Back Away From the Delicious -or- Won't Be Making That Again

So, in my new Weight Watchers weight loss plan I have been counting points--everything I eat has a point value and I write it all down and try to stay within a certain range of points each day.  Well, as you might be able to guess, this can become cumbersome.  So, I've been experimenting this week.  No counting points, just portion control, only eating when I'm hungry, not stuffing myself, etc.  This was going great until last night.  I made Creamy Herbed Pork Chops and Rice.  YUM!!!  I served myself a small portion, picked at the pan for another portion's worth probably.  Had another small portion later.  And another.  This is just way too good of a recipe so I think I will save it for special occasions.  If you're good, maybe I'll post it for you guys but I'm warning you, it may result in a pig out session!

Do You Think He's Trying to Tell Me Something?

First of all, Joe recently got the movie, "Alvin and the Chipmunks."  He loves this movie and has watched it about 10 times.  It's full of potty humor--his favorite subject.  Well, now he's taken to quoting the movie and while it can be inappropriate I have to say that it is really funny.  About 3 weeks ago he was laying in bed and in a chipmunk voice declared that "Alvin is the awesomest, Simon is the smartest, and let's just say Theodore has the biggest butt."  
Then comes yesterday, everytime Joe needed me to move he said, "Move your butt, Theodore."  Now, I know I shouldn't let him say that and blah, blah, blah but it was funny and I let him get away with it.  Although, maybe he's trying to tell me something...

In Other News

I've survived a week of being gluten free. It hasn't been terribly difficult, it is certainly helping me cut back on snacks. I've managed to come up with another good menu for this week and then just two more weeks. I can't really say yet that I've seen a big difference. My swollen finger is a little better. On Thursday it was great but then was swollen quite a bit again on Friday and Saturday. My feet are about the same but feeling better because I'm trying to stay off of them more. I plan to continue the gluten free diet for another two weeks to give it a fair try.
I've lost a couple of more pounds. I'm up to 10 now!
The girls and I are reading "Little Town on the Prairie" and the last chapter we read was all about a town spelling bee. Everybody was sitting around in their homes bored so they all decided to go to the school house and then couldn't decide what to do until someone suggested a spelling bee. To hear Laura describe it you would have thought it was the most exciting thing ever. I wish we could get that excited over something so simple. (Pa won of course.)
I found a new great author--Brandilynn Collins. I started a book on Friday and finished it this afternoon. It was very suspenseful and dramatic but a good, clean read. She's written a lot of books so I'm excited to have a new author to read. When I find a good author I quickly read everything he or she has written and then I'm stuck for a while trying to find another good author. Well, Joe is waiting for my computer so I'll wrap this exciting post up, I know you are disappointed. :0)

Is it STILL April???

Could this month be any longer??? I just uploaded some new pictures and I can't believe how many pictures I have in my April folder. It seems that this is the month that never ends, "it just goes on and on my friend..." (remember that song?) Anyway, I haven't had much to post this week. It's been a normal ridiculously busy week, seems to be the new norm for me, but nothing really wonderful or exciting. So, here are some pictures from my week--

The praying mantises are continuing to grow and eat. This morning one of them looked really big and after looking around a bit I saw that he had shed another exoskeleton! By this afternoon 3 more have shed again. It's hard to really see them in this picture but if you enlarge it you might be able to see them. The one towards the top is still a little attached to its exoskeleton. AND--in big news we have tons of fruit flies now. I was getting worried because we had larva and even little chryasalid type things but none were hatching. Well, they are now and we have more than enough fruit flies to sustain these mantises for a while longer. I'm hoping we are able to keep them in their habitat until June 28 at least. That is when we have a homeschool exhibition and it would be neat to display them.

Hannah played beauty parlor or should I say barber shop. She likes to give him the messy look. He was actually having fun with this but was mad at me for something and so that is why he has this scowl on his face.

We babysat a baby from church for the day on Friday. She was a sweet baby and easy to keep for the day--wouldn't want to do it full time but for the day I enjoyed it. This is a picture of Joe trying to read to her, she wouldn't sit still and he was getting frustrated.

The kids found this caterpillar at the park on Friday. Her name is Pinkie Pye and we haven't been able to identify her yet. If Grace and Joe would leave her alone she might be ready to make her chrysalis and turn into a butterfly or moth.

