Dec. 22, 2008
Blog change
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I decided to go back to my old blog. Ramblings of a Delusional SAHM was the blog I started before we pulled the girls out of school. I'm finding it easier to post more often. If you stop by, please say hi. |
Dec. 7, 2008
Christmas gifts
My hubby and I went to a Christmas dinner last night. Here is what we gave the other couples. The nut cup and tags were made using my Cricut. Aren't they cute?  For the record, cheesecake Hersey kisses are sooooo good! Yum! I love all the different flavors. We also included hot chocolate, caramel and regular Hersey kisses.  |
Oct. 14, 2008
Z's drawing
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Today was one of those days that I felt like such a slacker the moment I woke up. I kept thinking about all those things that do not get done and day after day they are put on the back burner. My first thought was I needed to wash clothes and then list came flowing through my mind. I started thinking about why they weren't getting done and I started wondering if it was because wait until school work is done. It seems every day they finish school work I end up getting wrapped up in something else. Maybe today was a good day to try something different. While I was preparing dinner to put in the crockpot, I came up with an idea to keep them busy and it worked! Not only did I get a few things done but I was surprised to see the outcome from my almost 4 yr old. My parents took the older girls for a walk on Sunday and Madeline came home with a caterpillar. Today was a good day to draw the little fellow and put their drawings in their nature journal. I didn't think much about it and they went to work. Zoe decided she needed to get in the act and grabbed a piece of paper and purple colored pencil. The following is her picture. I'm actually impressed with her drawing.  Just as an added comment, my fairly new crockpot (less than a year) lid fell apart. I'm hoping it can be fixed. It's too hot to try now. |
Sep. 19, 2008
Experiment of the day!
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Here is the experiment. Can you tie a jump rope from oldest sister's bicycle and successfully pull youngest sister in the umbrella stroller to Grandparent's house. Step 1: The idea (where do they come up with this one) Step 2: Before putting younger sister in the umbrella stroller, test and make sure it won't fall over. It didn't. Step 3: Make sure everyone has the safety gear on. "Mom, we put a helmet and knee pads on!" Step 4: Buckle up and off we go. Step 5: The return! It worked but it took a long time getting there and back. And now the pictures. Love the socks and the no socks! 
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Sep. 5, 2008
Fire!
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Jaxon almost set our house on fire yesterday! At lunch time yesterday, I asked everyone what they wanted for lunch and everyone decided they wanted mac-n-cheese which is always good. I put the pot of water on the back burner and walked away to let it boil. Our living area is all open so I could see the stove. Next to the stove is our dishwasher and little trouble maker likes to open it up and stand on the lid to play with whatever is on the counter. I was watched him from the living room pick up the roll of paper towels and I thought that's not good! Sure enough the towels fell right into the flame and one sheet caught on fire! Chaos ensued as Maddy and Meike started screaming. I ran as quick as I could (lightly moving Maddy out of my way) to get the flaming paper towel and thew the flame under the running water. I'm not sure the look on Jaxon's face as he watched the paper towel catch fire was the best. He seemed fascinated by the cause and effect of the flames. |
Sep. 4, 2008
Waterfall in the kitchen
I plan to update my blog very soon so here is a preview of what has been going on. We did a lesson on buoyancy to see which items sunk and which floated. This is what happens when you turn you back for a few seconds. It took two towels to clean up the water but the picture is priceless! Can you see the water spilling off the table like a waterfall?
