Wanna Trade?

I have been making homemade bread for the past few years.  I don't make it all the time, but as often as I can because I was amazed after seeing the list of ingredients on the average loaf of bread.  High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc.   At first Eric was mortified that I would pack his sandwich for school with homemade bread.  It was bad enough that he had to always have wheat bread, but now homemade wheat bread!   He was so embarrassed.  I felt a little sorry for him, but also a little unappreciated.  

Yesterday he came home from school and he said that his friend saw his sandwich.  He asked Eric what kind of bread was on his sandwich.  Eric responded that it was his mom's homemade bread. The friend said, "Wow, that looks good.  Do you want to trade?"  Eric quickly glanced at his friend's sandwich and saw white bread.  He asked what kind of meat he had.  The kid responded that he had bologna.  Eric quickly answered, "No."  

 I have never given my kids bologna. To be honest, I didn't even know it still existed.  What is bologna anyway?  

Hopefully now Eric will be a little more appreciative of my homemade bread. 

WOW!

We finally made the switch.   I have needed a new computer for a couple years now.  In fact, I bought a Vista a couple years ago and loved it.  The problem was it crashed whenever I tried to use video editing on it.   The program I was attempting to use was even pre installed on the computer and it still crashed.  So, I returned the computer and kept using my 5 year old PC.  That PC has been running poorly for a while now.  But we weren't ready to fork over money for a new one.

We move in May and Mario always depends on me to do all the research on housing and schools.   Of course, I need  a good working computer for this task.   I was getting so frustrated with my old computer.    We finally broke down and bought what everyone has been recommending for years now, an Apple imac.   WOW!  WOW! WOW!  I can see why everyone raves about them.  First of all, there is no bulky CPU.  The entire computer is contained it its monitor.  The screen is large and very bright.   I no longer need to run anti virus software.  We have never had an easier setup.  It was literally attach the plug, the keyboard and the mouse, and the dsl line into the back and we were online immediately.  

I have only had this new computer for a few hours, but I don't see our family buying another Microsoft Windows computer ever again!

I passed!

I took my certification test on Saturday for the Barton Reading and Spelling System. I have been volunteer tutoring with this system for about 7 months now. I will always be grateful for Amy and Amanda. They were my first students. I am also grateful to a friend, Rebecca Whitecotton who sold me the first three levels of this system for a fraction of what it would have cost me new. She was just glad that someone could use them to help others.

I am grateful for this time in my life that I can help so many kids who suffer with dyslexia or other reading problems. It has brought me much joy to help nine children so far. I am grateful for a husband who supports me in this endeavor. He doesn't complain even though I have done all my work for free so far. Now that I have my certification, I feel more comfortable charging parents. But I will wait until we move next summer before I take on new students. I have my hands full with the students I currently tutor.

5th Birthday

I can't believe my boys are five. It seems like yesterday that I was pregnant with them and close to 200 pounds! What a joy they are to our family! They add a lot of excitement. I can truly say life would be dull without them around.

We celebrated the big day with a trip to Jumpin' Around. They have several large blow up toys in the building where the kids and parents can jump. They have a large pirate ship, slide, boxing ring, and obstacle course. We have a family pass for the month so we invited a few friends to come with us. Then we all went back to our house for pizza and cake. I have kept up my chocolate fast from a couple weeks ago. I was very tempted to have a piece of chocolate cake. But I kept telling myself that if I can make it through Thanksgiving without chocolate, I can make it through their birthday.

I love you Nathan and Zachary!

Christmas

With Thanksgiving out of the way, we can now concentrate on Christmas. I think Black Friday is my favorite day of the year. I was a little disappointed this year though. There was nothing in the ads (that I wanted) that made it worth getting up early. But it was still fun to look browse through all the ads.

Mario scanned the Home Depot ad and came up with a few gifts he would like for Christmas. They were all inexpensive so I got him each thing on his list. Then when I got home, the twins helped me wrap presents for daddy. Later I heard Nathan tell daddy about the new tool box and Zachary telling daddy about the new stud finder I bought him. They thought it was so fun to ruin my surprise. Then Zachary asked Mario if he would tell him his gifts. Mario asked if Zach could keep a secret (which we all know he can't as illustrated by the above story.) Then Mario was a mean dad and said, "So can I."

We have a family tradition that we try to remember to do each year. We find all our Christmas stories and wrap them up. Then we open one each night for a bedtime story leading up til Christmas. Nathan and Zachary decided they wanted to help me wrap the books. It took a while to wrap 25 books but they did an amazing job. Nathan takes after Mario. He is a perfectionist when it comes to wrapping. Zach takes after me. He just does it as quickly as possible.

It is fun to have twins and see their different personalities even though they are the same age and raised exactly the same way.

Very Thankful Boys

With their birthdays only one week away, Eric and Erin decided to wrap the twins birthday gifts. Yesterday morning Nathan and Zachary saw their neatly wrapped presents. They have no idea what the gifts are yet, but they are extremely thankful-especially to Erin. Check out her door full of thank you notes. Each one has a picture inside that they drew for her. Eric got a few less thank you notes, I think at last count it was 3! I am not quite sure why they are more thankful to Erin. The two gifts are identical and they each put in the same amount of money. Poor Eric.

This morning when the twins were practically on top of us and we needed a little space, I reminded the twins that daddy and I got them gifts too. They quickly left with art suppies in hand and started some thank you notes to us. So far, daddy and I have 1 each. Maybe I shouldn't feel sorry for Eric after all.

Fox News and Chocolate

I gave up two very hard things this past week-Fox News and chocolate. I have become addicted to both. So I decided that I needed to take a week off from them

I thought once the election was over that my addiction to Fox News would end. I was wrong. Now I had to hear all the commentary about our new President-Elect. I couldn't believe they were already taking polls about his approval rating and about how American's felt about Washington being so one sided-democrat. According to the media, we are all ok with the Congress and Presidency being all democrat and Obama's approval rating is sky high. Amazing, is this the same media that was rooting for Obama all along? Do we actually believe all these polls? Now I realize I am off on a tangent.

I have always had a chocolate addiction. But I usually try to limit it to a small piece daily. Unfortunately with four kids trick or treating, my house is filled with tons of chocolate. I found I needed a piece after each meal. So, the only way I know how to break my bad habit of eating too much chocolate is to give it up cold turkey. Lately, if I have just one piece, then I want more.

My week has ended and I am contemplating going another week without tv and chocolate. Mario doesn't care about the chocolate part, but he loves when I give up tv. I think he has become a little addicted to Fox News as well. This is bad since Mario rarely watches any television. He thinks there is always something better to do. When I started this fast I thought I would get a lot more done around the house. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I just went to bed earlier. It actually made getting laundry done harder since I hate to fold laundry without watching tv.