"Why are you smiling like that?"

"I just like smiling. Smiling's my favorite!" 

By far, one of the best movie lines- and a great mantra. 

Today I'm smiling because of these people:

Quick update: Johnny supposedly has lupus. "Early, mild" to be exact. I say supposedly because he has been working the night-shift for so long that his circadian rhythm is practically non-existent. That messes you up big time. Good news: He's switched jobs and now works in the ICU at Medical Center (same town, different hospital) on the DAY SHIFT! Our lives have changed dramatically. He loves his job. He loves his coworkers. He even loves his boss! Yeah- that's pretty amazing. And now that he has switched, he is becoming a normal person. He's getting used to sleeping through the night (that is, if Samuel does- no I do not make Johnny get up with the baby, but if the baby gets up, it's inevitable that he'll hear him.). He doesn't have the aches/pains anymore and his entire attitude/temperament is positive. He can't wait to start online classes later this month for his RN-BSN. In 2 years, we'll be moving away for CRNA school.- Johnny's ultimate dream job. We hope to come back here after it's all said and done. 

Anyway- back to the health concern. Since switching jobs we are without insurance for 30 days. Our hope/plan is for Johnny to live a normal life- sleep 8 hours each night, eat healthy, exercise for a month or so, then go back and have lab work done to check his ANA level. His Dr. told him this morning, in passing, that he thinks Johnny should go back in 6 mos and that stress/sleep deprivation could be what raised his ANA levels to start with. Nice!

It's amazing what a difference it's made in him switching jobs. We have discussed why the timing has been what it's been- remember when we prayed and were told not to switch jobs? For whatever reason, the timing has been good for us now and we feel that it has a lot to do with him starting school. Before, when we prayed about it, it was a job change for money and school wasn't a priority. Now it is and we're making it happen. 

It feels good to know that we are where we should be, doing what we should be doing with the people we should be with. That's enough to make anyone smile.

Chew on this!

Ahhh, it's Friday... the end of the school week- the FIRST school week of the FIRST home-school year. I bet you're anxious to see how it went. I guess I might as well fess up. It turns out, I don't exactly know what I'm doing. Shocking, huh? (As if my last couple of related posts didn't give it away.)

Here's a play by play: 

Tuesday morning, I was ready to go! The kids had breakfast and things were on track for starting by 9 a.m. (That's not too late, is it?) Johnny didn't have to go to bed until lunchtime, so he was up working on an application (job related). He needed a little help, so we worked on it together and school started late. No biggie- it's the first day and I don't want to burn out, so I don't stress about it. By late afternoon (3ish I think), the kids' lessons were winding down and I was mentally exhausted. But I did manage to make meatloaf for supper and everyone liked it! (Score!)

Wednesday: School started around 9:30. It was hard to pace the kids lessons- they did too many Language Arts lessons on Tuesday and were now behind on other subjects, so we tried to catch up with those. I told myself, "It's okay, we're just getting started and we have to find our rhythm." Really, I was losing my confidence and motivation, but chocked it up to fatigue. (Are you having trouble going to bed early?)

Thursday: School started late again. (Can't help it- Johnny gets home from work in the mornings, so that's our time to catch up on things.) I sat the kids down and explained how school needed to change and we made a board outlining the lessons for each day:

While Olivia, Travis & Katherine worked on the computers, I folded laundry in the den. (A week's worth at least. *sigh*) I watched them do their lessons and after I finished, I checked to see how they did. Poor Olivia didn't understand and did the best she could, but had to do her lessons all over again- with my help. She was frustrated, I was frustrated and I couldn't help but wonder if it was going to ever come together? I began to mourn the time I would be spending with Bryn and Samuel and worried I was robbing from them somehow. Second guessing everything all over again and finding no answers, I took a nap. A much needed nap. I decided it was too early to quit and too late to change my mind.

After a few hours, I was ready to hit it again. I jumped online and began to reorganize and prepared to print lots more pages of lesson plans- to work as a check-off system. I still felt like we were just checking boxes though and wondered if the kids were "mastering" anything. Anyway, I thought I might find some support through Time4Learning's forum- to see if there were other's in my area using that curriculum. There weren't, but I did find something better! Someone had posted a link to a free online curriculum (there were actually several, but this one far surpasses them all!). I followed the link and was amazed!

