Play-doh surprise!

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Look what awaited me when I got out of the shower this afternoon!

[ [Beau has a cold and is congested, hence the puffy red eye.]

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A what?

In the two years we have lived here I had only seen one fox, [which really is fine with me if you think about it].

But yesterday evening as I was washing dishes I saw at the edge of the property a fox hunting along the tall brush. I excitedly called out to the family, "Quick. Come quick and you can see a fox. Straight out the back. Go to the dining room."

The kids and JB scurried to the windows. Champ is the first to speak. "I don't see the fox but I see that lizard," as he points directly to the fox.

People, if you see a lizard that large in your backyard, it is time to move.

And you must not be reading this blog from my part of the world.

I can see we need a unit study on reptiles. Soon.

A bunch of stuff

Finally took the time to load up the photos from my camera to the new computer and have a few I want to share.

First of all - the reason I took the time to figure it out today.
Skeezix's new hair. Her hair is about 4-5 inches shorter and she looks SO grown up! Like 6!! That wasn't my goal, mind you. I was just hoping to even it out a bit [she still had a lot of mixed lengths from her baby-hair] and keep it out of her salad dressing and tooth paste. She likes that it looks like Mommy's and Angel's.

She managed to get pasta in it at dinner-time though. So much for part of our goal. ;)

I also took the time today to learn how to scan from my new printer/copier/scanner thingy we've had since November.

I'm sad that you can't really see what this is. Where you see the dark lines, it is the other side of the scrap paper showing through. Angel used the ColorWonder markers [that don't show up on real paper] and it really only made greasy marks. But she worked so hard to make this drawing. She is TWO. Three in April. This "mean guy," [remember she has older BROTHERS] has a sword. He also has menacing eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, a neck line and three buttons. She was wearing a shirt with three buttons today. I was moved. Where do my kids get their artistic talent?

Here is a photo from last week with Champ showing off an artistic creation of his own. On Thursday the kids found a stash of very large pieces of cardboard and drew fantastic pictures. Do you recognize Champ? He is being "One-Eyed-Louie: Terror of the Seven Seas," [from VeggieTales' The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.] I put the mustache and beard on for him with face paint markers. He wanted a purple nose and green eye, too. But Mama has her limits. That is his "Whalie," with him.

Finally - yes these are out of order. These last pictures are from the kids' CBS performance last week of Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego. I wish I could post the video, but it is REALLY LONG.

Oh my. =/

As I prepared to read the next chapter of "The Adventures of Buster Bear," by Thornton Burgess to Champ (6) I opened with the request suggested by our curriculum. "Describe what a pasture looks like." I waited for Champ to answer; he remained silent. So I asked another question. "Do you know what a pasture is?" This time he was QUICK to answer. "That is the guy who, like, leads the church."

I guess Mama needs to work on her enunciation!

A Homeschool Hurrah

I was blue last Thursday and Friday.

They were REALLY BAD DAYS.

This was evidenced by the fact that at one point I sat on the floor, in the dark, in the pantry and cried my heart out. I was frustrated with God, frustrated with the kids, and frustrated with the mess, which led me back to being frustrated with God and His plan for my family. With a lot of prayer, both alone and with a fellow homeschool mom, and a God-assisted attitude adjustment I am mentally, spiritually and emotionally okay again.

At least for a while.

In honor of the cloud being lifted and my hope being restored I am chronicling some Homeschool Highlights.

*The TEACHER learns as much as the STUDENT in some cases. I now know why Wall Street is called Wall Street, what a pronomial adjective is, and why fish hear so well under water. And that is just this month.

*When your student has to go potty, the class stops. They don't run the risk of having IMPORTANT MATERIAL shared when they are out of the room.

*Your student can do art class everyday if your family wants to, not every FOURTH day.

*When your student gets 7 out of 10 math problems WRONG you don't need to go on to the next subject. You can do each one over again until the LIGHT BULB goes off!

*When the light bulb goes off, you can celebrate with a KISS and a HUG and not once worry about IMPROPER CONDUCT.

*We never have snow-days, but WE sure can have SUN-DAYS!

*You AND YOUR STUDENTS get to pick what books they read. And... it CAN be the BIBLE!

*We can vacation OFF SEASON and skip the crowds and get off season RATES. [If you don't think this is big... um, it is!]

*My kids DON'T KNOW who Hannah Montana or SpongeBob are! This is very helpful in WAL•MART!

*We can drop everything to meet Nanny or Daddy for lunch at PIZZA HUT.

*When the teacher has a really bad day, she can hide in a closet and call the principal crying without worrying what it might do to her TENURE meetings.

HS mommies... please send me some of your own HURRAHS!

I'll do ANYTHING for patient care

Admit it!

You laughed right out loud, didn't you!

And you wish you had my job, don't you?

[Patient was admitted for rule-out tuberculosis. Until specimens come back negative we act as though they have TB. I can not wear the masks (I failed fit testing in 1998) so I have to wear this headgear and power pack to consistently provide me with germ free air. Feel free to pray for this pt. I hope it isn't TB or cancer. :(]

New Computer

We purchased a new computer. It came with most of the bells and whistles. [Well, the ones non-techies like me are interested in! ;)]

What it did NOT come with is all my passwords, favorites and photos... snicker.

So - I am working [um, a little] at restoring my settings.
I am SUCH a creature of habit! I want everything *the same* and can only imagine how much it is going to slow me down to try to remember all my passwords, etc. We will reload the back-up from the external hard drive later after the kids go to bed, but for now, I am just playing with it and realized how much the other computer reflected **ME**.

I have to laugh. My first computer was a 386 or something that I worked ALL summer for and saved $1000 dollars to buy. It took up almost my whole desk at college, had a tiny green and black monitor and had two disk drives in the front. It didn't include the DOT MATRIX printer with the feeder paper I had to save for separately. We picked up this baby for $519 delivered.

OH - and we have Windows Vista. Not lovin' it. Too modern. ;) I am scoping around for the setting where it lets me turn it back to look like XP.

I'll have something better to blog about soon. In the meantime, if you don't hear much from me it is because I am either working like crazy to get this computer updated, or I am avoiding it. ;)

What's out there?

Picked these up today.
Low tech and blurry... pics of pics.
But you get the idea. They seriously rock!

BTW - they are used with permission!!!

Nanny's a tooter???

Our family had the hysterics tonight and it is only right to share our silliness with you.

Tonight Daddy brought in the mail and Mommy was amused by a postcard advertisement she received. Mommy read it aloud, complete with a radio announcer voice.
I am typing it here exactly as it appears on the postcard, including their quotation errors! [I'm a bit concerned about their tutoring!]

Finally an answer to the "summer dilemma" you are going to love.
Wouldn't you love it if your child could have the kind of summer you remember? Days outside. Time with friends., Playing catch. A picnic at the zoo. Fun, but supervised.

College Nannies are:
•Active female and male role models.

•Custom matched to your family's needs and schedule.

•Cool, fun and responsible.

•Personally screened, interviewed and trained.

•Payrolled and insured.

Stop hunting for "that neighbor who watches kids in the summer".
Stop trying to find another "center". Now you have a better choice.
Call before April 1st to secure our special summer offer!

College Nannies & Tutors.

WELL - We call our Grandma D. [my mom] "Nan," or "Nanny." We call flatus, "toots."

Skeezix's eyes bugged out of her head and she could hardly enunciate her sentence she was so titillated...

You put it together.... Nannies & Tutors = Nanny's a tooter.
It was even funnier, because Nanny was here at the moment.
And she now has a new nickname!!

ps - I think I'll just watch my own kids :P

No title here... ;)

"Mom, why you takin' my picture?"

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"MOM! I made it to level THREE of

BEAKER BOP 2!

MOM! Come look!!!!"

[Little] Men at Work and the Evolution of a Game

As Mama was preparing the family room for tomorrow's

painting she discovered a job fit for her

helpful young men! THEY LOVED IT!

EVOLUTION OF A GAME!

Sisters find a helicopter blade and pretend the toy box is a car:

Sisters enjoy themselves thoroughly while brother #1
and Mama look on and brother #2 fetches camera:

Brother #1 runs to garage after remembering what is out there,

and makes an offer to enhance the game:

Brother #2 gets in on the game and sister #1 enjoys her turn too long in sister #2's opinion. Sister #2 [a/k/a "the baby"] turns on the tears:

Sister #2 gets her way, and the whole crew try to play the game together:

March

So little going on here.

Actually - that is a ugly lie. =(
There is way too much going on here.
I just survived a demanding week and I have a very demanding week facing me.
I am so looking foward to 3/13, just because it is the first day in March I didn't have anything I had to do.
I am not making that up.

But - not much EXCITING going on.
I am happy to share some pictures of my happy, cute family.

Friday morning was dress up morning.
Actually - it was "don't-get-dressed-until-it-is-time-to-leave-
for-our-family-portraits-at-JCP-morning."
So in the meantime, Skeezix and Maow tried on some other things.
Maow is wearing a helmet and a blue boa. She is a superhero, don't-you-know?

Angel, like Beau and Skeezix before her, gave up napping around 24 months old. However, we have always continued quiet time until between ages 4 and 5. Sure, there have been the occaisional protests over going to their room for that 2-3 hour window in the afternoon, but we have been very blessed with kids who play so well by themselves. I don't know what came first: Do they play well alone because they have to have quiet time? Or do they have quiet time so long because they like to play alone?

In either event, something started here a few weeks ago quite by accident, but now it has turned into a little routine. Jasper and Daisy like to do quiet time WITH Angel. She must be treating them well, because they don't cry or scratch at the door to leave and she hasn't had any injuries from them! Maybe she just likes their company.

Yesterday Poppy came over to help JB with the electric in the basement. He paused in his work for a few games of checkers. At bedtime last night, Skeezix told me he was winning, so she pulled the checker board away and "quit da game." Nice, huh? OY!

I caught this photo of the sore loser before I left for work.

She is pretty cute for such a miserable checkers player.

And one of the exciting things coming up this week is getting our family room painted. I love to paint! So why are we hiring this done? *SIGH* because I am too busy and it is too central a room for me to gum up for a week or more. I will paint bedroom #5 myself this spring to get my painting-satisfaction. But I will be VERY satisfied, just the same to get this family room taken care of. I hate that the trim and the walls are the same color and are semi-gloss.

I usually fail to take "before" shots, so I am pleased that I made a few minutes to do that esterday. Here they are. Hopefully I will have "after" shots next weekend, after it is painted, cured and decorated.

Yes, that is an antennae on our T.V., and a VeggieTales poster on the pantry door. ;)

Thanks for reading our update. I am going to try to sleep again. Lots of sinus-headache-stuff going on here. But nothing too bad, praise God! \o/

Preposterous

I love saying that word, and I am still rolling it around in my head as I remember the kids' swim classes yesterday.

The big three take swim classes at the Perinton Community Center. The PCC is a beautiful facility with a ton of programs available and a lovely pool area. The viewing area has floor-to-ceiling bay windows that look out upon the three pools. It has some toys for the kids, a few cafe tables, a few normal round tables and about 9 comfortable casual chairs with four rolling ottomans. On Saturday it also had a man with a guitar. This last part is not a regular fixture.

Here are some pictures of the facility: http://www.perinton.org/PhotoGallery/Viewer.aspx?g=6

As JB scooted the boys downstairs to their lesson, the girls and I worked to hang up our coats and settle in. I immediately became aware of guitar music. A quick walk toward the seating area and sure enough. There was a guy, plucking away at his guitar. A few glances around and I quickly assessed that he wasn't instructing anyone, he wasn't part of an "event" of any kind and he wasn't preparing for a class that would start any minute. He was a fifty-year-old guy with a guitar. He was wearing a well worn sweater, jeans, white socks and dark sneakers. Why is this important? It's not. But I find my observation skills are much more astute when my "peculiar radar" is on full blast.

"So," I wonder to myself as his song was drawing to a close, "What is he going to do next?" Well, next he broke out in another song. The concerned mom that I am, I was listening carefully. Would the song be safe for little ears? Would they identify him as crazy? Maybe they'd be show tunes and I'd realize he was rehearsing for a play latter in the day. Did I mention the place is bustling with a Saturday morning crowd? Adults and children of all ages. I made eye contact with another dad and we silently communicated the absurdity of the moment. Even more absurd was how no one seemed to notice how completely odd this was. The man began his next number. A little James Taylor anyone? By now the girls had selected some books and we settled in for a read; Mr. Guitar Man was two seats to our left. As I absent-mindedly read to the girls, JB came back upstairs. He was also quite surprised but being his mellow-self, just took it in stride. Next up? Some Neil Diamond. Another book, another peek at the boys, another song... some Jim Croce. Or is it Don McLean? I get them mixed up. Nope - that is Don McLean.

Daddy took over storybook-reading and Mommy headed to the windows to watch the boys a bit. I am tickled by all the people NOT NOTICING said guitar player together. It suddenly occurs to me that this is like an episode of the TV show Scrubs I saw while on vacation. A bunch of people were doing something work-related, and suddenly someone opens a door or turns a corner and there is a guitar player no one notices. I share this with JB and that is when trouble starts. See - now I can't get the whole idea out of my head... how preposterous it is.

Well - as if I am not working hard enough to suppress a laugh Guitar Man went and did it. He breaks out in a little, [I am not making this up] Tom Jones.

Strum, stra-stra-stra, strum, stra-stra-stra, strum,

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, stra-stra-stra-strum...

It's not unusual to have fun with anyone, strum-strum,strum-strum...

but when I see you hanging about with anyone strum, stra-strum....

It's not unusual to see me cry, oh I wanna' die.

Oh-wah-wah-wah -wah-wah-wah, strum

If you are not cracking up at this point, you are too young to read this blog! ;)

Okay. Now there is a problem. I suddenly get a vision in my head of all those men, women, and children mulling around the center NOT noticing this guy, suddenly all breaking out in dance. A rumba? A little cha-cha? What goes best with Tom Jones? Yes. The picture of us all dancing together to a little Tom Jones sets me over the edge. And I start to laugh. And stop myself. And the harder I work not to laugh the more I lose it. I am looking out the window at the swimmers, my back to the (non dancing) people and our soloist and the tears start streaming down my face. I was a mess. This continued until the song stopped.

I confess, I am a little disappointed we didn't all start dancing. Frankly, that would have made more sense THEN 50 OR SO PEOPLE ALL NOT NOTICING A GUITAR MAN IN THE ROOM!!!!!

Lemme tell you something else, readers....

If we go back next week, and Guitar Man is there again,
I'm going to ask him to play Bye-Bye Miss American Pie,
and I'm going to sing along at the top of my lungs for all the people to not notice together!

DISCLAIMER!! I DON'T LISTEN TO ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED MUSIC... BUT I KNOW WHAT IT IS BECAUSE OF MY AGE! ;)