Bristle Ridge Academy

Leopard Geckos

2011-03-26T12:52:00.001-05:00

Elijah has some new pets. Leopard Geckos. Their names are Rango and Comet. He loves them so much.

Elijah worked hard at making them the perfect habitat. Doesn’t that look like a great home for Geckos?

Rango spends a lot of his time in the tube.

Comet likes the heat rock.

Comet also likes the heat from the heat lamp.

When we first brought them home Comet didn’t want to eat. A few days later she shed her skin and now she is eating well. We read and found out that sometimes they won’t eat when they are about to shed. Elijah feeds them meal worms.

Rango likes to eat. Elijah takes each gecko out one at a time and places them in a smaller container to eat so he will know who ate and who didn’t. If one doesn’t eat very well he will offer that one more food in the evening.

I don’t know who is who in the pictures below. I can tell them apart if they are side by side, but if I look at only one of them I have no idea who it is. Elijah knows who is who from a glance.

We are enjoying learning about Leopard Geckos and I plan to do a unit study on Geckos soon.

Baby Owls

2011-03-15T18:05:00.001-05:00

We have a big owl that has lived in a tree by our house for years. She is fun to watch and I find it comforting to hear her hooting at night.

A week or so ago we discovered she has two babies. They have been peaking out at us, but today Dakota was able to get a picture of one of them.

Guess what unit study is next on our list? OWLS

Lowe’s Build and Grow

2011-02-26T12:24:00.001-06:00

Dakota and I took Elijah to Lowe’s this morning for a Build and Grow workshop. Today’s project was a pull back race car.

Here is Elijah nailing the two halves of the car together.

Gosh, that boy has a lot of hair!

I was thankful Dakota went with us so he could help Elijah.

Cousin It almost finished with his car.

It was a fun little project and didn’t take long at all.

The finished car! It really works, if you pull it back and let go the car takes off.

If you have a Lowe’s near you they do these wood workshops every other Saturday, I believe. Check with you Lowe’s to find out more. I think there might even be some information about it on their website.

Our Taco

2011-02-24T19:55:00.001-06:00

We added a new baby to our house this week. His name is Taco and he is a chiweenie. He has the body and nose of a weenie, the legs and head of a Chihuahua and ears of Dumbo. Isn’t he so cute!

Pedro has surprisingly done well with Taco. He has growled a couple of time, but when I’ve said hush he has. They haven’t fought, but I don’t think Pedro loves him.

Taco and Pedro.

A few minutes later Pedro and Taco.

Taco has taken a liking to Dakota over the rest of us. He follows Dakota all over the house.

Taco reminds me a lot of Jose who passed away this past year with kidney problems. They have almost the same markings, but Jose has tan where Taco has a darker brown.

Science Fair 2011

2011-02-23T22:55:00.001-06:00

Our homeschool group had our science and social studies fair this past week. Elijah entered a science project, How are Rocks Made? Elijah made his project into a little learning center.

The board was interactive, the cards in the pockets can be taken out and moved around.The big white flap opens up and had matchbooks on the inside. At the top it says Can you name these rocks and minerals? Each little flap opens and has the name written in the matchbook.

Elijah’s board had a lot of information and little booklets about rocks. Even a magnifying glass to use to take a closer look at the rocks.

We only took a few rocks to the fair. We have a ton of rocks, but the load would have been so heavy to try to take them all so I told Elijah to just pick a few of his favorites.

Elijah won 2nd place with his project. He was very pleased and of course I reminded him that I would have still been proud of him even if he didn’t place. The great thing about our fair is that everyone gets something so even if a project didn’t place 1st, 2nd or 3rd that person still got a medal.

Here is Elijah with his project and his trophy.

The Brain!

2011-02-22T00:27:00.001-06:00

Elijah and I are going to be learning about the different parts of our body. We will do a unit and project on our body in between other studies.

We will be using this Anatomy book by Jeannie Fulbright.

We started with the brain. I set up the learning center with brain information.

I bought this styfoam head at Hobby Lobby for Elijah to draw the brain on it and label it.

Some information about the brain. What boy wouldn’t love eating a marshmallow brain?

Elijah did have fun cutting up that brain and eating it. It was too funny!

I’ll post a picture of the head after Elijah has finished drawing the brain on it.

MNO Art Party

2011-02-21T23:52:00.001-06:00

Last week I hosted our homeschool group’s mom’s night out and held it in Dakota’s studio and we had an art party.

We had such a good time. Dakota gave us step by step directions to paint a winter cardinal scene.

I love how everyone's painting turned out a little different from the others. All the paintings turned out awesome.

This is my painting.

I like how the snow turned out on Jamee’s painting.

Kristie did not add snow to her painting. I like her branch and her bird looks great too.

Everyone looks so serious and hard at work. Trust me there was a lot of laughing and talking going on.

Jessica’s bird turned out really cute.

I like how Konni added more to her branch at the ends.

Pam’s fat bird turned out cute too.

We had such a good time, it was a fun experience.

Dakota plans to offer ladies art nights and couple art date nights soon.

Happy Valentines Day

2011-02-14T01:56:00.001-06:00

Happy Valentines Day to my sweet Jody.

I am so lucky to have you for my husband. You are my Sunshine and I’ll always be in love with you!

I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I'm sure.
And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door
Now every time I go to the mailbox, gotta hold myself down
'Cause I just can't wait till you write me you're coming around
Now I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
And don't it feel good!
I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it's true
But I just can't spend my whole life just-a waiting for you
I don't want you back for the weekend, not back for a day
'Cause baby I just want you back and I want you to stay
Now I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
And don't it feel good!
Walking on sunshine
Walking on sunshine
I feel alive, I feel a love, I feel a love that's really real
I feel alive, I feel a love, I feel a love that's really real
I'm on sunshine baby, oh yeah!
I'm on sunshine baby
Now I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
I'm walking on sunshine, oh oh!
And don't it feel good!

Elijah’s Formula

2011-02-09T16:06:00.003-06:00

The new formula came today. I’m so happy it came, but I’ll admit I’m a little nervous about giving it to him. He has been on Neocate One + (plus) for 11 years. I pray he can tolerate this formula well.
The new formula is EleCare.
I don’t like that this formula has to be measured.
The Neocate came in packs like this and all I had to do was open and pour it in a container of 6.5 ounces of water.

Just as Neocate was, the EleCare formula is very expensive. 6 cans is $204.00 I’m not sure at this moment how long 6 cans will last. When Elijah was a baby his formula was $40 a can and he used a can a day.

Just to explain how Elijah gets his formula…
After the formula is mixed up, it is poured into a feeding bag like this.

At the end of the tube I add an extension tube like this.

That tube fits into a plug on Elijah’s stomach next to his belly button like this. The balloon part is inside his stomach. I have to change his button if the balloon burst or if the button gets dirty and also when he outgrows the button size.

Then the tubes are ran though this pump.

If we are going out we put the feeding bag and pump into a backpack like this. Elijah doesn’t like wearing his backpack. It’s heavy and hot on his back.

If we are staying home then the feeding pump stays on the IV pole and the feeding bag is hung from the top. Elijah pushes the pole around the house with him.

Just a little info on how tube feeding works. Elijah has been tube fed for 9 years, before that he drank his formula from a bottle.

I’ll update on how the new formula is going after he has been on it a while.

What a hassle!

2011-01-31T23:20:00.001-06:00

Elijah's formula, Neocate One +, is being discontinued so the medical supplier called me a couple of weeks ago to say he needed to change formula. I guess his formula will change to Elecare. It is also another formula for Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis.

So it began.... around and around with the doctor's office and medical supplier trying to get it all worked out.

The medical supplier is saying the doctor's office said Elijah had to come in for a visit before they could give a prescription. And when I call the doctor's office for an appointment, they ask what is wrong with him and I tell them he needs a new formula prescription. They say that doesn't warrant an office visit.
HMMM it's not like I want to come up there in an office full of sick people. And I can't make him sick to justify an office visit.

Ole Doc must be doing pretty good if he can turn away money.

The doctor's office finally told me they sent a prescription to the medical supplier. The medical supplier says the prescription wasn't signed by the doctor.

I've talked all I can talk I'm not sure how to get through to these people.

If I get nothing else done this week, I have to get all this worked out so Elijah's formula will come SOON! Having a starving child is not going to be fun. I’ve been at this for a couple of weeks now, it has to get solved this week!

This really isn’t anything new… a new prescription is needed every 6 months and it’s always a hassle! Someone sitting behind a desk just can’t understand that when you need formula for your tube fed child you have to have it, you don’t have time for them to play around. Because even when they decide to send the prescription it still has to get approved by insurance, then formula has to be ordered by the supplier and then they turn around and ship it to us by UPS. This process doesn’t happen over night.

Please pray someone gets a clue and realizes this is a child’s life they are playing around with and prescriptions get sent and formula is shipped quickly.

6 more weeks….

2011-01-28T14:05:00.001-06:00

I went to the doctor yesterday and he is keeping me on the chemo drug, Mathotrexate, for 6 more weeks.

I am not a med taker, I hate taking meds and especially a medicine that makes you sick. I can tell the drug has helped me, but yet it itself makes me sick.

Doc said I look like a new person. I do look much better than I have in about two years.

Also he said my immune system is very low because of the medicine so I need to be extra careful about being around people that are sick. So I’m asking all sick people please wear a sign so I will know to stay away from you! Go a head and wear a sign if you think you might get sick this winter. LOL

I could have cried yesterday when the doc said let’s do 6 more weeks. 6 more weeks of making yourself sick on purpose is not something to look forward to.

Methotrexate Side-Effects
Some of the common side-effects of methotrexate are as follows:

Increased Risk of Infection: Use of methotrexate may result to a decrease in the white blood cells produced by bone marrow, thus causing an increased risk of infection. The person may also suffer from headaches, aching muscles, sore throat, pain passing urine, or may feel cold and shivery.
Anemia: Anemia is caused by the deficiency of iron in the body and results in low number of red blood cells. There is a possibility of the person becoming anemic while undergoing treatment with methotrexate resulting to lethargy and breathlessness.
Diarrhea: Diarrhea is characterized by frequent liquid bowel moments and may cause severe dehydration. If the symptoms of diarrhea occur and last for more than a couple of days, while the usage of methotrexate, a doctor should be immediately consulted.
Nausea and Vomiting: The occurrence of nausea and vomiting are seen when the patient is prescribed with a high dosage of methotrexate.
Other Side-Effects: The other side effects of methotrexate include ulcerative stomatitis, abdominal distress, undue fatigue, chills, fever, leukopenia and dizziness. It is also inadvisable to become pregnant if any one of the parents, or both, are undergoing a treatment with methotrexate, as the developing fetus may be harmed.

I usually don’t get side effects from meds, but this one is so different. Severe headaches and muscle aches are a part of every day. Then at night I can’t rest because I ache all over. I toss and turn keeping Jody away until I move to the couch so he can sleep. Lately I just go straight to the couch so he can rest without me flopping around.

I’m usually so hot and everyone knows I’m a always hot and like the cold, but on this med I am freezing to the point that I am so cold I hurt.

Diarrhea and vomiting! I just don’t know why I haven’t dropped 100 pounds yet!!! And even if I’m not vomiting the waves of nausea that come and go through out the day are just as bad.

Life must go on! I do try to pull myself together and make the most of it. I feel like just laying in bed, but I want to be with my family and I want to make memories with them so I push myself to do more than I feel like doing.

I appreciate the prayers, that’s what keeps me going!

January Art

2011-01-25T23:33:00.001-06:00

We have been having the best time out in Bayou Art Classes studio. I love painting!

