Hubby Said it Best

He took the words right out of my mouth. Ok well maybe not but he sure does make a good point. 

Click Here to see what Hubby had to say about the new year.

Have you checked out my Creations Blog lately?

Happy to be Me

As I sit down to write this post I have mixed feelings. I seriously thought about deleting my blog and Face book all together. I didn't post on either one for nearly 4 months. Yes I did that on purpose. I have my own reasons that I won't go into. But over the last few weeks I have been thinking about lots of different things. I've decided that I cannot let the bad define me. I am who I am. I have a hand full of people who genuinely care about me, and I'm not talking about the "oh yah I know her" type people. It is the people who care about me, who lift me up when I'm down, who love me despite of my short falls, who give me guidance when I need to vent, and enjoys a good afternoon lunch with no kids =). These people know who they are and I love them all so much and I only pray I can be there for them as much as they are for me.

Today I'm breaking my silence and going to stop being a hermit for a little bit because I have so much to share. Last Sat was one of the best days I could ever imagine. It started at 7am when I got up and was getting showered. Chad called to inform me that he had done it. After Years of frustration, tears, stress, moving, patience, being tore down, interview after interview, Chad has finally been promoted!! We are so excited for this new opportunity. Although He will still be working the night shift it hasn't been as hard as it was years ago. So we will take it =)
As the day progressed it just got better from there. at 8am I went down to pick up our tickets and my parking pass to be able to take the Young Women of our ward (you probably didn't know but I"m the Beehive advisor now) to the cultural celebration that we put on for President Thomas S. Monson. You see Our Temple has been under renovation for over a year and it was being rededicated this weekend. So Sat night I got to sit in an arena with 9,000+ youth in the presence of our Prophet. And to make the day even sweeter I got to have lunch with one of those amazing people I mentioned earlier.
Words can't express the feelings of happiness I had that day.

Although this next item happened a few months ago it was a huge decision and we made it with heavy hearts, lots of prayers and tears, and weighing good and bad. We had been talking about it for months (see post HERE )In the beginning of the year we took Carsyn to take the ISAT just to see how we were doing with is homeschooling. Well he scored awesome! Then towards the end of the summer he came to us and asked to be able to attend Public school. He needed a change. I also needed a change. The contention in our home was off the charts. I felt that Corbyn was being left behind because of our focus on keeping Carsyn caught up. So after months of contemplating, we decided we would enroll him ONLY if they would let him be in 5th grade. We were told they probably would give us a hard time about that because he was only supposed to be going to 4th. We were also told by people that someone they knew was aloud to skip a grade but really struggled and advised us not to. Well for one he wasn't "skipping" 4th we had just done it already. Well when we went down to enroll him we put down 5th and nobody questioned it. We took it as one of the signs we were doing the right thing. Later on We had his IQ tested and he is a smart little turkey. In 1 section of the test he scored in the 99th percentile. So with that he was accepted into the GATE (Gifted and Talented) program. Carsyn loves school so much and is having a great time. He just finished up his first trimester with straight A's
As for me it is a love-hate situation. I just always pictured myself as one of those amazing Mom's who home-school 10 kids and they were all musically talented and perfect. For for me to admit defeat and face the facts that I am not going to be able to do that, was really hard to do. But I learned that it's not about "Me" and "My Needs" it was about Carsyn and his educational needs. I was no longer able to provide what he needed. My homeschooling will continue with the other children until the day comes when we feel they need something more.

On Oct 22nd I made a commitment to get healthier and lose some of the extra baggage I have accumulated. So far I have lost 8lbs. my ultimate goal is 20 so we're getting closer. Once I've lost  20lbs I will look into losing another 10 but right now 20 is my goal.

Anyway this post is getting long so I will wrap it up by saying I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father and the  love that he has for me. I'm so grateful for my Husband and my boys they are all so awesome and I couldn't ask for more.

Too Much Reading?

So today we took Carsyn in for his yearly eye exam. His eyes are terrible. The Dr. asked if he read a lot Ummmm yeah he reads at LEAST 2 hours a day. Well the problem is that his eyes aren't getting enough "exercise" looking far distances (He is near sighted) So the Dr said he really needs to set time limits in his reading to take a pause and focus on something far away. He was NOT a happy camper. He started to cry in the office at the thought that he wasn't going to be able to read more then 15 min at a time. Luckily his reading breaks only have to be about a min or so.

