The One with a Facebook Quiz

This is funny... it's a facebook quiz. Usually they are a hoot and the results are rarely ever 'me'... but this one has me pegged pretty well. There is nothing here I don't agree with... except I rarely buy organic because it's too spendy!!

Your Result: Kind Of Crunchy
You lean more toward Attachment Parenting, natural births, homepathic remedies, and living green! You tend to question modern medicine and mainstream parenting. You tend to delay vaccines or use an alternate schedule. You aren't bothered by the fact that people tend to question your parenting style. You feel strongly about the way you're raising your kids. You believe that it's our duty to make the earth a better place for our children by being more eco-friendly. You buy organic foods whenever you can and you use cloth diapers or seriously considered it. You've also considered homeschooling. When people see you with your baby you're usually wearing her in a sling or wrap. You tell new moms who complain about lack of sleep to try co-sleeping with baby and let them know how much you loved co-sleeping. You believe in breastfeeding and baby led weaning, but to a point. And you'll nurse in public but modesty is important to you. You aren't afraid to disagree with your Dr about delaying solids or vaccines. You don't like to let your baby cry and cry-it-out methods make you cringe. However, if nothing else is working you are willing to try it once the baby reaches a certain age. You read different books about parenting and take what you feel will work for you and your family. You tend to believe in trusting your instincts when it comes to raising your kids.

The Foggy One

I'm just going to put this out there and see if it helps me.

I feel the fog of PPD rolling in and I refuse to allow it. I thought I was safe this time. I have been feeling so good, so clear, so free. And lately I literally feel as tho a fog is rolling in over me. My brain is foggy, I'm mixing up words and burning things... I'm absentminded and seem to be thoughtless, tho I'm not meaning to be. I am a little bit angry about this. I was feeling so, so very good.

I know how to combat it. I've done this before. I know what needs to be done... I just don't want to have to think about it and make it happen.

The One With School, Housework & Life

Today is another rough day. What is up with this week? I'm exhausted... and spent. I'm not sure now if it's ME or the children. I'm just spent & desperately needing some air.

I'm attempting to keep up on the housework, but I'm amazed at how quickly it seems to be piling up these days. I get the dishes done and then cook lunch and do the dishes, then cook dinner and do the dishes, then eat dinner and do the dishes.... and then there's laundry, toy clean up, sweeping (2-3x/day!) and no time for vacuuming, dusting, window washing... eek! I love walking into the kitchen and have it sparkling... but it doesn't stay that way for long.

Levi finished his math for the year today!!!! I'm so proud of him. He saw that he "only" had 10 pages left, so he plugged away and got them all day. I'm shocked... he did great!

James is almost done math... and pretty soon all we'll have left is science & history. The easy stuff. I'm so excited about that.

Yesterday was a rough day for parenting. The kids were ALL argumentative, whiny, & disobedient, except for Alyssa... she was actually in a good mood all day.

It came to a head at dinner when James refused to do the dishes again. It was AWFUL. He just wouldn't stop and I was exhausted and yelling. Finally I sent him to bed w/ no dinner at 5:30. I have never ever ever done that.

Around 6 I went by his room and felt prompted to go in despite my still lingering anger. So I opened the door and saw him laying on the bed still. I went to him and sat down. He was really upset and said "I feel like Jesus isn't in my heart anymore because I said and did a lot of bad things." Talk about breaking a Mama's heart. So the fighting of the day turned into a lesson about how Jesus loves us no matter what we do and how He doesn't leave our hearts just because we sin. I explained to him that all those naughty things that he did that day were already punished because Jesus took his punishment by dying on the cross. We prayed together to ask Jesus to forgive BOTH of us (I know I was out of line w/ the yelling and frustration). I hugged him and let him get up for dinner and a movie.

It's amazing how that turned around so unexpectedly into a lesson about Jesus' love and forgiveness.

The One With the Meanings

So James came up to me and asked if I could find out what his name means. So we spent a little time this morning going over their names. We found out some neat things. (BTW... I use my children's middle names on this blog so if the meanings seem 'off' that's why....) I used this website: www.name-meanings.com The meanings were a little different than the ones I've seen in the past...

Here are the meanings for our family:
DH ~ God's Gift; United
Me ~ Servant of God; Pretty One; Lamb
DS1 ~ Who is like God?; United
DS2 ~ Gift of God; Supplanter
DD ~ Sweet Melody; Consecrated to God; Lamb
DS3 ~ Honorable Ruler; God's Word
DD2 ~ Pure Pretty One; Rational; Grace of God

I found it interesting and ca actually see how those things fit some of our personalities pretty well :)

The One Where I'm Forced to Go Green

I realized this morning that I'm being 'forced' to be more 'green'. I thought we had run out of paper towels about a month ago and being cheap, I didn't feel like wasting our $ on more. So I decided to see how long I could go without them... Apparently it's been a month and I haven't missed them! We use napkins for faces and rags for cleaning. I did find a half roll in the basement and used it as baby wipes in a pinch. So I guess I DID use it... but if it had been the baby and not the toddler I would have used a washcloth. The idea of wiping toddler poo w/ a washcloth made me squeamish.

Then on Wednesday our microwave quit working! I don't know what happened to it. Matt was home Tuesday night and said it was acting weird... and the next day it just quit working. So now I'm going to see how long I can go w/out a microwave. It's an adjustment tho. I wanted to make a cup of tea this evening and when I realized I'd need to find and wash the tea pot and boil the water on the stove I opted for a glass of water instead. And Friday nights are usually leftovers night because we're exhausted from Friday School... and I realized I had no microwave... so I heated up the leftover spaghetti on the stove. The kids thought it was fine.

So in a way I'm being forced to be more green... but it's ok with me. I was already heading that way anyway. It's more my poor hubby who is having a hard time adjusting....

