The ants go marching...

Mikey has "ant-bite disease." He is convinced of it, and you shouldn't come near him because you might catch it. Should you catch "ant-bite disease" from Mikey you will instantly become ant-fodder. They will be able to sniff you out from miles away and they will swarm to your ankles, nibbling their way up your legs. Poor kid has had more ant bites than the rest of us combined.

Apparently I got too close to Mikey, I think I have the disease. Until yesterday I had only been bitten by little bitty northern ants, and they aren't really that mean. As a matter of fact you have to provoke those northern ants to make them bite you, which I did by throwing burning garbage into their ant hill. (I was in like 5th grade or something...nobody ever accused me of being a smart child.) But these southern ants, even the little black ones, are really flesh-eating little monsters! I got three ant bites yesterday, two on my foot and one on my ankle.

Now keep the ant bites in mind as I tell you the rest of my story. These events will seem unrelated, and maybe they are, but it is almost four o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep, so everything seems related at this point!

Michael took me on a hot date tonight. We went and ate at a local seafood joint where I had two big Dr. Peppers to drink. Then we went to see Night at the Museum 2, where we split another gigantic Dr. Pepper. If you know me well, you know that my max is one soda a day, or I am up ALL NIGHT LONG...literally. So we came home, got the kids in bed and went to bed ourselves. I was trying really hard to fall asleep, and dozed off a few times. Ella is getting teeth and is very restless tonight, so that didn't help.

Then my foot, the one where the ants ate my flesh, started itching. Not just regular itching, burning itching. I tried to ignore it. I tried to rub it a little. I wasn't going to cave and start scratching. I tried to think of other things, I caved, I started scratching. Then the burning got worse. I thought to myself how ridiculous it was to lay there scratching, why not just go rub some benadryl on it. I got up, went to the medicine cabinet...no benadryl. But wait...there is some orajel...would that work? Well it was worth a try, right? At 3 am anything seems logical...so I rubbed the orajel on my foot, and on my ankle. Then I thought, these aren't just any little bitty ant bites, these are flesh eating ants, and they sting really bad...I better use some more, so I used more, a lot more. Feeling like I had really done some good, I laid back down in bed. The stinging didn't stop...give it time, wait for it, wait for it...still no relief. I decided to get out of bed and work on my tooth unit for the Homeschool Share Contest. When I stood up, a funny thing happened, I COULDN'T FEEL MY FOOT! Except for the stinging part. To top it off, as I sit here, I have been biting my nails, and now my lips are numb...I forgot to wash my hands after putting the orajel on my foot.

So here I sit at 4AM with a stinging club foot, numb lips and NO SLEEP, thanks to the flesh-eating ants and my Dr. Pepper binge this evening...

Giveaway

A Soft Place to Land is having a giveaway for Lewa's designs, a vinyl decal company. If you leave a comment, you are entered to win a dandelion decal. If you blog about it you get to choose between the 3 cute decals below...to take home, for FREE! I like the birdie, in the etched glass color, to put on Haley and Ella's window.

Telling time

Mikey has trouble telling time, partially because I haven't worked with him much, partially because he just doesn't get it. So for a little practice we headed outside today.

What you need: sidewalk or driveway, sidewalk chalk, something to be hour and minute hands (I used foam, but sticks would work great.)
First I had the kids tell me what time they wanted it to be, and then I told them where to lay. You will notice the list of times down the right side of the picture. I wrote those out before hand and when I was done "reviewing" with Mikey we started working on the list. Haley had a short, fat piece of foam for the hour hand, and I had a long skinny piece of foam for the minute hand. Using the list on the side, Mikey told us where to put the hands. When he got it correct, he crossed that one off the list with the chalk.



Then he wrote down some times, and Haley and I had to place the hands on the clock, while he "checked our work."

Project rating:

Supplies: minimal, on hand

Execution: beyond easy

Mess factor: some chalk on hands and clothes

Fun factor: enjoyed by all!!

Did it teach the lesson: YES!! Mikey does have trouble but he loved the hands-on portion of this game, and it totally reinforced the concepts.

Side notes/learned by experience: They had more fun with the foam hands than they did laying on the concrete "being" the hands. You could easily do this on the sidewalk with multiple, mini-clocks.

Two tutes: cut-off shorts with different trims

You can turn a drawer full of these:


The original idea came from these cute-patooty ribbon capris at Make It and Love It. So by combining this tutorial from Creative Little Daisy, and making my own extra wide bias tape (for the khaki pair), with this tutorial from Angry Chicken, how to sew bias tape without swearing...I ended up with the other two pairs of shorts. The middle pair with the pink trim is just grosgrain ribbon folded in half and sewed on there. Hiding the rough edges on the end was kind of tricky for a beginner like me. But if I figured it out...so can you!!