We just got a chuckle because we didn't know anybody could ever read "Too Much"

The Time is Here =(

Today is the day. The day that we had hoped would never be reality. But the fact is, it is reality and it starts tonight. Chad has been rotated to the over night shift at work. This is not as easy shift. It is hard. not only because of the average 2 trucks of freight every night that has to be put away in a store that only has like 2 people. But hard for our Family. Our boys are so energetic and our house is so small and echoey. I will worry every morning about him driving home and hour and 15 min after not getting enough sleep the day before. Now don't get me wrong I know that Chad is certainly not the first person to ever work the night shift. And I know that NOBODY enjoys it and it's not easy for anybody. All I can think about is 6 years ago when he was on nights. I was pregnant with Corbyn and it was a hard pregnancy. I was sick the whole time. And Chad could not be there. It was miserable and hard to let him sleep. he was depressed and so was I. I'm just praying that this time around I will be able to help our family endure this time in our life. I must be Chads support. I must take the reins. The rotation will be for 1 year (unless he gets promoted or transferred) The boys and I will have to spend lots of time outside, at parks, the library, friends homes, etc....I almost feel that I'm not welcome in my home because Chad has to sleep. It will be such an adjustment because I'm so use to being able to call or text him all day long. It helps me to get through my day. Well that is now no longer an option. I can't talk to him all day or all night because I will of course need to sleep so I'm not tired for the kids. He will work 4 nights on and 4 nights off. so that is a little better then the schedule he worked before. He will have to leave the house at 6:30pm and wont be home until after 9am. so in order for him to attempt to get enough rest he will just come home, eat, then straight to bed. Basically I will not see or talk to him for 4 days at a time. And since he will not be able to carpool anymore our fuel expense is going to nearly double. So once again we will be cutting back.

I know it's not the end of the world. I have friends who's husbands work out of town 5 days a week. I also have friends who have been on the night shift since I've know them. I just pray I can become and help my family become as strong as they are.

Ok sob fest over.

College at 9?

So Carsyn has been asking me for a while to get him a human anatomy book. He LOVES to learn about how the body works. I've been shopping around and I had one all picked out for 5th grade and I figured I would get it as part of his curriculum next year. While at the DI today We ran across a book that was "Body Structures and Functions" So I tossed it in the cart. I get home he is SUPER excited to read it so it was his book of choice for Quiet time. Then he is telling me all about what he learned. So I did an internet search of the grade level for this book I found that it is a COLLEGE level book! I told him he is more then welcome to read and learn from it as long as he is comprehending it and doesn't get too frustrated. I then went through and found the reproductive section and will tape that shut lol.

Happenings and Changes

So I wanted to just give some random updates about whats happening around here.
 1. as posted in a previous post Chad and I finally got the old stinky carpet out of the bedroom. We had to get it done because we will be having house guests in a few weeks and they will be sleeping in our room. I really did love my purple walls and they will be missed but the change was welcome. Especially since we are keeping resale or renters in mind in the next year or so.

2. Carsyn had the choice at the beginning of the year to whether play soccer or baseball. Corbyn chose soccer and did great but that season is over. Carsyn chose baseball and it started last week. It's going ok he seems to enjoy it but I wonder if I will ever find his Talent. LOL. Love that boy!

3. Chad hurt his back last night and we have NO idea how. So today's plans got completely thrown off. Instead of finishing getting the garage cleaned back up We spent the morning going to a massage therapist and then a chiropractor. Found out His back definitely has problems and it's going to take several visits to get straightened out. He is pretty sore tonight debating work tomorrow and that is NOT like Chad at all.

4. Speaking of work. Remember in a previous post I talked about UNWELCOME changes? Well it's probably time to come to terms with it and admit it out loud. Chad has been informed that he will have to go over nights starting June 22nd. This is so not a good thing for our family. Our house is so noisy with our high energy boys I just don't know how he will get enough sleep. He will have to leaving the house by 6:30 pm and wont get home until 9:00am  in order to get the hours of sleep he needs he will have to get to bed shortly after getting home. I wont be able to txt or talk to him all day. He will work 4 nights on 4 nights off so basically I might as well leave town when he's working because I wont see him anyway =( =(

5. This summer I've noticed I would rather be doing yard work out in the heat then inside doing dishes and laundry. As a result the dishes and laundry are complaining but my yard looks neatly trimmed and green most of the time =) so if you stop by unannounced we will just sit on the porch

6. Not sure if I ever mentioned this but a few weeks ago we were discussing Carsyn's schooling and deciding where to go from here. We really needed to have peace of mind on what we're doing so we had his take the ISAT's and Carsyn who is supposed to be a 3rd grader took the 4th grade level test and scored advance so that made us feel better.

7. Cooper is growing so fast he climbs up everything I will post pictures later to prove it.

8. Corbyn is becoming a sneaky mischievous little stinker. I think I will have extra gray hairs with that one.

9. Cole. He has a temper (sadly he gets it from me) but it's a bad one. But on a good note he is actually POTTY TRAINING!!!! so far he is my youngest potty trainer. the older 2 were closer to 4. With a little more work and another good week I thing he will be good to go. He only wears diapers at night now.

