It's a Full House

We are still at my parents' house. We've been here since Friday. It is Monday. We will probably stay until Wednesday. Enough said? No? Well, let me break it down for ya.

I love my parents. Love love LOVE them. However, I don't want to live with them. And yes, 5 days feels like living with them.

I will live close to them, I will live in a home that has two separate living quarters with them, but I will not live with them in a single home dwelling that is the smallest house they've ever lived in. (At least since I've been around.)

I'll just say it's cozy. (Did you know "cozy" is a nice word for small in realty lingo? Stick with me kids, I have all the inside scoop on life's secrets. I know how to read between the lines.)

A day in the life around here consists of everyone getting up and trying to get in the shower first because they have one shower and the hot water does not last long. My mom is normally the lucky one and manages to get in first. I am unlucky in this area because as hard as I try to get a shower in the morning (here or at my own house), my child has some sort of 6th sense that causes him to wake up out of a sound sleep as soon as my toes touch the floor to get out of bed. My alarm could go off... he stays sleeping. My cell phone could ring... stays asleep. Saturday morning a semi drove by right outside our window and blew his big loud horn... he kept on sleepin. But let me quietly pull the covers back and slowly move my leg off the bed and he's up. He has a special gift and I fully expect him to have a future in the military or CIA.

Normally I just put him in bed with me, nurse him back to sleep and lay there watching old reruns of Full House where Uncle Jesse's hair looks like this. I call these the "Mullet Episodes" and I don't like them. I can handle the newer reruns where Uncle Jesse's hair looks like this, but the old ones like make me like wanna gag myself with a spoon or spend the rest of my day saying things like "You got it dude" and "You're in big trouble mister".

My father does not shower at home on the days he works out so you'll typically find him sitting at the table doing his crossword puzzle while my mom makes his breakfast. Then he'll head into the living room to watch his 2 daily morning shows; Let's Make A Deal and The Price Is Right. As soon as the Showcase Showdown ends, he'll leave for the YMCA and return about 2 hours later.

Meanwhile, my mom is asking everyone else what they want for breakfast like she's a short order cook. And btw... if you ever spend the night, just know that she is willing and able and READY to make pretty much any breakfast dish you can think of at any given time. Eggs, bacon, pancake/waffle mix, an assortment of cereals, oatmeal, hash browns, potatoes, mush (yes, mush), danish or some sort of breakfast pastry, bread for french toast or just plain toast, bagels, cream cheese, OJ, coffee, an assortment of hot teas, milk... these things are ALWAYS in stock in my mother's kitchen. And I'm not complaining, this is one of the reasons why I gain 10 pounds every weekend we're here. (The other would be because I eat out of boredom and stress, but we'll visit that thought later.)

So, while my dad is at the Y, my mom is busy cooking or cleaning up or doing laundry or whatever chore she can think of to keep herself busy.

I am normally feeding my face and trying to feed the baby, T1 is either getting in his semi warm shower or on the computer. T2 will usually sit and watch tv and then get right on his schoolwork so he can play with his other homeschooled friends in the neighborhood.

And that my friends, is as exciting as it gets. Seriously. By the time breakfast is over, my day becomes a blur of chasing the baby around trying to keep him out of the curio cabinets or keep his fingerprints off my dad's huge flatscreen tv, or keep him from unplugging all the lamps or turning the DirectTV off (because it sits low and he loves the little blue light - or rather he loves the almost heart attack that my father has every. single. time. he does it.) I'm not sure why my father doesn't just pick up the remote that must always be in his possession and turn it back on, but I'm in my shoes, I don't walk in his. I can't pretend to understand the hardship of being right in the middle of Plinko and having it taken from you without knowing if that red puck make it into the $10,000 slot or the $1,000 slot. It's a hard knock life.

Have Mercy.

Busy Week Ahead

I like busy weeks. They give me things to do and somewhat of a schedule. We haven't really had a schedule since Baby T joined our family. It's been nice but it's time for a schedule again.

Yesterday we were still at mam and paps (Baby T's version of grandma and grandpa) and I had things I needed to get done there. I signed Baby T up for "toddler storytime" at two libraries. One where they live and one where we live. He'll get storytime twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. I figure we'll consider that part of his homeschooling.

