Time to post

I have no idea how people have the time to keep up their blogs! I myself have been struggling with time management or getting done everything I need/want to get done in a given week. But I do realize that I haven't posted in ages and thought I better update everyone before heading down to the treadmill for my 4 1/2 mile run. Right now I am training for a half marathon. I will be heading down to Florida (Walt Disney World to be exact) to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon the first weekend of March. I will be running with at least two of my friends..possibly more. My friend Jaime from Maine will be joining me and my friend Jane from Colorado will be joining me also! I am very excited to see both of them but I haven't been able to see Jane since they flew the KY coop over 4 years ago! I am looking forward to this time and obviously preparing to run the half marathon takes quite a bit of my time since I am not an overly fast runner. I run about a 12 minute mile though I do hope to get it to the 11ish mark.

Homeschooling seems to take a LOT of my time also. I am really enjoying the time that I have with Mackenzie and love to see how much she is learning. She is doing well and it makes me happy to see her growing and being challenged. I don't have the answer to how long we will do this...though I am leaving that up to her at the moment. If she wants to homeschool again next year, than I plan on doing it again next year. She is pretty proud that she got a question right on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader."

Ainsley is loving being in school and when I am available I volunteer in her class. Sometimes that is every week for a couple of hours and sometimes it just depends on whether I have a sitter. She loves her teacher A LOT as do I. She is a great teacher and the kids in the class are pretty good. They just had a Polar Express day yesterday which involved LOTS of cool things like hot chocolate, wearing pajamas to school, getting bells on their desks and watching the movie:)

Ellie is doing ok. We have had a few health issues and concerns in the last couple of months. She has been complaining of headaches so we finally got an MRI of her head last Friday. The doctor called to let us know that everything turned out fine, except that she has some opacification in her maxillary sinus'. She put her on an antibiotic to clear up any possible sinus infection that she might have and has sent us on the the ENT. She will see the ENT this afternoon after school. She has been having quite a few tantrums, enough that I don't like to take her out very often. So that has been difficult for me. She has speech weekly, OT and PT on a every few months rotation and various other doctor's appts, so she keeps me hopping. She is doing pretty well with preschool though starting up with the tantrums a bit again. Not sure if she is regressing or if her behavior is cyclical based on the fall season...we really have no idea. She had been doing really well at the end of last year and the very beginning of this year. Hopefully, it is just a developmental stage and she will move out of it.

Jeff has been traveling quite a bit also, which in the past hasn't been a big deal, but in the last few months has become more stressful for me. I don't get a lot of breaks from the girls what with homeschooling and not having a lot of reliable sitters to call. I am in the process of trying to hunt down more sitters but once again it is one of my most difficult challenges!

Me...I am hanging in there. Depends on the hour/day/minute you check with me. Overall things flow along smoothly, but I am looking forward to the Christmas break and having Jeff home for a while and the girls off school!

Sickness is following us

So we are sick again. Or should I say, the girls are sick again. Mackenzie and Ainsley woke with a sore throat Friday morning but didn't have a fever so I gave them Motrin and sent Ainsley to school and Mackenzie, Ellie and I to our Friday co-op. Mackenzie still didn't feel well after co-op and since we were having guests in this weekend, I thought I should take her to the doctor. So what do I do but call the pediatrician. Of course I have to then wait an hour for them to call me back. They finally call me back to tell me they have no appt times available though I can schedule an after hours appt at 5:30 and pay $50. I turned them down and said thanks, but no thanks! I ended up taking her to an Urgent Care, waiting 3 hours in the waiting room with her and Ellie and finally getting in to see a Dr. She had strep which I already figured she had and he wrote her a prescription. So off to pick up her prescription at Walgreens. We finally get home at 5:45 in time for my neighbor (who was watching Ainsley for me after school), to call and tell me that Ainsley had just vomited and she probably would want a ride home. Seriously?? And I had to be at worship practice at 6 for the Women's Morning of Praise rehearsal. I get her home and in the house and have to decide what to do. So long story short, our friends wisely ended up not coming to see us and our germs, I dosed both of the girls, which is probably illegal, but since neither Jeff and I were up for 5 hours in Urgent Care again, that's just how it goes. They are both feeling better today which is par for the course and worship went well this morning at Morning of Praise. We will be going out tonight for our annual Jack-o-lantern walk later tonight. Hopefully none of us get sick any more and we stay on the road to recovery!

