What I'm.....

Reading:

The Bible (New American)

{At my rate I'll be lucky to get it finished before my children are married.}

Working On:

 A customized entertainment center for the basement. 

{ok, piece of junk that I'm refinishing}

Can't wait to have that basement done with!

Thinking:

{I only get to pick one? hmmmm...}

Mostly, I'm SO. DARN. TIRED.

Enjoying:

Listening to Liam sing, "Can't catch me, I gin-bread man!"

Wanting:

A silhouette machine. I have not stopped fantasizing about it since I first heard about it. 

It's like THE must have if you're a serious crafter! I think it does everything but cook dinner. 

If you're not a crafter, you just wouldn't understand!

How about you? What's up with you this week?

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Worst Cake EVER!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

I know some may never have guessed it, 

but I am indeed Irish, with the name Kelly and a son Liam......LOL! 

Hope you're wearing your green today. You don't want to get pinched!!

My two leprechauns are having so much fun celebrating!

      

Of course, I made sure we are all wearing our green. 

We started the day by reading a book about St. Patrick's Day. 

Here are some of our favorites:

         

                                                

We especially *love* that the leprechaun's name is Liam!

After reading some stories, Julian and Liam began counting something

 {I forget what now, but that's not important}.

 Liam has been counting 1-13 and then skipping to 18 and then counting to 20.

{ we've been working on that}

 Julian decided he was going to count to 100. 

I was so proud that he only needed help remembering some of the names for numbers like 50, 60, 70. 

I had printed out a hundreds chart for him the other day so we reviewed all the numbers he was having trouble remembering. 

Then I had him color the numbers in the tens. 

Now, in a classroom, when you do an activity, 

you hope that your students notice that there is a pattern in doing this

 {all the tens numbers are in a straight line down}. 

I'm proud to say that Julian immediately noticed and said,

 *That's how you count by 10s,*

and then began rattling them off like he'd known them forever.

 He remembers it now and has been walking around all day counting by 10s to 100. 

HOORAY!

So, I had seen this cake on Pioneer Lady's website and thought,

 *OMG, how cute! Wouldn't this be the cutest St. Patty's Day cake??*

So, I had bought white cake mix at Aldi's.

I love Aldi's. They're cheap, it's not crowded, and did I mention,

 they're CHEAP??!!

I have loved MOST things we buy there. 

Do you see where this is going??

Well, it wasn't the taste of the cake that was wrong.

What was wrong was that they cake was WAY TO0 MOIST!!

Normally, one shouldn't be complaining about moist cake.

*HOWEVER*

 when you're trying to stack six layers of cake and it's falling apart in your hands, you have a problem! 

OOPS!!

Just look at this disaster! 

Can we all agree that this is just 

*12 kinds of ugly???!!!!*

So, as I'm mourning over my disaster, two cute little leprechauns walk in the kitchen and say,

*That's the best cake EVER!*

{I love those two!}

'Cause I'm Cool Like That!

**I was awarded the coolest mom and best wife in the world award.**

{Go 'head, be jealous!}

Here's Why:

Can you guess where we are?

I arranged a field trip for our home school group to get a behind the scenes tour of 

Joe Louis Arena!

We were all {ok, mostly husband} were so excited to go!

We walked through the players entrance,

touched the ice, sat on the zamboni, saw the visitors locker room,

sat on the visitors bench, saw the Red Wings locker room, 

and had full access to the Comerica Executive Suite!

{and I'm sure that's the last time we'll ever see it, too!}

Field Trips have to be one of the best parts about homeschooling!

If you hang a wreath for your wife......

....she'll ask you to get out the box of St. Patrick's Day stuff.
You'll go up to the attic to get that box, but just can't seem to find it.
Then your wife will take a look for herself at that attic and realize what a HUGE mess it is.

When she sees that mess, she'll ask you to start taking all the boxes out of the attic to reorganize it.
When the attic is all cleaned out, your wife will have a great idea that includes moving some storage from the basement to the attic and moving attic boxes to the basement.
When you look at the storage room in the basement, your wife will realize that the storage room needs some reorganizing as well.
And after five hours of moving boxes and reorganizing your wife will say.............

....."Thank you, sweetie. You've made me a very happy lady!" Thanks Botata! xoxo

Rummel's Top 10 of 2010

Here's looking back at 2010!

10. Getting a Pool- Can I just say Best. 50. Bucks. We. Ever. Spent. Our entire summer revolved around our pool. We had a blast swimming and having fun all summer. Julian even taught himself how to swim under water by himself.

9. Homeschool Group- I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to homeschool Julian this year. I didn't know anything about homeschooling. I wanted to join a group, but I was a little intimidated thinking about my own stereotypes of homeschooling families. I am so grateful that I found FUH. They have been a great support group and we have made lots of new friends.

The kids of FUH in a jail cell while on our field trip to the Van Buren Police Department.

