Ray's Birthday

This is a short video of Ray's Birthday.... We had a BLAST!!

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1st Day of Homeschool

Success! Today was our first official day of homeschool!! Melissa and Kayla have been SO excited for school to start. We had so much fun and Melissa and Kayla came away with a really good attitude about learning. That is what I was hoping for, to have our first day be a good experience so that they will look forward to learning everyday. We are using the Sonlight curriculum and I love it. There are some religious things that I need to change the wording on, but other than that, we LOVE it! It is literature based and is going to work out well for our girls. Right now we are only "schooling" for about 2 hours a day... we will evaluate our schedule in a couple of weeks to see if we need to "tweak" the timing. I feel very blessed to have such smart, wonderful daughters who are so excited to learn. I feel very blessed to be able to school them at home... I KNOW it is the right decision for our family. (Below are some pictures of our girls from this morning. The pictures are not the best quality, but our camera is still broken and these were taken on our video recorder.)

The girls woke up early and picked out their "pretty, pretty" clothes to wear today!

I can not believe my "baby" is in Kindergarten!!

Kayla LOVES being in Preschool! My beautiful girls.

Much Mischief...

My girls have been SO mischievous lately! Here are a couple of their latest happenings. Two weeks ago Melissa killed our goldfish. Literally. Sometime while I was downstairs she snuck upstairs and poured shampoo into the fish tank. Yes, she actually poured shampoo into the fish tank... That isn't even what killed her. This is what happened. Just before dinner I went upstairs to print something from my computer and noticed Melissa was acting really funny. She was trying to place her WHOLE body in front of the fish tank and singing a nervous little song. When I stood up she ran to her room, climbed into her bed and covered her ears. Thinking this was all a bit strange I looked into the fish tank to see a tank FULL of bubbles. The rest wasn't pretty. There was some yelling, some crying (from me!!!) and NO remorse from my daughter. At this point Dorothy was still alive. I scooped her up and put her in a pitcher of water in the bathroom sink and went down to make dinner. After dinner we went upstairs to take care of Dorothy and to give the girls a shower and I found DEAD DOROTHY in less than an inch of water in bottom of the pitcher. Kayla and I were devastated... Melissa... not so much. She shrugged her shoulders, said it was okay because Dorothy was now in Heaven and showed no emotion when I flushed Dorothy's lifeless body down the toilet. Grrrr.............................................. Speaking of toilets!!! Friday I heard screaming from the downstairs bathroom and when I went in this is the scene I found. Kayla standing with her pants down in about 1 1/2 inches of poop water on the floor, Melissa (naked) screaming while standing on a step stool and water freely flowing from the toilet. Apparently Kayla decided to flush the roll of TP down the toilet and our toilet was trying to spit it and everything else out. Instead of shutting off like it should, the toilet continued to flow full strength onto the floor, out into the laundry room and all over my children. What happened next can only be described as complete chaos...... I turned off the water and yelled (because they couldn't hear me over Melissa's screaming) for the girls to bring me some towels. For the next 5 minutes Melissa screamed continuously while running (naked) up and down the stairs bringing me 3 towels at a time. Kayla was frozen in her spot in the laundry room and decided she couldn't move. The whole thing lasted about 7 minutes and felt like an eternity. Grrrr................ A few days ago Melissa gave herself a tattoo. Really, she did. I was making dinner and heard a horrible cry... the bad kind... the kind that you KNOW is from your kid being hurt. Melissa came running into the kitchen and said Kayla had hurt her. She had blood all over her hands and refused to tell me what Kayla had done. To make this long, long, story a bit shorter, I'll just say that eventually she admitted that Kayla had NOT hurt her, but then told me several lies as to what had really happened to her still bleeding finger. After the girls were in bed Melissa got up and came into our room and reluctantly told us that she had been trying to pick something up with my fingernail clippers and cut her finger with them when they slipped. Panicking, she took an ink pen to try to cover up the boo boo (she IS only 4!!) and when that didn't work she freaked out and ran to mommy. She will have this tattoo for a long, long time, I am sure................................ When we got into the van Saturday I noticed someone had turned on one of the overhead lights. I asked the girls not to touch the lights without asking because leaving them on could result in our killing the battery. Melissa then went into a long explanation as to what it means to kill something. This is what she said, "When you kill someone it means you hit them on the head with something hard and they fall, flat to the ground and can't get up. Then they go up to live with Heavenly Father before they are 100." Well, I guess that is one way it can happen!....................... Kayla has been fun to listen to the past couple of days. A few days ago the girls were playing with their dolls and I heard Kayla have the Daddy doll tell the daughter doll, "Well, honey, just because someone says something about you or to you, it doesn't mean it is true." I smiled the rest of the day... she is getting it! I only wish I had the knowledge that my 3 year old has when I was a teenager! It would have made things so much easier! Saturday in the car Kayla asked who the man was that was singing. I told her it was Raffi. She asked if Raffi lived in a house and after learning that he probably did live in a house she asked if she could visit him. I told her that we could not because we didn't know him. She said, "Yes I do, Mom! Listen, I can say his name. Raffi. See? I DO know him!" If only it were that easy!............................. I am happy to say that after the past 2 weeks, my children and myself are all still alive. I am still completely in love with them and I wouldn't change anything about them or their mischievous ways. It is who they are, and THAT is what I love... I love who they are!

