Random Things

I am tired and it is late but it's been a few days since I have written so I thought I would post a few random things from our life:

• Dresden had a double ear infection last week.  She is much much better and only has one dose of antibiotic left to take which will be in the morning.


• It has been raining very hard and there has been thunder, lightning, and hail here over the last few hours, even though this afternoon was a beautiful Kansas City day, 65 degrees.  I am hoping there is no hail damage on my van.


• We are about a week away from finishing up our contract with T-Mobile and are in the process of switching to Cingular but the rep I talked to last night has not yet returned my calls.  I have left about three voice mails in the last 24 hours.  If I do not hear back from her by mid day tomorrow, I will call and talk to another rep.


• The kids and I had lunch at my grandparent's house today.  It is nice to be able to just go visit them.  I really enjoy having them a part of my daily life after 20 years of living out of town and I know they enjoy seeing the kids on a regular basis.  I need to thank Michael more often for being willing to leave everything he knew and his beloved mountains to move here.  That is not the entire reason we did move here but it is a great "perk" and blessing and opportunity to minister.


• We finally broke down and decided to try Blockbuster Online, at least for the free trial.  I set it up yesterday and now the first 3 discs of Season 5 of 24 are on their way to us! Yay!


• I made a dessert last night that I found on the Hallmark website.  It is called Blueberry Boy Bait :) and it is very good.  Tonight I made Saltine Toffee Candy to take to our Small Group meeting tomorrow night.  It is cooling in the fridge now.


• I have been up to my ears in curriculum catalogs, websites, and curriculum guides from the library trying to wisely and economically plan for next school year.  There is so much to choose from and so much to consider.  There is a used curriculm fair coming up in about 6 weeks and then the annual homeschool convention the next weekend so I am planning to just continue my research until then and hopefully find good deals and save on shipping then.


• I got a new cd from the book table at church the other day called Indelible Grace.  A few of the songs were familiar to me from what we sing at church on Sunday evenings.  I have been enjoying it much.


• More later.

Good Deals

I love thrift stores.  I think it started back in 1996 when my mom managed a thrift store for a rescue mission and we were there day in and day out and saw for ourselves the vast range of things that were donated.  Granted, much of it should have gone directly to the trash but there are truly many treasures to be found, especially if you can afford the time to really look.  My experience at the thrift store taught me to be a good thrift store shopper.  I learned how to look at something and evaluate it for what it is now, and not what it used to be.  I have had many needs met by shopping at thrift stores and have saved tons of money.  I love finding a great bargain while buying decent things for my home and nice clothes for my family.  And sometimes, God provides something I didn't specifically ask for.  The other night I decided I was tired of the denim purse I have been carrying for almost a year.  I thought I had saved a couple of my old favorites in my closet so I went to dig one out but couldn't find the one I wanted.  I started making plans in my mind to try to get a new one sometime soon, maybe for my birthday next month.  Yesterday, the kids and I went across town to spend the night with my grandma.  She happens to live near very good thrift shopping, an antique store and a large thrift store.  The magazine rack above is one I got two weeks ago at the antique store for $10.50.  It looks great near my fireplace.  I didn't go there yesterday, I just went to the thrift store.  I wandered back to the purses to see what they had and I saw it.  There was a Vera Bradley quilted purse hanging there, marked $4.99.  I grabbed it up and inside was a matching billfold and the whole thing looked brand new.  I noticed that all around the inside edge were little pockets to organize all the things in your purse.  It was perfect!  I knew God had provided just what I wanted, and I hadn't even asked!

