12-26-09 Naomi Gladys

Wow! Two years came and went, but not without us celebrating my dear lovely Naomi. She is such a wonderful girl and already her character shines and we are amazed be her each day. Could have easily earned the title "Princess" by now, as she is quite a determined and persistent little lady.
She loves puppies and dogs, Elmo, reading, coloring, singing and dancing. She has been dabbling with independent potty training. She is a climber and has reaped wounds to prove it. Her mommy translator is quite effective; she tries saying everything and talks like the rest of us. She likes sleeping in Noah's bed for naps, is really excited to be a big sister, will raise both her hands when asked who is excited for the baby.
She loves playing house and babies. She loves wearing hats, eating ice cream, and having Daddy paint her fingernails. She adores her brothers and sisters and has a favorite blanket from Rhonda, still loves her nuk- now reserved for bedtime, and points herself out in books when she sees a cute little girl!
We love you Naomi SO much! You are a delightful and caring girl with a big heart for your little body! Thank you God for giving us Naomi, please guide us to guide her and keep her by your side!

Survival of week one homeschooling

Okay, checked my pulse, still breathing!
Lots of adjustments to be made. What a sacrifice, still accepting that! Interesting transition for our special needs too, considering they have learned to lack effort and confidence. Aside from David winning me over on "tomorrow is Saturday so do you mean Monday" for when math is due, I am going to clean slate each week. And also reconsider their independent essay assignments. David did not earn to make a recipe for dinner last night, so hopefully that will be the first and the last. Adam, and I made a great broccoli and cauliflower casserole side dish. Despite getting an "A" in his 9th grade foods class, when cooking a vegetable fajita dish he did in class at home, he mistakenly used cinnamon instead of cumin and forgot two main ingredients. That might reinforce my opinion of the lacking reality piece special Ed is offering. Not my kid for now, I certainly couldn't do it any worse;)

I did not get to enjoy the creamy casserole though, you heard it here first, I HAVE BEEN LACTOSE DAIRY FREE FOR OVER A MONTH!!!
Last month I did an eds screening and was off the charts for milk and cheeses. I can still have butter and mayo, so those slightly compensate eliminating my staples of sour cream and cream cheese. Maybe when I am done baking the baby, the calories saved will shed excess layers accumulated over time. So who cares? Well I do enough to keep up with the choice because it is clearing up my arms. I have bad psoriasis on my forearms and they are healing, so that is good. Hormones, or at one point I wondered if it was the diligent milk drinking or increased creamy calories, during pregnancy and nursing my skin gets even worse. When I had Naomi, docs were saying they hadn't seen it as bad on my legs before. Granted that was a pediatrician and an ob, I know the dermatologist has. Biological injections work, but not during pregnancy and nursing. I should contact them, maybe I can sell them milk after weaning and get their overpriced pharmaceuticals for free. Or better yet, keep up with the diet changes and homeopathic remedies. Enough about me. I have work to do.

Winter Wonder...

proof that the kids have played in the snow this winter. We had been wondering...is this really winter? Now in the past week the temps have crashed and we are experiencing more winter truths. Doesn't bother me any!

Noah sporting some spare snowpants, his black ones were left at school over break, but they beat his pants he started out in, evidently Luke wasn't concerned about his little legs :( Since having Noah one of the girls should always have gender neutral snowpants to hand down!

As my brother said, "oh look, it's Katie in a snowsuit." Haha I am loving my mini me!

This is my last week of the boys going to school. We will be homeschooling come a week from tomorrow. SCARY!! I always said that I would never do that with the IEPs and stuff, but as it turns out it has come down to what needs to happen. There isn't much pressure, atleast for the oldest, as in 3 years he has not made any reading or mathmatic progress. That made the decision easy, and David is being over worked. When it is said and done the whole IEP, individualized education plan, becomes pretty iffy when they are older and in the jr/sr high settings. My kid doesn't need to go to school though just to hang out and fill up the vending machines though. And remind me ISD876 why we are trying to teach checkbooks to kids that do not have basic math concepts down?
I am likely to find time to vent or hash out my triumphs and failures, but for now I am surprisingly looking forward to spending more time with the boys and being able to give them tailored programming for them to make progress. Too long have I been discontent with the level of opportunities for an appropriate education, my energy to try and fight for them can be done directly with them for a while. I will use our local district, not the one we are currently enrolled in, to get special ed services for them, primarily for the phenomenal reading intervention program they have. I am most excited about that. Any parent would be if their 9th grader has been reading at a 4th grade level for 3 years. I feel guilty to have been sending them this long! David does quite well though, and so I am going to be revisiting algebra.

The girls have Monday and Tuesday off, so really I only have 3 days of what I consider freedom left. And of course with my little ones that is an exaggeration! So there is lots on my mind, but already have my syllabus for the remainder of the year. Hopefully we will continue through next year too and then revisit the idea when both boys would be in the same school again, and will certainly use the 18-21 programming.

This week:
-Noah, Libby, and Reany have Monday off
-The girls still have dance in the evening and Annandale (who still has school, but yet takes next Monday off- poor planning when they could be better acknowledging MLKjr Day) has a mandatory drivers ed meeting for parents. Adam is in the class and will take the permit test, for the experience and hopeful understanding to pursue other transportation options.
-Girls day Tuesday because all the boys have school, we like playing Clue together and will likely make some babycakes. Haircuts for the boys too.
-Wednesday the girls have their 3rd piano lesson across the street with Ruthanne. They are so loving them and are even teaching Luke. I said when he catches up to me I will start again too:)
-Thursday I hope to have a coffee date with my long lost cousin, Kristy
-Friday work on what is left on organizing a homeschooling hub and the nursery closet project.
-Saturday Libby, Reany, and David all have basketball
-Sunday, thank God for the Sabbath Day!
-Monday 33 weeks and meet with the OB and schedule with the hospital for delivery...wow that sneaks up! We will have our orientation for the big homeschool adventure, and probably start with some cribbage. Throw in some popcorn and I just might adore homeschooling. Here's to a great week!

