Tales of a Fulltime Mom

This past week we've had some opportunities to spend time with just a few kids at a time or in the case of the girls, with Grandma and Grandpa. First up was Wednesday evening when Grandma and Grandpa picked the girls up at 5:00 pm and whisked them away for supper at Perkins (Aubree later told me that they went to a very fancy restaurant for supper. Ha!) and then on to the Amway Center where they caught the Cirque du Soleil show called "Varekai." Cirque du Soleil is kind of like a circus only much fancier. The girls had a great time and were most eager to not only talk about the show but give me great detail on how Grandpa was taking pictures and movies even though there was a big sign of a camera with a line through it. Oops! They got home after 10:00 pm but I guess one of the advantages of home schooling is that you don't have to wake up at a specific time in the morning! Of course, Calleigh is my little night owl so it doesn't phase her in the least anyway.

Meanwhile, we didn't want Brady to feel left out so he had an evening out with Daddy. Duncan was going to take him to Bass Pro Shops but I was anxious for them to be home by 8:00 so I could go to a Mom's Night Out event at a consignment sale so the boys spent their time at Chik-Fil-A. Really, Duncan doesn't even need to take the kids anywhere specific because they are just so excited to ride in his car....as if it was a Jaguar instead of a Jetta!

I did make it to "Mom's Night Out."

Another one-on-one opportunity came on Sabbath when Duncan and Brady decided to check out another church...the Apopka SDA church where the kids are doing their soccer league. We attend the 2nd service at our own church and they are taking the service in a different direction than we would like so we are considering either attending the 3rd service instead or perhaps going to a different church. That would obviously be a big change as we love all of our friends at our church but we figured it can't hurt to see what else is out there. The Apopka church is much smaller so they only have one service with SS starting at 9:30 and church at 11:00 which is the traditional way of things.

There were only about seven kids in Brady's class but Duncan said everyone was very friendly. He discovered that the pastor was one of the fellows that was in charge of the kids' soccer who we thought was really nice but he didn't actually preach...a doctor that Duncan knew did. But then, as I was looking through the bulletin, I discovered that the soccer coach was actually the associate pastor and the head pastor was someone named Steve Jencks who just so happened to be the pastor of the Cape Cod Church for many years and good friends with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Not sure why none of them mentioned this fact to me! Anyway, I think we will all go back there in the near future so we can hear him preach and say hello. The one downside of going to a church with SS first is that Colby naps in the car from about 9:40 - 10:30 on Sabbath morning which works well because he's just missing part of the church service and not SS whereas obviously if SS is first, he would miss a good portion of that.

First one to Sabbath School.

Catching a snooze between Sabbath School and church.

Yesterday I got to spend a good deal of time with just the girls which was really nice. First we went over to Ron and Elaine's for a terrific breakfast and then I went with the girls to Macey and Marley's birthday party while Duncan took the boys. We took Duncan's car because there is a car seat and booster in his which doesn't work for the two boys. The girls were very pleased with this. The Whitakers moved recently so we got to see their new house and I now have a serious case of school room envy. They homeschool as well and they have a phenomenally huge room which includes a sink and fridge even. Lucky ducks! But, I'm happy to at least have a separate room which many people don't so it's all good.

Jealous!

Oh how nice it is to be at a social gathering and not have Colby to worry about it. I caught myself several times looking around as if to check on the boys but then kept remembering that I only had the girls and they didn't need to be watched 24/7. I did have one little scare though as one of the triplets, Price, took a tumble off the stairs of their little kid pool and fell onto the concrete. I didn't see how he fell but the girls said he somersaulted backwards. I ran over and picked the poor thing up (he kind of reminds me of Brady with his blond hair) and there wasn't any blood fortunately but he did end up with a giant bump on his forehead.

Birthday girls turning 7 and 9. They are 1 year and 359 days apart so almost the same as Calleigh and Aubree with their 2 years and 2 days. So it's always interesting to watch Macey and Marley and their relationship to see what we may have in store.

I'm not really big into the girls doing make up at their young age but I can make exceptions for birthday parties. When I came upon Aubree getting her toenails done, the first big toe was done and it was black. I was like "Aubree! Seriously? You've never had your toes done before and you go with black??"

Fortunately Calleigh chose something more girly.

After the party, it was errand time. Before the party, we stopped at JCPenney to get the pictures of Colby and then afterwards we hit CVS, Costco, another CVS, the gas station, library, and finally Publix. We got home about 6:15 with the Isidros at our house so that Allen could watch the Broncos game. When the girls found out that Braelyn was waiting for them at our house, Calleigh declared that it was the "best day ever!!" What wasn't the BEST at all was that when I walked in my front door, I could say a happy and contented Colby sitting on the couch with Braelyn. And then as soon as he saw me, he started in with the crying. Duncan said he had been great the whole time. He honestly was crying pretty much non-stop as soon as I got back. Duncan finally had to take him out in the backyard so as not to completely annoy our guests. So the moral of the story is that I guess it is ME who is the problem and apparently I need to be around less.

Without the boys around, the girls get the cart at Costco.

Got some beverages at the gas station.

The reason I wanted to get all the errands done yesterday is that I discovered that our school week goes so much better when we don't have to break up our day by going places. On Monday mornings we have gymnastics so there is that but Tuesday - Thursday we didn't have anything going on during the day and it was wonderful. There was no rush to get school done in the mornings so we are able get probably two thirds of it done and then the rest for the afternoon. I imagine that once the weather is cooled off, as it is slowly starting to do, we will be outside more and do walks and such....I don't want us to be cooped up in the house for three days straight necessarily.

So yes, last week was a really nice week of school. Calleigh did have her few moments, mostly when it came to having to write. She is doing some copy work on a poem and she has to write two lines of it a day...not a big deal. One of the days she really started complaining and said she didn't want to do it. I encouraged her to just get it done and when she still kept complaining I finally said "Fine, just don't do it. You're excused." But she just sat there so I questioned what was going on and she said "I'm going to do it because I don't like it when you aren't happy." I thought that was a rather insightful statement on her part. Sure enough, she then proceeded to copy it without another word. Hmmm.

One of my new things is that I write on our board all the subjects that have to do for the day and then as they finish it, they erase it. After the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer, we always do our word of the day and then Life of Fred book. But then the schedule isn't set and I let them pick what they want to do next. Since I've started doing that, Calleigh has picked Reading as the first thing which entails her reading a book of her choosing for 15 minutes. I've been intrigued by her selection of doing this first. Is she trying to get her worst thing out of the way or is there any slight chance that she doesn't detest reading as much as she used to? I haven't asked for fear of ruining anything!

Aubree, on the other hand, is flying through her reading book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." She loves her lessons and we will do 2 - 3 lessons a day. We are already up to lesson 20 and she is more than anxious to be reading other books. I have a few BOB Books which she's done and a few others as well. So it turns out that it might be Aubree that takes after me. For some reason, I was thinking it would be the first born since I was the first born but it's not working out that way!

Another difference in the two girls...for Bible, Calleigh has to copy her memory verse in her best writing. She is very hard on herself with the writing...trying to get it perfect. I will give her this - - even though she hates to write, there is a HUGE difference in how neat her writing is this year compared to last. So something is working! The memory verse this week was about three sentences and she was adamant that she didn't want to do it it all in one day. She would do half one day and the other half the next day. Meanwhile, there's Aubree who insists that she's going to do the memory verse too (I had gotten her all the same worksheets as Calleigh because they advised that the younger kids may want to do the same things). I told Aubree she could just write the first sentence but she said, "No, no. I'm going to do the whole thing." And indeed, she did. When Calleigh finished the half of hers, she came over to see what Aubree was doing and I wondered if she would make some rude comment to Aubree but she just smiled and said "Wow, Aubree, you are a go getter!" I had to laugh. She had asked me earlier in the day what a 'go getter' was and I said it was someone who gets things done. She was paying attention!

We've been studying Indians so we made a wigwam.

The finished product.

Love, love, love, these colored pencils. They write so smoothly and brightly. You can tell Calleigh's favorite color!

One of the things I really like about our Spelling curriculum (A Reason for Spelling) is that they have the kids practice spelling the words using all kinds of different mediums. This week it was shaving cream which was a huge hit, as one would imagine.

Brady and Aubree refused to be left out.

Did create a bit of a mess.

Another great game for school that we just picked up at a yard sale. Rack-o! Awww, reminds me of Nova Scotia.

Let's see...we have some news on the sleeping front. All good news, in fact. Last week I wrote that it looked like Brady was done with his naps but I'm taking back that pronouncement. He more is than isn't. I think it's a good thing. I recently read that a 3-year old should be getting 11 to 13 hours of sleep a day and without his naps, he's not hitting that. You would think that without a nap, he might sleep a little later than his general 7:15 - 7:30 wake up but it wasn't happening so I'm glad he's getting some extra zzzz's in the afternoon still. As for Colby, he's been sleeping later in the mornings with about half his mornings going past 7:00 this week. Yay for me! I can take the daytime woes a little better if I'm at least not hearing from him at night which I very, very rarely do. Oh, and I've decided that the new goal is that he will become much more pleasant once he's talking. I was aiming for walking but that evidently didn't work.

On a day after a day with no nap, things like this happen. He was mad about not getting a particular cup so he laid down on the chair to cry and ended up falling asleep.

Before I close, a few other comments and conversations with the kids...

Things you hate to hear from your son: "Well, when I'm a girl..." (In response to him not getting to wear fingernail polish because he's a boy).

Things you love to hear from your daughter: "I love the way you smell" as they give you a big hug and bury their face into your chest. (This was courtesy of Calleigh and see...you DON'T have to shower everyday!)

On the way to church, we somehow got on the topic of names of schools and I told the girls that I thought we really should come up with a name for ours. So this ensued.

Me: "What do you think? Any good ideas for a name? How about the Grodack Academy of Higher Learning?"
Calleigh: "Nah, I don't like that. I don't want Grodack to be in it."
Me:"Okay, well, maybe it could have something in the name that's part of nature. Like how it's Forest Lake Academy."
Aubree: "We could have it be something we're learning about now. How about Indians?
Me: "Umm, I don't think we're going to be called the Indian School."
Calleigh: "We could have it be "Christian School."
Me:"No, that's just too general. I think we need something in front of Christian."
Calleigh: "I know! How about Awesome Christian School?"

I wasn't sure if I should laugh because it was cute or to smile because she thought our school was awesome. I guess both!

One day the family was sitting around in the living room trying to figure out where we should go and this happened:

Duncan:"Anybody have any ideas of what to do? Maybe we could go to the playround?"
Calleigh: "What about if we go to the P-U-L-L?"
Duncan:"Huh?"
Me (whispering):"I think she meant to spell pool and didn't want the other kids to know what she's talking about. Should I go ahead and send back our spelling curriculum?"

Okay, I just made that last sentence up. Honestly, she is doing great with spelling so I have no explanation for that one!

Sabbath afternoon walk at the Oakland Nature Preserve.

You probably can't see it but we saw an alligator with about 10 babies sleeping on it including one right between her eyes. It was pretty neat!

The church next to the preserve.

This is the girls gymnastics class on Thursday nights. It cracks me up because it's all girls between the ages of about 5 - 8 and then there is one boy who is like 13 in it. He's the kid on the far left. He looks so out of place but it doesn't seem to bother him.

Have a great week!

Twice a year our community has a community wide yard sale and we decided to get on board this past Sunday. We did this a year and a half ago and despite the fact that I'm pretty good at getting stuff to Goodwill every few months, we still had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get rid of. The kids were very excited when I made the announcement and immediately set off to find toys to sell. I was a little surprised they were so anxious to sell their stuff but then I realized what they were thinking...they would actually be keeping the money for whatever they sold. I didn't have the heart to say no.

Our last attempt at a sale didn't turn out that great, partly because it was crummy weather but also because I'm sure Sundays are a lot slower than Saturdays. Nevertheless, we were undeterred and had quite a big set up of stuff including lemonade and muffins that the girls wanted to be in charge of. I wouldn't say the turnout was spectacular or anything but we did sell about $250 worth of stuff and I had a really good time (but then again, I do love yard sales and handling money so that's no surprise!). Allen and Tangie came over with the kids to make us pancakes and Jennifer and Evan came over too as well as my friend Stephanie (on business from Texas) which added to our fun. I did quite a bit of advertising but when I noticed a lull at about 11:00 am, I knew I needed to kick things into gear and posted the ad again on Faceback on-line yard sale for the Ocoee area. Indeed, that got a lot of attention and we got some more people who came to buy some of the bigger stuff. All and all I call it a success and the girls are already asking when we will do the next one. The only down side is that it meant I didn't get to go to the other yard sales going on in the neighborhood. Oh, and the thing I found interesting is that it had occured to me that I should put out some of my stockpile of toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, pads, etc that I have gotten virtually free mostly from CVS. I slapped a $1 price tag on each thing and I sold almost all of it. Good to know!

In kid news, it appears that Colby is on the cusp of getting at least one of his upper front teeth. Calaubra never had any teething problems but I said to myself "Self, it would totally figure that it would be THIS kid who would have problems." Sure enough, a few nights ago we had a few middle of the night wake ups and I had to bring him in bed with me in the guest room for a bit to calm him down. Fortunately I gave him some Advil in advance the next night which seemed to nip it in the bud and we've been good since then. Why was I in the guest room you ask? Well, I had the baby monitor in the school room one afternoon and I went to get Brady out of his crib. The girls stayed behind and when I got back to the school room, Calleigh informed me there had been an accident. And this is what I saw:

Oops

That's a baby monitor for those who don't know. Unfortunately they don't make cases for baby monitors like they do for cell phones...at least I assume they don't. Aubree had bumped it into something and this was the result. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this many years to have this happen. Needless to say, it's no longer functioning. The big downside is that these monitors are quite pricey. I told Duncan that I really didn't need a video monitor at this point. A regular old monitor that you can just hear through would do fine. But somehow, there doesn't seem to be any system we can find that allows you to have multiple units set up in the kids room with just one monitor (we need three units for the three rooms). The only kind to do it is this one. There seems to be a gap here if anyone is interested in a business idea! I know, maybe it seems silly that we want a monitor for the girls' room since they are obviously older but I don't like the idea that I'm so far away I can't hear what's happening in their room during the night. The fact that we run a noisemaker in our own room doesn't help either. Anyway, we may be forced to by the same expensive one again (I'm afraid if we bought three separate "cheap" systems that they wouldn't work because they only have two channels. Would they interfere with each other?). The point of all this is that I'm sleeping in the guest room across from Colby because I don't have a monitor for him (I do actually have one simple monitor that I'm using in Brady's room). Stay tuned. We will have to resolve it by tomorrow because we have company coming for the weekend.

It's been awhile since I wrote on here but I really can't think of much more to write about besides school which seems to be the focus of my life these days really. This week has been the tale of two halves. Our school day starts at 9:30 am when Colby goes down for his morning nap and goes until about 11:15. On Mondays, however, we stop about 10:30 to go to gymnastics so things are a little more rushed (I try to do as much as possible with Colby sleeping). I don't know if it was because it was Monday or we felt rushed or what but Calleigh was just in a terrible mood with doing school. The same thing happened Tuesday morning. We didn't get to everything on Monday so I decided we would start with the subjects we hadn't finished Monday, the first being English. It was the simplest of assignments. She had to write her full name and then the names of her family (this was a section on the use of capital letters in names). It would have taken maybe five minutes and instead it took more than 30 because of the whining, complaining, delay tactics, etc. I'm like, really? She declares that she hates school and I said "Okay, you're excused. I'm just going to do school with people that care about it.' But she refused to go and still just sat there. I wrote down the names "Corey" and "Duncan" (although I'm pretty sure she knew how to spell them) on a piece of paper so she could start writing but no luck. Finally, Aubree, who was watching it all very intently, comes over, grabs the paper and starts writing "Corey" and "Duncan." After about 60 seconds she says "See? There. It's easy." I think she finally begrudgingly wrote it.

About this time, Colby woke up and I took him downstairs to get his milk and Calleigh followed me downstairs and was sitting on the bottom stair. I looked over and noticed she was crying. I went to her and she gave me a really tight squeeze and said she was sorry. That made me feel a whole lot better.

Later in the day, I was talking to Camille (a former teacher) and as we were talking, something clicked in my brain. The last few weeks I've been writing all the subjects on the board and letting her pick what order we go in and she gets to erase if off when we're done. I didn't let her pick on Monday (we were rushing) and Tuesday (we went right into what we missed Monday) and I wondered if that made a difference. Sure enough, Wednesday and today were so much better. I let her pick what came next and there was barely a complaint. So there you go. Maybe she just needs to have some control.

But for every episode of crying and complaining, there are also those moments that occur when you say to yourself "THIS is why I homeschool." So I can be there for all those times when the light bulb goes on and you can see it in your kid's eyes. I had one of those last week. Calleigh was doing her math (Math-You-See which I'm very happy with) and when she finished her worksheet, she brought it to me for correction. We watch a short video at the beginning of the lesson and then she's able to work mostly independently on the assignments so I wasn't aware of the last question on the page. It was a word problem and to solve it, you had to add like 32 and 46. She has never done addition on two digit numbers before (it wasn't even what the lesson had been about) so when she brought it to me and the answer was right, I was stunned. I heaped praise on her and her eyes were just shining. Honestly, that moment there made my whole week.

Aubree, of course, is just as enthusiastic as ever. We had school this morning and then I was suffering from a severe headache this afternoon and decided we would cancel school so I could lie down and try to recover. At one point, the girls came downstairs and Aubree asked when school was going to be and I told her I didn't think it was going to happen. And Aubree says "But, but, we HAVE to have school! I need to do my Bible book and art, and, and, if we don't, then we'll be behind!" I think real tears might have been about to fall too but then I told her she could use her tablet to play Stack the States (fantastic app to learn all about the states) and that made it better. We had gotten the kids tablets a few months ago for travelling and they are never used except for long trips (of which there has been only Nova Scotia since then) and I do let them use them on Fridays when we are out yard sale-ing since the DVD player is broken in the van. However, I've been reading lately about some great apps and decided to let them try them on the tablets...hence, Stack the States and also a math one that Aubree was using yesterday. We will continue to restrict the tablet use heavily though as I don't want them getting hooked on those things.

Doing an experiment to see if you put oil on a piece of paper does light shine through it more easily? This is what the early settlers did because they didn't have glass.

Sure enough. The paper on the left has the oil on it.

For art class we had to draw a clown (they gave us a picture to follow). I absolutely hate drawing mostly because I stink at it. But I've decided to draw along side the girls and was actually pretty pleased with how my clown came out. Mine is on the right, Aubree on the left, and Calleigh in the middle.

Art project for Bible. These say "Jesus is the light of the world."

How the classroom looks like at the end of the day...mostly thanks to Brady.

Before I close off, I have several conversations with the kids that I wanted to share.

A few weeks ago we finished the last part of Anne of Green Gables when we had a Saturday night movie night. The closing scene of the movie is Anne and Gilbert standing on the bridge, kissing. The first time they kissed in the movie...

Calleigh:"Well, I guess they got married."

Me:"Yes, they did. I know there's some other movie that they made that might have the wedding in it."

Calleigh: "No, they're already married."

Me: "No, not in this movie."
Calleigh: "Yes, they are. Look, they were kissing."

Me: "Ahh, yeah."

Hey, if she wants to think you have to be married to kiss, far be it from me to say differently.

Awhile back, Calleigh had told me about this boy, Elijah, in her Sabbath School class that she was in love with and thought she would marry (granted, who she will marry changes all the time). I had never met Elijah until a recent Sabbath.

Me (walking in to pick Calleigh up):"Okay, Calleigh, time to go."

Boy (sitting next to Calleigh, referring to something that happened before I walk in): "I'm going to put that on Facebook and then do hashtag on Twitter."

Calleigh: Giggles.

Okay, then. I'm now making a list of people I don't want her to marry and Elijah has gone to the top of the list. Seriously, he can't be more than eight. Please tell me he isn't actually on Facebook or Twitter.

The kids like to have frozen yogurt tubes for breakfast or a snack and I usually stick it in the microwave for 10 - 15 seconds to slightly thaw it. Brady always says it's too cold and has me put a napkin on it. So instead of going through all that, I started just giving him one of out the fridge. But he would still insist it go in the microwave. To appease him, I would put it in there but never turn the microwave on and just open the door after a few seconds and hand it to him. So this is what happened:

Brady:"Put this in the microwave."

Me (put it in and notice Calleigh has seen the whole thing unfold:"(whispering) Do you think that I'm lying by doing this? I think maybe I should just tell him what I'm doing."

Calleigh:"Well, he did say to put it in the microwave and that's what you did."

Makes sense!

One night Calleigh had a bad dream so I was awakened in the middle of the night by her shaking me awake. She said she had a dream and proceeded to tell me about it. I managed to keep awake and talk coherently enough to say that Jesus was with her and she didn't have to be afraid and all this other stuff. I was actually quite proud of myself for being able to do so well considering it was the middle of the night. I then asked if she was okay to go back to bed. She immediately responded that she was and I was then even more impressed with my skills to put her mind at ease. And then I saw that she had already brought a sleeping bag and pillow down with her ahead of time and that "going back to bed" meant that she was camping out on my floor. So it wasn't that I had done a good job it was that she already had planned to sleep with me for the rest of the night!

Brady has been a real challenge for Duncan at Sabbath School. He really doesn't like to participate in any of the class stuff (like bringing felts up or pretending to sweep the floor or whatever.). I have no idea why although he's pretty much always been like that. But this was our discussion this past week:

Me:"Brady, so how was Sabbath School? Did you participate?"

Brady: "No."

Me:"Why not?
Brady:"I don't like to."

Me:"But you really should. It would make Jesus happy."
Brady: "Okay, okay. Next time I'm going to dissipate."

Me (laughing): "Dissipate, huh?"

Brady:"I mean, darpissitate."

On Monday when we were having our bad school morning, I had attempted to have Calleigh do her reading (which she does out loud) but she was being so incredibly whiny:

Me:"Come on, Calleigh. Let's just get this done so we have it out of the way."

Calleigh:"I don't want to. I can't."

Me: "Why not?"

Calleigh:"Because I don't like the sound of my voice and I don't want to change it."

On Tuesday, we somehow got talking about how things that I had when I was a kid were things that are considered old now and things that would be invented in the future that we couldn't even think of now.

Calleigh: "So what did you have when you were a girl that's old now?

Me: "Oh, we had something called cassette tapes. Yeah, you probably don't even know what this is."

A little bit later...
Calleigh:"Mom, mom! Look at this stapler. I bet that in like twenty years, they'll have a stapler where you can like just put the paper in, and it will just automatically staple it. You won't even need to press down on it or anything."

Me: "They actually have those now but that was really good that you thought of that."

Calleigh: (in wonder):"Wow! They do??"

Duncan meant to take a video of himself using his automatic stapler at work and send it to her but hasn't yet. That should blow her mind!

A few more pictures...

Finally started using the apple peeler I got for Christmas and let me just say that it's awesome! It peels an apple in about 3 seconds and now the kids want to eat apples all the time. Set up and cleaning is super easy.

Last Friday we ran out of yard sales so we made a quick stop at a playground and I had to get a shot of Brady on this slide because I remember getting one in the same spot when he was a baby.

7 months old.

Colby just HAD to get on the seesaw with them.

We came out Sabbath morning to find Duncan had a flat tire. Unfortunately it couldn't be repaired so he had to put on the donut until he could buy a new tire.

Another picture of the big dude in the girls' beginner gymnastics class.

Got the girls hooked on Uno now!

Calleigh made this for Aubree this morning. Moved me to tears.

Have a great weekend!

I love how since this was at my house, it makes it look like I was the one who created all this. Ah, no! Jennifer brought it all!

