Orlando

Me, Matt and all the kids left for Orlando last Tuesday. We spent the first couple of days doing the Disney thing. We stayed at Pop Century on the Disney Resort property. We had the best time. On our way into town we stopped and picked up Matt's mom in Oveido at her high school friend's house and she spent the afternoon with us. We took her and had lunch at Planet Hollywood. It was nice to see her since we hadn't seen her since we were last in New Port Richey last May. Luke was just a couple of weeks old last time we saw her. Tuesday evening until midnight, all day Wednesday and most of the day Thursday we spent at all four Disney parks. We had bought the Disney dining plan so all of our food was prepaid in advance which was really nice. Just one less thing to worry about. On the plan, we also got to eat some of the places we would not normally eat at because they are just too expensive for seven people. It doesn't matter where you on the plan we made sure to take advantage of it. The waiter gives you a copy of the receipt that tells you what it would have cost had you paid cash. Imagine our shock when we were at the Coral Reef in Epcot and the "bill" came to $285.00. Of course we didn't have to pay that but we would have if we hadn't been on the plan. Isn't that crazy? and that was just one meal!
Thursday afternoon we went for my annual trek to the FPEA Homeschool Convention in Orlando. We were there Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We took in some classes, bought some of our curriculum for next year and had some good fellowship with thousands of other people who do what you do and what you are going through. I really love going there. I can't say that I will ever take Matt and the kids again but it was ok. Maybe next time they can do the Disney thing while I do the convention thing. Taking a one year old to conventions wasn't the smartest move we ever made. He definitely made things challenging!
Luke has been pretty sick since his birthday in March. We have been battling ear infection after ear infection as well as stomach bugs and colds. He just can't seem to shake this stuff. He has an appointment at Nemours on June 6th with the ENT. His doctor also wants him to see the allergist for allergy testing before his surgery since he had a reaction to an antibiotic he has been on recently. Matt and I think it will show an allergy to milk. That will be difficult to deal with! Whatever we have to do to make him feel better. The poor kid is always under the weather. You can't help but feel bad for him. We were just in the emergency room last week because he was running a fever of 105.3 with ibuprofen and Tylenol. Nothing was working! As it turned out it was his ears again.

Matt's mom and the kids after Planet Hollywood at our hotel.



This was us at the Coral Reef restaurant in Epcot. You can see it because the lighting is very low but there is an aquarium in the background. It is like eating underwater.


With the Disney dining plan you get dessert at every meal. This was Noelle's dessert at the Coral Reef. We thought is was so cute we had to take a picture of it!



On Thursday we ended up at Chef Mickey's for the breakfast buffet. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto come around to your table for autographs and pictures.

Kindred Hospital

We have had a very busy couple of weeks here in the Sherman family. On May 14th we took a tour of Kindred Hospital in Green Cove Springs. It wasn't so much as a tour of the actual hospital but more of a tour of different medical careers. They talked about what each department did, how much schooling was involved, what the pay range was and what the need was for that career was in this area as well as nationwide. Noelle has always wanted to go into the medical field she says as a nurse or a pediatrician. I really tried hard to steer Jacob towards the pharmacy because they make a TON of money but he is clearly not interested. We think he is headed down the computer career path. He is not sure what avenue but he does know he wants it to involve computers somehow. He is really into movie making so I think that may play a role somewhere also. Noah has always said he wanted to be in the Navy. I can see that! He is just that kind of kid. I am encouraging him to get a college degree first so that he could go in as an officer and he can make more money. I have heard that is how it works. Hannah, we aren't sure what lies in Hannah's path yet. She is very undecided and that is ok because she has a lot of time to decide. She is considering a paralegal career but nothing has really been decided.

This is Noah in the physical therapy department.


Noelle is watching a nurse play a patient walking with a walker.



This was when we were in the lab. Jacob is looking into the microscope at some blood cells.


Jacob is all signed up to take part in the "Volunteen" program at Orange park Hospital this summer. He needs to have at least 75 volunteer hours for high school so this is his first step to achieving them.

Hannah turns 13!!

