Last Day o' March

Preschool Letter O today.  We read a cute little owl story then made these cut and paste owls.

"Cut and paste"...why do we say that? Does anybody still use paste anymore? 

That was fun stuff...that little stick of gooey gluey. I never understood why it was better than the squeeze bottle. I bet paste has been replaced by glue sticks hasn't it? Paste was probably the precursor to the gluestick.

"Next on Modern Marvels.."

Mercy. Rambly much?

Gave two haircuts today. Getting everybody all spiffied up for Easter. Plus they just needed them. Going to be working on getting those boys on a rotation so I can do one haircut a week, every week, instead of 3 or 4 back-to-back.

It looks like a two-by-four. It's really a paint stick. :)
 #perspective

We got lots of outside time again today. The whole day seemed slower paced. I'm not sure why, and I'm sure I didn't get as much done as my to-do list says I should, but the day was indeed slower paced and peaceful, and for that I am thankful.  

I dropped Dale off at karate for my first time this evening - it's always been Daddy before. While he was karateing I bought groceries - at warp speed! - and went back to pick him up. There was time to spare when I got there so I was able to go inside and watch him do his thing for a few minutes. Just between you and me? I wish we had him in the same aggressive taekwondo program he was in 3 years ago. He's good at it! I hate that he's having to start all over again.

When we got home Daddy had the littles bathed. We shooed them back in the house, as they came out to greet us in various stages of dress and undress. 

Once in pjs we gathered around for our Easter week devotion. It occurred to me rather suddenly on the way home from karate that I hadn't prepared, so I had Dale check pinterest on my phone and felt a little better. 

Even so, we ended up not doing any special craft or activity, and I really didn't even have an application or "point" to the evening's reading, which was all disappointing. Ah well...onward, yes? Tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully I'll prepare a little better!

Had lots of fun with this happy little boy today. What is this face?! Lol.

Speaking of preparing....tomorrow is a silly little day called April Fool's....and I know my little fools will be expecting some Tom foolery and shenanigans. Pinterest, here I come.  Nothing like the last minute, is there? ;)

Monday, Monday

After a week of sick kids, I gave in to the exhaustion and gave up on getting up to an alarm for a week. Then we spent a weekend traveling. 

So today was the day that I was gonna get back to it. 

But...I didn't. And I don't regret it one bit. Early rising is highly overrated. ;)

This is the little face I woke up to this morning. 

 Actually, that's not true. I woke up to Greg's face, and then he brought me this one from his crib. But this one is cuter.

Up early or not, today was definitely a little out of routine, as it was a catch-up day from the weekend, and Dale had a dentist appointment early on.

Even amongst the unpacking and laundry, we managed to set aside some time for a preschool lesson. We are up to letter 'N' now, and it being spring and all, I decided "Nests" would be a good thing to cover.
First we looked at a few bird books, looking at pictures of some common birds and their nests.
We also read the poem What Robin Told, by George Cooper. It was perfect!

How do robins build their nests?

Robin Redbreast told me

First a wisp of yellow hay

In a pretty round they lay;

Then some shreds of downy floss,

Feather, too, and bits of moss,

Woven with a sweet, sweet song,

This way, that way, and across;

That's what Robin told me.

Where do robins hide their nests?

Robin Redbreast told me

Up among the leaves so deep,

Where the sunbeams rarely creep,

Long before the winds are cold,

Long before the leaves are gold,

Bright-eyed stars will peep and see

Baby robins--one, two, three;

That's what Robin told me.

Then, we had a fun color-mixing lesson. Green + Red = Brown!

We used our brown to paint paper plate halves.

 While our paper plates dried we went for a walk collecting things for our nests....

...then came back and glued them on. I love how they turned out!

This afternoon I went to check on Dale and see how he was recovering from his dental visit. I was surprised to see Brooklyn all snuggled up with him. It seemed out of character for both of them, and oh-so-sweet!

 This evening was our second night of the last week of Jesus Easter devotions. We read about Jesus cursing the fig tree, and then clearing the temple of the money-changers and animal sales.

