More school pictures

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I have sat down several times just to write about our day and things going on, but haven't had enough time to even get started!!
Aunt Deborah got to come visit again the last partial week of July, first partial week of August. We had fun, and she played a lot with the kids. She brought them a sprinkler toy for the yard and played in it with them several times. They absolutely loved it!!

This is one of my favorite pictures from the week. It captures Emily's personality so well, it's hilarious!! She is by far our most wiggly child, and has never been able to sit still. She hardly ever walks anywhere in the house, she's always going too fast and crashing into things or falling down and getting hurt, but she never lets it slow her down. I feel like I'm always telling her to slow down, or be careful. At times it can be a little frustrating, but I have learned to accept that's the way she is and wouldn't have her any other way!

Mom and Dad and Deborah left the first of August, so we started school on Monday, Aug. 5th. So far I've been very pleased with our "classroom." We painted one wall a fun green color, hung cabinets on it, and put two banquet(?) tables along it with the idea that we could have 4 "schooling stations." It's working out very well. At the moment I have Luke and Emily at opposite ends just to help them focus, but as they get older and I add kids to that table, I'm planning to put an older next to a younger and the older should be able to focus fine, and not get distracted by the younger. (that's my theory anyways) I have each kids books(consumables and teacher stuff) in the cabinet right above the kid, so I can easily get what I need. I'm working on filling up the other cabinets, mostly with extras supplies, craft stuff where I can easily see it and get to what I need, stationary, and other school curriculum, etc. for the younger years. Josiah and Timothy's desks and my "teaching chair" are set up on the opposite wall in a corner. I'm not 100 percent pleased with how I have my stuff arranged that I need to access often. I'm still playing around with that and trying to figure it all out. I think we're getting close. :) The other wall I just have toys along. One day I would like to put our loveseat on that wall, when we get a new couch, etc. for the front living room. My idea is to have it be the family/school/play room. Right now it's mostly a play/school room. I want there to be a comfy spot for reading or visiting with company and such. I have the desire to be extremely organized, but I lack the time, space, creativity, and money too be too weird about it. :) I also save too much junk. :) So I'm trying to carefully fill up my cabinets, and closets as we unpack so I don't have to redo it in the near future. Yes, we're still unpacking. We have quite a few boxes in the garage to go through. Back to school....School is going very well. We have finished four weeks now and the kids are doing very well. Josiah is in K-5 this year and I'm teaching him. The first few weeks for him we've done extra because a lot of it is review that he learned last year. We didn't finish all of our K-4 stuff because I got behind because of the pregnancy and moving and such. We were well over half way so I didn't worry about it. He was struggling at the end to sound out short words. He did well with blends, but just couldn't seem to get the hang of putting it all together. After we did school for about a week I pulled out one of his books that we didn't get to last year and he was able to sound out the words just fine. Everything finally clicked in his little brain, so I was glad I didn't push him last year. He's been doing well so far and some days asks to do more school. We put Emily in video this year for 3rd grade and she absolutely loves it. She participates quite enthusiastically. Sometimes we have to have her use her headphones so that Josiah and I can hear each other! Luke is in 4th grade and is doing well. He's not so keen on the participating out loud part, but he seems to enjoy it other than that. He uses his headphones most of the time because I can't get his computer loud enough and he gets a little annoyed with Emily being too loud. He can't hear her with his headphones on, so it helps him to concentrate a little better, too. Timothy usually markers while Josiah and I do school. I must say that washable markers are worth the extra money!! They wash off his skin so nicely without any scrubbing!! He doesn't usually marker on himself on purpose, but it inevitably happens. Susannah usually sleeps in her swing while we school. Josiah and I are usually done by the time she wakes up, so it works out nicely.

 Josiah and Timothy's desks

 both sets of desk and the swing

 Emily and Luke's "desks"

The toy wall :)



Changes

Kids are funny! And it's amazing how fast they grow up and change. Some of Luke's changes started last summer, when he started going to the orthodontist. He had to get an expander to increase the width of the top of his mouth because his teeth were super crowded and they sat a little bit inside the bottom teeth. He didn't get the actual appliance until Nov/Dec and then we turned it twice a week with a little key until a couple weeks ago, when he got a reverse headgear! The reverse headgear is to help slow down the lower jaw growth ( because it grows faster than the top part). Part of me wondered if we were starting all of this too early, but I can see how he definitely needs it. We're in what they call the first phase of creating space and then we won't do anything for a year or two and then start the second phase which would consist of braces and straightening, etc. I can tell when he talks and spells things that his lower jaw juts out too far. It's all very interesting.

with his reverse headgear

 

 

 Before the expander

 

 

After the expander, you can see how there's a little more space between his teeth. He did lose one of his teeth (on his right) which makes it look like more space on that side.

