debhmom3's Xanga

Making A Bloggy Move

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:27:30 GMT

Well, I've moved my blog to blogger. But don't worry, I will still be visiting my blogging Xanga friends. Here is my new address if you want to see what's up with our family. http://humblebeforetheking.blogspot.com
Love,

Debbie

A great momment

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:28:28 GMT

My son can read! Wow. What an exciting thing to see how excited your child is when they read for the first time. I know he didn't have to be reading by now, but he is such an old kindergartener (just turned 6), that he just really, really wanted to. So we did and he read his first "Bob book" today. He was so proud. He cannot wait for daddy to get home to read it to him. (If you read this daddy, sorry if that spoils the surprise for you. )

Our homeschooling year is just going great. I cannot believe we already are in week 6! Wow! And I still have all my hair and my kids are still social.

Hope everyone else's year is going great as well. I still have quite a bit of house stuff to tackle today, so I'm heading out!

Addicted

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:15:39 GMT

I am 88% Addicted to Coffee

Now tell me something I didn't already know.

Back To School

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:26:06 GMT

A large portion of the homeschool community starts back this week. Since we were eager beavers (LOL) we decided to start 3 weeks ago. We're taking today off though, and so is dad so we can have some much needed family time. Sometimes we don't have to "do" anything, it's just wonderful to all be in the same house.

As you are getting back into the swing of things please be sure to visit a blog I am a regular visitor at and check out her back to school giveaway . She is a wonderful woman married to a Marine who is faithfully away giving me the freedom to sit here and write this post. She is holding it all together at home and doing a wonderful job. Visit her and let her know you appreciate her family's sacrifice.

While your at it, visit Amy and tell her the same. She is a dear friend, whose husband is deployed while she herself is an Army Chaplain Candidate while going to school at AGTS. We love her and her precious family and are very proud of them!

So far our school year is going great and we are loving homeschool! Thank you to our soldiers who give me the freedom to educate my children!

Letterboxing

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:36:16 GMT

I was just informed by a friend of a great activity for homescoolers (or anyone) called Letterboxing. Basically it is like geocacheing but instead of "treasure", etc that you find in a cache you have a unique name and rubber stamp for your family. When you find the letterbox, which is a watertight (usually like tupperware) container, you open it to find a journal and a rubber stamp. You record your stamp and family's code name (of your choosing) and then record the stamp from the box in your own journal. We have only been geocaching once and we absolutely loved it. I can't wait to try this out with the kids! For more info, go to www.letterboxing.org !

Happy Schooling! :)

Debbie

Why I Love To Shop Alone

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:54:06 GMT

I just had to post this story that was written in the description area of a listing for a box of Pokemon cards on E-Bay. I'm sure anyone with multiple children can relate to this woman.

I'm selling a bunch of Pokemon cards. Why? Because my kids sneaked them into my shopping cart while at the grocery store and I ended up buying them because I didn't notice they were there until we got home. How could I have possibly not noticed they were in my cart, you ask? Let me explain.

You haven’t lived until you’ve gone grocery shopping with six kids in tow. I would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel, be a contestant on Fear Factor when they’re having pig brains for lunch, or do fourth grade math than to take my six kids to the grocery store. Because I absolutely detest grocery shopping, I tend to put it off as long as possible. There comes a time, however, when you’re peering into your fridge and thinking, ‘Hmmm, what can I make with ketchup, Italian dressing, and half an onion,’ that you decide you cannot avoid going to the grocery store any longer. Before beginning this most treacherous mission, I gather all the kids together and give them “The Lecture“.

“The Lecture“ goes like this…

MOM: “We have to go to the grocery store.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Hey, I don’t want to go either, but it’s either that or we’re eating cream of onion-ketchup soup and drinking Italian dressing for dinner tonight.”