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Jul. 1, 2008
Gum and Hair
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We had an incident today with gum and a little girl. I think it happened last night but we found it this morning. I knew peanut butter works but I found out baby oil is good but what is better is Skin So Soft from Avon and Goo Gone. It's suppose to dissolve it. Who knew? I was the lazy one that thought it was low enough to cut. Opps! It wasn't! So I frantically called over to find someone to fix it today. I finally decided to take that appointment this afternoon with a local salon and have the older two get their hair cut too. My babies all lost their long hair.  I'm grateful we had a hairdresser that understood. She was so sweet and even saved her little curls that are probably gone forever. I have avoided cutting her hair forever because I didn't want to lose those curls. I will say she looks adorable now. Maddy also donated her long hair.    Maddy's before and after:   Meike's before and after:   |
Jun. 10, 2008
Update on the baby hamsters
I have been meaning to post pictures but with finishing up the school year and finishing up the quarterly reports, narration and life in general, it has taken me a while. We found homes for 3 babies. Two of the boys have been adopted by my niece Jenna and one of the girls was adopted by a friend that has been wanting baby hamsters. We kept one girl named Grace and a boy named Larry. Bet you can't guess where Zoe came up with the name Larry. Think of a cucumber.  I decided to make a slide show since we have so many pictures. I apologize up front for the terrible blurry pictures. Those little guys are fast. I may not be the best at taking pictures but taking pictures of the hamsters proved to be a challenge. So Faith, these are especially for you!     |
May. 9, 2008
There are 5 babies!
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I brought Casey's cage out to see if my mom and I could peek in on the babies. We were able to see all the babies and we counted 5 babies! They are already getting bigger and look more like a hamster with no fur than they did on Sunday. I can't wait to take them out and handle them. Wednesday will be 10 days and we should be able to hold them! |
May. 5, 2008
Baby hamsters have arrived!!!
Maddy discovered a surprise yesterday when we came home from church. She went to see how they were doing and she yelled, "Casey had a baby!" What???? She couldn't have. We all rush over to see what was in the cage and sure enough there was a little wiggly baby! Oh no! What do we do? Talk about a crash course in hamster breeding! We thought we had two girl hamsters.  I am so grateful that I have a friend that has been trying to breed her hamsters. She came over last night with a cage for daddy. Did you know a hamster can become pregnant after 24 hours of giving birth? Who knew! She also gave us lot of advice. As of this morning we have four babies that I could see. They squeaked off and on all night long. I'm glad mom hasn't decided to eat them. Next week we should be able to touch them and we are looking forward to that. Here are some pictures of three of the babies and Squeaker, the daddy we thought was a girl.   |
Apr. 22, 2008
Robin Eggs
Our tree in our side yard is home to a set of robins every year. I have been looking all over the tree the last few week trying to find the nest. I finally spotted it yesterday and today we saw two eggs in the nest! The nest is low enough that the girls could see them. They were so excited to see the the robins had used pieces from their green poms poms that had fallen off last year! What a beautiful nest!
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Apr. 22, 2008
Conquering Fear
We have been trying to encourage Meike to try riding her bicycle without training wheels for over a year now. She pretty much did it last year but she was still too afraid to try. Our weather this weekend was gorgeous and we once again tried to encourage her to try again. I really hate forcing our children to try something but if we let this child to wait until she wasn't scared, she would never do anything. Through tears she finally tried and guess what? She can ride a two-wheeler!!!!!! She cracks me up with her comments sometimes. I wish I could remember word for word she said because the way she words things would make you laugh. (Yes, she does get it from me.) After she realized she could ride it, she kept saying it wasn't that scary at all. It was so easy and she loved it. Learning to ride her bike and facing her fears played right in to the book we are rowing for fiar this week called Albert by Donna Jo Napali. Everyday Albert sticks his hand out the window to check the weather to see if it would be a perfect day to take a walk and every day he comes up with an excuse why he can't. One day he stuck out his hand a couple of cardinals begin building a nest in his hand. He is unable to move his hand that is holding the nest with four eggs. He is then forced to face his fears. This story has more meaning to Meike now than it would have when we had rowed it last month like I had planned. I believe I put this story off a month ago so that she would understand fear from a completely new perspective. Perhaps, from now on, she will work through her fears that could rob her of her joy, the joy of riding a two-wheeler for instance. |
Apr. 22, 2008
Casey
It's about time to show our newest member of our family. Here is Miss. Casey with her little red eyes and yes they are actually red! Daddy brought this little surprise home on Good Friday. Meike was given the opportunity to name her and she immediately named her Casey. We have since added another little hamster named Squeaker. Maddy wanted to use her own money to buy another hamster. It's nice to have animals back in the house.