We celebrated Hannah's 13th birthday on Saturday. The festivities actually started on Friday evening when Matt and I threw her surprise party here at our house. My dad got her to babysit while we decorated and got her friends to the house. Boy, was she SURPRISED!! We had a Hannah Montana karaoke party and sleepover. We had 9 girls here to spend the night. It was so crazy!! They sang karaoke until about 3am when Matt told me to go take away the microphone. At 4am I had to tell them to GO TO BED!! They were so loud!! I had given them a few rules like 1) don't go outside, 2) don't go on the computer and 3) no getting on the phone before going to bed myself around 12am. I apparently forgot to mention the rule about not warming up pizza in the toaster. Yes, the toaster!! They got hungry after eating all the nachos and 60 cookies that I left out for them so they tried to warm up pizza not in the microwave (because they didn't think they would be allowed to use it) but in the regular toaster. They finally drifted off into dreamland one by one sometime between 4am-5am after eating, drinking, singing and giving each other makeovers. I got up the next morning and made them blueberry muffins with OJ, milk and bananas and counted down the minutes until 9am when moms were to show up.

What a night!!!

Surprise! This was Hannah coming in the door....


Hannah and her friends sitting on the floor eating dinner.


Her Hannah Montana guitar cake.


Hannah and Noelle sang the first song, "If We Were a Movie".





On her actual birthday we took her and the kids to Ichiro, a Japanese Steakhouse. We all had chicken and watched in amazement as they cook it in front of us with lots of animation. I didn't get any pictures of this dinner. We charged the camera batteries from her party but forgot the camera when we left.

She combined some of her birthday money and bought this bike and helmet. She had outgrown her bike years ago and needed another one.

Our Family Expands

We have added two new members to the Sherman family. This is Maggie & Bubbie and they are little Yorkies. Actually his name was Max but we already have a crazy dog named Max and we thought one Max was enough!! They are so sweet!

The Good News!!

Matt and I took the kids to see the Christian body builder group, Team Impact, last night and I am VERY excited to tell you that Jacob accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. We have been patiently waiting and praying for him to do so for a while now. We are very proud of him and we look forward to my brother, TJ, baptizing him soon.

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

Life has been so busy lately that I haven't had a lot of time to sit and blog in a while. We have been trying to get finished with the school year because I am DONE! This time of year is always hard because you can see the end in sight but it just can't come fast enough. We have all been battling sickness the last few months as well. Luke, it seems like, is always sick. We may end up having tubes put in his ears sometime soon. Just in the last few weeks he has been fighting a couple of ear infections and impataigo. He is currrently on his second round of of antibiotics for his current double ear infections. Me, Matt and the kids have had colds that just won't seem to go away.

Luke has finally started walking everywhere! He thinks he is something else! Once he saw that he caould do it he was off. He sure is a cutie!!

Luke also had his first birthday on March 29th. My brother and his family was here the week before for Easter and we had a family and close friend party at Ronnie VanZant park. We had pizza and cake. He did not like his little cake. He cried, maybe because he didn't know what it was all about or because he didn't like everyone watching him but he didn't even take a bite. We dunked his hand in it but that didn't help the situation at all. On his actual birthday, we of course, took him to Disney. The whole day was all about him. We didn't ride any big rides. All we did were rides he would enjoy. We had breakfast reservations at the "Crystal Palace" which offers Winnie the Pooh & Friends. He LOVES that Tigger! Although I have to say, he likes them more on the TV rather than in person. He was a little afraid. It was an all you can eat buffet but all I could get him to eat was banana bread.

This was me, Matt & Luke at his birthday party at the park.


This is a family picture taken outside the Crystal Palace the day we went to Disney.


The Crystal Palace knew it was his birthday so they had our table decorated a little for him.


Here he is eating the banana bread that I was talking about.


Isn't he a cutie?? You can see the "Happy Birthday Luke" button Disney gave to him.


You can see in these pictures that was less than empressed to see Pooh and friends in person.



The servers came togther to sing to him. They also brought him this cupcake. This piece of cake he actually tried.




This is Matt and I with Luke as we rode the people mover at the Magic Kingdom.



After not liking the other characters he did actually take to Handy Manny when we took him to the Playhouse Disney Live on stage performance at the MGM Studios.

I did it!!!

I went to Weight Watchers this morning at I hit 101 pounds!! It was a very exciting morning! I thought I would post some pictures of myself to see how far I have come.

