Quote of the Day

Last night Will led us in prayer "Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard is His name..."

I think we need to work on diction.

Quote of the day

Kate

"Mama, do these kinds of things happen in OTHER families?"

This was said while I was digging a half a roll of toilet paper out of the downstairs toilet and plunging trying to stop the toilet as it overflowed.

Our first indication something was amiss was the sound of splash*splash*splash*SPLAT*scream while I was reading history to the kids. It turned out there was water in 2 rooms and pouring over the step into the carpeted familyroom and seeping into the kitchen on the other side.

As we dried up the flood, Kate wondered...is it just us that has these things happen???

Night time prayers

Ds#5's intentions :

...and help Jesus' ouchies not to hurt...

...and help me grow up to be a superhero...

...nd help me kill the naughty guys...

...and help me be a good boy...

...and help Baby Henry not to hurt...

...and help me put money in my piggy bank...

...and help me get to ride a motorcycle to church...

...and help me get to watch a movie...

...and help Jesus make the devil into a good devil...

-------------------
Mama :

What is the agony in the garden?

Ds#5:

Jesus had a bad day and prayed

Quote of the Day

Ds#5

Why are we taking Daddy to work?

Mama

Because his car had to go to the mechanic, a car doctor?

Ds#5, saddly

Does his car need stiches?

Quote of the Day

DS#3 from the other room -

"Mama, what temperature do I cook tomato soup on?"

Me

"Medium"

DS#3

"O.K. Thanks" -- swish, swish, swish

Me thinking to myself...that sound seems familar...

..."WAIT! You can't cook at the stove with ROLLERSKATES on!!"

Quote of the Day

Today, Ds#5 who is potty training, woke up with a dry diaper.
Mama :

Good BOY!! Go potty like a big boy!

I took him to the bathroom and watched him walk in. I didn't stay with him the way I've been insisting the bigger kids do when they take him to the potty.

A few minutes later I heard a blood curdling scream and indistinguishable verbalizations coming from Dd#2.
Mama:

What's wrong?

Dd#2:

He's PEEING in the REFRIGERATOR!!!

Sure enough, he was.

I sent Dd#2 up to her room to compose herself and cleaned up the mess. While I was doing that both the older boys incredulously asked why the 2 year old would do such a thing. I reassured them he wasn't trying to be as naughty as he'd been. I was sure that after walking into the bathroom it occured to him he'd rather spend his time eating just then than going potty. He opened the fridge door and as soon as the cold air hit his naked lower half, his full bladder couldn't be controlled.

I win for having today's oddest quote of the day. When I dreamed of being a wife and a mother, that wasn't one of the phrases I'd anticipated hearing from my children.

Quote of the Day

Dd#1 (holding her note cards she just wrote out for her research paper)

Some of the stuff in here is juicy. On a scale of 1-to-10, it's RAW.

Her report is about martyrs. Should I be worried? hmmm...

We let the kids get their own e-mail addresses

Dave set it up so every e-mail they get in their inbox, I get a copy. I'm getting alot of sister-to-sister mail. I sent Dave a copy of an example of what our 7 year old is receiving (he sent it to himself, apparently unhappy with the amount of e-mail he's not receiving):

From: DS#2
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:12 AM
To: DS#2
Subject: Hello me

Dear me,
hello me I just adore you.

Love your best friend
me.

************
Dave's comment

Well, it IS important that our children
have a good opinion of themselves.

DS#2 - "check"

Quote of the Day

Ds#4 to Ds#3

When we climb around up in the tubes at Burger King they can be Jefferies Tubes

and the platform can be Engineering

and the circle with the window can be The Bridge

and the name of our starship can be Voyager.

(a few days ago)

Ds#4 & Ds#3 to Mama

The wooden trophy shelf keeps falling off our walls. Can we just use it
with our Lego people as a Holodeck?

Do you think they've been watching too much StarTrek lately?

Homeschool Stress

I'm helping with the Banquet For Life (REALLY EXCITED about it!) AND the kids activities have kicked into high gear.
Me to my friend Katie, "Do I go through this much of an adjustment every year?"
Sage Katie advice to me, "EVERY teacher and EVERY student EVERYwhere goes through this EVERY year. You'll adjust."

Whew! I'm glad it's not just ME

Quote of the Day

Ds#4's grammar book:
"Write a sentence telling what you like to do in the wintertime."

I can make snow farts

Mama

YOUNG MAN! Did you write this?

Ds#4

I messed up the line, it's supposed to say snow forts.

Mama (suppressing the giggles)

Well, you forgot a period at the end of a sentence.

Quote of the Day

Nancy blogged about dirt reminding me of our new rocks.

Dave got a delivery of pea gravel on Friday and moved 4 1/2 yards of it to the back yard on Saturday (and complained of pain on Sunday). The kids are in love and I have some girls who just keep laying in it, boys who keep sitting in it, and a baby who keeps running it through his fingers. When expressing how tired I was tonight, Dd#2 told me,

"Just go out and rub your bare feet in the new stones, you'll feel so much better!"

Quote of the Day

Ds#3 to Ds#4 and back again

Remember when we saw him cut him open?

Yeah! And cut him into pieces?...And then we ate him? That was COOL!

Mama (concerned that Dd#1 hadn't been careful of what they saw on TV when she babysat)

What are you two talking about?

Ds#4

When we went fishing with Mark!

(Ds#3's Godfather).

Quote of the Day

Ds#5 has seen the other kids shouting and raising their hands when we suggest something fun ('Who wants to get icecream?' and each of the kids raise their hands and shout 'Me')
Now, he'll suggest what he wants and respond to himself.

