Busy, busy

Do you ever have one of those weeks that you are so busy, but you can't really remember what you did? That's been us. It seems like we've been busy, but I'll be darned.

My nephew spent the weekend with us. He actually spent two weekends with us. The first was after the yard sale. He came home with us, and we dropped him off the next day. My niece was supposed to come since her brother got to spend the night, but she had something to do on Saturday and we were going to the beach. My nephew was mad because he wanted to go . I didn't really care which one came over. I would have let both of them come. But he came and we went to the beach and it was fun. We've rescheduled my niece for a later time.

The beach was awesome. We like to go to a beach in New Smyrna that is family friendly. You can park on one side or walk on the other. We usually do not park on the beach. With the traffic, and the kids running back and forth not paying attention, it's just not a combination we like. But the beach has a playground and decent bathrooms. They're wet all the time, but it's the beach. We took our lunch with us and discovered they have grills. We may bring hot dogs next time. Or hamburgers. Or both.

The yard sale was fantastic. I love having yard sales. The kids were supposed to sell water and sodas, but hubby, being the crazy man that he is, told them they didn't have to sit out there with us. Wrong. We didn't start selling any until they finally came out. By then, the sale was almost over. The kids got to spend some time with their cousins and they all got along beautifully. The baby fell asleep and got a great nap. I wished I had gotten a nap.

We are trying to get the baby to stop acting like a baby. She's 5 now, we keep telling her, but she doesn't want to be anything but the baby. She loves being able to read and do some other things, but she still wants to be a baby. I want her to be a baby sometimes, too.

The big girl and the boy have learned the rest of their recital dances. They are so good. I wish I had taken the opportunity to take something like that as a kid. The baby has learned almost all of hers. They go a little slower with the little kids, and the dance isn't as eleborate. But she loves it as much as the other two.

The big girl got to spend the night with her friend. She went home from the park on Friday with the other family, and we spent the rest of the day and night looking for her. I would call her name and wonder why she wasn't answering me. She had such a good time. She got to swim in the pool, which is always nice. We had seen her friend and the rest of her family at a local discount clothing store and the girls got matching bathing suits. They got to wear them together Friday. Then she went to a movie Saturday morning. She didn't want to come home Saturday.

And now it's work, work, work. We are going to start an Easter lap book in a couple of weeks. I think it's going to be fun. The kids are excited because they think it's getting out of school and having fun. They're so funny. The baby asks me everyday, "Are we doing lap books today?" I think they love the cute books they make, the cool folds, and all that. I do, too, actually.

That's the review. I told you, we've been busy, but I can't remember a thing we've done.

Have a great day!

Field Trip Number 3

We went to the Gillespie Rock and Geology Museum today at Stetson University. It was a blast. We went with some of the families in our homeschool group. One of the moms organized the trip and we are very lucky. They only allow 25 kids, so we were lucky to get in.

Geology is our science this term, so it was especially important for us to go. The kids got to see some of the things that we have been talking about. They even had a cave set up to show what different geologic processes happen in caves. The kids were fascinated by that. They also had a mine scene to show how crystals are mined. They had this great display of phosphorescent rocks and crystals.

The kids got to do a classification activity. They were given 6 rocks and three classifying criteria. They had to tell from the criteria which rocks were which. The kids had to notate color, streak color, and hardness. The sulphur was not so hard. But thankfully it wasn't the stinky volcano sulphur. Then they got to dig for gems and keep five. They weren't huge or expensive, so don't get excited. But they were cool.

We all took our lunch and had a picnic outside the museum. The kids played, we talked, and the weather was beautiful. It was good to spend some time with our friends.

Have a great day!

Scout

So here's our new baby. His name is Scout and he is three years old. Yes, he's three, we have the paperwork to prove it. He is a Yorkshire Terrier and is cute as a button and super sweet. He was a little yippy today, but overall, he's pretty good about not barking.

And can he bark. He is very loud! The couple that we got him from live on a very busy street. Ours isn't and we live pretty far from the road. The mailman came to the house today and he got quite yippy. He calmed down very quickly after she left, and we were grateful for that. The boy plugs his ears. That's pretty funny.

