Last 36 Hours of the Freebies!!

Don't forget to join me and other bloggers for the freebies that The Old SchoolHouse is giving us the chance to share with you. Check out mine and then visit the other bloggers because we all signed up for different items to share. Hurry because these deals end tomorrow.

My Freebies

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And, since we are on the topic of The Old SchoolHouse, they had a funny online that I had to share. If you are a Mom, a Dad, even a grandparent, you have probably felt this way.

Coexist?

I was driving home yesterday with my youngest son in the back seat and I passed a car with a coexist bumper sticker on the back window. I am sure you know the one I am talking about.

There are other forms, but they are all basically the same at their core design. I have seen these many times over the years. Many ... many times. I never paid them much attention other than an eyeroll in their direction. That was until yesterday.

Yesterday was different. I saw this sticker and actually gave it some thought. What is this asking us to do in society? Well, let's break it down.

The definition of coexist is:

Verb (used without object)

1. to exist together or at the same time

2. to exist separately or independently but peaceably, often while remaining rivals or adversaries 

OK, that sounds basic enough. Let's take it further. What about the words exist, rivals, and adversaries?

EXIST

Verb (used without object)

1. To have actual being; be:

2. to have life or animation; live

3. to continue to be or live

ADVERSARY

Noun, plural adversaries

1. a person, group, or force that opposes or attacks; opponent; enemy; foe

2. a person, group, etc., that is an opponent in a contest; contestant

RIVAL

Noun

1. a person who is competing for the same object or goal as another, or who tries to equal or outdo another; competitor

2. a person or thing that is in a position to dispute another's preeminence or superiority. 

Now that we are all working from the same place, because we can't discuss what we don't actually know, let's move forward. If I see this bumper sticker, what is it literally asking me to do? Well, according to the English language dictionaries on hand, it's asking everyone to exist at the same time as people who are different from you in any way while NOT stopping being against them or their beliefs. 

Hmm, as I look at it that way, I am following the request of that bumper sticker. I am on the planet, living with people who are 100% against me and my beliefs while I am 100% against their beliefs. I dare say I am not even trying to hurt or kill them, though that's not a full requirement (one part does mention peaceably, but we can choose that one or not). 

However, I have a sneaky suspicion that's not really what these bumper stickers are requesting of us, not truly. What they are really asking is for us to lay down our differences, call them nothing, and change to what the person with the car thinks is a logical and good way of living. By the way, this isn't coexisting, this is changing others at their deepest core being or causing issues with them, calling them names, and even trying to force their compliance. Don't believe me? Look at the other stickers that often are on the same bumpers/back windows. You will see a full picture of what most of these drivers actually want.

With the reality of what these stickers are asking, I say no. I won't coexist using their twisted and personal definition. Here's what I will do:

1) I will love every person on the face of the planet with a Biblical and Godly love to the best of my ability: "And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:31

2) I will love God above all others in order to share the love of Christ through my actions and words:  "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." Mark 12:30

3) I will never harm another person for no reason:  "Thou shalt not kill." Exodus 20:13

4) I will stand for Godly principles in my life in all situations: "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in Heaven." Matthew 10:32

5) I will not go quietly into the night, instead sharing the promise, grace, hope, and mercy of God's salvation message to anyone who will take the time to listen: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."  Matthew 28:19-20

6) I will teach my children to do the same: "And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Deuteronomy 11:19 ... so they can go into the world as strong Godly men who love others more than themselves: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

So, I am coexisting, in fact God taught us how to coexist in the best way possible. We aren't taught to kill in His name. We aren't taught to force compliance from others to our will, or even His. We aren't taught to hate in His name. We aren't taught to demand others listen to the Gospel or die/suffer consequences. We are taught to love God, love others (our neighbor is everyone in the history of time), and to share God's promise with those who would listen. 

Coexist? Yes. Coexist how the world has twisted the meaning? Never. God's way or man's? The two cannot coexist. Which shall you choose?

Sleep Study Part 2

He sleeps.

