Small Successes

Well, I am buried under a wave of clutter, but here are my small successes for the week:


1-
I cleaned out the school closet - it took longer than it should have, because I hadn't dealt with it in a long time. I didn't take a before picture, but here's an after (there was one large kitchen bag full of trash, about a dozen things for the thrift store, and about another dozen things I listed on CathSwap) The crates at the bottom hold the girls books, the next couple of shelves games and craft supplies, up higher craft supplies they need permission for, and completed work. The other side of the closet holds some kids games, coloring books and about 100 or so books currently listed on paperbackswap!


2-
We made it to Ash Wednesday at church, even though hubby didn't get home until 5:36, had to feed and water the calves, and had to shower (you don't what to know how much manure was on him!) and we live 16 miles from town, our dirt roads were very sloppy, and we had to park a block away from the church - AND we made it into the church before the first reading was over. MAJOR accomplishment for us!

3-
I baked a cake last night (here's a tip - don't bake a cake on a day of fast and abstinence, or if you must, offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory!) and frosted it this morning for the girl scout swim party this afternoon, which will celebrate the end of cookie season, and hopefully get all the moms to drop off whatever cookie money they have left.

Finally, a prayer request - please pray for our town. In the last two days or so, we had one high school student killed in a car accident, a classmate of Bret's died unexpectedly (in his mid 30s), one of the girl scout moms lost a baby at 8 months pregnant, the house of a family with a high schooler burned down, and it has just been a hard week for the town. Please pray for those who have lost loved ones, for the souls in purgatory, and for all of us in the town that we might respond to the needs of these families. Thank you!

(and just because they are so cute, here's a picture of the girls with their faces painted after Family Fun Night at church a couple weeks ago)

More small successes at Faith and Family!

Small Successes

Does participating in small successes count as a small success?? I'm just asking...

1-
I have not lost my mind with girl scout cookies - I have gotten half of Eva's cookie orders delivered, I have been the parent helper for two cookie booths (both at the local grocery store, both an hour each) I have not lost the several hundred dollars in cash from cookie sales, booths. etc (hopefully I can make it a few more hours until Eva's girl scout meeting when I can turn it in!) Eva has now sold about 160 boxes, and her goal we set was 200 boxes, so we are almost there!

2-
I did our finances for the first half of the month. I found a free yearly budgeting template titled "Family Budget Planner" at this site. We sat down at the beginning of the year and figured out what we wanted our budget to look like for a year. Hubby got a raise of a little over $100 per month (take home) and we decided to save $300 per month in IRAs and College Savings plans ($100 per month each for retirement, and $50 each for college savings) - it has been going amazingly well! I don't really even come close to the amounts I budgeted at the beginning of the year (I budgeted too little for groceries, and too much for eating out/entertainment stuff) but we were under budget for January overall, and doing great for February. With a part of our tax refund, hubby and I are going shopping for a new dining room table set tomorrow - I am unbelievably excited about having a better table...probably because I serve 2-3 meals per day on it, and spend about 2 hours on school work at the table each weekday.

3-
I've started thinking about Lent - haven't figured out what I am going to do or give up for Lent, but at least I've started to think about it! Plus, I still have almost two weeks to figure it out! (Much better than my usual start thinking about it on Ash Wednesday plan!)

More small successes at Faith and Family!

Small Successes

I can't believe that Small Successes at Faith and Family is already at the 100th volume! It doesn't seem like that long ago it started! On to my successes for the week.

1-
I cleaned the toilet. Honestly, I am not really sure how many weeks it had been since I cleaned it - I really do mean to clean it once a week, but that hadn't been happening...and it got worse and worse until Monday when the do in "Small Steps for Catholic Moms" was "When you see something that needs doing today (laundry to put away, a bed to be made, a table to be cleared, etc.), don procrastinate and make excuses. See God's will for your day in the sight of those tasks and just do them." Thus, I finally got around to cleaning the algae ring in our toilet (gotta love well water!)

2-
I finally finished planning Eva's history class for 3rd quarter...and while I was at it, I knocked out 4th quarter planning, too. We started quarter 3 on Monday. I finished planning for it on Saturday. I procrastinated planning it since August. Of course, I currently have a ring of craft stuff around my chair in the living room because in all the planning for 3rd quarter (and doubling up on phonics so that we could catch up to where we should be) I completely forgot about all the prep work for Charlotte's Little Saints preschool stuff - so I have gotten two weeks worth of prep done, and am hoping to get 8 more weeks of prep done before I put everything away!

3-
I ordered "Learn Spanish with Grace" from someone on CathSwap, and remembered (after I paid, but before she sent the materials) that my stupid paypal account kept changing my address back to the house we sold over a year ago. So, I emailed her with the correct address, and finally (after about a half an hour of tinkering with the dumb thing) managed to change the address and delete the old address. Apparently, my problem was that in order to delete the old address, I couldn't just go in and change it (which I had tried before), I had to first go into my credit cards (of which it appears two that were listed were debit cards from our old account in our old town, so I just deleted those) and change the address there before it would let me change the address on the main page. So, when I start to get serious about buying books for next year, I won't have a problem like last year when my package was mailed to our old house, the post office in that town intercepted it, and forwarded it to our p.o. box here, and then we had to pay again for the shipping (because technically it should have been returned to sender, not forwarded...)

More small successes at Faith and Family Live!

Small Successes

Well, it's Thursday again, so it is time for small successes! There are a lot of things that haven't gotten done around here recently (like the laundry I've been putting off for three days, and the toilet cleaning that I have been putting off even longer than that...) but today I will focus on the successes.

