This is our life...

Beautiful days in the depth of winter = early dismissal They all stop to love on Simon. Poor Simon probably just wants some time alone. Can you tell that she was miserable? Two sweet boys

Another sweet boy... Jonah has started speech therapy at the public school. He goes 2x per week. My mom heart is so sad when I read his speech paperwork. My wonderful, sweet little 6yo has multiple speech issues with a dysfluency level of 38%. "Normal" speech has a dysfluency of less than 5% so he falls in the severe category for speech disabilities. He doesn't have issues with pronunciation, but rather, he has the more difficult speech issues of stuttering, verbal blocks, etc. The strange thing is that some days he speaks perfectly fine and other days he really, really struggles.

It all started about 1.5 years ago. The therapist told me that his type of speech issues are usually brought on by stress. I have a little niggling concern way down deep that I caused his speech issues since it started at the same time I started to teach him to read. :( I wonder if I started reading instruction too early. I am very hopeful, though, since his speech therapist thinks he is responding favorably. Her goal is to get him to 20% dysfluency within a year. That would be wonderful! Some children can't talk at all, so I remind myself that he is so very blessed to be very healthy.

1st grade looks like this sometimes

No, I don't get much personal space, but I did finally get a haircut yesterday. Only THREE months since the last one. You know the excuses....snowed in again and again and again, new baby, husband working a lot....

Wish I had this problem...

"Mom, if I don't wear underwear, my pants fall down." Guess I need to keep the laundry moving a little quicker, folks.

Too cute for words

Thoughts

This little boy combined with these shoes

bring back so many memories from my high school years and my brother's wrestling experiences. Jonah has started wrestling, and he is a natural. He is so proud to have won the effort award and to have been beating a 3rd grader at practice.

Here the group is working on their Christmas thank-yous. We make their lists on the board, and I try to keep order as everyone works through their lists.

Here is a life-saver idea. The snack tray. If I put out a snack tray, the snacks disappear and I am not bugged all.day.long by hungry kids. My kitchen stays much cleaner too. I love snack trays.

This girl falls asleep in the strangest spots.

Ever issue a punishment and think....Huh?

Earlier this week Jonah threw a little tantrum when I called him for school. Tantrums are not allowed. Getting off schedule because of tantrums is not allowed. I remained calm and in control and issued the punishment.....for every minute he delayed schoolwork, he owed me a minute of extra chores. His extra chore was.....scrubbing the kitchen floor (if you see our floor, you can tell that I hate this job). Well, he was pleased - yes, pleased - with the chance to scrub the floor. And.....to make matters worse (better?) his sibs begged to help him. In the end our floor was scrubbed by four kids for about 20 minutes each. I'm not sure if I won the punishment battle or not, but I know my floor is much cleaner.

Mildly interesting Christmas pics

but first a pic of the kids with a lot of their cousins and their grandparents from Mark's side of the family. They have five cousins missing, and their older cousins' kids aren't in the picture. The oldest cousin is 25yo and the youngest is 2 months old. So far there are 11 boys and 9 girls. The next generation is currently at 4 boys and 1 girl.

The tree with treats for Santa.

Anna in her new pioneer costume. Isn't it adorable?

Christmas morning. What a mess. It was a Playmobil Christmas and those little parts were everywhere.

Just for fun

I caught the kids in action yesterday morning. Here they are doing what they do in a normal, quiet morning at 10:00.

Anna was playing Barbies in her very messy room.

Jonah was working on his math lesson.

Eli was taking a bath.

Sarah was playing trains in her very, very messy room. Her room wasn't ever messy until she moved in with the boys.

Simon was sleeping. You can see his one Christmas present in the crib with him. Sarah insists that his ball be with him. I love, love his swaddle blankets. I wish they came in my size.