Simply Schooling Mom

Saving Money Class

2012-01-10T16:59:00.003-07:00

Tonight I am teaching a saving money class at Relief Society. I decided it would be easier to pass out a link with the websites I use. Hopefully a bookmarked link will not be lost as easy as a regular handout. And if any of them change, or I find new better ones, I can update them here.

Favorite Websites:
For coupon match ups and deal, start here:

FabulesslyFrugal Local coupon blog

Athriftymom Local Coupon blog
hip2save Amanda's Favorite Blog
Thekrazycouponlady Another good blog

Ebates Go here before shopping online and get a percentage back

Retail Me Not Coupon Codes

Coupons.com Printable coupons (print each coupon twice)

Half.com Books and movies

Pinchingyourpennies Forums, groceries, toys, household

Fatwallet Forum, especially electronics

Slickdeals Forums

Amazon.com Subscribe and save (remember to cancel after shipment arrives)

Watch for coupons/special offers

Zaycon Foods Bulk meat and fruit

Bountifulbaskets Weekly fruits and vegetables

LivingSocial Various Daily deals

Groupon Various Daily deals

Citysmart Various Daily deals

Computersforkids Cheap computers for kids $35 to $65

Companies who price/coupon match:
Walmart
Lowes
Staples (earn rewards then spend using price match)
Office Max (earn rewards then spend using price match)

Diaper Price Points from FabulesslyFrugal: here

Saving on trips:
Entertainment books for area lots of Buy one, Get one if you eat out a lot and like to try new restaurants or www.restaurants.com
Discovery Center is reciprocal to other children's museums
Costco City Pass

My favorite budgeting software: You Need A Budget

My kids are Geeks--- and we LOVE it.

2011-10-26T20:51:00.001-06:00

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that it is cool to be smart and it's okay to be a little geeky! In the past week, I've watched my kids dancing and jamming to the Articles of Faith, laughing hysterically over an Oxygen video, playing math games for hours (drilling facts is much more fun when it's animated), and having a blast building a solar system. We've started putting together a blog with just the fun school stuff that they want to show off. You can link to it here.

Tonight Ryan decided that he wanted to learn about logrithams. So he did. Yeah, Khan Academy because I didn't have a clue! After he watched a couple videos, his response was, "Oh, these are easy. It's just exponents in reverse." Okay, glad you think so. :)

The other day he was holding Cumorah and she was crying and I told him just to dance with her. His response was "I don't dance. I don't want to dance with a girl." I responded, "Someday dancing with girls will be cool." His response, "I'd rather stay home and do algebra."

So now, I'm going to do a bit of mom bragging, so feel free to skip this part. :)

Ryan is 11 and is taking Algebra for high school credit. He loves it and is flying through the course. He will probably finish the entire years worth by Christmas. (There is an online component that makes sure he has mastered every concept and he's finished 75% already.) The virtual charter school just tested him and Jeanisha. Most of his scores were in the gifted range and math was off the charts. His "weak" areas were spelling and editing, but on his writing, when spelling didn't count against him, he scored grade level 13. Spell check is his friend! We will be having him do "single subject acceleration" in most subjects to keep him challenged and engaged, but not graduating too early. The charter school will pay for college level classes when he reaches that point.

Jeanisha also tested really well scoring over a year ahead on almost everything and at 4th grade level for math. Over 130 is considered gifted and she scored 153 on the math part! She is convinced she will catch her older brothers! She is 6 and doing multiplication and division in her head. Her strongest area is story problems!

I love that each of the kids can move at their own pace and not have to waste time reviewing over and over. I also love the ton of free online resources that can pick up when they pass me by. :) I also love that when they do struggle with something, we can keep working until they "get" it,

ER Weekend

2011-09-04T20:57:00.002-06:00

Our weekend started early with Stephen coming home from work sick on Wed. night. He was coughing and said his head was going to explode. Thursday he slept the day away. By early afternoon he had moved downstairs to sleep on the couch and was completely oblivious to 5 kids running and playing right around him. I first realized something was wrong when he rolled off the couch to the floor and didn't even wake up. He was completely checked out and couldn't stay awake. He'd slept for about 17 hours straight at this point. I decided to take him into quick care. We barely made it into the car-- I thought he was going to pass out walking to the car. After that, I was able to keep him in a wheelchair. Quickcare looked at him and did some blood tests and sent us over to the ER. They gave him an IV and ran more tests and sent us home for him to sleep more and said to come in Sat if he wasn't doing better. He has a high bilirubin level, which means his body is breaking down red blood cells. He also has a high white blood cell count, so there is probably some sort of infection as well. Luckily he is not in pain and was promised in a blessing that he will get well, we just don't know how long that will take. He has continued to sleep about 18 hours a day.

Saturday morning I woke up in major pain, and he ended up taking me to the ER with kidney stones. Kidney stones are the only time I've ever thrown up because of the pain. It feels like hard labor, only with labor you get a break between contractions and end up with something positive at the end that you can focus on. :) I'd take childbirth any day! I am feeling much better with the pain medicine, but just have to wait for them to pass. My mom came up and took the 4 younger boys back down to her house, so Stephen and I have just been able to sleep the day away. Hopefully this passes soon and we can figure out what is wrong with him and get back into life.

Oh, and both times at the ER, we had the same nurse. She was nice, but I really don't want to be on a first name basis with an ER nurse. What are the odds?

Latter-day Homeschooling Blog

2011-08-26T20:29:00.002-06:00

I love reading about other people's homeschools and gleaning ideas from them and enjoy reading the blog posts on Latter-day Homeschooling. If you've considered homeschooling and wonder if you could do it, or if you think we're all crazy, but want to get a glimpse into why we do it, this is a great site.
http://www.latter-dayhomeschooling.com/ (there is also a link on the sidebar)

Back to School Prep

2011-08-14T22:35:00.002-06:00

Homeschooling is an adventure. There are days that I love it (most of the time) and days I want to pull my hair out.

For example, one day this summer I was working with Tyler on order of operations with ( ). The problem was 8 + (4-2)= I asked him to read me the problem. Tyler: "Eight plus parentheses four LINE two parentheses." LINE????? Me: "Try again." Tyler: "Eight plus parentheses four DASH two parentheses." Me: "No Tyler, that means subtract." Tyler:"Oh, I forgot."

See what I mean???? So then Stephen decided to help him. The problem was 1/4 = ____ out of ____. Stephen:"Read what it says." Tyler: "One over four squiggly line thingy." SQUIGGLY LINE THINGY?????? He is 9, how many times has he seen an equal sign???? He was then sent outside to get some fresh air and we tackled it the next day. His response then? Oh, this is easy, I know how to do this. And he did it correctly with no problems. So it did sink in somewhere along the line.

We did a relaxed version of school over the summer. Basically reading, math, and a little writing. On days it was nice outside, the kids knew that if they played outside nicely and were having fun, I would probably "forget" to have them come finish school. But if they started complaining, fighting, or being bored, I would find them something to do. :)

Now as fall is getting close, I've been figuring out the schedule and curriculum for the coming year and reorganizing all their boxes. We will continue using IDEA, the virtual charter school. It involves quite a bit of hoop jumping for me, but gives the kids official school records, money for extra curricular activities, and pays for a good bit of our curriculum. For those who care, here is what we will be using. :)

Ryan will be 6th grade, doing 7th grade work for most subjects and Algebra 1 for high school credit. He will use Life of Fred Beginning Algebra and then move into Advanced Algebra around Christmas. He loves these books and has worked halfway through Beginning Algebra this summer. For science, he is doing Apologia General Science, and for Social Studies he is doing Western Hemisphere. For Language Arts we use a variety of stuff because he is very strong at reading and comprehension, but hates writing and spelling. This year he will use My Access, G.U.M., and 4 square writing along with writing book reports and country reports for geography. I'm still not sure what I will use for his spelling. I like All About Spelling, but it's a bit too mom-intensive for my life right now. I'm trying to figure out a way that the boys can do it with each other. If not, I'll go the workbook route.

Tyler is 4th grade and will be using Singapore math, ALEKS, and possibly Critical Thinking Math. (I've ordered the Life of Fred Elementary series and if those click for him like they did for Ryan, we'll go that route. If he needs more practice, I'll add the Critical Thinking Math.) For science, he'll use DK books and other living books and science kits to study by topic, plus Critical Thinking Science Detective. For social studies he will do Idaho History this year. For Language Arts, he will use GUM, My Access, 4 square writing, Reading Detective, and Handwriting without Tears. He will also be reading stories to the younger kids everyday.

Eli is 2nd grade and Jeanisha is 1st, but the school is working to skip her to 2nd, so they will do many of the same things. They both will do Singapore Math and the new Life of Fred Elementary books or possibly Critical Thinking Math. Science and history will be living books. I'm going to try Story of the World with them and see if they are ready for it. Both of them will finish Explode the Code and Beyond the Code this year and use Reading Eggs online program. For readers I like the Pathway Readers, but we don't use the workbooks that go with them. They'll also do Handwriting without Tears.

It's always a lot of work to put together the new school year, but it's also fun as the new books start coming. It's rewarding to see how far the kids have come, which makes up for the days I wonder if anything is sinking in.

Cumorah is here!!!

2011-08-10T21:40:00.003-06:00

She actually arrived over a week ago, on Aug 1st at 10:12 pm, but I just didn't get the blog updated. She weighed 7 lbs exactly and was 20 inches long. She is a beautiful, sweet baby and very much loved! I'm amazed at how well she sleeps through the noise and busyness and how well she tolerates the kisses and loves. She had her days and nights mixed up at first, but seems to have it figured out now. The last 2 nights she only woke up twice.

I'd been having contractions since about 33 weeks and taking it really easy, so once we passed the magic 38 week mark, I was ready to be active again. It just happened that Ryan is getting close to having a birthday and to finish his Webelos badge for Cub Scouts, he needed a 3 mile hike. So on Sunday, the 31st, I told Stephen we were going to take the family "hiking" along the Green Belt for 3 miles. Sure enough, as long as I was walking good, I would have contractions. They were pretty consistent, but not super hard. We went to bed that night and I kept having them occasionally until about 2 am. The next morning once I got moving again they started right back up and got more consistent and harder as the day went on. We went into the hospital about 2:30 pm and when they would have me lay on the bed, nothing would happen, but if I was walking they were consistent. The nurse said she thought the dr. on call would send us home since I had an appt the next day with my own dr, but that I should come prepared to be sent right over to the hospital from that appt. As she walked out of the room, contractions started regular just laying there, so the dr. on call kept us there and came in and broke my water.

When I was able to keep walking around the contractions got harder and stronger, when I would lay down they would ease up. When I got the epidural her heart rate started dropping, so they thought for a minute that I would need a cesearean, but then they checked and she was almost here. Once I relaxed it was only about 30 minutes to go from a 5 to "here she comes, wait for the dr." Her delivery was quick and easy and she was born wanting to eat! We stayed in the hospital overnight and came home Tues afternoon. Stephen took the rest of that week off of work, (and was very ready to go back when Monday rolled around. Now life at home is getting back into the regular routine but with everyone jumping at her slightest whimper. One little cry and all the kids run over to help. They also come in from playing often to hold her, even if it only lasts for a few minutes at a time (except Jeanisha who will hold her for hours).

Easy Summer Dessert

2011-07-18T11:28:00.003-06:00

This is my "fake" key lime pie recipe. I double it, put it in a 9 x 13 pan and put it in the freezer. It is SO yummy and so easy!

Easy Key Lime Pie

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (Or make from food storage with 3/4 cup powdered milk, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/2 cup hot tap water blended in blender)

1/2 cup key lime or lime juice (1/2 of one of those plastic limes of lime juice)
1/2 pkg. (small) lime jello
1 (8 oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (6 oz) graham cracker pie crust (or just layer the pan with graham crackers)

Beat condensed milk and lime juice and jello in bowl or blender until smooth and thickened. Fold in whipped topping. Spoon into pie crust. Cover and refrigerate an hour or until set or freeze. Wonderful frozen or slightly thawed.

Lincoln with Bubble Wrap

2011-07-17T15:42:00.004-06:00

This video makes me laugh. It's a little dark, but hopefully you can see it. Why do we buy toys? The bubblewrap is just as fun.

Book of Mormon Camp

2011-07-10T21:30:00.005-06:00

Throughout the school year, we do a homeschool co-op with about 20 other families (80 kids or so) on Friday. The kids love it and have made some awesome friends over the past 4 years. But then summer comes and we see these friends much less often, so this year I decided to host a Book of Mormon Camp with a few of these families. We have 5 families and a total of about 30 kids ranging from 15 down to 2. We split the Book of Mormon into 10 sections and each mom is coming up with the activities for 2 sections and we (the moms) get to just visit the rest of the time. We've been doing 2 sections each Thursday and have 2 weeks left to go.

The first week, Krista set up a tent at the far back of the yard and as we talked about Nephi's journey, the kids trooped out there carrying blankets, bags of wheat, water bottles, and other provisions. It was cooking hot that day, which was perfect for a desert trek, but also led perfectly into murmuring from some of the kids. :) We journeyed back to the house and she had the kids act out getting the plates, then we went back to the tent. When she said we were going back for the girls, several of the 8-11 year old boys cheered. They were really cheering because they got to go back into the cooler house for a bit, but it was pretty funny since this same group covers their eyes for a kiss on a movie. (And I'm happy for them to stay at that stage for a good while longer.)

After all the trips out to the tent and in the heat, the kids came back in for my part. I started with Nephi and the broken bow. We made "wooden" bows out of pretzel rods and peel apart licorice and arrows from mini pretzels and marshmallows. Then they headed back outside to the burn pile of sticks with a couple rolls of duct tape to make tools. It was fun to see what they came up with using sticks, rocks, and duct tape. We had some pretty dangerous looking tools, including several pickaxes that were even sharpened by a pocket knife one of the boys had with him. Next we came in and made juice boxes into boats and floated them across the wading pool "ocean" while getting plenty wet in the process.

Week 2 started with Jacob and Melania did an awesome job teaching the parable of the olive tree using celery as the good olive tree and asparagus for the branches of the wild tree. The kids enjoyed cutting off the bad leaves to be burned and sticking in the asparagus with toothpicks. She had the celery standing in a bowl of sour cream and when it was time to "dung around" and fertilize the tree, she had the kids sprinkle in and stir in ranch powder to make dip. Then they got to eat it all. They also made prayer rocks for Enos.

Next up was Mosiah, and Tami used the playhouse in the backyard as King Benjamen's tower and later the kids built towers. The younger ones used playdough and popsicle sticks and the older ones used a fort kit made out of PVC pipe. It was probably over 30 feet tall.

Last week, we did Alma. Patty first had the kids become missionaries and put on missionary nametags as they talked about Alma the Younger. Then she let the kids become Lamanites or Nephites and they had a tug of war, then the Lamanites "marked" themselves with a red L painted on their foreheads. Next they became Anti-Nephi-Lehi's and colored swords which they then took out and buried in the backyard. It was kind of funny to watch how difficult it was for the kids to give up their weapons. Even though it was just a piece of paper that they had colored, some of them really didn't want to bury them and a few even snuck back later to try to dig them up again to find theirs. All in all, it led to some great teaching moments and was lots of fun.

Melania took the kids outside and they made a title of liberty and talked more about the stripling warriors and the battles between the Lamanites and Nephites. I don't really know much about her activities because I was inside visiting with the other moms, but I know the kids thought it was fun and loved the candy she gave out when they could answer questions.

Next week we will do Helaman and 3rd/4th Nephi, the the last week I get to teach Ether and Krista will do Moroni. So if you have any great ideas for Ether, please send them my way. So far, I am planning to build towers with spaghetti and marshmallows for the tower of Babel. And then to paint rocks with glow in the dark paint for in the boats. Beyond that, I'm still piecing it together, so I need a couple more activities.

It has been a great experience for the kids and I hope it will help them remember these stories even better. Plus they get a full day of friends and I get time to visit and just hang out. Krista has been coming over in the morning and her son has been teaching Bubble Science to the kids while we hang out. They have had some pretty impressive bubble creations! Then we go to lunch in the park for an hour and come back for the 2 hours of Book of Mormon camp. Usually after that, friends stay and play for another hour or so and then it's time to clean up for dad to come home. The kids have been great about helping get and keep the house ready for all their friends to come over and cleaning up again afterward.

Overheard

2011-07-05T17:46:00.003-06:00

I was going downstairs and overheard Ryan and Tyler telling Eli that he should be so excited that the baby was going to be coming soon. Then one of them said, "And hopefully mom can stay in the hospital a long time." (What????)
Then, "Yeah, one time Jeanisha was so lucky, she got to stay there for a whole week." (That's lucky????)
Then: "The hospital has lots and lots of TV channels and when you go visit someone there, you can watch tons of different shows." "Yeah, it's awesome."
Okay, now it makes sense, it's not the new little sister they want to go see at the hospital, it's cable TV. And of course, I would want to stay there as long as possible with all those cool shows to watch. :) Sometimes their thought process just makes me laugh.

