About 2 weeks before Christmas, DH decided that completely redoing the kitchen and dining room would be a good idea.  Our upstairs is an open concept with a vaulted ceiling, so the kitchen, dining room and living room are all one big room with a half wall separating the kitchen from the living room area.  He decided that he wanted to turn the kitchen/dining room into a large eat in kitchen.  He has torn up both the kitchen and dining room floors, removed all the kitchen cabinets, removed the sink and removed the dishwasher.  We have been living in a construction zone for about 6 weeks now and it is getting harder and harder to be patient.  The new cabinets arrived last week and DH and a friend from work put many of them up this morning.  Things looked like they were headed in the right direction till DH put up the last base cabinet on the long wall and found that it didn't match the upper cabinets.  That wouldn't matter too much except that we are having a long cabinet over our fridge and there is a wall that goes between the fridge and the cabinets that needs to be equal between the top and bottom cabinets.  To fix the problem (which is only a 1/4 inch difference) involves taking down 4 upper cabinets so that puts the cutting of the countertop off for a few more days.  Normally it wouldn't matter too much, but DH has planned to take Big Sister to visit his sister in AZ for a week starting February 13th.   I told him that I had to have a functioning kitchen by then.  It didn't have to be finished, but it did have to have things like a functioning sink, dishwasher, fridge, stove and countertops.  That isn't a done deal like it was a couple of days ago. 

Never a dull moment here

Well, I finally got around to blogging in 2007.  I am a little slow on the uptake

We had a good Christmas and New Years.  The kids got more than they needed, but not as much as they wanted.  Their great aunt gave them $25 each and told them to spend it as they wanted.  Well we set up a family bank on a spread sheet that I keep in my PDA. That way we don't have cash hanging around that can get lost or aquired by other people.  They are very frugal when the money is theirs .

When Mom is spending money, they have no problem asking for everything, when it is their money though, I can't get them to spend it on what it was intended for...gifts for them.

Our resolutions for this year are to get our finances in order (or at least under control), continue the healthy lifestyle we started last year, finish the remodeling of the kitchen and keep God as the center of our lives in good times and bad.

Welcome 2007, it is sure to be an interesting year.

Big Brother made Star Scout tonight.  He wants to be an Eagle and he is well on his way.  We are so proud of him.  He wants to be a Tae Kwon Do Black Belt too and he is more than half way there.  He is a very goal oriented kid and I don't see him not achieving anything he sets out to do.

I had to go shopping today and I went to our local mall.  Outside the Best Buy I saw a line of tents with people sitting in chairs.  As I went into the store, I asked the people what they were doing there.  I found out that Play Station 3 is going on sale tomorrow morning and these folks wanted to be the first ones there.    I just can't understand why folks do that till I saw that Ebay already has auctions that are selling the PS 3 for over $1500.  I guess that if someone wants to sleep in a tent on concrete they can, but even for that big a profit, you wouldn't catch me sleeping in a tent during a terrible rainstorm with high winds.  The forcasters are calling for up to 3 inches of rain and have a flood warning up.  I just don't think I will ever understand what would cause these folks to camp out in awful weather just for a video game system. 

It's education we're talking about here.  If you go to public school, study hard and do your homework you might be smart enough to be to be accepted into the US Military.  If you don't, you will probably end up as a Senator from Massachusettes.

A few days ago Little Sister found a Monarch butterfly who obviously didn't get the go south memo.  It was alive, but only barely.  We tried to keep it alive, but it just didn't happen. We tried making sugar water, but only had Spenda.  The poor fella died in the night. 

Little Sister wanted to keep the butterfly, but I had no idea of what to do.  I went to the Discovery store figuring that they would know what to do, but they didn't.  The nice man at the store sent me to the craft store.  I got a "floating frame" which is 2 pieces of glass which the butterfly is displayed between.   It looks very nice, and she is happy so it was worth it. 

In the spring we are hoping to get the butterfly canopy and raise them from catepillar to release.  We have a lot of milkweed around so they will have plenty to eat.  I am going to try to upload a picture of our butterfly if I get the time. 

Well, we all survived the International fair.   Big Brother and Big Sister both spoke and they did a good job, or so I was told.  Little Brother and Little Sister had a very hard time standing still and keeping their mouths quiet.  I took them out while the presenters showed off their projects.  I was disappointed that I missed the kid's presentations, but one of the moms video taped the whole thing and has said she will be happy to make me a copy.  Homeschoolers are so wonderful.  I was going to bring my own video camera, but I couldn't find any blank tapes. I never did find one so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  I think that their behavior was a combination of seasons changing, not sleeping well since DH is working mega hours,  and getting over whatever cold is going around.    I am so looking forward to tomorrow.  I want to just slow down and take it easy.  We have no where to go and a whole lot of time to get there.

We are going to an International Fair tomorrow and Big Brother and Big Sister have been making displays about Mongolia and Peru respectively.   So today I got to jump back and forth between Mongol hordes and the Incas.  It was interesting because along with globehopping, I had to figure out what to do with Little Brother and Sister.  They wanted to watch TV, but whenever the TV went on, the Big kids suddenly couldn't work anymore.  I kept the kids going and got Mongolia finished because along with the International Fair Big Brother was supposed to give a 5 minute speech about it tonight.  That got messed up and he didn't have to, but it is great that his whole project is done.

Tomorrow morning we are going to put Peru together and make a Pan Pipe out of PVC pipe (if I don't succeed in cutting off one of my fingers in the process). 

I am so looking forward to the weekend to just sit, relax and watch NASCAR. We are paperclip racing this week and I love watching that.  Hopefully my DH won't have to work on Saturday, but I am not holding my breath.

Oh well, that's the way it goes.