Grace's last two pictures from art class. Their wonderful art teacher is taking the summer off and may not be starting back up again. She has been a wonderful teacher and we have so much beautiful artwork! Grace has done almost exclusively insects. She worked a long time on this ladybug and rushed through the praying mantis in her last class. It's still pretty cute!Here is Hannah's latest acrylic paint picture. She doesn't love it but I think it's great.

How has your week been???

Talent Show

Joe's school had a talent show last night.  It was supposed to be kids and their parents.  We joined in with two other families and did the adjective song from Schoolhouse Rock.  I was feeling a little anxious about getting up in front of these people and making a fool of myself.  Well, once I saw the first few acts I no longer cared.  I certainly wasn't going to look any goofier than a couple of these moms.  One was singing and doing a hip-hop dance with her little man only her little man didn't hip or hop.  It was a one-woman show.  She is quite the character so I don't think she minded at all.  I knew that the little bit of swaying I had to do would be no big deal.  Our little performance went great.  If you have nothing better to do and would like to see a short video of our grand performance go see Julie at www.winchesteracademy.blogspot.com and she'll hook you up.  
The funny of the night happened on the way home.  Joe got in the car and said, "When Ms. Shawnee asked us to do the Cha-Cha Slide I didn't know it was a dance. I thought we were going to the playground. I'd never seen a 'cha-cha' slide and I wanted to try it." Too cute.

Weight Watchers is Working...

for Ollie.  He's lost 10 pounds so far!  I could strangle him.  I've lost almost 8 and I know I've tried harder than he has.  So, now the dilemma of keeping weight on my husband while I keep it off of me.  
Day 2 and I'm still gluten free.  It's not easy and I haven't really had time to plan very well but I'm surviving.  I may lose the rest of my weight pretty fast.  It also wasn't such a terrible caffeine free day--I didn't feel as groggy as I thought I'd feel and with 2 excedrin I didn't even get a headache, not a bad one that is.  
I let another project go today...I have really been wanting to do a really involved, fancy, fun lapbook on flowers.  I've kept the library books out for about 6 weeks now in anticipation of reading them all and planning out and doing our lapbook.  Well, I decided today after much thought that now is just not the time.  There's almost too much information and I'm not sure where to start.  The girls don't care either way and we've read most of the library books so they have definitely learned a lot about flowers.  I'd like to eventually do the lapbook but for now I'm letting it go.  I have already freed up all sorts of brain cells from thinking about it.  Can I get another woohoo???  I may get so good at letting things go that I do nothing (doubt it).  

Cold Turkey

As of today, I am officially getting myself off caffeine.  My body is such that it quickly gets addicted to caffeine and if I have it more than two days in a row then I get a raging headache as soon as I don't have it.  And--if I start with just a cup in the morning, then within a week or so I get a headache in the afternoon if I don't have more.  So for the last month or two I have had coffee in the morning and coffee or soda in the afternoon.  And just in the past few days I've started getting a headache in the early evening as well, like my body is hollering for more caffeine.  I LOVE coffee but it is frustrating to know you HAVE to have a cup or you will get a horrible headache.  So, today is the day--no more caffeine.  Not forever of course, as I mentioned, I LOVE coffee but I have to get it out of my system and then I can have a cup every few days but not everyday.  Or drink just decaf of course.  I have to admit that I do love the rush of caffeine but I think that the "coming down" is contributing to my irritableness and the "rush" contributing to my inability to sit still and relax.  Overall, it's a bad idea to let this go on.
AND--as though this won't be hard enough.  I'm also going gluten free for the next three weeks.  I am curious to see if some of my "issues" (feet problems, psoriasis, etc.) are possibly related to gluten intolerance.  It's a long shot but I'm willing to try anything at this point and three weeks should be enough time to see if it makes a difference.  I welcome any recipes or hints from you gluten free people out there!

