Biology

Today we had our first biology class of the year.  It's for Rivendell, although we haven't actually started the other Rivendell classes yet.  I'm starting early so I can take the whole time between Thanksgiving and New Year off, since, you know, I am having another baby, LOL.  I'm getting bigger so I KNOW I'm having another baby, but sometimes it seems like pregnancy sort of gets lost in the madness and chaos of regular life around here!

So, about biology . . . I posted back on June 1 about my biology lab conundrum, and I briefly mentioned that we might prepare for the AP biology test.  After a lot of discussion, we decided to go for it, even though, as I said before, this year the test is being reworked.  That meant I spent a ton of time this summer on the College Board website, looking at the new requirements, looking at sample syllabi and class pacing guides, and generally familiarizing myself with everything.  We decided I would not try to get my syllabus approved by the College Board this year, since that looked like an incredibly laborious process (which was attested to by my friend Katrina, who persevered and did eventually get her syllabus approved!).  What that means is that we can't officially call this class "AP Biology" on the syllabus, but we will still take the AP exam in May.  It is given at local high school, so one thing I'll do this fall is call around and see which high schools are offering that test, and sign the boys up to take it there.  Then on their transcrips we'll call the class something like "Honors Biology with AP Test (Score:  whatever)".

We are mainly doing the class for Nathan for validation of Mommy grades, since if he does go to USAFA, he wouldn't be able to get credit for any classes already taken.  But it would enable him to have an easy time in biology, which is always a bonus at a stressful place like a service academy!

We're using a college biology text (called Biology--where do they come up with these crazy names?!) by Campbell and Reece, which is one of the ones recommended on the College Board website.  I also have purchased a study guide that goes along with it, which gives me extra questions for quizzes and discussion, and also a book of investigative cases also put out by the same company to go along with the book, which I will use for extra experience with analyzing experiments and thinking through real world situations.

One of the big changes in the new bio exam is that there is less of a focus on tons of minute facts and details, and more of a focus on connections and practical applications.  It remains to be seen if I can help the boys make all the connections they are supposed to make!  It's going to be a challenging year--I highly doubt many other teachers attempting the AP exam are expecting their 9th baby, LOL--but hopefully it will be rewarding.  At any rate, it will give the boys a lot of exposure to an evolutionary world view, so they can better understand exactly what they believe and discuss it intelligently.  That certainly will make the class worthwhile!

Home Again, Home Again . . .

Well, we are back home, and what a week it's been!  The kids and I left last Friday to drive to WSS to pick up Nathan, who had finished up his 2 weeks of support staff there (he had a blast).  After lunch at WSS, we drove on to my parents' house in Ohio, which was a trip that wouldn't end, due to nasty construction traffic in eastern Ohio.  We finally got to my parents' house at 10:15, having left our house at 9:30.  A long day of driving for sure.  I am looking forward to when Nathan can help me on these drives--just another year and a few months!

We stayed with my parents for a few days, which was very relaxing.  Then on Wednesday, Bob arrived in town, having driven with the L's who were continuing on their way to St. Louis for the wedding of their son Zachary.  We picked up Bob and then spent a few nights with my best friend Amy and her family.  I hardly got to see her when we were home over Christmas, so it was sooo nice to spend some time catching up with her!  And the boys were so thrilled to play with Zach and Jacob.  We tried something new and left the 3 girls over with my parents.  They had a fun time playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house with all their toys, and I enjoyed not having to worry about keeping them entertained, LOL. 

Friday morning we picked the girls up and then caravaned with my parents out to St. Louis so we could also go to Zachary and Karynn's wedding.  We stayed at a SpringHill Suites, along with a ton of other guests and family members of Ed and Elizabeth, so it was like a fun party!

We really enjoyed the pool at the hotel--it was so refreshing after all the heat, humidity, and driving.  Friday afternoon, after we arrived, we all went swimming, and then when we were back in the room getting ready to go to the rehearsal dinner, Micah microwaved our cell phones in the conveniently-located-right-at-his-eye-level hotel microwave.  That probably would have started a fire, except that Caleb happened to notice and mention, "Ummm . . . the stuff in the microwave is burning . . ."  What stuff?!?  Ohhhh . . . Bob's phone is totally and completely dead.  We thought mine was as well, but after recharging it, it will receive calls and the touchscreen does work.  The buttons at the bottom don't work, so once I select anything on the screen, I can't actually go back to anything else, so it is definitely not a long-term solution.  Don't leave me a message on there--I probably won't ever get it!  Tonight we went to Costco and transferred Bob's number to the "extra" third phone we have for the boys, but tomorrow we are planning to visit the Verizon store.  Micah--doing his best to star in unique stories that none of other children even thought of.  Sigh.

Anyhow, after all that Friday afternoon excitement, we headed to the Old Spaghetti Factory for the rehearsal dinner, which was absolutely delicious.  It was nice because all the kids except Micah sat at one long table with Amanda and Jessica L, among others, but Bob, Micah, and I sat at a different long table, so we got to have nice conversations with other couples, including the bride's parents, who we had never met before.  And Amanda was a total life-saver, because she let us borrow her cell phone for the rest of the weekend, so at least we could coordinate stuff with my parents!  Thank you, Amanda!!

Saturday we ate a delicious breakfast, went swimming, and the headed downtown to the St. Louis Arch.  We toured the Museum of Westward Expansion and tried to not lose any kids in the crushing crowds.  Some people were disappointed that we could not go up to the top of the Arch, due to time constraints, so we started making plans to come back on Sunday.  We rushed back to the hotel, grabbing Taco Bell for lunch, changed into our wedding finery in record time, and headed over to the church, which was fortunately only a few minutes away, for the 2:00 wedding!  Whew!

The wedding was absolutely beautiful.  The dresses were lovely, the church was just the right size (and it was an actual church, with stained glass windows and everything!), and the decorations were lovely too.  The service was God-honoring, but not-too-long, which was a huge blessing because the wedding was right at naptime, and Micah hadn't really slept all that well the night before, LOL.  The reception was right downstairs, and Karynn's aunt did an amazing job with the favors and all the decorations.  I told everyone not to have such high expectations when any of our girls get married, LOL.  We had a lot of fun--I'll have to post pictures when I'm not so tired!

Sunday morning we had to get checked out, which is no easy feat with this big of a family!  But finally we got all loaded up and left around 9:30.  We drove back to the Arch, got in line, and bought tickets for Bob, Nathan, Luke, Jonathan, and Grace to go up to the top of the Arch, and for Caleb, Anna, Faith, and me to go to the documentary about the building of the Arch.  Bob and I went through St. Louis on our honeymoon 19 years ago, and I went up in the Arch then.  I am not a fan of heights or of small enclosed spaces, so I felt no need to repeat the experience, LOL.  The absolutely wonderful thing was that Micah could go up in the Arch for free and riding on Bob's lap (there are only 5 seats in the little cars).  He didn't sleep well either night in the hotel, and he was an absolute crab.  I was dreading trying to keep him occupied and quiet during a movie, which would have probably been an impossible feat.  So Bob took him, and he was entranced by the view, from all reports.  The only problem was that we couldn't get tickets until 11:55, and then it took them until 1:15 to go up, spend 10 minutes up there, and come back down again.  Our movie was only 30 minutes, so eventually I had to break down and buy a big bag of kettle corn to keep the natives from getting restless, LOL.  But we finally got back on the road, with a 6 hour drive ahead of us, and the loss of an hour due to changing time zones. 

Fortunately we were only driving back to Amy's, and we were all so very relieved to get back there.  But first we had to meet my parents at a gas station and hand off Anna and Grace to them.  They are going to stay for a week at "Grandma and Grandpa Camp", and my Aunt Claire is coming out too, as an honorary Grandma, and she is bringing their cousin Emily up from Texas.  I'm sure you can imagine how excited the girls have been about this upcoming week!!  Faith was quite upset that she is not old enough to go to "Grandma and Grandpa Camp", which was part of the reason we let her stay over at their house with Anna and Grace before we left for St. Louis--a mini-camp!  She's fine now, and is enjoying having all the toys to herself here at home, LOL.

This morning we got up and got packed up from Amy's house at 9:30.  We had to rush because Nathan and Luke had their first football practice of the season tonight at 6:00.  We pulled into our driveway at 5:35, the boys raced inside to grab cleats and water bottles, and then Bob turned around and dropped them off.  What a long day!  Nothing like running around in the heat after a long day of snacking in the car, LOL.   The rest of us headed over to Costco to deal with cell phones.

So it was a great trip--we wouldn't have missed the wedding for anything!--but I'm quite glad to be home now, with everyone sleeping in their own beds.  It was nice to only have to give baths to Faith and Micah and put them down!  This will be a quiet week without Anna and Grace!  Hopefully it will be a quiet week for Micah too, LOL.