We have all gotten along pretty well so far. He nipped at hubby, but hubby was trying to get a piece of turkey out of his mouth. We learned we can't take the trash bag out of the can and set it down. It has to get tied up and put outside. Shame on us. He played outside with us all day yesterday and went to dance class with us tonight. And the kids have done a really good job taking care of him. They each have a day. I'll keep you posted.

Have a great day!

Whew!

Man, what a week! It was one of those. We started off busy and never seemed to catch up, so Friday was most welcome this week.

It seems that I was a little over zealous while we were at Disney. I still haven't gotten the film developed. It's now by the back door, which hopefully means it will get remembered on the way out the door to go to the Big Box Store that shall remain nameless, but seems to have taken over modern society. Anyway, after having the baby on my shoulders for a while so she could see the Electric Light Parade, I seem to have thrown myself out of whack.

I woke up Friday quite stiff and sore, then proceeded to walk hunched over like a little, old woman. I finally kicked myself in the butt and got to the chiropractor. I hurt like you know what after and kept having these mini back spasms. I iced for twenty minutes every hour. I was swallowing Traumeel like crazy and praying to God that I could get some sleep and wake up without spasms. I was stiff and sore this morning, but as the day wore on, I seemed to straighten up a little more. I was still a little stiff after sitting in the van waiting to pick up a friend's daughter. And I'm icing right now. But, all in all, I should have gone sooner and I still feel like kicking my own rear.

The kids were great this week. We did a lot of school. They are so stinking smart. The boy has just flown through his work. The big girl seems like she's not paying attention half the time, but aces the test almost every time. And the baby did a whole page of addition problems in a workbook. I showed her how to use the manipulatives and she ran with it.

We have been doing this really great Lent study. It has forty nine activities to choose from. You print them out on a piece of paper and then cut them into strips. You put them in a bowl, or in our case scattered on the island, and pick one every day. There is a coloring picture of an apple tree. You color an apple for every day and a leaf for every Sunday. United Methodist don't count Sundays as official Lent days, but days of closeness with Jesus. I can't remember why, so apparently I wasn't paying much attention to myself when we talked about it.

Our activity yesterday was to make home made pretzels. I had hubby find a recipe for them and find out what we needed from the store. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home and picked up what we lacked. What we didn't know was that they had to rise for an hour and a half. Hubby had the big girl reading the recipe, but step by step and he didn't look ahead at it. So the kids got to help mix it up, but hubby and I did the rest. They aren't the prettiest things, but they are good. Hubby and I ate 3 of them together!

I cleared our schedule for next week and we will be working on a lapbook about St. Patrick. We were going to work on it a little bit every day this week, but I want some time to really do a good job and be able to focus time on it. We couldn't do that just trying to find some time during the day. The kids love working on them. They actually see it as a break from school. That's probably my favorite thing about them right now.

We had a St. Patrick's Day party at the park today. There was green everywhere. The kids wanted to paint their hair green so we stopped and got a can of green hairspray. They loved it and so did I. At one point, I had put some more on the boy, then I had all the kids swarming around me wanting green hair. I ran out and still had kids wanting green hair. I felt so bad. We had a pot luck lunch and have already planned one for Easter. We had a ton of people show up and I got to remeet some people I knew but hadn't seen in a long time. That was the best part to me.

And the girl still and a little green in her hair after her shower. We teased her about not washing her hair and mold and stuff like that. She was a little embarrased, but seemed to have forgotten about it by the time we got to dance.

And we had two co-ops this week. One was veggie and the other was our school co-op. The mom is doing states and she did Hawaii. She asked if we could get a list of the kids names translated, so I called my dad. Thanks, Dad! The kids loved it. It was fun to try to teach them all their names. They did pretty good, though.

And that was a quick view of the week. There was more, but I'm too exhausted to think about it.

Have a great day!

Disney World

We finally made it. Thursday we went to Disney. And it was fantastic. We had saved some money from our tax return to go and we came home with about $16. You cannot ask for a better day.

When we left the house it was about 55 degrees. We had the kids in shorts and tshirts because it wasn't going to be cold for long. They all had blankets in the car and I was wishing I had one. Hubby went out to warm up the car, but he didn't turn the heat on. He's blond, you know. I got it turned on, and the seat warmers, too, before we had to get in. I was not about to put my tushy on that cold, leather seat.

