Our Way of Life

2010-11-05T15:33:00.001-05:00

This has been a chilly day so we've just been sitting here trying to stay warm. Getting some book work done. Going through all of the boys extra clothing. Still need to relay the laminate flooring in the boys room and figure out how to fill it in when I don't have any extra. Should be fun.

I have a goal

2010-10-27T09:18:00.002-05:00

I am sure that people with think I am a tiny bit crazy, and they may be right. I am going up to the college and taking the placment test, turning in my application, financial aid paper work and will be assigned to an advisor which I do hope to be able to talk to for a bit today.

My plan at this point is to complete my AA in the next year, my BA in the following 2 years. A Master's in the 2-3 years that follow and finally that PhD. It is my ultimate goal to complete all of this within the next 10 years. I know it's not going to be easy, what with teaching my own children, running my household and just life in general. But there are people out there that do it everyday. I just have to pace myself and maintain a good balance with working with the children's school work and my own.

When I am done with all of this what will I use it for? I can't honestly say right now. I just know that this is my goal and I am going to do everything I can to make it happen.

I'm going to do it!!!

2010-10-21T17:18:00.003-05:00

I got the ball rolling today and next Wednesday afternoon I will be taking the placement tests needed to enroll at the local community college and finish that AA degree and just keep on going till I feel like I'm done.

I will take the test, be assigned an advisor, turn in my application, unoffical transcripts, my appeal letter for financial aid-I am under probabtion and have to prove myself.

I started this post the other day and had to stop, so now I am going to finish it.

I am going to go back to college and I am excited. I know it might seem silly to sit here and say that I am going to go to school just so that I can go. But honestly that it just what I am going to to.

I can teach my children, do all the things that need to be done here everyday and what??? I am not happy, I need more, I feel like my life is a waste and a joke. You know that part where you are at a party or something and all the other women are talking and then it comes up, that well what do you do? Oh I'm a Mom, and the next you know they all start pulling away from you and you are left standing there wondering what just happened. But the funny thing is, I can't say that this has happened to me or that it would because all of the women I know are just what I am, a mom who stay home and teach their own children. But I need to do this for me, sounds selfish I'm sure. I just feel like at this point in my life, if I don't get this ball going right now I'll never go back. That if I wait till Rachel is done with school-which is another 15 years. That I'll just be to tired and not interested.

I hope to go back and move forward with my higher education and see what happens. Who knows with me going to school and all it might just make my guys move faster and try that much harder. But then again I may find that I get my AA and decide that I just need to wait a bit and go back when they are all a little bit older still. We'll see, but for right now my goal is to get that AA, then BA, then on into a Master's Degree and hopefully a PhD.

But for now I'm off to write my last appeal letter.

Starbucks Pumkin Scones

2010-10-18T13:10:00.003-05:00

Starbucks Pumpkin Scones

Here is it as written. I think that I usually use an entire small can of pumpkin so that would be quadrupling it. And I'm still lucky to have any the next day. This is the one that I am currently using. I do have a second one, just need to find it.

2 cups all-purpose flour
7 Tablespoons sugar(this is the way it's written)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I omit this)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 ground nutmeg
1/4 ground cloves
1/4 ground ginger
6 Tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
3 Tablespoons half and half (I just use milk)
1 large egg

Sugar Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar (again it's written like this)
2 Tablespoons milk

Spiced Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/4 ground cinnamon
1/8 ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves

1. preheat oven to 425 degrees F
2. Lightly grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper
3. combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large mixing bowl.
4. with a fork, pastry knife, or food processor cut the butter into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly and no chunks of butter remain. Set aside.
5. in a seperate mixing bowl wisk pumpkin, half & half, and egg.
6. fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. form the dough into a ball.
7. pat out dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 1-inch think rectangle(about 9 inches long and 3 inches wide)
8. use a large knife to slice the dough into three equal portions. Cut diagonally to produce 6 triangular slices of dough.
9. place on prepared baking sheet from step 2
10. Back for 14-16 minutes until scones turn light brown
11 place on wire rack to cool

Sugar Glaze directions
1. mix the powdered sugar 2 Tablespoons milk together until smooth
2. Brush glaze over the top of each cooled scone.

Spiced Glazed
1. make up the sugar glaze and as it firms add in the spices, mix together until smooth
2. use whisk to drizzle over scones.

I have tried the plane glaze it was ok, I might add a touch of vanilla next time. As to getting these into that 9x3 shape and making triangles, nope I'm lucky to get it into what ever shape, use a pizza cutter and we have scones. They are usually ugly but super tasty.

Going to try to write again

2010-10-17T12:39:00.003-05:00

I find that when I get on here I tend to babble. I tend to keep my journal the same way. I may start with one topic like school and then the next thing I know I am talking about building a house or what the best recipe for pumpkin scones are. So I really want to try and stay focused on my topic, which means I suppose that I could end up blogging 10 times a day. Or maybe I just write drafts of what I really am talking about and then I just cut and paste what I'm saying.

School we are behind, really behind. There is a lot of attitude, laziness, and just "I don't want to do that so I'm not" going on here. And I'll be honest they out number me and I give in to them instead of fighting. When I know this is the fight I need to be willing to fall onto my sword for.

Organization-well it's a slow process here. I think I want to do this, but then that seems like a better idea. Take clothing for instance I have 6 boys=lots of clothing. LOTS of clothing. So much so that I really shouldn't need to buy any thing for anyone except maybe for under things. Well I do need to add to this mountain of stuff for Thomas as he is the oldest and all, but the others shouldn't ever need anything. But then again there is a problem I have a healthy solidly built boy(I do not consider him to be husky), then I have a reed thin, very slim boy, another healthy normal body style, back to that thin very slim, then another normal, and the last normal within age/size ranges. How do I keep clothing for these guys? I buy for Thomas-the oldest, Aric the first slim, Matthew second slim and yet Aric's hand me downs are usually too big. It's a mess. So right now I am at a loss as to save? pass on to others outside of our family, or just buy when they each need stuff. And then of course there is Rachel, being the only girl we have to shop for her as she has nothing and with my sister in Germany it isn't that easy to for her to pass down. I am going to send her a huge box of stuff for her son though.

This is really dumb, no one wants to know about my life or what I am about. BLAH BLAH BLAH. wall flowers are meant to be ignored.

well time sure flies

2010-06-26T11:11:00.002-05:00

Nothing to add on the schooling front, as of what we've done, other than to say we've been on vacation for a while, and will be on one for atleast another two weeks or so.

I am planning to start back with Math on 12 July and slowly add in all of our other subjects.

We are currently planning a week long visit to family in FL, go to the beach and a few education field trips. I am so excited myself to walk on the beach again that I can't stand it. When you live close to the beach you just don't go, but once you're away from it it's all you think about doing.

A preview of what our school you will look like is this:
T-will be working on Sonlight Core 6 Intro to World History in depth part 1,
A & N-will be working on Sonlight Core 3 Intro to American History part 1,
M & J-will be working on Sonlight K which at the moment what we study I'm drawing a blank on. Which is sad because I've gone through it several times.
C & R-will be doing Sonlight 3/4 and Before Five in a Row, which is a lot of good picture books and a lot of fun.

That is just a base over view of what we will be doing because there is also Science, English, Math, Typing, Piano, Artistic Pursuits, French and P.E. going on here too. I am also planning on doing at least two big field trips a month.

In my about me box I mentioned that we are looking to relocate over to Georgia and that is true. As much as I love it here as far as the openness, the space and the quiet-no trains, little traffic, no planes. There just isn't anything here for us as far as homeschooling. We don't have any close friends, because there aren't any children around us. I thought we had found a church but we haven't. We are far from everything and honestly I am tried of giving my money to Wal-mart only to go back the next trip and not find what I need, that they had the last time I was there. And that is just part of why we are moving.

I am going to try to update more often and a good bit while we are on our trip. Should be fun from my phone but I'll get into a routine.

Updated the photos on here

2010-04-19T18:59:00.002-05:00

I was sitting here looking at my blog thinking I needed to finish the post from Sat and begin todays, when I realized that the photos are really old.

So I went through everything I have and changed most up them. I really need a new one of myself, but I really love the one that is there. I also have a great one that my sister took when she was up from FL that I want to get on here, I'll try to put it somewhere on here later.

I'll try to see if I can get one of the boys to take a new picture of me tomorrow if it's nice out.

Today was a wash out

2010-04-14T17:54:00.002-05:00

Thomas has his eye exam, I had my nails done-yes I know it's the only thing I do FOR ME. I dont even get to take a shower without little people coming into the bathroom to talk to me.

So anyway after the hour for his appointment, run him back to my Mom's eat some lunch, then to my appointment, get back to my Mom's. I bought a McDonald's Frappe for me because I had a headache-still do too. Talked to Mom and my Grandma for a bit, then loaded everyone up. Well that Frappe, was helping but I was full so I handed it to Thomas and said to pass it around. Well Noah went to give it to Matthew and he dropped it all over the floor in front of him in the van. Had to go find a carpet cleaner thing, so I could scrub it out. A milk based drink in the van in this weather would be nasty by tomorrow. Then we had to go through the car wash to get the yuck off the van, my poor van's paint is pealing all over it and I'm trying to keep it looking nice till next year when hopefully we can get a bigger van.

Ran to the post office in Hamilton only to find that because it's Wed, they closed at noon. Never mind my post office is still open till 4. I got there and mailed Mom's letter, and came the rest of the way home.

I've been working on the bills since, and not sure where it all goes so quickly. The boys have 4H Archery competetion on Sat in Anniston and they all really want to eat at Sonny's BBQ which is a place that we used to eat at in Florida probably three times a month. Not sure yet but I'm thinking about it. Rachel and Caleb both got their naps in on that ride home, which is always a good thing.

I just wish that I would stop getting these headaches.

Tomorrow is a new day, I am going to Tupelo tomorrow for free Starbucks coffee, some much needed supplies from Sam's and boxes from Uhaul. My plan of attack is to tackle one room until it's done. I'll probably start in this room, there are two bookcases, a couch, a closet full of who knows what at this point, the cedar chest, and a good bit of school stuff(which is really in every room) and the filling cabinet. I plan on making this my temporary bedroom. I still plan on redoing my bedroom, but really need it empty to do what needs to be done properly.

Plus somewhere in there they will get at least one math lesson done each and some reading. That is my plan for tomorrow. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Sitting here tonight working plans

2010-04-09T01:21:00.002-05:00

and future plans and that dreded four year plan for the oldest. I know he's go a couple years yet before we actually get there but it's better to plan ahead than to hit that wall without a clue as to what's going to happen.
I know what we are going to do for most of it all, it's just the getting him to do it. It seems like for me that we get going on school work and things are going great and then something happens and we stop the daily routine and then it's weeks before we get back to it. This has got to stop. We are not going to be getting ahead in life if we can't do a normal month of school without falling off the wagon.
So starting tomorrow we are going to make sure and post at least one photo of what we did in our school day.
We are going to be working though Sonlight Cores 3/4, K, 3 and 5 with LA for K, 3 & 5, Science for all of them plus atleast 4 different maths-I think, might only be three.
Then the biggest thing I have is how to work this, littles first on up or get them going on different things so that I can spend time with the littlest two and keep them close at hand? You would think that with 7 children and homeschooling since the beginning I'd have this all figured out by now but I don't. I'm still working on it, I'll get it hopefully before Thomas graduates.

Off to bed for now, with a new post and a photo of tomorrows, well todays activities.

I suppose I'm not really good at this blogging thing

2010-03-31T19:40:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a while been pretty busy doing not really sure what.

Richard was home for his R&R and we did this and that and it was time to send him back. He should be home sometime soon.

Thomas got his braces on, well the top ones, we should be going in and getting the bottom teeth on the 12th. Pray for our Orthodontist, he fell two weeks ago and is still suffering from a concusion.

We should be, as long as everything goes ok be getting a new to us vehicle this week or early next week. There is a probably with the Air and they are supposed to be fixing it.

I've been looking at other houses to buy and well we just honestly don't have the money to move and all that so instead my idea is to add on rought 525 sq ft on to the front of the house. This will make the two front bedrooms larger and enlarge the livingroom. In that I am seriously hoping to be able fit a bathroom to one of the rooms to make it a master suite and if possible make a jack and jill bath for the children. I'd love to make three rooms down the one side of the house with the bath, but I think I would just end up with really small rooms and not sure I'm wanting to do that. So tomorrow a guy is coming out to give me an price for the concrete footing, the older boys and I will do all the prep work. I did get the price and amount of concrete blocks and mortar mix I'll need for the foundation wall. Just need to double check the height for matching the house and the porch. Since we are going to be doing this ourselves and as the money is available it will be long project but worth it in the end. And hey at the end I should be a bit slimmer. LOL!!

Still looking for a second mower or a nice used riding one. I am also in the planning and works stage of moving lots of rooms around so that we have a better flow to the house. Lots of people in a tiny house on a full time basis is getting rough on me. I feel like there are days when I can't turn around without a little person right behind me. I know that these days are precious and will be gone much too soon, but can't I go to the bathroom for two seconds alone. I love my children!!!!

So I am hoping to get up a few pictures in the next few days and then keep a photo and written journal of what I am doing and how it's going.

Off to go sit outside for a bit to see if there are lighting bugs out yet. It's been so warm the past couple of days they just might be.

Debi

Haven't posed in a very long time

2010-02-07T17:36:00.002-06:00

Have had some illness going on and with a large family it takes a while to get rid of things.

Noah got his hand broken when his brother Matthew jumped on him, we'll see about getting the cast off on Tues.

Thomas goes for a consult with the Orthodontist on Wed, we tried to do this same appointment two weeks ago. We live over an hour away we left early got into the town where the Dr is and I get a phone call saying that the Dr wasn't going to be in today as he'd been sick for the past three days, what I say but I'm already here in town! Well she said he just called as he doesn't start seeing patient until 9:30, uggg I was so upset, but hopefully it will be worth it this week, as Thomas will more than likely be the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the Dr as I've got a really strong feeling that I've got many more that will be needing braces.

We have been trying to stay warm this year and boy it's hard, it has been so cold here and wet. I almost wish that we at least had some snow to show for it, but we don't barely got any when they did say that we were going to get some.

I've been in prayer over some concerns that I've had for a while now and I feel that I am starting to hear or see answers from him.

Coconut Cake

2009-12-01T20:02:00.003-06:00

Saw this today on Mennonite Girls Can Cook and well it just looks wonderful. So I bought all the ingredients I didn't already have here and plan to make it tomorrow for our supper tomorrow night.
We briefly attended a little local church and there is a wonderful lady that makes a cake that looks very much like this one. I can't wait to find out if it is like her's.

I will post my own pictures once it is done.

A quilting blog that is what dreams are made of

2009-11-23T22:11:00.002-06:00

So I found this great blog on a forum that I frequent. I don't know that I will ever have a craft room that looks as good as her's but goodness it sure makes one dream and plan and dream a bit more.

I also have to say that I still haven't made it to the bottom of the page that I've linked too. But I'm getting there. There is just so much to read and look at.

Enjoy!!!!

Thought I'd share a cookie recipe

2009-11-23T21:35:00.003-06:00

If you read Country Living this is in the newest edition.

This is called Tea Cookie Dough and with this one recipe they give you four cookies that you can make.

I made the one called Roly Polys and they are very good. I didn't have any hazelnuts but will be trying them again with pecans.

So here is the basic recipe:

1 stick of softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/4 flour

beat the butter until fluffy then add in the sugar, vanilla and salt. Then gradually add in the flour.

Now to make the Roly Polys

Preheat the oven to 325.
you need to mix in 2/3 cup finely chopped hazelnts once the flour has been incorporated.
Roll the dough by the tablespoons into balls and place 1 inch apart on baking sheets.
Bake until cookies are firm and just beginning to brown. about 20 minutes. Let cool about 2 minutes. Place 1/2 cup powdered sugar in a bowl, then gently toss the warm cookies to coat. Place them on a cooling rack to cool completely. Toss in powdered sugar one more time to coat thoroughly.
This will make 24 cookies.

A few notes on what I did. I used blue bonnet butter, I don't add salt to anything I cook. I also used fresh ground whole wheat flour. As I mentioned I didn't have any nuts so we just left them out, this time. I also doubled this. Yummy.

Went shopping for winter coats today

2009-11-12T21:35:00.003-06:00

What an adventure that was, I have been watching a really cute one at Old Navy.com but by the time I went order it they were out of it.

So today we went into Old Navy and I found a really cute one for Rachel and a handsome one (only the one I bought isn't a wool blend)for Caleb. And then I found this one (not sure if the one in the store was a wool blend, but I will be calling tomorrow) for all of the older boys that I am hoping Grandma will get them for Christmas as they need nice coats for town and church. They've got a ton of play coats/fleece things to wear here for playing and getting dirty, but nothing that is decent enough really for church.

I also found out that the only line store is not the same as the in person store, meaning what they have on line you may not be able to find in the store if at all.

I would love to find a really good coat pattern that I can use over and over, but until then I suppose I'm going to have to buy ready made things. The wool ones would be wonderful, except for the fact that they have to be dry cleaned. Wool is a wonderful fabric and I know it was the only thing that was used for coats, pants, underthings and socks but how did they clean it so that they were still able to wear it when they needed it?

I suppose I'll just have to wait until tomorrow when I can call the store to find out what the fabric is of the peacoat there.

The funny thing is the whole reason I went in there in the first place was to look at some tops for myself. My sister Julia had lent me a shirt while we were in FL and I really liked it. But I didn't really see anything that I liked. That is when I decided to go see what they might have in the coats for Rachel as she only has a heavy sweater, and since they keep saying it's going to be a cold winter I figured I'd better get her something warmer.