Summer Memories

Another thing I've been doing these past few weeks has been scrapbooking (okay, mainly the week Luke and Caleb were gone).  I have an 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbook for each child (except Micah, LOL).  The first page is about their birth, the next 2 pages are pictures of their extended family/good friends who are like family, and then there are 2 pages for their first year and 2 pages for the year they are one.  After that, there are 4 pages for each year.  It used to be a great way to use up pictures from a roll of film that didn't get into the big family scrapbook, but of course now we don't have rolls of film!  This means that I have to actually go on snapfish and pick out pictures for each child and order them, and I'm just not always that good about doing that.  The last time I put any new pages in the boys' scrapbooks was *cough* 2008.  Yeah . . . a little behind, LOL.

I kept up a little better with the girls, but I was still behind.  Now I can say I am totally caught up on the girls' scrapbooks!!  (Waiting for a rousing round of applause . . .)  I also did 2 more years in Jonathan's book, so instead of being stuck back at age 4, he is all the way up to age 6!  I'm working on Caleb's, but I actually had to order some pictures for him, so I haven't finished another year for him--he still stuck at age 6.  It's been so fun for me to actually do something hobby-like again.  There is so much for me to do during the school year, and I always feel slightly guilty for doing something just for fun, because that means I am not doing something that really NEEDS to be done.  So I never take the time to get involved in something like scrapbooking.  I'm glad I took a break from school-related things for a few weeks so I could actually finish some pages!

Anyhow, as I was working on the girls' book, I was struck by how much traveling we used to do.  All the time!  Back to Ohio for sure, but a lot of other places as well.  In 2009 from June to September, we went to Busch Gardens with Ann and Wally, visited Philadelphia with my college friend Phil and Sandra, went to Ohio and saw my brother's family, who were visiting from TX, went to Bob's family reunion in PA, went back to Ohio since my aunt was visiting from Utah, went to White Sulphur Springs for a weekend retreat, spent the next weekend up at Camp Greentop in MD, and then visited Williamsburg with Ann and Wally.  Whoa!  Were we crazy?!  We only had one less child than we do now, but now that seems ridiculously impossible to even attempt so many trips!  I guess our days of wild galivanting about are over--for awhile anyway.  Bob and I were just talking a few days ago about how we'll have to travel all over the country to visit all our kids and their families!  Maybe we'll get an RV.  Driving the big van will be a small stepping stone of preparation, LOL.

But right now it seems that we are starting the phase of life where our kids do the traveling, and we ferry them, but then we come back home and hold down the fort while they are gone.  I love planning trips, but I am getting too old and tired to do the packing!   Also, even though we aren't tied to a traditional school schedule, homeschooling high school is definitely taking up so much more of my time, even during the summer.  I never could have imagined!  But I keep telling myself--eventually this will get easier, as I reteach the same classes, instead of having to always prep new classes.  Next year I will teach chemistry, and that might be my last new class, except for some possible electives (I'm definitely going to teach a one-semester astronomy class, and I may teach a year long anatomy and physiology class sometime).  By the time the girls are coming up on high school, I'll be an expert, Lord willing!  Maybe we'll be able to plan and take some actual vacations then, LOL.

More Art

I was going to post this picture while Jonathan was away at camp last week, but I didn't get a lot of blogging done then!  Caleb started taking the same art class as Jonathan back in June, and I finally got around to taking a picture of his first picture.  This is not a very good photograph, because the flash is too bright, but it's a copper tea kettle with some peaches.  It's really nice!  I think we're going to frame it and hang it in the kitchen along with Jonathan's pear picture. 

This actually might be Caleb's only picture, at least for a long while.  Their art teacher was pregnant and due in September, so we thought we would have art lessons until the end of August at least.  But unexpectedly, she developed preeclampsia last week, and the baby was born at 32 weeks on Wednesday.  We are praising the Lord that she seems to have recovered now, and hopefully the little baby boy will not have to spend too much time in the hospital either.  He was tiny--2 pounds, 1 ounce!

Different Pictures

Last week I resolved to not work on biology or memory work at all, and we also did no school whatsoever.  Instead, I worked on a few things of my own!  One thing I actually got accomplished was the Rivendell yearbook for this past year.  I had grand ideas of using Photoshop for a few pictures, and indeed I started playing around with it.  But then I realized that was actually stressing me out, since it was taking forever, and I wasn't quite getting the effect I was looking for.  And I definitely didn't have forever to finish this little project, so . . . I put all those creative thoughts out of my brain, and just tried to get it done.

Last year I used blurb.com, which I was happy with, once I got it all figured out.  The only downside is that when you are dealing with a lot of pictures, you can't do the book online.  You have to download their software and just work on one computer.  That is fine when it's just me, but the plan is that next year I pass this off to the boys, so they can put "yearbook staff" or whatever down for extracurricular activities!  So we need something where people can work from different computers.  That led me to Shutterfly.  It was . . . okay.  Blurb was a better fit for yearbooks, I think.  Or maybe I just didn't spend enough time on Shutterfly.  I finally was able to manipulate the sizes of pictures and text boxes, but it wasn't that easy or intuitive, and it was often not exactly what I wanted.  It was okay, though.  And some of the layouts looked fine there on the side, but when I picked them for my page, the layout would have weird elements show up, like a giant brown picture frame around one picture that totally distracted from everything else, or a piece of "scotch tape" at the top of pictures.  Weird!  There was no way I could figure out to get rid of the extra stuff, so I never picked those layouts, even though they were good ones.  My biggest issue with Shutterfly is that loading my book one time made my desk top freeze up, and after that, I could never load the crazy thing on there!  It was really inconvenient because that's where all my pictures are.  I had to put them all on a portable hard drive (yes, yes, something I would have done at some point anyway--I just didn't want to have to do it right then!) and use a laptop. 

But the book is done, thanks to some last-minute help with the verbiage from Isaac and Caleb McC.  I totally should have done thing back in June, when Nathan and Luke were around!  It's hard to write captions about events where you were not present, LOL.  But Isaac and Caleb came through, and now we're just waiting to see the final product.  I love having all the memories of the co-op year in a book!  It's so fun to look back through last year's book, and we didn't even really know we were going to do a yearbook, so there weren't as many pictures to choose from!

Pictures!

 We were really busy this past week.  We had a playdate on Monday, the girls had a birthday party on Tuesday, we got pictures taken on Wednesday, and Jonathan had his art class, and Thursday we had my friend Kimberly and her kids over so she and I could do our Hebrews Bible study, and Jonathan had an orthodontist appointment later on.  Friday we left at 8:00 to drive to WSS, and we didn't get home until after 5:30!  Whew--what a week!

I usually get (professional) pictures taken of my babies around their 1 year birthday.  Micah's birthday was back in April, so that obviously came and went, LOL.  I wanted to get the girls' pictures taken as well, and one thing that was really holding me back was that I could not figure out what to have them all wear that would be somewhat matching.  And I didn't want to go out and buy white shirts for everyone, for example.  But then I remembered that my friend Lynnea had pictures taken of her girls in all patriotic clothes (hers matched though, LOL), so I dug through their tubs and found these things.  Grace did not like her dress, but I told her she only had to wear it until after the pictures!

Although you can't tell here, none of the girls were particularly co-operative.  Anna has this weird tendancy to freeze and clench up when the camera is on her.  I almost didn't get an individual picture of her because all the shots have her with this weird one-shoulder-up-grimace-on-her-face pose.  Grace smiled in her individual shots, but not a real smile with her eyes, you know?  And Faith was just a bit grumpy (again, you can't tell here, but definitely in her individual shots), so her picture has her not really smiling, but not really frowning.  She had a good hair day though--she looks so much like Shirley Temple in her individual picture!

And Micah--Micah was not cooperative at all.  The lady started with him, and he would not crack a smile.  She was doing all these tricks with stuffed animals and whatnot, and he just sat there in a little rocking chair looking at her like, "You are so weird, lady."  Again, not frowning or crying--just no smile whatsoever.  Totally serious.  But then the lady hit upon the idea of bubbles.  He liked the bubbles!  So for the rest of the time, Jonathan was on bubble duty, blowing a steady stream of bubbles and catching some of them on the wand so Micah could pop them himself.  Then we got smiles like the one above!  Of course, when trying to get all 4 kids to smile with the bubbles, they were all invariably looking at different bubbles, totally distracted, so that was not as good, LOL.

Oh well, it's over.  Next summer I am planning on bringing in the new baby, plus everyone else for a group shot.  Yippee--can't wait.  Ha!

Back Up to 7!

We picked up Luke and Caleb from White Sulphur Springs yesterday!  They had a grand time at Camp Caleb.  The theme this year was "junkyard", with their key verse being II Cor. 5: 17 ("if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation . . .").  Caleb was full of tales about not one but 2 people who injured their ankles during the week (one sprained, one broken--yikes!), so I was glad he and Luke were both safe and sound!  They weer both glad to be home and sleeping in their own beds last night, and it was good to have them back.