Here are a few paintings I have finished and one I’m still thinking about.

One day I kept singing Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight… and I ended up painting this 20x20 acrylic. I’m giving it to my friend, Nicole, so she can hang it in the children’s room at her church.

I love how this next painting turned out. I didn’t really have a plan, but I had fun painting it. 16x20 acrylic

I decided on a zebra print cross because no two zebra’s have the same stripes and it is a great reminder that God made each one of us different too. 8x10 acrylic

I’m still working on this piece. I haven’t decided what to add just yet. It’s a work in progress.

Here is some art Elijah has done in art class at Bayou Art during the month of January.

This 11x17 bird print was a fun project.

The students really enjoyed making this 11x14 acrylic marble painting. Each student picked out 3 colors and Elijah wanted a Mardi Gras look so he picked purple, green and gold. Turned out great and I love how Dakota frames their art work for them.

Night time landscape of birch trees in water color on a 9x12 canvas. I thought this turned out to be a cool picture.

Here Elijah is working on an 18x24 acrylic painting that he designed. I can’t wait to see it finished.

We have some exciting events coming up at Bayou Art Classes for February. Dakota will be doing an art class for 27 girl scouts where they will work on 3 projects. I’m having our homeschool group Mom’s Night Out at the studio and Dakota will give us an art lesson. I can’t wait to enjoy art with my friends. We have new students starting in February also.

If you want to see more projects done at Bayou Art Class check out our facebook page.

It's a workbook week!

2011-01-25T01:06:00.000-06:00

Everyone knows I'm a unit study/lapbook/notebook kind of teacher, but this week is a workbook week. I have been feeling bad and not doing much of anything with Elijah as far as school goes. I just feel too bad to even make an attempt. He has been doing his TT 4 math that is on the computer. Over the weekend I prayed about what to do and the ole Spectrum workbooks came to mind so I looked through them and made him out some lesson plans for the week. I'm glad to have these workbooks to fall back on, but I don't care for that being our school for very long at a time. I much perfer real learning.

Today wasn't so bad, Elijah did Math on the computer this morning before it was time for us to head out to the Spelling Bee where Dakota was asked to come be a judge. Elijah took his Word Study book in the van and did two pages on the way to meet friends for lunch. I almost hinted for him to go ahead and do two more pages so he would have Thursday's work already done, but I decided not to push.

We enjoyed watching the Spelling Bee. The kids did an amazing job. I can't even pronounce some of the words they spelled. I was really proud of each and every one of the spellers.

When we got home I told Elijah he needed to finish his work for today, but I wanted to go paint so he took his books out to the art studio and did the rest of his school while I painted, but yet was there to answer questions and help him along.

After he finished his school work he started on a painting that he is really excited about. Then we came in and both took a really long nap.

I hope the rest of our school week goes as well as today.

Chemo Drugs are NASTY

2011-01-20T00:52:00.000-06:00

This week I will complete the 6 weeks of the chemo drug I have been on. I tried the drug back in October, but it made me so sick I couldn't continue on it. When I stopped my health went way down fast so the doctor told me I needed to get back on it and stay on it. He said we would give it six weeks and then re evaluate. This Friday will be six weeks. It has been a ride that is for sure. With Lupus you are already sick and feel really bad everyday add chemo on top of that and it is horrible. Chemo is about the worst thing you can do to yourself on purpose. One night Jody was at work and I texted him if it wasn't for Elijah being so young I'd be ready to just die.

While I feel horrible and don't feel like doing anything I do try to push myself to do things even though I know I'll pay with pain later. Even the simpliest task that I used to take for granted are so hard for me to complete. Washing my hair for example. I'd love to go in there right now and wash my dirty hair, but I can't. My arms hurt and are so weak. One day Dakota was waiting on me to get ready so we could go buy groceries. I told him I need to wash my hair and I need to buy groceries, but I can't do both. Either I pull my dirty hair up in a hair clip and off we go or I wash my hair and stay home. I pulled the dirty hair up in a clip so we could have groceries that week. One day my hair needed washing so bad and I had somewhere to go that night, but I knew I couldn't do both. I had decided I'd have to cancel my plans because I couldn't go looking like a hag. Then I thought if I can just get dressed I'll go by a hair place and get a wash. I ended up in town all dressed up with my dirty hair and couldn't find a place to give me a wash. I called a friend and even though she has 3 young kids and was probably busy she said come on over. She washed my hair and even styled it. I was so thankful!

I don't go and do like I used to. I love to be busy and be around people, running from place to place, I am just not a homebody. Lately I've had to say no to many things that I really wanted to attend. It's a hard adjustment because my body can't keep up with my mind.

I think Lupus is hard for people to understand. Sure you can google it and read about it, but that doesn't really tell you what it is like to live with Lupus. I don't think my family really understands even though they see the tears and know I am suffering. It's hard to describe how I feel also, but I found this article that really explains what life with Lupus is like.

The Spoon Theory

by Christine Miserandino www.butyoudontlooksick.com

My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

As I went to take some of my medicine with a snack as I usually did, she watched me with an awkward kind of stare, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have Lupus and be sick. I was shocked not only because she asked the random question, but also because I assumed she knew all there was to know about Lupus. She came to doctors with me, she saw me walk with a cane, and throw up in the bathroom. She had seen me cry in pain, what else was there to know?
I started to ramble on about pills, and aches and pains, but she kept pursuing, and didn’t seem satisfied with my answers. I was a little surprised as being my roommate in college and friend for years; I thought she already knew the medical definition of Lupus. Then she looked at me with a face every sick person knows well, the face of pure curiosity about something no one healthy can truly understand. She asked what it felt like, not physically, but what it felt like to be me, to be sick.
As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being effected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity. I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand. If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.
At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have Lupus”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands.
I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.
Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case Lupus, being in control.
She grabbed the spoons with excitement. She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she is always up for a good time, so I guess she thought I was cracking a joke of some kind like I usually do when talking about touchy topics. Little did she know how serious I would become?
I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of “spoons”. But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn’t even started yet. I’ve wanted more “spoons” for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has Lupus.
I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said ” No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can’t take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too.” I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon. I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If I have bruises that day, I need to wear long sleeves, and if I have a fever I need a sweater to stay warm and so on. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this.
I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get to work, and she was left with 6 spoons. I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s “spoons”, but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less “spoons”. I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a cold comes, or an infection, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on “spoons”, because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.
We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, as well as standing on a train, or even typing at her computer too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently. Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night.
When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to drive home safely. Then I also explained, that I didn’t even bother to add into this game, that she was so nauseous, that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all.
I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “Christine, How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.”
Its hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to. I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day’s plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count “spoons”.
After we were emotional and talked about this for a little while longer, I sensed she was sad. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she realized that she never could truly and honestly say she understands. But at least now she might not complain so much when I can’t go out for dinner some nights, or when I never seem to make it to her house and she always has to drive to mine. I gave her a hug when we walked out of the diner. I had the one spoon in my hand and I said “Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons” and I chose to spend this time with you.”
Ever since this night, I have used the spoon theory to explain my life to many people. In fact, my family and friends refer to spoons all the time. It has been a code word for what I can and cannot do. Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding Lupus, but anyone dealing with any disability or illness. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general. I give a piece of myself, in every sense of the word when I do anything. It has become an inside joke. I have become famous for saying to people jokingly that they should feel special when I spend time with them, because they have one of my “spoons”.
© Christine Miserandino

Life Cycles

2010-12-06T20:58:00.001-06:00

Remember the Learning Center I made for Elijah a while back? I decided to keep that one as our morning center so I made a new one that I change out for different units.

On this day the Learning Center was Life Cycles.

Items are either velcroed on or in pocket charts. It’s very interactive. Elijah can move things around as he is learning.

Above Elijah labeled the stages of a butterfly and below he is labeling the stages of a frog.

Elijah likes the interactive board and I have many many units planned to use with the board with so check back to see what we use it for next.

We also made a Life Cycle lapbook.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

2010-12-06T13:09:00.001-06:00

Who says school work has to be boring? Elijah and I just finished up a fun lapbook based on the book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

I printed out the lapbook components from Homeschool Share. This is a simple lapbook, but it was fun and silly…. just what we needed.

Here Elijah is reading back over the book and adding answers to the booklets in his lapbook.

We decorated the outside of the lapbook. Does it look like spaghetti and meatballs?

I pulled out our weather board for Elijah to play meteorologist.

Elijah gave us a silly weather report. It’s raining pigs in Texas!

To finish up the unit we watched Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs on Netflix.

You can find this unit and a lot more at Homeschool Share .

Redneck Christmas Parade

2010-12-06T00:11:00.001-06:00

Saturday morning the kids and I went to the Redneck Christmas Parade in Bawcomville. You might remember the video I posted a week or so ago.

Dakota took a ton of pictures and I tried to go through and pick a few, but that few turned into way too many. You can click on the full album and see the ones I picked. There was way more photos, but I didn’t figure you all would want to see every four wheeler or lawnmower that went by.

Most floats threw candy, some threw stuffed animals or beads, one float threw rocks. I loved it!

Here are a few pictures.

This one had a sign that read: Bawcomville Yacht Club

Some used the excuse of the parade to let their freak flag fly.

I liked this float, well it was a wrecker truck with this car on the bed of the truck. Reminds me of an old Christmas movie where the family goes out and cuts down a tree and bringing it home to decorate.

Don’t be fooled to think these guys just did this for the parade. This is the norm in Bawcomville!

Yes, there was a power wheel vehicle in the parade. I wonder if she made the whole block before the battery ran down?

This float had a big sign that read “Santa’s dropping a load” Then on the back was Santa peaking out of the outhouse. He has toilet paper in his hand.

What a fun morning!

Veteran’s Day: A Patriotic Look

2010-12-01T00:15:00.001-06:00

Elijah loves learning about wars, what airplanes were flew and what weapons they used. This year for Veteran’s Day I wanted him to really understand that many men and women have lost their lives fighting for our country.

To begin our Veteran’s Day study we visited the traveling memorial wall. WOW, just that little piece of traveling wall is powerful, I bet it is awesome to visit the real thing.

That week we read some books about Veteran’s Day and made a lapbook. It was a simple lapbook, but one of the most important lapbooks I think we have ever made.

In the picture below you can see we did a sample rubbing of the wall for Elijah’s lapbook.

We finished up our unit with a trip to the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum.

The museum has a lot of weapons, uniforms and pictures displayed.

Elijah liked this case that had a ton of arm vehicle models.

The museum had been remodeled since our last visit and it really looked nice. There is so much to see. I think I was on information overload.

The next two pictures are maps showing where people live who have visited our museum. That alone was amazing to look at.

I’m so glad we took the time to study about Veteran’s Day. I’m not sure we (we; not just our family, but also our nation) appreciate our military men and women enough. Thank you to all our branches; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T18:29:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving from the Millers!

How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving?
At the Miller home we celebrate Thanksgiving by having a pumpkin shoot every year. For us this takes the focus off of food.

Elijah has Eosinophillic Gastroenteritis and has a feeding tube. Holidays seem to revolve around food and that's not fun for him. Dakota has food issues also so food events have never been enjoyed by our family.

We look forward to our pumpkin shoot each year. During October we collect pumpkins and set them around our doorsteps and wait for Thanksgiving day.
On Thanksgiving day the boys set the pumpkins out for shooting time.

