Brownies, Egypt, foreign language and more...

Ok so that kind of covers all the stuff or most of what has been going on in the Cheerio Household this week. :)

First I will start with tonight where Honey Nut and I went to the library to meet a couple of her girlfriends from her brownie troop to study girlscout customs in Egypt! That was fun! The girls had to find a picture of the flag, their uniform, what they are called there (it is not girlscouts), food, games they play etc. That is one of the things i love about being a homeschooler...I am learning right along with my children. haha. I don't remember some of this from school. Maybe it is mommy brain.
While we were there Honey Nut found a computer program where she can learn different languages. There is vocabulary for Spanish, German, French, and English on there! I told her to try and limit it to one language at at a time. I was secretly thrilled that she came up with this idea on her own. She has been bugging me for awhile now to learn a new language. Again...one of the perks of homeschooling, she is really loving schoolwork now and I no longer have to fight her on it except for repetitive work lol.

Let's see what else has been going on around here...oh yeah Lucky Charms is back to selling golf balls again. Those of you who have been reading for awhile will remember that Lucky Charms actually made close to 200 dollars last year selling golfballs to the golfers on the course we live on. He is still riding that quad he saved for too! Bless his heart...I don't mean to brag but come one the kid is only 5! And he earned most of the money before his 5th birthday in August!

Trix is doing well also! He is really coming around with some of his sensory issues. I am going to be trying the "Feingold diet" with him and actually all the kids. I don't have the kit and food list yet but from what i understand it takes out the additives, artificial colorings, sahlulites (sp?)and basically all the extra crud that the food giants are now putting in to the food. It will require a lot more "from scratch" cooking from me I think but luckily i love to cook so it should not be a problem. :) It is also supposed to help...some of the sensory issues Trix has as well as reduce seizures. This is good since last week Trix had a neurology appointment and the new neurologist adjusted his medication dosage a bit...then that night Trix wound up having one of his "typical" seizures and when I gave him the diastat to stop it...well it worked in reverse which was odd. It put him into convulsions and he started to actually choke on his saliva. That bothered me a lot. You see most of Trix's seizures are quiet seizures where he gets quiet and does not say much...he will usually plug his ears and maybe shiver like he is cold. I will hold him until he is done and has somewhat snapped back. My biggest fear after seeing him choke on his saliva is that I did not hear the seizure...he was in bed and I was actually STANDING IN HIS ROOM tucking his little brother in on the bottom bunk. It was not until I looked up to see Trix and saw his eyes wide open that I realized he was in a seizure. We wound up calling the paramedics again...it was not quite as severe as the huge Grand Mal one he had last year where he had no diagnoses yet, and it went on 45 minutes that we knew of, however, this one lasted on and off 25 to 30 minutes, he would start to come out of it and then go back in it. He did wind up leaving the house in an ambulance again but just to the emergency room and Hubs went with him because it was snowing and icy here and being the sweet hubby he is he did not want me driving in it and especially not upset.I have a baby monitor in his room, however I am trying to find an actual seizure monitor...this is a lot harder then I thought so far I can only find one in the UK or Canada ...neither company has emailed me back yet and they are expensive, they meausre any movement he makes, and if he does not make a sound if he drools excessively it will set off an alarm in my room to wake me and Hubs up. I personally don't care the cost as long as we are being alerted to him having one, his life is just too precious to put a pricetag on. :) Well enough of that. Other then to say that i have been journaling a lot about it and I find it calms me down. This time when he had one I did not freak out ...ok well a little when he was choking...thank God hubby was there (I am so blessed with an AWESOME husband) and he stays super calm. After they left I broke down and cried but then was ok. Hubs and I the next day though our nerves were shot all day.

