Amanda's New Pets



Aren't they adorable?

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope everyone else did too.

Thaksgiving morning we picked up Doug's daughter and she joined us for a trip to Doug's parents home.

The girls were goofy, Austin slept, and Michael just enjoyed the ride. Michael does really well even though it's a fairly long ride - about and hour and a half. A couple times he did ask Doug if he could find Pawpaw's house. I always enjoy the chance to get out for awhile and this time I took a couple pictures of the scenery.

We had a delicious Thanksgiving Dinner prepared by Doug's mother. My favorite parts were the dressing, and the pumpkin pie. Oh, and the pink jello salad. I didn't get any pictures of the meal, I was too busy enjoying it.

The weather was nice and the kids had a lot of fun playing outside.

Amanda had the camara (actually my phone) part of the time and I found these pictures when she gave it back to me.

Can you tell she loves these boots?

And this is my favorite.

It was a great day.

This and That

• We have much more hope right now that  the house we are hoping to buy really will be ours. I'm not good at waiting for answers and it's been rough waiting since Thursday evening for them. But finally this evening we were able to talk to someone and it looks like it's going to happen. Not set in stone yet but hopefully heading that way. I'm excited again.
• I took this picture yesterday to commemorate the joy of seeing brother and sister getting along. Unfortunately it didn't carry over into today. I know they love each other but Wow! They can really argue!

• We are happy that two more new children joined our crew this week. Kansas is 7 years old and is here 2 -3 evenings a week and Jayden is 15months old and here 6 mornings a week.
• But I was sad when this morning, the very first morning that Jayden was here, he fell and bumped his head on the door frame resulting in a rather larger goose egg on his forehead. Why do these things always seem to happen on the first day?
• We had two children out sick today. I hope they feel better soon and we see them tomorrow.
• Our new history book The Story of the World Volume 1 finally arrived. We started it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately our afternoon school session was interrupted so we didn't get to read any more of it today. We were able to get math, reading and Bible done before I had to call an end to schoolwork for the day because of very cranky babies. I had planned to include history and literature today as well but it just wasn't going to happen. But tomorrow is another day and should be a much easier one. I sure hope so anyway.
•  
• This afternoon a friend of ours from church came over and had Doug help him work on his truck. Michael enjoyed going out and "helping."
• And now I think it's time for me to go make sure I have things set up to run smoothly in the morning. First child is scheduled to be here at 5:15AM.

Notes From the Last Few Days

• The last couple days have been frustrating.
• Everything was moving along smoothly on the house we are hoping to buy until Thursday evening when we hit a snag. Now we're very hopeful but uncertain if everything is going to go through or not. Waiting for answers is the hardest part.
• Amanda and Doug were both hit by a stomach bug this week. Amanda's started Wednesday night and Doug's Thursday night. It seemed to be a 24 hour bug. They are both feeling much better now.
• Mona was not so lucky and was unable to come in to work for 2 1/2 days. But we're glad she's feeling better now.
• Michael has been beyond difficult the last few weeks and I'm at a loss to know what to do next. Consequences and punishments don't seem to work. Extra time and positve attention doesn't seem to work. Ignoring doesn't seem to work. Today has been full of multiple temper tantrums, outright defiance, even a table turned over in a rage. He oftens sneaks out the door and runs away. Doug and Mona have been trying to take him with them often to give me a break which I greatly appreciate but I'm still exhausted.
• On a happier note, we had some delicious homemade vegetable soup for lunch that Mona made yesterday so I would have an easy lunch. For dinner we had homemade pizza that I made while Doug took the little kids outside to play. Yummy!

Animal Care Instructions

Amanda and Austin are on vacation this week with their grandparents and other extended family. I miss them a lot but I'm glad they are having fun.

Before Amanda left she wrote me a complete set of instructions for taking care of her pets, It was so cute I have to copy them here.

Remember to put Toby's food on a plate so he does not cut his tongue.

Only put his food near his beds. I am trying to teach him he can't come on the entrance porch.

Please, please, please make sure Scout AND Toby know they are good boys.

And sometimes can you pet them a little bit.

And if you see one of Scout's toys can you throw it for him so he can chase it.

8:30AM - Toby's first meal

Noonish - Toby's 2nd meal

5:30PM Toby's 3rd meal

The rats can eat leftovers from meals or just about anything actually.  Please make sure that they have PLENTY of water.

