Well, hello there…

In an effort to not send myself over a virtual cliff, I’m not going to even look at the date of my last blog. I’m just going to act like I still have a few people out there reading my sporadic ramblings.

So, for those of you not ‘in the know’, Kevin got a new job. He’s working from home full time now which rocks. It’s very surreal, actually, to wake up every morning and have Kevin home with us all day. To be able to come and go as we please. Very strange, very awesome.

Of course, because WBU has this silly rule about former employees living in staff housing, we’ve had to move…again. If you’re keeping score that’s 8 moves in 7 years. We’re hoping for this move to be pretty permanent. While the house is a bit of a tight squeeze, it’s located in the neighborhood of our dreams and I think we’d all 4 be thrilled to settle down here for good.

In other news, we’ll be doing first grade forever. Between several weeks of sickness this year, and the move we’re about 6 weeks behind where we need to be. Good times. However, Caedmon seems to be thriving pretty well in the hectic environment. He’s had a huge leap in his reading in the past few weeks and his math skills are out of this world. I’m going to have to start saving up now for a math tutor because there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep up with him!

Wow, I’m putting myself to sleep here. Seriously. This is the most boring post I’ve ever written.

Alrighty then, if you made it through that I owe you a cookie. Perhaps I’ll be back in another few months to wow you with a witty retelling of how Presley likes to pee all over the floor and laugh at me as I clean it up. Stay tuned!

He may never be the star athlete

But he will always have a heart the size of Texas.

At Caedmon’s soccer game yesterday the kids were running down the field and a little girl from the other team fell down and got trampled by everyone running behind her. Caedmon (being at the back of the pack) stopped, knelt down beside her, asked if she was ok and helped her up. Once she got up he patted her on the back and said “Come on, let’s go. You can do it!” and ran along side her till she caught up with her team. All the while the game was still going full swing. Never once concerned for himself or the game, just that that little girl was ok.

Then, at half time, Caedmon and another girl from his team came and sat down on the ground in front of us. Presley toddled up and sat down beside him. He looked over and, with a huge smile on his face, says, “Hey Pooh!* Whatcha doin? This is my friend McKinnley. Can you say hi to her?” He sat and chit chatted with her during his break then when it was time to go back to the field he gave her a hug and said, “Thanks for sitting with me Pooh, that was so nice of you.”

I know that no matter what happens in the weeks to come, no matter what diagnosis we receive, it won’t change this amazing boy God has given us. It won’t change his heart.

*Pooh is his nickname for Presley, which is a spin off of Poodle, which is one of my many nicknames for Presley.

Why I’m glad we don’t own this place, a story in pictures…

The winds they were a blowin’ in West Texas today!

And while I was walking around assessing the damage I noticed this little prize. Turns out this is what the bottom of the fence looks like pretty much all the way around the property. Can we say tetanus everyone?

I know we should’ve noticed that already since we’ve been here a year, but in our defense…the yard is really big. In the year that we’ve lived here I’ve never even been to the far left corner of the back yard. There could be Hobbits living over there all I know.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes Wayland to fix it?

Happy birthday little girl!

Where did these 2 years go?

244

That’s how many books my kids have. That’s not including curriculum. If you include just the literature in our curriculum that number jumps to 307. That does not include text books or work books.

I think it’s time to admit we have a problem.

Those 3 Words

This is a challenge that was issued to an online community of women that I’ve grown to love. We were told to write three words on a piece of paper and take a picture. The result was this slide show that makes me laugh and cry all at the same time. I’m sure it means nothing to anyone else, but I wanted to share.

What are your three words?

As this is an ongoing project, the pictures will update frequently.

Flashback blogging part duex

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Um…Thanks? I had the privilege (read: duty) to attend one of Caedmon’s many pre-school parties this afternoon. I generally love going to these little events, however, the last 4 weeks they’ve learned about a new country every week and had a country-themed party EVERY FRIDAY.  I know a party doesn’t sound like anything to be annoyed with, but “party” in pre-school language roughly translates to: “all-the-stay-at-home-mommies-come-and-bring-all-the-food-and-set-up-the-entire-party -then-stay-and-clean-up-the-party-because-really-what-else-do-you-have- to-do-besides-eat-chocolate-and-watch-Oprah”. I can deal with that once a month, but every Friday gets old. I digress, even though I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of serving juice and animal crackers to eighteen 4 year olds, I was somewhat excited about the prospect of a little adult conversation. That being said, I actually took the time to put on makeup and even iron my clothes (gasp!).  So, I waddle my large self into the party room feeling like I looked a notch or two better than a bloated beached whale. Then the following conversation took place between me and one of  the other mom’s. Other Mom:  “Wow, you look like you’re about ready to have that baby.” Me: *looking down at my gigantic protruding belly* “Yeah, I’ve really gotten big these last few weeks.” Other Mom:  “I can just tell by your face, you’ve got that…that…” *At this point I’m already smiling and batting my eyelashes, thinking she’s going to finish that sentence with “that glow”. So I was getting all geared up to tell her that, in fact, I fake that pregnancy glow with my new Bare Escentuals Mineral Make-up (which is FABULOUS, btw).* Other Mom cont.: “…that pregnancy look, ya know? You’ve filled out…your face has gotten fat.” Me: “Well, you see it’s this new…wait, what? Oh, um…I guess…well…yeah…um…I hadn’t noticed.” Other Mom: “Oh yeah, it’s definitely filled out. You’ll be having that kid in no time. Your due date is the end of this month right? I bet you won’t make it another 2 weeks.” Me: “Actually, my due date is the last week of March/first week of April.” Other Mom: “Oh…” *Awkward Silence* Me: “I’m gonna go help Carol with the juice…”

Did you know I used to blog? And I was funny, too!

