Grace is....

...thanking the 2-year-old for helping even though 18 eggs lay sunny side up all over the kitchen floor

A couple of Pics

 This sweet girl has nothing to do with the new school year, except that she makes it extremely interesting.  I just couldn't resist putting a picture of her on here.

My sweet school kids!  Okay, Veronica isn't in school, but I'm a sucker for a girl in a jumper. 

New Beginnings

Don't you just love new beginnings? There's a reason why "they" make a killing selling how-to-organize-everything books, and how-to-lose-weight books at the beginning of a new year. People love the thought of a clean slate to start over.

This school year is my new beginning. We've had a very rough past almost 6-months. Although for the most part things have settled down we are still caring for an extremely needy baby. Our sweet miracle has taught me many new mothering skills. And to think that I had it all figured out after the first four kiddos I'm raising.

We are trying several new ideas this school year. I have no workbooks in my whole house, something I've always strived to do, but failed repeatedly year after year. We are learning together. I stick with the kids all day long and we work together, learn together, and play together. We are spending copious amounts of time together and reconnecting after some difficult times.

Tomorrow marks the completion of our first week of school and I couldn't be happier with how it all went. For once I don't have a checklist of tasks I want accomplished every day and I don't have a set time for when I want things completed. We take the inevitable interruptions as they come and keep pluggin' along.

Goodbye Summer

Veronica, singing along with the "opera lady" on PBS one evening while at my parents' house.

Aidan received a big "F"during his first surgery.  Good thing Dennis is a better surgeon than Aidan. 

  She may be little, but she's tough.  Too bad we left SD before the big Bike Rally. 

I have several more photos to share, and a lot on my mind as well.  The unfortunate thing about all of that is that I also have a sleeping baby and a kitchen to clean and then dinner to make.  The eldest is spending the night at a friend's house and we have an extra girl for the night over here.  So, the deep, captivating post will have to be put off...again.

I can take time to say that the youngest of our crew is doing great!  She's growing and thriving.  We're still working out a couple of little things having to do with her diet (or I should say, my diet), but I think I'm finally on to something.  As long as I don't eat anything she does really well.  I'm only slightly exaggerating here.  So far I've eliminated all dairy, corn, gluten, and most recently eggs.  I think I'll market this as the "starve yourself" diet and make my millions.  

I hope my dear readers haven't given up on me just yet.  I'm still here, plugging away.  Now that summer is coming to a close and our lives are threatening to be somewhat "normal" I'll be posting more often. 

I'm baaaaaaack!

Don't have a lot of time right now but wanted to quickly update to say that we again have Internet at the house! Yay! Lots of posts to come!

Checking in

I've said over and over again since our sweet Felicity's birth that I am no longer going to get upset when things don't go "my" way. No more whining when plans go out the window, when deadlines come and go. So this is not a post complaining about how we still have not moved. It's just a post informing you all that we still have not moved.

Trying this out

I have been taking an involuntary break from this blog. We have no Internet at home and until this very moment I couldn't figure out how post with my iPhone. Yes, yes, I've joined the "techy" world now, but only out of necessity. Our new home is out of town and we decided for safety reasons we both needed to get cell phones. Long story short, I have an iPhone.

Hopefully this blog will see some more activity now that I sort of know how to post from this thing. I'm sure I'm a shame to bloggers everywhere, but I think I can handle that.