Out. ME!!

and raise his hand so we can see him.

Quote of the Day - 2

I know this is our 2nd quote of the day, but while discussing the last quote of the day...

Dd#2

So, they didn't really fall down, they were having an occasion.

Daddy

A WHAT?

Dd#2

That's what Mama said happens when two people sin. They have an occasion.

Daddy looking at Mama dubiously

WHAT?

Mama

She means fornication.

Dd#1

She thought Mama said the sin was for an occasion instead of fornication.

Quote of the Day

The children were watching a show with us that I did not pre-screen. There was one passionate kiss (the extent of the inappropriate content.) The two kissing people, who had been sitting kissing for about 2 seconds, went diagonal and as they were kissing in motion toward a horizontal position went out of sight off the screen. I was blushing inside wondering if I should turn off the TV or discuss it or what when :
Ds#4 as he was laughing hilariously.

Look! The kissed so much they fell unconscious and fell over!

Quote of the Day

This quote is from me ... to me

This whole homeschooling thing is really interfering with my blog!

Quick 2009 update:

• We got a Wii for Christmas -- Dave's hooked and I spend alot of time sayingto the kids, "No, you're not done with ____, so you can't play the Wii."
• This was a miracle Christmas -- we made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve without anyone being sick!!! We were AMAZED! That's the first time since we've had kids that has happened.

(Pic below -- 13 month old baby petting the dog in front of our $12-after-Christmas-tree from last year)

• Baby still isn't sleeping through the night. He eats dinner before bed, but he HATES sitting in his high chair and doesn't have the patience to sit there long. We'll have a couple of good nights and then a couple of weeks of him wanting to nurse in the middle of the night. He's getting skinnier because he's walking and climbing and moving more -- which I knew to expect. I just can't bare the thought of denying him food if he's hungry.
• I'm much busier with kids and homeschooling now that we have a toddler. I'm still sort of shocked how busy I am with just everyday stuff! I really love it, but it feels like I hardly have 2 seconds to grab and think my own thoughts. That's not exactly true, but that's how it feels. Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep at 3:30am and got up -- I realized I could actually use my brain for my own purposes rather than answering the 1,002 questions during the day the kids and phone and e-mail and Dave throw at me.
• I've been fairly anxious about teaching highschool. It's not even that I'm afraid or anything, but -- when we're not getting as much school done as I think we should, now, let alone making things a little more challenging to get ready for highschool...it all seems a little overwhelming -- like I'll never get it all done. I know I'm not supposed to get it all done, I'm just supposed to give my best and let God worry about the outcome...

I'm better at stressing than I am trusting.

• I've been keeping the house cleaner, lately -- that's been quite an accomplishment and it's been no easy task!
• We're supposed to have Dd#1's 13 birthday football party today (we had to reschedule it from last week due to illness), but with the snow and the below zero windchill, I'm not sure if we'll have to reschedule again.
• Our computer is filled up (almost no memory left) so the 42 pictures I've taken over the last month and transferred to the computer and deleted from the camera...didn't get saved by my computer and were lost -- there was a horrible picture of Dave I was going to post on my blog, too -- now I'll have to find a different way to humiliate him.
• We've gotten a slow start back to school from Christmas. I was sick the week we should have been back, so we just did a few things here and there. I feel like we're not home enough to get intensive school done, but I also don't think I'm very efficient when we're home

1. please get the baby out of the toilet
2. I haven't gone to the grocery, so you can't have (fill in the blank)
3. When I said, "put away your coats" it means I shouldn't have to make you stop your reading to put away your boots and gloves, too
4. what do you mean you "lost" your math book -- you haven't taken it out of the house!
5. don't let the baby eat the dog food
6. don't sit in front of the space heater when you have a short sleved shirt on. put a sweatshirt on and if you're still cold, THEN you can sit in front of the space heater.
7. I know you have a sweatshirt in your drawer, I'll come look as soon as I finish reserving the library books for next week.
8. please don't tackle your brother while your sister is trying to read history to you
9. no, you can't make cookies right now, we just started school
10. you'll need to clean up all your school books off the floor because the baby scooched the chair up to your desk and climbed on it and tossed everything out of it
11. shhhhh you can't practice your trumpet while the baby is alseep
12. no I haven't graded your language arts, I'm nursing the baby and I can't manage the book and the baby
13. I don't know what we're having for lunch but it isn't raemen noodles

...none of that gets us any closer to getting school done!

However, at the end of the day when we're discussing a great book we all shared and laughing over the antics of the baby and congratulating one of the kids for their effort in overcoming long division and singing a song we made up and filling Daddy in on our shared day...it's been a wonderful day, afterall.

Quote of the Day

Ds#4

Do you want to know how I got brain damage?

DISCLOSURE : Ds#4 does NOT have brain damage (no matter how much Dave and I may joke about it) the remainder of the discussion entailed a large description of running fast and smacking his head on a wall.

Ds#3

...You might have brain damage, but you can still use your head...

to run into walls with?? I just kept laughing at the absurdity of this discussion, I didn't catch it all...

Quote of the Day

Mama

You know what blind means, don't you?

Ds#3

You don't have the use of your eyes.

Mama

What is deaf?

Ds#3

You don't have use of your ears.

Mama

What is dumb?

Ds#3

You don't have a brain.

Quote of the Day

Ds#3

I like the dog better than the baby.

He didn't say it in a mean way, just conversation. I heartily DISagree, but I'm not an 8 year old brother.