We got to meet the Duggar family!

We had the opportunity to meet the Duggar family from TLC's show 19 Kids & Counting. It was pretty cool! Michelle & Jim Bob spoke and the children play music and sang for us. It was such a blessing. This family is exactly the same as they are on TV. Michelle was so sweet to talk with. Our son had a fun time meeting his favorite Duggar, Josiah. They looked very similar at younger ages.
We were very blessed with this experience and I came away refreshed as a Christian, wife and mother of an only child.

There were only 2 Duggars missing, Josh and John David (the one with the tow truck business?).
 
Michelle & Jim Bob Duggar, our son & I.

More Duggar children signing our book.
 
Our son with his favorite Duggar, Josiah.

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Yeah!!

I am so excited ooh-la-la Sasson. I am so excited to be able to say that I can fit in to my jeans again! YIPPE!! My stomach was so swelled up after my surgery/leak/infection that I could not wear anything but sweat pants, my wonderful sister-in-law went to the store to buy me some since my own sweats would not fit.


So a mere 72 days after surgery I am back in my old jeans, well 1 pair, the other ones still don't fit. But hey, I will take these out on the town! Still exhausted, but moving along. Again the surgeon said that this was to be expected and I would not be up and running for some time to come.

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A Journey Through Learning Review

We have been given the opportunity to review A Journey Through Learning lapbooks. A Journey Through Learning is a company that was founded by two homeschooling moms Paula & Nancy, how cool is that? 2 ladies who know exactly what we do on a daily basis with our children!! Who better to create a curriculum for us.


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Our son is 7th grade but still enjoys doing some of the lower grade fun stuff. This is our first experience with lapbooks, I had seen them online over the years, but I was so focused on book work in the first few years that I overlooked lapbooking, "You can't learn from arts and crafts" I thought! Well our 7th grader took to lapbooking like a fish to water!

Stack of library books that became a part of the leraning process.
Click on the link Knights, Castles and Middle Ages lapbook, the lapbooks are available in the following formats:
Instant Download- $13.00
CD- $14.00
Printed- $21.00
We were asked to pick one of the following lapbooks.
Letters, Numbers and Shapes (ages 3-5)
The Earth (grades 1-4)
Knights and Castles (grades 2-7)
Astronomy and Space (grades 2-7)

Section 1, with drawings and cut outs.
We were given the instant download version to review. That worked really well for us even with very slow and basic DSL Internet service. I printed out the lapbook for the Knights and Castles; my son just went to town on it! He got some library books to read up more on the subject. He has been cutting and pasting like crazy. He watched the how to videos from A Journey Through Learning and picked right up on how to make the lapbook without my assistance.

Middle section of the lapbook.
We had all the supplies on hand already for the lapbook. If you have younger children you will need to work with them on this, I would say most 3rd graders could read the materials on their own, 5th grade on up could do the lapbook on their own with you checking up on them. I highly recommend watching the how to videos that I mentioned above, they were very helpful and explained things in very easy to understand terms.

Last section of the lapbook.
For the review our son picked Knights and Castles Lapbook with Study Guide which covered the Middle Ages. We liked the fact that the materials were from a Christian perspective.

Knights and Castles photo knightsandcastles_zps3e1f0ab1.jpeg What our son liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) It covered the Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, this was all new to me.
2) Love learning about the castles, I learned that they are not very fun to live in.
3) Knights and armor
4) Loved doing crafts that counted as school work.
5) Liked how there were places to draw pictures.
6) This was so much fun!

What our son did not like about the lapbook:

1) NOTHING

What this Homeschool Mamma liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) This was so much fun!
2) Easy for "On your own work."
3) Easy instructions.
4) Not too many supplies needed.
5) Did I say "FUN?"
6) BONUS!!! No outside materials needed for research, if you wanted to go more in depth there are book suggestions included. Otherwise you can just use what A Journey Through Learning provides for you.

What this Homeschool Mamma did not like about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) NOTHING! It was totally awesome and even hubby thought it was a cool way to learn.

I am finding that lapbooking is great for those homeschooling days, weeks or months when a homeschooling mom has health issues. I've gone through a Sigmoid Colon removal surgery, had an anastomotic leak, and then an infection from the leak, which has made for an interesting end of the school year to say the least! lol. A Journy Through Learning lapbooks would be a great learning tool for those times that homeschooling is difficult on mom. My son worked on handwriting, cutting, reading, spelling, and history, all while I rested quietly as I recovered.

