Oh my aching bones...

If you don't know everything about me, you may have no idea how old I am.  Looking at pictures, I probably look mid 20's, I get carded every time I go to the liquor store or a bar (cause I'm always bar hopping LOL).  I'd say 50% of the time when I'm out grocery shopping with the kids, people ask if they are all mine because I honestly think they are thinking I am the nanny!  All that being said, I am 32.  I'm in the "prime" of my life. 

In the past year, I went from weighing 113lbs to weighing 142lbs.  That is almost a 30 pound weight gain.  Sure, I drank a lot of beer this summer and didn't eat super healthy, but honestly I didn't do anything so drastic that would constitute a 30lb weight gain.  Something was up.  Besides this drastic weight gain I've had a whole host of other "icky" things going on with my body.  Hormonal acne, the recent development of little chin whiskers (to which I say WTF!!!), extremely dry skin and hair and oh so brittle nails.  I'm always tired and my libido is basically non-existent (poor Bri).  I'm always cold and my back is always achy.  Honestly, it was like I was aging instantly.  Scary, right?

I decided to go in to my doctor and get the whole gamut of blood tests done to see what the heck was going on.  We ruled out thyroid (which was kind of a bummer, it would have been an easy fix) and any other blood diseases.  What we did find is that I am walking around with the estrogen levels of a post menopausal woman.  That, combined with my Progesterone level being low and my Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) being higher, we have determined that I am going into premature menopause.  My FSH isn't high enough yet to put me into full blown menopause, but it's inching up there.  I suppose it's only a matter of time until it happens. 

So, I am a 32 year old living in a 60 year old's body.  Good times huh?  When I went in, I was hoping they would find out why I was having all these odd symptoms, I guess you get what you wish for, right?  So yes, it wasn't the news I was hoping to hear, but I have my answer and now I can start living my "new" life.  There are a lot of changes I need to make to help combat these symptoms, namely some drastic diet changes and perhaps some Bioidentical Hormones (I will not take synthetic hormones for a whole list of reasons, but I will consider some bioidentical hormones and natural remedies). 

Wish me luck on my geriatric journey!  I'm gonna need it.  I also need to end with this: I firmly believe each and every person should have their hormone levels checked every so often.  While my symptoms weren't debilitating, they were affecting my quality of life.  It is extremely common for hormones to change and become imbalanced as both men and women grow older.  It is just a little blood test, so what are you waiting for?  Now don't be too afraid, premature menopause in women is extremely rare, the most you may find is that a little tweak in your diet can go a long way! 

Lack of creativity

For the holidays, I created a lot of homemade gifts.  I seriously only sewed or crafted to finish a project in time for gift giving.  Since then, I haven't really put much time or effort into creating.  I never thought I'd be one to crave creating, but I do and I truly miss it.  The only problem: not enough time in my day.  To start a project and make decent progress on it takes time.  Between our homeschooling adventures, work and all the other demands on my time, I honestly haven't had the energy or will to start anything.  I miss it dearly.  

My challenge for this week is to make something.  My hopes is getting my hands on my sewing machine again and making a cute little something for myself or the girls.  There are oodles of fabric downstairs just calling my name and I have about a thousand ideas pinned.  My goal is to create something by Sunday of this week, post it here on my blog and perhaps include a tutorial on it!  Anyone else want to join in on this challenge?  It doesn't have to be sewing.  It could be needlecraft, crocheting, scrapbooking, really anything that strikes your fancy!  

Leave me a comment if you want in!  Now that it's down on paper, I feel I have to commit to it.  Who is with me?

Long winded

I started off this post (or rather another post) with super awesome intentions of sharing with all of you my philosophies, progress thus far and my curriculum purchases.  It got rather long-winded, so I decided against posting it for now to spare you the boredom.  Instead, I thought I would recap a typical day in our home.  Maybe that would give you a glimpse into how we are doing and how we all feel about homeschooling.

On an "average day", and by average I mean it could change at any given time, we start our day at about 9:30, after Annika gets on the bus.  We usually start with calendar and that sort of thing, it drives me nuts when kids don't know the days of the week and months (including poor dear Annika, we'll get her there).  I'm proud to admit that Bianca is far ahead of her big sis in regards to this in just 3 short weeks.  

From there we go onto grammar, language arts, handwriting and phonics.  Bianca is reading quite well for her age.  We are working on sight words and different parts of the English grammar appropriate for her age.  She is making great strides in this department and I'm so very proud of Bianca.  Bennett has been doing incredible as well.  Since he's been home with me, he's begun writing letters and words when I spell them for him.  He wrote a penpal letter, complete with his name, To: and the name, "I like cars" and from Bennett.  It was a huge moment here for us.  He just needed a little one on one guidance and some confidence.  Imagine that!  

After that we will often do some poetry, picture studies or art projects.  The kids love this part, they think it's fun and not necessarily learning, so that is wonderful.  

