Rembering this day

This is March 8, 2011.  Veronica had already taken a nap, but fell asleep snuggling up with "her baby".  I'm trying to distract myself from worrying by reading "One-thousand Gifts", but it's not working.  Of course ya'll know the rest of the story.  This is the night our sweet miracle entered this world.  It would be another month before my two littlest girls would be snuggled up next to me again.

The crazy thing about this is that it seemed Veronica knew something was wrong.  She was extremely clingy this day.  We have pictures of it all because Brett was home sick...it took him a long time to get over that sickness, as you can imagine. 

The really crazy thing about this is that a few weeks before my father had his sextuple by-pass, 2 years ago, my parents' dog started crawling up and laying on my dad's chest while he was on the floor watching t.v. They just seem to "know".

I've been spending some time today while Felicity naps uploading pictures so I can take them off my camera.  I came across these and just couldn't resist posting about it.  I don't have many pregnant pics of myself, but these are pictures I will always cherish. 

No Mason Jars Here

This here post is mainly for the homeschooling moms out there.  I think everyone will find at least a minimal amount of humor in what I'm going to say, but unless you are a homeschooling mama, you just might not "get it".

Which brings me to my point.  I don't get it.  I don't get why this time of year and at unannounced times throughout the year the homeschooling mom blogs are full of artistic pictures which include a close-up of Mason Jars with perfectly sharpened pencils, colored pencils, or my favorite...paintbrushes. 

Now, I'm not trying to speak ill of these ladies.  I will admit to walking through the Mason Jar aisle at the store and longing to purchase them.  I knew that if my pencils were perfectly sharpened and beautifully arrange in that jar I, too, could be a perfect homeschooling mother.  Then, of course reality set in.  But where would I put the jars.  We don't have a school "room" and I certainly don't want to lock those beautiful jars in a closet, never to appear in an artistic shot on my blog.  So, there you have it...I'm Mason Jarless. 

It is indeed a travesty, but my children's writing utensils are packed away in $2.00 pencil bags from Target.  Pencil bags that may appear in a photograph at some point, but will undoubtedly go unnoticed by most.

P.S. If you are a homeschooling mom with Mason Jars please know that I'm just secretly jealous. 

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!