Investing bug

Do any of you invest in the stock market? The realm of finance has always intimidated me, and hubby too, to some extent. We are overly cautious wusses when it comes to investing and trying to grow our money.

Some events took place in hubby's family recently that caused me to take another look at stocks, and I decided to invest some "fake" money into a few that I was interested in. Just dabble a little to see what this is all about. I really like the yahoo finance tool for following investments. I can track daily ups and downs, as well as how I'm doing in each stock overall, and my portfolio collectively. You can look at charts and graphs for varying lengths of time, and put it against a graph of the market's performance for the same time frame. I also like that it pulls up headlines pertaining to companies and business sectors that you own stock in.

The fun part is that my portfolio is up 12% in the first month! My lowest performing stock is finally on the plus side as of yesterday, and a couple of my stocks are doing better than 20%. This is really addictive! And also really safe - ridiculously safe since I didn't actually make any money during this time, yet I could have made almost $700. Anyone have any advice for taking the plunge with *real* money?

Don't play with your food

Andrew, singing during lunch today:

"The Fritos have given this land to us,
No need to fuss,
They know what they're doing.
We know that they will take care of us,
if we just follow them."

Veggie Tales fans everywhere are cringing at this very moment. I'm a bit taken aback myself!

Getting caught up on photos

Ninth Birthday


Fancy New Bike


Kids playing with the hydrangeas in our yard


Isn't he handsome?

Parents want kids to have good social skills

Results of a new survey completed for Hasbro Inc. have been released - Raising Happy Kids: Survey Highlights The Importance of Teaching Children Good Social Skills From the article:

"Parents have come to recognize social skills, more than mere niceties for everyday life, are the base for raising 'great kids' who ultimately become successful, confident and happy adults," says Stacy DeBroff, CEO of Mom Central. "These skills, which include listening, being polite and knowing how to share, shape how a child will be perceived by their peers, teachers, adults, and ultimately employers."

Seems reasonable.

Despite the overwhelming significance they place on social skills, today's parents find it a constant struggle to teach their kids proper manners and necessary socialization techniques.

This has been one of my arguments for homeschooling - that the extra time I end up having with my kids allows me to model appropriate behaviors, point out others modeling good behaviors, and help correct inappropriate behaviors as they are happening.

"While parents understand the need for behavior correction, it can become frustrating," said DeBroff. "Especially with the added time pressures of a typical busy family schedule. We don't want to spend what limited time we do have being the 'bad guy' and constantly correcting our children's behavior."

And I imagine it would be incredibly frustrating to feel like the limited time I had with my children outside of school were spent harping on them about their poor manners. It's part of my same argument up above - I want to enjoy my kids' company, not spend those couple of hours each day correcting what's wrong with them. LOL - instead I spend the entire day correcting them! Only joking... a little. ;P

"As preschools and kindergartens turn to an increasingly academic curriculum, the necessity is that children come into the classroom with basic social skills in place," says DeBroff.

So this illustrates two things: one, that the role of the school is to teach academics. That's fine, but it blows the pants off the Socialization issue that opponents always seem to bring up as an argument against homeschooling. Two, maybe sending A. to kindergarten isn't quite the right approach. LOL

Oh, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Hasbro has now created a game to help teach kids social skills....

What a weird, schizophrenic kind of day

N. started day camp today! This is the daycamp through the Humane Society. The ratio of campers to counselors is really low - her group has three girls in it altogether, and one of them had to leave early in the day. The remaining girl is a friend of hers, and together they got to meet their cat mascot "Ashley". They have been charged with the duty of getting Ashley adopted by Friday. N came home with all sorts of buttons/pins with Ashley's name and picture on them so that family and friends can wear her kitty face around town and try to get her a new home. Apparently she's a very sweet, adult, calico kitty, very good with kids, and quite the snuggler. She'll make a great pet for someone... not us. (Kila? LOL) They started out the day clicker training dogs, and later in the day a veterinarian came by and gave them each a stethoscope to take home. They used the scope to listen to a puppies heartbeat. Pretty fun stuff.