I am down to just two daycare families now which has taken a whole lot of stress off me. It also cut my income down but that is ok because Hubs has had two very promising interviews with a great company in which he would be making significantly more then he is now! He is still working at the current company which is a very nice company and they love him there but they are down in their sales big time and hubs is being proactive in looking elsewhere he does not want to get unexpectedly caught in layoffs again this year. However he says if he gets this new job he will be sad to give his notice. As for me...I am about ready to print up the business cards for my new venture. :) I am a life coach for special needs nannies. I will be training nannies for families of special needs children and then I will be their life coach for when they need to talk when they realize what a wonderfully challenging job they have. :) It was my own life coach who helped me realize this is what I am being called to do...well my life coach and God who whispered to me that this is what he wants me to do. Remind me to tell you when I have more time about how I actually heard God's voice pointing me in the direction lol. In any case I have such a big background in childcare and working with special needs kids, especially in the last two years with this wonderful family I was doing daycare for that I felt it was time to help someone else in that arena. :)

Well this whole thing turned into a novel! whew! But I will sign off for tonight and I will keep trying to post more frequently. Those of you who were praying for us to get over all our cold/flu bug the last few weeks...THANKYOU! I got the emails and I really appreciate it!

The Cheerio Queen

what kind of hen are you??

One of my favorite bloggers Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight has the cutest quiz thingy on her blog and I loved it so I thought I would do it here! Most people that know me would say I am definitely a hen and belong in a hen house with all the other talking hens because I am a talker lol! But here is what the survey said.....

What type of Mother Hen Are You?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource

what kind of hen are YOU?? if you do this please comment me so I can see your answer! ;)

I will write more a little later on in the week been busy as always!

The cheerio queen!

some of what we have been doing this week. :) ..

I could not think of any great topic to blog about although I have one random question I wanted to ask and have not figured out how to create and entire blog post out of it. I always wondered why people jokingly refer to "Ketchup" as being a "vegetable"...when it is made of tomatoes so wouldn't it be a fruit? Ok so I just had to get that important question off the brain lol.

I decided to post some pics of some of the stuff we have been doing this week. :) We have been busy, and some of us have been feeling sorry for ourselves for the cold we are nursing (of course I am not naming myself here) the kids are doing better except for honeynut who is still coughing up a lung going on a month now. I took her to the doc last week and was told it was "just a cold and to give her dimetapp" but that is not working so I am going to call tomorrow and push to find out what is really going on here.
The kids have been working hard in their studies so here is a pic of (some) of the stuff we do in a day here in the cheerio household.
Hope you all are having a great week!

the cheerio queen (yes I realize that signature is not correct grammar since I did not capitolize but hey I am on my fourth round of theraflu today and frankly I am lucky I am able to type at all)





Lucky Charms posing


Lucky Charms practicing his writing while Honeynut looks on.

Trix hard at work painting



Honey Nut doing her online schooling assignment


Honeynut writing out her story summeries.

I SURVIVED!!!!!!.....

Sort of....my back has serious issues with me camping on the floor with all the brownie troops. Lesson learned " bring an air mattress!" got it. Will definitely do that next time. :) Actually the sleepover went really well and the girls had a blast. We put goopy guacamole masks on our face, sang the most obnoxious song about a burrito that is STILL stuck in my head a week later, gave each other hand massages, and put on make up to do "glamour shots" don't you just love mine and honey nut's? haha.

It was brought to my attention that I should have updated the blog before Wednesday since I told you all last time that if I did not post by then it would mean us leaders were still tied up in a broom closet...so thanks for checking in everyone but please call off the search party were ok! :)

Truth be told sore back or not...I would not have traded last Friday for anything. It was a great memory for me and my daughter and since she is my only girl I probably do tend to go overboard. :)

This week has been hectic. A couple of the daycare kids got sick so I took a premptive measure and closed on Wednesday in hopes of keeping my kids healthy, and while they did not get the stomach virus everyone else had...they DID get colds. grrr. Actually it turns out their colds are not new but were the same one they have had for awhile that I thought was gone. So we went to the store and got dimetapp and a new cool mist humidifier to help with their little coughs. poor babies. I will say though it was so nice to have just one day where it was me and my munchkins. I know it sounds silly but I actually miss them sometimes even though they are with me all day...I have so many other kids I take care of in addition to them. :)

