At the park video

At the park

The sun has finally come out and summer is under way (again--FINALLY). After Marcus woke up from his morning nap, I decided to take the two kiddos to the park for some sunshine and fun. Evelyn was eager to get on the swings while Marcus was still a bit bleary eyed. :) He lit up though when we got there and headed straight for the swings.









Since Marcus slept through lunch, I had packed one for him which he ate while on the swing (what a perfect high chair!!!!). After he finished his pb&j sandwich, he dug into his Bugles. I had to laugh and start clicking away when I noticed him imitating his older siblings by putting the bugles on his fingers (alas, I couldn't help myself and had taught that to Julia and Jacob just last week).



Yummy!


It was hot and a bit humid outside so after about an hour we called it quits and headed over to Andys. :):):):):) Nothing like a chocolate concrete swirled with M&Ms to cool you off! They also offer these great free sample ice cream cones which are the perfect size for kids.....so while Marcus and I enjoyed our concrete, Evelyn happily licked her chocolate cone. :) Talk about the perfect ending to our fun afternoon!

Last Day of School!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another school year gone by....hooray! Since the kids aren't coming back here I took some pix of them with their teachers and cousin.


Here's the duo that weren't allowed to be in the same class til this past year. They've played together ever since Julia was born (Ben is only about 4 months older) and they could be pretty rambuncious when they were younger. James thought it was best to separate them and have them branch out for the first couple of years. They were so excited to finally be together!



Julia with her teacher, Mrs. Roy.


Jacob with his teacher, Mrs. Minkler (who was Julia's kindergarten teacher also). He was in tears when he realized that he couldn't be in her class next year. She's an AWESOME teacher!

PYP Program Recognition

Many people have often asked me why on earth I send my kiddos all the way over to Boyd (on the other side of town) when the elementary school they are assigned to is practically in my backyard. Well, check out the link here and you'll find out why.

http://ozarksfirst.com/content/fulltext/?cid=21637


I also posted it here, but without the pictures. Though, do please take a look at the link--in the first picture, the girl in the pink shirt with a pink bow on her head is Julia. :) Anyway, I was reading through the article and chuckling to myself cause I've had these types of conversations all throughout the school year (and last year too) with Julia. The knowledge that comes spilling out of her mouth astounds me! Jason and Karen, you know what I'm talking about! You got a lovely taste of it when we came to visit! These kids are smart!!!!


Full Details
School Program's Benefits
Reported by: Angie Weidinger
Thursday, May 29, 2008 @10:18pm CST

A program intended to raise students' achievement is having some very positive side effects. And, not just on the school building where the Primary Years Program is housed, it's even extending outside Boyd Elementary School's walls.

When you ask these first and second graders what they learned this school year, don't expect a recitation of the primary colors.

"Which unit do you want? Heroes unit, insect unit, body unit?" asked Caleb Conaway, 2nd Grader at Boyd Elementary. "My favorite unit was matter and matter is something that takes up space."

"A solid takes its own shape, but a liquid takes the shape of its container," first grader Aaliyah Skillens chimed in.

"There are three states of matter: liquid, solid, gas," adds Cerron Davis, 1st grader at Boyd.

And if that doesn't impress you, they know many more facts about the human body.

"The brain stem controls your heartbeat, blinking and balancing," explained Davis, remembering a lesson they learned a couple of months ago.

They learned those lessons through a new inquiry-based program at the school that focuses on experiments and hands on projects. And, by now, they're used to people's impressed responses.

"They say, ''Wow! How did you learn all that stuff!'" explained Skillens.

The Boyd Elementary principal is in awe of these students, too.

"They're geniuses!" said James Grandon.

But, he's not just excited about their academic achievements.

"I've never seen this kind of interest and buy in and that's what we want," added Grandon.

Since the Primary Years Program started at Boyd in 2005, students' test scores have gone up, while discipline rates have gone down.

"We've seen they want to be in class. They don't want to misbehave. They don't want to miss out on special opportunities," said Grandon.

Mobility also plummeted from 190% in 2005 to 60% this school year.

"There isn't as much rollover of students any more," explained Grandon.

