Guess what happened at the Taylor house THIS week...

Guess what happened at the Taylor house THIS week..., originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Click the picture for details.

Honoring Memorial Day...

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Home Depot Shopping List...

* 8 hook locks for bathrooms/bedrooms/basement door
* 2 deadbolts for the TOP of the front door & back (outside basement) door
* 2 medicine cabinet locks

This morning I was awakened by my neighbor calling me on the phone around 7:30am (Thank you Angela!) to notify me that my 3yr. old was outside running around by himself, she had chased him back into the house & told him to go back to bed. Everyone was up late last night and so everyone was still sleeping... but JOSH - he is my poor sleeper. He gets up at all hours, can stay up super late and will still wake up before anyone else. I discovered him the night before around 4am wandering around the kitchen looking for the cereal (and no, he wasn't sleeping - he just figured he could get up at that time). It would be one thing if he just needed less sleep, but he needs more than he is getting and it is OBVIOUS.

He usually wakes everyone up too, but has been getting in trouble for waking up his siblings - the other 3 kiddos sleep a good 2 or more hours than he does on average, in fact Jordan is STILL sleeping (it's 8:45am) and he fell asleep before Josh did. He woke up Ryan & Katie around 7:40am, I just managed to get him quiet & out of the hallway before he woke up Jordan too.

So that is why I'm getting deadbolts for the TOP of the door (he knows how to get a chair to open the other high locks we have on the front door).

I'm getting the hook locks for the bedroom/bathroom doors because of the incident with 1yr. old Ryan the other day where he snuck into our dark bedroom, dark bathroom, climbed up INTO the sink with nice new jammies on and turned ON the water. I went looking for him and found him sitting in warm (thankfully not hot) water and the sink on the verge of overflowing, chewing on our toothbrushes in the DARK. Then there's the other bedrooms where if Jordan forgets to take down his ladder to his bunkbed, Ryan will climb up without any problems.

Ryan LOVES to play in the toilet and keeps watch on the door, so if anyone forgets to close it... he is IN there throwing toys into the water.

Then we have Joshua AGAIN... last night he decided he needed makeup... so he climbed up onto the bathroom counter, reached up to the top shelf and pulled down some FINGERNAIL POLISH - and he started to put it on his LIPS. He came running out spitting all over and yelling... we got him cleaned up only to discover that baby was right behind him drinking shampoo.

Time to get serious with the locks around here. It's one thing to train them to NOT do these things, but when you have so many areas that need training you need desperate measures at least temporarily.

Soft restraints for Josh are out of the question since we are trying to get him potty trained. ;o)

Reading the paper with Dad...

Reading the paper with Dad..., originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Day at the Beach!

Beach 050, originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Day at the Beach!

Beach 027, originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Day at the Beach!

Beach 033, originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Selah-Bean peeking out the front door...

Selah-Bean peeking out the front door..., originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Mother's Day so far... and it's only 9am

Little Owie... Lots of blood..., originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

My husband woke me up this morning as he arrived home to inform me that our front door was WIDE open and for some reason HIS shoes were outside on the porch. The first words out of my mouth: "Are all the kids accounted for and are they OK?" He tells me that yes, everyone is ok... Apparently Joshua (our 3yr. old) woke up early by himself and wanted to watch Daddy come home on the motorcycle and so he let himself out while wearing Daddy's shoes. Praise the Lord he didn't wander off or worse. Mike put him back to bed and I tried to get another hour in of sleep...

Fast forward an hour and a few minutes...

I'm awoken by high pitched screaming, I jump up out of bed and quietly as possible get out of our bedroom trying not to wake Mike and then after I close the bedroom door I am greeted with Joshua bleeding profusely from his head. His forehead is covered in blood, there's blood streaming down into his eye and mouth, dripping on the floor and his hand/clothes have blood.

THIS is where I say "THANK YOU MOM for warning me years ago that head wounds (even super small ones) will bleed like crazy." I was totally calm and took him to the kitchen to clean it up and see how bad it was. The wound is tiny, he threw his Hot Wheel airplane into the air and the pointed part hit his forehead. There was actual "blood spatter" on him... little drops on his arm/face.

Anyhoo... everyone is ok, breakfast is done and we are now getting ready to finish cleaning up for our Mother's Day BBQ. :o)

Mother's day info. from Annie's page...

Mother's Day, United States holiday celebrated on second Sunday in May; children honor their mothers with cards, gifts, flowers; first observance in Philadelphia, Pa., 1907, based on suggestions by Julia Ward Howe in 1872 and Anna Jarvis in 1907; national observance dates from 1914.

Mother's Day is set apart every year in honor of motherhood. On the second Sunday in May, many families and churches make a special point of honoring mothers. Many people follow the custom of wearing a carnation on Mother's Day. A colored carnation means that a person's mother is living. A white carnation indicates that a person's mother is dead.

Mother's Day, first observed in 1908, was recognized officially by Congress and the President in 1914. It is celebrated in honor of the nation's mothers on the second Sunday in May. Mother's Day is one of the holidays that have been designated by Presidential proclamations.

New banner for me!!

Becky made me a new banner for my site too! It is exactly what I envisioned! Beautifully done Becky!

A little bit of an explanation... I chose Meir Arrows because the name of our homeschool is The Meir Academy.

Meir = “One Who Shines”

Goal of Meir Academy:
Our goal here is to bring up our children to be blameless, harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of today’s darkened world. We want them to shine as lights for the Lord and to hold fast to the Word of God.

Meir Academy's Foundational Verse:
“Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.” -Philippians 2:14-16

Then for the "arrow" part, that comes from these verses (Psalms 127:3-5):
3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

Check it out!!

terriskidzcare, originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

My mom's daycare is back up & running!! I'm helping her set up a blog site for it, Becky made the banner for us... SO cute!!

Mike's new bike...

Mike's new bike., originally uploaded by Joyfulmommy.

Yamaha FJR 1300!