A Mother's Day Questionnaire

Someone on the Well-Trained Mind board posted this questionnaire that their preschooler had brought home. I asked these questions to Caleb and Jonathan, although sometimes only one answered, and sometimes they both said the same thing.

1. What is your mom's favorite song? J--the pilates song

2. How old is your mom? J- 10 C- 46

3. What is your mom's favorite food? J- the stuff we had for dinner [broccoli chicken casserole] C- cake

4. What does your daddy call your mom? J- Baby C- Claire

5. What does your mom call your dad? J- Bob

6. What is your mom's favorite color? J- blue

7. Why does your mommy love you so much? J- ‘cause God told her to C- because I came out of her tummy

8. What is your favorite thing to do with your mom? J- huggle-snuggle and kiss her

9. What makes your mom so pretty? J- pretty clothes C- pretty hair

10. How does your mommy make you feel better when you are sick? C & J-- she gives you medicine

11. What TV show does your mom like best? J- pilates

12. When are you the most proud of your mom? J & C-- now

13. What does your mom do best? J- not be fat C- help us

14. Where does your mom work? C & J- At home

15. How do you show your mom that you love her? C & J- Hug and kiss her

This made me laugh. Jonathan is obviously on a fitness kick--"the pilates song"--LOL!! I need to do a better job of communicating my food loves ("chocolate") because cake certainly isn't it, and neither is broccoli chicken casserole! And for the record, Bob has NEVER called me "Baby". LOL!! I don't know where Jonathan got that!

All Hail the Conquering Hero!!!

In this case, my brother Dan, who came up with an incredibly easy solution for our crazy printer problems. We spent over an hour of frustrating time on the phone last Saturday trying a variety of different things, with no success. He had to dig deeper, so he emailed me a list of new things to try. Johanna also came up with a potential solution, but I decided to work down Dan's list first, since his items seemed less complicated and drastic. The second one worked. Here's the golden sequence:

1. Click on "tools", then "internet options"

2. Click the "advanced tab", and then click on "security"

3. Tick "let active content run on my computer"

4. Restart Windows

And it worked!! I was so incredibly excited. I printed off one of my new reservation confirmations, and it was so beautiful to see actual recognizable words there, and only one page, instead of 50 pages of gibberish! Wow! I am so thankful to have personal tech support like Dan (and Johanna!). I would have gone broke before someone at Microsoft would have hit on that, I'm sure. And since I didn't have to reset IE, all my cookies, etc. are still there. Yay! I'm big on no inconvenience, LOL. Thanks, Dan! You're the best brother ever!

Big Truck Day

The Department of Public Works for a nearby city opens some of their big equipment to the public each year. They display trucks and other earth-moving type vehicles in their parking lot, and kids can climb on them and get in the cabs, honk the horns, etc. Although it was rainy, it was still a lot of fun.


We went with the McC family, who also had one tag-along boy from our homeschool co-op (his mom was the head tester). So . . . 9 boys, 2 girls, and 2 moms. We were not the popular people to be behind in line.
Climbing all over a front loader.


Nine boys in the cab of a "leveler".


Nathan is on . . . something.


Luke and Jonathan on a bobcat.

Anna loved driving the street sweeper. She did not want a yellow plastic hard hat, however.


Gracie loved eating the free cookies they provided. She did not want to keep her hood on, even though it was raining.

Update on Jonathan

Yesterday Bob took Jonathan back to Bethesda to get his permanent cast. As you can see, he was able to get the camouflage wrap he was hoping for, and everyone who sees it agrees that it is indeed a very cool cast. And you can also see that his cast is not hindering his light-saber fighting techniques (whew!). The doctor said everything is healing fine, and he doesn't need to wear his sling as much. The doctor said the cast could come off in 3 weeks, which is when we'll be in Utah. He said we could try to get it off at the base there, but he "wouldn't get involved with someone else's work". So we might have to wait until we get home. The nice thing about getting it off would be that Jonathan could swim in the hotel pools on the way back. Bob might try to get the doctor to write a letter or something telling the docs at Hill what he did and that it should be okay to remove after May 27. We'll see.