I printed a picture from the internet and then cut it into five parts. Each kid colored a different part while I read, and then they put them together like a puzzle. Turned out great! I gave them each a penny to glue on, too. No real significance there, it was just fun.

Now...off to bed for me. Overrated or not, I have an alarm to (attempt to) wake up to tomorrow!

Palm Sunday Weekend

Busy traveling weekend! 

Mama and Levi got to spend Friday night at Mimi and Gramps's house! 

The rest of the gang stayed behind for the fire station field trip....

 (if I wasn't so tired lazy in a hurry to be done with this post there would be a cutie patootie picture here of the kids on a fire truck. But Greg took that pic with his phone and getting it from there to here is more than I care to tackle at this hour. Just imagine the cuteness!) 

....then came on to Mimi and Gramps' for a Saturday night stay.

We woke up at Mimi and Gramps' house Sunday morning, hurrying and scurrying (after a leisurely breakfast, of course!) and got us and all our stuff out the door in time to be on time to Nana and PawPaw's church where Daddy was preaching.

Daniel didn't know much about the preaching, but he thoroughly enjoyed the toy basket in the nursery:

After a yummy lunch and wonderful singing service, we headed straight back home in time for potty stops and to load back up and go to our own church for evening service, where we observed the Lord's Supper. At the beginning of the service a group of 4-6 year olds went down to the front for a special children's lesson on the Lord's Supper. Tyler, of course, was part of this crew. The lesson was very interactive, and everyone enjoyed hearing the candid comments from the children relayed for the rest of us. Tyler even piped up a time or two, including making sure the pastor knew that our grape jelly looked just like the bottle of grape juice the pastor was holding up. :)

After the kiddos were all pajamaed up at home, we gathered around for a bedtime devotion. A few years ago we did a countdown to Easter by following the last week of Jesus with a Bible reading and nightly activity. We all loved that and decided to do it again this year. 

So, it being Palm Sunday, we read all about Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  We started with an Easter egg full of leaves. 

The olders were well aware that it was Palm Sunday and quickly guessed at the significance of the leaves. 

After we read the passage, everyone from Daniel to Daddy got a leaf to cut into palm fronds, and we hung them all together on our bulletin board. 

After some good discussion on how we can welcome Jesus into our own lives daily as Lord and King, just like the Jews welcomed him that day, we said our prayers and went to bed!

Snippets

Regular ol' school day around here. Everyone seems to be back in regular health except poor Miss B. 

This morning I sent Alan to the other end of the house so he'd have somewhere quiet to read his school chapter. (He's reading Heidi.)  

I said.... "Go lay on my bed" (Which was made, by the way).

This is how I found him:

 Fully clothed. In my bed. Not on my bed.

And two siblings climbing all over him. I shooed them out.

We finished the letter "L" today in our preschool lessons. 
 See my Little Lions? 

This afternoon I came upon Daniel and the cars he had lined up just so. 

He was very proud of his handy work. "It's beautiful!" he said.

In which everything goes wrong, but it's all still good

Most of you probably know Greg is a full-time seminary student. We started our second year as a seminary family this August. In this area, it is very common for students to fill in for churches when their pastor is sick, out of town, etc.,  or when a church is without a pastor.

Sometimes Greg goes alone while the rest of us attend our church here in town, sometimes he takes a kid or two, and occasionally the whole family goes along.

Today, for a church an hour away, that we knew nothing about, with a 3 week old, for the first Sunday out as a family of 8, for the first cold morning of the season, we decided to all go along. Because that makes perfect sense.

I had my alarm set for 6:00am, which turned out to be unnecessary because Levi was up nursing at 5:30. 

6:00 should have been plenty of time to get the family out the door, but I had forgotten to take into consideration that I would spend some of that time sitting on my booty nursing, not getting people and stuff ready. So there was a half hour lost right off the bat, from 7:30-8:00.

Then there was the fact that Brooklyn, recovering from a cold, had a coughing fit that left snot in her hair and down the front of her dress. (I know you wanted to know that). The dress we had carefully selected the night before. As in, everything else we tried on either didn't fit or wasn't right in some other way.

