Car Game

While we were back in Ohio, we were listening to KLOVE, and the announcers were talking about car games. Someone called in to tell them about her car game. She said she had a large family (which immediately made my ears perk up!), with kids ranging in age from 21 down to 1. They like to play a game called "Banana!" while driving because even the youngest kids can play.

Here's what you do: you look for yellow cars. When you spot one, you shout, "Banana!" before anyone else! So see--it's easy as can be, which is why little kids can play. In fact, they are sometimes the best players! Bob and I are great for the first 4 minutes of the game, LOL, and then we get distracted. Hours later, "Banana!" rings out from the back of the van, from Jonathan.

At first there were legal questions pertaining to exactly which vehicles qualify as bananas. After much wrangling, we decided that yellow semis, cargo trucks (think: Penske), and school buses are "banana splits", but don't count for any points. Construction equipment doesn't count, but feel free to shout out anyhow.

Sometimes we switch it up and play "fruit salad" where you call out whatever fruit you think the paint colors of passing cars resemble. Props for unique fruits ("Kumquat!).

I bet you'll start noticing all those bright yellow cars out there! It turns out, they really are all around!

Happy Easter!

We had such a lovely day celebrating the resurrection of Jesus! Bob tuaght the 4-year-old children's church, which Anna got to be in for the first time, since she just had her birthday. I was scheduled to be in the infant nursery, but we didn't have any infants, so I was able to be in the main service, which was wonderful! We actually have a lot of babies in our church, but all the moms have chosen to keep their infants with them, rather than use the infant nursery. And all the babies that are Faith's age have just learned to walk, so they are in the toddler nursery now!

After church, we hurried home to finish getting our share of food ready to take over to the McC's house, where we were eating Easter dinner. We brought a ham and a potato bake that Caleb can have. I had to finish glazing the ham and melting cheese over most of the potatoes. Christine had rolls, glazed carrots, and stir-fried green beans. We had a delicious meal. Another girl in our small group, Rachel, came as well. She is a full-time, live-in nanny for 2 children, so it was very interesting to hear her take on child-raising and the nanny phenomenon, which is very common in this area. Both Christine and I agreed we would NEVER want a nanny, even the very best one! We would not want someone other than ourselves influencing our children so much, whether for good or for bad. Now a housekeeper, on the other hand--both of us would be VERY interested in one of those, LOL.

The weahter was absolutely beautiful, so the kids spent most of the day outside. Our boys brought their ripsticks and hockey equipment, so there were lots of games going on outside. The adults sat outside a lot too--it was just so nice! Then Bob got inspired to help Craig move their big wooden swingset/play fort. They had already taken it somewhat apart because the people who lived there before them had sort of plunked it in the middle of their yard. They have a neighbor who seriously does not like boys playing outside in the front, so they want to be able to have more backyard space. They wanted to move the swingset over into the corner. Bob and the older boys were a huge help with that. They all agreed that Craig and his boys probably couldn't have moved it by themselves, so we were glad we could help. Besides, it's a lot more fun doing something like that as a big group! More like a party!

We did learn one new tradition this year. Craig's mom is Hispanic, and she sent a bunch of traditional Easter eggs--cascarones. These are hollowed out eggs (well, ours were not real, LOL) filled with confetti. The traditional thing to do is crack them over someone's head, showering them with confetti. Having one broken over your head is supposed to bring you luck. Well, our boys should be plenty lucky! The McC's deck was filled with boys chasing each other around, cracked eggshells, and tons of multi-colored confetti pieces! A very festive look! The boys definitely had a great time with this tradition!

We didn't leave until around 7:30, by which time the girls were absolutely fried. We came home, put them straight to bed, while the (sweaty, stinky) boys showered. We were so thankful for the resurrection of Christ, and our belief in Him and His sacrifice, that makes us brothers and sisters in Christ! We really are family!

Anna's Cake

We celebrated Anna's birthday by bringing a cake to Bible study on Friday before we left for PA on Saturday. I was tempted to just bring cupcakes, but I knew she wanted a "babydoll" cake, so cupcakes wouldn't really count for that. I wanted something that would fulfill the cake obligation, LOL. I also didn't really want to do a doll, which definitely has the potential to end up a Cake Wreck. So I proposed a Fisher Price Little People cake. I suggested "Sarah Lynn", because she has nice yellow hair and thus would need no dark frosting, but Anna immediately chose Sonya Lee. She is Anna's favorite because (why else?!) she wears a pink dress and headband. I wasn't that excited because that meant I had to make white frosting and chocolate frosting (to which I had to add a ton of black color gel, which makes it not taste the best), but I soldiered on, LOL. It was easy because I only had to bake one big 10x15 cake and then cut out the shape of her. I wasn't all that happy with it--Luke pointed out correctly that her face needed to be more round on bottom, and her ears are a little high--but Anna was happy. And now Grace is interested in the Sarah Lynn cake, so maybe I'll have a chance to work on my Little People skills in the near future, LOL.

Here is the happy birthday girl waiting to blow out her candles!

Anna and Amanda L are birthday buddies, sharing the same March 28 birthday. Amanda just happens to be 8 years older!

Yummy! Anna always picks strawberry cake for me to make. I'm sure you can't guess why . . .

Faith liked the cake too, although here it looks like she ate a little too much and is actually approaching a sugar coma. It's just late!

Back Home!

After a very relaxing spring break, we are back at home! We drove back yesterday in beautiful weather. It's so much easier to make a drive in sunny weather than in gloomy clouds and rain!

Over the course of all the drives this week, we listened to only 2 books on CD. The first one was called The Pepins and Their Problems by Polly Horvath. It was an amusing way to spend a few hours, but I don't really think it is a book destined to become a great classic, LOL. I was just reading the Amazon reviews, and one reader called the Pepins "zany noodleheads", and I would have to agree! They have lots of problems, and then the author appeals to the readers to "think" their suggestions as to how to solve them, which the author picks up by her "special antennae". The suggestions are goofy too. The book started off very slowly--Bob was ready to give up on it after the first chapter--but thankfully it got more funny and interesting. The author does drop several witty phrases and complex words, but overall I thought her writing was not too advanced. She had a lot of dialogue, and just about every time she used "said", instead of any other more interesting synonym! "Said" is a banned word for Nathan and Luke's writing class, so that jumped right out at me, LOL. The book just seemed like a lot of random words sort of strung together--another Amazon reviewer called it a stream of consciousness book". So it was funny in parts, but not a classic.

The second book we listened to was The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting. He wrote the book when he was a soldier during World War I, as a sort of distraction. I thought his sentence structure was much more varied and that overall, his vocabulary was much richer. It was an interesting contrast, since Horvath wrote her book fairly recently, back in the 1990's, I believe. We all enjoyed that book.

We drove straight over to the McC's house, where our church small group was having a Good Friday meeting. It was nice because they were having a baked potato bar, so we didn't have to worry about stopping for dinner. We were all pretty fried after a day of driving, so we didn't linger too long. Plus, we had to get home to clear off our counters! I'll tell more in a later post, but today we are getting our tile countertops changed out for granite!

Also, after I nursed Faith before putting her to bed last night, I discovered that she has been busy this week--she has 3 new teeth! She finally got that 4th bottom front tooth we've been waiting for, and she also has her 2 top 1-year molars poking through! I feel very justified in blaming any crabbiness, drool, odd sleep patterns, etc. from these past few weeks on teething, LOL. So that brings her teeth total to 10. It's a good thing she has all those teeth though--she's finally completely done with baby food! After December, the only baby thing she was still eating was baby cereal with fruit mixed in. Before we left, I finally just started giving her regular cereal in one of our "straw" bowls (they have a built-in straw--kids love them for cereal!) and milk, and she's been doing fine with that. It's nice because no one has to feed her that. She's doing pretty well with a spoon, although she still grabs cheerios out of the milk with her hands sometimes. Faith is growing up! (Although Grace will point out, Faith is still a baby, since she wears diapers, unlike Grace, who is a BIG GIRL wearing panties.)