Since this is an updating post, in other news, Bob's TDY did get cancelled today. I was disappointed, but it is certainly better to find out now than, say, the Monday we started driving. So now we're trying to rework how we'll get out to Utah, probably taking 4 days instead of 3. More reservations, which still can not be printed. Grrrrrr.

More Testing . . . Issues

So today should have been the last day of testing for everyone. It started off on the wrong foot back last week, actually, when the lady in charge of testing told us that another group had sort of bumped us out of the rooms that we were signed up to use at the church. Our co-op meets at this church on Tuesday through the year, and then the testing person reserves the facilities a year in advance for the 3 days of testing. Except this year some other group that has been around longer planned something for today, but didn't check to see if the rooms were already scheduled. When they found out they were, they basically went to the top of the chain of command, and Leisa, our testing lady, felt she had to give in. So we were all supposed to be at a different site today, the site that the high school co-op uses, but which we had never been to. But we found it with no problems, so everything was fine.

I dropped Nathan and Luke off at 9:15, and then the rest of us went to Target. As I walked in the door, my cell rang. It was the lady who was testing Luke. Somehow, his test booklet had fallen out of her folder or something--anyways, it wasn't there, and she lives the farthest away of anyone in TNT, so she couldn't go back home and look for it. So Luke wasn't testing, and could I come pick him up. And yes, he was upset.

Well, I felt so bad, but of course not as bad as she felt. She was so apologetic. Unfortunately, Luke is the worst one to have something like this happen. He doesn't do well with changes, he hates being singled out and embarrassed, and this pretty much hit both of those things full on. Nathan is much better at just rolling with the punches. So, umm, which one is like me? LOL

So we went back and picked him up, and he was indeed a silent puddle of tears. I told him how this was just a good opportunity to practice grace. People let us down all through life, either intentionally or unintentionally, as in this case, and we still have to respond with forgiveness and grace, even though it's hard. He said he was just ready to be done with testing, and he didn't WANT to go another day. Poor guy.

Assuming the lady can find the test booklet (pray pray pray), then he will go tomorrow to the house of the head tester to finish up. As it turns out, Caleb McC is doing an extra test, and Leisa is administering that tomorrow, so Luke will just join up with him. That made Luke feel a lot better, knowing one of his best friends would be there as well. In fact, Christine is going to pick Luke up and take him, so I don't have to rouse the girls early for another day in a row! After the testing is done for both boys, our 2 families are going to go to a "big truck day" in a local city, where all the big city equipment will be out for kids to explore. Should be fun!

Testing

Nathan and Luke have their standardized testing today, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I always get all nervous about it, but they are very blase about the whole thing. No test anxiety here, LOL.

After testing was over today, the kids were playing a ball game, and groups of moms and other kids were just standing around talking. A baby bird, I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow came out of the nest and was flying really low by the sidewalk where some little kids were playing. The bird was kind of fluttering and skipping around, obviously not too strong, and then one of the kids STARTED STEPPING ON IT AND SQUASHED IT! I was horrified and started yelling at him--"WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP THIS INSTANT NO NO NO!"-- since I seemed to be the only mom that had seen what had happened, although a lot of the older kids had seen. I was so shocked! A whole bunch of kids gathered around the poor bird, who fortunately died a quick death, and I got the mom's attention and told her what had happened. Of course, she was absolutely horrified and mortified, and she marched her son right out of there. This family goes to the church we used to go to, and I know they are not advocating random acts of senseless violence against baby animals at their house, LOL, so I know she was as shocked as I was, and I'm sure she and her husband will train their son (who is only 3, but is very big for his age) appropriately, but it was still so horrible!

