Update tomorrow.

I am in the midst of playing with blogger and all the new features on another blog I have. I do have schedules for today and yesterday and Im so amazed at how well we have stuck to them. We did not go to the zoo yesterday, which Im thankful for because I got so much done around the house.
Im heading to bed now, but I will post schedules tomorrow. As well as our weekly menu for the next week and grocery list.

Be Blessed!

Nice....

I wish you could read sarcasm so you would know what I truly thought of this. I live in Florida and this is not the first time the Democratic party has shown its childishness. Anyone remember the 2000 election. "Well, I did not read the ballot right so my vote should not count and I should get to vote again.....a month later!!" or my favorite "There were just too many people on the ballott and I got confused!" Some days I think we should go back to literacy tests to discern the right to vote. And no that remark does not mean I am prejudiced it just means Im fed up with the whining mentality of this society. My 9 year old has problems following directions, but I sure dont let her use that as an excuse. If she messes up because she did not follow directions then she has to spend her free time fixing whatever she messed up or she would just accept that she made a mistake in the voting process and move on with her life. People are still complaing about this. WHINERS!
My favorite part is they can bash the President of the United States of America all day long calling him all sorts of names. They can even say such things as, "Oh, he is not my president!" Yes this is something a congresswoman here in Florida said. But let him misspeak all the while laying on this lavish display of praise for the first female speaker of the house (YUCK) and lower lips come out, big feet stamp, and the temper tantrums start.
WHATEVER!


Ok thats my vent for this post. Sorry to go all political, but this just disgusted me.

Happy Monday!

Ok its almost Tuesday, but hey Im posting for Monday. Hope you all had a great start to the new week.
We worked in our garage this weekend and Im excited to say its 95% done. I want to get a few shelves and we have to set up our foosball table but it really makes me smile when I go out there.
Here is Monday's schedule...just in case you have been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for it. LOL. We did pretty good following it, except we are a little behind in homeschooling so we did not follow the school schedule exactly.

Monday

7:00 Morning Routine Kids in bed
8:30 J-dress, fix breakfast, kids up Kids morning routine
9:00 Breakfast
9:30 AM chores
10:00 Math Karly, Handwritting Kelsie, Blocks Adrian/Tamara, Books Jonathan
10:30 Math Kelsie, Math worksheets Karly, blocks Adrian/Tamara, Blocks Jonathan
11:00 Math/FLL Kelsie, Math WS/HW Karly, dolls Tamara, train/cars Adrian, Cars Jonathan
11:30 Spelling Karly, Explode the Code Kelsie, dolls Tamara, train/cars Adrian, little people Jon
12:00 lunch
12:30 read to Jonathan older kids cleanup lunch
1:00 read aloud older kids, Jonathan nap
1:30 Spelling Kelsie, Explode the Code Karly, puzzles/books Adrian and Tamara
2:00 preschool Karly and Kelsie finish up school work
2:30 computer time kids rest
3:00 rest
4:00 Latin/Bible
4:30 PM chores
5:00 Start dinner
5:30 Last cleanup
6:00 Dinner
6:30 Bowling
9:30 Bible
10:00 Kids before bed routine
10:15 Kids bed/adult Bible
10:30 before bed routine
11:00 bed

This is the verse on the bottom of my schedule page. I thought oh yea this works! LOL
Galatians 6:8&9
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.


A little sloppy but I cleaned it up a lot from what it looked like before.
I will post more about daily and weekly chores and our morning and evening routine tomorrow. Right now Im exhausted.
We are going to the zoo tomorrow with the homeschool group. Its supposed to be COLD. Wondering why I committed to this! LOL.
Night, Night!

Be Blessed!

A new blog I found...and a contest!

Intrigued? Did I even try to spell that correctly?
I found a new blog from a lovely lady that posts regularly on my favorite message board. She has a lovely blog also which I expected from her posts over there. She is very wise and I have already learned a few things from her.
She is having a 100th post contest. If you are interested go over to her blog and see what it is all about. However since you heard it from me you MUST tell her that I sent you, this is so I can enter into the contest. It will be fun...come on. :)

Be Blessed!

PS I really do like her blog, I dont want anyone to think I am only doing this for the contest. I spent a lot of time reading through her past entries. I would never link to a blog I did not save in my favorites and check often.