I am Now an Extraordinary Woman

I spent Friday night and all day Saturday at a Women's conference called, "Extraordinary Women."  When I heard the advertisement for it on the radio I just knew I had to be there.  The speakers were wonderful.  I heard Chonda Pierce, I've always wanted to hear her, I've seen clips of her video and knew she was hilarious!   She didn't disappoint.  Even talking about going through a crippling bout of depression she was still funny.  She was honest and vulnerable and so real yet with a sense of humor.  I laughed and cried.  After that (this was Friday night) Mark Schultz was going to do a concert.  Some of you will be shocked but I skipped out on the concert.  I am not a concert person and I was tired, it was already 9 pm, and I had a hotel room to myself.  I couldn't wait to just relax, read, watch tv, whatever!  Saturday morning started early at 8:30 and it was a long day but an awesome day.  The guy who lead worship was amazing.  I would have liked to buy all his CDs but stuck with one with all hymns.  We worshipped and had 4 sessions.  The speakers were Thelma Wells, Lisa Welchel, Angela Thomas, and Carol Kent.  In the middle of the day was a concert by Mandisa--I didn't skip out on her and I was blessed.  I want one of her CDs.  I wasn't an American Idol fan when she was on so I had never seen or heard her that I knew of.  She did some great christian songs and then a tribute to some 80s singers.  She sang snippets of songs from Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, and Whitney Houston.  She had the whole place rockin'.  She also talked very candidly about a little bit of her life and her time on American Idol.  She talked about telling Simon that she forgave him for his rude comments and that she could forgive him because Jesus had forgiven her.  She was awesome!  I won't bore you with a summation of everybody's talk but I can say that they were all wonderful and hit home in some personal way.  The theme for the conference was "Discovering God's Dream For You,"  we were reminded over and over that God does have a dream for each of us and we can have faith that if we walk with Him and rejoice always and in all things we will be blessed.  I'm not sure what God's dream is for me but I know right now my dream is to find joy in my daily life.  By nature I am an upbeat, happy person but I have felt so stressed and bogged down with everything that I find that more often than not I feel irritated 
and frustrated. 
 I'm working on prioritizing and letting some things go.  One of the speakers talked about first borns and our
drive to do, do, do and do it the best.  At one point she said something about "blind ambition" and that has stuck with me.  Sometimes I feel like I have this blind ambition to just accomplish and produce but for what???  It's so dumb.  Identifying this in my life and recognizing that I absolutely DO NOT have the time or energy to keep up all I'm trying to keep up with has helped me tremendously.  Here are a few examples of my small successes.  I was supposed to do a few simple Science experiments with the kids on Friday so that I could check off everything for the week.  They were things we had done before and were not going to teach any big deal concept.  I really didn't have time and so I skipped them!  Yes, I did and I am not going to do them AT ALL!  I know this seems ridiculous to many of you but it really is a big deal for me to not kill myself to do every single thing.  I also put away a puzzle last night that I was NOT DONE WITH.  It was getting frustrating and not fun anymore and I just put it away.  This was hard for me because I am a finisher but it was not fun anymore and I just packed it up.  I'm returning about 5 library books without reading them.  Can I get a woo-hoo to you?  I've also decided to not even think about scrapbooking (even though I am behind) until this summer when we are done with school.  It just won't even be an option to start working on it before then.  AND, most importantly, I'm putting my kids to work helping me.  I actually have a plan for keeping up the house with the kids help and I think we can do it.  More on that later.

Our Mantises are Gifted and Talented

We have shedded exoskeletons--woohoo!!   We must be doing something right or just have gifted mantises because three of these little buggers have shed their exoskeleton almost a week early.  I did my morning check and count and saw what looked like two shriveled bodies on the screen.  It took me a few minutes to realize that they must have shed.  We ended up finding three sheds (not sure what to call them) and could tell that three were visibly bigger and different.  Their body is more greenish and longer.  It is ridiculous how excited I was.  Grace--the little scientist of the family said, "I was just telling Madison this morning that soon the praying mantises would be shedding their exoskeleton and now they did!"  I'm sure Madison was thrilled to discuss exoskeletons this morning.  :0)

Pad Thai recipe--finally!

A few people have requested this recipe and I keep saying that I am going to put it on my blog and then I forget--so here it is!  A few things first--this recipe calls for tofu and shrimp but you could omit either of those or even substitute chicken for either of them.  Also, I usually double this recipe because my family loves it and I love having leftovers.  And--about half the time I skip the bean sprouts but they do add some nice crunch.