Swine flu...H1N1..pigs flying..whatever you want to call it..

I think we have it! Ainsley was sick last weekend with a cough and high fever. It broke Sunday and she said she was feeling better so we sent her on to school Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday she came home with a low grade fever and was lethargic so I made an appt to take her in to our pediatrician's office this morning. I did end up taking her even though she woke up and seemed ok. She is fine and her lungs sounded clear according to the Dr. Now I am sick and feeling miserable. Shouldn't moms get a pass on sickness? I mean I understand that when sin entered into the world it was through Eve and we all have to deal with the effects of the fall. But seriously?? While attempting to care for my sick kids, I get sick...blah!

On a positive note though, Ellie seems to have the immune system of a Vitamin C tablet because she is almost never sick. She started with some symptoms but they have been very mild and not caused her to miss school and now I notice nothing. Mackenzie so far so good. And then there's Jeff. Apparently he's sick too but with his oh so superior immune system, it is hard to tell! He's not feeling top notch but certainly not as sick as I am. So I have learned I am a very bad patient and melodramatic sick person...and I wonder where they got it from?:)

Anyway, we have a long weekend trip planned for Indianapolis so I am hoping we all feel better by then which is really only 2 days away. Please pray because we are all looking forward to getting away for a bit!

Sunday and sickness..one didn't cause the other..

Apparently I need to update my blog.. :)

We have been doing well here but busy. I find that doing three different things with three different girls takes a lot of advanced planning. I am still a work in progress when it comes to this...but then I probably will be for the rest of my life!

Mackenzie continues to love homeschooling and is really thriving. It continues to be a lot of work for me but I enjoy it a lot also. Classical Conversations has been a really great opportunity for us and provides us with the basis for what we do most days. While I add a math curriculum and Spanish, that's about it because CC provides everything else that I think she needs. It makes for a very LONG Thursday for us since that is when we meet but we are still loving it.

Ainsley is thriving in school and I love being as involved with her class as I can. I volunteer once a week on Tuesday for 1 1/2 hours and then eat lunch with her. She loves this as much as I do. She missed school this past Friday because she was sick and though I have no idea, my guess is swine flu. She is now finally starting to perk up but was sick Friday-today with a cough, sore throat and high fever. It got up to 103.9 several times and though Motrin is great when the fever is high it only brings it down a couple of degrees. At least that's our experience. It was homecoming weekend at Cedarville and we had lot of plans that we had to miss. Jeff took Mackenzie with him and went to the parade and his 10th reunion luncheon. They had a blast which was cool. I however stayed home with a very sick Ainsley and a bored Ellie since we couldn't do much:( Jeff stayed home from church today and thankfully when Mackenzie and I got home she was feeling better. Hopefully she will up to school tomorrow!

Ellie is doing well. She had a Occupational therapy evaluation last Wed and that went well. She gave me some ideas to work on and the option of setting up regular therapy sessions. Not sure what we will opt to do as adding another therapy takes a lot of time and not sure where I can fit it in but at least I have some ideas of things to work on with her which is good.

The girls have a fall break this weekend so we are planning a trip to Indianapolis to have some fun:) They are all looking forward to it. I can't believe how fast time seems to fly though. It is already October! We are now enjoying some great fall weather and I LOVE it! What could be better than having it cool enough to wear a sweater but not too cold? I can't think of anything! So until my next post, enjoy fall!

I will try to post some pics soon!

Wow..how the time flies..and flies..

I can't believe it has been so long since I have updated our blog. Sorry for all of those who actually use it to keep up with us! We have been so busy the last few months and I just haven't taken the time to update.

