This is Karson making and then eating his tiny bit of ice cream.  It actually made maybe a half a cup.  He sure enjoyed it though and has been playing ice cream man with baby Jasmin this afternoon.

Karson woke me up at 6:45 this morning…I was planning on sleeping in…but most likely I would have been up anyway because I feel a little sick this morning.  I am sure it was probably something I ate that is bothering me.  I haven’t actually been eating very well the past few days.

Last  night I helped out at the 5th grade girls lock in.  It was fun.  There were four other teachers.  The girls were  crazy, like 5th graders can be, and they were getting each other freaked out about someone dressed in black outside…something I am sure was made up by one of them to scare the others.  Anyway, we ate, made crafts…the girls did a scavenger hunt and we played dodge-ball.  I seriously have not played that since I was in elementary school!  It was fun.  I wasn’t very good at it…but I had a great time.  We had some kind of vinyl or leather covered foam balls…they didn’t hurt.  When I was a kid we played with those red gym balls…you know what kind of balls I am talking about, don’t you?  Those babies hurt!

While I was at the lock in, Sam took Karson and Jasmin to his sister, Shelly’s house to hang out.  Almost every time I go away, he ends up going over there with the kids.  I am sure Shelly helps out with the baby, so that probably makes it easier for  him.  Savannah and Max went with their Aunt Sherry for the weekend.  I guess they are going to a dog show today.  Anyway, while Karson was at Aunt Bean’s (Shelly), she gave him a McFlurry maker.  Apparently it had gotten picked up by Sam’s dad at a garage sale or something…she didn’t want it, so Karson brought it home.  Only it’s missing the directions – and the mix.  Karson assures me that when he was a baby he saw the McFlurry mix at Walmart, though.  So we may head over there later to see what we can find.  I googled it and found this hilarious review on the McFlurry maker. I probably can reproduce the mix…since it’s most likely just sugar or something.  And if I can figure out how to put it together, I might be able to do it…it’s just a mini (and I mean mini) ice cream maker.  So anyway, apparently even though Karson went to sleep after 11:00 last night, he was up early because he was thinking about his “new” McFlurry maker.  He doesn’t even want breakfast.  He’s a strange kid.  So I told him I’d go up and take my shower and the two of us plus baby Jasmin would go up to Walmart and see what we could find.  Then we’d go over to my friend’s neighborhood garage sales and then  come back home and we’ll see about making the ice cream.

Later on today, we have a graduation open house to go to, and then Jasmin (Mimi) is coming over to be with the kids while we go to the Lugnuts game.  One of my pricipals is retiring and wanted an event not a party, so we chartered a bus with Jackson Trippers and we are all going up to hang out at the Lugnuts game.  It will be fun, I am sure.  It looks like it will turn out to be a pretty nice day too.  Plus, there are fireworks after the game!

So what do you think of the new look?  I’ve been wanting to change it for sometime.  Sam has been trying to get my blog changed over to word press and finally did it with success.  He surprised me with the theme, which I really like a lot.  I am going to be going through and adding categories and tags to all my archives.  It’s going to take a while, but it will be much easier for you guys to view posts that interest you.  One thing different is I have to approve comments now, so if  your comment doesn’t show  up right away, that’s why.

It’s 2:42am and I am sitting with Jasmin in front of the computer typing this out.  She has a bad cough which woke her up and so since neither one of us can sleep we came downstairs.  This happened last night as well.  I think we ended up being awake for 2 hours.  I think she is beginning to teeth and her sinuses are all messed up…thus the coughing.  She is not happy.

So here is a funny story…today the kids (Max, Savannah, Karson and our neighbor Shelby, who spent the day with us) went upstairs to the boys room.  My mom and dad had stopped by and Sam and I were visiting with them and we noticed it had been really quiet for a long time.  Then one of them came down and asked for tape, which we couldn’t find…and then went back upstairs.  It wasn’t too much later that Savannah came down and Sam happened to ask what they were doing and she said that they had decorated our bedroom with special notes and glued them to the wall.  Sam went upstairs, and I soon followed…and sure enough, there were about 20 little notes, some of them heart-shaped glued (with glue-stick) all over our wallpaper with still-drying blue glitter glue dripping down the papers.  They created a crown for me out of paper and glued 3 big diamonds on it. (paper cut into the shape of a diamond – not the traditional shape of a diamond, but more like the shape of a diamond stone).  They had also used several stamps and apparently red ink, which they had very carefully wiped off the stamps onto a damp washcloth to remove the ink.  The washcloth was lying on the floor (now red) and Max stepped on it and then onto the carpet…and well, you can guess what happened then.  We now have a red footprint on the carpet in the boys room as well.  It really was so cute, what they had done, for me for mother’s day.  You can hardly be upset about something like that.  I hate my wallpaper anyway…maybe I will post a picture so you can see why.  I’d have to go take one though, and I am not going to do that at three in the morning…I think it would freak sam out if he woke up to that.  So maybe later.