The site is called FreeWorldU.org. It's an accredited pre-K through 12 online curriculum. It is free, unless you want to track your child's/student's progress with reports and get a high school diploma, then it's $90/mo. You can change to the pay option at any time and they have support for everyone. They have researched every aspect of education! Did you know that there are approximately 2 million homeschoolers in the K-12 range and that this number is growing at the rate of 30% annually? (direct quote) That's amazing to me! The biggest problem I have with public school is that they are only teaching kids how to pass a test- there's no retention of knowledge. FreeWorldU addresses this, they call it "teach to the test". There are so many aspects that really caught my attention- "Superlearning", the kids can work at their own pace- and different grade levels (like 6th grade Social Studies and 3rd grade math, if needed). There are classes like "Character Development", "Manners", "Study Skills" and "Social Issues" in elementary school! :) Sounds like a winner, huh?

Needless to say, I promptly cancelled my membership with Time4Learning (no offense to them or anyone who uses them) and signed up ALL of my kids (except Samuel of course) with Free World U. It felt right- I don't feel so worried about how I'm going to make sure they're mastering everything and having time for fun. Since we can go at our own pace, I feel like we might do year-round school and take breaks as needed. (A friend at church does that and says it's great for them- there's no "first day of school/last day of school"- they just go with the flow and her kids learn at a good pace.)

This probably makes me sound wishy-washy, but I can't help it. I wasn't "sold" on Time4Learning, but I didn't know where else to start. Hopefully I won't come back and tell you that I changed my mind again. Haha! ;) Keep checking in... you never know! 

BUT- that's still not as impressive as Ella losing her first tooth! She announced this morning that it was loose. When I checked, it was VERY loose- I don't know how we missed it all this time (even through the brushing and flossing)? All day she asked questions like, "Mom, can I eat this Ravioli? I don't want it to hurt my loose tooth." & "I can't drink out of a cup, I need a sipper cup or a straw because I have a loose tooth." I explained to her that she had a loose tooth, not a broken arm, and she would be able to do everything like normal. Silly girl!

Katherine offered to pull it for her tonight. 

Ella excitedly accepted and said it didn't even hurt! 

 Katherine is a great photographer. 

 See the little pearly white in the bag?

She's all ready for the Tooth Fairy! (I hope she doesn't forget.)

Say cheese!

 I love Samuel's smile in this picture.
Did you know he has 6 teeth? 

Four on top and two on bottom.

And did you know he just turned 10 months old?

For the longest time he was "army crawling" and dragging his big little belly across the tile floor.

In the last week and a half, he is crawling on all fours! I don't have a picture or video yet- I really ought to learn how to take moving pictures that don't blur. Hmmm...

I love this picture of Johnny with Samuel. Oh- did you notice Johnny shaves his head now? He got tired of my joke. Oh! I didn't tell you yet? Well, here goes... "Do you want to know the 'real' reason Johnny doesn't have any hair? It's because I'm too vain to pull my own hair out!" Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too. I guess he heard it too many times and decided to shave it all off- maybe he thought it would help me manage stress better. We'll see.

 Sweet Travis! He has glasses now. I think he looks so smart- like a little genius. Travis is always so helpful and gives the best hugs and tells me he loves me, several times throughout the day...makes my heart swell. Out of all the kids, he is the most vocal about how he feels about homeschooling this year. He wants it to start yesterday! Maybe he is a genius?

 Olivia is growing up so much. She's so helpful with Samuel and is becoming more and more responsible. She's 7 already! That means next year she will be baptized! Yikes. She's super excited to start homeschooling next month. I love her eagerness and excitement about life. She is a good example for me because she is more easy going- a trait I've always admired and tried to emulate.

 My Bryn. Look at those beautiful brown eyes! She has so much energy and the cutest little voice. I love the way she communicates and explains things to me. Since she got to be the baby for the longest, she and I have our own way to communicate. For example, I sometimes kiss her cheeks over and over and she'll kiss mine and I'll say, "Hey! Give me back my sugars!" and she'll have to kiss me again. Or I'll say, "Bryn, I need sugars so I can be sweet." and she'll give me kisses.
She is adorable!

Katherine doesn't normally wear makeup. This picture is from our last visit to Vidor. My sister, Rachel, dolled her up- doesn't she look beautiful? She's always beautiful. Being the oldest, Katherine is always willing to do whatever needs to be done and works very hard at getting along with her siblings. I appreciate her so much for being her. She's going into the 5th grade. She is excited about homeschool starting too. She is interested in so many things and can't wait to learn about it all- like all things Australia, crocheting, sewing, music, art, having a book published... amazing things! She's becoming very task-oriented like her mom.

