Has it really been 3 months?!

And a few things have happened in those 3 months as well.

As I mentioned in my last post, I signed up to be an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books. I have not made enough money to put Maddox in Karate - for a few reasons! First, I cannot NOT buy the books. I pretty much have spend any commission on the books. I have an even more plump bookshelf now. In fact, over flown (as if it wasn't already lol). Second, this job has been so much more difficult for me than I imagined. I knew it was going to be a challenge for me. Not only because I do not drive, but I am absolutely terrified getting up in front of people and doing presentations. I'm also terribly awkward in social situations. I knew all that, but I didn't expect to develop nice little cause of anxiety. Pure panic comes over me, I nearly throw up before every show I've done and I lost 5 lbs before my kick off show, worrying about it.

About a month after my Usborne Books and More kick off show, I found out that I was pregnant with my third child. A HUGE, ENORMOUS surprise. Add a couple more notches on to the anxiety and stress. Dealing with two kids in school, volunteering in school, in classrooms, etc, homework, being pregnant, planning a home birth, finding a midwife, not having any health insurance, planning on buying a house in the spring, STILL not having my driver's licenses... I'm a complete basket case.

Then about two weeks into November, I started having a weird health issue. I still have no idea what it is or even could be. I get this weird feeling in my throat and chest. Like someone is pushing down on my chest and pinching the arteries in my neck closed. I'll get this weird feeling three times in a row through out the day, some times spread out, some times clustered together. Usually it happens when I've been active and then I stop. So when I walk up the stair (or down) and then I stop walking, I get it. When I walk the kids to school, when we stop at school, it starts. When I get up and make myself food, etc and then go to sit back down it happens. It also happens when I feel emotionally tense. If I am debating a sensitive topic, etc. Then when it happens, my pulse stops. Thump, Thump, Thump, 1-3 second pause, thump thump, 1-3 second pause, etc. So anytime I feel the weird pressure, my pulse stops for the entire length. It stopped happening, almost completely for about a week to a week and a half and then a couple days ago it started up again. No change in diet, exercise, amount of anxiety or stress...

Hopefully soon I will at least have a midwife. Soon I should have insurance too. I'm due in June and am around 13-14 Weeks pregnant right now. I've met with one midwife, talked via email with a couple others, have been trying to get together with another midwife and just today I contacted one other midwife. I liked the first midwife that I met with. I feel like she is qualified and a safe option, but I'd like to know what my other options are. Two of the best things about the first midwife is that she comes to my house for appointments and she has experience with breech and twins. The second midwife (that I've been trying to meet with) has experience with breech and twins and a lot more years of experience, I would have to go to her office for appointments. That has been a problem with some of the other midwives. Their location and available times just could not work for us, so they were automatically off the list. I'm anxious and excited, but am getting impatient!

Because I have not had a confirmation test, no 'medical care' (I say that as it is not necessary at this point, but generally common practice to go in for a confirmation test and then for your first prenatal appointment at 12 weeks), have no heard the baby yet, cannot feel the baby (often, have felt the baby, but it's still REALLY early), it was such a big surprise, I took 4 (or more.. I cannot even remember anymore) tests and brought them into all different rooms of the house for different lightly - just to make sure, etc... I am having a really hard time connecting with this and fully acknowledging the fact that I am pregnant. It's only been 13-14 weeks (and I've only known for 8-9 weeks), but it has already been a really tough pregnancy. Physically, I'm sick on and off, major fatigue, sore breasts, that 'pressure' feeling in my belly, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, but harder to deal with because I wasn't ready for this or wanting it at this time (I do want more children and am grateful for this child). Emotionally, I have not been dealing with it that great. We're not finding out the baby's gender this time. Neither of us want to, but I'm feeling like I almost need to, to connect with this baby. I'm hoping that by the time we are having an ultrasound (if we are going to decide to have one) that I will not be tempted to find out. That I will not feel the need to find out, for any reason. I'm hoping after I hear this baby's little heart and start to feel it's like kicked and punches, that I will feel better.

