Instilling the love of reading.

So this morning I decided that it was time to start reading big chapter books to Noah, hoping that eventually he will want to read them for himself. I chose one that would be exciting and draw him in.




So, this morning Noah gets out of bed and we eat breakfast together. It was a calm and quiet morning. There was still a good hour before Dani was going to get up and so I asked Noah if he wanted me to read him a story. His answer was without hesitation. "YES!"

I took him upstairs and we snuggled into my nice warm bed and he snuggled right up ready for a story. When I pulled out Narnia, he got very excited because he liked the cover and then he told me "Mommy, I have seen those movies!" I told him that indeed we had.

As I opened the book he asked me why there were not an pictures and so I explained that he needed to imagine the story in his head. "In my BRAIN???" he asked. He was right. So I started to read him the first chapter of the first book "The Magician's Nephew". As I got through every page or so he would stop me and ask questions. I expected this and encouraged this as he was trying to create his mental picture. He mainly wanted to know what the little boy looked like, and as the book does not have a description, I invented on for him, inadvertently making the little boy look like my son. The more I read the more excited he got, the more excited he got the more excited I got.

When we got to the end of the first chapter I asked him to tell me all about it and he told me almost every detail and asked a lot of questions. Then he asked me to read another chapter. We repeated the process again with chapter two. When it was time for chapter three, I knew that Dani should be getting up anytime now and tried to explain that to Noah. But he was begging me to read more to him. So I told him "Only one more chapter" (they are pretty short) and the read him chapter three.

I knew that he would want more after chapter three but I had to put my foot down. Dani had awaken while I was reading and was yelling "MAMA!!!" at the top of her lungs by the time I was done.

I know that I have created a monster now, and that every morning he is going to want to spend the time between breakfast and when Dani gets up reading. I love this. I am glad to be bring the love and joy of books to my son, and hope that he grows into a person that loves reading just about anything that I can put in front of him. I love that while reading he can tell me what some words are and he tries to sound out ones that he does not know yet.

Right now, I am just a proud and happy mommy!

The Beginning or the End?

Sometimes you wonder why bad things happen? Do they happen because you did something wrong or do they happen just because they were meant to happen? When they happen in excess is it because you are living your life the wrong way or simply that it is your turn for challenges? Why do sometimes all paths in the road of life seem to be blocked, or have horrible challenges down each one?



I have been thinking about this a lot, and have determined that I do not know the answers, and that possibly no one knows the answers. Right now I know that there are MANY options ahead for Tom and I, but I cannot see what we should do or what we should be doing differently in life to make things better. All I know is that right now the best thing for our family is for Tom to get out of the Army as fast as he possibly can. But this does not make anything all better. It does not make our debt go away, it does not mean that Tom just magically has a job waiting, it does not mean that things will be okay in the Army until he does get out, and it does not mean that I will be able to feed my children next month.

The other day someone told me "just wait, good things happen to good people". Well right now, I would love to know when they do. Personally, I think that good things happen to bad people as much as they happen to good people. I think that bad things happen to good people as much as they happen to bad people. I think that right now I need to stop waiting for the good to happen in life, and for good things to "happen to me" and just see where I can get. But I am also not going to wait for the bad things to happen either. I think that there have been enough of them to go around.



So some good things that are happening right now are... that Tom and I have an appointment to get help with quitting smoking. I cannot take myself being a bitch without them anymore and hopefully if I can get on some medication to help me stop then it will help. When I am being like that I feel that my family is suffering and that I am pushing them away and I really do not want to feel like that. Oh and we got some of our bills reduced, and we are going to keep trying on the other ones. We are also cutting things out that we do not need. And Tom is in a new section that is "supposedly" going to be working here at APG instead of at Edgewood so that should be saving us gas money. Right now we need to find ways to make up the $400 a month that we are losing. So this is a pretty good start.



I am going to start looking for a job on Monday. Something in evenings or nights probably at a gas station or something because we cannot afford child care at all. Tom is going to try to get a job delivering pizzas or something to help supplement also. So just keep your fingers crossed with that.

So that is what is going on with us right now. Thanks for reading!!

What am I doing??!!!

So it has been a long time since I have done this. Ya know, written a blog. When I sit down I try to think about what to say and I draw a blank. It is always like this, always has been and always will be. I know! I can write about my plans for this blog. :D YAY!

So I plan on posting things that are going on in my daily everyday life. As boring as it is. LoL Just to keep everyone updated. I will post what is going on with the kiddos, what's going on with Tom and I, and basically everything in between. Like I will keep everyone update on my weight loss, Tom's working stuff, Milestones for the kids, and pretty much everything in the middle.

I know that this one is kinda boring but its just my strat-up blog. It WILL get better. I promise. Plus its 830 am here and I have been up for over an hour when I SHOULD still be in bed. haha. Okay, I totally plan on making my blog look cool also. So stay tuned for that. It will be happening today! I swear! :)