Been busy

...as you may well have guessed!



Today, Miss Baby is 2 months old! Where does the time go?! Well, it just goes, that's all. The days are busy with schoolwork, housework (granted, not much gets done aside from laundry and dishes, but anyway), naptime/quiet time for the older children and meals....sometimes I wonder what we do all day, but the days keep passing by.

I am happy to report Miss Baby slept for 8 hours last night - amazing and wonderful - I hope she will keep this up! I tend to obsess about getting sleep and hopefully Miss Baby will continue to sleep in long stretches and I'll learn to relax more. I keep repeating to myself Proverbs 3:5-7 - Trust in the Lord...he shall direct they paths. We memorized these verses recently and how true and needful they were to me.

My memory is shot, so I don't know that I could tell y'all much about what's been going on around here except just keeping up w/things...Mr. A fell outside recently and managed to bump his cheekbone resulting in a nice shiner - I think it's the first one any of the children have had. He looks like he's been in a brawl!



Miss E continues to do very well in her piano lessons - I haven't heard a lot of her practice lately because she practices when I'm in the back with Miss Baby trying to rest most days, but I sat in and listened recently and she's come a long way over the past few months. I believe she definitely has a gift in music and I look forward to the years to come as she continues in piano.

Miss A has been such a wonderful help with entertaining Miss Baby at times when I need a few mn. to finish up dinner or what not - what a blessing!!

Mr. E can't hardly stand it when I bring Miss Baby into the room - he has to get right up close and talk to her and try to make her smile. He is a very loving big brother!

Mr. A is a busy boy - one of his favorite pasttimes these days is playing with lightsabers and Mr. E's wooden sword and shield. This playtime is usually followed by "He hit me!!!!" coming from one of this siblings - Mr. A needs to work on his aim and making sure to hit the other lightsaber, not the other person!

The children are all doing well in their schoolwork. Both of the girls are about to finish up their math levels, Miss A is almost done with Alpha, one more lesson, I believe, and Miss E is a few lessons from finishing up Gamma. Mr. E is hot on Miss A's trail and halfway through Alpha.

Both of the girls continue to do well in their learning of cursive and Mr. E's printing is improving. He was excited to start a new book this week in printing with Handwriting Without Tears.

Mr. A has his letters down pat and the sounds, just is still working on producing a few of those sounds. He can count rather high and knows shapes and colors, not to mention how to get to the 3rd lap of Mario Kart on the Wii all by himself - he is a smart one and can navigate that video game through the menus like a pro - scarey!

Miss Baby is doing great - she sleeps a good deal of the morning and early afternoon, then stays awake most of the late afternoon and evening at this point. I usually start getting her ready for bed around 10:30 and hopefully have her in bed by 11:30 - as I mentioned, last night she slept through until 8 a.m. - I was very surprised, but very thankful. I hope she continues and this becomes a trend and the norm! She is a sweet little girl and smiles at her siblings often as well as CKB and I. She enjoys all the noise around the house - it doesn't seem to phase her at all - good thing, eh?

Ah, and in case I haven't mentioned it on here yet, our A/C is finally fixed - amazing!!! The newest set of technicians came out a week or two ago...can't remember exactly when, 2 weeks ago I think, and were back 2 days later and fixed it. We are so thankful.

The irony - the weather turned cool! Ah well, at least we know we have it when we need it, right? Tonight it's supposed to get down near freezing - such odd weather! Miss A has still been praying for snow most nights...maybe we'll get some after all!?!

I finally finished up 2 projects and got one in the mail - a baby gift - the other is in the wash and will be mailed soon (that's for you Courtney) - and I promise myself in front of all ye witnesses to NOT commit myself to any new projects for awhile....a long while...I'll have to live w/store bought baby gifts and what not for awhile and not berate myself because I can't do what I might want to. O.K. that's said, now I need to live by it, right?

Well, I don't know how often I'll blog for awhile, it's not that I don't have the desire to, well, maybe I don't have as much of a desire to right now, but it's more that I feel like there are other things I need to spend my time on, like the children, all of them. Also, I like having pictures in my posts, and that takes more time...of which, I don't have a ton. As Miss Baby sleeps more at night, I hope to have more time to keep in touch though. I haven't laid down at quiet time around here the past couple of days b/c Miss Baby has been sleeping longer at night and I actually don't feel like I'm going to fall apart, so I hope that will continue.

Hope to hear from some of y'all if anyone's still out there reading this! :)

Oh yes, and today the older 3 children worked on their leaf collections for Botany - here you can see the girls working on theirs:


-CAB

Morning quote

From Mr. E at the breakfast table:

Mr. E - Mama, why don't you like that cereal? (Lucky Charms)

Me - I just don't care for the marshmallows being in the cereal.

Mr. E - you could just take them out

Me - maybe

A few mn. pass...

Mr. E - that would take as long as a cucumber!

Hmm :)


Other recent interesting/funny comments:

When my parents were still in town we picked up KFC on the way home from church services one Sunday - we got home w/the chicken and were sitting down at the table to eat when Mr. E proclaimed:

I'd like the head!

We told him the head wouldn't taste very good and that they didn't give us one of those. He then said "How about the eye?" (I think he meant "thigh") :)

5 hours is good!

Happy to report that for 2 nights straight Miss Baby has slept a 5 hr. stretch - yay!!!!



Now, where'd they get this cartoon lady - did she even eat while she was pregnant? ;)

Happenings and SLEEP, glorious, sleep!

Wow, I feel like a new woman. Why, you ask? Last night, Miss Baby slept from 11 p.m. until 5:53 a.m. this morning - yes, 5:53 a.m. - it's amazing what one night of sleep can do for you!

