Poor Katherine!

Well, I have been really dreading having to make this post, but Katherine was removed from active participation from the choir for failure to show up for a concert. She is devastated, but it has been a valuable lesson for her to be more responsible. She has been struggling with that this whole school year. Constantly losing books, homework, etc. Well, she, as well as myself, wrote the wrong date on the calendar for the concert and by the time she realized her mistake it was just too overwhelming for her and she broke down. Never mind the fact that we had piano from 5-6:30 and Stephen had a ball game at 6, so our schedule was already full. After this I incident, we pulled Stephen out of baseball and changed piano to revolve around Lauren's ballet on Thursdays. Thursdays will be absolutely crazy, but at least now other activities that everyone likes to schedule on Tuesdays, will now be free. I just wish my kids had fewer talents...that would keep my schedule more cleared out :)
It is now allergy season and we are all suffering....well, at least Katherine and I. We both can hardly sleep and our attempts at taking meds seem to be making Katherine more sick than just the allergies.
Well, I need to cut this short to move forward with the day...I'm an hour behind schedule and I will be having a houseful later today!
Kris

Short and sweet

This is just a quick note to let everyone know we survived Spring Break. I enjoy having the kids around so much more than when they go back to school. Everything and everyone has been tired, cranky, busy and downright miserable since they returned.
Katherine got her braces two weeks ago. She refuses to smile for the camera, so sorry, I have been unable to catch her silver smile for you!
Megan started at Sylvan to help her thru some learning difficulties. After attending our Catholic Homeschool Conference this past weekend, it really helped me to understand her better and I can see where I've failed as a mom to adequately prepare her. All the educator things I've been opposed to in our homeschooling, I'm now finding out are necessary steps to increasing mental capacity and neuron connections! OOOOPPSS! We are taking steps to rectify that with all the kids this week. We are seeing some positive changes in just the past few days.
Rebecca has reclaimed her own room again. She is also excelling in the new brain games I bought and is very receptive to all the new "stuff" I've acquired. We've also committed to homeschooling her until high school. I'm so glad! I see what a huge difference in their maturity and esteem those three crucial years make. She's always been slower on the social side than Megan ever was and I don't think she could handle what Megan has already been thru in just the few short months she has been in school!
Stephen is loving his friends and still hating school. We've also committed to homeschooling him for a few years. We'll wait and see how he does before we make any judgements on middle school. It would be nice for him to get into band and 6th grade is when they start...we'll just see.
Lauren...my big headache. We are really working on discipline and obedience with that one. The iron will and stubbornness really are linked with that red hair (Stephen had red hair until he was about 18months old...that explains some of his too). She has a ballet recital coming in a few months!!!
Kimberly is learning tons and tons of stuff. She can pick out, from memory, some letters when I write them in a series of three letters. So far she has B, T, I, G, A and K down. I honestly was quite shocked at what she knew when I started this little alphabet game with her. I was schooling the kids and had just finished the instruction part of Lauren's grammar class when Kimmy climbed into my lap and wanted to write on the white board.
This beats cleaning corn starch off a kitchen floor! Those pics are being held hostage by my phone until I can figure out how to get them out :) Yes, she survived and no I didn't rip all my hair out and dissolve into a pile of tears...my mother's words rang in my head, "you have to learn to laugh about things or you will drive yourself insane!" "Take more pictures so you can show them to your friends in the old folks home when you're 90!"

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland!

Becca & Megan...with my camera! I guess they wanted to document their sneaking out of the house to go to their secret hiding place...so smart! They must get it from their father :) Sad thing is, when confronted with, "I told you not to leave the house...I told you not to go into the wilderness!" Their response is, "we didn't! We were in the backyard playing, you just didn't see us!"
Now I know where all that mud is coming from! Give the kids an undeveloped subdivision and they run wild! If it wasn't for poisonous snakes, bobcats, foxes and deer, I just might be okay with their exploring natures. Mental note, get them rubber boots to help keep fangs from skin!
These pics were, of course, taken later in the afternoon, after the snow had melted.
Here are some pics before the snow melted...our beautiful winter day, err, morning...
The front of our house. By mid afternoon, the snow was already melting :(

Stephen had some pals drop by...he's very lucky that he rides the bus with two kids who are in his third grade class. They buzzed on over in their four wheelers and blessed us with a morning of snowball fights and fort building...of course, the snow ran out before their energy did.
I'm not so sure Paul was glad...he was pummeled quite extensively by those under the five foot level!
You can see in places that the snow did get to about five inches deep...oh how I miss Washington sometimes!


Lauren's attempt at making a snowman. This snow was perfect--not too wet and not too dry! It held together well, even with Kimberly's help and Stephen's "King of the Snowball" episode...

I thought everyone was lying to me!

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!!!!
When we moved here everyone said there is usually one snow a year. Well, now it is March and I didnt' see any, but now a wintery snow storm has blanketed our backyard and the kids are all anxious to be out in it. I tried to convince them to keep inside until tomorrow when the icy coldness will have stopped, but to no avail. My living room is now littered with multiple pairs of wet mittens, socks (because some of them used these when their mittens were failing to keep their hands warm) from both feet and hands, shoes, coats, gloves, hats and scarves!!!!!!! I think it looks to be about 2 inches thus far and it is to continue thru the night! Of course you don't see boots on the list because we haven't been anywhere with snow in so long that I've not bought snow boots since Katherine was a baby! Kimberly doesn't even have a winter coat and Lauren's isn't really a "proper" winter coat, but just a cute faux fur thing. Stephen lost his already, athough I didn't think it that important since I thought winter was over. He loses one every year and last year he went thru three. I always figure God finds a way for some poor child to get coats thru my absent minded professors!

Here is Megan's giant snowball, she has lovingly named her "Lisa." She plans to roll her down our long "ramp" of a driveway tomorrow...they all cannot wait. So glad I did my shopping today! I'll try to get some good ones of the kids in the snow tomorrow...guess I better find some more winter clothes...that I'd already packed up because it has been in the 70's lately!