The Adventures of Breakfast & Lunch

I was awakened at 3:30 this morning by Breakfast and Lunch, no it wasn’t indigestion, it was Silas’ roosters, thus named. The strong winds had knocked over their cage and they were at the back porch complaining. There was no way I could sleep through that racket (Steve was doing a night job) and I figured it would be a good lesson in responsibility for Silas, so I woke him up to take care of it. Good boy, he woke right up raring to go. But he said, “ Mama, this ain’t goin’ to be easy, they aren’t peace lovin’ birds, ya know.” It’s at this point that I’m thinking this will make it to blog post level. The first rooster was easy enough, he was wet and miserable but this allowed the second one to see what was up. Lunch hung around Breakfast clucking, but stayed just out of Silas’ reach. When we saw he wanted to stay with his buddy, I decided it was time for us to head back to bed and he would stay around the rest of the night. We got bedded down when Silas came and said he was sure Lunch was asleep now and that he(Silas) would be able to sneak up on him easy. I gave the OK for one more try and only one. Well, the short version is that Silas came back in covered in mud. After a shower, we got a little more sleep. The camaraderie of hard times is over. This morning Lunch was still staying beside Breakfast’s cage, but now he’s picking fights with him. It’s finally over, Silas has Breakfast put up, but those two youngsters are still picking fights with each other in their connected cages. I can just hear them saying, “It’s your fault we’re back in here!,” “No it’s not, it’s your fault.”

Big Sigh

Ahhh, I can finally relax and settle down for a little while into our school routine, until it's time to head to Ohio and we're still not sure when that will be. The holiday rush is over for us. That's one of the things I like about Thanksgiving being our family's "chosen" holiday. My rushing around is over, even when I'm out in town, the busyness doesn't get to me. It's nice to relax!! You know that mental relaxation -where there's no pressing engagements.
We had a blessed time at a cabin get away with Steve's folks. The snow topped the weekend off beautifully. Snow in the Smokies is gorgeous. My camera stopped on me this weekend, so no pictures, but thanks to mom, we do have video of the best parts.
We still have no van and are patiently waiting for God to provide with something in our price range. Gen is letting us borrow her little car for must do trips. The kids and I will fit, not legally, but it does in the current pinch. Jose let Steve borrow a custom van for the trip over. Wow, was that boat nice, but I worried the whole time about us breaking something. Thankfully the DVD feature kept little fingers out of all interesting hideaways.
I am so thankful. The weekend required me to go 3 days in a row with only 4 hrs. of sleep each night and I didn't fine!! Thank you Lord. Monday I was spent physically and mentally but I just rested. We got back in the groove smoothly today.
Oh, a funny I almost forgot. Steve and I talked about stopping somewhere on the way out of Pigeon Forge for some free amusement, since we stayed in the cabin all weekend and didn't take in anything. The choices were Smokey Mountina Knifeworks or the huge Bass Pro Shop. We pulled into Bass Pro's parking lot and then were too tired to get out and fight the crowd. So, we put in a movie for the kids, layed back our seats and took a nap instead. Umm, sounds like middle age is definatly setting in.

Pictures for Grandma

Mom, I was way behind on unloading the camera. Here's some new pictures for you to enjoy.

Our wonderful Goodwill had a sale where everything in the store was 1/2 off. We found a neat Knex set, with all it's pieces for $4 !!! Here's the boys working on one of the projects.

The completed water park and, well a headless child.

Karrigan at the hayride.

Help!! If a blogger could help me out, I'd appreciate it. Every time I add a picture, it puts it at the top, not where I want it. Do I have to load my pictures backwards?

Well I had a beautiful picture to put in here, but after trying to upload it 5 times, I'm done!! Oh, for high speed.

