Twinkle

Meet Twinkle! He/she is the newest member of our family, at least temporarily... Depends on Sis' asthma and a few other things. Mommy found Twinkle on our front walk, appears as though the neighbor cat had something to do with it as he bolted as soon as I opened the door to take out the trash. Poor little guy was sitting there shaking and no parents to be found. We got him a little shelter, food and water and guess We'll see what happens.

Impeccable Timing!!

All the local kids have returned to school this week.. we won't start for a few weeks as I have a lot of work left to do to prepare and don't have all our books yet...  but we woke up to 2 girls with icky coughs this morning and the baby ran a fever of up to 102 for about 24 hours from Sunday to Monday.  Really?  I always enjoy back to school week because it's so much quieter around our neighborhood and the mornings are cool enough to open all the doors and windows so the only noise I enjoy, other than the cars from the main road are from my own kids.

Project day!

We've had a busy two days. The girls decorated their dance bags. They are quite pretty don't you think? Both girls are very excited as dance class for Miss I starts next week and Miss A is the following week.  Littlest Miss will also have an encore performance from last season for an upcoming carnival... she's excited, though Miss A is a little bummed that she doesn't get to perform too.  I'll have performance details after we start classes, so make sure you ask about it if you're interested... otherwise with all I have going on, plus school starting soon and adding a few extra rehearsals in September, Mommy (overload) brain may kick in.

 

I also found Miss A a new bike (bigger) for $10, added a few little bells and whistles (new basket, bell and streamers) and some TLC and she loves it. Now is time for her to learn without training wheels, since one training wheel was broken, I decided not to fix it but to teach her how to ride.

Spiders... spiders... everywhere!

As we get ready for a hopefully upcoming remodel, I have been in constant spring cleaning mode.  Unfortunately it is slow, but I am quite pleased with the progress I made today with everything else going on.  I have a nice load to meet up with the Goodwill truck tomorrow, a full tote of clothes for the upcoming consignment sale and a large bag of stuff that just didn't make the cut and will meet it's doom in the trash can first thing tomorrow.  Among all the little things I find tucked in the corners are an amazing amount of spiders!!  Most of them are brown and HUGE!!  Thankfully most of them are contained to the basement, but  few have managed to find their way upstairs.  I honestly must say I am looking forward to the cold weather and the lack of spiders!

I have spent most of my nights studying and preparing to teach the girls preschool and kindergarten starting next month.  I never imagined it would take so much time for me to learn how to teach them, but the online courses I am following are teaching to un-learn how I learned in school and I am encountering a paradigm shift in how to educate as I dig into the fundamentals of the program. Though I must admit I am very impressed so far. 

A & I had their first camp-out of the year with daddy in the backyard tonight.  They were so excited!  Daddy set up the tent, we got the sleeping bags out and roasted marshmallows in the fire-pit.  It is the perfect night for a camp-out, though hopefully it won't be too cold.  As summer comes to a close, the evenings are getting cooler and is supposed to be down to 50 degrees tonight.  I'm have to admit that I love having my window open at night for the cool air and so thankful that A is not having respiratory problems because of it, as she has in the past.

I made a appointment for A with a local naturopath.  I have been doing what I can and we have been seeing the holistic practitioner less and less for several different reasons,  it appears as though A is getting better, especially with her asthma, but I honestly don't know what I'm doing, most of it is a stab in the dark.  I have heard amazing things about the gal we have an appointment with from those in the allergy community and am looking forward to someone pointing us in the right directly instead of, well... let's try this...  or how about we try this and see if it works.  I'm fed up with trying stuff that might work or that we have to keep doing over and over.

Again... really?

After having some good playtime with her brother this morning, I noticed A had hives and welts all over her face and one side of her lips were swelling up.  I asked what happened to her face and she had no idea, but then she mentioned that brother drooled all over her.  So guess what, now mommy is back on the A-diet.. been a while, but at least it's not as restrictive as it was when she was tiny.. though getting rid of wheat probably wouldn't hurt me either. 

