A New Record

I don't think I've ever gone eight months without blogging before! Heavens, I'm behind. I'm going to try to play catch up in the next few weeks, so watch this space!

-isms from The Boy

So the kids, especially Miss Bubbly and The Boy, have always felt comfortable crawling into bed with me in the middle of the night. Bad dreams, thunderstorms, or just being cold, they're happy to banish all these problems by slipping under my blankets. And when I wake up enough, I take them back to their own beds and tuck them in. Tightly.

Thankfully, Miss Bubbly has outgrown that stage, since she's getting large in stature. But The Boy still fits by my side quite neatly, and at least one night in three I'll wake up to find him snuggled with me.

This was the case a couple of nights ago, and as I picked him up to take him to bed, his eyes popped open and he said, "Where's my pants?"
"You're wearing them, bud," I replied, sleepily, as we headed into his room.
"No, I'm not!"
"Yep, you are. Goodnight," I said, tucking him into bed.

I'm not sure I fully convinced him, but we were both too tired to care. He may have issued his usual reply, "Oh, I am!" as I left, but I couldn't tell you, since I still had an hour before the alarm went off and I was going to take advantage of that.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So it's two weeks into the new year and I haven't blogged yet. I feel like our lives have settled into a routine, which means that trying to blog about it on a weekly basis seems BORING. Yet I compiled our blogs into blog books for Christmas and I realized I *used* to be able to write interesting things.

But the more children I've had, the less brain capacity I've retained, it seems. And I don't want to bore you with our mundane complaints--the drafty house that really could use a complete remodel (or while we're at it, how about razing it entirely and restarting from the foundation up? And putting in adequate insulation? That would be REALLY nice), my inability to focus on running the house AND start homeschooling/potty training TJ (Yep. He's three and not potty trained. I may wait until he's 5, just to see if he'll figure it out himself. (Not really.)), or the budget that refuses to cooperate with me on a monthly basis (darn you, tempting Christmas clearances!).

But you know what? The year is new, I have goals to set (obviously), and there is always the gospel of Jesus Christ to buoy me up. I don't have to do it all--I just have to do things one at a time, and let the Spirit guide me to the important things, like an impromptu game of catch or chasing Ella around the house while crawling on all fours or reading a chapter from Ella Enchanted to the girls just before bed. And at least I have a few things figured out, like how to make a good loaf of bread or how to keep the house comfortably clean. I just have to build on what I know.