E-mail

My older children have been having fun with their new e-mail addresses which their Papa (my dad) gave them.  Joshua has been sending me e-mails every day. 

I highly recommend every parent find some way to communicate privately with your children.   I've been amazed at some of the thoughts and my children have shown in just a few sentences they have typed to me.  If you are afraid of your children having e'mail, I would recommend setting up an in home mail box.  Where your children can write you a letter each day and maybe let each of them have their own mail boxes where you put their answered letters.  I may do that with my younger children where they can draw pictures for me. 

With my older children I used to have them write me letters in cursive.  It was a practice in reading and writing in cursive.  I would write them a letter to read in cursive and they were to write me back.  Now they are getting practice in typing while writing letters to me and their Papa.  Scott even plans to join in on the e'mails during his lunch break. 

 Hannah and Jonathan do not have complete understand of letter writing.  So I'll probably start working with them on mailing real letters and starting off with an in home mail box where they can "write" me and Daddy.

It's amazing how many subjects we have been adding to our homeschool without the kids even realizing it.  Who says work can't be fun?

High Speed!!!

We are sure moving up in the world.  We now have high speed internet.  This is a video of Elijah that I've loaded on here as a test.  I'm hoping that seeing this on my blog will make it seem more real.  I had a hard time finding a video because I'm usually more concerned about finding good pictures for my blog.  Now I am able to not only view videos but upload videos as well. 

High speed internet isn't the only improvement we made this week.  I also signed us up to recieve garbage service.  This was the first time I had heard of trash pick up called "garbage service".  I was glad that I found out what it was called.  I would have felt funny asking the lady on the phone, "Is this the place that collects trash?"  Instead I saw in the phone book that another company called it garbage service.  So I was able to be far more professional about it.  We will now have our garbage picked up once a week.  I'm very happy about that.  It was getting to be a problem trying to find a good time to take the garbage to the dump.  Scott went to work too early and got off too late to take it for me.  I used to burn the trash but there has been a burn ban and no sign of it being lifted any time soon. Then I tried to get all the trash loaded in the van with the kids and go out of our way to take it to the dump before we had to be at our karate class.  Finally I just made up my mind that I had to do something.  After several phone calls I finally got to the right place and we can have our trash picked up for only $20 a month.   That is well worth it to me. 

The high speed internet is definitely going to be a benefit not only to my own ability to blog and keep in touch with family and friends, but it will help me with homeschooling the kids as well.  We will be able to view more educational videos and not have to wait for everything to download before I'm able to use it.  Now I can just say, "Hey, let's look it up!"  and find the answer to many of our homeschool questions.  This also means I will be able to Skype my brother and his family in France. 

And for everyone else, this means y'all will get to see a few more videos on my blog.  I'll try to take some good ones.  :-)

Another Busy Week

Jonathan, Hannah, and Elijah watching Leap Frog Phonics video.

This has been another busy week and it's not over yet.  Monday, Elijah's second tooth came in right beside the first one.  Tuesday we had our usual karate class that evening. 

Wednesday, was a big day.  Scott was off Wednesday so we went to Houston and took the kids to see the Holocaust Museum.  It was a good learning experience for the kids to see some of the things that we've only talked about and shown them documentaries on before.  Hannah and Jonathan didn't really get a lot out of it, they were a little too young to understand it all, but Joshua and Ruth were old enough to benefit from the lesson.



We also visited a Thai Market that has a restaurant in it.  We ate lunch there and bought a few things from the store.  We finished up our trip with a visit to an accordion store to get a few accessories for Scott's accordion. 

Thursday, was back to work for all of us.  I only had to clean up the fragments of a coffee pot, before taking the kids to karate class.  I had asked before if anyone knew of an unbreakable crockpot, now I am wondering about coffemakers.  Better yet maybe I should replace all my dishes and cookware with unbreakable items.  Oh well, my children come by it honestly.  I told them that accidents happen and I'm sure that won't be the last dish broken.  (Unless I find a full line of unbreakable kitchenware.)  

Today, the kids have their normal school work.  I've been looking into garbage services.  I'm hoping to start having our trash picked up at least once a week.  Trash has really been a problem for me, since there has been a burn ban.  I'm hoping to hear back from the garbage service today and have that solved. 

Tomorrow, we have belt ceremony and cookout with our karate class.  Scott will be receiving a green belt.  Ruth and Joshua will be receiving yellow belts.  Hannah will be receiving her white/yellow belt.   

Then, I will be preparing my Sunday School lesson for Sunday.  That is pretty much this week in a nutshell.  I'll try to remember to post pictures of the belt ceremony tomorrow. 

First Tooth!!!

Elijah eating sweet peas with his first tooth.

Today, I felt Elijah's first tooth as he was chewing on my hand.  I quickly checked his mouth and then showed Scott.  Sure enough his first tooth has come in.  It is just about the same timing as Jonathan's first tooth.  You can check out my post for May 27, 2008 to see what Jonathan looked like back then.

I fed Elijah sweet peas today, which he seemed to enjoy. Towards the end of the jar he started playing with it and sputtering sweet peas at me.  It reminds me of my dad every time I get sweet peas sputtered at me.  My dad always tells the story of my spitting sweet peas at him.  He tells me that one day when he is in the nursing home and I feed him sweet peas that he will spit them at me.  So now whenever I feed my children sweet peas I think of him. 

Well it's been a good weekend now to begin a new week.  We'll be starting a new health class this week in our homeschool day.  I'll post more about how that goes later.

Living and Reliving Memories

Elijah has been growing so fast and it's hard to get enough pictures posted.  Wednesday, he had his first bath sitting in the bath tub instead of laying in a baby bath.  He really liked splashing the water with his feet.  He also liked chewing on bath toys and his brush and comb.