I'd love a new coat, that is a tad bit shorter, I have a beautiful red trench coat that Mom & Dad bought me when we first got to Germany, it is wool and we bought it in a German department store, it still fits and looks pretty good. If you don't count the burn mark on the one elbow. Some friends and I had gone to the local club one night and had to move all the coats, so we could all sit at our table, I didn't know there was a light bulb in the planter thing and my coat sat on it for a good while. When I went to put it on I noticed it, cause it was hot, OUCH, I was so upset, but so great full that the whole thing didn't go up in smoke. I was and am still so very careful with it now, learned my lesson there.

She's two!!!

2009-10-20T19:14:00.005-05:00

Yesterday my baby girl turned two! How did that happen? This was taken by my sister Julia when she and our brother were up from FL on the 1st.
She is getting so big.

Happy Birthday baby!!!!

A post

2009-10-20T02:04:00.003-05:00

The children and I went up to KY last Thurs to see Mary and her girls. We got in around supper time, we all ate chili and rice that she had for us, which was very good. Then the children watched a movie while we ran to Walmart. She helped me pick out a new skirt and two new tops. See I have lost a bit of weight this year and some of my clothes are becoming sloppy because they are too big. Deanna is also currently working on a new dress for me, which I will get tomorrow.
Friday we all, I mean all 12 of us just spent the day lounging at Mary's in our jammies. It was great. Because I know I relaxed and that Mary did too.
Then around 7 or so we ran Ashlee up to church for teen night, it was cold outside. We went back to the house and talked and looked over the school stuff Mary's using this year with the girls. Around 11 we had to go pick up Ashlee.
Saturday the day just flew by, before we knew it it was time for her and the girls to go to a 50th wedding anniversary party. We quickly ran across the street to the bulk store where I got my 50lbs of oatmeal, some cookies, recipe cards and some spices. Then we got back to the house and said our goodbyes.
The children and I made lunch, ate, then packed the van and tidied up a bit. Still feel like I left her with a mess. I'm sorry, and I love you!.
We then headed over to Marion, KY to the Amish community to get everyone winter shoes. They all have wonderful new black boots. Unfortunately because I was rushing a bit, I think Jadon may have ended up with a size that is too small, meaning not a lot of growing room. So we will probably be heading back up there the middle of November to get him the proper size and this pair will more than likely go to Deanna, as they are only a half size larger than what Caleb got. I could save them for Rachel but I think that they do have shoes that look a little bit more girlish.
We left there and drove home, got in around 10pm. Not bad and I also did it on half a tank of gas.
Now to see how well the gas mileage this week on our trip to FL. We leave Thursday morning I'm shooting for 4.30ish as it is a 12 hour drive and I really want to get down there in time for the children to be able to run around a bit before having to put them all back to bed. We are going down for my Grandmother's 90th birthday.

Thursday 1 Oct

2009-10-01T23:58:00.003-05:00

Today I had my routine Dr's apt everything went well, my numbers were all very good. I've even lost 11lb since 1 June. I am working on loosing even more by the time I go in in Jan.

Then we went over to Mom's to visit with Robert and Julia who are up from Florida for a couple more days. Julia took school pictures of the children, several different shots for a family photo, lets be honest in total I think she said that she took over 600!!!! I should think that something in there will be worth using as a Christmas card.

Then Noah and Matthew marched in the Homecoming Parade with their Cub Scout troop, only I ended up marching with them!!!! I havne't walked a parade since high school. My legs are a tiny bit sore, oh well it'll help with that weight lose goal of mine.

Once that was over we still had to go to their soccer game, they lost by one point. But honestly the only team was NOT playing fair. But our referees were not calling anything, so what can you do.

We came home and everyone was in bed rather early for such a full and busy day. I do believe that they are all done.

Today's happenings

2009-09-29T21:12:00.003-05:00

I am really trying to post more often. Monday I think I started a post but then had to stop to do this or that and it now sits in my drafts.

So today I got up, we all ate fresh peaches. Mowed the front yard, I still have the back, the back back, in front of the barn, the orchard, and then we have to rake it all and do it probably once more to make it nice until Spring. Yipppeee!!!

The boys had a soccer game tonight on the one field in our area that doesn't have lights so we had to be there for a 5:30 game, it takes a hour to get there from my house. We went they played really good the boys are getting more aggressive towards that ball. Noah took one in the face from a teammate. I am sitting on the other side of the field and I could see the red splotch on the side of his face. Coach got him to calm down and then once he went back into the game, Noah got kicked in the leg trying to get the ball from the other team. He was having a really rough time. Sadly they lost this game.
The ref that was there was talking to coach after the game and I am not sure but I think one of them was talking about possibly getting some type of Soccer league going if we can pull together enough children to play. Might be something we will be looking into.

Tomorrow we have a trip to Columbus Air Force base & the Library, a run to see Deanna in Tupelo to get some clothes from her that Emily has out grown and a new dress she just made for Rachel. Then we have church tomorrow night.

Thursday I have a very early Dr's apt, then we will probably spend some time with Robert & Julia(my little bro & sis) who are visiting from FL. Then Noah's Cub scout troop is marching in the Homecoming Parade at 5, then another Soccer game at 7. ok I am tired now just writing all that out.

Friday we have a new Co-Op from either 9am or 10am till 2. Then hopefully get to spend a little bit more time with Robert & Julia.

Saturday the older three boys have 4H Archery practice from 12-2, yippee I get sun burnt during that time. but they need the practice. We will do this only until it gets too cold to practice then pick it up again in probably Jan or Feb.

Next week shouldn't be so busy, I hope.

First night of Awana!

2009-09-09T17:06:00.003-05:00

There is excitement abound as we are getting ready to head out for our first night of Awana. All 6 of the boys will participating so it should be a lot of fun helping everyone with their different verses each week.

I will post an update on how things went when I get back home.

I think I might have found a piano teacher.

2009-09-09T06:17:00.003-05:00

Yesterday at soccer practice I mentioned that I was looking for a piano teacher and one of the Mom's said that her daughter-the only girl on the team-has been taking lessons from a wonderful lady in town for the last 8 years.
She just had knee replacement surgery, but this mom thought that she was accepting new students.
So I am praying that she is and that we can get the boys started. They all said that they would like to take lessons so we shall see.

Boys Scouts, Soccer, Art classes and 4H Archery

2009-09-01T12:50:00.003-05:00

So we've added in private art classes, on Mondays Matthew & Jadon will go, then on Tues Thomas, Aric & Noah will go. There are a total 5 in the older boys class and 4 in the younger set. Today was the first class for the younger ones and they each drew an apple. I am impressed with how well they both did. But then Ms. Joyce had them doing shapes and Jadon caught on really quickly, but not Matthew and he was a little bit upset about it. So we will be working on that during the week so that when he goes back next week hopefully he will do better.
These classes are probably only going to be for this semester, then on an individual basis-as in the boys that would benefit the most right now.

The oldest two boys had their first Boy Scout meeting last week and found out that they will be going on their first camping trip this weekend. They are over the moon excited. I am too, but also nervous on how I will be able to get them in a timely manner on Sunday. But we will work it all out.

I am still waiting to hear when the Cub Scouts will be meeting and who their leaders are. So we will got over there tomorrow and see if they are meeting.

Soccer is going really well, they have practice tomorrow night and I believe the first game is Thursday. It was left off of the schedule that I was given so I was a bit surprised when Thomas mentioned it to me. But at least he told me on Friday and I won't be finding out tomorrow.

Our 4H Archery instructor called the other day and I finally got back to her today, and she is going to start practicing this Saturday. So Noah will be the only one to practice as the older two will be camping but that is a good thing as he will get a little more one on one with Coach Kim.
So it looks like we will be doing this till it gets too cold to practice then picking up again in Jan or Feb with the competition in March again.

I am still on the hunt for a piano teacher, praying that we are able to find one soon and close.

We've finally joined a Church!!!

2009-08-30T15:30:00.004-05:00

We've gone to this Church for the past two weeks and I joined this morning. They still have to get a letter from my old Church back on FL.
I asked about the children and the two that have been baptized will have to go forward and join themselves, so that should happen tonight.

Choir practice is at 4:30 tonight and I would like to go and be a part, I am just not sure what to do with Matthew & Jadon, Caleb & Rachel will sit in the stroller for me and then the older boys can sit quietly. But my Matthew just seems to like that when we are in Church and it's not service time then that means RUN!!!. I've gotten onto him so many times, but he still just doesn't seem to understand. But we are working on it and he WILL UNDERSTAND that it is wrong to run in church.

Well I started this after church Sunday afternoon, must have gotten distracted and never hit post.

So I need to add that all of the children went into the nursery and played while I was at Choir Practice, then they sang in Children's Choir, then we had evening Sunday School class, then the evening service. At the alter call Thomas, Noah and I went up and they joined the church as well.

Now to continue praying for Aric to get Baptized and for the others to come forward when they are lead. I also took the 1-3rd grade Sunday School class, and plan on helping with a Awana girls class on Wed. They serve a meal before Awana on Wed nights so I am going to see if we can't help out there as well.

Shelia told me that they were up to something for me along the lines of a few watching the children while some of the ladies take me out to supper. Not sure when that will happen but it just blew me away at the thought that they would do this for me.

God is so good and I truly feel that we are home in a good family.

Do you ever just not have anything to say?

2009-08-28T22:24:00.003-05:00

We are just taking it day by day right now. I feel like I have a lot to say but then once I begin to write it always looks like I am just babbling and not really making any sense.

We are not doing well in the school department right now. No one wants to listen to me, no one wants to do their work on a daily basis, nor in a timely manner. I am dealing with some character issues that are the heart of all the problems-discipline, school work, obedience, respectfulness, just the general I'm the mom and you are the child stuff. But it just all seems to be compounded this year with the lack of getting school work done.

I know that no matter what they don't graduate until I say they do and they have met my requirements but gee you'd think that they would all like to be done around 18 or 19. The other thing I think is that for our family getting a drivers license/learners permit isn't something that needs to happen right at 15 so that isn't even a driving(haha punn intended) force.

We did sign up for Scouts and started Soccer practices this week. We have our first game of the season on the 14th, which should prove to be a very busy day. I had already scheduled my Pedicure for that Monday at 3.30 and it takes about an hour. Then from there we will have to get something to eat as we will not be home. About the only good this is that the game is at 5.30 but over in Fayette, but with us already being in Winfield it won't take that long to get down there. But we will still have an hour drive home. We shall drive around the world by the time we get home that night.

Awana sign up is this coming Wed at Church and then we start that the following Wed night. I do think that all of the boys are excited about this.

I am praying that with the outside influence of Christian men & women from Church, and from Scouting and even the sports that this will give all of them the kick in the pants that I just can't seem to get.

I'm still here, just been quiet.

2009-08-21T13:46:00.004-05:00

Just trying to put one foot in front of the other without stumbling.

We started a new church, ya I know I thought that I had found where we were to go and it is a wonderful little church. But they aren't going to be involved with the AWANA program and that was something that I was really looking forward to.
So we attended this new Church Sunday morning for S.S., church and then evening service. We also went back on Wed night. The Awana sign up is the 2nd with the first night being the 9th.

I have also signed up the three oldest to play Soccer, this will be the last year that Thomas can do anything locally unless state legislation changes in favor of Home Schoolers. They are also going to be participating in Boy Scouts.

So between Church, Awana, Soccer-for now, and Scouts we should have plenty of outside activities to do. But I am still on the lookout for a piano teacher, perhaps we'll find one by Spring.

The sports will change with the seasons, as we end Soccer, we'll go into Basketball, then 4H Archery, then possibly Baseball, then a short break till fall when Soccer starts again. I'd like to find a swim team but that looks to be something that is to far away and with daily practices, which would leave out doing anything else.

I just keep praying that the extracurricular (sports mainly) that the older boys need in order to meet the requirements for the different Military Academies that they are hoping to attended are able to be fulfilled.

Money troubles

2009-07-21T13:22:00.002-05:00

How is it that I can plan everything down on paper so well? But in reality I also end up making a mess. Richard got his first real paycheck last week, I knew what had to be paid, knew how much overage there was.

I had already planned on taking the children to Birmingham for some fun time. Which included Build A Bear, Godiva for me, Chick fil-A for lunch, and that at another location Barnes and Nobel, Franklin Covey-for me, and looking around Pottery Barn Kids and The Apple store. So I took out the set amount and spent all of it and a little over not to bad, I wasn't concerned.

The next day I went about paying the bills that needed to be paid, yes I know I should have paid them first. Anyway we went to town to Walmart, to get some things for school, paint for the dining room and groceries. Here again lies a problem, I spent too much on school stuff that could have waited till the end of the month, and I have since learned that Alabama will be having tax free school days this year, so school stuff really could have and probably should have been put back. I had been in the store for over 2 hours, I know everything in my Walmart-there is no reason to spend that much time in there unless I am getting two carts full of food.

Then we wake to Wed, and finally catch Richard on line, guess what, he let's me know that he took out money a lot more money then I remember ever talking about, so much money in fact that I shouldn't have gone to Birmingham. Ugggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg how many g's can I put there?

So now I sit here with no money for the next 10 days, had to borrow Matthew's birthday money to put gas in the van and I feel like a fool. I love my husband very much, but why does it always seem that when ever I try to treat myself to something nice, anything nice it blows up in my face and I feel guilty for doing it?

I was going to go to a spa that is in a really nice hotel at the end of the month, get a message, a facial and just have a dat to myself, let grandma and papa have the children. But I can see now that I won't be doing that this month or any month.

I am just going to pay the bills, get groceries, and what school stuff I need, and make sure that there is always money there for Richard should he need it.

Our school year and what we are doing/using.

2009-07-18T12:54:00.009-05:00

I can't wait to start. Our box can't get here fast enough.

So for this school year we are going to be doing:
Sonlight Core 5-which is a study of the Eastern Hemisphere,
Saxon math on four different levels,
Singapore EarlyBird,
HWT,
Sequential Spelling,
Sonlight LA 5,
Sonlight LA K,
Sonlight Science K,
Apologia Astronomy,
Rosetta Stone French,
Piano-using books that I already have here at home,
P.E. they will do Soccer, Basketball, 4H Archery and possibly Baseball in the Spring. This is the last year that Thomas can do any sports with our community as they only allow them to particapate until age 12 . Because most of the schools are so small that is around 7th grade so they let them play on the high school teams. We can do 4H Archery until they are all 19 I believe.
Bible will be memory verses and AWANA activities.
Art is about the only thing that I don't have, but we might add that in later in the year.
Typing
I also have Sonlight 3/4, and Before Five in a Row for Caleb & Rachel. They will also do Fantastic Frogs for Math, and lots of fun activities to keep them both busy and out of trouble.

We are going to start tomorrow with our Math, HWT, French, Typing, Piano and Spelling. Then next week we will add in most of the rest, I have to wait for the Science book as Mary has it and I still need to order the LA, but I will have all the books.

Core 5 is a very full Core and there is a lot of work to be done, I am already looking at taking at least 10-15 extra weeks to complete this one. We will work until the last Friday in July, I already have most of our holidays marked on the calendar, which of course are always subject to change.

This year with Richard leaving we did take a summer break and it has been chaos. They need to know what is going to happen everyday or they all get into trouble. So we are getting back into our full year schedule.

Praying for a wonderfully productive year.

Been kind of quiet here.

2009-07-18T12:37:00.008-05:00

The children have been sick since we came back from our trip, Rachel had a double ear infection that required two rounds of antibiotics. Aric & Matthew had this sinus thing in their eyes so bad that their eyes would literally run like your nose, it was the strangest thing I think I've ever seen. Thomas, Noah, Matthew and Caleb all also had to take a round of antibiotics. Every time I think that they are better, Rachel seems to get a low grade fever for a day or two, she did this on Wed & Thur but seems totally fine today.

We've gotten the couch moved finally, boy was that an adventure. I had to move the refrigerator in order to make the doorway of this bedroom. I still have to finish painting this room, I am not looking forward to using the oil based primer again but it is needed since there is wall paper glue everywhere and it is very hard to get off, and latex primer will end up with ugly results and have to be repainted.

Thomas helped me pick out the color for the dining room, it is called antique peach and I think it is a Dutch Boy paint, which is a brand that I have not used before so I am hoping for good results.

Thomas & Aric are going to be moving into my old bedroom with Rachel. I am going to give our queen set to Mary and her girls, the bed is only 3 years old and really nothing wrong with it other than Richard and I don't like it. So for a little while the boys will use it, then I will set up the last set of bunk beds in there for the them, and Rachel will use her crib/toddler bed.

I am going to decorate the room for her, but not in a way that the boys won't mind sharing the room. I found some really cute drapes at Pottery Barn Kids, they are a green with white dots and match the back of her quilts, which are also PBK. I love PBK stuff I just wish that is wasn't so expensive, but we do live 2 hours from an outlet so that helps, A LOT!! We did see a really cool rug at Target that I might get, but might not with these drapes we shall see.

I finally have almost everything out of the storage stall in town, still need to sort through all of it. A tiny part of me says to just toss it all on the burn pile and call it a day, but then I feel that I need to go through all of it to see what is there. Stuff that takes up space, that I probably don't need, can't use or wouldn't now anyway.

So this week we are going to finish with the the new living room, I still have a ton of stuff in here but we are going to take it all out to the barn building. Speaking of barns, this fall I plan on going through all the stuff that is up in the barn loft-which should be fun as our barn is old and sometimes when you are up there I really feel like the building is moving ever so slightly. But it needs to be done as I truly have no idea what we have out there. Which is so sad, that we have so much stuff that I don't know what I have.

Finally have an address for Richard, yeah!!! Now we can start sending him boxes, letters and fun stuff. I also found out that I can mail a footlocker to him with a pad lock, it can't weigh more than 70lbs, which I think that right now it might, so we will probably have to unpack it again to lighten it up some.

So that is what I've been up to, trying to get everyone on the mend. Have a great day.

I've begun some of the remodeling.

