Daybook Style....

For today...September 25, 2013

On my mind...my mind is like my internet browser...I usually have about 15 "tabs" open.  I'm always thinking about the next thing I need to do, in tune to each child and what they are doing, have done, and still need to do to complete today's school work, thinking and praying for hurting, anxious, sick family and friends, WHAT do I make for dinner??, what day is it?, am I forgetting anything?, who still needs to meet with me for math?, and on my mind whirls...

Outside my window...third dreary day in a row and I love it!  I do have a weird pressure headache though or more like a nose ache, hard to pinpoint but very sinusy feeling.  Not sure if it's weather related or allergy related.  When we first moved here about 18 years ago I had a few years in a row where I had sinus headaches this time of year.  I even went to the doctor because my head would hurt so bad that it hurt to touch my hairline.  I had a foreign doctor who said in a VERY strong accent, "I'm not worried about..." and went on to name every brain problem I was already worried about except that I didn't hear/understand (because of the accent) the "not" part so I thought he said he was worried about all of those things and I nearly had a heart attack right on the table.

From the homeschool rooms...school is rockin' and rollin' right along and the kids are really working hard.  I'm so impressed with how well Hannah and Grace are handling their increased workloads.  It takes them much of the day to get their school done but they just keep working.  They are doing great with virtual school and that makes me happy.  Hannah is even learning to study for tests which is something that has been hard for me to teach her to do...I've never really given her tests.  She did a lot of virtual school on Monday and Tuesday in order to clear time Wednesday and Thursday to study for a science test.  She has talked to her teacher about a few things she didn't understand and has watched some tutorial videos and taken lots of notes.  Hopefully she'll do well.  I have made a couple of changes to Joe's school and our days are going smoother.  He really hated the Literature study and the science stuff I was doing.  I've learned that with him, he isn't going to really "like" anything we do no matter how "fun" I try to make it.  So, for science and language arts I just bought him grade 5 workbooks and he actually seems to enjoy them and is learning and that's all that matters.

On my iPod...I have made myself a worship playlist that I just love.  I have one Kari Jobe song called "Joyfully" that I just love and two Jason Castro songs.  I need more from both of them.  On my country playlist I am really enjoying Scotty McCreery's "Dirty Dishes," and "That Old King James."

What I'm reading....I've been reading as much as I possibly can, that helps with my sanity.  Today I finished book 3 in the Make Lemonade series by Virginia Euwer Wolff.  It is a young adult books series and it's written in free verse.  Excellent story though, I really enjoyed all three and they are fast reads as well.

Continued about three days later....Not sure what happened but clearly life took over, I left this post and forgot about it...
It's now Saturday night at about 9:40 and I have to leave in about 10 minutes or so to go pick Hannah up from the theatre.   She's working tech for the main stage show this weekend.  Theatre is slowly but surely taking over our life.  Theatre and church are our two activities and there is no way we could do anything else right now.  The kids all participated in a fundraising show at the theatre earlier today.  It was a cabaret style performance and they each had a solo and also were in several group numbers.  The fundraiser was very successful and a lot of fun too.  I have some videos that I'll be sharing at some point.

Tomorrow...we have church and everyone but Joe is serving in some capacity.  I am working the toddler class and Grace is my helper, Hannah is a sidekick for an autistic girl, and Ollie is teaching the middle schoolers.  The girls will also help lead kids' worship as well.  We'll get home and a few hours later the girls will go to youth.  I'll tutor, lesson plan and grade, do some meal planning and probably go to the store and prep for a busy week.

This week...theatre Monday and Wednesday, Florida Theatre Conference rehearsal for Hannah on Tuesday, auditions for the next main stage show, "A Christmas Story" on Wednesday night (Grace and Joe are auditioning), the Hiding Place Ballet on Thursday night...very curious about this!, homecoming for Hannah on Saturday night, and school...

