Ha, the beginning of the school year seems to bring me here! At least I'm posting once a year:) Anyhoo, Lorien started 3rd grade, Vanessa started Kindergarten and Christy and James tag along. They all love their work! They complain every once in a while, but there haven't been tears over doing their work in a long time.




Vanessa loves her math. We decided to do Singapore math which has been a great choice for my girls. Vanessa goes through 10-12 pages a day. Of course they are simple. She loves doing the problems (matching or copying numbers) and gets such satisfactions from getting so many pages done. She doesn't really like learning how to read or remembering the sounds of the letters, but she certainly like writing them. Her handwriting is wonderful for a Kindergartener. I copy poems in a binder for her to copy in her notebook. She had troubles with little a and p. But once she got over it she copies very quickly. I started piano with her, but I just haven't been consistent enough. Hopefully I can get things in order and start in earnest next summer when she turns 6.




Lorien copies poems as well. She has started to learn cursive writing and tries to do the letters she knows when she copies her poems. We have listened to The Secret Garden, all Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan and James Harriet. Also during the summer Lorien read the "How to Train Your Dragon" series. She loved it! I'm trying to get her interested in another series like Nancy Drew, but it hasn't quite captured her. I got Singapore Math for Lorien as well. The book we got her is too easy, but they have a different way of teaching, so we're going over it again. She is also doing a great job playing the piano. A lot of times she'll go to the piano without me asking, and then I tell her to play a new song. And she does it! Oh, and she was baptized in January by her daddy.








Christy turns 3 today! She still can't make it to the potty on time and sucks her finger all the time. I don't know what to do with her. She loves to do her "school work" with the big kids. She just copies the letter of the day on a big piece of paper and then trace her full name on the other side. She loves to cut paper (makes a huge mess) and glue beans on paper. Her notebook is super fat and there are only 10 page! Two full of beans:)








James is doing ok. Since last time he has been in the hospital two times, 10 days the first time with Metopneumovirous, and 5 days due to diabetes. My aunt Julie sent me a bunch of oils along with an instruction book from do-Terra essential oils. I've been using them every day since June I think. He's got over the metopneumovirus finally. He's had two colds since his birthday in July but I haven't had to take him in yet. The oils and treatments are helping him. He is walking and running all over the place, loves his toys, plays with his sisters(tries to push them around too), reads books and enjoys playing outside while I work.









Jimmy is working at Costco still and takes naps when he gets home. If he's not too tired he helps me work on fixing up the house(yes we've had these projects for three years!), playing with the kids, and pursuing his dreams.

I am always busy and moving around. I've got projects galore and too many kids to keep track of. Every once in a while I'll find Christy on the floor asleep. Dishes remain in the sink, children don't brush their teeth when they are supposed to, toys get everywhere but I am so happy with our sweet family. They are the loves of my life. My home and garden are perfect. I love going on dates with my hubby(few and far between). And my friends are such caring people who give our family love and emotional support.

New School Year

So a new year has started. Lorien is in 2nd grade. Vanessa is starting to learn the alphabet and numbers. I'm pretty sure she knows her shapes and colors. I will soon find out. I'm realizing I have not spent as much time working with her academics as I did with Lorien at her age. I guess I was out to prove that I could teach and now that I know I'm not as paranoid. Anyhoo, our bouncing baby boy was born July 25th at 4:48 am, 20" long 7lbs 2 oz. A week and a half after that he was diagnosed with CF. It's a genetic mutation. His pancreas doesn't work. Right now it's just the enzymes that process the nutrients in food that doesn't work, but eventually it could turn into type 1 diabetes. But the main thing Cystic Fibrosis is known for is the lung problems they have. I don't have all the technical terms, but the salt doesn't get processed, or magnesium I think, and he sweats too much salt giving him the possibility of salt deficiency, but that also means the mucus in his body is dry and sticky. And anyone knows that when that happens you get Pneumonia or Bronchitis. So basically he'd get those horrible sicknesses just from a minor cold. His body will keep producing more of this awful mucus to try to get rid of the cold, but the lungs won't be able to move the mucus up for the body to get rid of it with coughing, it will just get stuck. And if it lasts long enough it could turn into a chronic infection. We've been learning a lot about CF,but there is so much more to learn. We are going to a meeting with the local parents whose children have CF. That's all I have time for today! TTFN

