Feb. 3, 2007
Long time, no see
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Wow. It has been a really long time since I've blogged here. I guess I'll try to get up to date. Our house that we were renting became a nightmare. $500 electric bills. Nails popping out of the floors. The entire master bathroom had to be ripped out all the way to the exterior walls of the house....oh and then the house started sinking. LOL....just to name a few of the items on the long list. So we've moved. We moved on Christmas Eve and the very 1st item out of the truck was our Christmas Tree already decorated and ready to be plugged in. The neighbors must have been in shock. They were all standing outside the house watching this caravan of cars and trucks drive by not once, but twice because I couldn't figure out which house was ours. It has been a wonderful change. We live in a great neighborhood with awesome neighbors and tons of great kids for the boys to play with. I'm so glad they finally have friends. We never lived in a neighborhood with kids. Dear hubby lost his job and found another one that doesn't pay as much, but has excellent insurance. We've had to tighten our belts a little, but it's a good thingt because our spending habits were getting way out of hand. I was offered a freelance position with WESH-2 News, an NBC affiliate, which has been tons of fun. I operate their robotic cameras on the weekends, which is great because it leaves my week free to continue homeschooling the boys. Somedays I wonder if I made the right decision, but only time will tell. When I moved, it was to a different county, so I had to send a new letter of intent. This new county mailed me a packet that included what 4th graders should know and it shell-shocked the entire family. According to their age, the boys should be going into 4th grade, but they were held back in Kindergarten, so they would really be going into 3rd grade next year. We worked on 1st grade material because there was so much fundamental stuff that they just did not know. We knew they were behind bu we never realized just how far "behind" they were. I am happy to say that they are both reading now. Joey could read the basic 3 letter words last year and Josh didn't even know all of his alphabet. He still has trouble remembering which letters make what sounds, but he's reading and Joey is reading the NIckZone chapeter books, so I've got to be doing something right. Right? Somedays I get so frustratedwith what they don't know and should. They're going to be 9 in a few months, but developmentally they're more like 6 year olds. I just want what's best for them and I get so worried that they're not going to be able to function in society right or become who they want to be. Other times, I think they'r going to be fine and the few years that they're behind won't matter when they're adults. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing or how I'm feeling anymore. |
Sep. 28, 2006
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Joey and I baked a cake today. He read the ingredients list and directions. He also put the ingredients into the bowl and mixed them with the mixer. Then he poured the batter into the pan. He basically did it all on his own. The only thing I did was seperate the egg whites and put the pan into the oven. When it was done, Josh decorated it with frosting and sprinkles.Of course, Daddy loved it. Josh wants to make a jet backpack. He thinks that if he shakes up a 2 liter of soda, then puts it in a sling that he wears on his back and has Joey open the cap, the pressure will shoot him off into the air. I wonder if the backyard is big enough for this mess or if I should take him to the park for this little experiment. I think I'll take him to the park. I signed the boys up for a planet co-op. I figured I'll use this class as a guideline for a unit study on Planets. So far, it's been great. The boys have learned about Galileo, and some really neat stuff that they wouldn't have learned in school. I don't want to know what the neighbors thought of us dropping objects from the roof! What I think is also neat is that it coincides perfectly with the space shuttle launch from a few weeks ago (which we got to see from a few miles away, which was really cool) and the recent decision regarding Pluto's status as a planet. Since every book we have shows Pluto as a planet, the boys love pointing out that the books are now wrong and that they're going to have to rewrite them. Hmm. Maybe I should have the boys write their own book about the demise of Pluto. Maybe in January or February, when funds are a little better, I'll be able to take the boys to see some of the famous craters in the U.S.
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Sep. 13, 2006
Uncanny
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They say twins have a special "connection". Sometimes it's amazing just how true that is. Today, the boys had to write a sentence for each of their spelling words. While Joey worked on his, Josh and I were in a completely different room while he practiced his piano. Josh never saw the sentences Joey wrote and I didn't read them aloud, so he had no idea what Joey had written. When I checked Josh's work, 7 of the 12 sentences were almost exactly the same. 3 of those 7 were exactly the same. The other 4 were only different by 1 or 2 words. When I say Josh never saw Joey's work, I mean it. Joey's work was checked and put away upstairs before Josh came close to finishing his piano practice. It's just uncanny. The day, as a whole, went great. I got more than expected accomplished today and the boys were great. I know many of you out there don't believe in medicating your children, and that's fine; to each his own. I, though, have my children on Concerta for their ADHD. To me, it's a blessing. Without their meds, my boys can't even complete their sentences. Literally. On their meds, though, they are well-behaved (not cathargic) and can understand what is being said to them as well as being able to speak slow and clear enough for others to understand them. That, to me, is the most important. They have way more self-esteem now because they can actually do things that they couldn't do when they weren't on their meds. (and they're not always getting in trouble) A flip side to this is that over the summer, the boys participated in a study for a sleep medicine. In studies, they've been able to link insomnia to children with ADHD. If your child has ADHD, I strongly suggest you speak to their doctor regarding this. After 2 weeks of taking a prescription (it was a child's dose of AMBIEN) their symptoms of ADHD practically disappeared. I actually stopped giving them their Concerta because I didn't have to anymore. Yes, they were still hyper, but as hyper as any "normal" 8 year old boy is. Unfortunately, because of Kenny's job change, we have to wait 2 more months for our insurance to kick in. When that happens, I plan on taking them back to the neurologist to change their meds from the concerta to a sleep aid. |
Sep. 7, 2006
Jumproping
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The other day, we jumproped and practiced our jumping jacks. The boys did not know how to jumprope. Neither one can do it by themselves. They don't get the rope over them fast enough. When 2 people held the rope and one jumped, Joey learned quicker than Josh. They also both bend over and stick out their butts when they're jumping, so we had to work on posture as well. The look on their faces when they finally got the hang of it was priceless, though. They felt so good about themselves and were so excited. It reinforces exactly why I'm doing this. It makes me feel so good knowing I have this wonderful opportunity to stay home and spend as much time as needed on every little thing they need to learn. And they are learning. I hear it in their speech and I see it in their confidence. I'm so glad I decided to homeschool.