My boys were just blown away and couldn't believe anyone wouldn't just love and protect a baby. I told them that to a 3-year-old, maybe he just thought it looked like a big bug or something, and we smoosh those. We left the church and went out to eat at Moe's with Daddy, but it still bothered especially Luke. He asked the other boys to stop talking about the baby bird, and even after we got home, he came to me and told me how he just couldn't stop thinking about it. He is definitely my most sensitive child. He was also the most deeply affected by Jonathan's broken arm. Sensitive, detailed--maybe he'll be a doctor! LOL At church, our pastor has just started going through the book of Luke, and as an intro to the first in the series, he talked about the characteristics of Luke as we get them from the Bible. Bob and I looked at each other and both thought, "We named Luke well", because he exhibits many of the characteristics Mike mentioned.

Anyhow, quite the ending for that first testing day. Hopefully tomorrow will be less traumatic.

Am I Losing My Mind?!!

So all of a sudden all these things are breaking or not working right--Jonathan's arm, the printers, our AC unit. Now we've started losing things. The first thing that has vanished was a Sports Illustrated For Kids magazine that Nathan got out of the library. We all remember it being on the couch, and now it's just gone. We have thoroughly searched the whole house to no avail. I think that it must have gotten gathered up with newspapers and recycled or something, because it simply is no where. Oh well. I guess we'll have to pay.

The next thing to disappear was Jonathan's sling. This has about driven me to the looney bin. Wednesday night, he took it off to put on his pajamas. I clearly remember it being on the kitchen floor by the island, and Grace playing with it. The next morning Joanthan went to put it on . . . and we can't find it anywhere. I have looked in all the drawers and cabinets, of course, thinking that a curious little girl might have hidden it somewhere. We've looked all over the rest of the house. It. Is. Not. There. I'm beginning to regret the fact that I'm not Irish, where at least I could blame the leprechauns or something. I literally can not think of another place to look. We've ALL looked. Believe me, we have spent many productive manhours serching for this sling. After all, he just had it on Wednesday--how far could it have gotten?! Grrrrr. Hopefully he's not doing any damage to his arm, as he waves it around in the air. He was doing so well with wearing it. I will confess that I did think that maybe he hid it, but he says he doesn't know where it is, and I really don't think he's lying. He's been concerned about the fact that we can't find it too, and he's really not the sneaky kind.

So . . . maybe I'm living in some sort of alternate crazy reality, where things walk off by themselves break randomly. That's what I'm hoping for anyways, LOL.

**Update** I came back downstairs after putting Anna down, and Caleb and Jonathan were tearing around down here. I told them to stop, since we didn't want Joanthan to hurt his arm, and we already lost his sling. Jonathan disappeared upstairs and came down a few miutes later with . . . his sling. Hmmm. I asked him where he had found it, and he showed me. It was between his dresser and his yaffa blocks, these cube-like stacking blocks that we keep some of their clothes in. It must have fallen there after he put the sling on his dresser Wednesday night (which I don't remember him doing, and he never mentioned while we were all looking yesterday). The timing is a bit . . . suspicious, shall we say. But I am very relieved to have found it. And he is wearing it again. Maybe the new rule is that it goes on MOM's dresser at night, LOL. I still FEEL crazy anyway.

Happy First Birthday, Grace!!!

Grace turned one today! Bob took the day off, so he got to spend lots of time with his little princess! We went to Chik-Fil-A for dinner, and we had cake when we got back home. You may notice there is no picture of the cake. That's because she got a big pink rectangle cake, LOL. I did write "Happy Birthday Grace and Daddy" on it, but that was about all the extra frills. I felt guilty about that for . . . a few minutes, but then I remembered that she would not remember this birthday, and I got over it. She didn't mind the lack of a uniquely shaped cake, and she thoroughly enjoyed what she got!

