Back and Bigger than ever!

You may have noticed I dropped off the face of the blogging earth… my last post was over a year ago (terrible, I know). I have wanted to write but life seemed to speed by faster than I could catch my breath. Wondering what we’ve been up to? Let’s see if I can sum it up:

• I’ve gone from homeschooling 3 older kiddos, to teaching one K’er. How did this happen? Our oldest is doing independent study overseen by me and the two older boys are now attending our local middle school. That’s a bit of a long story that I will save for another post…
• Our fifth child was born on Easter Sunday, 2013. Meet Jack Alexander! He is named after my Grandfather and he is our 4th boy…

Jack @ 5 days old

• We survived our first deployment. My husband was in Afghanistan from November 2012 thru mid June 2013. Which means he missed most of the pregnancy and the birth. We were so thankful for Skype during these months, especially since we were able to Skype the delivery!
• I was finally able to breastfeed successfully after trying with my previous babies and giving up. I exclusively breastfed for the first 5 months before weaning for personal reasons (again, I will save that story for later). I am so glad I got to!
• My husband reenlisted for another 5 years while he was deployed.
• Joey, our now 5 year old, started Kindergarten at home. We also had his speech evaluated and he will be doing regular therapy, and we have a referral to an OT to check for possible SID.
• Joey also FINALLY is fully potty trained! We struggled for 2 years to get him to go #2 in the potty. We still aren’t sure WHY he had such a hard time, but I sure don’t miss cleaning messy underwear daily!
• I started working towards my Bachelor’s degree, but have had to step away to focus on my family.
• We have a new puppy! He is a 6 month old St. Bernard whom we named Gallifrey. Yes, it’s a reference to Doctor Who :)

While there' has been a lot going on in our family the past year or so, these are definitely the highlights. I will spend my next several posts catching up and sharing what’s been going on with each of us since I’ve been away in more detail. SO many changes! Stay tuned!

Blessings,

Cassie

Can Babies REALLY Learn to Read? (Crew Review)

  There are a lot of programs out there that claim that you can teach babies as young as six months old to read. This is something I admit I have been very skeptical about as I have seen the advertisements here and there in the recent past. Which is exactly why I was so excited to review a really neat product from Brill Kids called Little Reader. I was enthusiastic to see how the program worked and to see how my toddler would react to the lessons.

Little Reader is a computer based program that’s designed to teach your baby (or young child) to read using a multi-sensory, interactive methodology. The software breaks each short lesson down into 3 parts: Word Flash, Multisensory, and Picture Flash. The lessons are designed to be used twice daily and are very short. Each lesson groups the word list into categories, and your child will encounter the same words over and over again, allowing them plenty of exposure to new words. The lessons are fun, age-appropriate, and engaging. There are a plethora of options available allowing you to customize the lessons by choosing at what speed the screens changes, what pictures accompany the words on the screen, and you can even program your very own voice into the lessons! I only played with a few of these options during our review period, but there are plenty of ways for you to make the program work for you and your child.

We received the download version of this program which did not come with any of the optional additional materials (such as readers and flashcards). I used the software with my 2 year old son and within the first few sessions, he was hooked and even threw a fit wanting to continue doing more of the lessons after we were finished with that days activities. I don’t feel at this point that we have been using the product long enough to actually gauge whether or not he is learning to read with it, but there were several positive things I have noticed about using Little Reader with him. First of all, he was thrilled to have something of his very own to “do” on the computer (just like the big kids). Secondly, he really enjoyed the words and pictures and videos that played on the screen as we went through the lessons, and loved repeating the words that were shown to him. I never had to coerce him into doing the lessons at all. Every day I would ask him if he was ready to do his “baby reading” and he would immediately jump up and down and say, “Yes! Baby reading!”. Third, though I sat with him through every lesson, it was very much an option for me to set the lesson up and walk away if I needed to. That was definitely a very nice perk, especially when we have several times throughout our school days when he wants mommy to entertain him, but I have to help one of the older kids with schoolwork.

One of my favorite features of the software was that it gave me the option to print off picture flashcards for any lesson I wished. I did this for a few of the first lessons and again, Joey thoroughly enjoyed “playing” with the flashcards. Using the flashcards there are lots of fun ways for you and your child to interact with the words they are encountering in the daily lessons. This was definitely a plus in my opinion.

