Chaos and Cookies

Pants On The Ground

2010-02-20T17:09:00.006-07:00

Boys! What can you do with them? I always knew God was going to give me boys and I was right. Now that I have 2 of them, I am forever amazed, amused and aghast at their antics. Recently, we had the pleasure of experiencing one of the many rights of passage of boyhood in our home. Stitches!

Allow me to digress just a bit. My Honey, in all his wisdom, decided that a nice, shiny, new pocket knife would be a GREAT Christmas gift for each of the boys. The boys, of course, were ecstatic to receive such a "grown up" gift. After the knives had been opened and thoroughly inspected, we explained to the boys that while the knives were theirs, they were not to get them out or use them without supervision. We had every intention of spending some time discussing proper handling of knives and knife usage but had not yet gotten around to it. On January 18th, we discovered just what a mistake that was. Apparently, knowing those knives were so close at hand and not having had the opportunity to use them proved too much for my little munchkins.

That morning, during a stop at WallyWorld, Muffin Man had used a bit of his Christmas money to buy himself a new Bionicle. It was around 3:30 P.M. when I finally told him that when all his things were picked up and his chores were complete he could open it. I headed into my bedroom to change clothes and freshen up for a job interview I had scheduled for 4:30. I had started curling my hair and partially undressed when suddenly, from the opposite end of the house, came "The Scream." You Moms know what I'm talking about. It wasn't the scream of joy that should have come from opening a new toy. It wasn't the scream of "Leave me alone! It's mine!" that comes when his big brother tries to take over the new toy before it is even out of the box. No, this was the pure scream of terror and it was coming in stereo, from both of my boys!

Dropping everything, I sprinted to the opposite end of the house only to find Muffin Man, with his hands cupped and FULL of blood, more blood streaming down his arms and dripping onto the carpet, (Did I mention we just got new carpet?) blood sprayed on the furniture, and bedspread, blood everywhere! There was so much blood I was not even able to see where it was coming from. I quickly grabbed him and pulled him into the kitchen where I had him lay down and then I just started squeezing his hand with both of mine in an attempt to stop the bleeding. I told Little Man to call 911. Both of the boys were hysterical! Little Man was so upset that he couldn't get the call completed. He kept accidentally hanging up. Muffin Man was crying hysterically and alternately screaming "Dad's going to Kill me!", "I ruined your new carpet!" and "My thumb is gooooone!". Needless to say the scene was chaotic. I was struggling to get both of them to calm down and failing miserably. Little Man eventually got through to 911 and immediately started screaming again. I finally got him to hold the phone to my ear and I was able to let the dispatcher know what was going on and that we would need the paramedics. After a few moments discussion with her, she said to me, " the paramedics are only a few blocks away and should be there any moment."

It was at this moment that I came to my senses and realized that I was not dressed! Remember, I had been in my room changing clothes for an interview when all hell broke loose. So here I am, squatting, in nothing but my granny pants and a small camisole, covered in blood, and unable to let loose of my son's hand! Can we say AWKWARD? I calmly explained to the dispatcher that I was unwilling to have 8 firemen, most likely in their mid 20's and good looking, walk into my house and see me in all my glory half dressed on the kitchen floor. I told her that I would need to put the phone down for a moment while I had Little Man help me get my pants on. And that is just what I did. Let me tell you, we were just in time! As Little Man pulled my pants up, the fire engine drove up to the front of my house! WHEW! Disaster averted! Thirty seconds sooner and I would have been caught with my pants on the ground! NOT a pretty sight!

Once the fire department arrived, I was able to allow them to take over Muffin Man's care and I was able to finish dressing and call My Honey and let him know to meet us at the hospital. My Mom and Dad came over and my Mom drove with us to the hospital while my Dad took Little Man to their house. In the end, Muffin Man got 8 stitches around the base of his thumb and we were told that he was VERY lucky that the tendon was not involved. The cut was literally right up to it but did not involve it. YIKES!

So in the end, all is well that ends well. Muffin Man's hand has healed wonderfully and he has full use of it once again. Both of the boys learned a very valuable lesson and we all have a new found, healthy, respect for knives. There was more than enough guilt to go around. My Honey and I for ever having bought the knives in the first place. For not having spent the time teaching knife usage before then. For not putting the knives in a less accessible place. Muffin man for using the knife even though he knew he wasn't supposed to. For getting blood all over our new carpet. (P.S. Stain Master treatments really are worth the extra money!)Little Man for encouraging his little brother to use the knife in the first place. (We found this out later!) For doing what he knew better than to do resulting in a really scary situation. There were other lessons learned that day. My boys learned the importance of staying calm and quickly reacting in an emergency. They learned about putting pressure on a would and how freaking out only makes getting otherwise simple tasks, like dialing a phone, nearly impossible.

I can now look back at the whole ordeal and laugh but I really have no desire to repeat any of it any time soon. I know injuries are pretty much inevitable but I hope it is a good long time before we have to face another. And I hope to never again have to face the possibility of 8 firemen walking into my house and finding me with my pants on the ground.

Below is one of the photos of the wound. It is not for the faint of heart. Enjoy!

Judge William Young and the Shoe Bomber Sentencing

2010-02-10T12:07:00.003-07:00

I received this in an email. I am not sure who wrote it but it bears sharing with everyone who lives in this great land we call America, The Land of the Free!!! We need more judges like Judge William Young. May God Bless America!

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and
tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?

Did you know he was sentenced?

Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?

Didn't think so.!!!

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to
say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record,
Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the
religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my
actions,' and told the court 'I am at war with your country.'

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.

Judge Young: 'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court
imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the
custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4and 7, the
Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on
each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be
served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon
you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine
of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with
respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to
Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes
upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it.
But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and
just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your
terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been
through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to
everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with
individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As
human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier
in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a
soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government
do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier, you are
not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We
do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We
hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow, but you
are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a
terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted
murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you
first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the
press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'

You are no big deal.

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys
have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to
grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led
you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to
search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to
do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an
answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record,
it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate
our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we
choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we
individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom.
It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize
individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so
that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly,
individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers
are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in
their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we
treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake
though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to
preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The
world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after
tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America , the American
people will
gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual
justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States
through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence
on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather
to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine
our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America .
That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands
for freedom. And it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need
more judges like Judge Young. Pass this around. Everyone should and needs
to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home.

I'm Ba-ack!

2009-11-25T10:35:00.002-07:00

My goodness, it has been such a very long time since I really posted here. I am so disappointed in myself. I actually really enjoy posting and putting pictures of our crazy life up for all the world to see but life just seems to be so dang busy!!! The days just seem to fly by with me falling into bed each night, exhausted, and feeling like I accomplished only half of what I should have.
So very much has happened in the last year. My boys are growing like weeds. They change so much, even daily! I look at Little Man and see that he is, indeed, becoming a Little Man! How can that be? I swear I just birthed him only a few years ago. How is it that he can be 10? He is now a purple belt in karate and doing so well with it. He is so serious about his lessons and improves daily. He has also made vast improvements in baseball over the last year. He is a great catcher and a pretty darn good pitcher as well. He just loves the game and that plays into how busy our days have become. He is doing well in school and loves to read books about baseball and sports.
Muffin Man is growing by leaps and bounds as well. He is now 7 and quite a character. He is pretty much always joyful and loves to make others laugh. Sometimes he can be a bit too much of a clown but we just love him! He is now an orange belt in karate and has his first stripe. He is not quite as serious as Little Man but for his age, is doing very well. He makes steady progress. He loves school and picks up new concepts easily! He loves learning cursive and reading. He is currently reading the Magic Treehouse Series.
So what have we been up to for the past year? Spring was busy with baseball, karate, and school. Our schooling takes longer than it has in the past simply because we are covering more difficult concepts. We studied the embryology and growth of chickens during the spring as a science project. We built our own incubator using about $15 worth of materials and successfully hatched chicks. It was an awesome project and the boys really enjoyed it. We also spent a considerable amount of the spring painting and organizing the house before getting new carpet. Our house is now painted in browns and greens and we have lovely, clean, new carpet which I just love!!! As is the norm, we spent the summer bowling, swimming, and spending time with friends. Both boys improved their bowling skills dramatically and they no longer use bumpers. They are both great swimmers as well and it is so nice to not have to worry about them around water. Mid summer we went on a family vacation to Southern California. Along with spending time with family we also visited the La Brea Tar Pits, the Cabrillo Marine Museum, and the Griffith Park Observatory. All three provided great opportunities for fun and education. We also stopped by my childhood home and knocked on the door. The new family who lives there was so welcoming and invited us right in. It was so fun to show the boys where I grew up. When we peeked into my old bedroom, the boys were thrilled to discover it is now the home of an 11 year old boy who LOVES Bionicles. My boys would have stayed and played all day if we would have let them. We drove up to my old favorite park, "Rocket Ship Park". That is not the actual name of the park but it is what it was called by all the locals for as long as I can remember. The reason being that the play equipment from my childhood was a huge rocket ship and moon rover. Both had been removed in the past and replaced with the newfangled plastic park equipment of today. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the original equipment has been returned to the park by the Torrance Historical Society. What a blast it was to see my boys climb up the very equipment that I enjoyed as a child. Not only that, but while chatting with a gentleman at the park I was surprised to discover that is was a guy I had actually gone to school with from Kindergarten through 12th grade. What a hoot!
School started up again in August and we have been back to the old grind ever since. We just finished the winter ball, baseball season last week and now we can relax for a few months before the spring season starts up again.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The house is decorated for Christmas and we are having a garage sale this weekend to get rid of all the junk we pulled out during our spring cleaning and organizing. Sometime this next month we will need to get our house treated for termites. We here in Arizona have the subterranean termites, so no tenting will be needed. We will need to have some areas in our garage floor and patio drilled for the poison to be injected. What a pain! But it is what it is. They say there are only 2 types of houses around here. Those that currently have termites and those that will. LOL!
My Honey is as busy as ever at work. There have been many changes, including layoffs and rearranging of staff. My Honey was promoted and he is now one of two directors of the company. He manages all the mangers for the operations side of the company. Hopefully he will not be traveling quite as much but he is still working long hours. Hopefully after the new year things will calm down a bit and his schedule will get more normal. I can hope, can't I? Sadly, he will be missing our anniversary once again this year. I think he has been home for our anniversary one time in the last 6 years. He gave me the news about his promotion and told me he would not be traveling as much and then just a week later came home and told me of two up coming trips! And of course, one is over our anniversary. So my mom decided to take the boys and I to Disneyland for my anniversary!!! So in a about a week, we will be heading down to sunny Anaheim for two days of Disney fun! Yippee!
OK, so that pretty much catches you up on the happenings of the last year. I will try to download a few pictures in the next week of some of the things mentioned here and I promise to try to be more regular in my postings in the future. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry CHRISTmas, and a Wonderful New Year!!!!!

I know, I know.............

2009-06-04T21:57:00.002-07:00

I have been promising to get on here and update for forever! And I still have simply not had the time. Baseball is finally over and summer is here, which means we should have more time but somehow, we don't. Go figure?
We are still schooling every day because I simply see no reason to stop and get off track for three months. The boys are busy getting ready for their first karate tournament at the end of this month. We are also busy with summer get togethers with all the friends that we do not get to see very often during the school year. We have been bowling almost every day for the last few weeks thanks to the generosity of our local bowling alley. The boys get one free game and shoe rental per day for the entire summer! How cool is that? In between schooling, bowling, and karate we are spending time at the aquatic center and the beach, and just hanging out with friends.
I am not going to promise to get on in the next week and get all caught up on the past four months because I have made that promise for the last 3 months and have yet to have kept it. I will try to get on soon but PLEASE do not hold me to it.
For now I will leave you with this little gem from Muffin Man. This evening we went out to dinner at a local buffet our family enjoys. At the end of the meal My Honey went and, as is our custom, filled a plate with an assortment of small, bite sized, desserts for all of us to share. One of the items that this buffet always has on hand are little, tiny cream puffs. Muffin Man picked up one of the cream puffs from the plate, gave a contented sigh, and exclaimed "These things just always cheer me up!" God love him!

May you too be cheered up by the little things in life. Blessings.

Checking In.............Yet Again!

2009-04-30T23:45:00.002-07:00

Oh*My*Goodness! Has it really been that long since I posted? Time has just been flying by for me. The last few months have been chock full of karate and baseball practices and games. In between that and schooling each day I have also, pretty much single handedly, cleaned, primed, and painted every wall, baseboard, door frame, and door in my house. I am not quite finished but I can finally see the finish line! Our new carpet goes in next Thursday and then I can finally start putting my house back together. The furniture is all over the place. Pictures are all off the walls. A large number of totes are filled with stuff that was formerly housed in dresser drawers. All the kids furniture is getting sold at the next garage sale and their room will have all new furniture and shelves. I am determined that at least half of what WAS in their room will not be going back. I cannot wait for everything to be back in order!!! It has been a long time coming, but the end results will be more than worth it!!

I have a whole list of subjects and happenings that I would like to write about. We had visits from a few out of town friends. We built our own incubator and successfully hatched chicks. We planted what is turning out to be an impressive veggie garden. We again hatched praying mantis, butterflies, and continue to raise our pill bugs. We rescued a bunch of baby bunnies and rereleased them into the wild. Both My Honey and I celebrated bithdays. My grandmother went to spend eternity with her Lord and Saviour in March. We had cousins and Aunts and Uncles come visit. We found out that some of them will be moving here in a few months time. I know there is so much more but it is late and I am exhausted!! My mind is drawing a blank! I will do all I can to get on here in the next week and get some updates typed up.

For those of you who do check in, sorry I have been so lousy at keeping things up to date. I am going to make a point of doing better in the future. But thanks for stopping by.

Just checking in...........

2009-02-11T19:16:00.002-07:00

........to say hello and to apologize for my extended absence! It is amazing how the days and all our activities can just get away from me. We have been unbelievably busy for the last month and every few days I think to myself, "Self, You need to blog about this!" but then I never quite find the time.

School is going well. Muffin Man is really loving reading lately and is so good with math. Little Man is working on multiplication and U.S geography. We have been following the life cycle of pill bugs, and have a new batch of mantis hatch lings to enjoy. We have five chicken eggs in an incubator and are looking forward to seeing them hatch and learning all about their life cycle. We recently finished growing bacteria and will post some info and pictures on that, soon. We are in the process of memorizing the names of the 50 states in alphabetical order and all of their abbreviations. We are studying the American revolution, and we are reading through the Little House on the Prairie series. The boys have been interested and engaged and have been doing lessons without complaint. God Bless them!

As far as my weekly goals, I have not given up on them. In the past 4 weeks I have finished cleaning out and inventorying both of my freezers, cleaned out, culled and organized all of my school supplies and book shelves, painted two more walls in the living room, filed a 2 foot stack of paperwork that was about to topple over, AND found and organized all our tax stuff and had our taxes done! WHEW! All in all it has been a very productive few weeks.

My current focus is a new home school support group that my girlfriend Michelle and I are putting together. We both belong to the local Christian support group but there are many non Christian home schooler's out there in our county and we want to reach out to them, meet and support them as well. We are in the planning, implementing and publicity stage. Just getting the word out is a huge and time consuming process. We are looking forward to how things will work out. Wish us luck!

The boys are busy with Karate and will be starting baseball this next Monday. Both boys earned their yellow belts in Karate in the last few weeks and that was really exciting. I REALLY LOVE karate and I am impressed with the difference I have seen in them since they started. It is a sport that I hope to keep them in for years to come.

So that is about it. I PROMISE to get some pictures and info posted on some of our recent activities and I also VOW to get back on my goal posting by this next Wednesday. Until then, take care.

