Had to share

I just thought I would take a moment to share. I have found a website that I can not live with out. It is www.edhelper.com When I started looking for resources for home school this site was recommended to me. At first I just looked at it and moved on. I have now come to appreciate the full value of this site.

My biggest fear when starting home school was that I would miss some major concept for reading or something dumb like that. Once I bought the curriculum for Princess G that fear was gone, thankfully. As we started doing school I realized that my biggest problem was keeping Sunshine busy. Edhelper has been our answer. I have been able to make coloring sheets, writing practice, and any thing else I need for her. To have full access to the website it is $20.00 a year. Trust me after everything I have seen out there this is so cheep. As I have surfed this site I have found even more value. I have been able to make activities for Princess G that go along with her lessons, and I have been able to make some worksheets for Little Man who is not doing as well in Math as we would like. (He is an amazing reader and has focused all of his time there, so his math has suffered) I am so excited to help him get caught up with the work I have found on edhelper. I just thought I would share in case anyone has a child who needs a little extra work, or for preschool aged children who need to be kept busy. Check it out and enjoy.

Just a idea for you...
- Sunshine is learning her letters by sight and sound. She also enjoys tracing them in a work book I had for her. However she was not ready to try to write her letters on her own. I was able to make pages that are just tracing the letters. So I printed them, then I laminated them, one letter in the front another on the back. She can trace the letters with a crayon or dry erase marker. I can wipe it off, and she can do it again. Everyone is happy.

Movie Review

I had heard about the movie Fireproof a few weeks ago and I watched the trailer on line. I could not wait to see the movie. So tonight Alan and I went and saw Fireproof for our date. The first thing I noticed was that the theater was packed. I am not exaggerating when I say there was not one empty seat. And you have to understand that this movie has been out for several weeks. For the most part it seemed that it is a couples movie.

As for the movie. It was so good. We laughed and cried. OK, so I cried. For those of you who are not familiar with the movie here is a link so you can check it out. Go To FireProofTheMovie.com
This is a wonderful movie about the importance of communication, love and support in a marriage. The movie is about a couple on the brink of a nasty divorce, and both are ready to give up. The husband is challenged by his dad to try the Love Dare for 40 days. The movie follows the husband (played by Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains) as he tries this challenge to save his marriage.

We loved this movie because the whole point is Christ and our relationship with him, and how that relationship affects our relationship with our spouse. The church who produced this film did an excellent job with the script, and casting. We can't wait for this movie to come out on DVD.

We feel that our marriage is doing pretty good, however we can always learn something new.

Alan says we should all support movies like this, I have to agree with that one. I would love to hear opinions from anyone else who has seen the movie.

It may be nothing!

I know I have posted a ton lately about Princess G, but we have had a lot to deal with for her. I promise the other kids are doing well. I will write more about them soon. Tonight though I have to share something I have found.

I was channel surfing this evening with no luck of finding anything to keep my attention. We decided to put in a DVD. As Alan was putting in the DVD, I happened to to stop on the TLC channel. As I waited I started listening to the program. The show was called Mystery Diagnosis. The things that were being described sounded exactly like Princess G and her illness. WOW. I was stunned. I stopped and just watched. I wanted to know more about what this Mystery was. The illness that the child in the show is call CCAM (Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation). The child had a surgery to have a large cyst removed from his lungs. This then fixed his breathing problems. I was so amazed. In fact I am recording it in full at 10:00pm. First I want to note, the child on the show had the following symptoms, runny eyes, runny nose, sounding junky, very sick within a day (most respiratory illnesses take a few days), and sick every 2 weeks. I have to say I am freaking out at this point. This is Princess G to a tee. They even showed a picture of the little boy, he had this circles under his eyes just like Princess G. I went to the Internet, I needed more and NOW. Princess G has had so many tests, different kinds of tests and some of the same tests many times. I have a four inch 3-ring binder full of medical records on my little girl. One of the things they have noted is that she has something know had ground glass appearance in her lungs. They saw in a CT scan when she was three, and saw it again from a High resolution CT scan done in Denver earlier this year. All of this got me wondering if CCAM and Ground Glass Appearance in the lungs are found in the same cases. Sure enough I have found a case study that shows both and that they are related. I am going CRAZY. I have a Doctor appointment already set up for Thursday. I wish it was tomorrow. I need to talk to the Doctor about this. This is so hard to diagnose. Mostly because the symptoms are so close to Asthma, or phenomena. They say that a lot of times this can go undiagnosed and teenagers and adults can die without any warning from this. I need answers.

I have been searching and praying for answers, for a way to help or really to fix my little girl. An interesting note. Since we pulled Princess G out of school almost a month ago, Princess G has not been sick at all. After being sick so much while in school this is great news. It really makes me feel that the decision to pull her out of school, and keep her out of church was the right one. I am grateful for her being healthy for the past month, I just wish we did not have to shelter her to keep her that way. I do have to say though she is a real trooper over it. I just hope that this new information could lead to an answer for us. I will follow up soon. In the mean time we ask for all the prayers that we can get.

I'm Back

I feel I have been a little out of the loop, but I think I am back. We had Alan's parents for a week, and we are still trying to get into a home schooling routine.

No I will recap our past couple of weeks.

