Rainbows

 Aliza learned about clouds and rainbows today and they did this experiment. I was exclaiming right along with the children!

Put some milk in a small dish. Add 3 drops of red, blue and yellow food coloring. Put a couple drops of liquid dish soap in the middle.

The dish soap pushes the color to the edge and causes the colors to start spreading out.

It takes a few minutes, but the colors mix and you can see every color in the rainbow.

Our bowl got sloshed around a bit so I didn't get a good end picture before it was mostly black. It was super neat, though, and easy to do!

Yay for learning!

Higher is Always Better

 Anna is climbing up on everything. Every time I turn around she is up on something that she doesn't belong on. I remove her from her precarious situation. And she lays on the floor and cries about it for a moment. She hops up and goes to find the next available chair to crawl up on that will lead her to higher ground. Right now all of our dining room chairs are pulled away from the table and the desk chairs are away from the desk. I try to give myself some sanity!

On the desk. Anna has already started Netflix by pushing buttons on the Wii remote.

Eating oranges on the table.

Eating someones unfinished lunch. I guess I didn't get the table cleared off fast enough! haha.

Washing dishes at Grandma's house.

On my desk while I'm working on Linda's wedding invitations.

I decided she may as well "help."

And at this moment Anna snuck up behind me and is getting in to finished invitation pieces!

On the other hand, Aliza and Josiah have been the BEST of friends this week. They have played and played and played together. You know how they say, "Never wake a sleeping baby." I also say, "Never interrupt siblings playing happily together." I hate to interrupt them to even start school. In fact, Josiah has watched several lessons with Aliza this week. I hardly know what to do with myself when I'm not a referee! I LOVE IT!!!

Bird Feeders

We had a week of summer weather last week and Aliza's unit in school was "Winter"! It was fun to do a "winter" craft on the deck in summer weather.

The day's science lesson was about how birds migrate to warmer areas for the winter and the craft was to make 3 different bird feeders.

For the first, Aliza made a string of Cheerios and hung in on a branch.

For the second, Aliza cut shapes out of (a whole loaf) of bread. We let the bread sit on the counter overnight to dry out and then spread peanut butter on each piece and covered it in birdseed. The shapes fit quite nicely in suet feeders. We hung one up at Grandma's house.

 Finally, pine cones were rolled in shortening and then rolled in birdseed.

My Soul Rejoices

Aliza's Bible lesson today was about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a short man who climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. He was a tax collector. Tax collectors were despised because they often collected more money than the government required and kept the surplus for themselves. As Jesus passed by Zacchaeus, he called him out of the tree and told Zacchaeus that He was coming to his house. As a result of meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus was a changed man and the town people could see the difference in his life.

Aliza's teacher said, "If you have not asked Jesus to forgive your sins, you should. Then people around you will see a change in your life too."

I was listening to the lesson as I cleared the supper table.

Before it dawned on me what was happening, I noticed that Aliza had gone under the table. She often tries to sneak away from her lesson, so I called her back to her chair. As soon as I said it I realized that I had interrupted something important.

Aliza didn't give up. She told me that she needed to be in the living room for a few minutes by herself. I peeked around the corner quickly to see her face down on the couch.

A minute later she came back to me and said, "Mommy, I have to whisper something in your ear." It is usually something important if she wants to whisper in my ear. I leaned down and Aliza said, "I just prayed and asked Jesus to forgive my sins." I gave her a hug and told her that was wonderful and together we told her Daddy.

Aliza felt a little shy about it, but I wanted to tell everyone!!! I settled for telling her grandparents.

I know this is Aliza's story, however; I wanted to record her story because it is a Mommy story too. I have prayed since the day I found out that Aliza was growing inside me that she would choose follow Jesus. I continue to frequently pray for the salvation for each of my children. To see my prayer for Aliza be answered is awesome! My prayers for Aliza's faith will continue, but they will change a bit. Now I pray that Aliza will grow in faith in God. I also pray that she will never waver from her decision to follow Christ.

