My Thoughtful Spot

March Birthdays

March is becoming a big birthday month for my family. We now have Sweet Pea on the 6th, Addison (my friend Kari's daughter) on the 7th, Edward (my nephew) on the 8th, my Mom on the 13th, Aunty Nancy (my godmother)  on the 20th, Hayden (my nephew) on the 21st and Mom W. (my m-i-l) on the 27th. We really only celebrated three of them this year. I want to post some photos before we move on to April.

Here's my Mom at Cracker Barrel, where the kids and I met her for breakfast on her special day.

 

Photos from Sweet Pea's 3rd birthday party.

 

She didn't want to eat her cake. She was too interested in a new puzzle. (Notice she's wearing some of Hannah's pajamas.)

 

Bobby and Worker.

 

My father sent me these awesome pictures of the kids, taken at Edward's 1st birthday party.

 

 

 

 

It's time for me to get to bed now. I'm not feeling well. Last night I started with dizziness. It led to wicked bed spins and nausea. This morning I even took a pregnancy test (I had some spares lying around), which was negative, so I must really be sick.  

Thinking Aloud, Nothing Important

The wind is whipping. It's in the 40's, and it's supposed to rain today. It's quite a change from some of the days we had last week. The sun was out, along with some neighbors I haven't seen since the fall. There were frisbees, lightsabers and kids on our street. Sure signs of spring. Bobby cleaned out the garage on Saturday. After a busy weekend, I'm trying to get the house back in order and plow through a mountain of laundry. I'm considering changing my four days a week laundry schedule to a Monday through Saturday one. I know you were probably hoping for something more exciting since I haven't blogged in a week, but I'm in journaling mode right now. This is what's on my mind. Today's plan (when school is finished) is to go through everyone's potential spring clothes. Tonight Hannah and I will take a trip to the mall with my sister. I want to return the spring clothes I ordered online for myself from Lands End. I measured and followed the size chart, but everything is too big.

Speaking of too big clothing... although I have lost weight, I have fallen away from working out. I just couldn't get into going to the Y this winter. And that stretch of time between Superbowl Sunday and Lent was a very dark time for eating well. But now spring is here. It's a season of renewal. I think I'm going to do the old running program again. I may even start it at Week 5 this time.

Snuggler has joined a baseball team and is playing the sport for the first time ever. He has practices on Wednesdays and Fridays. My friend Kari and I have started a book club (of which we are the only members) to discuss the book A Mother's Rule of Life. We had our first meeting last Saturday afternoon at Dunkin Donuts. We spent some of the time discussing homeschooling curriculum because I'm already thinking about next year. I decided after our meeting that this week's focus will be on: early to bed, early to rise, prayer and drinking water. It's a very fine place to start. (I love that line from The Sound of Music.)

It's time for me to go. I hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring.

The Dinosaur Exhibit

 

 

We met my friend Kari and her children at the science museum this afternoon. I am too tired to write much else. Sorry!

Eight Months

Hannah turned eight months old on March 12th. So I'm a little late, but she probably looks the same as she did then. It was hard to take a non-blurry photo of her because she kept moving. She crawls slowly now. She can pull herself up to standing while holding the nursing stool, and I think she's getting two top front teeth. (She has two bottom ones.) Snuggler says that she's on top of the baby list - Number One.

  

 

Snuggler's First Penance

Before

 

During (He chose face to face.)

   

After (He's praying the Our Father.)

 

Posing with Fr. Bill, the pastor at our parish, St. Rose de Lima.

 

And with the family.

   

After attending the 4:00 Mass, we celebrated with a special dinner (cheeseburgers and hot dogs on the grill and ice cream cake) chosen by Snuggler.

Small Successes (9)

I'm having trouble thinking of some, though it has been a good week. These may be especially small.

1. When Bobby called from the grocery store on Monday during what's usually the worst time of my day (pre-dinner), and asked if he had bought syrup last week, I realized that I had emailed him last week's shopping list instead of the list that I had just struggled to make with two little girls all over me. I was furious with myself. I wanted to tell him to just come straight home. We'd have to go to Friendly's for dinner. Instead, I told him that I needed to calm down and I'd call him back. I said some prayers, printed out the correct list and was able to dictate it to him over the phone. I made egg salad sandwiches and tidied up the house while he shopped.
2. I took all of the trash out of the van (mostly water bottles, paper, lollipop sticks and food wrappers) and also out of one garage bay (mostly leaves, cardboard and duct tape).
3. I spent some time outside this week, went to bed early most nights (though the cutie-pie-baby-girl woke up often) and I had one hot bath with the jets on.