My kids don't.

We finally threw up our hands and had a sleep study and EEG. Now THAT was an experience. My son slept as usual. Only parents of kids with special needs knows the fear that this will be the one time he sleeps (acts) like every typical child. But, as far as I know his sleep was just like it is when we are at home.

Now we wait. The report from the doctor won't be ready for 5 - 10 business days. Yeah, I am very much hoping for 5 rather than 10.

Sleep and a Study

See that picture above? Yeah, that doesn't happen at our house without a lot of work. It hasn't happened at our house for years. Add in the issues once the kids finally fall asleep (light sleep instead of deep, sleep talking, wild movements during sleep, snoring, etc) and sleep is a dream goal (no pun intended).

Our sons are finally healthy enough to start addressing this issue. So, I went to our doctor and asked about an EEG to figure this out with our older son. Younger son will come next. He quickly agreed and just a few days later we are ready for our sleep study and overnight EEG. Yes, they are different things. A sleep study hooks up monitors that measure such things as O2 levels, CO2 levels, leg and arm movements, heart rate, etc. The EEG will look at what his brain is doing during the time he goes to sleep and while he's sleeping. I don't know if we will find any reasons with this type of test for why he isn't sleeping well, but I pray if there is a reason we find it on the test. He needs sleep. He needs deep quality sleep. He needs to be rested. How can you heal, grow, thrive when you are exhausted? Simple answer, you can't.

So, if you have any prayer time today, I would love for you to use some of it for us to find answers to our son's sleep issues.

I Took the Plunge in Planning, and a New Favorite

I am very organized. I am good at organizing other's homes, lives, what ever you have. I like to organize. I hate planning. I am terrible at planning. You would think planning was just organizing time, but it's just something I am not great at and never have been.

I tried using my phone for appointments, events, etc. Yeah, it only half works for me. The phone works, I only half work with it. I tried using our iPad but found I rarely carry it when I need it. So, that won't work well.

I caved and decided old fashioned paper and pencil will be a better fit for me. Enter my new Day-Timer.

It's not pretty, but it's suitable. I didn't want to spend a lot of money until I made sure this would be a good fit for how I live life. It costs about $25 and comes with 3 months of filler so I can try it out and figure out what I like before I buy stuff for it. Later on, when this one wears out, I will buy a pretty planner.

I want to put it in my backpack that I carry all of our son's tube feeding items in when we leave. That way it's always with me, I have it at the ready, and yet I don't have to search for it when I leave the house.

Anyway, my husband has a new crazy schedule that will begin in June (no, really, it's like the higher ups said, "what is the nuttiest thing we could do to these guys and their families schedules? Oh, yeah, that's nuts.... let's do it!") and I need to really get organized before then or I am going to have us out of the house on his days off and at home on his work days. I try very hard to schedule things around when he works. Right now that's easy since it's the same days every single week. I have been spoiled.

I will post later to let you know how it's working for me, for us.

Oh, I have a new favorite thing. I am talking use it many times a week favorite. I used to use cooking sprays to keep items from sticking. Well, further back from that I used Teflon (gag) to keep things from sticking. As I got wiser about toxins and what they were doing to our body, and add in food intolerances that prevent us from using many cooking sprays, and my choices for non-stick baked goods was dwindling.

Enter parchment paper.

Yep, nothing new about parchment paper only my use of it. I use it for everything. Even if I make rolls that say to bake them on a bare cookie sheet, I use it. So, if you are into stocks and investments, you might start watching the prices on parchment paper companies, I might be helping them purchase their homes.

Seriously, if you haven't used it, do. Just read the box to check for temperature safety (some can be used at higher temps than others) and try your hand at using it, especially if you haven't gotten rid of the more toxic surfaces on baking items. At least that would provide some protection.

What We Have Been Up To This Week

What a week so far. Our week wasn't hard, per se. I think I just took it badly.

It all started last Thursday. My husband came home from work with What he so colorfully described as "hamburger throat". I don't really know what that feels like, but it hurts according to him. Yep, sick. It wasn't a horrible illness, but it started with a sore throat, moved to just feeling really under the weather, then a cough started. He is now feeling a lot better, but the cough remains, though not nearly as bad as it was.

Then the weekend hit and our younger son had a freaky situation with his hypoglycemia. Normally when it hits he just gets cranky and a bit tired. I try hard to stay on top of it so he has been very level for a while. But, Saturday whoa! He was fine, we were chatting about lunch, we were actually getting it early while doing errands. Suddenly he squatted down and told me he was a bit tired. I figured he stayed up late Friday night since it's "brother's night" every Friday where the kids get a fun supper and get to stay up late playing with each other in their room. However, that was not the case. He then stood up and got cranky about how slow the service was. Hmm, well, a bit slow but not cranky worthy. Suddenly he said the smell in the restaurant was making him sick, we had to take our food and eat in the car because he couldn't stand it, he was going on and on about how sick it was making him. Lastly he told me he had to use the restroom. Fine, buddy, go. I didn't know what his issue was, but yeah, go to the potty. We got our food to go and waited on him. He was gone a long time. I went to knock on the door (it's a single person restroom) and ask if he was OK. I couldn't hear a response. I asked my older son to knock and ask in case I was just not hearing him. He knocked, nothing. I started to panic wondering if they had keys to the restroom and my son knocked again. This time he heard something. The bathroom door finally opened to my younger son having a gray face. He told me this place was making him feel so sick he had his head in the toilet that whole time. He didn't throw up but was heaving and just wanted to go. He was gray, sweating and clammy, felt odd.

We got out of there fast. I figured it was better to get sick in the parking lot than a restaurant. He kept stopping to bend over and heave. I threw the food in the car, told my older son to hop in so I didn't have to worry about him in the parking lot, and grabbed my younger son. I sat on the door opening with him on my lap heaving over and over. Finally he lifted his head and asked for a drink. I told him throwing up and drinks were a bad idea. He begged saying he thought he needed a drink. I figured the worse that could happen was he would throw up Sprite, so I gave it to him. He sipped. We waited. I noticed the tightening in his stomach stopped almost immediately. I had been feeling his wretching as I held him. He asked for another drink. I gave it to him. He drank and drank. He told me he felt a little better and could he have something to eat, he was very hungry. He ate, finished his drink, and perked up so quickly. His face pinked up, his lips pinked up, he was feeling so much better.

I called my Mom to tell her about it and she reminded me about his hypoglycemia. Yep, that's what this was. I had never seen it get so bad and I am not sure why it did that day. Thanking God that's what it was and that it wasn't something else like a stomach virus. Sigh. Hard way to start errands.

Later that day, to add bad to worse, he was given something with red dye in it. And that took out the rest of the evening and all of Sunday. BAD, BAD 24 hours.

So, we trucked along with Monday. I just had it as a day of rest after music lessons. We just hung out as a family, relaxed, and had fun.

Tuesday came around, I was ready for a day with school, music practice, and chores. That was until my older son woke up and his first words to me were, "Mom, my throat hurts". Yep, Daddy passed on the goodies.

So, here we are back at Wednesday. We were supposed to go to a Passover meal tomorrow at a local church. Hubby had the day off from work because going to work would mean he wouldn't make it home in time. He had the day off for a whole 24 hours before they had to cancel it. Guess it's good we weren't able to go. Now no one is disappointed because big brother is sick.

I was up very late Monday night, just unable to sleep for some unknown reason. This means I was wiped yesterday. I went to bed early to get some rest. Around 11:30pm my older son comes into my room to ask me what the noise he hears is and could I look. I got up, not hearing anything, and walked into the living room. It was our weather radio blaring it's siren. How I didn't hear it beats me. I always hear it. It wasn't even a watch, it was the warning siren. Thankfully it wasn't a tornado, but serious enough I needed to not sleep through it again. So, I grabbed my pillow and slept on the sofa in case it got worse. UGH! This Mom is tired.

