A giveaway

I am doing a giveaway on my other blog at www.xanga.com/midge8

 

A busy life

The kids are all doing well in school, and we have had some afterschool schooling activies. Mainly reading programs and scouts,and piano lessons.

So if you would like to see more of what is happening in our home visit www.xanga.com/midge8

 

New Blog

I have a new blog as our life has changed, and all the kids are in school and I felt a little odd posting here. I will keep this blog as a I don't know how to move everything and I will still write about afterschooling and other topics on here. But the blog about our daily life is now at www.xanga.com/midge8 so come on over and visit us.

Margery

It's quite here right now. Conner's on the couch reading, Aidan is walking the dog around, Nolan and Kathryn are playing  cards and Pat and Sarah are at soccer practice.

Just a picture

Here are the younger 4 sitting outside before church.

A busy boy

aidan is just 13 months almost 14 mon, but he is a very busy little boy, always trying to help. Mops and brooms are toys to him he loves to help mop and sweep. He even tried to wash the van with the other kids. And he thinks the lawn mower is his ( when we mow he is always in the house), he climbs up in it when ever we are outside.

 

 

 

 

Pat's room Part 3

Well Pat was a busy boy on Friday he hung drywall all day on Saturday, he was helping Steve and Gary the guys who are putting in the room for us.

the celing going up

Break time ( the guys are sitting in what will be Pat's closet.

 

This is the closet door that leads to our room for the frezzers.

This is the inside of what was the garage door

Pat's room part 2

This is them putting up the wall were the garage door was.

And here is it all finished

my square foot garden

This year my ds pat built me 4 raised beds, this is a picture of one.

The first picture is from around May 20th, this bed is all plants not easily killed by frost. The second picture is from yesterday.

 

Memorial Day

In our little town Memorial Day is a real big deal. There is a parade and then a program at the bridge for those who died at sea, and then one in the park. There is a reading of Flanders Fields, and the Gettysburg Address, plus prayer and a speaker. My dd Sarah and dd Kathryn were there with their GS troops and the boys Conner and Nolan were there with the cub scouts. And my DH was there with the VFW, he got to fire the rifle that he is holding, both at the bridge and the park. At the bridge everyone drops flowers into the river in memory of those who died, and at the park as the names from our town that died in war are read off the GS and Cub Scouts place the wreaths on the crosses. And here are the pictures.

Before the parade, Conner and Nolan and fellow cub scout.

Sarah and Kathryn

 

DH ( he is the one on the closest end }

 

 

At the river

At the park

General Clinton Regatta

My dd Sarah was in the scout races with her team the River Raiders. She was in a relay race and her part took about 1 1/2 hours of paddling. Here are some picks of her and her partner. This was a little after the  start of the race. They did get hung up on a tree once but the Gator Guys a team of eagle scouts came to there rescue. The neat thing is even though the Gator Guys stopped to help them and three other teams in there race passed them the Gator Guy still won their race.

This was at the end of their part of the relay race.

Picture this

In a few short weeks this space will become our son Pat's new room. It is right now our garage, there will be a small room for the frezzers, closet space for tools and space for Pat's bed and desk. And yes mom my garage is really this clean right now

 

The pool

This year instead of a family vacation we bought a pool, now let me tell you when the kids told me they wanted to go swimming and I reminded them  the water was only 65 degrees and It was only 68 outside that didn't stop them. I think they were in the pool for a few seconds and right back out again. Well we have had the pool filled for a few days now and It was 85 here yesterday so they went swimming agian and this time lasted about 30 min.

Yet today it is raining and only 58 degrees, here are some photo's of the pool.

 

My New Garden

My son Pat with dad's money built me some rasied bed gardens. There will be four of them when they are all finished. The first two are ready for planting and one other one is ready for dirt and the fourth is yet to be made. Maybe this weekend he will get it built.

The first bed has carrots ( 128 ), lettuce ( 32) , Radishes( 32), Broclli ( 8),spinach ( 18), Onions ( 64),peas ( 32), and snap Peas ( 32),

Bed number 2 has 20 strawberry plants,

Bed # 3 is going to have 6 roma tomato plants and 1 cherry and 1 beefsteak tomato I will plant these at the end of the month when all chance of frost should be gone. And I will plant some more spinach and lettuce around those plants.

Bed #4 is going to have 6 cucumber plants, and 7 pepper plant. I think I cannot find the plan right now. I was hopping to plant some pumpkins somewhere else in the yard I just do not know yet.

