Hellooo . . . Anybody out there?

Is it really February?  Didn't we just celebrate Christmas?  By the way time is flying, I should probably go ahead and get started on my Christmas shopping. Geez!

 I can not believe that it has been over a month since I have written a blog post.  I mean, I knew it had been a while, but a month . . . you've got to be kidding me!  But according to the handy dandy date thing on the top of my blog post it has indeed been over a month!  I vow to get better.  Really, I do!

So, here is what we have been up to.  School, school, school, and more school.  Okay so that is a flat out lie.  We have done some school, but mostly we've just been busy.  We've got basketball practices two nights a week and games on Saturday mornings.  (Two different kiddos playing basketball in two different age groups = family at basketball games from 8:30 until 12:00 every Saturday.)  Add to this the fact that I decided to sign up for a half marathon and that means training, because if I didn't it would surely mean throw up, pass out, and then die on side of road.  On that note, did I mention that I also signed my husband up to run the half with me?  He is super excited!  (Where is that sarcasm font when you need it?)  Here's the part that really stinks.  He can just do it.  He can not run for weeks and then just go run tons of miles like it's no big thing.  Frustrating!  Just like he can decide he wants to lose some weight and then (I swear) he just loses it.  I'll diet, exercise, drink more water, follow all the rules and might lose 2 pounds in a month.  What in the world is that about?
Okay, I'll quit ranting about that.

My training has been going really well and I really enjoy and look forward to my runs.  It's nice to have time all to yourself.  It's quiet (or it's your choice of music) and feels great to be outside in the fresh air . . .even if the temps have been pretty cold. The other week when I was scheduled to run 7 miles it was in the 20's!  But, by the time I got going, I warmed up!  My last long run was 12 miles on Monday.  I did it!  I couldn't believe that I could actually do it!  My legs were sore for days.  They still hurt yesterday (Thursday) but I ran my planned 3 miles and it made them feel much better.  I'm trying to decide it I want to run a slow and steady 6 miles tomorrow or participate in a 5k here in town and kinda push myself speed wise.  Decision, decisions!

Let's see . . . what else?  Well, we went out to Colorado to go snow skiing with my husband's grandparents last week.  So much fun!  I'm not that big of a skier, (Flying down a mountain as fast as possible does not excite me.  I like to make all my turns and go nice and slow!) but my husband and kiddos love it.  He took all three of them down their first black diamond run.  I didn't know about it until after the fact.  Definitely a good thing!  I would post pictures, but my computer is refusing to acknowledge my cf card at the moment and I can not find the cord thingy (technical, huh) to connect my camera to the computer.  No worries. . . pictures are to come.

Lastly, in January I took over as Women's Ministry Captain at my church.  I am excited, but a little bit nervous about being able to do all that it entails and not letting the women of my church down.  We had a fun little fellowship event on Sunday and I think that it turned out really well.

Hopefully now that I am all caught up with normal life stuff, I will be able to update the blog more and get back to regularly scheduled programs!

I know you didn't. . .

Okay, so that should say I know I didn't. But, I did. I know I did it because, well, I did it.


I signed up to run a half marathon. Yep, I did it. We'll see what happens with that. My goal is to simply finish the thing! Of course I didn't sign up for one in April, oh no. I signed up for on February 13th. I actually signed up a few weeks ago and so I've searched online and found a training schedule for 8 weeks prior to race day.

So far, so good. Today I ran six miles. That's the most I've ever run. I didn't die!!!!! I didn't even feel like I was going to die! Who knew?!

So, enough about that!

We had a great Christmas at our house. It actually snowed on Christmas Day in Alabama. Wow! Now, I see what the big deal is about a white Christmas (even though no snow actually stuck to the ground)! We didn't travel anywhere on Christmas Day this year and it was quite the blessing. We were able to hang out in our pajamas all day long!!!! THAT is my kinda day!

Here are some pictures from our wonderful Christmas celebrations!



All the cousins on my mom's side!  My mom had two daughters and now has all grandsons!

