Less than 3% of twins are “missed” at the 20week Ultrasound.
Less than 2% chance that a couple could produce 6 children and NEVER GET A BOY.
Less than 50% odds that a new restaurant is still in business after 5 years
Less than 1% chance of winning the lottery. (Especially when I don’t even buy tickets)
Guess which rule I do not want to break this year.
I love food. Kids have to eat.
I hate trying to think of what to make for them.
Especially since I am very pregnant, I have no apetite right now (food aversions are normal) and all foods look icky.
Official Statement-
Everything here will not be yummy.
Your kids and my kids might not like it.
The pans won’t always be shiny and the counter top might have a few crumbs.
It will all be easy and mostly nutritious.
Additionally, I don’t have (or want) the latest kitchen gadgetry.
I don’t measure things properly (unless the kids are cooking with me (they’ll be in the picture)
I’ll try & make our favorite recipes first.
OK on the top is me, now, at 27 weeks and on the bottom is me, in August of 2005, 2 days before G2 was born. If I continue to grow like this, I will explode. Don’t you grow more toward the end? Whazzuupp???
Edit- 5 months later. this was just a picture post to show G2 loving my belly. Of course there’s no rivalry because one of them isn’t born yet. However- I see a lot of people finding this post because they Googled the term “Siblings without rivalry” Which is actually a really good book. I have it on my shelf and I highly recommend it. It teaches you how to create a non competitive environment in your home, where siblings know they are equally loved & valued as individuals, so they don’t fight. I read it when I only had 2 kids and I thought it was excellent. I think it’s by Adele Faber and maybe someone named Mazlish. Check Amazon.
If you don’t believe me, just pay a visit to Yahoo Answers.
Choose your area of expertise. I like to go to the pregnancy questions and the homeschooling questions.
Some of the questions are downright stupid. I’m using the word stupid because all of the other words I can think of are actually mean and horrible. If you can find a question that isn’t stupid, good luck reading through the answers without finding a stupid one.
Here’s one person (genius named Davanna M) responding to a question about how to solve a cat’s matted fur:
hello there i hate that when that happends with long hair cat.but the easest thing is too take him to a groomers and pay about 45 dollers they cut it to a lion cut and uauasully shampoo them too and sometimes they even put a bow on them to make them look cute because its oveyest you dont have a lot of time and it will reduce the stress on you and your cat and his fur will grow back just fine.my mom has a persoin cat that has to be cut because when her fur grows out it mats up even thoe youu brush her .she was abused when my mom first got her someone tryed cutting her fur off with a razor and cut her all up how horriable and its summer time its the best time to do it .and it seems like you got your hands full and dont need to spend any more time worring about it the lion cuts are really cute.
Can you believe this person actually said “oveyest” instead of obvious? It took me forever to figure out what word was intended.
Here’s the first question I found on Pregnancy today:
Can u get pregnant if the boy don’t put sprem in u????
Just wanted to know… and sumone asked me dat and i wuz clueless…. becuz i think i’m pregnant becuz i just had sex 2weeks ago and i ain’t came on my period yet!!!!
My answer:
I hope not. Please learn to read and spell and write before you decide to bring a child into the world.
Here’s the next question (And I didn’t skip anything intelligent, these stupid questions are really posted in a row, from different users.)
I’ve caught myself in the fetal position..could I be a pregnancy?
I couldn’t even think of a response for this one, because it’s so stupid.
So if you’re ever feeling a bit sarcastic, or want to check out the site, I highly recommend it. Have fun.
WOW- after 10+ years of online homeschooling research, I just stumbled upon an awesome website called The Tanglewood School It’s from a lady whose mother decided to homeschool her siblings while she was going to school to be a teacher. She ended up a homeschooling mother herself, and has written a beautiful curriculum that looks like a cross between Charlotte Mason and The Well Trained mind with all the best bits of sonlight.
Unfortunately, her site hasn’t been updated since 2004 (It looks like) and it looks like she started to have an online market to sell the resource books, she’s busy with homeschooling (of course) and is no longer operating the marketplace. Fortunately, the core book and a few other resources are available for download, many of them for free (the Really Reading ebook looks wonderful, I have downloaded it)
If you browse through her week-by-week reading schedules (like this one) many of those resources are available for a free download, too.
Great website, I hope that when her kids are grown she still has a spark to finish it! Home Education doesn’t have to be expensive- some of us just like to spend a fortune!
