7 Quick Takes: Birthdays, Remodels, and Meltdowns

I've never linked up with anyone before, but I'm in a blogging rut, and 7 Quick Takes sounds really easy!  Off we go!

1. Ira's 8th Birthday is tomorrow.  We celebrated on Saturday with a party with family.  Ira wanted a Nacho Bar for his meal and a "New Super Mario Brothers" Cake. I found some awesome real food recipes to help the nacho bar not be such a gut bomb: carnitas, nacho cheese, pico de gallo.  The food was a hit and Ira was thrilled with his cake.  It's probably one of the best cakes I've ever decorated.  It took about 4 hours to decorate it, but the look on his face when he saw it was TOTALLY worth it!

2. We got new carpet!  The carpet that we replaced was original to the house from when it was built in 1984.  I don't really want to know what all was living and dead in that carpet, but we are THRILLED to have it gone!  It was low on the priority list of "things to redo" when we bought the house though because the old stuff was okay enough.  Finally, we are checking off the final boxes of totally flipping this house.  Since we bought 5 years ago we have: Replaced: all the flooring, every light fixture, and every faucet; Added ceiling fans to the bedrooms, Remodeled the kitchen, adding an eating bar and a dishwasher; Updated the main bathroom; Replaced the toilet in the half bath; Primed and painted every wall; Finished the basement; Added a perennial flower bed and vegetable garden, and are nearly finished with adding a 3rd bedroom.  It's been a lot of work and taken a lot of time, but we wanted to do it on a cash basis, so we are thrilled to be nearly finished!

Before

After

3. Homeschooling is going so wonderfully for us.  I cannot believe how well our first year has gone!  We are just weeks away from being finished with all of our curriculum for the year.  We are all looking forward to summer and I'm actually excited to start planning next year.  We will be basing our curriculum around Mater Amablis' recommendations once again - doing Level 1A, year 2.  I have been so pleased with their recommendations and have discovered some real GEMS of books that I'm sure I wouldn't have found otherwise.

4. We switched Ira to Saxon 54 after using ALEKS since the beginning of the school year.  ALEKS worked well for us in that we needed to accelerate through some things for Ira to find his learning level (he'd already finished 2nd grade Math in 1st grade at our Catholic School last year).  He finished with 3rd grade math in ALEKS in January, and after doing some Olympic-math in February, I assigned him to 4th grade math in ALEKS.  Then we started noticed he wasn't retaining some really important topics (like long division and fractions and all that good stuff)  To me, it's a twofold problem with ALEKS: first of all, there is no instructional dimension.  The child is set straightaway to working on problems, and have to click "Explain" if they don't understand it.  Well, that takes maturity first off, but I also felt like the explanations lacked depth.  So I supplemented with my own knowledge, which is fine in the younger math grades, but not so once we start getting further.  Secondly, the topical nature of ALEKS wasn't working for us.  Doing a topic and then being done with it without really any opportunity for review (other than when you log in the next day) just doesn't work for the math basics like multiplication and long division and rounding and fractions and decimals.  Or at least it didn't for us.  Having learned from Saxon for a number of years myself, and having taught it when I taught 4th grade, I was very familiar with their spiraling concept and felt like it was exactly what we needed.  We've been very pleased so far and will just continue with it next year.

5. Ruby had a total meltdown at Ira's birthday party because she offered him a plate when he started going through the nacho bar and he (rudely) told her he didn't need it because he already had one.  I took her to our room where we chilled out for probably half an hour.  We had a good talk about femininity and emotions.  She is such a beautiful girl with a big open heart and I am sure this will not be the last time we have that talk.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to parent both a boy and a girl.  So different, both of them, and so wonderful!

6. Ruby and I got to hang out together while Andy and Ira worked at our parish's quilt bingo today.  Of course, the first thing she asked to do was paint.  It's her fravorite thing to do, so I obliged.  She painted a Christmas tree.  I painted my favorite bush, a forsythia.  It looked really bad until it dried, then I was shocked by how well it turned out.  While it was drying we read books and listened to music.  Then we played the longest game of Chutes and Ladders like ever.  That game can really get on my nerves...