Today I had bills to pay and errands to run... the bank, Dollar General and to the grocery store to pick something up for dinner. We're having tacos. Fast and easy. I still have laundry to do, the baby has no sheets on his bed and we're low on towels. Mr. R will be over later to visit Baby T.

Tomorrow I have two appointments. One early and one late afternoon. I hate early morning appointments because it disrupts Baby T's "wake-up and nurse for an hour" time. We do not get right out of bed in mornings, rather we sit and nurse and play and watch tv and nurse some more and then we get up. Normally it's about an hour after we first wake up. I know someday I'll miss that morning routine.

My parents will be here most of the day. I can't take the kids to my first appointment so they'll stay with them. Then the afternoon appointment is for T2, back to his allergist for his "fall" check.

Later tomorrow evening Baby T's aunts will be coming for a visit. It's always nice when they come and Baby T loves all the attention. He'll sleep good tomorrow night!

Thursday I don't think I have anything yet. I'm going to try and set up a play date with Baby T's cousin and his memaw. Maybe we can meet for lunch or they can come over.

Friday Baby T has a morning doctor's appointment. Shots! Ugh! Poor kiddo! We also need to have them recheck his little hernia while we're there just to make sure it's not getting worse. I keep praying it won't and he won't have to have surgery.

Then sometime this week I need to take T1 and T2 "Back to Home School" shopping. Notebooks, pens, folders, etc... and new shoes. They're pretty much good on clothes but really need new shoes. I also need to sit down and figure out their curriculum for the next month.

I also need to make dentist appointments for me and the older boys, make a doctor appointment for me and other little things like that.

OH and in the midst of all this, I need to find a job. One that does not include me watching other people's children, one I can do at home so I can still school the big boys and take care of the little one, and one that is flexible with good pay and benefits.

That one should be easy like Sunday morning.

Hey Good Lookin'

whatcha got cookin'...

I have been quite the cook lately. Mainly because we are SO broke that eating out just isn't an option right now, but that's ok because we need to eat at home more.

In the last week I've made pork chops, a roast, chicken... Yep, I can make more than just spaghetti and mac n cheese.

Tonight I made honey bbq chicken wings, fried potatoes and a salad with cucumbers, green peppers and croutons. A little later I'll either be making brownies or oatmeal cookies for dessert. Or maybe both.

I already made a big batch of brownies and peanut butter cookies this morning, but they're all gone. They left this afternoon with Mr. R on a 5 day hunting trip. It's been raining all week (with no end in sight) and we're suppose to get snow tomorrow. What men will put up with to hunt. Of course I'm sure they think we're crazy when we spend hours at crowded malls and stand in long check out lines. Mars/Venus.

Oh snap! The Wizard Of Oz is on. I wish we were at my parents' house so my kids and I could watch it with my mom. We're planning on going over tomorrow night to spend the night and we're going to be making some kind of dessert thing with some new gadget my mom just got. I guess you can fill these little pastries with pudding or icing or some kind of stuff? Anyway, hopefully there will be another good movie on. I'm ready for some good Christmas movies. Of course National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is one of my favs. And of course you can't have Christmas without A Christmas Story! The part where they're at the Chinese restaurant is the best.

My aunt is coming up again next week. My grandpa has to have surgery on Tuesday so her and my mom will go up again for the day. We'll go over and spend the night Tuesday night so we can see her. It's fun to see her so much, but unfortunately it's not under good circumstances.

Oh, before I forget... T2 had an appointment with his allergy/asthma doctor on Wednesday and he blew a 100% on his breathing test. YAY! He's doing real good and all his meds are working great. Plus, we didn't have to deal with the NP that we don't care for, instead we got to see the one we LOVE!!! She's just the sweetest woman and it was great to see and talk to her. She just got back from visiting her son, daughter-in-law and grandkids in Australia and from the sounds of it, she had a great visit. We talk about homeschooling with her because her grandkids are homeschooled. She said she got to teach them when she was there and really enjoyed it. We found out she's only working part-time now on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so we made sure to make our 6 month check up on a Wednesday!

Well, I'm off to clean up the kitchen and then relax. I just realized that I don't have to make dessert. Mr. R brought over doughnuts and brownies from an awesome place called Long's Bakery... so, we can just have that. Yippeee!

Have a great weekend!

