Year: 2012

We made it through a fabulous first week getting back into our school routine.  Mack seems to have gotten a little more used to the read-alouds and the handwriting…and he even likes it.

I was laughing when I found many, many pictures Mack took of himself with my camera last Sunday morning.  I’ll start with those and then move on to our school pics.

 

 

Some of his pictures remind me of myself when I accidentally have my camera facing myself, and I scare myself at how rough I look.  Funny.

Ruby read some poems aloud while in her bathing suit and standing on a chair.

Molly loves practicing cursive!

Ruby got a haircut one day this week.  Molly helped me with some flashcards while we waited.

Mack practiced writing the letter “B.”  Can you guess what he said these B’s looked like?…..Boys!

He is crazy.  These jeans finally went in the trash this week.  I didn’t mind the knee holes, but the hole he found in another inappropriate place turned these jeans into trash.

We went to lunch at Chuy’s today. It was our first time and there was plenty of decorations in that place to keep the kids’ attention!  And even though we didn’t go on vacation this summer, this picture kind of makes it look like we did!

There you go!  A fun first week of school!  Glad to be back at it.

And another accomplishments of sorts that could go under the title “We did it!” is my memorization of James.  I got the study for Christmas and went through it alone…I thought it was crazy that Beth Moore asked us to consider memorizing the whole book of James.  However, I thought I should try it.  I worked on it for about five months and made it to chapter four…then I led the study with our class and some neighbors, and they held me accountable as I recited a chapter each week.  This coming Tuesday, Lord-willing, I will recite the last 11 verses, and then I will do a little jig on the inside for reaching the goal!  And, just like God, I met with a younger girl this week who (not knowing I had just finished memorizing James) told me she would like me to hold her accountable to memorizing James!  How neat is that?  Obviously, I still have some learning to do from James.

 

Amazingly, we started school this week.  I sensed we would be easing into it, so I picked a week when Josh would be gone for a few days.  That way I wouldn’t have to cook supper.  The kids are good with pancakes, cereal, or leftover pizza.  I just knew I’d need those kind of evenings as we all start to adjust to our new routine.

Let me also say that I grossly underestimated our ability to bounce back into a routine that pushed us beyond making our beds and putting on our bathing suits.

Mack is starting Kindergarten curriculum, and we tried to make it a BIG deal that Monday was his official first day of school.  He seemed excited while we were doting on him and snapping pictures.  It helped that he was decked out in his cowboy clothes, too.  However, when I pulled out LEADING LITTLE ONES TO GOD and told them to listen up, he propped his feet up on the desk, looked at me with a pitiful face and said, “I just really don’t want to listen to this.”

With that said, I plan to come back at the end of the week with some pictures and HOPEFULLY some genuine thrill of being back to putting learning as a priority (as opposed to sun and fun).

Today it was a joy to wake up to cloudy skies and some rain.  I am weary of the pool and sun…we’ve been out in the water and the heat most every day for the past seven weeks.  I am tempted to start school, but I am waiting until the last week of July to officially start.

In the meanwhile, I asked the kids at breakfast what they wanted to do with me today all by themselves right here at home.  See, I have to MAKE myself “play.”  It doesn’t just come naturally to me to say, “Hey, Molly, let’s color together” or “Ruby, wanna play dollhouse?” or maybe, “Mack, would you like to try and figure out how to put some of your LEGOs together (even though you’ve totally disregarded my organizational system that would have allowed you to enjoy your LEGOs instead of just looking at the million and one pieces in that huge rubbermaid container)?”

SO, we’ve had some quality time around this house today.  I was particularly tickled at Ruby while we played dollhouse.  And, really, it wasn’t so much that we were playing together as that she was telling me how to play and what to say.  She was totally stunting my creative juices.  I wanted the babies to cry and be hungry, but she said, “No, Mom.  They are good babies and are just sleeping.”  I wanted the Dad to sit and talk to the Mom on the couch about her day.  She said, “No, Mom.  It’s already 9:30.  They need to go to bed now.”

