Notebook: Week of 4/19

Language Arts
100 Easy Lessons 47-50: we slowed down a bit this week on the lessons but we attempted to read some books. Shannon made the transition pretty easily. Watching him attempt to sound out longer words is amazing. I usually help him but the fact that he tries is awesome.

Handwriting: we continued doing some copy work. And he has been doing a lot of writing on his own.

Math
We have been just doing math as it comes up. Lately, Shannon has been pointing out the speed limit signs, reading them to me and then telling me whether I can go faster or I have to slow down. And money, time, weather, the date, and other topics are also covered on a pretty regular basis.

Other
The weather was pretty nice this week so we spent a few days at the park. Shannon had soccer practice on thursday and then a game on Saturday where scored his first goal. Woo hoo!

And we went on a field trip to Spokane Family Farm. They had a customer appriciation day in celebration of their one year anniverasary. They spoiled us with bottomless milk and cookies and we went on a short tour of the farm to learn about the milking and bottling process. 

Shannon jumping down from the hay after I hollared at him to get down. And then getting out of a tree that he should not have been climbing. -sigh- Boys.

  Chloe tried so hard to touch those ducks.

 Cute baby piggies.

Athena with chocolate cookie all over her face. Hey, she's a customer too and she wanted to be appreciated.

Spring Cleaning: The Livingroom

I did it! I Spring Cleaned one entire room! I finally buckled down and actually used the three step process in the e-book, Spring Cleaning For Normal People: declutter, clean, organize. See, you're supposed to take everything out of the room and throw it all in a designated spot. I chose our bedroom. Then you clean the entire room. Then you put everything back, that is, everything that actually belongs in the room. This doesn't seem too difficult but my first attempts were ridiculous. I would pick something up and then decide to take the object to the room it belongs in. Well, this takes forever and is really not efficient. It is much faster to throw everything in a pile and deal with it all at once. My entire living room really only took a couple of hours. After I had it all done and put back, I still had two bins of stuff to sort through. That took about a half hour to sort through and put away. And my living room has never looked more fabulous.

 As I was putting things back in place, I realized many things that simply did not need to be returned to their spot. Things that had lost meaning to me, or lost beauty, or lost usefulness. I think sometimes, we tend to put things back because it has become a tradition of sorts. "This thing goes here because we have always had it here." So I busted out of my rut. I used to keep a double frame in the cabinet. One side had my college graduation picture and the other had Stacey's college graduation picture. Well Stacey looks as handsome as ever in his picture but I have never liked that picture of me. EVER! But I felt like it just had to be there. Well, it's my living room and that picture is gone! We also had a few random baby pictures of Shannon in really odd frames that were each given to us by different people around the time of his birth. Now our walls our covered with beautiful photos of our family and all of our children so the beat up little novelty frames were also taken out.

Complete Organizing Solutions has been featuring a series called, "Picture my memories" where in she discusses taking pictures of those items that we only hold onto for sentimental value. The things that are sitting in boxes, not being displayed (because we don't find them to be particularly beautiful) and not being used (because the item is not useful). I have a storage bin full of things from when I was a little girl that I am thinking of doing this with. I want to take pictures of everything, make the photos part of a scrap book and then donate the whole thing. I have already begun this process with a few things that were in our living room. The top shelf in the corner cabinet is dedicated to items from our wedding and a few things that seem to fit in with that theme. Our unity candle, ring barer pillow, and flower girl basket also used to be crammed onto that shelf but I have taken them out with the intention of taking some pictures and selling them on ebay. I have always wanted to make a wedding album but we really don't have a lot for decent photos from our wedding. So I think the pictures of these wedding accessories would fill in the space and create a beautiful album.

 The shelf below that holds all three baptism candles and white garments from our kids' baptisms. It also has the missal that was given to me by my parents when I made my first communion. And to the right, Chloe and Shannon's rosaries and rosary book.

 And our family Bible sits on a desk in the corner of the room that you can't see in the pictures. My dad was Stacey's Confirmation sponsor and he gave this to Stacey after his Confirmation.

Now I can truly say that I find everything in our livingroom to be either useful or very beautiful.

Here is one last photo of Athena helping me clean.

Wish me luck as I attempt to complete this same process in every room in our house.

