Yeah, I so don't have time to blog right now...

But as usual I am having trouble prioritizing my schedule. :)

But sometimes you have to force yourself to sit down and take a break and that is where I am at today. I am in the middle of ten things right now. laundry is most pressing. And I need to get Eli doing his schoolwork this morning yet. And preparing an amazing game for the weekend. I also need to do a little research on a few more games we can play at the beginnings of sessions. But I just decided I needed a minute to gather my own thoughts and reflect before we plummet into this retreat.
I'm super excited. Excited to spend time with students, excited to get a little time away from my kids, excited because this is our biggest event yet, excited to see Travis and LeAnn. Just excited overall.
Feel like I'm balancing too much this morning. Trying to slow down and take a deep breath and figure out what is most important. whew. Can't wait to see what God is going to do with us in the next 24 hours. Please be praying for our speakers and our students, and shoot, well you are at at it, pray for us too! :)

new pages

Did the one yesterday... The title is from the new relient K cd - about marrying your better half. It's pretty fun. And the other one is from a couple days ago...

another field trip

I think that's a stretch for us, but we went over to see my cousin this morning. She's having a rough time with a wee one that won't sleep all night. That's a tough gig. I so don't miss those times! I love that I put my kids to bed at 8 and don't see them till the next day. Helps me stay sane, I think.
Anyhoo, we had a fun time. I also stopped at Red Lead on the way home - because I have no self control like that. awesome store, so fun!! Of course, my kids were monstrous, but that's ok. I bought a super cute birdie stamp that has a little 'thank you' banner. Now I am way in the mood to scrapbook.

Sarah Sings

This is a video of Sarah singing her song.. Wow, and it's so her...

Sarah Sings

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Sunday Afternoon Drive

Not that I'm going anywhere, but that's what I think of when I think about relaxing. I'm just trying to chill this afternoon, take a load off. I have a couple more videos I'd like to finish up for expo, but other than that, I'm chilling till church. (ooh, and a game for tonight, we whipped up a doozie)
Had a blast taking photos yesterday, as I'm sure you can see. :) didn't put up all the great ones, still having trouble figuring out a couple minor things with the Mac. Had a great time with Ricky and Kim this weekend, sad to see them go.
Eli sang with Rob this morning in church and I'm about to put the video up on myspace. I'll try and paste it in here too. good times.

first homeschool trip

Ok, sad, this was almost two weeks ago, but I'm just now getting to share the pictures. You understand, right?? To my credit, I did try to upload them several times before, but sometimes our connection is unstable and the server freaks out and loses it. So we'll se if it cooperates tonight. We did have a great time that day. Sarah loved the elephants. She kept asking me "When are we going to go see the elephants Mom?" the whole day - it kind of wound up being the last thing we saw. Both kids were super good and we had a great time. I'm looking forward to our next field trip, which will be Monday - we are going to Springfield to visit the Lincoln Museum, it should be cool. My sister is going to meet us there, so it will be pretty cool.

Oh, and in the pictures - the one with Sarah making the crazy face - she was mimicking the huge fish in the tank, gulping up all the poo. gross. they both found the poo-eaters very funny.

It's official...

Spring has sprung.

Look at this tree in full bloom.

It makes me happy. It makes me hopeful. It reminds me how God starts over with us all the time. (thank goodness) Seriously though, it's rained all week and now my grass needs mown. incredible. I never ceased to be amazed at the shift of seasons. I try to always take time to stop and wonder about how great our God is. He is.

Kimmie and Ricky are on their way to our place this evening. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend with them... just being accepted and loved for who we are. It's going to be wonderful.

Working on more stuff for Expotv.com. I can't encourage you enough to check out their site and start making some money. It's been such an incredible blessing to our family.

Tomorrow I get to have another photo shoot with R&K and I'm really looking forward to it. Hoping to find some blooming trees to set them under. Just seems appropriate. :) I'm going to do some studying first and really challenge myself to do things differently - to push the envelope with them.

I need to go back a few posts and add in the zoo pictures. We had such a good time that day.

