Happy St. Partick's Day!!

What better way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day than with Cians 8th birthday!! OK, maybe it wasn't actually on St. Patrick's Day, but close enough. It was actually yesterday. We had a nice day. Sean had to work until 2pm, and since we took Tuesday off from school for Seans birthday, we had a lot of catch up work in school. After school we opened presents. The reason Cian is laying on the cough in front of his gifts, on his stomach is because he can't sit. He still has a boil on his butt and is in a lot of pain.

This years theme was of course, Star Wars. He received a Star Wars poster for their room, a bunch of action figures, baseball plates and balls for out back, die cast Star Wars ships, some Star Wars plane, a sith light saber and a new game for the Xbox. The game was the hit of course.

The kids are all obsessed with Costco pizza, so Sean had to drive 20 minutes to our nearest Costco just for pizza. (It was Friday, so burgers were out...gotta love Lent.)

The cake was super cool! It was baseball themed but it was so yummy, filled with Boston cream!!! Its really huge, we'll be eating it for at least a week. Right when I was putting the candles in it, Lizzie picks up a dirty, wet dish rag and throws it onto the kitchen table, landing right on the side of the cake...UGH!!!! It was only on the lower left corner, so I just cut that part off. What would a birthday be in this family with out some sort of mishap....lol.

I recorded Cian blowing out his candles with my phone. OMG, it was hysterical. He couldn't blow them out, he just kept spitting on the cake. Sean was horrified yet laughing at the same time.

We put the little ones to bed right after cake and let Declan and Cian spend the rest of the evening playing their new racing game. Here are the rest of the pictures...

Opening his poster.

Action figures.

Die cast ships.

Baseball bases.

Joy Ride Xbox game.

Darth Mal light saber

Star Wars ship.

Blew out the candles!

One last disappointing note, Sean did not get the LDP position. He feels he bombed his second interview. His boss basically said he had the utmost confidence that Sean is a born leader and able to preform this position well, but 6 months just wasn't enough time to be in the position and qualify for the program. He did say he was the front running for the program next year. Sean was pretty pissed at himself because he knows the position in and out, but his brain just wouldn't work that morning. He said he couldn't answer the "question behind the question" whatever that means. He's not upset about losing to the other lady, because she is more than qualified and deserves it. He's upset because he didn't do his best, and doesn't feel that he gave a good enough challenge. It's hard to explain, you have to know Sean and his personality to understand what I am trying to say. He's a natural leader and is not accustomed to failing. He will beat himself up over it until he wins. In the end, this will only make him work harder to prove he is the best.....lol. Like I said, you just have to know him to understand.

So, where does that leave us and this town....not sure yet, but we do know it will probably be another year here, unless something changes between now and then.....sigh.

St. Patrick's Day Bear Wreath

The boys and I made this really cute Saint Patrick's Day Bear Wreath for our classroom door. It turned out so cute, I thought I'd share the craft!

Materials:

Cardboard (we used an old pizza box from Kirkland)
Construction paper (green)
1 large dinner plate
1 small plate (like the plates you put under a tea cup)
scissors
glue
crayons (Brown, green, yellow and black)
pencil
Bear cut outs
wiggly eye (optional)

Instructions:

First, cut out a fairly large piece of cardboard. We used the box from a 3 pack of pizza from Costco. Use a dinner plate to trace a circle. Place a smaller plate (tea cup saucer) in the middle of the larger circle and trace that.

Cutting out the center circle was a little tricky, but it doesn't matter if it looks a little rough around the edges, no one will see it.

Now for the time consuming part, you'll need several sheets of green construction paper. You're going to be cutting strips about 1 1/2 inches wide by 4 inches long. You can use a ruler if you're a perfectionist like me...lol. Once all your rings are cut out, start gluing them together. Let the glue dry for a bit before gluing them to the wreath, or you'll have a gooey mess.

Once those are fairly dry, place your wreath on a sheet of news paper or something you don't mind getting glue on. (I made the mistake of doing it on my kitchen table. Now its a sticky mess.) You're going to start gluing the rings onto the wreath. You will be making two rows, so you will only need to put glue on half of each ring. Place a small line of glue where you glued the rings together and overlap it onto the wreath. You're going to do this all the way around your wreath. This can be pretty tricky, so be patient. You may need to make a few adjustments here and there. Let the rings dry for an hour or so.