Thank You.

Meandering Through Saturday

All day I've been enjoying these roses that Mona brought with her when she came to work Wednesday. They are on a little shelf in the kitchen where I can see them while I cook and bake and feed the kids and clean up after them. Somehow they make me happy just to have them there to look at.

I tried some new recipes to today and they all turned out very good. I made Pumpkin Bread, Chili, and Amish Bread. The last few weeks I have been using the bread machine more and it's so much fun to try new reicpes in it. And I love the smell of baking bread. Another thing that makes me happy.

The rest of the day was spent with the kids and at naptime I printed the pages for our new circle time book and the pictures for our new wall display for next week. Most of what I printed came from one of my favorite sites for kids activities - DLTK Kids. Our letter of the week is Kk, the shape is circle, the color is purple and the number is 8. I printed several songs for the letter Kk and some pictures of things that begin with Kk, as well as some songs about dinosaurs  to compliment our dinosaur wall display. The only thing that did not come from DLTK Kids was our sign language lesson for the week. That came from Lesson Tutor.

Doug took trash to the landfill, went grocery shopping (Amanda and Michael went with him), did some laundry (Thank you!) and mowed the yard at our rental house. Austin slept until after 2:00 this afternoon and then I had Amanda go wake him. He's had a cold and was really sleepy yesterday, so I thought he probably needed the rest, but I also wanted him to be able to sleep tonight. Amanda spent most of her free time either playing with Toby and Scout (our cats) or on her laptop watching YouTube videos of WebKinz.

And that in a nutshell was our day. I feel like I just kinda meandered through my Saturday and it was good.

Another Day in the Life

Some days I sit down to write and think that I really don't have anything to say, that nothing has happened today. Then I realize that I am just so used to the daily chaos, drama and doings around here that I forget that it may be at least somewhat interesting to write about.

One parent today experienced a lot of frustration and what she felt was unfairness at work today, leading to her walking out. She called me and asked to come by and talk. The kids had just gone down for naps so I met her outside and we talked. She decided go talk to the owners of the business she had worked for to make sure they understood her side of the story and then she was  planning to see if she could put in some applications at other places. About 45 minutes later she called me back to tell me that she was back at work. When she came in this evening she told me that when she went to talk to the business owners and they in turn called the manager of the place where she was  employed and they were able to work things out so that she could return to work.

Another parent, actually a grandparent who has custody of her grandchild, has started radiaton treatment for breast and thyroid cancer this week. She had breast cancer five years ago and just a couple months ago found out she has it again. It has been really hard for her to make the decision to go ahead with treatment but her love for her grandson has won out.  Prayers for her and her grandson would be greatly appreciated.

Still another grandparent is temporarily taking care of her granddaughter for about ten days after the child's mother was unexpectedly unable too. I have cared for this child in the past and received a rather frantic call from the grandmother wondering if she could come here again for a little. I'm glad to say it worked out that we can so she was back today after being gone about six months. It's amazing how much a toddler can grow and change in six months.

 The stepmother of two of our kids works at Hershey Chocolate Factory brought us a whole box of Mounds candy bars this afternoon. SO GOOD! I don't think they're going to stay around long at all. Especially with four tween/teens in the house this evening. Of course I have definitely had my share of them as well.

I had a little scuffle (playfully) with one of the kids this afternoon and lost. Painfully. I was sitting in a lawn chair outside and just when I said "You win!" the chair tipped over backward and I hit the ground so hard I heard my teeth grind together. The chair folded up and I folded with it. I think I'm going to be a little sore tomorrow. The fourteen year old I was scuffling with thought it was a lot funnier than I did (although I think it did scare her a little at first.)

Amanda is still spending a large amount of her free time with Toby, the cat who showed up at our door last week. Wednesday evening Toby discovered Amanda's pet rats, who were safely in their cage. Of course he had to get as close as he could and try to figure this out. Two of the rats stayed at the back of the cage, but Amber, the feisty one, was not going to be afraid in her own home and gave him a good little nip on the nose. He jumped and fussed but went right back to the cage so she nipped him again. At that point Amanda seperated them and took Toby outside. Our other cat, Scout, just considers them a  normal part of the family and ignores them, even if Amanda has them out of their cage playing with them. He has been known to go to sleep next to them playing.