The neat thing for me with Elijah is we are still living in the same house as when Jonathan was a baby.  It's like going through some of the same memories.  I'm sure I have this same picture of Jonathan using the same bathring.  Before long I will take a picture of Elijah sitting in the same high chair as well.  It's hard to believe that when we first came here Jonathan wasn't walking yet. 

These repeat memories are kind of neat.  They may seem simple to some who have lived in the same house for most of their children's childhood, but as a Preacher's family we've moved around a lot.  The longest we have stayed at one church was five years and even then we moved into three different homes.  Now you may see why these repeat memories are exciting for me. 

The older three children and Scott passed their belt tests Tuesday.  Everyone there talked about how they can see Hannah being a Sinsei one day.  Jonathan has been enjoying the little kids class.  I've been enjoying helping in the class as well.  For a couple of weeks I wasn't able to participate in all the classes,  Scott's car wasn't running and we had to take turns between the classes.  We were very glad when Monday, Scott fixed the car.  It turned out being the starter that had gone out.  He fixed it at a very good time, since Tuesday we had park day with our homeschool group and karate class following.  Then Wednesday we had Elijah's doctor's appointment.  Then karate on Thursday.  Today, we finally stay home.  Tomorrow, there will be a visiting Sensei from another dojo.    Our Sensei invited the big kids class to participate with the adult class that day.  I will also be working on my Sunday School lesson tomorrow.

And right now Hannah has brought me her book and is ready for her reading lesson.  We are working on the letter E today.  This should be a good weekend.  I'll try to post more soon. 
 

NASA Homeschool Day

Yesterday, we went to visit the NASA spacecenter for their homeschool day.  I was so glad that Scott was able to take part of the day off to go with us.  The kids got a whole lot more out of it with his being there to point things out to them.  And I enjoyed being able to follow along and enjoy watching them soak in the information.

When we first arrived we thought we would be able to get the tickets for a discouted rate at the window.  However they informed us that had to be done online or we pay full price at the window.  I was glad I was able to call my parents who happened to be home to get their help with ordering the tickets online. All we needed was a confirmation number.

I was talking on the phone with my dad a lady came to us saying that their group had one unclaimed adult ticket and they wanted to give it to us.We thanked them and I told my dad make that one less adult ticket. Then right before I gave Dad our debit card information Scott waved tickets at me and I found out somebody gave us two unclaimed children's tickets from their group. I then had Dad redo the whole order and we only had to order two adult tickets. We went there expecting to spend $60 to $70 and wound up only having to pay $30. Our Lord is rich in blessings.

There were a lot of interesting things to see and do. There were some amazing Lego models of castles, knights, and even a dragon. Then we saw all the Rocket displays and lunar modules. We also watched a movie about the life of an astronaut. There were some scales that show your weight on different planets. I won't tell you my weight on Earth much less Jupiter. I think one of my favorite displays was of the inside of one of the space shuttles. It showed all the things they used to live on the shuttle.

We also got to go inside a small dome star display. It was kind of like a miniature planetarium. I think NASA should have a larger planetarium for people to see the stars. Scott and I weren't as impressed with the star presentation, since we had seen the bigger ones before.

We only lost Jonathan twice during the day. The first time he wondered off while we were looking at something he ran back to us scared and crying. I comforted him and told him he needed to stay with us. The second time he got lost Scott ran back to where we last saw him and found him smiling about it. I'm not sure whether I prefer him being scared of being lost or finding it funny. I guess I prefer him not getting lost to begin with.

We ended the trip allowing the kids to play in the play area. Then it was time to get Scott back to the school where he drives a school bus. Walking back to the car, I asked Jonathan which part he liked best, and he said, "I like the karate." I'm not sure which part he considers the karate part, but that was his opinion. I think the Movie might have been the rest of the kids favorite part. They listed several favorites.

Scott's and my favorite part was finding Jonathan and our least favorite was losing Jonathan. Although we both enjoyed seeing the displays. Next time we want to get back and take the Tram tour of NASA if we are able to go again.

Our week isn't over yet and that was just one of the many activities planned. I actually found out this morning by a church member who stopped by that there is one more activity on Saturday we would normally want to go to. Our local association meeting is Saturday, but again that is just one more thing we can't do at the same time as all of our other activities that are planned at the same time. I think things need to be planned in a more spread out manner but I guess we are the only ones involved with all these particular extracurricular activities.

I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow. If I don't get to then watch for them by Monday when I'll hopefully get to slow down.



Picture taken this morning of Elijah playing.

 Last week was busy, but this week will be even busier.  I don't know why activities seem to all fall on the busiest weeks.  We are actually not going to be able to do it all. There are just too many conflicting activities.  Thankfully I was able to reschedule Elijah's Dr's appointment this week.  His original appt. was the same day we have a homeschool field trip.  Then Saturday there are three separate activities taking place in three different directions.  I had to choose which one we go to.  Scott is a wonderful husband.  He knew exactly which of the activities I really wanted to do and just simply said, "We're going there and the rest can wait.  The kids will be okay."  He is right.  The kids though disappointed that they aren't able to do it all are still happy to be able to do the things we have planned.    I would list the whole itinerary but Scott doesn't like everything published beforehand to the world so I'll just tell about it as it happens.  I'll be posting pictures so keep checking back. 

Big smile for mommy.



Elijah is still growing.  He prefers being upright to laying down sometimes.  I took these two pictures this morning while he was playing on the floor.  I think he likes sitting better because he knows he's not being laid down to sleep and it's easier to see what's going on around him.  He is coming closer to crawling, which will probably be his next milestone.    Now to get his older siblings to quit picking him up as much and handing him everything.