Scheduling

So Im on a scheduling kick again. I really really really really want to get organized.
Scenerio, I cant bake my great wholesome whole wheat bread because... my dishes are on the counter and the counters are not clean.
Do you see the problem? Disorganization is truly hindering me. Its making me miserable. I cant keep up with homeschooling, my baby cant spend too long out of his baby jail, I cant invite friends over, when the doorbell rings we hide..... get it?
So with the help of Flylady and Candy and a little of my own ingenuity we are going to play house this week. Im going to work through Flylady's zones but I have assigned a room for every day of the week also. I tried this once before assigning daily chores to the AM and weekly chores to the PM. Im going to try it again, it worked out pretty good last time, but for some reason we got out of the habit.
We will try out this schedule for 2-3 weeks and I will make notes and then I will re-evaluate.
I will post the schedule everyday and let you know how it goes.
Something has to give. God has promised us something and I really need to prepare for it. Also we have a ton of changes coming up in the coming months and my house really needs to be in order so we can tackle all of the changes.

Be Blessed!

What do you do all day?!?!

Does anyone else have people who think you should be at their beck and call 24/7? Someone who absolutly freaks out if you dont call them right back or you cant make it on an outing? This is not about our children or our husbands who seem to need us constantly...that is a ministry. This is about those high matiance people in your life who are more clingy than a weening baby. Michelle, this is not about you...if you even hint that it might be I will never speak to you again!! ;) Love ya girl!
I have always had these people in my life. When I was single, first married and NOW with five kids. I cant be everywhere at once and if I have to choose between my husband and my children and a friend then I will ALWAYS choose my husband and children, just as I would expect any of my friends to do! So, in honor of all those people out there who think that I make this job (wife and homeschooling mommy to five) look easy and I must have GADS of personal time on my hands, I present:

MY DAY
(or some semblence of it)

This morning for instance I got up and stumbled into the kitchen. Which due to a ornery dishwasher which only works 1 day out of a gazillion was piled with dishes. I had to sweep my arm across the stove to make room for the POT to boil the water for oatmeal. Once the water was on to boil, I scrounged for some bowls and began to add oatmeal, honey, salt, and vanilla to the bowls. Then I began the process called, getting the children up! This is fairly easy...most of the time. Although right now I am potty training my almost four year old son, so it has not been easy for a long time. He strips in the bathroom, which all the girls are trying to cram into for teeth and hair time. He sits on his potty and sings around the howls of injustice when the favorite hairbow is snatched up. By the time I can reach an arm in and rescue him the potty is full and some unsuspecting girl has stepped on his pee soaked clothes. Then the 9 year old proceeds to dump the potty while she is surronded by two girls, a flailing three year old and one arm from mom pulling the three year old out of the chaos. She then dumps the potty contents all over a sister. FUN! FUN! Makes me wish I had grown up with more than just a brother. Amidst screams of distress and outrage and not a little laughter from everywhere else, mom's scratchy morning voice rises and directs cleanup. I then proceed to the boy's room to get him some clothes. As he dresses I move his laundry basket and sheets to the garage where hopefully they will be washed today. Fingers crossed. Then I come out and by now there is just enough water left in the pot of boiling water to pour into the bowls. Hence the reason I use a big pot of water to start with! See experience is the key to knowledge, file it away my other Titus 2 mothers, file it away!
After breakfast we clean up the dishes and mess from breakfast. Normally if the dishwasher is working we rinse our dishes and then load them up, believe me by lunch time we have to run the dishwasher. This is a very busy time as I have four children helping me and sometimes the baby is crawling under foot.
Then Adrian and Tamara pick a box of toys to play with and I put Jonathan in baby jail and we begin school. One of the girls works on a worksheet (spelling or handwriting or leftover math from the day before) and the other works with me. While I patiently explain to my third grader once again that there is no way 10x24 can equal 954, my 1st grader invents her own style of handwriting. My 3 and 5 year olds have decided its WWF smackdown time over a block and the baby is holding on to the side of baby jail and rocking so hard that the thing is lifting off the ground. And then..... the phone rings. Now, I admit most of the time I check the caller ID. If Im expecting a call or if its mom or hubby then I will most of the time answer. During this time of chaos and confusion that is my life I wont answer the phone for any one else. Leave a message chances are, I will call you back in a week or two. Now if you REALLY REALLY want to get in touch with me...shoot me an email. With an email I can answer any time day or night. I can answer an email while feeding the baby, checking a math paper, or circling o's that are supposed to be w's on a handwritting paper. Now, admittedly I could probably answer the phone and talk to you during those time periods, BUT it might not be coherently. I love getting email though. Its like little letters on my computer. I love to answer email. Please, always email me before you call unless you want to leave a message and then I will try to call you back. NO PROMISES. My best friends are the ones who know that I love them despite unreturned phone calls.
Now let me mention again that I am potty training a very reluctant boy. I have to remember to send him to the potty every now and then, because he wont take the inititiave and go on his own.
Now onto lunch time. This is usually a quick ordeal of PB graham crackers or cheese and fruit. Afterwards, for some reason its time to run the dishwasher so we do that.
Then we do preschool, house chores, Latin, Bible, rest time, dinner...by about 10pm I can listen to answering machine messages. I could bore you with how my afternoon goes bit by bit, but I choose not to. If you look closely at the afternoon list though you will see there cant possibly be any free time in there. There isnt. There are diapers to change, pee pee clothes to wash, children to teach, books to read, cars to roll around the floor, blocks to build tall buildings with.
In the evenings we spend time as a family doing either history or science and then we read the Bible and pray and then the littles are off to bed.
Im doing the best I can to be a good friend to those around me. I look at my full plate and I know in the next few months with a major career change in store for hubby and starting a new church its going to get a bit more full. I will still maintain my friendships and look for new ones, but truly I dont have a lot of spare time. I have to focus first on the priorities my husband has set, home and children being at the top of his list followed by this new church.
So for those of you out there hurt because your friends are not always at your beck and call...look around your home and at your children. If you spend all your time worrying about your friendships, I promise there will be something in your life that is suffering.