The cousins on Jason's mom's side of the family!  I could easily take their cousin Matt and claim to have triplets instead of twins!

These boys seriously loved the super cool hats from GiGi!

Priceless!

 Before!

 After!

 There were even toys in the boys playhouse fort.  I forgot, boys don't have playhouses.

I hope that your Christmas season was just as wonderful as ours!  I have really enjoyed just relaxing and am probably going to have a hard time getting back into our normal routine!  Hopefully, it won't take me too long!

No Time, No Time

So, this will be another quick kinda random post, but this one will be just about all pictures. It seems like I only have time for a post with my thoughts or a post with pictures, but not both.  I know that my family that reads this blog could care less about what I have to say . . . they just want to see pictures. 

 So here goes -

Here is a picture of the cute little cookies we made for Thanksgiving.  Okay, well, I said that "we" made them, but in reality - I did.  I brought the kids over to show them how to make the cookies, but all they wanted to do was eat them!  My sweet husband, um "offered" to help, but then later quit because apparently I have some serious perfectionist issues.  I have no idea what he is talking about!  Please no comment, mom!

What in the world are we going to do in science with marshmallows, Qtips, and toothpicks?

Why, little man and I made a model of an insect.  See the three body parts, two antennas, and six legs?

Not much makes me happier then seeing my boys reading.  But, if I told the truth, then I would have to admit that he was assigned this book to read and later declared it "stupid."  It was The Cabin Faced West which has a girl for the main character, so I am thinking that had something to do with his (and his brother's) opinion.  Surely one day they will enjoy a book!

I honestly can not even remember what we were doing.  Something hands on in math and probably with fractions.  Helpful, right?! Oh wait. . . I remember.  Never mind, no I don't.  I thought we were ordering fractions, but then I remembered that we did that with construction paper "candy bars."  I could just look it up in the teacher's book, but it's not worth it to me! 

I do remember what Little Man was doing.  We were making congruent shapes on our geoboards.  He loved this activity! What?  No, of course he didn't shoot any of his geobands across the room at his brothers.  He would never ever do something like that!  I mean, we homeschool for goodness sake.  My children NEVER misbehave!  Bahahahahaha! 

Oh, the joys of division.  At least it is more fun on the white board!

Simplifying expressions is also more fun on the whiteboard!

That's all I've got right now!  We've been having a good time doing some fun Christmas activities and hopefully I will post about those sometime before next Christmas!

Back With Some Randomness

Okay, so it has been one entire month since I have written a blog post.  That is just crazy, but in my defense we have been down right busy. 

First, we went to Disneyworld for a week.  So. Much. Fun. (Like always!)  We stayed off site this time and we thought it was great.  Even though you aren't in your room that much, it can get kinda cramped in those little rooms.  The 3 bedroom condo worked out a lot better for us!  Anyway, the boys loved riding all the rides.  Little Man was really disappointed that he wasn't tall enough to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster, but he enjoyed Tower of Terror NINE times.  Seriously. 

Hands down our overall favorite ride was Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom.

Oh, word of advice - if you have three boys that are "all boy" then the Indiana Jones Stunt Show might not be the best idea.  Giving each of them an Indiana Jones whip for Christmas will most definitely not be our smartest move as parents.  I am totally blaming my husband for that dandy idea!

The next week was Thanksgiving and we were busy visiting with family and eating some good good food!

Last weekend I attended the Deeper Still Conference with Kay Arthur, Beth Moore, and Priscilla Shirer.  Wow.  That's all I can say.  It was beyond great!  14,000 women. Oh my!  If you've never been, you have one last chance.  The last Deeper Still will be next summer in Kentucky (I think).  It would be worth your travels!

So, here I am.  We've been doing school, but obviously I haven't blogged about it.  This upcoming week is our last week before we break for Christmas and I hope to have a rather light week, honestly. 

I did get a laptop for an early Christmas present so maybe I will blog a little more frequently, now.  We'll see.  Anyway, it's good to be back.  I've missed my bloggy friends!

P.S.  Thanks Mrs. Jennifer for the motivation!

