A little of this, a little of that

It seems strange to think the school year is winding down!

Stuart has his final concerts in a few weeks.  His silly accompanist is having brain surgery on May 16th and demanded that the concerts should be before surgery.  

For the record I crack myself up!  George (a friend named my tumor and it kind of stuck) is being evicted on the 16th and although I'm glad he's being removed, it's still kind of scary.  Okay....a lot scary!

Thankfully our moms are coming in to rescue us!  My mom will be in Seattle with me after surgery so Stuart can come home and go back to work and Stuart's mom is coming to stay with the kids.  I'm so grateful for both of them!

I know all the kids are affected by George, but Phillip is struggling vocally more than the others.  He prays nightly that I'll be able to keep my hearing so I can hear him.  I find that a little funny, but he's really concerned that if I can't hear out of my left ear he can't homeschool.

Samuel is currently back in the hospital up in Coeur D'Alene.  From the reports we get from the doctor and nurses he's struggling.  From his reports he isn't.  He wants to come home and we want him home.  But his medicines aren't working quite right yet.  Prayers for him would be very much appreciated right now!

As for the rest of the family they are helping me "nest".  This is going to sound morbid....a friend of mine says I'm "death nesting".  In other words I'm preparing the house and life in case something happens.  While that's true, I also want to come home from the hospital to a nice clean, organized house.  Here's hoping it happens!

My tallest girl turned 12 a few weeks ago.  I can't believe how time has passed!  She is enjoying young women's and is looking forward to going to girls camp this summer.  She is such a lovely young lady and I feel so blessed to be her mother!

Better Late than Never

Christmas has come and gone.

New Years too has come and gone and I still haven't managed to send out our Christmas letter.

I think perhaps it shall be a Valentines Letter.  

Christmas was fantastic this year and we were sufficiently spoiled!

We (against my better judgement) got the kids each a tablet for Christmas.  The older two each got a Kindle Fire and the younger two got a Leap Pad Ultra.

All four tablets can get online...EEEK!

I am so thankful for parental settings.  The only thing about the parental settings I don't like is that the Scriptures that we downloaded for them are considered an app, so when we allow them to use their Kindle Free time it counts reading the scriptures as their free time.  We need to figure a way around that because we both feel that reading scriptures should be allowed all the time!  The day after Christmas Stuart and I came downstairs to both of them doing dishes and listening to the scriptures.  

Munchkin and Tallulah have figured out that their can text back and forth to each other.  I find it terribly

funny that they send each other messages especially since Tallulah can't read!

Other than that our big family present was a puppy.  

We were planning on another dog for a while.  We had been looking at Goldendoodles and Labradoodles and wanted one that could be a therapy dog for our family that helps with anxiety.  We really thought we wouldn't be able to find one that wasn't $2500.  Which is what they typically run.  

A friend of ours however got a puppy from a breeder in the spring who breeds them for therapy dogs and doesn't charge as much because she and her mother had been in the same boat...needing a therapy dog and not being able to afford one and wants to allow more people to get them if they need them.

Enter Maize.  

She is a fabulous dog!  And we are all in love with her!

Hope you all had a VERY Merry Christmas and New Years!

The Last Straw

Christmas is my favorite time of year.  

Not because I get presents, but because I get to give presents and I LOVE the Spirit Christmas brings!

After decorating the house for Christmas this evening we read the book The Last Straw

by Paula Palangi McDonald.

In the book the mom is a little exasperated because her children aren't getting along well and the Christmas Spirit in their home seems to be lacking.  So, she decides they are going to make a bed for the Christ child to be laid upon for Christmas.  In order to make a "bed" they gathered straw and in order to put it in the manager they have to draw a name of someone else in the family and do something nice all week for that person.  For each good deed they do they get to put a piece of straw in the manger. 

I have my doubts about whether or not this is going to work in our home.  However, the kids seem really excited about it.  In fact, we already have 1 piece of straw in the manger and we drew names right before bed. 

I remember my friend Melanie and her family doing this every year and I remember wishing my family could do it to.  Well, now we are.  (I'm pretty sure it was Melanie and her family that gave us the book, manger and baby).

I'm excited for the Christmas season!  

I'm already grateful for the spirit we've had in our home and it's only December 1st!

Sisters

We've had two major accomplishments here this last week!

The Tall Girl finished her first ever 5K!

I think she's crazy but she had a BLAST running!  She participated in a group called Girls On the Run/Girls on Track.  It's a program to boost the moral of girls and to show them they can do whatever they desire.  And she did!

We're so proud of her!!  

I may not understand the need to run, but I'm so grateful that she likes to run.  It really helps her out emotionally....read Pre-Teen hormones!

And our second accomplishment is that Tallulah turned 5.  

That's right 5!  

I can't believe she's five!  It amazes me as I look back at her baby pictures just how much she's grown. 

She's quite proud to be an entire hand, and enjoyed almost a week of celebrating.

No, we didn't technically celebrate all week...but she did managed to get us to sing to her all week.

Crazy girl!

Fall

Just for the record, to protect the innocent I've come to the conclusion I should probably not mention the short people by name.  Therefore they have been renamed....Tall Girl, Shorty, Munchkin and Tallulah (this one cracks me up because every time I call her this I think of the movie Cool Runnings).

I can't believe it's November!

I feel like somehow I missed September and October. 

