I did it! I was able to get the computer out of the dining room and into the school room! I am also happy to report, it is not nearly as crowded as I thought it would be. Check out the pictures...you can see the before pictures here.

Again, I am sorry about the quality of the pictures...you can also read about my lack of a digital camera in the link above.


Looking into the kitchen and towards the hallway.


My desk and keyboard under the bar looking into the kitchen.


Different views of the school table


The dreaded computer

Ramblings...

I received quite an education today watching Dr. Phil. I learned how there is no way my children will be properly socialized without "putting them on a bus everyday." I also learned that the so called "experts" agree...I am doing irreparable harm, by not giving my girls the opportunity to "flirt," "have a crush on a teacher," and "hate the girl with the purple hair…”

What did I do after hearing all this? I quickly added a $20 to the “Mother Issues” therapy fund jar :/ My kids are going to be so messed up!

O.K. Internet…I need good re-organizing-furniture vibes. Tonight while The Man is at work, I am going to figure SOME way to fit our computer into our already very full school room…see here .

Right now, the computer is in the dining room…which causes a problem in a couple of areas…not including the fact that it looks tacky. First, the Christmas tree is going to have to go into the dining room. Don’t get me started, on why the Christmas tree has to go into the dining room. Let’s just say that the living room in this house is very small…and I am blessed and yet cursed by this piece of furniture.

Living Room. I am standing at the stairs

Next, here is a picture of the dining room.

Do you notice how small the dining room table is? Do you see how even *without a Christmas tree in the same room, the table looks as if it was in some alternate universe…between the “office” (computer area) and the living room? I can not stand to sit at that table! Sometime, in the very near future, I would like to buy a new dining room set. Maybe even a dining room table which has the ability to fit the *whole family around it. There is no way that will ever happen until I can find a place for this computer.

Here is another picture...this is between the dining room and the living room.

If I can not find a way to fit it into the school room…the computer will have to go upstairs to our bedroom. I am loathe to do that however. With The Man working mid shifts it will not be convenient for either of us to use the computer. It would also put a cramp into my routine of sitting on the computer while the kids are doing their seatwork. Priorities, Internet.

Living Room

Dining Room

I don't know if you can make it out or not...but these show the vaulted ceilings. Vaulted ceilings? Obviously the person who planned these houses has, never had to cram all their possessions...and the possessions of three children into base housing.

Don't get me wrong, Internet. I try very hard not to complain about this house. This is by far the most beautiful house we have ever lived in. The vaulted ceilings are gorgeous...but sometimes, when I am looking up at the vaulted ceilings...the ceilings and I have a talk. "Vaulted Ceilings," I say, "you *are beautiful, and normally I would be envious of anyone who was lucky enough to have you. However, with the materials they used to build you...they could have added three more square feet to my living room...*then, I would not have to put

my Christmas tree into the dining room."

What Are You Thankful For?

Since I am not sure if I will be able to post this tomorrow, I thought I would write a post on what I am thankful for.

~I am Thankful for~ **

The Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that he died on the cross to save me from my sins...even though I am nowhere worthy of such a sacrifice.

My Husband. The man who brings me white mochas and sushi (not together) just because he knows it will put a smile on my face. The one who works hard to support our family so that I can stay home with the girls...even if that means he has to drive a very "un-cool" 11 year old mini van for our second car. The father who, by treating his girls like ladies, is teaching them what to look for and expect in a future husband. The same father who watches super hero cartoons, and plays basketball with them...but is not afraid to play Barbies or have a tea party...complete with bonnet and pink feather boa.

Our oldest daughter Chaney. The girl who is wise and mature way beyond her years...but at the same time has such a sweet innocence about her. The compassionate one who thinks of everyone before herself. The proper one who has a very strong sense of right and wrong...and can't bring herself to break the 'rules." The saucy comedian who has a sense of humor that is way to much like her mothers :) She is probably my greatest accomplishment.

Our middle daughter Riley. Our paradoxical daughter. The one who makes everything ten times harder than it needs to be...but ten times more fun! The girl who is both girly girl...as well as the closest thing to a boy I will probably ever have. She is the complete opposite of my husband and I...yet so much like us, it is scary! The emotive one who wears her heart on her sleeve...there is never any doubt if she is happy or sad. The fearless one who is sure to put my husband and I into an early grave. The stubborn one who will not allow anyone to dissuade her. The confident one who is not afraid to be herself. There were times, I was not sure I was going to live through raising her...but I could not imagine my life without her.

Our "baby" daughter Kennedy. Truly a blessing from the Lord. She came to us when we least expected it...and showed us that the Lord is in control of all things. She can melt you like butter with one look. She is a perfect mix of both her sisters...stubborn when it comes to some things...but a pleaser when it comes to others. She has the vocabulary of a child twice her age...but still insists it was the "Pill-i-grams" who celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

I am also thankful for so many friends and family who are in my life and who keep me grounded in so many areas. I have been blessed beyond what I deserve...and I pray that I will be thankful everyday...and not just once a year.