Sorry about the blog break. Sometimes a person needs to take time to sort their heart out and a public internet forum is just not the place to do it. Know what I mean?? But I do try to be super real with this blog, that's the point. A real account of me, of God's shaping and changing my heart, of our trials and triumphs - and we have our share of both.

My God is My Portion

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that our hope really is in the Lord and we cannot lean on our own understanding.

Day 25 in Purpose Driven talks a lot about what to do with life's problems. It was a fitting passage for this week. I think God placed it in my path to remind me how to react when life deals you an unfair hand. A little preparation for the week to come. I find His peace in the midst of my chaos. I'm trying to fight fair and have a humble attitude, remembering that He is ultimately shaping my character. People are going to walk in and out of my life, but my relationship with Him, more importantly my accountability TO HIM will be forever. I think it's finally sinking in that I CANNOT please everyone and instead I need to focus on pleasing Him. That is an attainable goal of far more value.

Our family could use your prayers this week.

a reward for all my faithful readers

Because I'm pretty much the suckiest blogger of all time lately, I decided to share an amazing recipe with you all. Call it a peace offering. Call it a bribe. whatever. We made this soup at my pampered chef show back in January - it was good that night, but undercooked. If you follow my directions - it's amazing and I'm addicted. :) Oh, and this is my slightly altered Anna version of this recipe.

Quick Tortilla Soup
(it really is super-quick)

1/2 cup chopped onions (I chop these tiny, does anyone REALLY like onions??)
1 TBSP of taco seasoning
1 can petite diced tomatoes (sauce and all)
1 garlic clove pressed
6 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup lime juice
2 cups cooked chicken chopped (I boil it on the stove and chop it up ahead of time)
1 cup frozen corn (this is my addition, but it makes it amazing!)

toppings - sour cream, mexican blended grated cheese, broken tortilla chips

Cook onion (I add 1TBSP butter) and garlic 2-3 minutes, add taco seasoning. Add chicken broth, salsa and lime juice. Cover and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Add chicken and corn.

Serve with toppings. I mix the sour cream into the soup (about a teaspoon) and it makes the soup really creamy and delish. The tortillas are like crackers in it, but retain their shape and texture better. yum, I'm making myself hungry just typing this!!! enjoy!

Dude.

That about sums it up.

Holy cow. I need to put the brakes on. I was driving home from Walmart and I started blogging in my head. Geez, I just need to get all of this stuff out of my head and on to cyber paper.
First of all, I feel like I'm all scrunched up inside. Stupid description, I know. But there is so much me and no time to express it right now. I am bogged down by dishes and laundry and schoolwork and "Sarah, STOP TOUCHING YOUR BROTHER!" and all my random to-dos. I just want a corner and ten minutes to myself!! In fact right now, I just banned the kids to their floor while I write for a few minutes, but I can still hear them bickering. I told Rob that I need some time. Saturday or Monday, but I need some time to find me again.
School is going ok. I'm struggling with balance. The actual school day is pretty short - but squeezing out other things to squeeze school in is the difficult part. I know, most of you are wondering "what does this girl do all day that she can't handle it?". grrrr. I seriously feel like I never sit down lately, and if I do I'm back up a few moments later. One would think this would make me fashion model thin - but it hasn't thus far. :) here's hoping. I think a ton of it is just going back to having two little people in the house again all day. We had adjusted to Eli being gone and now we are adjusting back. He requires a lot of attention too, he's not as self-starting as Sarah.
I think Eli's learning a lot, but just like every other area of my life, I see vast areas of needed improvement. I know we could be doing more, but right now I am just surviving.
(an aside) If one more kid comes to the door and asks "Can Eli (and sometimes Rob) come out and play?" I am going to scream!! Why does everyone think the kid has nothing to do because he's homeschooled? And I'd be cool with Eli out and playing, but then Sarah wants to go to and I can't get anything done outside while I'm refereeing. I've done it this week, but today there is too much left to do if these people want supper on clean dishes. I'm being super wasteful right now, but it's my sanity at stake.
Anyhoo. I've been spending any spare moments working on my expo project, which I'm loving. It's been a little time consuming because we've had memory card issues (thank you Sarah) and so I've had to re-do videos or lost videos due to memory card errors. More frustration there. But overall I'm really excited to be doing it and super excited to have extra cash to throw at that student loan. (whoopee!)
I guess it all boils down to balance and finding it and not losing my mind in the meantime. I'm missing the things that make me ME right now - the scrapbooking and the creating and the blogging. I'm so tempted to just find some time with my doodles book and a shade tree and my bible and journal. That sounds like heaven. I'd just kill for a little peace and quiet right now. You know those moms who are like "I love hearing the pitter patter of little feet"? Yeah, that's not me. Maybe cause my kids are past pitter patter and full-on into STOMP SHOVE SCREAM stage. I really like it when they sleep. :)
I know I sound stressed out. But I am reminding myself that I love what I am doing. There is not a single area of my life that I'm willing to give up right now (well, maybe diaper changing I could live without). I just need to find a balance of it all. Homeschool has just been a huge transition and we are still figuring it out. Is it summer yet?? (just kidding)