Working Together

Homeschooling is back in session. Well, more regularly anyway. We took a short break to work on the house. And yes, I DO call that schooling.

T2 got his own room and I moved back into the master bedroom and we all helped each other move dressers, beds and junk we don't need and grandma came over and helped paint (because she is so good she doesn't even have to use tape!).

Meanwhile, the boys learned responsibility, what it means to help each other and creativeness. T2 got his room painted and then the boys decided to repaint their bathroom. They worked together, decided on a color together and painted it all on their own.

Now before you think it was all sweet candy sprinkles, oozing love and big hugs over here, it wasn't. But that wouldn't be learning now, would it?!

Nonetheless my crap is still all over one side of my room and about every 3 days or so Mr. R asks me when I'm going to put that stuff away. I have a nice little path going through it, I don't know what he's worried about.

When Mr. R was in Texas last week, he bought me some sweat pants at Aeropostale that are quite possibly the most comfortable pants I've ever worn. Lucky for me, when I was in Muncie over the weekend, I just happened to go into another Aeropostale store and they had the same pants AND they were on sale for $9.99. Mr. R got mine for $19.99 which proves that things are bigger in Texas - including their prices.

(That had nothing to do with the subject at hand, but it was important anyway.)

Carry on.

Oh Where Have I Been?

I just am not into this whole blogging thing anymore... but I'll try to update everything the best I can.

1. I did not get married on the 8th. We had some issues arise and we postponed it. (Ok, I postponed it.) It may happen, it may not. I just don't take marrying someone lightly and I really need to be sure it's right and that it's the right person. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe I'm just too scared of commitment?

2. I'm still working, but only part-time. Which is NOT good when you have things called bills. I know it will work out. I'm just praying and being patient.

3. My aunt and cousin still came up last weekend and we had a lot of fun. We went to the zoo, went out to eat a few times, got icees, sat by the fire pit a couple of nights, my cousin painted the star on the front of my house so it matches the shutters and front door, we got the pond cleaned out, played games and just hung out. It's always fun when they visit.

4. We're waiting until after Labor Day to start our homeschooling.

5. We're going to Mackinaw City and Island soon. That will be fun.

Well, that's about it for me. Not super exciting but we're all happy and healthy so we can't complain!

God is good all the time, All the time God is good!

Happy Sunday!

We were so good today... we got up and went to church! :) After that we went out to eat with my parents. We went to Texas Roadhouse - YUM! I got a steak, baked potato and a good good salad. And of course we had their yummy rolls. Mmmm, I could have stayed and ate all day.

Then, since we were so close, we hit Target. T2 decided we need a rain gauge, so we got one. Not sure why we needed one, but now we can measure how many inches of rain we get. (Try to contain your jealousy... I know we're having ALL the fun over here!) I'll have to find a way to work this into their schooling. I mean, one of them may want to be a meterologist some day.

We got home to find a basketball hoop by our driveway. I think Mr. R was here. I was planning on buying one for T2 when I get my tax refund back, but now I guess I don't have to. I'll give you one guess where T2 is right now... :)

My ears and head are all stopped up again. UGH! Of course the last few days it's been so nice and today it's only 55 degrees, so that could have something to do with it. I think now that Zyrtec is otc, I may try that this summer for my allergies. I wish I could switch T2 over from his Singulair (now that it has that warning), but I think his allergist will keep him on that because of his asthma.

Well, I think I'm going to go relax. Getting under my covers and finding a good movie on tv sounds nice right about now. I should be cleaning but it can wait. It's not like it's going anywhere or cleaning itself.

How DO They Do It?

So I skim through a lot of blogs when I get the chance, and most of them are of mothers with young children. Young as in infants/toddlers/preschoolers. And I wonder how they do it? My kids are 11 and 14, I work 30 hours a week (give or take) AT HOME, and yet I rarely can find the time to get on here anymore. I have to make an effort to get on here and even then I usually have nothing too important to say. I guess I just feel "blah about blogging".

So, I thought to myself... how can I get back into blogging? What am I "into"? What am I not feeling "blah" about? Well, I have a few things I'm not feeling too "blah" about and these are it:

*God - trying to really not feel "blah" in that department and trying really hard to show my kids that they should not feel "blah" about Him either.