Birthday Celebrations

We are officially on Spring Break, which is why there has been no blogging lately. I wanted to update, although I won't have any pictures until the weekend at earliest. We've been traveling and are at my parents' house visiting right now.

We celebrated Anna's 4th birthday at Bible study on Friday night. I made a "Sonya Lee" cake. For those of you not hip to the preschool scene, Sonya Lee is a Fisher Price Little People character.

Saturday we got packed up and drove to PA for another birthday celebration. This time is was for Bob's dad, who celebrated his 85th birthday on Saturday! Bob's sister Ann planned a lovely dinner for him at a local conference center. We've had other celebrations at this place. It's really nice because we have a room all to ourselves, so the kids can get down and walk around after they're done eating. Plus, the staff is always very nice.

We got there a little bit early Saturday evening, so we parked far away and let the kids play in a deserted part of the parking lot. We had brought the 3 ripsticks that we bought the kids for Christmas using the money Bob's folks gave, plus a basketball. It was good to let them all run off some steam after being cooped up in the van all afternoon! I very gingerly tried out the ripstick as well. I was not instantly successful, that is for sure. In fact, I only would move if Bob was holding my hand. Bob is always trying to get me to go dancing with him--who knew all it took was a ripstick?!

For the dinner, our family was split up, since we are too big for one table. Bob and the boys sat with his brother Paul and his son Brandon, and we 4 girls sat with Bob's sister Rose and her 2 daughters. There was a fruit cup on the table when we sat down, and then they brought out ceasar salads and bread for everyone. At that point, we went through a buffet line, which was set up outside a set of double doors (which were open). The girls, Caleb, and Jonathan all had kids' meals of chicken tenders and french fries, instead of the buffet.

After I was finished eating, I wandered over to the boys' table to see how they were doing. I was surprised to see that only one chicken tender was left out of the 6 from the 2 meals. It turned out Nathan had polished off Jonathan's meal, which surprised me, since there was plenty of food at the buffet. Then the server came around and said she was going to be taking away the cake to cut, so if we wanted pictures of the cake, we should take them now. We all went over there to take pictures, and Bob said, "So, usually before you have cake, you eat the main course . . ." We all thought he was being funny, since we were stuffed and were wondering how we were going to make room for the cake. But no! His table had completely missed the fact that everyone else was bringing back plates from the buffet and eating the main course! No wonder Nathan was so starved! We all had a good laugh about that, and they quickly filled their plates and ate while the cake was being cut. They had been wondering about the slow pace of the meal, LOL. Luke said that next time, he was sitting with me! It was funny.

Ann had put together a nice slide slow of pictures of their dad and his family that we all enjoyed seeing. Bob's cousin Peggy, who is the unofficial family historian, I think, was there to clarify who some relatives in some old pictures were. There were pictures of Bob's dad's mom as a little girl, all dressed up in Slovakian dress, along with her family. The pictures were taken before 1900, before they had come over to America (at least I think that's right). I love old pictures--so fascinating!

So we had a great time at the party. The nicest part was that all 6 siblings were again able to be together. It also happened last year in May, when we all met at Rose's house for her daughter's first communion. Twice in one year! That's a record!

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures, both of Anna's cake, and of the party in PA, after we get home. We drove from PA over to OH Sunday afternoon to spend a few more days of Spring Break. The kids let us sleep in Monday morning, and then Bob and my dad took the kids, minus Faith, bowling at the base bowling alley. The boys love bowling. This was the first time for Anna and Grace, but they also had a grand time. The bowling alley not only has those lanes with the bumpers that eliminate gutter balls for kids, they also have this slide contraption where the child put the ball up on top, gives it a push, and then it rolls down onto the lane, hopefully gathering enough speed so as to not stop in the middle of the lane, which has happened to us before! It was a success!

Today we spent the day over at Amy's house. The weather was beautiful, and the kids played outside a lot. We also ate spaghetti and had cupcakes and ice cream in honor of Zachary's 10th birthday. When we finally got back to my parents' house, showers were definitely in order, and the exhausted kids are all sleeping soundly. Hopefully they will let us sleep in again tomorrow! We are loving this relaxing Spring Break!

Pictures!

I finally took the girls to get pictures yesterday. I usually try to have pictures done of my babies before they are a year old. Well, Faith is now over 13 months old, so I figured I really had better get moving on this! I went to Portrait Innovations, and we had a VERY good experience there. I was very pleased. We used to go to Kiddie Kandids, but when I looked them up online to make an appointment, I discovered they had filed bankruptcy and gone out of business! Well, their loss was our gain, because Portrait Innovations was even better. I think Kiddie Kandids problem was that they had not gone digital. Portrait Innovations is all digital, so the photographer snapped a ton of pictures--115--with none of the "Well, you have to pick if you want this picture before we can move on, or it's lost forever". Also, the camera is a regular one that the photographer can move around, not like the old ones that hang from the ceiling. Maybe all the places are like this now--I really try to avoid portrait studios as a whole, so it's been over a year since I had pictures taken of the kids, LOL.

When I put Faith down on the backdrop thing, she immediately started crying and crawling away as fast as she could. I had flashbacks to a photo session at Pennys not long after we moved here. Jonathan was about 16 months. The very first picture the girl took was of Jonathan, and he looked like he was smiling, but actually he was gearing up to cry. Even with treats, he never smiled again, and I did not get a picture of all the boys together, which was incredibly frustrating. The girl was terrible, though. She had absolutely nothing in the way of tricks to jolly him out of his bad mood and scared-ness. This photographer was MUCH better, and he as well as another girl worked diligently to get Faith to smile. It worked! We got some really cute pictures of her.

Anna had almost the opposite problem. As soon as she was posed, she fixed this huge tight smile/grimace on her face, with her eyes all squinty, and nothing anyone could do or say made her relax it. Some of the pictures are hysterical! Nathan, Luke, Caleb, and I were totally cracking up when we were going over them after the session was over. I kept saying, "This really isn't how she smiles--although it's definitely how she looked today!" We tried to pick the best of the bunch. Oh well--it's just a phase. I remember my brother Dan going through a squinty smile phase!

So we got some good pictures, some of which I posted on Facebook. We will try to send some out soon, but I am not guaranteeing it being too soon, LOL. It was a very positive experience. I highly recommend Portrait Innovations!

Awww . . .

Luke pointed out once again that I have not blogged for a week. What can I say--well, not much, obviously, LOL. Today I was the character teacher for our co-op. This means that I am responsible for one grade of kids while the other grade in the tier is getting their actual teaching time. I was with the 5th and 6th grades. The unit we're studying right now is "Birds and Fish". While the kids are with me, we take prayer requests and pray, do a character study of some kind, have "read-n-tell", which is an oral book report, have game time, and eat lunch.

Today we also had to make a big card for the facility manager of the church where we meet. Byron has been there approximately forever, and he is retiring. I've always felt like he was a bit grumpy and hard to work with, but hey, I guess he was a known quantity. Anyhow, the card-making provided some interesting boy/girl observances. In both classes, I put the big sheet of paper on the table and asked if anyone had any markers or anything. Some colored writing utensils were produced, at which point the boys all sat in chairs around the perimeter of the room, while the girls clustered around the table and began discussing handwriting, particularly "bubble letters", flowers, smiley faces, and other adornments, all of which were soon decorating the cards. After much elaborate decoration, the boys made their way up to the table to write their names on the cards. The girls of course wrote messages, as if Byron was a close relative. Too funny!

