Update

It has been quite awhile since I've blogged. Seems there aren't enough hours in the day. We were doing quite well over here....until early this morning. Ethan came into our room complaining of his stomach hurting. He crawled into bed with me and sure enough it was really hurting him. After awhile he threw up and is now in a much better mood. I am thinking this is just the residual of strep throat that he is still getting over. Of which he is still taking antibiotics for. I don't really know. I have not had coffee yet this morning and have been up since about 3am (first with Anna, I let her cry it out last night. It is time to stop nursing her at night. It was time to do that awhile ago but I never quite got around to it). We will see how the day progresses. I suppose we will put all activities on hold yet again for a day or two. And these were the busy days coming up! Today the kids have gymnastics and tomorrow they have The Cube, our co-op where I teach two classes. I'm not sure what to do about that. I missed last week because of Ethan's strep throat. I guess we will just see how the day goes and then decide.

I did finally post a bunch of pictures on my Picasa site. http://picasaweb.google.com/lesliehargus I tried to post them on the blog but it was such a pain so I just decided to keep them at Picasa. Much easier to do. I need easy and I need fast! The kids and the house keep my busy! You know, I had to laugh yesterday when on three separate occasions people asked me, "Are all these kids yours?" With a look of surprise and amazement in their voices. :) ha ha ha! Sometimes I am surprised I have this many! They keep me busy. But overall things are getting easier. Austin is pretty well potty trained. Yay! That makes life much easier.

Ok, side note, as I am typing this Austin burped (he is sitting at the table eating) and said, "Mama I sick. There's too much Frosted Wheats in my mouth, that's why." The logic of a 3 year old. He is my funny boy.

So Austin is pretty well potty trained, as long as I remind him to go. And Anna is on a good nap schedule which makes it easier for me to do schoolwork with the kids. She's also eating more solids which is a nice break for me. :) And as I get more sleep the better I feel and the better I am able to deal with all that comes my way during the day.

Ethan and Emma are doing really well with school this year. Emma has whizzed through her handwriting book and is writing out her bible verses from Sparks now as her handwriting assignment. She's also doing quite well with Math. I am amazed at how much she already knows just from listening to what I have been doing with Ethan. And Em is also doing great at reading. We are halfway through her reading book. When we finish the book she should be reading at a second grade level. When I finished that book with Ethan last year his reading skills took off. I can't wait to see that happen with Emma. Right now she is still hesitant and not quite confident in her skills. It won't take long and she'll be getting out her own library books to read!

Ethan's attention span is much better this year. I can see improvement in every area. It's very exciting to see! He catches on to math easy. He figured out subtraction before we got to it in his book. He didn't know that that is what he was doing tho. His handwriting is also sooo much better! I didn't expect such a huge improvement in that area yet. I had heard that for boys it takes until second grade for handwriting to improve. I don't push it, but we do a little each day. I think that works well for him since he still doesn't like it.

Princess Anna is growing like a weed. She is funny. A serious little thing like her oldest brother. She's quite fond of her daddy these days. She reaches for him as soon as he gets home from work. He is "Happy Fun Dad" after all. That's his job. :) Anna likes to make new noises with her mouth, she likes to dance (she's a headbanger), and she is learning how to wave bye bye. Her biggest achievement is that she is standing up on her own for a few seconds at a time....until she starts to dance. :) She took two steps towards me while holding on to only one of my hands yesterday. She is well on her way to causing all sorts of trouble!

And Matt is enjoying his new job as well. He is finally getting his weekends off. He actually got to work on our bathroom shower last weekend! and I bought some paint for Emma and Anna's room. Not sure when I'll get around to painting tho....