It was the "triplets", in the Kitchen, with the Table

Ben saw this in the draft.  If Shelly posted it, great.  The story bears repeating.  If not, that's OK.  This story happened back in December of 2009.  

I know, you're just DYING to know what THIS one is about. LOL. First, let me set the scene. I was headed out to ward council meeting. Ben agreed to watch our friends kids (1 preschooler, and 1 set of twins). Ben was the only adult.

The Culprits: Do not be deceived by their innocent looking faces. They are guilty as charged. Meet the "triplets" as I call them when I watch the kids. Trent (11 months old) Tyler (13 months old) and twin Jason (13 months old).

The Weapon: This picnic table resides in our kitchen. It facilitates in seating children when we have friends over. IT became the weapon of mass destruction last night.

The Crime: Micheviousness and general Upheaval.

So, here's what happened. The "triplets" were alone in the kitchen. The cat food was up and the floor was swept. What damage could they do? Well, the little boys somehow pushed the picnic table over against the dining room table. Don't ask how, nobody is quite sure how they did it. Whereupon, Trent proceeded to climb onto the picnic table. He did not stop there though. I'm sure he was being routed on by Jason while Tyler stood by saying "uh-oh", which I have determined is his favorite word. However, Trent did not stop there because there were higher places to climb. Trent then climbed up onto the dining room table and into.......this.

Yes, that is last night's left-over lasagna. It was still on the table at the time. Ben found Trent sitting IN the lasagna!!! He pulled him out, but his pajamas were a mess. And all of this AFTER Ben had just gotten him OUT of the bath from cleaning him up from his OWN serving of Lasagna!!! Oh, those boys....what will they come up with next.

Easter 2013 (I know it's late, but still)

I'm using the blog for ideas for the final.  I found some Easter pictures that I don't think have been posted anywhere yet.  I just added my first picture on here and holy cow, I thought I was going to have to find a computer with Photoshop.  Luckily it worked!  :)  I'm liking this.  Anyways, if I use these pictures, I'll be able to make a background and story this up. 

Audrey and Marissa Easter 2013

These first few pictures are actually on Easter Sunday taken after Church.  They were Easter egg hunting.

Breanne Easter 2013

Trent Easter 2013

The next few pictures are celebrating Easter at Shelly's parents house in Provo.  That was one monster Easter egg hunt.

Marissa at Grandma's

Audrey at Grandma's

Breanne and Momma at Grandma's

Trent at Grandma's

I think I can work with this one for the next little while.

Little did Shelly know....

Thank you to Shelly for giving me, Ben, an idea for his final in Intro to Scripting.  And, oh my gosh, I just totally hacked into the Stephen Family Insane Asylum! I think that I'm going to have fun with this :).   Let's see, I'll need the home computer to have access to the photos for sure.  I need to make 4 "web" pages and I think the story about Breanne will be just perfect.

Extend a Helping Hand

Today my post is short and sweet.  Please help this family!!! 

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediate-action-requested-romeikes%E2%80%94grant-permanent-legal-status-persecuted-german-homeschool-family/06vqtgCp

Sign the petition for them so they will not be persecuted for simply homeschooling their children.  If you would like to read a wonderful post on WHY this is so important to me, go here. 

http://www.latter-dayhomeschooling.com/2013/03/is-homeschooling-human-right.html

The end. 

Good Intentions

I have been reading Chalotte Mason's works over the last couple of months.  One of the things I have learned while reading her works is that, just as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," my life is full on good intentions but very little execution. 
I am WONDERFUL at making plans, writing lists, and coming up with new ideas for my life.  EXECUTING those intentions though is a completely different matter.  However, if I never put my intentions into practice I don't get anywhere.  I am still sitting idly by, writing lists and making plans rather than LIVING them. 
Charlotte Mason stresses habit building a lot.  She talks about how to build good habits in ourselves and in our children.  One point that hits dead center to my life, is that if we are not actively cultivating GOOD habits we are, by default, cultivating bad ones. 
Oh, I have so many bad habits!!!!  So many things that need to be improved in myself so that my children can improve their own bad habits.  It is so very true that the faults you find in others are most likely faults you have yourself.  The bad habits that my children exhibit truly are a mirror of my own bad habits. 
There is hope though!!!  If I can just work on one habit at a time over the course of a few weeks to months I can build at least 6 good habits in a year!  I can build these in myself and my children, starting with habits that we all struggle with.  I must improve myself as well if I hope to improve my children. 
So, here's to building better habits and becoming better people!