1-
I survived two snow days...not for the little girls (they still did school), but for the exchange student. I like having her around, but early on in the snowstorm our exchange student was disappointed that we weren't going to MILs house (her exchange student had been sick) which when I pressed further wasn't because she wanted to see their exchange student, she wanted to play Super Mario Bros on their Wii...so I had hubby borrow it from his mom. Well, in two days (one day with just our exchange student and Eva playing, for the most part and the second day with both exchange students and Eva playing almost ALL DAY LONG) they got to level 8, which I guess is the highest level. They haven't beaten Bowser to save the princess yet, but they got further here in two days than they have gotten in several weeks at MILs house. When hubby and I drove to town to get pizza last night, I swear I could here the coin collecting noise rattling in my head. While they played on and on, I read all 5 Percy Jackson novels...probably should have cleaned, but oh well!

2-
I finished our taxes! (YEAH!) And we will be getting a pretty massive refund (thanks mostly to hubby's former employer's buyout that we got in this calendar year, which they withheld a huge amount from, given that we don't pay much in taxes being relatively poor with two kids. Now we just need to decide what to do with that money. I know that some of it will be going towards a new dining set (and we will say goodbye to my great-aunt's set that was made in Yugoslavia) and I know that some will be going into our emergency fund....but we are tempted to replace the carpet in our kitchen. I don't think we'll be able to afford to replace it right now, since our kitchen is huge (not well laid out or anything, but a lot of square feet of flooring involved).

3-
We got our cats spayed and neutered. In fact, I need to figure out when I need to pick them up from the vet's office. Tigger, our loud tom cat, had wandered over to the neighbor's house. She had girl kittens she was planning on taking in to get spayed. She called MIL to ask if it was her cat (MILs cats are not at all friendly) and she told the neighbor that she had a yellow and white cat, but she didn't know the gender, and good luck catching it. The neighbor mentioned how sweet and loud the tom was, which made it clear to MIL that it was our annoying (but kinda cute) cat. Well, the neighbor's son brought him home, and then offered to take him to the vet for us. In the end I had hubby call, because I wanted both cats taken care of, and I wanted them to get rabies shots as well. So, in the end our neighbor's son took both our cats to the vet for us, and I need to pick them up today.

There are more small successes over at Faith and Family LIVE!

Quick Takes Friday

1-
This week MIL had her monthly doctor's appointment with her neurologist, and so the girls and I drove her to the appointment. The morning of the appointment, FIL got frustrated with all the change on his dresser (which, to the best of my knowledge is put there by him...) and told MIL to give the change to the girls. Well MIL found her giant box of change and added FIL's change to it...we went into the bank and had the coins counted...in the end, there was $34, so each girl had $17 to spend on our trip.

2-
Eva, being my little frugal shopper, and I found a 3 1/2 ft tall prelit pink Christmas tree on sale for $5 (originally $20) and thought it would be fun for their room, she also found a $10 barbie movie, and bought some candy with the rest of her money. Charlotte found a really great deal on a barbie doll at first ($10, originally $49) but I vetoed it based upon the 15 barbies currently in her collection (at our house...that's not counting any at grandma's house or her aunt's house). In the end, we found princess dresses, shoes and purses for barbie dolls at a reasonable price, so she got two dresses, 6 pairs of shoes and 6 purses, as well as a sticker book and some candy.

3-
My big exciting purchase was a hanging bar for the girls' closet. Charlotte can't reach the high bar (Eva just barely can) so their dresses always ended up all over the floor. I found a bar that hangs from the higher bar, and it works great! Most of Eva's dresses fit above the bar (with the exception of her two traditional Austrian dresses) and Charlotte's all fit on the bottom bar. They have a much nicer closet now.

4-
Yesterday was Charlotte's feast day - the Feast of St. Angela Merici. Yesterday was also a pretty crazy day. So, for lunch, we had frozen pizza and salad from a bag, and we lit her baptismal candle (we light them every year, but Charlotte's never gets lit on her baptism day, because she was baptised on Christmas). In the evening I had bible study, and everyone else went to hubby's aunt's house for a birthday party for his cousin. I guess there is video of hubby playing Wii Dance Party with Eva and dancing to "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun" I must see if I can get this video from SIL.

5-
Today is "Charlotte and Mommy Day". A few months ago, Eva asked for a mommy daughter day, so Charlotte stayed with grandma, and Eva and I had a day together. Well, Charlotte requested one now, so after I am done with my tea, I will be taking Eva over to grandma's house for the day (and then she will ride in the feed truck some this afternoon with daddy) and then I will have a day full of princess games and barbie dolls (where she gets all this girliness, I don't know...it clearly didn't come from me!)

6-
I finally have collected 9 milk jugs...for a home school project for Eva...if I wanted to do two of this project, I would have needed to collect 18 milk jugs...that is a lot of milk jugs lying around. Since Eva is going over to (crafty and fun) grandma's house today, I think I will be packing up 9 milk jugs and an instruction book marked with several projects that she could do with Eva.

7-
Last week while I was in the public library, one of the librarians asked me how our Christmas was, and I told her it was fine, the girls got way too many presents. She asked if I got everything I wanted, and I told her that I got a Kindle. She was a little skeptical of the whole idea of e-readers, so I showed her what a book looked like on it, and she was very surprised. So, this week when I went in, the main librarian was also there, and so the librarian I had talked with the previous week asked me if I had my kindle with me (of course!) and asked me to show it to the head librarian. She was also impressed, and really loved the way you can change the font size. We had a discussion about electronic resources and libraries...it was a pretty interesting conversation.

More quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Small Successes

Gotta celebrate the little things, right?

1-
We taught our second virtual NFP class this weekend, and all went well. We even managed to figure out the technology that allows both of us to talk at the same time in time for class two. Our second class series is already full, and I've gotten another inquiry about it...I'm starting to wonder how many couples is too many to teach virtually (since in the real world, we've never taught more than 2 couples at a time!)

