Friday Funnies, Part 1

I have a confession to make. . . I am a pack rat.  Among the many things I save are those funny pictures I come across on the internet.  They are by no means original to me, or new - you have probably seen them before.  But, since they are in fact funny, and I think the world could use more funny, especially on Fridays, I have decided to begin my own installment of "Friday Funnies."  Here is the inaugural run.  Enjoy!

Journal #29, posted a day late

Out My Window:

It is a bit hot for October in my opinion - up in the 80's I think.  We have not had our A/C on for the past couple of weeks and I was too stubborn to turn it on today, but I did turn the A/C fan on to circulate the air some, along with our ceiling fans.

Clothing Myself In:

Jeans, a "work-out shirt" - according to the category it was sorted in by the store (aka a dry-fit v-neck dark maroon/purply colored shirt that I use for dress - don't judge, ok, I like my "dress" clothes to hold up to "daily living") and bare feet now, but I had on my cute sandals for church - although this really was a "dress down" outfit for a Sunday Mass for me.  But I knew I would be wrangling the kiddos alone and I was running short on time this morning.

Around the House:

My dear husband finally built me a VERY NICE shelf on my back porch.  I only asked him to do that about four or five years ago (with very little reminding after the first year or so. . . not all projects get completed around here), so imagine my surprise to walk out and discover it actually done!!  In any case, it lead to a little bit of rearranging and I am soon hoping to add some more hooks so we can have a proper "mud room" for shoes and coats.  This is perfect because we had been keeping them by the front door, but that is silly since we park our cars in the back and always leave through the back door.  The only catch is that the back porch is not heated, but we will still keep our socks inside, so if shoes and coats are a bit chilly, the kids can deal I figure - plus less snow dripping on my floor - win win!

Around the "digital house" I am feeling a little bit of guilt for such a break in blogging.  Apparently the last time I did this type of journal was back in May.  No wonder I only need to print my blog every two years.  Oddly I took only about five pictures in September, too and that is very unlike me, but I'm sure I will make up for it during the winter holidays - as usual.

The Baby:

She walks now. . . although not all the time.  She will now take 10-15 baby steps.  And by that I mean teeny tiny steps.  She is so funny.  She is very caught up on not loosing her balance, but then once she thinks she might, she just falls down on her bum, no sweat.  She is such a silly.  I may be recalling wrong, but I would swear the other kids just tried a few shaking normal-sized steps in the beginning and then soon walked fairly "normal-sized" (for a one-year-old stride) steps right away.  But Zipporah has proven time and again that she will do things the way she wants to do things!

Zipporah LOVES spaghetti, but she uses it like war paint so we have to strip her down to eat.

At mealtimes I like to read books to the children.  Zipporah knows this, so the second I start reading she will start bellowing and then look at me and laugh and giggle.  Usually she stops after a bit, but oh it frustrates me sometimes!  And she knows EXACTLY what she is doing.

Another of Zipporah's favorite games is to hand something to you.  Then you can give it back and she will hand it again.  She will play this back-and-forth bit for hours if you have the patience.  Supposedly that is a sign of good communication skills for a baby I guess.  That does not surprise me, as she is very aware of her place in the family - youngest of six and is much happier when her siblings are around, as compared to when they are absent.

The Homeschooling:

Things are going well for the kids thus far.  We are actually on-target or even a little bit ahead.  Paul has over half of his math done for the year.  It really helps that he CONSTANTLY wants to "do schoolwork."  I mean, ALL DAY LONG he asks to do more.  Now, for Math and Phonics he does really well.  Although he is equally eager for Science and Literature, he is not quite the natural in those.  But he consistently keeps chugging away at it.  Even handwriting does not phase him - he just plows through - and does a pretty good job, too!

Jacob complains he does not like reading, but he does really well in Phonics and when he finally sits down to read he only misses a few words.  I think he often surprises himself how well he does.  He also whines over Math, but mostly just because he does not like writing the answers.  He can find them out fine, but he DESPISES writing.  And getting him to actually write in his handwriting book?!?!  That is PURE TORTURE for this poor little boy.