Then there was the fact that Alan's navy pants were too short AND he was wearing them with white socks. And the search for black socks for Tyler took a while, too. 

I had a few minutes to fix my hair, then grabbed the rest of my makeup to finish in the van. But with everything else that took up our time, I wasn't able to pack the sandwich fixins I had planned on bringing with us. 

Still, we were out the door only 10 minutes after we had planned, and still with 15 minutes "cushion" time.  I sound all calm about that now, but in reality I was sitting in my seat with jaw set and fists clenched. What a lovely way to set off as a family to worship! Or not.

It was about that time I realized I had left my phone at home. 

I don't go anywhere without my phone.

Except today. 

I was less than thrilled.

And Levi was scr-eam-ing. 

I wanted to turn around and go home right then. But to turn around and drop us off would most definitely have made Greg late. So on we went. 

And within just a minute or two Levi quit screaming and went to sleep. And it really didn't take too long for my knots to unclench and let myself enjoy the time in the front seat with my husband. We don't seem to see much of each other these busy days, so we were looking forward to the driving time today.

The driving time that was quite pleasant, even with Daniel whining and whimpering most of the way.

Then there was the moment about 15-20 minutes from the church when Brooklyn announced she had to pee.

There was absolutely nowhere to stop, because the moment she made this little announcement Greg was taking a huge descending, u-turn type exit to get us onto the next highway. Mid-way through this exit I, only half-jokingly, said "and now everyone's carsick!"

The words were barely out of my mouth before Daniel's breakfast was flying out of his. We didn't even have time to react before Brooklyn, in the next row back, was puking too.

I'm not kidding: I laughed out loud.

Greg did a u-turn and pulled into an abandoned drive across the road, where we all piled out and got busy. 

I think it was the first time in his LIFE that Daniel had thrown up and he didn't like the experience One. Bit. Thank you very much. He wouldn't stop crying!

Brooklyn on the other hand, is an old pro at this carsick thing and waited patiently while we worked on Daniel and carseats and Alan's jeans (unfortunate victim sitting next to Brooklyn).

In the middle of nowhere you have no data signal, so Greg called my Dad to see if there was a dollar store in this little town. And - yay! - there was!

So we loaded everyone back up, Greg called the church and let them know we wouldn't be making Sunday school (and told them why) and then he went shopping for new clothes for the pukers while I nursed Levi. We decided to not dress anyone in their new clothes until we got there, ya know? Oh, and then Brooklyn reminded us that she still needed to pee, and while debating on whether to take her into the dollar store or not, it became a non-issue. So now, even her panties would be going in the dirty clothes sack. 

I believe, as Greg put the van in gear, our words were, "Onward!"

We made it to the church without further incident, and with plenty of time to spare before services. 

I got Brooky changed pretty quickly (and we even found clean dry panties in the back!) and she went in with Daddy and her big brothers while I went to work on Daniel. He and Levi and I brought up the rear. 

The arrival of our family brought the Sunday morning attendance total up to a whopping 18. We were happy to be with those sweet people though, in their pretty little country church. And I mean "little" literally. The ladies' room was so small that the trash can had to sit on top of the toilet tank because there wasn't a space in the floor for it! It also the first time I had ever seen pews without armrests on the ends. Not that I was concerned with resting my arms, but those open-ended benches immediately brought images to mind of any number of my children falling off the end and out into the aisle. 

I am pleased to say, though, that we made it through the entire service without anyone falling anywhere, Levi slept beautifully in his carseat the entire time (a true miracle), and there were no other mishaps or meltdowns, either. 

And while the ride home wasn't exactly a picnic, it was far from eventful. We were thankful to be home for a late lunch and then an afternoon of quiet while the littles napped. Yes, I'd do it all over again.

But I might pack a change of clothes next time. ;)

October 2

Scrolling through facebook this morning I read a blogger had accepted a challenge to write every day for the month of October. And I remembered again how much I miss writing. Particularly blogging.

And I thought, "why not?"

