The TD Family

Trick or Treat

2011-11-01T10:46:00.001-05:00

We had a great night with some great friends last night. We had a blast trick or treating and visiting.

Here is Princess TD as a bumblebee and Little TD as a Jedi. It varied which Jedi he said he was, so I am still not sure which one he is here.

Little TD’s light saber actually lights up! He loved that! It reminds me of one day when I was home sick when Episode IV first came out way back when. I was staying with my Grandma Siler for the day and she had to run to Stix, Baer and Fuller. When we came up the escalator right at the top when we got off was a man dressed as Darth Vader complete with a lighted light saber. He activated his light saber and then turned and spoke to me (all in the matter of a second or two) and I screamed! It was very funny, but I was terrified at the time! I have been watching for the return of the light up light sabers for Little TD. I couldn’t believe they would deprive this generation of kids the cool stuff we had available as kids. That was the most costly part of his costume this year, but he loves it!

Fall Leaves, Texas Style

2011-10-21T11:34:00.001-05:00

Fall looks very different from what I grew up with in Missouri here in the piney woods of Texas. My kids are missing out on the fun of raking the fallen leaves and jumping in the piles of leaves. They won’t experience that here. They have seen many shows and movies that have children playing in the raked leaves, so they are familiar with the tradition. They decided this year to create their own version, Texas style!

Raking the pine needles….

and more raking….

and more raking! We only have one pine tree, but it produces A LOT of pine needles!

Finally, they get to jump into the “leaves”… it was very short lived since the pine needles are very pointy and hurt when they stab you!

Then they cleaned up their pile. They even did it without being asked! Great helpers!

While all of our friends up north are enjoying raking and playing in real leaves, we will enjoy the shorts weather until Christmas! Oh the joys of living in Texas!!

Experimenting with Science

2011-10-17T21:22:00.001-05:00

At the homeschool conference this summer, I was able to put my hands on the science curriculum I have been eyeing on the internet for quite some time now. Now, I absolutely love the Apologia Elementary series, but right now, that is more above Little TD’s head than I think I want to go at this point. While I love our main curriculum, I have been struggling with the science portion for several years. It seems more light than my kids are needing, but most homeschoolers that I talk with don’t worry about science in the early elementary years. I guess it is the engineer in me that makes me want them to want science.

After I actually put my hands on the curriculum, A Reason for Science, and had my hubby look at it as well, we opted to go with Level B for both Princess TD and Little TD. We decided that combining them in science and Bible would be the most advantageous for both of them and for me as the teacher! One of the things that I loved about this program was that everything that we need for the experiments is included in the package. When I pulled it all out to get started, I noticed that the first unit required something extra that I didn’t buy!! It was not a huge deal, but I had to do a bit of searching to find the flowers that were needed. Needless to say, we had to put off the first unit for a bit.

The first unit was to learn about how plants get water and nutrients through the stem.

Princess TD inspecting the inside of the stem.

Little TD inspecting the inside of the stem.

In order to see how the plants use water, the experiment had us cut the stem of a white carnation in half and put half of the stem in blue colored water and half of the stem in red colored water. We had to let the flowers stand for 24 hours without touching them to see the effects.

The experiment set-up and ready to go.

The flowers before.

The flowers after.

Little TD labeled the experiment a failure since the flowers were not as deeply colored as the picture in the book. It is not clear in the picture, but half of the edges of each flower are colored red and the other half are colored blue. The entire petals did not color, but the edges did. Princess TD loved the experiment and wanted to do it again.

They love this new science program and can’t wait to do it every week!

How the Drought Affects Playtime

2011-10-17T20:33:00.001-05:00

We recently took a trip to the local lake to have dinner along the lake shore for Mr. TD’s birthday. We were looking at the docks and were discussing how we wouldn’t be able to pull our boat up to dock for lunch. Even if there was enough water to float the boat, there would be no way we could get out of the boat and on to the dock! The marina usually employs people to help you to tie off when you come in for shopping or dining. They had a 8 ft. ladder laying on the dock to assist those who dare to pull in to get out of their boats! I don’t think we’ll be heading out there anytime soon!

While Little TD waits for me to work on different subjects with Princess TD during school, he builds with his Trio blocks. He has become very creative with what he builds. This day, he was building boats.

Here’s the story. The picture is worth a thousand words!

“Hey Mom! This is how it is usually when we pull up to the dock.”

“This is how it is now. There is no way we can get out of the boat!”

And for reference, here are a few pictures of the lake about 3 weeks ago. I am sure the water levels are even lower now. We are all praying for rain!

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Best. Movie. Ever.

2011-09-30T15:32:00.001-05:00

Okay, maybe not the best ever, but it certainly ranks up there very near the top!

We attended Homeschool Day at the Movies last Friday. We went to see the movie Dolphin Tale. If you haven’t seen it, you must go see it!

We had a crazy theater experience, and it turned out to be close to a private showing for 4 homeschool families from our homeschool group.

It was such a great movie! I think we may even take Mr. TD to see it again this weekend.

Our Way to Learn Geography

2011-09-30T15:30:00.001-05:00

In January of this year, one of my brothers realized his boyhood desire of driving an 18-wheel truck for a living. I am not sure what inspired this dream, whether it was our neighbor across the street who also drove a truck for a living or the endless number of movies about truck driving that were filling theaters at the time, I do not know. Either way, he is driving all over the United States and at least once a week, he sends me a text message with his pick-up and drop-off locations for the week. We have been tracking them on a large map. Princess TD and Little TD take turns adding cities to the map.

We ended up changing the original small map pins for larger ones that would show up in the picture. We have also decided to track Daddy’s travels as well. The white pins are where my brother travels, and the dark purple pins are where Mr. TD travels. We are on track to learn most of the states in the continental US by the end of the school year. I think it is time to pull out our Star Spangled State book and learn more about each of the states where our family travels.

Happy Birthday Uncle Brian!!!

Princess TD’s Super Summer

2011-09-22T23:54:00.001-05:00

It is hard to believe summer went by so fast this year. It is also hard to believe I am so behind on posting pictures.

Princess TD has had a very eventful summer!

She started with her first ever ballet performance, where she was a flower. She performed beautifully and is now enjoying a more challenging year of ballet lessons.

Next came AHG summer camp. We had so much fun with our friends in TX1318! For Princess TD, camp gave her a bit of a challenge. She attempted the ropes course. While she was waiting for her turn, she lost a tooth! She did a great job climbing all the way to the top, but once there, she couldn’t make herself navigate the ropes. I was very proud of her for even trying…that was WAY up there and many of the moms who tried couldn’t believe the girls were doing it so well!

In July, Princess TD had her 8th birthday! She participated in the local parade ON her birthday. It was a special treat for her! One of the badges she completed last spring with her AHG troop, was Social Skills & Etiquette, so she wanted to have a tea (lemonade) party with her AHG and ballet friends. It was a sweet party and all of the girls were great!

I would say the highlight of her summer was ordering and receiving her American Girl doll. She saved her own money and purchased the doll herself along with 1 outfit. That was all she could afford. She is saving now for more clothes. I do have to say that she takes really good care of Lilly Anne, much better than her other dolls.

At the end of the summer, we had to make a hard decision to change to another AHG troop in the area. We were asked to switch our ballet class to the regular meeting day of our original troop, so we were forced to look for another troop. We just had our first meeting and Princess TD did a great job helping the girls (all new to AHG) perfect the sign and the salute. I will be forever grateful to the wonderful trio of A.N.E. for starting AHG in this area and for introducing us to the awesome program. It is wonderful to see how many new families are being touched by this great ministry!

Here are a few pictures to give you an overview of Princess TD’s Super Summer!

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First Day of School

2011-09-22T22:54:00.001-05:00

Our first day of school was very unique this year. I had planned to spend a year and a half working on the current curriculum because I thought it was a bit of a stretch skill wise for both of them. So, we didn’t “begin” a new level of our curriculum this fall. I guess it wasn’t strange for the kids, but it was very strange for me. It just doesn’t seem like a new school year without new curriculum. We will be finishing up soon, since both kids are just cruising through their work! Here are pictures of both of them on the “first day” of this school year!

Princess TD

Little TD

Best buddies!

Apparently in the craziness of last fall, I missed taking first day of school pictures. That is likely because we were doing our first day of school in the basement of my mom’s condo as she was recovering from major cancer surgery. In case you would like to see how they have grown, you can see their first day of school pictures from 2 years ago here.

The Weather Explained by a 5 Year Old

2011-09-20T22:57:00.001-05:00

It was raining the other day when we were working on school. Yes! Drought stricken Texas was blessed with rain! We received almost 2” over the 3-day period when it rained. Both Princess TD and Little TD were jumping up and down at the sight of the raindrops falling from the sky.

I digress.

The rain was just a nice pitter patter, no thunder or lightning that day.

Little TD jumps in with his explanation of the weather. (This is what he said to the best of my recollection…I was trying so hard not to chuckle, that I am sure I have left out a detail or two. My thoughts will be in green.)

“You know Mom, the rain is God pouring a glass of water.” I instantly wanted to go check to see if there was some water spilled somewhere in my kitchen since he had just refilled his water cup.

“And the thunder is Him banging on a drum, or maybe bowling, it just depends on the way He feels.” Okay.

“Oh, and the lightening is him turning off and on the light. It could be turning off and on a flashlight too.” Mmm hmm.

“And those one clouds that look like those things, um, cotton balls. Those are Mrs. (long pause)…those are what Mrs. (draws a blank again) uses to take off her nail polish.” Here’s where the holding in the chuckles begins.

“Oh and Sissy, you know those dark clouds. Those are the ones she’s already used.” I thought I was going to lose it here! I had to get up and go check my kitchen floor at this point. Oh, and no water was spilled.

At the homeschool conference we attended recently, we attended a seminar about killing dreams of the people in your life. I do believe I could qualify for this title, since I am not much of a dreamer and I attack everything logically. Mr. TD is more of a dreamer than I am, however, he’s pretty logical too. So we have been gently reminding each other not to kill our kids dreams, especially when reality will come along and fix some of the assumptions naturally. This was an opportunity for me not to kill the vivid imagination of my sweet 5 year old son, and hopefully provide the few people who read this blog, a really good chuckle!

The Long and Winding and Very Hilly Road

2011-09-01T21:03:00.000-05:00

I really have the best intentions on keeping up with this blog. I know I haven’t done a great job. Really, I haven’t done a great job at anything lately. I haven’t been a good wife. I haven’t been a good mom. I haven’t been a good homeschool teacher. I have not been good at any of my roles lately. I have been thinking about what to do with my mom and about my mom and her health and what seems to be the lack of concern on her part. I have been consumed with these thoughts day and night for nearly a year now.

When we started down this road a year ago, I didn't expect it to be so winding and hilly. I expected a straight path from problem to solution. (My engineering brain at work again.) Life this last year has proven to be like our drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway last fall; up and down, left and right, and sometimes you go down so quickly, that it makes you a bit sick to your stomach.

In talking with my uncle a couple of weeks ago, he suggested for me not to be obsessive about my mom and all of her needs to the detriment of my family. That was just what I needed to hear. It is time for me to shift responsibility back to where it belongs. It is her responsibility to fight the cancer. It is her responsibility to keep hydrated. It is her responsibility to take her medicines on time. It is her responsibility to eat 3 meals a day. It is her responsibility to quit smoking. I can’t make her want get better and live. It reminds me of the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” That is where we are with her now. We have lead her to the place where she can receive care from those who love her, but we can’t make her WANT to get well.

I will continue to be responsible for her finances. That is something I can do without harming my family. I will continue to pray for her healing and for her desire to live. I can love her, even when it is hard.

For the last 2 weeks, I have made the trip from home to Louisiana twice to help deal with the doctors’ appointments and the plan for the future. We have been so consumed by the recurring UTI, that we didn’t even consider the possibility that something else might be wrong. This last Monday, we went for a follow-up appointment with her urologist and found out about the mass in one of her kidneys. This was the first we had heard of this. He began to scramble to get a CT or PET scan done, indicating that he wanted to do surgery this week.

As I type this, we are waiting to get approval from her insurance for a PET scan to further investigate an abnormality in her kidney. She was supposed to have a CT scan this morning, but she has not been keeping herself hydrated, so her kidneys are not functioning properly, so she can’t have the contrast. My sister and I were both there with her last week and even with both of us watching, we couldn’t keep her hydration at a level where her kidneys function properly. It is out of our hands.

Please pray for my sister, my brothers and me to have wisdom as we make decisions about the future of my mom’s care.

For now, we rest in the knowledge that this is only temporary and that someday we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's been awhile...

2011-06-15T15:42:00.000-05:00

It seems like just a few weeks ago I posted here. Time has flown by so quickly. I guess that happens when you are preoccupied with an illness combined with normal everyday family activities.

Over the next few days, I will be updating you on quite a few things that have been happening around the TD Family household. For now, I will start with the most obvious.

Princess TD cut off her hair!!

Yes. She finally let my stylist cut her hair - it only took 4 tries!! She decided that she wanted to let it grow long enough to donate it to a charity. While most kids her age donate to Locks of Love, she opted to go with Pantene Beautiful Lengths. With the Pantene program, her hair is guaranteed toward making a wig for a cancer patient. She really wanted that. She helped my cousin, Jo, pick out her wig after her diagnosis, so this was dear to her heart.

I am so proud of my little girl for being so generous.

We have had a few tears over the missed long hair, but she is convinced it will be long again next week. Well, it won't actually be next week, but it will grow back!

Make your own collage

In case you were wondering about the song, she said this was her favorite song. It is called When I Get to Heaven by PureNRG.

The Homeschool Mother's Journal - Week 2

2011-03-07T21:22:00.002-06:00

In my life this week...

We took off school last week to work on redoing our kitchen floor. It was a big job and the whole family helped get it done. We were very grateful for the help from Grandpa and Grandma. We wouldn't have been able to do it so quickly without them!

On another note, my mom had her last chemo treatment this past Friday. She will have another follow up with her oncologist in a month, at which point he will run further tests to see how she is doing. We are all praying that she can be finished with chemo and that the cancer has not returned. She recently ran out of cigarettes and mentioned to my sister that she was "done" now. I only pray that is true!

In our homeschool this week...

It is always a slow start back when we have taken time off school. Since we took off last week to work on redoing our kitchen floor, today was the first day back and it was crazy! I am hopeful that the week will end on a good note once we all get back into the swing of things.

Places we are going & people we are seeing...

Just before our week off, we took a field trip to our local aquarium with our homeschool group. We had a wonderful time with a great group of people! We even got to have one of Princess TD's friends hang out with us for a day.

My favorite thing this week was...

On our field trip, I was able to convince Princess TD and her friend to touch the stingrays in the touch tank! That was priceless! Princess TD has always been afraid to touch, but the two of them together developed the courage they needed. They both were afraid of the sharks, but it was so much fun teaching them both about the stingrays and sharks. Princess TD and Little TD have seen the pictures of the sharks we saw on one of our SCUBA diving trips and really aren't afraid of them, but it was priceless seeing the eyes of her friend as I described how close were were to them.

What's working/not working for us...

Obedience. First time obedience. That is always a challenge.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

We finished our reading program we have been working with for a year. We started a new one, Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. I love the program, but my brain is not comprehending how to make all of this happen. I am sure that I am just making it more complex than it needs to be; I have a tendency to do that.

A photo to share...

The Crazy Aquarium Kids!

Our New Kitchen Floor

2011-03-07T12:11:00.000-06:00

We have been planning and saving for a while for a new floor in our kitchen. Something more urgent always came up, so it has taken us a couple of years to have the money to replace our 13 year old, contractor grade linoleum. It is amazing that it even lasted as long as it did! Here is the transformation...

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It was a great family project! After stirring all of the dust and debris, my allergies have been going bonkers, but they are beginning to subside now and will be even better once I complete a deep cleaning of the house! We can't wait to have everyone over to see our new floor...maybe we'll just have to have a party!

The Homeschool Mother's Journal - Week 1

2011-02-13T17:25:00.013-06:00

I stumbled on this meme and thought it would be a good way to get back into blogging again. I know the far away family wants to know how we are doing and what we are doing.

In my life this week...

In my last post, I shared what all has been going on in our lives for the last few months. I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and concern from friends and family. It is always so comforting to know that others are praying for you.

In our homeschool this week...

This week was as perfect as a homeschool week could be! Princess TD moved from carrying to borrowing in math with no difficulty...which is amazing considering the struggle we had with carrying to the hundreds place (and beyond) the previous week. She is reading like crazy and devouring all books with ease. Little TD took off with his reading/phonics lessons this week too. He is so thrilled that he is learning to read and can't wait until he's finished with the "red book" so he can get his very own library card!

Places we are going & people we are seeing...

We had a great time last week at our homeschool group park day and also at the annual Valentine's Day ice skating party. Both Princess TD and Little TD are having a blast comparing the Valentine cards they received and talking about the friends they saw.

This week we will again be headed out to park day for a fun afternoon in the warmth of the soon to be Texas spring. We will also be attending our American Heritage Girls meeting for the first time this month...the previous one was cancelled due to the icy conditions!

My favorite thing this week was...

Seeing Princess TD and Little TD light up when they figured out what they were doing. I never grow tired of that!

What's working/not working for us...

Right now, everything is working for us. We seem to have found our groove. I love our curriculum, with a few changes to fit my kids, mainly science and Bible.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

Do I need to slow down, or just let things go? Right now I am letting it ride, taking it one day at a time.

