Grandma's Visit

My mother came into town last Monday night and stayed until Friday morning. It was so great. I hope I didn't over work her too much, and that her back is recovering from sleeping on our very firm guest bed. Anyway, it was so nice to have someone to give one on one attention to Caden while I taught the others. I was also able to get ALL of the dogs their annual appointments without any stress at all, since grandma was here to watch the boys. I don't think I made breakfast or lunch for anyone all week. I feel so much better this week. While she was here Caden finally learned to call her something other than Gran-pa. Until now that was the universal word he used for all "older" people. Now he will call her Gran-mommy. It is so cute. He was glued to her all week, and a little upset when she left. Did I mention how wonderful it was to have him glued to someone other than me. LOL. My mother and I actually got to enjoy some "hang-out" time -- not on the phone. The boys were really good all week, and we all watched Mr. Magoriums Magic Emporium. It was a cute movie but lacked substance and kind of leave you wanting for something more. The boys liked it so I guess that is all that counts.

Monday before Grandma got here we went to evaluations for Upwards Soccer and both the boys did really well. Zeke really surprised me. He has always been the more focused of the two, but the last couple years he has really struggled with grasping the sports he has played. All of a sudden he is really good. I watched his evaluation and was shocked. I am so excited to see him play this year. The only thing we are still have problems with is his speed. When he was 5 he was the fastest kid on the field and then something happened. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what caused the slow down. I think I know now. GROWTH. He has gone from a size 5 to a size 8 pants in the past 15 months, and from a size 13 shoe to a size 4 shoe in the same about of time. Maybe things will settle out for a while.

Maple Syrup Festival

A week ago the boys and I drove up to a small state park in Maryland to attend a Maple Syrup Festival. It was a very pretty park with lots of camping sites. It really made me want to take the boys out camping. Maybe we will take them back there this spring. Anyway, I have been interested in how they make maple syrup since I was in grade school and read the Little House on the Prarie books. So we drove about 30 minutes to see how it was done. Unfortunately, I thought I would pass an ATM on the way and didn't. It turns out to be all back roads from our house to the park. So, when I arrived I had no cash to pay the donation at the gate. I felt bad, but they let us in anyway. They did have a small booth where they sold locally made maple syrup and oldfashion maple candy. The boys were upset that we could not buy any since they -- only accepted cash. Next year we will have to take Chris back with us and then maybe we can try some of the candy. As far as the maple syrup making was concerned it was really interesting. They had several trees tapped with all different kinds of taps so you could see all the different ones. Then once every hour they gave a talk on how it was all done and processed right over a boiling pot of maple syrup.

It turns out you can very easily make maple syrup at home. All you need is a Sugar Maple Tree at least 10 inches in diameter. You put the tap into the tree about 2 inches and about 4 feet from the ground. The best times to do it are spring and fall or anytime it is cold at night and warm during the day. Maple Sap looks like exactly like water when it comes out because it is 90 percent water and 10 percent sugar. It takes 40 gallons of Maple sap to reduce down to 1 gallon of Maple syrup. To make a gallon of maple syrup in a pot over an open fire takes about 6-9 hours. To make maple candy takes 24 hours.

In addition to the talk and the displays they also had a craft tent (suitable for ages 2-12 in my opinion). All the boys made paper maple seeds and colored pictures and Russell made alittle book about the Maple Tree for Caden. Everyone had a really good time for free.

Birthday Cakes

My friend Claire makes some pretty spectacular birthday cakes for her kids. Most of these cakes I would not even begin to attempt. I have been quite amazed at her creativity and skill as she posts them on her blog. The latest cake was a Bionicle for her son Luke. The boys have also been impressed with her cake making abilities. Today, Zeke asked me if I could buy one of her cakes for his birthday. She does good cakes and he wants a really cool Star Wars cake for his birthday. First, her cornbread is better than mine and now the cakes. I am really going to have to up my game in the kitchen. :) LOL.