The other pictures are some of my other bargains.  The boys shorts outfit for Liam was $1.68.  I put it together myself.  It is a BUM Equipment pair of shorts with gray trim and I found an Old Navy gray T-shirt that matches perfectly.  The little dress for Dresden came from a consignment store near the thrift store  (the buttons on the shoulders are little pink giraffes) and the Spiderman puzzle was at the thrift store.  I picked it up for Liam and then of course, I ended up putting most of it together this afternoon!  It is almost the width of my table!  I did find several other summery items for my kids and even a few things for myself, including a khaki linen skirt for $3.99 and a Chadwick's pink linen shell/blouse for $4.99, which I will proably wear on Resurrection Sunday.  That outfit was $9.00 which is expensive compared to most of what I buy there but cheap when you think about the price of an Easter dress at the mall!  I have fun finding a bargain and I love saving money.  I am truly thankful for the way that thrift store shopping has helped our dollars stretch over the years.

Fun

Today I did two things I have not done in too long.  I sat down and watched a whole movie with the kids, start to finish, and we played a game, one Alley got for Christmas and we hadn't even opened yet.  I enjoyed the movie and the game and the time with my kids, laughing and talking.  I have no excuse for not doing these kinds of things more often except for all the many, many things that take the time and attention of a wife and homeschooling mommy.  It seems I never reach the end of my "To Do" list... there are always calls to make, lessons to look over and teach, trips to the grocery store and the library, church activities, baths to give, clothes to wash, dry, fold, hang up and iron, regular housework, not to mention cooking and cleaning up after three meals a day, and of course, checking email, reading a few blogs and using the internet for research on various topics to help me better accomplish some of the tasks I have just mentioned.  Add to this time for personal Bible study and prayer, personal hygiene, and the occassional few minutes I have to read a book or magazine and you can probably see why it's hard to make time for "down time" with the kids or even time for my hobby, rubber stamping.  But that is no reason not to do it anyway, and that is what I am going to try to do more of, ignore the lists to some extent, at least on weekend days when there is no school to do and try to enjoy more things from my kids point of view before they are grown and gone (which will probably be next week sometime  :(  )  At lunch today I was glancing through a magazine that advertised Patrick Henry College and I told Liam that he had awhile until he had to decide but that maybe that would be a good college to think about.  It hit me that he would be making those decisions in only 12 short years.  That's not long.  I want to enjoy the days I have when I have them.  The trick is balancing everything, which is something that no mother can do perfectly.  Another reason to seek God's wisdom.  And it is right there in His Word when we look.  The other day a verse in Proverbs jumped out at me.  "In the house of the righteous there is much treasure"  Prov 15:6a.  I know that treasure is not the material things around me, it is the precious treasures of my children and husband and other people God has given me.  I want to try to enjoy those treasures more, minute by minute.

One funny story from our game:  the game is "Whoonu" by Cranium.  One player is the Whoozit and gets no cards.  The other players get 4 cards and each card has a word on it and you have to pick two cards that are things that you think are favorites of the person who is the Whoozit.  The Whoozit then looks at the cards and puts them in order from least favorite to favorite and then reveals the order and you get points based on how your cards ranked.  Anyway, when I was the Whoozit, I opened the envelope and had " sunsets", "ginger ale",  "coffee" and "heavy metal".  Obviously, I had to rank heavy metal as my least favorite so when I was revealing my cards, I had to explain to them what that was since I could tell they really didn't know.  I told them it was like rock n' roll music and knowing me like they do, they both burst out laughing and I joined them!

I'm off to bathe kids and iron clothes for those who are well enough to attend church tomorrow.  Good night!

Mary Poppins?

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.  You find the fun and SNAP! the job's a game."

Some of you may be singing the first line of the song right now  ("And every task you undertake becomes a piece of cake...), I know I am!  Anyway, yesterday the kid's room really needed straightened up.  I didn't make them stay on top of it when we had company last week and this week I have been distracted with sick kids and various other things so last night, I decided to make a game of cleaning it back up.  I wrote a word or phrase on small slips of paper, folded them and put them in a cup.  I had each one pick out one slip and then I set the timer for 3 minutes and they had to go in the room and ONLY pick up and put away those things.  The first time Alley got Shoes and Liam got Doll Things.  I helped and supervised.  After 3 rounds, the room was pretty much back to normal, all without grumbling and complaining.  This morning they told Michael all about it, even saying it was FUN!  I think they at least realized that the job wasn't so overwhelming when they could break it down into smaller jobs and race the clock at the same time.  Maybe I should try that myself...One Load of Laundry, Vacuum the Bedrooms,  Give Spelling Test...  :)