Also, I wanted to mention, shortly before I found out that I was pregnant, I found out that my Sister In Law (husbands sister) is pregnant, just 6 weeks further along AND my husbands cousin is pregnant, 7 weeks further along! One with a girl, one with (possibly) a boy!

So this is mostly what's been going on for the past couple months. School started in Sept. Maddox is a first grader, Faelyn started her first year (of 2) of preschool. Both are loving school!

And if you'd like to check out some books, they are amazing books! - http://www.myubam.com/HOS207943

Summer?!

Summer finally caught up to us.  I've been trying to keep some learning in summer, but we were spending a lot of time at Lake Calhoun.  Faye started to feel pretty crummy and for a couple weeks she was waking up every 6 days puking and following that up with a week of diarrhea.  We brought her to the doc and though they didn't really say or do anything about it, she was feeling fine.  She was still complaining of belly aches, but no puking or pooping.

My family reunion was on July 31, so we drove up to Alexandria for that.  We spent a couple more days up in that area at Clayton's uncles cabin.  We had a great time and probably could have stayed longer.  Neither of the kids wanted to leave, but we had plans to drive down to Tennessee.  We left on Tuesday morning (much later than I wanted to) and came home, rearranged the car and took off for TN.  We got to my sister's house around 2 or so.

We had a good time in Tennessee too.  Faye found her love of Toads and didn't want to leave TN either.  It was in the upper 90's to 100's while we were there and I could have just laid at the pool all day.  I loved their town pool.  It wasn't that great for Faye, but it felt great and it was salt water instead of chlorine!  So nice!

I slammed my finger in (under the lid) tank of the toilet right before leaving and had to being ice with me for the drive home.  My poor finger throbbed for the whole 14-15 hours it took to get home.  My finger still hurts.  Other than that, the ride home went better than the ride down.  It was nice to come home to a quiet, untouched home and to my own bed!

It has been really hard to get out of lazy mode and it's been in the 70's, so I have no motivation to go to the beach or anything like that.  We've only gotten out of the house a couple times since getting back. 

I completely gave up on Faye's tumbling class.  I tried to get our money back immediately after the first class, but they wouldn't give a refund so we decided to try to stick it out.  Well, we've only been to two classes, including the very first class.  The class is all done now and we signed her up for teeny, tiny Tappers which is a much younger and more specific age group.  She is 8 days away from being too old for the class, so I'm really hoping it works out for her.  She loves dancing!

First grade starts for Maddox in 2 weeks and preschool for Faye, 2 days after that.  She'll go twice a week and she is pumped!

I signed up to be an Independent Consultant with Usborne books and hope to make enough monthly to pay for Karate for Maddox.

Smart Summer Challenge - Week 3

Monday we had dedicated to "Art Day" but we decided to ride downtown with Dad on his way to work. We went over to the library, over to Target, and then met Dad back at his work and drove down to Lake Calhoun. We had lunch a Tin Fish (which is a little eatery right on the lake) and then headed down to the beach (the part of the lake where Tin Fish is has sailing, boat rentals, etc, but no beach). There are several beaches on Lake Calhoun, but we went to the East Lake Calhoun Beach, as it was the closest to Tin Fish. We were there for hours and it was BEAUTIFUL! No pictures, but we had a really good time and plan on going back either Monday or Tuesday. There were tons of Sunny's that Maddox and another kid were trying to catch (with their hands). If we had a net, we probably could have caught a couple! We walked over to a shoe store that I have a groupon-type deal at that was just a couple blocks down and spent a little too much time there. I didn't like any shoes that Faye picked out and Faye KNOWS what she likes and didn't like any that I picked out. We were running really late but I had promised the kids Ice Cream, so we hopped on the bus and rode down to Sebastian Joe's and called Clayton to come meet us there. We were not going to make it back to his work before he got off and Maddox had T-Ball that we would have been late for.