Be Blessed!

My Two Cents....

So I posted this video a few days ago and I got some interesting feedback. Some comments and a few emails. I thought I would share with you some of the things I thought about it. First of all, I do believe in God's will for our families. I dislike birth control strongly. To be perfectly honest Im not exactly sure that it is the evil some make it out to be, but Im going to go with my gut and say that God told us to be fruitful and multiply and God loves children so preventing them just does not seem like a good idea. THIS IS MY OPINION. I dont look down on people who use birth control. I will share this with you though. I think a year of birth control right after I got married is partially responsible for the fact that I have not been able to concieve and there is no doctor in the world who can convince me otherwise. I have never been regular since coming off of the pills. Why is it we say "trust God" so easily with most of our lives but hold back family planning? Do we think God cant take care of us? Does He need us to step in and make sure that this is under control?
Now the part about the quiverfull movement Im not too impressed with. Although there is a lot of lip service given to understanding that God sometimes does not have big families planned for couples the action is not always there. I believe I might be a rare breed. I dont have a problem telling people that I have not been able to have my own child as of yet, but we are trusting God. Some people though do not want to discuss their infertility. Understandably so. I dont believe that infertility is always a curse from God. I dont put it past Him, but sometimes (I personally believe a lot of the time) it is a means to another end. I always knew I wanted to adopt a child and maybe more, but if I'd been able to have biological children easily maybe I would not have adopted the five children I have.
Having a lot of children is certainly a blessing, BUT having two or three children with the proper heart is just as much a blessing. Sometimes having no children is what was meant. I think this is a very RARE for married people as there are so many children out there who need to be adopted into Christian homes, but if God closes all those doors then you go on with your life serving Him. Some in the quiverfull movement believe it is all about the amount of children you have. I have honestly met people who thought they were serving the Lord having as many children as possible. Unfortunatly you need to take responsibility for those children and raise them to be God - fearing responsible adults.
Im not sure if Im just rambling or if any of this makes sense. We are "quiverfull" minded in the sense that we want all the children God will give us, but we also understand that this might be it. I get really sad when people tell me they are done having children. They just decided that two or however many was it. I dont judge those people. I dont condemn them. I just get kinda sad.

One more thing to add. I pray daily for more children. I have a infant swing that I look at sometimes and imagine another baby wrapped up tight swinging away in it and I pray for that baby. I pray hard. My stomache gets all knotty and my heart swells. I long for more children. I desire more children. I look at the ones I have and they make me so happy that I can just imagine three or four more would be icing.