Loving My Life As A Mother and a Wife

Fourteen

2010-06-18T00:48:00.002-04:00

This silly guy turned 14 on Tuesday! I am still not sure that I am okay with that. I can't believe how quickly time has passed. I remember a 3lb. 15 inch long baby boy lying in an incubator letting everyone know that he intended to fight for his life. And then there was a 3 year old who knew just about every line of every Blue's Clues episode and recited them all day long. And I will never forget the adorable little 5 year old who was the smallest kid in Kindergarten and also the best reader. I smile when I think of a 7 year old I knew that when he started homeschool would walk with me everyday and talk of all the pebbles he would throw in the river along the way. I treasure the thoughts of a boy who even at 9 loved to bake with me and still cuddled up for stories. Even 11 seems like yesterday with a child who could ride his bike up and down the street seemingly forever.

How did time go so fast? It is so bittersweet. I miss my little boy but am proud of the young man he has become. He is smart and interesting and a lot of fun to be around. He is energetic and enthusiastic. He is also kindhearted and loveable. He has overcome a lot of obstacles in his 14 years and has shown us what it means to be strong. He loves football, music, and a certain floppy eared dog. He loves a good story and a happy ending. He likes to bounce on the trampoline or walk on his treadmill. He loves to work with numbers. He likes to go to concerts with his Dad and beat his mom at Monopoly. He is a super person!

We celebrated his birthday over the last two weeks. It was low key which is the way he likes it. Last week my parents came down to visit and he spent some time with them. He got to go eat a special birthday meal with them at a restaurant that Elvis once ate at. He likes Elvis so it was kind of thrilling for him. On his actual birthday we ordered out pizza and then he had ice cream sandwiches instead of cake. He doesn't like cake! He got some video games, cds, and a NFL quilt and sham as presents. I think he enjoyed it all.

So now he is 14 and there is no sign of him slowing down on this whole growing up thing. What's a mom to do but look into the eyes of a young man and know in her heart he will always be her baby boy and, of course, wish him a big happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Our Backyard "Bard"

2010-06-12T00:36:00.001-04:00

Well, I wanted more nature study here and God answered in a wonderful way!

It is dark in the picture because it was taken at sunset and we didn't want to scare him with a flash.

Thursday night I was loading the dishwasher when I glanced out my kitchen window. We have a woods behind our house that is maybe 20 or 30 feet away. I like to look out and watch the birds and the squirrels but it just so happens that on this particular time someone was looking back at me. Sitting atop the fence about 8 feet from my window was a beautiful and very large owl. I was so excited. I tried to get to my camera and call Tim to see but in all the commotion he flew off. Tim was able to catch a glimpse of him and thought he was the great horned owl.

Tonight we were waiting anxiously to see if he would come back. He did!!!! He didn't come back to our fence but he perched out on the telephone wire for a long time. We watched him wait for prey and then swoop down when he thought he saw something. I tried to take a picture with my camera which didn't work out very well. Tim got the idea to try the camcorder and we were much more successful with that.

We now know that he is not a great horned owl but a barred owl after getting a much better look at him. He is about 2 feet tall and has a wing span that looks to be around 3 feet. He is amazing! That is probably a huge understatement. We are so thrilled that he has chosen our backyard as his hunting grounds.

We really wanted to give him a name. Tim thought maybe Owliver and then Tyler noted that since he is a "barred" owl we should name him after the "bard" he has been studying. So... we are now calling him Shakespeare. Corny I know but we kind of like it. We are hoping to continue to see him at sundown as we have the last couple of nights.
So here he is:

Please excuse my video editing. I put together the clips as best as I could and I had to get rid of all our background house noise like our dog eating so that is why I have replaced it with music. I still think he is incredible to watch.

Shakespeare

2010-06-10T01:47:00.001-04:00

Tyler loves Shakespeare! I want to jump up and down and say that over and over again! I did NOT like learning about Shakespeare when I was in school. It was hard to read the Old English and we had to memorize huge boring sections of his plays. I wanted to teach Tyler Shakespeare without having him dread it like I did. I thought maybe if I worked really hard at it he might not hate it. I had no clue just how much he would take to it. :)

We have been enjoying a lot of resources in our study of the bard. I knew we needed to do a lapbook because he has been retaining so much more every time we use one to organize what he has learned. I chose the project pack and lapbook from Hands of a Child.
I am really loving how this particular lapbook is suited to his age level. I also like the creative writing assignments it contains. One was to write a sonnet which was rather cute because he wrote it for our Lucy.

A really terrific book we have been using to learn more about the life of Shakespeare is Shakespeare for Kids. This book does a great job of covering his life and also has a bunch of terrific activities.

I have chosen not to read the individual plays in the written language right now as I knew that create a lot of frustration for Tyler at this point. We have been reading some adapted versions in story form though and I feel he is getting a lot out of them. We are using the Shakespeare Can Be Fun! series, Tales From Shakespeare, and The Children's Shakespeare.
Hamlet is by far his favorite so far. He calls it the play in which everyone dies at the end and he really loves to pretend to play King Hamlet's ghost. We are also reading The Shakespeare Stealer Series which is a fiction series but has a lot of history integrated into it. These books are great and both Tyler and I would recommend them.

As we read through the plays I have been having him notebook on the different characters and some of the plots. He has been coloring some pages in The Dover Scenes From Shakespeare coloring book to go with the notebooking too.

As added fun and some exposure to the original language of the plays Shakespeare wrote we have been enjoying a beautiful pop up version of the globe theater. This I believe has been Tyler's favorite part. This book is so beautiful to look at.

The book pops open to show the inside of the globe theater.

There are several punch out characters for each play.

There are two scripts with scenes from the plays to act out.


You slip the characters through holes on the sides of the stage and then read your lines.

I knew that I also wanted him to do some memorization work but I didn't want to have it be as boring as I had felt it was when I was in school. I made him a booklet and I am letting him pick two quotes for each play in the book. The book is actually just a couple of file folders I put together but he likes it a lot. I am thinking of making a certificate for him when he finishes it. I was going to put on it something like he had completed his apprenticeship and now he is a player in Shakespeare's theater company.
Here are the pictures of our memorization booklet.

Here is the download for our book if you would like it too.
Shakespeare Quote Memorization Book

It has been fun to watch Tyler recite his quotes. He has an awful English accent but he does a great job at his memorization. Hope you enjoy this one from Hamlet!

Summer School

2010-06-04T01:17:00.000-04:00

Today was our last day of school for this school year...sort of. We actually homeschool year round but we are taking a small break for about two weeks because my parents are coming to visit for a week and then we need about a week after that to get everyone back on track. Christians schedule is pretty much the same every day whatever time of the year it is as working with him is a constant. Tyler's schedule will be slightly different during the summer as there are a couple of areas I want to cover with more intensity and other subjects that I know he is doing great on and can take a small break from. Tyler has been studying Shakespeare for the last couple of weeks and absolutely loves it. Who knew?! That really deserves a post of it's own though because we have done a lot and hope to do much more after our break. Along with studying Shakespeare I also wanted to do Creation Geology from Media Angels with him. I have had the curriculum for this for quite some time and it is one of those things that always gets put off and so I am determined to cover it this summer. It is also nice because it covers the flood and fossils which coincides with the history we will be doing in the fall. The other thing I will be working on with Tyler this summer is his writing. I have been teaching him some outlining skills and that has allowed him to start constructing better paragraphs but he could definitely use more practice. He can narrate well what he has learned but has a hard time organizing it into a more organized format when he writes it out. The final thing I want to focus on with both of my boys this summer is something I feel we have been neglecting. I have been longing to do nature studies for forever but unfortunately that is another area that often gets pushed aside. I have been reading the Handbook of Nature Study blog for awhile now and so I finally decided that we would try out one of her Outdoor Hour Challenge ebooks. I downloaded the summer one today and it looks great and adaptable to fit both kids. I like the fact that it doesn't look so time consuming that we are likely not to do it. I already have The Handbook of Nature Study by A. Comstock in the house so that helps too.
So that is the plan here for summer school. Tim is still recovering from foot surgery but we are also hoping and praying that he will be able to get around a little better soon and we can spend some time at the beach. Christian especially enjoys the beach! I would also like to do more geocaching this summer. All that will have to wait though until Tim is able to do more walking. Family outings here go much more smoothly with two parents. :)
I hope everyone whether taking a summer break or homeschooling straight through has a wonderful summer!

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T10:03:00.002-04:00

Hope everyone had a lovely Memorial Day! We had a relaxed weekend at home. Tim had foot surgery a couple of weeks ago and is still healing so we are unable to do anything too strenuous. We had loads of sunshine, a beautiful breeze, temps in the 80's and it so it was really very nice here. Tim was able to grill steaks and hot dogs much to his pleasure and everyone else too. The boys played on the trampoline and the swings. Lucy soaked in all the attention of everyone being home. I cherished the time to watch the birds and squirrels play by the feeders that Tim gave to me for Mothers Day, to stare at the blossoms on the tree out my front window, to bake tons of chocolate chip cookies, and most of all to enjoy the family God has so graciously allowed me to be part of. Though flawed as it is I am still so grateful to remember that I live in this country that I love. I am without words to express my appreciation for the sacrifices that have been made so that I can enjoy the freedoms I do!

Pictures from our Memorial Day (in no particular order) :)

Jesus Rap

2010-05-11T08:35:00.002-04:00

Casting Crowns Concert

2010-05-04T11:26:00.002-04:00

Tim and Tyler went to see Caleb Chapman, Tenth Avenue North, and Casting Crowns a little over a week ago. I meant to get the pictures up here earlier but with Christian and his ear I am a ~~little~~ whole lot behind.
Before I show you the pictures I wanted to share a little about how I feel about Casting Crowns. I don't think I have ever shared this story here before but if I have I'm sorry for repeating!
In 2008 Tim was deployed to Afghanistan for 9 months. He was due to return home in November and towards the end of September we began to plan his homecoming. We ordered our banner and planned to have his favorite foods and such but I knew how hard it had been for him to be away for us that long and I also wanted to do something special for him. Because of our family situation big parties and vacations are just not an option. Tyler and I had found out that Casting Crowns, Tim's favorite band, was coming out with a Christmas CD and so I ordered that for him and it got me to thinking. I looked up their tour dates and sure enough just a couple weeks after he was to return home they were playing a couple of hours from here. I deliberated back and forth on weather we could all attend the concert but in the end decided it would be way too much for Christian. I was able to reserve two seats in the third row and I figured Tyler and Tim could go together and have a good father and son time. I sat there thinking a little more after I got the tickets and wondered if just maybe I could make it a little more special. I knew that sometimes musicians esp. christian artists are willing to give a shout out at concerts for special occasions. So... I worked up a little nerve and went over to Casting Crowns website and found the email address for Mark Hall, the lead singer. I wrote and told him my story of how great my hubby is and what a big fan he is and how he was coming back from Afghanistan etc. I didn't really think I would get a response but I was hopeful that maybe I would. Well, about two weeks later I did actually get a response. I got an email from Susan Dose the band's assistant and she said that Mark had read my email. I was taken a bit back there she hadn't read my email but Mark had read my email. She said that the band didn't do shout outs during their concerts but they could give him two meet and greet passes. I was sooooo excited! I knew it would mean a lot to Tim to meet Mark Hall, someone whom he has so much respect for. Incidentally this concert also featured a lot of other artists who Tim and Tyler got to meet too. There was Natalie Grant, Avalon, Michael English, PureNRG, and Denver and the Mile High Orchestra. They had a wonderful time and were so impressed with how nice everyone was. On a funny note both Tim and Tyler were both to shy to ask to get their pictures taken with anyone. They did however get me a shirt at the concert and had everyone sign it. I still wish they had gotten pictures. :(
So that's my great Casting Crowns story. I love that they gave my hubby such a special time! They are the real deal and hold a special place in our hearts.
Now when they come to our area we of course have to get tickets so Tim and Tyler went to see them again this last week. No passes this time-just the concert but they still had a wonderful time.

The concert opened with Caleb, Stephen Curtis Chapman's son. This is a picture of Will and Caleb Chapman. Tyler was greatly impressed with these two.

The second performance was Tenth Avenue North.

And last but surely not least was Casting Crowns.

World Vision was there too. Tim didn't get a picture of them though. :) We did sign up to sponsor a adorable little girl in Tanzania. I am already so in love with this little face.

We already sponsor a girl in India through Compassion and so we decided to go with Africa. She is three and just too cute. Don't you think? The problem for me is that we started sponsoring our Compassion child when she was already 10 and so I am not sure what we are to write to a three year old or if we should mostly send pictures and drawings from the kids. I would love suggestions if anybody has sponsored a younger child. I am sure we are going to love getting to know her!

What to do in the heat

2010-05-02T23:09:00.000-04:00

I spoke too soon! I have been raving about what a beautiful spring we are having. Usually we go from winter to super hot summer but lately we have been enjoying the most spectacular spring days with temperatures in the low to mid 70's. Well, it had to end sometime I suppose. Today it chose to bake us in the hot Carolina sun. I believe the actual temp was 87! There are only so many things you actually feel like doing when it is hot and humid outside. Tyler has been really good all week as his schedule was a mess because of the time spent at the hospital with Christian. So it was a nice day for him to get out and play on the water slide.
It was a hard decision to make because Christian loves the water too and he can't get wet right now because his stitches in his ear are supposed to stay dry. I felt really bad for him as watched out the window as the water slide was set up. I stayed inside with him and we watched lots of Veggie Tales together. We watched King George and the Ducky twice because that is his favorite. We also ordered from Papa Johns tonight which is a big treat here because we almost never do fast food. I know he would have rather been outside but I think we had fun together anyhow.
Tyler really needed to wear off some of his boundless energy. We have done a lot of sitting and waiting this week. Sitting and waiting are tough on him. He played on the slide for a couple of hours.

He really needed that! He fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed. I can't wait until Christian's ear heals and he can get some water slide time too!