Kayla's 3rd Birthday!!

This is a small video of Kayla's 3rd Birthday... enjoy!!

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Canning...

These past couple of days have been, um... tense with my children. So, in an effort to remember how cute they really are, I decided to blog a cute picture of Kayla helping me do some canning. We have had a dysfunctional garden this year and have not had NEARLY the production this year as we had last year... but we have still been blessed. We have Salsa coming out of our ears and cucumbers that we can't even GIVE away. The girls have had fun labeling all of the jars. This is Kayla labeling some peaches that we canned. My girls are adorable.

Grrrrr..

I need to record these last couple of happenings from this morning and yesterday while they are still fresh in my mind. ~ Let me start with this morning!! I learned 2 things this morning... First, I can assume NOTHING with a 4 almost 5 year old. Second, assuming that my 4 almost 5 year old is actually being obedient while in time out is a bad, bad decision. ~ I walked upstairs a little while ago to talk to Melissa after sending her to her room for a "cool down time" after she yelled at and scratched me. I was met with a STRONG smell as soon as I entered the hall. I found that instead of being in her room, she had actually been in MY BATHROOM with MY MAKE-UP bag painting my sink with my pink nail polish and purple eye shadow! She may NEVER play again. Grrr... ~ Yesterday we went grocery shopping and I repeatedly asked Melissa not to touch anything. While I was reaching up to get the cake mixes from the top shelf I heard Melissa say, "Uhhh." I looked down to see her covered from head to knee with powdered sugar! Grrr.... I laughed and patted her off the best I could and we were on our way again. She was SO mad at me for laughing at her. Sorry, it was funny! ~ Yesterday morning Kayla brought me a spider saying, "My spider stopped moving." She was so sad about it! Apparently, she found a spider in the play room yesterday morning, played with it for a while, letting it climb on her and such and played with it SO much that it died. I said, "Ahhhhh," and took the yucky thing outside. She was devastated. We talked about how some spiders bite and that she needs to ask me before she plays with spiders. Then I made her a fake spider out of paper and she was happy again. Silly thing. She isn't scared of anything! ~ Those are just 3 of the many silly things my girls have done lately. I should write them down as they happen so I can see the humor in EVERYTHING! ~ Until next time!

Just say No!

Let me set the scene: Kayla and Melissa were sitting on the floor beside the pantry door "working" on their bike and scooter with their little plastic tools. Kayla was holding an empty soda bottle. This was their conversation... Kayla said, "Hey Melissa, do you want some of this?" Melissa said, "What is it?" K - It is caffeine, do you want some? M - NO! I can't drink caffeine! K - Sure you can... it is so good. M- Nope, I'm not allowed to drink caffeine. K- Well, doesn't your tummy hurt? M- No, and I don't want any. K - Don't you have a headache like mommy gets? Caffeine could help. M - No, and I said I am not allowed to drink caffeine. - - - - - I was SO happy! For Melissa. Kayla, my little dealer, needs some strengthening... but Melissa resisted (fake) temptation time and time again. I was SO proud of her!!! Needless to say, I will ONLY be drinking decaffeinated beverages from here on out.