School Has Begun

On Monday, July 27th we started our school year. I usually like to start in early July, but after my class, I needed time to recoup before I could muster up any excitement to teach my kids. It's now day four and, so far, we're off to a great start!

This year I needed more organization, especially with the new puppy, my new job, and my class that will start mid August. I made a schedule for each of my kids. This way they can see what it is they should be doing and at what time. I made sure to schedule their subjects in a way that while one is at the table, the other could be listening to me read. Having them at the table together is cause for a lot of distractions. There are also times when I will have to be doing something besides teaching, so I made sure to have them doing something they could handle on their own during that time. I might have to make changes as needed, since I may have left too much time for some subjects, while others might need more time.

I found the lined paper on Donna Young's website . I really enjoy all of her free printables.

What are we using for curriculum this year? Check it out here, or you can view some of the books we are currently reading on the Amazon Widget.

New Puppy

On July 19th, at approximately 4:30 pm., we brought home a new maltipoo puppy! This is a rare happening for us as you might have assumed after reading one of my earlier posts, "A Dog Named Sal". This all came about after my friend Stacey and I, with daughters in tow, visited Furry Babies Inc. which is located on the second floor of Cherryvale Mall. In case you are not familiar with this store, let me explain. As you walk past you see pinkish walls and the pink sign, Furry Babies. Who could resist? Look a tad closer and you'll see little cribs set up all over with super cute puppies of all kinds for sale! What a way to lure you in right? Not only that, it appears to be a glamor shop for pups. You can buy posh beds and fashionable clothes for you new furry baby, if you wish.
We decided to go in and take just a peek. Stacey quickly spotted an adorable female maltese. She was so cute and the salesman let us all go into the little room to play with her. Five minutes later, Stacey was in complete love. She was on the phone with her husband in a flash to see about possibly bringing her home. It just wasn't meant to be on that day. So we all walked away from the store thinking of that cute pup, wondering what family might buy her. Her excitement got me into thinking about getting a puppy. She can be dangerous that way. ;-) I thought maybe we could buy her and that way Stacey would still be able to see her. Drake has always wanted a dog, and we were thinking of it off and on but were never sure if we wanted to commit. The next day we went up to the store again, this time just our family. I wanted to show my husband the cute puppy. We talked and hesitated in the mall. It didn't feel right to make a rash decision, and we went home empty handed.
After that, I spent time searching online for a puppy because I figured it's kind of like kids, if you wait forever to have them, you probably never will. Is there ever a right time or perfect time? So I kept on searching. I have always liked the look of matipoos, and if we were to get a dog, it would have to be the non-shedding type. I searched many websites: petfinder.com, puppyfind.com, pups4kids.com, and many others. I knew I didn't want to drive very far to get a puppy or have to have it shipped to us, so I search for maltipoos that were close to our area. It was at puppyfind.com where I finally saw this cute, unique looking puppy from McHenry, IL. My husband spoke with the breeder, and we planned a visit. So on Sunday, the 19th of July, we made the trip and brought home our first puppy. Abbi was her name given by the breeder, but we have since settled on Bella. No, it's not a Twilight influence, really. We took the plunge and, though it hasn't been very easy so far, we are committed to doing our best. Our kids really enjoy her, but we all have a lot to learn. I hope that Bella will grow up with good manners and that is something that takes dedication.

Oh and more good news! Stacey did end up getting her puppy, the one at the mall! She was able to put a deposit down and get her the very same weekend we picked up Bella!


Here are some pics of our new addition!

This is the day we got her at 10 weeks old.

First bath

The Bird Protector

About a month ago, my dad found a small bird on the ground outside his home. It had fallen out of the nest, so he decided to take care of it until it could fend for itself. I find it odd that he loves helping animals because he's an avid hunter. Even so, growing up, I watched him help baby birds, squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons.
After spending $45.00 or so on mail order red worms, my dad thought it was time for this little birdie to move on and fly away. This did not happen as expected. At first, the bird flew up on the roof of my dad's house and looked around with curiosity. Later, we checked and it had flown away. That was great! It was finally on it's way to a normal bird life, or so we thought. My dad called me later to say that the bird was back hungry and crying for food. So now, each time he tries to let the bird go, it comes back when it's hungry. I suppose my dad has spent close to $100.00 in worms now. This bird is eating good!

