Striving for a God-honoring daily legacy amid life's beautiful adventure.
It doesn’t matter how far apart we may live… these people will always be home to me. [And Matt and Nayt you belong in there too it’s just that the couch wasn’t big enough in that moment. =) ]
We were just doing something normal like snuggling on the couch and watching videos on Gopa’s phone.
But it’s the little normals that make me love them all the more.
– Thankful, grateful and blessed.
I’m measuring right at 30 weeks pregnant from today’s doc appt.
Eden, on the other hand, is measuring 2 weeks ahead at 32 weeks, putting us in the 78%. While she should be just barely over 3 lbs this week, she’s measuring over 4 lbs (a large Jicama – which is some kind of an ugly veggie) of healthy baby girl.
We got another peek at her hair sticking off the back of her head and today she was folded in half into a yoga position with her feet up by her head. While she’s measuring big, its all belly so there’s hope for a less large head – which makes this delivering Mommy happy. 😉
While I’m technically 10 weeks away from her due date, after talking with the doc we’re at a 9 week countdown.
Now the question remains: will she be born at induction date or will her size cause me to go into earlier labor?
Only time will tell.
I honestly just want her staying in there until she’s “fully baked” before snuggling our newest sweetness.
And then there’s the whole Matt being gone in Haiti when I turn 37 weeks and returning from Haiti a day or so prior to my 38th week. This fourth baby might very well come with some timing surprises. 😉
– Thank you God for continuing to knit Eden Rose together into the healthy, thriving little one we’ve been blessed to peek at.
– This pregnancy still feels so surreal even though I’m 9 weeks out. I’ve been so blessed to have a gentler go around this time.
Here’s some cute little 3D Eden Rose feet from today. =)
I took the afternoon to finish Rachael’s Kindergarten lesson plans for the year. Yep, friends, for the YEAR.
I was thrilled to organize the remaining 18 lessons into 6 day bundles per lesson (dividing out each subject’s work and bundling them together by days). So pretty much now if I die someone can pick up my teacher book and teach Rachael the remainder of her Kindergarten year (P.S. No intent on dying, just happy to get this completed).
I also calculated out the days we have completed of school (I wasn’t tracking it before – oops) and have a game-plan for the remaining school year’s required days.
Just trying to get more organized here so I can
a). Not have to lesson plan each week.
b). make it a habit to track school days so…
c). I can have a written record should I need to prove the days we have homeschooled [With no idea where God will take us in the years after Matt graduates, I wanted to be prepared to meet other states’ stricter homeschooling requirements should we end up moving there.]
and d). Be more pro-active in planning fun things during our school year based upon future weeks’ themes.
It feels good to finally get a grasp on advanced forward panning for Rachael’s school year after just struggling to get into a regular school groove post-boys.
And it’s also been really exciting to make some changes in organization of educating multiple children in multiple grades, while balancing a baby on my hip (Hannah’s no longer taking morning naps).
I really like our new groove. And I’m excited and less stressed about the remaining school year.
Abi’s coming along quite well in her first year of preschool. She;s picking up things quite quickly thanks to being a byproduct of a homeschool listener. The alphabet and numbers are coming much more naturally to her and I’m excited at the increased fine motor skills in tracing and writing her own name.
And Rachael is really coming into her own in her Kindergarten schooling. It’s fun to watch her take confidence in developing the skills that began a looong (relatively) time ago when she first learned the alphabet. It’s also really neat to watch her manipulate her knowledge to apply it in different settings. And it’s downright fun to encourage her as she is beginning to read. Very…. very… slowly… she has begun sounding out words… one…. at…. a… time. And then her memory kicks in and she puts the words together into a sentence. It’s also fun to see her reading comprehension growing through a really fun workbook I picked up for a buck (Yay dollar store find!). She has enjoyed hearing the princess fairy tales and then learning to write sentences to answer the questions following the story.
I must say, I really enjoy homeschooling. And now that I’m more practically organized, I am enjoying it all the more.
I look forward to the wonder and excitement of the remainder of the school year. =)
Yesterday I decided to trim Ms. Squirmy’s hair for the first time. She was starting to have a mullet of separation between the sides and the back (the greatest challenge for little girls growing in hair) so I figured a little trim could help even it out more. Then lay the challenge before me of how to get Ms. Busy semi-still. A buckle-in booster seat provided the perfect opportunity as well as a few highly loved toys, pacifier, and a little PBS.
Here’s a look at how long the back was prior to her cut.
Within 15 minutes, I put in some layers (since hair grows in layered anyway) and trimmed a total of an inch and a half off the back. But since she’s a squirmer, I trimmed it off in quarter of an inch segments so as not to make a drastic change that couldn’t be evened.
She was super squirmy post-cut so the pictures are the best I could do while letting her free.
Here’s her new cut, right at shoulder level.
Despite some being tucked behind her ear, this is the best pic I got of her newly evened out hair.
And since I’m still wanting the top to grow out instead of bangs, she’ll continue to sport her clips and pigtails.
And of course I saved some clippings for the baby book. 😉
I trimmed the older girls’ hair too. Rachael’s is unnoticeably different, but healthy. She continues to announce that she’s growing her hair out like Rapunzel.
Abi, on the other hand, was a celebration day. With this last trim, her sides are finally the same length as the back. Bravo little girl, it only took 3 years and no scary haircuts to even them out. 😉 She’s my “more bald” hair starter in life.
Here after an over-all trim, you can still see that the back is longer than the sides.
wet
dry
I decided to go back in and take an additional inch off the back to even it with the sides. So I cut a total of 2-2.5 inches off the back and just a tiny bit off the sides.
Here she’s looking down so it doesn’t quite touch her shoulders.
And with a section of her hair growing in wavy, I trimmed that section a little shorter to allow her under layer of curls to come through.
 
I’ll add a picture of the dry finished product a little later since she was napping directly after her trim and I forgot to get one before bedtime last night.
But I’m really happy with how all three of the girls’ trims turned out. Rachael’s – unnoticeable but healthy. Abi’s – Yay for even! And Hannah’s – more bobbed and less mullet. SCORE!
So I just wanted to give you a little perspective on our family. We took this picture a few months ago when celebrating a kiddo’s birthday. Every child in this picture is 6 yrs old or younger. And this is only two families worth of kids. Yes, we’re that kind of crazy. 10 kids six and under!
Oh right, and my sis in law is preggers too. =)
Sure it feels like madness around here at moments, but it is a bit odd how well we all click in other moments. It’s sweet that everyone has a plethera of buddies.
This is a picture of what a generation of compassion for the orphan produces.
Thanks for laying the great groundwork, Barb and Rodger.
– Thankful, grateful and blessed.
At the conclusion of our Creation Introduction in homeschooling I chose instead of starting into the remaining of our year-long session, to have a break day. We had a late night going with Daddy to our old campus ministry where he got the privilege of preaching the night prior. And we decided as a treat to attend the social event afterward, spoiling the kiddos with hot chocolate and a brownie. Consequently, our next morning started a bit slower. And since it was a Friday and a bath day we took a dive…. into the mud.
Now I’m not one to be thrilled about mud on the carpet, in hair, on your nice clothes, BUT I find myself overcoming my own “eww dirt” adultness and letting the kids be dirty kids…. on bath days… before bath. 😉
Needless to say, while the babies took their much-desired morning naps, the big girls experienced the mud… to the full.
It was fun. =)
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