Otherwise not much else is new. Hubs and I are hosting game night this weekend I cannot wait! It will be our same group of friends that we have been hanging out with forever. There is 4 main couples that come to this and we have all been married 10 years this year! Although us girls have known eachother since highschool. When we started doing game nights we were younger and used to play and have a margarita or 3....but now we are all older, and some of us have kids and so now we usually party down with games until 9:30 or 10pm. I know we are so shameless.

Then Sunday I am teaching Sunday School so as you can see it is a wild weekend for us. ya right.

Hope you all had a great week!

The Cheerio Queen

menu

Hello all...so here is my menu plan for the week.

Monday: Chunky Chicken Divan, Breadsticks, and salad

Tuesday: French toast, eggs, and sausage

Wednesday: Hot roast beef sandwiches & fries

Thursday: Happy 10 year anniversary to me and hubs...Chicken Pad Thai, and salad

Friday: pork chops, applesauce, and brown rice

I am trying to keep most of it lowfat, however there were a couple nights such as Tuesday when I have a brownie troop meeting with Honey Nut...oh and then Friday my menu will be totally cooked in my crockpot (except for the applesauce of course) because honey nut and I have a brownie sleepover at a local church with about 25 other troops...yay me. lol If you don't hear from me by Wednesday next week it is because the girlscouts won and all us leaders and moms are tied up to a chair stuck in a closet while the girls elope. just kidding...sort of.

anyway hope you all have a yummy week!

The Cheerio Queen

A Challenge....

Well not really but sort of. I was reading "By sun and candlelights" blog today and she posted that she did not make resolutions becuase they always fail but rather New Year's GOALS instead. She asked everyone to comment with some of their ideas but since I usually write a novel I decided to just do a post on it and send her the link. I really like the term Goals instead of resolutions...how many people do you know say they are restarting their resolution because they did not do it the previous year? However "goals" are something you can work towards so if you don't meet them at least you are working towards them.


Start a small group at church....Already got the process started on this one. The people I have talked to so far are loving the idea so I am hoping it is successful. I put in the application for a twice a month "Freezer cooking and Fellowship" group. I got an idea for a supper swap but with that someone always has to deliver something each night of the week, this way we all meet twice a month in a big kitchen somewhere and only bring ingredients for the recipes we are making...depending on size of group each person makes one or two recipes times how many people are signed up. So if you make lasagne and there are 7 people in the group then you make 7 lasagnes and keep one for yourself and give the rest out, the other people in the group do the same thing. You wind up with enough meals for dinner for two weeks that you can pop in your freezer and it is healthier and CHEAPER...oops I mean "frugal" then going out to eat or even to one of those "freezer cooking places" plus you get to pick the recipes. :)

Work out 3 times a week at least....Ok I know this sounds cliche I mean doesn't everyone make this goal or resolution every year? However I am doing it with the mindset of "getting healthy" I also thought it would be a good time for hubs and I to do something together that is why for Christmas this year I asked for a gym membership for BOTH hubs and I. :) We will be startin that next week!

Blog more then once in a blue moon...Hey so far this year I have done pretty good I think. I will try and keep it up, and not just to brag about my kids either although look at the subject. lol No my goal is to blog about different topics etc. especially homeschooling. We will see how that goes.

Do some actual gardening with the kids this summer...I really do want to do something like that with them, I was thinking of starting small...maybe with a couple of those big round planters and go from there.