A Few Pictures

2009-01-14T18:05:00.004-07:00

Here are just a few photos from Christmas. Two of the photos I took for our Christmas card and one of each of the boys with their BIG Christmas gifts. More photos to come later.

Goal Check In and Other Thoughts

2009-01-14T15:46:00.003-07:00

So, this last weeks goal was to get my old camera software off the computer and the new camera software installed. I mentioned this in passing to My Honey last week. I know this does not sound like much of a goal to some of you but I am pretty much computer illiterate. It is all I can do to find a program let alone do anything with it. This past Saturday I decided to get crackin' and get it done. I sat down at my computer and began looking in the obvious place, under "All Programs." It wasn't there. I took the opportunity to get rid of a few other old programs and software that we no longer use but the one I was really looking for was clearly missing. Of course, My Honey had left on a business trip by this time so I was unable to ask him for help. I continued to search for the missing program for about 3 days and then gave up. On Tuesday, my good friend Michelle asked me how my goal was coming along and I shared with her that I was unable to find the program in my computer. Our conversation spurred me on to try once again. I returned to my computer last night and spent a bit more time searching, but to no avail. I then decided that I would access the program via my desk top and see if there was some way to remove the program that way. I returned to my desk top only to find............

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE..............................................................

.........My Honey must have already removed said program some time last week!!!

It was no longer on my desk top! I had been searching and searching and practically pulling my hair out in frustration over being unable to find that program only to find it wasn't there to find! My Honey was just being helpful, and knowing that I am not exactly a computer whiz, he took care of it for me. I just wish he had told me. It would have saved me quite a bit of frustration. Note to self: Look in the most obvious place first!

I have now downloaded my new software. That was easy, as it is just a matter of following the prompts. I now need to learn how to use it and get my first photos downloaded. I will try to do that within the next few days.

This Week's Goal- This week my goal is to inventory both my inside and outside freezer so that I can better prepare for making meals each night. I will also throw out any old items and pull older, usable items to the front and put newer items in the back. One of my long term goals is to follow weekly meal plans! I have started this in the past but it is so easy to get sidetracked with all the sports schedules and family happenings. Because of this, our family goes out to dinner far too often and it needs to stop. Not only is it not good for us, it costs way too much. Since the beginning of the year, I have been doing really well getting my meals planned and on the table at a decent hour. I know that getting my freezers inventoried will help me immensely.

On the home school front things have been going pretty well. I am having a few struggles with Muffin Man who seems to be resisting regarding the learning of certain things. He grasps concepts quite quickly when he wants to but if he isn't in the mood, God help me! I was laying in bed thinking about this the other night and I realized that he is only six. I did not start Little Man in Kindergarten until he was six. I started Muffin Man at barely 5 and I think his maturity is coming in to play. I am backing off a few concepts that he seems particularly confused with and back tracking a bit to the basics. I think he is ready in some ways and not ready in others. I want him to learn but I also want him to enjoy learning. If it is becoming a struggle, he will just give up. The last few days since I made this decision have been much better. We are focusing on word families and just getting addition and subtraction facts down cold.

As an aside, we are doing a little germ/bacteria growth experiment this week. Both the boys have colds and I am constantly telling them to wash their hands. Today I pulled out a few disposable petri dishes and some agar and we set up to get a real true picture of the germs that we otherwise cannot see. I swabbed the boys hands and teeth and then let them swab a few places around the house. (The remote control, a door knob, the computer key board, etc) We will have to wait a few days to see the results. I did this once before with Little Man but Muffin Man was really little at the time and even Little Man has limited memory of it. I will be sure to post pictures for you. Blech.

So, that is about it for now. I will try to get a few pictures posted in the next few days. Until then, Carpe Diem.

A Merry Christmas After All and Other Ramblings

2009-01-07T09:05:00.005-07:00

So, despite all the Anti Christmas I was feeling a week before Christmas, our family ended up having a wonderful Christmas!! We finally did get the shelves and pictures back in place and although I did not put out all the usual decorations, we had many Christmas cards from friends and family that filled those shelves beautifully. We managed to get quite a few of our favorite traditions completed, including making Christmas goodies and having a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas Eve. Even though I felt like everything wasn't as it should be, the boys were happy as ever and enjoyed every moment of the season. God love them!

Christmas morning went off without a hitch, even though My Honey and I were both sick as dogs. My parents came up to our house for the morning. I baked a breakfast casserole for everyone and we just enjoyed being together and opening gifts. This year I had hidden the boys big gifts and created a treasure hunt that the boys had to use to find them. After all the smaller gifts were opened and they thought that was it, I mentioned that there might just be one more gift for each of them. I told them to look in the tree. They found the first clue and the hunt began. The hunt took them throughout our home and backyard and then eventually down to my mom's house. They had a great time following the clues and it was really fun watching them as they worked together to figure them out. We finally made it into my dad's machine shop where they found their gifts. Muffin Man got the new bicycle he wanted. He just recently learned to ride his old bike without training wheels and really needed a larger bike. He looked like a clown on his old bike, it was so small. Little Man received his first gun. His dad is a gun enthusiast and loves to go out to the shooting range to shoot targets. He has been wanting to give Little Man a gun for a while and take him out with him but we just did not feel he was ready yet. This past year he has really matured and we felt it was time. Little Man was beside himself with glee!!! He could not have been happier. He and My Honey went out to the range the very next day and he did really well.

For those of you who are aghast that we would buy our son a gun, allow me to put your mind at rest. We have a gun safe where our guns are safely stored and the boys have NO IDEA how to open that safe nor will they until they are adults. The only time my son will be able to use, touch, or even look at his gun will be when My Honey is present and involved.

Back to Christmas morning. after all the hullabaloo was over, we spent the rest of the day just resting and watching the boys play with all their toys. As I mentioned earlier, both My Honey and I were sick. I was beginning to develop a killer sinus infection and My Honey ended up with Bronchitis. We both ended up at urgent care that weekend and were put on antibiotics. So, based on how we were feeling, we really did nothing for the rest of the day which seemed to be fine with everyone. All in all it was a very low key, enjoyable day.

New Years eve at our house has traditionally been not much different than any other night. Maybe we rent a movie and make some popcorn, but we rarely even manage to stay up till midnight. This New Year's, my good friend Michelle invited us over to spend the evening with them. They too, usually have a very low key, early night for New Year's but we both decided this was the year for a change. We made some snacks and finger foods, bought hats and noise poppers, ordered pizza, and spent the evening playing Wii and visiting. All the kids had a BLAST and would have happily stayed up all night but the four of us adults were struggling to stay awake. We did manage it though and we went out front at the stroke of midnight and, I'm sure, woke up quite a few people who had gone to bed early. LOL. The kids were a riot with their horns and poppers. They just had a ball. It is really nice, now that the boys are a bit older and we can do stuff like that. We really had a GREAT time. Thanks Michelle, for inviting us over. Next year is at my house!

So, all in all, the holidays were really great. I guess the lesson I learned is that I needn't run myself ragged for our family to have a good Christmas. I always try to get so much accomplished and I do so much for the boys. And while I love doing all those things, it usually means there are many other things that I don't get done. This year was different. There were many things I usually do that I didn't do this year but there were other things that usually don't get done that this year I did get accomplished! But regardless of what I was doing or not doing or how crazy I felt, my boys were happy and enjoying themselves. And in the end, isn't that what matters?

This past Monday our household returned to normal. School is back in session and we have spent the last two days getting back into the swing of things. It is so hard to get back on track after a break. But back on track we are. Thankfully the first two days back were full of many hands on activities that helped make getting back into the routine, fun. The boys were both really good and there were no complaints. We just picked right back up where we had left off and things are going smoothly.

Now, just a quick note about my Wednesday goal setting. Last week I said my goal was to get all our photos off the computer. Well, I did get that accomplished and then when I was finished with that, I was so motivated that I pulled out ALL my loose photos from the last how many years, and I organized them all by year. What a job!! It took me pretty much the entire week, but I feel so accomplished!!! It was a killer job because it meant sitting on the floor for long periods of time sorting through boxes, and my back was killing me. BUT, I had so much fun! The boys spent much of the time with me, looking at all the pictures and laughing about how they looked when they were younger. I now feel really motivated to get caught up on my scrap booking. I also feel relieved knowing that all my photos are in one place and safe.

Now that I have all the old photos off my computer, I need to get my old camera program removed from the computer and download the new camera software so that I can get some new pictures posted here. That is my goal for this week.

Baby Rolly-Pollie's, Oh My!

2009-01-03T23:13:00.006-07:00

It all started back in October when our family went on vacation in California. While visiting My Honey's parent's home, the boys spent time doing one of their favorite things to do at Grama and Grampa's house. They search for rolly pollie's, also known as pill bugs, sow bugs, etc. We always called them pill bugs when I was growing up but somehow they have come to be known as rolly pollie's in our household. But I digress. Rolly pollie's are not to be found in the Mohave Desert of Arizona, so the boys are quite thrilled with them when we visit California. Normally they are able to find quite a few but, during this trip, they seemed to be sparse. Little Man gave up after a short search but Muffin Man continued on his quest. He ended up with six of the little critters and promptly informed me that he planned to bring them home with him. Being that our visit with Grama and Grampa was the start of our vacation, and the idea of lugging around bugs that would most likely die did not appeal to me, I tried to persuade him to let them go. He was quite persistent, and knowing how passionate he is about bugs, I finally relented. I made a trip to the local Target to pick up a few things I needed and while there I searched for some sort of a small bug box. Apparently bug boxes are a seasonal item and there were none to be had. I ended up buying a plastic travel soap box which was small and had air holes already drilled into it. Perfect!

That night at the hotel I spent a bit of time on My Honey's laptop researching rolly polly bugs, what they eat and how to keep them as pets. It turns out that rolly pollie's need high humidity. That would explain their absence in Arizona. The website informed me that if I put a bit of soil and dead leaf matter, a damp paper towel, and some potato or apple chunks in with the rolly pollie's, they would be as happy as pigs in manure. I followed the instructions exactly and pretty much forgot about them for the rest of our trip. I was aware that Muffin Man had the container and would occasionally open it and check on his bugs. I also noted that it spent time on the floor of the car, upside down, for at least a portion of the trip. But somehow, despite substandard care, all 6 little critters made it home to Arizona safe and sound.

Once home, I transferred them to a larger plastic container made of transparent plastic. I gave them a few small, flat rocks to hide under and some fresh soil. They have been sitting by the kitchen window ever since. I occasionally throw in a new piece of potato or spritz the dirt to keep it moist and Muffin Man occasionally spends time looking at them but other than that, they are pretty much ignored. Their home has transformed itself into a mini terrarium, as at least two of the potato pieces have sprouted. The roots have taken over the soil, creating perfect places for the rolly pollie's to hide and tunnel.

A few weeks back I spent a bit of time searching through the soil and roots to see how many of the little critters were still alive. I was amazed to find that all six were still active and seemed to be thriving. This evening, while spritzing the soil, I moved one of the rocks and discovered a teeny, tiny, baby, rolly polly!! It was small enough to fit on the head of a pin and almost transparent. I was so amazed. I spent a few more moments looking through the container and sure enough, there are at least a couple babies in there. I cannot wait to show Muffin Man tomorrow morning. I know he will be thrilled. I am excited to see how long we can keep these little guys alive and to discover how quickly they grow and reproduce. As shown by past posts here on my blog, we love to study the life cycle's of insects and here we find ourselves with yet another study and it wasn't even planned. How awesome is that?

So, anyway, I just had to share. I thought it was really cool that our little rolly pollie's have reproduced. How very cool it is to see all of God's creatures, great and small, as they live out their lives. How awesome it is to be able to study the things that we find most interesting. In Muffin Man's case, it is insects. My budding entomologist. How happy I am that I relented and allowed him to bring them home with us from California. Even the smallest and oddest of situations become huge opportunities for learning.

100 Weeks, 100 Goals

2008-12-31T12:27:00.002-07:00

I recently stumbled across a blog entitled 100 Weeks, 100 Goals. The owner of the blog made a "Bucket List" of 100 things he wants to do over the next 100 weeks. Some of his goals are quite lofty and include extensive travel around the world. Others are quite simple and easily attained. While I have no intention at this time of making an exhaustive list of everything I would like to do before I die, I have decided to use his idea in a way. I am going to choose a goal every week and post it here each Wednesday. Then each week I will share how my goal was accomplished and share a new goal for the following week. By sharing my goals in writing, there is a sense of accountability, even if only to nameless, faceless readers of my blog. I would encourage you to choose a goal each week for yourself as well and I would love to hear what those goals are and how you accomplished them. HINT HINT! LEAVE COMMENTS!

So without further ado, my goal for this week is to download all the photos on my computer onto disk. I have been meaning to do this for over a year and if my computer were to crash without my having done this I would lose countless memories. I have been putting it off for far too long. This is the week!!

Happy goal setting and Happy New Year!!!

The Anti-Christmas

2008-12-16T17:29:00.004-07:00

I have always loved the Christmas season. I have always loved decorating and doing all the special stuff with the boys like baking Christmas cookies and making gifts and crafts. I have about 50 Christmas books that I usually wrap up before December begins. I let each of the boys unwrap one book each night and I read them aloud. When they are all gone it is Christmas Eve. We have our little manger scene that we set out on the hearth. We have a small tree complete with a bunch of mini ornaments that we usually put in the boys room. We bake a birthday cake for Jesus every year on the 24th and have a birthday party.

But this year is turning into the Anti-Christmas. As is always the case, My Honey was away on a business trip for the week following Thanksgiving. It is usually during this week that the boys and I pull out all the Christmas decorations and put them out, wrap all the books and generally prepare for the month of December. This year we were unable to do that. Some months back we started some home improvements and they are as yet on going. We have built in shelving and cabinets in our living room and we took them all apart to be painted. The big issue was that they were previously painted in an oil based paint so I had to use an oil base primer before I could paint them with the water based paint we chose. I managed to get one set of shelves partially done on my own but it was a HUGE job and I just couldn't finish without help. The other side of shelves is the side where all the electrical stuff is and I did not want to even touch it without My Honey's help. All the shelves and cabinet doors were out in the garage and we needed to set up tables and basically take over the garage as a workroom in order to get those painted. Because My Honey works so many hours and travels so often, a number of months have gone by with no further progress. This is why we were unable to decorate the week after Thanksgiving. I had no shelves in place. They were all still leaning out in the garage waiting for a weekend that My Honey could help me finish the job. Not that the week was wasted, mind you. I managed to get a load of cleaning done that week including my pot shelves, closets and cupboards.

This past weekend, it appeared that the weekend to get the painting finished had finally arrived. My Honey took Friday off and we had nothing but painting planned for the full 3 days. We further tore apart the living room, took down the rest of the shelves and got to work. We were making good progress but were still not quite finished on Sunday night. We figured we would finish Monday. On Sunday night we got a call letting us know that my mother-in-law fell and broke her pelvis. This is NOT a good thing. She is 86 years old and has very brittle bones. She was admitted to the hospital and will most likely be in a rehab facility for a few weeks. In the mean time my father-in-law is 90 years old, blind, and deaf. He is unable to care for himself. My Honey headed down to So. Cal. to help care for his parents along with his siblings. He will be gone until this weekend. Hopefully a live in nurse will be brought into the home to help care for him while MIL is in the rehab facility and also for at least a while when she returns home. I feel so bad for her having this happen at this time of year. I really feel it is time that they found different living arrangements, but that is a whole other topic.