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Mar. 17, 2008
Horses
Madeline loves horses! She is collecting webkinz horses ( I think she is only missing 1 or 2 of them) and loves to read fiction about horses. I purchased the Project Pack Horses from HOAC back in November and we finally had an opportunity to schedule some time to work on it. Madeline loves to work independently as much as possible and she did the whole project pack herself! It turned out really cute and she learned a lot.    |
Mar. 17, 2008
Angelo
Meike just finished two weeks of rowing Angelo and we put together a lapbook thanks to Homeschool Share. It always amazes me, looking at the finished lapbook, how much we accomplish in those two weeks. Meike's Angelo lapbook is no exception. She was so proud of it and showed it off to daddy when he came home from work on Friday. Here are a few pictures of her lapbook. 
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Mar. 12, 2008
Ode to laundry
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I hate laundry so much. I thought it would be a perfect scrapbook page. I participated in a LOAD challenge on Babycenter scrapbook board. We had to do 29 layouts in February and one of the challenges was to use a sketch from Blueprint sketches
Ode to Laundry Oh laundry, how I loath thee Let me count the ways. If I could avoid thee, I would If I could make thee disappear, I would I hate thee more than dirty diapers I hate thee beyond the mountain of dishes When will thee stop piling so? When will thee let me forget thee? Here's the picture of my layout.  |
Mar. 12, 2008
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
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Let's see if I can get this cute video of daddy telling the later half of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears! He was telling this story before we went to church last month before our open house. It was just enough to keep the kids occupied while I was suppose to be cleaning the last minutes things. Of course I found it to be the perfect time to grab the camera. I love it so much! |
Mar. 12, 2008
She is 8 already?!?!?! How did that happen?
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As much as I love birthdays, there is nothing sadder than having my children turn a new age. It really makes me realize how short a time I have with my children. Sunday Meike turned 8. It really does feel like just last year I was giving birth to her. Her delivery was the longest, scariest delivery I had. We were grateful that she was born perfectly healthy and without a c-section. She was posterior and came out with her hand next to her face. Meike had a wonderful birthday especially with the massive amount of snow that was dumped Saturday to Sunday. It was beautiful and I will post pictures very soon. We gave her an American girl doll for her birthday. She actually received Elizabeth the week before at her combine birthday party with her sister, Maddy, and her cousin, Mark who is exactly 6 days older. She loves Elizabeth and has kept her by her side almost all the time. On Sunday we gave her Elizabeth's tea lesson dress and the accessories that go with her doll. It didn't take long for Zoe and Jaxon to break one of her gifts. They both broke off one of the fan pieces each that day. We ended the day with pizza, wings and chocolate cake. Ymmm!!!!   |
Mar. 4, 2008
The Simple Joys
I think I may finally understand why I had 3 girls first! 
Feb. 18, 2008
The Best Plans
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Someday I will learn that when I make plans I need to remember to have some wiggle room. When we started this year I knew that we needed to be prepared to alter my plans. I forgot that a few weeks ago when we started counting out the remainder of days we have for this school year. We planned on taking 2 weeks off and a few holidays and we would finish off the year on May 30th. I then went through and figured out how much math they would complete and when we would be done with Five in a Row. Well, silly me. We have already had to alter those plans. Not only did I forget the field trip this Friday but yesterday our Realtor called to see if we could show the house. We did not get any schooling done today. As soon as the house was clean we left. I hate trying to keep the kids from making messes that they naturally do. We came back home at 3 pm and who really wants to do school that late? I'm glad to have this showing over with. It's been almost 2 years of trying to sell this house and I am so sick of constantly feeling on edge. It's hard to just relax when you never know when someone wants to see the house. This has to be the hardest thing we have ever gone through. I am constantly having to give all of it over to God. As much as I want to feel like every rejection is my fault because I didn't do enough, it's not. I hate hearing that the right person hasn't come through. I'm sure that is correct but right now, I'm tired and weary from this. |