The Great Adventure

Hooray for Labor Day! Now Please Pass the Advil...

2011-09-06T23:30:00.007-04:00

We spent a beautiful Labor Day weekend up at Mohonk Mountain House with friends from our church in Manhattan. This was our 4th Labor Day spent here, and the boys absolutely LOVE it. Between miles and miles of hiking trails, and daily afternoon tea complete with all-your-parents-will-allow-you-to-eat cookies, it's a veritable kids' paradise.

We started out at the lake. The pedal boats were all checked out, so we tried a row boat. Jon and Jordan, who insisted on being the rowers, couldn't do anything but go in circles, so I took over. I am just barely more skilled at rowing, but let's face it--struggling to row in a straight line while 2 of your boys whine about not being able to row is not exactly fun holiday fare.

We abandoned the row boat and waited our turn for a pedal boat. And I didn't have to pedal at all. Nice.

While we boated, Josiah fed the fish.

...while Joanna ate the fish food.

Then we were off to The Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth is a rock scramble that is a big favorite of the bigger boys. Joseph, who had never been allowed to try it, got to go for the first time this year. And since I didn't want him falling off any cliffs without an adult present to call 911, I had the privilege of going along as well. Jeremy had already graciously offered to watch the littles, so off we went.

Yes, I stopped to take a photo of the entrance sign, but apparently didn't bother to heed it. Somehow or another I confused being no longer pregnant and miserable with "excellent physical condition." Ha! Well, at least I qualify for the "not afraid of heights" part.

Here are the boys at "Pancake Rock," after patiently waiting for me to hoist myself over, under, and through countless rock formations, which, by the way, were also very wet and slippery. The boys, of course, scrambled nimbly over all of them with hardly a pause, except when they had to stop and wait for the 40-year-old, 8 weeks postpartum lady who thought she was in "excellent physical condition" to gingerly pick out the safest route.

I wouldn't let Joey on Pancake Rock, since it's pretty cliff-like all the way around, and I really didn't want to have to make that 911 call.

Here's a snapshot of what he thought of that decision:

Towards the end of the hike we had to navigate "The Crevice," which is a tall, narrow fissure in the rock navigable by narrow wooden ladders. Here are some of the boys waiting to get on the bottom ladder. It's a one-at-a-time-type thing.

Courtesy of all the rain generously brought to us by Irene, the bottom of The Crevice was several inches deep in mud, and the rock walls were slick.

And the air was full of the lovely aroma of wet bat poo. I was, of course, at the back of the line. Those boys couldn't get up those ladders fast enough for me. And I spent the rest of the day and evening trying not to think about what was all over my clothes.

(Note to self: Next year, bring a change of clothing. And perhaps some soap.)

When we finally emerged on top, I tortured the poor boys by making them pose for photos.

By this point we were late for dinner, but fortunately the way back down the mountain is easier (and faster!) than the trip up.

Jeremy and the little guys were waiting for us at the playground further down the mountain. And since I happened to have my camera...

Sunday, it was Jeremy's turn to go boating. Unfortunately for him, the big boys were off on another hike, so HE had to do all the pedaling himself. Ha!

I think Josiah really wanted to go in for a swim--he couldn't keep his hands out of the water.

And I just relaxed in a rocking chair on the porch and visited with friends, while a content Jeremiah was passed around and doted on.

A good time was had by all...

Which is why I am currently sitting here so sore I can barely move.

In other extremely exciting news, Jeremiah has slept 7-8 hours at night for the past 5 nights now. Woo hoo!! Sleep for Mommy is a wonderful thing! I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoy it.

Since I'm all rested now (Ha!) I'm taking any extra time I have during the day to completely reorganize my kitchen. Stay tuned...the big reveal will be coming soon! Aren't you just completely overcome with anticipation?

Fun After the Storm!

2011-08-31T00:37:00.011-04:00

When we moved to New York 3 years ago, we knew it was going to be an adventure. I never dreamed, however, that our adventures here would include a major hurricane! We were extremely blessed not to have any damage on our property. I kept peering out into the darkness throughout the night to see if our travel trailer and chicken coop were still standing--they were. Even our garden, which I was sure would either be uprooted or drowned, survived! We lost power twice, once for about 7 hours and later for about 2 hours, but that was it.

After all our preparing, it was almost anti-climatic. But I'm good with that. The boys, however, were extremely disappointed when the power came back on. I guess they were looking forward to "roughing it!"

We did have all sorts of fun playing in the wind Sunday afternoon, once the rain stopped and the sun came out. And of course I took pictures!

Jordan trying to make a sail out of a kite

The sun finally peeking through the storm clouds

Daddy swinging the little ones

Looking towards the northeast, the sky still looks pretty ominous!

Josiah is just happy to be outside!

Sweet brothers...

Walking with Daddy

Jordan gave up on the kite and used our Longhorns flag to make a sail.

I thought it was funny that the first thing the older 3 boys did when they got outside was to try to harness the wind to pull/push their scooters. I remember when I was a kid and hurricane Gilbert just missed us in Corpus Christi. We stood in our front yard in rain ponchos, holding the sides out to catch the wind. I think we were trying to see how far we could lean into the wind without falling over. Maybe we were trying to fly.

Joshua hypothesized that he could jump off the master bedroom balcony (basically 3 stories up) and the wind would help him "fly" down instead of just falling like a rock. He wanted to try it.

I vetoed that idea. I'm such a spoil-sport.

Josiah

The boys soon moved from creating wind sails to an impromptu football game.

Joanna just ran around checking everything out.

Busy girl

Taking a break to lie in the grass

Joshua's broom/trash bag sail. He ended up successfully using this to "power" Josiah's Little Tykes car down the driveway.

Now we are back to business as usual--school, chores, the daily routine. The boys want to know when the next hurricane is coming. Ha!

Preserving the Harvest

2011-08-25T10:43:00.002-04:00

I am so proud of myself...I made my first actual canned pickles! We've been making refrigerator pickles for a few weeks now, but I was a bit intimidated to try canning. However, between running low on room in the fridge, as well as wanting to have pickles that will last beyond the next few weeks, I finally decided it was time to take the plunge!

Here they are...6 pint jars of home-canned pickles:

I have to give credit where credit is due and tell you that Jordan cut up all those cukes for me. He now considers all cucumber cutting HIS job...just so he can use the sharp knife!

Jordan and Joseph have been doing the harvesting this week. They really enjoy going out there and searching for veggies. And yes, I DO mean searching--the weeds really have about taken over. I'm conceding defeat this season and admitting that I just don't. have. the. time. to keep it weeded. Next year I will be on top of that.

Today's harvest:

We're doing our best, but we just can't eat this stuff fast enough! In addition to making pickles, I've been freezing tons of squash, making dozens of zucchini muffins, and filling bags with tomatoes and tomatillos and sticking them in the fridge. I need to buy some cilantro, then I can make salsa verde and tomato salsa. I'm thinking I'll just freeze the salsa verde in meal-sized quantities, but I'm hoping to be able to make enough regular salsa to be worth canning. The tomatoes are still only trickling in, so I'm peeling, bagging, and freezing them for now:

Same with the peppers:

When I have enough, I'll make stuff with them to can or freeze. With the peppers, I plan on keeping some in the freezer anyway, to pop into chili or spaghetti sauce this winter.

One of the reasons the boys enjoy harvesting is that there's no telling when you'll discover a missed giant:

Jordan is awfully proud of that giant cucumber! It'll probably be inedible at that size, but he has laid claim to it and wants to eat it all himself. Joseph, on the other hand, is just posing with the cool humongous "alien squashes." He thinks they're nasty and says he won't be eating them! :)

Silly boys!

I bought lots of seeds to try for fun this year, but the only unique variety that actually made it into the garden was the purple bush beans. I put some in a pan for dinner and told the boys to watch them...they're magic!!

Of course they got bored long before this happened (a whole 5 minutes later), but here's what they looked like cooked:

There were many oohs and aahs when they peeked back into the pan, and I have to admit that even I was quite impressed with the color change.

Who knew beans could be so fun?!!

Park Fun!

2011-08-24T09:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday around lunch time, I told the boys to get their shoes on and go get in the van. I didn't tell them what we were doing(mostly because I was winging it and wasn't totally sure myself!) except that we were going to eat lunch out. Jordan was immediately very excited.

"You mean we're going to eat lunch out again?!? Wow, this is going to be the funnest week EVER!!"

I must usually be the most boring mom around, if fast food twice in the same week makes it the "funnest" week ever. Hmmm, maybe I should work on changing that...

Anyway, we drove through McDonald's and then went to our local park--our local park that though we've lived here almost 11 months, we had not visited yet. (See above reference to my "boring mom" status.)

Joanna with her Sprite from Mickey D's...a rare treat for her!

Joseph and Joanna

It's easier to climb up than it is to climb down!

About to try the slide...

Josiah is a blur! (and PLEASE ignore those knees!!)

Jordan

Jordan wanted me to be sure to capture the precarious nature of his perch here, and therefore prove his extreme bravery. These tires are stacked on a platform 5 feet or so off the ground, so the kids can just drop through them to the ground below. Next time any of you see Jordan, be sure to tell him how brave he is, okay?

Just don't make the mistake of telling him how cute he is, like the lady behind us in line at the grocery store did. He'll get embarrassed and stare at his shoes.

Jordan on the fireman's pole

Followed by Joseph...love his funny faces!

Big slide pile up!

Joanna playing with pebbles on a concrete picnic table

Fun on the tire swing!

We will definitely have to come back here again. The boys and Joanna had so much fun!

One Day Down...

2011-08-23T02:04:00.003-04:00

Our first day without Josh and Jon around went pretty well. I woke up feeling like someone was missing (well, someone WAS!) and had to alter my normal Monday morning routine accordingly, since one of the missing children usually cooks Monday's breakfast. I discovered I'm a bit spoiled now that I have pre-teen children--I miss my cook! :)

We ran errands later, the highlight of which was lunch at a new and exciting location--the cafe in our local Target. Who would have guessed that would be so thrilling for my crew? But it was-- Jordan and Joseph must have thanked me and told me how much fun they had at least a dozen times. And it was cheap to boot. Guess I'll be adding that to my list of fun kid destinations! :)

We are now well-stocked on boys' socks and underwear. Whew! And Joanna got new shoes. She LOVES shoes, but had just outgrown all 4 pairs she owned in her previous size. (Which I had just bought back in July--growth spurt, anyone?) It's sad when your little girl begs you to put on her shoes, only to immediately cry and beg you to take them back off because they hurt. The past several days she has had to go shoeless. Now she can be a fully-accessorized little girly-girl again, with new white sneakers complete with sparkly rhinestones, and new black-patent Mary Janes. She's much happier now.

I'm still trying to come up with some fun, special things to do with my little guys while their big brothers are away. Normally I'd come up with all sorts of ideas, but apparently my brain isn't fully functional on next to no sleep. I'll have to ask the boys what they'd like to do today. Once they wake up, that is. At least some members of this household are sleeping! :)

I'm sure they'll come up with something, probably involving candy. Or ice cream. Or a freaky animatronic mouse. We'll see. And I'll try to remember to take pictures.

A Break in the Chaos?...(or Not!)

2011-08-22T17:00:00.000-04:00

These past few weeks since we started back to school have been cuh-razy! Between easing (cramming? begging? bribing?) my boys back into a school routine, keeping the preschoolers from taking over the world (or even just the kitchen!), and taking care of a new born around the clock, I am exhausted! I keep wishing I could crawl into a cozy hole somewhere and sleep for a day (or several), but I'm pretty sure I gave up that option oh, about 12 years ago.

This week, I'm getting a bit of a reprieve! Two of my children are off at camp all week!
I only have 5 children at home! Yes, you know you're a mom-of-many when you can say only and 5 children in the same sentence!

Of course, the children who are absent are the oldest 2, who also happen to be my biggest helpers. I'm trying not to admit that having five 7 and under might not be that much of a reprieve, after all. We'll see...

I think we'll play hooky from school this week and work on projects, get some errands done, and, of course, play fun "little kid" type stuff. I've already asked Jordan, who will be the biggest boy at home this week, what he'd like to do. His answer? He wants to cook eggs for breakfast all by himself (usually Jon's job) and go to Chuck E. Cheese's. I think we can handle those!

One of our necessary errands will involve clothing, or rather underclothing, shopping. Since my big boys do their own laundry, I have very little occasion (this is a good thing!) to see my 12-year-old's underwear. Well, in packing for him, I had a heck of a time finding 7 pairs that weren't completely shredded. How he shreds underwear I have no idea, but shred them he does, so they must be replaced. The 10-year-old didn't even have 7 pairs, shredded or otherwise. He's, um, borrowing a pair or two from the next brother down. Hopefully he won't mind, and when he gets back he'll have new ones as well. And we won't even mention the deplorable condition of their socks...which I just bought in the last couple months. Argh!

We dropped Josh and Jon off at camp yesterday afternoon. I was the only one close to tears. I'm still not sure how I feel about that--I wanted to the boys to go off without a hitch, obviously, but it might be nice if they miss me a little bit! Jon was even too cool to hug me goodbye, the little stinker. Well, I'm off to play preschool games and cook with Jordan. I'm hoping for a fun week with my littles! :)

It's an Alien Invasion!

2011-08-18T02:15:00.004-04:00

Help, we've been abducted by aliens! Alien squash, that is!

Joshua has been begging for several days to paint one of our scalloped squashes, which the boys call "alien saucer squashes," to look like a flying saucer. I normally hate to waste food like that, but we've eaten and frozen pounds and pounds of this stuff, and it's still coming in faster than we can use it. So yesterday, I relented and pulled out the paints:

Everyone ran out to the garden to choose an appropriate canvas...

And painted away happily!

Joshua got pretty detailed with his:

Joseph getting started...

The younger boys mostly had fun mixing up all the paint colors into one big blob on their plates. Amazingly, they didn't make a huge mess!

These are summer squash so they don't last very long before they get squishy, so we'll have to throw away their creations in a couple of days. Hopefully no one will be too disappointed!

I never would have thought that our garden would also be providing objects for art class! But, I'm a big proponent of making do with what we've got on hand, so it works for me! We've even used veggies as a still life for drawing practice in the past week:

I wonder what we'll do with them next! :)

Little Mommy

2011-08-17T13:44:00.005-04:00

Whoever said that girls act like girls and boys act like boys only when we train them to do so was wrong. Totally.

Since little Jeremiah arrived on the scene, Miss Joanna's favorite past time is seeing, holding, hugging, and kissing "her" baby. She is such the little mommy. She brings him diapers, bottles, and toys constantly, whether he wants them or not!

She loves to give him hugs and kisses. The boys, while loving in their own ways, were NEVER like this!

MY baby!!

Sweet kisses...

"Eye!"

Josiah gets in on the baby love as well--after all, Joanna can't get all the camera attention!

It's sweet to see Joanna and Josiah loving on their baby brother. One, it makes for adorable photo ops and two, it's about the only love going on here among the kids these days. Jon and Jordan seem to have some sort of battle going on that results in pretty constant bickering between them, Joseph grumps at all his brothers lately, and Josiah picks on Joanna every chance he gets. I'm SO hoping this is just "new baby adjustment" and that all will be back to normal soon. I'm thinking I might just have to make everyone hug everybody else multiple times a day, while reminding them that they need to LOVE each other (or else!!!) Think it'll work?

On an unrelated note, after posting about needing ideas to use up eggs yesterday, I got a suggestion to make French toast. (Thank you, Linda!) Not being one to do things the easy way, I made this recipe of homemade challah bread last night, since it makes utterly fabulous French toast. I'd never made it myself before. Probably not the best project to start at 8:30 p.m. (it takes about 3 hours with rising and cooking times) but it turned out quite nicely:

I used up 15 eggs--5 for the bread itself, and 10 making it into French toast. I think this will make the breakfast rotation, if I can make and freeze a bunch of the bread in advance. It was delish!

No pics of the final product--it got scarfed down as quickly as I could get slices off the griddle!

I have 2/3 of a loaf of challah left...I'm thinking it might make a tasty bread pudding!

I'm a List-making Fool!!

2011-08-16T13:57:00.010-04:00

Now that we've started back to school, it's time to get (re)organized! There's something about a new school year that makes me want to revamp absolutely everything possible about our day-to-day routine. This year, that goes double. After moving last fall, immediately finding out I was pregnant again (before getting organized in our new space) and now starting this school year with a new kindergartener AND a new infant, I'm drowning in the chaos!

