Thankful for these....

I kinda got this idea from a friend's blog entry a few days ago. She blogged about what she was thankful for that day. Going thru out my day I would think of something that I was truly thankful for. Some of them aren't a big deal but to me they make me smile! And of course I'm thankful for my family but these are just some "things" that I'm thankful for. Here are a few of them:

1. Hotsling baby carrier--it's so simple to use, light weight, I bring it everywhere I go. Without it I couldn't go and do all what I do with all 4 kiddos in tow. Like just taking a simple walk. Since I don't have a double stroller, how would I walk and push 2 strollers?!?! Instead I put Gracie in the hotsling and Mason in a stroller and off I go!!!

2. Crocs--Yes, those horrible looking plastic shoes. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them for the kids at least (but I do have a pair and have worn them many times.) I love that I can get them wet to clean them off. I love that even Mason can put them on his feet by himself. They are GREAT shoes. The cheap, off-brand ones work just as good!!! Gotta love plastic shoes!

3. Doggie fragrance spray--it gives my puppy dog a fresh smell...cuz heaven forbid he smell like a DOG!

4. Dishwashers--washing dishes has always been the one chore I hated. Without a dishwasher my dishes would pile high in the sink!! Thank you to whoever invented the dishwasher. You deserve a hug!

5. Mexican food--it's just so YUMMY!!

6. Disposable diapers-- I know using cloth diapers is probably "better" but there is NO way I could handle cleaning them, or just dealing with them. I even throw poopy underwear away instead of cleaning them out. It just seems SO much easier in my book!!!

7. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser--I don't really know what it is...but this thing works WONDERFUL. I use it almost daily!!!

8. Pizza Cutter--oh, how i love thee! I use this thing to cut almost anything. pancakes, french toast, crust off of sandwiches, pretty much anything I cut for the kids.

9. coupons--lets just say I LOVE free money!!!!

10. stain remover--one of those things that saves so many of my kiddos outfits! Gotta love it!

Dirty Jobs

I dont' know why this picture of Cooper keeps uploading to this blog sideways. It's not like that on my computer. I already rotated it. ugh. oh well, you can at least see his floppy ears! lol.

Gracie playing outside too!

The kids playing "dirty jobs".

Digging in their mud pit.

I'm sure most of you have seen that show on the discovery channel called "Dirty Jobs" right?!?! Well, Jordan loves that show. He is so interested in all that stuff. Today after school the kids were all outside playing. I went out to see what they were playing. They were digging in some dirt by our tree. I went back in the house for a little bit. I heard the outside faucet turn on. I didn't even want to go back outside to see what was going on. I knew the result of that couldn't be pretty. I was right. They filled the hole they dug with water. Now they had MUD. They were scooping out mud and filling the bucket. I asked what they were doing. They said they were playing "Dirty Jobs". Part of me was really upset on the inside. I was smiling at them on the outside. I was upset only because I knew what this ment. Dirty, messy kids that were going to track all this dirt into the house. BUT I realized the damage was already done. So I went back inside and got my camara. They were, after all, having a blast so I really needed to document this. After my picture taking I came inside with Gracie to get a few things done. Then I heard the knock at the back door...there was Jordan COVERED from head to toe with mud and water. I mean COVERED. Then came Mason...no pants on..just his diaper...also covered in mud. Some how they both fell in the hole?!??! Not sure how that happened. So I said, "okay, take off your shoes, your pants and your shirt and I'll go and start the bath. Please don't come inside until i come back to get you". When I returned I found Jordan running around the yard naked...yup..completely naked. Luckily we have a 6ft tall privacy fence. I never told him to completely strip down. I was just thinking he would take off his shoes, jeans & shirt and stand by the door...not RUN around the yard naked. Mason then had his diaper off too. My boys, I tell ya what! They are crazy! I got them all in the bath after that and I had 3 squeaky clean kiddos at dinnertime! We had pancakes and scrambled eggs for dinner. The kids thought that was funny that they were eating pancakes in their pj's for dinner. Jordan said it was like breakfast on a Saturday morning! Here are come pictures from todays adventure. I didn't take any pictures of my naked boys though. Just the muddy kiddos. Oh and I got creative taking pictures of Cooper. I was trying to having him jump at my camara so I could get a picture of him with his floppy ears flopping!!! I was entertaining myself that is for sure!

My Sister, My Friend

I just want to wish my beatiful sister a very Happy Birthday. I love you Autumn and I hope your day is great!