Elder Anderson

So today we had a special stake conference. It was announced two weeks ago that Elder Anderson from the Quorum of the 12 would be visiting us and wanted to speak to us. We had our stake conference in January, and I think it was the kind that's broadcast from Utah to all of northern CA. I forget what those are called. I might remember before I finish this, but due to the state of mind it is highly unlikely. Anyhoo, I just wanted to write down my thoughts before I forget them or they flutter out my ears. So the first speaker was from New Zealand and he spoke about going on a mission to the young men and told the young women that they needed to tell their men that they won't marry them until they've gone on a mission. And when the men ask them to marry him to pause for a moment to give him butterflies in him tummy (not his words) and then ask where. And then say yes only if he says to the Temple of our God. The next speaker said something, but I must have zoned out. I just can't remember. Then Elder Anderson spoke. He talked about President Monson and how he remembered Santa Rosa and sent his love. He told a bunch of stories about how he was always there to help people right when they needed it, to give an encouraging word or blessing, or to give service at just the right time. Then he told a story about how he was at a stake conference and felt impressed to go to the hospital, but he wanted to stay and support his stake president so he stayed until his talk ended and bolted out the door headed right for the hospital. When he got there he asked for the man and the nurse said, "Are you Bishop Monson? The man just passed away, he asked for you just before he died." So Elder Anderson said that since then President Monson has been very faithful in following each and every prompting he receives as soon as he feels it. The greatest work here besides going to the Temple is to serve each other and to not ignore the Holy Ghost. He went on to talk of other things, mostly related to that topic, but I forget. But the impression on my mind is that there is very little in this life that truly matters, Family, Friends, Others, the Gospel. I had a lesson on Honesty last week that's been bugging me this whole time. One thing they talked about was are you honest all the time, or just when you think you'll get caught. Someone was saying they asked the teachers they teach with if they would be dishonest if no one would know they were doing it. And all of them said yes. They think, it's not hurting anyone. And the speeder is only sorry when the cop pulls him over. The kid with his hand in the cookie jar is only sorry if he's caught. I see it all the time with little kids. They want something so bad that even if they've been told not to do it they do it anyway when no one is looking, but cry their eyes out when they've been caught. It could possibly be the most angering topic I've thought about this year. I've stopped copying music because dad would always tell me not to, that it's stealing. I told him the composer makes plenty of money, they don't really need mine. But it's not about the money, it's about being honest. How important is it to have those things? Not really. So why can't we just throw away all those programs we recorded off tv, or radio, or internet, or whatever? Why is it so hard? There's a ton of free entertainment we can enjoy without having to do those things. And it isn't all that impertinent to watch tv anyway. The important things are teaching our children and serving others. I really need to work on that personally even if my family doesn't want to follow me. Ok. I'm off now.

Mother's Day

I don't know why I torture myself, but every once in a while I'll stop and think about mom and how wonderful she was and how much of her still lives in us kids. And of course then I'll start bawling my eyeballs out and I have to wonder if this is healthy? Perhaps it's still part of my mourning process. I don't know. But I read back a couple years to when I posted about my mom's and grandma's death. I remember most of it, but of course some of it I had forgotten. There are so many times that I think about something and wonder what mom would have thought, or what she would say to Lorien and Vanessa. Anyway, I've got to change the subject!