KIDS: “Whine whine whine whine whine.“

MOM: “Now here are the rules: do not ask me for anything, do not poke the packages of meat in the butcher section, do not test the laws of physics and try to take out the bottom can in the pyramid shaped display, do not play baseball with oranges in the produce section, and most importantly, do not try to leave your brother at the store. Again.”

OK, the kids have been briefed. Time to go.

Once at the store, we grab not one, but two shopping carts. I wear the baby in a sling and the two little children sit in the carts while I push one cart and my oldest son pushes the other one. My oldest daughter is not allowed to push a cart. Ever. Why? Because the last time I let her push the cart, she smashed into my ankles so many times, my feet had to be amputated by the end of our shopping trip. This is not a good thing. You try running after a toddler with no feet sometime.

At this point, a woman looks at our two carts and asks me, “Are they all yours?” I answer good naturedly, “Yep!

“Oh my, you have your hands full.”

“Yes, I do, but it‘s fun!” I say smiling. I’ve heard all this before. In fact, I hear it every time I go anywhere with my brood.

We begin in the produce section where all these wonderfully, artistically arranged pyramids of fruit stand. There is something so irresistibly appealing about the apple on the bottom of the pile, that a child cannot help but try to touch it. Much like a bug to a zapper, the child is drawn to this piece of fruit. I turn around to the sounds of apples cascading down the display and onto the floor. Like Indiana Jones, there stands my son holding the all-consuming treasure that he just HAD to get and gazing at me with this dumbfounded look as if to say, “Did you see that??? Wow! I never thought that would happen!”

I give the offending child an exasperated sigh and say, “Didn’t I tell you, before we left, that I didn’t want you taking stuff from the bottom of the pile???”

“No. You said that you didn’t want us to take a can from the bottom of the pile. You didn’t say anything about apples.”

With superhuman effort, I resist the urge to send my child to the moon and instead focus on the positive - my child actually listened to me and remembered what I said!!! I make a mental note to be a little more specific the next time I give the kids The Grocery Store Lecture.

A little old man looks at all of us and says, “Are all of those your kids?”

Thinking about the apple incident, I reply, “Nope. They just started following me. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

OK, now onto the bakery section where everything smells so good, I’m tempted to fill my cart with cookies and call it a day. Being on a perpetual diet, I try to hurry past the assortment of pies, cakes, breads, and pastries that have my children drooling. At this point the chorus of “Can we gets” begins.

“Can we get donuts?”

“No.”

“Can we get cupcakes?”

“No.”

“Can we get muffins?”

“No.”

“Can we get pie?”

“No.”

You’d think they’d catch on by this point, but no, they’re just getting started.

In the bakery, they’re giving away free samples of coffee cake and of course, my kids all take one. The toddler decides he doesn’t like it and proceeds to spit it out in my hand. (That’s what moms do. We put our hands in front of our children’s mouths so they can spit stuff into them. We’d rather carry around a handful of chewed up coffee cake, than to have the child spit it out onto the floor. I’m not sure why this is, but ask any mom and she’ll tell you the same.) Of course, there’s no garbage can around, so I continue shopping one-handed while searching for someplace to dispose of the regurgitated mess in my hand.

In the meat department, a mother with one small baby asks me, “Wow! Are all six yours?”

I answer her, “Yes, but I’m thinking of selling a couple of them.”

(Still searching for a garbage can at this point.)

Ok, after the meat department, my kids’ attention spans are spent. They’re done shopping at this point, but we aren’t even halfway through the store. This is about the time they like to start having shopping cart races. And who may I thank for teaching them this fun pastime? My seventh “child”, also known as my husband. While I’m picking out loaves of bread, the kids are running down the aisle behind the carts in an effort to get us kicked out of the store. I put to stop to that just as my son is about to crash head on into a giant cardboard cut-out of a Keebler elf stacked with packages of cookies.