We saw Nathan as well, since we stayed for lunch.  He is done with the outdoors camping week (AO), but now he is staying at WSS for 2 more weeks to work on boys' support staff.  I was worried about how and when he'd do his laundry, since all the stuff he wore for the week of AO is desperately in need of washing.  But then I decided he is 15 years old, and I'm sure he'll figure it out!  Nathan reported having a great time on AO, and the older guy (who worked on staff the years I did, although not on my particular staffs) said he was a great servant-leader and a lot of fun to have along.  There was some story that was evidently hilarious about Nathan, who got dehydrated on a hike and did or said something funny relating to a tent.  But alas, we don't yet have the full story on that, since Nathan ushered us quickly out onto the porch so we could take the above picture (funny--he wasn't so interested in the picture until Dale started telling the story . . .). 

I'm driving back up to WSS tomorrow to take Jonathan for his week of Camp Caleb, so hopefully I'll see Nathan again and get more of the story!  And that means we'll be back down to 6 kids here at home, although at least I won't have all 3 of my older boys gone!  Yeah--not making that scheduling mistake again, LOL. 

And Then There Were Five . . .

We're down to just 5 kids this week--the younger 5.  Nathan is away at AO, and after that is done, he'll be working on support staff at WSS for 2 more weeks, so he won't be home for awhile.  Luke and Caleb are at different Camp Calebs, and we'll pick them up Friday.  We'll at least get to see Nathan for lunch when we pick up Luke and Caleb, so that will be nice. 

It's definitely a step back to not have any older kids at home to help!  I have gotten so used to being able to leave Micah at home napping when I drop off other kids!  It is easy to forget that stage of life, when you are needed by so many people without bigger kids to help with the burden, so this is a good reminder. 

Another thing that is different this week is that we are eating less food.  A lot less.  Wow--leftovers.  A blast from the past!

One more thing that is different is that house is a lot more peaceful.  I don't want anyone to get the false impression from my last post that we live in some happyland where all is loving and peaceful!  Luke and Caleb have always been my ones that butt heads the most, but it has really reached a breaking point the last several weeks.  I don't know if it's the heat, the lack of structure of the regular schoolyear, too many computer games, or what, but they have been at each other constantly.  There's pleny of blame to go around!  Both parties take offense too easily, poke at each other's known weak spots, are too interested in the other's business and not their own, and are just generally annoying to each other.  Add in Nathan's occasional irritable and tempermental teenage attitude, and you can get an idea of what it's been like around here lately! I am not sure exactly what I need to do differently, but I know heart attitudes need to change.  I have been praying that the Lord will speak to each of them during this week away at camp, in particular about their relationships with each other.  I have told them many times that they can only control their actions and their responses, and in fact they are accountable to God for those things.  I've been trying to think of some kind o project that Luke and Caleb would need to do together, but I've drawn a blank.  Anyone have any other ideas?  In general, though, people need to focus on honoring others, and that's just not been happening lately.

So that's where we're at right now.  I have a long list of things to (hopefully) do this week, and I am slowly making some progress.  It's cooler (and we have electricity--not taking that for granted!!), so that has made life a lot more pleasant! 

Walmart Kindness

Nathan and Luke had orthodontic appointments this afternoon, so we all went there, and then we all headed over to Walmart to get some last-minute needed items for AO/Camp Caleb, since Nathan, Luke, and Caleb all leave for their week of camp at WSS this weekend.  We were in line at a "20 items or less" checkout behind an older woman who kept looking back at us.  One time she even looked intently at our cart, and I thought she was counting to make sure we were under 20 items!  But as she was checking out, she turned back to me, handed me a $20 bill and told me to go buy the kids a treat at McDonalds (there's one right past the checkout in our Walmart), since they were all so well-behaved!  That was an unexpected surprise!

I was tempted to just go on home, LOL, since I really didn't want to deal with waiting in line at McDonalds, but I decided to stop anyway.  Hey--a special memory!  We never do stuff like that!  So I stopped the cart right outside, told everyone to wait there, and I stood in line for awhile.  I got 7 ice cream cones, a dollar fry thing for milk-allergic Micah, and a chocolate milkshake for me (and the baby, of course, LOL).  This took forever, but everyone was patient.  When I finally got the last ice cream cone out to the last person, a grandma who was there with her daughter and 2 granddaughters (twins!) came up to tell me how well-behaved the kids were!  She said they all listened so well, and that no one started eating their cones until all the kids had gotten theirs.  That was not actually my instruction, as I am not a fan of ice cream dripping all over, LOL, but hey, that is polite.   Then the daughter started talking, and she said she had 5 kids (the twins were the youngest), and she always had so many stares, etc. when she had everyone with her at stores.  I told her that the only reason we were even at McDonalds was because of a kind lady who had given us money for a treat, and she was astounded!  I think it encouraged her--I know it encouraged me!  I have to remember all these little things, so I can do them when I am a grandma, out shopping all by myself, and I see moms with big families!

Long, Hot Weekend

So Friday night I was on the computer, looking through a zillion pictures of a zillion kids wearing uniforms on the VA CAP encampment website.  I found one lone picture where I could identify Nathan, posted it on Facebook, and read some updates.  A friend of mine from church posted that her husband was laughing at her for taking all the plants off the deck, and she also posted a weather map picture of a line of storms heading our way.  I vaguely remembered Tim P. saying something about severe thunderstorms at Bible study, and Bob had indeed gone out on the deck and closed our patio umbrella when we got home.

Then the storm struck.  It was a doozy!  Wind, lightening, rain.  Bob went out again to take down our tomato plants, and in the moment he was outside, he got absolutely drenched.  And then the power went out, around 10:30 Friday night.  We had been at Bible study late, so the girls and Micah were all down, but none of the boys were.  They rustled up flashlights, and we headed off to bed. 

We've lived here for almost 8 years (seriously?!), and the longest the power has been out was about 4 hours.  I went to sleep annoyed that whenever the power kicked back on in the middle of the night, our crazy family room ceiling light and fan always turn on (with the fan on high), and so I would have to get up to turn them off.  No problems, however, because when we woke up Saturday morning, a bit sweaty, the power was still off.  Hmmmm.  Our phone/internet was also out, and even our cell phones didn't work at our house.

Bob went out to get bags of ice for our freezers and refrigerators.  We ate breakfast, I worked on some biology, we played a rousing game of Scrabble, we ate sandwiches for lunch, and the kids played outside in the sprinklers.  Our pool was closed, since a huge swath of area was without power.  We ran some errands and went out to Ci-Ci's pizza for dinner, fully expecting the power would be back on when we got home.

But it wasn't.  The C's had moved over to her dad's house, freeing up the basement for us to sleep in, which was good since the temperature up on the second floor was 90 degrees, LOL.  We moved pillows downstairs and set up camp down in the basement--the 4 boys in one room, and the 3 girls and Bob and me in the other.  I read books outloud by flashlight for awhile, and then we settled in for a second night of restless sleep, punctuated by all the noise of 9 family members with no other sounds to mask it. 

Sunday morning we again woke up to no power, but since power had been restored Saturday night at 5:00 to our church building, at least we could escape there for a few hours.  It was still a little warm in the building, though, and I found myself dozing off several times.  Lots of other church members were also still without power, and I felt really sorry for the people out west on wells--no electricity AND no water!  We could certainly be worse off! 

We went to Taco Bell for lunch, and then home so tired, crabby Micah could attempt to take a nap.  He actually slept a good long time in the basement, while everyone else played games and legos.  We were delighted to discover that our cell phones once again worked at our house, so we didn't feel so cut off from the entire world anymore, LOL.  Bob went out and got some more bags of ice to replenish our freezers and fridges.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how cold things still were.  The ice cream in the (big) freezer was melted, but the meat was still frozen solid.  Saturday morning we took out 7 loaves of bread to make room for 2 big bags of ice in the freezer, and that seemed to do the trick in there.  Stuff in the fridge stayed cold enough too.  It may spoil a little faster, but we were still able to have milk for cereal, and lunch meat for sandwiches.

We left around 6:00 to go pick up Nathan, who had taken the CAP van back from encampment.  It turned out they didn't get in until 7:00, as opposed to 6:30, so we ran over to Walmart and bought 2 more big flashlights.  It was so good to see Nathan again, but he has the cold I've been struggling with, as well as a very hoarse voice from all the sounding off.  Then we headed off to Golden Corral for a late dinner.  While we were driving, Christine called to say their power came on around 5:00!  This was very encouraging, although Bob cautioned us not to get our hopes up, LOL. 

After dinner, we were again encouraged because a few more stoplights were working on the main road near our house.  But as we drove north, we noticed big dark tracts of houses, which was not encouraging.  And indeed, when we turned onto our street, everything was still pitch black.  Sigh.  At this point, we were all tired, crabby, and sick of the heat.  It was 92 degrees on the top floor, 85 degrees on the main floor, and in the high 70s in the basement.  We trooped downstairs, at least having our 2 new flashlights as well as all the little ones, and prepared for a 3rd night without air conditioning.  Poor Nathan--home from encampment, but camping out in the basement!