Rain

Josiah picked out an off road truck after his doctor appointment. He cooperated for the whole visit including 5 shots so I was pretty much game for whatever he picked out! Josiah really wanted some mud to drive his truck in. So after the rain today he was quick to take his truck outside. Anna was right behind him!

This is a video of Josiah and Anna playing outside.



A friend told me today of an article she read about women suffering from depression and anxiety because they read Mom blogs and compare themselves to other Moms. I know there is a risk of only publishing the perfect aspect of life and, of course, some of the imperfect would be inappropriate to publish. Here's my disclaimer, if my life looks perfect to you and you feel depressed or anxious when you read my posts, please stop reading! My life is far from perfect; however I am quite happy. =) I want my readers to be happy too!! The end.

It is too soon to mention this, but we started the couch25k training program tonight. We meaning the whole family. We ran/walked up and down our little side road. Josiah and Aliza ran with us and we pushed Anna in the stroller. I do not really enjoy running, but I feel the need for cardiovascular health. We'll see how this goes. I hope we keep at it, but no promises at this point!

Noteworthy

 First and foremost, Josiah pooped on the potty for the first time tonight. (Insert a happy Mama dance here) I believe that my second child is now completely potty trained.

We are in our 4th quarter of school. Being a counter, I am counting down to the end. By weeks, not days. We have sortof slowed down a bit. A few more 4 days weeks. Since the weather is so nice we are outside a lot more and doing away with some of the crafts.

We took a field trip to visit Daddy at work.

Recently Aliza has been teaching her Lalaloopsy Girls. It is fun to listen to her because she asks questions for them and answers the question.

 Anna's new spot. She turns on the water and brushes her teeth--with everyone's toothbrush.

Anna managed to dump Jeremy's ipad into the tub while Josiah's water was draining. I believe that I was cleaning the downstairs bathroom, since we were having company in the evening, when that happened. The consequences I face for getting something done are steep around here! There is hope that the ipad will recover.

It's golf season--enough said.

Quite An Accomplishment

 A friend of mine really loves homemade buttercream frosting. When she told me she was pregnant, I knew that I would offer to make the cake for her shower. What I didn't know was how many guests would attend the shower!

I made cake for 40-45 people! Four dozen cupcakes (2 batches) and a 9 x13 cake. I made extra because I wanted Maria to have some to take home with her.

Thursday was cake day at my house. Before supper I had the cakes baked, 3 batches of frosting made and the cover layer of frosting on the cake.

After supper Jeremy was "on duty" and I concentrated on decorating. For 3 solid hours.

 The cupcakes are supposed to be hydrangeas.

 The dessert table at the shower. It was pretty and pink!

 I had some anxious feelings about how I was going to pull this off. It was a big day and I felt very accomplished (and relieved!) when I fell into bed that night.

Maria loved the cake. =)

Sweet Weeds

 Josiah and Aliza have been amazed by the apparent fields of purple flowers. They exclaim over their beauty and collect handfuls of flowers for me. Josiah took it to a whole new level on our walk today!

He wanted to pick a flower for Grandma and what he ended up with was a clump of "weeds", dirt and roots that he proudly presented to his Grandma and told her that she could "plant it in her yard". How could she resist such thoughtfulness?

Josiah also presented me with flowers to plant in our yard. Notice--he is holding them very carefully underneath so that "the flowers won't be hurt." He admonished me while I held them so that he could get his shovel.

 We picked a spot and Josiah dug the hole.

 Placed the flowers in the hole and carefully filled in around them with dirt.

 Finally, he got his watering can and watered the flowers.

I'm sure he would be very proud if those flowers spread and our yard becomes a field of purple flowers!

A Long Weekend Made Longer

Jeremy's birthday was Friday and since everyone had originally planned on family visiting from out of town this week we decided to get together anyway to celebrate. Friday was pretty cold, but a golfing excursion was on Jeremy's birthday agenda. His Dad decided that he couldn't let his son down so he finished work early and braved the cold weather. They had fun.