While people are very appreciative of what the program's doing at this school, that's only one piece of the puzzle. Sold signs are popping up more and more in the neighborhood around that school and realtors say it started about the same time that new kind of teaching began at Boyd.

"Houses are on the market shorter," said Stan Turner, Real Estate Consultant for Coldwell Banker Vanguard. "They used to average 100 days and now it's down to 44 days and prices are up 77% over last several years and people are taking more pride in their homes."

"We were really surprised by that," added Grandon. "We had a lot of parents coming to us looking for homes, wanting to buy, wanting to rent."

But with PYP, everyone is getting used to that kind of surprised reaction.

"They say, 'Wow, I never knew you could learn that much in first grade!'" said Skillens.

Boyd Elementary has a high percentage of children who qualify for free and reduced lunches, which the principal says makes this interest in the school even more unusual.

The same kind of program is also at Field Elementary and Pipkin Middle School where it's seeing the same kind of very positive results. It's so positive that the district currently has $60,000 in its budget for next school year to possibly establish a similar type of program at other schools.


******
I am really going to miss having my kiddos attend this school. They've had the absolute best teachers and this program has been amazing. It's been so fun watching the kids put what they've learned into action. When the kids were learning about the body unit (during winter--cold/flu season) Julia woke up one morning with a sore throat and a cough and proceeded to tell me that her lung hurt. Not her throat or chest...she used the word lung. She also wanted to know what causes headaches in the brain. She also has a new favorite insect--grasshoppers and her favorite animal is a mongoose.
Jacob--the boy who never talked, did speech therapy, ect--he now reads. He LOVES to read! His favorite books are Little Critter (he thinks they're funny) and I Spy. He also loves math. The boy amazes me every day and I will be forever grateful that he was able to attend this school and participate in the Primary Years Program.

Wii Time!

Marcus was cracking me up this afternoon while Jacob was playing the Wii. Check out these videos:

Just hanging out

Just hanging out...I feel like this is what we've been doing the past few weeks while waiting for school to end and to finally reunite with Ryan. We've been without any sort of communication with him for the past few weeks and so time seems to be going so sloooooowwwww. :P It doesn't help that it's been unusually rainy so that the kids couldn't even go outside to play. So now it's the wii and movies typically. Or drawing and puzzles.

Here's the kiddos on my bed watching Meet the Robinson's (courtesy of Grandmom--thank you so much for lending it to us--they LOVE it! Evelyn quotes it all the time now...cracks me up!)




Jacob randomly telling me (or showing me) his loose teeth--notice his pjs...it's his way of stalling having to go to bed. :)



Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere! Here's Evelyn doing her share. She's gotten really good at doing the hand and feet puzzles. She's also learning to do the ABC's.



My little trio again. I hadn't taken pictures in a while and since they were all lined up so nicely.....:) This was for Daddy.



And since I had the camera out, Julia and Jacob wanted to try their hand at taking pictures for Daddy.





And since school ends tomorrow, Saturday will be spent at the Nature Center (Julia's request). Next week we'll hit the library and Silver Dollar City. Probably a park or two in there too. And of course the gym each morning (I'm still going to have my routine!). I'm hoping to keep myself and the kids busy til we leave next month. I'm thinking this list so far is good. Any other suggestions?

My new living room and kitchen

It's been a ton of work (lots of moving furniture and tons of painting) but it's done. My living room is now open and spacious (and still clean!). The fire place is the main focus...I'm quite proud of how it all turned out.

My friend Gail had the idea of just keeping one bookcase in the living room. We emptied the other one out and stored it in the garage for now. It helps to declutter the living room, don't you think? Oh, and the king chair is also in the garage til we move to our new place. And notice this--no more nasty border along the walls!



Dude, I could do cartwheels if I so please in here! It's so open....



Look at the spacious kitchen! Hopefully that'll be a cool selling point?

Sleeping Beauty with purple eyes!

For about the past six months I've been working on potty training Evelyn. I think that a month after Ryan left Evelyn got the whole peeing in the toilet thingy down. No problem. Ryan was very surprised and pleased that she was able to do it while we visited him. She now stays dry through the night too! The pooping part though...well, for the life of me (or her) I couldn't get Evelyn to do her deed in the toilet. Her simple response was:

"But Mommy, I just don't know how!"