After snack in the morning we do a recess.  We love to go outside, ride our bikes, play at the nature center, or just do yoga in our living room.  Bianca's favorite is dancing her crazy dances in the the living room to her kidz bopz cd.  It makes my day.  

We start to prepare lunch and while I do that, I have the kids watch a show like Little House on the Prairie, Bill Nye or listen to a book on cd.  Then the afternoon is devoted to science and math. 

Math is not as "fun" for Bianca, Bennett seems to do just fine with it, but Bianca gets tired out from all the "thinking".  We will continue to work on it and hopefully she will begin to love it, like her daddy!

So, this is our typical day.  On several of the days, we really like to go visit different places, meet with friends, head to activities and enrich our experiences as a homeschooling family. 

All in all, we really love our experiences thus far.  We are learning a lot and truly enjoying our times together.

Keeping ADD at bay...

So, I'm not self-diagnosing my son as having ADD, or ADHD.  In fact, I hope and pray each day he doesn't follow in his father's family's footsteps in the ADHD department and is just pure boy at this point in his life.  The truth is, Bennett is an active boy.  He literally (and by literally, I mean quite literally) doesn't stop moving from dusk until dawn.  Which is fine.  We keep him busy, it's quite wonderful :).  

Anyway, Bennett has quite the love for all things that have wheels.  While visiting the hubster's cousin's house earlier this week, we found that her sons would sit for a period of time and play with trucks, cars and whatnot in a cake pan full of sand.  Well, I pushed aside the type A part of me and found a storage bin for $2.50 at the thrift store and filled it with a $5 bag of sand.  We threw some cars into the bin of sand and voila we had an instant sensory table.  

Can you even believe that Bennett played in that damn sand box for over an hour and a half yesterday?  No joke.  He loves it.  During that period, Bianca came and went from it at least 2-3 times, while my hyperactive child sat and played quietly in it for over 1 1/2 hours?  If you lived in my household, you would understand what a miracle this would be.  

So yes, there was sand on my floor, but I had a happy child who sat for longer than 5 minutes.  Praise the Lord.  No Joke there!  So if you are willing to let go a little bit and are able to vacuum, give it a go.  I simply put a huge plastic table cloth underneath, and let them go at it.  It was fun.  I promise.  It won't hurt as much as it seems!

Silly Poems

This week we have been focusing on poetry for our language arts studies.  Of course we are all familiar with the beautiful poetry that surrounds us, but I wanted to make it a little more fun for the kiddos yesterday.  So, in honor of fun, we made read some silly poems and then created our very own silly poems.  Of course they wanted to use words such as poop and doody, but I tried to keep the bathroom business out of our poems.  

Since I want to get these down for my record, I need to post them here.  We were very proud of our poems and the kids had to work hard to make our words rhyme and sound melodic.  They did a great job!

Our first poem is titled:

The Funny Toad

by Bianca, Bennett and Mommy

Once there was a funny toad,

Who saw a truck on the road.

In that truck a sight he did see,

A green elephant looking at he!

Here is some of the artwork that accompanied our poem.  

And a sillier poem we wrote but didn't illustrate.

Stinky Green Undies

By Bianca, Bennett and Mommy

Bennett always has stinky green undies,

He noticed one day he had itchy fleas!

To the doctor he went for some relief,

The doctor said, if you would believe,

To get rid of the fleas, just change your green undies!

On Tuesday we read a few other poems.  Once was titled The Sunbeam.  It provided a good learning experience.  We talked about what makes a poem a poem.  We devised ways to make ordinary sentences sound poetic.  We talked about the words we did not know in the poem and what we felt the meaning of the poem could be.  I then had the kids paint with Q tips (q week) how they felt about the poem.  It was a fun project, even I joined in!

I could seriously teach language arts all day long.  Of course that was my major in college so that makes sense.  I just love stories, reading and all that awesome stuff!  Now, if only I could channel that into the math department!

Mr. Golden Sun

Yesterday was the most remarkable day here in MN.  It was about 45 degrees with amazingly beautiful sunlight.  Annika wanted to color some pictures at our table, but it was too bright so she put on her shades.  She just looked so pretty in the hazy sun.  Of course I had to snap a picture.

Bianca was outside and she had to wear my hat.  I thought she looked so stinkin' cute.  Of course the sunlight helped!

Love her!

Winter

This winter has been remarkably dry and warm (well, as warm as a winter can be I suppose).  I always dread the cold and snow, but this year it has been amazing.  We ride our bikes on a weekly basis and play outdoors daily.  It's lovely.  Today for "gym and recess", we headed to our local nature center and played for over an hour.  There was a wall of hay bales going up and down a hill.  Bennett ran that bad boy about 8 times.  It was such a great energy release for him!

My favorite part of the nature center is that the kids explore and run freely.  No structure, just pure imaginitive play.  It's good for the bodies and their minds.

Playing the xylophone.

Climbing the hay bales.

Pretty trees!

Pretty stump.

Look what I can do!

We had a great time, I think the kids liked it as well!