Baby Love

I had to rock Lena to sleep tonight. I usually just lay her down awake, but tonight I just needed to feel her still, little sleeping body pressed up against mine. I needed to hear her heavy, sound asleep breathing in my ear. When I hear that sound, I think about all the things she did that day, and how exhausted she must be from it. She's learning so much so fast and going full speed. I needed to feel and smell her sweet baby breath on my cheek. I needed to give her that last big squeeze before I laid her into her bed, and kiss her chubby little cheeks and lips and forehead and cheeks again with all my might. I can't believe she's already 14 months old and walking. I remember these moments with Jessi and Eli, and wish them back all the time. I know I can never get them back, and it makes my heart ache, but I still have a few of them left.

I just needed to feel her sleep.

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Clean Up

"Hey kids, clean up Lena's room a little.  Doesn't have to be perfect, just clear the floor so I can vacuum."

Of all the times for my camera battery to be dead.  So glad I have a camera on my phone!

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School Room!

I mentioned earlier that I was going all out and making the sitting room half of our dining room our new school room, so here are a few pictures. The lighting is terrible in these because I have no window treatments, so these are the best I can do for now. This has become my favorite room in the house! I don't know what I love so much about it, but I think I'm enjoying this room more than the kids!

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Photography School

Homeschooling is going great! Since we finish up around lunch, the kiddos have plenty of time for fun hobbies and extra curricular activities, like taking pictures with my camera. It's always fun to see what interests them enough to take pictures of. Nothing warms my heart more than when they take pictures of each other. It really is amazing to see what goes on in their world when I'm not around. Like the ones I found on my camera today...

Um...

Yeah...

Now it's time for Mommy's Night Out! I'm off to meet some friends for dinner! I'm so thankful for my sweet hubby who takes care of things when I'm out, like making sure the kids get plenty to eat.

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Would You Rather...?

I am asked more questions than I can count every single day. It's my life. I am annoyed by it and love it at the same time. My current favorite is the impossible to answer "Would You Rather...?" game that J throws at me almost every day. You know the one...

"Would you rather run over...
a puppy, or
a turtle?"

No? I guess it's just her special game then. Here is today's edition:

"Mommy, would you rather sleep...
on top of the house,
in THAT (as she points to one we're driving by) tree,
on a fence, or
on a shock pole?"

Um...in THAT tree?

By the way, a shock pole is one of those "electricity poles with the lines hanging from it"

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Tree Runnin'

Today has been such a busy day. We are just starting to get into the swing of things and it is very exciting! Since it's my first time homeschooling, it has taken me a while to get organized because I just didn't know what to expect without actually doing it, which has made it really hard to get in to. I have to say, after just a few days I am TOTALLY OVER THE TOP PUMPED about this! I honestly don't remember the last time I was so excited about anything! I spent half of my weekend just planning in my mind how I was going to set up our school room. Yep, I am going all out and making the "sitting room" half of our dining room our school room! I actually went to the teacher's store on Saturday and was totally bummed that they were closed for the holiday! It's sad, I know. But now that I've got a plan, I'm just working out the kinks in our routine.

J "decided" to sleep in this morning despite her little brother's consistent attempts to get her up, and then she freaked when she almost completely missed our morning devotion time because I didn't give her enough time to eat and sleep and blah blah blah etc etc etc. Yes, it was right after this that I posted on Facebook how I needed to start a coffee IV. It was truly amazing to see just how fast she could actually clean up her place at the table, make her bed, and do her 3 things (use the bathroom, wash hands, brush teeth...they are not allowed to socialize with the rest of us until these 3 things are done, because they suck their fingers and it literally stinks). Seriously, after all that frantic dashing around I don't think she'll be sleeping in anymore. I won't bore you with the details of what the rest of this day was like, but I do have one more little thing.

Hubby, aka Dad (or "Mama" as L, our 1yo, is currently calling him) is in charge of athletics, so when he got home, he took them outside. The first thing he told them to do was to go run around the trees a few times. Ok, so I know we're not a family of geniuses or anything, but J, our 7yo, takes off running all around the yard, lapping around the trees. Then E, our 5yo, runs to the first tree and begins to do laps.

Around that one tree.

Really?

I mean, I know J is fast and all, but I don't think she becomes INVISIBLE to the human eye when she takes off running. Surely he saw that she was running ALL AROUND THE YARD? But no, he runs around each tree individually. Around and around and around he ran. I have trouble interpreting vague instructions myself. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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School's In!

So I got our school books and stuff on the Sunday night before the Wednesday we were scheduled to begin our homeschool year. Mind you, this is the VERY FIRST TIME for me at homeschooling with the exception of K-4 with E.

Total Panic.

I am a planner, so I spent the entire next day freaking out and staring blankly into all the books I was to have a 2 week lesson plan for by THE NEXT DAY. Seriously. Then my friend who I ordered books with (she got hers at the same time as me) posts on FB that day how "Today is our first day of school!" and junk. What? Apparently I lack serious fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-and-have-a-blast-doing-it skills. HOW IS SHE ALREADY STARTING SCHOOL WHEN I'M NOT EVEN SURE WHAT A POCKET CHART IS? (btw, I found out what a pocket chart is and I am totally in love with them and want like a bagillion of them. idk why but they look so exciting to me!)

So the next day I spent most of the day reading homeschooling blogs and desperately searching for something that could bring me a smidgen of peace about not having everything perfectly together and planned and organized and so on. I also gave my friend a call because I had a million couple of questions and she totally eased my flailing about by telling me that everything would be fine and that she didn't have any fancy shmancy pocket charts or a chalk/dry erase board and that she only ever needed the magna doodle a few times if any. Nothing to it.

Well, I guess I am just not as entertaining and creatively talented as to be able to teach my kids with no visuals, so I had to at least get a dry erase board. And pocket charts are definitely on the way.

After all of that, we made it through our first week of school! Successfully! Actually, it was better than I even expected, to God be the glory. It wasn't that I was worried about school not going well, it was the fact that I had only 2 days to prepare and because I am...well, the way that I am, I just didn't know what to expect.

Then the thought of my babies learning to read while they sit snuggled up in my arms brought tears to my eyes and filled me with more joy than I have ever had. I know this will be the best thing I have ever done.

EVER.

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