I Have Lost My Mind

About two weeks ago there was a posting on our homeschool Yahoo group about a local church that rented out the skate rink for 8 Mar. They were inviting the local homeschoolers to come and enjoy a skate party with them. I thought it sounded interesting but was not entirely excited about going to a skate party with a local church group I didn't know. Then, a couple posts further down there was an announcement that another skate rink had "homeschool days". The second Thurs of every month from 1300-1530 the rink is open to homeschooler for 3 dollars entry and free skates. Then it said our group was going to meet up there on 10 Apr. No need to sign up -- just show up at 1300.

Unfortunately for me, my eyes read 10 Apr but my brain heard 10 March. So, I instantly decided to go. I told the kids about it. We planned our errands and other schedule around it etc. . . Monday morning 10 Mar we busily did everything we needed around the house and then headed for the skate rink (about 30 minutes away). As we were about to arrive at the skate rink Chris called from IRAQ. We started talking and then I pulled up to the skate rink. Oh no, whats wrong? The whole place was empty. Where could everyone be? I know we are on time. I sent Russell to the door to check and it was locked. Meanwhile I am talking to Chris about how confused I am that no one is here. I start to read the email posting to him. So I said "It says right here that the skate rink is open to homeschoolers the second Thursday of every month from 1300-1530." This is as far as I got before Chris said, "Honey, it's Monday". I can't believe it -- but I am still not convinced. So I say " But why would they put out that we were all going to meet here on the 10th of April at 1300?" To which Chris replied,"It's MARCH". I was embarrassed and felt so bad for the boys. They had really been looking forward to this day and I totally blew it. So, I promised them (baby willing) we would come back 10 April. It was a very quiet Truck ride home. I did take them out for Ice Cream, and we went to the local park. I think that kind of helped.

So, as you can see, I have lost my mind. Hopefully those of you (all of you) who found this amusing have not hurt yourselves too bad by fits of laughter.

Two More Weeks

Daddy comes home in about two weeks. I am so excited. The boys know he is coming home soon, but I never tell them the exact day until he actually calls that he is about to take off on that last airplane. His travel record isn't that great, and I don't like to get anyone's hopes up until I KNOW he will be here. This has seemed like the longest deployment ever. He has been on much longer deployments, and he has been gone while I have been pregnant before, but this one just drags on and on. It has gone especially slow in the last week or so. We are all ready for him to come home. Caden still tells him to come home at the end of every phone conversation, and sometimes he gets upset about it and sometimes he just says it.

Caden is still working hard on his potty training. He has learned in the last week how to stand and pee and I think he really feels like a big boy when he does. He seems to have the nasty part of the business down, but still has the occasionally pee accident. Of course we are completely hit or miss on the nap times and bed times. That will come in time. We bought him a radio flyer scooter this week so that he would have a scooter to ride when the boys ride theirs. He tries to push theirs around and really doesn't do bad for his age, but this new scooter is perfect. It has been warm enough this week for the boys to get out and play a little more and Caden has spent a lot of time on his scooter and in his powered race car. Caden also LOVES to play with the dogs. He loves all the dogs. He and Zeke spend a lot of time playing with them. Since I could not figure out how to salvage his doggie hat, I threw it away. Then the next day he was wearing it. I told him it needed to go in the trash and he said, "it not trash -- my hat". So, he is still running around wearing his half chewed up doggie hat.

The puppies are weaned now and getting ready to go for their first vet appointments. We discovered today that the one we refer to as Star (the runt) has eyes like her daddy. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. Everyone else has 2 brown eyes. Additionally, while there are a couple that will technically be called long haired Midget has more hair than even his mother. He is definitely a hairy booger. They have had a couple trips outside this week. We could only go out for a few minutes, because it is still quite cold for them. Amazingly they all went out and did their potty business right away. They are also doing really well with the paper training.

This is a really busy week for us. Russell and Zeke have testing this week. Russell's starts tomorrow and then Zeke's is Wednesday and Thursday. After testing is over this week we are going to a park up in Maryland to see how Maple Syrup is made. The boys are really excited because they show the whole process from tapping the tree to bottling it. Even have a pancake breakfast you can attend if you want. The last big event this week is Evaluation night for Upwards Soccer. I hope I will survive the week. It is a lot more than I am used to doing and getting up a lot earlier than I have been.

