In which I bring us up to date

Now that I'm all caught up on last year, I should talk about this year before it's half over, right? 

As part of coping with having a newborn and three other children, The Baby and I did a lot of sleeping in the recliner. One morning I couldn't go back to sleep, so I played around with my phone's camera. The verdict? I really need to figure out how to work a camera. :D

I don't know why, but this picture of The Baby makes me giggle:

 The Baby has done a lot of developing in the last few months, getting more mobile and more into EVERYthing. So I had to come up with creative ways to distract her while doing necessary things like cleaning the bathroom (and occasionally using it). Here she's enjoying emptying her little toy bin for the umpteenth time:

 Baby love on my leg:

Lest we forget, there are other children who exist in this household:

I can't remember when I took this picture of The Boy (reason 348 why I need to blog more often) , but I love it:

He has since been de-binkied, under much protest.

Here are The Boy and The Fake Child, whom I watch once or twice a week. She's about a year older than he is, and they both have high-pitched voices and talk about random things, like the mean squirrels who aren't allowed on the porch.

After reading about Sumerian temples one day, The Eldest and Miss Bubbly decided to make their own:

I thought they were quite creative.

 The Boy loves taking pictures on my phone:

The Baby in the grass, previous to conquering crawling. If she could have, I think she would have crawled right off it--she was NOT a fan.

Oh look! Another picture of The Boy and me.

The Baby makes funny faces.

The Baby in her Easter dress, holding her very securely taped Easter Egg. She's holding it in the next picture, too, but you can't see it because she's shaking it intently.

I've been trying to get on top of this whole "homemaking" thing, in which I do weekly chores and have a routine and have a clean house--and a clean bathroom!--when my visiting teachers come over.  Part of homemaking, for me, now includes a baking day, which I love. The week of this picture, I produced four loaves of bread, several hamburger buns (some of them were HUGE), granola, and my first turkey. Not bad, huh?

The Baby has discovered that her mouth can be used as an extra hand.

Bad picture, but I was only able to capture it this once. This is what we call The Baby's "oooo" face.

Sibling bathtime!

The Baby is now a bonafide crawler and has two bottom teeth. She's working on more, but they haven't actually cut through yet. She loves her solid foods, and now eats finger foods quite adroitly. The Boy has been talking more and more--so much that I'm convinced he's quite articulate for a 2.5-year-old. Though he still tosses out phrases like "I don't love it" when he, well, doesn't love something (the current tv show, the vegetables on the plate, and so forth).

Miss Bubbly is doing well, having fun with homeschooling and helping The Boy learn how to use the computer. She misses The Eldest, though, and I can't blame her. And why does she miss The Eldest? Because we put her in public school for the last six week session. It's a requirement of the online school we're trying to get her into for next year, that she be enrolled in public school the previous year. I didn't find this out until APRIL, so we had to make some hasty decisions. But The Eldest is loving it and thriving, which is all I could ask for. 

A week before determining that The Eldest needed to attend public school, Miss Bubbly came to me and said that she wanted to go to school. She wants to make more friends and have recess, among other things. I've always said that I'd homeschool the kids for as long as they let me, and I guess this is it! Miss Bubbly is more of an extrovert, so I understand her need to be around more people. Also, I'm more comfortable with her starting school in second grade--I've had time to see how she operates and form reasonable expectations for her behavior. And I think she'll take to public school like a duck to water. 

 But just to show you how cool of a mom I am, I took The Eldest out of school for Student Day at the Renaissance Festival. Next year, we're totally dressing up.

 JOUSTING!!

And now I officially declare myself CAUGHT UP. Huzzah!