Where babies come from

2011-06-19T20:52:00.003-06:00

Adam (4) was sitting with me tonight when Cumorah started moving a bunch and he watched my stomach bouncing around. Then he said, "I know how the baby got in your tummy."
Me: "Really, how?"
Adam: "It came down the chimney and then you swallowed it."
Me: "How did it get to the chimney?"
Adam: "Jesus or Heavenly Father brought it to the chimney and dropped it down."
Me: "How do you know?"
Adam: "I remember from when I was a baby."

So now you know. That's where a baby comes from.

PS As far as our resident baby ducks go, we've lost 2, so we are down to 7, but they are a ton of fun to watch. As long as Bella (d0g) and Lucy (cat) stay away, the mama duck will let me get right up close to the babies (especially if I bring out some bread).

Ups and Downs

2011-06-15T13:38:00.003-06:00

In the past bit, we've had a bit of a roller coaster. Melynda and Eli were sealed to our family in the temple on May 15. That was a wonderful experience and it was neat to see all the kids dressed in white.

Then on May 28th Melynda turned 18, and on June 1st, she ran away. It has been a heart-breaking, frustrating couple of weeks. We know that she is now living with a friend in Twin and looking for a job. She took nothing with her and left very impulsively.

The kids are adjusting pretty well. And for the most part, Stephen and I are too. I have started having contractions easily and have to stop and sit or lay down frequently during the day. I'm only 32 weeks along, so this baby needs to wait a while longer.

Outside of the big stuff, we are enjoying regular summer activities. The kids are super excited today because we have 9 new baby ducks in our yard. We found the mother duck and the nest by accident around May 23rd when a basketball bounced over into the weeds by the fence. At the time, we didn't think the kids and dog and cat would leave her alone long enough to hatch the eggs. She had to sit on them for 30 days, which was a long time to not be bothered by the kids or their friends. I'm not sure when they hatched, but they are pretty tiny and today is the first day she's been away from the nest at all. (She's been "checked on" numerous times every day since she was discovered.) We fed her some bread and the kids filled up the wading pool and put it out on the basketball court so they will have water. From reading online, it looks like they may stick around for about 8 weeks until the babies can fly. It should be fun watching them grow!

No internet and Funny kids and school update

2011-05-23T21:52:00.003-06:00

We went over 2 weeks without internet as we tried to find someone who could get a signal with all of the trees that surround our house. We ended up with DSL and wires. It was amazing in some ways how peaceful and how inconvenient it was. When my only option for checking email was an unsecured connection while the kids did track, and I had no printer, people just had to wait. There were lots of things that got put on hold, some of which probably won't make it back off hold. :) It was interesting how often at first, I would think, oh, I'll just go check that, look up that recipe, whatever, and not be able to. But usually I could find a similar recipe in a cookbook or find the number in the phone books that rarely get used. After the first week, it actually started to feel kind of nice. :) We've had internet for about a week now and I'm still working on getting all caught up. I didn't realize how much I relied on the internet for things like paying bills and school. It's so easy to just print off a worksheet on a topic that needs more review, but it's also easy to waste a lot of time browsing.

During that time, the kids made a couple of funny comments that I jotted down to record.

I was making peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch, and Adam pipes up, "I know where honey comes from." Me: "Really, where?" Adam: "Bees." Me: "And how do the bees get it?" Adam: "From the store."

Another day, Tyler had been outside working on sanding his pinewood derby car. He came into the kitchen where I was grinding wheat, making bread, and making pizza dough while spelling words for Jeanisha, helping Eli with math, answering Melynda's questions, and trying to keep Adam and Lincoln out of trouble as they "helped." He stood there watching for a minute or two and then he said, "Mom, since you are not doing anything right now, do you want a turn sanding my car." I can't imagine what my day would be like I was "doing something."

I also wanted to copy some of Jeanisha's kindergarten writing. I love when they are at the stage where they write with the phonetic spelling. Especially Jeanisha who writes much more than the boys did at her age. Today she was supposed to describe what she could see from the desk she was sitting in. She chose to describe the window.

it has scwirs. it is sefoor. it is rit in frunt of mi sid uv the desk.

Translated: It has squares. It is see through. It is right in front of my side of the desk.

She is still my workbook loving child and is determined that she will catch up to Tyler by the end of summer on math and writing. She sits and listens when I am teaching him and often surprises me by what she picks up. She's figured out multiplication and is starting to catch on to the two digit multiplication that Tyler is learning. It's nice to have one kid who is so easy to teach! She often has to be told to put the school books away on Sunday!

Ryan finishes 5th grade in public school on Wed. and is very excited to start homeschooling again. I was planning to let him start again after Memorial Day (we do light school all summer), but he was insistent that he should get to start on Thursday, the day after he gets out. He's been so excited about his algebra book that he's already done the first 10-15 lessons, for fun. (We use Life of Fred, and it really is a fun way to learn math.)He's enjoyed public school, but has missed being challenged and is excited to "learn something new again." He's helped pick out the books and topics for next year and is excited about being home. I think the main thing he will miss is choir and I'll be checking with the middle school about dual enrollment options for that for next year. Hopefully his enthusiasm will last for awhile!

Tyler is finishing 3rd grade and finally reached the point where he doesn't hate writing. It's still not his favorite, but it's not the battle it was. He is enjoying math for the most part, but generally just wants to get it done so he can go play outside or dig in the hole. Over spring break the kids dug a 6 foot deep hole what has continued to grow and get filled in and grow again. We've decided to bury the trampoline, so now they have a much bigger hole marked out and permission to expand their hole. Right now, it's about 8 feet in diameter, 4-6 feet deep. And if it takes all summer, that's fine. It is such a good project for them to learn to work together and to stick with it and just have fun. Every time friends come over, they go straight to the hole and spend a good bit of time digging.

Eli (1st grade) has made huge progress with school. In the fall, he didn't know all his letter sounds and couldn't count to 15. He's now up to grade level on math and reading phonics readers pretty well. He struggles with fluency and sight words and is still well below grade level with that, but his progress is really amazing. He's working on an animal book where he draws a picture of the animal, colors it, then copies 4-5 sentences below the picture. He is very proud of his book and how many pages he is getting in it.

Melynda is finishing up her junior year and has also done well. It's been a hard year for her academically as she's worked to fill in gaps from the past, especially with math. She is also learning to have higher expectations for herself and learning that she is smart enough to get good grades. She, like most high schoolers, is ready for a break and the fun activities coming this summer.

You either have to laugh or cry

2011-04-15T20:33:00.004-06:00

Today I was at ShopKo with the 4 younger kids, basically killing time for 1 1/2 hours while the others were doing the testing for school. They had been mostly good, but Lincoln was a typical 2 year old pulling things off shelves into the cart anytime he could reach something. At one point, right near the end of our shopping trip, he grabbed a spatula set out of a bin. I pulled it out of his hands and tossed it back and said "No." Not a mad no, but a "I've had enough and you better knock it off" no. He knew he was in trouble and started to cry/throw a fit. I moved up to push the front cart with Adam in it, Jeanisha was pushing Lincoln right behind me, and Eli was walking right behind her. My cell phone rang. It was my friend who was just picking up her son from testing and I knew she would be updating me about whether my kids were done. As I'm talking to her, this really rude, obnoxious man, a total stranger, walks up to me and says (insert snappy tone), "Lady, don't you think you should stop yapping on your phone and take care of your kids. One of them is crying, in case you didn't notice."

I responded that he was throwing a fit because I had just taken something away from him. He responded, "I know, I saw that too, and you didn't handle that very well either. The way you took it away was unacceptable."

I was speechless. As he walked off, he muttered, loudly, "Some people just don't know how to be parents."

I just wanted to scream or at least think of a smart aleck comeback!!!! But now, a few hours later, it's quite funny. I'd love to trade him places for an hour or two (at the store) and see how he handles it!

Ultrasound Today

2011-04-11T19:19:00.002-06:00

I had my 22 week ultrasound today and everything looks good with our little GIRL!!!!! She's due August 11th. We will probably name her Cumorah.

Highlights

2011-03-22T23:30:00.009-06:00

So much has happened lately that I am just going to post some pictures and highlights. They will probably not be in any real order, just however I find them on the memory card. :) And each picture should probably have it's own post, but I just don't have time.

The kids have been in 2 plays with Missoula Children's Theatre. This picture shows Melynda as an Icicle marker and Jeanisha as a Dust Bunny in the Princess and the Pea. Then Eli was a bat in Snow White and the other kids were in the Pre-Show. Melynda as the wicked queen, Ryan and Tyler as dwarfs, and Jeanisha as Squeaker the mouse. They did great and had lots of fun. Missoula Children's Theatre comes to town with all the costumes and props and the kids try out on Monday, practice all week, and perform on the weekend. It's busy and crazy, but fun.

Then we went to McCall for the Winter Carnival. They make wonderful ice sculptures and we love to go see them. We found a fun hotel room with enough beds for the whole family in one room and had a blast!

Next came Adam's 4th Birthday with a party at Chuck E Cheese. He is such a great kid and so fun to be around. He's small for his age, and Lincoln is big, so we are asked CONSTANTLY if they are twins. He loves to play outside and with his brothers and to go feed the ducks at the Greenbelt. One of his favorite presents was 2 bags of stale hamburger buns and the promise to go feed ducks. He even wanted the greenbelt and ducks on his cake.

The next picture is one of many that Tyler set up to make a wonderful powerpoint book report on Charlotte's Web. I had originally asked him to set up one scene, but he was having so much fun it quickly evolved into about 20 scenes covering all the main points in the book.

Then came Melynda's first big day when the adoption was finalized and her name was legally changed forever. We went to court and the three of us were sworn in along with the caseworker and the judge made everything official. One of her favorite perks of being adopted is that now she can ride with someone under 18 (like home from mutual) and I don't have to get a copy of everyone's driver's license. Another important "perk" was that she could finally be baptized. She had taken the discussions from 3 awesome missionaries, Elder Blair from Arizona, Elder Itche-a-Ramon (from France and spelled totally wrong), and Elder Tomaz from Utah. We loved having them in our home every Sunday afternoon for about 6 weeks before her baptism and the spirit they brought. Elder Itche-at-Ramon left to go home right before she was baptized and Elder Blair was also on his way home and came with his parents.

The baptism itself was wonderful. I think the fact that she had wanted it so long made it extra meaningful. There was a huge turnout of friends, family, and ward members there to support her. (Thank you!) One of the most memorable things about the day was the squeal of excitement she gave as she came up out of the water. She was so excited, she just couldn't hold it in.

Eli's birthday fell that same weekend and for his party he wanted to go play at a McDonald's playland. Easy enough request! I think he's had withdrawals from McDonald's since coming to leave with us. He also wanted a pink snowman and flowers on his birthday cake. I had fun being creative and think it turned out great!

Since then, Melynda had a piano recital, of which I have no pictures, only a video that won't load, but she did great. Then Ryan had a choir concert (he also had a solo on the CD the school made and was very proud of that.)

Tyler and Stephen ran in the Mad Hatter relay. Each person runs 2 legs, 2 miles each. Tyler was the youngest racer, but they had lots of fun and took 3rd in the Men's division. As soon as they finished Tyler asked when they could race again. He loves running and is really good at it, especially long distances. 3-4 miles is easy and after a sip or two of gatorade, he's ready to go again. He's way faster than I am and keeps up pretty good with Stephen pacing him. Pretty good, especially when you figure he legs are half the length Stephen's are. Next is a Beat Coach Pete (from Boise State) 5K in April, and then either a 10K or Half Marathon in May. Stephen's planning to do the Half, but we'll see how Tyler does with training to see which he wants to do.

I think that about catches up the last couple months. At least the things I have pictures of. :) The kids are currently involved in lots of activities, (gymnastics, PE, track, karate, scouts. . . . ) and keeping me busy. We are also doing lots of yard work to tackle the overgrown yard-- but I have hundreds of bulbs coming up, so it should be pretty in spite of the neglect here soon. Eli's adoption should be finalized in April, we're just waiting for some last paperwork. Then he and Melynda will be able to get sealed to us in the temple. So, I'm sure the next few months with be just as busy, but I will try to post a little more often to record all the fun memories. :)

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

2011-02-21T19:59:00.003-07:00

One of my friends was blogging about how unhealthy the fake mac and cheese is, so I wanted to share my homemade macaroni and cheese recipe. We love it and it's super easy to make. Use whole wheat macaroni noodles. For my family I quadruple it.

1 1/4 cups macaroni
2 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp mustard
1/8 tsp pepper
1 cup milk
2 c. cheese, divided
1/4 cup cracker crumbs

Cook macaroni according to package. While it's cooking, melt butter in large bowl in the microwave. Stir in flour, salt, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and pepper. Heat milk in microwave for 1 minute. Stir into flour mixture and heat for 1 1/2 minutes. Stir and heat for 1 1/2 more minutes. Stir and heat for 1 minute more. (With a quadruple batch, I do 3-5 minutes between stirring.) You'll know it's ready when it starts to thicken up. Add 1 1/2 cups of cheese into the white sauce. Stir until melted. Add in drained macaroni and mix. Top with cracker crumbs and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

This also reheats really good!

Upcoming Big days

2011-02-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

We have some fun days coming up in the next little bit with birthdays and the adoptions.
Adam's birthday is Feb 28, Melynda's adoption will be finalized Mar 3, Eli's birthday is March 12 (but we'll celebrate on the 11th) because Melynda's baptism will be on March 12th at 1:00. (I would love to have a good turnout for her, so if you want directions, leave a comment or email me.)
Then Jeanisha's birthday is March 29, and Eli's adoption will be finalized the first week or so of April. Then mid-April, Melynda and Eli will get sealed to us in the temple.

It's amazing to think that this process has taken a little over 2 years from when we started our homestudy. 2 1/2 if you start when we decided now was the time to adopt. There are hard days, but overall it's been mostly good. Stephen is still a little overwhelmed by teenage drama some days, and the testing phase leaves me exhausted some days, but when I look at how far Melynda and Eli have come, it's a miracle.

Groceries Galore

2011-02-16T17:29:00.003-07:00

I am amazed at the amount of food that gets consumed around here! Maybe it's because we added two older mouths instead of having it sneak up gradually, but my grocery bill has doubled over the past year. Last night for dinner I made a quadruple batch of German pancakes. That is 24 eggs, plus flour, milk, and butter. It makes 4 9*13 pans. Melynda was babysitting and Stephen got stuck late at jury duty, so it was just me and the 6 younger kids. I thought at first there would be leftovers, but it ended up that I only got one piece. They ate all 4 pans as fast as I could serve it, cut it up, and add syrup. Lincoln alone ate almost 1/2 a pan.

For breakfast, Ryan and Stephen are not here, but if I do fried eggs, they will eat 18-20. If I make something like Enchiladas, it takes at least two pans, plus whatever vegetables or side dishes. When Stephen made pancakes awhile back, he made over 50, and we each got 2. I realize there are 9 people eating, but it still amazes me HOW much food that is. Peanut butter sandwiches for lunch uses 1 1/2- 2 loaves of bread, depending on the size loaf and if Stephen is home.

The other thing that gets devoured are bananas. The rule is that anytime you are still hungry, or want a snack between meals, you can have a banana (or peanut butter sandwich). Bananas are filling and cheap, easy to eat without making a big mess, and good for you. Plus kids eat them for breakfast or with lunch sometimes. I bought 26 lbs. of bananas thinking I would have enough left over for banana bread. Nope, they were gone in under a week.

Just thinking about my food bill when these kids are all teenagers is scary. :) I remember my mother-in-law saying that when her 3 boys left on missions, they saved enough on food to pay for one mission. I believe it!

Pneumonia Miracle

2011-02-16T17:24:00.004-07:00

This is from a couple weeks ago, but I never got it posted.

Lincoln is 2, and a generally healthy kid. Last week he came down with the croupy cough and the fever that disappears in the morning. Then all day he would play and run just fine. Friday morning, I woke the kids up to get ready for our homeschool co-op. Lincoln was teasing and laughing as I got him dressed, then went downstairs to eat. He started whimpering in his chair, so his older brother Tyler lifted him out to come upstairs to me. I was in my room and saw him as he came slowly up the stairs. Then in the hallway, he collapsed. Fell completely to the ground. He then tried to crawl towards me, but it was as if his arms had lost their strength.

I hurried and picked him up and laid him on the bed. He curled up in a ball and just lay there whimpering. I felt his head and he was burning with fever (which had NOT been there 15 minutes earlier). I decided to still drop the older 4 kids off at co-op, so I would have only the two little boys to take to the dr.'s office whenever they could fit me in. I wrapped Lincoln in a coat and blanket to take to the van and he was just limp. He couldn't even lift his head up!

We drove the 30 minutes to co-op and he didn't move. I was still waiting to hear back from the nurse. As the other kids were climbing out of the car, he started throwing up. He had only taken a little water that morning anyway, so now I was worried about dehydration as well. Even when he was throwing up, he didn't have the strength to lift up his head. I pulled off the soiled clothes, wrapped him in a blanket and settled him back in his car seat. The nurse called back and said we could be seen at 1:15.

