Sensory fun

I bought a book awhile back called, "The Out of Sync Child Has Fun". It is a book that gives fun ideas to help Sensory Processing Disorder kids. Many of the ideas are, well, messy! The activities are actually good for me because I tend to be a person who likes things nice and clean. I need this kind of stuff to stretch me :). I tried a new activity yesterday. It involved shaving cream and a cookie sheet. Basically, I put a mountain of shaving cream on the cookie sheet and let Evie play in it. It gives her a lot of tactile sensory imput. She loved it. She literally was up to her eyeballs in it. She put it all over her face, arms, and legs. We did it all outside, and then she just washed off by jumping in the sprinkler :). She got soaked, but she loved it. I'm thinking about trying a new activity every day during her school year.

Speaking of school year, I bought Evie's curriculum online yesterday. I am doing a curriculum called My Father's World. I used it for 1st grade too, and I liked that it was so hands on for Evie. My Father's World uses more of what is called the Charlotte Mason approach, or classical homeschooling. This 2nd grade curriculum is packed full of so much. We are officially starting homeschooling in another few weeks. The kids in this area go back to school really early this year. Most start around the 2nd week of August. I can't believe how fast summer has gone by!

Can you say, "Awww"

Daisy is fitting in really well. She is such a loving kitty. She is really calm. This morning was the first time I really saw her super lively, and she was hilarious. She has slept a lot today.

She is getting along really well with Sierra. Si Si will lick her head, and Daisy will nuzzle on her. It is funny to see, especially since Daisy is about the size of Si Si's head! I wish I could say Dolly was taking well to her. Dolly keeps hissing at her, and is hissing at all of us! She keeps looking at me like, "How could you!" I hope she gets used to Daisy soon. When Dolly hisses at her, she just sits down and doesn't get close to her. She seems like a smart little kitty.














This is how I found her sleeping on the couch. So sweet!!

New family member

This so was not planned, but we have a new furry family member! We went down yesterday afternoon to the town we used to live in. We hadn't been there since we moved 3 years ago, and some friends invited us for a visit. We got there about 4 hours early because we wanted to go by our old house, and also because we wanted to surprise some close friends, Dee Dee and Steve, that had adopted us into their family when we lived in the area. We got to their house in the country, and there sitting beside the door was a kitten. I picked it up, and it just purred and purred. Dee Dee and Steve were gone, and they came about 20 minutes after we got there. Evie held this kitten (who she instantly named Daisy) for 2 whole hours. This kitten purred nonstop the whole time, and didn't struggle once to get away from her. I was in complete shock. Evie kept asking, "Can we keep her?" My response was no at first, but I was in awe of this cat! Jeff and I asked Dee Dee if she would be willing to give us the kitten, and she was all for it. There were 3 others from the litter, and they were all unfriendly and hissed at us. This one had been tamed by Steve and Dee Dee's 3 year old granddaughter, and loved to be held. Both Dee Dee and Steve said they were afraid that the cat was going to get trampled by their horses, because she kept following both Dee Dee and Steve to the barn, and she would walk right under the horses. I have heard of many barn kittens getting killed this way. So Dee Dee wanted me to take her. We decided that we would, so went and picked her up today on our way home. This is Daisy and Evie on the 2 hour car ride home. She sat in Evie's lap like this almost the entire time, except for when I held her. Evie is watching a dvd, and it seems like Daisy is too!





















Here is Daisy when we got home today. Evie put her in a bed with some soft baby clothes. She fell right to sleep. She also fell asleep on Evie. Her markings are so interesting. She is a calico kitty, but has some sections of orange tabby cat in her. If you click on the picture of Evie holding her on the couch, you can see the orange tabby markings on her arm. She isn't litter box trained yet, so we are keeping her in our bathroom tonight with a litter box, her bed, food and water. We read that was what to do. She sure is cute!

4H Fair

Our local 4H fair started this weekend. They had free admission today, so we went this afternoon. Every year that we go to the fair, it is always about 100 degrees. I am not kidding either! Today was a first...it was so cold that we were wearing sweatshirts! It has been extremely cool here all month. It hasn't gotten even into the 80's most days, which has been a huge blessing because we haven't had to run our air conditioning! So we are saving money! The first thing we did was go to the sea lion show. It was outside, and we got seats and waited for about 1/2 hour before the show started. Here is our family photo I tried to take. I didn't know Evie was making such a crazy face!














Here are the adorable sea lions. We watched the show for about 15 minutes, and then it started pouring down rain. We missed the last part of the show because the rain was coming down in buckets. Everyone ran for the nearest building!















We headed for the goat barn, and so we took a few pictures of us with the goats. We were wet, but not soaked like some other people that weren't able to get out of the rain quick enough. It was so cold, so I was glad we got out of the rain quickly.


























The rain let up a bit, so we went across the street to the rabbit building. I love the rabbits, and Evie does too. They have an area where the kids can pet the rabbits. Evie loved this black one. She was a sweet bunny.













We went to the Holstein barn, and we got to see the cows. Evie was petting one of the cows, and the cow's owner (a little girl) let her brush him.

It was a fun day, despite the rain. The rain let up after awhile, and we were able to walk around and see all that we wanted to see. We usually eat at the fair, but we didn't do that this year to save money. The fair food smelled SO good, so it sure was tempting!

Blueberries

We went blueberry picking today at a local patch. Jeff's mom went with us, and it was gorgeous weather to pick. Normally when I have picked blueberries in the past, it has been about 90 degrees outside. Today was in the 70's and gorgeous.













