from Colorado and I was going to visit her and her family tomorrow. Instead, I get to spend the next few days cooped up in the house with my two sick children while they take advantage of my own illness by getting into everything and pushing all of my buttons. Yay!

On top of that, I woke up to Katie in my room watching TV. I looked over and saw that the two medicine bottles that were on my bedside table (Children's Tylenol and Children's Dimetapp sp?) were both opened and completely gone! Now, these bottles had child resistant caps on them. Obviously not resistant to my two year old. She drank both bottles so I immediately called my pharmacy. They gave me the number to poison control. I explained to them what had happened. They did the math to figure out if Katie was in any sort of danger. It happened that she was just on the line for seeking medical help. They told me to watch her and they would call every hour for the next 5 hours. If there were any signs (vomiting, drowsiness, nausea, diarrhea), I was to contact them again. Well, we made it through the phone calls and the worst thing we experienced was a hyperactive child. Thank you, God. I cried and held her and told her I was happy she was okay and angry that she took the medicine and scared. She looked at me confused and said, "You're happy and sad?"

So now I'm tired and waiting for daddy to get home so I can put my sorry body back to bed. No school today. Probably not for a few days. We are getting the rest of our Sonlight order on Wednesday. Maybe we'll just do some Bible, math, and LA until next week to give us time to recover. Then we'll be ready to start our new schedule. Since everyone is not doing well today, I had some time to finish my MOTH schedule. It was quite difficult to make everything fit. I don't know how those with a bunch of kids can get it all figured out. I'll post my MOTH schedule soon. I'm happy with the finished outcome, although I still have to make accomodations for the days that we do more running around and decide if I want to make a modified version for the weekends or leave those open. We'll see. I hope everyone had a better day than I did today.

Okay, I am not a highly organized person. I don't see that as a fault, at least not anymore than those who are overly uptight about organization. (I won't mention names.) Well, I recently purchased MOTH and MOTC to help in this department. I can't believe how much effort it takes to make one of these schedules. Now, many who use this type of schedule have lots of kiddos. Unfortunately, I have yet to be blessed with a large family. I thought the book would be good for me though since it is so detailed. I need more help than the average person. So far, I have finished the activity sheets for me and the kids. It was hard to find things to fill the time for Katie. Maybe that's why she's getting into trouble. She's bored!

Well, I'm trying hard to find activities to fill her day and rotate them every 30 minutes as suggested. Now, she only has 1 hour of TV and an hour of free time in the evening with daddy. Nathan's schedule filled up quickly. He only has 1 hour of free time (TV included). I'm actually hoping that that will cut down on time out with the neighbor kids. I don't want him to become dependent on these relationships. I am planning our outside time when public school is in session to avoid this also. I just prefer to know who he's friends with and keep him close to home.

My activity worksheet filled up too quickly. I actually thought I would have more free time, but after just work and sleep I was down to only 12 hours left. School is another 3 1/2. Chores and meals are 3 hours a day. Add in free time, care for the kids, devotional, shower, time for Ken and my day is very full. I guess I have more free time now because I have been lacking in certain areas. Hard to admit, but I know it's true. My chore time is not long enough now and I don't spend enough quality time with Katie during the day. Sometimes Ken gets cut out of the schedule more than he should.

So, I'm working hard to improve my day to day existence. I still have a lot of work to do since there are days that we are not home all day. I'll have to tweak for those days. I pray to become more disciplined in my day to day journey of wife, housekeeper, mother, and homeschooler.

I just began reading Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Terri Maxwell. What a great book. I'm only on the 2nd chapter, but I am loving it. This may sound odd to some of you, but I never thought of yelling at my children as a bad thing. I always thought it was their fault when I had to yell. Wow. What an eye opener. I really concentrated on my spirit today and what a difference. Now, I know that it is only one day, but I could see a difference in my children.