10. Ok I will finish up this lengthy post with myself. I've really been struggling with my weight I'm not happy that I've let my self go this bad. but I'm starting to do things differently. I started running a couch to 5k program and I only have 5 runs left then I'm "supposed" to be able to run straight through. at this post I'm struggling but pushing through. Tonight I ran 25 min non stop I think it was about 2.5 miles. maybe a little less because I don't run during my warm up and cool downs.

So anyway sorry this is a long post but I will wrap it up now. I've also been trying to do better with my blog so now that you're all caught up on us it will be easier to keep you up to date.

Hope you all have a fabulous day.

My Best Friends Know Who They Are

All done

Before and after

Earning money for day camp

Running

So I know most of my readers are able to follow my post on FB but Believe it or not I do have several friends that do not have FB (good for them I wish I had the will power) so I just want to talk a little bit about my running. Just over 5 weeks ago I started doing a C25K (couch to 5k) running program. It starts you out just little bits at a time. It's an 8 week thing and by the end I "should" be able to run a 5k. last night I finished week 5 day 2. I will say that I hit some rough patches with my knees and shins but I'm feeling better and I've got some new shoes. My next run I'm supposed to run 20 min straight yikes! I wish I could say I'm losing weight but I really don't know if I am or not. For a week or so I was doing really well and I think I lost 4 lbs but then I fell off the wagon last week and probably gained it all back lol busy summers will to that to you. Anyway I'm able to post about this after every run on FB because my program is linked to automatically post for me. I will try to remember my Blog followers too. =)

Change

Ugh Changes are coming to the Jacobsen Houshold and they are NOT a welcome change. Not ready to talk about it yet. stay tuned around June 22 for more details.

The Light Bulb Turned on Today.

Over the last few months (well this entire school year) Corbyn has been working on his letters. I quickly learned that he is a hands on learner. Meaning he is like his Momma and has to see and touch it to know what it is. but unlike his dad and brother who reads it and can instantly master it. The poor little guy has struggled to learn his ABC's and 123's but just in the past few weeks he has been able to count to 100 nearly on his own and he can pretty much get through his ABC flash cards. He has also started getting familiar with the sounds.
Tonight after I read him his bed time story he says to me "Mom, I wish I could read" aww melt my heart. So I took the opportunity to show him how before you read he has to know all the sounds of the letters then I took it 1 step farther and showed him a few little words. together we made the individual sound then put them together. then BAM! the light turned on! he now understands what it's going to take. I love it when I'm teaching my boys something and they struggle so much with it then all of a sudden you just see their eyes light up with glee when they finally "get it"

My feet hurt!

So today I had the opportunity to do some service. So I ended up needing to bake some things. Well I ended up baking A LOT of things lol. 3 mini banana bread loafs, 3 dz cookies, 1dz home made rolls, 2 casseroles, and Jello. Then after all of that Hubby dragged me to the gym for turbo class. Sheesh I'm tired.

Mornings?? Ummm I think Not!

IF any of you know me then you know that I am NOT a morning person. Never have been. My boys on the other hand have always been morning boys. All 4 of them love to get up in the morning. Carsyn goes as far to set his alarm every morning at 7am (It use to be set at 6am but I told him no way 7am was the limit) I usually do somewhat ok with that. They get up themselves and they like some of the cartoons on in the morning but they love to play before we start school at 9am. Carsyn has even gotten up and done school at 7am without me just to get it done. Carsyn helps get his brothers cereal and that is usually my cue to get up before they spill milk all over. That is usually just before 8:00. Anyway Why am I telling you all of this? Well for some reason the last few days I have struggled even worse to get up. The boys have slept in a little but not much they're still up by 7:30 but holy cow I could not get up this morning. Then it dawned on me. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME! it explains it all. Oh my goodness it has never affected ME this much. Everyone always complains about how it affects kids. Mine don't seem bothered by it. And I'm usually not but my goodness It's sooo bad. I wish I could go to bed sooner but Mr. Cooper doesn't always go to bed when planned. Although he is getting much better. Instead of up until after Jay Leno every night I put him in bed at 9 he doesn't usually agree with that bed time but I'm the Mom! lol. So now that I've figured out what the problem is I can focus on correcting it and reset my internal clock. Because frankly I do not feel like Mom of the year when my kids are all up having to get their own breakfast because I'm too lazy to get out of bed.

