Happy New Year

Wow, I didn't realize until the other day, that I haven't updated my blog since the end of August.

Co-Op started the beginning of September and it went by very quickly. No sooner did I find my stride; it was over. The girls really enjoyed their classes too. Madison took an Excellence In Writing class and really did well according to her teacher. I am glad because she doesn't like to write. I hope that after next semester I will be able to see some of the things she has been learning transcend into her work at home. We will see. Cathryn's class this year is going well. Mrs. Yarnell has set up different centers this year. There is a home center where they can play house and with dolls, there is a sand table where they play with different things like rice/corn meal/bird seed, etc. There is a center where they can practice writing their letters and numbers and there is a science center complete with a pet turtle. The kids love that.

Madison's fall soccer season began and the girls did really well. I was really impressed. They played in a league where they were challenged but not defeated. They won a few, lost a few and tied a few. A very good season all around. We are now in the midst of indoor and can not wait for it to be over - except for the fact that it will be outdoor and really really cold still.

Cathryn is continuing in gymnastics and loving every minute of it. She was in a homeschool class with 5-6 girls ranging in age from 4-8. Her coach pulled me aside after a class and told me that we need to move Cathryn to another class. That she was better than the other girls and it wasn't fair to hold her back. So, now Cathryn is going to a different class 2 times a week. There are about 10-12 girls in the whole class but they are broken down into smaller groups and she has found her niche. She is in a group with girls that are about her ability. We went one day to see how she would like it and before we could ask her how it went, she said, "Mom, I loved it - can I come back tomorrow?" She loves every minute of it. She really likes the fact that "Miss Emily" is there. She is a young woman that helped out in her other class for a little while last year and she really liked her. That was a big plus for the class as well.

Tony ran his first Half-Marathon this winter. He had a lot of fun and made it through the whole thing. I am very proud of him. The girls and I met him at the finish line. We took the DART train into Dallas to where the race was and the girls absolutely loved it. Now Tony is starting to train for a full marathon in April - in Oklahoma City. We are hoping to make a mini vacation out of it. That should be fun and I will be ready for a break about then too.

Christmas came and went. Tony's mom and Ashli came up to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They left on Saturday after watching Madison play soccer in a tournament. We got snow on Christmas Eve which was a nice surprise. According to the news, that was the first time (on record) that it has snowed in the Dallas area on Christmas Eve.

The New Year is here and we have started back to school this week. Its been a challenge for all of us to stay on track and get back into the routine. We are making it through though. Co-Op starts back up the last Monday of January. I am glad that my classes were picked up again and there is no real prep to be done. I have 4 Which Way USA books to put together, but that isn't hard.

That is the latest update. Hopefully I will take the time to update sooner than I did this time, but we will see...

We Made It!

We made it through our first week of school!! Yeah!! It went relatively smoothly too. Madison started 4th grade work which this week was mostly review for her. She is doing a Bible Devotional, Handwriting, Spelling, Reading, English, and Math daily. On Tuesdays through Thursday we are also adding History and Science. One week we do History on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Science on Wednesdays. Then the next week we will do Science on Tuesdays and Thursdays and History on Wednesdays. I am hoping that will help us to get everything done in the end.

Madison's history is 3rd grade, but we started on the Bob Jones history late so we are catching up. We didn't start using the history curriculum until last year and we have read through the 1st grade book and the 2nd grade book. Its American History so I wanted to start at the beginning so we are still catching up. My thought is that if we go through the 3rd grade as we did the 2nd grade, we should be up to speed on 4th grade by Christmas. Then we will take our time with it and work through it as long as it takes..even if it goes into summer.

For science this year, we are determined to get through it. Science has been an easy subject to push aside for us and I don't want to do that this year. We purchased an Apologia Science book on Zoology which I think will engage both Madison and Cathryn. Its about land animals. My goal is to have Cathryn sit with us while we discuss the lessons and she can do the experiments with us.