So, not to diminish the severity of my MIL's injury, but lets get back to my pity party, shall we? So here it is, nine days before Christmas and although I have tried to finish the job by myself, there are things I just cannot do alone. Also, because it is so cold, the paint is taking quite a long time to cure and I am still unable to get the shelves back in place or set anything on them. Today I made the decision that all the Christmas stuff is going right back into the garage and not coming out again until next year! Oh, we have the tree up, and I am sure we will do some baking and what not, but I never did get all those books wrapped, or any of the other decorations out, and honestly, what is the point in decorating 5 days before Christmas? I am just not going to do it! I had a good cry today. I feel TOTALLY frustrated! My house looks like total chaos with shelf stuff piled all over in boxes and ladders leaning here and there. All the electronic stuff is piled in the living room and the pictures have all been taken off the walls. What makes it even worse is that I did spend the whole week after Thanksgiving deep cleaning the house and if anyone walked in here today they would not be able to tell.

So anyway, this is basically a pity party, rant. I just needed to get it out and say that I feel like Scrooge! Bah Humbug!

My kid comes up with the most X-Rated funnies!!!

2008-11-30T19:15:00.002-07:00

.........Or maybe I just have a really dirty mind. That is a strong possibility. But I swear, Muffin Man comes up with some of the funniest things and he doesn't even know why mommy is laughing so hard that she is crying. There have been a few over the years. Last year as we were driving across the middle of no where, which is what we call the desert, and looking at nothing but miles and miles of brush and cacti, Muffin Man suddenly asked me "Mommy, could you make a restaurant underneath a bush?" I proceeded to tell him that it would not be possible because you would need to have plumbing and running water, etc. He then went on to ask "Mommy, could you name a restaurant anything you wanted?" I told him that yes, within reason you could name it anything you wanted. He then announced that when he grows up he is going to open a restaurant and name it "The Big Bush"!!!! At that moment my Honey piped up and said "I'd eat there." Oh My Goodness! I was laughing so hard I almost wet myself. Of course neither of the boys had any idea what I was cracking up over and proceeded to come up with more names that were not even remotely funny but I was still laughing so they thought they were hilarious!

So anyway, the other night I told the boys that they could have a treat. Muffin Man asked for a scoop of ice cream and Little Man asked if he could have a Hostess Ding Dong. As they were sitting at the table eating their treat I shared with them that I had once created and worn a Ding Dong Halloween costume. I created the shape out of cardboard and covered it with tin foil and then wore black tights and leotard underneath. It was a REALLY cute costume if I do say so myself. So anyway, they were both getting a good laugh out of the visualization of their mother dressed as a Ding Dong when Muffin Man says "Did you and your sisters play eat the Ding Dong?" Insert dirty thought here. Right at that moment My Honey walked in and he heard the whole thing and just the look on his face was enough to send me into hysterical melt down. I literally had tears running down my face. Of course later that night My Honey had a new euphemism to add to his repertoire

Anyway, I guess I just had to blog this because it is the funny stories like this one that get forgotten. It isn't exactly something I will scrapbook (or maybe I will) but I still felt it was worth sharing somewhere.

Kids!!! They do keep me in stitches.

Family Vacation

2008-10-18T23:18:00.016-07:00

Recently, the "Chaos" family went on a short get away. We jetted down to So.Cal. for a week of fun, family, and frolic. We spent a day and a half visiting with family before heading to San Diego to act like tourists. Once in San Diego, we spent a day at Legoland. They offer a generous home school discount as long as you visit on predetermined days. The normal price of admission is $54 and up per person. With the home school discount we paid only $17 per person. WOOT! How can you beat that? We also visited the new Sea Life Aquarium at Legoland. Not nearly as awesome as the Monterey Bay or Long Beach aquariums but the kids really enjoyed the many Lego structures incorporated into the displays and tanks. We had "kids enter free" tickets for the aquarium, so more money saved. WOOT again! We spent a day wandering around the wharfs and Sea Port Village area. We also took the 2 hour harbor cruise. The boys really enjoyed seeing all the naval ships and aircraft carriers. On our last day in beautiful S.D. we visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park. What an awesome place! Although it was super hot, the animals were all out and about and we were able to see so many awesome sights. The only drawbacks were the bees swarming everywhere making it difficult to sit down and rest anywhere and the park is HUGE, making it virtually impossible to view everything in one day. This is one place I would like to go back to simply because I know there was so much more to see but we just ran out of time. One big plus of the day was that, once again, the kids were free! WOOT, WOOT! On top of all the money that we saved at the amusement parks on admission, all our lodging was also free. My Honey travels often and he earns lots of points at those hotels. Because of this, we almost always are able to get our lodging free. Thank goodness, because we spent way too much on Legos at Legoland!

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pictures of our family get away. Don't forget that you can click on any picture to enlarge it. Enjoy.

The Boys, Uncle Rob and Grampa.

The Boys, Uncle Rob, Grampa, and My Honey.

The Boys with Grama and Grampa.

Off to Legoland.................

The Boys at the touch pool at the new Sea Life Aquarium.

Pretending to be underwater.

The GIANT Lego pumpkin! These are all over the park right now.

The Boys on one of the rides. This one requires you to use your own strength to pull yourselves to the top of the tower. Notice who is putting in all the effort.

Goofing around.

Little Man with a Bionicle......His favorite toys!!!

Muffin Man with a Bionicle.

Mini Land........This is my favorite area in Legoland. They have so many awesome replicas of famous landmarks and EVERYTHING is made of Legos. I could spend hours just looking.
Here is the war memorial.

The Daytona Racetrack. Look at the detail!

Excalibur. The hotel My Honey and I stayed at when we got married in Vegas

The Freedom Tower.

The Harbor Tour of San Diego.

A Naval destroyer that passed us in the harbor. AWESOME!

The USS Mercy, one of two Navy hospital ships.

The Boys on the Merry-Go-Round at Sea Port Village.

Off to the Wild Animal Park.

The giraffes.

The rhinos.

Look at the huge expanse of area they have to roam around in. Just one of the things that makes this park unique.

A cheetah

Here are some pictures of My Honey and the boys feeding the Lorikeets. That was FUN! They were landing all over us.

Here are some STRANGE, unidentified animals that were loose in the park.

The birds are loose and just all over the park but they do not leave because they know a good thing when they find it.

Here is a beautiful bird in the tropical bird area.

The lions were just majestic!

And here is a cheetah we were able to see up close and personal. We were sitting on a bench looking at our map when a side gate opened and this woman walked out with this beautiful cheetah on a leash. She proceeded to do a talk about cheetahs and we had front row seats. We are literally 10 feet from this cheetah in the picture. It was purring just like our cats only A LOT louder. Too cute!

Summer Memories

2008-09-21T20:08:00.021-07:00

Summer is over and tomorrow is the first official day of Autumn, although here in Arizona the Summer sun blazes on. We are still having triple digit heat and I am anxiously awaiting Autumn temperatures. We started our new school year back on August 4th and things are going really well. I switched to a new curriculum and I love it! Even better, the boys seem to really be enjoying it! P.E. begins this next Friday and I am looking forward to getting the kids out to the park early on Friday mornings. I am going to use the time to get a bit of exercise myself and walk the path while they are in class. Although I am glad Summer is over, I can look back fondly on all our activities. We stayed busy every day and really had a wonderful few months. We were so busy that I seldom made it to the computer to blog about any of our great adventure's. So without further ado, here is a synopsis..........

The boys and I made a solar powered S'more oven. What better way to cook s'mores than in the 120 degree heat of the sun! After about an hour in the sun, the chocolate was well melted, the graham crackers were toasty crisp, and the marshmallows were warm and soft. MMMMMM!

We spent quite a bit of time at the bowling alley this summer. Our bowling alley generously gives every school aged child in our city a summer pass that is good for one game and shoe rental per day for 100 straight days. Being able to get out of the house and into a well air conditioned building AND have something fun for the boys to do is quite a treat in the summer. Both Muffin Man and Little Man made great improvements in their bowling this summer.

We always met friends at the bowling alley.............

And we usually spent at least part of our time goofing off or acting like a super hero................

Sometimes we even dressed like them....................

And sometimes we learned lessons on why it is a bad idea to run while carrying a 7 pound bowling ball...................(if you can not see the photo well, just click on it.)

You have NO idea how scared I was when I saw Muffin Man go down face first on the ball! And the sound of that ball and face connecting was just sickening! I thought for sure he was going to have no teeth left, or a broken nose or jaw! God was looking out for my little guy that day and all he ended up with was that nasty bruise and a sore chin. AMEN! I think he learned his lesson about running in the bowling alley.

We had a wonderful visit from good friends from New Mexico. It was so fun to visit with them and see their little ones. The kids had a great time playing and we hope to visit them at their home SOON!

We celebrated both of the boys birthday's at home with family.............

And we had a slumber party in the middle of the month with friends......

We started taking Karate lessons and just love it! The boys are doing so well. Both have gained so many new skills over the summer and are working hard toward that yellow belt!

Along with all the activities shown above, we also spent many days lounging in the pool, playing with friends, playing with video games, and just hanging out with each other. And that about covers it. The lazy days of Summer have passed and we are back to the grind of school and schedules.......But honestly, it really isn't so bad!

Find Your Wings

2008-09-14T15:45:00.003-07:00

Every once in awhile I hear a song that just touches me deeply in some way. This one just happens to be the song of the moment for me. I am not sure if she is the first one to sing it but the version I am familiar with is sung by Sheila Walsh. She just happens to be one of my favorite Christian singers. She is an awesome author and speaker as well. This song says everything I want to say to my sons. I have not found the audio version of it to upload to my playlist as of yet but I wanted to type in the lyrics for you to read. Enjoy.

It's only for a moment that you are mine to hold.
The plans that Heaven has for you will all too soon unfold.
So many different prayers I'll pray for all that you might do.
But most of all I want to know you're walking in the truth.
And if I never told you,
I want you to know,
That as I watch you grow,

I pray that God will fill your heart with dreams.
And that faith gives you the courage to dare to do great things.
I'm here for you whatever this life brings.
So let my love give you roots and help you find your wings.

May passion be the wind that leads you through your day.
And may convictions keep you strong and guide you on your way.
May there be many moments that make your life so sweet.
Oh, but more than memories

I pray that God will fill your heart with dreams.
And that faith gives you the courage to dare to do great things.
I'm here for you whatever this life brings.
So let my love give you roots and help you find your wings.

It's not living if you don't reach for the sky.
I'll have tears as you take off, but I'll cheer as you fly!

I pray that God will fill your heart with dreams.
And that faith gives you the courage to dare to do great things.
I'm here for you whatever this life brings.
So let my love give you roots and help you find your wings.

And Then I Blinked Again.......

2008-08-30T20:36:00.004-07:00

My baby turns six today! It is so hard to believe that 6 years have passed. How did that happen?
Six years ago today I woke up knowing that I only had a few hours until I held my new son. Due to our living in a rural area, our hospital does not allow v-bacs so I had a scheduled c-section. I spent the morning relaxing with Little Man knowing that it would be the very last time that he would be my only child. My Honey and I left for the hospital at 10 in the morning. I was scheduled for a noon c-section but due to a few emergencies at the hospital I was pushed back. They began prepping me around noon and then I waited until nearly 1:30 to be taken to the OR. I was very nervous!!! Thankfully, everything went smoothly and at 2:11 in the afternoon my baby boy was born. He was a healthy 7 pounds and 11 ounces. He had a head full of blond hair! That was a surprise. Today he has a head of dark brown hair just like the rest of the family. He was perfect.
A few hours later, my mother brought Little Man to meet his new baby brother. He sat down in a chair in the room and my mom placed Muffin Man in his arms. He took one look at him and in the most adorable voice said "OH! He is my BEST brother!" It was just about enough to make me cry. He was smitten with him from minute one. I have a picture of the two of them at that moment that is one of my favorites to this day. After about an hour of visiting my mom was preparing to take Little Man back home. She told him it was time to leave and he asked "What about Muffin Man?" My mom explained that Muffin Man needed to stay at the hospital and Little Man got this horrified look on his face and said "We have to leave him here? But we just got him!" We all laughed. After a bit further explanation that I was staying with him and we would both be home in a day or two he was OK.

From minute one Muffin Man was so different from Little Man. Little Man had been my lazy nurser. He would slowly nurse, taking little cat naps along the way and was content to be held all day long. Muffin Man was my efficient nurser. He was all business, filling his tummy as fast as he could and then fussing until I put him down. He never wanted to be cuddled or fall asleep in my arms. I can count on my fingers the number of times he actually let me rock him to sleep. Each of those times is precious in my memory. Little Man was rolling over by 4 months and crawling by six. Muffin Man was content to just lay there and let life be brought to him. He never did anything until he was good and ready. As an example, Muffin Man did not even roll over until he was 10 months old! But then a week later he was walking! He had few words to say until he was nearly 2 but then he started talking in sentences. Little Man was interested in the potty chair around 18 months and was at least sitting on it and occasionally managing to put it to use. Muffin Man never even tried to potty train for me until his 3rd birthday. On that day he suddenly announced that he was 3 and a big boy. That day he potty trained and never had an accident after that! Everything Muffin Man does is like that. He doesn't do anything until he is good and ready and once he is ready he just does it and never looks back. He amazes me with this personality trait every day!

Muffin man in my comedian. He is so funny and he can make me laugh all day long. He loves to be the center of attention. He is my academic child. He has always been more interested in letters and numbers and using his little VTech computer than with action figures or cars. He has become a bit more of a cuddle muffin as he has grown older. He will now climb onto my lap and ask me to tickle his back or rub his tummy but he still doesn't like to just cuddle up and be held the way Little Man does. I treasure the time that he does spend in my lap because it is not often. He loves school and picks things up quickly. Once I explain a concept to him he pretty much remembers it. He LOVES bugs and frequently saves them from certain death at the paws of our cats. His favorite bugs are pincher bugs. We almost always have a jar with a few in it. I have yet to have figured out how to keep them alive for him. He is a very active child and has the attention span of a flea. LOL! He wears me out totally and love him to bits!

I was thinking the other day how with 18 being the age of legal adulthood, Little Man is 1/2 way to adulthood and Muffin Man is 1/3 of the way there. This seems so impossible to me. There is so much I want to teach my children and I just do not know if I will have enough time! Once again, I pray that God will lead me in my parenting and help me to teach them what is important. I pray that someday Muffin Man will know how much I love him and see how every decision I make on his behalf is based on that love. I pray that he will become a happy, productive adult and that he will not make the same mistakes I have in life. I pray that I can improve as a parent evey day. I pray for patience and wisdom.

Thank you Lord for the beautiful gift you gave me when you gave me my sons. Please help me to honor You each day as I raise them. Please allow me to learn the lessons you wanted me to learn from them, I know there are many.

Nine Years In The Blink Of An Eye!

