Art

A couple family pics...

I admire that my friend Raegan posts and she tells her life story ;) So I'm going to try to say more. Things are always hectic, life at 90 miles an hour. I am always exhausted, i could sleep all day everyday if I was allowed. I think there's a reason for it and I'm working on it... but it's still no fun. We like our dog, she's cute and pretty well behaved. I heard barking the other day, like scratchy lame barking .. I thought there was no way that Daisy could be barking so I looked and she was! Her favorite spot in the house is right next to me...she curls up next to my legs..odd considering I don't usually love dogs... well she is pretty cute..and Nolan is getting big.

Speaking of Nolan and getting big he asks me all the time if he is 4 or 5, I honestly couldn't remember for a minute then I thought wow, he's only turning 4? He seems a lot older than that..he talks ALL the time. He wants to be 5 because "he is going to go to school and love it". We will see. His birthday is the 24th, I can't wait because I got him something neat..
I think all the kids got straight A's again.. Leah got straight S's which in Kindergarten are A's. Ana was awarded priciple's list for all A's and District honor roll for all A's and B's , she had straight A's all 3 semesters. Addison also got all 90's and was invited to be a Beta club member for smarty pants. Yeah team! In the fall I will only have 1 child home all day...weird.
Time flies , years pass faster and faster....

Terrified of dogs...

A trip back home

I returned home for the first time in about 18 years. I enjoyed spending time with my nieces and nephew. I would love to see them a lot. We were able to do an " Extreme makeover " on their bedroom. Fun!

A little obligatory posing! This is Kat. JT and Alexendra are the other 2.

More of what Auburn , NY looks like. It all seemed strangely smaller than what I remembered. My friend Wendie let me stay at her home. She also has hyperthyroidism, like my sister. She had radiation treatment Monday. We were close friends in middle school and again in college. It was wonderful to see her and her daughter.

Nolan cuteness

New Puppy pic..

Her name is Daisy. She comes home Friday.

New Baby

We have been considering a family dog for a few years. Until now we have researched for what kind would work for us , but really could not commit. Now, we have... here's our newest member, well she will be the end of May. We haven't decided on a name yet. The kids are arguing over who will help out with what..but Ben and I are committed even if the kids slack off..she's a Boston Terrier. Please comment with name ideas..so far Ben likes Ducky, I think I like Cocoa or Cinnamon....others are Ruby, Chili, Spicy, Gabby, and Valentine (we like that one too).

Funny Pictures of Me

Funny pics of me in 7th or 8th grade. My booke report was on Duran Duran, I am john Taylor in the pic. The second pic I am in a striped sweater and some super hip dangly gold earrings. Excellent.

Truly amazing

This is a link to an amazing blog. there are so many people in need in the world. This blog offers a glimpse. I found this link through a friend's blog. What a beautiful thing to do all you can to love and nuture others. The Journey . I hope they don't mind my link, but their story is so inspiring.

Great Kids..

Great article by Orson Scott Card. It's actually kinda funny, you have to read all the way to the end.

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason has a manner of teaching children so that all ages can learn at the same time. It's a gentle pleasant and intelligent way. I won't be following her method completely but some things I like. The kids and I are doing nature walks , we go out with our notebooks and collect leaves , flowers, note birds or animals sketch them, tape them in. Them we go home and look them all up and label them in common name, scientific name and anything we like about it. Today was our first go at it..It was super fun. We live near fields full of wildflowers , and vernal pools so they are fun to explore.

We have been entranced with the story of Pecos Bill every night this week, Gabe read the whole thing to us every night. I thought he would tire of it but he really wanted to keep going and loved showing off his many different character voices. We are listening to Paul Bunyan meets Pecos Bill next week.

Homeschooling

After carefully considering everything and looking into stuff. We are going to try CAVA it is California Virtual Academy. I know many people who do home school and I think it would be beneficial to the kids and I would enjoy teaching and learning with the kids. I realize not always but most of the time. Exciting huh. We will start over the summer or fall.

Update..I found some other even more awesome programs. Sutter south is a Charter public homeschool lots of freedom for curriculum. They give you a certain amout for each student to use for their curriculum and classes like violin , sewing, karate etc. There's another called Visions in Education, same idea, a little more supervision, a little less money, a lot more "classes" available. They both sound really fun. I try to keep all informed of what we do and how it's going. I really lie some of the Charlotte Mason style of teaching combined with some Unit study. Pretty exciting.