Cathryn has been eager to start school too. She is doing really well with what she is willing to work on. I have the intentions to teach her to read (because she is ready) along with learning phonics and math. She is doing great with the phonics and math. She excitedly opens her books and diligently does the work. When it comes to the reading program, she says she doesn't want to do it. To help with her counting I made a chart with numbers up to 100 that we pull out each day and review. She read all the way through the chart the other day and announced that she had learned to read. She is content just knowing how to read numbers...lol...silly kid!

I will try again next week with the reading. I don't know what her issue is with the book that we have, but she closes it if I open it. Crazy...but I am not giving up!

So, all in all, it was a great first week back at school!!!

Words...

From the beginning of Time we have used words and gestures to relay all kinds of things. I have a facebook account and have found some dear old friends on there. One of my dear friends (Sami Keenan) happened to post Proverbs 16:24 which I thought was perfect for today!

Proverbs 16:24 "Pleasant words are like honeycomb, Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones."

That is so true. Words are important and we need to remember that. They have such power. They can lift you up off the ground with words like "I Love You" or they can pound you into the ground with words like "I Hate You".

From this I began thinking about some things that were said in recent days that should never have been said. The words have been deleted, changed and justifiyed but it doesn't change the fact that they were said.

Matthew 12:34-35 talks about this. It says "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him."

I strive to bring Honor to God. I fall short of this sometimes, but that doesnt mean that I dont still strive to Honor Him.

I am not the evil person that some preceive me to be. I am not the "bad guy" the "monster" or the awful person that some people HOPE I will be to justify their ill feelings in life. I have tried over the years to changes peoples preception of who I am to no avail. I have done nothing to warrent the ill feelings. I may not be the ideal person in every situation, but God has directed my life and He has put me into these situations and I don't question Him on too many things.

I do not go out of my way to bring conflict into my life. I rather like my little boring life. I don't enjoy drama in real life. It belongs on television or in the movies. I thought I was through with all that when I was younger, but people try to bring more and more drama into my life and I will not accept it anymore.

The moral of the story is; if you feel the need to be ugly, stop and pray first and ask God to direct your thoughts and actions..this way you don't need to write a retraction or apologize to someone.

There is another verse that I love from Ephesian 4. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouthes, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that may benefit those who listen."

I used to teach jr high girls in Sunday School years ago and I used the phrase "Build up or shut up" to paraphrase this verse. Good words to live by.

Getting Ready for Fall..

I know, its 100 degrees and we should be enjoying all the things that Summer offers so why am I thinking about Fall?

Well, I am beginning to start thinking in earnest about our next school year. The girls are enjoying time off, but Cathryn is really ready to start school. I bought her a little workbook that I thought would keep her content and she has finished it. She has really been working on letter sounds which will be beneficial for what I want to accomplish with her next year.

I have purchased everything that we will need as far as curriculum is concerned. Madison is going to continue using Bob Jones Press which she had great success with. I have looked at other things to do with her, but I don't want to continually switch and then she miss something crucial.

Madison had a hard time last year with the writing portion of her English program, but I am hoping for a better year this year, since from what I have seen, the writing will be similar to what she has already done. She is also going to be starting a class at Co-Op called Excellence In Writing which from everything I have read and heard is a great program. Accordingly, once the students have completed all 4 semesters of this class, they will be able to write ANYTHING, which will help when Madison is in high school and college.

With Cathryn, I am planning on using a few different things. I will be starting her with Explode The Code which is a phonics curriculum. I am also going to start with the book Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons. I have heard some really good things about it so we will see how it works with "Miss Thing". To round out her schooling, I am going to use Horizon's Math level Kindergarten. I looked through several Preschool and Kindergarten math books and thought this would be a good place for us to start. This summer we have been working on her counting skills and number recognition. Other than that, I think I will fill in as time allows with different things in other areas of learning, but we will see.