It's late and  I really need and want to go to bed but my sister (the one who did not cut my hair) has been asking for pics of my new haircut.  I had Alley take a couple this morning so I thought I would quickly get them on here.  Obviously, I have still not figured out how to make the pics from my new camera fit on my blog, but oh well...bigger is better, right?  :)  I also need to figure out how to do captions  (maybe I should type the caption before I upload the next picture?)  Anyway, here is my "new look" minus make-up!  I haven't had a chance to play around with it much so maybe I will post some better pics later, with make-up!

I put the picture of Michael and the kids on here because I thought it was a good one.  The other night Alley was sad because Mimi and Heidi had left the day before and she told me that talking to Daddy helped her when they left last time, in August.  I told Michael she said that so when he got home, he sat down with all of them and let Alley tell him her felings and he calmly helped her understand the bigger picture.  I snapped a picture, of course.

The one of Liam and Dresden is on here because of the expression on Liam's face.  He was playing a dinosaur game on our dinosaur of a PlayStation and you can tell he was really into it!  Dresden was too even though her controller was not actually hooked up!

Good night!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Michael had to work tonight so when I saw an ad for this heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's, I thought it would be a fun way to celebrate Valentine's Day with the kids.  The great thing about Papa Murphy's is that you pick up an unbaked pizza that you can bake fresh when you are ready so I had Michael go out in the cold and snow this afternoon and pick it up for me and I just pulled it out at dinner time.  Very easy and very good.

Other than that, our day was pretty normal, except for when Alley asked if they could get out of doing schoolwork because it was Valentine's Day and tonight Liam asked if he could skip flossing his teeth for the same reason!  I guess they thought it was worth a try!

Also, in case anyone was wondering why I posted a sunflower picture on my last post, it was because I was talking about Kansas in the second paragraph.  I realized it might have seemed somewhat out of place up there by itself.   I actually tried to put a quote under the picture but couldn't get it to work quite like I wanted it to.  I wanted it to say, "Welcome to Kansas!"  which is exactly what the woman on the phone said to me after she quoted me those horrific  personal property tax amounts.  She seemed like she genuinely meant it but I must say, I wasn't really very happy about being in Kansas at that moment!

 I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

(The pictures posted bigger than I expected them to, I guess I will have to get another re-sizing lesson from Heidi! )

Good News, Bad News

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 Well, the good news is that Liam is feeling much better, something we are very grateful to God for.  My aunt came over yesterday afternoon to bring me some Children's Motrin (since Michael had to work) and once I got it in him, his fever came right down.  He had another dose around 10 pm and I set my alarm to get up and check him at 4 am since that was about when the medicine would be wearing off.  He was sleeping peacefully and not hot.  I set the alarm for 6:00 and checked again and he was still cool and still sleeping peacefully.  (Michael slept in the chair in the living room with Liam nearby on the couch so he could be there if he needed anything and he told me this morning that Liam almost fell off the couch a couple of times...maybe his night wasn't as peaceful as I thought!  :)  His fever was up again slightly (between 100-101) around 8 am so he did get another dose of Motrin and seems to be feeling more like his old self.  His cough even sounds better today.

The bad news is that Kansas requires you to pay personal property tax on your vehicles for the upcoming year when you register them instead of not charging you if your vehicle was not garaged in their state on January 1st of the year, like Virginia.  I thought we wouldn't be worrying about personal property tax until the end of 2007 since we were not in Kansas in January 2006.  I looked around on the website today in preparation to get the vehicles re-registered and I finally called to clarify the details of the confusing process and found out that we will be paying about $290 in personal property tax that we were not expecting.  Not fun.  We have to go to one place to get an inspection and then to another place to pay the fees and then yet another place to get new Kansas drivers licenses.  Exciting.