It was really hard to sleep last night.  It was just muggy, and I so wished for some moving air!  We all restlessly slept, and at 2:30, one of the girls got up to go to the bathroom.  As I laid there, awake, I heard something outside the basement window.  Could it be?!  I woke Bob up to tell him I thought the air conditioner compresser was running, a sound more beautiful to my ears than anything else could possibly have been!  He ran upstairs to shut windows, and I ran upstairs to grab a fan.  Ahhhh . . . cool air blowing over me . . . heaven! 

So from our clocks, it looks like the power was finally restored around 2:20 a.m.  I tell you, we have never been more grateful for electricity, or more thankful for the line workers out there working around the clock to restore power!  We are taking it easy today, trying to get the house cleaned up and organized.  I think we are all looking forward to a good, cool night's sleep in our own beds.  Bedtime can't come fast enough!  Maybe a nap will be in order this afternoon, even for me.

18 Week Update

So I was 18 weeks along on Wednesday, if anyone is keeping track.  I've had this cold since Friday night which I am valiently trying to overcome, with limited success.  I'm sure my lack of success has been in part to staying up too late several night in a row trying to find all the news I can on the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs.  We were stationed in the Springs for 5 1/2 years, and that is where both Nathan and Luke were born.  My grandparents retired there, so even while I was growing up, we would visit there.  It is definitely a city near and dear to my heart, so it has just been so hard to watch it burn.

Several years ago (6 or so maybe?) there was a big wildfire around Deckers, CO, and a ton of NFS land was burned, including a bunch of campgrounds that we used to camp at with the L's back in the day.  I remember reading that it would take like 200 years for the area to look like it used to.  That was hard enough to imagine, with places we saw not so regularly.  This fire is affecting stuff we looked at every day out our back windows, and so many people have been so affected that it is just hard to fathom.  I mean, the Flying W Ranch gone?!  Unbelieveable.

But let's see, this was not a post about Colorado . . . it was a post about this pregnancy.  I never did hear anything back from the doctors, and it's been over a week now, so I am assuming I passed my 1 hour glucose test.  That's not a huge shock--I've never failed one at 16 weeks before--it's always the 28 week one that gets me.  With that in mind, I decided to start tracking my blood sugar numbers.  I dug my old testing kit that I used when I was pregnant with Faith out of the closet, and a friend from Bible study loaned me her poker-thing, since mine wasn't working (but in a miraculous event, mine decided to start working again!).  The only fly in this grand plan is that all my testing strips are from early 2009.  After getting ridiculous readings from the opened bottle of test strips, I threw those away and opened a new bottle (with an expiration date of Dec. 09, LOL).  I'm still getting odd readings, though, so I'm not trusting these either.  I think if I was seriously having problems then my 1 hour test would have caught it.  I don't want to obsess, and I'm not really worried now, but as I get farther along I would like to be able to monitor this accurately.  More likely, though, I'll just fail my 1 hour and 3 hour tests at 28 weeks, and then I will be gifted a brand new set of testing stuff and a new prescription for testing strips!  Whee and yippee!

It's a . . .

I had my ultrasound this morning!  It was really different from the last 2 I've had at Bethesda.  With Faith, we were down in the bowels of the basement, and by the time I was pregnant with Micah, the radiology department had moved up to the main floor.  But with both of these ultrasounds, they were done in the radiology department, which does all the ultrasounds on everyone for everything, not just OB ones.  So they had rules--the first part of the ultrasound, your (one) support person couldn't be watching, so Bob had to wait in the waiting room until he was called back.  Meanwhile the ultrasound was conducted in perfect silence (I usually dozed off), until all the images were captured.  Then Bob would come back, we both would get a quick run-down ("Here's the face . . . heart . . . hands . . . it's a boy, etc."). 

BUT now Bethesda has a nice "prenatal assessment clinic" where they do the OB ultrasounds, along with other prenatal testing, and the experience was totally different--more like my civilian ultrasounds.  Bob was there the whole time, the lady chattered through it, telling us what she was looking for, measuring, etc.  Much nicer!  So the baby looks perfectly healthy and is measuring just right (17 w, 3 d, and I am technically 17 w, 5 d), and the baby was not shy about sharing that he is another boy!  I knew it!  With my boy pregnancies, I don't even feel pregnant in the beginning--no nausea or anything--and that's how this one was!  So yay--Micah will have a buddy and a roommate, and I won't have to worry about always have to set up playdates for Micah, since he won't be the lone boy hanging out in the middle of a bunch of girls!

The only potential issue is that my placenta is low right now, over the cervix.  Hopefully it will move up though as I get bigger.  I don't usually have ultrasounds this early, so that's probably the problem, but I have to go back at 32 weeks for another one to make sure the placenta is out of the way.

While I was waiting to start the ultrasound, I was contemplating how much more pleasant ultrasounds are now.  No one ever talks about this, but they used to be very painful.  Ask someone who has high school age kids!  They used to tell you to drink an enormous amount of water--64 oz.?--and you had to finish 1 hour before your ultrasound started.  And then--you weren't. allowed. to. pee.  At all!  They wanted you to have the all-important "full bladder" so they could get a good picture.  Oh my goodness.  The pain!  The incredible discomfort!!  So you had to wait for an hour while your bladder filled up like a balloon, and then you had to lie on your back while the technician pushed around on your super-full bladder with her ultrasound wand!  I would about be in tears.  By the time I was having Caleb and Jonathan, I just didn't drink as much water, and I would pee a little bit right before so I wasn't in excruciating pain, but for Nathan especially, I followed the directions to. the. LETTER, and it was so awful!  Now they don't say a thing about having a full bladder or drinking insane amounts of water and then waiting an hour without peeing.  I just want all you newer moms to know how incredibly fortunate you are that you will only know ultrasounds as fun times, and not as mini torture sessions!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Wow--Nathan turned 15 today, although he is not even around to celebrate!  I dropped him off at 7:30 yesterday morning to ride down with the other cadets in his squadron to the VA CAP encampment, south of Richmond.  To say he was excited about going is an understatement.  He was mainly nervous about the packing--forgetting something--as opposed to what they'll actually be doing.  He is feeling pretty confidant about all the physical stuff, as well as the drill/marching stuff.  I can't wait to hear his stories when he comes back!  Bob said there is no air conditioning where they are, so I hope he is able to sleep, LOL.  The cadets are all going to be given their own camelbacks, so that should help them stay hydrated.  He'll come back next Sunday.

Tuesday night we all went to an awards banquet at the squadron (Anna's take on the evening:  too long, and she didn't get enough dessert), and Nathan was promoted to cadet staff sergeant.  This was a bigger promotion than his previous ones, as he had to pass some special tests.  He is really enjoying CAP.

What a change from 15 years ago, when I was in my (shared) room at the Air Force Academy hospital, wondering how I could ever possibly take are of this new baby I had just delivered!  Bob couldn't even stay with me, so I felt very alone (although I could not just dwell on my thoughts in solitude and silence because my roommate, who had just had her 3rd baby, told me she didn't sleep well in hospitals, so she just kept the TV on all night.  Okay . . .)  We are looking forward to seeing what the Lord has planned for Nathan's life!  He is such a blessing to our family!

Other Random Happenings

And in other news:

--Bob fixed our crazy cooktop last night!  We thought we would have to order a new one, and we actually did order an induction one, which was really on sale at Lowes.  At Bible study last Friday, however, Tim P. said he thought it was a switch, so when we got home, Bob googled our cooktop model number to find out parts numbers, and he found the squirrelly part online and ordered it.  He replaced it last night, using Luke's eagle eyes to make sure the numbers on the wires on the new part matched the ones on the old part (way at the top of a dark cabinet), and now we are back in business!  When we turn the burner off, it goes off!  The things you take for granted . . .  Siri and I have been creatively using crockpots (plural because we had to dig my old one out of retirement and use both to have enough to feed our combined crews!) and the electric skillet, as well as this single electric burner we've had for ages that has come in very handy.  But now we are very glad to have 4 burners to use once again!

--We got our Stanford test scores back online today!  This is a new thing, but it is so much quicker than just waiting for them to be mailed to us.  You will be pleased to know that everyone did fine, although I think Jonathan is a little over-confident of his math skills.  When we were working through his test review book, I noticed that he was loathe to actually write problems out on his scratch paper, preferring to just figure them out in his head.  Predictably, this strategy was not as successful as he might have thought, so I kept telling him he needed to write every problem down.  But I don't think he really did, LOL.  Oh well.

--Bob celebrated the Army's birthday at the Pentagon today.  They had a tank sculpture thing surrounded by 2600 Georgetown cupcakes frosted a camo color.  Expensive!   