Fun stuff to do with kids

• use a bucket of water and some paint brushes to paint the sidewalk, the house,the cars, and anything else you can think of
• start a journal or scrapbook documenting your summertime fun
• start a nature diary
• play kick the can
• start a bug collection
• read books to neighborhood kids
• find shapes in the clouds
• glue noodles into a design on a paper
• play hopscotch
• play jacks
  

Family Friday!

Haley has proven herself over and over to be a sparkle-lovin,' pink-wearin,' princess of a girl. And her latest obsession just confirms it all the more. She loves to spend her money on flowers, flowers to decorate her room, flowers to give when we go to people's houses, flowers for me for mother's day, flowers for everyone in their favorite color. It is soooo sweet, I just love it.


We are going on week two of potty training and...it is going great!! After a relative few accidents the first week, and LOTS of reminders to go sit on the potty, it finally clicked for him yesterday! He told me all day when he needed to go, and not a single accident. We still do diapers at night, and when we go out and about, but here's to progress!! It will be nice for me and my pocketbook to only have one in diapers! Anyway, he clearly did not want me to take his picture, but was fine with it afterward when he was getting his candy for going on the potty!

And my adorable Ella. Every time I look at her I can't help but think how much I have to treasure these toddler days with her. She is growing and changing and learning so quickly. She is saying lots of words now. Mama, Dada, uh-oh, night-night, please, thank-you, doe-doe (dog), and she barks like a dog, no-no. And she is into EVERYTHING. Every time I turn around she has pulled clothes out of drawers, toiletries out of cabinets, Tupperware out of the kitchen, crayons off the shelf, recipe boxes out of the pantry, papers, stickers, DVDs, the keyboard, the list goes on...

And Mikey, I didn't take any pictures of him this week. His shining moment for the week was when he was playing outside and decided he didn't want to come inside to go potty, so he peed on Jeremiah! I can't even pretend to know what was going on in his brain, but he did suffer some serious consequences...can you believe it?!

We are gearing up for a THREE DAY WEEKEND!! I can hardly wait to have Michael home for more than 2 hours in the evening and plan on doing just about nothing except enjoying some family time!

Hope your week was wonderful, and enjoy your weekend!

Fun stuff to do with kids

• make spinners
• make fish out of ribbons
• make a lapbook
• go on an audition, who knows what talent you might discover in your child (or in you!)
• lots of places have horse-drawn carriage rides, go for one of those
• hold hands
• give hugs
• give kisses
• come up with a way to say "I love you" in secret code, that only the two of you will know
• jump rope
• check out a joke book from the library, and take turns reading it to each other
  

Prayers for my family

Title: What Shall I Do?
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
It is not always possible to know whether the source of an idea or deed is God or Satan, since God sometimes covers Himself in cloud and Satan is often an angel of light. It is, however, always possible to trust the Shepherd who has promised to lead us in paths of righteousness. We must do the thing that appears to be right to do at the right time and do it by faith. That is, we do it with an honest desire to obey God and a willingness to have what He wills us to have, or not to have what He does not will us to have. If it were not for uncertainties, we would have no need to walk by faith.
Show me the way that I must take;
to Thee I offer all my heart.
Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God.
Keep me safe, O Lord, for the honor of thy name.
--(Ps 143:8,10,11 NEB)

Free chocolate!

The two best things in the world come together, chocolate and FREE! Register at the Mars Chocolate Relief Act site. This Friday and next Friday they are giving away 250,000 chocolate bars each day! Wow, generous!

Family Friday!

Does my family know the way to my heart or what?! Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! For mother's day Michael got me the Pepsi and rented "Marley and Me," awesome movie. I also got to go on a shopping trip to Target all by myself!! Mikey got me the Snickers bar, he is convinced it is my favorite candy. Haley bought me the pink roses and Jeremiah the Dove chocolates. They each took their hard earned money and chose something they knew I would enjoy. I had the day off, no cooking or dishes or laundry. And my favorite part was the extra hugs, kisses and kind words. If only the whole world could only be as lucky (codeword for blessed) as me.
Jeremiah is sharing some of his breakfast with Ella, he really does take good care of her. He is a pretty compassionate little guy.

Water fight on Saturday, I told them they could fill up their guns in the faucet outside. This led to, two inches of standing water on the patio and three drenched children. Not what I had in mind at the beginning, but they had fun!