I'm living my dream and couldn't be more blessed.  :0)

Phone Pictures

Now that my kids have gotten older, I take far less pictures than I ever have.  That is mostly because they aren't constantly doing cute things that I want to get a picture of, they often fuss about me taking their picture, and we're just busy and less likely to be doing anything that I even think about taking a picture of.  And, when I do take a picture it is always with my phone.  I almost never have my camera with me (I used to always have it) so I take pictures with my phone.  It actually takes decent pictures as long as you're not trying to blow them up on a big screen.  This post is full of pictures that I've taken over the last few weeks here and there.  Above, is my pretty car, decorated for fall.  I haven't decorated the house yet but am itching to do so.  I'm trying to wait until at least October before I pull out our fall decorations.  I have been perusing Pinterest looking for easy, cheap Halloween and fall crafts.  I'm really in the mood to make something but don't actually have time so for now I just peruse and pin and dream.

The picture above and below are from Labor Day when we went on a hike with some friends.  It was a hot day but it was nice to be out in nature anyway.  These are the only two pictures I took the whole time.  Boring!

This picture above was sent to me from Anabel's dad.  He takes the girls tubing on their lake and they LOVE it.  This picture cracks me up!  Below, are the girls with Anabel when they were shopping for her birthday.

I love dark chocolate covered almonds.  I took this picture and texted it to my sister saying...if these are wrong, I don't want to be right.  They are not really Trim Healthy Mama approved but I eat them sometimes anyway.  Below is a picture of Hannah from a photo shoot she had done with a local photographer.  She won the photo shoot by entering a contest in a local magazine.  This is just one of the pictures, they were all just beautiful!  I love the colors!

My nephew, Harry, graduated from Ranger school a couple of weeks ago.  He is now an Airborne Ranger in the US Army.  I'm so very proud of him, he has worked so hard for this.

Above is a picture of my mom and dad at some race/walk they did.  I don't have many pictures of my parents and I thought this was cute.  They have been married almost 43 years.  They got married when she was 16 and my dad was 19.  Oh and they were hippies and I spent my formative  years being raised by hippies.  Explains a lot.  :0)

We saw a great show at the Rep, "Ivy and Bean."  I always enjoy the shows there and this one did not disappoint.  Some of the actors at the Rep have performed at our local theatre so I actually sort of know some of the actors there now which is neat.  The girl in the picture above, Kayla, will be in two of the Rep shows this year.  Pretty cool!

Another picture from Harry's graduation and another picture of my parents.

Last week when I had Landon and Dawson we took a walk on the boardwalk.  It was fun and they didn't fuss at me for taking their pictures and they were cute so I have quite a few pictures from our little walk.

That is a picture of a snake above.  This was a long sandy path and I had told Landon he could run ahead.  He ran right over this snake but managed not to step on it.  Scared me though!

This innocent math paper causes so much angst in our little homeschool.  We are using Saxon math this year and as much as I've talked about not liking Saxon in the past, I'm a fan now.  I love it and I love that they have to do a page of facts like the one above every single day.  Joe hates it though and it often causes serious stress for him.  I've started highlighting about a quarter of the problems and that is all he has to do each day.  I would rather him do the whole paper but it's not worth the stress.

Grace loves Corgis and I saw this picture somewhere and sent it to her.  It's so random and funny.

I read the book, While We Were Watching Downton Abbey last week and really enjoyed it.  Great story and fun to read the references to a favorite show.

This last picture is just all kinds of awesome.  This was taken at the One Direction movie by a girl Hannah knows, the girl in the picture.  I saw the girl at the movie but she didn't see me.  Then she went up to the front and took THIS picture and I photobombed it by waving in the background and Hannah later saw it on Instagram or FB or whatever. I don't think this girl realizes it's me in the back yet and I'm sure Hannah hasn't told her.  Love it!