While the rings are drying, this is a good time to have the kids color the bear and shamrock. Instead of coloring our shamrock, I traced it onto green construction paper. I used wiggly eyes for my bear to make him look silly. The kids loved that. Once you have colored all the parts, cut them out.

Here's the fun part. You're going to glue the head, hat, bow tie, shamrock and two paws on the front bottom of the wreath. I would suggest picking a section that you think didn't turn out as well, because the bear is going to cover it up for you! Glue the two paws to the bottom back of the bears face, just under his chin, so there is about a quarter of an inch between the two paws. Glue the bow tie onto to the bottom of his chin and paws. Glue the hat to the right or left ear. Let that dry for a few minutes.

Once the paws and head are somewhat dry, glue the top of the shamrock to the back of the bears paws. Let that dry while you move on to the tummy and feet.

Glue the small oval to the bottom middle of the large oval, making sure its centered. Glue the two paws to either side of the lower tummy. It's kind of hard to explain, so just use the picture as a guide. Once those are dry, you're ready to glue them to your wreath!

We're almost done, now glue the bears head to the front of the wreath, making sure the shamrock is hanging well below the bottom of the wreath. Glue the bears body to the back of the wreath. This is a bit tricky. You need to make sure its centered with the rest of the body. The bottom of his tummy and feet need to look like he's hanging on the wreath. I would suggest gluing the top front of his tummy to the green rings, not the wreath itself. (I made that mistake, you can barely see the green in his tummy or paws.) Once that is done, lay it flat and let it dry for an hour or so before hanging. It's light enough that masking tape will do the job nicely for hanging on a door or wall!

This was a fun craft, but better for older children. Have fun making it!

Happy Birthday Sean!!

Yesterday was my husbands 38th Birthday. He's not the least bit thrilled about it, but then who is....lol. We didn't do anything special, played Xbox (Borderlands), watched Major League and hung out with the kids.

I had done a bunch of surveys on Opinion Outpost to collect enough money to buy him a gift. Unfortunately, the money wasn't credited to my account until the day before yesterday, so I was a bit limited on what I could get him. I had ordered him a cool beer mug with flowers in it. I wanted to get him a baseball gift basket, but they wouldn't be able to deliver it until tomorrow. So I went with the mug of flowers. Then, while Sean was out, I got a call from 1-800 Flowers. The women, who spoke very little English, left a message that I could not understand. When I called back, they said they didn't have the mug I wanted and had substituted it with some ugly vase. I was livid!!! The whole point of the gift was the beer mug, not the stupid flowers. So I cancelled the order and they told me my credit card wouldn't be credited for 5 days. So I couldn't even get him another gift. I was so upset. I broke into tears and demanded to speak to a supervisor. Of course, they did NOTHING!!! They didn't even offer to trey an fix it. That is the last time I use their service.

All the kids made him special Birthday cards while he was out running errands. They turned out cute.

On Monday, Sean rented a Rug Doctor so we could clean the boys carpets. I am so sick of the infection that has consumed my childrens lives. I have tried everything. We even bought special covers for the mattresses. I went over their carpets twice and they were totally black. It was so discusting!!! The girls room wasn't that bad. I did the living room carpet too, but yesterday it still wasn't dry. Now my house smells like a basement filled with mold. I think we'll leave it to the professionals next time.

On an exciting note, Sean and I are in the beginning stages of looking to buy a house. I strongly emphasize "beginning stages". We are looking at different areas of our state. We know we don't want to buy a house in this area, but more North might be nice. We can't really do much else until we know where Sean will be working. He received an email this morning informing him that two of the three interviews for the LDP position will be tomorrow morning, starting at 9am. WOW, talk about no time to prepare. He never did get a suit. So he is going to ask his boss if he can work a half day to get his resume and things together. He was headed to Men's Warehouse this morning to see if they had something in his size that wouldn't need to be altered. His chest is really wide and his legs are super short, so the chances of that are pretty slim.

