We now have a 5 year old in the house again. Caleb turned 5 on Sunday and seems to have developed a bigger appetite to go with his age! That's okay with me though. He's been picking at his food lately and it's nice to see him take 2nds and 3rds for a change. On the other hand, he's also been getting too little sleep with all the company and after they left today he was VERY grumpy! We went for a long walk and that seemed to help. Then Scott came home and they did more work on the climbing wall fort. Caleb was so tired that he fell asleep at 6! He's still sleeping and I'm hoping that doesn't mean that he wakes up at 5 in the morning... If he does he can keep Little Miss Adelaide company;). She's officially been weaned and it's nice to sleep through the night again, but the flip side is that we need to get her to go back to sleep cheerfully when she wakes up at 5 each morning. She's wide awake and sometimes she's happy about it, but many times she's super crabby.
On Monday we'll start our official countdown of the last month of school for the older 2. We started in August and took very little for holidays this year. We had a couple sick days and 5 days at Christmas, but other than that we've tried to do school every day so that we could be done as soon as the snow melted and the weather warmed up. It looks like our snow will still be around for at least another 2 weeks, so we should be right on schedule. Garrison, especially, is looking forward to being done. He's done really well for the most part, but hasn't enjoyed Math that much. Elyssia was like that too, but grade 2 was a bit better and this year of Grade 3 has been awesome!
Tonight it was really neat to see Elyssia sitting in a chair with 3 of her siblings listening while she read. She didn't use to enjoy reading out loud to them, but once Garrison started reading and reading to the others she started doing it too. She will read stories to Kiersten and Ada after they're all in bed and it really seems to draw them closer together.
Kiersten is still getting over the cold. It seems like she's had it the longest and she was NOT happy about it. She told Scott a couple days ago that Garrison should have stayed in his room and not given them all his cold. She thought that they should throw him down the stairs because she was mad about the cold. Our 3 year old is nothing, if not honest about what she's thinking. Reminds me a lot of how I was as a little girl. Overall, she's a lot more outgoing and friendly though. Yes, she has her moments, but she really does seem to like being around others and getting to know new people.
Ada is A CLIMBER!!! Why am I not surprised? All 3 of the younger ones have loved to climb from a very young age. I turn around and find her on the kitchen table, counters, up on Garrison's bunkbed, the piano bench, etc... I won't be surprised if she scales the climbing wall with very little help once the snow melts. I tried putting little boots on her today for our walk. She HATED them! She cried and cried and when I picked her up she was pretty quick to wiggle them off. She's quite the stinker, but an extremely cute one! She is another challenge to us as parents, but with God's help we can overcome and prayerfully direct her strong will for good things. Her garbled chatter is starting to sound a bit like some words, but still not a lot that's clear.
Scott is keeping busy, as usual, but more so with our church family and work at home. There hasn't been a lot of carpentry work lately, but it's been neat to see the Lord providing anyway and we really like all the extra time that we get to spend with him:). He read through The Little Pilgrim's Progress book with the kids in a little over a week's time. They were caught up in the story so much that they never wanted him to stop reading. There's so much to think about in the two stories that were read. I think we could read it a couple times and still not absorb all the life applications. Praying that it brings about some good things in the kids lives. Helping them to see how they, too, can grow spiritually when they're little and help others along the way. Kiersten now talks about being like Patient instead of Passion. It's good to patiently Wait for the good things that the Lord has for us instead of throwing fits and taking what the world has to offer instead. A good lesson for us impatient adults too:).
It's been warming up this week and we're all very thankful for that. There may be some snowflakes that still fall before we can say we're completely done with winter here, but we're trying to be content with whatever the Lord decides to send our way. Here's a picture to remember THE WINTER OF 2013 by:
