The Otter's game

 

One of the things we like to do in the summer is go to Evansville Otter's baseball games.  Evansville Otter's is a minor league baseball team.  They play their home games about 5 minutes from our house so it's nice to go down there sometimes and watch them play!

Pinwheel Flowers

This morning the boys made pinwheel flowers. They had so much fun! I feel awful because I don't do nearly as many "art projects" with them since I got pregnant.  Only 4 more weeks until the new baby gets here so I am hoping to get on a better schedule and have more planned activities for the boys.

Little trip to the zoo

Paper Easter egg decorations

We actually made these last week but I am just getting the pictures posted today.  I have been falling behind on my blogging lately!

Fun day at the zoo!

Today me and the boys went to the zoo with my mom, dad, sister, and my two nieces.  We were afraid we were going to get rained out but it ended up being a beautiful day.  The boys had a blast, which is good because we bought a season pass so it will be somewhere else I can take the boys when we need to get out.  I can't remember if I even said that since I work at an after school daycare, I am off this week because of Spring break.  So that is why we have had so much time to do stuff.  I was thinking about taking the boys to the library tomorrow but I was thinking about maybe just making an easy day since we were out and about all day today.  Sometimes if I try to squeeze too much in the boys get cranky and hard to handle out in public.  So I was thinking about coming up with a project for them to do tomorrow at home and maybe go to the library on Friday.  We haven't been to the library in a long time.  Before I started working at daycare we went at least once a week, if not more. Then we slowly stopped going once I got pregnant due to me being so sick.  I really want to get back in the habit of going because the boys love going.  We stopped by Dairy Queen for lunch and I remember why I am eating primal and staying away from that junk.  I ended up getting a chicken sandwich and fries and I have felt awful the entire afternoon. I have awful heartburn and I just feel huge and nasty.  I should have stuck to primal and had a salad. Oh well, lesson learned!  I am excited because I am going to order the 10lbs of almond flour I found on Ebay. I am excited about trying some new recipes and getting the kids on board.  I think having almond flour will help because I can make fun food like pancakes, pizza and chicken nuggets.  I am very excited!  If all goes as planned I will being trying/adding a new recipe tomorrow!

Happy St Patrick's Day!!

 The boys actually colored the shamrocks yesterday and they made their names out of pasta today.  This morning Jeremiah gave me the idea of making their names out of pasta because he was taking his shredded cheese off his eggs and spelling his name on the table.  And I remembered we had this pasta....and since we don't eat pasta anymore I thought PERFECT!  We use to do "art projects" two or three times a week then I just got tired and lazy and blamed it on the pregnancy.  But now that I got back onto eating primal I have a ton more energy to actually do stuff.   Going on three days of NO cheating I have eliminated my heartburn, have more energy and lost three pounds. Not bad!

The boys' Valentine's Day project

These are supposed to be puppy dogs but they kind of remind me of pigs.  Either way, they had fun making them!

Second thought on the potty training

Ok, I think I am going back to my original plan.  I think I am going to wait to potty train Jack when he is about 2½ or 3.  Probably a few months after I bring new baby home.  I got excited about the idea of potty training him when someone suggested it to help Jeremiah get poopy trained but I don't think it is working.  Jeremiah is still pooping his pants.  Jack does like to pee on the potty when his bubby goes so I am still going to let him go when Jeremiah goes but I am not going to force it on him.  As far as Jeremiah with the pooping, I think I am just going to give up and let him tell me when he is ready to poop.  I feel like I have exhausted all ideas of how to get him poopy trained.  I think I am just so stressed about it that it is just going to him and making him more stressed so I think I am just going to drop it.  I may end up with the oldest kid still pooping his pants but I am just going to stop stressing about it. I think the most stressful part is the other moms.  The moms that are like 'my kid has been potty trained since 18 months'  GOOD FOR YOUR KID!! WANT AN AWARD??  Since we are homeschooling, he won't HAVE to be fully trained by 4. (I sure hope so though!!! We will see in about 6 months) If he turns 4 and he is still pooping his pants then I will seek further help. 