2-
We are just over two weeks away from being done with the first half of the school year! YEAH! I even went over what I had hoped to accomplish in the first semester to figure out where we are behind. Mostly in phonics...I've been taking it more slowly than necessary, so we are doubling up for the next two weeks, and we should be close to halfway done. We were also behind in history, so I've been doing some crafty-type projects with the girls. Also slightly behind in Eva's Catechism book, but we should be able to catch up next quarter.

3-
We've been super busy the last two weeks (and it looks like we'll be pretty busy next week too) but the laundry is mostly caught up on and the dishes are mostly done, and meals have mostly been cooked at home. I even got down most of the Christmas decorations. Of course, I haven't vacuumed in longer than I'd like to admit, and it looks like a library threw up all over the house with the number of library books scattered on the floor...not to mention that I can't find some of my counters under the piles of stuff...and I won't even go into the explosion that appears to have happened in the school cupboard.

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

It's my favorite time of the week

Well, at least for the dorky home school mom in me...it's Tuesday afternoon, the girls are having their rest time, and the Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog!

A Blast from the Past...with Blue

Charlotte is now finally getting to the point where she wants to do more school. We've been doing Little Saints Preschool program this year with Charlotte, and we are now getting into the alphabet as well by doing a "letter of the week".

With Eva, I basically just did a letter of the week for preschool. I didn't really have much idea of what I should be doing with her since I was new to the whole homeschooling thing, and we enrolled her in Kindergarten through Seton right after her 4th birthday.

Charlotte, being the younger one, gets a little better put together preschool, though clearly not as much one on one time with me. She's done tot school, a preschool coop and this year we are finishing up preschool, I think. I am looking forward to starting Kindergarten work with her next year.

We aren't too far into our letter of the week portion of school yet, as last week we did the letter B. It took me back to when I was doing preschool with Eva, because both girls made Blue from Blue's Clues for the letter B.

Here is Eva's "Birthday Blue" and letter B - looking back I wondered why I didn't take a picture of her holding her crafts. Well, I vaguely remember that I had a plan to make an alphabet scrapbook with Eva...I never got to it, partially because we ended up starting Kindergarten earlier than anticipated, and partially because scrap booking is relaxing for me, and crafts with kids are stressful...why ruin my relaxing hobby by trying to do it with a preschooler??

Here is Charlotte with her "Winter Blue" - we were doing the theme of "Winter Fun" in Little Saints, so I decided to go with the winter themed Blue. I love the different types of hats available for this craft! If we were on the letter B this week, we could use the police hat (Safety Friends) or we could use the Chef's hat for "Let's Eat Out" or the USA Hat for "My America". Lots of great options there! With Eva, the obvious choice was Birthday Blue for the double B. These weren't around when Eva was a preschooler, but Charlotte is getting some of her alphabet crafts from Catholic Icing - Catholic ABC's.

I did get a picture of Eva with one letter - Q is for Queen and Quilt (she was so little then!) Since it made more sense for the Queen's crown to be worn I guess she got to be in the shot! Of course, she looks younger than Charlotte in the picture because she was! I was so ambitious in the early days of homeschooling (and I'm probably still more ambitious than I will be in a few more years...) Pretty much all of Eva's ABC crafts came from DLTK-teach Alphabuddies section.



Of course, just to show you how time flies, here is Charlotte, while Eva was doing preschool...my little baby is getting all grown up!










Okay, last picture, because they are so cute...Eva, Charlotte and Daddy this morning with Charlotte's fire truck picture. (Yes, we do a lot of school in our PJs these days...we live 16 miles out in the country, it's not like we have a lot of people stopping by!)

Quick Takes Friday

Why is it that I think of things all week long that would be great quick takes, but when it comes to Friday, I can hardly think of anything at all? One of the great mysteries of the universe, I am sure.

1-
We watched "Ramona and Beezus" last night, it was a very good movie. This girls are going to watch it again tonight with our exchange student before we send it back. I really loved Beverly Cleary's books when I was little, but I have to admit that until watching this movie, I wasn't so sure that the Ramona books were something I would introduce to my girls.

2-
I really need to take down the Christmas decorations before too long, but the task just feels overwhelming...I think overwhelming describes January pretty well. I'm behind on dishes, behind on picking up, behind on school, and really don't have a lot of ambition at the moment.

3-
Hubby and I will be teaching the second class of our virtual Natural Family Planning series on Sunday night. I still need to figure out what to do with the girls...I haven't asked SIL to come over and watch movies in the basement with them. I guess we could probably get by asking our exchange student to watch the girls, but I'd feel a little bit bad about that...I don't really know why.

4-
I would consider having the girls spend the night on Sunday at grandma's house, but they stayed there for five days last week while hubby and I took a mini-vacation/went to a Knights of Columbus meeting. On one of our fun days, we went to a little gambling town. We agreed that a max to lose would be $40 each (which is pretty much double what we had ever agreed on before!) so we played penny slots most of the day, and I kept winning a little, and hubby kept losing a little. Towards the end of the afternoon, we both ended up winning on some penny slots, I got five dollars up, and hubby got twenty dollars up, so we decided to go crazy and each blow $15 on quarter slots before we left. Well, I lost mine pretty quickly, but on hubby's 3rd or 4th pull he won $400! So, he got paid, and we played a few more minutes on penny slots, and left with $400 more than we had come with.

5-
In the "my girls have spent to much time at grandma's house" category...I let them watch a movie one afternoon this week, and when I turned up the volume on the TV and asked if it was okay, Eva sighed and said "I wish we had Surround Sound!"

