"We started right here, in the ovary"
I hate giving subject lines for these posts, especially when I'm just updating about everything. Maybe I should go back and retitle this "More of everything" Hmm.
David has been doing a lot of scouts stuff from his book, which means that all of us have been doing a lot of scouts stuff because you can't have just one kid doing all the "fun" stuff. The kids liked making family trees again (this time with phone calls to relatives to ascertain actual dates & real names) and finding the page in the phone book that has all the emergency info and calling different city officials to ask questions about how the city works and doing more of the recycling on their own (including picking out everything from their Happy Meals that could be recycled & taking that home to put in our bin rather than leaving it there with all the other trash "They waste SO MUCH, Mommy! Why do they do that?")
Ben is steadily growing stronger reading skills. It's been really hard getting him to read aloud to us at home. He's the second best reader in his class (behind Amy, whose mom is an elementary school teacher), but reading at home has just not been something he's willing to do. So now we just have him read a few pages out of each book we do at bedtime story time (in addition to whatever they send home as reading homework.) Knowing that he only has a few pages and that we'll fill in all the hard words seems to make it easier on him. Ben has also taken to my old Cabbage Patch Kids lately. He has a few that he especially likes and will dress up for certain occasions. It's pretty funny.
Greg is still climbing everything in sight. He has ropes that he carries around with him nearly at all times and will tie to things. He gets his brothers to help him tie them up higher than he can reach. During the day when they're not home to assist him he'll do general kid stuff, but as soon as they get home, he's back to finding new & better places to climb. Oh, and when he paints stuff, he mixes all the colors & makes all his painting black. He paints weird stuff, too. like Oklahoma.
Nick continues to spend loads of time in Beaumont, but that will end on February 12th. I can't wait for him to be home for real, but you know what? It's going to be an adjustment. I've gotten used to my weeknight schedule & I don't know if I'll transition back to Couple Time all-the-time very well. Currently I've been doing Monday nights as project nights, Tuesday nights as other-people-time, & Wednesday nights as TV time. We'll see if Nick likes that plan.
I've been writing, cleaning, etc. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. (Writing updates continue to be at my dreamwidth journal)
Or fixing people's computer woes. Apparently word has spread that I have a way with computers, so I've gotten a few phone calls the past month or so requesting assistance. Mostly over the phone "how do I?" stuff, but this weekend I went to someone's house & set stuff up, then fielded calls/texts about it all across Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning.
Speaking of calls/texts, we've noticed an upswing in our phone usage in the last 6 months, not because Nick's been gone (we actually talk less during the day, so the extra call at night just blends into the regular usage), but just, ya know, being friendlier or something. I don't know. So we started running our usage stats, first through Sprint (who actually said our current plan suited us, despite our being $20-$50 over every month), then on our own. We added in our wishlists of how we'd like to use our phones that we aren't currently doing, looked up plan comparisons, phone reviews, etc, and found out that we're better off staying with our current carrier (Sprint, which works well here all the way to CS) and getting smartphones with the unlimited family plan. So once our refunds from last years medical expenses come in, we'll be doing that. We're looking at the HTC Hero phone and the Samsung Moment (we haven't actually played with them in store yet, but I'll be doing that tomorrow if the sick kid goes back to school by then).
In other randomness, I've been drinking tons of tea lately, trying all different kinds from various places. My favorite is the supergood ginger kind that my friends sister gave her from Teavana (more details once I've seen the canister again). Republic of Tea's Cinnamon Plum loose leaf tea is also very nice (but Blackberry Sage remains my favorite from them). Lipton has a flavored green tea that's orange, passionfruit, and jasmine that I like for afternoons. I also have a new favorite otc bagel: Sara Lee's Blueberry. There's something different about them now: they're more lemon flavored than they used to be. Mmm.
I have some news that I'm sitting on currently that I'm really excited about, but am awaiting more information before I can announce it. Eeee. I love having exciting news & I hate waiting to share it, but that's the way it goes.
