Friday at science was hilarious! Doug, the teacher, brought an octopus and several small squid. The kids checked out the octopus and one boy wore it on his head. Then Morgan volunteered to wear it on her head! I just made her understand that a shower would be in order as soon as we got home. LOL! The octopus was fresh & had been on ice so it wasn't smelly so there was just the squeamish "eww" factor. ;-) Then they dissected one squid and got to check out the others. Morgan held a squid brain in her hand and a squid eye and a squid beak. Did you know that octopus & squid have beaks for mouths just like birds? Interesting, huh?

On Saturday we celebrated Ostara with a bunch of friends. We had 12 families together with a total of 29 kids, ranging in age from 3 1/2 months to 15 years old. It was a great time! We had tons of wonderful food...Cyd's carrot cake was foodgasmic (new word we all agree is perfect!) and Christine's Deep Purple brew was delicious and had leathal potential. We had an egg hunt for all the kids, dyed eggs marked with runes, created living baskets (filled them with potting soil & grass seed) and had lots of fun. It was so good seeing everyone again.

On Sunday, my mom and our realtor went to see the house we are interested in. We got a good report back...everything good and will just need a good cleaning & new carpet. That we can handle! They are going back today and taking my brother so we can get his opinion. We've seen pictures online and REALLY trust my mom, my brother & our realtor. We are ready to make an offer this week and are soooo excited! I'll keep you posted.

Oh...my...goodness! What a week it has been and it isn't even over yet. LOL! Seriously, the kids and I have been on the go all week and I feel like I've gotten nothing else accomplished. I know I haven't gotten anything done as far as house work or laundry so we all may be "naturalists" by Saturday. ;-) Just in time for our Ostara celebration. No no...no skyclad celebrations here.

Monday we had Camp Fire and they had to pick a wild animal ahead of time and learn what about the habitat for it. They drew or printed out a picture and then told everyone about their animal. We made a compass, learned about the directions, went for a nature walk and brought back leaves to identify. They had fun.

Tuesday was Morgan's art class and then we went to a nearby park with 2 classmates & their moms. We all played baseball and were going to have lunch but after some behavior & attitude issues we left before lunch. I think the message got through. Alex actually explained to me on the way home that they could have stayed longer if they had listened to mommy & behaved. *gasp* A break through!

Wednesday we had a play date with some hs'ing friends, a family of 3 boys. The 5 kids all get along very well and play so good together. We met at a local playground that has a sprayground (water shooting up out of the floor for the kids to play in). They had a blast! We had them do some experiments with the water jets so did get some science in there. No pictures, I had my hands full enough with the cooler, towels, etc.

And today, we had a play date with a hs'ing family with girls and some new friends. Another very good day. The kids did crafts, made homemade pizza, played hula hoops & hopscotch outside. We got home in time to relax a few minutes and then get Morgan ready for dance class. Only 2 girls were at class today, including Morgan, so they had a short class. We figure because of spring break some girls were out of town,etc.

Tomorrow we have science & some work to do ahead of time. They will be dissecting a squid during class and are excited about it. They will also be doing some molds to create their own fossils, leftovers from last week when we ran out of time. LOL! PLUS I need to get some errands done to prepare for our Ostara celebration on Saturday...ack! I need to fill some eggs, make the dishes we are taking for the potluck, get the craft stuff together that we are taking. We will be feasting, having an egg hunt, dying eggs & doing rune eggs, painting & doing other crafts. Should be fun. There will be about 30 kids there if everyone that is planning to come can.

Now, don't be too alarmed. It has been spring break for our county so we haven't hit school TOO hard but we haven't neglected it all together. We've done reading, writing, math, science, art, and lots of fun & PE. :-)

Take care and hopefully I'll be blogging again after Saturday. LOL

Good morning. I woke up to Alex offering me a chocolate chip cookie. What a way to wake up, huh? Well, time to play catch up here.

Morgan practiced all week (at least 3 times a day, every day) on her dance routine and had it down pat before her class on Thursday. She had me do it with her most days so Mommy can "Mousercise" too! LOL! Her class went great on Thursday and they learned another part, went through it several times including a couple times for other classes. They like that part because they get to watch the other classes perform their routine as well.

Morgan and I did pretty good sticking to our new school schedule this week. We had a lot of supplemental reading from the library and got quite a bit of it added in. She had challenges (instead of "homework") from her science class and she chose to do all 3 of the challenges instead of just 1. She got her clay piece back at art class and they did some pastel work a la Paul Gaugin. She's looking forward to Tuesday's class when they will be making "food"...stuffed art that resembles food. She thinks it will be funny. We are having fewer moments with her and she's talking a bit more with Corey and me when she's upset. She's had several really good days.

Alex is enjoying science class but is still a little boy that does not like to sit still. He honestly doesn't sit still for much of anything. He sits, stands, wiggles, etc when playing on the computer, eating, etc. Even when engrossed in a movie or a book with us he is moving a foot, something. He loves puzzles, games, books, and math. He also likes his geography/map skills workbook. His temper has really been showing lately and when I've talked to him he tells me that he just can't control his temper. I told him that he has to work on that and we will help him. He's been on a roll lately and gets priviledges taken away & quiet time in his room. He comes by his temper naturally on both sides of the family so it is something we will have to help him work on for a while I'm sure.

The move...the move! LOL! Little by little we are making progress. Our realtor referred us to a mortgage broker in the area & we contacted her. That is going great and we heard back about being pre-approved & they are just verifying things now so we can get the pre-approval letter. We want this so we can attach it to the offer when we make one. We are trying to make all of this go as smoothly as possible, especially since we are far away. We are still looking at houses & narrowing things down. We have some front runners and my mom is going to drive by a couple this weekend and let us know if they seem worthy of further checking. If yes, she can do an initial look with our realtor and let us know about the inside. She knows a lot of what we are looking for and can give us some really good feedback. I trust her completely on this and if she says "Yes, you will love this one" or "Won't work" then it is true. We can then decide from there to take another quick trip to evaluate what we have, have one of us go look, or make an offer contigent on us seeing it,etc. Anyway, we are on our way. We will be ready to leave any time after June 4th... 11 weeks and 1 day from now. But who's counting. ;-)

Corey's trip to Ohio has been delayed unless an emergency comes up while the servers are being put in. So it will be a last minute trip at best. ;-) We shall see. Hopefully things go smoothly. He received his annual review yesterday and got a very good one. They aren't giving many people raises but he got one. Yea!! Plus he received a plaque commending him for all the hard work he did on a previous project. We are VERY proud of him!

Thursday Morgan had dance class and they spent the whole class going over their routine for recital. They will be performing with another class and the routine is really fast...especially for a bunch of 6 & 7yos! Morgan has been worried that she wouldn't be able to do the routine so I took notes and recorded her class doing the routine (what they have learned so far) to help her practice. I'm hoping this helps relieve her of this stress she's been feeling.

Yesterday Corey was off, a comp day for pager duty the week before, and so he got to come to science class with us. They talked about dinosaurs and what made them different from other reptiles that lived during their time as well as reptiles that are still around. Doug (their teacher) brought a replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull and the kids got to climb around under it. I have pictures and will get them posted soon.

Today Corey and Morgan went out on a father/daughter date. They've been on them before but this one Corey offered up and she had to earn it with good behavior for a week. She was very excited. She picked a movie and they went to see Aquamarine and then went to a new Japanese restaurant that just opened near us. She came home telling us all about the movie and how they sat at the sushi bar to eat. LOL! Corey said the staff was really surprised that she was eating sushi and not sushimi (?). She tried uni (sea urchin) that Cousin Casey told her about back in December.

While they were gone Alex and I hung out at home. I was going to take him to see Curious George or Doogal but he decided he didn't want to see a movie and then really started acting up so I wasn't going to *take* him to see a movie. We had lunch, played & read some. Then he played a video game (The Incredibles) and I packed another box. Woo hoo! ;-) I got some papers sorted & tossed out, some laundry going and some veg out time too.

It has been hot here already. I'm so glad we won't be in Florida for the upcoming summer. We've already been in the mid-80's and it is only March. Low rain and higher temps already so this summer should be a hot & miserable one I think. I'm glad we won't be here for hurricane season either!

Corey has to work on a change tonight so he's napping. He might have to go to Ohio before the month is out. No problem with that I just hope he doesn't have to go over the weekend we are celebrating Ostara with friends. Ostara is the celebration of spring and is officially on the vernal equinox (March 20th this year). We will be celebrating the weekend after with our friends. It is always a good time.

Morgan has been practicing her dance routine and almost has it down pat. She's determined to have this part "perfect" before class on Thursday.

Woo...let the packing begin. LOL! I got the remainder of the Christmas stuff packed and the other holiday stuff. I had to start somewhere.

Morgan has finished Prince Caspian (#4 in The Chronicles of Narnia) and is moving on to the next book. She is really enjoying the stories. She went back to Book Adventure today and took a few comprehension quizzes. She has fun with them and does really well. She hasn't been to the site in a while because a lot of the books she was reading aren't listed. At her art class on Tuesday they glazed their sculptures. The teacher will fire them and they will be all ready next week. Today I managed to get her to do a good bit of math and we talked about her doing it every day. She still tells me "I don't like math." and "Math is hard. and then whizzes through the pages without making any errors. *sigh* I think it just isn't as interesting to her so she just doesn't want to do it...not that she can't. She did some science fun today and made gooey gunk. She was so excited to do it and then squealed about it being slimey. Well yes dear, you just made slime. LOL! She watched a DVD about the Arab Gulf states called Globe Trekker from Netflix. It was about Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman. It was really interesting. The next one will include Saudi Arabia and we are really interested in that one since that is where my dad & stepmother live. Hello Grandpa Paul & Grandma Patsy! :-)

Alex is reading Water Wishes by Mallory Loehr. It is the first one in a series about the elements (water, earth, air & fire).

We've been working on making changes in what we eat (more fruits, vegetables, whole grains; switching to organic foods, and trying new dishes) lately. Tonight we had a delicious soup... spinach, artichoke and tortellini soup. Morgan loved it, Alex wouldn't try it. LOL! He's trying new things but I guess this was just too adventurous for him. But Ashes (the cat) tried it and loved the baby portobellas and the spinach (must have been the chicken stock?). LOL! Crazy cat.

We watched the most recent Herbie movie, sorry I can't remember the full name, Herbie Fully Loaded or something like that. It was cute and funny. Not quite the Herbie the Love Bug from my childhood but enjoyable enough with the kids.

I'm back. LOL! Corey came back from Amsterdam and less than 12 hours later we headed up to Tennessee. We had snow when we arrived and the kids were beyond delighted. They were so cute. We did some looking around & scoping out of a few areas, not quite as much as Corey wanted to, but enough to give us ideas. We spent a day with the realtor looking at houses and that really helped a lot. We came to realize how much space we will need as Corey will be WAH and we will continue hs'ing. Even though we weren't buying a house right then it wasn't a waste of time because of what we learned and what the realtor learned about us & what we need. We did a lot of visiting with my mom, brother & his girlfriend and doing puzzles,etc. Everyone blamed me for the winter temps as they had really mild temps up until our visit. I requested no WARM weather and we had nice low temps while there. Go ahead, blame me. ;-)

Upon our return we had to jump back into things. Finally, my laptop was fixed & ready for pick up. Yea!! Corey went back to work and got his week of the pager rotation all at once. The kids and I were glad to get back into the swing of things with our hs'ing friends. We are still checking our the houses up in Tennessee and today my mom drove by 2 of them for us and gave us feedback. Nice to have.

Morgan is very into playing "Age of Mythology" on the computer and is trying to teach some of it to Alex. She's on the 4th book from The Chronicles of Narnia and loving all of them so far. She finished HP6 in a week so is all done with those for now. LOL! She's reading about Ancient Egypt in history, the human body in science...held a sheep's heart in science class yesterday. In art class they are creating animal vessels from clay and her vessel has characters from The Chronicles of Narnia.

We've been catching up on our movie watching since coming home. We've seen "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "Homeless to Harvard", "Rent", "Must Love Dogs", and "White Fangs". And I must say Thank Goddess the olympics are over and TV is back to regular programming. LOL! I like to watch some of it but darn you can't just watch or follow the one sport you are interested in and all the other channels resort to reruns...like *everyone* is watching the games. It is the same with the college ball tournaments,etc. Anyway, enough of that.

I think I'm caught up-to-date. Talk to you soon. :-)