2008-08-05T16:13:00.003-07:00

My first born son turns 9 today. How did that happen? It seems like only yesterday that I was having my last OB check and being told nothing was happening and to come back next week. The very next morning things started happening. I woke at 6:30 to severe abdominal cramping. Because I had been suffering from constipation during the latter part of my pregnancy I was sure I just needed to poop! I had just been at the Doctor's the day before, after all, and he had told me that NOTHING was happening. Besides, these didn't feel like "The Book" said they should. I sent My Honey off to work and settled myself in the bathroom and waited for "it" to pass. LOL! A bit later I decided that "it" needed a bit of help and gave myself an enema. Let me tell you, it is no easy feat for a 9 month pregnant woman to give herself an enema. Sheesh! I can barely reach "back there" when I am not pregnant! The enema had zero results. I was in so much pain and there did not seem to be any timing to the cramping. They did not come on slowly or have evenly spaced periods of rest between them. It was just constant cramping. My SIL called me and with her well earned wisdom (she has 4 children) told me I was in labor. I disagreed. I continued to alternate between the tub, the toilet, and the floor, determined that I just really needed to poop! I did this until until almost 9am, when I could no longer take it, then called My Honey and asked him to come home. I was still sure I was just constipated but I was in enough pain that I was willing to take a trip to the hospital to be checked out. It was difficult to get down the stairs to the van and once inside I put the seat all the way back with my feet up on the dash. My Honey kept telling me "You better not push out the windshield!" Apparently my feet were touching the windshield. Who knew? I just knew he needed to drive faster and screw the windshield! We arrived at the hospital and they quickly had me in a room. I asked to use the bathroom before they hooked me up to any wires or checked me and lo and behold.....my mucus plug came out. Hmmm? Maybe this WAS the real thing! When they checked me I was already at 5 cm. WOW! Who'da thunk it? By noon I was up to 10 cm but my Little Man was in distress. He was crushing his umbilical cord and his heart rate was dropping dangerously low. I am ever thankful for my oblivious state at this point in time. It seems that everyone else in the room knew how dire the situation was except me. Later my mom told me how my OB had run out into the hall and demanded to have an operating room cleared for me. She said that there had been a woman on her way in for a scheduled c-section that they actually brought back out so they could take me in. My sister, who was in the room with me told me that the anesthesiologist had a syringe full of meds behind his back ready to knock me out if needed. They were prepared to do an emergency c-section right then and there. Thankfully, my OB and a few nurses were able to adjust Little Man's position and mine enough to get his umbilical cord free and his heart rate back up. They also gave me a shot which stopped my labor completely. At that point, having managed to get my little guy out of the danger zone, the decision was made to allow him and me to rest for a bit. As long as he was doing well we could avoid a c-section. My rest ended up lasting quite a while and my contractions did not return full force until late afternoon. Since Little Man seemed to be doing much better my OB allowed me to start to push. I pushed my heart out for nearly 2 hours. My OB asked me several times if I wanted to stop and go for the c-section. Little Man just did not seem to want to make his entrance. I was so determined to have a vaginal birth and I was grateful that my OB was doing everything in his power to allow me just that. But after 2 1/2 hours of pushing my OB finally told me that enough was enough. Little Man was beginning to show stress again and I was exhausted! At 7:30 pm we headed into the OR and Little Man was born at 7:47 pm. He was just perfect! I was disappointed to have had a c-section but grateful to have a healthy baby boy. After his birth we were able to see just why he would not come out. He had a huge bruise and lump on his forehead. It seems he had his head hyper extended and was trying to emerge face first instead of crown first. I guess he just wanted to see where he was going.

Since that time he has been such a joy to me!
He is my lover child. He loves to cuddle up on my lap and just talk.
He is my sensitive child. He often is concerned for other's welfare.
He is my strong willed child. He likes to be right and loves to have the last word.
He is my inquisitive child. The questions from him NEVER cease.

I cannot imagine life without him. I can hardly remember what my life was like before him. He was the answer to my prayers and my greatest dream come true. For my entire childhood I always wanted to be a mother. I had a few short periods when I wanted to be "The Tooth Fairy" or a teacher but my real dream was to be a mother. The most awesome part about it is that all three of those dreams came true!
I will be honest and admit that my reality is not exactly like my dreams. The job is MUCH, MUCH harder than I ever could have imagined. But the rewards are greater as well.

Nine years! Half way to an adult! How can that be? I wish I could turn back the clock and start over. There are already so many things I would do differently. I know I have already made mistakes. Sometimes I ask God "Why did you give this precious, little life to me?" I know there are other women out there who are more patient, more consistent, more organized, more attentive,.....just MORE! But I know that God does not make mistakes. In His infinite wisdom He chose me! I pray that I have not already screwed up too badly. I pray that Little Man knows how much I love him. I pray that someday he will understand my shortcomings. I pray that God will mold me into EXACTLY the mom that my Little Man needs. I pray that I can teach him and expose him to all that he needs to know to have a wonderful, productive life. I pray that even in 9 more years, he will still be my Little Man who loves to cuddle up on my lap and just talk.

I love you Little Man! Happy 9th Birthday!

Tears....:(

2008-07-23T23:19:00.003-07:00

It is with sadness that I report that my female mantis has passed away. After my last update, I waited anxiously to see if she would make an egg case. After two weeks of waiting I made the decision to put the male and female together again, thinking that it had not "taken" the first time. Almost immediately the two hooked up and stayed that way for a good 24 hours. When they finally separated I moved the female back into her own cage. It was at this time that I noticed that she had a sizable hole in the side of her abdomen right about where the head of the male would have been while he was with her. Apparently the male was snacking on her during mating. :( From everything I have researched and read, I have not yet once found anything that mentions the male eating the female during mating. It is always the other way around. It was this past Friday that I discovered her injury and she fought and held on until late this afternoon, 5 full days. I feel rather silly about how sad I feel over the death of an insect but she was beautiful and I have so enjoyed watching her grow. The boys were quite sad as well. She will be missed.
So all of this to say that we will not be seeing our life cycle project go full circle after all. It has been an exciting and awesome journey. The boys have already asked if I will buy a new egg case and do it all again next year. We will have to wait and see.

July 4th

2008-07-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

It seems that every year on July fourth I am on a mission to find the perfect location from which to watch the fireworks display. All the usual places around town offer a great view but there is simply NOTHING like being directly underneath the display and feeling the ground shake beneath you. I experienced this twice prior to having kids, once in El Segundo where they put on an AWESOME fireworks show and you can lay right in the middle of the streets around the center town park and look up at the display, and once at Torrance Park when I was a kid. Thus far, I have not been able to replicate that experience for my kids and although they enjoy watching the show each year, they really have never been in AWE. That changed this year. First off, we did something that we have never done before. We bought a few fireworks in Las Vegas and brought them home to do here in our own yard. Due to ALL fireworks being illegal here, we have never had them at our disposal. This year My Honey just happened to return from a business trip on the 3rd of July and he flew into Las Vegas. On his way out of town he stopped at a corner stand and bought a few sparklers and fountains. The kids thought this was the coolest thing ever! Muffin Man was afraid of the sparklers at first but once he got the hang of it he would have done them all night if we had not run out. The following night we drove down to Laughlin, to the Avi Resort and Casino. I had heard they give a GREAT show so we thought we would check it out. We we able to get a nice spot on the grass along the river. They shoot the display off from the opposite side of the river and the river is not all that wide in this area. Essentially, they explode right over your head! Oh My Goodness! For the first time ever, The boys were mesmerized! Little Man kept saying the ground was shaking and Muffin Man did not once ask if it was almost over! The whole thing was choreographed to patriotic music and it was just beautiful. I am so glad we decided to make the drive and I know that we will head up there again for future July 4th celebrations. I have included a number of pictures. There are a few of the boys both at home doing sparklers and at the river with the obligatory $5 glow sticks, and a few shots of the fireworks themselves. I was just playing with my camera to see how they would come out and some of them are really beautiful. Anyway, enjoy and God Bless America!

2008-07-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

2008-07-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

Neat Article About Homeschooling

2008-07-14T10:11:00.004-07:00

I read this article on a homeschooling message board I belong to and I think it is so true. Just another reason I believe in homeschooling.

Homeschooling's Socialization Snobs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Written by Patrice Lewis*

© 2008

Note: This column includes adult language.

Ask any homeschooling parent why they homeschool, and you're likely to receive as many different replies as there are families. Some of the common reasons include religious freedom, academic improvement, one-on-one tutoring and increased family closeness.

But for us, the single biggest reason we school at home correlates to the single biggest criticism homeschoolers get: socialization. Yes, it's largely due to the "socialization" children get in public schools that convinced us to homeschool.

Homeschooling allows us to be socialization snobs. We can filter out kids whose behavior offends us. We don't discriminate on the basis of race, creed, nation of origin, or other such nonsense. No, we discriminate on the basis of morals. If your kid insists on talking about the number of boys she slept with in the last month, I really don't want her around my kid. Call me fussy.

It's been said that too many rats locked up together in too small a cage will soon start tearing into each other. Same with kids. Schools force children to associate with other children based strictly on age. They are locked into cages containing dozens of rats … er, kids with one powerless and overworked teacher who is expected to be psychologist, counselor, nanny, babysitter and, oh yeah, teacher all rolled into one.

Manners are not expected and certainly not reinforced. If one child gets snarky with another, the other children encourage him until the snarkiness turns to meanness, which often leads to violence. This is the breeding ground for public school socialization.

I've been to homeschooling groups with up to 30 kids ranging from older teens to newborns. Everyone associates with everyone. Teens dandle babies. Twelve-year-olds play gentle tag with 5-year-olds. If one child gets snarky with another, there are five or six moms (as well as older kids) around to see the bad behavior and instantly correct it, so it seldom gets out of hand. Manners are expected and reinforced. This is the breeding ground for homeschooling socialization.

Why is this concept so difficult for the critics to grasp? I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

Recently, my husband came across a blog entry by a middle-school teacher that was so shocking that he waited until our kids were out of the room before calling me over to read it.

The blog entry [warning: obscene language] related a conversation this teacher overheard as she left school one afternoon. She passed a group of several boys and one girl (about 13) waiting for the bus. One of the boys had a plate of cookies. The teacher heard the girl say, "I'll give you a blow job for one of those cookies."

(Pause for a moment to marvel at how the heck a 13-year-old girl even knows what a blow job is.)

My husband e-mailed the teacher and expressed sympathy for the toughness of her job. The woman e-mailed back a weary verbal shrug and said it was all in a day's work.

Yes, all in a day's work to hear a child offer an intimate sex act in exchange for baked goods. And what does "all in a day's work" imply? That this type of social interaction is nothing unusual. Pretty typical, in fact. The teacher was just as horrified as we were, but she saw no solution. And people still have the gall to criticize homeschoolers for their … socialization skills? Or to criticize us for our parental desire to protect against this kind of exposure? I don't get it.

OK, so meanness, lack of manners and precocious sexualization are some of the "socializing" factors rampant in public schools. What about peer pressure and bullying?

We all remember bullying from our own school days. The fear of gym class. The avoidance of certain parts of campus such as the cafeteria, bathrooms or locker areas. The stomach-clenching dread of facing yet another day in which you were teased, threatened, snubbed or beaten up.

Kids have it tough. The desire to conform to peers is strong – strong enough to overcome parental influences, particularly when those parents are removed (by choice or by state) from being active in their children's lives. But even the children of good, involved parents can get mixed up with the wrong crowd at school simply because they desperately want to fit in. If you're not bouncy and pretty (as a girl) or athletic and handsome (as a boy), then you'll do whatever it takes to be accepted by the bouncy/pretty/athletic/handsome types, even if those types are bad influences in other respects.

"Homeschooling" implies that someone is at home. There are no latchkey kids. There are no after-school hours of "free time" before mom gets off work during which a 14-year-old with burgeoning hormones can get in trouble. Homeschooled kids are guided through the time of life when they have adult bodies but childish minds, a time when they can mature into competent adults or descend into horrifying mistakes. And yet people still have the gall to express concern over homeschoolers' … socialization.

Homeschooled kids don't live in a vacuum. While their publicly schooled peers are locked in a classroom for most of the daylight hours, homeschooled kids are out interacting with adults and children, picking up useful, well, socialization skills. And remember, one of the chief purposes of education is to teach children to become adults – productive, mature adults that contribute to society.

Academics are important, and studies demonstrate that homeschooled kids excel in this area. But there's more to life than academics, and that's one of the "balance" things homeschooled children learn in abundance. These are things like faith, honor, morals, patriotism, volunteerism, responsibility, family values, self-control and citizenship.

We sometimes hear the criticism that we cannot duplicate the benefits schools offer children, whether it's sports or music or chemistry labs. To which I reply, "You're right. We cannot duplicate your environment. We are merely trying to exceed your results."

Especially the results of socialization.

*Patrice Lewis is co-founder of Don Lewis Designs. She and her husband have been in business for 14 years. The Lewises live on 40 acres in north Idaho with their two homeschooled children, assorted livestock and a shop that overflows into the house with depressing regularity. Visit patricelewis.com.

Mantis Update!

2008-07-02T00:05:00.003-07:00

Just 24 hours after my last post I found one of my male mantids dead. I am not sure whether he died of natural causes or was killed by the other male. He was for the most part intact but did have a number of chew marks on him. However, when I found him he was being eaten by a few of the crickets in the cage so I am not sure if any of the chew marks came from the other male or not. Regardless, I decided that it was time to put the last male and female together and see what would happen. I fed the female well to make her less apt to eat the male (common during mating) and transfered her to the male's cage. From what followed, I can only guess she had a raging case of Mantis PMS! The male showed immediate interest in her and she wanted NOTHING to do with him. He was acting like your average enamored teenage boy and LITERALLY throwing himself at her and she seemed quite determined to eat him if she got the chance. He kept approaching her from the front and more than once she managed to get ahold of him and seemed ready to take a bite. I would spritz a bit of water on them to separate them and then he would throw himself right back in her grip. Considering that she cannot catch a cricket due to her deformity, he sure made himself easy prey for her. After an hour of watching his clumsy attempts at mantis love I removed her from the cage and put her back on her own. I placed the two cages flush against one another so that the two could see and smell each other and gave them a few more days apart. This morning, I fed the female well and again placed her in the male's cage. Once again, within moments he would not leave her alone. I decided that I needed to throw caution to the wind and allow nature to take it's course, come what may. I placed the cage well away from movement and the daily ruckus of the household, covered it with a towel and went about my day. This evening when I peeked in on the little lovebirds I found them joined in a little mantis embrace!!! WOOHOO! I can't believe it! From what we have read during our studies, this mating session can go on for 24 hours or more. The longer they stay together the better the chances of a successful outcome. I am planning on leaving them undisturbed as much as possible for a few days and then I will again separate them. I am so excited. I will keep you updated as things progress.

For those of you interested in my children more than my insects (LOL), I will be posting a few updates on our recent activities in the next few days. We continue to be busy with school, playdates, bowling, swimming and karate. The boys are just LOVING karate and I am delighted in the skills they have learned in just a short time.

Much love to all of you and thanks for reading. Now go leave me a comment! teehee.

I May Have Lost My Mind!

2008-06-25T22:09:00.004-07:00

I KNOW My Honey thinks I have. It was bad enough when one of our science project butterflies was handicapped and I hand fed it sugar water for two weeks. But I have now gone WAY beyond that. We are now down to only 3 mantids left from a hatch of about 150. The 3 survivors consist of one female and two males. My hopes all along have been that we could go from egg case to egg case so that the kids can see the entire life cycle. Of course to do this we need both male and female. I was not 100%sure of the sexes until after the final molt. Speaking of the final molt.....WOW! It was so cool! All three mantids were about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches long and had small wing buds. They all molted within 24 hours of each other and immediately were a good 3 1/2 to 4 inches long AND their wings became full length and functional. After the final molt it became clear that I had 2 males and one female. The males are almost completely brown and have very thin abdomens. The female is all green, has a huge abdomen, and her head is twice the size of the males. (The better to eat them with while mating..LOL) The two males emerged from their final molt unscathed, but that was not the case with the female. She somehow managed to get herself all tangled up in her molted skin and in the process of trying to free herself, caused damage to both of her front legs and one of her rear legs. For the first week, I pretty much left her alone and figured she would figure out how to hunt as another of our now deceased mantids did who was similarly disfigured. But after a week of watching her, it was clear that she was unable to catch any of the crickets in the cage. I put her in a smaller cage by herself and began maiming the crickets before putting them in in hopes of making it easier for her to catch them. It didn't work. When it seemed that she was on her last leg I began literally placing crickets onto her half working front leg using tweezers but even this was difficult, as the crickets fought to escape and she usually dropped them. As a final straw, a friend of mine suggested I try raw hamburger meat. I did and we finally had some success!!! So this is where the crazy part comes in. I am now hand feeding a praying mantis 90% fat free, ground sirloin on a daily basis. She LOVES it and is now thriving. She has really filled out and actually seems to know what to expect of me when I open the cage. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or if insects can be trained but she actually goes to the door of her enclosure when I am in the room. You can laugh but it's TRUE! So anyway, I now have some hope that I may be able to bring this life cycle study full circle. I am crossing my fingers! I will try to get a few pictures of my three beauties and post them. It isn't easy as I am no longer able to get them out because they can and do fly and the pictures through the mesh just don't come out all that great. I will see what I can come up with. They really are awesome little creatures and we have had so much fun watching and studying them. (I may or may not be having more fun with them than the boys! :O )
I have said it before but it bears repeating.... If you have kids, especially little boys, this is a science project that is so worth the money and time. At this point you will need to wait until next spring, but I cannot encourage you enough to do this. It has been an amazing journey.

