Lilo Get's Braces!

It went well, she was excited to be there. She chose neon green bands but they are actually real cute since she has green eyes. She says she is not sore yet and it's about 4pm. We'll see how it feels tomorrow.

The second picture she was coming out of a cross eye face:*

Saturday Scraps: Catching Up

The last few Saturday's I've wanted to share pictures of the kids. If you are on my facebook you have seen some of them, but not all. I'm just going to post some highlights to catch up. Blogger tends to load pictures in reverse order so these are so not in sequence but I don't have the time to fix them.
This picture is actually from quarter 2 in Princess 6th grade year. I post it because I don't think I have yet, AND I don't have one of the ceremony yesterday when she got honor roll again. We are very blessed by her perseverance in her studies. In this area she is completely self motivated. I all ready knew that but I was still shocked when this quarter she told me her lowest grade was an A. I literally laughed and said "what was your highest then?" All other grades in all other subjects are A+'s. She is the only 4.0 student in her class and it's all on her own initiative. I don't know how she does it. I would have have died for those grades in 6th grade. To actually bring her grades up through the year as the material got harder, is just amazing.
One of Superkid's goofie pose for daddy pictures. He was using his camo Scooby Doo PJ's as an army costume.
With our former neighbor boy and fellow classmate up at the school. Who knew Spidie was a cowboy at heart?
Yesterday I had to comb through Superkids room. 80% of these rocks I found on his desk topped with the shocking chunks of asphalt I found the other day. As I said on my facebook presentation of this picture, this is the nature bucket now (no live creatures allowed).
Lilo is in the school GATE program and just before spring break they put on some skits for the kids of the school. Each skit was a fable with a moral to the story. Lilo was in two for the skits and was the announcer for one.

In this skit she was a pelican having tea with a friend.


Easter Sunday at church. Superkid and Lilo up front singing with their class.
They were a little nervous to be upfront:)
Superkid was to read a verse but his teacher is expressing surprise that he had it memorized. At the second service, he actually read it off the card. The first time around I think he was just happy to get through his first experience speaking in front of so many people.
Easter baskets before church. This year I went to the dollar tree and got something that could be used for something all year long instead of the traditional Easter basket.
My favorite Superkid pic of the season.
My favorite pic of the girls...their faces are so funny.
We used some vinegar this year and it really did make them brighter.

When you choose to do eggs at 9pm, you get crazy excitement and tiredness all together at one table.
Okay, now we are really looking at them backwards. The follow pics are our hike out at Salmon Creek falls. This was during spring break as well. We had a wonderful day out.






the goofieness never ends....







Quick heath update:
Thank you so much for those of you who have prayed for us! As of Monday the 19th, I will have been symptom free from the hormone problems! I'm trying not to get to excited yet but it does seem that the doctors advice of the estrogen is finally kicking in enough and my body is balancing out. The few days I started to feel better I really noticed a difference and felt like a different person I had not been for almost two months. I pray it does not come back again but I'm trying to be patient that it may. I've taken some steps to be healthier that I think are helping too. My other prayer is to be free of the patch once I check in with the OB on May 13th.

Lilo is about to take a new adventure though! She is getting braces for her cross bite! She is excited about getting them but does not really understand the hard work at maintaining and the serious lack of candy and gum this will mean (she is our major sweet tooth child). We are all going to support her by not having these things either and the kids will have to turn in their Awana and other candy for family ice cream now and then. She has to have her two baby eye teeth pulled on April 28th so if you think of it, please pray for her that day. She is very scared of getting this done. She has had a molar pulled and I think the memories from that are not good. It was such a blessing how this came about though! If I had been able to do a Thankful Thursday post, it would be about this. Rick took out a special payment plan through his work that allows us to pay monthly for this work to be done for Lilo, tax free. We too the plan out on the advice the Dr. gave us two years ago that we would need to do this work at 8 or 9 years of age. Rick had a deadline to sign up for it so he signed up before we did the consultation. The receptionist quoted him $4900 dollars. We did not realize that once you put this amount in, you cannot change it. You will be obligated to pay that money within a year whether you use it or not. It can only be used on medical or dental bills. It's been pulling $180 from each paycheck since Feb. I believe. Well, we had her checked to get going on this and the Dr. said we needed to preferably wait another year, and that it was best not to start now. Rick and I were beyond stressed. He did all he could to change the plan, back out of it, or anything. Nope, they don't let you change it or back out of it unless your child dies. We HAD to start, even if that meant that in a year it would have been discovered that all of this work was unnecessary and her mouth would have adjusted on it's own, or at least to have not needed so much bracing. We had to step out in faith to start and hope that God knew why this was happening this way, but we were sick about it.
This last week, I went in and the Dr. had just gotten Lilo's x-rays of her full mouth. A panorama view. He said to me "it's so good that we are starting because we would not have seen this". Her permanent eye teeth are fully rooted and cannot fit to come in. Her baby ones are not budging and the new teeth are about to try coming in on her upper pallet behind her current teeth. Had we waited a year, they would have come in, and we would have had to spend much more money getting them anchored and pulled forward. He said it sometimes even requires oral surgery. GOD, YOU ARE SO GOOD TO STRESS US OUT SOMETIMES! THANK YOU THAT YOU SEE! Now, because we were forced to start, she will get the baby teeth pulled so these puppies can come right in where they aught to.
So, on the 20th of April she get's her braces on, and on the 28th she get's her baby teeth pulled. So, she is going to be pretty sore. I'm having more of a problem that she won't look the same for a few years! She will have to wear a retainer for a long time after all this and even when it's done she may need work through her teens since there is so much adjusting to do and her mouth is not done changing anyway with her growth. There is another 10 or 12 year mouler that is all ready turned the wrong way and he says will have to be helped along. She did not get the blessing of a good set of teeth but I'm thankful we have a way to take care of this so she does not have problems in her adult years. Rick really needs to get work done that we really cannot afford now because he never had two permanant teeth that never came in the middle of his lower mouth. Because of this huge gap, his lower teeth are moving back and caving in. He almost looks like he has a front tooth missing by now. I worry about what it will mean as he get's older. So, maybe after we get Lilo squared away, we can start on his. There will be no fancy cars or anything like that in our near future! When they say that kids are expensive, this is what they mean. It's worth it though for her not to have problems later on. Her cross bite would mean that one whole side of her teeth will wear completley down and the other would be fine. It would eventually effect her eating.
We will try to get a picture of her before and after. Now days I hear they get to pick their band colors. If Lilo can do a rainbow, I bet she will try.:)

Saturday Scraps: Family Newsie Stuff

Isn't my title eloquent?



Mmmm....news...what's the news.....well, God is good and life is crazy, but you probably came by for more than that so....



Basketball is Over:(

Though Princess is a bit relieved I'm sad it's over. It was fun to see her push her lack of athleticism and have a chipper sense of humor after her practices surged her body with lovely endorphins. It taught me, a mommy of tween, soon to be teen, a lesson....make sure they get exercise. In fact, I decided if I see it in her that noticeably, I should be convicted to do it myself! It was fun to go to the games and hear Rick yelling out of excitement to be back in some form of sports arena again. Though at the time I confess, I may have begged him not to yell so loud. I was worried the coach would think he was trying to take over his position from the bleachers. It was fun to see her in uniform and get out there and give it a try. Coordination has never been her strong suit but she really got better as she practiced. She learned a lot of lessons I've written about in previous posts concerning doing it because you love it and not because the other girls tell you you are bad or awesome.


Superkid's Life Lessons

Well, you can probably tell, we are not against boys playing with toy guns at our house. This is Superkid and his neighbor friend who is also in his class at school. They play many afternoons.

Superkid is in a time of great stretching in his life. He has never been a big fan of going to school but right now he is really not liking it. Having been former homeschoolers we are very sensitive to watching for signs for God to tell us to stay or to bring one or any of them back home. His will is always working and we want to be sensitive to it. In fact, I read a Focus On The Family article once that I totally dissagreed with. It was saying that parents should consider well which option is for their family but to stick to one and be consistant. I don't think that is so. I think every year, and every child and sometimes every month in the year has be be handled with prayer for direction. So, I have been talking more with his teacher, and talking more with him, and being in the classroom. He just is in a severely apathetic mode about school work at all. He is struggling with it with his homework so it does not seem to be confined to the classroom. It really could be summed up in a stage of the severe "I don't wann's". He tells his teacher he is bored. Being that academically he is at the top of his class, this may very well be true but when he does his work he has been doing it sloppy on purpose and taking his time on purpose and not focusing on doing the work when the teacher is walking around helping others. It's really just a disobedient phase of the heart. He also decided recently that the items at "store" time (when they get to spend the points they earn each week) are not worth his trouble (he asked me if the teacher could give them real money so they could go buy something they really wanted....ha! I don't think the world works that way dear!) so he stopped trying to earn them. So, we had a talk about doing things right as unto the Lord and not for any earthly reward. It makes me thankful, thought it's challenging, when school brings up these heart issues that we have to deal with because I know the Lord is working in his heart. We could just as easily have the same problem at home with him deciding that was boring and not wanting to do his work for me either. Right now he has a fantasy idea of homeschooling and thinks it means getting to watch more movies and rest during the day, or play with his Lego's all day long. By this point in my parenting I have a better incite into this "grass is always greener" element and am not as easily swayed to make quick decisions by it.