**The color changes are in honor of the girls favorite colors.

Happy Thanksgiving !!!

Thanksgiving Plans

It is Thanksgiving time. I love this time of year...I think this is the one time a year I actually miss living in Indiana (where we are from). The best thing about living on the Central Coast is the neutral weather all year long. I hate extreme weather either way...so you can imagine how miserable I was in Minot, North Dakota for 4 1/2 years! Anyway...I do miss the fall leaves in Indiana, and spending the holiday with family.

This year we are having some of David's troops over for dinner. When David was an Airman, before we were married, he always had supervisors who would invite him over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It meant a lot to him, so we try to do the same thing.

We are planning on having the usual Thanksgiving fare:

Turkey
Last year I learned about brining a turkey. We tried it, and it turned out fabulous...so I will brine the bird again. I would love a deep fryer for deep fried Turkey...but since The Man is convinced we would burn the house down...that won't happen.

Ham
Spiral Cut with a brown sugar coating...in other words Hillshire Farms :) I would love it to be a Honey Baked Ham...from the Honey Baked Ham Store...but since a. there is not a HBHS around here...and b. we are to poor to have one mailed to us...Hillshire it is.

Mashed Potatoes
Pretty boring...but no BOXED Flakes are allowed in this house! I am thinking about roasting some garlic and adding the potatoes though.

Stuffing
My favorite recipe for Stuffing is Sage Sausage Stuffing. I also *gasp* stuff the bird! My recipe makes a lot...so what wont fit in the bird I just bake in a dish. The stuffing in the dish looks prettier, so it goes faster...fine with me, leave me all the "good" stuff :)

Noodles
We are Hoosiers...so that means, you can't have a family get-together without noodles. I used to kill myself making them from scratch. I would mix the dough (without a recipe...because no one really *has a recipe for noodles...you just "add flour, water/milk, and egg till it looks right"...) roll the dough out, cut and flour the noodles, then spend three hours cleaning up the mess you just made. One year, I was desperate. I had three little ones, and a house full of people coming over. So, I broke down and bought the frozen ones from the grocery store...and *not one person could tell the difference! I have never made homemade noodles again! The frozen ones are outrageously expensive...but when you figure the time making them, cleaning up...and my sanity...they are a STEAL!

Corn
Nothing special here :/

Greenbean Casserole
Again...no good Hoosier can have a get together without the greenish gray glob that is greenbean casserole! The Man loves it! He also loves pork rinds though...so who knows?

Mashed Sweet Potatoes
To The Man's complete horror! He is against anything that involves a sweet potato. Chaney loves them though, and since getting her to eat anything that resembles a vegetable is a feat worse than death...I feel like I have to encourage her by making a vegetable she actually likes. Though, calling a sweet potato a vegetable could be stretching things a bit :/

Cranberry Sauce
The good ol' "it slurps as it slides out of the can" stuff. Why? I don't have a clue...no one eats it...but we can't have Thanksgiving without it.

Rolls
Nothing special here...

Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
and Pumpkin Pie
You would *not believe how hard I work on these pies, Internet! It takes a lot of work to pull them out of the freezer, take them out of the cardboard boxes (being careful as to not get a papercut or break a nail), and put them in the oven! The sacrifices I make for this family!

So, what is going to be on your Thanksgiving table this year?

Snow Ball Fight...in Flip Flops?

Like I said below, yesterday we ran some errands into town. While we were there, we decided to check out the mall (or what passes for a mall in this part of the Central Coast.) The mall had an area set up with some shaved ice for the kids to play in. I guess throwing ice at each other is the closest you can get to a real snow ball fight in California. Check out the shorts and flip flops...

Kennedy trying to make an "ice" angel...


Riley planning her attack...


A three way stand off.

Humble Pie

Mmmm, Mmmm...I *love humble pie...not! The Man has a long, long, long history of throwing things away willy nilly. He doesn't do it on purpose...he just starts straightening up, and the next thing you know, you can't find that recipe for caramel candy you love...and you can't remember where you got it from.

While he was deployed to Iraq, I bought this cell phone so I could listen to music during the countless hours of baseball, soccer and basketball practices. I even splurged for the 256mb memory card...then was disappointed to learn that the dinosaur of a computer we were using (think Windows 98, Internet) could not handle the software for the phone. So, I put the memory card and the software away knowing that when he came home we were going to buy a new computer.

A few weeks after The Man returned home from Iraq, the base moved us into a new house. I *knew that I had seen the phone stuff here, in the new house. I *knew I had put it in the computer desk for when we ordered the new computer. Well, said computer arrives...and I can't find the phone stuff *anywhere. I searched this house from top to bottom...and it was not here! Circumstantial as it is, I felt like The Man's past transgressions was plenty of evidence to convict him on this crime. He claimed innocence..but I. Knew. Better!