I made this pizza recipe for lunch today and we really like the flavor and texture of the very simple crust. It disappeared very quickly and even though I doubled the recipe I really should have made twice as much. I'm planning to make it again Sunday evening for a simple dinner. I was going to make this Chocolate Chip Bread for afternoon snack and then realized that somebody (Amanda) had eaten all the chocolate chips. So I guess it will have to wait now until Doug makes another trip to the grocery store.

And now my brain seems to have gone numb and I'm having a hard time writing a coherent sentence. I think it's time to go read a few blogs and maybe play a game or two of Mahjong.

Yesterday and today have been the kind of days that just move smoothly along pretty much the way they are supposed too. Which is a wonderful and somewhat rare occasion around here.

The weather has been nice, not too hot and not too cool. The kids have been in pretty good moods, homeschool has gone well and life looks good.

At the moment (9:22PM) we only have one daycare child here and he's asleep as is Michael.

The Wednesday evening children's program at church has started again so Doug took Michael and Austin. Doug always stays and helps out then brings the boys back home. Amanda would rather stay home and we have decided not push the issue. So she was home with me. I stay home because of the kids we have here in daycare. Some are too young to go and some leave at a time the would make it difficut to go to church. But I enjoy the quieter evenings with Michael occupied at church.

Yesterday I heard a sudden little yell from Amanda and then Austin and Amanda came running to the kitchen to tell us they had found some kind of strange insect and didn't know what it was. I had an idea when I saw it what it was but wasn't completely sure. The kids caught and kept it until we could look it up. This afternoon we did looked it up online and found I was right. It is called a camel cricket. I think the kids are planning to take it along to Grandma's tomorrow evening to show everyone there and then they will probably let it go.



Catching Up Again - Our Somewhat Crazy Week

This past week has been a little crazy. In some ways not so great, in other ways wonderful, but either way very busy.

Tuesday we began our homeschooling year. We had a great day Tuesday and the kids really enjoyed it even though they weren't to excited at first. Math is our biggest challenge and it is done first thing in the morning and gotten completely out of our way before we move on to anything else. The other morning subject is reading and they are both loving the books they are reading. In the afternoons we are doing Bible, Science/Social Studies (alternating days), and Literature. We are also spending about 30 minutes each afternoon watching a video from Snag Learning. We watched 3 Points and I felt it really made all of us think about how fortunate we are and what role each of us has in making life better in some way for others.

On Wednesday we had two new kids start coming to daycare. Unfortunately I got up that morning and discovered that I had been hit with some kind of stomach but. There absolutely no way I could handle taking care of the kids so I had to call Doug home from work. I felt so bad doing that but Mona (my helper) had left early on Monday because she was sick and had not been able to work at all on Tuesday. I had no idea if she was coming in Wednesday or not but even if she was she normally doesn't get here until 10AM. This was 6:30AM and I new I couldn't handle things that long. Thankfully, Doug was able to leave right away and as soon as he got home I went to bed and stayed there until about 3:00 that afternoon. Also, thankfully, Mona was able to come in for a few hours and make lunch, clean up, and get dinner in the oven, before she had to leave again. I was grateful that the mother of the two new kids took everything in stride and understood these things happen and they were back the next day to a much more normal schedule.

Thursday evening shortly after Mona left for the day she had to turn around and come back because the radiator in her car developed a big leak. So Friday her son brought a new one and Saturday Doug put it in for her - with supervision.

Another wonderful fix-it project that Doug had to deal with when he came home from work on Friday was a stopped up toilet. It turned out that "someone" (translate that to Michael) had flushed the end of a paper towel holder (that I accidentally broke the other day and should have thrown away) and it was causing major issues. Lovely!

The church we attend just finished building a new addition and this weekend in celebration of that there were a lot of ativities going on all weekend long. We've had to miss most of it because of daycare schedules but we were able to go Friday evening to a concert by No Greater Love. It was great to get out for an evening and the music and singing were beautiful. We took our kids and some their friends and they had a great time as well. Michael was even out in aisle dancing for the last half of the concert. Also wonderful was getting see for the first time all the renovations and additions that have been going and I have to say the architects and builders did a wonderful job.