Romantic Time

Ben and I have been married almost 10 years and we finally spent two whole nights together without kids. We got a chance to go to Lawson's Landing for my 37th birthday. The first night was starry.. we slept like rocks at 7 am sun was shiny.. even though we had the chance to sleep in ..we just couldn't. We did drive all the north to Bodega bay.. into Petaluma for snackies.. then back to hike sand dunes. they are really big...bigger than a 2 story house. Cows are roaming free all over.. pretty cool.We sat at the top then kinda skiied down the dunes. The path back down actually had me walking through a cow pasture.. cow pies all over.. that part was gross. Then we drove up to Shell Beach to look at tide pools.. there we found a nasty sea slug like thing,
Ben calls it a brain. I think I could spend hours looking at anenomes and starfish. We drove back down all the way to Stinson Beach..then went back up to DB , ate at the Dillon's Beach cafe for dinner. We have decided in the future you have no reason to leave DB area except for tide pools, it's all right there. the sunset was beautiful as we ate in the Cafe sunroom..We ended our trip by walking the beach in the dark I'm kinda paranoid that the waves I can't see will get me.. I got over it..then we went back to the chateau. The storm rolled in shortly after.. Pretty awesome hearing a storm on the ocean..
Thanks to all who helped us spend time together..oddly we were bored without the kids. Now we remember why we had so many.

Addison JV Basketball pro

I'll try to figure out how to post the pdf file picture but his team did great!

"

Addison’s picture was in the paper this week with the JV Basketball Team. They won

Region. I am sure you can tell but just in case – Addison is to the right of the boy holding the

trophy in front.

The final score was 50-48…..it was a GOOD game!

Great job Addison!

Binder , I love you!!!

Some of you may remember my labor of love control binder. Afttr all that work , and moving, it sat outdated and lonely. Things get to a boiling point of mess , appointments etc so I dusted it off, updated all my information and calenders.
I thought I would share some sites I found . The cool one with personalized photo calenders you can print is calendars quick I did pay the 9.00 but it's amazing, has menus, calenders etc.. then there's my other favorite momadgenda.com . Many excellent free printables there.. and they are pretty. You can buy a nice folder that they put together too. My favorite is the one I have pictures of here.

Grandmother

I don't have much going on on my side of the family tree. There weren't many people at the start and those few people were not very close. In my immediate family there is Me , my Mom and Dad, Stepfather , sister, stepmother and her 2 kids. I really never saw my father, maybe 5 or 6 times while I was young.I lived with my mom sister and stepfather. I haven't seen my sister in 3 years or so, my mother in about 8. My Mother's mom passed in 2006. Her father in 1987. My Father's Mom passed in 1951, great news story there. My grandfather passed in 1956 or so. Neither was 40. I have heard so many things about my father's mother and her untimely passing. It has been so wonderful to dig into who she was. Someone has uploaded yearbooks to Ancestry.com She was very active in school clubs like Journalism and writing. She has the same smile that I thought was a goof up until now. She's perfect! I was in Journalism in high school, and when I entered college as a freshman it was to be a journalist. Fascinating.

Sonoma Coast

We packed up Saturday morning and headed to the coast. We found a hotel, and headed west. We got there in time to buy some taffy and watch the sunset. The bedding was all down and white, 6 pillows. We played card games watched spongebob took exceptional showers ate pizza, then slept. Free continental breakfast was included for us all which was really muffins , croissants, juice , cocoa, oatmeal granola.. you get the idea. We ate at the restaurant from " The Birds". We drove up to about the end of Sonoma county on 1 , I think . We decided to check out each of the beaches on the way back down to Dillon's. The day started warm and not breezy. We headed to Dillon's around noon, we tried to find "the villa" but no luck. We then played in sand dunes and in the waves for a few hours. We would have flown kites but it began to rain hard. We headed back home, exhausted and satisfied. We always feel closer after trips, kids like each other more and we don't have to clean non stop. It was really nice.

9 Years

Today marks our 9th year of marriage. Almost half of a great man's life so far has been spent in dedication to his family. He has never doubted what he shoud do or questioned if his own needs were being met. I hope I am sucessfully meeting them. I promise to do better for the next 9.

Thank you for:

• Always wanting to be with me.
• Sharing the church with me
• wanting a family with me
• working 15 hour days for 5 years and never complaining
• wanting me to stay home with our children
• supporting all my crazy whims
• loving my nuttiness
• being so good to our children
• taking beautiful pictures of everything
• always saying I'm beautiful even at times when I clearly am not.
• buying us a home
• laughing when i do dumb things

I owe you so much. Thank you for the flowers too

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Whew!

Well, We got a new job, same great pay.. not much different. well except it's a new job and we are happy. Ben starts tomorrow.

More Inspiration

I listen to NPR I love it. So many random things on there. There was an interview with Dina Vierny, Model And Muse For Art's Masters. She is now 89. Full of wit and fire. Henri Matisse made drawings of her, with spare, pure lines. Aristide Maillol sculpted her in bronze. I listened intently to the little interview.

What struck me possibly just for the timing of the statement , not it's novelty was, "You must search for happiness in your life, don't get discouraged. Look ahead with hope." she said it in English, though she spoke mostly french. Lovely.

Maybe it's good timing for someone else as well, so I thought I'd share.