Bucy Kid Videos

All parents think that their kids are smart. It's the norm. I am a parent that KNOWS her kids are smart, and I have proof. Sure it may not knock your socks off, but I think all of them are pretty great. (SIDE NOTE: There is no video of Kaelyn because she is 14. That's the best I can do for a reason.)












I really like the last one. Good Night.

Rory's Swim Class

I signed Rory up for home school swim classes at our gym. It's for an hour and a half...45 minutes of instruction and 45 minutes of play. Her first class was last Friday. I packed up Logan and Marley and stuff for them to do for an hour and a half. That lasted for 45 minutes. After Rory's intruction was over and free play started, it was down hill from there. Logan wanted to go in the pool. Marley wanted out of her stroller to go play with Logan. He was throwing toys from the bin into the girls (Rory made a friend). It was hectic, but I went and asked the intructor if I could go into the pool with Logan and Marley for free play. She said I could, so this Friday, we're going to see how it goes...considering Marley's first experience with the pool. Here are some pics of course.

She's starting to learn freestyle. Check out some of her faces. (hehehe)

I know I'm mean, but I can't help but laughing.


Logan found these weighted eggs.


Then he decided to share with Marley.

And Marley decided to share with this little girl.

It was a great time...and cheap! That's enough to make me put on a swimsuit this Friday. I WILL NOT be taking pictures. Sorry!

Finis

Happy Fall!

Remember when I told you that I was grateful for a mother-in-law who wanted to make my front yard look pretty and play with my kids at the same time? These are the before pictures.
After some sweating, lots of mess, and whining kids...here's what we ended up with.

Add some cute kids and...

Ta-Da...(btw...in case you're wondering about flower placement, that was all Rory)

I'm worried that people on the block will start expecting us to do cute things like this with the changes of the seasons or holidays. Quite frankly, they should be glad they can see the house numbers without peering through the weeds anymore. It was a lot of work. If I kept up with the weeding instead of waiting for it to get out of control, that would be one thing. That's not really my strong point...keeping up with things. Any one who has been in my house can agree with me. For now, it's cute and clean. I'm still wondering why my mother-in-law went through all this, but I'm sure at the root of it, it had something to do with a child o' mine. I'm not expecting anything for Christmas although now that I think about it, she snuck into our yard last Christmas and set up two snowmen and a reindeer. Maybe it's a subtle hint from her that our yard should be something I keep up with. If so, I'm going to rip the whole thing up and cement it. My sister-in-law, Paula, is always saying the same thing about her yard. I think she's on to something.

Panamilit

You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man

At our library they have book bags filled with books and activities on a certain topic. They're called "Ready to Succeed" kits, and you can check them out.
We got one of these Friday. It's the "Pretend Play" one. They're really great and instantly make me feel like a good homeschooling mom. In this kit was the book The Gingerbread Man. We read it, and then noticed that the kit had masks to act out the story. We were all pretty excited and took turns trying the masks on.

Logan...fox

Rory...Gingerbread Man
Me...cow

Me...Gingerbread Man

Rory...fox

Logan...sheep

There were more, but you get the picture. (HA!) In the back of the book, there's a CD of someone telling the story. So the kids and I threw on the masks and acted it out for Daddy, Kaelyn, and Marley. They liked it. It was fun. I'm sure we'll be doing it a couple more times before the kit is due back. The End

Rory's Middle Day of School

So if you read my blog yesterday, you know that Rory had homework for the first time today. We sat down to do it (after I found it...long story). It went well. We learned about Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform. We went on to read some library books we got. One of them was an "I Can Read" book. It used 24 words, so if she could read all 24 words, she could read the book. She wanted to go through the list first. One of the words was soft. She says, "sssssssss...aaaahhhhh...fffffff...t." She didn't get it from that, so I told her to try and meld the sounds together. Keep saying one while she goes on to say the next sound. She says, "sssssssaaaaahhhhhhffffffft." It sounded like a drawn out soft. I told her it was great, so what's the word. She said, "shit." I started laughing...hard. Kevin even heard it from the kitchen and started laughing. This mixed with Logan's Praying Mantis story yesterday are my main contentions in the running for "Mom of the Year" award. By the way, Crane isn't the Praying Mantis in Kung Fu. The Praying Mantis is Mantis. So, he even got the wrong name further lengthening my lead for the award.

One might ask what Marley is learning through all this. Let me show you...

She's learning balance.


She's learning how to accessorize.


And she's working on her Canadian accent.

Molakaw Na Ko

Logan's First Day of School

I saw some of the Today Show the other morning, and they had a 5yo reading something. It occurred to me that Rory is 6yo and not reading. I immediately panicked and thought, "Well, I can't do anything to save Rory, since she's already 6, I'll start on Logan...I have 2 more years before I've failed him." So today I got out some preschool books that I used to do with Rory every now and then and had Logan do some. He didn't mind at all. He was excited.

All in all it went pretty well. I would have him circle the two matching items out of three. Then I would have him draw a line from an item in the left column to the item in the right column the same color. Instead, he would circle the two items that went together. After a while he got the hang of drawing a line from one to the other. Then he wanted to go back to matching, so he drew a line from the one that matched to it's pair instead of circling. He's coming along though. After that we did some coloring, and because it was such a successful 45 minutes-an hour of school, we went to the pet store. Yay!

