using today to learn

I’ve posted before about Jag and his interest in history.  He spent months learning and talking about all the Presidents of the United States (could tell you facts about many of them, and recognize most of them by their pictures - even refused to ride anything at Disney World until he did the Hall of Presidents first!), he spent some time interested in all things Mozart, he finds anything related to battle and war fascinating (he’s currently into the American Revolution and Civil Wars)… so it shouldn’t surprise me that on our way home from school on Friday, he told me the dozen or so little facts he learned in class about Martin Luther King Jr, and said “Mommy, I want to learn more about him!”  He doesn’t ask to read books or watch movies about Spiderman or Power Rangers - nope, my boy wants to spend time reading about Martin Luther King Jr..  God I love him!

So I thought I’d share our plans for today.  He brought a couple of MLK coloring pages home from school Friday, so we’ll do those, but I also found a few sites with age appropriate activities:  @KinderTeacher, @EnchantedLearning and @Danielle’sPlace.  I bought him a couple of books:  Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. and A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr..  And for Kat (since she is wanting everything her brother has these days), a boardbook:  The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr..

I also set the DVR to record a couple of age appropriate-ish (rated PG, nothing more) specials on Martin Luther King, Jr.  He’s watching one now that aired on CNN last night.  It’s a little slow for him, but he’s catching the gist.  Every once in a while he comes in a tells me a little fact that he picked up.  How much do I love the fact that he wants to watch this instead of cartoons?!

groceries

Oy.  I’ve been putting off grocery shopping all week, trying to avoid having to take both kids at the same time.  Really, I could take them both and it’d be okay.  I’d want to come home and drink heavily, but I could do it.  I just dreeeeeaaaaad it.  Anyway, we’re getting so low on things - I really just need to suck it up and do it.

As usual, I’m having trouble coming up with menu ideas.  We usually get ourselves in ruts, where we feel like we’re eating the same things all the time.  At one point I tried to come up with a “meal database” spreadsheet where I listed meals, their approx cost, their preparation time and level of ease, and then rated each.  I got a good start on it and kept it up for several weeks, but let it die and now it’s terribly out of date.  Too much work.  I need to do something simple like a recipe box and index cards I guess.

So I need a chicken meal idea.  Doesn’t necessarily need to be really easy or inexpensive.  Just good.  Got anything to share?

On to other news - today is the last weekday of Jag’s winter break!  I don’t know if I’m happy or sad.  He’s already complaining that he doesn’t want to go back.  I wish he hadn’t already picked up the anti-school attitude.  He’s got a long road ahead, it sure would be easier if he had a brighter outlook on it.  I’ve been trying to encourage him to enjoy school, but he says the schoolwork is boring and the only parts of the day he enjoys is recess and his once-a-week music class (he’s been asking a lot of questions about Mozart lately - he’s really into learning about historical figures).  I’m not sure what to do about that, honestly.  Part of me wonders if I should be homeschooling him to keep him challenged, but that is such a huge task to take on.  I’m not sure I’m cut out for it.  I just don’t know…  :-/

Anyway - hopefully we won’t hear too much whining this weekend about school starting back on Monday and we’ll be able to enjoy ourselves.  I’ve definitely decided on the dark strawberry pink for Kat’s room, so I hope to get that paint and some white paint for her dresser so I can get started on that.  I also think I may have found some bedding that will work in our master, I hope to double check with the paint chip and then make that purchase.  It’ll be good to have a pretty bed again!  I haven’t had anything but random quilts and white sheets on the bed since Jag sprayed my wheat-colored damask duvet cover with bleach cleaner 2 years ago.  Little stinker!

(I’ve been rambling on about decor type stuff for a number of entries now - how boring!)

Oh, something interesting (to me!)… I was taking the tree down last night and found a lizard living in the star on top!  Poor little guy was so dehydrated and weak.  I waited for Jason to get home to remove him, but it was too cold to put him back outside so we put him in Jag’s little terrarium to keep him inside until it warms up this weekend.  We put a little water in last night and put him under the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen to warm him up a bit and he looks so much better this morning.  The kids are having fun watching him.

somewhat productive weekend

If you follow my twitter (which I don’t blame you if you don’t, I so rarely tweet these days), you know we got the kids out on Saturday to burn off some excess energy.  We took a little afternoon trip to Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson.  Last weekend we had gone out to Moore’s Creek National Park, took a walk and watched a short film in the visitor’s center about the battle that happened there.  Jag was fascinated with the film and really got into the whole history of what happened there.  (He’s very much his Daddy’s Son, he loves history and science.)  We had high hopes for Brunswick Town, but it ended up being a very crudely illustrated film and our walk consisted mostly of him whining that he was “tired” and “bored”, with the exception of a brief stop at the riverfront where he stopped complaining long enough to throw large rocks into the water. 