Sabbath Day Woes... =(

When it comes to My Faith in Jesus Christ and the Testimony I hold dear in my heart I will never leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But right now in our current family situation I struggle so hard to get excited about Sundays. I love going to church. I love hearing the lessons and talks. I love the spirit I feel. However I havn't been able to expiriance any of that in a long time. When Chad has to work on Sundays and I go all by myself the struggle starts on Saturday night (well Sat at 4pm)And now since the meeting time changed to 9am it became instantly harder. I spend my whole 3 hours fighting. Needless to say when we get home from church it cerntainly isn't the peaceful spirit we feel. The last few weeks have been especially hard and I end up in tears from humiliation from the way Cooper has been. I come home in tears wondering why I even bother. There are some people who try to help and somtimes it does but usually not. I try to hide in the Mothers lounge since there isn't many other places to go but I usually get run out of there from Mothers needing to nurse their babies. So I end up walking around carrying the screaming child while paople just stare at me. Yesterday was no different. I tried to go sit in the nursery but since he isn't 18mo yet I just feel like I'm in the way and shouldn't be there. Unfortunaly there is no solution right now. I still have 2 months before He goes to nursery. But I'm not sure I can handle much more before I crack. I think next week I will just deal with my guilt of not going and stay home. Then at least maybe the people around me can enjoy their time at church with out the crying inturruptions from my Child.

Stompin the bugs

While I was in the living room just resting on the couch Corbyn and Carsyn were playing on the computer. For whatever reason they started fighting so I told them it was time to turn it off. Of course Carsyn took charge and just immediately closed the game window and tore Corbyn off the chair so now Corbyn is pretty ticked off and crying very loud. I called him in to the living room he came but he was stomping his feet the whole way in while crying. I'm mean he was stomping so hard he could have been in the military marching along. Anyway as soon as he got to the couch I asked him "Did you squish all the bugs??" He immediately started laughing which is much better then the ticked off crying he was doing. So after we finished up our talk as to why he was so upset he was still crying so then I told him to go finish stomping all the bugs. He then starts laughing again and says "Mom, you're cracking me up"
What a weirdo that kids is.

We Did It!

Remember in one of my last post I mentioned that we were not going to go out to eat for the whole month of Jan? Well We stuck to our guns and did it. Some nights were super had and I was so tired of cooking all I wanted to do was order a pizza. But we made it through. YAY US! to celebrate we had planned to go out to eat. Carsyn wanted McDonalds (yuck) well I told him then we would have to wait until Tuesday to go there (1/2 price happy meals) He agreed so Chad and I planned to have a babysitter and go to Texas Roadhouse YUM! well that fell through so We took the kids to Primos The kids had a blast and now we don't have to go to McDonalds =0)It's so helpful when the whole Family pulls together to pull off such a goal. Chad helped do a lot of the cooking on his days off and thank goodness for freezer meals. Our goal for Feb isn't nearly as strict. We will still go out but it's all scheduled and planned I even have a Feb Menu all ready to go. We're really trying to cut back on some things and save up for bigger things it's hard work but it really can be an eye opener to see how much money is actually spent on eating out.

Doesn't this look yummy? It sure was

File Folder Fun!

I've been having so much fun making File Folder Games. The Kids love them! I hope to be able to add more to my collection but I've run out of velcro dots Grrrr.
I have a game using the twelve apostles I just need to get it finished. I find time to make these while I'm sitting at the table with Carsyn while he does his work sheets. I find the games online all of these were free downloads.
I hope I've inspired you to make some. =)

Are they Aliens??

Some times I can't help but to be proud of my kids (and this coming from me who always is complaining about them). Chad and I went grocery shopping last week and got lots of produce since then the kids have just gone crazy eating it. They LOVE fruits and veggies.

Last night we had lasagna with salad and everybody had seconds of salad. I couldn't help but smile when I sat there and watched Corbyn dip each lettuce and spinach leaf in his dressing.

I made some SUPER yummy Reeses Peanut Butter cupcakes and the kids didn't like them

This morning Carsyn asked me if I would make Banana Bread with the rest of the Banana's well then I remembered many MANY moons ago I made some banana bread and put it in the freezer (we're talking last spring or before)I didn't think it would be good but I pulled it out so it could thaw and figured we would see.

Tonight I had to laugh because I made stir fry for dinner and NOBODY complained (Well Cole didn't eat much of it) they were even playing "Name that Veggie" Corbyn was requesting to have a side of orange lol. unlike when I make Hamburger Helper and everyone complains and it's get thrown aways.

Then for dessert tonight I said to Carsyn "I don't think I really have anything for dessert" Well he looked around and said yes you do...there is Banana Bread on the counter, Banana's in the bowel, oranges, and 1 more apple.

Needless to say the Banana Bread was still very yummy and there isn't much of it left.

So to you Moms who struggle to get their family to eat fruits and veggies...Sorry I'm not much help I don't seem to have that problem.

Bitter Sweet

I feel like a load has been lifted from my shoulders but it comes with a heavy heart. Stay tuned for more on this topic in the next few months.