Our family has been active in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts for 6 or 7 years.  We build Pine Wood Derby cars every year and have had a blast doing it.  If you have seen the movie "Down and Derby" you have an idea what our house is like around Pine Wood Derby time (though I will admit not as bad).  After all those years of practice, we have got Derby car building almost down to a science.  So when Little Brother brought home the kit for the Rain Gutter Regatta boat I figured we would be fine.  It is just like building a Derby car that floats right???  WRONG!!!!  It is very different.  I found this out after I opened the box and after DH, resident carpenter, engineer, general boat person, had left for 2 days (did I mention the Regatta is tommorow (Sunday) afternoon?).  So boat building fell to me.  I decided that we didn't have time to paint the boat since paint takes too long to dry.  So I took permanent marker and colored the boat the color we wanted it.  This of course is after driving a 50+ mile round trip to the Scout store to get the pirate stickers so that the boat could look like the one on the box.  

I colored the little balsa wood block and realized that it sucked up the ink very quickly.  Would it suck up the water just as quick?  So I called our local hardware store and yup, not sealing the boat was going to cause our boat to be a submarine.  So I ended up getting some shelac and redoing the "paint job".  Tomorrow morning, while I am trying to get ready for church, I am also going to be glueing and finishing the boat.  Never a dull moment in the life of a parent

Well, I knew that Fall couldn't last forever, but I didn't expect Winter this soon.  We are going to be down around freezing tonight and of course DH and Big Brother are camping with the Scouts tonight.  I have great respect for the Boy Scouts and support them completely, but I am too big a fan of indoor plumbing and heat to get that involved in the camping trips.  That said, I am trying to figure out what to do about Little Brother's request that I go to summer camp with him for a week next summer.  I used to think that camping is when the microwave breaks down, but after living on a gentlemen's farm for the last 8 years, heating with wood, raising chickens, turkeys and pigs, and being out in the country, I am much less a city girl than I used to be.  Little Brother is really a "momma's boy" and wants me to share this really time with him.  I'm hoping that he will decide that Dad is the best for camping, not Mom.  

Off to curl up under a bunch of blankets and get ready for the long winter's night.

Well, this summer has been hectic to say the least.  We had the typical here, there and everywhere running to do.  Big Brother passed his swimming merit badge and became a First Class Boyscout.  This may not seem like a big deal, but he has some sensory issues and hates the water.  We had him in lessons every week and it wasn't getting much better.  Then we had him work with his TKD instructor (who is also a swim instructor) and he finally made it.  When he went to camp this year he tested as a swimmer for the first time ever!!!!!

During the summer and early fall, I took 2 graduate courses at University of Phoenix on line.  They were intense, but good.  DH had gastric bypass surgery in Mass (which went wonderful), and we attended the September race at NHIS.   I went on the track walk they had and it was great.  If you ever get the chance to do it, you should it was a lot of fun.  A homeschooling friend's family and mine went to Heritage NH.  They are closing it this year and I wish they wouldn't.  It was wonderful.  We had a stereographic picture taken of the whole group and just had a wonderful day. Little Brother went to Scout camp with DH for the first time and he can't wait to go back.

Big Brother and Big Sister tested and got their blue stripes in TKD and something really cool happened to me.  I won 3rd row tickets to an upcoming Trace Adkins concert!  I am so psyched.  I love Trace's voice and he isn't difficult to watch either. It isn't till November, and I can't wait.  I am a little nervous though.  I haven't been to a concert since I was 20 and that was a pretty subdued Billy Joel concert.  I don't think that Trace's concert will be subdued at all.  Oh well, DH says when in Rome...

As you can see it is always busy at our house, but now that my classes are over I hope to update the blog more often.

Also thanks to all who sent the homeschooling websites.  They were great and I got an A in the class.

Lately things have been less than stellar at our house for the past month or so (which is part of the reason that I haven't blogged in a while).  My kids I think have Spring fever or have all just decided to be obnoxious at the same time.  I think a lot of it is me. I am tired and achy with the changes in the weather and my fuse is shorter than normal (and I am not the most patient person on the planet to begin with). There are days I get discouraged, and this afternoon was one of them.  I bought the Narnia DVD and watched it with the kids.  They loved it (and so did I).  I had started reading the Chronicles of Narnia to them, but I am not a good reader of long books so it didn’t work   I found out that the Focus on the Family radio broadcast of the Chronicles was on sale ½ price at my local Christian bookstore so I packed up the kids and headed out.  I also had a bunch of shopping to do, so I took all the kids into the super Walmart in the late afternoon (yes I am an idiot at times).  When we went in, the greeter talked to the little ones for a couple of minutes and then looked at me and said “You look like such a fun family”.  That made me feel really good.

As we walked around the store, my kids did a couple of things like saying things that weren’t nice and arguing. Some other people would look at the kids and roll their eyes, until they saw/heard me correct my children then they would get a smile on their faces.  Reminded me that correcting my children is a good thing even when it is hard.

As we were checking out, Little Sister started talking to the lady behind us.  The lady asked if they were all mine and I told her yes and the kids’ ages.  She told me that she had 3 kids and would never try to take them shopping.  I told her that I homeschool and really didn’t have much of a choice.  She was amazed that I homeschooled all of them too.  Little Sister and Little Brother became chatterboxes, Big Sister got sulky and grumpy that I wouldn’t get her a different snack than the other kids and Big Brother was just being a 12 year old boy (nough said).  I apologized that the kids were being disruptive.  She said that the kids were being very good and it looked like we had a lot of fun in our family.  I left the store with a smile on my face and encouraged. 

God knew that I needed to be encouraged, so He sent some angels to give me the encouragement I needed and remind me to have fun.

THANKS GOD, I really needed that.