Thank you for your prayers!

2010-04-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

Thank you so much for praying for Christian. We just got home from the hospital. Christian did well and everyone there was wonderful to him. He is super out of it still from the anesthesia. He walked in the house laid down on the couch and went back to sleep. The surgeon who repaired his ear is also a ear, nose and throat specialist. He did a great job on his ear and also did a complete exam on his ears, nose, and throat while he was asleep. That was nice because it is impossible for doctors to do much when he is awake. He is concerned about one of his eardrums so he is going to put him under again in a couple of months and check that again. It looks might he might have some scarring although we don't know from what. He isn't one to poke anything in his ears. His ear looks really good where they did the stitches today. He doesn't seem interested in it either which is great. The put in stitches that will dissolve so they won't have to take them back out. I am real happy about that. They also put him on antibiotics to speed up the healing and Tylenol with codeine for any pain he might have. I don't think he is much pain but it is nice if he needs it. I am so tired from 9 hours at the hospital today after 3 hours there last night. I really hope this makes sense.
I just wanted to let everyone know how much we appreciated your prayers today. It went a lot better than I thought I would and I know that was definitely a God thing!

Please Pray for Christian

2010-04-29T01:14:00.000-04:00

This is going to be very brief as I am exhausted. Christian fell tonight in the bathroom and cut his ear pretty bad. We spent three hours in the ER. It has stopped bleeding now but because it is cut straight through the cartlidge they want to put in stitches in the morning. Because of his autism they are going to have to put him under to put in the stitches. We have to be back at the hospital at 6:30 am and he is all wound up still from the experience. If you read this yet tonight or tomorrow morning could you please pray for us. I know he will be fine but it is still going to be very hard on him. Thank you!

A Wedding!

2010-04-26T14:00:00.002-04:00

We had a very special wedding in our family last week! It was a wedding that symbolized forgiveness and lasting love. It symbolizes the kind of love that looks beyond past hurts. It is the kind of love that binds two people together even when things get really tough.
The special couple that got married last week have known each other since they were children which in this case is a very long time. The bride is 79 years old and the groom is 83. This wedding represents a second chance for them as they were married once before. In 1949 this twosome ran off to elope. She was Lutheran and he was Catholic and they could not be married in church. So they drove to another state to be wed and he sang to her along the way.
This young couple raised up a family of seven children. They worked hard and sacrificed to give their family the best. However as happens to so many couples along the way they made mistakes and there was a lot of hurt. Long after their children had grown and they had many grandchildren this couple was left with each other. Sometimes in the midst of past hurts people feel as though there can be no healing and no future. In 1993, the once young and hopeful bride felt she had come to that place and they were divorced.
God works in mysterious ways however and sometimes he works through great pain to bring us to a place where we realize that our love for someone is stronger than our hurt and our anger. About three and a half years ago our groom was in serious condition. He had a clogged artery which was causing him to have strokes. His doctor had tried several operations but was unable to complete them because the patient wasn't strong enough. Our groom is the type of man who has been young and strong and struggles greatly with being old and weak. His once young bride looked upon him with love and knew he needed someone to help him and care for him. God graciously granted this couple a second chance when he finally allowed the surgery to succeed. He has been given another opportunity to love a women who through her forgiveness has come back to unselfishly devote herself to his care.
I learned of this wedding to be only shortly before it happened and I was unable to attend because I must be here with my boys and they live faraway. I am no less blessed by it however as these are two people I love very much. I am grateful for this renewal of their devotion to one another. I know it is something they almost didn't have. I am thrilled they have each other to love until they pass from this earth. I thank God for their story and for his wonderful gift to me- my grandparents!

These are the pictures from last week as they were rewed in their home.

All Glory, Laud, and Honor- Our First Hymn Study

2010-04-25T14:27:00.000-04:00

We have started hymn studies in our homeschool. My boys both have a big appreciation for music. Last year Tyler's Bible curriculum had a hymn component included but this year we were really missing that. I had read this post over at Jimmie's Collage and thought that something similar would work really well for us.
Since we had just celebrated Easter I thought we would start with the book Passion Hymns for a Kid's Heart. All the books in the Hymns for Kid's books are great and include the CDs with them too.
We have been using these great notebooking pages from Jimmie of Jimmie's Collage to explore the vocabulary and verses that go along with our hymn. I made our own notebooking pages also to explore the biography of the hymn author and for Tyler to write the lyrics out for copywork. We are using the books Then Sings My Soul and Then Sings My Soul Book 2 for the stories of the hymn writers. These are fascinating books and the stories of the hymn writers are truly inspiring. We are storing all of our hymn sheets in a three ring binder.

The first hymn in the book is All Glory, Laud, and Honor. It is a beautiful hymn about Palm Sunday. It was written by Theodulph, bishop of Orleans. He wrote this text around 820 while he was imprisoned at Angers, France, for conspiring against King Louis the Pious. Based on Matthew 21:1-11 (and similar passages in Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 12), the text was originally written for a Palm Sunday procession. We love this hymn and look forward to studying another hymn next week.

Mini Lime Cheesecakes

2010-04-23T17:02:00.000-04:00

I originally made these for St. Patrick's Day because they are so cute and green. We called them little Leprechaun Pies. :) They are wonderful anytime however and would be great for a spring or summer treat. They are super easy to make!

Mini Lime Cheesecakes

Ingrediants:

2 packages of 6 Mini Graham Crackers Ready Crusts

2 beaten egg whites

1- eight ounce package of cream cheese softened

14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

green food coloring

1- six ounce can Minute Maid frozen limeade concentrate

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375

2. Brush the crusts with the beaten egg white and place on a cookie sheet. Bake crusts for 5 minutes.

3. Beat the cream cheese until soft in a medium bowl.

4. Add the condensed milk and beat until light and fluffy.

5. Add the limeade and beat until smooth. Stir in the food color until you have a nice shade of green.

6. Evenly fill the pie shells.

7. Place the pies on the cookie sheet into the freezer for about 1 hour. Serve chilled.

These are one of my husbands faves. Hope you enjoy them!

Unexpected Lessons Learned in our Study of Russia

2010-04-23T12:19:00.002-04:00

We have been studying Russia here and have been really enjoying it. It has been a long study as there is much to learn. Russia has always intrigued me. They have such amazing architecture, beautiful art, and powerful music. My favorite thing about Russia,however, has always been the literature written there. I love to read Tolstoy and the older authors but I am equally taken with new writers like Boris Akunin. I appreciate the complexity of the characters in Russian stories. They are often formed through the combination of great hardships and strong spirits that yearn not only to survive but to find beauty in life. When we started our study I was really anxious to share this with Tyler.
He had a great time listening to Peter and the Wolf and making matryoshka dolls to go with the story.

We have used several really great resource books along with our study. The first is Russia (Enchantment of the World. Second Series).

The second is Eyewitness Books Russia.

We also used the Usborne book First Thousand Words in Russian.

Incidentally Christian was really taken with this last book.

This got me to thinking maybe he doesn't talk because we are trying to teach him English and he wants Russian.
Tyler has been doing lots of notebooking and map work to go along with our study as well. We found some great printables at homeschoolshare.

By far our favorite part of this whole unit has been our read aloud of Angel on the Square.

It is a historical fiction story that takes place in the years between 1913 to 1918. This is the time of the reign of the last czar of Russia. Katya, the girl in the story, is the daughter of the lady in waiting to the empress and therefore lives with the czar and his family which allows the reader to see not only the rule of the czar but his tender interactions with his family.
Tyler likes to label characters in his mind as the good guy or the bad guy. There is not a lot of room for in betweens in Tyler's autistic world. As we read through this story he was confused as to how to categorize the characters as many of them had complex relationships and made varying decisions. He at first decided the Czar must be a good man because he loved his family and treated them well and was applauded when he rode through the streets. Later when he found out some of the injustices he allowed he decided he must be the bad guy. Only to change his mind again when he was exiled to Siberia and he felt sorry for him. It was great to see Tyler attempt to reason this through. There was another character Misha, who is a college student and a revolutionary. Tyler was at first disgusted that he would be so opposed to following the rules. He then liked him when he found out he wanted to help the poor. Katya in the story is confused like Tyler and doesn't know how to feel about the people around her either. This helped Tyler to see that he wasn't alone in his feelings. He was able to understand in the end that it was okay just to take it all in and understand they were all humans that made good and bad decisions. Understanding the people in the story didn't require us to label them.
I really like the unexpected lesson this story and our study of Russia and all it's interesting figures has brought about. It shows me that he is starting to develop more complex thinking. It shows me that there is room for learning beyond the accumulation of facts. Yea for progress!!!

Geocaching

2010-04-10T20:00:00.001-04:00

We enjoyed what I think is officially our new favorite family pastime today. Have you ever tried geocaching? It is a lot of fun! For those of you who are unfamiliar with geocaching it is like a treasure hunt with a GPS to guide you to your destination. It is played outdoors and is enjoyed all around the world. According to geocaching.com there are 1,031,429 active geocaches around the world. Geocaches are hidden boxes that contain a log with which you can sign in and tell others that you found the cache. There are also small treasures in the box. You can take a treasure and leave one behind for someone else. You can register for free on geocaching.com and locate caches in your area. They are also sorted by difficulty and several other factors such as child friendliness. You can also maintain a log of your finds there and share your experiences with others!
We chose some caches in our area today that were located close together. I was really surprised to see how many caches there are in our city alone. It is kind of fun to think of all these hidden boxes out there that you never even knew about. Anyways we drove over to this great park by the river that we didn't even know existed. Incidentally I think that another great aspect of geocaching is exploring new places you haven't been to before. We used the GPS to find the location of the first cache but we never actually found the cache itself. I was feeling a bit discouraged as this particular cache was rated as easy. We tried the second one which was also at the same park and found it very quickly. I was really excited! I have always liked mysteries.

Our first cache. :)

Tyler enjoyed opening up the cache with Tim and signing into the logbook. He had brought a bag of small treasure with him and they left a small pirate scope in the cache. He took out a small plastic cross.

There are a couple more caches in the area where we were but we decided to save those for another day. We are pretty proud of the one we found for today. We enjoyed the family time together and exploring the park. If you have never been geocaching before I encourage you to try it out. I know we will be doing a lot more of it in the future.

Before I go I wanted to share this sign with you. We were amused by it. Last time we checked ducks were birds. Hmm?

Much Needed Break

2010-04-05T22:46:00.000-04:00

I am sorry to have been gone from blogging for so long. Thank you for being patient with me and I am sorry to have caused anyone concern. Everyone here is doing wonderful. I needed to adjust some things in my life and especially in my daily schedule. I have always done my school planning and blogging at night after the kids are in bed and I am waiting for Christian to go to sleep. However I often end up spending a lot of time on the computer jumping from blog to blog and looking up this and that and I really end up being a lot less productive then I would like. I also tend to stay up way too late and journey into the kitchen to snack way too much. It is frustrating for me because there is so much I want to pack into a day and I never seem to have enough time. Of course the first thing that gets neglected is taking care of myself. I needed desperately to change some of my habits. I decided first of all to go to bed at night rather than staying up at the computer. I can't go to sleep because it still takes Christian forever to fall asleep and I must listen for him but I can lay in bed and read my bible on the Kindle. This also takes away the frustration of trying to find a quiet part of the day where I can read and pray. The truth is that there are just never those perfect quiet moments around here. It is so helpful too that I am removed in proximity from the kitchen. I have stopped eating for the sake of eating or in all honesty sometimes the comfort of it when I am stressed. I have started also to take sometime for myself each night after dinner to walk on the treadmill. This has been amazing for me. It really helps me unwind and I feel so much more energetic during the day. I am up to 45 minutes a day now which is about 2.75 miles at the pace I am at. I have lost about 23 pounds in the last month too which it was not really my objective to lose weight but it is a nice side benefit. :) I feel like these are some positive changes and they are things I want to keep up with. I do want to continue blogging also. I just need to make sure I take care of myself so I can be the wife, mom, and teacher God made me to be. So please be patient with me while I try to figure out where to fit in time to blog.

New Glasses

2010-03-19T18:58:00.000-04:00

Tyler got new glasses today and we really wanted to share a picture with you all of how handsome he looks.

Are you ready?

Aren't they great?

Just Kidding!

Here they are for real...

Much better! He is very happy to be able to see a little more clearly. Yippee for new glasses!

Update on a little of everything! :)

2010-03-02T00:15:00.001-05:00

Life here has not been overly exciting lately. We have been working hard at school trying to take advantage of this time of the year when there is not a lot else going on to distract. We also have standardized testing coming up in a couple of weeks as we live in a state that requires it each year. I am trying hard to make sure we are at a good stopping point in our subjects as testing and Easter approaches.
I spent last week enjoying the Heart of the Matter Online Conference. That was a great pick me up. I was reminded of lots of things and learned some new tips as well. Heather Laurie's presentation was a good reminder of keeping up a good sensory diet around here. I think we are pretty good about that but was reminded of certain areas we haven't worked on in awhile. I also walked away with a bunch of great tips on organizing my days after listening to Maggie Hogan. I loved her idea of grocery shopping twice a month. I hate grocery shopping to begin with so it is on the top of my list to strive for.
Last week was my week to sit down and ponder next year for our homeschool and start to think a bit about high school planning for Tyler. (yikes!) He will be in the 8th grade, technically speaking, this next year although he really is above and below that in certain subjects. The whole thought of homeschooling through high school still scares me a bit. I don't want to screw it up but we still feel like that is the way God is leading us. We have decided to go with Tapestry of Grace for him next year. I ordered the download version and I love what I have seen so far.
Christian and I have been working on his communication. We have been working with the Educational Insights Smart Talk system. He loves to push buttons and we have tried different communicators in the past. This is great because it has cards with big pictures of one thing and when you press the first button it names what is in the picture, the second uses it in a sentence, and the third button asks you what it is. We are working on a set of about ten cards at a time.