He's really nervous. His weak point is, his brain doesn't fully wake up until noon or 1pm. He's just not a morning person. Since the first interview is at 9am, he wants to wake up at 6am just to get a few Cokes down and try to get focused. His other disadvantage, one of the three other candidates has been in her position for a long time and she's really good at her job. He doesn't see them picking a guy who has only been in the position for 6 months over someone who has been doing it for several years. His advantages are that he interviews really well and this is the first year this program has been offered to his current department, so none of the other people really know what it is or how big of an impact the program is on promotion within the company. Since Sean was in corporate retail for three years, he has seen the program and knows how amazing the opportunity is.

Whatever happens, he will still be up for promotion in 6 months or sooner. Oh, I forgot to mention he went for his yearly review last week and got a small pay raise. (Small because he is already above the pay scale for his position.) It's not much, but it helps! His boss had nothing but raving things to say about his performance and again insured him that a district level position is in the near future. Very encouraging to hear!

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, Sean called to say Men's Warehouse CAN help him with his clothes! More details to come!!

UPDATE FOR TODAY: Sean went to his two interviews this morning. He sent me a text just before the first one saying he felt like he was going to "hurl" from nerves. Of course he didn't. He feels the first interview went well, but the second he feels he tanked because he wasn't himself. I'm sure he did find though. We may know who gets the position as early as tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!!

Windows 8 Review, LDP and Random Crazyness!

Last weekend, Sean installed the new Windows 8 onto my computer. We were already familiar with it since Sean has the first Windows Lumia phone and the Xbox 360. However, on my computer it's completely different. First, we made the mistake of not signing into my Hotmail account when we installed it. BIG NO NO. If you don't sign in, you will not be able to access anything like Mail, Messaging, the App Store or your calendar. Nothing worked right. Once it's installed, you can't uninstall it and start over. We did find a cool new feature that lets your "reset" your computer, kind of like a factory reset on your phone. You won't lose any files and or previous installations. It's actually really cool. Sean did this and was able to start over again and sign me in with my Hotmail account. Walla! Everything works!

I love all the cool tiles on the home screen. They are totally customizable, similar to apps. You just find your favorite websites and "pin" them to your home screen. It's actually designed for tablets, so swiping isn't very easy using a mouse pad, but it's still pretty cool. Since this is only a Beta version, you can't take advantage of all the cool features, but you get a good feel for what it will be like. The coolest feature, if you want to go back to the original Windows, you just click on the "desktop" tile and it brings you right back to the original Windows screen. So far, we really like it. It sure beats Chrome and their privacy violations.

On a cool note, last week Sean got pulled out of a meeting by his boss and her boss. They wanted to congratulate him on being their candidate for LDP (Leadership Development Program). It's basically a program for the "best of the best" to get a crash course training in all departments of the company. It's about 6 months long, usually 2-3 days per week and very intense. The people chosen for the program have to be within their current position for at least 6 months. They made a special exception for Sean because his 6 month mark wasn't until a couple days after the application cut off date. The candidates that are chosen are usually up for promotion and will be promoted shortly after the program is finished.

Sean is one of three selected for the program in our state. Only one is selected. He has to go through 3 interviews, 2 very intense, before they make their decision. As part of the process, he has to have an updated company profile, with a recent photo of himself. In nearly 4 years with the company, he has never filled out his profile, nor added a photo. He HATES having his picture taken, so he wasn't thrilled when his boss told him it needed to be done by this past Friday. We didn't have any pictures that were appropriate for work, so I took this picture of him before he went to work. Of course he hates it, but what can you do. He also has to buy a suit for the interviewing process. We haven't been told when it will start, but they are anxious to get the program started this year, so it will be soon. I will post an update after the interview process.

Life has been the usual crazy, busy around here. We just finished term 2 in school, although I have had to put a hold on Math with Declan because he had to go back and memorize all his multiplication problems. It has been such a pain with him because he is lazy and doesn't want to memorize them. The nice thing about home schooling, I can stop his daily lessons to go back and review or in our case, relearn a concept. It's been two weeks and he's got all but about 13 memorized. For some reason, he has a mental block with 6x7, 8x6, 8x4, 6x4, 7x7 and a few of the 11's and 12's. I'm hoping to take one more week with this and then finish the term.