1:32am

It's 1:32am, what are you doing right now? I have 4 peacefully sleeping children and one sleeping dog. The house is quiet. I love the sound of nothing. Why am I awake you ask? Well, I just swept the living room and kitchen floors. I scrubbed the living room floor and dusted the living room. I was in a cleaning mood so I had to get it done. It's going to feel SO good to wake up to a clean house. I'm in overdrive right now. I have SO much energy. I just want to do it all right now. BUT i know I'd regret that in the morning so I'm hoping by typing this it will make my eyelids start to get droopy and I'll get that tired feeling. Gracie is peacefully sleeping in her bed next to my bed (i'm in my bedroom now as I type this). I know that as soon as I hit that pillow she will wake up and want to nurse and then sleep the rest of the night with me. She seems to know as soon as i'm in bed. well, these are all my thoughts at 1:37am...as I had hoped I'm getting sleepy. So good night. (man, this is really a random mumbled blog entry--you can't expect more from me at this time of night though lol). I would take a picture of my nice clean living room BUT that would require getting my camara out, taking the picture, then uploading it on here. Too much work. LOL. Okay, good night.

Who is it?!?!

#1 Mya or Gracie????

#2 Mya or Gracie?!?!

#3: Is this Mya or Gracie?!?!!

#4 Mya or Gracie?!?!?

I just decided to pick 4 random pictures. Can you tell me which ones are Mya and which ones are Gracie??!?!?!? I was looking thru some pictures and can't believe how much they look alike. :)

Homeschooling

After much thought & prayer, we have decided to embark in a great new adventure. Homeschooling. Before you gasp and think, "oh those poor kids, they are going to be so sheltered and what about socialization?" here me out.

The thought first entered our minds back before Jordan was going to start Kindergarten and we were still traveling in our RV for Ryan's work. Then we were settled at the time Jordan would start kindergarten so we just had him go to public school. He loved school and did very well. Kindergarten was a great school year. This year he is in 1st grade. He is still doing VERY well academically. He has been on the honor roll every grading period. He is reading a grade level ahead of his class. However, he is bored with school. He can't stay focused on is work therefore getting in "trouble" for not being able to stay on task. He is such a "hands on" learner that I know he struggles doing so much "seat work." He is the last one getting his work done every day. He misses his recess because his work isn't done. Which only adds to his problem of having too much energy and causes him to not be able to focus even more. At his parent/teacher conference his teacher told me that he just "fell between the cracks" when it came to a reading game they do (they read books and get points for answering questions on the computer about the book and at the end of the year get to attend a party if they meet their reading goal). His teacher said that she was so busy encouraging the readers that were behind to take the quizzes that she didn't realize Jordan hadn't taken any. That right there upset me. I wasn't upset at his teacher. I'm sure it's difficult to keep up with all the students. But it upset me that my child is going to "fall between the cracks" because he IS smart. That is only going to cause him to be bored with school and eventually fall behind. So we got to thinking how he would benefit greatly from homeschooling. I could see right where he was at and work on what he needs to work on. I could keep his interest. The more I thought, the more excited I got. The more I wanted to be that one right there when my child learned a concept for the first time. To see the excitement on their faces. After thinking about all this is when I really began to research it. Do you know that in MOST cases it's been proven that homeschooled children actually do the exact opposite as most people think?!?! They are the ones that actually go on to the best colleges, become leaders and are much more self confident than others. They are not misfits nor are they sheltered. After reading all the statistics I was amazed at how wonderful this truly could be. Ryan & I were on the same page. We both were thinking that Jordan could really benefit from it greatly. He (well, not only him, but all of our children) is our greatest priority so we only want what is best for him. Still we didn't make a decision when to start this. Jordan had been coming home saying he was unhappy at school. That kids teased him for being the last one done with his work. That just broke my heart. Then a few more days passed. He had said a few things to me that were NOT something a 6 yr old should say. (I won't say what he said, but it had my jaw on the floor). He was picking up on this stuff from other kids. THEN I went to his class Christmas party and one of his "friends" came up to me and said, "My mom told me not to hang out with Jordan because he was a bad influence". I was like "Oh" but in my head I was screaming?!?! WHAT?!?!? I wanted to call up his mom right then and say, "Well, my jordan came home and said.......this and I know for SURE he didn't learn that at our house so how dare you say that my child is a bad influence! He probably learned it from YOUR son since they hang out all the time". Now of course I didn't say that. Now I know, Jordan isn't the perfect angel by any means. BUT I do know he isn't taught to say bad things or talk about inappropriate things here at home. So why would I want him to spend 7 hrs a day around that? He would NOT hear that stuff at home.
So far all these reasons we have decided to give homeschooling a try. Of course this is just a trial. If at ANY time it is not working for us, he'll go back to school. Ryan & I both talked with Jordan about this and he was MORE than excited about it. I made sure he understood that he will still be "going" to school but it will be at home. We have decided to start this semester. Then end of his 1st semester was today BUT he is going to school until next Friday Jan 29th. With us moving and all, we will start out slow as this won't be our normal homeschool routine. But Jordan is such a fast learner and has such a joy for learning I know he will be fine. Once we are moved and settled again, then we will come up with a "real" school routine and also get the kids plugged into in church again as well as other activities. I'm not worried about my kids having problems socializing. They LOVE being involved in stuff. There isn't a time that my kids aren't in stuff. Whether it's soccer, t-ball, dance, golf, etc. We are always on the go going to activities.
I do know that this isn't going to all be perfect. I know there will be some days that I just want to scream. I'm praying for God to give me extra doses of patience. I'm sure I'll need them at times. As well as extra organization skills and time management skills :) I'm also praying for wisdom and creativity. I know God will equipt me to be the teacher my kids need. I went to college for 5 yrs for teaching. What better children to teach than my very own, right?!?! I was able to talk to a mom at Mya's dance class who homeschools her 4 kids. She said it's the BEST thing she could ever have done. She said it's SO rewarding. but it's also the hardest thing she's ever done. I'm so excited to get started on this.
A quick funny story about how excited Jordan is about it. The other night he was working on some homework and we were having a few issues with him doing it. I told him that if this continues and this is how he acts with homeschooling then it's never going to work. He looked at me and said, "mom, it HAS to work. I'm not going back to that school! You WILL BE my teacher!" That was the end of him throwing his little fit and he got his work done! :) Sounds to me like he's excited.

