Modified Kitchen Tip

I read a post from a long while ago by Zsuzsanna Anderson which told of her idea to cut down on the number of cups your family uses in a day. Unless you have some sort of amazing training technique that I've never heard of, then your kids are probably like mine.

A cup with breakfast.

Another cup in the morning.

And a fresh cup at lunch.

I just lost mine, so I need another cup.

See a pattern?



Well, this may not be that big a deal to some. It is a big deal to me though for two reasons: (1) I don't like washing dishes and (2) 3 cups a day x 7 family members = 21 dirty cups ... a day.

Well, here is my solution....



Here's the how-to.
1) Find various cutesy papers. Mine are 2 award badges we use in school, one gold award star from school, two free clip-art images, and 2 with stickers. I preferred heavier paper; I don't suppose it's completely necessary.

2) When I used clip-art, I printed it on card stock and trimmed it out.

3) Add names for the badges. Again, not particularly necessary I guess.

4) Use clear contact paper on the front and back to sort of laminate the badges and shield them from sweaty or freshly rinsed cups.

5) Set them out when you (or the kids) are cleaning up after breakfast and stick them back in the cupboard after the evening meal.

It may not work for you, but it has for us. We have been using this method for several months now. When we use it, everyone sticks to one cup a day!

Homefront Happenings

I had sat down a few times to make a post-Christmas post and ended up getting distracted with everything else on the Internet. So, here I am now over a month from the last post. :-) Everyone here is still alive and (mostly) well. We had a stomach virus around Christmastime. Yuck. And now some of the little ones have it again, about 4 weeks later. What a drag. No one likes cleaning up stomach virus aftermath, but in the end I should be, and am, thankful that they are seldom sick.

We enjoyed our long, three-week Christmas break and are now getting back into the homeschool groove...or trying to. I don't there actually is a groove when you homeschool more than a few kids. We have a routine. We have a daily schedule...sort of a target for the day. But when you are teaching three grade levels with a toddler underfoot and a nursling, there is no such thing as a "normal" day.

Over the past several weeks, Josiah's communication skills have really blossomed. In other words he has become a regular jabber jaws. When he turned two in August, he could communicate but said few words and never used more than one or two word sentences. He was beginning to try to communicate better toward the end of November. Fast forward to today, he is using wordy sentences to tell everything from food, drink, and clothing preferences to tattling on his siblings. In other Josiah related stuff, I don't think I've ever mentioned the adorable cleft chin he has! See?

You know it'll be a great day when big brother takes you out to play.

Little miss Lydia is completely loving the Easy Bake Oven we got her for Christmas. She thinks that she is so awesome when working with it...like a gourmet chef. It's so hard to believe that she is going to be five in a few short weeks. Here are her and Daddy baking some cookies together. Isn't she precious?!

Birthday cake ... I was sort of hoping that she would pick this as a birthday cake.

Looks difficult, yeah? Well, it's not! I got the idea from one of my new favorite stops on the web, Howdini.com. Watch the video tutorial for the flip flop cake here, if you want to try it. Promise, if I can make this crafty cake anyone can make it! So much for my bright ideas because she chose a Hello Kitty party themed party instead. The flip flop cake would have been so adorable.

Speaking of adorable. Have a look at this cutie!



He is now a whopping 4 months old and tips the scales at 16 pounds. What a sweet baby he is. Funny thing is that no matter how many times I kiss him, he never seems to run out of kisses!



He completely loves this little book which was a Christmas gift from Uncle Daniel and Aunt Julie (my brother and sister-in-law).


"If I could just get it in my mouth..."

I really love this photo. It's like they're deep in conversation, weighing heavy matters in the balance...like what to have for snack or how best to build the latest Lego creation.

My "Daniel Boone."

(Please do not send irritating comments condemning us for allowing him to have a hand pump BB gun. The eight year old boy has killed a total of 5 deer and countless birds and squirrels and is quite a marksman for his age. He is not left alone with a loaded firearm. duh...)


There's always time for a game or two or three or four or... of Perplexus.

*gasp* A Post!

I just can't get in the groove since our last baby-addition. I don't want to neglect my blog, but it seems that I'm just letting it go. Hopefully we can remedy this soon. =D

It seems like it was just last week that we were bringing home little Noah and here it is nearly Christmastime. Speaking of Noah, the little man is growing like a weed: cooing, smiling, drooling, laughing and making us all laugh. He has slept all night twice. My kids don't start sleeping all night until about 3-4 months. But he is sleeping from 10:30-4 in his crib, in the boys' room, pretty consistently. It could be worse, I know. When you start to get that sleepless zombie feeling though, you long for a full 8 hours' sleep. Anyway, he is a precious little angel who loves to be held, loves to swing, and loves his siblings.

