Another heart melting conversation...

The girls are standing at the table, watching our praying mantis eat a spider while a bombadier beetle crawls around the jar.

Kiera: Is that stinkbug going to stink her?
Melia: No. When stinkbugs are going to stink, they go like this. (bends over and sticks her hiney in the air) They stick their stinker up.

Isaac: Hunter in Training.... or Practical Joker

This morning I was vaccuuming up a lovely oatmeal mess created by Isaac.

He made me laugh by "sneaking" up on the vaccuum, bonking with a bowl, and running away laughing hysterically.

Absolutely awesome :-)

A Kiera Cutie

Last night I picked the girls up after they spent a few hours with Gma Nae, Annie and Izzy at the park while I did the shopping for our campout. By the time we got home, Kiera was wiped. She didn't wake up when I brought her in the house, when I laid her on the couch, when I took her to her room after taking care of the other two, when I took her pants off, when I put a pull-up on her, or when I laid her down in her bed. But she got up about 90 minutes later because, in her words....

"I thought in the darkness I had pants on, but then I found out I didn't."

:-)

Yea! Gabe's Home!

He's been gone since early Sunday morning to Utah for some work training, but now he's back! He even brought me Larry's at work tonight when he got back to town :-)

If you think of it, pray for him. His co-workers are not supportive of this new computer system they've got, and because Gabe's one of the admins, he kinda gets the brunt of the grouchiness. (I just want to tell them to grow up and use their nice words, but...)

Now off for a very busy weekend hosting a campout w/ some out of town friends! I'm hoping life will slow down after this weekend!

Melia Subtracted In HER HEAD!

Today I was cutting up an apple to take with us to dinner for Isaac, and Melia spotted me. We discussed her having one as well, and she said "There's only two left."

She walked over to the box to get one out, and said in a suprised voice "Mommy, where'd you get that apple? There's three in here!"

I told her I got it out of the bag... and then looked at her in amazement. "Why did you think there would only be two in the box? Did you know that there were three, and then subtract one in your head to get two?"

She says, nonchalantly, "Yep."

Woo HOOO! It's so encouraging to see her doing something that she can get, versus something that she struggles with (reading.) Thank you God, for little victories! Yea!

Kiera's "Night"

I adore that instead of saying "at night," Kiera always says "in the darkness..."

Isn't that just cute!?

Ugh

Cleaning cleaning....

I walked in the door today after a meeting to start up co-op for the years, plus what was supposed to be a quick trip to Walmart, but wasn't so quick because after we finally made it out of there, I found that I had locked my keys in my car, and they were my back-up keys because Melia had unlocked the door last, so my keys weren't in my purse... Thankfully Grandma Debbie was able to come rescue us!

Anyway, I walked in the door to a funny smell... Apparently a few of the pluots were past ripe :-P I made our last batch of jam this morning, and I guess the rest just decided to let off some stench in protest of not being picked as good enough for the jam :-) (only the best go in Jam!) So our house smelled funny, plus there was just STUFF everywhere... So, I decided to dump what I was planning to do after bedtime and clean instead. I'd like to use the word "tidy," but tidy makes me think of an easy, quick, pick-up-and-put-away.... and that just isn't me. It's more of a "What is this? Where does it live?" guessing game...

Now randomly unhappy pluots are out on the deck, where I'm sure I'll find a few chickens feasting on them in the morning! And I'm putting stuff away away.... Plus trying to get ready for co-op on Wednesday. I'm at least ready for cake decorating... Still have to work on Creation Science.

Busy Busy...

Blessings

God is so good... so faithful.

I've been... what word to use... anxious? lackluster? intimidated?... about homeschooling. I don't know if everyone else feels it, but I definitely feel this pressure to do everything that everyone else is doing. And this anxiety that I don't have the "experience" to teach my kids, whether it be having been homeschooled personally or having a teacher's training. It's totally not that I don't want to do it. It's just a host of emotions that I've been experiencing the last month or so while other people's kids are SO excited to go back to public school, and other homeschool families are enrolling at Valley Academy (public school supplement to homeschooling). We are still doing Co-op, but everything else is just at home.

Anyway, Thursday I took the girls to the bank to sign some papers for co-op ('cause I'm the treasurer this year! Yikes!) and the lady was asking Melia about school. I was so blessed by Kiera's enthusiasm when she pipes up "We do homeschool!" Then the lady talked a little bit about how her son begged her at a young age to homeschool him, but she didn't. And later that same day at work another gal was telling me about how her son had begged her to homeschool him, but that she didn't because she didn't feel equipped.

Today I finally got the overall understanding that God is providing me with encouragement. Both these ladies seemed like they regretted not homeschooling their kids, and here I have the opportunity to do this, from the beginning, with plenty of time to find the process that works while still enjoying the time with my children. Plus, the whole point is not to raise the smartest kids in the world, but to raise up our family to LOVE and FEAR and OBEY the Lord! Amen!!!!

HE is Good and Faithful, and we are Blessed!

Blah Blah, Part Two

I apologize. I didn't mean to give the impression that I would quit blogging. Just that I won't be fitting it in a whole lot right now. Our September has been Crazy busy, and for every day we're doing stuff, the house gets messier :-) I just can't seem to keep up with that, much less telling you about the fun we've been up to. Here's a few fun things though...

In the mornings, if Isaac wakes up happy and we can hear him in there talking to himself, I'll let the girls go chat with him while I make his bottle. (If he's mad, they don't want to! They hate the screaming as much as I do!) I love how Kiera goes in: She throws open the door and runs in yelling "TA DAAA!"

Our bug collection has grown a bit. We now have two praying mantises, one barn spider, two male black widows and one female with an egg sack. (Duck tape. Sealed tight with duck tape.) We feed them all the time; thankfully, at night it's easy to catch moths and other spiders. Melia in particular is obsessed with her "pets." So Gabe showed her a video online of a pet he thought she would really, REALLY like. And he was right. She went nuts over it. Yeah. I'm thrilled. Jumping for joy I tell ya.

Guess what it is?
A tarantula.

Blah Blah Blah....

I can't believe almost a whole week has gone by without me posting anything... I'm stuck in this rut of "Yea, I could post that, but who really cares?" :-) Plus, the card reader refuses to read my memory card from my camera... so there's pics just waiting to be enjoyed, except it says they're not *really* there..

So, I'm here. Hi.

See you later... Maybe...

Bizarre Illness?

We've been crazy busy lately! Worked Thurs-Fri, Saturday picked peaches w/ Rennea and Annie then planned on canning pears at Annie's but they were too green, so ran back home and grabbed scrapbooking stuff (had to dig it out from under Gabe's reloading stuff!) then back to Annie's and actually got 8 pages done! Then Sunday we went to church and headed up to spend the afternoon w/ Mom and Dad, Gma Elliott, and Dwight and Carol at Thousand Trails, then Monday canned said peaches w/ Rennea and Annie, plus dinner tonight at the Visschers w/ the Sheets and Foxes. Whew! Would you believe me if I said my house is a disaster zone? :-)

Anyway, about my mysterious illness...
Sunday night we were leaving Thousand Trails, heading home and I had a lovely migraine cooking. It was just me and the kids, Gabe's had worked but was at home when we left. After I texted him that we were heading home, I pulled out of the parking lot onto the road. I drove maybe a mile before I pulled over and texted him again, asking him to pray for me as I was feeling nauseated, plus the migraine. Not long after that I was pretty sure I was gonna end up pulling over so I could throw up, I felt so sick.

Mile after mile, it was from one breath to the next, keeping my eyes on the road and my mind on breathing slowly. I pulled over going down Tumwater Canyon because I was just on the verge of puking, and there is not many places on that road to actually pull off! I got two cups and a ziploc bag ready for immediate grabbing in the car since even though I was chilled, shaking, and terribly sick, I still didn't throw up. I drove all the way home like this. I called Gabe as I was leaving Leavenworth to make sure he was home so he could get the kids out of the car when I arrived.

When I did arrive, I could barely walk I felt so weak. I knew I still had a migraine, but wasn't noticing it so much since I was trying not to focus on how I felt, just on driving straight and being safe. I'm so thankful Gabe was home- he got the kids in bed and fixed me right up with a trash can next to the bed and everything! Unbelievably, I slept really good through the night and never did throw up. I tried to take everything slowly this morning (Monday) but ended up feeling pretty normal by the time we made it up to Rennea's to can peaches.

So- in you'all's experience, would this meet the requirements for migraine-induced nausea? That's our best guess, since we were thinking if I'd had food poisoning, I'd have actually thrown up, plus possibly had more lovely bathroom-type symptoms... Almost too much information, right? :-) It was just so weird: so miserable, yet over fairly quickly....

I nearly wrecked us

Wednesday, after Gabe was done with whatever training he was doing at work (it's a lot lately) we headed up to Dave and Karla's to glean pears. On the way up there, I asked Gabe to put some more fun ring tones on my new phone, and after he did that we got started into a game of "name that show" with the theme songs. (I love that game! It's so fun!)

At one point, Gabe played "I think we're alone now" by Tiffany. You know the intro with the drums? We were giggling at Melia rockin' out in the back of the car and Gabe said, "Oh, look at Isaac."

I turned my head, and suddenly lost control... of myself. I couldn't breathe, I was laughing so hard I was crying, and crying so hard I couldn't see. Literally. Thankfully we were driving through Entiat at the time, so I was only going 40ish instead of 60ish.

Picture this: Isaac strapped into his carseat, so he can't move very much. What he can move is his shoulders. Imagine the beat to the song (you know it, don't pretend you don't!), and picture his little shoulders rockin back and forth to the beat. He was BEYOND cute! SSSOOOO FUNNY!

I told Gabe I can't blog this (because it's his request that I blog how I almost wrecked my car) without a little video clip of him dancing... Gabe's not sure he can do that to his son, catching forever how he danced to Tiffany... oh, the humiliation... :-)

Life Lessons: Eggs

A few days ago, I found the naughty renegade chicken's nest. I shot a pic with my phone and sent it to Gabe, only to hear back that he had found it 3 days earlier. He thought he sent me a picture, but I never got it. :-)

Today, the girls and I went to work cleaning it out with the plan to mark a few eggs and put them back to encourage her to keep laying there. They brought in a bucket of eggs, and I set about to washing them in the sink. I just figured that it was safer to count them all as too old, so I had no plans to use any. But as they were soaking in the bucket, I noticed that some floated, and some sank. Knowing this must mean something, I googled it.


Apparently, if you need to test your eggs (this counts for refrigerated eggs as well) put them in a deep bucket or bowl of water (I read both cold and room-temperature). If the eggs lay flat on the bottom, they are very fresh. If they sink, but one end floats, they are still usable. If they float off the bottom at all, they are bad. And I learned that if they are strong floaters, they will also be strong smellers when I toss them in the trash!

This one had part of the shell break off, but the membrane stayed intact- you can see how the inside has solidified. Bad eggs are lighter and feel like something solid is inside when you shake them.
Anyway- the girls had a ball learning and testing eggs. Oh, and if they are really bad, sometimes they will EXPLODE, releasing an amazing aroma :-)