6-
Our exchange student is going to be in the musical this spring, and practices have started. Coming from a suburban area, I am used to the idea that kids have to choose between sports and theatre, but since that would mean no plays in a rural school, she has to wait in town until play practice begins at 6:30 in the evening. The good news is SIL has a house in town now, so she can go there and do homework during the sports time. She has to be picked up in town at about 9pm on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the foreseeable future. The bad news is, that is pretty late when you have little kids (so nights when hubby and I have meetings will get a little dicey) the good news is, hubby is home from work, so he doesn't seem to mind driving in to pick her up!

7-
Charlotte just brought me a Christmas ornament hanger that she fixed...maybe I should take that as a sign that I should wrap this up and get the girls started on another day of school...

More quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Small Successes

Well, it really is January now, isn't it? I'm starting to feel the blahs of the season, so everything has felt like a struggle recently (though, on the plus side, I could come up with a ton of small successes!) So, here go a few of my small successes recently:

1-
I got my annual hair cut. Seriously, I think the last time I had my hair cut was last February, so it was a little early ;) AND, my new, much shorter haircut is forcing me to do my hair every day. I was getting into a really bad habit of wearing my hair in a ponytail all the time. But, since I can't do that, I am being a lot less sloppy in my personal appearance. Yes, I still have many days where I do school in my jammies, but I have been trying much harder to be showered, dressed, and hair done by the time hubby gets home for lunch.

2-
We are doing school...I'm not so sure I want to be doing it, Eva doesn't seem so sure she wants to do the not so fun parts of it, and Charlotte is finally getting to the point where she wants to do school (of course, most of her school is fun and crafty at the moment, but maybe she will be ready to start Kindergarten next year after all!) I honestly would rather be planning for next year right now, but since we probably need to finish this year first, I guess I'll just have to suck it up. The thing that is making me slightly crazy right now is that I didn't plan any breaks in school between now and Easter...and Easter is far later this year than it was last year. I may have to take a long weekend or something in there...maybe a field trip. Something to break up the really long months of solid homeschooling.

3-
I have been making the girls keep the playroom in order. After all the work I put into it, I just am not willing to let them mess it up again. I haven't even had to take away any toys from the playroom yet (I did have to take away Eva's Leapster because she was being mean to her sister, but not playroom related) and I have been making them play with their toys IN the playroom as well. I do have a basket, and if I tell them to pick up the playroom, and I go in and find something out of place or on the floor, it will be going into the basket, and onto a high shelf in my closet until they pay me back in chores.

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

Quick Takes Friday

1-
Christmas was exhausting around here...maybe I'm a wimp, but three solid days of family celebrations was a bit much. On Christmas Eve we hosted both sets of parents and both sets of siblings, plus hubby's grandpa and great uncle. I made German food and our exchange student made wienerschnitzel (which was eaten much faster than my sauerbraten, so maybe next year I'll switch) then we had my family's (Norwegian side) tradition of hiding an almond in rice pudding. The person who finds the almond gets the prize, which then must be shared (I'm sure that's just something my grandma insisted upon...) This year hubby's brother got the almond. Then, for Christmas, my parents came to our house in the morning and we did our gifts and their gifts, then we went over to MILs house, where we did more gifts and had a Christmas dinner of prime rib, then in the evening, the girls and I went up to my parents hotel (an hour drive away...they are kinda nuts!) to swim, and then had sandwiches at the hotel restaurant. The next morning we went to church, then started to get ready for hubby's extended family Christmas. Fortunately, the girls and I got to go home for several hours in the middle of the party because hubby had to feed the cows, but after a good long nap for the girls and some down time for me, we headed back into town for the rest of the party.


2-
Between the three Christmases, our house kinda looked like Christmas threw up all over it...(well, parts of it still look this way!) Charlotte got 15 barbie dolls (okay, two of them were boys, and most of them were Disney princess barbie type dolls). Eva got a ridiculous amount of stuff, too. The playroom was messy enough that I didn't want them to take all their new toys in there until I got it cleaned out. Well, it took me more than 3 hours with a tall kitchen bag worth of trash and an overflowing tall kitchen bag worth of giveaway, but it looks beautiful now! (I should have taken some before pictures, but I couldn't bring myself to do that!)


3-
I won a copy of the book "Smart Martha's Catholic Guide for Busy Moms" by Tami Kiser over at Catholicmom.com and that book was definitely my inspiration for getting the playroom taken care of...I thought a few of her ideas were just mindblowingly good, so I'll list a couple here. I am only halfway done with the book, and it is just awesome. I highly suggest you buy it (or at least get on the paperbackswap list for it!) I took all of the girls puzzles out of their broken boxes. I cut a small picture out of the box, I took sharpie markers, and for each puzzle I put a certain color mark on all of the puzzle pieces, the picture of the completed puzzle and the sandwich bag the puzzle is in. This way, if the girls dump together two or more puzzles it will be much easier to separate them into the right package...plus the sandwich bags (our biggest puzzle right now has 100 pieces...with bigger kids it might make more sense to use gallon size bags) take up far less space. I took this a step farther and got rid of all the nice wooden boxes that Melissa and Doug toys come in, and packaged the toys in gallon zip top bags. For instance, we had three different sets of lacing cards, and the cards hardly ever made it into the boxes, and the strings were just all over. All three sets plus the strings fit in a gallon zip top bag. So do all our viewfinder discs and view finder, etc.) I am also implementing the tip that if I tell the girls to clean up, and they don't do it, or leave stuff out, I will put it in a special basket in my closet, and they will have to do chores to get them back (she has her kids pay for stuff, but mine are still kinda little for that, so I'll just make them do more work!) An idea that I haven't implemented yet: Keep a trash can or hamper lined with a trash bag in your closet for giveaway items. Then when the bag is full put it in the car and take it buy the thrift store (of course, it's not quite as easy as that when you are as far away from a thrift store as us, but I love the trashcan with liner idea!)