I was sure at this point that he was going to be hospitalized. I suspected RSV and probably a week in the hospital. Unfortunately, we've had plenty of experience with sick kids, and he was acting just like the others did when they ended up in the hospital. I called my husband and told him to arrange to work from home next week, and started mentally planning out what I would have to do to be able to handle a hospital stay on top of everything else right now.

We got back home and I took Lincoln in for a warm bath to clean him up. Then I gave him a sippy of apple juice. Within about 10 minutes, he was a completely different kid. He was back to teasing, running, and playing. He did not act sick in the slightest. But we still had the Dr. appt, so I took him anyway. After the exam and an X-ray, we found out he has a case of pneumonia. He SHOULD be totally sick. He probably SHOULD be in the hospital. But he is acting perfectly healthy. We came home with an antibiotic and instructions to go to the hospital if he gets bad again.

I think Heavenly Father knew that a week long hospital stay was likely more than our family could handle at this point. So I'm very grateful for our pneumonia miracle.

Ironman and Sprint Triathlon

2011-01-15T12:57:00.002-07:00

The Ironman is finished! We all 3 finished it in a month. I finished Thursday night about 20 minutes before Stephen, which was my goal. (So now I get to treat myself to a Blizzard.) Time wise, I took a lot longer, but I do longer workouts. He usually goes and works out in the morning almost everyday, but only has about 30 minutes. I go a few times a week and do almost 2 hours (childwatch is for 2 hours). I felt like I lived at the Y, but I was excited to finish. Melynda finished today. I don't know how someone can do that all in one day!!!! Total it was 80 laps of swimming (2.4 miles), 112 miles on the bike, and 26.2 of running.

Then today, we went and did our Sprint Triathlon. It was 8 laps (1/4 mile) of swimming, 6 miles on the bike, and 2 miles of running. Just like the one we did back in August, but indoor, and they don't count transition times. We all beat our previous times by quite a bit. Last August, my bike seat wasn't adjusted right and my bike time was way higher than it should have been. That made it easy to cut time this time.

Here are the times:

Stephen in August Total: 55:49 Swim: 15:11 Bike 20.59 Run 18.57
Stephen today Total 46:04 Swim 10:31 Bike 17.45 Run 17.48

Janet August Total 1:22:09 Swim 16:36 Bike 41.25 Run 23.14
Janet today Total 58:17 Swim 10:28 Bike 23:11 Run 24:38

Melynda August Total 1:24:31 Swim 17:49 Bike 39.27 Run 26.24
Melynda Today Total 1:09:17 Swim 10.23 Bike 28.43 Run 30:11

Ironman---- in a month

2010-12-15T22:41:00.002-07:00

The YMCA is having an Ironman Challenge that started today and goes for a month. Stephen, Melynda, and I signed up. So between now and January 15th, I have to run 26.2 miles, bike 112 miles, and swim 2.4 miles (80 laps). I haven't exercised much since we moved, expect running up and down stairs all day. :) Tonight we went over and Stephen biked 15 miles and I biked 13.5 and ran 1.6. Melynda was at mutual. At the end of this month long challenge is another Sprint Triathlon like the one we did in August (1/4 mile swim, 6 mile bike, 2 mile run), so we're hoping to be able to do that one after this month's "training" challenge.

Anyone else crazy enough to join in with us?

Panic Time

2010-12-13T18:33:00.002-07:00

What is the scariest thing a mom can face? Losing a child! Today we thought we had lost Lincoln and my stomach is still in knots 2 hours later. He had been playing store down in the basement with the other kids and no one realized he came up. I was cleaning the kitchen and getting ready to make cookies when the other kids came up. I asked where Lincoln was and they said in the basement. I sent someone down to get him and they came up saying he wasn't there. I knew he had been tired so I ran up to look in his bed and after a quick run through the house, I couldn't find him anywhere. I yelled for all the kids to help and we all started searching. I knew that most likely he had hidden somewhere and fallen asleep. It was nap time and the kids have been playing hide-and-seek a lot lately and he loves to hide. BUT I also knew he can open the front door if it is not locked and a neighbor had returned a movie and we hadn't locked it when he left. I worried that he had tried to follow TJ when he left and went out front by the road. We live off a fairly busy road where people drive WAY too fast! We are quite a way off the road, but not too far for a 2 year old to wander. I knew he had no coat or shoes on, but I honestly had no idea when I had last seen him. The kids all claimed they had seen him just minutes before, and I knew he had been running with them all afternoon up and down, but I couldn't have said if I last saw him 5 minutes earlier or 20 minutes earlier. They had all been playing together great and I had taken advantage of that to clean.

So after about 15 minutes of panic and searching EVERYWHERE, with Trish running down the street and the boys searching outside, I called Stephen and went systematically through the house again looking in every cupboard and under every bed. I kept thinking he has to be asleep here somewhere, but at the same time all sorts of horrible things were also flying through my head. I called 911 and she was just dispatching officers when I found him! He had crawled up on Adam's top bunk, wormed under some covers and fallen asleep. I was so grateful! But so full of adreniline and fear. Not a fun experience! I am so glad he was okay and just sleeping, but it was not a fun half hour!!!!!!

Photos of other kids

2010-12-03T10:45:00.003-07:00

Since I just uploaded Eli's photo's I thought I would do some of the other ones Melynda took for her class as well. Of course, Melynda was behind the camera, so I don't have any of her. :) We did get a family one taken by my sister in law at Thanksgiving, but the camera was set on landscape and we have kids moving in almost every shot.

Photos of Emilio (Eli)

2010-12-03T10:38:00.004-07:00

I was reminded by a friend last night that I haven't posted any photos of Emilio (whose new name will be Eli Jack Cox). So here you are. Trish (who is also changing her name to Melynda Elaine Cox) took the pictures as part of her digital photography class.

Emilio

2010-10-19T22:13:00.002-06:00

I really thought I had posted at least once since bringing Emilio home from Texas. We flew down to San Antonio on Friday, then drove 3 hours to Corpus Christie to meet him. His caseworker was there (who had only met him the day before) and his foster family. I had taken some gifts that we could play with him, Candyland, toy cars, that sort of thing. We spent about 2 hours there at the foster home that night, then went to our hotel.

The first meeting went better than I had expected, I think in part because it took longer to get there than we planned and he was waiting for us. Plus we brought gifts. Always a good thing with a 6 year old. He is very sweet and affectionate and energetic. VERY ENERGETIC! We had not even seen a recent picture, so I was pretty nervous on the way to that first meeting.

On Saturday morning, we picked him up at 7:30 and followed his foster dad and foster brothers to the beach for a beach clean-up. He was excited to be with us, but still nervously looking for them. As the day went on, he became more comfortable with us and excited about the things we were doing. We took him to the aquarium, then to the dollar store to pick out 2 surprises (a task that took about an hour), then back to the hotel to play with the things we'd each chosen at the dollar store and go swimming. (Stephen and I chose things like play-dough and toy soldiers). At first he were scared to go swimming, but I'd packed the life jacket, and once he saw he could float, he was thrilled and wanted to stay in the water forever. Unfortunately it was too cold for me for long, so I watched Emilio and Stephen swim.

He stayed the night with us at the hotel and the next day we went to the beach for several hours. Stephen and I loved the beach and could have spent the whole day there, but Emilio wanted to go back to the hotel and go swimming again with the special life jacket. We had him with us all day Sunday and took him back to his foster family around 7 that night to say goodbye to them. We went back to the hotel without him. They give you this "break" time without the child, so you can talk and really decide if you want to proceed.

We did, so the next morning we went to his foster home one last time at around 10 and drove to his school with his foster parents. (Emilio was already at school, just like normal). We took treats for his school class and he said goodbye's to his teachers and friends, then to his foster parents, climbed in the car, and headed off to the airport with us. Kind of crazy when you think about it, but he was eager to go and excited about his new family. It was hard watching the foster parents say good-bye, knowing he had lived with them for 18 months and that they had done a good job teaching him many things. We drove to the airport and flew home, getting home very late Monday night. Emilio had fallen asleep in Denver, slept that whole last flight and as he was carried to the car and then the house. When he woke up the next morning, he was able to meet his siblings. They woke up gradually which was perfect because he was able to spend 10-15 minutes with one before the next kid woke up.

As I type this up and remember those feelings, it is amazing how well things have went over the past few weeks and how much he is starting to fit in. The first few days were hard in that he followed me around all day, like a new toy at Christmas, saying "mom? mom? mom? mom?"Kind of like the seagulls on Nemo. There is still a lot of adjusting going on. It's got the challenges of a new baby with fitting another person into the schedule, plus the fact that he already has an active personality and opinions on how to do things. There was A LOT that was new or different. Some good, some not from his perspective. Home cooked food instead of McDonalds. Chores. Scripture study. Younger siblings. New toys. Space to run (his foster home had no grass, just a small concrete pad to play on). He loves the dress-up box, and still spends most of his time wearing either the superman or spiderman costumes.

It's been a long, busy 3 weeks, not just with Emilio. My uncle Dave who was 58 passed away on the 7th and the following week we went to his funeral and then I went to Rupert for the graveside service (I left Stephen with all the kids.) We've been working and painting and cleaning a lot at our old house to get it ready to rent, and we are still working on unpacking here. Add in regular school (plus trying to figure out what Emilio even knows and where he is-- I'm homeschooling him too), chores, cooking, laundry, and just regular daily activities for 9 people and it's been a bit crazy! Plus Stephen and I had to talk in church last Sunday and help the kids prepare a musical number. (They did great and even Emilio learned the song and sang with the other kids.) So that's why I'm so behind on posting anything! But we are starting to get into a routine. It's busy and crazy and wonderful all at the same time. And probably going to get busier with the holidays coming up!

The other kids are adjusting pretty well too. Tyler loves having him home everyday (he hated days when Jeanisha and Ryan were both in school) and loves having someone who is "as hyper as I am". Jeanisha loves having someone who will play Candyland over and over and over. Adam had a hard time at first because Emilio would mix up him and Lincoln and call him "baby" and that is about the most offensive thing you can call a 3 year old. Emilio is getting used to Lincoln and no longer feels like he has to report to me every little thing Lincoln is doing like he did at first. Ryan is liking school more. We told him he could decide to stay in school or come back home and he wants to stay in school at least until the end of the semester and the choir concert (He goes early 2 days a week for a special choir class). Lincoln's hit the terrible 2's with a vengeance and is constantly into something or causing chaos somehow. Trish is thriving with homeschool and blossoming in her testimony. She has enjoyed putting together FHE lessons and learning to simplify things for the kids, even more so now with everything being completely new for Emilio.

Overall, we've come a long way in the past 2 months and seen some major changes. A new house, signing adoption papers for Trish, getting Emilio, and starting public school with some of the kids for the first time ever. It's amazing how much stuff can be crammed into 2 short months!

We've moved

2010-09-11T22:11:00.003-06:00

The last few weeks have been CRAZY!!!! We did end up getting the house and are all moved in (sort of--- lots of stuff is still in boxes, but it's all here now). The seller finally signed everything and the loan funded the next day and we started pulling out carpet that night. We replaced most of the carpet in the house and repainted pretty much EVERYTHING!!! I think we figured we painted on 18 gallons of paint and primer. There was so much cleaning and scrubbing that we stumbled home exhausted late each night and got up early to come back the next day while the kids were at school. I had some wonderful friends who helped a lot, especially Melania who was here almost every day through the whole process. She was an angel in disguise and we never would have made it without her. She helped me figure out the colors and I love how the house looks. She also painted an amazing border in my bedroom and it looks like something out of a magazine. Once we get it unpacked, I'll try to remember to upload pictures. We moved on Labor Day and have been unpacking like crazy.

In the middle of all that craziness we signed the paperwork to start the process to adopt Trish. We have to be "pre-adoptive" status for 6 months before it can be finalized, so we should be able to finalize in March sometime.

We also were able to set up the dates to go meet Emilio-- in less than 2 weeks!!! Stephen and I will fly down to Texas on Friday and meet him, then spend a few days with him, and if all goes well, we get to bring him home with us! We're excited to meet him and hope that everything goes well.

There's never a dull moment around here, that's for sure!

Patience with an Almost Closing

2010-08-20T19:45:00.004-06:00

We signed all the closing papers for the house today, unfortunately, the seller decided that she didn't understand everything she was going to sign, and didn't show up for her signing. So, we're still in limbo! Her realtor is hoping they can resolve everything and have her lawyer explain it AGAIN on Monday and re-sign everything on Tuesday. I am a bit annoyed because she already flaked once and delayed things a week, then said okay, I'll sign, then nevermind. . . . . Come on already!

We've also been waiting a week with no additional word from Texas about Emilio. I would really like to know when they want us to fly down and meet him. Just a little thing, right?

We also started Ryan and Trish in school/seminary this week by the new house. Jeanisha starts Kindergarten on Monday. Jeanisha and Trish are both on A/B days, but the days only match up every other week, so I get to make LOTS of trips back and forth (20 minutes each way) which is going to get old fast.

But, the key to the whole thing is patience. And just in case I wasn't getting the message through life, tonight when we went to the temple, the name of the person I was proxy for was Patience. I guess I needed a real clear hint. She was born in 1800 in England. Does this mean the craziness of my life is all part of a plan with pieces planted over 200 years ago? I guess if she waited 200 years for her temple work, I can wait another week. But I'm really tired of learning this lesson!

Skinny Boy

2010-08-15T19:05:00.003-06:00

Tyler is super skinny. He always has been. He has no bottom! He is constantly tugging up his pants, even with the adjustable elastic waist thing inside. Yesterday, I was tired of telling him to pull up his pants, so I cinched in the waist as tight as I could. The pants finally stayed up. About 30 minutes later he comes in from playing and asks me to loosen it so he could use the bathroom. I told him to just unsnap them and go. He said, "What? I never undo them, I just suck in and pull them down." Poor kid, he's 8 years old and never learned to unbutton his pants to use the bathroom. He honestly had no idea that's what the snap in the front was for!

Limbo (venting)

2010-08-13T14:13:00.005-06:00

I feel like our whole world is in limbo. Our house is on hold because of legal wording on the promissory note the bank is asking the seller to sign, that seller now won't sign. We were supposed to be signing yesterday. So we're holding our breath, waiting to hear what the bank and seller work out.

In the meantime, the judge in Texas approved visitations with Emilio and if we are still wanting to proceed after meeting him, she approved placement with us! So it looks like the long wait is finally drawing to a close! Then it will be 6 months until we can finalize the adoption. (It's been such a long, draining process, it almost doesn't feel real right now!) It is wonderful and we are excited, it's just hard knowing when to schedule the visits (and a little nervous feeling, like a blind date that will go straight to marriage 2 weeks later). We are trying to figure out when we can go to Texas in the next couple of weeks, while not knowing if/when we will be trying to paint, clean, recarpet, and pack. And I don't want him to get here while we are right in the middle of packing and moving. We need to be settled first, at whichever house, so things can be as normal as possible for him to settle him. And we don't want to visit and then have it be a long wait until he comes here to stay. I can't imagine what a 6 year old must be thinking and how scary the idea of getting a new family must be, especially when it is people you've never even met before! At this point, he hasn't even seen a picture of us.

To add to the craziness/confusion, we had decided to put Ryan and Jeanisha into regular public school this year. The school by the house we are supposed to be moving into is a really good school and I think Ryan would do good seeing what public school is really like. (Right now, he's on a "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" kick. He keeps telling me, "Public school kids don't have to write their answers as complete sentences. Public school kids don't have to show their work on long division. Public school kids get to play computer games. . . . ) I'm not sure where he is getting these ideas, but I think it will be a good experience for him, IF we move and are in the boundaries of a good school. I am still not willing to send him to the school right down the street from us now. As far as Jeanisha goes, she will love kindergarten and having someone give her schoolwork to do all day, and the school by the new house does an A Day/B day, so she can still homeschool part time and I can still take the kids at home on field trips and other activities because we won't have to work around being home in the middle of the day everyday. But, again, if we don't move, she is not going to school. And school in the new neighborhood starts NEXT Wednesday the 18th, so I feel like I need to make a decision soon, but I can't without knowing on the house.

I have a pretty good idea of what I will be using/buying if we end up homeschooling those two, so if it ends up going that route, it won't be too hard to get up to speed. I do have Tyler's stuff figured out and ready to go. Trish is on the waiting list for IDEA, so she is in limbo too. She should end up getting in, but if not, I'll have to get her registered with a different virtual charter school. So I can't really order her stuff yet either, although I do have most of it listed out. And with Emilio, I know he is in 1st grade, but don't know much about his learning style or what he needs or where he is academically.

I feel like I'm on one of those amusement park rides that spins you all around and upside down until you don't know which way is which and what way is up. And I'm ready for it all to stop so I can get off and things can be "normal" again!

Sprint Triathlon Pictures

2010-08-07T21:13:00.004-06:00

The pictures from the triathlon are on web, but I'm not sure how long they will be up. (These are the expensive ones, we didn't have a camera since we were all doing the race.) Stephen's bib # is 313, Janet's is 189, and Trish's is 114. We all look pretty tired. Here is where you enter the bid #'s.

Stephen's swimming pictures are half way down the page here. He is in orange shorts.