 

 

Our home on Thursday

 

Well today was another busy day here at the Eagle’s Nest, housework wise I did another load of wash and a general pick-up. Then I headed outside, were we hung more laundry to dry, and worked more on the garden.

Then it was time for repairs, I have to fix the washer as the cold water intake is clogged with dirt the real fine kind, but of coarse I couldn’t find the right pair of pliers so that repair will need to be done tomorrow. After Pat’s tutoring, Aidan fell asleep so I left him with Pat and took the three amigos with me to get the snow tries off the van. While when we got here they couldn’t see me until 3pm so off to the library in town to waste time until 3pm. I have never been in this library but found that they have a great children’s area so I will be back this summer with the kids. After the tires I stopped by home and picked some of my kids and all the cousins’ clothes and drove out to DH work and dropped off the cousins as they are heading to grandma’s house.

 I also picked up the wood for my raised beds so my son Pat will be working on them tomorrow, as I would like to get my cool weather plants into the garden this weekend.

 As far as meals went we had French toast sticks for breakfast and I burned the sausage. Lunch was turkey sandwiches and I made myself an egg and cheese burrito. Dinner was on the run as I was driving kids all over so we had Arby’s roast beef sandwiches.,

 And we did do some school work today.

Our home on Wednesday

 

What a day I spent most of it waiting for the pool guys to come, which they never did. But I did get the kitchen floor and living floor washed, and Aidan slept though his PT. I did get more laundry done and hug on the line. Plus the daily work of school, and kitchen work.

 For breakfast we had cereal and lunch was leftover hamburgers. Dinner was an open the fridge and have an idea meal as I was feeding 12 yesterday and 10 were kids. We had beef potpie, I used the leftover beef from dinner on Monday, added some gravy, peas, carrots, corn, and some canned potatoes (I didn’t have any leftover ones). Then all into a pan and topped with biscuits, and into the oven.

 Then there were the evening activates the two oldest girls here went to youth group; the youngest 6 (but not the baby) went to Word of Life Club. My oldest son stayed with the baby until dh got home. And I went to the track for an hour of exercise, well I made it 30 min before I just could walk any more. Then pick everyone up and home to bed.

 Tomorrow my extra 3 kids head home with my dh who is taking them

Trip to the Buffalo Science Center

We went to the science center to celebrate Aidan's first birthday, we had quite the crowd with only family and even then not the whole family. The one spot the big kids love was closed,but Aidan had fun in his hands on spot.

 

You have to love a boy and his firetruck.

 

Here is a picture of some of the other kids,

Nolan is the one working the display, Luke my nephew,then Makayla my niece, then Kathryn, and my oldest Pat with his stupid hat on.

Aidan's first haircut

Here is the before photo. We wait until there first birthay to get there haircut, and he was one little boy who really needed a hair cut.

 

And here is the after, he was so good at getting his haircut.

 

Kathryn's Animal Project

Kathryn worked hard on reading books about and looking for information on the net to make her poster, then she had to teach her class from the poster.

 

Here she is teaching us about her animal.

Easter pictures ( yep I am way behind )

Here is a picture of the kids Easter morning my mom made the pink dress and the outfit that Aidan is wearing.

My body hurts

It has been quite busy around here, We have many projects going on in the house, so far they have finished the attic pull down ladder and the arch way in the living room/ dining room. They will be back Saturday to work on the changing the garage into a bedroom, and then onto the roof.

Today the pool guys are coming to start putting in the pool.

But the reason I am so sore is I have been raking out areas of brush before it grows agian, as I am trying to regain some more yard. So therefore my upper body aches,and I have started walking at the local school track with some of the women from my church. It is great there is a grassy area for the kids to play and the track is soft to walk on. We walk and talk which has to be better for my health then to sit and talk.

Growing up

Kathryn has really been showing signs of growing up lately, she has finally lost her first two teeth. She has started reading all the time. It is funny every time I turn around she has a book in her hands and she is reading outloud to someone. Kathryn is also more helpful and taking pride in doing a job well.

Last night at church, she came up to me when I was wiping the tables and asked if she could help so I handed her the dishrag and off she went. She wiped every table in the hall, then went to the kitchen and asked one of the ladies there for a broom and swept the kitchen floor.

Before long she will be a young lady.