7 oz. wide rice noodles (I can never find these so I usually just use fettucine or rice sticks)
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. oil, divided
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
7 oz. extra firm tofu
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup cooked shrimp
2 cups bean sprouts
dollop of peanut butter (optional)

First, soak the noodles in hot water according to the package directions.  If you are using fettucine then cook it.  Combine the fish sauce, sugar 2 Tbsp. of the oil, and soy sauce in a small bowl and set aside.  Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a skillet over med-high heat.  Saute the tofu cubes, if you're using htem, until golden brown.  About 7-8 minutes.  Remove them from the pan and set them aside.  Reduce the heat to med-low and scramble the eggs breaking up any large pieces.  Set the eggs aside with the tofu.  Drain the noodles.  Saute the garlic and shrimp for about thirty seconds and then add the fish sauce mixture and the noodles.  Add the tofu, eggs, and bean sporuts, stirring gently until everything is thoroughly heated.  At this point you can also add some peanut butter if you like it a little peanutty.  

Lapbooking

For those of you non-homeschoolers this post will probably be pretty boring. For that matter, it may be boring to you homeschoolers as well :0). I love helping the kids make lapbooks to go with what we are learning. It is such a fun way to display information and a neat thing to go back and look at and review what we've learned. For those of you unfamiliar with lapbooks--they are basically some sort of folded "book" with lots of little books or diagrams or drawings or whatever inside. I did a few lapbooks last year. You can design your own or there are a few companies that design them and you can purchase a "kit" and make a lapbook that way. I've done both and can't really say I prefer one over the other. Of course purchasing a kit is much easier but more restricting. Since we are doing a specific curriculum this year I haven't taken the time to plan for and do any lapbooks but these baby mantises inspired me. So, I forewent (is that a word) Grace's normal school and we blitzed our way through a lapbook. Here's how we did it:

Step 1 is my part. I planned out what I wanted to put in the lapbook. The praying mantises came with a great information booklet and so I used that to help me decide what to include.

Once I knew what to include I pulled out this--see the picture above. Michelle (a fellow homeschooler) does amazing lapbooks and held a workshop about a year ago. During this workshop she taught us various paperfolds to use in displaying information. This is really, really handy! I used this to help me decide what mini books I would make and where I would put them in the lapbook. I did this part last night while watching American Idol. Previous to making the mini books I had surfed the web and printed out a few things to include.

Here's the rough layout we started with this morning. Now, it's time for Grace to join me. I prefer that she do most of the "work" from this point on. I did help with some of the writing but not all of it and she did all of the drawing and coloring.

Here's Grace hard at work labeling the parts of a Praying Mantis.

And here's the finished product. This opens up right in the middle of the front to reveal...The pictures are on a big flap that can be lifted up to reveal more mini books underneath. I left some blank space to add more pictures later.

This is Grace's favorite mini book. On the front it tells what Praying Mantises like to eat and then when you open it a little mantis pops up and a fruit fly is dangling in front of it.

So, that's it! The long part on the side is a diary of our mantises. We will journal a little about them each week, recording their size and what they are doing, their behaviors, etc. I've talked to Joe's preschool about bringing the praying mantises in when they get bigger and Grace will use this lapbook to give a short presentation about praying mantises. It should be fun and a great way for her to further retain the information. A great way to learn is to teach someone else. Now that I've done one lapbook I kind of have lapbook fever. Next we are going to do one on flowers. It will probably be a little bigger than this one but we'll see. I haven't really started the serious planning yet. We will also be following Kirsten's idea and do an owl lapbook and dissect owl pellets. And, last night I bought two kits--one for Hannah about Mary Cassatt and one for Grace about insects and flowers. If you are new to lapbooking I highly recommend buying one to start with, it will kind of give you an idea of how to do it. My favorite place to order from is inthehandsofachild.com. You can have them send you a hard copy or buy an ebook.