So I'm making lists like crazy: home school checklists for myself and the boys, menu lists to simplify shopping and meal times, chore lists for me, chores to train the boys in, lists of craft projects I want to do this year, even lists of things I want to blog about! *grin*

Now, I'm not claiming that many of these lists are actually being implemented all at once here, but it's a start!

My primary list-making ~~obsession~~ focus this week is making a set weekly menu for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, then using that to create a master shopping list that will cover those meals for the whole month. In other words we will eat the same breakfast every single Monday, etc. I'm hoping that this will significantly simplify shopping and meal prep, and also help me cut down the grocery budget by knowing exactly what to stock up on.

I've got a basic list going, which I'm sure will need tweaking as I actually put it into action. It'll be a process to make sure my meals are nutritionally balanced throughout the day and to see how much of each ingredient we actually use in a month. I have a feeling that's going to be eye-opening for sure. My bunch can EAT!!

Here's my (very general) plan so far:

Monday--breakfast-scrambled eggs, fruit, bread*--lunch-baked pasta (pasta, sauce, mozz. cheese), veggie
Tuesday--breakfast-oatmeal, fruit--lunch-ham or turkey sandwiches
Wednesday--breakfast-cereal w/milk, fruit--lunch-hummus with whole wheat pitas and veggie dippers
Thursday--breakfast-scrambled eggs, fruit, bread*--lunch-grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup
Friday--breakfast-oatmeal, fruit--lunch something with eggs? maybe a quiche or egg salad sandwiches?

*the bread item can be toast, pancakes (I cook extras when I make them on Saturdays), muffins, bagels, etc.

It's still pretty general. I think I want to make it really specific, so I can have an exact shopping list that repeats every week. The other challenge I have right now is trying to incorporate what we are growing ourselves, so there is no waste. We have large quantities of a few different kinds of veggies, and we're also getting about 7 dozen eggs a week. I'm obviously in dire need of some creative ideas for using up eggs, lol!

Once I get my menu plan and shopping lists finalized, I'll be sure to share them--and my other lists-in-the-works, too! :) I'd love any feedback on easy (and cheap!) breakfast, lunch, and snack ideas as well...or any ideas on what to do with all these eggs!

Works in Progress...

2011-08-15T16:26:00.003-04:00

With all the spare time I've been swimming in lately (Ha!), I've added a few little projects to my growing list of "works in progress." After all, the newest little J-boy needs some hand-made goodies, and I need the brief moments to relax. I'll probably never understand why having a bunch of unfinished craft projects is therapeutic, but it is. Maybe it's having lots of choices when I have a spare minute or two. Maybe I'm actually certifiably insane and haven't recognized it yet. I like to think it's the first option, but who knows?

This is a simple crocheted blanket I started while Jeremiah was in the NICU. After spending a full day alternating between staring at the walls in the cafeteria and staring at the walls in the lobby between baby feedings, I knew I HAD to have a project. Then the other nice folks in the cafeteria and lobby could stare at ME, while I alternated between crocheting furiously and nodding off to sleep.

These flannel squares are going to become a rag quilt, or rather 2 rag quilts--one for Jeremiah, and one for a friend. I had the hardest time selecting the fabrics for these. Little boys are harder to sew for than little girls for sure. The fabric selections are just not even comparable. I have an orange fabric that I'm still trying to decide on. We'll see if it makes the cut.

The finished quilts will look like this one that I made for Joanna:

While I love the finished product, I think I vaguely remember promising myself I would NEVER make one of these again. Cutting all those seams was a beast. A trip to JoAnn's for spring-loaded scissors might be in order. I just got a new 40% off coupon that needs to be used...

And while I'm aware that it is only August, these fabrics have been calling to me as well:

(After all, playing with Christmas fabrics in August is much more fun than grading math or cleaning my bathroom. Which are what I SHOULD be doing.)

I bought them on sale before Christmas LAST year, and didn't do anything with them. I'm thinking they might become advent calendars. Hopefully before December, so we can actually use them.

I also need to get back to work on this quilt. I kind of lost interest in working on it because I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. But now I know the perfect place for it to go!

Now to go tackle the boys' math workbooks. (The bathroom will still have to wait!)

My Crafty Kid!

2011-08-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

I love it when my kids get creative! Well, to be more accurate, I love it when my kids decide to channel their creativity into cute little projects that don't destroy whole rooms with their messes, rather than turning the playroom into one enormous blanket fort full of hundreds of puzzle pieces and millions of Legos.

Yesterday, Joshua got bitten by the creative bug and decided to make a stuffed bird for his little sister. He made a pattern on paper and then cut it out, sewed, and stuffed it entirely on his own (while I took a nap! Yay!!) I think it turned out pretty cute!

I'm choosing to overlook the pins left on the table, scissors under the table, and felt strewn about the floor, and just focus on the cuteness:

Cute, huh? I love that he thinks about making things for his siblings. He also made these fun bean bags (scroll down to the bottom) for Josiah's birthday last year, which also turned out really nice. I think I'll encourage him to make homemade gifts for Christmas this year--and clean up after himself when he's done!

Garden Pictures

2011-08-13T15:36:00.005-04:00

I'm way overly excited about our garden's first season! Not because it's grand (like my original big intentions)...because it's not--it's basically the first 12 feet of a 100-foot long space. Not because everything is growing fabulously well...I actually planted things much too closely together and too late, and several things seem to be stunted. No, I'm excited because I decided a couple months ago, when I realized that my big intentions just weren't going to happen, that this season was going to be about learning how to garden here. Anything we actually harvested would be a bonus! :) It's definitely been a learning curve, but learn we have! And, in spite of getting the garden started at almost 8 months pregnant, it's been fun as well.

Tomatoes in the foreground, pole beans on the fence behind them

As soon as the fence was up, we had a big load of top soil delivered to make the beds. The older boys got the job of shoveling the dirt into a wheelbarrow and dumping it in beds. I supervised. :) This was a win-win, as the boys are always saving up their money for something or other, and I paid them 50 cents a wheelbarrow load. Altogether I think I coughed up about $60 to get most of 20 yards of dirt moved. I'm just glad I didn't have to do it myself, at 8 months pregnant!

A California Wonder bell pepper

Everything in our garden was started from seeds I ordered last December. This was a first for me, as I had always done transplants from Home Depot or Walmart in our Texas garden. We learned that starting from seed is an effort in patience!

This bed has tomatillos in the front, and Roma tomatoes behind those. Along the fence in an L shape are zucchini, yellow, and scalloped squash.

It has been so rewarding to see the kids get excited about the garden! Everyone down to Josiah enjoys looking for things to harvest, and while I'm not thrilled about them, the boys LOVE all the bugs they can find here!

Beefsteak tomatoes...can't wait for these to ripen!

Roma tomatoes

Purple-podded bush beans (and a LOT of weeds...)

Under the circumstances this season (can we say "busy" LOL) the weeds have gotten a wee bit out of control. I'm hoping the raised beds I'm planning to build for next spring will help us keep the weeds down in the future. Of course, we did put a garden in the middle of what was basically a hay field, so some stray grass, etc. is to be expected.

Yellow squash

We've had a few pests to deal with--squash vine borers attacked our squash plants. We've lost one yellow squash plant and one zucchini plant so far. There is evidence of the little buggers on the others as well, but so far the other plants are hanging in there and producing squashes faster than we can eat/freeze them!

A small cucumber

The cucumbers have been the most fun, so far. They sat in the ground as tiny seedlings doing absolutely nothing for so long, I just about gave up on them. I think the weather was too cool for them in June. But then they took off! Jordan and Joseph wade through them every day looking for "pickles." I keep trying to tell them they're called cucumbers until they are actually pickled, but to no avail!

Tomatillos

I'm super excited about our tomatillos! They aren't ready to harvest yet, but there are literally hundreds of them on the plants. I'm drooling in anticipation of some home-made salsa verde!

Pole beans reaching for the sky

Okay, this photo is mostly weeds, but there are a couple zucchinis hiding in there...consider this one of those hidden picture games, lol!

A couple days ago, I found our first few tomato hornworms. Ewwwwww! I can not STAND those nasty things! Fortunately I have boys! Josh and Jordan were only moderately grossed out (probably only because I was) but it just took a little convincing (and the offer of 10 cents per worm) to get them to pull them off for me. A few minutes (and $1.00) later, Jon showed up. He was very disappointed that he had missed the hornworms, and hunted high and low to find one. He finally found a small one--and promptly popped it into a jar for a pet. The good news is that I no longer have a bunch of worms defoliating my tomato plants. Instead I have a 10-year-old boy defoliating my tomato plants--he has to feed his hornworm-in-a-jar, after all!

The nasty beast, I mean Jon's pet, before it ended up in a jar...*shudder*

Yes, this thing now lives in my HOUSE! Ah, the joys of raising boys!!

Thankfully, this season hasn't JUST been about learning...we ARE getting a harvest as well! And it's been yummy so far!

Bell peppers and 2 varieties of jalapenos, a hot one on the left, and a mild variety on the right.

We're getting LOTS of cukes!

Yellow, zucchini, and scalloped squash. Boy, do we have this stuff coming out our ears.

Of course, I'm still waiting for that first big, red, ripe juicy tomato!!

Caught!!!

2011-08-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

This is why I have a lock at the top of my pantry door:

(Obviously I don't always remember to lock it...)

Sneaky girl!

All My Cuties!

2011-08-10T12:27:00.006-04:00

I finally got some updated pictures of all 7 of the J-kids! Aren't they a handsome (and pretty) bunch? Enjoy!!

Joshua David--12 years old

Jonathan Caleb--10 years old

Jordan Abraham--7 years old

Joseph Daniel--5 years old

Josiah Gabriel--3 years old

Joanna Keelie--1 year old

Jeremiah Benjamin--1 month old

Everybody smile!

So hard to get them all looking at the camera at the same time!

I love these little guys! :)

Pickles!

2011-08-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

We are finally getting an abundance of cucumbers from our garden, which means, of course, it's time for pickles! My helper Jordan has been asking if he could be the one to make them, so a few days ago we bought the required spices, gathered up our cukes, and Jordan started slicing away.

Jordan says his favorite part was using a sharp knife for the first time!

He cut up a lot of cukes! He's a diligent little guy (when he wants to be!)

Adding the spices to the jars...

Loading up the slices...

Proud boy (and daddy) with his 4 jars of pickles

These are refrigerator pickles, so they don't require any actual canning skills, lol. We've already made a second batch of 4 jars, though, and my refrigerator will only hold so much. I guess learning to can will be next on our list of skills to conquer!

By the way, the pickles are YUMMY!! :)

Adventures with Monarchs

2011-08-08T15:40:00.000-04:00

One of the consequences of having a house full of boys is that you can pretty much count on various critters being caught and brought into the house in nets, boxes, or jars. Sometimes this is annoying, as when they brought in a frog from the creek and let it loose in the house. Sometimes it is quite handy, as it is now while we are studying insects for science.

We happen to have an abundance of milkweed in the yard, so the boys have been collecting monarch caterpillars and watching their amazing metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies. It's fascinating to watch, even if it means I have to put up with jars of larvae and chrysalises in various stages lined up in my kitchen windowsill!

A monarch larva in the wild...on a milkweed plant next to the chicken coop

Another tiny larva...can you see it?

This little caterpillar has been happily munching on milkweed leaves (provided daily by Jordan and Joseph) for several days now and is ready to make his chrysalis.

Here he goes...

The next morning he looked like this!

Almost done...you can see the orange and black wings showing through the clear chrysalis.

Beautiful butterfly!

Joseph releasing our first adult monarch outside...don't worry, we carefully let the butterfly climb onto his fingers from inside the jar--we didn't grab it by the wings!

And away it goes!

So far we have watched 2 butterflies go from caterpillar to adult. We have a third one still in a jar in the windowsill, which should be done soon. It is so fun to watch! Now if only I could get as excited about the crickets, beetles, and other assorted bugs we have been studying for science!

Building the Garden

2011-08-07T18:00:00.000-04:00

One of our many new adventures since moving out of Manhattan has been putting in our first New York garden. As you might imagine, growing things here is very different from growing things in Texas, which is my only previous gardening experience. In Texas, we planted in March and everything fried from the heat by mid-June; here there is still snow on the ground in March!!...but here we are in August and everything is still a lush green and our produce is just coming into full production.

The first thing we had to do was build a fence to keep out those pesky (and hungry!) deer. I was a wee bit ambitious and had Jeremy fence in an area roughly 50' by 100'. As you can see in this photo, I've only planted a tiny bit of it at the far left end. I'm calling this season an experiment, and hoping to get closer to my ambitious plans next year! The plan is to eventually have raised beds around the perimeter, and 24 4' by 20' raised beds in 2 rows down the length of the thing. My goal is to grow enough for us for the year, as well as extra to donate. And the older boys are hatching plans to sell some as well. We'll see how that goes...

Not the garden, but another recent fencing job--the chicken run. They were completely free-range, but we found that chickens are not respecters of porches, or sidewalks, or (ugh!) garages that have been left open by careless small male children. We were, quite frankly, tired of poop. So the chickens got a fence.

Our family project last weekend was putting boards on the fence--the wire keeps falling off the upright posts (lesson: use a better staple gun) and I think the boards will look better anyway.

Joshua keeping the masses entertained so Jeremy can get to work on the fence.

Joanna loves to play outside!

Jordan helping hold up a board while Jeremy attaches it.

The boys enjoy any task that allows them the opportunity to use power tools!

Joshua and Joseph delivering more boards

Jordan harvesting cucumbers

And then harvesting squash

A yellow squash and a tomatillo-yum!

We got about half of the fence done so far. The rest will just have to be a project for another weekend!

Introducing...

2011-08-06T17:27:00.002-04:00

Our newest little sweetie, Jeremiah Benjamin, born July 7, 2011. He is doing well and is adored by all his siblings, especially his big sister who refers to him as "my baby!" Mommy still isn't getting much sleep, but that is to be expected, at least for the next several weeks. I'm hoping he'll sleep through the night (7 hours or so) by 6-8 weeks like 5 out of the other 6 did. :)

Here he is...isn't he a cutie?

And again being held by his proud big sister who can't get enough of him!

(Yes, she fell and scraped up her nose pretty bad, but thankfully it's healed now. Whew!)

Joanna giving baby Jeremiah kisses!

We're slowly getting back in the swing of things around here--getting the house back in order, gardening, and even starting a new school year. Maybe I'm crazy, but we've always started up each new home school year the first Monday in August and I didn't want to change that this year just because we have a brand new baby and sleep-deprived Mommy in the house. I guess time will tell if we can actually pull this off! :)

It's A...

2011-03-11T13:42:00.003-05:00

Oh my, has it been a pitiful week around here! I'm so used to staying busy, both doing activities with the children and working on various "projects" that I have going--usually several at a time! So it's pretty sad to have to admit that the high points of this past week have been crashing for a nap with the littles every afternoon! I don't really feel sick anymore, but oh boy, the exhaustion is sticking around WAY too long!

There has been one other highlight this week...yesterday I finally got in for my ultrasound. It turns out that our seventh little munchkin is a healthy little baby BOY! Surprise, surprise, huh? I have to admit I was hoping Joanna would have a little sister, but Jeremy and the boys are THRILLED to be adding more maleness around here. Because, you know, we have a serious testosterone shortage and it's way too quiet in this household. Ha ha.

On a practical front, now I know which baby clothes to dig out and wash, and can start thinking about how to rearrange beds and such in the boys' rooms to accommodate another. And, of course, I can start sewing little blue blankets and such...as soon as my energy comes back!

So Glad That's Over!

2011-03-06T15:11:00.004-05:00

We are more or less on the mend over here, finally! All 6 children and Mommy ended up getting sick. Yuck! Jeremy managed to avoid illness, but didn't emerge entirely unscathed--he managed to step on one of Joanna's toys just right (wrong?) to completely injure his foot. Then, what started out as a trip to our local urgent care clinic for x-rays ended up being a trip to buy a new car battery.

Yes, turned out the van wouldn't start. He tried jumping it with the ATV to no avail, then called the road side assistance program we have through our auto insurance. By the time the battery was jumped and then subsequently replaced, the urgent care clinic had closed. Bummer!

He's hobbling around on crutches for now. We're hoping it's not broken or anything fun like that.

I spent some time yesterday playing with my Photoshop Elements trial. It was one of the few things I could do while sitting propped up in bed. I'm so thankful that my wonderful husband replaced my ancient computer with a lap top--I'm sure it's pretty hard to use a desk top while lying in bed half-dead with the flu. I learned a few things. I'm happy, so far. I definitely have a LOT to learn, though!

