Combining Blogs

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Michelle

I’m not sure if we’ll do anything with this page in the future or not. We’ve had this domain name since we got married & know we want to keep it. However, life is so hectic right now with the girls in school & me in college and working some too & Richard in his regular job & all of us trying to keep up with the house & dogs & just being a family that keeping multiple blogs is just too much right now.

Therefore, I just want everyone to know to go to Odyssey of a Mom Scholar to keep up with us from now on. I update that blog at least once a day & have started putting the girls’ art and other family things on that blog anyway, especially since it’s all about juggling family life with college. Therefore, it just makes sense to combine them right now.

I still have my “healthy life” blog too, but I only update it once a week or so. It is From Whale to Dolphin if anyone wants to visit there. I’ve thought about combining that with my “Mom Scholar” one too, but I kind of want to keep that separate just because of my Bios Life business (even though I’m not doing much with the business now), although I do sometimes post about my weight loss journey on my “Mom Scholar” one too. I just haven’t found a good way to combine those yet.

Richard still has his blog too – My Binary Life – but he updates it so infrequently that you can’t “keep up” with us through that site!! Therefore, my “Mom Scholar” site is the best one to keep up with the happenings of our family – at least for now.

Michelle

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fun Family Time

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Michelle

Saturday, Richard’s company had a party to kick off their 10th year of business. They rented a party boat & we spent about 4 hours going around the lake & having fun. They did a coloring contest for the kids, although it wasn’t really a contest because everyone won a prize. They did a trivia contest for the employees where they had to answer questions about the company, individual employees and about cheetahs since it’s part of their company name. They could win gift cards. They gave some gift cards to everyone too, so some ended up with 2 gift cards if they won questions in the contest.

Overall, it was a great and relaxing time. I almost didn’t go since I had work and homework I could have done, but I’m glad I decided to go because I really needed the time away from everything. The girls had a birthday party to go to afterward too, so Richard & I went out to dinner by ourselves.

Here are the pictures the girls colored. The first one is Bella’s & the second one is Sara’s. They used opposite color schemes for the cheetahs. Bella used crayons & Sara used colored pencils except for the spots (I think).

Here are pictures that we took from the boat too. We took a bunch of houses we liked….. if only we had millions of dollars to live in one of them…. it was nice to dream though!


Posted in Family Life, Kids' Art | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I love family dinner now!

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Michelle

Throughout our marriage, especially the past couple years, we have had times when we struggle to all eat at the table together. Many times,  we’ll do it for a week or so, but then something will happen where we’re watching TV and Richard & I eat on the couch & the girls eat at the table. Monday, I decided enough was enough (again) and that we were going to all eat at the table without the TV on from now on. I really want to make it work this time!

At one point in the past, I had printed out a number of questions that we could ask each other at dinner. The girls liked doing that. However, at some point, the questions ended up out of the container & got thrown away on accident. Therefore, when I announced that we were going to be eating at the table all together again without the TV on, Sara said, “But there is nothing to talk about!” I said there was plenty to talk about because we all do different things during the day. She was still kind of pouting about it though. I told her I might end up printing out more questions, but I wasn’t sure.

Monday night, we sat down to eat & Sara asked if I had printed more questions out. When I said that I hadn’t, she got a frown on her face. Then I asked, “So, Sara, what did you do in school today?” She proceeded to talk for the next 15 minutes or so about what they did in school. Then, that prompted Bella to say what she did in school. By the time they were both done, we were almost done with dinner.

Last night, I asked Bella what she did first. She couldn’t think of much, but then Sara talked for about 15 minutes again about everything they did. Once again, we were almost done with dinner by the time they finished telling about their day.

I am loving family dinner now! Not only do I love sitting at the table together and sharing that time, I also love that Sara is loving school this year! Last year was completely different. We’d ask her things about school & she’d mumble that it was fine or something like that. She’d never go on & on & on about her day like she has the past couple days. I’m so glad that she’s having a better year and is enjoying it more this year!

Michelle

Posted in Family Life | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bella’s Story

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Michelle

Bella came home with this little story yesterday. You can click on the images to enlarge them. Her teacher wrote what she wanted to say for the last part. She said the pebble was supposed to be red instead of green because she colored the pebble red in Sylvester’s hand, but I guess they didn’t have red stones in class or something so they used green instead. Where it says that she found a pebble in the “pol” it’s supposed to be “pool,” but she didn’t know how to spell it. :-)

Posted in Kids' Art | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Riding Lessons

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Michelle

Here are a few pictures and videos that the girls took at their last riding lesson on 11 September 2010. The girls took the videos of each other, so I’m sorry for any shakiness. They were running around too much while trying to take the videos!! I deleted one that Sara took of Bella that was longer because she was moving way too much and the camera was too shaky! Even the one below that Bella took of Sara is pretty shaky….. don’t watch if you become dizzy easily (especially the last minute or two)!!

Posted in Riding Lessons | Leave a comment

Life for 12 – 18 September 2010

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Michelle

Not much has happened this week, which is pretty much the mundane routine world we live in now that I’ve started college again (not that it was that interesting beforehand though).

