Monday Meandering- October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!!!!

 

So I feel like every time I get inspired to get the blog back up and flowing everything falls apart!! We have had so much illness in this house since I last posted 2 weeks ago. It started with Jonah, then Micah got horribly sick. It's so hard when a 2 year old without an extensive vocabulary is sick! They can't tell you what they need so all of your time is consumed trying to figure out what you can do to help them and make them comfortable. And then, last Sunday it was my turn. I was fine when I woke up but later in the evening I started feeling like I was dying! My head felt like it was going to explode, my throat was on fire and my ear was aching. I knew I was sick when everything started to make me cry! (I get very weepy when I don't feel good-it's weird, I know!!!) I spent all of last week, with few exceptions on the couch. Thank God for NyQuill, DayQuill, Sudafed, Halls and herbal tea! But this nasty cold virus literally kicked my butt all week long! Yesterday was the first day I started actually feeling like my old self! (I woke up wanting coffee instead of tea so that must mean I felt better! lol) I think maybe we got this all out of our house finally! If it wasn't raining, I'd open the windows today to let those yucky germs to a hike!!! Maybe I will if the rain stops for any point of time today, air out every room for a while! But this is a new week, time for another Monday Meandering over at In Light of the Truth.

Bible Study...  I've been rereading the Left Behind series and it's gotten me into end time prophecy so I think I'm gonna try to tackle Revelations and what it says about the second coming of Jesus.

Memory Verse...  Revelation 5:12 (partial): "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing."

Husband Encouragement...
-plan a date night. It's been a few weeks since we've been out together.
-Be the first to kiss him before he leaves for work and the first to kiss him when he gets home.

-Make sure that I'm dressed and looking nice when he walks in the door. He's seen me a lot in my pajamas lately because I was sick! lol

Train Them Up...

* Make tokens and start a token system for TV and computer time. Brianna and Jonah will each get 4 tokens a day (each representing 30 minutes). When their tokens are gone for the day they get no more TV/Computer time. Left over tokens at the end of the day get put in a jar and can be traded in at the end of the week for money (thinking maybe $0.25 per token). Still debating whether we want them to be able to earn more tokens by doing extra things around the house. Got the two hour limit from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations about screen time for children. All I know is somethings got to change..there is way too much TV/Computer usage going on around here!!

* Family Bible Time: We have really started slacking on this around here so we'll be getting back into a nightly Family Bible time using the kids Bible. We will also have a reading each night from A Picture Book of Saints. We are also working on some new prayers (Come, Holy Spirit and the Evening Prayer)

* Family Night: We haven't had family night for two weeks because of all the sickies floating around. Time to prepare our November lessons/activities. Brianna asks about it every week! She loves Family Night!!

Personal Goals...

- Start eating breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, unless it's on the weekends! Why is that? I grew up eating breakfast. I know how important it is, but I guess I've become a typical adult who equates breakfast with coffee! That needs to change.

- Personal prayer time. I've become a real slacker here also. The boys take a two hour + nap every day. I could be using that time for prayer time but I'm not. Let's see if that can change!!

New Habit of the Month...  Well, my October habit of fully completing a load of laundry before starting another one totally FAILED!!! lol  My habit for November is going to be to get back to using my binder that I made when I was doing FlyLady. My house is starting to fall apart and it's because I'm not FLYing anymore! Time to return to FLYing and using the binder is a crucial part of that! So today I will be getting the binder back in order and getting ready to use it every day!

MUST Do... 

* I went shopping yesterday but forgot to get toilet paper! Ooopps! Gotta do that TODAY!! lol

* Take the kids Trick-or-Treating

* Call Pediatrican and get Jonah's last evaluation form to take to preschool. He can start as soon as I get that to the school.

* Drop off evaluation form and immunization record at the school so Jonah can start preschool. He had an evaluation two weeks ago and we discovered he has some gross and fine motor skill development delays. So he's going to preschool (free through the school system!!) to work on those. The program can last anywhere from 6-8 weeks, or longer if he doesn't make enough progress during that time. 

