A rambling post

Time to ramble about everything and nothing, with a few recent pictures thrown in! :) We are having a good winter so far, although I will admit it hasn't really felt much like a "real" NH winter. Not much snow, not even very cold (at least not for very long at a time). Not that I'm complaining! :) But, for the kids' sake, it's nice when we have more snow for them to play in. At least we still have a little bit, although many days lately have felt like a precursor to Spring.

{all dressed up for church on a cold day in January--before the boys got their most recent haircut}

We are still plugging along in school. I really need to do a post all by itself about how that's going, but I keep forgetting! We're in the middle of week 23 right now. We are a little bit behind where I wanted to be at this point, but I think we will still finish most of our books by the end of May. Sam might need to work on his math book through part of the summer in order to finish before the next school year, but I'm not going to stress about that. I want to make sure he's actually getting the concepts, instead of rushing him through it. Julia is coming along well with her reading, although we are taking it slowly. I feel like I pushed Sam too hard at first with reading, and I want to make sure I don't make the same mistake with Julia. I've been encouraged just in the past couple weeks to see her making good progress and starting to read short words more smoothly.

{my tired "baby"--who insists he is NOT a baby anymore, sniff sniff!}

The kids and I all have a cold this week; it's been going through our church family, so I guess it was almost unavoidable. :) Thankfully it is just the sneezy/stuffy variety, no sore throat or anything. Hopefully we'll be done with it soon!

{Valentine's dinner--please pardon the children stuffing their mouths with food. They were really hungry! :)}

We had a nice Valentine's Day. I had an eye dr. appt. in the morning, then I had to get some ingredients for our special dinner. By the time I was all done with errands and picking up the kids at my mom's, it was getting close to lunchtime and I decided to take the day off from school. The kids didn't mind. :) That way I was able to take my time puttering around in the kitchen and getting everything ready. We had pan-fried haddock, cole slaw, salt & vinegar broiled potato slices, leftover cheesy garlic bread, and a dark chocolate tart for dessert. I was able to keep the meal semi-healthy (at least as healthy as fried food can be--I used coconut oil ;)), and almost sugar free . . . except for the cole slaw! The chocolate tart was sweetened with honey, although I did use a little bit of semi-sweet chocolate in it as well as unsweetened, so it wasn't completely sugar free. Jim, Josiah and I really liked it, but it wasn't sweet enough for the other kids. :)

{Deep Dark Chocolate Tart . . . mmmmmm}

I got a new cell phone yesterday!! Jim has been thinking about switching to a prepaid type plan, so we've been researching some online. He wanted to get me a phone first to make sure we like the service before he switches over. I haven't had a cell phone for several years because I didn't use mine enough to make it worth the money, but I do like the convenience of having one when I'm out running errands, etc. Anyway, we went with Page Plus Cellular, and the cheapest phone they had was around $45 (including shipping). I hated to spend that much on a phone, but at least the plan we got is cheap. $10 for 4 months (100 minutes). This will probably be enough minutes for me for that amount of time, but they have other options too if we decide I need a different plan. The phone has a keyboard which is kinda funny since I don't text, but I can already see that it will be handy for adding my contacts, etc. I've been having fun playing around with it already. It also has a camera. :) Page Plus also has a year long plan for around $80, which is probably what Jim will get if he switches over. Right now we are paying around $46/month for his plan, so this would be a BIG savings!

Jim has a little time off from his regular job this week in order to do a carpentry job. He is pretty happy about that! He doesn't mind his regular job (most of the time ;)), but he does miss doing carpentry, so it's nice when these little jobs come along.

Today is in the mid-40s and we are loving it!! The kids have been spending a lot of time outside in the fresh air and we haven't done a full school day. I think it's important for them to get some outside time, too. :) And while they are all outside, I should probably go work on housework and maybe accomplish a few of my weekly goals! Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!