I know by later today I might be tired again, but I was getting pretty thin on patience and feeling like I might not make it too many more days w/o getting some rest. You see, Miss Baby went from waking only once a night to eat to waking 2-3 times a night and then not wanting to go back to sleep - she'd be asleep and I'd put her back in her bed and get back into my bed and then about 5 mn. later she'd start crying again - this happened 2-3 times every time she got up to eat. Argh. I was losing some patience, I'll be honest, and starting to wonder if I'd ever sleep again. It seemed she'd gotten to where she would not sleep in her bed at all w/o a fuss. Ack!

I had been trying to get a nap in when Mr. A took his nap and the older children had "quiet time" and it just wasn't working since by the time I'd put Mr. A in his bed for a nap, feed Miss Baby, lay her in her bed and lie down either Mr. A would wake up from his nap shortly after or Miss Baby wouldn't stay down, ie, would wake up crying about 5 mn. after being put into her bed. Yesterday, Miss Baby stayed awake a lot more in the afternoon and evening and then slept through the night - an answer to prayers I've been uttering pretty much non-stop through each night lately and during naptime as well. Thank you God!!

This week's memory verse for the children is Proverbs 3:5-6 - another example of God working in our lives. Let me explain. I had a "conversation" with a fellow homeschool Mom via email this past week talking about being so tired, etc. and how it seems so often it isn't until we're going through some trial/valley that we turn our eyes to God more and pray for help with whatever it is we're going through. She agreed and told me how one of her favorite scripture passages was Proverbs 3:5-6 to remind her to look to the Lord. Then, yesterday I asked CKB what scripture he would like the children to work on learning this week and yes, you guessed it, he said Proverbs 3:5-6. I replied "you're kidding!" and explained about my conversation w/the homeschool mom and how we'd been discussing such things. Isn't it wonderful when we see those common thoughts going among us? The scripture passage the children learned last week was mentioned in the sermon Sunday morning - I didn't hear it, I must've been disciplining someone, uh hem, but CKB told me later. God is good!

Well, let's see - what else has been going on with us. We're busy with just the daily stuff - I've been managing to get at least a load of dishes and laundry done most days - some days more than one and CKB is picking up the slack when he comes home. I'm thankful to say he hasn't had to every night. The children are getting their schoolwork done - hooray - and we're also finding some time in the afternoons for the children to play outside when it's not too cool. This week should provide for a nice temp. each day for them as the temps are supposed to climb all week. On that note - NO, the a/c STILL ISN'T FIXED. :) I thank God for keeping the temps down so we don't swelter and have to go live in a hotel. The homeowner's warranty company came out and assessed things a few weeks back and said the unit probably would have to be replaced. Then a few weeks after that I got an email from the property manager asking "has this ever been taken care of"?

Whaaaa??? What does this guy do all day that he doesn't even know that nothing has been done.
I told him no, the warranty company was out and that's the last I heard. He said "I am agog" - uhhh, does he know what that word means? I don't think so. Anyway, he said he'd pass the info. on to the homeowner. Uh huh.

a⋅gog

–adjective

1.	highly excited by eagerness, curiosity, anticipation, etc.

–adverb

2.	in a state of eager desire; excitedly.

In other news, I've found tiny tidbits of time here and there to do a tiny bit of work on a project I have underway - sorry, it's top secret for right now and at the pace I'm getting to work on it, it may never get done, but we'll see - when it is done and has been delivered to the appropriate party, I'll share about that.

In movie news - we had a few movies come in the mail while Mom and Dad were here that didn't seem like they'd be of interest to them so we held off on watching them until this past week. I must confess, I felt guilty sitting and watching movies in the evening for a few nights when there were things that needed to be done, ie, laundry, etc., but CKB tells me there'll always be things that need to be done and so we took a break and enjoyed a few movies.

They were: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Wall-E, Fireproof, Eagle Eye and The Dark Knight.


Hmm - brief thoughts -


Journey was good overlooking the evolutionary junk that we expected - a little cheesy.


Wall-E - we'd seen in the theater and rented it for the children to see again - cute.


Eagle Eye - enjoyed this one - see it!


The Dark Knight - was "dark" - not much else to say - it was ok moviewise, but left me feeling down - not uplifting to say the less. VERY violent. I'd pass on this one.


Fireproof - really enjoyed this once we got past the acting being a little less than par - it did seem to get better as the movie rolled on or we got used to it. Thanked God that I have CKB and our marriage is not the tiniest bit like the way they portrayed the main character's marriage in the movie. Enjoyed learning some trivia about the movie awhile back before we rented it - apparently Kirk Cameron vowed never to kiss an actress except for his wife so in one scene in the movie when appears to be kissing his movie wife, it's actually his own wife standing in for that scene. Would that more actors/actresses had such standards. Anyway...rent this one. And, Eagle Eye. And, maybe Wall-E. I'd skip The Dark Knight had I known. Journey - well, if you must, it's not depressing at least.



Ok, besides movie madness around here, we have to thank Dad for introducing us to Mocha Madness. A newish BlueBell flavor - YUMMMM - on second thought, maybe I should sarcastically say "Thanks a lot" to him since if I keep eating it I'll never lose my baby weight! It is gooooo-oooood!

I've been trying to take some pictures here and there and just so you don't think the older children aren't being photographed as well - here's one from a couple of week's ago just before Mom and Dad left. They got to witness the fun that is getting 4 young children to cooperate for a group picture! ;)



Also, last but not least - Miss Baby is now 1 month old :)

She is an absolute delight - I'd type more about her, but she's awake now from her nap and blogging time is over!



Until next time.....whenever that might be.