Conversation with Daniel

Have you ever tried to explain to a three year old that his first name is not the one he is called by? His name is Paul Daniel Petersen, and I was trying to explain his name and that he had the same name as Daddy. I said, "Your name is the same, you are both Paul, but you are Paul Daniel." Daniel replied, "No his name is Paul Daddy. My name is Daniel." Guess we will wait another year to explain that one.

And Who Should He Meet...

You would think that living in DC we would have had a much greater opportunity to meet Politicians. It would just make sense right? Not so.
Who should Paul meet at work yesterday but Pres. Bush (George W.). Paul said to him "Hello Mr. President" and Pres. Bush replied "How you doing big boy?" He got to shake his hand and get his autograph. He also met the Mayor of Anchorage yesterday which isn't quite as impressive. A few weeks ago he met a couple of Congressmen and their wives, and before that when Pres. Obama was in town he was supposed to meet him and a couple of other Presidents of other countries but they ended up landing somewhere else. Who would have thought? Anchorage is a refueling stop for a lot of flights coming and going outside of the US. Paul has to clear all the passengers no matter who they are coming and going. Heading on an international flight with a stop over in Anchorage? Say hello to Paul.

Tutu for a little girl?

So I meant to post about these tutu's at Christmas because really they are the cutest things. If you have a little girl in your life these would make a perfect gift. I wanted about one of everything from her Christmas collection. You can visit the Tutu Fairy here. She is also giving away a free tutu on my friend Nichole's website Alaska Coupon Diva. I'd say enter for the free drawing, but that would decrease my odds.... :-) But seriously these tutu's are gorgeous and my friend Nichole's daughters have a couple of them and they are really well made. If a windfall of money were to come my way I would definitely be buying one of these for my little girl who can't stop dressing up.

Experiences with Daniel

- Daniel passed some gas yesterday, laughed and said, "Mommy gas goes in cars." Yes it does Daniel.
-Yesterday morning I asked him if he wanted to say the prayer for breakfast. He replied "Go ahead Mom". Which is what Paul says to me when it's my turn to say the prayer.
- We were on base and Daniel saw Snowmobiles in action for the first time. Let's just say that it was love at first sight. Daniel said emphatically "Mom we are going to get one of those!"

Never leave your kids unsupervised-

Lesson for Mom- You must have supersonic hearing for when the kids sneak out of the bedroom  and into the kitchen, pull out the cool whip and start having fun. I was asleep in bed when this happened this morning. I'm not sure if they put the cool whip bucket on their heads or what. Obviously a trip to the bathtub was in order.

Looking for help

I am throwing this out to the blog sphere and  hoping for some help. Our stake is having a woman's conference next month and each ward has been asked to put together a 5-10 min. skit, musical number, dance or dramatic presentation for the program. I was asked to put it together for our ward. The theme is "Reach Out and Touch Someone" and it can be inspirational, humorous, artistic, or anything else you can come up with.
I am a great get it done person. I am not such a great idea person. The only thing that has been going through my head for the past several days is the song "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand" and nothing else. So I am begging all of you,  pleading with you to please send me any ideas/help you might have. Email me at lollielean@hotmail.com or leave me a note on the blog. THANKS!

I want to shout and sing!

Reagan has been sick twice in the last two weeks with cold like sicknesses. Not fun for her (or me). But what makes me want to shout and sing is that Daniel hasn't gotten it.To understand my elation you have to understand that Daniel has been sick A LOT since he has been born. At 4 months he came down with Whooping Cough, 3 months later he had just barely gotten over Whooping Cough when he got RSV twice in the same month. This set the stage for Asthma problems and pretty much every time he has gotten a cold we've had to go straight to the inhaler/nebulizer, and he has gotten colds a lot. Last Christmas he spent a week in the hospital with RSV again. (Thankfully he is finally old enough that RSV shouldn't be a problem anymore.) Since the last bought with RSV though he has only been sick twice in the past year both times with the stomach flu. It looks like his immune system has finally kicked in! Hurray! When a simple cold means emergency trips to the Pediatrician, and ER I can't tell you how happy this makes me. So I just wanted to share my happiness!