From the Kitchen

I've been trying out a few awesome recipes from Kitchen Stewardship and I meant to take some pictures so I could post them but the food kept getting eaten before I had a chance. We made homemade granola bars. Mmmmmm. And I really want to try making our own yogurt. It is supposed to be really simple and it could save us some money. The kids love yogurt.

But I did manage to get a few photos of my latest gourmet recipe. I call it "Leftover mashed potatoes and vegetable puree". What? That doesn't sound appitizing? Well, Athena begs to differ.

Notebook: Week of 4/11

Language Arts
100 Easy Lessons: 42 - 47
Shannon has been cruising through the lessons now. He really likes the story at the end of each lesson so that is his motivation to get through the first part. There were a couple days where we did two lessons in one day. He wanted to get the book out again in the evenings.

Handwriting
I got out a piece of paper and wrote a line from the story that we read, and he copied it onto the next line. He did it without any frustration. He also came into the office one afternoon and sat down at Stacey's desk and started to write onto an index card with a highlighter. He asked me how to spell one word but other then that he wrote the rest himself. It was pretty small print. Very impressive, Little Man.

Math
I put the book away for now and just started doing practical short lessons every other day. One day we got out a hand full of change and named the coins, gave them values, and added coins together. Another day, the kids were playing with the Melissa and Doug wooden clock so I sat down with them and taught them about the minute hand and gave them a little intro on telling time with hours and minutes. They were both really engaged.

Religion
We worked on their Things We See In Church lap books. They are slowly being completed.

Other
Stacey and the kids have been taking care of the seeds they planted three weeks ago. Here we have our beautiful carrots . . .

. . .  and then the habanero. 

Look at that one crazy habanero plant sticking up. It is quite the over achiever.

Athena's First Birthdy

We had a great time celebrating with Athena's grandparents on both sides, her Great Granny (my dad's mom), her aunts and uncles and cousins. Two sets of aunts and uncles were absent because they live far away but all of the locals were able to make it. We also missed cousins Shelby and Madi who were at their dad's this weekend. We grilled up some burgers and dogs and had a great time with our families. I honestly don't know where the year went. She's so grown up. Happy Birthday Princess!!

And here's Chloe lounging in the sun

The cousins having some good ol' fashioned rolling-down-a-hill-in-a-wagon fun.

And this last one is Athena, the next day, wearing one of her new birthday presents from Aunt Shala. She looks like a little girl! She is a baby no longer. -sigh-

What was the plan again?

So, I planned to get up early again last week and I failed. Last Sunday night I stayed up until midnight finishing the roster for the Engaged Encounter weekend that was coming up. So I set my alarm for 6am but Athena was awake and wanting to nurse and just rather cranky. Monday night I stayed up late again, clipping Sunday's coupons and filing them. And, honestly, I don't even know what happened the next two nights. I spent most of every day clearing all the junk out of the house, separating it, and pricing it for Friday's yard sale. I finally got it all done Wednesday night. A pretty busy couple of days was approaching but I had a plan to get everything done:

Thursday morning: take stuff to Pamela's for the yard sale
Thursday afternoon: clean house
Friday morning: go to old navy for 50% off stuff and save and drop a few more things off at Pamela's
Friday afternoon: make list of groceries for Athena's birthday BBQ and make cupcakes
Friday night: drop kids off with sitter, pick Stacey up, have dinner with some friends, go to the Conan O'Brien show (so excited!), possibly have a few drinks with friends, pick kids up, go home.
Saturday morning: Doula meeting way up north, run a few errands while in town, get groceries for BBQ, go home and celebrate Athena's first birthday with family.

So here's what really happened:
Thursday morning: dropped kids off at Granny's. My grandma just had knee surgery a week or so ago and my mom was over there helping her with things while she recovered. I took my stuff to Pamela's and came right back. That part of the plan worked great.

While I was out, the lady from the furniture store called to let me know that the bunk bed we wanted to purchase had come in and was ready for us. Dang! I knew this was the last day we would be able to get the bed until next week and  really wanted to set it up. So I called Stacey and we set a plan for him to come home early on the bus and then take the van to the store while I stayed back with the kids.

This is where everything derailed. At around 5pm, I was watching some mindless TV and waiting for Stacey to get home until I thought I should probably get up and put all the seats down in the van so it would be ready to go. I stood up and immediately felt sick to my stomach. I laid back down on the floor for a minute, thinking I had just stood up too fast. So I tried to get up again. Same result. I pretty much just laid there hoping whatever it was, was temporary. I kinda crawled up the stairs and made my way to van, and mustered up enough energy to get the seats down. I then went back to lying on the floor for another hour and a half while Stacey went off to the store.