A photo to share...

Here is Princess TD at the Valentine ice skating party. Little TD didn't skate.

Torn

2011-02-10T13:33:00.002-06:00

I have been absent from here because I have been finding it very difficult to share all that has been going on in our lives. My mind is constantly filled with scenarios of how the next few days/months/years will play out with our new life in dealing with the cancer. I can't seem to get past the constant swirling thoughts in my few moments alone to get written what we have been doing in school and in life.

When I begin thinking about how to take care of Mom when she's 800+ miles away, I just can't seem to figure out what to do about it. My sister has been doing a phenomenal job of taking care of her as she goes through the chemotherapy treatments. The question that plagues both of our minds is 'where do we go from here?' and I feel completely inadequate to answer that question. I haven't been present for the doctor appointments, I don't have the opportunity to ask any questions of them and I am finding that very frustrating. I can't get my mind to process a solution when I don't have the data. That is just my engineering brain at work.

You see, I have been helping my cousin as she has gone through breast cancer at the same time my mom has been dealing with bladder cancer. The difference is that my cousin is here in town and has allowed me to be there for her doctor appointments. I have had the opportunity to ask questions of the doctors, get the facts, get the plan and help her to process and move through the diagnosis, surgery, chemo and soon the reconstruction. She has appreciated my help and wanted my help. Now, I am not saying this has been an easy process. It has been hard in fact. I have given of my time, my energy (both physical and mental) and neglected other things that probably shouldn't have been neglected. But, I would do it again in a heartbeat. No one should have to go through this alone, and I am honored that she asked me to go through this journey with her.

On the other hand, in my mom's case, she was at home for the first part and with my sister now. Her doctor in St. Louis was more than happy to discuss anything and everything with me over the phone. I was able to ask as many questions as I had and she was patient and answered all of them. I have learned all I know about bladder cancer and its treatment from the internet. I guess the most important facts being that is was caused by her decades of smoking and that it is one of the most recurring cancers.

So what do we do now? That is the question that plagues me.

Mom is still smoking. She doesn't truly believe that is what caused her cancer. She is not taking care of her basic needs. She isn't being responsible. She doesn't ask the doctors questions, she doesn't want to know. She doesn't interact with me and my family when she is here with us. She isn't eating well. She refuses to take anti-depressants to get through this time.

How can we send her home to live alone when this is how she is behaving?

If we don't send her home, where will she go?

How do we pay for her to live?

In Matthew 6:25-34, we are told not to worry about anything that God will take provide for our needs. I do find myself worrying about this situation way too often. When I realize I am worrying, I pray. I feel in a lot of ways that if we let Mom go home alone, it would be similar to sending a young child out to live on their own. How would you not worry about that?

'Tis the Season

2010-11-25T20:32:00.003-06:00

Well, it is that time of year again. It always amazes me how much earlier the Christmas stuff comes out every year. I suppose in a few more years, we can just leave all of our Christmas decorations out because it will be the season again in January...nah, I don't think our HOA would approve!

We received an offer through our homeschool group for a gift bag from the local mall. It contained a free carousel ride, a $10 mall gift card, a $10 gift card to Picture People, a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich (who could pass that up?!) and a free 5 x 7 with Santa. Of course we were one of the crazy families there at 10 am to get a gift bag! It was great walking around and seeing several other homeschool families out at the mall. While we were there, we got our annual picture with Santa.

I pretty much let the kids dress themselves, they are beyond the age where I can convince them to dress cute for Santa pictures. At least they were color coordinated! Only in the South will you find kids in sandals in Santa pictures! I think it was in the 80s that day!

I am still behind on all of my preparations and will most likely not be joining the Black Friday crowds since I have no idea what I will buy for anyone, but I did complete the Santa picture a week and a half before Thanksgiving!

Our Little Ballerina

2010-11-16T15:09:00.002-06:00

Our little ballerina had a mini-recital to show the parents what they have been learning since August. Princess TD absolutely loves ballet and wonders almost daily about how long it will be until she can dance pointe. I recorded it on my camera to share with family and immediately she asked me to post it on Facebook. I, of course, asked if I could post it on the blog instead. She agreed, so here it is.

It is not the best resolution. Next time I will try the higher resolution and see if that comes out better.

Blessed

2010-09-14T13:34:00.003-05:00

Hmm...I find it very interesting that Google Reader has recommended my own blog as one I should follow. I don't know if that happens to everyone, but I thought maybe it was a not so subtle hint that I do indeed have a blog and that I should be updating it more often!

I also learned I have 12 followers! Wow! I had no idea that many people still read my ramblings outside of family. So, for the dozen of you still reading, here's an update.

This summer has been crazy to say the least. I can sum it up in one word...cancer...not in our little immediate family, but in our extended family. Our summer has been filled with doctors appointments, surgeries and hospital visits. Grammie was diagnosed within the last month, and her second surgery is scheduled for September 23. Please keep her in your prayers as we move through this difficult transition in her life.

This summer (and spring too) we have had to call on some of our good friends to help us out during these (and a couple of other) crises. It has been such an awesome blessing to see all of those who jumped in to help us and even those who offered and weren't able to help due to their circumstances at the time. So often we all go through life without really realizing how many lives we touch and how many people are there willing to help if they just know of the need. Our family has been blessed beyond words with wonderful people who are praying for us and with us, or are just there for us when we need it.

Thank you to all of our sweet friends! Your calls, e-mails, handwritten notes (Thanks WE. Your note made my day!), shared scriptures (even if I didn't get to read it...=)), and texts have made this so much easier.

We are blessed!!!

A Weekend Off

2010-07-23T21:15:00.003-05:00

We have had quite a few things going on in our life recently that has made our minds a bit preoccupied with things other than family fun. We decided to take a weekend off last weekend and spend the day out in the boat. We all lathered up in our SPF 50 sunscreen and headed to the lake!

We had a blast!

We ran around the lake for a bit.

We went swimming near the island. Even Mr. TD got in the water and easily got out for the first time since his back injury 3 1/2 years ago. He thoroughly enjoyed being in the water again!

We had a picnic lunch near the dam.

After lunch, we let the kids go tubing! They had a blast! They spent a good 2 hours in the tube telling us to go faster and faster. We didn't always do it, because most of the lake shore is bulkhead, which after a few hours of boat traffic makes the lake pretty choppy.

I did my best to snap a few pictures...it's kind of hard to hold the camera still on digital zoom when you are riding in a boat at 20+ mph on a choppy lake. Many of the pictures were of the top of the kids head with a good view of the boat wake!

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We can't wait to go again! We'll see what the schedule allows in the next few weeks!

Creativity and TV

2010-07-22T09:32:00.002-05:00

In our normal day-to-day life, we don't watch much TV.

We might watch a few age appropriate shows in the morning as we get moving, but for the majority of the day we leave the TV off. There just isn't much on that I am interested in watching for my kids or myself. We have a lot more fun with playtime and it makes starting the school day much easier.

However, when I am finishing up dinner when after Mr. TD gets home, he typically turns it on and watches either a home improvement show or something on Food Network. It usually turns out that we start watching the Food Network Challenge show. We are truly amazed at what these artists can create out of sugar and cake! We have become quite the family of armchair judges and love to try to pick who the big winner will be.

I can remember when I was growing up hearing the adults around me talking about how watching too much TV would stifle our creativity and dull our minds. I am just not sure that is true!

Here's why:

My sweet little ones have wanted to play with the Play Doh for a couple of weeks now. Because of our schedule, we haven't had the uninterrupted time for them to make the mess and clean it up before we were on the run again. Finally, we had a few hours, so I let them go at it!

Within minutes, they were designing and building cakes. Little TD said, "Wait!" and ran to his room and came back a few minutes later. I was in the process of doing laundry, so I missed a bit of the complete conversation, but when I returned to the kitchen, this is what I heard:

Princess TD: " Okay, now move your designs to the table."

Little TD: "Wow! I made it!"

Princess TD: "Time to face the judges."

(Some conversation I didn't quite catch...)

Princess TD: "And the winner of the Food Network Play Doh Challenge is.....Little TD!"

(Cheers from both)

Little TD: "I can't believe it!" (Said as Princess TD puts a play medal around his neck which was won by Little TD at a friends birthday party almost 3 years ago!)

Little TD: "Okay Sissy, now it's your turn to win!"

They then proceeded to demolish their creations and start all over again with Princess TD winning the second time.

Pretty creative if you ask me!

No pictures this time...just a funny story. Next time I will have the SD card IN my camera instead of attached to my computer!

Princess TD has a Birthday!

2010-07-14T13:00:00.003-05:00

Princess TD is 7 years old! I can hardly believe my baby is 7! It is truly amazing how fast she has grown. I am incredibly blessed that I can be at home to watch her grow and mature into such a sweet young lady. There are always hard days, but overall this adventure has been wonderful. An adventure made even more sweet by her learning at home. I continue to be amazed at the wonder of the light bulb moments when she figures out something she has struggled to understand. I am one blessed momma!

She has expressed an interest in dance off and on since she was young, but she never wanted to take a class. We weren't going to force her to go if it was only going to be a fight for us. She finally decided that she wanted to take a ballet class. She is thoroughly enjoying it and wants to continue. We will have to see if it will continue to be feasible to continue long term, both with schedule and financial considerations. Here she is on her first day.

Traditionally for her birthday, we have purchased a July 4th themed outfit for her to wear. Most of the time the shirt or dress would have something embroidered that would be along the lines of "Independence Girl," "Firecracker" or the like, which is VERY appropriate for her and not just because her birthday is July 4th. She has grown to be so tall, that clothing manufacturers don't make cute clothes like that anymore in her size. Therefore, this momma is forced to make her the outfits that she wants. {Oh, and I am no where near as talented as her Grammie (my mom) when it comes to sewing...this outfit was HUGE when I first fitted it to her!} It just so happened that I had just enough fabric left over to make her doll, Katherine, a similar matching outfit.

This year for her cake, she wanted one with a Strawberry Shortcake theme. I had grand plans for how the cake would look, but the actual cake was no where near what I wanted it to be. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was rushing a bit to get things moving, and my top layer fell apart. I had to use an entire batch of icing just to "glue" it back together. Needless to say, it wasn't even close to level. Overall, it came out pretty good though, and I think it was one of my tastiest cakes to date!

On the evening of her birthday, we ventured over to our former neighbor's new home and did some kid fireworks with their daughter. We had a blast...literally! Our neighbors new home is gorgeous and we will sure miss them, especially the crazy things KT with her friend CJ. They are great kids and a lot of fun to be around. Hopefully CJ will still come around when he gets bored...Little TD loves learning scooter tricks from him!

American Heritage Girls Family Campout

2010-06-29T10:36:00.002-05:00

This year was the first year for a new American Heritage Girls troop that we joined in September. It has been so much fun for both Princess TD and me. Even Little TD is learning a lot when he sits in on our meetings. He just loved learning about airplanes when we did the Aviation badge!

Anyway, the troop planned a family campout for spring. Quite a few of the families had not camped before, and not knowing really what to expect, it was definitely a challenge for Mrs. H to plan! We all really appreciate the hard work she put into planning this campout for us.

We all had a great time on Saturday, but the trip was cut short because of the threat of rain. It seems any time the TD Family is camping, you can count on the threat of rain! We completed our activities for the day, which included working on completing the Hiking and Fire Safety badges.

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We had an awesome time and can't wait for the next campout!

Our Visit with Friends

2010-06-15T11:52:00.005-05:00

Back in March when we took our anniversary camping trip, we stopped by to visit some friends who moved to the area. We had an awesome visit and Princess TD and Little TD haven't stopped talking about Mr. James, Ms. Carole, and their kids V, JD, S, and T.

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We had a great visit! They moved into their house just about a year ago, and we hadn't seen it yet. It is a beautiful home made even more beautiful by the sweet family who lives in it. Even though it had been some time since our whole families had been together, the kids just picked up right where they left off, and so did the adults. It is such a blessing to have good friends like that!

Ms. Carole taught Princess TD so much about chickens! She took her out to the coop (Mr. James did an awesome job building it) and showed her the chickens and chicks and explained how the eggs were gathered. Princess TD even gathered some eggs, and then was so proud when we got to bring some home with us! There is nothing better than farm fresh eggs! Here are a couple for comparison: the green egg, a brown egg (both from the ranch) and a store bought white egg.

Just a few short weeks after our visit, Mr. James had an accident on his dirt bike and broke his knee and leg. It was a pretty serious injury that required surgery. He experienced complications due to infection and has spent a little more than the last 2 months in the hospital. He is supposed to be going home this week. We continue to pray for him and healing. We love you Mr. James!!!

Update: As of today, June 29, Mr. James is heading home to be with his family again!!!!

This & That

2010-04-26T15:06:00.005-05:00

I have so many blog posts rambling around, but not nearly enough hours in the day to complete them all, I am going to do a quick, bullet point update for everyone.

School is going very well. Princess TD is reading independently and I am so impressed with her comprehension. She loves our curriculum and the more challenging readers that we are reading. She loves to retell the stories to me, her brother, Mr. TD and really anyone who will listen. I guess she's catching on pretty well to the concept of narration...gotta love Charlotte Mason!

Speaking of school and our curriculum...I am making the trek up north (to Arlington) to meet the author of the curriculum we use, Carrie Austin. I can't express enough how excited I am to finally meet her and talk about our future plans with Heart of Dakota! I have been planning out my questions and thoughts...I am sure this will be a moment where I say something silly or forget to ask a question, so it is my goal to be prepared! (I am almost as excited as when I got to meet Lisa Whelchel. =))

Planning my meeting has made me realize how silly and insecure I can be at times, but the thoughts of insecurity were confirmed when I attended the second half of the simulcast of Beth Moore's So Long, Insecurity. (Great book, BTW) I realized that all of the fretting I am doing over meeting "the author" is just plain crazy! I am not meeting "The Author," which is where I should feel humbled and insecure, but another homeschooling mom like myself. I am now praying for His guidance as I ask the questions needed to make our homeschool what He wants it to be. (Oh, and I am still taking my list! I do think He expects some preparation on my part!)

Easter was so much fun this year! We had some great friends over for lunch after church and then our kids went on an egg hunt. I was amazed at how fast the 4 kids found all of the eggs. We barely had time to get our cameras turned on and ourselves out the door before they had the backyard cleaned out! Here are Princess TD and Little TD after we returned home from church and of the candy swap after the egg hunt. So cute!

I have posted about American Heritage Girls before, and will post about our first camp trip soon, but not much about what we are looking for in the group. Princess TD makes friends everywhere we go, but rarely do we see the girls she makes friends with again. Our homeschool group is so large, that you have to make an effort to connect with another family to ever hope to see them again. We have done that with a couple of families, but we were still looking for a regular connection with the same group of girls. AHG has provided that for us, as well as leading us to another homeschool group. We, and especially Princess TD, enjoy seeing the same girls every week and it is providing her the chance to work on her skills at maintaining friendships. In an effort to promote these relations, one of the AHG moms planned a Tea Party for the girls, where they came all dressed up for a special time together. Princess TD wore a dress that was sent to her by my aunt, and my grandma's (my aunt's mom) china tea cup and saucer. She was so adorable that day and even drank from her cup with her pinkie up (much to Mr. TD's chagrin). Little TD was along for the ride that day and as usual, was a perfect angel. I only hope that Princess TD is just as compliant when he gets to the age where he has his own activities that don't include her! I can hope, right?!? Here's the Princess at her Tea Party!

Well, that is all for now. Stay tuned for a report on the camp out...it was a blast!

Badge Work

2010-04-22T17:58:00.002-05:00

Princess TD has been working on a few badges at home for American Heritage Girls. She has completed several in class, and a surprise two at our AHG Family Camp Out last weekend. One of the ones she wanted to complete at home was the Photography badge. The book is pretty old, and says that all the badge work must be completed on a 35mm camera. Well, I worked with one of our troop committee members to rewrite the requirements for a digital camera. She completed the badge with her digital camera (and mine). She was to take 24 pictures around the neighborhood. She opted to wait for the spring flowers to bloom and took pictures of them at our house, our neighbors houses and at a local park. She did a great job and took some very interesting shots. Here is what she took:

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At our end of the year banquet, Princess TD will receive the following badges: Our Flag, Gardening, Aviation, Outdoor Skills, Cycling, Photography, Hiking, and Fire Safety/Fire Building. She is having a blast with the group and loves going to the meetings.

Camp Anniversary

2010-04-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

The last few years, it has become a family tradition to plan a camping trip to celebrate our anniversary. This year we planned a joint trip with Mr. TD's parents. We chose a central location in Mission Tejas State Park, and made our preparations. We camp so often, we have a checklist, and our site set-up runs like a well oiled machine. We arrived at camp after Grandma and Grandpa, but made quick work of setting up our site and were able to help them finish setting up their trailer.

Since our first night there was our actual anniversary, Grandma made dinner and it was yummy! She made taco soup and it was perfect since that afternoon was a bit chilly. We could definitely tell when that cold front came through!

The weather forcast said there was a slight chance of scattered thunderstorms our first night out. Well, let me say there was a 100% chance of thunderstorms where we were! Our canopy over our eating area collapsed from the weight of the rain water! We woke up to one of the corners of the shelter bent inward and almost touching the ground. It was all mangled and the metal supports were bent beyond repair. We were able to bend them back to somewhat the proper place, but it won't be used again. Grandpa took it home with him to see if he could use parts from it to salvage our first canopy that also had bent supports. Needless to say, we'll be looking for a new shelter design - soon!

Princess TD spent every night in the camper with Grandma and Grandpa. Little TD spent one night in the camper, but preferred sleeping in the tent where his sister couldn't bother him! They had a blast running back and forth between the two sites.

On our second day, we hiked all over the park and explored many things in nature. Grandma spent a lot of time teaching Princess TD about the blooming plants we encountered. Princess TD was like Grandma's shadow and followed her everywhere. Little TD loved collecting sticks and trying to make a bow and arrow, a sword and any other "boy" kind of thing! He loved playing outside in the woods.

Princess TD took this picture of the rest of us on our hike. She did a great job!

On our third day, we visited the park in Rusk to look at it for a potential camp trip and check out the train of the Texas State Railroad. When the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart on re-entry, approximately 50 pieces of the shuttle were found in Rusk State Park. It was amazing to look at the pictures at the memorial site they created.

After exploring a bit outside and in the gift shop, Princess TD sat with Grandma and Grandpa watching a film on the history of the railroad, and Little TD and I watched the engine come through and attach to the passenger cars to make the trip to Palestine. He loved watching the train couple up! He about jumped out of his skin each time the engine blew its whistle-it was VERY loud! We will have to come back and take the train ride! The park was very nice too! We picked out a couple of good sites for our tent.

After we returned back to Mission Tejas, we attempted to recreate a picture that was taken of Mr. TD's family at the Mission San Fransisco de los Tejas at the park when Mr. TD was almost 2 years old! We didn't get the recreated picture, but opted for a "new" family picture instead!

Our last day was spent cleaning up the pollen as best we could on all of our things to get them packed up. The bottom of our tent was still wet from the rainstorm, so we had to dry it off before we could pack it back up. After we cleared out our site, we headed to our friends ranch nearby. That will have to be another post...this one is long and I'm tired!

Long time, no post...

2010-03-14T14:56:00.004-05:00

Well it seems that my good intentions to post more regularly have all but died! There are so many things happening all at once, I can't seem to pull myself away from life long enough to share them with everyone here. I think I am going to have to schedule time to blog into my weekly routine so then it gets done a couple times a month. But there I go again with good intentions.

School is going very well. Little TD is asking daily to do school and wants it to last longer. I am still on the fence about starting him in Kindergarten early. He is ready to learn to read and has been doing basic math skills (thanks to his big sister) and is mastering drawing lines and holding a pencil, so I am not sure why I am so concerned. I guess it is the pressure from the long history of public school thought that you shouldn't start Kindergarten until you are 5 years old. It would really only be a few months before he's five, so I don't see him at a huge disadvantage! One of my best friends from high school was born in November and she started school before she was 5 too, and she turned out great-she graduated from high school early and has a master's degree. I really should stop second guessing myself I guess.

He has had a couple of fun projects in his school time. Back in January, we were studying about Joshua and Jericho. Here he is constructing his own wall of Jericho out of peanut butter and crackers.

His teacher wasn't very prepared, so we didn't have square crackers. We just had to use extra "mortar" to keep the wall upright. It made for a tasty lunch too!

That same week, we also built the city of Jericho out of blocks and then marched around the city and knocked the wall down. Just like typical boys, his favorite part was the knocking down of the walls!

Princess TD is still loving school at home. She is still perplexed why it takes the neighborhood kids so long when they go to school. She definitely doesn't want to join them, but is curious why hers is so short. Of course I gave her the obvious reason -that she is very intelligent and that I only have Little TD and her to teach at school, and not 18-20 more kids.

We started working on the concept of multiplication last week, and she got it in about 10 minutes. I was amazed! Now I guess we move on to fact memorization...(yuck! I was never big on memorization!) Thanks to the recommendation of one of my good friends, who is a veteran homeschool mom herself, I think we'll get that down pretty quick because we have been listening to this for a couple of years now.

Her least favorite subject continues to be writing and copywork. She seems to enjoy copying scripture on paper she can color, so that is where we are working now.

As a science experiment, we planted some seeds to watch them sprout. We planted a few green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers. I choose these partly because of the differences in germination times and partly because those were things that my family would actually eat if they grew! Well, guess what!? I haven't killed them yet, so we planted them in a Square Foot Garden in the back yard! Here is a picture on the day they were planted.

So far they are still growing, and the extra seedlings are still growing in smaller pots, just in case the planted ones don't make it!

Another project we did a couple of months ago involved dropping a crayon into a glass of water to see what would happen. It sank, of course. Then we added a couple of tablespoons of salt, and then put the crayon back to see what would happen. It floated. Princess TD was thrilled it worked!

Well, that will do it for the update this week. Spring is in the air and we are venturing out for our usual activities. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for our anniversary celebration camping trip, the zoo, Blue Bell ice cream and bluebonnets, our first American Heritage Girls family campout and time with good friends! It will be a busy spring for us!

Just a few things going on...

2010-01-20T14:12:00.005-06:00

We have been busy. Well, we are always busy, but this month has been exceptionally busy! There is so much to cover...where to begin!

We started the month staying up way too late and having fun playing cards with some good friends. It's always a great way to start the month and the year celebrating with friends (and their family too)!

After recovering, the next week (oh, and it does take a week when you get to be our age!) we hosted my sister, my nieces and another gymnast from my sister's gym when they were in town for a meet in Katy. We kept my youngest niece while the rest were at the meet. Let's just say, she wasn't exactly thrilled with me! Every time I looked at her, talked to her, anything. she screamed and cried! I am usually the one who can put any one's baby to sleep....not my niece! Princess TD was the only one who could get her to stop crying, eat or drink anything. So, my sweet little girl got a crash course in babysitting and boy was she thrilled to be the one "in charge" of taking care of her cousin! She got so tired of crying at one point, she crawled over to her bear and went to sleep...so cute!

During said weekend, the extra gymnast who was staying with us contracted a stomach bug. He was sick the whole weekend. Poor thing. He only stayed with us for one night, and I immediately cleaned everything he touched with Clorox wipes.

The week following, my sister and her whole family contracted said stomach bug. Not so much a big deal for us since they live in the next state, BUT we were planning to visit them the next weekend for my niece's 1st birthday! Wow! Luckily they were all well, the house was cleaned and we avoided the bug!

We then followed every slow driver across east Texas to make our way to my niece's first birthday party. It seemed to take us all day to get there! My mom was visiting from St. Louis, so it was a good old fashioned family party. It was great and my niece loved her gifts (except the ones we gave her, clothes) and loved the cake. My sister made her a banana cake with banana flavored icing. Here's the sweet birthday girl!

This is proof that she can be a happy baby, as long as her aunt is not talking to her! She was happy to be playing with Princess TD, who is sitting behind her in the picture!

Princess TD is loving American Heritage Girls. We are meeting 3 times a month now, and things are on a roll. She has completed her first badge, Our Flag, and is working on Aviation, Cycling, Photography and Sewing. She has a pen-pal in Ohio that she is writing to every month this year. We are still working on the first letter. We are also working on cards for a couple of soldiers stationed overseas. I am now a helper in her group. Little TD just sits in the corner and plays while we are occupied. Princess TD wants to enroll him in the Kindergarten group, but was very disappointed when I explained that it was only for girls.

Little TD is growing up so fast! He is clearly into the preschool stage, if not on his way to the elementary stage! He can keep up with the little boy across the street who is in Kindergarten (and almost 6). They are constantly racing to see who is faster. It's really cute to see him playing with boy things and outgrowing the "girly" things he did with his sister and the little girl next door (who is his age).
Just for my aunt, here is a picture of the kids from Christmas day. They are playing with the new things Santa brought, a bike for Princess TD, and a scooter for Little TD. More Christmas pictures will follow.

Every Day is a School Day

2009-12-21T18:40:00.003-06:00

Even on picture day! Every place we go there is some kind of opportunity to learn. This picture was taken as I was explaining to them the difference between the dam at the lake where we take our boat and the kind of dam that a beaver builds. This was closer to what a beaver would build, but I am not sure that is what it is actually supposed to be. It made for an interesting conversation though! And now they can tell you the difference between the dam at Lake Conroe, and the kind of dams beavers build!

This is just proof that every time we are somewhere and they show an interest we have school...at least to the best of my ability right off the top of my head!

Thanks again Kimberly for a wonderful photo session!

Finally...new pictures!

2009-12-18T15:03:00.002-06:00

I have been putting off getting pictures taken of the kids for a couple of reasons. First, I really didn't want your typical studio posed shots. They are both outside kids, so it just fits with me that we should do pictures outside. Second, I kept hearing that our homeschool group was going to have school pictures at a park, and I could do pictures that way. Well, I never actually heard of a date for that so it obviously never happened!

I was lamenting to my friend, Mrs. C, that I didn't have recent pictures of the kids and I didn't want to fight the crowds for the one guy at the most popular local studio that I will allow to take my kids pictures. She suggested that I contact Kimberly with Robbins photography & design. Am I ever glad I did! I have known Kimberly for a while, but didn't realize that she was such a talented photographer. Click here to see a few of the pictures she took. She really was able to capture their personalities. I am looking forward to having their bright shining (more grown-up) faces on my wall!

For the family (or friends) who might want some of these, let me know and I will share all of them with you and let you pick your favorites!

Little TD is growing up!

2009-12-18T14:54:00.002-06:00

My sweet and precious little baby boy is growing up so fast! He recently celebrated his 4th birthday! I just can't believe it has been 4 years since he was born. He has the best energy and the sweetest heart. Happy 4th Birthday Little TD! We love you!!

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Pictures with Santa

2009-12-09T09:18:00.004-06:00

We made our annual trek to visit Santa yesterday.

Princess TD was afraid to talk to him again this year, which is why they are standing in front of him instead of sitting in his lap. She was amazed when he came to talk to her and knew her name. She then decided she was on his "list" and then told him what she wanted for Christmas. I had her cut her wish list down to 4 items: a little Ariel baby, pink Trio blocks, a bike, and a keyboard.

Little TD was so excited, he couldn't wait to tell Santa what he wanted. His only request was for a 2-wheeled scooter, which he mentioned at least 4 times that I could hear. He also added that he would like the water cars that change color, Trio blocks, and a guitar.

I find it funny that they both asked for the Trio blocks and musical instruments. We received a small sample of the blocks as a free gift in a package that was shipped directly to Little TD for his birthday. It seems that it was a big hit in our house! For the instruments, I guess I need to do a little more for music lessons in our school!

Giving Thanks

2009-12-08T16:51:00.003-06:00

We had a wonderful, quiet Thanksgiving holiday at home. The highlights of our weekend were our meal on Thursday and playing at the park on Friday.

I have received many funny looks and comments over the years about how I cook a turkey, but trust me, it is always delicious! Grandpa Forney always cooked the turkey this way, and it was never dry, so I have adopted this and use it in our family. The turkey is always stuffed with turkey stuffing, the skin is rubbed with butter, and it is slow cooked in a paper bag. Yes, that's right a paper bag. No, it doesn't catch on fire, even in a gas oven. It is always tender and juicy and looks beautiful. I have included a picture for proof.

Our table was set with my Grandma Ruff's china and silver. The table was beautiful. A good friend made fun of me a few years ago when they came over for Thanksgiving dinner because I used my grandmas china and silver, but used disposable cups. She said my table needed crystal. Well, since I didn't register for those things when we married (I didn't think I would "need" them), I didn't have any crystal. My mom took that as her idea for Christmas for our family and over the next few years, completed a set of water goblets and smaller glasses for the kids. Now, Mrs. C, I have the perfect table set up!

Here are some pictures of our day and our trip to the park:

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It seems Princess TD is more like her mom than previously thought! When I was close to her age, my aunt and uncle took me to one of the water slide parks that was built into the side of a hill. My uncle, now known as Uncle H-E-(r)B (after the new grocery store by our house), carried the rubber mat up the hill EVERY time I wanted to go back up, which from what I remember (and have been told) was A LOT! It seems that Princess TD loves riding her scooter DOWN the hill, but not back up...I am pretty sure I know where THAT came from! But unlike my sweet uncle, I was not going to be talked into carrying her scooter back up the hill for her! The last picture of her on the slide show, is her expression after I told her I wouldn't help her carry it back up! She managed to do it just fine without my help!

Just in case...

2009-11-20T22:41:00.003-06:00

you didn't know why we call Princess TD "princess," here's the all the proof you need:

Only "princesses" need to sleep with an eye mask made from a Little Mermaid costume for her bears!

Crazy Busy

2009-11-16T22:49:00.009-06:00

Things have been crazy and busy around our house this last couple of weeks.

Princess TD lost her first tooth! We had a very busy day with our homeschool park day, grocery shopping, AHG and then for me, ladies Bible study. So, as a special treat, I took Princess TD and Little TD to the doughnut store for breakfast. OK, really we were out of milk and at our house you can't have breakfast without milk! So we sit down to eat our doughnuts, and on the third or fourth bite, Princess TD has this strange look on her face, and I just know when I see her reach into her mouth, that she lost her tooth! She was thrilled and very proud to be catching up to all of her friends who have lost teeth!

Poor girl...she's just like her mommy...her adult tooth came in behind her baby tooth, and it really doesn't look like she lost it! The tooth next to it is doing the same thing. I am just very thankful that we didn't have to get the teeth pulled (I did).

Princess TD has also joined American Heritage Girls (AHG). This is a Christian based scouting organization. She is so excited to start earning badges. I just hope I can keep up with everything she wants to do. She is a Tenderfoot and will be in this level until she completes 3rd grade. It is a great bunch of girls and they are homeschooled as well. The leaders are great and I think we will all make some good friends in the group.

We took a field trip with our homeschool group to Dewberry Farms.

We had a great time and learned a lot about pumpkins and how they grow. Our guide was farmer Dewberry himself. I enjoyed listening to him talk about the area when he purchased the 100 acres and how he created the "farm" for kids. He explained to the curious homeschoolers about how the pumpkins grow from the flowers, showed us the start of pumpkins and pointed out the babies for us to avoid stepping on.

We all enjoyed the hayride....despite the looks on the faces!

I just had to take this picture of Justin looking out of the wagon. He was so excited and mesmerized by everything he saw on our ride. It was just so precious!

This past weekend we walked with our dear friends the DeCarlo family in the Houston Buddy Walk. the Buddy Walk is held to raise money and awareness about Down syndrome. We had a great time and got to see many friends we haven't seen in a while. It was so great to see all the people in blue supporting the families of those in red (the participants with Down syndrome wore red shirts). It was very emotional to say the least!

Princess TD was so happy to see her friend, S, again!

The TD fam after the walk. Thanks to Mrs. C for taking this great picture!

Halloween Camping

2009-11-10T14:37:00.002-06:00

This year we decided to go camping with some friends for Halloween weekend. The weather was absolutely beautiful and perfect for camping! We went to Jellystone Park in Waller, Texas. It was so much fun and geared for kids. We didn't let our kids run free, but they still had a great time. I do think they would have had a great time no matter where we went camping!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

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We stayed until Monday, so Sunday afternoon was very quiet. By late afternoon, we were one of 3 or so campers left in the park. At that point, all of the flies and bees in the park figured out we were the only campers hanging out outside and swarmed us! It was so bad that we had to spend a couple of hours inside so they would all go away! We even went so far as to put a cup full of kool-aid on the next campsites table to draw them away. It didn't work and then a park worker came by and cleaned it up...I felt kind of bad about that!

We had to change our our wrist bands after Sunday at Noon. On the way to the office, I rode with one of the workers. We talked a bit and he and his family lived at the campground. He worked there to spend more time with his family (he was a truck driver). His 15 year old son was the one who played Yogi for the kids. Guess what? He is homeschooled! Yogi Bear is homeschooled! Princess TD was a lot more interested in talking to Yogi once she found out he was homeschooled like her!

This was the weekend of the fall time change. It really throws you off when you are somewhere that you don't actually have to BE somewhere! Sunday evening, it got dark, we got the kids cleaned up and ready for bed. We decided we'd let them stay up a "little late" and watch a movie before going to sleep. We got them all set in bed watching their movie. Mr. TD and I settled down on the couch, talking about what we should do until the movie was over. Thinking they might fall asleep early since it had been an active day, and it was getting late, I looked at my watch (which I wasn't wearing) and saw that it was 6:30 pm! Yes, we put our kids to bed at 6:30!!! Needless to say, that explained why Mr. TD and I weren't tired! The kids stayed awake for the whole movie and then went to sleep at their normal time!

All in all, it was a great time! Our family enjoyed the time together and the time of relaxation!

School Update

2009-10-13T21:04:00.002-05:00

School is going so well. Both kids love school and they love doing it together! Sometimes this causes a distraction when Little TD is doing something that Princess TD deems as "more fun" than what she is doing, but we manage to work through it and get it done.

Little TD is doing great! He is having a blast learning his letters and numbers. He is still using both his right and his left hand for everything. He just switches back and forth depending on which hand is easier to use for the particular task. I am beginning to think more and more that he will be ambidextrous. He is moving at a bit of a slower pace. I don't want to finish this program too early. It is my intention to move him toward a Kindergarten level for the next school year, but I don't want to start him too early, since he will be early to begin with. He loves learning and that is what I want to encourage. We will move forward as he is ready. He loves to pretend he's not paying attention. We have a little rhyme that we do every week. He loves to make me think he's not paying attention when I do the rhyme, but by the end of the week, he's saying it with me! Little turkey!

Princess TD is doing great. She is reading up a storm! Her favorite thing to read is her young readers edition of the NIV Bible. I am not going to complain about that, however, she is not good at marking the place where she stops. She sent us looking for the "part she was reading that said, 'Praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord all my life." Well, we had to look through her edition to find it, but we did. This is her favorite passage right now:

Psalm 146:1-2

"Praise the Lord.
I will praise the Lord.
I will praise the Lord all my life.
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live."

Her favorite subject is history right now. She loves learning about the Pilgrims and their trek to America. She also loves science and math. Math has gotten a bit harder for her, but she is still doing well. We are about to start Singapore 1B which is the second book in the level 1. I don't know what level this compares to at the public school level. I have heard some say that it is more toward the first part of 2nd grade. It has been too long for me to remember! Her least favorite thing to do is copywork. We are studying various forms of poetry and she is assigned to copy some of the lines. I was having her do 3-4 lines and she was fighting me every step of the way. I cut it back to 2 lines, and have added copying her memory verse for the week, and so far she has given up fighting me. She loves learning too, and of course I want to continue to encourage that!

I love watching them learn and grow. It is such a blessing to be able to homeschool them. Here are a few pictures of our latest projects.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Playing Catch Up

2009-10-13T19:32:00.002-05:00

I am seriously behind in posting updates to the blog. I created a post back in August about Princess TD's birthday, and just got it posted today. If you want to see the pictures, the post is here.

This post will be about our trip to St. Louis to visit Mr. TD while he was working and my family. We had a great time despite living in a hotel room for 3 weeks. It was great to see some family and friends that I haven't seen in quite a while! However, I learned on this trip, that no matter how long you visit somewhere, it is not long enough to see everyone you want to see!

Here are a few highlights of our trip:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

School Days

2009-09-10T22:40:00.003-05:00

It has been a while since I have posted anything about school. This year has started out fabulous! One of our homeschool groups had a back to homeschool pizza party at a local inflatable place. It was a great group and the kids all played wonderfully together! (Note: Any of my local friends who might be considering homeschooling are welcome to join us for any activity. Let me know if you are interested and I will let you know the next time we get together.)

Back to homeschool pizza party!

Unfortunately, I have not been keeping up with pictures of our school days. I have a few, but somehow I keep forgetting to get pictures when we have the dining room/school table all covered with work! It is so much fun and the kids just love what they are learning!

Princess TD loves every aspect of school. Her favorite subject varies from day to day. She always loves doing the science experiments. Here are a couple of pictures of our experiment in seeing how blubber keeps whales warm. Each of them coated one hand in shortening, and the other one was bare. The shortening covered hand was supposed to stay warmer than the non coated hand. With 4 hands in a bowl, it seemed that all hands got somewhat coated, so there was really no scientific conclusion made here. They did have fun! Thankfully Mr. TD got home from work about the time we were doing this experiment, or we wouldn't have had pictures since my hands were coated from coating their hands!

For one of our art projects, Princess TD was to make a shield based on Psalm 18:1-6 decorated with symbols from those verses. When I gave her the assignment, I told her that the Lord is our shield and our protector and when you are scared, you need to trust God to protect you. I then asked her to draw on the shield the things that let her know that God is protecting her. Here she is with her finished product, and a close-up shot of what she drew.

In case the pictures aren't clear, we have a bear, a dog, grass, flowers, a river, the sun, clouds, a rainbow, and Jesus watching from heaven (at the top of the shield). Very sweet!

Of course, Little TD had to get in on the action too. Here he is with his shield.

Little TD is loving his school as well. We started his "school" last spring, and he wasn't quite ready to be sitting for the 20 minutes that it takes us to do his lessons. So, we put it back on the shelf until this school year. Now he can't wait to do school and is catching on so quickly. We have spent the first few weeks reviewing what we had done in the spring. I didn't want to re-do everything, but I didn't want to not refresh his memory either. I think it is paying off for him with the little review we did! One of the activities for him is to tape a giant sized letter on the floor for him to interact with. Sometimes, he's not interested in the specific activity, so I just improvise. Here he is walking the capital B to learn the proper way to form the letter.

Of course, when school is over, they have a great time playing "chase" on the letter. We have only had one major collision, but no bruises!

Here is Princess TD practicing her spelling words. I will do a separate post on the program she is using. It is really pretty neat and a great program for spelling practice.

We are reading the genre of biography for Princess TD right now. I couldn't decide between the girl interest selections and the general interest selections, so I bought them both. Since I wasn't sure how she would take to the new books, I began with the biography of Helen Keller. She loves learning about true things, people and stories. (I think she is taking after her mommy there!) She wanted to know what it would be like to be blind, so I tied a scarf around her eyes, and had her clean up her school stuff.

Then afterward, I had her walk around the living room. This was a little bit harder, because we had just moved the furniture around a couple of days before. She did pretty well, but when it was all said and done, she was very thankful that she could see.

We have had school at the park a couple of times. That is so much fun. I think we will be doing that more often as the weather cools. It is nice to be able to take a break and watch the squirrels, or spot a butterfly, or a group of ants carrying a goldfish cracker! School takes a little bit longer on those days, but it is so worth it! Next time, I'll try to remember to take my camera!

A New System

2009-09-06T13:54:00.003-05:00

Earlier in the year I posted this about creating a rewards system for Princess TD. That system worked very well for it's intended purpose. She was able to redeem a few "fish" for a playdate with her best friend, computer time and some special time with either mom or dad. But there was something missing.

Both Princess TD and Little TD, just like every other typical child out there, didn't want to help with chores around the house.

A couple of years ago, we started giving Princess TD a quarter every day that she completed her chores. On Saturday night, we would sit down and separate those quarters into 3 piles, church, piggy bank (savings) and spending money. (Periodically I would exchange the quarters for dollars in her spending money; with a lesson in identifying money as well!) Although this was/is working well, we see that there is still a need for something more.

In June, I attended a homeschool conference and saw the booth there for Accountable Kids. I found the system very intriguing and the lady there gave me a CD that described the system. I watched it. I liked the system. I did some research. Signed up for the newsletter and contemplated purchasing the system vs. creating one of my own. I decided that my time was valuable, and that I didn't need to recreate something that has already been done. In August, I attended another homeschool conference and they had a booth there as well! I purchased the system on Friday, decorated the boards the next week, and jumped right in!

Let me just say...I LOVE this system! We are just getting started with it all, but so far it's great!

Here's how it works:

Both Princess TD and Little TD have their responsibilities that they are required to complete each day. They have morning, afternoon and evening chores. These chores are just their way of helping out in making the household run. No allowance or money is earned for these chores. For each chore group that they complete, (morning, afternoon or evening) they earn a ticket. Those tickets can be traded for privileges that they want to have. We use mainly computer time or choosing a show for TV time. The next step (we are still working on consistently remembering to do our chores, so we haven't done anything from here on) is to earn a sticker on the "Date Night" for each day that all three tickets are earned. Once the card is filled up, they earn a special one-on-one "date" with either mom or dad. There are extra chores that can be added to each board. The extra chores are ones that the child can choose to help with and that will earn them money. At the end of the week, you hold a family meeting which is where the extra chore cards are redeemed for money.

So far I really like what I see with this system. It encourages the children to take responsibility for being part of the family. Just within the few weeks we have been using the system, I see both Princess TD and Little TD volunteering to do extra things around the house. They are both offering to help each other with their chores. Just last night, I found Princess TD taking a sponge and wiping toothpaste from the counter in the bathroom that Little TD had spilled!

If you are looking for a chore chart system, or something to replace an old chore chart that's not quite working anymore, I encourage you to take a look at this! I think you will be surprised how easy it is, even for young kids.

For the Parents of Truck Crazy Little Boys

2009-09-01T09:46:00.002-05:00

Little boys are so different from little girls.

The most amazing difference to me is how they were born making truck sounds!

Little TD loves trucks and cars, 4-wheelers and motorcycles, trains and planes; really anything with wheels or wings! Having grown tired of the typical morning fare for our TV time, I decided to search through our channel selection for something new and different for us to watch. Much to my surprise, I "discovered" something new on Discovery Kids (ok, not new; but new to me) Bigfoot Presents: Meteor the Monster Truck!

Being from the same hometown as the real Bigfoot, I set the episode to record for later previewing by me. I was truly impressed with the content of the show. We have learned about teamwork, responsibility, patience and friendship. We have 20 episodes recorded and it has become the favorite program choice for our TV time. (Princess TD even asks to watch it!)

As an added bonus, Little TD has taken to creating his own monster truck courses for his cars to travel. He has become very creative in coming up with items he finds to pretend to "crush" (his favorite being my cap). Old "baby" board books make great ramps. Paper makes a great "gunk" sound when you land there after a jump. His cars have taken on personalities and now interact with each other. It is so fun to watch him play cars!

If you haven't seen the show, I encourage you to take some time to check it out...especially if you have a truck crazy little boy!

Little TD has a Big Boy Room

2009-08-24T14:25:00.004-05:00

Yes, Little TD has finally rid his room of the crib. He officially has a big boy room (with the exception of the Pull-ups which we sometimes have to use still....) . He is so proud of his new room, and he is doing a great job keeping it clean. Here are a couple of pics for you to see what it looks like!

First Day of School

2009-08-24T14:02:00.005-05:00

With our travels this summer, Mr. TD coming home and taking a week off, we were a little late in starting school. Well, we never really stop schooling. Just like most every other school kid in the area, we began our "new" school year today.

Here is Princess TD all dressed and ready to go for her 6 year old school.

As you can see, the look on her face is less than enthusiastic. She was not at all excited to begin 6 year old school, because Daddy was still home from work. She wanted to be with him and not doing school. She fought me for the first little bit, but then she ended up loving the new guide! We are using Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory for her 6 year old school. This is the same publisher we used last year, Heart of Dakota.

Little TD was much more excited to begin his pre-kindergarten year! Here he is just before we began our lessons.

We just picked up where we left off with our guide prior to all of our travels. He is continuing in his guide, Little Hands to Heaven, also by Heart of Dakota. He had a blast cutting, pasting, coloring and listening to his Bible story. We even read a couple of books while Princess TD was completing her copywork. He is much more ready to sit still for the 30 minutes or so it takes us to do his school, than he was last spring.

All in all, today was a good day and we are all looking forward to another great year homeschooling!

Princess TD Turns 6

2009-08-11T22:04:00.003-05:00

Since we were out of town pretty much immediately after her birthday party, I haven't posted anything about Princess TD turning 6! I can't believe it has been 6 years since she was born, she is growing up so fast and becoming a big girl in front of my eyes.

This year for her party, she wanted an American Girl theme. Since she didn't tell me until the week of her party, she decided to go with a July 4th theme, which, by the way, is much easier to do considering that IS her birthday! We decided this year to rent an inflatable and since it was a holiday weekend (and they are closed on Sunday) we got a great deal and had the inflatable from Friday to Monday! All of the kids loved playing on it!

Here are a few pictures.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We love you Princess TD!

A Bit Envious

2009-08-11T14:52:00.002-05:00

I am feeling envious this year of all of the moms and kids out shopping for school supplies. I always loved picking out new folders, pencils and such for the start of the school year. I just look as I walk past all of the new folders, lunchboxes, crayons (I just LOVE new crayons) and all of the other stuff that goes along with it.

As a homeschooler, I don't NEED much of that kind of stuff. The pack of pencils I bought 2 or so years ago when we were doing preschool, still has more than enough to cover us probably through the elementary years! We don't lose pencils, we don't share them, so a pack of 10 will last quite a while! We do need paper and other consumables, but not much.

We do get to "shop" for curriculum, but again, I am set in that area too. We have found something that works, and we're not "shopping" for anything new. We just have to pick a date and start.

In past years, we have purchased school supplies to donate to needy children. We did that again this year, so I got my school supply fix by purchasing supplies for our pantry for the needy at our church.

I feel so much better having bought new pencils, erasers and crayons. Now we can start school!

Something new...

2009-08-05T18:46:00.005-05:00

We have been in St. Louis visiting family for most of July, so I have a lot to post about. First, Princess TD has something new she wants to share!

Yes, that's right! She got her ears pierced. She has been asking for a while, and I have been trying to put her off, hoping she would wait until she was old enough to take care of them herself, but she wore me down! Mr. TD gave his approval over the phone, and when she found out he said yes, she couldn't wait to go get it done.

Here she is as the first side is being done.

Here she is for the other side...not so thrilled about the second time!

After it was all over, she was more than happy to model her new earrings!

Now she is walking around saying, "I can't believe I got my ears pierced! I can't feel it anymore. Can you Mom?" She is so excited and is ready to count down the 6 weeks until she can change them!

"Sew" That's What's Happening!

2009-06-21T23:06:00.006-05:00

Yes, we have been sewing!!! Princess TD had decided that she wants to learn to sew. When we went to the homeschool convention at the beginning of June, Princess TD saw a vendor that had a book on how to sew doll clothes. I bought the book, and the pillowcase kit for her to do. Well, she has been bugging me every day since then to do her "sewing school." I finally gave in, and have recruited reinforcements (aka Grammie) for future lessons.

Here she is making her pillowcase:

And the finished product!

We got a kid sized table from one of our neighbors after their daughter outgrew it. We have had it on our back porch, but at the request of Princess TD, we cleaned it up and put it in her room for a tea party table. She wanted a table cloth to use that had so many specific requests, no mortal mom could accommodate them. So, after our first VBS, we visited Interior Fabrics and found some fabric that she LOVED for her room. So, mom went into design mode to make a table cloth that resembled a flower when lain out on the floor. I think it needs some girly bling, but here it is:

Oh, and did I mention it's reversible?

And here it is all set up with tea for the bears!

Even though she looks so grown up, she's still a little girl at heart!

And for the final project of the week, a window seat! Mr. TD has wanted a covered cushion for the box window in our kitchen. I finally found a zipper foot that would fit my machine, so I was able to make the coordinating cording that he wanted. (He's really not that into decorating, he just wanted a cushion to match the valances.) I had bought fabric to make the valances, but ended up finding them much cheaper in a store. I ended up just making the one for our door. I didn't have enough fabric to make the cushion and match the plaid, so I was on the search for something that would coordinate. My good friend JSue was looking for fabric too, so we took the opportunity to shop the fabric stores sans kids (except Carter) while the kids were at VBS. She's still looking, but I found what I wanted. Here's the finished product!

Now, if I could only find fabric for the living and dining room curtains.

A Bit of a Rant

2009-06-16T10:24:00.002-05:00

I just read this post regarding the changes the new administration is proposing to reform our education system. Then this post regarding what could be done about it.

Let me just start out by saying I am so grateful to be living in the great state of Texas and for our Governor who refuses to sign on to this program, which from what I have read is due to the federal government overstepping the Constitutional bounds and trying to control something for which oversight has been granted to the states.

I am so against the standardized testing that plagues our public school systems. I understand that some testing can be beneficial, but I think the school systems have gone way overboard. This testing was in fact a major reason that homeschooling looked so appealing to me.

A couple of years ago, I was part a tutoring program to assist the church youth group with troubles that came up in their homework. It ended up being more for the elementary age children, but there were a few of the older students who needed help in math and science. I tutored several students in various subjects including: AP Chemistry, geometry, basic high school math, algebra, early elementary math and some other kids who were preparing to take the standardized tests. The only student who actually wanted to learn what we were working on was a private school student, not subject to the standardized tests. All of the public school students wanted to know was the correct multiple choice answer. They wanted tutoring in how to eliminate the obviously wrong answers and get the choices down to a 50/50 shot at getting the problem right. Math has been reduced to multiple choice. There was no concern as to how to do the problems or the logic behind solving it. They just wanted to know the right answer!

You may be thinking that because I am an engineer that math is easy for me, and it's terribly hard for others. Yes, that may be true...now. I had a period of time in my school career that I struggled with math. I mean really struggled. I had several adults who helped me through that time, including my Grandpa, who would say, "Ok, tell me what you know," and "So, what does that mean?" Those questions were simple enough, but it made me think. Thinking is what helped me to solve the math problem. Later I learned it wasn't about solving that particular math homework, it was about developing critical thinking skills. Those skills have helped me to solve many different problems, not just the math ones!

My tutoring experience was so frustrating for me! I wanted my children to want to learn. I felt then and still feel now, that I am going to be the one to teach them to love learning whether they go to public school, or I teach them at home. Either way, I am finding myself growing more passionate about what is happening in our school systems. I see myself following this situation and fighting for our rights to educate our children and not just conforming to some arbitrary standard that has been set by the government.

With government control of what our children learn, it's not too far of a leap to see that by age 4 the government will be determining who can be engineers and who can be workers at McDonald's and setting their "education" path from there. Does this remind you of a former republic which is no longer in existence?

We are the people who can make a difference! We just have to fight for our rights! Will you join the fight or will you just give in?

Our Family Vacation

2009-06-09T22:57:00.011-05:00

We are still here! It has been a while since I posted. We have had a busy last few weeks. We were on vacation, and then I was sick.

We took our first ever family vacation where we didn't make the trip to visit family! It was so much fun. We took in the sights in San Antonio.

Our first day was Sea World. We were there when the park opened and stayed until 4:30.

The kids had a blast and we got to see the shows. Princess TD's favorite was Believe.

Little TD's favorite was the ski show!

Well, maybe it was just the boats and jet skis. Like father, like son!

Princess TD took her first roller coaster ride on the kids Shamu Express. Here we are on that ride. I had to document the first roller coaster ride!

After this ride, she wanted to ride one of the bigger coasters in the park. As much as we tried to dissuade her, she was insistent. So while the boys waited for the ski show, Princess TD and I headed off for the Steel Eel. (Really you need to check out the link...it's a crazy coaster!) She did awesome. She didn't scream or ask to get off. After it was over and we were walking out, she said, "I may be tall enough to ride that one, but it's not for little kids. It's a little too scary." She was absolutely straight faced and serious when she said it. I couldn't help but laugh. So I said, "So do you think you might listen to me next time I tell you that maybe it's not something you really want to do?" To that she laughed and gave me a resounding "No!" That's my "independence" girl!

Our second day was spent exploring the Bass Pro Shop, the outlet mall in San Marcos and dinner with friends at the Gruene River Grill. Great food! Great friends! Our kids hit it off and played like they have never missed a day together. Now I just wish we lived closer!

The next day was spent at the Riverwalk and The Alamo. We did the Riverwalk boat tour.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for our souvenir t-shirts and then went on to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. We had a walking safari through the three-story restaurant and the kids took a lot of pictures of the animals. Princess TD took this picture:

When she got back to our table, she told Mr. TD that she had seen God and taken His picture. Of course, Mr. TD wanted to see it, so she showed him. He must have had a funny look on his face because I then heard her say, "Well, Daddy, He's holding the world in His hands." You have to love the wisdom of a child!

After lunch we headed to the Alamo. Of course, we had to have the family picture in front of the Alamo. Little TD was getting tired at this point and refused to look at the camera. The whole time we were trying to get him to look, he kept laughing and looking the other way. What a turkey!

Of course, once he saw there were things to climb on, he perked right up and was ready to pose for pictures once again!

The next day we headed out to the San Antonio Zoo. We got some fun pictures there too, but I think this is by far our favorite. This was a python climbing up the glass of its cage. Only about half of the snake was climbing up the glass, the other half was still coiled up on the bottom! Very crazy!

We also got to see hippopotamuses! I don't think I have seen them in a zoo before, or at least I don't remember seeing them. They were just so huge!

Well, that is the condensed version of our family vacation. We had a blast and will do that more often!

Summer Fun

2009-05-23T19:41:00.003-05:00

I can remember as a kid how much fun it was riding my bike through the sprinklers! It was always fun and refreshing in the summer heat.

Princess TD took the opportunity to ride through our neighbors sprinkler on her bike...

After Little TD saw her ride through giggling all the way, he wanted to try. Being the good big sister that she is, Princess TD took the opportunity to "teach" him how to ride through (read: "Mommy said I could go through once, but if I "teach" my brother how to do it, I can ride through again!"). So, she said, "Little TD, this is how you do it. Just ride through. But be careful."

Little TD followed right along, and loved every second of it!

You've got to love crazy kids having fun in the sprinklers! They love riding their bikes and posing for pictures!

Don't you just love the fashions of a 5 year old??? At least she holds true to her birthday colors, minus the pink sandals of course!

Let Me Show You

2009-05-13T08:10:00.003-05:00

This morning as my sweet children were finishing breakfast, Princess TD was looking out the window admiring a "baby" bird. Little TD wanted to see and made a loud noise which scared the bird away. They began discussing where birds live, and then Princess TD said, "Let me show you." I was wondering what she was going to do, so I tiptoed around the other way into the kitchen to grab the camera, and watched.

A few years ago, we participated in a preschool file folder game swap. I want to say that it was around the time that Little TD was born. We got some good games, and some not so good games, but we definitely have some favorites. The first one we received was one that had you match an animal to their home. This is the one that Princess TD pulled out this morning! We haven't used these in a very long time! I was impressed she remembered, but she began teaching Little TD what she knew about the animals and where they lived.

When she got to the frog, she retold parts of the story The Adventures of Grandfather Frog that we read for school.

It is days like today that I am encouraged that homeschooling is the right thing for our family!

A Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-11T08:58:00.005-05:00

Over the past several years, we have camped with friends for Mother's Day weekend. There have been a couple of exceptions, but we try to go when we can. Usually it's not too hot yet and it's peaceful and relaxing. This year, Mr. TD remembered a past trip where the Hershey's Kisses my kids gave me, melted waiting for Mother's Day, so he had the kids give them to me early. I think they just really wanted to have chocolate just before bed!

We had an adventure this year! We had talked about camping, but just didn't decide on where, or with who. We tried to get some other friends to go, but they had other things (like a wedding...the nerve!) going on this weekend, so we thought about going on our own. Well, it seems Mr. TD was leaving it up to me to make the reservation, and I didn't. So we didn't have a place to go for sure. On Tuesday night I was visiting with our trailer camping friends, and they suggested we go with them to Cagle Recreational Area in New Waverly. Mrs. F said that her dad, Mr. R, was going up early, and he could keep an eye out for a walk up site for us. Mr. TD said let's do it!

I started organizing and preparing to camp. We have everything down that we need, and our "kitchen" is always packed and stocked after each trip. So on Wednesday night, we pulled everything from the attic. Thursday I did the grocery shopping and packed all of the clothes, bedding and toiletries we needed. I was pretty much packed and ready to go, and then called Mr. R. There were NO sites available! When they went on Wednesday morning, there were only 2 walk-ups left and they were taken by them and someone who followed them in. Man...I should have prepared better! Mr. TD and I had planned to pack the van so that I could leave on Friday morning to set up camp and get us a site. Well, since there were none available...we just went to bed.

Early on Friday morning, Mrs. F called and said that her dad had just called and that there was a site open. We had just finished getting dressed for the day, so we piled a few things into the van, and headed up to the campground. We got there in about an hour. They wouldn't let us have the site until 2 pm...check-in time. GRRRRR! The walk-up sites are first come, first serve, so we wanted to be there EARLY! There were 2 sites open. They wouldn't let us get the site, but told us it would go fast....yeah...that's why I was there when I was there! So we drove back to the house to get the rest of the gear. I packed up the van, stopped for ice, and headed back to the campground. I got there at 12:01 pm. The ranger, Herman (what does that say that we know the park ranger by name???), said that I was right on time to check in. What???? I was just planning to ask if we could park and sit in the shade to do school and have lunch while waiting until 2 pm to check in. Well, we did check in! We picked site 20, and it was great! No sooner than we had the tent pad cleared of sticks and pine cones and unfolded the tent to begin to set it up, the second site was gone!

This was the first time I had gone by myself to set up camp. It really wasn't too bad. The kids played, or helped while I set up the tent. They helped with getting the bedding out and prepared. We even had time for school. There is a lot to be said for having school outside around a picnic table. I think we'll have to do that more often!

The weekend was a lot of fun. It was hot, but there was a breeze most of the time. On Saturday for lunch, we ventured to New Waverly to eat at the "pink donkey" as our friends called it (I think it was actually called Burro Express) for some excellent Mexican food. If you are ever in the area, I would recommend it! We enjoyed visiting with our friends! We have planned another trip with them in October. It will be a blast I am sure!

A Proud Mommy Moment

2009-04-27T08:38:00.003-05:00

On the way home from church yesterday we were discussing with the little TD's what they learned in their Sunday school classes. Little TD shared that he learned that Jesus is alive, which is the focus of his class this month. He also talked about singing songs in the children's worship. Princess TD is learning about conviction this month. She talks about how she needs to do the right thing even when others don't. (Isn't this really a struggle that we all have?) She was then trying to remember her memory verse and she asked me for help. I wasn't sure which one she was trying to remember. Last week in school was a "review" week for Bible Study, so we covered five memory verses. I couldn't remember her verse from her class at church, so I told her I didn't remember. So she takes out her Bible. She thinks the verse is in Acts, so she says to herself "Where is Acts?" Then she says "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts." Turns to Acts chapter 3 and begins reading! She stopped around halfway through the first verse and with a big smile on her face says, "I am reading my Bible! Mommy, I am reading my Bible all by myself and I don't need your help!"

This is why I homeschool! I couldn't bear to let someone else witness the complete joy my children have when they figure something out!

Oh, and we never did figure out what verse she was looking for, we were too busy celebrating her achievement.

My Mom Will be Proud

2009-04-17T20:18:00.002-05:00

...maybe?!

Like most everyone else I know, we had ham for Easter lunch. In past years, I would just pick the bone as clean as I could and toss it. I have never used it to make ham and bean soup.

Here's why: My mom LOVES bean soup (as we called it) and we ate it very frequently when I was growing up. Well, one of the things that my late father and I have in common, is that he hated and I try to avoid eating any type of bean (except green beans). (Which to me proves there is a genetic connection to food preferences since the last time I saw him, I was 15 months old!) Of course, like any good parent, my mom would make me eat the foods I disliked. I can remember sitting at the table for hours trying to eat the bean soup. I decided that when I grew up, I wouldn't cook the things that I didn't like.

Well, it seems I forgot to give the complete food quiz to Mr. TD before we got married. (You would have thought in the 8 years before we married, we would have covered the "bean" topic, but I just don't remember it coming up...) Wouldn't you know it, but he likes beans...all kinds of them (and okra too, but that's a whole 'nother topic)! The last time I threw out the ham bone, he requested that I make ham and bean soup.

This time, after cleaning the ham from the bone, I decided to save it to make soup for Mr. TD. Today was the day. It was rainy, stormy really, and I thought it would be a good night for soup. I simmered the hock for about an hour in chicken stock with onions and bay leaves. I removed the hock, added the chopped ham I had cleaned from the bone, matchstick carrots, northern beans and white corn (I just had a can in the pantry, so I thought I would use it), seasoned it with garlic pepper and let it simmer for another hour or two. It smelled wonderful!

The little TD's really don't like soup and Little TD doesn't like beans (hmmm...I wonder where he gets that!), so we gave them the option of eating the soup or something else. They chose something else. This is not something that we usually do, but I was having to work up the nerve to eat it, so I didn't have the heart to make them eat it if I wasn't totally thrilled. Mr. TD said it was good. He said it was more "hammy" than what you get in the can...go figure, but he liked it. I fixed me a bowl. It was too hot to eat at first, so I let it cool a bit, and then took a bite.

It WAS good! It tasted waaayy better than what my mom made (Sorry mom. But hey, I DID eat bean soup!) I had a bowl and a few crackers and I even had milk left over at the end of the meal. (You know, that old trick of drowning what you don't like in your drink and swallowing it whole...I didn't have to do that!)

Now that I am "older" (no age comments necessary), I am doing so many of the things my mom made me learn/do/eat when I was a kid that I absolutely despised: sewing, eating beans (ok, veggies in general)...I wonder what is next! It does give me hope that what I am saying to my kids might sink in someday...it just might take a really LONG time!!!

Thoughts for Thursday

2009-04-16T13:07:00.002-05:00

This has been a crazy week in the TD Family. Which week isn't right? So I thought I would update you with a few of the happenings.

We had a great Easter with our little family. We went to church, came home to the smell of lunch cooking and had a wonderful, quiet meal together. After lunch, we ventured out into the pouring rain to go to a friends house for dessert. By the time we reached their house, the sun was shining and it was cool. So we had dessert outside, around the pool, watching our kids play. It was a great day to celebrate our Savior.

Monday morning, I was cleaning up the Easter decorations in the attic when I heard a strange truck on our street. I looked out the front window just in time to see the fire truck go by. I then saw the ambulance and the EMT supervisor parked next door. I went out the door to find the neighbors 3 year old daughter in their front yard with the paramedics running from the ambulance to the house. I asked the little girl to come to our house to play with my kids and left a note for her dad, letting him know where she was. Apparently my neighbor had collapsed and wasn't able to get herself help. Her daughter saw the neighbor across the street come home briefly and went to ask him to help her mommy. We don't know what caused her to lose consciousness, but what a blessing that the little girl knew to ask for help.

School is progressing right along. Princess TD is reading so well. She still doesn't like handwriting or copy work, but she loves to write letters to Little TD, Mommy and Daddy. So, I guess as long as she is writing, that will do for now. She is still loving math and doing quite well with all of the concepts. We are moving right along through the 1st grade books. I do notice that the concepts are getting a little tougher and right now she's catching on quickly, but I do see the day when it will become a challenge and we'll need to slow down a bit. Little TD is still coming along for the ride most days. He seems to have lost interest in doing his own school. But, that's OK, he's only 3!

Mr. TD is back into his traveling groove, and so are we! He has had a couple of trips last month and this month and will have a few next month and in June as well. He is loving his new truck, when he gets to drive it, and it fits him well! He's reached the point that it is safe to tow the boat. Now if it would just stay nice on the weekends....

It may seem that we have dropped off the face of the earth for many folks. We have been concentrating on school and trying to make connections and build relationships with other homeschoolers. I haven't been back to my Tuesday Bible Study for a while because it is just not a good fit for us right now. I do miss seeing those sweet ladies. I am finding that it is difficult to move outside of your comfort zone and move forward. Sometimes that is what needs to be done. So the quest is on to find some other homeschoolers with little girls about the age of Princess TD that can meet for play time. I know they are out there...I just haven't uncovered the right stone.

If Only...

2009-04-09T13:11:00.002-05:00

We had to venture out today to pick up some milk and some disinfecting spray to clear the house of germs before Mr. TD returns from out of town. On the way home, Princess TD was talking about the amount of money she had and what she was wanting to do with it.

It seems, though, she only has a few dollars left after her last purchase, and what she wants is more than what she has left. I mentioned that we could create a wish list on the computer and track the amount of money that she has and then we could see how much more she needed to get to her goal. (I am thinking here, whoa...what a great opportunity to teach her about budgeting and money.)

She then told me she wanted to do a real bank, not a pretend one, that way she could get as much money as she wanted whenever she wanted. She then pops off with:

"I wish I could get a money printer like the one you have for your computer."

To which I said, "Me too! But it just doesn't work that way honey."

She replied, "I know. You have a copier right? You can put your dollar bills on the copier and make as many as you want for me."

If only it worked that way....

Bond for Bab(i)es

2009-04-06T18:57:00.002-05:00

So, The Disney Channel has been advertising the new show Special Agent OSO like mad. Of course the little TD's were dying to see it when it premiered this past weekend. Being the crazy mom that I am, I set my DVR to record the first few episodes.

So now we have been watching the few episodes I have recorded and the segment titles are killing me. I think the creators of the show must be fans of James Bond. Here's a few examples:

"A View to a Kitten" or "A View to a Book" instead of "A View to a Kill"
"The Girl with the Golden Book" instead of "The Man with the Golden Gun"
"Diamonds are for Kites" instead of "Diamonds are Forever"
"Live and Jump Rope" instead of "Live and Let Die"
"Never Say No Brushing Again" instead of "Never Say Never Again"

Even the background music is very Bond-esque. Really, do we need to be feeding our children any more subliminal messages? Don't get me wrong, we are Bond fans in this house...we have all the movies on VHS and DVD, as well as The James Bond Edition of Scene It.

It is really a cute show, and I will probably continue to let my children watch it occasionally...or more often if necessary!

Haircut Anyone?

2009-03-30T16:57:00.003-05:00

What is it with my kids, scissors and hair? I know that everyone has a "I cut my own hair" story in their life, but really...I think we've had more than our share!

Mr. TD and Little TD went yesterday to get a haircut. They look awesome!

This morning, I was performing some vacuum cleaner maintenance and was using the scissors to cut Ariel's hair from the beater bar (Note to Mom's of girls: Don't get the Ariel costume from Build-A-Bear...the hair falls out of the wig.) and changing the bag. When I left my work area to take the trash to the can in the garage, Little TD grabbed the scissors. He proceeded to cut a chunk out of Princess TD's hair! Really, I am not kidding! Of course, I did take pictures to share.

I just don't know what it is about my kids and cutting hair...but I am thinking of opening a haircut place for them to run...anyone up for a cheap cut? No promises about the quality though!

Our Anniversary

2009-03-27T15:36:00.005-05:00

We have always tried to take a trip around our anniversary to celebrate and have some time together. It's not really ever been anywhere fancy, we're just not that kind of people. Sometimes we visit friends. Sometimes family. But we usually try to get away from the house and the day in and day out of life to remember and refocus on what is important. We were only married for 2 years before we had kids, so every year since, we have included the whole family. We do receive some criticism for this, but this is the way we want to be, so if it bothers you...too bad!

This year we had planned to rent a camper and go camping. Well, since Mr. TD's truck died just 2 weeks before the trip, we had to cancel the trailer, and just camp in a tent. (We will be rescheduling the camper for later in the year. We will either rent it when it is too hot or too cold for a tent!) We had a blast. We walked through the park, picked out "good" sites for future trips, enjoyed cooking hot dogs and brats over the campfire, just your usual camping type activities. We even met another homeschool family visiting for the day on Monday. The kids had a blast playing with each other and were sad when it was time to leave.

We took a lot of pictures this time. There were 3 of us with cameras, so I will have to wade through the pictures and post some soon. But here's our site to hold you over...

Oh, and for those of you who think we are always COMPLETELY prepared for a camping trip, that didn't happen this time. We had to take a short trip to the local Wal-Mart for the items we/I forgot! So, when we do the group thing again, you might not want to rely on me to remember everything...it seems that my age is catching up with me...

We actually returned home early, on our anniversary, because of the weather and impending thunderstorms. We didn't do anything special that night because we were busy cleaning up the tent and getting things cleaned up. Tonight we will be heading out for a special dinner, and...we got a babysitter (Thanks, Aunt Jennie!)!

The Bluebonnets

2009-03-20T15:35:00.005-05:00

I just love the pictures of kids in the bluebonnets. There is a park nearby our house that has a great place for pictures and it's much safer than stopping on the side of the road.

I was taking a general bluebonnet picture that I take every year when I saw a bee in the shot.

I zoomed in and got this shot.

I thought it turned out great, considering it's an automatic point and click camera! So, being the homeschool mom I am, we had a mini lesson about bees.

Here are the pics of the kiddos. Little TD hates having his picture taken, but I was able to get a couple of cute ones without his cheesy grin. I actually got so many, I had a hard time choosing my favorites!

Princess TD

Little TD

It looks like she's telling him a secret...

Being silly...

Last year, we took a similar picture to this one of Princess TD. As soon as I mentioned that we were going to the park for pictures, she wanted to take this one again. It just looks so cute!

I love this one. I just wish they weren't so hot and sweaty from running around playing. They were watching another child climb on the adjacent rock. It made for a great picture.

All in all we had a great day playing and picnicing with friends. This is one of my favorite times of year!

It's Official

2009-03-19T10:15:00.003-05:00

Mr. TD is the proud owner of a new truck!

Check out the leg room...he's knees aren't touching the dash anymore! I think we could have a party inside the backseat, it's so huge!

We didn't get as much as we had hoped for the trade-in of his old truck, it basically paid for the brand new tires. We did find out what was wrong with his truck...the rings were blown! If we would have fixed it, it would have been the third engine for his '99 truck. Kind of makes you wonder about those engines, huh?

Congrats Mr. TD, and enjoy your new toy!

My 100th Post

2009-03-15T22:41:00.002-05:00

I can't believe that I have posted 100 times! I really didn't think I had that much to say! I have had several posts running around in my head, but I have never been able to get them completed, so here are the highlights of them!

What is it with my kids and food? They will eat JUNK all day long and never get full, but put some chicken and vegetables in front of them and they are suddenly so full they couldn't eat another bite! I don't let them eat junk (sometimes I do), but they ask for it all day long. They absolutely refuse to eat at a mealtime, and when I say mealtime, I don't mean a time on the clock, just the time when more than one member of our family sits at the table for the purpose of eating! I know it's just a phase but...AARRGH!!!

A friend of mine gave me a very serious reminder about watching our children closely and protecting them from predators. I am almost paranoid about them coming in contact with someone who could hurt them. It is so easy to have a false sense of security with our schools, churches, neighbors, and coaches. The statistics show that it is someone close to the child that causes the most damage. These are desperate times, and when we are consumed with our own stresses, we can let down our guard, and that's when our children are the most vulnerable.

I thoroughly enjoyed the time I was able to spend with my sister when she was at the hospital having my niece. I now know why I didn't have simple labors and deliveries with my children. I needed to learn about complications. Almost every complication that came up with both of my children came up with my little niece, and I knew how to translate them to my sister and clearly explain the benefits and risks. I really have to thank my wonderful doula for my education, because she was so great at explaining that to me!

I used to worry a lot about my sister and the time she spent without her hubby when he was away serving our country. She had always told me that it was like a big family, but having never experienced that, I was skeptical. After being at the hospital for 8+ hours without eating, I decided it was time to find nourishment. It was a holiday weekend on post, so everything in the hospital was closed, and not being military, my only choice was Burger King. The nurses gave me directions, each nurse gave me different directions. I was trying to decipher which way to go when I left the hospital parking lot, when a soldier stepped on the elevator. He had just finished PT, and had met his pregnant wife at the hospital, she was having complications. He was very nervous, and talked non-stop (it is my guess that he was a first time dad), and as we reached the bottom floor, he offered to lead me to the Burger King. He said he was going home to shower and change and pick up some things for his wife, but he would take me to get food if I wanted to follow him. He said it was a little out of his way, but it wasn't a problem. So I accepted. He lead me right to the restaurant, waved, and shouted "Good luck" from his window as he turned around and headed to his home. This soldier was a servant, he looked more like Christ than I do sometimes. I do realize that this could be an isolated incident, but this was the way I was treated the entire time I was on post. Maybe the military life is like a big family. I have no doubt that my sister and her family are loved and cared for where they currently live.

I think we will be homeschooling indefinitely. Princess TD loves that I am her teacher and loves doing school with me. She asked me if I could teach her swimming in her 6 year old school work. (Mom, I will teach her to swim like I do...face out of the water; Greta, don't worry, it will be in a pool with lifeguards...they just won't come in after me if I put my face in the water.) I am not so sure I am qualified to teach swimming, but I will give it a try.

I love our family nights. We have been playing games and spending time together as a family on Sunday evenings for quite some time now. It is so much fun! We have been teaching Little TD to play UNO, and he is catching on! He is learning to match his colors and numbers so well. It's great that we can all play together. Next we'll have to teach them to play Hand and Foot! OK, maybe that's a few years off still...but I can hope right?

We are so excited for our camping trip next week. It is one of the perks of homeschooling that we can make our spring break be when we want to go out of town! It will be a busy, busy week getting everything together, but it will be worth it!

I really miss my far away friends. Several of them are going through some very difficult times in their lives. I wish I could be there for them to hang out, bring a dinner, and give them a hug. You know who you are...I love you all and I am praying for your specific situations.

Life Goes...and Goes...

2009-03-09T22:40:00.003-05:00

Whew! We sure have been busy the last couple of weeks.

We had a visit from my sister and her family for a gymnastics meet here. My brother-in-law flew in at the same time Mr. TD returned from a business trip, and my sister and the kids came in the night before. We had a fun, short weekend visit and are looking forward to many more since they will be staying down here for another 3-5 years. Yay! I know my kids are thrilled...they just adore their cousins. The cousins are great too considering the age difference. They are very tolerant of the younger games, and are so sweet and thoughtful of Princess TD and Little TD.

We decided to go camping for our anniversary trip later this month. We finally decided to rent a camper...it was so exciting...but we had to cancel the trailer! Mr. TD's truck is not cooperating. It has decided that after 10 years, it should be "retired" so we are now in the market for a new tow vehicle. So, we will be camping in our tent for our trip instead of living it up in a camper! Please pray for rain between now and then so we can have a campfire...but it must stop before we leave so we don't get soaked!

School is going great. Princess TD is reading so well. She is still a little hesitant, I think because she prefers to be read to, but we are making great progress and she is not only reading her actual reading lessons, but also the other lessons as well. She's not quite taking off reading books on her own, but she's close. Her math is going well too. We moved up to the Singapore 1A book in December, and she's doing awesome. She's not a big fan of the handwriting lessons, but she loves to write notes and letters to everyone she meets. Little TD is enjoying his school too. We have slowed down in his book lessons and have just been working on finding letters, numbers and colors in our world as we live our life.

Mr. TD is back into his traveling schedule and adjusting to his new role with the company. We have become accustomed to him being home, so the last couple of trips have been a little more difficult on us all. We love our family time.

Spring has arrived and we are loving every minute of the great weather! We have planted flowers, spread the mulch and prepared for spring. Our azaleas are about to bloom. Now we're just waiting for the bluebonnets to be just right so we can take our annual pictures.

I Won!

2009-02-26T15:32:00.004-06:00

I really can't believe this...but I won a giveaway for 12 unit studies from HS Highlights! I am so excited. I browsed the selection and found several for the American Girl books which Princess TD just adores! There were also some for picture books that Little TD loves! I am so excited to have won and can't wait to incorporate them into our schooling!

You Homeschool?

2009-02-26T09:36:00.003-06:00

Several times in the last week when we have been out and about at various things, we have been confronted by the most popular reason not to homeschool....socialization! It amazes me that this is the first objection, not whether they are learning math (an essential skill), or history, grammar, writing or how to read (another essential skill).

Before, I go into my personal thoughts on this topic let me say and agree that homeschooling is not for every parent or every child. It is not the best choice for everyone, but it is the best choice for my family and me. So, this is written from my perspective as a homeschool mom and I am in no way implying that this applies to everyone, just my family.

My first thought every time I hear this is "Really, have you MET my children?" They make friends everywhere we go. Here are a few examples that come to mind:

Last week on a field trip to the museum, Princess TD was conversing with one of the more mature women at our church about things she likes and about her favorite part of the exhibit. (Which by the way were the scrolls we saw from Luke that told the story of the birth of Jesus, and the HUGE bathtub.)
We went to Lowe's to buy some flowers for our flower beds, and she struck up a conversation with the vendor there arranging her flowers on display about what would be a good flower for our sunny yard.
We went to our neighborhood park to play in the morning, and we met a couple of kids in town from New Orleans for their Mardi Gras break and they instantly hit it off. The girl ran around with Princess TD laughing and playing just like schoolgirls at recess. The boy and Little TD played trucks in the sand.

My children are very social and have no problems talking to children their own age, or to adults that are twice my age. They are cautious when they speak to strangers (which I am grateful for) but they are not afraid to talk, ask questions or learn from anyone.

Consider with me the other side of the coin.

Did you talk a lot in school? I did. I was almost always in trouble for talking or asking questions at inappropriate times. I do admit that it was a long time ago that I was in elementary school, but I can't imagine it has changed much. So really do you get much "social" interaction in school?

Princess TD is very strong willed, and is pretty much a leader. She does have a tendency to follow when she "likes" another child. What I mean here is, if someone is pretty, or is wearing an outfit she likes, she will do what that child does to be like that child. She is very concerned about her clothes and whether or not she looks pretty. (Yes, I am dreading the teenage years!) I see that as a problem for learning in a group setting.

Thank you for your concern about the development of my children. However, before you begin to make generalized comments about them, please take a few moments to get to know them and tailor your comments to something that actually applies to them. :)

As a parting thought, I will leave you with a comment from the 2nd grader down the street:

"My teacher doesn't like us. She is making us take this really big test. It's the TAKS test."

Hmmm....

Big Dreams Start Early

2009-02-16T20:32:00.002-06:00

Little TD dreaming of his first truck...

and the accessories to go with it!

Field Trip

2009-02-16T11:27:00.004-06:00

We took a field trip last week to the local fire station. It was a lot of fun. We learned how close the fire trucks were to our house in case of an emergency. We looked at all of the trucks and Little TD was the first one to point out the generator. He is truly all boy! They weren't too excited to climb into the trucks, but I was able to get a couple of pictures of them on the front. Here they are:

Not the happiest of pictures!

The whole gang!

We are looking forward to our field trip later this week to the Birth of Christianity exhibit later this week. It should be a lot of fun!

On Saturday, we went to the RV Show with Grandma and Grandpa TD. We had fun drooling over the RVs and dreaming about what we would pick out. We were able to meet Yogi Bear and the Geico Gecko. I was only able to get a picture of Yogi, and only if I was in it, Little TD was afraid of the bear!

They both look terrified in the picture, I think they might have been! The gecko was another story...Little TD ran up to the green lizard and gave him a high five right away! It was so quick, I didn't have a chance to get my camera out...maybe next time! Princess TD was not so impressed...the lizard is a BOY thing (or so she says!).

Happy...

2009-02-14T08:15:00.002-06:00

Heart Day! I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day.

This year we are participating in a home school Valentine's swap. We are receiving cards from all over the country and even one from Canada! It is so much fun marking on the map where our "friends" live and learning about the places they live!

My BIG Weekend!

2009-02-09T22:59:00.002-06:00

I am still recovering from my BIG weekend! It was such a fun time, I just don't think I can do it justice here.

Awhile back, while reading my friend D'Lyn's blog, I came across a video clip of comedian Tim Hawkins. I checked out his website (www.timhawkins.net) and woke my kids from their nap because I was laughing so hysterically! I discovered he was going to be doing a show at a church nearby, so I sent Mr. TD an e-mail and told him that's where I wanted to go for my birthday. We have some friends who attend that church, so he contacted them to find out what he needed to do. We went. We laughed...and laughed...and laughed. So much so that our stomachs were sore from all of the laughing. We had a blast and met some great folks in the process. I have to say if you ever get the chance to see this guy, you must go!

Mr. TD had also told me that some dear friends of ours were planning to watch our kids on Saturday afternoon so that we could go to a movie. JSue and Rod had offered to watch the kids so that we could go out for Mr. TD's birthday, so I guess he thought it would be good to do that for mine too. Except that is not what was really planned...they planned a surprise party for my 40th birthday! While we were at the movie (we saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which we thought was very funny) a few of my close friends and their families assembled at JSue and Rod's house. I had absolutely no clue! I can't even imagine the look on my face when I came around the corner and saw a family that I KNEW wasn't supposed to be there! I must have looked very confused! Several in attendance even perpetuated the cover-up by trying to distract me with messages on my actual birthday! You all got me good! Just remember I was the first, and I have a few years to plan for your BIG days!

Really, I do love all of you guys and it is really special to me that you would come join us to celebrate my birthday. I am so blessed to call you all my friends.

After being out late on Friday night and late on Saturday night, I bet you can guess how church went on Sunday morning! Little TD would not stop whining all through the prayers and devotional (our speaker was a missionary from Croatia, and he is always good and inspirational so I didn't want anyone around me to miss it). He wanted his stuffed puppy (which he chose to leave in the car) and his binky (which he only gets when he sleeps...yes, he's 3 and still has a binky...bad Mom!) and there was nothing I could say or do to calm him. Mr. TD was working (he helps out with a couple of ministries during service), so I packed up both kids and headed to the cry room. I made Princess TD leave one of her good buddies, which upset her immensely, so she began the whining game. For some reason, we have a couple of families who sit in the cry room instead of going into the auditorium, they have done it for years, and they don't have little ones who are making noise. So, I come in with my 2 whining children, and disturb them. I realize that if they didn't like it, they could go into the auditorium, after all, there was room, we had just left. However, I felt bad for "disturbing" their experience, so again, I packed up my children. As I entered the foyer, Mr. TD was finishing up and I said, let's just go home. So we did. We went home, had lunch and crashed! We all needed a nap! We finished out the weekend with pizza and a movie night!

It was a great weekend! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it so special!

My Crafty Side

2009-02-06T15:25:00.003-06:00

I have been making baby blankets for my friends like crazy these days. It seems that we are in the midst of another baby boom. My Mom is so thrilled that I am now sewing, even though it's not much. I am tempted to attempt to make Princess TD some clothes for this summer, since we are having such a hard time finding her clothes.

I have been using sissors that were passed down to my by my Mom 13 years ago, and prior to that, she used them for as long as I can remember. I have had them sharpened several times, but I think they are getting toward the end of their useful life. So, for my birthday, I asked for new sissors. Guess what...I got some! They are comfort grip which I totally love! I have been cutting and sewing all day, and my hand doesn't hurt! I may keep my well loved trusty ones as a back up, but I have a new favorite!

I also use my Mom's old sewing machine. It was one she bought when her computerized one quit, so it's pretty simple, but it works. I am really not sure how old it is, but I know that it has never been covered in it's life. Since I don't sew often, just in spurts, I thought it would be best if it had some sort of cover. For Christmas, Mr. TD bought me a hard case, but it was HUGE compared with the size of my machine. I made a really cute reversible cover for it today! Princess TD picked out the fabric at WalMart yesterday. So for a mere $5, my machine has a new cover!

Here are a few of the crafty type projects I have done recently.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I am really having fun, but I think I will be putting up my machine for a while, so please don't surprise me with more babies! :)

Just a Thought...

2009-02-03T18:25:00.002-06:00

So, there are at least 3 of us in our young moms group at church who are having birthdays this week. One is 20 something, one is 30 something, and one is moving on to that age that we used to think was old (gee, I wonder who that might be?!?). We were talking after bible class this morning and the 20 something mom told me that I don't look THAT old. Well I don't feel that old. I am not sure how old I feel, but certainly not old enough to say I am THAT old.

My sweet sister and her family gave me a perpetual calendar for Christmas. I didn't check it before I left this morning, but I did check it this evening as I was cooking dinner. The quote for today was:

"You are not old unless you get wrinkles in your heart."

I will leave you with that thought and hope it cheers you if you are feeling old!

It's Been a While

2009-02-03T16:09:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted much here lately. We have kept ourselves very busy the last couple of weeks. School is going well and we are chugging right along. I just love that I am able to teach Princess TD how to read and add. We are having fun and Little TD loves joining in with us doing his own school.

As much as I love homeschooling, I am having a difficulty keeping up with everything else. I have been plagued by headaches the last few weeks and I have to rest when they rest. Not much happens with both of them up and running around!

We are looking forward to a visit from Grandma and Grandpa next week and going to the RV show with them. I think we will be overwhelmed and really drooling over the trailers on display. We have been contemplating selling the boat and getting a trailer...we just can't decide. The main factor...the boat is paid in full! We do like camping in a tent, but in Texas, the season for "comfortable" tent camping is very short. Decisions, decisions....

We're Home!

2009-01-20T20:55:00.003-06:00

What a crazy last few days! We are now home safe and sound and more than a little bit weary. Here's how it went:

I got the call Thursday that my sister was going in to the hospital Friday morning for a version to try to turn her transverse baby, or she was going to have a c-section. (She had already decided that she wanted me there if she did have a c-section, just based on my experiences.) So after lunch, we packed up and headed to Fort Polk. We arrived a little after 10 pm, and after getting our stuff in, and settled, we got to bed around midnight. My sister and I got up at 4:30 am (well, she was up most of the night with contractions) to head off to the hospital at 5 am (not so great for the anti-morning person in me!). She got all settled into her room and the OB/GYN came in to discuss the procedure. The anesthesiologist came in a little later to get things started for the epidural (they only do the version with an epidural). We discussed the options for pain management if she went into a c-section. Then she got the epidural, and was wheeled into the OR for the procedure. The OB did an ultrasound to verify postion before they started and she had turned on her own after the epidural! What a blessing! She was back in her room around 8:30 am and they began the pitocin. The family practice doc came in to monitor labor. He took a VERY hands off approach, didn't break her water, and just let her labor and only checked on her after lunch, and then again before he turned her care over to the OB on call for the weekend. We had the strangest nurse for the day shift...it was almost like she was trying to remember how labor went and what she was supposed to be doing. At 7 pm, we got the new staff. The doc was great and so was the new nurse. They tried to hold her off until her hubby got there from Kansas, but he didn't make it...he was an hour away when the baby was born. She was born at 8:05 pm, weighed 8 lb 10 oz, and 20.75" long! I took some pictures, cut the cord, took more pictures and then handed the camera off to one of my sisters friends so that I could go get my kids and get them to bed. I think we got into bed around 10:30 that night. The next day, we took a morning nap before we went up to the hospital. We were able to visit for a while before the nurse from the day shift the day before remembered that there weren't supposed to be any kids under 14 in the rooms. So, we left and I honestly can't remember what we did for the rest of the day Saturday! On Sunday, we went to the commisary to shop for the ingredients I needed to prepare meals. It was so crazy, there were 5000 troops that came home from Iraq, and there was almost no food left there! By the time we finished that and dinner, it was 9:00 pm, so once again...a late night! On Monday I finished the ingredient shopping at Walmart. Then we began preparing meals and we put together 10 dinners and the one we ate that night before calling it a day! We finished dinner around 8:30 and then I had to get the kids baths before bed...so another late night! Today, we checked out of our hotel and went to my sisters house for school before leaving to come home!

We had a very busy, action packed few days! It will be a rough few days I am sure getting back into our routine. We did manage to stay up with school while we were gone. It did help that the older cousins had school to do too!

I have a few other thoughts that I am trying to put together that I will post later. But I will leave you with a sweet baby picture!

My Niece

2009-01-17T18:25:00.002-06:00

The TD Family has a new niece and cousin. My sister had her baby last night around 8 pm. Both mom and baby are doing wonderfully! Thank you for all of the prayers, they were answered and everything went smoothly and relatively quickly. I am off to see them again and if it's ok with my sister, I will post pictures.

Going off the Radar

2009-01-15T14:21:00.002-06:00

OK, not really, but I will be out for a few days. My sister, Missy, will be having her baby tomorrow and the TD children and me are heading over there for a few days. Please pray for everything to go smoothly...things are looking a little rough right now. I will post more when I know more.

A Big Weekend

2009-01-13T13:10:00.005-06:00

We had a fun and very eventful weekend at the TD house! We went on a family hike at Jesse Jones park. I am not sure how far we walked, but we walked various trails for almost 2 hours. The kids played in the park and we had a picnic lunch. I can see that we will be having a few nature field trips there when the plants start blooming. There were so many things that we talked about even in winter, that I wish I would have had a nature journal ready for the kids to take along. I will be better prepared next time.

Examining the Cypress bark with Daddy.

Following Daddy down the trail.

One of the highlights of our trek was seeing 4 deer feeding on the side of the trail. We crept as slowly and quietly as we could closer and closer to the deer. From my perspective, they appeared to be does, but one, maybe two were fawns.

This shot is when we first spotted the deer on the trail edge.

Relaxing at the end of the hike.

Since my sister has not yet had her baby, I was called into duty as the best Aunt ever (OK, it's really just because I live in Houston), to get my niece and nephew to their gymnastics meet in Katy. So, N & C came in on Saturday afternoon to stay the night with us so I could get them to their meet on Sunday. It was a great venue and a fun time. It was the first time I was able to see them compete. N started competing first. She had sprained her ankle at Fridays practice, so she was only supposed to compete bars and beam. Well, she made the decision to compete all events. I guess it was good she did...she placed 3rd on floor! C did very well too. He competed all events and received medals for 3 of them. I don't remember the places, but he got a medal for vault, parallel bars and either rings or horizontal bar, I can't remember which. Unfortunately during his medal ceremony, I was trying to keep my eye on the two crazy girls, Princess TD and N. Here they are displaying their medals.

While Princess TD and I were gone at the meet all day, Mr. TD and Little TD got Little TD's bike ready for him to ride. We got it from our neighbor when he outgrew it last year. It is still in great shape, so we were grateful for the gift. Little TD's tricycle broke last week while he was riding it. It no longer turns the wheel when you pedal (it did go through 3 kids, so I guess it's just worn out), so we had to do something else. We thought we would try the "big" bike before we purchased a smaller one. Well, he LOVES it! He is doing great riding up and down the street, down driveways and up to the sidewalk. It's like he's been riding for ages! I guess he's a big boy now!

School Update

2009-01-09T14:29:00.003-06:00

This week has be very productive. We have done school every day and they are even back to asking for it. The week started as a struggle, but I think we are back in the groove! So far Little TD is loving Little Hands to Heaven. He's even asking for his memory verse (which of course they don't have, so I am "substituting" Ephesians 6:1. That's a good start don't ya think?).

Here's some pictures from our days this week:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We have all kept up with the cough this week. It's not much fun, but I did check the pollen counts and they are extremely high, so I am doubling up on the vitamin C and the antihistamines. I am hoping that cures us all quick!

We've Got Spots

2009-01-05T22:08:00.002-06:00

It's not that bad really...Princess TD had strep just before Christmas. She got antibiotics. She took them all. She got spots! Apparently that is a side effect of the antibiotic she took. It's not an "allergic" reaction, just a reaction. I am not sure what that means for the future, but you should have seen the looks we got at Wal-Mart when we were waiting in the pharmacy for her prescription! She gets her last dose of steroids tomorrow, but she still has spots. At least they are pink, her favorite color!

So, when we went to see the doctor on Friday, she had a little cough, now it's big! I am assuming it's her regular winter cold, or she caught another virus while taking antibiotics and steroids!

New Plan for a New Year

2009-01-05T21:10:00.002-06:00

Note: I am posting this since several of my real life friends either ask me what I do, or find humor in the crazy things I have to come up with to train my children.

It really isn't a secret that we have some problems with Princess TD and taming her independence and strong will. I have been brainstorming to try to figure out how to encourage cooperation without completely demolishing the good things about being independent. I have been tossing around the idea of a type of reward system. This isn't your "typical" reward system. I really had to think outside the box on this one, because she does!

Here's my plan:

I have little fish cut-outs that I found at the local teacher supply. I have written on the back, "Caught Ya!" and a point value. These are intended to be saved to be redeemed for a reward. It is our intention to give them to her when she does something that demonstrates kindness to others (mainly family members), patience, respect of others and their property, or just does something extra helpful. They will always be given randomly and at our discretion, i.e., not every time she goes an hour without torturing her brother. (OK, it's really not THAT bad...)

The rewards were harder. I have talked to other parents and they use eating out, a book, a small toy, etc for rewards. My dilemma comes in here. Princess TD adores those kind of things, but they hold no power for her. She would rather maintain her stance, whatever that may be, than to give in for a meal out or a toy. So our rewards are more tailored for her, extra reading time, a game night on the night of her choice, computer time, staying up late, etc. Each reward has it's own point value and all require some "saving" before they can be redeemed.

There is one catch for her though, she can have points taken away. She will lose points when she intentionally hurts her brother, or is disrespectful to others and their property (mainly picking flowers from our neighbors flower beds but there are a couple of others).

I am hopeful that this system will work. Our sticker charts have worked well in the past, but stickers have somewhat lost their charm with her (unless she's playing with them). I am also hopeful that this will plant the seeds of budgeting, saving and delayed gratification. It is way early for that, but hopefully it will make more sense when we do get to that point. I can hope right?

School Changes

2009-01-02T17:56:00.003-06:00

After struggling this fall with Little TD and schoolwork, I have made the decision to change what we are doing. I love the Letter of the Week curriculum and it worked very well with Princess TD, but Little TD doesn't seem to care so much for it. He seems to want more physical activity and things similar to what his big sister is doing. So, after careful thought and consideration, we are changing to the Heart of Dakota, Little Hands to Heaven curriculum for him. We will be starting on Monday with his new stuff. I hope he enjoys it more.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T16:46:00.003-06:00

So I am a little late on this post, but we had a late night (or an early morning) on the 1st, so we're almost recovered now.

I have had a few moments to reflect on last year and think about the upcoming year the last few days. My assessment is that we are extremely blessed! We have more blessings than we can count. Here are a few that immediately come to mind, in no particular order:

My sweet and wonderful husband, Mr. TD. His back is healing. He has a new position with his company which we are excited about.

My children. Their kindness, sweetess and growth continue to amaze me daily.

My chiropractor who will see me at a moments notice. (Kind of strange I know, but when you "suffer" from the kinds of headaches I have this is a TREMENDOUS blessing.)

Homeschooling my babies. I adore teaching them and spending time with them. I can't imagine it any other way. (I plan to take and post more "school" pictures this year.)

Our families. We have great families who love us and our children very much.

Our friends. We are so blessed to have friends we can laugh and have fun with, or cry with, whatever the case may be.

God. He is great all the time!

I pray that all of you have a happy, wonderful and blessed 2009!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T17:06:00.004-06:00

Just wanted to wish all of my blog followers a Merry Christmas before I sign off for a couple of days. Princess TD and Little TD are anxiously waiting for Santa's arrival. Here's a photo of their visit with him.

The top things on their list are:

Princess TD - a Princess kitchen, a recorder, a toy sewing machine, a "real" camera, and a "real" phone.

Little TD - Mack with 2 cars, a recorder, a plane, and a remote control Jeep.

We'll see what Santa has in his bag for them tomorrow morning. I hope they aren't too disappointed. They probably won't be!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Guess What Princess TD Got for Christmas..

2008-12-23T20:09:00.003-06:00

..strep throat! She woke up yesterday from her nap feeling sluggish, complaining of a sore throat and really just not herself. She ended up playing for a bit, but then when I went to kiss her goodnight, she felt hot. I took her temp and it was 100F. I gave her medicine for the fever and checked her again this morning. I got her in to see the pediatrician and he confirmed strep. He did say that is good news because with antibiotics she will not be contagious in 24 hours. Let's just hope that none of the rest of us get sick before it's all said and done!

I've Been Tagged...Twice!

2008-12-19T23:20:00.005-06:00

I can hardly believe my sweet friends have time to tag anyone with Christmas being next week! Really people, aren't you busy getting things finalized?!?

Ok, I do have to admit, I have been working very hard to get everything done and wrapped so that we can enjoy our holiday without any last minute stressing. I have a few last minute Christmas cards to send out...I lost part of my list, so sorry if you're getting yours late. I have a couple of things yet to make, but I will have one done tomorrow, and the other done by Monday, so then I will be all finished! So exciting.

On to the tags...

My first tag was from ErinKH. The original tag was for a picture of your front door with holiday decorations. Our door looks pretty pathetic on it's own, even with the wreath, so here's our outdoor holiday decorations.

And, for just for ErinKH, here's my mantel:

You can get 4 stockings up there. We use the 3M Command hooks to hold ours, and it comes right off with no damage to the finish. Just an idea for next year.

And for good measure, our Christmas tree, which up until tonight did not have presents under it. We were not going to have a repeat of last year's unwrapping fiasco. Mr. TD is home now until Christmas, so Princess TD and Little TD will not be left alone with the gifts!

I am supposed to tag 3 others, so I choose Shellie (whom I am sure is dying to show off her decorations), Kimberly and MamaT. I can't wait to see what you've done!

For the second tag, my sweet friend JSue tagged me with the "Crazy Eight" meme. I will do my best. Here goes:

Eight Shows I watch:
1. Survivor
2. Life
3. NCIS
4. Eli Stone
5. Private Practice
6. Lipstick Jungle
7. Numbers
8. The Mentalist

Eight Favorite Resturants:
1. Willie's
2. BW3's
3. Chick-Fil-A
4. Outback
5. Saltgrass
6. BJ's
7. Spring Creek Barbeque
8. Jason's Deli

Eight Things that Happened to Me Today:
1. I got to sleep until 8 AM! I love having Mr. TD home again!
2. We made candy as a family.
3. I finished buying stocking stuffers.
4. I used the leftover turkey to make a soup that actually tasted pretty good.
5. I did laundry.
6. I took a catnap. (Only because I sat down long enough to fall asleep)
7. We skipped school.
8. I finished wrapping all but 3 gifts.

Eight Things I Look Forward to:
1. Mr. TD being home and travelling less.
2. School time with my kids.
3. Ladies Bible Study with my friends.
4. Cuddle time with one kid at a time.
5. Time with Mr. TD.
6. Going out in our boat.
7. Camping as a family or with friends (you ready to go yet JSue?).
8. Family game time.

Eight Things I Wish:
1. That my kids weren't growing up so fast.
2. That we had enough money that we could travel with Mr. TD on all his trips.
3. That I could let my kids run around the neighborhood like we did as kids.
4. That the housework would magically do itself.
5. That I was better at keeping in touch with family and friends who are far away.
6. That we could have land on a lake where we could store our boat and camp and boat at the same time.
7. That I could spend all of my time watching my kids learn, teaching them to love others and God.
8. That we can take a trip to Disney before Princess TD stops liking princesses.

Eight People I Tag:
Really, do you think there are eight left??? Between D'Lyn and JSue, everyone I know has been tagged! :)

Run, Run as Fast as You Can...

2008-12-17T22:53:00.004-06:00

...you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

I just love that story! One of my fondest memories from my year in Kindergarten was reading this book, and decorating a cookie sheet sized gingerbread man! Just like the story, our man disappeared. Our whole class went on a tour of the school looking for the gingerbread man. He was found in the Principal's office. It was great and Mrs. Shue was the best teacher ever! Both of my brother's had her too, and they did the same activity. My sister wasn't so lucky, she got a different teacher, but she had her for both Kindergarten and 1st grade!

Anyway, did you know that there are many versions of this story? I didn't. We checked out 3 books from the library, The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Boy, and the Gingerbread Baby. We read all three stories and then discussed the similarities and differences in them. It was really a lot of fun.

I planned to make some gingerbread men and have them disappear like my Kindergarten memory, but the timing was bad. It was Little TD's birthday and I made cupcakes (with the left over batter from the cake) and a HUGE cake, so the last thing we needed was gingerbread cookies. So, this week, we made the cookies. I baked them one night, and let them cool, and then decorated them the next day. They didn't disappear until after they had their eyes, after all they couldn't see without them. This morning when Princess TD and Little TD got up, the men had disappeared.

(You knew I had to make a girl and a boy, right?)

I had such high hopes for this activity, after all, I have such great memories from this story. Well, guess what...they didn't even notice! They didn't know they weren't where they were supposed to be. The men were "hiding" under the dining room table which doubles as our school work table. When we started doing school today, they were so surprised to see them there, and then it clicked with them that the men had run away.

So we started our school day eating a gingerbread cookie! They both said that they needed to eat their feet first so he wouldn't/couldn't run away again. What a fun day!

I am Smarter than a 1st Grader

2008-12-13T17:09:00.002-06:00

I know, amazing, right?!? Princess TD and Little TD are outside playing with the other kids on the street. One little boy, who had a crush on her last year, asked Princess TD about her school. She told him that she doesn't have a school, that her school is here. He was completely astounded. He told her she couldn't do that. Her home can't be a school. She told him that her mommy taught her and that she had school here. He then turned to me and said, "You can't do that! There is something you don't know. (I am all preparing myself for the adult response of socialization, CPS, truancy, etc. , and he comes up with this..) There is a leaf bug!" I did my best to hold back a chuckle, and told him I was aware of the leaf bug. I then asked what he knew about the bug, and he said that it looked like a leaf. I then gave him the very few facts I know about the leaf bug. His response was, "Woooww." He then walked away. I guess I passed his "teacher" test.

Bah Humbug!

2008-12-12T21:58:00.002-06:00

I love this time of year. I love shopping for my kids expecting the happy faces on Christmas morning. We don't go overboard, just a couple of gifts each. This year though, I have lost track of what I have purchased. It seems I have gone crazy for Mr. TD and his gifts. I picked up one tonight for him, that brought me to my Bah Humbug mood.

We were shopping at un-named store (in case he's reading this) and my kids were doing great. It was late, past their normal bedtime, but they weren't whining, complaining or asking for anything. We had just completed our purchase when a lady came up to the person checking me out and asked if they had an ATM. I heard the question, but I was getting my kids ready and seated in the stroller to leave the store. I turned around backwards to go through the door. She huffed and acted exasperated that she had to wait for me to get my double stroller through the door. As I swung the stroller around, she stepped through the door, all the while I was holding the door with my foot. She couldn't walk around us, because there were others hanging out in the entry way. Just then another family of 6 or so, stepped out behind her, none of them grabbing the door so that I could move. So here I am, holding the door with my left foot, trying to swing my 125 lb stroller (that's the combined weight of both kids, the stroller and our packages...I am just guessing though...it's probably heavier) around out of the way so "Miss Huffy" can get around and get out the main door. Well, I lost my balance and let the door go. It almost hit one of the kids in the family, so I apologized. Isn't that the right thing to do? Well, the dad didn't think so. He said, "Yeah, right." Miss Huffy was getting huffier. She apparently needed that ATM badly! She was carrying a shopping bag in each hand and rather than step around me when the entry cleared, she waited for me to back up through the next door and hold the door for her! Then, the family stopped for some reason, and I stood there holding the next door, assuming they would be coming right after Miss Huffy. Well, they didn't. The older lady with them, asked if I wanted her to get the door. I replied that I was fine, but I didn't want to be rude and close the door in her face. She just looked at me as if I spoke to her in gibberish. So, I let the door go, and went on my way.

