August, 2004

Education — Comments Off
12
Aug 04

starting something formal

Ok, here we go…starting up first grade! Easing into it…but we are doing real well with sticking to a quasi-schedule. So far she is doing a reading lesson and a handwritting lesson daily. Next week we are going to add in a daily math lesson too. She also does weekly piano lessons. Like I said, easing into it all.

We are resuming activities with our homeschool groups…went to tour a farm yesterday. I will post pictures soon. Last week we went to a pillow making class. That was fun! Gonna go berry picking next week (like we did last year).

More later!

Education — Comments Off
12
Aug 04

Chicken…bwark bwark bwark

Real quick, yesterday we toured a farm here in Denver (The Urban Farm) with one of our homeschool groups. Allison is enchanted with the chickens, and she got to go into the hen house and retrieve some eggs. They even let her take one home with her! She carefully carried that egg for the remainder of the tour, carried it all the way home, made a safe place for it in the van while we went shopping, carried it into the house, placed it gingerly on the couch until I told her that she should put it on the counter in case someone goes to sit down and doesn’t see the egg. She carefully placed it on the counter, on top of a baby blanket. Her plan was to show daddy the egg, and then cook it and eat it (it was organic and free range). Originally when she first got the egg, I think she thought if she took good care of it, she would get a chicken out of the deal. Anyway, Jess’s boyfriend came over and Allison went to get the egg to show him – CRUSHING it! That thing exploded! All over the carpet, couch and Jeff (Jess’s boyfriend). Allison was DEVASTATED! At least we had pictures of her getting the egg, so she could show that to Daddy (I will try to post one here later). But she couldn’t cook it and eat it!

Here is what I learned: Egg yolk, especially the organic free range kind, is a BEAST to get out of carpet! Jess had to SCRUB it with the carpet cleaner repeatedly, and you can still see signs of it. Thank you Jess!

Family — 1 Comment
12
Aug 04

nagging by my sister

So I thought I would post :-)

Life is crazy…we did have the baby (as you can tell by the photo album), and a bright eyed beautiful bouncing baby girl on June 6, 2004, weighing in at 9lbs 10oz! Was in labor for 20 hours! It was not my best labor/delivery ever. We were just about to transport to the hospital when baby Lydia SHOT out. 3 pushes, five minutes. ZOOM. She came out with her cord around her neck, and she wasn’t breathing. Since she came out so fast, the fluid in her lungs didn’t get squeezed out, as it usually does when the baby comes through the birth canal, so she had a lot of mucus and fluid in there. The midwives worked on her and she was on oxygen for a while…every time I would start to get a bit nervous, the baby would make some sort of sound to reassure me that it was going to be fine. And it was.

Now fast forward, here we are almost 10 weeks later, settling into our new family structure. All the girls adore her. She is very smiley, and is starting to play more. She used to just nurse and sleep, nurse and sleep..but now she will hang out with you and talk to you, etc.

Allison is doing school now. Mostly first grade stuff, even though she is only five. She is just THAT bright, lol. We are doing reading, handwritting, and math. We may add in Spanish..for literature, history, etc., we are going to use a whole-books approach, and just read read read. She is also taking piano lessons once a week. No more soccer, for now. We are taking a bit of a break..dunno if we will resume it or find something else. She just didn’t seem to enjoy it.

Meredith is doing great. Growing a TON. She will be three late next month. She’s a hoot. She is just so active. It is so hard to keep up with her.

Jess is doing good too. She is no longer volunteering at the Humane Society. Tons of reasons for that, which I won’t go into. She did get a job at McDonald’s and worked there for about 2 months, but just recently she got a hostess job at Red Robin. She is training this week and starts working next weekend. She thinks that she will like the new job a lot. Other than that, she is keeping busy with friends (mainly her boyfriend).

Eric and I are doing good too. He just changed positions at work again, and is now managing the accounting department. I resumed working when the baby was only 2 weeks old, but am not working near what I was before her birth. probably no more than an hour or so on the weekdays, and 3-4 hours on the weekends when Eric is home.

And now the baby is fussing, so that is all for now! I will try to post more regularly, and I am also planning on posting more on the homeschooling blog as well.