8.Julian's Beatles Birthday- How cool that my 4 year old loves the Beatles so much he wanted that as his theme for his party. I have to say making his cake took a lot of time, but it was a lot of fun. He was so geeked to see the finished product. And you know, no Beatles party is complete without playing Beatles Rock Band and getting a yellow submarine for a present!

7.Couponing- Learning how to coupon and save money had been essential in me being able to stay home this year. I never realized before how many things are free at our local stores. I have saved hundreds of dollars in the last few months. We were even able to cut our Christmas spending by 75% this year as compared to other years.

6. Engagements- Love is in the air around here. First, we were beyond excited to find out that Mark's brother Matt was engaged to Lindsay. Then my dearest friend Bree and Andy. Then my mom and Chuck. A few weeks later my cousin Beth announced her engagement as well! Lots of weddings to look forward to in 2011!

My mom and Chuck

5. Toy Story 3- OK, I know it seems really silly. But, thanks to Grandma Taylor we were invited to a special preview of Toy Story 3 on opening night. It was nice that Mark and I were able to do something special with just Julian. I swear that movie changed his life! It has taken over our house....literally. Everything we did this year revolved around TS3. I know in the future we'll be looking back at this time in our life and how engrossed our lives were in this movie.

4. Susan G. Komen 3-day Walk- I spent most of the year fundraising $2300 for this walk. It was something I had always thought about doing and I finally had the guts to sign up and go for it. I'm proud to say I raised my money and began the walk. Unfortunately, my foot and ankle didn't want to cooperate so I didn't get to walk all 60 miles, but I got to walk most of the first day and the last few miles on the last day to the finish line. I'm still proud that I was able to raise so much money (thanks to all of you) for breast cancer research and programs. It was a great experience.

Bree and I at the opening ceremony

3. Leaving Work- In May I finally made the decision to take a leave from work for a year. I am beyond thankful that Mark was so supportive. This has been the best year of my life. I don't think there is one thing that I will ever regret about this decision.

2. Pennsylvania Vacation- This year we took our first REAL family vacation. We spent a week in New Jersey and PA going to the kids favorite place, Sesame Place. We made so many wonderful memories and I will always cherish that time we had together.

Sesame Place, Langhorne, PA.

1. LIAM IS OFF ALL MEDS! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Liam has been on medicine for acid reflux since he was 3 weeks old. The Dr. said that kids usually get off the meds. between 6 mo. and 1 year. Although we had tried many times, he clearly was not ready then. Liam also had some breathing problems for awhile that required twice a day breathing treatments, which he fought tooth and nail each and every single time. He was also having frequent ear infections. Last December he got tubes, and everything changed. At one point in his life, he was on 8 different meds. a day! After the tubes, there were no more ear infections and he no longer had any breathing problems. It wasn't until October of this year that he was able to successfully get off his medicine for reflux. It's been over 2 years and Mark and I couldn't be happier to watch our healthy boy thrive! And, he sleeps now!!!! {I think I hear the chorus of angels singing now}

Hard to image this happy guy being so sick all the time.

I'm excited to see what 2011 has in store for us!!!

Merry Christmas!

2010 Christmas Card?

Slideshow design customized with Smilebox

Announcement: My Child is 4 and Does Not go to Preschool!

So when I took a year off this year and decided I was going to keep the boys home with me, I never realized what interesting questions my children and I would be subjected to. People (strangers, mostly nosy mothers) will approach Julian at the playground or wherever, and ask him how old he is. When they find out that he's 4, the next question is, does he go to preschool. Then when he replies no, I get a funny look from said nosy mother. Then I feel like I have to go into this big explanation that he was in preschool last year and I'm a teacher and he's at home with me this year since I took a year off work. Really I didn't think that there was going to be this "stigma" that my child's not in PRESCHOOL!

So, I was venting about this to my husband and a friend this evening as we were leaving to go meet my family for dinner at a restaurant. Well, sure enough, end of dinner, the waitress comes over to the table and begins talking with Julian. Here's how the conversation goes:

Waitress: How old are you?
J: 4
W: Do you go to preschool?
J: No
W: Do you want to go to preschool?
J: No. I just go to church school.

Now, in my mind I'm going,  "WTF, here we go again." But this time I decide not to say anything because I really don't have to defend my choices to my waitress! Oh and when she asked if he wanted to go to preschool, I just wanted to say, "Oh, 'cause you're going to pay for it and send him there?"

So here comes the justice! Waitress comes over again and Julian's drawing in his notebook. She's talking to him and he's drawing and he makes some sort of picture for her. Mark says, "Why don't you write her name on it." She had just told us her name was Rhonda, so without hesitation or a moment of thought, Julian wrote, R-U-N-D-A. To which, of course, she was stunned. Then he proceeded to write his first and last name.
By this time, she said, "Wow! You're mommy sure works with you! You really don't need preschool!" Then he proceeded to write- mom, dad, Liam, Marln (Marilyn), and Pop (Pop-Pop).

I can only hope he continues doing this every time someone begins this dreaded conversation!