Baby News

Sometime within the next 8 days our little guy is going to making his grand entrance. The Dr. says he's ready and I know I've been ready so if he doesn't come on his own then I'll be induced on October 2nd. The boys are very excited and every morning ask how many more days until he arrives. Last night Allan said to me as I was tucking him into bed, "Mommy it will be so fun! You'll be able to bend over and pick things up again and chase us. Won't that be nifty?! And you've never had a baby before...this is going to be so fun!" Ahhhhh yes. He looked totally shocked when I told him that I'd actually had two other babies! We're excited and praying for an uncomplicated delivery and time of adjustment.

Weird week

As I said, with school dismissed it made for a really strange week. We were able to do things together as a family that I didn't think we'd be able to do again until next summer so that was fun.

On Friday the 19th we celebrated Daniel's second birthday. Because the pregnancy induced carpal tunnel was very uncomfortable he didn't get the cake he originally wanted but he seemed quite pleased with the dinosaur. We went to the Brown's and celebrated with a seafood dinner and cake and ice cream. It's hard to believe the little guy has been in our family for two years already. He has added a whole new dimension to our growing family ... and given us a few gray hairs in the process!

After celebrating his birthday I came home to work on some projects Friday evening and Saturday while the guys went camping at the Brown's in our new tent. Someone placed a sum of money in Philip's mailbox at school and we used some of it to purchase a tent to go camping. The boys had a blast. They built a fire and enjoyed the great outdoors with their daddy. I went an picked them up at suppertime on Saturday. This gave me some added rest and time to work on projects that need more than 15 minute time blocks.

Hurricane Ike

Sunday the 14th, Hurricane Ike blew (literally) through and left a lot of interesting situations in it's wake. Our street was very blessed to have only lost power for about 9 hours. The rest of the GBS campus (and faculty staff homes) were without power until Friday afternoon. This meant that classes had to be cancelled all week. It was sort of like having a snow day with no snow ... and no excitement that usually goes with a snow day. It was nice to have Philip home but once you buckle into a school schedule to get out of the groove sometimes leaves you feeling like you're spinning your wheels. Oh well...mother nature ruled and there wasn't a lot we could do about it. Other than having Allan's swimming pool blow away twice during the gale and having some other things blown over we weathered the thing pretty well. It sure left a lot of leaves/debris/mess in it's wake but things are slowly starting to be cleaned up.

The days are so packed!

There's been a whirlwind of activity taking place as our family prepares for the little guy's arrival. But we've had our share of fun too.

 September 11th was my birthday so I took the boys to the Creation Museum for the morning. Philip had to teach so he wasn't able to join us. We ate breakfast together and he gave me something I'd mentioned I'd like to have months ago but had forgotten! Then when I got home in the afternoon he had bought roses and those were waiting for me. It was perfect weather...about 73 degrees and not many people there (at least the part we were in). We stayed in the gardens and petting zoo the entire time and the boys had the best of times. Feeding the fish, petting the animals, going across the swinging bridge. The day was perfect, the setting beautiful, and I had good company...just wish Philip could have gone along. It was a great day made more special by sharing it with my favorite family.

First Days of School

Allan's first day of K4 was on the 25th of August. Opening exercises went perfectly but the day got interesting when I tried accessing the BJU Hard Drive on my computer. It seems that my computer did some updating over the weekend that caused me not to be able to access the drive. Allan was extremely disappointed but I went ahead and had him do an activity that I knew was planned which helped ease the let-down. By afternoon technical support had called and walked me through the patch to fix the problem so Allan begged to have school after supper. He finished about 8:00 and was up at 6:20 the next morning ready to go again!

I've been very pleased that he's enjoying it so much. Of course, I've enjoyed it too! The BJUP teachers are tops and have worked hard to make the learning process fun. Each lesson is based on a theme that ties all of the individual subjects together. Because it's a spiral curriculum there is review each day with new information added to the previously laid foundation. The first part of the lesson is Science or Heritage Studies, Math, Exercise time, English Skills and then reading time. We start school at 8:30 after we've eaten breakfast with daddy, made our beds and changed into our school clothes. Usually the opening exercises last for 15 minutes with saying our pledges (Daniel loves to hold the flag and the Bible), focus time on the calendar and prayer. His academic lessons last approximately an hour and a half (breaks included). Today he begged to do all the supplemental activities and I had to make him stop at 11:30 so we could go to lunch. May this excitement last for the next 20+ years!

The other day he said something that made me laugh. I was having computer problems and usually with this particular problem I have to "reboot" my computer. Allan was waiting patiently and finally said, "mommy you need to "rebuke" your computer!" You know...I wonder if that would work?!