Up too late...

and no nap today... Yikes, I really should be in bed right now. I feel the need to blog though, so I shall delay my departure to dreamland just a wee bit longer:).

I really have to say that this week has been amazing! A friend of mine is writing things she's thankful for and asked others to respond. Maybe she wanted us to write on her blog, but I decided to put it here instead:). This week we've had Awesome weather. Thank you Lord! I'm not saying it was hot or anything. We had beautiful sunshine and the kids played outside 4 out of 5 days this week and we had fun surprising Scott with special treats. School seemed to go faster too. I'm loving the progress that Garrison is making in his reading. It's different from Elyssia, but I'm thankful that he's coming along nicely. One difference with him is that he will read to Scott and I, but doesn't want to read to others. Not sure if it's a lack of confidence, but hopefully he'll start sharing it with Caleb and Kiersten. I know they'd enjoy it.

Caleb is doing really well with his workbooks. He's very excited about them and very disappointed when I don't have time to work with him.

Kiersten is being super snuggly lately. I think she's struggling a bit with the others having school. I try to give her color papers and take reading breaks with her, but she still seems to be irritated. She's quick to find things that are hers and say, "mine". Totally a 2 year old thing:) She was really funny today though. She was on the porch and Garrison kept telling her that she was hurting the kitty. The cat actually seemed to like that she was holding it. Maybe she was squeezing it a bit tight, but I didn't hear any protests from the cat. I told Garrison that if the cat didn't like it, it would probably scratch Kiersten. He left her alone after that and Kiersten was content holding the kitty like a baby.

Today was an extra special day. Scott brought home Chinese food(the first time we've had it in over a year) and.... A SEWING MACHINE:). Yeah, I'm sure I'll get a lot more accomplished with a working sewing machine than trying to do it by hand. It took a bit to figure things out. After the first attempt I came upstairs and Scott asked, "Did you finish your first quilt yet?" Funny guy:). Garrison seems to have his sense of humor. He replied, "no, she just made it go ---. Insert a funny sound there. The bobbin thread wasn't in the center and it bunched making a funny sound. Garrison thought it was hilarious. So, I waited until all the kids were asleep to go back down and sew without the audience. It went much better.

*I was able to make a little purse for Kiersten with some of the scrap fabric that I had. A friend of mine said that she has quite a bit of scrap fabric that I can have to practice on. I'll have to see about getting that from her before I can do too much more, but I do have a couple things I can repair and enough fabric for a couple more small projects. If anyone knows a good website for kids patterns, please let me know. I haven't really checked around much, due to the fact that I really wasn't into sewing, but something has changed and it's suddenly a really fun thing to do and it should also come in handy with the girls clothes. There aren't a lot of girls skirts and dresses available around here, so I think I'm going to be making most of them from now on. We've been blessed to have quite a bit given to us and also to find it in the Thrift shop, but knowing how to sew will be quite valuable over the next 15 years of so. Plus, Elyssia LOVES to sew and is always begging me to help her make something. So, that is one MAJOR blessing that I'm excited about.

I have a couple of videos and pictures of Adelaide, Valentine projects and the other kids just being their cute little selves(don't think that's a word:). I'll wait til I have more time to post them though. Until then, I'll just let you imagine how cute they are:).