Have you ever wondered about the Blue-footed Booby?

I remember seeing pictures of this unique creature but never knew its name. It's hard to look at a picture of one of these and not giggle. I truly believe God has a wonderful sense of humor.

I received an opportunity to do a review on an e-book from The Old Schoolhouse from The Curiosity Files about these unusual birds. The first thing I did was show Z-girl the pictures in the e-book of the birds. The pictures are excellent! Her favorite color is blue so I believe she was smitten. We have done several e-books and this one would be a wonderful one to do this summer during a break and would be a good preventative for the "MOM...I'M BORED". Or in my son's case "mom, I'm boring..heehee" It encompasses every subject imaginable: science,math, Bible,geography,writing,spelling and vocabulary! I know with my daughter a lot of it could even be done independently.

What I especially like about this e-book is that it is easy to use with a variety of ages or in our case developmental levels. There are activities to challenge from the youngest child to maybe an older child listening in about what his younger siblings are learning about. I highly recommend this e-book during a "break" to keep your child interested in always learning about new things. For 6.95 I think it is a bargain for this much potential activity and learning!

AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE

AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE (Mister In-Between)
Bing Crosby ( written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer)

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

(To illustrate his last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do
Just when everything looked so dark)

Man, they said we better
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No, do not mess with Mister In-Between
Do you hear me, hmm?

(Oh, listen to me children and-a you will hear
About the elininatin' of the negative
And the accent on the positive)
And gather 'round me children if you're willin'
And sit tight while I start reviewin'
The attitude of doin' right

(You've gotta accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between)

You've got to spread joy (up to the maximum)
Bring gloom (down) down to the minimum
Otherwise (otherwise) pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

To illustrate (well illustrate) my last remark (you got the floor)
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they say (what did they say)
Say when everything looked so dark

Man, they said we better
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No! Don't mess with Mister In-Between



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This song started going through my mind tonight. A joy ;) of having older parents I have a wide range of songs that enter my thoughts. This is something I feel I really need to keep in mind.

Today I had a really negative experience when someone learned we homeschooled. We have been homeschooling 5 or so years and how many negative comments have I gotten? Maybe a half dozen. How many positive comments? I couldn't begin to count. Also talking with my hubby tonight I realized how positive my day REALLY was. The unpleasant occurance at the grocery store was less than 5 minutes. What did we do besides that in the community? A~man went to the barber shop to have his hair cut. He has been going to the same place since...well forever. (with a few haircuts done by hubby and I inbetween) They LOVE A when we go in there. It is like a scene from the TV show Cheers. He probably asked the barber 1,000 questions and the barber answered every single one of them and in all honesty A~man was probably the most entertaining customer he had for the day. Then we walked down to the coffee shop...another positive....after that we went to one of our favorite shops to talk to our friend B who loves the kids. Why did I let a negative 5 minutes take over my thoughts for the day when I encountered so many positive people today? Heck everyday I encounter so many more positive people EVERY day. With my friends and with casual aquaintences and even strangers.

My prayer tonight is to focus on the positive....instead of letting a few rotten minutes ruin my day. (it didn't ruin my day but hopefully you get my point)

I'm losing...

WEIGHT that is! It has been an extremely slow process that started back in December. I want to be a better example for my son with PWS and for my daughter. Also I think my back/hips would hurt a lot less if I weighed less. Anyone that knew me before kids would laugh as I was a bean pole. My nickname in school was stick. :(  Since Decemberish (NOT a word) I have lost about 14 pounds. Woohooooo! I am down one pant size and that makes me very happy. I would like to lose at least 20 more.

We have had a beautiful spring filled with lots of outdoor time! Here's a picture I took while were walking at one of my favorite local places.

Unconditional Love

I have known what unconditional love is for a long time. Technically. I feel this way toward my parents, inlaws, and of course my husband and children. But ultimately the person that taught me about unconditional love was my son. To this day I remember on my third Mothers Day (it took a LONG time for me to get to celebrate this) I went up to my childrens room to discover A~man had "finger painted" EVERYWHERE...I mean everywhere. Oh and I'm not talking your typical art supplies. I'm sure my jaw dropped to the floor. He was 2 1/2 I believe and this continued until he was probably 7. I have not told many people about that. I have cleaned up a lot of crap literally. ;) It has frustrated me, exhausted me, made me scream on very rare occasion but still I love him to bits and pieces.