Tyler has been working on all of his usual subjects and he has been working on a unit study on Russia. He has also been loving the Sports Store business math program from Simply Charlotte Mason. He finished his first mock month of business today and was so excited that he had made a profit. It is his favorite thing we are doing right now. He is learning a lot too like writing out checks, purchasing inventory, paying bills, and keeping a ledger.

As a final note here I had asked for prayer awhile back for my mom so I wanted to update you all on that too. She is still not feeling well. She is having a lot of shortness of breath. She has had a ton of tests and so far they have determined she has water under her heart, fluid in her lungs, problems with anemia, and today they told her she has an enlarged liver so she will be undergoing more tests for that tomorrow. There are still no real answers as to why these things are happening. She is at home and my dad is taking excellent care of her and they hope to have some answers and hopefully some solutions soon. Thank you for your prayers! They are much appreciated.

Sorry there are no good pictures in this post and that it is a little choppy. I am super tired tonight! My hubby was doing a lot of sleep talking last night as he does when he is thinking a lot about work and I didn't get much sleep. I am going to bed now and I promise to post something else (with pictures) real soon!

Get back up

2010-02-26T00:43:00.000-05:00

For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again. Proverbs 24:16

Tyler and I have been reading through Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schultz. We have only been reading a chapter every other day so that we can discuss each chapter and he can have time to think it over. It is an amazing book for boys that are headed toward manhood.

Today's chapter was about making mistakes and what we do after we make them. The author used a story about football to illustrate his point. Tyler was of course immediately interested as he is with anything that remotely talks about football. The story was about a runner that wanted to quit after the first time he was tackled. Tyler was amused by this because he knows that a running back would expect to be tackled and wouldn't let that end his desire to play football and keep running.

We talked about some of the mistakes in life that we make that can cause us to fall down. As we talked about some things in his life that make him fall down I thought of many in my own. We had a great discussion about times when he or other people he knows have fallen down and what their response has been.

This wonderful chapter discussed some of the responses everyone has when they fall down. Some people just stay down. This has happened to me before especially when our kids were first diagnosed with autism. The longer you stay down unfortunately the harder it is to get back up. Some people like to just pretend they never fell. This usually results in things getting much worse because we have done nothing to fix the cause of our fall so we will likely just fall again. Some people get angry that they fell and so they lay where they fell and dwell on their anger. Others will make excuses for their fall or blame others which will likely not only hurt themselves but their relationships as well.

The only good response to a fall is to get back up. It is best to get up quickly and try to fix that which made us fall in the first place. We also need to fix any damage we may have caused during our fall.

The great thing about falling and getting back up is that God knows we are going to fall and he knows how to help us recover from our falls too. He is waiting to help pull us up when we do fall. Tyler and I both found a lot of encouragement in that.

The other important thing we talked about falling was that when we fall we have an opportunity to learn. A foolish man continues to stumble because he fails to see what caused him to fall before. This is a true sign of a person journeying into a godly adult life. I want him to know that it is okay to make mistakes and to use them to learn how to either steer clear of a potential danger in the future or how to navigate through it.

I love the discussions this book has brought about between us. It thrills me that he is starting to understand what it takes to be a godly man and that he desires to be one. Thank you Bob Schultz! I think we will both have fond memories of reading this book.

"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise..." Micah 7:8

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 2

2010-02-23T23:59:00.002-05:00

I had another wonderful experience today as I listened to the speakers at the second day of the Heart of the Matter Online Conference. All the speakers today were down to earth people with practical advice. It was very informative.
The first speaker today was Joyce Herzog. Joyce is the author of Learning In Spite of Labels, the Scaredy Cat Reading System, and many other books. She spoke on teaching struggling learners which is for obvious reasons a subject near and dear to my heart. She was a wealth of information on catering our teaching to the individual child. She also explained her reading system which I am interested in trying with Christian. Her website is http://www.joyceherzog.info/Joyce_Herzog/Welcome.html .
The second speaker today was Katie Kubesh of Hands of a Child. She spoke on lapbooking which is a favorite learning activity in our house. She spoke on the different ways that you can use lapbooking in your homeschool. She also spoke on modifying lapbooking for individual ages and abilities. We have already used several Hands of a Child lapbooks in our school so we didn't need to be sold on their products as we know how fun and useful they are. It was nice to learn some things I didn't know or hadn't thought through before however like typing out the words onto the minibooks instead of writing. This would be a great help for Tyler with his fine motor issues. She was delightful and informative. I enjoyed her presentation a lot.
The third speaker was Dari Mullins. She is coauthor of Galloping the Globe and Cantering the Country. She spoke about those times when we are just not happy homeschooling. I think she was a lot of encouragement to everyone as most homeschoolers have been at that place at least once. I know she was encouraging to me. A couple of inspiring thoughts she left us with were "Accept where you are and trust God for the rest" and "Homeschooling is not a sprint, homeschooling is a marathon". She was just full of practical Godly wisdom!
The last speaker today was Jim Mueller of http://www.sciencejim.com . He spoke on the need for hands on science instruction. I definitely would agree with that. Science is my personal favorite but a tough subject for my boys. Jim has a curriculum available as well as online webinars if anyone is interested. He does believe in teaching physics as a first science curriculum which was interesting but I feel would not be a good fit in our home. He was informative and I can see that his animation would appeal to children.
Tomorrow brings more great topics. I can't wait. I am glad that the audio of this conference will be available afterword because I know I will never remember all this great information. I'm off to get some sleep! Goodnight!

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 1

2010-02-22T22:52:00.000-05:00

Today I was so blessed to be able to attend The Heart of the Matter online conference. I won a ticket a little over a week ago on Heather Laurie's blog SpecialNeedsHomeschooling.com . Thanks Heather!!!
I have not been able to attend homeschool conferences as I would love to during our past 6 years of homeschooling because of the special needs of our boys so to be able to hear these great speakers online is such a treat. I could also get my laundry folded at the same time. ;) LOL
The first speaker this morning was Sheila Carrol, founder of Living Books Curriculum. She spoke on the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling. I can't say that we are a truly Charlotte Mason type homeschool here but I do love her ideas and try to incorporate them into our learning as much as possible. Her words were spoken with great wisdom and a lot of experience and left me with a lot to think on.
The second speaker was Diane Lockman, author of Trivium Mastery and The Classical Scholar. Diane spoke on reading aloud to your children and it's role in language development. She shared a lot of insight into how important reading is even at a young age. I have to admit I was thrilled to hear her reaffirm that it is okay for a child who is a reluctant reader to listen to audio books of good literature. Tyler does so much better with audio books but I always have a bit of worry that perhaps he isn't getting as much as he would by reading an actual book. She did suggest having them follow along in the actual printed book as they listen to pick up more of the sentence structure and such so we will give that a try in the future.
The next speaker was Jay Ryan, author of Classical Astronomy and Signs and Seasons. I have to admit I didn't catch most of what he had to say as it was lunch time here and rather loud and hectic. I will have to listen to him again when the audio for the conference becomes available.
The last speaker was probably the most inspirational to me today. Carol Barnier is the author The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles. I know her better as the author of How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning however. She spoke on learning styles but she covered so much more than that too. She is just an amazingly creative teacher and entertaining and inspiring speaker. Her ideas are ones that will work very well around our house. I also found out she has this great website called SizzleBop that is loaded with ideas to teach distractible people. I can't believe I didn't know it existed before! She shared some of the great ditties she uses with her children to help them remember information also. They are also located on SizzleBop under the ditties section. You really should check them out as they are priceless!
I feel so inspired and renewed today after listening to these great speakers. I can't wait to here more tomorrow! Hope everyone else who is attending the conference is enjoying it as well!

Love is still a worthy cause!

2010-02-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

God has been speaking to me through this song this week. When all the world seems so grim it is good to remember this. Love is indeed a worthy cause!

Giveaway winners

2010-02-17T22:21:00.000-05:00

I am still so excited that a family has decided to adopt Ivy. Thank you again to everyone who contributed here to her adoption fund. It has been amazing to pray and hope that she would find a family and then to watch God answer in such a wonderful way!
We have picked our winners for our giveaway here and I will email each of you to find out where to send your prize. The winners are:

$50 Lakeshore Learning Gift Certificate - Leslie N

$30 Music for Little People Gift Certificate- Allison B

Felt Color and Size Sorting Toy- Katrina N

Congratulations and thank you for you generous donations and your prayers for Ivy!

Praise Report on Ivy!

2010-02-17T16:13:00.000-05:00

I was thrilled today to find out today that Ivy has found a home. I was over at Reece's Rainbow and saw that she had been moved to the section with the children who have found homes. We were able to raise $205 towards her adoption fund and I want to thank everyone who contributed. I am ending the ChipIn! early because she has found a home now. I will be picking winners for our giveaway this evening. I will post them here then. Right now I will just be taking some time to praise God that he is giving this precious child a family!

Prayer request

2010-02-17T10:36:00.000-05:00

I have a prayer request to share today. I spoke to my mother on the phone this morning and she spent the day at the hospital yesterday. She has been experiencing some shortness of breath, rapid weight gain, and swelling. They performed a CAT scan and EKG and have determined that she has some water around her heart. She also has some issues with her gall bladder. I am not sure how that intertwines but apparently it does somehow. She is at home today and on some new medicines but she will be back at the doctor on Friday for more tests. We would be extremely thankful for all your prayers. I know it would mean a lot to both her and my dad also. Thank you so much!

Valentines Day

2010-02-15T00:38:00.000-05:00

The day is almost done but I still have a couple of minutes so... "Happy Valentines Day everyone!".
I was blessed to spend this day and every day actually with the people I love most.
We started a tradition in our house years ago when we started homeschooling. We knew that the kids were not going to get the experience of collection valentines in homemade mailboxes from their classmates at school and so we decided to make our own valentine boxes and fill them with cards and treats for each other every year. We have come to treasure making these boxes together and each year we love admiring each others creativity. It is fun to see the individuality of each person in their boxes. These are our boxes from this year.

This is Christian's box. We sponged hearts on it and put a picture of him getting a kiss from his dad. It is simple but sweet which is a lot like Christian!

This is Tyler's box. It is busy (much like him) with lots of pictures of musicians and football people that he likes. He chose a picture of Miley Cyrus instead of a family picture to put in the photo part of his box but he also includes Veggie Tales. This age is interesting as he wants to grow up and stay a kid at the same time. :)

This is Tim's box. It is shiny and has stickers about family. It has a picture of all of us together.

This is my box. My creativity seemed to be off this year but it still looks pretty cheerful.

All our valentines for each other this year were homemade. Tyler and Tim made theirs on the computer. I helped Christian make these ipod valentines for his.

I got the instructions from Family Fun. Because it was also Chinese New Year today I decided to make felt fortune cookie valentines on found from Martha Stewart for mine. They had Bible verses and valentine wishes in them.

I didn't get pictures of the rest of the valentines but they all turned out wonderful and were much loved.

We enjoyed a simple day here. We watched the Princess Bride earlier today, finished up a game of Monopoly, had Bojangles for dinner, and then watched Charlie Brown's Valentine. Tim got me the Kindle for Valentines Day. I actually got it on Friday. I spent some time on there exploring all the free classics that are available and downloading a couple. I am not a huge electronics person but I am totally in love with the Kindle. Thank you Tim!!!!

My Kindle :)

Well now it is after midnight because I am a slow writer but Happy Valentines Day again anyhow!

Snow Day

2010-02-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

I was truly convinced that we were the only people in the United States this year that weren't going to get snow. Every time we have seen snow in the forecast this winter we have gotten excited and then just rain. I think it was around Thursday that they started to forecast that we would get snow this time. I didn't even tell the kids because it has been such a let down every other time. But much to my disbelief on Friday night it actually began to snow here and this morning we awoke to what looked much like a scene out of Narnia.

I do believe that today every child on the block was up at the crack of dawn and outside to play in the snow. I can't blame them however as we are lucky if we get even one snowfall a year here.

Tyler was very excited to see the snow this morning but I was unsure how he would actually feel about it when he got out in it though. First he went out with his dad and Lucy, our dog. He had a snowball fight with dad and then played on the snow covered trampoline with Lucy.

Lucy loved the snow too!

When Tim came in to watch Christian I went out and took a walk through the woods behind our house. It was spectacular.

I took a lot more pictures than these. It was so beautiful. Tyler joined me in the woods after a little while too.

After the woods I tried to help him build a snow fort. It was rather small however because he lost interest in the actual building part quickly.

The sun was also starting to heat up by this time and the snow was getting rather slushy so we went in. It was lots of fun while it lasted though! Hope everyone else who received unexpected snow this weekend was also able to get out and enjoy it.

Chinese New Years at our house

2010-02-13T00:49:00.003-05:00

We decided to celebrate Chinese New Year a couple of days early this year because it falls on the same day as Valentines Day. We wanted to devote a special day to each.

Last night I pulled out our Chinese lanterns and hung them from the ceiling.

We enjoyed some great stories about China today.

After reading The Great Race we arranged the animals in the story in order.

Tyler practiced writing some Chinese words.

We practiced using chopsticks by transferring noodles from one plate to another.

We timed ourselves to see how we did.

Tyler did some studying about Chinese life in Material World and Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and filled out a VENN diagram comparing and contrasting life in China and the USA.

This a really fun Chinese lantern craft we made. I found it here.

We also cut up some pretend Chinese money and put in tiger envelopes.

This activity went well with the story Sam and The Lucky Money.

Tonight we enjoyed a delicious meal of Chinese takeout. Christian wasn't into the Chinese food however so I made him something different. He liked it last time but wasn't having it tonight.

Finally this evening we had good family time together watching Kung Fu Panda.

We had a great day enjoying Chinese New Years. If you would like to find out what other families are doing to celebrate Jimmie's Collage is hosting a contest and sharing ideas. Just click on the button below.

