Good Morning Everyone!
What a week! In times past, when I would go several days without posting, it would be because of a natural disaster or a lot of running the streets. This week, however, we stayed home all day, everyday. So what has kept me from getting a start on my mountain of blog-catching up? My wonderful girls, the beautiful world outside our windows, and lots of baking, books and fun. . . and a little God-led heart change!
I have taken notice of a handful of times in my life when God has not only laid something on my heart, He has decided to back it up with completely changing my heart towards something. Other things, such as my self esteem or weight, He prefers me to work on, so I can "truly earn" my new mindset. Apparently, this one is either too important -- or I have taken too long to "Get it" on my own -- that He has decided to just change my heart and mindset immediately.
This week, our days were spent maybe watching 30 minutes - 1 hour of television during the day. . . period. I have spent maybe the same amount of time on the Internet daily. . . period. That includes checking emails, forums, websites and blogs! I simply have wanted to calm our days down, focus on each other and what is truly important. The radio has been on, we have done much dancing around and my house has never looked cleaner -- although this time it is with my girls help instead of putting on a video to keep them occupied! I know that they have gotten older this past year (and going from 2.5 - 3.5 years old and 1.5 - 2.5 years old is a big help), but I have made no secret of my struggle between keeping a house clean and having a wonderful day of learning and fun with my girls. I have shared my struggle with having preschoolers truly help me clean. . . maybe all this time it was ME that was causing the trouble. . . anyway I digress.
God has also finally helped me to figure out my "Daily Routine." My problem before was that I couldn't NOT get locked into a time scheduled routine. I would write things out and feel that they naturally led to "times" (such as an hour for cleaning, thirty minutes for an exercise video, thirty minutes to cook, etc), and they would also naturally flow at certain times of day (breakfast at a set time-- say 7:30-- and that would take 30 minutes, which would flow into exercising for 30 minutes at 8:00). I would read how it is better to just have a routine that would flow with the day, thus allowing for those "things" that always come up that cause me to feel as though I am trying to beat the clock or always behind. . . . but read about it as much as I would, it simply wouldn't happen. That changed this week.
What made it finally click? Apparently my intelligence in this regard is at a preschool level! What has made the difference is making a few picture charts for the girls that allow them to set up habits and know what happens when. It gets them so excited to follow and they read it all day! And I love that the pictures next to the words also give great reading practice. But it is best to keep it uncluttered, so there are no times. Simply a picture of a bed next to the words "Make Bed," and a plate of pretzels next to the words "Snack Time." We have followed this new picture/time-less routine all week and the result can only be what I assume those wise souls were talking about. . . Joy. Peace. Fun. Contentment. No constant checking of the clock or reshuffling things -- simply rolling onto the next thing on the chart. Sigh......
Besides the change in television and Internet, we have added in daily exercise and so far I have exercised everyday with the girls. . . so I am starting again, but this time since it is on my handy dandy picture chart that the girls read daily, I am thinking/hoping/praying that this time it sticks -- and when I am not "in the mood," I am sure my well-intentioned, must-follow-the-rules oldest will kick my butt. :-)
So, sorry to appear flaky this week in not posting. I will start doing better, as my plan is to start blogging at night while watching television with my husband, which he understands since it is simply my form of scrapbooking and I won't be surfing the web or anything. We also know that our family uses this blog as a means of keeping up with what is going on at Il Maniero (Italian for "the manor house," a new name we are trying out for our house, inspired by my recent obsession with all things Jane Austen. . . all the homes in her novels have a name. . . yes, I am a dork but it works and we have fun, so leave me alone lol).
I will post next week on our Transportation week which was a lot of fun, and begin the catch-up list previously posted.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your families. . . I know we will as both LSU and the Saints play this weekend! WOO HOO
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Dare I say that I am back? :-)
I was already behind in posting things on this blog and all the events of the past month certainly haven't helped things! I will be posting throughout the coming weeks on the following:
- Our Hurricane Experience -- We lost power the Friday it hit and got it back Tuesday afternoon. Since then it has been interesting trying to get back into a groove. While I will go into a lot more detail on that post, I will tell you really quickly that both my home and my parent's home (they live behind us) were spared any damage! Besides a few minor scares and inconveniences, it was actually a pretty great experience for us personally in that it provided LOTS of family time full of talking, reading, and memory making. We watched minimal television (we did have a generator and watched some things, like Saints football of course), and taught our girls (and myself) how to wash clothes with a washboard and hang a clothes line!
- Our Camping Pictures, lapbook and recap -- Yes, I know dear family members/readers, that you are chomping at the bit to see ME camping, much less the girls delight in the whole experience, and it is coming I promise!
- Horse Week pictures -- We had so much fun with this unit! It lasted two weeks technically, but with Gustav hitting in the middle and having my brother and his adorable girlfriend here for one of those weeks, we still kept it pretty simple and fun. We have a lapbook, fun pictures of all the books we devoured and of course, our pictures of our family trip to the Race Track to see the horses up close!
- Trip to San Antonio -- Wow, that trip was awhile ago, huh? But it was fun, educational and definitely one I want to document. We visited the Alamo (which has a really cute treasure hunt for the kids to make it fun) and the Riverwalk.
- Butterflies -- Just because I am so upset with myself for not posting the pictures of that unit since it was one of the girls favorites, I will post the pictures from this unit that we did I think back in June?? Wow, talk about BEHIND!
- Olympics/China -- I have pictures of our Lapbooks and of course, our Harris Family Olympics! There are SO many pictures though, that I want to use one of those cool slideshow thingys but every time I try to upload pictures into it at photobucket, it doesn't work. Any experts out there willing to help a sister out, please let me know!
- Children's Museum -- Ok, this trip was back in May!!! But again it was a fun family event that needs to be documented!
- Anything else that comes up between now and then!
But for now, I am off to clean up a bit and then have fun with my girls :-) I will leave you with these pictures of the breakfast Jordan made for us last week! The day before, she had woken up REALLY REALLY early and had 
decided to feed herself Tootsie Rolls for breakfast (we have a Tupperware container in the pantry with a few treats leftover from potty training). That day, I put some pop tarts, cereal and raisins in Tupperware in an easy to reach cabinet for her to have easy access to in case she ever did it again. . . well the very next morning, she woke up like at 5am or some ridiculously early hour.
I heard her in the hall bathroom (which is right by our bedroom), telling herself that she had an idea -- Pop tarts and Raisins! I got up a little while later, unable to sleep, and was greete
d by a wonderful surprise! She had placed 4 paper plates on the table, with a pop tart next to each plate, sprinkled with a few raisins and the grand finale, a solitary Marshmallow on each plate (left over from our camping trip)! She yelled "Surprise!" and was just so happy with herself! It looks like my 3 year old is a budding cheff-er (her words) after all :-)
Have a wonderful day and I will be back soon with my mountain of updates and posts!
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Yesterday I was so proud of myself. I finally got online to update our family and blog-world friends on what we have been doing and just knew that I would be back to regularly scheduled programming, blogging wise.
Then, this Ike mess started. Being from New Orleans, my family and I feel pretty prepared for this storm. We are in the extreme NW Houston area, so we are actually being advised to stay put and not evacuate. The main concern is 40 - 60 mph sustained winds that should begin hitting us tomorrow. Gregg is currently on his way home and we will start gathering supplies in case power goes out.
So, all this to say, I guess I am not "Back" like I promised yesterday. Once the storm is over, I promise to post the pictures of our camping trip (I have had several family members politely hounding me, LOL). I should be back online by Monday.
Until then, have a wonderful and safe weekend with your families!!
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I want to thank everyone who has emailed me to check in with our family. I know we have been silent for awhile, but it has been for great reasons.
The tragedy that my friend is going through did rock our family. My husband has never met Marsha or her family (we kept saying we would all get together and we would try to make plans, but you know how that goes. . . ), but this affected both of us. We have both been actively praying and turning to God, trying to get any lessons He wants to teach us from this experience. So far, that has meant A LOT of family time and reaching out more at our church. One thing that touched us was the amount of support they have locally from their church family, and we realized that since we changed churches a few months ago, we haven't really met many people there (besides my wonderful parents who go with us!) . . . we wondered who we would call if a situation like that would occur in our family. As it turns out, our church is holding a meeting this Sunday to create new small groups, this one particularly for Married Couples! We are praying that we will be able to make some friends and establish relationships through this new group.
As for the family time, we have been BUSY! I will make separate posts about all of the things we have been doing, but I will q
uickly summarize here. The week of Christian's passing, we were in the middle of a Camping theme. Monday and Tuesday we read lots of stories about camping, made a make-shift tent with blankets and pillows in the living room, and watched some fun camping cartoons. Tuesday evening, while I was driving to Marsha's house, Gregg wanted to do something special for the girls to wake up to. . . I think we all felt the need to hug our children closer and let them know how much they are loved. . . so he put up the huge tent in the living room. He added a lot of soft blankets, sleeping bags, pillows and stuffed animals. He also laid all of the books out inside. It was very nice and the girls were definitely excited to wake up to it
Wednesday morning! That evening we decided to take the girls out to dinner -- I was in need of a family night -- so we went to Pizza Hut. Not five-star dining but come on, they are preschoolers! We were so impressed by how well they did in the restaurant. . . we kept flashing back to what seemed like a short time ago when they would be climbing all over the place, not
wanting to sit still, and crying. They grow up so fast, don't they?
Friday afternoon we set out on our camping trip. It was a hard decision to make for me, as that was the same night they were holding the viewing for Christian, but the major thing that we are taking from this experience is how important family is and how quickly things can happen. I knew Marsha would understand and want me to keep the date with my family. The girls were really excited! I will be posting pictures from that night soon . . . and I must say that my first camping experience, even in the midst of extreme Texan heat, was a great success!
Last week was all about HORSES! My girls love horses so we started a two week unit on all things horse and pony. It has been a blast and this weekend we took the girls to the Sam Houston Racetrack -- not to bet, but to
see the horses. :-) We had a great time, and I am loving the idea of
incorporating these fun family events into our units! I will have lots of pictures coming from that week!
This week we are continuing our Horse week, but we also held our first Preschool Co-Op meeting in our home on Monday! The girls are SO excited! I am a little nervous about leading so many children (what works for us may not work for others), but the girls are making lots of friends. Currently there are 7 families total with 15 children, and I think one more family will be joining us. Ever since they left, the girls have been asking for their friends to come back!!
So that is what we have been up to. Busy, but really, really good! How about you? I would love to hear what everyone else has been up to for the past two weeks. . . I have so much blog reading to catch up on!
I will be back soon with all of our pictures!
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