As Karen was putting together a yummy pork roast birthday dinner, Anna casually walked into the kitchen and threw up. It was only once. She seemed fine so we continued to have a good time. I had a great day on Saturday...practiced decorating cupcakes for next weekend, finished a book, watched Pioneer Woman cooking shows. I went so far as to brag about what a good day I had.

Saturday night. 3am. Aliza woke up...I ran her to the bathroom. As we were walking out of the bathroom Jeremy was dashing up the stairs to the bathroom. It was then that I realized I wasn't getting much more sleep that night.

Sunday morning. There was lots of TV watching and a very miserable Jeremy. Mid-morning Josiah runs to the bathroom. It is at this point that I realize there is no way that I am going to get everyone home by myself. We decide to hunker down and wait it out.

Jeremy slept ALL.DAY. I held children. Filled juice cups. Offered food. Hoped for sleep. And watched some more Pioneer Woman cooking shows after bedtime. Aliza had slept ALL afternoon and she was feeling much better so she got in on the girl time. It is fun to have a little girl big enough to do things with.

Because he was sick and we stayed in WV an extra day, Jeremy missed his birthday party with my family (it was a party for all 4 of the adult March birthdays). I missed being with my family too. That night I told God that I missed my family and I thanked Him for giving me another family to take care of us. My in-laws accommodated us and all our sickness without hesitation. I survived this round of sickness with MUCH more sanity because of their help and love.

This morning Jeremy was feeling some better and Josiah was still iffy. I packed us up, loaded the car complete with lunch snacks and we headed home. I drove the 4 hours without stopping. Well, almost, 10 minutes into the trip Josiah threw up and I had to clean him up. At that point I wondered if we would ever make it home, but after that, no problems.

Everyone at supper tonight and it all stayed in their tummies so I'm thinking we are on the mend! Lovely weather in the forecast so we should get rid of the yuckies with some fresh air and sunshine. Oh! It is going to be hard to do school this week!

Our Week So Far

 We've had enough sunshine that the daffodils are blooming. I brought them inside so I could enjoy them. The warm days are still followed by cold days and rain. It is only March, but I'm ready for warm spring weather.

 I gave Aliza a couple choices of things she could do on her birthday and she chose eating lunch at Panera with Mommy. I think it was a great choice! Aliza LOVES alone time with Mommy. We had a great outing. I listened and listened.

Anna continues to get herself into precarious situations. I had to grab my camera again for this one. We have battled the back of Jeremy's computer with the 2 older children and finally put a large piece of cardboard across the back of the desk. And, would you believe, the 3rd child figured out how to get to the cords and wires too!

At her 15 month well check, Anna weighed 24 lbs and was 31 1/2 inches. That puts her in the 75th percentile for height and 80th percentile for weight. Well proportioned...I'm pretty sure my arms should look like I lift weights.

We've had colds this week. Jeremy is the only one that has escaped. For Aliza and Anna the cold included a 24 hour fever. Colds are additionally bothersome to me because of my paralyzed vocal cord. With the additional drainage and tickly throat I have more vocal cord spasms than normal. Like one or more in a day when I have them only occasionally otherwise. Last night was the worst one in a very long time. It usually happens at a meal...a swallow of food tickles a particular spot and I can feel it start. I dash to the bathroom so that my children aren't traumatized. I can't get air through my mouth during the spasm and with a cold I can't breathe through my nose either. The trick to stay calm and keep coughing until it loosens. Last night's was long enough that I was praying and after it was over I was just so thankful that I have a voice. So so thankful. (Don't worry. The ENT specialist told me that if I pass out from lack of air that will relax the vocal cords and I'll get air and be fine. I've never come close to that.)

Our weekend starts tomorrow night! Looking forward to that.

Happy 6th Birthday Aliza!