She's been taking more and more steps, which is so fun to watch. Her other big birthday accomplishment was climbing the stool in the kitchen for the first time. You can see how excited she was about that! Power to the little people!
Grace has been so much fun to have in our family. She was such a surprise, coming so close to Anna, but I can't imagine not having her now. She and Anna are already such good friends, and the boys just love her to pieces. She adds a lot of light to our lives!

Printer Frustration

We are having huge issues with our printers. Namely, they only print HTML code from the internet. Here's exactly what happened. We have 2 printers, both HP. One is an all-in-one printer/fax/copier, and the other is a laser jet. The laser one is the one we usually use, but it ran out of ink after we got back from Ohio. We switched over to the all-in-one as our default printer until we could get another cartridge, and when we tried to print our library list, it spewed out dozens of pages of HTML gibberish before I could cancel the printing. We tried printing other stuff off the internet, and it was the same.

We thought the problem would be solved when we went back to the laser printer, but after getting a new cartridge, now it prints the same way. I AM SO FRUSTRATED!!!!! I literally want to cry.

We need a new baby monitor, since one of ours has given up the ghost after having served faithfully for many years. I was so excited to get an email coupon from Babies R Us for 12% off of anything in the store today! I went to print it off, but of course it was nothing but junk. I can't even forward it anywhere else to get it printed off because when I clicked on it again, a message popped up saying you can only print off one coupon! Argh!

I guess downloading something like Firefox is the only option, but then I once again have to refigure out all my favorites and everything. I can not believe that this just happened out of the clear blue sky to us, and there seems to be no solution for it at all. We might as well just throw the 2 stupid printers away (and the computer too, for all I care at this point). I'm back to writing down all the important information, like from our hotel reservations, anywhere. Where's that old typewriter of ours, anyhow?

Huge Praise

I was able to make all the reservations needed for our trip today!! This is a big deal because it's really not that easy to make reservations anywhere near Yellowstone (and even not that close to it!) only a month before you want to be there. I was so incredibly discouraged this afternoon, and by the time Bob got home from work, I was thinking we'd have to call the whole thing off. But God somehow opened up a room at a Comfort Inn in West Yellowstone, right by the gate of the park, this evening (I mean that literally--the room wasn't there when I was looking this afternoon), so I booked it. And then I booked a room near Mt. Rushmore, and another one near Des Moines for the way back home (actually Bob booked that one over the phone, getting a better rate than the internet offered). This is all such a huge relief for me. Now I can start thinking about what I actually want to do in those places!

In a totally unrelated matter, I can now officially say that Grace has started walking! She took a few steps starting Friday, but yesterday before dinner she walked all the way from our kitchen table over to the refrigerator. If she wants to get somewhere fast, she still drops down and crawls, but more and more, walking is becoming her first choice until she falls on her bum. Then she continues on by crawling. I love watching new walkers--the stiff legs, the teetering gait, the moon steps. Grace has taken a page from Dumbo's book and is much more confident if she is holding something in her hands. So cute! If we had a digital video camera, I'd post a clip, but we don't, so you all will just have to use your imaginations . . .

Yay, Anna!

Anna wins the gold star of the day by pooping in her little potty! What excitement we have over here in our house! This is the first time for that particular accomplishment, so when I joyfully announced it, everyone had to come running from all other parts of the house to see the evidence of this great feat and praise Anna profusely. She is going to be in for a rude awakening several years down the road when she realizes that in the real world there is not a chorus of supportive boys around to cheer her every move, LOL.

Normally I would take this and run with it, but May is not going to be a normal month for us. We are gearing up for some serious driving, and we simply can not be tied to a 2 year old's erratic potty schedule.