Come see what others reviewers have to say about A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks.
For those of you that have NEVER done lapbooking, it's so cool and I think we are hooked on it. Looking back now, I wish that we had done lapbooks from the very beginning, but ya know, you can't go back. So we are going forward and he is looking at what else he can lapbook. So all is not lost, but you know how our mommy homeschool brains work, it was sort of a sad moment thinking about how those fun little homeschool learning moments are fleeting. Enjoy your children and relax with the textbooks for awhile and try a lapbook out.


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REST, REST & MORE REST

I've been gone for a bit, resting. It's amazing just how tired you can be after having a colon resection or the medical term Hand-assisted laparoscopic sigmoidectomy. Only mine was not exactly laparoscopic, I've got a nice sized scar that is healing well and 2 scope holes.



My son now wants to be a Colorectal Surgeon. LOL...had we known that sooner, we might have saved more for college...LOL. He has learned so much through this and taught himself a lot. He has been looking stuff up on the Internet, in books and reading through my medical records. He found that our health care provider has a way to read records online, so he even looked up the summary of my surgery. He was going crazy looking up the different medical terms, then telling me what they did to me in surgery. Thank the Lord that this all went on AFTER surgery, cuz I would have freaked if it had been told me to BEFORE surgery. There are just some things left better unsaid ya know?

March is  National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, So Get Your Butt In Here!

In honor of this being National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, I have put a really cool video on my blog  Tim Hawkins-Colonoscopy song it's very entertaining! lol.

I shall be going back to resting, as the doctor told me I would be like a newborn baby, I would come home from the surgery and eat, sleep and poop......lol. That is pretty much what I have been doing. If I try to do too much I end up feeling like I'm going to pass out, I nap for awhile and end up feeling better. Saturday was 2 months since my surgery and it is still hard to think about how tired I am. I feel really well, but the fatigue is no fun at all.

If all had gone fine, I would be up and running this past Saturday: two months post op. I was suppose to be in the hospital 4-6 days and my wonderful surgeon was pretty sure that I would come home with a temporary colostomy or appliance, not a 'bag' that is not politically correct, it's called an appliance. But praise the Lord he was able to put me back together. I did so well after the surgery that I got to go home in 4 days.

So with my Anastomotic Leak, I shall spare you the details as to what that is, you can Google that if you would like  :O)  I ended up spending an additional 9 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics and then came home on the IV antibiotics.  

I've finally gotten rid of the guilty feeling I had from just laying around, puttering around the house and needing to nap on and off throughout the day..."Yes, I know exactly what you told me doctor, but I did not want to believe you!! It's those other people that you operate on that need all that extra rest, not me!" Boy was I wrong! And my family can see if I rest I feel better.

Saturday I took my last pain pill (I hope!), long car rides seem to really make it all flare up again and I still feel like someone has kicked me on my left side by my ribs. I have no idea what they did in there but it kills me sometimes if I bend, stretch, breathe too deeply etc. I should be up and going by the start of summer. I am hoping to soon be able to stop rotating between the 3 pairs of sweatpants that I own, nothing else fits. Well I have squeezed myself into a skirt for church, but thankfully I only have to stuff myself in to that for a short time each week. I've never been thin, but I must laugh at myself when I close the refrigerator door on my stomach or smack my stomach on a kitchen chair, as an adoptive mom I can only guess this is what it's like to have a preggo belly? I can finally reach the kitchen sink faucet handles, had to press my stomach into the kitchen sink to reach them and that really hurt, so I did not do dishes for a time.

 I've had some wonderful opportunities to share the love of Christ with many in the medical community. I was able to give out 2 Gospels of John books and several Bible tracts in different languages to the doctors that took AWESOME care of me! I have to giggle about the infectious disease control doctor (he brightened my days with his sense of humor, he is a very charming older gentlemen), he commented in his notes that we homeschool and that my son is up to date on his vaccines...LOL. That was funny to read, I wonder, if we utilized the public school system if that would be documented? LOL.

Would I have the surgery all over again, even with the complications? YES!  I am totally serious in saying this. Everyone I talked to that has had the surgery, had some sort of a complication, so I am not alone. Intestines DO NOT LIKE TO BE MESSED WITH! And I feel better, well I am sore and post-surgical stuff like that, but I don't feel that draggy sickness that I had before. Which the surgeon described perfectly in saying that I felt like I was run down from the flu all the time. A chronic smoldering infection will do that to you.

Thanks for hanging with me through the bumps in life.
Hugs,
Moe
Click here to learn more What you should know about diverticulitis.

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