Life Lately

I always wondered how those people with 1,000 kids keep blogging.  Now I wonder even more.  It's not that we've been exceptionally busy doing anything in particular, we've just been doing this thing.

Life.

As I am typing this, my four year old walked into my office the bathroom where I have my computer at my vanity, because, let's face it, I'm not doing hair and makeup there, holding the hand of my 17 month old who was supposed to be fast asleep.  Hence the stolen moments for blog posting.  Turns out, I was only able to steal about two of them.

Maybe I should just go with some snapshots of life lately. 

On July 22, we officially started our homeschool year.  It's been my earnest intention to get as much as humanly possible "learned" before Shep5 makes his/her appearance in November.  So far, we haven't lost any steam and we're even ahead of schedule.  As long as the kids are agreeable, I say, let's move.

Oh wait.  Did I say ahead of schedule?  That would be on math, grammar, writing, and Latin.  I won't even mention science.  And we actually just finished last year's history.  But that was such a momentous event, we marked it with a toga party.  Even if it was two weeks into the new school year.  Turns out, 42 chapters of one history book is hard to cover in one year.  But being the finisher that I am, we could not move on until we read and discussed every last page of that book.  And so we did.  I am pretty sure this was their favorite "lesson" of the year - even if the sparkling grape juice, colby jack cheese cubes, Totino's pizza, grapes, and thawed frozen cheesecake weren't exactly authentic Roman cuisine.  They did wear crowns of laurel, make royal scepters, and don togas (just look beyond the Cars print sheets, please).  I even pulled out the good china because, really, when else do I use that stuff?

Probably shouldn't put this one on here, but it cracks me up.  Oh Sarah.  (Really, folks, it's okay.  She was just pre-gaming with a little grape juice.  I repeat it is just grape juice.)

Clearly that was too long for a snapshot - speeding things up...

We've watched Lee Lee blossom right before our very eyes.  She's so much a part of this family I cannot even remember what it was like before her.  That is one loved baby girl.

 

Nice ponytail, Leah.

This past weekend we took the adventure of all adventures (okay, slight exaggeration there), and we rode a train to the booming metropolis of Plains, Georgia (population 764), famous only for peanuts and Jimmy Carter. 

 

Don't they look thrilled?

 

Notice how I placed Abby strategically right in front of me?  Foiled again all of you belly-lookers, you.  Note also that Sarah is totally hoarding the large cup of peanut butter ice cream all for herself.  Leah, of course, just wants to get down.

The next few months promise to be as exciting as ever including such events as a spontaneous trip to the beach in-lieu-of-presents for Sam's and my combined birthday, a milestone birthday for yours truly, our first double-digit kid birthday, our first international trip (to Canada - where I insist on eating poutine at least one time), a stop in Michigan to visit with dear friends that moved away from Georgia over a year ago now (!!!), a new baby (!!!!!!), and I'm sure many, many attempts to keep Leah from eating every marker in our home. 

On the plus side, she seems to only eat them and color on herself with them.  So far our home hasn't sustained any irreparable damage from said marker usage.  Just one bathroom door that came clean with some Clorox wipes.  Although, she did color the back of our lesser used bathroom door...almost as if to see how it would work out in an inconspicuous location.  Maybe she's just testing the waters before she goes for the tv or something.  Oh man, I'm going to have to knock on wood and put that girl on a leash, aren't I?

God willing our next few months (and beyond) will be full of love and laughter.  Always laughter.  If there's one thing we do not lack in this home, it's the ability to laugh heartily.  I am so grateful for a husband to laugh with...all the time, about anything, about everything, about nothing, about a french fry we discovered shoved in our sleeping baby's mouth when we went to retrieve her from her carseat.

And with that, I will take a note from Leah and attempt to catch some zzzz's, however fleeting the ability to sleep is for me these days.  (By the way, if anyone has any helpful remedies for pregnancy-related insomnia, I'm all ears.)

Until I see you again, I encourage you to laugh.  Heartily.  As often as possible.  To the point of obnoxious.  Life is too short to take too seriously.