Ella has the best laugh! Her sense of humor is so surprising sometimes. She's also very inquisitive. Some of the questions she asks are surprising. Lately, the questions have had a lot to do with following Jesus Christ or following Satan and the differences between our Church and other churches. For example, she asked me, "Mom, what are people called if they're not called Mormons?" See what I mean? She'll be starting kindergarten this year, which means she may never go to public school. Our first child to do that! I love that Ella is a good friend. She plays well with all of her siblings and is usually willing to share. When we were in Vidor, she was jumping off the diving board more than anyone-wearing floaties of course. Such a brave girl!

Motivate Me Monday: Losing Weight without the Workout!

Since I last posted, I have worked out maybe twice. But I'm not apologizing or even asking for more encouragement, because I have lost, like 3-4 lbs!

That's pretty amazing, right?! Last Tuesday morning I had a great workout! I did Turbo Sculpt and was able to push myself more than I had in a long time.

That afternoon I felt sore. I love feeling sore after a workout! But I did think it was odd that I would feel sore so soon.

The next day I knew I had a sinus infection and maybe a virus. My legs and joints ached and my sinuses burned, but no fever. Shoulda known the soreness wasn't from the workout.

*sigh*

On top of that, all week I was running errands and didn't get to nurse Samuel as often as usual. Ella had dental surgery on Friday, so I was away for several hours. (She had some cavities worked on. I'll blog about it soon.)

By Saturday night I had full blown mastitis. 102.3° fever, aches, chills, miserable. My aches and pains from earlier in the week were still there, only worse. So I'm still not sure if I had 1 or 2 sicknesses. ??

Today I still feel weak and sick, but no fever. I've been nursing exclusively. Poor Samuel. He was really liking his baby food. Also, I'm about to start an antibiotic (once I pick it up)- or should I if I'm not running a fever anymore?

Once I'm able to workout again, I'm really going to hit the weights hard! I don't want to lose muscle from being sick. Plus it's my favorite way to workout ;)

I have to say, my kids have been amazing! Not only was I sick, but Johnny has been sick since last Tuesday (or maybe before that) with a low-grade fever, and Travis has had a fever since Sunday. Katherine has been an angel babysitting for me and helping around the house. Olivia and Bryn have been super helpful and Ella too, when she could. Samuel is all smiles all the time. He had a fever last night, but seems okay today.

I couldn't ask for more.

♥

Our Variety Show commercial!!

For our annual Sellers Family Variety Show this year,

we made a commercial... enjoy!

{The video quality is terrible. We're working on remedying that for next year. ;) }

Preschooling Ella

Ella is loving preschool time!

We've learned about the letters "G", "S" and "H", and we've learned about Fall and the number "6".

Ella is decorating her Fall M&M tree:

So proud of herself :)

Isn't it beautiful?!

{she used baking M&Ms ~ leftover from Johnny's graduation caps}

Finger painting her Fall tree:

Bryn {still in pjs :O} joined in on the fun:

Ella's growing up...

which means, Bryn is too!

Beautiful girls!

Comic Relief

I asked Ella how old she was and this is what she said...

"I'm free weaseled." So cute! Oh, and Olivia does know how old she is, she just got camera shy- well maybe not since she danced for us. :)


The following video was not provoked or staged.



Olivia and Travis broke out into dance on their own.
I think they're giving Roman a run for his money. LOL

Ella had a birthday!

Our precious little Ella turned 3 yesterday! It was a fun day and she loved her presents. But at the end of it all, she got sick :( She was sick on Christmas Eve, the day after Christmas and then on her birthday! Olivia was sick on Christmas night and the day after Christmas and Travis had a fever on Ella's birthday. Today they have coughs. :(

Here's Ella's party:

Happy 3rd birthday Ella! We love you!

Knock, knock

Who's there?
Lettuce.
Lettuce, who?
Been knocking!! hahahahahahaha




Let's try that one again...




One more time...


Don't you love her courtesy laugh!

Just so crazy in love!

We are so in love with our beautiful kids!

