@ the Ricks' Home

I'm trying to keep up. Really, I am. I started this right after I posted last time. I can hardly believe it's been almost a month and I still haven't finished! I've sat down again and again to work on this post, but something always distracts me and I never get finished typing things up. I've decided today is the day I'm getting it done!

Jordan went to a specialist for a hearing test. She says what way too much and repeats things funny. Like we sang a song "Scripture Power" and she went around the rest of the day singing picture flower. Then one day she told me she needed one of those things the old man in Up wears. So, at her well check I talked to her doctor about it. Since she had so may ear infections as a baby and tubes, the doctor suggested we go see the specialist. During our appointment the nurse put Jordan in a sound proof room with a large window. Jordan listened through the headphones to what the nurse was telling her. The nurse asked, "Can you say baseball?" Jordan shook her head yes. Hahaha! After she understood she was to repeat the words she did just fine. The specialist checked her eardrums and they do curve in a little more than normal. Her hearing isn't perfect, but her hearing is still in the good range. She told us she will only say "what" a little bit from now on.

Aryn and Natalee took over the little blue room and designed and painted shirts.

Even Jordan joined in on the fun.

I love the shirts! They did a great job!

Soccer is keeping us super busy. Tuesday's are killer. I spend most of the day at band class with Aryn and Natalee then all three of the kids playing soccer have practice that evening. Saturday can get pretty crazy, too, with three different games at three different locations. I'm not sure if I can handle playing another season, but we'll see. All three kids' soccer skills are getting better and better. Jordan has actually been scoring goals during the games. She gets so excited. It's adorable.

We started our school year. I did learn to never have the first day of school when half the house is PMSing. Not a good way to start off the year. Hahaha. It's been going pretty good since then though. We are newbies with homeschooling so we are still learning what works best for our family. For Aryn and Natalee we are trying the Switched-On Schoolhouse program. Switched-On Schoolhouse is a computer-based curriculum that you can customize. There are positives and negatives, but overall I'm liking it so far. I especially like that John has more involvement with the older girls education. He checks on what scores they received for their work each day on his computer. John sees what they have troubles with and tries to help them understand things better. It's  great to see him be such a big part of their schooling. It's also a wonderful help to me! I work more with the two younger kids. They both need more one on one attention and help with their work. We start each school day all together with our "family morning gather time" (Aryn hates it when I call it "family devotional." Haha!) We sing a song, pray, say the Pledge of Allegiance, say our family motto (the 13th Article of Faith), work on memorizing an Article of Faith, discuss things going on that day or coming up that week, read 10 minutes in the scriptures, and sometimes we will work on a project or read something and discuss it all together. Then they all start on their daily school work. I really enjoy having our children home more. We spend so much time together and I love it!! I believe the relationships we have with our teenage daughters are in a far better place than they would have been if we had continued with public school. The stress in our home dropped drastically instantly when we started homeschooling. Believe me, it is not all sunshine and rainbows everyday. The "family morning gather time" doesn't also go as planned. Some days I want to pull my hair out, but that is life as usual. Everyone has bad days, but homeschooling has had many, many positives in our family.

On September 12th we talked about 9-11, watched some videos, and looked through this tribute book. It was really tough to talk about and I cried more than I thought I would.

I found a free website called Starfall that helps teach your child to read. Jordan has a great time playing the games and improving her reading skills. Here she is reading to Daddy.

Did you notice they are holding hands? I didn't see that when I took the picture. I just realized as I uploaded the photo to the blog. So sweet! Sometimes I get frustrated at John's rotating work schedule, but on the other hand, I truly enjoy all the time he gets to spend at home during the day. He has more time for moments like this one with Jordan.

After early morning seminary Aryn rarely goes back to bed when she gets back home. She says she enjoys her "Aryn time" before the other kids wake up for the day. One morning I came downstairs to find her asleep on the couch...hugging her scriptures! It was such an adorable sight, I had to take a picture.