And really, now that we are a few days past the race, I think I would do it again. Anyone want to join us in October?

Sprint Triathlon

2010-08-06T10:48:00.002-06:00

Stephen, Trish, and I did a Sprint Triathlon last night. The race is a .25 mile swim (imagine one time around a high school track), 6 Mile Bike ride, and 2 Mile Run.

The race was VERY hard!!

They split the race of 400+ people into 9 groups, starting 10 minutes apart.

It was 96 degrees.

The swimming section was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be. We all got kicked a few times in the water. We were wrong in our calculations in the swimming pool (we were off by a half) so the real swim race was REAL hard. Stephen and Trish would agree with me on this.
When I (finally) made it to the first marker in the lake, I was completely exhausted. Luckily there were plenty of other slow swimmers, so I had company.

After the swim we went to the 6 mile bike section which was mostly flat, but the two bridges at the half way point got a lot bigger when you went over them (Stephen had told us they would be flat.) There were several bike wrecks with paramedics assisting people along the course as we made it through. I was just grateful not to be one of them. At the end of the bike race we all felt tired but pretty good.

Then came the transition to the run.

Running after you have swam and biked is an interesting feeling. Your legs tell you that you are doing it all wrong as you are trying to make your body run. It takes a little while to remind your body how to run. The run portion was 2 miles long and my body was not happy with me at this
point. It was all I could do to convince myself to keep going and get it over. At that point I just wanted to be done!

All three of us finished, which is awesome.

So here are the times.
Stephen 55:49
Janet 1:22:09
Trish 1:24:31

Trish would like to do another one. I don't know and Stephen says he doesn't know if he ever wants to swim again.

Summer is flying by!

2010-08-03T10:47:00.006-06:00

This summer has been so busy and fun and crazy. We've been going, going, going. In July, we went camping to Garden Valley and saw 2 plays, The Wizard of Oz and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It is an outdoor theatre and is in a beautiful area. The following week my sister Sariah came to visit and Tyler and Jeanisha went to spend a week at Grandma and Grandpa's. We went skating and send Sariah and Trish out on their first date (from my house). The next week we went to Utah to see Stephen's family. We always pack a lot into our visits. We went to Lagoon with my family on Tuesday, to Antelope Island out in the Salt Lake on Wednesday, rode the Frontrunner train to Temple Square on Thursday, then to a "fun center" on Friday. The fun center has roller skating, an arcade, bounce houses, and climbing gym thing. Several cousins were able to come and the kids had a blast. That night we had a big barbq at Grandma and Grandpa Cox's house with everyone there. I think we counted 29 people, 12 adults and 17 grandkids. It was fun to see everyone and just visit and have fun. Saturday we went to Fort Buenaventura's Pioneer day Celebration. We went last year and the kids enjoyed it both years. One of the highlights was canoeing in the lake. On the way home, we dropped off Ryan to spend the next week visiting my parents and enjoying one-on-one time with Grandma and Grandpa. They brought him back home last Saturday when they came up for my cousin Lindsey's wedding.

In the middle of all this, we've been getting ready to move to a new house. It's not very far from here, but it's much bigger and on almost an acre! I am so excited for the extra space. It was a shortsale that we put the offer in on in May, so the process has taken awhile, but we should be closing on Aug 16. We are basically just waiting for the seller to get all her stuff moved out. The yard is pretty overgrown and neglected, but has a lot of potential. We've been working on packing up and getting ready to move.

Things are also moving along with adoption and hopefully by the end of August we'll know for sure which kid(s) we will end up with. Either Emilio (6) from Texas or Shania (5) and Kayce (2) from Oregon. It's been a crazy journey, but I know Heavenly Father will bring the right kids home to us.

Commercial made by the kids!

2010-07-13T16:29:00.001-06:00

This is an anti-smoking commercial that the kids made up and filmed today! It's pretty cute! Enjoy!

Giveaway: Fruit Roll-ups and Granola Bars

2010-07-08T12:30:00.002-06:00

This summer, I had a chance to try some snack products from Costco through MyBlogSpark.com. And I get to give away a "Costco Sunny Day Snacks Pack!" To enter the giveaway, read the review, and leave a comment with your favorite summer snack idea. Make sure you also leave a way for me to contact you if you win. You can get additional entries for posting a link on Facebook or Twitter, or sharing a link on your blog. Just post a comment saying you did that. I will draw a winner on Thursday July 15th, so make sure you enter by then.

So what is a Costco Sunny Day Snacks Pack? It is 2 boxes of SimplyFruit fruit roll-ups (42 count), 1 box of Chewy Trail Mix Granola bars (48 count), and a $25 Costco gift card!

I love Costco size packages because then one box actually lasts my family for a while. These fruit roll-ups are softer than regular fruit roll-ups and more like fruit leather. The variety pack includes strawberry and wild berry, I would have liked to have more varieties, but these are both good. Trish claims they taste better than regular fruit roll-ups because they are not as sweet. The other kids seem to like both equally well.

The Trail Mix Granola bars are more substantial than Quaker or Sunbelt granola bars. They work great for a fast breakfast on the run or snack in the car. These ones are the fruit and nut variety with raisins, dried cranberries, almonds, and peanuts. All of the kids liked them except Tyler because he doesn't like raisins.

Overall, these are both great grab-and-go snacks for summer. They were a hit with the kids and enjoyed by the adults as well. And you can't go wrong with a $25 Costco gift card to go along with it. So please enter the drawing and I'll post the winner next Thursday. (I will put numbers in a hat and have one of the kids draw.) Please make sure I can contact you for shipping info or I'll have to choose a different winner!

The product I was given to review, the prize pack, information, and giveaway have all been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Busy, busy, busy

2010-06-19T22:10:00.006-06:00

I can't believe it's been 2 1/2 weeks since Trish came. This summer is going so fast!!! Everyone has adjusted really well, and it seems like Trish has been part of the family for much more than a few weeks. The novelty has pretty much worn off and she is just one of the gang now. She is great with the kids and has enjoyed being able to be a kid herself as she does things with them.

We've been running 3 miles almost every night (Trish and I are planning to do a half marathon this fall), went to watch my brother at Special Olympics, went to Bio Blitz at the Wildlife Refuge, fed the ducks, went to the zoo, went to the Discovery Center Science Museum, went to Messiah's Mansion (a life size replica of the tabernacle in Moses time), had Cub Scout Day camp, and spent the last 3 days doing Idaho Youth Games. For the Idaho Youth Games, Trish volunteered with Stephen and I and had lots of fun helping the other kids do swimming, bowling, a one mile race, a mini triathlon, and a "fun night" with lots of bounce houses and activities.

She has jumped into the youth activities at church and is going to be leaving for girls camp on Monday morning for 4 days! She is also taking 2 high school classes this summer, Health and Eng 10A, so she spends time each day working on those. I think she has been surprised at how busy we are and how many fun things there are to do. She also loves to take photos, so now I have tons of fun pictures to add to the blog; I just have to get her in front of the camera too!

Here are some pictures from the zoo!

She's here!!!

2010-06-03T13:49:00.002-06:00

We picked up Trish yesterday, finally! We are happy to be through with this set of hoops and I think she is happy to be settling in. It will be an adjustment for her to get used to the kids, and hopefully the kids will move past the novelty stage quickly. They want to follow her everywhere, sit next to her, help her. . . . Jeanisha is especially loving it and copies everything Trish does. If Trish has eggs, Jeanisha wants eggs, if Trish puts ranch on her sandwich, so does Jeanisha. Trish seems to think it is cute for now. Hopefully Jeanisha moves past it before it becomes annoying. She is just so excited to finally get a sister. And to have it be a big sister who likes make up and clothes and girly stuff is just bonus!

Patience

2010-06-01T10:23:00.004-06:00

I don't really like learning patience. I would really like to just see where I am going and not have to trust. We still don't have Trish. They didn't give us some paperwork they needed to have filled out before our home visit until Friday the 21st. (We were planning to get Trish on the 22nd.)The different regions of the state have a hard time working together and communicating, plus the caseworkers are a bit overloaded right now. But it's still frustrating. I turned in the paperwork on Monday, they came and did the home visit on Tuesday and told me we needed a screen around the fireplace and to get the carpets cleaned. I knew they needed cleaned, but I was waiting until we finished potty training Adam. And they had told us over and over in our 27 hour training class that the home visit was not to look for cleanliness, but for safety issues. (And I had everything else clean and ready anyway.) Luckily, I have a good friend whose husband has a carpet cleaning business and he came the next morning. My carpets look brand new, which is pretty impressive considering the wear and tear that comes from 5 kids! (If you live in the area, their business is Superior Cleaning and the number is 453-2945.)

She came for the revisit on Wed. afternoon, and passed us off to get our foster care license. Thursday I tried calling every 30 minutes, but the phone system was down or something and I was never able to get through to Trish's caseworker. Then they were off for a furlough day on Friday, and then the long weekend. Maybe we can make something happen this week.

Update: I just found out TODAY that the office I was working with was closed on May 27th due to budget cuts. Nice of them to let us know. The phone number I have was disconnected and I've spent the morning tracking down the caseworker's new number, only to get a message saying she will check her messages after she gets all moved over to the new office. At least this explains why I couldn't get a response to phone calls or emails all last week! Patience is NOT fun!

As far as Emilio goes, we've went through the big box of paperwork, and the additional paperwork they sent last week. We are waiting to hear back on a couple things, but then hopefully we can proceed there. So much for being able to bring him home in early June, we havn't even went down for a visit yet. We were told by friends to expect the process to take 4-6 months, even though the state workers were saying 2 months. Every step so far has taken much longer than we were told, so we just keep waiting and praying for it all to work out.

And, just in case we don't have enough waiting to do right now, we put an offer in on a short sale house yesterday in Nampa. I guess I'll learn patience one way or the other.

Adoption update and Moving beds

2010-05-12T10:04:00.005-06:00

Ten more days until we pick up Trish. This is an old picture, but doesn't she look sweet? Also, the box of info on Emilio was sent out today! So things are finally moving with that. Maybe??? The caseworker is back from family leave, so that should help.

We've been moving furniture and food storage and making room for 2 more kids. We cleaned out the food storage/storage room and moved Lincoln's crib in that room. Then we bought some bunkbeds off craigslist and set them up for Jeanisha and Trish. Once we got them all set up, we realized they block the window/fire escape, so we're going to have to trade them with the one Ryan and Adam are using right now. Hopefully we can get that done tomorrow.

We have taken 4 of the 9 required 3 hour classes to be certified for foster care and just have a few more hoops to jump through. We will finish classes on the 21st and go pick up Trish on the 22nd. She is coming for a 2 week trial to see what she thinks about being part of a large family. She's never really been in a family with lots of younger kids, so hopefully the noise and constant busyness won't be too crazy for her. The kids are super excited. We spent Sunday, May 2nd with her and she seemed to fit in really good and said she felt like she belonged. The kids loved her too! It will be an interesting summer!!!!

Do we want a teenager?

2010-04-27T10:42:00.003-06:00

This past week has been a little crazy. Last August, we tried to adopt a teenage girl, but they placed her with her foster family. Her adoption disrupted (didn't go through), and she moved to another foster home. This last week, I got a call at 1:59 pm asking if we wanted her. The state wanted to just sign over legal guardianship to us. "Oh, and the meeting to make a decision is at 2:30 pm, (that day), so if you could please let us know by then."

Hello, I spend more than 30 minutes deciding whether to put the kids in swim lessons or not. And you want me to decide if I want a teenage daughter in 30 minutes. We hadn't heard anything from her or the caseworker since last August, so this totally came out of the blue. And the timing just seems really bad where we just got matched with the little boy in Texas.

We had a 20 minute phone conference with her, the caseworker, and the school counselor where we talked about our rules and expectations. I wanted her to really think about what she would be getting into. We also researched guardianship and learned it is NOT a good option. It is not good for us, it is not good for her. The only people it is good for is the state because it basically moves her off of their rolls, like she aged out of the system. We told them we would not do that, but that we would consider having us live with us under the foster care guidelines on a trial basis. We have only spent 2 hours with her, last August, and had 2 caseworkers there redirecting the conversation. So we want time to get to know her better, and for her to get to know us better and see if this is REALLY what she wants and is willing to commit to making it work. So we are spending this next Sunday with her and then taking the foster care classes in May and then she will come live with us for 2 weeks the end of May. And we'll see what happens after that. She may decide that a family with 5 kids is more than she bargained for. Or it may be a great fit and we'll end up adding a teenage girl and a 6 year old boy this summer. I just keep telling myself it will all work out how it is supposed to.

Not the Easter I imagined

2010-04-04T17:03:00.003-06:00

This has been quite the weekend. My sister went into labor yesterday morning, so we have her 3 kids in addition to my 5. All was going great until yesterday afternoon when I was helping the kids dye eggs and Lincoln starting throwing up. EVERYWHERE. A couple hours later, Adam started, followed by Jeanisha, then Karma's 2 year old. (We've been everywhere together this last week during spring break, so both groups of kids got exposed.) The kids threw up constantly all night long. 4-5 times EACH! And of course the little sick ones aren't the best at hitting a bucket. My wonderful husband slept on the floor to take care of Adam and Jeanisha, my mom who had come up to see the baby slept on the couch to take care of Karma's kids, and I slept with and took care of Lincoln. At 7 this morning, Stephen went to sleep and my mom and I continued cleaning up throw up and doing the mountain of laundry until she had to go home.

Stephen and I figure we have cleaned up more throw up in the last 24 hours than in our 11 years of marriage combined. It's been that bad! Luckily of the other 4, 3 have complained of stomach aches, but not thrown up, and Ryan has been fine. So they have played games and watched TV all day. I'm hoping they aren't just waiting.

We told the kids we emailed the Easter bunny and asked him to come later this week when people aren't sick. We didn't get to watch any of today's conference, or make the Easter dinner I had planned. But I don't think this is an Easter I'll forget.

We were selected!!!!

2010-04-02T16:05:00.004-06:00

We got THE call yesterday from our social worker that we have been selected as a match for a 6 year old boy in Texas. The picture is from Jan. 2009, so it is old, but it's the best we have at the moment. He is in Kindergarten and loves to play with cars, color, and listen to stories. He likes to play outside and tends to copy other children. (They felt having lots of kids to copy would be good for him. Yeah! Finally someone who sees our larger than average family size as an asset!)

They are getting all of the information from his case file ready to send to us. They have to go through and mark out and identifying info like SSN's and addresses and last names. They said that can take up to two weeks, but they sent it out "with a kind request for expedited service." We'll see what expedited service means when working with government agencies. :) Our social worker said to expect it to take a month. This file is likely 1000-2000 pages!

Once the caseworker gets it back, it will be overnighted to us, and we will be asked to look through it quickly for any deal breakers or things that would make us say he won't fit with our family. If we don't find anything immediately, they will set up travel arrangements for us to go down to Texas and meet him. We will then be able to look through the paperwork in more detail. We have received a 22 page summary already that was very up-to-date with information from this past month! That in itself is pretty amazing.

So, hopefully we will get the box of paperwork relatively soon, and be able to make a trip down to Texas. Emilio's worker is wanting to move things along and hopefully get him in our home the first part of June as school ends.

We are very excited!

Playing House

2010-03-28T18:35:00.002-06:00

My poor daughter needs some sisters!!!!

Jeanisha and I were talking about things she liked to do when she plays at friends' houses. She listed off several things she like to do, then said, "But there is one thing I don't like."
Me: What's that?
Jeanisha: I don't like it when they say 'let's play house.'
Me: Why not, lots of little girls like to play house.
Jeanisha: Because I don't know how to play that game.

I explained that playing house just means pretending to be a mom and taking care of doll babies and pretending to cook dinner and stuff like that. She looked at me for a minute, and then said, "No mom, that's just playing."

Cheap Prescription Glasses

2010-03-26T13:28:00.002-06:00

I just ordered 2 pairs of glasses from Eye Buy Direct and got them yesterday. They cost me $21 total for 2 pairs with shipping! They seem great and my prescription works perfect. They don't seem any different from my old, much more expensive ones. They are metal frames and look cute. I only had an old prescription from 2004 and it worked fine, so if your vision doesn't change you can use whatever prescription you have. You can upload a picture and "try them on" on the site. The buy one get one sale I used ends this week. You can also email me or comment with your email address and I will also send you a link from my account on the site good for 10% off. I don't know if you can stack them. But $10 a pair for prescription glasses without having to go to an eye doctor is a steal!

Free Money

2010-03-20T18:28:00.003-06:00

Everyone likes free money, right? There is some jumping through hoops involved, but you can get $225 per person (more if you happen to have a Bank of America credit card). (The $150 from Key is only in certain markets, but all of Idaho is included.) Here's the link to see if your area works: Key Bank Promo

Here's how to do it: Key bank is running a promo where you can get $150 for opening an account. You do have to do two payments (pulls, like link it to a cc or ING, explained below) and a debit card purchase. You also can't have opened one in the last 12 months. I've done these many times in the past. It's not too hard. Minimum opening is $125. If you want to do the next part, put $250 in there.

