Moms

A lot of things get passed around on email, but these just made me laugh. I thought I'd share in case you haven't seen them either. :-)

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Answers given by elementary school age children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?
1. She is the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other Mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

What kind of little girl was your Mom?
1. My Mom has always been my Mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did Mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your Mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work & work at home, & dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your Mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your Mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on her back.

Encouragement for Today

A lady from my home school group posted this link to a very encouraging devotional. I thought it was so good and wanted to pass it on. It definitely speaks to the struggles I've been experiencing lately as a mom and manager of our home. I hope this can encourage other moms out there as well.

Through the Eyes of a 2-Year-Old

Last night at dinner Arden was peering through the tines of his fork. I remember doing that to be silly in junior high--we'd say, "You're in jail!" as we looked through the metal "bars" at someone else.

Arden wasn't putting anyone in jail, though. :-) He looked at Ted and started giggling, then said, "Daddy, I peeked you!"

New Sonlight Catalog!

I've been waiting literally weeks, and I finally got my hands on the new Sonlight catalog on Thursday. I've been devouring it page by page. Last year I read through the main articles and sort of skimmed the various offerings, but my focus was primarily on the pre-kindergarten core, which is what we purchased to use for Charis' kindergarten year (it's good for ages 4-6).

Well, this time around I am reading EVERY page! I am more impressed than ever by this company. I've read quite a few books that are included in the various cores, but I'm amazed at how many quality books I have NOT read. Me, an English major! I have to hand it to Sonlight for finding the best literature out there. This afternoon I finished reading about the high school cores, and I can hardly wait to do them with our kids! I know, I need to relax and enjoy the stage we're at, but it just seems like the cores get better and better! This only reinforces my determination to home school our kids all the way through high school. That was NOT in my plans when I first considered home schooling, but I feel my calling to do this has stretched to include every year I am blessed to have my children living in our house. If God wants us to do otherwise, I'm sure He will make that clear in His perfect timing.

In the meantime, I am loving this! I'm probably as excited about this catalog as I will be when the new Stampin' Up! catalog comes out in July, and that's really saying something! ;-) I look forward to ordering the next core for Charis' 1st grade year. I'll post more about that when the time comes.

For now, though, let the record show that my curriculum hunt is officially over. Last year I became a curriculum junkie, collecting as many catalogs as I could and highlighting and bookmarking and making notes for what we'd be doing further down the road. A detailed examination of ALL of Sonlight's cores convinces me that I need look no further. It's a perfect fit for our family, and I'm so thankful to finally feel that freedom to stop looking elsewhere! We will continue to use Math-U-See, which isn't carried by Sonlight, but as for language arts and science, plus of course the wonderful cores with Bible, history, and literature, we're going to stick with Sonlight.

That sound you heard in the background is my husband cheering heartily. :-) I think I scared him with the piles of catalogs I collected over the past year!

Go Me!

This past week has been a pretty good one for me as far as exercise goes. I had run 3 miles in 30 minutes on Wednesday, April 12, which for me was quite amazing. On Monday I did some toning, Tuesday I jogged on the treadmill 2.6 miles, and Thursday Sarah and I ran, with my total distance being about 3 miles. I decided to get up early this morning to run farther, thinking maybe I could hit 4 miles. Sarah and I missed each other but met up as she was on her way home, so I turned and went with her. I'm glad we met up, because it made time pass more quickly and actually energized me to keep going after she stopped. I arrived home more than an hour after I had left!

Later in the morning I went to get groceries, and on the way home I decided to drive my route to see exactly how far I had gone. Are you ready for this?!

I jogged 5.2 miles!!!! Oh, my! That is by far the farthest I have ever run in one day. My body will probably not be as excited tomorrow when I have to have help getting out of bed, but right now I'm kind of on a high. Who would have thought I could go so far?! Maybe I can do a 10K after all...

Nametag

Tobin found the Parent-Partner name tag I wear when I'm helping in a pre-school classroom at church. He asked what it was.

"That's my nametag to wear when I help at church," I said.

"Does it say 'Mama?'" he asked. :-)

A Productive Morning

This week has been a pretty good one so far! On Monday we had a good school time, then went to a friend's house for a potlunch lunch with the moms from my MOPS table. Yesterday's "big outing" was a walk to the park with our friends Sarah and her kids just before dinner. I also enjoyed visiting with two long-distance friends on the phone. I don't really like to talk on the phone all that often...it seems when I am on the phone, my kids decide to behave like wild hellions. However, they did very well yesterday while I talked with my very pregnant friend Megan (has the baby arrived yet, Megan?!), and then I got to chat with Monica in the afternoon while Arden was napping.

Today has gone so well, though not entirely according to our normal schedule. No matter; I love that we have this flexibility! I didn't wake as early as I would have liked, but I did manage to finish my quiet time before Tobin came downstairs at 6:30 a.m. I couldn't blame him for his early wake time when I realized what the problem was--he had a splinter in his hand that he said he got last night during our small group meeting! Poor guy! Maybe he didn't realize it was there. He certainly never complained about it last night. Anyway, after our little "surgery" this morning, he was much happier and settled himself down to color while I worked on some writing. Arden joined us soon after that and kept busy with some puzzles, so I was able to finish the Day Three quiet time for the Commission study. Woohoo! Only two more days' worth of quiet times, and I am FINISHED!

