I Have to Brag

You know those days when you feel like you're just not getting through to your children about anything. When they won't listen and their behavior is out of control, you feel like you're fighting a losing battle. There are even times when maybe you feel like you're not teaching them the right spiritual lessons and values.

But then something like this happens...Logan has had a really bad week at school behavior wise this last week. He has had his color changed every day, for the teachers you know what I mean. Their color list is blue=good behavior, yellow=lose 5 min. playtime, orange=lose 15 min. playtime, green=lose all of playtime and note goes home, red=trip to principal's office and call to parents. As a mom and a teacher, I try not to overreact, but before the holidays, he came home on yellow two days in one week and on orange another day. The last day he wasn't there long enough to get in any trouble. So overall, not a great week. This week he has come home on yellow everyday until yesterday. One day, he even had to work his way back up to yellow which means he ended up somewhere lower than that early on in the day and improved his behavior by the end of the day. I'm glad he did that, but I was still not happy about his behavior and being on yellow.

The reason he was on yellow, his mouth. He can't seem to stop talking. So, we had several long talks about his talking and behavior in school and how he's being rude and disrespectful to his teacher and the other kids in his class. He was also disciplined and had privileges removed until his behavior improved. We also made him go back to school and apologize to his teacher. One of the things we tried to talk to him about was that his behavior was disappointing to us and to God. We told him that God had put us and his teacher in charge to keep him safe and raise him the right way. We also reminded him that God is watching over him and sees when he makes these bad choices. In his evening prayers one night, we asked God to help him remember to make good choices and be better behaved.

I emailed his teacher as well about all of his behavior issues and one other thing I needed her help with. This morning she emailed me back and this is directly copied from her email. "Oh and by the way Logan's behavior was much better yesterday. Thank you for working with me. He is a very sweet boy, he really blessed my heart yesterday when we were finding sentences for the word "four" - Logan said " For the Lord God is with me...." LOVE IT, TOO CUTE!" Maybe, just maybe, we are getting through to him and doing something right. I sure pray so.

Oh, How I Wish...

Oh, how I wish I could post pictures of Christmas. We had a wonderful one, well at least everyone else did. Unfortunately, Mommy woke up Christmas morning with another stomach bug. I had one the week before Thanksgiving. This one wasn't as bad, but it spoiled my appetite and most of my joy in seeing my kids enjoy their Christmas morning. It also spolied my ability to take pictures as I could hardly stay in the room long enough to open my presents much less take pictures of everyone else. I do think I managed to get one or two after the fact, but when I went to upload them, I discovered that my card reader is broken. Easy fix, right? Just plug in my camera via the cord to my computer. Nope, no such luck. My camera is too fancy for its own good and requires that I have a CD to load software on the computer before I can upload the pictures. Cool, just load the CD, right? Wrong. Gotta know where the CD is before you can load it into the computer. So far, no luck in finding it. As soon as I do or buy another CF card reader, I will upload the few pictures I have from Christmas. We hope you all had a good one and are having a Happy New Year.

Mrs. Claus and a Reindeer?

Meagan found the empty diaper box headed for the trash today and decided it would make a great toy.

Mommy actually put her safely in the box after watching her try to climb in it, but it was Bubba's idea to push her around the house.

Then he decided pulling her around the house and acting as the reindeer was more fun than just pushing. She loved every minute of the attention and fun with her big brother.
We almost had a mishap and a run-in with the tree, but Bubba pushed her safely out of the way and around the rest of the room. At least it gave Mommy a few minutes not to have to entertain and chase her around. What a great big brother Meagan, or should I say Mrs. Claus, has.

I'm Ready for My Own Napmat

Meagan has decided that she likes to lay on Matthew's nap mat which we had out for him to take his nap on today. Obviously it didn't work, but Meagan thought she might like to try sleeping or playing on it.

Where's Meagan?

Can you tell which things are toys and which one is Meagan?

She has discovered how to climb up on Matthew's bed and decided to climb up there while we were cleaning their room and had put all the toys on Matthew's bed for the purpose of vacuuming. What a cutie and already so precocious.

Christmas Pictures

Well, we've been trying to find time and energy to get a family picture for our Christmas picture. With everyone being sick off an on, though, it's been kinda difficult. Well, I finally gave up and decided to just take one of just the kids myself in front of the tree. The other night when it was cold and we had a fire going, I decided it was the right time. It took several tries and a lot of coaxing and patience. The results were actually quite hilarious in my opinion. Below are a few of the resulting pictures I managed to get and in some cases clean up a little.

This was the first try...hmmm...someone's missing.

Oh, wait, there she is. Or should we say, there she goes. Not sure what Mattie was looking at, the TV maybe. Bubba's doing his best to keep everyone in place.

Try number 3. Everyone's there, sorta. They're just not all looking the right direction.

We thought maybe adding in the chair would help keep them in one place. Somehow, I don't think it's working. What's your opinion?

Well, we're a little closer. They're all in the picture, looking the same way, sorta. If we could just get Maggie closer to the chair and her brothers, we might actually have a great picture.

Yah, we got it. If only Maggie would look at the camera. I guess her brother was just more interesting than Mommy.

Merry Christmas to one and all!!!!!

Bubba's Train & Super Matthew

Our favorite thing of late is to play in Logan's room with his trains. Or more accurately to tear up the track of Bubba's train. A few weeks ago, we set up Logan's GeoTrax train set in his room. He loves to play with it and watch the trains go around the track. Matthew and Meagan like it too, but they spend more time tearing up the track and making a mess with it than watching the trains go around. And of course, Mommy spends the time putting the train track back together again. They're a lot of fun to watch as they play in Bubba's room. Matthew and Meagan love their big brother and his toys.

Matthew's new thing is to wrap his burp cloth around his neck and run around the room. I caught him doing it the other day and had to take a picture. He used to love to fly around the room in Daddy's arms and we called him Super Mattie. When he was a little older, Logan would turn his bib around when Matthew was done eating and call him Super Mattie. So, now Matthew does it to himself. Here are the pictures of our Super Mattie.