Rally Crowds

 

Campaign Sign

 

Campaign Sign

 

Campaign Excitement?!?

 

Campaign Excitement?!?

 

McCain Rally

 

McCain Palin Rally

 

McCain Palin Rally

 

Mass umbrellas left at McCain Palin Rally

 

Easiest to photograph

He doesn't ever complain, and sets perfectly still!!

Favorite Photo from my new Nikon D80

This is one of my favorite photos I've taken with my new camera!!!

It hasn't been retouched or enhanced on the computer. So far I love this camera.

Maggie in her wagon!

 

Wonderful Compliments . . .

Today we decided to go to the Chinese Buffet after church. I am usually a little nervous about taking all the kids to a restaurant by myself, because, sometimes you just never know how there going to behave. And since I am not feeling like my usual self, (pregnancy with twins) I was a bit hesitant.

Anyway, through the course of our meal, six . . . . . six actual different people came over to our table to compliment me on how well behaved my children were!!! I was so glad to hear this!! Sometimes when you stay at home all the time and end up going through a drive thru because it's easier, you lose sight of how well you are actually doing as a parent. And how well behaved your children can be. This has really given me a little boost to keep going. (like I actually have a choice!!! :) It just makes it a little easier, like I can sometimes see a little glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel. Not that I have a horrible time with my kids, but, parenting 24/7 is difficult, for anyone.

It was a very nice end to the day.

Wow, it's been a long time . . . .

It's obvious, that my new penpal has taken up a lot of my attention! I found a french pen pal and I have spent quite a bit of time comunicating with them.

So I plan to be a better blogger and continue on with my blogging!

I do have quite a bit to blog about . . . .

First of all, the month of March was a rough month. My grandfather was very ill and passed away, then the day we buried him, his brother passed away, so I was driving back and forth to Ky for most of the month. . . . . . and somehow in all of that mess, we conceived a child!!! Yes, we are expecting our sixth child! That was a shock. Especially since our youngest just turned 1 yr old on March 13th.

So now I am trying to organize and clean out our house, make lesson plans for next year and try not to get overwhelmed. Easier said than done.

In all thy ways acknowledge Him . . and he shall direct . .

After a particularly difficult week towards the hopeful end of a dark and gloomy winter. I had in my mind the ideas of finishing up the end of the school year, making sure we had covered everything that we needed to cover and "then some", just to make sure my kids kept way ahead of the game. And as usual with me, one great project idea leads to tens of thousands of others and I'm off and running before I've even finished the first idea.

Well, after the winter months of cooking, dragging out every toy we've ever owned, sewing, schooling, time lines, french etc., etc. my house is in complete chaos. It hit me like a ton of bricks. You would have thought that I hadn't even been there for months. :) It really did just sneak up on me.

Now, yes, it was somewhat picked up and barely livable, and we could smooth it over if we had company coming over, but, for me, I usually rearrange, paint, change some pictures, clean out each bedroom. But, with my total focus being on the kids, and only the kids, I didn't have time to do any deep cleaning, (sorting old clothes, packing away old toys to make room for the new Christmas ones, finding a place for all of my new fabric, yarn, homeschool books I just had to have) or experimenting with power tools while my husband was at work. I think re-covering my kitchen chairs is as far as I got, for the whole winter.

To make an already long story a bit shorter. I started feeling this, overwhelming failure feeling creeping up on me. And I kept focusing on all the things that I hadn't done, the housework that multiplies behind your back, or the really cool projects that could have went with that lesson we just finished, the paint in the hallway had still not been trimmed out after almost 2 yrs, the hands and feet prints on that same hallway paint, that really should have been repainted, the schedule we should have been following for science was behind, did we do enough math this year, it goes on and on. We just had one birthday party, and in 2 weeks we have another one, then another one after that, my husband may or may not be off work, then he may or may not be going out of town at the end of March, and on and on and on my thoughts went this way.

Until I decided, I will just buckle down and get it done, I can do it, all of it, I'm not tired, if I get it all done, then I won't be a failure . . . was my final thoughts on it. I was determined. So I kept staying up late night after night after night, and still very little progress (5 very active, hungry, questioning kids and one that refuses to go to bed). I was beginning to really get truly tired.

