Minor incidences...

Over the years we have made a few trips to the ER but luckily none have ever been serious. The 1st was when Joshua was close to a year old. My sister had a fireplace in her basement with a brick hearth that was about foot tall and he fell into it. I took him to an immediate care center.

 Just before his fourth birthday we were in the backyard on the patio... he was running aroung his little pool and slipped and hit the frame right on a bolt of the adult swing I was sitting on.

He also broke his finger falling off the end of a futon in our garage once. I also had to take him to the ER once for falling on the back of his head... he was very combative ans screaming holding his head saying "I can't take it"

Jacobs first injury came from jumping off the top of a six foot ladder I was using in our garage to put Christmas decorations away. He was almost two.

Right after his second birthday he ran into the corner of the wall in the hallway and busted his face.

 Summer has been my accident prone one even-though she hasn't broken anything or had stitches her 1st accident was falling out of her high chair. She passed out in my arms when I picked her up and I took her to the ER

On the day of Jacobs 4th birthday party she fell of the bathroom sink and hit her head. She threw up once after we has gotten to Gatti-town but we just kept an eye on her. Another time she fell off the monkey bars in our backyard and knocked herself out then starter puking. I t took her to the ER she continued to throw up there but they sent me home and said to bring her back if the vomiting got excessive... She threw up 3 more times on the way home and kept it up when we got home so I took her back... she was fine though. She passed out on Scott once too. We have come to the conclusion that passing out and puking are just her body's nature response to pain/stress. Recently she got her finger kicked and tore the tendon, developing mallet finger. She's been in a splint for over three weeks now.

Ronan fell and hit his nose on the base of an old metal swivel kitchen chair when he was two.

Last Mothers day he broke his collar bone.

So far Raiden and Sierra are injury free except minor bumps and bruises.

Advent Calendar

Our house is is bringing the focus of Christmas back where it should be... On the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior. We are coming up with new traditions to help us stay on track. Thanks to Lora Green we have the perfect Advent Calendar for our family. The original idea was to number muslin bags and put an ornament in each bag to put on the tree each day. I decided we wanted to put treats in the bags. I wish I could have found bigger bags, but these will hold the 6 little chocolates we are using. I was short on time so I couldn't search online. I purchased these at Michael's in the bridal section.

I decided to dye ours so each child would have specific ones to open.

The colors don't show up real good in the pics but I dyed them to match their stockings. They are green, blue, red, natural(Ronan's stocking is actually white), brown, and purple.

from left to right-Joshua, Jacob, Summer, Ronan, Raiden, Sierra

Then I numbered them with fabric paint I already had.

The bags were sold in lots of 12 so we decided to do a big bag for the 25th... I haven't decided what I'll put in it yet.

front

Summer found this iron on to add to the other side

We are also using the scripture tags of Lora's. Who's ever color bag it is that night, that child will read the verse. Joshua will read Raiden's, Jacob - Ronan's, and Summer - Sierra's... evrybody get a treat each night though.

We are also going to hang them on the tree like Lora. Ronan is just learning his numbers so it will be his job to find the number we are looking for on the tree.

Merry CHRISTmas!!!

Homeschooling 2012-13

I'm really excited about this school year. After much prayer and deliberation I think I've got a great plan for our family. Around Christmas last year I considered doing Christian unschooling... But I just don't think it's right for us.  I need a schedule.

