10.08.2009
Fall
It is my favorite time of year. The leaves turn beautiful colors orange, yellow, purples. The kids and I love to explore so we went on a nature hike around the neighborhood. It was so much fun! Natalie was napping so we did not go to far, but we did pick pumpkins right out of our own backyard. The boys thought this was fantastic.
9.23.2009
A Beautiful Butterfly
Today at Stroller Strides Liam, Reilly and Zane found a few caterpillars. While teaching class I was happy they were entertaining themselves and loving finding new things. After class I realized that Liam had used my Stroller Strides water bottle as his new caterpillars home.
Oh well boys will be boys, right. Little did I know that Caterpillar would go into hibernation in there. I went upstairs tonight, saw my water bottle, grabbed it and heard "it is going to be a beautiful butterfly, yeah! yeah!". I laughed and thought how am I going to explain to him there will be no butterfly. Then I looked inside the water bottle and low and behold a cocoon.
I immediately did what every parent would do and I googled "raising caterpillars" and found out we have a Wolly Bear Tiger Moth Caterpillar in our hands. It will hibernate now until Spring when we will need to relocate it to a new house and watch it turn into a butterfly.
Are you kidding me. I have to try and explain to the boys that the Caterpillar will not be a butterfly until March or April. Then I have to make sure I do not throw it out, kill it or loose it in the mean time. Yikes!
I love the excitement in their eyes and for my boys ~ we are now happy owners of one caterpillar.
Oh well boys will be boys, right. Little did I know that Caterpillar would go into hibernation in there. I went upstairs tonight, saw my water bottle, grabbed it and heard "it is going to be a beautiful butterfly, yeah! yeah!". I laughed and thought how am I going to explain to him there will be no butterfly. Then I looked inside the water bottle and low and behold a cocoon.
I immediately did what every parent would do and I googled "raising caterpillars" and found out we have a Wolly Bear Tiger Moth Caterpillar in our hands. It will hibernate now until Spring when we will need to relocate it to a new house and watch it turn into a butterfly.
Are you kidding me. I have to try and explain to the boys that the Caterpillar will not be a butterfly until March or April. Then I have to make sure I do not throw it out, kill it or loose it in the mean time. Yikes!
I love the excitement in their eyes and for my boys ~ we are now happy owners of one caterpillar.
Supernanny has nothing on me...
Okay so Jo never made it to our house. I guess we just were not "bad" enough for her or something. I decided to take it upon myself to roll out the reward charts and get this house under control (well with A LOT OF HELP FROM GOD, less control and more peace!)
Anyway, we put up our Supernanny Reward Charts (from her own website) and off we went. It only took Reilly a week to fill his up. Liam is half way there and loving all this reward stuff. Natalie has been up and down the chart twice so far but has never actually made it to "10". She is working hard though and I have seen so much improvement from her despite her 3yr old tantrums.
The best part is Reilly now gets to do something fun and he asked he basically told Liam he would do whatever Liam wanted to do. LOL!
Liam is almost to Book 18 on his reading chart which is HUGE and he is so excited because it is the halfway marker. I started high with him and told him he could get a DS game. It takes major motivation to move this kid and guess what in one week he has read most of these. Crazy!
Anyway, we put up our Supernanny Reward Charts (from her own website) and off we went. It only took Reilly a week to fill his up. Liam is half way there and loving all this reward stuff. Natalie has been up and down the chart twice so far but has never actually made it to "10". She is working hard though and I have seen so much improvement from her despite her 3yr old tantrums.
The best part is Reilly now gets to do something fun and he asked he basically told Liam he would do whatever Liam wanted to do. LOL!
Liam is almost to Book 18 on his reading chart which is HUGE and he is so excited because it is the halfway marker. I started high with him and told him he could get a DS game. It takes major motivation to move this kid and guess what in one week he has read most of these. Crazy!
9.21.2009
Ode to Natalie
Never stops talking
Always eating
Terrible 3's
Adventurous
Loves her family
Is adorably funny
Experiences life
Arts & Crafts
It is great to see how creative our kids are. All three of the kids love to paint. 2 are very abstract and one is a perfectionist. I love to see how they create, think and experience art.
I read a little today about how art has evolved over the years. These boys remembered the "painted" rock in Yakima the Indians made and were able to associate that with cave paintings. I love it!
We learned all about Primary Colors and how these colors when blended can make other colors. We experimented with colors and made up our own. Liam won with Indian Brown. Reilly had Meteor Black and Natalie had Dinosaur Pee Green.
Now we are off to the library to explore the world through books, DVDs and our new favorite Books on CD for the car ride.
