Thanks for visiting my blog! I'm Paula, and you have stumbled into my little corner of the world-- where life is never dull! I have been happily married to my superhero Hubby for over 10 years, and we live in the Southern part of Maine. I am an opinionated, slightly crunchy, often frazzled Mom to 4. I have a lot of ideas that no one understands except for me, and I am happily raising my children to think outside of the box. Everyday is a new adventure, so come along and join us! Read about how we learn, play, grow and change everyday! My 2 girls: R age 10 and A age 7 1/2 My 2 boys: M age 4 and C- 1 1/2 year! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:18:00 -0500 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:18:00 -0500 Well, I'm posting twice in the same week--- did you pass out with shock?  LOL!  Actually I guess since today is Monday it is technically a new week, but I'll still understand if you are feeling a little faint from hearing from me again so quickly!   Yesterday my parents took the girls to see High School Musical Onstage.  They took R for her birthday last year and she had such a good time that they decided that they should take A this year too!  M and and cousin T will be going to see a production of Aladdin in a few weeks, which should be really fun.   Since my mom and dad had the girls and Hubby was working, that left me alone with the boys.  We had some shopping to accomplish in order to get the items needed for the birthday party in a few short weeks.  I took them to Target, the Dollar Tree, Walmart and then to the party store.  They were both really good listeners and awfully cute too.   For lunch we stopped at the food court of the mall.  I ordered Chinese for myself and McDonald's (or OLD McDonald's is you are the boys!) for them.  They were just absolutely adorable-- chatting with each other and with me, using their manners, etc.  Even a little old couple sitting near us was smiling and remarking on how cute they were!   With all of the kids here all of the time, I often forget what it is like to have just one or two.  It is so easy to only have two of them to worry about!  I don't know why most of the moms I know complain about how difficult it is to have two!  Even if I still have both boys, who are by far the most difficult of my bunch, it is still so much easier without the other two to worry about!   Last week we took just the girls out to see Harry Potter.  During the hour before the show started we had a great time talking and goofing around.  As mush as I love being all together as a family it is really nice to be able to spend some time in smaller groups.  I try to make a habit of having alone time with each of them even if it is just to run out to the store.  They like it that they can have my undivided attention and I love just being with them and getting a chance to really hear them without all of the background noise.   Anyway, just thought I'd share about my special day with the boys.  Back to your regularly scheduled nonsense. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/711722/ Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:18:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/711722/ I have no idea if I even still have any readers of my blog since I stopped checking my Stat Counter about 4 months ago.  I'd like to admit that I have missed blogging and will be back on a more regular basis in the near future, but alas, we all know that that is crap.  I've been hanging out with friends, new and old, on Facebook and can't seem to drag my butt here on more than an every four month kind of basis.  Eh, like they say on Jon and Kate plus 8, "you get what you get and you don't get upset". :shrug   So what's that haps, you might be wondering?  Hmmmm....  where to start?   C is nearly fully potty trained, even at night.  He wears big boy pants all day long (a pull-up that is usually dry at night) and rarely has an accident.  He got a potty chair for Easter, sat and peed in it, and has been making steady progress ever since!  We are still working on getting his poop into the toilet, but since he only turned 2 in March we are cutting him some slack.  As long as he gets it before he leaves for college it's all good in my book.  And every time he pees on the pot is one less diaper I have to change!  I just love my big boy!   We will be having a new addition to the family in the upcoming month.  (Did you fall over thinking that I'm pregnant??)  We have a German exchange student that will be joining our family next month for the upcoming school year.  She's arriving on August 27th and will stay until June of next year.  She is 16, nearly 17, and loves ballet, violin and piano.  We have been able to email back and forth with her for the last month couple of months and we have loved getting to know her.  Everyone is just so excited that she will here; the kids are already planning all of the fun stuff they want to show her while she's here.  She'd better rest up for her trip because it is a LONG list of stuff!  LOL!   Our summer is in full swing.  It's been rainy and crappy most days but we've still been incredibly busy!  A has been taking science classes at the local wildlife reserve, M went to a week long science camp, we all went to a week of Vacation Bible School ( the 3 big kids as students, me as a teacher), and I taught a kite making class at the Y.  R will be attending a week long science camp at the reserve in a few weeks, and we will be celebrating R and M's birthdays on the 15th of August.  I can't believe that she will be 11 and he will be 5!  Time really does fly!   I guess that's all I can think of to report tonight.  The kids had a sleepover with a friend and cousin T last night so everyone is exhausted and off to bed early.  Hope everyone's summers are going well! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/711362/ Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:06:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/711362/ A had her very first TKD tournament this weekend and look what she brought home:     She came in fourth place out of 9 girls in her division and won her very first trophy!  