Take the kids to Disneyland...They don't know this yet but probably around August or begininning of September hubs and I will be taking the kids to Disneyland. We are not going to tell them until we are at the airport. I cannot wait to see the surprise on their little faces. My only concern is how they will do for the plane ride. I am pretty sure Honey Nut will be fine, Lucky Charms I am not sure he is so energetic and talkative and for those of you that know me personally...no I have NO idea where he gets that from. *sheepish grin* Of course I am concerned about how Trix will do it is a long time for him to sit, and I am always worried about seizures but I think it will be fine. I tend to be a worry wart big time.

Work more with local missions...One of the things I love most about our church is their love for missions. We have recently been in the Seattle Times on the FRONT page even talking about our church. They described us as a "church with no home but a mission to go where their needed" they could not be more right. My ultimate dream is to go on one of the big mission trips to Ghana or other places but for right now my kids are too little for me to be gone that long etc. HOWEVER that does not mean I cannot do local mission work. Our church has been to the California wildfires, local floods, etc. One of the local causes our church is involved with is a project called "Vine Maple Place" a place for parents to start over...mostly it is moms getting out of bad situations, however there are fathers too. I am planning on working more with the "decorating divas" group where we go in and set up the apt with the donated furniture (which the families get to keep by the way) and design a new home for a family to be able to start over in. I could write forever about this local mission but here is a link if your curious to know more http://vinemapleplace.org/ .

Help my children with their desire to do mission work...This is really important to me and heartwarming to know my kids want to get involved. One thing hubs and I have always tried to instill in them is a love for helping others. We started when they were young with the cookies to fireman and policeman on Christmas eve. More recently my daughter became really inspired to want to help in some way after a friend of hers in church started the "David and Goliath" project . I will provide a link here to a story on this little girl and what she wanted to do. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=306096502 anyway my daughter wanted to help besides just selling the necklaces so she is right now trying to decide..she is pretty sure she wants to make "hope blankets" that she can give to our missions director to distribute when they go to places like flood victims who lost everything etc. Or even to give to kids at hte local childrens hospital. Either way I think it is awesoem that she was inspired and also that she was inspired by another great little gal. I will post more on her efforts later. The boys want to do stuff too but we are not sure what yet.

That is about all I can think of for now. I have other goals more schoolwork related but I may just type those out later. :)

The Cheerio Queen

Happy New Year!...

Okay so I am a day late. But I have a good excuse...yesterday the kids and hubs and I spent a very hard day holding down the couch watching movies, and also we went to the park. So we were busy. :) We had such a nice day yesterday. Even though it was unbelievably cold and windy at the park we still had fun because we were the only ones there. I know of a park that is my favorite mainly because a lot of people don't know about it. There is hardly ever anyone there...and plus they have restrooms which is a must for little kiddos. Hubs and I even climbed onto the equipment and went down the slides with the kids. I actually had the bright idea that it would be fun to try and be the "cool mom" and go down the slide on my stomach...well that was fine until I got to the bottom and realized that there is nothing but woodchips underneath the slide and I had to put my hands down on it to roll off the slide and attempt to stand up again. lol I got a big splinter in my hand...but hey the kids thought it was funny so that is all that matters. Of course I do not have any pictures to show you because I forgot my camera at home...although I would have loved to show the pic of hubs sliding down head first on his back with feet up in the air down the slide but oh well you can just picture it in your own mind...STOP LAUGHING it is rude! haha. Just kidding.

Over the weekend in our quest to re-shuffle our finances, eat healthier, and save money we went and invested in an air popcorn maker. The kids think this is the coolest thing in the world since they LOVE popcorn and to see it being made without oil is pretty cool to them too. They are affordable, and much cheaper and healthier then the microwave kind. Although I of course had to test out a new homemade carmel corn recipe today...boy I could not believe how easy and cheap it was to make and I can already think of a way to make it healthier. I also made up some cheap trail mix with seasoned popcorn, pretzel sticks, nuts, raisins etc. It sure is fun trying out how to make the popcorn stay healthy but trying different flavors. :) It takes so little to make this blonde happy haha.

Hope you all are having a great week!
The Cheerio Queen