Happy New Year!

I realized this past weekend that I needed to get going here if I was going to get a post in this month. But then, of course, I never sat down to compose something! We're finally over our illnesses of the holiday season. I'm thankful every single day for the blessing of Gary's job, but when we are sick, I"m even more thankful! I am also thankful that God allowed us to have such low paying jobs early in our marriage. I truly believe it helps us to be thankful and mindful of our blessings that we started out so low that things like insurance are looked at as huge blessings rather than something we're entitled to. Anyways, we're better!

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. It's so nice to get to see family and friends. We missed some family due to illness, but overall it was wonderful. I just love having Gary home full time too! We did our annual viewing of all the extended versions of Lord of the Rings which was fun. Gary's still playing soccer every week and loving it. He's on a new work out routine- P90X- like everyone else in the world. He started mid-December and really seems to like it. He's crazy. The kids are still loving AWANA. Tyler will be done with his book in the next 2 weeks so i'm anxious to see if we just start over or if there is another book he can get. He loves it. Grace still cry's most days and does not want to go, but once she's there she does really well. It's been good for her and it's given me some extra one-on-one time with Esther on the nights Gary is busy in meetings or worship team practice. Sometimes we get some shopping done with only one child! It's so much faster that way! it didn't seem faster when we only had one! Esther is doing really well, she's SO tall! She's already growing out of some of her 18 month onesies and she's only 15 months! She's running all over the place and just cute as can be. She's still a loving cuddler, eats anything, and sleeps well. She's still only got one tooth and doesn't talk much. She loves her siblings though- you can really tell by how she interacts with them. They do well with her and include her for the most part but when they go off and do their thing, she's content to just play alone or come find me. Grace is in full swing training to be a mommy. She plays house and dolls and wants to help me with all of my household chores! It's so cute! I had to force Tyler to learn things that Grace asks to do. She's really making great headway with her academic skills too. She wants to learn but I really have to approach her differently because her learning styles are different, and she is (if possible) even more sensitive than Tyler! Yikes! I do hope Esther stays laid back...

My mom came this month and we had a day out just the two of us. It's amazing how shopping is different when you don't have to have a bag or stroller, when you don't get interrupted and you don't have to worry about anyone breaking anything. It was wonderful but I was glad to get back to my sweeties! They LOVED their day with daddy so it all worked out.

Mid-January we finally took down our Christmas decorations and I decided it was time to get back into the full time swing of things with school. This month I've been just filled with joy at watching my kids learn. Even today I'm seeing just how quickly they catch on to things and how they are improving. Today was a big day for me watching Tyler. His maturity when he's "on" is just amazing and his reading has improved more than I can even describe. When our Sonlight curriculum arrived in October he was getting frustrated (and probably bored with) Teach your Child to read in 100 easy lessons so i transitioned away from it and then shelved it for awhile. He was reading simple words (CVC) so we went with grade 1 readers and LA instead of K. I saw no point in re-teaching him letters and sounds we've been doing for years. The LA is a bit hard for him, but the readers are right on. Just enough challenge that he's learning, but not getting frustrated. Well, today he asked me to get 100 lessons back out because "we need to finish that book mom" 4 months ago a lesson in that book would have taken 15-20 minutes- longer if he was being difficult about it. Today we did two lessons in about 15 minutes. He just flew through it and then asked to read the next story from his regular book. I"m just so excited! I love to read, and always have. I don't expect him to be the book worm I was, but I had fears that he'd always HATE reading and that any learning activity that required reading would be like pulling teeth. For awhile it was and I'm sure it will be again in the future (probably tomorrow in fact) but for today, it was FUN! Yay! I think he's starting to see that he reads things automatically in life when he knows the words and as it's becoming more automatic and natural, it's not so scary and so much work. So we are plugging along and enjoying it! Not every bit of it, but in the long run, this is SO RIGHT for us right now!

Yesterday I stopped at green Farms to get some veggies for salads this week. I have decided that they consistently have the best produce and it's just as cheap or cheaper than any of the other stores I frequent. I've come to feel I'd rather have my veggies last even if I have to pay a little more, but most times it's cheaper. I'm even willing to make that extra stop to ONE MORE store. haha! Anyways, I was embarrassingly excited when I walked in and saw they were selling half-bushels of apples for $5!!! A couple looked much older so I took the bag that looked the best and was shocked when I got home to find all 40 apples were huge and in great shape! I really thought the bottom ones would be extra questionable. :) So today Tyler helped me peel apples and we made applesauce. The kids were playing zoo when I had them start this project so they decided we were making the food for baby monkeys who can't eat regular apples yet. Grace was a child visiting the zoo and Tyler and I, the zookeepers, taught her about the animals in the zoo, what they eat, how often, and how we prepare the foods. It was so hysterical to watch them interact for this! I was able to get some discussion in there about apples and how they grow and how we prepare them for human consumption too. Tyler was happy to quietly peel while I showed things to Grace ( Like the star inside the apple) that he had seen before. Usually he's bored and wants to go play or teach her himself. I think they are being extra well behaved in hopes I will make them Apple Crisp tonight. And that's fine by me! Maybe I can stretch it out until tomorrow night....