Potty training Jack:(

So... I DID NOT want to potty train Jack at 23 months but it looks like I am going to.  I am STILL having trouble with my 3½ year old.  The kid will not poopy on the potty! I am desperate right now because I really want him to be fully potty trained by the time this third baby comes along.  He pees on the potty fine and stays dry all day but for some reason poops his pants everyday.  I have tried everything. Rewards, gumball machine, ice cream party, stickers...everything! Then I tried putting him in just underwear and no pull ups but after two weeks straight of cleaning out poopy underwear and not getting anywhere with it, I put him in pull ups because it is easier to clean up. I was desperate and I joined a "group" on the internet so I could post a question about "poopy training"  and the first suggestion was make him clean it up himself.  Gross. I couldn't imaging having him clean himself up and the underwear.  It seems like it would just make a bigger mess too.  Then someone said to just stop trying to potty train Jeremiah and start with Jack and then maybe Jeremiah will just start pooping on the potty since Jack will be.  I thought, hmmm...didn't really want to start training him until he was almost three but then again the thought of only having the baby in diapers sounds really nice.  So, I decided last night why not try.  We started last night when I got home from work and so far Jack peed twice last night on the potty and two times today.  He stayed dry all morning but did have a wet diaper when he woke up from his nap.  Not bad though.  Still not getting my hopes up.  And Jeremiah was all about it because I told him that since he was big he had to teach Jack how to pee and poop on the potty.  He was thrilled.  But not thrilled enough because he pooped in his pants when Jack was sleeping. UGH! And it was 30 min after I made him sit on the potty for about 20 minutes to "try" to go poop. I am ready to just throw my hands up with him and say screw it.  It's not like he HAS to be trained to go to preschool or anything.

2011 So far

Well, the new year is here. Time to start all my new year's resolutions.  So far I have been doing pretty well eating primal. I am not at the 100% yet but I will get there.  Finished our budget last night. I got all my Dave Ramsey stuff out to reread.  It always gets me motivated when I read it. Our first small goal is to have my student loan paid off by August.  This is not a very big goal I know but I don't want to get discouraged so we are starting off small. Plus, with two family weddings and a baby this year, a lot of our extra cash will be going towards those.  As far as the homeschooling, we started back up today.  Jeremiah learned how to write V and W today then we reviewed the letters he has already learned with the Hooked on Phonics which are L, H, T, F, E and I.  I did wear jeans to work yesterday. And the blogging more frequently, obviously not so well since today is the 4th and it is my first blog of the year. I guess that is not too bad though. I need to get the blog more organized as well. It is just one hot mess right now!  And I also starting back FLYing yesterday. I shined my sink last night and woke up this morning and got dressed to my shoes.  Also, I started the swish and swipe today.  I am amazed with how just those three things make my mornings so much better. Of course doing those three things led to more cleaning to get my house organized. So far 2011 is going pretty good and we are getting started on the right track. Let's just hope it stays that way!!

Hooked on Phonics

 This past summer I found a Hooked on Phonics kit "Learn to Read" for only $5. The kit was in PERFECT condition. The only letter they did was "A" so that one was already colored in but other than that they did not do anything with it. I started Jeremiah on that over the summer and he loved it.  We have not made it through the whole thing yet. Then on Black Friday I was just glancing around on different sites and I noticed Toys R Us had some of their Hooked on Phonics kits marked down.  Normal price was $49.99 and they had some marked down to $9.99!  They had one marked down to $4.99.  I ended up getting two that were priced $9.99 and one priced $4.99 but if I spent $49 I could get free shipping. Buying these three my shipping was $12 so I ended up adding another Hooked on Phonics that was $24.99. A little bit higher but I figured I saved $12 in shipping! So I ended up getting two different spelling, a math one and a handwriting one.  The handwriting one is for 4-6 year old so I went ahead and started with that. It teaches your child upper case and lower case. Jeremiah already knows how to write a lot of letters but now all so I decided to just start at the beginning of the book and work on all of them with him, even if he already knows the letter.  I just got it out on yesterday and he has already been through 4 lessons and did 3 activities. He loves working on them. I have to limit what he does otherwise he would have the whole book finished in one day. I want to go slow so he can actually learn and remember what he learns. Here is a little bit of what he has done that last couple of days.There is also a workbook that goes along with this and also activities on a CD Rom that he does on the computer.

