Sans Training Wheels

Okay, so I know your kid has been riding their bike without training wheels for quite sometime...mine could have done it too, she just didn't believe that she could ;)

Plus some of the fault lies with us, I've been telling Kelly we needed to do just this for sometime now. Take her to a big open parking lot and just show her that she can do it!

What do you know, but Kelly got her going, ran behind her holding on for all of 10 seconds and she was off on her own!

She can do it!!

Now the little one was getting her fun in too, but on the new scooter. We have also told her that she can ride her bike without the training wheels since she has such great balance on the scooter.

She doesn't believe us....oyvee!

Missing our friends!

Friends are so important....even more important when you don't have family that live close by....even more important when we as a family decided that we needed to "invest in our friends like family."

Our friends that just moved to Colorado were friends that we invested in like family. As far as I am concerned, they are family. I love their girls like I would nieces; their son, just recently started actually talking to me! (this is HUGE, as he is quite shy!) Their baby, I could just eat up her endless cheeks and never grow tired of watching her explore her world. Their conversation... never at a loss for something to talk about: religion, politics, news, our kids, adoption, homeschooling, or just struggling to catch up from the past week over the noise level of 7 children :) In her, a fellow homeschool mom that has been doing it longer than me, but we could still commiserate about our kids' quirks. (Come on, I know your kids are perfect angels at the kitchen table during school...aren't they?)

Other things I love about them: they're a big family, they're passionate about their kids, they are strong Christians, they do some things different, but not extreme, and they put the adoption bug in my ear.

It's funny, what started out as a wonderful friend for my sweet daughter, instead turned into family friends.

We are so blessed and all around better people because we know the Delays.

Kid Bedroom #1 is Finished!

Here is the bedroom, minus carpet before the painting began.

Primer

WOW! That is really pink!

We had some great helpers!

Almost finished!

Final touches, sponged cream over the pink to tone it down! :) Months ago I bought ribbon to spruce up the curtains and I finally sewed them! They are so chic! :)

And no, my children never make their bed....

Well, one bedroom down, next the baby room. Little sis wants the baby to sleep in her room, but I told her she would change her mind AND a baby boy wasn't going to want to sleep in such a PINK room.

My First Bulbs!

I am so excited! Like a kid at Christmas, I love Spring....but this year is a little different. Usually, the first sign of good weather, I splurge at Walmart or Lowes and get a bunch of flowers that I plant on a marathon day. Then I drag the family (the kids are usually already helping) and I proudly show then the spring flowers....that the store had, but I planted....that someone started from scratch. This year, I skipped the first part and have just been watering ever so often, and today...a drug my family out to the yard to see the first bloom! The one I planted (last fall)! Now the daffodils have been blooming, but, some of them were already there, so that doesn't really count in my book...I just added a few more. But the crocus, that is totally new, and, this fall was the very first time I had planted bulbs. So naturally, I'm quite excited to see the fruits of my labor. God is so good, just when we (I)think we can take no more cold, no more brown, no more winter, He sends some of the best color all year long.

My crocus in the back yard.

The daffodils by the mailbox. I won't take all the credit, but I did do some of the work ;)

Marriage Advice (not from me!)

So, a friend of mine has a great blog, where she had some unconventional marriage advice. Someone commented that they were not sure and wondered what others thought. Personally, I think she was dead on! Please head over there and see what you think.

As for me, the best thing for my marriage was when we took a class at church in 2004(ish) where we read the book His Needs, Her Needs and used the workbook that goes with it. Now, let me tell you off the bat, my marriage is pretty good, we don't fight too much (hubby mostly won't fight with me, even when I try!), and we get along pretty well. But, what I saw in this book, that it wasn't about me! Ha, who'da thought?! I don't know if we would have ever had major problem over this concept (for both him and I), but maybe little things here and there might have been simply harder without this knowledge. And even though my marriage is great at times, we have to work at it being great. I highly recommend getting this and reading it together.

Dana's ideas are all A+ ideas in my book. My favorite is naturally #5! Not because I don't sometimes struggle with this, when my head hits the pillow at night, all I really wanna do is sleep! But, yes.. sex does cover a multitude of sins.. And ladies, don't we want to be the ones to put that spring in his step?

So, what do you think, what should we do to make our men happy?

I need a teacher workday

Again! Hey, public school teachers get them, the kids have to stay home with mom and dad and the teachers get to plan, plan, plan!

Seems like it was just January and I was begging hubby to take the kiddos to the zoo, on his day off, by himself. All so I could organize, plan, and catch up on some grading. Well, here I am wishing for another such day. It was wonderful planning out what I wanted to do with the kids each day, but this morning I turned my page on my planner and it was blank :( I can only "plan" out days so far in advance. Otherwise if we get behind those plans, they don't jive with what we are really doing and then, let's face it, it makes me feel oh so behind. We have been keeping up with my said pace pretty well, but it's been a while since I graded papers (they are mostly graded since alot of work is done with mom looking over their shoulder, Big sis, less and less though) or planned out our days beyond the workbooks.

What do we do besides the workbooks, you ask. Well, I try to plan out all my extra "homeschool" stuff that I get or I will forget to use it! Ha! Both kids get time on the computer, my favorite site for them to use is www.starfall.com but Bis Sis has truly outgrown this site. I would love any suggestions on a good learning site that doesn't have to many mindless games that I can direct my 2nd grader to! I also have the Learning Palette which they both can do a little math, phonics, or reading comprehension. Emma also has alot of flash cards that I seem to always forget about unless I schedule time for it. I also try to schedule time for puzzles or coloring or any of these other things mentioned randomly so that it breaks up the boredom of the worksheets.

There's not even a free day at home until Thursday or Friday to think about planning, let alone without kids :( Oh well, we will manage!

I've lost my Mod Podge!

That's right I can't find my mod podge! And I'm not happy about it. You see, I have just about all the crafty, homeschool stuff you could possibly need after years of "browsing" for my scrapbooking and stamping needs in Michaels and Joannes for shopping therapy. And, about a year ago, I had the best scrapbook room I could have ever dreamed of. The best part, everything had it's place. It was organized mess, I could find everything right when I needed it (usually).

This is my beautiful craft room a year ago, okay, so it wasn't always this clean, but you know crafty people, sometimes we don't have time to tighty up while we are creating.

Well, we had grand plans to close in the garage and make it a school/craft room. :) Here I am, 9 months later, I still have a garage being unused other than to store junk. I know, my sweet hubby just hasn't had the time to finish this, there's no one to blame. I have packed alot of my craft room up into the attic till said garage it finished and now, we have moved the girls into the craft/playroom so that we can redo carpet and paint.

I want to throw a 2 year old tantrum right now! I own mod podge, I have a school project that I want to do and I can't find my mod podge!!!!!

This is the same room, right now....... :( The saver in me just can't go buy any when I know I own it......somewhere.....maybe in the closet......maybe in a box in the attic......anyone, some sympathy here.