Baby J’s new favorite thing…sucking on fruit.

Well, I didn’t draw today…or yesterday. But tonight, Max and I made a book. Max has been having some difficulties learning some of his sight words, particularly his color words. I really want him to be able to get them learned before the end of school…so I have made up some flash cards and found some good worksheets for practice online. I really want his practice and learning to be meaningful to him, so I thought of making a book together. We decided on a color (blue) and went on a treasure hunt with the camera searching for blue things. He said the words, and I wrote them in later. This is the book we made. We plan to make one for all the colors. Our first book is called Blue. I want to get it printed, laminated and spiral bound.

You can click on the title to see it. I will probably make a couple of changes…Sam said I shouldn’t have the text in Comic Sans…he just showed me bancomicsans.com…too funny, but it really probably is the most over-used font, so I will probably change it.

I spent the day today hanging out with Savannah and troop 166 at Girl Scout Camp…during rest time after lunch, I went outside and sat at a picnic table near the fire pit in the sunshine and drew.

I just finished watching the movie Juno with Sam. I really enjoyed the movie and Jasmin slept in my arms through the whole movie. I don’t know why, but after it was over, my heart was flooded with overwhelming love for my kids…and for a moment I couldn’t believe I had four such beautiful kids. I looked at a picture of Savannah, Max and Karson and then at Jasmin asleep on my chest and felt such joy and thought about how proud I am of them. How blessed I am to be a part of their lives.
Today I was thinking about how Jasmin will be 6 months old in a few days and how fast it has gone by…I was thinking about all she has done in the past 6 months and that in 6 more months she will probably be crawling and walking and maybe even starting to wave and say momma or dada. I kind of feel like I would like her to stay little for a little longer…I never really felt that with the other kids…I was always so excited to see them grow and make their next big accomplishment…but I know Jasmin will be our last baby, and it’s almost sad to see those milestones go by…it just seems like its going to fast. I wish I could appreciate every single moment…but you know, you get caught up in life and all the craziness and those are the last kinds of things on your mind. But I have to say that while it’s not often on my mind, I do know how blessed I am and how blessed our family is. I could never have imagined that my life would be anything like it is. It’s not all roses and cherries, trust me! We have a stack of probably 25 DVDs that have to be fixed (we have a place that takes the scratches off so you can watch the movies again). There are thousands of Legos in our house and they have made their way into almost every square foot of our home…including the refrigerator! Our kids whine and cry when they are tired. We have a box of at least 75 socks – with no match to be found! Our lawn guy is moving out of state. Anyway, you get the picture. Life is not perfect, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. I wouldn’t trade mine for a million dollars.

This is Max’s shell that Mimi brought back for him from Florida a couple of weeks ago. I have started having Max write a journal page every day. I gave him my date stamp (but I am still going to use it) to stamp each day’s date on his page. I am trying to encourage him to do more writing and write on his own by listening to the sounds of the letters in the words and recording what he hears. He usually just writes a sentence or a phrase. Sometimes I write the actual spelling of the word he wrote underneath his writing. Writing frustrates him, but I think he is starting to see that it can be a lot of fun to keep a journal…especially when we do it together.
This is my page. A pen drawing colored with crayons.

Oh…and our scanner is ruined due to a leak in our roof…so you will have to endure photos of my drawings until we replace it.

#1
So today, my 5th graders come into class, and James (apparently a big fan of my artwork) asks to see my journal. I do not generally have it out, nor do I show it off. It’s personal, but I haven been known to in the past pull it out and do a quick sketch or something while the kids are working. I don’t seem to have a lot of time for that this year. But he remembers that I carry one with me and asked to see it. I pulled it out of my school bag. I bring it with me everyday. Though, I hardly ever get it out. I took a couple quick seconds to glance through it to see if there would be anything really personal I should keep from his eyes…and decided it would be ok. He looked through it and studied my drawings. He asked me several questions about different drawings I had done. By this time a couple of girls had gathered and were looking over his shoulder and snatched my journal away as soon as he was done. Then another kid said, I remember that drawing you did when your shirt caught on fire. Where is that one? I told him it was in another journal at home. He and the girls begged me to bring it next week…I told them maybe I would. James had really wanted to see some new drawings. He told me to bring my journal back next week because he would like to see what I drew this week. Hmm.
#2
My art goal buddy wrote me an email after about 2 months of silence on both our parts. We both have demanding careers and a whole load of excuses for not doing art as often as we would like to. She asked me how I was doing and reminded me about the draw every day in may challenge that I had said I wanted to do. Dang it…I totally forgot about that! I told her I was glad she wrote today…so I really only have missed one day…and I have to make that up. I really did want to do that challenge, so I started it tonight.

I think it was interesting that both of these things happened today…I really do need to be doing more art. I miss the time to be creative. This month I plan to do one drawing every day and post them on my blog. I may not be able to post them everyday, but I will post every drawing. So check back soon to see what else I find to draw.