We wish you a merry Chrismas

Merry Christmas eve!! I love Christmas, celebrating baby Jesus! I love giving gifts, despite the shopping involved. I need to wrap everything though...today! In our house, setting gifts out under the tree is too risky, bound for destruction and accidental discoveries. The kids really don't know they have anything til we place it infront of them! Is that sad? The kids will each have 3 gifts, wiseman? Wise momma, that's still tons of stuff and we have plenty. I keep asking Luke if we can just do Disney instead, I think he thinks I am joking, but I am not! So I am excited to pass out gifts and enjoy time with he kids today and for break. Going to Luke's mom's tomorrow and my dad will come and Naomi and Jesus will celebrate together on Monday. We won't see my mom til the following Monday.
Wishing all of you a blesses Christmas and that you know the true meaning of CHRISTmas.
For God so loved the world that he sent his begotten son and whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. Now there is something to celebrate! Amen!!

Dancing Duo

Libby and Reany are on the same dance team this year. Libby spent about ten minutes in gymnastics and realized the group lesson wasn't going to be half as fun as last years lucky chance of 1:1lessons.
So here is a pic of them at their holiday show, which may likely be their last, as the Sunday conflict needs to be resolved on our own terms. This is my favorite outfit for them yet. We will continue them in dance until they either want full gymnastics (as they do have that included too), or if another sport takes over. Not like they will get dance scholarships nor that we envision a future in fine arts; however they do learn skill, teamwork, and confidence among other advantages for us to value their involvement in what can sometimes be a questionable industry. Reany excels in dance and I would never take that away from her. My little virtual twins are growing up and seeing them dance together is really fun, maybe I'll post a clip sometime.

Michigan: Mommy and Naomi Getaway

In November, Naomi and I had the privilege of visiting my sister and her family in Michigan. They live there while her smarty pants husband attends the University of Michigan Law School. Only another year left...and hopefully they return for good! We miss them. Ellie is 5 months younger than Naomi, but talks more than her! Naomi has caught up though with her phrases, "where'd ____ go?"

Naomi was such a trooper on the trip, I wish I knew that and we would have been traveling before this, and as of Monday she doesn't fly for free. My baby is turning 2!

We had a great time though, and here are some captured moments of my big sis and our little girls together. They had a blast together and I cannot wait to see them for Christmas too- they fly in on Friday. Yippee!

Six Minutes

That was all the more Noah's school could have for outdoors because of the temperature today, so they didn't go outside. He is now showing me his airplane flights. Luckily he hasn't had to take his ice skates out today yet. He does have some obsessive tendencies, the first day he got his skates (that i bought last year marked down from 49.99 to 6.24 at target!) he could not stop looking at them, touching them, and talking about them. Poor kid even got up in the middle of the night potty break and what does he murmur, "do hockey player skate fast?"

We are now waiting patiently for the rink to be filled up in town. Adam got a nice pair of skates from Grandpa Deno for helping in his garage, David scored a nice pair that my mom had, and I picked up some near new ones for the girls at a garage sale this summer for $5 a piece. Surely it will take about six minutes in the frosty air to wonder what I was thinking...but the Honda will be my warming house!

Glucose testing this Monday, gosh it seems like just yesterday I was pregnant with my first, Libby. That's just crazy. This girl doesn't have a name yet, but I am working with Luke on that now. For a while he was like, "we have plenty of time, months actually, I'm not worried about it." As if I am having anxiety over it; no, but I did tell him I don't want to just toss a name out at the last minute and not really know what her name should be. It is likely Luke's side for family names, so guessing the middle name will be either Helen or Theda for his grandmothers, or Marie as his mother's middle name. And I think it should end in a "ie" sound as our girls trend. Luke thinks we should stick with an "L" or "N" start as our younger bunch. We are taking suggestions!

This weekend we are looking forward to the girls participating with a booster club with Aubrey's dance team. Unfortunately I lost my camera charger so I will not be getting pics. I did order a replacement, thanks to ebay. I also found a charger for a dvd player I bought years ago and lost maybe with the packaging? I am the worst techy in the world, but luckily replacement parts are affordable and available for people like me. I got both for less than $20 total. Not bad.

Speaking of shopping, this year doing 3 presents each kid- and some stocking stuffers. The grinch can take away santa, but not my fun of stuffing goodies and trinkets I collect year round:) So I have a couple gifts yet to get. Super excited for a few of the kids gifts, ukeleles! Isn't that going to be fun! SHH! Luke thought an educational, a toy, and a clothing. Originally he said outfit, and then what was his budget? Total $50. Like maybe in the 1950s. Obviously he is not the shopper, but I am not too far off. Black Friday paid off; however, if you get to Toys R Us at 2:30 am and they are sold out of your one item...not fair! The midnight bull was disappointing because it opened a whole new category of shoppers, the night owls who would never get up early to shop. They should make up their own day, not take mine. Oh well.

Refreshing time of year for me, the crisp air and songs of the Messiah renew my spirit to peace. CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART, OH GOD, AND RENEW A RIGHT SPIRIT WITHIN ME. Psalms 51:10

We have been working on scripture memory, little Noah has Romans 6:23 and Luke 11:28 down, super cute! May your advent season be blessed with the joy and love of Jesus in your hearts. If you don't have the true meaning of Christmas, you won't find it under a tree<3
K my six minutes is up. And I did have an airplane construct and phone call interruptions:)