My Thoughtful Spot

We're happy, I have forty kazillion pictures to share (give or take a few thousand), and just to make someone smile.... my husband was mistaken for our sons brother... Yes. I've been told he looks young, there is the proof! I'l tell the whole story later, for now I am TIRED and off to bed.

Later gators!

We are SO close to Mark being home. He's in the air on the way from Detroit to Portland right now. The littles ones are in bed, Katie is here beside me.

In town today I was looking for something to put in the treasure chest for our nightly treasure hunt. My friend Sharon suggested these confetti thingies. You twist the bottom and it pops out with streamers and such. After a moment to consider the clean up (I told her she could come do it! hehe) I decided it sounded like a good plan. Oh we had fun! Remember, you can click on these pics to see bigger ones if you'd like...

that one popped out really well. I tried to capture all three pops but the other two went too far!

they were SO much fun on the floor afterwards!

It was a good time, a great distraction and we have fun sweeping up after. I rather suspect we'll be finding them for weeks! No way we could have done this with the carpet in; I'm SO glad we pulled that puppy up this week.

Now off to clean so he comes home to some sort of reasonable looking house! Later!

The day is coming to an end and I must admit to feeling grateful. Tomorrow the countdown is at *two*. That seems like a manageable number somehow. On Saturday a friend and I are going out, I'm really looking forward to that. I'm going to pick up a few things we need, a movie (or two) and some neat crafty stuff for the kids. James wants to make a present for daddy, I know doing it too soon will only make the wait harder, so that is going to be our Saturday afternoon or evening activity. Glue, scissors, some cool stuff from the dollar store craft section and we'll be good to go. Then I'll tuck the little ones in and count the hours.

This time of night is really tough. It's always a harder time of day for me, having no countdown till hubbie gets home from work really doesn't do anything to make it better! I think tonight I am going to try and make the kitchen look better. We just had a treasure hunt, we've started having those daily while daddy was gone. A mickey egg, a dollar toy, little bits of candy, they all make the little ones happy and we create the hunt to be as simple or as educational as I feel up to on that day. Last night the treasure held glow sticks. They had great fun!

Here is the evidence

Right now the Waltons is on TV, James is playing with a 50 cent airplane/transformer I found for the treasure chest, and I need to be accomplishing something. Like finding some tidyness. I am sure there is some of it here somewhere!

I guess, being such, I should share some about our journey as a homeschool family then? Truth be told, our schooling is such a part of our life that I often don't notice it happening. I found my daughter one day laying upside down on the couch doing multiplication. I had no idea she knew it existed let alone how to do it! I had books all over the place, I love books and I firmly believe in exposing my kids to everything good that I possibly can. Between books and her big brother she'd mastered the art - while hanging upside down on the couch and watching tv no less. I like it when learning can happen so naturally, so painlessly.

This is the same child who always had to beat me with our "I love you"s at night. "I love you Katie". "I love your more". "I love you most" And she'd HAVE to come up with some more than most, even if it meant making up a word. One night she said "I love you pi". "Pi?" I asked. "yeah. You know, it goes on forever". I shook my head and asked her where she learned that. "my brother".

We have many stories floating around about times one or another of the kids has said "we haven't done school in a long time!", only to have something brought up they'd done in the last several hours. They used to get SO annoyed at me for tricking them into learning. Now they're pretty good at discovering the education in the fun they have. Kate's most recent is geography and history. Great match - wars are the thing of the day. I found a pack of 30 world maps at Mardens for $1.99. She's having a wonderful time filling them in. She's filling them in, learning, having fun, and it's not costing me an arm OR a leg. What more can I ask for?

I love this way of life. It fits our family like a well worn pair of jeans.

After deciding at 1 am to rip up the carpet in the living room, I finally crashed between 2:30 and 3 am. Back up at 8:30 and to work on it. I just finished stuffing the end of the padding in a garbage bag. Of course we took frequent breaks, had meals, I took a nap and I ran my son to youth group and dropped into walmart on the way home; so it wasn't all work all day. I am SO ready to do nothing and yet I am driven to continue. We did make a bit of a mess rearranging things to make room to get the carpet up and then out. Of course, once I took the steak knife to it it was in smaller and more manageable pieces...

I'm now working on putting the room back together. Differently, of course. So in order to put the living room together, I have to tidy every other room. My bedroom, so I can rearrange it and make room for the rocking chair I no longer want in the living room. The computer room so make room for the drawers I want to exchange for the bench seat that is in here. The bedrooms to make room for some toys. It could be weeks before I am done! I will take pictures as I go, anyone who knows me can accept that truth without any trouble at all.

Pictures are one of my biggest "happies". So, here's a few to make me smile before I head to bed.

First off is the man himself.. (click on these for a bigger pic to view)

I love action shots. Anything I can get that is a step away from plain old pictures is good in my mind. I love mud. Mud and a preschool boy make GREAT pictures!

Last, but not least, dinasaurs do indeed still roam the earth. In fact they roam my kitchen. This particular one is a meat eater apparently.... Check it out.

Yeah. I'm sure I'm wearing this topic out, but oh well. It's five and a half more days until he comes home and right now that could be forever. I've survived 3, but I'm tired. I'm not accomplishing like I'd like to because I can't stay on task. Nothing new there, I've never been able to stay on task, but it's simply more frustrating right now. "focus". Such a small word, such implications when you just can't *DO* it!

kids are upstairs. Not sleeping ,but quiet and thats what matters. Actually Ben and Brianna are asleep. James and Katelynne not. Guess I should have given them all B names. Yeah. Ok. I'm tired, I think it's likely showing. Oh well, this blog is for me and since I don't make anyone read it I guess I can be as unfunny as needed to survive this week, right? My sister... now she is priceless. She just about had me snorting popcorn out my nose last night. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Probably the last time she got overtired and silly!

I'm gonna put a few things away and then check on kids. I'm considering a nice shower, but I'm also toying with the idea of scrapping that idea and just going to bed. A book, my meds, my flashlight hubbie bought just for me, ( I need a small lamp on my side of the bed!!).. that has appeal too.

Have I mentioned I miss him? I do.

Ok, playing around in an attempt to get pictures to show. Andrea is coaching me - how much patience does she have?

It looks like this might show up - if it actually does this is a drawing James' did of his sister. Pretty good likeness I say..

Mommy, I can't find daddy. Lets get in the van and go find him."

Yeah. I'm with you son.

Ok, playing around here, this is an old picture (a year ago in fact), but it's a favorite. I'll get to some more recent ones here eventually!

Thanks SO much to Andrea for fixing this for me!!