I managed to get up and cook breakfast this morning, which was thrilling for my children. Apparently sandwiches, quesadillas, and canned soup only satisfy this group for so long. And we've exceeded that time frame. I made breakfast tacos--super easy, really, just scrambled eggs, sausage, cheddar cheese, and salsa in flour tortillas. But after several days of Cheerios, it's downright gourmet.

In a moment of brilliance, I actually cooked double the amount and am now the proud owner of 12 breakfast burritos neatly tucked away in the freezer. I feel so accomplished. It's easy to feel that way when your main contribution to your household for the past three days amounts to making sure the 3-year-old made it to the potty before throwing up.

I'm pretty sure I accomplished that feat at least twice. We won't talk about how many times we didn't make it. I'm focusing on the positive here.

I'm looking forward to a healthy week ahead...full of school, chores, playing outside, and hopefully getting back to my sewing. My biggest challenge this week?...getting my little darlings back on task. You see, after several days of having everything done for them they've started to think that they're entitled to getting out of any and all work. Some of them have even taken to flopping down on the couch and clutching their tummies or coughing dramatically when asked to do the simplest things.

Yet they're fine while chasing each other in circles or playing Wii. Sorry darlings, I know you guys are feeling better now. This gig is UP!

Cough, Cough, Sneeze...

2011-03-02T22:30:00.003-05:00

I had 3 children under the weather today! I just hate it when my guys don't feel well, poor babies! Jordan started out with a cough yesterday, which has turned into some sort of tummy bug today. Poor kid spent all day on the couch cuddled under a blanket! Jonathan skipped the cough altogether and went straight to the tummy bug...he's much more efficient, that child.

I feel SO BAD for them, but I have to admit I'm glad it's not the babies...at least the older boys can reliably make it to the potty before being "sick." Hopefully that doesn't sound too awful of me!

Even Joey spent a good part of the day on the couch. I still can't figure out what actual symptoms of illness that boy has--he didn't seem to actually be sick. But I know something is just. not. quite. right when that child lies quietly for any length of time during the day.

I got online after lunch to look up a recipe at The Pioneer Woman Cooks (love ALL the recipes I've made of hers so far!) and found that she also has a photography blog. Since everyone who was awake was laid out on couches (and therefore not making any trouble) I poked around for a while.

After all, I SO need to learn to actually USE my nifty (and expensive) camera that I convinced Jeremy over a year ago that I just HAD to have. The guilt is starting to set in--I'm basically just using it as a point-and-shoot right now. I could have spent a LOT less and bought an actual point-and-shoot. But I didn't. So I feel obligated to actually learn to use the thing.

About two weeks ago I downloaded the most recent Photoshop Elements trial onto my new computer. The version on my old computer is about 5 years old and waaaay outdated--as in I can't find a "Photoshop Elements For Dummies"-type book that goes with it. My plan is to purchase the newest one, which runs about $80, when the trial runs out. So I'm looking through PW's regular Photoshop tutorials and marveling at all the fun effects that Photoshop does. Naturally I think, "I should look into the full Photoshop instead."

A quick mosey over to the Adobe site reveals its $699.00 price tag. Yikes!! Yep, I think Elements will do me just fine, thank-you-very-much!

At any rate, I'm going to take some time, maybe over the weekend, to dig out my camera manual and play around with some of the settings. I'm aiming for stunning and amazing things. We'll see what actually happens in reality. At least I have some really cute subjects running around here...cute subjects make up for a lot of shortcomings in the actual talent department, after all.

All the little people are sleeping peacefully now. I'm hoping and praying that all are well in the morning, and that the 3 that are currently well STAY well. After a day of quiet resting, I really miss the normal chaos of 6 healthy, boisterous kids running all over the place!

Introducing...us! :)

2011-03-01T13:04:00.003-05:00

Uh, oh! Looks like I'm just a wee bit late to the party! (See the cute little button on the left if you want to know what "the party" is!) That's not too surprising when it also happens to be the day of our big beginning-of-the-month shopping trip, and I've got to complete said trip with small "helpers" in tow!

Well, as I like to say (for FAR too many occasions), "Better late than never!"

So allow me to introduce myself and my fabulous family (not a BIT of bias here!) Those of you who already know me can feel free to skip this, lol!

This is the most recent family photo I have of all of us. We were going to take a cool Christmas card-worthy picture in Manhattan after church one Sunday, but it was raining, windy, and cold so we settled for this one inside--do please ignore the evidence of wind and rain on everybody's hair! :)

I am Jenny, wife of Jeremy and Mom to the 6 precious little people you see above. I am a stay-at-home, home schooling mom who enjoys crafts of all varieties, cooking, gardening, traveling, and having fun with my family. I do not enjoy the cleaning aspect of my job, but I'm working on that!

My husband and I have been married for almost 13 years. Jeremy is the founder and president of a non-profit Christian collegiate ministry. Our "headquarters" if you will are in Austin, TX, but we were called to work with campuses in NYC and the northeast almost 3 years ago. We spent two exciting and challenging years living across the street from Columbia University in Manhattan before moving a little bit upstate for more breathing room and space to run for our going on 7 children. Jeremy commutes to the city, while the rest of us hang out in our little bit of country which we share with two kitties and 21 chickens (so far).

The kiddos...

Joshua is 11 and is our resident history expert. He also knows everything there is to know (okay, tons more than I'll ever know) about WWI and WWII aviation. He loves to invent things and will make a fabulous engineer someday, but he's convinced for the moment that he is meant to be a lawyer--because he's "good at arguing and talks a lot." (His words!)

Jonathan is 10 and is our resident jokester and technology expert. He delights in making everybody around him laugh, and to this day I can't operate half of our electronic gadgets without his help. Usually he helps patiently, lol! He's also very attentive to the needs of the littlest people in the household. While he says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up, he currently spends his excess time and energy trying to convince us of all the reasons why we "need" to buy him an iPad.

Jordan is 7 and is ALL BOY, for better or worse! He loves sports and rough-and-tumble play, and is the only one in our family (thankfully!) who delights in burping as loud and as often as he can, and then laughs hysterically like it's just the funniest thing in the world. He can throw a football like nobody's business, and tells us that someday he's going to be a professional football player--but only on the weekends. During the week he's going to be an artist! :)

Joseph is 5, and is FULL of mischief! He is our little active, bouncy monkey who has figured out the EXACT right moment to turn up the charm--to avoid getting in trouble for whatever he was just up to. He'll be in kindergarten next year, but is learning to read and has an AMAZING memory. He beats all of our socks off in those memory/concentration-type card games, and never lets me forget any "promise" I've made to him.

Josiah will be 3 this Friday, and is still my little cuddle bug. He wakes me up every. single. morning climbing in our bed to snuggle for a bit, which lasts for about 20 minutes before he wants to turn it into a wrestling match! He's also tough and fearless--a bulldog at heart in a three-foot-nuthin' little body.

Joanna is 15 months old, and in spite of all the masculinity surrounding her, is as girly-girl as they come. She adores her Daddy (Da Da is the only word she says with any regularity) and she can usually be found carting around some stuffed lovey or other and giving it lots of hugs and kisses. She is just starting to walk and is so proud of herself--she stands up and then squeals and claps her hands...SO adorable!

So that, in a nutshell, is our (not so) little family!! Feel free to poke around here in my previous posts for more pictures, glimpses into our everyday life, and of course our often crazy adventures! Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Party!

2011-02-28T22:36:00.003-05:00

I've never participated in a blog party before...in fact I'd never even HEARD of such a thing until a few days ago! But when my friend Lynnette over at Dancing Barefoot on Weathered Ground announced her blog party recently, it sounded too fun to miss! Oh, and there are some FAB prizes up for grabs as well...I know we all love prizes!! :)

The party starts tomorrow! So if you want to play along, check out Lynnette's Announcing-Thoughts of Spring Blog Party post or click the button at the top of my left-hand side bar. I'm looking forward to meeting new blogging friends, aren't you?!

Menu Plan and Just for Fun...My Top 8 Fave Kitchen Appliances!

2011-02-28T14:02:00.004-05:00

It's Monday again, so time for a new weekly menu! And since just posting a list of meals might be kinda boring, I'm also going to share my SUPER-EXCITING line up of cool kitchen tools! Woo hoo!!!

Okay, to be perfectly honest, super-exciting MIGHT be just a tiny bit of an exaggeration. ;) But if you, like me, cook for a LOT of hungry people (and often), you just might find this helpful!

I have to say that last week's dinner times went SO MUCH more smoothly with a meal plan. I knew they would, since that's worked so well for us before. I should have been doing this for the past 5 months. Doh! Why is it that when things get hectic, we let go of those routines that help us keep our sanity?

Or maybe that's just me...

We had a couple days where we were out and didn't use our planned dinner, so I have 2 dishes carrying over this week. So without further ado, here is this week's plan:

Menu February 28-March 6
Monday--Beef and veggie soup, garlic bread
Tuesday--Aztec chicken (crock pot)
Wednesday--Beef stroganoff over egg noodles, green salad (freezer meal)
Thursday--Pork roast, baked sweet potatoes, green veggie
Friday--Fried chicken strips, french fries, green beans, birthday cake (Josiah's 3rd!)
Saturday--Spaghetti w/meat sauce, salad (make quadruple batch of meat sauce to freeze)
Sunday--Home made macaroni and cheese, veggies, salad

Just for fun, I'm going to show you all my fave kitchen servants, er appliances. When you're trying to home school, keep track of preschoolers and toddlers, keep a house clean, and cook most meals from scratch, you can use all the help you can get! I can't afford to hire someone to cook for us, so investing in some hard-working, time-saving appliances is the next best thing!

First on my list...my trusty crock pot! This is definitely the busy mother's kitchen friend! I think this is also my oldest appliance, received as a wedding gift almost 13 years ago. It's not as pretty as it used to be, but it still works as well as ever!

Sadly the crock pot will only make enough for one meal with our family size, so several years ago we added an 18 qt. roaster oven. This is my go-to tool for making quadruple batches of spaghetti sauce, chili, etc. or for roasting 2 chickens at a time. Since I love the convenience of cooking in large quantities for the freezer, this has become a favorite!

Okay, y'all, here is my hands-down favorite appliance EVER! My Vitamix blender! Yes, this was a big splurge cost-wise, but so so so so so worth every penny! I use this all. the. time. for great smoothies, home made hummus, baby food, and many other things. I also have the dry container, which I use to grind wheat berries into flour and grind coffee beans. This thing gets a LOT of use!!

My other splurge item...my Bosch Universal Plus. This is an upgrade from my old Kitchen Aid stand mixer which I loved, but we outgrew its capacity. I can make enough dough for 6 loaves of whole wheat bread at once in this thing, and I also use it a ton for large batches of cookie dough, pizza dough, etc. LOVE this!

Okay, so this isn't really a big time-saving device, but since I love a good cup of coffee in the morning, I HAD to include my coffee maker. It's nothing fancy, one of the cheaper options from Walmart actually, but it gets the job done!

My boys and I get a big kick out of this...remind you of any evil guys from the Dark Side?

"Luke, I am your father's coffee maker..."

(Okay, or maybe we're just kinda dorky around here!)

I used to own a full-sized food processor and NEVER used it...I couldn't stand cleaning all. those. parts. A few years ago, I got this little gem...I really only use it to chop onions, green peppers, and carrots, but trust me, that's more than enough to earn it a spot on my favorites list. I'm one of those who cries, no WEEPS, when trying to dice onions. There's a time and place for getting all teary-eyed, but dinner prep time is NOT the most convenient time for that! That's what sappy commercials with babies and puppies are there for.

LOVE this one...my electric griddle! This was a gift 2 Christmases ago (thank you Grandmommy and Granddaddy!) and I honestly don't know how I lived without this for so long. Can we say quintuple batches of pancakes for 6 hungry kids? Well, now we can! :) I used to make 3 (oddly shaped) pancakes at a time in my biggest skillet...now I make 8 perfectly round ones in the same amount of time! This is also fab for making everyone's grilled cheese sandwich at the same time.

Last but not least on the handy kitchen helper list is our latest addition...a rice cooker. I'm awful (HORRIBLE, I tell you!) about remembering to start the rice at the right time when cooking it on the stove. I can't tell you how many times I've scrapped a dinner plan just because I didn't get the rice going! With this baby, I can put it all together earlier in the day when I'm prepping other things, and just set the timer for when I want rice. And if it's done early, it has a "keep warm" setting so I don't have to worry about it burning to the bottom of the pan. Very handy!

So now you know who's REALLY doing the work in my kitchen! :)

Now I'm curious...what are YOUR favorite kitchen helpers? I'd love to know what works for y'all, and I might just have to add them to my kitchen wish list!!

Oh, The Irony!

2011-02-25T14:58:00.003-05:00

This is our third winter living in a snowy climate, but only our first where disposal of said snow is actually up to us. We've purchased 3 snow shovels (well, mostly because the boys LOSE them, grrr!) and we really only clear the sidewalk that leads from the porch to the driveway--which is all of about 25 ft. long--and the area immediately in front of the garage doors. The 1200 ft. long driveway is done by a hired snow plow.

Any time it snows, one or more of the boys is assigned the job of shoveling that little sidewalk. We're about guaranteed to hear any or all of the following:

"Aww, it's too cold!"

"It's too hard!"

"I did it last time!"

"Why doesn't ____________(Joshua, Jonathan, Jordan--fill in the blank) EVER have to do ANYTHING?!?!"

But grudgingly or otherwise, they do make sure the job gets done.

So imagine my surprise when they chose to use all of their outside time this week to do THIS:

What you are looking at here is a snow maze. Yes, the boys who think they will die if they have to lift a shovel full of snow off of the sidewalk have, of their own free will, shoveled a 2-acre maze into our front and side yards. Go figure.

Jonathan and Joey walking the maze. I'm told there's an easy, medium, and difficult way out.

All I know is next time my sidewalk needs shoveling, I'd better not hear ANY complaints!!

Home Made Play Dough

2011-02-24T12:45:00.003-05:00

I've been very lazy lately (okay, so ever since we both moved and found out I was pregnant in the same month) about keeping my preschoolers constructively busy while the older 3 boys do their school work. I do have a decent arsenal of educational activities for the younger set, but unfortunately those activities are tucked away in a closet somewhere.

At least I'm assuming they are. I guess I should take some time to go track those things down...

So a few days ago when my blogging buddy Annalia wrote this post about pulling out (and organizing!) her kids' play dough, I was inspired. Joseph and Josiah LOVE play dough, and poor deprived little Joanna has NEVER even had the opportunity to try it out!

So I made some for them!

"This is FUN, Mommy!"

"Mmmmm, tasty!" (I don't really recommend this...)

I think I surprised him with the camera!

"Look what I made!"

I make our play dough. (Okay, in the interest of full disclosure the purple play dough in the photos above is left over from a Christmas present and is not home made.) It is super easy-peasy to make, and only takes a few minutes. Best of all, the kiddos can help to make it, if you and they are so inclined! Our recipe is in this post from a couple years ago, along with instructions and pictures. Boy, I'd forgotten how little Jordan and Joey were then.

If you try out our play dough recipe, please come back and let me know if you liked it! :)

Progress...

2011-02-23T15:56:00.003-05:00

I've been making a point this week to set aside an hour during nap time each day to sew. I figure it's good for my sanity to do something I enjoy AND slowly but surely have something to show for it as well. Not that I don't enjoy teaching my children and keeping up with household tasks, of course, but it's nice to do something that's both fun and completely not required. No pressure! :)

It's also a good thing to use up some of my quickly-growing fabric stash. My husband has finally noticed that more fabric is coming into this house than is turning into finished products. So if taking time to complete projects will make him happy, well, then it's a sacrifice (he he he) I'm totally willing to make!

Here is my disappearing 9-patch progress so far...obviously the "disappearing" part hasn't happened yet:

It looks solid in the picture, but it's really just nine 9-patch blocks so far...I'm just slapping them up on the wall as I complete each one, then I'll cut them up and rearrange them later. I'm finding that I can make 3 blocks in each hour-long sewing session. This includes time spent redirecting my home schoolers who are supposed to be doing their reading, as well as wrangling the occasional little one who decides naps are optional.

Here is the back third or so of (what will soon be) my super-fabulous craft room! It's in our finished basement, and is open to the play room, which makes it very convenient to use while the children play. I have grand plans for this space!!!

