She’s 14.  She’s not supposed to be lovely.  She’s supposed to snarl at me.  She supposed to call me bad names behind my back, roll her eyes right in front of me, and slam her door. 
She’s supposed to be causing me heartache and keeping me up at night with worry.

They told me all these things she’s supposed to be.  They warned me what was coming when my daughter became a teenager. 

Kait doesn’t like oatmeal at all, but her brothers do.  She is in charge of breakfast and yesterday she made oatmeal.  She made oatmeal because her brothers like it.  She made oatmeal even though she knew she’d have to eat it, too.

Right now she is cheerfully making pancakes listening to the Christian music station on the radio.  She’s still in pajamas, singing softly.

Thank God, He’s got her.  She’s not perfect, but who is? She is good.  She is lovely.  She’s not what she’s supposed to be.

For her I am thankful.

I did stuff this morning.  I got up.  I checked on the baby (who was laying right beside me).  I made a latte.  I checked my email.
After lunch I cleaned the kitchen with the boys.  I played on photoshop (a hobby of mine) and dinked around with my blog. 

Okay, I was being lazy. 

I wasn’t planning on cleaning my room.  I knew it needed to be done but I was putting it off til later.  I was going to get to it today – just not right away. I’ve been telling myself this for a few days now.
Ryan doesn’t normally say anything.  He’s not a complainer, he’s a Doer (Bird), and do he did.  He walked right into that bedroom and started to clean it up.  I knew what I had to do, what I should have already done, and I tucked my tail between my legs and went in there to not quite do my part.  We tackled the bedroom floor together (Uh-uh, that’s not what I meant) and had the place nice a clean in no time.  That motivated me to get a few other jobs done.

And just like that today ended up being productive.

Sometimes it just takes a little motivation to get me going.  I don’t like it when my husband has to do a job that has been clearly laid out as mine.  I also don’t like it when I’ve come to the end of my day and realized that I didn’t accomplish much of anything.  
Who’s gonna kick me in the pants (or skirt) the next time I’m sittin’ around on my duff with a ton of things to get done? 

One of these days I’m gonna have it all together.

One of these days.

These are some more of the pictures that were taken on Tuesday at my friend, Marty’s house.  I posted some of the ones Kait took here.  These are a few of the ones Marty took.  She just has the sweetest ideas for simple and adorable sets.  It doesn’t hurt that the subject of these is just the most adorable, sweet, good natured, (did I mention, adorable?) chubby baby. 

I know, I’m ridiculously bias.

I love his smile in this one (above).  If you look close you can see his bottom two front teeth.

I like the one with his pacifier because it shows Jesse doing what he does.  He is always fiddling with it.  Plus, his old man PJ’s are my very favorites.

The boy is just fun. 

I have a 7 month old baby boy.  He is so cute and pudgy.  I must be dreaming.

Yesterday I didn’t feel like I had a lot of kids.  We just went about our business, making a day.

Today I started organizing their schooling.  Today I dug through the library looking for missing curriculum.  The library is in the laundry room.  The laundry room is where we keep the cat box.

It didn’t smell yummy.

I sat there staring at the unorganized mess of books on and around our bookshelves with a piece of yellow paper and a very dull pencil, realizing that I have to make something organized out of what we have stacked up in tall, unstable piles in front of the library shelves.  There are tons of books.  Old curriculum from years past.  New curriculum purchased only 6 months ago.  Somewhere in the midst of all those books is a school year. 

All the sudden I feel like I have a lot of kids.

Joe wants to do an entire year on weather.  He also wants to be a pilot lately.  Like his dad, but not.  Weather and flying go hand in hand so I am happy he is so into what he’s into. So happy that I’ve told him I’d find a way to teach an entire year of weather. 
Homeschooling is great – I’ve blogged about its greatness time and time again.  Part of why it’s great is the challenge it presents to me.

It’s gonna be an awesome school year. 

If I can ever get it started.

I hadn’t realized how much I liked ice until last week.  Last week our ice maker broke.  I thought – no biggy.  I’ve got ice cube trays. 

But I don’t have ice cube trays. 

My husband called the landlord who asked us to replace the part that was broken and we’d be reinbursed through rent discounts.  That was fine only the part was only available online. 

All last week, and most of this week was spent without ice.  We had a big bag of ice in the chest freezer, but it was a solid mass, which meant chissling to get just a little bit of ice. Sometimes it was worth it but most of the time I just did without.

Yesterday the part arrived and Ryan set forth repairing the ice machine for me.  It didn’t work.

He repaired it again.

It didn’t work.

Hmmm.

Finally, this morning he figured it out and we have ice.  I seriously would have never thought of ice as something I would not want to live without.  Hot showers, maybe.  But ice?

Today I am thankful for ice.

People are sending their kids off to school this week.  I think schools around here start on Monday. It feels like my family is standing still while everybody else is running like crazy around us.  This time of year is such a busy hurry.   It feels like pandemonium. 

 But not here.

