I did away with the whole "Birthday" posts a while back. But this man deserves it. Today my husband of 11+ years is 39 years old. Our first real date happened this day 12 years ago. It was a flop. Despite that we were engaged a week later. And our love for each other has been growing ever since.
Our relationship had a pretty interesting start; and we've had a lot of excitement since. I am just amazed at how we came together and how good it worked out. He puts up with so much and is so patient and forgiving of my mistakes and issues. I couldn't be more grateful to him for that. He's such a good example to me in many ways.
As a girl growing up I dreamed of marriage and how wonderful it could be. Believe me, Steve has far exceeded any of those hopes and dreams. I had no idea it could be this good. I really didn't.
Happy Birthday Steve!

50% Photos X 50% Commentary

I've had issues with getting photos uploaded onto the computer, then onto the blog. So I just haven't been adding them lately. But it's time. Here's a picture post for ya.

First off a random one I found. One of my children must have: 1- created this artwork, and 2- took a photo of said artwork. *Beautiful*
Charity on her 5 month-old bday last week. She's still perfect in every way.
A Family Fun Day a couple weeks back. We brought a couple of the Butler cousins with us.

Another child with artwork and photo of it.
We got a tortoise! When our kids learn to read at least at a first grade level, we let them get a pet. Becca finally got there recently. We learned a lot about turtles vs. tortoises, and FYI: tortoises are way better. Her name is Lizzie. She's a great pet!
We're in full swing with homeschooling. It's going quite well. Here's our little classroom. I sit between the kids. They do a lot of their schoolwork on laptops as you see here. Check their blogs daily for their writing assignments. Jonah is starting to lose steam with a dwindling audience. So check them out. Celeste and Jonah.
My bedroom is finally wallpapered. It took FOREVER. And since we are trying so hard to tighten our budget, I couldn't go out and buy curtains, a nice matching comforter for our bed, things to hang on the wall, etc... But at least we got wallpaper.
Also, our Serving With Smiles humanitarian group for kids has a blog now! And guess who's the administrator of it? My very own Anna Celeste. Check it out. It's still under construction with much more to add to it, but you'll get an idea for how cool this group is.

Miscarriages Suck

So I recently announced I was pregnant. Not anymore.
Miscarriages suck. Big time.
But I have to say that I've had 4 of them now. None of them were fun. The others I didn't take well at all. In fact those times, I felt kind of dead inside myself. Miserable. But this time, I am grateful to say, I am taking this just fine. I did have my tears and questions and felt like a mess. But it was momentary. And I don't think the tears are coming back either.
The only things that felt hard about this miscarriage was the actual physical side of it. Painful, messy, not fun.
The other thing is I've been on this major big-time emotional roller coaster the past while. First to get a surprise pregnancy. That had me very worried! Since I'm addicted to planning, I was trying to figure out a way to make this pregnancy work with my life. Then I got myself all pumped up about it. Because having a baby really is such a wonderful thing. And then after feeling all these big emotions and feeling like my life was being turned upside-down and so forth, I miscarry.
So anyhow, it really is all ok. I don't even feel like I need people to feel bad for me at all. So don't worry about it. Yeah it sucked. But it seriously feels just fine in my heart. Thanks for riding along this roller coaster ride with me! :)
You want to know what sucks like a million times more than this? The whole situation in Haiti. That sucks.

Confessions

I keep thinking about some of the things people are saying to me and I can't help but respond. First off, thanks for all the congratulations! Coming out with that news helped me feel better. I know I can be unusually open about my life and thoughts and feelings. For the most part I think I just really get strength from that rather than keeping things private. I hope that part of me doesn't grate on anyone's nerves. I can completely understand people who would want to keep things in their lives private and why. I am just not that way in most cases. But another thing that seems to happen is people will say things like "you're amazing" or "you make me feel_____ when I hear about all you do." When I talk about the things I'm doing I guess I do it for more than one reason. Mostly I think I just want to get what's going on with me out there because like I said, I take strength from that to keep moving forward. Don't really know why, but it's true. But certainly I do not want to make anyone think that they are less than me. That makes me feel bad actually. I really do struggle with a lot of things. I have a lot of things I do wrong and I think that's pretty apparent. Do I need to talk more about those things?? I am amazed myself by so many wonderful people around me. I really look up to so many people and want to be better because of their examples. And I'm thinking of most of you--my readers. (Yeah you- who's wondering if I'm really thinking of you!) You are all so gifted and talented and amazing in your own ways and I'm sorry if I ever make anyone feel any less than that. I need to do better. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Big Announcement...again

I've had this big thing on my mind for the past several days. I've struggled to think of anything else. Yesterday it was my typical blogging day and I didn't want to write about it; but I could think of nothing else to write about that would even be worth the time to compose. This morning I was reading Jennifer P.'s blog. (A friend from Boise.) She is an awesome writer and such a super interesting person. Not to mention she is superhuman too. Seriously.

This is what she wrote:

"...I was wondering if I should really write about any of this on my blog. Yet it is so pressing on my mind right now that it's hard to think of anything else. Besides, writing through things magically gives me more clarity than I can ever achieve just sloshing all this stuff around in my big bucket head."

And at the moment I read those words, I decided to come clean.

Here it is-

I AM PREGNANT. AGAIN.

Now that I've delivered the moment of shock, go ahead and take a deep breath and proceed reading.
In my usual fashion we'll have our question and answer session at this point.

Q- Are you nuts?
A- I've said it lots of times. Yes.

Q- Were you planning this?
A- We were planning on having ONE more baby, but not until after our adoption was done.

Q- How did this happen?
A- Haven't your parents given you "The talk" before? Go ask them.
We were trying to prevent this from happening at this time, but well...

Q- How are you feeling about it?
A- Part of me is happy. The other part of me (a big, big part) is very worried. At this time, I'm dealing with the following: 1- Homeschooling 2- Trying to adopt internationally 3- Young Womens President 4- Teaching 3-5 ballet classes a week 5- Lots of volunteer work 6- And the basic mother of 5 children and a home and family to care for. And frankly I don't want to give a single one of those things up. Knowing my track record I'm gonna feel pretty crappy until this baby gets here. I just don't know how it's all gonna work. I just don't know.

Q- What's your due date?
A- September 20th

Q- How far apart will Charity and this baby be?
A- If I go to my due date, 13 months.

Statement- That will be hard!
Response- I'm much more worried about the pregnancy than that. It will be fine.

Q- What about your adoption?
A- We're still going ahead with it. We will have to get approval from our adoption agencies and if we get that, we'll likely have several more hoops to jump through as a result. But we'll do what we can to still go through with it.

So that's probably the most popular questions I'd get. I aim to please everyone's curiosity. :) But if you've got other questions, go for it.
As for my own requests...I would love if I would miraculously not get sick this time around. If you wanna be super nice go ahead pray for me that I don't. If I wouldn't get sick, it would all be just fine in my eyes.

A little dose of inspiration

I love looking for people around me that I can learn from and be inspired by. There seems to be so many people out there that are capable of things I never dreamed I could even attempt. As a family we have talked about these people a few times during Family Home Evenings. This guy (see video) is who we talked about last night. We watched a video about him, but I can't find the particular one we watched; which I prefer over the one I've placed here. I highly recommend you watch this video though. --Just another amazing person in this world we can learn from and take inspiration to be a little better.

My week in a nutshell

So here's what my week was like and how most of my weeks will be like until the end of the school year.

Monday-
Running
Got kids to do chores
Scripture study
Homeschooling
Doctor appointment (for our adoption. 2 hours of craziness!)
Did about 5 loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded)
Cooked dinner
Cleaned house up
Did homework with Eden and Becca
Taught ballet for 3 hours (I got suckered into teaching these ballet classes. The owner of the studio asked me to teach two nights a week. I decided to take one of the nights. And boy am I glad I did because these classes are seriously the best I've ever had and I love it so much!!! I am so excited for class again.)