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Aug. 30, 2006
A simple yet perfect prayer
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OK I swiped this prayer from Outoftheboxmom 's website because I thought it was beautiful and perfect in its simplicity. I think it encompasses exactly what each of us strive for in our endeavor to homeschool. So read on and pray with me. I promise, you'll have a little smile when you're finished. And "A Bzn Mom", thank you so much for creating such a wonderful prayer. It really has touched my heart, as I hope it will touch others. Father, I ask that you would bless each person who reads this article. May your will be exposed to them in all areas of their lives. Open their eyes, ears and hearts to hear and see how you would have their family learn about your Word and world. Help them to see each child as the individual you have made them, and how to help them become the person you created them to grow up to be. May they yearn to enter their prayer closet, draw close to you and allow you to overflow their cup - and return often. In Jesus' name, Amen. Good night everyone, and may God bless you all. |
Aug. 25, 2006
It;s not poop...it's a butterfly
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Aug. 25, 2006
We have begun....
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Last week, I felt that the kids ( and I) were bored. I think we just have to get back into the swing of things. While I schooled them in May and July, it seemed more fun. Joey does really well picking up the concept of multiplication, but Josh just doesn't understand it. I think that it's a little too abstract for him right now. I've used manipulatives to try & "show" him and he does go through the motions of it, but through his comments I just don't think he truly understands it. He also doesn't understand rhyming. part of an assignment was to pick out the words that rhyme. I would say 2 lines at a time and he could not pick out the rhyming words. If I give him a word, he can come up with a rhyming word or a word that sounds very similar. i.e dog, he gave me lock. It took a very long time to get through that as well as practically every other assignment. I don't understand how he got any work done in school. He takes forever, which leads to Joey getting bored because he finishes sooner than Josh. I let Joey play with toys while Josh finished his work,hoping that seeing his brother having fun would prompt him to hurry up a little so he could play as well, but no. He was more than happy to stare off into space. When I threatened not to cook dinner until he was finished, he hurried up but then Joey took forever. I think I'll just move ahead with Joey and just come back to Josh whenever he's finished with his work. I've also noticed that while conversing, they omit the "and", "to" and connecting words. They also omit the beginnings and sometimes the ends of words. Computer is puter, connect is nect. I think I'm going to have a lot more assignments where they have to repeat sentences and phrases. It's almost like the muscles in their mouths aren't coordinated enough to form more than a couple of sounds at a time. Not when they're just talking, but when they're reading or repeating things they tend to swallow a lot. I'm also getting bored because while they're working on an assignment, I have to stay right there and watch over them or they won't finish it. They'll either start playing or they'll just stare off into space until I come back and say something, which doesn't leave me much time for cleaning up around the house or anything else. In one day, I finished an entire book. I figure it's better to let them see me reading than just sitting there bored. I have decided that our school day will start round 12:30 (after lunch) Since Friday, this has worked great. The kids get up in the morning and play or go on the computer. After lunch, for some reason, they get excited about doing their work and are much more pleasant. It works out great because it gives me the time I need to work on household chores and I'm not constantly thinking about what I need to get done around the house when I should be focusing on them. Today we visited a bunch of antique shops in Downtown Historic Sanford and learned the histories of their merchandise. We realized how small people were compared to today as well as how differently things were made. We also visited an art gallery and got to meet 2 artists. The boys were even allowed to create their own "masterpieces" with chalk in one of the artist's studios while onlookers watched from the sidewalk outside. We saw art made out of glass bottles, bottle caps, pastels, and all sorts of other things. Josh was fascinated with the fish made out of bottle caps. We even saw 2 silk paintings, each of a frog. One was a red eyed tree frog and the other was the blue poisonous something frog. I forgot the name of it, but the other day, we had gone online and found a website about frogs. It had a questionaire that you take & based on your answers, it tells you what type of frog you are. The two silk paintings we saw were the exact frogs that the boys turned out to be in their questionaires. We thought that was really cool. I thought about coming back and buying the paintings for them but they're $450.00 each, so I doubt it. Maybe for Christmas. |
Aug. 12, 2006
finally moved in!
