Babies Movie

Ok, I admit, I'm attracted to babies period, but this movie looks too cute. I do believe that I WILL go see this one in the theatres. I will definately take my mom, but may even take Anna to it. It looks so cute and neat and is definately a learning experience of the different cultures. Watch the trailer and tell me what you think...

Blah..Doctors...blah!!!

Is so sick of lousy doctors...I see better doctors at the clinic than Anna sees on a regular basis. Here we are nearly 5 months out from initial visit on swollen tonsils and they still say its viral. UGH!! I took her in again today and that is what she said. She also said not to bring her back in unless she runs a fever over 100.4. Good grief. It isn't strep, it never is, but plain old tonsillitis, probably. They said again, yes, they're swollen and inflamed. Give her cough drops and gargle with warm salt water. UGH! How do I get them to understand that this is a chronic problem unless I keep bringing her in. They aren't getting it. This never goes away. It gets slightly better and flares back up. Is my 8 year old supposed to live on cough drops and chloraseptic spray? UGH!! I know this is all cause she has Medicaid. If we had her on Jeremy's insurance, her tonsils would already have been pulled out months, if not years ago. OK, vent over. I am just one frustrated Momma!!

My Little Girl is Famous....

My little girl is featured in the paper yet again for something fun we have done. She has spent the afternoon's of what is most kid's Spring Break at the Lubbock Lake Landmark taking classes. We still schooled through Spring Break as Much as Possible, but these were "Spring Break Classes." Anyhow, the newspaper was out yesterday and they interviewed the kids and took pictures. It was too cute. So although they got my daughter's age wrong, I will put it up here for you all to read. (She is 8, not 7 as the article states.)

Life Lessons: Local children learn about natural world during their spring break
By Adam D. Young AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Friday, March 19, 2010
Story
last updated at 3/19/2010 - 12:17 am

Dozens of Lubbock children spent
their spring break digging in the dirt, sounding like thunder storms and eating
worms.

Well, that dirt-digging was a lesson on planting a garden of
life-sustaining vegetables and grains. That sound of thunder was produced by
Native American rope-and-string toys the children built themselves. And the
worms ...

"I'm not sure if it's alive or if it's gummy," 7-year-old
Keller Pettit said, lifting a spoonful of "worms and dirt" dessert to his mouth.

"Of course it's gummy - real worms aren't colored. They're brown,"
8-year-old Alyson Oliver said before she grabbed her own cup of a concoction
containing Cool Whip, gummy worms, Oreo cookies and vanilla pudding.

Alyson and Keller were among dozens of children eating, learning and
playing Thursday during the weeklong Spring Break Fest afternoon program at
Lubbock Lake Landmark.

The Landmark offered children the nature-oriented
course as a way to introduce them to the outdoors, said Susan Rowe, Lubbock Lake
Landmark education program manager.

"I want them to get in touch with
nature and develop not necessarily a love, but a concern or caring for nature,"
she said. "I also want them to know they can do things for themselves - they can
grown food."

A highlight of Thursday's program had the children working
with Landmark volunteers to plant Three Sisters Native American Gardens, a
combination of bean, corns and squash planted in a specific sequence within a
circle.

The three vegetables are important in Native American culture
because each provides essential nutrients the others don't, said Kristen Vogt, a
student intern at the Landmark who coordinated lessons for the program.

Beans provide protein and fat, corn provides sugar and squash provides
carbohydrates, she said.

Vogt sat with 7-year-old Anna Lonis, a
home-schooled student from Lubbock, trying to show her the order to plant the
vegetables. She told Anna the corn seed is planted first, in the center of the
intended plot.

The bean plants are buried around the corn kernel to
assist the beans' growth, said Rowe.

"The runner beans use corn as a
pole to grow up," she said.

Squash seeds, which will produce wide green
leaves, are planted outside of the circle.

"Their leaves will keep
moisture in the soil," Rowe said.

The children hadn't finished planting
the seeds and plants in the ground before they were hyper and wanted play time.