Here is the (hopeful) schedule; you can then argue amongst yourselves as to whether or not we are crazy. Bob's niece is getting married on Sunday, May 18 at 3:00 in Richmond, VA. We will drive down there and back home on Sunday. Monday we will leave and drive to St. Louis (825 miles), and Tuesday we will drive another 825 miles to where Bob has a TDY scheduled for Wednesday (that's always subject to budget issues, so that's why that part of the plan is hopeful, not definite, LOL). Thursday we'll drive to Salt Lake City, where my cousin in getting married Sunday, May 25. Then we'll spend another week or so out there, visiting with family before heading back home by way of Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore. Like I said, serious daytime milage amounts (usually we only do a max of 700), so I don't want to have to make extra stops for tender toddler bladders.

If the TDY gets cancelled, then we'll take the drive out to Utah in 3 days. That would be more enjoyable, but with the TDY, the government will pay for gas up to the price of an airline ticket. That's a pretty significant help, with these gas prices! Plus, that would be 3 less days of leave Bob would have to take--2 travel days, and 1 actual day of TDY.

Right now I am trying to figure out the back half of the trip. We just got some Yellowstone books out of the library, and some of the Well-Trained Mind ladies gave me some great websites to look at as well. I'm going to be busy the next few days!

How To Spoil A Beautiful Piece of Music . . .

We drove down to meet Bob for lunch today, and as we were driving, we were listening to the classical music radio station. They were playing Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2, a lovely piece of music. Except that I have totally ruined it for myself by always listening to the Brandenburg Concertos when laboring. I am such a creature of habit, and I listened to this one CD all through my labor with Nathan. So of course, when I went in with Luke, that's what I listened to as well. Eventually I have started listening to other CDs during active labor, but by the time I get around to transition, Brandenburg Concertos is what I want to hear. But now I can not hear any part of the concertos without feeling sort of a nervous sick feeling, like it's almost time to push. I think I can even make myself feel a contraction, LOL. Hmmm . . . maybe next time, if I'm having trouble going into labor, I should start listening to this CD. I never even thought about that before.

Another CD I always listen to is the Newsboys He Reigns. I always listen to that when I am walking on the treadmill in the morning. I'm sure that would drive a lot of people crazy, to always listen to the same music, but for me I really like knowing where I am in my workout by hearing which song is on. I love all the songs on that CD, and I never grow tired of hearing them. I do find it hard to listen to those same songs in the car on the Christian radio station, however. I really feel like I need to get out and start walking, LOL.

So there you have it--one of my little eccentric quirks. If you expect me to relax, don't play Brandenburg Concertos or Newsboys.

Jonathan's Long Day

Jonathan and Bob were at Bethesda by 10:00 this morning for the first appointment, which was a regular appointment with pediatrics. That doctor got them a referral for an orthopedic walk-in appointment at 1:00, so they enjoyed a nice lunch at Subway while they were waiting. Jonathan was also able to see a girl get her cast cut off at 11:30. Her cast, which was decorated with a flag, got him excited about having his own cast.

The ortho doctor aligned the bones while the cast was hardening. He did that under local anesthesia. The cast was cut on both sides and then wrapped with an ace bandage. This was to allow for swelling. We will take him back next week to wrap the cast with a more permanent layer, and that cast will be on for 4 more weeks or so. Jonathan is hoping to get the camouflage wrap for his cast. The cast goes midway up the top part of his arm. At least it's short sleeve season! They finally got back home about 5:30.

The intern who was putting the cast on cut Jonathan's shirt. You know how in times of stress you can focus on one tiny detail? When they walked in the door, my eye was drawn to that cut t-shirt, and that was SO all I could really think about--"Why did they cut his shirt? I liked that shirt. I'll never be able to sew that . . ." and so on. I had to just tell myself to stop thinking about the stupid t-shirt. The doctor must not have been married though. I mean really--he could have taken the shirt off, or at least cut under the arm or something, where it wouldn't be so noticable! This was NOT an emergency, get-the-shirt-off-right-now sort of situation! But I digress . . . (deep breaths . . . )

Jonathan's been a real trouper. As Bob told the other boys at dinner, he didn't cry once the whole day! He's still a bit floaty from all the drugs, I think, but he's in good spirits. The other boys were all so glad to see him when he came back. They had been very concerned about him all day. Now hopefully, we'll have a nice, relaxing weekend . . .