It started out warm, but the temperature dropped throughout the morning. We still had gametime outside for both grades, however. It wasn't too bad for the 6th graders, but for the 5th graders, it was FREEZING! They chose to play a long game of "capture the flag", which was not resolved to anyone's satisfaction, with accusations of "cheating!" abounding. Nathan went with us this morning, so he got to play the games too (and eat a doughnut. Ed brought doughnuts for the 6th grade to celebrate Amanda's upcoming birthday on Sunday, same day as Anna's).

Anyhow, I eventually went inside and watched them run around the parking lot through the door, since I was so cold. How nice to have my assistant Nathan to run the show for me outside, LOL! While I was standing there, the nursery kids were eating their lunch. Being able to go to co-op is a huge highlight for Anna and Grace, especially since I bought them each pink princess backpacks at a consignment sale in the fall. They each get to carry their own backpack, with their own lunch! Exciting times, indeed!

The nursery worker told me that she had asked Anna if she liked having all those older brothers. "Yes, said Anna, firmly. "Are they ever too rough with you?" she asked. "No!" replied Anna. "I love Nathan, and I love Luke, and I love Caleb, and I love Jonny!" Isn't that so sweet?! The girls are very fortunate to have such wonderful older brothers who love them and take such good care of them!

They say Virginia is a southern state . . .

And it must be true, because here are two southern belles! Bob's sister Rose gave us dressup clothes from her girls back at Christmas, and Anna and Grace have LOVED them all. Grace's favorite is definitely this purple number, since she will tell you, purple is her favorite color. Anna likes any of the pink dresses. They don't usually wear the hats with them, though. That was a new touch. Sometimes they like to put on ballerina tutus (also from Rose) under these dresses, which makes a VERY big skirt. They love dressing up!

Here is a bonus picture of Faith, who is not a southern girl, but who does like being in pictures, LOL. Next year I think we'll have 3 in big pouffy dresses, though. She does like hats and shoes already!

Next Year Plans

Last year I posted back in April about our struggles with what to do with Nathan this year, as he began 7th grade. We ended up doing Classical Conversations for this year, but it was still sort of kicking the can down the road, because he didn't do their jr. high "challenge" program, since our campus was new and they didn't have one of those starting. Christine and I had tossed around starting the Challenge program up ourselves this coming up year, since her Isaac will be in 7th grade next year, but we both realized that there is no way we can devote the time needed for being Challenge tutors/directors, with so many little ones still at home. And there is absolutely no way we could afford CC without me being a tutor. So that is out, and in fact, we are not planning on any of us doing CC at a campus next year. I am planning on getting the memory work CD, however, and having them memorize the Cycle 2 stuff.

So, what are we doing next year? Well, we're starting a very small jr. high boys co-op. There is another family at our church who has 5 boys. Her oldest 2 will be in 9th grade and 7th grade. Nathan will be in 8th, and Isaac will be in 7th. Another family, who is in our Tuesday co-op, has only 1 son left at home, and he will be in 7th grade. They are also joining, and we have invited one other family with a 7th grade boy, who is also in the Tuesday co-op and Nathan's writing co-op, to join. So it looks like we'll have 6 boys, which is a perfect number. I definitely don't want this to be big, and we know all the families really well. Plus, there will be no extras, like preparing a family presentation or making a frozen meal, like we have had with CC this year.

We are planning on covering science, literature, history, writing, and possibly a foreign language. We will continue doing our own math, Latin, and logic at home, but we will have a group for these areas where it is nice to have discussion. We already have the use of our church building on Tuesdays from 9:30-4:00. That seems like a long day, but we are planning on giving the boys lots of breaks and time to run around. Maybe P.E. will be a part of this day too, LOL.

I will be teaching science. I'm planning on using the BJU 7th grade Life Science text. Angela wants her oldest son, the 9th grader, to take the SAT II biology test at the end of the year, so Jordan will be going through the BJU high school biology text at the same time, for a more in-depth coverage of the topics. I have compared the table of contents, and they match up pretty well, but we'll see how that works out. I think I'll do a lecture in the morning for like an hour, and then I'll have an hour of lab time in the afternoon.

We will be using Tapestry of Grace for the literature/history/writing part of the co-op. Theresa has taught literature and English, so she will be great at leading us through this. If the other family joins us, then Siri will hopefully teach the boys French. She is a trained interpreter/translater of French, so she will be a very valuable asset. Originally we had thought someone would be teaching Spanish, but it doesn't look like that will work out. It really doesn't matter to me what language they learn, as long as I don't have to teach it, LOL. Spoken languages--sooooo not my thing. French is what Bob and I both learned in high school (although he remembers it so much better than me!), so maybe we would be able to be of some assistance if Nathan needed help.

The beauty of doing this co-op on Tuesdays is that is the day when the younger kids have our other co-op. And the 2 churches are practically around the corner from each other! So during the morning, one of the moms not teaching will help with the 3 nursery age girls (Grace, Faith, and Elena). Then we will give the jr. high boys a break and even take them with us when we go pick up the younger kids because they like to play football in the parking lot for awhile after being released from their classes. Then we will all go back to our church to finish the day.

We haven't nailed down exactly what the younger kids will do in the afternoon while we are finishing up with the older ones, but it will most likely be some history and science memory work, like at CC, some geography (again, like CC!), maybe some art, and some writing for the 5th/6th graders. About 2 hours' worth of stuff. We have another planning meeting Sunday afternoon to keep working out these details.

So I am very excited! I love that it is small, and that we know everyone so well. We're all on the same page and have similar expectations. I hope the boys will foster really close friendships-that is another goal of ours. And I am insanely excited that it means we will only have to go out early, with lunches for everyone, one day a week next year!! Should be SO much less stressful!!

Homeschooling Update

I try to update every so often, mainly so I can look back at where we've been. Right now we are in that sweet spot where I no longer have a newborn, and I am not pregnant, so we have been getting a lot done! Also, I am not actively teaching anyone to read, so that has also freed up my time, LOL. It's so much nicer when they are reading well on their own, and don't need every single instruction read to them!

Nathan and Luke are working quite independently right now. I have given them what they need to accomplish each week, and they work to finish that however they want to break it up. For Luke, that means he gets up early and does as much as possible, so that he gives himself every Friday off. Nathan is not so much for the getting up early part, and he paces himself more through the week. They both are in writing co-ops, so they have their assignments for that as well. Nathan and Isaac McC are also doing Traditional Logic, put out by Memoria Press, each week. I bought the DVDs, so I am not even teaching that, which is nice. Both boys are finding that class interesting. We so need more logical thinkers in this country. Reading the paper everyday makes it obvious that many people missed out on logic growing up. So during the week, the boys do math (Saxon 1/2 for Nathan, Saxon 7/6 for Luke), English (Rod and Staff 7 for Nathan, and Rod and Staff 5 for Luke), science, spelling, and Latin (First Forms by Memoria Press). If they have questions, they ask me, but I'm not really actively "teaching" them all day.

I do more stuff directly with Caleb and Jonathan. They do First Language Lessons and Prima Latina orally together with me on the couch. Sometimes we read a Miller story or Leading Little Ones to God, although we haven't been as consistent with that this year. Next year, when I do more with Anna, that will back again. They pretty much do their math on their own (Saxon 3 for Caleb and Saxon 2 for Jonathan). They don't usually need help figuring out how to do it. I've started Caleb in Sequential Spelling, since I have had such success with Nathan using it. I'll start Jonathan on it next year, once he finishes up the Veritas Press Phonics Museum that I always use. I've been breaking down each day (25 words) into 2 days, either 12 or 13 words, and that has worked out really well. Both boys also have a Memoria Press copybook they do for handwriting (although I won't say any of my boys have particularly nice handwriting. It just isn't that important to me, LOL). Caleb does Explode the Code every day too, which Jonathan will start next year when he's done with the phonics program. Right now he just does his ETC book occasionally.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we all review CC stuff, and we listen to our CC audioCDs in the car whenever we're driving somewhere too. They definitely know their memory work! We also listen to Story of the World CDs in the car too. We're almost done with the Ancients again. We haven't done any extra activities with SOTW this year, since we're learning and doing other stuff at CC. The kids have really enjoyed the art and science projects at CC too. And of course we are still doing our other co-op, which has unit studies for different history, science, and other topics. So far this year they have covered first aid/safety, ancient Egypt, fine arts, Asia, economics (right now), and birds & fish is the last unit.