Then everyone takes turns shooting pistols, rifles and shotguns. I’m sure we look like a bunch of rednecks, but that’s okay, the guys enjoy this part of the day.
Elijah shooting his 20 gage and he blew the top of that green gourd off. Dakota giving it a shot. All three shooting at once. Big Daddy taking a turn. My great niece Hannah stayed with us today. Jody made her wear ear protection while the shooting was going on and she wasn’t happy about that.

I hope your family had a great Thanksgiving day. We enjoyed a laid back Thanksgiving. It was a relaxing day.

Bawcomville Christmas

2010-11-24T23:28:00.002-06:00

This would be funny if it wasn't true! I can't believe Bawcomville is on the internet. We have no shame!

Happy, happy holidays from Bawcomville!

R.I.P. Cheyenne

2010-11-24T22:42:00.001-06:00

Elijah’s dog, Cheyenne, was a really good dog. She appeared wild and crazy to anyone who drove up, but she was really a sweet dog.

A week ago we were leaving to take Elijah to choir practice and we ran over Cheyenne in our driveway. It was really sad. Elijah loved his do so much.

We will miss Cheyenne.

Cool Photos

2010-11-23T23:27:00.003-06:00

Our homeschool group has two big co-op groups at different locations because all of us can’t fit in one church at the same time. We are very blessed to have our co-ops.
Last week Dakota took group pictures of each co-op location. I love how the pictures turned out.

He would love to do this circle picture with a wedding group. The bride and groom with the groomsmen and bridesmaids on each side of them, having the parents and grandparents next to the wedding party, then family and filling in the rest of the circle with all of the wedding guest. Wouldn’t that be a cool picture?
This would also be a cool picture for family reunions, school classes or groups or even sports teams.
Dakota can’t wait to find a group so he can take another picture like this.

Bayou Art

2010-11-23T22:43:00.002-06:00

Elijah is enjoying art class through Bayou Art Classes. I’m loving the art pieces he has completed.
This piece is an 8x10 chalk pastel of fall leaves. Dakota taught the students how to use chalk pastel and blend colors. Elijah’s turned out really nice. Dakota framed this project for the students.
This turkey was done with colored pencils. Dakota was teaching how to blend colors with colored pencils and using the pencils with different pressure to get different effects.

This acrylic pointillism project was fun for the kids. Each student could draw any picture they wanted for this project. Elijah drew a big fish.

This fall leaf project was created with water colors.

At the end of each class or while waiting for paint to dry on a project Dakota gives the students drawing lessons. He has been getting them to draw things out of certain shapes or using certain lines. I snapped a few pictures from Elijah’s sketch book. I can certainly tell Elijah’s drawing is improving and he is learning to control his pencil more.
Elijah’s October art from Bayou Art Classes.

Bayou Art Classes can be found on the website and on facebook.

Spelling

2010-11-22T22:50:00.002-06:00

I’ve never been a fan of spelling curriculums. I’ve seen a lot of kids memorize spelling words for a test but then can’t spell the words when writing.
Dakota was a horrible speller, but an excellent reader and read all the time. When he started using email and posting on some message boards his spelling seemed to have changed over night. Now he is an excellent speller and I’m often asking him how to spell words.
The same thing happened with Elijah when he got his cell phone and started texting and using facebook his spelling improved so much, but he still needs to improve.
Elijah does ask me how to spell a lot of words when he is writing so I thought he might need something to expose him to more spellings, but I still didn’t want a curriculum, I thought something on the computer would be more fun.
I found Mrs. Flinkster’s Spelling Accelerator and it turned out to be a fun spelling program.

There are 6 games to play with each list of words and there are over 1,000 spelling words. You can put in your own spelling if you want to.
Elijah wasn’t thrilled to see what I had bought, but once he tried it out he decided he did like it.
Just thought I’d throw this out there in case anyone was looking for something to help with spelling.

Ben Franklin

2010-11-21T21:01:00.003-06:00

There is so much to learn about Ben Franklin, he was truly a remarkable man. He surely deserves to be on our one hundred dollar bill.

Day 1: Who Was Ben Franklin?
Day 2: People and Places in Ben Franklin’s Life
Day 3: The Accomplishments of Ben Franklin
Day 4: Lessons to Learn From Ben Franklin
Day 5: Remembering Ben Franklin

Elijah just finished the Download N Go Ben Franklin unit created by Amanda Bennett. We found this unti to be FULL of information. So much information we could have spent 2 weeks or more on this unit.

We learned a ton of interesting facts about B. Franklin. So much that we ended up with a lapbook full of booklets and folds. We used two large file folders to make this lapbook.

You can see I added the yellow and orange card stock pages to make extensions just so we could get everything in the lapbook.
If you are not into lapbooks the booklets could be used in notebooks.
The Download N Go units do include a nice list of library books, but if you are not able to get to a library don’t let that stop you from trying a unit. I have not gotten any library books for any of the DNG units we have done and that has NOT stopped us from learning and enjoying the units. The units are full of SAFE links with tons of info you can read about Franklin on the internet.

I really appreciate the vocabulary words found in each Download N Go unit. Each unit also includes spelling words.

To finish up our unit Elijah built different electronic experiments with his Snap Circuits set.

Are you ready to start a new adventure with your children and learn about Ben Franklin? You can order the Ben Franklin unit for only $6.25 for a limited time.
Visit the Blog Tour to read more reviews about the B. Franklin unit.

Dakota’s Art

2010-11-15T22:14:00.004-06:00

Dakota has done some new 16 x 20 paintings in the last couple of weeks that he has up for sale on Etsy. The pictures do not do the paintings justice. The actual piece of art looks awesome.

This one is mine and I hung it up in our living room. I love it!

I love this Louisiana painting. It looks so awesome!
This wedding picture is amazing with silver, gold, black and white. I love how this turned out.
This black and red fleur de lis picture turned out nice too.

Here’s another Louisiana painting that also looks very cool.

This one looks so amazing in real life, the picture just doesn’t show how beautiful these colors are together.
I like the mint green fleur de lis on gold with chocolate too. I love the black, white, red, silver and gold together. It looks so freaking awesome!

This one is zebra print of off white and black and the pink fleur is much prettier and brighter than it looks here in this picture.

This crazy picture looks really cool. It’s purple, gold and green, our Mardi gras colors.

This turquoise on gold with chocolate looks amazing too.

I love all the paintings and can’t decide which is my favorite.

What’s wrong with this picture?

2010-11-15T18:10:00.002-06:00

Is it a dog or a cat? It’s Pedro our dog sleeping on my desk!

This is one spoiled dog!

Recycled Art

2010-11-15T17:56:00.003-06:00

Last month 4H had a recycled art contest. Elijah collected some recyclables and thought about several ideas and finally came up with a tree idea.
Here is Cousin It painting the background on a ceiling tile. We do call him Cousin It when his hair is all in his face like that.

See that big bruise on his arm, it was healing at that point. The first night of gun club he came home with his arm and chest red and bloody. Elijah painting packaging peanuts.
The tree trunk was cut out from cardboard.
Here is Elijah gluing all the pieces together on his ceiling tile.
The finished recycled art picture. I thought it turned out really cute. He worked hard on his little project.

Elijah was very happy to get second place for his art picture. He did get a second place ribbon, but had already put that in his art book by the time I took a picture of the project.

Ice Age

2010-11-15T17:21:00.002-06:00

Hands of a Child (HOC) has a nice Ice Age lapbook. I had ordered it sometime ago, but just recently got around to doing the unit with Elijah.
We started the unit by reading this book that we have in our little library.
I printed off all the booklets and folds, cut them out and glued them in the lapbook folders.
This unit has a lot of booklets for a lapbook.
This is two folders put together. We talked about extinction theories and came up with some of our own. We learned about animals back in the ice age. And how people would have used those animals for food, clothing and to build shelter.

We also learned about tools, shelter and daily life for the people of the ice age time.

To finish up the Ice Age unit I dug out our National Geographic Ice Mummy kit. I covered the mummy with water and stuck him in the freezer overnight.
Elijah enjoyed cutting and chiseling through the ice to find the skeleton of the ice mummy.

Ice man free from the ice.
Ice Age was an interesting unit.

The Mighty Hunter

2010-11-10T13:51:00.002-06:00

Back in October when Elijah won all that money at the fair he bought himself a 20 gage shotgun. He is so proud of that gun!

Elijah says his gun is a little different in coloring.

He has had a 410 for a couple of years that he uses to go bird hunting, but once he got that 20 gage he was itching to go squirrel hunting.
I told him he really needed to wait until squirrel season opened before he shot a squirrel. See we follow some laws! HEHE
This past week Jody took some time off work to use up some vacation days before he looses them at the end of December. So he went out with Elijah a few mornings for squirrel hunting.
On day one Elijah killed his first squirrel.

I haven’t looked but I’m told this squirrel is in a zip lock bag in our freezer with plans of getting it mounted.
The next morning Elijah got his second squirrel.

I think they actually skinned this one. I’ve seen the tail on Elijah’s desk at one point and then last night I saw it on his night stand.
Of course Elijah can’t eat squirrel, but Jody will make a gumbo or something and take it to work because I don’t eat squirrel.
That same afternoon Elijah got squirrel #3!
This was a black squirrel and I’m told this one is in the freezer also waiting to be mounted.
Elijah had fun squirrel hunting and can’t wait until Tuesday when Dad is off and can go out with him again.
I’m so glad Jody thought to snap a few pictures because I was sleeping.

Expedition Australia

2010-11-07T22:40:00.003-06:00

Download N Go has an amazing unit study on Australia called Expedition Australia. This unit is packed with so much information you and your children will love it.
Of course we want to go to Australia now.

I say “you and your children” because I learned so much from this unit. I’m getting a much better education homeschooling my children than I did in public school.
In the Australia unit you and your children will lean about some cool places in Australia. You will also learn about some neat animals. The animal information was a big plus for my animal lover.
Elijah was so excited to see he would be learning about the Uluru Rock. He had a card about it with a small amount of info on his learning center board a few weeks back. That info was not enough, but I do believe he filled his learning tank with enough Uluru Rock info from the Australia unit. His favorite animal was the Tasmanian Devil.
You will not believe what all is packed in this unit and the neat part is you get to pick and choose what you want to print out to make a lapbook or notebook.

Every Download N Go unit is packed with amazing videos and this unit was no different. As you can tell from the reviews I have done on the DNG units, the videos are my favorite part.
Now I’ve got to find Elijah a Boomerang for Christmas!
Are you ready to get started with a Download N Go unit? It is very simple to purchase and down load the unit. You may want to grab the Expedition Australia unit now because it is on sale for only $5.95.
Here is a sample of Elijah’s lapbook.

As you can see there is A LOT of stuff there. With a Download N Go you don’t have to do everything, you can just pick the parts that your child is interested in. We did skip the stuff that was too young for Elijah. These units can be used for children of different ages.
Check out the Download N Go blog for more reviews.
I was given a free copy of Expedition Australia to give my honest review on the unit and honestly we loved it!

Nasty Drugs!

2010-11-05T20:13:00.000-05:00

My health has went down down down. I try my best to push myself and carry on.... at times it is very hard. Sometimes I just have to give in and say I can't do it and take the day off. I feel so guilty on those days.

I'm off Prednisone completly and I can sure tell it. Prednisone was keeping me going, without it I can hardly function. I hate prednisone, but yet my body wants it so bad. This is the longest I've been off of it since March of 2009.

My current meds are 400 MG of Plaquenil and 200 MG of Savella a day and 15 MG of Methotrexate a week.