We made a stop at the home improvement store for all the supplies we needed to build Kat’s new closet, then spent the rest of the day just having fun at home.

Yesterday, I went out and bought an entire new bedding set for our bedroom.  Comforter, shams, sheets, bed-skirt, throw pillows… got the whole load home and realized it does not, in fact, match our paint color.  I even took a paint chip, it just didn’t look the same at home in our own lighting.  It’s a beautiful set of navy and gold toile, and so very soft!  I’m bummed that I have to take it back.  I almost considered repainting the room (it’s currently a pale blue that I’ve always accented with clean, bright white textiles), but agh.  That room and adjoining master bath are a lot of work to paint.  And I luuuurve the pale blue, so I’ll keep looking.  Seems for the last almost 4.5 years I’ve done nothing but search for just the right bedding for our room.  :-/  (Incidentaly, the set looks fantastic in the dining room where it’s sitting now, with the pale yellow and gold walls.)

Jason got Kat’s closet built.  It’s almost three feet smaller in width than Jag’s, but it’s just as awesome now that we’re using the space more efficiently.  I need to go shopping for baskets, bins and containers now for both closets so I can start putting away all their toys.

So that brings us to today.  New Year’s Eve.  No plans here.  I’d love to have a small celebration just with the four of us this evening, but I didn’t put any thought into it in advance and now the pressure of it being tonight with only one afternoon to shop and prepare is leaving my mind blank.  Anyone having little parties at home with your kids?  How are you celebrating?

One week left of Jag’s winter break!  So far it’s gone well, but I’m a little scared for this week.  He’s starting to get bored and it’s showing.  He’s acting out and picking on his Sister.  I need to think quick and get him busy after New Year’s Day.

eta:  OH!  I forgot to mention, I also picked out a paint color for Kat’s room!  It’s more of a dark strawberry pink than cherry, but I think it’ll be perfect.  I’ve stuck a couple of paint chips to the wall in her room so I can look at them in different lights of the day just to be sure (because that will not be an easy color to paint over if I end up not liking it!).  I hope to have my mind made up by next weekend so I can go buy my paint.

back to real life

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve been home alone with the kids while Jason worked.

 Jag had half a day on the 14th, which also happened to be the day his Aunt Sara came into town for a weekend visit.  At the last minute, the kids and I hopped into the car and followed her home to Orlando to surprise my Mom.  Poor Mom had been so down about not seeing the kids since April, and especially not seeing them around the holidays.  The surprise was awesome.  There’s video of it on my dropshots account, if you have that link.  I think it’s on my Elsewhere page, if not I’ll come back and link it in the comments of this entry.

So anyway, we were in Orlando for the whole week.  Got home Friday night (drove the entire 9.5 hours with 2 kids all by myself - go me!!), then Saturday morning Jason’s Dad came in for a weekend visit.  Jason was off work Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue and Wednesday.  So today is his first day back to work, and therefore my first day back to real life in *counting on fingers* two weeks!  Eeep!

So far so good, Jag’s only been sent to his room once so far, and Kat’s already down for her nap.

For those of you who watch my flickr stream, I’ve mentioned briefly in my private photos but I’ll mention it here as well for those who don’t have access - I took all my kids and family photos private last week.  Honestly, the orkut thing never really bothered me much.  It was just annoying.  But then I had a large, nationwide builder steal my photos, make and frame prints, and hang them in their model homes - all without asking and without paying for them.  They were my personal, family photos - photos of the kids, of me and Jason, even of my Mom and her husband.  That really upset me.  I’m still dealing with that.  And then I was alerted to a flickr account last week where someone had stolen and used pics of Jag in their stream.  That was pretty much the last straw.  All along I’ve been very aware that this sort of thing could happen, and I took the orkut stuff in stride.  But I just got tired of worrying about it.  Tired of wondering who else was stealing my pictures that hadn’t been caught yet.  Flickr’s not as much fun when you keep everything private, but I feel good about my decision.  Maybe later down the road when there’s not much activity on my stream, I can start sharing publicly again and keep a low profile so as to not attract the thieves.

