What a great weekend. We have been blessed amazing summerlike weather this weekend. It has been in the 60's yesterday, today and tomorrow will be too. Sunny and BEAUTIFUL!!!!! So, we are out enjoying it! I think a zoo trip is in store tomorrow.

8 Wonderful Years in September.

All of us on our 8th anniversary in September.


This is my first time ever, organised junk drawer. Is this inspiring or what?


Bad hair night for AWANAS.

This is our cutie little blond curly haired blue eyed girl.

We had our first snow yesterday. It snowed off and on all morning. No sticking. The kids went out to catch flakes on their tongues.

Don't forget to vote today, lots of people have given their lives for you right to vote! If you are in Ohio, please vote no on 2!

It is sunny but cool here today. We had a really heavy frost yesterday morning. Snow is forcasted for Thursday. It is November now, so I am ok with it snowing. Reminds me that I still need to order snow boots for the kids though...oopss. We've looked at alot of the cheaper snow boots around but none of them look like they would be waterproof and my kids would have frozen feet in about 10 seconds. They love playing in the snow, and so we are going to spend the money to get them boots that will keep their feet warm in the snow. Joshua actually begged to go play in the frost yesterday, lol! He ran to me first thing in the morning and said "Mommy, Mommy, look outside there is white stuff!!!!" He was sooo excited. Hated to break it to him that it wasn't snow and they weren't going out to play in it.

Hannah is either gearing up for a huge growth spurt or getting sick. The last two days she has nursed constantly. She climbs up in my lap and signs eat while pulling on my shirt and saying night night, lol! She may not be talking fully but the girl can get her point across. She also screams APPLE at the top of her lungs any time anyone has ANY kind of food. It is hysterical. She'll frantically sign more and eat and please trying to get some food. You'd think she was starving to death. She ate more chicken pot pie than Leah at dinner last night.

Happy Reformation Day!!!!!!!!!!!

On Oct 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door in Wittenburg, thus unknowingly beginning the Reformation. This is what we celebrate today. We avoid the American celebration of death and the occult and choose to enjoy a dinner out for breakfast as a family. In Texas, we had lots of friends from our church join us. In Ohio, thus far, it is just us enjoying Bob Evans! Yum!!!

So, Happy Reformation Day Ya'll!

We've had a lovely week. Spent time at the Akron zoo and two days tromping thru the woods at the Rocky River Reservation. We saw deer up close on both days, crawled around in tree roots of fallen trees, got pounded by falling acorns and were in awe of the beauty of God's creation in the Fall season. We finished up our creation study in school and now go onto 26 fun filled lessons surrounding the letters of teh alphabet. Each letter is paired with a math, reading, bible, science and I think geography lesson for a week. Next week will be sponsored by the letter "S"! ;-)

Today we go vote. Please, if you live in Ohio, vote NO on issue 2. I've never read a more poorly written and less thought out piece of legislation. It makes me mad actually. There is no reason that this issue should remotely be linked with any kind of constitutional amendment. And even if this were to try to pass as simple legislation, it is rediculous. There are no standards addressed at all and no over sight by anyone, or the option of oversight to ever be established or possible. Basically, it comes down to big agri business wanting to set up this committee that can run rampant over the farmers and therefore the people of Ohio. Don't give away your power! VOTE NO ON ISSUE #2.

And in case you are wondering, we will voting NO on #1 and #3 as well. We aren't in Cuyahoga Co anymore so we won't have the option of #5 and #6, but we would be voting no on 5 and yes on 6, if anyone cares.

We had a good weekend....but I! had a great weekend!!!! I read a book on Saturday, and it wasn't a child's book and I did it all by myself! Robert got up with the kids at 9 and headed downstairs. I curled up with an Amish fiction novel and read in bed and ignored screams and bangs and fits until noon!!!! I got up, made everyone lunch. Got them all down for naps and went right back to bed to read until 5. Got up, showered and went out to a yummy Mexican dinner with my family. It was the best day I've had in FOREVER!!!! I told Robert that I need a reading day once a month. Hiding in bed with a book has been my escape/reboot mechanism since I was small enough to read...which I think started at 4 for me. The book was ok, not the best I"ve read by far or worst, but that wasn't the point!!! I'm refreshed!

Today was sunny and 60 degrees, so even though we got to be late and Hannah was up every 45 minutes last night and Leah has a cough and Hannah a cold....we went to the zoo. I knew what it would mean for this afternoons nap scenario and evening/night routines and we still went....and it was lovely. We visited the Akron zoo for the first time. We live much closer to Akron than Cleveland now. It was a nice little zoo. We can't wait to go back and show Daddy, and for Daddy to take the kids thru the snake building. Mommy don't play snakes! We still squeezed school in after dinner. And now, I'm off to bed.

Friday Kid Update

Yes, I haven't forgotten.....just been tired and settling. Without further ado.