Cian has done wonderfully with BOB Books. He is on his 5th book, Dot and Mit. This one has given him a little trouble, but we worked through it today. He gets frustrated when he mixes up letter sounds, like M and N. He also looks at the picture before reading and makes up his own words, rather than reading what is on the page. My biggest concern was if he was comprehending what he was reading. Its one thing to read the words, but to actually understand the plot is another. Surprisingly, he recaps the stories well. He read to Sean last night and he was just so proud of himself. Sean was thrilled to just see him reading. It has been such a struggle with him. I cannot express how happy I am to have found these books. When you have a child that needs extra help, it can be very discouraging to not find the proper materials needed. Like I said in a past post, I had tried several different beginning books, none of which he was ready for. It wasn't until my friend Michelle posted a blog about her daughter reading from the BOB Books that I decided to try them. I am so greatful for these books. They are perfect for him.

A couple of days ago, I came into the living room to find Sam standing in his play gym. I broke down into tears. It dawned on me that my baby boy was growing up and he might be our last baby. He is only 8 months old and already so active. Just today, I noticed two more teeth coming in on the top. That makes 6 in total. He rolled over early, crawled early and now pulling himself up and standing. Declan had him walking around the living room last night. This is all happening too fast for my taste. It seems like just yesterday I was bringing him home to meet my Mom and our neighbors. Now he's got 6 teeth, his hair sticks up and he's standing on his own. What's next, high school by 2? Why can't they just stay little babies forever. It figures the sweetest age is the shortest and the worst is the longest. I guess all we can do is treasure the moments we are blessed with and take lots of pictures/videos.....sigh.

On a rather annoying note, during school yesterday morning, Declan and I heard a crack, like pottery breaking. I looked out the window and saw Bear standing near the faucet out back. This is what we found. The stupid s*** chewed the hose off the faucet and I guess, was pulling at it and snapped the pipe in half. So now we can't turn on the water out back. Of course he snapped the pipe that goes underground, so it's going to cost a fortune to fix. Not sure how we're going to explain that one to our landlord, since she doesn't know we have dogs. I swear, he has been nothing but trouble since Sean brought him home.

We have another animal that is a huge headache as well. If you remember awhile back, my cat Dee-dah got herself knocked up and had two kittens. One we gave to the ladies next door and the other I kept. Well, I picked the dumb one. Shadow likes to do his business on the girls beds and recently our bed. Last night he left a huge package right in the middle of the bed. (I had just washed the bedding too.) Sean found it when he went to put Sam down for the night. He about killed him. I had been telling him for months that we needed to take the cat to the local shelter, but he has been reluctant to do so because it isn't a no-kill shelter. (There aren't any non-kill shelters in out county.) This was the last draw. We just bought the girls new beds and don't want them ruined. What's weird about it, he has a litter box and uses it, but once his Mother uses it too, he won't use it anymore. Very annoying!

We've had a minor infection go through the house, which caused all the kids to get boils. It's actually been floating around here for months, but we only recently found the source. A bacteria was found in our dirt out back, most likely caused by stray cats doing their business. Of course the kids love to play in the dirt, so that's where they contracted it. (The kids have since been banned from playing in the dirt.) Sean hired a company to remove an old dog house that a previous tenant left behind. Stray cats and dead rats were found in it...gross!!!! We also removed some old crap from us as well. (We may be moving in the near future) Liam got the brunt of the infection along with Cian getting a huge boil on his stomach. Sean said it looked like he grew a third nipple....so not funny. Poor Cian has been in such pain for the last week. I finally got it to drain and it is healing nicely.

That my friends, is our crazy month in a nut shell. Stay tuned for further details......lol.

St. Patrick's Day Crafts for 2012!

I have been searching for a new art project for the kids to do this year for St. Patrick's Day. Because we are all Irish, St. Patrick's Day is a fun holiday for us. This year I wanted to do two projects, one for our Catholic Faith and one just for fun. A fellow home schooling mom suggested this first craft...