Except I'll stick to mother's day! So today Jimmy woke up before me and I thought he was just getting ready for church, but no! When I woke up he had an English muffin with ham, cheese and eggs ready for me! I'm pretty sure that was the first time he's ever done that for me. It was really exciting. Then while I was eating he was getting the girls ready for church. He had to leave early to go to a meeting and the girls and I still made it to church on time! A little early even. Jim and Eldona were there with Crystal and Chris so we sat with them. Vanessa sat with Crystal and Lorien sat with Grandma. Uncle Ryan gave a great talk about mothers and the children sang Mother I Love You. It was very nice. Christy sat with me most of the time and sang all the hymns at the top of her lungs. After church the girls gave me tissue paper flowers and said Happy Mother's Day to me. Now I'm waiting for Jimmy to get home so we can meet his family at Jim's parents grave site. I really hope he isn't late!
Jimmy is still doing a great job at Costco. He's started to work really hard cleaning up the backyard and landscaping the front yard. Of course he thinks it's all silly and does it just because I ask him to. That ok, though, it will look amazing when we're all done. As you know, we planted like 50 seeds in compost about a month or so ago, they all rotted in the soil. I really needed miracle grow. So we built a planter box, so now we have three, then got a yard of compost and filled the three boxes halfway. All along the back fence we put compost as well. I had already transplanted strawberries in part of it, and in the other part I just planted seeds right in there, Pumpkin, sunflower, artichoke and kiwi. The kiwi seeds have not popped up yet. In the boxes we put lettuce, carrots, tomato, cucumber, broccoli, zucchini, cantelope, corn and beans. The carrots didn't make it, and the cantelope hasn't popped up yet. In the front yard we made an herb spiral. It's 12' round and I only have three plants in there now, feverfew, fennel, and lemon balm. I'm grlowing basil, oregano, sage, chives, rosemary, and a couple others that I can't remember, in some dresser drawers.
The kids are doing great! Christy is growing like a weed, Vanessa is getting more insecure around other people and Lorien is learning despite her complaining.
I've got about 3 months lefts to be pregnant. I'm going to the Dr on Tues to find out if I have gestational diabetes and getting an ultrasound on Wed to see if I have placenta previa. I hope with all my heart that everything will go well no matter what the outcome of those tests! (as I sit here eating chocolate:)
Well I have to go.
Anne

Just a Little Faith

I really need to make sure I have the right blog up! I just started to post a letter from Leda on this one! You have to go to her blog to see it, sorry! So it's almost Spring! Yeah! I should use exclamation points on every sentence this post! JK! Ok, so we planted like 50 plants last week. All the kids gathered around me in the garage and I filled egg cartons with dirt and gave each kid seeds to plant. They really like the Pumpkin seeds so there are 24 Pumpkin seeds planted. Yeah, that's a lot, but I'm not to sure they'll all grow. Some of the seeds come from pumpkins we carved last year and I hadn't dried them out completely. I still have faith that we'll have enough to plant, though. I really only need 5 to grow. I plan on planting them all along the back fence. I can not wait! The rain has been unrelenting the past week or two. It'll stop for maybe half a day, but then start up and rain twice as hard as before. The ground is super soggy. I'm hoping by the time the seeds are up that the temp will be up to the right place for the little baby plants AND that I can borrow my father-in-law's truck to go get dirt. I haven't asked him about it yet, so don't mention it to him! I'll ask soon, don't worry. Anyhoo, that's about it for this week. I have a lesson I've been planning for a month. I haven't looked at it in a week, though, and so tonight I remembered it's tomorrow and all of a sudden felt incredibly unprepared. It's on faith. I need to have faith that everything I studied will come back to my mind when I go to teach it. Wish me luck! EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lack of Creativity

So I can't think of anything new. I tried to crochet last night and got stumped. I've been thinking about fabric I have and trying to figure out the best pattern and child to use it for. I have three and the fabric that's been in my bins for 6 years will not be enough to make dresses for all three of them. So what to do.......