Tourette Syndrome

Our son Nolan has Tourette syndrome, which are tics of both the verbal type and non verbal type. It was just this year that we learned that Nolan's behaviors had a name and a reason. Up until this year we just thought Nolan was just a little odd. We are not treating his tics just making sure that people do not pick on him, he has facial tics were he moves his face and nose , and hand tics that give me the willies, and he makes a hump noise with this mouth.

He does these things with out him knowing that he is doing them. He is also the smartest kid I know, he can tell you about any thing he has ever read. He is in third grade but tests out for reading and verbal and spelling  at over 8th grade.

Due to these things we will be adding him to our children that are home schooled next year. As the school can not give him enough to learn and the kids are starting to pick on him.

Pluses for me in homeschooling Nolan are that he is very organized and likes to follow a check list. We will be telling him that he will me home schooled at the end of the year.

The Dentisit

I took all 5 older kids to get there teeth cleaned. It went well Conner has some very small cavities but they are not going to fill them at this time. Nolan has to get a tooth pulled, but that is in order to get his braces. He was born with a extra tooth, that  belongs no where in his mouth. And Sarah well she has two cavities so she will need those filled before her braces go on. Next up annual check-ups for all the kids.

Eye Doctor

Yesterday I took all the children to the eye doctor for their yearly eye exam. The best part we walked out with a mom who was still mellow as all the kids were pretty well behaved. Sarah still needs glasses in fact her eyes are getting a little worse, but as we tell her if she actually wore her glasses she could see a lot better. And Pat for the first time is getting glasses to help with reading strain.

And the real funny part is as Nolan was getting his eyes checked the doctor was looking at his eye lids and Nolan started telling us all about how turtles do not have eye lids at all. They have tears that flow all the time. And we learned alot of facts from Nolan about turtles. This is also the child who is sitting next to me and telling me how to spell words that I can not figure out. As my Dh will tell any one my wife may be able to read a novel or argue any history idea, but she cannot not spell.

Well it is off to take all the kids to the dentist today for cleanings.

The Joys of reading

Dh caught these two on Sunday afternoon.



Kathryn has just started reading alot, so she reads to Aidan as he is always ready to listen to a story.

Review Sheet Ch 7 Streams of Civilization

We use Streams of Civilization for Pat history this year, I type up a sheet for him to fill in as he reads.

Important Dates:

 

Republic –

Empire-

 

The Etruscans:

 

They were from:

 

The Etruscans were able to easily over take the people already living in the area because: ______________________________

 

This happened around the year: ____________

 

They established the cities of _____________,_____________,____________.

 

The city of __________was already established before they invaded.

 

 

 

While trading with the Greeks they received ___________, and_________________. In trade for _________,_________,__________,___________,and ___________.

 

Etruscans women were allowed to ____________________, and some even __________________.

 

Art and Religion:

 

At the beginning there art showed ______________________, later there art changed and showed ________________________.

 

They were controlled by there religions rituals and not a sense of __________, and ___________.

 

There three main gods were _________,________________, and _______________.

 

They also believed in demons one named ___________, was pictured as ____________________________.

 

 

Emergence of Rome

 

The Romans gained political Etruscans in _____________.

 

One reason for the fall of the Etruscan empire was a belief that a nation’s life span was ______ to ___________ years.

 

Therefore when they approached the end of that time period they gave up.

 

Etruscan Influence:

 

Some things adopted from the Etruscans by the Romans were the ___________, a man’s main garment.

 

They also adopted:

 

1.

2.

3.

4.

 

As far as war the Romans copied there:

 

1.

2.

3.

 

The Romans also adopted the gladiator games from them. Gladiator games were –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The early Roman Republic –

 

They had a government called a _____________.

The leaders of this government were called ______________.

 

Roman households were ruled by the _________, this lead to all Romans having __________for authority and also ____________.

 

The Roman General Assembly consisted of all __________of Rome.

 

While the members of the Senate were _______________.

 

The two consuls were chosen from this group to rule for one year to prevent anyone from gaining too much power they had to wait ____________ to be reelected.

 

Class Struggle:

 

 The rich were called ___________________and were____________________.

 

The other class was called ___________________, they were ________________________.

 

 

 

The Senate was consisted mainly those from the _____________class, so many laws and courts cases were unfair toward the _______________ class.

 

The Laws were eventually recorded on _______________, and placed in the _________________, all boys had to memorize them as part of there schooling.

 

 

The plebeians won the right to have there own representatives called ______________. They were allowed to stand outside the door of the Senate and if they found a law to be unjust they could yell __________.