Madison likes to have me right there while she does her school work and now that I need to be working with Cathryn, I won't be able to do that. We bought her a desk for in her room and the idea is that I instruct her in a couple of subjects and then she goes and does the independent work in her room. We will see how well this goes.

I am really excited about this year. Cathryn is excited even if Madison isn't really. I keep telling Madison that the older she gets the harder school gets - even though she hasn't found anything hard about school yet. She doesn't like to write so she says its hard. She doesn't like working out her math problems, so she says its hard. There is nothing that she is doing that is way over her head. She just doesn't want to work at it sometimes. Then other times, I can't keep up with her. Crazy!

So, in the next few weeks we will be school supply shopping and then we will be set for school. Cathryn is excited about starting back at Co-Op too. The teacher that she has had since we started C0-Op is moving up with that class which is nice. She is an awesome teacher!! I have heard other mom's say that she isn't allowed to move up any more so that their children can enjoy her as a teacher too. Cathryn told me the other day that we needed to go back to Co-Op so she could meet her new friends. There are a couple of new families that have children her age. I thought that was so sweet!

Good Recipes

Since Tony had his heart attack our eating habits have changed quite a bit. We no longer eat red meat. I, occasionally, will have a hamburger, but other than that, we eat only turkey, chicken, fish and sometimes lean pork. He says that red meat tastes metallic to him and the few things he has tried to eat, he found he couldn't eat it all.

I have used ground turkey for everything I would use ground meat for. I haven't tried meatloaf yet, but my family never really liked meatloaf so its no big deal.

I thought since I have found some really good recipes, I would post them here..mainly so you can enjoy them as well and so I can keep better track of my recipes. I don't use my recipe books very often, but I print tons of recipes from the internet. I have a large binder that I put them in and lately I havent taken the time to put them in properly. By properly, I mean that I use sheet protectors and categorize the recipes. So, they are just in the binder loosely and I have a hard time finding what I want. So I thought this would be a good way for me to cross reference them. I am not going to go wild and add pictures or anything, but I will put the ingredients used which sometimes vary slightly from the original recipe, but I will indicate the original ingredient and the changes will be in ().

Tonight for dinner I am making a Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad. This recipe came from http://www.cookinglight.com/.

Dressing:
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2/3 cup light sour cream
1 Tbsp minced chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce (I put the rest in a little bowl and put in the refigerator for another time)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
4 tsp fresh lime juice
1/3 tsp salt


Salad:
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce (I bought the ready chopped bag of romaine)
2 cups chopped roasted skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 2 breasts) ((I roasted the breasts in the oven with salt, pepper, and garlic powder)
1/2 cup diced peeled avocado
1/3 cup thinly vertically sliced red onion
1 (15oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (8 3/4oz) can no-salt added whole - keernel corn, rinsed and drained (I used frozen corn instead)

To prepare dressing: combine first 7 ingredients stir well. (I refrigerated this for about an hour before serving.)

To prepare salad: combine lettuce and remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle dressing over salad; toss gently to coat. Serve immediately.

I took this idea from another recipe: I took some heavy duty tin foil and made 3 - (about) 3in. balls. I took 3 low fat flour tortillas and sprayed them with some olive oil cooking spray and draped them over the foil balls. I placed them in a 425 degree oven for 6 minutes. They crisped up into taco salad bowls.

It was a good salad, but the dressing was a bit spicy due to the chipotle chiles. Also, I didnt mix the dressing in with the salad. I had it in a bowl on the side. I was concerned about Madison liking it because of the spiciness, but she liked it a lot.

Anyway, check back next week. I am planning on making a couple of more recipes that I found that sound really good.

Don't ever think it can't happen to you

With the economy the way it is and the craziness of the banking industry, Tony decided that we should switch from a big bank to a credit union.

