Moody...

Moody is not the half of it. Apparently I was getting sick. :-(

I have a sore throat and a head cold and I feel like my cup is almost empty. Like my body is fighting something awful even though I look fine.

Tomorrow is the Dentist again... PRAY.

Then Andrews Birthday is coming up. We are planing a S.P.... My house looks like I am sick. My husband is on his second 'sick day' of this week. He still has his normal times off too, so I am not alone. Still this coming week looks pretty overwhelming from this end... I may have to call out sick from Dentist (I told you I would find a way to mess it up) and the S.P.

Well see. Maybe things will look more doable in the morning.

God Bless,
Heather

Ps. Hey, did you guys know this had a spell check? TOOOO COOOL... I needed that! ~H

As you can see...

As you can see… Our weather here is miserable.

I am moody today… Its about time to be moody,… Not quite, but close enough apparently. Today was a good day to be moody. It was a pretty easy day. Not as far as work, but as far as stress. The kids were all pretty good and I didn't have to be anywhere. (Not so tomorrow, we have an easter egg hunt to be at. )

Today I dug into making the kids lists of what they thought God wanted them to be doing during their twenty four hours a day…

It was so much fun I thought I would share…

(Andrew)Master Goal: To make my own house debt free (I have to note here, he said its going to be a LOG house!)
Master Activities List for Andrew

Obey Parents…………………………………………………………………..24hours

Sleep………………………………………………………………………….…9hours
Read the Bible………………………………………………………………...1.5hours
Exercise…………………………………………………………………………30min
School work……………………………………………………………………5 hours
Spend time with other people…………………………………………………..5hours
Typing tutor…………………………………………………………………….30min
Chores…………………………………………………………………………..1hour
Play……………………….……………………………………………………..1hour
Listen to Gods word on CD……………………………………………………..1hour

(George)

My Goal Is: Become President
Master Activities List for George

Play…………………………………………………………………………………..30min
Learn about God/Read my Bible.……………………………………………………1hour
School Work………………………………………………………………………..3hours
Learn about Government……………………………………………………………30mins
Computer School work………………………………………………………………1hour
Getting ready in the morning……………………………………………………….45mins
Sleep..………………………………………………………………………………11hours
Chores………………………………………………………………………………...1hour
Practice leading others………………………………………………………………..1hour
Practice Reading……………………………………………………………………45mins
Eat and Help make meals…………………………………………………………….2hour
Exercise………………………………………………………………………………30min
Time with mom and dad……………………………………………………………...1hour


Don’t ask me if all of that really adds up to twenty four or not. I didn’t double check it. Anyhow, I thought you might enjoy.

I made more cookies. I am afraid they still are not doing it for me. I don’t know I may have to break diet and try the Neiman Marcus cookies.

OH, NO!!!! I just closed the window were I had uploaded ALL the pictures… Here I go again!

Anyhow, its going to be a long night for me. Anna is teething and she has already got up like four times tonight and I haven’t even made it to my bed yet.

Speaking of Anna, Here she is again,

Good night all,

Heather

Over the Cliff

Well, I have started it. Only time will tell if all our effort is in vain or not, but we shall give it our all.

Today I started in on my LISTS for my schedule, my first actual step. I am still tossing out stuff hand over fist as much as I can make time for in a day. Looks like I am going to hit two garbage bags worth today, in addition to my lists.

List one: Daily chores that need to get accomplished by someone. (Minimum age, approximate time)
List two: Weekly chores that need to get done. (Minimum age, approximate time)
List three: Monthly chores that need to get done (Minimum age, approximate time)
List three: Bi-annually chores that need to get done. (Minimum age, approximate time)
List four: All the things I think God WANTS me to get done in a 24 hour period, with a notation on how long each takes to get done. (Some how including sleep I only came up with 20 or so hours. I didn’t include supervising school though, I only included when I teach school.)

This is all preparation stuff that has to happen before I can make my schedule. I am still not ready to implement (or even write) the schedule and I am a little worried that by the time I am, I will have removed all the ‘stuff’ that was preventing me from getting everything done and I wont have enough to fill my day… I guess what I am trying to say is I am a little worried that if this works I might go back to watching T.V. or something to fill in my day. I HOPE NOT. I am enjoying my time with my kids and I don’t want to miss out on ANY of this.

When I get this in hand, and I am a pro… Please remind me NOT TO WATCH T.V., instead to help someone, or volunteer at church or something. (Yes my T.V. is still in the garage, but I ‘can’ watch movies on my computer… quite a temptation some days)

Oh, update on the property.