We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa here. The kids loved having them here to play with. They went on lots of walks and to the park. It was a nice change for everyone. We had hoped to go to the Balloon Fiesta, however the weather turned bad. The morning we wanted to go to the Balloon Fiesta it was cancelled due to the rain. While we had Grandparents here they wanted to celebrate Princess G's upcoming 6Th Birthday. We had a fun family birthday party with cupcakes and gifts. Grandma and Grandpa gave her a little sticker maker that she loves. We were at the dollar store the day before so I thought it would be cute to have all of us pick her out something to also give her. It was really cute to see what Little Man and Sunshine wanted to give to Princess G. Little Man found a little set with beads and string to make a Necklace. She loves stuff like that so I thought it showed how well he knows his sister. Sunshine picked out a really cute coloring book. It is actually Bratz which I am not a fan of, but Sunshine was so cute about wanting it for her sister, that I could not resist. So in the end our time with Alan's parents was a lot of fun.

(She loved the sticker maker)

So in other events... I decided I wanted to put Princess G's hair in sponge curlers. I learned I had made a BIG mistake when I bought the curlers. We had a very big mistake. But it mad for some really good laughs. Enjoy the Pictures. Don't laugh too hard.

Other fun pictures

Here we go

Last week we ordered 1st grade curriculum for Princess G. Today was only the first day using the books, but I feel really good about it. It was really easy for me to teach Princess G the lessons. I was so excited, I felt like she was being challenged and having fun. I can't ask for anything more. Enjoy the pictures from our classroom. We set up our classroom as close to a school classroom as possible. We didn't want Princess G to feel like she is missing anything. It is fun to go in there and see the girls get so excited to learn. We were really blessed to get desk, chairs, and a table for a surplus yard. The girls love having their own desks. Ok so enough about school for now.

As for the rest of the family, Little Man is doing really well in school. He was very excited to have met the UNM Lobo's football and basketball teams, and the cheerleaders. Little Man said he really liked the cheerleaders. Alan asked him if the cheerleaders were as cute as Mommy? Little Man said "Dad you should have seen this one cheerleader, she was REALLY cute". You have to just laugh.

Sunshine has been so busy. She is having to adjust to not having Mommy all to herself all day. It is not going as well as I would like. I am sure it will get better. I just hope it is sooner then later. I am finding little ways to keep her busy and happy. We tried doing the no nap thing, after a week I decided there is no way that is going to work. I am happy to say we are happy nap takers again. She stays up a half hour later at night, but it is so worth it.

Last week we also got to babysit My best friend Anya's baby girl. She is such a sweet baby. Sunshine is a little unsure about having a baby around. Due to some crazy things last week we had "Sweet Pea"(if I don't put my own kids names on here I had to rename her baby too)3 days. It is amazing how much you forget about little babies. Well it is all coming back.

Well not too much else going on. We are enjoying balloon fiesta this week. Hundreds of balloons in the sky at the same time, it is really beautiful. We are also looking forward to having Alan's Mom and Dad in town this week. Alan and the kids have Friday off, so we are looking forward to lots of fun activities with them. I am sure we will have lots of fun photos to add very soon :)

2nd Opinion

We followed up with Princess G's pediatric pulmonologist today to see if things are getting a little more under control. He decided it was time to try a new medication. I feel good about the change, but I am a little nervous. I told him that we had pulled Princess G out of school as asked by our Pediatrician. He said that was old medicine, they use to do it a lot more with kids. I asked if he felt it was unnecessary to do this. He said no in this case it is very necessary. To be so sick 3 times in six weeks is way too much. He went a little further and said that he also does not recommend Primary on Sundays (once I explained how church went), or any other large gatherings where there will be lots of kids. We have not really explained it to Princess G yet, and I don't know how much she really gets it yet. I feel really bad for her. It does not help that she is totally my child and VERY social. I just don't ever want her to think she is being punished. I have decided that I am going to talk to the parents of the kids she plays with and set up some regular play dates. As long as the kids are not sick. I think that will give Princess G something to look forward to every week. I have not told her yet that we have to cancel her Birthday party. I just feel bad for having to take away everything from her.

I am excited that as far as home school goes, I have found a great curriculum to follow. I found it after hour and hours of Internet research. What a task that was. I found a couple that I thought looked pretty good, but every time I went to purchase one I would not feel right about it and wouldn't buy them. Then I thought I should look up what other parents thought of the curriculum. Each one I was interested in other parents had negative opinions about. It came to a point that we thought that people where only leaving an opinion if they were unhappy. We thought we would have to pick a curriculum and hope for the best. Then like what seemed out of nowhere, we found a curriculum that we liked and so did every other parent who had reviewed it. YEAH!!! We bought it. This program has everything we need for a full year of teaching. It breaks everything down into daily lessons. It looks really good. I am so excited to start on Monday, and so is Princess G. I feel so blessed that everything has fallen into place. We even got real school desks and chairs for our little home school classroom. I wanted Princess G to be able to transition hopefully next year back to school with as little of a problem as possible. I felt having a small school desk and chair may help with that. I am even a stickler about her writing her name on her papers before she "hands them in". I hope it works. Ask me in two weeks how it is going. We did though get Sunshine a desk too, that way both girls have their own desk and I can teach Sunshine preschool at the same time. Wow I have my work cut out for me. Wish me luck, I need to go do my lesson plans.