 

 

The other change that he and Emily both had were that they both got glasses!! Luke was VERY excited about glasses, and it turned out Emily actually needed them more than he did!

 

I think they both look cute with them!!


On another note, today was our last day of school!!!!!!!!!!! We went to the library and got everyone library cards for the first time! (except for Timothy) We made pizza and dessert and watched a movie while we ate supper, AND Leigh got to come home early from work because it's a holiday weekend and they sent everyone home! So it turned out to be a very fun last day of school!!







Happenings

Well, I didn't realize it had been a year since I last posted anything. A lot has gone on, mostly good! Trying to think back as to what we did that long ago. I think the kids and I went to Dothan in March.In April we went on "Spring Break" to St. Simon's Island and met up with Dana and her kids. We had a blast!! We had a sunrise service with baptism at the beach in April for Easter. The end of May we went to Dothan to pick up a friend to intern at our  church down here, and ended up swinging over to Pensacola to attend a funeral for a friends baby-very sad. Leigh was able to go with us on that trip because was over the weekend and combined with Memorial Day! June was a super busy month. The church had four interns that went out door to door almost every day, and the last week we had VBS. After July 4th, the kids and I took Norian back to Dothan and spent a week there. In August, we went to Sanibel Island to celebrate our 10 year anniversary (which was in June). We took the kids with us and were beach bums for a day and a half. It was sooo much fun and I am looking forward to going back sometime!
Luke started school the end of July. We started him in the A Beka video streaming, and I have absolutely loved it!! He does his school mostly independently, which gives me more time to school Emily and Josiah. I started Emily and Josiah the beginning of August. Josiah's in K-4, so his doesn't require too much work. He's been doing a really good job and seems to enjoy it! We had a little bit of a problem with Luke not thinking I was his teacher, too and not wanting to do the work I assigned him, but we dealt with that and this second semester, he has really jumped in and been  doing an excellent job participating and getting his work done quickly. A lot of days he starts earlier than the rest of us, so he can get done and play! He started going to the orthodontist over the summer and in the Fall, we started a treatment plan due to the way his teeth and jaw are aligned. This past week they put in an expander on the top and bottom of his mouth. The top one is one that we turn twice a week with a special tool. It's to help the top of his mouth expand out because his upper jaw causes his upper teeth to sit slightly inside the lower teeth and jaw. The lower expander is expand the lower part a little so that his permanent teeth will have more room. All of his teeth are crowded and when the permanent ones have been coming they are awfully crooked. There would definitely be a problem later on, so they say the earlier the better to start fixing some of it. He has really been a trooper through all of it! I thought sure his teeth would be more sore and he would be complaining about it while eating and such, but he's only mentioned it a time or two. He has eaten a little bit slower, but it doesn't seem to bother him much at all. He's had tylenol once since getting all this new hardware in his mouth. I've been very pleased with how he's done!!
We bought a house!! Signed contract in October and moved in December. We're still getting moved in and settled. I should say we're settled fine, but we still have a ton of boxes to unpack. They're mostly in the garage. We've had the normal homeowners issues of having to fix random things that break, etc. The roof is older, so we had to get some estimates on it and a licensed roof inspector out to inspect it per our insurance, but it passed, so we have a couple years before we HAVE to get it replace, but we're so thankful it's not this month/year. There's a leak in the floor/wall in a bedroom on an outside wall that Leigh's been working on trying to find the cause and fix. He's pretty sure it's related to how the sprinkler system hits it or something. Then he got new tires on the car and was informed his brakes were bad, so he replaced those, then he changed the oil on the car and van and realized two or the motor mounts on the van, that he just replaced had cracked  clean through, so now he has to replace those again. He feels like it's never ending. I've been trying not to ask him to help me move things in the house cause he's so busy already. But maybe I will ask him to hang my two big pictures! :)
In October we got to go to Orlando and meet Dana and her kids and go to Sea World. That was a super fun treat! We were offered a place to stay for free and Dana was offered free tickets from a friend!! That doesn't happen very often, and we had so much fun!!
We went to Dothan for the Peanut Festival Parade in November, and Mom and Dad and I actually took the kids to the fair! It was a lot of fun, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it! We don't usually go to the fair, just the parade, so it was a fun treat! In December we went to Pensacola for Christmas and had a nice time. We got to see some friends and Leigh's brother and family a couple times and hang out with my sisters and parents. It wasn't too cold, just a little chilly a couple days, so that was nice. Came back home and finished moving everything out of the rental and cleaned it and got settled in our new home.
I think that about brings us up to now. Very thankful for how God has blessed us and the fun things we got to do last year and family and friends we got to see! So very thankful for our new house, too! It's so nice to finally have a little more space!
If you're on Facebook, you can see all the pictures that should go with all our trips, etc. I tried to find them and add a few, but I couldn't get them to work!

