Crazy!

Life has been a little crazy lately, and I have been a little tired.  I used to be a fairly high energy girl, and it has been said (but, of course, not by my husband ;-) that I am in most instances an annoyingly happy morning person.  But, I'll be honest, I'm just not feeling it these days.  Jack thinks waking up twice during  the night is great fun, but, unfortunately, it leaves me blurry eyed and stumbling around most of the morning.  I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea!

But,  life does not stop for tired mamas!  So, we've been living a lot of life here in our little corner of the world, and that has been a big blessing ~ even if I do yawn every so often...

This post is mainly for people like my mom who enjoy glimpses into our everyday, stories from the chaos that doesn't always allot for much talk time.  But, this post, just uploading the pictures, has been therapeutic for me.  I always take pictures, a few everyday, but I rarely reflect on them.  These pictures are from our life over the past two weeks or so.   It has been nice to see all the fun we've had even though it all is but a blur to me!  I'm so thankful!  These are in random order with no particular reason for being in this collection other than the fact that they were taken recently!!

James took this picture of me drilling Joshua for his Friday tests.  I thought it was a great picture of my everyday life right now!! :-)

I am so thankful.  My heart is full!  Life feels as if it is moving at breakneck speed these days, but, still, even still, life is good.  Life is full and rich and good.  Every night I have the privilege of tucking in five precious clean little boys.  And, I can kiss their foreheads, and they are beautiful and well and good.  We have so much to be thankful for, and I am not, not even for a second, willing to take it for granted!  God is good, and life is so sweet.  They go to sleep smelling like this...

It is the scent of my sweet babies.  Joshua and James no longer use this. :-(  But, they still smell fresh and clean and are safely cuddled under warm covers on nights that lately have been quite cool!

God's word is my strength on weak days.  It is life and breath and wisdom.  I love the pages, the words,  God's heart lay open for us to soak in and refresh our weary souls.

This has been a big part of our life the last few weeks...

Joshua is so happy.  He is having so much fun.  I'll be honest, it is not my favorite thing, but I am supporting him!  He is loving every minute of it!

Jack is growing and changing! He has mellowed out into such a sweet little guy!  And, his big brothers still think he is the greatest gift ever given to them!!  

I love the bonds that bind sweet little boy hearts together.  They play outside every afternoon, and it is always all together.  They rarely split up 2 and 2.  They pretty much play together all 4 of them.  And, it makes this mama's heart smile to look out the window and see them creating....

 exploring...

imaging...

completely immersed in play...

together here on this little 7 acre piece of land Erik and I chose to buy a little over 10 years ago.

We thought it would be the perfect place to raise our little ones even though we had no children at the time.  Who knew we would fill this little home to overflowing!!  That we would renovate not once but now most likely twice.  People ask why we don't just buy a bigger house?

We couldn't even think of it.  This is home.  It is such a part of us. My heart will break in two when I have to leave this place one day.  It is good to be home, and it is even better to be home in autumn!!

The fall weather has been so beautiful that we have taken our work outside a good bit.  The sunshine refreshes me.  It just feels good...

This day was a bit chilly, but I had the itch, so I took the books outside.

James Christofer did his work wrapped in a blanket. :-)  I had my hot tea to keep me warm from the inside out!

Teaching Elijah this year has been such a joy!  He loves to do his preschool work especially when it requires scissors and glue!  He is such a doll baby, and I love introducing him to so many new fun things.

This is where Jack plays a lot.  He is very happy here right now, and it helps me so much to have him safe and contained!

But, often I walk by checking on him and find him like this...

Look at those little legs!  Life is good!!  I get to squeeze those cute little legs all day long!!

Elijah loves to help and teach Eriky how to do new things!  The other day he told me that Eriky was his  "bestest buddy"!!!  Ohhh, happy for mama's heart to hear!  :-)

I love my Eriky...

I'm not sure, but I think he may be our family clown!!  He is a happy little dude!  Here he is pretending to read on the potty...

Joshua has had a blast learning Astronomy this year.  We do lots of outdoor observations and record them in his field guide.  He prefers literature and history to math and science, but Astronomy really challenges that!  This, so far, has been a really fun learning year for him.

He has been studying ancient Egypt lately, and he is totally into it.  He wants to be an archaeologist... today, anyway.  And, for "movie night with mom" as the boys call it (When Erik is at away football games on Friday nights, we watch movies), we watched the Prince of Egypt.  And, in the middle of the movie, Joshua got very serious and quiet.  He looked at me with thinking eyes and a heart putting pieces of a little puzzle together, and he asked, "Mommy, why does everybody not like the Jews.  I mean, Mom, all through history, Pharaohs in Egypt all the way to what we studied last year about Hitler.  Why is everyone against the Jews?"  You are growing in wisdom and stature, sweet one, and I am so proud of you!

And, this kid right here, he kills me.  He totally cracks me up, but he isn't clownish silly like Eriky.  No, he is as witty as they come!  I love him!!!!!!

He can snap me out of bad moods in a way that no one else except his father can do.  I can be so serious and so angry, and they can say one little thing....  And, no matter how hard I try... I have to laugh ~ even when everything in me tries to fight it ~ I just have to laugh.  The other day I was sitting in my little peace chair trying to nurse Jackaroo.  All five children like to be wherever I am, and I am thankful for this.  I love that they like to be with me, but when I nurse Jack it is hard.  Every time they talk or jump or squeal or anything Jack comes off and looks around.  So, I had asked them nicely to leave several times, and they weren't moving fast enough.  So, I finally got a little angry and said in a slightly :-) raised voice  "Please leave.  I'm overstimulated!!!  There are too many people too close to me!!!  Please go now!!!!!" Instead of just leaving, James Christofer Truett came up to me and put both his hands on the arm of my chair.  He got eye level with me, completely serious.  And, in a tone of voice that was meant to calm me down and let me know it was going to be okay, he said....

"Okay, I'm just going to go get in the dishwasher."

He is a nut!  But, he ruined my bad mood with that one comment.  I laughed so hard that I cried.  Then, I couldn't even get the words out to tell Erik the story when he got home because I was laughing too hard.  You just have to know James.  He's a hoot!  Goodness, I love being his mom!

And, gotta love sweet Lije, too.  Everybody loves Lije.  He's sweet and sensitive and good to the core!
His heart is big, big, big!

Sometimes in the morning my heart just swells.  Breakfast with Dad is a sweet time.  I love to watch the boys eat their breakfast slow and enjoy being together.  They have a good time.

I'm telling you, Eriky is the class clown!

Afternoons are for reading around here ~ reading to mom, reading to yourself, reading to your brothers, and mom reading aloud to all of them.  I love the peace of reading during nap time.

See this little guy.  He is a charmer like JCT used to be.  He cried when I left him in the nursery at Excelsior this past Friday.  He cried pretty hard but only for a couple minutes.  Then, Meagan came in and asked if she could take him to Starbucks.  I said yes.  A little while later I looked out the window and saw Meagan and Eriky walking from her car back to the school. Meagan was carrying a latte and Eriky a Horizon Chocolate Milk, and he was smiling and talking and having the time of his life!  He is something!  Mr. Brown eyes...

And, I have to add this picture of a sweet boy in my preschool class.  He had a Walmart bag for show and tell, but inside the Walmart bag was something wrapped in a towel.  Who would have guessed that he had a real alligator head in there!!!

Seriously.  His "PaPa" wrestles alligators and apparently he is quite good at it.   He surprised his teacher with this one!

Life is good!