A Day in the Life....Monday...Every hour

 8:15...morning devotional...I manage to do this about 2 out of 5 days a week.  Really trying to be better about it and not beat myself up when I fail to start my morning out with Bible time.  I want to put God first, I want God time to be more of a priority than numbing myself on FB but like Paul says...we do what we ought not do and we don't do what we ought to.  I am loving this devotional book by Jen Hatmaker who is pretty awesome.

 9:15...breakfast on the fly...goat cheese (fresh from the farmer's market) on a Joseph's pita.  Pretty good and filling for a little while at least.

 10:15...algebra tutoring.  I'm tutoring a lot these days, 3 mornings a week plus a few scattered hours throughout the week.

 11:15...Joe and I are into a sort of school routine.  We do an hour or so, take a long break and do another hour or two depending on what all we have to do that day.  It's working for us.  In the picture above he is doing spelling..yes, spelling with a globe.  I found an awesome spelling book for him this year and each week the list of words has a common theme.  The first 7 or so lessons are just lists of countries--broken down into general geographic areas.  One day a week we use a globe to fill in the countries on a map in the workbook.  Joe really seems to be enjoying this spelling curriculum.

 12:15...had to take a break from schooling Joe due to a poor attitude so I went to the grocery store and spent a buttload of money.  We should have enough food to last a week and a half or so though...can I just say that I love that I can go to the grocery store without my kids!  The girls are great about staying on task while I'm gone (at least I assume that they are...).

1:15...Once I got back and put groceries away, I tied up loose ends with school...worked with Grace, Hannah, and Joe on various things and also got dinner started.

2:15...ran lines with Joe.  He has a whole lot of lines in this next show, I run lines with him a lot.  At this point I think I could go up and play every character.  I'm learning lines too.

3:15...I don't know what just happened but I goofed up the placement of my pictures...3:15 is the one below of that sweet baby face.  Landon and Dawson got there around 3.  The girls left for theatre with Ms. Amanda but Joe stayed to play for an hour.

4:15...The little boys and I took Joe to theatre.  Joe was going over his lines in the car while Landon looked on.

5:15...Fall is slowly arriving and it wasn't blazing hot at 5:15 (still hot...just not as hot) so the boys and I went for a walk on the boardwalk.  They loved it.  I explained to Landon all about a nature walk and he proceeded to point out and pick up and talk about all the nature we were seeing.  We saw an ibis, a snake (that Landon almost stepped on!), and a baby alligator.  He threw rocks and sticks and ran and all that boy stuff.  Even Dawson got to walk around a little but I mostly held him because he didn't have shoes.  :0)

6:15...back at the house and the boys played while I sat in front of a fan for a little while.

7:15...Grace and Joe were back, I finished dinner and we ate dinner.  This little guy dumped out salt and pepper shakers while we were at the table.

8:15...the boys were still here, it was FTC audition night at the theatre so it was a later night.  I had just cleaned up that basket of blocks and then Dawson decided to throw each and every block out.

9:15...boys were gone but the work doesn't end...I spent about half an hour finding a track of "Little Girls" from Annie for Hannah.  She and the kids are part of a cabaret style performance next week and she is singing "Little Girls."  Do you know how many tracks there were to choose from??  Too many!

10:15...watching Portlandia with Ollie.  That show is crazy!  No 11:15...by that point I was in bed and asleep!

Seven Quick Takes Before Breakfast

I originally wrote this post about a week ago I think...somehow I saved it and didn't post it....like I said in my other post, my brain is full, I'm distracted.  Another example of my distraction...put my bra on inside out the other day and realized it a little later and didn't have the time or energy or care to change it.  I also think I had on a pair of the girls' underwear that day too.  Seemed a little tight.  Again...no time, energy, or enough care to do anything about it....so, here's my week old post.  I think this was from Friday...


