Hi baby!

I have given up on keeping our kids names straight and so I just call everyone, "baby". As evidenced yesterday:

Seth walks into the TV room. He sees Sam on the green loveseat. "Hi baby" he says. Nonchalantly, Sam replies, "Hi baby."

And for some reason, I thought this was hilarious! Guess you had to be there.

More weight loss

WW is having a free trial week, so I am officially online with WW! It seems good so far, except that yesterday was only day 2 and I got pretty sick. This resulted in some super-fast weight loss (method not recommended:). Today, I haven't felt like eating too much, so that kept my points down and I had plenty left to eat my lite ice cream tonight. Yummo!

I love the "recipe builder" on the site, which lets you plug in your recipe and it tells you the points for each serving. So cool!

I am happy to have such good friends that are supportive and helpful and inspiring. Anyone that wants to join me, please do! Sara, I can't wait to hear about your efforts!

Weight Loss

I believe the wasps are coming in from attic through the ducts. Thanks, Candi! Now I am calling the Terminix guy again and having him go up there. Ugh.

Changing the subject, I think I want to join Weight Watchers. Too many unwanted pounds. I went clothes shopping on Saturday and didn't like how anything fit. I realized that I didn't like my body. I have felt very out of control with eating these days and it will only get worse as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas get closer!

Some of my friends are losing lots of weight with WW and I think being accountable to someone else is really good for me. I have done this before, but always got pregnant and gained it all back and then some. As we are taking a break from pregnancies:), I think it's time to reclaim my body. I understand it will be slow going, but I think I can do it. I am ready to commit! The overall goal is losing 21 pounds and staying there.

Wasps

About this time in the year, most people don't have to worry about wasps, right? Well, some of us do. They are IN our house!!!! I keep finding them on our sliding glass doors in our family room. They are totally lethargic, which is good but we have found SO MANY! And we cannot figure out where they are coming from. Has anyone had this problem? The Terminix guy was no help. I hope we can figure this out. It's fairly creepy!

Polaris Press: Pickle Day and some Family Randomness

Today we went on a tour of our local Pickle Factory. The kids enjoyed seeing the workers fish pickles out of tubs with a big net but they didn't like the smell. They did like the treats they got to pick out at the end:) They picked candy, I picked a jar of Cinnamon Apple Pickle Chunks. Yummo!!

The weather is so beautiful and I am hoping it sticks around tomorrow. I just remembered a hiking trail that Grandpa was telling us about and thought this would be the perfect time of year to enjoy it. So tomorrow, that will be part of our school day.

Linda is giving the kids piano lessons and I LOVE it! I LOVE that Levi is excited to play the piano and that he can now play duets with me and George. It is so much fun!

I am thankful that I am homeschooling. Today is was BEAUTIFUL outside and I just let kids play all afternoon. We finished our schooling in the morning and enjoyed the outdoors. Yay for homeschool!

Makeover

I am thirty-one and I feel like it. Lately I have been noticing wrinkles and gray hairs. So, a couple of weeks ago I got a trendy haircut (of course, it was more trendy when she styled it) and last week, at a business kickoff meeting for Becca and Brock, I won a gift of my choice, which was an assortment of makeup.

So, this morning, I decided it was time to put it all to use. I did my hair and makeup! I took this picture, but you can't really tell that I am all decked out. Oh well. The whole process was pretty funny. Throughout the time of "beautification", I had to

• hold one foot on the toilet seat so the baby couldn't open it and play in the water
• pull toilet paper repeatedly off of my bare foot because, since the baby couldn't play in the poo water, he went for the next best thing, the toilet paper
• unwrap the straight iron cord from around baby's neck ( I was right there...I still don't know how he did that!)
• take the tube of toothpaste and hide it
• repeatedly tell Sam not to lock his brother out of any rooms in the house
  

I guess my point is, "Was it worth it?" The only person I want to get "dolled up" for is George, and he was gone for that next eight hours. By the time he got home, I am sure I looked the same as I always do...a bit frazzled! I just hope the homeschool moms at the Y were impressed by the fact that I am not ALWAYS frumpy:)

