I *love* all about spelling!

Today I realized that we are almost completely done with our All About Spelling book. This is the best spelling program! I had lots of grand ideas about spelling before I started homeschooling. I’m a natural speller. Spelling was always super easy for me because things are spelled how they’re *supposed* to be spelled. Michael isn’t like that at all. There isn’t a single word in the English language that he can intuitively spell. He also pretty much hates writing. I blame public school and D’nealian for his loathing of handwriting.

We’ve switched handwriting programs to something called Handwriting without Tears which is working fantastically for both boys. There is joy in my heart about that one! We don’t do gobs of handwriting but even Joseph’s is becoming fairly legible. I wish I would have started Michael out with this from the beginning fortunately after trying D’nealian for 2 days with Joseph we decided to scrap it all and start them both over. We’re very wise people like that.

But back to the spelling. My greatest love of AAS is that we don’t even use paper with it. Seriously. We do writing in other subjects so I don’t feel like this is a big deal. We use a magnetic dry erase board and put all of the letter tiles around the edges and keep a dry erase marker (or three) on the board. Then during out lesson we can use either the letter tiles or the markers to spell out the words. Plus, we can take this board anywhere in the house fairly easily.

I also love the review cards. It comes with a set of cards with all of the spelling rules that we learn on flashcards. I placed them in a little box and used the dividers to separate them into cards that need work, mastered cards, and future cards. This way they’re all right there together and review is super duper easy.

I love that the lessons are really short and make lots of sense. OOOH how I love our spelling program! I Just ordered the next book and at $30 plus shipping, it’s rather steep in price. This is one curriculum that I’m willing to purchase even without a discount!

I love spring!

I don’t love the weather, it’s too unpredictable and entirely too wet. I like those days where it’s just a tad on the chilly side….and sunny. Those are definitely the best. What I love about spring are the garage sales, the asparagus and most of all the rhubarb. How I love rhubarb. I have some sitting in my fridge from my grandma’s garden that I need to use up. I feel a rhubarb upside down cake coming on. That maybe be what spring tastes like for me. So yummy!

I’ve spent the last 2 weekends enjoying the town wide garage sales. 2 weekends ago we went to Blue Mound for their sales. My exciting purchase of the weekend was a Le Cruisette casserole dish that sells for a discounted price of $83 on Amazon. I got it for $10 it looks brand new. It’s blue, not my first choice but I’ve been wanting one for a long time and the price was certainly right! I know we got Zedekiah a Gap coat for next winter and a Darth Vader costume for Halloween but I don’t remember anything else. I know that I didn’t get much else. We had a good time with my mom and got to visit with my grandma and aunt so it was well worth it.

This weekend was our town’s sales. We garage saled for 2 days and still didn’t hit all the sales. Friday my aunt Ruth joined us in the morning and we found some clothes for the boys, a bit of lionel train fabric for the quilting ladies to decide if they want otherwise I’ll sell the fabric for a small profit, and gobs of cookbooks. I got Rachel Ray, weight watchers, All Recipe’s cookbook and a couple more. Weight Watchers ones usually aren’t my thing but they looked brand new and were only 50c each so I scooped them up thinking I could figure out if i wanted them and if I don’t post them on paperbackswap. Well, it turned out that one of my books was worth $50!! So, once it sells I’ll have paid for everything I purchased over the weekend and made a little profit. Saturday my mom went out with Zedekiah and I and we hit a bunch more sales. This time we mostly got boy clothes, a Flash costume for Joseph, a couple of lego sets, some boy books, a Hannah Andersson dress and a puzzle for Lizzie. My favorite find is one of the ones my husband has been waiting for for a long time. I found a box of RC controllers and a chassis marked free. Every time I leave for garage saling he tells me the name brands of RC stuff he is looking for…every time I only remember the name Tamia but I figure I can always call him. This time it was Futaba which I knew I’d heard him say before but didn’t think it was on my list. It wasn’t but he definitely wanted it. He might get one of the controllers to work and he’s still trying to identify the chassis.

One of my online friends (that I need to make an “in real life” friend since she lives so close) posted a picture of her haul from the sales and it was fun to see. Next week I aspire to do the same thing. This week I was on top of things and have managed to get most of what we got washed and put away already.