Quick update

So...I haven't blogged in a while. I haven't been feeling the greatest lately. Still bad morning sickness.  I was very excited the other day because Jeremiah is now on his "I" book and when I got it out he read it to me before I even told him any of the words! I was very impressed.  I guess this little book system is working.  And earlier this week Jack was playing with all his trains and he counted all the way to 6! He knows his ABC's, he has known those for a while now, and how to count to 6 but he does not really know his colors. I need to start working more on those with him. We haven't really been working on any other work lately just because I have been feeling so bad.  I feel awful for not doing as much with the kids but I keep telling myself only a few more weeks of being sick and I can go back to doing more with them.

New kind of music

So usually I listen to radio and I always have it on 96FM. Well, Jeremiah has been singing a lot of the songs.  Not a good thing.  He sings some of the lyrics and I am glad he does not know what they mean.  So I decided it is time to start listening to something more kid appropriate. I remembered I bought this little CD set of Bible stories and songs when Jeremiah was really young.  So I decided to get that out.  I put in the CD and the boys loved it.  They were cracking me up because they were marching around the house to "Father Abraham"  I felt so much better because they looked like the two little innocent boys they are and they weren't singing the other music (about strippers and drugs)  I am also going to start playing the disc set of the Bible stories too so it they can start learning about the Bible. And it is great because these stories are more on a kid level and they have songs and stuff to make the children more interested. They have stories from the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Everything from Creation to Jesus ascending into heaven. The CD set I am using is called Bible Songs & Stories for Children. In addition to starting the kids on this set I have also started reading the Bible.  I have never read the whole Bible before. I went to a Catholic school from 1st grade all the way until my Senior year of high school, me and my family would go to church every single Sunday and my mom even put us in summer Bible school classes when we were younger.  So I know a lot about our religion but I think I will feel more confident in raising our children to be good Catholics and to teach them about our religion if I read the Bible.  I am starting by reading Mark, then Matthew, John, Luke and Galatians then I am going to read the rest of the New Testament.  This was advice from the internet on the order I should read it in.  And I try to read two chapters a night.  I am trying to go slow so I don't become overwhelmed and I want to understand everything I am reading too.
Here are pictures of the CD set I was talking about.

Jeremiah can read 4 books now!

I have been working on teaching Jeremiah letters and sounds and also how to read.  Each week he learns how to read a new book.  It starts with 'A' then goes through the whole alphabet.  We are on 'D' this week.  He loves reading these little books! He uses his finger and points to each word as he says it. Each book is only 5 pages.  As you can see, in each book the number of words per page get higher.  He is just so excited that he knows how to 'read' He pretty much just has it memorized but by pointing to each word as he says it is helping him remember the words and when he gets stuck on a word he sounds it out.

Ebaying

Ebaying is so much fun.  Well, making money Ebaying is so much fun! I am going to try to get my Ebay store going again. I still have a store but I have not been adding inventory and working on it as much since I started my after school care job. But I really want to get back into it because I really love doing it.  I think when I start really homeschooling (when Jeremiah is 5) I am going to quit that after school care job just because I think it will interfere with our schooling because we are gone from 2-5 everyday. So I am hoping to just run my ebay business instead. Then I can have a more flexible schedule. I sell gently used clothes in my ebay store.  I sell infant, girls, boys, women, men.... everything you can think of. What I sell just really depends on what I can find! My store name is Mostly Jeans and Shoes. When I originally started my ebay store I had....mostly jeans and shoes. My husband actually came up with the name.  My goal is just to make enough to have a little extra spending money, not to make a lot of money. Well, if I end up making lots of money that would be ok too:)

Someone I know is going to homeschool!!