Methotrexate is a very very nasty drug. Its a chemo drug and I'd rather do almost anything than take it. Matter of fact I skipped it this week. I take it on Fridays and it takes me until Wednesday to get over the sickness. Then I start all over on Friday. It's horrible! I'm going to have to work up the nerve to go take it again.
I've heard people say they will never do chemo again after doing it once.... I now understand those words. It's so hard to take something knowing how sick it is going to make you. It kills your bad cells, but also kills your good cells AND makes you so sick you think you're gonna die.

AND I have a family to tend to and a 10 year old tube fed child to homeschool! I'm usually so picky about my house being clean, but lately I just don't care. Well I care, I just can't do anything about it and I'm too sick to dwell on it.

I look forward to the day I will be healed and off these nasty drugs!

Terrific Tigers

2010-11-05T16:47:00.004-05:00

Download N Go has a unit called Terrific Tigers that is just TERRIFIC! If you have been thinking about giving a Download N Go unit a try this would be a great unit to start with. You can purchase Terrific Tigers here.

Elijah had a great time learning about different tigers, where they live and interesting facts about them.
My favorite part about the unit and all of Download N Go units is the videos. These units are filled with tons of videos. Elijah LOVES watching all the videos and clicking on the links. He knows he can click and watch without having to call me in the room to ask is it safe for me to click on this. I have peace of mind that he is having fun, learning and NOT getting into yucky stuff.

When my oldest was little I put together all his unit studies and it was a lot of work, but yet nothing I ever put together was this detailed. I would need a month or so to put something like this together and then I still don’t think it would be as nice as what Download N Go has done. These units are full of videos, links, notebook pages, lapbook components. So much stuff Elijah ended up with a FULL lapbook.
Day 1: What Is a Tiger?
Day 2: Getting to Know Tigers
Day 3: Where Are the Tigers?
Day 4: The Science of Tigers
Day 5: Cool Things About Tigers

Now a trip to the zoo to see the tigers will never be the same. Elijah knows all kinds of facts about tigers to tell us as we stand there watching Timmy at our zoo. Here are some pictures Elijah took of Timmy at our zoo visit.
Timmy was enjoying a nice swim while we watched and Elijah took pictures.
It was so interesting how he would swim up to the wall and push himself off just like swimmers do in a pool. very cool to watch!

I hope your family enjoys Terrific Tigers as much as we did.

Art Fair post # 4

2010-10-22T02:04:00.001-05:00

I forgot to post Dakota's art work he entered in the fair. This was his last year to be able to enter any art in the fair because he started teaching art in October.

Dakota painted this mask to wear to the Jr./ Sr. banquet this past school year.

This painting is of buildings in our down town area. Dakota painted the house on top of the building pink because it used to be pink and that's the way everyone remembers it. The picture below is a picture he took of the buildings.

This is an ink drawing Dakota did of downtown.

The oil cat. Dakota's favorite medium is oil.

Stained ceramic. The cup didn't even turn out the way Dakota had visioned, but it still won first place.

This is a collection of Dakota's senior pictures.

Dakota was very pleased with his winnings.

Bayou Art Classes

2010-10-22T01:29:00.001-05:00

Elijah is surely getting exposed to art because he takes two art classes at co-op and then takes Bayou Art Classes in Dakota's studio. AND we always have art projects going on around here. He loves art!

Dakota's art classes are going well. Here are the projects Elijah has done so far. Already getting started on his fair entries for next year.

Rocking Robots ROCKS!

2010-10-10T22:06:00.002-05:00

Elijah and I just finished a fun lapbooking unit called Rocking Robots.
What is Rocking Robots? It is a Download N Go unit by Amanda Bennett and sold at The Old Schoolhouse. These units are awesome and are only $7.95 each!

I’ve been doing lapbooks since way back when Dakota (now 18) was just a little guy. There was no such thing as pre-made lapbooks back then. Download N Go really makes lapbooking easy.

These units are packed full of information and printouts. You don’t have to print everything and you don’t have to do every activity, there is plenty there to choose from. Some things were too young for Elijah, but that would be great for families that have several children different ages. So we just skipped the stuff that was too young, but there was plenty of other stuff there to keep him busy.

I’m not sure how other families use Download N Go units, but I decided to email the unit to Elijah so he could pull it up on his computer. The unit had a ton of videos for him to click on and watch. This was great because I knew the links were safe for him to click on. I had also printed out the lapbook templates for him, so he was able to watch the videos, read the information and fill in answers. You can really make these units independent work if you wish to.

The units also gives you a list of library books. We were not able to get to the library to check out any robot books, but that didn’t matter, the unit itself has plenty of information. I do not feel like we missed out on anything by not having library books.

Elijah decided to get out his Gears and build a robot. He said this robot’s job was to go around picking up trash and putting it in a garbage can.

Here are a couple of pictures of Elijah working in his lapbook.

To end our unit I gave Elijah a little robot kit I had bought for him. He put this together all by himself.

We could have spent more than a week on this unit, I like to bunny trail. Since I was given the Rocking Robots unit and asked to give a review on this unit by October 10, I was on a schedule and had to finish up the unit.

I asked Elijah what was his favorite things about the Rocking Robots unit and he said watching all the cool videos, the math code sheet, learning about the Mars Rover and building his own robot.

My favorite things about the Download N Go units are links and videos that Elijah can click on that I know are safe. The units offer more than you need and at a great price. The units can be done together or used as independent work. Also the topics are interesting.
You can read more reviews about the Rocking Robot unit at the Download N Go blog.

We are looking forward to doing a lot more Download N Go units this school year.

Art Fair post #3

2010-10-04T22:01:00.002-05:00

This pipe cleaner flower got second place.

Fifth place in Christmas ornaments.

First place in leather work.

I love how the punched metal turned out.

Remember our dinosaur fossils we made a few weeks back. After they dried Elijah painted them. They turned out nice and won third place.

String art of a butterfly got second place.

Fall wreath got fourth place. There were a lot of fall wreaths in the fair.

Elijah's Christmas wreath got first place. It also plugs in and has white lights all over it. Looks neat!

Elijah's decorative Tee got second place. He slept in this shirt last night.

Pencil holder got first place.

Elijah's sculpture of a dinosaur got first place.

This necklace got third place.

Waste basket got first place.

Art Fair post#2

2010-10-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

Elijah's color drawing of a butterfly in oil pastels got first place.

Charcoal leaf abstract got first place.

Charcoal landscape got second place.

Charcoal portrait for first place.

Charcoal still life got first place.

Black and white landscape for first place.

Black and white animal got first place.

Black and white portrait got first place.

Black and white abstract for first place.

Color drawing landscape got third place.

Color drawing portrait got second place.

His watercolor portrait got first place. I thought he turned out cute!

Water color leaf abstract for fifth place.

Black and white still life for first place.

His color drawing abstract did not place, but I still think it is a great abstract.

The water color leaf project got fourth place.

Colored rice mosaic for first place.

Art Fair 2010 post #1

2010-10-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Warning... there may be several Art Fair post coming up.

Yesterday the kids picked up their enteries to the art fair. They both did well. Dakota entered 9 items and made $61.00 and Elijah entered 47 items and made $274.00.

Here are some of Elijah's paintings.

His hand abstract got second place.

His acrylic cow portrait got second place.

His acrylic landscape for first place.

I love this watercolor space picture done on a ceiling tile. It won third place, but it's still one of my favorites.

Oh this is another of my favorites. Elijah had seen a painting that used three canvases and wanted to do a project that used canvases like that so we came up with this tree. It turned out really cool and won first place.

This sweet sunflower got fourth place.

Elijah did have some art that turned out really well, but then again he has an awesome art teacher named Dakota. :)

My Sweet Man

2010-10-04T11:36:00.000-05:00

Jody spent last weekend in the hospital, but he is much better now.

Last Thursday he commented that he didn't feel well and by Friday morning he was in a great deal of pain. Friday when he came home from work several hours early I knew he was in major pain. Jody doesn't miss work for anything. When I die if my funeral is on a work day he'll go to work!

I tried to get him to go see a doctor but he wouldn't even think about it. As night came his pain got worse. I checked his temp and it was 101.1. I knew he had some kind of infection. I was thinking a UTI. I had made up my mind I was taking him to the ER even though he was fighting it.

We made it to the ER and they sent him right in for x rays and a cat scan. The doctor came in minutes later and said he had diverticulitis. They gave him some strong pain meds, started IV antibiotics and fluids.
He spent the weekend laying up in a hospital bed getting better. Thankfully he was able to come home on Monday. He is doing much better.

Elijah snapped a picture of Jody while he was in the hospital.

Dakota has done IT again!

2010-09-23T02:34:00.001-05:00

3 post in one night... hehe, that might make up for missing so many days.

Dakota has done IT again! What is IT? He has now started his 3rd business. That sure does sound funny to say that about an 18 year old.
He has a photography business http://dakotamillerphotography.com/ , a web site design business and NOW......

Dakota has enjoyed art his whole life. He has taken art from many many different art teachers while growing up. He has learned a lot from those teachers and they also taught him what type of teacher he likes and doesn't like. He NEVER likes a teacher who paints on his painting or makes him do art HER way and not HIS way. I think any child who is REALLY into art would feel the same way.

His last art teacher told him there was nothing more for her to teach him. I'm sure he will still learn things as the years go by just from experience.

Dakota has entered paintings in a lot of art contest and won many first place ribbons. He has even had art displayed at our local museum before.

Art has always been an important part of our homeschool.

SO his 3rd business is .... Bayou Art Classes
http://www.bayouartclasses.com/
He even made himself a website. :) He has his photography studio that can be used to hold art classes. He is very excited about starting this up. I'll be his assistant helping make sure everyone has their supplies and getting things they need while he teaches.

We are working on advertising and just getting the word out to people out in our community.

Check out his website and let us know what you think.

I'd really like to encourage homeschool moms to allow their children to pursue their interest. Don't bog them down with so much school work there is no time for exploring their interest and developing talents. You never know where these interest may lead them. Dakota has enjoyed art his whole life, he always has a painting set up in his room that he is working on. He taught himself computer languages and web site design. He developed a love for photography a few years back and it lead him to starting his first business at the age of 16. So lighten up on the school books, you have 12 years to teach them and even with 12 years you can't teach them everything they need to know. The best you can do is to teach them how to learn on their own so they will always know how to search and learn when they need to know something.

See Ya At The Pole

2010-09-23T01:47:00.001-05:00

This morning our homeschool group had See Ya At The Pole for prayer time. We had a great turn out and it was such a blessing to be there.

It was especially wonderful to see June there. Her son graduated last year, but she became a member of our group again this year and we are thrilled to have her join us for MNO and such things like today. I didn't know she was coming , but I was so happy to see her. June is just one of those people who is LOVED by everyone! Here she being loved on by Claire and my friend Benjamin.

Yes, I was snapping pictures during prayer. BUT I did pray!

Today was also CRAZY flip flop day! I thought everyone was so creative in decorating their flip flops.

Don't you think they were all SO cute?

Then it was Chapel time, the first part of our co-op day.

It is so wonderful to see the church so full and that's not even everyone. Some were still arriving and some were putting stuff in their class rooms or out in the hall with babies who were crying. At the WM co-op we have 78 families, I believe, and 184 kids or something like that. We also have another co-op locating across the river because our group is so big everyone can't fit in one church. And not everyone in our homeschool group is in co-op, we have many families who chose not to join co-op for whatever reason that is best for their family.

Mrs. Jon Marie led us in a worship song while Mrs. Lydia played the piano. Then one student played a song on the piano and another student recited a bible verse. They both did a really nice job.
Next Pastor Rusty gave a short devotional that I really enjoyed. I didn't snap a picture of him.

I really can not express enough how much our homeschool group means to me. We are really like a big ole family. It's great to be part of such a wonderful group.

