A New Blessing from God

God has blessed my family much. We have a house just big enough for my family. We fit in just perfect. All our bills our paid and we never go with out food. That is more to say than a lot of people. We also have a daughter who loves God at the tender age of three. She has more than she could ever what. More than that we have been able to take three kids great kids each summer. Now because of things I will not talk about right now. We are going to have Mr. Man the oldest of the three come stay with us for a year or two. We look forward to the joy and learning that will happen for our whole family as we add a fourteen year old boy to our family.  We are counting to the days until March 20th as this is the day he will come. I look forward to sharing what I learn from this great young man. Remember all God has given you and share what you can with others.

A Christian Wife: It is all about them

There were days I felt lots in the craziness of being a wife and mom. I felt that I needed more. I needed someone to meet my wants. I want to sit around and do nothing after work. I wanted to be able to be worry free and tell some else to clean the house. I wanted to have Sweet Dude fix everything for me and make me happy. I wanted it to be all about me. Then I read Proverbs 14:1 A wise women strengthens her family but a foolish women destroys hers by what she does. Then it hit me. I need to be a women who cares for her family more than myself. I need to be a women who does things t o bring her family together. If that means I do the cleaning and being the one worrying and my wants don't always get meet; so be it. I need to trust God. He made me the wife the glue to keep my family together. I have seen families fall part because the women wasn't the glue. I don't want that to happen to family. So as I say I need to be the glue or as it is in Proverbs I need to strengthen my family everyday. What are some ways we can strengthen our families?

Goals Update for Feburary

This month I was sick and didn't do much of anything. First I puled a muscle which hurt so bad I went to the doctor. I was told to rest. That got better and then I went and got a cold. Yeah for me:(. Any how here is my update

1. I want my house to be cleaner today than yesterday. I chose to word it this way because it will be easy to succeed. If I tell myself I need to clean a lot I do nothing but if I start small most often I will clean more. Most days my house was about the same as yesterday. Not much cleaner and some days much messier. I need to do some real cleaning now that I am feeling better.
2. Join Bible Study. After moving from California I have gotten farther and farther away from God. So finding a good Bible study I thought would be a good step in getting close to God again. I love Coffee Break and though I missed this week I can't wait to go next week.
3. Read though the Bible this year. I have a great book called the Life Journal that I am using. I started at the end of last year. What a blessing reading the Bible with a guide has been. This is one thing I keep up great with.
4. Teach Girlygirl more. I do a lot with Girlygirl but after my summer kids left this last summer. I got very sad after hearing more of their story back home and not having a choice but to send them back there. Well, you can see I did no Tot School this month but Girlygirl did lots of learning. She loves to write letters (through hard for her), cutting and gluing. We read a lot because I didn't want to move around much. I hope to do much better on this in March.
5. Help Mr. Man learn how to live a productive live. This is a new one. I will post soon about Mr. Man but he is coming to live with me. His home life has been hard for him. I got the paper to sign him up for school. I have also read some books about teens and how to help children in school. He will come here this month so the real work will begin.

Here is to a new month and doing better. Now time to get up and make it all happen.

Goals for the New Year

I have made four goals for the new year. I have never done it before but I have decide I need a plan to get out of the funk I have been in. So far it is working good. I was not going to share my goals but have decide to because I'd like to keep a record of how I do. More than that if I know if I need to tell someone (any one who is out there) how I am doing I will feel like I need to keep it up. So here are my goals and how the first month went.

1. I want my house to be cleaner today than yesterday. I chose to word it this way because it will be easy to succeed. If I tell myself I need to clean a lot I do nothing but if I start small most often I will clean more. January was a great everyday but two my house was cleaner than the day before. Now at the end of the month my house is cleaner than it has been in a long time.
2. Join Bible Study. After moving from California I have gotten farther and farther away from God. So finding a good Bible study I thought would be a good step in getting close to God again. My good friend has been asking me to go to Coffee Break with her for a long time. I had lots of reasons I couldn't go. But I started at the new year and love it. (thanks Amy for not giving up on my)
3. Read though the Bible this year. I have a great book called the Life Journal that I am using. I started at the end of last year. I have read more days than not and I really love the look at the Bible.
4. Teach Girlygirl more. I do a lot with Girlygirl but after my summer kids left this last summer. I got very sad after hearing more of their story back home and not having a choice but to send them back there. After do the first three things this has just happened. I will be posting in tot school again soon.

There are my goals for 2010. I look forward to sharing with you guys how I do and what happens.

Can I have an Affordable trip to Disney World?

Sweetdude and I and been talking about take Girlygirl to Disney before she was born. She will be three next year and we hope to go in December of 2009 or before if they have a good deal. We are trying to do it with only using cash. This will be new for us. All our vacations have been put on credited cards that we are just now paying off. So in hopes of making it without adding debt I have already started planning how we can make the trip affordable.

My first step was making a bank to save money in. To do this I cleaned out and old apple sauce. I placed the lid on and cut a hole that a quarter can fit though. I then hot glued the lip on. I put Disney stickers on the front to help Girlygirl understand as she helps save money. I put $25 a week in the jar and all my change. Girlygirl puts $0.25 a week in the jar too. I want her to help save so has something invested in the trip too.