Yesterday I was reading with Karrigan in the recliner. I THOUGHT Philip was quietly doing his schoolwork on the carpert. Not so. When I turned around and stood up, I was faced with a row of about 10 Rescue Heroes, all standing at attention with their right arms raised and a sharpened green pencil in their upraised arms. He didn't get a scolding, it hit me too funny. Before I could get back with the camera, Philip had them in a battle, so that's what this is a picture of. I've started to get rid of the Rescue Heroes several times, sure that they had outgrown them. Wrong again. Thanks Aunt Arlene for recommending Rescue Heroes when they were little fellows.

Life, Etc.

Well, I got over my backset last week and we've had several great days enjoying the beautiful weather. Thank you Lord!! The kids had friends over Friday and we had a hot dog roast, jumped rope and the girls had a tea party. Over the weekend we cleaned up the garden beds and got rid of the ugly, old well cover - ( we have an old hand dug well that isn't used for anything, I hope to have a hand pump on it one day for watering the garden) Steve put a heavy duty cover on it and I stacked pretty rocks on top of that. It's safe and more attractive now. We all enjoyed digging into our compost pile to top of the gardens. We've been working on a compost pile for a couple of years. We've never done it "right", we just threw in vegtable waste, leaves and manure. Even without us turning it properly, it still did it's thing. Philip, who's job it is to take out the daily compost, Steve and Silas who build the composting frame and Mama, who makes sure no good compost goes in the trash, enjoyed a great feeling of accomplishment when we shoveled out the rich black dirt. We've put down newspaper, leaves and compost on our old beds and a new compost pile started. More on that in just a minute. I just want to add that the children and I watched Food Inc. and it's what prompted us to try gardening again in the spring. I highly recommend Food Inc., it's available at Netflix. Yes, there's some liberal stuff in it but it is really info that everyone needs to know.
Now, back on topic. We gathered the shovels and wheelbarrows and headed to Rojo's(our horse) field to pick up his contribution to our new compost pile. Once there,we broke into groups and got to work. When I saw that we had enough, I hollered for everyone to head to the house and got
protests. Yes, I said protest! Here's what they yelled back: " Just a minute, there's a good patch down here, just let us get this first," and "But, my wheelbarrow isn't full!" and " Can we come back after we empty this load?".
I have no answer for this other than that kids really do enjoy good ole hard work. Maybe it's like discpline, they fight against it but really do want it.

Enjoying November

Someone wrote in on my MOMYS group and asked for ideas on celebrating Thanksgiving. This was my reply:

Thanksgiving is our family's chosen holiday. Meaning, we decorate for it and really try to celebrate it. We make baked treats and deliver them around town to the folks who are special to us and have helped us throughout the year. For us, this includes the employees of our local Goodwill store and the library, along with neighbors and friends. Some years the children make handmade cards to send out. We are learning a Thanksgiving hymn this year and memorizing a new psalm of thanksgiving. We try to do a thanksgiving read aloud sometime during the month. The kids dress up as pilgrims or indians when we have our large dinner. I'm always looking for meaningful and fun ideas. We are trying to do one fun or special thing each day this month until thanksgiving. Mostly they are just little things. One day it was to scrape out our pumpkin and cook it. One day will be roasting the seeds we saved. We collected leaves one day and will try waxing them today. Just letting them bake a pumpkin treat counts as one day's special time. It really doesn't have to have bells and whistles to be special to children. Simple pleasures, enjoyed as a family year after year become memories and anticipated fun for the future. This hit me yesterday when we went to a park. My 11, 10, 9 and 7 year old had fun picking up large rocks and dropping them over the walking bridge into the water. They did this over and over again, trying to make the biggest splash. Of course the boys were bombing things and in a battle while doing it and the girls liked pocketing the prettiest rocks and the pretty splash that was made. But the were totally having fun! It was my husband's idea to go to this certain park which was quite a little drive to get to but while collecting rocks my 7 year old dd said, " Mom this really was worth coming to." Sandwiches, pretzels some frisbees, a football and rock throwing, taking a walk, going down a new country road and visiting a Goodwill in a new town made up or special day yesterday. Hey, guess what? I just wrote a new blog post for myself without realizing it. Yeah for multitasking!!