By the time Stacey got home I was feeling a little bit better. I got up and made the kids a very late dinner and helped Stacey put the bunk bed together. So cute! I then cleaned the entire kitchen and went to bed. Stacey and I had decided that it might be time to start weaning Athena, at least at night. Her frequent night nursing was really starting to wear me out. So Stacey took Athena to the guest room to sleep with him while I went to bed in our room. The theory is that when she wakes up, Stacey will comfort her back to sleep, instead of my breasts doing all the work.

When I walked into our room to go to bed, I suddenly felt sick again. I was hot from cleaning up the kitchen but I was also shaking. I started to read a book but couldn't keep my head up any longer. Suddenly I felt like my left breast was engorged. I thought, "Now this isn't supposed to happen yet. I've only just left Athena a couple of hours ago". I tried to fall asleep but I was shaking and sweating. I don't really know how many times I fell in and out of sleep but I heard the baby crying and thought I should go down to her as it would help the pain to nurse her. I walked down the stairs, shaking the whole way and realized I now had a whole new pain: a headache. I got into bed with Stacey and Athena and started nursing. Oh my word. I cannot articulate the pain. My entire body was aching and shaking but I recognized the true epicenter was my chest and my head. I was now convinced of two things: I had mastitis and I wanted to die (just a tad dramatic I know). And there was nothing I could do about it until the clinic opened. Even though I have never had it before, I have been a doula and a childbirth educator long enough to know what it is and what the symptoms are.

Stacey got up at some point and started getting ready for work I think. It's all a blur. I know he came and got Athena at some pint and said something about catching the 6:30 bus. And I yelled out, "Are you crazy??!!  I can barely move!! I'm sick!!" And then I fell asleep for another 45 minutes. Stacey looked up the clinic hours for me and I went in at 8am. I was home by 8:30am with a diagnosis and a prescription. I finished the room assignments for the Engaged Encounter weekend. We all got in the car, went to the pharmacy, the post office, Starbucks (heck yes I still go to Starbucks when I feel like death), and then we dropped Stacey off at work. I actually felt okay when I wasn't moving. We then went up to the retreat center to drop off the final roster and the room assignment sheet. And then we went home. I tried my best to just sit in one place while I waited for my mom to come over. I made the kids cereal for lunch. They were pretty stoked about that. My mom showed up at about 1pm and I went to bed. I couldn't really sleep but just being able to lie perfectly still with a heat pad was very helpful. Oddly, the pain that was really bugging me then were my legs. I think it was from dehydration and shaking all night. So I kept the heating pad on them to try to get the blood circulating. At 3ish, I returned some phone calls and started getting ready for dinner.

The rest of the evening was awesome, in spite of the pain in the entire left side of my body. My fever and headache were gone and I stayed hydrated so I wasn't in terrible shape. I was pretty tired from having not slept all that much the night before. Conan was awesome. The entire show was very well done. Hilarious! We did go to a bar for about a half hour afterward but I was beat so we headed home. I slept pretty great that night. Athena and I slept in our room alone so we could have more space and I could be more comfortable.

The next morning, I was off to a meeting of the Inland Northwest Doula Network. Of course that went on longer then I really wanted it to so I didn't get home until 2pm. Luckily, I had already enlisted my mom's help. She made Athena's birthday cupcakes and she came over early with my dad to help me with last minute details. Shannon had a soccer game in Spokane so Stacey took him to that. We didn't know the time of the game when I scheduled the BBQ.

The rest of the afternoon was a great time and it all worked out. Thank God for my parents. This was the first time, in my three years of being a stay at home mom, that I have been sick enough to keep Stacey home and be completely out of commission. I just can't believe how much I have been set back just from a day and a half of illness. I'm convinced that moms should simply not get sick. Or we should be able to call in a temp when we do. That would be awesome.

Easter 2010

I can't believe I haven't posted any Easter pics. Well, I didn't get very many but here's a few.

The kids had a grand time looking for eggs in Mema and Papa's front yard. Stacey was in charge of getting the kds dressed that morning and I must say he did a fabulous job.

Well, that's it. I really need to get better at taking the camera out more often.