The One Written Outside

I'm blogging from the beautiful outdoors. I was curious to see if my router would work out in the back yard and it does!! Yay. Not that I plan to use this outside much, but nice to know :)

We've had a busy day... and haven't even gotten to our schoolwork yet! Since everyone was sick over the past week or so we have gotten a little behind on the housework. So today we got to it and cleaned, decluttered and scrubbed. The house looks great now.. tho the kitchen still needs to be mopped. I'm thinking about taking today off from school... it's so beautiful outside that I think we need to just live out here today. Although the bees are also enjoying this beautiful day and Levi is having a rough time with that. I've never seen him so keyed up. He's bouncing and acting very nervous. We talked a little and I tried to show him one of the bees up close, but he was too freaked. And he's not even the kid who has been stung!! I wonder if getting stung would calm his fears or make them worse??

We had a wonderful Easter celebration at my Moms. I really enjoy it when the whole family gets together... especially when we are able to relax and play game and just enjoy each other's company. We didn't have time to color eggs though, so the kids & I added that to today's 'jobs'. It was a fun job.... and we did it outside in this beautiful weather. :)

Now it's lunchtime... and because of the bees we're going to head inside for lunch. I can only imagine how Levi would act if a bee got near his sandwich!!!

The One With the Headache

I wish I had stuck w/ my usual echinacea, cal/mag/zinc regimen when the kids were sick. But I didn't. And now I'm nursing a major sinus headache. I can't remember the last time my head hurt this bad. It's so bad I took tylenol and I never take things when I'm nursing. Unfortunately it's not touching the pain.

Now if only the baby would stop crying... maybe it would be a little better then.

The Fourth One About Hair

And today's hairstyle... This took about 15 minutes to do... and my battery died on my camera so you can't really see the buns that well, but you can see the twisted weaves. :)

The One About Curriculum

As much as I like the idea of having a little more freedom in learning I have to have a curriculum for my family. I'm just not organized enough to put together everything that they all need and still ahve time to get the other things I need to get done done. ANYWAY... we had great success with A Beka this year so I decided to go ahead and look into it again for this year. I found that, as a homeschooler, if I ordered next years book this month I'd get FREE shipping! YAY! I don't have time to make it to one of their book viewings. So I calculated everything up, looked on ebay and found almost nothing so I decided to go ahead and order the book. I got all the school books I need for all 3 of the olders (1, 2 and 3 grades) for less than $300!! That included an art book for each of them just for fun. I'm super excited about it! And the nice thing is... they are ordered. They are paid for and I don' t have to stress about it!!! Yay!

The Somewhat Random One

I think we're on the mend! Still coughing and sneezing, but brighter eyes and more smiles this morning. Praise the Lord!! I'm grateful we haven't been sick all winter, but really dislike it when we do.

I'm listening to "Siblings Without Rivalry" on tape right now. It's been a fairly good "read". It's made me think about how I interact with the children and how much or little I step into fights and if I pit them against each other w/out realizing it. So I've been putting it to practice... Levi and James were outside playing basketball and James is much better than Levi at it. Levi was angry and came in pouting. Before I listened to the book I would have tried to make him feel better by saying things like "but you are good at piano and reading". Instead I just stoood there and listened quietly. He stomped off and pouted a little more. Then came back and said, "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. I have fun playing it and it's just a fun game." and that was that. He hasn't been upset that James is better than him at it since. Another thing I did was have James make a list of all the things he can do when he's bored. He had a tendancy to pick on his siblings when he is bored and it's really frustrating for all of us. So I mentioned that maybe he should make a 'bored list', which he refused at first, but then when I wasn't paying attention he made one. Lol! He came up with some good things on his 'bored list'. :)

Beth & I have continued to do her hair in neat hairstyles... but we've been coming up with our own. I'll have to take a few pictures. Some of the ones I've found on the blogs are very complicated and I just don' thave the time for them, so I tweak them. I've found that I really enjoy coming up with new styles for her hair. Now if only Alyssa would grow some I could do matching hair-dos for them.

The One With the Sound of Music

What do you do when you're exhausted from being up with a sick baby all night? Literally. All. Night. You watch movies. lol. I think we're going to have a movie day. It's only 8:25 am and we just popped in "The Sound of Music". I love this movie... it's my 'go to' when I'm exhausted or sick.

The One About the Nasty Cold

*cough* *sniffle* *snort* *aaaa---chhhooooooo*

These are the sounds coming from the other room. All 5 of my little ones have a nasty cold. It started w/ Sammy & immediately was croup for him. Poor guy was so sick and could hardly breathe. Alyssa has a fever and is sooo clingy. I can tell she feels awful, poor baby. Now the older 3 have it as well, but it doesn't seem as bad in them. And I'm achey, sore throat and exhausted... but it could have more to do w/ the fact that I've had very little sleep over the past week. I heard it can last 10-14 days (or at least that's how long it has lasted for the family that we got it from...)

I guess when you don't feel well you can fall asleep anywhere...

The Third One About Hair

Today's hair-do... she really wanted to keep the curl from yesterday's hair style, but wanted it fixed again w/ ribbons... so here's what I came up with. Oh and a picture of Sammy just cause he wanted a picture of him. :)

The Second One About Hair

We decided to try another hairstyle today. Again, I didn't do it wet. I really need to... I think it'll make a huge difference. So here's the style we did. She loves it :)

The First One About Hair

A friend of mine directed me to this blog: http://hair4myprincess.blogspot.com/ So Beth and I looked through the pictures and she chose the hairstyle to the left. It took me longer than it should have... and I learned that we definitely need to do it when her hair is wet (she has sooo many whispy hairs!) and that we need smaller pony tail holders. But it's cute and she feels pretty. :)