Bugs

I saw this flying around outside of our home. I'm not quite sure what kind of bug it is, even after an extensive search on Google. I don't think I have ever seen one like this before. Any ideas?

It almost looks like it's made out of cotton.

Here is another cute bug. This was found on our squash plants.

We found this visitor at our front door. A Cicada, which I hear are quite tasty. I don't think I could ever try one though. ;-)

Garden Update

Everything is looking good!

We have our first zucchini!

Here is basil for the pesto sauce I plan to make. I've found a lot of these Japanese Beetles eating away at the leaves already though. I think I might have to bring it inside.

The mystery plant is broccoli!

Tomatoes

Carrots

Balloon Flower

Colorful non-edible berries

Pond Fishing

Not so long ago, we were invited to go on a little fishing voyage with our friends. It was a lot of fun because there were so many fish close to the waters edge. Almost as soon as our poles went in, the fish would bite. That's the kind of fishing I like!

One of the many fish Drake caught.

Friend CeAnna posing with one of her fish.

How To Get Your Kids To Do Housework

"If you make the chore you are doing look grown-up and exciting, your kids will want to have a go." :-)

I saw this video on MSN and thought it was amusing, especially the accent. I Love the accent.

These techniques do work quite well for younger children. I remember trying a few of them out. It doesn't work so well for older kids though. I need to look for the video, "Never Hear a Huff Again: How to Get Your Preteen to Do Housework With a Smile and a Nod".


Behaviour & Communication: How To Get Your Kids To Do Housework

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change?

I find it funny that our government is now going to restrict the amount of acetaminophen in Tylenol and Excedrin because, according to a news article on MSN, it is the number one cause of liver disease. I'm not against this if it is safer for those using them. It's just odd to me because there are so many restrictions on medicines or things that could hurt us, but food is not one of them. We have millions of fast food joints all over the country. Why not limit them, or at least regulate what they can sell, because heart disease is the number one killer in the US.? Why is it more important that we restrict these meds because of liver disease, but when it comes to highly processed junk food or cigarettes it's not a big deal? Could it be because money is involved? I would guess that it is highly probable. These are some of the questions I've asked myself recently. These issues do get a little tricky because freedom of choice comes into play: what should we allow to be free choice and what should be restricted by the government.

Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy fast food. In fact, Culvers just happens to be my favorite place to go. I love the thick, sludgy custard that sticks to my arterial walls. Oh and their fries - Mmm. I don't always think about what it's doing to me as I'm indulging of course. I'm just in complete bliss. The heart attack I experience later will shock me back to reality - if I survive. With all that said, I still do prefer to be healthy and make healthy choices.

Fast food isn't the only food issue in our country. In our grocery stores there a millions of choices. Most of the food is processed, full of dyes, pesticides, or antibiotics. Wouldn't it be great if we could visit our grocery store and not have to wonder what is in the food; to know it's pure?

Several years ago, I did some reading and searching about food dyes. I read that the dye Red 40 is actually a byproduct of coal and is banned in Europe. I don't think it has been proven, but there is a lot of buzz online about the negative health affects of food dye consumption. You may want to check it out for yourself.


The bottom line . . .
We will all die one way or another, so we can look at one of three ways.

1. Live it up and not care because we only get one chance.
2. Make strict healthy choices all the time and miss out on the good stuff in life.
3. Try to make healthy choices most of the time but still give ourselves the freedom to indulge.

Option three is probably the most sensible.

Check out the Food, INC trailer if you haven't seen it yet. I hope to see the movie when it's out on DVD.

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Trailer and Photos

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Punishment and Love

Apparently I'm not loved much in my house. I issued a punishment last night, and shortly after I found this response to it. This did not hurt my feelings at all because I know it's not a true measure. I actually thought it was kind of cute. A little love gauge. At first, I didn't have any hearts shaded, but I did gain one after I had a talk with the perpetrator. Maybe I’ll be able to gain a few hearts in the days ahead. ;-)

Simple Gardening

A couple months ago I started my very own vegetable garden, thanks to my sister-in-law. She gave me lots of tips, let us borrow her tiller, and provided us with some very cool heirloom tomato and pepper plants.