Winter Jam 2010

2010-02-07T23:46:00.001-05:00

My husband took Tyler to Winter Jam 2010 this weekend in Greensboro. They both love a lot of the same Christian music so it has become a great father son activity for them to attend a few concerts together this last year. Tim enjoys the special time he gets to spend with Tyler and Tyler thinks his dad is super cool for liking his music.
Greensboro is a good distance from where we live so they stayed the night at a hotel and drove back today. They both said that the concert was outstanding. They enjoyed all the bands there. They got to see Newsboys and Third Day which are a couple of their favorites but there were also several other bands that they enjoyed too. Tim was also quite impressed with the message delivered by Tony Nolan there. He would like to see if he can also find his messages on DVD. I have not heard him speak yet but because of Tim's enthusiasm I am anxious to hear him too.
They were able to take some pictures at the concert that I thought I would share here for anyone who likes Christian music. They were fortunate to be in the 5th row so a couple of the pictures turned out pretty well.

Tyler waiting for the show to begin

This a newer band named Sidewalk Prophets

The band Revive

Newsong

Mac Powell of Third Day

Newsboys

Michael Tait (lead singer of the Newsboys)

They said the concert was so full that the Winter Jam people decided to record it for the DVD that they will release of Winter Jam 2010. I can't wait to see if I can see my guys in there when it comes out. The ticket price for Winter Jam is only $10 which makes it accessible to more people. Tim said that the performers and Tony Nolan also had a meeting with the youth pastors there so they could talk about reaching the youth. I was impressed too when they told me that after the concert all the bands and Tony had set up ministry tables so they could meet with the fans and talk with them about Jesus. I am thankful this is the music my son is into because with all the negative influences in our world these guys do an awesome job of spreading the love of God. They make great role models because they are modeling themselves after Christ who should be the true role model for us all.

Finally Finished- Postcard Writing Prompts

2010-02-05T22:46:00.002-05:00

I have been working so hard at night trying to get our postcard writing prompts done. Tyler has been excited to start them. They have been fun to make but very time consuming. I am becoming quite the pro at Microsoft Word however. :) I wanted to give him some research to do about different places and at the same time give him a variety of writing experiences. I made 36 postcards all together. I picked random countries and I tried to pick some from continent.

On the back of each is the prompt for that country. I let him do his writing assignments on the computer or Alphasmart because of his fine motor abilities.

I did purchase a small (little smaller than I wanted) mailbox to put his prompt in each day.

I can then put his little mailbox with prompt inside into his workbox with the flag up of course. Actually he reminded me of the flag. Great attention to detail that boy!

I wanted to share the three sets of postcards I made in case anyone else would like to use them. There are 36 overall so you could pick and choose if you wanted. I printed each page with the front side first and then flipped the paper and printed the backs. I printed all mine on cardstock.

Postcard Writing Prompts
Postcard Writing Prompts2

Postcard Writing Prompts3

Hope you enjoy them! Please comment and let me know if there are any other countries you would like for me to make.

Chinese New Year Ideas

2010-02-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/chinese-new-year/
I found this link this morning as I was searching for Chinese New Year ideas. There are lots of great ideas and I thought I would share.

Six More Weeks of Winter

2010-02-02T08:34:00.000-05:00

Happy Groundhog Day!

2010-02-02T01:28:00.001-05:00

Either if you are hoping for an early spring or looking forward to more winter fun I hope you have a happy Groundhog Day!
I think Groundhog Day is kind of a fun tradition. We like to watch Punxsutawney Phil make his prediction every year. We also like to look at the Groundhog Day website. There are lots of fun things to explore with the kids there. I think this is a good time to discuss the weather and the field of meteorology. I just found out that only 39% of the time the Groundhog Day prediction actually becomes true. Not much worse than the regular weather people I suppose. LOL It is also a fun time to talk about and play with shadows.
There are some great books for children about Goundhog Day. Our favorite is A Garden For Groundhog.

We have had this book since our boys were tiny and still enjoy it every year. It is a funny story of how the farmer tries to outsmart the groundhog and stop him from eating all his vegetables.

Tomorrow I am planning on doing some shadow matching activities with Christian. I found this one this evening and even though it is for the book Brown Bear Brown Bear I think it will work well for him.

For Tyler I created a worksheet because I know he won't want to be left out.

Groundhog Day Timeline of Observations Worksheet

I think we will have a fun Groundhog Day and I hope you do too!

Ivy

2010-01-30T23:52:00.006-05:00

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. We are having some nasty weather here. We were hoping for snow but all we have had so far is rain.

If you have been here before you may have noticed that I have placed a ChipIn! on the side of my blog yesterday.

I have always felt strongly about adoption. I believe that God commands us to take care of orphans. We have been involved with Bethany Christian and their adoption ministries for special needs in the past. I just learned about Reece's Rainbow and their awesome work with adoption ministries for children with Down Syndrome this last year thanks to my blog friend Leslie who has a huge heart for these kids. Children with special needs around the world face a very bleak future if they are not adopted into a loving home. Unfortunately the high cost of adoption can make it hard for some families that would love to bring a child into their family.

I have been reading the Reece's Rainbow website and staring at the precious faces of all the children there that so desperately need homes. They are all so sweet but one child in particular has really captured my heart.

Meet Ivy

Is that not the most angelic face? She really needs a family that can love her. She is 4 years old. She lives in Eastern Europe and she is nearing an age where if she is not adopted soon she will face a very sad life in an institution. My hope and prayer this year is that if I can help to increase her adoption fund some family will be able to bring her home and give her the love she needs and deserves.

I have placed the ChipIn! on the side of my blog in hopes that in the next month I can raise $600 to help her.

Now to help promote my fund raising effort I have decided to host a drawing for a couple of prizes here. I will be placing your name once in the drawing for each of the following things:

1. Each $5 donated. If you are donating under $10 I would ask that instead of using the ChipIn! you would send in your donations to:

Reece's Rainbow

PO Box 4024

Gaithersburg, MD 20885

You will need to designate on your check that it is for Ivy(31). Paypal takes out their fees for each donation so anything under $10 doesn't end up as much. If you do send a check please come back here and leave a comment so that I can enter your name. I would appreciate your honesty.

2. If you make a donation of $5 or over and you post about this event and link back to here on either your blog, Facebook, or Twitter. I will give you an extra entry. You must make a donation first!

On March 2 I will draw three winners. The first winner will win a $50 gift card from Lakeshore Learning. The second winner will receive a $30 gift certificate from Music for Little People. The third winner will receive a beautiful felt color and size sorting toy from the Etsy store Play to Learn. I have to post a couple of pictures because it is just a beautiful toy.

I will need to have a way to contact you if you win. If I can't contact a winner within a week I will choose a new winner.

I really invite you to think about giving to help little Ivy. I just know there is a family out there for her if we can do something to lessen the adoption expenses. Thank you for taking the time to read this and consider if you can help.

Quiet time

2010-01-29T13:08:00.001-05:00

I just love this time of day. It is about a half hour before lunch. Christian is watching Signing Time and Tyler is in his room listening to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe on CD from Focus on the Family (with headphones on). I am listening to Vivaldi and enjoying the fragrance from my cinnamon and sugar candle.
We added a half hour of quiet time before lunch a couple of years ago at the suggestion of another mother with special needs children. It has worked out wonderful!!
Tyler was taking several hours to eat lunch because he was so stressed out from going directly from schoolwork to lunch. He needs a lot of buffer or transition times during the day. Christian would often not be able to eat lunch at the same time as Tyler because when Tyler is stressed he is generally loud causing Christian to flee. I was fighting to get lunch made while still working at school with the boys. It wasn't good.
Now we stop wherever we are a half hour before lunch. Christian usually watches a video although sometimes he just prefers to listen to the music on his little MP3 player. Tyler listens to audio books in his room with a portable CD player and headphones. It just works!
I did want to share with you a list Tyler has compiled of his favorite audio books. I am proud of the great choices he makes.

1. Jonathan Park He has all these CD's and has listened to each many times over. They have taught him a lot about creation science as well.
2.Jim Weiss story CD's We don't have all these. There are quite a few! Even I love to listen to Jim tell a story. Tyler especially loves Tales From Cultures Near and Far . It has some funny stories that he can remember almost word for word.
3. Focus on the Family Radio Theater He loves Squanto at Thanksgiving and Traveling Home For Christmas at Christmas time. We bought the Christmas one for my mom this year and she also enjoyed it on the way home from our house. Tyler is listening to Chronicles of Narnia now and it is his new favorite. He got it for Christmas.
4. The Kingdom Series by Chuck Black He doesn't have all of these yet. A lot like the Chronicles of Narnia they are sort of parable stories relating a lot of biblical lessons. They also go rather nicely with a medieval study.

I hope you get to enjoy some quiet time today too. I think everybody needs at least a little.

Postcard Writing Prompts

2010-01-27T23:28:00.002-05:00

Tyler has been wanting some new writing prompts in his workboxes. I will be honest after doing fall pumpkin writing prompts and Christmas ornament writing prompts I felt we should do something not so seasonal. I tossed around a couple of ideas but then I settled on prompts that focus on different countries. I thought it would be fun to make them look like postcards and then put one each day in a small mailbox in his workbox.
Oriental Trading Company has some small metal mailboxes for only a few dollars and you can even decorate them. I like this mailbox so it is the one I am ordering for us to use. Here is a picture.

I have published the postcard prompts I have made so far on Scribd. There are 12 countries so far but I will be making more in the next few days also.

Postcard Writing Prompts

These print best if you print them on cardstock and print the fronts first and then flip the paper and print the backs. I hope you enjoy them and please feel free to comment and let me know any ideas you might have for other countries.

Room to Learn

2010-01-27T00:42:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! We are still here. :) I have had an awful cold for almost two weeks now and have been trying desperately to get over it. I am starting to feel a little better so I thought I would actually post something here. Nobody fainted I hope!
We had an off week last week between Tim being off two days and me being sick we didn't accomplish a whole lot of school. I feel really cheated that there are no substitute teachers here at our little homeschool. We are back to work ~~kicking and screaming~~ with a bit of transitioning this week.
We did accomplish one very exciting thing last week even though I was sick. We decided to transform our walk-in closet into a schoolroom. Well, at least sort of a schoolroom. Before I go any farther here and someone thinks I am making my kids sit in a closet all day let me explain that we aren't in there all day and it is a nice size closet with a window that allows for lots of sunshine. The boys are thrilled by the space as well.
I will be honest I have long since coveted a homeschool room. I look at all the pictures on the blogs and weep. Military housing is not very spacious but we are blessed by what we have and so we have always done our learning at the table or on the couch. In our last house we were able to divide the living room up so that we could have a separate space but this house isn't set up the same way so it has been more difficult.
Tyler really needs somewhere to do his independent work that he isn't distracted by what I am doing with Christian. Christian needs a small space that is quiet where he can work with me. He simply can't focus in a large space and just runs back and forth.
Fortunately when they remodeled this house they put in a nice walk-in closet off of our bedroom. Thankfully they also left the original closet in there as well. When we moved in I took the smaller closet over for all of our homeschool supplies. This last week we decided to do a switch and the small closet is now Tim's and I pushed my clothes to one side of the walk-in closet and made the rest into a homeschool area. It really isn't fancy and there is a lot crammed in there but it is working nicely so far. Tyler thinks it is his office. I have to remind him that we are all sharing the space. I did have to leave his workboxes out in the dining room because there isn't enough room in the closet but that is okay because he still does all his work with mom stuff out here. Christian is just thrilled with the space and is even sitting at the table in there without any prompting from me.

This our desk area and whiteboard.

It's amazing just how much we have fit in there!

And seeing Christian content to sit and look at books makes for a very happy mom!

Little Rascals

2010-01-12T17:04:00.000-05:00

We have waited patiently today. We heard the birds outside mid-morning but none have come to eat from our pine cones yet. By chance this afternoon I peered out the front window and I saw someone was finally enjoying our little bird seed banquet.

What a rascal!

Yes, I mean you!

Busy day

2010-01-11T23:10:00.001-05:00

We had a really busy day here! I feel good about the fact that we accomplished a lot but boy am I tired.
We are continuing to learn about winter here. Today we read about birds during winter which was kind of interesting in a way because the book we were reading from pertains mostly to Canada and the Northern United States and well, yeah, I forgot to check that when I was getting our lesson ready so it was a little off for us here in the south. It still worked out okay though. :) After our reading we made pine cone bird feeders because unlike the book we read we have lots of birds here.

We gathered a basketful of pine cones from our yard. We tied each one with a string so that we could hang them from the trees.

Next, we poured a bag of birdseed into a pan and spread peanut butter over each of our pine cones.

Then we rolled the pine cones in the pan of birdseed until they were covered.

We made a large bunch of them and put them all back in the basket to take outside and ...

hang on the trees!

We can't wait to see if we get some bird visitors tomorrow (probably some squirrels too).

Christian had some winter fun today too. I was so thrilled to actually get some pictures too. Usually I am the one that is helping him with things during the day and so I can't take pictures at the same time. Tonight he decided to do his winter sensory box with his dad and so I was able to get some pictures. Yippee! Tyler made him this box for Christmas and he really enjoys it.

He was happy to hang with his dad for awhile and find all the hidden things esp. the snowflake beads.

Tonight Tim and I decorated cookies I had baked earlier today. It was a good time. We started off just icing and sprinkling them and then we got more creative. Parents can have fun too!

Tim is definitely better at cookie decorating than I am. Mine are mostly the ones to the right.

My favorites are the one he made look like the earth and the one that looks like a game spinner.

It was a silly good time.

We did a lot more than this today but like I said before I am tired so I am off to fill the workboxes and read and hopefully get some sleep.

Goodnight!

New Printables

2010-01-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

Tyler has started reading Hans Brinker this last week and is studying The Netherlands along with the book. I have created a couple of worksheets for him so far and I thought I would post them here just in case anybody might be interested. They are all research based. I like him to search out the information. We mostly use the encyclopedia and assorted other good books to locate the answers.
The first one is about windmills. He did this one on Friday and really enjoyed it. We are also going to make a windmill this week. A good link for that is http://www.creative-science.org.uk/paperwindmills.html.