 I had my ultrasound. I looked very hard but couldn't see anything! BUT, we told the lady we didn't want to find out, so that could have been why. I'm sure she didn't linger. But still, Jimmy says if we didn't see anything then it's probably a girl. I'm ok with that. But pregnancy is scary! I'm going to have to have more babies! Well, I did say I wanted 12, but didn't realize the risks in having a baby. The last three have been ok. Lorien was hard to get out and they threatened c-section, but I got a blessing and through our faith she made it. I had Gestational Diabetes with Vanessa and thought it was the end of the world, the worst thing someone could deal with. Then Christy's was just fine. I don't remember any problems at all! This time, they say I have marginal placenta previa. Which is very bad if it becomes complete or doesn't move away. And if I bleed at all I have to report it. And it could put me on bed rest and more! So I got a blessing. He told me not to worry. I know He can do anything. I stopped worrying, but pray constantly that everything is ok and growing and moving around properly with this baby. I realize that there are worse things than gestational diabetes and take back the comment I made when I had it. I would much rather prick my finger 4 times a day than have the chance of me and the baby bleeding to death. The unknown is super scary, but thank goodness we have men around us that hold the Priesthood and are worthy to give blessings. Thank goodness we are given small trials to test our faith, so we have sufficient faith when we need a miracle! Thank you Jimmy! I love you :)

New Stuff

Ok, I think I have new stuff to talk about. I'm not really sure. So we've been doing a good job reading our scriptures every day! Yesterday Lorien read 1st Nephi 4:18. After she read it she said, "Eeeew!" And made a disgusted face. The Book of Mormon is not for the faint of heart! And today she continued reading vs. 19 and skipped the word, "smitten". Poor girl. After she finishes reading the kids have to sit and listen to me read from the Old Testament. She has a picture book to go along with my reading, but there's only one picture or so for each picture. And I'm worried about reading some of the book to her. Do you think she's too young to be hearing about Lot's daughters going "in unto him?" Of course she won't understand it now, but I don't think I want to explain it when she asks. There are plenty of other parts I'm not so sure I want to read to her right now. And I can't remember what mom did! Anyway, yesterday Lorien and I went to the NASA research/learning center and then the San Jose Tech Museum. It was fun. At NASA we learned about how airplanes fly. and How the space station is run and how astronauts live up in space. We also did an experiment with conservation of angular momentum. Lorien got up on a circular platform that spins, she stuck her bottom way out while holding onto handle bars and keeping her arms and legs straight. The instructor started spinning the disc really slow, then told her to bring her bottom in. The disc started spinning really fast. All the kids had a blast. I think that was one of the best activities. The other really cool one was turning a bicycle tire into a gyroscope, to demonstrate how the satellites up in space moved it's antennae towards Earth. So the kids were to sit in a chair that spun freely and hold the gyroscope to make the chair spin the way the instructor wanted it to go. Lorien was one of the younger kids so she had a tinier tire, it still worked perfectly. Then at the Tech museum we walked through and experimented with: circuits, robots, roller coasters, genetics, music, art, body movement, inside the body, solar power, water power, wind power, human power (bike, turning a wheel), balance, pulleys, deep sea diving and the robots and camera's used, earthquakes (seismographs, simulators and detectors), internet (text language, game play, uses of), ultrasound,  wind tunnels to test propellers, prisms, and a bunch of other things I'm forgetting. Lorien had so much fun. I was wiped out by the end of the day and very grateful that I had dropped Vanessa and Christy off at Grandma's house!
In other news, I got a pot rack at a garage sale for $10, had to buy hardware for $8, and installed it on Saturday. It looks awesome! I was going to buy one for $100 or so, so I think $18 is a great buy. And it looks beautiful where we put it. I'll try to post a pic. Then we also found an amazing chandaleir for over our table. It was only $9 at Orchard Supply, normally $90! So we didn't measure. It looks like something that might fit in Delene's house. Without cutting any chain off it goes all the way down to the floor and the glass thing is about a foot smaller in diameter to our table. So it's huge. We'll see what happens. I'll have to post a pic of that later. It's still in pieces all over the place. The other thing we are trying to do it paint the living room. I've got splotches of paint on all the walls and decided I loved the purple but wasn't so keen on the bright yellow. So I'm toning it down a little, and will have to get a new paint sample to splash up on the walls. I really love the purple I picked! It's called Twilight Blush!!!!!!! Hehehehe:)
The kids are doing the same as last time, still working hard at playing and trying to get their own ways. I'm still thwarting all their grand ideas. But we did work on painting flowers on their walls together. That was fun until a fit was thrown and I ended up finishing it myself. Oh well. We still have to find paint pens to finish the details around the flowers and the stems.
The baby in my belly is growing. I think I'm growing more rapidly, however. I gained 5lbs in one month :/ not good. Well, at least I loose it quick! Oh no! I shouldn't have said that, It probably won't happen this time. *SIGH* Supposedly the baby is the size of a light bulb. I have to call in to get an appointment for the ultrasound. I lost the paper. Curse this pregnancy brain! Oh yeah, I also made the girls matching dresses out of the fabric Brenda gave me! Yeah Brenda! I only took pics of one of the dresses I have to get the girls in the other dresses for pics. So 6 dresses total. Work work work! It was worth it though, don't they look cute?