I made myself a makeshift "design wall" over the weekend, which I am loving so far. I had a big piece of flannel yardage that I'd bought to line some Christmas stockings, then didn't use it after all. Yes, it's just stapled to the wall, with the extra hanging down the side. :) I want to use it for a bit and decide 1) if this is the size I want and 2) if this is where I want it to live permanently. Once I know what I want, I'm going to use molding of some sort to make a frame around the permanent version, so it looks more decorative and "meant to be there."

I'll post more pictures of the quilt-in-progress when I have all the patches done and rearranged. I'm hoping it won't take longer than a week or so to get to that point!

Kitty Love

2011-02-22T11:52:00.002-05:00

Joanna loves anything she can cuddle. She is constantly dragging around some stuffed animal or another, or her little baby doll. She stops regularly to give her lovies sweet little kisses. (She puts her little mouth on their faces and says "Mwah!"--so cute!) She then brings them to all of us in turn and expects us to give them kisses as well. It's really adorable to watch her big brothers humor her by kissing her babies!!

She is especially thrilled to get to cuddle with one of the real kitties any chance she gets! It's a good thing we have a very tolerant cat. Isn't this just precious?

(This last one is my fave!!)

The boys were never like this...they enjoy their (rather large) collection of stuffed animals as well, but are much more likely to divide them into armies and have battles with them! Yep, boys and girls are definitely different!

Because They Have to Eat...

2011-02-21T17:09:00.007-05:00

One of the many things I really enjoy doing for my family is cooking homemade, healthy meals. I love making our tried-and-true favorites, as well as regularly trying out new recipes that I find in cookbooks, magazines, online, and even occasionally on TV.

Except when I'm pregnant.

Now, often what "sounds good" to me varies wildly from day to day, and more often than not when dinner time rolls around I'm scrambling to figure out what to feed all these hungry people around me. I try to get dinner going (or at least figured out) during nap time, but lately I've been finding myself using that down time to surf Facebook, sew something, or even clean. (Yes, I've been on a big cleaning kick lately--go figure. And it's WAY too early to be nesting!)

Oddly enough when my husband comes home in the evening and asks what's for dinner, he doesn't appreciate when I answer "I have no idea, but I got a lot of fabric cut and washed all the windows in the living room."

Something or other about priorities, I think. Another thing pregnancy hormones mess with big time...

So, because people around here have to eat, I've got to step it up and cook more. And because I never know what's going to sound good, I can't just wing it--I've got to have a plan. I'm going to make and post a weekly meal plan, and do my best to stick to it!

I've come up with 4 things I'm going to work into each weekly plan--
1. Once a week make something double for the freezer
2. Once a week make a crock pot meal
3. Once a week have a meal that was previously prepared from the freezer
4. Once a week do something super easy, quick, and cheap (think spaghetti, etc.)

So without further ado...

Week of February 21-27:
Monday--Bean soup (using a leftover ham bone)--extra to freeze
Tuesday--Chicken and lentils
Wednesday--Lasagna--from the freezer
Thursday--Beef and veggie soup
Friday--Aztec chicken with rice--crock pot meal
Saturday--homemade pizza--super easy, quick, and cheap
Sunday--Tuna casserole

So there you have it. Now that I've written it out for all the world (okay, so maybe the whole world doesn't read my little blog) to see, I just HAVE to stick with it, right? I hope so...it will make my husband and children, as well as all their tummies, MUCH happier!!

Family Fun

2011-02-18T22:52:00.004-05:00

Today we matched our record high for February 18th in our town--62 degrees. After SO many day in the teens and 20s, it was so nice to be able to be outside without freezing our hineys off! While the boys gleefully ran around in the snow and played with their bikes, etc., I celebrated the warmth by, um, cleaning out the chicken coop.

Yeah, I know that doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. It's more fun when you compare it to cleaning it when it's 19 degrees outside, though. It's all how you look at it!

So, here's what 62 degrees looks like in our neck of the woods...

Looks toasty, huh?

We can finally see some grass again! After having snow on the ground solidly from December 26th until now, seeing even a small bit of grass gives me hope that spring will indeed come! Some day, anyway...

The chickens finally got to come outside! They pretty much refused to leave the doorway when there was snow on the ground, but now that there's a small snow-free area of grass/gravel in front of the coop, they were all willing to come out and explore a bit.

Miss Princess watching her brothers play while clutching a teddy bear...she always has to have something to hug!

After dinner and chores we all sat around the table for a family game night. Our game of choice was Apples to Apples, which we like because it can be played by just about any age. It doesn't require any real skill or knowledge, except being able to read the cards.

Joanna looks so tiny in her little chair!

Jonathan and Joshua plotting something or other. That's pretty much what they do.

Snacks consisted of popcorn... and chow mein noodles. Yep, I've got some weird kids.

In addition to being tasty, chow mein noodles make a handy art medium. See the face?

Happy Josiah, boogers and all. Just keepin' it real, folks!

Joseph gets some help reading his cards from Daddy.

Joanna was all about the popcorn. And stealing Jon's cards when he wasn't looking.

More plotting, I'm sure. Secret plotting. One day these two are going to take over the world!

Tomorrow we have grand plans to grab our binoculars, dig out our birds of New York guidebook, and participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. I'll let y'all know if we see anything exciting!

A New Quilt Project...

2011-02-17T15:20:00.004-05:00

I'm doing what I told myself I'd stop doing--starting a new project before finishing the current one. I finally got the back to Josiah's quilt pieced, after realizing that the original backing fabric I had purchased wasn't going to be big enough alone. Apparently I'm not as good at math as I thought I was. His quilt is sandwiched together and basted...all ready for quilting.

So of course it makes perfect sense that I spent my last couple hours of sewing time cutting up these:

Yes, this fabric is girly to the extreme. I purchased this (and a whole lot of other girly stuff) last February when Joanna was only a couple months old. What can I say, though? After having 5 children in just under 9 years and not being able to buy a single pink flowery thing for ANY of them, I was bound to go a bit overboard when my first girl finally came along!

I've been putting off using this because I couldn't decide which item on my mile-long list of Designs I Want To Try Someday to actually make with it. One of the items on my list is a disappearing nine patch, so when my friend Shana posted a picture of the beautiful disappearing nine patch she is making on Face Book recently, I was inspired to go ahead and cross that item off my list.

My stack of fat quarters yielded the pile of 5" squares above, as well as these strips and rectangle scraps, which will someday be used for something else. Oh, the possibilities!! In case you're wondering, the fabric pattern is Birdie by Me & My Sister for Moda. I love the pinks, greens, and chocolate brown!

I'm thinking I'll go ahead and piece my squares, then while I mull over how exactly to arrange them for the final quilt, I'll go back and finish Josiah's. And I'll try not to even LOOK at all the other fabrics in my stash that are calling my name until these are done!!

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day!

2011-02-16T14:03:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'll admit it...I totally failed on Valentine's Day this year. Yes, my wonderful husband bought me a big box of chocolates and a sweet card, and yes, my dear children gave me a card as well, filled with sweet words in their adorable chicken-scratch writing.

But...I did NOTHING!

I guess I could give you the excuse that I am just barely recovering from a nasty cold/sinus infection (NOT fun), and that all that lovely coughing and drainage only serves to exacerbate that wonderful thing we call morning sickness. But it's still only an excuse. And I still felt guilty as heck when Jordan, upon seeing there were no treats on the table at breakfast, promptly and happily guessed, "Oh, I know, Mommy! You're planning on surprising us at lunch time instead!"

I owe them big time.

Jeremy had a meeting in the city Monday night, so we decided to celebrate Tuesday evening instead. We do not yet have a baby sitter out here, so our "date" consisted of putting the kids to bed early (with a movie--a real treat for them!) while we enjoyed a nice meal for two at home. The initial plan had been to pick up take-out, but then Jeremy offered to pick up filet mignon and lobster tails at the grocery store--AND cook them himself!

So that's what we did. It was super yummy!

Know what's sad, though? I added it all up, and the cost of the homemade pizzas I made for the kids' dinner, plus the filets, lobster tails, and veggies for our meal, came out to LESS than it costs for our family of 8 to eat out at McDonald's. Seriously. Makes me really sad at all the money we've wasted over the years eating fast food for convenience, when we could've been eating gourmet at home. Oh, well! Well have to work on that...

Now to leave you with some random extreme cuteness, courtesy of the 2 littlest Js...

And just to let you know, I'm planning on doing a MUCH better job of spoiling my children at Easter!!

Just For Fun...

2011-02-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

When we were in our apartment in Manhattan, I regularly measured and marked the children's growth on one of the walls in our dining room. Yes, I marked up the wall (in pencil) with reckless abandon, knowing that our building repaints everything when someone moves out anyway. It was fun to watch just how much the boys grew over the just over 2-year period we lived there.

Now that we're in our own house again, I was a little reluctant to mark up the dining room walls. I finally decided on a somewhat hidden "wall" that is actually the side of a column in the children's reading area in the basement. The fact that it isn't super visible lets me feel free to mark it up with names, dates, and little measuring lines to my heart's content.

Just for fun, I found a site online that lets you enter your child's current height and current age (in years and months) and spits out a prediction of your child's future height. The one I used is here. Here are my boys' predicted future heights:

Joshua--currently 4' 11" predicted 5' 10.5"
Jonathan--currently 4' 10" predicted 6' 1"
Jordan--currently 4' 1" predicted 5' 10"
Joseph--currently 3' 9.5" predicted 6' 1"
Josiah--currently 3' 1.5" predicted 5' 11"

Now how's that for completely useless but still kind of fun information? :) I'll have to try it again in 6 months or so and see if they are still on the same track. By the way, going by the standard "split the difference between the parents' heights" method, all of our children should be about 5' 10" as adults. It'll be interesting to see if any of them actually end up taller than Daddy!

My Quest For an Organized Mud Room--Please Help! :)

2011-01-13T14:42:00.005-05:00

As many of you know, we moved into a new house back at the end of September. We got settled in fairly quickly, then went through the rounds of 2 holidays and 4 birthdays. Now that things have settled down and we're beginning a new year and all, it's time for HOUSE PROJECTS!

I'm making a room-by-room list of everything I want to fix up. Our house was move-in ready, so there aren't any really major repairs to be done--I'm mostly talking about changing some paint colors here and there, and then furnishing/decorating to make it really fit our lifestyle and needs. And of course I'll be trying to do all of this on a budget! I'm thinking about tackling one room or area each month.

The first area to tackle is the hallway we're using as a mud room. It's between the garage and the kitchen, and is basically what would be the continuation of our wrap-around porch. As such, it has a whopping 5 doors to work around--1 into the garage, 1 (open doorway) into the kitchen, 2 that go to either end of the porch, and 1 into the 1/2 bathroom. Here are some pictures...

Looking from the kitchen to the garage door...
(For size perspective that's all 13-inch tile.)

The exterior door here goes to the back side of the porch, and the door on the left goes into the half-bath...

Opposite view--this door goes to the front part of the porch, and is our main entrance. We have a "formal" front door that goes into the foyer/entryway, but we rarely use it.

From the front porch looking in...we have one 5-peg coat rack (only for children's coats--adults are in the foyer closet) a small shelf for shoes, and a large milk crate on the floor for hats, gloves, scarves, etc.

Just inside the garage door...

Looking from the garage door to the kitchen...

The main problem is that we have way too much stuff that needs to be in here, and no workable way to organize it. Right now, the boys are outside in all their snow gear, so this room looks pretty clean. Normally, the floor is COVERED with wet/drippy snow boots, snow bibs, and an explosion of stuff that has to be carefully stepped over to get in or out! It's a MESS!

So, I need IDEAS!!! And they need to fit in this space, lol! Oh, and I've pretty much already decided that the door to the back porch can be sacrificed--I'm totally willing to put something in front of that door for storage, and make everyone walk around to the front porch side to enter the house. Anyway, this is what I need:
1. Hanging space for 6 children worth of coats.
2. Hanging space for 6 children worth of snow suits.
3. Space for shoes and snow boots, preferably in such a way that they can drip-dry over something other than just making puddles on the tile.
4. Space for more logical storage of hats/gloves/scarves/etc. Right now they're in a bin on the floor, which really means they're usually strewn all over the floor.
5. Storage for other outdoor stuff (like umbrellas) would be nice as well.

Here are the dimensions of the room--
1. The length from back porch door to front porch door is 13'4".
2. The width of the hall between the bathroom door and the current coat rack is 3'7".
3. The width of the wall with the front porch door is 6'11".
4. The width of the wall with the garage door is 5'3".

So come on everyone, hit me with your best ideas!! I know it's going to be a tight fit, but I'm sure it can be done! I promise to post after pictures when it's all fixed up! :)

Joanna

2011-01-12T18:14:00.004-05:00

Last night, I texted a picture of my little Joanna to my sister, along with the caption "Hi, Aunt Stefanie!" My sister texted back that she didn't even recognize her, and wasn't that sad? Well yes, Stefanie, that IS sad! And it's totally my fault for not posting any pictures of the little princess for MONTHS. So, in the interest of keeping all of our out-of-state relatives (and friends) up-to-date, here are some recent pictures of our sweet little girl.

Posing with Joshua and one of our kitties. She loves the kitties, and wants to hug/pet/strangle them anytime someone lets one in the house.

She also loves the piano. She can just barely reach the keys standing at the bench, but she stretches up and bangs away anyway.

Helping Daddy decorate the Christmas tree...

Enjoying Joseph's birthday cake...

Yum!

Little diva in the making...

A tiny tree un-decorator...

Her favorite Christmas present...a little purse that sings and contains cute little purse things such as keys, a crinkly fabric dollar, a pink bracelet, a mirror, and her favorite--a plastic pink lipstick! Notice how I managed to frame this one in front of a trash bag of wrapping paper and somebody's discarded dirty sock. Oh, well!!

With Daddy at Chuck E. Cheese's...

She totally takes after her Aunt Stefanie, who also had her own drawer in the kitchen as a baby. Joanna plays here daily.

She is nearing 14 months old already--where does the time go? And she's cruising the furniture, almost ready to walk!! It is so fun to watch her grow--and I'll try really hard not to wait another 4-5 months before posting more pictures!!

Update On the Girls

2011-01-11T12:14:00.005-05:00

...The feathered girls, that is!

They are 11 weeks old today. With all the snow we've had lately, I thought it might be fun to see what they thought of it, and take some pictures to share at the same time. They were very interested in the open door, since they're pretty much cooped up inside with all this cold, but they had very little interest in stepping out into the snow! I was about 6 feet away from the door snapping pics, when suddenly there was a flapping of wings overhead. Turns out one of the girls was curious enough to fly out to what looked like a safe spot--the top of my head!

We nailed this strip of plywood just inside the door, because every time we opened the door their shavings were spilling out and making a mess, not to mention making it very difficult to close the door. Here one of the Barred Rocks has decided to check out the strange white stuff. I love how the others are hanging over the edge, as if to ask her how it is and if it's safe for them to come out, too!

I think she's telling the others that it's fairly harmless, although cold and not very interesting. I still haven't learned chicken-speak, though, so I may be wrong.

This little Buff Orpington was brave enough to fly out and actually land in the snow. But then she had no idea what to do from there. I let her sit there for a few minutes, then rescued her.

The Barred Rocks are still the littlest of the flock. I think they'll be prettier when their red combs and wattles grow in, but for now I think they look kind of funny! I love their stripes, though.

This is one of the Easter Eggers, and the biggest bird in the bunch. This is also one of the two that we suspect might actually be a rooster. Time will tell, I suppose! Joshua and Jonathan have named him Angus. The funny thing is that they don't know that Angus is a breed of cattle--they've named him that after McDonalds' angus third-pounder hamburger. Their theory is that that is Micky D's biggest burger, and this guy is our biggest chicken. Somehow in their minds that relates well.

No one can walk into the coop without being mobbed for treats...

Joey trying to catch one...

Angus out in the snow showing off his impressive wing span

This is Joey with his favorite chicken, a little EE he named Pecker. The scratch on his nose is a battle scar from a recent fight he lost with a certain 7-year-old brother...

Here's the other one we suspect might be a rooster, if only because it is bigger than the other BOs and already has a red comb and wattles. I'm not fully convinced yet. Jon tells me he's heard this one trying to crow, though, so we'll see. They've named this one Doodle, as in cock-a-doodle-doo, of course!

Jordan holding Doodle. I don't think Doodle is particularly fond of cuddling with little boys.

Joey with a currently unnamed EE...

Jon (and Josh's arm)

I love this one's face!

