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.

Today went much more smoothly than yesterday although it was still very busy. I was just updating the log book and realized that over the course of the day 18 different children were here in childcare. Then with my own three added to the group it makes a total of 21 children ranging in age from 8 months to 12 years. As I write this at 8:45PM there are still four here. Two will be leaving around 10:30 and two are staying overnight.

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A friend stopped by this morning just to say "Hi" and brought along sausage biscuits from Hardees for both of us. It was such a positive way to start the day. Since it's hard for me to get out sometimes she occasionally just stops by just to chat.

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Doug took Austin and Michael to the child/youth program at church this evening. Austin's friend Tristan went along this time. This is my weekly break from Michael, who always does wonderful and charms everyone in church and then reverts back to the same oppositional behaviour as soon as he comes home. Although the last few days he's been quick to say he's sorry after an episode, often on his own.

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Micheal and I made homemade finger paint early this morning fully intending to use it today but somehow our plans kept being derailed and we never got it out. But we sure did have fun mixing the colors anyway.

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And that's about as exciting as it gets today. I'm hoping to hear something a little more definitive about the house tomorrow. Like I said before, I am not very good at this whole waiting thing.

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.
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• 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.

• We had a great service in church this morning. A visiting evangelist (whose name I simply cannot remember) brought the message. His opening question was "Are you famous in Hell?" He then went on to challenge us to be the kind of Christ followers who make Satan cringe because of the way we allow Jesus to work in our hearts and lives, allowing His Light and Love to shine to those around us.
• I made another batch of homemade playdough this afternoon since the kids had mixed up all our other playdough until we simply had a big grayish, greenish, brownish mass. I always think it's so fun to mix the colors and see what shades I can come up with and Tammy and Amanda joined the fun, mixing up some colors of their own.
• It was a fairly quiet day as far as the daycare goes. One child stayed overnight and left just before we went to church. Another came just before time for church and left this afternoon. Three more came this evening and left around 8:30.
• This afternoon Doug took Austin to his friend Aaron's birthday party. Austin and Aaron have been best friends for years and spend as much time together as possible
• I'm looking forward to beginning a new week and hoping it brings us some good news about the house.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great week.

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.

Vacuum Repair Lessons

Austin was vacuuming the nursery today and accidentally got something caught in the vacuum cleaner resulting (we thought) in a broken belt. So Doug told him this was a good time to learn how to replace the belt on the vacuum cleaner. As it turned out, he had turned off the vacuum before the belt broke but since they had already taken it apart Doug went ahead and showed him how to replace the belt. My very important contribution to the whole process was to take pictures.

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.

Vacation is Over

We had a great vacation! Time to relax, time with family and friends, sleeping in (as much as Michael would let us), shopping, eating out, catching up on a few projects here around the house.

And now it's over.

But that's okay.

Today two of our kids were back. It was a slow easy start back into the routine. I got a text earlier this evening from another family saying their daughter was excited about coming back tomorrow. That's always good to hear and makes me happy to be back at work.

Doug is glad to be going back to work as well and anxious to see if the new machine they've been expecting at work has come in yet.

I guess we're lucky to have work we love and are excited about.

Doug

Although I've written a little about each of us in the About Us page I thought I'd like to write a little more in depth about each family member. So I will be writing about one family member each Sunday for the next few Sundays.

I thought I would start with my dear husband.

Doug is one of the most gentle, calm men I know. He is very patient with the kids, and with me. I'm not always easy to live with.

Doug has worked as a machinest at McKee Foods for 17 years and enjoys his work there. He has an analytical way of thinking and is very mathematically inclined so is a natural at this job.

Doug is also an EMT and volunteers at our local rescue squad one evening a week as well as runs calls if needed throughout the week. His first aid and medical knowledge has been a wonderful asset here with the kids many times.

On Wednesday evenings during the school year he can be found at church, helping with the children and youth program. He is the fill in person there, helping out wherever needed.

Here at home he helps with the kids, does a lot of the paperwork for the business, takes care of all our finances, keeps all our laptops up and running, does the yardwork and the vehicle maintenance, and spends time with the family. He enjoys the Syfy channel when he has some spare time.

He makes me laugh, makes me think and makes me feel safe. I love you Dear.

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.

Yesterday was a day of change with it being the first day in childcare here for one child and the last day for another. Welcome to our group Sebina and Gabe we will truly miss you.

We had a total of 13 kids in childcare (not all at once) today ages 5 months through 11 years. It was a busy day but good.

Fingerpainting, building,playing with the tool set, playing outside and finding lots of bugs (we had lots of school age boys today) were some of the fun things we did.

Yesterday evening Doug took Austin and Michael along with him to do some mowing at our rental house. On the way home they passed a tractor trailor that had tried to make a turn and went off the side a road a little. When the truck went off the road a tire on the trailor blew, causing the the truck to slide part way down a bank. They went back to see if the driver needed help. No one was injured but they stayed until help arrived and the truck was back on the road. Michael was one tired little boy when he finally got home and Austin was tired of taking care of Michael while they waited.

After the kids went to bed last night I did some cleaning. To keep myself awake and moving I listened to an audio book online. I found this site that has lots of older books recorded and archived. I listened to all of
A Message From the Deep Sea by R. Austin Freeman 

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!

Daily Adventures at Rose's House Monday July 19, 2010

Today started at 3AM when Michael woke up and crawled into bed beside me. He was very restless, swinging his arms around and tossing and turning. Doug couldn't go back to sleep so he got up, got ready for work, went to the store for milk, and ran an emergency call with the Rescue Squad before he even started work.

I dozed off and on between Michael's flailing around and then, when I thought he had finally settled down enough that I could get up without him noticing I slipped out of bed. This was around 4:50. By 5:30 Michael was back up and wouldn't go back to sleep. And so began another Monday.

It had been awhile since we got our the rice and beans for the sensory table. I put them in the freezer early this morning so they would be very nice and cold as an added sensory experience. The kids loved it.

We did some Math.

The kids enjoyed taking a close look at a grasshopper. It's hard to see but it's sitting on Gabe's hand. Gabe said he was having a staring contest with it.

The kids enjoyed playing with balloons during music and movement time. We ended up just doing a whole lot of moving with no music since the cord to my CD player misteriously disappeared. But it was fun anyway.

The letter of the week is Ff.

Queit time with music and books. And yes we did have music. I didn't find the power cord to my CD player but I did use my computer to play the CD.

We played two games of Memory this afternoon .  .  .

.  .  .  and then got out the craft supplies.

And here are some pictures of the fun they had during their free times.

It's been a good day, and fun day, a LONG day. I'm really hoping Michael sleeps well tonight. Not too sure how it's going to go though - he has already fallen out of bed once tonight.

And now I'm off to bed to get some sleep.