Tuesday-
Missed running today
Got kids to do chores
Scripture study
Homeschooling
Ordered supplies for Serving With Smiles
Had lunch with Anna at her work
Took Charity to the doc for her 4 month well check
Took Jonah and Celeste to a math tutor (I stink at math and wanted a little help with it.)
Took all kids to the library to load up on books to read (We got a ton and it still wasn't enough)
Took Jonah to Scouts
Worked on the adoption stuff
Did homework with Eden and Becca
Cooked Dinner & cleaned up house
Had Family Home Evening

Wednesday-
Running
Had kids do their chores
Scripture study
Homeschooling
Back to the doctor (adoption stuff again)
Bank run
Helped someone move (good workout!)
Took Jonah and Celeste to math tutor
Substituted a ballet class
Did homework with Eden and Becca
Forgot to send Eden and Celeste to Activity Days :( (Sorry Stef. just got too crazy that day!)
Cooked dinner & cleaned up house
Went to Mutual (karaoke night- fun!)
Went grocery shopping at like 10pm

Thursday-
Running
Got kids to do chores
Homeschool
Babysat a friends children (2 and 3 year-olds)
Taught ballet to Celeste and her cronies (forgot it's so much harder to teach beginners than advanced dancers! But they are cute girls.)
Cooked dinner for a family in the ward
Served my family dinner & cleaned up house
Did homework with Eden and Becca

Friday-
Running
Scripture study
Tutored a friends kids at the school
Helped out in Becca and Eden's classes at the school
Homeschool (starts at noon on Fridays)
Did homework with Eden and Becca
Made dinner & cleaned up house
Went to dinner and temple with Steve (Thanks Anna for babysitting!)

Homeschool
So yeah, my life is pretty crazy right now. But I love it! Our first week of homeschool went great!!!! The kids and I love it. I actually enjoy it way more than I thought possible. The only problem is math. I am just not good at it and I hate it! I don't want to pass that on to my kids. So I'm still trying to figure out a way to trick them into thinking that I think it's fun and easy; and then to get them to think that it's fun and easy themselves. That is by far the hardest part for me, but I'll figure it out soon.
Writing is fun! Social Studies is fun! Science is totally fun! I'm not gonna lie about math...
You may also be wondering how much time we spend on homeschooling. It's usually about 4 hours. That may not seem like much, but keep in mind it's just me and the 2 kids. I'm not counting time for lunch, we don't have all those recesses and time spent lining up to walk down the hall, and so forth. We keep things moving quickly and don't waste time on crowd control. We get enough time for all the basic subjects and even a little time to spend learning whatever they want to learn about.

Schedule
You may also be wondering how I fit everything into our schedule. Well, we start early and I go until pretty late at night. Usually around 11pm. 7 hours of sleep is just fine these days. We have a pretty tight schedule and we have to stick to it pretty well to fit everything in. There isn't much time for me to play around or do leisure type stuff. (Basically none.) The kids have more time for that kind of thing than they did before, but not me. And I'm liking it though. Believe me.

Notes to readers

Today was our first day of Homeschool. It was great! The kids will be having writing assignments each day that I'll have them type up in a word processor, then paste it into their blogs. I wanted to do this because I figured if it was out on the WWW, then maybe they would try harder to write well and entertain. I think it worked. They spent a long time drafting their assignments and I didn't help them with that at all. I was proud of them. The only thing I helped them with is making a few minor grammatical changes. I didn't try to improve their writing or even fix all the grammar. But if you're a regular on this blog, you'll know my grammar is not great either. I'll hopefully be getting better as we learn more about that together. So I just want to say I would super super appreciate it if you would subscribe to Anna Celeste and Jonah's blogs and occasionally pop over there and comment on their posts. They will need the comments and criticism to keep them going strong.
Thanks!

Also-

In reading all your comments on my last post, I started to make a comment on it in response to yours. As I wrote it I decided to go ahead and post it here.

To all- I just want to say that I really didn't have any intention of using our Christmas post as suggestions to you for your own Christmas traditions! I realize our family is a bit strange and I bet you all do it better for your family than I could ever do. But I truly just wanted to write about our traditions for the sake of my kids reading this later and seeing how, when and why traditions we had done evolved.