I read a little today about how art has evolved over the years. These boys remembered the "painted" rock in Yakima the Indians made and were able to associate that with cave paintings. I love it!
We learned all about Primary Colors and how these colors when blended can make other colors. We experimented with colors and made up our own. Liam won with Indian Brown. Reilly had Meteor Black and Natalie had Dinosaur Pee Green.
Now we are off to the library to explore the world through books, DVDs and our new favorite Books on CD for the car ride.
9.19.2009
Home School 2009-2010
It has been a long time.
We are off to a great home school year so far. It was rough the first week or so, but we are getting the hang of things and a good routine down. I love teaching my kids! It is a challenge at times, but it is so much fun. Reilly has a hunger to learn, Liam needs motivation and Natalie just wants to do it all herself.
We love Science and I am finding the kids are learning so much just by helping cooking, baking and just being in the kitchen. Liam misses his school friends and recess on the playground and his favorite teacher Mrs. Evans. Reilly loves being home, but yet wants to go to school. We will home school this year and re-evaluate next year. I guess the proof will be when we test them to see how they are doing.
Liam is now reading and well on his way to getting his new DS game if he keeps it up. He is also counting to 100, counting by 5's and 2's and we are moving on to learning addition and subtraction, fractions and more. He likes math more then I did at his age. Reilly is almost got all his letters and sounds down. He loves writing and copy work. He can write his entire alphabet and his numbers if I have it in front of him. He still has a hard time with a few letters. He is counting to 20 on his own. I am teaching both boys Science and History. We have learned about carbon dioxide (base + acid = gas). The boys love learning about magnets and how they can separate steel and aluminum. We have also learned about all kinds of animals. Reilly loves all the carnivores. The boys are into sharks and whales so we are studying those as well reading lots of books, watching movies and talking about them. We are on to the force of gravity this week. I would say that Science is by far their favorite even Natalie is into it. The History is a bit slow as it is a lot of reading, but they are enjoying learning about other places of the world.
Of course we do arts and crafts and have fun field trips. We have been to the Woodland Park Zoo to see animals and to the IMAX theater to see our favorite book on film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Next week we head to the Puyallup Fair.
We are off to a good start and I hope to keep the momentum going. I feel like it requires a lot of prep work and organization to stay on track, but that is my personality anyway. I am loving it even when I am dealing with sibling rivalry all day (most days). :O)
We are off to a great home school year so far. It was rough the first week or so, but we are getting the hang of things and a good routine down. I love teaching my kids! It is a challenge at times, but it is so much fun. Reilly has a hunger to learn, Liam needs motivation and Natalie just wants to do it all herself.
We love Science and I am finding the kids are learning so much just by helping cooking, baking and just being in the kitchen. Liam misses his school friends and recess on the playground and his favorite teacher Mrs. Evans. Reilly loves being home, but yet wants to go to school. We will home school this year and re-evaluate next year. I guess the proof will be when we test them to see how they are doing.
Liam is now reading and well on his way to getting his new DS game if he keeps it up. He is also counting to 100, counting by 5's and 2's and we are moving on to learning addition and subtraction, fractions and more. He likes math more then I did at his age. Reilly is almost got all his letters and sounds down. He loves writing and copy work. He can write his entire alphabet and his numbers if I have it in front of him. He still has a hard time with a few letters. He is counting to 20 on his own. I am teaching both boys Science and History. We have learned about carbon dioxide (base + acid = gas). The boys love learning about magnets and how they can separate steel and aluminum. We have also learned about all kinds of animals. Reilly loves all the carnivores. The boys are into sharks and whales so we are studying those as well reading lots of books, watching movies and talking about them. We are on to the force of gravity this week. I would say that Science is by far their favorite even Natalie is into it. The History is a bit slow as it is a lot of reading, but they are enjoying learning about other places of the world.
Of course we do arts and crafts and have fun field trips. We have been to the Woodland Park Zoo to see animals and to the IMAX theater to see our favorite book on film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Next week we head to the Puyallup Fair.
We are off to a good start and I hope to keep the momentum going. I feel like it requires a lot of prep work and organization to stay on track, but that is my personality anyway. I am loving it even when I am dealing with sibling rivalry all day (most days). :O)
5.31.2009
5.30.2009
We got up early as the sun was out again (can you beleive it). The kids and I headed to the trail to ride bikes with our friends the Conley's. We walked and the kids rode 4mi that is a long way for the littler guys but they were having a blast. Then we hit the Extrememe Cheer car wash for a wash up for James the Big Red Suburban. We headed home for a shower and quick change before we met Pop-Pop for lunch at Red Robin. It was so much fun...but the fun still kept coming. After lunch we took the kids to the Lego store and they were so excited. We discovered you guy buy the little Star Wars characters as magnets that the people come off of instead of buying an entire set to get the one guys (like Yoda or some guy I can not even pronounce). Liam got some new set, Reilly got new characters and showed us what he wants for his birthday in July. Natalie just ran around talking to everyone (what a suprise). Then it was off to the play area which all the kids really enjoyed. A car ride home and a little lego playing time and now the boys are off to a movie with dad (using up a gift card) and Natalie is resting from a long day of fun. These are the days I cherish making memories and having fun as a family.