 

They were able to earn these rights from the Senate due to the fact that they were needed to ________________ and the Senate wanted to keep them happy.

 

Some members of the plebeian class were allowed to hold _________________. But instead of fighting for there class they married the rich and class struggle continued.

 

Roman Expansion

 

The main reason the Roman fought was to protect there republic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As they took over the ________________, _________________, and the _________________.

The conquered people were expected to pay ___________, but were allowed to keep there own ____________________.

 

When they proved they were loyal they were allowed to become _______________.

 

They only gained land in response to ________________.

 

The Punic Wars

 

 

They wars were between ____________and __________________.

 

The reason was ______________________.

 

The wars were called the _____________, because _____________.

 

The First Phase – happened in _________, over ____________.

 

One thing the Romans did to win was _________________

.

They won the cities of 1.____________

                                     2.____________

                                     3.____________

 

The Second Phase happed around ___________, over the country of ______________.

 

They main leader for the Carthaginians was _________________; he took _____________, _____________, and ____________over the _____________.

 

While Hannibal had won many battles against the Romans he was counting on the people of ___________ to join him. This did not happen so he roamed the countryside for ___________ doing small battles.

 

The Romans eventually placed a man named ____________, in charge of the army. His plan was different he _________________________.

 

The two of them met in battle in _________, at __________.

 

Carthage lost was required to do the following:

1.

2

 

The third phase:

 

Happened due to the fact that the Romans felt she was still a ________. The way this war began was the Romans ___________________________________________________________. After they won they destroyed the city and plowed the fields with ____________.

 

The Republic Expands:

 

Macedonia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt

 

Write four things that happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Romans made Egypt a protectorate, which means ___________________________.

 

Conquest of Greece:

 

The Romans took over the city of Corinth in _________BC.

And they were placed under the rule of __________________.

 

The Romans hired __________ to teach there children, and soon ____________,_____________,_______________,________, and _______________ were part of Roman Culture.

 

 

Two main problems the Romans had due to there growth as a republic were:

 

1.

 

 

2.

 

 

 

When the farmer/ soldiers returned from wars in foreign lands they found that there farmland was taken by the large landowners due to _______________. The large landowners no longer needed the farmers because they had ___________.

 

The middle class was dying out; there was much _______________, in the elections.

 

Tiberious Gracchus was the grandson of ___________. He was elected to the office of ____________, in ____________.

 

He passed a law limiting the amount of land a person could own the rest was to be divided among the __________.

 

This law as vetoed by another Tribune_________.

 

He had the senate ____________the tribune.

 

He felt that his ideas were so important that he could bend the rules. One rule that he bent was _____________________________________.

 

The patricians did what to stop him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who was elected in his place?

 

 

 

Two things he did during his term were?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did he die?

 

 

 

 

The roman Army changed under the leadership of ___________. He made a ___________________.

 

There was one big problem with this that will affect Roman history later and it was ________________________________________________________________________________________________.

 

The First Civil War

 

The war was between the __________________ and _______________. The two leaders chosen for this ware were _____________for the Senate and _____________for the General Assembly.

 

 

In the end _________became Dictator of Rome. He was dictator for _____________which was longer then the ______the law allowed.

 

The Republic Comes to an End

 

Three men became consuls of Rome they were ____________,_____________________,and_________________.

There government started in ______________BC, was called a ___________________.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When ____________was the consul and______________was in France fighting. _______________was killed in______________. In __________BC the Senate called _____________back home. He knew that if he disbanded his army and returned he would be killed. So he crossed the ____________with his army.

 

 

Julius Caesar declared himself ________________, and ___________was killed in Egypt.

 

While he only ruled for 5 years he passed many good laws including:

 

1.

2.

3

4

5

6

7

 

Two groups of people joined together to kill him and on March 15 or the __________of March he was _______________.

 

His heir was Octavian who joined with ___________________, to defeat the ones who killed Caesar. They ruled for ____________.

 

_________________traveled to __________, were he fell in love with_______________________.

 

He and _____________, died when they _______________________.

 

Octavian then took the name ____________________, and was the first _____________________..

Taking the kids out to eat

We were at Pizza Hut for a Sunday dinner, and I noticed something we actually order the party meal deal they have in order to feed our family. We have also found that they always seat us at the same table, the only one that fits 8 people. Pizza Hut happens to be one of the cheapest places for us to eat out as a family; we usually go twice a month.