Anna and Grace are really good to amuse themselves while we are doing school. They play Little People or sometimes watch a video. Faith wanders around and tries to get up on the table if no one is watching her. That is definitely her new trick, so we have to be on our toes. Many water cups and cereal boxes have been spilled when we aren't paying attention. Next year I'll do more with Anna, and probably, by extension, Grace. Anna is working on recognizing letters. She can write her name, but lately she has been modifying it to make it more efficient--"AANN". Just write the same letters at the same time! Much better! LOL, so she has obviously not gotten the whole concept of each letter saying a sound in a word or anything. I'm not in any hurry for her to learn. In fact, I am hopeful that I will be able to teach both her and Grace to read at the same time, so I'm willing to wait even longer for that to happen!

So that's where we are. I think we know what we are doing next year, but I am going to put that in a different post. I'm excited though!

New Week?!

Whew, is it a new week? I am very ready for it to be! Last week was a bit hectic and chaotic. It started Monday night, when I found myself volunteering to teach the orchestra unit for all of our Classical Conversations group. (Did I learn NOTHING from the tin whistle unit?!) So Nathan and I spent a good long time making up a CD of music clips highlighting the instruments of the orchestra, using my Story of the Orchestra book, as well as my Beethoven's Wig 3 CD. It all went over quite well, but now I should be working on Handel. Instead, I am blogging. Hmmm.

Well, before CC on Thursday, we had an unpleasant flood in our laundry room on Wednesday. Our washer does this occasionally when I put in a big puffy load. This time it was a twin comforter and a pillow. It didn't get unbalanced, but somehow it spilled water all over the floor. We found out about it because Anna slipped in the water and got soaking wet. When I went to investigate the "spill" by the shoes, I found standing water. Uh oh! I spent quite awhile mopping up the floor of the laundry room all the way into the kitchen. The water had gotten all the way into our pantry, so I had to take everything out of the bottom of that, and put all the cereal and oatmeal there into ziploc bags because the boxes were all wet. We also had to take everything out of the new cabinet in the laundry room so we could tip it up and put towels under it. I didn't want the veneer finish to warp all around the bottom.

Thursday night found us moving all the furniture out of the family room again. Ugh! A few weeks ago when vacuuming, the seam of carpet started coming up and got sucked into the vacuum. Obviously for berber carpet, that's a bad thing! So there was a line partay across the family room. A man came out to fix it, but really all he did was make the line longer. Definitely no improvement. So Bob complained again, and the company sent another man out. This man was much more knowledgeable, and he discovered that the reason it had pulled out so easily was because the seam tape hadn't been applied correctly. So he came back Friday to pull up the carpet and seal the seam again. It looks tons better but gah, if I have to move those books in that bookshelf again, I am not going to be a happy camper! At least Bob had the brilliant idea to put masking tape marking where the shelves go.

Friday morning, as we were waiting for the capet man to get here, Bob called to say that our faithful Honda Odyssey, our 10 year old Ody, was not doing so well. Its transmission had given up the ghost. He barely got it home, and now we are trying to decide whether or not we should shell out over $3000 to fix that. It is very nice to have a second minivan. In fact, just Wednesday night, Bob and I drove to a coworker's house and bought a very nice TV armoire. It fit a 37 inch TV, but the got a new flat screen one and didn't need it. We don't need it for a TV, but it is ncie storage with DOORS that I can close to hide junk!! I was very excited. It is quite a large piece of furniture (heavy too--Ed and Zachary both had to come over to help Bob get it in!), but all we did was take out the back seats, and it fit in the Ody. So we're still weighing our options. In the meantime, I guess I'll be driving the big van more.

Also Friday morning, Nathan made the unhappy discovery that some of the boxes down in our storage room, which happens to be right below the kitchen and laundry room, were quite wet . . . Ack! So I had to go empty out a bunch of boxes. Thankfully there were no books, but still, what a hassle. Thar reminds me that I just left everything out sort of draped across other boxes to dry. I need to tape up some new boxes. At least Nathan found the wetness before mold set in. We had to pull up the area rug we have down there too.

Yesterday I worked at a large area consignment sale. I shopped in the morning, and then I worked from 1-5 so I get a bigger percentage of my total. I was so tired after being on my feet for those 4 hours! I don't know how people like Melinda, my sister-in-law, who are nurses and are on their feet for 12 hours a day, do it! Amazing!! Since we had our church small group over at our house this evening (Sunday), I really needed to work on getting all the books back in the bookcase, but I just ran out of energy. We had to rush home from church today to finish getting everything back to normal.

So this week I am hoping for a week with no boxes, LOL. And one with no new car problems . . .

Bare Walls

This vast, empty expanse of wall space is where our maps used to hang. We had one of the world, with all the countries' flags along the bottom, and one of the United States. Before the kids and I left for Ohio, we took the maps down, in preparation from painting, and we put them on our kitchen table, under the plastic cover we use as a tablecloth.


Putting the maps on the table has actually awakened a remarkable interest in geography! We had never formally memorized state capitals, but after several weeks of people asking each other over meals what the capitols of the different states they could see while eating has made the boys much more familiar! And since I did have to memorize them as a girl, it has provided me a stellar opportunity to show off, LOL. The ones I didn't remember right away were Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Maine. (Ask me them now though--I've learned!)


The US map is at one end of the table, and the world map is at the other. One day as I was eating lunch at the world map end, I happened to notice that South Africa has 2 capitol cities marked with a star on our map! Upon further research, we learned that in fact, South Africa has 3 capital cities! Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria is the administrative capital, and Bloemfontein, which isn't even marked as a capital on our map, is the judicial capital. Interesting! I wonder how efficient it can possibly be to have all these areas of government in separate areas, but then again, ours are all together, and they certainly are not efficient in the slightest. So maybe it doesn't make a difference at all!

Then, just last night, Caleb noticed that Bolivia ALSO had 2 cities marked with a star, La Paz and Sucre. Now that really struck me as odd. I happened to study South America in 6th grade, even doing a detailed salt dough map, LOL, and I totally have only heard of La Paz as the capitol. So we looked that up as well, and it turns out that, similar to South Africa, Sucre is the Consitutional capital (where the judical branch is), while La Paz is the administrative capital, home of the president and congress. And actually Sucre was the original capital. It was the seat of the Conservative party, who were financed and supported by the silver mines, which were around Sucre. Then in 1899 the Liberal party overthrew the Conservatives, and they were supported and financed by the tin mining industry, which was centered around La Paz. They wanted to move the capital city to where their supporters were, but they were only partially successful. The president and congress moved, but the Supreme Court stayed in Sucre. There have been recent efforts to move the entire thing back to Sucre, but so far, things are staying the same, with Sucre the "capital of Bolivia" (this is actually stated in their Constitution) and with La Paz the "seat of government". Boy, the things you are totally oblivious to . . .

I do miss having the maps on the wall. Whenever I am planning a trip, or when I am on the phone and someone mentions a location, I love being able to just turn my head and see it on a map! So now I'm thinking that what we really need is another set of maps. I just really like maps . . .

