relationships

in the last 6 months, i have seen the relationships between my kids just blossom. on their own, taylor and elizabeth will step in and decide to do something for and with the little kids. sometimes it's reading, sometimes it's playing.

i remember one day that my heart just about burst with joy, cause they were being so kind and wonderful with each other. (for the life of me, now i can't remember what they did, but i was so grateful.

every now and then, someone asks me if i plan on putting them back into public school. i remember the days that they are awesome with each other, and i can't stand to think about bringing that all to a screeching halt. let alone all of the other chaos that we've managed to escape because we homeschool.

yes, i would have more freedom and there would be less stress in my life if i put them back into public school. but, if my kids lose their friendships and their cohesion as a family because i decided i was more important, i'm not okay with that.

i WANT my kids to be good friends. i WANT to have a strong family unit. any sacrifice on my part, is worth it.

goodies from kids

 this one, from elizabeth, warmed our hearts. she gave us this after a particularly trying weekend. she had a friend who wanted her to spend the night. however, we were not comfortable with it. so, we had told them that they needed to take turns. and as they had done the sleepover thing at her house last time, we wanted them to do it at our house this time. that didn't fly with her father.

 this one is by ashley. the figure in the center is mom, i'm standing in the rain, getting hit by lightning.

this little gem, is also by ashley. once again, i'm in the center, and i'm a zombie (hence the green skin). the red "slice" off to the left is my blood, and the green "slice" off to the right is my hair. it's raining green rain, and i 'm standing in a green river.

WARM!

this is what happens when i cook during the summer. the temp on the right is the outside temp. the one on the left is inside.

summer

GAH! they are predicting 89 degrees for thursday! (we will probably be hiding in the basement)

i've wanted to make a "sprinkler" from a 2-liter pop bottle for a few years. the problem is that we never had the correct end on the hose to hook it up. 

remember how last year, something at a hole in my heavy duty hose? well, i tried to fix it using duct tape. that didn't work too well. this year, i got fed up, and decided to go get a piece to fix it. i was pretty sure i knew what i needed, and fairly certain i knew how to put it on (i did double check with the associate at ace to make sure i had things right). when i got home and showed it to shaun, he decided to fix it for me.

now, i have a two-piece hose, and the correct end on one of them. 

here is my red-neck sprinkler. not sure if you can see the water spraying.

i can make anything!

we acquired a new vehicle (well, new to us). some friends gifted us a suburban. (more on that later)

seat belts always cut into my neck. i'm not short, but i'm not extremely tall either, so i don't know why. i had purchased a cover for the belt in the van. but, we are still using the van, so i didn't want to remove the cover.

one day while i was at the dollar store, i started looking at what they had that i could turn into a cover. i found some dish drying mats, that are feel very similar to the cover i bought for $10.

i cut it in half, attached some velcro to it, and now we have a cover for each front belt!

(i feel really clever)

growing

this little boy is growing up, and it makes me sad... he's no longer a baby, but a running and talking preschooler!

just look at how tall this kid is getting!

changes

(not the best picture, i know!)

my hair grows pretty fast, and it's gotten to the point that if it touches my neck, i get overly warm. (see how long it was!)

so, i called my friend in desperation (i was nearly desperate enough to take my clippers to it...).i told her i wanted it all gone. last time we did a long pixie, but it was still not quite as short as i wanted it. here's what we ended up doing.

of course, until i was able to style it, i wasn't sure.

(also not a very good picture.)
and as is the struggle with curly hair, every day your hair does something different. some days, i really like what it does, some days i don't. and honestly, most days i don't even look at it after it's dry.

gardening

getting a garden in this year was a trial. i was still pregnant and very sick with little energy when it was time to till a spot out back. and i wasn't going to have shaun do it, cause he's so allergic to weed and such, that it wouldn't have been fair. not the he really had the time for it either. 

about a week before we found out we'd lost sprout, i tried getting the front flower bed cleaned out so we could plant a few things. this is about as far as i got. starting a border. 

shaun finished cleaning it out, and we discovered that it was FULL of ants. so for 2 weeks, i made sure they had big piles of cornmeal and oatmeal to harvest from. (ants can't expell the gas that it causes, and they end up exploding) then a friend offered to let us use the diatomaceous earth they had. i re-dug the dirt, and spread it all around. yesterday, i got tired of waiting, and decided to just get going with it.

i planted carrots, kale, chard, and spinach. basically the greens for our smoothies. granted, it will be mid august when i can start harvesting them, but i'm ok with that. anything to help offset the cost of groceries. 

in the right corner, ashley has some sunflowers. they are struggling, and something is starting to eat the leaves, but they are there.