Chaos Happenings..........

2008-06-24T21:03:00.002-07:00

Whew! Summer is such a crazy time here in the Chaos Household. We continue schooling throughout the summer as I just see no reason not to. It really takes only a few hours per day and why not just keep the schedule going year round? We are a bit more lenient but we do try to get some schooling in every day. On top of that, we have been had so many things going on.! We meet with a group of friends every Tuesday for a swim day. We meet each Wedenesday with the homeschool playgroup. We meet with another group of friends every Thursday to go bowling. The boys have Karate on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. That is just the regular weekly planned stuff. This past week was even crazier. One of the boy's cousin from Chicago was in town. They see her so seldom and wanted to spend every spare moment with her. She is 17 and had brought a friend with her and it was her time to spend with her grandparents, so I limited the amount of time the boys were down there, but they still spent a good deal of time with them. We spent a full day out on the lake. Little Man also had Boy Scout camp on Thursday and Friday from 3-8 and Saturday from 7-1. We also did our lemonade stand. Needless to say, I was glad for the week to be over. I felt like we were running full speed for the entire week.
This week we are back on schedule and recovering from last week.
So anyway, here are a few recent pics. The first one is Muffin Man who is now missing 4 front teeth. He lisps terribly and I laugh every time he smiles. The second two are of the boys feeding the birds up in the gorge along the river. If you just slow the boat down and hold corn chips up in the air, the birds come flying from all around and take them right out of your hand. The last is of the boys riding in the tube behind the boat. They loved it!!! They kept yelling for us to go faster. At least a few times they flew over the wake and caught air! Little Man said it was better than the fastest ride at Disneyland and Muffin Man added that it was better than Disneyland, period! Who knew we could have saved so much money and just taken them out on the boat instead of to Disneyland. LOL Enjoy.

Success!

2008-06-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Our lemonade stand went off wonderfully! The kids had a good time and people were very generous! Muffin Man and I set up shop at about 12:30 pm. Little Man spent the morning at a Cub Scout function so he caught up with us around 1:15. By 3 pm we were back in our oh so sweetly air conditioned home! AMEN! It was 120 degrees as the weatherman had predicted. We were sweating our butts off! I brought along plenty of water and juice and we were all drinking plenty. The biggest problem was how many people gave us money and then said they didn't want the lemonade. COME ON People! Take the lemonade already! We want to go home! LOL! So in the end, we took in $183 and some change. The boys also made the front page of our local newspaper this morning. Pretty cool! We will be making a trek down to the humane society this week to give them our earnings. All in all, I think the whole thing was a great success and will sign up for it again next year if it is available. Here are a few pictures of the boys out in front of Walgreens. Enjoy.

Tomorrow Is The Day!

2008-06-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

We have our lemonade stand decorated and our location secured. We will be selling our lemonade in front of the local Walgreen's tomorrow from 1-5 pm. I was amazed at how difficult it was to find a retailer to let us set up our stand. We asked a number of other stores before we tryed Walgreen's who was more than happy to have us. How sad is it when businesses won't even allow children to sell a few cans of lemonade to benefit charity? Here I am trying to teach my children to help others and no one would have us. Kmart refused us because they sell canned drinks and do not allow anyone to sell anything that they sell. It might hurt their bottom line. Oh Yea, I am sure there a just hundreds of people out there who would come to Kmart to buy canned drinks, see us out front and decide to buy a case of lemonade from us a $1.00 per can vs. buying the case of soda they had planned on buying. Whatever! HUGE KUDOS to Walgreens for being so enthusiastic with their response to us. We will be braving 120 degree heat to sell our lemonade tomorrow. Hopefully people will be very thirsty and I pray that we do not end up with heat stroke! Here is a picture of our decorated stand. We will be raising money for the Humane Society. Wish us luck!

Awesome Charity Fund Raiser

2008-06-08T00:39:00.002-07:00

A good friend of mine sent me the below attached link yesterday afternoon. It is for a company that is marketing a new, natural, no fructose corn syrup, fruit drink line. They are hosting what they call The Pink Lemonade Brigade. My only disappointment is that I did not get this information earlier as I would have loved to get it out to others before the cut off date, which is today. How it works is this...... You sign up on the website and choose a charity of your choice. We chose the local humane society. The company then sends you everything you need to set up a lemonade stand, including heavy duty cardboard stand, paint pens, company stickers, and 100 cans of their pink lemonade, All For FREE! The only stipulation is that you must sell the lemonade on June 21st and then give all proceeds to your chosen charity. That is it! How cool is that? What a neat way to get the kids involved in doing a bit of charity fund raising. Had we had a bit more time to think about it, we might have chosen a different charity, but I needed to get our registration in and the humane society is a good cause. I wanted to choose a local charity so that the kids could actually hand deliver the money we earn. Little Man wanted to give to a charity that deals with sick children but I am just not aware of any that are local. We are anxiously awaiting our delivery so we can get started on designing our stand. We are going to go down to the humane society on Monday and talk with them and see if they have any literature or posters that we can incorporate into the design. We also need to speak with a few of the local stores to see if they will allow us to set up in front of their entrance. The website suggests doing this to maximize selling potential. Two friends in town are also participating and we are hoping to get the newspaper to come and take a few pictures of all the kids at work on their stands. The boys are really looking forward to this activity. I will make sure to post photos of our stand creation and selling day as they occur.
http://www.drinkcrayons.com/pinklemonadebrigade/

Just One Of Those Moments

2008-05-23T17:08:00.002-07:00

Every once in awhile the boys say or do something that just reaffirms my love of homeschooling. We had one of those moments yesterday. It wasn't ground breaking or anything but it touched my heart. I am a firm believer in kids having the chance to just be kids. Far too many public schools are cutting out recess time and P.E. and replacing it with more seat work. And then everyone wonders why so many boys (and girls) are diagnosed with "ADHD". Now don't get me wrong, ADHD is a very real problem for some children but my personal belief is that MANY of those diagnosed with it are actually just very active children who need more time to be active. We place our children in classrooms and tell them to be quiet, sit still and listen for long periods of time. Many of them just can't do it! And to be honest, neither can I! I remember my college days. Although I was listening I was also usually doodling, jiggling my foot or knee, making lists of things I needed to get done, etc. Yet we do not allow that behavior from our children in the public school classroom. I know this because I was a public school teacher. I do not for one moment blame the teachers. They are in an impossible situation. They have a large number of children in their class, many of which are at different learning levels. They are mandated by the state to cover a certain set of grade specific standards. On top of that, they need to make special provisions for those children who are above or below those standards. They also have to teach in a way that meets the learning style of each student in the room. Beyond this, they must play the roll of mother, nurse, counselor, judge, secretary, etc., etc., etc,. And when they leave the classroom at the end of the day, many of them go home to grade papers, prepare for the next day's lessons, make phone calls to parents, etc. If you think a teacher's day ends at 3 pm you are sadly mistaken. But I digress.

During our school day, I give my boys ample opportunity to take breaks and play. Sometimes they just need to take a 5 minute break. My 5 year old has pretty much done a year's worth of Kindergarten curriculum 5 minutes at a time. But that is OK! He is reading, adding numbers, writing sentences. He knows a number of phonetic rules and how to apply them. He knows what a period and question mark is and when to use them. I am happy with his progress. But I have no doubt that had I enrolled him in a kindergarten class he would have driven his teacher batty!

Yesterday, during one of our "recess" breaks, the kids went outside to play and run. They pulled the baseball bag out with plans to play catch with each other. The last baseball game of the season was about a week ago and the temperature was in the triple digits. I brought my umbrella with me to shade me from the sun. At the end of the game, I closed my umbrella and slipped it into the ball bag along with the bats and gloves. It was still in there when the boys pulled out the bag and they discovered it. There is something magical about an umbrella when you live in the desert. I suppose it is because they so seldom see or use one that when they do get their hands on one they are excited. They pulled the umbrella out and took turns using it to shade themselves. Within moments Little Man discovered that if he ran while holding the umbrella it caught the wind and slowed him down. He shared his discovery with Muffin Man and they proceeded to have races across the lawn with and without the umbrella. They also tried running with the umbrella open in front of them and found that that did not slow them down. They came in to get my timer and they clocked each other while running with and without the umbrella. I was aware of what they were doing and allowed the play to continue. After a bit I went out and asked them what they were up to. Little Man promptly explained what they had discovered. Wind resistance! A discussion of wind resistance, the design of cars and such to reduce wind resistance, and how it feels when you put your hand out the window of a moving car followed. This was true science in action. And the best part is that they discovered it all by themselves. Had they been in public school, they would have never had the chance to discover this the way they did and they most certainly would have NEVER been allowed to run with an umbrella. LOL!

I love giving my boys the chance to explore things on their own. I love being able to go to the computer multiple times per day to look up the answers to complex questions that they ask, or to show them photos of something that sparks their interest. I love being able to include in our curriculum things that genuinely interest them! In a nutshell, I love home schooling my children. I love every minute of time spent with them, even the rough ones. I wouldn't trade the opportunity to do this for anything and I am ever thankful for the choice that I have and my husband who works so hard to make it possible.

I have included two pictures that I snapped of the boys discovering wind resistance.
Enjoy!

Toothless Grins

2008-05-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Muffin Man is loosing teeth left and right. He lost his first two center bottom teeth last summer before he was even 5 years old. On the 1st of this month he lost #3 and a few days later he lost #4. He also has at least 2 more that are very loose. I just love big toothless grins. So here they are. Hope they make you smile!

Grasshopper Season

2008-05-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

Grasshopper season hit with a vengeance about 6 weeks ago. They were just EVERYWHERE! Everytime we went to Little Man's baseball games, Muffin Man brought along his bug boxes to collect more of the little critters and bring them home. At one point we had at least 20 or so living in bug boxes on my kitchen counter. We would have had well over 100 but I put a stop to him bringing them home. After a point, I told he had to catch and release. LOL! The ones we kept were fed leafy greens and they seemed to do well.

At the beginning of the season they were so tiny! I had actually never seen grasshoppers so small! A few of them were the size of lady bugs! They are quite cute at that stage. But they GROW! And they get BIG! And they get UGLY! But I must admit they were quite fascinating to watch. When they get really big you can see their mouths working when they eat, and really differentiate between their body parts. Muffin Man really needs to pursue entomology. He just LOVES bugs!

We have since released all the grasshoppers back into the wild but here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.
This first one is of Muffin Man with a smallish grasshopper. Not the smallest we found but still in the cute stage.

Here is Little Man with one that is all grown up. Blech.

And one last close up of that Giant Critter before he was set free.

How can they be so Different!?

2008-05-07T16:22:00.002-07:00

Yesterday afternoon there was quite a bit of police activity on our street. We were on our way out to a t-ball game when I first became aware of it and I knew by what I was seeing that something was terribly wrong. When we arrived back home an hour later my concerns were confirmed. We were told that our neighbor had been found deceased in her home. The police asked me a few questions about what I may have seen or heard and let me know that the coroner was on the way. I decided to leave with the kids and go out to dinner. They were just a little too interested in the goings on and I felt that it would be better if we were just not home for a bit. We headed down to Schlotsky's (Kids eat free on Tuesdays!) and settled into a booth. The conversation that followed was mostly about death and about how the family would feel, etc. It was all very serious and somber. Little Man, my sensitive child, began telling me about what he would wish for if he had fairy god parents who could grant him any wish he chose. He mentioned things like "No one would get sick or die anymore", "No one would be sad", "There would be no starving children", "No one would commit any crimes"........You get the picture. At this point in the conversation Muffin Man piped up and said "If I had fairy god parents I would wish for a house made out of chicken and french fries with a swimming pool full of ketchup and a roof made of pizza!" THUD! What more can I say? Again, how can they be so different?

Snake in the Park

2008-05-05T11:08:00.001-07:00

About a week ago, the boys and I went to the park for our weekly homeschool play day. We met up with a number of other homeschool families. There were about 7 moms and about 15 kids. All the kids ran off to play as usual and we moms sat down on the grass near the play area to chat. We had been there for about 1 1/2 hours when suddenly something caught my eye. I took a second look and then said to the group "Is that a snake?" Of course everyone yelled "Where!" all at once and I pointed out what I was seeing. There, right in the middle of the play area, underneath the play structure, was a snake with its head up, just gazing around. We quickly got all the kids out of the play area and then got a better look at the critter. Thankfully, it was not a rattle snake which are common to our area, but just a rat snake. Still, it was about 4 feet long and in the play area of the park!! We called animal control and then waited around to keep an eye on the thing. Apparently, once all the kids were out of the play area it decided it should make a dash for freedom. I can only imagine what it must have been thinking while they were all in there playing. It was kind of hidden under the base of the main play structure and it blended in nicely with the bark ground cover. I am sure it felt trapped with 15 pairs of feet stampeeding around it in a game of tag. Once all the racket had ceased it headed out for greener pastures. We did our best to keep it in the general area until animal control arrived. Once they did, the chase was on. I never knew how fast a snake could move! It kind of freaked me out. I am NOT a snake person!!!! Thankfully, the animal control guy was wearing nice thick boots because that snake did NOT want to be caught. The snake struck and bit at his boots a number of times. EEK! He finally caught the thing and once he had it under control, he let all the kids touch it. Of course, they thought this was the coolest thing ever. YUCK!

I can honestly say that I do not need to see another snake in the wild for a LONG time!!! We have lived here for nearly 9 years and although I know a number of people who have seen snakes and scorpions in their yards or around town, and even know of two who have been bitten by a rattler, I never had seen any. I had developed a false sense of security and I liked it that way. I know it is important to be ever vigilant and aware, for safety's sake, and this experience has renewed my awareness. Since that day, I find myself doing a cursory check around any area where my kids will be playing prior to letting them run. I know I cannot protect them from EVERYTHING, but I will do my best.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the snake. One of the other moms happened to have a camera with her. Enjoy.

Comments!!!!!

2008-04-21T00:16:00.002-07:00

Just an FYI. I would love to have comments from any and all who read my blog. I have it set so that you should not have to join Blogspot in order to comment. But do leave your name so that I know you were here. I have it set in such a way that I must ok each comment and it took me a while to figure out how to do that. Today I discovered that I actually had a number of comments that I didn't know were here! Thank you to all who left them!! Now that I know how to find them, I will make sure and check daily so that they get posted. Thanks again and I hope you enjoy reading.

General Happening's In The Chaos Household

2008-04-20T22:14:00.003-07:00

It has been over a week since my last update. Things have just been crazy around here. We are all finally over our coughs and colds (Thank You Lord!) and My Honey is finally back in town. Well, actually he was back in town but had to leave again due to a family emergency. But we did have him home for about a week and that was nice. He had been away for over 2 weeks. We always miss him when he is gone.