Zedekiah is growing growing growing. He’s inching in on 18 lbs. He’s rolling everywhere. Our final gate for the stairs is on it’s way here as we speak. He’s cut his first tooth finally. It was hard work for all of us. There was lots of lost sleep over that tiny little tooth. He bit daddy with it yesterday which is when daddy finally believed me that it was all the way in. We are no longer allowed to look into Z’s mouth like ever. He has perfected the covering of the tooth with his tongue. He’s tried lots of yummy foods including (in order of appearance) rice cereal, avocado, banana, applesauce, carrots, sweet potato, peas, pears, green beans, mango, and winter squash. It’s been a fun adventure.

Michael and Joseph are growing too. Someday Joseph might actually be tall enough to ride a roller coaster. I don’t know how he keeps outgrowing his pants but not getting any taller. It is a great mystery to me. They’ve been eating up this weather and enjoying getting out on their bikes. Joseph has mastered riding his bike one handed. He thinks he’s all that.

We’ve started giving the boys every day responsibilities. They are now in charge of the following things every single morning: Wake up, eat breakfast, clean up after yourself, Joseph has to sweep the floor and Michael has to wipe down the table, brush their teeth, get dressed and clean their rooms. Michael is responsible for reading his bible and starting his homework after that. I’m hoping that this means we’ll get done with school a little earlier so they can get outside a little earlier. Michael has embraced the responsibilities pretty well. He likes structure like that. Joseph likes to rebel against authority. I’ve needed to set him back to task again pretty much every day.

That’s a bit of what’s going on around here.

pictures

I’m too lazy to repost all my pictures here. Much like many of you are too lazy to post comments on my page here. Oh yes, I’ve noticed….but only because it’s been an excessively long time (like SIX WEEKS) without any positive reinforcement for my blogging. Oh and I’m attention seeking.

Actually since I’ve already posted them to Facebook and put nice little comments on all my pictures I think you will be happy with the change. Even if you don’t have a facebook account you should be able to view the pictures. There are like 20 so it’s totally worth the visit.

In other news, in case I haven’t mentioned it here. I ate a green bean the other day (actually like 6) and found it to be edible. I’m getting old.

The pictures are here.

Overheard at our dinner table….

Last night we were discussing the rise and fall of Rome while we were having dinner. At points where the boys struggled to remember particular points, Jeremy would interject with something completely random and wrong and the boys would argue with him. Here’s my favorite(recalled to the best of my ability, artistic license is used):

Me: So what did Julius Caesar do when he got to Britain?

Michael: I don’t know.

Jeremy: He probably gave them all puppy dogs and went home.

Boys: *Hillarious laughter*

Michael: That’s silly! Puppy dogs weren’t invented yet. They only had prairie dogs back then.

Oh yes. Prairie dogs.

Sooo long

Well, I think this is becoming obvious but for some reason my heart just isn’t in blogging right now. I’ve been researching so many different things lately and it seems I don’t to stop learning more to write. But I’m here for an update anyways, just don’t expect much for a while ok?

Joseph had his appointment with the ENT last week. He has incredibly huge adenoids, much larger than they expected to see in his large adenoids. We were VERY happy with the PA we saw as well as everyone else in the office (well, except for the appointment making lady…she failed to be polite or tell us where our test this week is at) but everyone the kids interacted with was great. We also did allergy testing while we were there since Joseph has some obvious signs of allergies but the test came back negative. Who knows what that’s about. Tomorrow we have a trip to Springfield for a “sweat chloride” test and then in early may we have an appointment with the doctor who is doing the surgery. I’m already really happy with our choice to leave Decatur for this and am very happy with who our doctor recommended.

I’ve been on a diaper hunt lately. Some of our diapers weren’t really working for us and some of our diapers are quickly getting outgrown so it was time to assess what we have and what we need. I have a nice healthy stack of diapers that I need to sell and a few fun ones on their way. I have found the Motherease One Size love. The diapers I bought a couple of weeks ago have turned out to be great for us and rumor has it they last for all of eternity. I’ve bought 4 more this week (paying a lot more for them obviously), another type of diaper by the same company plus a cover, a tye dyed Goodmama (these diapers have a cult following, I’ve seen them go for $90 and have been curious so I bought a used one for $18) and an ooga booga Mutt 3sr. I think I’m going to buy one more diaper and then start looking for covers. I really want to try wool again, we haven’t had any wool covers since Z was tiny and I’d really like them for this summer when he can just wear them instead of pants.

