Another Blast from the Past!

The last two weeks I have joined in with Blast from the Past at Debbie's Digest with pictures of myself when I was a baby (and I had a couple people ask: yes, I was my parents' first... my mom had just turned 21 and my dad was about to turn 20 when I was born)

Since Thing 2 is still a baby (not for long!), I thought I'd share a picture of Thing 1 as a baby :)

He's a couple weeks old in this picture if I recall.  We feel asleep in the recliner at my parents' house :)  ♥  So this would be December 2004/January 2005 timeframe.

He's nowhere NEAR that tiny now :(

Have any ridiculously sweet baby pictures to share?  Link on up over at Debbie's Digest!

Coming and Going

Right now in our household we are dealing with some coming and going.

Thing 2 has teeth coming in.

And Thing 1 has teeth coming out.

Thing 1’s tooth became loose at the same time Thing 2’s first tooth was (FINALLY) coming in.  Thing 1 just lost his tooth finally last night, and Thing 2 has SIX teeth (four on top, two on bottom)

I love both of their smiles so much ♥

Blog Walk

Here are this week's Crew blogs that I will be focusing on this coming week.

1. Second Star to the Right and Straight On Till Morning
2. Surviving The Testosterone
3. Family Style School
4. School Around The Bible
5. 1628 The Story of The Goebels 5
6. Morris Family Madness
7. Homeschool Musings
8. Homeschooling (and then some!)
9. Heartfelt Homeschooling
10. following Him home

Blast from the Past!

Time for another installment of Blast From the Past over at Debbie's Digest!

Remember last week's picture?

Well, this is from that same day/night, but is my with my parents!  And a dog that I do not remember... but my parents I most certainly remember!  I talk to them pretty regularly still and adore them ♥

(I really need to find an old picture of my sister... I know I have one SOMEWHERE)

Have any potentially embarrassing pictures from when you were little?  Link up over at Debbie's Digest!

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sunday

I know it's not actually Sunday now, but I was busy yesterday hanging out with Link ♥  It was his first Father's Day since becoming a biological father :)

Anyway, here is Stitching, Sketching Scrapping Sunday hosted by Mama Manuscripts! (at a new location too!)

This (don't mind the background) is a hat I made and mailed off a few months ago to a really good friend of mine who was getting ready to have her first baby!  It's made with Red Heart yarn and the colors were chosen based on an outfit she had gotten that was just ridiculously adorable :)

I posted an older picture because I didn't really do much in the way of crafting this past week.  It's been really hot and our A/C is broken so working with yarn is not high up there on my list of things to do ;)

Have you been somewhat more productive in the crafting this week?  Then link up over at Mama Manuscripts!

Learning Happens

And now I am participating in Learning Happens from over at Patriots of the Republic Academy.  Celebrating those learning moments that occur when a child isn't actively being taught :)

While it's not Thing 1 learning something on his own, Thing 2 DOES have to learn things as well.  He usually isn't around running water much, and here he was learning that he can't "catch" the water.  He kept trying to grab it and I just love the look on his face in this picture.

And it's not uncommon for me to see Thing 1 playing with his FUNtastic Frogs and the balance scale.  I don't recall exactly what he was doing at this point, but he will see how many of his wooden cubes equals how many frogs, how many little frogs equal a certain number of big frogs... I leave his manipulatives where he can get to them at any time so he can explore on his own :)


Hop on over and share your own learning-without-teaching moments on Patriots of the Republic Academy!

Five Question Friday

From over at My Little Life (Five Crooked Halos)

1. What is your favorite thing about summertime?  Pools and water and such.  I can't swim, but I still love the water.

2. What is your ideal retirement location (if money didn't matter)?  Up in New England.  I love how beautiful Maine is since it hasn't been torn up and built on like the area around here has.

3. Do you live in the same town you grew up in? I grew up in a Marine family, so I grew up all over.  I DO however live in the same city I was born in.  :)

4. What nervous habit did you have as a child that you kicked to the curb before becoming an adult? I used to be one of those kids who insisted on not stepping on cracks in the sidewalk and in tiles and such.  I would walk on my toes at times if I was walking across a tiled area to avoid stepping on grout lines.  Now, I'm way too busy trying to wrangle two children so I can't focus on that sort of thing.  Thing 1 however, does not step on cracks...