This is even after we made a deal that she would get a Sleeping Beauty with purple eyes from Walmart (it's a polly pocket type toy that she's been eyeing since right after Christmas). Everyone who she has ever talked to knows that she'll get "sleeping beauty with purple eyes" when she goes poopoo on the toilet.

Inwardly I've been groaning about her not pooping cause I remember that it took Jacob a full year til he got that part down. Peeing was no problem for him, but I was seriously worried that I'd have to send him to kindergarten in a pull up. It was just the summer before he started school that he FINALLY was able to go like a big boy. I've been kinda gearing myself up for that kind of situation with Evelyn...til this afternoon. :) We were at Walmart picking little things up when Evelyn mentioned that she needed to use the bathroom. It was the kind that couldn't wait so we found the nearest bathroom. She proceeded to go and I noticed that she had peed in her diaper. Just an accident...she really needed to go! I decided to just throw the diaper away and put a new one on when we got home (I didn't have an extra one in my purse). No biggie, I thought, she already pooped this morning so we're good for the day. The rest of the day was a non stopping blur til after the kids were all picked up from school and I was trying to get Julia out the door for dance class. Evelyn then came to me in hysterics:

"Mom! I don't have a diaper on! I need a diaper!"

Hmmm, I thought. Why does she need a diaper if she knows how to just pee in the toilet? Wait a moment...she DIDN'T poop this morning--it was yesterday morning!!!!

"Evelyn, let's go on the potty so that you can go pee."

I escorted her to the bathroom where she promptly went pee but still insisted on having a diaper.

"Evelyn, do you need to go poop? Is that why you need a diaper?"

"*sniff* Yes."

LOL. I sat down with her and comforted her while explaining that it can be scary at first but that she would be just fine. She sat there for about 10 minutes and it finally came spilling out (gross description, I know, but she has liquid poops at the moment). She has since gone about 3 more times and has been quite excited about it. (Who am I kidding? All the kids raced into the bathroom and cheered her on and gave her hugs--while she was still sitting there). I'm quite proud to say that we went back to walmart this evening and bought her her very own sleeping beauty with purple eyes. Oh, and she's now wearing the princess underwear which I blogged about a while back. :)

Film Is Not Dead Video

Jon showed this to me tonight and it blew me away. For those of you who aren't familiar with my brother, he was the one hosting this workshop in Hawaii (he's the big brown guy with a buzzed head who is teaching everyone).

When it rains, it pours....blessings!

Ok, so it's been a stressful past couple of weeks--trying to get the house ready for a garage sale while also trying to get the ceilings painted in every room...and finishing up the kitchen...ect. There were so many times that I really wanted to just sit down and cry--but I simply couldn't because there wasn't time, there was too much to do. I've never felt so overwhelmed so much before. And yet, every time I feel like I'm about to be swallowed the Lord sends an angel my way. For example, I talked to my new realtor yesterday afternoon and made an appt for him to come today to check out the house. Well, that meant that I needed to paint the boys's ceiling, the hallway, and parts of the living room in one night. I was internally trying very hard not to freak out--the above mentioned jobs take a long time! Well, my visiting teacher showed up with dinner (a welcome surprise since I planned on doing leftovers so that I could get started on my long night) and she offered to come back after the kids were put to bed so that she could help me. Do you have any idea what a comfort that was? I didn't care if she helped or not...simply having another adult to keep me company was incredible. We were able to finish everything in only one hour. It would have taken me probably about 3 hours to do it on my own.
Another girl who knows of my situation offered to help last week--I only know her from aerobics class (for perhaps 6 months now). I hardly knew her name, never talked to her in class (which is something everyone ALWAYS does--it's half the reason we go!) or hung out with her. But she apparently lives across the street from Ryan's parents and knows them and Meg. Her husband played ball with Ryan at church. They aren't members, but know of our church. Anyway, so this girl, Ashlei, dropped everything for an afternoon and came to my place with her two girls just so that we could paint Julia and Evelyn's ceiling. Talk about an awesome good Samaritan! I still don't understand why she came over since we hardly knew each other...but what a wonderful woman. I will forever be grateful for her help--and more especially the friendship which was forged that day.

