Our Fortunes Have Been Predicted

Last Friday my mom and Frank came. Lilly usually likes to play outside with Grandpa Frank but they didn’t get to play outside much because of the rain and cool weather. He did end up playing a lot of Hearts. Grammy usually plays board games with them and she was able to do that. My mom took us girls out for breakfast and we went shopping. My mom likes to go to Byerlys to pick up things she can’t get back home. Harley the Fraidy Cat was very affectionate to my mom. As soon as she came here he went up to her and sat in her lap. I guess he knew who the boss was and was trying to butter her up. He doesn’t usually go up to visitors. We had a good time with them visiting and relaxing together. They left Sunday morning and my brother and his family came over Sunday noon. They got into town on Friday to attend a wedding. Alex their youngest, talks really well for his age and it is so cute to hear him talk, you don’t expect him to have such a large vocabulary. Caitlin and Alex would ask why about everything and we would try to answer them but if you asked them “Why?” back they would say, “Because I say so.”

Rex and I went out for some quick Asian food recently.
What our fortune cookies read:
Your love life will be happy and harmonious..
Answers that sound good aren’t necessarily good sound answers...

I have started to play spades on the internet. It has been pretty fun. I am not sure if I could score a game on my own, but I don’t have to if I play it on the internet :) Rexford turns 15 on Wednesday. We are celebrating it a little sooner. Today is Arbor Day. Lilly asked if it was a holiday and would we be having school? Nice try! School is coming along, a few of the kids are already finished with some of their books already, so our school day is shorter. Geneva thought our living room wall would look nice in purple and red, they are not colors I really considered for our living room, especially purple, one color I am not very fond of. I think the color Chino that I have on the walls will stay awhile.

Your Beans Are Done!

Rex wanted his bean dip for supper Sunday night. He typically mixes it up himself but he asked me to do it for him so he could send some time of the computer getting his daily reading uploaded on his mp3 player. So we get home and I mix it up and had Danielle run downstairs to let him know, he doesn’t come up for it so I yell downstairs, “Your beans are done” He replies, “ Yeah I know” I am thinking well you could have said that nicer to me…. So of course I plot to make him pay for his response to me. I had already annoyed him by telling him twice his beans were ready. I yelled downstairs again this time trying to keep the laughter out of my voice, “Your Beans Are Done!” Ok out comes the note, your beans are done is written on a piece of paper folded up with the words, Important Read Now. I have Danielle take it down to her dad. Then Rexford my partner in crime ( he is really good at keeping a straight face when we are playing practical jokes) helps me with the next step. The telephone call. We use the cell phone to call our home phone and I say loud, “ Hey someone get the phone” Well Rexford gets it and tells his Dad the phone is for him and Lilly is on the other end saying, “Your beans are done” over and over in silly accents. He finally came up to get his beans which were cold since he waited so long, serves him right!
Yeah I know this is childish…. And I don’t care…hahahahahaha!

yearbook

We did it we did it. If you have a little one you know one of the songs to Dora the Explorer show. Yearbooks were completed yesterday in class. Here is what the cover looks like. I had the most fun making the cover. I really like to play around with my paint programs. Isaac says the color reminds him of Gatorade. It kind of does.


Rex was asking me what I had to do today, and I said, “Nothing.” He was like aren’t you going to teach the kids? Yes I am, just staying home and homeschooling is doing nothing right now. I realize it is something but I don’t have anything else I need to do. We have not fallen into the over scheduling of the children. Rex and I have always been conscious of making sure we keep time together as a family a priority. That is one of the reasons we decided to do TKD together as a family. There are still things you end up running all over the place trying to get done though.

Brownies

Last week at co-op the girls were suppose to bring water colors and their sweet tooth to their messy art class. The teacher of the class sends out an email to let the parents know what their kids should bring to class before each meeting. When we got home from co-op I asked Danielle what they made with water colors, she told me they didn’t use the water colors because they forgot to bring something to class. I felt bad that they were not able to use the water colors and I couldn’t think of what I had forgotten to have her bring to class. So I asked her what she forgot….. and you guessed it; she forgot to bring her sweet tooth. She was so serious, she didn’t bring one and I couldn’t stop laughing. She later told me when the teacher asked if anyone brought their sweet tooth and no one said anything the teacher said she had one in her bag. Danielle is the little girl who thinks a brownie a day keeps her eyes brown:0)

We survived another endurance class today. Our Tae Kwon Do school offers a class on Saturday afternoons that is different from all our other classes. We don’t wear our doboks, we don’t spar or do patterns. We run, jump, drill, and basically work our butts off. (we wish it was literal) I don’t want to go to that class but afterwards I am so glad I did.