Samuel and Rebekah both REALLY REALLY like Spelling City for their spelling lessons.  So much so that they are each about half way done in spelling right now - two months into the year.  Generally they do ok working through their subjects alone, with the exception of composition and sometimes Math (if they have trouble with a new concept).  We often work on composition on the weekends.  This weekend Rebekah and I are working on her research paper!  Hopefully we can get all the composition for both Samuel and Rebekah knocked out before Christmas so we can take the spring semester a little easier.

The Kids:

Rebekah is taking on more and responsibility and doing so most gracefully - thank God.  She almost never tells me "no" or gives me attitude when I ask her to do almost anything - usually take care of one of her siblings in some fashion.  She is eager to help me cook and clean.  Often if I am cleaning or organizing, she will ask how she can help.

All the "big kids" (Rebekah, Samuel, Jacob, & Paul) helped build this "turtle."  They were pretty proud of themselves.

Samuel and Rebekah are both gaining more and more cooking skills all the time.  They can both make waffles, Annie's mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, and pudding (from a box).  I also employ them to do various tasks when I'm making the family meals - such as stir this, or flip those, or peel these potatoes!

Jacob is giving me a lot of attitude lately - most of it toward school, but also about some other simple things like brushing his teeth.  Of course, in Jacob's defense he has always been a little more sensitive about some things and brushing his teeth is one of them.  I just recently realized at our last dentist appointment (when I found out Jacob was going to need a ROOT CANAL) that he has been completely ignoring my command to brush his teeth at night and in the morning.  Now I make a point of helping him myself or having one of the older children do so.  I think he is getting better - at least he will attempt on his own, rather than just ignoring me.

Side Note: He did not end up having the root canal.  It was necessary because the dentist had given him a filling the visit before, but it had fallen out and for some reason I had not taken him in to get it fixed again!!  I had the appointment scheduled to get the filling fixed and everything, but for some reason I canceled it and never rescheduled - and for the life of me I cannot remember why now!  In any case, the tooth in question was a baby tooth, so why they wanted to do a root canal in the first place is beyond me.  But when they went to get started the concluded it was too far gone, so they just pulled the tooth and today they put a spacer in (a few weeks after - so it was all healed up) that should allow his permanent tooth to come in fine and reserve its space.

Anyhow, I spend most of my day in an effort to keep Jacob on the schoolwork train and oh my it can be exhausting and frustrating!  Now, let me say first off, he does NOT have an excessive amount of work.  If he gave me a good three hours, maybe four on days we do Science or Social Studies, that would be fine and he could easily have it done by lunch if he tried.  Anyhow, I'm not big into bribes - although I will give a bead for a day's worth of school work completed (and 10 beads gets a prize from our box - which is mostly little lego sets and a few other crafty things), but I am also realistic.  So while sort-of bribing (with the bead) I simultaneously give "consequences" such as if school work is not mostly completed (given to Mom's decision at that time), participation in after-school activities for that evening is prohibited.  So for Jacob that means no Aikido on Tuesdays or Thursdays and no Boy Scouts on Mondays.  This is fine as a motivator, but let me tell you, when he does not get his work done, not only does he feel punished, but so do I - punished as I paid for these activities and I REALLY want him THERE, not at home doing the school work he should have done all day!  It can really be frustrating to say the least, but I just keep figured we need to press on and hopefully he will start to mature soon.

Paul is mostly his energetic excited self about everything - constantly asking questions and always having a comment to make.  Lately he has taken to playing with Miriam and let me say they are quite a pair.  Miriam imitates Paul and the two of them are a tiny tornado of disturbance.  It does not help that Miriam is definitely in the throes of the threes - giving some attitude now and again and still crying and throwing fits rather than using words.  Fortunately she can be reminded to use words and the fits/crying end shortly after.  But Paul really gets on her nerves and I'm not sure if he is purposefully doing it or it is just the way he plays - very active and opinionated about how things go, but he causes her tears quite frequently.  In any case, she is certainly learning to stand up for herself and for that I'm grateful.

In the Kitchen

I recently broke my crockpot while cleaning it.  It slipped through my hands into the sink.  God knows I've dropped it a million times - this must have been the final straw.  In any case, I was about to buy another one when I read the reviews about ceramic pots leaching lead into your food?!?!  While I would like to think it is just a scare, with so many things coming from China and their standards being different and all, well, I was torn as to what to do.  Should I buy a "fancier" (aka more expensive crockpot) that is supposed to not leach lead from the glaze?  Or should I just buy the cheap crock that I've been using for years anyhow and not worry about it?  Well, I asked the question of my online motherhood group and they suggested I get a pressure cooker instead as it can be used a slow cooker AND as a pressure cooker, obviously, AND it has a stainless steel tub.  Problem solved!  Unfortunately it is about four times as expensive, but. . . after some deliberation (and the fact that I had some cashback bonus from our credit card built up) I took the plunge.  I settled on this "instant pot" from amazon.  It has been AWESOME.  This thing cooks stuff SO FAST and SO WELL!!  

For my first dish I steamed potatoes in 15 minutes (well, more like 20, as it had to get up to pressure first) and then made soup with the "soup" button in 25 minutes and it was SO GOOD!  The next day I made steamed apples with cinnamon and sugar - the kids LOVED those.  And I finished out the weekend with chili, slow-cooker style.  It was perfect.  I am eager to put in some roast tomorrow, using the traditional slow-cooker-style and then slowly build my pressure-cooker recipes.  

Thinking about:

Prayer.  Praying with the children.  Praying with my husband.  My own prayer life.  Pray,  pray, pray!

Bringing me joy:

My new "toy" for the kitchen (as mentioned above), Aikido, long runs on nice days, watching BBC Sherlock and Bones with my hubby.

Pictures to share:

   

Nana had brought back crowns for the girls from a retreat she went on.  She requested a picture.  This was the best I could do.  Yeah, I think I failed, too, but maybe we can try again another time.

7 Quick Takes - about Zipporah

As I have not been keeping up on the blogging much lately I decided to just do a quick update on Zipporah as she is the one doing the most changing these days.  No, it is not her birthday or anything, but she is just growing up so much!

1) Zipporah is done nursing (as of about 14-months-old).

This one kinda broke my heart, but she was ready to grow up and move on - she just quit cold-turkey one day and has not looked back.

2) She is ALMOST walking.

She has been cruising on the furniture and standing unassisted for some time now.  She has her balance down, she just needs to give the walking thing a chance.  A few days ago she took two steps and then popped back down to the ground to crawl and she did it again yesterday.  I expect her to be toddling all over soon.

3) Zipporah loves to dance!

We have one of those Leap Frog farm matching toys on our fridge (well, actually we have two of them).  She LOVES to use her long fingers to make Farmer Tad play his banjo.  And as he shares his tune, she wiggles her hips and bends her knees.

4) She often will not let us rock her to sleep anymore.

Once she stopped nursing, Gordie and I both took turns rocking her to sleep.  But now she often is not in a mood for that.  She will not snuggle and be still - she will push up and play with my face.  So she gets put in her crib, but she does not object.  She just calmly lets me tuck her in and watches me leave.  I'm not complaining, just documenting.  She is such a unique child.

5) Speaking of sleep, Zipporah is oddly content in her bed.

Seriously, I usually go get her at about 9am most mornings (other than when we go to 8am Mass, of course) and she really does not complain before that.  If she wakes up, she sits and ponders the meaning of the universe (in silence) or calmly looks over the small bucket of toys I keep near the corner of her bed.  The same goes for her waking up from her naps - often she is awake long before I go in to get her, but even when I have the monitor on, often the only notice she gives to being awake is the slight rustle of her toys.  We definitely won the "baby lottery" with her.

6) She still sucks her thumb some.

Generally she does it to calm down (such as after bonking her head at church) or when she is tired, just before going to sleep.

7) Zipporah has an amazing attention span.

She will sit and play with one toy (or set of toys) for hours at a time, especially if someone is joining her.  Miriam and Zipporah have the most amazing tea parties, and pony parties, and pony tea parties!  She will sit like a little lady and daintily pick up cups or toy food, never tiring of the game.  And if Rebekah wants to play with her, then she is guaranteed to be content for the day.  She really loves her siblings and even from the first day we brought her home as a baby, showed preference to being around them, even in their most boisterous and crazy states!

My Recet Random Recommendations

I have reached a point in my life again where I have opinions about things and recommendations.  So here they are. . . the things that matter to me right now and thus what I have been researching and studying and making decisions about.