Why to we even take our large by today’s standards family out to eat, because we want them to be comfortable and know how to behave in a restaurant setting. While eating out they practice the skills of reading a menu, ordering, asking nicely for refills, and behaving in a restaurant.

Some if the many things the kids do while waiting for there food is play tic tac toe with there straws and the sugar packets. We also play Family quiz show were Dad goes around the table asking math, spelling and other school questions.

It always makes you feel that you are doing the right thing when some one in the restaurant comes up to you on there way out and tells you what a wonderful family you have.

But of course this Sunday during dinner out the kids were having a fit of the sillies and started taking in rhyme. Pat said “How about a Whale in a pail with a snail? “ And my response was “Dad might get mad, or glad or even sad but it could just be a fad. “  We also had Pat the rat, Nat the cat, the mouse in the house, a fox in a box, and a cat in the hat. It was quite fun, and I think we have read enough Dr. Seuss to the baby.

Blue and Gold Dinner

This handsome man is Conner my Webelos 1 cub scout, this is before he recived four more pins for Scholar,Fitness,Athlete and Traveler. He also earned his Webelo badge and is starting on his compass points for Arrow of Life.


And this handsome man is Nolan my Bear Cub Scout, At the blue and Gold he recived his Bear badge and a gold arrow and a sliver arrow.



And here is the whole Pack 51 and there fearless leader.

I am so happy

Dh just got me a new camera so I will be posting more pictures later of the kids. The best part was the deal he got on it and the fact that it fits my old media card in it.

Teamwork

Teamwork that is something our children learned about today, that as a family we are a team and if each member of that team does its job then the team works.

 Our house has gotten out of control lately (attitude and messes) so when DH and I went out for breakfast today we discussed the kids, house, and attitudes. What was working what wasn’t working.

Step one was this afternoon, we choose a room for each child to clean. Sarah was given her room, Patrick the dining room, Conner the living room, and Nolan the hallway. Kathryn was to clean her room but Aidan was awake so she played with him as her job. Don supervised Nolan and Conner, and I checked Sarah and Patrick’s work. With in a couple of hours those rooms were looking real nice. At dinner we praised them for working so hard and as a reward  had ice-cream for snack tonight.

Tomorrow Don has some repair jobs for the boys to work on and I have some floors for the girls to wash, then we have signs to make for an up coming puppet show. To wrap the day up Conner and Nolan have there Blue and Gold Dinner  tomorrow night.

We are also going to reapply some household rules that we had in the past that went by the wayside when Don was gone. The one starting Monday is no computers on school days except for schoolwork or 10 min for the older kids to check there e-mail. This also means no game boy or x-box, and no computer for mom and dad till after 9pm or before 6:30 am.

The Laundry Monster

This entry is in response to my sil Mary’s blog were she is  talking about living more simply. Well  here at the Eagles Nest we have had a very busy year a new baby and dad’s travels.

One thing that we have been working on is the mountain of laundry that we have each day. Some changes we have made are a family closet or really a kid’s closet. This is in the laundry room were I have a large shelving unit that holds three banker boxes for each child. One for pants or shorts in the summer, shirts, and one for pj’s and undies

 

We have goals on what we want for each child as far as clothes go, and we are slowly getting there. One thing is I regularly go though the boxes to get rid of clothes or add new ones, for every item of clothes that we add from a store or a bag of clothes then we pass on one item.

 

For the younger boys the goals for winter clothes are:

 

2 pair of dress pants (blue, tan)

2 dress shirts (white, blue)

5 pair jeans

2 long sleeve red polo’s

2 long sleeve blue polo’s

2 red t-shirts

2 blue t-shirts

4 other t-shirts

4 other shirts w collars

4 underwear

2 pj’s

1 red sweater

1 other sweater or vest

1 gray hoodie

1 blue sweat pant

 

The baby has more clothes as he needs clean pj’s each night and sometimes more then one outfit a day.

 

Sarah

 

2 pair dress pants (black, tan)

5 pair jeans

5 t-shirts

5 other shirts

3 dresses

2 skirts

6 sets of undies

2 hoodie

2 sweaters

2 pj’s

1 sweatpants

 

Kathryn

 

7 pants

3 turtlenecks

6 other shirts

3 skirts (tan, black, pink)

3 dresses

6 sets undoes

1 pink hoodie

2 sweaters

2 pj’s

 

My oldest son isn’t a problem as he is growing so fast it is hard to keep him in clothes. And as for me and dh that is another story.