Homeschooling a 6th grader, 2nd grader, and two preschoolers with a toddler and a newborn to take care of, plus laundry, meals and all the logistics of maintaining any household, not to mention a large one...that leaves plenty of time for blogging, right? 

Riiiight.

And yet, here I am. The baby's actually asleep in his cradle. My hard-working husband is finishing up cleaning in the kitchen before moving on to homework. We are all enjoying the last drips of rain and fading rolls of thunder, along with the blessedly cool breeze a fall storm left in its wake.

Peace abounds.

And I write.

The little saying is true...
I worked from "son" up...

to "son" down today. 

And I'm looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow. :)

We're all a little strange, I suppose

I went to a ladies' retreat this weekend. We played a "get-to-know-you" game involving individual sized bags of M&M's. You pulled a candy from your bag, and based on the color you drew, answered a question about yourself. 
At some point in the middle of this exercise, the lady to my left asked (quite randomly, I felt at the moment), "Do you homeschool?"
Of course I answered that, yes, I do. She nodded and smiled and pointing to my book on the table in front of me said, "Your M&M's gave you away."
As my turn came around the table and I answered each question, I had lined up my candies like so:

Turns out my new friend had homeschooled her two now-grown boys. So maybe it is true that "it takes one to know one!"

On an unrelated note, that evening I took the whole gang out for a walk to give Greg just a tiny slice of silence since he had been busy with them all day and had gotten Zero studying done. While we were out we circled by the campus playground for a while. Here sits this fine stand of nice, new playground equipment, and what do my kids like to do most?

Run around on the concrete slab, of course! Every. Time.

Tuesday, April 29

I think Tuesday just might be my new favorite day of the week. Monday is getting back into the swing of things and recovering from the weekend. But by Tuesday we've found our groove again and can roll through the day! (Until we interrupt again on Wednesday for storytime at the library.) ;)

This morning we got the house all looking spiffy again, then had a quick little preschool time reading the parable of the lost sheep. The big boys and I finished up 2 Kings. Kind of a sad time, seeing the nation of Judah, the last of the Israelites being carried off into captivity. I thought it was somber, anyway. I hope the boys felt the same.

While they worked on notebooking their Bible story, Tyler and Brooklyn and I made a color, cut, and glue sheep craft. We headed out on our morning walk for only the first or second time since I blogged about it last week. Yeah, that 2 mile thing....not happenin' any time soon, I'm afraid. But it's nice to get out anyway. Tyler and I walked, while Brooklyn and Daniel rode in the stroller and Dale and Alan circled on their bikes, for about 15-20 minutes. Then for a treat we headed over to the community swing set and played for a little while before heading home. It's been a while since we've done that, and they almost always ask!

Lunch was a treat today...last night was our monthly ladies' Bible study at church and it was my turn to help bring food. I came home with leftover beefy enchilada dip (yum!) which made a fine nacho topping for lunch today.

Dale and Alan worked together to finish up our mini-study on earthquakes. They loved coloring the risk-map for the U.S. I learned something new about them through that!

This boy loves the vacuum! He didn't want to let go!

After we finally got everyone to bed tonight I smothered marshmallows and almonds in chocolate ice cream. Boom - my own rocky road. Between eating that, blogging, baby name shopping, and helping Greg work on memory verses for school tomorrow I've managed to fill over an hour. Bedtime approacheth! 

When all else fails, blame the monkey

Sometimes random items become the "it" item of the day at our house. Yesterday it was one of those little ink stampers...the kind you can order from those prize magazines for 9.99/gross. Tyler was enamored and covered himself with blue smilies. He and Alan both decorated their bellies with smiley "eyes" and a smiley dots smile, with their own belly buttons for noses. By the time I discovered what had happened, it was time for supper and church. There wasn't time for a bath, and we don't usually take one after church on Wednesdays. I was just glad all smilies were concealed by their clothes, and no one at church was any the wiser. We put everyone to bed, late, as usual for Wednesdays, and thus ended another day.

Decided to do today's preschool activity outside since it's been so beautiful out!
T-Toothbrush painted T's! :)

Most nights I sleep all night without a peep from any children. Most of the times if a child is "peeping", it's Tyler. Sometimes he's telling me he's thirsty ("Your water glass is on the table"), or that he has to pee ("Use my bathroom"). Last night, as usual, it was Tyler standing by my bedside in the wee hours.
Tyler: Mama?
Me: What sweetie? (I don't always answer so nicely.)
Tyler: Will these blue smilies come off me?
Me: (Laughing inside in spite of the wee hour) Yes, sweetie, they will.
And off he went, back to bed.

Don't let those GREEN stamp marks on Tyler's forehead confuse you. They are, in fact, different from the blue ones on his belly. From a new stamper they found this morning. Where are these things coming from!?

Daniel was up before 7 again this morning. This time Greg was already gone and it was Alan that sprung him from his crib. Which was just as well, because that meant Alan was up before 7. I really like it when the big boys are up and showered before I have to tell them to. Or at least one of them. Daniel wasn't as impressed with the shaving cream trick today, but I still managed to get showered without him playing in the toilet or digging out all the feminine items from under the counter (it wouldn't be the first time - for either).

Daniel participates more all the time. He really liked this one! (And check out the one-legged photo-bomb in the background)

Even though we mostly follow a schedule on weekdays, I've been cheating it for weeks now by skipping the morning walk. I tell myself I like having that half hour to catch up if we've gotten behind already, but the truth is, I think I've been letting us fall behind because I don't want to take the walk. My midwife's office recommends walking two miles a day. Two miles!? Seriously? Who has time for that? And frankly, the 3/4 mile route we take for our 25 minute venture wears me out.  But, the kids like that half hour and I suppose it's good for all of us, so I put it back in today. And I guess tomorrow as well. And all next week. We'll see. If I do it long enough it will get easier, right? ....right?

This afternoon after school and naptime I was sorting through a stack of papers in our bedroom. Brooklyn, (who has a nasty habit of having an f.i.t. when she doesn't get her way (we're really, really working on that) ) asked for some play time on my phone. When I said 'no', she turned her head away from me towards a stack of greeting cards I had set aside to save. This one happened to be on top:

And so, mama said, "no phone games" and Brooklyn burst out, slapping in anger, "I hate that monkey!!!"

Because of course, it was all the monkey's fault.

Everybody always blames the monkey.

Wednesday, April 23

Usually I am showered and dressed and in the kitchen before any children make their way out of bed (with the exception of Tyler who shows up in our room sometimes after daylight), but this morning I was still in bed - awake, but still in bed- when Greg heard Daniel crying and brought him to me.

He was on his way out the door to work, so Daniel and I enjoyed some cuddles and giggles in my bed before I headed to the shower. In hopes of keeping Daniel out of trouble, I squirted a little line of shaving cream along the end of the tub. It worked pretty well! He didn't really want to touch it at first, but still seemed fascinated by it, so it kept him occupied long enough.

Tired of our usual oatmeal-or-eggs routine I made ..umm...chocolate chocolate chip muffins. Yeah...not the healthiest thing, but they were so good! I decided to up the protein by putting in three eggs instead of the one the recipe called for. I think it did make them more filling!

I mentioned (to Greg) at breakfast that I was tired and didn't want to go to storytime at the library. The boys weren't having any of that and said THEY would get everybody ready for storytime. Yeah...right. But they were a lot of help, and yes, we did go.

As usual, Dale played on the computer while everybody else listened to the story and did a craft. It was an earth day theme. My 12 year old self would have been so! excited!  I was totally gonna help save the earth when I was a kid. My grown up self thinks we need to be responsible but people are taking this 'love the earth' thing a little too far. But anyhoodle.... it wasn't too overdone for the preschoolers today. Since we kept a lot of last week's books, I limited each child to 1 new one today (and we still came away with 7 or 8, go figure), paid our 30 cent fine and went on our merry little way back home.

Lunch was a leftover affair for Greg, me, and Daniel, while the others had a macaroni, tuna, mixed veggies concoction. I don't think they were thrilled, but they ate it.

Naptime came early for a grumpy Miss B. Ditto for Daniel.