my labeling "sticks," are old wooden spoons that i painted and then shellaced.

maori warrior

it started as an attempt at a tiger. it ended up looking more like a maori warrior to me.

isn't he just adorable!!

crayons, crayons, crayons

so, i'm the ward librarian at church. at the beginning of the year, someone purchased and replaced all the crayons in the boxes. then they placed the old ones in a bag, and dumped them on a shelf to be forgotten.

i decided to bring them home and recycle them. 

here's what the garbage can looked like after we were done peeling all the papers off.

we ended up with 7 or 8 trays worth of "new" crayons. i put similar colors together. so, all the purple colors are mixed, all the blue colors are mixed and so forth. the blacks and grays are mixed. and in each "new" crayon, there is a small white section.

this pan got a little bent out of shape, and ended up spilling everywhere, including all over the inside of my oven.

my poor floor after the spilling accident.

of the 7 or 8 trays, we had 2 christmas shaped batches. the rest are simple circles.

the kids thought it was so cool to be able to make "new" crayons that they wanted to help. it got to the point that they finished them up. although, i continued to run the oven.

sickos

last sunday, i finally broke down and took shannon into the doctor (as it was sunday, the only thing open was community care, but that's ok.). she'd been running a pretty high fever for about 5 days (like 102-103).
the previous night, elizabeth started feeling sick, and running a fever as well.

i was thinking strep, cause they didn't have any other complaints, other than a semi-sore throat.

the tests came back negative, but they had all the clinical signs, so we treated them as though it was strep. 24 hours later, shannon was great, 12 hours after that, elizabeth was great.

last night, ashley came down with a high fever (103). everything but the er was closed, and i didn't want to go there, so i called in first thing this morning. physical exam didn't show anything (surprise, surprise), but as we'd had strep already, we are going to treat it like it is strep.

i'm ready for everyone to be healthy!!!

2015 summer reading lists

taylor books

rikki tikki tavi

trumpet of the swan

hardy boys

call it courage

tale of despereaux

hobbit

my father's dragon

bridge to terabithia

elizabeth books

pippi longstocking

heidi

mary poppins

matilda

anne of green gables

little princess

wizard of oz

harriet the spy

shannon books

if you give a mouse a cookie

corduroy

princess and the pea

rainbow fish

blueberries for sal

ashley books

harold and the purple crayon

seven silly eaters

corduroy

caps for sale

chicka, chicka, boom, boom

hand, hand, fingers, thumb

blueberries for sal

michael books

curious george

mike mulligan and his steam shovel

caps for sale

harold and the purple crayon

harry the dirty dog

chicka, chicka, boom, boom

hand, hand, fingers, thumb

i had to make sure either we had them, or the library had them available. shannon is missing a few, but that's because i was unable to find a copy.

summer plans

our summer is in full swing now. although we are still trying to work out some kinks.

although, school is over for the year, we don't want to slide, so we will continue doing some math, and reading.
our math is mainly going to be through tenmarks.com. they offer a free summer program to help children avoid the summer slide. because elizabeth struggles with math, she will have a little more to do.
our reading is mainly going to be doing the summer reading program through the library. however, the kids all have about 8 assigned books that i requiring them to read. (i'll put those in another post) i've told the other kids that if they read to the younger kids, they can both count those minutes for the library program.
taylor and elizabeth still have their reading for info (this requires to pay attention to what they have read so they can answer some questions), and shannon is working on the next book of explode the code.
ashley and michael will be working on their letters and numbers.

the school district does free lunches in the park every week day until the end of july. we have going to those, and will continue to do so.

i'm trying to find a way to put the kids in swimming lessons, but haven't had much luck so far. (any funds that come in have to go to bills...)

we have a family reunion scheduled for july, but don't know if we'll be able to go yet.

plans

i woke up with a list of things that needed to be done; and knowing that there was no way to get it all done today. even if i had a good day and felt well.

the entire house needs to be cleaned. front room, living room, bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms. the lawn needed mowed, the weeds chopped. the front flower bed prepared for some veggies, and planted. laundry done and put away, including sheets. making dinner, and getting a few groceries.

that doesn't even include the things i would LIKE to do. like the baking, and sewing, and crafts. it's so frustrating to never know how i'm going to feel each day so i can plan things.

processing

yesterday was a rough day. i woke up feeling odd, and was never really able to figure out why. i'm inclined to say that it was mostly emotional (with the clinical depression, anything that affects my hormones, sends the depression spiraling. whether up or down, i can never guess). i tried to get some things done, but it was difficult.
then, last night, we went and visited some friends. we had apple pie a la mode, and played games and talked. it was really nice. they had been through a difficult miscarriage in the past and completely understood how hard it was for me. she let me talk, and didn't make me feel like i was being ungrateful because i already have 5 healthy kids.