Jordan loves to hold them and carry them around! :)

They're a lot more entertaining than I was expecting them to be. Okay, well I guess I wasn't really expecting entertainment from them--just eggs. But they're fun little critters. And they are already proving themselves useful, even though we are still a ways out from getting any eggs out of them. Turns out they are great little disposals for all those food scraps that I would otherwise throw away after meals everyday (and feel guilty about, lol!) I keep a bowl on the counter that all the scraps go into after each meal, that gets taken out to the chicks every evening after dinner. They go nuts over their "treats!"

How To Sled Without a Hill...

2011-01-10T13:37:00.005-05:00

Sunday afternoon we decided to take advantage of the sunny day to see what our woods are like full of snow. Everyone bundled up and off we went!

The boys still haven't been able to get up into the "tree house tree" so Jordan contented himself with climbing this little one.

Josiah in the snow. Poor baby can hardly get around at all between his big, fluffy snow suit and the at least 6-inch-deep snow. Daddy ended up carting him around on the ATV.

Walking across a fallen log. There are tons of fallen trees and branches back there...sounds like a good chore for some boys come spring will be cleaning up a bit!

This is part of the little creek that runs through the woods. The boys were thrilled to find it was frozen under all that snow, and they could walk across it easily.

Following Daddy and Josiah on the ATV (Joshua is hitching a ride as well) as they follow the tracks left earlier by some snow mobiles. We'll forgive their trespassing since they made us such a nice path to follow! :) I did mention to Jeremy that we should get some signs up, though. The whole liability thing makes me nervous.

Daddy and Josiah. I'm not sure which of the two of them was having more fun!!

As we were heading back to the house, Joshua came up with a brilliant idea. Since we don't really have any hills to speak of, why not hook the sled up to the back of the ATV? Well, we decided to give it a whirl, and not only did it work, but the boys (AND Daddy and Mommy) thought it was very fun!

Daddy pulling Joey to make the path...

Jon's turn...all he wanted to do was go faster, faster!!!!

Jordan gives it a go...

...and takes a spill rounding the corner!

Mommy's turn to drive! :)

We basically made a big loop around the chicken coop in the backyard (poor chickens, lol...don't know what they thought of all THAT noise!) and continued pulling the boys in circles until we ran out of gas--literally! They are all already asking when we can do it again. We are certainly enjoying all of our snow!

The Quest For a Filling Breakfast...For Active Boys!

2010-10-30T11:00:00.002-04:00

I have a challenge. I have 5 growing boys who can really eat. A LOT. Especially breakfast. Increasingly, I am getting more and more complaints as we're finishing breakfast or shortly thereafter:

"Mom, I'm still hungry. What ELSE can I eat?"

I didn't get this response often until we moved a month ago. I guess if there is a downside to having lots of space to run and play after being in a small apartment with no yard for so long, it's that these boys can really work up an appetite now! All that exercise and fresh air, you know...

Right now, our breakfast rotation includes oatmeal twice a week, eggs twice a week, cold cereal twice a week, and something a little more special, usually pancakes or waffles, on Saturday. Oatmeal consistently fills them up, but they aren't especially fond of oatmeal, so I only cook it twice a week. And they complain that I make it THAT often. But, they eat it and it fills them up! On the days we have eggs, I cook 18. That's usually for just the boys and I, except for the rare occasion that Jeremy eats with us. I usually serve the eggs with some sort of bread--toast, biscuits, or lately I've started making and freezing extra pancakes/waffles on Saturday to reheat and serve with eggs the following week. On cold cereal days, they will eat several bowls each. I'd like to do fewer cold cereal days, but the boys beg for it and it is, admittedly, easy and convenient. Our cold cereal choices are usually Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Mini Wheats, or Raisin Bran. So we're not talking total sugar-loaded fluff here, although my boys would be thrilled to live on Lucky Charms and Froot Loops--if I would let them!

We used to have a fruit smoothie with breakfast several times a week, but I have to admit I haven't been doing that since we moved. Right now, we're having milk or OJ instead. It's definitely time to start making smoothies again.

So I need to come up with a plan to fill these guys up--hopefully without breaking the bank! I have high aspirations of feeding the boys more than usual while also reducing the amount I spend on groceries--think I can do it? I do have one thing working in my favor: Groceries here are cheaper than they were in the city, and I now have the option to shop weekly and take advantage of specials and loss leaders. When we lived in the city I shopped once a month in New Jersey, then picked up a few things here and there in Manhattan--at a premium price-wise.

I'm thinking I'll try making some breakfast-y foods that can be individually frozen. Then, whoever is still hungry can pop something in the microwave, and I haven't wasted food by cooking extra for those who aren't still hungry. Unfortunately, I can't seem to think of anything but muffins or breakfast taquitos that I could individually freeze.

Any ideas?

More Babies!

2010-10-29T00:07:00.004-04:00

Look what came in the mail today!! Yes, they are 26 super-cute little baby chickens. I got a call at about 6:45 this morning that this package was waiting for us at the post office. Jordan and I got dressed and headed over there to pick it up. It was funny, because the second we walked in the door of the post office we could hear them cheeping in the back! The boys are sooo excited about their new "pets" and I'm excited about having fresh, organic free-range eggs in the spring!

I was surprised that they all fit in such a little box. We ordered 3 different varieties--Barred Plymouth Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, and Easter Eggers. The first 2 will lay brown eggs, and the last one blue/green eggs. There is also a free "mystery chick" included--it's chocolate brown and gray--it will be fun to try to figure out what it is as it grows! They are supposed to all be pullets (girls) since we want them for eggs, but that's only 90% guaranteed so I'm sure we'll be guessing genders as well as they grow. Fun, fun!

The boys immediately all wanted to hold them...

Our temporary brooding facilities...I need to contrive a better way to anchor the heat lamp, and then make them a little bit larger home. The feeder and waterer take up almost all of the space that you can't see in the picture. Their coop is almost finished--it's fully insulated, so we're hoping to move the heat lamp out there and use the coop within the next couple weeks.

And the shipping box? Why, it makes a perfect bed for two little kitties, of course! They've latched on to that box and have been caught sleeping in it several times today.

In addition to our newly arrived chicks, we've had some drama here today!! I let the kitties out to play on the porch this afternoon with Jordan and Joey. When the boys wanted to come in, I told them they could leave the kitties out to enjoy the warm, sunny day a bit longer. Well, about half an hour later we went out to get them and little Charlie was GONE! We put Carlie in the garage, where she mewed piteously and LOUDLY for her lost brother, while the boys and I searched the yard. When we couldn't find him, I searched the inside of the house, in case he had managed to sneak in, then I searched under the deck all the way around the house, hoping I wouldn't end up with any spiders on me--ewwww!

The boys were all over the yard, and by this time Jonathan was in tears and Joshua was nearly hysterical. I started doing those silly things you do when you are looking for something with small children--going through a small box of toys on the porch, even though a kitty totally wouldn't even fit there, etc. As I was making one more trip around the porch, I stopped to pick up one of our little straw scarecrows (of the fall decoration variety from Walmart) that had been blown over by the wind. Lo and behold, there was little Charlie asleep under that thing!

I've never seen such relieved little boys!! There was much celebrating, and of course the kitty was passed around so that everyone could give him a cuddle. I'm thinking we won't let them out alone again for a while yet, even though he didn't ever leave the porch!!

October 2010 In Pictures (So Far...)

2010-10-23T16:21:00.005-04:00

Jordan's 7th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's...

One of the many bouquets of wildflowers Jordan and Joseph have been gathering for me from our yard...

The "tree house tree" at the edge of our woods--the boys have grand plans for this!

Joanna in the nifty aluminum backpack carrier I scored for $8.99 at our local Salvation Army...

Jonathan helping me take apart the kennels at the back of our shed--it's going to become our chicken coop...

An adorable pajama-ed helper...

Little Miss Princess--she's usually a very smiley baby until I pull out the camera--then she gets serious on me...

Joanna and Jordan...

Joseph and Joanna...

The view from our back porch...

Our new babies--Charlie and Carlie...

A hat Jon is working on with the Knifty Knitter--I found 9 skeins of thick yarn at Salvation Army for 59 cents a piece--now all the boys want to make themselves hats and scarves!

Hopefully it won't be another month before I have a more in-depth update! While we're pretty much completely unpacked, we're still pretty busy getting settled and organized. We are enjoying our new home immensely, though!

Change Is In the Air...

2010-09-24T01:42:00.002-04:00

Boy, have I ever been woefully negligent of this blog lately! You'd think we fell off the face of the earth or something! Well, thankfully nothing that dire has happened around here. Actually, something super-fabulous has happened (or is JUST ABOUT to happen, anyway)...we are moving upstate! Yes, we will still be close enough for Jeremy to commute into Manhattan, and we will also have space for him to have a dedicated home office as well. I'm very excited that the boys will have plenty of room to run, run, RUN, and I'll be able to do laundry without leaving my home again. Can you tell I'm excited? :)

We move early next week. I'm up to my eyeballs in boxes right now--they are literally stacked 3-4 high along every available wall. I'd say the packing is about 3/4ths done. Guess what I'll be doing all weekend? Hopefully I'll be able to get it all done...and remain sane in the process!

Home School Report -- One Month Down!

2010-08-31T22:50:00.002-04:00

Well, so much for my weekly updates! We've been so busy lately preparing for our anticipated move that I've totally neglected my blog.

We've finished our first full month of school, and things are going well so far! We went camping for a week this month which threw us off a little bit, but we did take our books along and got most of our school work done that week. We've made up the rest in the past week and a half. This is VERY encouraging to me, since we usually struggle to get school work done when we travel. One of the reasons we bought the trailer was to help keep our routines going, even when we're on the road. So far, success!

I don't have many specifics to report, except that I'm so proud of the hard work my boys are doing so far! I think the most exciting thing for me so far is watching Joey learn to read. To me learning to read is one of the biggest hurdles of beginning school, and it's SO rewarding to watch his little face light up when he successfully sounds out a new word. Priceless! I'm so blessed to be the one who gets to teach him! :)

Home School Report -- Week 1

2010-08-06T21:25:00.003-04:00

Well our first week is over and it went fabulously well! We finished everything we set out to do, and the boys worked diligently--most of the time! :) I was thrilled to be able to work in some non-basic subjects this week...of course my plan is to do them every week, but in the past extras like art and music (except piano lessons) have always fizzled out--mostly because in the past it has become such a battle just to get the basics done. I really believe, though, that the fun of those extras and looking forward to them will be a big motivator and contributor to the boys' good attitudes towards school. After all, it is easier to get excited about an art project than a math test, right?

Joey has been doing phenomenally well on his reading lessons. Not just the material, which I was already confident would be easy enough for him (he's a bright little guy) but in his excitement and effort to actually DO the lessons. I was halfway expecting a battle each day at reading time. Jordan really had to be coaxed to do his reading lessons often last year, and he is far more compliant than Joey. Joey really wants to learn to read, though! He's ready.

This year I'm adding something new for Joshua and Jonathan--homework. Yes, that doesn't sound terribly earth-shattering, but I've never assigned work specifically to be done outside of our regularly-scheduled school time. While they are good about taking initiative to get their basic subjects done each day, I think they can learn some useful study skills by having assignments that they receive at the beginning of the week and have to turn in by the end of the day on Friday. They have to learn to manage their time and be responsible to get it done, or they'll have to do it over the weekend--which, of course, is no fun!

I still have 2 more subjects to work in, probably next month. We're going to start studying a foreign language--Spanish--this year, but we want to use Rosetta Stone and can't fit it into the budget until next month. I also want to add a writing program-- probably Institute for Excellence in Writing, but again, not in the budget just yet! I make the boys write quite a bit already, as they produce written summaries of each lesson in history and science, and also do written narratives of the literature they read. But I want to start doing something more structured for writing. I was a good writer in school, but for some reason I just don't feel confident teaching my boys to write without a program of some sort!

I'm going to try to post an update each week about what we're doing in school. If nothing else, I can come back here later in the year and read them myself, just to see how far we've come. ;) I know we'll have our ups and downs, just like we always do, but I'm looking forward to a really good year!

Since My Mom Keeps Asking for Pictures...

2010-08-05T22:22:00.005-04:00

...Here's our new travel trailer! For those of you who don't know the story, we travel a LOT and now that there are 8 of us, we have to rent 2 hotel rooms every night that we are on the road. After thinking/dreaming about getting an RV for the past several years, we finally bit the bullet so to speak and bought one (at a FABULOUS deal, I might add!) near the end of our recent 2-month road trip. Most of these pictures were taken with my iPhone, so please excuse the grainy picture quality. :)

This first picture is of the bunkhouse, where all 5 of the boys sleep. This was the big selling point for us to get this particular trailer. It has a slide-out on each side of this room, a dinette and couch that both fold into beds, and 2 bunks that fold down from the ceiling. Josh and Jon get the bunks, Joey gets the table bed, and Jordan and Josiah share the couch bed. The built-in dresser in the middle holds ample amounts of clothes, and the lower shelves on either side lift up to reveal storage...toy bins! Yeah!

The table side, with the upper bunk folded down

The couch side, with the upper bunk folded down

Looking from the bunkhouse into the main living area

The bathroom sink is between the bunkhouse and the living area. This is another feature we love...someone can be in the bathroom/shower with the door closed, and others can still wash hands/brush teeth/whatever without waiting for the bathroom.

The kitchen :) It's not much smaller than my Manhattan kitchen. Really.

The living area has a table and sofa in a long slide-out. The two closed doors go into the other bedroom.

Another angle. The table folds into a bed, and the sofa has a fold-out queen air mattress inside. Someday we'll need these!

A view of the kitchen from the other direction, looking into the bunkhouse. The door between them is the bathroom.

And here's the other bedroom, with a queen bed and lots of storage. I hadn't bought sheets/pillows yet when I took these.

All of the boys playing at their table. The upper bunk is folded up here, which gives more headroom at the table. Another huge benefit of having that table in their room is we can all sit at tables for meals. I guess it's not as ideal as all sitting together, but we certainly didn't see any RVs with tables for 8, so this will do just fine!

This is the only picture I have of the outside, taken while we were packing up to leave after 4th of July weekend.

We've used it for about 7-8 nights so far, and I have to say we love it! It's so nice not having to drag everyone and everything into hotels (and pay for 2 hotel rooms), and being able to cook real food instead of driving through McDonald's on the road will do wonderful things for our health! :)

Just in case you're wondering, yes, we added a generator and have already tried out "camping" in a Walmart parking lot, lol! When we're driving cross-country and just need to stop to fix lunch or sleep for the night, that will work nicely! :)

Sorry, Mom, but I don't have any pictures of the van yet. I'll have to work on that!

First Day of School!

2010-08-02T22:34:00.003-04:00

Yes, for us today was the first day of the 2010-2011 school year. Again I have 3 "official" students this year in 6th grade, 4th grade, and 2nd grade, and then Joseph in K4. All of my little scholars sat down to work enthusiastically and we had a productive first day. I hope we can keep up both the productivity AND the happy attitudes! Here they are, at the table ready to begin:

Yes, I removed the math blocks from Josiah's grip after snapping this picture. Please excuse the ketchup on his face--I asked Joshua to help him wash his hands and face after breakfast while I helped Jon with the dishes--obviously the face part was missed!

The 3 big boys started out with math. Here Jordan works on his subtraction skills.

Joseph was so excited to receive a box of brand-new crayons all to himself! He worked on some numbers coloring sheets I printed off Enchanted Learning, and then made patterns with plastic beetles before finally adjourning to the living room with Josiah to watch Thomas the Tank Engine.

I love the look of concentration on Joshua's face as he converts fractions to decimals. I can't believe we now have a middle-schooler! Where does the time go?

Everyone did very well today--I'm so proud of my boys! I still have some schedule-tweaking to do as far as the timing of everything, in order to make sure we're as efficient as we can be. I'm excited to see where this year takes us on our learning adventures!

Summer Pictures of the Kiddos at the New York Botanical Gardens

2010-07-13T23:32:00.009-04:00

Since I spent all of Saturday cleaning, organizing, and prepping for the new school year about to start, and Jeremy and the boys spent Saturday driving around New Jersey picking up Josiah's bed, getting haircuts, and running errands, we promised the boys we would do something more fun on Sunday. We bought a family membership to the New York Botanical Garden back in January when they still had the model trains set up for Christmas (an AMAZING display, by the way!), but we haven't been back since. So, since we have to take full advantage of the memberships we have, that's where we decided to go.

Much to the dismay of my rough-and-tumble boys, I immediately realized that the combination of cute children + fresh haircuts + church clothes + beautiful gardens was a picture opportunity way too good to pass up! So before we let them loose to run around and get dirty, I made them pose for pictures. I think we got some pretty cute ones, and I needed updated pictures badly!