To find out more about the Small Successes meme, see Faith & Family Live!

Homeschoolers' Field Day

This is the third year for this Homeschoolers' Field Day event organized by a local college and the FRC. It was our first year participating. I think it was time well spent. I took lots of photos, many that were blurry because I'm not too steady holding the camera in one hand and Hannah in the other.

Worker is in the brown shirt climbing the rock wall.

 

Worker at the mini-golf station. 

 

Snuggler playing the Architect/Builder game and Helper looking on (in purple clothing).

 

Helper waiting to build.

Sweet Pea is in the purple striped shirt. She got lots of exercise today, climbing in the toddler area and walking around the track with Hannah and me to see what the big kids were doing. 

   

 

Worker and Helper do a balancing activity.

 

Brown bag (blue vinyl cooler) lunch time.

 

 

Worker at the "I Love Exercise" station where he had to run around and then check his heart rate.

Snuggler's in the green shirt playing the Builders & Dozers game. 

Helper preferred to observe some of the games.  

 

She participated in the parachute one, along with Snuggler.

  

Worker with the kids in the 9-13 age range.

   

It was great to be around so many homeschoolers. Helper said that she doesn't want to go back here next year. Snuggler said he wants to go back to the Field Day next year. And Worker said that he wants to go back here in eight years to attend college here. I like how different they are, each one so special to me.

Making a Hard Copy of My Blog

This daunting project has been on my mind now and then for the past two years. I originally thought I'd make a Blurb book of the entire first year of my blog in the Summer of 2007. It didn't happen. Next I thought I'd make 2 Blurb books of the first two years of my blog in the Summer of 2008. That didn't happen either. I tried a couple of times to get started, but it was too overwhelming.

Recently, I brainstormed in the presence of Bobby, who probably wondered what the heck I was talking about. I came to the conclusion that many of my blog posts were not worthy to be in a pricy Blurb book. The goal was for the Blurb books to replace the annual family albums that I created when I was scrapbooking regularly. They would include photos and journaling of special events and everyday life, but did they really need to include my curriculum choices or current cleaning schedules? No.

Of course, I want to have a hard copy of my blog in its entirety somewhere. I mean this is a record of my life. I might want to look back on it someday. Or maybe not. But remembering that I purged those journals I kept during high school, right before I went away to college, makes me think that I would like to have that choice. Today I copied and pasted my posts from June 2006-August 2006 chronologically into a Word document called "Blog Summer 2006". I plan to print out a copy of this document and the others I make in the future. What to do with them, I do not know. Should I three-hole punch them and put them into a binder? Should I slip the pages two at a time into page protectors to put in a binder? Should I bind the pages into a spiral book? So many options. If you have any thoughts on this please let know. I'd love to hear them.

Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!

 

It was almost gone! The pretty grass was showing! Spring was coming.

What was I just saying about things not going as you plan them?

It's a Page Turner

I was up late one night recently (maybe Thursday?) because I just couldn't put this book down. I'm about half way through it. (We had a busy weekend.) I could immediately relate to the challenges of getting a large family out of the house and into the van to go somewhere together. Now when I worry that we're going to be late (again!), I can comfort myself with the thought that the Duggars left for Silver Dollar City three hours past their anticipated arrival time. They also give me hope that someday I may, like them, learn that I can never count on things going exactly as planned. I liked this quote: As parents of all these children, we've gotten over any perfectionist tendencies we might once have had.

I enjoyed reading about Jim Bob and Michelle's childhoods and about how they met. The ups and downs of their businesses were interesting to me. I could relate to being home with little children (though not so many) while my husband was running all over the place with all of the good things he had on his plate a few years ago. I found their principle of living debt free interesting and I hope to read more about it. I also admire their thriftiness and their gratefulness. It was nice to read about people trying to discern God's will for themselves and accepting the outcomes of their choices in life. I liked seeing the floor plan of their 7000 sq.ft. home, and I bet I'll like reading about how they built the home themselves when I get to that chapter. Of course knowing me as you do, you know I would find their home management techniques interesting. And I even liked reading their recipes, though I doubt I'll ever try mixing barbecue sauce with tuna fish.