Co-op

2010-09-23T01:00:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted this week because we are BUSY! We took the week off from school because Elijah, and Dakota too, are busy busy busy finishing up their fair entries that they will turn in this weekend. I'll post about that when they get their stuff back in early October.

I wanted to share about our homeschool co-op. I LOVE CO-OP! It's the best thing that happened to our homeschool group.

I love the classes I'm teaching this year.
Are You Smarter Than a 1st Grader? For 1st & 2nd grade.
Are You Smarter Than a 3rd Grader? For 3rd & 4th grade.
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? For 5th & 6th grade.
Then after lunch I have two board game classes.

Today at co-op I snapped a few pictures of my class game board that I made.

I use the same board set up for each class, the apple is velcroed on so I can just change it out for each class.

Here is a full view of the game board. We play it like a game show. It really is so much fun and he kids really enjoy it too. All the kids say it is their favorite class.

This is the right side. I laminated a piece of paper so we can write on it with a dry erase marker to keep score.

Here in the middle I have a $1 pocket chart from Target that I slip index cards into. On one side of the card is the subject and the other side has a question and answer. My helper (another homeschool mom) and I will pull a card from the category the kids pick and read the question and if the students answer correctly they get 10 points. At the end of class we add up the points, but everyone gets a prize.

On the left side there is a clock. Sometimes they might get a math question about time and they can use this clock to show the time. I also have a dry erase board in the room where the students can work out math problems or fill in blanks on a word with missing letters.

Each class has different cards, I have a box for each grade to keep them all separate. You can see behind the box on the board there are cards with a ? on them. These are mystery cards. They don't really fall under a subject and can be about anything. One card today asked how many hours a day does a cat nap? The kids love the mystery cards.
This is my favorite mystery card....
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
The answer ...4.
It doesn't matter what you call the tail it's still not a leg! LOL

And here is Elijah standing by the board this morning before co-op started. I don't know if you can read Elijah's T-shirt, it says "this is my dress shirt" and there is a tie painted on the shirt behind the words. THAT is SO Elijah!

Great Day of School

2010-09-13T23:30:00.001-05:00

Here are a couple of pictures of Elijah doing school today.

He wrote the days of the week in order and then used the cards from our Learning Center to check his spelling. He missed 3 so here he was writing those over correctly.

Elijah doing his math, Teaching Textbooks, with Pedro asleep laying in his lap. The joys of homeschooling! I really love that Elijah can do his math and love on our crazy dog at the same time.

Table Time Learning Center

2010-09-13T02:56:00.000-05:00

We have something we do in the mornings that we call Table Time, even though we don't always do it at the table, sometimes it is from the couch or could even be while lying in bed.

Basically it is where we go over skills, such as months of the year, days of the week and how to spell those and some flash cards and some quiz question from different subjects, Bible verse, states, presidents and other quick things like that.

Today we are using our new learning center as our Table Time Center.

That probably looks like a lot of stuff, but really it doesn't take long to go through it. It's hands on and kind of fun and it's information Elijah needs to learn. Learning this way is quick and easy and the information really does stick by doing just a little each day.

On this side we have some multiplication flash cards, continents, days of the week, two math word problem cards each having 3 problems, presidents, months of the year, states and Bible verse that I stuck in the bottom pocket after the picture was taken.

In the middle we have 6 spelling cards, 4 vocabulary cards, 4 space cards, 4 geography cards, 3 science quiz cards, 3 history quiz cards (each with 3 questions on each card), 4 landmarks of the world cards. A globe showing the 7 continents and a map showing the 50 states.

I also have a magnifying glass with Velcro stuck to the board that can be used when the board is a science center.

On this side of the center we have a container clipped to the top to put cards in as we finish with them, a chart showing numbers and how to spell them, a dry erase board, a reminder card about telling time. a hundreds board, a card showing math symbols and telling what they mean, a money chart and a multiplication chart.
There is also a calculator clipped to the side of the board.

On the table we have a small stack of flash cards that we go through each day and a pointer stick for Elijah to use as he is telling me about stuff in the learning center. He already knows the answer to these flash cards, but I keep going through them anyway. It only takes a few minutes to go through that stack of cards.

So that is how we used our Learning Center today. I have a small box I keep our Table Time stuff in so it is kept all together and easy to change up or add new items.

Pretty much what we are doing for school these days is Table Time, Teaching Textbooks math on the computer, and then work on our unit study or lapbook.

I have a lot of ideas for using the center so check back to see how we change it up.

Elijah's Learning Center

2010-09-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

I made Elijah a learning center that I am so excited about. It can be changed up to whatever subject we are working on. I'll be making some post to show different ways we use the center.

In the pictures below the board was set up with spelling information and a few spelling cards.

I bought the pocket chart in the middle from Target for $1 and I made the blue pocket chart myself. Elijah can use the small white board to write spelling words on. Everything is attached with Velcro. The board is a science project tri fold board that I covered with felt.

We went over a couple of rules and then looked at those 6 spelling words.

The possibilities are endless with our learning center. Everything is attached with Velcro so it can be moved around and changed up according to subject and material I have. Think mini bulletin board set that is interactive for your child. = FUN LEARNING!

Dinosaurs #6

2010-09-06T00:11:00.000-05:00

Elijah making salt dough to make dinosaur fossils.

Salt dough recipe is
1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup warm water

Mixing the dough up.

Gotta get your hands in it to really mix it up.

Making a dinosaur fossil.

Elijah with his tray of fossils. He did some of footprints, heads, bones, skin, and even spikes.

We are still waiting for the fossils to dry so Elijah can paint them. This was a fun project!

Dinosaurs #5

2010-09-05T23:54:00.001-05:00

We also had a dinosaur egg. You place the egg in water and wait for it to hatch.

After a couple of days we had a baby dinosaur.

Dinosaurs #4

2010-09-05T23:49:00.000-05:00

I got Elijah a dinosaur egg where you have to chisel, dig and scrape to find a dinosaur.

He dug and dug on that egg for hours. It wasn't easy.

Really working hard.

All busted up. All that work only to find some tiny tiny dinosaur bones that wouldn't hold together to make a skeleton.

Dinosaurs #3

2010-09-05T23:34:00.000-05:00

Elijah decided to put his Dinosaur stuff in his animal notebook instead of making a lapbook.

On this page you can see the dinosaur on the outside of the fold and when you open it there is a description of that dinosaur. There are lots of booklets and folds on the notebook pages.

The orange pages below show meat eaters and the yellow pages show plant eaters.

I have more dinosaur post coming up. We did a lot with this unit.

Got the GOOD shot again!

2010-09-02T03:04:00.000-05:00

Sorry this is a little long....

Please pray I'm on the road to getting fixed! I'm so excited that I might be now starting the new meds that I need to get me on the road to feeling better. I'm also afraid to get my hopes up too.

Tuesday I woke up with a red splotchy face...all over! I was really so sick. I did go to our co-op orientation even though I felt so bad. I could have called in and the rest of the Advisory Council Ladies would have completely understood, but I wanted to go. I don't want to drop out of life.

I woke up with my face like that two weeks ago and I went in to see Dr. Altick. I've been seeing Altick for over two years now really regular, but I've only ever talked skin issues with him. He is fast in and out of the room so you say what you can before he is out the door. But I do like Jay. He has tried so many things with me and hasn't given up. My primary doctor gave up on me. Back to my face two weeks ago... He gave me a shot of dexamethasone and made me an appointment with a new allergist Dr. Giannobile (who I just loved, he is the complete opposite of another local allergy doc we have here.)

Dr. Giannobile was very thorough. He ordered a ton of blood work. I couldn't have the skin testing done because I take a lot of vistaril. And I was so glad, I didn't want to add scratches to my body, I have enough going on.

He called me the next Friday to ask if I have been tested for Lupus, my ana was + and my sed rate was high. Also something else that measure inflamation in your body was really high and he said as much prednisone I take I shouldn't have that inflamation. Then he said and when you were in the other day I noticed you have the malar rash on your face. (That malar rash comes and goes, sometimes it's bright red and sometimes it's faded and make up covers it up.) I told him my ana has been + and my sed rate has been high since 2007 at least. He said he would let me know when the rest of my test came back.

This Monday Dr. G called me three time. That man is so worried about me. The 3rd time he called he said "just promise me you are going to get your CBC rechecked." WOW I hope he stays that way and doesn't change when he get so busy with patients.

He first called to say I was allergic to dust, but he doesn't think that is what is causing my problem. He thinks the skin issue is all related with everything else I have going on. The second time he called he said he is sure I have lupus and we talked about Rheumotologist and finding me a new one.

Tuesday morning I woke up with my face the way it was two weeks ago. I was so miserable. My joints hurt so bad and I was stiff all over, I couldn't even turn my neck. After orientation I met up with Dr. Pam for tea. She decided I need to go back in to see Dr. Altick and get another dexamethasone shot just to get some relief for a couple of days.

So after a long miserable night of crying in pain I called at 8 am and got an appointment with Dr. A. The nurse asked how I liked Dr. G and we talked about that visit and his phone calls to me. She called and had them fax over blood work. I think Dr. A called Dr. G too. Something she said at one time when she came in the room sounded like they were on the phone.

Dr. A walked in the room and asked if I had heard of a drug called Plaquenil. (yes, I had, my Dr. Pam (a friend who is a nurse and her husband is a nurse) had researched and said she thought I needed to be on that. ) He started me on 400 mg of Plaquenil and in two weeks will start me on methotrexate shots. Again just what Dr. Pam had said.
He didn't want to start two new drugs at one time. So that is why he is waiting two weeks to start the shots.

As I went to check out I looked in my file to see what all he had written down. He wrote those plans down and under that he wrote Lupus. So he didn't give me the diagnosis of Lupus out loud to me, but that is what he is treating me for.

I also got the shot of dexamethasone today so that will give me some relief for the rest of this week. I might not sleep, but I won't be crying in pain, instead I'll be looking in the fridge. :tounge2:
I have a love/hate relationship with steriods.

I'm not hung up on getting a diagnosis, I just want a treatment that is going to help me feel better, even a little bit better.

So anyway, I hope I am on the road to getting better now! Told ya it was long!
Please pray I do get better and the sooner the better! :thumbup:

Dinosaurs #2

2010-08-29T23:42:00.001-05:00

Carefully sweeping away rocks and dirt.

Here is Elijah on Paleontologist day.

He uncovered a skull.


Elijah found a skill and two bones. Pedro watched carefully so	he can go out and dig for bones.

Dinosaurs #1

2010-08-29T23:14:00.000-05:00

Elijah and I have been doing a little unit study on dinosaurs. Well.... it started out as a little unit, but it has went on and on forever it seems. I'm so ready to move on to another topic, but I do believe Elijah has had fun learning all about dinosaurs.

In fact he had so much fun there will be several Dinosaur post in the next day or so.

On this day Elijah got out his toy dinosaurs and made name plates and set them up like a dinosaur museum

Wasted Trip

2010-08-29T00:41:00.003-05:00

Last Monday I had a doctor appointment with the Rheumotologist 2 hours away from home.

Thankfully Dakota wasn't busy so he was able to drive me over. I was so looking forward to this appointment because I knew I was going to be seeing the Nurse Practitioner. I figured she would listen to what I was saying and ask me questions and help figure out what needs to be done.

I had my hopes WAY to high! She was rude and crude just like the doctor. What did I expect, he trained her.

If I hadn't had to pay for a doctor visit, gas in the van, wear n tear on the van and my bald tires, ~~eating out~~... ummm scratch.... that eating out was the best part of the trip, this could have been a comedy!

