Riding a 2 wheeler!

My dad sent Jordan money for her birthday (and Christmas--he just mailed it 3 months late:) We went to Walmart last night and got her a new bike. We had left her little bike with training wheels back in Idaho for her little cousin. Today after about 2 hours of practice in a parking lot down the street, and LOTS of tears she can now basically ride the bike. She still has to figure out the brakes though. For now she just puts her feet down and crashes the bike to stop :)


She's still a little wobbly on the stearing

I'm a big girl mom

Change of Heart

We have been having some major behavior issues with Jordan again. So for now our plans to homeschool are off. I don't think I can handle dealing with her behavior and trying to get her to learn something. This last week I took all of her toys out of her room and she has to earn them back. I did leave her books and coloring books and I have to see she has taken up reading more. She earned her computer time back on Friday and some TV time back yesterday. She does not have the TV back in her room though.
I'm saddened by the decision not to homeschool but also feel some relief because I have been so stressed out over her behavior lately. I checked out some parenting and discipline books out at the library yesterday. I'm hoping they will help me too. I'm still keeping our subscription to Time4Learning.com for now because it really is a good educational site and Jordan enjoys it. I'm hoping we can just do some fun educational things for enrichment. She is on a 2 week break from school now so we have alot of fun stuff going on for a few weeks now.
Her 7th birthday is at the end of this month and we are trying to decide what to do about her party. We can not have the party here. For one thing this house is in too bad of shape for me to even think about having people over. Plus we don't have a table or anywhere for the kids to sit and eat cake. I wish the weather was more predicatable and we could plan to go to the park or something but it always seems to rain on her birthday so we are thinking of the ice skating rink, the roller skating rink or Burger King (they have a playland). I just need to check on prices. I think she will only invite 2 or 3 friends. My mom will be in town the weekend before her actual birthday so we will celebrate it then.

4-H and sports

Jordan will be joining 4-H this weekend. They are having a kick off party at the YMCA to start the 4-H year (which runs Feb.-Nov.). She will actually be in Clover Buds which is 4-H for kids 5-8 years old.

We are also signing her up for spring soccer, swimming lessons and gymnastics next week. I found out the spring soccer is alot like the indoor soccer she is in now. There are no practices and they just play for 1 hour each Saturday. I guess she will get her exercise if nothing else. We are hoping to get her into the Thursday evening swim lessons and the Tuesday evening gymnastics. Add to that her AWANA on Wednesdays and we will have a very full week! Her 4-H will be on weekends but they don't have a set schedule right now.

Soccer

Jordan is on an indoor soccer team at the YMCA. It's a very unorganized group but oh well. They play on Sundays from 2:30-3:00. There's no scores kept but there's also no coaching. It's just disorganized chaos. The kids are divided into 2 teams and just run around in 1/2 the gym. Jordan seems to have fun with it though. here are a few pics from this last weekend.

Jordan going after the ball

Tossing the ball back in one of the few times the "ref" called it out of bounds. They don't hardly have any bounds. It's more like when the ball gets into the bleachers it's out of bounds.

My big girl!

I stayed up late last night working on homeschool stuff and was hoping I would get to sleep in. Jim woke me up at 5:45 because he couldn't find his car keys. I went back to sleep after he left and didn't wake up until 9:50! I heard the TV on downstairs and thought Jim had come home early from work. I got downstairs and Jordie had the TV on her cartoons, was playing a game on the computer, had let Jesse out of his kennel (which she normally never does) and had eatten breakfast! Normally she would wake me up and whine about being hungry, want me to turn the TV on for her (it's cable so she has to turn the TV and the cable box on) and find a cartoon channel. She knows how to turn the computer on herself but I was surprised that she had done it. I asked her what she ate for breakfast and she said the rest of her oranges. Now granted that was about 3/4 of a can of mandarin oranges so she will probably be pooping all day but the point is she had done all of this on her own, without waking me up and whining. I praised her profusely and am hoping she will continue to be more independant now.