This was a slow, and uneventful week. We had to say goodbye to our house guest. Mr. Kisman is a good friend and we have no doubt that God brought him here to be a blessing to our family, to ease our transition and to remind us that true friendship knows nothing of distance.

Speaking of transition, this one has not been easy for us. Michael is questioning how well this job fits with our priorities, and so another change may be in our future. In some ways we are back to square one, waiting for some directive from the Lord. In the meantime we are trying to make the most of the time we are here, and feel incredible grateful for the generosity and the opportunity afforded by this job. Pray for us, especially for Michael. And in the words of my good friend "pray that the kids and I would be his number one supporters all the way through."

Hope your week was wonderful!

Kaleidocycles

These are pretty cool! You upload four photos here at a site called Fold Play (they have some other fun stuff on there, but I wouldn't let my kids peruse the site). Then print out a page with the photos all jumbled up, then score, then cut, then fold, then glue, and voila!! Your very own kaleidocycle, it flips around and shows a different picture each time you flip it.

Project rating:

Supplies--minimal, had on hand

execution--medium difficulty

mess factor--few scraps of paper

fun factor--finished product is great fun

learned by experience--must make good score lines, must let glue dry before moving on to each step, and especially before you play with it!! I used regular printer paper, cardstock would've been better. SCORING IS KEY!

Building activity

 

We studied the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis this week.  The kids built towers with crackers and peanut butter.  This is easily adaptable to any building or construction lesson.  

You need:

Plastic knives or spoons

peanut butter

crackers

Directions:
really?  I don't think you need them.
Although I started by giving them the instructions in Spanish, to reinforce the fact that when God confused their language it was impossible to continue work on the tower.

Project rating:

supplies--minimal, easy to gather, had all on hand

execution--also very easy, kids needed little or no guidance to complete the project

mess factor--using the trays made clean up easier, kids hands and faces needed cleaning up (especially after Mikey tried to shove the whole tower in his mouth at once, see bottom right photo.)  overall, clean up was easier than I anticipated.

fun factor--definelty worth any mess

did it teach the lesson--yes, especially adding the directions in a foriegn language.

sidenotes--I highly recommend using trays underneath ALL your kids projects,  it is something we started recently and it makes clean up sooooo much easier.  I also gather my supplies on the trays so it is easy to see who has what and who still needs what.  We got our trays from a friend who works at the hospital, she just brought some that they were going to throw away (the trays were used to hold sterile tools) but I have also seen them at teacher stores and ones that are not disposable at walmart.  I love these hospital ones because they are HUGE and contain big messes.  And they wipe up easily.

Family Friday

This week started out with a visit from my dad, he was on his way home to Florida after a trip to the middle (Kansas). On my list of good things about living in Houston is the ability to see my family more often. We have seen them three times since we moved here in December, That is about 3 times more than I normally would have by now! I am kicking myself for not taking any photos while he was here, but the kids loved playing pennies with him (a game that is really supposed to be played with marbles) and Jeremiah would not leave Papa's side. As long as I can remember my dad has worn shirts with a single pocket on the front and it is always full of stuff, just like every other kid I know, Jeremiah had fun digging around in that pocket. If you are reading this, thanks for coming dad!


We also finished up with AWANA this week. Mikey completed his first Sparky book, and the review, quite an accomplishment for missing 6 weeks due to the move. And Haley pie also finished her Cubby book this year, in spite of playing catch up. She made improvements by leaps and bounds this last few months, we are so proud of her.


Haley was reading to her birdie friends at rest time one afternoon. Isn't that just so Cinderella-ish of her? Little forest friends perched on her shoulders. Jeremiah figured out how to be spieman (that is spiderman in Jeremiah speak.) by running around with a paper streamer cape. He thought it was awesome, he said so.

Hope your week was a wonderful as ours, and Happy Mother's Day tomorrow!

Prayer for myself

Title: Time for God's Will
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.

Lord, help me to take your yoke on my shoulder, not a yoke of my own making. May I learn from You to be gentle and humblehearted. May I find that your load is light.

Two tutes: cereal box mini-notepad

Check out The Long Thread every Monday for her Make-it Monday feature. A while back it was cereal box journals.

Add cereal box journals to Plumpudding's stitched paper pocket booklets, and you have these little beauties, perfect for the kids to play with, or to throw in the diaper bag. Or to give to a niece who is obsessed with writing and sketching.