Windmills Worksheet

The next worksheet is about the canals of Amsterdam. We did this one with the second chapter of Hans Brinker because it talks about the children skating on the canals. A couple of good links to go with this worksheet are:

http://www.aviewoncities.com/amsterdam/canals.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canals_of_Amsterdam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal

Canals of Amsterdam Worksheet

The last worksheet is about ice skating which is popular in the Netherlands but I made it mostly to go with Hans Brinker.

Ice Skating Worksheet

That's all I have so far but then again we are only on the third chapter so I am sure there will be more in the future. We are really loving Hans Brinker and the Netherlands so far.

Back to work and back to school

2010-01-09T02:21:00.000-05:00

Tim had to go back to work this week after being on vacation for the last couple of weeks and so we jumped back into school as well.
Christian was not too happy that his dad had to go back to work. He made this quite clear to me all week! He knows who his buddy is. He is feeling a little better this week though which I am thankful for. He had been under the weather since Christmas. Because he had been feeling not so well he had also been in the house for the last couple of weeks so on Tuesday I decided to take him outside for awhile. Christian has a hard time going out when he has been inside for a long period. He gave me quite the fight over putting on his shoes and jacket but once I finally got him out and on the trampoline he did pretty well. We were also able to get to the park this week. It is nice to get some fresh air again.

Here he is at the park listening to the MP3 player he got for Christmas. He loves being able to carry around his own music. It has been holding up rather well too and believe me he likes to put things to the durability test.

I have been trying to interest him in a board game we have had for a long time. It is called The Snowman Game. One of my goals for him this year is that he would sit down with us and play a simple game with assistance. This one is really simple and doesn't require any reading. It has little wooden snowmen that you build and so I am first trying just to teach him to put the snowmen together and then we will work it into the context of the game.

We have been spending some time studying winter this week. I purchased Amanda Bennett's Winter Wonders unit study and we have been using that a bit plus some other things.

We were really hoping for some snow to go along with our study but it never came. We did make some fun winter snacks though.

We made these Sweet Tortilla Snowflakes from Family Fun magazine. They were fun and fast to make and tasted yummy.

And it just wouldn't be winter without Smores!

Tyler had fun making Smores and actually enjoyed eating them too! He has sensory issues about messy foods but he is definitely trying more and becoming more tolerant.

Tyler started reading Hans Brinker this week. Along with the book he is studying the Netherlands.

This is our prayer center for this week. Tyler was a bit taken back after we read in Operation World that the Netherlands has such a high average income and literacy rate and yet there are so many prayer points. This was a bit of an unplanned lesson in the fact that money and education don't always bring happiness. He has been enjoying learning about the canals in Amsterdam and windmills and energy from wind power. He has also been getting so much better at his mapping skills. I can now give him a map and a list of places or things I want him to label, shade, or outline and he does it independently. This has been a hard skill for him to grasp but with some fading of assistance he is now doing great.

I decided to do something new this week. I purchased Tyler a sketchbook to journal his learning. I am trying to help him to keep a record of what he learns in a way that he will remember it. He has gotten better at summarizing in his own words what he has learned and I want him to not only be able to do that but to draw or take photos to go along with what he has written. He owns the knowledge when he does this and I think it makes him much more confident in his learning.

Today we talked about Wilson Bentley and snowflakes and then I had him record what he learned. The child who could only answer true/false and multiple choice questions a couple of years ago has come so far.

Other than school we have had a pretty relaxing week around here. We have played some boardgames and watched the BCS championship game. Tomorrow I am going to the store to finally buy some fabric and try out my new sewing machine. I hope it goes well as I am scared of sewing and would like to keep my confidence level up.

I had set a couple of personal goals for myself this year and so far I feel like I am doing well at them. I really want to spend more time outside. It is good for the kids and for myself. We have been outside for at least a little time almost every day this week so I am pleased about that. The other goal was to spend less time on the computer. I have only been on this week first thing in the morning and at night after the kids are in bed. I have been turning it off in between because it is just a huge temptation for me. I found this video tonight as I am sitting here and it really hit home.

I really love reading emails and blogs but before I know it I have been on way too long. I am hoping to do better about keeping it limited.

I am going to bed now so I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Absentee Blogger

2010-01-08T01:13:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't been here much lately. I feel guilty about that but we started back at school this week and Tim went back to work so I am just trying hard to get the new year off on the right foot with school and I am determined to have us spend more time outside. We have been very busy and there is a lot I want to share but for now I am just going to share some pictures from today and I promise to be back to tomorrow to share all we are doing in school right now.

We had a cold but beautiful day here today. This was our flag this morning. I just thought it was really pretty with the sun shining behind it.

We have so many squirrels running around lately. I thought this little guy was rather cute. The cold weather doesn't seem to bother them at all!

This is Christian at the park today. I like how contemplative he looks. He just quietly observes the world.

Tyler is always happy to be outside. He still loves to swing and probably could swing for hours.

We ended the day here with a beautiful sunset. Tonight we are supposed to get a little snow.

We don't usually get any so we are rather excited!

Hope y'all have had a great week so far! I will be back tomorrow.

Happy New Years!

2010-01-03T01:14:00.002-05:00

Happy 2010! I didn't take any pictures of New Years here. Sorry! :( What kind of blogger have I become!?
We did have a fun New Years Eve here. This is the first year that our whole family has stayed up until the new year so that was exciting. We made homemade pizzas and played Blokus together. I think it is now our favorite family game. After that we watched a Star Wars movie until around 11:30 pm. I should really say that everyone except me watched Star Wars because I only watched a small part of it. I know it is an immensely popular movie but it seems to me that if they got rid of about half of the fighting scenes they could tell the story in about 1/4 of the time. But that's just me and the male part of this household really enjoyed it. After that we caught the 15 minutes before midnight of the Dick Clark New Years. I didn't realize he was still on so I was really thrilled to see him as I always watched him on New Years as a child. When the ball dropped at midnight we decided to ring in the new year with a good tickle. It was lots of fun!
We started the New Year yesterday morning with cinnamon rolls and the Tournament of Roses parade. New Years Day has become all about football here and we were really excited this year because our favorite team (the Buckeyes) were playing in the Rose Bowl. Both of the boys and I had our Rose Bowl shirts on (I really should have gotten a picture!) and Lucy had on her Ohio State collar. The whole family except Tim, who refuses to jump on the Buckeye bandwagon, was ready to cheer on our team. Since the Rose Bowl doesn't come on until the evening here we watched the Capital One Bowl first while I made turkey and we worked on taking down the Christmas decorations. We didn't get all the decorations down until today but we did make good progress at least. I miss the homey feel of Christmas but it is nice to have the house back to normal too. Anyways, last night we watched the Buckeyes win! It was a good game and we had a blast cheering them on. Then last night after we got the kids in bed Tim and I spent some time looking at couches on the internet. We need a new couch but I have been dreading looking at them because we don't always see eye to eye on furniture. Surprisingly we actually found one we liked. It is going to have to wait a couple of months but at least we know what we want.

We can't afford a whole new living room set so I am hoping this will fit in. I will show you our living room so you can tell me what you think.

The ottoman in the middle is no longer there nor is the bench behind the couch. I can change the pillows on the chair too. I am a little sick of so much blue so I kind of like the brown. What do you think?

Well, I'm not much for New Years resolutions but I am hoping to get more organized this year, spend more time outside, and (hopefully) learn how to use my new sewing machine (without losing my mind).

I hope everyone has a blessed 2010!

Christmas 2009

2009-12-30T01:17:00.001-05:00

I have to apologize because I have been meaning to post about our Christmas for days now. It has definitely been a different holiday this year as we have been taking turns being sick. It started a couple of weeks before Christmas with both Tyler and I both having sore throats. Then my arthritis decided to act up a whole bunch which it hasn't done in a long time. Thankfully it is much better now but it was quite painful while it was going on. Also a couple of days before Christmas Tim came down with an awful upper respiratory virus which got passed on to Christian and a little bit to Tyler. Then on top of all that as my parents traveled to our house form Wisconsin my mother came down with the flu. We are really grateful that wasn't passed on to anyone one else but she did have to spend much of her trip in bed. :( Somehow my father and I made it through unscathed. I am thanking God for that as we needed a couple of healthy people to take care of the sick ones.
I know that sounds rather bleak but it really wasn't as bad as it sounds. We did miss out on some of the things we would have liked to have done but we were able to enjoy a bunch of our regular traditions too. We really loved doing a Jesse Tree this year for the first time. I know both Tyler and I were really sad it had to end.

Here is Tyler putting the last ornament on the Jesse tree.

This is something I think we will be doing every Christmas now. It was a wonderful thing to spend part of each day reading scripture and focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

One thing I had wanted to do this year is to make more homemade gifts with the boys. Because of all the illness this didn't happen as much as I would have liked. Tyler did want to make a special gift for Christian however and so that was a big priority. I helped him to make a Christmas sensory box and Christian is finding it very interesting.

We took a plastic ornament box and hid some jingle bells, snowflake beads, bendable snowmen, and other small objects and hid them in cotton which is our snow.

We also made a little I Spy type book to go with it that shows all the hidden objects he can find.

He had so much fun making this for his brother. It makes my little mommy heart happy to see him do something special for Christian.

Tyler also made a dvd for his grandparents of him singing songs which is becoming his annual tradition too.

That is about all we accomplished for homemade gifts. We will try to start a little earlier next year and hopefully make a lot more.

We were blessed to all feel well enough to open all our gifts together on Christmas Eve. It was a good time and we were all thankful to receive such generous gifts. Christian got a big fuzzy blanket from my parents and an MP3 player and digital picture viewer from us and many more gifts he is really enjoying. He is hard to find gifts for so I am extremely happy to see that he seems to be enjoying all he received. Tyler got some cds and a new Alphasmart from my parents and some games and Star Wars action figures from us and many more gifts. He is loving them all but did tell me today that Blokus is his favorite. He played it twice today alone. Tim got a Ipod docking station with a digital picture frame from me for his desk at work, some games form my parents, and a calender and nerf gun from the boys.

I got a sewing machine (my very first) from Tim. I have been wanting to overcome my fear of sewing for awhile. I have been reading through the manual before I go out and purchase any fabric and even though I am having some bad home economics class flashbacks I am pretty excited about it all. Tyler got me Greg Mortenson's new book Stones Into Schools. He wants to read it with me so I was really moved by that. I am touched that he shares my passion for Gregs work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Christian got me a new mouse for my computer. My much loved mouse of the last 4 years died and so this was a much appreciated gift. My parents gave me a lovely teapot and a sweater. I loved all these gifts and the others I received.

I am going to share just a couple of pictures of Christmas Eve. I took a lot of pictures but I don't want to make this too long so I will just pick a few.

Tyler waiting to see what Grandpa is getting.

Christian is loving his new MP3 player!

Tyler was very excited to get Snow Buddies!

Here I am opening up my sewing machine. :)

Grandma with her presents from Christian. He gets her a teddy bear and a candle every year.

Tim opening his gift from me. Electronic gifts for him always bring big smiles! ;)

Even Lucy got gifts. Here she is checking out the big stocking of treats Tyler got for her.

That is all the pictures I am going to post for now.

It was a nice Christmas overall. Everybody is finally starting to feel a little better now and so we are just enjoying some nice family time together while Tim has off.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas!

Woodbine House Holiday Sale

2009-12-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

Woodbine House is having their annual holiday sale and you can save 20% on over 80 books and DVDs. They are the best resource I know of for books about disabilities.

Just thought I would share!

Plead the 5th

2009-12-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

We have been having kind of a rough week here. A lot of anxiety about Christmas and being out of routine going on. I do, however, have one funny story to relate from today.

Last week Tyler, Tim, and I were having a discussion about something silly that I can't quite recall. Anyhow I told Tyler he should plead the 5th. He was unfamiliar with the term and so we explained it to him to which he dug out the amendments to the constitution and read them through. He has been pretty interested in them all week. We have studied the constitution before but this has for some reason sparked more of an interest.

Well today he was discussing with Lucy, our dog, how naughty she is and how if there was a Santa for dogs she would surely get coal. He did feel, however, that she shouldn't be found guilty of all the things he feels she has done without knowing her rights. So he dragged out the amendments again and proceeded to inform her that not only did she have the right to a speedy trial, a lawyer, and a jury but that she had the right not to incriminate herself. It was so cute!

Kind of makes up for the rest of the week which I will gladly plead the 5th about!

A Night in Bethlehem

2009-12-11T23:09:00.001-05:00

Tonight Tim and Tyler spent some time in Bethlehem. They left after dinner and even made it home for bedtime. Pretty impressive, huh?
Okay, they didn't really go to Bethlehem. A local church has a rather large dramatization of Bethlehem and the nativity. We have never been there before but I think it greatly exceeded Tyler's expectations.

Here is Tyler at the gate to Bethlehem.

They had a ticket or list of places to visit as they went along and when they visited each place they punched a hole in their ticket.

As you can see there were lots of things to do. Tyler was really excited about registering for the census and paying his taxes.

I guess he didn't want to be in trouble with this guy!

They had a good time checking out all the little shops and such.

This one is the weaving shop.

Here is the blacksmith at work.

The man in the brown robe to the right was the chief priest.

Here is the innkeeper which I understand was quite clear about the fact that he had no room!

And as the wise men did so many years ago they followed the star which led them to...

Tyler was quite taken with "the baby Jesus". And a little with...

the angel. I won't say anymore on that though lest I embarrass him.

I am thankful to this church for doing such a great job and allowing everyone a chance to experience what it might have been like in Bethlehem during the birth of our Savior.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

2009-12-11T00:31:00.002-05:00

I am a northern girl transplanted in the south for the last 7 years. The rest of the family is quite adjusted to it all but not me. Don't get me wrong it is beautiful here and the people are wonderful, warm, and genuine. I just miss the change of seasons and the snow in winter esp. at Christmas. See this is the view out my back door today.