--Jonathan has learned how to knit, thanks to Celia's patient teaching.  He's using 2 bamboo skewers as knitting needles.  Who knew he had such talents?!

--Micah no longer goes down stairs on his tummy.  Now he sits down and bumps down the stairs on his bottom, with his tummy sticking way out.  It's so cute!  We have Anna to thank for teaching him that. 

And now you are all caught up with our not-so-interesting lives!

16 Week Appointment

Today was my 16 week OB appointment.  Everything looks good--baby's heartrate is in the 150s, although s/he was moving around the whole time, so it was hard to get a consistent reading.  I have been feeling a lot of movement, so I wasn't too surprised the little one was all wiggly today.  I'm measuring right at 16 weeks, which is good, because I look like I could easily be 25 weeks at least, LOL.  My ultrasound is scheduled for Monday, June 25.

I did have to take the one hour glucose screening test, which I expected, so I brought plenty of reading material.  I'm almost done with a really fascinating book called The Disappearing Spoon:  And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements.  So interesting!  A very fun read!  My friend Rabia recommended it to me, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in chemistry, or just likes knowing cool facts about interesting people and things.  I am going to require the Rivendell boys to read it next summer before we do chemistry.  Actually, Nathan picked it up after I got it out of the library and read through it pretty quickly already, so even teenage boys find it interesting!

This was actually my second trip to Bethesda in 2 days.  I had to take Nathan in yesterday because he has a wart on his foot that we want off before he goes to CAP encampment.  While we were there yesterday, I noticed a big posterboard sign talking about a "code white" exercise that would be taking place . . . today.  Ack!  The sign said that no one would be permitted to move around the hospital while the exercise was going on, and patients would be taken to a safe place.  Great!  Since I knew I would most likely be there for awhile today, I was certain I would be caught up in the fun.  Instead, I think I barely missed all the excitement!  I was driving up to the gate to leave, and there were MPs all over the place.  One of them was by the active barrier thing, and as soon as I drove over it, he motioned for the car behind me to stop.  Then they put the barrier up, preventing cars from leaving or entering the base.  But I was out of there!  Woo-hoo!

Hershey Park!

Yesterday we spent the day at Hershey Park with Rivendell and a few other friends.  It was such a great day!  To start off, we left our house at 7:30 AM, a feat never to be repeated I am sure.  We got to the park right around 10:00, when it opened, and we got good parking spaces.  I was a bit worried about going through the gate to get in.  The website says "No outside food" several times, but hey--I'm pregnant, Micah's 1--we need our snacks, LOL.  We had all eaten some jerky and cheese sticks on our way in from the parking lot, but I had some more jerky plus some graham crackers and fruity snacks for Micah in the diaper bag.  Well, I shouldn't have worried.  The guards just gave the opened diaper bag a perfunctory glance and didn't even root around in it at all.  So I guess they weren't really all that concerned about graham crackers.

Once inside, we split into groups, although we hadn't met up with everyone yet.  But eventually we all met up (there were 32 of us plus Micah), and we split into 3 groups. 

There was the older group who rode all the big roller coasters.  They got to ride all of them, and the lines weren't very bad at all.  The longest line was about 15 minutes.  We hardly even saw this group at all, although they did deign to meet us so we could all go back to the parking lot for our late picnic lunch, since they were all "starving" by that point.  We had parked by a line of trees, so we just had our picnic there, which worked out really well.  I never could figure out where the "picnic area" the Hershey Park website talks about even is!

The middle group didn't ride as many roller coasters but did most of the other rides.  I thought Hershey Park had a really good selection of "medium" rides  Bob was with this group the most, along with 2 of the other dads, so they had a lot of adult coverage.

And then there was the "little kids + moms" group, which included 6 kids who actually rode the kiddie rides, as well as Micah, who rode the carousel and the "pony cart" ride, but was not a fan of either.  Marie was a part of this group too, but she rode the stroller most of the day.  There are a ton of kiddie rides all throughout the park, and the little kids had a grand time on them, especially since there were no lines!  We moms had a really nice time visiting.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous--low 70s, not humid, with scattered clouds--so we were not uncomfortable, and a lot of the benches by the kiddie rides were in the shade.  I can't imagine a more pleasant day, weather-wise, which was such a blessing from the Lord!

So all the groups had a wonderful time, and we didn't end up actually leaving until around 7:30, meaning we got home after 10:00.  Everyone was exhausted, and it's taken most of today to recover, LOL.  This was the last official thing of the school year that I was in charge of, so I am now feeling a great sense of relief!  No more responsibilities!  Well . . . not entirely, LOL.

The only fly in the ointment was Jonathan, who was sporting an angry poison ivy rash on the right side of his face.

He apparently got it on Sunday.  He was picking up sticks in the backyard after dinner, while everyone else were all preparing for a campfire.  I didn't notice any sort of rash until Monday morning though, when he came down to breakfast.  By Wednesday it had spread and looked like this picture.  I've been giving him Benedryl and putting hydrocortizone cream on it, but it's still itchy and red.  He was worried his face would scare the ride attendants, but that didn't seem to be the case, LOL.  Hopefully it will go away soon!

A Bit of Afternoon Excitement

Siri was cooking soup for dinner this afternoon.  (We've been alternating who cooks dinner each night, and it has been WONDERFUL!!)  It was almost ready, and she ran downstairs to do something.  She was only gone for a minute, but when she got back up, the soup was burning on the bottom!  "Weird", we both thought.  She rushed to get it poured into another pot, but then she noticed that the burner wasn't off.  Except it WAS off.  The burner kept cycling from very, very hot (glowing deep red) down to like a simmer every several seconds, and nothing we did to the switch made any difference whatsoever! 

This actually happened to me a few weeks ago, but Luke came over and fiddled with the knob, which made the burner turn off, so I completely forgot about it.  I don't think I ever even mentioned it to Bob.  It just made me look like I don't know how to work my own cooktop, LOL.

But this time nothing at all worked, and the burner was pumping out incredible amounts of heat while cycling on.  I called Bob, who was on his way home, and he said just to flip the circuit breaker off.  Fortunately it didn't take too many tries to figure out the right switch, and our crazy burner finally had to admit at least a temporary defeat.  But with tonight being CAP and Bob's Bible study, he's not going to get a chance to look at it anytime soon.  I hope it's an easy fix . . . we got this cooktop (a Frigidaire ceramic cooktop, for those taking notes on which cooktops to avoid, LOL) almost 4 years ago, so way too soon to think about replacing it.

I'm beginning to feel like all our appliances are revolting, to be honest!  I just posted on Facebook about how all our refrigerator shelves and drawers are breaking--well, not the shelves themselves, which are glass, but all the cheap plastic parts that hold them in.  They clearly are not made for the amount of food and big containers we put on them (although the 25 year old Montgomery Ward fridge I got from my Nana and Papa, which is out in the garage and has metal connecting pieces, is still going strong, no matter how many gallons of milk/giant watermelons/brining turkeys in huge pots, etc we put on those shelves . . .).

And our fridge down in the basement (another one from my Nana and Papa, one with the freezer on the bottom and the fridge on top) is slowly giving up the ghost as well.  I had the best of intentions of running down there with a thermometer and testing it before Siri came, but I never did--until her gallon of milk spoiled after only about 2 days.  Then I realized that the top fridge part was actually a balmy 52 degrees.  The freezer, which we knew was not actually "freezing" things, was about 34 degrees, so she started using that as a fridge.  But now random things ARE freezing down there.  I'm telling you--it's an appliance plot!  Hopefully the ovens and the dishwasher are still on our side.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan turned 9 on Saturday, and in a rare occurance, we actually celebrated his birthday on Saturday!  He requested ribs for his birthday dinner, and we also had corn on the cob and some steamed vegetables.  The C's are here staying with us, so adding 6 more people definitely makes every day a fun party day, even when it is not anyone's birthday!
For his cake, Jonathan wanted an eagle, like the one he drew in his art class (which he is holding).  I had some troubles with the proportions of the head and the beak. In fact, I had to perform some "rhinoplasty" and cut out a hunk of beak after I had frosted the whole thing because it was just too big.  But it tasted good, and now it's almost gone!

Jonathan had an art birthday too--he got some watercolor pencils and a sketch pad from the C's, as well as a drawing DVD and kit from Grandma and Grandpa G.  Then he also got a headlight that is white light and red light with the money from Grandma and Grandpa B., which he has been asking and asking for--he wants to be ready for Camp Caleb next month at White Sulphur Springs!  He also got a Lego set.

So all in all, a very fun birthday, and Jonathan is looking forward to drawing many more pictures! 

