This Crazy Time of Life

I think I have found a moment to write.  I just sat at the computer with my tea and picked out a few pictures to share.  I am trying to find time for me again.  My life has been so busy I had to put a lot of things aside.  This blog might need a different name with the way events have been going for us.  This blog is becoming more about my family than about sewing.  I haven't looked at or touched my sewing machine in 6 weeks!  This means something is very wrong with me!  I am definitely depressed, this can be the only reason I can come up with for not having the energy to do what I love, sewing.

Truly, I have been so busy.  My husband had shoulder surgery for the 3rd time on the same shoulder.  For the first 2 weeks he is in so much pain and on so many pain killers we just go into survival mode.  Then the 3rd week he can start moving around, but can't do much for himself.  The 4th week is when everyone is tired and wishing Daddy was better.  But it takes 12 weeks for him to recover from this type of surgery and be out of his sling.  SO we are finding a new normal and waiting for November 2nd when he has to have surgery on his other shoulder.

In the middle of all of this we have discovered that our son, Jacob, who is 20 months, cannot hear.  He seems to be mostly deaf, but since there are no deaf people in our family the doctors are optimistic that tubes in his ears will help.  The day we found out about this was a very hard day for us.  I have been taking him to a speech therapist 2 times a week for 3 months now trying to help him speak.  We really thought he could hear just fine and that his problem was related to his mouth.  While we were trying to wrap our minds around this news, our daughter Kylie, who is 6, broke her ankle.  This was something I did NOT want to be dealing with on top of everything else.  She actually severley fractured her ankle and smashed her growth plate.  They put a cast on her and she is walking around with crutches for the next month.

So this has been my crazy life.

Jacob just had his tubes put in a couple days ago.  The doctor said there was so much fluid in his ears that his ear drums couldn't vibrate.  It was a great thing we had this done.  He already seems to be able to hear now.  He is saying words and trying to sing songs that he has never attempted before.  It really made me want to sit down and cry and thank God that he is able to hear and it was not a permanent problem.  We are still going to take him to speech therapy because he is very behind where he should be at.  He only says a few words, but I know that now he can hear it wont be long before he starts talking up a storm!

I feel my time and attention is needed for my family.  This is why I haven't been able to sew.  This is why I am not getting ready for the craft shows.  And I actually feel good about not being stressed over sewing projects and filling orders.  I love this time I have with Haley and teaching her pre-school.  She begs all day everyday to do school work.  She loves school and loves learning.  It is so fun for me to be a part of her learning too and focus on what she finds the most fun and interesting.

Brian is also finding who he is as an individual.  He is 8 now and such a big helper for me.  He has really stepped up in doing the chores Daddy normally did.  He never complains about it either.  He has also become an amazing soccer player.  He told us that he knows this is what he was born to do.  All the other sports he tried out he never truly enjoyed or cared about.  But soccer seems to be a new passion for him.  And he is really good too.  It is so fun watching him play and practice.

Each one of my kids amaze me everyday.  They are each so different.  It is fun discovering who they are and who God created them to be.  I am so thankful that I am able to stay home and take care of my family when they need me most.

Bear Tea Party

This year I am homeschooling Haley for pre-school.  Next year she will be gone all day in Kindergarden.  I really want this to be a special and memorable year for us.  I want her to find learning fun and exciting so when she does go to school she is ready.  I do have my degree in elementary education so I feel very capable in writing lesson plans.  I hope I am able to manage our time to keep going with them through out the day.  The lessons are very short, about 30 minutes to an hour.  But I can talk about what we are learning all day and every where we go.  The first week we learned the letter Ff and how to write using a pencil and write her name.  We really have to practice holding the pencil because she is just not getting it.  We are also going to really have to work on writing her own name and all the other letters.  She is excited and ready to learn though.

Here is our work from the last week and a half.  She is very proud of all she has done.

This week we are learning the letter Bb.  We have been putting lots of focus on bears because they start with the letter b and I have lots of books with bears.  On Monday we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle.  I also found some great print outs to color and some bear songs to sing from  Homeschool Share.  This is a great site.  I have also been using letter print outs from another great site called Kids Learning Station.  Today we made a Bb book and went over some cards I have and asked if they made the b sound or not.   While she was working on her Bb book I made an invitation for her for a Bear Tea Party.  Once we got all of her tea party toys and food together she got really excited about the party.  She set up all the bears we had on her quilt and made sure every bear had a place to sit.  

Here is my very simple invitation. 

And the inside.  We talked about where, when and what you need for the invitation.

Haley is ready for her tea party to begin.

Here are the books for today.  We read Tea with Ruby first because this was a tea party.  Then we read the devotion, School for Bears.  Then Good Night Sam and Jesus Loves Me! I read them to her and to all the bears.  We pretended that the bears were students and some of them were being very disruptive.  It was a fun party.

When the party was over we invited Jacob to sit for a little bit.  He couldn't take his eyes off of everything.  He really liked trying all of the food and stirring the pots.  When he left he made sure he had all of his bears.