The boys are both doing GREAT in baseball. Little Man is really starting to shine! I recently bought him a new glove and that made a huge difference in his catching ability. Apparently the teeball glove that he has had for three years was cutting the circulation off in his hand!! :0 I swear I didn't know! He never told me!! One of his coaches approached me and told me that his glove was way too small for him. It was only after this that Little Man mentioned the "tingles" he got when he wore it at games. What a BAD Mommy I am!! We made a beeline for Big 5 and I had one of their more knowledgeable associates help us pick out the correct size glove. What a difference it made!! At the next game he caught every ball that came his way and managed to get a number of players out! Yippee! Muffin Man is doing pretty well too. His team, overall, is a Joke! We have 14 four and five year old's on the team! Talk about CHAOS! Most of them are catching ladybugs for the entire game. I will admit that Muffin Man has done his fair share of bug catching, but he finally seems to be catching on to the game. In the last few games he has managed to get hold of a number of balls and tag a runner or base a few times. He gets SO proud of himself when he does it. It is just too cute!

Ok, I have a story to tell...........Last week Muffin Man announced to me that he wanted his daily vitamin. I told him I was busy and that I would get it for him in a few minutes. At that he announced that he would just go get it himself. I told him to go ahead and try. Knowing that it has a child proof cap I was not all that concerned. I could hear him in the kitchen trying to get the bottle open and complaining that there was something wrong with the lid. At this, Little Man proceeded into the kitchen to give him a hand. Little Man has never opened a child proof cap either and for a moment was stumped. At that point I walked into the kitchen and saw that Little Man was reading the cap. He started to speak and I interrupted him and told him that he did not need to read what it said out loud and that neither he nor Muffin Man needed to know how to open the bottle. Muffin Man grabbed the bottle back and started looking at the top. He carefully sounded out "Push down and turn" and then promptly did just that. As the top came off the bottle he looked over at me and exclaimed "Watch the Master at work!" The good news is he is learning to read quite well. The bad news is he may be a bit too smart for his own good! Smarty Pants!

Another story...............The other evening the boys and My Honey were preparing to go to the park and then on to a game. I had a prior commitment and was unable to accompany them. I was giving the usual goodbye hugs and kisses when Muffin Man told me he needed 100 kisses! I slathered him with kisses and then kissed his palm, folded over his fingers, and told him to put the kiss into his pocket for later. (This is from a really cute book titled The Kissing Hand) I then kissed and hugged Little Man goodbye and they headed out into the garage to get into the car. A few seconds later, Little Man slipped back inside alone and said "Can I have a kiss for my pocket too?" Talk about melting my heart! When you think they are getting too old for all that mooshy stuff, just think again. I have to remind myself daily that although he seems to be growing up into a "Little Man" right before my eyes, he is really still just my little boy. I am So thankful for the gift God gave me when He gave me my sons.

Onto the critter updates..........
We are now down to about 7 mantis'. They continue to eat each other even though I keep their cage well stocked with crickets and fruit flies. The largest is now about an inch and a half long. They are growing like weeds. They molt often and it is really awesome to watch. Below is a picture of one that was in the process of molting and we pulled it out of the cage so we could watch the action up close. If you look closely, you can see the old skin near the top of the photo. I was actually holding on to some of the skin it had already shed. They hang upside down while they molt and the other mantis' have no shame and will attack and eat them while they are vulnerable. Here is the gruesome part.......Do not read if you are squeamish...........I warned you! Whenever I notice two of the Mantis' facing off I will tap on the mesh and get them apart in order to keep them from eating each other. Obviously, as shown by the numbers, I am not catching them often enough! The other day I noticed that one was clutching another and they appeared to be fighting. I flicked at the mesh and tried to get them separated and then noticed that the one that was caught no longer had it's head. But is was still MOVING and FIGHTING! Little Man came in and started trying to get them apart as well. I told him it was too late and that it no longer was "alive" but he wouldn't believe me. He kept saying "But it is still moving!" I explained that this can sometimes happen but that since it's head was gone there really was nothing we could do to save it. The sickest part of this whole experience was that the thing KEPT FIGHTING until the very end!! Even when it was down to the last 1/6 of the body and only two little legs, it was STILL KICKING! GROSS!!!!! So the moral of the story is this..........Although this has been an awesome science experiment, it is not for the faint of heart or those with children who may be traumatized by constant death.

This first photo is of our tadpoles. I actually do not think I have posted any pictures of them until now. When we got them they were newly hatched from eggs and were the size of the tip of pencil lead. All of them fit in a medicine dose cup with room to spare. In fact, that is what I brought them home in. Since then they have been growing by leaps and bounds. As you can see in this picture some of them are sporting froggy back legs. A few days after this photo was taken, they began to pop out front legs. The back legs grow over a period of a few weeks but the front legs literally pop out of holes in their sides fully formed. It seems that over the last few weeks, there has been a new leg or two every time I look! Just today, two more went from two legs to four. Once they have four legs, it is only a matter of a few days till their tails are absorbed and they climb out of the water. The second photo shows a few of the frogs after they have completed their transformation. One still has a bit of tail left, but not for long. They are too cute but they are escape artists!! One got out last night and it was by sheer luck that I found it before the cats did. YUCK!

This last picture is of one of our resident lizards. There are a number of them that have lived in the lower part of our yard since we moved here. This is actually one of the smaller ones. Two of them are really big! We don't see much of them through the winter months but as soon as the weather warms up they start coming up the hill to eat the grass and drink from the sprinklers daily. Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Arizona Sunsets

2008-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Desert In Bloom

2008-04-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

I remember when my parents first moved to the desert. We would come out to visit 3-4 times per year and I always thought it was so UGLY! Dry and desolate. Dead plants littering the vast nothingness. I found little in the natural scenery that was attractive. It was not until we moved here and a few years had passed that I began to appreciate some of the beauty in the native plant life. Occatillo became one of my favorite plants. Although it looks dead and dry for much of the year, when it greens up and blooms it is just beautiful! I now have two in my front yard. And even the native paddle cactus that just appears to grow out of nowhere has the most beautiful blooms. Although I still miss the green grass and wide variety of plants that grew everywhere in Southern CA., I have really come to love the desert. The sunsets are to die for, the mountains are majestic, and the plants are beautiful in their own special way.

Renovations

2008-04-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

This past week has been hectic in many ways, not the least of which was having renovations underway in our home. We have a three bedroom home, but one of the bedrooms opened into the livingroom via french doors. This made it pretty much useless as a bedroom. We have always used it as a playroom/office space. I have always wanted to close off that doorway and put a regular door to the room in the hallway across from the other bedroom door. We are getting ready to put all new carpet in the house and we figured now would be the time to get the walls and doors changed. So, on Tuesday the 1st, our handy builder man, Bill, arrived and began his work. What a mess! The dust was amazing. Although we still need to prime and paint, I already love the difference it makes in the look of the livingroom. Here are a few pictures of the work in progress. I will post pictures over the next few months of the painting, carpeting, etc.
The doors are off and the furniture and toys are covered. We are ready for Bill to arrive.

Bill is well on his way.

The kids called this "The Jail"

The wall is in!

The Praying Mantis Emerge

2008-04-03T20:54:00.001-07:00

Some time back I blogged about our praying mantis egg case. I promised to update when they hatched. Well, I am keeping my promise, albeit a few weeks after the fact. They made their debut on Easter morning. While others were enjoying baby bunnies and chicks, we were watching a gaggle of mantis nymphs! When we woke Easter morning the case looked the same as usual. No change. I made breakfast and we had our egg hunt. Then the kids spent some time looking through their Easter basket goodies. Around 10 am I walked into the kitchen and noticed that the mantis had begun to emerge. I called the boys in and we spent the next 30 minutes in awe, watching them. They made their way out of the case in small bunches and then each one droped down on a silken thread and hung for a bit while it's exoskeleton dries. It is unbelievable how many came out of that egg case! I would estimate that there was around 150 nymphs. Within a few hours they were hunting the small fruit flies that we had provided. Have you ever watched a cat just as it prepares to pounce? They wiggle their hind quarters back and forth and then spring! Well, the mantis nymphs do the exact same thing! TOO Cute! Within a few days they had pretty much exhausted my supply of fruit flies and since I had been unable to find pinhead size crickets at any of the local pet stores, they turned to eating each other. Blech! All the information we had about mantis' said that this is in fact normal and that about 12 out of every 100 nymphs will actually make it to adulthood, most having been eaten by their siblings. I am happy to report that I have since obtained pinhead crickets and the 30 or so nymphs that are left are enjoying cricket snacks all day long. If My Honey knew how much money I was spending on crickets to feed the mantis he would just about kill me. I must admit that it is unbelievable and a bit hard to swallow that I am now shelling out more money per month to buy crickets than I pay my pest control company per month to kill them. :0 But it's all good! This has been so fascinating, and it is worth it for the boys to experience the many amazing creatures God gave us. What an imagination He must have!
I have included a few pics for you to check out. Enjoy.
This first picture is of the mantis cage during the emergence. You can see how many are already around the walls of the cage. The two vials on the floor of the cage are the fruit fly larva and food. There is also a jar lid with some brown banana to feed the fruit flies. You can also see the egg case still hanging from the branch

This second one is just another view of the little nymphs as they begin to wander about the cage. They are fast little buggers. Everytime I open the cage to put in water or food or anything, 4-5 escape. Little Man has become adept at rounding them back up for me and helping me get them all safe back inside.

This last photo is a close up of one nymph on my finger. It gives you a pretty good idea of how small they were. They have since grown to twice their birth size. Although they were really tiny, they seemed huge when compared to how small the egg case was and how many came out of it.

A few days after all the nymphs emerged, we removed the egg case and cut it open. The inside is structured like a honeycomb, with many, many, many, little compartments. There was not a single nymph still inside. I still do not know HOW they all fit. It really was amazing.

All Things Baseball

2008-03-31T11:49:00.001-07:00

Opening day for the baseball season was this past Saturday. For the next 2 months our lives will revolve around all things baseball. Muffin Man is on a T-Ball team and Little Man is on a Coach Pitch team. Both teams are The Angels. We had opening ceremonies and two games on Saturday so we were at the park from 8:30 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon. I got fried! Time to whip out the sunscreen. Our schedual for baseball season is CRAZY! Little Man has games every Monday and Friday evening. Muffin Man has games every Tuesday evening and Saturday morning. And both of them have practice on Wednesday. So that means that the only days that we are not doing baseball is Thursday and Sunday. UHG! To make it worse, My Honey will be out of town for much of the season. Makes it hard on me but the boys love it and that is what is important. I have included a few photos of the first games.

Here is Muffin Man getting ready to hit the ball.

And here he is running for home plate! Look at the determination on his face. To cute!

Here is Little Man just seconds after hitting the ball.

Here he is playing catcher. He prefers short stop but his coach moves the boys around quite a bit and gives them a chance to try out all the different positions.

The Story Of Gimpy The Butterfly

2008-03-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

On March 14, 2008, 3 butterflies emerged from their chrysalis'. Two were healthy and soon released to enjoy their butterfly lives. One emerged with a deformed leg and wing. We took him to the same flower filled garden as the others, placed him safely on a tuft of flowers and wished him well. The next day when we went out to the garden, he was still there. He had not moved 1 inch! Muffin Man immediately picked him up and proclaimed "Poor little guy!" Thus began the pampered life of a disabled butterfly named Gimpy. We brought him back inside and set up a small butterfly abode in a large bug keeper container. The boys found some nice twigs and blooms and we carefully placed each in the container for Gimpy to climb on. I searched the web for butterfly food recipes and found that it is simply a mixture of 4 parts water with 1 part sugar. The instructions said to put the mixture into a small jar and make a hole in the jar lid. Then stretch a cotton ball into a wick and poke the end of it through the jar lid. Put the lid on the jar making sure that the cotton hangs down into the liquid. The cotton will wick the "nectar" up and the butterfly will feed off the exposed cotton. I created the jar just as per the instructions and within seconds of placing little Gimpy on the top of the jar his long tongue unfurled and he stuck it right into the exposed cotton. Success! It was very cool to see! None of us had ever actually seen a butterfly unfurl it's tongue and eat. The only modification I had to make was to cover the lid with some gauze to help poor Gimpy get a foothold. He had quite a bit of trouble on the smooth metal lid.
Over the next few weeks I regularly helped The Gimp up onto the jar lid and he would usually eat. Little Man and Muffin Man gathered clean and fresh plant life to keep his home nice and held him daily. He was very calm and easy to hold. Muffin Man, especially, grew very fond of him. As we closed in on two weeks I went online to see just what the life expectancy of Painted Lady Butterflies is and found that it is in fact two weeks. Gimpy had lived a full life! However, I could tell that he was beginning to fade. He stopped eating and spent more and more time on the bottom of the container listing to the side. I spoke with the boys and we agreed that he should be able to finish his life in a lush garden doing what butterflies love most. Muffin Man really wanted to keep him but he finally agreed that Gimpy deserved his freedom. We took him back down to my mom's garden and said our goodbyes. We carefully placed him on a rose bush and wished him well. When we went back to check the next day he was nowhere to be found. Maybe he is now flitting about in Butterfly Heaven with little Angels chasing after him. I hope so. We miss you Gimpy!

This first picture is of Gimpy on his feeder jar.

Here is a picture of Gimpy with his wings spread open. This was toward the end of his time with us and his one good wing had begun to break down some as well. It may have been due to the fact that he spent quite a bit of time flapping around upside down trying to right himself after trying to fly.

This picture is of Muffin Man holding Gimpy one last time before we released him for good. Muffin Man was very fond of Gimpy and in fact strongly expressed his desire to keep ALL the butterflies when they emerged.

This is the last picture we snapped of Gimpy, on the rose bush.

The Butterflies Emerge

2008-03-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

It has been such a very long time since I really updated. So much has happened. I will need to post a number of posts to catch up on everything. I figure I will begin with the butterflies. On March 14th we woke to find 3 butterflies had emerged. One of them had a deformed wing. When a butterfly first emerges, it must have something to hang from in order for it's wings to open and dry correctly. Although the butterfly in question was still hanging upside down from his chrysalis, one wing failed to open. We do not know why. we took all three butterflies down to my mother's garden (She has lots of flowers) and set them free. We set the deformed butterfly down on a clump of flowers and wished him well. We watched as the other two flitted away. The boys each held the butterflies and we took quite a few pictures. The following morning we awoke to find the last 3 butterflies ready to be released. We again headed down to my mom's house, took more pictures, released the last three butterflies and began to head home. THEN we noticed that the poor little deformed butterfly was still sitting on the exact same clump of flowers that we had set him on 24 hours earlier. Being the bleeding hearts that we are, we gathered the poor little thing up and brought him home. We have named him Gimpy. I will post pictures and the story of Gimpy in my next post.

In the mean time........
Here is a photo of one of the first butterflies after it emerged but before we released it.

Here is a picture of Little Man holding one of the butterflies. I LOVE this picture. I am going to have it blown up and framed.

Here is a picture of Muffin Man with a butterfly on his face. Cute!

And here is a close up of one of our beautiful painted ladies just before it flew away.

We had a great time watching the butterflies as they made their way through their fascinating life cycle.

Will It Never End????????

