Trouble with a capitol T and that rhymes with P and that stands for... Potty

Ivey is a mess. A MESS! When you flush the toilet, she flies as fast as her little hands and knees will carry her, hoping all the way that it will still be open when she gets there. If someone happens to leave the lid up, it takes about .2 seconds to realize it... the sounds of gleeful splashing fill the house. Vile. The only thing that comes close to the toilet is... toilet paper. Oh, what fun can be had if someone leaves the toilet paper a little too close to the edge of the counter!

Ivey pretty much spends her day moving from one cabinet to another, checking each for any vulnerability that she can exploit. The cabinets that hold the dangerous things are locked up, of course, but I actually leave a select few cabinets unlocked just because it keeps her entertained. We homeschool, she rumages the tupperware and cereal cabinets. Actually, the cereal cabinet extraveganza has recently come to an end after she has moved on from simply taking hte boxes out and now must reach in the boxes and rip out the bags in order to entertain herself. She went crawling through the house withher arm stuck in a box of Life cereal today, leaving a train of cinnamon crumbs in her wake. We now have cabinet locks on that one.

Camping Trip

A couple weekends ago, we headed to Lake Allatoona with Mim and Papa. This was our first camping trip with kids... and definitely the first with a baby in tow! One tiny little being requires a heck of a lot of equipment. Jeff had to go to Fayetteville the day before the trip, so I had to pack up for a 3 day 2 night camping trip for 5 and load up the van... solo. Well, solo would have been much easier. Instead, I did it with three kiddos. Truthfully, the boys ended up being a big help, as I my pregnant self couldn't pick up some of the bags and things. They worked together to haul the heavy items to the van for me. What gentleman.

We brought the Pack and Play and set it up in the tent with us. The boys had a small tent for themselves. At first, they were a little nervous to be sleeping in a tent without a grown up, but they were up gabbing all night long and up at 5:00am romping in the woods together, so I guess they got over any fears they may have had.

Mim and Papa's campsite was on one side of ours and Will, Lucas & Caleb's site was on the other. This made for a perfect situation for two boys. They hopped back and forth between the sites... hanging out with whomever had the most action and food. Needless to say, Will, Caleb & Lucas won hands down. They went fishing, gathered fire wood, and reveled in the glory of boyhood. One night, I after Ivey and I went to bed, Jeff went down to the lake to see what the boys and Will's boys were up to. They were doing some late night fishing... and ended up staying so late that both Asa and Addison fell fast asleep right there in their chairs.

Mim and Papa brought the boat, and the kids had a blast being pulled on the tube. Ivey enjoyed the boat, too... but it was more of a soothing sleeping aid to her! All in all, it was an extremely successful trip. The only issue was when Jeff was holding Ivey a little too close to the Coleman Lantern. She reached out and touched it... leading to screams of pain for the next couple hours. I was able to get her to hold ice for a while, but when she became bored with it I couldn't get her to hold it anymore. It broke my heart to see her hurting, but as soon as the Motrin kicked in she was perfectly fine. She slept through the night and for the next week we kept it wrapped up and covered with a sock to keep it clean. What a tough girl!

Making it fun

In reading/phonics, the boys have been learning their "blends". CH, SH, SM, SN, TH, WH... you get the idea. After a week and a half of studying about 10 of these blends, I gave them some letter cards and had them play a game. The boys each got some select cards with letters on them. I had them work on their own (with a divider so they couldn't see each other) to spell a word. I gave them each a metal bowl, turned upside down, and a spoon. This was their buzzer. It wasn't a race, but just making a noise on a bowl when you're done is enough to make a game totally fun. If they spelled the word right, then they won an M&M. As if the bowl noise wasn't enough... you get an M&M, too!

Yesterday was the first attempt at this game. They tried really hard, but had a difficult time spelling the words (that, shop, chat, etc). They can read these words very well, but to recall it and correctly create it was a whole different story. They did get a few, but it wasn't easy.

Today, after our phonics lesson and review, I decided to try again. Wow, what a difference a day makes! They both did fabulous! We even branched from 4 letter words to do a few 5 letter ones. It was really cool to see them be able to spell the words, but even cooler to see that they were having an awesome time doing so!

(And, yes. Asa decided to go to school today without a shirt. Ahhh... homeschool freedom.)

Why do homeschool families always have so many kids?