This was Evie's first time picking blueberries, and she did amazing! We were in the patch for almost 3 hours, and she picked the whole time. She got bored near the end, and started complaining, but I thought she did so well. She ate about half the patch though :). I kept teasing her that they were going to weigh her afterwards and then charge us for the berries she ate. The patch we picked at had certified organic blueberry bushes, so we didn't think a thing about eating them off the bush. Normally when we have picked in the past, the berries have had a lot of pesticides on them, so I haven't wanted to eat too many without washing them.













The berries were beautiful this year. The berries were really big, and were slightly tarty. I had wanted to pick 40 pounds, and when we got done and had them weighed, I found out we picked exactly that! We got home around 1:30, and I started washing and freezing the blueberries. I kept out several pounds for us to eat fresh. Here are 3 of the 4 bags of blueberries we picked.













When I got done, I put 23 packages in the freezer. I still had 22 packages in the freezer from last year. Last year I bought 80 pounds, which was way more than I needed. This is a picture of my packed freezer, with the new blueberries on the top shelf.

Another hair post :)

Okay, no laughing! Well, okay, you can laugh. I do look pretty funny. I have been a bit of a YouTube addict when it comes to hair videos the past few days. There is a girl who goes by the name of Torrin who has a ton of instructional hair videos. She had one that I wanted to try, that would help my hair be super wavy. She and I have similar hair texture, and I wanted my hair to look like hers did after she enhanced the waves in her hair. So last night, I put my hair in 6 braids, and I curled the ends with wrap, snap and go rollers. I misted the braids with water so they were a bit damp. The picture below is what I looked like before I took them out this morning. Just so you know, the Disney princess background is not my room, it is Evie's :).













Here are 2 "after" pictures. After Jeff took the first picture, I laughed at how horrible the background was (it is his temporary, messy office), so we changed rooms. Thus the reason for 2 pictures of the back. I think the first pic shows a bit more of the wave.


























I had Jeff take one from the front, just so you could see the waves in the front. I was amazed at how much it shortened my hair. Torrin mentioned that hers shortened about 6 inches or more, and that is what mine did. I love how it turned out though. The only bummer is that after about an hour of being at church, the waves started to fall. It is now almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and the waves are about gone. The curl is still at the end, but the waves are now very slight. I need to figure out a way to keep the waves in for longer. It was fun though because I felt like I had a perm for a day!

Tried a new style

I was on The Long Hair Loom today, and I found a YouTube link to this bun called the Hypno Bun. I loved how it looked, so I decided to give it a try. It was a bit more challenging than it looked on the video, and mine is a little messy. It is SO comfortable though! I think it is one of the most comfortable buns I have ever worn, and I love that I don't need any pins at all. Just that hairstick holds it all. I found several other updos on YouTube that I want to try. I am trying to be a little more creative with my hair. Sometimes

I go through a rut, and end up wearing my hair in the same style for days on end. The hairstick is one I got from my dear online friend Fox. It is one of my favorites. Evie saw Jeff take a hair pictures of me, and she wanted me to take one of her. Her hair is getting really long, and looked beautiful today. She had some major green in it from the copper we put in our hot tub. The white streaks were green! We bought a shampoo to get it out, and it seems to be helping. You can still see just a tinge of it if you look closely, but it is way better than it was before.

The past coming back to bite me

I was browsing the internet yesterday, and about fell out of my chair. I was on YouTube, just surfing, and looking at some long hair videos. Jeff was sitting in the room with me, and I came across a video and about freaked. I said to Jeff, "OH....MY.....WORD!! That's ME!!" I just sat there in complete shock staring at a video of me brushing my hair. About 9 years ago, way before Facebook and YouTube, and long before I knew about creepy things like long hair fetishes, I was a long hair model. I did a few photo shoots, and a few videos with me brushing my hair. I didn't really think about who would see these pictures or videos, and at that time, YouTube didn't even exist. I was young and naive. If I had known about YouTube back then, and about the fact that millions of people could view a video of me, I would never have done it. I signed something that gave permission for the person who took the videos and pictures to sell them, so there is nothing I can do about my video being put on YouTube. Thankfully you can barely see my face. The worst part though is the comments! Yikes!!! My hair at that time was not super healthy. I hadn't found The Long Hair Loom at that point, so I wasn't taking very good care of my hair. It had lots of splits, and was pretty raggedy at the ends. Still, even knowing that, the comments really burned. I read things like, "Eww, that is just gross" and "Cut that nasty hair" and "She needs a pony tail holder with a blade attached to the end of it" and "It looks like a dog is caught in her hair". Then there were the ultra creepy comments that were made, that just made me want to throw up. So it was a really great day for the self esteem (not!), and a day where I really wanted to kick myself for ever doing the long hair modeling thing.

Shocked

I'm in quite a bit of shock today. Last night we were over at Jeff's parents for a cookout, and I was outside grilling. Jeff came over from work, and told me that he lost his job due to cutbacks. So as of yesterday, my husband is now unemployed. We were both completely blown away with shock. He didn't see it coming at all. He is updating his resume today. We are just trusting that God is going to help him find a really good job soon. I'm trying to stay calm and not freak out. I had been praying that he would be able to work from home (because his job was looking like it was going to take that direction), but this isn't exactly what I had in mind! It is really nice having him home, I will say that. God has always taken care of us, and I know He will continue to do so.