Beading

Kathryn finally got to use the beading kit she got for her birthday... here she is, hard at work

Do you think?

Do you think Jason could tell the difference in what I put on the grocery list and what Julian put on it?

Lipstick...

"Mommy, why won't you let me keep my lipstick in my room?"

Sunday dress

I thought Kathryn looked especially cute on Sunday:

The circle of life ...

Julian has been learning to play the recorder at school the last several weeks. He has told me how much fun he has had learning to play, but I have not gotten to hear him...until Monday.

Julian has learned one song - "Hot Cross Buns" - B-A-G. His music teacher told him that when he brings it home he should practice for 10 minutes each day, but my over-achiever decided he would play for 30 minutes each day instead (and remember, he has learned just one song so far!).

It's a joy to hear him and to see how much he enjoys it. I remember learning to play recorder and my brief time on flute before starting clarinet. I feel connected to my Dad now and understand what a joy it must have been for him to hear not just me, but my brother on sax for a bit and my sister on piano. All the practicing time must have had him just so full of joy that he couldn't stand himself!

I can't wait for Kathryn to start (she is now asking for a recorder too, since Julian got one).

FINK day, October

In October, my beautiful niece, Vivian, turned 1! It's hard to believe she is a year old already - time really flies....

The Sunday after her birthday, we went to Charlotte for her baptism. Randy and Emily had everyone over to their house after the service for lunch and cake. It was nice to get to spend some time with them and with Vivy, who we normally only get to see for a few minutes before nap time! She was a lot of fun to watch.

I didn't get many pictures - the lighting in the church was too much for me and my amateur camera:) But here are the few I was able to get:

Flu shots and Awana

Julian, Kathryn and I went to get our flu shots yesterday. I scheduled the appointment several weeks ago, so we had some time to get used to the idea of the shots, and I had hoped that would help with minimizing the fits being thrown when the needle came out. When Julian got his Kindergarten shots, it took 4 nurses plus me to hold him down. With Kathryn, she sat, got her shots, frowned, and then life went on - no tears, no screaming. Some time has passed for both kids, so I really didn't know what to expect, but I did ask Jason to come with me - it's a traumatizing event - for all of us!

Well, yesterday, I went first to show them how easy it was (and really, I think it is the least painful shot I can remember getting). Kathryn went next, and a nurse had to help me hold her still to do the shot, all the while she was screaming "I don't want to do it! I don't want to do it!". Then Julian (after seeing Kathryn's fit) got his turn. Jason held him, I helped hold his arms and another nurse helped hold his legs. Julian screamed "Please! No! Don't do it!" Poor babies. So, finally it was done, and both admitted, it really wasn't that bad!!!

To top it off, a little boy from our church was in the waiting room waiting for HIS turn to get his flu shot. We didn't stay to see how he did, but I really hope my kids didn't make it worse for him.

On a positive note, Kathryn earned her wings at Awana last night, and the first jewel to go in them. She had earned her Hang Glider patch a few weeks ago, but I didn't get it on her vest until this week...I'm very happy that the new patches seem to be much easier to iron on than the ones from Cubbies last year - no sewing involved, thank goodness! We are so proud of Kathryn and her sweet spirit and the effort she puts into these verses. She has such an interest in God and pleasing Him.

And Julian did well too. Each week his teacher gives a small reward to the T&Ter that prepares and passes the most sections, and he got it this week. He got his 3rd discovery sticker too.

We are so blessed!

I voted ...

I am glad it's over! Now to sit back and wait to see what happens. I stood there for a few minutes trying to decide whether to write in a name or choose between 2 less than good choices. I wish I felt better about my choice; I think we're in for a mess regardless of which family moves into the white house after this election....

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and no more SPAM calls!

The Mountains

We took a quick trip to the mountains a couple of weeks ago as well, hoping to see the leaves changing. Unfortunately, the news had exaggerated the color change to that point, and the leaves were still mostly green with some beginning signs of color change. It was still beautiful.

And here are some more, if you want to take a look:

Visiting

I have been sick now pretty much since August (although, there was almost a week when I felt pretty good!), so please forgive my lack of posting recently. I finally went to the doctor the beginning of last week, and after yet more antibiotics, I am feeling a bit better. I have hopes that I am beginning to kick this sinus thing that has been plaguing me for way too long, and I actually plan to mow the grass this afternoon after homework time!

A couple of weeks ago, we had Courtney and Billy over for dinner. While it was great to see them, and we enjoyed spending time with them (as we always do!), I'm afraid we were a sad bunch. As I said, I was sick, Courtney and Jackson were sick and Billy was recovering from being sick. I guess my kids were feeling OK, but they had also been sick that week and were not in top form either.