My next plan is to go when they are have a good deal or better yet win a trip. I have found a great web site called mousesavers.com. On it they keep an up to date list of what deals Disney is having at both Disney World and Disney Land in California. I look there often. Right now the have a great deal and I almost did it but then I would have had to stop my debt free trip. In order to get the best deal we are trying to be flexible in looking for a good deal any time from the fall of 2009 to early 2010. By not having a set date we want to go we hope to be able to find the best deal. I saw that ABC new in Chicago was giving a trip away so I signed up to win one. I plan to look for more ways to win a trip but not getting my hopes up.

We are also staying flexible with how we get there. We are not sure if it will be cheaper to fly or drive so we are just waiting to see what the prices are when we know the date we will go. If do fly it will because we saved money doing so. I have found lots of other tips. Be posting them soon. I just have run out of time today. If you are going to Disney World too I hope you enjoy your trip. And come back soon for more tips.

I need a Scedule

Over the summer I had my life planned out every minute of everyday I knew what I needed to do. When the Big Kids went home I thought I no longer need that. Well I guess I was wrong. I have been getting nothing done and just living in a funk. So I have learned I need a plan. Even if just a basic one to keep my life moving a long. To do this. I have done a few things. I made a list of jobs for each day Monday-Friday to keep up with the house work. I also got a pocket calender to keep in with me all times. I put sticky note paper in it so I can write done what I need to do. I will keep you updated on how this is working for me. Or if I don't know it is not going to good.

Mommy Time!

I have to been taking care of 5 kids all summer long. Let me tell you on the days I don't give me time to do what I want no one is happy. So a few times a day I have the kids do something that I can have me time. Here is what the kids do that gives me my time:

• tv-In the morning right after we get to work all the kids can watch tv. They do not always do it but they know for that hour I get a break. 
• quite time-most my kids are too big for a nap. We all do quite time in the afternoon. For an hour and half after lunch. The first 30 min I am getting Girlygirl down for a nap and cleaning up lunch.
• early bed time-When Mr. Man and Tomboy first got here I thought it would be good to let them stay up until 9 or 10. I soon saw I need that time for me.

There is nothing wrong with taking time for you. Sometimes I clean sometimes I read sometimes I blog. It is good for me.

Car Games

In two short weeks I will be driving Tomboy and Mr Man home. I can't believe it. It will be hard to say goodbye to these guys and send them back home. With driving them home I will be in the car from Chicago to Dertio. That is a drive with a boy who has ADHD. I am sure we will do lots of the things from that I wrote about in the claiming your car back post but I fear I will need more. So today I have been looking for idea. I like to write them here to keep them safe when I need them again.

• Games

1. Buried Your Cows-You slept the care in the midle long ways. Esch side counts all the cows one their side.  However if the other side see a cemetery on their side they call "Bury your cows", then you lose all your cows. The team with the most cows when you get home wins.
2. Copy Me-Each player takes turns making a gesture. You must repeat all the gestures that have been made and then add your own. Eg. player one squeezes their nose. Then player two squeeze their nose and pats their head. The third player squeeze their nose, pat their head and add something new. Keep going until a person messes up.
3. Find 100-everyone needs to look for 100 of pick anything. Trees, trucks, cows, buses, ect. Work as a team to find 100 of whatever you pick.
4. The Queen's Cat- This sounds like a great game. Each person takes turn descripeing the Queen's Cat. It must go in alpabetical order.  
5. Three Words only- tell a story with each person only saying three words at a time. For instance, person one word say "I knew a" person two would add "tiger that could" person three could say "only walk like" and then go on until all are done with the story
6. Related words-take turns saying a work that is related to the last word said. For example words could be hot, cold, ice, tea, sweet, girl, ect going on until all are ready to stop.

Learning with ADHD

I need a new plan for when Mr. Man comes back from boyscout camp. He will be gone all week that gives the girls a break and me time to think. I have been reading stuff on line and will be writing down what I needed to do to help him have a better time. Mr. Man is just staying with me for 2 weeks after camp before going back home. I thing I wish would never happen but that is a story for another time. Mr. Man's mom doesn't like the meds so he has none. He needs them. My goal is to give him a fun summer and teach him how to act. It has been harder than I thought. Now on to the planning:

• have a clear plan each day
• keep him near me most the time
• have him look at me when I talk
• have him say what I said back
• break up big task into smaller ones
• each morning have him write a to do list
• in same book have him write 5 good things he did each day
• allow him to do something as I talk *
• put up blockers when need: he doesn't need to hear or see what others are doing
• remember the good
• find was he doesn't have to write+
• break up the sitting time 15 min working 15 min playing
• keep work with one thing at time writing spelling math are not one thing and try not to make them.

*He may have a hard time just listening and be able to hear and understand what is going on better if he can do something else. Have silly putty, Lego's, block, make art, anything to keep his hands and moving so his ears can listen still have him respond to things from time to time. I know one thing I said is have him look at me this may work too. I am just trying this out here +Don't make him write down his answers with pen and paper use a white broad, stamps, chalk board, letter magnets, ect.

more for me

I think I don't really know what to write about that people want to read. Plus I am not a writer and become over whelmed with the thought of writing for others. So for now I will just write the things I am learning about. I know to some it may seem odd but I love to look around for great new things to learn. I was never good at school and I still don't like school much but now that I am big (25). I like to find new things to learn and spend lots of time on that one thing. Right now that I home schooling. Because girllygirl is so young right now I spend lots of time trying to figure what to do in her preschool years. So to keep track of all my thoughts I will be putting them here. If  you found me this may help you too. If not thanks for looking and I am sure there will be lots of other stuff. But again this is going to be kind of like my file place at least for now.