And just because I can hear the words from Almonzo's mother in Farmer Boy running through my head..."Waste is sin." Here are some bookmarks using the leftovers, also from Plumpudding.

Turn your cereal boxes into:
Puzzles
A Scrapbook
Placemats
A clock
A wallet
Flipflops and Applesauce (no, don't turn your cereal boxes into flipflops or applesauce, but go see what she has done with some cereal boxes)

I get mail, therefore I am

I won this bag in a giveaway from Joy's Hope. I heart her blog, and not just because she sent me a cute bag. There are some awesome tutorials, like this one, and this one, and this one. She also has an Etsy Shop (where you could buy one of these bags.) My favorite part of her blog is how it got it's name, heart-wrenching stuff, you should read it.


Thank you for the bag, it was generous and I LOVE IT! (I write that as if she reads my blog!)

Nehemiah and Daniel both offered up prayers to our God for Israel. Even though they were years apart, the prayers are very similar. Read Nehemiah 1:5-11 and Daniel 9:4-19. Both of these men aproached God knowing He is a God of mercy. As we pray for our country we can use these passages as a model for lifting America up to God.

Father in heaven, you are a great and awesome God. Listen today as your servants pray. Lord as a nation we have turned from your ways, and it has led us to a scary place. God forgive us our sins, cleanse us from our unrighteousness, turn away from your wrath, not because of our righteousness, but because of Your mercy, because of Your holy name. Your gracious hand was in the founding of our country, and Your gracious hand can lead us back into a place where we obey your commands. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

There is a great contest going on at Homeschool Share. This is an excellent resource for homeschooling, I stumbled across it while doing some research on lapbooks, there is a wealth of information to glean from this sight. Enjoy!

Decorated binder clips

Trim your paper to fit the front and back of the binder clip. Apply modge podge to one side at a time and cover with the strips of paper.

Once the glue or modge podge is dry decorate with more paper, stickers or other embellishments. Word to the wise, if you are putting names or words on yours, make sure the silver clippy "leg" part is pointing downwards before you put your words on. Otherwise when they are actually clipped onto papers, the words will appear upside down. Click on the collage and look at first photo, the word Ta-Da is upside down.

Wrap in clever packaging, and deliver! We gave some of these as teacher gifts, and some to my home schooling mommy friend.


Words to use:
child's name
teacher's name
days of the week
to call
to file
to read
to send
to copy
to grade
graded
small photos of animals, flowers, things you collect


Here are some more ideas:
Fabric covered at How About Orange
Two Peas in a Bucket
With ribbon at Scrapjazz
Binder clips and lots of other cute stuff at Emuse

Fun stuff to do with kids

• read a kid magazine
• read a book out loud together
• listen to a book on tape
  
• play dress up
• play dolls
• play cowboys and indians
• play outside with the pet
• get a pet
• build forts, inside or out
• do a puzzle
• do brainteasers
• paint your toenails
  

Prayers for my family

John 13:34  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

Lord you gave us a perfect example of love in Your Son, Jesus.  He didn't give lip service, he gave real service.  He acted on His love, even to the point of death on a cross.  God, motivate us to love like Jesus loved, with words accompanied by action and self-sacrifice.  In Jesus precious name we pray, Amen.

Family Friday

Big excitement around our house on Monday...Ella's first stitches!! She hit her head on the brick step outside our back door. Poor girl. She screamed all the way to the emergency room, and then was fine as soon as we got there. She screamed again the whole time they were giving her the stitches, I probably would too. The first place I went to was a little emergency clinic near our house, but it was closed!? It didn't open until noon, as if emergencies don't happen before noon?! So we loaded back up into the car and headed to the next closest place, it worked out great because it was a newer, cleaner hospital and they weren't busy at all so we got right in and right out!


Haley Pie is our squirly girl, which causes some problems for her at AWANA. We have been teaching and working and disciplining and praying and hoping and practicing self-control for a long time with Haley. We made a deal if she could get through the last 6 weeks of Cubbies without any trouble that she could go on a date with daddy...and it worked! She showed some BIG improvements and reached her goal, this was a major milestone for all of us, and she could only have done it with God working in her little heart, as this does not come naturally for her!

And I realized that I haven't posted anything about our house guest on my blog! Andrew has been staying with us since February, working with Michael. It has been nice to have a friendly face, someone to remind us of home. His being here got us through some of those first difficult weeks being homesick. God is good to send us a friend when we needed it most. Andrew is gearing up to return to Washington, we will miss him hanging around with us, and the kids will miss him too.

Hope your week was as wonderful as ours!