I spent a lot of time hacking at the dirt, preparing it for the seeds. After spending so much time in the dirt, I began to think how amazing this brown/black stuff really is. I mean, we never give it much thought, after all, it's just dirt. But if you actually think about how you can plant a tiny dry seed in the soil and add water and watch it grow, it's amazing to me. I find dirt an odd yet wonderful substance. I don't know, maybe I'm just a little whacked. ;-)

After the seeds were planted, I would check on the garden almost daily. I didn't know what to expect, and I don't think I did everything exactly as the seed package had stated. However, I have to say, I'm quite happy with what I see so far! It has been fun for me (and the kids) to watch the changes each week. I spent some time today weeding it and trying to get some more of the grass out, which was left over after the tilling. It's not bad, for a first year garden. I planted a lot of lettuce, some broccoli, carrots, spinach, zucchini, squash, pumpkins, peppers, and tomatoes. I can't wait until the tomatoes are ready!

Carrots

Tomato

I love how this lettuce looks!

Hmm...too bad I didn't label everything. I'm not sure what this is, but it looks good to me!

Daisies. They just looked pretty so I had to include them in the photo line up.

Nothing Special

Well I haven't posted in a while due to my addiction to Farm Town on Facebook and also because I've just been too busy. If I'm not reading, I'm studying (my chem. class started this past week). If I'm not studying, I'm playing Farm Town. I wonder how I can keep cramming stuff into my day. I suppose, if I quit playing games on the computer, that would free me up some, but it's my escape. I guess it's what I do when I feel stressed and about ready to shut down. I go and plant some crops and somehow the world seems like a better place when I'm done! :-)

There are so many things I wanted to get done around here before summer: painting Ava's room, staining the deck (again), deep cleaning and the list goes on. It seems that once again that will all have to wait.

I also was hoping to do some summer school with the kids. At least math, spelling, and reading, but I've been terrible about it. We finished up in mid May, but I dread adding more to my schedule right now. We usually start school in early July anyway, so I might just take this time to focus on me. Hmm...that sounds nice!

New Moon - Trailer!

Over the past week I've become another one of those crazy, obsessed Twilight fans. My friend let me borrow all 4 of her Twilight books. I ended up reading the first one in 24 hours because it was just that good! The next book, New Moon, I finished in about 2 days. I had to watch the Twilight movie again, and I'm planning a night this week to watch it yet again. I spend my days and nights dreaming of Edward Cullen. Can you really fall in love with a fictional character? Yes, I know, it's pathetic; I need to get a grip on reality real soon here.

Last night at the MTV movie awards, Robert Pattinson (Edward), Kristen Stewart (Bella), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) presented the first official trailer of New Moon, which is set to come out in theatres on November 20, 2009. I usually can't stand anything on MTV anymore as it is usually trash and not very classy, but I made myself watch it just so I could see the trailer. I have to say that the New Moon movie looks like it will be better than the Twilight movie. Though I would say Twilight was a good movie, there were some things from the book that were left out of the movie, which left me slightly disappointed. The books are usually always better than the movies. Stephenie Meyer is a great writer, and she provides tons of details that a movie could never capture. I hope the New Moon movie stays true to the book. From the trailer, it looks like it has.

Here's the trailer!!!! :-) You might want to scroll down to pause the music before you start.

-For those reading my blog from my "notes" on Facebook, you'll have to click on "view original post" above the comment box to see the video.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Starved Rock State Park

One of the best days of my life is how I would describe my experience at Starved Rock. It was our first time visiting this beautiful state park. We knew, from the Starved Rock website, that the Illinois River had recently flooded causing some problems; nonetheless, we were not going to let that stop us. We started the day off fairly early. I hoped to be to the park by no later than 9:00 am. The weather was supposed to be sunny, but as we sped closer to the park the sky was getting dark. Uncertainty crept in. I quickly pushed that aside, and tried to stay hopeful for a good day. As we pulled into the parking lot around 9:15, a little later than expected, we could see the evidence all around us. The ground was soggy and the parking lot looked as if it had recently been underwater, but that didn't stop us or any of the other hundreds of people from coming for a day of fun. I would have preferred to not have the park so full of people, but it really wasn't too bothersome. I assumed with it being Memorial Day weekend and all, crowds were to be expected anywhere we went.