So can this program teach your child to read at an early age? I can’t really give you a yes or no answer to this question, HOWEVER, IF it is possible for a baby, a toddler, or even a preschooler to learn to read, I can see how this program would be an excellent tool to help you reach that goal. The developers of this software have really done their research and utilized it to give you a very thorough and fun way to expose your young child to the world of words. I do think that use of the Little Reader software (along with reading to your child often and as early as possible) is a great way to introduce your child to written language and can easily see how it would give your child a head start in that area. I have now taught 2 children to read (and am still teaching one struggling reader) and can see what a benefit Little Reader could be to every parent.

If you want to learn more about Little Reader, or any other Brill Kids early learning programs, you can visit their website here. The Little Reader program is available in several formats (including the download version) and pricing starts at $149. A free trial is also available here. If you are at all curious to learn more about the Little Reader program, the website is chock FULL of informative videos, screenshots, and information for you to browse through.

 DISCLAIMER: This item was provided free for review purposes through the TOS Homeschool Crew.  I received no other compensation, and this review is our honest opinion.  Click the TOS Homeschool Crew banner above to read more reviews on this and other products by other Crew members.

School Planning Progress

  I had shared with you last week how I have been so very busy getting things in order for our new school year. I am in the homestretch now and thought I would share some of what I have been doing with you. Here are some screenshots of what I've been working on in HSTPlus...

Here are the goals I have painstakingly entered into HST, one-by-one. This is what has been the most time consuming for me. It will be really nice to have a detailed list of skills the boys have learned at the end of the year!

Here is Isaiah's Daily Lesson schedule...

And here is Drew's Daily Lesson Schedule.

This is my progress thus far on my planning checklist, which was typed in the Journal in HST.

Here's Drew's assignments (so far) for the first day of school...

and here are Isaiah's.

So you can see from this how very hard I have been working. I have entered HUNDREDS of skills/objectives into the goals section thus far. To be honest, there have been times I wanted to pull all my hair out! But I know it will be worth all the hard work in the end.

I also spent several hours putting together some new file folder games over the weekend. I had lots of help cutting things out from my dear bff, otherwise I would have never gotten nearly as many done! I am hoping having these will give me something to direct the boys to do while they may be waiting for me to help them with something.

Also, I finally managed to gets hubs to install our cabinet locks in the kitchen. Now Joey can go into the kitchen and explore. The first thing he went for was the snack cabinet...

Yes, fun times are ahead!

Blessings,

Cassie :)

I Know I Said He’d be Walking Soon…. But Today?!?

Yes, you heard me correctly, Joey started walking TONIGHT!!
We were all sitting in the living room, I on the couch, Hubs in the recliner across from me… he was looking up videos on YouTube and started watching one with some music. Well, in case you didn’t already know, Joey LOVES music and LOVES dancing to it. So he pulled up on the couch, stood up, turned around and WALKED RIGHT ACROSS THE ROOM to where hubs had the laptop!! It happened so unexpectedly and quickly, that I didn’t get that moment on video, BUT….
I got the camera out right after as hubs and I sat on the floor with JoJo to see what would happen…

And there you have it friends! He is officially a TODDLER!! I am so excited for him and as you can tell by the video, he is really excited to be a walker too!
The next few days will be interesting to say the least. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is speed walking in a few weeks!
Wow, I have nothing more to say, I am still in a state of shock…

Blessings,

Cassie :)

It’s Been Crazy Around Here!