2009-07-04T19:33:00.005-05:00

I am slowly working on getting our house fixed up, it was supposed to be just for us, but now it might be so that we can sell.

I am working on moving the living room into our smallest bedroom and making this my bedroom too. The two oldest boys & Rachel will stay in my old room, and the others will stay in the room that they've been in.

We took the side rail off of Rachel's crib so that she'd have a big girl bed yesterday and she thought that was just the coolest thing. She did wake up during the night a couple of times, got in bed with me at one point and then I found her on the floor this morning.

So today we go into our new living room, where we've already moved the TV to, but the boys have decided that they still need watch movies on the little TV. But I guess I don't mind too much since Rachel loves to watch Toy Story 2 every day.

My house I'm sure that I've mentioned it before has wood walls, not over anything either. Just tongue and groove pine. Why the couple that we bought the house from felt they needed to wall paper everything, the ceilings included, I will just never understand.
While we were in the new living room yesterday, moving stuff around so that we can get the couch in there and get it all set up I decided that I was going to take the wallpaper down and just go ahead and paint this room. The other thing this gentleman did was take drywall mud and filled in the grooves in all of the other rooms except this one, so once the paper was done it didn't really look that bad. But I really want a room in my house that looks fresh and clean, well now it does or at least the one corner from window to window does.

Now all we need to do is actually figure out how we are going to move this sofa sleeper couch. I have a very tight space in the entry of the kitchen, because my fridge and upright deep freezer make a cube, so we are going to try taking the couch and standing it up on end and sliding it that way into the room. Praying that this works. I will say that this new couch, is lighter than the other one that Mom & Dad gave us.

The fun things yet to do are:
trying the mattress that is in this couch and how comfortable it is
deciding if I'm going to take my comforter and pillows back & forth every night
getting a small area rug for the living room for the children to be able to lay on
putting up mini blinds and curtains to help keep the room cooler
adding more shelving that runs the length of the room to make better use of storage-I've seen this many times at IKEA
the biggest thing I think will be how well Rachel does with me not being in the room with her, she won't be alone yet but it's not Mama.

Tomorrow we are finally going into town to get a new roller, paint thinner, some different paint chips to look at and see what I like and don't. As much as we need the rain I am hoping that the sun will be out at least for a little while, while it is on that side of the house so that I can see what the room looks like, because as much as it does look nice I am not really sure that I like it. But is temporary until I get in there tear out the walls.

a brain storm

2009-07-02T13:10:00.004-05:00

So I am sitting here trying to gain as much information about the great state of Texas.

Yes, while we were out there we really liked it, a lot. Liked it to the point that we are now talking about moving out there once Richard gets home next year. I do have my work cut out for me as the Dallas/Ft Worth area is huge.

The weather was wonderful, yes it was hot but for this Floridian it was a different hot, I personally enjoyed it, but not the hot in OK it was terrible. The heat here in AL is bearable but somewhat like FL hot, I guess there is a lot more humidity here. I am thinking that maybe we weren't really outside in the heat and that is why it didn't seem all that bad. Maybe I need to run out there in the next couple of weeks to see what it's like now or next month.

So my point here is today I thought about the idea of buying a pop up camper, I think that it would be a good size for us to start with. It would probably be cheaper to buy a camper, live in camp grounds while looking for a new home.

I began my search on line for pop ups and what they cost and sleeping space and well they aren't as expensive as I thought they'd be. I might even go down to the dealer ship I called and look at one or two. My biggest concern is towing weight-and how much stuff we'd be able to take with us.

I have already found one camp ground that is right in one of the areas where we were, not necessarily where I'd want to live but it would make I think a good base camp.

it is time to really downsize and only keep the really important stuff. I am talking down to the prairie schooner full and that is it. Prairie schooners were only like 4X12 and that was all the space that they had to take everything that they needed and that mattered out West. I have always said that as a high school project the boys would build one that works, and hey if we really get into reenacting then we could take it with us and set it up or something, I am sure that there we wagons with the troops just wouldn't use the hoops/rings to put the top on. But anyway I am totally getting ahead of myself.

I really need to get back out to TX so that we can figure out which areas would be the best for us, the biggest being what Richard does for work. If he's going back to OTR and is able to get back on the account he was on, the we have a certain distance that he can be from he place of work so that he's able to come home on his weekends. Not sure how it would work if he's on a different account and all but we will figure all of that out as time goes by.

The best part of this whole thing is that along with schooling the children, trying to keep a tidy home, and the homestead which at this point is a bust-I am down to one lonely chicken which I still need to run over to Mom's, plus church and anything else extra that I decide to add in. I now have a project that will take a lot of time and gives me a goal to look forward too. Which God willing will help to make the days go by that much faster.

Planners-all digital(iPhone), paper or a mixture???

2009-06-27T15:53:00.002-05:00

I am trying to decide if I want to invest in new planner pages for next year or if I should just get the best apps for what I am looking to do and just get really nice journals for the hand writing that I feel I must do daily.

Some of what I am looking for:

Grocery shopping/menu planning
freezer/pantry inventory-to stop over buying
budget pages
bill paying schedule
savings plan
school resources & planning
goals
attendance record
homeschool planner/daily schedule
ideas-for what ever
appointments
trips-and all the necessary info for them
van maintenance
a total inventory of what we actually have

all the stuff that I need to try to keep in one place and not loose.

I know there is a calendar already on the phone and I do use it, but there really isn't enough room for everything that I tend to try and jot in a day.

I was thinking of 2 pages per day that way, I have a small daily log of what we did for school, plus appointments, and just what ever notes. But then I want to be able to get to this stuff a year from now if needed. How can I get stuff off of my phone? I love that I can go back over the years and either pull my F.C. storage binder off of the shelf or a school yearbook/planner down. But I'd like to have them all in one book. I am also struggling between the Classic and full size sheet binder size. I have the classic, but everything else is a full sheet of paper.

I have several different homeschool planners, or software things where I can print out all the pages I need and make my own. Which I have done several times over the years. I just can't decide what I want.

I usually end up with two or three single subject spirals full of stuff-thoughts, bible verses, ideas, planning, just my journal, bills. You name it it ends up in there. But then I also have my planner where I tend to try and write a short synopsis of what we did for the day, even it was really nothing.

I have my bills under control as far as storage and I will be doing that again from now on. But I need a paper or list of what is due and when, where I can look at it often.

I like my phone and I using it all day, but I also like paper and pen very much. What would you do?

Finally, our trip to see Richard

2009-06-27T03:10:00.006-05:00

Well the children and I left around 9:30 Wednesday morning, stopped and got gas at Walmart so we were on the officially on the road around 10. It took us roughly 12 hours to get to Lawton, OK. I don't know why either. But we got to the hotel, I put everyone to bed and hopped in the shower and went to bed myself.

Thursday morning the children were all run through the shower and we loaded up to head over to Ft Sill. We got on post but didn't have a map and I had no clue where anything was, so I went to a building I was told would have one, they did but it really wasn't the greatest. But Richard was in that same building, and he came out right as I was leaving and gave me his map. So we went to the PX, got breakfast at Cinnabon yummy, and waiting for him to call me letting me know that he was done and we could pick him up.

Once we got him, we went to the Commissary for food stuff then got on the road to head to Dallas/Ft Worth. It was a really nice drive, and didn't take to long, there are even parts of the highway over there where you can do 75 mph. Yup it's posted that fast it was cool and yet a little scary. I really can't imagine going that fast with a lot of traffic around.

So we arrived in Dallas and head over to The Central Market, this has to be the coolest grocery store ever. But right beside it was a really nice educational store that I have to get the receipt for because I've forgotten the name, but there are a couple here in AL. The Central Market is only in TX. I don't even know how long we were in that store but it was late, so we headed to our hotel and then I made our supper-hummus, turkey, cheese, sprouts, carrots all in a wrap. They were very good. The children started falling asleep and we called it a night.

Friday we got up, headed to the mall to the Build a Bear, and began making our new family members. We didn't do the voice recordings in the ones for Caleb and Rachel because they didn't have any and the truck hadn't arrived yet. So Caleb got a frog and his name is Hopper Rachel got a kitty and her name is Francis. Then the voice things arrived and they boys had picked a puppy for Richard and they said "we love you Daddy" and we put that in Georges paw. He will be traveling with him for this trip. I plan on sending him more clothes so that he can have fun and send us pictures.

After we were done there we headed over to IKEA, we looked at everything, ate lunch, looked around some more. The boys that were able to went to the play place for an hour, while we looked some more. I have no idea what time we got there but it was almost 9 when we left. Before we left that part of town we also went into The Container Store, which was a great place. A lot of organizational type stuff, like the bag said Contain yourself!

Then it was time to go back to the hotel, fix supper and baths. We had very late nights the entire trip.

I have to mention about our meals, we were on a tight budget this trip, so we had really only had two hot meals and those were the meatballs at IKEA, so yummy and the chocolate cake. Anyway we had turkey wraps with three different types of sprouts, hummus, some really good dill mustard, nice spicy cheese, shredded carrots. We also had lots of fresh fruit, fresh baked bread, some cookies that I am going to try to make here-Cranberry w/pecans they were so good.

Saturday was our lazy day, we watched Discovery channel most of the day. Rachel and I took a really long nap. Then I think it was around 5 we went to Target and Sam's. Caleb and Rachel got new summer sandals. I got some really cute flip flops that are really comfortable. We went back to the room with our stuff and had supper and pretty much went to bed.

Sunday we went back to IKEA for a few hours, ate dinner there, decided on Rachel's bed, mattress, which colors of BIlly bookcases I'm going to be getting. Tried to figure out which cabinet face we liked, and counter tops. When we weren't able to really look at anything else we left there and went back to The Central Market. We got more yummy food, looked at all the stuff that we missed the first time, which I think that there was still more stuff to see. Then it was back to the room for supper.

Monday it was time to head back up to OK. So we cleaned the room, loaded the van and got on the road. When we got back, there was a bit of a grassy area in front of the building Richard was living in with a nice gazboo, so we just let them run, play and be out of the van for a few hours. Richard washed all of our clothes, while they were all playing. Then it was time to get to the hotel, where we had supper. Caleb and Rachel got the bath given to them by Daddy. Everyone was wound up so silly. But then it was time to run him back to post, we took some silly pictures before we said our goodbyes and then we went back to the room. I talked to him for bit, but Rachel was being silly and wouldn't go to sleep. So I had told him I'd call him back, I didn't cause I feel asleep. So I called him in the morning and we talked for a little bit. Somehow the bag of socks I had taken out with me got left in the van so I ran those over to him, we didn't get to see him which is probably a good thing because Caleb was having a hard time of it. When we had left the night before he kept saying we never ever never leave Daddy, over and over. I had to keep telling him that yes we do because he's going to work.

After giving him well his buddy Roland the socks we quickly got on the road home, even though the trip seemed to take forever to get there it went rather quickly coming home. We really only stopped 4 times maybe, potty, gas and that was it.

I got home around 10.30 I think, got the really important stuff inside and then we all went to bed.

Over all it was a wonderful trip, stressful yes but I think that was mainly because we weren't home in the van so much. But in the end it was so great to spend time with Richard for the children to be with their Daddy and to make those special memories that I hope they don't ever forget.

I will come back and post some of the few pictures that I have. Don't know what I was thinking in not really taking pictures.

He's on his way.

2009-06-27T03:09:00.002-05:00

Just got a text saying that they are outta here. Not sure when I will talk to him again, praying that it will be soon.

I love you honey. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Our trip is upon us, and I don't want to go......

2009-06-16T20:36:00.004-05:00

Now don't get me wrong I really really want to see Richard, because he's my husband and I love him very much.

But at the same time I don't want to make the drive, deal with being in hotels for the next 6 nights, having to eat out for all/most of that time, lots of driving in strange places.

I am regretting not just trying that much harder to find a flight for him to just come home and we go do something around here.

MMMM I wonder if he couldn't still rent a car and drive home or hey what about if he just drove half way??? I know he probably wouldn't and couldn't as they were supposed to have all of their travel arrangements set a week ago, but ya know what things happen and plans change.

The biggest thing is I don't want to say goodbye again. That is the hardest part of all, saying good bye. It will be a long time before we get to see him again, probably Feb or so.

I am praying that I am in a much better mood in the morning when we leave because right now I am really not looking forward to making this drive, and it's making me feel terrible.

Pray for me please.

Our trip is mapped out, but always subject to change.

2009-06-13T02:07:00.003-05:00

The children and I will leave here on Wed, drive about 5.5 hours and stop. Prayerfully I'll be able to find a park or something where they can go run and play and express some of the energy that they will have all stored up from sitting in the van that long. Now don't get me wrong, my children travel wonderfully, I have the greatest bunch when it comes to riding in the van. It's just once we get there they really do need to run. Thurs morning we will begin our way over to OK for final 5.5 hour drive, where would should be able to find a park somewhere on Ft Sill for some more energy release. I still don't know what time Richard will be able to sign out for the weekend, so I will have to find stuff for us to do until we can get him.

Once we pick him up we are heading down to Dallas. We will probably just go straight to our motel for the night depending on the time.

Yes, we are going to the big city, to go shopping at Build A Bear where we are going to make some animals for the two youngest so that they will have something here to love on while Daddy's gone, and we might even make something for Daddy to take with him. Then we are going to go to IKEA and really look around, I do hope that this store isn't all that different from the one in Atlanta. Because then I would get confused and the one in Atlanta is a whole lot closer to home. But we are on the search for a big girl bed for Miss Rachel, as she keeps climbing out of her crib and I am afraid that she will get hurt. So time to move on and then since I don't really want to buy a toddler bed and then a twin bed later we are looking at some that are toddlers/twin. Yes, it may mean having to get two mattresses but I think that is going to be cheaper than a second bed, but we shall see.

Then we are going to go to a grocery store, in Richard's civilian job he's a trucker. Gone for two weeks at a time, home for Drill and one family weekend a month or that is what it is supposed to be but anyway I digress he has a run that takes him out to Haltom City, TX and Central Market. He often says "some day I'm going to have to bring you out here, because this place is so cool." Well Honey here's my some day, we are going to look at all of the very cool produce, cheeses, meats and just everything. Then after that I have no idea what we are going to do, besides probably head back to OK and say our farewells.

At this point I think he's going to take his R&R again around my Birthday in Feb, I am not sure what we will do while he's home but maybe a trip south to FL or something fun. Not that staying home isn't a good thing, it's just hard because then he wants to work and I'd rather just visit with him and let his spend time with his children.

The best part is that while we are having this mini vacation we will also be celebrating Richard's B-Day(12th), Father's Day, Our 12th Anniversary(28th) and we will also be celebrating Matthew's 7th B-Day(9 July) as this is the one birthday that Richard seems to miss the most.
It will be a long trip ending up being over 2000 miles round trip. But it will all be to short, not enough time, to just spend time together.

I know that God is in control and Richard will be back home for his R&R before we know it, then he will be back from this deployment, with possibly a new direction for our family and life.

I haven't been blogging much lately

2009-06-05T14:53:00.004-05:00

I am still in a little bit of a fog I guess, everyday around 2 or so I still need that nap. Like eyes closed and sleep is here, no fighting it. But there have been a couple of days where I've been fine.

We are planning on going out to OK on the 18th, unless Richard tells me different, we will stay till the Tues morning. We aren't really sure what we are going to do yet, but it will be a nice mini vacation.

I finally found my camera it was on the school bookcase on a box but behind a game. So I will be getting some new photos up really soon.

I have been looking at a set of dishes for several months now and the other day I just decided that I was going to go with a different set since it was right there in the store and I wouldn't have to wait and it was a tiny bit cheaper. But once we got home with them and I really stood there and looked at them I knew that they weren't what I wanted. So I ordered the ones I did want, and took the others back to the store. I picked them up at Walmart today, I used that ship to store and it saved me 50.00 in shipping. I have about half off them in the dishwasher, once it's done I'll load it up and get the others done.
While the dishes are washing we've emptied the cabinet and it is all ready for those new dishes. I am going to get rid of all the extra kitchen stuff and only keep what I need and really use.

I have a goal in mind and I am going to reach it.

I will post a photo once I have a place setting washed.

We've said our first goodbyes

2009-05-30T14:19:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was the official farewell for Richard's unit. They had a ceremony that lasted about an hour, then there were refreshments-but we didn't get any. Richard's parents had also gone up and my FIL has over the past three weeks had surgery on both of his feet, the second surgery being this past Tues so he was still in a bit of pain. So Richard talked with them for a bit, then helped him to the car and talked a little more.

Then they left and we had to come all the way home for some important papers that I had totally forgot to bring with. And because of the it blew the entire day. We weren't able to really do much anything else. Came home grabbed papers, turned around and went right back up to find a FedEx box/store and sent them off, then he ran into Sam's for a couple things. Then we ordered Domino's-which where we live is not something we get, well since we've been here in AL this was like the 3rd or 4th time. Then the children got baths and went to bed. Rachel had a very late nap and was not ready to go back to sleep, but finally did. We got about 45 minutes of adult time before he had to run off and finish packing and leave to go back to the unit at 0200. He came back to give everyone kisses and hugs, but since all the children were sleeping none of them remember it, nor do those that responded to him recall doing so.

I talked to him bit ago and they are on their way to OK, if they had driven from AL they would problaby just be getting there.

He is supposed to get 4 days leave while in OK and I will be driving out there so that we can try to do the things we were going to do today. And hopefully just spend some family time together.

In 28 days he will leave the country. His orderers are for 400 days, I just saw them yesterday and I haven't had time to count out roughly when that means he will be back and home. But we are going to make a calendar that goes backwards and tear a page off everyday till he's home again.

The frustrating thing of the day was that my camera is missing and I wasn't able to get any photos of him and the children. But we will find it before going to OK.

Now here is an update of what happened while I was gone.

2009-05-22T03:45:00.006-05:00

Where to begin.