Awhile back Jennifer got the brilliant idea that we should do a fall homeschool party for our circle of friends that homeschool. Blake goes to an umbrella school four days a week and had been talking about various parties that go on at his school which made Evan (who is purely homeschooled) start feeling bad. So Jennifer said, "That's it! We're having a party." And that was that. Jennifer kicked into party mode and planned the whole thing. It's so nice to have friends like that! The only thing I had to do was host which I was more than happy to do. We picked the date of October 8 with the hopes it would be feeling "fall" like.

On Monday the girls had their homeschool gymnastics class which consists of seven girls and one boy (including themselves). After the class, the boy, Noah, came right up to me and said "Calleigh said you were having a party at your house for homeschool. I go to homeschool. Can I come?" I was like "Sure, but you have to ask your mom." I thought there may be a good chance the mom would politely decline or whatever since she doesn't know me at all. But Noah came back and said "Yeah, I can go. Can you go talk to my mom over there in the red shirt." So I made my way over and introduced myself and it turns out she's a lovely lady named Kat who homeschools Noah who is eight and his twin brother, Joshua, and also another son who in in 9th grade. She seemed thrilled to be invited and said they were trying to meet other homeschoolers. About this time, another mother, Rebecca, who I have chit chatted a bit with before, came on by so I invited her along too (her girls are Katherine - 8 and Lizzie - 6). She was very happy about it too. After we exchanged numbers and information and we left, I started feeling pretty bad about the fact that it took Calleigh mentioning it to Noah to get us mothers talking. Granted, I'm usually quite busy running after/keeping track of Colby which prevents me from having some nice in depth conversations during the class but still...It was a teachable moment - - by the student to her teacher.

Sunday morning when the kids had soccer, we went outside to get into the van and their was a noticeable chill in the air. When we got to the fields, we noticed that some of the people there had these strange coverings on their arms and legs. What in the world? I think they call them long-sleeved shirts and pants but it's been so long. It was such a nice reprieve. But, if there was such a thing as Mother Nature, she would have been laughing in our face and saying "Haha, fooled you" as we gathered for our fall party as the mercury climbed to 90. Despite the hot weather, we had such a good time. We had nine mothers and 24 kids (includes homeshoolers and other siblings). The girls were particularly excited because many of the kids hadn't been to our house before and they really wanted to show them their rooms and toys.

Everybody brought a food item with them and a game so there was lots of eating and then we were mostly able to withstand the heat by playing the games in the backyard afterwards. I had a nice chat with Kat and Rebecca and they expressed to me again before they left at how appreciative they were to be able to come. That evening when we were on the way to Adventurers, Aubree asked me "Are they going to be our friends from now on, like how we are friends with Braelyn? Like are we going to be friends with them forever?"

Colby let Rosa hold him. Yay for me!

Get the cookie from your face to your mouth game.

Pumpkin ring toss. That's new friend, Noah, in the yellow shirt.

Nothing says a fall party like bobbing for apples. I just realized that Colby is drinking out of that sippy cup that we had lent to Addison. Oops!

Another new friend, Katherine, who won this round of eating the donut without hands.

A much healthier and neater alternative to a chocolate donut.

A less violent alternative to a pinata. You punch a cup and get the prize inside.

The neatness was short lived. He just had to eat a chocolate covered Oreo.

Back to soccer...we finally had our second week of it following a week off due to an event at the church and then a rainout. All went very well for the girls but Brady has basically decided he doesn't want to participate. When you're three, I think it's cool if you don't want to do it even though your parents already plopped down the money for you to play. I'm not sure why he doesn't but oh well.

Fortunately the church has a playground so the boys can play while the girls do soccer.

Following the game, we were going to go to New Smyrna Beach for the triplets birthday party but Duncan wasn't going to be able to join us and that quickly squashed that idea. On my list of 100 things that I would hate to do, this is this is how it looks (1) Watch an entire soccer game (other than my kids) (2) Watch Forrest Gump again (sorry, thought that was incredibly boring) (3) Take my kids to the beach by myself. Have I mentioned that Duncan is building a pergola in our back yard? He is such a stud muffin. It was going to be like $4k to have someone else do it so he decided to just do it himself and so watched some YouTube videos and voila! He is now in the midst of building one. Obviously it is absorbing his Sundays and also the remaining minutes of daylight when he gets home from work. So that put the kibosh on our party beach plans.

Progres...The staining of the wood was very time consuming.

A lot of progress. Just kidding! This is a picture I had just pinned on Pinterest because I liked the black lantern thingys (well, I liked everything!)

On that note, I found these at a yard sale today for $15 so I was very excited!

Fortunately I had a Plan B up my sleeve because the kids were mighty disappointed in not being able to go the beach. I had noticed a few weeks ago a new kids' indoor playground place called Lucky Monkey had opened in Altamonte Springs and thought the kids would enjoy it. A few people I know have gone recently and gave it a good review so I decided we would go for it. However, it is a little costly, $10/kid. Yikes! Have I mentioned that having four kids can be a little expensive at times? What was I thinking! I did notice on their website that you could buy 5 passes for $35 or 10 passes for $70. Aren't they clever? Anyway, I thought that $7 a pop sounded much more reasonable so off we went. I tried to go back on their website on Saturday night to check out a few more things but it was down for maintenance or something. When we walked on, the little sign on the desk said "10 passes, $70 or 15 passes, $105." (Seriously, who is running their promotions department?). There was no mention of the $5 for $35 and when I asked the ladies at the front desk they said "Yeah, we aren't doing that one any more." Well, I was in no mood to fork over $70 so after a little back and forth (they were very nice but it was clear they weren't in a position to cut me a deal), one of them said they would go speak to the owner. A minute later she came back and said "No, he says no discounts." I was ready to just walk out right then but the kids were staring longingly at all the fun and exciting things to do. So I asked if I could speak to the owner myself. Out he comes and I stated my position..."I came here to try this place out and I had read on your website that you could get 5 passes for $35 but now I get here and that's not the case. Your website is down so I couldn't check the price last night." And he says, "Yeah, they're updating it to lower the age from 12 to 8." I replied "Well, that's not my fault. I came here thinking it was the one price. I guess I'm going to leave." After a few moments, he finally relented and said he would do $8 a piece and that was the best he could do. Honestly, I think he was a bit of a pompous jerk and I totally would have left if the kids wouldn't have been so disappointed. As soon as he was gone, the two ladies were all apologetic and ended up saying I could just take Colby in for free since he was so small.

I was glad I stayed though. The three younger kids, particularly the boys, had a grand time. It claims that it's for ages up to 12 but that's just downright ridiculous. Calleigh was bored after a short time and I don't think we would pay to take her there again. But it's perfect for the boys and Brady is still talking about it. And then the kicker is, when their website was finally back up and running on Monday, I went and looked and sure enough, it still shows 5 for $35. Is that even legal to have a price on your website and then not honor it?

This was Aubree and Brady's favorite thing.

I will use pictures to show what else we've been up to the past week.

Went to a consignment sale last Friday afternoon and had to take all four kids, unfortunately. They were surprisingly good (this smily faced kid being the usual main culprit) so I let them play in the playground there afterwards.

You may recall from last week that Brady said he would "darpissitate in Sabbath School this week." And sure enough, he did! At the end of class, Duncan says he gave Duncan a sly smile and said "Did I do a good job?"

The girls did the offering for Adventurers Sabbath.

Another puzzle. Since they laid down next to the last one, they now think they are supposed to do that every time.

It can be tough having an older sister. Sorry, Shawn, for all the times I did this to you! Not that you read this blog...

The boys at gymnastics.

The girls with Coach Kori, their teacher on Mondays. Notice she gets the cool, feminine looking spelling of the name. She is really awesome (and not just because of the name).

The world may have quite possibly stopped spinning on its axis at approximately 7:10 pm on Monday, October 6. Brady took a bite of a new food. A homemade eggroll!

A science experiment on what happens when you mix yeast and sugar.

Our memory verse this week starts off with "I am the Bread of life." So our theme has been bread or dough. Here the girls are making homemade play dough.

Success! And so easy to make.

Did I mention that Gig is arriving in 16 days? Or maybe Gigi in 6 days. Depends on how you want to look at it. Keep 'em guessing I say, Aubree!

Why I homeschool, Exhibit A.

Why I homeschool, Exhibit B. May these four always be the best of friends.

Sleep. Blog. Sleep. Blog. This is what goes on in my head and lately the sleep part has been winning. I try and rest my eyes for a few minutes after the kids are down and the next thing I know, it's morning. Or, I should say, the next thing I know, someone is awaking me in the middle of the night. But more about that later.

Of course, a lot has been going on since I last posted here. The biggest thing is that my mom came down for a lovely 5-day visit from Wednesday, 10/15 to Monday 10/20. She got to: spend a day observing us doing school, take the girls to gymnastics, accompany us on yard sales, eat at the food trucks, make a guest visit to the Apopka church, take the girls to soccer, have a wonderful picnic lunch, go to Science Center, and lastly go to Legoland.

Tried out the new local breakfast joint, Breakfast Club, which just opened right near us. It was a poor man's First Watch.

Food Trucks. We noted that Gigi seems to always come during the third Friday of the month since we seem to be doing the food trucks each time she's visiting. Coincidence?

Picnic in the park.

Science Center. You got to spin the wheel and then do the challenge that it lands on. One was "eat a bug." Once Aubree heard that, she freaked out which is why her hands are up rubbing her eyes. We assured her she wouldn't have to do it and she at long last agreed to spin the wheel (I do think it was parts of a real bug even though Calleigh told her "It's just pretend."

Colby loved it.

Digging for dinosaur bones.

When we walked underneath this, Brady hurried his step and said "I don't want that big mouth to come down and get me." Colby did not have similar qualms.

The boys taking a break at the Apopka church.

With Legoland, we went on Monday using the special homeschool rates which you can do on Mondays/Thursdays/Fridays if you make a 48-hour advance registration. It's $25 for adults and $10 for kids. Obviously that's a great deal since Legoland practically has Disney prices. The neat thing is that as long as one person has homeschool credentials, you can bring in non-homeschool people for the discounted price (well, the kids have to pay the $25 but still good). We really hope we can bring cousin Camden there at some point! We booked the perfect day to go. The weather was fantastic and we barely waited in a single line. Elaine also came with us so there was a perfect number of adults supervising children (since Colby obviously can go on very little). Of course, I'm now finding that the rides that enthrall Brady leave Calleigh uttering those words that parents get so sick of hearing "This is so boring." So for a little while we had to split up with me taking the girls on some rides while the grandmothers stayed with the boys. I will say that it was very enjoyable to spend some time with just the girls going on some of the roller coasters.

Brady on a ride with Gigi

Brady driving a car. Hopefully he'll be much better at it when he's 16.

Poor Aubree. She got wet in the splash playground so I gave her a backup shirt and shorts I brought. She had never worn the shorts before and they were really loose and I had to tighten them as tight as the band would go. And then about two hours later as I looked at her, I realized she was wearing the shorts I brought for Calleigh. Oops.

I took this photo of the parking lot to show how empty the parking lot was. That building in the foreground is the Legoland Hotel that is opening next summer.

The boys were enthralled to look at all the Lego creations...Brady especially liked the pirates.

Getting some ice cream and the very delicious apple fries on the way out.

One thing I really enjoyed was seeing what a good time Colby had. He was only able to go on a couple of the rides but he was able to go in some of other attractions including a splash playground area and he really was like a regular little boy playing in all of it. He just loved it and didn't even seem to mind when he got a face full of water. He didn't take a nap on the way there so I thought for sure he would crash soon after getting into his stroller but it's like he didn't want to miss a thing and didn't fall asleep until 2:30 and only then because the other three went on the carousel and I took his stroller somewhere where there weren't any distractions. He can get so grouchy, as we all know, so it's always a nice treat when he's actually happy all day.

He slept for a good 1.5 hours.

Brady had a good time too, especially when we got to the carousel or as we often call it, the "merry-go-round." In fact, he must have asked about it every ten minutes, "Can we go on the merry-go-round now?" No matter how fun something was that we were doing, this is all he wanted to do...go on the merry-go-round. We finally got to right before Colby went to sleep and then he went on it seven times. Sometimes it's just the simple rides...

Finally!

One last thing about our day...as the three younger kids played in the splash playground area, Calleigh sat there uttering those words "I'm bored." I told her she could look at my phone for just a minute. Lately she's been sending text messages to people. Not that I'm crazy about her doing this frequently but on the one hand, it does help her with her writing and spelling so I'm a little supportive. Usually she texts Gigi, Grandma, or Daddy. I see her typing away and then a minute or two later I look over at her and I see she's sent a text to Allen. I look closer and this is what it said "Maybe we could spend some time together." It was all perfectly spelled and after I took five second to admire her spelling, I was like "CALLEIGH!" I sent off an urgent text to Allen letting him know it was NOT from me. Boy, that could have been a little awkward.

Gigi's flight wasn't until 8:30 so we were able to just leave the park when it closed at 5:00 and drop her off at the airport on the way home, albeit a slightly circuitous route. It was a short visit but we made the most of it and it's only about 6 or 7 weeks until we see her again for Christmas.

It was a good day indeed.

A bunch of other stuff has been going on but I think I'll mostly go over all that just in pictures but I'll touch on a few things. Today was the baby shower for my dear friend Jennifer, who is due at the beginning of December and who better hold that girl in until after Thanksgiving. How weird is it to be planning a party for her instead of her planning some sort of party for someone else? Definitely strange. A few of us helped plan everything although I use the words "plan" loosely when it comes to me. I didn't actually plan anything as I left that task to the more creative folks like Heather and Ashley. But, I did help set up which was last night. Heather was kind enough to host the party at her estate and it all came out very lovely. I didn't get home from that until almost midnight and then I had to do make some food and a few other things. I finally hit the sack at 1:55 and then Colby was up at 6:23. I didn't have to be at the shower until 10:00 but I decided Duncan could just take over starting at 8:00 (he had to take them to soccer anyway at 8:40) and I went to a few yard sales on my way to the shower. Anywho, the shower was just beautiful and we even had a young man, in a bow tie, playing music in the background. How nice is that! But how I'm still awake to write on here after my lack of sleep and busy day, I do not know.

The goodies table.

Food table.

Pianist. Wish this could be Brady someday.

I came home to this. Duncan was having a hard time getting Colby to take a nap.

Speaking of babies, another wonderful person just had a baby a few days ago. My cousin Rad and his wife Jen welcomed Levi Bradley into the world on Thursday. This is the 17th kid of the cousins with the boys back in front with 9 to the girls 8. And right now there is no cousin pregnant...that I know of. Please speak up if someone has a secret. So Rad has his first kid and then if the news couldn't get any better, he got his results on the bar exam that he took in July and, no surprise here, he passed the bar. What a couple of days! No one is more deserving.

Doesn't this totally make you want to have another one?!

In other news, we've been in a bit of rough patch with Calleigh lately. Over the last few weeks, she's been telling us that she's afraid she can't breath or won't be able to breathe. This usually happens before she's going to bed or it happens in the middle of the night when she'll come down to our room and wake me up. At first, I didn't take it too seriously like maybe she was trying to avoid going to bed or whatever. But then I realized that she was genuinely worried about it. I finally got to the bottom of it when she explained that she was worried she was going to die "like Treva." You may recall that Treva was my friend that died a few months ago from a carotid artery rupture. I think Calleigh heard that she had died suddenly as she stepped out of the shower and probably heard something like "It was quick and she just stopped breathing." Duncan and I have explained to her that Treva was very old (at least compared to Calleigh) and that this will not happen to her. Duncan has time and again showed her how your body will naturally prevent you from stopping to breath if you held your breath...you can't help but breath. We've tried praying and anything else we can think of but it doesn't seem to help. She would freak out about even going to bed without one of us in her room. Eventually I got to the point where I could be out of the room but still upstairs. We were making progress. But she was still coming down to my room and waking me up during the night which was very frustrating to say the least considering that my nights are already short. Not only that, but she'd bring Aubree with her because she would be worried if she left Aubree behind that Aubree would stop breathing. Arghhhh!

The good news is that the last few nights, neither have made an appearance. I have assured Calleigh that I have her sleeping bag set up next to my bed if she needs to come down and maybe that has helped. At first I would show my frustration with her for doing all this but now I'm trying to be more understanding since it seems to be something she really is afraid of. Hopefully this will help her get over it faster. At least, I'm praying it's a phase and not some other problem!

In Colby news, his top two teeth are about a third of the way in. Funny how he got both the bottom teeth at the same time and now both the top teeth at the same time. I don't remember the others getting them like that. A couple of nights ago he was inconsolable in his crib at about 11 pm so I thought maybe he was in pain from his teeth. I tried giving him some Advil. He took a little bit of it and then promptly threw up all over the floor and himself. His first throw up. So glad I got to be a part of it. Ha! Fortunately it wasn't a sign of sickness as he was fine after it (although he still cried for several hours) but it did allow me to reflect on the fact that Colby hasn't bed sick a single time in his nearly 14 months. Glad to be saying that after everything Brady went through in his first year.

Love my little guy

It amazes me how the last few months he's changed. At Sabbath School now he can take his offering up by himself and put felts on the board by himself while I stay seated. Can't say he doesn't get distracted on his way back, however. He isn't saying too much yet except for "Buh bye" which he can say perfectly clearly as he waves his little hand. I've moved all the 12-month tops out and brought in the 18-month stuff although for pants he's still in 12-18 months. I really don't have a baby but a toddler now. Kind of sad in a way.

School has been going pretty well. For our reading class, we have no specific curriculum, Calleigh just has to read a book for 15 minutes. I set the timer on my phone and when it goes off, she typically shuts the book and that is that. So last week (or maybe the week before last actually), she was reading this story about two sisters, back in the pioneer days who drove around the country in their covered wagons and would put on shows where they stopped. I didn't think it was any sort of extraordinary story by any means but when the timer went off, Calleigh just kept on reading...and reading...and reading until she finished the story. Thirty minutes had gone by. I was astounded. I didn't want to make a really big deal out of it but on the inside I was shouting "Yes, yes, yes!" A little while later, I walked by her on the way to the bathroom and she says to me, offhandedly, "I guess I kindof like reading." Have there ever been six words so sweet to my ears? I think not! She hasn't been doing 30 minutes every day since then but she's definitely been more enthusiastic about it so I'm feeling very hopeful.

Making bread for school since the Bible theme for the week was still "Jesus is the bread of life."

Not bad.

Made canoes out of paper.

We already had to get new colored pencils since the girls use them SO much that some of them were getting down to little nubs.

A couple of conversations with the kids:

Me: (Giving Brady kisses like I love to do): "Can you just be my baby forever?"
Brady:"No!"
Me:"Can you be my toddler forever, then?"
Brady: "Nooooo!"
Me:"Well, what are you then?"
Brady: "I'm Tom Brady!"

He is so funny with the whole Tom Brady thing. This afternoon I had the Patriots game on and he wasn't paying any attention to it as he played near the TV but when he heard them say something about Tom Brady he got all excited, "They said Tom Brady!! I'm Tom Brady!" I think he means to say that they're both named Brady but he always says the whole name, Tom Brady.

At yard sales on Friday.
Me (talking to the seller as Calleigh looks on):"Would you take $.50 each for the bathing suit and leotard?"
Seller: "No, my wife really wants $1 each."
Me: "Hmm. Okay. The reason I'm asking is because this leotard doesn't have a size in it and I hate to buy it and then it doesn't fit her."
Seller:"Yeah, I really think she wants the $1."
Me: Looking them over as I ponder whether I want to spend the money and to make the seller think I don't want them.
Calleigh; "Oh, it's okay, Mom. If it doesn't fit me, it will fit Aubree."

Shhhh Calleigh! Breaking yard sale rule # 101. Make them think you don't really want to buy it. Luckily, the guy relented when I started walking away.

Some more pictures....

Two Sabbaths ago the Adventurers went to Pine Lake Retreat. We only went for the day and I had full intentions of staying through the evening festivities but we only lasted three hours. It was too darn hot!

Waiting to do an experiment as part of Sabbath School/church.

Admiring Fiorella's craftiness.

Just wish they had an option of pasta WITHOUT sauce. Otherwise, this is what happens.

After we got home, we met some friends at Chapin Station. On the way there, Aubree informed me that "Zachary is my boyfriend." I thought it would have been funny if Aubree was watching Calleigh and Zachary swinging like this with an angry look on her face but she doesn't seem to care. Thankfully!

Allen came over to watch the Broncos game a few Sundays ago while the rest of us made some donuts.

Guess they were good. At least, my chocolate loving boy thinks so.

Duncan puts the finishing touches on the pergola.

It was amazing how quickly he built it.

Who says you need a pool to have fun in the backyard?

A visit to Costco. Calleigh looks like she's having one of her breathing situations.

Made herself a tie and mustache.

Calleigh got a doll at a yard sale that came with an apron so of course, they had to put it on Colby and then the girls dissolved into fits of giggles.

Had a wonderful Sabbath picnic lunch at a nearby park yesterday. Just a really gorgeous day.

Duncan and Allen working on a fire pit today. You can see we got some plants for the pergola in the background there. Still working on the furniture though (those chairs belong elsewhere on the patio).

This cracked me up. I've gotten a bunch of toy/craft/American Girl magazines in the mail lately and the kids could look at them for hours. I told Brady to look through and put a circle on the things he might want to put on his Christmas list. Do you see Brady's circle?!

Have a great week!

I now have the answer to which of my children would have the first broken bone. If I had to put money on it I would have gone with Brady. I would have been wrong. And the winner is...Calleigh. Of course, this is kind of old news by now since it happened on Thursday, October 30. Boy, when you have to give dates rather than just the day of when things happened, that's when you know you're behind in posting stuff on here!

Anywho, we are in the process of getting gutters for the back of our house (silly me thought gutters came with houses but what do I know) and a gentleman was in the backyard assessing things to give us an estimate. All the kids were back there as well as Duncan while I was in the kitchen working on making supper. I happened to glance out the open back door and saw Calleigh standing on the top of the toy fire truck. Before I could get out the words not to do that, she jumped off. I couldn't see her land but I saw the fire truck topple over the other way as she jumped and I had a feeling it didn't end well. I rushed out to find her lying on the ground on her left side. She wasn't crying but she wasn't getting up either. As I came closer, she says "It's not broken! It's not broken!" I didn't see any bones jutting out or anything so that was good at least. I felt around and didn't feel anything noticeable either nor did she wince in pain as I touched it. I brought her inside to sit down and she was moving it around. I thought she was probably fine but figured Duncan could assess it because I was off to take Aubree to gymnastics (Calleigh wasn't going anyway because she had some minor cold symptoms). A couple of minutes after I left, Duncan called to tell me that they were indeed going somewhere because he thought it WAS broken based on how she had started acting.

You can't see the top but this was the first truck she jumped off.

Since we have the connections at Centra Care, he was able to get her right in away and kept updating me via text message what was happening. When they got there, she started acting normally again and Duncan was very doubtful it was broken but went ahead with everything anyway. And what do you know but the x-rays came back showing she had a hairline fracture just above her elbow on her left arm. If it was an adult, they may not cast it but since it's a kid and they grow so fast, they recommended it get casted. So it turns out it's a good thing Duncan took her. Oddly enough, through all of it, she never was in much pain at all and didn't require any meds. Obviously you can't assume that a kid doesn't have a broken bone just because it doesn't hurt badly. Right mother? (Private joke).