A First For Us

Yes, Jonathan broke his arm this afternoon--the first broken bone for our family! It wasn't even any dramatic way or anything. He was goofing around on a plastic car you can ride in by climbing on the hood. He fell off backwards not more than 2 feet of the ground, landing on his arm some funny way, and he broke both the ulna and the radius, the two bones in the lower arm. Fortunately Bob was home, so he ran him to a civilian ER just 5 minutes down the road from here. There was no way he could have gotten to Bethesda at 5:45 P.M.! Bob will take him to Bethesda tomorrow for a peds appointment, where they will refer him to the orthopedic surgeon for a long-term cast. At least he is left-handed!

They gave him demerol at the ER, which accounts for the glazed look in this picture. Bob is off getting tylenol with codeine right now, so hopefully he will be able to sleep through the night.

Other than that bit of excitment, it was a great day! Johanna and her kids to include her brand new, not even 2 week old baby Olivia came to play this afternoon and stay for dinner. Anna was very interested in this real, live baby! The boys played around outside and generally had a great time.

I'll let you know what the doctor says tomorrow!

Chiropractic Update

I had another chiropractic appointment this evening. My last one was a month ago, and my next one won't be until mid-June, so we are really spreading them out now. I am still utterly amazed at how much better both my shoulder and my hip feel. It's like a miracle. I can even sleep on my right side again!

The chiropractic appointments had helped my hip a lot, but it was still bothering me. It always felt so stiff, especially after exercising. The doctor had recommended pilates (which was why I took that free class), and I was using Johanna's DVD once or twice a week before the Ohio trip. After we got back, however, I really ramped up my whole exercising routine. Someone on the Well-Trained Mind board had posted that to lose post-partum weight, she had to start exercising an hour a day. I had been averaging 30 minutes 5 times a week, and I just didn't think I could swing 60 minutes, but I started averaging 50 minutes on the treadmill almost every day. I also added pilates pretty much every afternoon, instead of just 1-2 times a week. I don't think the pounds or inches are just flying off, unfortunately (although I can't tell for sure because our scale broke last week and I haven't yet replaced it, LOL), but I have really been able to tell a difference in my hip. It is so much less stiff and painful!

I have 3 DVDs that I am primarily using right now. The one from Johanna has 5 segments of 10 minutes each, and I do that one when I am pressed for time. Usually I do the abs segment and the hips and thighs segment. I have a pilates for dummies DVD from the library, which I recommend if you have never done pilates before. It is just like that class I went to, where the lady tells you very specifically what to do and what not to do for each position. Then I have this pilates/yoga blend DVD also from the library that is more of a workout and is almost 45 minutes long--I do that one when I haven't been able to walk as long in the morning. I think the yoga stretching moves on there have been particularily effective in stretching out my hip muscles.

As I am sure you can imagine, with this regimen I have no free time, and I am becoming backlogged on things like laundry, so I simply can not foresee this being a long-term routine! I'm trying to do it until we leave on our big trip in mid-May. Maybe it will help me firm up a bit before the weddings, and the whole hip thing has been a most pleasant surprise. I really can't overstate how much better I feel that I did in January! Then I felt like such a crooked, achy, old woman, and now I feel like a totally different person!

Every Princess's Dream

Anna has the honor of being a flower girl in two weddings next month--and they are one week apart! Saturday afternoon I spent a few hours in the crowded mall searching around for a dress for Anna to wear to the wedding of Bob's niece Christi. Her color is yellow, which apparently is not a popular color this year, since there were not many things in yellow in stores. I had about given up in despair when I stopped in Lord and Taylors. That was the first time I've ever been in the store. If I had buckets of money, that's definitely the place I would shop because it was so peaceful and not crowded, LOL. Also, it was the only store that felt like the air conditioning really was working. But I don't have buckets of money, so . . .