Katherine is so grown up!
This morning as we got ready for church she asked, "Why can't I wear anything besides just lip gloss and lipstick?"
me: "Katherine why do you already want to wear makeup- you're only 7!"
Katherine: shrugs and says, "I dunno."
Katherine: "Blush doesn't really show up."
me: "Then why do you want to wear it?" lol
She is so into accessories and coordinating and even gives Olivia tips and lets her borrow her jewelry. She is such a beautiful girl!
Johnny is teaching Travis how to clean a fishing reel- we're hoping he can start a summer job next year and start saving for his mission. :) I love how much he wants to be like Johnny. He's maturing so quickly and is already aware of his role as a brother- to watch out for his sisters! Some of his many talents, of late, include special effect noises from his mouth (i.e. gunfire, falling and crashing sounds, etc.) that only boys can make, and Lego building. He inherited this from his namesake... His Uncle Travis was a Master Builder. I have so many fond memories of "playing blocks" and I am so glad Travis loves it too!

He's so handsome, especially with his chocolate chip cookie residue around his mouth!

Isn't Olivia a doll!? She posed like this all by herself! I think I'm going to enlarge this picture and frame it, because it's so her!
Last night as I helped Olivia out of the bathtub, she told me, with a laugh, that she was speaking Spanish in the bathtub! There must be something magical about taking a bath that gives her the Gift of Tongues! I love her vivid imagination... she was just playing with two crayons and they were having a conversation. It went something like this:
Crayon 1: "Mom said I can go swimming!"
Crayon 2: "Mom said you can go swimming?!"
Crayon 1: "Yes."
Crayon 2: "Oh." "I'm going to ask mom if I can go swimming later." "Mom, can I go swimming later?"
Mom crayon: "Yes, darling. You can go swimming later, if you want to."
Crayon 2: gasp, "Mom said I can go swimming later!" laugh
Crayon 1: "Oh (gasp) let's go swimming together."
Crayon 2: "Yeah. It'll be so fun!" laugh

It's hard to keep up with how funny she is... just now Johnny was turning on our Planet Earth dvds (we love those- thanks mama and daddy!) and Olivia says, "Dad! Come sit in my lap!" She waited for him in the rocking chair. lol

Ella has such a funny snicker! Kind of like mine when I was little, my parents said I always laughed like this..."Teeheeheehee!"
She is also super funny! I think I blog about her a lot since she's been riding the "potty train". lol I've been encouraging her to poop in the potty and offer to give her a mint if she does. Even if she doesn't do it, she says, "I need an empt."
She has such a funny and small voice. And I love how she repeats what we say to her.
me: "It's raining! Do you hear the thunder?"
Ella: "The thunder? (gasp) It's raining!"

Look at Bryn! I found her in her crib STANDING.(!) She'll be 8 months old on Saturday! (Which is also my sister Cari's birthday!) So, I guess she's officially pulling up. She's been practicing pulling up onto me when I'm sitting with her on the floor, so I shouldn't be so surprised I guess. She's been eating and loving her baby food lately, and I've weaned her. She's tried Apples and Chicken, Apples and Turkey , and eaten the whole jar each time! She loves Squash and Sweet Potatoes too. I think I've gotten the names right. I'm supposed to take her into be weighed. She's following her own growth pattern, but we would like to help her gain a little more weight. At 6 months old she had a little more than doubled her birth weight: 6 lbs 11 oz. lol I've been adding an extra scoop of formula: Enfamil plus iron, with each bottle and she has been eating Rice cereal and Rice cereal with mixed fruit. So... we're trying! She is such a doll!

All aboard!!

Ella has been riding the potty train this week! She started with her Dora potty seat on Tuesday, with several hits and a few misses. We let her run around in just panties- which we didn't do with the other girls because of Travis. This go around is different because Travis is older and certainly not curious. By Wednesday she had less misses, and wore more clothes. Thursday was excellent. No accidents (that count) and she was even taking herself to the bathroom.

Ella was so great to go to the bathroom, set her Dora seat on the toilet and climb up- I found her in there several times that way. Her only accidents don't count because they are part of step 2 on the potty train. LOL

Today has been great- Ella tells me when she needs to go and I rarely have to remind her. To potty train my kids, 2 1/2 has been the magic number. They learn it so easily- less than a week and they've got it! Ella is actually 2 1/2 today, so I'm kind of early this time.