I've combined our History and Geography,  Bible, Reading, and Art this year.  I'm mixing some curriculum to see what works best. We are going to follow a Classical Education somewhat but I'm modifying. We are starting with the Ancients; progressing through history chronologically over the next four years, then doing it again 3 times. I'm just not going to be doing the trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric stages, like CE would suggest.  For Jacob and Summer(5th &6th), I'm using Story of the World, text and Activity book, and a list of Books that I got from classical-homeschooling.org  I start out reading aloud, but the ones we don't have time to finish during our schedule, they are encouraged to finish on their own. We have built a cave and did cave paintings, made cuneiform clay tablets, Egyptian hieroglyphic scrolls, and are in the process of mummifying a chicken so far.  I got some Egyptian toy Toobs for Ronan(K) to play with during our reading time to get him into it. I'm not requiring memory work or narration from him though.  Joshua(9th) joins in with us for History Revealed which I LOVE. It tells history strictly from a biblical prospective. I also got Reese's Chronological Bible that we are going to attempt to read through completely. Although I do intend to skip over a lot of the laws and lineages.  It's cool to be able to turn directly to a specific time in the bible. Joshua is also reading from a list of "Great Books" I got from The Well Trained Mind. They say to shoot for 8-12. We are only doing 7 but the Iliad and Odyssey are long and I have a hard time getting him to read. We have finished Epic of Gilgamesh and started Iliad. There was a lot of groaning to start with but today he read more even though he already read the required pages for this week.

Last year everyone did Switched on Schoolhouse for Science. We decided not to do the experiments in the curriculum and I bought some kits and they took a science experiment co-op instead.  It's was fine but I want to follow the Classical Education format here as well. Doing Biology this year; followed by Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics.  Joshua is still doing SOS without the experiments. We took a six week dissection lab over the summer. I'm not using any text books. Just resources from the internet and library, home experiments, and field trips.  So far we've talked about cells and fungi. We have 50 darkling beetle larvae/pupae we are observing and we are planning a trip to find some slime mold to experiment with.  Again... Ronan is more of an onlooker.

We are also changing up our math. Last year Jacob and Summer did Teaching Text books. They found it boring, they like the interaction of having me do it with. Plus, I can give them helpful tips as the opportunities arise. Joshua did Jacob's Algebra last year and didn't enjoy it either. This year we are using Life of Fred. Some people say its not a full curriculum but others... And the company... Say it is.  So far I like it and think its plenty.  Summer, who was hating math at the end of last year, asked if we could do math everyday instead of 3 days a week. I went ahead and got Joshua the Beginning Algebra and Advanced Algebra. We are just reading through Beginning to compare the content and get a good feel for it. We are enjoying it too. I've got flash cards, videos, books, some counting bears and workbook, some blocks with a workbook, some play money, and clock books for Ronan. Very laid back.

Everyone is still doing SOS for Language Arts. Last year I took the writing assignments out and tried to give them more liberty on their topics, but that was a mistake. Then I tried three other writing curriculum that didn't work. This year they are doing the one in SOS.... No negotiation.  I have flash cards, videos, Leap Pad Phonics, teaching tiles, Bob Books, Curious George Books, and a ton of other books for Ronan. I also have Hooked on Phonics but I can't see him sitting for it... It's not near visual enough for him.

That just leaves foreign languages and computer science. I got Pure and Simple last year for Joshua for CS. He didn't end up completing it. I'm guiding Jacob and Summer through it this year; Joshua says he want to finish it when we get to where he left off. Also they learn 3D digital design through a game called Mind Craft.

Last year Joshua started out the year doing SOS for Spanish but didn't like it. He's using Visual Link Spanish 1 this year. Jacob and Summer did like the SOS and are doing Elementary French now on it.

I haven't found a good way... or the time... to incorporate music into our schedule yet.  I'm thinking it will work itself in to history but we will see. Summer has a keyboard she plays some and a guitar, and both boys have ocarinas, but no one has expressed the desire to take any kind of lessons.  I'm sure Summer would like to; I'm just not ready to commit to that right now.

I'll try to post periodic updates on our progress... every six weeks or so. Happy homeschooling!