1.  I should be doing school with Joe right now, we're supposed to start at 8 and do an hour of school and then take a long break and then finish school after lunch.  Well, it's 8:15 and I haven't made our breakfast yet.  I have to tutor at 9:30 so once again I am off schedule.  Actually, I'm off schedule way more than on schedule.  Oh well, at the end of the day most days we have managed to get it all done.  Some days are longer than others though and this week has been slap full of long days....I've gotten up at the crack of dawn almost every day to take Hannah to the gym.  You would think that by getting up super early I would be ahead of the day but that's not how it works.  I get up early, take her and then fart around for a good hour wasting time, checking FB, feeling guilty about choosing FB over the Bible, drinking coffee, blogging, etc.  I'm a mess.

2.  I have a full day today with school and the big grand re-opening (new location) of my favorite book store.  They sell new and used books and are always willing to order a book for me and I don't have to pay shipping.  I did almost all of my Christmas shopping there last year and will again this year.  I am on a first name basis with the owner and her cat that lives in the store.  I love that place.  Their new location is right next door to the cutest little coffee shop run by the cutest couple that I've known since they started dating.  I absolutely can't wait to go get a coffee and go to the bookstore today.  Crissy at the bookstore better let me in with my coffee.  I don't need a book but Joe needs the next Percy Jackson book so I have something I can buy.  In addition to bookstore grand opening and school, I also have to tutor, take Hannah to the library for her first volunteer day, and go out with a friend for dinner.  I'm going to be running until about midnight.  Can't wait to sleep in tomorrow and have a relaxing day at home.  I have NO plans for tomorrow, can I get a woohoo?!?

3.  Hannah made dinner last night--Chicken and Waffle sandwiches.  It was a huge hit.  Her plan is to make dinner every Thursday night (like she was doing before our crazy spring).  If she manages to do that, I think I can give her a 1/2 credit for Culinary.  We're all about credits for high school here.  She may end up with a lot of elective credits this year which would be good because she has big plans for her senior year and may not have time for electives.  She is always talking about transcripts and credits and college and it can make me crazy on a good day.  She is so driven which is great but she stresses me out.

4.  She may also get a 1/2 credit for PE this year if she keeps going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week.  After much haggling, our local Gold's Gym agreed to transfer my membership to her.  It's the cheapest membership you can get, she can't take classes or use the Cardio Cinema but she can do everything else.  I've already had 2 adults say to her that she could just go into the classes or cinema anyway because the Gold's Gym employees would never know.  This is NOT the thing to say to my kid!  I have already told her that but then said that I expect her to act with integrity and follow the rules of the membership.  If I find out she hasn't, I will cancel the membership.  After the second adult told her she could just do those things anyway, I politely but firmly told that person that that is not how our family operates.  I'm getting so much better at standing up for myself.  Kinda cool.  I like being 42...

5.  I started this post about 4 hours ago and am just getting back to it.  I think this is exactly why I have such a hard time getting started in the morning because once I get started that's it for my day.  It is usually non-stop until about 8.  Since I left the computer, I've visited with Julie for 15 minutes, made and ate breakfast, Spelling with Joe, tutored for an hour, cleaned the kitchen and cleaned out the fridge, helped Hannah with a big spill and carpet stain, and made Joe's lunch.  Now I'm waiting for him to eat so we can finish school.  In an hour and a half I have to leave to take Hannah to the library and I'd like to be done with his school by then but it's not looking like that's going to happen.  I still need to do math with Grace too.  I was also hoping to vacuum and clean the bathrooms....oh, and I need a shower.  I really need a shower

6.  I've been doing so good this week on my Trim Healthy Mama eating plan (not a diet!) and I'm down another pound as of this morning but I think I'll be gaining it right back today.  The boy that I tutor three mornings a week brought me a McDonald's caramel frappe this morning and I drank the whole thing.  And, tonight I'm going to the Melting Pot for dinner.  The plan was to be "good" or "on plan" for the whole day until dinner but now that I've blown it...

7.  I am not normally a big fan of weekends, I know, that's weird.  But, often our weekends are very busy and unstructured.  The girls are asking to go here, there, and everywhere and I want them to be home some so I try to balance that.  I get completely unmotivated to do anything so I end up resting and reading a lot sometimes (if we're not too busy) but the whole time I'm resting and reading I am feeling like I should do something productive so not totally enjoying it.  I've declared this weekend a plans free weekend for me and I am hoping to balance out being productive and doing some chores and school planning along with time to rest and relax.  We'll see how it goes.

Random Thoughts on a Sunday Night

My brain has been really full lately...really full.  Full of endless to-do lists, thoughts and worries over friends going through some hard situations, what to make for dinner, Christmas pageant (I know, it's only September), guilt over all that I'm not doing, and so on....
Two years ago November I was hit by a car while walking through a parking lot and broke my tibial plateau (the top of your tibia that is under your kneecap) and spent the next 4 to 5 months healing from that injury.  At the time I was hit I was in a very busy season of life, and was endlessly busy and distracted and my brain was over full (very much like I feel today).  I had many, many people say to me that God has a way of slowing us down and other things like that.  As I recognize my craziness in my life now I find myself telling God that I realize I need to calm down and please don't hit me with another car.  For what it's worth, I do believe God can make good out of a bad thing and I do believe that I learned a lot through my experience and that I needed to slow down but I do not believe that he sent that old man into that parking lot that day to slow me down.  I just don't.  But, I do recognize the unhealthiness of my attitude toward my busyness.  I will always be busy, it's just who I am.  But, I don't need to live in a constant state of anxiety over the next thing.  I don't need to be so grumpy with my family and so distracted all the time.  So, I spent some time tonight praying, serious praying, like writing it out and handing over the burdens to God.  He's a big God and wants to carry my burdens.  I feel better.  I'm still busy and I have a busy week coming up but I'm not worrying about it.  I'm not going to try to plan, plan, plan (which is actually really futile for me because I'm not a good planner) so that it feels like I have control.  I'm just going to pray my way through each day starting when I wake up.  I'm relaxing about the Christmas pageant (for now) and letting God take the reigns and lead me and my committee.
In other news...I'm really loving spaghetti squash.  It is so versatile.  You can cook it in the oven for an hour, scoop out the seeds, scrape it into "spaghetti" and then the possibilities are practically endless.  So far, I've used it just like pasta and added ground beef and spaghetti sauce.  I've served it with butter and parmesan, I've made it into kind of a hash brown casserole--butter, cheese, sour cream.  And, then yesterday I hit the pinnacle of spaghetti squash deliciousness...I made "pizza."  I drizzled some olive oil on my stoneware bar pan and added a thin layer of spaghetti squash and baked it for maybe 20 minutes on 400 degrees.  Then I topped it with Ragu Pizza Sauce, a little mozzarella, a little parmesan, and turkey pepperoni and baked it for another 20 minutes.  Almost pizza and way healthier!
Peace out peeps....

Trim Healthy Mama

**disclaimer** I am not one to talk a whole lot about dieting or try to get people on my diet bandwagon...I hate when others do that to me so I am probably more sensitive about it than I need to be.  The reason for this post is so that I can direct a few people who are already doing the diet here to my blog to share ideas and recipes.  Feel free to skip this post!  :0)