Good and Bad

Today has been a day full of good and bad.  Here it is in a nutshell:
Good--Grace had her front tooth pulled today--the one that was sticking out with the permanent tooth almost fully in right behind it.  She did so well, only squirming and whimpering for a second when they gave her a shot.
Bad--while in the waiting room at the dentist I had a chance to read the paper only to discover that an old student of mine killed herself a week ago.  This has been on my heart all day.  She was a troubled teen when I had her as a student and she kind of bonded with me.  She wrote me a poem that I'll put on this blog if I can find it.  I think I still have it.  Apparently, her mom killed herself a year ago, her grandmother sometime before that.  I've spent too much time wishing I had followed up with her after leaving the school.
Good--more fruit flies came in the mail today.  We should have plenty to keep these little mantises going for a few weeks at least.
Bad--my ankle is really bothering me, I'm not sure what is wrong.  It did this about a year or two ago and I went to the doctor and she had me wear a brace.  So, I wore a brace today.
Good--Spent some time with friends and I am finally getting the whole knitting thing.  I found out Sunday that I was doing it wrong and now that I'm doing it right it is going MUCH better.
Bad--a new friend announced that she would be moving, we're just getting to know each other!
Good--Ollie made dinner and gave me 30 minutes completely alone and some good music to listen to.  He is trying to teach me to relax.  I sat in the massage chair and did nothing but listen to music for half an hour!
Bad--I totally ate too much today.  Yesterday was Weight Watchers so today was my day off.  I take a day off or a meal off from counting points a week but still try not to go overboard.  I went overboard with chocolate today because I had brownies in the house.  Bad idea.  
Good--I was down 2 pounds yesterday.  I am making progress slowly but surely.
Bad--I am so tired but there is still more I want to do tonight!
Good--tomorrow is a fresh day and His mercies are new every morning.

The Eagle Has Landed

Just a quick report--I have fruit fly babies!!! WooHoo!!! Shout it from the mountaintops! Lots of little white squiggly things! The mantises won't starve!

Willy Wonka and More

Hannah was asked to do the artwork for the poster and program of the upcoming Willy Wonka show that her theatre is doing. Here is the finished product and below it the original artwork. It turned out pretty neat--it's amazing what you can do with a computer!

Here is Grace's latest masterpiece. This has to be one of my favorites--I think it is absolutely adorable!

Hannah has moved on to acrylic paints in art class. Here is her first picture using this new medium.

Letting Some Balls Drop--the Ones That Will Bounce

I am a very ambitious person. I have so many things that I want to do and truly planned to do and soon (until tonight that is) --For example:

• I have 6 books on my nightstand and I really hope to read them all before they are due at the library.
• I have a puzzle going on a card table in the living room, I've only succeeded at getting the edges done so far. They've been done since Thursday.
• I have a box full of a month or two's worth of pictures just waiting to be scrapbooked.
• I have a quilt top and the fabric to finish it and high hopes of doing it.
• I have a HUGE to-do list for school this week.
• I have some seeds to plant and Grace asks me about them every other day.
• I am learning to knit and am halfway into my third washcloth--I've finally learned how to perl!

I think that's everything that I have going at the moment. Pretty crazy huh? Pretty ridiculous huh? If you notice, that list doesn't include cleaning my house, preparing meals, or spending time with my husband. Until tonight I really thought I could do all this, not today, or this week but in the next few weeks. No wonder I am more stressed out than I've ever been in my life. What is my problem??? God is working on me in this area. Just last week in church Pastor Doug was talking about how Paul didn't have an easy, perfect life but he had joy anyway because he sought to please God. I've been putting a lot of effort in to pleasing myself thinking it would lead to joy and calm and peace. I do puzzles because it helps me relax and helps my brain stop thinking about everything I need to do. I read as another escape at bedtime--again it clears my brain so I can sleep. I have a hard time being satisfied or content at the end of the day if I have nothing to show for my day. That's part of the reason I scrapbook, quilt, knit, etc. Don't get me wrong here--none of these things are bad in and of themselves. In fact, all are good things but the problem is I am trying to do too much at once and it's taking me away from the BEST thing--time with God and my family. I was reading tonight while I laid down with Joe (yes, he's five and I still lay down with him most nights--shutup :0)). The book I'm reading is a compilation of various stories--kind of like the Chicken Soup books but more encouraging and scriptural. So anyway--this really hit me and spoke to me and (I hope) changed me--

"Every woman juggles many things, now some of the balls we juggle are rubber--they can be dropped and will bounce back at a better, later time in our lives. However, some of the balls we are juggling are crystal. Delicate, priceless balls, they cannot be dropped and picked up later on. They break quite easily. Our children are those magnificent balls. Please don't drop them during the years they are in your care; let the bounce-back kind go instead. Yes! A woman can have it all--she just can't have it all at once. There are times and seasons in a woman's life. The years spent raising kids are a small fraction of your lifetime."