I used an ING account for my pulls. If you want to open an ING savings, I can email you a link to get $25 free money there just for opening it. I'll get $20. That one is totally painless and easy. :) You do have to fund it with $250, but I don't think there are any requirements for having it sit there. If you open the Key Bank first, then the ING, you can pull $100 one day and $150 the next from Key (you can schedule them both at the same time). Leaving $0 in Key. You still have to keep the Key account open for 180 days, and get out your free money, but then close it because after a year, there will be a $20 annual fee (it's waived the first year). Plus, Key does this often and you can do it again 12 months after you close the account.

Once you have the $250 in ING, you can open an ING checking account, transfer the money there and do 3 debit card transactions to get a $50 bonus there. Then you can move the rest of the money back to regular accounts and close everything if you want (I like ING and use it for my savings account).

Total free money $225 per person (remember you can do it for you and your spouse, just do individual accounts, not joint).

Now if you happen to have a Bank of America CC, they are offering $75 if you open a checking account with them. Again, close this after the minimum times and you can do it again next year. Let me know if you have questions. ING and Bank of America should work anywhere, not just Idaho. $600 in free money for me today, Wahoo!!!

Best places to read

2010-03-16T21:08:00.007-06:00

The boys spent the entire day reading. This afternoon I told them to go outside and this is where I found them. Ryan was up in a tree and Tyler was lying on the driveway. "because it's warmest here"

The other kids enjoyed the sunshine too. Adam took off his shirt because it was "too hot" Ryan and Tyler then found new reading places, but they stayed outside. And Ryan enjoyed spending the whole day in his pajamas.

No school day

2010-03-16T16:04:00.002-06:00

I told the kids we were taking today off of school and they could stay in pj's as long as they wanted. So what did they do?

Danced around singing The Verb Song at the tops of their lungs until they all knew it by heart. I could probably sing you the whole song too. :)
Played "Take Off" a geography quiz game.
Read, read, read and read some more. Tyler is devouring Magic Treehouse books and Ryan is reading Harry Potter 3 again.

Jeanisha did tell me it wasn't fair that I wasn't helping her with her school and that it was my job to help her do at least a few pages of math. I agreed to 4 and told her she could write me a letter saying why she should do more school. (which meant I got to spell words for her to write for the next 45 minutes)

Her letter said: "Dear mom, I like doing school because I want to catch up with Tyler. Jeanisha"

Now they are outside playing. And our "non-school" day has ended up being pretty educational.

Toilet troubles!

2010-03-13T21:19:00.003-07:00

Adam was the last kid to go brush his teeth tonight, and there were no older siblings in the bathroom with him. Stephen walked in a minute later to find him swishing his toothbrush in the toilet.
Stephen (calmly): What are you doing?
Adam: I got too much toothpaste on my toothbrush.
Stephen: So what are you doing?
Adam (matter-of-factly): Washing it off.

He has a new toothbrush.

And unfortunately, he is proud of his new toothbrush and was excitedly telling the other kids about it like it was a great reward.

Add to this Lincoln. That kid LOVES the toilet. It's a daily battle to get all the kids to keep the toilet lid and door closed, especially since I'm trying to potty train Adam and the other kids are helpfully taking him frequently. (Both Adam and whoever takes him get a treat if he goes.)

I swear Lincoln watches for the door to be left open and his faces lights up with joy when he manages to get away with it for a minute. So far today, he's managed to put a spatula, a spoon, and a bottle of salad dressing into the toilet! (The salad dressing was when I was bringing in and putting away groceries.)

I do watch the kids, I promise, they just think the toilet was made for their entertainment.

Adoption Rollercoaster and FAQ

2010-02-24T21:50:00.002-07:00

Adopting is so much harder than a pregnancy! The emotional ups and downs are draining. The committee meeting for Janiya and Tommie was on the 17th, and the 15, yes, 15 people who were making the decision, said we would be an incredible family for these kids. But then they told us they wanted to just wait for another 4-6 months, leaving the kids in their foster homes and see if they are "more ready" to be adopted. Apparently, all 15 couldn't agree in 2 hours. (Can 15 people agree on ANYTHING in 2 hours??? I've been in groups that spent that long debating the design for a t-shirt.)

I asked what they planned to do and they had no plan, other than to wait. I pointed out (nicely) that 4-6 months is FOREVER to a 5 and 7 year old. They then said that the decision had been made, and if we don't have a different placement in 4-6 months, we will be in a "priority" position to adopt these kids. I was SO frustrated!!!!! It really seems like NO ONE cares about these kids at all. I was even told, "These kids have been waiting for a family for so long, another few months won't make a difference." and "These kids don't know what adoption is or that there is a family that wants them, so it doesn't matter." Hello???!!!???

So, after the emotional crash of what was supposed to be a pretty sure thing (we were the ONLY family they were considering), I started focusing on our next committee meeting for Cheyann which is this coming Friday. Preparing for committee is draining. The worker representing us has a copy of our homestudy, but then I spent 3 hours on the phone answering questions about our family and how we would meet the needs of this special little girl and everything else you can imagine. You feel like you have to have the answers for everything. Three hours is a LONG time to be grilled on a phone call. I also made her a photo book of our family for if we are chosen, so she would have something to use to get to know us a little. In this case, there are 3 families selected by the caseworker. Each family is represented by a social worker and the case worker represents the child. All are presented to a committee of 3 people, who have never met any of the families, or the child, and they choose the family (in a 3 hour meeting). Kind of crazy, I know, but at least it is 3 people, not 15, and they have to leave the meeting with a chosen family. Then the selected family will get a lot more info on her and have 7 days to decide whether to proceed or not. Then the family goes and spends a week with her in Oregon, they go home, and the caseworker brings her to her new home 1-3 days later. So if it happens, it could go fast.

Then today, we were contacted by Janiya and Tommie's worker who said "they" want to have a conference call with us on Monday. I don't even know for sure who "they" entails. So maybe something will come of that. I really wish I had a crystal ball!!!! So, in the next week, one of four things will happen.
1. We could be told we get Cheyann= Happy
2. We could be told we get Janiya and Tommie= Happy
3. We could be told we get both and have major decisions to make= Happy
4. We could be told we get none of them= Major emotional crash

So 3 out of 4, I can be hopeful right???? The crashes are hard, kind of like I would imagine an early miscarriage. You have spent time planning and dreaming and figuring how this child would fit into your family--if selected, they could be in your home in less than a month, or it could take 3-4 months. There is a lot of unknown. You also know a little about their personality, but you've never actually met them, usually. Janiya and Tommie's was also hard because we'd been working to get to that point for so long. We first inquired on them back in September and were told we were a potential match in December. Then after getting lots more information, we had to wait 6 weeks for the match meeting. We'd also been pretty confident because we were the only family. I hadn't even envisioned they would just want to keep them in foster care forever (or 6 months, which feels like the same thing right now)!

The main thing we've learned so far is that nothing about the process is "normal." Every state is different, sometimes every county. And even when there are "standard procedures" that doesn't mean they will be followed. Pregnancy is much easier!

We've been asked several adoption related questions lately, so I figured I would answer them here instead of in the comments. If anyone is interested in really doing this yourselves, I would be happy to help you figure out how to get started. I still believe it will all be worth it in the end!

Where do you find the children?
Adoption photolisting sites like www.adoptuskids.com or http://photolisting.adoption.com/ Most states or counties have heart gallery's with pictures and bios of waiting children. Many are often featured as "Wednesday's child" on TV or in the newspaper

Who are the kids?
Kids whose parental rights have been terminated for one reason or another. Abuse, neglect, or drugs are the most common reasons. Many of the kids are developmentally behind because they missed out on the attention and love healthy families take for granted. Most of them are older than 3 or 4 and most have special needs of some kind (emotional, developmental, mental, or physical.) Sibling groups are generally harder to place, as are older kids.

How much does it cost?
Much less than international!!! It really depends on your agency. Our homestudy was $800, the networking fee for them to talk to other agencies was $750 (most states won't talk to us directly), and then there were the charges for physicals, background checks, classes, etc. We will also pay to go meet the child and spend a week or more wherever they live now. There will also be finalization costs, but most of those are usually paid by the state placing the child. So, in the end, our financial cost will be $3000- 5000. The emotional cost on the other hand. . . . . .

Where does time go?

2010-02-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

December and January have flown by and now February is almost half over. So much has happened. I have so much to blog about and so many cute pictures. I think it's a bit overwhelming to me because I am so far behind.

Here are the highlights, more pictures will hopefully follow.
Stephen and the boys went to a BSU game in December and loved it.

Then Stephen and I went on an amazing cruise from San Diego to Catalina Island and Ensenata, Mexico. It was WONDERFUL!!!! So nice to get away for a few days without kids and just be people instead of parents. It was fun to go exploring and have adventures. Stephen loved the endless food, I liked the chocolate buffet and yummy desserts. The kids all loved having special time with grandparents or cousins. Everyone felt like they got the best vacation ever!

Then came a visit to Rupert while my dad had his appendix taken out, a quick trip to Utah, Christmas, and another visit to Rupert. We spent all of December packing, traveling, unpacking, and repacking. It was lots of fun, but exhausting.

In January, we started to catch up and the Lincoln caught RSV and spent a week in the hospital. He is doing better now, but it's always scary when one of the kids is that sick.

Another thing I'd planned to blog about and never got around to was the wonderful new kitchen floors and bathroom floor my amazing husband put in. (I was reminded as I looked through all the pictures.) He did a great job and they look wonderful! I LOVE not having carpet in the kitchen anymore!

Adoption update

2010-02-09T11:08:00.002-07:00

We are still working to adopt and things are looking promising. We have 3 kids that we are being considered for. Siblings Janiya and Tommie (7 and 5) or Cheyann (8). The decision meeting for Janiya and Tommie is on Feb. 17 and the meeting for Cheyann is Feb. 26. We would love any prayers that it will work out for the right kids to come to our home!

Here are links with pictures for Janiya and Tommie.
http://www.heartgallerytampabay.org/children/tommie_janiya.php?gid=12
If you click on view photos under their picture on the left, it will pull up 2 more pictures.

Here is the pictures of Cheyann
http://www.nwae.org/c7646.html

Funny, Sweet, and Random Comments

2010-02-09T10:41:00.002-07:00

I've been collecting some of the great comments the kids make and wanted to share them here. Enjoy.

I was teasing Tyler and stuck a little sticker on his forehead that said STAR and told him "That's what you are." He went over to the mirror to see what it said and came back over all indignant. "I'm not RATS!" He took the sticker off and threw it on the ground. Then I had him read it and he wanted it back on.

Adam was eating his sucker and started complaining. "My sucker is too hard, I can't eat it." I told him just to suck on it. "I can't, it will get my mouth dirty."

My brother Gary is married to a Mary. I also have a sister named Karma.

I bought some Marionberry syrup and the kids love it, but they call it "Mary an' Gary" syrup. They also call Carmel Corn "Karma" Corn.

Tyler at Christmas gave me a snowflake necklace, he was so excited about it. More excited than even opening presents. He kept telling me, leading up to Christmas "You are going to squeeze my guts out when you open my present."

Then on Christmas morning, one of his presents was the movie "G-Force." It was probably the 3rd present he'd opened. He then convinced the other kids to stop opening presents and to go watch the movie. They sat and watched the whole thing before going back to open the rest of the presents. (We were able to feed them breakfast while they watched, so it actually worked out pretty good.)

Now for the sweet ones. Our cat Lucy got hurt and her leg had a big bloody sore on it. The kids were pretty worried. They were working on schoolwork and Tyler stopped and came to ask how to start a fast so he could fast for her to get better.

I couldn't find a library book, so I offered the kids a $1 reward. Ryan went racing to his bedroom, and just then I found it. He was disappointed and told me, "I was going to my room to say a prayer because I know Heavenly Father would help me find it and then I would get the money."

Mathletics

2009-11-04T23:08:00.005-07:00

This week Ryan is participating in the American Math Challenge with kids all over the country ages 9-14 where he gets points for every right answer to math problems. He broke the top 100 yesterday and is working hard to stay there. He has been as high as spot 53. He has spent probably 6-8 hours a day, maybe more, working on math problems-- and even decided to come straight home after scouts instead of going to basketball with Stephen so he can do more problems and earn more points. I guess he inherited my competitive streak. Stephen would NEVER have chosen math, or anything academic, over basketball.

It is only for this week and next week, so I figure he can do as much math as he wants and is excited about during his free time. I'm still having him do his writing and other school work. He will go do one of his assignments and come back to do more math. He was marking off his assignments and I told him he could count this for math this week and he was totally excited. It was pretty funny-- This doesn't seem like schoolwork to him, even though he has done over 1000 problems in the last 2 days. (His regular assignments have 22). He is already planning to get up early on the last day because it ends at 7 am our time and the kids on the east coast might slip ahead of him. It will be interesting to see if his enthusiasm holds.

I wish the contest was for a scholarship or something like the high school level of MathCounts (the program sponsor). The top prizes for this one aren't as cool. The top 3 kids, nationwide, get a medal and the top 25 get a certificate. Not nearly as good as money for college. But, he is motivated and is working so hard I told him if he ends in the top 100 either of the two weeks, or both, I will buy him a half gallon of ice cream to share with the family and he can have a "free" day to just read instead of doing regular school-- he'll have earned it.

Going on a Cruise

2009-11-04T23:08:00.004-07:00

Stephen and I are going on a cruise in December to Catalina Island and Ensenata, Mexico. We leave from San Diego. It is for our 10 year anniversary, which was actually last May, but Lincoln was too little to leave-- he'll be just over a year. I am super excited. Ryan is going to fly down to Utah to stay with grandparents there and is counting down the days. The other kids are going to the other grandparents or Aunt Karma's. They all think they are getting the best deal. We had planned to go in January or February, but I found a good deal on plane tickets ($150 RT from Boise to San Diego) and then the price of the cruise for this week dropped to $149 per person for an oceanview room. That will leave me more money in my budget for excursions or shopping! If anyone has been on a Carnival cruise to Catalina or Ensanada, let us know what you recommend.

October Update

2009-11-04T19:23:00.007-07:00

October was crazy and busy. I gained a huge appreciation for Relief Society as I tried to help my friend whose husband had passed away. She is not LDS and didn't have that built in network to call on. Then my in-laws came to visit and we had a fun weekend Christmas shopping and driving around the area and just relaxing at home. Soon after they left, we got hit with the dreaded swine flu-- and it was MISERABLE!!!! Lincoln and I got it the worst, but no one had serious complications. We had to alternate Tylenol and Motrin round the clock to keep his fever down and I would have coughing fits so hard they would bring me to my knees. It was NOT fun!!!! The other kids all got it for a few days, and by the time it ran it's course, I hadn't left the house for 2 weeks.

On a positive note, the boys are in a Christmas showchoir and Ryan was selected to sing the solo. He is very excited! He loves to sing. The older kids all had a wonderful Halloween with lots of candy and fun dressing up. Lincoln slept through most of it-- he's fighting another cold.

Life is short, treasure it

2009-10-03T18:28:00.003-06:00

Thursday night I had taken the boys to 4-H and spent the evening visiting with my friend and watching the kids have fun. I came home to my husband and kids, she went home to find out that her husband had passed away unexpectedly from a massive heart attack. She is just older than me, 34, and her husband only a few years older than that. They have 3 young children.

I was up all night that night thinking of how easily our places could be switched. She had no warning, he wasn't sick or ill or anything. People aren't supposed to die young. (I'm sure it's hard later in life too, but this just seems unfair.) I kept thinking how much I take my husband for granted. I cannot even imagine her pain and sorrow right now. She is an incredibly strong person and I know she will deal with everything, simply because she has no choice. Although I am sure it would be tempting to just find a cave and hide. I talked to her yesterday morning and again this afternoon and my heart just breaks for her and her kids. What do you say, how do you bring comfort to someone in this situation? Flowers, food. . . . it all seems so. . . . . simple.

So, if you are reading this, get up now and give your loved ones an extra hug and tell them you love them. And next time they do something that annoys you, think of Dave and the big picture, and let it go. Life is so fragile and death is so final. (I mean final in that you can't undo words you've said in anger, you can't say "I love you, " you can't tell the person what they mean to you, you can't go back and spend more time with them.) I know that death is not the end and that we can be with our loved ones for eternity, but we can't undo or "fix" it here on earth. It has made me think about how easily I take for granted that I can go somewhere for the evening and come home to everything the way it was when I left.

Grocery Bargains

2009-08-18T21:10:00.002-06:00

I need a positive post, and still haven't had Stephen pull of the pictures, so I thought I would share my most recent coupon adventure. It mostly used catalinas, those receipt like things that print out at the end of your order at Albertsons and rebates.

I bought 12 Tombstone frozen pizzas, 10 packages of Chips Ahoy cookies, 4 packages of Planters Trail Mix, 4 Velveeta single serving mac and cheese, and 6 mini Hagaan-Daaz ice creams. My total was $55.80 and it will cost me $1.76 to mail them in, but I have $10 in coupons for my next Albertsons shopping trip, and I will get $70 back in rebates. SO, I will end up making $22.44 on the deal!!!! Pretty sweet!