Well, I don't know the answer to this question, but I've asked it before. It seems that homeschool families put around in extra large vans full to the brim with their well behaved offspring. In my head I envision the mothers orchestrating individual lessons for her 5 kids while simultaneously pulling one of the planned and prepared dinners from the freezer that she made with her once-a-month-cooking-plan. Of course, each ingredient that she created these meals with were purchased using no less than 2 coupons, which were then doubled by the grocery store, leaving her with a minuscule grocery bill. Somehow, she managed to tote her 5 children to 3 different stores in order to get the deals necessary to feel her entire family of 7 for $150 a month. I know these people exist. I have no idea what planet they come from, but I wish I could visit there and get some pointers.

I do, however, understand how the ended up with such large families. It seems that the act of homeschooling, or even the act of deciding to homeschool, instantly makes you fertile. If I had only known this fact, I could have saved tens of thousands of dollars and a whole heck of a lot of time. It seems that such fertility can be increased further if the homeschooling mother decides to sell all of her unused baby items on Craigslist. Not only is this infertility treatment option affordable, it can actually be lucrative. In my case, I went through and cleaned out all of the boys' old clothes, swings, baby baths, unused toys, all of the clothing Ivey has outgrown... everything that I am not currectly using for Ivey. It sold like crazy. The little that I had left I put up on Ebay. There I was, sitting on a Saturday morning amongst boxes of paid-for-waiting-to-be-shipped packages of baby items when I found out that I was indeed going to need all of those things that I had just sold. Yes, we are having another baby!

I found out of Jeff's birthday, but decided not to say anything until the next day. I expected for the next morning's test to be lighter than that one was... as is typical for me. No need to stir him up for no reason. However, the next morning, I was staring at a very very dark line. I have stared at enough lines over the past 9 years to know what is really really positive and what is barely positive. This was blazing. Sure enough, my beta levels are nice and high, and rose with an excellent doubling time. At 6 weeks, we had our first ultrasound and saw a flickering heartbeat. Now, I am almost 10 weeks along!

So... I've been trucking through the first trimester exhaustion and queasiness while changing (and washing) poopy diapers and having all 3 kids home 24/7! So far, the medical concern is my ability to get in enough calories to continue to feed Ivey and grow a new little peanut... oh yeah, and support myself. Ivey will be a year old in October, so if I can just make it until she is on whole milk I plan to drop down to just a morning and a night feeding and taper off from there as needed. Then, when she's 17 months, I will have a newborn and will start all over again!

When we found out that we were having Ivey, it was a little sad to us that she would not have a buddy. The boys always had each other, and we love the fact that they can play and talk and learn together. Well, it seems that Ivey was supposed to have a buddy after all! Now, I just keep thinking of all the craziness that will come about from having a family of 6. We won't fit at a booth with a chair on the end... I have flatware for 8, which will only get us through 1 meal... we already go through almost 3 gallons of milk a week, so that will probably increase to 4 or maybe even 5... but think of all the fun and laughter and crazy Christmas mornings we will have!

Steppin' Out

Today was the first full blown day of school. We had reading, spelling, writing, math (the boys got to work on "number bond using M&M's... good call on my part!), and history. We will work violin tonight. I was so pleased that Asa and Addison are loving history. The Story Of The World is so well written. Today's lesson was "How Do We Know What Happened?". Instead of just explaining how civilizations leave behind artifacts for us to learn from, the book reads like a story of a family who lived in a village along the river. The mom dropped a pot, the dad's knife blade broke in the field, and the little boy was playing with a toy clay ox and cart. It told the story of how they had to move when their was a drought... and the things they left behind were covered with mud and dirt and then grass. It went on to tell a story of a man who found the grass field and discovered there was a village there long ago. I was floored at how well this way of teaching worked for them. They were fascinated! They drew pictures of things in the story and had a totally complete concept of archeology and how we learn about the past. Success!

After our lessons today, I took the boys and their friend, Ethan, to a home-school art class! Today we learned about Alexander Calder, an American sculptor. He used a lot of wire in his art and was the inventor of the mobile. The kids made wire fish... and it was a hit! It was a little tricky to twist the wire around, but with a little help, they were able to make it work. Here are the boys with their sculptures!

If I had a rule about too many tiny toy pieces, think of all the brain power that would be lost!

Here are a couple videos of Asa and his Lego creations from the last two days. The video quality is bad, but I think you can get the idea. In one, he used red yarn to connect his Lego motor to a windmill like contraption. Next, he managed to talk me out of two of my bobbins and some thread and hooked them up so that his motor will wind the thread from one to the other. I guess my current sewing project inspired him. After the bobbins he came down and asked me to cut a long strip of material and sew the ends together. So, I did. He took it upstairs, mounted it on a few fat tires and created a conveyor belt Lego launcher.