So, tonight I just kept praying, as I was crawling around on the floor at 2:00am looking for things that my youngest might choke on and trying to stifle a scream when I landed all my weight with my knee on the worlds most dangerous and deadly LEGO!!! Knowing, in the back of my mind, that within 20 minutes of the kids waking up this midnight crawling was a joke, but I wanted to do my best. I would be okay if I did my best and if I do my best, they will all do their best. . . . . .and I will not have failed. It was becoming to hard to hold back the tears.

I thought okay God, what have I done, please you must tell me. I don't understand, I'm doing the best I can. I'm putting 210% into my family, kids, homeschooling, I take very little time for myself, why can't I just see some progress? What am I doing wrong? Please God, just tell me so I know what to do!!!

I had received a voicemail earlier and decided I would set down and email them a response. I started to delete some of my email groups because they get kind of full quick, when I notice an email that mentions the name of the author of our science curriculum, (which we were behind on), . . ." oooh, maybe she had a miraculous idea that would help me do better ". . . .I thought to myself . . .

Here is what the email contained:

I read this today and thought it might speak to some of you as it did me.

Melanie in CA

(Jeannie Fulbright is the author of Apologia's elementary science curriculum.)

Guarding Our Thoughts

By Jeannie Fulbright

In my last post, I talked about the temptation to feel overwhelmed. I have been wanting to address this lately because I know what it is to get overwhelmed. I also have discovered a way to protect myself from this emotion. When I walk through my house, I can easily become overwhelmed.

I realized this one day as I passed by a tremendously messy closet filled with books. On the floor, I spied a stack of standardized practice tests that I had never given to my children. In an instant,that emotion of being overwhelmed began to wash over me, like a darkpresence entering my entire body. Normally, I would have received that emotion and walked on with whisperings of despair clouding my day. But right at that moment, I turned away from it. I basically resisted the temptation and literally turned my face away from the reminder of my inability to "do it all" and I turned my thoughts away from the lies that I'm not succeeding at homeschooling.

Over the weeks, this temptation has arisen several times. When I saw the the Latin book lying upside down on a broken shelf in the hallway, both the broken shelf and the unused book scream their insult at me. But I turned away from the negative thoughts that were spewing through my mind.

No, I didn't give my kids standardized practice tests, we failed to use that Latin book and I may have to throw that shelf away if it keeps accusing me like that. But, all of that does not make me a failure. I cannot let undone projects, plans or curriculum rob me of my peace. Neither should you.

So, we are big planners and big dreamers; that's a good thing - as long as we don't get down on ourselves for not doing all we planned or reaching all our dreams. Planning and dreaming are important. It causes us to move forward, closer to our goals. But it's so important to guard our thoughts from the accusations that we are not measuring up because we have not accomplished domestic success in some area or perfection in our homeschooling dreams and plans.

We need to believe that God is truly God over our lives, our homeschool and our children. Perhaps it was not His perfect will that I make my children work through those practice tests. Perhaps He doesn't want us to study Latin yet, or ever. As one of his precious children, He has promised to lead me and guide me. I'm believing that I'm in the center of His will and being led by Him, even when I don't fulfill my big ideas and grandious plans. I can rest in Him, trusting that we are on the right track - even when I don't "feel" like it.

I'm not supposed to be leaning on my own understanding anyway...


"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:5


If I were to lean on my own understanding, I would certainly think I should be doing much more, accomplishing much more, reaching all my dreams and fulfilling all my big plans. I think God's more interested in giving us rest - while we are more interested in being supermom and creating superkids and being a family of superheroes. Yet, He came so that we could enter into His rest. Rest for our souls.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:29

So, next time I walk by that enormously cluttered and disorganized closet with hundreds of great homeschool products I'll never have time to use even if I homeschooled a hundred years, I plan to quote that Scripture, breathe a sigh of relief and allow Him to bring rest to my soul.

At 3:00am in Ohio, through a homeschool mom I've never met who is from California, and the author of our science curriculum . . . (out of 673 emails in that file, what were the chances of me clicking on that one at that very moment of need?)

God not only heard my prayer, he answered it when I needed it most. Sometimes, I guess, it takes"crawling" to get you just a little bit closer to God.