Most of the balls I am juggling are rubber ones and I'm being careless with my crystal balls. I went a whole day today and only spent about an hour with my kids. I was busy. Busy shopping, sleeping, reading, cooking, cleaning, and organizing. At the end of the day I can think of so many ways I could have included them or just stopped for a while and played a game. I have been convicted. I am chasing after things that are worthless. They may give me peace and calm and even joy for the moment but mean nothing in the realm of eternity. If I spend my time pleasing my Heavenly Father I will have joy abundantly. I can still do a puzzle, read a book, make a quilt, scrapbook, and knit a washcloth but in moderation. These are rubber balls that will bounce. All these things will keep and I will have more than enough time to do all of that and more in just a few short years. Right now I need to ENJOY these kids and this time I have with them.

More on the Mantises

We finally had an uneventful day with these crazy new pets of ours. The only "new" thing we did was move them into their habitat. This went pretty well, all mantises seemed happy to hop into their new home and it was pretty easy to release some fruit flies into it as well. My mom asked to see a picture of one close up so I tried. I think that you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it. I am also posting a picture of the vial of fruit flies. This one is Melissa's and I think all those slimy white things on the sides are baby fruit flies also known as larva. I can only hope and pray that I get some slimy white things in my vial....

Mantis Update

I know you guys are really following this story and are just DYING to hear the latest.  I know.  Inquiring minds want to know.  So--we have returned home from our 45 minute drive for fruit flies and fed the mantises.  Too bad I couldn't have videoed that one.  Each little mantis is in a small plastic container.  I had to (with a little help from my friends--Hannah, Grace, and Joe) open each little container and make sure little Manty didn't jump out AND at the same time try to release two and only two little fruit flies into the container and then slap a lid on it.  We had fruit flies all over the table and I just paid good money for those things so we were all chasing fruit flies and popping them into containers.  Not an easy task but we did it and as far as I know not one fruit fly was lost.  Those little Manties were hungry.  Most of them immediately chomped down on a fruit fly.  That was fun to watch.  Now they are all hanging out quietly in their little containers with their daily feed.  I got two vials of fruit flies and managed to not dump all from either of them into the Mantis dens so hopefully they will get busy reproducing.  Maybe I'll put on some romantic music and light a candle and move their vials away from the praying mantises so they won't be terrified.  

American Idol in my living room

The kids are playing American Idol in the living room and Joe is Simon.  He just told Hannah that her song was terrible.  Then he said as a sidenote--"I have to say that because Simon never likes the songs."

Speaking of AI--I am still shocked that Michael Johns was voted off.  It should have been Carly and you can tell that she knew it.  I think she felt bad that it wasn't her.  He is way too good to be voted off already.  I think this is more of a popularity contest than a talent contest.
 

Mantis Mania

This is a true story, I am not making this up. I promise. For Christmas Grace received a Praying Mantis kit from dear Aunt Harriet and Uncle Billy. I finally remembered to send off for the egg case about a month ago. The egg case arrived along with a fruit fly culture and more jars so that I could assist the fruit flies in reproducing so that we could feed the baby mantises. All of these vials have been sitting on my piano for the last three weeks. I had it on my calendar to make more fruit flies yesterday. Well, guess what--the mantises hatched a full week early. AT LEAST 100 hungry baby mantises. They are quite cute but a little menacing. I opened the fruit fly vial only to find out that most of the 50,000 fruit flies had died. I managed to transfer about 20 of them into the new vial with fruit fly food--this was like the honeymoon suite for fruit flies. They were supposed to get friendly and reproduce--fast. I had AT LEAST 100 hungry baby mantises. The little book said that if they got too hungry they would start eating each other so we needed to separate these little guys and feed them. I decided we would keep 12 of them so today we separated out 12 and released the other 88 into the yard to fend for themselves. The kids have had a ball playing with them. Even Hannah has been holding them and carrying them around. Then came time to feed them. I figured I could give them each one or two fruit flies (they are supposed to get two a day) to stave off their hunger and hope and pray that my fruit flies would mate and have babies overnight. After feeding 11 of the mantises I realized that the rest of the fruit flies were dead! Uh Oh. Hungry babies, excited 7 year old, and no fruit flies. We collected a couple of tiny ants for the 12th mantis. I tried to collect fruit flies out of our compost bin--much easier said than done. It's next to impossible to "catch" a fruit fly without killing it. I was seriously getting stressed here and so I googled "flightless fruit fly" and found out that you can order them from a number of places including Petco. I thought if I could order them maybe I could also go buy them. I finally found a Petco with some in stock at the third store I called. We will be there in the morning! In the meantime Uncle Billy has come to our rescue and ordered a live culture of 50-100 fruit flies and this time they better like each other!!! Supposedly these fruit flies should keep producing more and more for at least 3-4 weeks. At that point the sweet mantises will be moving into the yard. I have taken some pictures but only have one to show you, I can't seem to get the others off my memory stick. Hopefully, I will get that worked out soon. In hindsight, if I had planned better I could have given away baby mantises to all you homeschooling buddies but I didn't plan better so our yard will just be full of baby mantises. If you want to come hunt them down you are welcome to.