Not Chosen

2009-08-12T13:25:00.001-06:00

I just heard and we were not chosen to adopt Trish. They said we were "in there right until the very end" and "our training and background would have been a good fit, but. . . " like that's supposed to make me feel any better. Anyway, we're pretty disappointed. It's just frustrating not to be able to do ANYTHING and to have the decision made by "the committee," a bunch of people who have never even met us.

Adoption Meeting

2009-08-01T15:29:00.002-06:00

Since my last adoption update, we've submitted our homestudy to several states, mostly on younger kids. We also read about a 16 year old girl, Trish, who was featured on Wednesday's child and both Stephen and I felt completely at peace and that she would be a good fit for our family. Out of all the kids we've sent our paperwork in on, she is the one who we haven't been able to stop thinking about. If you want to read her profile it is here.

Anyway, we are one of 3 families that they are considering for her and we had the chance to meet her this past Monday. Because of her age, they are letting her meet each of the families and have some say in the decision. I can't imagine being in her shoes right now and how hard that would be. I know how nervous and excited Stephen and I were to meet her. We went out to lunch with her and a couple of social workers and I think it went really well. She seemed very sweet and both of us left with a strong feeling that she would be a great addition to our family.

The committee of state workers who will make the decision is meeting on August 12.

It will be a long 2 weeks. We're praying they will make the right decision for her, and hoping it is us!

Watch out!

2009-07-09T14:21:00.004-06:00

Nothing is safe! Lincoln has figured out how to crawl and he is fast! He also loves to put things into his mouth, so we are picking up about 50 times a day it seems. He also finally started eating rice cereal and loves it. It took him until about 7 months to figure out how to swallow, but now he can't get enough. As a result he's getting quite chunky. He is wearing some of the same clothes as Adam and is almost as big. He is still so loved, I thought the novelty of having a baby would wear off, but all the kids still love to hold and play with him. He is quite spoiled and has all of the kids at his beck and call.

Who Scoops Poop?

2009-07-09T14:14:00.002-06:00

My boys are outside and I just heard them arguing over who gets to scoop up the doggie do in the yard. Both of them are WANTING to be the scoopers. I'm getting ready to water the lawn and when I asked them to clean it up, they started whining about whose turn it was. So I said whoever cleans up the most dog poop will get a treat. Next thing you know I'm hearing, "I found it first, I get to scoop it up." and "I had the shovel first." and the best one, "Mom, he's not letting me clean up the poop?" I just had to laugh.

A modest Swimsuit-- Finally

2009-07-06T11:03:00.004-06:00

I hate swimsuits! It has always been impossible to find a modest swimsuit, and even ones that are "modest" leave me with plenty of skin showing to feel uncomfortable and get sunburned. I finally found a swimsuit I am excited about. It is from OhanaSwimwear and is modeled after a shorty wetsuit. It not only covers all the "trouble" spots, it will keep my shoulders from frying! It's not the cheapest swimsuit I've found, it's $80, but I've decided it is worth putting my money out there for modesty! This is the cutest, most modest suit I've found. I won't look like everyone else at the pool, but different is good!

What I needed today!

2009-06-26T12:15:00.001-06:00

Have you ever had a day when you feel like a hamster running and not even making it anywhere? I needed this reminder today. Enjoy!

Van Accident and New Van

2009-06-18T15:45:00.004-06:00

Two weeks ago I dropped the boys off at the start of their race and was driving to the end with the little ones and got in an accident. I tried to change lanes and a little black car was right in my blindspot. We were only going about 10-15 mph, and nobody was hurt, but the van didn't survive so well.Luckily we had comprehension and collision insurance on it.

Then, because it wasn't worth a whole lot anyway, the insurance company decided to total it out. And because our family will hopefully be too large for a mini-van anyway, we are now the proud owners of a monster van! It is a 15 passenger full-size van with lots of room inside. It rides really high, like a truck, and really does feel like I'm driving a bus! This is a picture of it parked out front. My roses are deceiving, it is taller than I am.

We got a dog!

2009-06-18T14:57:00.000-06:00

As if things haven't been crazy enough around here with our house falling through, again (water coming up in the basement after a rain storm is a BAD thing), looking for the right child to adopt, and wrecking the van, we decided to get a dog. The kids have been asking for one for quite awhile and we had finally figured out what we were looking for.

This is Bella. She is a 2 year old beagle. Very overweight, very obedient, and very loved. We got her from a lady who had started traveling a lot for work and didn't have time to play with and exercise her. She hasn't lacked for company or exercise since. She is a super sweet dog and is learning to get along with Lucy the cat. She will even obey Adam's commands, which he thinks is great.

Giveaways

2009-06-05T20:26:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to put a note here that I have some novel giveaways on my review blog right now. I enjoyed doing the homeschool reviews and as that ended I've been able to start reviewing for book companies like Thomas Nelson, Random House, NavPress, Zondervan, and others. Several of them also give me free books to use as giveaways for my readers. So if you are interested, the link is at the top right or you can click here.

Cover your eyes!

2009-05-21T16:24:00.002-06:00

GameHouse.com has a "free" computer game download everyday. The only catch is that about every 20 minutes, you have to watch a 20-30 second commercial. We've downloaded several and enjoy them. Last night the boys were playing a hidden picture computer game in the kitchen. Then I hear Ryan telling Tyler, "Cover your eyes, cover your eyes."

"Oh, great," I thought, "What popped up on them?" I hurried over to the computer to see and had to smile. The ad was for shaving gel and it was showing a women's naked leg--- from about the knee down. The commercials repeat, so I stayed and made sure that was all the ad showed when it played again, and then told the boys they could go ahead and keep playing and just to cover their eyes if a commercial came on that they even thought MIGHT be bad. I also made sure, again, that they both knew how to turn off the monitor. I was quite happy that covering their eyes was their first response and that the "bad stuff" wasn't something worse!

And for what it is worth, we have enjoyed the free games we've downloaded, especially the hidden picture ones. Our virus software has always shown them as okay.

Adoption Update

2009-05-20T14:50:00.003-06:00

The homestudy visit went well and our homestudy should be complete by next week. At that point, we start looking for kids on the foster care waiting child lists that we would like to be considered for, we submit our info, and the committee narrows down the applicants and gives the top 3-5 more information. At that point we decide whether we think that child is a match for our family. We've been told to plan on submitting our info on 10-15 kids/sibling groups that we are interested in. We will primarily be looking in Texas, Oregon, and Washington because those are the states our agency has worked with most in the past. It's similar to job hunting and connections can make a huge difference. As far as time goes, it's kind of "hurry up and wait." We get our info out there and watch and wait. Could be 6 months, could be a year, only God knows. But we both feel like this is what we should be doing and that NOW is when we needed to be ready, so as long as we do our part, it will all work out.

The kids are super excited. As we looked through the profiles Jeanisha kept pointing to different kids and saying, "Can we buy that kid?" "What about that one?" Tyler then responded, "It's not buying, it's adopting" in his, I'm older and wiser voice. Then he said, "Mom, can we maybe get enough to kids to play Red Rover?" :) I guess it depends on the size of the teams, technically you can play Red Rover with 5 people, so we are already there, right?

As part of the homestudy, our social worker talked to the kids and asked what they thought. When she asked Ryan why were wanted to adopt, he said very matter-of-factly, "Mom and Dad prayed about it and know it's right." She then told him it was great to trust his parents, and then told him he could pray about it too. He responded, "I know. I already did."

We have some friends that have 9 kids, 8 of whom are adopted. My kids think that family is SO lucky because "there would ALWAYS be someone to play with, even if some kids have to stay in and finish homework."

Catch-up

2009-05-13T17:10:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted in forever and now I feel like I have so much catch-up to do. We've had 4 birthdays, Adam turned 2, Jeanisha is now 4, Tyler is 7, and Stephen is. . . old. Older than me at least.

We have been working on getting our paperwork together to adopt through the foster care system. We are almost done with our home study. The home visit is next Tues. YEAH!! This is something we've planned to do since we got married, at some point. . . . And we started feeling like the time was right and doing our classes and paperwork last fall. They want to know EVERYTHING!!!! But, all of the paperwork is in and we're on the final steps of that, then we will be able to start submitting our information for waiting children. Who knows how long it will take at that point before we are "matched" with a child/children. It could be anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, give or take. Once we do our part, it is in the Lord's hands. We have both felt strongly that this is what we should do and that now is the right time, so I am trusting that He knows what He is doing and what child/children should be coming to our home.

We have also been watching for/looking at houses. We found one we like, it's bank-owned, and we are just waiting for the price to drop again. It's been on the market quite a while. They didn't take our offer a month ago, but they are currently fixing the well and septic, the 2 concessions we had in our offer, and their realtor called ours yesterday to let us know and see if we might be interested in making another offer. Maybe after I get the homestudy taken care of. It's out in the county on 5 acres with 6 bedrooms and an office. We love it, but the current market makes me nervous, so we have to get a killer deal on it. And really, I like where we are at, so I'm not in any big rush. Although this house is getting full and will get more so once we adopt.

So that is the short version of everything we've been working on lately. I will try to post pictures later, but I figured a short, quick update while I feed the baby is better than nothing since Feb.

Ryan's story

2009-02-04T20:06:00.004-07:00

This is a story Ryan wrote today. He used the StoryBuilder cards I'm reviewing and drew boa constrictor, daring, forest, and learns to fly. Here is the story he made with those.

King Boa Constrictor
by Ryan Cox

Once upon a time in a land far, far away in the forest there lived a boa constrictor, King Boa to be exact. He had many, many servants. He had sorcerers, he had slaves, he had knights, though he hardly ever needed them. One day he was very bored, so he called his sorcerers and he said; "Do any of you have a way to get me having fun?"
"Yes," said one, "I have found a way to let you be able to fly."
The king was relieved and said, "Make me be able to fly, now!"
The sorcerer said in a big, powerful voice, "Hoko Moko Vroom Vroom Zoom, make him be able to fly from his room!"
And the king was able to fly, then he was never bored again.
The End.

Lincoln

2009-01-31T18:24:00.004-07:00

Here's some recent photos of our little guy. He is such a sweet heart. He's even sleeping great at night. Last night he did 8 hours! Yeah!

Teaching kids to work

2009-01-31T14:14:00.005-07:00

I was reading on a friend's blog how she tries to balance teaching her older kids to work without making them feel like they are ALWAYS cleaning up after the younger ones in a big family.

I thought I would post what we do. My boys do quite a bit of cleaning, Ryan sometimes complains, but Tyler just jumps in and does it. Usually 10 minutes before breakfast/school, 10 minutes before lunch, then about 5-20 minutes at the most before dad comes home/dinner. There's a scripture (2 Thessalonians 2: 10) that says you must work or not eat, and since it's in the scriptures, they don't argue. :)

We tie it to their allowance. They get $1 per year of age on the first fast Sunday of the month minus some if they didn't do their jobs good-- they tell me how much to subtract. We switch jobs then if needed too. They pay tithing and then can save it or spend it over the next bit. They can't buy candy at the store, but I keep candy bars and Gatorade here that they can buy for $1 or sometimes they buy other treats-- yes, I inflate the prices on those too. But if they choose to buy something healthy, I will split the cost with them if they agree to share it. Last week Ryan bought a big thing of pretzel mix, Tyler bought a bag of rolls (white bread is a treat), and Jeanisha bought a bag of pears. They are really good at sharing with each other too. I think half the fun is that they get to "control" the sharing. Jeanisha has me cut one pear at a time for her to divvy out and loves to remind the boys that SHE bought it.

They rarely ask for me to buy them something because they know the answer will be, you can buy it with your allowance, and they usually don't want it if THEY have to pay for it. They also know that if they wear out their clothes by mistreating them-- like running around outside with just socks on, they have to buy replacements, because mom only pays for things once. I don't think they thought I was serious, until I bought a bag, figured out the cost per pair, and charged them. They haven't even had to buy all the pairs in that package yet and are being much more careful-- and reminding each other. As Ryan puts it, "Mom pays for needs, we pay for wants."

Oh, we also pay them interest on what they save at the rate of 10% per month until they turn 10, then I'll have to reevaluate. Ryan is starting to become a pretty good saver. His goal is to earn more each month through interest then his allowance. :)

Our system works pretty good. Tyler just asked if he could be responsible for picking up the 3 main rooms (kitchen, living room, and family room) and vacuuming the whole house--his favorite job and he is very meticulous about it. He wants to do the work of a 7 year old, so he can earn more even though he's not 7 until April. I was fine with that. :)

Ryan puts away the clean dishes, cleans the bathrooms (his choice because they don't get as messy as the rooms Tyler chooses. Tyler doesn't want them because they are the "gross" job, so it works out great), takes out the trash, and puts away folded laundry. He also picks up the kids bedroom which doesn't have much because they don't have any toys or clothes in there. Their clothes dresser is in the living room and the toys are in the family room or in bins in the storage room, so most of the time there is only one bin out in the bedroom.

I would love to see what jobs your kids do. So if you read this and write on your blog, post a comment and let me know.

Homeschool Reviews

2009-01-29T21:24:00.003-07:00

I thought I would put a note about my homeschool reviews site: http://simplyschoolingreviews.blogspot.com/

I've done about 25 reviews now and been introduced to some awesome products! I'm working on putting some "quick links" at the top for my favorites.

Ryan went from hating spelling to loving it with All About Spelling. Tyler learned the 50 states with The Little Man in the Map. And Jeanisha is starting to read with Rocket Phonics.

This is what Ryan (remember, he's 8) reported to his dad after watching part of the Algebra 2 MathTutor DVD's I was sent to review:

Dad: "What did you learn today?"
Ryan: "I learned algebra. Well, actually Algebra 2. And it was easy."

He then had me write him some equations, like y=4X-6, so he could demonstrate how to graph a line.

Then, Ryan: "And there's only 15 parts on the movie, so I'll learn all the rest in, oh, about 2 weeks."

We just had to smile at his confidence!

Adam's baby

2009-01-29T21:19:00.002-07:00

Adam refers to Lincoln as "MY baby."

I'll say, "my baby" and he says "No, MINE."

But then he will usually agree to share.

Last night at pack meeting, one of the kids in my primary class was sitting in front of us and kept reaching back to rock the baby in the car seat. Adam was quite concerned. He got down off my lap and stood by the baby. Whenever the boy reached over, Adam would push his hand away. Of course, the scouts sitting right around us thought that was funny and started watching. It happened 3-4 times and then Adam stood up and walked around the car seat so he was between Lincoln and the boy and GROWLED at him. ARRRGRRRRRRR!!! The scouts all thought that was REALLY funny!!!

So I moved Lincoln back over away from the boys and Adam was content to sit on my lap again.

January pictures

2009-01-27T13:00:00.006-07:00

Lincoln had a well child check today and I got to take 5 kids to the doctor all by myself!!! They did really well, sitting there playing rock, paper, scissors and I spy. Lincoln is doing good, he weighs 13 lbs 2 oz. and is 23.875 inches long. He got his first bunch of shots too.

Here are several pictures of the kids earlier this month. It was nice and warm-- mid 40's and we had got lots of snow the night before so I went out and helped them make snowmen. Stephen took pictures when he came home. They were all bundled up while we were working on them, but somehow Adam managed to slip out for pictures without his coat. Whoops. Don't you just love the mismatched gloves though?

This is Jeanish's Christmas dress. It has glitter on the bottom part, so she leaves silver sparkles wherever she goes! She loves being a Sunbeam and is constantly telling me things Sunbeams can do. Like read, cut their own apples, go to bed late. . . But I can use it too. Sunbeams always obey the first time, stay in bed good, and always clean their bedroom, right?

These are at the Boise Zoo. The kids favorite part it the giraffe slide! It was a fairly warm day and I wore Lincoln in the wrap, and pushed Jeanisha and Adam in the stroller. It was nice because there was practically no one there-- so I didn't have to have the "you sure have your hands full" and "are they all yours" comments that I seem to get whenever it just me and the kids.

School today

2009-01-27T11:45:00.002-07:00

We started a new science book today about Physics by Real Science 4 Kids. We talked about motion and physical laws and the scientific method. Then for the experiment part, the kids talked about their observations when you throw (or shoot) a ball, drew hypothesis trajectories on the chalkboard, then took their Nerf guns outside to test their hypotheses. Now they are recording their results and marking off the ones that didn't work (mostly ones I added). Fun stuff. :)

Lincoln

2009-01-02T23:34:00.002-07:00

I've always thought the newborn pictures were so cute, but never got them taken with the other kids. Here is Lincoln at 2 weeks. Isn't he cute? He is such a good baby, so easy-going and sweet and calm. He puts up with a lot of loving from his siblings. None of the kids can get enough of him. They are always asking to hold him or lay by him and he is picked up by someone at the slightest whimper.

Poor baby has a staph infection right now though and has a rash all over his face. I have it too and it is itchy, itchy, itchy!!!! Little blisters from my knees to my ankles and from my wrists to my elbows. But we are both on antibiotics now, so hopefully we can get rid of it. (Things like this always happen over holidays too when it is impossible to see a doctor!)