Still here

Just wanted to say that yes, I'm still living and haven't forgotten about blogging. My brain just hasn't allowed me to multitask for about 2 weeks. We changed over closets, celebrated Reformation Day, went on a hay ride and went to the KSO children's concert. These were all things I would've loved to blog about, but just doing them wore me out, besides fighting a bug and low iron. I just caught up on reading blog posts, while eating lunch, so I guess I can do a tiny bit of multitasking, but I've had to retype this over and over because I'm making mistakes and my vision is blurring. I'll try again later. Oh, I'm not at all depressed or upset, just stating how things are and relieving myself of the guilt of not blogging. I know I'm getting better and am very thankful that when I experience brain overload, I can stop, take a big breath and I'm able to continue that task. I couldn't do that during the summer. God is good. I have to think of how far He's brought me and what I'm able to do, instead of thinking of all the things I want to be able to and can't.

Taking A Little Break

I probably won't be posting anything here during the next couple of days, maybe even a week. I need to write Karrigan's birth story for a homeschool mother's magazine that is requesting interesting birth stories. Then, I need to write a resource guide for homeschooling parents with dyslexic children, for our local group. I'll post that on the my homeschooling blog when I've finished it.
We have some coughs and sniffles around here but so far vitamin C, Breath Easy Tea, Throat Soothers Tea and alternating Children's Tylenol Plus Multi-symptom Cold and Mucus Relief Cough and nasal spray for runny noses is doing the job. I've spent lots of time on the cold and flue isle, reading the fine print on all the bottles trying to fine one product that dealt with all the different discomforts of a cold. I finally found these 2 products last year. The kind of Tylenol I mentioned is for fever, pain relief, cough suppresant, nasal decongestant and is a antihistamine. The Mucus Relief is a generic brand but has Guaifenesin, something that's great for children and adults when needing to dry up mucus. You'all probably all ready know this stuff, but before last year I would've appreciated some recommendations, so I'm passing them on. If this junk hangs on a few more days, we'll visit the health food store or Vitacost.com for some Sambucal and mullein tea. Sambucal is a wonderful product to look up on the internet. The studies done with it had amazing results. Its main ingredient is elderberry, which is the great for chest congestion and mullein is also great for breaking up congestion. Now that I think about it, I need to go ahead and stock up on these things, I'm sure we'll need them sometime this winter. Let me put in another plug for Vitacost. Their prices are great and they have almost everything, available in all different brands. What I really like about them is that they have a flat, $4.99 shipping rate. No matter how much you purchase, it's still just $4.99 for ship. Just be sure when your looking at an item to look in the little print under the item that says how soon it ships out. Most things go out in 24 hours, but sometimes an item will take longer and it could mess your shipping up. Ok, I'm rattling on. I'm done.

Yeah For Links

I've finally figured out how to link my blogs, yes I know I'm slow. My other blog is listed on the right and I've posted some of my thoughts about home. I also like sharing the other blogs I visit. I don't know about you, but I use those links on other folks' blogs.

Washing The Old Timey Way

Several years ago my mom gave me a great birthday gift- a front loading washer and dryer. While we were staying with Steve's sister this weekend, I did some laundry. Ellie and Karrigan were following me around, so I had them help me put the first load in. Ellie asked," Moma, is that one of those old time washers?" Yep, they had a top loader. I didn't realize that these girls have no memory of top loaders. They thought it was the neatest thing and asked lots of questions. Uncle Frankie put a magnet on the latch so they could watch the machine agitate the clothes, they thought it was the neatest thing. I think those girls stood there for about 10 minutes watching the clothes swish back and forth. I snuck up and got a photo of them.

Little Joe

Baby love, oh sweet baby love. There's nothing like patting, rocking, smelling and kissing a baby. We all enjoyed meeting Little Joe, our newest nephew. We didn't get to see him when he was tiny and brand new, but we got to enjoy his sweetness this past weekend. His dear mommy and grandma were gracious to share him with us. We got to hold him, put him to sleep and calm some belly aches and us ladies thought it was pure pleasure. Little Joe is calm, smiley and friendly. His dear, sweet mommy is doing a great job!

