Friday, March 30, 2012

3/30/12 written Monday 3/26/12 shoes and bikes...

We have been putting our shoes on the trays on the floor in the kitchen for a while. Any shoes that do not fit on someones tray must go to the basement shoe shelf. It has been working really well. William and Maggie are each keeping one pair of shoes on their tray. I have three pairs and Beth has a stack. Beth has them balanced very well. It has really helped a lot to have the kitchen floor cleaner.


We got William's bike back today. It needed two new inner tubes and a lining that prevents the spokes from going through the inner tubes. Some broken spokes were also fixed.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

3/28/12 written Sunday 3/25/12 cont. flowers and Legos...

We bought some wild flower seeds this weekend to go in the front of the house. These are perennial, so they should come back every year. We got two packs, of two different wild flower mixes. Once we mix them together, there should be a lot of color in the front yard.

Beth helped to set up the Lego League contest at her school this year. It is where groups of younger kids come to her school with remote control robots. They have the robots do things like push Legos from one area to another or pick up Legos and move them to another area. The Legos that they move aren't single Legos, but they are built into specific things, like chickens. The principle asked her if she wanted to come to the school over the summer to work with the Lego league. She and Maggie are also on the mission trip and have their Zoo Teen interview this weekend. She might be able to be in all of it, we don't know how the hours will work out yet.


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

3/27/12 written Sunday 3/25/12 weekend accomplishments...

A lot was accomplished on my list of extra things to do, this weekend. I usually can't say that. Willaim's bike had two flat tires and it squeaked. It went in to be looked at. The sewing machine went in to be looked at. The Christmas shopping was started. We now have one stocking stuffer. Maggie needed dominoes for her science project. We have the dominoes now.

I am hoping that next week is quiet. Maggie wants to ride the unicycle. Every time that she goes out, it starts to rain.


Monday, March 26, 2012

3/26/12 written Wednesday 3/21/12 cont. science class...

In Maggie's science class they need to invent something. The example that they gave was if you wanted to open a door, instead of opening it by the handle, their invention might have marbles rolling down a tube, hitting a toy car that bumps into books that fall over that somehow opens the door. It is called a "rube Goldberg machine" I think. The kids have two weeks to design and build this. They are working in pairs. Maggie and the girl that she is working with are going to invent a way to get hand sanitizer out of the bottle.


Sunday, March 25, 2012

3/25/12 written Wednesday 3/21/12 cont. games...

When I picked up Beth from school, they were outside. They had two boards about six feet long. Each board had four blocks of wood nailed to the top of them, and four ropes attached to them, each rope was by the blocks. Four kids stand on the board, like the boards are skis, with one foot on each board, all facing the same direction. Their feet are up against the blocks of wood. The object is to lift their right foot at the same time and move the board forward. Then they all move the left board forward. They had a girls team and a boys team. When someone fell off of the board, they had to take the boards back to the starting line. One person on each team called out "one, two, three, right, one two, three, left...". Then they could all move together.


The second game they played, I couldn't hear the instructions. They had big blocks of different heights. Some were about five inches high, and some were about ten inches high. The blocks were in a circle about a foot apart. The kids were each given a little piece of paper and they had to move to other blocks. They had to pass each other without falling off of the blocks.

The third game that they had was a string wall. They must have played this game first, I didn't see them use it. It is two metal poles about five feet high and about six feet apart. There is a string tied between them at the top and at about one foot from the ground. Between the poles and the string, more string is tied to make openings of different sizes. There were seven openings, so each team had seven people. The object is to have everyone go through a different opening, without touching the string.The openings are different sizes and at different heights. To get to the upper openings the kids can be picked up, use chairs, use the blocks to stand on, etc. Whatever the kids can think of.

The kids like these games, they need to work together and think to play them.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

3/22/12 written Wednesday 3/21/12 "Hamlet"...

Maggie is reading "Hamlet" in English class. They just finished "Mid Summers Night's Dream" and "Animal Farm". She didn't talk much about the other two books, but she talks all of the time about "Hamlet". Before the class started reading the book, Maggie found the cliff notes on the computer and she got the book from the bookstore. This book has the story in Shakespeare's words on one side of the page, and a translation on the other side of the page. She found a "Hamlet" comic book on the Internet. She has printed it, punched holes in each page and numbered the pages. She is now coloring in the characters with colored pencils. It is so hard to find what will spark a child's interest. "Hamlet" has sparked Maggie.


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

3/21/12 written Tuesday 3/20/12 spring cleaning and ice skating...

I made out a list of jobs that needed to be done for our spring cleaning. It is written in my little notebook, so I won't need to rewrite it again next year. The list is longer than I expected it to be.


The girls are now signed up for ice skating lessons. William won't go to lessons, but he will go with us to open skate. It starts in a couple of weeks. This session is four lessons. The next session after this is in the fall when the kids go back to school. It is an indoor rink, so we can go to open skate all year.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

3/20/12 written Sunday 3/18/12 unicycle...