Tax Day Cometh

It's officially here. If you haven't filed yet, or haven't put in your extension, you are either 9 minutes later or have another 51 minutes - 2 hours and 51 minutes. Unless, of course, you are in one of two states that celebrated Patriot Day today meaning you have another 24 hours.

Meet My Kids

My youngest son - Linus

Faith-filled, quiet, anxious, brilliant - he's my Linus, right down to the hair and blue blanket. Of course his blanket was called "Mongee" for many years, but it was blue and permanently attached. We joked that he never had to worry abut a costume. Just slap a red shirt on him and he was ready to go. His hair was even very thin and sparse like Linus's is. It still is, though he finally has a bit more of it. Our youngest son is definitely our little Linus. I love his heart, his devotion to others, his sense of right and wrong, his fierceness, his passions, his standards, and his deep abiding faith in God that just seems to have always been there.

My older son - Charlie Brown

Quiet, introspective, unsure of himself, stubborn (in a good way), not at all wishy-washy like people claim - Charlie Brown gets a bum wrap, and our old son does as well. People think one thing about him, but if you really get to know Charlie Brown, see the person behind the stereotype, you see a thing of beauty. You see someone who refuses to give up on a dream (flying his kite, kicking the football). Our Charlie Brown is epitomized by "still waters run deep". He's quiet, unsure of his own potential, and feels others opinions are important, more important than they really are. But he's smart, funny, loving, kind, and not a bit wishy-washy like so many think. He tries to stick up for others, loves his pets even when they snub him, and would do anything to help a friend in need.

My two boys, Charlie and Linus, fill my heart with so much happiness. They can be found talking about the big things in life, even at their young age. They are buddies who have the occasional knock-down. They make us laugh, stretch us to the point we are sure we will break only to help us realize we needed a good push in our growth. They have taught us we don't know much, we know more than we think, and to never, ever, ever judge a book by it's cover.

Now, if you want to know about our pets, that's a whole other cartoon series.

Talking Fingers Inc. - Read, Write & Type Review

Talking Fingers Inc. has a product called Read, Write & Type that incorporates typing with phonics for a unique experience, and we were lucky enough to get program access for a review. My younger son, who is 8 years old, spent some time playing around with the various games and such to really get a feel for the program.


When I was in school every 8th grader had to take a typing class. Of course, typing for us was on an electric typewriter. We had our little book that folded so it would stand up and we ASDFJKL; for days and weeks on end. But, today's generation of kids hardly know what a typewriter is anymore. They have grown up with computers the size of our palms from birth. Typing is very different now, and we need programs and aids that will help these kids learn how to use a keyboard properly and to type well in the technology generation that they are. Talking Fingers Inc. has come up with their answer to that dilemma in Read, Write & Type. Their online program is unique in that it doesn't just teach kids how to type, but it also teaches them wonderful reading skills. 
How We Used It:
We had immediate access once we received our log-in information via email. Both of my kids could participate each with their own user area so they didn't have to remember who did what, not get their own awards, and so forth. Set up was very easy and took just minutes. They were ready to go not long after we started the sign up for our account. 
I sat the boys down together to begin with and let them watch my younger son as he was introduced to the workings of the characters, games, and activities. We meet two characters that look astonishingly similar to gloved hands. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Ha ha. 
You begin immediately with games that start to familiarize your child with the keyboard layout and key functions. Soon my younger son had it figured out and went on his way to working the first level of the program. My older son watched because he has a harder time picking up nuances of new activities. It wasn't too long before he had it figured out and didn't need our help anymore. It really was that easy. 
One point I wanted to mention was that this program is designed with the ESL student in mind. It wasn't an afterthought, it is very friendly and usable to a child learning English as their second language and Talking Fingers Inc. highly recommends it's program for that use. I have never seen a typing program with that selling point or design, ever. 