Happy Birthday, Luke!!!

Luke turned 11 years old today! He asked for cheesecake again, and we brought that to Bible study last night, along with a host of other goodies.

I had a little bit of leftover peanut butter cup filling from Christmas in the freezer, plus I had some caramel that I never did use at Christmas, so I spent the afternoon making candies. Since the cake/chocolate supply shop closed (boo-hoo), I just bought some Wilton choclate coating discs from Michaels. I was not very impressed with them. They didn't melt very smoothly, and they just glooped together. I had some paramount crystals (fat, sort of like crisco) so I added that, but it never really smoothed out to my satisfaction. Oh well. I guess I will have to start ordering Merckens chocolate online.

We also brought rice krispie treats for those like Nathan and Amanda, who don't like cheesecake, and for Caleb, who is allergic. I had a little bit of pink frosting left over in the fridge from Faith's birthday, so I frosted the treats with that. I told Luke they were to honor Faith's birthday, since we didn't bring a cake to Bible study for her, so he would not be insulted that we were bringing pink treats to his birthday celebration!

Here is a closer look at the cheesecake, in all its yummy goodness. It has snickers bars chopped up inside it, as well as sprinkled on top, and chocolate syrup drizzled over the top. Very tasty!!

Today we went out to CiCi's Pizza for lunch to celebrate. CiCi's was having an anniversary celebration this month, where everyone ate for $3.99. Since tomorrow was the last day, we thought it was a good time to take advantage of that deal!

For his birthday dinner, Luke requested chicken salad on croissants, and we also had Sunchips and cut-up orange slices. Easy and lighter, after our big meal!

After dinner, Luke opened his presents. He got a new basketball, a Toby Mac CD, a "How to Draw Star Wars Clone Wars" book from Grandpa and Grandma B., and a Scrabble Slam card game and a very challenging 3-d globe puzzle from Grandma and Grandpa G.! He was also very thrilled to get an Amazon gift card from Aunt Amy and Uncle Jason, and some money from Uncle Dan and Aunt Melinda, so he is looking forward to figuring out what exactly he will get with this largesse!

Rib Fest!

Tonight we had ribs for dinner. LOTS of ribs. Nathan has been agitating for us to have ribs for quite awhile now. I have not been as excited about it because frankly, ribs aren't my favorite. Really messy, and mainly a barbeque-y taste. Meh. But they are his absolute favorite, and he always orders them in restaurants of possible. He has already forewarned me that ribs was going to his request for his birthday dinner, so we needed to figure out how to make them before that day came!

Ribs were on sale this week at our local grocery store for $1.99 a pound, so I bought 2 racks--over 12 pounds total! Back when we had thought we were moving overseas, Nathan a nd I had culled a bunch of really old Taste of Home magazines, tearing out any recipe we thought we might try at some later point. We also tore out every single rib recipe we saw. We sorted through those this afternoon and discovered there were 2 basic trains of thought as to how to cook ribs. One side says to just put them in a pan and roast them for a long time. The other side says to boil them first and then roast them for a little while longer. We decided to do a taste test.

So, one rack I cut into smaller pieces and boiled for 1 hour with some onion and vinegar (not sure what the vinegar did, but the recipe said to add it . . .). Then I put the pieces in a pan, covered them with barbeque sauce (we just used Kraft Hickory or something--I did not feel like making my own), covered the pan with foil, and roasted them at 325 for 1 1/2 hours more.

The second rack I put in my huge roasting pan bone-side down. I sprinkled garlic, salt, and pepper on them, covered them with foil, and roasted them at 350 for 2 hours. Then I drained the fat and poured barbeque sauce over them and roasted them for 30 more minutes, covered.

The general consensus was . . . they were both delicious! Well, Caleb actually didn't like either one, but he said it was because he doesn't like barbeque sauce. The thing was, these ribs really didn't taste a lot like barbeque sauce, unless you put some on your plate and dipped pieces into it. They had a very good flavor! The other boys and Bob liked the ones that were roasted the whole time better. They were indeed incredibly tender. I couldn't even lift the rack onto a platter without the bones just falling out. This made it not so messy to eat because you weren't wrestling with bones and gnawing on them, much to Nathan's disappointment, LOL.

The ones that were also boiled were very good as well. I think I might have prefered them just a tiny bit, but since it was certainly easier to just roast them the whole time, I am just fine with that method being the winner, LOL. They were not quite as tender, in that the bones didnt jsut slide out quite like the other ones did. They were still very tender, however.

Out of those 12 pounds of ribs, I would say we have maybe 1/4 of it left over. Definitely not enough for another meal. We have some big rib-eaters! Even Faith had thirds! What a piggy! She doesn't usually love plain meat, so you can see these must have been good. I'm just glad we have found a winner of a recipe this far before Nathan's birthday. Of course, he's going to say we need to keep practicing . . .

Speaking of birthdays, tonight I'll be making the cheesecake for us to take to Bible study tomorrow night to celebrate Luke's birthday! We are also planning on making a few peanut butter cups and caramels. This afternoon, after CC, we headed down to the cake and candy supply store, which is about 30 minutes away. We drove up and saw to our great disappointment that it has closed! Oh no! I guess I'll have to start ordering my chocolate over the internet. I ran over to Michaels later this afternoon and picked up a few bags of their Wilton chocolate discs. I guess we'll see how they compare in quality with the ones I usually use. Of course, when you are talking homemade peanut butter cups and caramels, who really cares?! I'm sure they'll still be yummy!

3 Big Girls!

Faith had her 1 year well-baby appointment on Monday. Bob went into work late so I didn't have to take all the kids, which was really nice. Bethesda has actually moved things around, and now they are seeing well-baby patients on a completely different floor, in a separate area. This area had bigger rooms than the regular pediatric rooms, so we would have fit better, had we all gone!

We again saw Faith's regular doctor, which was nice. She knows us, and in fact, she told me that when she saw our name on her list of patients, she was excited to see us again! She said she tells everyone about this family with 7 kids, where the kids sit quietly in the office, taking turns giving the little ones snacks, LOL. Faith has plumped up to 18 pounds, 7 ounces, which is the 9th percentile! The doctor was happy about this, but she said usually babies lose a little bit in percentile between 9 months and a year. I said that was probably because many babies are just learning to crawl around then, so they become more active, whereas Faith has been crawling since 5 months, and walking for 6 weeks. She had her big fall off the charts back at her 6th month check-up--after she started crawling and being more active! Plus, now Faith is eating all table food and enjoying it much more than baby food. I can't remember exactly how long she was, but she was in something like the 43rd percentile for that.

The doctor started asking all these questions about how I shop for food, and whether I make a ton of food ahead of time or what. I told her how we shop at the commissary every 6 weeks, with stops at Sams, Wegmans, and local grocery stores in between for fresh produce, milk, and sale stuff. Since I had just gone to the commissary last week, I told her how Thursday afternoon I had cut up 2 round roasts in chunks for burgundy beef, cut up some meat in strips for stir-fries and put them in marinade, cooked and cut up a ton of chicken for casseroles and soups, and browned a ton of ground beef for whatever. All that meat I froze, and now it's ready for me to just pull out to put in the crockpot or to deal with in the afternoon. Having the meat all ready to go really cuts down on meal prep time. Of course, the night before our trip I had to sit down and make a list of all the recipes I wanted to have over the course of the next 6 weeks, and make sure all the ingredients for those recipes were either in the pantry or on my commissary list, so it does take a little bit of planning. But I can't deal with making the whole meal ahead of time and freezing it right now. I'd run out of freezer space, for one thing. It would just be so much food! Plus, that seems like it would take too much time. Just preparing the meat is a good compromise! The doctor thought it was all a great idea, so that was nice. We had a nice visit, and it was even more pleasant because there were not 6 other little bodies in the room!

