Stitches 2 Weeks in Daffodils

We waited until the stitches were out to head to the daffodils at Mrs Lee's!!! Healing!! We are 2 weeks from the head on collision!!!

Lovebug is back at basketball with her final practice was week! She did take a ball hitting her in the back of the head... and we had no tears or trauma. We did have one trauma event when Daddy kicking balls to the top of the gym... kicked it right into Lovebugs face, front on. OUCH!! Tears!!! by God's grace it was a big soft bouncy ball and the impact did not injure her.

Ok... here's the healing shot... much better from last week...

She's doing great! We've started using the Maderma on her several times a day. We also use VitE & an another scar treatment... The green around her eyes from the bruise has gone.

I'm thankful God knits us back together! It is amazing how fast she's healed!!

God be praised!! Grace! ss

Only 10 more months...

Dudes and Dudettes,
I know that you probably thought that I forgot to do my monthly reminder but I didn't. Actually I have been doing training today and yesterday. Today I was at a power plant teaching how to run our silo systems and so I had to work on a PowerPoint presentation until late into the night last night. I know... I know... so why did you wait until the last minute to put together your PowerPoint? It was unavoidable... I was doing other things!! Actually I had some deadlines that I had to meet before I could leave to go up to the power plants and those took priority and then I still had to do the PowerPoint and etc goes the excuses.

Wasn't it like just yesterday that I said "Only 11 more months" seems like it. 10 MONTHS TILL CHRISTMAS!!

A cool thing happened to me yesterday. For all the training that I am doing I needed a laser pointer. A long time ago at one of our camping trips we went to an astronomy dealy at the campgrounds where they brought in a guy, dude, star person, something like that... and he had this laser pointer. I was a little sceptical of it but when he pointed it into the sky you could see the laser not just a dot on the stars... actually you could not see the dot on the stars but you could see the laser trail up into the stars. The laser was green and I thought that was cool he could point out the constellations with the greatest of ease.

I have never been able to see the constellations, I mean I have trouble with dot to dot let alone looking up at the stars and seeing someone point and say oh yeah check out Leo the Lion... I see Orion's belt... Woooo Whoooo. Yeah I would get all excited because I think that is what you are supposed to do but I have never seen the lion in the stars or anything of Orion other than his belt. Dragon what dragon? But with his green laser that I think he could communicate with aliens with he was able to point out many constellations and I could see them. I can't remember anything about the constellations but it was cool looking at them with his laser.

Forward to present day. I needed a laser and I have always been annoyed when I have been in a presentation that the presenter uses a laser pointer and they point it at the screen and hit the item that they are pointing out and then their hand is not steady enough to keep the dot in one place and it ends up jumping all around the screen and... did I say that this annoys me?

Well I was with another engineer who was showing me the material that I need to cover and he was using a laser point (red) and it was not jumping all over the screen. He let me look at it and told me to get myself one if I was going to be covering all this training material as much as it looks like I will be doing. It was heavy but the size of a pen. When you held the weight evenly balanced in your hand it did not "jitter" no matter how far away you were pointing it.

I determined I would get the heaviest one I could find that would reasonably still fit in my hand and not cost the company too much.

Ran by Radio Shack last night on the way home from work and looked at the vast array of lasers that they carry, they had two. They had a red one and a green one. The green was much better weighted and suited my purpose better, the box also said it was 11X brighter than the red ones and could shine 4X's as far as a red one up to two miles. I can't think of a time that I will need to be two miles from the slide show that I am presenting... well unless I wanted to point out the constellations... except I can't remember where they are... I guess I can point out Orion's belt to someone.

I asked the sales dude if I could take the demo unit outside and see if I could show him Orion's belt and so we went outside and wouldn't you know you could see the dot in the tops of the trees but you could not see the beam itself. Humpf! I got it because it was a better weight and went home. Got home and went into the back yard where it was dark and wouldn't you know it you can see the beam and it looks like it shines about 2 miles too but I would not want the job of qualifying that specification. How would you know if the object in the sky was really two miles up? (Little Aggie humor... if those of you who are out of state don't get it... sorry. If those of you who are in state don't get it I'll bet you went to Texas A&M, I graduated from LeTourneau University.)

Anyway this e-mail has progressed once again to a length I did not intend, but not two miles. Too much detail again. I took a picture of the silo I was training on today and if you hit my facebook page you can see it.

Besides I really liked both lasers since they were red and green and that reminded me that I needed to send out this e-mail to remind all ya'll that Christmas is like only 10 months away. Don't forget the reason for the season, Jesus Birth! TTFN!

I wonder if my laser can hit Santa as he is flying through the sky? Wonder if I would get anything if I shot down Rudolph...

Till next month... Save the green M&M's for me.

KjS

Homeschool Meme

Finally... Here's a meme I tracked down!!! One I'll enjoy. I'd like to hear more your homeschooling!!