Books that help broach and explain difficult topics:

1) Wonderfully Made!  Babies: A Catholic Perspective on How and Why God Makes Babies

This is a wonderful book for an initial understanding of what Chris West so eloquently calls "the one-flesh-union."  It is beautifully written and easy to read (aka short with lots of pictures).  I sit down and read it to my kiddos when they are "of age" (which I feel is my discretion and changes depending on the child).

2) The Ultimate Girls' Body Book

This is a great book for your daughter to read independently and then come to you to clarify any questions she might have.  It covers almost everything I can think of from growing breasts to tattoos and although the authors are not Catholic, they are VERY CHRISTIAN and it shows in their great presentation of the body as being VERY GOOD.  They are also doctors so that adds some credibility to their advice and suggestions.

3) The Ultimate Boys' Body Book

I have a confession here. . . although this book is currently in possession, I have not read it yet.  But I read the one for girls and was incredibly impressed.  I am hoping to buzz through this one soon and pass it on to my oldest son.

4) Good Pictures Bad Pictures

This book covers pornography.  It is written so you can sit down and read it with your child.  It has a great message and plan of approach for the topic.  And I would venture to say this is an important topic to cover BEFORE your children stumble on it themselves and get all confused and other issues potentially develop.  If you are worried about "exposing them" to this too soon, I would not worry about this book doing that.  It is informative and precise, but not explicit.  I think it does a great job of conveying what the concern is and how to avoid it.

5) All Things Girl

This book does a great job of addressing topics for girls in a positive way.  It includes references to the catechism.  It emphasizes many girls' attraction and concern for fashion and social topics - addressing that these are common for women and girls to be concerned about, but then to encourage taking things a bit further - to be Christ to your friends, to focus on prayer, not get caught up in social details, etc.

Bras - for nursing or just regular wear

I am still on this restorative exercise kick.  And part of it deals with the clothing you wear as obviously you need to wear clothing that allows your body to move as it should.  In any case, to be blunt, Katy (my restorative exercise guru) says that your hanging bits are basically meant to hang!  This includes women's hanging bits.  And man has this been a game changer for me.  I kept trying to find the PERFECT bra - that was supportive but not oppressive.  I have since concluded it does not exist.  And instead I have found that bras with LESS support are working much better for me!!  I slowly cut down on my bra-wearing, often going without in the evenings and then lighter support during the day.  Now I still wear a bra basically all day, but it is simply an organic cotton slip-on and it is bliss - pure bliss :)

I buy from a company called "Decent Exposures" and they are awesome.   You order exactly what you want (each bra is custom made) and then if you have any problems, they adjust it for free within the first 60 days and then for a small fee, they will even adjust it after that - up to creating an entirely new bra for you!  (such as if you needed a bigger cup size)  They are so friendly and helpful.  I ordered my first bra, had it adjusted, liked it, and decided to order two more.  Since it was fairly close to the first order they went ahead and gave me a discount for buying three at a time!

The only downside is that since each bra is custom made, it takes a bit for your order to be processed (like several weeks to a month) but I feel it is worth the wait to get exactly what I want.

You CAN get nursing flaps on these, but honestly since they are simply pull-on bras, I just slip down to nurse, easy peasy - no cups to flip, no clasps to find, no boobs hanging out half of Mass because I could not get properly readjusted.  These are the most awesome bras ever.

7 Quick Takes - Random life

1) This is how Rebekah spent a good part of our first official day of school: doing her and her sister's hair!

Later she decided she wanted to look like Julius Caesar:

2) Miriam has insisted on wearing/carrying this backpack around the house - everywhere.

I have no idea where she got this idea.  None of the other kids have backpacks right now.  We are not going anywhere that she might need a backpack.  She has been doing this for about a week now.  I will be curious to see how long it lasts.

3) Rebekah got some new shoes.

She bought them with her own money (they are on sale right now - 50% off!!).  They are Kigo brand (I have two pairs of the same kind - different style and color).  I think they suit her well.

4) We now have rock behind our garage.

Since we own two giant vehicles that we are unable to actually put IN our garage, we would normally park them beside or behind the garage on the grass or dirt at the edge of the alley.  Well, the alley was recently redone as the city replaced the gas lines, so we decided now was a great time to go ahead and rock around the garage.  We are most pleased and parking is so much better.

5) Jacob is now SEVEN-YEARS-OLD!!

Time flies.  In any case, I was lazy for the actual day of his birthday (we had a party with extended family a few days earlier) so he got "birthday cookies" complete with candles.  Great-Mom-of-the-year award here.

