WOW has it been SOO long!!!

Time has sure flown and though I have thought about many things to blog about over the past month + I just didn't sit down and do it. So much to tell....hmmm

I guess I should start with July. We went up to my brother's for the Fourth but things didn't work out for us to stay up there. Four or five of our kids got sick and Larry started feeling sick and so we opted to come home. It was chicken noodle soup for the sicklings and normal food for the rest.

A lot of July for the kids was spent in our pool. It's been a nice asset to our lives though this year thankfully it hasn't been as hot as other times. We got one of the inflatable ring tops that rise as you fill with water. The cool thing we purchased with it was the Salt Water filtering system. What it does is you add salt to the water and the system converts it to be able to not form algae and have shock and put chlorine in the pool. Overall it has been a GREAT money saver and probably hair and swimsuit saver. I was concerned with having chlorine with the girls' hair and this doesn't do the damage that chlorine would.

Jess got to go to spend a week in Mississippi with one of her closest friend's Jessica which is my best friend's daughter. I took Tim with me on the way down so he could spend some time with Joey her brother since they are good friend's too. I enjoyed my visit down there spending time with her though it was just an overnight for me too. I get so busy sometimes that I forget how much I miss having her around until I get to spend several hours with her. I hope to make another trip down there at some point. After Jess got back from Mississippi she went to Youth Camp. July was a busy month for that girl.

We have utilized the Holiday World passes some and have used our membership to the zoo as well. I know we have pictures somewhere of these adventures.

The daycare is going GREAT especially since potty training around here is in full force (for the girls at least). We have gained 4 more kiddos (my nephew and nieces) and they are such a joy to have here. They have been an asset to our daycare to say the least. Our older kids enjoy their older cousins and the younger cousins are enjoying the littles.

Eleana has recently learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels and is doing a remarkable job at it. I need to video tape it but just been busy.

I am going back to school in a couple of weeks to work towards getting my Associate's Degree in Early Childhood Education. Some of the classes I am taking are required for us to maintain our license but I have decided to get a degree so that we won't have to keep going back and getting retrained. Also some states are changing their homeschool laws that they a teacher needs to reside in the home. If I go for the Associate's I know I am only two years from getting my Bachelor's which would allow me to teach K-3rd grades. A lot of my credits from Lee University (awesome school...like the Plug) were able to be transferred so that makes me thrilled to say the least. I am certain I will have to re-take Pre-Algebra and Algebra since that was the class I used to read my mail in while at Lee. I am getting anxious and excited. I pray that I can be a light and witness to the people I will have contact with over the next few years.

The weight loss Bible study is going well. I have lost 27 lbs. so far. The last week or so I haven't been able to focus on exercising but it still stays fresh in my mind to eat healthy and continue to work towards maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

I have decided at this point to not walk in the Half-Marathon because I don't want to take 3 hours per every few days in a week to train for it. I am pretty certain I could make the distance right now but I know with school starting I will probably be focusing on more important things.

The kids' school is going well. The balancing of my life in that area seems to be coming to pass. A funny thing about school....recently Staples had their wired notebooks for a penny a piece. Well I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity so I told Larry I wanted to load up all the kids and both of us and drive down there and get some paper. He agreed. I grabbed two 50 cent rolls of pennies and gave each of the kids 6 notebooks and Larry then had them check out. I bought my 6 plus the older kids' new binders and folders. So all in all we went down there and spent 66 cents for 66 notebooks. It was fun to watch each of the kids check out. Larry just looked at me and laughed. Hey now they are consumers too. Thanks to Perri for giving me the heads up on such a great deal. I guess Staples is thankful that we weren't the Duggar Family LOL only half that LOL!!!

Well I think that catches us up for now. I hope that one of us will post again soon in the future. Since Larry will be the stay at home dad I hope he is encouraged to do so.