Nevertheless, we had a good time just hanging out, cooing over baby Jackson, eating pizza and chatting. I was able to get a few good pictures, but my mind was not exactly in top form, so I didn't really get in there for the good shots - definitely not like these 2!

And how beautiful is this?

Nothing compares to uncle Billy!

And of course Kathryn had to get her hands on Jackson, I think she has the same baby-craziness that I have. He is almost as big as she is!

Julian in T&T

Check out Julian's new T&T badge. To earn this, he had to complete his start zone and 1 discovery in his book. He completed the 2nd discovery last week, so he has 2 stickers on the badge now. In short, he had to learn and recite a lot of scripture and answer a lot of questions!

Thank you, Emileigh

In the process of cleaning out her room, Emileigh sent these things Kathryn's way. Now Kathryn truly has a princess bed. I'm sure I did not put the canopy up correctly; really I just stuck it up with a push pin until I had more time to think about what to do with it! And Kathryn loves her Hello Kitty sheets. So, thanks Emileigh!

6 random things...

Well, when I got on here last night, I saw that Jeana had tagged me to play a game, and I'm always up for a game! Here's how it works: I am to post 6 random things about myself and then tag 6 other people to do the same on their blogs. So here goes, 6 random things about me:

1. The town I grew up in had less than 200 people.

2. I love watching science and nature documentaries - and occasionally one about social issues (but they generally just make me sad or mad for the injustice being documented, so I only do that every now and then...)

3. When choosing names for Julian, we chose Julian because of John Lennon's son, Julian. He's not named after him at all in any commemorative way, but we liked the name and decided to use it.

4. I got married wearing my mom's wedding dress.

5. I love playing clarinet. I have no time for it and have not even put it together in almost a year, but when I do have time, I love it.

6. Someday (post retirement, most likely, so many, many years from now...) I'd like to live in a different country, on a different continent, maybe in Ireland...or France ... or Germany. Who knows?!

Ok, so now to pass it on... I am tagging these 6 people to tell us 6 random things about themselves, so be sure to take a look at their blogs to see if they play!

1) Ronda
2) Courtney
3) Randy and Emily
4) Sherri
5) Andy
6) Heath

What a face

The last of this years' roses

This is not the most attractive rose in the world, but it smells amazing, and I'm fairly sure it is the last one I'll get from my one rose bush this year. Amazingly, grass hoppers eat roses; did you know? I found a grass hopper in this rose yesterday, and now there are holes in the petals (or maybe I'm jumping to conclusions??). This year was a hard year for my roses with beetles, aphids and some kind of white stuff growing on the leaves?? I already miss all my flowers....

A great surprise

I just checked my grades and I did really well on both test I took yesterday. I felt good about the biology test, but not the religion test...what a nice surprise!

Today

Man, today was a long day.

Do you ever feel like you just can't give anything else in a day?

I got up early after not sleeping well, got the kids ready and got them to school (on time! woohoo!), came home, checked in at work and edited a few shops, went to biology where I had an exam on cellular respiration (which I had really been studying all weekend). Then to public speaking, then research during my break, then Spanish where we learned something new that is really hard! So, home again for at least a few minutes - home to eat a bite, work a few minutes then off to get the kids. The kids' homework took forever today, but I supervised homework, worked for a few more minutes, then on to making dinner, studying my note cards for my "Intro to the Old Testament" exam (which I fear I did not do well on) for about 5 minutes (which is why I don't think I did well), off to class, take the exam, read (research) for my next speech during one of my breaks, finally home to watch Heroes (and play around on the computer for a few minutes)!

The highlights of my day were seeing Julian and Jason playing ball while I made dinner - awesome! I heard a great sermon on the way home by Alistair Begg - it so encouraged me about the Word of God, which I tend to need after my religion class. And the moon tonight was beautiful - did you see it?

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

This week

Unfortunately, I have no real news to report, but I realized it had been almost a week since I have posted anything, so I wanted to check in.

As usual, our week has been busy but good. I have started a new sticker chart for the kids; they earn stickers for doing the things they are supposed to do, and doing it joyfully! We are still working on the "joyfully" part, especially the things that happen first thing in the morning and last thing at night (i.e. getting ready for school and bedtime). Last week was our first week, and Kathryn earned all her stickers, but Julian was 3 short. Kathryn got a roll of bubble tape as a reward. Julian had asked for computer time as his reward, so unfortunately he didn't get that last week. He is on track to earn it this week! So, hopefully, he'll get his first 30 minute chunk of computer time in months tomorrow. (as a side note, we've had many conversations recently about trust and computer time and earning things like that back - we'll see how he does).