7. I cannot get Jennifer Trapuzanno out of my mind/heart.  I don't even know her personally, but on Tuesday morning she posted in our NFP group on Facebook asking for prayers for her husband who had been mugged.  He ended up dying, leaving her behind, eight months pregnant with their first child, a daughter.  I cannot imagine the loss and heart-wrenching grief she is feeling right now.  Please keep her and her daughter in your thoughts and prayers in the days and weeks and months ahead.  If you feel moved to donate to their family, you can do so here.

Well that wasn't necessarily quick, but I got a lot of stuff dumped out of my head there.  Head on over to Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

My Girl

We were out of milk this morning (and Ira and Ruby always always have cold cereal/milk for breakfast), so I got up early to make some muffins for the kiddos for breakfast.  I hadn't been up 15 minutes when Ruby came bouncing in all mussy-headed.  She is just about the cutest thing ever when she wakes up.  With a lot of my time being consumed teaching Ira during the day, I kind of cherish the mornings when she wakes up early, even if it does infringe on my "me time."  So she got to help me make muffins!  I used to be really good about letting Ira help me in the kitchen, but with Ruby it seems like I'm always "too busy" or "in a hurry" or "not in the mood to deal with the mess."  I really need to work on that.  She loves to help!

When Ira got up, he wanted nothing to do with my muffins... hmph... and made himself cinnamon toast for breakfast instead... little stinker...

Then today was one of those days where neither of us was really.... hmm... focused?  I guess that would be the word for it?  We just weren't very in sync.  I was tired... He was... unfocused?  Yeah, I think that's probably a good description of the combination.  So it took him forever to do things and it felt even longer to me because I was tired and just wanted him to finish.  We got it done, but it wasn't necessarily pretty. Then we went and threw our route of 800 papers.  It also was not pretty but it got done.  (The combination of heat blowing full blast to keep the car warm and two windows down with 30 degree air blowing in and the stop/go/turn, etc. of throwing papers this time of year makes all 3 of us a little queasy by the time we're finished.)   The house was a wreck when we got home, but a couple focused hours of cleaning up/putting stuff away and it has returned to some semblance of decency.  Pretty much today was just one of those days we pat ourselves on the back for surviving, get to bed as early as we can, and thank God that tomorrow is a fresh, new day!

Back in the Saddle

Well well, first day back to school wasn't too bad at all!  Got a little bit of attitude about writing thank you notes, but once he understood that I wasn't going to back down, he wrote a very nice thank you note (and even seemed to have fun doing it... shhh...)

Otherwise, spent most of the day cleaning out above the desk (which is where papers to be filed go.)  There were TWO YEARS worth of papers to file.  UGH!  Luckily all the utilities have their own folders in the basket and get filed every month.  As do medical expense receipts and Insurance Explanation of Benefits, but still... the stack was mountainous and I'd been avoiding it for far too long... obviously.... 2 years... So the bar was covered in piles of papers and the floor was covered in piles of papers to shred/recycle, and oh MY it gets messy to sort through things!  The storm before the calm for SURE!  In fact, the whole house is rather stormy right now as I go through our possessions one by one, deciding what to keep and what to... do something else with.  I wish it were easier to get rid of stuff.  Like maybe if I had a magic wand and could *poof* it to the homeless shelter and the buy/sell/trade group and the trash and the recycling and Goodwill.  Yes, that would be much simpler than what I've got going on right now.  It will eventually be so much better, but until then... yeesh.  And yet, it reminds me how blessed I am to have so much stuff to deal with in the first place.  We are so spoiled having not only everything we need, but most of the stuff we want too...

Had this yummy Slow Cooker Savory Superfood Soup for dinner tonight.  It was VERY good.  The kids thought it was a little spicy, so next time I'd decrease the crushed red pepper just a touch.  Otherwise, it is good to be getting back to eating well.  My tummy is thanking me.  I just hope I can keep up with the meal planning/grocery shopping.  It's tough juggling all the things that I need to do every day.  Seems like there are always a few balls rolling around on the floor... or collecting dust under the stove... (exercising, laundry, cleaning, meal planning, hobby pursuit, friendships are the ones that seem to fall most often.)