I found out a girl I used to work with is going to be homeschooling her daughter!! I did not know anyone else that was homeschooling other than friends of friends of friends.... I did not know anyone personally though. So  I am so excited to be able to have someone to talk to about it!! Other than my blog :) AND her daughter is only a couple of years older than my 3 year old so it will be perfect to get ideas and suggestions from her.  Very excited about that! 

8/25/2010

Wow, information overload! I have been reading about homeschooling and some of it is just overwhelming! I am trying not to become too overwhelmed.  I was very excited when I read Indiana is on the "best states to home school" list.  By best state to home school they mean one of the easier ones to home school without the state trying to interfere and talk you out of it.  It did say that Indiana does require you to log attendance but does not make the kids test.  However, the book I was reading might be a little outdated. I will need to look up everything to make sure I am up to date on everything!
Today Jeremiah played a game on the computer. Fishing for letters. It came with the Hooked on Phonics kit we got. They say a letter and he has to click on it then the hippo puts his fishing pole on the letter you click. After that he practiced tracing all his letters, big and small, on a dry erase board. Then drew the whole family. He even drew a picture of the van. 

8/24/2010

Today is Tuesday.  One big thing that I have accomplished tonight is Jack's bedtime routine.  He use to hate us reading books to him. He would just take them out of our hands and throw them.  So we just stopped reading to him. Bad, I know.  But this week I reintroduced reading to him and he LOVES it! I have been having a hard time getting him to sleep. He would cry for a good 20 minutes before he would fall asleep. But now, I brush his teeth and put his pajamas on and tell him to go pick out two books and he yells in excitement and grabs them and sits and listens to the book. Then I just lay him in bed and not even one little cry and he lays there until he falls asleep! You don't know how happy that makes me! Today at my part time daycare job Jeremiah played Memory. He also practiced his letters.  We try to find learning in everything we do now.  He was jumping up trying to hit the fire alarm and I yelled at him to stop and then realized that he has no idea why he can't hit that. So I explained what a fire alarm is and what happens it you hit it. He thought that was really neat how fire trucks would come out if you hit it. Let's just hope he does not want to hit it to just see fire trucks!

8-23-2010

Today we went to the library in the morning. They did not have a library classes today since it is still summer break but the boys picked out some books and did some puzzles. They were actually pretty good today at the library. We have been working on being quiet at the library and not running. They only acted up for a little bit which I didn't think was too bad for a 3 year old and an 18 month old! Of course we did our date and time. Today my younger boy Jack watched My Baby Can Read. He was saying all the words along with the video as he was doing the motions. We worked on pointing out body parts. He now knows eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, ears, and hair.  Tonight we got to see my two nieces. They just got back from their vacation in Florida! They brought over a ton of seashells and oranges! They look like they have grown in the week I did not see them!

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!

It is finally Friday!! This has been a long, exhausting week! Partly because my husband has been working a ton of overtime and working Saturdays so that means I get more tired because I have pretty much all the time with the kids. I am not complaining because I wouldn't change it for the world and I feel so lucky to be able to stay home with them but man, a three year old and an 18 month old can wear you out! And I am so happy that my hubby loves us so much he is willing to work like that to support us! I think he is really happy that I am able to stay home too because that is something he always wanted was for me to be able to stay home and raise the kids.  Today was a pretty laid back day for homeschooling. Ok, it was a REALLY laid back day for homeschooling.  We did the date and time and sang a BUNCH of nursery rhymes.  I had A TON of housework to do today.  The kids did watch some learning shows. Yes, they watch television.  I know some parents would look down on me for plopping my kids in front of the television but I don't see that as an awful thing. Would I do it all the time? No, but I have to get housework done and there are actually a lot of really good learning shows on television. We also have My Baby Can Read, which I highly recommend.  Of course they say don't let your kids watch any other television while doing the program. I plan on getting all that out soon and starting from the beginning again. It was one of those things that we started then stopped because life became hectic.   I will not be posting on the weekends so I will post again on Monday!

Oh, and I have a nice little surprise when I got home today.  My husband works nights so by the time I get home from my daycare job he is already left for work. But when I got home today there were flowers on the counter for me!! Such a sweetie!