It is so brown and dreary and doesn't look much like Christmas at all.

And then there is this...

This is my parents house, the one I grew up in, and this is what Christmas should look like.

This is the view from their house. (big sigh!)

So today because we have no real snow (big sigh again) we made snow flakes. There are the regular kind

and then there are some 3 dimensional ones

and then there is the mother of all snowflakes.

It is about 2 feet across. I never meant for it to be that large but I had never made the 3 dimensional snow flakes before and so I thought each small part was supposed to be a full sheet of paper. OOPS! It is kind of neat though and Tyler is super impressed with it.

If you have never made the 3 dimensional ones before here are the instructions. It is actually super easy but it is a little time consuming.

As I was sitting and looking at the snowflakes this evening it struck me that these would also look great in red as poinsettia. Tomorrow we are reading the Legend of the Poinsettia and so I thought this might make a fun craft to go along with that. I quick made one to see how it would look and I am very pleased.

I glued on some paper leaves and some green pom poms in the center and I really think it looks good. This will be fun to make more tomorrow.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas and if you live somewhere where there is snow could you enjoy it for me too! Thanks!

Enjoying Christmastime

2009-12-08T23:02:00.002-05:00

Our day got off to a bit of a rough start as Tyler was grumpy and Christian got up way too early and Lucy decided she is going to try and dig her way to China from the backyard. I quickly straightened out though and ended up being a pretty good day overall.
We started this morning with our Jesse tree. We read the verses and hung up the ornament. This our first year doing the Jesse tree and we are really enjoying it. We are using the ornaments and verses from Tired, need sleep.
Here is a picture of our Jesse tree so far.

We are studying the names of Jesus instead of our regular Bible book right now. I had bookmarked a beautiful garland craft with the names of Jesus that I wanted to do this Christmas to go with our study. I decided to change it to ornaments however because I don't have enough ribbon for garland. I hung them by our dining room window which is where we do school as a reminder of some of the names we are studying.

I am very pleased with how they turned out. It was also another opportunity to use my new circle cutter. :) Yes, I really am that geeky.

This afternoon I made peppermint playdough for Christian which turned out nicely but he wasn't interested in it today ( he got up WAY too early). We will try it tomorrow and I think because I have enough we will use some to make candy cane ornaments too.

This evening I made hot chocolate in my cocomotion. I got it last year for Christmas from my hubby and I LOVE it. It is so easy and makes awesome cocoa.

If you love hot chocolate you might want to check it out. While I was having my hot chocolate we played To Bethlehem. We got the game last year but I never has a chance to play it with the rest of the family because Christian was sick and I was busy taking care of him. It is sooo much fun. It has all kinds of cards with great discussions on different things about Christmas and you have to do crazy things like put a towel on your head or wear socks on your hands. You also get to sing Christmas songs and it is just a fun family time.

Tyler won the game but we all had a great time playing.

Tomorrow I think we need to start some Christmas baking because everybody keeps asking about it. Usually I have baked a ton by now but I just haven't been able to find a good block of time yet. I think I will get everything ready tonight and maybe I can start tomorrow.

I need to go now and prepare for tomorrow.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays as much as we are here!

Peppermint Play Dough

2009-12-08T07:40:00.007-05:00

Today, I am going to make peppermint play dough for Christian. I put red food coloring in half of the dough so we can make candy cane shapes with it. It smells really good too!

Peppermint Play Dough

Ingrediants:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup salt
1 tsp. vinegar
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
food coloring

directions:

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Slowly add water and vinegar and stir until stiff. Knead until desired consistency. Divide dough in half. Form a bowl shape with each half of the dough. In the first half drop in the peppermint extract and knead until dough is smooth. In the second half drop peppermint extract and red food coloring and need until color is spread throughout dough. You can add more food coloring until you get the red color you want. Store in a freezer bag or airtight container in the refrigerator. If should last at least a month if stored after each use. Bring the dough out of the refrigerator about 5 minutes before you wish to use it so that it is more pliable. You can also leave out a shape you have created to harden for at least 24 hours if you wish to keep it. Spraying it with varnish to preserve it after it is completely hardened is also a good idea.

* This recipe is not edible and young children should be supervised.

Christmas Cookie Facts and Opinions Sorting Activity

2009-12-07T14:46:00.001-05:00

I made this activity to work on sorting statements of fact and opinion. Since it is Christmas I thought it would be fun to use cookies. I hope you enjoy it!

Cookie Facts and Opinions

Tyler's Christmas Decorations

2009-12-07T13:06:00.001-05:00

We are pretty Christmassy here! I had shared some pictures of our living room decorations in an earlier post but today Tyler would like me to show you the decorations in his room.

Tyler has his own tree and it is decorated in a diverse collection of ornaments. He has homemade ornaments, Elvis ornaments, lots of football ornaments (no big surprise there), and a bunch of ornaments that we have handed down to him over the years.

Quite the mix isn't it?

Tyler has always loved Christmas villages so for several years now we have been buying him one new building and one figure each year. His is the North Pole village from Department 56. He loves it and it has been a lot of fun collecting these for him.

This is his newest addition. He picked it out last week. He will be getting the matching figure on Christmas.

I think it is a lot of fun for him to have some decorations that he gets to set out in his room!

Pearl Harbor Remberance Day Lesson Resources

2009-12-06T23:20:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. We try to make sure we observe all the military holidays in our country. They are important to us and so here I sit planning out what we will study about Pearl Harbor for the next couple of days. I thought I would share some of what I have found.

Resources:
http://www.elcivics.com/esl-crossword-puzzles/pearl-harbor-crossword.pdf
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/pearlharbor/
http://teacher.scholastic.com/pearl/tguide.htm
http://homeschooling.suite101.com/article.cfm/pearl_harbor_day_lesson_plans
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/btt/pearl_harbor/pdf/Pearl_Harbor_Word_Scramble.pdf
http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1858.html

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAnOtWm5OrM
http://www.pearlharbor.org/period-videos.asp

A good child's book on Pearl Harbor
Air Raid- Pearl Harbor The Story of December 7, 1941

Flotilla

2009-12-06T22:27:00.000-05:00

We had a flotilla here today and we were eager to attend as we had been planning on going to one a week or two ago and it was changed because of high winds. It was a very chilly day here and actually seemed wintry which was nice. We arrived over at the marina at around 4pm as the sign we had seen said that is when it began. We did not realize that they had choirs and clowns and other festivities planned before the flotilla. The flotilla didn't actually begin to around 6pm. There were a lot of people there which can be very difficult for Christian so we spent some time playing outside at the playground by the marina. Christian really enjoys going up and down the steps of the playground equipment. It is too bad we live in a single floor house.

After about an hour and a half however Christian was ready to go home. Tim and Tyler took us home quickly and then returned to the marina to enjoy the flotilla.

Here is Tyler back at the marina. I love him in his cap!

They enjoyed themselves and Tim tried to take some pictures but he didn't have a tripod with so I will just post the best ones he got.

I really love the way the lights reflect in the water.

This is the boat that brought Santa.

Here is the jolly man arriving! It was nice for him to stop here at our base.

I know all the kids were excited. ;)

It was a fun day and I am glad Tyler got to experience a small flotilla at least. Hopefully next year we will make it to the big one!

Help Tonya have a Forever Home

2009-12-06T12:02:00.003-05:00

There are so too many children that will not celebrate this Christmas with a family. Older and special needs children have an even harder time finding a forever home. We have been blessed to see some of our friends adopt. Although right now I don't feel like God is calling us personally to adopt I do know he has called all of us to look after orphans.

My friend Leslie would like to help one little girl with Downs. Her name is Tonya. Please stop over at her blog and read her post about Tonya and consider chipping in to help this beautiful little girl have a forever family.

Christmas Neighbor Gift

2009-12-03T01:03:00.000-05:00

We have been working on some handmade gifts for friends and family this week. We made this cute gift for our neighbors out of things that we had already here at home. It can be filled with cookies and candy and left hanging on their front door knob.

We made it with a leftover pie tin from Thanksgiving (all washed out of course) and some scrapbook paper and stickets I had leftover from making Christian's Advent calender.

We cut out a circle of scrapbook paper that fit the inside of the tin and then glued it on. Next we cut a half circle of cardstock and glued that to the edges of the pie tin to form a pocket. Tyler decorated it with more scrapbook paper and some stickers. I then punched two holes at the top of the tin and ran a ribbon through and tied a bow. The last thing we did was cut a small circle of scrapbook paper to make the gift tag. I punched another hole in the top of tin and attached the tag with a ribbon.

Now we just need to fill them with goodies and hang them on the doorknobs of our neighbors!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2009-12-03T00:37:00.000-05:00

Wow! I have been really neglectful of this blog lately. Sorry about that! We have just been very engrossed with enjoying family time.
We had a very nice Thanksgiving here. We watched the Macy's Parade together. I made the traditional dinner and Tim made pumpkin pie. I love the fact that he makes the pie each year. He doesn't cook or bake except a few things like eggs and steaks and such on the grill. However, about 7 years ago I had a very bad bout of arthritis right before Thanksgiving. I was laid up with pain killers and we had already invited some dear friends over to dinner so Tim had to do most of the cooking. He decided to try making pumpkin pie and it turned out so good he has been doing it every since. It is really very sweet!
The day before Thanksgiving Tim and Tyler went to bring all our Christmas stuff out of storage. We have had a storage unit for about 6 years now as we just haven't had enough room to store our Christmas decor and some other odds and ends. Now we have more storage room at home so we were able to clear out the unit which will save us a little money each month. It was fun to see some of the things I haven't seen in awhile especially some of the things I had forgotten that I had saved. I found one box full of projects and papers I had saved from our first couple of years of homeschooling. It was fun to see our Flat Stanley and an art project I had done with Christian that shows a tree during the different seasons. Some wonderful memories!
Since Thanksgiving we have been busy decorating the house, enjoying advent activities, watching Christmas movies, and playing games together. I am also trying to help the kids make some homemade gifts for others. The house is so cozy this time of year! I love all the decorations we have collected over the years and how it makes me feel when I remember the story behind each one. I thought I would share some pictures with you of our house decorated for Christmas. I know I love to see other peoples decorations so I thought you might enjoy it as well.

Not a great picture but these are beautiful in person. Tim brought them back from Kyrgyzstan last year for Christian and they are each hand painted.

Our tree in the dark

The tree again but with more light

My favorite ornament

Tim's favorite ornament is Santa in a helicopter hoisting up a sack of toys.

As always Christian is in love with all the Christmas decorations. It makes me wish we could keep them up all year round. I also wish we could decorate his room but he isn't gentle enough. I did get him a fun new Christmas quilt from Cracker Barrel about a week ago and it has lots of textures so he is enjoying that in his room at least.

Tyler has his own tree and decorations in his room but I don't have any pictures yet. I will try to do that soon.

We started several years back collecting the Department 56 North Pole village for him and we buy him a new building each year. This year it was the cocoa factory. They are fun keepsakes that he can enjoy even when he gets older. He has been enjoying all the Christmas books and specials and playing the Polar Express board game with his dad.

Tim is taking some much needed leave this month and we are really looking forward to even more good family time.

Well, that's about all for now. I have a couple more random pictures before I go though.

Tyler with his "the Buckeyes are going to the RoseBowl" smile.

Tim and a very spoiled Lucy.

Hope you all are enjoying this special time of the year!!!

Just about finished

2009-11-22T22:56:00.000-05:00

I am so excited I am just about finished with my Advent calender for Christian. All I have left to do is attach the ribbon to hang it and put on the velcro that will hold the tins to the calender. I am waiting for the clear velcro dots that I ordered to arrive and they should be here by Tuesday and then I can fill the tins and hang it. I am very happy with how it turned out. I really wish I had time to make more for gifts. Well, anyways, here are the pictures.

Here is the calender without the tins.

Here it is with the tins set on.

This was so much fun to make. Here is the blog post that inspired me to make this if you want all the directions. Mine is a little different than the instructions but it is close. If you have a half a day or so set aside you could create this still before December or give it as a gift. I hope you enjoy it!

My New Favorite Commercial

2009-11-20T19:08:00.003-05:00

supersized post ;)

2009-11-18T16:02:00.001-05:00

I have been sooo busy around here trying to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is my first year of blogging and so I guess I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to keep up with blogging during the holidays. I apologize for not keeping up so well here lately. I know I am also so far behind on reading the blogs I like to follow and on emailing people back. I am going to try and catch up this weekend though!

I have been working hard on making an advent calender for Christian. I am trying to make one similar to one posted here. So far I have the little tins completed. Here is a picture.

It is A LOT of work but they are turning out really cute. I printed out the labels that came with the tins using a template from Wilton and clipart from Word. I cut out Christmas scrapbook paper circles and inserted them under the lids so they show up around the labels. I also cut out strips of paper and glued them around the tins. Here are a couple of closer pictures.

Sorry it's a little blurry!

Here is a picture of all the tins from the side.

This weekend I am hoping to work on the calender part where these all get attached to. It is fun and I wish I had more time because I would love to make a few more of these for gifts. Maybe I will work on some during the year so that I can give them next Christmas.

Besides the calender I also worked on ordering our Christmas cards. This was a process I thought would only take a couple of minutes and ended up taking two hours!!! We had received something in the mail from Compassion that said they were teamed up with Dayspring and that you could order cards with pictures of your Compassion child on the back of the card. The link is here if you are interested. I designed our card and uploaded all the pictures of our family and our Compassion child and went to order the cards and the website locked up. I did this four more times and each time it did the same thing. It didn't save any of it either so each time I had to start completely over. I was so frustrated! After four times I started to think maybe I would try bringing up the website on Internet Explorer instead of Firefox and Yippee it finally worked. Of course by then I had done the whole thing five times. I am just glad I got them ordered though and I can't wait for them to arrive. I am so excited to send one to our little Sulokyhoni in India so that she can see that she was on our Christmas cards too.