I was able to make contact with a CMT support group in the Twin Cities. I got some advice about the doctors Ethan should see. I will check with our insurance next week to see if these doctors at the U of M are in our insurance network. It’s has been pretty ridiculous to know more about CMT than the doctors I have talked to about it and I feel like I don’t know much about it. So if we are able to get Ethan in to these doctors I will be dealing with doctors who specialize with this disease. The lady at the support group also mentioned taking the other kids who might have it also.

Geneva's eye color

Well Lilly is sick again:( She started to feel ill on Saturday, by Sunday afternoon she was really feeling terrible. Hopefully she will be on the mend soon.
I took Ethan to see a Podiatrist today, he took a lot of x-rays and the doctor explained what is wrong with the bones in Ethan’s feet. The first step is to get him some Orthotics. We go back this week to start on that.

Geneva gets so jealous when any of the kids give me affection or sit next to me. She will push them and say, “MY MOMMY”. Lilly tries to explain to her that I was her mommy before she came along but Geneva doesn’t seem to care. I need to work on the jealously thing with her though because if left untreated she will never be satisfied. I guess I can remember the other kids doing stuff like that and the only cure at the time was having another baby. We will not be using that strategy this time ;)Geneva is learning her color and numbers. She knows she has brown eyes:)

We have only one more co-op class for the school year. We are going on our last service project for the year also this week. The school year has really flown by. Isaac and Ethan have really enjoyed their woodworking class. They are making shelves for their final project. We will have an end of the year party where the kids get to display some of their work from the school year. We will actually have some stuff to show off this time..hehehe:) I usually don’t do extra stuff, so co-op really fills in some of that stuff.

My mom is coming for a visit towards the end of the month. I am looking forward to her visit. We usually try a new restaurant. My brother and his family are coming the same day my mom leaves. My brother and his wife are into eating healthy, so I am not sure what to cook when they come. Just teasing, I have some really delicious low-calorie recipes I can make for them. I did order some cooking light cookbooks from the library for some fresh ideas.

The color of chocolate

Today we tested for the next belt in Tae Kwon Do. The kids did fabulous; I had a few black belts tell me they looked great. Isaac had such a serious face on during his testing it was almost comical. For my board break I was to break my board with a hopping hook kick. When it came time to break my board it wasn’t set up the way I practiced for the last 2 weeks, which made me a little more nervous than I already was. My board broke the first time but I am not sure what kick I actually used to break it. It was kind of like a sideways side kick.
Anna watching Geneva while we test.


Here is a picture of Harley and his pet Rexford. The girls like to place a bracelet on top of Harley’s head; they say he looks like a king. It has been awhile since I have put any pictures of him up. Harley is sneaky, boring, handsome, affectionate to some people and quite regal.

The brakes on my husband’s van finally work. It cost only one arm to get it fixed. We still have one arm and two legs left. Rexford will be getting a driver’s permit soon, so I guess they will be gone then. We are looking into getting an economic car. Don’t worry we are not getting PC, my husband drives 30 miles to work each way and the gas prices are so high.

Got a little Gold

Rexford sparring in the finals. They clear away all the tables and you spar in the middle of the gym with everyone watching.


We left on Friday to go to a Tae Kwon Do tournament in Madison, WI. We started off on the wrong foot when we got to Madison. We tried to go to the location of the tournament before we checked in at our hotel, but the address on the poster for the tournament turned out to be the Tae Kwon Do school in Madison not to the location of the tournament. So Friday night we checked into our hotel a bit frustrated not knowing how to get to the tournament. The hotel we stayed in had a wireless internet connection so we were able to go online and through a long process figure out where the tournament might possibly be held. The next morning we went to the school to see if they had the address posted there but they did not. So we headed off to where we thought the tournament might be. After a few U turns and wrong turns we found the place and saw someone walking in with tkd uniform and knew we were at the right place.

Lilly with her game face on.

John Willet preparing for demolition duty.

Anna sparring in her first match of the day.

Nick, about to take care of business.

Aaron unsheathes his sword(left foot).

The 17 year old more out of breath than his 37 year old opponent.


Lilly won first in sparring and in forms. Rexford III won first in sparring. Rex won first in sparring in a division of men from the ages of 16-39. COOLAGE!! He got second in forms. Seven competitors from our school went to Madison and six of them brought home at least one gold medal. We had great time with the Franco’s , John Willett and Aaron Kim.

We attended church in Rockford IL on Sunday. We spent Sunday afternoon with the Hill family who have 3 girls and 3 boys just like we do:) We spent the night at Pastor Huber's house. The kids(especially Lilly) absolutely loved the Huber's dog and want one just like it. Not going to happen…..soon anyway. We had great fellowship and enjoyed the services.

Rusty the most popular poodle ever!

What Rex looked like after Lilly and Rexford won in the finals.