The following people get an "F"

No extra credit, no retest, no bonus points, an absolutely undisputed "ef".

1. Mr. Ludtke, Corey's high school geometry teacher.

2. Mrs. Dennard, Carrie's high school geometry teacher. (not a "dr." when I had her)

3. The people who instituted "college prep" track for high schoolers who weren't failing out, thus eliminating them from taking useful life-skill classes, such as "shop" or "carpentry."

4. The guy who sold us our flooring and gave us a "quick and easy" way to FAIL at installing laminate flooring!

5. Anyone who had anything to do with building our house, especially the ones who squared the rooms and doorways and hallways and calculated the angles between the rooms.

The following people get an "A", a blue ribbon, a gold medal, and an Oscar.

1. Our neighbor, Josh King, who revealed the secret BETTER and easier and RIGHT way to install laminate flooring.

2. Woodtick314, for being a carpenter for 15 years and contributing his answer to a question on "yahoo answers" about the improbability of being able to find a "right" angle in your house and the mysterious "bevel gauge" and "speed square" one could purchase to solve this common problem in home improvement projects.

3. Corey's dad for providing random but much needed tools for specific jobs. (points off for not being accesible today when we were going to request a "bevel gauge" and a "speed square" from his stash of tools.)

4. Andy and Bethany for not hating their friends for ironically being involved in a home improvement project every time they are in town and offer to help :)

5. Corey and I, for rediscovering the workings of geometry by teaching themselves how to use a bevel gauge and a speed triangle. Thanks going out to wikipedia, bobvila.com, and to the Addis method of looking at something long enough and turning it around in your hands until poof it comes to you. Corey, for doing mental math and remembering minor facts from the website that are key to dividing the degrees enough times to get a correct measurement.

Things I did today:

1. printed a protractor.

2. remembered that degrees count up to 90, then progressively go back down.

3. figured out a complementary angle.

4. wondered how so many students are directed toward trade school and away from higher level mathematics when it is clear they are one in the same.

5. decided that when it is time to homeschool our children in geometry we will add on to our house instead and have them do the work :)

Thought for the day:
Jesus was a carpenter. If you want to see how truly Jesus like you are, attempt a carpentry project :) It requires, among other things: wisdom, patience, and not to be discounted or taken lightly: FAITH!

Wishing and Hoping...

As we "finish" our first year of homeschooling I am already thinking about what we will do/change for next year. This year was great, relaxed, fun, etc. But, I do want to be on more of a schedule next year...and with the help of a friend sending her preschooler over to school with us, I am sure that will help keep my on my toes.
We will be going with a new curriculum next year called "Sonlight." It has all my weekly lesson plans already made for me and I can supplement with our own handwriting and Math, which is great!
Today I have been making lists of books, etc. we will need to get to go along with our curriculum, esp with adding another student in the mix. I needed to come up with a list for her as she will be doing the same stuff as Noah so we will need some duplicates. Then I decided to just make a wish list of "stuff we would love to have" for our classroom next year. The #1 thing on the list is a new table....the desk thing didn't work too great for us this year, as we like to do stuff all together and ended up sitting on the floor a lot, which is okay sometimes, but not so great when the floor is cold!
On the right of the page is a link to my "Amazon wishlist" of things we would love to have, in case anyone happens to be in a giving and blessing others mood! ha ha!

Whirlwind Weekend

A lot has changed since the last time I posted. First of all, I did not win either of the contests that I entered and posted on my blog. The scrapbook stuff: no win. The photo contest: no win. :( I was really hoping on the honeymoon trip, but, I was not even a finalist. There were some really good entries, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to go vote for us!



Last Wednesday Corey and I stayed up painting. Our kitchen is now a nice textured yellow/green. And, the dirty walls in the living room/hallway are a nice CLEAN shade of the same beige they were before. What a difference a coat of paint can make!



On Thursday we took the kids for their first bowling experience with my brother and his girlfriend. I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera...still waiting for Hannah to share the few she took.



On Friday we got to bed to rest for our busy busy weekend! At about 8:45 Corey's mom came and picked up Katie and Noah for a day and night of camping fun. And Corey and I hit the floor ripping! Ripped up carpet, finished up painting the stairway area and worked as much as we could until about 4:30 when we stopped to get ready to go to the wedding of our best friend's sister. You can see a slideshow of wedding pics here on Bethany's blog. It was, by far, the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended!

On Sunday Morning we headed to church and then home again to get busy! We finished up the cleaning of the floors, pulling staples, vacuuming, etc. Katie and Noah were transferred to the other grandparents for the afternoon/night and Monday. Then Corey started to lay out the floor boards according to the directions given by the floor guy where we bought our supplies. Well, two hours plus a friend's help later, we were not making any progress! The directions given by the floor guy just DID NOT work! Then comes our neighbor to the rescue! Our neighbors who have the same house plan as us just did their floors about a month ago. I gave them a call to ask for some advice and he volunteered to come help us get started. WHAT A HERO! In about an hour we were really making good progress and at about 8:30 pm on MONDAY, Corey laid the last board in the kitchen. YAY!

So, now we have BEAUTIFUL wood floors in our kitchen, hallway, and living room. It was a hard 3 days, but it is something we are really proud of. There are a few little things we didn't finish...still have to do the quarter round and slice a few boards to put along one edge in the kitchen that wouldn't hold full size boards. It started raining Monday night and we were just TIRED! We also still have to figure out how to do the thresholds in the doorways of the bedrooms.

