Praising God for Our New Van!

Filling her up for the first time.  Yikes!

After nearly two years of being a one-car family, we now have two cars again!  I got a 1997 Honda Odyssey!!!  It's runs great, handles well, only needs a few minor things worked on and has a bit of cosmetic distress (the hood is all primer, I think) and the inside is rather nasty right now... but all in all, it's AWESOME!!!  And, best of all, it was in our extremely limited price range!  :::doing a happy dance:::

I know that not having a second car was certainly a "first world problem" to have, but the freedom of just knowing I can take the kids to the doctor without having to track down a ride or inconvenience other people is such a relief!  I can run to the store whenever I need to, don't have wait 4 days till I'll have access to a vehicle.  We can go on field trips and drive across town to visit grandma without making her come to us all the time.  I'm so excited!!!  Thank You, Jesus, for Your blessings!!!

Homeschool Recap, Mar 2nd (Week 23)...

In my life this week...

Wow, we were super busy.  Or, I guess I was the one who had more going on than usual.  Tues-Fri I worked an Usborne table at the Rhea Lana's Children's Consignment Sale in Mansfield.  It was a bit slow for us this time around, but picked up towards the end, thank goodness.  I had a great time, though... getting to meet people, talk about books and hang out with the other vendor ladies. 

Our tax return finally deposited on Tuesday morning, but since I was booked this week we waited till today (Saturday) to go try to find us a van.  Unfortunuately, the two we found online that looked like our best options turned out to be nothing of the sort.  The one that was affordable had too much wrong with it, and the one we THOUGHT was a great deal wasn't really priced that way at all.  Really?  Grr.  So, I dunno.  I think maybe we had unrealistic expectations.  All we want is a super cheap, but reliable minivan... but I guess our "super cheap" budget needs to come up a bit to fit the "reliable" part.  =/

A story to share...
Sigh.  Callen loves to take our kitchen chairs and move 'em around so he can climb up on things, lately the cabinets.  Well, after several good scoldings about not moving the chairs, I went to the bathroom, came back and found him like this.

Oh my stars, this boy is a handful! =)

He has pushed the large ottoman (not the chairs!) from the living room into the kitchen, climbed up on the stove (not the cabinet!), dumped out a box of toothpicks, opened the olive oil, was playing with my Fiestaware salt shaker.  Yes, before I scolded him, I took a picture.  I couldn't help it.  It was too ridiculous.  This boy is a live one, I tell ya!

In our Homeschool this week...

Tot School: Callen came out with a bunch of new words again this week, and doing a much better job at repeating stuff we try to get him to say.  We're working on his name, but he's having a really difficult time making the hard "C" sound, poor kid.  He still loves sitting at the table during school going crazy with the dry-erase markers, lol.  I think he thinks that what "school" means, 'cause when I tell Preston it's time for school, Callen will run over and start pointing for his dry-erase board and markers.  And this evening he got so messy at dinner that I just threw him in the bath afterwards.  Before the bath, I sat him on his potty, but nothing.  Afterwards I was drying him off and he pulled away from me, sat down on his little potty and went pee pee!  We had a big, loud, happy celebration - and he was so excited!  Hopefully that's really the start of something with the potty training!!!


Bible: Preston and I worked on memorizing and understanding Proverbs 29:25, "The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be kept safe."  Also went over 2 Thessalonians through Titus in the New Testament books, as well as talked about King Saul, David and Solomon.

Reading/Writing: Talked about -er and -est (as in great, greater, greatest) and some more silent letters, like "wr" and "mb."

Math: Worked on 2-digit adding in his Complete Book of Math.  Preston caught on to this easily enough!

Science:  This week's science them was "Water Power."  We were too busy, and school was rushed, so we didn't really do anything but read from Science With Water about the subject.

Music/Art: This week we continued with the hymn, "Take My Life, and Let It Be." We talked about the violin and viola, and read the book Play It Again, Rosie!  We looked at a Picasso portrait.  And we skipped Drawing with Children this week... just didn't have time (again).

Spanish: We continued with school/classroom words and worked in the Complete Book of Spanish.

We are using My Father's World First Grade. See our curriculum here.

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February 2012 Tweets to Remember...

Feb 1st - Using my 8,000th tweet to say something deeply profound: #coffee #lipbalm #books #free #hahahahah #dork #nitenite

Feb 3rd - Snuggle time with BOTH my boys this morning.Yay for 6yr olds who still like to snuggle! Yay for nearly-2yr olds who stay still for a min!