I was going to announce our that we had been blessed again with a new little one due around the beginning of Dec, however that little one was so special that the Lord took him/her home the Saturday before Mother's Day.

After a possible bit of over doing it on Thursday I woke very early Friday morning with some spotting, thought that it was my warning to take it easy. But as the day progressed I realized that was not to be the case. By Saturday morning I knew that this was something I needed to be seen about. So I loaded up the other children and headed to my Mom's. They were all well taken care of by there Papa and other family members for the rest of the day, as we headed to the ER an hour and a half away.

We got there around 10am, were quickly entered into the system and tucked into a back room, blood was taken, the Dr came in and I more or less stated that I wanted an ultrasound to know what was going on. He seemed surprised and had the well it's what it is and that's that. But he had no more than left the room and then he was back saying that there was another mom there and I would be able to get one soon. After that was done, we waited some more, then they finally came in and said that I could get dressed and that the Dr would be in soon.

I was so worried about my Mom eating(she's a diabetic) that I forgot to eat myself, we had had breakfast around 9.15 and it was now 3pm. I was graceful enough to tell my Mom that I was going to pass out before doing so, and I thank the Lord that I was sitting in the chair and not still on the exam table. She was able to yell for help, and I was quickly woken up, placed on a bed and taken out of our little hidden room to round front right off the nurses station. Leads were placed on me, and an IV line was started-to which I still have a bruise almost two weeks later, my head was below my feet, my sugar was tested and found to be normal and I was quickly given fluids.
My OB Dr finally arrived to let me know that our little one was no longer there and I needed a D&C to make sure that every thing was removed for my health.

Over all from start to finish once he said what was going to happen it took 30 minutes. From the Anesthesiologist coming in to talk to me, to going to the OR, to being in recovery and geting to my room. Once in my room I was able to eat a clear liquid meal, get up and walk, and use the loo. Once I did all of those things I was able to go home, however I had forgotten to inquire about the Rogham(I am sure I am spelling that wrong) shot, I am A-neg and therefore need this shot, but the nurse had never given it before, and didn't realize that she needed to get it from the Lab. While in the course of talking about it I realized that I have now had this shot 16 times, since all of my children are Positive blood type I must get it-they do go back and forth with A and O, so twice each for the seven living children and two for my miscarriages.

I went back to the Dr today for a follow up and other than my iron is a little low, I am doing okay. It was a bitter sweet thing though as I should have been there for the ultrasound that would have given us our due date. But the Lord had a much greater need for this little one back in Heaven than here on earth and I will wait until it is time to meet him/her, knowing that He is always right.

We stayed at my Mom's while I was recovering as I was not allowed to drive for 48 hours after and then developed a really bad headache that ended up lasting for a full week.
We returned home on Tues, only to leave and head up to KY on Thursday to see Mary, the girls and Heather, Bryce and Bryce Eric who had come home from PA for the Battle of Sacramento.
This was my first reenactment, and I was going to learn. I am very interested in the War between the States and attending reenactments. So this was a learing trip, to see how much work is involved, what you do while you are there, and living like they did back in 1861.
The children had a wonderful time, the older boys didn't make it to the solders camp like they wanted to, but they did enjoy standing right behind the cannons on Sunday during the battle. They were really loud, but I believe that they were actually louder over in the crowd on Saturday.

There is a good bit of an investment involved with reenacting, the clothing wouldn't be that difficult as the way they dressed back then is very much the way I am dressing us now, or I am working towards, plus I can make most of our clothing myself. I did buy a blouse while there but I plan on taking it apart to make a pattern. I already use cast iron to cook with, dishes are pretty easy to come by, some use china, other use the speckled tin plates. There are several antique stores around where I should also be able to find glass jars, little bottles, and other props to add to our display.

I see the largest expense being the tent and such, but it will last for a very long time and there is plenty of room for our entire family.

Items in the tent would need to be hidden or covered if they were not period.

I fell though that at this point we will continue to attend other reenactments to learn more, work on collecting items for our own use, and then perhaps next year we can camp with Mary and the girls.

We came home on Tues it was very late, Wed we had an eye exam for Aric, Noah and Matthew, they all did so well that the Dr said it would be two years before he would need to see them again. Then today my Dr visit, while we were down in Tuscaloosa we went to Barnes and Noble and looked around. I bought two books for the children to use in school and they all looked at different things. I found a couple new Klutz books that I am thinking about getting, didn't see the one that I was going to get. We headed home with a yummy loaf of Panera sour dough bread, something I have not been able to figure out with fresh milled flour.

Mom and Dad have a couch for us that they are going to try and bring over this weekend if the weather is nice so we have been cleaning up in between all of the running around. There seems to be school stuff everywhere. I also can't find my camera which I really must do, I have a welcome wreath on the front door and there is now a bird's nest now on it, I feel bad that we are going to be opening the door and praying that there aren't any eggs in it yet. I will probably go around and look tomorrow. I hope that they do not attack me, I am going to try to get some pictures if we can find the camera.

Of course because of all the medical issues and traveling the grass is now two feet tall in some places, I really hope to get out there today now that it is so late/early and get some of it cut.
Last bit of news it that Richard will be back in AL on the 26th, but will NOT be coming home as they have more paper work and will be requiring him to stay in a hotel up close to the unit, of course it's not just him the whole unit is doing this, just those that live close by can go home. So this means that we will not get any family time before he leaves on the 30. But once they get to OK he should get at some point 4 or 5 days off, and I am more than welcome to drive out there to see him. UGGGGG the Army just doesn't make any sense sometimes. I am not sure what we will do yet, but I am sure that either I'll head out there or he's going to be renting a car to come home for those few days.

But that is pretty much every thing has happened in the past two weeks. I have missed reading blogs, posting on here. But at the same time it was a good thing to spend time with my family and friends, I did have my phone, but it just isn't the same thing as having a real keyboard.
Blessings to my readers, may the Lord bless you as you go about your day today.

Sorry for any typos or bits that just don't make sense it is really late and I really don't have a clue why I am still up. God bless.

I'm finally back online

2009-05-22T00:04:00.005-05:00

I have been off line for the past two weeks because my modem and new router and house phone bit the dust during the storms we had.
We were very blessed that the house didn't burn down at that time too. The splitter for the DSL was sent flying in about 4 pieces, along with the router plug, the phone plug, the modem box popped apart and the base to the phone burnt the box it was sitting on. My wall was also scorched along with the phone line and jack.
What a mess. The best/worst part was the fact that I just had the modem and router replaced, but this time I also had to buy a new phone too.
But the modem and router were set up tonight and I am back.
So did anyone miss me??

Pre-teens and a camera

2009-04-29T13:56:00.013-05:00

Seems that one young lady that I know and love, got a hold of my camera while we were at her house week before last. This is what she took.

Aric laying on the couch beside Becca.

Jadon playing with his coat.

Thomas making a funny face.

Caught red handed!!!

Ahh the photographer.

Matthew making a really silly face.

Noah and a pretzel that looks a little like Matthew.

I think that there might have been one more photo but really how many do we need of little boys sticking their tongues out at us?

Now this last one I think that I actually took, before I ran off to put Caleb to bed. They were all enjoying the caramel corn that Mary had made earlier in the day. I didn't get any, cause they ate it all.

I am thinking that maybe I should get Becca a camera for her birthday, I do believe that she might really enjoy one.

Some pictures around our place.

2009-04-28T09:20:00.010-05:00

So I went out yesterday and was looking over the couple of spots that my FIL had tilled up for me. I needed this done to plant the blueberries, blackberries and the grapes. I still don't know for sure where I am going to put the blackberries yet, but I have an idea.

I realize that they are way to close together, but at least the ground is broke. I also know that the grass should have been cut super low, than raked up. So I am thinking that we are going to have to have him come back over and do it again, so that the ground is turned over.

It is hard to tell but there are actually 4 plots here.
Thomas and Aric were raking the tops off of these beds.

Here is the start of our orchard, but after looking over at Lisa's blog I see that I need to do the bottom of these trees differently. We just made a big circle around the bases and left them. I did get this mulch mat while we were up in KY and I put it around the plum tree in the front yard, so I might see if I can find more of those locally. If not I will get them up there next month.

We have several different apple, plum, pear, and peach trees out in the orchard. I think one of my peach trees didn't make it through that last frost though. I have thought that I would add more trees next year, but we'll see.

Here you can see what I was cutting, and how much more I have to do. Somewhere down there in the left corner is a pole and a dirt road, that is the edge of our field, the large trees are our wooded area.

This is where the grapes are going and behind that is the garden, I am going to ask a neighbor to come turn this over because it is just too wet to use the walk behind tiller on.

Rachel and Jen

2009-04-27T23:22:00.007-05:00

While we were in KY we went over to our friends house and all the children played with each other but this whom Rachel played with the whole time.

Lovin on Jen.

she is such a great dog.

and then there was the barn cat.

Being crazy lazy today

2009-04-25T15:24:00.004-05:00

I was all set to go outside and get another day of mowing done, but then my FIL called to say that he wouldn't be over as he wasn't feeling well.

I am sore, tired and just totally being lazy and I know that.

I really need to be emptying out a bedroom so that I can move Rachel and I into it. Once that is done. my old room with be empty. What I would love to do is gut it to the studs, which really won't be that hard since my house has wood walls, yes there is actual wood over the studs through out my entire house. Then it was all covered including the ceiling with WALLPAPER!!!!!! But the worst part was since this is supposed to be a tongue and grove type wood, most of the boards have shifted some or something, but the couple that we bought the house from thought the best thing to do was take dry wall mud and fill in the gaps. UGGGGGGG. So here I have this cute tiny house that was built in 1939 that has no insulation, drafty old wooden windows and beautiful wood that has been ruined.

So what's a girl to do???? Why, pull all the wood out, run electrical wire and plugs where needed, insulate, slap in two windows, then drywall, mud, and paint. I can't wait, well except the insulation part and maybe the windows as I've never put in a widow before. But hey, there is always a first time for everything. I will probably have my mom & dad come out to help when I get to that point. I may also only replace the front window as the side one is where I plan on adding a new bathroom, but then I suppose that window could be reused in the bathroom. Need to think about this.

Now that the room is done in my head and life is good, the boys are going to go in there for a while, and they will only be sleeping in my newly remodeled room, but then again I might just move out remodel and then move back in. We shall see.

I am going to put the boys in there and take their room and make it our dining/school/my sewing room, I might even put the tv in there. They have to sit at the table to watch, might not be so tempted to spend the day watching sitting on that wooden bench of theirs. They have two closets in there and they will be great for storage of everything that I don't want them getting into which lately seems to be everything.

We need a larger home, but until the Lord opens the doors on that one, I am going to make the very best of this one. Even if it means getting rid of almost everything.

I have always said that if you took all of the school, craft, and sewing stuff out of my home it would be empty. But in that same thought what ever would I do without it all here.

So instead of doing what I should be doing I am sitting here writing about what I should be doing. It isn't going to get done if I don't get up and do it.

Off to clean some more, I just don't think that I am going to make it outside today. Probably save it for Mon after my eye Dr's apt.

Mowing the grass, part II

2009-04-24T23:44:00.003-05:00

Well I went out this morning when my FIL arrived, see he has a tiller and we don't, and I needed to have some ground tilled so that I can plant my grapes, blackberries and blueberries.

He got here and we went outside and I showed him where I wanted them to go and how wide the area should be, so he made really quick work of that.

Thomas go the new weed eater out of the box and put it together and took off around the house, getting it look nice again. Once he was done we changed the oil in the mower, it was having serious issues with me trying to cut the ditch last night. Doesn't like the angle I guess. So Thomas had what he thought was the oil plug under the mower, but I wasn't sure and well I didn't get what he was point to. FIL came over and showed us, even took out the plug-which was a good thing.

Back in business, I take off in the orchard did a couple of passes and it was already 10:30-who turned on the oven. It was time to stop, at least where I was currently cutting, way to much son for this pale skinned lady. So I went up under my lovely large oak tree, which provided great amounts of shade for most of the day. I worked up there for a while, but still have a good bit in front of the barn, around what was the pig pen, and under the tree-where I have the iron table.

I was finally drawn into the house by hunger and a plan, I am going to move everyone around and put the dining room in the boys room, put the boys in my room and put our room in the third small bedroom, where the dining room was going to go. So I came inside to get started on cleaning out a room, but instead I sat down to cool off and ended up taking a short nap on the couch. Once I woke up I did make it to my room and went through some stuff-really need to get rid of a lot more, vacuumed the corner I cleaned up, and debated about taking another nap on the bed.

Around 5, maybe 5:30 I went back outside as I knew it would be a lot cooler and tackled the orchard. It took me till well after 7 but I got it done.

So tomorrow, I will be working on planting those trees and bushes and perhaps cutting the last bit of high stuff and waiting for the lower stuff.

Off to bed, I am not going to sleep on the couch again. Pictures tomorrow I promise.

Mowing the grass

2009-04-23T23:30:00.005-05:00

I didn't make it outside yesterday, just lazy I guess.

But I did get out there today, and my hands are killing me. I have a brand new weed eater push mower. We had one last year too, but Thomas didn't check the grass and killed that one before it was a month old.

So today I went out around 4 and started on the back side of the house, there is at least an acre of land just around the house. I normally cut a little go work on something else come back and so forth. We not tonight, I went out there and hit the back yard, then did the side yard, then the front yard, and then had started on the ditch. UGGGGG my palms are very red and sore. We had to run into town for oil for the mower and to get a new weed eater, the one we have is dead.

Thomas will run it around the house and other places where I just can't get to with the push mower. I am hoping that Thomas will be able to get the riding mower put back together so that we can use it too.

But until then I am looking at a self propelled mower in the hopes that it won't hurt my hands so much.

Off to bed so that I can get up and cut another two acres or so, and then plant some grapes, blueberries, black berries and the last of the fruit trees.

Shelling popcorn for the first time.

2009-04-22T21:32:00.019-05:00

Rachel was hard at work when we first got there.

Jadon taking his turn, it was very windy and chilly the day we did this.

Matthew was giving it his all in turning the handle. Becca was watching to make sure that he did it right.

Thomas and Aric are taking turns at the shelling machine.

Caleb was stretching to reach the top to put an ear into the shelling machine, while Noah was turning.

Caleb and Ashlee picking up some that had fallen out of the pan, this was just part of what we did and then some that was already shelled when we got there.

They all had a wonderful time and thought that it was pretty cool to make popcorn. It was very windy and chilly on Monday when we did this. The best part was when we got back to Mary's and we tried 4 different caramel corn recipes, yummy. The children didn't really care for the Gingerbread caramel corn, but they all enjoyed the regular kind. So much so that I didn't really get any. Oh well we have plenty of popcorn here at home, plus we even took some still on the cob.

Back home

2009-04-22T09:16:00.006-05:00

We made it home yesterday right around 4, which means that even though there were a few stops that I thought took a little to long didn't.

But now I must tackle the yard, the grass a grown a foot. Well it looks like it has grown a foot.

Still have plenty to plant and and getting the garden started.

Off to work outside for the day.

Blogging from KY

2009-04-20T01:20:00.005-05:00

The children and I have been here at Mary's for almost a week now and having a blast.

Sadly our time is almost over, we are heading home on Tues.

Here are some of the things that we have done:
went grocery shopping-had to stock the pantry for this large army.
tried to mow the yard-Mary hit a rock on the second day and the mower is now at a friends house getting fixed.
made a new skirt-Mary did this, Ashlee needed one, but Mary cut it in a way to make it hang on Ashlee in a certain way that it ended up being my size and would have produced a large waste of fabric, so I bought zipper and now have a great new skirt.
patched up wholly jeans-seems that all the jeans that they packed needed to be fixed so that they could attend church.
went to church-great services both in the am & pm.
eaten some great food-some of our normal meals, like nachos, oatmeal, pancakes, breakfast quiche without a crust, homemade pizza, just to name a few things.
went to the Bulk food store-I got a 50lb bag of oatmeal, baby pretzels covered in yogurt, and sugar wafer cookies, and will probably get some more before we head home.
Went to the park to play and celebrate Caleb's birthday with chocolate cake and popcorn.
Tomorrow we are going over to one of Mary's friends house to see their garden, greenhouse and possibly get a little bit of fresh popcorn.

I still need to get the pictures of our park trip off of Mary's camera and will post those soon.

I so don't want to go home but we must, but we are going to try to come up again next month for the Reenactment. I am very interested in what happens at one since I have not ever been to one before.

But it is crazy late and I must get some sleep. I will probably post again once we get back home

An afternoon at the park

2009-04-17T20:30:00.001-05:00

Christina helping Rachel climb up the slide ladder.

There is a lovely little park just down the road from Mary's house that all of the children enjoy playing at. The weather was beautiful so we loaded up and went down to celebrate Caleb's birthday, we took a large bowl of popcorn and a yummy chocolate cake. Everyone played and had a great time.

They made it to the top and are getting ready to go down.

Aric and Matthew on the swings, I think Aric had something in his eye.

The train tracks are right there next to the road so getting to see the train this close it really fun. Thomas and Matthew are watching. We've also decided that we've seen some of these same cars here in AL.

Becca and Noah on the swings. Swinging is their favorite thing to do.

In the front we have Christina and Rachel, Becca and Kaden, then in the back are Matthew and Jadon.

Caleb at the top of the slide.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Caleb 3 years old.

test 2

2009-04-14T20:36:00.002-05:00

Yet another test, seeing which way I prefer.

Testing

2009-04-14T20:32:00.003-05:00

I am try this posting different ways from my phone.

Making some changes

2009-04-14T12:18:00.004-05:00

I thought that I would change the look of the blog to a more summer look. I like this template, it has pretty neutral colors, but I am still looking for something that I can keep all year and just make a seasonal change as needed.