Zone(s)...Master Bedroom (again!!) Steven did an amazing job this weekend helping me get the house back in shape! The downstairs looks terrific and the kids rooms look pretty good. Our room however, well, anyways! So my zone this week is the Master Bedroom. It will look AMAZING by the end of the week...I am on the war path! lol

Menu -

M - dinner at Steven's grandparents before Trick-or-Treating (chili I think! yum!!)

T - something with chicken, maybe chicken & noodles or chicken and dumplings

W - spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, salad

Th - vegetable soup or beef stew

F - Jonah will be with Steven's dad and I'm hoping the other two will be with Steven's mom so this will probably be date night!

S - My goal this day is to get the kids rooms completely finished (wall paint touch ups, curtains hung, decorations up) so since we'll be busy we will probably do just sandwiches or pizza.

Su - Mom usually plans on the weekends so I don't know!

FUN THINGS!
* Trick-or-Treating with the kids

* First night of play rehearsals for me on Wednesday. We are doing a show with all the nursery rhymes characters this year. It's gonna be really fun! 

* Date night on Friday.

* Family night with the kids, probably Thursday.

3 things I'm thankful for today...

1. That everyone is getting healthy!

2. A husband who is willing to help around the house when I get sick or overwhelmed!!

3. My 8th grade students who are preparing for Confirmation in February. Their curiosity and thirst for knowledge is catching and keeps me on my toes! Please keep them and all students who will be Confirmed this year in your prayers! 

Have a blessed week everyone!!!

Family Night Friday- October Week 2

This week Family Night was a go! We got boo'd Wednesday night so that meant that this week we were going to boo our neighbors. The kids were so excited! Brianna got to choose someone and then Jonah got to choose someone. We started the evening with dinner at one of our favorite places:

After chicken nuggets, a deluxe chicken sandwich and waffle fries (and a little time in the play place, I mean come on, why shouldn't they get to run wild for a while?!?!) we headed off to Target to hit the Dollar Spot. I love the Dollar Spot at Target. We came away with adorable Halloween buckets and lots of fun goodies to put inside them (Halloween socks, glow in the dark wands, axes and necklaces, window clings, etc) We also grabbed some break apart and bake cookies to add to our buckets. We headed to the checkout with buckets ready and families picked out to boo and headed home to bake our cookies.

After putting together our baskets together and baking cookies we headed out into the night to spread the Halloween love!

Jonah holding his bucket, Brianna hers and Micah the bucket we got Boo'd with!

Let's go Boo!!!

I always love watching the kids do stuff like this. It's one of those things that I know they will remember and hopefully carry on with their children one day. Traditions, memories, that's what it's all about. Spending those times together that will build up relationships and show them that at the end of the day it all begins and ends with family. It was just buckets filled with $1 items, but to them it was the best day ever!

After boo'ing we came home to drink hot chocolate, eat cookies and watch Aladdin. (Wouldn't you know this was the one night Brianna could stay up late to watch the movie on Disney Channel since it's fall break and the "Halloween" movie was Aladdin..really!?!?!) I enjoyed listening to them giggle and singing the songs at the top of my lungs. It was a great night! And we enjoyed our time together.

What did you do this week to build up your family? Please share!

Family Night Friday-October Week 1

You know what they say...the best laid plans go astray...well, they totally do! This week I ended up with a very sick child. Jonah started to run a fever on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon it was up to 102.7! He was burning up and miserable and woke up from his nap saying that it hurt to breath! For a mommy with kids with asthma that always says "We are going to the doctor!" Of course, it was late in the day so the doctor couldn't get us in until the after hours clinic opened at 5 pm. I got him to the doctor to find out he had an ear infection (which I never would have suspected because he didn't complain once about his ear!) and either strep or parainfluenza. The doctor decided not to test him for strep because he was already going to prescribe an antibiotic for the ear infection and if it was strep the antibiotic would take care of that too. If it was parainfluenza, which is viral, there was nothing they could do for it anyway. So we left the doctor with a prescription for amoxacillian and went to Wal-Mart to fill it. Luckily Steven had just gotten off of work and met us there so he could take Jonah home (the other two were already at home with my mom) and I wouldn't have to drag a feverish, miserable child through Wal-Mart. Almost an hour later I finally got home. We got a round of antibiotics on board and sat down for dinner. After dinner we were all exhausted, especially Jonah. So we decided to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. So much for my family night plan! But tonight we are leaving to go to my mom's hometown for their Fall Foliage Festival so it'll be  a whole weekend of Family Time! lol  Just goes to show the need to be flexiable! Sometimes your plans work, sometimes they don't! Guess I better start working on our Family Night for next week...if we don't get boo'd we'll be watching Spookley the Square Pumpkin and decorating pumpkins. If we get boo'd we'll be booing our neighbors! Either way, it'll be fun! Have a great weekend!!!