These are from 2003 and not yet at my heaviest weight.



I started WW in October of 2005. I had hit 80 pounds just before I found out I was pregnant with Luke. Here is me now not yet at my goal weight.

A boy becomes a man

Jacob started shaving last week. I can't believe my baby is old enough for that!

Weigh In

After two weeks of very little weight loss, I finally hit the jackpot!! I lost 5.2 pounds this week for a total of 97 pounds. I'm getting closer! That 100 pound mark is right around the corner! I was so happy to have my Uncle Buddy, my Dad and Connie join me at Weight Watchers today. It will make it a lot easier knowing my family are all in this together! I can't wait to see how they make out!

Weight Watchers

I had started back at Weight Watchers at the beginning of the year. I had to take a couple of months off to deal with some things but I returned like I knew I would. I went to weigh in this morning and I had lost 2 pounds this week. That brings my total to 91 pounds so far. I was so excited since I have been working so hard!! I can't wait to hit 100! I think I will have to do something special for myself when I do.

News from the Sherman family's world

It has been a really busy couple of weeks. I meant to post earlier but there just seem to be much time lately.

Hannah has broken her right index finger. She was at PE at the Y and they were playing basketball and somehow she hurt it. I didn't think that the DR did anything about broken fingers but apparently children are different. They put her into a cast all the way up to her elbow. Her index and middle finger are cast together and it goes all the way up her arm. It hurt for the first few days but she is feeling better now.

Luke is sick this week. He has two ear infections that he is taking antibiotics for and she put him back on the nebulizer 3 times a day for his coughing and wheezing. Poor guy! On top of everything else, he is getting his molar teeth in!! You can tell he doesn't feel well just by looking at him! He weighed in at 20lbs and 14.5oz and he turned 10 months old last week.

Luke, Jacob, Hannah and I flew out to my brother's house in Missouri last week. Jacob actually stayed at our friends, the Washingtons, house the five days that we were there. He had a BLAST!!! Hannah, Luke and I had a great time too! I learned on this trip that I don't mind cold weather but I HATE snow. Hannah loved it because she was able to play in it.

These are pictures of the kids on the plane ride there.....




Hannah and Luke in the snow....




Hannah built this snow-man and snow-rabbit.....


Hannah and my niece, Emma, playing in the snow....



TJ tried to get Luke to drink out of a cup. I can't get that kid to drink from a cup or a straw to save my life!!



Emma & Tate ~ Aren't they cute?




Hannah had her picture taken with the "World's Largest Flower Box". She was so embarrassed that I made her do this!!



These are pictures of us with the Washington's. Jacob with his friends Aaron and Ian and me and my friend Jackie. They once lived here in Orange Park and were in our homeschool group but they moved away because of their daddy's job. We miss them very much but we are so happy to see them when we can.

We are alive!!

I know I am a slacker!! I have five kids people!! There has just been so much going on that I just didn't know where to start!

Luke is getting to be such a big guy. In the last month he has turned nine months old, gotten rid of his "army crawl" for normal crawling, started eating real food like peas, carrots and cheese (he hasn't met anything he hasn't liked and we have given him everything) and started cruising around the furniture, pulling up on everything and walks behind his walking toys. What a cutie he is!



Hannah and Noelle had their Christmas piano recital a few weeks ago. They played a duet of "Jingle Bells". They did a great job!



We celebrated my wonderful husbands 34th birthday last weekend. Of course we went to Disney because, well, we can and we plan to celebrate all our birthdays there this year since we have the passes. But we didn't exactly go for the rides this time. Matt had found a scavenger hunt on the internet that he want to attempt to do. We worked for a while on it and then decided since it was broken onto sections that we would do one section each time we go. That thing would have taken us all day!! The birthday boy had picked the ESPN Club for lunch at the Boardwalk Resort. Not my kind of place but it was right up his alley. He really liked it! After that we walked over to the Beach Club Resort to the Beaches and Cream restaurant for a dessert called the "Kitchen Sink". Check out the pictures of this thing! It has every ice cream flavor and topping they had from candies to cookies and a whole can of whipped cream!! I told Matt this was his "cake".




Here are just a couple of extra pictures from that day.....