I knew that whatever I eat can cause allergic reactions in a baby when I'm nursing, but I guess it dawn on me that those proteins would be strong enough in his saliva to cause her to react like that.  Silly me, I should have known that!!  The proteins can stay in a person's saliva for as long as the proteins or whatever are traveling through your system, which can be a couple days...  by 6-8 hours the amounts in your saliva would hopefully be small enough that it wouldn't affect someone as sensitive as Dree is.  But I make it a self-imposed rule that if I have dairy, eggs or nuts within 12 hours, I will not share utensils with her or kiss her on her face.  Guess my dietary restrictions should make it easy to remember......And I was craving a blizzard!! :( 

If you have an awesome vegan recipes that don't have soy/tofu/etc, message me!  I need more variety!!

Changes.... Changes....

The kids are constantly changing... Life is constantly changing and now the house is about to start changing. My wonderful brother finished up the plans for a new addition to our home that adds almost 600 sq ft.... Yes, thats huge!!! and now it's our turn. The bank is aware the stuff will be on its way soon and daddy has already been in contact with a couple of possible contractors to do the job. He will be making calls during his breaks today to set up appointments with them to get bids on the work since we won't be doing much of it ourselves.

Oh boy!!!!

Let's try it again!!

Alright, let's give this another go....


It's been a while since I posted and I did find this an easier way to update everyone as the Moments going on in our home... especially since it's about it get busier around here!!  How to do it all... guess we'll find out.....

I am currently in the process of getting myself organized to officially start teaching homeschool this fall.  I made an attempt last fall, but I was just not ready to dive head-first into what it really took to teach school kindergarten and preschool and be very pregnant.  We did some stuff, but we were so unorganized, so we never had much success.  I don't feel too bad though, A was not officially supposed to start kindergarten until this year, so we are not behind in any way, in fact, she does pretty well with ready and math for the little bit of time we did spend on school. We have most of the cirriculum that daddy and I are, at the moment, very happy with and I have been studying in the evenings and getting things organized.  Hoping to start by mid-September!!  Of course that is where the busier comes in...  I have cut the sample schedule way back for us to start, but the schedule I've come up with will take most of the morning and go a couple hours into the afternoon.  No, we're not doing school for 8 hours!!  We will start at 8:30 and go until 2:30, but there are lots of 1/2 hour breaks and a 1 hour break for lunch and "recess".  We'll probably have a total of 3 hours of actual teaching time, but who can expect a 3 and 6 year old to sit still for 3 hours when there's so much to play with? :-)  It will get better as they get older and have a longer attention span and then we'll probably be done way before lunch time, but for now we're starting out slow.  And people wonder why so many kids are mis-diagnosed with ADD or ADHD... do you really think most young children can focus on one thing for very long?

I have such creative children.  I & A are currently putting on a concert of "5 little monkeys" for their little brother.  It's pretty cute.  He's happily chewing on his toys and watching the performance.  He absolutely loves his older sisters and they love him dearly.  I love how they are excited to see each other every morning!  I hope it continues!

Baby brother is just over 8 months now.  He is jabbering up a storm.. bub bub bub and when daddy shows up, he starts barking.  LOL!  If you know anything about daddy and his animal noises, you'll know what I mean.  Little man just changed his nap schedule on me, just when I had things figured out... yeah, right!  He went from one long 3-4 hour nap mid afternoon, to a very short nap in the morning and a little longer one in the late afternoon.  I loved the longer naps, it made a trip to the grocery store a little easier to do and plan, but we'll manage.  We did when the girls were both little.

The girls will be starting up dance class again in 2 weeks.  They are so excited!  Both will both be advancing into the next class... I is going into the 4-6 year old class even though she won't be 4 for another 6 months.  I asked about it and was informed that for some of the "babies" in her class that listenend well were moved them up to the next level.  I'm so proud of her!  And A will be going into the 5-7yr old advanced beginning class.  And mommy is thankful their classes are not on the same nights anymore.  The only thing that would make it better is if their classes were at the exact same time, but hopefully I'll never have to do another back-to-back night with activities... made for LONG nights and very late dinners.

Ok, bathtime for baby boy..  we tried some beans tonight and his face is a little crispy. :-)