We settled in for our daily candy and read-aloud chapter. Our candy supply was greatly increased by all the Easter festivities this weekend. That's a lot of book chapters we're stocked up for!

We are currently reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I've never read it, and it's getting hard not to read ahead! Read aloud time...one of my favorite times of day!

Tyler tucked himself in for his nap, and Dale and Alan headed off for school, almost completely online these days. After he finished today's math assignment, Alan got into a game for practicing Roman numerals. Dale and I got completely sucked in, too. The practice was good for all of us!

Late afternoon was a flurry of housekeeping and supper prep to get all we could done before Wed night church.  Greg got home and squeezed in a quick run while I finished up supper: beef patties, fried potatoes, and canned spinach. And for the kiddos: leftover macaroni concoction from lunch. Because I'm just mean like that. WITH their other food y'all. They got some of all of it. And I added more cheese for the second go 'round. :)

Church tonight was the first Wed night in weeks the kids and I were back with everyone else instead of practicing for the Easter skit. It was nice to be back lined up in a pew listening together! When we get home on Wednesday nights it is straight into pj's and into bed asap.

After the kiddos were all tucked away I folded mounds of laundry while watching youtube videos and Greg studied for a test tomorrow. Then I ate a banana (since the night time calf cramps have started up the last couple of nights) and quizzed Greg on his study notes.

We tucked ourselves into bed and I read a couple of chapters of Job (I just finished the New Testament in 90 days and am now working through Job-Song of Solomon in 40 days). But then I decided I really, really, really miss blogging and I should stop being so perfectionist about the whole thing, so I got out of bed and wrote this post. And now I'm going back to bed.

And to all a good night!

We Make a Scene Simply By Showing Up

As a general rule, I try not to take my homeschooled large-family brood out in public during the school day. We're not doing anything illegal here, but it's just best not to draw attention to yourselves if you don't have to, ya know?

But, Alan had labs one morning this week and we were two days past the point of needing to buy groceries, so...off we went. We paraded in the front doors of WalMart and began loading a cart with small children. The greeter, after a friendly greeting, of course, bugged her eyes a little and asked "Is school out!?" 

I smiled and laughed, "No, we homeschool."

Meanwhile, she was counting heads. "How many you got!? 5??" 

"Yes ma'am. I guess you don't see a crowd like us come in too often, huh?"

To which she waved a hand at me and answered, "Oh, I had 6."

Alrighty, then.

A little more banter with our new greeter friend (including the usual "just one girl!?"), and we were off to buy some groceries. We didn't get very far before we were drawing more attention.

"Are these all yours?" an almost-but-not-quite-elderly lady asked.

"Yes ma'am!" I answered with a smile.

She tickled Daniel's foot dangling from the seat of the cart and said, "I could just take one of these boys home with me!" 

As she walked away I made an obligatory remark about having plenty of boys, to which she replied, "Mine are gone."

"Oh?" I asked, expecting a comment about them growing up and leaving her.

"Yeah, they died."

With that she disappeared around the end of the bakery display leaving me mumbling my stammered sympathies.

I'm proud of our 5 kids, but mercy it's simpler shopping alone. Not only do you not have to answer nearly as many questions, you also don't end up getting talked into buying clearance breakfast pastries!

December 13

So....when I had the goal to blog 25 days of Christmas, I kind of also had it in my head that we would do a little something Christmas every day.

Today....not so much.

Except biscuits. I made and froze 37 sausage-cheese biscuits to bring to our Christmas week get-together. 

It rained almost all day.

We had hot dogs for supper. Again.

Dale is still working on division.

I got our game closet cleaned out/reorganized. How unimportant is that 11 days before Christmas??  But it is kind of part of the bigger project of rearranging and setting up a schoolroom/guestroom. So. There ya go.

The kids watched waaay too much tv today. There was  Toy Story marathon on. They soaked up a lot of that, while also channel hopping over to PBS to catch some Curious George (Alan's a fan, lol) and then we topped it all off with the Grinch. The real one, from 1967, not the Jim Carey one that is on tv every.other.night.

Now it's 10:00 and Alan can't get to sleep. Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that he watched FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS of television this evening. 

