Good-bye Summer

It seems as if summer is over. I hate to see it go. I am not a fan of winter. While I do enjoy fall, I do not like that it opens the door for the cold winter months. We have a few more weeks of nice weather before I dread opening my door and leaving the house. Last winter I was very pregnant so I had an excuse. This winter I'll have to deal with it. Joy.

We've been having so many busy days. It seems as if we're always so busy but it doesn't feel like we do much at all. Where is the time going? We started a reading competition. They had such fun over the summer with the program for the library that I made sheets for them to fill out at home. Zach and the girls can fill it in for reading and playing on Starfall.com. Chris gets points for his co-op work and reading. I think that's pretty fair.

We're having fun with our new friends. It's great to find someone else who love board games the way I do. I could play them all day! I've developed a new obsession for Bananagrams. I've been playing on facebook and found myself reading the dictionary for fresh new words today. Who knew that fe, qat, qoph and ka were words? I can't say I know what they mean but they sure help me place tiles! The kids are having a hard time getting used to friends who aren't homeschooled. They are always asking if they can come over during school hours. It's something I have to get used to as well. I haven't had a friend with kids who actually go to school in such a long time.

Tomorrow is apple and banana day. We found apples on sale. It was an incredible sale too. There has to be about 45ish pounds of apples and we paid $5 for the box! We got about 10 pounds of bananas for 99 cents. So now I need to do something with them. I'm thinking apple butter, apple sauce, apple pie....not sure what else. Tons of banana bread and I'll make smoothies with a few of them. You can freeze them in the peel if you just want them for smoothies and bread later. I need to think of a few more ideas. I love projects like this! I will have to head over to walmart for canning jars in the morning so I can put apple butter in them.

Aaron has 2 teeth now! They are so cute when he's not biting me with them. He's learning not to but this past week has been painful. He has a habit of turning his head to look behind him while still latched. Not fun. It wasn't so bad when he didn't have teeth but now...ouch, is an understatement. He's also army crawling everywhere! He can take a few 'steps' crawling on hands and knees but seems to prefer getting around by wiggling and pushing off with his toes. It's absolutely adorable!

I'm enjoying my classes. I'm taking 2 classes towards a nutrition degree online as well as Bradley classes toward my doula certification. I really look forward to my Sundays. The class is fun and I get to take Aaron. Pregnant women really love babies. They ohh and aww over him and he flirts with them shamelessly. He's such a boy already.

Lets Write Together

I thought I'd blog while Amanda writes. She is going to have me write a little here for her once she is done making a drawing. Her topic today is Princess Adnama(her name backwards).

Today was such a nice day! We had a lot of fun at the park. The conversation was interesting to say the least. I love how all the moms can be so accepting yet have such differing views on things. It really helps to keep things interesting. Never a dull moment. The kids had a wonderul time and we stayed at the park until about 5, which is pretty late for us.

I also went to La Leche League meeting today. I used to really like this group but the dynamics have really changed. It's more of a partial breastfeeding support group. I heard, "There is nothing wrong with formula" a few too many times. Hopefully the leader will get back to me about an IBCLC that I can volunteer with to work on hours for my LC certification. Aaron was a dream, as usual. He's so awesome. He's the best baby ever, so happy and smiley. I need to go hug him.

Amanda is ready now!
There was a princess and her name was Adnama. She loved horses. So one day she went horse back riding but then the horse carried her too far into the woods. She got off the horse to see which way to go. She named the horse Sunshine. The horse ran back and she said, "No, wait Sunshine!" but Sunshine just kept going. She couldn't figure out which way to go. Her father and her mother came looking for her but they couldn't find her so they got very, very scared. They just didn't know what to do. Then they saw Sunshine run out of the woods. When they saw him run out, they knew that she was lost. They sent their knights to go look for her. Along the way they saw the horse's path but the princess was not there. They went back to tell the king and queen. They were not very happy. They waited for three days. All of a sudden the princess saw somebody and she said, "Who are you?" He said, "I am the prince." And then she said, "Do you know the way back home?" He said, "No I do not." So they were both stuck in the woods but he had his horse. So they went on the horse to find the way back. They were hoping that they would find the way but they didn't. They went way further in and it was dark, very dark. They didn't know what to do.