That's it for this week's update. More later. :)
----------------
Now playing: Michael Mucklow - Pipe's Canyon Sunset
via FoxyTunes
David has been doing a lot of scouts stuff from his book, which means that all of us have been doing a lot of scouts stuff because you can't have just one kid doing all the "fun" stuff. The kids liked making family trees again (this time with phone calls to relatives to ascertain actual dates & real names) and finding the page in the phone book that has all the emergency info and calling different city officials to ask questions about how the city works and doing more of the recycling on their own (including picking out everything from their Happy Meals that could be recycled & taking that home to put in our bin rather than leaving it there with all the other trash "They waste SO MUCH, Mommy! Why do they do that?")
Ben is steadily growing stronger reading skills. It's been really hard getting him to read aloud to us at home. He's the second best reader in his class (behind Amy, whose mom is an elementary school teacher), but reading at home has just not been something he's willing to do. So now we just have him read a few pages out of each book we do at bedtime story time (in addition to whatever they send home as reading homework.) Knowing that he only has a few pages and that we'll fill in all the hard words seems to make it easier on him. Ben has also taken to my old Cabbage Patch Kids lately. He has a few that he especially likes and will dress up for certain occasions. It's pretty funny.
Greg is still climbing everything in sight. He has ropes that he carries around with him nearly at all times and will tie to things. He gets his brothers to help him tie them up higher than he can reach. During the day when they're not home to assist him he'll do general kid stuff, but as soon as they get home, he's back to finding new & better places to climb. Oh, and when he paints stuff, he mixes all the colors & makes all his painting black. He paints weird stuff, too. like Oklahoma.
Nick continues to spend loads of time in Beaumont, but that will end on February 12th. I can't wait for him to be home for real, but you know what? It's going to be an adjustment. I've gotten used to my weeknight schedule & I don't know if I'll transition back to Couple Time all-the-time very well. Currently I've been doing Monday nights as project nights, Tuesday nights as other-people-time, & Wednesday nights as TV time. We'll see if Nick likes that plan.
I've been writing, cleaning, etc. When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. (Writing updates continue to be at my dreamwidth journal)
Or fixing people's computer woes. Apparently word has spread that I have a way with computers, so I've gotten a few phone calls the past month or so requesting assistance. Mostly over the phone "how do I?" stuff, but this weekend I went to someone's house & set stuff up, then fielded calls/texts about it all across Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning.
Speaking of calls/texts, we've noticed an upswing in our phone usage in the last 6 months, not because Nick's been gone (we actually talk less during the day, so the extra call at night just blends into the regular usage), but just, ya know, being friendlier or something. I don't know. So we started running our usage stats, first through Sprint (who actually said our current plan suited us, despite our being $20-$50 over every month), then on our own. We added in our wishlists of how we'd like to use our phones that we aren't currently doing, looked up plan comparisons, phone reviews, etc, and found out that we're better off staying with our current carrier (Sprint, which works well here all the way to CS) and getting smartphones with the unlimited family plan. So once our refunds from last years medical expenses come in, we'll be doing that. We're looking at the HTC Hero phone and the Samsung Moment (we haven't actually played with them in store yet, but I'll be doing that tomorrow if the sick kid goes back to school by then).
In other randomness, I've been drinking tons of tea lately, trying all different kinds from various places. My favorite is the supergood ginger kind that my friends sister gave her from Teavana (more details once I've seen the canister again). Republic of Tea's Cinnamon Plum loose leaf tea is also very nice (but Blackberry Sage remains my favorite from them). Lipton has a flavored green tea that's orange, passionfruit, and jasmine that I like for afternoons. I also have a new favorite otc bagel: Sara Lee's Blueberry. There's something different about them now: they're more lemon flavored than they used to be. Mmm.
I have some news that I'm sitting on currently that I'm really excited about, but am awaiting more information before I can announce it. Eeee. I love having exciting news & I hate waiting to share it, but that's the way it goes.
That's it for this week's update. More later. :)
----------------
Now playing: Michael Mucklow - Pipe's Canyon Sunset
via FoxyTunes