1st Grade, Here We Come!

We had a very successful first day of school! I started on Friday so that we could spend today learning the routine, getting our notebooks together, creating our History folders, practicing handwriting, getting our spelling word list, etc. The boys absolutely loved it! Addison said that he likes not having a big class so he doesn't have to "wait all the time"! I let each one go at their own pace, separately, and it worked very well.

They especially loved the chapter book that we started today. It's called "Stink!" and much to my surprise, it is full of really great hidden lessons. For example, today the boys learned what an "idiom" is, just because Stink explained the meaning to his sister. Excellent!

On Monday, we will really kick off in each subject. I need to go in the attic and find some new toys for Ivey to keep her occupied while we have class. Today she did very well at the beginning and then went down for a 2 hour nap. I think some new things to just bring out at school time will help keep her happy while she's awake. Luckily, she is a very good girl!

Let me just say that the personal whiteboards with 1st grade writing lines that I picked up at Target for $1 a piece was a great buy! We were able to practice writing our spelling words and do lots of handwriting practice without using tons of paper. I'm pleased!

(Yes, Addison is using a colored pencil in each hand. He needed brown and green to color his eyes!)

Teacher Work Night

I was up super late getting my plans in order for school to start! We are going to start on the 17th (actually, on the previous Friday to get the boys prepped). I am still working on lessons plans for History (waiting on one of the books), but I have all of the other subjects mapped out for first 3 weeks! I need a couple more nights in order to finish up and get all of my handouts all ready to go.

I fluctuate between being excited and being terrified for my sanity! We are going today to meet a homeschool group at Fort Yargo for swimming at the beach there. I've been part of their email group for a while now and I'm excited to go meet some of them face to face! We have a friend who is also homeschooling, so hopefully we will have plenty of activities and events to keep the kids (and me) engaged and social.

The plan for the year is:

(Daily)
Spelling - 1000 Words for Spelling Success
Creative Writing Journal
Reading/Phonics using the Hooked On Phonics 1st Grade Curriculum
Singapore Math 1A and 1B

(M/W/F)
History using a modified History Odyssey, which uses the Story of the World, The Encyclopedia of World History, and various other books... I'm also adding the Story of the World Activity Book and History Pockets. We will be learning about Ancient Civilizations for the entire year... The First People through The Last Emperor of Rome.
Violin (I may add some music theory or use piano, too)

(T/Th)
Science using Real Science 4 Kids Pre-Level 1 Chemistry to start and then Biology later in the year. Very cool!!

(Floating)
Art
Spanish using DVD
PE/Health (come on, I'm a health teacher!)
Social Studies

That's what I said! Boobie traps!

For whatever reason, my children (especially Asa) find the need to create booby traps... everywhere. Sometimes they are called booby traps, sometimes spider webs, but they are always a mess. Right now, their room is an impossible network of multicolored yarn... zigzagged throughout the room in a tangled mess. Combine that with the normal everyday landmines of tiny legos that do a number on your barefeet and you have quite the danger zone!

(Below is his new house for "Mr. Wormy", complete with interior lighting and a series of five overlapping doors. Why? I have no idea. Who's Mr. Wormy? I'll have more on him in a later post.)

Not only have these strings become a constant form of entertainment indoors, the "beaver dam" has also acquired the web-like appearance. What once was a simple pile of sicks and holes in the bare dirt is now a complete white trash adventure. Asa has been attempting to construct various contraptions out there, including a hot tub that is suspended in a tree (for the squirrels, I presume) and a waterslide and pool area complete with buried plastic tubing. His ideas are very thorough and he seems to enjoy working on them, but his inability to be flexible on his design is leaving us, well, batty. He wants help, but only if we help exactly like he has in his head... in ways that may not be possible. If you are helping, then the reason that things are not working are not a flaw in his plan but a flaw in his hired help. It is driving us nuts. But, he is such the engineer.

Feeding basics

Last weekend we were sitting in Grandmomma and Granddaddy's living room. The boys were bouncing around and everyone was talking.

Addison said to Granddaddy, "Ivey has 5 teeth! Sometimes when Mommy's feeding her she bites Mommy's nipples!"

Granddaddy replied, "Ouch! Addison, did you ever do that?"

Addison answered, "No. Boys don't feed babies."

Baby, you can drive my caaa

Ivey can say Cat! There is no T on the end, but she knows exactly what she's saying. Caaaa. She loves the cats. We have to pull open the curtain to the utility room so that she can see them when they are in there eating. Hopefully soon she will learn that squeezing and pulling aren't very nice ways to show them how much she cares!