Grace is a big girl because we can officially say she is potty-trained! Yay! She got her toenails painted Tuesday. While this was not a big incentive for her to become potty-trained, like it was for Anna, she was certainly happy to have it done! I ran to Target on the way home from dropping the boys off at their co-op, and I bought a new bottle of nail polish in a lavender-y shade, since purple is Grace's favorite color. Anna got her toenails painted as well (did you even doubt?!). Grace is having no problems with pooping in the little potty. She hasn't made the switch to the big potty, but I don't even care, LOL. It's all better than washing out poopy panties! She is peeing on regular public toilets as well, so that is a big relief. I am still going to put her in a pull-up for Classical Conversations tomorrow, since that is such a long day for her, but she was dry for it all last week, and that was without going on the big potty, even though she tried a few times!

New Mixer

This is our new mixer! It's a Electrolux Magic Mill DLX Assistent. It has a huge capacity, which I have not even begun to test! I made a small recipe of 2 loaves of bread, and I've made a few big batches of cookie dough. Tonight I made mashed potatoes. I really, really like this mixer. It is different from a typical mixer, like my old KitchenAid. The motor is on the bottom, and the bowl itself is what spins. There is an arm that comes down into the bowl, with a round beater-thing on the end. Then there is a plastic scraper-thing that continually scrapes everything off the sides. I also have a dough hook that attaches in the same hole as the scraper, and also connects to the arm. Most expert DLX users seem to agree that you really don't need the dough hook. The other paddle-beater-thing is supposed to mimic hand-kneading and mixing, and it makes a really good quality bread. This mixer is made in Sweden, but apparently American bakers feel that bread can't be made without a dough hook, so they include one. There is also a smaller plastic bowl and a set of wire wisks for beating eggs.

You can see the scraper on the left and the beater thing on the right. I fix the beater thing however far away from the side I want it, usually pretty close, and then I can manually move it into the middle if I think there is something there that needs to be better incorporated into the dough, and the arm swings back to wherever I locked it.

On the first picture you can see that there are 2 knobs. The one on the left turns it on. I can either click it to just "on", or I can click it farther to the left and choose a time. I can set it to mix my bread dough for 8 minutes, for example, and then it shuts off. The knob on the right is a power knob, so I can just crank up the power if it seems like it is struggling. I guess this is what you use when you are making 12 loaves of whole wheat bread, or some other huge thing. I certainly haven't needed any extra power for the little things I have done--things which totally strained the motor on my KitchenAid!

You can buy a ton of attachments for this thing--grain flaker, sausage-extruder, meat grinder, grain mill, pasta maker, blender, grater, cookie press, etc. Here is a youtube link for a demonstration video. This first part is 9 minutes long and shows most of the attachments. It's really cool how a lot of them hook into the machine--you turn the machine on its side! Here is the link for the second part of the demo video, which is only 5 minutes long.

So hopefully this appliance will last us a very long time!

Busy, Busy!

Well, you can tell our sno-cation is over by the sad lack of blogging. Yes, we are back to real life here. This past week was the last week of basketball for both Nathan and Luke. Nathan has been playing on a jr. high team from a Christian homeschool co-op. Several friends from our other co-ops were also on the team, and Nathan has had a really fun season with them. They played in their end-of-season tournament, so they had games Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Then they also played in a little tournament at a near-by Christian school on Saturday. The host school played the weakest team (and won handily) at 9:30. Then Nathan's team played another homeschool team at 10:45. Nathan's team lost to this team twice during the regular season in 2 close games, but they were able to beat this team on Wednesday in the first of their playoff games. So the other team was out for blood. It was a really fast-paced and close game, but Nathan's team lost. So then Nathan's team turned around and played the other losing team at 12:00! Even though the other team really was a weaker game, the score was closer than you might think because everyone was tired! Plus, Nathan's coach let all the non-starters play most of the game because he's a really nice guy who is not out to blow other teams away. The host team played the team that beat Nathan at 1:15--and guess what? They won by a huge margin! The other team was exhausted from the game against Nathan's team, and they didn't have many subs at all. The whole thing was a little rigged! Still, a fun day of basketball. I enjoyed visiting with several of the other moms, including one from the losing team, who we used to go to church with.

Luke had his last Upward basketball game on Saturday afternoon at 3:00. He is on a good team, coached by the dad of someone in our co-op. His team was undefeated! (Not that that matters in Upward, LOL) He definitely enjoyed all the winning, and he was a big part of his team's success. He was very faithful to practice his shots outside--at least until the hoop was surrounded by many feet of snow.

Grace has been progressing very well with her potty-training, I am pleased to announce. She has not had an accident for several days. Although she still does not like to use public toilets, she can hold it a really, really long time, so she hasn't even gone in her pull-up when we've been out. I put her in a pull-up when we went to the commissary Wednesday (we finally did have to stock up again after all our snow storms!), for all the basketball games, and for church today. Otherwise she's been in underwear. She is still resistant to pooping on the potty, but lately she was holding it in as opposed to going in her underwear. Now that obviously is not a workable long-term plan either, so I was very thrilled when she said she had to go last night and pooped on the potty with me not promting her. Hopefully this will get more comfortable for her, and we won't be dealing with big constipation issues. Those are no fun!

Another big project of the past week has been preparing for a house appraisal. We decided to try to refinance, since we locked in a great rate. Also, we got our tax assessment for our house, which was a ridiculous amount. We figured, even if our house doesn't appraise for what it needs to, then we will show our appraisal to the county, and they will have to lower our assessment! We can't lose! LOL, we really would like to refinance, so we'll see what happens. Bob got busy finishing up a bunch of these little projects around the house, and the rest of us cleaned. The dining room, in particular, was still an absolute mess from all the December new carpet/tile/paint work. It got easy to just throw every loose end thing from around the rest of the house in the dining room on top of all the stuff that never got moved back to wherever it came from, and it all looked pretty messy. When Bob talked to the appraisers last week, they said they were going to come oout next Saturday. They were running behind because of all the snow, but that didn't leave us enough time before our rate lock ran out. So then they said they would work up in Monday. But yesterday afternoon they called right after I left to go too a baby shower and said they were going to come today, Sunday, between 8:00 and 10:45!! Ack! Bob and I stayed up VERY late last night finishing up the cleaning, and for Bob, finishing up some painting. The good news is that we had small group over at our house right after church, and the house has never looked cleaner! The appraisers actually called at 7:30 this morning to say they were on their way. They arrived at 8:00, before the kids even had a chance to mess things up! Anna and Grace were still asleep, in fact. I just opened their door, and they slumbered through the whole thing, LOL. So we don't know how we did, but at least the house is clean.

One thing that put a very somber spin on this whole week was a phone call I got on Wednesday afternoon as I was taking Nathan to one of his basketball games. It was my friend Christine from church. She has 2 little girls, and back in May 2007, before the birth of her first daughter, she came over to talk about labor and delivery. Since then, we've become good friends. Her 2 daughters are about the same ages as Grace and Faith. Two weeks ago, right as the first blizzard was starting, she was in terrible abdominal pain. Another friend from church, who is an ER doctor took her to the ER while her husband stayed with the girls. It turned out that she had a large ovarian cyst, which had ruptured. She had immediate surgery, and the doctors couldn't save the ovary. She got the biopsy report on the ovarian cyst on Wednesday, and it was cancerous, so she has ovarian cancer. This was a tremendous shock to everyone, including her doctor. She has had 2 appointments with oncologists this weekend, and she is facing major abdominal surgery next week, where they move all the organs around to see exactly where if anywhere the cancer has spread, and where they want to do a complete hysterectomy. Then she will start chemo. If the cancer is an early stage, then they will give her maybe 2 weeks to recover from the surgery, although it is going to be so major that she won't be able to lift anything for 6 weeks. If it is more serious, then they will start chemo immediately, and they will do the chemo every week, instead of every 3 weeks. I just can't imagine how dreadful this is going to be. We are all praying fervently that the cancer is first stage and hasn't spread. But no matter what, she is going to feel so terrible for so long, and it is going to be so hard for her and her beautiful girls. Please pray for Christine, Jeremy, Anna, and Bethan. Life can change in such an instant.

