Jesse was grinning from ear to ear as he climbed into the van with his book bag, lunch box, and his turtle Franklin (for “rest” time). He was so excited for his first day of kindergarten and never looked back after that sweet kiss good-bye.

Joshua was excited about starting first grade and using his Papa’s desk from when he was in grammar school. They had saved it in their attic and were pleased to let Joshua use it in our homeschool. I love this picture of Joshua because it captures the essence of our freedom in homeschooling. He has a mohawk, a collared shirt, untucked, and is barefooted in front of our dogwood tree.

We all had a great first day “back”. :)

Of course, being the sweet big brothers that they are, they both wanted pictures with their little brother Owen as well. Notice how they didn’t necessarily want pictures with EACHOTHER?? :)

~audrey

Monday, Monday, Monday. Something about that word just makes people shutter. 

I, for one, love Mondays…normally.  Today, not so much. 

Today marks the beginning of the second week of school. The first week was a total success all the way around. Jesse loved his first week of “real kindergarten” and Joshua had a wonderful week at home at our beloved “Wilkerson Academy”. LOL! :)
Today started off just like last Monday, minus all the excitement of the first day. I walked into the kitchen and realized the entire kitchen, dining room and living room smelled like a mixture of death and rotten trash. Hmmm, I guessed there was something nasty in the trash, so Josh took it out right away and I sprayed the rooms down with room spray. Breakfast, lunch packed, teeth brushed, check, check, and check! We were just about to head out the door to take Jesse to school. My husband was giving kisses good-bye and stopped in the kitchen to help Jesse button his shirt. I guess they started acting silly and Jesse turned to run away from Josh. The only problem is, he had his hands in his pockets and tripped. Josh says he hit his knees first, but all I recall is hearing a loud thud on our kitchen floor, as if someone had dropped a bowling ball, Jesse began screaming and as Josh swept him up into his arms, blood went everywhere. Apparently it was coming from his nose and was getting in his mouth, because the next thing I remember is someone turning on a bloody sprinkler in my kitchen as Jesse ‘blew’ the blood out of his mouth and all over me, the floor, my white cabinets, etc, etc. Not only was his nose gushing blood, he had the biggest goose egg I’d EVER seen on his forehead above his left eye. I’ve seen a LOT of goose eggs, large and small, colorful and not so much, but this one topped them all. I don’t know why, but I always tend to get angry in situations like this…I begin thinking, “Well, if you hadn’t been horsing around….GREAT, sixth day of school and we already have drama…Oh, this is going to look good three weeks before we receive our first foster placements…the list goes on and I really have to fight off my frustration and take care of the emergency at hand.
I loaded the boys into the car, called the school to inform them Jesse would be late, and headed for the doctor’s office. We were seen pretty quickly and luckily, everything checked out fine. No concussion, no broken nose, and then the doctor asks Jesse,

“Did the kitchen floor do this to you?”

Jesse replies, “no”

So the doc asks, “Oh, did you do this to yourself?”

Jesse says, “no”

then the doc asks, “well then who did it?”

and with a pitiful, wimpy voice Jesse responds, “Daddy did it.”

OH MY GOODNESS! GREAT! NOW DFCS IS GOING TO BE ON MY DOORSTEP ALL BECAUSE OF A LITTLE HORSING AROUND BEFORE SCHOOL!

Luckily, we’ve been with this doc for decades and he just laughed and said to make sure I tell Josh what Jesse said.
I dropped Jesse off at school just before 9:00am. When we got home, I opened the front door and was smacked in the face by the STENCH of nastiness AGAIN!! My first thought was, “GREAT! Josh never took care of the squirrel that got in our attic during the construction of our addition, he died up there somewhere in the insulation and is now decaying and stinking up our entire house.”
I opened all of the windows in the house (even though it’s 90 degrees out with 500% humidity, if that’s possible) and turned the attic fan on to air out the house. I also went ahead and cleaned the kitchen really well, filled the sink with Pinesol, and double checked the fridge for any food that may be causing the smell.
I decided we could definitely not stay in our stinky house to do school, so we loaded up Joshua’s memory work, math books, and reading book and headed to the library. We had a great hour at the library. Owen played with puzzles and brought me about 97 books (none of which did he actually let me read with him!?) and Joshua completed his lessons for the day.
Thank the Lord, by the time we got home, my house had cooled back down and all I could smell was Pinesol. Hopefully that means it was just the lingering smell of the trash from a few hours before and the stench would not be returning.
What a day…and it’s only noon!
I will take a picture of Jesse goose egg when he gets home this afternoon.
HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE!