So, without further ado, here they are!

Jordan...posing by this metal frame thing was his idea, not mine. He has decided he wants to be a model, so he "can be the one in the pictures in the haircut book." We'll see, lol!

Joseph

Jordan

Joshua

Jonathan

Josiah

This one was totally washed out (not sure why) but oh, so cute...so I have to include it!

Smelling the tree, lol!

Joseph being a "crazy man." That's my Joseph!

Happy baby!!!

Trying to get them all to sit still, look at the camera, and SMILE-- all at the same time-- is quite the adventure!

Joseph in the rose garden

Jeremy and Joanna

My precious little princess!
Josiah smelling something again--this time a rose

Joshua peeking out of the gazebo

Jonathan peeking out from the other side

It started to rain about this time, so I took Joanna back to the car (she was hungry anyway) and Jeremy took the boys to the children's garden area where they played and planted sunflower seeds in little pots. Now those little pots are living in my kitchen window, and I've cleaned up several sprinklings of potting soil that keep appearing in the general vicinity. But they all had lots of fun, and that's what matters!

Vroom, Vroom!

2010-07-12T16:19:00.002-04:00

Josiah was a very happy little boy last night. Daddy just put together his new blue race car bed! We finally moved Josiah out of our little white crib (and moved Joanna into it) so he had been sleeping on a cot for the past several days while we looked for his new bed.

We found this one on Craigslist. We showed the pictures on the computer to Josiah, and he was so excited about it!

We actually picked it up on Saturday, but didn't go buy a mattress for it until Sunday. It sat in pieces on the foyer floor. Saturday night after Jeremy and I went to bed, we were awakened by Josiah joining us--we asked him what he needed, and all he would say over and over again was "Car, car!" I was so sad that he couldn't sleep in it that first night!

I think he likes it, don't you?

Now we just have to rearrange the room a bit and figure out the best way to make everything fit nicely. Right now the bed is in front of the radiator, which won't work once the radiators need to be on again! Oh, well...I enjoy a good challenge! :)

So Is 4 Too Young For Therapy?

2010-06-26T14:25:00.002-04:00

Joseph and I were in the kitchen eating contraband frozen chocolate chips (Joshua had frozen a cup of them without permission) when we had this conversation:

Joey: "Mommy, when I eat black things that are hard, sometimes I get a little nervous."

Me: "Oh?"

Joey: "Do you know what nervous means, Mommy?"

Me: "What does it mean, Joey?"

Joey: "I think it's when you feel all mad and you have to kill someone."

Huh??? Where in the world did THAT come from??

I am so cutting frozen chocolate chips from his diet. And looking into therapy.

7 Months Old!

2010-06-25T16:21:00.003-04:00

I can't believe we're over halfway to her first birthday! She is such a treasure!

We're Back!

2010-06-22T23:55:00.000-04:00

After 2 months on the road, we are finally back home in NYC! I will be sure to update all on our travels, as soon as I find the time to upload the hundreds of photos we took on to the computer! Stay tuned...

Spring in Central Park

2010-03-27T10:32:00.009-04:00

I'm taking a break from laundry and packing to share some pictures from our day in Central Park last Saturday. The day was beautiful so we met some friends at the northwestern corner of the park and then wandered around for a few hours. I think much of the city had the same idea, as the park was quite crowded in areas. Nothing like enjoying nature with a couple hundred thousand of your neighbors! :)

Joshua at the playground

Jordan and Joseph playing with a group of kids on this rotating structure

One of our friends helping Josiah on the slide...doesn't Josiah look serious! He really was having fun!

Jon in a spinning seat thingy...it made me dizzy to watch him, but he loved it!

Josiah

Spider-Man, I mean Jon, climbing headfirst DOWN the rock climbing wall

There's a little stream with some small waterfalls in the northwest part of the park. The boys had to stop to climb on the rocks and check out the water.

Joanna was perfectly content to observe the action from her stroller.

We rested for a while next to a pond called The Pool so that I could feed Joanna. The boys, Jeremy, and our friends played a card game under a tree for a while.

Then the boys did their version of wheelbarrow races...

...followed by lots of rolling down the hill!

A view of The Pool...it's absolutely gorgeous here once everything starts blooming and the trees have leaves again!

I talked a few of the boys into posing for me during their downhill-rolling session...here's Jonathan.

Jordan

and Joseph

Tired of rolling down hills, Jon, Jordan, and Joseph take a break to watch another family throwing a ball back and forth.

What's a trip to the park without stopping for ice cream? It's especially fun if it's shaped like your favorite super hero AND has gumball eyes!

Jordan just finished his ice cream...he's trying to hide from the camera, but I caught him anyway!

A pile of leaves just begs little boys to jump in and play! Joey, Jordan, and Jonathan had a wild leaf fight!

The boys all LOVE to climb the huge rocks all throughout the park.

Everybody say "cheese!"

The boys standing in front of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir near the center of the park. There is a jogging track that runs around the perimeter of the water, with this iron fence running along it. We walked about halfway around the track.

Joshua leaning on the fence. I love this picture, although I wish that decorative bit on the fence wasn't quite so close to his face.

Jonathan

The Reservoir with some of the buildings of midtown in the distant background

On the southern side of the Reservoir is a wooded area full of pine trees. We had never been to this part of the park before. The boys enjoyed playing with the giant pine cones scattered under the trees. Here Josh and Jon play pine cone "baseball" with a stick. It's hard to tell with the big rock in the background, but Jonathan is swinging a stick as the pine cone whizzes past his right ear.

Look what I found! Josiah thought the pine cones were pretty neat!

Jonathan found a low-hanging branch and decided to build a pine needle nest in it. Where do they come up with this stuff?

Josiah diligently picked up pine cone after pine cone, carried them over to this fence, and carefully dropped them on the other side. I think he thought he was cleaning up!

Joseph in time-out after a brother took a pine cone to the head...

Unfortunately, my camera batteries died at this point. Our friends had also gone home by now, but we continued our walk all the way to the southeast corner of the park. We walked down 5th Avenue, stopping to look inside St. Patrick's Cathedral and then for dinner at Chipotle. (yum!) We continued on down past the Empire State Building and stopped to check out a sale at Old Navy before finally catching the subway home from Penn Station. Overall, we walked about 6.5 miles! Whew! But we sure had fun!

Well, the laundry and packing are beckoning and we leave tomorrow! I'm planning on posting part 3 of my travel tips tomorrow, so check back if you've enjoyed or found the other 2 helpful!

Tips For Family Road Trips -- Part Two: Activities for Kids

2010-03-26T15:28:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned before, we take road trips frequently. Whether it’s 4 hours or 4 days, things go much more smoothly if our children have activities that will hold their attention for decent amounts of time. While some of you might truly enjoy hearing “Are we there yet?” for the umpteen gazillionth time, we do not! So we make sure our boys have something to do!

Great Activities to do in the Car—Toys and Books

We let each of our children pack a small backpack with toys and games of their choosing. We have veto power of course, but these are the things they can have in their possession to pull out and play with as they wish:

Small hand-held electronic games—we’ve picked up several of these for next to nothing at thrift stores and garage sales. Titles we have include Yahtzee, Hangman, Simon, and 20 Questions. Some are interactive in that multiple people can play at the same time (just like a board game) and some are solo. They’re great because there are no pieces to lose or messes to make!
Travel versions of classic board games—these have more pieces, but are still decent options, especially for older children. There are many of these available at places like Walmart, etc.
A small notebook/sketchpad and pencil for doodling or journaling, etc.
For the smaller kids, toys like Magnadoodle, Etch-a-sketch, and Color Wonder markers are good.
Books—I encourage each of my readers to take along a few books, and my littles take a few picture books. Activity books like Mad Libs or kid-friendly puzzles are great, too.
While I try to limit these because I can’t stand car clutter, our boys usually take along a few little toys as well, such as Matchbox cars, happy meal toys, small stuffed animals, etc. As long as it fits in their backpack, doesn’t have a ton of small pieces, and can’t be used to vandalize our vehicle we’re pretty much okay with these random additions.
Gameboy –each of our older 3 boys has one of these, and while we don’t like them to play video games for hours on end, these are great for keeping them occupied when we’re not doing something else.

Great Activities to do in the Car—Printable Road Games

With a little advance planning, you can bring along hours' worth of fun for just the cost of printer paper...and it doesn't take up much room in the car! There are so many printable games and activities online. I’ll share my faves, along with links where applicable.

I love the games that require everyone to look out the windows and observe the world around us. We rarely take a long trip that we don’t keep a running list of states we find on license plates. Travel Bingo is a favorite, too. These games (and many others) can be printed out at Momsminivan.com. Our older boys also enjoy the dot game and tic tac toe printouts there.
I try to sneak in educational activities whenever I can, so I like to find printables that pertain to our trip but also educate. On one particularly long trip that took us through 10 states or so, I printed a coloring sheet about each state from Crayola.com. I passed them out as we crossed each state line. They have other travel games there as well, including another version of travel bingo that your kids can color while they play.
I love love LOVE Discovery Education's Puzzlemaker site for puzzles and games related to our travels. You can create your own puzzles in many different formats, such as word searches, crossword puzzles, and hidden messages. I’ve made puzzles with words related to our destinations, such as Washington D.C. or Disney World, or using generic travel terms or names of states, etc. You can also print mazes from this site, which my boys love to do!

Great Activities to do in the Car—Surprises Along the Way

I don’t do this often, but at the right times it can work wonders! What I’m referring to is buying/making a small number of new toys that can be given out as little gifts along the way, to give the kids something new to do. When my oldest son and my oldest nephew were toddlers, we traveled from Austin to Oklahoma City for a wedding. Every hour or so we gave the boys a new little Tonka truck. They held their attention well because they were new to them. Years ago, when my sister and her family moved cross-country over the course of 3 days, I put together little packages for my nephew who was almost 4 at the time. This was a little bit more expensive so it’s not something I would do often, but I bought him things like a little Magnadoodle-type toy, Color Wonder markers and book, and other age-appropriate travel activities and wrapped them up individually. My sister could then give him a new item to unwrap every couple hundred miles. I think it helped make the trip more pleasant for him!

Great Activities to do in the Car--Audio/Video

While we don't currently have one of these (ours broke!), a portable DVD player and a few good kid flicks can keep children occupied (and quiet!) for hours. This is especially nice if you are traveling in the dark, making it more difficult for the kids to play with their toys. (Of course, I may be the oddball here, but I do NOT like to drive at night with the interior lights on in the car.)
Kid-friendly audio books--our Chronicles of Narnia set holds our boys' attention for quite a while.
We have an entire collection of CDs from Chik-Fil-A kid's meals--stories and songs from PBS's Between the Lions, Foreign Language lessons, episodes of Adventures in Odyssey, and the like.
CDs of children's songs--our boys love to sing along!

Great Activities to do in the Car--Get OUT of the Car!

Even if you're prepared with the best activities in the world, sometimes kids just need to run off some energy! We try to plan our travel schedule in such a way that we can stop a few times just to let the boys run wild for a few minutes. Some of these stops include meals, and some are just for the purpose of stretching our legs. Since most of our traveling is along interstate highways, we usually stop at rest areas and run around. One great memory maker that we started a few years ago is stopping at the first rest area after crossing a state line. These usually have welcome centers (there will be signs on the interstate for them) and big signs that say "Welcome to (state name)" on them. We all pile out and take a family picture in front of the sign. Someday we hope to have pictures from all 50 states! (Yeah, I know, Alaska and Hawaii are going to be hard!)

Armed with these activities, we can keep our boys pretty busy for many miles. While we do still get the occasional “Are we there yet?” for the most part our trips are much more pleasant for everyone involved when we prepare well to keep those children busy along the way!

What are your best ideas for activities in the car? I’d love to hear them—we can always use new entries for our arsenal of ideas!

Tips For Family Road Trips -- Part One

2010-03-25T14:53:00.005-04:00

Once again, I am getting ready to pack up for a week-long road trip. With all the car travel we do, I have had lots of practice finding efficient methods of surviving and actually enjoying the ride. I thought this would be a good time to share my experience! Since I have numerous tips for several different aspects of car travel, I’m going to write a series of 4 posts to share them all. The first one will cover packing. If you are planning on traveling with your children any time soon and would like some great tips, read on!

Packing for the Car—Clothes

This is a biggie for us, just because there are so many of us! We drive an SUV with a small area behind the 3rd row seat for luggage, as well as a hard-sided carrier on top—our version of a slightly less-accessible trunk. I found early on that I could fit much more into our vehicle if I pack many smaller bags, instead of a few giant suitcases. With 8 people in an 8-seater vehicle, I’ve become quite the pro at fitting everything into all the nooks and crannies! My very best tip I received from a friend when we were packing to move to NYC—if you’re traveling with overnight stops along the way, pack a single bag (I use a small, soft sided bag or one of those large zip-lock storage bags) with everything you will need (clothing-wise) for one night/next day:

1 set of pajamas for each person
1 set of clothes for each person for the next day (top, bottoms, socks, undies, etc.)
any diapers, pull-ups, good-nights, etc. you will need (unless you pack a separate diaper bag for this—I prefer to not take in my entire trip’s diaper stash every night of a multi-day trip)
Label the bag so you know at a glance which to take in which night (“Day one”, “Tuesday”, “Boston”, etc.)
If you are traveling with even more people, or have bulky clothes you could pack two bags per overnight stay—just make sure they are both labeled appropriately so you know which ones to take in.

I pack a separate small bag with toiletries, and another small bag with medical stuff. (These could be combined for most people, but we travel with a nebulizer for asthma, so it and it’s accompanying meds get their own bag) When we get to our hotel or where ever we are staying for the night, we only have to take in the one clothing bag, the toiletries bag, and the medicine bag. The next morning after everyone is dressed, all the dirties go back into that bag, then back in the car. Easy peasy!

Since we do have several littles in diapers or training pants, we have diapers and wipes, as well as a separate change of clothes for each small child, someplace easily accessible in the vehicle for daytime changes as well.

One thing to note: Although we do have to put bags in the floorboards of the middle seat to fit everything in, I try to make sure that they are soft (like clothes or diapers) and as well-secured as possible. We don’t want anything flying around and hurting someone in the event of a sudden stop or accident!

Packing for the Car—Activities

One of the challenges to several days on the road is keeping everybody occupied while not trashing the car at the same time! Our boys would take everything they owned if we let them, but after several very messy trips, we now do this:

Each child (except the babies) can pack one small backpack that has to fit next to them or at their feet in the vehicle.
Mom or Dad has to approve the contents BEFORE we leave the house—trust me, there are MANY things you do not want your children playing with in the back of your car—our no-no list includes such favorites as markers, scissors, and play dough…enough said!
We encourage each of them to bring a few books, and things that don’t have too many small pieces. If a piece of something falls to the floor, we do not want them getting out of their seatbelts to retrieve it—especially those still in car seats.
I keep a bag at my feet with activities/school work to pass out, as well as a small bag with things for me to do, which usually includes a Sudoku book and my current crochet project.

Packing for the Car—Food

When we still had an empty seat, we would sometimes put a cooler in that seat and secure it with the seatbelt. Then we could take things like milk or sandwich fixings that would otherwise go bad without refrigeration. We still take one in the back of the car on longer trips, but it's harder to access now.
A small, hard-sided container (think Tupperware or the like) is great for snacks like crackers, cookies, whole fruit, etc.—things that don’t need refrigeration but will end up crushed if they’re not protected.

Packing for the Car—Using a List

Anther thing I always do is pack with a detailed checklist. I’ve always been a list maker anyway, but I find that I rarely forget anything important when I pack this way. The few times I haven’t used a list, well, let’s just say those trips included stops along the way at Walmart to purchase things I already had at home! I have a list for each person’s clothing, for toiletries, for meds, for school, activities, and food, and for extras that I might forget such as the travel crib, battery chargers for camera and cell phones, etc. As it gets packed, it gets checked off the list. That list is the last thing I check before we walk out the door! I use a spiral notebook, because I’m still stuck in the physically-writing-on-paper-age, but making a list on the computer and then printing it out to check off would work just as well. And then you’d have the added benefit of being able to use it over and over again. Hey, I really should do that after all! It would save me lots of time.

Stay tuned for the rest of this series:
Part 2--Great travel activities for children
Part 3--Eating on the road (while keeping costs and messes down!)
Part 4--Adapting home schooling for car schooling

For those of you that take long road trips from time to time, what are YOUR best tips for packing? Please share them with us!