Anyhow, they had this beautiful yellow dress, and it was on sale for half off. Yay! Anna loved it but wouldn't stop messing with the tag for pictures.

This afternoon we had to run some errands, and when we got home, there was a package on our front stoop--it was the dress from Sarah, my cousin's fiancee! Another dress to try on! Anna was in heaven. This dress didn't have any distracting tags on it, so I was able to get a picture of Anna actually looking up, LOL.
Yes, May is definitely going to be a princess month to remember!!

Car Maintenance

We're big proponents of taking care of your car. After all, it is much cheaper to prevent problems than to fix them, right? We'd tell that to anyone! So last night we took Bob's Honda minivan in to get the timing belt changed. It just seemed like a good idea . . . since they recommend doing it at 65,000 miles, and the van now has 137,000 miles on it. Seriously, we are thanking the Lord for his mercy in keeping the belt together for so long! I guess it just never was a good time to take it in . . . Actually, we had gotten a quote from the Honda dealership down in Tyson's a few years (ahem) ago, and it was about $1300. Well, that's a lot of money (I know, I know--not as much as replacing the engine), so we just kept putting it off. The Leesburg dealership charged us right around $700. We're not sure if they're just a ton cheaper, or they lowered prices because of the bad economy or what, but we were grateful that it was half of what we expected it to be!

Is this normal all over? We dropped the car off last night around 5:00. They told us it would probably be done by 10:00, but it would at least be done by 2:00 (AM) because "that's when the second shift gets off". Second shift? It's a car dealership, not a hospital! Sure enough, there was a message on Bob's cell phone when we woke up. They called at 2:08 to tell us the van was ready. I've never heard of that before.

So, let's see . . .

Obviously being home hasn't produced a surplus of blogging. That must mean nothing exciting or blog-worthy has happened, which frankly, is not always a bad thing. But surely we've done something in the past week.

1. Right before we left for Ohio, I finally got around to making a big Rainbow Resource order. I literally have been meaning to do this since after Christmas, which is when I told Jonathan we'd start doing math as well as phonics. All I needed to do was order his Saxon 1 book! Of course there were a few other things . . . and then I might as well make it a BIG order of over $150 so as to get free shipping . . . and I just never got around to figuring out what other things I should order until the end of March. The box came while we were gone, and we finally opened it on Saturday. To say Jonathan was thrilled at having his math book would be quite the understatement. Sunday morning he was in our room at 7:30 ready to do math, LOL. I managed to convince him to wait until Monday, although it was a hard sell.

2. Tuesday was the last day of our homeschool co-op for the year. Much as I love TNT, I am always glad when we have another day in our week where we don't have to go anywhere! I've turned into such a homebody. I really never expected that. The last unit was a short 3 week unit on geography, and we missed all but the last week. I think it was a good unit to miss because the boys are pretty up on geography. For the last week, they went around to different rooms with a big salt dough map on cardboard (the salt dough was already in place for the younger kids). They went to a different room for each continent, and there they would paint and glue on features for that particular continent--yarn for major rivers like the Nile and Amazon, rocks for mountain ranges, shrubby stuff for rain forests, etc. I need to take pictures because with 4 of these big maps--well, let's just say we don't have room for long-term storage of these works of art!

3. The weather has turned nicer. This has some very positive effects, such as less laundry (yay for shorts and short-sleeve shirts!), and lots of good outdoor time for the boys. One very negative effect is that Caleb is insanely allergic to nearly all pollens, so he is so snuffly. So far not wheezy, however, so that is a good thing. I have also noticed such a change in his personality when he is suffering from seasonal allergies. He becomes so whiney and tear-prone. EVERYTHING is a huge, major drama, ending with his collapsing on the nearest flat surface in a puddle of tears. I will not be sorry to see the beautiful blossoms go.