I've been on the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan for a few weeks now and have lost (and kept off) 5 pounds.  I could have lost more if I would stay on plan but I've had many opportunities to cheat and I've taken every one.  I've yet to go to a restaurant and try to pick something that would be on the plan.  Instead, I've jumped at the chance to pig out.  In one week, I ate out 5 times which is highly unusual for me, I still lost weight that week because every other thing I ate that week was on plan.  I've been pretty good about drinking my coffee without sugar (I had started that a few months ago) but have slipped twice at Starbucks, once having my favorite drink, a caramel macchiato (don't judge me, I was going to Disney for the day and needed the fuel!) and once having a pumpkin spice latte.  I've now put myself on "restriction" and can't have another Pumpkin Spice until I lose 5 more pounds.  I haven't finished reading the book but I pretty much have the idea.  I haven't even tried many of the recipes, I'm mostly adapting the same kinds of food I usually cook to work for the plan.  I am not being OCD about it at all...the main thing I'm really shooting for is to eat my meals/snacks 3 hours apart, trying to eat 50/50 S and E meals/snacks.  I don't stress too much about whether the meal is a perfect S or E, just try to follow the general guidelines of protein as the center and then add more fat for S and a healthy carb for E.  Here's the basics of how I've been doing it....

I've mostly been having an S breakfast, an E lunch (no snack in between), a snack that is any of the three, and an S dinner.  Most nights I eat two squares of the Ghirardelli Intense Dark (86% cacao) chocolate bar.  I haven't tried to make the Skinny Chocolate yet, just haven't had time and I love the dark chocolate so I just go with that.

Breakfast--I have an S breakfast almost every morning.  Either a couple of eggs and turkey bacon alone or on a small Joseph's pita or a Chocolate Muffin in a Mug with yogurt and berries.  I especially love the MIM because it is so good and so filling.  When I eat that I often go 4 or 5 hours before I am hungry again which is almost unheard of for me.
Recipe--
Crack 1 egg in a coffee cup and whisk well with a fork.
Add 1 1/2 Tbsp. of golden flax meal
Add 1 1/2 Tbsp. of almond flour
Add 1 heaping Tbsp. of cocoa powder
Add 3 tsp. of truvia
Add 1/2 tsp. of baking powder
Add 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil
Stir vigorously and then microwave for 1 minute

I have had an E breakfast a couple of times--the E meals are a little confusing for me so I'm not sure I've fully got it but one of my E breakfasts was 1/2 a mango in about 1/2 a cup of cottage cheese and about 6 almonds.  Today I had 1/2 a pear in about 1/2 a cup of cottage cheese and a piece of Ezekiel bread with a very light spread of peanut butter (about a tsp.)  I'd love to try the Trim Healthy Pancakes but I'm too lazy most mornings to make them.

Lunch--Most of my lunches are E lunches.  Here is my favorite lunch that I'm close to burning myself out on--
Turkey Sweet Potato Mash
1 lb. ground turkey
2 large sweet potatoes, baked and mashed
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions in a little bit of coconut oil or olive oil.  Add the garlic and ground turkey and cook until browned.  Add in the spices and mashed sweet potatoes and cook together for about 15 minutes or so.  This makes at least 4 to 6 servings.  The sweet potato counts for the healthy carb.
Some other E lunches (and dinners) I've had are--
black beans cooked with onion and garlic and rotisserie chicken
 A turkey sandwich made with small Joseph's pitas and a spread of Laughing Cow cheese and lettuce
 Cottage cheese, fruit, and nuts

Snacks--
cucumber with blue cheese laughing cow cheese
Fat Stripping Frappa
cottage cheese and fruit
goat cheese and peppers
turkey slices

Dinner--
I have made almost exclusively S meals except for
black beans, one plantain, and chicken
Pintos, salsa, and avocado

S meals that I've made--
Pasta for the family and Konjac noodle pasta for me with regular spaghetti sauce
Stir fry vegetables and chicken, with lo mein for the family and Konjac noodles cooked like fried rice with egg and onion and soy sauce
Pot roast and lots of vegetables
pizza made on Joseph's pitas for the fam, and zucchini pizzas for me (long slices of zucchini with Ragu pizza sauce, mozzarella, and turkey pepperoni)

My favorite S meal sides so far are
Eggplant rounds--
peel an eggplant and cut into slices
Spread each slice with tomato paste and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder
top with parmesan cheese
Drizzle a little olive oil or coconut oil on them (or skip this if you want it to be an E or FP)
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

Cauliflower mashed--
just boil up a bunch of cauliflower and mash it just like potatoes

Green Fries--
frozen green beans tossed with coconut oil and  parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and then spread on a baking sheet and baked for 30 minutes at 350.

