Life the Last Few Weeks

The last few weeks have been sort of busy contrary to what I had hoped.  But, in comparison to our usual life of sports and school, it has definitely been a bit of a refresher.  I forget that even laid back days with 5 kids are busy! :-)  Excelsior ended with a Christmas program on December 9th.  The younger classes preformed scripture recitations that they have been working on and sang carols.  The boys did great!  I snapped a couple friend photos...

As soon as we finished our last day of Excelsior, we headed to Florida to celebrate Pop's 70th birthday and Christmas with Erik's family!  We had a blast!  The kids were soooo sad to leave their cousins!  And, I was sad to leave my Jen. :-(  

Erik and I worked feverishly on the drive there and back to come up with a name for our newest addition.  The boys have nicknamed her "Ladybug."  I love it!  Unfortunately Erik and I could not decide on a name a real name!

Then, last weekend Erik and Jason surprised Pop with a weekend at the beach.  They sipped coffee and enjoyed a lot of meaningful conversation.  A special weekend, no doubt.  Those boys love their Daddy. Jason text me this picture mid-weekend...

Meanwhile, back at the homestead I attempted to keep the boys happy and busy with lots of cookie baking and decorating...

Yum!

Here was my list for Saturday.  God is always so gracious and gives me and the boys easy, peaceful weekends when Daddy is away.  

These two little guys fell asleep playing, and that always makes mama smile...

Sweet cowboy...

Saturday night the boys snuggled in for movie night with mom.  I usually let them camp out in the living room at least one night while Daddy is away.  Everyone slept very well! Eriky was the only one who made it through the entire movie without falling asleep.  But, a head tickle and a couple of Christmas carols later, and he was in dreamy land with his brothers!

This week we have done "light school" meaning simply ~ writing, math, and reading in that order.  This only takes them an hour and a half to two hours, so they have enjoyed a no pressure easy week!

The boys are really learning to enjoy reading.  I let them choose whatever books they wanted to read, and they have been grabbing them and reading them without mama asking!  Fun for me to walk into a quiet living room and find this...

I love books, and so it makes my heart happy to see them enjoying reading so much!

And, Jackaroo started pulling up to stand this week.  I love the look on their faces when you walk over and see them for the first time.  They just light up with pride in themselves!  Jack is growing so fast!  He will be 9 months old next month!  I can't believe it!  His first year is flying by!

One of Erik's older patients dropped by the house with happies for the boys earlier this week.  She had mugs filled with Christmas goodies and candy.  The boys have loved drinking out of their new mugs.  It makes mama slightly nervous, but I'm trying to get over it!  What tickles me is how Eriky holds his mug.  Sometimes he just walks around holding his empty mug just the way I carry my coffee cup around each morning.  This is how I hold my mug...

:-)

The past few weeks have been a bit blurry looking back but still very good.  Next week we will take a complete break from school, and then we will start back to full days of school the first of January!  Merry merry to you and yours!