We continued to work on some Ocean/Sea related stuff through out the week. We looked at Sea Turtles, Dolphins, and even Mermaids. We also have been looking at different Chinese holidays and festivals. We went to the Dragon Festival on Saturday. They had Dragon Boat races. We had seen them on Ni Hao Kai-Lan and were curious about seeing them, plus they had all day Martial Arts demonstrations and Maddox is really into Martial Arts. We've thought, on and off, about getting him into something, but haven't. A couple weekends ago, Faelyn and I made friends with a woman at Caribou that was waiting for her son at the Karate Studio next door. Of course I had to ask questions about it because Maddox would really love to learn and I'd really like him to as well. She raved about the studio. She has three boys, all go to the school. The oldest has gone for 17 years, the youngest for 6. She said it has taught them a lot of discipline, respect, and confidence.

Tuesday we walked over to McDonald's. It's about a mile away and we never go there. It was the first time I had ever checked in there on Foursquare! Maddox did his Summer Bridge book and reading, but we really didn't do much that day at all. At McDonald's, we ran into a boy that Maddox went to preschool with. Maddox did not remember him at all (and I don't believe the boy recognized Maddox), but they made instant friends! Faye was all over the play place, all the way to the top.

Wednesday, I finally used my laminator. I bought it at Costco at the beginning of June and have not touched it. I laminated some of the pieces from the Pretty Bugs Preschool Pack from 1+1+1=1. I showed them to Faye on Thursday and we played with those. We did the 3-Part Cards and she really liked them. I laminated a lot more that day, including the Add It! Math Game from Confessions of a Homeschooler and showed that to Maddox today. I laminated even more today, from the Under the {girly} Sea Preschool Pack from 1+1+1=1. We haven't played with those yet, but I also laminated the hide n seek number leaves thing from Pretty Bugs and played with those. I used the first 8 with Faye and gave Maddox the last 8 and all three of us played. I also gave Maddox some little gems so that we could make up different math equations to tell each other (that equaled the number that the little dragonfly was under). With Faye, I'd just tell her which number the bug was under. She can count up to 13, but she does not recognize numbers yet.

Also on Wednesday, Faye woke up puking in the morning and had a belly ache and other issues that evening. She was fine during the day though and Maddox's bike seat came in the mail, so I fixed that and we were going to go to Tumbling Tots that evening. Walking (and Maddox riding his bike) is our only way of getting there and it is 2.3 miles.

It took me an hour to fix the darn bike. -Long Story Ahead- We got a bike seat from my brother's house and the post ended up being too small for Maddox's bike. The seat and post were attached to each other, so I couldn't put the saddle on the post that I already have. So I didn't put it on. "Someone" decided to MAKE the seat fit and clamped the metal of the bike down around the too small post. Then took the ring clip that goes around the bike and post to tighten the post onto the bike and clamped that down around it too. I got pretty upset that day and they took the seat out and put the old post back into. I'm not entirely sure how they got the old post back in, but I imagine it involved a hammer. So as you would suspect, I could not pull this post out of the bike! This post actually belonged to Maddox's 12" bike. It was a Lightning McQueen bike and the seat was attached to the post with a screw. We threw away the seat (it was all tore up and too small because it was for a 12" bike, but we kept the post, just in case because it was the same size as his new bike, an 18" - and in case you were wondering what happened to the seat that came with his bike, it was stolen off his bike at his elementary school (the ONLY bike with training wheels at the bike rack) during his elementary school carnival...) So anyways, this post had holes in the top where the seat had screwed on, so I finally got it off by finding a screw driver that would fit into the holes and holding onto that and twisting and pulling. After that, I couldn't get the new post in, because the hole in the bike was still too small from being clamped down. I had to use the screw driver to loosen it back up. I oiled it a ton and got the post in only to realize the ring clip was bent and the screw that was in it was bent too. I got the screw out and found a new one. The ring fit around the post, but not the bike. I could not get it unbent, but I did find something that I could pry it open and slip it down around the bike. I went from angry, to really angry, to really really angry, to so happy that I'm darn stubborn and got the thing fixed by myself and ready for tumbling! I'm feeling much better about the whole situation, but not totally, because it's not the first time this has happened and I know it won't be the last time. And then Faye got sick again, so we didn't end up going to tumbling anyways! But Maddox's bike is fixed, he rode it all over the driveway and then he rode it to Caribou on Thursday afternoon.