PS...we found our camera! But get this! Our camera card is broken! We slipped it out of the camera and it literally snapped!!! It fit in our computer to get the pictures off but it won't go back in the camera!! I can't believe it! So I have to see if I can find the other card, or go buy one before we hit the road this weekend! The drama never ceases around here I tell ya!!!

Monday Meanderings-October 3, 2011

It's finally October! Oh how I love this month! The changing leaves, the cooler (but not quite cold) weather, football, apples, pumpkin pie, steaming cups of herb tea! Yup, I love this month!!! Time for another Monday Meandering hosted by Sarah over at In Light of the Truth. Come join us!

Bible Study... I have no idea what I want to do this week. I'm thinking maybe I will focus on one of the smaller books of the New Testament and read it all the way through.

Memory Verse... I'll choose a verse out of the book that I choose to focus on. I'll share more about these two when I figure out which book I'm going to focus on.

 

Husband Encouragement... 1) Making sure he has clean jeans. They get to wear jeans to work every day this week so I need to make sure he has his jeans cleaned every other night.

2) planning a date for next weekend. We will be married 8 years on the 18th and I want to find something fun to do to celebrate!

Train Them Up... Still working on TV/screen time. It's easier Monday and Tuesday when I have babysitting kids here. They are so busy playing they don't watch as much TV. The other days are a little harder. I have found a token system that I think will work really well, just need to clear it with Steven.

Personal Goals... I'm having a hard time with this one! I think it's gonna need some prayer and I'll try to add it later!

New Habit of the Month... laundry....washing, drying, folding and putting away! I usually miss a step here-I'll bet you can guess which one...yup! The last one! Focusing on one load at a time and following it all the way through until it is completed before starting another one. I may only get one or two loads done a day, but at least they will be completely done and my laundry room won't look like a disaster zone!

MUST Do...1) Shopping- we are out of everything! And there are great sales this week, and there were great coupons in yesterdays paper so I must go shopping!!!
2) Family Night on Tuesday evening-I think I'll finish up our lesson on All Hallow's Eve and we'll do that one.
3) Make sure laundry is done so I can pack for us to leave Friday for Indiana.

Zone... Master bed and bathroom. It looked great Friday, and the weekend came and let's just say it is not great now. So time to move back in there and get it straightened out this week. If I have time I might also work on our closet.

Menu -Monday- I have no idea!!! I'm gonna have to look and see, maybe tater tot casserole?!?
Tuesday- Apple pork roast in the crock pot, sweet potatoes, green saladWednesday- dinner out-My brother is starting to work as a server at a new restaurant in the area, so we're going to go see him at work on Wednesday.
Thursday- pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes and carrots
Friday- leave for Indy, dinner on the road
Saturday- we'll be in Indy so we'll either eat at the Fall Foliage Festival or we'll eat at my grandma's.
Sunday- we'll eat before we hit the road to come home.

FUN THINGS: 1) the Fall Foliage Festival this weekend in my mom's hometown. It's been years since we've been able to go so I'm really looking forward to it!
2) spending time with my Nana and seeing her new house.
3) family night on Tuesday!

3 things I'm thankful for today...
1) the change in the seasons. Fall always makes me so happy!
2) a fun date night out with my hubby this weekend. We had so much fun and it was nice to be together, just us!
3) A nice warm home to protect us during this change in the seasons. It's almost too cozy though, getting out of bed in the morning is difficult! lol

Well, that's it for this week! Have a blessed one!