So far we are not able to find financing for the property we want. I don’t know if that means we will lose it or not. (Reason being, it has one house and one mobile. This combination has bad ‘stats’. So NO ONE finances on them right now. 2 houses are fine, 2 mobiles are fine, just not one and the other.) Next step is to find out if the loan is assumable. It could be God’s way of lowering the price for us or it could be a shut door. Shut doors are always nice. I love it when God makes the decision for us.

I am a little worried about putting serious roots down here when I don’t have a teaching degree. They have not removed our rights to home school, but it looks like it is heading that way.

Speaking of home schooling.

Home schooling tip of the day: As my son calls it “Math Circus”

I put up a poster board that said “Count by six, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66, 72.” Then I had the boys take turns jumping rope and saying it out loud for a fifteen min period. The hopes and aspiration is that when we get to multiplication flash cards, that my kids will already know their times tables. We shall see if it works. They looked hot and sweaty when they were done but they were smiling. (I promise I didn’t snap my fingers one time! ;-) A good sign I hope.

Well, I am going to get off. My son has someone he wants to e-mail before bed.

Great plans of mice and men, thank goodness God directs our paths.

Blessings to all tonight,
~Heather

Short note:

__
I
I
O

Short enough?

Too short?

Ok.

Dentist was a disaster! I always mess up the dentist!!! This time I showed up at the WRONG dentist office. It took me an hour and a half to FIND the ‘right’ dentist and by then, we had to reschedule! UGG!

My house is a complete disaster. We only spent enough time at home today to do school work. NOTHING else got done. Including my dishes. Which means if I want sippy cups in the morning I have to go do dishes before bed. BUMMER!

Oh, and did I say I have company coming early morning. Parent infant program arrives (I think) at 9:30, but you know my memory.

My shoulder has really been hurting recently. My chiropractor ;-) picked on it this evening. It feels better, however, I think I have a rib out now. NOT FUN!

Looks like Young Marines is a go, but we are still praying. I am going to make sure that its not going to conflict with the church activities and then Spence and I are going to try and be there as often as possible. One nice thing about the Gov. job, lots of paid time off. J

Well, I guess I will do dishes now.

Night all.
~H

Teeth

Found out why George's baby teeth are not falling out. His adult teeth are coming in behind. I am on my way to dentist with him. Prayers Please. ~H

Well, I TRIED! I must admit, I did not get up when my alarm when off. I ended up not going to bed until 2am (working on downsizing the clothes). I rolled over and begged, downright pleaded with my husband to get up with the children. He reluctantly did… He came back in a few moments with this odd tone in his voice, “You did the clothes”. YES! He noticed. Later (when I was up), I didn’t hear one complaint about having to get up with the kids. HE LIKED IT… All of the kid’s clothes now fit in their drawers!

I still have to do mine and the linens but we have made headway!

Next to go will be books. This will be a hard one for me. I find every book a treasure (excluding books with inappropriate content of course). So I think this will be the most painful.

I am actually getting rid of enough stuff, I am tempted to have a garage sale… Problem in this thinking is I tend to go to all the work and then can’t bring my self to charge people money for my ‘junk’. WHY not just take it to a salvation army in the first place? WHY go to all that work to just give it away… I don’t know though. This time there might be enough for me to actually make a profit worth the investment of time. WITH FOUR KIDS, am I nuts?

Please don’t answer that!

Andrew’s new suit:

.

.

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Ah, the fun of discovery,… He was so surprised that the magnet could hold up the battery.
Experiment

Frustrated...

I have work to do and only 20 min to do it. I shouldn’t be talking, but I haven’t blogged in so long. I have pictures, I have stories, and I have NO time.

Ok, real quick.

I made a disaster dinner last night. I ended up taking all four children to a Mexican restaurant by my self… Yes I repeat by my self. Praise the LORD... they were all little angels. It was late at night too. We didn’t even get to the restaurant until after bedtime. Humph, what a dish I made. Anyhow, so we are sitting in this restaurant and I am teaching Anna the sign for soda pop, (I know, bad mother) and Jonathan wiggled in his seat… wait I have to back up a little… Right before my dinner flop, Jonathan and I had been making cookies together, side-by-side. It was a lot of fun.

So anyhow, here we are in the Mexican restaurant learning the sign to soda pop… when Jonathan burst out, “I want some Baking Soda mom, I want some Baking Soda!”… Referring to MY soda… I thought it was tooooo cute.

Ok, now I only have 12 min left to do my work…

I am NOT enjoying my new book by the Maxwell’s… Not that its not a good book, but OH WHAT WORK I have ahead of me… Opps… well so much for 12min, hubby's home early. Opps. Well, I probably would have still been typing anyway.

Anyhow, I was mostly feeling frustrated today. For those of you that don’t know us… We have some very special children, who sometimes need some extra attention (for lack of better word). Speaking of which, for those of you that do know us. Anna had a speech evaluation this week. She came in at 7-12 month speech pattern. (She is currently 20 months old.) Good new is she is almost up to 30 signs.