5. What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you while on the job?  The single most embarrassing thing to happen to me while working happened not long after Thing 1 was born.  I was the only cashier on, it was a Saturday, HUUUUUUUGE line.  I hadn't gotten to take a break to go pump (I was nursing him and pumping while at work) and my entire shirt, apron, and the top of my pants all on the left hand side ended up SOAKED.  I went through numerous nursing pads as well.  Having to call the MALE manager to get help was super embarrassing.  It wouldn't have been quite so bad if it had been noticed by me BEFORE it was noticed by a customer...

For more Five Question Friday, check out My Little Life :)



Edit: Fixed the Font because when I copied the questions it changed my font color to completely TOO DARK!

Home Economics

There is nothing saying that only girls should be taught to work around the home.  I believe wholeheartedly that a couple should work TOGETHER in their home to make it a happy place.  Fro some families that means Mom takes care of everything IN the house while Dad takes care of everything OUTSIDE.  Some it means Mom takes care of everything at home while Dad just brings in a pay check.

While ours is similar to my first example, there are a couple things that Link does for me once in a while because I HATE doing them: doing the dishes and folding laundry.  I will put the dishes away, I will cook, I will serve the food, I will wash the laundry and I will put it away, but the actual process of cleaning the dishes and folding the laundry is a hang-up for me and I hate doing them.

Sooooo what is the point in this rambling?  In case my boys ever end up marrying a woman like me who hates certain chores around the house, I asked Thing 1 yesterday if he wanted to learn how to load the dishwasher.  I was mostly joking, and figured he'd be watching while I actually did it.

Boy was I wrong.  I was practically kicked out of the kitchen except to go check on how things were going.  He made sure the silverware from the previous load was put away, loaded the dishwasher (with a couple pointers from afar), put the soap in, and started it.

And Thing 2 *ahem* helped.

On a similar note, when I went to empty the dishwasher today, Thing 1 practically leapt out of his chair at the table (which you can see in the distance of the picture) where he was quietly coloring and drawing pictures for everyone, and insisted on helping me put away the dishes so he could reload the dishwasher.

I love that boy ♥

Personal Challenge

In recent weeks, I have been lamenting the fact that I weigh (as of a few minutes ago to be exact) about twice what I did when I graduated high school.  And yet I have continued to not really eat properly.

We are considering going gluten free for numerous reasons, and doing so will end up forcing me to look more closely at what I am eating, buying and making because I don’t want to mess up the whole shebang.  We’re not starting right away (I have a ton of stuff I need to use before we can fully cross-over because I can’t justify chucking all of my flour right now)

So when that occurs, I will be taking a much closer look at changing my dietary habits.  In the MEANTIME, I need to look at my (lack of) activity habits and change them.  I have been known to start a exercise “program” and drop it within a few weeks.  I am hoping to change that.

Many people do it the opposite way around, and look at their diet before exercise, figuring exercise will be the easier one since it is often just a matter of adding something into the day, not completely overhauling a major part of life.  I have a very specific reason for doing it the opposite way around.

I was anorexic in high school.  At my lowest, I weighed about 105 pounds, and I LOOKED sick.  My parents told me, a few friends told me, but I didn’t see it.  It wasn’t until I had put on a few pounds after graduating that I looked at an old picture of myself and realized just HOW thin I was.  I am 5’7”(ish) and 105 pounds is NOT healthy for me.  I have lapsed a few times when looking into changing my diet, and cut myself down to one small meal a day and saw results (of course!).

So in order to stop myself from doing that again, I have got to prove to myself that that is NOT the only way I am able to lose weight, and the way to do that is by starting with exercise first.  I’m not expecting major results, but if I can tone some of what I’ve got, and lose a couple pounds in the process, I think it will be effective in showing my inner skinny person that I can approach her size BETTER through exercise and proper diet than using previous methods.

So my goal this coming week is to get myself exercising for at least 10 minutes a day.  Whether it be walking, WiiFit, exercise videos…. whatever.  Just exercising for 10 minutes a day.  EVERY day.

I have GOT to do this healthily.  For Thing 1 and Thing 2 (especially Thing 2 since he’s still nursing!), for my husband, and for mySELF.

What My Child is Reading

Thing 1 is currently reading Mary Pope Osborne's Dinosaurs Before Dark, from the Magic Tree House series. I only checked out one of the books to begin with because I was unsure of how receptive he would be, but he seems to REALLY like it, so I am going to see if I can't get ahold of the next few books in the series from the library for him. :)

So next week will probably have many more books added to it.
(and I tried to find a good picture but failed miserably...)