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HELLO EVERYONE!!!! I'M BACK! There's so much, I don't know where to start. I'm officially homeschooling. I sent the letter of intent early this week or late last week, i don't know, time kind of meshes together here. I LOVE MY HOUSE!!!!!!! It is huge, it is beautiful, it is in a quiet neighborhood (7 blocks from the "ghetto" (have to have a little south florida around me, at least for now)the boys share a room (think a double dresser in between two twin beds big), they also have a playroom (which is where I will homeschool them), there's also a guest room (smallest room, but it's the size of a master bedroom in an apartment), and our room is downstairs. The only problem we have with the house is the air conditioning. There are 2 a/c units. one for upstairs and one for downstairs. the remodelers accidentally covered the downstairs thermostat with drywall so we didnt have air on the 1st floor until yesterday. On the 2nd floor, they never covered the ceiling where the inside a/c unit thing is, so the hot air from the attic pours out of that, so it's hot upstairs too. All being fixed, though, I just have to have patience. I also have to get used to the fact that it'll never be 70 degrees in here because it's an old house and has no insallation (boy! did i spell that wrong!) kenny loves his job, fits right in. His old boss is an ASS though. Kenny put in his 2 weeks notice because that's the right thing to do. After the first week when he finished the job he was working on, which they pushed him to do, they fired him, saying they couldn't trust him to care about the quality of work anymore since he was leaving the company. Fine. we can live with that, Kenny and I got to spend some quality time together, It's been really nice. But now, his old boss is telling people that the reason they fired him is because kenny charged THOUSANDS of dollars worth of stuff on their credit card and is a thief and stole from the company. Well, 1st, kenny hasn't used their credit cards since may because he kept losing his receipts for his purchases, so they were taking the money for the charges out of his paycheck (even though they could get a copy of the receipt from the company to see what was bought) and he turned in his credit card when he turned in his 2 weeks notice, just so there wouldn't be any problems like that. kenyy's just pissed that he put all these years and worked so hard for this guy, getting him out of so many jams, just for him to say this stuff about him. We had a feeling it was going to happen though. Every person who has ever quit this company has been accused of stealing. We were told it was going to happen. It's just sad that this guy sits around thinking of lies to ruin people's reputation.
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Jul. 26, 2006
OUR NEW HOUSE!!!
If anyone would like to see our new house please visit www.flarent.com click on view properties by city and then scroll down to sanford.it's the only one in sanford listed. it looks small from the outside but is huge on the inside. i love those old houses!! i've always wanted to live in one. ask my sister in law, I've been trying to convince kenny to move to pennsylvania for 3 years now just so i could live in a house like that. the streets even have the original bricks from when they built the city. i love it. the locals call that area the ghetto, but it is not the ghetto that we south floridians know. this "ghetto" was absolutely silent and had old people walking their dogs, mothers taking their children for walks. no crackheads on the corners, no gunshots in the distance, just pure sweet silence and beautiful trees with moss hanging down. we were a little worried that we weren't going to get it because the day we turned our application in, the landlord had an offer for someone to lease option it. (for $350,000) yeah that's definitely a ghetto priced house. anyway, the school's aren't that good, but that's ok b/c i'm going to homeschool "the brats". i got lost a half a million times but loved it b/c i got to see parts of florida most people don't even know exist, however i did make the mistake of bringing along someone that everybody told me not to bring. oh well, lesson learned. i saw 2 other houses, one was great and in a great location but the people renting it now just bought a house and the closing keeps getting delayed. it was delayed till this friday and they didnt know if it would be delayed again. the other house we saw gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. way too scary to describe to u all. don't want to give u nightmares. the current dillemma is that we have to sign the lease in peson by friday but kenny doesnt want to miss any work during his last 2 weeks. he doesnt think thats right, so if we drive up there friday afternoon (3 1/2 hour drive) we have to come back that night b/c we're loading the uhaul sturday and driving it up sunday morning. any suggestions? uhaul is only a 2 day rental. by the way i forgot to tell u guys. i submitted a poem of mine into a contest and am a semi-finalist. they're also going to publish it in a book of poems by the other semi-finalists. cool huh? they also invited me to read it in front of an audience at some poetry convention in las vegas but i couldn't go. oh well, i have a gorgeous house to move into instead. tell me what u all think of the house. i can't wait. i'm so excited. my face has broken out over all this stress. i didn't even have acne this bad when i hit puberty.
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Jul. 20, 2006
IT'S OFFICIAL
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It's official. We're leaving to Central Florida in 2 weeks. Health insurance, 401k, profit sharing, bonuses and lots of overtime. Definitely not as bad as it originally sounded. With the overtime and bonuses, he won't be taking such a huge paycut after all. Now I just have until the 31 to find a place and move in. I packed 12 boxes today. I'm on a roll. Watch out eveyone. Lady with a tape dispenser coming through!
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