Feb 3rd - Skyping with Gma & Gpa Clark in Michigan! http://twitpic.com/8fdor1

Feb 6th - [Rant] People, answer your phone! Or return a voicemail, fb message, email, text, smoke signal or acknowledge my existence. [/Rant]

Feb 8th - Praise God, we have a brand new white Kia Soul!

Feb 10th - Love it when my baby kid wants to snuggle in my bed and we end up sleeping for another 2 hours! Wow!

Feb 10th - My Friday nite = baking, printing, cutting, bathing 2 boys, listening to Veggietales on cassette. I'm a rockstar, don't ya know?

Feb 12th - Oh, friends, it's been so long! Nomz! http://twitpic.com/8j599y

Feb 12th - Snoooowwwww!

Feb 17th - Thanks to a middle-of-the-nite visit to the ER, we have now experienced croup. Or at least Preston has.

Feb 18th - Just performed the entire soundtrack to Singin' In the Rain in my kitchen. Callen yelled, "More!" Yeah, I'm that good.

Feb 19th - Cocoa, animal crackers & OC Supertones Pandora station, also feat. FIF, RelientK, Insyderz, etc equals Sunday Night Awesomeness.

Feb 23rd - Happiness is a warm, sleepy toddler saying, "Mornin' Mama" and giving a big hug! :::swoon:::

Feb 27th - Finally took down my 'Let it Snow' and Winter-ish front door decor. It obviously ain't happening in Texas, we skipped right to Spring.

Feb 28th - Praising Jesus for His provision! One of these days I'll learn not to doubt. Thankful He gives me grace when I fail.

Homeschool Recap, Feb 24th (Week 22)...

In my life this week...

I blinked and the week was over.  Um, let's see.  The weather was soooo not Wintery, but very, very lovely and warm.  The boys played outside a lot this week, which was nice.  Yay fresh air!  On Thursday, the boys and I went to our friend Candi's house for a playdate... there were a total of 11 kids!  It was so crazy, but everyone had a great time.  I did a story-time with my Usborne books, and the kids loved it.  So fun!  Then, today we had two boys over to play with my boys, while I had a nice time chatting with Lizz. 

The tax refund that was supposed to deposit on Feb 21st never did.  So all plans of getting a van this week fell through.  Now the IRS website says it should deposit Feb 28th, so we'll see.  I've given up on making plans, forget it.  Lol.

A picture to share...

Cuddle Bear is for cuddling!

I got some inventory in, including the new Cuddle Bear, and Callen fell in love.  Lol.  It was the most difficult thing prying this sweet bear from his grip, haha.  He really is soft and cuddly - very hard to resist!  And a portion of the proceeds goes to fight pediatric cancer, you can't help but love that!

In our Homeschool this week...Well, I went ahead and placed an order for Adventures in My Father's World, which is the 2nd grade curriculum.  It's going to go up in price soon, and they were offering super cheap shipping... and since our tax return will be in soon, I went for it!  Excited to not be mulling over that anymore.  But, I will have to make a decision on our math.  I'm probably going to go with Math Mammoth, and it's supposed to go on sale with the Homeschool Co-Op in March, so we'll see!

Tot School: Callen spoke some new words this week... I can't remember them all, but "mess" and "morning" spring to mind.  Here's a video of him "reading" my Bible from last nite:


Bible: Proverbs 14:14, "The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good man rewarded for his."  Went through more New Testament books of the Bible. We talked about Samson and King Saul a bit.

Reading/Writing: Going through grammar, phonics, etc.  Nothing exciting to report here.  Lol!

Math: Worked on adding and subtraction, and reviewed place value in the Complete Book of Math.

Science:  This week was mixing!  We did some mixing experiments with water and all kinds of things, like sand, shampoo, salt, orange juice and such.

What happens if you mix THIS in water?

Music/Art: This week we started the hymn, "Take My Life, and Let It Be." We talked about the trombone and mellophone, listened to those instruments.  We looked at a Georgia O'Keefe painting.  And we skipped Drawing with Children this week... just weren't into it.

Callen likes to help Bubba color.

Spanish: We started on school/classroom type words this week.  Preston exclaimed, "I'm casa escuela-ed!"  Lol!  Love it.

We are using My Father's World First Grade. See our curriculum here.

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