I know this post is picture heavy, but I really wanted you to have the opportunity to see the graphics and set up of the program. It's hard when you start a service like this to get a feel for how it will work, look, and be when your child begins to work with it themselves. I think the pictures and graphics are cute but not over the top which would possibly turn off kids. They are colorful and I think artistically done. 
What We Thought:
As far as my child with special needs goes, this was very user friendly for his issues and learning disorders. He could move around the program easily and figure out how to do pretty much everything without my guidance. 
My 8 year old liked the idea of the program, but he felt, for him that it was below his level. He said it felt babyish. I think, for him, it was. He is gifted so maybe it's not all 8 year old kids, I don't know. Ha Ha, I don't have any other 8 year old children to compare him to on hand. It says it's for ages 6 - 9 and I feel that's an appropriate level. A precocious 5 year old could handle it and a 10 year old with some learning issues would probably still like it. So you would need to know your child for that question.
I liked it. I thought it was a unique program, had a lot to offer, and I loved the ESL quality to it. I liked that it not only taught typing but reading and I like that it had certificates to help the kids be a bit more motivated to try the next step. 
The price was right as well. It starts at $35 for full online access for 1 user and goes up (at a nice discount) depending on how many users you need. 
If you are interested in this program and would like to find out more about Talking Fingers Inc. or Read, Write & Type, check them out online at:
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You can read more reviews from other homeschool families on the program if you click on the graphic below.

Homeschool Copywork Review

Our family was blessed to receive a Lifetime Membership to Homeschool Copywork to review. Homeschool Copywork is a website that contains a huge variety of e-books for copywork with topics such as Quotes by Charlotte Bronte, Claude Monet Artist Study, and various Bible passages. The topics are incredibly vast.



So, what is copywork, you might ask yourself. It's OK to ask, I didn't always know, either. Copywork is often seen as only a tool used to help a child with handwriting. Oh, it very much does, but it's so much more. It's grammar, reading and comprehension, eye hand coordination (who knew, a little occupational therapy thrown in), and, depending on the topic of your copywork, motivation, faith building, and memorization. It can help a child learn many topics that have nothing to do with language arts. Remember back to your school days when a teacher would copy a few sentences on the chalkboard for you to copy on loose leaf notebook paper. It's that, but so, so much better and deeper.

For our review period I chose a piece on 1 Corinthians 13. You first need to decide if you want to teach your child cursive or manuscript because the studies are set up with that option. When I first logged on to my Lifetime Membership at Homeschool Copywork I had a few concerns. I was worried it would be hard to find things for my kids and that there wouldn't be many options that were of interest to us.

It took me less than a minute to figure out neither of those concerns was an issue at all. Here's the landing page once you log into your account. You can see how easy everything is with a tab for anything you might need (what type of payments you have made, what grade level work you want to do, bonus items (woohoo, who doesn't love that).

Once you choose your grade level or bonus items (by the way, don't skip the bonus items. There you will find various pieces grouped by topics such as dogs, transportation, sharks, etc), you are taken to the list of copywork for that level. For us, I chose Upper Elementary work. 

Back to what we used, I mentioned we started with the 1 Corinthians 13 set. I liked how this was set up and I really appreciated that I could turn back to the Bible and use this in conjunction with our Bible study time each day. It was such a natural move from Bible to copywork for us. You read a passage, you talk about a passage, you pray about a passage, you copy a portion of the passage. It really helped to add one more method in order to help my sons really grasp the meaning and memorization of the text we were studying.

My older son loves handwriting practice, so I knew I wouldn't have a hard time getting him tuned into this type of copywork. My younger son, however, is Mr. How Fast Can I Go and doesn't have time for tedious work. Not to fear, he took to this like a fish takes to water. It was not an issue, it kept his interest, and he was pleased to do it each day.

I have already poked around Homeschool Copywork and decided our next piece will be the Human Body Notebooking Pages that are found in the bonus section. It marries Biblical texts with the human body study and I appreciate that mix as a Christian Mom who has kiddos that LOVE all things muscles, bones, nerves, and brain.