Weekly Wrap Up - The One with Two Weeks

I can't believe that it has been so long since I have blogged!  We've been super busy and I just haven't had the time to even really get on the computer! (I mean, I haven't even checked Facebook!!!! *gasp in horror)

I am so far behind that I don't even know where to start . . .

Let's see . . . I'll start with math.  (That should make my math teacher mother happy!)  

Last week, we got our money's worth out of the Saxon Math manipulatives kit.  The bigger boys started working with division and little man practiced working with groups of ten.

Little man also started using the letter tiles in his spelling curriculum. 

My boys don't really love doing arts and crafts.  I say this kinda nonchalantly, but seriously - they REALLY don't like doing arts and crafts.  But, I am the mom and I made them do it anyway.  A few weeks ago, Jen at Home is Where You Start From, had some links to different websites.  One of those websites had this neat idea about melting beeswax and dipping some really pretty leaves in the melted wax.  So, we went on a nature walk, collected some great leaves, came home, and got started.  I thought they turned out really pretty!

On a totally non-school, absolutely unrelated note - my kiddos and husband have a new favorite snack! Edamame!  They could not get enough.  I can't blame them, it is really good!



(We don't make it a habit of wearing wife beater shirts around here.  However, little man thinks it is a super cool muscle shirt, so we let him wear it to bed.  What can you do?



Anybody wondering why I haven't blogged in forever?  Well, I am about to show you why.  I must forewarn you that what you are about to see is absolute, pure chaos!

We decided to paint our kitchen cabinets last weekend.  Everything that was in drawers was placed on the kitchen table.  All the cabinet doors were taken off (displaying the total chaos of the inside of my cabinets).  But hey, it gave me a great opportunity to clean out and reorganize!  Look at the positive, right?!

We still are not completely finished.  There are about 3 doors that had to be redone because of drippage (that's what we call it - sounds professional, right?), and we haven't put the glaze on the cabinet doors yet.  We have done the glaze around the molding at the top.  Hopefully, everything will be completely done by this weekend!

My mother in law was so sweet and offered to keep all the boys all weekend so that we could paint our little hearts out.  I can not even imagine trying to do this with the little ones here. So, thanks Virginia! 

When the boys came home and I was unpacking their bags, I felt something in Drew's side pocket.  I unzipped the pocket and found that he had taken his little pocket size Bible with him for the weekend. 

Does a mama's heart good!

This week in math, Little Man started practicing some addition with regrouping.  We used pennies and dimes as a hands on activity.  We had different items that were "for sale."  He would pick two items to "buy" and then we would count out our dimes and pennies for each item.  We would put our pennies and dimes together and see if we could trade any pennies in for a dime.  He seemed to have a good time!   

In grammar, the bigger boys worked on writing a persuasive essay.  Dalton wrote to persuade his audience to attend our co-op's fall festival, while Drew wrote to persuade his audience to come to our church on Wednesday nights.  The different organizing charts that BJU Press uses for their writing activities are great!  It truly makes the drafting stage so easy.  My boys used to absolutely dread writing, but this curriculum has helped ease the pain with the different organization charts used in the planning stages. 

The bigger boys finally started to multiply using the multiplication algorithm.  I was so glad.  They had been multiplying (1,296 x 6) using expanded form.  Oh, my!  That was so lengthy and if Saxon hadn't introduced the "regular way" (or at least the way I multiply) soon, I was going to do it anyway! 

Math is always more fun on a white board!

Sorry, that this post was so long and sporadic, but my brain is pretty sporadic right now!  I don't know if it was the paint fumes or if it's just me, but I'm going to blame the paint fumes!

I hope all of y'all had a great week!  As always, don't forget to head on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what everybody else has been up to this week.  (Or the past two weeks, or whatever!)

I just don't want to . . .

I know it is time for my weekly wrap up, but honestly - I just don't want to do it right now.  Sounds lazy, right?!  Maybe so, but that's what's happening.  I don't want to write my weekly wrap up (although we did have a GREAT week and got a lot accomplished!), but I do want to share a few blogs with you. 