In the meantime, I will still share some here because the general public on flickr does not know about this blog.  I’ve got a smaller number of people checking in, and yes I’m googable, but I’m just not as easily found here.  However, there will always be more shared for family and friends on flickr.  If you are reading and would like access, and you aren’t a weirdo thief, then leave a comment here with the link to your flickr stream and I’ll add you as a friend.  (or you can flickr mail me if you’d feel more comfortable)

Moving on… lots of other stuff going on too.  For instance, we cancelled our Costa Rica trip.  No fun, eh?  Two reasons.  One, Kat is still nursing, and recently she’s picked up the nursing a good bit (not really sure why)… we don’t feel good about the idea of weaning her for a vacation since she’s only 19 months old.  And two, we decided that although we’d love to go to Costa Rica one day, we’d rather go to Peru first.  And March isn’t the time to go to Peru.  We’ll have to schedule that for another time, maybe next year during the summer months.  So now we’re trying to figure out what we’ll do with our March time.  Jag has 3 weeks off school for spring break, and I refuse to sit home those entire three weeks.  I’m thinking of maybe renting a cabin in Maggie Valley for a week and inviting my family to come stay with us (hopefully Jason could make it too, but we recently found out that one of his employees might be leaving soon so we’re not counting on it - I guess another good reason we decided against Costa Rica, eh?)

This is getting long.  I still have plenty more to say but I’m sure nobody wants to read it all in one entry, so hopefully I’ll remember to post more later.  Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and you have a Happy New Year!

Oh, a couple of pics!

 

monday

The start of the third and final week of fall break.  And believe it or not, we’re all happy, busy and my house is even clean!  I guess we finally found our groove!  *crossing fingers, knocking on wood and doing everything else I can think of to keep from jinxing myself by typing that*

We’ve got a warm start to this week, high today is supposed to be 89, but it should be appropriately cool later this week (low-to-mid 70s) so I’m excited to get outside with the kids; go for some walks, bike rides, maybe go to our favorite church yard pumpkin patch (that’s Wesley United Methodist on College, for those of you local to me - the BEST location for pumpkin pictures with the kids, and remember to take their pictures in the shade to avoid squinty eyes, Mom and Dad!).

Okay so on to some non-fall break news… I started my Christmas shopping this weekend.  I wanted to start sooner, like in August, but I didn’t start getting any good gift ideas until the last week or so.  I spent some time Friday night putting together my annual Christmas Shopping Workbook, in Excel, where I keep track of my ideas, where to buy, prices, what I’ve already bought, how much I’ve already spent, who the ideas and gifts are for and whether they are regular gifts or stocking stuffers.  It helps keep me straight so that I don’t forget all my best ideas and so that I don’t go overboard with how much I buy or how much I spend (easy for me to do, I’m not the frugal one in the family for those who couldn’t already tell).

My first official purchases were for the kids-  small stocking-stuff type things from Hearthsong.  Love that site, everything I bought from them last year was a hit!  I shopped the On Sale catagory and got some good prices, and made notes of lots of other things I want to come back to later.  Jag and I also looked through catalogs from Toys to Grow On and Young Explorers - they have nice selections as well, although I haven’t bought from them so I can’t vouche for quality or customer service yet.

Baby’s up and coffee cup is empty - more later!

fall break, day #4

Alternate title:  The Honeymoon is Over.

My alternate title says it all.  Day 1 was great.  Day 2, I was getting a bit weary about half-way through.  Day 3 was just a blur of arguing, whining and time-outs.  So far Day 4 isn’t much different and add to that that my house is trashed and… well… le sigh.

It’s a cloudy, rainy day here today so my plan is to let the kids watch some movies and tackle this disaster that is my house.  Laundry, picking up the mountains of toys that have been shoved into corners of every room, sort through the foot tall stack of mail on the kitchen counter… please tell me your house looks like this too when your kids are on school break?

And then, after all that cleaning, I’m going to flake out on dinner and stick a frozen lasagna in the oven.  Hey, the family can’t have it all - they’ll have to make do with a Stouffers “home cooked” meal if they want to enjoy a clear path through the family room and clean clothes in their closets.  Supermom I am not.