Sno-cation!

This has been such a fun week! Today is the first day since last Friday that Bob had to go to work. Let me just say that is absolutely unprecedented! The federal government has just been shut down, and so we have had a wonderful, relaxing week here at home. Bob has been able to get a lot of little projects done around the house, including repainting our bedroom. He went to work today, but don't worry--Monday is Presidents' Day, so he'll have a 3 day weekend to recuperate from this one day of work, LOL.

We managed to do a week of school last week. No snow days here! Well, that's not totally true. We did do a little bit less some days, so the boys could go out before and after lunch. Still, we got a lot accomplished. As my friend Christine said, we were actually "homeschooling" this past week, instead of running around to our 2 different co-ops! Very nice! It was so refreshing not to have anywhere to go. Many board games were also played, and much time was spent outside.

Bob and I did sneak out to Walmart and Sams on Tuesday to get more milk before the second storm hit, but other than that, we have been homebound. Of course, now that the snow is over, I am ready to be out and about again, LOL. Bible study was canceled tonight because the L's don't have anywhere for anyone to park at their house. I was looking forward to conversation with other people not in my immediate family!

Our big project during this time at home has been potty-training Grace. We started this back in October, but then she got sick and was totally not interested after she got better. Being gone 2 days a week was not conducive to working with her on it, plus I was totally stressed out with the tin whistle/CC tutoring/teaching the Egypt unit at TNT before Christmas that I could hardly think straight, much less worry about potty-training. So we just let that go. In the new year, she has gone on the big potty sometimes, but never on her own accord.

Well, once the second snowstorm started, and I realized CC would be canceled on Thursday, I knew immediately that this was our window of opportunity! We put Grace in panties on Tuesday, and she did really well, even pooping on the little potty 2 times (first time for that particular accomplishment, woo-hoo!). Wednesday she did a little worse, having a few pee accidents and one very messy poop accident, where I eventually just put her in the shower and hosed off her legs, LOL. (This was not a popular decision.) Thursday was a terrible day, where she had multiple accidents of both kinds, and I was very frustrated with her. The boys were tired of it as well, and they suggested we just put her back in diapers. Bob pointed out that it would be awkward explaining the diapers to Grace's future husband, so we should just push on and help her get rid of them, LOL. I am happy to report that today has been a much better day, with no accidents of either kind. Yay! Maybe we have turned a corner. I can only hope so.

After potty-training Anna, I was ready to say definitively that girls were much easier to potty-train than boys, but now I can only say that--some people are harder than others. And Grace is one of those, LOL. That's the good thing about having multiple children--whenever you think that you've figured out something, another one comes along and shows you that you really don't know what you're talking about! Keeps one humble . . .

Happy First Birthday, Faith!

I can't believe it's been a year since we were rushing to Bethesda, barely making it in time for her delivery! I have been soooo glad I'm not waiting to go into labor this time this year, with all the snow! I don't think we would have made it!
We had cake and ice cream after dinner tonight. No special cake--just a plain old 9x13 with pink frosting. Well, it was a "funfetti" cake, which always brings back fun memories! Amy and I used to always make funfetti cupcakes in college. Yum!

Faith is such a joy to have in our family! She is so sweet, and she is definitely adored by all her siblings. I was just thinking a few days ago how fortunate she is to have so many people who love her! Wherever her older brothers and sisters are, that is right where she wants to be. Now that she can climb stools with ease, she pretty much IS wherever they are!

Here we are--the 2 birthday girls! I don't mind sharing a pink cake with such a cutie!

Best Birthday Ever!!

I had such a great birthday yesterday! Several people on my Facebook page asked if I had enjoyed all the snow they ordered for me, and the answer is definitely "Yes"!! I am still a Colorado girl, and I really miss the winters out there!

Bob and I went cross-country skiing after breakfast around our neighborhood, and we had such a great time! A plow had come and plowed one path down each road, but he couldn't get all the way down to the pavement. This meant the road was like a perfect groomed trail! The boys couldn't believe we had skis down in our basement all this time, and they never knew about it. I think it always messes with them a bit to realize that we had a thriving life, with varied interests, before any of them came about, LOL.

I did bundle Faith up this time and take her out. As you can see from this picture, she was not impressed.
But we kept pulling her around, stopping to talk to several of our neighbors, and eventually I noticed her head dropping more and more. Yes, she fell asleep out there! It must not have been that bad, LOL. She looked like a little princess, being pulled around in her baby sled. So cute!

The boys sledded and played a while, but we told them that in order for us to get over to the McC's house, where we had planned to watch the Super Bowl, the driveway had to be cleared. This was very motivating, but as you can see from the picture, they had a lot of work ahead of them! The snowplow came back to our street, and after he was pretty much done with the street and cul-de-sac, he came to our house and plowed the end of the driveway, where it meets the street. This was an immense amount of snow by itself, and I am sure he saved us an hour of shoveling! We were very thankful!

So we were housebound no longer, and we were able to go to the McC's house, where we had a very fun time. Christine even baked a cake--of course, it was a football one, but still! There were supposed to be 2 other families there, but they live in a more rural area, and there was no way they could get there. If they had come, however, there would have been 26 kids and 8 adults. We're a fertile bunch, LOL.

All in all, an absolutely wonderful birthday!

Fun in the Snow!

Here are 2 little snow bunnies! Grace actually didn't spend too much time outside. She didn't like floundering around in the snow, and she didn't want to sled, so . . . I didn't bother getting Faith all dressed up at all. I knew she wouldn't like it, and she could have gotten lost in it!

Lots of sledding was done. Here is Anna with Bob. There should be snow for plenty more days of sledding! The boys went out in the morning, after lunch, and some went out again before dinner. I was SOOO glad the dryer was hooked up and working so I could pop everything in the dryer between trips outside! All their stuff was absolutely dripping each time they came in!

I dug out my cross-country skis from the basement. We got them when we lived in Colorado, and we used to really enjoy skiing together! There was just too much snow for me, though. It wasn't hard enough on top, and I just kept sinking down. Tomorrow it will probably be better, when it's not so fresh. It was fun though! Bob and I actually talked about both of us going out tonight after dinner. But then we sat down on the couch and realized we were both totally exhausted from all the shoveling, and there is no way on earth we would be able to cross-country ski at all tonight! Maybe tomorrow!

Down at the end of the cul-de-sac, on the hill where the boys sled, there are 4-5 evergreen trees. The boys discovered that the snow on the branches made the branches bow down to the ground, so they could hide under there. They called these "tree-pees". Nathan and Luke shared the biggest one, and then Caleb, Jonathan, and Anna each had their own. The picture above is of Nathan and Luke's. Can you see them peeking out of the bottom? Here is a closer look at them:

We're all looking forward to more fun tomorrow! So far our electricity has stayed on, although the L's just lost theirs not too long ago. We had lots of hot chocolate, and I baked chocolate chip cookies as well! What a fun day!