Yes, I have been away from my bloggy home for awhile. I am sorry. Things have been very hectic around here with hubby working a very busy seasonal job with very long hours and the start of summer. We have been spending a lot of time outdoors, playing and swimming. It turns out Joey is a little fish, much like his big brother Drew was from a young age! I have been wanting to write, but I have been so busy that when I get the time, i just don’t have the motivation.
So I am writing to you, my friends, to let you know that yes, we are still here and still doing the normal things – school, work, play!
Joey is not walking yet, but he has been taking a few steps here and there independently, and more frequently. I am definitely not in any hurry and am not pushing him to be upwardly mobile. It’s quite a big milestone for him, and sadly a reminder that he is not such a little baby anymore…sniff. I know he has to grow and change, I just wish I could slow the process down a bit. I am doing my very best to enjoy every moment and treasure every day.
Isaiah is still doing very well with his reading and he is progressing nicely. He has finished all of his readers from his first set of Bob Books and has moved on to the second set. We went to the bookstore and bought the third set the other day so we would have them when he was ready for them.
Both boys are starting their new math books next week, Isaiah Math 2 and Drew Math 3. And Drew has started his 3rd grade Reading. It is a bit more challenging than what he has been doing, but he is doing really well with it thus far.
Something very exciting is happening in our family – hubby has decided to go back to school! We have had such a hard time trying to find him a good job that doesn’t require him to be an absentee husband and father, so we are really hoping this will turn things around for us. He will be attending Lincoln College of Technology to earn an associate’s degree in Diesel Technology. From what the admissions rep told us today, they can’t get enough students enrolled in the program to keep up with the requests they get from employers, so it’s a very secure field right now, and will likely continue to be. Please keep us in your prayers! We really want to make wise decisions and are hoping that this is an opportunity set before us by God. If it is, He will bless our journey, I am sure of that!
I will be posting again very soon, but I am getting sleepy and my spelling is suffering!

Blessings,

Cassie :)

I Still Can’t Believe He’s 1…

It seems like it was just yesterday I held him in my arms for the first time and looked into his bright blue eyes.  But today we celebrated  his very first birthday! And oh what an event it was! The whole family gathered together to celebrate. Even my mom and grandmother were able to be here from Oklahoma!
I could share so many memories and milestones with you in this post, but we will save that for later (I am working on a first year slideshow to share)! For now I will just share some video with you of my littlest boy enjoying his very first birthday cake, which was pictured at the top of this post….

He received lots of goodies from friends and family, including a Little People  farm, two Leap Frog magnetic toys (Fridge Farm and Wash’n’Go), a little wooden ride-on train handmade by his great-grandpa, and several very cute outfits!

All in all it was a great day! We were blessed with beautiful weather, also! I think he really enjoyed the festivities! It is surely a celebration I won’t soon forget!

Blessings,

Cassie

Baby Sleep Diary – Days 2 and 3

(not my baby, but a cute pic I found)

Last night was our third evening using the methods from Dr. Ferber’s book, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.  Things are still going well, although I really messed things up yesterday.  I did not sleep well night before last (I think my body is still on Joey’s former sleep schedule) and instead up getting up with Joey early yesterday morning, I opted to lay him in bed with us to get another hour of sleep.  Instead, he slept another 2 hours! Ooopps!  So in an effort to not completely mess up our schedule, I only allowed him one nap yesterday.  He was exhausted and nodding off by 7!  So I did my best to keep him awake til 8, then did our bedtime routine.  He ended up asleep by 9.  That could have meant a very early morning for us, but I managed to get him to sleep until 9.  That means he can go back to 2 short naps today and probably will go to sleep at 11:30 instead of 10:30, then we will be back on track tomorrow.
That said, things are still going well, though I think he will continue to wake a few times a night to eat until the end of the week-long process, when he will only be allowed to have 2 oz every 5 hours.  From there I am going to slowly lessen the amount, then replace it with water in hopes that he will stop waking to eat.  The time between night waking/feedings is getting longer with each night, so I think we are still on track.  He is also still having no problems at naptimes, laying right down and going to sleep and not waking until he is finished.
Another really good thing about this process is that since I am charting his sleep/wake patterns, I am getting a really good idea of what his natural schedule is. This means that very soon I will actually be able to put him on a workable routine!  I have tried to do this several times since he was around 5 months old and it never worked.  Now I realize that was because his schedule relied on my putting him to sleep at night and for naps.  Now he is not reliant upon me to sleep. 
I will continue to keep you updated!  Look for another post soon about my adventures with changing to cloth diapers a couple of weeks ago!

Blessings,

Cassie

Baby’s Sleep Diary – Day 1 (and a book review)

As some of my readers (meaning those who are family) most likely already know, we have been having sleep issues with Joey for some time now. Up until now we have taken the wait and see approach, hoping he would start sleeping through the night again sooner rather than later.  This has proven to be a rather useless approach to solving the problem.  I was reading an article the other day online about Dr. Richard Ferber’s techniques and I was very surprised to learn that, contrary to popular belief, he does NOT endorse  leaving a child to “cry-it-out”.  As I read more about his methods, I began to wonder of maybe they would work for us. 