Homeschool books I actually enjoyed reading:
Children of the New Forrest, Men of Iron, can I say all of our Ambleside books!! Is that not fair!?! Ok right now I love... Marco Polo, The Story of Inventions, Pilgrim's Progress, This Country of Ours... and so many more!!! I'm getting educated! :)

Resources I won't live without:
AmblesideOnline.com & the Internet & my Ipod (for Spanish, Hymns, Folk songs, Math songs, SSRW... ) & buying used books online!

Resources you wish you had never bought:
Sonlight (I need to box to sell it SL K,1,2) & Math U See (we yet use the blocks) & some old Brit Lit book from garage sales!!! Ha! I need to clear that book shelf room!

Resources you enjoyed last year:
The Little Duke & Understood Betsy!!! AO2

Resources you're be using this year:
Primary Grade Challenge Math I just got this and tonight we worked with Hubbie on the Einstein level! He was impressed :)
AO3 & AO1, IPOD for Spanish & Hymn & Folk Songs... Spanish Tutor...
MEP Math our Free math program... download & print!! We're 2 years into it!

Catalogs you enjoy reading:
None... too many ads & don't want to buy them... the closest thing I enjoy is the CM Carnivals... but that takes lots of surfing...

One homeschooling website you use regularly:
AmblesideOnline.com

Enjoy!! Grace! ss

Here's where I found the meme http://lastthingonmymind.blogspot.com/2006/08/homeschool-meme.html

Cherry Chocolate Truffle Cake

Cherry Chocolate Truffle Cake- Yum! We enjoyed this with the girls adopted brother Stephan an his friends.

• 1 Chocolate Cake Mix
• 1 of 2 Cherry Pie Fillings
• 4 Eggs beaten
• 1/2t Almond
• 2t Amaretto liquor
• (I used vanilla & cherry flavorings..)

Mix above items & pour 1/3 into fluted bunt pan. Make tunnel for filling of 2nd can cherry pie filling using only the cherries. Cover w/ remainder of batter.

Bake 50 minutes at 350°.

Cool & ice w/ melted 3 semisweet squares & 3T butter. Top with white marchiano cherries & chocolate curls.

Recipe from MaryJo 2/21/09... Big Thanks! Grace! ss

Stitches 1 Week

Friday! It has been one week since Lovebug ran head to head with a boy. He got the goose egg... she got 8 stitches. His goose egg did bother him at night for 2 days!

Two days ago she got the stitches out. God paved that way for her. We headed again to the ER. She'd been counting the days... 5... with dread for our return. She was scared. We reassured and prayed and encouraged her... the hard part was last Friday and that was past.

She carried her raccoon, "Stitches." The coon also has 8 stitches.

Finally, we were called back to removed the stitches... this was the same entry room Hubbie came thru in 2007... He came with us. The lady behind the desk put on her gloves and pulled the tools to get the stitches out. With scissors in hand she tried on that first stitch on Lovebug's forehead...

In walked another gal.... she said "You don't like to remove stitches... Let me!" She immediately pulled another tool out & cut & removed the first 6 stitches... Lovebug bled a little and these last 2 were just beside her eye... this was the hard part! Come on... let's get done... just 2 more. Finally, they were all out. Done!

Looking back I think that gal had angle wings!!! She came right in at just the right time!! God had paved the way!

So now we are healing! We're using the bacitraicm and are rotating in Vit E & Maderma.

We're treating her 4xs a day. I'm glad she's home we can do this!

She grounded for a week from basketball! The girls last game is next Saturday. I hope she can safely play!!! She's done well on the sidelines cheering for her team and her sister.

Our dentist looked at the stitches and said they were small and placed well... and a really good job. That was so very good to hear!!! In hind sight I wish I'd gotten a good pic of just the stitches... but it hurt too much to take a pic.

Finally here's us and Lovebug holding Stitches with her own stitches out!!

Healing by God's Grace!! ss

Classic Books and Ambleside 34

Classic Books: Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

I just had to know what of these books we'll hit in AO!!! AmblesideOnline! I've marked them with the year we'll read them. Cool!! 34!!!

Instructions:1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.4) Tally your total at the bottom.5) Put in a note with your total in the subject

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen AO9
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte AO10
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee AO11
6 The Bible Everyday AO
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte AO10
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell AO6
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott AO5
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare All AO years
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien AO6
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald AO11
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy AO10
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh AO11
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll AO3
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame AO2
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens AO7
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis AO4
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen AO10
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis AO4
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell AO6
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins AO10
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery AO5
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy AO10
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons AO11
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens AO9
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas AO9
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville AO10
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens AO5
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett AO4
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome AO3
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens AO5
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White AO1
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint (in French)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams AO7
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare AO
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo AO10

Spanish: Cristo me Ama and more

We are 3 lessons into our Spanish. Here's what were working on...