I'm pretty sure that's all the news for now. Maybe I can write again sometime this year. Hopefully before the baby is born!

Hi Again

Lorien's b-day Party

Julia's b-day at Chevy's

Jammies I made for the Girls

Lorien's b-day at Stolps

Sledding in Utah

Strawberry Transplant

So as most of you know, I am pregnant. I'm due August 2nd. Hoping to have it July 30th, though. I think I updated this back in November? So since then Julia has visited twice. She came for Thanksgiving and made us such wonderful things! We made cakes for Julia and frosted them with three different colors, bread, cookies, and pizza. It was really good! We also got to go shopping for new clothes for her. We found out we are a "type 2" from the dressing your truth thing from Utah. You can look it up online. It's interesting. The colors she was told to pick out were grayed of any color. So a pink with a little grey in it or any other color with grey would be fine for her. So it was true. We picked out lots of shirts for her to try on and she loved almost every single one! Thank goodness dad was paying for it! She is super happy with all the new clothes she has, though. She's been going out on lots of dates:)
Jimmy is still working at Costco. He makes enough money to supply my addiction, CRAFTS! Anyhoo, he has also been coaching wrestling at Analy High School with his brother (head coach) and dad (assistant coach). He loves it, but it renders him useless. He's way super incredibly tired. I personally can't wait until wrestling season is over! But I know he loves it. Oh well. This was the first year Jimmy took the initiative to do taxes. Normally Jan 15th I buy the program get all the forms we need and get it sent in by Jan 31st. Not this year. I was content sitting in my corner sewing. Jimmy got all the forms ready, took us out to get the program, installed it, started entering info, then let me finish. (He had to wipe a bottom:) But it's good to know we'll have some "extra" money to work on house projects with. I'm sure Jimmy's not excited about the house projects, but I'm learning how to do everything so he won't have to do it alone.
I have been sewing dresses for the girls the past few weeks. I discovered that I like to make my own pattern. It also helps that I got fabric from Brenda, so I don't have to worry too much about ruining it since it was free! Sad to say, but true. I think some of my best work is with free fabric. Anyway, I'm in the midst of making some cute bright pink plaid fabric with huge flowers on them. I'll post pics maybe. I have pics of the other dresses, but I found out, re-discovered that my mom's machine, which I'm borrowing from Julia, has embroidery on it!!!!!! So I'm going to embroider something on the front. I've also been working really hard to use food storage items to feed our family. Potato spuds, rice, oats, wheat, beans. I found a great blog crockpot365 I think. Anyway, I'm going to try those recipes, but for a lot of them I need ham hocks. I don't know where to buy just the bone. Isn't a hock just the bone? And ham is expensive, I can't go and just buy ham for our family to eat just to get the bone out of it! I'll figure it out one day I suppose. Anyway, I make pancakes every day with flour that I grind myself. They are super good. Then I try to make other things like pizza crust and doughnuts and rolls and stuff. Pork is pretty cheap when you buy a lot of it so I've been making a lot of pulled pork. In the backyard realm of my life I've been trying to get it ready for our garden. So there's wood edging the