Amanda has adopted a stray cat the she originally named Lola. When we realized that Lola is a boy she changed the name to Toby. It was very malnourished and starving for attention and Amanda has been spending a lot of time nursing it back to health. She even bought him special food yesterday when she went grocery shopping with Doug.

 We have five daycare children so far today and three more scheduled to come later this evening but it has still been a pretty quiet and peaceful day. Hopefully the week is that way as well.

Catching Up

It's been almost a week since I've been here. I didn't intend to be gone this long but things have been pretty busy.

Austin's 14th birthday was Tuesday (8/31) and Michael's 4th birthday was Friday (9/03). We had a small party for them here at home on Sunday. It's amazing how fast they are growing up and I am enjoying seeing them grow and learn but at the same time I find myself wanting to hold on to each day as it passes, not wanting to miss a moment.

Austin had a friend here from Friday evening until this evening. Amanda had two friends here overnight Saturday night and then another friend came to visit for a  few hours Sunday evening.

Even though today is Labor Day we were open for business and had seven daycare children. My helper came in for awhile but left early because her allergies were bothering her so bad she just wanted to go home and try to sleep.

I spent a large part of the day doing the final preparations for our homeschool year which begins tomorrow. I had gotten all the materials we need but needed to organize a little and plan out our time. The current plan will probably take us about 2 1/2 hours a day. I'm looking forward to it and I think Austin and Amanda will enjoy their studies. Math may be an issue because neither of them like it but we will do that first thing in the morning and get it out of our way. We are doing a lot of reading aloud with me reading to both of them. We always enjoy learning this way, it gives us a chance to learn together. History, science, Bible and literature are all going to approached this way, at least at the beginning of the year. There will also be silent reading assignments for each of them.

So I guess I'll get some rest and get ready for our fun tomorrow.

Day Two of Vacation

It's day two of our vacation and I am very much enjoying it. I love my work but am beginning to realize how much I need to schedule regular breaks to refuel. It's easy to think that since I work from home I don't need those down times but that's not true.

The kids have been enjoying it as well.

Amanda had a friend over Saturday evening and she stayed until early afternoon on Sunday. Today Amanda took Michael for a walk to visit the cows. This afternoon she went on a bike ride with another friend. Otherwise she's been busy on her computer playing WebKinz. And this evening she voluntarily cleaned up and vacuumed the playroom and living room.

Austin went with the youth pastor and a few other youth this afternoon out to eat and then to mow an elderly ladies yard. This evening he went over to the farm next door to help feed calves.

Since Doug didn't have to be up early to go to work this morning he agreed to be on call with the Rescue Squad all night last night. It was actually a quiet night but knowing that he could be called out any minute kept him from sleeping, so he's pretty tired today. But he still did some mowing and then took the van to the shop and had two new tires put on.

Later in the week we are taking the kids to the zoo one day and another day we are planning to visit Doug's parents who live about 80 miles south of us.

I told the kids that tomorrow morning they have to be up by 9:00 and we are going to finish the rearranging/reorganizing project we started in their rooms. They weren't excited about that but it has to be done and it's hard for me to help them when we have a house full of daycare kids.

As for me I've been doing a variety of things - writing, cleaning, napping. Just enjoying a slower pace.

As of today all my school age children that I provide childcare for are in school. So begins the days of waiting for the bus, arranging drop-offs and pickups and homework. No homework yet but I know it's coming.

The silence here was almost deafening today. Well, I guess that's an exaggeration because there are still my own three even if no one else shows up but it was much quieter without a houseful of school age kids - mostly boys. Although, honestly, some of the girls are louder than the boys.

This happened to be one of those days when the preschoolers were either home with their parents, parents were working a late shift or, as in the case of one child, were coming late because of a doctors appointment. So we took advantage of the extra time this morning and did a lot of work upstairs. Amanda still has things to rearrange from her room change. Austin needed to just do some general cleaning in his room. And I had lots of clothes to sort through and put away and laundry to do. There were four big boxes of clothes that were given too us to pass on as needed, use for the kids or do whatever with. I knew a lot of them were Michael's size or the next size or two up and needed to be put in his closet. I'm so glad that's done now.

Michael took advantage of the fact that I was busy and decided to give himself a haircut with Doug's electric razor.