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago...it is time to break down and take Kennedy in for her shots (yes, Internet...I know that they were late) and I can't find the folder where I keep EVERYTHING. We are talking shot records, birth certificates, SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS...for *all of us. Again, I search the house top to bottom...and again, I can't find them. I start freaking out, thinking that somehow we threw them away. (Did you notice that I said WE...I knew even The Man would recognize this folder if he saw it...and would not knowingly throw it away.) I was convinced that we overlooked it in a box, and accidentally threw the box out for bulk pick up. I was sick, thinking that someone was out there right. this. second. stealing my wonderful children's identity...and that would be one more reason why my children will need therapy for "Mom Issues"...their own mother practically handed out their entire identities to every criminal on the street, for goodness sakes! ***

The Man assured me that no such thing had happened. We would never have been that careless...and that when we get an extra few mins on his days off, he would help me go through all the totes and boxes *again.

Yesterday, as we are running errands, I again tell him that we have to try to find that folder. Someone could be financing a trip to Barbados in Kennedy's name as we speak. It is then, that he reminds me of the last night of the move. We were delirious with exhaustion and just wanted to be *done. So, when we walked into our old master bedroom and saw all the garbage***I mean really important stuff*** from the computer desk, sitting on the floor, we crammed it all in his "A" bag (military term for really big, really ugly, green bag)...and it has been sitting in the closet of the girls dressing room (don't ask) ever since.

You see where this is going don't you Internet? Yes, not only (to my eternal relief) did I find the folder...and all its contents safe and sound...but also the phone stuff...

Boy, Oh BOY, did I have to eat some humble pie. Thankfully, I have a husband who can laugh about it with me...but I pray that I will not be so quick to jump to judgment in the future.

***Email If you would like to contribute to the Wagle Girls Therapy Fund...we have a jar marked for that purpose...and funds are added regularly. j/k...sort of

Where Does Your Learning Take Place?

The Man is working tonight, so I have some free time on my hands. I was just checking out SpunkyHomeschool’s blog and saw this post Where Does Your Learning Take Place? I love to see/hear how others have their school “area” set up.

When we first started Homeschooling I had this attitude that while we may be homeschooling, it did not have to take over our lives. I had resisted Homeschooling for a couple of years…even rebelling against it. It was something “I would NEVER do!” A little voice (God) inside of me would whisper maybe I should…and I, quite frankly, would tell that little voice (God)…”uh, sorry…NOT interested.”

After a year of butting heads with Chaney’s first grade teacher (long story…but lets just say we disagreed on almost everything), I finally realized that I hated the idea of her going back to school *more than I hated the idea of homeschooling. So, after The Man picked himself off the floor, I convinced him that :

“No, I am not crazy”

“Yes, I believe I can follow through with this HUGE undertaking…even though I have never finished a cross stitch project…yes, I know how many I have *started”

I affirmed that…

“I do understand, that even though I won’t have to actually take her to a school…I will still need to get out of bed at a decent hour” O.K. we are working on that one.

Then I agreed that, if The Man did not think things were going the way he thought it should by Christmas, I would trot her back to school and sign her up for the second semester. Because, in his words…”How bad could you screw her up in one semester?”

I then proceeded to let the little voice know that, yes, I have given in…but I am not going to totally give in…because homeschooling will *not rule our lives. So, that first year, *everything homeschool related was hidden away. And boy, oh *BOY was homeschooling a chore! It was extremely hard to get into the “learning” mode. While I loved having Chaney home with me…and she loved being home, I do not think either one of us enjoyed school. It was more like…lets hurry up and get this over with, so we can go do what we really want to be doing.

The next year, Riley was starting Kindergarten…and that little voice (God) was nagging me again. It was telling me that Kindergarten was supposed to be fun. It also told me that I would be paying her therapy bills for YEARS if I ruined her first year of school (O.K. that one was probably *not God). So…I caved again! I put up the cutesy alphabet strips around the wall, I put up a poster of George Washington. I had all the colorful visuals…in. my. Dining. Room! Which was attached to my living room…we are talking base housing, Internet, there is not a lot of room! Homeschooling had taken over our lives! But we had a BLAST! We felt like we were doing school…all of a sudden, learning was no longer something we hurried through, so we could go outside to play. (Although, it was a bit disconcerting to have George and his false teeth looking down on us at dinner time.)

This year, the base moved us into a new house. This house has a living room/dining room similar to the old house (but smaller :/ ) however, it also has a family room off the kitchen! This is now our school room. I love it! It is the best of both worlds…the look of a school room…but we can leave when we are done. I hope that we can always have a separate school room…but if for some reason that is not possible, I will never balk at having homeschool in our lives again!