The next morning, Duncan got her an appointment at Jewett Orthopedics. When they looked at the x-ray from Centra Care, they determined that it wasn't a fracture but a clean break all the way through (Centra Care ended up calling us back that afternoon and said the same thing...they send the x-rays out for more analysis and that was what they determined too). On went the cast for the next three weeks. Crazy how short of a time it is for kids. Calleigh had been saying she wanted to get a pink cast because when people signed it would show up better but in the end she went for green instead, her favorite color. Everything went smoothly but the one thing I'm mad about is that we found out there is a water proof cast that a friend got there a few months ago. But for whatever reason, they never gave her that option which has been a real pain in the neck.

Not feeling too excited waiting for her cast.

Its a lot more exciting once you have some signatures.

A few days after this all happened, Calleigh volunteered the information to me, without my asking, that the reason she jumped off the fire truck is because she was trying to impress the guy that was there to do the gutters. Who knows if he even saw her jump and furthermore, it's not like he was some young kid. He was probably in his late 40's. Go figure! The funny thing about the guy was that he made a comment about my "BOSOCKS" license plate and said that he was from Providence, RI originally. We could hear the Boston accent as soon as he started talking. But then awhile later, I could hear him saying to Duncan "Don't tell your wife but I'm actually a Denver Broncos fan." It was kind of ironic since the big Patriots/Broncos game was coming up in a couple of days. And we know how that ended up!!

The week of the broken arm was an interesting week. Calleigh got a bit of a cough that seems to be going around. The cough started on Monday night although we didn't know it at the time. She came downstairs about 11:30 pm in a complete panic that she couldn't breathe and was going to die. It was clear that she COULD breathe but I would say she basically had a panic attack about the whole thing. I had to get her calmed down, gave her some honey, and let her watch a nature program on TV until she was okay enough to go to sleep on the floor in our room. Over the next few days, the same thing repeated a couple of times although fortunately not to the extent of an attack. She refused to cough, thinking it would make her throw up (I think I had told her I threw up one time from coughing and it is apparently etched in her memory) which meant the phlegm was just stuck in throat. When this would happen, she would think she couldn't breathe and then rush over to me and say "Calm me down, Mommy. Calm me down!!" I couldn't help but laugh the first time she said that to me. It wasn't "Help me" but "Calm me down."

She wasn't feeling her best that week but she did so great with school. It was probably one of the best weeks we've ever had. She did everything without complaint. One of the biggest things Calleigh dislikes is writing because she doesn't like erasing and she's not crazy about writing in general with a pencil. I figured out then that if she did her math on a dry erase board, things went so much better. I would just copy the problems from the worksheet on to the dry erase board and then she was happy as clam to do the problems. I'm not sure if we will always do this but it was a nice discovery.

Practicing her spelling words by writing them in the sand. It was the first week she got 10/10 on her post test.

Made tricorn hats for History.

As I've mentioned on her more than once, I have had to tell myself on many occasions that Calleigh is not me so she may not enjoy math or reading or school in general as much as I did. But I have found at least something that we have in common. She is good at memorization. For her English lessons, she had to study the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." She was not required to memorize it but I thought, why not? It took her no time at all and I was very impressed. Here it is. It's really quite a lovely poem.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

On topics other than Calleigh, last weekend found us at a hot dog roast/vespers program at the church on Halloween. Halloween fell on a Friday this year so there was no trunk or treat which was fine by me. I hate having all that candy in the house. Jimmy Kimmel does that thing where he has the parents record themselves telling their kids that they ate all their Halloween candy. Mine would never believe it because I can't stand eating any of that stuff, nor does Duncan. Vespers had a huge turnout...I was very impressed although we left early because keeping Colby occupied in those conditions is just not ideal.

Brady hanging out with Addison at vespers.

Sunday morning we went to the FLEC Fall Festival which is always a good time. It was just chilly enough to need some sweatshirts so that added to the fall atmosphere. Duncan only stayed about half the time as he had to catch a flight to Kansas City for a business trip...he returned late Wednesday morning. One of the activities was a mechanical bull. You know the drill...you sit on it and try to hang while they make it move all different ways to knock you off. Calleigh obviously couldn't do it and I figured we would just pass it by but Brady said he wanted to do it. I thought for sure he would say "no" by the time it was his turn after watching other kids fall off but nope, he went right on without any fear. He stayed on for 22 seconds and the people running it seemed quite impressed. He wanted to do it again but we had to keep moving.

What's a fall festival without some face painting!

Aubree was the very last person of the whole festival to get her face painted. She waited so patiently for this tiger.

We don't watch Spiderman, we don't read about Spiderman, we don't talk about him, but somehow Brady knows about him and wanted a Spiderman face painting (probably saw it on a display there).

Kohlden and Brady are becoming such good buds.

Sorry Allen. Okay, not really. Just trying to be neighborly here.

Monday morning I made the decision to skip school. With the cooler weather arriving, I had to face the facts that all the kids needed to move the next size up in pants while Colby and Brady also needed to move up in shirt sizes as well. This meant a huge undertaking of getting hundreds (okay, may six or seven) clothes bins out of the garage, washing the clothes, and getting them put away not to mention putting all the old ones in the bins. Then there was the fact that the consignment sale was about to start and I had barely done any preparation on it. So no time for school! I got no argument (from Calleigh, at least) when I announced it was a work day rather than a school day. As it turned out, we didn't do any school for the whole week so I declared that we were on "fall break." Just too much to do and not enough time. Actually, there are quite a few people who home school year round so that about every six weeks they can take a week off. I see where this would be very beneficial. Despite having no school, I was up until about 1:30 - 2:00 each night trying to get all the clothes sorted, put on hangars, and tagged (I bought a tagging gun since last time around which makes it MUCH faster). In all, I had 396 items which included some toys, a stroller, and exersaucer. We shall see how it turns out.

The reason we had no school on Thursday was because we left Thursday morning to come to Marco Island (off the coast of Naples) which is where we are now until tomorrow morning. It is the annual Florida Hospital Leadership Weekend. Last year we went to St. Pete which I thought was fine but they decided to come farther south this year. I wasn't completely thrilled with having to do a four hour drive but I'm glad we did. The weather has been so fantastic and the venue is beautiful. The years we went to Jacksonville it was already so chilly this time of year so this has been perfect. In fact, most of the meals have been outside and there is just something about eating outside that is especially nice.

The one thing I hadn't been planning on is that I would be the one to drive the four hours. But Duncan was asked to do the devotional on Friday morning and he needed time to prep for it so the driving fell to me. Which was really fine because I just put on my headphones and listen to Dr. Laura and I'm a happy camper. The theme of the weekend was "Live Life to the Fullest" and I told Duncan that maybe he should talk about our family and Nova Scotia and how we have the tradition of going there every year and then we had the fire which hasn't stopped us, etc. So he ran with that idea and put some slides together and drove home the idea of how great it is to have family traditions. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear it since I was with the kids but many people stopped to tell me afterwards how great it was. He only had seven minutes and right before he went on, the guy in charge emphasized that he had to keep to the seven minutes so they could stay on schedule. As Duncan was speaking, he noticed a timer ticking down and realized it was going to be way more than seven minutes and had to cut some parts out. He never got to the part about the fire. So as people came up to him later to say "Great job" he would add in that the place had burned down. That was quite a shocker then! At any rate, he was relieved when it was all over and could just enjoy himself.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the pool and at the beach. Calleigh was miserable that she couldn't go in and instead spent her time texting both grandmothers that it was the worst day of her life. I did feel really bad because there was even a small water slide that she would have just loved. Duncan and I took turns getting massages. The hospital was kind of enough to pay for one activity of our choice and we both went with the massages. Why does 50 minutes feel like an eternity when you're taking care of a crabby kid but feels like nothing when someone is massaging your back?

Calleigh did sit in the hot tub at least.

Brady completely pooped out.

We were fortunate to get a suite here at the hotel so we have a separate room with two double beds and then a a big living room. The first night all went well...Nobody woke up during the night. But last night Colby woke up in the middle of the night and I had no choice but to bring him in our bed where he tossed around for seemingly hours. The pullout had no bedding on it or I would have sought refuge on it so Duncan at least wouldn't have been bothered. I am now prepared for what tonight will bring.

Our back entrance which was only a few yards away from the outdoor meals. Score!

Our view

Our big Jacuzzi tub. All six of us were in it at once (in bathing suits) and Aubree said "If Dewey and Marlee were here, there would be room for them too." Completely random comment regarding our deceased dogs.

One funny bit from our stay here. At the hotel entrance there is one of those revolving doors. It goes in a counter-clockwise motion and you just step in one one door passes and then walk around to get to the opening on the other side. Yesterday I was coming back with the kids and I was pushing Colby in the stroller (a cheap Walmart stroller that we had to buy because Duncan forgot our stroller at home. I will give him a pass since I'm sure his mind was on the devotional) and was going to use the side door entrance. But the kids really wanted to go through the revolving door. So I stood there with them for a minute or two so they could watch it and see how it worked, etc. Aubree and Brady were holding hands and were going to go together. The door passes and I say, "Okay, go!" And instead of going with the flow, going in the direction the door was moving, Aubree turns left and starts walking right into the next door coming in our direction, dragging Brady along with her. Seriously??? We stood there watching it for like five minutes first! A totally "blond" moment is all I can say.

We ate lunch next to our hotel at Thursday afternoon at a place called "Doreen's Cup of Joe." Strange name but the food was SO good. This was the parfait that Calleigh got. Wish I had recorded her face when it was delivered to her. We loved it so much we went back on Friday for lunch and Calleigh got another parfait.

Way far in the background a guy is tossing fire sticks around.

Brady at the kids' program.

I love those Biri boys. Brady is particularly fond of Jonathan and would roam around during the meals looking for him. He would say "Where is Jonathan? I NEED Jonathan!"

But going back to Colby and his sleeping problems, last week was torturous. I don't know what happened to him but starting with his afternoon nap of the day of Jennifer's baby shower and the nine days after that, he would have a complete meltdown when I put him down for his naps..whether it be the morning or the afternoon nap. At first I thought he was ready to drop the morning nap (the other three did at fifteen months and he's coming up on that in a few weeks) but then he would also do it in the afternoon when I knew he was tired. I would just let him cry in his crib and sometimes it would take him 45 - 55 minutes to go to sleep. One hour would be the limit and I would take him out but it never came to that although it got very close. A few times, we would notice that he would have these marks, almost like bruises, on his forehead and we finally came to the conclusion that they were from the rails on his crib. He would lean against them and cry for so long that they would make marks. It was so odd that one day he would go for his nap fine and then the next day and all the days after, no. And then, after some serious prayer (really and truly) on my part, Tuesday morning (this was nine days later), he amazingly went to sleep with nary a whimper. It repeated itself in the afternoon and I was so incredibly happy. Wednesday wasn't quite as good but still good. Of course, now we've been at the hotel and it's all gone to pot. I've had to lie down with him on the bed for him to nap. I will be anxious to see how it goes when we get home. I will be doing more praying, for sure.

On that note, I will start wrapping up with some conversations with the kids.

A few days after we got home from Legoland, Duncan took the girls to their gymnastics class in his car. At one point, he had to slam on the brakes pretty hard which made them all lean forward in their seatbelts.

Aubree: "Please keep your arms and legs in the vehicle until we come to a complete stop."

Guess she was paying attention to all those announcements.

One evening as I was putting the girls go bed, Calleigh was saying that she didn't want to go to bed by herself because she was afraid she would stop breathing during the night.

Me: "Calleigh, you will be fine. Nothing is going to happen to you."

Calleigh:"But it could. You don't know that."

Me:"I promise it won't. Listen, I'll give you $20 if something happens."

Aubree (to Calleigh): "And if something does happen to you, then I'LL get the $20."

Very comforting, Aubs.

We started studying George Washington last week and were talking about how one of the Indian guides leading Washington tried to kill him.

Aubree:"They didn't have the 10 commandments back then?"

I was trying to get Brady to change into a different shirt because the one he was wearing was dirty. He was rebelling because the one I wanted him to put on was one he deems a "handsome" shirt because it buttons up and has a collar.

Me: "Come on, Brady. Just put this one on."

Brady: "No, I don't like those ones."

Me: "Brady, I need you to put it on. If you don't, you are going to have to go in timeout."

Brady:"Okay, I guess I will since I"m so handsome when I wear it."

Yesterday I told the girls about the guy that wanted to put on a special suit and get swallowed by an anaconda so he could film it and see what it was like.

Me:"But I don't know how he would get out. I guess they would have to cut the snake open to get him out. That's probably not a great idea."

Calleigh:"Maybe they could just have a person who is really old get swallowed."

Aubree:"Or maybe someone who is sick."

Apparently these suggestions were to mean that those people could just stay in there forever!

A few more pictures...

One afternoon last week I had to lie down after lunch because I had a bad headache. The kids were in quiet time upstairs. When I got up and went to look for them, I couldn't find Brady any where. I was yelling him name and no answer. I came back downstairs to look and finally found him like this on the couch. Scared me for a minute.

She was the only one who would help me pull the guts out to get the seeds to roast,

So yeah, guess he still needs his afternoon nap.

Aubree is doing so great with her reading.

Giant teddy bears at Costco. You'd have to have a pretty big house...

The girls have started fighting over who gets to read Colby a book before bed. Love that!

I've noticed that Calleigh is more tired from the arm.

More naps needed all around in the Grodack household.

Trying to get a picture of all the kids to send to Daddy while he's in KC. There's always one who won't cooperate.

Daddy's home!!

Have a great week.

It is only fitting that my 500th blog post be about one of (maybe I don't even need to use the words ("one of") the most loving, intelligent, caring, Christlike, funny, handsome, just terrific men I know. That would be my father who is celebrating his 70th birthday today. Honestly, those words really aren't anywhere close to how I feel about him. I know most girls think their father is the best but I KNOW mine is!! When I think about my childhood, it is filled with nothing but warm memories and so much of that has to do with my dad. From taking us to ball games & hockey games (whenever we didn't think we could get in he would say "There's always more than one way to skin a cat"), making us breakfast every morning, Friday night suppers (having to sit at the table for 20 minutes!), driving us 45 minutes to school one way, Nova Scotia, and best of all, Christmas (walking through Filene's just to smell the perfume), the memories are endless and wonderful. There has never been a time when I wasn't aware how much he loves me and I can't help but think about how awesome Jesus must be if this is how great of a father I have here on earth. I love you dad!

Today is also an anniversary of sorts for me too. It's been 10 years since I had my bout with the flu. Duncan and I flew up for a big 60th birthday party for my dad and I started vomiting at the party. We had to fly back the next day and it was the worst flight ever which then turned into the worst week of my entire life. I seriously wanted to die. I have never felt so awful. I would rather go through childbirth and the recovery than go through that again. I missed a week of work and my hair was in dreadlocks by the time it was over! I hope to never go there again that is for sure.

Oh, I should also add that with my dad's birthday, of course, begins the playing of Christmas music. Is there anything better? Christmas music has to be somewhere in the top 10 of my favorite things in the world.

Let's see, what have we been up to this past week? Sunday we wrapped things up at Marco Island before heading home in the late morning. The day turned out to be rainy and we were very appreciative that the bad weather held off until then. As I had mentioned in my last post, the hospital was kind enough to pay for each member of the family to do an activity. Besides a massage you could do jet skiing, para-sailing, a dolphin cruise, or get a manicure/pedicure. The jet skiing and para-sailing were obviously out which left the dolphin cruise. I didn't think being on a boat for 2.5 hours would be a good idea with Colby and Duncan didn't want to leave me for that long so that left manicures/pedicures for the girls (we were tempted to take Brady for a mani/pedi but alas, did not!). Considering I didn't have my first pedicure until last year, this was quite a treat....even more so when I saw the bill. It was $115 EACH for the service. Good grief. I guess this is how the rich people live. The girls had a lot of fun with it though. And I dare say, they will not be getting another one for a very, very long time.

Happy customers

Monday morning we had to get back in the swing of things with school after having our "fall break" the previous week. It has been so nice the last few weeks with the lack of complaining, for the most part, from Calleigh on having to do school work. She's motivated to get as much stuff done before lunch so we only have one or two things left in the afternoons. I feel like we've turned a corner although I'm hesitant to put that in print. Meanwhile, Aubree is just going gang busters with her reading. We are on about lesson 56 of her 100 lesson book but that hasn't stopped her from reading numerous other books along the way. I have a big bin of like more than 100 easy/intermediate readers that I got at a yard sale awhile back. Calleigh never read any of those while she was doing the 100 lessons but Aubree just loves them and tells me over and over again "I love to read." Bless you my child.

Having a cup of tea while doing math. She kept taking sips of mine (which is not decaf) so I got her one for herself, decaf.

Science experiment...testing to see what kinds of things soak up water best.

Making hasty pudding. For music we've been doing "Yankee Doodle" which has the words "And there was saw the men and boys as thick as hasty pudding."

I loved it, the girls liked it, and Brady wouldn't touch it, of course.

Serve it with a little maple syrup and it's delicious. Actually tastes a lot like cream of wheat to be honest.

Getting decked out in Patriotic gear to march around our island while singing along with the Yankee Doodle CD.

On Wednesday we took a field trip to the Central Florida Zoo which I realized we haven't been to in years for whatever reason. They have various home school classes (many of which are in the afternoons which doesn't work for us) including "ZooKeeper 101" which was a 1.5 hour class on how to be a zookeeper. It was $25 for non-passholders and $20 for passholders which I thought was reasonable. It's certainly easier doing these kind of trips now that Colby doesn't nurse during the day anymore but nonetheless, I thought it would be a good idea for grandma to come along in case I needed an extra hand. They did a great job with the class. A zookeeper talked up front for a little bit, they showed us some animals, and then they had various stations for the kids to go to for hands on stuff. We also ran into our friends Katherine and Lizzie from our gymnastics class so that was a neat surprise. We only got to go into the zoo for a very short time but the kids were clamoring for more so I think we will be getting an annual pass again in the very near future. I timed it and it's about a 37 minute trip there so it's not that bad.

Looking at animal x-rays

Doing an obstacle course.

Something that zoos do to entertain the animals is put hay and various spices in bags so that the animals can play with them and enjoy the smell.

A variation of a wart hog playing with the bag

One of the stations had six kinds of food and you had to guess which went with what animal. Aubree got 4 out of 6 correct and they said she was the only one who guessed that the coconut went with a parrot.

Genius! Never seen this before.

This was obviously the highlight of the day for Brady. Getting to ride the train.

Friday we were back on our yard sale circuit and we had a little funny incident. Duncan has been working diligently on our back yard with the pergola, furniture, fire pit, putting in new trees/plants, etc. So this week he was suddenly very interested in what I might find at a yard sale like some planters or whatever. At one sale, not too far from here, I found this nice wooden bench for $15 and texted him the picture. He said to get it and he'd find a place for it. But alas, I discovered it wouldn't fit in the van so I told the guy my husband would pick it up that afternoon. Fast forward and Duncan is off to go get the bench. I didn't have the street number of the house so I just explained that it was on the right just before you went around a curve. A few minutes later, I get this call from Duncan and he's partially out of breath and he says "What side did you say it was on?" I said "On the right." He says, "Well, that explains it. Gotta go." So it turns out, he was at the house on the LEFT just before the curve. They had a nice bench in their yard and he had gone and tried picking it up but was having a hard time moving it. Once he heard it was the one on the right, he turned around and saw the correct house with the guy in the driveway watching him. Just a little awkward!

This week has been a big rough for poor little Colby. He got the cough that Calleigh had last week and couple that with some teething (his teeth on either side of his two top front teeth are about to pop out), it's hasn't been too fun for him. He ran a fever from Sunday - Wednesday and was coughing so badly that he threw up a number of times including a few times in his crib which I discovered when I got him out later. I hid this throwing up stuff from Calleigh lest she NEVER ever cough again. Fortunately, he has still managed to sleep well at night despite these conditions.

Pretty happy about the fire pit Daddy is making.

Before closing, just a funny bit from Calleigh. She will often ask us when she can get her own iPod (we tell her they will no longer be making iPods when she can get one) or iPhone. I've never given her a definitive answer since I don't have one other than "no time soon." So she tried a new angle this time.
Calleigh: "Well, how old were you when you got a phone?"
Me: "I was 22."
Calleigh:"How old was Daddy when he got one?"
Me:"I think he was probably 20."
Calleigh (jumping on it): "So can I get one when I'm 20 then?!!"

She was all smug like she pulled a fast one on me!

A few more pictures...

Brady discovered he can reach to get water out of the fridge so now he's constantly getting water whether he's thirsty or not.

Daddy's iPhone 6+ has arrived!

We had my cousin Stephen over for supper last night. Brady had gone two days without a nap and he almost fell out of his chair at the dinner table because his eyes kept closing. We finally moved him over to the couch.

Got our patio furniture and five new trees.

Taught my girl how to play Chinese Checkers tonight. She loves to play games.

Enjoy your Sunday.

On Thursday the three weeks of Calleigh's arm in a cast came to a conclusion. I took the whole crew in for the removal since I thought they would find it interesting. I know I thought it would be at least. Actually, I really wanted to go so I could question them as to why she didn't get a water proof cast considering that a friend had one and then a lady had just told me her son got a waterproof cast from there the day before. I was sure they had done us wrong! As it turns out, if you have a cast that goes the entire length of your arm, as opposed to just your forearm, than you are not eligible for a waterproof version. So there you go. Next time we will aim for a broken wrist as opposed to the humerous.

Calleigh was not nervous at all with the removal since she said she had seen a video of it (where, I have no idea). The lady started cutting through it but then ran into some problem and left for about 10 minutes and brought a different lady in with her. That was a little strange but the second lady had no problems and within a few minutes it was gone. For some reason, maybe from when my brother had broken bones or something, I was picturing this white, whithered limb emerging from the remnants but alas, it looked like a perfectly normal arm. Apparently three weeks isn't long enough for it to change that much. Shortly afterwards the doctor appeared and proceeded to scare us to death with talks of surgery and such if something were to happen to said arm over the next few weeks. In no time at all, Calleigh and I were both wishing the cast was still on! He told us no physical activity for the next three weeks at which time she would come in for another x-ray (they did one at this point to check on the break and it looked healed). I was a little surprised at the fact that we had to go back in but maybe that's par for the course for where the break occurred (just above the elbow) and her age.

First lady (nurse?) takes a stab at it.

Second time is a charm.

She was holding her arm as if she still had the cast on, as to be expected, and he went over different exercises she needs to be doing daily. Fortunately by the next day, she was pretty much back to normal with using it but I'm constantly having to tell her "no horseplay!" That is for sure the hardest part with this. I had to tell her that come Thanksgiving that she wouldn't be able to fool around with Blake, Evan, Zachary, and Kaleb. She took that news pretty hard and was even crying about it at one point but hopefully she won't be wallowing in self pity when the time comes.

Her last act as a girl with a cast was helping to make a blanket for Adventurers. The Adventurers were commissioned with making blankets for needy children and turn them in at Wednesday's meeting. You could buy a "No Sew" kit at Jo Ann's which consisted of two fleece blankets. You would put the blankets together and cut strips one inch apart and then tie the strips from each one together. Calleigh was so excited about the project. I cut all the strips and then she came behind me and tied the knots. I was impressed that she could tie the knots so well especially in a cast. Anyone needing a Christmas gift idea for her, here's one!

The finished product just before we handed it in.

We had another great week of school last week. Oh how I love to write those words. Our curriculum this year is taking us through US History and is going to hit each of the 50 states separately so we can learn the capital, state bird, flower, etc. Calleigh is so interested in anything to do with the states because of her "Stack the States" game which she finally just finished by earning all 50 states. On to "Stack the Countries" now. At any rate, on Monday I teased the girls that on Thursday we were going to learn which state was the first state in the US and they would keep bugging me every day to just say which one it was. They were so anxious to find out! They made some good guesses like Virginia and Pennsylvania but the answer, of course, (not that I remembered it myself) was Delaware. They were the first to ratify the constitution so thus had the distinction of becoming the first state. This week we are doing a special Thanksgiving week and not doing any of the states and they are so disappointed that they won't find out the second state until next week. Their excitement makes me so happy as I'm very fond of history myself.