Its kind of hard to read because I copied over from excel but our basic schedule looks like this:

			Schedule
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
10:00:00 A	MA/LA	LA	MA/LA	LA	MA
11:00:00 A		F.Lang		Lunch	F.Lang
				Co-Op
12:00:00 PM	Writing		Writing
		HW/T			HW/T
01:00:00 PM	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch		Lunch
02:00:00 PM	Reading	Reading	Reading		Reading
	H&G	H&G	H&G		H&G
	Bible	Bible	Bible		Bible
	Art	Art	Art		Art
03:00:00 PM
04:00:00 PM	Sci	CS	Sci		CS

When the time "falls back" we will shift to a 9-4 schedule... this gives us more time to ease in.

Early Empty Nest

Long time no blog... I can't really say I haven't had time to blog or that I haven't had anything to blog about... I just haven't. I actually wrote a couple I never published. A lot has happened in the past year and hopefully I can get all caught up in the the next few months.

The last time I posted about co-sleeping we were still living in West Virginia so we've transitioned a few times since then.  Raiden, who was such a great sleeper before, started climbing out of his pack n play while we were staying at my moms last summer. It was really hard because Sierra was a newborn... I was very sleep deprived. My bassinet comes off of its base and the bed I slept in there had a foot board... I put it at the foot of the bed... Raiden on one side of me and Ronan on the other most nights.

After about six weeks we got into our new house, for two weeks  we slept on air mattresses until Scott could get back to WV for our furniture. We had two queens in our bedroom for me, Scott, and 3 little ones. We decided it was time for us to upgrade to a king size bed  a few weeks later. Raidens eczema was getting worse and worse. We took him to an allergist and found out he had a lot of food alleries. His sleep was awful.

Our new house has four bedrooms. Joshua and Summer started out in their own rooms. Jacob was sort of sharing with Ronan. Sierra would start out the night in her bassinet but like my others before her, once she woke up for a feeding she just stayed in the bed with me. For a while Scott slept in in the boys room so we didn't have to worry about toddlers in the bed with a newborn.

I felt bad that Sierra and I had a king sized bed to ourselves though. We started getting the little boys to sleep on the couch since it is right outside of our bedroom.

After Christmas, Sierra was rolling and crawling too much for me to fall asleep with her in my bed. I would lay her back down after each feeding in her crib next to our bed. Raiden would wake up quite a bit because of his eczema too... it was exhausting.

We then decided to get another crib and move Sierra to Summers room so we could let the little boys back in our room. I took the rail off of the crib in our room and sidecarred it with our bed for Raiden. Plus we had Ronan in there too. At first Sierra wasn't quite sleeping through the night. I spent many nights on the couch so that I didn't have to get woken up by her and Raiden all night.
 
Ronan is getting ready to turn five. I felt it was time to encourage him out of our bed. We got him so sleep on the couch a few nights but he kept wanting to come back in. I think part of it was jealousy that Raiden was still in our room. I decided to put the bunk bed back together in Jacob's room... and we have a mattress that goes under the lower bunk that can be pulled out like a trundle. Joshua was using the other bed... we got the futon out of the garage for him. Tonight is the fifth night the three boys have share a room and Scott and I have slept by ourselves ALL NIGHT.

