He is Risen! Alleluia!

Photo taken by Lamb 1

Photo taken by Lamb 2

Photo taken by Lamb 3

More about Holy Week to be posted later. Time for Lamb 3's birthday supper now.

Life is sure not boring

When I hear people make the comment that they could never be a SAHM or a home school mom because they would be bored, I just can't understand that. Here's a few of the things that we did just yesterday and today.
*Ram took yesterday off instead of his usual day, Friday, due to Good Friday. The Lambs helped him plant two cherry trees in our back yard.
*We did school yesterday and today. Lamb 1 was glad to complete his first writing assignment in Draw and Write Through History Greece and Rome and is looking forward to doing his first drawing assignment tomorrow. Lamb 3 joined us for school both days as his preschool is on spring break this week. He is such an eager worker that I have to stay on my toes to keep him busy the whole time Lamb 1 and 2 are working. We will do school tomorrow and take off the rest of this week and early next week for Holy Week and Lamb 3's birthday.
*The Lambs got caught up on writing thank you notes for Lamb 1's birthday and some other random things that they received/did recently. That meant that I had to write notes to enclose with their notes and address those envelopes.
*Made the Lambs practice a little extra before piano lessons as they didn't practice much last week. Took them to piano lessons and read to/worked with the other two Lambs during one hour worth of lessons for two Lambs.
*Took Lambs to Great Harvest Bread Company to get a free loaf of bread with a coupon, deliver a thank you note for the preschool field trip.
*Planned out science for the next few years for homeschool-Lamb 1 will be a little behind where I would like him to be as moving messed up my plans for homeschool the last couple of years. Pulled books from our home library on the next topic I planned.
*Pulled a bunch of "baby books" from our home library shelves, am reading through the pile slowly with Lamb 3 as I'm not sure we ever read some of these classics with him as Lamb 1 and 2 had outgrown them. Lamb 1 and 2 are listening while I read to Lamb 3. Sadly going through them after reading them one more time and deciding what to give away and what to pack up for my grandchildren.
*Made a pile of all our Easter books, ready to read to the Lambs next week after Easter.
*Made cut out cross cookies for an event at church on Saturday.
*Planted a plant that the piano teacher gave them last week and I finally put it in a bigger pot. I hope it didn't die while it was waiting on me.
*Ram cooked dinner and we both did dishes both nights.
*Tried on a bunch of clothes I was given and filled a few bags with what I don't want, hung the rest up in my closet. Eventually I'll need to clean out my closet and get rid of more, but this was the first go through.
*Ordered some surprises for the Sunday School kids to be given to them on Good Shepherd Sunday-of course had to buy a few more things while I was at CBD.COM.
*Made up some goodie bags for Lamb 3 to share with his preschool classmates on his birthday and also talked to Lamb 3/planned what book to read to his class on his birthday.
*Planned with the inlaws when they will visit for the Lambs and Ram's birthday and when we will visit them for other holidays this year. Between our schedule at church, Ram's schedule, and his dad not being retired, this was work to coordinate.
*Enforced our new family rule of 1 1/2 hours max of TV on. Each Lamb gets to pick 1/2 hour. It only took 1/2 a day for the negotiating between the Lambs to begin-also the scrambling to turn the TV off immediately after their show was done so they didn't waste their time on the next show so they could save enough time to watch Wild Kratts. New rule says no TV on Sunday for the Lambs, that's Ewe's TV night since Call the Midwife begins on Sunday night.

Hopefully I will have time to blog more about some of what I listed here with photos. Do you see why I never blog everything that I want to? I'm too busy doing all this...

Taxes Part 1

If I did my math right according to the info that the our tax preparer gave us, today is the first day that Ram worked in 2013 that he begins to make money. Up until this date all his paychecks went to pay taxes. That doesn't even count sales tax and other taxes. Thank goodness we can make estimated payments throughout the year. I wish that all people had to send a check in quarterly instead of having it deducted from their paychecks. It might make a difference for people voting if they had to do the painful act of writing a check out instead of just having it deducted and never seeing that money. Plus those that get refunds are usually just getting money refunded that the government held onto all year out of their paychecks, not truly getting a "bonus" of money.

Lamb underwear

Lamb 3 was the first of my Lambs to consistently keep his bed dry all night. He actually kept his Pullup dry for the last several months, but it was only about a month ago that we let him wear underwear to bed. The other two don't stay dry so we didn't see the signs that Lamb 3 could. He just put the Pullup on at bedtime copying what his brothers did.