5.09.2009
Pretty Pink Princess in Tutu's
First I can say that I was not the pretty pink tutu type as a little girl. I was more into dirt bike riding and playing outside looking for poly wogs. Natalie however got the cute little girl gene and I LOVE IT! It is so adorable to watch her play dress up, barbies, princesses, and just be a girl. It usually means being dirty, but still a little sweet adorable girl. Natalie has proven to have a lot of spunk and fiestiness about her. I have no idea where she gets that. LOL! We are so enjoying (and crying) over watching her grow, learn and explore who she is as a little person. She loves her family and all animals, but most of all she loves just being a girl, oh and food!
5.05.2009
The ABC's of me
A is for allergies and trying to learn all about them
B is for breakfast in bed, BUNCO, and boys
C is for character it is what defines you and chickens with personalities...who would have thought?
D is for dirty dishes, dirty floors and dirty laundry....job security.
E is for ear plugs when the kids are screaming, wrestling and being loud
F is for family and feeling sexy sometimes
G is for God, good food and girlfriends
H is for Home it truley is in the Heart
I is for integrity, it means so much
J is for Jason and Jessica...12 years and counting
K is for kisses from my babies and hubby
L is for laughter, love and living
M is for Music and the mysteries of life
O is for learning all about being organic...what a lot of work.
P is for planting my garden and the peace it brings me
Q is for questions I have a million of them
R is for reality I am fully living in it
S is for Salvation I am grateful for it
T is for Tickles, tackles, and three yr old tantrums
U is for the umbrella I need to stay out of all this rain
V is for victories they come one day at a time
W is for words they are powerful
X is for xerox paper my kids love it
Y is for yelling it just comes out and then you are left cleaning up the mess
Z is for the zzzzzzzzzzzz's I get at night
B is for breakfast in bed, BUNCO, and boys
C is for character it is what defines you and chickens with personalities...who would have thought?
D is for dirty dishes, dirty floors and dirty laundry....job security.
E is for ear plugs when the kids are screaming, wrestling and being loud
F is for family and feeling sexy sometimes
G is for God, good food and girlfriends
H is for Home it truley is in the Heart
I is for integrity, it means so much
J is for Jason and Jessica...12 years and counting
K is for kisses from my babies and hubby
L is for laughter, love and living
M is for Music and the mysteries of life
O is for learning all about being organic...what a lot of work.
P is for planting my garden and the peace it brings me
Q is for questions I have a million of them
R is for reality I am fully living in it
S is for Salvation I am grateful for it
T is for Tickles, tackles, and three yr old tantrums
U is for the umbrella I need to stay out of all this rain
V is for victories they come one day at a time
W is for words they are powerful
X is for xerox paper my kids love it
Y is for yelling it just comes out and then you are left cleaning up the mess
Z is for the zzzzzzzzzzzz's I get at night
4.16.2009
For Sale
Bad economic times, lose of jobs, lose of money, lose of pride, lose of security.
The "for Sale" sign sits in the yard and I wonder God has in store for us. I mean who can sell a house in the economic downfall we are in.
I am reflecting on where this all began. April 2008 is my first recollection of the journey God started us on. Our ears were closed and our eyes were not open to His greater plan. A challenge from God to be faithful and trust in the unknown.
Did we fail? We might have in some areas, but I think over all God has broken down walls within each of our hearts and drawn us closer as a family. He literally has striped us from everything that "makes" us who we "perceive" to be.
What is left? Like Adam and Eve we feel naked in a sea of people yearning for something greater. We struggle like everyone to read our bibles, to hear and discern God's word. We struggle in our marriage, in our parenting and in our relationships. We have processed all that has happened as though they are symptoms to a greater problem.
One thing I think God is telling me is that "no matter where you are or what conditions and trials you may endure I am standing right next to you". So I have let go of the control (which was never mine to begin with). Without a plan, without knowledge of what is coming tomorrow I feel as though I am content. I may not like it and I may growl out my irritation that this is happening, but in my heart I know God is grooming us both for something so much greater then we could imagine.
Isaiah 51:6 "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail"
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