4-
We are planning on having family over tonight for new year's eve. I had originally intended to make appetizers and call it good enough, but before I knew it, my MIL had talked me into making prime rib instead (the farm was given 3 by a vendor, so each household technically should get one...of course, I have never made a prime rib before, so I am crossing my fingers that it's not too hard!) We are planning on ringing in the New York new year this year...since the girls have been going back and forth between being sick and healthy.

5-
Speaking of sick kids...I didn't make it to Mass for Christmas. Charlotte started throwing up a couple of hours before midnight Mass, and so someone had to stay home with her, and then hubby had to work Christmas morning (the cows don't take a day off) so I might have been able to leave our exchange student at home with both little girls and gone to Mass in the morning, but I thought that it would probably be better if I were to stay home and make sure the girls were feeling okay before we started going to even more Christmas family stuff. They are still not at 100%, but they seem to be taking turns on who feels the worst (yesterday it was Eva, today it is looking like Charlotte is feeling worse.)

6-
The kids weren't the only ones that got way too many Christmas presents...hubby and I did, too. My favorite gift was a Kindle from MIL...I have been having too much fun finding free books for it. Currently I am reading The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. I haven't bought any kindle books yet, because I am trying to figure out what I would like most. Any suggestions?

7-
I really, really, really need to get to cleaning the house since I am having people over tonight, but part of me is saying "eh...they're family!" so they know what my house looks like. But, I guess it would be nice to start the new year with a clean house, so I guess I should go get started!

More quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Quick Takes Friday

1-
Last night, my bible study had our Christmas party. It was a ton of fun, the hostess did fondue, we did an informal cookie exchange, and we opened secret sister presents. Well over a year ago, we tried to do an absolutely horrible study titled "Praying with Women of the Bible" by Bridget Mary Meehan (I would link to it, but I don't want anyone to think that I am recommending it...I do notice it is available on Kindle now, though...) we made it through two chapters, on the day we were supposed to do chapter 3, I pretty much was willing to beg them to do something...anything else! I felt fairly responsible for the book, because I had suggested it...I hadn't read it, but one of the women who used to be in the group had gotten a copy from someone in her family who thought it was great...she suggested it, we decided we didn't want to do it then, and I put the book on my paperbackswap list. Well, it is very well known how much I hate this book. Last year, at Christmas, part of my secret sister gift was a copy of this book wrapped up with a note and some money so that I could go buy a book (she said I was an intimidating person to buy a book for!) Well, this year, my current secret sister ALSO wrapped up her copy, and it was part of my Christmas gift. I am pretty much figuring I am doomed to see two more copies of the book before everyone has run out of copies.

2-
Tonight (hopefully) hubby and I are going on a date, out for dinner and then to see the new Harry Potter movie. Our religious anniversary (the date of our church wedding) is tomorrow, so it will be his anniversary present to me. I have to say hopefully because he ate the last little bit of cookie dough raw that I didn't roll out and bake...AND that cookie dough had been in the fridge for more than a week...maybe two...so, he's paying for his really dumb move and not feeling to great. He is at work though, so I guess hopefully he will be well enough to go out tonight (although he may not want to eat!)

3-
Today is going to be our last official day for school this calendar year. I am way behind on crafty-type projects in our History curriculum, so we'll do some of those over break. We've already stopped working on Seton Religion, Math U See, and Handwriting without Tears. I'm looking forward to a nice long break (three weeks) and some time to get the house all clean again (okay, it's not too bad, but getting pretty cluttered, and I haven't really vacuumed the commercial door mats in the mud room or mopped out there in a while, and our bathroom could really use a cleaning!)

4-
I am working on our Christmas letter. I swore off Christmas letters a couple of years ago, when one of hubby's relatives started bad-mouthing me because of my Christmas letter from the previous year. But, since I didn't send out any Christmas cards last year, and we've had so many changes, I feel as though I owe an explanation to those people who we don't see very often. So, I'm working my way through writing one that will go to friends and my side of the family only. It is in a newsletter format, and I am trying to make all of the subheadings song lyrics, because deep down, I am a giant dork!

5-
Okay, it's been a while since I posted a youtube video on this blog, and I already shared this on Facebook, but I just think it is pretty hysterical (not quite as funny as the turbotax rap, but I think I am one of the few who rolls around on the floor laughing during that one!)


6-
In the "our local school district is dumb" department...our exchange student found out that she doesn't have to take final exams because she hasn't missed much school...so if we were okay with that, we had to sign a form (that came in the mail yesterday) that had to be turned in today. Now, I personally thought that final exams were supposed to show how much the kids had learned or hadn't learned. But instead, it is based upon how much school you attended or didn't attend. Of course, it appears that any absences from class for school events (like sports) don't count against you, even though you were clearly not in class. Our exchange student missed several class periods 7 to 9 times during softball season, but she still qualifies for skipping finals. But, if someone had a sickness that took them out of class for even half that many days, they would have to take finals because they missed class...never mind sports kids missed WAY MORE actual class that the kid that was ill...Maybe dumb policies like this are another good reason to homeschool.

7-
Well, it seemed like there was something I thought would make a great seventh quick take. I should have just typed a number 7 and written it out, because now I can't remember what it was...oh well!

More quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Small Successes

Well, we have been extra busy around here the past couple of weeks (like pretty much everyone else, I bet) but here are a few of my small successes this week:



1-
I hate that I always have to put this as a small success, but I went to confession at our parish penance service on Tuesday. It felt really good to do so, but I always dread confession so much...I really should do it more often.

