No reading...please!

One of Masons least favorite things to do is read. He struggles with comprehension and just reading in general so it makes it hard and boring for him. Needless to say, he has to read!! Its something he can't not do. So I went out and bought some cool Nate the Great detective books and threw a little incentive in with them. Mason LOVES comic books!! There is a store on 4th street that him and his dad go to all the time. I'm still not sold on the fact that he actually reads them, but he loves them...so...I told him that for every reading book he finished I would take him down to the store and I would buy him a comic book of his chioce. Great plan, right? Uh, no! I put no specifications on the deal. Good going Mom! :)

We started off the week good, as in good I mean getting our reading time in, but not good as in no fighting, which would be the reason for my title. So I offered him the chioce to read in his room while I was getting ready one morning. He did great and when I checked on him he really was reading because he told me what he just read. Sounds great right? When I proposed this plan I did not specify that he had to comprehend the story too. So when he came to me and told me he finished the book today I was very excited, that was until he couldn't tell me what the boys name was in the story.

So, on one hand its great that he finished the book and he felt so good about himself!! On the other hand, he couldn't tell me much about the book. After some prompting he did figure out the name (which by the way was Nate, see why I'm torn), but he couldn't remember much. So he then asked me if we could go down to get a comic book as I had promised. When I made the deal I did not tell him he had to report to me about the book, but the comprehension is very important. It doesn't do much good if he doesn't understand what he read. Thats not really reading, is it. I told him that I would like us to reread it together so that he can understand it before he gets the comic book. When I told him this he was crushed. It was like I just took his accomplishment and through it down the drain. I felt awful!

So here's my choices.

1) Buy him the comic book for finishing the book and talk about and set some new guidelines.
or
2) Make him reread the book with me in the next couple days, so that I know he comprehends it, and then go and buy him the comic book.

Thoughts or suggestions anyone??

We made it!

We made it through our first week of school! It went off well with some obvious things to work out. I have realized that no matter how much I want to I am not a morning person. I don't sleep well, sometimes not at all, at night and so it makes for a rough start if I try to get up early. Looks like we will be starting later than I had originally planned.

I am amazed how quickly the twins pick up on things. For instance, Weston couldn't spell his name or write it in order and within the first 2 days he had mastered it. Here's the proof! I think the twins will do very well!

This was day 1 with ALOT of coaching. :) Notice all the eraser marks. LOL
This is on Friday! You can barely tell which one is mine. :)

Mason has the occasional "I don't wanna do school." I'm hoping that changes for the sake of my sanity. haha For the most part his attitude is good though. We have also only started out with 2 papers. Boy is he in for it! haha

We also rocked out to Tobymac while painting! Did Math in our underwear. Wait, I better rephrase that...MASON did Math in his underwear! haha I asked him to get dressed and his words were, "Do I have to get dressed, its homeschool?" He got me there. So on Thursday we spent the day in our pajamas. :) We also learned how to do laundry.

It seems that school seems to continue throughout the day which I love! We had a very big wipe off board that the kids wrote on. Well, I cut it in 3 peices so that I could use it and they could have one when working with them. Weston and Isaac love to prop it up on the kitchen table bench and practice their "school work". It led to writing words and drawing in 3D and all sorts of things.

It will definitely take some time to adjust and get a routine together, but it has been an amazing week with many more to come.

Mason takes his handwriting to his room while I work with the twins. He loves this!

Weston and Isaac's 1st day of school! :)
Coloring their first worksheet. I know, you all probably think I'm crazy.
This is where I took the prompting and we spelled Cat. Yeah, who would of thought...not me.
Here we are painting to Tobymac! I LOVED IT!!!

So I expressed my anxiety in an earlier post, but I don't know if you truley understand how nervous I really was. It was bad. I have to tell you that I am now so excited!!! I am having so much fun. Its only the first week, I know, but it has went much better than I ever thought. It is alot more work than I thought it would be though, but so worth it. So when I have one of those moments later in the year...we know its going to happen...please refer me back to the post! :)

Its finally happening!

Its finally here...the 1st day of school is tomorrow!! I can't believe it is here and I can't believe that its actually going to happen. I am nervous as all get out! I have the twins entire curriculum planned out up until the end of November. It took me a while to figure out their reasoning for things, but once I just started in, it made complete sense. We are starting out slow for Mason. Our plan is for the first couple weeks brushing up on Math while starting the new lesson in our new book. :) He has always loved handwriting so we will start with that too and add everything else in slowly. He has expressed some anxiety, but I think once we get started he will love it. Well thats my hope anyway, with using the combination of things he likes and things he doesn't like to get started. The twins, on the other hand, are so excited!! They have been asking to start for weeks now as they have been watching me organize their papers. I am so excited to see the change in them as the year progresses. I am also hopeful to see Masons attitude for school change and realize how fun it really can be.