Gracie Ann 6 months old

It's been awhile....

WOW....6 months since I last blogged. I have thought about blogging MANY times in the past 6 months. But that is as far as I get...I never make it to the computer long enough to type up my thoughts and it drives me CRAZY! I find blogging theraputic (did i even spell that right?!?!). I enjoy typing out my thoughts and stories...EVEN it nobody cares to read them. I'm hoping to be able to get back to blogging at least once a week. But I'm a pretty busy lady...so we'll see how good I get. I'm good at updating my facebook status but that is only because it takes me 2.5 seconds to do that. lol. But with taking care of 4 kids and a dog all by myself I don't have much time to take a shower...let alone blog. BUT that is going to change soon. This is what this blog is REALLY about.

As most of you know, Ryan has been working in Tennessee since before Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah...I KNOW...we moved to Texas so he wouldn't HAVE to travel anymore. But what do ya do when your boss REALLY needs you to work there and you know it's a good choice to do it for financial reasons? The answer is you suck it up and go. We weren't sure how long he would have to work. Possibly only till Christmas, well that turned into after Christmas and here we are a month later and there is NO end in sight. We didn't move to TN back in August (we could have but we chose TX) because we thought Texas would be the better choice. After being here we see that financially, it wasn't the best choice. I guess that is why they say hindsight is 20/20. If we would have known then what we know now, we could have saved ourself the hassle of going thru all this. But we did what we thought was best at the time. After many many prayers we felt peace with our decision. We have prayerfully considered moving to Tennessee. Trust me, I don't want to pack and go thru moving again BUT I don't like our family being "broken apart" either. That is how we feel. We miss "Daddy" so much and he is missing us so much as well. We could just stay here. He could come back and work here. That option is still there. But from a financial standpoint TN is the better choice. We now know that. We haven't been here that long. We have nothing keeping us here. We aren't attached really in any way. So the only reason to stay would be to not have to go thru the hassle of moving again. And that is really a small detail in the big picture. So once again, I have prayed many prayers and I feel God answering those prayers with giving me peace with this decision. I know you probably think "oh they are crazy" moving again. Maybe we are. But I don't care. All I know is we are trying to do what is best for our family. We don't do anything without asking God for his direction. I know God has a plan for us. And that is all that matters. We are tentatively going there to visit at the end of this month. We will stay somewhere temporarily until we find a house. Ryan really wants me there to help with picking out a house so we are going to go. So I'm in the process of packing up the house so it's all packed for when we find a place. As far as the kids, they couldn't be move happy. They have been thrilled ever since we told them our plans. Oh and as far as Jordan with school. That is another whole blog entry. We have decided to homeschool him. We have been considering it for a number of reasons and with all this going on, we have decided to start in a few weeks. I'll write another whole blog about that one later on. I need to call it a night. I'm nursing Gracie and she should be asleep pretty soon. Then I need to get to sleep.