*Work - looking into options... needing to upgrade the daycare... should it go into a building or into my garage (which would get a complete makeover and would be cheaper in the long run)? I'm going into my 8th year and if this is what my "career" is going to be, then let's move on and move up with it.

*Tanner Aaron - someday we will meet and I will fall in love all over again! I can't wait for that day and although it seems scary, and many people may not like the choice I will have made, it will never matter to me because you will have been SO worth it! (And you're just what our whole family needs even though they may not know it yet.)

*Homeschooling - we have GOT to get back on track! We're looking into a new co-op for next year and it will require a one year commitment. The classes are awesome (and smaller) and I'm really excited about trying to get in.

Well, that's all for now. I need to get back to my life. Tonight is an early night for me and I promised my kids we'd play UNO Attack. I gotta get up early in the morning which means I gotta get to bed early... and I am a girl who does SO much better in life when she's getting her sleep.

Happy Sunday!

We stayed home this weekend, so we're not at church this morning. I'm trying to find a devotional online to do with my kids when they get up. We'll probably do our "church" over breakfast. When we don't go to church, we do a devotional and make up a prayer list for the week. The boys remember that prayer list too and will pray for each name or situation before bed at night. We take turns praying at night now. Since they're older I don't have them both pray every night, so only one of us does the prayer.

We are going to my parent's later this afternoon. I need to go to the mall. Then my dad's church is meeting at Pizza Hut for dinner together, so we'll go to that and then come home. That's the nice thing about having a small church, you have a smaller close knit group of people and can do things like go out to eat, and the whole church can go.

Before we leave, I have laundry to finish up and the downstairs to clean. I also need to get my lesson plans for the boys ready for this week.

My aunt is coming on Friday, T1's 14th birthday is Saturday, and I'm taking off work the following Monday. T2 wants to go bowling when my aunt is here, but I don't think T1 wants to and it's his birthday weekend... Who knows what we'll end up doing.

BTW... I can't get my spell check to work on here or in Word, does anyone out there know how to fix that?

Move Over Ann Coulter

Let's all welcome our newly most hated newswhore ... Wendy Murphy.

I wasn't into the whole "Duke" rape case, so I wasn't aware of this woman. I wish I could go back to that time.

While watching CNN tonight, there she was in all her glory... talking about how the government should focus on homeschooling families. How the children of homeschooling families need help and need the government to step in to make sure they're ok. WAIT! I bet you're thinking that I'm talking about their schooling, their education? OH NO, I'm talking about their well being. Because according to Miss. Wendy Murphy, homeschooled children are most likely being abused by their parents and will someday end up dead. Because WHY would a parent want to keep their child home and educate them as they want? There must be major abuse going on because they're keeping them hidden from the world.

Sorry, but I keep my kids home and educate them myself because the government's NOT doing it's job, in education or anywhere else.

I'll tell you what Miss. Murphy... when the government takes care of the neglected kids they clearly KNOW about, then you can open your big former prosecuting ex-NFL cheerleading mouth about homeschooling.

Just for giggles, here's what she has to say about shunning families:

Nice huh? So Wendy... should we send the government in to help them, or do it your way and just IGNORE them because they're different?

Anyway, she was on there to discuss the Washington case where the children were found dead in their mother's home this week. Government workers knew about these children BEFORE they stopped going to school. They asked for food stamps and were turned down. Asked for help and were turned down. Were living in a van and no one helped them. In 2006 a nurse said it was clear that both parents had substance abuse problems, but they could not receive help because they were living in a van and therefore had no permanent address. They stopped going to school in March after their father died, but no one noticed until May. At that time a social worker went to police and said the mother might be holding the children hostage, therefore making them truant. The officer went to the home and reported back to authorities that they "APPEARED to be healthy and were being homeschooled".

And can I remind you that they were very newly in the "system". They started asking for help in December of 2006 and their file was closed in May of 2007. That's only 5 months!! And you want to get our government involved in homeschooling?

I think it has enough on its hands.

Cute Homeschooling Family

www.doublesharpevideo.com/HomeSchool2/Homeschool2.html

I Just Couldn't Hang...

See, it's been 5 days... I knew I couldn't do the "nablopomo" thing. :)

So what's been happening in Mama T's life... not much. Just busy with work, the kids' schooling, helping my dad find a job, getting ready for Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping!!! All that fun stuff.