We had a lazy moring and now it's after 12 and I told her we need to get moving and get the house cleaned up. After the cleaning is done we are going to work on our map of Alaska. We are doing a homeschool project of following the Iditarod this year. There's a whole email group/website set up for this. We are really looking forward to it.

Another Long Overdue Update

Get ready to read a novel.......

Ok, I know I have been awful about keeping this blog updated. I just looked and it's been over a month since I posted anything. I have been on the computer every night but not on here. We have decided to homeschool for second grade and I have spent practically every waking moment online researching for it. UGGH! It's become an obsession I think. We are not going to follow any specific set curriculum but are doing unit studies and lapbooks. We are also using Time 4 Learning (online curriculum). I'm still in the research phase and still seem to find all kinds of new info each day. I did order a science text book and workbook and will possibly do the same for social studies. I will use these more as guides for what to study. I will be getting a math book because I'm lost when it comes to what math she should be working on. When I talked with Jordan about what she wanted to study next year almost everything she named off had to do with animals or nature (is she my daugher or what???). I found a great blogspot blog that does what they call the Outdoor Hour Challenge. http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/ It's not really an hour but an activity you do each week outdoors with your children. If goes along with an old reference book by Anna Comstock called the Handbook of Nature Study. We are looking forward to adding this to our daily/weekly curriculum.

Jordan is really excited about homeschooling. Her cousin Parker has been homeschooled for 2 years now. They spent a week and half together at Grandma's over Christmas and Jordan was so happy that she did "Parker's 2nd grade work" with him while she was there. After Christmas we did a short mini unit on Polar Bears and made a lapbook about it. I have found a great website that gives you lots of templates for lapbooks and reasearch ideas too. The Enchanted Learning and Homeschool Share websites will be our God Send for alot of this.

Front of lapbook (got picture of polar bear from work and typed title out )

Inside of lapbook. We got templates from Enchanted Learning and Homeschool Share websites. We took a "field trip" to the Omaha Zoo and took the pictures

Back of lapbook. Picture report on Polar Bears in a pocket.

Right inside of book lists names of "family" Male=Boar, Female= Sow, Baby= Cub

Polar Bear Diet Shape book. Inside she cut and pasted info about a polar bear's diet.

Book about polar bears. We learned alot about polar bears just from this mini weekend unit. Did you know polar bears fur is actually clear and drinking straw like? How about that polar bears don't drink water?

Right side of lapbook. A polar bear maze, a picture (we took at our zoo) and a "T-book" about where you can find polar bears.

OK, now that I've updated you on our homeschool adventure let's see what else I can tell you about....

Christmas- We spent Christmas eve and Christmas day evenings at Jim's parent's house with James. It was a nice time. We had our traditional syster stew and sloppy joes dinner and then opened presents with them on Christmas eve. We did our own family Christmas with Jordan on Christmas morning (at 5am because Jim had to work) and then went back to his parent's house that evening for duck dinner. I realized I didn't really take that many pictures this Christmas

Jordan with her one present she got to open at home on Christmas Eve. It's her Mariposa Barbie from my mom

Jim reading the story of Jesus' birth
James and Jordan

James in his Packer's coat he got from Grandma

Jordan on Christmas morning

Jim on Christmas with his key finder keychain which doesn't work right so I still have to help him find his keys all the time :)

Jesse with his new toys

Riley with his new toys

Our kitten Nala. I don't think I posted about when we got her. We got her the day after Thanksgiving. Jordan and I went to the pet store just to look around and fell in love with her. Jim wasn't too happy at the time but has since fallen in love with her.

Courtney came down after Christmas but was only here for a day because of a big family blow up that has since been rectified. We were glad to be able to see her though. Victoria and Chad are here from Florida visiting. They are staying with Grandma and Grandpa Leland. It was nice to finally be able to meet our son-in-law. I took all the kids out to dinner at the buffet with a gift certificate we got from my mom and Norm. Let me tell you James and Chad are a couple of goof balls (just kidding guys). You would think they've known each other all their lives though the way they get along. Chad and Tori are coming over today after church and I will try to get some pictures of them. I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of Courtney while she was here.