Anyway, not a whole lot else going on.  So I'll leave you with a picture of my now clean/organized desk cabinet.  Be amazed.

12th Day of Christmas!

Okay, so I'm slipping this one in a little past midnight... must be a Sunday night!

I ordered about a bajillion-and-a-half books from Amazon last night with some Christmas money.  I am SO excited to get them and start reading.  Following the lead of some people who inspire me, among other things I purchased "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis, "Anima Christi" by Mother Mary Francis, "The Four Cardinal Virtues" by Joseph Pieper, and "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis.  Yeah... I'm going to be a busy girl this year!

After Mass today (where Ira sang loudly in my ear while I was trying to play piano, which is adorable and distracting all at the same time...) we started getting ready for the week by catching up on some laundry (that was still in baskets from when I didn't finish it 10 days ago...)  Then I got it in my head that we needed to go through our closets (I like to declutter at the beginning of the year... last weekend I went through our storage room and got rid of about 8 boxes of stuff.)  So we did that and did the hall closets as well.  3-4 More boxes of stuff!  Now I just need to work my way through the living room and kitchen and we should be good to go!

Tonight was back into the routine of lesson plans!  I am actually VERY excited to get back to school - our curriculum is SO AWESOME!  It is a rather eclectic curriculum of Mater Amabilis with some additions/substitutions (Logic of English, Noeo Science, ALEKS Math, Handwriting Without Tears, I Can Do All Things Art Curriculum and various religion books to supplement for Sacrament Prep.)  I have been thoroughly pleased with the Mater Amabilis book recommendations.  We have found some true gems that I'm sure we never would've come across otherwise.  And Mater Amabilis charges NOTHING for their plans (you have to buy all the books, but still, Michele Quigley has done a TON of work/research/etc. to create this beautiful curriculum and then offer it free of charge!)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I am astounded at how much we are loving homeschooling.  It has been SUCH a good fit for us!  And I am astounded at the grace God has given me to stick with it and be consistent.  I am usually neither of those things (which was one of the reasons I was worried about me homeschooling anyone... I really stink at perseverance/fortitude and consistency...) alas, His grace ABOUNDS!

Anyway, that was our today... Tomorrow will be here soon, so I better get to bed!  Before I go though, I'll leave you with a couple pictures from dinnertime.  Never a dull moment 'round here, I tell you what!

Look at those GUNS!

And look at that pretty princess in her homemade tiara!

Here Fishy Fishy

Today we were FINALLY able to set our aquarium back up for the 2 goldfish we bought yesterday.  The kids had been asking every time we went to Wal-Mart this fall, but I tell you what, this homeschooling stuff keeps me BUSY.  So every time I had to say, "not right now."  Well, we're still on Christmas break so yesterday I finally got to say, "YES!"

Ruby's fish apparently has a bit of an identity crisis because he was originally a girl, with no name; then she was a boy, named George; then she was a girl named Goldilocks, and now, she's a girl named Marley.  We'll see how long that name sticks.  Ira has yet to name his.  That hasn't stopped him from trying to monetize it though... "Maybe if Ruby's fish is a girl and mine is a boy then they can have hundreds of babies and we can sell them!"  Entrepreneur that boy is!

Today was a nice day - aquarium, fish watching, coloring together with new colored pencils, and lots of imaginative play!  And a yummy dinner from a new recipe and scrubbing the floor Cinderella-style (seriously, although it's a pain, it is truly the best way to scrub a floor in my opinion) finished the evening out nicely.  Oh, and we hit 20 patrons for our Love Good Music campaign today (which was our goal)!!!  We are so excited to bring LGM back to our hometown for a concert this summer!!!!  Yes, yes, very good day indeed!!

Hmmm...