I had to laugh every time I looked at him until Doug finally gave him a haircut this evening. He had to cut it down really really short, but it looks better than this anyway.

The salon that was in business right behind us has moved to a new location. Today the salon owners were back to finish cleaning out and offered to let us have four bookcases, and a small table that they no longer had use for. I was more than happy to give them a new home and now I'm full of ideas of how I want to rearrange the playroom. But the actual rearranging may have to wait until next week when we're on vacation and I won't have so many little ones to work around.

I can feel myself getting excited about vacation and feeling less focused on the day to day work. I can hardly wait to sleep in, read, write, and work on some projects that I've been looking for a chance to tackle. We are also planning a couple day trips - to visit Doug's parents and to go to the zoo. We've never taken Michael to the zoo and I'm excited about seeing his reaction to the animals.

As I'm writing this Austin and Amanda are outside with a flashlight looking at all the spiders that have shown up to take advantage of all the bugs that fly around our porch light every night. Because it stays on all night due to parents in and out picking up and dropping off their children their is a steady supply of insects to fly  into the webs. Amanda said there are about 12 spiders out there right now. And now Austin just came running in to tell me he found "a humungous gathering of slugs" outside.  

And on that lovely note I will say goodnight. I wonder what adventures tomorrow will bring?

Trying to Walk a Rat, Burnt Pizza, and More!

It's been cloudy all day and rainy this evening, but I am loving the temperatures. It is 67 degrees right now and the forecast says a high of 79 tomorrow. My kind of weather! The 7-day forecast is showing temperatures in the 80's the rest of the week with a 30% chance of showers nearly every day.

Austin's friend Aaron finally went home today. Before he left he said he "I may be back in a week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or four weeks, or next summer." I have a feeling he's going to be back long before next summer. He and Austin ordered some things off E-Bay that they are excited about so I'm sure he'll want to be back to play with them when they come in. Plus they have so much fun together. They've been staying up way too late though and today it finally caught up with them and they didn't get up until about 1:00 this afternoon. Austin said they slept 12 hours so that tells me how late they were up last night.

Michael was busy almost all day going places with Daddy. They started out at the laundromat early this morning (I'll explain why in a bit), then went to the grocery store, the landfill, Wal-Mart, PetSmart (more about this one in a bit as well), and then to take some groceries to a friend who is fighting cancer and unable to work right now. When he wasn't with Daddy he was pushing a stroller around the house. He told Gabe to get in and drink a bottle and then pushed him around the house.

And the trip to the laundromat? Well, Doug has been trying to help me catch up on laundry and finally decided the easiest way to do that was take it all to the laundromat and put it in the biggest washing machines he could find. When he came home with all that clean dry laundry it took very little time to get it all put away. And now we're enjoying the wonderful feeling of being caught up on laundry. . . . until tomorrow. Oh well. Sometimes it's worth it even if it doesn't last long.

And the trip to PetSmart? Amanda has been researching online how to train pet rats and decided she wanted a harness for her rats so she could walk them. So she convinced Doug (as in begged from the time he walked in the door from work Friday evening until they finally went this afternoon) to take her to PetSmart so she could buy one. We tried to put it on the calmest rat (Micki) this evening. Twice. But she didn't like it. I'm sure Amanda will go back online and get some more information on how to get a rat trained to wear a harness and keep at it until she gets it. That's just the way she is.

And now I'm laughing at myself because I just wrote a whole paragraph about training rats. Seriously? When did this happen! Sometimes real life IS stranger than fiction. I wish I had gotten a picture of it.

I did get a picture of this though. It's what happens when I get interrupted by wild kids and totally forget I put a pizza in the oven.

Thankfully we had three others so no one went hungry. And Austin actually ate part of this one just because he's goofy like that.

As for me, in between all these other fun things and lots of kids (seven daycare kids ages 6 months to 10 years, plus a couple extras just for fun) I worked on getting the menu and activity schedule and supplies ready for next week.

And now it's time to call it a day, read a few minutes and get some sleep.

Good night everybody!

An Awesome Interview, A Storm, and Other Ramblings

I had a great interview this morning with a mother and her three boys ages 8, 7, and 4. The boys were so well mannered and well behaved. They interacted well with the other kids and really listened well to their mother. I am so excited about having them join our group here. They will be starting here August 17, the first day of school. The oldest two will get on and off the bus here and the four year old will stay all day.