While I was schooling Logan :) Marley was being really fussy. She kept wanting up, so I would put her on my lap. Then she would whine some more and flail, so I would put her down. I finally got up with her to sway her a little, and she still whined. I put her down in the chair where I was sitting and held onto her while I walked Logan through his work. After a little bit, I noticed that she wasn't whining. I looked over at her, and she was sitting there flipping through one of Logan's books we were done with. All that time and all that little girl wanted was to do some school too. It was cute.
After we were done school, we did some reading. I picked out all the books I normally hate reading (those ones that make noise) because it takes too long for him to push the noise buttons, or I don't like to read them, and I read them all to him. One of the books was this one.
It doesn't have any words, you just look at the pictures and it has the name of the animal underneath. On some pages it goes through the sounds they make or has you count the number of animals. Anyway, we were going through it and came to the Praying Mantis.
I asked Logan what that is and he said, "Crane." For those of you who don't ruin your children by having them watch too many movies, Crane is the Praying Mantis Kung Fu warrior in the movie Kung Fu Panda. That's my boy. It's almost as funny as when I was going through this book with Rory once. She was 3yo at the time, and I asked her what this animal was.
She didn't know, so I told her it was a gecko. She pointed to the other one and said, "And this one is grandma." The kids call my dad Gekko(yes, he spells it this way) instead if grandpa, so Rory automatically assumed that the other gecko must be "Grandma."

I would say it was a great day all around. We're in for more tomorrow because for the first time newly- minted first grader, Rory, HAS HOMEWORK! We'll see how that goes. Tata for now!

Gratitude

I'm grateful for this small house today. I have a hard enough time cleaning this let alone something bigger.

I'm grateful for a mother-in-law who wants to make my front yard pretty, do all the work herself, and still play with my kids at the same time.

I'm grateful for being able to help my bosom friend today.

I'm grateful for my kids that actually weren't that bad today.

I'm grateful for my sister, who gives me a swift kick in the arse when I need it, and nourishes me at the same time with her beef stew recipe.

I'm grateful for a husband who just gets me...sometimes it's as simple as that.

I'm grateful for a mother who makes me talk her out of enabling me. :)

I'm grateful for being able to fit the gym into our budget.

I'm grateful for a wonderful group that is allowing me to have time with God every morning.

I'm grateful for this blog, so I can share my gratitude with all of you.

Pax Et Bonum

Not Feeling Well

I'm feeling sick and trying to watch House M.D. but it's very disturbing right now, so I'm going to blog. I had a good day today, which stinks that I'm not feeling well now. I went on a walk with Logan and Marley again. It was a beautiful day for it. At naptime I got some cleaning done. I think Nana might be onto something with this whole "cleaning while listening to your Ipod" thing. I do it a little differently than Nana. I only put one earplug in, so I can hear the kids or the phone. Nana puts both in and blasts the music, I think to NOT hear the kids or the phone. :)

Since I'm not feeling well and it's late, I'm just going to entertain you. Peace!

They Like Us...They Really Like Us

We had our get together with our blossoming bosom friends this Saturday. It went great. We hardly saw the kids, who got to run around crazy in the neighborhood. They don't get to do that at our house because our neighborhood is scary and unsafe. But our bosom friends' neighborhood is perfect for kids. There's hardly any traffic and plenty of things to do. We had dinner and even stayed past bedtimes. :0 My bosom friend was trying to get us to stay longer, but I need to take baby steps with that stuff. It was already a big deal to have not left there until 8p. But we were having such a grand time with the fire pit and the fireworks. Next time, I'm going to bring all my nighttime stuff for Marley just in case.

Today was ok. We had very tired kids because Logan decided to wake up at 430a, and 530a, and I don't know if he even went back to sleep for that long. Marley was up at 5a. I don't know if she went back to sleep either. She's sick today, and I'm not feeling too well either. I hope we're not all going to come down with it. It was a low key day. I'm still really happy from our get together. I don't mean to go on and on about it, but when you've been friendless for as long as we've been friendless, it just means a lot to get some. Plus, it's like dating...the whole...making a friend in the adult years. It's truly a great accomplishment. Without fail, here are some pics I snapped of Saturday.

This looks familiar.



This is Jess and Jim when I pulled out the camera at dinner.


I got 'em.


Because Kevin was telling a story.


Speechless.


Fire pit


Sparklers.

They even had firecrackers. Jim was the kids' hero.

Me and my bosom friend.


Us and our bosom friends...and a Marley.


The kids were all drawn to the fire.


This little pyro is Logan's future arranged- marriage wife.


Jim made hummus, and like a good guest, I tried it. It took a while, but I did it, and it wasn't that bad. Who would've thought?

Salam

Thursday Ramblings

I'm sure you're all sick of my ramblings, but I really don't have anything to say tonight. I had an ok day. There are some interesting prospects on the horizon. Rory got to stay up TWO HOURS past her bedtime tonight to go to Little Flowers. It's like a catholic girl scouts. I went with my bosom friend and her two kids. It was funny because each of us scoped the other out to see how she acted. We need help, and we know it. :) It was a great time. I think my bosom friend is going to teach me a lot about letting go and living, and I'm excited.

Our next step is to turn our husbands into bosom friends. I'm sure we'll have to call it something else for them though. Can guys even be bosom friends? I don't know. Anyway, we're setting our families up this Saturday and seeing how it all goes. Wish us luck!

I'll leave you with some pics because I haven't had a pic in two posts and that seems sacrilege.

Sayonara!