I do have to say that I don't like that you loose all of your pictures, all the more reason to find one I really like and leave it alone.

So what do ya think?

Workboxes

2009-04-12T15:11:00.008-05:00

After looking at a few more blogs, I think that I have found the containers that we are going to use.

These with 6 drawers each but you can add more to them so I am going to get 10 of them so that each of the boys have 12 drawers. I have figured out what they will each do during the day. We will use funny faces on each drawer once they are finished with their work. These will also take up a lot less floor space than the shoe racks would. We just don't have the room to do the left and right aspect. But I do believe that if they can see that they funny faces are there then that will be good.

So far the ideas that I have for hands on/fun drawers are lots of math, arts & crafty things, science. So here is my list:

Draw Write Now books
Math Dice
Counting bears & scale w/activity cards
Frogs, logs and activity cards
Cuisenaire Rods & different books, Roddles
Lacing beads
Geo Shapes/Pattern blocks w/triangle tray or hexagon tray, different activity books
Geo boards and activity books
Dot to Dot books-numbers, letters, math puzzles
Word searches
paper airplane book-they have to copy the parts and put the plane together
Wikki Sticks and books
Can you find it? books
Geo puzzle
toob farm animals
Dr. Drew blocks
Klutz Lego book
Klutz How to build Castles
Snap Kits
Stained Glass coloring pages
Equate Game
Horse Bingo
Math book puzzles
Origami
Varies Art books
Lap Harp
Caluladder pages
Match It
Math War
Nature Study book
Water colors
Knights
Human Body pages-various workbooks & Enchanted Learning website pages
Building thinking skills -Not sure what books or software I am going to get yet.
Quilt block History of Pioneer days
Melissa and Doug wooden ABC's
The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine
Piano books
piano practice
guitar books
guitar practice
a wooden loom
Magnetic letters
Magnetic numbers

Their drawers so far are lining up like this:
Thomas Aric Noah Matthew Jadon
1Bible Bible Bible Bible Bible
2Hands Piano Snap LA/RA LA/RA
3LA/RA LA/RA LA/RA hands hands
4Piano hands Math Math math
5Art Math HWT HWT Art
6Math Art Piano Art Piano
7Science Science Science Piano HWT
8History History History hands Hands
9Snap HWT Art History History
10hands Snap @Piano Science Science
11HWT @Piano Hands @Piano hands
12@Piano Hands hands hands @Piano

Of course the 6 hands on/fun boxes will change, Piano will be every other day or I will rotate so that everyone gets time at the piano. Plus I am going to add in guitar books but we need to get a guitar first.

But this is the tentative plan for now. I am sure that as we start working things will change.

Downsizing, organizing, and planning

2009-04-10T09:50:00.003-05:00

I am getting ready to downsize in a huge way. I am just feeling more and more that we are to give away things, but not somethings.

The children have way to many clothes, like buckets and buckets and buckets. I am not kidding. How this happened I really don't know because honestly I haven't really bought anything for anyone in the last 3 years. Socks, underwear, a pair of jeans for my supper skinny guys and shoes.

But even knowing this does not explain why I have at least 20 totes and that many large garbage bags full of clothing. Richard is just as bad, he has so many things that he doesn't even know what he has.

Now my clothing is pretty simple, I have two skirts that I wear on a regular basis and about 6 tops. I have a new work skirt laying on the ironing board waiting for elastic and to be hemmed.

I want to get everything cleaned sorted and just give it away. There is a few boxes around here for Hannah House and Kings Ranch that I could put the stuff into, there is also a church over in my Mom's town that has a thrift store that is currently asking for donations. Then there is always the 25 cent yard sale. Just put up a huge sign that everything is a quater each, might make a fortune. LOL probably not.

But then there is the stuff that just gets in my way, all the kitchen gadgets, the movies, and the tv. As much as I would love to send the tv away, there are good things about it, like those Planet Earth DVD's, we don't have Directv any more and I will probably leave it that way. We just have a Netflix subscription and what I find a Walmart. I finally bought Wall-E the other day and it is really cute, I might get them Bolt in a month or so. We are also looking at getting some fun DVD's for school work. I have seen where you can get all of the Magic School Bus. But before I get these things I need to get rid of a ton of others that we no longer watch or just don't want. Perhaps I will make a DVD box of movies and send them to my sister in Germany.

I would rather spend my extra money each month on books, puzzles, games and other things that are going to have a purpose. I love the fact that the boys can be doing something and they are learning but don't realize it.

So my goal for the rest of the month is to go through all of those bags first since they are really a pain to store. We are going to pull out 7 outfits each, once they have their 7 they will be able to change with a new bag if they see something else that they would like to keep, but other wise it is all going away.

Oh and I didn't even mention all of the books that we have. I am wanting to sort our books by subject, so that we have science, history, math, and so on. A lot of the books that we have are things that I was able to pick up for our school board back in FL. So they are old library books, most already have the Dewey system stickers on them. I have thought about using that to organize our books which would be a great learning tool, however our little library here doesn't use it. You can't even look up a book yourself you have to ask the librarian to do it for you. And the picture books are just there. The other library they have their books color coded based on the authors last name, that way you atleast know which cubby the books belong into.

The bonus here is once I get all of this done I will have a lot more space in that new storage barn. The faster it gets cleaned out and organized the faster I can make it our school house. The hardest part will be figuring out how to put AC out there without making a whole in the side. See I just ordered a stock building, you can have windows and such put in, but I just wanted a building to get us started. Richard has already mentioned something about getting a second one later. So what I will do is get a larger building with windows and a normal door.

The best part will of course be all the extra room in the house. The boys have been double bunking with Thomas & Caleb sharing, and Matthew & Jadon too. We really need to get that third set of bunkbeds up. I am praying that we will be able to add on or something in the next year or so. That would be the biggest help, to make a large boys bedroom, a smaller girls room, a true school room, and a family room. I can see in my head what I want, I just don't know if it will work.

Oh well I am off to sort clothing.

Falling asleep on the couch

2009-04-09T05:44:00.004-05:00

We have a very well used couch, it has a sleeper in it, but the cushions are pretty much flat. At the same time for the last 4 nights I have fallen asleep on the couch, only to wake up really late/early depending on which way you look at it.

I get up go to my bed and stretch out normally I can go back to sleep, not today. I have Veggie Tales songs running through my head, and I just laid there singing.

So I finally got up and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, brushed out my hair, jumped in the shower. Talked to Jadon as he had woken up to go potty. Got a glass of water and now I sit here waiting for the day to begin. Listening to my neighbors rooster crow, wishing that I still had my own.

Oh and Jadon is now sleeping on the couch beside me.

Planet Earth DVD's

2009-04-08T19:17:00.003-05:00

I have seen this series for a while now, but it has always been all the episodes together with about a 80.00 price tag. But the other day I saw them at Walmart for 10.00 each. I know you're going to still spend that same amount, but it is just easier to budget 10.00 at a time.

Anyway last week we I picked one that looked good and this is what we use for our end of day wind down time. Believe it or not but listening to David Attenborough talk and watching the wonderful nature films just settles down my boys that they are able to calmly go to bed and they have been sleeping better too.

We picked up the a second DVD yesterday, there are 11 total episodes looks like most have 3 per, the last one only having 2. Each is a full hour long, with a diary entry at the end. Tells us things about how things were done while filming.

This is a great set and I do plan on getting them all again when we get a Blue-Ray player for Christmas.

Electronic Snap Kits

2009-04-08T18:04:00.006-05:00

Today on the way into town to get yet another load of stuff from the storage stall, I noticed a 30% off all toys at our Radio Shack, so I stopped.

Well they had the Electronic snap kits the big kit 750 experiments with the computer interface.

I looked it over for a moment trying to remember how much it was from Rainbow Resource and said I'll take it. The boys have been having a blast with the little set that we have, that Richard had found in someones recycling back in FL-it was amazing the things that people throw away. Anyway since we got that one free, I didn't have a problem spending money for this one.

When I walked outside to the van, the boys were like wow what did you get? As I passed it in to Thomas he was like HEY THIS IS THE BIG ONE!!!!!!! The smile on his face was great. I even took a picture of him holding the box. I just need to email it to myself then I can post it. Or find where I've hidden my camera.

Going to do try something new.

2009-04-08T09:02:00.005-05:00

The older boys seem to have serious issues with the very small amount of book/seatwork that they are required to do every day. So I have been reading about this Workbox, there are plenty of blogs on this subject and all the different ways that people are using it. Heather's blog was the first one I read and I really enjoy her's and have gained a lot of great ideas, not just for boxes but for just new things to add to our school.

So last week I went and got the shoe rack and the shoe boxes from Walmart. Not really wanting to go this route since I currently have 4 students and 2 more that are really on the move, and little miss on the fast tract and she's only 1. 7 children times 12 boxes is 84 boxes and at least 4 different shoe racks probably more, or a great bookcase.

So yesterday I was blog hopping and found a different idea that I am thinking will work better for us and take up a little less floor space(which we are very short on to begin with). Here is Ginger's blog post about how she is making it work. I really like this idea, plus I think that I could put a second set of three sets of drawers on top.

I am going to order the book probably tonight, I am still unsure of which way I want to order it yet.

Once I've actually read the book I will post more about it.

I'm back on line

2009-04-01T22:58:00.002-05:00

I lost my modem and apparently my wireless router last week in some of that bad weather. I had to call a second time to find out where my modem was on Mon and finally got it today!!!!

So here I sit with a cables running through the house so that I can be on line.

Don't know why I didn't post this right away but here it is now.

Hope no one missed me.

Army life and the distant future

2009-03-25T15:54:00.004-05:00

This morning Richard called to let me know that it has begun, the call of the Army. Time to get that green duffel, wait it has to be a suit case(I am so used to him traveling with his duffel) down and packed so that he can travel. He has one more class to do before he is completely qualified in his new MOS for this unit.

He has been in the Reserves for the past 7 years, with one more left on his original contract, he will more than likely renew his contract as soon as he's able too.

Anyway we've known since November's Drill or perhaps it was December's, that the unit would be heading over to somewhere in the middle east. So back to today, he calls into the unit to get an update on this class that he still needs and the Sgt said that he's all set to go on 5 April for the month.

We are okay with all of this as this is something that when he originally went to do we were hoping for full time/Regular Army. But because of some miss information he wasn't able to, add to the lack of units that know what they are doing we are still in the Reserves.

In some respects I would love to go full time Army so that we could all be together as a family on a much more regular basis, but then the part of me that really enjoys living out here in the middle of nowhere, where for the most part I am not bothered says what are you crazy???
But then the part where-like right now my little sister is leaving tomorrow for Germany, says leave it all behind and lets go!!!!! Oh my goodness the homeschooling adventure that we could have over in Europe, wow the thoughts just make me all giddy inside. But for now that is not something that we are able to do. Perhaps in the next year or something.

No matter what happens with the Army, we are thankful to the Lord for all he provides us with and we will continue to praise him.

The weather here: Rain for the next couple days.

2009-03-24T21:00:00.005-05:00

It was mentionted by several people today at my Dr's appointment that the weather for the rest of the week is supposed to be really ugly. Lots of rain, possible tornadoes and just nasty, like 6 inches in a quick time frame. Which really stinks, as I've got all of those trees and bushes to get planted.

I've decided to wait on planting the rest till possibly Sunday or even Mon, depending on this weather front that is supposed to hit us.

We got home after a very lengthy wait time for me to see the Dr, but once he got into my room everything went quickly. My BP was fabulous, I've lost 3lbs-still have a long way to go, all of my other numbers were better than last time, except my good cholosteral-I still need to bring it up some. But over all a great visit and I won't see him again until June.

The wind and the temp are picking up as I write this, should be a great day tomorrow to sleep in a little bit.

Praying that the 3 trees we've just planted hang tight through all of this as the pear tree that is near the house is just starting to bud out.

The other thing that really stinks is that I am still not sure about our garden, I had asked a neighbor about it and he said no problem. But the past two days I've seen him out on his tractor tending his own garden and now with this weather and all I don't know if or when he'll be down to help. But no matter what it is all in God's hands and I trust him.

Updated they all came back.

2009-03-24T18:58:00.002-05:00

I just went to the dashboard to check and see if anyone had posted any updates and it says that I am not following any blogs. What is going on????? It is going to take me forever to find those again.

Not sure what happened but I've got them all back. I've also made a copy of them so that I won't have to wonder if I got everyone. Have a great evening.

game nights

2009-03-23T22:22:00.004-05:00

The last couple of nights the boys and I(Richard too) have played a game or two before bedtime. The other night it was Math War-where you have to have the highest math fact in addition or subtraction to win, Rat*a*Tat Cat-get rid of the rats and go for the cats, win by having your cards add up to the lowest number. We also have a game called Match * It where you have triangle shapes with colors and patterns that you match. You can play just color, shape, or a couple other ways.

I got the Math War at the Base Exchange in Columbus, MS, Rat a Tat Cat-I've had for a while, but got it at Wal-Mart, and the Match It was from Office Max, in the teacher section. The only thing I don't like about the Match It game is that the cards are very thin card stock. I will probably be getting them laminated soon.

Tonight they all decided that they wanted to try Pay Day, which is a great game that uses a lot of math skills. Too bad I am so tired that I didn't tell them how to play it correctly at first and then we got it all figured out. (Note to self, don't read the instructions when you are very tired, you'll confuse your children.)

They played for well over and hour and a half. And it looks like Aric won with the most money. Even Matthew and Jadon stayed up till the very end, I called the game over since I had said we were going to stop at 9. But it was all good and fun, there was a moment where Matthew was getting up set that he wasn't winning when they would play the lottery spaces, but then he got over it.

Not sure what we will do tomorrow night but we will have to begin it a lot earlier. Maybe we will put together a puzzle or something.

Getting more done around here

2009-03-23T08:37:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we spent the entire day at home, after being up and gone from 5:00am on Saturday, we all needed a day without having to get into the van.

So we spent the morning making doughnuts-I cheated and just used canned biscuits. We used sugar for some and cinnamon sugar for the others. They were very tasty, but probably not something that we need to eat very often. This was much cheaper than what we can get at the store, as I used 4 cans of the store brand.

Then after a quick clean up, we sat here and planned out our orchard. We have 7 apple trees, several plums, peaches and pears, lots of blackberries, blueberries, and some grapes. After a little bit of a heated debate Richard and I finally figured out how we are(the boys and I) going to plant everything. We did get two trees in and Richard dug three holes, so the boys and I will be out there today to dig more.

The wonderful blessing of our day yesterday was the fact that we found we have a large quantity of compost on our land here.

The story of our place is that is was put up for auction, sold that day to someone, but even before that deal was dry on the paper it changed hands again. Well then it was sold again to a local gentleman, well this man it seems something and pushed a lot of dirt, trees and stuff from one place to another. We have always thought that the area up near the garden has an unnatural grade to it. Well yesterday we were up there looking around and Richard started digging, and found wonderful rich soil, not the clay stuff that we seem to have everywhere else. So all of my new trees will be getting lots of this healthy soil.

The best part I think, is that dirt is at least 2 feet above where our actually ground is. We have a lot of digging to do. I was going to buy a truck load of this same kind of top soil/compost from Co-Op and now I don't need to. God is so good.

The other project we have for this week is to quickly get the tiller running so that we can get the ground ready for our blueberries, these stalks are very much ready to be back into the ground and I am praying that I don't harm them in replanting them.

The biggest project, it is really bigger than planing all of these things. Is getting the pasture cut, I am tacking this massive job with a singe push mower. My plan is to try and cut roughly an acre a day. I am already behind. But we will be getting a second mower this week which will help, as I get the really high stuff and it is more like normal grass Thomas and Aric can take turns keeping the short stuff short. My goal is to keep at least three acres clear so that they have a place to run and play. That first acre and a half is where the orchard is going in, with the berries and grapes filling in around the edges.

I will try and post pictures later today.

Archery

2009-03-21T22:08:00.003-05:00

Today we drove over to Anniston, AL so that the three oldest could compete in the 4H shooting sports event.

They all did really well, Aric it looks like came in 4th with a score of 155 on a re-curve bow.

Thomas has some big time issues, he needs a left hand bow, which we our instructor Kim finally found Wed at a practice we had. The only problem was we all had the wrong parts together trying to make this bow. So we thought that we would just give him a right handed bow-that is what he had been practicing on all this time. But then we pulled apart a different bow and got the left handed one fixed. So he shot, left-with a messed up bow, right-with a good bow, then left with a good bow. I don't remember his score but I believe that it was good too.

Noah did just great probably came in 5th or 6th.

I wished that I had written all three of their scores down. Not bad for only starting on Valentine's Day.

After we left there we went to the new Bass Pro Shop in Leads, AL and talk to a wonderful man that worked there in the Archery department. David was great, he answered all of our questions, even let all of the boys-including Richard shot a compound bow. I am thinking that I will write a letter to the store to complement him, as there were a lot of people in the store that might have been out to buy something, and yet he stayed with us.

We have a lot to learn about all of the different parts to the bows, the correct sizes of the arrows, the proper way to string a bow and sight it. Then once we are good with the basics we will move onto making our own arrows-cutting them to size, putting the fetching, tips and notches on. Should be a lifelong adventure. It was a very long day, I fell asleep before posting this.

general update

2009-03-19T10:07:00.004-05:00

Baby Bryce went home with his Mom & Dad on Sunday! Marmee(Mary) was enjoying some snuggle time with him Mon morning while Heather was still sleeping.

I ordered a 12x16 lofted barn for all of our storage needs. It should be here by the end of the month. Then we get to make several trips into town to empty the garage stall we've been renting.
The goal here is to downsize until all I need it the lofted part and then turn the barn into our little school house. YEAH!!!! I might even paint it red. We will probably add windows and an A/C unit later.

I am slowly working on getting all of our new fruit trees planted, we've done 1, only 19 more to go. Plus the blackberries, blueberries and grapes.