Homeschool: how we started

2008-12-28T15:33:00.003-07:00

I just finished a review of an e-book called turning points (It, along with all the other reviews I've been doing lately are found here: SimplySchoolingReviews). In the book over 25 families share what led them to start homeschooling and what keeps them homeschooling. As I read about their "turning points," I started to reflect on why we started homeschooling, my goals for our homeschool, and how homeschooling has been a blessing. It was reassuring to feel that I'm not alone with the struggles and frustrations that come with homeschooling and to be reminded and remember all the joys of homeschooling.

After reading "their" stories, I wanted to record mine.

I never would have dreamed that I would homeschool my kids. It wasn't even on the radar screen. When Ryan was 3 (2003-04), I looked into sending him to HeadStart, but we didn't qualify, so I joined a few other mom's in putting together a rotating preschool that was 2 days a week. We each took a turn teaching every 6 weeks. I enjoyed planning for my weeks, but felt frustrated with some of the other moms who would do a short activity and then turn on Sesame Street or a movie for the kids to watch. I also didn't like driving for 15 minutes to drop him off, driving home 15 minutes, then turning around an hour later to go pick him up.

I started looking into other options and decided to start a preschool in my home. I had plenty of background from college (my MS degree is in Human Development and I'd worked with Early Head Start Research observing and working with preschoolers). That was a fun year. Ryan and Tyler both learned a lot and I enjoyed working with the other kids. My goal for the kids was to have them learn everything that year that the state expected them to learn in Kindergarten, so they would be ahead. Ryan did that, and more. The only problem was, his birthday missed the cut off deadline, so he still had another year to wait before he could go to kindergarten.

I talked to the school district about having his start early (not an option), looked into private kindergarten (too expensive), and then started reading about homeschool. I wasn't willing to just not teach him anything for a year and I had enjoyed teaching him preschool. Ryan had also done well learning from mom, so it seemed like a viable option.

I started collecting information about homeschooling, reading everything I could and joining a local homeschool group and going to some of their activities. The moms I met were amazing! I wanted our family to be like that. We did hit some resistance from family members. My sister told me I was crazy and my brother-in-law sat down and step by step went through a list of concerns--- but either they've all given up on changing our minds or they've seen this is a good option for our family. :)

Initially, it was a one year experiment, then we would see from there. The first year (2004-05) went pretty good. I pushed a little too hard and experienced mom burn-out a bit sometimes, but overall we enjoyed it. There were enough blessings and positives that I knew this was exactly what our family was supposed to be doing. I also got to know other homeschooling families better and I really liked the lifestyle I was seeing.

The next year, when Ryan was officially supposed to be starting kindergarten (2005-06), he was reading chapter books and learning multiplication. Public school kindergarten was not an option, I knew he would be bored and act up and be labeled a troublemaker. (And in Idaho, you have to be 6 by the deadline to start 1st grade, so skipping a grade wasn't an option either.)

In Idaho, there are several different virtual public schools where the state provides resources and the parent teaches at home. We looked into all of them, and most looked dry and boring and tedious, but one option showed promise. I-DEA gave parents a set amount of money to spend on resources to educate their children at home. The money could be spent on books and supplies or lessons. In return, the students had to take the state tests and submit work samples. For Kindergarten the allotment was $600 and I was willing to jump through the hoops for the extra money. That year we took spanish classes and swimming lessons, and bought some really neat resources and books.

We've continued working with I-DEA and had a very positive experience. Because the boys are ahead in most areas, I can pretty much homeschool the way I want. We've already covered the things they are expected to know for grade level, so collecting work samples is really easy. The extra money has allowed them to do things we otherwise couldn't afford, like horseback riding.

There are days when homeschooling is exhausting. Especially when I was pregnant and tired. There were days when the house was a mess from projects, the kids were not getting their work done because they were either daydreaming or tormenting each other, and I was getting really tired of hearing "mom, I need help."

But, the good by far outweighs the bad. The days when they work hard to get their work done so they can build a blanket fort in the family room and read all afternoon. The days when they spend the afternoon collecting leaves to pile on the trampoline and I hear them laughing and playing and just having so much fun. The way the boys look out for the little ones and include them, and get to spend time with the family. There have been so many times when we have been able to go do something fun (and often educational) as a family that we wouldn't have been able to do with the public schools' schedule.

I love seeing them learn and watching something click-- like Ryan deciding algebra and story problems are fun and spending our "non-school" days right after the baby came reading all 7 Narnia books. Seeing Tyler finally get to the point where reading is fun, not a chore, and watching his confidence start to bloom. I love knowing their friends and being able to answer their questions.

Homeschooling may not be the best option for every family, but it is for us, at this season and hopefully for a long time. And I'm grateful for the turning points that led us to even consider it a viable option.

Horseback Riding

2008-12-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

For PE this year the boys have been taking horseback riding lessons. They have loved it and learned so much. Over the course of 12 lessons, they learned to walk and trot without a lead rope, have the horse step over a log, weave around barrels, and play games while riding a horse. I am so grateful for the virtual charter school options that we have here in Idaho that pay for them to do this type of activity.

At the end of each lesson, Jeanisha gets a pony ride around the arena, which she loves. At first, I would walk with her to steady her, but now she can balance on her own. Adam also insists on a pony ride too and grins from ear to ear while he is on the horse and cries when he has to get off.

We'll be taking a few months off for winter, but both boys want to do horseback riding again in the spring instead of a different sport. Maybe someday we'll even get a horse of our own.

This is Tyler trotting. He has to kick REALLY hard to get the horse to do it with his little bit of weight!

Please help me!

2008-12-18T13:16:00.001-07:00

Dear Friends,

Today I would like to ask you to spend 5 minutes to help my family by contacting Horizon Organic milk company.

My parents recently became a certified organic dairy here in Idaho; they milk 50 cows on a small family farm, Halverson Dairy in Rupert, Idaho. It was a 2 year process costing several thousands of dollars to obtain the certification. During that time, Horizon Organic offered seminars encouraging dairies to become organic and talked to my dad about buying his milk once he was certified. They also promote a “Four Steps to Organic” program on their website which my parents followed faithfully. Now that the process is complete and my parents are ready to start selling their milk, Horizon is saying they won't honor their verbal commitment to buy the milk.

Horizon promotes themselves as a company made up of small family dairies, but most of their milk comes from factory dairies with thousands of cows. In fact, Horizon opened another dairy with several thousand cows in Idaho shortly after they told my parents they had too much milk to take the milk from their 50 cows.

I would like you to call Craig Fullmer of Horizon Dairy/WhiteWave Foods (the parent company of Horizon Dairy) and tell him that you would like Horizon to honor their commitment to organic family dairies and that you will not be buying Horizon Organic milk until his company stops misleading consumers and dairy producers. (Their milk is sold at Winco and their website is http://www.horizonorganic.com/) His number is 1-800-488-9283, select the option for employee directory and key in his last name. You will probably get his voicemail, just leave the message above with your name and contact number.

You can also contact Scott Toth, VP of WhiteWave Foods, and tell him the same thing. His number is 214-303-3400, you will get his secretary. Both of these men are aware of my parents' situation and were part of the decision to not take their milk, even though my parents had been working with Horizon for 2 years during the certification process.

Thank you very much for taking a few minutes to make these calls. If you have any questions, just add a comment or email me. And feel free to forward this to anyone else you think might be willing to help us.

I hope Horizon will realize that integrity is important and people are willing to take a stand for what's right.

It's a race

2008-12-16T20:44:00.003-07:00

The kids love to make everything a race. And they love to get a head start before I say go. Tonight I told Tyler and Jeanisha I would race them to see if I could get ready for bed faster than they could take the dishes to the dishwasher and wash and dry the table.

Me: "Ready?"
Tyler: "Ha, ha" as he runs for the table.
Me: "Set?"
Jeanisha: "Ha, ha" she runs for the table.
Me: "Go."
Adam: "ha, ha" and he runs after the other kids, then stops and looks back at me like "what now?"

Lucky Day!!!!

2008-12-04T11:32:00.004-07:00

I just got a 6 Qt Professional KitchenAid for $19.00, Yes, 19!!!!! This is the one that retails for between $350 and $499!!!!! I love my current KitchenAid, but I max it out when I make bread and this one is bigger and more powerful.

Amazon.com had a Christmas promo where customers could vote in 6 different rounds on which of 3 things was the best deal. Then, of everyone who voted in a round, they randomly selected people who would have the option to buy the items in each round. If you got picked for an option to buy, it was a race to buy one of the 500 available at the special price. And they sent the option to buy email to a lot more people than the 500.

But I guess my clicking index finger has had lots of practice-- at 7:30 am the countdown clock changed to add to cart and I managed to be one of the lucky ones. I was all the way through check-out and had my order confirmation email at 7:32 am!!!

It's noon and it's already been shipped and should be here by next Tues. YEAH!!! I never win anything and for this one I had to basically win the lottery twice! Merry Christmas to ME!!!!!

Missing Details

2008-12-01T11:54:00.002-07:00

Lincoln's middle name is Alton after Stephen's grandfather. He weighed 7 lbs 12 ozs and was 20 1/4 inches long.

He is a super good baby, very calm and easy going. The kids all absolutely love him and love to hold him.

We had a good Thanksgiving-- Stephen cooked a turkey and we made all the traditional side dishes. Of course, all the kids wanted were turkey, rolls, jello, and olives. Oh well. It was different not having any family around-- the kids missed having lots of cousins to play with.

He's HERE!

2008-11-26T14:36:00.005-07:00

We were scheduled to have the baby on the 25th, but apparently 16 other mothers were told the same thing. So we got a phone call Monday morning at 7:06 asking us if we would be interested in coming in a day early. I had to stop and think through my list of planned errands for the day and stop shaking. So one hour later we had all 4 kids woke up, dressed with a change of clothes, fed, and in the van and we were off. We even made time to drop off some books at the Library.

The Dr. broke my water sometime around 9:30 am and the baby was out at 12:19 pm, less than three hours later.

Here's Stephen's description:
Lincoln was born in one of Jeanisha's favorite colors - Purple. Seems he has been a little bored the last 9 months so he decided to twist the umbilical cord like a rope - A lot. It is hard to describe what it looked like, but it was not normal. Then to add suspense he looped it around his head to finish off his grand entrance.

He was then given oxygen for a while and then it was determined that he had to much fluid in his lungs. So they decided to do what nurses are best at - they stuck a tube down his nose. They ended up suckingup 20 CC's of fluid which I am told is a lot. All I know is it looked like a lot. He decided to yell at the nurse at that point, which was good.

Life got a lot better for him after that and he decided to open his eyes and smile at all of us. He still has purple feet, and sometimes his hands, but they do not seem too concerned.

The kids came by (except Adam) and were more interested in what cartoons they could have on the T.V. and the almighty hospital cafeteria. Jeanisha asked 7 times what she could eat there before I finally broke down and took them to get something to eat. Jeanisha and Ryan got a cookie, and Tyler got green Jello with whip cream. I got the bill. They did take their turn holding Lincoln, but soon left to watch movies at their cousins house.

Arrival Date is Set

2008-11-04T15:50:00.003-07:00

Sometime on November 25th-- the Tuesday before Thanksgiving-- is when Lincoln will be making his arrival. My Dr. is going to be out of town for Thanksgiving and the entire following weekend, so he is going to induce me 8 days early and let me be home in time for Thanksgiving. Stephen said he will even cook Thanksgiving dinner-- although he keeps joking that it will be frozen pizza. :)

It is SO nice to have a set date and be able to count down. The kids are really excited-- 3 more Sundays doesn't sound like very much and it is something even Jeanisha can relate to. I'm looking forward to having a beautiful new baby instead of a big awkward belly. :) I'm bigger with this pregnancy than I have been with any of the other kids, so I feel huge. This is the first time I couldn't sleep on my stomach all the way up to delivery. He's also been positioned much lower making it painful to walk and bend and do all the things you have to do taking care of 4 kids and a house. Stephen has been great-- and for the most part, the kids have too, but I will be very happy to be able to move and get things done again.

First weird craving this pregnancy

2008-10-24T21:58:00.002-06:00

It seems like I have at least one strange craving with each pregnancy. With Adam it was green olives-- I loved them. Yesterday I was in Costco and they were doing samples, and one was sushi-- the fully cooked kind. It tasted so good, but I knew I would be the only one eating them, and at Costco, everything is extra large anyway-- did I really want 40 pieces of sushi. I told myself I would find something else that looked good that the rest of the family would share, but Ryan and I went through the entire store and nothing else looked good-- not even the candy bars and M&M's I was buying with my coupons. So I went back and got my sushi. Stephen gave me a really funny look when I walked into the house carrying it. And again when I was eating it while we watched a movie and he was digging into his bag of M&M's and the kids were eating popcorn.

And then tonight on our way home from the temple, I told him I was going to go home and eat some more of my sushi and a bowl of ice cream. I didn't mean together!!!!!! The sushi was for dinner and the ice cream was for dessert!!!! Oh well, I think it sounds better than pickles and ice cream any day.

Ryan's Baptism

2008-10-24T10:24:00.004-06:00

I had wanted Ryan's baptism to be a memorable experience for him, and I can honestly say that I don't think he will ever forget it! I don't think most of our extended family will forget that weekend either. He was baptized on Sat. Oct 11th in Rupert. We drove down Friday evening and had nice dry roads the entire way. Not too long after we left, it started snowing in Boise. Enough to stick on the grass, but not on the road. We were a little worried the weather would follow us and make driving a little challenging for people coming to the baptism, but we had NO idea. We woke up Saturday morning to 3 inches of snow on the ground in Rupert. Talk about fun and exciting for the kids. We had packed a good amount of snow clothes for the boys for hunting, so they were right out there shoveling and having a blast. Stephen checked the weather and called his family to tell them it was supposed to be letting up. But it didn't. It snowed and snowed and snowed. By the time we were leaving for the baptism at 5:00, there was about 8 inches on the ground, and it snowed another 3 inches during the baptism.

To make it even more memorable, there were problems with the pump to bring water into the baptismal font, so they had to run a hose in from outside, across the snow into the church to fill the font. so the water was COLD! The baptism itself was really nice, with great talks by grandmas, music by Ryan's aunts, and a very excited boy. Afterwards we had root beer floats for refreshments-- a little ironic considering the weather-- but it had been 92 degrees a week and a half earlier.

Stephen's family was debating which way to go to get back to Utah, but the main freeway was closed, so their only option was to go through Pocatello. It took them 2 hours to get to American Falls, normally a 45 minute drive, but once they made it past Pocatello, the roads were fine.

The storm just hung out over Rupert and kept piling up. By Sunday, we ended up with 15 inches-- all of church was canceled except Sacrament meeting. In the middle of October! It was crazy!!!! And memorable!!!

Here are some pictures of the snow.

More than one way to get your oil changed

2008-10-22T22:06:00.003-06:00

I'm a little behind posting. Two weeks ago we went to Rupert to my parents house for the weekend. Ryan was getting baptized and we decided to do it there because all of my family was getting together for the guys to go hunting and it is 3 hours closer to all of Stephen's family. The night before we left, I sent Stephen out to check the oil on the van as I was packing. He came back in and said it looked good. The next day, I drove the kids to co-op (30 minutes from home) and then went to my sister Karmas house afterwards. Stephen met me there and we left for Rupert (30 hours away).

We stopped in Twin for a bathroom break and to buy some snacks and Karma called and said we had left a bunch of oil on her driveway and might want to check. Now Karma tends to exaggerate, so when I told Stephen, he figured I meant a little tiny bit and didn't really take it seriously figuring he would check it again at my parents. He had been parked at the grocery store for about 20 minutes and when we backed out there, there were several wet spots under the car, but he didn't look too closely.

Another 20 minutes down the road and we get a call from Karma telling us her husbands plane has just been rerouted to Twin, so we pull of the interstate to see if we are going to need to pick him up. All of the sudden I notice smoke coming out from under the hood of the van!!! We jump out to look and the entire engine and bottom of the hood are COVERED in oil! It turned out that when Stephen checked the oil the night before, he had forgotten to put the lid back on. Amazingly enough, the lid was still sitting under the hood right where he had left it. We called my dad and he brought us more oil-- it took 4 quarts-- almost a full oil change worth. (Turns out there were about 6 spots at Karma's, ranging in size from a baseball to a dinner plate-- for once she wasn't exaggerating!).

It turned out that that was just the start of our interesting adventures on that trip. I'll try to post more--- along with pictures of the baptism--

A Chance to Try New Stuff

2008-10-03T18:10:00.003-06:00

I found out a couple weeks ago that I get to be a part of the focus group for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine testing and reviewing new products. (This is the same company that let me give away a free subscription if I wrote a review back in August). And since I love their magazine and love free stuff-- even if I'm giving it away-- I was happy to review it. I posted the review on some of my homeschool email lists, but just put the contest part here--so if you wanted to win, you had to visit my blog. :)

So as part of the focus group, they will be sending me new products from a bunch of different vendors to review-- up to 50 over the next year-- and giving me the chance to do some giveaways. But I don't want that to get lost on this blog with all our family stuff for homeschool friends who are interested in it, and I don't want to bore my non-homeschooling friends and family, so I have set up a second blog where I will post the reviews: http://simplyschoolingreviews.blogspot.com/

I will post a link here when I add reviews, but anyone not interested won't have to read them, and I'll put that link in for my email groups, so people interested in the homeschooling aspect of my life-- not if my kids are sick or saying funny things, can just go there.