We were so proud of her!   And here she is in action:   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/674084/ Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:47:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/674084/ http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/671888/ Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:06:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/671888/ Hubby and I actually got to go on a "date" together yesterday.  Our venue of choice?  Ruby Tuesdays (with a gift card) and a stroll through the book store without anyone crying, needing to go pee, or begging for books we can't afford.  It was an awesome afternoon!   I picked up a couple of books for my science class and a book called Amazing Word Power, 100 words Every 5th Grader Should Know.  I had flipped through the book in the store and realized that words like prodigious and reticent are lacking from my pool of knowledge.  Since anyone who knows me can declare that I strive to be smarter than a 5th grader, I figured we (as a collective family) could all use a vocabulary boost.   Our first words were reminisce and conclude; both words that we have seen and heard several times before.  We all took turns coming up with sentences and really beat those words to death!  It was funny to see how the girls could finagle the words into conversation.  A had a little trouble grasping "conclude", but she got the hang of it in the end, and the girls were begging for more words!   This morning we set off on a family adventure to Build-A-Bear Workshop.  C got a gift card for a BAB zebra (he LOVES zebras like Marty on Madagascar) for his birthday.  We told the other kids that they could each pick one of the most inexpensive bear friends to help C in celebrating his special day.    C was quite overwhelmed by the sheer size of the store.  There was so much to see and touch, and then he saw MARTY!  So exciting!  He latched right onto the flaccid equine and would have been perfectly happy to take him home in his unfluffed state.  Poor C didn't know the fun that lay in store for him!   After all of the kids had made their choice, we filed over to the "Stuffing Station", where Marty and his pals were stuffed, sewn and filled with "love".  On to the "Fluffing Station" for some grooming and then the "Dressing Station" to finish things off.  C was so cute, not letting Marty out of his grip as he picked out a t-shirt for him to wear.  He ended up with a white one with red sleeves that read "Happy Birthday".  It was quite fitting for the event!   The other kids had fun too.  R picked out a High School Musical bear, complete with necklace and t-shirt.  She named him Teddy Roosevelt since he was instrumental in starting the teddy bear as a trend.  She has reverted to calling him Gabriella though, so I think the bear may end up with some gender confusion issues in the future.   A chose a koala that she named Coconut.  She bought her a green St. Patrick's Day t-shirt with a frog on it and put little white ribbons in her hair ears.  She also worked hard when we got home to turn the box she was sent home in into a real home for her new friend.  Then she used it as a robot mask...   M knew which friend he wanted as soon as he saw it.  He picked out a grey tiger striped cat with pink ears and a pink nose.  He instantly named him Sonic and will have words with anyone who calls him a cat.  It's not a cat, it's Sonic.  Duh.   We stopped and had Friendlys for lunch, which is always a huge treat!  Lunch in a restaurant and ice cream!  It doesn't get much better than that!  Hubby took some cute pictures of the whole adventure, but I'm having a hard time posting them.  I'll come back and try to edit them into this post later for all those who are dying to see how the trip went!      http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/671836/ Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:26:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/671836/ Today started off normally enough.  I woke with the alarm clock at 5:30 a.m., just as I do every Sunday morning before starting our all-day church adventure.  I woke Hubby for work at 6:00 and went back downstairs for some breakfast and quiet time before I had to wake the kids.   The phone rang at 6:04 and it was the PD looking for Hubby.  I figured they were calling about available overtime, so I brought the phone to him upstairs where he had just gotten out of bed.  He took the phone with a puzzled look when I said it was work calling.   My curiousity and his confusion grew as I heard him say, "No, it's only 6:05!".   I caught his eye with a deer-in-the-headlights look and we both realized that we completely forgot to change the clocks!  In my defense, I thought daylight savings time began NEXT week!   Hubby ran down to take a record-breaking shower before darting out the door, and I took on the impossible task of getting five people up, showered, dressed, and fed in 25 minutes!  Sunday school started at 8 a.m. and we needed at least 30 minutes to get there!  UGH!   Luckily, we were only about 12 minutes late.  We probably could have shaved 4 minutes or so off of that time if we hadn't had to wait for the flock of 14 wild turkeys to cross the road. (The kids all pealed with laughter and chicken crossing the road jokes while I seethed quietly!)  The girls hustled into class and the boys and I settled into our routine of a video in the van for them and quiet time with a book for Mommy.  They finished their breakfast in their car seats, and I marveled at the fact that we had pulled it off!   Many of you may remember my complaints about M's former behavior in church.  I swear he saved every bit of bad behavior all week long to dish out to me in church when my disciplining skills were sorely minimized.  Recently he has been on his best behavior, revelling in the idea of acting like a big boy.  