You know how during the day you think of about eleventy seven awesome blog posts that you're going to do as soon as you get the time, and then you finally get the time and sit down at the computer and start writing... and erasing.... and writing... and erasing... yeah - that's this post.  I think I've gone through 4 titles now.  And erased about 7 paragraphs (using the term paragraph very loosely.)  It's hard for me to jump in and just "start fresh."  I'm one of those people that likes to talk... a lot... and tell the antithesis of the "Reader's Digest Version."  I'm all about the back story.  So how b'zackly I'm going to just jump back into my half-a-year-neglected blog has me stumped.  I guess I'm just a little bummed that I didn't record all the day-to-day stuff that's happened these last 6 months - for my own sake.  And for the sake of boring you all to tears of course.  How 'bout I just start with today, and if something doesn't make sense, you just ask me for clarification.

Well, I guess to start with today, I have to tell you about yesterday.  It was our first day back homeschooling after a week long vacation to Galveston and the two weeks prior to that were fraught with a lack of normalcy because of Andy and I both having pneumonia (not at the same time thankfully, yeesh!)  So I was well aware that yesterday might be ahem difficult but WOW was it DIFFICULT!  I let Ira sleep in because he too (on our 2nd to last day of vacation) caught the upper-respiratory crud that Andy and I had.  He's getting over it thanks to our doctor calling in antibiotics for us, but yesterday was really the first day he felt better.  So we got started around 10 and let me just say, it was a battle all. day. long.  At one point Ira told me he wished I would "move to California and drown."  Touching, isn't it?  I tried to be patient, but you know what, I haven't been the most diligent in my prayer life lately and it shows in how my days go.  So we didn't get done with school until 5 o'clock.  GAH!!!!  And when I spend so much of the day "educating" Ira (be it behaviorally or academically) I feel like I don't get to be Ruby's mommy like I should be.  On top of all of that, it is near impossible to get anything done on a day like that, which just compounds the problem of feeling ineffective and worthless... California, here I come...  Dinner was late (Chana Masala -mmmm) but we were able to end our day with a decade of the rosary.

After the kids were in bed, Andy and I rolled newspapers (for our route of 800 that we throw once a month), talked, and watched our favorite show, Castle.  On top of feeling like a failure, I was also feeling particularly sad about our miscarriages.  I tell you, that is a deep heartache.  The kind that just takes your breath away at times.  It is so hard because in the end, when all the chips are down, it's completely out of our hands.  I can't try, pray, wish, or hope my way into more children for our family.  And I feel this acute emptiness in my life.  There's this gaping hole in my heart and I can't fill it.  It physically aches.  God can fill it.  I know that.  I know Christ didn't come to bring flowers and rainbows to sinners.  He came to die on the cross.  To show us how to live by dying to ourselves.  Suffering can be transformative if I offer it back to God.  I'm still working on that...

So yeah, to say I was dreading today would be an enormous understatement.  I had come up with a few different strategies to try to make today's school day go better. I got up right when my alarm rang at 6 o'clock.  "Serviam."  I started the day with a shower and more time than usual in prayer (no mass this morning, so I had some extra time.)  Ruby got up before Ira and she and I had about 15 minutes of snuggling, talking, and reading a book before she finally demanded "BREFEST"  It was just wonderful.  And you know what, the rest of the day went well too.  The kids and I were even able to go throw those 800 newspapers this afternoon so Andy didn't have to do it tonight.  Thanks God, I so needed a "today."

And I got this too:

And Ruby wore this to help Andy replace the brake pads on my car HA!!!  This is SO Ruby:

I'll leave you with Ira's narration for "Joseph in Potiphar's House"  it's a good'n:

"It was about the famous dream.  You probably know the story.  You know how Joseph's brothers sold him to a camel caravan?  The camel caravan sold him to Potiphar.  And Potiphar noticed that everything he told him to do, he could accomplish.  So he gave him charge of his whole household.  What an honor!  And Potiphar's wife was his friend, but after that, his enemy!  And she noticed that he wouldn't do wrong to please her.  And then she falsely told her husband lies about him.  And so Potiphar threw him into prison.  And then the king had a dream, well, two dreams actually.  And the dream was that there was seven fat cows eating by the river (probably the River Nile) and then seven thin cows came and ate up the fat.  And then he saw seven fat ears of corn, and seven thin and dry ones came up and ate the full beautiful ones.  And the meaning of this dream was that there would be seven years of plenty, then BLAM.  BLAM, BLAM, BLAM.  The food would be gone.  There would be a famine.  Yikes!  The Pharaoh made him in charge of storing up the food for the seven years of famine.  And people came from all over to get food, because the famine was all over the world.  Or at least that world."

You can't make that stuff up, folks!  And with that, I bid you "Goodnight!"

Back again

Not even going to apologize for the 6 months it's been.  It's my blog and I'm not very good at utilizing it.  Don't want to play "catch-up" too much because, well, six months is a long time, but you'd also be really out of the loop if I just started in on life at this moment.  So here are a few things that have happened since March:

- had a successful 2nd surgery with Dr. Hilgers.  That man is just amazing.  I love him and am so blessed to be his patient.  We were blessed to stay with a beautiful couple while in Omaha.  Our time with them was too short (just Monday evening and Wednesday evening really), but they took care of us like we were their own children and were such a blessing to us in our time of need.  God bless you, Howells!  My surgery was on Tuesday of Holy Week, was in the hospital until Wednesday, had an appointment on Thursday where I asked Dr. Hilgers if we could head home and he said "if you feel up to it!"  So we drove home and were able to spend the Triduum as a family.  Recovery was pretty doggone easy!

-decided to homeschool.  (Which was very much a God thing, btw.  More than anything, we felt God was calling us to pursue homeschooling this year.  We've never had a decision that we had so many good reasons "not to" but kept feeling pulled by God back to it.  Like "I know you don't want to do this and don't think you can, but I want you to."  Really, how do you say no to God?  I bet it never ends well when that happens...)

-got the go ahead to try to achieve pregnancy in June

-actually got pregnant our first cycle of trying!

-hosted an incredible concert with an amazing group of young Catholic artists from Nashville, TN.  Their talent was top-notch and their faith was just beautiful.  We were lucky enough to host them in our home that night and the next day for breakfast, Mass, and lunch.  Words cannot really describe how blessed we have been by these artists and their friendship.  Jimmy Mitchell, the head of Mysterium Records, is on a mission to take back culture through truth and beauty.  If you would like to find out more or help reclaim the soundtrack of American culture, visit Love Good Music.  If you become a patron (for just $10 a month!) you get a new CD from the best music across genres every month.  Seriously, that's a sweet deal.

-found out that we would again be sending a baby to the arms of Jesus.  Our hearts are broken.  We were surprised for it to happen again after all we'd been through.  It sort of seemed like we were starting over, being given a clean slate.  But I wondered as the pregnancy progressed and my nausea did not.  I tried to just offer my joys and sufferings to God throughout.  I was able to handle this pregnancy and miscarriage so much better mentally than any of the others.  I think a lot of that is the T3 that I'm on (do you know my average body temperature is actually 98.6 now?!)  It has truly changed my life for the better.  We're just resting in God's hands.  He loves us so much.

-We don't know why this miscarriage happened.  We don't know if it was the "sometimes, the first pregnancy after intervention unfortunately ends in miscarriage".  Or it there is something more going on.  We set up a phone consult with Dr. Hilgers last month. His next step would be to do genetic karyotyping on Andy and I.  Karyotyping is very expensive and is usually not covered by insurance.  With most doctors, karyotyping wouldn't tell you anything other than "yes/no - this is an issue" and "here's your % chance of successful pregnancy."  Dr. Hilgers apparently does have some (a?) treatment he can do to overcome this issue.  He is currently appealing to our insurance company to cover it.  (Which, don't even get me started on why it is my insurance company gets to determine what is best for my care, not my doctor.  GAHHHHH  THE SYSTEM IS SO BROOOOOOOKKKEEEEENNNN!!!)  We are still trying to discern what God wants us to do with that whole situation.  Prayers are appreciated.

-We started homeschooling on August 19th.  It's been great so far.  Obviously there are ups and downs, but we feel very good about our decision.

So yeah, that's the major "highlights" of the last 6 months.  I'll catch you up on each of us more in coming posts, but now you're more up to speed so when I talk about "homeschoooling this" and "Love Good Music that" you'll know what the heck I'm talking about.