So, half of it is his heart issues, but the other half is the decline of the public schools, plain and simple, especially when it comes to the early grades. In fact, Rick and I were talking that if we had any more kids younger, we don't know how they would survive, boys especially, in the classroom. It's not really the fault of our particular school but state legislators are to blame. The classroom sizes are crazy big, again, especially for this age. Last year Superkid's teacher had 15 or so kids, and this year there are 28-29. Next year she said they are projecting 30. Now, you can run a class of 4th, 5th or 6th graders at that number, but I don't believe in doing that for the young ones. I can attest, being the one to go in and give the assessments, that 2/3 of the class cannot read yet. The teacher is doing all she can but she is up against the obstacle of not enough resources, time, and one-on-one opportunities. Not to mention a plethora of parents who don't care and children who come from challenging circumstances such as exposure to drugs in uturo, fetal alcohol, and homes where reading to your kids just does not happen. With the class size that big, and the obstacles, THEN you have the state mandating what all to cram down their little throats in the time you have. There is not time for art or music or hands on learning, though I know some teachers at our school say fooie to the state because frankly, they are near retirement anyway and don't believe in the new philosophy of education. They (the state) don't realize they are drowning themselves because by pushing more, the kids are getting less. Especially at these ages when their brains are developing on many different levels and their information and learning are gleaned in many different ways. A kindergartner, 1st or 2nd grader does not learn efficiently by sitting in a desk for 6 hours and having you cram stuff into him all day by lecture, pen and paper. His brain just will block off 75% or so of what you dish out. Then, you move on, because the state tells you you have to and little Johnny didn't get what you last did so he is not anywhere able to get the next step. They end up floating around a early 1st grade level until their brains naturally catch up by means of every day life and experience really. The sad thing, is that once their brains wake up to some things, many important academic building blocks are missing for their further education and they end up either always being behind, or having to learn to wing it most of the time.

Where Superkid sits in his development is the only thing that keeps us from yanking right now, well, that and God's directing us. He gets the academics very well. He just needs more creative time. If he lacked in the academics I would have no choice but to bring him back home because he would NOT be getting the education he needed. Even the sweet Christian teachers that we love have their hands so tied (unless they are rebels at heart enough to not care like I said before). They are working with a near impossible set of circumstances.

So, we have been praying about this and right now we feel he should stay. Mainly because the lessons HE is needing to learn are in the area of listening to directions and being diligent in his school work. The scale is near tipping though and if it were not two months till the end of the school year, I may feel differently. I will not criticize parents who put their boys on meds because that is a personal decision but Rick and I agreed when we went home to public, that if he ever got to that "oh, he's ADD" point, and it effected his education, he would come home. Superkid is at that point (as it would be defined medically, but we happen to think it's more the way God created boys) but he is a reclusive ADD (if we were going to label, which we aren't), meaning that he sits there but zones out and goes far away in his imagination. He is not very loud or disobedient by bugging others or getting out of his seat or anything. So it becomes a question of time. Will he make it to the end of the year? We feel he should. We on the other hand are focusing on some character building and making sure he gets some creative time at home and outside time as well. It's really quite sad the schools are headed this way because it makes it hard for many mom's like me, who are not feeling God has called them to homeschool at the time, or don't do well balancing it with the rest of their responsibilities. Right now we are having to trust that God has a purpose for him to learn some things even though the situation is not ideal. The same could be said of homeschooling. There are always pro's and con's so all you can really do is let the Lord lead.

We really want to hold out for next year because he would have the teacher Lilo had that we really loved. She is one who is brave enough to do what she thinks is good for the kids in her classroom and not what is good for the state. They make fossils, build art projects, grow butterfly gardens and watch them metamorphosis there, and get up and sing songs and dance around many times in the day. After that, well....one year at a time, one prayer at a time!

Oh! I did want to mention the other thing that happened that the Lord used to show us he is where he needs to be right now. Superkid was playing four square with his friends and he did not really know how to play. He bounced the ball too many times and the kids told him he was out. He felt they should let him stay because he did not know the rules, and he was upset they told him he was out. His eyes filled with tears and his face scrunched up when he told us this. Now, at home Superkid is not only the only boy, he is the baby, and for many years he has been catered to in ways we don't even realize (yes, probably mostly by me), so my first reaction that I immediately knew I had to fight off, was to agree with him! BUT, this is one way school is good for him! He is learning that life does not bend the rules to make you feel better about yourself. You WILL get out sometimes. It's time to grow up a bit and be okay with that. So, we got a ball and his sisters got outside with him at home teaching him how to play. That way at least he can get with the game. Yet, the real lesson here was a social one that he really needed.

Wow, I kind of took up my Saturday Scraps with Superkid! And, I'm kind of out of time to blog so I guess that will have to be it for today! Have a blessed Saturday!