4. Bob's oldest sister Ann and her husband Wally spent Tuesday night with us. We took them to the airport yesterday so they could fly off for a relaxing vacation near my brother's old stomping grounds of Sacramento. It turns out that Bob's mom has a brother who lives in Auburn and has a cabin at Lake Tahoe. Nice! Wally is an accountant, so he was really ready to escape from all the last-minute tax questions. Their staying the night neccessitated a furious clean-up of all the Legos on the floor of the basement. How have we ended up with so many of the crazy things?!!

5. Grace is still not walking, sadly enough. (If she had started, that would have warranted its own post, LOL.) She stands so confidently, and has been for so long. But it's as if her little feet are rooted to the ground, because even if you are just inches away, she will drop right down and crawl. She still is not crawling backwards down the stairs either. I am SO ready for her to pick that up. For awhile she was just ignoring the stairs, so that was okay, but within the past few days, she has again headed for the stairs (going down) and acted as if she was ready to just put her hand down on the lower step and start going down that way. Fortunately her brothers have been vigilant and rescued her (good thing she has so many, since obviously her mom is a clueless dork, LOL!)

Now you're caught up! And now you know why I haven't felt like there was anything worth blogging about!

Hiking at Glen Helen

The first week we were in Ohio was so cold and rainy. I found myself wishing we had brought our heavy jackets instead of just our fleeces! Fortunately things cleared up and got warmer on Friday, so on Saturday we headed to Glen Helen, in Yellow Springs, with Amy and her boys. First we went to the small raptor center there, where they rehabilitate injured raptors. There were several owls, hawks, and even a bald eagle there. Then we hiked around for awhile, thoroughly tiring out all the boys.



A big forest--plenty of room to run around and be loud!

Does anyone know why there is this big tumor on the side of this tree? I meant to look it up but never got around to it, LOL.

The original "yellow spring" perhaps?
Boys, sticks, and water . . . they could have stayed here all day.


The four girls

Anyone still out there?!

We're back!! My parents' computer is acting wonky so I couldn't blog the whole time we were in Ohio. I'm sure it seemed like we fell off the face of the earth (or maybe the dog cake got us, LOL).

The kids and I had a great drive back yesterday. The weather was nice, we only needed one stop, and we listened to Because of Winn-Dixie on CD. I really liked that book. The boys had watched the movie maybe last year at Grandma's, and they liked it, but they all agreed the book was much, much better (isn't that so often the case!). The nicest part for me was that the person reading the book made the character of a little old well-to-do Southern lady named Miss Franny Block sound exactly how my Nana sounded.

So to re-cap the trip, we had a nice time with Bob's family. The anniversary party was lovely, and we had a nice lunch at Ponderosa with the whole clan the next day before the kids and I headed to Ohio and Bob headed home. Sunday night through Thursday night we spent with my parents doing the usual fun Ohio things like Youngs, ladies' Bible study at Faircreek, and OCF Bible study. For school, I ran off a bunch of old Latin review sheets, and I brought the Spectrum test practice books that we use to review for the Standford tests they will take the beginning of May. Those things kept the boys occupied in the mornings, and I didn't feel like the whole year's knowledge and learning was leaking rapidly out their ears right before testing, LOL.

Friday night through Sunday night we spent at Amy's. The weather cleared up and warmed up, which was such a blessing, and the boys ran themselves ragged. We went on a hike and visited a big playground, as well as playing football, basketball, and other outside things. Amy and I stayed up late each night scrap-booking and laughing hilariously at old stories and memories. What fun! And I got Luke's scrapbook done for this past year, and I finally started on Anna's.

Then we went back over to my folks' house for a few more nights. This enabled me to do laundry, repack, and just get things ready for the drive back.

It was a great trip, although it was nice for everyone to sleep in their own beds last night! I'll work on downloading pictures and posting some later on. And I guess I should work on unpacking too . . . the most un-fun part of a trip, LOL.