I mentioned we received the Lifetime Membership on Homeschool Copywork. If you are reading this, look over their site, and think this sounds like what you are looking for in your homeschool day, you should check out the Lifetime Membership. I appreciated the membership personally, but when I saw the price difference I realized what a good deal it was. Quotes from composers, inventors, artists, the Bible. Studies that take you deeper through copywork. It is $29.95 for a year membership and only $45.00 for a lifetime membership no matter how many children you have.

If you would like to contact Homeschool Copywork or check them out online, you can do so on their website or the following:

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To read more reviews on this product, please feel free to click the graphic below.

Weather Or Not ...

Momma, it's so dark outside 

DARK skies ...

Loud thunder ...

Big wind ...

Heavy rain ...

Well, that was fun.

I just told my husband last week that this spring has been so crazy. We normally have been in the tornado shelter once by now. We haven't even look in it's general direction.

But, today, I started to look.

It rained, it poured, it was just so dark.

Then, it stopped. All rain, all clouds, it just stopped. Not in the way that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck thinking tornado. It stopped like it was the end of the storm, though we knew from the weather apps that it wasn't ending any time soon.

So, we packed up and went to music class. My younger son pounded out a beautiful arpeggio on the piano. He learned some new crossovers.

Then it was time for big brother to jam out on the drums. He hit the drums for a little Matthew West (Hello My Name Is) and then some Stevie Wonder (to help him get the speed he needed for the Matthew West song).

We came out and the sky was clear as a bell. Wonderful. The news was wrong. We grabbed something to eat before heading home.

We walked out of the restaurant only to see dark skies again. So, we rushed home just in time for it to all start up again. The rain came, the wind really picked up, and the weather radio started beeping about warnings. Thankfully not tornado, but the skies did NOT look good.

If you live in tornado alley like we do, you get used to watch the skies a lot in the spring. No matter what the weather radio says, you overrule it many times just looking at the skies. The skies have caused us to get into our shelter many times only to hear the weather radio finally catch up with what we knew was coming.

Thankfully, today, we didn't have to worry about that. It rained hard, the wind blew very hard, but in the end we were fine, our home was fine, our animals we fine.

As for us, we had a little too much DVD time, the kids played a lot of Lego, and I did NOT get a lot of housework accomplished. Tomorrow we will get back to school, back to housework, back to a lot less TV time. But today was kind of a pause. It was a nice pause, a needed pause.

Our Week In Pictures - Picture Overload Edition

Another week is coming to an end at the old homestead. It's been a busy one and a fun one, that's for sure. I am going to take a few minutes to share what's been happening around here the last 6 days. Enjoy.

Chicken Mania

A certain roo learned to crow like a big boy this week. He is strutting around like he's so proud of himself. Our last rooster learned over about a 2 week period. This little guy (Chocolate) just let it rip with a full cock-a-doodle-doo. Here he is eating from my hand. He's quite tame, which is what we were trying for with him. I don't know if he will stay that way, but we are hoping.

Most of our chicken will eat from your hand if given the chance. It's hard for the boys because sitting still and waiting for them to come to you is not their favorite activity. Here are a few of our chickens eating from our older son's hand. At one point all 6 were trying to get in there and eat. He loved it. 

You can see buckets in the corners in this little clip. Our younger son wanted the birds to have buckets to play with. My husband said they wouldn't be interested and put the blocks of wood you see on the right side of the screen out for them to play with and on. My son laid down the bucket until we left the chicken yard. Guess who couldn't get into those buckets fast enough? Yep, all 6 chickens ... in the bucket ... at once ... sitting and standing on each other. They love the buckets. So, they now have two to play with and we see them in them all the time playing around. Who knew. 

This young lady started out yellow and was named Buttercup. Our younger son couldn't have a white chicken named Buttercup, so he's trying to come up with the perfect one. 

School Time

This week's topic for language arts was subjects and predicates. I remember learning them myself as a kid.

We have a trial of Reading Eggs. My kids used to work with it but got bored. They like the new set up much better. My younger son was so excited to find a pet to buy with his winnings that looks like his kitty.