We got the unicycle out on Saturday. The kids were so surprised. They pumped up the tire. William was thrilled to see it, but he said that he would ride it later and went back inside. Beth was all dressed up for St Patrick's Day and said that she would ride it later. Maggie did ride the unicycle. We have a chain link fence in the backyard by the driveway. Maggie rode there. Maggie said that she didn't want to take it into the front yard, where there is no fence, until she was sort of steady on it. Then the neighbors wouldn't see her falling over. I tried it too. It is tough but do-able. It was a bigger work out than I had imagined. On a bike you need to balance to keep from falling over sideways. On a unicycle, you need to not fall over sideways or forward or backward. Maggie and I practiced for about an hour. We need at least two more unicycles so that when the kids get their balance and don't need to hold onto the fence, they can ride together.


Monday, March 19, 2012

3/19/12 written Friday 3/16/12 Maggie's web site...

Maggie's website is due tonight.Changes must be done before midnight. She showed her website to the teacher today and he said that it was not right. Maggie had done a lot of quoting and footnoting . The teacher said that she couldn't have any quoting. The whole website had to be in her words. She has to re-type the whole website tonight. Maggie has the "deer in the headlights" look.


Sunday, March 18, 2012

3/18/12 written Thursday 3/15/12 cont. lightning, homework and magnetics..

There is lightning everywhere in the sky. There is no thunder, the sky just keeps lighting up.


Maggie's paper is due on Monday, but her project, the website is due tomorrow. the website will be locked out at ten pm tomorrow. No changes can be made after that. Maggie may stay up late to work on it.

We have out two Easter decorations. Little trees that sit on the dining room table, with Easter ornaments hanging from them.The trees must be magnetic because the kids have started hanging magnetics from them.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

3/17/12 written Thursday 3/15/12 unicycle...

We now have a unicycle. It was on www.craigslist.com. There were two more listed, but when I called no one answered. This one is about the correct height for us. It needs the tire pumped but it looks in good shape. I put it in the chicken coop so that the kids won't see it yet. Maggie has a huge paper due this week and I don't want to pull her thoughts away from the paper. I would like to get another unicycle. 





Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Wednesday 3/14/12 birthdays and gardens...

Beth and the boy that she likes have reorganized the calander so that all of the holidays fall during the school year. They celebrated his birthday last month and are celebrating her birthday this month. I think that they celebrated her birthday, on her birthday too. Maybe they are celebrating them multiple times a year.


Our garden from last year has sprouted. All of the plants from last year were annuals, but maybe because we had such a mild winter, some of the plants are sprouting. I had really wanted time off from the garden this year, but if it all sprouts, we will have a garden. We have a drip hose that we can set up to do the watering and we can mulch it really well. The tomato plants can go out into the middle of the yard so that they can be in the drip line too.

The garlic is two or three inches high. It needs mulched because we won't be able to mow the grass that is around it.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Tuesday 3/13/12 Bible, homework and catch...

Beth gave her friend at school the Bible yesterday. It has a bookmark in it so he moved it to the beginning of the book.


Tonight Maggie is doing homework. Her paper/project is now due Monday because they are having proficiency testing this week.She has her website close to being done.

Beth went across the street tonight to her friends house.She took her glove so that they could play catch.

I am ready to start the spring cleaning.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Monday 3/12/12 shoes...

I found trays for us to put our shoes on in the kitchen. We have too many shoes in the kitchen and I needed a way to tell the kids that they can't have shoes all over the kitchen.


The trays are about seven inches by fourteen inches. When I showed the trays to the kids and presented my idea, two bought into the idea and one melted down. The one piled all of their shoes on the tray making sure that if they hung off, some part of the shoe was on the tray. I said, "no, the shoes must be fully on the tray." The shoes were unloaded and all but three pairs were taken to the basement, to go on the shoe shelf.

The kitchen looks much better now and it is safer. It will be easier to mop.



Sunday, March 11, 2012

3/11/12 written Saturday 3/10/12 fixed the car,a new Bible...

Our car is fixed. The brakes and the exhaust are fixed. We can get the oil change next weekend. It is so nice to drive around with the exhaust fixed, everyone doesn't stop and look at us.


We got Beth's friend a Bible. he is new to church. He said that he would like one to read.

It was such a nice day out today. Beth went outside but Maggie had too much homework.William goes out a lot during the week.



Saturday, March 10, 2012

3/10/12 written Thursday 3/8/12 Kitty, matched clothes...

I am hoping to get the car fixed this weekend. It needs the brakes and muffler looked at. It will be so nice to have the muffler fixed. It will be nice to have an anonymous car again.


The weather has been nice all week.

I am really glad that I matched my clothes last weekend. It was so much easier with our cat passing away to have some things done.

Friday, March 9, 2012

3/9/12 written Thursday 3/8/12 We burried our cat today...

I am not normally a sad person, but this has been so sad and so sudden. William dug a hole in the backyard. A foot down he started running into roots. Willaim took out the tree trimmers and the saw to cut the roots.