For those of you who think I'm crazy for homeschooling all these kids, and wonder how I do it. Here's a fine example of why and how I can keep going, it's not me . . . it's Him.

We're learning french

I found some great books that are helping us to learn to use french around the house:

• French in 10 minutes a day - Bilingual Books, Inc.
• At Home Abroad French: Practical Phrases for Conversational French
• Lingua Fun French
• Hippicrene Beginner's French
• Usborne's First Thousand Words in French
• Usborne's French Picture Dictionary

Everyone says the kids should learn spanish because there are more people who speak spanish here than french, but, I have tried to learn spanish and it just doesn't click. French is so much easier for me, and I really enjoy french culture, and a possible trip to Europe!

It has taken me a little bit to brush up on what I had learned in school. I find, surprisingly that I remember way more than I thought I would. The kids were really surprised when I started spouting complete sentences in french (some "franglais" too). I thought if I use it as part of our everyday routine, then they would learn it faster. It seems to be working. They do understand quite a bit for just learning it.

Laptop Overheats

Great link to helpful site:
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2006/01/04/toshiba-laptop-overheating/

Back to Piano Lessons

http://www.pianoworld.com/fun/vpc/piano_chords.htm

Imagine . . . a non musical mom helping with piano and violin homework. Ugh!!!!!!!!

Noah looses a tooth . . . .that wasn't loose!

Noah is by far one of my most interesting children! I was on my computer, it was after bedtime, so it was suppose to be MY time, well . . . that's never going to happen.
Noah comes in holding his bloody finger, and says quite calmly, "Mom, I think something is wrong, can you take a look at this." For those who do not know me, I don't do blood, of any kind, well the finger was fine when I wiped it off, but the blood dripping from his mouth was another story, and the hole where his tooth had been changed things completely. At this point I was panicked, but not Noah, he was still just as calm as could be, I began with a much louder voice, "Noah . . . where is your tooth? Why are you bleeding? and for crying out loud . . . . why aren't you crying?" My other children began to find my reaction slightly hilarious, Dad was watching T.V. in the same room where apparently Noah was trying to open the wrong end of a Match Box pop up plaything with his teeth, he proceeds to tell us that his tooth went flying across the room somewhere.
To make a long story short. We find the tooth, it had been broken off clean, and Noah is excited that he has lost his first tooth and wants to know how much he's going to get from the Tooth Fairy. Probably not too much, so this doesn't start a trend in loosing teeth.

Another day in our crazy life. That was part of the reason I posted the video of Noah doing the Crazy Poem. It fits him perfectly!

Sarah's a little bit country . . .

Cute Video of Noah

Music Monkeyz Debut

Good Country Music from Childhood

Atlanta Alive and Well

It's been a while since I've heard their music! You can hear some of their songs on their myspace page.

I have their album, my kids thought it was a frizbee in a fancy case! :)

The Nutcracker 2008

More Maggie Presents

Maggie's Homemade Christmas Presents

I had the brilliant idea to handmake all of Maggie's Christmas presents this year. It was way more work than I had imagined. . . .

Maggie's Doll

Don't Eat It!!!

Maggie

Maggie on the move . . .

Cute Picture

I was going through my pictures and saving them to disk when I came across a really cute picture:

Very interesting site on AML

Medline Plus info on AML

A Wiki Defiinition of Acute Monocytic Leukemia

Photo of Acute Monocytic Leukemia

Interesting take on Benzene and Cancer

Yahoo Answers

What are the Risk Factors of AML?

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2x_Do_We_Know_What_Causes_Acute_Myeloid_Leukemia_AML.asp?sitearea=CRI&viewmode=print&

What causes AMI?

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2x_What_Are_the_Risk_Factors_for_Acute_Myeloid_Leukemia_AML.asp?sitearea=CRI&viewmode=print&

Acute Myleoid Leukemia- Research

My grandfather has been diagnosed with Acute Myleoid Leukemia. So now we are trying do some research on this topic to get a better understanding.

Dermatologists found it to be rare. They took a biopsy and determined it to be a myleoid sarcoma.

Here is a link to the cancer association website:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1x_What_Is_Acute_Myeloid_Leukemia.asp?sitearea

Anyone who has information that may read this please send me whatever you have.