I have also been drinking The Shrinker almost every single day.  This is made with Oolong tea and almond milk and spices.  It is so good.  I especially like it with almond extract but the extract is too expensive to have it that way very often.

As far as desserts go--I've made the chocolate pudding and Lemon Mousse and I like them but really just prefer my 2 squares of dark chocolate.  I'll definitely try more of them though.

Life, This, That, and the Other

 One--Life is moving fast and furious around here but I'm not complaining.  This is just a new season of life and there are many things I really love about it.  I love that my kids are independent and can do so many things on their own.  I love that I can have real, grown up conversations with them (some are hard though!), I love that I'm seeing some of the fruits of my labors over the years, they make me laugh (and cry), I get to do fun things like go to the One Direction movie (more on that later), and more.  I read somewhere the other day, probably on FB, one of those questions to make you think or dream--if you could go back to one day in the life of your kids, would you choose the toddler years or the teenage years...of course right now I'd say the toddler years because every day is the teenage and tweenage years here...but, I have a feeling that in 10 years, I'll look back and say I want another one of these days back.  Or, can I choose both?  Anyway, I'm not saying that parenting older kids is easy, in my opinion, it's way harder but I'm kind of liking it.  Some days at least.  You caught me on a good day when I've had two cups of coffee and haven't had to do anything with my kids yet.

Two--We got free Disney tickets back in May when we were extras for Brazilian Idol.  I planned on using them in November when it had cooled down.  Thankfully I found out before it was too late that they would be expiring September 1.  So, we endured the crowds and the heat and spent the day at Disney on Thursday.  My kids are terribly spoiled having been to Disney a million times and even though it is every child's dream (I reminded them of that all day) to go to Disney, my kids were less than thrilled about going.  We met my fake fourth and fifth children there and spent a few hours with them and that turned out to be the most fun we had all day.  :0)  Once they left we rode Splash Mountain (after waiting in line for 45 minutes), watched Philharmagic, rode the Riverboat and walked around Tom Sawyer's island (two things we had never done), rode the magic carpets, went through the Haunted Mansion, and complained about being hot a lot.

 Three--Friday was the premiere of the One Direction movie...everybody scream!  We didn't make it to the midnight movie because it was at midnight on Friday morning which was really Thursday night and I had spent all day at Disney.  I took Grace and three friends to see the movie and they were so much fun.  I loved spending the evening with them, they sang every One Direction song there was and laughed a lot.  The movie was great, I knew nothing about this group that Grace loves so much.  Their story is really cool and they are really funny guys.  I think I'm a One Directioner now.  :0)  On my Christmas list is a cardboard cutout of one of them, I don't care which one.

Four--I read a great book this past week--The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin.  It was great!  It wasn't a real autobiography but was based on the real life of Vinnie Warren Stratton who was in PT Barnum's original American Museum and toured all over the country and world in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Now I'm reading The Time Between by Karen White, just started it but it's already really good.  I have read one other book by her and liked it.  Her writing and stories are similar to Jodi Picoult and Kristin Hannah.
Five--The kids had auditions for their latest show last week, it's a Halloween Follies show.  Hannah and Joe are both kids in the family that are the center of the follies.  Grace will be a Men in Black back up singer as well as in one of the scenes.  Should be a fun show!
Six--This is our 3rd week of school and our 3rd 4-day week.  We are managing to fit a week's worth of work into our 4-day week so I'm not complaining but it will be nice to eventually have a normal week around here.  School is going well though still.  Nothing new to report on.
Seven--Joe is reading a lot and I love it.  He is hooked on the Percy Jackson series and just finished the third book.  Grace and Hannah are spending tons of time on their iPods.  I don't love that.