Tim has been having some health issues and so he was at the doctor yesterday for bad headaches and a very red eye. He didn't get any answers so I am sad for him about that. His father died of a brain cancer so I always get a little scared when he has a lot of headaches. He has also having a lot of pain in his foot and is at the podiatrist today for a second time this month. He is double jointed and they believe he may have a nerve pinched in one of his joints. It causes him a lot of pain. Last time he was there they gave him a shot of steroids hoping to lesson some of swelling around the joint. It didn't help him much and today he is supposed to be getting some insoles that hopefully will help some more. I think it is eventually going to end up in surgery which he is not to thrilled about. He is not one for being laid up in bed.

He will be attending a men's Bible study this Friday and Saturday at a friend's church. I am excited for him to go because he doesn't get a lot of time with other christian men. I think he will really enjoy it!

Tyler is doing well. He is enjoying getting ready for the holidays. He has spent a lot of time downloading Christmas music to his I-Pod. He is so into music this year. Thankfully it is all christian music. He is doing well at school. He has completed all 12 of his boxes every day this week which he has been struggling to do at times this year. He has been listening to The Legend of Squanto from Focus on the Family this week which we have done for the last couple of years. We have also been enjoying The book of Thanksgiving for several years.

It is a great book with recipes, great poems for copywork, and great ideas for Thanksgiving traditions but Tyler really likes the Turkey Day Trivia. Did you know the heaviest turkey was 75 pounds? Can you imagine having to cook that?

Christian is still a little under the weather with a cold and well to be honest quite cranky. He has his sleep all messed up again too and the combination isn't too pretty. He woke up early yesterday after having gone to sleep late. He was so stuffy and cranky all day and then around 4 pm he just feel asleep on the ottoman.

It is sort of dark because I didn't want to use the flash and wake him up. He was so sweet though. It just all caught up with him!

Sorry to write such a long post! I haven't been able to find much time and today I had some so I thought I would get everyone caught up with what we are up to. If you have made it this far down thanks for sticking with me!

Have a great day!

Christmas Poster Center Idea

2009-11-18T13:01:00.002-05:00

I got a new gadget last week and I have to admit I am a bit obsessed. I LOVE my new Martha Stewart Circle Cutter.

It is the best! I got it for a advent calender I am working on for Christian but now I am a circle cutting fool! I had some leftover Christmas scrapbook paper and Tyler was looking at it yesterday and commented that it would make nice ornaments. I was inspired to make us a new center for December.

I took a green posterboard and cut out a Christmas tree and glued it on to a blue posterboard. I cut some holes with an Exacto knife and put paper bards through the holes. I opened the bards only far enough for them not to pull through the holes and taped them on the back. They need to poke through on the front so that you can hang the ornaments on them.

This is what each bard should look like at the back.

This is the front of the poster with the bards in.

I then took me scrap paper and my handy little circle cutter and cut 4 3" circles from each pattern of paper. I glued ribbon on the back of each with the glue gun.

I am going to use half of the ornaments for Christian to match the patterns and to hang them up with the white side of the ornaments showing to play memory. For Tyler I am going to use the other half of the ornaments. I wrote a writing prompt on the back of each of his and will hang them up and let him pick a prompt.

We will store all our ornaments on 3M hooks by the posters.

It only took me about a half hour to make this. The longest part was gluing on the ribbons. You could also put math problems on half of the ornaments and the answers on the other ornaments and have them match them or sight words on half and the matching pictures on the others. I am sure there could be lots of variations. I think it will also be fun just for Christian to play with and put the ornaments on too!

Tyler's Workboxes for Monday

2009-11-16T02:11:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted on our workboxes in awhile so as I am filling boxes tonight I thought I would share what will be in Tyler's workboxes tomorrow. Before I get started let me share with you a link for the adorable puppy workbox numbers we are using right now. We got them from Sunflower Schoolhouse.

We are using them to go with our Dog unit study. Honey has a bunch of other great workbox numbers based on themes too.
Tyler has 12 boxes for Monday and rather than fill this post with a bunch of pictures I decided to make a slide show. It will take you from box 1 to 12.

A little of this and that

2009-11-14T01:13:00.001-05:00

Tim has been off most of this week and therefore we have been off of school for the most part. We did do some school on Monday and Tuesday. Tyler got to do his Veterans Day lapbook which he really enjoyed on Monday. It turned out very nice and was lots of fun for him.

We also started studying and praying for Vietnam this week. This will definitely carry over in to next week because of our short week.

I purchased a unit study for Vietnam because I have been busy with other things and didn't think I would have much time to make up activities for him. I am kind of sad that I did now because looking through it I know I will have to modify and retype it to work for us anyhow. I need to make myself a big sign to remind myself of this before I get lazy and purchase things I am not going to be able to use anyhow. Oh well, I think it will be fun to explore Vietnam next week. Just researching it I came to realize how many preconceived notions I had about Vietnam really aren't very accurate. I really didn't have any idea how beautiful it is there either. I learn so much from homeschooling my kids!

Today we went to Walmart as a family to get some Christmas wrapping paper and a few other things. Tyler got Lucy, our very spoiled dog, a big stocking full of bones and treats. He is excited about giving it to her at Christmas. I also got some little Christmas ornaments and Christmas trivia cards to put in our school treasure chest as rewards. Christian did pretty well despite the amount of people but when he finally decided it was time to go he got very cranky. I guess he had all the noise and crowds he could take.

When we got home from Walmart Tyler and I went grocery shopping. We used two carts because we were also shopping for Thanksgiving. I think it is honestly the best I have seen Tyler behave at the store ever. He pushed one cart behind me the whole time and was very careful to not bump into anyone or anything. He carried on a very nice conversation with our checker. He even pushed one cart out to the car and then when we arrived home he helped unload the car. It always gives me a glimmer of hope for his future when he has days like today.

Tonight as I am sitting here waiting for Christian to fall asleep I am trying to get ahead on some Christmas stuff. Every year for some time now we have had a tradition in our house where I gather all the Christmas books and pick out 25 and wrap them with Christmas paper. We open one book each day starting on December 1 up to Christmas day. They are all picture books and every year I buy a couple new ones and sneak them in too. Tyler likes to guess each book before we open them so it gives him a couple of surprises. They are not all one type of book. Some are serious and some are just silly and fun. Even though my boys are getting older we all really enjoy this tradition. My husband and I still enjoy the beautiful picture books this time of year too. This year our list is:

1. The Berenstain Bears-The Bear’ Christmas

2. The Nutcracker

3. Mickey’a Christmas Carol

4. Toy Story Andy’s Christmas Puppy

5. The Littlest Angel

6. Gingerbread Baby

7. The Mitten

8. The Night Before Christmas

9. Christmas Oranges

10. The Legend of the Christmas Stocking

11. 101 Dalmations A Christmas for Giving

12. Santa Kid

13. Alvin and the Chipmunks A Chipmunk Christmas

14. The True Story of Christmas

15. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey

16. Lady and the Tramp Lady’s Christmas Surprise

17. Arthur’s Perfect Christmas

18. I Want a Dog for Christmas Charlie Brown

19. A Charlie Brown Christmas

20. The Polar Express

21. The Legend of the Christmas Tree

22. Merry Christmas Curious George

23. Tangerine Bear

24. A Christmas Bell For Anya

25. One Wintry Night

The last two books are our new ones for this year. They look like wonderful stories and I am sure they will be great additions. I am happy to have them all wrapped and ready to go in December.

Tomorrow I hope to finish up our Christmas card order. We are doing photo cards through Dayspring because they have a great Compassion International design and we can even put a picture of our Compassion child on the back of each card. I got a nice picture of Tyler for the card but I am still struggling to get one of Christian I may just have to go back through recent pictures and find one I like. Here is the one of Tyler though.

He decided to wear the sweater all on his own the day I took the picture so I seized the opportunity.
Well, I think that is about all for now. I hope everyone has a great fall weekend and are enjoying getting ready for the holidays!

Gift Idea for Special Needs Kids

2009-11-13T14:24:00.002-05:00

Christian, our son with severe autism, is extremely hard to buy gifts for. He needs things that are visually stimulating and don't require a lot of fine motor skills. Durability is also a must as most toys don't make it that long around here. I was excited to find a toy that I think he is going to love and I thought I would share it because I know he isn't the only hard to shop for child out there.

This is the VTech Digital KidiLook Digital Photo Frame. Christian loves to look at pictures but he chews on actual photographs even if they are laminated. Most digital frames would be too delicate for him but this one looks a little more rugged and we have a good history with VTech toys so I am optimistic. It holds about 100 photos which you download from your computer via USB and you only have to shake it to shuffle pictures. I bought one for Christian for less than $25 at amazon. I think he is going to love it. Just thought I would share!

Thanksgiving Tees

2009-11-10T09:17:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I started working on Thanksgiving t-shirts for the boys. I though it would be fun to do something where we could list the things that they are thankful for. I am hoping to get a cute picture of them when the shirts are dry.

I took one of my leaf cookie cutters and traced it with pencil several times on each shirt. Then I took fabric paint and traced over the lines I had drawn. In each leaf we wrote one thing that they are thankful for. Tyler listed all of his and then I thought about what Christian would say if he could talk.

This shirt is Tyler's and he is thankful for dad, mom, Christian, Lucy, friends, music, football, his I-pod, and the Macy's parade.

Tyler was chattering away to me while I was painting on what he was thankful so we ended up with one mistake. Instead of a d in friends there is now a b. Oops! Fabric paint is very unforgiving!

Here is Christian's shirt. His is still drying which is why the cardboard is still in the middle. He is thankful for dad, mom, Tyler, the park, the beach, music, Veggie tales, Bojangles, and most of all big hugs!

I can't wait to see them on. I think they are pretty cute.

Happy Birthday Marines!

2009-11-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

Happy birthday to a very special group of men and women! For 234 years our marines have lived by strong principles and served with great valor. I am so proud of my marine and all those who serve along side him.

Orphan Sunday

2009-11-08T06:55:00.001-05:00

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

Psalms 68:5-6

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.

Isaiah 1:17

And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.

Matthew 18:5

Orphan Sunday from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!

Matthew 25:40

On Sunday, November 8 at 4pm CT you can click on the above button to watch a webcast with Stephen Curtis Chapman, Geoff Moore, Dennis Rainey, and more about Orphan Sunday.

It is God's plan for His people to care for orphans. Please take the time to consider that today.

2009-11-07T00:53:00.001-05:00

We have all been a little under the weather here this week. Nothing too awful just sore throats, stuffy noses, and that sort of thing. Just enough to make everyone a little sluggish and irritable.

It really wasn't a terrible week overall. Christian and I didn't accomplish much school wise but he did straighten out his sleep schedule a little bit. (at least for now) I am not sure if it was daylight savings time or if it was him feeling sick or just a combination of the two. He has been asleep by midnight every night this week! Yipee! I have actually been getting at least 6 or 7 hours of sleep every night! I think I could used to this.

Tyler has been working really hard at school this week. He is still loving his dog unit study. This week we talked about seeing eye dogs and he was impressed by the amount of training that goes into a dog becoming a seeing eye dog. We have been going a little slower than the lesson plans dictate but he is absorbing so much. It is always interesting to observe how much more attentive he is when it is something he is interested in learning.

We finished studying/praying for Pakistan this week. I wanted to allow a week for each country but we rabbit trailed on this one a WHOLE bunch! It's okay though as I am sure Pakistan can use some extra prayers. Tyler finished up a project this week for our Pakistan time. It is a bus he made based on Pakistani truck art. If you have never seen their truck art I encourage you to check it out because it is really pretty amazing. Here are a couple of links for that:

http://pakistaniat.com/2008/06/18/pakistans-indigenous-truck-art/

http://web.mac.com/mikespix/iWeb/Site/Pakistani%20Truck%20Art.html

Tyler made his using a cardboard box which we cut off the front and overlapped it to make the hood of the bus.

He then painted the whole bus gray to cover up all the writing and labels on the box.

Next he decorated it with paint, stickers, colored paper, and crayons. He had a lot of fun with it!

Last we put on wheels (jar lids) on their axles (wooden dowels) and secured them with beads and a little glue. It really doesn't look very much like the Pakistani trucks but he had a great time making it and I think he will remember this about Pakistan.

He really loves anything he can make that he can play with later.

We are still finishing up reading Three Cups of Tea but we should be done by Tuesday. Tyler has enjoyed this book immensely! We have also finished collecting all the change we can find around the house for Pennies for Peace and our grand total came out to $25.65! We are pretty amazed at how much change we have just sitting around. It is sad to think how much we take something like our change and think it is worthless when it can do so much good if we put it all together. It is a nice thought to think that we have helped some child in Pakistan to have a brighter future!

This week promises to be a busy one for us as well. Monday and Tuesday I hoping to focus on Veteran's Day. We will be doing a free lapbook from Currclick.

It looks like it will be a good one! We will also be reading two books we usually enjoy for Veteran's Day. They are:

and

Tyler has also chosen Vietnam this week for our prayer country so that we could honor those who served in the Vietnam War at the same time.

Tim has off work most of this week too so hopefully we will also get some good family time with our Vet!
I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!
Blessings to all of you!
Bronwyn

Operation Christmas Child

2009-11-06T16:14:00.002-05:00

Samaritan's Purse is getting ready for their national collection week. They will be collecting boxes to send to needy children around the world from November 16 - 23. This is a great opportunity to provide a child that might not otherwise receive a gift this Christmas with a box full of goodies. This is a fun thing for kids to do and allows them an opportunity to touch the life of another child. We will be working on ours this next week. If your church or organization is not collecting boxes you can find a collection location near you by entering your zip code on the Samaritan's Purse Website. You will also be able to track the destination of your boxes this year. I think that would be a lot of fun for most children to see where their gifts are going to.

Before you start your shopping for family and friends this year please take a moment to consider those who are less fortunate!

It's a rough life!