I went to a 12 hour scrapbook crop on the 27th. That was my Christmas present from Jim. I had a productive day and got 15 pages done. I hadn't done any scrapbooking since last spring and it was nice to get back into it.

We are slowly but surely getting work done on this house and may end up buying it from Leon. He's giving us about 6 more months to live here before we decide for sure.

Jim is switching to 2nd shift in Feb. He will be helping me with homeschooling since he will be home more during the day. I am still loving my job. I'm going to talk to my boss soon about homeschooling Jordan so she knows she will be there more during the day. With Jim working second shift she won't need to come over until 2:00 though when Jim leaves for work so she will only be there an extra hour a day. I was told when she hired me that anytime I am scheduled to work Jordan can be there for free so it shouldn't be an issue.

Well it has taken me over an hour to post this update. I know there are other things that have happened but I can't think of them right now. I will post more later if I think of it. :)

Snow!

We got our first snow last night. It's not much only about 1-2 inches but the wind is blowing so much it is soooo cold. Jordan was happy she got to wear her boots and mittens to school. She's getting more excited to go to grandma's on Sat. She is going in for another EEG on Fri. The children's neurologist here in Fremont thinks she may not have to be on the anti-seizure meds. We will find out more next week when she gets the results in. I have to take Fri. off work because we have to go to Omaha for the EEG and her appointment is at 12:30 but she has to stay up till midnight and then wake up at 6 am so that pretty much shoots the day for work. Oh well it will give me time to get ready to go to my mom's on Sat. morning. We will be taking the train over and have to be in Omaha for that by 5:30. It's an hour drive there so I will have 2 nights with not much sleep. I'm planning to sleep all the way to my mom's (after me and Jordan have breakfast on the train). I'm going to try to work on our end of the year letter this week too. I may have cards sent out by the new year :) Or I may do an email letter like I've done before. Oh the joys of technology.

Casey's new home

I have been thinking for a long time that Casey wasn't getting enough attention and was spending way too much time covered up because he's been noisey. After lots of thought and prayers I decided to give him away. I found a couple, Leland and Carla Watson, who live on a farm about 2 hours from Fremont. Leland is handicapped (he's missing a leg). They told me Casey could spend all day on his shoulder. After we were there for about a half hour today Casey seemed right at home. Thank you Leland and Carla for giving Casey a wonderful home! Carla raises goats for milk and show. Here's her website if you want to check it out http://www.freewebs.com/playritefarm/ . Jordan and I had a great time visiting their farm today even though it was VERY cold out we had to peek at all the animals.

Update

So I've been asked to post an update that DOESN'T have to do with the animals :) It's so hard because I love my animals.

Things are going good here. I absolutely love my job and it is so convenient for it to be right across the street from my house. The 2 year olds can sure give us a run for our money but it is great. The other new girl and I have started implenting the curriculum that was supposed to have been used all along but the other teachers hadn't been doing it. The only bad thing is we can't cram everything into the afternoon when we work so the kids aren't getting all of it. We do a craft each afternoon though and that's the most fun part. We went in last weekend and rearranged the whole room and set up centers. Hopefully the other staff will start helping us out some though because it's been a big chore for just the two of us to do all the planning and prepping. There will be 6 staff members in our room starting on Mon. Donna works 6-noon (she's an older lady and is supposed to do the "Jesus Time" with them each morning), Brandy works 7-2 (she's the new one coming in our room from the toddler room), Jake works 9-4:30, Angie works a split shift 7:30-11:30 and then again 1:30-4:30, Paige works 2-5 and I work 10-6 three days a week and 11-6 two days a week. So our staff is pretty spread out. No one has full time hours at this job because it's sponsored by the church and we don't have benefits. Even though I'm scheduled until 6 each night I never work that late. I'm usually off between 5:15 and 5:45. When the kids numbers go down they start sending staff home and combine classes. Except Mondays are my nights to close so I'm there until all the kids go home but even then I'm usually gone by 5:55