Ah! Yes! I find a small trash can by the coffee machine in the cereal aisle and finally dump out the squishy contents of my hand. After standing in the cereal aisle for an hour and a half while the kids perused the various cereals, comparing the marshmallow and cheap, plastic toy content of each box, I broke down and let them each pick out a box. At any given time, we have twenty open boxes of cereal in my house.

As this is going on, my toddler is playing Houdini and maneuvering his little body out of the seat belt in an attempt to stand up in the cart. I’m amazed the kid made it to his second birthday without suffering a brain damaging head injury. In between trying to flip himself out of the cart, he sucks on the metal bars of the shopping cart. Mmmm, can you say “influenza”?

The shopping trip continues much like this. I break up fights between the kids now and then and stoop down to pick up items that the toddler has flung out of the cart. I desperately try to get everything on my list without adding too many other goodies to the carts.

Somehow I manage to complete my shopping in under four hours and head for the check-outs where my kids start in on a chorus of, “Can we have candy?” What evil minded person decided it would be a good idea to put a display of candy in the check-out lanes, right at a child’s eye level? Obviously someone who has never been shopping with children.

As I unload the carts, I notice many extra items that my kids have sneaked in the carts unbeknownst to me. I remove a box of Twinkies, a package of cupcakes, a bag of candy, and a can of cat food (we don’t even have a cat!). I somehow missed the box of Pokemon cards however and ended up purchasing them unbeknownst to me. As I pay for my purchases, the clerk looks at me, indicates my kids, and asks, “Are they all yours?”

Frustrated, exhausted from my trip, sick to my stomach from writing out a check for $289.53, dreading unloading all the groceries and putting them away and tired of hearing that question, I look at the clerk and answer her in my most sarcastic voice, “No. They’re not mine. I just go around the neighborhood gathering up kids to take to the grocery store because it’s so much more fun that way.”

So, up for auction is an opened (they ripped open the box on the way home from the store) package of Pokemon cards. There are 44 cards total. They're in perfect condition, as I took them away from the kiddos as soon as we got home from the store. Many of them say "Energy". I tried carrying them around with me, but they didn't work. I definitely didn't have any more energy than usual. One of them is shiny. There are a few creature-like things on many of them. One is called Pupitar. Hee hee hee Pupitar! (Oh no! My kids' sense of humor is rubbing off on me!) Anyway, I don't there's anything special about any of these cards, but I'm very much not an authority on Pokemon cards. I just know that I'm not letting my kids keep these as a reward for their sneakiness.

Thought for the Day

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:09:56 GMT

"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess".....Martin Luther

Blessings to my friends and family. I am thinking of you all today and praying for you......

Love,

Debbie

A Must Read

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:38:05 GMT

If you are in need of a good laugh you must check out Holy Mamas blog. Ah, that was just what I needed today.

And BTW, we start school next week! Yippee! Wish us luck! :) Not that I believe in luck anyway....;)

What's for Dinner?

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:06:24 GMT

Here is a great blog that hosts "Menu Plan Monday"

It's great to see everyone's plans and links to recipes. Sometimes I get great ideas of meals to make out of stuff I already have which I love, love, love to do! I am hoping to get around to participate soon, but in the mean time I wanted to share with all my great bloggy friends who are such a wonderful blessing and encouragement to me!

Thanks gals!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:08:47 GMT

I am so tired of defending our decision to homeschool to our friends and family. Why should I even have to defend myself? These are OUR kids!

Am I QUALIFIED to teach my kids? What makes anyone qualified to teach MY kids, when I'm the one who knows their learning style and actually CARES that they are actually learning? Let me tell you, a six month practicum does not automatically make someone care about my kids more than me.

I think I am just going to start responding to the question : "How will you know they are learning everything they should know?". Response: "Well, since a large percentage of high school children can only read at a 5th grade level, I guess I have plenty to time." or perhaps I will just say "Ah, they got their whole lives to learn to read and write. We're just gonna take it easy and learn them young'uns at our own pace."

Okay, I'm done now. Back to your regular scheduled blog reading.