After dropping N off at camp, Lil' A. and I went over to get him registered for kindergarten. As luck would have it, they only have an AM kindergarten available for half-day. That was my last "out" by the way - I'd been saying that if they couldn't get him into AM, then we wouldn't do it. Looks like kindergarten is a go. This is supposed to be an easy thing, right? I mean, parents do this all the time and don't feel all conflicted about it, don't they?

So my intent with A. going to kindergarten for 2.5 hours/day is kind of twofold. First of all, it will give me some dedicated one-on-one time with N. Five years ago, when we first stepped foot into the world of homeschooling, I'd projected that this school year would be the one where she was finally working independently, heck - at least reading independently, and I'd be able to devote some more time to A. The reality is that N. is still struggling with reading, writing, and spelling, and I really want to get her over the hurdle this year with some focused work. So far I've not found a good way to either separate the kids from each other long enough to give me the time of day, without grumbling that a). it's not fair that one gets to do school with me while the other has to do something else, or b). it's not fair that the other gets to play instead of doing school. Surely some homeschooling parent holds the answer to this conundrum.

Secondly, it's time for A. to just grow up already! Kidding. Kidding. Really. Mostly. Okay, in truth we're kind of sending him to the sharks. He gets along great with his sister, and has been making more friends in the past few months with some boys he sees regularly, but he really can't deal with more than one kid at a time. He basically gets up and walks away once there are more kids involved. For a long time I thought he didn't like to play with other kids, period, but was relieved to see him finally building some friendships. We've also had the experience of him not dealing well with groups of kids when he's been in swimming, and gymnastics. He doesn't like for other kids to be in his space, or to be too loud, nor does he like it when they don't follow the teacher's directions. All of these things cause him to completely shut down physically, mentally, and emotionally. I guess part of what I want to see is if giving him more opportunities to try to work through that will somehow give him the skills to at least manage his reactions in a different way. Oh, I didn't mention that one of his more common reactions now is to bite himself on the arm or hand, and to punch himself in the head. Yeah. So kindergarten could be interesting. At least we're not afraid to pull him out and homeschool him. Though if they could have him reading before we did that, that would be pretty cool - the reading thing hasn't gone well with kid #1.

So I get kid #2 signed up at the local grade school, and then I came home to work on my outline for homeschooling kid #1 this year. Do you see how I'm bouncing from one extreme to the next here? This is going to be a really strange year.

I love coffee.

Nothing to add to that. I haven't even poured my first cup yet, but I'm in the living room on the laptop, and I can smell my fresh brewed coffee waiting for me. Life is good.

Hello! Did ya miss me???

Oh, my. That was some long break I took! And in the middle of Nablopomo, too! Unbelievable. When I finally ventured back to the computer, I was overwhelmed by the elephant in the room (or the elephant in the blog) which stood staring me in the face. The elephant loomed larger and larger the longer I went without blogging, and I finally decided that the only way to make it go away would be to finally write something.

So there you have it. The End.



LOL - okay, just kidding. I'll fill you in on what we've been up to.

Hubby and I went to the Awards dinner for work. He didn't win Engineer of the Year, but his boss, and the general manager, had all kinds of glowing things to say about him. The evening was alright. The food was great, as was the wine (amazing how someone kept magically appearing to refill my wine glass!), and all the spouses went home with a box of Godiva truffles - sort of a thank you gift for putting up with the ridiculous amount of time our significant others have to spend away from home and family. Mmmmm... yum. Makes all those 60+ hour weeks so worth it! ++ insert eye roll here. Okay, it's the thought that counts I suppose. A very nice gesture.

Oh, and for our evening out I wore a nice, black v-neck, A-line (lol - almost said "A-frame"! Hopefully it was more flattering than that!) dress, with a long scarf/shawl thing that I'd bought in Mexico draped over my shoulders. Turns out that in the deep dark depths of my closet I even had a pair of strappy black heels. Who knew?!! Our camera wasn't functioning properly, so my sister (who watched the kids for us) snapped a few photos with her camera phone. Not quite the same, but I'll see if I can't put one up.

Father's Day came. We bought hubby a Gorilla Ladder. He was suitably impressed, and promptly took it outside to clean gutters and prune tall trees.