Here’s where I got a laugh.  In the “morning,” Ruby said that the Dad was going to stay home til noon, but that the babies needed to go to daycare.”

Really?   This intrigued me.  I said, “Ruby, is the mommy working?”

“No.  She is staying at home.”

“Well, Ruby, why are the kids going to daycare?  Can’t they stay home with the mommy?”

She said, very confidently, “The mom cannot get anything done around the house if the babies stay home!”

Well, there you go.  Wake ’em up and ship ’em out if you want to get anything done.  Why did I never think of that??

Well, since we are stuck at home recuperating from the lovely stomach virus that seems to be making its way into many a home, I figured I would clean photos off my phone.  I realize I might wanna dust off my Nikon and get to taking some better quality pictures.  The photos are ok, but some of them transferred not-so-greatly.  Anyway, if you are up for randomness, here we go….

Ruby and Molly played soccer this past spring.  I am not sure I entered any blog posts about it, but here is a picture of them with their cute little coach.

A sweet note Molly wrote to my parents before our visit in May

A picture at the park:  Ruby (7), Molly (6), Mack (5)

A picture from 2002 I found at my mom and dad’s house.  This is before a house, before kids…we were foot-loose and fancy-free and didn’t even know it!

Crazy Kid

Crazy kid

and another crazy kid….a hoodie in June…??

We enjoyed a night out to eat and Madagascar 3!

We’ve enjoyed pool time this summer.  All three kids are like fish, so that makes it super easy for me!

Mack is a funny boy.  He totally thinks he is a cowboy.  He wants to wear jeans everyday, no matter the temperature because “cowboys wear jeans even if it’s hot outside!”

We got our house painted…much needed since we have had this house for nine years!

Got some new curtains up in the living room…this pic is for you, Mary!  🙂

Been leading a summer Bible Study by Beth Moore on James.  It is fabulous!

One day Mack and his stubborn, jean-wearing self wouldn’t put on his bathing suit when we were going to the pool.  He wished he had listened to me once he got there.

This is part of Josh’s Father’s Day gift that the kids and I made for him.  He refers to Psalm 128 often, so I thought since it deals with children and leading a family that I would have us incorporate it into a gift for him.  The little empty circles are for small pictures of each kids face.  The neat thing is that he went to the Southern Baptist Convention on Father’s Day and heard Tony Evans preach from Psalm 128, the same sermon he had heard many years ago that made him love that passage!  So neat!

Alrighty, that’s the photo dump and randomness….it’s about too much for me to take….at least I am sort of caught up.  Hope you are enjoying your summer.  We most definitely are!

Wow.  I’m not surprised, but it can be mind-boggling how quickly May sweeps by me each year.  We have had a full month of finishing up school, going to Augusta to visit family, going to NYC to meet up with Josh for a few days, watching the kids in a musical and celebrating Ruby’s 8th birthday.  It was also a difficult one as I’ve been walking with a friend through a very difficult time.  It makes the good and peaceful times that much more wonderful.  Life isn’t always as simple or as pleasant as we’d like it to be, is it?

So during the moments of fun and laughter, I was extra aware of the blessings of life and was able to say thank you to God for the days of light-hearted fun. And I even got to the point of saying thank you to God as I’ve seen Him working in this very heavy situation.  He still sees everything. He is still the God of all comfort, and I am so thankful for that!

So here are some pictures from our month of May…

 

So all in all, May has been a good month for the Dorminy Family.  Looking forward to swimming a lot this summer!

While we were driving through a parking lot across town, Mack said to Molly, “WOW!!  Look, Molly.  That guy is EVERYWHERE!”

I turned around to see who Mack was referring to….it was a UPS man driving his truck.  HA!  He thinks it is the same man that drives the same truck all over town!  That cracked me up.

