I was taking a pic of Chase eating the tablecloth- what he does with a blanket when he is tired- and I got lucky. Perfect shot of his two teeth. I zoomed in a bit so we could see a little better. :) So cute.

11:07am

Abigail likes to take STUFF up on to her top bunk. Books, magazines, pens, markers, crayons, dolls, CDs, cups, etc. You name it- it's probably up there. Anyway a few days ago she wanted to clean off her bed because she had so much stuff up there that she wasn't able to get comfortable at night. She asked me if I would come into her room and help her. She would go up on her bed, pass the stuff to me standing on the floor, and I could put it down somewhere. Of course I agreed. It took about 5 minutes (not exagerating). I put a few easy things away (pens in her writing utensil drawer) but the big stack of folders/papers/magazines I set on her stool.


So, the stack has been there about 3 days now. After my HORRIBLE moment with the unexpected showing today (see FB for further explanation) I asked her to clean up her room and I mentioned the stack of stuff specifically. She looked at me and said, "That's your mess! You put it there."


LOL!!!!!! I quickly explained to her how I was helping HER get HER stuff off of HER bed.

Life

Normally my life is an open book. I don't usually have a problem sharing my deepest thoughts and feelings. But there comes a time in each life when you must keep your heart to yourself. That is where I currently find myself. I feel like I want to put it out here in print so that I can read it and understand myself better but then there is that fear that I will be misunderstood or that someone will take my words and use them against me. So I will keep my heart between me and the Lord (and Mike) and allow him to work in my life. Thankfully He knows what's going on. :)

We've been sick for the past 4 days now. Ethan started us on Friday. He had to go to the couch halfway through our school day. Abigail joined him a bit later. Mike came home from work early and he was sick. Alison joined the sick team on Sunday morning and I joined Sunday evening. Blake woke up today throwing up and then Alison joined the throw up party. AHHH. Alison & I still have fevers and body aches. I am not a weenie Mom and I don't call the pediatrician for everyone bump and bruise but I must confess that the swine flu talk has gotten me rather paranoid. I might give us another day or so and then I'll call. Hopefully tomorrow we are feeling better. We had to miss the homeschool co-op today which I hated to do.

Speaking of SCHOOL.... here is a quick rundown of each of the kids and what they are doing well at or struggling at:

Abigail- Age 9, 4th Grade: Doing well with her writing book and her cursive. She is SUPER at spelling. Even math is going well this year. (Last year multiplication was a tad bit stressful on occasion) She is struggling with FOCUS. I have to keep her attention quite often and she is always wanting to help others with understanding their directions. While I LOVE her heart for wanting to help out, she must let me be the teacher and do her work.

Ethan- age 7 1/2, 2nd Grade: LOVES math. Language/Letters & Sounds workbooks are painless. With him we end up fighting about his writing book. He has to really use his imagination and THINK on his own which he doesn't enjoy doing. He wants me to sit there and tell him what to write and tell him how to spell words. He doesn't like spelling things wrong and he doesn't want to guess and go. (On sloppy copies this is fine) I LOVE this writing book and recommend it to all homeschool fams. It takes your kid through the writing process. By the end of the book they will do a research paper and be able to "publish" their own report. I buy hard cover books with blank pages inside for them to copy their report into and then draw pictures.

Blake- age 5 3/4, 1st Grade: LOVES EVERYTHING. No fights at all. :) He just finished all 72 of his readers this past Friday. He's read all of our Dr. Seuss books, too. We are going to start checking out books from the library. If I had to pick one area where he struggles I'd have to say handwriting. His issue is that in the Abeka curriculum half of the books have 4 lines and half of the books have 7 lines- three of which are lightly dotted. That is too much for Blake so whenever he uses a 7-line book he gets confused and his letters aren't written exactly right on the lines. They still line up with each other correctly but they don't fall on the lines correctly. No big deal really. As long as he can write it correctly on the 4 line paper then I'm fine.

Alison- age almost 4: No school. She LOVES to sit at the table and work on her workbook. She is an expert at cutting and pasting. lol. Her struggle is that Momma often asks her to go out of the room because she doesn't always know how to sit and be quiet. :)

Chase- 6 months: He is happy but his struggle is that his naptime is changing and he seems to be needing Momma right when I want to start school.

Okay, this post is super long. If anyone made it to the end, thanks for reading. :)

Chase is Six Months Old

I can't believe that Chase is 6 months old today. It seems like yesterday that my body was in pain from just having my 5th c-section. I remember seeing him for the first time and being so happy that God had given me another child to love and care for. He was sweet from the very beginning. So helpless and he slept so much I could barely get him to eat.

Now here it is 6 months later and he's starting to be a "real" boy. He tries to grab stuff and roll over while he's getting a diaper change. He knows that if he lifts up the crib bumber OR if he folds it down that he can see what is going on outside of the crib. He laughs and smiles all the time. He eats all kids of baby foods and sleeps 12-14 hours a night. So hard to believe we are halfway to his first birthday. I look forward to what God has in store for Chase. Fun times ahead for all of us. :)

Potpie

Last night I made potpie for dinner. I cooked the chicken a tad bit too long and I simmered the "juice" too long so it was a little thicker than last time but it was still TASTY!!! Here's a pic of what it looked like before we cut into it.

Amy's Cakes become Sweet Bakes

I decided that my cake business needed a new name. There were several reasons. The first was that there were many Amy's Cakes on facebook. The second reason was that a lot of people make a business named after themselves. I was wanting something a little more original.

Today around the lunch table Abigail had a great idea. I decided I'd go with it and give her all of the credit for the new name. So... Amy's Cakes becomes SWEET BAKES!

Moving

Well, the time has come for me to move my blog from Homeschoolblogger to Blogger. Why???? The main reason is my chance to change the background!!

I am obsessed with simple changes. I love rearranging rooms in my home- though right now we are so packed in that we have our rooms arranged in a way to fit the most stuff. Sometimes you need a small change... nothing that upsets your life but something that gives you a fresh, new feeling. lol

Also, Blogger is more advanced and seems a lot easier to use. I'll give it a whirl for a while but if I end up not liking it I might go back.

With this I end my very first Blogger post. Today I am thankful for fresh, cool air, great homeschool co-op Mom's room conversations, and my family.

OOPS!! Almost forgot... to read archives from the past two years you'll have to visit my old blog.... unless I can figure out how to move them here. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/amymomoffour