2009-11-05T22:07:00.002-05:00

Look who I caught sleeping on the chair. She's not allowed on the furniture but frankly she was so cute it was hard to kick her off. It's a rough life when you sleep all day!

2009-11-02T00:47:00.000-05:00

Yikes! I just realized I haven't been on here in 5 days so I am sorry if this is one of those long rambling posts.

Christian's birthday was on Wednesday so we took the day off of school. We got him a new trampoline for his birthday and he is really loving it.

He doesn't like sweets so we didn't have a cake but we did get chicken strips and french fries from Bojangles for dinner because that is his favorite. He enjoyed that very much. He had a relaxed birthday which is just the way he likes it.

On Friday we had school. Tyler is learning about Revelation in Bible and so we did a neat project. He was learning about the opening of the seven seals in Revelation 6. We made a large scroll and I wrote down the references for the verses that describe the opening of each seal.

Tyler wrote down a description of what will occur at the opening of each seal. We then place velcro to represent each seal so that as the scroll is opened you stop at each reference.

He had a lot of fun making this and it was a great way to remember our lesson.

Friday night was Mom's night for my homeschool group and we met at Booksamillion for coffee and conversation. It was a wonderful time as it always is. It is definitely something I look forward to each month. It is nice to have the time out with friends that homeschool special needs children. I think my boys also enjoy the time together. They like to order pizza and act silly with dad.

Saturday we carved pumpkins and enjoyed the beautiful fall leaves in the backyard. Christian is feeling a bit under the weather so unfortunately he didn't get to play outside. He is stuffy and just has a cold I think but it is making him super cranky so he has mostly been inside.

Tyler and Lucy had a great time playing in the leaves together. Our trampoline is filled with them!

Tyler carved his pumpkin on Saturday too.

He worked really hard and even saved every last pumpkin seed so we could roast them.

Today we mostly hung out at home and watched football. It was a good weekend. I didn't accomplish everything I had hoped to because Christian needed a little extra care because of his cold but that is okay.

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday. So... Happy Birthday Mom! It is also my Aunt Debbie's birthday because they are twins. So Happy Birthday Aunt Debbie too!

This is my mom and my aunt when they were 3. Aren't they adorable?

I'm off to fill workboxes now. Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Birthday Christian!

2009-10-27T23:40:00.001-04:00

Today my baby turns 12! I spent several hours today looking at baby pictures and marveling just how fast time goes by. I remember so clearly still when the doctor laid my sweet little boy in my arms. It was truly love at first sight! He was a big baby with a ton of hair and sweet big eyes. He was a cuddly baby right from the start and he loved to be rocked and held. He has the same sweet disposition yet today.
Christian was a bright, happy, and healthy baby until around 2. At 2 years old he started to withdraw and exhibit a lot of repetitive behaviors. At 2 1/2 he was diagnosed with severe autism along with an array of other lesser diagnosis. It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey.
We made a commitment to God to love Christian before he was even born. Loving Christian is an easy thing to do though! He has a huge amount of love to give. He is fun and energetic with his own unique sense of humor. He has a beautiful smile and a terrific laugh. He struggles with many things that are easy for others but finds easy things like unconditional love and acceptance that seem difficult for many.
He is a special person created in God's image. I learn so much from him every day. He has taught me about the things that are truly important and to appreciate the many small miracles of life we experience every day. I fell incredibly blessed to be his mom and honored that God entrusted us with the special gift of raising him.

Happy Birthday Christian!

Week in Review

2009-10-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

It has been a busy week here. It was a good week of school and I feel like we are finally falling back into a rhythm that is more like what we had last year before we moved. Tyler is once again interested in what we are doing in school and not spending all day telling me about all the other things he would rather be doing. Christian is happier now that I have stopped doing workboxes with him. I really wanted it to work for him but I just can't see continuing on when it causes him so much stress. He and I have done a lot of sensory activities this week as he seemed to need a lot. We have also been to the park almost every day this week which seems to benefit both of them and me too! :)

Tyler has been enjoying learning about and praying for Pakistan this week. We have even decided to extend it for one more week as there is a lot we would like to explore yet.

Here is our prayer center for this week and next.

He has been really into reading Three Cups of Tea with me. He hasn't been overly excited about any books lately so I am thrilled he is into this one. He made his collection jars for Pennies For Peace and has been earnestly looking for pennies to put in them for children to have schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Here are his jars. He is doing well so far. We found out that we have a whole lot of pennies in our house. His goal is $10. We will count them tomorrow to see how we are doing so far.

We are going to do a fun project this week to go along with learning more about Pakistan. We are going to make a painted truck out of a box. Pakistan has these wonderful painted trucks which is something somewhat unique and memorable and I thought he would enjoy designing his own. If you have never seen pictures of this interesting art and would like to check it out you can here or here. I think he will enjoy it.

Tyler has also been working through Amanda Bennett's Dog Unit Study this week and will be for the next couple of weeks. I have to admit I have also learned a lot so far. I actually thought it might be a bit boring when we decided to do it but I am enjoying it. Tomorrow he will be researching Seaman the Newfoundland owned by Meriwether Lewis and he will be learning about the first seeing eye dog so there is a lot more than I thought to this unit. I envisioned learning the breeds and maybe training and care of dogs so I am excited to see it explore so many areas.

He is also enjoying going through Revelation right now in Bible and grasping it remarkably well. He is learning more about angles in math and in grammar he is doing a lot of punctuation rules. He is loving semicolons right now for some reason and so everything he writes he tries to include lots of semicolons. It is a little strange but I am glad he gets it. His workbox system continues to be a marvelous solution for him and he enjoys knowing what his day looks like.

Christian as I mentioned before is happy to be without workboxes and is back to working with me during structured floortime. I am employing a technique that I have seen work well with him when he has had at home therapy which is to bring into his room a large tote with the things I would like him to do with me and allow him to explore the bag and approach me with something that interests him. This removes a lot of his apprehension to try new things because he can touch and explore them before he approaches me to find out what my expectation is for the object or task he has selected. We are able to do most of the same things we did in the workboxes except this allows him the freedom to choose and the opportunity to communicate more with me. Of course this all needs to be recorded in a much different way then the workboxes so I dug out some of the old floortime goal sheets and recording forms I have used in the past and I am making new ones because he is doing things he wasn't previously doing and so it also encouraged me a bit to look at some of his past goals and see that indeed we have made some progress. Sometimes it doesn't feel like we are making a lot of progress because with Christian it is very slow and very small steps.

We had a nice weekend here. Yesterday my husband got up early and he and Tyler went out to breakfast at I-Hop and then went back out to the pumpkin farm we visited last weekend so that Tyler could go on a hayride and get a pumpkin. Christian really does not enjoy hayrides so he stayed home with me. It was nice father and son time for Tyler which I think he really enjoyed. Then last night we watched Faith Like Potatoes together which is an inspiring movie. It starts a little slow but once it gets going it is just amazing! Today we caught up on some little things here. I baked an apple pie which was fun because I got to try out my new apple peeler. I am really geeky that way when I get a new kitchen gadget I get all excited! We also went and got a new thermometer today as I have major flu phobia. It is a Temporal Scanner which you use one the forehead. Christian is next to impossible to take a temperature on so I wanted to make sure we had something that we could use for him if we need to. Tyler also had an Elvis ornament that he wanted to get so he was able to get that today too.

We had a big milestone in our house this weekend. Tyler shaved (with the help of his dad) for the first time. He has been getting a lot of comments on his hairy upper lip lately and so we thought now was a good time. He is not overly comfortable about it all. My husband used his electric razor with him because we don't want him to cut himself and make him more apprehensive about it all but he complained a lot about the electric razor tickling him too. If anyone has been through shaving with an autistic child I would love to hear about your experiences and any advice. Christian is just around the corner too and I really have no idea how we are going to do that.

Well it seems this is a rather long post. Sorry about that! I am going to go to bed now. I was hoping to catch up on my blog reading but I guess that will have to be tomorrow.

Have a blessed night!

Fall Tree Painting

2009-10-22T23:05:00.001-04:00

Today we sponge painted fall trees. I have been wanting to do this with them for awhile now but it keeps getting pushed off. Today I was determined to finally paint with them. It was lots of fun.

We used the kind of sponges you would use in the shower with body wash and red and yellow paint to make the leaves. It was interesting to see the sensory differences in my two boys. I am not sure if you will be able to tell from the pictures but I will try to explain.

This was Christian's painting and even with me guiding his hands he barely pressed down. He is very tactile defensive and doesn't like to press hard. He is a lot better about touching things then he once was but you can still see a lot of defensiveness when we do things like this.

This is Tyler's painting. He is a child who can't process any information about what he feels unless he presses hard or grabs with all his might. He has to feel everything. When he colors he pushes the crayon through the paper so when he paints he also lays it on heavy. I had to put his out in the sun to dry.

I am often fascinated by these differences. I marvel at two kids with similar diagnosis and significant sensory issues that approach things in such different ways.

I did enjoy the fact that Tyler added a leaf pile at the bottom of his painting and that he wanted to add kids and a dog playing in the leaves. He also added a squirrel in the tree just for our dog Lucy. LOL I really loved that!

Now the paintings are hanging in our private collection (aka the living room).

Kid art is my favorite kind of art!

Halloween Sensory Boxes

2009-10-20T22:56:00.000-04:00

I was blog searching the other day and I saw this neat idea for a Halloween sensory tub. Christian just loves sensory tubs. We have done rice, pasta, beans, sand, and all sorts of things. The one I saw was at Chasing Cheerios. We went to Michaels on Sunday and they were having a big sale on fall and Halloween stuff so I picked up some things to put in our tub with black beans.

He is really loving it!

I also knew that Tyler has a hard time when I create a sensory activity for Christian and not for him. Even though he is high-functioning he is still a sensory seeker so I made him a box of his own and a math activity to go with it.

I got the foam Halloween stickers at Michaels also and then I made him a worksheet to go with. I had him dig out the stickers and sort them out on a large sheet of paper.

I had him count out the different stickers and then do the math problems. The problems were about fractions, percentages, and probability. He enjoyed it and he buzzed right through it.

I don't like the creepy side of Halloween and we don't really celebrate the holiday itself. Our kids don't enjoy trick or treating either but they do enjoy these type of seasonal activities.

Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

2009-10-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

Today we went to Mike's Farm. I am not sure if the Great Pumpkin would think this is the most sincere pumpkin patch out there but it is definitely one of the busiest. We haven't been there in awhile but we know that it is usually very busy this time of year. Little did we know! I took pictures because I knew no one would believe it otherwise. I know I wouldn't.

This is where we parked. It is just one of several parking areas and we could just slightly see the actual farm buildings. When we saw this parking lot we should have left but we are a persistent little family. So we journeyed on and then we saw them!!!

There were sooo many people!

The wait in line just to get a ticket to get on the hayride was about a half hour. Then you had to wait in another line just to get on the hayride for about 30 to 60 minutes. Then when you got off the hayride you got to stand in another line to have your pumpkin weighed so you could pay for it. This was not going to work out for us. We did enjoy walking around though and visiting with the animals.

Here are my guys in the covered bridge they have there.

Tyler "driving" one of the tractors they have for the kids to sit on.

The main building has a beautiful wraparound porch with a bunch of these rockers. It is very pretty.

Here you can see the tractor and the big trailer they use to take people on hayrides out to the pumpkin patch.

They even have a stage in one of their barns! Here are a couple of guys playing country music. It fit nicely with a trip to the farm. They also have a bunch of animals for the kids to feed and pet.

This chicken brought a big smile to Christian's face. It is always interesting to see what captures his interest.

It really is a fun place! They have a restaurant that is know for some of the best food in the area. They have a bakery that makes some of the best fudge and other goodies. And then there is the gift shop! Oh how I love the gift shop! They have tons of Christmas stuff but they also have so much more. I had to snap a couple of pictures inside for you but this is only a small part of the whole shop.

I especially love all the candles!

If you are local or even close to local and have never been there I encourage you to go. They also sell Christmas trees at Christmas and they have a hayride with a big display of Christmas lights.

Lots of fun!

Loving My Life As A Mother and a Wife

Fourteen

Our Backyard "Bard"

Shakespeare

Summer School

Memorial Day Weekend

Jesus Rap

Casting Crowns Concert

What to do in the heat

Thank you for your prayers!

Please Pray for Christian

A Wedding!

All Glory, Laud, and Honor- Our First Hymn Study

Mini Lime Cheesecakes

Unexpected Lessons Learned in our Study of Russia

Geocaching

Much Needed Break

New Glasses

Update on a little of everything! :)

Get back up

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 2

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 1

Love is still a worthy cause!

Giveaway winners

Praise Report on Ivy!

Prayer request

Valentines Day

Snow Day

Chinese New Years at our house

Winter Jam 2010

Finally Finished- Postcard Writing Prompts

Chinese New Year Ideas

Six More Weeks of Winter

Happy Groundhog Day!

Ivy

Quiet time

More postcard writing prompts

Postcard Writing Prompts

Room to Learn

Little Rascals

Busy day

New Printables

Back to work and back to school

Absentee Blogger

Happy New Years!

Christmas 2009

Woodbine House Holiday Sale

Plead the 5th

A Night in Bethlehem

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Enjoying Christmastime

Peppermint Play Dough

Christmas Cookie Facts and Opinions Sorting Activity

Tyler's Christmas Decorations

Pearl Harbor Remberance Day Lesson Resources

Flotilla

Help Tonya have a Forever Home

Christmas Neighbor Gift

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Just about finished

My New Favorite Commercial

supersized post ;)

Christmas Poster Center Idea

Tyler's Workboxes for Monday

A little of this and that

Gift Idea for Special Needs Kids

Thanksgiving Tees

Happy Birthday Marines!

Orphan Sunday

Operation Christmas Child

It's a rough life!

Happy Birthday Christian!

Week in Review

Fall Tree Painting

Halloween Sensory Boxes

Trip to the Pumpkin Farm