back of the yard, so I weeded and broke up the dirt, mixed topsoil and compost into a part of it and transported strawberries into it. Then Jimmy worked on getting part of the cactus out of the backyard. I sprayed the peach trees for curl after Bro Loe helped me prune them. We've got three trees! Two are babies and the other one is a couple years older than that. I'm hoping for some good fruit this year. I loved how the kids could just eat the fuit right off the tree last year. Then my friends kid came over to help me weed the north side of the yard to get it ready for another planter box. Now we just need a lot of dirt. So the plants I plan on planting are: pumpkin, cucumber, cantaloupe, watermelon, kiwi, corn, beans, chives, basil, sunflowers, peppers, tomato, carrots, broccoli, artichokes, lemon balm, thype, sage, garlic, marjoram, oreano, fennel, yarrow, rosemary and lavender. I hope I can keep up with is all especially in July and August! And that's all for my projects, on to Lorien....
I am still teaching piano. I have about 7 students, that's including Lorien. We've been off and on for the past two years and right now is one of out on times. She is doing well, but gets frustrated if it's not instantly easy. If I tell her she got a note wrong she freaks out. Even if she knows the note it should be. I think keeping it a part of the schedule will help. Constantly doing it gets her mind wrapped around the concept of having to do it whether she wants to or not. So we wake up, have breakfast, brush teeth, read scriptures (Lorien reads the BoM and I read the Old Testament), then morning prayer, piano lessons (Vanessa normally says she gets lessons too), then school work. She's allowed to do whatever subject she wants to first. Today she is continuing her play. She made a set out of card stock and play-doh, and then she thinks about what is going  on and writes a story about it. So far she has, "My Play. Once upon a Play-Doh time there were play-Doh PePPole. Thay were woching TV." Pretty good, right? Her spelling is horrible, but her teacher wants her to spell on her own right now. She asks me how to spell things and I tell her, but every once in a while I tell her to just spell it on her own. She's got a math book, science, reading comprehension, writing book, and we are supposed to pick a famous person in history to study, but we haven't picked one for this month yet. She is also reading Socks by Beverly Cleary to me. After she reads six hours we turn in a reading record and get tickets for Six Flags. Lorien did it last year and it was way fun. I can't wait to go again! She is up to 4 hours and 15 min. I think she's liking the book.
Vanessa is a very strong willed child and wants to do everything herself. She wants to wear short sleeve shirts and skirts when it's frosty outside and takes her sweater off as soon as she's allowed to. She likes pretty shirts and doesn't think the shirts I pick out for her are pretty. She likes to do schoolwork with Lorien and play with play-doh. She is pretending all the time. I hope she like to write when she grows up, she's got a great imagination! She is finally in a big girl bed. Lorien is on the top bunk and Vanessa is on the bottom. Later this year I'll try to get Christy in the toddler bed.
On to Christy. She says her name! I think. She tries to wrestle with the girls and daddy. She "talks" to us all the time. She started sucking a pacifier for reals, which is sad, but it comforts her. She gives the best hugs. She is just a sweet girl.
I think that's it. I'll post pics.