2-
I made snacks for girl scouts last week. Banana muffins for 26 girls...and I managed to squeak 27 muffins out of a double batch, so Charlotte could have one too. The girls really seemed to like them. Disturbingly, it appears that I have not made muffins in quite a while, because I could not find my muffin tins, and thought perhaps I had gotten rid of them before our move (they are in rough shape), but it turns out that my MIL borrowed them long enough ago that I forgot that they were ever in this house.

3-
Went to a doctor's appointment that I have been putting off for about 9 months. I had a full blood workup done (which cost $1500, a big shock since our insurance now is an HSA plan, and we have to pay the first $6000 out of pocket, although we do get a reimbursement from the farm, but that's every 6 months) and I ended up cancelling my next appointment when we were supposed to go over the blood work...and then it took me about 3 months to get an appointment that would work out (Since this doc is about 3 hours away, I really try to get appointments coordinated with my MIL's doctor appointments, which is easier said than done!) So, I found out that most of my blood work is fine, but I am now on a OTC vitamin D, because my levels there were low, so here's hoping OTC works, or when we recheck my blood work in 3 months I'll be moved to a prescription vitamin D.

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

Quick Takes Friday

1-
Eva lost her second tooth last night...and by lost, I mean hubby pulled it out. That's tooth number two where the adult tooth was growing in behind the baby tooth. Both Eva and MIL thought that she should have the second one pulled by the dentist, too. The "tooth fairy" (I tell Eva that Daddy dresses up in a tutu when he is the tooth fairy) left a bonus. Thankfully I had a little cash, or the tooth fairy would have to leave an IOU. So, Eva was happy to find $1.50 this morning...it was either that or a $5, and we thought that would be a bit much.

2-
Thanksgiving really messed up my library schedule (which is that I go in every Thursday and try to get books for the following week's preschool topic. I guess the good news is that SIL works at the elementary school library and is willing to bring me home books when I forget or can't find anything at the library. This week, I had her bring me some books, but she couldn't find enough books about nursery rhymes in her library, so on Monday I went to the public library. The librarian found me another book, plus a few collections of nursery rhymes, and put a book on hold for me that she thought would be good, but was out with a daycare family and was due at storytime on Wednesday. So, yesterday I dropped off the DVD we checked out on Monday(they are only good for 1 week) and the librarian had two books waiting for me. I also completely forgot to look for books for next week's topic (which to be honest, I haven't checked to see what it is yet...gotta be more organized at some point.)

3-
We've been trying to plug away at school, but getting back to a regular schedule is proving to be difficult after thanksgiving and while recovering from sickness. Eva had a reaction to her Amoxicillin, and so now she's on benedryl and has an allergy marked down on her chart. With all the calling and waiting for calls from the doctor's office (not to mention the Girl Scouts and errands in town yesterday afternoon) we didn't get any school done yesterday. We did car schooling on Tuesday to take MIL to a doctor's appointment, so we'll need to do some school today, and possibly might do some more school tomorrow. Our exchange student has the day off today for a teacher inservice, so my little girls have to do school, but she doesn't have to go. I don't think the little girls have figured out she's still here, which is good, otherwise Charlotte would probably go wake her up.

4-
Hubby and I are taking a mini-vacation as our Christmas gifts to each other. I booked the hotel yesterday, so there is no looking back. He has to go to a Knights of Columbus state meeting in January, so I booked a room in the same hotel for two nights before the meeting, and we are leaving behind the girls and the exchange student. Eva and Charlotte will stay with MIL and FIL. SIL will come over here to stay with our exchange student. It's not in the most exciting venue on the planet, but it should be fun to have some time away from the farm.

5-
Speaking of the farm...our bottle calves are being weaned right now, so before too long we will have no personal cows. Of course, one of hubby's uncles has a whole bunch of cows on the circle by our house, so we won't be cow-less. Our poor cats, who seem very attached to the cows, might be a little sad to see them go.

6-
On my to do list - call the vet to have the cats spayed and neutered. Take the car to the body shop (again). The day after I got the chips filled on the windshield (1 week after I got the bumper replaced), I hit a pheasant driving to bible study. It cracked the cover on my passenger side headlight. Well, the headlight has been working sometimes and not working sometimes. On our way home from church and seeing the movie "Tangled" last weekend, we got pulled over for a nonworking headlight. So, I guess I really need to get it taken care of...but I am a little afraid of what I might do to the car next if I take it into the body shop again...

7-
We are going to have a very busy Sunday this week. We usually go to Mass on Saturday nights, but Eva and Charlotte are going to sing the offertory hymn with the Religious Education program, I am substituting as cantor (and MIL is lector, both positions sit on the altar for the whole Mass here...so I really hope hubby and SIL are willing and able to come and sit with and help with the kids). Then, in the late afternoon the Religious Ed classes are having their advent program, followed by a dinner (and Santa...as much as I have pleaded that we don't need Santa at a church thing, no one listens...) Then, at night, hubby and I are teaching our first virtual NFP class online. It looks like we'll have one couple in California, one in Texas and us here in Colorado. I am really hoping it all goes well and that the technology isn't too much for us!

More quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Small Successes

Well, it's Thursday again already. We've been having a very busy week, and Eva has a pretty nasty looking rash right now, and I'm afraid she might be having a reaction to her antibiotic...

So, on to my small successes:

1-
I am DONE Christmas shopping! The only person I might buy a few more small items for is our exchange student (I think I only have one stocking stuffer for her right now), but hubby is done, Eva is done, Charlotte is done, our parents are done, hubby's person for the sibling swap is done, and my person for the sibling swap is almost done (he wants a book that doesn't come out until December 15th, so I'm waiting to see if it will be available on Amazon, since straight from the publisher they are charging $8.50 for shipping). I also haven't gotten food products for stockings, but I do have chocolate coins waiting for St. Nicolas Day.

