Up to the mountain

We've had this trip up to visit some friends planned for many months. When we found out that this baby was on the way we were unsure that we would be able to make it, but since I have not been too sick (with the help of medication again)we decided to go for it.

We were all excited to go up to visit our dear friends and get to spend some great time outside. The snow was a great bonus that the kids had been looking forward to for quite some time.

 

The dads took the kids out sledding and I believe there was some target practice done later in the afternoon. The moms stayed inside with the little ones. I did walk Miss J down to camp (these friends happen to live at our favorite camp!) for lunch, instead of riding in the car to give her the chance to see more of "camp".

 

For me the quite week-end seemed to help give me a bit of a jump start in getting going again at the tail end of this morning sickness. However, it seems Miss J and Mr. R were coming down with colds while we were there. That would explain their extra grumpy attitudes. It was, however a restful week-end and we truly enjoyed the fellowship with the "J" family! What a blessing they are to us!

The first sign of recovery

After so many pregnancies I have learned to recognize my first signs of recovery. I start feeling better mentally. As in.... I start thinking again! My mind starts slowly getting back in gear noticing things that need to be done, recipes to try, school ideas with the kids, projects, etc. None of these things actually happen, I just start THINKING and PLANNING for when I will be physically able to do these things.

This book Large Family Logistics was a gift for Christmas from Rob and Miss E. I have barely been able to read it. It just required more thinking and processing than I was able to do (and wanted to give it). I'm slowly diving in. I've been following Kim's blog for years and have gotten so much out of it, but the book is organized so much better than a blog could be! I'm so excited about this book!

Preschool Power

So, a few years ago I heard about these DVD's for preschoolers that show other little ones doing "big" things. Sort of a Montessori model of teaching and learning. I thought Mr. S could benefit from watching them, so we put them on our nexflix list. Miss J seemed to enjoy them much more than Mr. S did though.

Over the last year or so she regularly asks us to get Preschool Power again for her on netflix. Every time she watches she gets something new out of it. She requested the DVD's for her birthday from Nana (ok, I made the request knowing it was what she would want). She was speechless when she opened the package! She was so excited!
As you can see Miss C is enjoying the DVD too. I have no doubt that she will soon be trying to do "big" things to!

Happy Birthday Miss J!

Miss J's 3rd birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. She had nearly a week of celebrating since Nana came a couple days after her birthday to celebrate with her!

Birthday cakes are a fairly big deal around here. For months she has been talking about the cake she wanted, which was actually quite simple. She wanted a purple cake with Thomas (the train) on it, and it needed to be black (chocolate) inside. I had wanted to do something a bit fancier for her, but with the morning sickness I was glad her request was a simple one. I just used a cake mix, made up some whipped cream frosting (colored purple) and made some simple tracks for Thomas. She loved watching me make the cake, and she put Thomas and some of the candies on.

*the picture makes it look grey, but it was purple!

She also wanted a tea party with Nana for her birthday (so it worked out well that Nana was coming!). For a couple of weeks she kept asking me if she could set up the tea party yet. Finally the day came! She had a great time setting up with Miss E and getting some special napkins and treats out. It was so sweet to watch her!

She had one other request.... Could her favorite bluegrass band come sing to her? Amazing Grace is her favorite, would they sing that to her? While this may seem like an odd and totally unrealistic request from a three year old, we found it sweet since this band she loves so much is a sweet family that we know and love. They were not able to come celebrate with us, but they very graciously and generously recorded a video of them singing Amazing Grace and saying "happy birthday" to Miss J. I'm not sure how many times we've watched the video. This was truly a special and treasured gift for her.

*the first evening we used the projector we borrowed from a friend

Battleship

So, today Mr. S slides up next to me and sweetly asks---

"Mom, would you like me to teach you how to play battleship?"

I'm thinking it would be fun to have my little guy teach me how to play a game so I say "sure" expecting him to jump up and run to the playroom to get the box. Instead.....
....He takes the iphone from my hand and goes right to the "Battleship" app. Yep, there's an app for that! LOL! I had a great time learning from him, and playing too!

Into the Amazon

Mr. Phillips of Vision Forum, and about 30 other men are currently over in the Amazon on and expedition. While there they are broadcasting videos, and even doing live question and answer sessions. Last night was the first broadcast and Q&A session, and we all enjoyed it.

We sent in a few of our questions, and Miss E and Mr. M had their questions answered (as well as their names and ages mentioned!). That was exciting for them. Miss E's question was about vampire bats, Mr. M's was about scorpions.

I think we're going to enjoy this unit study on the Amazon, and the timing is great! I don't have to do anything to get a great lesson out of this (so very easy on the mommy with morning sickness!). We spend time as a family looking up various relevant questions and facts while waiting for the episode to download, or after. We are able to have some good discusion time too! Maybe I'll have them write papers though? We'll see.

slow going around here

Its been slow going around here, just doing what we have to. I'm not really motivated to blog. I have a good reason for this....

We're expecting baby #7! We're so excited! However for the next few weeks we will be in "survival" mode while I make my way through yet another season of morning sickness. Its not too bad, but I need to spend what little energy I have on caring for my family and home. I should be back to "normal" in a few weeks.

building

Rob has a couple of building projects going with the boys. On one of their trips to home depot they noticed the kids project day was coming up. Rob took all of the "big" kids (Miss C stayed home with me) to do some building!It looks like they had a great time!