In the beginning of May we went over to a local credit union to open a new account. While we are filling out the paperwork and the account officer is inputting our information into their system, he asked me if I had opened and closed any accounts in the last two or three years. I told him we have been with the same bank for eons so, no I haven't opened or closed any other bank accounts. He looked alittle deeper and said that an "Eric ?" had opened and closed a couple of accounts in Salem, Oregon. I said I don't know any "Eric ?" and I don't know how he got my information. Well....................

I went home really creeped out by the whole thing. I pullled my credit report and there was nothing on there that wasn't ours. I did some research on the internet and decided to call our police department to see what I needed to do if anything. They told me to do exactly what I had already done and to see if the bank could give us any more information because if I wanted to file a report, there really isn't much to go on.

First thing Monday morning I went back to the bank to talk to the bank manager to see if she could help me further than the account person could. She called Check Systems and explained the situation and they said that they would launch an investigation and get back with me within 15-30 days. Well, time went by and I called CheckSystems a couple of times and got no where. I called back the other day (which was over the 30 day time line) and they told me that they have cleared my records with them to show only my name associated with my social security number.
That was just a small part of the issue. While I was talking with Check Systems they started spitting out phone numbers that I would need to call to look further into the matter. See, Check Systems doesnt so anything really except to verify ID...what a waste of 30 days in my opinion. Anyway, come to find out that the person who stole my ss# has used it with 3 different banks. I was informed of 2 when we were trying to establish an account.

So, on Monday I spent all morning on the phone. I called the banks in question to let them know the situation and the last one that I talked to was a Credit Union. While talking with them the fella I was talking with whispered that it would be a good idea to start a criminal investigation. Wow, that was a bit creepy. Apparently, from what the fella DIDNT say, the person in question still had an open account with them.

Hanging up with the Credit Union I called their local police department only be told that since I didnt live in their city or state for that matter, I needed to call my local police department and work through them...ugh...so, off I go calling the local police department who asked why was I calling them. After the public safety officer and Ifinished laughing, she said that she would be happy to turn my case over to the proper people in the police department and they would handle the investigation on my behalf.

I forgot to mention the really ironic part of this little story....the theft happened in Salem, Oregon. I used to live in Salem over 20 years ago. The first bank that came up was the bank that I used. That was what made this whole thing very creepy. I think the person is a transient or migrant worker type person since the issue is only with banking.

So, as of today, there is a criminal investigation for identity theft. If we hadn't decided to change banks, I probably would never have known this was going on.

Crazy, huh?

Never think it couldn't happen to you..because it just might.

New Endeavor

Years ago (ok it was only 4, but it seems like YEARS AGO), while I was pregnant with Cathryn, a girl that was in my MOPS group made me a couple of recieving blankets and burp cloths. They were the most awesome things I have received. The blankets were actually big enough to swaddle a baby (ok, not Cathryn because she would have nothing to do with that) as well as cover them while sleeping. They are light weight enough to be used year round, even in Texas. As you can see, I fell in love with them. They measure about 36"x 44" so they are really a nice size. They can be used as I said, to actually swaddle a baby. The receiving blankets that you buy in the store can't even swaddle a baby doll very well. They have many other uses as well. They are big enough to drape over a baby carrier or stroller to block out the sun, but not be so stiffling for the baby. They are great floor blankets because they are big enough for the little ones just learning to roll over. The are great for crib blankets. In the summer, a single layer is all baby needs, and in the winter, fold it over (or add another one) and that is plenty for baby as well. They are thin enough as to not take up a lot of room in your diaper bag or whatever you decide to carry them in.

As you can probably tell, I really love them. I started making them for people who were having babies so that they could love them too. Anyway, I have had a few people (including my husband) who have asked me if I was going to start selling them. I have never really thought about selling them because I like to give them as gifts. Well, I have finally decided to try to sell them and see where it goes.

I am not going to go the Etsy route or anything like that at this time. I am relying on word of mouth orders at the moment. So, if you know someone who is having a baby and would like to get them a practical gift that they will use over and over, please email me at cuddlesandburps@gmail.com and I will take your order.