Have we lost all manners and courtesy in this world? Patience people!

I guess that's what I get for shopping at night. I have to be out with all the other folks who don't have time to shop at any other time. I think I will be retreating back to my humble abode to finish ordering any other gifts I need on-line! Thank goodness for Amazon.com!

Maybe if I wrap some presents to put under the tree, I will get back into the festive spirit. Maybe this year Princess TD won't talk Little TD into unwrapping them all before Christmas morning! Then again...maybe I should just wait!

More Snow!

2008-12-10T21:09:00.005-06:00

We went to church tonight and when we came out our car was covered in snow! Yes we really are getting some accumulation. I am sure it will melt off pretty quick in the morning, so I let the kids play outside in the snow when we got home. Here's a few more pics.

We even made a little snowman. He was too small to do the "usual" snowman decorations, so we used pine straw for arms and mulch for a nose. He was melting too fast on the ground to do much else. At least they got the idea of what to do.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I am slightly concerned about my new Knock-out Roses. I didn't realize we would actually have snow, so I didn't cover them. It's probably too late now. I just hope they survive!

We have enjoyed our snow day today! I hope you have had as much fun!

It's Snowing!

2008-12-10T16:37:00.009-06:00

Ok, well, really it's just flurrying, but for those of us in southern Texas, it's snowing! This is the second time in Princess TD's lifetime that it has snowed at our house! The first time was very late at night on Christmas Eve, so she didn't see it. Here's their first look at snow.

Of course it's melting as soon as it hits the ground, but the flurries are pretty cool. Here's our "accumulation."

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Shortly after we took these pictures the precipitation changed to snain (a mixture of snow and rain), almost sleet. It reminds me of the days living in St. Louis and the ice storms we had before I moved here. Hey, at least I am one driver who knows how to drive in this stuff, now what do we do about all of the other folks on the road?!?

Little TD and Princess TD are so excited to see snow. Princess TD said, "I didn't know that Texas was that close to the North Pole." Apparently it only snows at the North Pole, at least in her mind!

Happy 3rd Birthday Little TD!

2008-12-08T15:36:00.007-06:00

I can hardly believe it! My little baby boy is now 3 years old! How time flies when you're having fun!

We had his party last Saturday. He had a couple of friends over and we had a Thomas the Train party for him. It was a blast. We all had so much fun and ate lots of cake! I think his favorite toys so far are Elizabeth the bus (from Thomas & Friends), his Thomas play tent and his Thomas rolling backpack!

Mr. TD talked me into making him a cake shaped like Thomas! I searched the internet and found a tutorial created by one of the homeschool bloggers I like to read. She walked me through step by step how to create it. Here's the creation process:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

He loved it. This picture made all of the work worth it!

Oh, and for those of you interested in numbers, he is 39-1/2" tall and weighs 38 lbs. He is 3/4" shorter than Princess TD at the same age, but his feet are 2 sizes bigger! I think he'll be taller than she is soon!

Happy Birthday Little Man! We love you!

I'd Like Peanut Butter on the Side with Crackers on the Side

2008-11-30T20:37:00.003-06:00

This is a common request around our house at lunchtime. Both Princess TD and Little TD love to spread the peanut butter on crackers, or not. Sometimes they eat the peanut butter with a spoon and then the crackers for dessert. Any way they eat it, they usually eat it without delay. This has become one of their favorite meals.

So today, when they asked for this for lunch, it was not a problem. We didn't expect it to come with a twist. They wanted pickles to go along with their peanut butter. They love dill pickles and eat them whenever we get them out. OK, not terribly crazy for a kid to like pickles, but to me, the thought of pickles with peanut butter no matter how it is eaten just doesn't sound palatable to the taste buds!

Mr. TD came up with the bright idea to get Princess TD to put a pickle on her cracker and peanut butter sandwich. She did. She even said YUM! All I could think was BLECHHH! This was coming from the girl who pretty much hates anything we give her to eat. Oh, she may eventually try it, and maybe learn to like it, but her first response is always that she doesn't like it.

So me, being the quick thinker I am, convinced Princess TD to make one for Daddy. Mr. TD shot me a few quick, ever so telling, glances across the table as she was preparing his "sandwich." I convinced her to make it with promises of more peanut butter, crackers and pickles if she found she was running low. Just as she was about finished with the peanut butter portion, she licked the side of the cracker all the way around. You see, she had over spread the peanut butter and I guess was going for the "presentation" of her delicacy. Mr. TD and I started laughing hysterically! No really, this was the kind of laugh that liquids would come from your nose, should there be any in your mouth!

Mr. TD graciously took the "sandwich" dipped it in honey mustard and ate it. Still my stomach was turning and we were both still laughing, even as he said "Mmmm."

Then he did the unthinkable. He had her make one for me! He even gave her a large pickle slice just for Mommy. But she left out an "ingredient." You see, she was a little more controlled in her spreading this time and didn't need any clean-up around the edges. She even told Mr. TD that she didn't mess up so she didn't need to do it to mine!

So, I took a bite and the look on my face must have said it all. Mr. TD said, "That's why you don't take a bite, you just eat it whole." All the while continuing to laugh hysterically. I couldn't finish it. Just one bite. I tried her food she prepared and I just couldn't finish it. That's all we ask of her when she's resistant to try something new, so that is all I did. Mr. TD thinks I cheated, but no, I just used my brain to come up with a way that I didn't have to eat it. (Do you think that's where Princess TD gets it, from me?)

Needless to say, we will not be serving peanut butter and pickle sandwiches here in this house again, at least not on purpose.

Later this afternoon, we had Food Network on in the background as we were preparing to get our Christmas decorations out. They began talking about sandwiches around the country, and believe it or not, there is a restaurant somewhere in the United States, that actually serves a peanut butter and pickle sandwich! I wish I knew where it was so that I could be sure NOT to stop there when I was hungry!

We really had a good laugh today! Sometimes that's what you need!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T21:42:00.002-06:00

Today is the day that we set aside to ponder our thankfulness. I am thankful for many things, more things than I can name here. Growing up our family had a tradition of naming one thing that each of us at the table were thankful for in our lives. Today, we carried on that tradition in our home. It is always so sweet to hear the what is on the hearts of little children. Princess TD said she was thankful for Sprite. Little TD said he was thankful for remote control Jeeps. I am most thankful today that Mr. TD was able to come home to spend the day with us. Mr. TD was thankful to be home as well. We enjoyed the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole and rolls. It was a great day for our family. It was a short holiday, Mr. TD leaves again early in the morning to go back out of town. We will miss him, but are so thankful that we were able to spend today together.

I Have "Sucker" Stamped on My Forehead

2008-11-25T22:49:00.006-06:00

Really, I do. Just check the next time you see me!

We went to see Bryan today. You know the Bryan I am talking about. He's the one at Portrait Innovations who loves to take 120 or so pictures of my kids. He's the one (maybe the only one) who can capture their true personalities on film, or at least digitally. See?!?

So, you see where this is leading right? Yes, we went in to have Christmas pictures done. Did it! Could I decide on one? NO, absolutely not! We also had the 3 year old pictures and the 5 year old pictures taken. You have probably already guessed that I couldn't decide on one there either. See, I am a sucker and Bryan knows it. He does such a great job photographing my kiddos and getting them to relax and have fun that I just can't leave without a ton of pictures.

Here are a few more:

I really do adore Bryan and the way he interacts with my kids.

Oh, and I got my Christmas cards too (no, this is not a preview). I will try to wait until December to send them out this year!

Me Time

2008-11-23T13:14:00.003-06:00

"You need some time to yourself."

"Take some "me time" you need it."

I hear this a lot. I hear it most when Mr. TD is traveling for work and I am home with the kids. It bothers me for many reasons. I have had these things mulling in my mind for quite a while now.

I feel I need to defend my choice NOT to have me time when Mr. TD is traveling. I feel like I have to explain that my kids wouldn't do well with a babysitter at night while he's gone and I am out with the girls. I feel like I have to explain that they are both missing their Daddy, and that I need to be there with them to comfort them.

What is fun for you might not be fun for me. I may not enjoy getting together with the girls, especially since I am not overly girly or concerned about girly things. (OK, I do admit having a girly daughter has moved me in that direction, but I am still a geeky, gadget loving engineer at heart).

It's not that I don't enjoy time away from my children. Sometimes it is nice to go to the store without having to pack an extra bag to carry the snacks, drinks, diapers, wipes and various toys to keep them entertained and without having to say "no" at least a 1000 times to each of them. That's awesome! It's not that I don't enjoy a massage, pedicure or even dessert with the girls. I do, and I get an hour or two here and there. I just don't live for these moments. I have really been struggling with how to address these things - about how to clearly communicate that I have chosen this life - my life.

Last week I recieved my latest copy of The Old Schoolhouse magazine. This is a magazine for homeschoolers. In the magazine there was an article titled "The 'Me-Time' Myth," by Amy Roberts. In this article, she discusses that although time away from her family helped to refresh her, she was always wanting more when she came home to the reality of a sink full of dirty dishes and baths for the kids. When she came home to reality, she would want to head right back out the door. She went on to describe the many ways she searched for her own alone time and the conclusion she would reach every time was the same. She would become resentful of her husband's time off work, and she would take weekends off and then her weekends would spill over into the week. She commented she was left feeling overwhelmed and had more of a desire to escape. The following paragraph spoke to my heart:

"Me Time is a myth. It is an unattainable, always interruptible, never satisfying piece of junk psychology. Me Time, by its very name, suggests that who we are during the daily grind is not who we truly are. It begs us to search for fulfillment outside the titles of "wife" and "mother." It accuses precious little ones and God-given spouses for suppressing us. It reduces motherehood to a disease in which little dirty faces and endless monotonous tasks slowly suck the life out of us. It
says that we can never be refreshed by spending time in the presence of those we care for day in and day out. It points out a perceived hole in our world that needs to be filled, a tank that must be refuled, a monster that will swallow us if we neglect to feed it Me Time."

She went on to conlcude that unless her time alone, away from the family, was in fact, time seeking God, she never felt fulfilled.
This article was perfect for me right now. Mr. TD has always traveled with his job, and it is usually at the most inconvenient times. But I chose this life. I chose to marry him knowing that his job required travel. I chose to quit my job as the inside sales manager/design engineer of a small company to stay home and raise my children. I chose not to send Princess TD to school, but rather to homeschool. I love that I have these opportunities and choices.

Oh, I do have THOSE days, when everything that could go wrong does. It is on those days that I remind myself that the last five years have gone by in a flash. Although I have a few more to go before they leave home, it will happen before I want them to leave, and I have so much to teach them and so much to learn from them in that time. I don't want to miss a thing!

So, no. I don't need me time, I already have it. My life and my time is defined by me being a good wife to my husband and a good mother to my children.

A Big Thank You

2008-11-16T21:30:00.002-06:00

I want to be sure to express my huge appreciation for the youth group at our church. This past Saturday, they hosted a Drop and Shop for parents of children 2yrs - 5th grade. This meant that we could drop off our kids and spend the day shopping for Christmas gifts. Since Little TD was born in December, we also had birthday shopping to do for him too. We were able to get most of our shopping done for the kids, both from us and from Santa. We lack one or two items for them, but I think we will be able to get that completed.

We were also able to take in a movie in the amount of time allotted us for "shopping." We don't get to the movies much for a couple of reasons, one being the cost. It just seems silly to spend that much money when we can usually buy the movie cheaper than seeing it in the theater. Anyway, I digress. We went to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. I have to say, Mr. TD is a HUGE James Bond fan. We own all of the movies on VHS and DVD, we have several of the books and the James Bond version of Scene It (the movie game). I have to confess, I am not as big of a fan. In fact, I don't think I watched a movie in its entirety until I met Mr. TD. However, being the nerdy engineer type that I am, I did kind of get hooked on all the gadgets and the cool cars. But really...this is not Bond!!! I don't even think he introduced himself in the famous way - Bond, James Bond! Can this really be a Bond movie without that??? OK, maybe. Mr. TD says that one of Pierce Brosnan's films lacked this too. But the Bond character played by Daniel Craig is lacking, even to this minimal bond fan. I would say he is missing some of the finesse that other Bond characters have and I'll leave it at that. If you can go into the movie just thinking of it as an action film, it's pretty good. But if you are a die-hard Bond fan, wait for the DVD...oh wait, you probably have already seen it!

Anyway, thank you again to the youth group. Because of you, we were able to break our record for movies seen in the theater in one year since having children. Would you be willing to plan another one about the time that Angels and Demons comes out?

An Angel

2008-11-13T20:56:00.002-06:00

Today was one of those days that every mother has and every mother dreads. I was running errands, nothing special, just your run of the mill household stuff. I was prepared. I had drinks. I had snacks. I had stickers, paper and pen and of course, my trusty PDA that the kids love to use as a doodle pad. Things were going great. I was at the second stop. It was a short one. I was stopping at Michaels to pick up the icing colors and a larger cake pan to make Little TD's birthday cake. We were doing great until we went to the checkout. Princess TD put something in the cart for me, and Little TD had a total meltdown. He thought that she was getting something and he wasn't. No matter what I said, what I did, he wouldn't stop screaming. I mean SCREAMING!!! Really, what did he want there? All he could see from his vantage point were the rows and rows of silk flowers. Did he really want a flower? No, he just thought that his sister was getting something and he wasn't. Princess TD was great. She stood right by him and tried to sing the song she made up for him when he was a baby that would calm him down. Not working. She tried to hug him, stroked his hands, talked softly, gave him kisses, made silly faces. Nothing worked. Now while she was doing all of this, I was just watching, very proud of my little girl and her compassion for her brother.

That's when we met Terry. She was in front of us in line. She talked to me and said, "I remember those days. Don't worry Mom, we all have days like this. It will pass. " I smiled, thanked her and told her that I do realize that one day I will miss them being this little. It was then that she began talking to Little TD. She asked him how old he was going to be on his birthday, what kind of cake he wanted and a couple of other innocent questions that made him stop screaming immediately. He answered his questions and that was that. He was done. The rest of the stops went smoothly. I don't know who she was, but Terry was an angel sent to help us out today. Thank you, Terry!

What's your name?

2008-11-08T19:18:00.002-06:00

Mr. TD was in the living room tonight playing with Little TD laughing and having a good time. Little TD asked Mr. TD what his name was. Mr. TD answered and Little TD asked, "Why "Wayne?" Mr. TD said, "I don't know that's just what Grandma and Grandpa named me." Little TD promptly said, "My name is Little TD (first and middle) Come Back!" Do you think I say that a little to often????

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

2008-11-07T13:08:00.003-06:00

Conversation in the van today:

Princess TD: There went a police car like Pat's.

Me: Princess TD, we call him Mr. Pat.

Princess TD: Why?

Me: Because he is older than you and that's how we show our elders respect.

Princess TD: I guess I need to call Maddie "Miss Maddie" then, because she's 5-1/2.

Little TD: I'm 2.

Me: Yes, you are and in a few weeks you'll be 3. Your birthday is right after your friend Hailey's birthday.

Little TD: I don't want to be 3!!! I like being 2!

Princess TD: Why don't you want your birthday? It's fun, you'll be 3 and then I'll be 6...you'll be 4 and I'll be 7...and on and on she went.

Little TD: I don't want to be 3, because then I can't play with you anymore.

Princess TD: Oh, Little Man, we can still play. I love you.

Little TD: I love you too Sissy.

All of this after literally screaming at each other the whole time we were running errands and especially in the grocery store. Maybe they'll remember that the next time they both want the same toy. Or maybe they won't!

Our Trick or Treaters

2008-11-03T08:06:00.003-06:00

We had fun trick or treating on Friday night. The weather was beautiful. There were tons of kids out and we met a new neighbor. It was at the very end of the night as we ran out of candy. They are very sweet people and Princess TD and their youngest daughter hit it off...they both LOVE princesses. Go figure.

We had Alice, of Alice in Wonderland fame.

True to our Toy Story fan, Little TD was Buzz Lightyear. It was an awesome costume. He wears the wings almost daily.

We had an awesome time with our friends. We had the DeCarlo family join us and we took one of our neighbors, Kenny, with us as well.

Our Photographer...

2008-10-30T23:36:00.003-05:00

These pictures were taken by Princess TD while I was carving the pumpkin this afternoon.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

There were several more of the neighbor's little girl I left out, but they were really good. (I just didn't want to post her face all over without her parents permission.) We only deleted 2 pictures because they were so blurry you couldn't determine what they were. Pretty good for a 5 year old I'd say, but maybe it's just because I am her Mom!

Oh, and in the first of the self portraits she looks so much like my neice it's frightening!

So, do you think Santa should bring her a kid's camera or a "real" digital camera? (Really, I'd like your thoughts. Would she be frustrated with the quality of the kids digital camera? She really did use the zoom. Is this a talent we should develop? AAAGGGHHHH! She's only 5!)