This morning started very calmly.  It’s Friday, it’s April, so we aren’t “up and at ’em” in the schooling department.  Instead, my kids have had breakfast (Cinnamon Toast Crunch in a ziploc bag while watching a movie), and I have enjoyed coffee and my time in The Word quietly and uninterrupted in my room.  Everyone then got ready for the day, I cleaned out more of Mack’s clothes and toys, did some laundry and then decided that it was a good day to travel down to Hobby Lobby to find the plain orange t-shirts my girls need for a choir recital in May.  Oh and since we’ll be out around lunch, we were planning to stop at Wendy’s (only the best nutritional food for my family!).

Enter UNWANTED CAT IN MY GARAGE.  The kids be-bopped out into the garage and then said, “Oh, Mom, there’s a cat in here!”

What happened after this was a bit dramatic–there were tears and some screaming and running.  I am sure it had nothing to do with how I pulled each of them back into the house saying, rather loudly, “GET IN THE HOUSE, CLOSE THE DOOR, GET IN THE HOUSE, CLOSE THE DOOR!!!!!!!!!”

See I have this thing with animals….it’s not just cats, so don’t put me in the “cat-hater” category.  My category is more like, “I don’t hate animals, but I don’t like them or want them–ever.”  There is a difference.

After securing the door and making sure the kids knew that we were going to be ok, I started thinking about HOW I could get this cat out of the garage.  Actually, I kind of assumed the cat ran out once the garage door went up.

I was wrong.

I saw white furriness sitting in between two boxes on the other side of the garage.  I “shewed” at it.  You know–I said, “Shew!  Get out of here.”

It didn’t move.

I threw a notebook in that general direction just to scare it out.

It didn’t move.

I got my broom.  This invoked some more drama.  Ruby said, “NO, Mama.  Don’t go back out there!!!”  Molly got quiet and cried pitifully.  Mack wanted to come with me.

I poked my broom through the boxes to move the cat out.

It didn’t move, y’all!

I elicited some facebook help. Let’s see….I got advice like keeping it as my own (in complete sarcasm from a friend who knows better), water gun, beebee gun, or hand gun, and putting tuna out in driveway for it to be lured out.  I thought about the tuna thing for about a second, but then I realized that in my book food=friend, so the cat might think that way, too….and the cat would be way wrong.

Then, a friend said to tell Mack that “sometimes cowboys have to wrangle cats.  Put him in boots and turn him loose!”

I passed this along to Mack, and you wouldn’t believe the confidence that rose up in him.

“OH, YEAH!  But ‘cept I have on shorts.  I need to go get on jeans and my boots and then I’ll get out there and wrangle that cat…..Besides, I’m brave.”

Ruby, in a panic, says, “Mack, You will not go out there.  You will not wrangle that cat.”

He is steady walking up the stairs saying he can do it because he is a cowboy.

Ruby hollers, “No, Mack.  That is just the dumbest thing.  That cat could kill you.”

His reply?: “That’s ok.”

Ruby then says to me, “Well, if he gets killed, it’s his own fault.”

I am laughing hysterically inside at this point.  I told Mack that maybe he should wait for Dad to get home so that they can be a team.

Mack didn’t really like that idea.  He was ready for action.  He said he could take his rope and swirl it around and wrangle the cat that way….OR….(this is a bit violent…don’t know where he got this from) he said, “I can take a knife and do like this” —-he motioned like he was sticking a knife in the cat and made a noise like “GGKKKSSHHHHH!”

Oh me oh my.

So even though the cat stopped us from our outing and forced us to have lunch at home, we did have some excitement and humor around here.

Josh’s input went something like, “Just go to the store.  The cat won’t do anything more between now and when I get home.”

Men are simple thinkers.  If I could get to my driver’s door without envisioning the furry critter pouncing on me with his claws out then I might consider leaving.

I’m such a wimp.

 

 

 

 

This morning I was helping Mack button his jeans.  I noticed dirty fingernails and toenails and suggested that he start the day off with a shower.  (He was already putting on his favorite shirt and the same jeans from yesterday.)

ME: “Mack, look at your feet, buddy!  I think you need a shower!”

MACK: “But, MOM, this is what cowboys do.  They be dirty.  And I’m gonna have my boots on anyway.”