new glasses and Rob's faux hawk.

I think these photos are pretty self explanatory. I'll blog tomorrow. :)

Today's Pages

Ok, so some of these are from a week or so ago, but I DID scrapbook today. Shocking, I know. Lori IMd me and said she was scrapbooking - I could call and chat on the condition that I scrapbooked with her (across the 500 mile gap). You gotta love a friend that thinks about your needs like that. :) So anyhoo, I abandoned my projects and retreated to my studio for a couple hours therapy. brilliant. We laughed and played and talked and it was wonderful. So thankful for unlimited long distance.

So the first two pages (ten years and rev rob) are from the other day. And the other two are todays work. Pretty fun. Also, there's a random picture of Heidi Swapp's new rubons - so you can see how she repackaged them. They work pretty well, except my first page was sticky and crumbly. (awww.)

catching up

It's been so crazy here lately. I again, feel like the fast forward button on life is jammed. I'm trying to shake to he tape player (yeah, I'm old school) but to no avail, life is just whizzing by at ludicrous speed.
Three days ago our Wii came in the mail. Eli was ecstatic!! This is definitely a game for the entire family. I love that it gets you up and moving - I think that's why I was sold. Plus, our youth group is in love with it.
We have another eye doctor appointment this morning, checking in on our contacts - I'm still not real happy with mine. Also, hopefully my glasses will be in. Eli has an eye appointment too, I pray that he doesn't need them because kindergarten is awful young to start in with glasses. He wants them superbad, but I garantee they'll lose their coolness awful quick.
So I finally finished uploading all my expo videos for this month. I can't believe what a project that was, but I kept having connection interruptions so I would have to restart and try and figure out where I had left off. annoying. Today I need to start working on my special projects, now that I finished up my regular stuff.
School is going well. We went to the library yesterday and the kids had a blast. There will be a magician there on Tuesday, so Eli is pretty psyched. We made lions - for March roaring in - in art yesterday. He's flying through his math and handwriting book and reading like a madman.
Grocerygame is still rocking my world. I completely cleaned up at CVS this week. I've been there four times, which is pathetic, but true. I still can't believe the deals I get at that store. Also, Target has an amazing sale on chicken -2.5lb bag of frozen chicken breast for $3.99. There is a $2 off coupon on their website which makes it $1.99 a lb!!! Wow!! I bought them out yesterday and I'm going back for rain checks today!!
So other than that, tonight is Grey's. Pretty thrilled for a new episode. I'm completely behind on laundry, so I will probably be a folding fool come about 8pm. Also really hoping to squeeze in some scrapbooking today. Last week was so fun, which I just realized I never posted pictures. Off to search for those now!

(well, I took pictures but I can't find them, so I will retake them. Later dude.)

Random thing from this morning.

This is funny. Sarah was insisting on wearing this blue turtleneck, but it's a little stained. I tried to talk her out of it.
So finally I secede and allow her to wear it. We pull it over her head and she smoothed it down and gives me a big hug "Now I match YOU". I look down and I'm wearing a blue shirt. Cutest thing ever.