Biology Conundrum

I've been doing a lot of planning for this coming year's biology class, especially in the lab department, since I'll have to make a big order, plus tell Siri what she'll need to get over in Hawaii.  Also, I'm going to start teaching biology in August, so I can take the whole month of December off between Thanksgiving and New Year when I have the baby, so that's another reason to get a jump on the class.  It's such a relief to have already taught the junior high life science class, and to know exactly what I need to order!

So for the labs--I have 3 different options to choose from.  We're using the BJU biology book for our main text, and I aleady have the teacher manual, pus the lab teacher manual, for that.  Unfortunately, many of the labs are fairly similar to ones we did in life science, and they just didn't seem that exciting to me.  So on to option number 2.  We are going to use the DIVE biology cd to help me with the lecture load this year, so the kids will watch the appropriate lectures, and we will meet on Tuesday at our regular Rivendell for the lab, and then we'll meet again on Thursday for a little while so I can discuss things in more depth with them.  We are definitely planning on having them take the SAT II biology test, but depending on how I think things are going, probably they will also go ahead and take the AP exam.  So having another session each wekk will help me better prepare them for those exams.  The only tricky part is that the AP bio exam is being reworked for this year, so there aren't any old exams to use for practice.  Test prep books for the 2013 exam are being published in September, so at least we'll have that.

Anyway--the DIVE cd has labs on it that the kid can watch, complete with data, and they can fill in the lab reports in the workbook.  Some of the labs even fulfill AP lab requirements! But that's not really *doing* a lab, and doesn't give any good hands-on lab experience.  I was thrilled, however, when I realized that Home Training Tools has a lab kit specifically for DIVE biology!  And I was less-than-thrilled when I realized that it only includes for materials for about half the labs, and some of those are just the dissections.  Also, there is not a real lab "manual" with DIVE.  It lists materials, has places to write data, and asks good questions to help formulate conclusions, but there are not written-out procedures.  You are supposed to watch the lab on the cd and then do it yourself.  That would be really hard, especially with the added complication of skyping.  I would have had to watch all the labs and then manually type up procedures, and that just seemed like a tremendous added hassle.  So the DIVE labs weren't a good alternative, although I probably will have the boys watch the AP ones, just to gain the added knowledge.

That leaves a book I discovered through the Well-Trained Mind high school forum.  It's called the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments, by Robert Bruce Thompson.  This book was just published in late April, but the author also has a book for chemistry (with almost the same title) that has gotten rave reviews, so I was pretty confidant this book would be exactly what I was looking for.  And it is!  The website even has a page which matches up the labs to the BJU chapters!  They sell a lab kit to go along with the book ($170), but we are not going to be doing all the labs, plus we already have a lot of glassware, goggles, etc.  I've gone through and made a list of what we need, and I've found those items on various scientific supply websites.  The labs all have clear, explicit instructions, and they look so interesting!    The author has a big emphasis on building stuff yourself, really DIY lab science, so that should be fun.  Definitely different from the BJU labs!  I'm excited about them, and I think the boys will enjoy them too.

We have our first Rivendell planning meeting soon.  Should be a fun, challenging year, as usual!

Anna and Grace

 Anna got glasses!  At her 6 year old physical, she didn't do so well on her vision screening, so I had to take her in to get her eyes checked at the eye doctor's office.  Nathan was also due for a check, so I took them both last Friday.  Nathan's eyes got worse this year, so he got new glasses as well (no pictures though--sorry!).  Anna had tons of problems, especially with her right eye.  The doctor ended up having to dilate her eyes because Anna was "overfocusing".  It turns out Anna is far-sighted, with a really weak right eye, so we're patching her left eye for 45 minutes a day, and she has these nifty pink bifocal glasses!  This picture was right after she got them, so she still looks kind of uncomfortable in them, but she's been doing well with wearing them.  She looks like a little librarian!  So cute!

And here is Grace, showing off the gap where her 2 bottom front teeth used to be! 

Testing Is Over!!

We finished up our 3 days of Stanford Achievement testing!  This was my first year to be in charge of the whole thing, so to say I am relieved that it went off fairly smoothy is a huge understatement!  We had almost 50 kids test from 25 families.  I was constantly worried since putting the order together in late February/early March that I was dropping some ball or forgetting some major something, but praise the Lord, all the tests for everyone got here just fine!

This year we had a plethora of testers, I am very pleased to report.  Last year we did not.  Many grades had to be combined (which is a pain because they still have to break apart for the "listening" section), and I had to be a tester, even though I had just had Micah less than 6 weeks before.  This year I was a little bit passive-agressive when I sent out the first email about testing back in January--"AS ALWAYS, this testing can only take place by having parent volunteers to help administer the tests as well as other needs. Last year we were short and I had to be a tester, even though I had a 5 week old baby, as well as 3 other nursery-age children. If your excuse is not any better than mine would have been, please find a way to help, especially if you only have older children!"  It worked!  Lots of moms got qualified to be testers, which involves having a college degree, watching an extremely boring DVD, and filling out an online application.  As a result, I had separate testers for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grades.  Fifth and 6th grades had to be combined, and 9/10/11 are always combined, since they don't have any listening section.  Having so many testers was a huge blessing, and I am so thankful for each one of them!  There was also a different mom each day as a floater, and another one to be in the nursery.  LOL, if I wasn't in charge, we wouldn't even have needed the nursery--no tester had nursery-agde kids, but I have 4 that aren't old enough for testing!

Tuesday was the grueling marathon day.  That day was the last day for the high schoolers, and there was one high school boy who was soooooo slow.  The Stanford is not a timed test, so as long as a student is progressing, they can have as long as they need.  Well, everyone else in all the classes was finished around 12:00, but it took this boy until 2:20 to finish.  We were all so ready to go home!  He had taken a long time Monday too, finishing around 1:30, but I didn't need to collect his test booklet, so I was able to go home before that.  Tuesday I had to wait.  In hindsight (note to self for next year . . .) I totally should have ran my kids home as soon as they were all finished, since I knew this boy was going to take longer.  Poor Micah was in desperate need of a nap, and Faith was melting down as well, since we had been there since 8:40.  I just couldn't imagine that anyone would actually take more than 2 hours longer than everyone else on a test.  I can't imagine what he does for the actual SAT.  Nathan said he took 2 minutes on every question, even non-math ones.  There may be some special needs involved (no one ever said), but in that case, I think his mom should have paid to have a tester just come to his house.  That would have been so much less stressful for me and for the tester for his grade.  But he will not be testing next year, since he'll be finishing up high school, so it won't be an issue!

We also had the power go out in the church for about 30 minutes Tuesday, which was just another added bit of excitement.  Fortunately, all the rooms have windows, so the kids could keep on testing. Today, since Nathan was finished, he kept Micah at home with him, so Micah could have his morning nap.  He went down a little before 10:30 and slept until after 1:00, and then he went down again around 4:00.  He was a tired little boy!  That certainly made things easier for me!  The floater for today had a 4 year old girl, so I went ahead and brought Anna, Grace, and Faith so they could all play.  The 4 girls had an absolute ball!

I made a bunch of other notes to mention for next year too, such as "make sure to give me the email address you actually check, as opposed to the one you use when you sign up for stuff and don't want to read the junk emails that come as well".  There were a couple of instances where people were not getting my emails--one lady emailed me at 10:30 Sunday night to ask what time they needed to arrive, since she hadn't gotten any emails from me!--while in fact I actually sent out several informational emails *to the email addresses they provided to BJU Press when they ordered their tests*.  I don't have time to make sure those email addresses are not throwaway ones!  But overall things went really smoothly.  Now all I have to do is get over to the post office or UPS or someplace and send this enormous and heavy box on its merry way!  Then I can just anxiously await the testing results for my always-(over?)confidant kids, which is a normal part of each testing year for me, LOL.

Random Happenings

This is a catch-up post, since I keep meaning to blog about these things, but never do.  Here are some random things that have happened somewhat recently:

--Grace lost her first 2 teeth.  She lost the first one over the weekend while she was putting on her nightgown  The second one came out this morning.  They're both on the bottom, in the front, so now she has a nice gap for straws.

--Anna is riding without training wheels.  This actually happened quite awhile ago (March, maybe), as soon as we got the bikes out from the shed.  She was pretty much ready last summer, so she just needed a short sessions with Bob, and away she went, never looking back!

--Micah finally did teach himself to go backwards down steps, with a lot of encouragement from Luke.  So now it's nice that I don't have to worry about him at the top of stairs anymore!

--Nathan got awarded a full scholarship to Civil Air Patrol encampment!  He had to fill out an application and write an essay.  Christine Mc and Ed L wrote letters of recommendation for him that were absolutely wonderful--I'm sure they were what pushed him over the edge!