ME: “Ok, but go put your socks on first!!” (We have stunk up our fair share of shoes by going sockless!  And when I say “we” I’m talking about Mack.)

MACK: “Cowboys don’t wear socks, MOM.  They don’t.”

ME:  “Oh yes they do.” (because I know so much about cowboys, let me tell you…..)

OK.  He later was told to go brush his teeth.

“But, MOM, cowboys don’t need to brush their teeth.”

I told him that Oh Yes Cowboys do need to brush their teeth.  Horses don’t let Cowboys ride on them if they haven’t brushed their teeth. (Again, I know about cowboy stuff…..)

Mack asked me if this was true.

I said, “Of course…I mean, if I were a horse I sure wouldn’t let you ride on my back with nasty teeth.”

So my little Cowboy Mack brushed his teeth, but his fingernails and toenails are still gross.  And I didn’t watch him put socks on his feet, so I am not sure that under those boots there aren’t bare feet marinating in little boy sweaty-ness.

Shooo-weee.

BAD NEWS: Ruby and Mack wet the bed last night.

GOOD NEWS: They were sleeping in the same bed last night.

As I was sharing this bad news/good news business with Josh and saying, “At least I only have one set of sheets to wash this morning!,” he decided to capitalize on my “half glass full” mentality.

CONFESSION (from Josh): “I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I took them to Dairy Queen last night.”

Really?  See, I met at friend at about 7:00PM for coffee.  I came home around 8:50PM and found everyone together happily watching a movie in the dark. (translation: everyone was up/awake/not in bed and the house was dark which is gross to me…I don’t know why exactly, but I like lamps ON if I am awake.)

And when asked, “How did the night go?”  and later asked “Did the kids do ok for you?”— it didn’t occur to ANY ONE of the four stinkers to say, “We got an ice cream tonight!!!!,” which now that I am thinking about it is just plain weird….and makes me think that MAYBE, just maybe they had a little talk about “let’s not mention this to mom when she gets home, ok kids?”

Interesting.

So, there you have it.  A little bad news, good news, and a confession on this beautiful Tuesday morning.

Anything you need to confess?  They say it’s good for the soul.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but Monday mornings are ROUGH around here.  Sundays are usually full and fun and late.  And then there’s the laundry that multiplies over the weekend.  And the car that has more stuff in it than…than..um, I don’t know.  It’s a lot of stuff.  And the kitchen.  Let’s not even talk about the kitchen.  Home schooling doesn’t get started til 10ish on Mondays and usually involves an extended recess so that I can get said laundry and kitchen under some kind of control.

There’s this other “issue.”  His name is Mack.  He seems to be really confused about what it means when I am teaching the girls.  To him SCHOOLING THE GIRLS=ENDLESS Wii AND NETFLIX.  He gets upset when I let him know that this won’t be happening (except it totally did today…I just didn’t have it in me).  So while today he wasn’t met with much resistance when it came to screen time, he was met with resistance when the girls where finished with their work and they wanted a say in what was on the screen. He started with whining about Molly, who happens to be feeling bad today…just some sniffles.  She evidently asked him to get her something and he went off about how “Molly is doing nothing and I am doing everything and she just always needs something and I am trying to do something (watch BackYardigans).”  I explained to him that I was concerned with his heart because his mouth was saying some unkind things.  I reminded him how Molly is a wonderful little nurse to him and to Ruby whenever they don’t feel well.  He got quiet and went back to his show.

I noticed him getting irate about something involving Ruby.  He may or may not have been yelling at the top of his lungs when I intervened.

“MACK.  That is ENOUGH.  You are tired and out of control and you will be going to bed right now.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!  I AM NOT TIRED AT ALL.  NOT AT ALL.  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

I just smiled at him and lay him on his bed, hugged him and told him not to get up.

He kicked and kicked and cried and hollered about not being tired.

Within five minutes he was fast asleep.  Two hours later I went in to check on him, and he woke up and said, “I don’t need a nap.”

Sure.

Here’s to hoping Tuesday is a bit more productive in the schooling department and that Mack gets a better night’s sleep!