After parking and gathering supplies, we headed straight to a trail—French Canyon. The ground was squishy in parts but compact. We found ways of avoiding mud holes (described later). It was very exciting. I could hear the sound of a waterfall and saw people in the canyon below. We figured out the way to get down there and it was so beautiful.

This is a collecting pool of water that overflowed and created a stream.

In order to get to the waterfall without getting soggy, we had to straddle this stream of water. Poor Ava wasn't able to do it correctly, so she spent the day with moist shoes. It didn't seem to bother her much. The waterfall!

This was heading back away from the waterfall.

Here, we were on top of Starved Rock. Looking across, you can see Lover's Leap Lookout. The history behind Starved Rock is quite interesting. A barge on the Illinois River.I can't quite remember which trail led us to this waterfall. We wanted to get down into the canyon to see it, but first we had an obstacle to overcome. Mud! This picture is of Steve and Ava on their way back from seeing the waterfall. This is what we did off and on throughout our hiking adventure. Thankfully, tree roots helped. We balanced along them in a great effort not to lose our balance and end up muddy, wet, and uncomfortable for the rest of the day. I did remember to pack extra clothes and shoes for the kids, but not for Steve and me.

Here is that glorious waterfall! The one we staggered about on tree roots just to stare at it's beauty. It was worth it!

Here is a little perspective on the groups of people on the trails. I might add that there were many different languages I heard throughout the day. I think I heard more of other languages than actual English. I suppose many tourists were visiting from around the world.
After a while, we took a break from walking so Steve and Drake could fish in the river. Drake caught one! One man I saw had a large metal ring with tons of fish hooked around it. People were catching fish like crazy.

There were lots of sculptures carved out of trees by the lodge. The lodge looked very nice. We were almost tempted to stay for a night.

It was about 5:30 or so and we had been hiking the entire day. There was one more trail we wanted to go on called St. Louis Canyon. Instead of starting out from the visitor center, we chose to drive and park closer to the trail. I'm so glad we went on this one. I think it was my favorite. We were alone on the trail. As we were coming into the canyon area, there was a group of three people, but they were just leaving. Yes! We had it all to ourselves! It was like a scene from a movie. We were really in Illinois? I couldn't tell. The rock formations were beautiful. The sound of the water, our voices echoing, the sheer cliffs all around us, slightly leaning as if they would cave in, it was all so amazing. There were hills of light sand probably from the sandstone wearing away I guessed.

The kids climbed on this big boulder.Steve and I.

We found this caterpillar resting beside a rock.

By this time my camera battery was going dead, so I took a real quick video of the area.

After leaving this trail, we decided to check out another state park in the area, Matthiessen. We mostly just drove through to see what it was like, and then we drove back to Starved Rock so Steve and Drake could fish one more time. They fished for almost an hour while Ava and I rested in the van. It was now inching closer to 8:00 pm. We ate and then we headed home.

It was a long wonderful day! We were all exhausted. I was proud that the kids did so well on the trails. We did almost every trail except maybe 4 or 5. I didn't hear many complaints about legs hurting, which was so nice. The rain didn't hold off completely, but we never were drenched. It rained pretty good while we were eating our take along lunch, but as soon as we finished and went to tackle another trail, it let up. The canopy of trees protected us a lot.

The trails varied from rocky areas, to sandy paths, and compact mud. Of course, there was the not so compact mud too. I would love to visit this place again in the summer or even fall. I would like to see it on a sunny day and maybe even camp or stay in the lodge next time. ;-)

I took so many pictures that day. I didn't want to post to many here and bog down the speed, so if you would like to see some more you can view my album in picasa.