Aubree made a book for me all by herself...completely all her idea.

She was very proud of herself.

Her bins of books.

We made ink out of blueberries, vinegar and salt and used feathers as pens like they did in colonial days. The girls loved it.

Also did some other science experiments..without a shirt on. This was not part of the experiment.

Aubree is definitely my drawer and made this Christmas tree for me which I just love for some reason even though it's not some great artistic creation or anything. I loved how she drew a cord and a plug there on the right.

This past weekend was a fun girly weekend as I went out with Tangie and Jennifer for Indian food and a movie on Saturday night and then last night went to the Gala with Jennifer. The original plan was to go with Duncan to the Gala but he wasn't really euphoric about going or that he could get tickets for Jennifer and Bruce at the same table as us so in the end I suggested he just not go and I would go with Jennifer. We ladies enjoy getting dressed up and seeing all the other ladies doing the same thing! The interesting thing is that Colby is still nursing before bed and I don't pump any more and give bottles so I never go anywhere in the evenings until he's in bed. Clearly, that wouldn't be possible in this case. I ended up nursing him at about 4:30 pm and Duncan gave him a sippy cup of milk before he went to bed and it worked out fine (actually, I take that back. He woke up at 3:37 am and basically didn't go back to sleep). So good news for me and future nights out!

I love it when people bring their four year olds to a non kid's movie that starts at 10 pm.

I almost backed out of going to the Gala at the last minute. In typical fashion for me, I didn't try on the dress I was going to wear until a few hours before leaving the house. Someone had given the dress a few years ago and when I had tried it on then, it had fit. Well, it didn't this time. I could barely get it zipped and then Duncan had to get a special tool to get it unzipped. Other dresses proved just as futile. Boy, was that a depressing 20 minutes. I had to go with a dress I wore a few years ago that had a more loose fitting bodice. Ah well. A better woman would have hit the treadmill today.

I had no hairdo either until the last minute but fortunately Jennifer helped me pull this together.

With Amy.

The Gala was great. The food was delicious and the entertainment, Jay Leno, was really funny! I've always liked him so I was glad to hear he was performing. However, I told Jennifer we were out of there when we determined that there was a few minutes left of the show so that we didn't have to wait too long for our car from the valet parking. Nothing like waiting with hundreds of other people for their car to be pulled around. It all worked perfectly or so we thought. We were one of the first ones out there but we kept waiting and waiting and waiting. Other people who came long after us had their cars arrive and left. Poor Jennifer...nine months pregnant and in heels finally had to take them off. After a good 15 minutes I went to the valet table and said my car was missing. They assessed that the keys weren't on the table so someone must be getting it right then. So we waited some more. And some more. Another black Volkswagen pulled up and we almost got in until we noticed it was the wrong interior. Dodged a bullet there although at this point it would have been tempting. Now 25 minutes has gone by and I go back to the valet table and the guy was completely patronizing to me "Ma'am, we have many cars here and we're doing our best." He says this while putting his arms down in that motion that means "Calm down." Anyone with half a brain would say "Oh you were the first one here and haven't gotten your car after 25 minutes. That means there must be a problem." So we wait some more. Finally a supervisor comes over and asks for a description of the car and says he's sending someone out to look for it. I say "Good because I have a lady here who is nine months pregnant." Listen, I'm not opposed to using that card if I have to.

A minute or two later, a valet attendant comes over to me and holds up a big set of keys and says "Are these yours?" I see the finger from Madame Tussaud's so I know they're mine and now I have a sneaking suspicion in my mind. But first I was a little annoyed that they had found those keys because I had thrown them way under the driver's seat so no one could find them. Obviously they were snooping! With good reason it turned out. I looked over at Jennifer and said "Jennifer, do you have the key to the car in your purse?" She looks in there and sure enough, out comes the key. Ahhhh! We were in Duncan's car which doesn't require you to put the key in the ignition...only that the key is in the vicinity (I think inside?) the car for it to start. Stupid me, with my brain apparently in the clouds got out of the car to have the valet attendant take it and for some odd reason gave Jennifer the key to put in her purse. The car was running at the time and continued to do so even when we walked away. The poor attendant then parked it and then couldn't find the key anywhere for it but thought maybe the giant set of keys was it. It should have been clear it wasn't though when he didn't see a Volkswagen key in the bunch or see that the car wouldn't lock. Now, I will take responsibility for this dumb move on my part but why in heck did it take them 30 minutes to figure this out on their end when I came to pick up the car? We will never know. I guess we made a memory at least!

Duncan has been hard at work, still, on our back patio and really, it was quite fortunate that he hadn't planned on going to the Gala. One of the last things on his docket for out there was to get electricity for our pergola so we could have a ceiling fan and outlets to plug in strings of lights, etc. We had an electrician come and give us an estimate. Duncan wasn't happy with it so he didn't some of the work himself (digging a trench to put wires in or something like that) but when the electrician saw that Duncan did some of the costly work himself, he said he didn't want to do the job any more. As luck would have it, my cousin Kelly and her husband Steve and their adorable son Caleb happened to be visiting us yesterday for the day (they were wrapping up a week of being in Orlando). Steve knows basically everything about anything having to do building stuff, fixing stuff, you name it. He was pleased to have a diversion and helped Duncan do all of the electrical work so Duncan didn't have to get a second electrician here. Voila! We now have power. They worked past dark last night so it was good Duncan was home.

With Caleb all in their Patriots gear. Another win for the Pats!

Steve explaining some things.

On that note, I was wrap up as it is now past midnight. Here are a few conversations with the kids.

Brady LOVES to play with anything that is a common household object which is why it is never surprising to find him sleeping with salad tongs or what have you. He found this cord/rope/whatever you want to call it thingy and he's been using it to try to repel down the sides of the bunk bed or crib or something like that. I came into the girls room finding him like this:

Me: "Brady, you shouldn't be doing things like that. You're going to get hurt."
Brady:"Don't worry Mom. I won't kill myself. I'll still be alive."

Last Sunday (not yesterday), I was helping with the weeds that were growing up through the bricks in the patio. I couldn't stand looking at them another second so I was on my hands and knees pulling them out.
Calleigh (comes out the back door to see me yanking on a weed): "You have four children AND you are helping out here on the patio??! That is amazing!!

She really was truly amazed. I'm not sure how to take that really.

I was telling the girls how much I am enjoying school because I'm remembering and learning things right along with them.
Aubree:"Hey, that must be why it says in that song "And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again."

A few closing pictures...

Supper at Ikea on Tuesday night. Unfortunately they were showing Sponge Bob so I told the kids they couldn't watch the movie. I picked a table far away but then realized Brady could see the TV from his seat. Hence, why he isn't looking at me. Little sneak.

Ain't no shame in his game. He'll dress up just like his sisters.

Stopped at Trader Joe's on the way back from getting the cast off and found that they had little carts for the kids much to their delight.

What a deal! I huge Brussels Sprouts log for only $2.99. They were de-licious!!

Holding his Bible in Sabbath School class. That Angelic face belies a lot.

Glad his older brother is still participating.

Come on now! This could totally go on Pinterest, right?!

Have a great week.

The title is reminding me of the untimeliness of this blog posting. Oops! So yes, we do have to go back to the beginning of last week to catch up on things.

Since we took the week off a few weeks ago for "fall break," I decided we would have school for at Monday - Wednesday of Thanksgiving week unlike other local schools who took the whole week off. The good thing was that our curriculum had a fun week of Thanksgiving related themes/projects so it ended up being quite fun and really a break from our normal week of school.

Some of our activities:

Turkeys made out of hands. Unfortunately Calleigh put Aubree's through the laminator and it got stuck producing an inordinate amount of tears. Which reminds me I have to remind Duncan to try and get it out...

Placemats. We were supposed to do fall colors but Calleigh obviously took it another direction.

We had to make guesses about how much a pumpkin weighed,, how many seeds were in it, how tall it was, and whether it would float. Calleigh was eerily close on most of the questions.

She guessed 200 seeds and there were 196, Not bad!

During quiet time the girls like to go in the school room and do crafts. This was Calleigh's one day.

Wednesday evening Ron and Elaine came and stayed overnight so that Ron would be on this side of town to get up early to go golfing with the guys as is their Thanksgiving tradition. I left them all at home at about 11 pm so I could go out to CVS and Walgreen's and do my traditional Black Friday (or rather Black Thursday) deals. All went well although I was reminded once again how CVS is 10 times EASIER to shop at than Walgreen's because of Walgreen's wacky way they do coupons. So wish it was a CVS next to my house rather than a Walgreen's.

Calleigh must have told me like 10 times in the days leading up to Thanksgiving about how excited she was about the day...despite that the fact that she wouldn't be able to rough house with the boys. It really is a great day! We always have our big Thanksgiving meal late in the day around 5 pm so it's usually a fairly relaxing day of preparing things rather than rushing to get everything done for an early meal. I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and then put the parade on which is one of the big things they were looking forward to. Eventually Jennifer and the boys came over and others followed suit. The guys finished golfing and we had some appetizers including some cheeses I had gotten a good deal on at Publix. When the Zbaraschuks arrived, the kids all went outside to play some games. We seriously couldn't have asked for a better day weather wise. Upper 60's and bright sun. Perfect!

All told we had 27 people. Everyone brought food or made it here. Allen did the honors this year with the turkey since Jennifer could pop at any time and goodness knows we would have hated to have Thanksgiving without a turkey (insert sarcasm here). I'll just post pictures to show the rest.

Grandma teaching her to cut the "chicken" for alpine chicken.

Showing Calleigh how to set the table.

Our noontime spread.

The asiago was the best.

Allen's fancy spread of brie, honey, pistachios, etc. Yum!

Fun "Indian" game from our curriculum. Color six almonds with a black marker on one side and put them in a container. Each kid takes turns shaking the container and however many almonds are black side up, they get that many toothpicks. After playing how ever many rounds, whoever has the most toothpicks wins. Poor Calleigh.. She got a 1, 1, and 2 and lost by a long shot!

Looking good!

Calleigh still wasn't very happy from doing so poorly with the almonds.

Our table. A little plain. Maybe some day I'll do something fancier.

Girls playing a game.

Watching the Bears lose.

Grodacks (6), Isidros (5), Bergherms (4 1/2), Zbaraschuks (5), Ron & Elaine, Lolo & Lala (Allen's parents), Julia (Jennifer's mom), Bobbi (Amy's mom), and Megan.

Time to eat.

I thought this was cute...Kaleb and Aubree shared a chair while eating their dessert.

While others ate theirs outside by the fire.

Brady is very thankful for Kohlden.

After everyone left and we finished cleaning up, it was time to look through all the ads to plan my Black Friday shopping trip. I could barely keep my eyes open but I managed to get a decent plan. Since we don't take many gifts up to Boston because there just isn't room, I don't buy many Christmas gifts on Black Friday. It's more about clothes and stuff for ourselves! The day did not disappoint. Duncan had the kids and I left the house about 7:45 to make the rounds at various consignment stores, CVS (again), Target (40% off clothes), Family Christian Bookstore (not sure why the ABC isn't open on Black Friday. They would have had my business!), Babies R Us (good deal on wipes), and Lowes (to pick up poinsettias ordered on-line). One place that I didn't stay at was Old Navy. First of all, I had to park WAY far away (which honestly excites me because I love it when it's busy!) and then when I got into the store, there was a HUGE line to pay. Everything was 50% off. I put a few things in my cart and then noticed the line had gotten even longer. It was all the way from the front of the store to the back and then half way back to the front again. I figured it was at least a 45 minutes wait. I abandoned my cart and left. Hey, these are precious hours of shopping alone and I wasn't spending that much of it waiting to pay!

The dads stayed busy while the moms shopped. A trip to Lowe's for supplies for another backyard project for Duncan (building a table for the pergola).

Isidros brought over the big ball.

Had our first fire in the fire pit Friday night and roasted hot dogs with the Isidros. A little chilly but lots of fun!

One of my finds was a pair of snow boots for Brady as I didn't have any in a size 8 for some reason (we inherit that stuff from Camden but some years he may go up by two sizes). I was really happy to find some at the consignment store and then they were 35% off for Black Friday. On Sabbath morning, Brady was in my room getting dressed and wanted to try on his boots. I looked through the bags for them and couldn't find them any where. After church I checked my receipt and didn't see them on there either so somehow they had gotten missed. The one thing I had really wanted! So Sunday afternoon we headed back to the consignment store with the hopes of finding the forgotten boots. I looked on the shelves with the other snow boots with no luck. Just as I was about to give up and leave, I spotted them on the shelf with the rain boots. Of course, I had to pay full price this time but what can you do. Just happy to get them. Ironically, though, the girl checking me out this time commented she had checked me out on Thursday so I told her that "Oh, we somehow must have missed ringing these boots up because of all the stuff I had. Too bad because now I have to pay full price." Perfect opening for her to say "I"m so sorry about that. I can give you the discount now to make up for it." But...of course, they aren't trained to give that kind of great customer service.

Other things we've been up to include a great time over the Zbaraschuks on Saturday night for a little get together, breakfast over Ron and Elaine's on Sunday morning and then getting our Christmas tree. We won't even enjoy it for a full two weeks before we head out but of course, it's worth every penny!

Kids are at it again...playing games.

Playing river/bank

Eventually the Grodack girls and the Z boys were the only ones left.

Calleigh, Aubree and Zachary....whom they were both arguing over on the way there. They both said THEY were the one going to marry him.

Sorry Calleigh! Zachary was the eventual winner.

Chilling in the jeep at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Getting our tree at our usual spot along 436 in Casselberry. Next year they won't be there thanks to a Wawa coming in.

Ahhh,, definitely not that one.

Playing with the netting the tree was wrapped in.

I guess they ARE stockings.

The finished product.

Our next bit of excitement came on Tuesday morning when London Elise Bergherm was born! I told Jennifer to keep her in there until after Thanksgiving and directions were followed to a T. She went into labor on Monday afternoon and London was born on Tuesday morning. It all worked out perfectly because Jennifer was going to be induced on Thursday and this way she was able to skip all that. The baby is just perfect and we couldn't be happier to welcome her to our circle of friends!

Went to the hospital Tuesday evening. Ain't she adorable? And the baby is cute too :)

Last night we went on an adventure to see ICE at the Gaylord Palms. It's an event that they have every Christmas season were they carve all sorts of sculptures out of ice and then charge you a bunch of money to see it! We've never been in all these years but since we've been learning about the Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky (who wrote the music) in school and that happened to be the theme for ICE this year, I thought it would be fun. Almost like a field trip you could say! I know it's crowded on the weekends so I thought it would be a good idea to go on a week night so Duncan met us down there after work (we parked his car at a Walgreen's nearby so we wouldn't have to pay to park his car too.). We had such a blast. Honestly though, ICE itself is probably not worth the price of admission. The sculptures are neat and the sledding they had was awesome, but it's a pretty quick exhibit not to mention that you're freezing. No, the best part was after that when we went and listened and watched some shows...some singing and acrobatics in the main atrium of the hotel. And the very best part was the search for reindeer. The hotel has a contest where you have to locate these 16 inch reindeer they have hidden all around the hotel based on clues. There are 10 clues and then there are also 6 bonus reindeer. If you find any 10 reindeer, you are entered into a contest to win a free hotel night stay or something like that. Of course, we didn't care about that part.

They supply you with these parkas to wear but we brought our own hats and mittens.

Good thing we brought them.

Sledding hill.

We let Calleigh do it even though she's still "healing" from her broken arm. Brady chose not to sled.

They went down probably 6 or 7 times. No lines at all.

The last thing is the nativity made of ice.

You could pay more money and go tubing. This is how we roll in Florida!

This seriously cracked me up. Instructions on how to go sledding. Really!

I packed some sandwiches for supper because we weren't about to pay to eat at the Gaylord Palms! We ate while waiting for this show to start.

Let me tell you, it was SO much fun! The kids were really into it, including or should I say, ESPECIALLY Brady. It was a bit of a challenge because the atrium of the hotel is somewhat dark. The roof is made of glass and since it was night and they had all the Christmas stuff lit up, it was fairly dark in there. But we did find some. In fact, Brady found two of them. He was so adorable too yelling out "A reindeer!!" In the end, we only came up with 9 because we ran out of time. It was getting past 8 o'clock and we had a 30-minute drive home so we had to call it a day. Before they went to bed Brady asked me if we could go back tomorrow. Of course, I said we couldn't but I can promise we will be back next year! It's well worth the $18 of parking just to go to the shows and then to do the contest. I asked when we were leaving if they do this every year and they said they do although it's something different each year (last year it was flamingos. Kind of lame for Christmas but whatever!).

Reindeer they found in the window at the frozen yogurt shop.

Hard to see behind him but Brady found this reindeer in the sleigh among the foliage.

A parting shot.

In Colby news, on Tuesday morning we took him in for his 15-month appointment. Everything checked out fine. It was at this age that the other three dropped their morning naps and went to the one nap a day in the afternoon. We aren't quite at that yet but something weird did happen on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. He took a 2-hour nap from 9:45 - 11:45 and then slept for 45 minutes from 3:45 - 4:30. So I'm not sure what that's about as it's definitely different (when the others dropped the morning naps, the one nap would take place about 1:30ish). I've got to say I don't mind it because we were able to complete almost all of our school work while he was sleeping and then have the afternoon free. My personal quiet time isn't happening now until later but that's okay. We'll see if this continues or not.

Guess who can climb up on this horse by himself and thinks he's a cowboy?!

Why I hate to let him try and feed himself yogurt.

Also interesting is that he's nursing more again. We were down to first thing in the morning and before bed but know it's happening at various times during the day when he pulls on my shirt and tries to put his hand down there. Oddly enough, I just read my blog posting from when Brady was 15 months and I wrote the exact same thing about him. So go figure! Must be the age. Lately when Colby has been nursing or when we lie on the floor of his room in the early morning hours, he'll put his hand in my hair and fiddle with it. I don't know if he just started doing this the last few weeks or if I'm just noticing it or what but he's obsessed with it. And oh my word, my hair is the worst rats' nest you've ever seen after the fact. It seriously takes me probably 10 minutes to comb it all out. I will say this habit of his did come in handy though the other morning. I had a headache and his playing and pulling on my hair helped that part of my head feel better!

On that note, here are a few conversations with the kids:

On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving:
Brady: I know what I'm going to dress up as for Thanksgiving...a bad guy!!"
Me: "Um, that was Halloween and secondly, we didn't even dress up for that."

Guess he thought you dress up EVERY holiday?

Talking about someone we know.
Calleigh:"But he eats meat."
Me: "That's okay. People aren't bad because they eat meat. Daddy eats meat."
Calleigh: "Who would want to eat something that has pee in its bladder?"

Why indeed?

Glad the homeschooling education is paying off here. Or not!
Calleigh:"I wonder what the easiest job in the world is? That's what I want to do when I grow up."

Calleigh and Aubree were getting into it over who got the last piece of cantaloupe and Aubree came running over to the table crying.
Calleigh (walking to the table behind her):"I didn't do anything and it didn't hurt her."

Aubree discusses with Duncan the states we've done so far for school.
Aubree: "So Delaware is the "First State" and New Jersey is the "Garden State" and Pennyslvania is the "T-Bone State."
Duncan:"I think you mean the "Keystone State?"

A couple more pictures...

Made johnny cakes for school. Very good!

Made peach cobbler to go with the state of Georgia, our 4th state.

The Liberty Bell.

Lastly, my very favorite picture of my amazing boy. My heart is full.

I am truly blessed. Have Happy Sabbath.

A week ago Sabbath Duncan took the kids to something called "Pack the Forest" where they put together bags of food to help hungry children. This is about the third or fourth year the kids have done it and it is always a rewarding experience. This was Brady's first year getting to go. Colby, of course, was not as fortunate as he got to stay home with me to take a Sabbath afternoon nap. The event took place at the Forest Lake Academy gym and there was even a news reporter from one of the local TV stations interviewing some of the kids...including mine. They thought that was pretty neat.

Hair nets are a must.

The assembly line.

Aubree was on sealing duty.

Getting interviewed.

Saturday night we went to Crane's Roost in Altamonte for "Light up the Holidays." There are a bunch of vendors, music and performances (which we never really get to see because it's too crowded) and then they have fireworks. We ate at the mall first and then rushed to get over there in time for the fireworks. No need to rush as the fireworks didn't go off until 7:20. I wanted to write that down for next year! We think they had technical difficulties though since that seemed later than years past. All the kids thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks...glad none of them were scared of the sounds. Aubree asked for some cotton candy and we indulged them with a bag of it. Calleigh reluctantly ate some - - she seemed to indicate that it usually made her stomach not feel good.

Love Brady holding on to Evan's back.

Fast forward to Sunday morning 5 am and Calleigh wakes me up saying her stomach doesn't feel good. She lies down in the sleeping bag next to the bed but then a short time later ends up on the bad complaining some more. Sure enough, a few minutes later she's over the side of the bed heaving onto the sleeping bag (much easier to clean it up off the sleeping bag than the floor so thank goodness for that!). Of course, we came to the conclusion that this was happening because of that darn cotton candy. But for the rest of the day she was kind of lethargic...lying on the couch and snoozing for most of the day. That evening she threw up again but wasn't really in any pain or complaining or anything. I decided to sleep with her in the guest room in case she had problems during the night.

As I was drifting off, I thought to myself "Hmm, my stomach feels a little funny." My second thought was "Shoot. Duncan is leaving for Kansas City in the morning which means if I don't feel good tomorrow, that's not going to be good." And sure enough, I knew I had it in the morning. Duncan came in to see me and I told him I was going to throw up any moment but he should just go. Escape before he gets anything. I threw up three times over the course of the morning and Calleigh threw up another time. My stomach was in turmoil the whole day so I spent most of it curled up on the floor. The kids watched a month's worth of TV in one day and I don't think they really believed their good fortune. I longed for Duncan to come home and thought about how this was terrible timing because Ron and Elaine were out of town too so there was no one to help me. Nothing like having to make your kids food when you can hardly stand up and the sight of food makes you want to hurl! Ughh. Fortunately for supper, Calleigh really stepped up and made PB&J's for everyone and really was very helpful. How often can I say that about her? Aubree is usually my little helper so honestly, seeing Calleigh in that mode was a big silver lining in all of this. I didn't have a fever or anything but I did feel really cold so I took three bath's throughout the day. As to be expected, this made Colby go bonkers and each time he stood next to the tub and cried and screamed the entire time I was in there. That kid. Seriously.

I am not one to take selfies but I had to take this Monday night. After a day of not combing my hair but taking all those baths and Colby digging around in my hair like he does, this is how it looked. Yikes!

And then, as I was feeling a little sorry for myself, poor Duncan sends me a text that as he got off the plane he got hit with it in a really bad way. He stomach was killing him and he was really cold. Those stinking fancy shmancy hotels don't have tubs any more so he had to warm up by sitting on the floor in the shower. He was supposed to be there until Wednesday afternoon but took a Tuesday morning flight.

The good news in all of this was that 1) Calleigh was better Monday morning and thus was able to help me 2) It only lasted 24 hours because I was almost as good as new on Tuesday morning and 3) By some miracle, the other three kids didn't get it. The only thing I can think of is that Duncan and I got it because we were holding Calleigh's bowl while she vomitted and held back her hair, etc.

Anyway, thank goodness for good health. It can not be underestimated!