I miss my vacation! I am slowly becoming stressed out again. It's the job! I swear... and I'm not even going to go there because I'm just trying to be thankful I even have a job right now!

Tonight we are having a birthday party for my puppy Andy. He is 7 years old today. He LOVES pizza. He's a pizza freak. If you bring it into the house, he goes crazy. So, every year on his b-day we order pizza for dinner and he gets a piece. And of course he'll have some presents to open too. Cause he loves to take his paws and open presents. It's cute, it's adorable, and yes, I do know I need mental help.

I feel BLAH today. Nothing is making me happy and I feel depressed and claustrophobic in this house. Too many people. The weather is horrible, very chilly, about 38 degrees. Yesterday it was beautiful and warm. I think we need to move to Florida. This back and forth of nice and nasty makes me crazy.

Gotta watch CSI tonight... Sara is leaving. Sad.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Yesterday - Zoo Trip

I have been promising my boys a trip to the zoo all summer. Yesterday was going to be the nicest day all week (and what looks like, for days to come). I only had one daycare child and so I decided to ask his mom if we could journey out to the zoo. She thought it would be fun, so off we went.

It was a beautiful day... I think it almost reached 70 and wasn't windy at all. We got there a little after 10:00 and left around 2:00. It was a little more crowded than normal, but not bad. T2 got to pet a shark and my mom got to try her skills at what could be a new career for her. (grin)

Time: Can I Buy Some?

I am having "time" issues. I'll leave it at that. It's daycare related... isn't it always?!

I went to go tan today... the place is closed. For good. Shut down. Out of business. I was sad. Now I have to go back to the other place where I don't think they change the bulbs. Maybe I'll drive a ways and go somewhere better.

My poor dad had the flu this weekend. So sad to see your daddy sick. He's been the only one so far so *knock on wood*... maybe my mom and I are wrong and he really did get sick on the clams he had at Red Lobster?!

We didn't do great with our schoolwork today. OH OH OH... speaking of which... OH MY GOSH, I found the most awesome online curriculum... TIME4LEARNING Go there now!! Seriously... if you homeschool, click it... NOW... I'll wait.... So what do you think? Pretty cool eh?! AND... only $20 a month! Get out! We're going to sign up as soon as we get back from Disney. T1 loves being on the computer so this will be perfect for him and T2 will have fun playing all the learning games. This will be a great way to add more curriculum plus computer into our schooling.

Well, I'm off to bed. I went to bed last night about midnight and woke up at 3:45 ready for the day. I think I finally got back to sleep about 20 minutes before my alarm was to go off. And to make a VERY annoying story short... I only had 2 daycare kids today... and my early drop off (7:30) decided to wait until the last minute to call and let me know they weren't coming.... I didn't have any kids until almost 10:00 this morning. Of course no one bothered to let me know that YESTERDAY, so I got up, got ready and sat around thinking of all the other things I could do besides daycare!! I'm serious.

So Glad It's Friday

This has been the longest week! My mom is still not feeling well. They should have her tests back today, so hopefully we'll get a phone call and know what's going on. The girl who was doing her MRIs told her she thought she was having mini strokes. I'm not sure that's the case, but if her doctor tells us one more time that she's his "mystery patient" I think I'm going to tell him that my mom will start paying him with her "mystery money".

I will only have 2 kiddos here today, so I'm thinking about taking a field trip to the library. This would kill two birds with one stone. The daycare kids need to get out and I need to take my own boys there to get some books for school. I'll call the parents in a little bit just to make sure it's ok and that they know we'll be out and about. It's also feeling like a Mc Donald's day. I'm just tired. I've worked pretty much the whole week myself and I've gotten up early every morning since Tuesday. I know, Whaaaa!! I'm just saying if you're not use to it, it's hard. Did I mention I'm glad it's Friday?!

We've done great this week with our schooling. The last two nights however, we've been sitting at the kitchen table well past 9:00. Yesterday I had all the daycare kids but one and it was a preschool day, so I just didn't have time to get the boys' schooling in. So, we do late night schooling on those kinds of days. And it works. Of course that makes for a VERY long day for me, but I'll deal.

Speaking of schooling, I am a little disappointed with the curriculum. And very disappointed with their customer service department. Half of the curriculum is worthless (not to mention from the 1980's) so I picked out what we could use, and wanted to send the rest back. Well, they said since we bought it as a set/group they won't take part of it back, it has to be all. I didn't understand their logic, because online it's all priced out seperately anyway. Oh well, live and learn.

