Day 4

Woohoo! Two days straight of not losing my temper! Emmanuel, God with us! I know, it's sad that I think it's an amazing thing. But. "When I get up I might fall back down again- we get up anyway..." Anyhoo- good day. The kids finished their first week of organized chores and were awarded books (yay for Target dollar section)- Peter got The Amazing Stories of Dr. Dolittle, Anne got A Little Princess, and Elijah got a book on creepy crawly things like scorpions- which he calls his "Scallywag book". We made an early morning dash to Safeway for some milk and of course came back with ice cream sandwiches. They were mint chocolate chip and on a good sale. I couldn't resist. Though I haven't had one yet. But the kids have enjoyed them! I'm a lot more of a sucker when Christian's gone. :) Good thing it's so hard for me to get out!
I had a great evening having some friends over to watch Meet Me in St. Louis, and to wind down I have taken a melatonin pill which is starting to kick in. So. Peter took control of the camera today, so we have a plethora of pictures for you tonight, which I will download (upload?) and go to bed!

Anne's picture of Noah, his wife and the animals, "after they parked the ark on the mountain."

Some mornings are just like that. ;)

Day 3

Good day overall. Anne's learning how to ride her bike without training wheels- doing great- just gotta work on that steering... :) Played at the mall with Ransom. Elijah informed me, "Little boys OUGHT to be noisy!" Ha! Here are a couple pics of some pretty cute sleeping babies. Speaking of sleeping, I'm checking out. :)

Day 2

I woke up this morning and my digital thermometer said -11! This was quite shocking as I didn't feel cold in the least! Then I remembered my read-out display had gone buggy and actually part of the four was cut off, so it was actually 41 degrees. Much better. After a so-so night's sleep (Tirzah kept me company at various points throughout the night and woke up early, so I didn't have much chance to feel too lonely), our day started out great. Then by late morning I was having anger issues with certain boys complaining and not working and bothering other siblings... Sigh. So after sucking up the pride, apologizing and getting things back on the right track, things started going better again. Peter even got out of taking a Science test, since I hadn't realized the test was for 2 chapters instead of one (new curriculum to me), so we just got to start the next chapter instead! Tirzah actually sat still long enough for me to put to little pony tail/bun thingies in her hair for the first time! Berea didn't have quite the patience. I wish there were barrettes that REALLY didn't fall out. I found some that work fairly well, but when you're fighting against the twins taking out each other's barrettes, and not just their own, it tends to be a losing battle. Then we got to go visit the Vaughans and the Fitts since the Fitts are taking off tomorrow for another 10 months or so in the middle east. More good-byes. :( So we focus on something else- playground at the mall tomorrow with cousin Ransom, Grandma and Grandpa (Young) coming back soon, getting to see Marmie (Vaughan) in four months! Lots of things to look forward to! And I get to watch as much Psych as I want to in the evenings! We don't normally watch anything, we don't get any channels- occasionally we'll put on a Jeeves and Wooster or Sherlock Holmes, or if C's feeling particularly generous maybe a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers. :) So I'll get in a few things that he doesn't care for while he's gone and get it out of my system. Here are a few pictures from today and here's to a good night's sleep!

Day 1

C is on a 12-day tour of the Southwest as an assistant tour guide, so the kids and I are holding down the fort here at home. I'm going to attempt to journal every day not only to log our events and cute kid-isms for C to check out when he gets internet, but also to log God's faithfulness to us to help me remember it.
So day one. Woke up at 5:30- normally would've rolled over and gone back to sleep, but I knew C was up and leaving at 7:30, so I wanted to spend some time with him (especially since amazingly none of the kids were up yet!)
Breakfast time: I was crying, feeding the babies, kids were eating breakfast, teary-eyed themselves. C hadn't even left yet! Peter says, "But Mama! You can still be happy! God is still with us!" Excellent thought. C leaves, and as I knew, things got a lot less emotional. The kids and I went for a walk/bike ride around the block to start our day, had a snack, and got started on school. Anne finished first (as usual- she has a lot less work than Peter) and immediately started drawing. She drew a picture of a big storm with a tornado. The tornado had picked up a house. In the house was a little girl praying. At the top of the picture she wrote the words, "God loves me." And she informed me that everything turned out all right. :) Another excellent reminder that through life's storms, even when things look terribly bleak (which they don't to me at this particular moment) God still loves me and I can trust Him.

 

Peter finished school by 11:00, so they got to watch "The Doom Funnel Rescue"- a short 3-2-1 Penguins movie about helping others- their special treat for finishing school early. Peter informed me at one point, "Hey, this is just like any other day that Daddy's gone to work- he's not normally here during the day!" Well, yeah, but he normally comes home at night, or if he's gone it's normally not for 12 days! I know, I'm pathetic. One thing that's keeping me a little more strong is thinking about my friends who are military wives and know that this is NOTHING compared to what they go through. So we'll keep plugging away and do what we've got to do!

The Impossible Dream

My impossible dream is that the twins will both stay together, look at me and smile for just long enough for me to capture it on the camera! The best I got today I had to use Cheerios to bribe them to stay remotely still. And then they wouldn't look at me. Oh well. I'm uploading some shots of the other kids too, and a little video at the end of how the twins play together (they had been pushing each other around on the ride-on toy, but of course it didn't last long enough to get a video of it!).

 

Sleepover at Grandma's house- all three big kids in one bed; twins were in pack n' plays in the same room.

 

Kids playing on the currently unused wattles

 

Our scraggly little petunias LOVE the front yard! And aren't so scraggly anymore!