We spent an hour and a half at the breakfast table this morning!! In addition to our usual Bible story, AWANA verse review, and home school verse review, we ended up having a long conversation based on a newspaper article I had read as the kids finished up their cereal. A man in our city grabbed a 7-year-old girl who was on her way to the bus stop and shoved her into his car. She screamed like everything and attracted the attention of a lady who was passing, who then followed the man in her car. He realized she was not going to stop following him, so he stopped and pushed the girl back out of the car and sped off. Praise the Lord the girl was unharmed--I can only imagine how thankful her parents were that the woman had stopped to help.

Well, with this on my mind, I again began talking with the kids about strangers and so on. We've had discussions like this before, but you can never drive the point home too much, I don't think! Charis was so sweet and earnest, telling me that if she saw someone trying to take a child, she would go up to him and say, "You let him go! I'm going to call the police!" Her words were brave, but her little body was trembling just thinking about this scary topic! Of course we then discussed that the best thing to do is NOT to talk to the bad person trying to take a child, but to RUN screaming for Mom or Dad or any other trusted adult! We "rehearsed" various scenarios, and I do think Tobin and Charis get it. Charis expressed some reservations about kicking someone, knowing that that is unkind. But I quickly dispelled those thoughts, telling her that there is definitely an appropriate time to kick, punch, and scream, and we are certainly not going to be upset if she does those things to try to prevent someone from taking her. It's a scary thing to even think about, but I was glad for the opportunity to talk with them about it again in the safety of our home. I assured both Charis and Tobin (and Arden, too, but I'm not sure if he was listening...he was too busy stuffing his little cheeks with cereal) that we don't need to live in fear, because God and His angels are watching over us, but that we do need to be careful and safe.

Whew! I couldn't believe that it was already 9:30 a.m. by the time we finished all this discussion! The morning just flew by. I did our Sonlight reading while the kids finished munching cereal--they kept deciding they were still hungry. :-) I put the boys in room/play time after that so Charis and I could do some of her schoolwork. She did lesson 10 in her math book, a handwriting practice page, 2 pages in her Developing the Early Learner workbook, and some phonics dictation. She's been learning about the suffix -y, and today we practiced spelling words with the short vowel sound and one consonant. She remembered to double the consonants at the end and spelled bunny, fuzzy, kitty, and penny correctly.

Then we went out to the garage, where the kids rode bikes/scooters around while I jogged 1 3/4 miles on the treadmill. Then I mowed the front and back yards, which took a grand total of about 10 minutes. I love living in Las Vegas! The kids continued to play well while I fixed lunch, and then it was time for me to shower. I let the kids watch a Magic School Bus DVD that we got from the library, and they learned about ant hills and bee hives while I showered and then vacuumed the upstairs. Yay! It was filthy up there! I tend to neglect that area because it's usually not seen if people drop by the house. ;-)

Arden went right down for his nap. We have a new nap routine around here. Since Arden began his escape routine again recently, I started lying down in Tobin's bed so I could keep an eye on him. He usually falls asleep within 15-20 minutes at the most. During the time he's nodding off, I usually doze myself, and it's surprisingly refreshing to at least be able to rest my body, even if I don't get fully asleep. Meanwhile Tobin fell asleep in our bed with no problems--hallelujah! I haven't been making him nap every day, instead letting him occasionally take a stack of books/magazines to bed to read while a timer goes for 60 minutes. Then he can get up and play, as long as he is QUIET during his REST TIME! We did that yesterday, and he did pretty well, but since he was up so early today, and we had small group last night and AWANA tonight, meaning later bed times, I told him he must nap today, and he was amazingly agreeable!

Now Charis is painting in her paint-with-water book while I catch up on some computer work. I feel good about what we've accomplished so far today and am feeling so thankful to be a stay-at-home mom!

Happy Easter!

Wow...in some ways it doesn't even feel like Easter. Even though I don't think Ted and I have ever attended a sunrise service together, for some reason I still associate sunrise services with Easter Sunday. (Mom and Dad, I'll never forget those years that we drove to Flagpole Hill for the early morning services!) And since the church we are currently attending is geared primarily for outreach to the unique Las Vegas community, the songs we sang this morning did not include "Up From the Grave He Arose" and "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," my favorite Easter hymns. Still, it has been a very good time of celebration!

We began early last week with our Bible story time. I flipped through our Bible story book to see how close we were to the Easter story sequence and was delighted to find that if we read 2 stories each morning instead of our usual one, we would reach the Resurrection story on Sunday! So all week we were discussing the stories of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, Jesus praying in the garden, etc.

Then last night we did our annual tradition of making Easter Story Cookies. We've made these the past 3 years now, and the kids absolutely love making them. This year Charis and Tobin really understood what was going on, and I think they "got" much more of the symbolism, which was exciting to see. This year also the part about Jesus drinking vinegar really hit home, since both Charis and Tobin (but especially Tobin!) have been exposed to "whining medicine" in the past!