Anna- Keep in mind my kids were surprised almost all the years before and were actually not any happier or excited than they were this year. In fact, I think last year I gave them all surprises and they seemed to not be nearly as excited about their gifts. Plus shopping together this time was pretty fun. But I'm taking mental note about you. *Anna likes surprises!* I sometimes just do for people what I would want thinking they'd like it and I'm really wrong. Everybody likes it different.

Erin- Three Christmas' ago (I think it was,) my kids discovered their carefully picked-out presents all beautifully wrapped, hidden and with tags on them stating "From Santa" before Christmas. They put two and two together and all came to realize that Santa was really Mom and Dad. They were pretty bummed, but not as much as I was for them sneaking around trying to get peaks at their presents! I was pretty upset that I didn't feel like trying to come up with a big lie story about why Santa had brought the gifts early and hid them etc...

Bishop traditions old and new

Tradition #1- Have Ghetto Christmas tree and decor.
We did that except it was a bit better this year as I made a trip to the dollar store to invest in some new Christmas tree decorations this year. So not as ghetto as we're used to. We also purchased our very first fake Christmas tree. I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it, but I totally do!!! Never had to vacuum up all the needles and watch it die and water it, etc...

Old Tradition broken: Have the kids look all white trash for the photos. After viewing last years photos I decided to have them dressed and their hair brushed before we opened gifts. I like it better that way. It will likely be done again from here on out.
Old Tradition kept: $30 budget per kid for gifts. (Well technically I went over budget about $6 with stockings, but I'm not gonna count that.) Why do I do this? Well, I realized years ago I could- and I will keep doing it as long as I can because the kids really don't need to have $100+ bucks spent on them each Christmas. It can only go up from there and I think it isn't necessary or maybe not even a benefit to them. I mean, if they can be excited about dinky stuff that isn't much, then lets enjoy that as much as possible! See below- Celeste is sincerely thrilled as she holds up her...well, 3 ring binder. Seriously.
And Jonah with his Webkins.

And Eden's Webkins.

And Becca's walking barking doggie. (Yeah, they LOVE crap like this. Crazy hu?!)

The aftermath...

Charity got a saweet gift! A jumper/exersaucer. And you ask, how did we do this in under $30? Well, I just so happened to have received a giftcard for $50 for Babies R Us from Steve's boss when she was born. And I decided then, that I would save it for this very purpose. Then I got a coupon for 20% off at Babies R Us. Total cost to us= $20. And she's so doggone cute in it!

We have real trouble getting pictures of this girl smiling because every time she does she turns her head away. It's this habit I can't seem to get her to break. She smiles and turns her head away at the same time. Like "Oh stop, you're killing me" kind of reaction. She does it when she laughs too. Bummer.

New Tradition this year: Now some of you are gonna have a hard time with this one, but we actually all really liked it. I'm thinking about keeping it around. We told our kids we have a $30 budget each for Christmas. They knew this already. But this year we actually took them all shopping a couple days after Thanksgiving and let them all pick out what they wanted for Christmas. I bought it all and took it home and stashed it away until Christmas day. So there was no element of surprise. HOWEVER, they all absolutely loved what they got! And that's the kind of person I am. I do enjoy surprises. But if I had to choose between being surprised with something that I'd mildly enjoy and not being surprised but getting exactly what I want, I'd definitely take getting exactly what I want. And the kids seemed to like it this way better this year too. It's the first time we did this, but it was a hit!

Now I bet after this post we're coming off as major cheapskates. And in some ways we are. But I want to make it clear, we don't ever tell our kids we're poor, or that we can't afford something. On the contrary. I often say "We're butt rich." And I feel in many ways we are. Of course if you really looked at how much we made and compare it with the people around us, we'd probably fall somewhere between broke and butt rich. But we've never had to go hungry and we've always been able to pay for everything we need. And to me that means "butt rich!" We always try to make our kids feel like we have all the money we could need, but that we are just exercising caution with our money so that we can save it for something better. If they ask about spending our money on something I don't feel is worthwhile, I'll often say, "Yeah, we could get that, but lets save our money for_________ instead." Works great and is a lot less depressing.

So we had a great Christmas! We went to Idaho right after we got all done with our Christmas festivities on Christmas day. We had a great time.