• A simple vocabulary list that helps with letter sounds
• The alphabet and numbers
• Spanish songs
• Playing Uno all in Spanish

I've also found some great resources....

The Podcast Learn Spanish Survival Guide has some great lessons right where we are. His web site is My Spanish Connection.
Counting 1 to 100, Learn the Alphabet, At the Restaurant, and Learn Body parts with Simon Says... are a few we are working...

Here's a YouTube video that I've added to my Ipod with the help of Zamzar.com
Cristo ama a los niños/Cristo me Ama has the lyrics & translation.





I've found the best time to jump into our Spanish is in the car. My Ipod is loaded and ready to help us learn!! I'll use just the audio of videos to sing along. I've also made videos of our lessons to review and practice.

Cristo me ama.
Christ loves me.

Cristo me ama
Christ loves me.

Cristo me ama
Christ loves me.

La Biblia dice así
The Bible says so.

Grace!! ss

Hard Headed Boys.... Stitches....

We have the proof.... boys are hard headed!! Harder than my girls... Stitches!! Yikes

Last night the 789s babysat for the church. This was a long awaited date night!! I was in total shock when Hubbie made us reservations for dinner!!! Reservations!!! Wow!!! I'm impressed!! I'm still impressed!!!

We had a lovely quiet candle lit dinner and did a bit of shopping when the church called... Oh, no are my girls giving them problems??? Hubbie talked with them...

He got off the phone and said we ought to go get them.... we meandered out... as I'm realizing my daughter has a head injury... with blood.... we walk faster....

At the church Lovebug was watching a movie... when she saw us she clung to us and was so shaken. Her white Tee was blood stained... her jeans were too... her chin quivered. I held her in my arms. We started to head out and decided we needed to evaluate before leaving... Just peeking under a bandage between her eyes revealed a dark gash... consulting with those who'd bandaged her... we thought we needed help...

We sent Ladybug home with friends. We ran thru the house to pack a hospital bad. We were bound for the ER.

What happened?? Running on the playground... Lovebug had a head on collisions with Kenny... She fell to the ground crying and in the night those around her realized she was bleeding. She was scooped up and carried in... cleaned up and bandaged... and we were called... and told we needed to come....

At the ER we prayed no stitches.... as they evaluated the 2" long gash... stitches were necessary. The cut was long and deep. They had some doubt on our story... was this really a head to head collision??!!! Kenny has a goose egg on his head!!! Boys are so much harder headed... in this run in!!!

Hubbie and I both stayed by her side. She was scared and fighting their touch. Oh Lord, help. As they evaluated the site to ensure it was deadened... she yet squirmed... when given a shot to deaden it, she felt betrayed. "You said you were going to poke me!!!" I really thought we'd need to wrap her up to keep her still. By God's grace Hubbie laid down beside her... a tech helped still her... I held her hand and played music on the pod and sang to her.

She has 8 stitches... asking after each one if they were done. She got 9 stitches as one had to be redone. Finally... Done... Deep sigh.

We celebrated being done with chocolate zingers!!! We'd not gotten dessert after our dinner!



Today Lovebug sat on the sidelines unable to play in her basketball game. She sat with a big smile with her team. She told about all that happened with a bandage over the stitches.

Wednesday the stitches will come out. We're praying quick recovery and minimal scaring.

I'm have peace knowing Ps 139... we are fearfully & wonderfully made, knit together. These stitches are what God's using to knit her together. He holds us in the palm of His mighty hands!

Stitched by grace! ss

Prayer ACTS

If you've ridden in the car with us, you've been invited to pray with us. I love the habit that each time we get in the car, we pray together.

We've started to learn ACTS:

• A doration: Praising God for who He is all on his own, in his word
• C onfession: Confess our faults
• T hanksgiving: Thanking God for his many blessings
• S upplication: Present your requests

This has given us a platform to focus our prayer beyond the "bless mommy, daddy, sister...". I think we've thought more and truly prayed more.

We've had lots to pray this week. With a call on the Freedom of Choice Act that the girls heard, I sat with my girls and told tell them about abortion. Have you ever explained this??

Lately, we've passed the Cemetery of the Innocents representing the lives lost to abortion. This year the girls thought of our Kyle as we passed.... I explained that Kyle was wanted and those babies were not.

I told the girls that there are moms who don't want a baby. These babies are killed because they are not wanted. Oh, how horrible. My girls would love another little on in our house... how could anyone not want a baby?!??

Our right response was to pray!! We pray for President O. For him to be surrounded by wise men. That God would frustrate decisions that do not honor life & Jesus. We pray for him to hear the voices of the children. We prayed for God to work in the Congress to frustrate the FC Act. God hears our prayers!!

Learning to pray!! So much to pray for!! ss