For The Love of Ellie

Our Ellie loves reptiles. I think it all started when she was about two and came running to tell me that Silas had let her hold a worm. She was grinning from ear to ear and said it tickled her hand. From that day on, cold blooded animals have warmed her heart. Ellie once brought me a huge toad and told me it that it loved her because it looked right into her eyes and said, "Ribbit, ribbit." Another time, I caught Ellie and Karrigan sneaking a turtle upstairs in one of their pocketbooks. They had washed and shined it's shell! They've also killed a few frogs trying to love them and keep them as pets.

Oh, the things we will do for our children! I decided I didn't want any more dried out toads on our front porch; and since Ellie's love hasn't diminished for cold, slimy critters, that we should go purchase one and care for it properly. I did online research about the easiest breeds to have as pets. Ellie decided on a turtle. I walked into the pet shop confident that we could do this. Guess what. It's illegal to buy and sell turtles in Tennesse. But, that was OK , I also had done research on frogs. But did Ellie want a frog that day? No. She set her sights on a Leapord Gecko. I have to tell you that just being in that section of the store was a challenge. The snakes were RIGHT there. Well, the gecko was in the right price range, so I never thought it would be the case, but we have a lizard living inside our house. And oh the things we've learned. I know how to bathe one to help it remove it's unshed skin, have learned how to keep crickets alive with carrots, given up my heating pad to keep him warm and helped pack him up for a road trip. No, I've never touched him. Oh yes, you know how kids ask a hundred and one questions? Well, Friday two of our children wanted to know if lizards get car sick.

Meet Tigger, Ellie's second birthday gift.

Ellie's big day

At our house we've decided to make birthdays a big deal. Ellie decided she wanted to go ice skating on her special day. First we stopped at Fort Kid to enjoy a picnic and let her open her first gift- a white and pink cap gun and holster.

Our next stop was the ice skating rink. I didn't get any good pictures, but the kids are mastering ice skates very well. I can't say the same thing for myself. It was very late by then, so we came back home and watched a movie. We went out again on Sunday, to finish up the things we had promised her- dinner out and a stop at Petco for a new pet. To be continued.

Visiting Family

No, I don't have Ellie's birthday pictures up yet. Last week was a hard week for me. My body and brain just seemed to struggle all week. We are in Winston Salem, NC and enjoying our new nephew. He is SO cute! It was really hard to get here after the week I had, but every moment with my neice and her son has been SO worth it. I'm at a place with high speed, yeah!! I'm off to watch some tutorials about eblogger, and see if I can figure out some neat extras. Yes, I'm taking lots of pictures to share.

Life in General

I'm doing fine but am in a brain fog right now. I'm hoping that blogging will help it clear a little. A week ago Saturday, I had a small "brain blip", my first in over a month. I was able to pull out of it without any medication. This little episode reminded me again of how thankful I am to be on my feet and caring for my family. God is so good! I still can get flustered easy but I'm trusting that will pass also. We went ice skating Saturday and it was like my brain was going in and out on me. Sometimes I was steady on my feet and felt like I knew what I was doing. At other times I felt like it was my first time out on the ice and had trouble balancing. Getting off our schecule last Friday and over the weekend has thrown me for a loop today, but I have set up this blog today and am pushing forward. It confirms to me how important it is for us to keep to our strict schedule for this season. While I'm typing, the children are having a tea party and listening to a classical piano cd (their own choice). So, things are good, we're smiling and I'm feeling blessed. Oh, PLEASE don't let your sons know that my boys still enjoy escorting their sisters to tea and have chosen to put on formal attire today. I'm glad there's some things they haven't outgrown yet!

New

This is Plan B. I will keep posting on the other blog, doing book reviews, sharing cirriculum finds and sharing what we're doing and learning. It will be open to anyone. On this blog, I'll share family news and pictures. This is the only solution I could come up with. It's really plain but I just don't have time right now to read up on how to spruce it up. I'll have stuff up about Ellie's birthday soon.