January 7, 2016

Happy New Year!
It's been a great 2016 so far. Non of us made it to midnight New Years Eve without falling asleep. We put the kids to bed after we watched a Netflix cartoon countdown and had some sparkling grape juice. We had a couple poppers and threw confetti. I think Francis and I enjoyed it even more than the kids.

New Years day we had donuts for breakfast. We hung around the house and enjoyed each other.  Hannah got the hang of her walker, moving it all over the place at will. She also started sitting up more, but still falls over after a while.

 Saturday Francis's parents came up and brought us the Christmas decorations that we bought on clearance (including a very large, very cool tree). We all met up with Cyndy, Chris and Abby at Chick-fil-a for lunch which turned into a three hour period of laughter and fun. We thought only an hour had passed, so we were quite surprised when we got back in the car! We are going to try to cut cable in order to save money, so Francis and his Dad ran cables and mounted an antenna.

Sunday afternoon (after church), we all attended the birthday party of the boys' friend Jackson. It was a construction party and we all had a great time. Monday we started "school" again. The boys got a bunch of new school supplies for Christmas and they were ready to go. I am getting a good system working, and I hope it holds. The boys play and I get everything set up, then I baby wear Hannah (who refuses to be left out) so I have both hands to help the boys. We do calendar together, and then both boys do their designated tasks (it takes them 15 minutes at most to do them) and then they get to choose another "school" task to do. I don't push them or make them do it, but they love it. We haven't officially settled on Homeschooling for next year, but if they keep up this enthusiasm, it will make the choice easier. It is so fun to watch them learn and have fun.

Yesterday we went to the library where William made me read the same (semi-long) book over and over before we checked it out and brought it home. When we got home he asked me to read it again. I smiled and told him that he might be ready for chapter books soon. He asked what a chapter book was and then said he wanted me to rad him one. I waited until nap time pretty sure that a book with no pictures would put him to sleep. I chose The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- one of my personal favorites and kid-friendly too. to my surprise William didn't fall asleep. At the end of each chapter he would ask me a bunch of questions about the story and then say, "next chapter please!" I eventually had to take a break, but he kept asking me between tasks so I would read a chapter here and a chapter there. At bed time I realized that there were only 10 paged left...so we finished reading. He LOVED it. Today he begged me to read the next story (A Horse and His Boy). He wanted to read it instead of going to the Children's Museum (we went to the Children's Museum because everyone needed to run off some energy). We are 4 chapters into the book now. He begged me to go on just now, but my jaw hurts! At the pace he wants me to go, we'd read all 7 of the Chronicles of Narnia in a week! He just sits and listens with his eyes transfixed on some far off place. He's certainly my child if he loves stories so much.

Robert is doing ok with his cloth underwear. He does the pee just fine, but I still have to watch him sometimes for the other. It's hit or miss and depends on how much fun he is having. He'll get it eventually. He is getting very chatty about everything. It's fun to hear his thoughts. He also told on William the other day. William owed up to it and even congratulated Robert for telling me (which was pretty funny). Now William can't get away with pushing his brother around, that's for sure.

Hannah girl is growing so fast. She had her first food on Tuesday (other than the mashed potatoes my mom gave her on Christmas day). She had Sweet potatoes. She didn't seem very enthusiastic and shuddered with each spoonful. she has since tried bread (in a mesh chew thing), bananas, apples and regular potatoes (also in the mesh thing), and a taste of peanut butter off my finger. She seems to prefer the sweet. We are trying to give her more "table food" type baby food and hope to help her transition more natural to eating with us (which will also save time and money on baby food). She wants to be like her brothers so much, I have a feeling straight baby food won't cut it for long anyway.

We LOVED having Francis home last week and even this week since classes haven't started, his schedule has been a little more flexible. That has been the best thing about Francis going back to school: the kids and I get more time with him. He's the best.

That's it from our corner of the world.