So I went to Border’s and bought the book, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems and read it.  It is a very involved, lengthy read to get the most out of the information covered, but it only took me 2 days to get through it and develop a plan of action.
The first thing I learned was that Joey had developed some detrimental sleep associations which were preventing him from falling asleep on his own and going back to sleep on his own when he woke at night.  I also learned how to take care of those issues by using the “progressive waiting approach”.  I also learned about sleep cycles and circadian rhythms, and how they can affect how a child sleeps.  Then I went on to find out that all those nighttime feedings we have been treating little Joseph to were doing more harm than good.
So I plotted a course.  Our goals were to:

• teach Joey to fall asleep on his own, in his crib, at roughly the same time every night, and as a result wake at roughly the same time each morning.
• teach Joey to fall back to sleep on his own when he wakes at night so that he doesn’t wake as fully.
• as a result of the above goals, teach Joey to take his nap(s) at the same time(s) each day and to get to sleep on his own in his crib.
• develop a healthy bedtime routine and new sleep associations.
• gradually eliminate feedings until morning
• to develop and overall healthy sleep schedule.

We decided on this nighttime routine:
Routine starts 1 hour prior to bedtime, around 10-10:30 pm. Start with a warm bath (20 min), followed by playtime with mom or dad (25 min). Then cuddle in bed with mom or dad and a bottle for a story or song (10 min). Then lights out. Say goodnight to mom and dad. Go to sleep. Sleepy time environment is lights off, nightlight, fan running, and pacifier nearby.
So we started implementing these new approaches last night, and I am happy to report that it went very well! It is hard to believe that we are already seeing a great improvement!  Even though it was really, REALLY hard to let him cry at bedtime, it was only for short periods of time.  It helped that we had such a good time with our new routine.  He had lots of giggly, tickly playtime with Daddy, splashed in the tub, and then read a story with Mommy while he drank his nighttime bottle. 
The first time we left his room we had to wait 3 minutes before going in to comfort him.  That was pretty easy.  The next time was 5 minutes and was a bit harder because he began to really cry after the first couple of minutes.  That doesn’t happen very often around here so it was hard to sit and listen to.  The third time we had to wait 10 whole minutes until we could comfort him!  But we never had to! He was asleep within a few minutes!
As for the feedings, our plan required slowly increasing the minimum amount of time between feedings as we slowly decreased the amount we allowed him to have at each feeding.  Lately he has been drinking anywhere from 8 oz to 12 oz of formula overnight.  This was in small amounts ever 1.5 to 2 hours.
So how exactly did the evening play out?  Well I am pleased to report that after falling asleep on his own at 11pm (25 minutes after laying him down) he stayed asleep until 3:45am, when he was given 2 oz of formula and went right back to sleep.  He woke again at 6:20 and had another 2 oz and again went right back to sleep.  He then slept for another 2 hours and woke up around 8:30am.  So he slept a grand total of 9.5 hours, waking twice and eating 4 oz of formula.  That is a huge improvement!
Right now he is taking his second nap in which, like his first, he was laid in his crib and fell asleep on his own, without any fussing!  He has been a relatively happy boy all day and has been a joy to be around.  Not that he isn’t usually, but I am usually exhausted and not as able to enjoy him!
Needless to say, I HIGHLY recommend this book!  Do not let what you may have heard about Dr. Ferber’s methods scare you off as I did at first.  The only way to know if his recommendations could work for your child is to read the book then decide if you are willing to try them out for yourself!  There are a lot of once desperate, exhausted parents who will swear by his methods!
I am really excited to see how things go tonight!  I will keep you posted!

Blessings,

Cassie

Sorry, AGAIN, for my absence..