Perhaps that's because we were in survival/crisis mode during those two months, 

but I'm really struggling with realizing that it's almost Tallulah's birthday and then Thanksgiving!

Typically I love fall.  

When I've had time to adjust (in my mind) to the fact that summer is over.

Truthfully we're doing a whole lot better this month!

Shorty is finally adjusting to his medicines and is back to 3 classes at school.  It doesn't sound like much but it's 3 instead of 1!  He's doing pretty good and staying awake most of the time.  At first the school freaked out a little bit because he slept through his first couple of classes due to his medicine but really why freak out when he missed about 4 weeks of school and has been going to only one class the rest of the time!  He's also recovering from ear infections and a throat abscess.  He's had a ROUGH fall!

Tallulah is on a break this week from school for conferences and Shorty will be out earlier than normal on Thursday and Friday and as for Tall girl and Munchkin, lucky home schoolers must just keep plugging away!

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I'll say it again....I LOVE home schooling!  Next year we are going to use Homelink (the ALE we home school through) only part time.  Then the kids won't have to take the standardized testing, they will still pay for part of the curriculum, they can still take workshops BUT we won't have to follow their schedule as much.  I want to go to an almost year round schedule so that if we feel like taking a break in the fall or the month of December off...we can!  

Oh, and no I won't be homeschooling Shorty.  He needs a more structured environment than I can provide.  The other three however are stuck with my oh so lovely face everyday.  I feel like I should be inserting an evil laugh here.  But truthfully I think they like it....for the most part. 

And action!

I've started writing this post 3 times now.  Each time has been about a different topic.  

The first was too personal, the second....well turns out I had already posted about Stuart getting a new job and that brings us to this post.  

 

Our home in Wyoming is finally under contract!!!  Provided the government can get it's act together we should close around December 2.  We've been saying LOTS of prayers and crossing lots of fingers that it will all work out!

Things are finally settling down a little for us.  I'm grateful!  After a rough September we're more than ready for a very uneventful rest of 2013!!

KatieJo and Samuel's older brother Payton is coming to visit next week.  They haven't seen him since we left Iowa in February 2006.  They are all SO excited!  They've been struggling quite a bit and after a family emergency in September it was decided that it would be beneficial for Payton to come out.  As it turns out he's been wanting to visit and KatieJo and Samuel have been wanting to visit him and none of us adults have managed to make it happen.

They are counting down the days.  It's fun to see them so animated!  They don't even get this excited over Christmas!!

As for the rest of us, middle school football season is over.  Maija is in pre-school 4 days a week in the afternoons.  I'm attempting to hang on to everything and realizing that I've allowed KatieJo and Phillip to do to many activities during the day!  Some days it's a struggle to get all of their work done.

Phillip is doing really well with homeschooling and is progressing faster than I thought he would.

KatieJo is struggling a little with the online classes we chose for her, but it's because it's more challenging than she's used to.  The curriculum is more advanced than most others we could have chosen.  And Samuel is excelling in his advanced math class.  Turns out advanced math for 6th graders is just 7th grade math.  He loves every second of the math.  

Sumer Time

In January as we are cuddled up in blankets dreaming of summer we always have grand plans!

Summer stretches out on the horizon just out of reach.

Then April hit and we started finalizing plans (I'm a planner by nature) for the summer.

By June, we were ready!

For KatieJo's birthday she got a plane ticket to fly to Denver.  She'd never been on a plane more or less on a plane. 

On June 12 we (minus Samuel who was at day camp) took KatieJo to the airport.  All 4 of us got gate passes to take her to her gate.  Maija and Phillip thought this was AWESOME!  We walked her to the gate and I tried my very hardest not to cry.  It was really a futile effort, but I tried anyway.  

She was so very excited to get on the plane.

Maija and Phillip refused to leave until we watched the plane drive out to the runway.  It took approximately 5 minutes after KatieJo got on the plane for both of them to start saying that they missed her.

Almost 2 weeks later the other 5 of us drove to Hall, MT to visit Stuart's grandmother.  We always enjoy visiting her on the ranch and our time there never seems to be enough!

After that we headed down to Denver for a week and even got to go camping in Estes Park.  As it turns out the altitude makes it VERY difficult for those of us who live at sea level to breathe!

After Colorado we spent a couple days in Idaho Falls and then left KatieJo and Samuel there with Stuart's parents.  

And we came home with two kids.  On a day to day basis I don't realize how loud my house is.  Then I only have 2 kids and all of the sudden it's like a grave yard around here!

Thankfully it didn't last long and we met Stuart's parents in Vancouver/Portland at his brother Mark's house to get the kids.  Well that and take Stuart's parents up to Seattle to see Pirates of Penzance.  LOVE that show!!  But Seattle leaves much to be desired.  It was CRAZY busy.

And now we're back home with all 4 kids.  I'm so glad!  I sure miss those kids when they're gone.

So now I'm starting to plan for the school year.  Stuart is switching jobs to the Kennewick school district, Samuel is headed to middle school and KatieJo and Phillip are homeschooling and Maija...well we're not 100% sure about what she's doing this fall but I'm planning for her school year as well.

There is a whole slew of information out there for homeschooling and I'm somewhat innundated with information right now.  But I'm getting there and I'll be ready for when Stuart heads back to school.  We're going to start our school year a tad earlier than the schools here as there are some days we'll need to take off that Samuel and Stuart won't technically have off of school.