Anyhow, today I had a feeling like my life will NEVER be normal and I will NEVER be able to get it (my house) under control. Anyhow, I was feeling sorry for myself, frustrated and just like… No one could understand…

Anyhow, I did a smart thing and picked up the phone and called a friend, who happens to be a mom of some very special kids too.

Look on the bright side, which is what I learned. She pointed out, that things could be harder, 1 out of 4 is able to do what I ask of him without complication… Ah, some perspective. It could be worse, their challenges could be harder, their needs could be greater. Plus I have ONE great helper. That is what I needed.

Then I thought about the progress we have already made… Oh, yeah that is true. If it looks this much better in three days, it will be ok, IF I keep it up. Ahhh, that is what I needed to hear. God knows.

Should I change directions and give up? No… Keep going. Ok. Then my day took a turn.

Did I get A LOT done? No, but I didn’t give up. I even made a dinner that didn’t flop… (Although I must admit to eating MY lunch out, even though I fed the kids at home… I had to go grocery shopping and I knew if I waited until I was fed, I wouldn’t go.)

Anyhow, in all reality, what I learned from today was not to try to implement HALF a schedule. I need to finish the book before I try the schedule, so I wont get overwhelmed. In the meantime I am down sizing. Everything from the clothes to the movies, from the books to the kick knacks, from the dishes to the linens. I have just decided, its toooo much stuff.

Still praying about the houses. No move yet. However, could still be in our future and wont I be glad I downsized?

Guess what I bought today!?!

I bought myself an alarm clock! I know! I actually plan to start using it.

It’s hard right now because Spence is so late in getting home. But I still think it is a good idea. I even bought the kids each one. Theirs will go off a half hour after mine. I plan on telling them to stay put until their alarm goes off. This hopefully will give me time to shower before their little feet hit the ground. Then when the alarm goes off, they are suppose to go potty and head back to bed for some time in their Bible… Same for mom. Hopefully this will put everyone in his or her own bed doing devo’s at the same time. Well see. I hope it works.

Well, I have laundry to sort and downsize. Hope all is well with you guys!
~H

MOVE?

Wow, our life is changing so fast I am not sure I can keep all of you guys up to date. Lets see where to start.

I guess with a move.

It looks like we may be moving. We have found a place we like. It has two homes on one property and will likely lower our payments (almost in half). It has 3 acres (almost 3 and a half). It has 12 fruit trees. It’s only a few miles from here. It is close to a freeway, which is not good. It is also close to…
















You guessed it. Donkeys. I don’t know what kind of neighbors donkeys make, but I have a funny feeling, not wonderful.

It has almost fully fenced yards on both houses (an eight foot section of a porch would have to be fenced to keep the kids from getting out of the yard). One of them is a mobile but not in bad shape and added onto for more room. It has a three-car garage, and a tool shed with a covered section for the ridding lawn mower. The dirt is not good dirt =-( so sad. However, plenty of room for chickens =-).

I don’t know that we are going to do it, but we are certainly considering it. I would post pictures, but they were very nice to let us take pictures and I don’t want to abuse that by posting them.

We have been doing all kinds of cool projects. Here is the boys cutting down the dead tree and digging a hole for me.

Here is our attempt at a solar oven. It was a lot of fun to make. I think it probably would have cooked rice, but was not hot enough to cook the meat. We are going to have to fiddle with the design some.

Here are some other fun shots.




Today was a long day. We had a friend’s baby dedication to go to and it was an all day affair. We had to get up at the equivalent of 5 am for us. It was a lot of fun to get to see old friends but I am TIRED. I have a funny feeling that is going to be my normal state for a while. First we will have to start getting ready for a move. Plus, I am done with my ‘Maxwell, Preparing sons book’, which I LOVED by the way. However, it is causing quite a few changes in the household.

OUR T.V. Is gone. I now have an empty space in my entertainment center. VERY happy to be rid of the sewer pump. =-)

I have already cut our toys in HALF. I am about to take on our clothes. A pile a mile high has dominated our bedroom floor for quite sometime. I have decided it is going to go! No more. Gone. We are cutting it down to what we NEED. Or at least not much more then we need. The kids are AMAIZING. They are taking all of this change in stride. Not one complaint. I have herd requests, but if denied they are saying ‘ok’ and moving on. I am so proud of them. You would think that their food has always been limited to ‘healthy’ foods. Although I can tell you have am grateful for the few good healthy tasty things we have come up with (i.e. Maple cookies. Almost as good for you as a bowl of oatmeal and really helps with the munchies. I said ‘almost’)

Well, the kids just fell asleep, so off to bed I go. Good night all. ~H

Driving, Driving and more Driving

Need to get to bed but it has been a while since I blogged.