Mercy...we're going to need a brain and body cleanse tomorrow. TV and hot dogs. Tomorrow we'll do better. 

Lamest blog post ever, but I didn't want to skip a day. :)

(And we did do our One Wintry Night reading. Today was actually THE big story, of "The First Christmas". Bethlehem, Manger, Shepherds, Angels. A precious 20 minutes spent together.)

December 11

Another dentist day.

In his checkup yesterday Dale was found to need a little work and we were able to get him in today.

He was scheduled for two hours, but thankfully done after just one. Alan and Tyler and I hung out in the waiting room watching tv, playing on the tablet, reading. I was so, so grateful for a friend that volunteered to keep kids for me during that time, so we didn't have to keep Brooklyn and Daniel contained and entertained and quiet in a little waiting room.

We read a chapter of One Wintry Night after we got home and got the littles in bed for naps. Today's reading brought us all the way up through the time of the judges and prophets. So close to the coming of the Messiah! 

We started working on hand-sewn ornaments, something they've been asking to do for a while. Dale was still numb from the dentist (and frankly, a little grumpy) so he didn't feel like doing anything.

Today was an exciting day for all 3 big boys: Daddy drove the school bus route that stops right in front of our house! Red. Letter. Day. There was jumping, waving, shouting...oh it was more exciting than Santa in a parade.

Potato/broccoli soup for supper, then Daddy and 2 biggest boys went to church.

That's it. No pictures, very little Christmas-ing, hardly anything to count as 'school'. But the kitchen is clean, the playroom is vacuumed, we tended to our teeth, visited with friends, read good books and used our hands. And that somehow filled another whole day!

Dec 9

- Read from "One Wintry Night" from God's calling of Abraham to the Exodus from Egypt and settling in to the promised land.

- Sang Christmas carols 'round the piano.

- Painted on our candy-cane striped J's, a project still in-process:

- Had a little preschool time, with some Christmas finger-plays/"action rhymes", then read The Night Before Christmas

- Finished Farmer Boy! Yay!

- Put together a little Pinterest project...

...which was a great hit with the nappers when they woke up!

- After a supper of frito pie, we ended this cold dreary day with a few fun rounds of Jenga, before our nightly Bible reading and a few more Christmas carols.

I love Alan's face in this pic! He was ready for it to fall any second! (It didn't.)

December 6

Today was the ice storm that wasn't. We, the weather-loving storm-watchers, sat back and watched as family and friends all northward of here saw ice and snow. Seeing as how our roads stayed safe and our power stayed on, I won't complain. But I think it did make us a little out of sorts to be all geared up for excitement that never happened.

What we had was rain. Cold, COLD rain. And crazy, CRAZY kids. It seemed like they were bouncing off the walls or whining and crying (sometimes a combination of both!) all. day. long.

Even so, it was a good day overall. We read the story of the flood today in "One Wintry Night". How even then God was planning on sending a Rescuer to his people someday.

We read another chapter and a half of Farmer Boy, and Daddy got to join us this time!  

Then Dale and Alan and I played another round of Spelling Baseball. Because Dale won by such a large margin yesterday, I tweaked their lists for today by giving Dale slightly harder words, and Alan slightly easier. But I think I tweaked too much, because Alan won by a landslide today. Dale was a good sport about it though. I think he much prefers a game to some of our previous methods of learning spelling words. :)

I thought about doing another Christmas drawing with the boys this afternoon but my patience was just about used up. So I let them make cookies instead. 

Which makes no sense. Patience is a must for turning kids loose in the kitchen. 

It worked out ok in the end, though. Probably because this was about the time Daddy got off work and I begged talked him into trading off and letting me make the walmart run he was about to do.

So Daddy came home, I grabbed Dale and a handful of fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies, left our supper simmering in the crockpot and hit the road!

We enjoyed some one-on-one time out shopping. Picked up some grocery essentials and some craft supplies for Christmas stuff to make with the kids. Because what good is all that stuff you save on Pinterest if you never DO it, right?