The boy was so excited he literally bounced all day. Tigger has nothing on my boy. When he's happy or excited he just jumps, and jumps, and jumps. We stopped by the bank to use the ATM and the kids wanted to know why we were stopping. I said it was because we had had all the excitement we could stand and were going home. There was quite the booing coming from the back of the mini van.

Just pulling into the parking lot was happiness and joy for them. We got there right as they opened and we didn't leave until shortly before the fireworks. It was really cool to watch them from the parking lot instead of our back yard. It's much more impressive to see them at the castle than way over in the distance.

We all got our first time visitors button when we got there. We were greeted by so many of the employees who saw the button. They were gracious and accomodating and very friendly. Except the lady who took our dinner order. The boy couldn't understand why she wasn't happy. She works at the happiest place on Earth. He was funny.

We played all day. We rode the river boat, Haunted Mansion, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, Pirates of the Caribbean, the train, Peter Pan's Magic Flight, Snow White Scary Adventure, It's a Small World, Barnstormer,and a ton of stuff. We only had to wait a short time for most of the rides. At one point hubby took the big girl and the boy to ride Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. The baby and I can't ride big rides like that so we went and spent some good quality time together.

We went to Ariel's Grotto so she could meet Ariel. She wanted to play in the fountains instead. She go soaking wet and loved it. Then we went and had ice cream. We went to Tinkerbell's shop and she got a new dress and a bracelet. She wanted to put it on right away, so we went to the bathroom and changed her. She was the happiest girl in the world. We got to ride Dumbo and I let her drive. Up and down, up and down she went. I was a little motion sick. Then we got to see the last few minutes of a parade and hubby called us. We met back up and decided it was lunch time.

We all got Mickey ears, no two alike. The kids got their faces painted, and very stunning I might add. We were able to do the things we wanted and it was a beautiful sunny day. Until the sun went down. Then the wind picked up and it was chilly. Buurrrrr!!!!!

We got to see two more parades and the kids were wide eyed and loving it. The boy, poor thing, got swatted a couple of times. He kept jumping on my foot. My poor left foot will never be the same. I told him if he did it again, I was going to whoop him. He did it again. But hubby whooped him. Then hubby tried to move him and the boy didnt want him to. He was trying to get the boy to spot where the boy could jump and not get in trouble. But the boy pulled a baby stunt. He pulled away from hubby because hubby had swatted him. And when he did, he stepped on my foot again. I swatted him that time. I told him if he would have let hubby move him, he wouldn't have gotten swatted the second time.

The Electric parade was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Disney knows how to throw a parade. We had the best time all day. We were all tired and ready to go. We have decided that we need to spend the night at one of the Disney hotels. We want to stay at the one that the monorail goes through. That was pretty cool. The kids don't care where we stay as long as we get to go again. And we all want to go again. I'll post pictures when we get them back.

Have a great day!

Saturday Walk

Saturday we went for a walk. The Evangelism committee walked the neighborhood around the church and met our neighbors. We invited people to church and let them know what services we had. And then after talking to them for awhile, we offered to pray with them. Most people were very receptive to us.

We had two teams to cover the neighborhood better. The kids and hubby and I were with one gentleman, and the other team was the remaining two members of our committee. They went one way up and over a couple of blocks. We went the other and covered the other side of the block. There are some really interesting people in our neighborhood. Most of them said the same thing: Nobody had ever done that in the neighborhood.

I have to tell you about the boy. Sometimes it seems like I talk alot about him, but he is my most extroverted child. He is happy in the spotlight and loves attention. He will do almost anything he can to get attention. Saturday was no different.

After a half dozen houses or so, there was the boy up front, ringing the door bell or knocking on the door. He loves to do that anyway, so no big deal. Except when the door was answered, he went straight into the spiel, the baby handed them a flyer, then the boy asked if we could pray with them about anything. He had those people eating out of his hand. But he is the cutest thing ever and has more charm and personality than anyone I have ever known.

We didn't see any of the people we visited today. But hopefully we planted some seeds. And really that's all if takes. God will work on the rest. And it's something that we plan to do once a month. If you feel like spreading the love of Christ and the word of God, come join us. Just wear comfortable shoes.

Have a great day!