I asked a neighbor yesterday if he wouldn't mind turning over our garden, and he said yes. Just as soon as he puts his plow on he'd be down to do it. I offered to pay him but he wouldn't hear of that. I am going to now get started on our plants, since I was unsure of how we were going to be getting this garden done I hadn't started anything. We are going to try for a large crop again this year, they are saying that it shouldn't be as hot this year. We shall see.

I am going to order our chickens next week, 50 of them total-40 hens & 10 roosters. Thomas is chopping down smaller trees to build a new chicken coop for me, he has is all drawn out and knows in his mind what he wants, but is already finding it to be a lot of work. We may just have to build a smaller coop with store bought lumber for now and then use that building for something else later.

The septic tank has been emptied, however it looks like it is old enough that when it was put in they never ran a drain field-ya I know, but what can I say this is rural Alabama here. Anyway to get all the proper work we need done, it is looking to be right under $2000.00, there goes that new to us van we were praying for. I suppose the boys could dig an outhouse and we only use the septic for baths.

Our school work is lacking as usual, the weather has gotten really beautiful and after being cooped up all winter they are bursting to be outside. The time change hasn't helped much either, I am at such a loss as to where I am in the day. I HAVE got to get this under control. We have this seasonal little creek that runs on the back side of the barn that they all enjoy playing in. With the rainy weather it all drains down and makes this wonderful creek, but sadly it will be gone all to soon. I pray that someday we have a place with a year round creek, I love the sound of water running over rocks and of course a source of water.

Thomas, Aric and Noah will be competing in 4H Archery this Sat over in Anniston, AL. Should be a fun day that even Richard gets to go with us. We do need to run over to Tupelo today to get a bow string for Thomas's bow. Kim our teacher finally found the left handed bow, but it didn't have the correct string, so I told her that I would get one since she is letting us use these bows at home. She is such a sweet lady too.

We are still uncertain as to what or when Richard will be going to deploy, but we should know a little more next month. He has weapons qualifing, and then a three day paperwork thing at the end of the month. It has a name but I don't remember what it is.

My sister is another step closer to joining her husband in Germany, I believe that they were going to try and leave next Monday, but that has changed. She has an apt up at Redstone to set up her household shipment, then she will get her travel agrangements at that time also. Praying for her as she is a ready to be together as a family, but scared and nervious about leaving Mom and Dad for the next three years. She is their little girl and we all know it. LOL!!!
I also ask for prayers when she does leave as she will be making this flight(I believe that she has said it will be 17 hours) alone with a very head strong 3 year old and a 9 month old.

The boys and I are going to be making a new clothes line soon. I have the lumber, but need to get the bolts, washers and nuts, plus I think that we might need another 4x4. We will be stopping at Lowe's while in Tupelo today.

So that is pretty much everything that has been going on around here for the past week or so. I hope to start more regular posts, but with the gardening season starting I will do my best. I really need to make daily posts with photos of what we are doing in our school work, to help keep myself more accountable. I need a kick in the pants. Feel free to give me one.

Have a blessed day, enjoy the sunshine if it is shinning where you are.

Prayers needed for Baby Bryce

2009-03-12T22:17:00.004-05:00

He was born on Tues evening, which caused a postponement of our trip to KY. Not a problem, just wish that I could go see him and Heather too.

His right lung (I believe) is collapsed and he is currently in an oxygen tank/tent. They were unable to put him in Heather's room so he's in the nursery and she is having a time with that.

She was able to express and he will be feed that through a tube, as nursing is to difficult right now and they don't want to add stress to his little lungs.

Pray that all is well with this treatment and that they will be able to go home soon, they were supposed to be released today.

Pray also for Mary's mom as she has been diagnosed with cancer, around the same lung that she had partial removed, about 4 years ago.

Father it is through your grace and strength that we are able to do all that we do, I know that you are able to heal these two special people. Give Them both the strength that they each need right now to get better, to come home for Bryce and begin a wonderful new life with his parents, to give his Great Grandma the health that she needs to be able to come and meet this newest grandchild, in your precious name, Amen.

New possible storage shed

2009-02-18T03:48:00.002-06:00

There is a guy over in MS that has shipping containers for sale. These boxes are 8 ft by 8.5 ft and 40 ft long. I think that I could put everything in the house in that and be happy. The price isn't to bad 2300.00 including delivery.
We currently have a garage stall in town because our house is just way to small and my love of books is way to big. I keep saying that if I took all of our homeschooling stuff and my sewing stuff out we might have more room.
Now all we need to do is figure out where we are going to put the thing and then probably paint it once it gets here they are very orange and say Hyundai, yep that blends so well with my quiet country side.
What will we do should we move though is the really big question, I wonder if the guy selling them will move them for you? I guess I will have to ask.
But then there is also the fact that Deanna mentioned this to Dewey and he might have a contact that I can get something bigger for less. Need to pray about it either way, which would be the wisest use of our funds.
Of course if we just got rid of everything I wouldn't need the storage shed. To much stuff in my life, I really need to just simplify. It was so easy to get the stuff, but so ridiculously hard to let stuff go. I just don't understand why.
And the bigger point here is I came into this world with nothing, I shall leave it with nothing, but if I don't do something soon, my children are going to have a huge mess to sort through someday. Which is not something that I want them to do.
So what would you do?

Fruit trees and berries

2009-02-13T16:18:00.003-06:00

Our extension office is having it's annual tree sale.

We are looking at several apple, peaches, pears, plums, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries. I would also like to get a couple hydrangeas and a shade tree or two for the front yard. The afternoon summer sun makes the house so warm.

I think that our total was around 250.00 but now I don't know what the total tree count was. I need to find my list. The last day to order is on my birthday so that should be fun order our orchard, but picking up a lot of trees is going to be interesting.

I am thinking that I need to get a battery for the pick up and then take two of the children with me. Thomas has proven himself reliable in staying home for a short amount of time, with one brother who was asleep the entire time. If I run into town get our trees and other plants and come straight home he and his brothers should be fine. Need to pray about this some more.

No matter what I will get this all home, it just might take a few trips or something. Not really sure yet.

I do also plan on having most of the holes dug, that way once we get home with the trees we can just drop them into the ground and keep them healthy so that they will give us fruit faster. I can't wait till we can pick our own fruit. Jams, jellies, applesauce, apple butter, yummy.

Archery

2009-02-13T16:01:00.002-06:00

This is something that all of my boys are very interested in.

So tomorrow we are going to our first 4-H Archery meeting.

I am praying that they will all listen and learn a lot.

The instructor has a catalog that I can order bows and arrows from, which is good.

I was looking at getting two compound bows that were very expensive. This should be a cheaper way to go and then I will be able to get more equipment for our own practice times at home.

I just feel that with so many sons that I have a better chance of them learning how to hunt this way than with a gun. They will learn to hunt with guns later, but for now this is a start.

I found out about this because I had stopped in at my county extension office, and asked about the homeschooling group-sadly they are meeting up towards Decatur which is too far for us. But then she mentioned Archery so it ended up good.

So a somewhat normal week has begun.

2009-02-12T09:17:00.005-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted but it has been a crazy week or two. Since Richard came home on the 1st I feel like we have been on the move.
We got some cleaning and big stuff done around here, made up our fruit trees and bushes list, I will place the order on the last day one can order. It should be fun to see how I am going to get all of these trees home.
We took Richard back over to Atlanta Sunday night.

I had to go pick him up from Drill, then we were going to leave straight from there, but a neighbors dog that likes to hang out here decided to chase after our cat Midnight. When he went after her, he ripped the breaker box off the side of the house and messed up the wires. So we had to come back here so that Richard could fix it.

I so want to be off of the grid. Then I wouldn't need that box and wires back there.

Anyway we finally made it to Atlanta around 10:30-11:00 our time, got everyone in the room and went to bed.

Monday we loaded back up and went over to the terminal so that he could get his truck. Well I'll give you the short version. We sat there for 4 hours only to be told that he needed a drug test and to come back tomorrow.

UGGGGGG!

So we went over to IKEA!!!

I have looked at and shopped from IKEA for 6 years now, but this was our first time in an actual store.

We ate lunch at the cafe and it was really good. We walked around and looked at everything.

Wow what a great store.

We found our dream kitchen, with the appliances and sink too.

They had real apartments with various square footage, so that you could see what you could do with that amount of space. I have hope for making this little house that we have been blessed with work.

Now all we need to do is figure out which room we are going to start in and then how we are going to get everything home.

After spending 4 hours in there, we were heading back over to the hotel to unload Richard's stuff when I saw a Walmart, and Starbucks. Well this Walmart was underground with a parking garage that was so big a Semi truck went through it. I was amazed. I stayed in the van with the sleeping ones and Richard took the others that had to go potty inside. They said that the food was in the middle and all the other stuff was around the perimeter. Once they came out I went up to the ground level/street side and got myself a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte, yummy. I still had to make the 4 hour drive home.

I would have stayed the night but Jadon had an early morning Dr's apt.

Once we got the hotel we unloaded the van of Richard's stuff, repacked it down to a more manageable size(he still had a ton). I finally got on the road around 7:30pm our time. I made pretty good time, only stopped once to get another cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte near Talladaga. You would have thought with that much caffeine in my system that I would have had a hard time going to bed but I didn't, once we got home I got everyone in and changed and straight to bed.

Tuesday we got up went into town and had the shop that did my brakes look at them, seem I have a really bad alignment and if I don't get it fixed soon I am going to loose my front right tire. So next week I am going to get that done, an oil change, the tires rotated, and the main belt changed.

I also got our taxes done. We are getting a pretty nice bit back, and plan to if it is God's will, we will be getting a new van.
I got an ad in the mail for a local dealership, so I called to see if they would be able to help us. Unfortunately we will have to get a loan in order to get a van. But they are offering one of those checks to help you, plus with our trade, and some more cash, we should have a nice down payment and then only need to finance a small amount, that I intend to pay off quickly.
Yesterday, Richard finally got on the road headed this way to Florence, so he stopped in town and we took him the rest of his stuff, then he came home for a couple of hours, then we took him back to his truck and came home. Most of the boys went to bed, Rachel did too. Thomas, Aric, and I stayed up for a little bit. Talked to Richard a couple of times then I went to bed.

So today we are trying to get our normal routine back into place. We are going to do laundry, get the kitchen cleaned up, and get our Valentine's made and into the mail.

To bad it took me all week to get this posted.

He's coming home

2009-01-29T23:01:00.002-06:00

I can't believe that the month is almost over, yeah! We will be picking Richard up on Sunday at the airport a little later than originally planned. They are having some type of graduation ceremony and are requiring that everyone stay until at least noon. So that will put him in about 5 hours later.

I can't wait to see him, he should be able to be home for the week, since he has drill at the end of the week and is also going to make up January's drill. But then the following week we will send him back to really work and it will probably be the end of the month before he's home again. Bummer.

We have been cleaning and decluttering a bunch, but wow do we have a LOOOONG way to go. And I have come to the conclusion that not a single male member of this family needs clothing. My goodness I could open a store. But instead I am planning on a .50 cent yard sale, I will sell everything for that .50 cents. I think that I should make a good bit of money.

I really would love to go to IKEA when we take him back to Atlanta, but I have a feeling that it will just be me and the children. But hey if I can bring home something to help get us on an organized track the yahooo.

I just can't wait till Sunday!

Army life

2009-01-14T01:20:00.003-06:00

Burrrrr, it is cold here tonight, I can't imagine what it must be like in Boston. He says that his room is comfortable when he goes to bed but by morning it is really cold. Old buildings and heating systems, when he first got there and a bad storm was supposed to go through he was telling me that there are generators but they will only last for about an hour and there wasn't really any emergency food or even extra water. Lovely to hear this about an Army instillation, but what it really is, is a training place for the Reserves and National Guard. So most of it has been decommissioned from what it used to be.

So, Richard is up in Boston, getting training in a new MOS, so that he can possible go to the big sand box later this year. But that may not happen, or perhaps it will, just not with his unit. So much of military life is up in the air. As soon as he knows more, I will be able to adjust accordingly.

I can say that I don't really think that I was looking forward to this deployment in the least. I have gotten used to being able to talk to him when ever I wanted to during the day, and apparently so had Rachel. She was so moppy at the beinning of the week that I thought it was because we didn't get to talk to him. But I now no it is also because she has a bad cold and a double ear infection, poor baby. Worse part is I think that two more are coming down with it as well. But now this having to wait and see or if they will even give him and answer is frustrating.

The crazy part is I am willing to deal with this type of stuff on a much more regular basis if it would give us more family time together. I would love to see him go Active Army, because we might be able to see each other everyday. But it could also mean that he would deploy again right away and we wouldn't see him for a year or more. I am in constant prayer over what He would have us do. I do worry that the boys know their Dad, Thomas will be 12 this year and before long he will be done with his schooling and off doing what the Lord would have him. Then Aric and Noah just as soon as they can say I have done what you requested.

Well, my sister just found out today that they will be going to Germany!!!! She is excited and very nervous to say the least, the last time she was over there she was like 6. She has so much to do and a little over a month to get it all done in. I am not sure if Nick knew or if she was the one to tell him, the SGT's at AIT have been telling everyone to keep checking their email to see, but they wouldn't be saying anything, until they actually had orders to give them. So because of that she found out first thing this morning.

We are praying that they will get to travel as a family but I am just not really seeing that happening. But I know that she will manage traveling with her two children, and what they need to take with them.

Oh how I wish that I could afford to take all of the children to see Aunt Sara while she is over in Germany. I miss it over there. What I remember of it, it is so different than here in the US. Well I should say that it is from where I am from back in FL. Around here it is probably a lot like Germany, except we are spread out so much more.

When we were over we lived on the economy, which means that we lived in a German town with mostly German neighbors, there were a few other Americans in our town and some of the other villages. But it is just so different over there. A much more laid back pace of life, yes they work hard and get things done. But they also value family and that time together. Most often you have two generations living in one house.

Mom and Dad have already said that they will come and visit her, which is wonderful, because I know that they both miss it over there also. Seems like this year would be a great time to go with or without that fact of Sara being there as they will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. Wow I can't believe that they have been married that long, well actually both sets of my parents will celebrate their 25th, Mom & Dad got married in June, and Dad and Nancy got married in Nov. I think that I am getting old.

But what a great gift that would be to go back over there, they will probably go in winter. That way there won't be as much going on with the farm as in the spring or summer.

Praying all the way round tonight/this morning that the Lord's will be done for all of our families. That He is the soverign strength that each of us need to look to when we are in doubt. God Bless.

The things we do for our parents.

2009-01-10T23:24:00.000-06:00

Here we are, the whole family together.
I really do have a husband! LOL!!!

Just in case anyone was wondering. The shirts for all of my guys-including the big one, and Rachel's dress were from my Mom.

She gave all the guys, and grandchildren(she currently has 12) shirts for Christmas, but left all of the girls out?

What was that all about Mom? I need to ask her.

Oh well there were several cameras being used at once so that is why it looks like we are all looking off in different directions, cause we were.

From top Me, Rachel, Richard
Front Thomas, Caleb, Aric, Jadon, Noah, and Matthew.

My beautiful family. I am going to try and get an indoor shot once Richard gets back in a few weeks. I would love to get some taken at Walmart but anything will do for now.

ordering fruit trees, bushes, vines

2009-01-09T08:26:00.003-06:00

I stopped in at our county extension office yesterday to get some information on what are the best things to grow here, in regards to fruit trees. I am really wanting to plant apple trees, a few types of berries, and other fruit trees.

We eat a lot of fresh fruit and cobblers.

So our extension office, well I really think that all of them in AL have a fruit, nut and tree sale every year. The prices seems to be pretty good, but the best part is that these plants are in the ground growing in northern AL. When it is time they will go scoop them out of the ground wrap the roots and send them to each office for pick-up.

Not trees in buckets or pots, so I would think that they would be healthier for that. Now I just need to figure out what I want, how much to get and where to plant them.

I would love to have 6 apple trees, 3 peaches, 2 pear, several blackberry, blueberries and some strawberries-but they may not do well up here. I am thinking that grapes would be interesting to try, because we eat A LOT of them. I would also like to get a nice tree to put in the front yard to help shade the house in the summer, but I don't know what I really want. I intend to keep looking.

Update of the past few days

2009-01-07T13:41:00.003-06:00

Well we picked up Richard in Atlanta on Friday, then headed over to Birmingham to the Apple store so that they could fix his phone. Then we headed home. It was a very long day. We didn't make it to IKEA, but I will next time even if I have to go over a day earlier.

On Saturday we went over to Tupelo to go find him new sneakers for P.T. as one of his students took his other pair. We also got Caleb and Rachel new footed pajamas at The Children's Place-I do like the clothing in there, I had also bought Rachel new tights at the store in B'Ham the night before.

On Sunday we made sure that everything clothing, uniform related was washed and he packed up his duffel. Sunday night we ran into town to get swap some things in and out of the garage stall, and then we got some Chinese food. Came home and the children all went to bed and we watched Casino Royale-pretty good movie. Daniel Craig should make a great James Bond.
Monday we got up really early to head to Tupelo to the airport for his flight to Boston, but he missed it and they only had room on the 5pm flight. So we spent the day over there, not really doing much. But I didn't want to drive home to drive back over. He finally flew off at 5.36 and I don't remember what time it was when he got there, but I was in bed. Around 9.30 CST, told him that I loved him and I was going to bed.

Tuesday all of us except Rachel had our teeth cleaning appointment. Everyone got good reports except Aric and Matthew. Aric needed a baby tooth pulled and a filling. Matthew still needs sealant on some back teeth and now a filling. Unfortunately our Dentist has been trying to get the sealant done for 3 years now, Matthew has a small mouth and a highly sensitive gag reflex, but enjoys going to the Dentist. So appointments were made for Matthew to go to a different Dentist on 26 Jan, and Aric for Wed for the extraction.