We skipped our Friday night movie, since we watched a movie last night. The boys were ok with some tablet time instead - they hadn't been on it all day! Yay for less screen time!

Now I'm sitting with my man in front of our beautiful Christmas tree, drinking the last cup of last night's hot chocolate. Good night friends! Stay warm!

A (Wednes)day in the life..

Wednesdays are our new Library storytime days (instead of Tuesdays like they were before we moved).  Going out always means gearing everything in that direction, with that end in mind.

The kids all slept late this morning, which is no surprise, seeing as how almost every night is like a slumber party for them.  We can hear them in their room laughing and talking sometimes up to an hour after we've said our 'goodnights' and shut the door.  As long as they aren't too loud we generally leave them alone.  

Anyway, since they are shaving an hour off their sleep time at the beginning of the night sometimes they gain it back in the mornings.  And then some of them don't exactly come bounding out of bed in the mornings anyway.  But then, neither do I. :)

All that to say...the kids slept late this morning.  For several mornings in a a row I had people clamoring for breakfast by 7:30, so I adjusted my routine and started having it ready by then.  At 7:30 this morning I had a plate of pancakes on the table and not a kid in sight!

After breakfast we got the dishes washed and the little ones dressed, then began gathering our library books and our accessories, since the theme for storytime today was Crazy Hat Day.

Alan spent a while the night before working on a fancy/crazy crown:

Dale and I were both greatly amused by his use of a tiny souvenir baseball cap:

But then he changed at the last minute when I found a forgotten cap from his old Mario costume.

We went with the obvious choice for Miss B:

Tyler balked on all the options we had laid out for him and went hatless.  He seemed quite comfortable with that choice (I had his hat in my purse the whole time, and he knew it), but he was happy to wear the crazy visor he made as a craft afterward.  Go figure.

We go home and dove into school and getting ready for lunch (cheesy spaghetti - yay!).  Just for fun I made a microwave peach cobbler.  It turned out pretty good.  I also used this time to crank out a couple of loads of laundry.

Brooklyn went down for her nap right after lunch.  She was ready!
Me: It's naptime for you, girly!
Brooklyn, all smiles: I know!
Then, climbing onto the rail of her crib: Need blanket!
I tossed her in and gave her a blanket: Night, night!
Brooklyn, still all smiles, popped her thumb in her mouth, flopped over onto her side: 'Night night!! 

I don't know when I've ever seen her so happy to go to bed.  But, come to think of it, she was in a great mood a lot today, so maybe that had something to do with it.

After getting Miss B all tucked in, I had a nice phone chat with my sister while I nursed Daniel and the big boys played.  He doesn't nurse himself to sleep very often, so today I just enjoyed holding him for a while, taking in his sweet baby face.

I finally laid him down with at least half a dozen things on my "should do" list, but I sat and just enjoyed the quiet and some internet for a while.  I gathered the big boys to finish their school.  Whether out of laziness or to save my own sanity (there's a thin line there, I think) I didn't bother trying to make Tyler nap today.  I decided he might as well tag along for afternoon school with Alan, which consists of a quick Bible reading, some science and some History.  It's pretty light, and pretty fun.

I love that "school" can happen anywhere.  Today we all ended up piled on my bed (a first for us, I'm pretty sure) learning about Columbus and classifying African animals.

Pretty soon the babies were up and we all snacked, and before I knew it it was 4:00.  I had to get supper made and the kitchen clean and everyone ready to go out the door in just over two hours.

Long story short: we made it.  Instead of our usual Wednesday night classes, Greg was the guest devotion-giver at a nursing home service.  We decided earlier this week to take the whole family along.  Greg played his guitar and the big boys stood by him and sang a few hymns.  I sat nearby and sang along, bouncing Daniel in my lap and watching Brooklyn fidget around and flirt with the nearest old lady.  I don't know if they heard a word of Greg's devotion, but the residents were more than thrilled with our passel o'kiddos.  

We had time for a quick walmart run on the way home.  

With fresh bananas, a bag of fritos and a can of raisins, all's right in our world again. ;)

Pj's, a snack, and everyone hustled off to bed for another slumber party.  Life's good.