We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow and I will definitely be taking pictures of our new journey!

Weekend of Cars

So I am adjusting very well to my new TAN car! Well actually the boys call it a truck. I'm not sure what to call it to be honest, but I am adjusting very well. In fact...I LOVE IT!!! I am finding new gadgets all the time and I am very grateful that we have it! So here are some pictures.I must tell you all that the grill (or whatever you call that black thing) is, as we speak, being taken off. I debated it because if William wrecks again it will protect our front end, but we came to a decision and it is coming off.

Yesterday we spent the day in Indy with Williams mom and husband (aka Mama and Dave :) ) and went shopping. They had seen a store called Ride Makerz and wanted to take the boys. So we made a day of it. Its like a boys version of Build A Bear only they build CARS. It is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

First you pick out your body. Then you can pick out you own music. I forgot to take pictures of that. Oops! :) Then you decide if you want remote control and/or monster or street car. The boys opted for remote control street cars.

Then its off to pick out your tires and rims. The cars come with standard black or you can upgrade. We gave the boys a chioce. You can pick one upgrade, tires or rims. There are so many choices!! You would think you were building a real car. :) Mason choose to upgrade his tires to black and red ones. Weston choose to upgrade his rims to gold dragon ones (dragon rims on a fire truck, how cool!) and Isaac liked the black and decided to go with the standard. The cool thing is that even though they upgraded they still got the ones that came standard. So it was 2 for the price of 1...I LOVE IT!!There was a whole other row of rims that for some reason I didn't get in the picture.

Then it was off to put it together!! You could even race each other to see who could put it together the fastest. We opted out of that one.

So here's the finished products!! Weston choose to do a fire truck with the siren music..how appropriate! Which we could not talk him out of. :) And boy did he know what he was doing. He has one that can be switched out into the most things.

Isaac chose a Mustang with fire flames down the side with the rockin music.Mason chose a red Viper! He is definitely his dads child! LOL Then it was time to try them out! Yes...they let them play with them IN the store! Where do you get to do that?! While they were playing we were looking. You can buy decals, roof racks with surf boards, side pipes, underglows...you name it they have it. Its all magnetic so you can add and take away and redesign your car whenever you want. We did let Weston get some sirens for his fire truck. No fire truck is complete without sirens. :)

It was a great time!! And I have a feeling that it won't be the last. :) I'm almost done, hang in there! The post wouldn't be complete without some much needed sleeping pictures!

Thanks Mama and Dave for a GREAT DAY!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

And the color is....

TAN!!!!!!!

Can you freaking believe it?!! The inside color you ask...TAN!! The whole freaking thing is TAN!! Seats, floor boards, dash board, steering wheel and all!! Well, actually they call it Gold, but seriously call it what you want...tan, gold, cacky, beige, sandstone, etc...all the same color. I mean come on! Including the rental and this new car, that makes 4, I repeat, 4 cars in the same boring color....TAN! What kind of a color is tan anyway. Its not! Any color other than tan, is that too much to ask for? When I hung up with Matt today I forgot to ask him the color so I called him back. Now picture this ladies. I was standing in the parking lot of McAlisters when he told me. People probably thought I was nuts as I'm ranting about the color tan to my friend very loudly..."Tan, its freaking tan!". His reply, well God must want you in tan for a reason. Ha Ha your so funny! I was really playing with him I wasn't mean to him I promise. :) He's laughing at me by the way. He still thinks its funny. I, on the other hand, do not.

So I'll be sporting around town in my TAN 2003 Ford Expedition gas hog with a sunroof. hee hee :)

GOOD NEWS!!!!

WE GOT IT!!!! OK, so we don't actually have it now because it has to be cleaned up and checked out, but it is ours! We pick it up tomorrow!! So I'm going to prepare you that I am going to list everything it has. I'm not doing it to brag honest. I'm doing it to show myself the positive side of this because I have to admit that I walked off the lot a little bummed, ok alot bummed. Oh and the first person to tell me what color it is gets a Bozo Button! haha Emily, your disqualified. :)

So this is what I love about it!! And it meaning its a 2003 Ford Expedition. It only has 36,000 miles on it!! It has leather seats, 3 rows so the children will be seperated again (finally some peace and quiet haha), 6 cd player, the pedals move up so I don't have to be so close to the air bag (being short thats huge), a sunroof (which I have never had), the seats fold down into floor, 4 windows to roll down, it has an alarm button on the keyless entry, it has keyless entry, it has a middle shoulder strap seat belt for Mason to sit in the middle, a step for us short people to get into it, the handles are cool (thats a hard one to explain), it has 4 wheel drive, the tow package (so if I ever get rich enough to buy a boat I could haul one haha), heated side mirrors and the payment is $130 less than what we were paying which is HUGE!!!!!