There are two amazing families in the co-op that we are apart of.  Okay there are alot of amazing families, but today I am going to talk about two of them.  Both families are in the process of adopting daughters from Ethiopia.  They have been faithfully walking this road for about 18 months and are still in the process of raising funds to complete the adoption process.  If I am correct, they both expect to travel in the upcoming months to finally put a face to the daughters that they already love so much.

Jenny has custom Christmas cards and cookbooks for sale.  I encourage you to checkout her blog and their adoption blog!






The other family is the Dreyfus family and Anna has some PRECIOUS hand painted Christmas ornaments for sale.  Check out her blog to see some different designs and of course you can custom order!

It's a win - win situation!  You can get some great gift ideas and help out some amazing people at the same time!

Weekly Wrap Up - Tarantulas, Giant Anteaters, and Realizations

This has been a kind of random week.  You know, one of those weeks where we got alot done, but somehow it doesn't really look that way.  I mean on the checklist.  We started off our week with two pretty normal days of school.  I knew we had a fieldtrip on Wednesday, so we did kind of double up in some areas. 

Wednesday we went and saw our local children's theatre's performance of Stuart Little.  I have to be honest here and say that I was kinda disappointed.  The ending was kinda random and half the time you couldn't understand what the actors were saying.  Not a good first time exposure to theater for my boys.  Needless to say, they aren't lovers of the theater at this point in time!  Oh, well.  Maybe that will change.  We left the play and went over to our local library.  I love to read.  I mean really love to read.  My boys don't love to read - at least not yet.  I have tried and tried to get them involved in some really great fiction books.  They'll read them, declare them as okay and that's it!  Please, please, please suggest some great books for boys! 

Moving on, everytime we go to the library my boys head straight for the nonfiction section.  Anybody else's kiddos do this?  These are the only books they want.  Here is what our book basket consist of when we leave the library:

 

  I was so disappointed for a while because I really wanted them to get into a book, any book, and I was afraid that they were just looking at pictures in these nonfiction books.  But then I had a realization as I came around the corner  and found Drew reading - by his choice!  I realized that reading is reading!  Maybe they don't like fiction books (although, I am convinced that they would if they found the right book).  He stood at the table and read FOREVER.  I mean, I walked passed him a few times - told him to take the book and get comfortable - to which he replied "No thanks." - found my camera and snuck around and grabbed this picture:


I also found the library book basket in utter disarray the other afternoon.  Looks like somebody has been reading!  WooHoo!

Now, on to Thursday.  I'm checking my emails and I see a reminder email and D and D have their animal projects due for one of their co-op classes the NEXT DAY!  Oh my!  Thank you so much to Teresa for the reminder or I would have totally forgotten!  In this co-op class, they were each assigned an animal to research and share their information with the class.  Dalton had the tarantula and Drew had the giant anteater.  Um, did you know that tarantulas are harmless to humans (except for the painful bite)?  That their venom is weaker than than of the common bee? Did you know that a giant anteater has a two foot long tongue and can use its snout as a snorkel when swimming?  Did you know?  I sure didn't!  Here are the boys hard at work on their projects. 

If you know me, and you know my OCD tendencies, then you know that it was so hard for me to let the boys do this project all by themselves.  I wanted everything to be centered and symmetrical and all nice and neat, but I managed to control myself!  Here's the proof:

By the time we got finished working on our animal projects, I said, "Doesn't look we are going to have time to do science, grammar, or spelling today."  And then . . . another realization.  WE JUST DID science, grammar, and spelling.  DUH!  I guess sometimes I get so focused on the curriculum that we are using that I have a hard time getting/thinking outside of the box.  Do you know what I mean?

Here they are presenting:

What a sweet bunch of third graders!

In the first grade class that I teach, we had a guest speaker today . . . A FIREFIGHTER!  (It is Fire Prevention/Safety Month you know!) The kids were super excited!

I hope that you have had a great week!  Don't forget to leave me some book suggestions and then hop on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers See Jamie Blog to see what everybody else has been up to this week!