Homeschooling

When Joshua was going into the 1st grade I wanted to homeschool him. I bought curriculum and everything. Two weeks before the start of public school he began begging me to go back. We lived in a subdivision with a lot of kids then and he wanted to do what they were doing. I was already a bit nervous... I had a two and three year old running around at that time too.... So I decided to let him return to public school. I wasn't very organized back then and just wasn't ready. I've always admired those who had the patients and skills to teach their kids at home. When we moved to West Virginia I was glad I had chosen to let them go to public school because I didn't think they had the homeschool community Kentucky does. Plus we lived out in the boonies with no other kids to play with. It was good for them though because it help them learn to rely on each other. But now we are back..... The last year has been a huge transformation for our family... Physically and spiritually. Sunday will be the anniversary of Cambreys death... Our turning point. We've become a lot more organized and schedule oriented and we have put God in the center of it all. I also want Him to be in the center of our children's education. I've been stressing out since we started moving about where they are going to go to school this year. I don't think public schools are necessarily bad but I do worry about negative influences... Not that all Christian kids are good either but at least they have a solid foundation. I would like to think our kids would naturally be drawn to the "good kids" but you never know. We looked into private Christian schools but they were a little beyond our budget. And there was still the concern of... Where are we going to be living come August! We are 99% sure we will be in Lexington but of course they are breaking out the hoops. I really hate it that both Joshua and Jacob are looking at having to go to a new school this year and then they would have to go to a different school again next year because they will be going onto middle and high school  Here it is mid July and I still don't have them registered anywhere. I honestly don't recall the moment it came to me but, I had a revelation that the answer is homeschooling. First I mentioned it to Scott(after having a little talk with The Big Guy upstairs) and he was in complete agreeance.  I then ran it by the kids and they were on board as well.  I've spent endless hours this week researching curriculum and other area resources. I'm planning to stick to a traditional school schedule with four 45 minute blocks in the morning and four in the afternoon. Our school day will start at 9 and end at 4. We decided to go for an 8 week summer with longer breaks at Christmas and spring. I have found co ops in both Lexington and Georgetown. They can go to them once a week for a half day to socialize and have some out of home learning time. Plus we have been going back to church so they will have their Sunday school friends. Not to mention all their cousins and my friends kids. We are also looking into local businesses that have homeschool days and group planned field trips. There is one scheduled already for the state capitol in March. We are all very excited for our new adventure!

Family Crest Joshua Created

School Logo Summer Created

House Hunting

When we bought our last home we thought/hoped we'd never move again. The first day we went looking I was in tears because I didn't like ANY of the houses. When we found one we liked, we didn't like the neighborhood. We thought about building, but couldn't stay at Scotts Grandmas that long (long story). The house we ended up getting, we had tried to see before, but couldn't get in. I had almost forgotten about the place. I knew when I walked in... It was the right place. We negotiated a little and borrowed for some updating. We spent months fixing the place up. The first couple of weeks were brutal. Raiden was a month old at this point and my mom came up to help. I busted my rear, hardly sleeping at all, to take advantage of the time she was there. It ended up being about 3 weeks. That was part of the reason I wanted another baby. I didn't feel like I really got to cherish each moment of his newborness, like you should with your last. It took 6 months to get to a stopping point. We quit for a while, then started finishing up when I got pregnant. 

After God blessed us with another baby, he decided we needed to move again. She was only 4 weeks old. So once again our life got chaotic with a newborn. Thank the lord my mom was already there. I wanted to take 2 full weeks after she was born to rest and just focus on Sierra. Even though Scott got laid off on day 10, I still took that time. 

We first contemplated staying at my moms lakehouse.  Once we found out Scott would be getting his old job back we decided that would be too far of a drive. So we are staying at my parents which is still an hour and a half commute for him. 

We started looking at short sales because unfortunately, it will probably take a long time for our other house to sell. The first one we looked at was horrible. And although it would have been a great location for me, in my best friends neighborhood, it would have been over an hour drive for Scott. 

We started looking in an area that would be 45min to an hour for him. We really liked the first house we saw there, it was plenty big enough. We decided to put in an offer. After we had signed the papers it occurred to me I should check the sex offender registry. There was a pedophile living on the SAME street!!! His victims were ages 7&9. I was devastated. But then I thought to myself... God has a plan... And this house isn't in it. 

The next one was okay. I loved the yard and the area but the house needed a lot of updating. I was going to bring Scott back to look at it but decided to expand our search a bit.  I tried a few smaller towns and didn't find anything then tried Lexington. A lot of houses in our price range showed up. I decided to get in touch with the realtor that was the buying agent when we sold our last house in KY. She is actually the woman who bought our houses sister and we became friends on Facebook. I know she is a Christian and thought God could help guide her. 