Wednesday we went over for Aric to have his tooth pulled, no problems. We got breakfast on the way home and he will go back on Monday to get the filling done.

I have no intention of getting in the van until then either.

We have had our van for 7 years this coming Sept, and the drivers seat is dying a fast death. My tail bone is killing me with being in that chair so much over the past week. Almost every where we go is at least 30 minutes away or more. We are currently looking at finding a newer 15 passenger van, as ours is only an 8. We were given a bench to install that would make it a 12, but then we would have no storage space and I need my double stroller. And how would I get feed home? So for now we are making do with what we have and God willing, will be able to find something in the price range that we have set for our budget.

The boys and I are getting ready to move the kitchen table into town, it is my Mom's table that she bought in Germany before they come back from Dad's last tour over there. I am going to have to sand it, re stain it and then polyurethane it. Then I will get new fabric and padding and do all of the chairs and the benches and then give it back to her. We have been using it since we first moved up here in Nov '05.

I now have my table and we will probably need to get new benches made, because I think that our table is a little bit taller and I don't know if the current benches will work or not. We are going to turn our third bedroom into our dinning room for the time being as our kitchen is just too small and with where I need to keep the deep freezer and the fridge it makes it hard to walk through and get around the table. We are also looking at getting a smaller chest freezer to keep more milk, meat and bigger items in.

I am also going to have my Mom's handyman come out and give me an estimate on adding a master bathroom onto the house, we really need a second bath and this way when we go about fixing up the main bath we will still have facilities to use.

My idea is to redo the back room space to include a large shower(with double shower heads, the boys tend to double up anyway this would make it easier), double sinks, laundry area & family closet, and pantry storage. The bathtub will be in the master bath as I really would like to get a big tub, that I can soak in. And really after about the age of 2 they all take showers anyway.

Once that is done then I will make the master bedroom a little bit larger, by taking out the closet and pantry space. That will add at least 100 square feet to our room.

We are still looking at the best options for adding on or building new, right now I am thinking that we are both leaning towards just building new else where on our land. There is so much that needs to be done to this house that it will probably be cheaper in the long run to just start over. We would probably use this as our school house, and build a simple larger cabin up in the woods.
Something with three bedrooms, two baths, a great kitchen & pantry, and living room, maybe a sewing/craft room too. Then we would still have this house to use as our school house, but it would also have two guest rooms & living room. I would probably take out the kitchen as it would not really be needed.

Another New Year

2009-01-01T02:17:00.002-06:00

It is 2009, a chance to begin anew.

Time to lean on the Lord a whole lot more. To seek His guidance, strength and wisdom.

My prayer for this year is pretty simple:

Keep Richard safe, walking in the way that He would have him.
To be a better help meet, parent, homemaker, teacher.
To seek Him in everything thing that I do. Talk it over with Richard before I do it.
That some how even with the distance that is always between us, due to his job, that we find away to pray together. That we pray about things together, to make sure that we know what the other is doing.
I would like, for Him to find a church for us to attend, without Richard, that is family friendly. Since there really isn't anything close that we would fit into, some like mindedness would be good.
I need to pray with Richard about going over about 2.5 hours for fellowship a few times a month.
To not loose my temper, and if I do that I seek His word for the answer and a chance to "cool off".
To not speak in a disappointed manner to Richard, bite my tongue as needed. Then talk it to Him when I have frustrations.
I know that, I can do all things through Christ, I just need to remember to seek Him out a lot more during my day.

To be happy and content with where I am. To not always be looking at the greener grass. Richard is not at this point ready to do anything, so I need to just do what I can here.
To continue lifting Richard up to Him. Everyday pray about him-his day, the truck, his student, the class he is going to, the other classes he's going to do, his deployment that is coming up.
That no matter we are in His hands and we will be fine.

A few goals that I have for this year are:
To purge the house of everything
To make a yearbook/scrap book
To make several quilts, to make all of Rachel's clothing and a good bit of mine.
To work towards once a month shopping.
To have a garden, that produces well
To plant at least 4 fruit trees, some berries
To add on or at least get some redesigning of the inside so that it works better.
To get a larger van
To get on a schedule and stick to it.

Happy New Year!!!

Garden plans

2008-12-31T15:36:00.004-06:00

The seed catalogs are beginning to trickle in. I flipped through the Burpee one and still can't figure out why anyone would want a seedless tomato? How are you going to grow more?

I am thinking that we are going to plant, lettuce-Romain, potatoes-red skin, and these really fun purple ones that Richard picked up in TX, tomatoes, green peas, green beans, collards, zucchini, yellow squash, okra, corn, pumpkins, garlic, carrots, green peppers, purple hull peas, spinach, cucumbers for salad and pickles, and probably more but I can't think of what.

I was also looking at the fruit trees and berries. I would like to get apple trees, peaches, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries. Maybe try a few plums, pears. I've also thought about grapes but I am still not sure.

Our Co-Op manager had said that the fruit trees would be in around Christmas, but they still haven't come in. Hopefully soon, but now that I think about it I don't think that even Wal-mart has their trees in yet.

So we need to get the ground ready, we have a very large garden space, thanks to a neighbor. He turned over a plot 165'x65'. But sadly we still do not have a tiller or tractor, I am praying that we will be able to get one this year. My FIL did come over last year and gave us hand, with his tiller, but I think that it was too late in the season so the weeds and grass took over.

My garden goal for this year is to put up as much as possible. I do need to get a pressure canner, lots of jars, figure out the pantry space to store all of the jars once they are full. And pray that we don't break to many jars during the canning process. We've been using our jars for other things and many are getting broken. Time to go back to plastic cups again.

The boys and I also need to sit down and draw out the garden so that we can plan out we are going to plant everything.

We need to get the chicken coop cleaned out, the rabbits poo is also really good to use, the pigs are swimming in mud that can also be used, and when I want the cow manure I can go to Dad's and he will fill the pick up. So we are not short on the fertilizer, but we might need top soil or something. I know that stuff will grow out there, besides the weeds, I just need to be a lot more dilligent aobut getting out there everyday. Trying not to waste our money on buying plants before I have anywhere to put them.

Our lifestyle

2008-12-30T23:41:00.003-06:00

eWe are a very unique family. I wear only dresses/shirts, wear a head covering, dress the boys in a very modest style, Rachel is already in dresses and a covering-which she waits for when it is time to get dressed
.
And yet my husband is in the Army. Most Plain communities would not welcome us because of that. But I have an online friend who is living the way that we hope to, that also feel that being in the military is not a bad thing.

Which is good since at least three of the boys say they want to go into Air Force or Army.
I personally feel that serving your country is a very good thing. I also feel that it is a good job. No you will not get rich in the military, but you will /should always have a home, benefits, a steady income. It is also a good way to go on to college if that is something that you want.

We are raising our children to step back from the world. To look at it in a much different way than most people do.

My Grandmother, my Mom and I were talking about being conservative on Christmas day. She mentioned that she had watched the Duggar show where they went to a movie. She could not understand how a family that conservative, would be at the movies any movie. But then add to the fact that it was an R rated one and well that just sent her over the top. Why she kept asking? I don't know, I do know that all of my friends watch movies and they are all conservative. A few of them even know the Duggar's. We watch movies, in our home. Not as much as we used to. There are something that the children are not allowed to see. We are getting better at what we watch overall. We do still have satelight, not sure how long I will be keeping it on, because we really don't watch it. I was watching the Duggar's and other shows about large families, but what I should be doing is focusing on my own.

We've had some really fun nights the past couple of weeks were we just sit here and sing out of the hymnals. I do wish that one of them would pick up playing the piano again. We've played baord games. Tonight once the little once had gone to bed the three older boys played go fish, only to realize that there are a LOT of cards missing from the deck that they were using.

Which brings me back to Grandma, this would also be a bad thing that we are playing cards, when I tried to tell her that one of our favorite games is Dutch Blitz and that I get it in a horse and buggy Amish store, well I thought that her eyes were going to come clean out of her head. This game is solitare without the face cards in it. She had never heard of the game.

So I think that the thing for me is next time I see her I need to remind her that we are, all of us(my friends, & the Duggar's) first generation conservative Christians.
We grew up one way and are trying to raise our children in a completely different way. And it is hard. But everyday we learn a new way to let go of something that we probably shouldn't have, or dealing with that item in a way that is God honoring.

Getting ready to say goodbye

2008-12-30T23:00:00.003-06:00

Well as of tonight it looks like the children and I will be heading over to Atlanta to pick up Richard on Friday.
We will more than likely spend a little bit of time over there as we are all wanting to go to IKEA and look around. We also need to go to the Apple store so that they can fix his iPhone, something is wrong with the iPod feature it will only play one song even after you've touched the shuffle button.
He also needs new pair of running shoes as one of his students seems to have taken them. Not to say that people are bad, but it does make me wonder what else might have been taken from his truck whether accidentally or on purpose, after cleaning out the truck on Sunday I really don't think that he would know, unless he was looking for something specific and couldn't find it.

The children and I had to go into town to the laundry mat today so that I could wash my down comforter. I had just walked into the bedroom on Sunday and Richard had changed Rachel. She was in her birthday suit and my hands were cold, so guess what she peed all over me and the bed. But I have found that our little town actually has 2 laundry mats and I kind of like this one better. A lot more larger washer, more washer in general. But I don't like that there isn't anyone there or even a phone number if something happens or you need a refund because the machine you choose is broken. But the there was a good amount of dryers that said HOT on them and they were, because my comforter was dry in 24min. I am thinking about going up there and washing everything that we own once and for all and when I am done it will all go straight across the street to the thrift store. I would love to do this, but I will more than likely just box all the good pants, collared shirts, and smaller stuff and once they can show me that they can and are willing to take care of their clothing then we can go shopping in the boxes.
Then there will be no more of the I can't find this that or the other, because they will each have 1 outfit. That has to be washed every night in the home washer.
I should think that 2 pairs of underwear, each 3 pairs of socks, maybe 2 pairs of jeans that way if they get messy at the barn they will have something to change into, in the middle of the day.
Then once we get all of the laundry done we are going to say goodbye to all of the toys. I only want them to have a few things, Lego's, Lincoln logs, matchbox cars, Thomas the train stuff, board games, books, but I need to get things back into buckets and bins. I would love to get one of those organizers for like a preschool and then we could just box up the items, and when they are done they know what color bin to put things in. But I think that what we are going to do is this thing called ITSO that Target has. I kind of think that it is really based on something that we might be able to find when we are at IKEA. We shall see.

I am great at planning and organizing everything on paper, but don't ask me to actually make it happen. Because you might still be waiting 30 minutes from now.

Anyway I am off to bed. We still need to finish getting all of the Army things together so that Richard has what he needs while he'll be away in Boston.

could be Wed night, probably early Thurs am

2008-12-22T20:59:00.002-06:00

Or more than likely it will be breakfast time Thursday before he rolls in.

He didn't come home this weekend, so that he could come home early on Wed and then have two full days with us. But then the student he had got fired and they didn't have a new one to give him. So with the runs that he had, he ended up with a 36 hour reset. He could have taken it down in TX, but instead took it up in Florence. By doing that it meant that we would be able to spend the day with him on Sat.

It was a rainy wet day that we really spent most of sitting in the van. We did run around Lowe's and if I'd had 1000.00 I would have a really nice front loader now, but alas it has been a very bad month, so it will wait.

But then I am sure that it has been a bad month for a lot of people and for that I am grateful that he has a job. I do wish that there was a lot more stability in his work, that when they say that he will be home at a certain time then he will, not hours or days later.

We did get a new kitchen faucet that Thomas installed for me today, and he fixed the hose on the shower(we have one of those double ones, works great with bathing the little ones)head. We also looked at the wire shelving, kitchen sinks, kitchen cabinets, area rugs, the huge outdoor play sets, enclosed trailers, and drywall.

There is so much that we need to do in the area of home repair, but the hardest was coming home after having a pretty nice day(it was raining after all), to find our two goats dead.

They were just fine when we left 12 hours earlier, but there were gone. So on Sunday instead of attending church, Thomas and I dug a whole and buried them. It seems so strange to go outside and not hear them talking to us. They were really just pets, large animals to help us in getting used to large animals. We bought them two years ago this coming Feb, around the same time we bought our Great Pyrenees Toby, he also died this past year, just past his 1st birthday. A great big white puff of a dog that didn't like cars, and yet he was run over by a neighbor, who did quiet a bit of damage to her car. But I guess that if animals all go somewhere they are all together again now.

Not sure what I will do now, we have chickens that aren't laying eggs, chicks that are trying to survive this cold weather, a sow and her altered son, and two each male and female rabbits.
Sad little homestead we have here, but then again perhaps it was a sign from God. We are to look to Him, to seek His face everyday in all that we do. Perhaps we did something, or we are supposed to be doing something and He is trying to tell us that.

Off to seek that answers in His word. Have a blessed evening.

Finally ordered the book Nourishing Traditions

2008-12-18T11:55:00.002-06:00

I've heard really good things about it for a few years now, but just didn't think it was something that I wanted yet.

Well last night I was reading over on Katie's blog about making baby formula. Well don't ask me why but that was it.

So over to Amazon to see what I might be able to find used. I love books, used books can be a really interesting thing. Because sometimes you can get notes that other people put in them. So I found one that sounded good, I ordered it and should get it by Friday.

That was until a few minutes ago, I got an email saying that their ad was incorrect and they were going to order be a brand new, their cost and have it shipped to me.

I am happy and a little sad as I was looking forward to possibly seeing someone else's notes in this book.

Oh well, I hope that I enjoy it as much as I think I will.

Planning the nex 6 months of school

2008-12-08T18:08:00.002-06:00

As we get ready to begin the new year, I have decided once again to make a year book. It will include things that we do in our school, around the homestead, and just a general look at our lives.

I am thinking that we will work once a week, it will count as handwriting, English, Art, creative writing, and whatever else I can think of.

My thoughts are that they will learn a lot about themselves, each other and our family.

It will be a good way to show Richard what we really do each month too. As he will be going away to school for the Army next month and we will not be able to see him. It gives us a goal in getting the month of Jan in the books.

I will do 2 books, 6 months at a time, that way if they really get into it we won't have to down size and decide what doesn't get to go in the book.

My other thoughts on this project are that they will be able to look back when they are older and see what their handwriting looked like, what they did in school and everything that I wished that I had now. I know that my step mom, has been doing scrap books for years, but I don't really think that she has years-full years of what my brother and I did.

But since I have been saying that I was going to do this for the past couple years, I am really going to make this work.

I am also going to try digital scrap booking, that way I will be able to get some of the older pictures that I have into albums too. We won't even begin to talk about how far behind I am in my scrap booking. So this is a way to get started and hopefully back on track, slowly but back on track.

Time flies when you don't have a lot of it.

2008-12-07T20:35:00.002-06:00

Richard had Drill this weekend, yesterday he went to Florence and the children and I drove him up there. Which also meant that we would be spending the day in the van. Which is ok on a normal day but it was chilly yesterday.
So we walked around a few stores, I couldn't bring myself to brave the mall. We checked out the library which is really nice, more along the lines of what I am used to back in FL.
Fought a raging headache most of the day, actually took two naps in the van trying to fight my headache. Finally while we were at the library, they have a little coffee shop in the lobby and I broke down and bought a Coke, then took some more Tylenol and it finally went away.
We went to pick Richard up, then showed him this beautiful on the outside old large house for sale. I have since found it on line and it is completely modern inside. Which although it was something completely outside of our price range, it was a very pretty house. But it was also right in the historic district of Florence, which also happens to be very very close to the University of North Alabama. If only we could find a large farm house on some land that would be wonderful.
Anyway, we then went to Target and looked around. We needed milk so we went over to Aldi's and got 4 gallons for the week. Then we finally headed home. Once I started leaving the "city" everyone fell asleep, except for Thomas he always stay awake.
We got to Russelville and got gas for 1.56, and then got a couple bacon cheeseburgers and fries from Jack's and came on home. Got everyone inside and into bed and we also turned in.
So today, we've go the whole day and it still flew by. We got up around 7, feed the animals, made and ate breakfast, then I really don't know where the rest of the day went.
We did manage to sit down at the table at 6, but then somewhere between eating supper, giving the little two baths, some playtime with them and getting them into bed I lost an hour and a half. So here I sit at quarter to 9, and I am going to finish getting Richard ready for tomorrow. He will be pulling out in the morning after they come a jump his truck, his truck is such a thing. If he doesn't start it several times during the weekend, then it won't start. So because we were all gone yesterday it's dead. So sometime tomorrow, a service person will come out and help him start his truck and his day.
I am off to make sure that he doesn't forget anything.
Have a great week and God Bless.
Debi

Plans for the next month

2008-12-01T16:51:00.004-06:00

Well we all said our goodbyes to Richard this morning as he left for work, the good thing is that he will be home again this weekend. It is Drill weekend so we won't really get to see him much but he's still home in the evenings.
I am still trying to figure out how I can get to KY to see Mary and the girls and possibly catch Bryce and Heather while they are home for Christmas, praying that it happens. But there will be other times if it doesn't.
Richard will be home again two weeks later for our family weekend not sure what we are going to do yet, but we will probably be doing our Christmas dinner. He should be home on the 25th like last year, but I won't believe it until I see it. Especially after this weekend and him being told that he should be able to get home early, well it was early alright 2:15 or something in the morning, oh and that was Saturday morning.
Then the last weekend of the month he will be turning in his truck to the terminal in Atlanta so that he can go to school in Boston for the month of Jan and part of Feb, then he will be home for like a week-maybe, he might just go back out on the road till he has to do the next schooling. Well that is really a little more than the next month, but hey it is the plan.
The thing that bothers me the most is that we won't be able to see him for the time he is in Boston, it is a 21 almost 22 hour drive and I just don't know how I feel about trying to drive in snowy weather for a weekend visit. I mean I would love to go up to Boston and see what we might be able to see, but a big van, 7 children and cold cold weather, ummm I think that I will pass. The time will go by quickly, then we will be together again in our unique way that we are together, life as a family of a trucker.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T21:12:00.002-06:00

Hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

That family time is a happy event and that the Lord blesses everyone with save travels and wonderful visits with family and friends.