Tonight reminded me of that. It has been a LONG day for the hubby and I. For me it was a good day but we spent most of the day outside playing and doing school as we had someone in the house helping finish taking the wallpaper off the kitchen. The kids, hubby and I took off all of it in the diningroom and half of the kitchen. It has taken a long long time! Finally I begged hubby that I wanted it finished and we found some very reasonable homeschool people that finished it. (well we still have to paint but that will be easy)

OK I am off track. At 6:30 we went to Z~girls soccer practice. Originally I was going to stay home and hubby was going to take both kids so I could have a break. On second thought I thought I could manage sitting to watch. ;) Halfway through A~man declares "I need to go to the bathroom." The portapotty was probably 200 feet away. I begged hubby "PLEASE go with him". He was also tired and refused. Finally I just told A~man to go by himself. (we could see it until he went in obviously) Three minutes go by. "uhh hun could you please go check?" "no I'm tired" 5 minutes" You know he's in there picking up the urinal deoderant tablet and he will probably lick it" I bet he just HAS to touch the blue water down below" What if he falls headfirst in there?"    (we have the strangest conversations as special needs parents)  BUT the falling into the urinal comment had me RUNNING to the portapotty like a fool demanding he open the door. He looks at me. I KNOW he has done something. I finally see he has thrown some rolls of tissue in the toilet. I tell him "YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE MISTER!" Yes it was minor compared to the other scenarios and less repulsive but I was tired..and at the end of my rope. In the car I kept turning around looking at him and he hung his head. (I sound so mean huh?) We get home and he showers and brushes his teeth. Then comes the nightly question "how many Slick (our dog) hugs do I get?" Can I have 3?" NO "2?" NO "1?" NO!! and then the words a mom cannot resist "can I have a mama hug?"  OF COURSE YOU CAN!!     Who could say no to a childs request for a hug? I so love my A~man and all that he and Z~girl are teaching me.

Spring has us climbing trees!!!

Ok it has Z climbing trees and me revisiting my memories of childhood. She is such a monkey...always has been...and very coordinated. (me not so much) She was in ballet in preschool...started to try gymnastics (she would EXCELL she has the perfect build for it) but not interested. She is more like her mama and likes to stay in tune with nature. I remember as a child her age climbing up these giant pine trees in my grandma E's front yard (some type of evergreen anyway) WAY up....scarey up....as no one was watching me.

So we had some very warm days here in NC earlier this week and after doing some "school work" (there has to be a better name for it ;) the kids spent several days out in our yard...with me supervising out the window and going outside. I saw Z scaling the tree and HAD to get pictures. For what it is worth this is the first time in forever she picked out a skirt to wear. (she had cut off shorts under btw ; ) She loved wearing the skirt and wants me to make her some for this summer woohoo! I thought she was done with me sewing for her and skirts are so easy.

                                                                            Up

                                                                   Look mama!
                                                                  

She has been HIGHER believe it or not... I just did not get it in a picture.

A fairy drifting down....

Landing!

*giggling*

Most likely I do not need to but before this sordid tale I need to say a bit about our family. (disclaimer) We are a pretty conservative Christian family, we do not watch tv (we do watch movies), we are picky about what movies we allow the kids to watch especially A~man, we do not have any questionable magazines around....etc. All that to say our kids are pretty sheltered. ;) On to my tale~

Today we began a spring scavenger hunt. I have a list of things we are checking off that have to do with spring. We were not able to check off everything as it is still pretty early in the season. When we were finishing up our hike for the day Z runs to me and exclaims "A~man says he has naked woman pictures in his POCKET!!" It took me a moment but I realized what he had. When we go to the store...get a newspaper...get our junkmail he likes to pick fliers out and collect them in his room. In the mail last week I had gotten a coupon/advertisement for Victorias Secrets. It had these coupon cards (sortof like a grocery store coupon card) from Victoria Secrets with ladies in the underwear/bra on it. I remember seeing them but didn't realize he was carrying them around in his pocket. OK I admit...at the time I did not think it was funny...but telling my hubby the story tonight....I couldn't help but laugh. I didn't make a huge deal about it at the time but I did make him give them to me...and I threw them in a trash can. I could just picture at our next homeschool activity (TOMORROW) when he is out of earshot whipping them out to show the boys...or telling them he had "naked women cards" in his pocket. Oh I KNOW that would have happened...... :)

my dark cloud is gone!!

Thank you God!