So Thursday, I did do laminating and played a little bit with Faye and helped Maddox play the preschool pack stuff with Faye and we walked over to Caribou, but mostly, we did nothing. I woke up with the most horrible headache. I get headaches a lot. I've been a little better lately, but usually, I have several headaches a week and when I get a headache, they last all day long. Sometimes they develop during the day and sometimes I wake up with them, but I always end up going to sleep with them. This headache was the most awful headache that I've had in years. I did what I could, but it was bad and even Faye came to me a said "Mom, can you turn on the TV for me, but really really quite because I don't want to hurt your head"

She was an absolute terror that day, but she is a sweet, sweet girl! We all went to swimming that night because it was Maddox's last class. He did not pass his level and will be starting Level 2 again in September. He said "I didn't pass, but Drew said that I did a really good job!" And he did. He did an excellent job and he has come so far from the first time he did Level 1 (he did Level 1 twice). He did not pass Level 2 because he has a hard time with the rhythmic breathing and he cannot do the front crawl and back crawl on his own. We got him goggles last night after swimming and I want to find him a nose plug and we'll be going to Open Swim on Wednesday as much as we can (T-Ball runs until the end of July and Tumbling Tots until the end of August, but Tumbling Tots time does not over lap open swim).

Today we were going to go to the Como Zoo, but our friend that we were hoping to meet there had a sick daughter and Faye still was not feeling too well, so we decided not to. It's a good thing because it stormed all day. Severe Thunderstorms and a large branch came off our tree in the front yard. I wouldn't let the kids into the dining room because there is another branch on that tree that is handing over the roof right over the dining room and I swear it is going to come off of the tree and land on the house if it is not taken care of. Fortunately, the branch that did come off, did not hit the house. Close though.

Here is a video of Maddox and Faye and the 3-Part Card from Pretty Bugs



and Maddox and Faye playing with the Add It! Math Game



Here are just some links to an awesome Taekwondo demonstration that we saw at the Dragon Festival last Sat!

Kukkiwon Taekwondo Academy Demo#1
Kukkiwon Taekwondo Academy Demo#2
Kukkiwon Taekwondo Academy Demo#3

A Dragon Boat Race



First things First at the Dragon Festival...

From July 2011

Performing Arts

From July 2011

Watching boats from the path

From July 2011

Faye wanted to go to the playground, so Maddox and I went and waiting for them Martial Arts. We were both glad we waited as long as we did to see if someone was going to perform!

From July 2011

This kid in the air was VERY CLOSE to Maddox's age. I bet he was only about 7 years old.

From July 2011

Ducks & Ducklings watch as the yellow boat wins

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

And just because they are so cute...

From July 2011

Smart Summer Challenge - Week 2

Monday was the 4th of July and so we made some flags with the kids hands a feet. Maddox and I finished up the Independence Day lapbook. Later, we had a BBQ at a friends house and played with some sparklers once it got dark out. The funniest thing ever, John was wearing a Sex Pistols shirt with the British flag on it. While we were sitting down to eat, Maddox looked at him and very accusingly asked him why he was wearing the flag of the country that we fought for American independence!

From Summer Challenge

From Summer Challenge

From Summer Challenge

From Phone Photos 2011

We spent most of the week on water, lakes and oceans. We read Can You Hear the Sea?, Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem, This Is The Day!, Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale, and Into the Sea.

We cut out felt creatures for "Slippery Fish" and are hopefully going to make a stop motion video. HOPEFULLY! We did some worksheets and are in the processes of making a lapbook for Faye. We also made some coffee filter Rainbow Fish.

"Octopus have tentacles that are sticky. Mako sharks can go 60 miles per hour. Dolphins can do tricks. Lobsters have sharp claws."