Anyway, I am really excited to get to try a bunch of products, several are things I've considered but not wanted to buy without seeing. In the long run, it will probably just end up introducing me to more companies and costing me money, but it will be fun. :)

Neighbor kids and bread

2008-09-23T17:05:00.002-06:00

We have some neighbor kids who have started to come over and ask to play. They live a couple blocks away, and while I know where they live, I have never met their parents. So I told them they can play, but they have to stay outside until their mom comes with them sometime to talk to me and tell me it's okay for them to play inside. They can only come in to use the bathroom or get a drink. Am I mean? I would NEVER let my kids go play at someone's house that I didn't know!!! And to play without me there, I would have to know the family quite well. The kids are about 9, 7, and 5 years old. Any thoughts? I don't want to be mean, but I'm not comfortable having them inside without knowing their family at least a little bit. They seem like really nice kids and do a good job including everyone and I keep all the windows open so I can monitor them all really closely.

Anyway, they were here today and I was baking. I made bread, pizza, and was working on cookies when they all came in for drinks. They asked if they could have cookies and I said probably not because I wasn't going to cook them until after I cooked dinner and they had to go home at dinner time. But I told them they could have a slice of bread if they wanted. The oldest boy looked at me funny and said, "We just buy our bread, but we do make sandwiches out of it." I explained this is homemade bread and it was cooking in the oven. The expression got even more confused and he asked, "So is it just bread or is it from ingredients?" I just had to laugh.

(I ended up sticking in one pan of cookies before the pizza, so they got those instead of bread, then I sent them home so my kids could do their jobs while the pizza cooked).

What flavor?

2008-09-14T16:08:00.002-06:00

I made potato wedges for dinner tonight instead of regular french fries. The boys then stated they don't like potato flavored french fries, they want chicken flavored ones. I just can't win. :)

What would Jesus do?

2008-09-14T13:47:00.002-06:00

Today the boys had a bowl of Fruit Loops to share for a snack outside. Jeanisha came inside complaining that they wouldn't share with her and Adam. I told her she could get her own bowl, then she could share with whoever she wanted.
Jeanisha: "I'll just share with Adam, cuz the boys are not sharing with me."
Me: "Is that what Jesus would do?"
Jeanisha: "No." Sigh
Me: "What would Jesus do?"
Jeanisha: (thinks for a minute first) "Put them in jail, I think."

Ryan is 8!!!!

2008-09-11T22:30:00.006-06:00

,

I cannot believe how fast time flies. It seems like just yesterday that we were waiting for Ryan to make his appearance, hauling him to classes, and cheering for him to reach each little milestone. He was born at 10:38 pm on Sept 7, 2000 after a long day of walking and walking and more walking. But then he was so perfect and little and amazing. Stephen and I were both going to school and he just went along with us to class. I was working on my Masters in Family Relations and Child Development, so most of my professors were fine with having him in class. There were even a couple who would give us a group assignment just to have an excuse to hold the baby for the hour. He was a total trooper and hardly ever cried.

Fast forward to today: Ryan is a very independent, determined, smart kid. He excells at his school subjects and is usually in the middle of at least 3 books at a time!!! When he turned 7, he used his birthday money to buy himself scriptures and set a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon before his 8th birthday. We read part as a family, but he spent a lot of time on his own listening to and reading along with the CD. And he did it!!! I'm amazed at how well he remembers the scripture stories and how comfortable he is with the language of the scriptures-- he even loved the Isaiah chapters.

He is a fun kid to be around and a good helper. We've been canning peaches and tomatoes this past week and he has skinned them, cut them, and put them in the bottles. He is excited to be able to start mowing the lawn now that he is 8. He is also excited about his baptism and starting scouts!

We love you Ryan!!!!!

Squash

2008-08-27T18:43:00.002-06:00

I am a horrible gardener. I even managed to kill my squash and zucchini plants. We have 3 little cucumbers, about 4 inches long, (at the time everyone else is harvesting) and 2 pumpkins, a little bigger than a baseball. The only thing that grows good are my raspberry bushes.

Anyway, in spite of my black thumb, we've been blessed with a good amount of yellow squash and zucchini from friends and family. I've been eating squash just cooked with butter for lunch a lot of days, and made zucchini bread, which everyone but Tyler seems to like. Then the other day I found this recipe for Yellow Squash Casserole. I really, really liked it, Ryan ate it okay with some coaxing, Adam loved it, Tyler and Jeanisha wouldn't even try it. Stephen said it was the best yellow squash he's ever had. But he quickly followed that with "that doesn't mean it's good, it's just the first yellow squash I've ever had that was at least edible." At least he likes the zucchini bread. Adam and I finished off the casserole the next day for lunch-- it reheated good.

So, if you have a plethora of squash, here's a recipe to try. If you like squash you will probably like it. :)

I did add some garlic and extra cheese, probably 3 cups total. I only had one package of crackers, so I substituted grape nut flakes for the portion of crackers that is mixed in with the squash and used the whole package of crushed crackers with cheese on the top. I sliced the squash with the thin slicer blade from the kitchen aid and did not precook it. I did peel it and take the seeds out first too, but with a smaller squash you wouldn't need to.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

4 cups sliced yellow squash
1/2 cup chopped onion
35 buttery round crackers, crushed
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, mix together cracker crumbs and cheese. Stir half of the cracker mixture into the cooked squash and onions. In a small bowl, mix together eggs and milk, then add to squash mixture. Stir in 1/4 cup melted butter, and season with salt and pepper. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, Sprinkle with remaining cracker mixture after about 15 minutes then cook until lightly browned.

Farworld Blog Tour and a giveaway

2008-08-21T13:08:00.003-06:00

I get to be a part of the blog tour for a new book called Farworld: WaterKeep by J. Scott Savage that is coming out in September. He sent me an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) of the book to read and review and is giving me one more to give away to someone who reads this review and leaves a comment. I'm having fits getting a picture of the cover to post, so here is the link on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Farworld-Book-Water-Keep-World/dp/159038962X

Farworld is planned as a 5 book series and Water Keep is the first book. It's a young adult science fiction type, so if you like Fablehaven, Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and such, you would probably enjoy it. The ultimate test of a book like this is whether it can suck me into the imaginary world enough that I neglect my housework to finish it. Farworld did. The kids enjoyed a day of playing in the backyard instead of regular chores and homeschool and we ended up having grilled hot dogs for dinner, so they thought it was a great day! I ended wishing Book 2 was ready because the 400 + pages weren't enough for the day. :)

The basic plot of the book follows two teenagers who live in different worlds, Marcus on Earth, Kyja in Farworld a world completely full of magic. Both are misfits in their own worlds, Marcus because he is a handicapped orphan and Kyja because she can't do magic and is immune to the magic of others in her world. When Marcus magically ends up in Farworld, he and Kyja learn of a secret that could destroy both their worlds unless they can get the different elements (water, fire, earth, and air) to cooperate and open a passage between the two worlds. Book 1 Water Keep is their journey and adventures and they try to persuade the Water Elementals to help them.

As part of the blog tour, I also got to interview the author and creator of Farworld. I had some help from some homeschooled kids in thinking up my questions, and it was fun to "visit" with a real author.

Here's the interview:

When did you decide you wanted to be an author and how did you start?

Like a lot of things in my life, it crept up on me. I’ve always loved to tell stories, but I honestly don’t think I decided I had what it took to be an author until after I published my first book. Weird huh?

Where do you get your ideas for a book?

ShopKo. Another four years and I can get the senior discount. So I can probably afford to write two books a year. I wish I knew. I’d go there all the time. I think ideas are kind of like belly button lint. They just appear out of nowhere. And you shouldn’t try eating either of them. Okay, that was just plain gross.

What are your favorite books?

I love to read just about everything. Last night I finished Neverworld, I think it was called? Amazing story. Neil Gaiman is incredible.

Do you have another job or do you just write?

Unfortunately I also have a day job. But I’m hoping to go to fulltime writing in the next year or so.

How long did it take to write Water Keep?

Hang on. Let me try. “Water Keep?” About two seconds, but I’m a hunt and peck guy. Less than three months for the first draft. But more than twice that in edits.

What is the hardest part about writing a novel/being an author?

No hard parts. Compared to the rest of life, being an author is awesome.

What is the best part?

Everything. Having people read and enjoy your stories is just so dang cool. I love it.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to become an author someday?

Always floss, and don’t put open pens in your pocket. Also, read a ton and write for fun. Don’t worry about how good your writing is at first, just enjoy the process.

Do you have to learn math if you want to be a writer?

Nope. But learn it anyway. In case you need to be an accountant or something while you work on getting published.

What advice would you give to parents who want their children to enjoy and become proficient at writing?

Give them little challenges and praise their success. Many kids get overwhelmed by the concept of coming up with a whole story. But if you tell them to write about a contest between a magic dwarf and a pink dragon, they can totally get off on that.

If you had a time machine, what time would you travel to and why?

I’d travel ten years ahead. Just so I could say, “I told you so,” for the next decade.

If you were a candy bar, what kind would you be?

Hershey with almonds. Because I am a little nuts.

What is the most beautiful/inspiring thing you've ever seen?

My wife. (That should win me brownie points at home!)

What is the most random question you've been asked on this blog tour and how did you respond?

I was asked, “What sounds grates your teeth the most?” I answered, “’Help me, Dad. I’m drowning.’ Especially when I am trying to take a nap.” It was just a joke kids. Don’t come after me with a pitchfork.

Don't forget to leave me a comment with a way to contact you if you win the book!!! If you have kids old enough, probably 9 or 10 and up, they can leave a comment and be in the drawing too!

Tyler's battle wound and upcoming surgery

2008-08-13T17:54:00.004-06:00

Tyler and Stephen were wrestling around on Saturday. Tyler was running to try to knock Stephen over, and Stephen side stepped him. He just missed the big bean bag and crashed into the table instead. The result was a trip to the ER and 3 stitches in his forehead.

His oral surgery to remove his extra tooth is scheduled for next Thursday. He is SOOO excited. The dentist told him he would have to be lazy for the rest of the day after they took it out and just watch movies and rest. And if that's not good enough, he also has to eat things like Popsicles and ice cream for the day. All of that sounds pretty good to a 6 year old.

He's also convinced that the tooth fairy will be paying him extra for this tooth since it is special. He told me he thinks she should give him at least $12!!! But I told him I didn't think she could pay more than $3 for a tooth. (The first tooth lost by each kid in our house gets a $2 bill).

My little helper

2008-08-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

Adam loves to help. For awhile, we kept finding things he'd put in the trashcan and had to make sure the cupboard under the sink stayed locked so he didn't throw away ALL the toys. Today, he decided to help with laundry. He took a big armful of clothes from the clean laundry basket, carried them into the laundry room and dumped them into the dirty clothes bins. I may not have caught it with just one or two things, but I also found piles of folded clothes sitting in the hamper. Just what I need, more laundry. :) But I guess that's my incentive to get it all put away before he comes to help.

Photos

2008-08-13T13:56:00.008-06:00

I've been way behind posting photos with my posts lately. We use Stephen's work camera, so I have to wait for him to bring it home and download the photos for me. So here are a bunch of fun ones from the most recent download. The first one is from Tyler's birthday this spring. They have had SOO much fun playing baseball and playing outside this summer. Next is of the kids fishing. Both boys are able to cast on their own now. Tyler is the fisherman like his dad, Ryan gets bored and starts throwing rocks. Jeanisha just wanders.

The next group of pictures here are from a Sunday morning getting ready for church. Aren't they cute???

This next picture is our super sweet cat Lucy!!!! She is a joy and is so good with the kids. They haul her around, play with her with a bouncy ball or yarn. It is so funny to watch her chase a ball all around the patio. They all love her!!!!

Then you have cute Jeanisha-- she is the one who loves to pose for the camera.

And here is one of Adam with his sunglasses!

And here is one of Tyler at the Idaho Youth games. He came in 2nd in his age group. He loves running and is pretty fast. He was so proud of his ribbon from this race and his medal from Tae Kwan Do. Jeanisha loved the dance class adn Tae Kwan Do, although she was pretty bummed her medal wasn't chocolate.

Here is Adam and his cousin running around during the races.

Our other fun summer activity was swimming. Ryan is now in Level 3 and loves jumping off the diving board and being able to go anywhere he wants in the pool. Tyler is in Level 2 and has come SO far from a year ago when he wouldn't even bob under water. Jeanisha passed preschool with flying colors, but is still a bit short for level 1. She loves swimming and jumping off the diving board. We usually put her in a life jacket and then she can swim and go wherever she wants. Adam was just jealous that he couldn't get in the water.

And here's just one last cute picture of Adam eating his bowl on my birthday! He loved his cake.

Homeschool Product Reviews and a Giveaway

2008-08-12T16:15:00.002-06:00

I've been given a chance to test and review 2 different products from the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/ And I get to give away a one year digital subscription of their magazine. So if you are interested in the drawing, leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name out of a hat.

The first product I get to review is the Old Schoolhouse Magazine itself. It is available in both digital ($16.95 a year) and printed ($25.00 a year) formats and is printed quarterly. New subscribers also get a bunch of freebies, which are actually worth a lot more than the subscription price. It is a Christian based homeschool magazine filled with well written articles, practical ideas, and reviews of homeschool products. There is also a complete homeschool unit study in each issue-- the Summer 2008 one was on flight. I don't tend to buy a lot of magazine subscriptions, but after looking through the free online back issue from Summer 2007 on the website, I decided to subscribe a few months ago. To tell the truth, the deciding factor was a couple of the freebies that cost more than the magazine.

I went with the print magazine because I don't have a laptop and one of the pluses of a magazine for me is being able to haul it with me to the park or keep it in the car for those waiting times when I have a few minutes to read. I was very impressed with the Summer 2008 issue. I liked the Christian focus and didn't find anything that conflicted with LDS beliefs. I grabbed it out of the mailbox on the way to the park and ended up letting the kids play for almost 3 hours while I read most of it. It's sat near the computer since then as I've looked up some of the advertised products that I flagged. The one con is that I will probably find some fun new curriculum and end up spending more money. :)

My favorite thing about The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is reading about other families who are living the same lifestyle we are and getting practical ideas and advice for the lifestyle we've chosen.

The 2nd product I get to review is The Schoolhouse Planner ($39.00). I have to say this is the most complete planner I have ever seen!!!! It's huge, 247 pages. But, because it is an e-book I can print just the stuff I need and want and customize it to fit my family. In addition to your basic calendar, address/phone book, and daily schedule forms, it includes just about every homeschool or household form you could possible imagine: from field trip and reading logs to chore charts and menu planning, it's all there. One big plus for me is that it's in a pdf fill in format. I can type in the information, then save and print it. But when something changes, I can just go fix it and reprint that page. It's also nice to have all the forms you can imagine in one place. Instead of having 200 files, I have 1.

There are also forms for some of the things I've always known I should have on hand, but just never taken the time to create. For example, there is a personal financial inventory sheet where you list your regular monthly bills, account number, normal due date, address and phone number of the company, and whether it is automatically paid. Most of this is information that I have floating around in my head. I know if a certain bill doesn't show up by say the 15th then I had better do some checking and pay it anyway. I may be able to find the account number and address in the shred box, unless it's caught up, then I get to spend forever on the phone trying to get it straightened out and dealing with customer service reps who say, "It's not in your name, I have to talk to your husband." Having all of the info I need in one place could save me hours of searching-- and if anything ever happened to me, my husband, who never pays the bills, would at least have a starting place.

There are also lots of other little extras: recipes, timelines, a chart for reading the Bible in a year, and lots more. You won't find a more complete planner than this. Here is a link where you can preview a whole bunch of pages from the planner. http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2499

Have fun planning and don't forget to leave a comment if you want to win the magazine subscription. If you leave an anonymous post, make sure I have a way to contact you if you win.

Temple Open House and Family Reunion

2008-08-03T19:57:00.005-06:00

This past weekend we went to the Twin Falls Temple Open house . The temple was beautiful!!! The mural in the endowment room is amazing!!!!! One of the sealing rooms is HUGE-- it is the biggest in any temple. The kids loved the Celestial Room, especially the enormous chandelier. They also thought the sealing room mirrors were pretty neat, seeing themselves go on forever and ever. I never would have thought Twin Falls would get a temple, it's only 45 minutes from where I grew up. The closest temple before that was about 3 hours away. I love seeing how many have been built just in the last 10 years.

After the open house we went to Stephen's family reunion at Downata Hot Springs, it was all of his mom's siblings and their kids and his grandparents. We didn't sleep very good with all the noise, but the kids loved the campfire and playing with all the cousins. There was a big grassy area for the kids to play soccer and tag and just run and play. The water in the pool was very warm-- like bathwater, so we could stay in for a long time and play. R loved the big slides, T went once-- and Stephen ended up giving him a push to get him started-- then stayed in the pool the rest of the time. It was fun visiting with everyone, many of whom we only see once a year or so.