Houston Trip

Warning: major puppyage included in this post

You'd think that I'd show pictures of my brother, but no. This is his new toy that he just got on Saturday. His Buddy scooter.

Nobody really looks that great in a helmet, I've decided. Maybe some burley Harley dudes, but not I!I think Nina was doing a bit of training here with their new pup, Swayze. I would say that this has to do with more "potty training", but Swayze happens to be of the more gentler gender. :o)Little Swayze... she is so sweet. She's got the sweet puppy breath, that roly poly belly, the floppy run, the klutziness that comes with puppyhood, the occasional "oops" and piranha sharp teeth! "This too shall pass".
Cue Stevie Wonder... "You are the sunshine of my life... yeah" - until those middle-of-the-night wake-ups. :o)
Remember the piranha teeth?
Okay... we need another babyWe had such a great time this weekend! Friday we really just hung around and ate at their house. Chris grilled some potates/onions and chicken. Afterwards Chris brought out this big chocolate cake [in celebration of my birthday which was last week] - and as he's getting it out of the container, he and Nina made a quick change of plans... we went to "The Chocolate Bar" instead. They still put 4 candles on [I'll let you figure that out!] and I blew them out and we headed out the door.

At the Chocolate Bar I'm the only one who ordered a "slice" of cake. Huge. And $10! I enjoyed it more the next day at breakfast! Yes, I had a lot left over. Chris enjoyed it too.

Actually, Chris bought some tamales at a little tamale shop, cut some up and put them in with some scrambled eggs and then he wrapped them in tortillas. That with homemade cappuccinos... awesome!

Saturday night Paul and I stayed at a nice hotel downtown - Sunday was our anniversary and he wanted to do something special. Chris and Nina thoroughly enjoyed all the complimentary goods that our hotel provided. "Yeah, I'll take a chardonnay and 10 chocolate chip cookies." Yes, Chris, I'm still laughing 'bout that one!

They took us to the Astros game Saturday night. Wow, those Diamondbacks had quite the fun game! We left at the 7th inning. There were some cookies calling our names! We went to Tipanos for dinner @ 9pm. It was a great night.

Here are Chris and Nina downing all the complimentary beer during "Happy Hour". They were happy!

Sunday morning they met us and we all walked to Mass. The Annunciation is the 2nd oldest Catholic Church in Houston. It was magnificent! Make sure to scroll down from the link to the church - all those pictures! Karen, everything that I tried explaining to you... is in those pictures. Make sure to go to page 2 too!

After Mass we went to brunch at a quaint little place. The food was extremely good. The exciting part was when Nina tackled the waitress in order to get our complimentary cinnamon rolls! Nice goin' Nina!

Thank you both for an extremely fun, memorable and blessed trip! Oh and give Swayze a good ol' belly rub for me!

More on NObama

This is definitely *not* for the faint of heart. But it *must* be seen and spread. Is this the kind of *change* Americans need? Is it? Please... wake up - see the truth.
You cannot be both Christian and Pro-Abortion. Period.

HT: Amy

A Six Year Old's Invite:

A Shower for "The Princess"

Last Saturday I threw a shower for one of my best friends. Many of you know her - whether in person or through the blogosphere. For those of you who don't, she's pregnant with #5 with 4 boys in her brood. She's due toward the end of this month - though I know she'd be glad to "go at any time". She is holding out hope that the baby is born on the 18th. You can read more about her story/pregnancy here. And the reason she'd like the baby to be born on that date is because that's her son Matthew's birthday.

The "Princess", as you've probably guessed, is #5! And if you read the link up above you know that she's been a long awaited #5!

Before everyone arrived Charlie decided to climb up onto the table to play with the bunch of balloons [this is the boy who *LOVES* balls and balloons - not to mention climbing]. So instead of immediately grabbing him and reprimanding him... I grabbed my camera! "But of course!" [French accent]. And the boy was in festive attire with his sisters' dress-up clothes... cute.One of my friends made these cute little ducky cookies...And another one of my friends made this beautiful cake...

Below are Megan's mom and aunt who flew in for the shower...We played the "Toilet Paper" game - where each person has to tear off how many squares she thinks will fit around the expectant's belly. After everyone has taken from the roll, the Prego is measured and a winner is declared. Only 12 squares?!

The basket below is filled with gorgeous receiving blankets made by Megan's mom. We all went ga-ga over them! They have crocheted edges - I don't recall the stitch name, but they were saying it's very simple. Simple or not, we all want Bruce to teach us how to make them. She comes back in 3wks and said she'd be happy to give a lesson... or 2 :O) And, yes, Megan's mom's name is Bruce. She really needs to write a post on all the male gendered names in her family - and I'm not talkin' about names for the boys! I tried to zoom in on the picture to show the crocheted edges, but it won't save like that. And no, I didn't try in Photoshop - which we ended up buying the other night.