It has been quite a month here at the Simpson home.  I was without a computer for a little over a week, but luckily I got exactly the laptop I wanted for $100 LESS than what I was planning on paying!  So I’m all set up now and back online, though I have not been on much due to plenty of cleaning/organizing projects, school, new curriculum and planning, etc.  I have been making an effort to spend less time on the net in an effort to get more done in “real life”. 
We have once again re-structured our curriculum and schooling, which I plan on highlighting in a post in the near future.  In a nutshell, new curriculum, a new approach, and a different way of planning and prepping has made a HUGE difference in enabling us to get things done.  Which means, hopefully we can begin to catch up on a few things we have fallen behind in.  It is going well and I can’t wait to share with you how a few changes have helped us to stay on task and get focused.
The kids are are doing well and we are eagerly awaiting the return of spring and nice weather.  We are all getting a bit of cabin fever, but I hate to bundle everyone up and get out and about unless necessary.  Cold weather is NOT my friend! 
Joey is now cruising and pulling up onto everything, which makes for some nervous mommy moments.  But I know I have to let him test the waters and try new things, even if he might get hurt.  He has had a few bumps and falls, but nothing major.  I’m sure that will get worse in the coming months, as he seems eager to get walking.  We are guessing he will be toddling around by his birthday in May.  He also has learned to clap his own hands this past week, which we thoroughly enjoy!  All we have to do is say, “Yay! Joey!”, and he smiles a big grin and claps!  It’s heart-melting!  He has also learned to say “no-no-no”, but it’s more like “nah, nah, nah”.  Hmmm, wonder where he picked that up?……
Anyhow, I wanted to give a quick update to let everyone know we are still here and doing well and I hope to be posting regularly again very soon!  Til then……

Blessings,

Cassie

Joey is on the move!!

Yes, you heard it here first!  My baby boy is getting so big, and now he is learning to crawl.  We were playing with him last night when we decided to get the camera out .  take a look at what we captured…

  
I am continually amazed by my youngest son.  He is babbling, saying mamama and dadada, feeding himself finger foods, drinking from a sippy, and now he is CRAWLING!!!  I am so very proud yet at the same time it makes me sad that time is whizzing by.
I am thankful we were fortunate enough to get a permanent memory of this huge milestone!

Blessings,

Cassie

More Videos of my Famous Joey!

I think the title says it all enjoy!






Needless to say the swing is no longer effective (sniff)!




Blessings,
Cassie

What we had fun doing today... (Dec. 10, 2008)

Today we had a good time doing our first Christmas craft! I was searching around online the other night when I stumbled upon this craft at ScrapbookScrapbook.com. I was really excited about doing it for 3 reasons: 1) It's a Christmas craft..yay! 2) We had all the materials on hand to complete it and 3) My nativity set was broken last year when it fell off the back of the entertainment center while I was dusting. I definitely recommend checking it out. But be warned, mom may have to jump in and do some cutting and gluing (or in my case taping) when the kiddos get tired, there's quite a bit of cutting and assembly. You may want to split it up over 2 days.

the kids working on thier nativity scenes together

they were having a ball!

the finished product (this one is Drew's)

I bet you are wondering how we manage to complete such a time consuming project without interruptions. What was the little one doing this whole time? I was hoping you would ask....

why...he was having a cookie and juice from his sippy!

and here's a close up....for full effect!

We really enjoyed doing this craft and the kids are really having a good time playing with them! The best part? It was completely free! Thank you to ScrapbookScrapbook.com for providing this craft at no charge! If you decide to try this at your house, leave me a comment and let me know how it went!

Blessings,

Cassie

I apologize for my absence.....

Yes I am FINALLY posting a new blog entry!

A million apologies for my lapse in recent posts. My pc had a hard drive crash about a month ago and I have been using my husbands pc periodically for necessities only. His system is hooked up to our living room tv and it is not convenient for me at all to use. In order to see the screen well, i have to sit on the floor in front of the screen and can't do it for very long as it hurts my back. So that is the main reason I have not blogged for a while.

Now I have a new laptop (yay)! It is an Acer Aspire 5135 and so far I love it. It is nice to be completely wireless so I can sit comfortably in my trusty recliner and surf away! And here I sit now blogging! There will not be many pics or vids for a bit though as I am searching high and low for the usb that goes to my Kodak camera. As soon as I find it though look out! We took a field trip to Chicago this past week and we went to the Chicago Museum of Art and took lots of pics and also a few of the Chicago skyline. I am not going to post much about this right now, however, as I want to wait until I can post a separate entry with pics and things, so keep an eye out for that soon.

Joey was weighed last week at 17lbs. 4oz. and was 26 3/8 in. long! I can't believe how big he is getting (though my back had a pretty good idea he was getting so heavy)! He will be 6 months on Thursday. He is a very busy boy and is always moving or babbling, especially when he is trying to fight sleep. He is making progress during belly time, scooting and pushing himself in circles. I think he will be rolling over soon as I have been working with him a lot lately. I will set him up about a third of the way and he manages to get himself moved the rest of the way over. He has been intermittently fussy this week with his bottom two middle teeth almost ready to break through the surface. Poor little guy, he's so tough!