last night, the insomnia hit again. even though we didn't get home until after 12 last night, it was nearly 3 before i fell asleep. michael woke up about 1:30 with charlie horses, and i laid with him for a bit, he joined me in my bed around 6 this morning though.

shannon didn't feel well yesterday. she lounged around and pretty much "vanished" (this is the child that is always running and doing SOMETHING). in the afternoon she complained that her head hurt, i told her she could go finish the movie they were watching or go to bed. she went to bed...! when she woke up, shaun discovered that she had a fever! 102.5... i was surprised; especially since she said the only thing wrong was that her head hurt. gave her some tylenol, and she rebounded after it kicked in.

this morning, she was warm again, but so was taylor... i still haven't figured out what they had, but they both seem to be doing better now.

i'm hoping that things will just continue to get better and that i won't have any really bad days. but only time will tell.

tonight, my heart hurts.

went to the doctor today for a sprout check. we couldn't find a heartbeat (12 weeks is a difficult time to find one). so, we slipped into the sonogram room real quick to catch it. there was no heartbeat. in fact, sprout hadn't grown a single day since the first appointment we had.

i'm also confused. i got a blessing about 6 weeks ago, and was told that i would have the energy i needed for the pregnancy and delivery. and that this baby would be strong and healthy.
i'm unsure how that fits now.

since my body likes to hoard things, we are heading in first thing in the morning for a d&c.

(i'm not even sure how to voice what i'm feeling..

productive

even though i woke up late this morning, after a restless night, i was able to get some things done. in fact, i got some things done that i haven't for weeks.

i made banana bread!
i cooked some chicken for meal prep!
i washed pans!
i made dinner! (ok, this was a remake. we were invited to dinner at some friends last night, after i'd already put the roast in the crockpot) but, i made REAL mashed potatoes today!
i got a couple of loads of laundry done!
i worked on some school stuff!

i'm really hoping that this is the beginning of me starting to feel better.

good daddy

poor shaun spent half the night up with sick kids.

ashley threw up just before we sent her to bed, and kept going until about 2.
taylor started at 4, and finished out the night.

ashley once again threw up this morning. even though i was right there, the smell of the stomach acid made me want to barf.

looks like we'll have a lazy day instead of getting the house cleaned...

reading

about 3 weeks ago, shaun decided that something needed to change, or things were going to get drastic. he started us reading the scriptures as a family. (no, we hadn't been very good at this.)

we've made it through chapter 15 of 1 nephi.

but the biggest change i've seen is in my children's reading abilities. taylor, who was doing well to begin with, just got better. elizabeth, who struggled a little bit, has gotten much more fluent. shannon, who was barely reading (like a total of 6 words), now reads more than 50, on her own!

i had been meaning to start shannon on reading the book of mormon, but with being sick with sprout, i haven't gotten around to it yet.

water

i'm starting to feel better. not always when i need it, but hey, at this point, i'll take what i can get.

yesterday, i was downstairs trying to get some of the laundry taken care of. i walked into the family room to do something, and stepped in a puddle. as i backed away, i stepped in another one. i gave michael a dirty look, positive that i was stepping in pee, and went to get a dirty towel out of the pile in the laundry room to clean it up. it wasn't a puddle of pee.

i have nearly a 5 foot square section of my newly carpeted family room that is soaked! with the constant rain we've been having this last week, my foundation is leaking,     somewhere.

we informed the landlord, who was shocked that we had water. "are you sure you didn't leave the window open? is there a crack in the window? check the rain gutter and make sure that it's not pooling at the house. i just don't understand why you have water downstairs!"

um, this window has NEVER been opened. the walls aren't even damp. the water's not coming through the window.

when we were trying to get walls fixed and painted so the landlord would get the new carpet in, we discovered that the mold from last year's flood wasn't alone. there had already been mold and apparently the source of the problem was not corrected.

in the food storage room, there's a spot on an outside wall that isn't smooth (i don't know what else to call it). there are gaps in the cement. not that you can see the ground on the other side, but enough that if we water over there, we end up with water coming through that wall. i'm almost positive that's what's happening on the wall in the family room.

when we finally heard back from the landlord about the mold, he wanted to paint over everything, and ignore that it was there. he didn't want to make sure that the studs in the wall or the insulation were still good. his solution was to fix the immediate problem (the moldy carpet from the flood), and everything else would be fine.

now, he's paying the price. brand-new carpet that's soaked and stinks, and no idea what's causing it.

we are so fed up with everything that we are seriously considering moving.