Thankful day 4

Today I'm thankful for my awesome friend Jenny! (On her birthday!)

Thankful day 3

Today I am thankful for an awesome husband who takes such good care of us on the weekends. Today he made everyone breakfast and cleaned up, finished painting the bathroom, is grocery shopping for election night, then M and I get to go to mass alone together while he stays home with the boys and makes supper! (He will go tomorrow while M is at Sunday school, it's impossible to take L to mass right now!)
Thanks for all the hard work you do Ken! And all while being extremely good lookin'. ;)

Thankful day 2

Today I'm thankful for the chiropractor! My hip was in so much pain I could barely walk, and after 2 weeks I feel so much better! I cannot believe the difference.
My hip was twisted and about an inch higher than the other one.... Probably from a certain giant baby always on the opposite hip! Today they rescanned me and there's a huge improvement.

Now, the lady who scanned me was going on and on about meeting Obama... And I was able to keep my mouth shut! Took a lot of willpower :)

I'm also thankful my mom watches the kids during my appointments and I get to go to the Starbucks drive thru by myself!
Hmmmm could this be the reason I need the chiro? :)

30 days of thankfulness in November

Today I got this idea from my friend Julie. Everyday I'm going to post something I'm thankful for.
Anyone want to join me?

Today I'm thankful that I get to go to All Saints Day mass by myself. And that I got to go to a great Halloween party yesterday and meet some new friends!

Happy Halloween!

Getting ready for baby girl

Mom made the pretty basket for diapers, got her coming home outfit, working on her handknits, washed the carseat today and I made all my ob appointments from now until mid December!

John Paul is 3 1/2 today!

And he is my little wild man. But also sweet and loving and the funniest kid I've ever met in my life! He's turning out to be a fabulous big brother for Leo and they are starting to play together really well. Ive been very blessed that he has not yet done anything that would hurt Leo. He is very gentle with him! He also loves helping me cook and will stop anything he's doing to help or watch.
He dislikes being told to do something, like pick up his toys, put his shoes on or go to the bathroom before we go somewhere. We've had some showdowns around here which can be tiring. However since I always win, surely he will learn sooner or later that he just needs to do what I ask in a timely manner without whining and flopping around on the floor. (Right??)
Daddy usually puts M and JP to bed but JP always wants me to come rock him for a few minutes, which I love. I love my cuddly, sweet, hilarious, assertive, adorable little Hancey Boy!!

Gift for baby Leo

Today would have been my grandpa Leo's 85th birthday. Pretty sure he sent this to his favorite great grandson :)

We got to meet sweet baby George!!

And Jenny is amazing! He's so sweet and I got to change his very first diaper! I may be going back tomorrow for the third day in a row! :)

Madeleine absolutely cannot wait to hold her baby sister now!

Overachiever!

The handwriting directions:
Trace the letter, write at least one more letter.

Best present ever!

For our new baby gift my mom deep cleaned and fixed up our whole bedroom! Bought us new bedspread, curtains, blinds, lamps and a bunch of other stuff, cleaned it all out and got ready for baby girl to stay in there (for as long as possible!)
Thank you mom!!! We love it!!

What the boys do during school....

Thankful

I just can't believe the awesome friends we have. I've really wanted to get a nice swingset for the backyard for a long time. We had one our friends gave us several years ago which was wonderful, but the kids wore it out and I was afraid it was going to collapse every time they went on it!
So a friend knew we wanted one, and also knew a lady at church getting rid of one her kids had outgrown. It was a very nice, big, sturdy rainbow one with 2 big kid swings, spot for baby swing, tire swing, big clubhouse, slide and rings and hanging bar. So they gave it to us! And as if that wasn't enough, another friend who owns a construction company had some of his employees come set it up for us yesterday!! And they took the old one down!
The kids are soooooo happy. They played on it for about 6 hours yesterday and even ate supper in the clubhouse!

Baby girl!

Placenta is out of the way, palate looks intact, and she's still a girl! A big girl... 3 lbs 6 oz, measuring over 2 weeks ahead. No wonder my back and hips are killing me!
Pretty cute too :)

Week 7

I have to say after 7 weeks of homeschooling that we absolutely love it. It's better and easier for me than I thought possible. I'm loving Mother of Divine Grace and since she flies through the lessons, I'm able to add things like science, art, and math every day instead of twice a week. She soaks up everything like a sponge and actually squeals with delight when I get out her math book. (Who DOES that??) She loves handwriting and has improved tremendously in 7 weeks. She loves religion and literature and poetry too. She is hungry for knowledge which we believe is such a gift! Tonight she wasn't feeling well so ken made her some camomile tea. This led to a big discussion of herbs and spices including smelling and touching every fresh and dried herb we had. She was fascinated and Ken did a great job explaining it.
I put a spelling app on her phone (old iPhone) and she loves it. She's spelling words like butter, canary and sunflower with very little help and only because she wants to!

Homeschooling has also had some side benefits I had never thought about. The best one is that while we are doing school at the kitchen table, John Paul and Leo play together so nicely every day! It's amazing! When we are done, all 3 of them have been playing together for hours. This had led to me being able to keep up with the laundry, cleaning, etc better than ever before. I actually have more time! I have time to bake bread and cook delicious and healthy meals and the kids love to help me which leads to more learning (measuring, mixing etc) We have more time to spend with grandparents and friends.
We have lots of down time and time for quiet reading and imaginative play. Madeleine has had time to catch bugs, learn about them, observe them and take care of them. She builds elaborate structures and makes up detailed stories with her Legos and animals. We have a flexible schedule so if something comes up, we can work around it.
We are all having a lot of fun and learning so much! Madeleine is also loving Sunday school and gymnastics class. We went to a friends wedding on Saturday and she got right into the group of kids on the dance floor and danced all night! She even led the conga line! Hopefully we can keep this up :) so far so good!
Pics from Heather's wedding!

Baby skirt

Finally getting into the knitting groove for baby girl! I finished this skirt yesterday and I'll put a wool diaper cover under it. I've also been making a few other diaper covers for under sleepers. Love love love wool on little babies!
Also Madeleine and I dyed some yarn with kool aid! It was such a fun project and I got some colors I needed out of it ;) if I ever get my computer fixed I will show y'all how we did it. For now I'll leave you a few pics. In the skirt, the yellow, turquoise and purple/red trip were dyed by us. And the hat is in the auction for Andrew take 2! Go bid!

Proud moment

Ken and Madeleine trying to get the 2/$5 honey nut Cheerios on the top shelf at target.

Religion class

For Madeleine's religion this year, we read a bible story on one day, then the next day she retells it to me in her own words and illustrates it in her bible book. Here is what she told me to write today after hearing the story once. Is this normal?? I was very impressed!

First gymnastics class

I signed M and Jp for a 3-5 beginner gymnastics class and today was the first day. Madeleine was so excited and did great! Jp wouldn't even participate until the very end. L sat on grandmas lap most of the time but got free at the end and started climbing on all the mats. Let's hope next week goes better!

Also M had an eye doctor appointment today and her eyes look perfect, no more wandering out and she has 20/20 vision in both eyes! Yay!! We don't have to go back til May ;)

Overheard

M: John Paul, do you know how to make friends?
JP: no.
M: well, if someone smiles at you, you have to smile right back. Then ask them what their name is. Then, if they ask you what your name is, you have to tell them your REAL name, which is John Paul Landon. And that you have a brother named Leo Michael. And a sister named Madeleine Margaret.
Then you start playing together and you have a new friend!