2008-03-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

We are still sick here in the Chaos household. Muffin Man seems to be on the upswing. He has been on breathing treatments for the past week. His congestion seems to finally be easing up. My Honey is on a 3rd round of antibiotics. He's got it BAD and it has settled in his lungs. The Dr. put him on a new, super heavy duty antibiotic that targets the lungs. He has a follow up appointment on Monday. Little Man seemed to be sailing through with no signs of catching what we all had but that ended two days ago. I have an appointment for him today. I am pretty sure he has an ear infection. He is running a low grade fever, is very congested and started complaining of ear pain this morning. UHG! Will it never end? At least I am feeling better.

So much has happened that I need to update on. All our butterflies emerged. One is deformed. I call him Gimpy. I am hand feeding him. I will post pictures and the full story within the next few days. I am expecting the mantis' to hatch any day now. My girlfriend's already hatched and we got our egg cases around the same time. Can't wait for that.

Anyway, I will post again in a few days and catch up on all the happenings. Please keep us in your prayers that we will all be healthy and well, SOON!

The Sickies

2008-03-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well, we almost made it through the winter without everyone getting sick. I thought we were homefree but I guess I thought too soon. I am still fighting my illness from last week. I seem to be on the upswing, but it has been bad. My Honey has it even worse, poor guy. He made a second trip to the Dr. today for a second course of meds. I had hoped it would bypass the kids, but Muffin Man has succumbed. He began running a fever on Tuesday and is still feeling poorly. We made it in to the pediatrician today and he is back on breathing treatments for now. Hopefully he will be feeling better soon. His throat is really hurting him and that makes him miserable but the throat culture was negative for strep. Hopefully it will pass quickly. Little Man still appears to be defying the odds. Hope that continues.

In the meantime, I have not had much time or desire to take pictures or do much of anything, in fact. As a quick update.......Our butterflies and mantis' have not yet emerged. We will update with pictures when that happens. We now have 4 tadpoles that are growing like weeds. They are so cute! We actually got them the day they hatched from eggs. So Tiny!!! They are smaller than the tip of a pencil eraser. They should begin sprouting leg buds in about a week. Can't wait! After they turn into frogs we will disect a larger frog specimen that I got from the supply company. (already dead and preserved of course) The chicken eggs will most likely not be happening for another month or so. The boys enjoy checking out all the critters and their growth daily. What an awesome lesson on different life cycle's and God's AWESOME Creations!!!

So that is this past week in a nut shell. We have spent it convalescing, visiting Dr. offices and pharmacies, and watching life begin again.

2008-03-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

Muffin Man on his horse, Diesel. Look at that grin!

Due to age, Muffin Man was unable to ride solo, but he got a good ride all around the ranch accompanied by a very patient ranch hand.

Here is Little Man on his horse, Banjo. He had picked Banjo out of all the other horses as the one he hoped to ride. He was a pretty small horse. Although we were not abale to pick our horses, Little Man lucked out and got his wish.

My little cowboy! He actually went on a ride out on the desert trails with a group of about 10 others for about an hour. He did really well and he LOVED it! But his legs were sure hurting him the next morning.

A Day At The Ranch

2008-03-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday of this week we went on a field trip with the homeschool group to a local ranch. It is called Stage Coach Trails Guest Ranch and is located about an hour from town. They have a real nice set up there. They have guest houses that you can rent. A beautiful lodge with a big fireplace to gather round on chilly nights. A mess hall, playground, heated pool and jacuzzi, lots of farm animals, barn cats, dogs, goats, horses etc. They have horse back riding for all levels of experience and quads that can be taken out on the surrounding trails. For the field trip, we just went up for the day but My Honey and I are planning on taking the boys up for an overnight stay very soon. So, here are a few photos of the day. This first one is of the boys meeting one of the many ranch cats. They are all so friendly! This one was named Buster

Here is a picture of Little Man getting a feel for horse back riding on the play horse at the playground.

And one of Muffin Man.

Here the boys are meeting the real horses face to face.

Sometimes Mother Nature Needs Assistance

2008-03-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

I'm Back! Still sick but wanted to update anyway. Yesterday I woke to find four of the six caterpillars on the roof of their container. One had already chrysalized, 2 were hanging in j formation which is what they do just prior to making their chrysalis and one was just up there relaxing. The other two were frantically trying to climb the sides of the container but for whatever reason kept slipping down. I knew that if they were unable to get out of the food and poo on the bottom of the container they would die so I gave them a little help. I went outside and found a few twigs. I wrapped gauze around the twigs since that is what is at the top of the container. They seems to be able to hang from it easily. I placed the twigs into a large bug container I have and then put each one gently on one of the twigs. One of them almost immediately hung down in j formation. The other seemed lost. Poor little soul! He wandered up and down the twig and around the bottom of the
bug container for a few hours before finally just ceasing to move. He curled himself into a j formation on the bottom of the container and that was that. I wondered whether he would die or if it was possible that he would still chrysalize right there on the bottom. I got my answer this morning. He had chrysalized! Yippee! The problem with this is that when the butterfly emerges in a week or so it is important that the chrysalis be hanging from something so that the butterfly can hang upside down to allow its wings to dry correctly. Otherwise, the wings dry malformed and the butterfly cannot fly. I gently retrieved the chrysalis from the container. They are really neat! They move and wiggle when you touch them. From looking at them you would think they were hard to the touch but they are not. Both of the boys got to hold this little guy while he quaked and shimmied. We managed to disconnect the skin and head that he had shed. It was still hanging on to the top of the chrysalis and in the way for what I needed to do. I then used just a small touch of Elmers glue to hang him from one of the twigs. Success! He wiggled around for a bit after I got him stuck on but now he has settled down to quietly await his transformation. Below are two pictures I took of a few of the chrysalis. The one picture is rather fuzzy, but you can see that there are three chrysalis already formed and the caterpillar in the forground is in j formation. He actually turned into a chrysalis just about 20 minutes ago. The other photo is of "Elmer". LOL! I snapped this photo just after gluing him onto the twig. I have since transfered all the chrysalis into the larger bug container. If all goes well, we should have 6 Painted Lady butterflies in about a weeks time. I will make sure to post pictures when they emerge.

A Bad Case of the Blahs

2008-03-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

So much has happened this past week. Lots of new things happening with our Painted Ladies and we all spent a day horseback riding at a local ranch. I have pictures of both and I promise I will get them up as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have been struck down with some vicious illness. Every part of my body hurts! Even my scalp. I have a horrid cough, tons of mucus, pain in both of my ears, unbelievable sinus pressure, and my throat feels like I swallowed a bunch of steel wool. I cannot even swallow my own spit it hurts so bad. Please pray that I will recover quickly and that the boys and My Honey do not catch it. I will check back in in a few days. Until then, God Bless.

Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs!

2008-02-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

What better way to learn about the world than to experience it first hand! We LOVE doing experiments and seeing how everything works. The boys especially love anything having to do with bugs and lizards and critters. Today we received our shipment of Painted Lady Caterpillars, a Praying Mantis egg case, and a tube full of fruit flies and fruit fly larva to feed the mantis when they hatch. Yea!
Here are our caterpillars. We actually have 6 but the 6th one was taking a walk across my kitchen counter when this photo was snapped. The yellow stuff in the bottom is mostly food. It comes with them when you order them from the supply company. The gross part is that the poop looks pretty much exactly like the food. Blech. Anyway, these guys are actually pretty good sized already. Usually when we get them they are really tiny. I will make sure to take pictures once they make their chrysalis and after they emerge.

This is a photo of the mantis egg case. It is called a ootheca. (oh-uh-THEH-kuh) It is a very light weight, almost foamy feeling case that was created by the mother sometime back in the Fall. She attaches it to a branch and lays around 100 eggs inside. They can contain up to 200 eggs! After winter, when the weather begins to warm, the nymphs emerge. They look just like the adults except for being very small and having no wings. They begin to hunt almost immediately and have a voracious appetite. As long as they are supplied enough food, they will leave each other alone. But if other insects are not available, they will quickly turn on and hunt their own kind. If nature is left to it's own design, only about a dozen of the nymphs will survive to adulthood, most having been eaten by their siblings. I used a bit of thread to hang the egg case from a small branch in the bug container. When the nymphs first emerge they will hang from the case by silken strands to allow their exoskeletons to harden before descending to the ground. I will do all I can to get pictures of the newborns and post them.

Pretty cool, huh? I so enjoy doing this stuff with the boys. They are so fascinated. In about 6 weeks we are going to be hatching baby chicks in an incubator. Can't wait for that. Fun, Fun, Fun!!

Scorpion Weed

2008-02-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

We live in the desert and yes, much of our yard is landscaped with rock. But do not be mistaken, this does not mean that we do not have to do regular upkeep to keep the yard looking decent. We have this wonderful little devil of a plant called Scorpion Weed that flourishes here. It needs almost nothing to grow and will take hold anywhere and everywhere. The biggest problem is that there are many homeowners that care little whether their yards are overrun with weeds. The biggest culprits are the vacation home owners, of which there are many in these parts. They just rent out their houses or visit for a weekend here or there. Seldom do they take the time to actually clean up their yards and keep things looking beautiful. This affects us in a number of ways, not the least of which is that the wind blows all the seeds from their overgrown, weed filled, yards into our yards. I happen to live right across the street from one of these lovely homes. The owners are from California and just stop by on holiday weekends. They spend the entire time playing and then split. The home used to be very well kept by it's previous owners but now it is pretty much ignored.

So anyway, now that the weather is warming up and we have had a touch of rain the scorpion weed is growing rampant. My Honey offered the boys $$ to rid the front yard of the scurge while he was away this week. The boys will do almost ANYTHING for $$! The other day we were down visiting my mother. The boys asked me if they could go swimming. I started to answer the way I usually do, by telling them that the pool is too cold right now, but changed my mind and told them to go right ahead. With whoops and hollars they stripped to their undies and ran to the pool stairs. Two seconds after stepping down onto the first step they were back out and screeching about how cold it was. (Surprise, Surprise! Who would of thunk that mom knew what she was talking about?) At that point, my mom offered them each $1 to jump in. After a few minutes of heated discussion between them, they approached my mother and told her that for $4 each they would jump in. My mom agreed and they did it!! Mind you, the pool is like 50 degrees! They whooped and hollared for quite a bit but in the end they stayed in the pool for almost an hour. UNBELIVABLE! But I digress.....

So, having been offered $ we headed out to the front yard with visions of new Bionicles and DS games firmly entrenched in their minds. We ended up plucking the little buggers for nearly an hour and a half! Because the ground is all covered in gravel, you cannot really sit down to work. You have to walk around hunched over to pull the weeds out. It is back breaking work! Oh, did I mention that if the little buggers touch your skin they cause itching, stinging and burning? They aren't called Scorpion Weed for nothing! You have to wear thick garden gloves which makes it difficult to grasp the little suckers from between the gravel and rock. I actually suggested to the boys twice that we take a break but they refused. What little troopers! I would say that we cleared 95% of the weeds from the front and side yards. And we really had a good time doing it together. (even though my back is STILL killing me!) The next day the boys were eager to do more and spent another 45 minutes pulling weeds in the back yard. They really are good little helpers. Below are a few pictures of the boys with their buckets of weeds. We actually emptied buckets 2-3 times each before we were finished.
This first one is of Muffin Man with his bucket.

Here is Little Man with some of the weeds he pulled.

And here they are, my little munchkins hard at work!

When we finished working, Little Man mentioned how good he felt about helping out. I told him it always feels good when we are helping and contributing to our family and home. He just nodded and smiled. I really am so lucky. Both of the boys are so good about doing their chores and offering help when and where needed. I am blessed! And a little scurge called Scorpion Weed reminded me of that today.

The Great Mousecapade

2008-02-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I do not have too much to report. The boys were sorely disappointed this morning to discover that there was no gruesomely, decapitated mouse in our trap. Infact, there was no sign of the intruder anywhere. After an early morning inspection, it was determined that the vent on the side of the house is missing it's flapper thingy. It is a little flapper that is supposed to open outward to vent the dryer heat but close on it's own otherwise. Well, it is not there at all. Not sure when it fell off and we never found it laying out there on the ground or anything. Essentially, we might as well have had a wee door mat saying "Welcome" underneath the vent because it was just wide open and practically beckoning critters inside. """SHUDDER""" I don't even want to think about what else could have made it's way into the garage. I purchased a little cage thing that goes over the vent to keep out the critters. I also bought a new hose to replace the one chewed open by the previous guest. I honestly do not think the critter in question is still in the garage. The garage has no water source available and if it was inside I would think it would have found the peanut butter traps by now. Just to be on the safe side, the cats are still safely cordoned off from the garage. I think I will keep it that way for a few more days. I am crossing my fingers that this mouse hunt is over. ;)

A Mouse In The House!

2008-02-26T03:09:00.000-07:00

Today, after returning home from running errands, I entered the garage to find Darth Vader (one of our cats) staring intently at the corner behind the dryer. Knowing that there should be nothing of interest back there I grew curious. I went over to have a peek. Once there, I noticed that the dryer vent tube had a hole in it. This was even more curious to me because I just purchased this vent tube last week to replace the last one that had a hole in it. The previous one had been in use for the last 8 years so when we found the hole we really didn't put much thought into it. We just assumed it was old and had somehow become damaged. But tonight, my suspicions were aroused. I pulled out both the dryer and the washer and found the tell tale signs of a mouse! EEK! At least I hope it is a mouse! A rat would be much worse!!! I did a thorough check around the rest of the garage, behind, under, inside everything, and saw no signs anywhere else. I am thinking that since the cat food bowls were conveniently located next to the dryer, along with occasional lint droppings, that the little critter is visiting for a bite to eat and some fresh nesting material. The boys were very excited over this little discovery of mine. God Bless little boys! I am sure they are the only ones who could ever be excited over a wild rodent in the home! Of course, My Honey is currently out of town so I was forced to act as the resident pest control expert. We headed back into town and returned 45 minutes later with snap traps and poison. I brought the cat food inside the house and locked the kitty door leading to the garage. Poor Darth is forlorn! He is just sitting by the kitty door crying to get out. I think he was very excited about his find and was thinking he was going to get his first taste of fresh kill. I am so sorry to disappoint him! I set up two snap traps and placed a bit of poison both behind the dryer and by the outside vent, where I can only assume the little critter made his entrance. I will have to check it closer tomorrow when the sun is up. The boys went to bed all a titter with excitement over seeing a mouse with "it's head cut off!" Their words, not mine. I would rather not see a decapitated rodent in my gargage, nor do I want to have to dispose of it. I can only hope that this little critter will show me mercy and simply take a bit of poison back to it's home and die quietly somewhere that I don't have to watch. Either way, I hope it happens quickly. I only like rodents when they are neatly caged in clear plastic boxes with brightly colored tubing connecting them. I will post again tomorrow with my pest control results. Wish me luck.

Long Time No Blog!

2008-02-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

So, here we are, over a week since my last Blog. I really am going to try to update more often, HONEST! We have been very busy and I have been feeling very old! You see, I turned 41 a few days ago and I think it was more difficult for me than 40 was. Not to mention that my 40th birthday just could not possibly have been a full year ago. Nope! It is simply impossible that a full year has passed so quickly. It seems like only yesterday! I can not believe how quickly time goes by. Too fast, really!

So anyway, we have been busy with school and activities and what not around here. We finished our bean experiment. I made mention a few weeks ago that we planted beans in different pots. One pot had soil, water, and sunshine, one had soil and sunshine but no water, and one had soil and water but no sunshine. So which one would you think would grow the best? Well, one would think it would be the one that had all of the above, but one would be wrong! The beans that were given soil and water and put into a dark box grew the fastest! Now granted, they were quite pale in color, but they out grew the other by inches!
Here is the one that had no sunshine.

Here are the other two taken on the same day as the previous photo.

And here are all three together.