The Passing of Time

Well, the last time I posted anything was in October of 2011. A lot has gone on since then. In November the kids and I went to Dothan and visited my family. Rachel and Deborah got to come on the weekends and see us ( and Mark, too :) ) and Deborah got some personal days to spend with us and Rachel had a day off school and got to spend extra time with us. It was a very fun week. We got to go to the Peanut Parade, which is a tradition, and we also celebrated Luke's 8th birthday! The trip up went much better than I anticipated, which helped relieve some of my apprehension about future trips. When we got back to Fort Lauderdale (I almost typed Pensacola) we hit the books hard to finish up our last six weeks of the semester. We didn't quite finish, but off we went a week before Leigh to visit in December the week before Christmas. Leigh flew to Panama City on Christmas Eve and Dad went and got him. We spent Christmas Day together, and then we left on Monday to go to Kansas to celebrate Leigh's Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was nice to see some of Leigh's side of the family, with some extended aunts, uncles, and cousins. We drove two days up, spent two days, and then drove two days back to Dothan, and spent one day and then drove down to Lauderdale. We've been busy, busy since then.
School's going well, we passed Lesson 100 a few days ago, which means we only have 70 lessons left! If we double up every day we'll be done in 7 weeks!!!! Buuuuutttt, we're not going to do that. I've actually been only doing one lesson a day, because I don't have a goal to be done for this six weeks, and it's made our school week much less stressful. I usually try to get six lessons done in a week, just to get a little extra done, and because we started later than we usually do, but I think we're pretty much caught up, although I do want to start doing some extra, so we finish the middle of May. We'll see. I'm also trying to plan a "Spring Break" or whatever you want to call my next trip. :)
Our church is having revival services the last week in February. There is talk of a ladies retreat in October, at either Camp of the Pines, or Bill Rice Ranch. Hopefully I'll be able to go. Leigh would have to get a day off work.
Valentine's Day is coming up, so I've been trying to plan some things. I think we're going to have a Valentine's party the Friday before to make cookies and valentines for our friends at church. We also might take it as a Holiday because February 12th is Abraham Lincoln's Birthday. Luke found this information out in one of his books he reads and keeps reminding us, so I'm thinking of making him a cake! Ha. I've also been planning a date night at church for Valentine's day, providing childcare at the church for the couples who want to go on a date. It will be presented this Sunday, so hopefully people will sign up. 
We've started looking at houses to buy. Last Saturday was our first time out, we only got to look at two and neither one of them were any good, so we're going out again tomorrow. We have absolutely no idea of how long this will take. Hopefully not too long..... There doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there with our criteria.
Anyways, That's all for now. It's getting rather late and I need to get to bed. The baby has had a fever today without any other symptoms, so I"m afraid it's his ears and I might be up all night-seems to be a trend with him when nothing else presents itself. I hope not!!
TTFN!!

kiddos

The kids are doing very well in school. Some days are harder than others to keep Josiah occupied. There was one week he kept snitching food out of the kitchen. (My dad would say I should feed the kid!) I had made chocolate chip cookies - that was probably the problem - and they sat in a container on the cabinet. The cabinets in this house, excuse me, the countertops, in this house are not as deep or as tall as the ones in Pensacola, so if something is on it, Josiah can get a stool and easily reach it. That week he ate cookies, crackers that I had made for Timothy (although Timothy won't eat them), graham crackers out of the diaper bag, graham crackers off of Timothy's high chair tray, two of Emily's skittles, part of one of Luke's cookies at lunch, and drank out of everyone's water bottles. No, he's not starving, he gets plenty of food, I think he was just bored that week or something. I don't remember Luke or Emily ever snitching as much as he does.

Timothy started saying "uh-oh" a week or two ago. And, he uses it appropriately. He has started playing the "throw my food off my high chair and say uh-oh" game. It is very cute though. If he drops a toy while he's playing he says uh-oh, too. He was playing with a dinosaur at the coffee table the other day and it sounded like he was making it roar. He was making it "walk" down the table and he was doing a very good job!

Josiah entertaining himself at school with address labels

that we got in the mail.