On Wednesday I dodged a bullet. I always bath the kids in the morning rather than in the busyness of the evenings and Wednesday was one of those mornings. It's also when I cut all their nails. Brady stayed in the tub while I was doing the girls. As I was cutting Aubree's toenails I hear a yell from Brady..."Mom! Your phone is in the tub." Yup, Colby had picked up my phone off the floor and thrown it into the tub. Calleigh went and yanked it out and Duncan (who was working from home) yelled to me to put it in a bowl of rice which I did. I was cautiously optimistic because I do have an Otter Box on it which isn't necessarily water proof but it does cover up most of the phone. I'll tell you, it is a weird feeling to not have your phone. I don't know how many times I would forget it was out of commission and I would be looking around the room trying to find where I put it. About mid-afternoon Duncan said I could take it out and try it and voila! It worked. So yay for Otter Boxes.

Wednesday was also an exciting day in that we got the van's interior detailed. I had spilled some milk in it a few weeks ago and I'm sure you can imagine how badly spoiled, curdled milk must smell from being in a small enclosed space baking in the hot sun. Duncan could barely stand being in the van to drive to church. The phrase "No crying over spilled milk" really does not apply to this situation. It's very hard to find the time to take the van somewhere to get it cleaned so we decided to spring for it and have a mobile detailing guy come to us to do it. A little pricey I guess but so worth it to have the smell gone and to have the van cleaned like it's new. And yeah, I know it will be all messed up from the kids again in a few days but it looks really good for at least a few days.

A few quotes from the kids...

We were watching the Broncos game on Sunday afternoon and it went to a commercial which featured Peyton Manning.

Aubree:"Heeyyyyy. That looks like Peyton Manning."

Me:"It IS Peyton Manning."

Aubree:"How can he be doing this commerical and playing in the game at the same time?"

I couldn't get past the fact that she can recognize Peyton Manning!

I was upstairs putting some of the girls' clothes away just after they had gotten in bed for the night.

Calleigh & Aubree (in unison): "Eighteen sheep."

Me (thinking they were counting sheep): "Do you guys do that every night?!"

Aubree:"Yes, we do this every night."

Calleigh: "No we don't! Aubree just wants you to think that you don't know a lot of details about us and they we're very unusual."

Calleigh (seeing me looking at her with a strange look on my face: "What? I like to use words that are very stunning."

A few pictures to close.

Connecticut is the # 5 state which we studied on Wednesday. Their state bird is the robin so we made a robin's nest out of shredded wheat, lo mein noodles, peanut butter, and chocolate morsels. I didn't try it because of the peanut butter but Brady ate almost the entire nest!

The girls gave both Duncan and me pedicures one day. They said they would like to do it every day. Sounds good to me!

Had a Christmas get together over the Isidros on Thursday night.

Allen made some amazing Indian food and brought out the good china. So nice!

London came! She is so adorable.

Finally, just want to say hello to Amy from Hancock Park! It was good to see you!

Have a great week.

Sabbath afternoon, December 13 found us on our way to Boston for Christmas. The excitement was mounting! Now that Colby can partially be entertained by movies and other distractions, I had high hopes for this trip. This is maybe where you are expecting me to say "And those hopes were completely dashed." Well, it wasn't THAT bad. Actually, all went quite well up to a point. We stopped at a Pizza Hut in South Carolina for supper (which clearly had not invested any capital in their decor as it looked like it was stuck in 1982) and then settled the kids in for the night as we started the overnight part of the trip (usually my favorite). Everyone went to sleep easily and Duncan was driving. I was trying to catch some sleep before taking over. About 1:30, Duncan stopped to get gas and it all went downhill. Colby woke up and essentially was awake for the rest of the night. He would seem to doze off for a little while and then a couple minutes later would start crying/screaming and the pattern would repeat itself. Around 3:15, I told Duncan I needed to start driving and we started looking for a place where I could get a fountain beverage (I ONLY like my Mountain Dew on ice). Not sure why that is so difficult off the highway in Maryland but it proved to be. Now Colby is really screaming and I said "Let's just stop wherever." We got off the exit and the first place I saw was the Beltsville Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Guess it was a sign! I got Colby out and brought him in the front seat to nurse in hopes of calming him down.

When he finished nursing, I poked around for his binky hoping for a quick transition. No luck. Couldn't find the darn thing anywhere and I was close to a panic. I think I had already given Colby all of the binkies I had. He would throw them around the van in fits of rage. I finally decided I would have to open the door and step out and hope it would fall out from somewhere. So I open the door, naturally it's very cold outside, and now Colby is crying again. And there is still no binky so I'm indeed about to go in full panic mode when this little voice from the backseat says "Mommy, it's in your hair." I didn't even know Aubree was awake. But sure enough, I put my hand up to the back of my head and there's the binky firmly nestled in my flowing locks (ha, I just had to say because it sounds so nice even though it was really a giant tangled mess.) I've said it before but it bears repeating, Colby is obsessed with my hair. In fact, both of the Grodack boys have a thing for hair. For Brady, it's playing with his hair when he's tired and with Colby, it's mine. The second he is near me whether nursing or sitting on my lap, he'll reach up for my hair and just knead it with his fingers. He's going to have to marry someone with long hair, no doubt! Anyway, the binky problem was resolved and we could go on our merry way. Except...he didn't actually go back to sleep and by the time we got to about 5:00 am, I finally said "What the heck!" and put Sesame Street on. So yup, Colby watched Sesame Street for hours before the other three woke up about 7:45. It kept him quiet and that's all I cared about!

Despite the Colby issues, we made great time and made it to my parents house in 21 hrs, 30 minutes which is really unheard of with kids. For comparison, our best time was a little under 20 hours without kids. Luck was on our side because there was no traffic or bad weather.

Here is a recap of how our time went. Let's see how well I can remember it!

Sunday 12/14 - Got to watch the Patriots pound the Dolphins from the comfort of my parents' home. Tried to put Colby for a nap in my old room (where we would be staying) but he would not go down in the pack 'n play. Instead, he fell asleep on the bed with me. And so would begin the great Colby sleeping debacle of 2014. It did not go well. But then, you probably got that from the word debacle.

Monday 12/15- We went and visited my mom at her work so we could say hello to some of her friends and also to Dorene who is now a resident (Dorene was my roommate for some of my growing up years). Hello again Amy! Shopped for a bit at Southshore Plaza and stopped to visit Bob in the hospital in Norwood. Poor Bob had been having trouble breathing the week before and it turns out he had to have a quadruple bypass which happened a few days before Christmas. It was a different Christmas not having him around, that's for sure. Our last stop was in Mansfield at the plaza that has LL Bean. I was so thrilled when we happened upon four carolers singing outside the store. That always makes my day!

Happy to be exploring at Papa & Gigi's on Monday morning

The brothers

Scoping out picture spots for family picture.

Tuesday 12/16 - The Braces arrive! Shawn, Camille, Camden, Acadia and Winslow arrived in the early afternoon and now the good times could officially roll. It became evident pretty early on that there were going to be fights over Camden. Calaubra all wanted to be with Camden whether it was in the car, next to him at the table, sitting next to him on the couch, etc. Calleigh feels a bond because they are both the oldest, Aubree feels the bond because they are "twins", and Brady feels a bond because they are boys. We had to break up many disagreements over the week and a half.

Passing the time in the morning at Bass Pro. Not sure what they are doing here actually since Duncan took this picture. Hmmm.

Getting excited with the arrivals coming soon! And yes, clearly no snow.

Greeting Winslow

Working on crafts. Now that Gigi does electronic scrapbooking all her old stuff makes good craft stuff for the kids.

Wednesday 12/17 - Time for the Grodack family Christmas picture! Last year did not go well, AT ALL. The picture was not that great and getting the picture ordered was a nightmare, mainly because we were in Newport. Fortunately everything went a lot smoother this year and I was happy with the picture (to be clear, nothing was wrong with the photography last year as my brother is an excellent photographer. It's always a problem with the subjects not cooperating). Later in the day, Colby and I went to visit my friend Kristi who I went to high school with and who was my roommate here in Florida for the first four years. Without her, I would not have met Duncan! Anywho, she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and while she is now cancer free, she's had to undergo more surgeries because of some things that didn't go exactly right. Oddly enough, she and her mom were both diagnosed almost at the same time and just after Angelina Jolie had that whole big thing with having a double mastectomy because of her mom. Kristi's mom is also cancer free now so praise the Lord!

Photo courtesy of Shawn Brace

I was in no rush to get home so Colby and I stopped and did a little shopping. As I was walking past a hair salon, I saw this cute little truck that kids could sit in while getting their hair cut and the store was empty so I thought it would be a good time for his first cut. All went well although he was starting to sour on the last few snips. Finished just in time. Mainly got the back thinned out and trimmed the sides. He does seem to have more hair than Brady at this age.

Meanwhile, Papa and Gigi had taken the five older kids to Jordan's Furniture in Avon to see the Enchanted Village. The three older ones got to go on a ride/show for the Polar Express while Brady and Acadia went to a light show. A good time had by all. Duncan used this time to go to Chipotle with Shawn. Shawn is obsessed with that place and Duncan is happy to accompany him.

Thursday 12/18 - Rad and Jen were leaving for Jen's folks in Michigan on Friday morning so we headed down the Cape so we could see the new baby, Levi. Rad has a baby, mercy! Seems like just yesterday he and I were wrapping presents together at my parents, giggling and carrying on. We took the boys with us and met Rad at the office...officially a lawyer with his own office. I am so proud! Jen met us there and then we followed them to an Indian Restaurant for lunch. There was literally no one there but us so I didn't feel so bad when the boys got loud and Colby started running all over the restaurant. Levi is just adorable and it was great to catch up with those guys. Oh, and the food was good but not as good as the Indian here. Before leaving the Cape, we made a stop at Kelly and Steve's to see the playroom Steve had built. I'm a little bit jealous I must say.

Love this couple!

The new playroom

While we were at the Cape, my parents had the Calleigh, Aubree, Camden, and Acadia, at the studio where my dad tapes his radio program. Like last year when he had Calleigh and Camden do it, he recorded the kids talking about what Christmas meant to them, etc. They were really excited and did great. Unfortunately, I missed hearing them when the show came on that Sunday morning. Darn it.

At 4:00 pm, all parties met at Edaville Railroad for our annual visit. I say annual but we did miss last year due to rain. No weather problems this year unless you could no snow as a problem. Which I do. Kelly, Steve, and Caleb and then Kathy and Bruno also joined us. I barely saw Calleigh the entire time because she was with Kathy and Bruno going on all the rides...those ones that would make any normal adult sick to their stomach because they go around and around. They went on all those rides like five times each and I have no idea how Kathy dealt with it but Calleigh was delirious with delight about the whole thing. The little kids were happy with their assortment of rides although it was like deja vu when we got to the bumper cars. You have to be 42 inches to ride them which Brady assuredly is not which resulted in a floor of tears. Same thing happened two years ago with Calleigh and Aubree. The only problem is that I don't know if Brady will be 42 inches in two years!

Acting silly getting ready to go in

The ball pit is always a big hit.

I went on this ONE ride with the girls that went up and then twirled around. Never again!! Ugh. I must be getting old.

You can't tell from this picture but Colby LOVED this ride. He smiled and laughed pretty much the whole time.

Now this is much more my speed!

Brady was obsessed with these horses two years ago so of course I had to get a picture of Colby with them this time.

Watching the bumper cars. He was a lot more understanding than his brother.

That concludes the first part since it's 12:20 am and I'm really tired!

And Christmas continues...

Friday, 12/19 - I have no recollection of what happened on this day so it must not have been much. Probably some shopping and some cleaning. And guests over for Friday night supper.

Sabbath, 12/20 - This week my father was at his Braintree church so we all followed suit. Calleigh was hilarious with my dad. I think she was just so proud that he was the pastor of the church and she was his granddaughter so she would keep going up to him (even when he was up front) to hug him and whisper stuff in his ear. He was feeling the love!

A little blurry but here's Calleigh sitting next to/on Papa for the children's story.

The "twins" feeling the love. Aubree is just a smidge taller.

Camille made the boys matching bow ties.

The sun sets at like 4:15 (crazy!) so there was still plenty of time to hit up a mall after sundown. I mean, it's only right to go to a mall on a Saturday night during the Christmas season, right? My father would wholeheartedly agree. We went over to the Natick Mall which has the American Girl Doll store and the girls were in heaven, of course. I had gotten them these little AG mini dolls on Black Friday for really cheap and I saw them in the store. I pointed them out to Aubree, "Oh, look at these. They look neat!" And she said "Those look boring." So that made me feel great!

Sunday, 12/21 - Time for the Boston Pops. As is tradition, we meet at the Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center for a meal at noon before the concert at 3pm. One of these years I'm actually going to really enjoy that meal. It seems like one of the kids is always a problem and I barely get to talk to anybody. Symphony Hall is a close walk from the Prudential Center and it wasn't really cold but we did get a few snow flurries on the walk over. We were a little bummed when we got to our seats and saw that we were separated from the rest of the group. My dad buys all of the tickets months in advance and with buying like 35 tickets (or whatever it is), sometimes that happens.

Camille shepherding the kids to the Pops while the rest of us walked behind her snapping pictures.

Just as the conductor takes his spot, Aubree leans over to me and says "I'm hungry!" I'm like, seriously? It's 3 pm and we probably finished eating a huge meal like 1.5 hours ago. I pacify her and jiggled Colby on my lap hoping to keep him quiet. Thankfully he ended up falling asleep after about the first song and then I see Brady's head bob over next to Duncan. Ah, yes. Both boys asleep. I can enjoy the music even though my legs are totally cramped and I can't move for fear of waking Colby up. We get to the third song and Aubree's whispering to me again, "When are we going to have supper?" Be quiet! She makes it halfway through the song and she's at it again, "What do you think we'll have for supper?" Why do kids think about food ALL the time?

Colby woke up at intermission so I knew the second half would be a fun ride. Naturally, he wanted to nurse and I wasn't about to deny him and cause a scene. Hopefully the people behind me enjoyed the show. It's pretty tight quarters there. And then the worst thing happened. Out of nowhere, the conductor says "For those of you wondering, the Patriots...." except he said the whole thing but I didn't hear the rest because I was cramming my fingers into my ears and singing "la-la-la-la-la." How dare he announce the score of the Patriots/Jets game!! It started at 1:00 and we were taping it to watch when we got home as we do every year without incident. I thought I saved myself but as soon as he finished his sentence people started cheering. I doubt there were many Jets fans there so that could only mean one thing. The nerve! I mean, 98% of the audience has a phone that they can check the score on so why the heck would you find it necessary to announce a score? Then to makes things worse, the old couple behind me apparently were hard of hearing because then this started happening "WELL, MARTHA, BRADY WASN'T PLAYING TOO WELL BUT THEN THEY GOT A TOUCHDOWN IN THE THIRD QUARTER AND THE JETS TRIED FOR A FIELD GOAL." I didn't feel so bad for possibly exposing a boob to them after that.

Colby was a handful in the second half and I had to keep getting up and standing over to the side but it was all worth it when they played "White Christmas" for the encore. Pure bliss. That's what music will sound like in heaven.

Monday - 12/22 - Well look at that...my anniversary. Twelve years to my dearest husband. I couldn't be more blessed and happy.

The Copsey clan decided to pay us a visit since Newport wasn't happening this year (Aunt Lori and Uncle Charlie went on a European cruise the week before...not that we expect them to do Newport every year) and we wouldn't get to see them otherwise. Toni, Alison and the boys, and Shannon with her two came down. We quickly determined that we would go insane with 10 kids running around the house all day so we decided to go to this place called KidzTurf located the next town over. I called ahead and was able to get a rate of $7/kid which was a good deal. The place has a zip line, bouncy house, basketball hoop, trampolines, etc. We all went and hung out there and talked while the kids played. They had a great time and I couldn't help but notice how nice the employees were...getting the kids snacks and one especially nice guy set up obstacle courses for the kids and timed them. What a difference between that and the experience at Lucky Monkey here a few months ago.

Alison brought her dog with her because her other one was hit by a car and killed about two months ago. Colby was smitten.

The crew having lunch before heading out to KidzTurf

Alison and Westin

Calleigh doing the zipline. I was a little nervous because of her recovered broken arm but everything went fine.

The obstacle course was taken very seriously...put face paint on and everything.

Griffin and Colby playing in the toddler room.

Camille, Shannon, Alison, and I. Missed you Kelly! Yes, I'm contorted at some weird angle because I always feel like a giant.

Tried to get a kids' group shot but at least one kid was crying...I think it was Griffin. From left to right: Winslow, Camden, Finley, Westin, Acadia, Tyson, Colby, Calleigh, Griffin, Aubree, Brady.

On Tuesday morning, I noticed I had a set of keys in my bag but I didn't think much of it, thinking they were my mother's. When I asked her about it on Tuesday night, she said they weren't hers. I took them out of my bag, without really looking at them, threw them on the microwave and thought, "Oh, they must be Camille's." On Wednesday morning I asked Camille and she said they weren't hers either and that's when I had a bad feeling. I went and got the keys and looked closer and I saw that besides having two car key fobs, a gym membership tag, and a bunch of other stuff, there was one strap that said the name "Alejandro" on it. I knew immediately that I must have picked them up somehow at KidzTurf. I called right away and they said yup, someone had been looking for them. I felt so bad. Who knows if the person was even able to drive their car! I know how frustrating it can be to lose something and look EVERYWHERE for it (hello, camera!). As soon as I could, we drove over there and I ran them inside and as it turned out, they belonged to the employee who had been so nice with the kids and the obstacle course. He was so relieved but the first thing he said was "I hope you didn't have to drive too far to bring them here." I happened to have $15 in Target gift cards (from couponing) so I gave those to him. I have no idea how those keys got into my bag!

Tuesday - 12/23 - Last year my mom had taken Calleigh and Camden on a random shopping trip for a few hours and had taken them to lunch on the outing. Seems simple but Calleigh still was talking about it a year later. So I told my mom she needed to do it again! This time Aubree got to go so she took the three of them out on Tuesday morning for a good portion of the day. They shopped, had lunch at Subway (which my girls are hooked on) and went bowling with Kathy and Bruno. Making memories with Gigi!

Awww, just realized Camden and Aubree are holding hands in this picture. So cute!

Meanwhile, it's wasn't that great of a day out but we decided to take the boys out shopping to the outlets for some last minute shopping. They were surprisingly very well behaved. We had promised Brady that he could ride one of the little rides they have there so he must have spent at least 20 minutes walking around trying to find the perfect one. It was kind of raining so that limited his options but he left happy. Afterwards we met Shawn, Camille, Acadia, and Winslow at Panera for a late lunch. We noticed how peaceful it was without the three older kids which was odd to say in a way because usually it's the boys that are so loud. Guess that isn't always true!

Got a free lolli-pop at one of the stores so things were going good.

Hanging out at Panera.

Wednesday - 12/24 - Christmas Eve. A little more shopping (I think I was at Target like EVERY day) and then let the games begin. The Rondinelli's came over late afternoon to exchange gifts and Bruno was there for some games that I put together for the kids. One of them was a game where I hid a stocking somewhere and gave them a clue to find it. Once they found it, the next clue was in that stocking. So they were running all over the house looking for them. I followed them around and told them that they should let Aubree read some of the clues since she can do that now. Brady kept getting upset about that and said "No, Calleigh reads the clues." Not sure what that was about.

The kids played "Pin the nose on Rudolph" but we couldn't resist letting my dad have a go at it. He didn't win.

Bruno won.

Christmas Eve dinner...subs and soup.

After the kids went to bed, time for the grownups to play. Except I did tell the girls that they could get back up and watch the games after Brady went to bed. With Ricky and Ana not around and Bob in the hospital we only had nine persons playing this year so we made three teams of three. It was Duncan/Steve/Charlie, Shawn/Camille/Dad, and Kelly/Mom/Lori. It was very close between the first two teams with Shawn/Camille/Dad eking out a victory in the last event to take first place. Ahhh, I do enjoy the Christmas Eve games.

Guessing what objects were in the stocking.

We also had our Christmas card contest where we vote for our favorite Christmas card that my parents received. It was slim pickings this year and it was controversial to begin with because Camille always sends my parents a card for the contest and it gets a lot of votes. Usually we don't look ahead of time to see who sent what card since it could taint our views. Somehow I had seen which card she sent so I said it shouldn't be in the contest because I couldn't be partial. So that caused a problem! We finally made our selections and had our winner and top five. Someone started opening them to see who had sent them, starting with fifth place. When they read the card that came in second and saw that it had come from Jim & Sue Smith (let's just say), we were all like, what? Why would they be sending you a card? My mother starting laughing hysterically and couldn't stop. And then Lori was laughing and laughing. It turns out that Aunt Lori had been saving these two "perfect" cards (that folks had sent to her) for years and years and had my mom stick them into the stack of our cards because she knew that we would pick them as the winners (which we did!). It was all rigged. My mom insisted she had never looked at the two cards, she had just stuck them in blindly but of course this was now all a big controversy. My dad has then told Aunt Lori that she is prohibited from being anywhere near the card contest in future years. All in good fun!

First and second place.

Christmas 12/25 - We started opening gifts at about 8:45 and it took a few hours as usual. We didn't have any big gifts this year for the kids (last year it was the American Girl Dolls) but had probably more than enough smaller gifts. It's always funny seeing what the kids gravitate to. One of the first things Calleigh opened was the mini American Girl doll mentioned above. It was of Felicity which is one of the dolls/characters that we've studied about a lot in school because she's set in the late 1700's. (For those that don't know, the American Girl Dolls aren't just dolls...they have books, movies, etc and the ones from earlier time periods are very educational). She just loved that doll and when I told her I only paid $12 for it she was blown a way. She couldn't believe it was that cheap and kept saying so! I guess considering how much the regular size ones are, it was a good deal. She also got a violin set (we hope she will be starting lessons soon...Calleigh, not her doll) for her big AG doll and she said those two things were her top gifts. Aubree apparently changed her mind and decided her mini doll was not boring after all. Brady got a lot of remote control stuff but I don't know if there was any one particular thing that was better than the rest.

Christmas morning in their Christmas jammies.

With her Felicity mini doll.

We got Aubree this Indian costume but Calleigh really wanted to wear it.

Got Calleigh this Pilgrim costume. Since we've studied the Pilgrims and Indians it seemed fitting.

The big gift for me was an iphone 6 from my beloved husband. My mom got an iphone 6+ from my dad and Shawn got an iPad Air so it was a big year for Apple for the Brace family. Oh, but also just as exciting were some black and white canvas pictures that Shawn and Camille made for us of the kids. Amazing stuff.

Shawn and Camille's gift to my parents...a picture of the seven cousins taken up in Nova Scotia this past summer.

I didn't take a picture yet of their gift to us but I will!

We had our usual delicious brunch after all the gift opening. A great day all around.

Friday 12/26 - We spent the day returning/exchanging some gifts...Duncan set up a new remote and office chair for my parents. I took a nice nap because I was exhausted.

The last evening in front of Papa & Gigi's fire.

I was reading a Bedtime Story to the kids before bed and came across this. Look at the first line. "Johnny was very big and very fat." What??!

Sabbath 12/27 - We went to the Norwood church this time. My mom was kind enough to take all the kids to SS and let Duncan and I sleep in a bit since we would be driving all night going home. Very weird getting ready for church without a kid screaming. At church I had one of the proudest moments of my short time as a parent...Calleigh told the children story! She loves listening to CD's as she falls asleep at night (Your Story Hour, Aunt Brenda, Felicity, etc) and subsequently loves to retell the stories to anyone who will listen. My dad suggested she tell one of the stories for the children's story and she got right on board. She did great and at the end she whispered to my dad asking if she could tell another one (they were out of time so no).

Colby fell asleep not long before we left to go home. Not good but he looked so cute cuddled with Gigi.