Silly Leprechaun Face:

Supplies-
White Paper Plate
1 piece of green construction paper
1 piece of red construction paper
Scraps of pink, blue, white, black and yellow construction paper
Pencil
Single hole punch (for the eyes and to punch a hole in the top rim of the plate for hanging)
1 Quarter, nickle and dime for tracing
Scissors
Elmer's Glue
Strip of String

First, use your hole punch to put a hole in the top rim of the plate. Cut a strip of string long enough to hang your Leprechaun from a door or wall. Put it through the hole and tie it. Now lets make the hat. Cut a square out of the green paper, any size you want. I used a Bob Book for our square pattern. Next cut a long rectangular strip from the green paper, about an inch and a half thick, and a half inch longer than the square, on both sides. This will be for the brim. Next, cut a long black strip that is the same length as the square, about an inch thick. This will be the belt across the hat. For the buckle, cut a 2 inch rectangle out of the yellow paper. Fold it in half and cut out a small rectangle. Open it back up, this is your buckle for the belt across the hat. Glue the green strip to the bottom of the green square, the long edges at the bottom should match up. Then glue your black belt about and inch or two above the brim, to the green square. Center your yellow buckle to the black belt and glue that down. Once that dries, glue your hat to the top of the paper plate. (Make sure the plate is right side up, as if you were eating from it. Be careful not to get the string stuck inside the hat and plate.)

The next step is to make the eyes. First, use a quarter to trace two circles with the black paper. A penny to trace two circles with the white paper. A dime to trace two circles in the blue paper. Use your hole punch to punch out two holes in the white paper for the pupils. These circles get glued on top of each other to make the eyes. Once dried, glue them to the paper plate, however you'd like!

Next is the nose. Use the pink paper to cut out an oval shape. A perfect size would be to use the handle of your scissors as a pattern for tracing. If you don't have this type of scissors, be creative!! Center the nose on the plate, just below the eyes. Glue it down. We're almost finished!

Next, the mouth. You can go the simple route and use a black marker to make a silly smiley mouth, or cut out a mouth using black construction paper. You could get really creative and cut out two teeth with white paper. Which ever use choose will look great!

On to the beard! Take a piece of red paper, length wise, and start cutting strips, about 1/4 wide. When your done, cut them all in half, to make them smaller. This also gives you twice as many strips for a fuller beard. Take each strip and roll it tightly around a pen or pencil, leaving about a half inch straight. This makes the curls. Glue each strip, starting at the bottom, to the bottom edge of the plate, going up each side until you reach the brim of the hat. It should look something like this....

Let it dry for a few hours. When its ready, use the string on the back of the plate to hang it to a door or wall. A cute and fun project for you and the kids!

Taking the BOB Books Challenge

I've come to the conclusion that Cian needs extra help with reading. Both Seton's and Time4Learning are a little too advanced for him. I even tried the I Can Read books, level 1, and they are too advanced for him as well. He does know all his letters and the sounds, but he isn't ready for blends and vowels yet. He doesn't quite grasp the "silent e" at the end of a word and what it does. Letters like M, N, TH and F give him trouble because he has a slight speech impediment. He also tries to read words that aren't even on the page. He'll look at the picture and decide what he thinks it says. He has a really hard time sounding out words and gets frustrated, so he just guesses. It's so difficult to watch him struggle, so I had to find a new program for him. Several of my friends are teachers and homeschooling Moms and have suggested BOB Books.

There are 5 different book sets and each set has 12 little books inside. I purchased set one. This set has simple 3 letter words like sat, mat, hat, zap and zip. He read the first book this afternoon in school. He was so proud of himself for finishing his first book. He actually understood the story and enjoyed it for the first time. The words were easy for him to sound out. Instead of taking 10 minutes to sound out a word, it took him 10 minutes to finish the whole book!

Each child learns at a different level. Just because Declan was a whiz at reading doesn't mean Cian will be too. As a parent, we see our children every day and learn to look for their struggles so we can help them overcome these challenges. If Cian had been in a public school, he would have been lost in the system and left to fail. With the over crowded schools in our state, the teacher would not have the ability to give him the extra help he needs. Every day I thank God that I am able to stay home and give my children a proper education in a safe and loving environment. I am so pleased that there are programs like BOB Books and Time4Learning that help with children who are just starting to read or need a little extra help. We think we've have finally found the perfect readers for his level and best of all, they grow with him and his progress. So, this homeschooling Mom is now one very happy camper!

