Random things today with homeschool...

First I would like to say that I like reading these other blogs where each of the kids had a nick name, so I thought I would come up with some for mine instead of using their real names. So we have Mr. Creative, Miss Expressive, Miss Cutie and Miss Comedian. Those are my four darlings. So, today I came up stairs to begin school and Mr. Creative was sitting there making his "List of Things to do in 2009", there are going to be 100, but here is the list so far:
1.Be good
2. Help mom and dad
3. To help [Miss Expressive, Miss Cutie and Miss Comedian]
4. Be a good 8 year old
5. Wine lost (whine less)
6. love one another
7. Pray to Jesus and God
8. help me to not be bad, God
9. Be good in school
10. Be nise! (be nice!)
11. love my sefe (self)
12. Do not cry
13. Play
14. Do not cry lick a tow year old (like a two year old-sadly he does sometimes)
15. Be nise to family
16.Do not eat with hands on the table
17. do not yell (i like this one)
18. Shhhh, be quiet
19. tack clas (take class)
20. love

The list goes on, but it is so cute and I will definately save this one. He just does the cutest things sometimes. Later in the afternoon we had some book time, now this does not happen ever day like I would like it, but at least on Mondays and Thursdays we have quiet book time. Mr. Creative can read now, so he chose Aesops Fables and headed to the guest room, Miss Expressive and Miss Cutie are just learning how to read so they pulled out their Mr. Bob Books and got ones they could actually read. Miss Comedian crawled up on my legs and got her library books out, while I laid on the couch with "The Bend in the Road" hoping to get some reading done as well. It was so cute, the first two were so excited when they actually sounded out a word that they kept running up to me showing me each word they got. "Yes, great!" I said wanting to get back to my book. They were so excited. Then I looked up at Miss Comedian and she looked so lost. She wanted to read like her sisters. I patted her head and said, "Don't worry you will be able to read some day." She just looked at me and said, "But, I am reading mom." Then she proceeded to read me her story pretending to sound out all the letters. "Good job" I said. And she looked as proud as she could be. All days of homeschooling are not like this one, but today was a good one for me and I will take it. It is exciting to be with your kids when they discover new things. For this I am thankful. Now because I have just written all this, tomorrow will be.....

Boys, boys, boys...

So, I grew up with all girls. I always wanted a brother, but didn't have any. My son, J--, he just confuses me so much. I keep trying to figure out what is a boy thing and what is just not a boy thing! It is at these times that I wish I had a brother so I knew. This is a new thing for me. I hope we do it right! Thank goodness that God tells us that we can ask Him for wisdom. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.

Usborne Books

Ok, so I really don't like homeshows, but this one I had to do. It is for books! Not any books, Usborne books. They are great and I love them. So on Feb. 6th I am having a home show, although the best part is if you really need some books you don't have to come to the show you can order online! Yep! So if you would like to check these books out go to www.ubah.com\k2040, enter the bookstore and click on my homeshow and then shop from there. If you know someone that would love to check out these books, please let me know! Hope you enjoy them as much as I do! Click the picture to take you to the right link.

My guilty pleasure...

Ok, so I admit, I watch the Bachelor. Now, this is only because I happened to watch the last Bachelorette and really wanted Jason to win, and so I have to see if he gets the girl! Ok, and the only reason I watched the Bachelorette was because Deanna was on and she got dumped by Brad, etc. Ok, so it is admitted that it is my guilty pleasure (and Jason watches sometimes with me..isn't he great!) But, I have to call my pick for Jason, just because I actually think he really is going for a wife and not a play mate. We shall see if they have me fooled! 8-) So here is a picture of the couple I think will be together after this bizarre dating "game". Jason and Jillian. I think they have so much fun together! So we shall see. If The Bachelor is your guilty pleasure leave a post and let me know what you think!
Ok, so another show Jason and I really love it LOST! It started last night and I was so excited. The producers said that they would answer more questions this year. Well, whatever, more questions were brought up last night! I can't wait for the rest of this season! That show just keeps getting better and better!
Our favorite show of all is The Office, which as we speak I am tapying right now on our ancient VCR (see blog below) and can't wait to watch later tonight. Later comes Survivor and Amazing Race, but we are on break from them. Those are the shows Jason and I love to watch, what is your guilty pleasure?

The year is 1998??? I thought it was 2009!