We had an amazing summer. Relaxing and fun and refreshing which was awesome. The girls had lots of time to just hang out with their friends but also plenty of time with the family too.

School has been in session for almost 4 weeks, I believe so I should probably update on that while I am at it!

We opted to homeschool Mackenzie this year. She has been asking to homeschool for a while. So to give her more of a challenge and keep her love of learning growing, we are homeschooling her. She is LOVING it. She is doing a homeschool curriculum called Classical Conversations. It is a Co-op that meets in our area on Thursdays. We get most of her curriculum from this classical site and base most of all that we do on what she learns on Thursdays. I have also added additional things such as a math curriculum and Spanish, etc. So she is loving the challenge that she didn't get at our public school. She is taking gymnastics, playing soccer and doing theatre again this year.

Ainsley is loving school. She is still at Burlington Elementary and LOVES her teacher. She has a really great teacher. I am still able to volunteer every Tuesday morning for a couple of hours so I love that too. Ainsley really enjoys being with other kids and is enjoying all that she is doing in the first grade! She is also taking gymnastics which she loves..and she takes on the same day as Mackenzie which is nice.

Ellie is in year number two of preschool at Burlington Elementary. She is really enjoying it and doing even better this year which is really encouraging to me. She is sitting better at circle time and improving on all of her skills which is great! She has also started pre-tap/pre-ballet class at one of our local studios. She LOVES it and is in class with 5 other friends from China. So cute...so fun!

All in all the start to our fall school year has been great! I am looking forward to lots of fun this fall. We will be going to King's Island next weekend for our annual King's Island trip with P&G. The girls will have a blast. And I will have a blast watching them...and riding no roller coasters:) Early October is a trip to Cedarville for homecoming and then possibly a trip to St. Louis. Hopefully I will be better at updating in the near future. Finding time on the computer with curriculum prep for Mack, helping Ainsley with homework, etc seems to be more difficult but I am sure I will get better with my time management soon...or hope so!

Eyes

A few more pictures

Since arriving back from SC, we have been busy having fun as a family. Some bikes rides, some parks, and lots of pool time! The girls love the pool and Ellie getting more and more comfortable in the pool. She is actively kicking her legs and has started using her arms to swim. Though I don't think she will be without floaties by the end of the summer, she is making loads of progress. We celebrated Ainsley's birthday by spending the day at Coney Island while Jeff's mom was in town. Ainsley was able to invite her friend Ashleigh to go with her and they had a lot of fun. It was a great day together and Mackenzie said this was a great idea..better than any birthday party! So I guess they are now big fans of picking one friend and doing something they choose.

Jeff's mom was in for 5 days and we had a great time with her. The girls were sad the day she left. We love having family in town to visit!

We went to one of the library programs tonight with a traveling children's theatre. It was cute and the girls enjoyed it. Then off to UDF for ice cream..yum!

We are getting ready to take the older two girls to SC on Sunday. Mackenzie will be going to camp with her cousin Madelyne and Ainsley has been invited to spend the week with her cousins while the older two are at camp. Though Janice is just getting back from vacation and may change her mind! They are both really looking forward to the time with their cousins! Tomorrow is a day at the park with Cedarville grads as we have a Cedarville Alumni reunion. The girls are looking forward to the park, but not sure they care about anything to do with Cedarville...:)

Pictures from South Carolina

Pastor Jon Basner

I know that it has been a while since I have posted. We have been busy in the last few weeks just hanging out and having fun as a family. And hopefully I will update the blog with some of those activities in the next few days. But I wanted to take a few moments to remember a friend who passed away recently. My friend, Lisa Basner, lost her husband last week to cancer. Jon and I weren't close but Lisa and I were good friends in college. I knew Jon primarily because he dated Lisa. Though we haven't kept in close contact over the years, there is a bond that stays forever it seems with friends that we make in college. At least that is the case for me. My heart goes out to Lisa and the pain and loss that she is going through right now and to their two kids, Jillian and JJ. If you want to take the time to look over Jon's blog I will post the link. I have followed it for a while through the struggles, trials and triumphs of his journey with cancer. He modeled what is means to follow Christ even through his death. Praise the Lord that he is with his Savior. If you think of it, and even if you don't know them, please pray for Lisa and their kids as they learn to live their life here on this earth without him.

