I'm taking a break (it's 12:30AM) while I wait for the dishwasher to finish it's cycle and another load of clothes to dry and getting in a little blog time. I just finished off two cups of coffee so I should be good to go for awhile.

Michael had a rough night again last night and was awake from 10:30 to 1:30. So far tonight he seems to sleeping much better. He's tossed and turned some but never woken all the way, so that's good. I still haven't figured out what causes the restlessness at night. It seems random and he never really gives me answer when I ask him what's wrong when he wakes up crying. Most of the time he says nothing hurts and when he does say something hurts it's hardly ever the same thing twice.

Today was the busiest day with children so far this week. At the busiest we had ten daycare children ranging in age from 9 months old to 11 years old. But things went smoothly for the most part.

One of our 4 year olds did have a bout of tummy trouble that caused him to throw up three times. After he rested a little while he seemed to be feeling much better and was really annoyed with me because I wouldn't let him get up and play in the play room. Instead I had him stay quietly on the couch in the living room and watch tv. I thought it would be a treat for him because the younger kids rarely get to watch tv, but I guess not.

One of our two year olds recieved his formal diagnosis of autism today. He was evaluated at the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center. We all expected this diagnosis and now hopefully more services will be put into place for him. He's been recieving therapy twice and month but needs more. He's a sweetheart but recently more challenging behaviours have been presenting themselves and he and his family need all the support they can get.

It's been really cold and windy here the last few days with temperatures in the teens and the wind chill even worse. Now we're expecting 3 -5 inches of snow tomorrow and I have to admit I will be glad to see it. Brown cold winters depress me. If it's going to be cold I want to see some snow. I've been watching the radar on WeatherBug and the snow is moving up into this area from the SouthWest. It should start snowing here sometime during the early morning hours.

And now it's time for me to go check on the dishwasher and see if I can unload it and start another load of dishes. I got behind today and the dishes piled up.

                                         

                                 ~ Love, Live, Laugh and Learn~

                                                                   ~ Rose~

Autism and Learning with Dolls

L, age 2 1/2, and in the process of being evaluated for autism ( all the signs are there), had a great time learning about body parts yesterday. He never really seemed to care before, at least not when we worked together. But yesterday he found a doll that made sounds and was fascinated.

I found it interesting that when the doll made laughing sounds he laughed as well, and when the doll made crying sounds he hugged it. So cute, and gave a little insight into his perceptions of emotions. As he played I would verbalize that the baby is laughing or baby is crying, baby is sad.

After he had sat near me and played with the doll for awhile he began to interact with me, so I started pointing out the dolls nose, ears, mouth, etc. I would point to the dolls nose and say "Dolls nose" and then tap his nose and say "L's nose." Then move on to ears, mouth, eyes, etc. He loved it. When we moved on to hands, feet, etc. he would double over laughing. For variety we would also point to my nose, my ears, and so on. We kept it light and playful,  laughed a lot and had a great time while grabbing a teachable moment and making the most of it.

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.

• 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.

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!

Bits and Pieces

• We had a new child begin daycare with us today. A big welcome to Gabe. His first day went very well and we're looking forward to Gabe coming back on Thursday.

• The home inspection on the house we are buying was today. We got a pretty good report. There are a few minor repairs that need to be done, but nothing that causes us a lot of concern.
• Since everything is moving along so smoothly with the house it looks like closing may be the beginning instead of middle of November. We're planning to go ahead and pay the rent on the house we're living in through the month of November, however, so that we won't be as rushed while making the change.
• As we're trying to get through all this with as little stress as possible, I am hoping the rest of us don't catch the stomach bug that bit a couple people today. One child had to go home early and Mona, my asssistant, only worked about 1 1/2 hours today because she wasn't feeling well. My house now smells like Lysol.
• Yesterday Mona loaned me a book to read that I had a hard time putting down last night. Before I knew it, it was 1:30AM. Yikes. The book is A Lineage of Grace by Francine Rivers. Somehow I needed to read the stories of women who faced hard times and perservered. Women who dreamed and prayed and cried and laughed and in the end were used by God to bring about wonderful results. I will be reading some more of this book tonight, but hopefully this time I will stop reading before 1AM. I really need more sleep than that to persevere very much at anything.

Today has been full of . . .

 kids . . .



banana wheat muffins . . .

I made a triple batch of these this morning, putting some in the freezer and leaving plenty out to enjoy for the next few days.

fingerpaint . . .

