Why Mothers Get Gray

My Mother’s Day flowers didn’t stand a chance…

And yet my older children don’t seem to understand how important it is to push the dining chairs in!

14 months

Happy 1st Birthday Little One!

A year ago this sweet little guy was born. He is so sweet and happy. He smiles at everyone. As long as there is someone to pay attention to him, he is happy. His smile brightens any room. I am so lucky that even though he doesn’t sleep a lot, he is cheerful. On the airplane on his birthday, he smiled at every flight attendant and passenger who looked his direction. He is such an extrovert! While we ate dinner the other night, he spent the whole time playing peek-a-boo with someone at a neighboring table! He is super curious, an incessant climber, and determined. He runs non-stop.

12! Happy Birthday Tiger

Tiger is now 12. I can’t believe how fast 12 years has gone.

5 Days old:

Twelve Years old:

He is conscientious, careful, studious, and boy does he love his baby brother. He is also a huge help around the house. If I ask him to help get something done, I can usually count on him to take care of it.

He has always loved books!

And helping in the kitchen:

Except now, he is actually REALLY good at cooking and he reads late into the night… Sometimes I have to go in and remind him that he really needs sleep. He still also loves building, tools, and light sabers.

A few days after his birthday, Tiger received the Aaronic Priesthood. This coming Sunday, he will begin performing the sacred ordinance of passing the sacrament to members of our ward. I am so proud of his diligence in keeping the commandments. He is full of love and faith in and for our Savior and Heavenly Father.

I feel very blessed that 12 years ago this young man entered my home and made me a mother. Happy Birthday Tiger. I look forward to seeing what amazing things you accomplish in your life.

Gates, Doors, and Boxes- Welcome to 11 months

Little One is now 11 months old. He has 4 little teeth and is starting to enjoy frozen peas, potato chunks, avocado chunks, tomato chunks, beans, apple pieces, red peppers, and he loves some mango kale applesauce squeezers from Costco.Little One should have a different name- Busy One! He is BUSY. He has been walking now for a month and a half and is quite steady now, although he does tend to bonk his head frequently still. Usually because he tries to stand up under a table or something. He is also extremely curious and loves to open doors, cupboards, drawers, boxes, and anything else he can get into. He will dump the contents of any container given the chance.

He also likes to explore and frequently will be doing something near me and then wander into another room. TROUBLE. I have taken to closing doors, barricading certain areas of the house, and I created a fence across one room to contain him at least part time while we are downstairs. The worst problem we have is when children don’t close the bathroom door… He hates bath time but finds the toilet incredibly fascinating and will play in it any chance he gets…

When we get our produce box each week, he attempts to unpack it for me. Usually he ends up grasping some oranges and sucking on them!

Little One loves to grab glasses too.

He is so full of grins and makes everyone smile. He is still struggling to sleep sometimes. He is doing better than he was though. I am trying to figure out if it is a food sensitivity.

I am going to be scarce…

It is January and most homeschoolers I know see January as a doldrums month- a month where it is grey and cold outside and it is hard to feel motivated to plan exciting things. It seems like Christmas wasn’t long enough and the cold and dark won’t go away… by the end of January life seems to return to normal though.

This year, January has given me barely any breathing room to feel the January slump. First, someone’s bright idea was to start co-op the first Friday after New Year’s. Woops. That was a bad idea. Several people were still out of town and several of the coordinators didn’t even realize that co-op was starting on the 3rd until the day or two before! <Raising hand> Yup, I was one of them.

Add to that, our love of learning age classes run on a 6 week rotation. As a result of the way the schedule shook out this year, instead of taking two terms to plan, rehearse, and perform a play, we are doing it in 6 weeks! Granted, I did insist on 2 hours per class instead of the usual 1 hour class. So, I am directing our co-op school play. I have an amazing assistant director, set designer, prop manager, stagehands, music director, and parent assistants to help me pull this off, and excited kids, but we did bite off quite a bit. The next 4 weeks will have my brain swimming with lines, blocking, set and prop adjustments, lighting and sound thoughts- oh yeah, I forgot to spend some time searching for royalty free sound files for sound effects this week. Add that to this week’s list!- back to the blog…

Then there is sweet Little One. He is WALKING! At 9.5 months he began walking and on his 10 month birthday he figured out how to stand up without holding onto something. Silly boy tries to run across the room and frequently trips and sprawls. He keeps falling into the drawers and bookshelves. Poor little guy has several bruises and a knot on his forehead from his adventures in walking. He is so busy and constantly ripping things off shelves and out of cabinets. Good thing I have put toys in bins with snapping lids!

Last but most definitely not least, I am in the process of doing a major house purge. I am putting toys in a cabinet in bins and creating a schedule of accessible time and routines with the children to help keep my house more orderly and free of clutter. This cabinets make me smile every time I open them! Puzzles, dress-ups, yarn, art supplies, all contained!

Add in regular learning time with the girls while Little One is refusing to take a nap, leaves me with a minimal amount of time to update the blog. I will do my best. In the meantime, I was unpacking the produce box the other day and Little One decided to attempt a snack… with only 2 teeth on the bottom, he didn’t make much progress!

Tiger's 30 day Gratitude Project....

 This is Tiger's 30 day Gratitude Project for Williamsburg. Each day for 30 days he will post something he is grateful for.

I am grateful for my little brother. I waited 573 weeks until the day he was born. This is from when he was 2 weeks old.

This is from a few days ago-playing with the sand.

Holy Dirt…

  Little One is on the move. I put him down in the grass the other day at church. I put him a good 6 feet from the dirt pile and figured maybe the TALL grass would slow him down. Well… not so much. B and the kids let him crawl over to the dirt. When they brought him to me, he had a fist full of dirt and a mouth full too. B said that at least it was holy dirt.