Here’s a link to our September 2007 Pictures and my Belly Pictures The “growth pattern” for this pregnancy is way out of whack for me. For a while I was growing 3-4 cm per week, now I’m at around 2 cm per week, so the growth spurt IS slowing down. I’m so annoyed when people say “Oh it’s because you have so many kids.” OK it might be but one kid ago, I grew just fine. ONE centimeter per week, that is the standard, that is normal. I am 26 weeks right now and I am measuring over 35 weeks. Everyone thinks I am “about to pop.” I have three months left. I keep wondering how on earth I will walk and what on earth I will wear- I am GROWING OUT OF maternity clothes. In past pregnancies, I wasn’t even showing yet. You can imagine how relieved I was to discover there was only one baby in the ultrasound. Have a great weekend, I am off to work. Hi ho hi ho.
(photo removed)
This is a picture of us visiting a local site where ancient Indians (not native to our area) painted petroglyphs on the Canyon wall. This year we are studying Ancient history.
We’ve been homeschooling since forever, and this is our second week of the year. We were all eager to start, so we started August 27th. My oldest is technically in high school next year, so this year I decided to try my hand at being organized about school (as far as documenting the lessons we do and what their grades are.) In the past, we’ve never used grades. If something was wrong, they’d instantly get the chance to fix it- to learn. There was never a need to grade papers in evaluation, because if they weren’t “getting it” we’d stick with it until they did. However- with high school approaching, and the prospect of being asked for transcripts, I decided to download a program called “homeschool tracker” and make it look official.
I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I was afraid that “being organized” would take the fun out of our education but it has really done the opposite. I can look at my computer screen around 3pm and see exactly what we’ve accomplished, even though our days don’t “feel” any different than they did before. If I end up having to work, I can print up a list of assignments (and if they lose it- common excuse- I just print again!)
So far we’re having a great year. At the end of the day I am so wiped out that I often forget all we’ve accomplished. My DH was impressed (for the first time ever) when he saw what we were doing in school- it’s always been a mystery to him. He looked at my planbook last year and just couldn’t even read the chart. I don’t blame him, with each kid in a different “grade” it’s really complicated to write out lesson plans that work. This computer software makes it so much easier.
This year, E1 is in 8th grade, M1 is in 5th, G1 is in 1st and M2 is supposed to be in PreK but she’s reading, so she is working at a K level for most subjects. None of them works at just their own grade level, either. E1’s Math is 7th grade while her writing and reading / critical thinking assignments come from college texts. M1 is in 5th grade but her math level is 6th and her writing assignments / critical thinking is at a 7th grade level, while her spelling is at probably 3rd grade level. G1 is an all-around 3rd grade level, I am hoping that when she passes M1 in Spelling, M1 will decide to buckle down. The oldest three are all using the same Latin program, I just require different levels of absorption from them. Even M2 and G2 (4yrs old and 2 yrs old) can memorize the verb tense chants. We’re also all doing the same time period in History, and the same topics in Science. The older kids just study more in depth. In history, for example, while the littler kids are reading about Ancient Egypt, the older kids are translating heiroglyphics and writing about the pros and cons of their government system. Later, in Ancient Greece while the little ones are playing Olympics and painting clay pots, the older ones will be reading the Iliad and writing commentaries and summaries. We study history chronologically, on a 4 year cycle, so all year long we’re doing the Ancients. You can imagine how complicated lesson planning has become over the years. This year, E1 will be working through two years of Math curriculum, and a supplementary tutoring program, working on weekends and through breaks to get caught up.
AND- E1 and M1 hate our school, too. If given the choice, they’d choose public school. Our district is consistently scoring in the BOTTOM 25% of the state, according to www.greatschools.net so sending them won’t happen any time soon. I used to want to teach, worked as a sub for a while, then decided my kids would be homeschooled. If we ever move to another area, I might let them try it for a year (A year I spend getting my hair done, taking a pottery class, thinking deep thoughts, knitting, watching TV and painting my toenails)
E1 started a singing group and G2 started Ballet this year, let’s see how happy we are next week when Girl Scouts, Drama, Gymnastics, 4H, Fine Arts, MOPS and our homeschool Co-op begins. I hope I have arranged enough carpools to keep myself from driving all over town every day. Back-to-school is exhausting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love homeschooling. I hope when my girls grow up they decide they loved it, too. Their days are joyful and they are confident, outspoken and intelligent. Being with them is a blast. I wish I was homeschooled sometimes.
This is G2, dissecting an Owl pellet. http://www.kidwings.com has a great video tutorial and resources for teaching about this very interesting biological process.
(photo removed)
This is a picture of us visiting a local site where ancient Indians (not native to our area) painted petroglyphs on the Canyon wall. This year we are studying Ancient history.
We’ve been homeschooling since forever, and this is our second week of the year. We were all eager to start, so we started August 27th. My oldest is technically in high school next year, so this year I decided to try my hand at being organized about school (as far as documenting the lessons we do and what their grades are.) In the past, we’ve never used grades. If something was wrong, they’d instantly get the chance to fix it- to learn. There was never a need to grade papers in evaluation, because if they weren’t “getting it” we’d stick with it until they did. However- with high school approaching, and the prospect of being asked for transcripts, I decided to download a program called “homeschool tracker” and make it look official.
I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. I was afraid that “being organized” would take the fun out of our education but it has really done the opposite. I can look at my computer screen around 3pm and see exactly what we’ve accomplished, even though our days don’t “feel” any different than they did before. If I end up having to work, I can print up a list of assignments (and if they lose it- common excuse- I just print again!)
So far we’re having a great year. At the end of the day I am so wiped out that I often forget all we’ve accomplished. My DH was impressed (for the first time ever) when he saw what we were doing in school- it’s always been a mystery to him. He looked at my planbook last year and just couldn’t even read the chart. I don’t blame him, with each kid in a different “grade” it’s really complicated to write out lesson plans that work. This computer software makes it so much easier.
This year, E1 is in 8th grade, M1 is in 5th, G1 is in 1st and M2 is supposed to be in PreK but she’s reading, so she is working at a K level for most subjects. None of them works at just their own grade level, either. E1’s Math is 7th grade while her writing and reading / critical thinking assignments come from college texts. M1 is in 5th grade but her math level is 6th and her writing assignments / critical thinking is at a 7th grade level, while her spelling is at probably 3rd grade level. G1 is an all-around 3rd grade level, I am hoping that when she passes M1 in Spelling, M1 will decide to buckle down. The oldest three are all using the same Latin program, I just require different levels of absorption from them. Even M2 and G2 (4yrs old and 2 yrs old) can memorize the verb tense chants. We’re also all doing the same time period in History, and the same topics in Science. The older kids just study more in depth. In history, for example, while the littler kids are reading about Ancient Egypt, the older kids are translating heiroglyphics and writing about the pros and cons of their government system. Later, in Ancient Greece while the little ones are playing Olympics and painting clay pots, the older ones will be reading the Iliad and writing commentaries and summaries. We study history chronologically, on a 4 year cycle, so all year long we’re doing the Ancients. You can imagine how complicated lesson planning has become over the years. This year, E1 will be working through two years of Math curriculum, and a supplementary tutoring program, working on weekends and through breaks to get caught up.
AND- E1 and M1 hate our school, too. If given the choice, they’d choose public school. Our district is consistently scoring in the BOTTOM 25% of the state, according to www.greatschools.net so sending them won’t happen any time soon. I used to want to teach, worked as a sub for a while, then decided my kids would be homeschooled. If we ever move to another area, I might let them try it for a year (A year I spend getting my hair done, taking a pottery class, thinking deep thoughts, knitting, watching TV and painting my toenails)
E1 started a singing group and G2 started Ballet this year, let’s see how happy we are next week when Girl Scouts, Drama, Gymnastics, 4H, Fine Arts, MOPS and our homeschool Co-op begins. I hope I have arranged enough carpools to keep myself from driving all over town every day. Back-to-school is exhausting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love homeschooling. I hope when my girls grow up they decide they loved it, too. Their days are joyful and they are confident, outspoken and intelligent. Being with them is a blast. I wish I was homeschooled sometimes.
This is G2, dissecting an Owl pellet. http://www.kidwings.com has a great video tutorial and resources for teaching about this very interesting biological process.
I’ve always liked her. She never seemed like the Diva Glamour Hollywood Witch that other celebrity girls turn into. I saw her interviewed during the 90210 era and she was adorable. I just remember thinking how much fun it would be to hang out with her, she seemed so normal. SO- Flash forward 20 years- Tori is a mommy now, like me. I have 6 kids and she only has one but she and her husband are now running a bed and breakfast in Fallbrook, CA. I like watching them get excited about ways to make money with the Inn, it reminds me of us. They are in love, it is adorable, heartwarming. She is so much cooler than the stupid drug and party girls of hollywood. Her husband apparently is famous, too. Dean something I think- I am terrible at remembering those things. He’s cute, mostly because he dotes on her and the baby. Baby Liam. In one of the episodes I saw, she was at a mom and baby Yoga class, and she was so scared of hurting the baby, one position required her to bring the baby’s legs up to his head- babies are good at this, they roll up like rubber, and actually this position is wonderful for expelling baby’s gas. Apparently, though, Tori had never folded her baby up like this, she was so afraid she’d break him. Half of me thought it was funny, the other half wondered whether or not she played with her baby very much. I guess I am so used to having babies in my life i can’t imagine a mother not KNOWING how babies work. But she’s a first-time mom and she hasn’t been around babies. WOW- I can so totally not relate. But it’s funny to watch on TV. I still think she’d be fun to hang out with. The Inn looks beautiful. With baby #6 on the way, though- I can’t imagine ever staying in a B&B. The level of relaxation might actually kill me. Seriously.
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