Our New Year's unfortunately wasn't great. I was so sick! HORRIBLY sick. But I'm all better now. Good thing, because tomorrow is the start of a new life for me. I will now have possibly the busiest schedule I have ever had in my life. Wish me luck! Maybe I'll have time to tell you about it next time I post. We'll see.

Lights & Homeschool

We went to Temple Square for FFD the other night. We really enjoyed it outside of nearly freezing to death.
Isn't this picture of the two headed daddy cute in a creepy kind of way?
Just trying to keep his girl warm.
---
In other news --we're getting all geared up for homeschooling. Just one more full day of school for all of my kids. Then we've got Christmas vacay, then Jonah and Celeste will be home with me for mind-filling fun.
Now that we are just about ready for the whole ordeal, we're getting excited. Even me. We've got the "classroom" set up, the books all on their way, the schedule typed up, the lesson plan figured out, and all that jazz ready.

People are asking me why I'm homeschooling. I decided I'll give that explanation here. Despite my best efforts, I imagine it will get long. So this is just for those really curious people that have too much time on their hands.

The story starts long ago, but I'll just pick up where it gets more interesting.
Jonah has been having such a hard time in 4th grade at our school. They switch classes around between a few teachers and he hates that. None of the teachers he feels very comfortable with. The whole environment is very stressful for him. His teacher is sweet but just doesn't know how to handle him when he has a meltdown. Working with a bipolar child is challenging and she often just seems to not know what to do and throw her hands up in the air so to speak. A few times I've been at the school and witnessed her inability to help him properly or I've been called from home to try and somehow salvage a messy situation. In one particular instance when I was called to the school, I felt heartbroken for my little boy who just wasn't getting the love and care that he needed at school. I haven't been mad at the school and I understand they can't be expected to leave the 99 for my 1 special boy. I think they are giving it an ok effort under the circumstances, but it just isn't enough for him.
It finally hit me. The thing is, as a parent it is MY responsibility and duty to see to it that my child gets a good education. And I think that it is perfectly fine to delegate that responsibility to a school. There is nothing wrong with that. In many cases the school can do a great job. In fact I think the school and teachers are doing a great job with Eden and Becca. Especially Becca's teacher who I think is doing way way better than I could do for her!
However, if the school fails to give my child what they need then it isn't them who will be held accountable. It will be me. And when I realized this, I realized I needed to pull Jonah out.
So a couple of months ago after school, I sat all my kids down to have a talk. I told them I felt like I needed to homeschool. I asked them if they were interested in doing that. Jonah was thrilled and had this huge sigh of relief and almost cried as he thanked me. Celeste got super excited too and said she would LOVE that! Eden said she would rather stay at school. So I said that would be just fine with me. Becca was kind of indifferent. She's gone back and forth. But I felt like her teacher was doing so well with her, that I didn't want to interrupt a good thing.
Now here's the deal.
To be honest I am a bit nervous. I worry I wont be that great of a teacher. I worry it's going to be too much time and work and I will have no time for myself. I worry about my kids social life. I don't want them being all weirded out. The first worry, I'm just going to deal with. We'll see how that works out.
The second worry I've tried to work on by setting up time with peers. Jonah has a great friend I'm trying to get regular dates set up with to hang out. Celeste also has some good friends. I've set up a little ballet class that I'll be teaching for just her and her friends once a week. I've also set up regular play dates with a friend who she really likes. They'll still be doing scouts, dance, activity days and so forth. So I think that will all be fine for them. And maybe I'll occasionally take them to a rated R movie or something so they can stay on top of all the bad stuff they could be missing at public school. (Kidding there.)
I'm not sure how long we'll do this. For now I'm only planning to do it for 1 semester. As we start homeschooling, I'll get a better idea of how it will work for us and we'll take it from there. We may love it and do it forever. We may think it's ok. We may hate it. But either way I love my kids so much and feel like my concern for their welfare and desires to see them succeed will give me the motivation to make sure they get a good quality education. And if despite that all, I still fail to do a great job, then we can put them back in school in the Fall (Jonah will be out of the 4th grade issues at this school,) and we can move on. But I'm hoping it will be a success and we love it.
There you go.