--I dropped my still-quite-new phone Friday night, and the upper left corner shattered.  No, we didn't buy insurance, and no, I obviously didn't have one of those hard nifty cover things for it.  Grrr.  I was getting out of the big van, and I pulled the diaper bag over my lap  The diaper bag turned over a bit, and the phone slid out and fell onto the road.  The big van is high up!  I'm praising the Lord that it still works.  Two months down in a 2 year contract--then I can go back to a regular phone.  The funny thing is, Nathan had just asked me that afternoon if I was liking the phone any more!  I'm really not.  I never use it for anything other than making calls, so it is a total waste that we are paying money for it to be a smartphone.  Now I have to nurse it along.  Oh well--like I said, at least it still makes calls!

Forced Rest

This week has been a busy one.  We had our last day of Rivendell on Tuesday, and I've been preparing for 3 days of standardized testing next week, which I am in charge of for our bigger co-op.  Wednesday morning we had a wonderful time with friends out west, then hurried back for 3 orthodontic appointments after lunch, followed by having company for dinner.  Thursday morning I watched the daughter of a friend (no extra work for me though--the 4 girls had such a grand time playing together!), then had my weekly one-on-one Bible study with Kimberly.  I rushed home from that and took Jessica L back home (she comes Thursday afternoons to help Anna and Grace with their reading) and dropped Nathan off to mow.  Bob was out of town too.

So Friday I awoke with many plans involving organizing and moving a ton of pictures and scrapbooking stuff from a room in our basement.  Instead, my intestines did not cooperate.  I got absolutely nothing done, not even eating breakfast.  Eventually I got tired of spending all my time in the bathroom, so as soon as Micah went down for his morning nap at 10:15, I went back to bed too.  Fortunately I was able to sleep a few hours, and I did feel better when I woke up, although still not hungry at all.  I was able to take Anna and Nathan to their eye doctor appointments though--I was certain that would be possible in the morning! 

By yesterday evening I was feeling pretty normal, so I went to sleep planning on going to Jessica's graduation ceremony this morning.  But alas, when I woke up my tummy was still not feeling . . . settled . . . so I opted to stay home and lay low instead.  So many plans . . .  I guess this was the Lord's way of telling me I may possibly not be resting enough, LOL.  Once again, I felt much better in the afternoon.

I was able to sit and sort pictures in the basement though.  That was a fun trip down memory lane for me!  I saw a picture of Ed L's retirement, and Bob was holding Micah . . . except Micah wasn't born then, so it must have been Jonathan!  It was fun looking at random pictures that hadn't been filed from back in Colorado and Ohio.  The boys looked so young!  I was reminded of how much I really enjoyed scrapbooking, and how much I miss it.  That is one of my sacrifices for homeschooling through high school--I just don't have the time or mental energy to scrap right now.  Some year . . . maybe 18 years from now?!  Ha!  I'm hoping that in another couple of years Rivendell prep won't take so much time.  Then maybe I'll be able to have an actual hobby again!

So it was a restful day.  Hopefully this was what was needed.  I've got another busy week planned next week . . .

Happy Mother's Day!

We've been celebrating Mother's Day for several days around here!  I've gotten roses, some turtles (candies, of course, LOL), and a great amount of wonderful handmade cards over the past few days.  And this afternoon I got the best present of all--I got to take a nap!!

As I woke up, I was calculating that for 12 of the past 15 Mother's Days, I have either been pregnant or nursing.  (1998, 2000, and 2005 were my "off" years.)  Wow!  Happy Mother's Day to me!

One Mother's Day several years ago, we visited my friend Julie and husband Tim at their small church in PA.  They gave away a small book for all the moms called Life's Little Tribute Book For Mothers.  It has a lot of quotes about motherhood, from famous people, from not-famous-at-all moms, and from kids of all ages about moms.  Here are a few of my favorites:

--Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it starts snowing.       Phyllis Diller

--Stories first heard at a mother's knee are never wholly forgotten--a little spring that never quite dries up in our journey through scorching years.     Giovanni Ruffini

--Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of children.    William Makepeace Thackery

--No one will ever engrave "She kept a tidy house" on a mother's tombstone.    Susan Causdale

--Every mother is like Moses.  She does not enter the promised land.  She prepares a world she will never see.        Pope John Paul VI

--Men are what their mothers made them.    Ralph Waldo Emerson

--Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.      Lin Yutang

--A rich child often sits in a poor mother's lap.     Danish proverb

--A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, and his mother the longest.     Irish proverb

--The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed.    Rosemary Coleton

--I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty, but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.    Rose Kennedy

Happy Mother's Day to all my mommy friends, and especially to my own mom, who is the best example of a Godly mom I could have ever had!  I love you!

Commissary Bargain

Caleb and I made a huge trip to the commissary yesterday.  In March, Luke and I went, so it's been awhile.  The big bargain we found--this huge, 40 pound box of bananas for $2.00.  That's a lot of bananas for $2.00!  We do go through a lot of bananas, but probably not 40 pounds of them, so now I'm wondering about the best way to freeze them.  Should I peel them, lay them on a cookie sheet, freeze them, and put them in a ziploc bag?  We'll definitely use them for smoothies.  And I'll keep some out to get really ripe for muffins, banana bread, and frosted banana cookies (Caleb's favorite!).  No matter what, how can you go wrong for $2.00?!

Extra Appointment

This morning I had the appointment with the doctor that the lady I saw last week insisted upon.  It turns out the lady was a nurse practitioner, not a midwife.  Anyway, the doctor walked into the room and said, "I've reviewed your chart, and well . . . I just wish the NP had come and asked one of us last week while you were here, instead of making you come all the way in for an appointment."  Yessss . . . my thoughts, exactly!!  There is no reason for me to have any increased risk of a clot during this pregnancy due to my arm blood clot back in 1993, and absolutely no reason for me to take any blood thinners.  As I thought.

So then I asked him about the whole "prolapse" thing the lady talked about when she couldn't find my cervix.  "Umm . . . you can't have a prolapse because you're pregnant--your cervix is closed," he said.  "And after a pregnancy, your uterus can settle back down any way and it's fine.  So I would just disregard all of that."  Okay!  Done!  And I am more settled in my decision to not ever see that particular NP again,, LOL.

The doctor did say that I am fine to see midwives and NPs though--I don't have to just see doctors.  Yay!  He listened for the heartbeat with the doppler but couldn't find it, so he wheeled in the little portable ultrasound machine to check it that way.  So I got to see the little munchkin wriggling around again, happy as can be, with the heart beating away!  Everything looks good, and I don't have to go back for 5 weeks.  At that point I'll have to take a 1 hour glucose tolerance test.  Time for me to make exercise a priority again, now that Rivendell is practically over.

Cake Pops!

Tonight we celebrated Grace, Bob, and Amy P.'s birthdays at Bible study!  I brought rice krispie treats, chips and dip, and Hello Kitty cakepops.

I had seen someone link to these absolutely adorable Hello Kitty cakepops on the Bakerella website a while ago.  I convinced Grace to want these for her birthday because they looked pretty easy and were so cute.


Well--they weren't actually all that easy.  I realized that Bakerella must have dipped hers 2 times, but I didn't have time for that, what with all the appointments at Bethesda this week.  I also didn't flatten the balls enough.  I did use vanilla pudding instead of frosting to mix the cake pops with, and that was a vast improvement--not so sickly sweet. 

I ran over to Michaels Wednesday night to grab whatever I could find.  I was hoping for an "edible ink pen", since that is what the recipe recommended, but no luck.  So I picked up these little tubes of frosting that were for writing--practically the same thing, right?!  Well, not exactly.  I had so much trouble with them!  The red and yellow tubes were made by Wilton, and they were soooo runny.  So a good deal of the kitties look like they have chicken beaks for noses, and the red glob of frosting connected the 2 halves of the bow ran down onto the faces.  Bakerella used yellow mini chips for noses and red mini m&ms for the bow part, but I didn't have those either, and I thought frosting would be easier.  Ha!  The black tube was by the Charm City Cakes guy, and it had the opposite problem--it was so thick, I had to keep running it under hot water to be able to squeeze it out, so the whiskers ended up being quite thick!  When Grace first saw the cake pops with the faces drawn on, she said, all excitedly, "Hello Kitty . . . indians!"  It was funny.  Next time this inspiration hits, I'm definitely ordering an edible ink pen from Amazon, LOL.  The girls had a great time helping me, especially with the bows.  Poor Hello Kitty--I had to later reposition several of the bows because they were smack dab in the middle of her face!

They look okay from a distance, but in actuality, every single one of them had some glaring problem.  Not my best work!  But they were tasty, and everyone enjoyed them!