~audrey

This post is by request and I think I have about 50 friends (maybe a little less) that are pregnant right now, so I hope this will help simplify the “waiting game”.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to PLAN.

Fail to plan, plan to fail. This list should be tailored to your family’s specific needs, but here is what I do to get ready for baby:

1. Get your housework down to a science. A great way to do this is to check out and subscribe to FlyLady. Go to www.FlyLady.com and she will help you divided your home into “zones”, tackle clutter areas (a.k.a. “Hotspots”), and turn the cleaning aspect of your life into a well-oiled machine. If you have three of four weeks before your baby arrives, that is plenty of time to completely makeover the way your clean your house. It’s amazing how, once you get your house clean and begin to use FlyLady’s methods, a mere 20-30 minutes a day will maintain a clean house. Do it!!

2. Food. I don’t know why, but as a mom, I feel so much more relaxed when all of my meals are planned out, I know what’s in the fridge and pantry, and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to make for breakfast. Start by doubling your favorite dinner recipes over the course of a few weeks. This is much easier if you have an extra freezer, but it can be done with a normal fridge/freezer as well. If you make chili on Monday, double the recipe and freeze half. Label it with the date and what it is and stick it in the freezer. To save space, use gallon sized freezer bags whenever possible. For example, last time I made spaghetti, I made a TON of sauce, I poured the excess into a freezer bag, labeled it, and now, when we want spaghetti again, all I have to do is defrost the yummy sauce and boil noodles. My other tip is referenced in the “Back to School” post. Make breakfast foods and freeze in individual wrappers; breakfast burritos, cinnamon rolls, muffins, biscuits…the list goes on. Yes, you can buy these items in the freezer aisle and stick them in the oven, but that costs a LOT more and takes more time to prepare those the morning you’re ready to eat them. If you cook and THEN freeze, it only takes about a minute in the microwave.

3. Laundry. Yikes. I suppose this COULD be included in ‘housework’, but I think it’s a catagory all by itself! Laundry is the bane of every mother’s existence. Just when you feel like you’ve achieved victory over Mount Washmore, the kids and hubby get home and suddenly you have another LARGE load of misc. dirty laundry and it’s back to square one. The best advice I can give is: JUST DO IT. Laundry stinks (well, not when it’s clean, but you know what I mean), so you need to make it part of your everyday routine. For me, I do at least one or two loads EVERY day. As they come out of the dryer, I pile them on my bed and while Owen takes a nap, I turn on the TV in my room, or a favorite CD, and I fold until it’s complete and then I PUT IT AWAY. For me, putting it away is the hardest part. It’s not so hard to fold it and make lots of nice little piles all over my bed, but actually bringing it to three or four different rooms, putting things on hangers, finding room in drawers; THAT’S the yucky part. Surprisingly, the putting away process only takes about five to ten mintues. I don’t know why we make it so painful. Get in a good routine NOW and it will be much easier when baby (or BABIES) arrive. Another good system is to have a laundry sorter in your laundry room. For us they consist of “kids clothes”, “adult clothes”, “whites”, and “towels/linens”. As soon as one divider gets 3/4 full, I do a load. That typically prevents those mornings when your husband is whispering, “honey, do I have any clean underwear?” Enlist the kids! My six year old gathers the laundry from every room in the house (yes, it’s in EVERY SINGLE room) and sorts each piece for me in the laundry room. This saves OODLES of time. :)

4. This is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your household as you await the arrival of the new baby (or BABIES)…get your children on a schedule and be CONSISTENT with discipline. I know, I know, it’s hard to hear, but you’ll thank me for it later. It’s so hard to be consistent, especially during the summer months, when you’re exhausted, sore, moody, hungry…all those lovely symptoms that come with growing a human in your womb. It is so very important that your children are getting enough sleep. Put them to bed early every single night. It doesn’t take long for children to adapt to a new routine. If they usually go to bed at 9:00pm, move bedtime to 8:00. Most kids are up by 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning and they need to be getting ten to eleven hours of sleep at night. It would be to your benefit to have an extra hour of peace and quiet at night, and your child’s teacher will thank you (especially if the teacher is YOU! :) Discipline is a tough one, but so very important. If you’re not already consistent with disciplining your children, it will be nearly impossible to control them when the baby arrives. It is vitally important that your children know what is expected of them. Most discipline issues stem from disrespect and disobedience. If you already have specific punishments for these infractions, BE CONSISTENT. Your child WILL push your buttons and push the limits when the baby arrives. Show them that you mean business and that your expectations of them will be the same when the baby arrives. Good luck.