It’s different that we homeschool.  Not as different as it used to be, but different still.  I don’t get the same confused stares I used to get when I would tell somebody we homeschool but I still get those ‘you’re one of those people’ looks, and I’m fine with that. 
We won’t be buying our kids new backpacks and lunchboxes.  I won’t be purchasing large packs of brown paper sacks or little plastic sandwich baggies.  Not a single bus will stop here for my kids (unless you’re counting our 12 passenger van).

We’ll talk all day – have conversations that we’d miss if they went off to school.  A cool rock in the back yard will turn into a discussion on its geological history.  Birdwatching will become a lesson in photography and Photoshop. 

We get to be here and cheer when one of us finally ‘gets it’.  We do our best to encourage during a struggle.  There’s no performance, just trying hard.  We practice patience, love, consistency, and gentleness.  We sing loud. We laugh hard. We act silly.

We have time. We do things differently around here.

We are different around here.

Jesse is 7 months old now and my friend, Marty, thought it would be fun to do another Jesse photo shoot.  The session was a blast and Kait took some pictures, too.  Here are some that Kait got.  Marty’s should follow soon and I’ll post some of them when I get them.

We had an awesome time!  It is such a blessing to have such wonderful friends.

Sammy in June '09

He turned two in May.   
He’s got a big smile and blue eyes that sometimes look green and sometimes dark gray.  His hair is a strawberry blond.  He sits with daddy in the early morning hours while he does Bible study on the back porch.  Then he comes in to find me, shouting, “mama?!”  Then he grabs my face and neck and kisses me.

He’s a trouble maker, but he smiles a lot and makes me selfishly want to let him get away with everything.  He delights a couple families at church with his mischievous grin.

He’s an aggressive hugger.

I want him to stay two forever.  I want time to slow down.  I want tomorrow to be later and yesterday to be now.

“So, your son got dog bit?”
That was the actual question from the animal Control Officer who called the emergency room to talk to us last night.

We are definitely in The South. I love it.  They just have a different way of saying things down here. 

It was our neighbor’s dog who stuck his snout through the fence and bit the bottom of Joe’s foot as he played tag with his brothers. Don’t ask how his foot got up there. I think we’ve successfully confused every ER nurse, Animal Control, and everybody else who was listening in on the story.

Joe’s fine. The bite, though fairly small, was very deep so they glued it closed and told him to stay off it for a days or two. Try telling Joe that when it’s been raining and there are bugs to watch. We wrapped it up so he could hobble around. That and he’s got to take antibiotics.

We felt bad for our neighbors, who we’d not met until this incident. I guess it’s protocol for a doctor to call Animal Control in the case of any animal bite. Our neighbors now have to quarantine their dog for 10 days. What a way to get to know your new neighbors.
We’re making them some homemade cinnamon rolls today as a peace offering. They were really cool about it all but we just want to be sure they know we don’t harbor any ill feelings.

Two ER visits in 2 weeks. I think that’s a record for us!

re-post from September 15, 2006

While most of us mamas agree that Kool-Aid is not good for our kids to drink, many of us have found numerous other uses for this super cheap powdery drink mix.

There are Kool-Aid project recipes on the internet, too, along with other variations of the recipes I have listed below.
My favorite Kool-Aid project is Play-Dough. My kids love making this and I love how yummy the house smells afterwards.

What you will need:

1 cup flour
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 package Kool-Aid (or Kool-Aid equivalent)
1/4 cup salt
2 Tbs cream of tartar
1 cup water
glitter – if you are brave

Step 1.
Mix your flour, salt, cream of tartar, and drink mix in a medium pot.
Step 2.
Add water and oil and stir over medium heat for about 4 minutes.
Step 3.
Remove when mixture forms a ball and immediately knead until smooth, add glitter if you are crazy. Be careful because it will be very hot for a few seconds.

Your kids can play with it immediately but sometimes it helps to firm it up by putting it in a container in the refrigerator for a little while, although we have never done this. Keep fresh by storing in an air tight container.

Things we have learned while making and using Kool-Aid play dough…

• Drink mixes that are pre-sugared will cause the play dough to, well, not be dough.
• Kool-Aid play dough does NOT taste good, despite how delicious it smells.
• The fact that Kool-Aid play dough doesn’t taste good will not stop many small kidlets, or the dog from eating it.
• Although it is non-toxic for people, our dog does not tolerate it well and he is a large 85 lb dog. I will not go into detail here but I recommend not letting your pets sneak the pieces that fall on the floor.
• Glitter. Enough said.

Yippee for crock pots!!!

Dying fabric in your Crock Pot is super easy! This won’t work with all fabrics. Silk works well. I have heard that wool does too. I guess you could probably try different swatches of fabric to see what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t have a crock pot you can use a large pot with a lid on the stove.

Step 1.
Make sure that your fabric is clean and wet.
Step 2.
Fill your Crock Pot with water and add 1 to 3 packets of your coloring. The more you add the darker your color will turn out.
Step 3.
Add your fabric and turn your Crock Pot to high.
Step 4.
When your Crock Pot is nice and hot turn the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Step 5.
Rinse your fabric and wash with soap in very warm water.

All done!