4 Months Old!

2010-03-24T19:12:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's time again for our monthly photo shoot! Joanna was much more agreeable this time around, although I couldn't get her to smile with the camera in front of my face. Of course, every time I moved the camera away and then spoke to her she would give me a huge grin!

Joanna is laughing now, and it is so precious to hear! She brings us so much joy--even her brothers are completely smitten with her and want to hold her, hug her, and play with her all the time.

She is starting to try to scoot a little bit when she gets on her tummy. She's been rolling over for a while now. Today I put her in the doorway bouncy seat and she seemed to enjoy it...she's growing so fast!

This last picture is actually from last Saturday, but I love her expression and just had to share it!

We love our precious little girl so much...she is such a blessing!

Operation Stair Navigation

2010-03-17T21:45:00.008-04:00

With all this gorgeous spring weather, we are ready to explore the far reaches of the city again!
I’ve been slowly preparing over the past couple months, getting through that new baby period while waiting for spring. Here is my checklist:

New double stroller with sun-canopy, rain cover, and nifty strap for Joey to hold? Check

2 saddle bags to hold everything that we might need for a day out? Check

Proof that I can carry said stroller up and down the steps into the subway stations? Check

A two-year-old who can safely navigate said steps with just the help of an older brother? Oh, pooey!!

Josiah weighs over 30 lbs. He absolutely has to be out of the stroller for me to carry it up and down stairs. But he's never learned to use stairs. The other boys HAD to learn the stairs from the time they were mobile—we lived in a 2-story house with all the bedrooms upstairs. They had the stairs down within weeks of learning to walk. Actually, they were proficient at crawling up and down well before that. But Josiah has never had to use the stairs, so, well, we are NOT there yet!

We have started “Operation Stair Navigation” with little Josiah. While there are no stairs inside our apartment, one of the stairwells for the building is right next to our front door. So we’re practicing a little bit each day. I have high hopes that he will have this new skill down pat sooner than later.

He seems to be enjoying learning this new skill, and big brother Joshua is a patient and attentive helper. The only real problem we're having is that Josiah doesn't understand why we're putting on shoes and leaving the apartment WITHOUT going outside to play!

Don't worry...I'm not going to let him crawl up and down the subway stairs...Ewww!

He's getting there...we'll be everywhere from Battery Park to the Bronx Zoo, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Hudson River, and every place in between again soon!

Walk Away the Wiggles

2010-03-17T17:08:00.009-04:00

I would never have thought it was possible, but the J-boys have even more energy than usual lately. It's as if the spring sunshine is creeping through our walls and soaking into them, giving them an irresistible desire to bounce off things--primarily my furniture and each others' heads. Tuesday afternoon after finishing most of our school work, I was getting tired of watching them build an enormous fort in the living room using ALL of our freshly-washed sheets and blankets. So I herded them all outside for a good, long walk!

I refused to tell them where we were going, despite being asked repeatedly. Truth be told, I didn't really have a set plan when we left, other than to enjoy the sunshine and give everyone some exercise. Boys are strange creatures--while they were bouncing around inside they had all the energy in the world, but by about the 5th block (that's a quarter of a mile, folks...not far at all!) They were dragging and complaining about how EXHAUSTED they were! Silly boys!

Riverside Drive overlooking 96th Street

Josiah has the perfect little perch. The white blanket is to shield Joanna from the sun, which was shining directly in her little eyes.

Yet another thing I don't get about boys...the incessant need to explore holes, to discover where they go and what may be inside. I'm sure these are for drainage off this bridge, but to the little boys they have so much potential...so much so that Jordan and Joey are fighting over who gets to peek through this one!

We walked down to 95th Street, then turned and headed over to Broadway. Once we hit Broadway, we continued on down to 72nd...mostly to see if we could make it that far and how long it would take. You see, 72nd Street is the closest handicapped-accessible subway station (read: elevator) and while I can carry our new stroller + Joanna up and down the stairs (yes, I've tried this with Jeremy along to make sure!) I cannot carry it with Josiah and he can't safely use the stairs. So one of my hopes for venturing out across the city again lay in our ability to walk to the 72nd Street station--in a reasonable amount of time.

It took a little over an hour.

It was almost 5:30, so we sat on a bench outside the station and called Jeremy. He agreed to meet us, and we would go ahead and grab something to eat. The boys, of course, had again found all that energy that had disappeared while we were walking and were jumping over the armrests on the benches. I didn't have the energy for a medical emergency (that same activity has caused injury before) so I got them up and we moved on to Central Park two blocks away.

Joshua posing on the Seventh Regiment Memorial Statue

Jordan

I quizzed the boys on the Latin phrase on this plaque...Joshua finally translated it, although I had to give them "pro=for" since they haven't learned that word yet.

We ended up at the Adventure Playground in Central Park at 67th street. In the summer, this park has a fun water feature, but of course it's still a bit too cold for water play! The boys also enjoy the treehouse and climbing pyramid, which are in what basically amounts to a giant sand box. They also love to walk around the perimeter of the sand area, which is a series of concrete walls and wooden beams of varying heights.

Jordan gearing up to slide down the pole on the treehouse

I love this view...in the summer you can be in Central Park and almost forget you're in the middle of Manhattan, but for now, with no leaves on the trees, when you look up you still see skyscrapers. This is looking down towards 59th Street.

Josiah

Joey has to slide down the hard way.

Jonathan sliding head-first! I love that you can see the reflection of his face in the slide.

Fun with Daddy and Josiah--Jeremy and our friend Brent had caught up with us at the park by now.

We left the park and headed towards Time Square. We decided to take the boys to a restaurant called Ellen's Stardust Diner on 5oth and Broadway. The waitstaff are all aspiring Broadway singers, and some of them are really good! The food is your average typical diner fare, and in true New York fashion is overpriced, but it's all about the experience!

We walked by the Ed Sullivan Theater and I had to take a picture...I looked like such a tourist with my Canon Rebel hanging around my neck! Funny thing is I don't have to wear my camera to look like a tourist--people always assume we're visiting when they see us out with all of our children...there just aren't many families here in Manhattan with this many children!

I mapped our route online and found we had walked over 5 miles! That might be a bit too far to do often, but it was so nice to get out and get some exercise. The boys managed to work out all of their wiggles for the day, and went right to sleep when we got home!

Haircuts--New York City Style

2010-03-15T17:19:00.012-04:00

After a false start on Saturday, which started with a half-block walk and ended with a mangled umbrella and 8 very wet bodies, we set out again on Sunday afternoon to get the boys haircuts. There was a break in the rain at the time, so other than a chilly wind, it was a fairly pleasant walk.

We take the boys to a little barbershop about 10 blocks down town from us on Broadway, because they have reasonable prices--$10 for little boy’s cuts. Our Supercuts, which is just a few blocks further away, charges “$24 and up” for children’s haircuts. No way am I paying $120 plus tips for 5 little boys to get haircuts. And that’s not even considering that little statement “and up!” Their hair grows so fast they’ll need a new cut in 6 weeks anyway, and well, $120 every 6 weeks would buy a LOT of fabric...or chocolate...or yummy drinks at Starbucks...but I digress...

So we go with this little barbershop instead. The catch? The guys there are Dominican, and only speak Spanish. Jeremy knows just enough Spanish to barely sort of get by; I know just enough to communicate the really important stuff, like “My cat is in a tree” or “I like the yellow banana”—you know, the useful stuff you learn in 7th grade Spanish class.

So we go through the motions of attempting to tell them in Spanish what we want, they go through the motions of nodding and smiling (the smiling, I’m sure, is really an attempt not to laugh out loud at our Spanish) and we walk out 45 minutes later with a bunch of boys with basic, no-frills haircuts. So far, everyone’s happy with this arrangement.

There's another little perk to this place besides the price tag--the ancient coin-operated horse just outside. With a few dollars in coins, I can keep a few boys happily occupied while a few others are getting their cuts. And we all know keeping children happy and occupied is a good thing!

Jordan and Joseph

Joey using his trusty bow to shoot invisible arrows at imaginary villains

Joey...amazingly, he is sitting still for his haircut

I sure hope living in the concrete jungle isn't having a negative effect on Josh and Jon. There was a time when they knew how to ride a horse--at least the basic seating arrangement. They've obviously become a bit confused on this issue. I wonder what else they're forgetting?

Jon and Josh

Um, still not quite right, guys...

Okay, I give up! Carry on...

This was Josiah's first haircut--which is the primary reason I had the camera with me in the first place. One of these days I'm going to get back to scrapbooking, and I can't have any one child scarred for life by being the only one without 1st haircut pictures. I'm sure the stylists loved me--I was totally in their way, and I kept forgetting and saying "Smile for Mommy!" when Josiah was supposed to look down and keep still! He was quite the little wiggler, and required a good bit of wrangling to keep his little head still. But we managed to remove an appropriate amount of hair while preserving his ears, so all ended well.

Josiah waiting patiently for his haircut

Joey, remarkably enough, is STILL sitting still...don't worry--he more than made up for that lack of activity the rest of the day!

Josiah isn't quite sure about this whole haircut thing

Josiah finally takes his turn on the horsey! Yay!

After all that sitting still, the boys were ready to go crazy the whole way home. I had no idea that you could engage in a wrestling match with your brother and walk at the same time. There are things I STILL don't get about boys! But if they had to draw attention to themselves, whooping and hollering the whole way home, at least I could take consolation from one thing...at least they all had nice-looking hair!

My Babies!

2010-03-14T23:42:00.000-04:00

Yes, The Packaging Is STILL the Best Part!

2010-03-11T11:50:00.007-05:00

When you were a small child, do you remember opening a gift, only to set it aside and play with the box? There is one Christmas that stands out in my memory because my mom got a large appliance of some sort, and my sister and I turned that box into a play house and spent hours in the front yard playing in it. I don’t even remember what the present was!

My children are the same way…they love a good box! Over the years we’ve turned boxes into houses, rocket ships, trains, and the like. Their cardboard sides have been used for crafts of all sorts. I’ve started doing more of our shopping on line, and whenever a package is delivered, I have several boys begging for rights to the box! But now, we’re finding that the packing box has another treasure to offer…cornstarch packing peanuts!

Yesterday when Joshua’s new grammar books arrived, I handed a few of the packing peanuts to the boys. They weren’t impressed, until I told them how to dampen the ends and stick them together. Then all hands flew to that box…they had so much fun building with them! It wasn’t a very big box, so the peanut supply was small and they were used up quickly. But oh, they were fun!

Another package was delivered this morning. It was so funny--as soon as I opened the box, the boys grabbed a few peanuts and licked them to see if they would stick! They were more excited about those peanuts (yes, they are the sticky kind, not boring ol’ styrofoam!) than they were about the can of yummy freeze-dried strawberries the peanuts were protecting. I put them away, telling the boys that we would build something with them once they finished their schoolwork. Nothing like a good incentive to keep them on task, right? I can’t wait to see what they will create this time!

Jordan's expression after licking a peanut...he decided he'd rather lick his finger and touch it to the peanut instead! The other boys didn't seem to mind the taste and licked away!

I’m thinking about ordering a big bag of these for the boys. I did a little bit of research, and you can buy colored ones, called Nuudles, specifically for kid’s crafts. Or you can order plain white ones from a packing company. They’re hard to compare price-wise, since the former are labeled with a piece count and the latter by cubic feet. I suspect that the plain ones from a shipping supply store will be less expensive, though. I’ll let you know what I find.

What would you do? Would you spend extra for the fun colors? Or would you stick with cheap basic white, knowing that your children would still have fun with them?

Hooray for Spring!

2010-03-09T19:08:00.009-05:00

We have really enjoyed playing in the snow this winter, but after months and months of freezing weather, we are so ready for spring. So imagine our excitement to have two bright, sunny days in a row with a temperature around 60 degrees! We've packed the babies into our new double stroller, gathered up our sand toys, ventured out to our favorite neighborhood parks...and left the coats at home!

It is so much fun to watch Josiah play...he was just starting to run around the playground on his own last fall. Hopefully we will be getting out for haircuts this weekend--in the meantime he has this cool halo effect going on!

Jonathan...

Josiah loves to slide...

Come on up here, this is fun!

Jordan digging around in the last bit of snow left in the sand box...

Joey was playing on the play scape with a little girl he befriended, but then his attention was grabbed by the ice cream truck driving up to the play ground. Yes, apparently you only need a day or two of decent weather before the ice cream trucks start making their rounds. I personally think this is ridiculous--60 degree weather doesn't exactly make me feel the need for a cold treat. And then of course I had to feel guilty when my sweet little boy came up to me with his big pleading eyes and impish smile, and I had to tell him I didn't bring along any money for ice cream. It didn't help that his new friend (whose mommy was better prepared) was happily licking a huge vanilla cone. Silly ice cream truck!

Josiah playing in the sand...

Joshua and Jonathan hanging out on top of one of the tubes you're supposed to crawl through on the play scape...

Joey on top of the same tube...Joey has become camera shy of late, and the only way I can take his picture is if I sneak up on him. Forget him looking at the camera! As soon as he sees it, he either looks down or quickly turns away.

After romping around on the play scape for a while, we headed to the swings. The boys love to swing! Here's Jordan soaring high in front of one of our prettier neighborhood buildings...

One of the big benefits of getting out to the park in this wonderful weather is learning that I CAN, in fact, get all 6 children out by myself. While I have been anxious to get outside more, in the back of my mind I have been nervous about how it would be with all six of them. It was pretty easy to get out with 5--but with only 5 Joey got to ride in the stroller. Now he's on foot, and he's a dangerous combination of fearless and unpredictable! I'm training him to hold on to a handle/strap attached to the stroller. So far, so good! Whew! I'm sure we'll be out exploring all that New York City has to offer on a regular basis again in no time!

A Little of This, a Little of That...

2010-03-07T15:24:00.004-05:00

Proof That They’re Learning SOMETHING…
Thursday afternoon Joshua was trying repeatedly to get Jordan in trouble for eating some candy without permission. I was preoccupied with birthday party preparations and obviously wasn’t responding the way he expected. When I finally “got it” I told him to go to his room—you tattle in this family just to get someone else in trouble and YOU get the punishment. He stormed off in a huff and shouted “I wasn’t tattling! On WHOM did I tattle?!” Looks like we still have quite a bit of work to do on the attitude. But it is encouraging to see that the grammar lessons are finally sticking!

Another Work in Progress…
I finally started cutting a new quilt. I’ve had the fabric for a few months now, but couldn’t decide exactly how I wanted to proceed. While my first quilt followed an online tutorial step-by-step, this one I’m making up myself. The reason? I’m trying to work in pictorial squares that are an odd size. Time will tell if I regret this decision or not. It’s certainly a lot more complicated than I had hoped, and I’m thinking I’ll go back to following a pattern for my next quilt. Oh, I was originally planning to use this fabric for Josiah’s quilt, but Jordan has claimed it for his own! Josiah could care less, so I’ll find him something else.

A Few of My Favorite Things…
This is admittedly late since the weather will hopefully be warming soon, but during the cold winter months I love to sit and relax (okay, I’ll settle for just sitting) with a nice hot drink. I keep three easy mixes on hand—hot cocoa, chai tea, and swiss mocha coffee. Yes, it would be even easier to just buy them at the store, but they’re so much cheaper to make at home, and when I run out, I don’t have to go anywhere to get more. (I'm lazy that way.) I whirl them around in the blender to make them a nice, uniform powder, although that isn’t necessary. Placed in a pretty jar they’d make lovely gifts, too.

Boys Will Be Boys…
…And Joey is a real stinker, in more ways than one! I’m in desperate need of potty training help with my most stubborn (and super smart!) child…we’ve got #1 down pat, but he absolutely refuses to make any progress on #2, despite both lavish bribery and dire threats. I know, I know, no one ever goes off to college in pull-ups, but I’d like to stop buying them well before we start paying tuition! If anyone has any brilliant ideas to motivate this kid, I’d love to hear them. I’m getting desperate!

10 Ways to Celebrate Our Children's Accomplishments

2010-03-05T17:55:00.006-05:00

This week we had a major accomplishment in our house—Jordan completed the 100th (and final) lesson in his reading lesson book! Yay! He was so incredibly proud of himself, and naturally I was proud of him as well. After all, we started out with much groaning, kicking, and screaming, but managed to end up months (and months) later with an emergent reader. Of course we made a big deal about it! Jordan was just beaming all day. I wanted to do something special for him to reward him for his hard work, and come up with a list of ideas for the next time I need a fitting reward for a job well done.

