Date night!

Dh and I finally had a date night last night!  It has been a couple of months since we went out on a date.  We got dressed up and saw Phantom of the Opera-- and my, my he did look so handsome!  I like to think that I cleaned up nicely as well, but since I didn't have to look at myself I'm not too concerned...

 

We had pretty good seats and had no problems seeing the stage.  For those who are vaguely familiar with Houston, the new Hobby Center is so much nicer than the old Jones Hall, which had felt like a dungeon!  I was a little disappointed that Raoul was being played by the understudy who had a good voice, but it wasn't very rich or strong... The Phantom and Christine had absolutely gorgeous voices!  Definitely a big thumbs up on that.  Dh really enjoyed it (although musicals and theatre are not normally up his alley-- he's more of a soccer and shorts and t-shirt kind of a guy).  He was disappointed in the orchestra not being loud enough as they seemed a bit muted last night.  It was the second time we've seen Phantom, the first being BK (before kids).

 

All in all, we had a great time just being together without our precious kiddos.  To top it all off, Dh was savvy enough to find a good parking spot that was not in the parking garage so we saved ourselves a good half hour of trying to leave the Hobby Center.  Have I mentioned how smart my dh is?  He is the best!  I'll try to post a pic of our evening out.  We forgot to take pictures but ran into a friend there who had a camera.

 

So, when was YOUR last date night?  I'd love to hear about it!

Our latest purchase-- TV Guardian Foul Language Filter

We LOVE our TV Guardian!  It not only filters language on movies but on most TV shows as well.  We bought it from our local Family Christian Store but I know you can buy it online as well.  Here's a link: http://tvguardian.com/gshell.php 

 

The best thing is that it filters out whole phrases instead of just the bad word.  If it was a single word, I know we can all mentally fill in the blank.  We also have it set to insert a written phrase when one is deleted.  When the new phrase pops up, you automatically read it (you can't help it!) and it keeps you from mouth-reading the offensive phrase.  Cool, huh?

 

We've been really pleased and it has really opened our eyes to the shows that have so much bad language we seem to have "missed"-- when there's more reading than sound, you know it's bad!  I highly recommend this to everyone...it even has several settings from moderate to strict (we have ours set to the highest level of filtering).  If ya'll have any questions, just send me an e-mail!

I've decided to procrastinate...

...and put off starting school until (gasp!) September!  This will be after I return from Korea.  Thank ya'll so much for your advice-- I really do appreciate it!   I think I will, however, try to get the family back on some sort of a loose schedule right away...the kids are so much happier with routine, routine, routine; and I really am too.

 

Who am I kidding? There's no way I could've started off well and then quit midstream for over a week.   I am way too uptight for that and really need to be honest with myself...I think it would've just given me one more thing to stress out about.  Especially since I'll be worrying about leaving a 6yo, 4yo and 9 month old with dh for a week!  He is an absolutely wonderful father and I know they will be just fine...but mommies worry-- it's just what we do.

 

Praise the Lord that learning continues in everyday living and playing!  So we'll continue to just do what we always do-- play outside in the puddles, chase frogs and lizards, read Your Big Backyard (and whatever else floats our boat), play Spelling Bee Bingo, and make lots of silly things out of Play-doh.  I do have that recipe for edible chocolate play-doh I've been meaning to try out...

Moving up our already delayed start date? Need advice!

I don't know what it is about having to set a mental date of when to actually start a new school year after a long break... My original plans were to take a break from the end of May (Kindergarten Graduation) until July 4th.   Well, that date came and went and still no school.  Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked with travelling, cleaning closets, picking blueberries and surfing the net.

 

So now it's the end of July and I'm planning on taking a weeklong trip to South Korea at the end of August.  The kids are not going with me...just me, my mom and one of my sisters.  We're visiting family that I haven't seen since I was 5 years old!  Do I start school now or wait until I return from my trip? 

 

I'm definitely open to comments on this one!  Wish I could figure out how to do a poll on this...  So would ya'll start school now knowing you'd be taking a weeklong break at the end of next month?  Or would you wait until after the trip and start around September 1st  (which is also when soccer and several other activities begin)?  Oh and our main curriculum last year was Five in a Row (FIAR) and we are now switching to Sonlight...so it's a new system for me.  We have no required number of days here in TX and plan to school year-round (minus the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's--just relaxed light school then). 

 

The whole school supply sale always gets me motivated (previous day's post) and I've just been notified of the Scholastic Books Warehouse sale where everything's under $5!  (there is the fine print of the infamous * of course!)  Crayons, paper and books...what more do I need?!   Okay, I digress...

 

It's hard to believe that school supply season is already here...

I can't believe that it's already time to get organized for the new school year.  The smell of new crayons, tons of notebooks, and an endless supply of construction paper, glue sticks and pencils have overtaken our schoolroom.  I just can't resist .19 cent boxes of Crayola Crayons and .10 cent spiral notebooks-- even if only one of my kids actually knows how to write!  Once I figure out where to put all this stuff, it will be time to tackle the bookshelves.  I never thought that there was such a thing as too many books...but I was wrong!

About Me

My name is Marsha. Over the years, I have been called nerd, sis, #2 daughter-ya, M, Ashram (read it backwards), MarshaMarshaMarsha, Marshmellow, Marshie and Marshy.

Did you know that Marsha means "of Mars"? I always dreaded those lame school assignments where you'd have to write about the meaning of your name. I would say poor me, but really it was poor anyone-who-dared-to-call-me-"martian"! Because I would sooo beat them up for that. Back in the day, of course...

My husband calls me Babe. One year, he went through this phase of calling me by my real name. I am thankful that this was short lived because I always felt like I was in trouble or something. You can't call someone "Babe" for over 10 years and then suddenly decide you're going to start calling them by something different! I have been the Mrs. to my David for over 14years now because he is a smart man and figures these types of things out rather quickly.

My kids call me mommy. I have four boys-- Austin (12yo), Noah (10yo) and Christian (11/12/04-8/26/08) and baby Ian (due 2-22-12!). One day they will probably start calling me "Mom" and I'll be a little sad. Since they are quite smart (like their daddy), I'm sure they won't ever call me "Marsha"!