The following weekend, my sister and I took our three kids to go visit grandparents over in Yakima. Those would be the Mexico grandparents who decided that maybe only spending part of the year down south was a more reasonable goal. We're quite happy to have them back for a longer stretch of time than last year. The kids had fun swimming in the pool, and playing at a dinosaur park outside of Yakima. They even went paddle boating.

Fourth of July was a busy time. My mom took the train up to visit! Our family was going to be leaving on the 4th (a Friday) to drive down to my MIL's in southern Oregon, but my mom was able to come up a few days ahead so we could spend some time with her. I love sipping coffee in the mornings with my mom when she comes to stay, or when I go visit her. Something very soothing about it. Anyway, the kids enjoyed their time with Grammy, and are looking forward to seeing her again soon.

Down at the ranch (MIL's place) we had a great week. We went to a potluck hosted by one of the creekers, and then drove into Glendale for their big fireworks show. The show was put on at the high school, and it was mine and the kids first time actually driving through the town of Glendale. For some reason hubby never felt a need to take me there - Grants Pass was about as close as we ever got to touring his old stomping grounds. Glendale put on a great show, probably breaking all sorts of fire codes - we were close enough to feel the heat of some of the pyrotechnics, and there were pieces of debris raining down on us throughout the show. "AWESOME!", as the boys would say (that would be A. and our friends' boy D.- who also exclaimed many times "America ROCKS!"). The following night there was another big potluck and music party at my MIL's place, as well as our own fireworks display (if you buy them legally back in WA, surely they're still legal in OR, right? lol). We partied with family and friends, and had a great time. It was nice seeing the next generation of kids all playing together and having fun.

Back at home we started to brace ourselves for our oldest turning 9 years old. Her big present this year was a brandnew mountain bike - she's turned all tall and leggy over the past year, and her old bike wasn't a good fit any longer. Even with the seat raised all the way up, she still had to pedal with her knees up around her ears - only slightly exagerating. This new bike is a smidge big for her, but she's getting the hang of it, and is learning to appreciate having multiple gears to choose from! Our family has been doing a lot more riding this summer, both individually, and together. Now we just need to convince A. that he really can ride without those darn training wheels on! On the eve of N's birthday, I found myself contemplating what it meant to be the parent of a nearly-9yr. old kid, who was snuggled up to her Mama at the time. I realized that our time with her at home is about half over, and our time as with her as a snuggly little girl will likely come to an end in far less time than that. I want to pause it all, or at least put it into slow motion. I'm afraid this is all going to be over in the blink of an eye, and I'm already missing it. Um... and don't even get me started on puberty, which is looming not too far off on the horizon. So not ready. Less ready than Mom would be Dad. I'm learning that Daddies do not like to talk about, think about, or admit to the fact that little girls become women. These next few years should prove interesting. Next week, our animal-loving girl will be going to Animal Adventures day camp at the Seattle Humane Society. She's going with a couple of friends, and is really excited. One of the activities they'll be doing is getting assigned to a cat who will be their "mascot" for the week. They'll make posters, and wear a button with their cat's picture on it for the whole week, and if their cat gets adopted before the week is up, they'll be invited to a party in their honor. I hope we don't find ourselves with a new pet before the week is up! ;p

Hmmm... I guess that brings us to the present. Today the kids had dental appointments. I see orthodontia in our future. N has an overbite and a class 2 occlusion. We'll likely be referred to the orthodontist at the next appointment. Little A. does not have an occlusion, but currently has a 90% overbite (I read that optimal is 10%). Lord help the poor child, LOL! And on his x-rays we saw that his 6-year molars will be coming in soon.

Last week we finally got A. in for his 5-yr. well kid check and shots. He was 44lbs. and 45 inches tall, which puts him at a BMI of 15%. I am so jealous! ;P He had his last tetanus booster, and woke up the next morning looking like he had a huge delt - the swelling from that shot was enormous. Followed that by brushing up against some stinging nettle a couple of days ago, which promptly blistered, oozed, and then swelled to twice it's size. What's with this kid? Oh, I forgot to mention that next week we go to the local elementary school to see about enrolling A. in half-day kindergarten. I'll devote more time to this topic soon. I have a lot of thoughts on the issue, as I'm sure you can imagine.