Usually when we do the Boston/Orlando car trip, we try to leave early afternoon so that we can drive for half a day, have the break of the night for the kids, and then have a little less than half a day the next day. The problem with this plan is that whenever we leave to go home after Christmas, we always hit horrendous traffic in Connecticut/New York/New Jersey/Baltimore. The New Jersey Turnpike has just about caught up with New Haven Connecticut, as the worst stretch of driving. To combat this, we decided we would leave in the evening so that we would hit all these places in the middle of the night. I wasn't crazy about the idea of starting out driving all night and having the whole day to go the next day but I think it worked out pretty well. We didn't hit any traffic at all in the problem spots. We did, however, hit some traffic in South Carolina and took an alternate route for a bit. We got home about 7:45 and this is where the travelling all day really paid off...it was now bedtime which meant that I didn't have to spend a half day taking care of the kids in my very exhausted state which would have happened if we got home at 1:00 pm. So I considered it a win. The trip took 23.5 hours which was longer than the trip up but I'll take it. The kids did amazing in the night part of the car ride. I didn't hear anything from anyone all night until 8:45 am. Couldn't have been happier with that. Despite us stopping for gas and switching drivers, etc. no one awoke. I did find my elusive Mountain Dew in the D.C. area although get this - - it cost $3.79 for the equivalent of a Big Gulp from 7-Eleven. That's D.C. for you. I paid it, of course!

A few other notes about our time up north:

A big disappointment was that there wasn't any snow. We saw flurries a few times but nothing accumulated. The small upside to this was that the kids played outside a lot without getting too wet or cold.
The sleeping left a LOT to be desired. Colby was terrible. Half the time I had to get him to fall asleep at night by lying next to him on my bed. The other half I was lucky enough for him to fall asleep while nursing. But every single night, except the second night there, he would wake up between 11:00 pm - 1:00 am and start crying and crying. Not wanting to wake other people up, I had no choice but to bring him in bed with us (fortunately we have a king size bed in our room). Can I just say I will NEVER understand how people co-sleep with their kids? He was all over the place in that bed and I was constantly waking up (the hand in my hair didn't help either). And forget any naps in the pack 'n play. All the naps took place in the car while we drove places. Brady was also a challenge although not as bad. He insisted on sleeping in a sleeping bag even though he still sleeps in his crib at home. He kept moving around too and bumping his head into the bed or rolling into Calleigh. Poor Duncan had a bed buddy often as well.
Ricky and Ana weren't with us for Christmas but they did come for a few days before continuing on to Ana's family in Maryland/West Virginia. So nice to be reunited with them and we look forward to next year when we get them for Christmas Day. Like I said, marry an orphan :)

Aubree and Tia Ana cuddling by the fire watching a Christmas movie.

I have to give a very special thank you to my mom who did an amazing job feeding us, cleaning up after us, and putting up with a constant mess in her house. She's quite a woman.

It really saddened me when I woke up on December 26 to think that it was all over already because there is no better time of the year. I LOVE it so much. I imagine heaven will be like the Christmas season every day. It must be. But to quote my dear daughter Calleigh, on January 1 she woke up and announced "This is so exciting. Everything starts over again. My birthday is this year, it's going to be Thanksgiving again and Christmas is coming!!"

A few other random pictures.

Aubree was a big help, especially to Duncan, with wrapping and writing names on the packages.

The two lefties. Brady is a lefty and Acadia is too!

This is a doll my mom has that Acadia had taken outside and she got dirty. My mom put her int he sink to get cleaned up but she scarred a bunch of us when we came across her in the sink because she looks so real!

Aubree eating a PB&J. She usually eats a slice of Swiss cheese on the side but decided to just stick it in the sandwich to make it easier. Ewww!

Have a great rest of the week.

The holidays are finally over, as well as my blogs about it, so we are now back to mundane life. Of course, I don't mind "mundane" life because I happen to think mine is fantastic. Although...I could do without the complaining from Calleigh now that school has resumed. It seemed like we hadn't had much of that over the past month or two but I think the four weeks off from school set us back a bit as far as attitude. All she has wanted to do this week is play outside and listen to Our Story Hour CD's that she got for Christmas from my parents. It's tough because when the kids are outside playing so nicely together on a gorgeous day, it's very difficult to make her come in to do book work. We did work around that a bit though...one of the days we did some of the school work outside with her hanging out in the clubhouse to do her math. It went surprisingly well so we may do some of that again since this is the time of the year that we can do that kind of thing as far as weather. Of course, we did have a couple of cold days recently like the rest of the country. The temperature in the morning was something like 36. Calleigh opened the door and yelled "It's Massachusetts weather out there!" She and Aubree ran upstairs and put on their boots, snowpants, and jackets. Just a BIT overboard but cute nonetheless.

We've been studying the different state birds for Science so it's only fitting to make a birdfeeder. This was Wednesday. So far we haven't seen any birds at the feeder although we see them around and hear them chirping. Hopefully we'll get some activity soon!

Nice day to try and get the boy to use the potty but to no avail. We would have certainly settled for peeing on a bush. I mean, who wouldn't have fun doing that??! Nope!

Since the potty was clean and unused, Colby totted it around so he could take some rest breaks.

Going back to last week, I had thought maybe I would do some school (we had gotten back from my parents on Sunday 12/28) that week but a cold that was starting on the way home kicked into full force on Monday and I wasn't in any condition to do anything where I had to think too much. It got progressively worse over the next few days and I finally called my mom for some comfort on Wednesday night only to discover she had the exact same thing. And it was just the two of us. Somehow the kids didn't get it. Anyway, instead of school I spent at least a day clearing out a bunch of toys to donate and make room for the new round coming in.

On Thursday, which was New Year's Day, we went over to Ron and Elaine's in the morning for breakfast and Christmas 2.0. The kids were only slightly excited that they had more presents. Elaine made a great breakfast, as usual, and we had a leisurely time exchanging gifts. Calleigh's favorite one was some Lego's which she has really gotten into lately. She keeps saying how much she loves building things which I'm happy to hear. Of course, the boys pretty much destroy everything within a day and that's not always a pleasant thing but the joy is in the building, right?!

The other jeep had broken down and this was their reaction.

Brady got some Play Mobile stuff that Calleigh was more than happy to put together.

Brady debuted his new haircut for the new year. We went to Costco on New Year's Eve (a little crazy) and Duncan got a clipper kit, watched a few YouTube videos, and undertook cutting his first head of hair. Not sure I would be so brave but I think he did a great job. Brady was very patient and just sat there as still as can be even though it took maybe 40 minutes.

First the clippers.

Before the top was cut.

On to the scissors.

The finished product. Once winter is over, I'd like to get back to the spiked hair.

Sunday we went to a birthday party for Jonathan Biri who turned seven. Brady idolizes Jonathan (who is a really great kid so I can't blame him) so he was thrilled to be invited. Duncan had a bunch going on so I took the kids. I had originally planned to leave Colby here but I ended up taking him which was the worst idea ever. Forget about any sort of a relaxing time. I spent the whole two hours chasing him all over the place, including, at one point, a baseball field with a game going on. It was basically torture for me. Even my brain shut down. I had gotten the boys these matching shirts and I had said to myself "Make sure you take Colby's off when he eats the pizza so he doesn't get it all stained with sauce." What do I do? As I'm getting their lunch, which is difficult while trying to hold Colby, I spot some fruit and give Colby a strawberry to eat to pacify him. Hello??!! Yeah, you know what happened.

Brady with the birthday boy.

The matching shirts before the stains.

Colby, Colby, Colby. I do love that boy despite everything. It's getting fun because he's starting to say words. So far, I can decipher the following: bye-bye, hi, Papa, Gigi, mama, dada, dog, car, and I swear he's saying Calleigh. According to my memory (which gets flimsier each year), he's ahead of Brady with this talking but of course, we aren't in the business of comparing kids. Ha!

So remember how I said he was so terrible at night while we were gone? Yeah, it was all a big scam. He has slept perfectly EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT since we've been back. What a bugger. This despite the fact that I noticed he has his first molars (teeth # 7 & 8) coming in on the top. The nap situation is in flux. I'm trying to do one nap a day. I'm sure he'd take a long nap at 11:00 if I let him but that makes for an exceedingly long afternoon for a tired mother who needs a break in the afternoon. So I'm trying to hold him off until the afternoon which isn't so easy when we go somewhere and he tries to fall asleep in the car. In fact, we stopped at CVS after gymnastics on Monday and he fell asleep in the Bjorn in the store. When we got to the car, I basically I had to (lightly) shake him and even put him upside down while yelling his name to get him to wake up. I was getting some strange looks but this is the desperation of a lady who is imagining herself sitting on the couch sipping a Skinny Cow iced coffee she got for $0.25 a bottle at Target while the baby is sleeping soundly in his crib.

A great deal and quite delicious!

It was an exciting Thursday in the Grodack household yesterday. When we got home from gymnastics last night, Duncan had a new bike for Aubree waiting for her. Her old one had a flat tire and really wasn't that great so Duncan cashed in on some gift cards for LL Bean and got a nice bike that is unisex and can be passed on to the boys eventually. Of course, Calleigh took this opportunity to remind Aubree that after this, she would be getting Calleigh's old bike each time whereas "I will be getting a NEW bike every time because I'm the OLDEST." Calleigh is finally listening to me...whenever she complains that she's the oldest and has to do the most stuff, etc. I always remind her that there are some major perks with being the oldest.

We also got a new piano. We've been wanting Aubree to start piano lessons which means she would obviously need one to play. Duncan researched all the options and it seemed like it would be very difficult to get a piano up the stairs and into the movie room so we decided to go with an electric piano which is much lighter (and cheaper!). It sounds virtually the same as a "regular" piano but it has the added perk of being able to plug headphones into it which I'm guessing will be nice. Interestingly, Aubree is under the impression that it's her piano since she's the one who will be taking lessons. Brady has taken a great interest in it though too and when Aubree made some comment to him about touching her piano, Brady asked me "Can you get me a piano too?" As if you can pick it up at Target for $6.99 after coupons or something.

The box has arrived.

Over the last few months I've been looking into lessons for her and also lessons for Calleigh on the violin. Ideally, I wanted someone to come here to the house because it would be so much easier for obvious reasons. But, of course, we live a little "out there" which may make it hard to find someone. So far nothing was panning out so I finally decided to just call a music place about 10 minutes away. At least if the girls could take lessons at the same time, that would be a help. But alas, the only slots available for violin were on Saturdays. Fail. I finally followed up on a referral I had on the piano lessons and told the guy I was in Ocoee and maybe it was too far for him to come but thought I'd ask. And then, it was like a miracle. He is moving to a house about three minutes away from us and not only that but he teaches violin too! Ever have that sublime feeling when things just come together and work out perfectly? That is how I felt. He's not moving until the end of the month so we have to wait a little bit but that's okay.

I think that catches us up. A few more pictures before I sign off...

The gift from Shawn and Camille.

Movie night on Saturday night watching an American Girl movie they got for Christmas. I love how Brady fell asleep sitting up perfectly.

Anybody need these? Publix paid me to buy them but I don't need them.

Excited about getting back to gymnastics.

Made these fruit cups from a new recipe book from Papa & Gigi

Get 'em Colby!

Awww, he's growing up. He finally let me put this on him for a few seconds.

Playing statue after gymnastics.

Another day, another picture of Brady falling asleep.

Love my crew.

We are reading "Farmer Boy" and in the book Almanzo notes that you can fill a glass with milk and another glass with popcorn and then put all the popcorn into the glass with milk and it won't overflow. So we had to try it! And it's true.

Aubree decided she wanted to taste the milk.

And then amazingly, so did Brady.

It's a no!

I have a passcode on my new phone that I haven't told the girls but Calleigh figured out that she could still take pictures without having to put in the code so unbeknownst to me, she went on a self portrait taking spree.

Happy Sabbath!

January is the worst month of the year for yard sales so I've been trying to do other stuff on Fridays. I happened to come across something that someone in one of my homeschool FB groups posted on Thursday about a a kids magic show happening the next day (which would have been yesterday). Calleigh received a magic set for Christmas and has kind of gotten into magic lately. In fact, just the night before we had watched a bunch of clips on YouTube on people doing magic tricks and how they were done. So it seemed like fortuitous timing!

The show was called Pip Squeak and took place at the Orlando Repertory Theater which we've been to a few other times. We sat with the homeschool group, whom we didn't know from Adam. We were only a few rows back which was perfect. The show was fantastic! It was actually about bullying. The magician had been bullied as a kid so he felt compelled to talk about it as an adult using magic to get kids' attention. Many times he would ask for volunteers from the audience and finally, he picked Calleigh who had been raising her hand and jumping up and down in her seat each time. There were probably at least 200 kids in the audience so I was happy she beat the odds and got picked! I'm sure she would have been happier to do something more "magical" but her job was to draw some hair and eye/eyebrows on a picture the magician had. She did great and I got a video but no photo.

One of things I found most interesting was when near the end of the show he was looking for volunteers but they must have cell phones (he was doing a segment on how a lot of bullying is done by cell phones, computers, etc). I was ASTOUNDED by how many kids raised their hands. The six he chose were probably the same age as Calleigh and when he asked them when they got on stage if they had cell phones, they all shook their heads yes. Wow. I guess I'm out of touch. These were not home schooled kids so Duncan pointed out that maybe they just had phones that were programmed to only call home or something if they were at school. I don't know but it blew my mind.

I also thought it was interesting that they girls' names were: Harper, Emma, Ava, and Isabella. I'd say that pretty much sums up the popular names of the last decade.

Colby did great during the show. I was slightly worried that he might act up and I would need to take him out...I didn't want to leave the kids there by themselves since we didn't know anyone else there but fortunately he was fine. In fact, he slept through the second half of the show thanks to falling asleep on the you-know-what. Still comes in handy sometimes.

The show was right next to the Science Center so when we walked out, I said "Do you guys want to go to the Science Center?" Well, you would have thought I had asked them if they wanted to eat ice cream every day for the rest of their lives. They were like "REALLY?""ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Apparently I need to be a little more spontaneous or something! As it turned out, they are having a big thing this weekend called "Otronicon" which is comprised of a bunch of vendors in the field of technology...robots, video games, etc. There was a lot of neat stuff although we hardly got to look at any of it because if I put Colby down he would run off and if I held him he would start screaming. Not a good combination. We pretty much stuck to the normal little kid stuff and they all had a great time. We even capped it off with lunch at Subway which is on the first floor. We were those people though. The ones with the screaming toddler in the middle of the lunch room. I had gotten a special beverage which may or may not have been Mountain Dew. Colby saw that drink with the straw sticking out and decided he wanted it. Can't blame him really. But boy, did he go absolutely berserk when I didn't give it to him. Yikes. You do not need caffeine child.

There's a picture of an animal on this card and the robot is supposed to be able to recognize it but supposedly the lighting was bad.

Channel 13 was there interviewing someone and Calleigh was completely intrigued.

Brady informed me that he now likes characters.

Florida Hospital was there with their pediatric ambulance so we checked it out.

Brady made me laugh at one point. There were tons of TV screens with video games going on and even big screens with it. As we walked by this big screen, there was some kind of fighting happening and Brady says "Is this inappropriate?" It was funny hearing that come out of his mouth but I know where he got it from. It's from watching stinking football live and all the terrible commercials that come on. Duncan yells "Inappropriate! Look away!" And the kids have to turn their heads.

This week has been interesting on the school front. Calleigh has really been anti school since coming back from Christmas vacation. To quote her, "I hate to write. Anything that has writing I don't like to do." So that rules out pretty much....everything. I've been torn on what to do. I mean, don't most kids go through phases of hating school but they have to go anyway? But I don't feel like forcing her to sit there and do something she's going to hate is the way to go about it (even though I don't think she truly hates it because once she gets going with stuff she does fine). From research I've done, one of the most, if not THE most, important things you can teach a kid is a love or a passion for learning and I don't want to destroy that with a bunch of book work. I have our curriculum staring me in the face with the 34 weeks (or whatever it is) of stuff to go through but I am telling myself that it's okay to leave that for awhile. So...this past week we've been doing a unit study on horses, which she picked, and learning all about them. Amanda Bennett (google it if you're interested) has some really neat unit studies and I was happy to try one out. It has a lot of great material and is five day's worth of work. We've only made it through about the first 1.5 days but so far so good. In addition to kind of stepping back for right now, I'm hoping to add a lot of fun stuff like field trips and have been researching that too. We'll see how it goes! Who knows...next week she may decide to just go back to rather schooling. Either way, I'm going to be happy.

Working on a horse drawing. Hmmm, that kind of seems like writing to me.

One quote before I close:

Calleigh uses the word "stupid" but I can't remember the context right now.
Me:"Calleigh, you can't say that word. That's not acceptable."
Calleigh:"But my mouth just said it. I couldn't control it."

So yes, it's her mouth's fault. Not hers.

Some more pictures...

Found this book at the ABC. I probably read it at least five times as kid and so loved it.

Brady fell asleep in my lap while I was reading it that evening. It was so sweet. Notice the pliers that are tucked in to the top of his pajamas!

Love my happy boys!

Brady falls asleep while girls are watching the magic stuff.

It was a really crummy week weather wise this week but it didn't stop the kids from eating their lunch outside.

Brady wanted to wear these shoes outside and I said "Brady, those are church shoes." And he said, "No, they aren't. They're BOWLING shoes."

I forgot to mention that Brady fell out of the swing set last week thanks to an inadvertent nudge from Calleigh. It's seriously a miracle that he didn't get hurt. After that, Duncan attached this netting.

My peeps on a Sabbath morning.

Who needs drugs to get high when you can go to CVS and get all this for $5.37? No lie. When I was at the register checking out, Colby let out a scream when he couldn't play with a pack of gum. The manager, who was checking me out, said "I see why you need this Excedrin." Yup.

Got this at Publix and they owed me $6.61 for purchasing it. Unfortunately I don't use Aspirin so if you know anyone who needs it, let me know!

Went bowling with a bunch of friends tonight. I can't get past the big balls but I had fun watching the others play.

Big game tomorrow against the Colts. Go Pats!!

This is what Brady thinks of the story....fell asleep watching the Pats/Colts game Sunday night.

Okay, I admit it. I spent WAY more time than I probably should have following this whole "Patriots let air out of the balls" story that broke on Monday morning. And since it's Sabbath now (thank goodness) I'm not going to get into it all right now. I will just say that I listened to inordinate amount of sports radio out of Boston on Tune In Radio on my phone...so much so that Calleigh came in this afternoon, caught me listening to it, and said "I really hate when you listen to that." This from a girl who has taken a much bigger interest in football the last few weeks. I guess that sums it up! Oh, and if I wasn't following this story, I was most likely on my phone playing Trivia Crack. The name sums it up. Shawn introduced me to the app about a week ago and I'm totally addicted. At least it's trivia and not a mindless game. That's what I tell myself when I'm playing it instead of cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and parenting. Get the app (it's free!) and we can play each other!

Our week actually got started off with the Patriots though. As many know, I only like to have fellow Patriots fans over for games when we get to the playoffs. I have invited the McGuires over for games in the past but it finally worked out for them to come on Sunday for the Pats/Colts game. It was really great to have them here...Norman, Kristin, and two of their four kids (others are at college), Shawn and Gavin. Ron and Elaine also joined us. The game was a complete blowout (NOT because of deflated balls) so it was considerably less stressful than the week before against the Ravens. We were actually able to have some nice conversation while watching.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day so Duncan had the day off work. I took the girls to gymnastics while he stayed home with the boys. Our big project of the day was cleaning out the garage (we never really finished it back some months ago when I had dropped that bottle of juice on my foot) which we successfully accomplished. Man, it feels good at the end of the day when you finish a big job. Duncan also hung up a bunch of remaining art work that needed to go up (yes, after 2+ years) and some shelving in the downstairs bathrooms. It was a good day. We also watched a short documentary on MLK and talked to the kids about racism, etc. It's so interesting when you explain to them about Rosa Parks, etc and what happened to people because they were black. The kids look at you like you have two heads when you try to explain it. Calleigh says "But they're the same as us except they have darker skin." Yes, my love. It's that simple.

Last week I had seen on Facebook that this amusement park called The Fun Spot was having a groundbreaking event on Tuesday. Gatorland, another Orlando attraction, was going to be building a small attraction at The Fun Spot...joining forces so to speak. The good news was that for this event, the park would be free for the day if you arrived between 10:00 - 10:20. The park was open until midnight so a good deal for sure. I didn't know the price to get in but knew it wasn't cheap. Anywho, there is no way I could go to something like this alone because an adult would have to go on many of the rides with a kid Brady's size and possibly Aubree's. Fortunately Jennifer, Vasti, and Dawn Brown and their respective children were up for joining us. We chuckled at the fact that it was on a Tuesday because it would probably be just homeschoolers but we were still fearful it would be really packed. The good news it was only a 20 minute drive away so no big deal if it was too crowded.

Oh the fun we parents can have. I didn't tell the kids where we were going but I told them I was taking them to "a fun spot." Hahahaha. I really cracked myself up with that one. We were almost there, getting onto 1-4 off the Turnpike, and what do we see but a billboard for the place we are going. Smarty pants Aubree in the backseat says "HEEEYYYY, are we going to THE Fun Spot? I just saw it on the sign!!" So the cat was out of the bag. But I sure had fun with it.

There was indeed a very long line to get in when we arrived at 9:45 but it moved quickly. It turned out they didn't actually open the rides until 11:00 because they were having a ribbon cutting ceremony complete with the mayor of Orlando and some other political folks. I will say I was impressed when someone (the owner?) had a prayer before they cut the ribbon. That really surprised me. The kids were getting pretty impatient but they were up and running before too long. I traded off with Jennifer taking Brady on a small roller coaster while she watched Colby and vice versa with Addison and London. Brady was not impressed. He said his stomach hurt when we got off and he definitely didn't want to do that again.

This helicopter came in and tried to land in the parking lot while we were waiting in line but aborted the mission in the end. Kind of scary I have to admit.

The groundbreaking. We didn't get too close.

One of the other rides in the kiddie area was one of those swing rides where each kid sits in their own swing and then the whole thing goes around and around. I noticed the height minimum was 24 inches which meant Colby could go on it. But there aren't actual straps on the seats so that struck me as odd since obviously a parent wasn't on the ride with the kid. I muttered all this to Jennifer and then I noticed another kid about Colby's age on the ride as it was going and they were just sitting there having a grand time. So I though, "Hmm, maybe it's not a big deal." What was I thinking??? I put Brady in a swing and then put Colby in the next one and put the bar down (which doesn't actually do anything). I then exited that area and went around to where I could take a picture. Well, the attendant then starting helping some other kid in a swing and then slowly started checking other swings on the other side. Colby started getting bored and what does he do but start trying to stand up...in a swing. NOT GOOD! I started completely freaking out and screaming for the attendant who appeared to be deaf or something. Other people started trying to get his attention, pointing and all that but he was so oblivious. I started running trying to get to where I could get to him but there were so many kids in the way. It felt like it was in slow motion. I was yelling at Colby to sit down as loudly as I could. He would try to stand and then sit and then do it again. After what felt like FOREVER but was probably like 60 seconds, the attendant finally realized what was happening and went over and got him out as I made my to his side too. Seriously, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. THE WORST. Right up there with Brady falling out of the cart at Costco. Lesson learned. I'm sure he would have been fine while the ride was actually going but yeah, a 16-month old isn't going to just sit there peacefully for five minutes waiting for it to start. And really, what in the world is The Fun Spot thinking? Can you say lawsuit??

I should have known he was already plotting to get out when I took this picture.