http://pastrjon.blogspot.com/

South Carolina

We have returned from our trip to South Carolina. And I have at least some pictures to prove it! I haven't downloaded the rest from Jeff's computer but hopefully I will do that in the next few days. We had a really great time with my brother and his family. The girls had a lot of fun playing with their cousins and really did a great job getting along. Each year seems to get a little bit easier as the kids get older. We had lots of fun celebrating the 4th of July. Mark and jackson purchased fireworks and some of the neighbors in the cul-de-sac got together and set off all of their collective fireworks. It was great fun! The night before the "official" 4th of July, we went to a community celebration at a nearby church. It was a free event and it was a blast! We all got tickets and we were able to redeem them for free food! I love free family events:) Free hot dogs, popcorn, drinks, snow cones and nachos. There were lot of games to play for the kids, inflatable to jump and play on and live musical entertainment. And of course once it was dark, there were fireworks. This is where I found out that Ellie would not be staying up for our own "official" 4th of July fireworks the next night! She hated the fireworks. I am pretty sure it was the loud noise of the fireworks but she clung to me and refused to even look at them. Needless to say I took her back to the van before they were finally done and we waited it out in the van. Saturday night saw her going to bed well before fireworks officially started. But the free night was a hit with everyone involved. Another exciting and fun part to our trip was that we got to spend some time with our China friends the Smiths. We don't get to see them very often since they live in China but they are home this summer visiting. So we planned our trip around getting to see them too! The last time we saw them was when we were in China adopting Ellie so it had been 19-20 months. It was great to catch up and spend time with them and get to meet their second addition to their family! They have a little boy, Moyer, whom we got to see in China and then Keturah, who is 6 months old. She is also a cutie:) I did get some pictures of them so I will post those once I download them. Needless to say we had a great vacation! We also got to meet the newest addition to the Moody clan on this trip which was pretty cool. Melia is about 2 1/2 months old, I believe, and cute as a button. Hopefully I spelled her name right! I just loved holding her since it has been a while since I have held a little one. I think the whole Moody clan is good looking but Jackson mentioned Melia being the cutest baby of all of them several times...I am not sure if that was because he really thinks so or if it is because I mentioned that she looked like him as a baby:)

Now we are settling back into KY life and enjoying the rest of our summer. There are no more "official" trips though I am sure that we will do a few shorter trips here and there over the remaining weeks of summer.

I have tried twice to upload pics and I haven't been able to so I will just try again later!

Water, water and more water

We have been spending a LOT of time at the pool.  Pretty much every day last week we spent multiple hours at the pool.  The girls are really enjoying their summer vacation and every morning when Ellie gets up she looks at me and says, "baby soup"?  You might wonder what exactly baby soup is?  Well, it is her version of bathing suit!  We have been working on this for a while and I think we aren't getting closer but still not quite there.  Oh well...baby steps are good too!  She has made a ton of progress in the water and though she would still prefer to be in the baby pool, the fit throwing has at least subsided some if she doesn't get to always be in the baby pool.  She can now "swim" with her floaties!!  Last year it took her swim vest and floaties just to keep her head above water but now she is able to kick her feet and kind of move her arms.  Wouldn't it be cool if by the end of the summer she could actually swim without them!  I think that might be a bit lofty of a goal but we shall see.  Mackenzie and Ainsley are like fishes in the water and they love going to the pool.  My summer sitter took them to her pool on Thursday while I worked.  Apparently her pool is pretty cool.  It has a water slide, a diving board and big rafts that you can lay on and float around the pool.  However it has some bugs in it.  They were debating which one they liked best.  Hers would have one hands down if it didn't have any bugs:)  So that's how we have been spending our summer vacation the last week.  In addition to going to the fun of the pool we have seen lots of friends at the pool too which is always a blast!  