I did take pictures of our project but I am waiting to post until I get some good "after" pictures when it is all done and cleaned up. It still looks a bit like a construction zone around here....but at least with a good outcome!

Graceland

Here are some pictures from launch day. I took the pictures of the band before church while they were practicing...the kids had some inflatables for the occassion and I threw in two more pictures I took of Katie and Noah at the park today..they were just too cute. Also, don't forget to look below for a slide of Katie and Noah's recitals.

Concerts and Recitals....

Here is a slideshow...(finally!) of Katie and Noah's end of the year performances. Noah had a tumbling "show?" I don't know what you would call it, anyway, and Katie's Spring Praise Concert. The pictures of her dancing are from the dress rehearsal since there was no flash photography at the actual concert. Then we took some pics outside after her concert.

*Whew!*

What a weekend! Corey got into town Friday afternoon after spending a week in sunny Orlando. We met when he got off work to eat a quick bite at Zaxby's then head up to the church to do some work. More about that later. We got home to get Katie in the bed for her recital on Saturday. It was incredible. Katie attends Steps of Faith, in Catersville, and their Spring Praise Concert was so good. Katie did a great job with her dance steps and just loved receiving flowers from everyone afterwards and the lunch she picked at Chic-fil-a. After the concert it was back to the church for last minute projects and clean up.

In case some of you reading don't know, Corey and I have been involved with a church plant project....it is a ministry of the main campus of The Church at Liberty Square. The mission of the new project is to reach out to the community and perhaps draw families who aren't inclined to attend a traditional church. The first service was in March, with Corey playing an acoustic guitar as the only music and an old building with turquoise carpet and white walls. Two weeks ago the carpet was ripped and a major renovation was completed by many hours of hard work by people dedicated to making the church a success. The carpet has been replaced with a dark brownish/black color and part wood, the ceiling painted, new lighting installed, new church signs, a Children's Church room with a Hollywood (HolyWord) theme almost completed, a preschool room painted and themed, and now the music consists of a full band (four guitars, a keyboard, and drums) and awesome praise and worship music! My favorite song from yesterday that they did was "Counting on God by Desperation Band. It is just a really cool song that has a great message and the band and singers really sounded great...a lot like the original...so proud of them! Also, another favorite of mine they did was "God of This City by Chris Tomlin" which they played with a slideshow collage of pictures from around the Cartersville area. Sort of similar to the slide that is on that clip I linked to. If anyone would ask about the purpose of Graceland, I would direct them to this song.... Pastor Eric does a great job of delivering sermons with practical living themes, that are "meaty" enough for "churched" people to grow, but simple and intriguing enough for "unchurched" people to understand and apply as well.
So....long story short....this past week has been a busy time of finishing up painting projects, the men finishing up the wood floor installations, general clean-up, etc. The reason being that yesterday was the official "launch" of Graceland. The music was awesome...and I am sure the message was as well (I am the preschool "person" so I was with them during the service).
We are so exicted about the people who will come and come to love God and worship in this environment....I am listening to "God this City" as I write this and I am thinking I have to add it to my song list! You have to hear that song! Yesterday was great...we had 127 people in the service. A website is being worked on, but here is a link to a little info about the church: Graceland I left our camera in Corey's car, but as soon as I get it I will post some pictures from the weekend.

This week will also be a busy one. Corey and I will be working on getting our kitchen and livingroom/hallway painted and ready for us to rip up the floors. This coming weekend the kids are going camping and spending time with each set of grandparents while we put laminate/hardwood floors in our kitchen/livingroom/hallway. We are excited about it getting done....but not so excited about getting started! :) It will be a busy week/weekend....but good. We will also be attending a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for our "best friend-in-law's" son on Tuesday night, perhaps going bowling with my brother and his girlfriend on Thursday, and on Saturday be attending a wedding for our best friend in law's sister. *Whew* No wonder we are all fighting colds right now! We have been so busy! As of yesterday afternoon, besides sleeping, Corey had spent about 2 hours at home since he got back into town! Maybe we can get some sleep and defeat the cold before it sets in too badly...no time for sickness around here!!!!

Awww.....

I just posted, but I have to tell what just happened! I heard Katie crying and I went to her room and she was sitting in the floor with her Barbies. I asked her, "What's wrong?"
She said in a crying voice, "I just don't WANT to get married!"
I said, "You aren't getting married."
She said,"When I am a grown up and I am about to get married I will just wish for a fairy godmother to turn me back into a child......*sob*...I don't want to leave you!"

I said she didn't have to leave until she wanted to....and she assured me she would never want to.

A few minutes later she came into the kitchen still upset. She put her hands out in a type of exasperated expression and said, "It's because grown-ups just do boring things."

I really had to fight a smile as I asked, "what do you mean?"

She said, "grownups just sleep, and read and do boring stuff."

I explained that when you are a grown up those things aren't boring to you. She said, "But I just want to be a kid and read kid books and go to church and play."

I insisted that you can still have fun as a grown up and that we have fun playing with our children, and taking them to Disney World and going to church. She said she just wants to stay a kid.

I wonder how long this sentiment will last?