Megan and I are in the middle - not sure if the others would mind their names in here, so we'll just call them "Cake Maker" and "Ducky Cookie Maker", respectively ;)

Showers are so funny - all the oooo's and awwww's that accompany each unwrapped gift!

Megan ~ you, Catherine and all the boys are in our prayers. May God grant you a speedy and safe delivery so that we can all snuggle with that little blessing!

Continent Study

Didn't get input from the homeschool group, so here's my situation and a question:

I'm trying to implement some Montessori into our school. I'd like to do a continent study in place of the map skills wkbk [which I've always used - 10yrs now]. How much time per week should they spend on this? How much time per continent do you spend? I know "it depends" - but what do you do? I'd just like specifics, I guess. Different activities within this study. Maybe some helpful blog/websites?

I just ordered Teach Me to Do It Myself from Amazon. Hopefully I'll get some great ideas for pre-school activities too.

Thanks in advance for any and all ideas, comments and well-wishes :o)

More Schoolroom Stuff

I know I'm boring some of y'all to tears. But maybe one person out there is lovin' it! One can only hope!

Our hamster cages used to sit on top of our old piano which was in the schoolroom. The new electic piano - which is smaller - is in another room. So we have a little more space in our schoolroom. We were stumped as what to do with the hamsters. We couldn't put them upstairs in the playroom or in the girls' room - both of those options would be like planning their death. So we decided on this solution:They're in the schoolroom and it works out perfectly! The bottom one is an escape artist; hence the brick on top. See how he also chewed a hole in the top of his hut? This is the little shelf that we put up for the printer to sit on right at our computer nook. It's a wireless printer so from my laptop at my desk in the kitchen I can print. It's nice....when it's working. :o)

For our large puzzles I got those large zip-loc baggies with handles. There's about 6 puzzles in each bag.

Our dry erase markers are out of reach but accessible with this shower basket which I got at Target. I only wish the markers lasted longer than 2 days!

Want to know what my handyman is doing here?

He's making a house [?] for my 2 maps. We used to have our world map tacked to the wall, but with the added shelves we put up, we lost the wall space for those large maps. So we bought some window shades and I glued the maps on with Elmers spray adhesive. I may need to tape down the corners with some packing tape.

He needed to tighten the tension a bit because of the added weight. They work great! I still need to glue the US map. I'll have to post of picture of it hung.

Planning the School Year

[I just love those little paint cans! - I feel so....artsey!]

I'm trying to implement some new, exciting and more hands on learning this year. I know. High hopes. We're usually great the first month of school and then things start slipping...

...you know what I mean.

I got some dressing frames from this site.

The frames - all 10 of them - fit nicely on the shelf. I have a bin for them if the kids start messin' with 'em though!

In my next post, I'll have to show you the other jobs I had my handyman do. :o)

Who's Talking Now!

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0811_HD_SWB_HL_L0194

You're going to SMASH us!??? I don't think so!

The Romantic -

Our 18th anniversary is next Sunday, the 17th - and he's taking me to Houston to go visit my brother and his wife, Nina. It's going to be a fun trip. We'll fly out Friday afternoon, arrive 5ish and then leave Sunday afternoon.

Say a prayer for my sister who will be watching them this weekend. I'm a little nervous for her. I know they'll have fun, but I'm worried since they don't have their psycho mom to keep them in line that they'll be difficult for her. And I'm speaking frankly about the boys - and more precisely, Joseph. It'll be fine. Right?

It's the first time I've been away from my Charlie though - and at 20mo is still nursing. Mostly at before bedtime. There are some days when he doesn't nurse at all and some days he'll nurse throughout. So that will be interesting. I hope we both do well - IYKWIM.

It'll be very different hanging out with my brother without kids. I'll miss them, but they won't miss me [well, maybe Charlie] - they love their Aunt Karen very much! It'll be a blast of a weekend for them as well :o)

Blog Book?

How cool is this?!
Very very cool!

h/t: JMJ

Show Me Pouty

Therese - upon getting the news that 'that's all we have' for breakfast!

Footsteps

My little guys are put to work too - following Daddy's footsteps!You can actually see how hard Charlie was swinging here....see the motion of the hammer?

Making adjustments

The "Tester" - in more ways than one! ;)

Hey, some day they're gonna be handed a Honey-Do List!

Guess Where We Went Tonight!

Go on. Guess.
Okay - I'll tell you:
IKEA!!!!!
I'm tellin' ya - if you've never been, you have no idea what I'm talking about. You can't even look online or through their catalog unless you've been there first. Portland, Seattle, Twin Cities, Houston - you've got one! The prices are great and the engineering is awesome. A kid in a candy shop, I tell ya. There's even a restaurant in there, so you can keep up your energy and that of your kids'. If you choose to bring them. You may want to bring your dh though. He'll need to carry and load all the heavy stuff.

Put it this way. Paul is going to be busy tomorrow. He promised!

Wow - Who Knew?