Beginning of School/ First day off

 We started school on August 29, which seems really late to me because we usually start the last week or last partial week of July. So I have been trying to do some extra lessons and such to "catch up" so that we're not doing school until the end of May. I like to finish near the beginning of May, usually just because I start getting ancy to get other things done, and the beach craving sets in about March/April when the weather starts getting warmer. So this past Friday, Sept. 30, we finished our first six weeks!! WOOHOO!! I'm not cramming in lessons, it came out to one extra lesson a week, which was doable, especially since the first few weeks are a lot of review. As a reward we took yesterday off. It was so nice to have a day off. We don't take holidays, except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so all our days off are based on what I need to get done, or when I decide to go visit someone, or someone's sick, etc. I found last year, that the kids really enjoy looking forward to having a day off, and since we don't take holidays, they were missing out, because I would plan my schedule and tentatively plan a day off here or there, but not tell them, in case I changed my mind or I was able to fit school in along with the other things. I didn't realize this until towards the end of the year, so they only had like one or two days to look forward to, so I decided this year to try to make them a little more planned. They had a Great day, even though I didn't plan anything special or anything, it was just a day off. L had asked for the trains and track to be brought out a couple weeks before so they could play with it, but I wanted to get their room cleaned and reorganized, so I could get the tub down and leave it down, so we did that Monday morning and they played in their room very happily with the trains and track most of the day. Which made it very nice for me because I was hoping to get some sewing done and I was able to, and even got more done than I had planned!! I needed to make Emily a slip to go under some of her dresses, because it is very difficult to find little girls slips, and when you do it's hard to know what size to buy because they make things so short, so that's been on my sewing list for quite a while, so I was able to get that done. Then Luke only had one pair of summer pajamas and I had put them in the laundry and they were stuck in the laundry for three days (usually I try to wash them and dry them in the same day, so he can wear them again, but I got behind) so I had already decided I was going to make him some more pajama pants. I had two remnants of material that I had picked up somewhere along the way and I thought one of them would be long enough-it was a full yard, but due to the stripes, it wouldn't work for pants, but it would work for shorts. So after looking at them both, it ended up that I would have enough to make Luke shorts and matching shorts for Josiah and Timothy. They turned out cute and I was able to finish all three of them!! Leigh  even gave himself a little less to do. He called his recruiters and did a few of his job emails/application/stuff and then he worked on the church's website. HE's been doing their website since they started, but he's had ideas and such that he's wanted to add, take down, change, etc and just hasn't had the time. He hasn't had the time, or some of the info, to do it, so he took a few hours yesterday and worked on it. He seemed pleased with how it was going. I told Mom he had changed it, but I didn't realize he hadn't put it live yet. So if you read this Mom, it won't look different yet. :)  Anyways, we had a nice, fun, relaxing, yet productive day!!

 

So Excited

I'm soooo excited!!! Today I finished getting our LAST two weeks of school stuff ready! I pulled out all the rest of the papers from the books and we are ready to hit 'em hard. Several of the days are just review days, so I'm hoping to combine a few and finish a little earlier!! The kids have worked hard and are looking forward to being done. I have a few fun things planned for this summer. The first thing we're going to do is go to the BEACH!! I've been holding out until school is done!! I also have some fun workbooks for the kids to work on, a couple painting projects, a slip and slide I've been hoarding for a few years (waiting for the kids to get bigger), tapes to listen to, libraries to go to, and any other ideas are welcome!! So, What are your summer plans??

Notes

It was a very sweet surprise to find a "note" E wrote to us a few weeks ago when I went into our "classroom". She doesn't enjoy cuddling as much as L does, and she seldom does "sweet" things. Occasionally she will snuggle with me and say, "(sigh) I love you mommy." But she definitely has to be in the mood. She's a very independent little girl, and very sensitive. So here's her note on the chalkboard.

I Luv U Luke

I Luv U Aulu (Angela)

I Luv U Li (Leigh)

Isn't that precious???!!! I was very touched. I'm not sure why she uses our given names, but when she writes us notes and colors papers for us she wants to put our given names on them. When she talks to us, she is only allowed to call us Mommy and Daddy. (In case anyone was worried. :) )
Oh yes, I was also very proud of her because this was the first time she tried to sound anything out and write it. She enjoys reading and is doing very well in school. Go EMILY!!! I love you too. :)

Handwriting

L - my six year old son was working on his handwriting in school the other day, and he wrote a very nice cursive "a". He often calls me over to check his work, and this time he said, " Isn't that nice? Do you think a 10th year old wrote that?"