Other than that slight hiccup, we had a blast. The park turned out to not be crowded at all. We maybe waited at the most 10 minutes for some rides, less for many. Vasti took the girls with her and her boys to do some of the roller coasters and other stuff while I did stuff with my boys. We had brought a picnic for lunch which we ate in the restaurant with the rest of the group. Right before lunch, we got to do a "backstage tour" which was the marketing manager telling us all about the park and letting us ask questions. Of course, Calleigh raised her hand several times and was all into it.

Colby did get to go on this ride at least.

Brady with Addison.

You had to pay for this one so it was a no go. But Brady wanted his picture with the "bad guy," of course.

Listening to the facts about the park.

This was what Brady did for most of that time with Dawn's Jonathan. It's a popular name.

Calleigh took some kind of poll at lunch. You can barely see it but Colby had his hand raised too.

Last ride of the day....the double decker caroussel.

A big thing that Brady got to do was the bumper cars. He had missed out at Edaville Railroad but you only had to be 36 inches to ride them here with an adult. He is juuuusssst 36 inches. He road with Jennifer while I went with Aubree and Calleigh was able to drive them by herself. A great time! The highlight for me though was go-carts. They had four different courses and they looked SO fun. Unfortunately you had to be 54 inches to ride by yourself, which none of my crew are at yet. We were at the mercy of the other ladies to stay with Colby while I took each kid but of course, each of the ladies had their own kid to take. But, we finally got it figured out. Brady went with me on the second round. I tried to go pretty slowly for him but there was no smile of any sort as we went up the ramp and over a hill. When we went by the starting point he said "We're doing it again??? I don't want to!!" So then I had to go REALLY slowly for the next lap and then just pull in and stop once we got around again. Not too fun for me as I was itching to go fast but maybe next time. That was my answer to the kids. "We'll do it next time." What I didn't say was that there most likely wouldn't be a next time because it's $45 for adults and $35 for kids. I suppose that's cheap compared to Disney but still...Anyway, a fun day was had by all and best of all it was free!

Not too much going on the last couple of days. We are still taking it easy with the school...finding other educational stuff to do besides "school." Today we were back out at yard sales after about a seven week hiatus so that felt good even though it's pretty light (only about five sales). At our first stop, the lady (probably my dad's age) took a huge liking to Colby (the other kids were in the van) and followed him around everywhere. She had a big smile on her face and told me "I just love little boys." Colby found a particular truck to play with and she told me that Colby could have it. She said that her son died and it made her feel good to see little boys and do nice things for them. I thought she was going to say he son died many years ago as a kid but when I asked her about him she said that he had just died at the age or 38 from pancreatic cancer and that this was his house where they were having the sale. That hit close to home being 38 and all. At any rate, I felt happy we were able to bring her a little bit of joy.

We have not been formally potty training at all because...well, because Brady still really isn't ready to take it seriously. But he does like to wear the underwear every now and then so every few weeks he gets into a mood to put the underwear on. And then usually a few hours later he has a pee accident some random place. Oh, he goes through the motions and gets my hopes up by sitting on the potty but NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Ever. But when it does...or should that be "if" because that's how I feel at this point...it looks like it has the potential to be very messy. He has a potty seat that he sits on but I ask you, how do you keep the boy part in the proper place so that pee doesn't spray all over the room? I can see how the next 18 years or whatever have the potential to be very messy ones. Anyway, that's what prompted this conversation as he sat on the potty seat today:

Brady: "MOM! I can't keep it down. It keeps coming up."
Me:"Brady, just put it down so that it's underneath that little ridge on the seat. You might have to just hold it like that."
Brady (a few seconds later):"It popped up again. It won't stay down. I guess I'm going to have to just cut my ding dong off."

Yup! That's sure to solve it!

We just finished this great book Naya Nuki about an 11-year old Indian girl who is captured in the early 1800's in Montana and manages to escape by herself and walk back to her tribe...by foot over 1,000 miles. Amazing story. Anyway, since we have been doing a lot about Indians this school year it has prompted all kinds of Indian things like pretending their hot dogs for lunch today were really buffalo meat and then there was this:

Me: "Um, girls, why is everyone outside playing in their underwear?"
Calleigh:"Because we're playing Indians!"

And the connection is? No, really. I'm asking YOU because I have no idea what it is.

It's kind of hard to tell but I'm pretty certain she is clothed here.

I'm hesitant to say this but I think Colby might have been slightly less crabby this week. Hmmm. I hope I haven't jinxed myself. His talking is continuing to expand. After he got up from his nap yesterday and we were hanging around outside he started saying something like "Cah,cah." I thought, ah ha! I know what he's saying. I let him inside, he ran to the pantry which was open, and went right to the crackers to get some out.

A couple of other pictures...

Soccer started again on Sunday. The crowd has gotten bigger.

Calleigh hanging out with Fonta, Caroline, and Caroline's brother.

While Colby hangs out with Braelyn

The girls were doing some kind of show, wearing my boots...but thankfully clothed.

We watched a great documentary on Net Flix called "Living on One Dollar" about four college guys who go to Guatemala for 2 months to live as they do on one dollar a day. Very, very insightful especially since Ana is from Guatemala. Not sure Brady got much out of it though.

Have a wonderful weekend. I know I will (info on that next time!).

Monday was my 39th birthday which means - - drumroll please - - I'm now in the last year of my 30's. Not sure how I feel about that. Actually, that's a lie. I'm not pleased at all. But, I have a wonderful life so really, it shouldn't be that big a deal. And hey, if a year from now Colby is no longer a whiny toddler than I say bring it!

We did things to "celebrate" all weekend. On Saturday night Ron and Elaine came over to babysit so Duncan and I could go out on the town which consisted of Indian food and a trip to Home Goods. My, how things change as you age. Five years ago I wouldn't have dared set foot in an Indian restaurant whereas just the word Indian now makes me start to drool. Yup, there it goes again. We contemplated going out for a movie but I thought it would be nicer to just go home and watch something with Ron and Elaine because it isn't very often we get to do something with them without the children around. We waited until the kids were in bed to go back though hence the stop at Home Goods. You didn't think I would let the chance of NOT putting the kids to bed go to waste, did you? Even though Colby is still nursing more than I would like including before bed time, he does fine without it hence why I was able to skip that.

Sunday was my usual Corey day. I got up with the kids and got them breakfast and then Duncan took over from there so I could have the rest of the day to myself. Which, no suprise, was spent going to Goodwill. I went to three (I can spend hours in each one) with a pit stop at Panera for a late lunch. It was all wonderful as usual. Meanwhile, Duncan took the kids to soccer, made lunch at home, and then took them (along with Elaine) over to the Florida Mall to the American Girl store before ending up at Ron and Elaine's for supper. We are so blessed to have those two close by!

At Grandma and Grandpa's

Trying out a Pocahontas wig I got at Goodwill

Ditto on the space suit.

Monday was a pretty normal day with taking the kids to gymnastics. I've mentioned that their coach is named Corey (although I think it may be with a "K") and then lo and behold, her birthday is also the same as mine. How weird is that? However, I would say the similarities end there as she is only turning 23 and then there's the fact that no one would EVER confuse me for a gymnast.

Monday evening we headed over to the Winter Garden Pizza Company to meet up with the Isidro's and Jennifer and kids (can't say "and the boys" any more) so that I wouldn't have to make supper. We had the back room to ourselves which was quite fortunate because Colby was a pill for at least the first half. I tried to hand him off to Duncan so that I wouldn't have to deal with him on my special day but that just makes it worse. That kid! Despite that, it was still very nice and Jennifer even brought in an ice cream cake (my favorite kind of cake) for me. When we got home, the kids and Duncan presented me with some lovely cards and Duncan gave me one of the "Day off" coupons. As soon as I started thanking him for it, he took it and said "Okay, this was for today. I just gave it to you for a photo op." Just teasing me, of course! Year 39 is officially in the books.

Lining the kids up for a picture. Colby was VERY confused.

Calleigh gave me the card and Aubree made me the dinosaur.

This was from Brady. A hammer maybe? It may not look like much but he seriously had no interest in drawing, coloring, even holding a writing utensil until about two months ago. I've never even had him pick one up...just waited for him to decide to do it on his own.

The rest of the week was pretty run of the mill. We are actually back doing "regular" school. I decided to go with a reward system wherin for every subject she completes, each kid is allowed to use their tablet for five minutes which equates to about 30 - 35 minutes a day. I wasn't necessarily crazy about the idea (and Duncan definitely wasn't) of letting them use their tablets potentially four days a week like this...we just don't like it. BUT, I needed something to really motivate or incentivize her and I couldn't come up with anything else. So it is what it is and it's working (so far). I wanted to make really nice laminated coupons for each five minutes of time that I could give her when she completes a subject but my laminator has something stuck in it so I scratched that idea for now. So instead, we have a list of subjects on the board and as we complete one, we erase it off that list and put it under the "Completed" list. After lunch, we have quiet time and that is when they use the tablets. I have an alarm set on her tablet and when it goes off, they have to immediately turn them off and bring them to me. They have been very good about that step. Hopefully this will continue to be an effective motivator.

On Thursday morning we were supposed to go over to Bonnett Creek Resort near Disney to visit the Cases & Conrads who arrived earlier in the week for some R & R. Good timing too with the storm baring down up north! Our plans got slightly off course when Aubree came down into our room at 6:45 am and threw up. She had been saying the day before that her stomach felt funny and mine did too (it actually was feeling at its worse at 9:00 pm that Wednesday evening and I wanted to just go to bed but it was the last day of the sale at Publix and I had a shopping trip with coupons planned and I couldn't NOT go. No way could I pay full price for those things the next day!). I felt perfectly fine on Thursday and so did Aubree after she threw up but I wasn't completely sure it wasn't something and with baby Levi around, I didn't want to take any chances. By the afternoon I was sure so we still headed down since the girls were excited about swimming in the heated pools. The temperature outside wasn't much more than the high 60's but it was at least sunny and we didn't get too, too cold. It was so nice to see the relatives, of course, and we can't wait to them more this weekend including for the big game. Yippee!!

Kelly in the pool with all the kids. I was actually in too but got out to take the picture.

Okay, so it was pretty cold when you got out.

Calleigh got to go down three times but would have stayed there all afternoon if allowed.

The girls got to meet Levi for the first time since they didn't get to see him at the Cape during Christmas.

I heard from our piano teacher today that he is all moved in so he's going to come meet with us on Monday to introduce himself and then go over things. Wednesday the girls will start their lessons. Yes, BOTH girls will be doing piano. Yesterday, Calleigh randomly told me that she wanted to do piano lessons. Since we got the piano about a month ago, she has taken great interest in it and I've been teaching her a couple of songs. I didn't say anything about lessons for her...just letting her figure it out on her own and there it was. We will shelve violin for now since I don't think I want her starting two instruments at the same time.

Before I close, some conversations with the kids:

We were in the middle of school and I think I told her she needed to do her math. So this is what she said:

Calleigh (big sigh):"I will NEVER be free. I have to go to high school. Then to college. Then I have to take care of the kids. And then I'll have to work."

Calleigh has been on a braid hiatus for about the last two years. She says she doesn't like how they feel on her ears. I love braids and have been sad all this time so I was so thrilled when she recently got back on board. I think she decided she liked them again because a lot of the characters from her "back then" (which is what they call anything more than like 30 years ago) books have them. I was braiding her hair a few days ago and this is what she said:
Calleigh:"I really wish I had good quality hair like Marley. She has really thick braids."

I cracked up at the "good quality" comment but it's totally true! I wish I had hair like Marley too.

Then on to a different Marlee. Calleigh was talking about our old dogs Dewey and Marlee and said this:

Calleigh:"I really wish Marlee could have had puppies. But, she didn't have a husband, so...

Oh please believe that forever!

I was upstairs with the kids last night before bed...

Me:"Guys, you have got to clean this stuff up off the floor. This is a hazard. What if there was a fire and you couldn't see where you were going and you tripped over it?

Aubree:"Well, that would be good because you're supposed to stay low when there's a fire."

We were watching a bear documentary this evening and Aubree and Brady were on the floor acting like bears.

Brady (seeing a bear standing on hind legs): "Bear power!"

Two bears start fighting on the screen and they follow suit. Then...on the documentary they start talking about mating season and how the male was lucky to have a female to himself and it shows the bears mating.

Aubree: "Come on Brady. Get on my back." And he does.

Oh my mercy!

A couple of other pictures.

The girls are into Odyssey CD's I got at the ABC for Christmas. Found some more at the library so that was exciting.

This was my big Christmas present from my parents. A photo book for 2014 that my mom made. She made it for herself so some of the stuff doesn't necessarily have to do with the Grodacks but I still wanted one. It came on my birthday and the kids look at it every day.

Including this one who LOVES books much more so than his older brother. He found my mom's picture and waved and said "Hi Gigi."

Bread and peanut butter. He asks for it for every meal. Seriously, EVERY MEAL. (I don't give it every time though.)

When her belly felt strange on Wednesday she took about a two hour nap on the floor.

Calleigh loves to do US puzzles and world puzzles.

My boys. Moving furniture and rugs around.

Have a wonderful Sabbath!

I forgot how good this feeling was...to be World Champions! The Patriots took on the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX (which stands for 49...the L stands for 50 and the X is 10 but when you put the X in front of the L, it makes it 40 rather than 60...I looked it up because I might need to know it for Trivia Crack!) on Sunday, February 1 in Phoenix, Arizona. This was the same venue where they lost to the Giants in the 2007 season.

It was kind of hard for me to get too excited about the game because of the Deflategate saga going on. Did Brady have someone deflate the footballs? Did Belichick know anything about it? We knew very little hard facts but to try to defend the Pats made one look like such a homer and just desperate to have them be innocent. It really wasn't a good feeling. Now with all that has come out (only one ball was deflated significantly and it was the one turned over from the Colts possession) it seems like the story was all a bunch of hot air but again, I will hold judgement until all the facts come out...if they do. Of course, everyone will just call them cheaters no matter what but hey, that's what happens when you're good I guess!

Anywho, the most exciting thing for me was getting to watch the game with a bunch of family that just happened to be coming down this way. All told we had 22 people here for the game and it was a grand time. It was us, Ron and Elaine, Uncle Terry and Aunt Toni, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lori, Kelly (Steve had to work on Monday and left in the afternoon), Caleb, Rad (Jen had a stomach bug and didn't come), the Hazens, Bruce McDougall, and Megan. It's been a while since I watched a big game with Rad and I forgot how intense he is. All the more fun! I wanted to get all the food preparation out of the way first so we had subs and then people could just munch on snacks during the game.

There is nothing like watching the game with family and friends when you're all rooting for the same team!

Rad and I. The oldest and youngest of the 10 cousins. If you want to be polite, please ask which is which.

This cracked me up. Rad wearing a Gostkowski jersey. You don't often see people sporting the kicker's jersey. Aunt Lori had called Rad and excitedly told him that she had found a Gronkoswki jersey at a yard sale. This was it. A few letters off, Aunt Lori!

What a game! The first half I had to deal with Colby but he was actually pretty good and didn't distract me too much. When your team is in it though, you don't want to miss a single play, a single second. It's all so crucial. We were feeling good pretty much the whole half until the Seahawks tied it up going into half time. Not good especially since Rad and I may or may not have had a friendly wager on the score at the end of the half. If the score ended with a 4 for the AFC and a 7 for the NFC, well, things were looking rosy for us. And that was what it was with 33 seconds left (14 - 7 Patriots). But then, those stinking Seahawks had to score a touchdown and it was a double whammy.

Things went downhill pretty quickly in the second half and the Seahawks went up by 10. We had our usual texting marathon going on with Rick, Shawn, Rad, David, and myself. I won't lie..there was a lot of negativity going on in those texts although I am proud to say it wasn't coming from me. I had to remind them that the game wasn't over. And sure enough, it wasn't. Brady became the stud that he is and put up too very impressive drives and the Pats went ahead by four points. It was right before then that I texted Ricky and said "Didn't you tell me that in the Madden Super Bowl simulation game that the Patriots won 28 - 24 after coming from behind and Edelman scored the winning touchdown?" Indeed that was the case. Honestly, this was one of the most eerie things ever. The passing yards for Brady were almost exactly on. It correctly predicted two interceptions for Brady. It predicted the correct final score and the correct person scoring the winning touchdown. Anyway, after Ricky confirmed that, I was feeling pretty good. Because if Madden predicted it, it must be true!

Not sure what Uncle Terry was doing here. I think he had to get up and pace and then couldn't see clearly from the kitchen.

In the third quarter, Duncan got too nervous and went outside with the kids to start a fire. He ended up watching the game through the window when someone opened the blind. He finally came in once the Pats went ahead.

But then the Seahawks went on their drive with a little over two minutes left and then we all let out a collective gasp or utter dismay - - no, terror - - when Kearse made that amazing catch. It honestly felt like the 2007 Giants game again. How could this happen again??? I think we all thought at that point that are chances were very dim. The Seahawks had the ball on like the five yard line and had plenty of time to score the go ahead touchdown. On their first down they made it to the one and with 50 seconds left, most of us were expecting Belichick to call a time out to conserve the clock except he didn't. What was going on??!! It all happened so fast. I don't think some people realized what even happened right away but I did. INTERCEPTION!!! The crowd was going crazy. We were all jumping on couches and dislocating peoples' shoulders with the high fives. Calaubra was still up and they had been sitting there and they were like "What the heck is going on?" Everyone was hugging each other even if they just met that night. It was insane but so insanely good. I have probably seen the replay of Malcolm Butler intercepting that ball like a hundred times now and I could keep watching it over and over again. One of the top moments in my life as a Boston sports fan, for sure.

Shortly after the interception. I'm hugging Rad, people are bonkers! Not sure who Aunt Lori is texting as the most important people are in the room. Photo courtesy of Leslie Hazen who had the foresight to take one.

Watching the replay again. Calleigh is holding on to Aunt Toni.

YES!!!

Calleigh seemed to be the kid most excited about it all...I'm sure because she's older. She knows a lot of the players now and I noticed that towards the end of the game Lindsey asked her if she wanted to go upstairs and play American Girl dolls and Calleigh said no because she wanted to watch. The next morning, she came up to me and in a quiet voice says "I know why the Patriots won." I was thinking maybe she had some insight like "They intercepted the ball." Instead, she says, "Because I prayed." Oh boy!

Other stuff did happen last week. On Monday our new piano teacher, Ethan, came over to meet the girls and go over how things work. He seems very nice and talked about how much he loves teaching piano. Interestingly enough, while he is not an SDA, he is a PK and was home schooled all the way through high school. He also has a son who is 15-months old so we seem to have quite a bit in common. It looks like the lessons will be on Wednesday mornings starting this week. I'm excited to see how it goes!

On Wednesday we did a field trip to the Florida Living History Festival which was in Christmas. Did you know we had a town here with that name? The kids didn't and got a big kick out of it. It's clear across town past even our old stomping grounds but it was less than 45 minutes because you just take the highway most of the way out. We went with Vasti and her boys and Jennifer, Evan, Addison, and London. The subtitle was "Experience the 1400's - 1800's" and they had 15 different stations set up. You went to a station for 15 minutes and they had people dressed in appropriate garb acting like people from that time period. We saw a pirate, English soldiers, Indians, Spanish fighters, a cannon firing, etc. It was really, really impressive and I was even more impressed that the girls stayed engaged the whole time and in fact, didn't want to leave. My only regret was that I had the boys too so I couldn't pay attention the entire time myself. It was only $6 to get in and apparently this was the 10th annual so we will be back for sure next year. A great time and so educational.

First station was an Indian.

Some kind of animal pelt.

The Spanish fighters. They were very entertaining.

This is what the boys were more interested in doing.

Had to get this picture with some English soldiers to show Grandma.

A Black Seminole Indian

This guy showed how he skinned animals and made different stuff with the animal parts.

A lady making soap. You could actually buy some for $4 but I had no cash and I suppose if they whipped out a credit card machine it would take away from the authenticity!

Jonathan made some "weapons" for Brady who was thrilled to carry them around in his pockets.

In other news, I've had a few busy nights over the weekend. Colby came down with a fever on Friday night which caused him to wake up in the middle of the night each night since then. My guess has been teething since he had no other symptoms but who knows. All I know is that I've been forced to sleep in the guest room with him (under normal conditions I would let him cry it out but I have some mercy because of the fever) which is torturous. Last night was particularly bad because he kept throwing his binky between the end of the bed and the headboard. I would have to turn the light on and crawl under the bed trying to find it (I didn't know where others were). So frustrating. The night before that had also been incredibly tiring...so much so that I actually went to bed last night at 8:00 pm which is unheard of for me. Even when I have a headache it isn't usually that early. Then this morning I couldn't find my glasses when I was trying to look for something or other. I finally found them, took a shower, came out and went to put my contacts in only to discover they weren't in the case. Yup, that's right. They were already in. I have no idea how I was wearing glasses and contacts at the same time but apparently it was so. Geesh. The good news is that there was no fever today so I better not be getting a 2:00 am wake up call again. Party is over, fella.

This was him taking a nap yesterday morning in my bed. Notice his hand in my hair. He is so obsessed with my hair...even in his sleep he has his hand in it.

I will let the pictures below fill you in on the rest of what we were up to for the week.

Went to family game night for the Adventurers on Saturday night 1/31 at the church. This was some sort of game.

They had this little machine where you use a claw to get toys out and the girls were obsessed.

Passing around a musical toy. If it stopped on you, you were out.

Aubree ended up winning!

Calleigh having a go.

Colby probably "played" this game for 20 minutes straight. Just kept putting the marbles down the path over and over again.

The girls on Sabbath morning, 1/31.

My crew. Bowties courtesy of Aunt Camille. Dresses courtesy of Grandma.

Aubree reading to Jen (the Case clan came over for Sabbath lunch, 1/31).

Stopped over the Escobar's house for a house warming get together last week. They recently moved...one town over.

Boys taking a nap before the big game.

Kelly and Caleb stayed over on Sunday night so Caleb could be in bed during the Super Bowl. They were supposed to leave on Monday but stayed until Tuesday (although not at our place) because of all the snow back in MA.

Aubree pretending to cut Brady's hair.

The kids have really been into building forts this week.

It's evolved every day. They are seriously probably outside playing for at least three hours, if not more, each day. Love it!

Daddy took the kids to JoJo's for frozen yogurt on Friday afternoon. I couldn't argue with the dessert before supper thing since I had a quiet house to clean.

Hanging out at World Market.

Saw this car at a yard sale on Friday. I'm sure $60 was a good deal but we weren't in the market.

Had time on Friday to make a run to Trader Joe's to stock up on some Indian food.

A sight no one ever thought they would see again...Duncan reading an actual newspaper. This is the West Orange Times (our local paper).

Movie night at the church on Saturday night. Duncan stayed home with Colby (due to the fever he didn't go to church either) while I took Calaubra.

Got a membership at the zoo again and we went yesterday afternoon. We can tell it's been awhile because they now have giraffes.

Saw the caretaker scratching this monkey's back which we thought was pretty humerous.

No post is complete without a shot of my boy sleeping. This was tonight. Duncan gave him a much shorter haircut a couple of days ago.

Only one quote this week. The kids have a new lesson since February started and Brady's is Zacchaeous. This, of course, isn't the first time they've heard the story so I thought I was just doing a standard review with Brady.

Me: "Brady, so remember, Zacchaeous climbed up into the sycamore tree. What was he doing up there again?"

Brady:"Looking for his cat?"

Okay, so I guess it's a little more than a review!

Have a great week.

This week the kids and I had to endure the week without our beloved husband and father around. Duncan left on Monday for a business trip to San Francisco/Silicon Valley a d didn't return until today at about 5:00 pm. Oh what a joy all around to see him come through that door. The kids couldn't get down the stairs fast enough to greet him and the sight of them all in a big bear hug was enough to warm my cold heart. What, you ask? Cold heart? Only because it didn't get out of the 50's today here in Florida and my teeth were chattering at one point!

