Thursday, October 27, 2011

Giveaway!


I'm having a giveaway on my website today! Anyone can win, whether you have an interest in homeschooling or not.  Just click on over to the site if you want to see what it's all about - and don't worry, entering the giveaway is quick, painless and free!

Have a great weekend! I'll be back here soon with Halloween pictures of the boys. Michael has an especially great costume this year - any guesses who or what he's going to be?

~ Dori

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Baby Ben's Birthday Bash

Yes, Benjamin is the only one of the boys' names that I don't mind being shortened. I'm okay with Ben. Especially Baby Ben. Which, at this rate, I won't be able to call him for much longer!

Somehow "Toddler Ben" doesn't have the same ring to it...

I don't know why he looks sad - he's a VERY happy guy. Except for the teething.

He turned one a week ago. SO hard to believe that it's been a year since he was born! As we all know, I could go on and on and on and on about how fast the time goes. But I'll spare you. 

This time.


Some of our family and friends joined us in a small celebration for the birthday boy last weekend.  I thought some of you might like to see pictures of the festivities. 












We had a great weekend of celebrating! And, no, he didn't eat the cake. Or smear it allover things or throw it or anything exciting like that. 


The candle on his cake was actually from Michael's (our oldest) first birthday cake. In some passing moment of lucidity, I remembered:

A. I still had that candle 
2. Its approximate location in our house full of stuff.

I think it made up for the fact that the cake I baked didn't turn out very well and we ended up with a rather plain store-bought one.  With all the WONDERFUL food my husband made and a dessert my friend brought (thank you, Stacey, for introducing me to "Death by Chocolate!"), I don't think anyone cared too much about the cake.  Other than the boys, who made it their purpose in life to finish it off.


Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us - even if it was just in spirit.

I'll share more about what else we've been up to next week. We had a busy week this week so when I looked up from what I was doing earlier today I noticed that the house was a disaster!

So I'm trying to at least temporarily regain control of it. 

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Michael took this picture! And aside from the fact that I have zero makeup on it's pretty good! But, let's face it,  nobody's looking at me, anyway. I hope. 


~ Dori

Friday, October 7, 2011

End-of-September-I-Can't-Believe-It's-October Friday Post

Were you starting to think you'd have to endure another Friday without a blog post?

You weren't? 

Nevermind.




It's been awhile since I last posted, so I have quite a few pics to share. Don't say I didn't warn you.

One thing I like about blogging is that just when I think we haven't been doing anything, I load pictures onto my computer and am reminded of all the things we've been doing!

Except when sometimes there are disappointingly few pictures on the camera and I realize I have nothing noteworthy to share in a blog post.  In that case, I begin alternating between being depressed because I'm such a lazy, horrible mother and being overly-ambitious about all the things we're going to start doing!

Fortunately, this was NOT one of those times!


We've been getting out and about these last couple of weeks, trying to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather.


Recently, the boys had a Cub Scout field trip to a Nature Center at a nearby Metropark.


They had a great time and learned a lot about...uh...nature things.  I know that the highlight of the afternoon for Thomas was touching a real live snake! Too bad I don't have any pictures of that.


While we were in the Metropark, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather that day to do some more exploring.  I had read that there was a castle on the grounds and really wanted to check it out.


I've always had a fascination with castles. I'm sure it goes back to my days of wanting to be a princess when I grew up.  Certain people I'm related to are probably laughing right now. If they're even reading this.


Back to the castle. It's a small castle, over 100 years old and the boys were equally fascinated by it.


Well, Benjamin wasn't exactly "fascinated" but he was happy to be along for the ride.


We also spent a long weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house recently. They live near the Air Force Museum and we've been wanting to take the boys back there now that they are older.


The last time we were there we had a four and two year old and I was pregnant with the third.

So, yeah, it's been awhile.


We walked around looking at many planes.

The End.


Obviously, we did a little more than that. And the boys really enjoyed it.


Another highlight of the weekend was taking the older two boys to the movies. I left the younger two in the capable hands of Grandma, Grandpa and daddy (I figured since they would be outnumbered they'd probably survive without me for a little while) and took the other two to see Dolphin Tale. It was a really good movie and perfect for the boys. I didn't take the five year old because I thought a two hour, non-animated movie would be testing the limits of his attention span.  But he got to watch a Peanuts movie with Grandma, so he was just as happy. 


Back on the home front, we've been forging ahead with school.  Yes, Thomas, always has that happy, shiny look on his face when doing his book work.

Why do you ask?


Whatever gets the school work done.

As for what we have coming up, we'll be celebrating two birthdays this week. Benjamin is turning one and I won't mention what age my husband is turning. Because if he's old, then I'm old and I'm not old.

Anyway. Even though Benjamin is my fourth child, I still find it nothing short of amazing how fast babies grow and change. It seems like it was just last week when he came home from the hospital and was just a teeny, tiny ball of baby that did nothing but eat and sleep. 

And now...


He's doing so much more.


And that is what we've been busy doing around here. 

I hope you are all doing well and would love to know what you've been up to!

Have a great weekend!

~ Dori