To be continued....

She writes very long stories, lol.

Camping

We had a really good time camping! I'm glad we decided to make our not going back to school celebration a camping trip this year. I hope we go again next year. The kids had a great time playing with their friends and it was nice to rough it for a night. I did learn several things on this trip. I'm not as big of a nature lover as I thought. I'm perfectly happy with just one night. The bugs and dark freak me out. I'm going to work on it. I'm determined to camp at a national park and I'll need to be a better camper by then. I also learned it gets REALLY cold at night. I'm surprised my husband isn't frozen. He did not listen to my instructions for packing blankets and ended up with no blanket and wearing shorts with no jacket. I was cold in all my clothes, a jacket, a blanket and the body heat of Both Nicky and Aaron. We huddled as much as we could once he admitted it was too cold for him. This leads to my next lesson-bring a king sized air mattress. I can't sleep on the ground...not if I want to be able to stand the next day. I ended up on a twin(thanks to a friend, I didn't actually have one at all) with Aaron and Nicky which was hard enough but then Mack tried to squish himself on to stay warm. Not working! It was a mess. I should have known Nicky wouldn't sleep away from me in that situation. I was hoping he'd sleep with Chris. Despite these few issues, it was a wonderful trip. The kids had fun playing with their friends in the dark. I got time to talk to friends once the kids were in bed. The kids got to experience camping. It's been so long since we've camped that none of our children could remember. I hope this was a memorable experience for them.

It's almost midnight and I'm so glad this day is done. I'm so tired. After we got home I was able to sit for a bit until I got a frantic message from a facebook friend. She came over and I was able to help her out. We then ran off to Chicago for ICAN meeting, missing the first hour and a half of a two hour meeting. I'm still glad we went as we weren't really friends before and tonight may be what bring us together. Good friends are always nice to have. It also strengthened my desire to help nursing mothers. Breastfeeding is so important to me but now, for some odd reason, I feel it's importance is even greater. I think seeing a mom who is feels so set on her child getting ONLY the best has added fuel to my fire.

For the love of hot wheels

Nicky is in love with hot wheels. All the boys have gone through this but Nick's obsession is at a whole new level. He takes these little cars everywhere. He sleeps with one every night. It was so cute...at first. It does have it's perks. He likes to find out what color they are and is learning his colors pretty well. He sorts them, he lines them up, all those good two year old milestone behaviors. He prefers to sleep with a yellow car. That leads me to one very unpleasant aspect. Nicky is two, these cars are small and they always get lost. We put him into the car having tantrums because he's left his car behind. That isn't so bad because, so far, we've always managed to find it. This is not fun at all in the middle of the night. For three nights this week we had to wake up to go looking for his car. Last night was the worst since I don't think he actually went to sleep with it. Mack and I were both up at 4 am looking for a yellow hot wheel that is 2 inches long in the dark so we wouldn't wake Aaron. I might stop while we're out and buy 10 of these little yellow cars. I'm exhausted and do not want to do that again. I wonder if velcro would work.....;)

Wow! Muscles in my stomach?

Zach and I read 'The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body.' We had a great time on our field trip with the Friz. I love reading to Zachary. Not only is he a sponge but his questions are so much fun! I told him that he has muscles all over his body. He looked at me in amazement. He started looking all over himself and asked if he has muscles in his stomach, his leg, his mouth? Yes, you do! Oh, he was shocked, lol. Five is such a fun age. I often wonder if he just humors me. He's seen this book on DVD and we've talked about it before but he still seemed shocked to hear all this information he's heard many times before.