She came in the room fussing at me. She said I was supposed to have sent some paper work from another doctor that I see. I told her this doctor said he didn't need it. She was going to set me straight. I just happened to have the letter in my notebook so I pulled it out and showed her. She said "Oh he must have forgot" and changed the subject.

She was no help at all. She was not happy that I had typed out a list of my symptoms. She said "I've never had a patient to give me a typed list of their symptoms." She kept saying stuff like "I don't even know what to do with this. How do you want me to address this?"

Her advice for me was that I need to go to counseling to find out why I hurt so bad! Wait! What? Yes, she really said that. This week while I was in Wal-Mart wondering how I was going to make it to the front of the store (I had made it to the back, sat down on a bench, sent the kids to get different things) and had tears welling up in my eyes from the pain and from embarrassment that I'm in this bad of shape I thought about what she said. I had a few words I'd like to have shared with her at that moment.

She also told me I need to get a sleep study done to find out why I can't sleep. Last night as I laid on the couch crying, moaning and yelling out from the pain every time I moved I almost laughed thinking of what a sleep study person would write down if they were watching me. Ummmm Lady can't sleep because she won't stop crying.

Also everything I asked her about she would say "You need to see your primary doctor for that."
Let me just go ahead and say when I ask the primary doctor he is going to say "You need to see the Reheumotologist for that." Who knew, I could be a doctor? I can say "You need to see ____ for that" every time I'm asked something I don't know.

She did say I have all the markers for Lupus and my ANA is +, but then she said it could be 10 years before you get the diagnosis.

They drew some blood and gave me a return appointment that I will be calling to cancel. I'm not going back over there. I'm sure I can find someone just as rude that won't listen to me right in my town.

For now I don't know what my plan is. I put in a call to my primary doctor's office the other day for prescription refill, but didn't hear back. My primary is actually out having back surgery so I expect to hear from his NP this next week. I'm also going to give the allergist a call and see if he got more of my test results in.

Oh I don't think I posted that the Allergist called me. He called and said they had some of the test in but not all. He wanted to know if I had been tested for Lupus. He said my ANA was + and my sed rate was really high. I'm told that every time I have blood work done. Then he said and when you were in the other day I noticed you have the malar rash on your face.

I really don't care if I don't get a diagnosis for anything, I just want relief so I can feel better!

Choir

2010-08-25T20:19:00.005-05:00

Our homeschool group has a wonderful choir program. Thank you JMB for heading up choir so that our children have this opportunity.

Dakota was in Master Works Choir from 1st grade to 9th grade then at that time the choir fell apart. Master Works Choir was made up of a mixture of homeschoolers, public and private school children. So the next year JMB stepped up and began the choir for our homeschool group. Dakota didn't join in at that time but did the next two years. So during Dakota's schooling years he missed one year of choir.

Elijah joined choir in the second grade. For 3rd grade he only did half a year (his choice) and over the summer he decided he wanted to join choir again. I'll be honest I tried to talk him out of it. Not that I don't think choir is a good thing, it is wonderful, but I am so unsure about my health and want to guard our commitments. He told me choir was something he really really wanted to do. SO.......

Today was the first day of choir for Elijah. He loved it. He did tell me there wasn't enough boys in his group, but he does have a friend in there who joined choir for the first time . He moved up to the next age group. Truth be told that's why he dropped out last year, he thought he was too old to be in with younger kids.

Here are a couple of pictures from a choir concert two years ago. Elijah's hair has grown so much since then!

YES, the bow ties are HUGE and YES all the boys hate the bow ties!

Rocky the Turtle

2010-08-22T13:45:00.005-05:00

Meet Rocky our turtle. Elijah got Rocky in September of 2007 as a back to school project. He is still small, but he has grown a lot over the years.

Rocky is very friendly and loves attention. You can see he is coming right up to see what I'm doing.

Rocky lives in our kitchen on this small filing cabinet. Every time someone walks in the kitchen he goes crazy wanting some attention. His tank could probably use some cleaning, but he hasn't complained yet.

He will eat from your hand and iff you snap your fingers he will follow you around.

We buy ReptoMin food at Wal-Mart to feed rocky. It has some little pellets and dried shrimp.

We just dump a little food in and Rocky starts munching down.

Sometimes Elijah takes Rocky outside for a walk.

If you are looking for an easy pet, a turtle might be the pet for you.

All Things Multiplication!

2010-08-20T18:09:00.008-05:00

We came to a stand still in math until Elijah learns his multiplication facts. He does know how to figure up the answers, but he needs to know the fact better without having to figure up the answer.

I knew I would get bored with plain ole flash cards so I created a fishing game. We have used this little rod and reel with a magnet on the end for so many games over the years.

Elijah fishing for multiplication fish. Elijah catches a fish and reads it and says the answer, if he doesn't know the answer he has to throw the fish back in the pond for another try.

Pedro had to take a roll in the fish pond.

Our multiplication fish.

I found this big ole fly swatter at Dollar Tree. I didn't know what I was going to use it for, but I had to have it.

I knew I'd come up with a game to use the big ole fly swatter for. I printed out some flies and wrote numbers on them. I call out a multiplication fact and Elijah swats the fly with the right answer. The fishing game and fly swatter game are so much more fun than plain ole flash cards.

I went through the school room and gathered up everything multiplication and put them in a drawer so we would have them handy.

I made the white dice out of laminated card stock. I'm able to write the facts that we are reviewing on them and then wipe em clean to change the facts.

I bought this multiplication square at a local teacher store. In the past I have made addition or subtraction balls using a beach ball or a big rubber ball. We throw them to each other and when you catch it you have to say the fact and answer closest to your right thumb. I like the balls much better than this square.

Multiplication lapbook from Homeschool Share.

We are on our way to learning our multiplication facts!

Pedro

2010-08-19T17:32:00.004-05:00

This is Pedro, our crazy Chihuahua that likes to get his picture made.

We took Pedro to the vet today and he has allergies. It runs in the family! He got an allergy shot that is supposed to last for 3 weeks. Ummm I do not want to have to take him to the vet every month to get an allergy shot! I do hope the poor dog can sleep tonight.

Since he got a shot the kids decided to take him to Pet Co for a prize. He got a new collar.
WAIT! I got a shot on Monday and blood drawn on Tuesday... where's my prize?

The photo was taken by Dakota.

I Love Legos

2010-08-18T15:42:00.009-05:00

This past week we have been having Lego school. Yes, Legos are educational!
Here is Elijah's Lego lapbook. He designed the front cover.

Elijah's vocabulary words were manufacture, granule, creative, and ingenuity. For Copy work Elijah copied some quotes from some very famous men in our history.

The yellow piece of card stock is taped on at the top to provide an extension.

We used Legos to make a graph, do some estimation and multiplication.

We learned who invented Legos, where he was from, when the first Lego was invented and what material it was made from. Also learned what Lego means in Danish and Latin.

Here are a few of Elijah's creations this week. I told him to pick his 4 favorite creations from the week.

My friend, Nicole, and her sweet children are working on their Lego lapbook this week. Check out their Lego fun.

This Lego lapbook came from Ami over at Walking by the Way. Thanks for sharing Ami.

Give Me That Shot Again!

2010-08-18T00:39:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I got a shot of dexamathasone. I wish I could get a shot of that every week. I've had such relief today.

It is a steroid which hypes you up and keeps you awake so I was unable to sleep all night, but at least I was NOT crying in pain.

This morning Dakota took me to the doctor. It was the allergist appointment the dermatologist set me up with yesterday. I loved the allergy doctor, he was very nice.
He wanted to do the skin test allergy testing on me, but since I take vistaril like candy he couldn't.
I was really glad though because I have enough going on with my skin and I don't think it would be a good idea to add scratches on purpose. So he sent me for lab work. Lots of pages listing out the lab test, the lab tech actually said "You have a book of test."
They will call with those results later on.

Next we ate some lunch before heading to Wal-Mart to get some groceries. I got some salad stuff. Then we headed to Target and got more prescriptions filled. For someone who hates taking meds I sure do have a collection of them sitting here on my desk.

The plan is to take it easy around here for rest of the week and through the weekend, get some school done and just enjoy life. Monday the kids and I will head to Shreveport for my Rheumatologist appointment.

I hope the affects from the shot will last a few days.

A Renewed Hope

2010-08-16T21:16:00.004-05:00

I had a very bad weekend that seemed to be getting worse by the minute. I was so glad when 8 AM rolled around this morning and I could call to get an appointment. The girl who answered the phone told me I couldn't come in today and I started crying. She asked me if it was an emergency and I said YES. She said I could come sit and get worked in.
I honestly felt like I needed to be in the hospital not just going in to the office.

When the doctor walked in the room he said "OH My God, What happened to you?" First off my face is very swollen and then Saturday I woke up with this red splotchy raised whelps all over my face and neck. It is like one big whelp but just running every where.

My skin is also flared up really bad. I'm so sick of this. I've dealt with this for so long with out any relief at times I feel like I can't go on any longer.

After being up all night crying in pain and spending the day at the doctor, who wrote on my paper once again contact dermatitis because he just doesn't know, and getting prescriptions filled I finally made it home, got a shower and went to bed. I cried and cried and called out to God for relief. I can not live like this. I feel so sick I feel each day could be my last day on earth.

When I woke up I came to my computer and googled a bunch of different stuff, but basically that I feel sick all over and doctors can't help. I came up with Candida yeast infection.

I'm going drastic! I've got to give it a try. I can not live like this another day. This will be very hard, but I'm going to give it a go. Please pray that I have the strength to keep this up so I can see if it makes a difference in my health.

I have been on high doses of prednisone for well over a year now and my readings tell me that can cause this infection in your body.

With Dakota's help we've came up a small list of foods I can eat. It's the middle of the month and grocery funds have already been spent on foods I can't eat, but I'm going to buy some salad stuff and start from there.

I have an appointment with an allergist Tuesday morning. I hope he has some ideas to help me. Next Monday I have an appointment with my rheumatologist in Shreveport. Actually I'll be seeing his NP and I'm looking forward to that because I know she will sit and listen and ask questions, not like the doctor who I feel like just sticks his head in the door for a few seconds.

I LOVE how God speaks to me and knows things I don't know a head of time. Last week I started to pay something I owe. I reached in my bag and touched the envelope I had the money in. I heard WAIT. I was ready to pay so I really didn't know why I should wait, but I did even though it felt strange. I didn't know I was going to get this sick and have two doctor visits this week. But Jesus did. I was already wondering how I was going to have gas money and doctor plus prescription money for the rheumatologist in Shreveport next week, which happens to fall two days BEFORE payday. Now I've added two doctor visits and the 4 prescriptions from today. I don't know if there will be more prescriptions tomorrow.

Dakota is googling recipes for me right now. I love that kid! When payday rolls around he'll help me buy some foods I can eat.

So far in this horrible journey the only thing that has made me feel even a little bit better is when I'm in the bed so sick I can't get up and Elijah comes in to lay down with me for a few minutes and he prays for me. That is so precious to me. I hate that my child has to worry about me and pray for me like he does, but I love it when he does pray for me.

Even though I have two more doctor appointments coming up I don't have hope for answers from them, I'm going anyway... just in case! But I'm feeling a renewed hope in trying this candida/sugar free food list.
Please, yes, I'm begging you, pray for me to be able to stick to this for at least a couple of weeks to see if I can tell a difference in my health. Thanks friends.

Gosh I have rambled on and on....

One Step Away

2010-08-15T23:57:00.003-05:00

Dakota sent me this picture and said we are one step away from this being us.