We wrote on the coffin, it was a cardboard box shaped like a coffin, his name, other names that we had for him, like baby, and wrote out good-buys. We said a prayer for him and put our kitties coffin into the grave. When the dirt was put back, we put bricks over the grave to keep any animals away.

It is really lonely here without him.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

3/8/12 written Wednesday 3/7/12 cont. hope, shoes...

There is a question in this journal about what gives you the most hope? I had to think about the question for a long while. What gives me hope is to see my kids happy about their accomplishments, and when I have a problem that can be solved and I work out a solution. A problem that can't be solved would be if I have to drive somewhere and there is only one way to get there and there is too much traffic. I can't change the location or the traffic. When we have a problem that can be solved, like too many shoes in the kitchen, and we, or I, can find a solution, I begin to have hope of solving other problems.


Today I found plastic trays that can each hold two pairs of shoes. I got four of them. I will tell the kids tomorrow that they can keep as many pairs of shoes as they can fit on their tray in the kitchen. The rest of the shoes must go to the shoe shelf.

I keep three pairs of shoes in the kitchen. one pair each of dress shoes, tennis shoes and sandals. It is so convenient to have them all by the back door. I may have two layers of shoes on my tray.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Wednesday 3/7/12 remembering our cat...

Today was a sad, long day. We thought about our kitty a lot. He was such a good kitty. When we were playing, If he was using his nails, we would say to him "We are not wrestling with our nails today." he would pull his nails back in and keep wrestling with us. He liked to play chase with William, sit on Maggie's book when she studied, and sleep in Lizzie's chair.


I had wanted to wait a short while to get a new cat, but my mom made a good point that it might be a good idea to wait until the kids were back from their mission trip to get a cat. Then the cat could get used to all of us at the same time. This sounds like a good idea to me.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Tuesday 3/6/12 Our cat passed away...

Our cat passed away today. He was fine when we got home. He greets us at the back door. Maggie took him upstairs with her. When he was in the hallway, he lost the use of his back legs. The doctor thought that he might have a blood clot. Our kitty was also breathing heavy even with the oxygen. They thought at the animal hospital that if we took him to other doctors, specialists, he might have only one or two weeks extra to live. Maggie went with me to the hospital. She and I decided to have our kitty put to sleep. It would take him out of his pain. We think that our kitty was about seven years old.


Monday, March 5, 2012

3/5/12 written Sunday 3/4/12 weekend...

It snowed a bit last night. On the grass it is still green with sprinklings of white. It is lightly snowing. I have heard that by tomorrow it will be really warm again.


I wanted to make an extra effort today to get everything ready for next week. last week was such an unneeded struggle. My clothes weren't matched, I hadn't written or typed up my posts for the week. None of my background items were done. Everything went well with the kids, but I spent the whole week setting things up. Today, I am going to get things set-up so that next week goes easier. It seems difficult for me to set things up on the weekend. I need to have a weekday as my set-up day. Maybe that would work better.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

3/4/12 written Saturday 3/3/12 family tree...

We worked on the family tree today. Maggie and Beth wrote family names on paper and cut them out. William put them on the wall with pushpins. The family tree was straight at first. We had kids, parents and grandparents. We have started to add aunts and uncles. William connected all of the names with yarn...connecting the people to their kids and parents. We need to put up pictures of the aunts, uncles and cousins. We need a bigger wall.


We went for a short walk today. It was a little chilly.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Friday 3/2/12 replacing the gas lines...

The city is going to replace all of the gas lines in our neighborhood starting mid March through the end of summer. They are also going to move all of the gas meters that are in peoples houses to outside of their houses. Ours is already outside, so ours won't need to be moved. They plan to dig up the streets and go in all of the yards to replace the pipes up to the meters. The letter said that they would let us know when they would be digging on our street or when there would be an interruption of service. I am not looking forward to the streets being dug up.


Thursday, March 1, 2012

3/1/12 written Wednesday 2/29/12 rolling duffle bags, holidays, family trees and gum project...

Maggie took her rolling duffel bag to school today. She was very happy with it. But...she did say that it was loud and it was hard to roll in the grass. She has now started using the sidewalks.


I went to the store the other day. The stores have out their St. Patricks Day and Easter items. They also have their Valentines Day things on sale.

We got more pushpins so that we could update the family tree in the dining room. When we first started it, it looked cool. Now it just looks wrong. Three pictures tacked up on the wall...in a spot where three pictures without frames wouldn't normally be. We need to add more names and pictures. Then it will start to look like a family tree.

Beth is doing a project for school. They had to pick an invention and do a PowerPoint presentation on it. She chose chewing gum. I think that Beth said that it was invented by a man who was inventing something for rubber tires. He wondered what the rubber would taste like so he put some in his mouth. He realized that if he added flavoring it would be a great product. He called his invention "Black Jack" gum. He was very adventurous with what he would eat.