I realize I just posted on here on Monday night so there isn't a ton to report. But the big thing of the week was that the girls started their piano lessons on Wednesday morning. As expected, there was a bit of an argument about who got to go first (no doubt some day down the road they will be arguing over this because both will want to be SECOND) but we got it figured out. They will rotate each week. I have been overseeing their 15 minutes of practicing each day since then. Calleigh already learned a little song, "When Dreams Come True," and Aubree will learn it soon after she strengthens her fingers. But that didn't stop her from sitting down with Calleigh and singing it as Calleigh played. They both had heard the song for the first time at their lesson but by the afternoon, they had already figured it all out and were "performing" together. Now you talk about warming a mother's heart! That did it right there. It was the sweetest thing.

This morning I skipped yard sales, yes you read that correctly, to go to a Valentine's party for the kids put on by Jennifer, of course! I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I missed one of her parties. It was a beautifully sunny day but was only in the mid-50's with a little breeze. It was fine until we finished eating outside and then Calaubra started shaking and saying they were cold. I was in the same boat so we moved it inside and I couldn't help thinking how wimpy we were especially considering my parents buried in several feet of snow up north. Despite the "cold" we had a good time and the kids all exchanged Valentine's so that led to a bunch of fun afterwards to go through their bags and see what they got. I had to laugh though because pretty much every other mother either made or bought these fancy decorated boxes or bags to put their kids Valentine's in whereas I was like "Oh, look. Here's this free little backup we got at the Science Center last month. This should do the trick." Yup, that's how I roll.

The best part of the party was getting to ride the horse or pony.

Even Colby got in on the action.

Waiting for our turn to get some food. Brady looks like he's wearing an umpire chest protector.

You can tell he's getting a little cold. Well, I can at least.

Going through all the Valentine's at home. They put everything together and organized it into piles.

This week our tenant in our original townhouse rental called and said they are moving out because their family is expanding. They've been really good and easy tenants for almost six years so I'm sad to see them go especially since it creates work for me. Now we are on the hunt for a new tenant. Their lease doesn't actually expire until the end of October but since they've been so great I said I would work with them...as soon as we find a new tenant they can move out. It's actually nice when tenants break their lease because they very willing to make sure the place looks good and then I make them be there so show prospective tenants around. The other plus is that we will be able to get more rent now because we only increased the rent by $25 in six years and that was only his least year. Rents have gone up a lot since 2009 so they were getting a good deal. Hopefully it all works out.

Colby has had a much better week with his sleep. When last I wrote he had been waking up in the middle of the night for the past few nights but fortunately they stopped happening on Monday and things are back to normal. Normal is that he sleeps from about 8:15 to 6:30. Still waiting for that 6:30 to shift later. Calaubra all dropped their morning nap at 15 months but even though Colby is closing in on 18 months, he is still doing a morning nap from 10:30 to 11:15. I wake him at 11:15 so he'll still sleep in the afternoons (I NEED my quiet time). He then naps from about 3:00 to 4:15 or 4:30. Every one in awhile if he sleeps later than 6:30, I skip the morning nap and put him to sleep at 1:00. When he does that, he'll sleep as late as 3:30 or later sometimes. I'm not sure which set up I prefer. When he takes the morning nap though, we can at least get some school done without him bugging us.

He's getting to that age when he noticing little things about his siblings. Usually he eats a YoBaby yogurt every morning right out of the yogurt container. Yesterday Brady asked me if he could have a "baby" yogurt but he wanted it in a bowl. I gave it to him and the next thing I know, Colby is throwing a fit. I finally figured out that he saw Brady eating the yogurt out of bowl rather than the container so HE wanted his that way too. As soon as I did that, he was happy again. Then, same thing with a glass of milk. Aubree had milk in an actual glass and when I gave one to Colby in a sippy cup, he went bonkers. He had to have a glass like Aubree. Glasses and toddler do not mix so that was obviously heavily supervised.

Having it in a bowl. Yup, a righty. Boo!!

Just like the other kids now with their bowls.

Drinking from a glass.

Couple of conversations with the kids:

First, I just have to preface it by saying that I have done ZERO formal teaching of any kind with Brady. No teaching numbers, no teaching letters. He has no interest in it and I don't see how knowing that stuff at three is going to make his life any better. But, I was curious to see if he's picked up anything in the course of everyday life.

Me: (Pointing to a coloring book with a big 'M' on it): "Brady, what letter is this?"

Brady: "Two!"

So I guess that's a no! The other thing that cracks me up is that he's always talking about when he's five. As in "When I'm five, I'm going to watch Inja Turtles!" (That's what he called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which we don't watch or read about it but he sees them at like Target). Or "Can I chew gum when I'm five?" "Can I put that polish on my toes when I'm five?" So I asked him today, "Brady, how old are you going to be at your next birthday?" He says "Five!" And I'm like, "Brady, no, FOUR comes after three, not five." I'm not sure how devestating of a blow this news is or what.

For our Bible class this week we've been talking about Jesus being called Immanuel which means "God with us." One of the things they wanted us to do was go to a big store and talk to your children about what to do if they were to get lost. We were to tell them that even if you don't see your mom, know that "God is with you." We were at Publix on Wednesday so I decided I would go through the drill with them there. I was trying to be very calm so I wouldn't get them scared or worried or anything.

Me:"Okay, guys, what would you do if you got lost here in Publix? I know you might be scared but would you know what do do?

Aubree (basically scoffing): "Actually, I know my way home from here."

Oh-kay, then. Pardon me for being concerned!

A few other pictures...

This week Aubree got the bright idea to make flags. Our map of the world has all the flags on it so she'd take a picture of one with me phone to refer to while she sat at the table coloring it. Do you know any of these countries?

Some science experiments that didn't work. A dented ping pong ball was supposed to pop the dent out when submerged in warm water. Nope.

The coin on the mouth (hard to see) of this bottle was supposed to lift off the bottle when warm water was dumped around the bottle. Another nope.

The sides of the bottle were supposed to collapse in when you shook the ice that I put in the bottle. Pretty sure those sides were already bent in a little before I started. So not a good day for Science.

Umm, so apparently a kid snuck downstairs during quiet time and took this picture of me while I was diligently cleaning the house, working on lesson plans, and cooking a gourmet meal for supper that night. Wait, how did this get in here?

Supper at Target last night. We love to live the high life when Daddy's gone!

Have a Happy Sabbath!

This week was a busy week due to our various field trips. Monday morning we had gymnastics and then I was planning to do our school work in the afternoon. As I was enjoying a little bit of quiet time after I lunch, I decided I should look in my email for details on our tour of Z88.3 (Christian radio station) that was taking place the next afternoon. But then, holy cow! It was Monday, not Tuesday. I keep my schedule in my brain but I guess we see first hand that this method is not fool proof!

Elaine was supposed to come over and watch the boys because you had to be five and up to do the tour (I assume because of noise?). That wasn't going to happen at this late of a notice. Fortunately I recalled that a friend, Kat, from gymnastics is part of this group so I sent a text to her as to whether the girls could tag along with her and she said that was fine. So we were saved. I had to wake Colby up early but it was all good.

The girls kind of cracked me up because they were all like "Oh, a radio station? We've been ON the radio so this is no big deal!" That was when they did a snippet on the meaning of Christmas on my dad's radio program the last couple of years. The tour was really neat though. When you walk in the front door, you immediately see the personalities broadcasting in their booth. The two on in the afternoons are Suzanne and Deano. Admittedly I did not know them from Adam because although I do listen to the "Z" on occasion, I mostly listen to kid's stuff while I'm in the car. Everyone working there was really, really nice and they even let Brady and Colby come on the tour since it was such a small group. Some things that I thought were interesting is that they plan what songs and the order of playing them days and sometimes a week in advance. Also, they have a room that is entirely wall to wall with thousands of CD. It's, of course, all digital now but they have them there for back up...just in case. When we left, they gave the kids posters, bumper stickers, etc and they thought that was pretty cool.

Behind the kids is the ON AIR studio. The lady you see sitting there, Suzanne, came out on commercial break and took a picture with the kids.

She's a natural!

Tuesday was a home day and then Wednesday we were off again to the homeschool day at the Central Florida Zoo. The topic this time was turtles and tortoises. We chose a table to sit at that had a guy and his son sitting at it. No sooner did we sit down than Calleigh tells the boy, "Hey, you play soccer with me." Sure enough, the kid, Joshua, plays on the other team and the dad, Jonathan Hillock (sp?) works at AHS. Small world! The mom was also there with the younger son and it was nice to chat with them as we went to each of the stations. They do a great job putting on these education classes and we really enjoyed ourselves. My favorite part was seeing one of the giant tortoises that lives to be a 150 years old. People have them as pets and have to put them in their wills because they will outlive their owners. The only downside to the morning was that the train was broken. As we were leaving, Aubree says to me, "But YOU SAID we could ride the train." Hold on, Aubs. Let me wave my magic wand and make it magically fixed. I mean, really!

Getting details about box turtles.

Took a little quiz at the end and got them all correct.

Okay, it's an "Inja" turtle but it IS a turtle!

"When I'm five can I watch "Inja" turtles??!!" What do the Ninja turtles actually do on that show, anyway?

This lady asked questions and then whoever hit their buzzer first got to answer. Do turtles have ears? No!

Making an "enrichment," a sweet potato/carrot pizza, for the giant tortoise.

At one point, they were all crawling right for Brady but he kept his composure.

Wednesday evening the girls had Adventurers. Duncan made it home in time and volunteered to take the boys while I took the girls. Win for me!! After I dropped them off I had to make a last minute run to Publix to pick up some more packages of Morningstar Farms veggie food. I have been waiting forever for it go on sale (Buy One Get One Free) again and I wasn't going to be in the predicament again of having to pay $4.19 for a box of stripples. Nothing makes me feel dirtier than paying full price for that stuff. So I probably bought about 60 boxes of various things and hopefully this will last until the next sale. By the way, I highly recommend the Baja Black Bean pizza. Delicious!

Yesterday morning our homeschool group had a field trip to a nursery in Apopka....a wholesale nursery that sells to other nurseries and not directly to retailers. Of course, it was basically the coldest morning of the year in Orlando (30's) so I had to go dig up our jackets, gloves, mittens, etc since we would be outside some of the time. I wasn't expecting to see that stuff again until next year and I can't say it was an all together happy task. Colby started being a pill, surprise, surprise, and Brady kept yanking on my hand asking when we were going to go. Apparently they weren't appreciating the beauty of all the plants like the we girls were. Fortunately Kat came to my rescue again and pushed the stroller while I was holding Colby as he fell asleep. Thank goodness for friends around to help because this is why I haven't wanted to do any field trips until Colby is more manageable.

The lady, Heather, giving the tour.

These folks were taking tiny pieces of a plant and putting it into a small pot to grow a new plant. What tedious work! Heather told us that almost 100% of the workers are woman for whatever reason.

I thought this was interesting. These are pepper plants. But they don't sell them because of the peppers. They get bad bugs and put them on the plants. Then they get good bugs and put them on the plants to eat the bad bugs. Then other nurseries buy these plants so that the good bugs will spread to their plants. Very clever.

Venus Flytraps. Amazing little plants, for sure.

Incidentally, not sure if I mentioned it but this homeschool group is one that I came upon while looking at the FPEA's (Florida Parent Educators Association) website. The FPEA is the group that puts on the big homeschool convention each year, FYI. Because of Calleigh's big disinterest in most of school, a few weeks ago I started researching field trips, homeschool groups, etc and saw this group that is not far away in Winter Garden. It's through the First United Methodist Church but anyone can join the group. After I joined is when I discovered Kat from gymnastics was a member. So far, it's been really great and the good thing is that the field trips AREN'T on Fridays so I don't have to miss yard sales.

Other than the field trips, this week wasn't exactly a stellar week for school but we did get some learning in watching the show "How the States Got Their Shape." The title is pretty self explanatory. It's a documentary series that originally aired on the History Channel (I believe) and is now on Netflix. Calleigh is addicted to it and begs me to watch it every day. Did you know Mormonism started in New York and not Utah? Did you know that Wisconsin was originally known for their beaver furs and not for cheese? Did you know that the first oil boom happened in Pennsylvania? How do these facts relate to how states got their shapes? I guess you'll have to watch out. But seriously, she is glued to the TV while this show is on. So she may not be a whiz at math, spelling, reading, etc. but she knows her history!

In closing, one conversation with Calleigh while we were up in her room getting ready for bed. She bought a new Lego set with her money and she has to watch it like a hawk so it doesn't get wrecked. Of course, leaving it on the floor doesn't help so it was no surprise when we noticed someone stepped on it, most likely Brady.
Calleigh: "Brady!! You wrecked my Lego set!!"
Me: "Calleigh, I don't think he did it on purpose."
Calleigh:"Yes, he did."
Me:"No, I don't think so. I think he would have been laughing about it if he did. Look at him. He doesn't even realize what happened."
Calleigh: "If you knew him as well as I do...if you hung out with him in the afternoons...you would know."

Some other pictures to close:

Visiting Aunt Wanda at church last Sabbath on Valentine's Day.

I know this wastes electricity but he was having so much fun I couldn't stop it.

Then he carried everything over here.

Fell asleep eating a lollipop (thanks Valentine's Day) and was still chewing in his sleep.

See? I took a video of him and asked in the video if he was awake or asleep and he said awake. When I asked why his eyes were closed, he said "I'm cold."

So I love this. He puts underwear on over his diaper since he's not potty trained, as you know. And then,, he sticks batteries into the hole where the, you know, comes out. It's actually kind of a little pocket that you can store stuff in. He's at least resourceful!

For some men, it might be socks. For others, it's batteries.

Just don't dribble any pee on it says Grandma!

Maybe we should make a calendar.

"What are you doing?" I ask. "I'm texting."

Proof that it does get cold in Florida. The green towel in Calleigh's hand was wet and froze into that shape!

At a yard sale. "Look Mom!! I found a sword!!" Good try, buddy.

Have a Happy Sabbath!

Happy customers

Having a cup of tea while doing math. She kept taking sips of mine (which is not decaf) so I got her one for herself, decaf.

Science experiment...testing to see what kinds of things soak up water best.

Making hasty pudding. For music we've been doing "Yankee Doodle" which has the words "And there was saw the men and boys as thick as hasty pudding."

I loved it, the girls liked it, and Brady wouldn't touch it, of course.

Serve it with a little maple syrup and it's delicious. Actually tastes a lot like cream of wheat to be honest.

Getting decked out in Patriotic gear to march around our island while singing along with the Yankee Doodle CD.

Looking at animal x-rays

Doing an obstacle course.

Something that zoos do to entertain the animals is put hay and various spices in bags so that the animals can play with them and enjoy the smell.

A variation of a wart hog playing with the bag

Genius! Never seen this before.

This was obviously the highlight of the day for Brady. Getting to ride the train.

Pretty happy about the fire pit Daddy is making.

Brady discovered he can reach to get water out of the fridge so now he's constantly getting water whether he's thirsty or not.

Daddy's iPhone 6+ has arrived!

Got our patio furniture and five new trees.

Taught my girl how to play Chinese Checkers tonight. She loves to play games.

Enjoy your Sunday.

From batteries to storing candy in the little "flap." Which really begs the question, does anyone actually use that little flap rather than pulling down their pants?

There were many a day that I thought this day would never come. But it did! Brady is potty trained! I wouldn't call myself on an expert on this topic by any means but this is my third kid to go through the process so I feel that I'm fairly knowledgeable on the topic. Perhaps I could even write a book on it. Fear not, if you are already bored by this topic, I have good news. The book has only one chapter and it is very short. It goes like this, "If you wait until they are ready, they will pretty much train themselves." That is exactly what happened here. On Monday morning, Brady came downstairs wearing his underwear. Since then, he has gone pee on the potty every time save for wearing diapers on Monday and Tuesday when I was too nervous to go out in public with him in underwear. There has been one poop accident on Tuesday and now he's even doing that on the potty. But seriously, I don't remind him to go or anything. He just goes on his own. It's really quite unbelievable. I'm so glad that even though my kid will be four in four months that I didn't force him to potty train because he "should be potty trained by this age."

There has been some humor. At the beginning, he was going on a particular tree in the back yard. I had told him that he could have an M&M each time he went (although it really wasn't necessary since he does it so well). On that first day he was still getting the hang of it and about every two minutes he would tell me he had to go. The first time he came running back in and I went out to investigate and found some leaves with a liquid on them. A little thrill went through me as he had never had any success peeing on a tree or in a potty in previous months when he said he wanted to try. But then I wanted to see it in action to see if it was really and truly happening. He kept saying he was going to go and then we would get out there and he'd stand there but nothing would happen. After a bit, he would get frustrated and he would start twisting, pinching, pulling, turning this way, even pulling it up to peer at it. Why won't the pee come out?? Made me laugh at least. Welcome to the world of boys, I guess! Oh, and then I was thinking, is there any greater joy as a parent than when your child poops on the toilet for the first time? Sure, riding a two wheeler and learning to read are pretty cool but not changing a poop diaper is pretty darn special.

Yes! Yes! I see moisture!!

I had told him months ago that if he started going in the potty, we would convert his crib to a toddler bed. Man, we milked that crib set up for as long as possible. We have been fortunate that none of our kids tried getting out of their cribs at a young age. By the time Brady tried it, he was old enough to understand my threat that he would lose his binky if he got out. After the binky was gone, I told him he could die if he tried to get out and landed on his head. Well, it IS possible!! Last night was the first night and all went well but I was pretty annoyed to still hear the "GET ME OUT, GET ME OUT" at 7:15. I went in and told him he could get himself out now which apparently he forgot or maybe old habits die hard.

I tried to take a picture of the four of them but this is what Colby does when he hasn't seen me in awhile (aka, three minutes). He forgets all else and tries to get to me ASAP.

Last weekend Cory, Amanda, and the boys came to stay at our place on Saturday night since they are down for some meetings for Cory. We decided to have a little get together for those of us that all lived here in our community (since Cory and Amanda were the first to live here before they moved) and so we invited the Isidros and Ottatis over. The weather was perfect and we had such a nice time roasting hot dogs over our fire pit and enjoying the nice set up we have outside...thanks to my hubby, of course. The kids spent much of the time playing around in the back yard with the couch pillows. But as soon as the last person went out the door, Calleigh promptly stated "I am SO glad Gaby left. She is SO bossy." Gaby is four. It totally cracked me up. I had to explain to her that Gaby is the oldest in her family just like Calleigh and so Gaby probably thinks she is in charge just like Calleigh thinks that SHE is in charge.

I made brownie delight for the special occasion and Colby was...delighted.

Earlier in the day, Cory caught a lizard which wouldn't let go of Noah's thumb.

The kids named him and were convinced that he wanted to live with them rather than go free because he wouldn't run when they put him down.

No qualms about touching reptiles.

Last Sunday they gave the awards (to every child) for soccer since today was going to be the last week and many of the kids were going to be participating in field day at FLEC. Calleigh has decided that she likes to play on defense and rarely goes on offense. She's gotten very into it knowing what weeks they've won and which weeks they lost even though it's supposed to be just for fun. Now she'll start saying things like "Oh, I hope Taylor isn't going to be there today because he's the best...he's better than so & so, and so & so, and so & so all put together" (don't want to name any names). Of course, Taylor is 10 which is the highest age that league goes up to so obviously that helps. Aubree is holding her own. She loves it but sometimes still seems a little bashful to get into skirmishes for the ball. The next session is starting at the end of March and when I asked them if they both wanted to sign up for it again, it was a resounding "YES." Now if only I liked soccer...Actually, I will admit I do enjoy watching them play.

On Monday morning the girls had their gymnastics and we were all saddened to learn that their teacher Corey/Cory/Kory (just not sure how she spells her version) is leaving. She got an internship doing something with music at a church and has to cut back on her hours. We are so sad to see her go because she has been so incredibly kind and good to the kids. We had actually dropped the Thursday night gymnastics because the girls seemed to be dragging their feet a little going to that one because they didn't like the teacher nearly as much and I figured they had enough going on anyway. We are anxious to see tomorrow who the new teacher will be.

The girls had their third piano lesson also last Monday (we have now decided to make it permanently on Monday afternoons as morning lessons were interfering with various field trips we are taking). On the Sunday and Monday morning before lessons when I asked Calleigh to practice she dragged her feet and told me "It's boring." And I thought, "So it begins. Only took about 2.5 weeks." But, what I realized is that it was boring because she had only learned the one song and already had it mastered. Ethan taught her a new song on Monday and so then she had a new challenge to work on and has done so admirably. Meanwhile, Aubree is doing really great too and when he said, "She's six, right?" And I said, "No, five" he was surprised and said, "She does really, really well for a five year old. I have many seven year olds that aren't able to do this well as far as only playing one key at a time."

I forgot to mention last week that I am no longer nursing Colby at night so we are down to the morning and random other times that he decides to contort himself into some weird position and nurse. Some days it's no other times and some days it could be two or three. We shall see if it peters out on its own or what. But in the meantime, I'm very pleased with the faster bedtime routine.

Here are some pictures of other stuff we've been up to:

Calleigh and I went to her friend Lindsey's 9th birthday party then got to make a clay cupcake and paint it. Reminded me of ceramics from summer camp.

You know you are a mom when....you look down at your plate and realized you just mindlessly cut up your own waffle.

I found a joke and riddle book at Goodwill and Calleigh loved it. She had no idea she was doing all that reading!

Tuesday morning we met Amanda, Noah, and Jake at the "Peacock" park.

As I've said, he loves my hair.

Tuesday night met up with the Reeveses and Isidros (minus Tangie) at Winter Garden Pizza. Duncan played a game of Simon says.

Clean laundry building up outside the laundry room makes Colby a happy boy.

Potty training sure wears a fella out.

Colby was freaking me out trying to climb on this horse so we moved it to the gym some odd months ago. He has been so happy to see its reappearance in the playroom.

This kid loves to put his plate on his head or his food on his head for that matter.

Went to a consignment sale next to a playground on Friday. Love how this pictures makes it look like Calleigh and Aubree are looking at each other and smiling.

Brady bought a Lego set with money he has been saving. When he asked Calleigh to put it together for him, she tried to be all nonchalant about it but she was all excited because she LOVES to do Legos.

Colby ADORES books.

Love this boy. I could stare at him sleeping for hours.

Colby pushed Brady all around the downstairs. Love how they are playing together.

Conversations with the kids:

As we walked through a parking lot to go to Lindsey's birthday party, a car with a Christmas tree on it's roof drove by.
Calleigh: "Mom, look at that car with a Christmas tree on it. "(Voice drops to a whisper). "They must have Alzheimer's and they forgot when Christmas is."

One evening after supper...
Calleigh:"Mom, can we watch Busy Town? Please?
Me: "I don't think so. You guys have had enough screen time today."
Brady:"We won't scream any more, I promise!"

Calleigh:"One of the worse things would be to die."
Me:"Actually, it won't be that bad. Just think, one second you are in the ground like you are sleeping and the very next second it seems to you, you are going up to heaven because Jesus has come. Besides, we may never even die. Jesus may come first."
Calleigh:"I sure wish he would come before school starts."

Have a great week everyone!

Special Outings

Yard Sale

Fall Homeschool Party

A Visit From Gigi

Fracture

Happy Birthday to One Amazing Man

Cast Off

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

Helping & Heaving

Merry Christmas (Part 1)

Merry Christmas (Part 2)

Back to the Grind

My Pip Squeaks

Deflate Gate - - Was Anything Else Happening This Week?

Happy Birthday to Me

Super Bowl Champions...Again!!

Daddy's Home!

Field Trips

Happy Birthday to One Amazing Man

Potty Trained