With this post I'm not asking for advice on bedwetting-we have tried going back and forth with Lamb 1 and 2 with underwear for a few months and doing lots of laundry and going back to Goodnites or the cloth Pullups I bought on Etsy. This was the advice from our pediatrician in MN. We regularly go to the chiropractor. We try to limit drinks after dinner. We have lots of nightlights and their bedroom is close to their bathroom. But the problem is that our new house does not have a clothes line so I hate to wash sheets here. Both Ram and I wet the bed until we were almost teenagers and Lamb 1 sleeps soundly and I think he will be just like Ram and I. Lamb 2 might be trained earlier, but he's not consistent yet.

Unfortunately right before we decided to let Lamb 3 wear underwear to bed, Costco had a sale and I bought a whole case of Pullups in Lamb 3's small size. He'll be 5 soon but he wears size 2T Pullups. I opened that case and put it in their closet. Today I asked the preschool director if she would like them. She said she didn't care if they had Cars theme, she would use some for her twin girls and the rest would be great for emergencies at our church preschool or even in the nursery.

Of course letting Lamb 3 wear underwear to bed caused problems for his brothers. So I said when they showed me 3 dry Goodnites in a row they could wear underwear to bed too. Neither of them has accomplished this. There were tears at first, but now everyone is used to it.

The funniest part was the first night Lamb 3 took a bath after he began wearing underwear to bed, after bath he put a Pullup on. He had put his dirty clothes including underwear in the laundry room so he couldn't see what else to do besides put on a Pullup. The next bath night I reminded him to put on clean underwear after bath. His face lit up with a grin and said, oh, then I don't have to change my underwear in the morning do I? Sorry, you'll have to put on clean underwear in the morning too!

Paleo feast

We have gotten into the routine of picking up our Bountiful Baskets every other Saturday morning and Saturday and Sunday suppers are feasts with all our new produce. This is what we had Saturday night. Mashed cauliflower, asparagus, and elk with a topping that Ram modified a recipe of apples, oranges, and onions.
We had extra asparagus because Ram volunteered at Bountiful Baskets and I hope to make asparagus soup yet this week. The cauliflower, asparagus, apples, and oranges were from our Basket. The elk was from a friend that we visited on our way home from vacation last summer. We ate some of the elk that they gave us right away and this one was still in the freezer. I'm trying to make more room in my freezer for the chicken I bought from Zaycon that will be delivered tomorrow.
The weather was nice enough to eat outside on the picnic table on our patio where we could listen to our new wind chimes that were a present from my secret pal.
We're not eating all of our meals paleo, but we are headed in that direction, and when Ram cooks a meal like this eating paleo is wonderful!

Spring!

Look what Ram picked at church and brought home for me last week!

Concordia Portland Wind Ensemble

Thank goodness I don't need to write an "obituary" about a friend today after the last two days. On Thursday night we went downtown and ate at a pizza place where the Lambs were able to make their own pizza and watch it being baked.

Ram and I shared a salad and a gluten free pizza. Dessert for the Lambs was choice of freshly baked peanut butter or chocolate chip cookie. Of course Ram and I had to break the gluten free diet and have a peanut butter cookie too! I figured it wasn't so bad since we had gf crust.

Then we walked down to the Egyptian Theatre. We are happy spring weather is here for walking downtown. We had not been there before so it was fun to see the old theatre with Egyptian art. 

(Photo taken by Ram's cell phone-sorry for the quality.)
We went to hear Concordia Portland's Wind Ensemble. After the first piece Lamb 3 asked if we could come listen to them every day! The theatre was not crowded so we allowed the Lambs to stand by their seats and to march in place during the Sousa march. After their experience with the Beethoven concert a few weeks ago, they liked this concert much better-both the music and the length and that it wasn't crowded. Their Wind Ensemble was just organized in 2008 so they are definitely in the building the program phase. It reminded me when I was a freshman at CUW. I was familiar with the director from when I went to Art of Music Camp at River Forest. He came to Portland by way of River Forest, Hong Kong, and Seward. Their wind ensemble has about 30 members.

Afterwards we attended the reception at Concordia Law School. Lamb 2 kept asking when we would leave for the wedding reception. Unfortunately the concert was not well attended, this is a busy time of year for everyone. Which meant that there were mountains of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies for the Lambs to try to tackle. Ram and I broke the gluten free diet a second time to have another cookie. The Lambs liked that they got to stay up late that night too.

It was an enjoyable evening and Ram gave his business card to them and said that our church would be happy to host any music groups that come by this way again. We were some of few that attended that were not taking a few students home for the night.