Our court case is still dragging on. It’s hard to believe how much of a financial drain this is on us. Please keep praying.

Easter was fantastic. I didn’t get to see more than 5 minutes of the Easter service but I’m anxious to watch it online. We had 3 cute boys who really enjoyed the holiday. We tried to go to an Easter egg hunt at the zoo on Saturday but it was INSANE crazy. Like you couldn’t actually see your child hunting eggs or even get to the eggs for that matter. We told the boys we’d buy them eggs and candy and they could have their own egg hunt at home. Fortunately they went for that. The easter bunny brought them a flashlight, Playmobil stuff and a book and candy so they were happy with him. We did an egg hunt at my grandma’s where they all got money which they think is fantastic…and so do I…much better than candy!

Well, I need to figure out what we’re doing tomorrow. Last week we went to Chuck E Cheese but I’d might like to do something else tomorrow… i suppose it partly depends on the weather.

Diapers and mommy time

Today was a fabulous day. FABULOUS. I started off my day by heading a town over to buy some diapers I found listed on Craig’s List. I came away with 6 Mother Ease One Size and 5 miscellaneous covers all for $30. I’m curious to try the Motherease diapers. I’ve heard lots of mixed reviews but if I like them I think I’m going to dye them so that they make me happy. They’re in really good condition and not exactly stained, more just dingy from the laundry. I also got the infamous $25 diaper. It’s a Bum Genius Organic One Size All In One with SNAPS. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the name. It’s actually a LOT different from the Pocket OS that I already have. I’m very curious to see how it works because I’m not sure I’ll like it.

I’ve found that I’ve quickly started regretting not just switching to One Size diapers completely after we outgrew the newborn diapers. We’ve been through Smalls and are now in Mediums. Our prefolds are starting to get snug so I’ve started looking into what to do next. The One Size diapers usually go up to 35 lbs so that’s probably the route we’re going next. Right now I have 9 one size diapers plus 1 one size fitted and the 6 new-to-me and untested one size fitted I got today. I’m just not convinced that that’s enough to last 2.5 days. I’m getting ready to sell off a lot of my smaller diapers to finance buying bigger diapers.

So after that quick trip (and meeting a mom that had cloth diapered FIVE kids) I headed out to the mall to hang out with my sister and leach off her 30% discount. I Got myself 2 short sleeve shirts that aren’t plain so they won’t show stains as bad as the entire load of stained shirts I had soaking today. I also got a whole bunch of head bands that were like 90% off. I love head bands and I’m always losing and/or breaking them. The price was totally right.

So then I met Jeremy and the boys for dinner at the Chinese buffet and took the boys back to the Children’s Museum so that they could show me the new exhibit that they are IN LOVE with. They have this area with a mechanics shop where you work on this little car they have there. There are work orders and a convenient waiting area for the parents (complete with faux coffee pot!). It’s quite awesome.

Once Jeremy rejoined us after running errands, I brought Zedekiah home for a nap. An awesome awesome nap. Jeremy took the boys with him to racing so I got to be alone with the baby MORE. We ran to the hospital to take my cousin’s shower gift and pick up the CD of Joseph’s CT scan from my mom. Then we picked up the boys and came home for supper.

Michael was a great helper tonight and played with Zedekiah while I folded some laundry and got the diapers going in the wash. I think I managed 3 loads today. Without any help from my husband so far which is actually quite the event for me.

This is how we ended our evening….

The gallery is working and I’m posting pictures!

After weeks of work, my husband finally figured out what was wrong with my gallery so I’m *finally* posting some pictures. You should be able to click on any of them to make them larger.

Here is Zedekiah wearing Josiah’s Christmas outfit. This was when his head still looked really bad.

This is Zedekiah in the last of the diapers that I dyed before he was born. I’m hoping to get our newer diapers died sometime before he grows into them. I’m going to be totally lazy and dye them all the same color if I do get the chance.

This is what Zedekiah looks like some days when we aren’t going anywhere. Seriously could he possibly look worse than that?

A cute picture of Jeremy and Joseph.

Michael’s big stack of books he read during nap time one day. He’ll have me know he doesn’t like reading and he’ll have any old lady on the street know that he LOVES reading. He often has a pile of books he just read that high.

A fun and cute picture of all three boys…

Joseph and Zedekiah have Rockin’ shirts on.

And now for the main event…..Zedekiah’s first foods…

We started solid foods 2 days before his 6 month mark. He had a Dr’s appointment and I wanted to give him something before that. We started with rice cereal since we weren’t technically 6 months yet.

He wasn’t sure what to think of it but he wanted more!

Three days later we tried avocado. He wasn’t really a fan but we’ll be trying avocado again as soon as the one on the counter ripens up. Since then he’s also had banana and applesauce. Yesterday we tried his first canned food which was carrots. I bought a case of carrots so I was really hoping he would like it. The price was right and I wanted something that I could throw in the diaper bag easily for church and whatnot. The boys just love that Z eats the same applesauce that they do. It cracks me up.

And here he is today in his totally retro atari jammies. It makes me giggle every time I put these on him.

Not posting…

I know, I’m horrible and totally haven’t been posting. It seems like everytime I feel like I catch up on something, I lose control of something else. Right now we’re catching up on the house so the cooking is falling behind and just trying to catch up on anything is making the blogging fall behind. I’ve taken new pictures but haven’t uploaded anything onto the computer yet.

Zedekiah had his 6 month check up and is almost 16 1/2 lbs. He’s pretty healthy right now and even though we’ve battled a few flare ups over the last couple of weeks including the infections spreading to his ears and across his forehead. Right now it seems that it’s cleared up again. Hopefully it stays that way.

Jeremy’s aunt Sheri passed away yesterday. She was really young and had a heart attack. She was really cool and we always enjoyed hanging out with her. She is being missed already.

In other news, my husband appears to have bad genes. It’s really hard to tell since I know of an uncle and a brother (that is younger) that he’s genetically related to, but other than that I have never met a male genetic relative of his. I totally don’t know what I’m in for. His mom and now an aunt have died REALLY young so I think I might have cause to worry. It brought up the whole making a will talk again. So many hard decisions to make.

We haven’t tried many new recipes lately. I made a lemon poppy seed bread that was really quite good. It used a cake mix so it’s not very surprising that it was good.

Growing sprouts has been a lot of fun. They really are quite delicious. I’m anxious to find more seeds to sprout. The alfalfa is a bit boring (but still good!) and the radish sprouts have quite a bit of kick to them. I’d like to find something in between. I’m reading a book about sprouting your own bread. It’s fascinating but probably not something I’ll do for quite a long time. I have children to educate and a house to clean before I can start screwing around in the kitchen again.

This weekend we dedicated ourselves to baby proofing. We managed to almost get the living room done. We still need to buy and install one gate and I need to clean up my mess in there. We ended up putting the coffee table in Joseph’s room so they can play playmobil in there instead of in the living room. We’re going to be working hard to keep the big kid toys in the bedroom. I think every last one of their toys is a chocking hazard.

I met another future cloth diapering mom this week. She’d already bought diapers so she totally counts. I might know more cloth diaperers in Decatur than anyone else. I think she makes 4. Five, if you’re willing to count me as someone I know…. I’m not though.

I’m dreaming of a burrito and I think Z is out well enough that I can sneak away for a few. I hope I’m right!

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

The weather is gorgeous today.  Beautiful.  Awesome.  I love this kind of weather.  Just a little bit chilly and not too sunny.  It’s pretty awesome.  I’m actually outside in a comfy chair with my feet up on an upside down tote typing away on my macbook.  Such a beautiful day.
We just got back from a very short walk up to a tiny park that was made accessible with a sidewalk last summer.  Before that it was this weird tiny landlocked park.  Maybe you could get to it from this cul de sac that we couldn’t get to without going on a busy road.  Maybe.  I’m not even sure about that.  But last summer we got to watch my cousin Matt and his homeys that worked for the village over the summer “work” on our new sidewalk.  I really didn’t see much work but we saw Matt a LOT.  The kids loved it.

So, said park is tiny and not very exciting but it’s within a very short walking distance and has swings which we are too cheap to buy.   I’ve even put Zedekiah in the stroller twice in the last two days for short little walks around the nieghborhood.  Last night we ended up chatting with our friends a couple of streets over while our kids played together.  It felt so summery.   Right now Zedekiah is enjoying a nice post-walk nap in his stroller.  He got a couple of very short naps this morning which doesn’t really work out for him.  He likes long naps.

Michael was really cute this morning when we were getting ready to go to the library.  He didn’t want to return any of the books he had gotten out of the library.  Which was odd because he had a ton and he’d read all of them.  So I asked him why he wanted to keep them and he said it was because he liked them so much.  Now, I had carefully chosen the books he had gotten.  He didn’t want to check out books last time we were at the Decatur Library because he was too busy doing all the other things you can do there.  I chose only books that were parts of a series.  It totally worked.  We took all his books back and got all new ones.  He thinks they’re great.  Woo hoo!

Joseph is still battling his nasty sinus infection.  We had a CT scan done last monday and it didn’t show anything.  The Dr wants us to go to an ENT but I’d like to do another round of antibiotics before we do that since I don’t like the ENT’s here in town and both of the antibiotics we used had amoxicillan in them and I’m just wondering if he has an immunity to that from his infancy.  He was apparently sick a LOT when he was a tiny baby.

Michael is taking his first solo trips around the neighborhood today.  He seems to be doing quite well.  Joseph just got in trouble for lying and had to go inside.  He’s been lying about EVERYTHING and it’s crazy.

Zedekiah has his head infection his his ear now.  So now instead of itching his head, he’s rubbing his ear (you can see the infection so the odds are really good that it’s not an ear infection) and his eyees.  Right now his eyes look pretty good so hopefully it’s not spreading like I think it is.  I would really just like to get some sleep.  It would be awesome.  Ok, I am getting some sleep, I just want more.  I’m selfish like that.

Wow, this went crazy long.  So long until next time!

I bought a sprouter!

I have been wanting to try sprouting my own ummm sprouts.  I read all about it at this one website that I have since lost and just became enamored with the idea of fresh yummy sprouts any time I want without having to pay $4 for a tiny tiny amount that isn’t even organic or anything.  I love sprouts.  I love them on salads and on sandwiches.  My love is both deep and wide.  Which reminds me of a song…..

But back on topic.  I think the one I got is this one called “Sprout Master.” I’m sure it will teach me a thing or two.  At least with it’s name we alreay know who is in charge.  I also bought some radish seeds because I hear they’re fun for sprouting.  I hear alfafa (which I love) is for the unadventurous.  Plus the radish seeds were right there next to the sprouter at the store and they said “(for sprouting)” on them so I knew for sure that’s what they’re for.

Hopefully sometime in the next week the boys and I will be able to get that together.  We have a crazy busy week coming up though.  We have story time monday AM and Joseph’s CT scan on Monday afternoon and Tuesday Michael has art studio.  Hopefully we’ll still be able to get the part of school that involves me done.  It’s really hard when we all have to get out the door for something in the morning.

In case I forgot to mention this, my mom and I went to Tuscola and Arthur today.  I had been cultivating a shopping list for going to Arthur for a couple of week now.  Round about when I started cooking again.  I had to throw out a lot of stuff that went bad during my year of not cooking so there was a lot to be replaced.  I’m also really wanting to make my own granola again soon.  I love granola.  I would like to stop buying cereal as often as I do and start making our own alternatives.  That might be a lofty goal for this point in our lives when I can barely keep the laundry done but it is something I’d like to do.

Yeah, and about that list, i totally left it at home.  It was really helpful.   My major mistakes were not getting powdered milk and powdered buttermilk.  Everything else I can forgive myself for.

Tuscola was having some pretty awesome sales at the outlet mall as well.  Their Children’s Place, while not an outlet, seemed to have comparable deals to an outlet.  They were saying that they get lots of stuff in from other stores so this is definitely the place to go for the deals.  About half of the store was $2.99.  I got 2 giant bags for the boys.  In other non-kid related stores I was able to get most of what I wanted for my cousin’s care package that I’ve been working on for ummmm well since today.  She’s in Iraq and apparently they only have crappy junk food there.  Life is rough.  Harry and David also had thier most delicious product ever.  The Valentine’s Day Moose Munch is the yummiest thing ever.  Popcorn and chocolate and red hots OH MY!!!  Yum.  I want to go eat some right now.  But I’m not.  I’m going to sleep.

I already miss my hour of sleep.