Here is my brainstormed list of ways I can reward and honor my children for their accomplishments. Some of these things we do already, some are new ideas for me. Of course, generous amounts of verbal praise are always in order, but sometimes I want to do something even more tangible. I hope some of these ideas will be useful to you, as well.

Celebrating Our Children's Accomplishments

1. Giving a small trinket or toy—We keep a “treasure chest” at our house that I fill with inexpensive little trinkets-decorated pencils, shaped erasers, little notepads, and toys like bouncy balls and foam airplanes purchased cheaply from Oriental Trading Company or the like. Okay, I’ll admit I keep this around mainly for bribery of the preschoolers—but it also makes a handy reward for those times when you catch one of them being particularly nice to another, or (more rarely) doing a chore without being asked.

2. Picking a favorite meal—Our children have several favorite meals and desserts that I almost always keep the ingredients on hand for. Letting one of them choose dinner and/or dessert, and better yet letting them help prepare it, is a great reward for them.

3. Getting out of their chores for a day—This, of course, means a little extra work for ME, but the boys see this as a great privilege! (It’s perceived as an even greater reward when, instead of Mom doing the chores, they get assigned to a sibling. Of course, that’s beyond the scope of this list, and may make a later list of “Extremely Effective Consequences for Being Mean to Your Brother." ;)

4. Choosing a favorite activity for a family time together—Whether it’s a favorite movie (complete with popcorn!) or their current board game of choice, they love the honor of choosing what we do for family night.

5. A special outing with Dad or Mom—ALL of our boys love to go out one-on-one with Mom or Dad! We’ve done this as involved as going out for a meal or an event together to as simple as grabbing an ice cream cone or a walk to the park. Daddy has even been known to take a boy to work with him, if his schedule permits and that boy is completely caught up on his school work.

6. Extra TV, video game, or computer time—Easy, free, and a HUGE favorite of our media-lovin’ boys, especially since their more responsible parents severely limit their access. (the HORROR!)

7. Staying up later to play a game or something with Dad and Mom—another treat that the older boys enjoy, especially if they can play a game that we can’t usually play because it is too “old” for the little guys.

8. Learn a new skill—Jon loves to learn to cook new things. Joshua loves to learn new crafts. These can work out to be very beneficial for me as well…Jonathan was excited beyond belief last week over learning how to clean the bathroom. (And no, I didn’t artificially build it up to sound like great fun! Even I couldn’t do THAT with a straight face!) It’s now his weekly job, and he does it well and loves it!

9. A special coupon book—I haven’t tried this yet, but I want to. I’m thinking of a simple little printed booklet with some of the above-mentioned ideas in it in coupon form. This would be a reward for a major accomplishment or character trait over time.

10. A gift card—For a small amount to a store they either like or is related to the reason for the reward—This is what we ended up doing for Jordan’s accomplishment. Since we’re celebrating the fact that he finished his reading book, we gave him a $10 gift card to Borders to buy a new book of his very own. He is excited to be able to use it, and keeps calling it his very own “credit card!”

Now don’t get me wrong, we do some of these things “just because” as well—our children don’t have to perform in order for us to do nice things for them. But one of my goals as a parent is to encourage my children to have good character and to always do their best. Rewarding their efforts goes a long way towards molding them into the excellent young adults we hope they will become.

What do you do to celebrate your children’s accomplishments? I’d love to have you comment with your ideas!

Time to Celebrate!

2010-03-04T22:56:00.003-05:00

Look who's TWO!! Josiah! He was very excited about the cupcakes...

But he wasn't too sure what to make of the candles.

Stopping to actually pick up the cupcake wastes valuable time. This approach is a much faster way to get all that sugary goodness in (and around) your mouth!

Yum!

About a month ago, I blogged about Joshua wanting to make bean bags for Josiah for his birthday. We decided to use some brightly-colored broadcloth instead of the scrap fabric I had originally given him. We also decided to embroider the colors on them. I helped a little bit, but Joshua did 75% of the work himself. He even decided to use some of the "fancy" stitches on my machine--stitches I have never used myself, and I've had that machine about 20 years!

Didn't they turn out cute? I think he did a great job, and Joshua is very proud of them. I think Josiah is going to have so much fun playing with them! I'm just hoping they won't become projectiles. Who am I kidding? With all these boys, of course they will be flying! I suppose it's okay as long as they're not hitting ME!

Happy Birthday, my sweet little Josiah! We love you!!

Learning a Lesson the Hard Way

2010-03-02T23:47:00.005-05:00

Jonathan, my 9-year-old, is on a quest this week. He wants to earn $15 in addition to his regular allowance of $5 before this Saturday. Why? He wants to play his new video game. Why does he need to earn it by Saturday? Because we have a family rule that video games are only allowed on the weekend. And why does he need $15 to play?

Our story begins Sunday evening at Target, when Jonathan not only talked Dad into letting him go peruse the Wii games, but ultimately talked Joshua into going halfsies on a new game. We got home too late to play the game, so it was put away in eager anticipation of next weekend. Unfortunately when school commenced on Monday, we found that our math DVD had been left out and therefore made available to the resident preschoolers. Joseph and Josiah are notorious for their ill-treatment of DVDs. It was pretty much scratched to death!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told them that they are responsible for safely putting away their school DVDs after each use. They were promptly informed that they would be replacing the DVD. “No problem,” they thought. Joshua still had enough money left (he’s my saver) and Jonathan would just save his allowance until he had enough. What they didn’t count on was mean ol’ Mommy telling them that they couldn’t play their game until it was paid off! Joshua, who has a “take it or leave it” attitude about video gaming anyway, was unfazed. Jonathan, on the other hand, thought the world was going to end.

He’s been begging for jobs around the apartment to earn extra money. I offered to let him dust the dining room, living room, and foyer furniture for $2. He pounced on that offer. I then mentioned that he could shred a stack of papers I had weeded out of the filing cabinet. I offered just a dollar. After all, the boys usually beg for the privilege of helping when I pull out the shredder! He readily consented, and went right to work. Thirty minutes into this job he realized it was bigger than he thought and began to renegotiate—now he wanted two dollars. I pointed out to him that he had agreed to do the work for $1, and that in the future he would do well to do any negotiating over price up front! He plugged along, finished the job, and earned his dollar.

He still needs $12 more. As much as his plight tugs at my mommy heartstrings, I don’t want to make it too easy for him. After all, my goal here is for him to learn the value of being responsible. If it’s just handed to him, he will be much happier in the short run but will have missed an opportunity to gain some very valuable wisdom. And this lesson, while learned with some discomfort, is learned at a much smaller price now than it might be years later.

He hasn’t quite caught on to this yet, but I have no intention of letting him earn the total amount of money he needs before Saturday. While it makes me sad, I know he needs to miss out on playing his game this weekend to drive home the point that he needs to be diligent in caring for the school materials that we purchase for him. I’m sure there will be tears on Saturday. I’m hoping that when he is a responsible young adult he will appreciate this lesson. In the meantime, you can fully expect me to be nominated for the title of Meanest Mommy of the Year!

(Just In Case You Haven't Seen Enough) Snow Pictures!

2010-02-26T13:47:00.010-05:00

This was the view outside our window this morning:

So of course I had to bundle up, go outside, and take pictures of the neighborhood!
Riverside Drive...

And in the other direction...

Riverside Park...

Heading up towards Broadway. Look how buried the cars are. People were busily shoveling and blowing the snow off the sidewalk.

Broadway, looking up towards the entrance to Columbia University.

In the middle of Broadway looking downtown...

The Presbyterian church down the street...

The book store across the street...

I thought it would be fun to walk around the Columbia campus and take pictures with all the snow. This is the library.

Looks like someone threw away a lot of perfectly good snow!

Boy, does this guy look chilly!

The chapel...I've still never been inside, although Jeremy tells me I need to see it.

I hope no one needs to use this any time soon...

Back on the west side of Broadway, looking back towards the Columbia entrance...

And back on our street. Looks like some progress is being made on the sidewalks, but the street itself is still pretty deep! Where are the snowplows?

I tried to take a short cut across the street here. The holes in the snow in the foreground below the front of that car are my foot prints. After sinking in up to my knees, I decided to try to find a better route!

Back on our side of the street looking down towards Riverside...

I scooped some snow into bins for Joseph and Josiah to play with at the table while the older boys did their school work. It was a hit!

No, Josiah! Don't EAT the snow!!

Joseph built a "snow dinosaur" that he was very proud of!

Ah, here's the snowplow! Unfortunately he had to sit there for over an hour...

Because this bus-type thing on the right got stuck in the middle of the street. That flatbed truck full of sand (on the left) finally came and rescued it after several men spent a LONG time shoveling in vain in front of the bus.

Jordan and Josiah stood in the window watching the drama unfold, lol. Anything involving trucks (and a snowplow is a particularly cool truck) draws the boys in like a magnet!

It's still snowing hard and is supposed to continue to do so for the rest of today and all day tomorrow. The boys are SO ready to get out and sled in it! Hopefully over the weekend we'll be able to do just that!

Three Months Old!

2010-02-25T23:00:00.004-05:00

And time for more pictures!

I had her all dressed up in a cute new outfit, but Joanna decided to play the part of Princess Crankypants tonight and only stop screaming if Daddy was holding her. So what we have here is a small collection of shots either over Daddy's shoulder or being held up in the air. I guess she's saving up her smiles for next time! :)

She has grown so much. I can't believe she's been here a whole quarter of a year already!

Preschool Activities

2010-02-23T23:27:00.005-05:00

We are 8 school days into our new schedule and for the most part things are going well! The biggest change I've instituted is having everybody together at the table for an hour and 15 minutes in the mornings. Previously I had just Joshua and Jonathan at the table, and the other 3 boys would just play wherever they wanted. More often than not, that arrangement would lead to chaos and messes, and I would have to squeeze in Jordan's schooling during nap time.

Having everyone together is doing wonders as far as reducing the mess and chaos in our home, but it comes with it's own challenge: How do I keep 2 preschoolers, 4 years old and almost 2, sufficiently occupied (and preferably learning something!) during that time?

Last week I dug through the toys we have on hand and came up with several activities they could do at the table. We colored with crayons on blank paper, did lacing cards, strung wooden beads, and played with plastic counting bears. But since each activity holds their attention for only 15-20 minutes or so, I knew I needed to come up with more! I know there are many wonderful activities I can buy for them, and I probably will end up buying some, but for now I wanted to see what I could come up with using stuff I already have on hand.

Over the weekend I made 3 different simple activities: home made play dough, colored pasta, and just some simple cut-up squares of construction paper to glue mosaic-style onto plain paper. I've posted my play dough recipe before here. I colored the noodles using food coloring and rubbing alcohol. I played around with the proportions some so it's not exact, but basically ended up doing this:

1/8 c. alcohol
5-8 drops food coloring
1 c. dry noodles

Mix alcohol and food coloring in a ziplock bag. Add noodles, then squish them around in the liquid mixture for a few minutes. Then I lined a cookie sheet (with sides) with paper towels, scooped the noodles out of the baggie with a slotted spoon, and allowed them to dry overnight.

I made purple, red, yellow, and blue. I found that because of the pasta color, I actually ended up with an orangey-pink color, a brown-ish purple, a greenish color, and the yellow isn't much different from the original noodle color. Here is the finished product, ready for stringing, sorting, or whatever...

And here they are in action--Joseph and Josiah strung them first, then when that got old I gave them egg cartons to sort them in...

Joseph did a good job sorting them by color...

Here are the construction paper squares. I wrote their names really big on 11x17 paper and gave them each a glue stick. I showed them how to glue the squares on their name, but they ended up just gluing them everywhere...

These were some pom poms I had on hand. I've printed up some coloring sheets on the numbers 1-10 and we're learning a different number each day.

Josiah enjoyed the home made play dough...

As did Joseph...

I've been looking through a couple of catalogs for other activities. Before I jump in and start buying things, I want to see what else I can make with what I already have on hand. I'm thinking about trying to make a flannel board with felt items to "stick" on it, and maybe making up some matching/sorting/categorizing-type activities as well.

If any of you have any great ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Here's one last shot of my adorable Joseph having a great time with his play dough!

Getting Our Days in Order...Finally!

2010-02-22T09:54:00.001-05:00

We're finally getting back on a schedule for our school week. Yay! I had been putting it off in the interest of getting more sleep in the morning, since that was when Joanna slept best, but the daily chaos was definitely getting to me! We were getting everything done each day, but I felt like I was constantly running in circles because we weren't very organized, and any time the boys aren't working on a specific task, order tends to disappear quickly!

Last week I finally decided enough was enough...I was going to start our day much earlier and schedule our school subjects at the very least. So this is what I started last week:

6:30 I wake up and feed Joanna
7:30 Boys get up and do morning chores
8:00 Breakfast
8:30 Table chores (Josh, Jon, and Jordan)
8:45-10:00 School at the dining table for everybody--Josh and Jon do math and grammar,
Jordan does math, grammar, and phonics, Joey and Josiah do preschool activities
10:00 Jordan and Josiah play together, Joey stays with me, Josh does piano practice, Jon does
writing
10:30 Jordan and Joseph play together, Josiah stays with me, Josh does writing, Jon does piano
practice
11:00 Josh and Jon do spelling or Latin/Greek root words (depending on the day) with me while
the 3 younger boys watch a 30-minute educational show or video
11:30 Josh and Jon do Latin while I read to the 3 younger boys
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Table chores
1:00-3:30 Naps for Joseph, Josiah, and Joanna
1:00-2:00 History or Science for older 3

That's pretty much as far as we've gotten so far. Of course this past week and this week we're replacing some of those subjects with our Olympics unit study. Next week I need to work our last few subjects into the schedule, as well as afternoon chores. And I'm still trying to figure out how best to work Joanna into the mix. Some of our activities are easier to do with a nursing baby than others, so getting her on a fairly predictable time table will be helpful.

As we've gone through this schedule, I'm noticing a few little glitches. My plan is to keep it up until the end of next week, so that I can see how it works once we're done with our unit study and back to just our regular work. At the end of that time, I will begin the tweaking process. I'm thinking I will eventually want to back everything up half an hour and start at 6:00 am--once I'm getting a little bit more sleep!

In case you're interested, I'm using a program called Managers of Their Homes to create my schedule. I had bought this book a few months before Josiah was born, and implemented a schedule shortly after he was born. However, since our lives soon became crazy with preparing to move and then moving, it was soon abandoned. I've been meaning to come back to this resource for quite some time, so I'm pleased that the time has finally come! I've been feeling so much more on top of things now that our time is neatly ordered, and the boys are so much less likely to go crazy if they don't have to wait for me to tell them what to do next! I just love a calm, smoothly running household and school, and I know we are getting closer and closer to accomplishing that goal! :)

I've also been working on time-saving techniques for meals and on activities for my preschoolers to do at the table while my older children do school. More on those later...

Olympic Winter Home School

2010-02-19T14:05:00.006-05:00

We've been trying something new this week in our home school--a unit study of the Olympic Winter Games. I'm usually a text book kind of gal, so this is a big departure from the norm for me. But so far we are enjoying ourselves and learning a lot! Of course it doesn't hurt that this particular unit study has given us the opportunity to watch as much of the Olympics as we possibly can AND be able to count it as school! Woo hoo!

Joshua updating our medals board. The flags represent the countries the boys have studied so far, and the United States. We started with Greece since it's the birthplace of the Olympics, then Canada because they are the host country. The others seem to be added randomly.

The unit study is a pdf file I bought from currclick.com . It outlines what to study each day and covers many subject areas. I'm modifying it quite a bit for our use, since I wanted to use it in addition to our own curriculum. (Remember, I have to have my text books!) We're basically doing math, grammar, Latin, and piano as usual, then replacing our history, science, and writing time with the Olympics unit study. Each day the boys are learning about a country participating in the Olympics, learning the history, rules, and terminology of 1 or 2 of the sports being televised that day, using the dictionary to define related words, etc. It has been so much more interesting to watch the events after studying their histories and learning the rules and terminology of the sport. The official NBC Olympics web site has a decent amount of information about each sport. If there are some you enjoy watching but are curious about how they are scored, etc., I'd suggest you go check it out!

Jonathan reading about Sweden on the National Geographic Kids web site. The boys have enjoyed being able to use the computer for research! We haven't really done much of that in our school yet, but I intend to do more of this.

Our favorites so far? Well, Joshua says he has enjoyed curling the most, Jonathan has enjoyed hockey, and Jordan snowboarding halfpipe. My favorite events to watch have always been figure skating. We'll have to see what the next week's favorites end up being. With the boys, you just never know, but we intend to enjoy watching the next 9 days!