See what other children are reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns :)

Wordless Wednesday

Excuse the mess though, I've been rearranging stuff ;)

And he got up there all by himself.

See more at Wordless Wednesday

Testing, Testing, 123

Just testing to see if Windows Live Writer, which has been recommended by many Crew mates will work out for me.

 

Edit: It looks like it will!  Yay!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Thing 1 says LOTS of crazy things, and now I am going to share one with you from just a few minutes ago.  This meme from Not Before 7 came up at a perfect time!

"Momma, my stomach is broken.  I need to eat chips."

He's been trying to get me to let him have chips ALL DAY and thought maybe if he told me his stomach is broken I'd give in.  It was not a success.

Head on over to Not Before 7 for more Tiny Talk funnies :)

Blog Walk

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I am one of well over 200 other people who ALL blog.  So the idea was brought about to hold a "blog walk" every week to be able to bring awareness to our fellow crewmember's blogs and to be able to fully explore them ourselves.

This week's blogs are the following, which I will be reading throughout the week.

1. Reaping a Harvest
2. Pink & Orange Coffee
3. Live, Laugh, Learn!
4. Mrs. Mandy's Musings
5. The Fantastic Five
6. Refined Metals Academy
7. Just A Moment in Time
8. Providence Farm
9. My Journey
10. Petra School

Sweet Shot Tuesday

You may have noticed I've been participating in a lot of memes.  And it could be annoying to you.  Too bad ;) 

I have been wanting to share this picture, and just came across the meme Sweet Shot Tuesday over at Life With My 3 Boybarians and decided it was as good a time as any.

This picture was a once in a lifetime moment of all three younglings in the house "relaxing".  About 2 seconds later everything had gone insane again and the moment was lost forever.  Except for this picture.  :)

Take a look at other sweet shots (taken much nicer than mine lol) over Life With My 3 Boybarians

Blast From the Past

This week I am ALSO joining Blast from the Past over at Debbie's Digest!

This picture is from 1985.  I am in fact IN this picture.  See the adorable little baby in the front who refuses to look at the camera?  That's me.  These are my cousins on my mom's side of the family, and only one person from this generation is missing: my little sister. 

At this point, on my dad's side, I was the only one for this generation, so I guess it's both sides, huh?

Did You Notice?

There is a new button on the right side of my blog, and an influx of followers.

I have been selected as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew for the 2010-2011 voyage.  I am part of the group reviewing products for the YOUNGER students (since Thing 1 IS only 5).

I am looking forward to a fun-filled, exciting year with my crew mates!

:)   ♥

Camera Critters

A turtle in one of the canals at the local botanical gardens.  Thing 1 was ECSTATIC to see this one and many more.

To see more Camera Critters, go to http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/  (I'm sure their pictures are better than mine ;)  )

Men's Monday Meme

I have asked my husband, Link to weigh in on this week's question: How do you deal with stress?

 I play video games, ignore the problem.  I'm also highly medicated for anxiety.


It took a lot of prodding for me to even get that much out of him.

Crafty Charitable Goodness

This past week, on a group that I frequent, someone mentioned that the Mommies Funding Research Auction is coming up again.  It is run from June 29th to July 7th.

You can find more information here: http://mommiesfundingresearch.blogspot.com/


And I donated these two hats (which I just made a couple days ago)

I was unable to donate last year, but this year I made sure I got the chance :)

Besides these, this week I've been working on getting stuff made for my Etsy store.

Have you done something crafty this week?  Go over to Mama Manuscripts and join on the Mr Linky!

Some Big Milestones

Thing 1 has passed some big milestones the last week.  Some good, some, well, not so good.

The first big one is he finished his Math-U-See Primer book.  He is soooo proud of this, and I am super proud of him as well, since we just started in back in April.  That was on teh 3rd, and he has been begging to get started on Alpha since he finished Primer.  I am trying to give him a bit of a break (and buy myself some time since he will probably fly through Alpha too)



He also has his first ever surgery, which is not really a good thing.  This also brought about his first time spending a night without me there at all (Link was with him).  He had been playing on the floor by the back door and apparently a sewing needle was on the floor and while he was kneeling he somehow managed to get the sewing needle in his knee, and behind his kneecap.  He's doing well now (surgery was yesterday morning) and hasn't had to take anything for pain.  He's a little trooper :)  The children's hospital gave him a couple puzzles, which he loves.

No pictures this time, I'm sorry!

(Thing 2 has now gotten 4 teeth and has 2 more coming in.... YAY!)