5. Communication. Create a “master schedule” for each person in your home. It is important that all of your waking hours are accounted for. It is also important to have a family calendar somewhere in the house (usually the kitchen or office) so that you and your husband know what’s going on in each other’s day to day life. I know that sounds silly, but I can’t tell you how many times I will think I’ve told Josh something important only to find out I never mentioned it to him and I didn’t write it on the calendar! Make your needs known. Let your friends and family help if they’ve offered. If you need to, keep a list of the people who have offered help, whether it be babysitting, cleaning your house, bringing you a meal. Swallow your pride (if you have any left after three or four kids! LOL!) and take all the help you can get. I’m not sure I agree with “it takes a village to raise a child”, but it sure makes the process easier on Mommy and Daddy in the beginning! Most importantly, you must maintain ‘communication’ with your heavenly Father. Make time, find time, create time to spend in prayer and in His word every day. If Mommy isn’t full of joy, grace, mercy, and love, how can we expect our children to be? Take care of yourself. Make sure you get a shower, get out of your jammies and maybe even put a little make up on every day. It’s amazing how much better you’ll feel just doing those things. Take care of yourself! Mommy is the glue that holds it all together! But our ‘glue’ is only effective if God is the active ingredient. Okay, if I get any cheesier, my computer might shut down.

Good luck my dear preggo friends!! I LOVE YOU!! And please put me on all of your lists of “people to call in time of need!”

~Audrey

Out of my love for simplicity and organization, I’m going to do several posts titled, “Five Ways to Simplify: _________ “.  I already have some ideas for future topics, but if you have any requests, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can come up with. The first in this series will be “Back To School”. Some children in our area went back to school today and the rest will start on Monday.  I’ve been racking my brain trying to get my house organized and ‘in order’ before “school” resumes.  Here are five ways that I will simplifying the “Back To School” process in my home…

1. Every child needs to eat breakfast, so make it as simple as possible. Last week I made two dozen muffins and about ten breakfast burritos (sausage, egg, and cheese, wrapped up in a tortilla) and I froze them individually. This makes breakfast nutritious and simple. Throw it in the microwave and you’re ready in less than a minute…not to mention, no dirty dishes! …Mommies, don’t forget, you need to eat breakfast too! It gives you a boost of energy to start your day and it helps fire up your metabolism.

2. If you have young children, decide on Sunday what they will wear to school next week. That’s right, go ahead and pull five pairs of shorts and five shirts (different if you have girls of course), pair them together and place them where the children will not mess with them. Each night, pull the next day’s outfit down and set it out for the morning. You may be thinking, ‘what’s the point?” afterall, it doesn’t take more than 30 seconds to choose an outfit, but this will take the guess work out of the process. You don’t have to worry on Friday whether or not their favorite shirt is clean or whether they wore their nice khaki shorts to play in the dirt one day after school. The clothes will already be picked out and placed out of reach.

3. If your child takes their lunch to school every day, decide on the weekend what the lunch “menu” will look like for next week. Make or prepare as much of that ahead of time as possible. If your child wants grapes in their lunch, go ahead and divide the grapes into five containers/baggies and put them in the fridge. If you’re going to make brownies for their lunch, wrap five brownies in foil and set them aside in the kitchen. Now all you have to do is make their sandwich (or whatever), grab the bags of grapes and the brownie, and you’re done!

4. Use sticky notes!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE sticky notes (“POST IT” notes). Almost every Sunday night and Wednesday night, I place a sticky note on the front door to remind Josh “DON’T FORGET THE TRASH!”. This also helps for “Don’t forget your lunch box”, “Field Trip Money!”, “Purple Shirt Day!”, etc.

5. REST. Even the most difficult child (or parent, LOL!!) is easier to handle and manage when they’re well rested. Did you know that five year olds should be getting ELEVEN hours of sleep a night? Nine year olds still need TEN hours and parents should really try to get seven to eight hours. My children go to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 each night, but now that school is back in session, we’ll be shifting bedtime to 7:00pm. That allows me a good three or four hours of peace at night to spend time with my husband, get MY things done, and still get to bed NO LATER THAN 11:00pm.

That’s all for now. Make sure you take pictures of their FIRST DAY BACK TO SCHOOL!

~Audrey