From Summer Challenge

These are the filter drying. I still need to get a picture of them finished!

From Summer Challenge

We took a little day trip to the beach. Did not get any pictures, but Maddox swam, and Faye and I tried to lure minnows (or as she calls them "baby tadpole fish") into a bucket. They were too quick for us though and escaped every time!

Today we rode the bus over to the North Mississippi Regional Park and swam in the wading pool. The prairie there had much more wildflowers than the wildflower garden we went to last week!

From Phone Photos 2011

We tried to get a pic of him, but a ton of kids kept swarming him to swarm and it turned out really awkward LOL

From Phone Photos 2011

From Phone Photos 2011

Strawberry Picking and Eloise Butler

We got started pretty late on Friday. We've been sleeping in this summer. It's so hard to get the kids to bed at their normal bedtime when it is still SO bright out and the sun is still at least an hour or more away from sunset.

Friday turned out to be a pretty hot day. Over 95 degrees with a heat index over 100. We were only out picking strawberries for about a half hour. It was long enough though, we brought home 9lbs of strawberries!

From July 2011

We came home and took a little break in the air conditioning while I made lunch. We refueled, cooled down, and headed back out of check out the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden & Bird Sanctuary. I really wasn't impressed with it at all. Maybe it would have been better if it was a lot cooler out and the kids could just mosey on about, but we were all boiling hot. There were supposed to be a lot of different flowers in bloom and we saw very little. I was disappointed that we didn't see a single Lady Slipper (they were supposed to be in bloom). The "Lady Slipper Lane" had nothing and neither did the rest of the place. They had Poison Ivy but it wasn't marked and the post number had been hammered into the ground by a tree that was blown over by a tornado that came through about a month ago. The only reason we knew it was Poison Ivy is because when we went into the visitor center to get the free guide (because we have a museum adventure pass), the woman in there said to look out for the #35 post marker at the poison ivy because the tree pounded it in (not even a "make sure you don't walk in the poison ivy"... lol).

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

From July 2011

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that noticed this little guy...

From July 2011

From July 2011

Wet, sweaty hair matted to her face.

From July 2011

Dad had the day off so we didn't really do much of anything else (in terms of learning, haha!) Maddox and I did work on a little bit of the Independence Day Lapbook before I let him go down to play the PS3 with Dad...

Smart Summer Challenge - Week 1

It was decided months before I even heard of the Smart Summer Challenge that I decided that I needed to keep Maddox engaged in school activities through out the summer. I have been having him do at home worksheets and units during the school year to try to get him involved in something besides TV and Video games while is was too cold to spend most of our time outside (and he was in half day Kindergarten).

So now to encourage me to do more during the summer (and just for fun), we joined the Smart Summer Challenge. We're not following the Calendar made by these wonderful Ladies, but I definitely printed it out and noted some ideas that I liked!

One thing we will be doing every week is creating Art on Monday's. We borrowed The Usborne Art Treasury from the library and are going to keep it for as long as we can (hopefully we'll have all the projects done by the time it goes back!) This Monday, we did watercolor sky, snowy ground, and winter tree's. The inspiration for the painting style was Hendrick Avercamp's A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle, painted in 1608-1609. We used extra watery watercolors, splats of water in the sky, and used a blob of watery watercolor paint and blew it into a tree using a straw.

From Summer Challenge

From Summer Challenge

We also started a little science experiment. We have a fun little log from the Dr. Seuss website and we are testing how Lima Beans grow. Here are our dried beans soaking over night.

From Summer Challenge

And our beans on Wednesday in their separate cups. One cup dry, one cup wet, one cup covered in water.

From Summer Challenge

Maddox did a minimum of 15 minutes of reading (Monday, I think it was closer to 35!) and did the front and back of one page in the Summer Bridge activity book. Plus T-Ball in the evening!