WARNING.....DON'T TRUST YOUR SD CARD!!!

I am so upset, to the point of tears. Yesterday afternoon, I restarted my cell phone because it was running slow. When it came back on, ALL my pictures were GONE!! Over 1200 pictures saved on both my SD card and the phone itself. I FREAKED OUT! Sean is an expert with all things cellular, and he came to the conclusion that my SD card corrupted. It just happened out of nowhere. It's not something I did, they just don't last forever. So many pictures that I can never get back, gone forever. I did email a lot of them to my Mom, so they are saved in my sent folder, and a lot of them are here on my blog too. Thank God for Blogger! However I lost a lot that weren't saved. Memories we can never get back. I should have backed them up on Lookout or the Cloud, but I didn't think that it would ever happen to me. Sean ran into it all the time when he was managing corporate stores. In fact, it happened to him as well. So you would think I would have taken the hint....NOPE! So, Sean installed Lookout on my Android device. All pictures and videos are now backed up! So my advice to anyone that has lots of precious photos on there cell phone SD card....BACK THEM UP or UPLOAD THEM TO YOUR COMPUTER!!!

On a happy note, we had a wonderful Valentine's Day with the kids. Sean bought me this beautiful flower arrangement. 12 white roses, some lovely orange flowers and little purple flowers too! It smells so nice and came in a beautiful purple vase! He also bought tuns of candy and chocolate covered strawberries...my favorite.

For the kids, he bought the candy and a Star Wars Lego Xbox game. They played it all afternoon until they made little pizzas. Sean forgot to buy mozzarella cheese, so they used Mexican cheese...YUCK! They didn't really like it either...lol.

I put the kids to bed at 6:30pm (I know, terrible parents) with little bags of candy. They didn't seem to mind. Sean left to our favorite restaurant, Canyon to order or dinner. We both had the fillet in port sauce with portobello mushrooms and spinach, soooo yummy! We also had spare ribs as a side.

While he was gone. I quickly wrapped his Home Sweet Home Boston Celtics sigh. Got out the crystal candle holders and white dinner candles. They looked so pretty with my flowers and Sean's gifts. I had our song playing over dinner. It was lovely! The food was wonderful as always. After dinner we were going to watch a movie, but Sam woke up to be fed, so we fed him and then played with him. By then it was 9pm, so we went to bed. Sean had to be up early for yet another meeting in the morning. Despite losing all my pictures, it was a nice family day. I'll end this with some photos of the kids eating their pizzas.

Mary with stringy cheese.

Lizzie took a bite out of the middle of her pizza.

Fionny and his "cheesy" smile.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 I am so excited for Valentine's Day!!! This morning I got up and cut out a red heart and wrote in glue and glitter "I AM MOMS VALENTINE" I stuck it on Sam's back and took him to see Sean. He laughed at me.

We have some fun things planned for the kids today. First Sean took the car for its 10,000 mile check up. He has only had the car for 7 months and has already racked that much miles on it. After that he was is headed to the mall to buy a few things for me! I told him to pick up some candy for the kids as well. We are letting them make personal pizzas for dinner. Sean bought a pizza stone to make it easier. We bought Lady and the Tramp on Blu-ray and are going to have a fun family movie afternoon.

We are putting the kids to bed super early tonight to celebrate Valentine's Day. Sean bought filet's to grill and a really nice bottle of wine. Its going to be a quite evening with a candlelight dinner!

Yesterday, Sean took the boys to see Star Wars 3D. So Mary and I had a fun cookie day. I had a box of sugar cookie mix from Christmas that we never used, so I dug out my cookie cutters and found the heart shapes. Mary and I made pretty heart cookies for everyone. She had so much fun and was such a big help! Here are a few pictures I took of the fun!

Left over Christmas cookies.

All ready to make cookies.

Pouring in the cookie mix.

Adding the flour.

Adding the eggs!

Attempting to mix the dough.

Spreading the flour out.

Rolling out the dough.

Ready to use the cookie cutters.

Making heart cookies.

Painting them with egg whites for the red sprinkles.

The finished product!

She did a great job. The boys and Daddy ate them all up!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!