Isaiah and I started Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which I will from here on refer to as 100 EZ Lessons. We have completed the first 10 lessons and he did excellently following my instruction and completing the oral tasks properly. I am very hopeful that this program will be the key to get him reading independently. His inability to read means a lot more one on one work which means less work completed by everyone daily. I am not at all happy with the quantity of work we are getting to daily lately and I am currently working on several things to get us on the right track.

One thing I am working on is getting a schedule made up for the entire family (excluding Daddy of course as he has an unpredictable work schedule) with the help of Managers of Their Homes by Steve and Terri Maxwell. I am starting with Joey. I have been keeping track of his natural routine for 4 days now and I have a pretty good idea of how to make up his schedule. I need to try and keep him awake an extra hour before bed, but I don't know if it's possible until I get his naps straightened out. Yesterday and today he slept 10-11 hours at night and about 3-4 hours a day. This was with half hour naps sprinkled throughout the day with 1-2 hours of alert time in between each. Except for the evening, which is his most alert time. He usually stays up 2-3.5 hours from between his last nap and bedtime, depending on how tired he is. I am thinking if I either keep him up an extra hour before bed (maybe with another small nap to help) or keep him up longer when he first waked in the morning that I can get him to take less frequent, longer naps through the day so that I actually have enough time while he is sleeping to accomplish something. I will keep you updated on how it's going and will get a google docs link up as soon as I have a schedule made up in word.

We have also started using First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. We are really liking it so far. The boys started memorizing their first poems last week and they are really impressing me with how quickly they are learning them. The lessons are short and sweet and I like that the level one lessons (Isaiah) are mostly oral.

Well, it is 11pm here and I am getting sleepy, so I will be getting myself to bed very soon. I will be making more posts in the coming days to drop in periodically!

Blessings,
Cassie

Yay for Home Movies!!

Yes, I am still uploading video and as I promised I am posting them here as I get them up.

I really love this video. This was taken the first time my grandma and grandpa saw and held Joey. I really enjoy seeing my grandpa with babies. He is like a big ol' teddy bear! I will treasure this video forever. Joey was about a week old here. Enjoy!



I promise there is more to come!

Blessings,
Cassie

New Video of Joey

Ok, here is another video as promised...

This one is of Joey learning how to play with his rattle and hold onto it really well. Enjoy!




Blessings,
Cassie

New Home Video of Joey

Well, I managed to get one of several videos uploaded to YouTube today as promised!  This one is a pretty long one of Joey showing off his vocal range.....Enjoy!  By the way, this was the last 5 minutes of him 15 minute tirade!  it's a miracle the lil' guy didn't get hoarse!



More to come soon!

Blessings,
Cassie

Weekly Update - 9/20/08

So, welcome to the new blog! I hope you like it as I have worked very hard to get it just the way I want it! I had a few problems on the prior site getting certain things to work correctly, so I wanted something a bit more flexible.

Being that I spent my spare blogging time last week getting this blog set up, I didn't get to post any new entries. I have a ton of videos to transfer onto my PC and then upload to youtube and I will be working on that tomorrow, so keep an eye out for those soon!

Yesterday, I took Joey to his 4-month check-up with the pediatrician. On one hand, I was very excited to find out how much he had grown over the past 2 months. On the other hand, I was dreading the appointment because I knew he would be getting more immunizations :( . Then it ended up that Bobby was still not home from his run in time to go with us, so I had to do the whole thing alone. Luckily, my friend E came and stayed with Drew and Isaiah and let me take her car to the Dr., so it was just me and lil' man.

Bobby and I were guessing he would weigh between 13 and 14 lbs. Boy was I surprised to find out the lil' chunk weighs 15lbs. 5.5 oz.! Now I don't feel like such a big baby whining about my increase in daily back pain. And to top it off, he is now 25.75" long. But what really shocked me was to learn that with all the growing he has done in just 2 short months, he is still only in the 50th percentile for height and weight. And as for his lil' noggin, only the 10th percentile. Though you wouldn't know it to look at him, he looks well proportioned to me (for a baby)! So the Dr. checked him over and asked the typical questions and said he was doing excellent. Which was, of course, no surprise to this proud momma!