I love making homemade fingerpaint and mixing up the colors.

and making an offer on this house that we hope to call home soon.



It's been a great day.

Friday's Fave Five

This week I am linking up to Friday's Fave Five over at Living to Tell the Story.

So without further ado here are some of my favorite five things about this week.

1. MY HELPER IS BACK! After being gone Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and then on Monday she was able to come back on Tuesday Her son was very ill and needed her to be with him. I'm so glad he's doing better. And I'm so glad to have her back. Everything just runs so much more smoothly when she's here.

2. Sleeping in on a rainy morning. This morning we woke up to rain, rain, rain. My early kids came in and went back to sleep so I was able to catch another hour of rest on the couch. It was awesome to lay there and listen to the rain on the windows and doze. It made my day.

3. Emely. Tuesday was Emely's first day with us and we have enjoyed having her here with us.

4.  The blessing of having a roof over my head.  Earlier this week we found out the mother of one of the kids we babysit had fallen on hard times and she and her son had no place to live. It made me realize how grateful I am to have the security of a roof over my head. We were fortunate to be able to offer her a temporary place to stay while she looks for an apartment.

5. Coffee. This week has been cool and rainy and I have been enjoying lots of coffee. Almost as good as actually drinking coffee is the aroma of fresh coffee brewing. In fact, I think I'm going to go brew a fresh pot now.

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.

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.

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?

From Twitter 08-07-2010

• it`s a few minutes after midnight and Michael is awake and crying because he wants to go downstairs and play.
• Doug found some good deals on baby items at a yard sale this morning.

• He got a nice high chair with a feeding tray that attaches to the regular tray. It`s also on wheels and has a basket underneath for storage.
  
 
• He also bought a pack and play that has a mobile, a changing "table" and space for storage. it also has a protective cover.
  
 
• I like the cover because we provide care for an autistic 2 year old who throws things and I`m always afraid he will hit the baby.
• Ok, drank my coffee. Now I`m going to go scrape wallpaper off some walls so we can paint.
• Almost fell off the ladder a minute ago. Decided it`s time to take a little break.
• There are so many layers on these walls. Flowered wallpaper, white paint, blue paint, plaid wallpaper, tan wallpaper, tan paint.

• Austin and Aaron finally got up. Austin stayed up until 4AM and Aaron till 6AM.
• Thew were playing games on the playstation and watching DVDs on Austin`s laptop.
• Darn! Michael turned the refrigerater off again. At leasr it ia the extra one and there wasn`t much in it.
• Just placed an order with Amazon for some homeschool supplies. Getting excited about starting the new school year.

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Edited to add photos.

Impressions

Today was so busy that I feel like all I have of it are impressions.

Baby smiles.

Phone calls.

Silly squabbles.

Diapers.

Lots of laughter.

Hugs.

Toys.

Paperwork.

Yummy salad.

More silly squabbles.

Questions.

New people.

Stories.

More phone calls.

Giggling girls.

Wrestling matches.

More hugs.

It was a good day.

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!

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 Adventures at Rose's House Monday July 27, 2010

It was so nice to get a break from the hot weather today. It still felt like summer but not like "the dog days" of summer. The kids were glad to play outside more and I was definitely glad as well.

This morning I made drew a hopscotch pattern on the porch with chalk. The older kids played hopscotch a little but the younger ones enjoyed it more. We just called out the numbers as they landed on them and they thought that was great.

We played with water in the water table. I think we need a bigger water table. Or maybe two of them.

We also got played in the back yard awhile. This was the first time in nearly a week we had been in the back yard to play.

Austin has a friend here who has been here since Friday evening. I think he may just have decided to move in with. Not really, but I know he's planning to stay until at least Thursday morning. I'm just happy to see the two having so much fun together.

Austin, Amanda and Austin's friend Aaron went to Bible School this evening. They seemed to have had a great time. They came home happy and a little wired.

Austin had an appointment for a consultation with an oral surgeon this afternoon. He's having a molar removed in about two weeks. I think the main thing Austin got from the appointment is that for a few days he can only eat soft foods - like yogurt, mashed potatoes and ice cream. Some of his favorite foods. No salad allowed which makes him happy.

Lots of fun today and more fun on the way tomorrow.

Daily Adventures at Rose's House Thursday July 22, 2010

Working on "The Lord's Prayer" booklets.

Puzzle fun.

These pictures are actually from yesterday. It was so hot that no one wanted to do anything active and everywhere I looked this is what I saw.