6) The National Right to Life is doing a campaign right now called "Can't put a price on Life."

Here is the picture I submitted for them to use.

7) I made it to the Sacrament of Reconciliation today.

All I can say is that NEVER gets old!!  Praise God for forgiveness!

Starting the School Year 2015-2016

Here the kids are after daily Mass this morning, ready to get into the school routine.

(And the kids were actually really well-behaved at church today!  Praise God!!  :)

Without further ado, here is our line-up for this year.

Miriam refused to leave Rebekah's side.  We had to bribe her out of the picture for the next shot.

Silly Miriam again!  She wanted to be in ALL the pictures :)

Pfew, getting these pictures was tough!  Big thanks to Rebekah for helping find the blocks we needed and wrangling the little ones.  Here is to a great school year of loving and learning and learning to love and loving to learn.  God bless us all!

7 Quick Takes - end of summer

1) Zipporah climbed all the way up the stairs today.

She might only be crawling and cruising, but today she decided not only to try the stairs, but go from the basement all the way up to the kitchen.

2) I adapted the chains on the rings for Zipporah.

When I first showed her that the rings were now low enough for her to grab, she thought it was the coolest thing EVER - big smiles.  Then later I tried to help her get to them again (a bit of a challenge as she is still only cruising, not walking on her own) so I could have one of the kids take a picture, well she was not-quite-as-pleased or cooperative.  I will have to try for a better picture next time.  In any case, I can hardly wait until she is swinging on them with abandon.

3) My mom took most of my kiddos for an overnight.

I was able to get a lot of tasks completed for our upcoming school year (mostly cleaning/organizing/etc), but it seems like the more I do, the more there is to do!!  Oh well, school is starting, ready or not!  And a big thanks to my Mom for being so helpful!!  I seriously won the mom lottery with her.  

4) The official start date for our virtual school is next Wednesday, August 19th.

However, we got our books last week and noticed that our lesson lists (on the website) were active on Monday, so most of the kids did at least a few lessons and have basically "started" school already.

5) Paul is in Kindergarten this year.

Paul is VERY precocious.  Honestly he is so smart and articulate and SO READY for school.  I figured he is going to be so easy to teach!  However, after one day of school with him, I am now harboring a little fear for our school year.  ALL DAY LONG he was CONSTANTLY asking me, "Can I do school work now?"  And I was CONSTANTLY answering "You ARE doing school work!!"  or  "You just did three lessons, take a breath!!"  If he keeps this up he will be done with Kindergarten by October.

6) I have an excess of school material and it is stressing me out!

This is such a nerdy problem, but here it is.  Our online school orders new books for each kid each year and there is no way to just order the consumable parts.  So even though Jacob did Kindergarten last year and I have all of his hardback teacher-manuals on my shelf, along with his hardback literature book and all his other soft-cover books (kept in excellent condition), and all of his math manipulatives (of which they send A TON), they sent me all of those things AGAIN - BRAND NEW.  The waste just kills me.  I am trying to resale some of the manipulatives and some of the regular story books, but the teacher manuals. . . how many trees?  I would donate them, but to who?  I'm not even sure how much they are worth without the rest of the curriculum, which is online.  And the worst part is that this is likely going to happen AGAIN and AGAIN - practically every year as my children follow each other in grades.

7) Gordie fixed my camera, kind-of.

So I bought this camera second-hand on our local swap meet.  It was a great deal and it is a nice camera.  (And I was even planning to download the manual so I could figure out how to make it do what I want - go me, right?)  Anyhow, it worked fine for a while (maybe a month) - I took pictures, I uploaded them on my computer, I charged the battery and took more pictures, etc. and then one day, I charged the battery, put it in, and it would not turn on!  I was so distraught and felt terrible for wasting money on something second-hand.  I did not even want to ask Gordie to look at it because I was so ashamed for being taken advantage of (as I have often been in the past - there is QUITE the list of stories, let me tell you).  Anyhow, I happened to be standing by it while talking to Gordie the other day and I randomly picked it up and there was  lull in the conversation, so I sadly told him the story.  He looked at it, took the battery out, put it back in, then took it out and put it back in THE OTHER WAY (why would they make it so you could put the battery in either way?!?!) and turned it on.  My hero.