Another blessing--it's been an absolute pain mowing the lawn. It flares up my allergies and Jacob's too (he gets a sinus infection every time I mow). It doesn't help that I have a HUGE backyard. It takes a good two hours to do the mowing and then add some time on to get the weed eating done too. I've been doing ok on keeping everything looking nice...but last Friday after the garage sale I was simply too exhausted to do it. I decided to go and pick the kids up from school and call it a day. Well, I picked the kids up and came home to find that my yard was completely mowed--front and backyard! Turns out my neighbor did it on his riding lawn mower (this man is like another grandpa to my kids--he's the best...even puts up with my kids's toys ending up in his yard and loves taking the kids on rides on his mower). When I was thanking him he told me it was no big deal since he was doing his own yard--it was only an extra 20 minutes to run around mine. :) I have the best neighbors in the world. In fact, I know that tonight while I was busy inside with the kids, he went around my front yard again and even did some weed eating! I need to bake some cookies tomorrow and give my thanks again....

Another blessing the Lord threw my way happened the day of my garage sale. I put up signs that strictly said I wouldn't open til 8am since the girl I was supposed to cohost with was sick and couldn't make it. That meant that I was supposed to man handle the whole thing AND somehow take care of two little ones? Yeah right. I honestly thought I was going to have a nervous break down the night before. I didn't get to sleep til midnight and then I woke up at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep cause I was so stressed out. I kept thinking "How am I going to do this alone? Heavenly Father....I can't handle this!!!!". He heard my plea. Ten til 8 the next morning a sister from my ward showed up to help. By 8:30 Glenn dropped by too to help. He took all the kids inside and had them playing while he finished up some painting on the trim in the kitchen. Isabel and I were able to man the garage sale without kids going crazy everywhere.

It has truly been a humbling few weeks. The stress has been incredibly intense, but everywhere I turn I see the Lord's hand in things. He truly has blessed my family...not the huge blessings that most people only recognize--but in every day little things. I think it's those little things that really add up. You know, I'm not keen on asking for help (unless it's babysitting!). Perhaps I have a bit of pride there. But I'm learning to accept the help when it's offered. It's what has pulled me through these past weeks, especially these past days. I can't thank the Lord enough for prompting so many people to just come by (or call) and check on me (aka rescue me). :) And I'm grateful for all these people who act on these promptings. It has been such a huge blessing for me and my family. THANK YOU!

I'm seriously slacking in the posting department....

I keep telling myself that I'm going to post and update what's going on....but then life keeps happening or I'm simply tired or I really feel like just relaxing with a good book or movie (I just watched Stardust and fell in love with it). So here I am with my update and slew of pictures.....:

Let's start with my update first while I'm waiting for the pictures to upload...I've scrapped one realtor and went with another (recommended by friends whoe have used him twice). He came to my house today to look it over and see what we're dealing with. He was impressed with the spacious kitchen and living room. Loved the large master bedroom and was again impressed with the size of the kids's bedrooms. He asked about updates and I proceeded to tell him that we put in new windows and siding 5 years ago, whole new kitchen at the same time, a new roof last year, new central heating and air, 7 year old carpet, slightly remodeled master bathroom, and I just stinking painted the ceilings in every stinkin room in the house!!!!! (I officially don't like painting anymore). Oh, and Glenn, if you're reading this, he LOVES the kitchen walls. Thinks the color is awesome. :) Anyway, again he was impressed. Apparently, that's the list of things people usually ask to be updated before they buy....ha! We've already done it! They might ask me to shampoo the carpet before I leave...and that's no big deal. I need to touch up the paint on the garage outside--I have the paint for it but it needs to stop raining already so that I can get the job done. I'm going to move a couch into the garage so that the fireplace is center to the eye in the living room. My realtor also suggested to move my armoir out of my bedroom since it blocks the view of the bathroom door in there. He also suggested to start packing up what's in the closets and moving that into the garage so that people can see how much space there is. I've already cleaned two out. :) And how about this? My house has been spotless, and I mean SPOTLESS (as in my mother would actually approve) for the past two weeks. Every day each room is wonderfully clean--to the point that anyone could drop by without notice and for once I wouldn't be embarrassed. :) I'm not stressing at all about the thought of people coming in to check out my house. The kids have been sooooo good about helping out. No clothes on the floor, no toys left out. Everything has a place. I HAVE A HOUSE OF ORDER!!!! Tonight my realtor is going to give me a call (he's currently researching and finding out what a good selling price will be). Needless to say, I'm exhilirated! Do we know where Ryan's headed? Absolutely no clue. He has six weeks of leadership training after OCS but there isn't any available til fall. So the army is sending him to his OBC (same as AIT only for officers) area. He's just supposed to hang out for a few months there...well, we're going to hang out with him! I'll be updated everyting everyone through email or phone whenever we find out where we're headed. :)