Shots, Shots, Scary Shots

Today's trip to Bethesda involved Anna (6 year check-up)and Micah (12 month well-baby).  The actual appointment went really well.  The doctor was SO nice.  I really liked her!  Anna was not very talkative because she was worried about the prospect of shots, and the doctor confirmed that she did indeed need some, since she hadn't had an appointment since 2009.  Whoops!  It seems like I take people in all the time, but I guess she slipped through the cracks.  Anna is perfectly healthy and continuing along a little below the 25th percentile for both height and weight, so she is pretty average for our kids.  I was really worried and almost canceled the appointment because Anna is learning to roller skate, and this weekend she took a nasty spill on her poor little tushy (better there than on the wrists, Bob always tells the kids!).  There's a lovely bruise there now, and I was so worried we would get a mean doctor who would assume some sort of terrible thing.  But praise the Lord, this doctor was so nice and never even saw the bruise!  Anna als got vision-tested, and it turns out her vision is 20/40.  So it appears she is taking after her big brother Nathan, and now I need to get her an appointment with an optimitist.  If she gets glasses, I hope she will look as cute in them as her cousin Emily, who just got a new pair not too long ago!

Micah also is perfectly heathy.  He was so happy in there, toddling around and making all sorts of happy noise while the doctor examined Anna!  He is 23 pounds, 5 ounces, and almost 31 inches long, so he is closer to the 50th percentile in both weight and height--a definite outlier for our babies!  I told the doctor that he is reacting to milk with hives, so I have been avoiding it for several months now (actually avoiding it in foods--he's never just drunk cow's milk).  She offered to give me a consult to the allergy clinic, but I said I didn't think I needed one now--I already know how to read labels and how to substitute for milk, thanks to 9 years of doing that for Caleb!  If at 2 he is still allergic, then maybe I'll get the consult and see if he can be tested for other stuff as well.  It does not appear that he is allergic to peanuts, since he has gotten into peanut butter on the counter a few times with no ill effects.  I'm still giving him sunbutter, though.  He now is eating all table foods and loving everything, so he really came a long way in about 6 weeks!  It's so nice that he can just feed himself meals.  He definitely loves to eat!  Good thing he is so active.  If only I could get him to turn himself around and go down the stairs backwards!  He has no interest in that though--he would much rather just stand at the top of the stairs (or stool in the kitchen) and whine until someone takes pity on him and rescues him.  Fortunately there are always plenty of people around.

So as I said, the appointment part went great!  Then we headed over to the immunization clinic.  They are always slow as molasses over there, and since our appointments weren't until 11:00 and 11:30, I went ahead and packed us lunch.  We had a nice little picnic there, and eventually they called our name.  Even as we were walking towards to room where they give shots, Anna was already whimpering and carrying on.  I had to leave the stroller outside, so I was carrying Micah and holding Anna's hand back to the table.  After the usual verification stuff, the tech said he'd do Anna first, so she could get up on the table.  I lifted her up, and she immediately started loudly crying and thrashing around!  I couldn't even get her to stay on the table, especially since I was also carrying Micah.  So I set Micah down (who happily started to wander around all the other tables--I neglected to bring a big boy to help, a mistake I shall not make again!!).  A second tech had already come over to help with Anna, and now a third tech had to be called over to hold Micah.  Gah!  So Micah was out of the way, but Anna continued to wail loudly, kicking her legs and thrashing her arms.  I couldn't even get her pants down!  I. was. MORTIFIED!  NONE of the other kids have EVER acted like this before!  Caleb is a total wimp about things like shots and blood draws, and he moans and carries on, but NEVER like this!  I was leaning over her upper body, pinning her arms and chest down with my body, and staring intently at her, saying, "Yes, Mommy, I will be obedient and lay still . . . yes, Mommy, I will be obedient and lay still" in a very firm voice, not that she paid one ounce of attention.  Needless to say, after the ordeal was finally over, Anna did NOT get a lollipop or a sticker.  Micah, on the other hand, was a real trooper, hardly crying at all.  Good grief!

Even as we were walking through the hospital on our way to the parking garage, Anna kep on whimpering and moaning about how her legs still hurt.  I told her that if that was the worst pain she ever had to face, she could consider herself a very, very lucky girl.  This does not give me hope for grandkids from her, anyway, LOL.  Good thing I have plenty of other possibilities!  Of course, the really sad thing is that we were walking through Walter Reed National Military Medical Center--where our wounded warriors are sent to recuperate.  So all around us are young men with literally several limbs blown off each, struggling to move their own wheelchairs, or learning to walk on their protheses, etc.  It's always such a humbling thing to see, and it certainly puts any difficulty of mine into perspective.  Now if Anna could just see that  . . .

First OB Appointment

So this morning I had my first actual appointment.  Everything went fine.  I had a dating ultrasound, which confirmed my Nov. 28 due date.  The little teddy graham was wiggling all around, looking so cute! 

Then I saw a midwife for my actual appointment, and she was not someone I remember seeing during Micah's pregnancy.  She told me my last pap smear was done last May at my 6 week post-partum check, so she thought she'd go ahead and do one now.  Okay, that's fine--except she could not find my cervix!  Yeah, that was a little embarrassing, LOL.  She tried 3 different speculums before just reaching in and feeling around to locate the darn thing.  Then she could finally do the pap smear.  So!  Nice to know my parts are not all where they should be anymore!  She kept saying my uterus was "prolapsed", but that means it has fallen down into the birth canal, and that's not what has happened with me, so she's not using the right term.  Retroverted, maybe?  Anyway, it's from having lots of babies.  It's tipped toward the front, not back though.  Learn something new every day!  I'm having no discomfort whatsoever, or any symptoms at all, actually, so I guess she can call it whatever she wants.  She did say it would correct itself.

So then she started looking through all the records I meticulously filled out at my OB orientation.  There's a space for previous surgeries, so I always mention how my right first rib was removed in May 1995 because it was blocking my subclavian vein in my right arm, causing blood clots.  So she asked me about that, and then said she was writing down that I had a "propensity for blood clots".  Well . . . I did, but it was a physical cause, and since the rib has been gone, I haven't had any more problems.  Then she asked if I had taken Lovanox for any of my pregnancies.  I have not, but for my first 2 pregnancies, I was seen at the Air Force Academy hospital, which is pretty small, and they had me inject myself twice a day with heparin in my belly.  This was a total hassle, and by the end of those pregnancies, my poor tummy looked like Bob was regularly beating it with a baseball bat, with all the huge bruises, LOL. 

So imagine my delight when we moved to Ohio about the time I got pregnant with Caleb, and the high-risk OBs there at that big regional hospital told me it was absolutely unneccessary for me to take any bloodthinners during pregnancy!  Woo-hoo!  Maybe this is one reason we have so many kids--pregnancy just seems so easy when you don't have to inject yourself in the belly twice a day!

Anyhow, my next 6 pregnancies proceeded uneventfully, especially as far as blood clots go.  Even the paranoid civilian doctor I had for Grace, the one who wanted to induce me at least 2 weeks early because she was so certain I would hemorrhage simply because I was having my 6th baby, was not at all concerned about potential blood clots!

But this midwife was.  So now I have to go back to see a doctor next Thursday to make sure everything is okay.  Ummm . . . what would have changed since my last pregnancy, which ended just over 1 year ago?!  I kept saying stuff like, "Well, my last 2 pregnancies were here at Bethesda, and the doctors were never concerned", but she was firm about me seeing a doctor.  What's one more trip, I guess, although it seems like a total waste of time. 

I've already made a note of this lady's name though, and I won't be seeing her again!  Although she was perfectly nice, she definitely seems like the paranoid kind who likes to worry about non-issues, and I definitely don't need that in my life!   Hopefully the doctor I see will just let this go . . .

Happy Birthday, Grace!!

Grace turned 5 today!  I think she is glad she eventually did decide to come out 5 years ago!  I know I am, LOL.  Grace is such a sweetie.  We tease Luke by saying she is his "Mini-Me".  She is so much like he was at her age!  But we need another person who finds things and makes sure other people are where they are supposed to be around here . . .

Grace is reading now, and she also loves hidden picture-type books.  She loves dancing around and singing as well.  She's not as big into being outside as some of the others though--she would rather stay inside where it's quiet and do her own thing!

Today we had a busy day, but we did fit in some celebrating!  We had Rivendell at our house, since the elementary co-op finished up last week.  We made brownies with chocolate mint frosting to share with everyone (all were gobbled up!) at lunch.  Grace picked, of all things, hot dogs in crescent rolls for her birthday dinner, so I was actually able to make those in the short amount of time between the end of Rivendell and having to get Nathan off to CAP.  We even fit in present-opening during that time!  Grace got a big cardboard castle that you color from us.  I actually bought it at Christmas, knowing Grace would like it and realizing it would not be at Walmart when her birthday rolled around.  Good call for me!  She also got some books, some clothes, lots of fun coloring/sticker/hidden picture books, and a $5 bill from one of her aunts and uncles, which was a source of huge excitement, LOL.   And right after Rivendell was over, while Christine and I were sitting outside watching the little ones play, our Rainbow Resource order arrived, containing, among other things, new phonics, handwriting, and math books for Grace!  This may not seem that exciting, but trust me--it is VERY exciting for 5 year old girls!

We're going to make cake pops to take to Bible study on Friday night, so we'll keep on celebrating until then!