Now they don't teach this in public school.

I'm referring to the picture of our Creation Chart. Eli and I made this yesterday. I love it!! We've been reading Genesis and talking about the beginning of the world, so we decided to map it out. I love his little drawings. My favorite is at the bottom - God rested. He drew God (not sure how I feel about that) taking a nap. Cutest thing ever!!!
And then the other pictures are from today. Rachel went with me to get my hair done. We had such a good time. We went shopping after that, and considered these sunglasses but thought better of it.
Other than that I need to go shopping for a 1G sd card today, since Sarah has lost all our memory cards in the past week. grrrr.

where I'm at today

Waiting.

I'm waiting for a phone call from Expo. I'm about to start working on a special project for them and I'm pretty psyched.

But in the meantime, I can type. I've been meaning to blog lately, but I have a real lac of free time suddenly. Totally explainable, I crazily reversed back to two full-time children. :) So what do I think now that we are on day 4?

I love it. Homeschooling definitely presents it's challenges, but I think it's amazing overall. I know that Eli is getting more, but working less, does that makes sense? We work about an hour and a half each day. We do math and phonics and reading and bible and science and art and history. Yep, ART is my favorite subject, how did you guess? And we really do art every day because I think it's important. And I'm the teacher, so there. :) I liked his art book so much that I went and bought a second one for me and now we do ART together. It's amazing.
Today we did all our subjects and then Daddy took the kids out for PE. Then I laid Sarah down for a nap (she's exhausted from the PEing) and Daddy and Eli did music lessons with Daddy's guitar. Cool, huh? Hopefully we will make it to the library tomorrow, it's been an insanely busy week for us.
So in other areas of my life.... Expo has a new great promo - they are asking for another 50 videos. If you haven't done this yet, I just have to tell you that you are insane and you should be checking yourself in somewhere. This has been such an amazing addition to my life. So I'm working on uploading those. I've also been running around for MOPs - that was awesome yesterday, taking both kids. I can't believe I'm really a homeschool MOM now. It's starting to sink in.
I love, love, LOVE my Mac. Still figuring it out, but I think that will just be a way of life for me for a while. I'm not so good at reading instruction manuals. I start to read and then the elevator music comes on in my head and my brain is ejected to la-la land and then I can't even remember what I'm supposed to be reading about.
Reading comprehension has never been my strong suit. :( Poor Eli, I hope he does better.
Sarah is loving homeschooling. My kids have never played together better. I'm not going to tell you it's all sunshine and roses here, we still have our moments, but overall the attitude in the house has definitely skyrocketed. I just feel more together as a family (even if I'm falling apart personally!).
Eli started reading the Bible. Out loud, to me. He's memorized the names of the first five books. I love that. My heart is bursting with admiration for him, he's such a bright boy. I can see where homeschooling is going to set him free to learn. Does that make sense?
Super proud of my mom. She bought a new camera and figured out Expo. She made and uploaded 45 videos in a matter of 6 hours. The woman is impressive. It usually takes me 2 days to do 50 videos. crazy. But I have little people as a constant distraction too. :)
Ok. And Rob bought a new guitar last week. Crazy, I know, but he had a bass and an electric, but no accoustic. He's been leading song service in youth on Sunday nights, since Matt and Tiff left. So he's been borrowing Ivan's accoustic, but now he bought his own. I was cool with it, I totally think it's an investment in him and his talent. So he had this horrible run-around with MoJo's in Edwardsville over a blue Ibanez. He actually bought it and it didn't work (the electric part). He finally returned it today and bought this Ibanez from Halpin in Alton. I call it his Johnny Cash gi-tar because it just looks like a crazy old man guitar. :) But he loves it. In fact he just came in telling me that he wrote a worship song. It's awesome!! I should video him playing it and put it up on MySpace. cool!!
Anyhoo, so stuff is just great. I love our life with it's ups and downs. I love my kids. (especially cause Sarah is actually sleeping right now! (woohoo!)
We've got fun plans tonight - contacts and glasses appointments and we are going to make some videos at McDonald's. Such a happy life. I am so thankful.