Andy was just drying dishes for me. One of the things he dried was a large platter I had used to serve my cheesecake dip, apples and graham crackers on for our church pitch-in on Sunday.

He said, “Mom, your stuff looked good at the Snack-and-Yak, but I didn’t eat any.”

I jokingly pouted.

Then I said, “Andy, when you’re older and you’re married, do me a favor.”

“What?”

“When you’re at church picnics or family reunions or other pitch-in, ALWAYS eat some of whatever your wife made. It will make her happy to know you like her food and it will make her happy if her food is all gone! Daddy is VERY good at that. He always gets BIG helpings of Mommy’s food and eats it all. It’s just one of the things he does to show me he loves me.”

Throughout the past year or so, I’ve found some interesting things in the fridge.

A Matchbox car

A small plastic horse

A whiffle ball

The other day, though, I found a Bible in there! I was the first one up that morning, so I know someone had to have put it in there the night before. Crazy, isn’t it?

We were in the van the other day and Andy was bragging that he’d be done with school before Brady. (He’s a whole 13 months older, remember?)

So, Brady whined, “When I’m in junior high, you’ll be in high school… When I’m in high school, you’ll be in college… When I’m in college, you’ll be working at McDonald’s!”

If that’s true, can we advise Andy to skip college and save the tuition money?

iBaby

In production now… Arriving March 2011!

I was giving my girls a bath this morning, when Evan asked the following question:

“What if all the bad guys ate poison apples?”

She genuinely wanted to know. I’m pretty sure she lives in a Fairy Tale land, but I digress.

What if they served poison apples to those serving life sentences in jail? Or to at least half of them, like some sort of Russian roulette?

Could end over-crowding in prisons. Just sayin’.

My three-year-old should run for office. She’s got it all figured out.

My husband is working this Labor Day weekend… a lot. It’s the nature of his work. We like to joke that we just can’t convince the “criminals” to take the day off.

So, I’m doing stuff around the house.

How many of you homeschool moms are involved in a co-op / support group?

I’ve avoided them this far because I’ve always heard nightmares of how demanding they can be of your time and resources! True?

Well, our family is continuing to get bigger and the winter months are really hard on our kids! Being couped up in the house for several days with nowhere to run is hard on them.

So, I approached a friend from church about starting our own group that would maybe do a simple mini-lesson, then a game and then just free time for our kids to run around together in the gym and just use some energy. She has 8 kids, so she loved the idea.

I still have to get the idea cleared through our Pastor, so we’re definitely still in the planning stages.

I’m looking for advice though… What parts of co-ops were most helpful to you? What parts did you most dislike? How often did you meet? What are the pitfalls of most groups? What are the best ideas / most fun ideas you’ve had for group projects? Any other advice is welcome too!

Now, go forth and comment! (*please!*)

Today, while my younger three children napped at home with Dad, I took my three “big boys” to the library.

Thankfully, the round trip drive was uneventful… So much so that a couple hours later, when Connor was praying for dinner, he prayed:

“God, thank you for our food, and our drinks, and our library books. Please help me, Mom, Andy and Brady make it home safely… And we’re already here! Amen!!”

I generally try to correct my children if they have a gross mispronunciation of basic words. Like, when Andy and Brady thought the singular form of “clothes” was “clo.”

But two-year-old Ferris has this saying that I just find incredibly cute, though very wrong. I correct her occasionally, but not every time.

She’ll bring me a book and point to a page and say, “What says, Mommy?”

Or I’ll ask her to do something and, if she didn’t hear me, she say, “What says?”

Maybe I’m just odd, or maybe it’s the mass of large curls that frame her face, or maybe it’s just her snugly two-year-old personality, but I love that girl!

So, Ferris, if you’re reading this in 15 years, know this: Mommy says “I love you, oodles and bunches and gobs and wads.”

I need a piece of advice from my fellow homeschooling mamas….

My 4-year-old Connor started Kindergarten curriculum a few weeks ago. He LOVES doing school.

He loves the activities in his books… Coloring, cutting, pasting, reasoning, writing, counting, etc. I think, however, he really loves being included with his big brothers more often.

Either way, he’s on a roll! The boy asks to “do school” in the evenings, on the weekends, during “rest time.”

I don’t want to discourage him, so I’ve been letting him do it. Now, though, I think he’s going to end up flying through my lesson plans.

So, do I let him keep going? Should I find something else for him to do in between now and first grade? Should I let him start first grade soon — at age four?! Should I tell him he’s not allowed to do school unless it’s actually school time?

Opinions anyone? Please?

Yesterday, as I mentioned, we took the kids on a field trip. The night before, they didn’t know where we were going. I finally hinted, “It begins with T.”

Connor immediately flew into phonics mode: “T…T… Texas?”

“No,” I chuckled.

“Town Hall?” he asked.

You can’t blame him for trying.

We actually went to a nearby tomato farm! It was amazingly interesting. My husband taught the owner how to fly helicopters. Since the man new we were homeschoolers, he invited us out to watch part of the tomato harvest. Incredible!

The machines are amazing… There are computers on the “harvester” that can determine whether each chunk is red (a tomato,) green (an unripe tomato,) or black (a clod of dirt!) Only the red ones get placed on the conveyer belt that delivers them to the huge trailers (that EACH hold 46,000 POUNDS of tomatoes!!)

By the way, they only pay about $.03 for their roma tomatoes! I’m sure they sell them for more… Wish I could get them in the store for that price. They were delicious, too. We got to eat some, right off the ground. Yum!

On the flip side of all that fun, Grayson started coughing / sneezing / wheezing / gulping yesterday on the way to the farm… It got progressively worse, so it was off to the doctor this morning. After TWO breathing treatments and four prescription meds, they aren’t sure if it was an allergic reaction to something he ate OR an asthma attack.

Neither is particularly fun for a 14 month old.

We got sent home with a nebulizer. We go back in 2 weeks to hopefully figure it out a bit more… Pray for the little guy, ok?