While I was beating the egg whites and sugar, a process that takes 12-15 minutes, Ted hid the Resurrection Eggs for the kids. He read the stories of 6 of the 12 eggs' contents, and we'll finish the other 6 stories tonight before bedtime.

We did do Easter baskets for the kids. They had actually gotten the baskets a few weeks ago--we did an egg hunt with the moms from my MOPS table this past Monday at a park, so I had gotten them when I was out shopping with the kids earlier in order to save a trip to the store. I got metal buckets for Charis and Tobin so that they can use them year-round and a basket with sports balls on it for Arden, so that he can use it to store his ball collection. I picked up some little treats from the party store a few days ago: paint-with-water books, coloring books for the boys and a "princess school set" for Charis (including zipper pencil bag, eraser, sharpener, and ruler), egg-shaped sidewalk chalk, a water gun, and of course a chocolate Easter bunny. That was it! A grand total of maybe $5 per kid! We aren't ones to spend big money on our kids on occasions like this. I guess that's because we see other parents knocking themselves out on birthdays or whatever, when their kids are 1, 2, or 3 years old, and we think...how can they top that?! We're all about the home parties and keeping things simple yet special! The kids got enough candy at the egg hunt on Monday, and I didn't feel obligated to get more! But I figured a little chocolate bunny would be appropriate. :-)


We read the story of Jesus' resurrection during breakfast as we munched our traditional Sunday-morning whole-wheat pancakes with strawberries. (Ted is a WONDERFUL breakfast cook!!!) Then it was off to church in our Easter outfits!


And just as a side note...you'll probably notice that Tobin's expressions are a bit silly in these pictures! We discovered that ALL of the shots we took included a slightly different yet consistently silly grin on his face, thereby assuring us that yes, he is indeed Ted's son and is therefore prone to helping create "geek pictures!" ;-)

Happy Birthday, Tobin!

Time to catch up on our blog!

Tobin's 4th birthday was on Thursday, April 13. After Ted got home from work, our family went to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner (kind of a Chuck E. Cheese sort of place, only a bit smaller and with better pizza!). The kids had a great time climbing in the play area and playing a few little games. Ted and I liked it because the pizza was yummy and, since it was a weeknight, it was not very crowded at all! This picture of Tobin and Ted is one of the best shots of the evening. :-)

Then we went to Dairy Queen for some (very overpriced) ice cream. It was such a nice evening that we sat outside in the courtyard area and had Tobin open his presents there. He got:

* A very fun book, How I Became a Pirate, from Uncle Joel and Auntie Sarah
* An "owl space" (outer space) book and giant floor puzzle from Grandma J
* A starter set of Wedgits from Uncle Clint and Auntie Ski (This toy has almost been more fun for Daddy than for Tobin!!)
* A Slinky from Arden
* A Spiderman bop bag from Charis

Grandma K said she sent a package, but it hasn't arrived yet. (Mom...we'll let you know when it gets here!)


Then we came home, where the gift from Mom and Dad was waiting--a Spiderman scooter! This was a HUGE hit with all the kids, and they took turns scooting around on the tile, playing with Wedgits, the slinky, and the bop bag while waiting for their turn. Now I suppose we'll want to get scooters for Charis and Arden as well! But as Tobin's bike has a flat tire, and Arden is nearly big enough to pedal the tricycle, Tobin did need a new "vehicle!"


So that was it for Tobin's actual birthday. Then, today, we joined our friends Ken and Sarah and their kiddos and Sarah's parents for an Easter dinner. Sarah made a Thomas the Tank Engine cake which turned out very cute (and was quite tasty as well!). She put 4 candles on the side with Tobin's name and 3 candles on the side with T.J.'s name, and they blew them out at the same time. The boys exchanged gifts. Taran got a bop bag, slinky, and puzzle from our family, and Tobin got a NEW set of crayons, Spiderman stickers, Spiderman folder, paper for coloring, and a Stealth plane. Tobin immediately broke out the crayons and started coloring pictures for everyone present, including Sarah's parents! (He had been grounded from crayons the past 3 days because I caught him coloring on the metal arm of the futon, so I believe he was going through withdrawal!)


So, all in all, it was a wonderful birthday! Thank you to our family members who sent packages to help Tobin feel so special, and a special thanks to Sarah for the cake and for including us in the birthday festivities this weekend!

I Win!

I've discovered that a little healthy competition works wonders in getting my children to scoot along! Lately they've been racing to see who can get upstairs to brush their teeth first or who can get buckled up in the van first. We try to make it seem as if everyone is a winner, which is probably why this story even happened in the first place.

We were rushing to leave the house to get to MOPS on Monday, and as usual the kids wanted to race to see who could get buckled up first. Charis can completely buckle herself up, and Tobin can do the top portion of his straps. I still have to do everything for Arden. Here's how the winners announced themselves:

Charis, who was completely buckled first: "I win of the girls!"

Tobin, who finished a close second: "I win of the boys!"

Arden, waiting happily while I buckled him up: "I win of the Ardens!"