Elijah and Reading

2010-08-14T19:02:00.006-05:00

Elijah has never enjoyed reading. I thought he was a struggling reader forever. Finally Dr. Bryan at the College, who is over the Literacy Clinic told me Elijah CAN read, he just don't WANT to.
I'd thought I'd never see him reading for pleasure.

Over the past few months he has been researching stuff online and reading about it. Mostly about animals he would like to own or sometimes something he saw on TV and wants to know more about it. I've been happy to see him doing that.

Just this month I made him a calendar reading chart. I told him each night if he reads a book or some of a book if it's a chapter book he can put a sticker on the chart. At the end of the month we will see how much he read and decide on a prize. It'll probably be something Lego. So far he has made 11 out of 14 days!

A while back Elijah bought a book, with his own money because I wouldn't buy it, A Practical Guide to Dragons. He said he read it, but I wasn't sure if he REALLY read it. I never looked at the book. I'm not into dragons and don't care to know anything about dragons.

The other night while in Books A Million Elijah found another dragon book he wanted. I looked at the book, pages and pages of sentences, 146 pages to be exact, very few pictures. I said "Elijah, you won't read this." He assured me he would read it. I went a head and bought the book because it was only $2.97, but I had my doubts about him reading it.

Once in the van he got his book out of the bag. A few minutes later I noticed he was using the light from his cell phone to read. I motioned for Dakota to look, we were both shocked. We made our way over to the grocery store and Elijah didn't want to get out because "I just got to a good part!" My heart was smiling so big! Elijah was finally reading for pleasure. For the record I did make him get out and go in with us.

Here is a snippet I found online about the book Elijah is reading.
Seventeen short selections that will appeal to lovers of dragons, fantasy, and folktales. A broad range of writing styles and plot twists are pulled together to provide readers with something fresh in each tale. Excerpts from classic novels such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and short stories such as Kenneth Grahame's "The Reluctant Dragon" are included. In addition, there are folktales from China, Italy, and Germany. Most of the heroes are men, but occasionally children are the only ones who can outsmart the dragon. In "Li Chi Slays the Serpent," it is a young girl who conquers the beast. Hague's beautiful full-page watercolors reflect the different moods of the stories and the temperaments of the dragons depicted. A pen-and-ink drawing of a dragon announces each new selection; delicately detailed line drawings appear throughout. The combination of well-selected stories and excerpts and dramatic artwork make The Book of Dragons a fine addition to library collections.?

Elijah also has this Dragonology book that he enjoys pouring over.

Like I said, I'm not into dragons, don't even care to read about dragons, but sometimes we do stuff for our kids even though we don't enjoy it. Elijah has a high interest in them right now so I'm creating a lapbook for him about dragons. I hope to get it done so he can make his lapbook next week. Stay tuned for lapbook pictures.

Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches

2010-08-08T20:48:00.009-05:00

Yes, we have Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches as pets, doesn't everyone? Their names are Mr. Hiss and Mrs. Hisser.

We have finished 4 days of school and it seems to be going well. This evening Elijah completed his lapbook on his cockroaches.

Here is a picture of the lapbook open.

You can see the different booklets and flaps open with information on the inside.

There is a close up of Elijah holding his pets.

This is a picture of Mrs. Hisser going through a Lego maze that Elijah built. He used the stop watch on his phone to time them making their way through the maze.
On day one it took Mr. Hiss 1 minute and 13 seconds and Mrs. Hisser 1 minute and 6 seconds.
Then on day two it took Mr. Hiss 46 seconds and Mrs. Hisser whipped through the maze in 30 seconds.

This is where Mr. Hiss and Mrs. Hisser live. They mostly stay under that piece of egg carton during the day. At night they come out and climb all over the little cage.

This was a fun lapbook and study. Elijah is so proud of his lapbook, I hope I can do more with his this school year.

You can get this lapbook and many more fun lapbooks from Homeschool Share.

2010 - 2011 School Year

2010-08-07T00:21:00.004-05:00

We have officially started our new school year! We really school year round, but we have taken off several weeks due to having company and other things going on.

I'm back to homeschooling only one this year. Dakota was 8 when Elijah was born so it's been about 10 years since I've had only one to focus on. This year is all about Elijah as last year seemed to be about Dakota and his senior year.

I've never been a serious have to do school or we'll be behind kind of teacher. I love homeschooling year round so we can take off when we want to and have family days when Jody is off.

Last year was a pretty bad year for me as I was so sick and most days couldn't even get out of bed. I'm still in that shape, but I've came up with a plan. I am a hands on, unit study, lapbook and notebooking kind of teacher, but with my health problems I'm just not able to school like I want to. At one point last year I really wondered how much longer I was going to be around so I made the decision to get Elijah some Spectrum workbooks from Books A Million. He was able to work in these books even if I couldn't get out of bed. And I felt better knowing he was doing something.

So this year I wanted to have a plan. Plan A for my sick days and plan B for my better days. I asked Elijah to help me come up with school plans.

First we decided our school days will be
Sunday - school
Monday - school
Tuesday - family day
Wednesday - co-op
Thursday - school
Friday - school
Saturday - free day

This schedule will start in August. Even though we have started school this month we have a lot of unusual events going on so we are just schooling on the days we don't have scheduled for other things.

After having a long Wednesday this past week I'm wondering if I should have Thursday as a free day so I can recoop after co-op and have Saturday as a school day. I guess I'll see how it goes, thankfully I can always change things up to what works best for us.

Next we came up with a list of goals for Elijah.
1. learn his multiplication facts better
2. read every day
3. get his formula and hook up to his pump by himself
4. learn cursive
5. memorize 10 Bible verses
6. train his dog, maybe take classes at Pet Smart
7. more art
8. learn to tie shoes
9. practice counting money
10. practice telling time

We came up with a list of FIAR books we want to row.
1. Salamander Room
2. Owl Moon
3. Snowflake Bentley
4. Daniel's Duck
5. Truman's Aunt Farm
6. Follow The Drinking Gourd
7. The Giraffe that Walked to Paris
8. The Glorious Flight
9. Night of the Moon jellies
10. Mailing May
11. Who Owns the Sun
12. Papa Piccolo

Unit Studies
1. Pirates
2. Zoo
3. Magnets
4. Birds
5. Dinosaurs
6. Butterflies
7. Human Body
8. Detectives
9. Night of the Museum

Lapbooks
1. Madagascar Cockroaches
2. Legos
3. Arthur Meets the President
4. snakes
5. worms
6. oil spill
7. astronaut adventures
8. bears
9. mammals
10. frogs
11. soccer
12. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Topics of interest
1. bull sharks and tiger sharks
2 Battle of Vicksburg
3. any war
4. bats

Elijah also decided he wants to learn about American History.

So on the days that I am too sick to do school Elijah can use his Spectrum workbooks and on my better days we will do lapbooks, notebooking and unit studies.

The Pain Behind The Smile

2010-08-06T22:25:00.004-05:00

When I'm out and about I try to smile and not complain about my health. Gosh I do enough of that at home anyway. I really just don't want to be a downer around people so I just smile and struggle through.

That might be confusing for some though. I really am sick and it is so hard to do things I really want to do.

The Savella does help. It takes the edge off, but it does not take the pain completely away.

We had co-op registration the other day, 9am - 3pm. That was a long hard day for me. By the end of the day I was in so much pain I got in the van and cried. We did have a heat issue too and heat always makes me feel worse. That night my skeleton and muscles hurt so bad I laid there and cried. Jody said even when I did doze off I was whimpering like a dog.

I knew the registration day were coming so I upped my prednisone in hopes that it would help me get through the next few weeks. I don't think it worked!

I spent Thursday in the bed barely able to move. Guess what Thursday was our first day of school too. HA I have a design to where Elijah can still do some school even on my bad days.

Anyway many people ask me how I am and I always say okay, but the truth is if you think about me please say a prayer for me. Some days are almost unbearable. I am so thankful for the days where I can at least get up and out.

Along with the Fibromyalgia I have also been diagnosed with Sjogrens syndrome and Connective Tissue Disease. My test for Lupus have also came back pos 4 times. I go back to the doctor August 23 so we'll see if he has more to say about that.

I thank my family for being understanding and putting up with me. I hate being like this and wish I could do all that I really want to do. If only my body could keep up with my brain!

Science

2010-08-03T18:57:00.005-05:00

I love it that Elijah makes his own science learning. He found some eggs about a month ago, but didn't know what kind of eggs they were. He carefully placed them in a container and has been "taking care" of them.

Today he discovered they hatched. Six five lined skinks. I had no idea they were called five lined, but that's what Elijah said. I googled and he was right.

He is so proud of his skinks.

Planning for the new school year!

2010-07-26T12:05:00.007-05:00

I've spent days and days planning out our school year and now I'm exhausted.

Elijah will be in the 4th grade this year. I guess I should step it up and make some real homeschool plans.

I bought a brand new teacher lesson planning book. Gathered my materials and sat down pouring over everything. Planning is hard work, but very rewarding.

After days of fretting over everything this is what I've came up with:

Elijah will be using Facebook for spelling and writing.
Watch all 6 Star Wars movies for science and watch Mythbusters.
The Abeka demo CD for tracing circles to make art.
Cleaning house for home EC.
Watch Night of The Museum I and II for history.
Staying up all night Thanksgiving night, standing in lines to shop on Black Friday for survival skills.
Play video games for hand eye coordination.
Shop at Wal-Mart in the middle of the night for math.
Watch Anthony Bourdain for health and geography.
Play Wii for PE.
We will also be going to co-op once a week so we can cover that pesky thing called socialization.

Looking forward to a GREAT school year!

Lots happening, just haven't blogged

2010-07-16T01:41:00.004-05:00

We really do have a lot of stuff going on in our lives. I sometimes feel so down I feel like I don't have anything to blog about, but I know that's not true, there is always something going on here.

I've had a few bad days in a row and it has been a struggle to do things that I needed to get done. I don't know what I'd do if it weren't for Dakota. He is such a big help to me. He has always been like that. Lately though Elijah has stepped up and even ask "is there anything you need me to do?" Dakota is a great example to Elijah.
I'm so blessed!

Tomorrow we will be going to Jackson MS to pick up a homeschool friend from California. KK (her name is Kayla too) is going to be spending 11 days with us. Her mom, Tina, and I have been friends on the internet for 12 years, but we've never met. We are excited to have KK come visit us. I hope she can put up with us for 11 days!

The blog challenge... I don't think Elijah has blogged any this month. Dakota has some, but I'm not sure how much, but I WILL win, even if I have to put up 20 post on the 30th! LOL

Toy Story 3

2010-07-02T22:52:00.003-05:00

Today we went to the mall and saw Toy Story 3. It was a really good movie. I could have cried at the end if I hadn't been so hot and ready to get out of that theater.

As I watched the movie I thought about Dakota. He was just a little guy when the first Toy Story came out. He had to have a Woody, Buzz and a Bullseye. He loved those toys and played with them all the time. Of course he outgrew them, but watching the movie I realized he has outgrown all his toys, even Legos. Then I realized Elijah is 10 and before I know it he will have outgrown his toys. He already thinks he is too old for most things I think he should like.

Dakota grew up way too fast and I'm not ready for Elijah to grow up. I want to capture and enjoy every minute and not miss anything.

Blogging Challenge

2010-07-01T00:56:00.003-05:00

My guys, Dakota and Elijah, and myself have a blogging challenge going on for the month of July. We are going to try to blog every day. We can blog more than once a day if we want to. At the end of the month we will see who has blogged the most and that person will win $1 for every blog post they made. I have made it very clear that it has to be some typing and not just posting a picture.
My sneaky way of getting Elijah to write and making sure Dakota does continue to write. I want to blog, but other things just get in the way. We'll see how I do this month.