Hey All

Hi,
I know it's been a long time. As usual. Most everyone should be used to this by now, right? Anyhoo, just thought I'd write a few things. So last week was Thanksgiving. Jimmy and I made Julia come out to visit. She cleans my microwave and it really needed it. But while she was here, she made Pumpkin Bowknots with Cream Cheese Frosting, Cinnamon Rolls, Cream of Zucchini soup, and a cake made with cream cheese, sour cream and evaporated milk. She did my dishes and played with my kids. I made pie crust for the canned pie filling. We had a great time. We got to watch Harry Potter 5 and part 1 of Harry Potter 7. I think she had fun at the Grandpa and Grandma Stevens house on Thanksgiving Day. There were 27 people there for dinner. It was very crowded, but not too many food accidents. Just some spilled juice. Over all it was fun. Jimmy only got Thursday off and had to go back to work Friday morning at 3am! It was crazy. Costco opened at 8:30am. I noticed that there were way too many stores open on Thanksgiving day. I just don't think that's fair. Thanksgiving is going to turn into nothing soon and then the next to go would be Christmas. Come on, people CAN plan. They don't have to go out to buy stuff for one day. Like they won't be able to get whatever it is the next day. I remember just a couple years ago you couldn't find an open grocery store on Thanksgiving. Now most of them are open till 4. Oh well. Poor people.
So I've been watching a couple of kids since the beginning of school. The main reason for babysitting them was to help pay for our 8 passenger $20,000 van we bought in August. So far we've needed that money for other stuff. UG! We refinanced our house so now we don't have to pay as much as before. I don't understand how money just goes. No matter what there's always something else. Oh, we bought food storage back in March and have been using that for our basics like rice, potatoes, noodles, oats, flour, beans. I've gotten used to cooking up beans and wheat berries to make various recipes, I grind wheat every morning to make pancakes. This past year we found out that Vanessa is allergic to Cows milk and Soybeans. EVERYTHING has soybeans in it and if it doesn't then it has milk. So I've narrowed our food down to cooked milk foods and very little soybeans. Bread has it. I haven't learned how to make bread yet, but when I do, that will be one less thing without soybeans. I'm pretty sure all the girls have it. I've cut out drinking milk and their skin rash settled down A LOT! I know Soy hurts their bottoms because Christy gets rashes whenever she eats anything with soy in it. So for her I have to be careful. Once she's potty trained then she can have more soy stuff. Of course that's bad, but I'm not dedicated enough to make pure foods for us. I rely too much on processed things. Potato chips are OK though! I'll put some pics up now. Have a good Christmas!

Baby Christy and the Rest

Newborn

1 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

11 Months

12 Months

Darn it! I think since I thought of this as a journaling experience I've stopped caring! How horrible!

