The bright side of things

Our family has found our selves dealing with problems and bad stuff coming at as one thing after the other lately. I've been soul searching the last week about all this and decided today that I need to make a list of all this stuff and turn it around. Everything that happens has a plus side. Something to learn or grow from. So here it goes.

1. Con: My cat got sick and I had to put her down. Pro: We don't have a pet to worry about when we go on vacation or to listen to my husband complain about when she makes a mess.

2. Con: My grandma gets diagnosed with cancer and is given 3-6 months to live. Pro: Now this one was hard. There is no pro to this one for me or my family. But if we think of her for a minute, she's about to be reunited with her eternal companion that she's been away from for many years! That is wonderful for her! I can only imagine how happy she will be back in his arms!

3. Con: We all got very sick with the H1N1 virus of which I had dreaded because of Austin's asthma. Pro: We came out the other side with no visits to the ER and while Austin did have problems he survived just fine. Now I don't have to worry about how he will handle it.

4. Con: I woke up yesterday with a double ear infection and had to go all day with cotton in my ears so I could be around my kids while Tony was at work. Pro: Today was a lot better and I got a prescription and it was only one day. That's the best I got for that one.

5. Con: Tony's class is super hard this time around and he is really stressing about it. It's been hard on the whole family because he's always worried about getting it done and can't spend time with the kids like they would like him to. Pro: it's only one more month and then he graduates and is done with school forever!

6. Con: My knee has never recovered and there's not a lot of options but to just live with it since the next option is not something I'm willing to do. Pro: With the help of some Advil I can do most everything I was able to do before and with more training I think it will get even stronger. I'm not going to let it hold me down.

That's the big things. I'm going to concentrate on the big picture and take things as they come. We aren't given more then we can handle!

homeschool

We've finally gotten into a groove with our new curriculum! It took us a few weeks to figure out how it works, then how we needed to adjust it to work for us but I think we are finally getting it down! The last few days have really gone quite well. The boys are able to get everything done in about 3-4 hrs including breaks. That's WAY faster then the first couple weeks! The curriculum says it should take 2-3 hrs to do everything. We're only 1 hr off! I think that hr is spent getting each other distracted during math. The worksheet they do each day should only take 10-15 min but they keep each other distracted and it ends up taking over an hour. We need to work on that. Maybe we should do the math portion in different rooms instead together at the table. Now there's an idea.....

catch up

I haven't been posting as much as I should. Here's what we've been doing though.

We got back from our trip and Tony finished his second to last class.

My cat went to the vet and they put her on a special diet of wet kitten food and pain pills. They said her teeth are really bad and she's not eating enough. She had lost too much weight. Pour kitty. They told me there's nothing they are willing to do because of her age. Surgery is too risky.

After that little drama Tony's dad came to visit. We had a blast with him here. We played bocce a couple times which the boys totally loved! We tried five guys burgers for the first time. That was really yummy! We went to the ball park and played a little baseball. Until it got too hot and the boys couldn't take it any more. Sierra warmed up to Poppy so fast! We were very surprised. She hasn't seen him since she was a tiny little baby. We'd shown her pictures but that's it. But within 30 min. She was talking to him and going over to him. She's never warmed up to someone that fast. Within the hour till we went to dinner she was in love with her Poppy!

I'm starting piano lessons tomorrow. I'm excited! It's something I've always wanted to learn. We'll see how fast I can learn it. I'm terrible at memorizing things. I've tried in the past to learn to read music with no success. I'll give it a go again though.

Tony is starting his last class for his Masters degree in a couple weeks and then we are celebrating his graduation and our ten year anniversary together with a trip to Florida and Disney World! I'm so excited! We are starting to plan it and the more we look into it the more excited we are getting.

Vacation

We had a wonderful time on our trip to the coast with Tony's family! We spent a week in Nehalem Bay state park camping in our huge tent. I love our tent! We played lots of games, went on lots of walks, played on the beach, and spent one day in Tillamook. We saw the cheese factory and went to the air museum. We had a slide show of pictures from the last 20 years of family trips Tony's family went on. It was so fun seeing him and his cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and the rest though the years. The kids were great the whole week. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Sierra's two!

My baby is now a two year old. This is the cake my sister and her mother in law made for Sierra. It turned out so cute! Sierra picked out this princess dress to wear to her party. It was too big on her but she looked cute in it anyway. Room to grow.

Really full house

My brother in law gets here today and they are offically moving here now. We are so happy to have them here with us. Kris finds out if she has the job she interviewed for on Monday. They can use all the prayers they can get. Things seem to be falling into place for them we are very happy for them.

My knee is starting to improve. No more crutches. I went to the dr. and he gave me a cortizone shot because he said it was all inflamed. That has helped a lot. I'm so glad that I'm mostly back on my feet again. It feels good to be able to help clean the house again.

Food storage

I've been getting my food storage together and got a shelf relience can organizer to put it all on. I love it! I just got an email from them that they are doing a drawing and giving one away! Here's the website: http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/?p=104&cpage=12#comment-653 they are so great!