The bad news. We don't have it yet because it still has to be cleaned up and checked out. :( Its a 2003, which we had a 2004. I was excited about the other 2003 that had over 80,000 miles so I should be ecstatic about this 2003 with only 36,000 miles. It has an older style. Meaning the body style, handles, the window buttons, speedometer, gear shift, that kind of thing. It doesn't have heated seats which is really nice with leather. It has one major scratch on the passenger side which we hope to get fixed soon and about 6 or 7 small dents around the driver side door handle for me to look at everytime I get in the truck. :) It does not have the dvd player that Mason wanted...ok alright, I wanted it too. It has 3 seats in the middle row, which could be good or bad. Good because I can hold one extra person, but bad because Mason will have to climb over the middle to get in. It doesn't have the rails on the top.

I also have to admit that as I was test driving it I didn't have very good attitude. I couldn't get past the fact that I didn't get in and it feel and smell like a new car because it hadn't been cleaned. So then it just continued with me naming the imperfections. I just had a realization as I was typing that. The truck is kinda like me. A little messy, not perfect and a little scratched up, but still amazing! If God can look past my mess, dings and scratches and still see a wonderfully made person then I should be able to look past this and realize that God is giving me this car (which I will explain more later) and it can and will do amazing things just like me. We all have imperfections and so did our van. I also realized that the bad things really aren't that bad and aren't as many as I thought they were.

Usually when I feel a little uneasy about something I know that its a bad idea. BUT!!! And thats huge! We KNOW that this truck is what God has for us. First of all I must tell you all that Matt has been the one helping us find a vehicle and he has been amazing especially putting up with me and my impatientness. :) Right after he told me it would be like finding a needle in a haystack he walks out to find it sitting right there in front of him. Seriously, now if that isn't God I'm not sure what is. It had 50,000 less miles than the bank wanted and our payments were what we asked for, it did have some of the things we asked for and some other things happened that I'm not sure I'm supposed to share yet, but was a HUGE God thing and I don't throw that saying around.

I have to say that I'm not as bummed now and I'm starting to get excited! I am thinking about getting seat covers so William doesn't make the driver seat all black with his greasy work clothes. You guys should have seen how bad the van was. When I went to clean it out I was so shocked. I don't think you realize it when you look at it everyday. We are also buying black floor mats, I don't care what he says, because he makes the floor boards greasy too with his work boots. Ok, maybe I'll buy the clear ones. :) I know it doesn't do any good to have leather seats that I love so much if you don't see them, but it also doesn't get as much wear and tear on them like clothe either but you can also see black grease easier. If anyone has any suggestions I'm so open to them.

I must tell you all before I end this that the dings and scratches probably aren't as bad as I'm making them sound. It was just a little disappointing. I know that Matt has worked hard at finding us something and feels, like us, that this is what God has for us. For crying out loud, he walked out and there it was!!

So I'm off to go shopping, window shopping that is, for accesories for our new truck! WOO HOO!!! Thank you God!!!!

Don't forget to guess the color! ;)

Seriously

Ok so you all know that I was trying to not get excited about this vehicle and things were not looking good today. So I told myself that if it hadn't happened by tonight then tomorrow I was just going to tell him that maybe we needed to try something else. Really I was at peace about it. Well...he calls me tonight and says its not going to work. Seriously, you read my mind. He told me what we needed to find and said it was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack, but he was going to work his butt off to do it. We needed something 2004 or newer, under 80,000 miles AND around $11,000 ($14,000 after our rollover) but worth enough to hold up what we are upside down on. Impossible...not to GOD! Really guys, I was okay with this surprisingly. :)

So literally 15 minutes later I get another call from him. "I found you a car." Seriously you've got to be kidding me! That quick, we have so much criteria to meet and I just hung up with you. As he was walkijng out to his car to go home they pulled up a trade in they had just taken. Get this, I'm telling you this not to brag but I am so excited that I just have to share and I truely feel like this is God (whether this is the vehicle for us or not its IS possible). It is a 2003 (not what the banks want, BUT) it ony has 30,000 miles on it AND we will also be $3500 under what we were going to finanace the first time. It also, get this, has leather seats, which I prayed for (and I know it sounds silly).

So now that you all now how much we're paying for a vehicle. :) I had a little talk with God today. I have been very nervous and on edge since last Friday. But seriously there is nothing I can do about it. Its up to him. I know that. So I told him today that this is what I would like...an SUV (I know about gas mileage but I'm just ready for something different), leather seats, not be tan (our last 3 cars have been tan) and Mason really wants a dvd player in it. I know that I don't have a right to be picky considering our situation and if I get it I will praise you and if I don't then I will still praise you. But this is what I would really like.

So whether this is the vehicle God has for us or not...he IS working in our situation even if I don't see it all the time and get really, really irritated at the whole thing. But I like to hope that tomorrow, we will be in a vehicle and not just any vehicle, but one thats right for us and one we're meant to have.

Have a great evening! :)