That watching Yo Gabba Gabba teaches your pre-schooler social skills! :::HUGE rolling of the eyes::: followed by a 'click' of the remote!

Other Goodies

At Home Depot a couple days ago, we got one of these rugs for the boys. Turns out it's not just for the boys. What you're not seeing is 5 kids all trying to play on it at the same time arguing about which car/s they want.

In the back is the piano we're selling. And it looks like we sold it. It should be gone tomorrow night. Yay. Just wait til I tell Paul he may be helping to load it ;)

My Honey-Do List and IKEA

My poor husband. He's got such a long Honey-Do list and I just keep adding to it. It's all his fault though. Really. If he didn't know how to do anything, then I wouldn't come up with things for him to do, right? ;) Right!

As if he didn't have enough to do with having his own business - being out of town [OOT], and all the other computery stuff he does! But he complies - and I even think he enjoys it :o)

Projects - lots of projects.

We're doing the schoolroom right now. Trying to get more organization in there. So this idea, of course, snowballed....

We had our piano in there [and our schoolroom is not that big - maybe 12x12 ??] - and we do school at a large table that we got at IKEA with the most comfy chairs - which we got at IKEA. I love our main shelving unit - IKEA again. Anyway...the piano. We decided to sell it [haven't yet] and buy an electric piano [did]. It's much smaller and has weighted keys - it plays just like a regular piano. Plus it has some other instruments you can change to. But BEST of all...it has volume control [envision angels singing that!...] Jealous, aren't you? :0) Any-way [!], we now have that in our "dining room" [pretty much bare, beside a shelving unit]. So that opened up our schoolroom a bit...

Here's the bookcase from IKEA - it is soooo awesome. We got it last year I believe. Now remember, this is a work in progress. . . . this is among all the chaos. This was actually last week. See all the clutter still?

Where do you think I drug my dear husband next? Yep....IKEA! [just in case you missed the first few links]. We got some more shelves and organizational items. So much fun!

We got these 2 shelves. The one above is above our computer nook/station. And see the one below, how it has that cubey compartment thingy on top? Well that used to be inside the cabinet below. I took it out last week to make more useable space in the cabinet. Then it just sat in another 'catch-all' room. I grabbed it last night and just stuck it up there and. . . . . VIOLA! It's so cool. I've got CD's and books all over! It just fits them perfectly :o) Eh - it's the little things!Here's my sister helping. She's actually laminating pictures of the 4 mysteries & Stations of the Cross. Boy, are those sisters at the convent gonna be entertained or what! LOL! Hey, I warned her she'd be on the blog. We'll hang those around the schoolroom. . . someday.

So now we have a computer station:

A work in progress. It used to be - they'd just use my laptop to watch video clips on United Streaming [Videos and such through Georgia Public Broadcasting - awesome homeschool resource], watch their Math-U-See DVD, and things like that. This is going to be great! [We got the little desk at W-Mart for $30 or so]

So that's our schoolroom in progress. I'll give you the final thing in - well, I'm not sure how long.

Then last night after dinner we saw birds playing around outside. They were so cute. I even saw a little hummingbird zooming around. I've never seen a hummingbird just flying around. I've seen them at feeders and at flowers, but never just wandering around. Anyway, I said to Paul, "We need a bird feeder." So after we dropped Kayla off at her voice lessons we went over to Home Depot and got our bird feeder:

The birds have not discovered it yet. I was just telling the kids - but once they do, they're going to tell everyone and we'll have lots of birds at our feeder! The hook is actually one of those "stick-in-the-ground" kinds. You can see in the top picture how Paul used that to his advantage - he drilled 2 holes and just stuck it in. It works perfectly and is absolutely sturdy! Stinkin' thinkin'!

The swingset in the background was a project from last year. We got it from our good friends whose girls had outgrown it. It was disassembled and hauled over here. He put it back together without plans or pictures [though my dad did take pictures as it was being broken down]. Pretty impressive, aye? He even stained it that nice redwood color - the roof is stained the same color as our front porch.

I think he's disposed of his Honey-Do list. I can't find it and I need to add to it :)

I Love My Bloggin' Friends!

Especially this one!

Having never used PhotoShop before - Regina took so much time in her thorough instructions [in an email] to walk me through creating a new blog header. I may tweak it a bit here and there, but this is it for now. I know, I know - I've said that before!

So..... THANK YOU SO MUCH REGINA! You are a true bloggin' friend :O)

As Good as it's Gonna Get!

That's all I can do. Per Amy's instructions, I used my 'paint' to put together my new header. I wish it was a bit easier to do and came out exactly how I wanted, but that's not to be. It's too fuzzy and you can't hardly read the description - unless you get real close and squint! Once you type something in on paint you can't go back and manipulate it - at least to my knowledge - it's just not user-friendly enough for me. And I got tired of trying to make it user-friendly. So whatchya see is whatchya get.