Some Pictures from Disney

Too Much to Say

I have so many blog posts in my head that I don't know where to start so for two days I just haven't started.  This will be one of those random, babbling posts so get ready...
My sister, Cheryl and nephew, Harrison left today to go back home.  We had a good time and kept ourselves very busy.  I have lots of pictures to post eventually.  
We have had a very busy month and I am looking forward to starting fresh on Monday with normal life again.  Today was spent recovering--I could hardly walk when I woke up this morning.  I guess spending 12 hours walking around Disney and then a day at the beach weren't so good for my feet.  I plan to spend the next three days getting this house in shape--with the kids help of course.  I am finally ready to really get them seriously helping out around here.  I may even make a chore chart or two or three... Then on Monday--we get back to normal around here!  
I've had a hard time staying on Weight Watchers this week again.  It's just too hard to count points when you have guests and you are on the go a lot.  I was back on the wagon this morning but started feeling almost panicky that I cannot do this.  The hardest part of this for me is keeping up with points and planning dinners that we can all enjoy.  So--I've decided to do the Core plan.  It is still Weight Watchers but you don't count points.  I won't go into all the gory details but I am excited and feel more confident that I can succeed long term.  We'll see...  
I have finally planned a menu just like in the old days (before WW and before I ate Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine at every meal) and I am going to the store tomorrow.  I'm sure my family will be happy, they've had some pretty unique meals lately.  

Ice Skating

I feel like we have been celebrating Grace's birthday for days--I guess that would be because we have! Today she got to take a friend ice skating. They had a good time and almost had the rink to themselves. For some reason the only public skate hours are in the middle of the day when most people are in school or at work. We weren't complaining!

Fair Fun

There wasn't much fair fun to be had today but we did go and brave the weather to see the exhibit hall, collect candy and see if the girls won anything. They did very well. I think they won a ribbon for everything they submitted. The thing I love about this fair is that there aren't a ton of entries for kids and there are a ton of categories so it isn't hard to walk away with a ribbon for everything you entered. Grace won a first place ribbon for her purple ant, Hannah won a first for her dandelion picture and Best in Show for that category. They also won lots of other seconds and thirds. I can't remember everything but you can see some in the pictures.

My Family

I had to borrow my sister's camera today because I am having camera/memory stick issues at the moment. As I was downloading my pics off her stick I found some pics of my family and thought I'd share them with the blogging world.

Here's my sis--She's 17 months younger than me but definitely looks older! :0)

Here is my sister and her family at their churches Easter weekend walk through.

Here is my dad and his lifelong friend Butch (don't know who the girl is). My dad is on the left (next to the girl). He was a scribe in the walk through.

And this is my new nephew that nobody ever sends me pictures of I just have to steal them off the memory stick but I'm not complainin', just sayin'. He's a cutie isn't he?

Lots of Birthday Fun!

We have had a weekend full of birthday fun! Yesterday we had a party at a friend's house and it was a blast!! Who wouldn't have fun with dirt, water, cotton candy, cake, a big jump house, trees to climb, and rolie polies to find! Then today we had a family party at Aunt Harriet's and Uncle Billy's. We had a big birthday lunch and swimming in the rain! We had planned to go to the fair all afternoon and evening but it has not stopped raining since about 2 so no fair today! We did go just to see if the girls had won any ribbons (see the next post). It has been a special weekend for Grace, one I know she'll remember forever!