She also LOVES to be in the driver's seat of the car! I think she would stand up at the wheel all day if I'd let her. She bounces and squeels... she loves it. I have got to get a video of her when she is excited... she pants... like Odie on Garfield. Maybe I can catch that one in action.

The Replacement Birds

After the great chicken massacre (yes, all were lost) we have decided to replace the chickens with some already partially grown teenage chickens. No, they are not as cute and adorable as the little chickies, but they are hardy and can go ahead and live outside! Jeff and the boys have constructed a "hoop coop". It's a portable chicken coop that can be moved across the yard. This gives the chickens fresh grass and bugs, and gives the grass some fertilizer to boot. As the first hoop coop, there are many improvements that could have been made, but it was a great first try and the chickens seem to like it just fine.

Asa loves to go in and hang out with the chickens, just like his momma did when she was his age. They don't have names yet, but I'm sure they will in time. Now, if we can only keep that dog away long enough for us to get some eggs!

Eat Mor Chikin

Today I felt especially motivated. I managed to wake up, create cow costumes for each kid and head to Chick-fil-a for Cow Appreciation Day. I began that morning and had us there, spots and all, by lunch! The boys had a great time and we all enjoyed our free combo meals!

Just a few pictures...

Not much going on... just a couple cute pictures to share.

Ivey News Flashes

Just a couple quick news flashes:

Ivey has cut her top two teeth!

She is slowly learning to "cruise" the furniture. It's not graceful or fast, but she is learning!

She is still extremely quiet (except for the occasional tropical bird-like squealing sessions) but has added "mamama" to her vocabulary. Now she can choose to bababa or to mamama... or to squeal like a tropical bird.

Baby Cubes

I spent the day making baby food cubes! The day is rapidly approaching where I will no longer be making baby food, or washing diapers. Unlike last time, I know this time there will be no baby to follow, which makes me want to not only enjoy days like today, but capture them so that I can go back later and see pictures of the tasks I used to enjoy.

The freezer is now re-stocked with baggies of yummy freshly pureed baby food. I have organic carrots, bananas, avocados, and mangoes which are simple and just require mashing. I peeled and cooked apples, carrots and pears. I cubed ham into tiny Ivey-size cubes and then pureed some with the apples for a ham/apple dinner. I made organic mac-n-cheese cubes and homemade chicken and dumpling cubes. I cooked organic peas and blended them up, as well. For a small amount of effort and money I filled the freezer with handy little servings of healthy food!

Dance Dance Revolution

Thanks to Mim, we are the owners of DDR for the wii. I have wanted this game, and it is just as fun as I thought it would be! It's difficult (really difficult), but I think I'm getting there. Addison, my little dancing machine, really enjoys it and is also improving. It seems that Ivey also has quite the sense of rhythm herself!

Mr. Modest

Okay, I have no idea how I forgot to write about this experience I had at the hotel pool at DisneyWorld... but I will write about it now.

One afternoon, we all came back to the hotel for a rest. Jeff got the nap, I took the kids to the pool (how restful). After we swam, I parked the boys on some reclining chairs while I dried Ivey. She was in her adorable new bathing suit and swim diaper. If you aren't aware, swim diapers are not designed to hold pee, in the least. Their only purpose is to keep the poo from escaping in the pool. So, as I dried Ivey, she proceeded to pee all in my lap. As I dealt with this, I had my back turned to the boys for about 3 minutes. When I turned back around, I was completely a totally shocked to see that Addison had stripped his bathing suit off and was lounged back on the reclining chair, sunning himself as if he were a lizard on a rock. I gasped. My almost 6 year old boy was exposed for all the world to see, and did not give a rip! I quickly put Ivey down and wrapped him in a towel, trying not to cause a stir and direct attention our way. I looked around. I have no idea who witnessed this scene. I covered him up, asking him to look around. "Do you see anyone's penis out here?" This child has absolutely no modesty what-so-ever... which I knew... but underestimated. Asa and I caught eye contact and we both just cracked up. Priceless.

I was reminded of this story yesterday. The boys had spent the afternoon playing in the sprinkler and shooting each other with water guns. Addison came inside and stripped off his suit, with no intention of replacing it with dry clothes. He walked around the house, yelling at Asa through the open windows. Then, he started out the back door. "Addison!" I yelled to him. "You can't go out naked!" He looked up at me and said, "Then, I'll get my shoes on!" as he headed out the back door.