It certainly helps that he has reached an age where he can be reasoned with and he now understands consequences of his horrid behaviors.  He is now (usually) a pleasure to have in church.   Enter C.  I thought I was going to dodge a bullet with him, seeing as though he has such a different temperment than his brother.  Sadly, I was wrong, and leaving the house at 7:30 in the morning, driving for a half hour, waiting in the car for another hour and a half, and finally sitting through an hour of church, seems to be taking its toll on my little man.  He usually starts off well enough, with snack and toys and such, but by the middle of the service he is grumpy and disruptive.  Today I actually had to carry him out of the building and into the glass entry way to wait out his tantrum.  When he had finally calmed down enough to reenter the building so we could go back to our seats with the other kiddos, I accidently pinched his finger in the hinge of the door and his screaming started all over again!   We jetted out of church after Communion, and about 10 minutes early, because of C's behavior.  He fell asleep about 5 minutes (he lost an hour of sleep thanks to Mr. Franklin!) into our journey home, but has been a little crab all afternoon.  I am really just at a loss as to how to handle this whole church debacle.  It is important to me to go faithfully, but it is like running a marathon every week!   There must be something in the air, because my normally well behaved children are all fighting and miserable and dragging me along with them.  The only good thing I can think of about today is that it'll at least be one hour shorter! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/666550/ Sun, 8 Mar 2009 13:06:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/666550/ Well, I'm back online temporarily on an old desk top computer that my dad was able to put back together.  My lap top lasted all of 15 hour after I re-christened it at home and I fear that the end has come for it!  I am so relieved to be able to compute at home again that I am not even going to complain about my lack of mobility and the keyboard keys being too high.    As usual, we have been really busy and I don't know where all the days have gone.  The 3 big kids are outside riding bikes in our muddy driveway right now, trying to soak up some vitamin D while they can.  I can barely see them over the 3 foot snow piles on either side, but I can hear them talking and laughing through my open (yes, Michelle, I caved) living room window, so I know they are alright.  I am not looking forward to the state of my newly washed floors when they decide the have had enough outside.  M has already come in with mud up to his elbows from making "hand put-frints" in the driveway.  Ahhh, Spring has almost sprung!    My little man, C, will be turing 2 on Friday next week.  I can't believe how fast that time has gone by.  It seems like he has always been a part of our lives, and yet it seems like he was just born too.  Time is moving just too fast for my liking these days.  The kids are all getting older and they are dragging me with them by default!      For the last month or so, the boys have been sharing M's bed because C thought he was too big to sleep in his crib.  He was so happy to be sleeping with "Mammie" in a big boy bed that we decided to take the bunk beds apart to allow each of them to have their own bed.  It is so sweet to see them sleeping side by side in their beds, but now C has full range of the house in the middle of the night and we have resorted to reinstalling the baby gates upstairs.  He is usually pretty good and just comes to find me in my room in the middle of the night.   The girls are doing great.  We just finished a study of the rain forests and they both did a project about rain forest creatures.  R made a large collage of animals and A made a diorama of a tree frog on a mushroom.  They both came out really cute, and I made them each write a little description of what they made and why.  Our schooling is progressing nicely, and I'll have a ton of stuff for the portfolio reviews in a few months.   A is going to be entering a TKD tournament in a few weeks.  It is the first one she's entered and she is really nervous.  She will still technically be 7 (it is 3 days before her birthday), so that puts her in the 5-7 year old category, which I think will be more beneficial to her than the 8-9 year olds.  She is such a little peanut of a thing that she will be much better matched with a child that is younger.  I hope she does well enough to give her a little more confidence, and I hope that she has fun!   As I mentioned, A's birthday is also coming up.  We are having a family party for her and C on the 21st, and I am trying to plan a friends' party on April 4th.  Afte the disasterous party from last year, I feel like I have a lot to make up for.  I just want to see her happy on her special day, surrounded by her friends, and having a great time.   Well, chaos is starting to ensue.  Apparently, 54 degrees is still too cold for an extended playtime outside.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/666299/ Sat, 7 Mar 2009 13:27:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/666299/ (I have to preface my story by explaining my lack of computer communication.  Our computer completely died and I have only been able to get on at the library to check email and such.  Nothing cures a Facebook addiction like going cold turkey that's for sure!!)   I dropped the girls off at a friend's house the other day.  They were going to leave with their friend to attend a party at her local library to make Valentine's Day cards and have a small party.  The mom was going to bring them home after the event, so that just left me alone with the boys, which is a rarity.   We stopped on the way home at the Toms of Maine toothpaste store.  My family is really picky and only likes a certain flavor of toothpaste that can only be found in the flouride-free version at the factory store.  