"I'm going to talk to the armadillo," Keller said, pointing to a more
than 3-foot-long armadillo statue he wanted to climb in a nearby field.

"Guys, you need to plant the squash," Vogt told the class.

Working with the children seemed a bit hectic, especially with the noise
and excitement produced by their thunder noise makers.

"They were loud
yesterday," she said. "That's why we went outside. We even had one boy that
repeatedly kept hitting himself in the leg."

Anna said the program at
the Landmark was a fun way for her to meet new friends and spend her time during
spring break. But being home schooled, she said, gave her a different
perspective than her peers on spring break.

"You do home school at home,
so I've been on spring break for a very long while," she said.

To
comment on this story:

adam.young@lubbockonline.com l 766-8725

charles.reinken@lubbockonline.com l 766-8706

OUR KIDS/Local
children learn about natural world during their spring break

Pretty cute, huh?!! If you want to see the pictures that went with it, here is the link, but she is not in any of them. Told you it was special!! :-)

http://lubbockonline.com/stories/031910/fea_592710272.shtml

Spring Cleaning...

Yeah right...that lasted all of about that one day. Then I had to work and have no other bites on the things I am selling since then. It was short-lived. I still have lots to do. I may get it done by summer. MAY! No guarantees.

We have lots of other things going on, so that always gets put to the back-burner.

My car is acting up again. I swear the electrical in that car is going to kill me. My air conditioner went out and has been out. I put it in to be repaired and it is a short in the wiring somewhere. Where, they don't know. They can't find it, but somewhere it is shorting out. All the mechanical is fine, but to have a short. UGH! With all the other things that car needs fixed, I'm about ready to throw in the towel on it. About, but not yet. Can't afford a car payment.

Ok...that's all for now. Look for a more upbeat post tomorrow....its a surprise!! :-) Take care.

Spring Cleaning and Clearing

Spring Cleaning is going very well. I am cleaning up and especially clearing out. Some things have sold already and I am meeting someone else in 15 minutes at a nearby store. It will probably take me a week or more to clear out all that I want gone. We somehow manage to gather all kinds of excess throughout the course of the year.

We did use some of the money for things I've already sold to pay our library fines. Anna and I took back the books and paid the fines. For what I paid, I could have bought 2-3 books. I hope that never happens again, or I will ONLY buy our books. At least then I don't have to worry about them going back. LOL! I changed my e-mail address with them so hopefully we are good to go and I will catch it sooner next time.

Anyhow, that's all for now. Take care all. Have a good weekend and Happy Spring Cleaning to all!! :-)

School Update

We have been doing school, although not everyday and not consistently, we have been doing it. I was looking at her Reading and realized that if we don't want to school through the entire summer, we need to start doubling up on some lessons. We are way behind where we should be. Spelling is about right. We have 7 weeks left of spelling. History is about 25 lessons left. Math, well, we ditched Saxon and went to various workbooks. Until we build the basic skills and master them, there is no need to move on with the harder things like skip counting and multiplication and the like. We do about 3-4 pages a day from several workbooks. It's easier on me, but also frustrating. We have successfully completed our second unit study or lapbook. It was a lot of fun. This one ended up being a double. The Olympics covers a lot of info and we didn't even do everything we could have. What we did do filled two folders. We are enjoying them and they are simple to do. Science, well, that is hit or miss. I think I'm about to buy a magnet kit and we are going to work through the rest of the book we started a few months ago. OK, we BARELY started it, but that because we don't have the materials to do it. We may also invest in a microscope for more fun with it.

As for field trips, we still go on trips with two homeschool groups. One is very large and takes good field trips. The other group also take good field trips, but it is a LOT smaller and we seem to come away with more knowledge.

Anna is taking the IOWA test in April. We may not test her this way again for a while, but it will give us a good idea as to where we are truly at. Anyhow, I guess that's about as much of an update as I can come up with. I know I haven't been good at keeping up on here, but I'd rather spend more time with my daughter. Keep in touch and I will at least try to update every few weeks. Take care all.