Today we have speech and Ainsley is hoping to have a friend over for a few hours.  Then it will be time to get her ready to go to summer camp tonight!  Since her camp is only 1st-2nd graders, she will only be gone till Wed morning which is just the right amount of time for her.  I will be picking up Ainsley and two of the neighbors on Wed.  I will be working on Thursday and then we leave for SC on Friday!  Yea!!  Can't wait to see my brother and his family and the girls can't wait to hang out with the cousins!  And as an extra cool added bonus we get to see our friends Patrick and Kim and their two kiddos, Moyer and Keturah.  They are in the States for the summer from China so we made plans to meet up in SC.  I am pretty excited!  This will be our "first" time meeting Keturah in person though we have followed her pretty faithfully on their blog.  I believe she was born in December though I guess I would have to check their blog to make sure I am accurate...so we have never met her.  But I am guessing she's probably as cool as her older brother Moyer:)

So those are our last few days in a nut shell.  I don't think I have any new and recent pictures to post but I am sure we will have some cool ones when we get back from SC!

Happy Father's Day and Anniversary!

Jeff and I celebrated our anniversary last night by going out to Boi Na  Braza Brazilian Steakhouse.  We had a great time and the food was great!  It was a cool experience  and I am pretty sure I ate enough meat to cover me for about 3 weeks and eat vegan for the next 3 weeks. We walked around down on the levy in Newport and back home where Jeff fixed root bear floats. I didn't sleep well since I ate too much food so I got up and watched the West Wing on DVD for a few hours and played around with our budget.  I am pretty sure it was after 3:30 this morning when I got to sleep.  Ugh!  But the girls and I are now up and need to get Jeff cards and gift together before he gets up.  Happy Father's Day out there to all the wonderful dads!

Amazed

I continue to be amazed by all those who are able to keep up with their blog more faithfully than myself.  Once I get behind on things catching up seems to be more difficult.  But I will try to catch everyone up on the last few weeks.  School finished up well for the girls.  Nothing major happened but we seemed to keep pretty busy the last week of school making sure they had everything turned in and up to date.  They missed their last three days of school because we left for the beach so I wanted to make sure they were ok to go.  Mackenzie had her end of the year drama recital and I got a couple of pictures that I will post.  It went well but it was very long.  I have learned for next year that I probably need to find a sitter for Ellie because she just isn't ready to sit through a 2 1/2 hour recital.  

We left for the beach on Saturday morning, May 30th, I believe.  We spent the day driving and stopped at a hotel outside of Philly.  The girls of course enjoyed our hotel stay.  The next morning we stopped at Target on our way out to pick up a few things that we forgot.  As we were backing up, we hit another vehicle backing up and spent the next hour plus giving our statement to the police officer.  Jeff was looking and didn't see anyone so who knows.  But that took some time out of our schedule.  We did still drive into Philly to see some of the historical things that the girls have never seen.  We did the tour of Independence Hall and took some time to see the Liberty Bell.  We also took a carriage ride through the area and they gave us all the historical information on the area.  The girls loved it but not sure they paid a lot of attention to the history part:)

Then onto the beach later in the afternoon.  We spent a few hours down at the beach that night in our clothes.  I need to learn that anytime we go to the beach my children lack the ability to just play in the sand and they must get completely wet.  Even though it wasn't that warm I should have just put their suits on them because they ended getting wet anyway!  The weather this year wasn't nearly as stellar as last year.  We never had any days where it was really hot and I didn't actually get into the water all the way at any point.  We did have a few nice days to enjoy the beach and the girls got in the water.  Ellie didn't like the water the first day but Rachel came in and saved the day and after that we couldn't keep Ellie from the water!  As a matter of fact she seemed to lose all fear of the water and I had to be constantly on her to not go out too far or wander off.  Mackenzie did some boogie boarding while we were there and I think Ainsley got to see the very beginnings of going out a little deeper.  I don't think she actually did any boogie boarding though.  We unfortunately did get a few days of constant rain.  We took that time to hang out inside and play games/read/watch tv.  Denise and I took the our two older girls to see Up since the older kids had seen it a few nights before.  I thought it was pretty good and they seemed to be entertained.  Though I didn't think it as funny as some and thought it had several really sad moments which I wasn't expecting.  

