We’ve been living in our new house for a solid week now.

Many interesting things have happened.

First, there was a fresh new medical problem…oh, the joys of mortal life…

I spent the plane ride out here in intense physical pain. I’m no stranger to pain, but this took over my entire abdomen and made for a miserable day. I was afraid to eat anything, for fear of making it worse. About all I ate that day was coffee and a Kind bar.

Well, I’ve had pain before. It’ll go away on it’s own. Everything will be fine.

Only it wasn’t. I stayed in pain.

Then one week later, I drank the first can of Coca-Cola that I’d had in a few weeks. After that I felt like I was going to die. It felt like labor, and I’m not even exaggerating. I should know. I’ve had four babies. I went back to being afraid to eat anything.

That night I finally began to suspect something was wrong. I went straight to Urgent Care.

Remember the nice NP who gave me a steroid shot for my hip after my Christmas flight? I saw that same NP, and he ran a blood test and told me that I have h. pylori ulcers. Heh? They gave me 6 pills to take twice a day.

So at least it was fixable. I’m on day 11 now, and I already feel 90% better.

Oh, and apparently not eating is bad when you have an ulcer b/c it increases acid. And coffee is bad, as are nuts and tomatoes, and BBQ. But Coke will kill you (not literally). Why do any of us drink that stuff? Sigh. Because it tastes so delicious!

So there you go, a free 101 on ulcers.

Moving

We polished up our new floors, unloaded a ton of boxes, and got on with life.

Thirsty Floors

Supplies! I learned the importance of owning a thousand Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupons.

Working hard on the floors

The “After” photo. It’s not actually this shiny in person. I have photogenic floors.

We unpacked 15,000 pounds of goods in TWO days. This was made possible by having HELP. DaddyO kept Dan and JD, and Nonna helped unpack.

John David 

On just day 3, an afternoon thunderstorm came up and JD and Daniel learned all about thunder, lightning, and storm-induced power outages.

JD was convinced that all of this was caused by Lightning McQueen.

He also thought the fireworks on the 4th of July were actually fires until he saw them. He still seems to be bothered by Grandaddy and Nana’s house burning down, and he talks about it quite a bit.

By the way, Dirt Boy has become Pool Boy. It’s too hot to play outside in the deep South unless water is involved, so that’s what he does. He has spent hours in his little wading pool outside.

Daniel has become obsessed with walky-talkies. He knows how to use them too, and he ends each time with “over.” It’s so cute.

We were in the store, and Daniel was carrying around his walky-talky, and he said, “Mom! Mom! Someone’s talking to me on my walky-talky!” He was picking up the employee frequency, and he was excited.

Daniel’s Quest

Daniel has been on a serious quest to make friends. Only he doesn’t realize that we seem to have moved into an unofficial retirement community. I should’ve known from all the perfect lawns and pretty flowers.

Every day, Daniel wakes up and proclaims, “Today I AM going to find some friends!”

We felt badly for him. We tried to help him. We even took the two little boys with us to the neighborhood pool on Saturday morning. Saturday! And guess how many people were there? None. Sigh.

Don’t despair quite yet. Wait ’til you hear about Sunday morning.

The boys have kept busy:

Where in the world are Joshua and Caleb?

Grandparent camp. I feel like I’ve hardly seen those two at all this summer, but I’m hoping to get them back tomorrow. They are having a ball visiting my parents and helping them get settled into their new rental house. The fire house was demolished this week, and they got to see a little of the aftermath of that too.

Meeting People

We’ve met a few people. I fully appreciated our neighbor John.

“I figured you’ve got some kids and a pool back here. I heard ’em out playing yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that.”

“No, no! I like hearing it!”

God bless this man.

I’ve been here a week and haven’t had any mosquito bites. Turns out that John sprays the woods behind our house for mosquitos because he wants his grandson to be able to play outside without getting bitten. AWESOME!

Giant Dusty and Lunch with New Friends

Today we were finally able to provide Daniel with young fry for him to play with. We visited a new church. Actually, it is THE church that operates the school that we’re sending Joshua, and possibly Caleb (still deciding), to this coming year.

When they opened the door to the 3-year-old class, JD took off into that room like a rocket. I’m telling you! See, there was the biggest toy Dusty we’ve ever seen right in the middle of the room. (Dusty is the main airplane from the movie Planes.) He was still playing with Dusty when we picked him up an hour and a half later.

When we picked up Daniel, Alan asked him right away if he’d made any friends. After all, that is Daniel’s quest. Daniel pointed to a boy playing in the floor and said, “Yep. Him right there!”

Hurray!!! 2 happy kids. We are on a roll.

This was Alan’s second visit to this church and the first for the rest of us. We were pleasantly surprised when our Sunday school teacher invited us out to lunch with their family and another family.

We had such a good time. Daniel and JD got to sit at a table with two little girls. At first, I thought that was going to be a battle.

Daniel pointed to his seat and said, “No, no Eminee, Mommy, I don’t like Eminee.” The embarrassment. He’d just met these girls. How could he not like them? And JD wouldn’t sit because Dan wasn’t sitting, and he is Dan’s follower.

I took Daniel to the bathroom to talk to him about the rudeness of not sitting with those girls. “Why don’t you want to sit with them? What has Emily done to you?”

“No, Mom, it’s just that I don’t like to drink eminAA.”

And it clicked. Lemonade! He meant lemonade!

“If I go change your drink, will you sit down?”

“Yes!” he nodded emphatically.

Daniel and JD ended up having quite the little party over there with those girls.

I’d call today a pretty great success.

Oh yeah!!!  And we bought a (new to me) mini-van! I’ve said for years that I like Alan’s grandaddy’s van, so Granddaddy found me one exactly like his! Right down to the DVD player and heated seats, a first for me. Heated seats are a big deal when you have an achy hip. Exciting times!!

What have you all been doing this summer?? Don’t forget to keep in touch!

The post Moving Update: The Ulcer, Giant Dusty, and Daniel’s Quest appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

It’s pretty much done. There are 4 days of school left. This chapter of our life is closing, and it’s one of those chapters that I’m speeding ahead, skipping a few paragraphs, and moving right on to the next chapter.
In fact, let’s put the whole book down and go on summer vacation because I am so done with this chapter!!

Ew. I do not like the things I learned about myself this year. BLEH! Can I escape with a shred of self-esteem left in tact, please?

Lessons learned about myself:
1. I need more self-control.
2. I need more patience.
3. I cannot do “it all.”
4. Can I go back to being a nice stay-at-home mom with a blog? (As in, I wanted to quit.)
5. I CANNOT  be a home school mom in my own strength. It may be in some people, but it is NOT in me.

After reading all of those negative, self-defeated thoughts, you probably are guessing that I am ready to throw in the towel.

Oh, but I am a stubborn woman, y’all. (Alan has informed me that this is the correct way to spell y’all….)

This was why I prayed so much. I had to rely on help from God with all of my weaknesses.

…8Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”   2 Corinthians 12:9

I feel like I’m becoming a better version of myself by doing a job that is too hard for me. I won’t bore you by listing every thing we learned this year, but let me tell ya. We learned volumes. We worked faithfully on our school work every single day. I was surprisingly good about sticking to our school schedule. It helped that the boys fully expected their school day to run the way it did at public school. That kept me in line, because you know I do have some free-spirited tendencies. 😉

So before I plunge forward, here’s a list of a TON of POSTS that I wrote about my first year of homeschooling, in case any of you need to read about my struggles to feel better about yourself….. HAA!  😉

No, there’s no way you could actually read them all over again. This will serve as a good reference list, though.

Best one: 14 Tips for your 1st Year of Classical Conversations April

Good News from the Graveyard   May

Do you boast about the faithfulness of your friends?  May

Life Skills Week  May

art by Caleb, back in August

Ways to Use Brain Pop Jr. at Homeschool April

How in the world are you going to homeschool? March

Children Teaching Children March

For the Homeschool is Ruining My Life Days February

one of my favorite photos ever

Montessori Brainy Kit February

My Victory of the Week February

7 Great Lessons to Learn from the Duggars Feb.

Review Olympics: Hot Lava Required Feb.

Were they really that small!!!??

Six Thoughts from the School for Wiggly Boys  Jan.

Our New School Jan.

8 Strategies for ADD Kids Dec.

Daniel’s Preschool “Curriculum” Dec.

A Week of Serious Breakthroughs Nov.

Help! There’s a One Year Old in the Classroom!  Nov.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Field Trip, Book, and Movie Nov.

An Exciting Day for the PTA Oct.

War games!

12 Things I’ve Learned from Homeschooling Oct.

Fall Happenings: Farm Day and Great Books Oct.

Home School: What We are Getting Right Oct.

spotting sea otters at the beach

Failures, Breakthroughs, and Realizations Sept.

Centers for our Homeschool Sept.

Caleb’s New Reading Plan Sept.

Home schooling Progress Sept.

making Latin matching leaves, which we used all year

Day One of CC: Done! Sept.

But how do you do it all? Aug.

Our First Three Days of Homeschool Aug.

Joshua, reading You Don’t Want to be a Slave in Ancient Greece. We love those books!

Homeschool Vs. Public School Vs. Private School Pros and Cons List Feb. 2014 (before I actually began the Great Homeschool Experiment!)

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Wow.  That was a lot of blogging.

Let’s talk about what I want to CHANGE next year:

1.  Maid service. Oh, that’s happening.

2. Make the plans in the summer so my weekends will be free!!! Man, I hope I pull this one off!

3. File system. Alan’s mom gave me a fantastic idea for organizing the boys’ work and plans, and I’m thrilled with it. Look for that in a future post! 

4. MORE FUN!!!! More centers, more reading, more computer time, MORE EXERCISE. I was a tough, no-nonsense teacher this year, and next year I’m hoping to please!!!

My friend Marissa, in full Sumo gear, Memorial Day weekend

Perhaps I should ask my friends for ideas on how to make school more fun. I have some crazy friends. 🙂 Praise God for crazy friends!!!

So hit me with all your best FUN ideas!!!

The post First Year Of Homeschool in Review: and 4 Things I Will CHANGE for Next Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Caleb, working on his spelling words, in his new school location.

The boys are watching VeggieTales, John David is taking a nap, and Alan is at a CPR class that he has to take, as part of being basketball coach. So what is this? Time that I can write, without any little boys hurting themselves or others???  Sweet!

I wanted to take a minute to tell you about our new school. Well, really it’s just the same as our old school, only we are moving it. After Christmas break, I said, “Let’s just have school downstairs.”

The boys all said, “Yes!!!  Hurray!”

And so it was done. I stayed up late last night cleaning out the school room, but it still isn’t finished yet. Alan helped me move the main bookshelves down to my humongous downstairs storage closet. Seriously, the closet is big enough for a twin bed or two. It’s in the dining room, and they are doing their school work in the dining room now, so it’s perfect.

morning seat work at the kitchen bar

I’ve been anticipating the move for a while, so Alan ordered and hung a great, big, new marker board in the kitchen for me. All I have left to do is re-organize a little bit.

Why did I do this? Mostly because of this guy:

our smallest ‘student’, the neediest student of all. He’s also ridiculously adorable.

We have this one student that didn’t have a seat in our teeny tiny school room. He needed a seat. He also has this STRONG desire to be at my feet at all times. This need was by design, see. If he isn’t by my feet, he is quite a danger to himself, the walls, the DVDs, you get the idea.

Now that we are downstairs, Daniel and JD can play trains, run around, play Connect Four, whatever, and I am right there with them. This is working so much better!

We also wreck less of the house this way. Sure, downstairs is a tornado while school is going on, but I am more motivated to clean that area up. In fact, we have to clean up in order for us to eat dinner down there.

So far, so good!

Yes, I realize this rug intersection looks ridiculous, but I have four boys and light carpet….in the DINING room, so that explains the rugs.

I think in the beginning Joshua and Caleb needed the little school room, so that this whole home school thing would feel legit, you know? But now that they know I don’t play when it comes to academics, we can get a little more cozy, a little less institutional. Whatever works.

Caleb’s rendition of the state of Mississippi. We have now learned all 50 states and their capitals, and we are now learning America’s history and major geographical features.

Hope everyone is having a great week, and you are enjoying your low gas prices! I live in Crazyfornia, where our state government voted itself a $1.00 extra gas tax. Yep. Gas is still $3/gallon here. 😉

The post Our New School appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.