So, Internet, here are some pictures of our school room…that I love! I apologize for the quality of the pictures…they were taken with my camera phone. Sadly, I do not have a digital camera. After The Man spent *a lot of money on the camera of my dreams a few short years ago…he is not really cooperating when it comes to buying me my new camera of my dreams

GW looking down on us

From the back corner of the room looking towards the kitchen and a hallwayFront corner of the roomFrom the kitchen...showing my desk...it is on wheels, so I can roll it under the white board when we are done.Our bookshelf. The girls are working on their Thanksgiving CraftsRiley, showing off her Indian Head Band and Vest

O.K. Internet, I have shown you mine...tell me (or better yet, show me) about yours :O)

Our Homeschool Group

I just finished calling half of our homeschool group (a friend called the other half) to let them know that our P.E. Class for this week had to be cancelled. This year, the Youth Center on base offered to provide P.E. Classes for our group each week. It has been a great success…routinely having upwards of 40 kids! The kids have a blast, and the moms get to sit back and talk to Real. Live. Adults.

I love our homeschool group. This group is one of the reasons why we have no desire to leave this duty station. I especially love to see all of our kids interact with one another. If you are a homeschooler, you most likely know what I mean. There are no “cliques” and the older kids do not shun the younger ones. They all work together to make sure everyone is included. They can easily organize a kickball game without any parental help…and lovingly help the little ones play. We swim on Fridays during the fall (love California…and heated pools.) Our first week swimming, Chaney had to take a “swim test” before she was allowed in the deep end for the first time. The kids cheered her on the whole way (some even swimming along side her) and celebrated by spraying water through those noodle things like fountains. Another week, one of the girls from another family had broken her arm... the kids still found a way to include her. They planned out a diving contest, and she was the judge. This ended up being so popular, it is now a weekly thing.

I love the parents as well. Everyone is very conscientious and helpful. There is not any of the one-upmanship that can be found in some groups. We could sit and talk forever. The best thing about the parents in our group…they all know that I am crazy/strange…but they humor me J

Being military, we have families coming and going all the time. This past year we had three or four families we really hated to see leave. We miss them terribly, but it also shows us how good God is, when he sends a new family…not to take their place…but to fill in part of the hole that was left.

O.K. off to do school…we are going to make Indian vests out of paper bags…sounds like a *blast. One day, when I have more time, I will confess a major shortcoming of mine…and it involves crafts with kids…or rather, the lack there of :/

$5 a Day Habbit, Life Lessons, and True Love

I am giddy with excitement! Today is payday...and anyone in the Military can tell you how significant the 1st and the 15th of every month is. Because of Christmas plans (I can't tell you now because the kiddos might see...but it is *big) we have been on a strict budget the last couple of months. Which brings me to why I am so giddy. You see, Internet, I have what my friends and family call my "Five Dollar a Day Habit."

I am totally addicted to two things...coffee from the Expresso Pad in the BX, and sushi from Eric at the commissary. The Expresso Pad, and Eric got me through 7 looong months of The Man being deployed in Iraq...and I have come to love them like they were family. Marcie (at the Expresso Pad) knows *exactly how I like my coffee...and it is always perfect. Eric and I have a bond. I don't even have to speak to him and he knows what I want. We only have to make eye contact for the Angels in Heaven to start singing, he then nods, knowing that I *need two orders of Spicy California Rolls. Internet, he even walks through the Commissary while I am food shopping for the rest of the family...and DELIVERS it to me *sigh*. I have foolishly gone to other coffee shops or sushi bars, but I am never satisfied...no one can live up to the standards that Marcie and Eric have set.

Life Lesson: *Never cheat on your Sushi Guy, or your Barista!

I normally partake in either a coffee or sushi almost everyday (hence the whole $5 a day thing), but because of budget constraints, it has been well over a WEEK since I have had either. You have no idea how much I *miss them *sob,*

But WAIT, it is PAYDAY...and The Man who I adore...and who adores me, just walked in with a White Mocha...and has promised me sushi for lunch!!!!

That, Internet, is Love!!!

My First Blog :)

Woo Hoo! My first blog! Having read blogs for a long time, I have often thought about starting my own...finally, I have worked up the nerve . It may take some work to get used to how all this works, Internet, but I hope to be up and running very soon.

For now, I will give out all the pertinent info. My name is Tammie (I also go by WagsWife, and less often my given name Tamara.) I am married to David (The Man), and we homeschool three girls (Chaney 10, Riley 8, and Kennedy 6.) David is in the Air Force and we currently are stationed at Vandenberg AFB, CA.

In the spirit of trying to get to know all the "ins and outs" of this blog stuff...I am going to attempt to post a couple of pictures.

Chaney



Riley



Kennedy