Onto pictures...

As I was going through closets (getting things ready for a garage sale) I came across things I haven't seen in years. Like my veil for instance! Evelyn fell in love with it--and really, it's not being used for anything and I don't plan on wearing it ever again. Why not let Evelyn be a princess with it?





Next is the kiddos watching their new favorite movie Aladdin (you know how kids get into this funk where they only watch one video EVERY DAY?). I had to start clicking away when they're all laying there in front of the tv.

27 Days

Has it really been so long since my last post? Oops. Life's been soooo crazy and I simply haven't sat down to make the update. I'm having a garage sale this Friday to empty out over 7 years of accumilation. It's been a lot of stuff to sort through! But I'm almost done. There are still some plastic tubs in the garage that I need to poke through. The pile that is sitting in my living room is huge. I can't wait for Friday to come simply to get it out of my house! But first, before all that begins, tomorrow I'm having some helpers from my ward come and help me finish painting the ceilings in the living room, bathroom and bedrooms. Once that is done (and the garage sale is done) then my house is ready to put up on the market. :) I can't wait! The boys and girls's rooms are absolutely spotless and have remained so for the past week. Since emptying out the junk, there really isn't anything for them to mess up their rooms with! It's sooooo nice! It'll make it really easy for whenever we're given less than 5 minutes notice that someone wants to come and see the house.
So I've talked to my realtor just to let him know when I'd like to get the ball going. It'll begin next Monday...we should be getting a sign in my front yard. I have absolutely no idea where I'm headed (should find out next week at the latest *cross fingers*). With the way things sound, Ryan will probably come home with us after his graduation and then head off to his OBC station while he awaits for the opening for his BOLOC II. That will be a few months of waiting. So we're going to join him there! He'll be able to live with us and have somewhat of a normal army life. Actually, he'll just be hanging out cause there really won't be much that he can do since he won't be properly trained yet. His whatstheirnames (people over him...the name has left me) said to enjoy it cause it doesn't happen very often that he gets to basically play for 3-4 months.
But anyway, back to us getting the house on the market....I asked my realtor if there is any chance that my house will sell by July (I REALLY want to join Ryan as soon as possible). He said the market isn't great right now (which I'm very aware of...hence being a bit nervous), but that the market for my house (a nice starter home--3 bed, 2 bath) is actually going quite well. It's not too expensive and apparently it's what is being bought by quite a few people at the moment. He also said that the houses that his company sells are on the market for an AVERAGE of 27 days. This is of course no guarantee or anything...but it gives us all hope. :) Maybe, just maybe, we'll be packing up the house to move when we all come back from Ryan's graduation next month!
One one more awesome note, the military has recently changed their policy for the Physician's Assistant program. It used to be that a person had to be in the army for 3 years before being able to apply for the program. The are now waiving this! We checked the requirements and the only thing that Ryan needs is to shadow a military PA and then get a letter of recommendation from that person. Guess what he's going to be doing during his 3-4 month down time? :) I see this as a wonderful blessing from our Father in Heaven for providing the time to get this done. He can shadow, get the LOR and have everything in by March of next year (deadline for applications). He could start the program next year! Sweet, eh? Let's all cross our fingers and pray like crazy that he gets in. :)