Well, the timer just went off - our Monkey Bread is done. Time for breakfast!

Where To Begin...

This weekend was pretty much a blur... it started out nicely on Friday night with us TRYING to order a pizza from Papa Murphy's. When we finally DID get through, the person who answered told us to "please hold" and then the phone hung up. We tried calling for about 10 minutes and all we got was a busy signal so we gave up and decided to take out two pizzas from our freezer and make them. We don't really have any good pizza places in our small town, they're ok, but when you have so little to choose from you get tired of them quickly. We rented 'Georgia Rule' - not sure what to say about that. It was ok. I wouldn't recommend it for children. Then again, if I would have taken the time to look at the rating, I wouldn't have rented it. I thought for sure it was PG-13 but it was rated R. Jane Fonda was really good it though!

Then we get to Saturday when my mom headed out of town and ended up in a hospital 40 miles away with heart issues. That's a whole tiring story within itself so we'll just say that by 11:30 Saturday night we were ALL exhausted. I made two trips back and forth from there to my house. But the cool thing was that I was already nervous (who wouldn't be) and I had no idea how to get to the hospital after I got off the interstate and I didn't have time to look for directions so I just prayed that God would show me and I told God he'd have to take me there and I decided not to worry about it. I'm sure you can guess that I got there with no problem! My mom had 2 EKG's and blood work done twice. She got to leave around 11:00 that night. She did not want to stay and they couldn't make her. Well, she woke up today with the same problems, pain on her left side from her neck down to her arm and chest pain... I talked her into going to her doctor here and so she went. She is having a stress test tomorrow at 9:00am. The doctor said if everything comes back ok from that, they are going to start looking into stress as the reason why she's having all these problems. That's what I'm betting on. Anyway, whatever it is, we have to get her high blood pressure under control.

Sunday was pretty normal. We went to church and came home. We ordered Applebees car side to go and got it from an Applebees we've never ate at before and will never eat at again. It was horrible. I spent over $30 for me and two kids and it tasted terrible... very disappointing!

Today has been just a normal day... my daycare kids aren't acting the best, but that's how Mondays usually go. Maybe they'll be happier after nap?! Hope so!

We haven't gotten our homeschool curriculum yet and I'm running out of things to review!! I hope it comes soon!

Laura Ingalls Wilder Rocks

I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. So much so that I'm making my boys listen to me read a chapter every night before they go to bed. Or rather as they fall asleep since that's what usually happens. We started last week with the first book, "Little House in the Big Woods". My grandma had gotten me the whole set when I was little and when we were cleaning out some boxes my parents had brought over from their other house a couple weeks ago, I found them. I was SO excited. I was going to start reading them on my own, but there is so much History and things that my kids would never normally know about (like what a "patty pan" is, or what "pokeberries" are...)that I had to incorporate it into our schooling. AND, get this, I found some curriculum to go along with it online yesterday. And it even includes tests on each chapter.

America's Cheapest Family

I read an online article about THIS FAMILY today and found their website. I am in awe of them. About as much as I am in awe with the Amish. (I love the Amish!) I would love to be this frugal and I think it would almost be fun. I always try to do the coupon thing, but I get bored easily. I really should try harder. Maybe they'll inspire me to do better.

This morning I was up and out of the house by 8:00. I didn't get much sleep because my lovely doggie (who by the way is FOR SURE back to 100% now) decided at about 3am that she'd like to go outside and just walk around, sniff a little here and there and enjoy herself out in the yard. UGH! Of course after I got back to bed I couldn't get to sleep and it took me until about 5:00 to do so. Then, at 5:45 my neighbor let her dog out, and the only thing that dog likes to do that early in the morning is BARK. So, I did what any nice neighbor would do, I turned my fan on to try and tune it out. I got back to sleep for a little bit, but my alarm rang at 6:42. I'm glad I'm only working until 3:00 today!

I found out last night that one of my daycare parents and her husband are having some problems. It sounded like they might be headed for divorce. That was sad to hear. I've been looking at their little one today and feeling so sorry for him. He's so young, he has no idea what's going on and I don't know whether that's good or bad. I mean if they split up now, at least it wouldn't be a big shock to him later down the line. I just want to hug him today!