2-
I started back up with scrapbooking in the last two weeks, and I figured out that I am three pages away from finishing family album number 2! I do still need to get some photographic evidence of some occasions (like Charlotte's 2nd birthday and Christmas 2008...) and add them to the album, but I went ahead and ordered album #3 from Creative Memories this week.

3-
I had a mommy-daughter day with Eva yesterday. She asked for a one on one day, so Charlotte went to some church stuff with grandma, and Eva and I stayed home. We made lunch, made cookies, she read me a book, watched some VeggieTales silly songs, played bananagrams and pet detectives, watched VeggieTales story of St. Nicolas, ate some cookies, I read her a book, colored pictures, played Candyland, and just pretty much had a good time doing what she wanted to do. Charlotte had a great time with grandma, too, so it all worked out well.

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, my pie dough is chilling in the fridge, the girls are watching a TV show, so I thought I'd pop in and blog about Thanksgiving books while they are still on my mind.

Since I am doing Little Saints Preschool with Charlotte this year, I have been reading more picture books than ever. Of course, since the curriculum was written in 1999, a lot of the suggested books are hard for me to find (it might not be such a big issue for people near larger libraries, but our small town library has very few of the suggestions in stock) and the Thanksgiving books suggested were no exception to that rule. So, after realizing that I didn't have ANY books about Thanksgiving (and Eva is 6...I feel like a bad mom about that) I went ahead and searched the internet and found recommendations from a variety of homeschool bloggers. I purchased 4 books and found two more that were recommended at the library. So, here are the books and my thoughts on them:

The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh - This is a very good book, perhaps a little old yet for my kids. Eva did well with it, but Charlotte rolled around and was a punk while I was reading the book. Lots of information in it, and I liked how it focused on a set of siblings of the baby born on the Mayflower. I have to admit, I am not a huge fan of the illustration style, but I am definitely glad that I purchased this one.

The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern - I loved the details in this book, I loved the focus on what the children had or did not have and the work the children did. I also liked the illustration style better than the first book. The text was probably a little better for my girl's ages and attention spans (6 and 4). Glad I bought this one.

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy - Cute book, right about at Charlotte's level. Probably the best replacement for the books in the Little Saints Preschool curriculum because it is just the right level of read aloud for my 4 year old. Eva put up with it well, but I think she liked the other two books better. Not sure if I am glad I bought this one or not...I'll have to wait and see next year how the girls react. If I had another little one, I would say yes, but since as of now Charlotte is the youngest, I'm not sure how many Thanksgivings we will read this one.

Thanksgiving Is... by Gail Gibbons - Generally I like Gail Gibbons books, not so sure I am crazy about this one. It is also at a reading/attention level more appropriate to Charlotte's age, and it does have some interesting information in it, but I am not so sure that I am glad I bought it...I would prefer to own either of the two library books instead.

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin - Very cute book. I like the storyline about the grandma and granddaughter inviting one person each Thanksgiving, I like when things turn out differently than the grandmother expects, and the cranberry bread recipe in the back of the book is very tasty (we left out the raisins and did all cranberries...I also didn't get my timer set right on my new oven, and tried to depan the bread too soon, so it doesn't look as pretty as it could!) Very cute, although not an informative book about Thanksgiving, it does involve a thanksgiving meal. I may have to check it out of the library again next year!

Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson - This one is too funny! Eva loved the whole "Thanksgiving needed a superhero" thing, and the book is all about a woman who helped Thanksgiving become a national holiday. I never had heard anything about her before, but I learned a lot in the book, and it was a lot of fun to read. Definitely a fun one to learn about how Thanksgiving became the holiday it is today!

Well, Happy Thanksgiving! I should get back to making some food!

Quick Takes Friday

Well, it has been quite a while since I did any quick takes (I have to admit that three small successes seems less daunting than 7 quick takes these days!) But here it goes...

1-
Charlotte will be 4 (4!) this weekend...I started this blog while I was pregnant with her, which means two things...I have been blogging for too long and my baby is getting too old.

2-
I am absolutely loving the fact that softball season is over and I no longer have to take a daily trip into town. Of course, now MILs exchange student is playing basketball, so she has to take trips into town everyday...plus she is nice enough to let her exchange student participate in jazz band in the mornings, which means she has to take him to school twice a week in the morning and pick him up every evening. I still seem to have plenty to do without softball practice, so I am still trying to decide whether or not to put Eva back in piano lessons. I'm leaning towards perhaps buying her some piano books that I can teach her out of, since I really don't see a need to make another trip into town (particularly since her piano teacher has 6 pm or 7 pm as possibilities for piano lessons on Tuesdays...which would get us home at 7 or 8 pm...)

3-
I got a notification from Snapfish this week. Apparently, they will store your photos in albums there indefinately, as long as you make a purchase every twelve months. I have one week before my 12 months are over...this isn't a big deal because of the photo storage, but it is a sad commentary on how scrapbooking has been going since we put our old house on the market a year ago. So, instead of cleaning my house for Charlotte's birthday party this weekend, I've been uploading photos and blogging...yep, I'm a procrastinator.

4-
My SIL who recently moved back home has been helping me a lot with cleaning the house. Pretty much every weekend, she is willing and ready to help me...between having a much larger house than I am used to, homeschooling both girls this year, and having our exchange student, the house seems to get very cluttered over the course of a week (some weeks it is getting really bad by Wednesday!) but SIL is willing to help out (and even does things like disinfect my trashcan lid...which I would hardly ever do...) This past weekend, she helped me dig out our walk-in closet (that wasn't a walk-in when we started...) and we pulled out seven trash bags and two boxes of giveaway stuff. I'm trying not to turn my closet back into the dumping ground of things I am not sure what do to with. It's very nice to be able to walk in and get our coats, since it started snowing yesterday.