I did warn them this morning that the 2 week trial period is over now and starting Monday, I need to see JOYFUL (really just not grumpy) or they don't get the sticker. Who knows if this will work, but I was getting desperate with a few specific times of the day that one or both of them were not cooperating. I am hoping offering the reward for something they have to do anyway will make it more appealing to do it without arguing. I'd love to see "joyful", but will definitely settle for "no backtalk/arguing". So now we've got our system worked out, our stickers are printed out and cut, and we're ready to see how it works in practice. It's so fun experimenting on my kids :)

Both children are doing well in school. Kathryn is making great progress in learning the function of letters and quasi-reading. At this point, the books she reads are mostly about deciphering the content and decoding the symbols (words). She can "read" the words because she can "read" the picture on the page. So, of course, the next step to help her realize the same word is always (or mostly) used for the same picture - a tree is always "tree", a dog is always "dog". She is a quick learner, so I am sure she will take to this quickly. Julian is also doing wonderfully. He has been reading a book about the human body the last 2 weeks (we forgot to put it back in his bookbag for library day this week). His homework has been to read aloud to me for 20 minutes, and I love hearing it; it definitely does not sound like the average 8 year old reading. He has almost no trouble with pronunciation; there are only a few words here and there I have to help him pronounce correctly. He took his Cognitive Aptitude (CogAp) test last week, so we have not gotten the result of that yet. I have a conference with his teacher in a couple of weeks, so hopefully we'll have the results by then.

Jason has been back to work for 5 weeks now, and seems to be adjusting fairly well. There is a lot of soreness in his back, and he has had a lot of neck-headaches, but that is to be expected, I guess. He has also started exercising to get back in pre-surgery shape.

And now me - I have been pretty occupied with research the last week or so. I have several speeches coming up, and I have been spending a good chunk of time finding books and finding what I need from the books, making notes and trying to decide what I'll say about all of it. It is very time consuming! I have a demonstration speech next week - I will show my classmates how to fold fancy dinner napkins... Then 2 weeks later I have a group presentation about Martin Luther King Jr. Shortly after that, I will give an informative speech on the local impact of global warming. Again, shortly after that comes my persuasive speech, in which I will try to persuade my classmates to be more eco-conscious. Finally, I have a tribute speech, which I have not actually chosen a subject for - yet. On top of that, I have a paper to write for my religion class, and I don't care for any of the 6 subjects I was given to chose from. My most pressing concern now is my biology test coming up this Monday, where I'll have to draw, label and explain cellular respiration. It is a lot to remember! There is a lot going on, but I enjoy the learning and enjoy proving to myself that I can do well...

So, those are the goings-on in our household. Hopefully, I'll see something interesting this weekend that I will be able to share.

After dinner

After a wonderful dinner of pancakes, eggs and turkey bacon, Julian and Kathryn told Jason and I that we needed a break from washing dishes and doing recycling, so they were going to do it tonight. And they did a really good (wet, messy!) job and had fun doing it.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin

In case you missed it last night on SNL - this was hilarious! I thought her impersonation was dead-on.

Playing school

I'm taking a break from cleaning house to share these pictures, which I thought were really cute. I thought I would have to sneak the picture since Julian has become more and more reluctant to be in pictures, but he posed for it in the end, as you can see. Since about 7:30 this morning, the kids have been playing school. It is now 11:00 and they have now stopped, only because Kathryn went grocery shopping with Jason. Julian is the teacher (of course), and Kathryn the student. But! She is not a Kindergarten student; she is a college student. She takes a test about every 5 minutes and always does very well. And, Julian must have some very sharp dressed teachers, because to be a teacher, he had to dress in his church clothes. What a handsome teacher he is!

Kathryn's writing

Kathryn brought these home in her Thursday folder. I think she is doing rather nicely! She has had next to no interest in writing until she went to school, so I am very excited that she is working on it for her teacher. These pictures must be a couple of weeks old - we have really been working on her name, and it looks great!

Getting gas...

It was really weird. When I went to get gas yesterday, Walmart was actually OUT of everything except 87 octane. Of course my car runs on that normally anyway, but I began to think of what would happen if the gas stations were out of all gas. What in the world would we do?? Forget high gas prices, what about no gas at all???

Last one, I promise!

These are the pictures from Jason's camera...I promise I won't post anymore from Kathryn's birthday parties - this year!

Heroes....finally!

I am so excited that Heroes season 3 will be premiering tonight! Unfortunately, I will be in class at 8:00, but will definitely be recording it to watch when I get home. I was pretty annoyed when the writers' strike stopped the show mid story last season, and I've been waiting impatiently since then for new shows. If you haven't seen Heroes yet, you should check it out - I was surprised at how gripping it was (the first season anyway).