The truth about Home schooling-

I don't usually use my blog to post opinions about things but this is a subject I've been thinking about posting about for awhile now and I finally decided that I'm going to sit down and write out my thoughts. Be prepared- This may be a long post.
I find that many people have very strong feelings against homeschooling, but I also find that those same people don't know that much about it and have misconceptions about it. For those of you who don't know, I was home schooled from halfway through 6th grade until I was done with high school. I have not home schooled my children yet, but I may. Last week as I was doing my visiting teaching (where you visit other women that you are assigned to in our church) one of the women said that home schooled children are some of the worst behaved children she has ever seen and they won't take instruction from anyone but their own parents and she felt homeschooling was awful. About 30 minutes later in the conversation, talk turned to how one of her sons who is in 1st grade had had a girl come up to him and say," I know a dozen girls who want to have sex with you." She thought it was appalling that he had to deal with that at such a young age. The conversation then went further about a middle school boy here in Anchorage enticed his girlfriend to the back of the school and stabbed her 22 times. Can homeschooling be so very awful when it keeps young children away from such situations until they are a little older and better able to deal with them? My parents chose to home school for a couple of reasons. 1- I was being verbally and physically abused by my classmates. 2- my sister had learning disabilities and the school district was not helping her at all. It was easier to home school than fight the school district. 3- It was the right thing to do for our family.
Now I don't think my parents did everything right when it came to home schooling but they were learning too. I would have responded far better and learned far better if my Mom had done what she is now doing with my younger siblings. But I now have that experience to draw from should I choose to home school my own children. It is a fact that home schooled children usually excel far greater academically than those who are in a traditional public school. Because we were home schooled we were given the opportunity to learn and experience things that we would never have done had we continued on in public school. My brother, not only played the violin but made one, he built a lathe himself  and explored working with wood and making all sorts of lathed items for use. We were on a farm for part of the time we were home schooled and he raised and trained a pair of oxen to use. We got more use out of eating them than actual work but the value of it was that he was able to explore what interested him and try new things. Does he want to be an oxen team driver for the rest of his life? He would tell you no, but it gave him experience, confidence, developed curiosity and knowledge. I learned to sew ( I made my own wedding dress), spin wool, play the piano, organ, flute and learned how to sing parts. I learned how to weave baskets and cook. I read a lot of the classics. Would I have been able to do all this or even most of this had I been in school? The answer is no. I would never have excelled musically as I didn't have the time until I was home schooled to practice. Public school takes up a lot of time. With Homeschooling you can get the work done and over with as fast (or as slow in the case of my brother Daniel) as you want. I wouldn't have spun wool, or made baskets. I still would have read as I was reading Dickens by the age of 10 or 12. That's just me. But would I have continued that or would other things have gotten in the way? I know that I would have never learned enough about sewing to make my own wedding dress. What did having the opportunity to do all those things give to me? It gave me the knowledge that I can do anything I set my hand to do with practice and patience ( I actually hate sewing). It gave me confidence and a sense of self worth. It taught me the value of work and of a job well done. Now I ask you, did you get a chance to learn and do things like this in school?
Another frequent complaint about home schooling is lack of socialization. And for all those who cry this as a reason for not homeschooling I say shame on you. There are plenty of opportunities to socialize. There is church and community activities that you can become involved in as much as you want to fill up your schedule. Can there be a danger of isolating yourself from everyone else? Only if you let there be. I don't know anyone who has met me who would say that I am deficient socially. I do tend to interrupt people when they speak as my husband likes to frequently point out but that is more a result of growing up in a large family where if you don't say something now and say it fast you won't get to say it. There are homeschooling families out there that can seem socially deficient. However I would say look at the parents, are they keyed in socially? Probably not. Or there is often other factors involved like autism, where it wouldn't matter where they were schooled there would still be problems and the parents are working as hard as they can to teach them social skills. My Dad likes to say that if you can learn to get a long with all your brothers and sisters you can get along with anyone. When you have 10 brothers and sisters I would say that is probably true. But everyone is not as blessed with that learning opportunity as I was. :-)
Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart. My hat goes off to my mother who despite having 10 children at home, a farm or motel to run and other family and life challenges still continues to home school my 4 youngest siblings. I learned so much that I could never have learned at school in a loving and caring environment that was not at all evident in the public school I attended. I learned things that were important like love of country, family, and home. Respect for others as well as my surroundings. How many of these lessons did you learn at school? Homeschooling is great because you can tailor it to fit your individual child's needs, desires and passions. Do you feel patriotism is missing in our country? Well there you go- There's one subject for your home school. Homeschooling takes up so much less of your day than public school. You go to public school for what 8 hours? Time riding the bus back and forth, homework, after school activities? There's your whole day. With home schooling you can get the book work done by noon and move on to other things, sports, music, drama, how about just playing. Kids most of the time now don't get a chance to just play and be kids. Research shows that that is one of the most important things for childhood development. Play. When was the last time your child had time to play?
Okay, I've ranted enough for now. Feel free to post your comments about how you hate or like homeschooling. I like heated discussion. I won't take offense.

Dress up Princess

My daughter LOVES to dress up (or is it just stripping off her clothes? I can't figure it out.). So for Christmas she got dress up clothes from Santa. Christmas morning I got her dressed in her clothes. 5 minutes later she was in her dress up outfit with the clothes MIA. She refused to take it off all day and since it was Christmas I let her get away with it. Any ideas on how to get a little girl to leave her clothes on?? It's not Christmas anymore! :-)

Doughnuts part two-

So, I felt like I didn't get enough doughnuts the last time I made them (we gave too many away!), and Reagan has been begging for more, so I was bad and made some more. I was brave and let Daniel help this time. (Reagan was still asleep). Daniel had gotten an Airplane apron from Grandma Lyman for Christmas along with cookie cutters that were in the shape of a screw driver, hammer, and saw. He has been dying to try them out so we made some screw drivers, hammers and saw doughnuts. As you can see he really enjoyed them. Now I have to be good and no more doughnuts until next year. Daniel and My cholesterol can't handle it. But they are so good! (And this time some are going in the freezer for consumption at a later date. Doughnuts and Orange Julius anyone?)

All done with Nursery

My big boy is all done with nursery and started in the Sunbeam class and Primary in church today. He was really excited about it. This is after class and back home where he is proudly showing off his "King Crown". He was really happy as they sang "I am a Child of God" which is his favorite song. How my little boy has grown!