She loves it- almost as much as we do:)

Ketchup

One day, a few weeks ago, I was working out in the living room and Ella was in there playing. Halfway through, during the 30 second break, I stopped to blow my nose. Ella was watching me and she said, "You're nose walkin'?" She cracks me up!

Anyway, I realized there are a lot of things to blog to ketchup on... Here are some highlights:
I trimmed Olivia's hair; she wanted it to look like Ella's. Katherine and Travis had their LPM recital and we took pictures until our battery went dead- sorry! Johnny finished this semester for college so we took the kids out to eat at Cheddar's to celebrate. Last Friday, my mom and my sisters Rachel and Marianne, and Marianne's baby, Ethan, came to visit! It was sooo much fun and we loved getting pictures of the kids all together.

Well, enjoy the show!

Babies and Milestones

Bryn is 6 months old. I've introduced baby food and baby cereal recently. She's not much of a fan of either. I thought if I started her out on vegetables it would be better in the long-run. So I gave her green beans. Here's what she thought of them:



She ate some rice cereal today- I mixed it with water and formula. She'll get used to it soon enough.

Bryn is becoming pretty mobile. She's learned to get up on her hands and knees and likes to sit up. She's too wobbly to be left sitting to play though. To reach her toys, she is doing a combination of scooting and crawling. Won't be long... Check her out:


We went to Walmart today to get Travis's birthday presents (he'll be 6 on Saturday). When we got home Ella asked to go use the bathroom. I got our Dora potty seat out for her and set her up there- her diaper was dry too by-the-way. I left her there for a while so I could unload the van- when I got back it looked like she had gone! We were so excited! I didn't put panties on her or anything, but she is interested and that means a lot. So later, I was getting the kids ready for bed and Ella asked to go use the bathroom, so Olivia said she'd take her. (I wasn't aware of it at the time...) Olivia called for my help to get Ella's diaper off of her, which was wet, so I thought we could at least humor her. I sat Ella up on her Dora potty again. She loves it- she gets a big cheesy grin on her face the whole time and tries to change the subject- so cute! (I've kind of been waiting until school got out and I could stay home for a few days straight. I normally potty-train the kids when they are 2 1/2 or so. She'll be 2 1/2 at the end of June- so she's close.) Anyway, she got distracted enough to, well, let's just say I didn't have to change a dirty diaper! We were so excited and proud of her that we had to take a picture of this milestone! Take a look- who wouldn't have been proud?!

Just kidding!! Maybe next time...

Conference weekend and My fajita needed a bath

We went to Johnny's parents' house for Conference this past weekend. They were so nice to let us stay the night! (Thanks y'all!) On Saturday I made lasagna for all of us and brought fresh cut-up fruit. It was soo good! The kids were great! We were able to watch and actually pay attention to both sessions. I loved Elder Nelson's talk about children and raising them, etc. I can't wait to read it online- it comes out Thursday. Johnny went to the church for the Priesthood session and our family friend, Valerie, was there for the weekend too. We had so much fun visiting with her and she was a huge help with the kids! Ella adopted her and when no one else could get Ella to take a nap, Valerie invited her to lay down on the couch with her- she went right to sleep! Poor Valerie did get spit-up on a few times, but she didn't seem to mind too much- she has grandchildren too!

Sunday was a little bit of a different story... We went to bed way too late because we had such good company to visit with, so we were super tired! We bathed all of the kids that morning even though we were staying there to watch conference. Johnny's brother Drue and his family came to watch Conference too, so it was a little harder to keep the kids reverent and for us to pay attention. We decided to watch conference in Johnny's parents' bedroom with our kids, to help with the reverence. It worked for the most part. It was nice to visit with everyone between sessions and enjoy the News Conference. Johnny's mom made Taco Soup- so good! Drue cooked chicken in the oven and I made brownies for dessert, but half of them were gone before the first session was over. Oh well.

Throughout both days of Conference I worked on making Scripture cut-outs with felt. I had ordered some from LDS Distribution and some I printed online or got out of the Friend magazine. It was the perfect time to do it! We're going to use them for FHE and Family Scripture Study at night... the kids should pay attention better if we have figures to look at, right?

Last night we had fajitas for supper. Ella decided to give her fajita a bath... Yes, we videotaped it! It's kind of long- I don't have any way to edit my videos, sorry! (It's also really gross- beware! Needless to say, we won't be having fajitas anytime soon. You may not want to either!) Enjoy, hahaha!