Jim is doing alright. He has been working a lot of overtime lately and his back is really bothering him. We are praying he doesn't have to have another surgery. He is having a good time getting his Harley winterized and playing with his puppy (oops I mentioned the animals). We will get to working on this house more as the weather cools and he isn't playing with his bike as much. We did get the carpet put in Jordan's room. It's not tacked down or cut but it's in there so at least she can play on the floor.

Jordan seems to be enjoying school and has been doing pretty good on her weekly spelling tests. If we can just get her to make her b's and d's and l's and j's the right direction she will improve a bunch. Jordan now rides the daycare bus to school in the mornings because the lady that was giving her a ride is the morning bus driver now. And again I get this service for FREE! Normally it's $10/week/way for transportation. Kelly picks Jordan up from school in her own vehicle though because someone else does PM transportation and they don't go to Grant (Jordan's school) in the afternoon. The only reason the bus goes to Grant now is because Kelly's kids go there and she said she couldn't do transportation unless she could take her kids.
We go see the neurologist here in Fremont on Monday and hopefully they will have all her records from Washington and we can come up with a plan for her treatment. She still hasn't had anymore seizures that we know of. She's getting excited to go spend a week with my mom next month when my sister and nephew are there. She and I will take the train over on the 13th and I will come back on the 14th and then drive to Des Moines (about half way) to meet them the following Sat. to pick her up.

We had a good Thanksgiving with Jim's mom and dad, grandma and James. We had the traditional fixings of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing and rolls. Jim's mom makes a great corn casserole that has macaroni in it and she made a strawberry dessert too. I took over a peach cobbler too. We brought home leftovers so I didn't have to cook tonight either. Thanksgiving leftovers are always good.

I was going to go out and do Christmas shopping today but then decided not to. I didn't want to fight the crowds. I will probably go sometime next week on a day I don't work until 11. Jordan and I are going to go to the scrapbook store in Omaha tomorrow. I need to get some Christmas cut outs for work so it's a good excuse to go :) That's about it from around here. Hope that's enough of an update for you Gigi, and I only mentioned the animals once. More updates on them coming soon though :P

Cat and Dog Antics

As I said in my previous post Simba and Jesse fight like crazy but are the best of friends. Lately Jesse has really been getting the best of Simba and actually making him yowl in pain. But as Jim keeps pointing out Simba always comes back for more (I think it's his revenge). The other night though Simba really got Jesse. They were playing in the laundry room and somehow the small laundry basket got knocked over on Jesse. I laughed so hard because Simba finally had him cornered and "won" in my opinion. :)

Jesse say "Simba, so help me, when I get out of here I'll get you.

I mean it now you get me out!

Simba says "ha ha ha, you're trap!"

Jesse!

Our beloved Jack Russel Terrier, Lucy, was stolen this summer while she was at our friend Leon's house. Jim bought a new JRT in Sept. shortly after he was born. Jim, James and Jordan went to pick him up this last Sunday. His name is Jesse and he is quite the cutie. He and Simba fight like crazy but they are also best buds. Here are a few pictures.

Jim with his new baby

The collar doesn't fit him so he decided to just chew on it while he layed in the toy basket

What a cutie

Best Buddies (sleeping in my basket of clean laundry)