Another small piece of bad news, at least in my opinion, is that we are getting neighbors downstairs.  The apartment below us has been empty for the whole four months we have lived here and that has been nice with three kids in here all day, especially when one is a little girl who has recently learned to jump!  Oh well, it will give us all another chance to practice thinking of others first as we try to walk more softly!

And in the good and the bad, the big and the small,  it's nice to know that God has it all in His hands.

Liam Part 2

Just as an update, Liam hasn't had any more back pain but he still has a bad cough and he developed a fever last night.  He said his tummy hurt again this morning early but he never was sick and is now feeling okay. He was fine in that department during the rest of the day yesterday.  I am not sure if these symptoms tie together in any way so we are watching him.  Please keep him and us in your prayers.

Also, I meant to post this yesterday but forgot.  The other night the kids and I decided to spend the night at my grandma's since my mom and Heidi were going to spend the night there too, before they left town the next morning.  My mom went up there earlier in the afternoon and the rest of us followed a few hours later.  When we got there, Liam caught a glimpse of my grandma through the window and he said,   "I just saw a smudge of Grandma."  I knew he meant glimpse but couldn't think of the word.  I love it that he still says cute things like that.

Liam

I am a first born so I will never know for sure what it is like to be the middle child, sometimes lost in the midst of a family made up of an older sibling who is always experiencing something new for the first time and a younger sibling who needs more hands-on care and parents who are trying to learn all over again every day how to be good parents to each of their children who are each changing constantly.  Even though I will never have first-hand experience in this, God has given me a son, my 'pickle in the middle'.  Sometimes, because he is a boy and his interests are in things that I have no knowledge of (like the Bionicle Lego action figures!), it is easy for me to only half listen to him when he is excitedly telling me all about the latest exploits of his favorite characters.  I am trying to catch myself doing this and make myself pay more attention to him, even if we discuss things that don't seem important to me when I have a list of jillions of things that need done NOW.  

Last night, or I guess I should say, early this morning, he had some undivided attention.  At around 6:30 this morning, just before dawn, he comes to my side of the bed and tells me he is really hot.  I felt his forehead and didn't think he had a fever.  I was about to tell him to just go back to sleep without all the extra blankets he had last night when he says he is about to throw up.  We go right into my bathroom and he finally does empty his stomach but there wasn't really much in there.  I fixed a bed for him on the couch, complete with a big plastic bowl just in case.  ( I have to say that he is very brave when it comes to vomiting.  When I was a little girl, I remember crying every time I was sick but he never does.  He takes it like a man!)  Anyway, he got settled on the couch and I got back under my warm covers.  A few minutes later I hear him breathing like he was a few minutes earlier in the bathroom.  I called out to him to ask if he is okay and he says his back is hurting.  I got up to check on him and Michael woke up.  By this time, Liam is writhing in pain and we can hardly understand the answers to the questions we are asking him.  We had pretty much decided that we needed to take him to the emergency room when he said the pain was going away.  He sat still for a few more minutes and we said a short prayer and then the pain stopped.  We could tell by his voice that he was okay again.  He has been fine ever since and we aren't really sure what caused it.  Our best guess is that he might have strained or pulled a muscle when he was throwing up.  Needless to say, we are very thankful to God that he is okay and that we did not have to go to the ER.  It is amazing how much love God gives us for these little blessings, first, last or middle!

New Blog Site

This is a week of "new" for me....I got a new digital camera which is very awesome and I have a very cute new haircut done by my very own sister, Heidi, and today I decided to move my blog from Blogger.com to Wordpress.com.  I like it so far but I am still learning how to really use it.  Two cool things are 1) you can simply import your entire blog from a few other blogging sites and not lose any posts or comments and 2) they have several templates that have customizable headers so now the faces of my dear children are at the top of my blog.  Speaking of dear children, Dresden has awoken from her nap and is calling for "Ba", her name for me of late.  More later!