We did take our bikes this year for the first time and did go on several long bike rides which was fun.  Mackenzie and Ainsley did well on one bike ride and then they stayed home for the second ride with Rachel.  I was glad we took them and were able to enjoy them.  We had a great vacation and had a fantastic time as usual with our friends.  

Since returning home we have been catching up on just general what not and enjoying our summer vacations.  We have gone to the park several times and I have taken the kids on one bike ride.  Jeff was gone a week and a half and he got home this past Tues night from Italy.  He took Thursday and Friday of this week off to hang out with the fam.  Yesterday he watched the girls for me so I could work and today we are off to pick Mackenzie up from camp.  Mackenzie has been at church camp all week and I have really missed her.  I can't wait to finally pick her up!  Well that has been the last few weeks in a nut shell and hopefully it has caught everyone up.  

Springtime Fun

We have been busy over the last few weeks.  I thought it was finally time to update some new spring pictures.  I took Ellie and Ainsley with the rest of our Asian play group to the butterfly show at the Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati.  I took Ainsley out of school last Friday since mackenzie was at the theatre all day for her performances and it was going to be too complicated to be in too many places at once.  She thought skipping a day of school without being sick was awesome!  The girls had a lot of fun looking at all the butterflies.  Ellie seemed to think it was cool but didn't want to hold the butterflies at all.  She was pretty tired and it got pretty hot in the room where they keep the butterflies so she really just wanted to have me hold her most of the time.  Ainsley on the other hand was all about holding every butterfly she could get her hands on and wanted me to reach daredevil heights in order for me to get her a few of them!  It was a lot of fun.  I may take the older two girls again since it is here through June and I think Mackenzie would really enjoy it too.  After the show we went out to lunch and let the girls play at the McDonalds play area.  They had a really good time and so did I.  

Mackenzie had her musical performance for Suessical Jr. on May 8 and it went great! Unfortunately my camera batteries were dead.  I did take a couple of pictures off of my phone my of course I can't find the transfer cord for my computer.  And honestly the pictures aren't very good.  I thought there was a video made but there wasn't so I have no real proof that after all the hours transporting Mackenzie to drama and the theatre that she actually performed in anything:(  Poor girl and poor scrapbook!

I spent this last week catching up on all the things I was too busy to do with the week before.  I did some cleaning in the house, picking up around the house and just generally catching up with e-mails and bills.  We spent this past weekend doing some work around the house and celebrating Mother's Day on Saturday evening.  We opted to not go out on Mother's Day since it is usually busy so Jeff took us all out to Outback Steakhouse on Saturday.  We had lots of run and I love Outback:)  

This week has been fun because the weather has been nice and sunny!  So we have done some walks while the older two ride their bikes and spending a lot of time outdoors.  We haven't been too busy and it has been nice to relax.  We are trying to do some summer planning so that we have things to do this summer in each month that are fun but not be too busy.  We leave for the beach in a little over a week which seems crazy!  We have a trip to SC for a week over the 4th of July.  We will also get to see Patrick, Kim, Moyer and Keturah Smith while we are there which is really cool!  This will be our first time to meet Keturah in person!  They are spending some time in the states this summer and since I didn't think we would get a trip to China anytime in the near future it will be fun to catch up!  

Jeff's mom is coming later in July which will be nice and we are looking at a few other options. Jeff gets an additional week off starting this year so we have more vacation time!  I am trying to plan a few trips to visit friends in the Columbus area, some activities at the library, and hopefully some VBS for the two older girls.  I think that will give us enough to have fun but not too much.

Here are some recent pictures of the girls over the last few weeks.