Austin's friend Aaron is still here. He came Friday evening of last week and is staying until sometime Saturday. The plan was for him to go home Monday but he asked and got permission from both his mom and myself to stay until Tuesday. On Tuesday he asked to stay until Wednesday. On Wednesday he asked to stay until Saturday but his mom said he had to come home today. This morning he asked again and she agreed to let him stay until Saturday. He and Austin are having a grand time and I enjoy having him around as well. Michael looks up to him like another older brother and Amanda treats him as well as she treats her own older brother - which actually isn't so great sometimes but. . . that's another story.

My helper left around lunchtime yesterday because she wasn't feeling well and called in this morning because she still felt bad. It was a really slow day anyway so it worked out well. I did end up ordering Domino's pizza and cheesy bread for dinner though just to make things easier. I hope she's feeling better tomorrow though. We miss her and want her to feel well. Get better soon, Mona.

A storm came through this evening that blew down some trees and there were a number of power lines down. Our lights blinked but came right back on. One of the kids was afraid of the storm and showed it by being hyper and trying to talk louder than the storm, most of the time right in front of my face. He was pretending that he was the repairman fixing all the electric lines and cable boxes, and telling me about every step of the way. I guess that was his way of feeling like he had some control in what to him was a scary situation.

Austin, Amanda and Aaron are at Bible school this evening. I'm glad they get to go and have fun but I will be a little glad when our schedule returns to something closer to normal. I'm a little too much of a schedule person sometimes, I guess it's my OCD kicking in.

Enough rambling now. I need to work some more on the schedule and lineup of studies for the new school year. I can  hardly believe it's just around the corner again. We won't start until the Tuesday after Labor Day but I have a lot of work to do between now and then.

Daily Adventure at Rose's House Friday July 16,2010

Gluing the story cards and coloring the picture from our Bible lesson this morning.

Here Tristan is showing some of the other boys some card tricks. In the background is my wonderful helper.

We were treated to quite a concert today when the kids made microphones out of Legos and sang into them at the tops of their lungs.

Gianni, CJ and I played several rounds of Go Fish this afternoon.

Amanda finally saved enough money to buy the new cage she wanted for her pet rats so Doug took her to PetSmart this afternoon to get it. Then, after dinner, she and Doug put it together.

The rats love it. It's about four times bigger than the one they were in.

This was not in the plan, but somehow the trip to PetSmart also resulted in a new pet to add to our menagerie.

Meet Little Red, the guinea pig.

The cat was very interested in this new addition.

And so were the kids.

She's supposed to be Doug's pet but we'll see how that works out with Amanda in the house.

It's been a busy interesting day. More adventures on the way tomorrow.

Weekend

I somehow didn't get one single picture this weekend. In fact, I don't even know where my camera is. But there were things going on, everyone was busy.

Doug finished painting Amanda's room so now this week we can start getting it set up the way she wants it. She's excited about that and so am I. I'm especially excited about getting all her things out of the upstairs hallway and back into her room.

Austin left Friday with the church youth for a youth retreat. He had fun swimming, canoeing, and hanging out with the other youth. He came back Sunday afternoon.

Amanda spent Friday night at her friends' house. Then Saturday her friends were here for the night. So she had a good weekend as well.

Sunday afternoon the company that Doug works for (McKee Foods, Inc.) as a machinest had their company picnic so we went to that. Lots of free food, rides and games for the kids, and swimming. Unfortunately, I forgot the sunscreen and we all came back burned. But we had fun. 

And that, in a nutshell, was our weekend.

Uh-Oh

When 

Amanda comes home from vacation and brings Michael a big bouncy ball

     And

Michael  throws that big bouncy ball as hard as can and it flies in Mommy's face

Then

Mommy's glasses end up looking like this!

Fortunately

It should be inexpensive to get them fixed.

Now

I can't see anything!

Sometimes that's a good thing.

It's For You

Amanda and Austin are on vacation with extended family this week. Michael was excited to be able to talk to them on the phone when they called at lunchtime Wednesday.

Caterpillars

A few of our trees have been invaded with what I believe are Eastern Tent Caterpillars.

Austin and Tristan collected a few and said they are going to "take care of them like babies!" This should be interesting!