Portraits today!!

Midnight Faffy Thief

When my son was born, he was fussy. No, he was a pill. When he was a couple of months old my Mom decided to encourage him to use a pacifier. If you know my Mom you know she can be persuasive and she talked him into it. Since then pacifiers have been his one true love. He is now 2 1/2 and seems to be a bit more agreeable to giving up the vice so we have been trying to keep his mind off it. Our baby girl is only 9 months old so she is using a pacifier regularly now. The last couple of nights she has been fussy and running a low grade temperature so she has been restless. Last night after waking up and taking a bottle, I wanted to lay her back down and get some much needed rest myself. I felt around on the bed in my dark room and could not relocate the pink passy anywhere. I finally coaxed my darling girl back to sleep without her pacifier and layed down next my little son to sleep another hour or two. Guess what was in my little sleeping son's mouth. The little pink passy.

Taking the plunge

After much fasting and prayer, I have decided to homeschool Elizabeth. Some are very excited about this and supportive, others have been a bit... reserved about their excitement. However, I have not taken this decision lightly and after being directed quite clearly by the spirit in this direction, I have decided to do the Lord's will and educate this child for the rest of the school year. One great blessing has been her acceptance into the K12 program which is a state funded program that uses the same materials as the public school system. It has online classes and online teachers. This is truly an answer to prayers since the K12 program was closed for the school year for enrollment and suddenly had an "unexpected" opening for additional students. We got the call this morning that she was accepted. Hooray for prayer, and hooray for a loving Father in Heaven.
Much love to all,
sha

p.s. for any concerned, the picture in my previous blog was sent to me via email and was thankfully not my children or my stuff. xoxo

Raising a boy

Wow! That is the best way to describe it. Having four other children, all girls, three of them older, it is a shock to me just how challenging it is to try to raise a son. I think of people who have all or mostly boys and I take my hat off to them. My boy is something else. I remember going to the doctor's office with my little girls. I had trained them well. They were to sit quietly and read a book (from home... eww, no doctor office germ ridden books!) while waiting to be called back. Do you think my son does this? HA!! Not a chance. I am lucky if I can keep him in the room with me. When I take him to the doctor (or anywhere for that matter) I can't take the baby too. He is enough work for a full time caretaker. Out of control? Maybe so.
When my cousin and his family came for a visit at Independence day, all three boys were pretty wild and my cousin and his wife are probably the best parents I have ever known, so when people say "it's because he's a boy" I think (I hope) they may be right.

Wow! My first tag!

I've been tagged! The Rules are... tell about 6 quirks of yours and then Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same, be sure to leave a comment to let them know.

1. I can't stand to touch grocery carts. Or gas nozzles... it just seems too ick. All I can think about is some disgusting guy who just went to the bathroom without washing his hands touching the cart or nozzle... I also must use paper to turn on and off the public sinks in bathrooms and to open the doors to go out of said bathrooms. Too many non handwashers around.

2. I love lists. If I have a list I know I will get things done. Each time I had a child I never packed ahead of time.. I just had a list of what to take. It drove my mom nuts but it works for me. Lists work great for housework, homework, anything. I love marking off things.

3. I wear flip flops in the shower. I just can't bring myself to stand on tub floors... Doesn't matter if I just cleaned the tub, I still wear flip flops.

4. I refuse to buy tupperware (or whatever). I figure we use enough butter, sour cream, whatever, that come in free plastic containers to keep us up with enough storage containers.

5. I love office supplies. There isn't much I like better than to get pretty, new school or office supplies.

6. I hate call waiting. Not that I don't have it, I do, but I feel so guilty asking someone to hold on while I take another call. I have considered dropping the service but I can't stand the thought of missing an important call.

so there!

slacker, I am

When my older girls were little I made them each a homemade quilt each year for Christmas. Don't get me wrong, they were sometimes (oftentimes) very simple things, tied, whatever. Some were more fancy, but they progressed as my ability and creativity grew. The last quilt I made was probably my son's baby quilt. That was 2 1/2 years ago. I would love to get back to that tradition this Christmas but with school full time and everything that goes along with a large family, I will be lucky to send out Christmas cards.
One tradition I have kept up every year since the girls were born is buying or making them each an ornament each year. The idea is to have keepsakes for Christmas and when they leave home they will have a little set of ornaments. This is probably going to be funny since some of their recent ornaments have had to do with their current interests (High School Musical, etc.) This year I am undecided as to what to look for for each person. Maybe a cellphone ornament, Twilight ornament, clarinet ornament, horse ornament, and a crawling baby ornament. Hrmm....