Yes, my older son's avatar does look like an elf. No, I don't know why. 

ART! We love art in our home. Both of my kids enjoy drawing, creating, and studying art. My older son has a talent with drawing and my younger son just loves to draw no matter how good he is.

Cat Tales

This first cat, Furno (named after a cartoon character) has his "who me" face on because, what you can't see, is the remains of a dead cardinal. Yep, a gorgeous red male cardinal. His entire tail, some miscellaneous feathers, sigh. He's a good boy, just wish he wouldn't lay his left overs in our yard. These were right under my clothes line where I had to walk around them when I was hanging clothes to dry. If he just wasn't so cute. 

Talk about cute. This is Smokey (see the Reading Eggs cat above). He's about 6 months old and is the light of my younger son's life. This cat can do no wrong in my son's mind. He found my younger son's toy camo blanket that they had been playing with and was using it to hide and prepare for his attack. You can see his huge eyes as he spots the boys, sure they can't see him. 

Do I Really Have to Explain?

I saw this one just hours after my younger son came up to me while I was sitting on the sofa. Here's how it went:

Him: Mom, do you like peace and quite?
Me: Yes, yes I do.
Him: (laughing hysterically) You know that's never going to happen while I'm around?! (walks off laughing)

Fun and Funny

My kids enjoy Scrabble. They don't even care if I win. Yeah, love that. But, I try to let them win sometimes or at least help them a bit. However, on this day I couldn't hold back the biggest word I ever made. See the word at the bottom? Engineer? Yeah, That's a word worth 140 points. Hello! Here's how it's done. 

You HAVE to have one letter already there, but not on the triple word score. The letter I started with was the first N, as you can see. Now, I put down all 7 of my letters for a total of 10 points (imagine if those had been higher scoring tiles - I drool as I think about a Z in there). Now, because you already had a letter in the word, your tiles stretch out over TWO triple word scores. Here's the math:

10 points (there was a double letter in there as well) x 3 = 30. 

I got the second triple word so I took the new score of 

30 points x 3 = 90. 

Then, I didn't have to stop because I also used all 7 letters which gives me a 50 point bonus. 

90 points + 50 point bonus = 140 points! 

(taking my bow now)

We went to a reenactment event at the local fort. This is the actual fort. There are many other buildings such as a blacksmith shop, the foundation of the kitchen and other small buildings like that, and more. It's just a fun place to visit if nothing is going on, but reenactment weekend is awesome. My kids dressed the part in homemade costumes. We got to see a real civil war cannon being fired every hour, watched demonstrations, drank tasty homemade root beer, discussed the history of the fort, and just had fun as a family.

Ah yes, my son. This is him while he vacuumed my living room carpet. He asked if he could do it while I was plugging it into the outlet. I said sure and let him at it. I looked down to see my sweetie's little feet.

Side note: look at those sweet toesies.

Movie time!! Star Wars is a big hit in this house. We laid out in the living room and just relaxed one afternoon. It was so nice.

My soap ingredients came this week, including my cutter. This just makes me ready to make soap. Can't you already see the crinkle cut bars sitting on the edge of the sink?

The boys had a mad game of marbles in the living room one afternoon. They had been out playing, taking care of the animals, and having fun and were tired. So they plopped down on the floor, spread out their marbles, and had a great time. You can see a suede bag near my younger son. That is from my father who passed away last year. He made sure my older son got it when he died. My older son now uses it for his marbles.

Beauty

We finally pulled out the quartz that we got in Kansas. It's a nice sized piece and so pretty. I will leave you to enjoy the beauty of God's creation.

Last But Far From Least

We started this speech program this week. I did the testing for the boys, figured out where we needed to go and what we needed to work on, and Thursday was their first "speech" time in school. They liked it, which is good considering we didn't even start with the games. It's a lot of work. They have oral motor weakness so we are working a lot with where their tongues need to be, how to move their lips, and where to place their jaw.