Hey look I'm two post up on em already! HAHA

I want off this roller coaster!

2010-07-01T00:40:00.004-05:00

An update on my health.

On my bad days I can hardly get out of bed. I hurt so bad. I know my kids get tired of seeing me crying all the time.

This week I upped my Prednisone and I'm seeing some improvement. At least I'm getting around.
I hate being on Prednisone, but I just can't live without it.
I hate the way it makes me hungry all the time too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWO30gdpK4
I'm also taking Vistaril like candy and that keeps me groggy. Savella is helping just enough to take the edge off.

The heat is a big killer for me too. Any heat makes me feel worse and if I sweat I pay the price later.

Please keep praying for a healing.

Lapbook - Goodnight Moon

2010-05-24T22:10:00.003-05:00

Lapbook - Cells

2010-05-24T22:10:00.002-05:00

Lapbook - September 11th, 2001

2010-05-24T22:10:00.001-05:00

Lapbook - Hawaii - Elijah

2010-05-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Lapbook - Thanksgiving - Elijah

2010-05-24T22:09:00.000-05:00

Dakota's Senior Ring

2010-05-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

I was so thrilled they were able to put Bristle Ridge Academy on the ring. They had told us it would have to say Homeschool and we were fine with that, but I really wanted our school name.

This side has a house with a cross and a bible and it says Dakota.

As you can see this side has a fleur de lis and 2010.

Dakota's Senior Picture

2010-04-11T21:12:00.003-05:00

I still can't believe Dakota is a senior this year. I've had almost a whole school year to get used to that, but I still don't know how this happened so quickly. Mama's cherish every moment, those babies will be grown before you know it.

Dakota has been so busy with work, this year has flown by.

Happy Easter

2010-04-11T21:05:00.004-05:00

I'm late in posting Easter pictures, but I did want to share these pictures of Elijah.
It's almost a miracle we got these pictures. Elijah is not fond of getting pictures made nor is he fond of props.

Redneck Kid

2010-03-08T21:42:00.003-06:00

This morning Elijah was doing his math on the computer then our electricity went out so he grabbed his 410 and took off out side to go "bird hunting."
He ended up killing 3 birds. It's a good thing we live in the woods, I don't think this boy could live in the city.

Lazy School

2010-03-08T21:34:00.004-06:00

This a picture of Elijah doing his math. He pulls his keyboard out just enough where he can reach the number pad to put in the answers.

About a month or so ago I ordered him Teaching Textbooks 4. Best move I've ever made. He don't love math, but he don't complain about doing this math. He works the problems in his math book then puts his answer in the computer to see if he got it right. I can go in and look at the lesson to see how many he missed.

This math program is a little pricey, but I think it was worth every penny.

I don't know to laugh or cry

2010-02-15T23:03:00.000-06:00

I went to the Rheumatologist today. But before I share I want to recap that Dr. Rutherford that I have been seeing told me I was out of his league and I had to find another doctor. Remember that part.

He had obiviously reviewed my files from 2007 before the appointment because he kept referring to how I was then compared to now and after x rays he noted changes from my last x rays.

So I started out telling him how bad I feel and how my bones, joints and muscles hurt. He asked what I was taking for the fibromyalgia and I told him nothing, but shared that I had tried Lyrica and told him about the swelling it caused. He wrote down two meds on a post it note and handed it to me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I was thinking Target isn't going to take this. Then he said to tell my doctor that I need one of these meds. I told him my doctor said I was out of his league and I should find a new doctor.

Then I told him about my skin and everything I've tried and showed him what shape my skin is in. We talked about the prednisone. He didn't really seem to care that I have been on the prednisone for so long. I told him I wanted to get off of it, but he didn't comment.

He had me to get up on the table and he did a thorough exam and noted that I had some swollen joints, which is surprising since I've been on prednisone.. He also said it is hard to examine someone with firbromyalgia because of how tender they are. I can't help that, every touch hurts.

I told him my ana has came back positive 3 times now and he said it always will. I asked him what that meant and he said something I don't understand about antibodies and arthritis and lupus. So I asked him about lupus and he said Dr. Rutherford would know if I had lupus or not. I told him I believe Dr. Rutherford wanted me to see someone else for that.

Then he sent me to x rays and they x rayed every bone in my body.

Back to the room and he came in to look at x rays. He noted some arthritis, but not as much as he had feared. He said my spine doesn't curve correctly. My muscles in my neck and across my shoulders are stretched tight. The muscles are also like that in my lower back and rear. The tight stretched muscles are painful.

He said he was going to order blood work and send the results to Dr. Rutherford.
Dr. Rutherford has already done his own blood work and decided I needed to see someone else.
So I repeated that Dr. Rutherford said I was out of his league and to find a new doctor. This didn't faze him because he continued to say once he got the blood work back he would write up a report and send it to Rutherford, but he should have it in about two weeks.

Then he was standing handing me my file and told me I needed to reduce my stress as he shook my hand and left.

My next stop was the lab where they drew 8 tubes of blood.

I feel like I wasted a day, gas, wear and tear on my van driving over there and my $$$. And to top it off, Jody took off a day of work to take me over there.
He didn't tell me anything, nor did he give me any prescriptions and he is going to send the results to a doctor who said I was out of his league. I have no idea where this leaves me.

SNOW

2010-02-13T23:44:00.008-06:00

Yes, we got snow in Louisiana.

We were excited to go out and play in the snow. Okay I didn't play, but I did walk out there for a few minutes. It was so pretty.

That morning when we woke up and saw all the snow Elijah said "It's so pretty, just like Narnia."

I was so happy my boys got to go out and play in snow.

This is something Elijah has been wanting to do his whole life.

Dakota has seen snow before, but it was still nice to play in it again.

Dakota will be using this bridge and pond for photography pictures, too bad it won't have snow. I think the snow around the pond would have been some awesome pictures with a family standing on that bridge.

I did not expect this much snow, it was a nice surprise.

I remembered having snow ice cream when I was a kid so I googled a recipe, made sure we had some rice milk for Elijah and sent the boys out to get some clean snow. It turned out pretty good.

Praying for answers

2010-02-13T10:00:00.004-06:00

I have an appointment with a Rheumatologist on Monday in Shreveport. I hope to get answers and some type of treatment plan.

I did see this Rheumatologist back in 2007. He diagnosed me with firbromyalgia and connective tissue disease back then. Also my ana test had came back positive then.
So after I made this appointment he sent me a letter saying they need to test for lupus.

Lupus has came up a lot here lately. I do have the classic symptoms. My ana has came back positive 3 times now.

All I know is that I am sick and feel so bad. Some days the pain is unbearable. Prednisone is the only thing keeping me going the little that I am able to do, but I need to get off the Prednisone... it's killing me. The bad news is Prednisone seems to be used commonly to treat lupus. :(

I just want a treatment plan so I can start feeling better. I'm sick of feeling this way. I miss doing things that I'm no longer able to do.

Am I going to get better? Some days I feel hopeless. I worry about my kids, Dakota will be 18 next week, but Elijah is only 10, he needs his mom.

Please pray that I get answers and a treatment plan so I can function and be able to do things I want to do.
Thanks friends

He is serious.

2010-01-24T22:01:00.000-06:00

I think Dakota is serious about this photography thing. This is what he had put on the back of my van a few weeks ago.

He is doing good, keeping steady business. He always has pictures to edit. There has got to be some trick to editing faster, but he hasn't found it yet.

He now has a studio set up at the house next door to us. And he has a field and a pond for an outside studio.

Would appreciate prayer

2010-01-22T22:44:00.003-06:00

I went to the doctor today. I figured we would try something new and I had high hopes for something to give me relief. I was so disappointed with the out come of today's appointment.

He told me I was out of his league and I needed to find another doctor.

I'm already in so much pain and just feeling horrible so I've been down, but tonight I am really feeling down and feel like there is no hope for me.

I'm trying to look into all my options and praying that the Lord shows me what I need to do.

Fractions

2010-01-10T18:17:00.004-06:00

Today Elijah and I went over fractions. He has done some fraction work in a workbook before, but I wanted to do some hands on fraction learning.

So I had him to draw 4 pizzas, which is kind of funny since he has never had pizza. He really didn't know what went on a pizza so we talked about that and decided to make 4 different pizzas, peperoni, mushroom, bell pepper and olives.

Elijah cut the pizzas out.

Then I told him he needed a whole pizza, one pizza cut in half, one pizza cut in thirds and the last pizza cut in fourths.
Then I wrote fractions on the white board and had him to show me using the pizza pieces that he made.

We learned that the denominator of a fraction tells how many equal sized pieces something is divided into. And that the numerator of a fraction tells how many pieces of the denominator there are.

Tomorrow we are going to use our pizza pieces and compare fractions to decide what is larger and what is equal. We may even add some fractions.

Baby, It's Cold!

2010-01-08T22:43:00.003-06:00

It is 19 degrees right now and believe me, we are not used to this kind of cold.

Our old house does not have any heat other than a couple of plug in electric heaters that we bought from Wal-Mart and with temps like this these heaters aren't doing anything.

This week the kids and I have been closing off the school room and the kitchen and only trying to heat those two rooms. We use the two electric heaters and turn the oven on and open the door. After several hours we can get it warm enough. But when Jody comes home he opens up the living room and dinning room and all our efforts seem useless. We can get two rooms fairly warm, but it's not enough to warm up 4 rooms.

We do keep the playroom and bedrooms closed off. It's really cold back there, but we don't go to that part of the house unless we are getting in the bed or really really need something. Dakota went back there a few minutes ago and the clock said it was 38 degrees back there.

Anyway I'm not complaining, okay, I'd really like for it to warm up, but I do enjoy the kids and I locked in the two rooms spending the day together talking, laughing and picking on each other. I get warm fuzzy feelings just from the closeness that I feel with my kids. I LOVE spending time with my kids and I feel like my days are numbered with this being Dakota's last year of homeschooling. So for now I like us being stuck in the same room together.

Back to School

2010-01-07T00:24:00.005-06:00

We started back to school today. It wasn't a pretty day! I really try to find fun stuff and keep things hands on as much as possible so I really don't understand Elijah trying to find ways to get out of school.

Today, first I had him do a quick workbook page that took him about 4 minutes. As soon as he finished he asked if he could take a break. WHAT? 4 minutes of school and you need a break?
That did not set well with me. All morning he worked harder at trying to get out of school than he did at any of his work.

I had found a short (like 3 minute) video online about snow that I wanted him to watch. I start the video. He starts to watch, but then starts talking and asking me can he turn a game on at his computer, but he won't play it yet. That did not set well with me at all! I blew up, we both cried.
I don't know what his problem was, but I bet it doesn't show up tomorrow.

We did continue with school and it did turn out alright, I just hate we had the blow up.

BEFORE the big blow up Elijah made a pyramid out of sugar cubes. I had wanted him to do this when we finished our Egypt unit, but it was really hard to find a box of sugar cubes around town.

The finished pyramid.
We also worked with money today and started a new creative writing book.

Christmas 09

2009-12-27T15:36:00.007-06:00

The boys put our tree up several weeks ago. We have been known to put up to 13 trees up, but not this year. One was just fine.

Cookie Day!

The boys had a cookie making day. Dakota made sugar cookies and Elijah made rice cookies.

Elijah and his cookies.

Dakota and his cookies.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-27T14:55:00.003-06:00

We have had a very Merry Christmas.