Coming this week (Lord willing and health/time permitting:):

• My easy way to lovely Corned beef and cabbage- gotta love St.Patty's day!
• Putting together the girls new decor in their room- I'm hoping for pics.

I Need Help!

Many of you know we painted the girls room a gorgeous (well, I think so) violet blue about two years ago or so. It's pretty close to the color in the bottom left corner of this:

My original inspiration was this magazine cover that I loved:

Here is what we ended up with in 07 (though it's a dark picture, the wall color is much brighter):With their white old french provincial furniture and lavender and white bedding it was beautiful. Now there are some changes taking place that are leading us from the Victorian shabby version of this to the bold tween version of it.

1. Princess has a college style loft bed now. Our goal was to eventually get them both on lofts so that they could have something like "their own room". Her loft has a built in huge desk and shelf and we have storage shelves and drawers under it for her stuff. Lilo will be getting one next (I'm crossing my fingers for a 50 dollar white one on Craigslist right now. The problem with loft beds is the bedding. You really don't want to have to have complicated bedding to make. The easiest way to do this is to have a bottom sheet, no top sheet, and a comforter with a duvet. That way you just wash the bottom sheet and the duvet. That is what I need help with.

The duvets need to match. They need to have a bold floral pattern that has bold Easter like colors in them. I don't really want to buy them, I would prefer to make them from sheet sets. Fabric is harder because you have to have seam lines since the fabric is not wide enough (unless someone can educate me on a trick I don't know). Here are some images to get your brain where mine is headed:

Zero in on the floral.

Think....gerber daisy....

I may need it to have some gold in it too.....

2. We picked up some clearance curtain panels at Walmart for 2 bucks! They were a great deal seeing that you got two panels for that price. I was thinking of putting a fabric flower at each segment at the top to dress them up a bit. They go to the floor so they are dramatic. One of my quandaries is whether I can go with the bold yellow or if I should die them. Any opinions? They look pretty good next to the violet blue but they do set the tone for some wild fabric bedding and accessories!

3. The girls are going into different modes of life. Well, especially Princess. How I want the room is fading into how THEY want the room. Magazine clippings, CD's, projects and Taylor Lautner posters (well, one, yes my daughter is a Twilight fan...so you can start shooting at me now :). Lilo, though not in this phase yet (in fact she has never been in the boy admiring phase, she is more into bugs still) has always preferred bold and crazy over subdued and girlie. So, it will work for both of them. I guess you could say the wall, and the fabrics are all I'm doing and then I'm letting them loose as long as it's neat!

It's a phase I thought would take a while to get to...but nope.

So, help me out! I need suggestions. Let me know if you see anything around or online too.

Saturday Scraps: 100's Day and Basketball Girl

• Isn't he cute? Yes, he is. He was so excited for a week to work on his 100's day project (celebrating the 100th day of school the kids make a project of their choice using 100 things). He made three different scenes and all of them were great. This was his choice to enter. Sadly, it was judged by junior high kids who had no idea what the early years of Mario looked like. He only played the retro games before we got the Wii. With it's block art it was perfect for lego's. He made a scene where Mario is running through a graveyard to save the princess in the castle at the end. I think these older kids just saw lego's, but we were very proud of him. It was all his idea and his work. I took him for an ice cream sandwich myself (the winners won a coupon for one at lunchtime) to celebrate.



(She is #2)




• Princess had two games this week. My camera stinks in the gym. The girls played their hearts out and even though they lost 15 to 19 they fought hard for it. There are only about 7 of them and the other school was huge (you can see the blue uniforms lined up on the bench) and there were lots of them, all big girls. Rick really loves going to the games. He is such a good daddy, he works hard and fast to be there in time and cheers them on so well. I have to encourage him not to try to coach them from the bleachers but....:) He really should coach but he cannot get off in time for all the practices.



• Lost started....and I'm still confused. Still a fan! However, they better throw this fan some scraps soon or I'm going to howl.

• I have another new blog to recommend. Mary and I grew up in the same homeschool circles. She is an avid reader and loves to chat about what she reads. I like that she has a refreshing layed back outlook and isn't afraid to say what she really likes and doesn't like. Lookout, she is also an Edward fan! Yes, there is a whole new world of Twilight kindreds. *sigh* Her blog is called "A Girl And Her Books" She seems to read from classic to contemporary that I'm not even aware of yet. Check it out! She also will go on my bloglist.

(just a sidenote funny: i was out with a friend this week and the this song came on and we both just stopped talking instantly.....and paused. if you know, you know why *wink* which really, the soundtrack on Twilight was better than the movie itself, but still....*sigh*)

• Scripture concept I've been pondering: "I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to the....I will rejoice in doing them good...with all my heart and all my soul. " Jer 32:40-41

Besides that my week has been focused on really working that SAHM gameplan and disciplining myself to persevere in all my domestic areas. It has made for a very nice week.