Pluggin' Along

Life over here has just been pluggin' along.
1.   Our tweaked cleaning system is working fairly well, but there are still some kinks to work out of it. 
2.  School has been normal.
3.  I have been reading and am being inspired by Charlotte Mason's series  (6 volumes) on homeschooling which I purchased the Kindle Edition of for $0.99. 
4.  Now my thoughts are turning to next year's curriculum.  I am happy with most of our curriculum choices but I am having thoughts about changing our Science curriculum.  I love many things about Elemental Science, but I feel that there isn't enough time to go into depth in areas my kids are interested.   I feel like that information presented is very shallow.  I know it should get deeper once we hit the next rotation of sciences in 2 years but I don't know if I want to continue with it until then.  So I am contemplating 3 options:  A) Stick with elemental science and do Chemistry next year which looks like a lot of fun.  B) Just spend our Sciene time researching areas of interest to the kids (topics mentioned so far are jungles, lightbulbs, and horses).  C) Try a different curriculum like the ones suggested at Milestones Academy. 
5.  I can't wait to try out many of the ideas I have gotten from Charlotte Mason's series.  I have ideas for Penmanship, Nature Studies, Math, Reading, Narration, and other things. 

Life is moving right along.  I am very blessed to be able to stay home with my children and homeschool them even though it has meant a lot of sacrifices and big chunks of humble pie.  I am grateful for the life the Lord has given me. 

What? We did school this week?!?

First a little humor....Bree had decided to emulate Scar from "the Lion King."  Apparently chocolate chips work well as face paint. 

 We actually DID school this week.  It was awesome!!!!  All was well until Friday (today) when Audrey got sick.  Luckily everyone else has had it. 
We have been studying rocks in science.  My parents, unknowingly, provided us with a perfect science experiment for our current unit.  They gave the kids a crystal growing kit for Christmas.  So we grew our crystals this week and this was the result.  The crystals grew on rocks provided in the kits.  Trent's, the yellow on the left, lost most of it's crystals from the rock while extracting it from the container.  Luckily we had some stuck to the bottom of the rock!!!  Marissa's, the blue in the center, worked the best.  It has crystals all over it!  Audrey's, the green on the right, grew a few crystals on the rock, but the whole bottom of the container got covered with crystals that came out with the rock.  It made a whole sheet of crystal.  Pretty cool.

 In history we learned about George Washington's young years.  So of course we learned about the story (true or no, it's still a good story) of the Cherry Tree.  Here are my kids with their trees. 

We also did our other subjects that aren't so fun to take pictures of.  Math, English, Reading, Geography, ect.  All in all it was a good week. 

2013 is off to a.........start

I would love to regale you with all the wonderful things we have been up to over the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, we have done diddly-squat.  We have been battling illness in our house now for over a month!!!! 
First Bree got RSV on December 17th.  She ended up being hospitalized for it, and over Christmas to boot!  While Bree was in the hospital Ben, Trent, and I all picked up a cold (I assume it was RSV).  The cold wreaked havoc on my asthma. 
We were just getting over the colds when we got ANOTHER bug.  This time a flu-type bug.  I was the first to get it, followed by Marissa and Trent. 
Needless to say we have been hacking, and sniffling, and shivering something fierce over here for weeks on end.  My asthma got so bad I had to break out the nebulizer, only to realize it was broken!  This was at 10:30 at night.  Luckily for me I have friends with nebulizers that generously shared with me so that I did not have to make a trip to the ER with no insurance!!!! 
So, here's to hoping this madness finally ends and we can become productive and resume normal life once again. 

Back to Reality

After such a crazy Christmas, including our 18 month old spending it at Primary Children's Medical Center, things are slowing down.  Our New Year's celebration was fun, spending the night at our friend's and playing games for hours.  I am now ready to get back into the normal swing of things though. 
Monday will mark our first day back into reality. 
Ben will be going back to full time work and night school 4 nights a week.  It makes for a crazy week for mom, but luckily I have some sanity savers to help until Ben is done with schooling. 

The kids will be hopping back into full time schooling.

I will be trying to use my spare time more productively.  Our goal is to have no media (unless it is a school assignment) until after dinner every day.  I am not cutting it completely out, because with Ben at school most nights, being able to sit and watch TV or play the computer in the evening is helping me keep my sanity. 

Here's to a new year and the improvements that will (hopefully) come with it!!!!

My New Year's resolutions:
Teach Bree and Trent to be more obedient by being consistent.
Build a better relationship with Marissa to inspire honesty and confidences from her.
Teach Audrey to sew.
Use my free time more productively.
Attend the Temple at least 4 times.

What are your goals for the coming year?