Ok, so we don't have Tivo or a DVR system or cable. I know we are in the stone age and we are fine. We have a converter box, and we are fine. But, we still do it the old fashion way and last month our VCR died on us. Yes, died on us. We went searching for an old vcr that someone would want to give away. You can't get a VCR without a DVD anymore, at least that I could find. Then Jason realized that in storage we happen to have one that his parents used when he was growing up. So we started using that one. Well, the other night we realized that we needed to figure out if it could be scheduled to tape a show, our old one did it. Again, it is not like the Tivo where it is automatic, we just have to plan ahead. Again, no worries. We finally found the right button, oh did I mention that if you want to rewind the VCR that you HAVE to use the remote for some reason the company did not put a rewind button on the main part...oh and none of the new remotes will sync with it. That should have given us a clue that is was old, and again I wasn't arguing with that...but when we went to enter the year it would not read '09. Jason did some math and figured out that 1998 was the last year that January 20th was on a Tuesday. So if you happen to look on our VCR you might be shocked to see that we are living in 1998. Hey, whatever works. We can program for the right night and I will get to see LOST tomorrow even though I will be at youth group.

Shhhh, don't tell them!

So yes, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday observed, but I am a terrible mom, we still had school. The kids had no idea until one of the neighbor kids came over and announced that the didn't have school Monday AND Friday. This morning I kept getting the question, "Why do we have to have school? No one else is." Well, I stuck to my (apparently terrible) guns and had school. It was pretty good and there will be a day soon when all the other kids will be in school and they will have a day off and then it won't be so bad. 8-) But, we learned something new today and we had fun doing it. Action verbs, I never knew, could be so fun to learn. They got out their jitters by jumping, running, screaming (their favorite), growling, roaring, punching and they could not forget to tackle mom (John's favorite). What could have been a better day to learn about action verbs when you just want to get out there and enjoy and play like the rest...they had fun and I got to check off a lesson...it was good, but next time I think I will have to warn the neighbor kids...Shh, don't tell them!

How could it happen so fast?

Yeah, there are lots of things that don't take much time to do, sigh. That only took a moment in time, but I am wondering how my kids wonderfully neat area upstairs could possibly get turned over like a testing site in the matter of minutes. Seriously, I am not joking I am talking minutes. No video until it is all cleaned up...again. Seriously, they worked hard,um, YESTERDAY to get it great. I even taught (another idea to get them excited) them the great and wonderful clock method which they LOVED!! Now if I could just follow it...another blog...anyway, seriously I was working on cleaning a small part of our back room (aka Jason's study) and it happened. When will I learn that if I am actually accomplishing something that something somewhere else(that I am not going to like) is going on. Sigh. Maybe I should post a sign that says, "No playing torpedo to the girls room" (yes he actually did and yes it looked like one went off) or "Games are to be played individually not all of them together, even if it is a creative moment". I swear there is going to be a new game invented at our house from ALL the other games that people have thought of and using all the pieces too. Well, at least I know it will be clean tomorrow afternoon, because it is Family Movie day and it won't happen unless upstairs looks like it did yesterday. So I guess I should complain.

It is official...I will be a Marathon runner, well a half of one anyway!

So I have officially signed up for the Chicago Half Marathon!! Yes, those that know me know I am not a runner, but I will be by August. I found this picture that says it is on the 9th, but it is actually on AUGUST 2nd for those that want to come and cheer me on or maybe join me for that matter! I will be officially signing up to run for World Vision to raise money for kids in Africa. What better way to get energized to run!!! Come and join me for a great time and to help kids in Africa, and for nothing else so I won't be doing it alone!!! 8-) Click the picture to link yourself to the website.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

So it keeps snowing here in Chicago, and I LOVE IT!!! It snowed 3" last night and has been falling all day I think we are at 5 or 6" and it is still coming down! Sleding and ice skating here we come!!! I love Chicago and snow!

My Singing Girls

Here are two videos that I want to share. I took one this morning after the girls opened some shirts from their Aunt Kristyn and Uncle Andy. They love Hannah Montana even though they have never seen an episode of her or listened to her music. I find it soo funny. Then we were looking at some old videos of them singing. So I thought I would share one that was taken about two summers ago and then this morning. They are sooooo cute!


This is one of the girls two summers ago. I love it!


This is one that I took this morning! I love their voices!