I knew big cities had a lot of pervs but it is ridiculous!!! I had asked our realtor about the neighborhoods we were considering. To be tactful she told me which neighborhoods were considered more desirable. I checked the zip code on the less desirable area and found 5 pages of sex offenders. The more desirable area... "only" had a page and a half! I plugged in each address to see how close they were and what they're charges were. The house I liked the best had one a little over a mile so a scratched it off the list. I prayed about it then decided to add it back on at the bottom.  There was a major road dividing the areas and even if you get a house without one for 100 miles, if your in a neighborhood, there's no guarantee one might not move in next week. I thought they couldn't live next to a school or park.  Apparently that's not true because there is one that lives right next door to an elementary school in Lexington. His victim was 11 years old!

We looked at 4 other houses first. Two I didn't like at all, two had potential but needed some work. I really didn't like either of the yards. Then we looked at my internet pick. It's smaller/cozier than ideal but, honestly, we weren't using a lot of the space we had in WV. I grew up in 1000 sqft with 3 siblings. This house is 1600 all on one level. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths. One of the things I was sad to have to leave behind was my whirlpool tub Sierra was born in.  Well this house has one almost just like it! Like the house I grew up in and the house I loved in WV, the master is in an addition. Although it's bigger, it kind of reminds me of the house I grew up in. The main difference will be that I intend to use the front room as a dining room instead of the back room in the addition, which will be the family room. The back yard is already completely fenced in. It had a one car garage that was converted to a workshop that Scott can use for a workout room. Another wired out building. A kids playhouse with a sandbox underneath, swing set, a place for a pool, and room for the trampoline. And... a little garden area, two apple trees and a pear tree.... for me!!!

I had Scott meet me back over there after work to look at it. He really liked it too, so we made an offer and the seller accepted!  Cosmetically, the house doesn't need any immediate work. I do plan to take up the carpet in the front room though, there are hardwood floors underneath. The inspector found some things but the seller has agreed to have it all taken care of before closing. We ordered the appraisal today. We are scheduled to close by the 25th of July, hopefully all the work can be done by then.  Or at least before school starts!

So is this our forever home Lord? I guess only time will tell. Am I still sure Sierra will be our last baby?... You'll have to ask Him about that too!!!

Sewing Project: Kimono Christening Gown and Bonnet

Before Sierra was born and before Scott got laid off we were planning a trip to the beach. I had all these wonderful shots planned out in my head for taking family photos and pics of the new baby. I bought a few props and started looking for an old fashion christening gown. I searched eBay and found some gorgeous ones but they were either too expensive or too fancy and girly. At that time we didn't know what we were having and back in the day even boys wore long gowns. I wanted something kind of peasant looking. I decided I would make something! 

When I got the material to make Summers dress I picked up some muslin fabric. It had the old look and feel I was looking for. At first I was going to just do one little button in the back with a loop of elastic but I thought that it would be too plain in the front. I didn't have enough confidence in myself, especially since I was doing it by hand, to do button holes. I then considered faux buttons on the front. I still didn't like the vision though so I started looking around online for ideas. I came across patterns for kimono style dresses. One even had a variation for a christening gown. I wanted it long! The pattern I choose was very basic. I made my own bias tape and adjusted the length and the length of the arms to suit me and be within my one yard of fabric. It ended up being about 27 inches and the sleeves are 3/4 length (I think). I had two pieces left that were 10x12 to make a bonnet. I was going to make two, one girly with crocheted trim and one plain for a boy. I stitched the entire gown by hand! I had a little trouble around the back of the neck but it turned out beautifully.

The last couple weeks of my pregnancy were a little rough and I didn't get the bonnets done. Then 10 days after she was born Scott got laid off and we had to cancel or vacation plans. We got busy with packing, moving, and unpacking. Finally, yesterday with the help of Granny and her sewing machine, we made the girly bonnet and added some of the trim to the gown.

I had bought a Moses basket that I wanted to take her picture in at the beach. Now I need to figure out where to do the pics and I need to do it before she out grows it all!!!!