Our lives are full of getting up, getting ready for the day, the girls going to school, Richard going to work, me working from home and studying, getting the girls, me studying more while the girls play since they haven’t had homework yet, getting Richard from the bus/train, having dinner, me studying more while the girls take showers & get ready for bed, then Richard & I having a little time together before we go to bed…… and us all trying to get chores done and scriptures read and other things done (like my blogs) somewhere in all of that too. I have a pretty strict schedule I made for myself, but I haven’t stuck to it 100% since I made it, although I have come close most days.

The girls haven’t had homework yet, although Bella said her teacher said she’ll be getting some soon. For now, the girls have enjoyed spending time with friends after school and pretty much extending their summer fun. Thursday night, they went in the pool after dinner while I went to my math class. Friday afternoon, the girls and I went in the pool after I got them from school. We were in the pool for about 45 minutes before I had them get out because of some pretty dark clouds rolling in. We got inside about 5 minutes before the rain started. Richard sat outside for about an hour today so they could go in the pool with some friends. Other than that, not much else has been going on.

We don’t usually have out-of-the-ordinary things happen around here, but we’re enjoying the adventures of family life – even if they are mundane to the rest of the world.

Michelle

Posted in Family Life | Leave a comment

More Art

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Michelle

Bella did the one above at school last week. I thought it was VERY cute & needed to be shared!

This second one is from Bella too, although Sara colored the little boy. Bella was given the sheet with the 4 pictures & then given the sticks to make little puppets out of the pictures. They colored them after school & glued on the sticks. It’s for the story of the little boy who cried wolf.

Posted in Kids' Art | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bella’s Art

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Michelle

Bella’s class did the flower above as an invitation for a Grandparents’ Day Luncheon at their school today. I thought her coloring was really good for this and I love how colorful she can be with crayons!

Since most of her grandparents are deceased or live far away, she didn’t have anyone to go to it today. They did say that another family member could come instead, but I really didn’t have the time because of my work and studying. I’ll just have to give both my girls extra hugs today! I know they know I love them, but not being able to go to things like this is definitely a downfall of choosing to go back to college. It will be great once I become a teacher because even though I still won’t be able to attend things like this, I’ll be able to do so much more with them, especially in the summers.

Michelle

Posted in Kids' Art | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Not much happening

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Michelle

There hasn’t been a whole lot going on, but I wanted to make sure I updated the site anyway.

Sara and Bella still haven’t had any homework despite starting school 3 weeks ago! It seems rather odd to me because normally they’ve had some homework by now. Sara said that her teacher told her that in the 5th grade the only homework they have is if they have classwork that they didn’t finish in class. Therefore, she has actually been getting her classwork done in school so far and hasn’t had anything to bring home. I’m sure that will change later in the year & they’ll probably have projects and other things to do that she’ll have to do at home. Her teacher’s website says that they should be reading at least 30 minutes every night, but I haven’t really been enforcing that yet. I think I’m going to start making sure she does that starting Monday though.

Since they haven’t had homework, they’ve normally spent their days after school playing with some neighbors. They normally go over to the neighbor’s house, which leaves the house nice & quiet for me to do my studying.

We’ve fallen into a routine again of having them take showers after dinner & get ready for bed right afterward. A few months ago, they’d always fuss and argue about who was going first in their bathroom, so we ended up saying that one of them could use the master bathroom & one could use their bathroom for showers. Then, they’d argue about who was using which bathroom!! UGH! Therefore, when school started, I wrote it all down on the big dry-erase calendar we have in the dining area. I have “Bella – Girls” and “Sara – Master” written down and alternating each day. One day last week, Bella looked at the wrong day and went in the wrong bathroom and Sara didn’t notice at first. Then, when she did notice, she started fussing like a two year old instead of a 10 year old and wanted us to change the whole calendar accordingly!! We said that wouldn’t happen & she just had to live with it and pay attention from now on to make sure they’re looking at the right day. Although there are still arguments sometimes, this system has definitely cut down on all of the frustrations for them and us with shower time!

Michelle

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Full of giggles

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Michelle

This past week, Sara has been VERY full of giggles! The other day, she couldn’t stop giggling, so I told her that her new nickname would be Giggles…. and she started laughing even more! Every time I called her Giggles, she started laughing, so I said that maybe if we call her Giggles all the time, she’ll always be in a good mood!

Bella tried to keep calling Sara “Giggles” and Sara stopped laughing then. She said it wasn’t all that funny when Bella said it, but it is when I say it – probably just because she doesn’t want her sister bugging her!

Yesterday, I said I should just call them Giggles & Cuddlebug (which I’ve always called Bella) from now on because of how much Sara has been laughing and how many hugs Bella has been giving me lately! It is so nice to see them in good spirits though! I’m glad Sara is still bouncing about liking 5th grade too! She is much happier than she was last year – at least for now! I’ll take all the happiness and smiles and hugs I can get for as long as they last!

Michelle

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment