Mid-April Daybook, Part 1

Crazily enough, a whole month has gone by since my last post.  WHERE is April going?!!  It seems like I blink and another month has passed.  On the 5th of this month, I turned 38.  On the 9th, Ari turned 5 mos. old.  On the 24th (that's just TEN days away), Josiah will turn 7, and then Julia turns 9 on the 29th.  Craziness, I tell you!!  In the midst of all this real life, I desperately want to record the moments, and yet weeks go by in between, and I suddenly realize I didn't record the memories and the milestones.  The winter felt so long, and yet at the same time it sped by in a blur.  I meant to post about the ice skating, the sledding, the weeks and weeks of freezing temps . . . and I barely caught any of it.  But instead of moping about what I didn't post, let's just jump back in and start posting as much as I can, catching the moments that I'm able to.  I felt like a daybook was in order. :)  And I'm interspersing it with some recent pictures, because that format seems to work well lately!

 Easter 2015

Around the house: Boy, do I see so many areas I want/need to spring clean!  But I'm barely keeping my head above water with just the basics.  Laundry is my current nemesis, along with dishes (my most long-standing nemesis!).  I also need to put away the snowman decorations and the (gulp) Christmas lights/garland that are still up in the living room.

Outside my window: I think winter may be finally letting go of us.  We've enjoyed some beautiful weather over the past few days, sunshine that calls us outside to soak up some lovely Vitamin D!  Oh, we still have a few snow piles here and there, and there's a bit left to melt in the woods.  But overall we're well into that wonderful 5th New England season known as "mud season."  My floors are not so happy about that, but I'm so happy about the warmer weather that I don't even care (much). :)

In the sewing room: Well, if I actually HAD a sewing room, that is.  Instead, I use the kitchen table, and we make do and move the sewing machine around when we need to eat.  I had the most fun making matching Easter dresses for Julia and Ari over the past month.  SO MUCH FUN!!  You can get a peek at them in these pics.  I wanted to make a coordinating skirt for me, but that didn't quite happen yet.  Maybe in time for Mother's Day?  We will see.  For the girls, I made simple peasant style dresses and fancied them up a bit with sashes.  I tried my hand at shirring with elastic thread to do the collars and sleeves.  It was a little tricky as my machine didn't care much for the elastic thread, but it worked out okay.

 I also made some coordinating shoes for Ari from the same fabric as the sashes.  Sewing for a baby is like making doll clothes . . . love it!

 In the kitchen: I still haven't fully gotten on plan with Trim Healthy Mama.  I have good intentions but haven't quite succeeded in planning ahead enough yet.  So I do what I can, and try some new recipes here and there.  One recent yummy THM recipe we tried was Sour Cream Beef Enchiladas.  I think I'll cut the cream cheese in half next time I made the recipe, but it was really good!  Another new recipe I just tried tonight (not THM) was this ham/pineapple/rice casserole from an old issue of Quick Cooking.  This was a hit with Jim and me, and the kids liked it pretty well (especially the pineapple).  A good way to use up leftover ham!

Girl news: The day after Easter, Julia got a haircut!  We'd been wanting to cut it a lot shorter for a while.  It's hard to keep it looking nice because it tangles so easily, and she hates having it brushed (very sensitive scalp).  So Jim cut it to about shoulder length and it is so much easier to take care of now.  Plus I think it looks super cute. :)  We thought about going a little shorter with more of a curved bob around her face, but we decided to keep it this way for now.  We can always take off a little more later, but I think this look really suits her and it will be a lot cooler for summer, too.

 I do think it makes her look older, though . . . sniff sniff! :(

 This is the ponytail we cut off.  About 9-10".  She is going to donate it to a charity for children with hair loss.  I have the form all printed out and ready to go, just haven't gotten it sent in yet.

 Miss Ari is now 5 months old, and just too cute, chubby, and kissable for words!  We love her to pieces.  She has moved past the colicky stage, but seems to be teething now.  No teeth have popped through yet, but she's been pretty fussy with many signs of it, so I'm expecting to see one any day now.  It seems like the past 5 months have gone by SO fast.  From our tiny little newborn, she has now become this funny small person with her own unique personality, her grin that lights up the room, and her curious fingers trying to grab everything!  It seems like just yesterday she was content to be wrapped in a blanket, sleeping for hours in her swing . . . and now the swing is put away, she rarely even uses the bouncy seat anymore, and most of her waking time is spent in her hop 'n pop, or the Bumbo, or playing on a blanket on the floor.  Babies change so quickly, and it's sad because I don't really realize it until she's already past one stage and well into another!

But regardless of the stage, she's a ton of fun. :)  And this next picture is SO funny!  I can just see her thinking, "Enough of the flash, Mom!"

Today she rolled over for the first time since she did it at 3.5 weeks (which was only because she was so upset--following after her mommy's "footsteps" because I did the same thing at 2 weeks old!). She went tummy to back, and then tried to roll back the other way, but hasn't quite figured that out yet.  I love this sleeper I found recently at the thrift store.  We think she looks like a little court jester in it. :)

In the schoolroom: We continue to plug away at all the things that need to be finished up for the year.  Technically we have around 10 weeks of work left in most subjects, but I'm pretty sure we can squeeze it all into less time than that.  I'm behind on our history read-alouds again (no surprise there--that's been the story of my year!!), but I have the whole summer to finish up before we start a new Sonlight core next year.  In the meantime though, we are reading through the Little House books before bed most nights, and last week Sam and Julia went on an Imagination Station reading spree, flying through all the books in the series that we own so far (I think there are only four that we don't have yet).  Sam even read to Ari for a while one night, and I think she enjoyed it. :)

Then they also check out lots of books from the library.  Last week there were some new Mr. Putter and Tabby books to check out!  I couldn't resist taking these pictures of Sam reading one to Josiah.  They were both laughing so hard.  They can read these books over and over and still crack up over them every time!

Since it's taken me 2 days to write this much, I've decided to make this "part 1" of the daybook.  I'm not sure when part 2 will be coming, but hopefully sometime this weekend. :)  My goal is to give myself 15-20 minutes each day to write something on the blog (even if it doesn't get posted each day, but is just part of a post!), but tomorrow will be busier than usual and I want to get this post up before any more time goes by.  So I'll leave you with a sleeping baby picture. :)  Jim hooked up this baby swing for Ari in the kitchen . . . we used it in the garage with the other kids, but when we discovered she tends to fall asleep easily in it, he decided to move it into the house!  The first few times we put her in there, she fell asleep within minutes, so we dubbed it the Magic Swing.  Now, it isn't always magic, but if she's tired enough, this is what happens!