I had a streak of bad luck last week. One Sunday I was walking into the church building and fell down the cement stairs. My heel got caught on the stair as I was stepping down. I tried to get my balance but fell anyway. I scraped up my foot and my cute heels pretty bad, but I was happy I didn't break anything. The next morning a tooth started killing me. Of course our insurance was going to start in less than a week, but I just couldn't take it anymore. John found a new dentist and set up an appointment for me while I was at our homeschool group meeting. We spent more than we would have with insurance to get an xray, but I was grateful to get a presciption for antibiotics and pain meds. So for about a week I was drugged and out of it. My tooth felt better though. Later that week I had stamp club, just as we were about to start, my husband calls. His car broke down at Gavin's soccer field with Jordan and Natalee stranded at their practices! I wasn't close by so I couldn't just go pick them up. Luckily, we have a friends from church on Natalee's team and on Jordan's team. We were able to figure out rides and get everyone home. John figured out it was the battery connectors causing the problem, got the car started, and headed home. Luckily, it didn't cost much or take long to fix. I hope the streak is over and done with!

I have dental work being done tomorrow. I am terrified of the dentist! Seriously. As an adult they used to drug me just to get me in the chair. I'm past that now, but still very nervous. :( I hope all goes well!

I really enjoyed the General Relief Society Meeting. It was nice to sit in a quiet place all alone listening to the uplifting and encouraging words after my crazy Saturday. I especially loved President Uchtdorf's talk!

We watched General Confrence all weekend as a family. I always look forward to conference weekend and spending it with my family snuggled up together. Gavin randomly said, "Conference is the only time you can go to church in your underwear!" Everyone was fully dressed so I have no idea where that comment came from, but I laughed so hard.


A friend pointed out that I didn't actually share the recipe I found on pinterest.com for the smoothie kits. You take 1 cup of frozen fruit, 2 frozen yogurt cubes (plain or vanilla yogurt frozen in ice cube tray) and put it in a ziploc baggie and store in the freezer. When you get a hankering for a smoothie, dump the contents of the baggie into the blender, add a little fruit juice, and blend until smooth. You can add a little ice to make a larger amount without using up the other ingredients. A little trick I learned at Baskin Robbins. I found this ice cube tray in the Target Dollar Spot.

It's perfect for freezing the yogurt. The silicone bottoms let you just pop the frozen yogurt right into the baggie. These are smaller than regular ice cubes so we use four cubes of yogurt in our smoothies.

Speaking of pinterest.com, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that lots of  my projects from the little blue room have been pinned!! There is something so exciting about perfect strangers pinning my stuff! It is fun to see what people like enough to pin. You can check it out here >the little blue room on pinterest.

Saving the biggest news for last...I came home with these two adorable sweeties last night!

A friend of ours was standing out front at the church with the cutest kittens running around at his feet. We asked about them and he told us that he rescued them from his work parking lot. He took them to  the vet and nursed them back to health. What a sweet guy! Not many people would save strays and put so much time and money into such sick little kittens. The striped one couldn't use her back legs when he brought them home. Then about four days ago she started walking, running, and jumping just fine. When we found out he needed to find a new home for them Aryn and Natalee went crazy. Those tiny little kitty faces melted my heart! I told them to call dad and ask what he thought. To all our surprise, he said yes!! The girls were going to pick one but I decided we should just take both. They had toughed things out together. I couldn't separate them now. John said if we were going to have one, why not two!

We are all smitten with our cute little kittens! They love to cuddle and play. They snuggle up together to sleep at night...adorable. They are seriously melt-your-heart-into-a-puddle cute! They are so little! About the size of Jordan's shoe. We are all very happy and excited about the additions to the family. The black and white one (a boy) is named Boo and the striped one (a girl) is named Tigger.

It practically took ALL day, but I'm done and posting...typos and all!
Ugh! I just realized I didn't share photos of the new flooring. Next time,people, next time. It is 1am. I'm going to bed!

Thanks for checking in on the Ricks family. Hope all is well with yours.