More along the baby-talk lines: for ten thousand reasons (/exaggeration) we decided not to use the church nursery this go-around. We took Josiah out at about the age of 12 months, for the same ten thousand reasons, and have had no trouble with it. Little Noah has been a cinch also, with some minor disasters along the way. At this point, he sleeps for nearly the whole message. There have been a few sermons when he has stayed awake for the majority of the time. It's so neat watching him; sometimes it seems like he's actually listening. I have never felt fully comfortable leaving any of the kids in the nursery, I just never really felt confident enough to go against the grain and be ready for the derision that always follows. And there has been that derision, but like I said, I quit caring what people think in this respect.

Fortunately, I have been getting to attend Sunday School again. My Sunday School teacher's wife came to me and asked why I had not been in Sunday School. I explained that I had to nurse baby. [explanation: for some mind-boggling, bizarre reason, my church seems to have this mind set that nursing is shameful and vulgar. Nursing in the service would just be beyond the pale...even though I always nurse with a complete wrap around cape that covers me fully from the waist to the neck. How the cynical side of me would love to just nurse him during Sunday morning worship and when I get all the flack, call The Milk Truck...cus I have a mean streak like that.] She said that she was sure that no one cared if I came in Sunday School with Noah and fed him in there. I was so completely thrilled! I haven't been a student in Sunday School in about 14 years. I got saved in 1997 and began teaching the toddler class in 1998. Since then I've either taught a class or have been the wife of a Sunday School teacher (ie the youth group). I have completely enjoyed Sunday School!

Back on the home front, I am pretty well finished with Christmas stuff. I have to make Lydia a skirt. I plan to take next week to make a few Christmas candies: "York" peppermint patties, easy truffles, white chocolate pretzels, "Turtles," and whatever else sounds yummy. Plus a nice pot of Brunswick stew for a family Christmas eve party and some dessert goodies to take to my mom and dad's. Tis the season to forget about losing baby weight, right? After all, I only have about 5 pounds to go, so eat all you want, right? .... right??????

Tons more I could share, but Noah is awake and is hungry. Maybe I'll get to another post later today, but if not, I'll go on and publish this one. :-D

Our Schoolhouse

I promised a while back to share pictures with our schoolhouse. Well, I don't have so many, but here they are.

I love the porch!

We put it pretty close to the house...maybe a little too close. I did not want it in the back of the yard, however, because in rainy or cold weather I didn't want to trek across the yard.

So, here is the inside. We opted for the loft to help in our storage crisis. In this photo, Jeremy had wired the inside.

We later insulated it. Unfortunately, I either did not take pictures of it with the insulation, or I lost them. Either is possible.

This is the finished (for now) product. The sheet rock is not finished. We may not ever do it. We also left the floors alone. We thought about putting laminate down, but decided against it. We keep joking that we'll use it for a shed when the kids are not in school any more ... twenty years or so from now!

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In other news, it is impossible to believe that on Wednesday Noah will we 8 weeks old! He is growing too fast. He weighs the same as his cousin who is 10 weeks older than him.

And, we celebrated another birthday as Mr. Ethan turned 7. He's looking quite grown-up.

Amidst all of this, we have had a long-distance field trip, battled illnesses, continued with school after our baby vacation, done some major organizing, began potty training Josiah, struggled with thrush, and dealt with a washing machine crisis which flooded the house!

Speaking of field trips, we are hoping to take the kids to the USS Alabama soon. They will love it, I am sure.

The Weeks in Pictures

This post is certainly going to be a catching up post. It seems like the past 3 weeks have just flown by. We all seem to be adjusting into a family of 7 from a family of 6. Trying to get somewhere on time can be difficult, but it seems to come together at the last minute. Well, except for this weekend when we were 30 minutes late to my nephew's birthday party. Noah is growing by leaps and bounds! It seems like he changes a little bit every day. I'll pick up where the last post left off.

The whole family came to pick me up when I was discharged from the hospital. These little gifts were near my seat, a gift from Ethan. To the left are paper cutouts of me and Noah. To the right is a little note rolled up and tied together.

The little note reads "I am glad that you have Noah and I love you." At the bottom are sketches of me and Noah. (Click to enlarge)

This precious sign by the door was complements of John.

Bringing home Noah....

 

 Indoor art work shown off by its creator.

And of course, everyone wants a turn holding Noah.

Jeremy's grandmother always purchases a cute bow to celebrate each baby's birth. Noah was no different.

  Daddy giving Noah his first at-home bath.

 

 And getting caught in a rain shower is always fun!

 There is no shortage of help. I love the pile of stuffed animals at Noah's feet.

 And there's LOTS of time to plunder when mom is distracted.

 Here Mr. Noah is about 3 weeks old.

Mom's little babies!

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I had mentioned before about us praying about a separate schoolhouse. You can see it in the background of one of this pictures. I have photos of the progress. We have the electricity run out to to it, we've had it insulated, hung sheet rock and now we're down to the cleaning and soon on to the moving in. Hopefully that will be another post. :)