Joshua- Loves school. I wish his teacher could school him as much as he wanted me too. If that were the case, he'd graduate by age 10, I'm sure of it. Of course, that is one of many reasons we are homeschooling. So our childrens education will truly educate and grow them, instead of just being floated thru a system like we were. Robert and I often wonder how much more we could have learned and done had we been given any opportunity other than mundane school boredom. Anyway, Joshua is loving school. This morning he told me "I love math" I can't wait for his Daddy to get home and hear that. He'll cry..... no really, he will. Math is Robert's passion, he can do calculus in his head. I think Joshua may have the same knack. We could easily finish the kindergarten math books I got him in a week, if I let him, but I'm not. This year is more about us learning how to do school together than him learning any concepts. He pretty much has most all K concepts down.

He is growing like a weed. I think he is growing so fast sometimes that his mind and body can't keep up. He goes thru regular periods of being crazily clumsy. Thankfully other people have seen him just walking along and fall flat out on his face...other wise people might question his bumps and bruises. He is really funny though because he always immediately jumps and says real fast and loud "I'm ok!" I think his mind has days it can't keep up either. Every once in a while, he'll just not be him. He won't listen, has no regard for us or other authority, is mean to his sisters, and just kind of quiet. I really think it's his way of just shutting down some to process and then he's good again.

Leah- Is still so flamboyant and crazy. She's starting to try and be sneaky, which is funny since she's 3 and has no skill at it whatsoever. She too has had a huge growth spurt. She shot right through her 3t's and is a solid 4t now. Good thing I was slow on the winter clothes shopping or we would have been in trouble in the wrong size. She has her own room now and really seems to be thriving. I think she likes her quiet alone time in the mornings before I get everyone up. She gets up and gets dressed....which is always an amusing costume of sorts, and then plays with her babies and kitchen. I really think it has helped her calm down a bit. She does need more focused training from us though. She is kind the brat right now, but that is totally our lack of training. We are working on it.

Hannah- Now this girl has taken off! She is eating table food almost full time, although she still nurses 8-12 day too. She's putting on weight and BUSY. She's crawling for real. For a few days, she would hold our fingers and walk with us, but now if we try to do that she promptly plants her bottom. I think she figured out we were going to less carrying time with Mommy and she quickly put the brakes on that. She talks up a storm. She says NO NO, constantly...but only in car...to Leah! lol! She also knows alot of signs and can and will quickly put her siblings in there place. They love her so much though. She calls them both Bubba, which cracks everyone but Leah up, although she has come to terms with it now. We HAVE to work on her sleep. Up until 9 months, she was a great sleeper....for a Lachney baby, but then we traveled to Texas and back and then D.C. and we've been unsettled since and her sleeping is awful.....and I'm about to collapse becasue of it. Time to break out Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child again. Poor Tooty doesn't know what is coming! But we'll all be happier once we get thru it.

Things are on the up and up here already. A relief for sure. I'm not a big believer in all of the crazy media hype that stirs our country/world into hysteria every year or so over some new virus that is going to kill the entire world. But, having little ones and knowing that small children in our area have died from swine flu, does make me pause. We still handled this the way we always do any "sick" episode....meaning,we don't wait until we are sick to care for ourselves.

I always try to keep us in healthy habits to give our bodies strength for life, including virus's and bacteria. So, we just got everyone really going on the Ningxia Red, diffuser going full time, lots of oils on our bodies, homeopathic remedies and we got chiropractic adjustments. Everyone woke up fever free and well today. I think we are all a little tired but otherwise we are fine. I'm grateful to God for bringing us on a path of natural healing. I think it is sad that americans, christian and not, put more trust in doctors than our God who loves us and CREATED us. He designed our bodies with systems to fight, but sadly most people just want to run and take a pill to stop those annoying symptoms. He also gave us many things in His creation to help our bodies when they are taxed and stressed. He is a mighty God!

Oink Oink

Well, some kind of flu has entered out house. I'm not guessing whether it is of the porcine variety or not, but it is here either way. I think Hannah has had it a day or two. She's had very very swollen lymph nodes and been really cranky and clingy, but really, how much can you get from a baby about their symptoms. I've felt really ick the last two days with a headache and general run down feeling, but I'm a Mom that is woken up every 45 minutes to 2 hours all night every night....so I assumed that was my issue. But then last night, Joshua says he feels funny. I assumed he was just tired from not taking his nap that afternoon. Then within 15 minutes, he spikes a high fever. So, I'm pretty sure we have a flu of some sort. Robert ran to Walmart and got 4 boxes of Ossillococcinum (OSC) for us. Thankfully they weren't sold out. I've heard of multiple schools being closed in our area this and last week for swine flu, so I was worried. Thankfully for us, most people run to their ped and not for natural remedies...silly people. Anyway, keep us in your prayers. I'm staying on top of everybody with oils and remedies now so hopefully it will be short lived and mild.