I had T1 write an essay yesterday about why he was excited to be starting school again. I was happy to read his outlook on the upcoming year. He said he's looking forward to Math and History the most, and learning about the Presidents and what they accomplished while in office. WOW! I didn't know he was so interested in the Presidents. Watch out Obama!

Head Banging

Ugh! I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall with some of my daycare parents. I send home reminder after reminder, I talk to them in person, remind them again of my policies and yet for some reason, after a year of having ALL the same kids and parents, and all the same policies, I'm STILL sending notes home, having little talks at pick-up, etc... IT'S NOT THAT HARD PEOPLE!!!! My dream is to get to the point where I have a long waiting list so that I can just open my front door and shove some of these people out! If you don't want to go by my policies fine, but ya can't stay here.

Other than that, things are good around here. I've decided on a curriculum for the boys and I think it's going to be perfect for them and me. And ohmygosh, it's SO much cheaper than the one I was going to get. I spent about an hour looking through the curriculum online and it went into great detail about what each subject would cover, it was ALL great and ALL very age appropriate. Thanks, but my 10 year old really doesn't need to get into algebra yet. (That's a Academic Standard on the Indiana Schools website and it cracks me up because Indiana Public Schools have HORRIBLE SAT scores and aren't ranking up there academically at all!) I'll take my chances and teach my kids at the level I think they're capable of.

I applied for a credit card yesterday. I got it, but only got a $500 limit. Oh well, that will be ok because I want it to help my credit (not that I need it - but eventually in the next couple years, I'd like to start thinking about buying a house and this will help my credit look better). I haven't had any type of credit card for over 10 years. It will also be nice to take to Florida - just in case we want to splurge a little.

My baby Chloe seems to be doing a lot better today. She jumped out of her cage this morning and ran down two sets of stairs, so I'd say she's 99% improved from yesterday! I'm still going to look up symptoms of dog poisoning. I sure hope that's not what happened and if so, I sure hope I don't meet up with the person who would do a thing like that.

Say "No" to Weed... "Yes" to School!

I either woke up sneezing 56 times in a row with watery tears running down my face because I have an end of the summer cold... or it's a nasty case of allergies. I haven't had this much trouble with allergies this year, so I figured it was a cold. But then I check The Weather Channel and found out the weed pollen count in our area is extremely high. Either way I'm feeling pretty good now after taking a few shots of children's cold and allergy medicine. I mean, how perfect is THAT? I can't figure out if I have a cold OR allergies, I go to the cupboard and find a product that covers BOTH. Wow, what a way to start the week! And yes, I am a little high.

Today we really are starting school!! We "officially" started on August 17. We "reviewed" last week. We will be doing more "reviewing" this week. We are waiting on our curriculum to get here.

That is my story and I'm sticking to it...

Time To Update?

I thought I'd be nice and update since my poor aunt is sitting home bored after having surgery yesterday and I'm sure she's online trying to find anything to keep her occupied.

First and foremost, I MUST mention that I won a contest. A wonderful woman by the name of Mrs. L picked me as the winner for some beautiful aprons. I still have something to send to her and I will, I've just been so busy. Anyway, if you're reading this Mrs. L, thank you so much! Here's a pic of them:

So... what have we been up to you ask? Well, not much other than getting ready for school to start. We started last Friday by going to the State Fair. It was Home School Day and to make a long story short, we never found the place to register and everyone we asked gave us different answers and after an hour of walking here and there in 95 degree weather, we gave up and decided to just enjoy the fair. And we did. More pics:

There are tons more, but I'm too tired to put them all on here and most of them are of animals and let's face it, if you've seen one cow, you've seen them all. And what about my oldest son, you ask. Where is he in all these "Fair" pics? Well, he's too cool to get his picture taken. He's 13 ya know!

On the work front... I'm staying where I am. And God is STILL good!!! I haven't had many calls, but just last week I had a parent of one of my preschoolers ask if she could start bringing her new baby part-time and then just yesterday another parent asked if she could add on an extra day to her week, so it's working out good. I do have one full-time spot I need to fill, but I'm not in a huge hurry and I know God will send just the right family when I need them.

Well, I have to work early in the morning so I'm heading to bed. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!