So Christy turned one, Lorien started 1st grade and Vanessa is still a monster, I mean a sweat angel!
I've started watching two kids, 4 yr old boy and 2 yr old girl. it's been quite interesting having five kids. Our day starts by my alarm going off at 7am. Sooooo early! Then I set things up so our dog, Sebastian doesn't bark. The kids lightly knock on the door and I let them in as quiet as possible. I want my girls to stay asleep as long as possible. Then the little girl gets dressed, their mom says bye and then they start to play while I get the dishes done. The girls slowly wake up between 7:15-7:30. I know it's not that much longer, but I'm sure it helps! When I'm done with dishes I start making pancakes, sometimes I have to grind wheat so the kids go play in the bedroom.
Large bowl: 1 1/3 cup whole wheat, 1 1/5 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt. Medium bowl: 1 C water, 1 egg yolk, 1 TBS honey, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 TBS oil. 2 C measuring cup: 1 egg white whipped to just between soft and hard peaks. Mix dry, mix wet. Whisk egg whites (set aside) then whisk wet into dry, then fold egg whites into mixture. In the meantime heat skillet to 4.5 for electric little less than medium for gas. Has to be hot for the first pancakes to not be ruined. Make sure to cook them long enough and NO BUTTER OR OIL!
It's a fun recipe. I like whisking the eggs up. I feel like it's a sufficient work out:) Anyway, then I call them to eat. They all sit down and wait for everyone to have food on their plates, we pray and then they dig in. Then Lorien has to stay and do schoolwork. Science: she has a book she works from, she's on reptiles right now. Just covered Giant Turtles. 1000LBS!!!! Crazy. LA: Reading books on her own, level 3 in the level readers you get from the library, and one page of handwriting. SS: We've been doing this world tour book her step-grandma gave her. She LOVED IT! Just devoured it. It had 36 or so pages and she finished it in less than a month. Now we're on history of the world where we just talked about the level of the people throughout time. Math: We worked on money today, tens and ones and how easy it is to count them. She has the Spectrum curriculum book and likes the pictures that go with the problems she has to do. On Thursdays she goes to her school (Pathways Charter School). She has Gardening at 9am, Fairy Tales Study at 10:30 (yeah, I know!), and Art at 12:30. She gets to eat lunch there too. She loves it! I think. She's very worried about what the other kids think of her. She's afraid they'll all laugh at her. They did once when her backpack accidentally fell off the table. But I have a feeling they were laughing at the backpack and not her. Oh well. Oh, back to my day. . .
Vanessa and August always want to do schoolwork, so I printed up some stuff from FirstSchool.com or whatever it is. They do a letter a day so far, and we just did G. We talk about things that start with the letter, they have to trace it and color an object that starts with the letter. They also have a shape they work on and a color of the day. So far it's working well. I don't know if Vanessa is learning anything, but they are definitely having fun.
After School work they can go play, or we have an outing. The other day we went to Western Farms, Tuesdays we go to play group, but Lorien was not having a good day today, so we didn't. I would like to start going to the Library on Fridays. I'd also like to make Monday our park days. There are a lot of field trips going on soon. The Petrified Forest, Pumpkin Patch, Harvest Festival and Monterey Bay Aquarium. There's also a design day I'd like Lorien to be a part of. We missed it today because of her attitude. She was distraught, so hopefully she'll remember next time! After playtime/outing then they all sit down at the table for lunch. Then the two kids I watch change into shorts, go potty, get their blanky's and go to bed. YEAH! Then I have three hours to do whatever! Like sweep, work outside of projects, dishes, or blogging. Lorien sometimes falls asleep too:) On Monday, Tuesday, every other Wednesday and on Fridays I have piano students. The kids never wake up to the noise, which is good. Their mommy comes to pick them up at 4:45-5pm. They wake up around 4:15-4:30pm. Then I get to making dinner and we clean up, get ready for bed, watch a movie or read a book and go to bed.
Except me! I've been staying up to re-watch all the Harry Potters. I just finished the 5th one. I remember HATING IT! I guess it pays to not read the books for a LONG time and then watch the movies. I want to read the books over again too. But that would mean I couldn't watch the movies for another 4 years or so while I forgot what happened.
Jimmy stays "up" with me. We normally read scriptures and pray before I start my movies, and then he falls asleep next to me while I be crazy watching movies late into the night. He's been tearing down the patio covering that was in our backyard. Oh yeah, one reason I haven't been on here is we got a house last year. We've had it for a couple days over a year. So his project was to re-roof, and in the process was forced to agree to take down the porch covering. It's a HUGE job. It has lots of problems since the people before us or before them put it in and didn't do it "right". We also discovered termites. No there anymore, but damaged wood. There are also bumblebees living in the wood and yellow jackets that love the wood too. The bees like to come to our back door and sneak in. Jimmy is almost done getting the wood ripped out of the concrete. Then he will need to put Fascia board around the perimeter of the house and get the gutters up before it rains. Jimmy's great, but I lack confidence in the "before the rain" statement. And his father wants to get a French drain in as well! I hope it can be done. It's gonna rain in a couple weeks. Oh well. Jimmy just recently got to go on a business trip. It was to learn how to train new fork lift drivers. Oh, and he asked for July 3rd to the 18th off next year, so we can see Leda!
Well, I think that's it. Christy just turned 1. I can't remember if I mentioned that. I could read it all again, but I'm not going to:)