Tuesday's homework - We have a "Creatures of the sea Flying Fish" book that Maddox picked out from the library. I went through it and read it and then wrote down questions for him to answer. We did Chapter 1 on Tuesday, Chapter 2 on Wednesday, and Chapter 3 this evening. It was late today, so he only finished two of the questions and will have to finish up the rest tomorrow.

From Summer Challenge

Again, he did a minimum of 15 minutes reading and another page in his Summer Bridge book. And had Swimming Lessons in the evening.

Tuesday we were going to go to the Library, but Maddox woke up with a sore knee and pain shooting down his leg every time he walked, so we didn't end up going. We went on Wednesday instead. He finished the last page of his first 20 days in his Summer Bridge activity book, then we walked just under a mile to the bus stop. Rode the city bus down to the library and somehow managed to get there in time for Story Book Theater (or something along those lines). I didn't even know there was an event going on! First, Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock was read (and acted out!) and then Little Miss Giggles. Both stories were read and acted out by a group of elderly men and women. It was a lot of fun! Then we went and looked for some books. We returned a few, still had at least 5 at home still, and come home with this stack...

From Summer Challenge

He did a minimum of 15 minutes reading (I think he did bare minimum this day, lol) and another page in his book (which I already mentioned somewhere). Madd and Dad went to T-Ball pictures. No practice because of pictures. Faye and I went to open swim for the first time since.. maybe December!

Today we were pretty lazy this morning. We waited until afternoon to start talking about Independence Day, The Revolutionary War, and all that jazz. We went to the outdoor pool with our friends (from Maddox's preschool years) and spent a good 2 hours there. Maddox and I worked on some more July 4th stuff, including starting a Lapbook and then we realized we were 15 minutes late for swim class! Fortunately his class is about half a mile from home, so he made it for most of his class. We came home and read Chapter 3 of the Flying Fish book and did two questions before he was beat. No reading today (oops!) and since he did his last page for June in his Summer Bridge book, I gave him a break today!

Tomorrow we are going to try to go somewhere to pick Strawberries. Then we are going to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary (hopefully, assuming that if our State shuts down, this is not one of the parks that will be closed! I don't think so though, since it's a city park. I do not believe it is a state park.) We also need to work on our Lapbook, Flying Fish questions, and start the new month in the Summer Bridge book, plus those 15 minutes of reading!

Bedroom Organization

I had made a post awhile back about not knowing what to do about the boys toys. It took me a lot of deciding before I settled on anything that I could live with (both purchasing - price wise, what I could find, would it work when we move, etc).

I was going to try the itso products from Target, but they ended up being too big. They had a cool little white board door that you could put on the cubes and a lot of accessories, but it was all too complicated (not to put together, just not as simple and plain as I was looking for) and the cool little white board door sucked. Especially if a 2 and 6 year old was going to be using it.

What I ended up with was a ClosetMaid 6-Cube Organizer in white (because my Target did not have the "Marine Blue" Circo brand shelf. Then we bought ClosetMaid and Circo bins. They are 10x10 (loosely, they may be closer to 11x11??) and the also have some 5x5x10 bins that I bought to go ontop of the unit for all those little random toys that I was complaining about (the Kung Zhu, plastic animals (mostly bugs and dinosaurs), Nerf Darts and mini targets, etc).

From June 2011

We still need to get two more bins for some stuff and another set of the small skinny bins to go on top (instead of that clear "junk drawer", which is mostly filled with die cast cars at the moment). And Of course, Maddox's awesome bed (from IKEA) helps give us some space to put the shelf...

From June 2011

We also have had this book shelf in the bedroom for a couple years now. It's a mess and it keeps getting more and more crowded.

From June 2011

Now... What to do with Faye's stuff!

From June 2011

We try so hard to keep her stuff on her little shelf thing... but she is SO not helpful! To the right of this, on the other side of the door way is a play kitchen and all those accessories. They're also laying all over the floor, because again, Faye is SO not helpful!

Three more years and we can give Faye Maddox's bed and get Maddox a full loft bed with a desk!

Maddox and Grandpa Dave

Our Father's Day Lapbooks!

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011

From June 2011