Halloween recap

Well Jordan thinks halloween lasts for a week now. :) At least it does in this town. We started with the week before halloween on Thurs. they had trick or treating in old town Fremont. We got down there kind of late and some of the stores had closed up already even though they were supposed to do candy until 8:00. We missed the haunted bank because that closed at 7:00 and we didn't get to that end of the block until after that. Then that Fri. was the fall carnival at her school. They don't have a halloween party but they have a free carnival where the kids get candy and play games. Sat. there was trick or treating at one of the little strip malls but we didn't go because Jim had to work and had to use the car. The next Tues. was Trunk or Treat at the YMCA. Then Thurs. was trick or treating at the Fremont Mall (ok, I wouldn't even consider this a mall because it's so small) and finally Fri., actual Halloween, there was a Fall Festival at the church we've been going to with free food, games, candy and activities. I did let her go trick or treating at a couple of houses and we went to Grandma Diane's and Jamie's houses too. Suffice it to say she probably has enough candy to last her a couple months. She has it stashed in a sand bucket but we are only letting her have 2 or 3 pieces a day.

She loved squishing the pumpkin guts between her fingers

Simba thought it tasted good

Jordan drew the face on for me to carve :) Simba wasn't too thrilled when Jordan put him in the pumpkin

A scare!

Well Jordan gave me a scare yesterday. I take my 1/2 hour break from work from 3-3:30 to walk the 8 blocks down and get Jordan from school then walk back. Well yesterday on the way to school she told me she wanted to start walking home instead of waiting for me at the school. She gets out at 3 so she had to wait for me to get down there. It takes me about 11 minutes to walk down there. I told her she could walk 1 BLOCK to the big tree, by the stop sign at the busy street. I didn't want her crossing the 4 lane street by herself (even though there is a crossing light). Well I'm walking down there, it's one street straight up, and I don't see her at the big tree, I don't see her outside the school either. I'm getting mad because I only have a half hour to get down there and get back to work. I start to go around the school to the main office entrance and my cell phone starts ringing. It's not a number I recognize so I ignore it. They leave a voicemail so I listen to it and it's a lady saying "Laura, this is Michelle, I'm at the corner of Grant and Military and there's a little girl, Jordan, out here crying. Can you please call me back." HOLY CRAP!!! Grant and Military is 4 blocks north of where she's supposed to be. I call the lady back and I'm frantic by now. She says Jordan is standing outside her car and is very upset. I tell her I'm on my way up there. By the time I walk the 4 blocks I'm crying. I thank the lady profusely. Luckily this is a small town where people are friendly. If we would have been in Omaha I doubt anyone would have stopped for her. The little boy in the car said he recognized Jordan from school. The lady told me she was sitting on the sidewalk curled up crying saying she was supposed to meet me by the big tree at the stop sign but there's no big tree there. There was a stop sign but it's 4 blocks in the wrong direction! UGGH! My poor child gets so turned around. I thought she would be able to walk one block, straight up the street we've been walking on all week but no that's not going to happen. So I told her we are back to me meeting her AT SCHOOL by the parking lot for a while longer. I'm just so thankful that she remembered my cell phone number. I had to call my boss and tell her I was going to be late getting back. I got back 12 minutes late but she let it go this time.

Just for fun

Just for fun I dug out all of Jordie's pics from Vala's for the last 6 years. The only one I don't have a picture of her in front of the sign was from 2002 but she was only 7 months old and so she wasn't really standing yet.

Vala's Pumpkin Patch 2008 visit

We had our annual trip to Vala's pumpkin patch tonight. We had a good time even though we dind't get to do everything. We skipped the hay rack ride because the wait was over an hour long. UGGH. We got there late (we went after Jim got home from work) and got to tired to see everything. Here are a few pictures though.

The annual picture if front of the "how tall this fall" sign

Riding on Cherokee

Waiting for the Pig-Tuckey pig races to start

Bunnyville

This is right where she belonged today with her attitude :)

Farmer Jordan

In the petting zoo

They have a new 5 acre corn maze. We got lost in it! It was dark, they have some lights and loud music playing. We kept seeing where people had gotten off the trail and made their own trails through the corn. After about a half hour of wondering around we understood why they did it and ended up following some other couple and their kids to get out of the stupid place!

Kid for sale! Goin cheap today :)

A pumpkin amounst the pumpkins!