A lost ANOTHER tooth. This makes four. Poor G. Really feeling left out.

We are looking into LAND. We are talking about moving. Either to get out of debt or to get enough land to start making more of our own food. Less commute for the men would be nice to.

We even talked about trailer park. Although, financially that is a really bad plan. They charge one fourth of our payment, just to rent the land that a trailer sits on. HUMPH… If we did this it would probably be more for a ministry.

Anyhow, mom an I have been driving all over kingdom come these past few days and nothing is ringing our bell (hee, hee).

In addition to driving all around, teaching school, cleaning house and repairing furniture… I also made, bread, 2 batches granola, pot of bean soup, fried chicken and home made gravy, and 2 batches of cookies today.

Good full day but I am ready to be off my feet. I will try and send pictures soon.

Oh, guess what! Our next home school project is… Drum roll please!…

Making a home made solar oven and then cooking in it.

I will keep you updated as I can…

Good night all!

~H

Change is in the air!

Change is in the air.

I am REALLY excited. Change is coming, lots of change. I don’t know what all is going to change, but we have already started on diet. Next we are tossing the T.V. out to the garage and canceling our Netflix… for those of you who know me, you understand what an undertaking that is.

It’s time.

For those that don’t know us… Our lives have been run by someone/something other then ourselves for over two years. And yes, we walked into it with our eyes open. However, it’s still VERY nice to be able to make changes in our home. Speaking of changes. I believe God is leading us in these changes and we expect wonderful things.

I have found some home school material (for encouraging the parents, not as in curriculum) that I love. For those of you wanting to check it out it was at titus2.com . It is pretty GREAT material. I am in the middle of one book and have ordered three more because I like it so much.

I am soooo excited. I don’t know yet where the Lord will lead. I feel like things are about to get better.

We have been faithful in adding in our devotion time again. We are sticking to it. I am very pleased. We are adding to that a little topical family devotion right before hand and a discussion time afterward.

There is no news on my husband’s job situation. The WONDERFUL thing is that we agree… If they do not change their minds about making him work Sundays and Wednesdays, then we will be getting a new job.

We are talking about starting a family business. I don’t know that we could pull it off. Our current finances are not great. However, for tax purposes this is a great time for us to start one. Besides, if the Lord is going to bless something, finances will not be a problem. It is the end goal for us to have a business that the kids can do from home, make a living and set aside money for when they have their own family.

Planning ahead, planning ahead. We can all plan ahead as much as we want, but God will direct our paths.

Hope all is well with you guys.

~H

Ps. The fish tank story. Lets see momma bug... I got off the phone with you that day to find out my husband had called in sick. (Not enough sleep, stressed out, tired, and sick of work). One of the nice things about government job, he has lots of sick leave. He then suggested that I get some rest while he was home. So in the morning, I went to see Penelope. Cute movie, still can’t recommend it because of drinking. Anyhow, I came home to give my husband his rest (He had been fiddling in the garage with all the kids.) To find Jonathan had snuck into A & G’s bedroom to ‘feed the fish’. Great, except he fed them the whole container! AGAIN (this is the second time in a week). So I enlisted the big boys to help me clean the tank. It took me an hour to drain it, clean the food out of the rocks, re-set all of the decorations and fill it part of the way back up. When my husband walked in. He wanted to take the big boys to the recyclers to cash in the bottles. They were almost out of time. I hesitated letting them go because I was still filling the tank, but I decided. It would only take a few more minutes and I would be done. Surly I could do it by my self for that long… OH WHAT A MISTAKE. Just a little while after they left, right as the tank hit full. The hose busts apart! Water starts squirting all over their bedroom. I scream and run for the shut off valve… Just a few seconds was enough to DRENCH their bedroom floor, including under the dresser. So Hubby spent the next few hours, helping me drain the tank and then my dad had to help us move it and the dresser so we could get the water that had run UNDER the dresser. I am sure his day was a lot more stressful then if he had just gone to work, but it did wanders for the attitude he had walking out the door the next day. =-)

Actually, that brings me to my lesson of the day. The book I am reading is called. Preparing Sons to provide for a single-income family. The biggest thing I have learned out of the whole book (well, as much as I have read so far anyway) is that work is a blessing.

I know that is like ‘duh’. But it really hit home for me today. If you think about it… A man who can’t find work, can’t provide for his family. Work is a blessing. When you work it keeps you from getting into trouble, keeps you from doing things you should be doing. (example? How about T.V.!)

Anyhow, so that has radically changed my thinking in how I plan my day. Work is a blessing. I SO KNEW THAT!

Love to all, H