Sense and Sensibility now has ePatterns

2008-11-12T10:07:00.002-06:00

I have always loved this period of clothing.

I have looked over these patterns many times and now that she has ePatterns I plan on getting several of them, because one of the biggest problems I have is that I loose pattern pieces. Having them always in the computer they can't go anywhere.

I am trying to choose between the underpinnings and the Spencer-I have always loved this style of coat. Probably will start with the underpinnings as I have been looking for a way to make our female underthings.

So go over to Sense and Sensibility and look at her new ePatterns.

Happenings on our homestead

2008-11-06T07:07:00.004-06:00

So on Sunday three of the pigs went to the butcher, and two are still here, they will both be fattened up and go in a few more months.

I ordered 25 more chickens yesterday and still need to get a couple roosters. We also need to build a real chicken coop and get them out of the barn stall that they have all been in for so long. I need that stall for other things.

I am not sure that our mama pig is bred back, so we are going to be watching her, and I am going to be looking into getting a calf that we can fatten up for the freezer. She has really fattened up since we moved her and the one little pig left, I should be able to send her over around the end of Feb and get a good bit more pork for the freezer.

The other big thing that I am working on is getting the third bench installed in the van to make it a 12 passenger, that way we can spread the children. The only draw back to that is that it will be a lot harder when getting feed and such, so that means, I am also going to be getting a trailer hitch and be on the lookout for a small enclosed trailer. That I can use not only for when we get feed, but to also use when we go to the grocery store.

I have decided that I am about done with Walmart, our little store might carry something that you like, then it's just gone and no they will not order it again for you.

So even though it is a drive there is an Aldi up in Florence, I am really looking into heading up there and really looking at everything that they carry. Since I am not one to really buy boxed food, I am looking at canned things and possible frozen items. We already have a really nice large cooler, but will probably getting at least two more for this kind of shopping and the distance. The last time I was in Aldi's the had a really great price on gallon milk.

I am still very much interested in getting a milk cow, but first we need to fence in at least an acre for her and a calf. I talked to Jeff up at Co-Op and it will probably cost about 40.00 to have all the fencing supplies we will need delivered, but this way things won't get bent or messed up as the truck is longer than our little pickup. The other reason to pay for the delivery is that it is a good 20 miles into town and I just can't leave the children here alone even for a quick trip in with the pick up.

I am trying to plan out our orchard, I would like to have peaches, apples, plums, pears and cherries-even though I don't like them I am sure that they could be used to make some jams or something that we would possible be able to see at the farmer's market. I am not sure what all of the things that you can sell at ours, but I would think that jams and preserves would especially if I am selling homemade bread too.

Our garden is the next big plan. I should think that seed catalogs should start arriving soon. I know the basics that I want, it is just trying to get the right quantity of plants. I am thinking that we need at least 200 tomato plants, 100lbs of potatoes-Richard bought some purple fingerlings that we are going try. Green beans, peas, romaine lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash, watermelons, pumpkins, collards, okra, garlic, carrots, broccoli, must think about what other veggies we want to plant and put up.

I voted today, Have you?

2008-11-04T09:10:00.002-06:00

I have to say that it is a lot different here in Alabama compared to what it was back in FL.

First off we live in a very rural area, my little town has a post office, one gas station, a bank, city hall, a new medical clinic, and three different churches, oh there are also two restaurants, the auction house-for the once a month auctions, and the discount flea market & grocery store that is only open on Fri & Sat.

Anyway our voting place is at the city hall. I did take all of the children with me and we were there while another young man was there. Back in FL you had the old style, where we had that lovely chad problem, then we had the touch screens.

Well here in my neck of the woods, we have a ballot that is a fill in the bubble. Then you put it into this big box that had a counter on it and I was the 33 ballot into the box. As we were leaving there were more people coming in to vote.

The poll workers were all very nice and gave I voted today stickers to all of the children. I got one too.

Have a great day!

Got my laptop fixed.

2008-11-03T11:51:00.002-06:00

It seems so silly to think that this is just a computer, I've only had it for a year or maybe almost two. But having to go back and use the desktop after having been on this one for so long was like having to tie a rope around my waist and run around the house, while the other end of that rope was tied to the inside of the front door. It took forever and it was hard and slow going, trying to get things done.

But it is now working again, the tech guy even came out to me and was super cool, because he didn't mind having all the boys ask questions, even took the time to tell them and showed them everything that he was doing and what things did. That is the best thing in my book, when a person will take the time to talk to children while they are providing a service.

But now the bad news, I just went to use the usb ports on the side and they are in crooked, so I suppose that I am going to very carefully take this apart and see if I can fix it myself. Bummer, oh well at least the computer is running again.

Getting children to obey

2008-10-23T20:21:00.004-05:00

I am the mother of 7(so far) blessings, and have been in some sense of the word a single mom for a while now. My DH is in the Reserves and is a over the road truck driver, which means he's just not really home a lot.

Over the past 3 months, we've been able to have 1 full two day family weekend-and that was back at the beginning of August. So I am often left to double parent then children and when needed, he is able to talk to them over the phone. It's really a good thing that our cell company offers an unlimited plan.

In the last, oh probably 6 months the attitudes in this house have been just terrible. No one does what they are asked or told to do without some whining/grumbling or complaining. And I am tired of it all.

So next week we are going to begin a program called Bootcamp. More or less they are all going to be treated as if they were in the military-which most of them say that they want to do that anyway. So for the next 6 weeks they will only be able to say "Yes, Mom", "No, Mom" and Yes and No Dad when they see him or speak to him on the phone. Then after some time, once they all understand that this is the way life will be, they will be allowed to appeal or ask questions to the task(s) that they were given.

They are able to speak out of turn in an emergency. Like if I asked someone to change a diaper or bring me the supplies and we were out, or they weren't able to prepare a meal because something was missing.

I am praying that this really works, because they are getting old enough that this is going to effect their work habits later in life and I wand they all to be happy in what ever type of job/career that they seek out.

So for tomorrows game plan, we will not be heading up to my BF's place, the responsibilities that they have all know about since Sunday are still not complete. We are going to complete them and we are now working on a point system, as long as they do everything they are asked/told to do in the next 14 days then we will try to go then. (secretly I will probably go then anyway, but they will not be allowed to what they would normally be)

Please forgive me if there are spelling errors, I am really tired and will proof read tomorrow.

Have a blessed evening.

It looks like I'm going to Best Buy again

2008-10-22T10:00:00.002-05:00

This morning Prince A was holding Princess R and she knocked over my coffee cup onto the laptop.

And now it's dead.

Ugggggg.

mid afternoon snack

2008-10-20T15:47:00.004-05:00

For the past couple of years I find that around early afternoon, anywhere from 2-5pm I get super sleepy.

I have tried turkey and cheese on crackers, PB&J on bread or crackers, even those Slim Fast bars.

Well last week I was at the Pharmacy looking for fish oil tablets like the ones that I get at GNC, they didn't have anything close. I turned on a different isle and saw the energy bars.

Our Walmart has a rather large selection of single bars that you can get, so I picked a handfull of different companies to try. I got a Zone, one by Kashi, and three different flavors from Cliff Bar.
The Kashi one was gross as far as I am concerned, the Zone would run a very close second on the ick factor. The first Cliff bar was ok, but I don't remember why I didn't like it. I think that one actually had peanut butter and chocolate. The second one was just chocolate chip and it was my favorite, and today I ate the last one called crunchy peanut butter-this one was pretty good. But as I sit here I am finding that I have a funny after taste.

I need other ideas for snacks that are high in protein, because I find that if I eat junk food it makes me feel worse.

Yes, I have had my sugar checked and I am fine. I just think that for me, I get up very early 4.45-5.00am and I am busy all day. Untill about that time of the day, which is quiet time or at least it is supposed to be. Prince C & The Princess both understand that have no problems, it is the older Princes that have a problem with doing quiet activities, they got out of the habit last year, around this time and it's been hard to get them back on track, but they are getting better at it.

He's on his way!!!!!

2008-10-18T17:00:00.003-05:00

Well after what looked like he wasn't going to make it home, he is currently on his way. He should be here by probably 10 tonight.

So that means we will get all day together as a family. The best part is that it is Princess R's 1st Birthday!!! Yeah, not sure what we are going to do yet, but it should be a good time together.

Today

2008-10-16T21:31:00.002-05:00

Today, well it began with me waking at 4 something, looking out at the moon and really wishing that I could take some photos, it's been hanging out of my bedroom window the past few mornings and is just beautiful.
Just when I thought that I could sneak off to the kitchen I realized that Princess R was awake and looking at me. So I had to grab her and Prince M meets us in the kitchen. We all head to the bathroom, where she gets to tub surf-I don't like putting her on the bathroom floor, I know don't ask.
Today was Prince A's 10th birthday, well it seems that they didn't get any thing done from the night before. So the morning bell went off at 5.30am, Princes J & C were left in bed as J had done quite a bit last night, and with C only being two, I just left him.
They weren't too happy to say the least, but you know what I am getting tired of assigning chores only to have to finish them myself. They are all old enough to do what they are told, when they are told to.
Prince A did get his gifts, a new Lego Star Wars sleep shirt, and an action figure from one of the Star Wars movies, his Great Grandmother called and wished him a happy day and said that his card should be here today-it was and he got $10.00. Which he spent at Barnes and Noble, he got this wonderful little blank journal, that I am sure will end up being filled with drawings and short stores of the Stars Wars nature and a Strawberries and Cream Frappachinio.
I found a new homeschooling magazine-it was the only one that I was able to find, it might not be that new, but it's new to me. Looks pretty good, so far I have only managed to read one article, I am really looking at all the ads.
We did get almost all of our schooling done today, they didn't get Science. I am trying to decide how I want them to do the Radish project from Sonlight Core 3-groups, individually, or just one and we all use just that.
That and I am going to buy a huge storage building that they sell/rent to own around here and make my own little school house. Because I know without question, that if I were to remove all of the schooling stuff from our home, we would have room to move. LOL! It is so funny, we have so many books, games, and other educational stuff that we really just don't have the room to move. It might have something to do with the fact that the house is only 913sq ft.
My friend Deanna, was just looking at one 12x24 and she thought that it was really nice and she too wants to get one to use as a school house. Just pop a little ac unit in for the summer, maybe a little wood stove for winter and we are ready. Eat breakfast in the house, keep the playpen set up for naps for the Princess. Then when I want something I can go well it's over there, not like today when I went looking for something only to remember that it is in town at the storage place-I was in tears, how can I teach them well when I can't keep everything in one place? UGGGGGG. I need to get my act together.

off to the computer hospital it went

2008-10-16T21:25:00.002-05:00

Well the new power supplies arrived today and nothing happened. So I loaded everyone up and we went to Tupelo and Best Buy, where they also tried to power it and well of course nothing happened. So 85.00 dollars later it is going to be sent to Louisville, KY-which is funny because neither of the ladies could say it right.
Anyway I guess the only good thing is, I have DH's laptop until he leaves on Mon. Then I am chained to the old desk top.
We need another laptop here at the house. I can't get anything done when I am stuck in one room, while the children are running around.
So my wish list of things to get just keeps getting longer.
Newer/larger van
front loader washer
Digital SLR camera
another Laptop
Macmini
Macbook
iPod classic
iPhone for DH
3500 sq foot addition
pigs to the butcher-this one really needs to be up at the top.
well you get the idea

I've really become spoiled with my laptop.

2008-10-14T07:29:00.004-05:00

Yesterday my laptop was knocked off the end couch(I had it opened because I was listening to some music-which is why I need an iPod) and I guess it messed up the power cord. I am praying that is all it is. I quickly searched over on EBay and found two new ones, DH's had died a few weeks ago and well honestly it wasn't placed high on the fix list. Praying that it arrives quickly. Add to the fact that my battery is dead, I bought a new one but something is wrong with it too, so I am sending it back to get it replaced. I am having to use this one and it has been a long time.

Everything about this computer is strange, the keys, the noises it makes, the screen is probably the biggest thing that is bothering me. It is a 17", but it is older and a box. I should look into getting a flat panel then that would make it better.

I am also looking at working our way over to a Macmini in the next few months. I really like the looks of the Mac's and so I am going to start there, well really DH is going to be getting an iPhone this weekend while he's home. I can't wait because I want to play with it before he leaves on Mon, I will probably be getting one also, but I still have a few months before I can make an upgrade.

So our new computer shopping list is looking like this, iPhone, Macmini, iPod Classic, then perhaps a Macbook, I would love to get the Macbook Pro, but we will have to see, if I can get DH to go Apple I know that he would get the Macbook Pro, just because he does a lot more than I do, but ya know maybe if I had a computer that was easier to use the maybe I would use it a lot more than just blogging, reading my different forums, and getting activities for our school.

Off to get the children feed, so that we can start school and I have some dresses that I am making for some ladies.

Have a wonderful day.

Not sure WHY I was trying to start yet another blog?!

2008-10-13T00:14:00.004-05:00

What was I thinking?? I really don't know, even though it might say that I have two, for now I will only be posting on this one.

I just spent about 10 minutes trying to find the perfect name for another blog, boy was it hard. There are a lot of titles that I would have loved to use but they were all taken, and then I thought why not try 6toads1princess, it surprisingly was not taken. However, I can not call my boys toads, so what made me think of that in the first place?

Well in the last week they have found several toads, and these toads sound like birds. They are the coolest toads. When I was little I lived in FL and I of course had a little sand pail. This pail was often the home to toads and frogs, but my Mom would almost always tell me to put them all back. She told me a few years ago that she always felt sorry for the one on the bottom, because he/she was usually half dead by the time I got around to setting them all free.

Tomorrow after I pick up my camera from Wal-Mart tomorrow I will share a few pictures that we took of the first one that they had found. He was played with for a little while but then quickly returned to where he was found.

Today as a treat we had Subway, I don't usually get fast food of any kind. But I was really in the mood for a sub. Since there is a Firehouse Subs anywhere close to us, Subway will have to do. It was really good considering it has probably been a year since I've had one.

The rest of the treat will be tomorrow when the children are allowed to have a glass of Coke.

Sometime at the end of December 2006, I happened to catch the movie Super Size Me on tv, and boy did it open my eyes. I decided that in January we would not eat out for the whole month, no fast food and I stopped drinking Coke.

The good news was we made it through the month, I stopped the Coke consumption and lost something like 21lbs. WOOO HOOO!!!!

Better yet was in March we were blessed to find out that I was pregnant with our first daughter. Princess was born 19 Oct and will turn 1 in 6 days, I can't believe how fast this year has gone by either.

So because of that movie, and moving out to the country so much of our lifestyle has changed:
we rarely eat out
drink Coke or really any sugary drinks
eat sugary snacks
drink things with red dye
listen to the radio-we do listen to music, mostly classical, hymns, and other uplifting pieces
we are working on limiting TV to just a few hours a month, including DVD's that are not school related.

I am sure that there are many others but those are all I can think of right now.

It is a family weekend, DH will be home for his first weekend off in almost 3 months. Because he drives a big truck he is always at work, then he also has Drill weekends and because of how they fell he wasn't able to come home every two weeks like normal. But this week he will be home on Friday-we are praying that it is early enough in the day that he will get to spend almost 2 and a half days with us. It is also a very special weekend as Thursday Prince A turns 10, and of course Princess turns 1.

So we will be cleaning like the cleaning service is here, to make sure that the house is nice for DH while he's home. There is a lot to do, not including the projects that I am working on. Part of me just wants to say lets just load up and go somewhere to really have fun with him, but then I know that he probably has a list of things he'd like to get done around here. It should be fun to see what we end up doing.

Off to get everything ready for the boys to get their school work done tomorrow. I am looking at possibly taking them into town for a 4H club meeting on Friday. I don't know that they are ready to do the work though. They have been very lazy with their school work lately and that concerns me. Probably has to do with me being lazy with my work, say a prayer for me that I am able to find my focus and get back on track.

God Bless.

Deanna's family

2008-10-12T22:41:00.004-05:00

My friend Deanna and her family, only she's a child short. Where's Emily? You really need a new photo!

I should post the last family photo that we had taken, LOL I am about 5 children short.

Yes I took this from your Photobucket, among other things.

Now Mary knows what you look like. LOL!!!!

ETA: Actually I was pregnant with Prince N, but you probably would not be able to tell except for the dress I had on. It was from Motherhood Maternity, but you probably couldn't tell that just by looking at the picture. I will see if I can find it tomorrow.

Running around outside

2008-10-12T18:32:00.004-05:00

The boys are all running around outside, it is twilight and they could careless. Last night they were all there past dark, running in circles around the tent that is set up in the front yard.

We have been so blessed with the current weather, today it did look as though it might rain, but it never did. The clouds would cover the sun, and then the sun would burst through again to say hello, on and off all day.

I would have taken pictures of them playing outside but I still can't find the camera. I am so sad about that. There was something like 90 pictures on it and I hadn't copied them to the computer.
I am still praying that we will be able to find it though. I am going to call Walmart and see if perhaps someone might have turned it in. PRAISE THE LORD they have it!!!!!!!!! I will be going there to get it tomorrow. God is so good.

I think that I am going to work on my Nephew's blanket. I am crocheting it and I have two more scans of yarn left. Then I am going to start a blanket for Rachel, and a quilt for Caleb. Once I am done with those we are going to work on quilts for all of the older boys, but they are going to be the ones cutting their squares and sew the pieces together. Then I will probably do the actually quilting, they will get to try some I am sure.