Winter Wonderland

The snow started sticking around 2:00 yesterday afternoon. It accumulated very slowly, however, because the temperature was still around 38 degrees. It was such wet, heavy snow. I kept up with the shoveling because I knew it would be crazy if I didn't. Bob and I shoveled for the last time around 11:00 PM. We also shoveled off the deck, or most of it anyway--we left intact the area around our yardstick so we could keep track of how much snow we got. (But then I later read that you are SUPPOSED to keep track accurately by measuring every 6 hours, then clearing away the snow and starting over. This prevents compaction of the snow on the bottom. Oh well.) When we cleared the deck, we shoveled off around 12 inches.

It continued to snow all through the night at a rate of 1-3 inches per hour. It was really coming down! It snowed pretty steadily all day long as well. In the end, we got over 30 inches. Here is what our street looked like before lunch. I'm standing in the cul-de-sac looking up the street towards our house. The second big tree on the right is ours.

Here are our vans. I was very glad they were in the driveway! We joked that the big van looks like one of those vans for handicapped people, where you can stand up inside! As you can see from the driveway, we pretty much gave up on shoveling it. There was at least 12 more inches of snow in the driveway this morning, and it was so tiring trying to shovel it all! It was so heavy! Finally we did the walkway up to the front door, and that was a big enough undertaking. We ended up just shoveling off the top layer of snow off most of the driveway and calling it a day.

Our mailbox looks like Marge Simpson in her old age, LOL. The snow comes all the way up to the box part.

Here is a picture of the deck, out our back door. You can kind of see the line where we shoveled to last night. Our yardstick is just to the right of this picture. You can't even really see it anymore. It's almost totally buried.

This is looking across the street at our neighbors' house. You can see the damage this storm did to their trees with all the wet, heavy snow. The tree in their front yard just sort of collapsed. Then the tree in their side yard fell forward, but I think it may spring back. Then one of their neighbors' trees fell against the side of their house. We definitely have some tree damage in the back yard, including one tree which looks like it is just being held up by another tree. Several large branches are down too. I guess we'll deal with that after some of this melts! We can hardly get around to the backyard now, without floudering around in thigh-deep snow!

Storm Preparations

We are all settled in here at home, waiting to be snowed in. Let's see if this winter storm actually lives up to all the hype! Forecasters are predicting massive amounts of snow. So far we have about 5 inches, I would say, although about an inch of that is left over from the last snow. I've been keeping up with the forecast on the Capitol Weather Gang site , where they are predicting snowfall of 1-3 inches an hour for the night. To get ready for all this expected snow, we of course made some preparations last week.

1. I went to Sams and Walmart on Tuesday. Actually, this was just a happy coincidence, because Luke, Caleb, and Jonathan were at co-op, and Nathan was at home with the girls, so it was a good time to do my regularly scheduled shopping. It just seems like I was really organized and avoided all the crowds! Of course, I had to go BACK to Walmart Thursday, however. This was because Wednesday night Caleb, God bless him, called down while getting ready for bed to announce that he was out of Zyrtec. I told him we should have several more bottles in the closet in his bathroom because the last time I bought some, I bought like 6 bottles. Nope--those were all gone. I asked if ALL the medicine in the last bottle was also gone. Yep--totally empty. Grrrr. I was quite frustrated. I asked rather pointed questions about how the Zyrtec fairy was supposed to know to bring us more Zyrtec if he never. told. anyone. he was running out of bottles. Good grief. So anyhow I had to brave crazy Walmart crowds of people getting bread so I could get Zyrtec! Six more bottles!

2. I cleaned out one side of the garage so we could move my van inside. We haven't had my van inside since um . . . late spring? Early summer? A long time, anyhow. The last time we had a huge snowfall, when we were in PA, we had my van in the driveway, Bob's van in the street where we usually park the big van, and we were of course in the big van. Bob's van was totally buried from the snowplow, and it took about a week before we could get it out. So I decided that this time we would put my van in the garage so we would have room in the driveway for both Bob's van and the big van. Plus, this means less driveway to shovel. The big van takes up a lot of driveway real estate!

3. I did 6 loads of laundry, and we found all the flashlights. So we have clean clothes, plus light to see by when putting them on, in case of a power outage. Since this snow is so very wet and heavy, I wouldn't be surprised if that did happen. Our lights have flickered a few times, but they stayed on so far. The boys think that would be very exciting, but I think it would get cold in here! Plus, I like hot food.

Hmmmm . . . I guess that's all we've done. I baked banana bread, and Bob and I made sure to lay in plenty of ice cream supplies when we were out Wednesday night (we had a romantic date at Home Depot). So we're definitely set. The kids have all already been out playing outside, and they are looking forward to a weekend of snowy fun! The last time it snowed, I mentioned on my Facebook page that I was getting out the beach towels to deal with all the wet mess. A friend of mine who lives in Colorado said that she puts down an old plastic lined tablecloth on the floor with the plastic side down. I thought that was a great idea! We actually have an old tablecloth like that, which we use for picnics when the ground is wet. So I have brought that in, and it is in full use now. Keep the snow coming! We're ready!

P.S. If you have read this far, then let me fill you in on what we decided about the assignment. After much angst and going back and forth, we decided we would stay here and not move. Bob resubmitted his paperwork, faxing it is twice just to make sure. Nathan asked, "If the papers come back again, then will we move?" LOL, I guess that would for sure be a clear sign!

Did God just say, "No"?!?

So Bob put in his papers to retire back on Jan. 10, and his work told him he would retire on Aug. 1 of this year. We've been talking about possible jobs, and I've figured out roughly how homeschooling is going to work next year. But then last week Bob started getting some puzzling calls from USJFCOM down in Suffolk--the place they gave us orders to. One guy left a message saying he was our sponsor, and another Col. called 3 times, trying to "nail down when we'd be getting there". Hmmm . . . did they not get the memo? Bob is retiring!

But then Bob called AFPC, and they wanted to know why Bob hadn't responded to their assignment notification email, which they sent to him on 21 Jan. Well, Bob never received any such email, and he also told them that he had already submitted his papers. It turns out that doesn't matter. He has to respond to this assignment notification email by sending in his paperwork to AFPC--THAT is how you start the retirement process. And then it also turns out that when the people at Bob's work updated Bob's unclassified email address back in May, they miss-spelled our last name. They put 2 L's in it, next to each other, which definitely doesn't jump out as a mis-spelling. Just looks sort of blurry. So who knows how many other unclassified emails he has been missing over the past several months?!

Anyhow, the gist of it is that he didn't receive the email, and as far as AFPC cares, we are scheduled to report down in Suffolk on May 31. We have until tomorrow to decide (again) if Bob is going to put in his papers. Ack! We already made this decision! But now it seems that God has batted this back into our laps. Is he saying, "Try again--you picked the wrong option"?! Humanly speaking, there don't seem to be many pluses about moving. All the hassle, but it's only a few hours away. No new culture or different scenery. Farther from my parents, Amy, and Bob's family. No homeschool network. No church family. No close friends.

So why does it keep coming back again and again? What on earth? We just don't know. And if we don't go, are we really screwing up? I had just told my friend Christine that I didn't want to homeschool through jr. high/high school by myself (as we discussed this new co-op we were going to do together)--and now I would be, since it takes about a year to get involved and even to see what options would work for our family in a new place. So is this going to be a big testing time? Ack! At this point, I really would much rather stay here. I'm excited about this co-op next year (I was planning on blogging about it after a planning meeting next Sunday, but maybe it will be a moot point). The boys are worried about not being able to play sports (or, in Luke's case, the problem of playing sports with no one they know, LOL). But even he came and said that although he definitely doesn't want to move, he can't think of a good reason not to. And thats the rub--we want to be where God wants us to be, believing that he knows best for our family. But is he using this admittedly weird set of circumstances to tell us to go? Other than the circumstances, there really is not any other thing drawing us down there. None at all. So if we don't go, are we being disobedient? I just don't know. We are praying for wisdom and clear direction--but maybe God has already given that? I just don't know.