At Home

These little girls love their daddy. 

This little lady has become particularly attached to Jim lately which is a huge relief because she went through a phase where she didn't want anything to do with him.  Now he's in high demand!

Logan is working on the inventing merit badge right now, so he invented this baby gate for me.  Our gate was too small for this opening and I didn't want to use something that would damage the wall or railings.  So he came up with an idea.  It's deterred Brig pretty well.

We had a pajama party with friends last week.  :)

New House

Between the kids and I, we finally have some pictures of our new house.  Yay!  I'm no photographer, and my camera is super basic, but here you go.  I am LOVING this house.  I'm pretty sure Jim is tired of me telling him how much I love it.  Ha ha!

Alex obliged me by taking a picture of the front of the house.  He's also been my master gardener since we moved; he's doing a great job with the weeds and even helped Jim mow last week.

Our backyard still feels a little small, but the littles are getting plenty of outside time regardless.  The big kids are always out front riding bikes and playing in the creek.  (We have a creek!)

Kitchen: I'm really happy about once again having a countertop that can be reached from both sides.  The kids can watch what I'm doing/ help without being under my feet.

I also love my glass stovetop and wall ovens (plural!).

Dining room...partially decorated.

Living room.  I LOVE this room.  It is so peaceful and clean.  Aah!

Front entryway.

Just look at that built in bookcase!!  I unpacked half our books onto it, the other half on shelves we already have, AND I have room to buy more books!  Love, love, love!

Our laundry room is just off of the main levels and has a laundry chute going right down to it.  :)

We're calling this the 'den' because family room 1 and family room 2 would be confusing. :)  This room has been incredibly functional for us.

Layout view.  (P.S. I purchased this super sturdy/ super kid friendly dining set for $50!  Score!  My mom would be so proud.)

Family Room: I can't decide how I want to arrange and decorate this room.  This is where we have toys, where I need a couple of bookcases (we ran out of room elsewhere...ha ha), where I plan to put my elliptical, and also where we're projecting movies on the wall.  It's awkward and messy right now, BUT the kids don't care and that's what counts most.  This room right here has probably been my biggest sanity saver.  I've really missed having a separate play area for the kids.

We have five bedrooms, but the little girls' room is the only one that is mostly finished (it just needs curtains).  Also, the other rooms were messy the day I was taking pictures, so I didn't bother.  I finally hung the girls' lights today; they were SO excited!

Jim's Birthday

Jim's birthday was on Tuesday and we wanted to surprise him.  So, last week, I took the kids shopping at various times, and we planned a special meal, decorations, and dessert.  While Jim was camping with Logan over the weekend, we made chocolate chip cookies in preparation for making ice cream sandwiches.  I'd been telling the kids to keep it a secret, so when Laurel was on the phone with Jim that day she said, "We're hiding your birthday!"  Then Abby took the phone from her and said, "She wasn't supposed to tell you that!"  LOL

Abby wanted to take a picture of me cooking too.

Despite the little girls blowing our cover, we still managed to surprise Jim because we celebrated on Monday instead of Tuesday.  :)

Happy Birthday Jim!  We're so lucky to have you!

Overhauling Our School Year

Since we moved into town, we are much closer to everything.  With this came the realization that Logan could participate in band at the local middle school.  We'd considered it last year, but it would have been too much of a time commitment since we were living in the country.  He started a couple of weeks late, but has caught up and is enjoying it.

As we attempted to start our school year, things weren't going well, especially for Logan.  He's been struggling with a lot of things (emotionally) for a long time and we've been praying to know how to help him.  The answer for this year was unexpected; we needed to put Annie and Abby into school full time so that I could give Logan a lot of one on one time.

Annie was nervous and a little excited to go to school for the first time ever, and Abby was all excitement.  I was all tears, but I knew it was the right decision for this year.

Abby loved her first two days of school, but after that the honeymoon was over.  She was appalled to realize that she'd have to go every day.  Ha ha!  Aside from being sent to the office on her third day of school for hitting someone, she's doing fine, though.  I'm really happy with the teacher she has. I miss having her home with me, but I've also realized that she is by far my loudest and most rambunctious child!  Things are so quiet when she's at school!

Public school has been a huge adjustment for Annie (and me).  Since I never assign busy work at home, she isn't used to doing worksheet after worksheet all day long.  Plus she's really struggling with the environment in general.  We've had an unbelievable amount of tears every day and hours of homework every night.  So stressful!  It's good for her to work on her time management skills, though.  She's always struggled in that area and is famous for dragging her feet on her work at home.  I think this year will allow her to develop some better habits.

The boys are doing amazing this school year.  Since I'm just working with two of them, I've made some changes to our routine for this year.  It's been so much easier to focus on their needs during school time and Logan has been making great progress with his emotional issues.  My happy boy is re-emerging and it's incredible!  I've missed that part of him so much.

With all of the changes to our school approach this year I kind of feel like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet.  I know the changes are necessary and good, and that everyone will benefit from them in the long run, though.  While I've always been aware of the differences between public school and homeschool, I'm actually grateful to be able to compare the two in this way.  The last several years have been so hard for our family that there have been times that I've wondered if it would be easier or better to put the kids in school.  There have been times that I didn't *want* to homeschool anymore and times when I questioned if we were really succeeding.  This experience so far has boosted my confidence in our homeschool approach.  It really is easier *for us* and the quality of academic learning in our home far surpasses what I'm seeing in the girls' school.  (Again I'm talking *for us*.  I firmly believe that there is not one *right* approach to school, that public school has many merits, and that education is a personal decision for every family based on needs, abilities, and desires.  There are positives and negatives to every approach.)  I'm grateful that the academic level is easy for Annie, though, since she is having such a hard time making herself do so much book work.  It's also been good to see where we have some holes in our approach so that we can improve at home.  On the flip side, having so many quiet hours at home with just four of the kids has been really wonderful for addressing their individual needs and our school time has really improved.

Early October

We found several of these huge (thumb size) marbled orb weaver spiders this month.  Pretty cool!

I needed to wake Brig one morning, but he was sleeping so soundly.  He likes to sleep with his blanket over his head.

Cute boys.

These two are my gigglers.

Mmm...spaghetti!

"Mom, take a picture!"

Slowly, but surely, I'm still making progress on the house.  I finally put up the girls' decals last week.

Much better!  (Though I was in such a hurry that I didn't have time to properly make beds...LOL.)  We just need to hang their lights and put up curtains in their room and it will be finished.

This little guy is so cute and so funny.  He giggles all the time.  He managed to open a sippy cup of water and was enjoying the mess.