Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Week vs Weak

WITHOUT GOD... our week would be: Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday, Thirstday, Fightday, Shatterday, Seven days without God - Makes one Weak!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Patience

Got this from Doreen's Aunt Debbie, who's daughter is fighting cancer right now! It was so good, I wanted to share it and remember it!!!

PATIENCE

When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless or demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.

No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish and regrettable ways. The irony of anger toward a wrongful action is that it spawns new wrongs of its own. ANGER almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems. But patience stops problems in their tracks. Patience is a deep breath. It clears the air. It stops foolishness from whipping its angry scorpion tail all over the room. It is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you and shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.

Anger is usually caused when the strong desire for something is mixed with disappointment or grief. You don't get what you want and you start heating up inside. It is often an emotional reaction that flows out of our own selfishness, foolishness or evil motives.

Patience makes us wise. Patience stands in the doorway where anger is clawing to burst in. Patience will foster peace and quiet. Patience is where love meets wisdom.

Few of us do patience very well and none of us do it naturally.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Report Cards... 1st midterm & Semester

I've had the girls report cards sitting on the desk to post the info on my page for way tooo long!

So here's the low-down on how my girls are doing in school.

1st Midterm '09/'10 year...

Joelle has a bubbly personality and is fun to have in the classroom. She's a good worker and would benefit for working more quickly. Every day she is showing more maturity and confidence.

We LOVE this report. Of course we kinda figured that she needs to focus a little better and work more efficiently - the SAME problem we're struggling with at home! :)

Natalie has leaped into her 1st grade year in a most outstanding way. She excels in all areas of curriculum. Natalie is self motivated and loves to explore and try new things. She is above grade level in her reading skills!

This is exactly the kind of report a parent likes to hear... my poor folks! **GRIN**

Semester Reports:

Joelle tries her best. She is often distracted, but will get back on task when reminded. She has a sweet, caring way about her that makes life happier for her classmates. She has some difficulty with consistency; sometimes excelling.

That is the epitome of my Joelle!!! :)

Joelle Iowa Test results has her in the 66th percentile. Hallelujah!!! It says, "Her overall achievement appears to be somewhat above average for 3rd grade." She needs a little work in Problem Solving and Data interpretation, but excels in Maps and Diagrams!

That is MOST awesome!

Natalie continues to excel in all content areas. She is very obedient and has such a positive attitude. She's a real joy to have in the classroom!

I'm so thankful to have to very good, precious little girls! I'm so proud of them!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Natalie Growing Up or The Golden Rule

Recently we've had a couple of 'issues' with Natalie and her classmates at school - unfortunately. Thankfully, we were able to turn it into a chance to teach her to "Do unto others, what you would have them do unto you!"

She had an incident with a classmate at school who was lying to her, and Natalie slapped the classmate for lying! Oy! So we had a talk and told her that was completely unacceptable and it appeared that she understood.

A couple of weeks later, she got upset at a little boy and pushed him. Well, that was it. We gave her an opportunity to think of a punishment for herself to help remind her to keep her hands to herself, or we'd come up with one for her.

By the time the deadline to choose a punishment rolled around, she hadn't thought of anything, so Doreen and I had one locked, loaded and ready to go.

The next Sunday she had invitations to go to birthday parties of two classmates. We had planned to attend both, but because she chose to be mean to other people around her, she could not be around friends - especially at a fun event where she 'might' be mean to others. So she was only allowed to go to one party - the one that wasn't as near as fun as the other one.

She did NOT like that much at all. She was really looking forward to going to the one.

We think it's worked though. Since then - no problems! We're continuing to pray that she continues to think of the Golden Rule when she is around her friends and classmates!!!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

An Exercise in Responsibility for Joelle! The Followup

It was a rousing success.

Doreen said she checked on Joelle twice and both times she was up and getting bigtime stuff done!

That is absolutely amazing.

Now if we can just figure out how to get her focused ALL the time and get stuff done!

I am so proud of my girl!

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

An Exercise in Responsibility for Joelle!

Backstory...

Last night Natalie got sick. She couldn't keep anything, ANYTHING down. She'd take a small drink of water and about 8 minutes later - it'd come back up. Doreen had to tear her bed apart to get it washed, but it has leaked down to the mattress, so we laid her on our bed. I went to sleep down in the spare bedroom - had to get up early for work.

In the morning, I find that our bed got up-chucked on too and had to be remade. Then Natalie started with diarrhea.

I headed to work and was at it for 3 hours, during the time I got a text message from Doreen that she was starting to get the same stuff. So we worked out a deal that I'd come get the kids and take them to school. (Carpooling) and then pick up Natalie and take her to the Pediatrician to get checked out cuz we were worried about dehydration.

Sure enough, the Dr said she was starting, "to dry up." They thought they may need to IV some fluids into her, but wanted to try a medicine called Zofran first, then observer her for 45 minutes while taking little drinks of Gatorade - Cherry Flavor - to see if she could keep it down.

About half way through, she was keeping everything down and kinda perking up a bit. Success was had! So he wrote a prescription for her and an order for clear fluids for the rest of the day and sent us on our way.

At home - Doreen rested, but continued to get worse, almost to the point where Natalie was. So they rested the remainder of the afternoon and I went back to work for a bit.

This evening Joelle and I did everything around the house. Then we made supper, then lunches for she and I for tomorrow and did the bedtime routine.

Natalie will be staying home from school for one more day - just to be sure not to share the bug, and Doreen will need to relax.

So I showed Joelle where all her stuff is for her lunch to be packed in the morning and make a list of what she can make for breakfast and then all the 'responsibilities' she needs to complete by 7:30a to be out front of the house to meet our friends to carpool to school.

It is going to be very interesting to see if she can focus and get up and get everything done and be ready to go!

I can't wait to see the outcome!!!

P.S. As of this writing, both Doreen and Natalie are resting easy, not feeling the best, but better than this afternoon!