It’s beginning to look like my two year blogging hiatus might actually be nearing it’s end! Presley is finally learning to watch TV the fine art of independent playing.  Caedmon is in a good rhythm with his school work. My house is dirty, but who cares. I’m carving me out some blogging time baby!

So, in honor of that (and to inspire some creativity in the dust filled corners of my brain) I’m going to be doing a series of flash backs to some of my favorite posts. Posts that, sadly, can’t be transferred into the archives of this blog because Xanga is…stupid.

So, without further ado, I give you the musings of my pregnant self roughly 2 years ago…

Thursday, February 02, 2006

An open letter to the un-named child in my uterus: Dear Pint-Sized Tyrant, Ok, look. I get it. I understand that things are getting cramped down there. I’m sure it’s annoying to have your brother slam into you repeatedly throughout the day, screaming “ARE YOU AWAKE BABY?!”.  I get that your hiccups probably aren’t fun for you either. But tell me, please, what can I do to make you stop rejecting everything I eat?  Just tell me what it is you want me to eat and I’ll send daddy out to get it, promise. I mean, the puking? For 8 months? Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive? If you just can’t manage to help me hold the food down, I can probably deal with that on one condition: You must get off the bladder. Post haste.  It really isn’t funny at all to kick Mommy’s bladder when she’s puking. It’s also not funny to kick Mommy’s bladder while she’s sleeping. And it’s certainly not funny to sit on Mommy’s bladder when she sneezes. Ok, maybe that last one is a little bit funny, but only for Daddy. While we’re at it, dear, let’s talk about the kicking. Now, don’t get me wrong, the kicks? They’re adorable. Mommy loves the kicks, really she does. But, why must you kick at 2:45 am every. single. night.?  I don’t understand. I really don’t. It’s not 2:30, it’s not 3:00. It’s 2:45 am on the dot. How do you know little fetus? How do you know?! Can you hear the clock in there?  Can you feel it when Mommy finally hits that wonderful stage of deep sleep? Whatever it is that compels you to do this, please, resist the temptation. Just sit still for a few more hours and let Mommy sleep. That’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of your stay and we’ll see you in a few weeks. Sincerely, Management P.S. When you squish yourself all to one side of your little abode, it makes it really hard for Mommy to pull off that cute, round, belly look. Could you quit with that? Thanks.

Homeschool projects, crafty things, etc.

I’m thinking about starting a separate blog, or maybe separate sections of this blog for homeschool projects and crafty bidness. I’m not really sure how I want to go about doing that so for the time being I’m going to toss all of that stuff into this post and move it around as needed.

I’ve all but quit knitting since January because homeschool is sucking up every last drop of my time and mental energy. However, I did manage to carve out a bit of time to make Presley a monster boot skirt! Not only do I love the way this skirt turned out, I’m also super proud of myself because I didn’t use a pattern at all!!

I made this particular skirt to celebrate Presley potty training! Oh yeah, that’s right…the not even 2 year old practically potty trained herself!! WOO HOO!

Moving on to homeschool stuff…

We’ve been up to our eye balls in projects since we started Tapestry of Grace in January. I haven’t posted any of them here because I just wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to make a homeschool blog. But, I’ve had a few people ask me to post them so for the time being, here they are.

Our first (and on going) project was to make and paint a salt map of an imaginary country. We’ve got it all painted except for the mountains so I’ll come back and add in that picture when we finish it.

Our first 3 weeks of TOG had us taking an in depth look at Egypt.  Aside from working on a rather large lap book (don’t have pics of that yet) we also made Egyptian paddle dolls:

Continuing with the Egyptian theme, on we had our own mini archaeological dig. I found these sand pyramids at Wal-Mart for 88 cents. So cool!

And rounding out our 3 weeks in Egypt was our experimental salt dough oil lamps. Much to my surprise, they actually worked!

This week we’ve been studying Sumeria, the Tower of Babel, and Abram’s lineage. Here is our interpretation of  an ancient Sumerian Ziggurat:

Close up to show the texture (corn meal mixed with paint)

We’ve still got quite a few projects that I haven’t taken pictures of yet, but this is a pretty good representation of what we’ve been up to for the past 2 months!

“Hey Caedmon, let’s see how loose your cast is!”

“Ok!”

This is the conversation that transpired moments before Kevin sent Caedmon’s cast flying off of his arm.

Because it wasn’t enough that he broke the poor kids arm, right? No, he has to rip the cast off as well!

Fortunately, he was scheduled to have the cast removed the next day (after a set of preliminary xrays). Unfortunately, the Dr. called in sick and won’t be back to the office for a week!

Men. *sigh*