I am sad to say that this proud momma has been a very tired and discouraged momma this week. I have so much around here that I just can't seem to keep up with and it is becoming increasingly annoying. I find myself doing things in 5-10 minute intervals between making meals, feeding bottles to Joey, changing diapers and settling disputes between sibs. And that's just not nearly enough time to get much of anything done! So the state of things around here are just getting worse and worse, including my level of frustration. The laundry is overflowing every basket and hamper, the dishes are constantly piled up, I can't seem to keep bottles clean, the boys' things keep managing to migrate downstairs, the school room is in disarray and the upstairs is badly in need of vacuuming. This is just what I know off the top of my head. There's lots more that needs to be done but I can't even see the big picture right now. I am trying very hard to just look at the mess in bite sized doses, since that is the way in which it must be tended to. The main reason for all this chaos is the absence of my dear hubby this week. He has barely been home long enough to sleep in between runs this week. Which means I have had no help with Joey and no breaks to regain my sanity. Which also means I haven't been the best mommy I can be either. That is the absolute worst part about it. One of these days I pray I will daily be my best for my kiddos, regardless of my mood. But for now God is still working on me.

On another note, Wednesday was Isaiah's birthday! he is now officially 7! We were going to have a party today, but since Bobby got offered a decent run, we decided it would be best that he take it and postpone the party til next weekend. He has requested a Star Wars cake (chocolate of course) so I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to decorate it. I can't believe he is 7! How fast time flies. I will be sure to post more when we have his party and plenty of photos, too!

Well, I am now rambling and I finding my thoughts are getting quite fuzzy as I go, so I will cut this short and promise to post more tomorrow (complete with videos)! Til then...

Blessings,
Cassie

Weekly update - 9/8/08

Well it's been a while since I actually posted an update so it's well overdue. Last week was hectic. Joey started really teething. His bottom two middle teeth are working on coming in. You can feel a hard bump and his gums are lighter there in that spot. He had a rough time the first 3 days but seems to be doing better now. He had the typical congestion and diarrhea. I think it's either hurting him less or he is just adjusting to the discomfort. I felt lost because my usually happy, smiling baby boy was nowhere to be found, I am so glad to have him back! We did manage to FINALLY get some video of him giggling. This was caught at the end of my tickling attack....

I just love his giggle!! Though you have to catch him at the right moment in the right mood to really get a good one out of him. Just the other night I was getting his bath ready while daddy was playing with him in the bedroom. The boys were in there too. For some reason, Drew was hopping around being silly and it cracked Joey up! It was the most I have ever heard him laugh. It was a shame I wasn't able to get the camera, but I am sure I will get another chance soon. Here are some more new pics...

And he said he wouldn't be caught dead wearing it...

Yes, those are baby moobs that you see...such a chunk!

Not quite enough hair yet for a mohawk...but we had fun trying anyway!


I have some more videos to upload to youtube, prob later this week when I get the time. I bought Joey a pair of 6-9 month jammies today and they fit good.. a little too good. He is only 4 months old!! It's not fair : (

I don't have much to update as far as school goes. We had a pretty relaxed week. We did some nature journaling spurred by the boys obsession with a crabapple tree by our building...

Here is Drew working on his drawing

and here is what thier finished pages looked like (I filled out the info)

Here is Drew's finished drawing

and here is Isaiah working on his drawing

We had a lot of fun figuring out what kind of crabapple tree it was and looking info up on the Internet. I think they enjoyed choosing their branches and drawing them the most. This was our first attempt at nature journaling and I think we may do it more often.

Other than that, we played some file folder games, did some math and reading and I worked some more on my homeschool recordbook. I am working on finding a more efficient way of keeping grades and things. I love my Homeschool tracker program, but honestly, I spend way too much time working in it. I am in the process of making my own forms and things so that all I have to do is jot something down. Lately I feel as though I have spent more time doing records and prep than actually teaching.

Overall we had a good week, though we got very little done school wise. But we managed to get the house cleaned in one day with everyone having jobs assigned to them and I managed to get a handle on Mt. Laundry. (though I have yet to get it all put away.) And with Joey being cantankerous, I didn't have much time where I wasn't tending to him. I am learning all about the challenges of homeschooling with a baby first hand. It's tough but I am learning to adjust the way we do things in order to accommodate everyone's needs. We still have a long way to go, but we will get there!

I hope you all had a blessed week! Til next time....

Cassie