So, I brought both boys in and they were fablously behaved.  It is amazing how when I have time to focus just on the two of them their behavior (especially M's) makes a complete change.   C fell asleep after our stop at the toothpaste store and M sat quietly in his car seat daydreaming and gazing out the window.  He was wrapped tightly in a green fleece blanket that he uses instead of wearing his cost in his car seat, and I just drove and enjoyed the quiet moment.   I was just thinking to myself that he was so quiet that he must have fallen asleep as well when he anounced that he had "a green one" for me.  His voice was all high pitched and excited and he kept insisting that I take the "green one" because it was for me.  I assumed that it was a fuzzy off of the blanket he was wrapped in because he tends to have a fuzzy-fetish, so I reached back and let him drop the "green one" into my hand.   Let's just take a moment to remember what they say about those who assume, shall we?   I pulled my hand into the front seat again only to find a bright green, slimey booger attached to it!  M was soooo proud as I shrieked and tried to find something to wipe it on without careening us into the field we were driving past!  He kept saying, "I found a green one for you!", and I think his feelings were a little hurt that I wasn't responding in a more appreciative manner!   I laughed about it with him (after I managed to scrape it off) and we talked about how he needs to keep his boogers to himself and no matter how tempting, he isn't to share them.  I don't think he gets it or cares, quiet frankly.  he just knew that he found a special treasure and he wanted Mommy to have it!   Next time I think I'll question what his surprise is before I willingly accept it.  Lesson learned! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/657031/ Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:15:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/657031/ So, I took a job at our local YMCA back in September so that we could afford for the kids to continue taking classes there.  Between paying for all of the classes for 4 kids, and the $600 membership per year, it was just becoming an unnecessary expense.  I was thrilled when the director of the Y approached me with a deal I couldn't resist:  Teach a class (or 2)for toddlers and preschoolers, and recieve MY membership for free (knocking our family membership down to $200+ per year), get $8 per class that I teach (so $56 total for teaching one class for 7 weeks, pre-taxes) and get 50% off of all classes for everyone in the family.  Since we were paying over $100 every 7 weeks for classes, that was an awesome deal!   So this morning, in addition to my paycheck (a whooping $44 since I am now teaching 3 classes!!) I recieved a note which detailed the Y's new employee discount plan.  Starting immediately all part-time employees will only be able to recieve a 25% discount on class fees.  Grrr!   Now, I took the job strictly so that we could save the money on the kids' classes, which was getting a little out of hand in addition to dance, TKD, piano, violin, etc.   I wanted my "paycheck" to eventually go toward paying for these lessons so that I wouldn't even have to tap into Hubby's paycheck for this money at all, and now I'm right back in the same spot.    And when you factor in the minimal amount I get paid for my efforts, the fact that I show up a half hour early to set up and stay late to clean-up and don't get paid for it, prep time, and the fact that I purchase materials on my own dime and never ask for reimbursment, taking this pay-cut is really irritating me!  I know the Y is trying to save money by rescinding this offer to employees, but really it is just going to end up costing them money when I stop taking classes all together.    I also feel really unappreciated for the job that I do there.  I mean, it is like they are just saying that they really don't care!  All of the teachers of the classes that the kids take are part-time workers.  I wonder how they feel about being told that they are worth less?  I was hired thinking that I would have 50% off and now they dropped it down to 25%?  I wouldn't accept a 25% decrease in pay for any other job!   I'm mad and I'm venting...  I don't know what I am going to do just yet.  I told the executive director and the program director what I thought of this situation and they are looking into it.  I can't imagine that I am the only part-time employee that is effected and offended by this course of action.  I think maybe this is the incentive that I need to make a break from our lives at the YMCA.  It is a shame to leave this way after 8 years.....  I don't know what to do... http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/652684/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:28:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/652684/   (I tried to post this yesterday when it would have been Wednesday at the very least, but between the fact that the Kodak gallery wouldn't upload my pics and the fact that my computer had only 28% battery power, things didn't go as planned.  I'm going to try again, so here goes nothing!!)     Yeah, yeah, I know that I broke my resolutions.  So sue  me.  I am working with a crappy laptop that can't seem to hold a charge for more than 20 minutes, and since my Facebook addiction typically takes longer than that, it doesn't leave much time for anything else.   On to the pictures.  These are from last night when A broke 4 (yes 4!) boards with her fist and feet!       Check out that kick!     Breaking a board     The TKD girls!   Unfortunately I have about 12 more pictures I wasn't able to upload!  I also have no idea where the dots came from and why the font is all weird.  Ah, anyway, isn't A amazing?  We were so proud of her!!!       http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/651769/ Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:08:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/thebutterflyschool/651769/