Turn It Up and Listen

This may be a bit difficult for some of you to understand, but turn it up and listen. Listen a couple times.

Observations of a Seven Year Old

This blog is about something I have not talked about in some time, but it came up in a conversation with Zeke the other day and I thought it was interesting enough to share. In this world today people seem overly ready to expose young children to things way beyond their years (sex education etc. . .). However, at the same time they seem reluctant to believe or understand the capabilities of younger children to understand, in their own way, very complex issues. My ex husband has all but removed himself from the boy's lives. He managed to get them both birthday cards about a month late, and Christmas was only 2 weeks late. He has spoken to them over the phone less than one hour total since we moved away last July. He has taken them to see his mother (their maternal grandmother) ZERO times in the past 5 years. We have not heard from him since the second week of January. The boys are not bothered by his lack of communication and never ask to call him and are not exactly excited when they have to go spend time with him. About the only way he comes up in conversation is in passing statements made by Zeke. Most of those statements usually start with "Another thing I don't like about our fathers . . . ." "Our father makes us do . . . and I don't like that" "Our father cooked this . . .and it was awful but he thought it was great". So, the other day when Zeke started a conversation with me "You know what's weird about our father Mom?" HAHAHAHAHA Now I could have said Quite a few things here. I even felt like letting out a huge laugh, but I contained myself and said "No, what?" So he says, "Don't you think it is weird that every time we go to his house he has a new girlfriend, and they are already planning to get married?" So I told him yes that is a bit different and most people don't go through that many relationships that quickly, and they definitely don't make decisions to get married that quickly. He though about this for a few minutes and then said. "Yeah, and then after a couple of weeks the girl gets mad at him and they don't talk anymore so they don't get married." Yep, I said that is a little strange. End of conversation. You would think if a SEVEN year old can figure out what your doing isn't quite normal that you (a 36 year old) could figure it out too. HMMM. I am constantly amazed at the connections that Ezekiel makes.

Short Update

This last week was a long week. It, of course, was rainy and dreary and muddy for most of the week (common theme these days). It was a bit warmer out for most of the week so the boys got out and played more which was GREAT. The puppies are now eating solid food really well, but I am having a hard time getting them to drink water and stop nursing so much. So, we have started separating Sandi from her puppies more and more. She happens to be the type of mommy dog that will not make her puppies stop nursing on her own. The idea of course is that by the end of this week the puppies will be 6 weeks old and completely off mommy. They are really cute and playful now, but also getting into more and more stuff and demanding more and more attention. It is definitely time to start finding homes for all the little ones.

Russell has been attending a middle school program at church on Wednesday nights. The first couple months he had a really good time, but the last couple weeks he has been struggling. After the Bible study portion is over all the boys head down to play basketball in the gym. Well, most of the boys that are friends with Russell have not been there the past couple weeks, and the boys that are playing are mostly older boys who really make no effort to include Russell. He has been very frustrated.

Ezekiel has been going through what I call an angry phase. For the past couple weeks he seems to get instantly angry about everything. He has been yelling a lot and just not getting along with anyone very well. Finally the past few days have seen a little improvement. I am hoping we have seen the last of that for a while.

Caden has been doing awesome with his potty training. He went 4 days in a row without a single accident (during the day). He even slept all the way through a couple 3 hours naps without an accident. He is really getting the hang of it. His speech has been getting so much clearer and he is speaking in sentences now. It is so cute. He has also learned how to say Sorry since he has needed to say it a lot lately. Thankfully he is very receptive to discipline.

We posted the last of Chris' school work for this term -- WHEW. If he does as well on his Final Exams and Papers as he did the rest of the term he will get A's in both classes. It is very difficult to manage his school work while he is deployed. His internet access is not always available or reliable. Chris starts his journey home in less than 2 weeks, but will not be home till at least 20 Mar.

Next week Russell and Zeke will spend the week preparing for standardized testing. The following week they have testing. Hopefully all will go well. They have both been doing well in their school work and Zeke has shown major improvement in several areas. As strict as WV is on testing I am just praying that they do well enough to pass the WV standard.