Polaris Press: Columbus Day

Today, we woke up sick. Everyone was achy and feverish and I thought, "Eh, it's a holiday, we'll just skip school." But around noon, everyone kind of picked up so I had to think fast. I got online and found Columbus Day activities and we learned about Christopher Columbus and built little tiny boats out of the bottom of a styrofoam egg carton and toothpicks. :) Then, they sailed the ocean blue! Here are the pics from our activity...Sam REALLY likes to play in water. Well, they all do. It was fun!

Sam was in charge of making waves:)

Our "ocean blue"

Captain Levi and the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria

Polaris Press: Pumpkin Decorating

I have to laugh when I see things like this. When your child goes to public school, do they come home with things like this? No, they do not. And I will tell you why. Because your wonderful teachers are completely prepared with cute cutouts, coordinating colors, shapes that make sense with the theme and probably an example of what the project should or could look like in the end. Well, in homeschool, I am just not that good and I LOVE it! Becca and I put random things out on the table to decorate the pumpkins with. After saying things like, "Do you really want to use that? or Don't you think this might be better?" we decided to zip it and let the kids do what they wanted. Here are the results from my kids:

1. A pink eyed, crazy mouthed, half head of hair pumpkin with a santa hat
2. A cyclops with stickers all over his face and some weird birthmarks on his forehead
   
3. A pirate hatted pink eyed, rock eared, button mouth cutie pumpkin (This one at least had body parts that were recognizable...Becca was helping Sam)
   

It's much more fun to do all these things with friends (except you HAVE to make sure that no chokeable things get on to the floor so no babies have problems:) It just adds to the excitement!

Dekalb County Fair

Need I say more?

Honey Extracting with Grandma and Grandpa

Geo's dad keeps bees. He got them for an early birthday present last year and is SO excited about them. The kids have become the same. It has been fun to watch. A couple of weeks ago, they harvested their first batch of honey. We got to help and the kids were in heaven! Well, they always are when they get to help Grandma and Grandpa:) Here are some pictures of the "helpers" and the beekeeper. Thanks Harry and Linda!

Polaris Press: F is for Fall and Field Trips!

Solomon Farm Festival

Playing horseshoes at the farm

This was a log splitter that was very loud and kept the attention of my boys forever!

I really wanted that cute picture of all the kids around and in the midst of the beautiful pumpkins, but I was SO DONE by this point, this is the photo we got:)

This was wheat that they the kids watched them separate (I don't know the right word) and Natalie ate the wheat kernels by the handfuls. This older lady kept telling her, "Just put some in your pocket for later" about 5 times, so she did. It was pretty funny:)

This was a cute tractor being pulled by tractor ride that the kids loved.

We had a really nice time, but I wished I hadn't been by myself...I was EXHAUSTED by the end. We also spent lots of time in the petting zoo part of the festival, tried to walk on stilts, and rode on a hay ride. Seth was not a fan of the hay! The kids did well, though, and we were able to stay for a long time. I love fall festivals!

This week at Polaris Academy

Had a very enjoyable day today decorating pumpkins and thinking and planning fall stuff with Becca. What a great fall activity! I love fall! The food is so yummo, the leaves are beautiful and I like the weather when it's cool and dry (not like the all day rain happening now!). Fall brings on the Holidays and I LOVE that!

This week was animal habitats. I am glad we bumped that study up so we could go to the zoo before it closed! Next week is community helpers and a pickle factory tour! Cool.

I am meeting with some math difficulty. Levi is struggling and I am not sure how to help him. Natalie is just as quick doing sums as he and he really hates that. I am going to do some research and see what other programs might be helpful for him. The last thing I want to do is turn him off to math.

Thanks to George, we have now started a scripture a day program. Well, not quite a scripture a day, but close. The kids read it many times and copy it extremely neatly. This has been fun for them and they even memorized John 14:15! Fun stuff!