Now mind you, all these beans were planted on the same day in the same potting soil and fed the same water. The only thing we can figure it that the beans in the box were so desperate for sunshine that they put EXTRA energy into growing in order to look for it! Very interesting. The other interesting bit is that within 24 hours they had greened right up just as bright as the others. We also "planted" a number of beans in a clear glass with wet paper towel so we could see the sprouting occur and look closer at the roots. Here is a picture of those beans beginning to sprout.

The good news is that we now have a number of bean plants that have been transplanted into a garden in the back
yard and we will hopefully have some home grown beans to eat in a few months. We have also returned the earthworms to the back garden. They had been living in a pan on my kitchen counter for a good 6 weeks, and while they were interesting to look at and watch, we decided they would do better back out in the garden where they belong.

Beyond the beans and earthworms, we have also been learning about evaporation, rain, snow, hurricanes, and tornados. We watched evaporation while boiling water on the stove and caught the evaportated water in a large, inverted, glass bowl and watched it drip right back down into the pan. The water cycle in action! We also discovered that an empty bottle is not empty at all and that solids in water do not evaporate. Fun stuff!

Next week we will be receiving a shipment of Painted Lady caterpillars and a Praying Mantis egg case. We have done the caterpillars every year for a number of years now but it is always awesome to watch them grow, create their chrysallis and emerge as butterflies. The Praying Mantis egg case is a new one for us. Apparently the case holds about 100 eggs! Yikes! That may be enough to give me nightmares! We will be able to see them hatch, grow, molt and hunt. I also ordered a fruit fly culture with fruit flies to feed the Mantis. Neato!

So that is about it in a nut shell. The weather has been really nice and we have spent time at the park a number of times this past week. We did have a freak storm pass through on Wednesday evening and we did get rain today. We really needed it! But over all it has been beautiful and in the 70's. Spring is most assuredly on the way.

Hope you are all healthy and happy. Many Blessings to you and yours.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2008-02-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

Did you spend the day showering your family with love?

My Honey is out of town, but I will be sure to shower him with love when he returns. I snuck a card into his suitcase with a message on the envelope to not open till today. I sure miss him when he is gone. It really makes me appreciate him so much more.

I used glass markers to decorate the boys bathroom mirror last night with big hearts and an I Love You! I left their Valentine goodies on the sink for them to find first thing this morning. I heard Muffin Man get up and go into the bathroom. That was promptly followed by him waking Little Man in excitement over his discovery. We still have our baby monitor set up in their bedroom. Not that we really need it anymore, but honestly, I enjoy listening to their discussions when they are alone in their room. It is just so sweet to listen to them talk together. They really love each other so much. So anyway, back to this morning. Once Muffin Man woke up Little Man, that must have reminded Little Man that they had a card hidden. I didn't know that. I listened to their sweet banter as they got out the card, both signed it and prepared to come wake me up. I pretended to be asleep when they climbed into my bed and presented me with the card. It was just so sweet. We lay in my bed for the next hour or so just talking and cuddling. I could not have thought of a better way to start my Valentine's Day. Later when I talked to My Honey he told me that Little Man was very serious about finding just the right card and had spent time reading them in the store until he found just the one he wanted. That just makes it all the more special! I just love my kids so much!!!!!!!!!

This afternoon we met some friends at the theaters to see The Spiderwick Chronicles. It was really good. The boys really enjoyed it and so did I. It had some good lessons in it.

So, all in all just a really nice day. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to have My Honey here with us. Oh well. He will be home the day after tomorrow. I can't wait to see him.

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day. God Bless.

What a Lovely Day!!

2008-02-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was our town's annual winter fest street fair. The weather was just perfect, a breezy 75 degrees. The boys and I headed down around 10:45 and did not get home until almost 4 pm. We had a blast. At the Arizona Park Ranger booth the boys were able to make a few neat crafts and see skulls from a number of animals found in the desert. They were able to feel the pelts of a number of those animals as well. They especially liked the claws that were still attached to a number of the pelts. I purchased a few crafty type items but mostly just browsed and "window shopped". The boys really made out and were able to do almost all the activities this year. My pocketbook took a hit but it was worth it. They rode the mechanical bull, went on the big blow up slides and obstacle course, rode the train, and jumped on the jumpy thing where you are strapped to a bunch of bungee cords. They were both beat by the time we got back to the car. I am really sunburned on the back of my neck and cheeks but the boys only got a touch of pink. I guess Spring is already here and I need to pull out the sunscreen again.

On a different topic, I am unable to post pictures via the little icon on the new post page. It will simply not let me. I cannot figure out why and it is driving me crazy. The only way I can get a picture to show up is by using my Picasa program and then it posts every picture as a new post. I am determined to fix that! I would really like to be able to include the pictures in the post. If anyone is able to help me on this, I would greatly appreciate it!!

2008-02-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Muffin Man coming down the slide.

2008-02-11T13:03:00.001-07:00

Little Man coming down the slide.

2008-02-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

Little Man on the jumper.

2008-02-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

Muffin Man on the jumper.

2008-02-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Little Man riding the bull.

2008-02-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

Muffin Man riding the bull.

2008-02-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the boys identifying the bones we found in the owl pellet. It looks like Darth Vader would like to get involved!

2008-02-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here are all the little bones we found. The skull was still whole and intact. Really cool!

2008-02-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here are the boys dissecting the owl pellet. Muffin Man doesn't like the smell!

2008-02-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

These are those same flowers after soaking up all that food coloring. Aren't they purty? ;)

2008-02-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the white carnations that we have put in water with food coloring in it to show how the plants suck water up through the stem to the leaves and flower.

2008-02-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of some beans we have planted. One gets water, soil, and sun. The second gets soil and sun. The third gets soil and water and has been sealed in a cardboard box with no sunlight. We will watch to see how they grow.

Homeschooling

2008-02-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

We homeschool.

I know that homeschooling is a bit outside the norm, but it is becoming more and more mainstream everyday. Homeschooling is not for everyone and there are even occasional days I am not sure it is for me, but we trudge on. I take it day by day and as long as it seems to be working for both my children and myself I will continue. So, how did I come to the decision to homeschool? Well, I put my oldest son in public school for Kindergarten. That pretty much did it for me. For the entire year, our lives were ruled by his school schedule. I felt that every moment I had with him outside of school on weekdays was rushed. I rushed him to get up, get dressed, get his teeth brushed, and eat his breakfast, and then I rushed him out the door. At the end of the school day I rushed him through his homework, through dinner, through sports practices, through bathtime and then I rushed through a nighttime book so that he could fall asleep in time to wake and do it all over again. On top of all that, I was involved in the PTA, constantly doing fundraisers,(Can you say cookie dough?) and helping in his classroom 2-3 times per week, often for 2-3 hours at a time. I dragged poor Muffin Man along with me for all the frenzy. So what did we get out of the year? Well, obviously, Little Man got an education and I LOVED his teacher, but beyond that, the most notable things he gained were attitude and questionable vocabulary from other students. I gained a lot of stress in my life, and we lost out on enjoyable time to spend together. I had children to enjoy them not to spend every waking moment rushing them off to the next activity.

Today, our lives are mush more relaxed. The kids wake when they wake. We start the day with reading. I read out loud to them and they read to me. We then work on our written work, do experiments, look things up on the internet, etc. We are usually finished by around 12:00 or 1:00. At that point we are free to play games, go to the park, run errands, go shopping, or whatever else we decide to do for the day. We still have sports practices in the evening but I am no longer stressed out if the kids are up a bit too late. Life has slowed down for all of us. On top of that we have the added benefit of being able to make schedule changes as needed. My Honey travels quite a bit for work. When he is in town, he will often take a weekday off to make up for all the time he is away. We are able to rearrange our schedule to accomodate these days. If Dad is home on a Friday, we can always do that day's schoolwork on Saturday so that we can spend Friday with him. The boys are also able to work ahead on those subjects they excell in and get extra time if needed for other subjects. This is often not possible in public school.

Although I do use a well known curriculum (ABEKA) and I really love it, we are also able to add in our own activites that enhance the given lessons. For instance, in science we are currently learning about plants, chlorophyll, what plants need to grow, how we benefit from them and how all things that God made are interdependent on each other. We were discussing how birds help scatter seeds of plants and also eat many destructive insects and rodents that would otherwise destroy the plants. I just happened to have an owl pellet that I had purchased from a science supply company some time back. We spent an hour dissecting the owl pellet (The undigested remains of an owl's meal) and identifying the bones of the little critter that had been eaten. It was a vole. In the Fall, when we were learning about the 5 senses, we dissected a cow eyeball. VERY COOL! Now how many Kindergarteners and 2nd graders do you know who are doing that in public school?

Some people question me about the social implications of homeschooling. I can assure you that I thought long and hard about everything involved when I was making the decision to homeschool. I have read many studies and done my research. The fact of the matter is that homeschooled children are no less socialized than their public schooled peers and in fact are often better at socializing with age groups other than their own. We are members of the local Christian homeschooling group in our town. The group has over 100 students. We meet at the park for organized physical education, we have planned park days, play days, bowling days, swim days, and field trips. On top of that my boys are involved in seasonal sports and martial arts. We also have friends that we get together with on a regular basis and friends at church. We are hardly what you would call hermits.

So there you have it, my reasons for homeschooling. I am forever thankful that I have the choice to do so and I love the time I spend watching my boys learn and blossom. I will post a few pictures of some of the experiments that we are currently working on. Fun Stuff!

Finally! A Picture!!

2008-02-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

So, I finally called my friend in Idaho who is a bit more Blog Savvy than me and asked for her help to download a picture. For whatever reason, I was not able to get a picture to download no matter how many times I followed the given directions. I now have a new file on my computer that will help me with this problem. It looks like it will be very helpful in other ways as well. Thank you Bridget!!

So this is a recent picture of my two boys. We went to Knott's Berry Farm at the beginning of the month. We had a blast! Muffin Man would only go on the rides in Camp Snoopy but Little Man was VERY BRAVE! He went on roller coasters that I wouldn't go on! I used to love them but I think I am a bit too old for that now. So anyway, now that I can upload pictures, I will be updating daily and adding more pics. as often as possible. Enjoy!

So, What's With the Name?

2008-01-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Chaos and Cookies. What kind of a name is that? Well, I will admit that I often live in a state of chaos. Fly Lady calls this Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Yep, that pretty much sums up my life. Not that I need to have the producers of Clean Sweep visit or anything but I really like to have a nice clean house before having guests. It is very difficult to keep my house neat and clean with two active little boys. I feel like as soon as I get a room clean and move onto the next room, the first room is messy again. The boys both have chores and they are getting better at helping around the house so the CHAOS does seem to be getting a bit better.
So, back to the question at hand, Chaos; Yes, I live in chaos. BUT I also believe the following. #1- It is better to have happy kids than a perfectly clean house and #2- God made dirt so it wont hurt! So I can live with a bit of chaos.
Cookies? Well, along with the chaos, I feel it important to have fun and make memories. That is why I try to make cookies or banana bread often, have family traditions that we follow every year during the holidays, and just have fun. I often think about what my fondest memories of my childhood are and then I try to incorporate them into my family. One of my many fond memories is of my mom baking with us. She was (is) a fantastic cook! There was always something in the oven. I especially loved eating raw cookie dough. I know, I know. Raw eggs can be dangerous, but seriously, I am still alive. This reminds me of a story...........
Way back when My Honey and I were dating, we went out one evening for ice cream. We stopped at a little, family owned, homemade ice cream shop near my home. The shop had been there for years and had WONDERFUL ice cream with great flavors. I chose Cookie Dough, which at the time was not a flavor found in the grocery stores. My Honey said, "That sounds good!" and chose the same. We left the store and headed up the hill for a drive along the coast. We were happily eating our ice cream and chatting when he suddenly said to me, "This is really good ice cream! It really tastes like it has raw cookie dough in it!" I told him it did. He got this grossed out look on his face, rolled the window down and tossed the whole cone out. I laughed so hard! I am happy to announce that I have broken him of his former anti cookie dough beliefs and he now enjoys a "spoon cookie" of dough along with the boys and me each time I bake cookies.
So, Chaos and Cookies. A cup of craziness and a spoonful of cookie dough, a bucket of disorder and a tub full of love and memories. That is my life.

Meet The Family

2008-01-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Although this Blog is going to be mostly for family and friends, I realize it may be read by others. So with that in mind, let me introduce you to the family.

I will begin with me. My name is Rene and I am in my early 40's. I am a SAHM to two little boys. I homeschool both of them. When I was very young I had two dreams; First to be a mommy and 2nd to be the toothfairy. Lucky me! I have achieved both!! Prior to having children I taught in the public school system. My husband and I have been happily married for just over 15 years. If I were to describe myself in just a few words I would say I was strong willed, opinionated, outgoing, talkative, and boisterous. I enjoy reading, baking, scrapbooking, and socializing. I love spending time with my family. If I could have any job in the world, I would be a motivational speaker. Not sure what I am going to motivate people to do yet, but I am working on it! ;)

For this Blog, I will forever refer to my hubby as "My Honey". My Honey is such a wonderful man! He is hardworking, honest, giving, and loving. He has a wonderful work ethic and is well respected in his field. He fits in easily with almost anyone he meets. All the women I know wish they had a Honey just like mine! I am forever in debt and appreciative of all that he does that allows me to be the mom I want to be. He is a great father and his boys adore him. If I had to describe My Honey in just a few words, I would say he is reserved, thoughtful, easy going, considerate, friendly, and grounded. He helps keep me grounded as well!!

I will refer to my first born son as"Little Man." Little Man is 8 years old. He is currently in the 2nd grade and doing very well. He is curious and easy going. He loves Lego's, Bionicles, Transformers, and weapons of any sort. Every stick he finds becomes a sword with which he can duel an imaginary foe. He has a great imagination and can entertain himself for hours. I never tire of listening to him make all the sound effects of his imaginative play. I am amazed at how quickly he is growing up and I look forward to seeing the person he will become.

I will refer to my youngest as "Muffin Man." Muffin Man is 5 years old and quite the character. He is currently in Kindergarten and doing very well. He LOVES to read and count and write. He would much rather do school type activities than play with all the regular toys that most little boys love. He is fascinated by rocks and crystals and seeds and plants. He loves pincher bugs and earthworms. He just has to touch EVERYTHING that he sees, no matter how disgusting! He has a quirky personality that endears him to most everyone. He is also stubborn and strong willed. He makes me laugh every day!

Along with the four of us human types, our family also includes two cats, Darth Vader and Princess Boo Boo, 6 fish, as yet unnamed, a tarantula named Rosie, 4 earthworms who live in a large tupperware bowl of dirt on my kitchen counter, and a tank of Sea Monkeys that keep reproducing! The boys are currently scheming to convince My Honey and I that we need a dog. We will see.

So, that is us in a nutshell. I will try to get some pictures up in the next day or two so you can put some faces to the names.

A Beginning

2008-01-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

What better place to begin than at the beginning? I am so very bad at correspondence of any kind. Pretty much everyone that knows me knows that they should NOT expect a reply to that email sent or a Christmas letter in December. I have managed to get one out in February, ONCE! I just can't seem to get things together enough to get it done. I used to be pretty organized. Honestly! But that was before I had children. Now, all my energy goes into my two little boys. When push comes to shove, time spent with them is more important than time spent writing a letter to everyone else. So that is that. My priorities are clear. When time is short, something has to be pushed to the back burner and correspondence seems to be the common victim. So why then am I staring a blog? Well, I figured that if I started a Blog I might actually enjoy it. I figured I could get the boys involved in it with me. Ask for their input. I also figured that it would be a good way for everyone to keep up on what is happening with us. So, here I am, at the beginning. I am looking forward to posting and I hope you enjoy reading.........................................................