5-
Eva sold candy, nuts and magazines for her girl scout troop. With the money raised, the troop was able to buy tunics for all the daisies and sashes for the brownies and junior girl scouts. Eva sold the most of anyone in the troop, so she ended up with a whole bunch of incentive awards...and she felt bad that her friends didn't get as many prizes as her. I had to remind her that we didn't sell stuff for the prizes, but we sold to help her troop...and that she made a big difference in helping everyone get their tunic or sash. She's been cracking me up with her stuff...a lot of the prize options were monkey related, and she just loves monkeys...so she got a very large stuffed monkey, a little stuffed monkey and a monkey t-shirt, which she wants to wear for the first time to Charlotte's birthday party...Charlotte wants her to wear a "happy heart" shirt instead.

6-
This Sunday, hubby has a Knights of Columbus meeting in the nearest large-ish city, so the girls and I are looking forward to doing some shopping. I am most of all looking forward to buying a booster seat for Charlotte...YEAH for no more carseats!!!

7-
I'm running both out of time and things to say (of course, I will think of 10 more things immediately after I post this and leave the house!) so I guess I will end my quick takes here.

More quick takes over at Conversion Diary.

Small Successes

Well, it is Thursday again, and it's been a while since I posted, so I guess I'll do a quick small successes before hurrying into the shower and getting dressed before hubby is home for lunch.

1-
We have been starting school early and finishing school early...not really thanks to me, but thanks to the time change and the sunlight that wakes my girls up at 7 am. I have found that I need approximately 1 1/2 hours to wake up before I can tolerate book work with the girls, so where before the time change we started around 10 am and ended around noon (which made lunch a challenge!) We are now getting started at 9 am (or earlier) and finishing up by 11ish...and of course, now hubby is getting home a half hour later...go figure!

2-
I ordered a new stove (YEAH!!!) after living with my broken one since February. I also ordered a garbage disposal (YEAH!!!!) after living here since February without one. Hubby called an electrician (YEAH!!!) so that we can have a switch put in for the garbage disposal, which is the ONLY reason I didn't order a garbage disposal the day we moved in...this will be house number 3 (out of three) where I will have a garbage disposal put in...I just can't put into words how much I love them. House #1 had a broken disposal, house #2 was unfinished and was missing a lot of things (I got a garbage disposal before I got doors for my kitchen cabinets there), and this one, when it was remodeled, they didn't even put in a switch...grrrr...

3-
We are finishing up first quarter for school. Next week we will start quarter 2, which means that we are done with (almost) 10 weeks of school. Eva is done with Science, almost done with history, done with her map skills book (which she loved), and is slightly behind where the book wants us to be for phonics, and taking math at a slightly slower pace than I had anticipated, but is learning it well. Charlotte has done almost 10 weeks worth of Little Saints preschool, and is more cooperative some days than others. I don't think that I have cursed any particular book we are using so far this year, so that's a pretty major accomplishment!

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

Small Successes

1-
I made it to a softball game this season for our exchange student. Of course, she didn't actually play in the game (she's on the JV team, and it was the Varsity game at the state championships...but that meant we had to drive 3 hours one way to see it!) and they ended up losing in the first round, but I guess the good news is that they ended up losing to the new state champions. I also got a chance to catch up with a college friend for a few hours before heading home.

2-
Our CCD program's All Saints Festival was last night, and we got it all ready and all cleaned up, and it ran smoothly. We ended up having St. Cecilia's musical chairs (which I was in charge of...who knew that my 3rd and 4th grade class would enjoy musical chairs so much?), Fishing with St. Peter (which I can't find the link for, but basically, the kids threw a fishing pole over a blue sheet and a piece of candy and a holy card were clipped on), St. Therese's Little Flower Toss, and St. Anthony's Lost and Found. We also had a Saints Parade for those who dressed up, and had popcorn and clear koolaid (SO cool! Totally clear, but tasted like cherry koolaid, and no pink stains on all the tables!) for snacks, and prizes for those who dressed up and played all four games.

3-
Hubby and I discussed budget stuff for the first time since we moved into this house (the transition to farming and the redecorating of this house have not been good on the budget), and we decided to move away from a cash budget (which I have been kinda sorta doing this year) to using the debit card for everything, so that we can keep track of where money is being spent. It's a little harder budgeting with a debit card (it is easier to go over the amount than with cash), but doing the cash thing with no real budget wasn't really helping either...so now it is just a matter of getting all spending under control, and sticking to the amounts we have planned out.

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!

Small Successes

My small successes for the week:

1-
I finally got the car into the auto shop after I backed into another car in the church parking lot a little under a month ago. The shop had gotten the parts in a couple of weeks ago, but I just didn't get it in because of harvest. Bonus, they got it done in one day, so I was able to pick it up after our Religious Education classes yesterday.

2-
I cleaned the whole house (okay, at least the upstairs...and I washed our exchange students sheets and she cleaned her bathroom...otherwise the basement was left alone) on Saturday and Sunday...and it is not completely trashed yet and it is Thursday! Woo hoo! Although, mostly that is due to the fact that I am hosting my Bible study tonight and I have been more on top of things this week because of it.

3-
I finally bought myself some new clothes...I hate shopping for me (I'd much rather shop for the girls!) but I was looking at the fall weather and what clothes I had available for fall, and thought I'd better get some more cool weather clothes. So, I got a pair of jeans and a pair of slacks (should've gotten two pairs of jeans, but one ended up being out of stock) that I absolutely love (Lane Bryant Right Fit), and I got three shirts and a new pair of PJs. I've also done some shopping for hubby (more jeans and t-shirts...he rips through them a lot working with the cows) and Eva and Charlotte (winter PJs, new robes, and some sweat pants).

More small successes at Faith and Family LIVE!