Bringing us up to date

[Also known as, "I don't have the time to figure out how to make the darn pictures work today. Grrr.]

Since I haven't been regularly posting since June I'm going to brief you as to how we've spent our last 7 months. In June we travelled to Michigan for our annual trip to "Len's Cabin". There was no destroying of neighbors ponds or anything so I apparently didn't feel the need to take ANY pictures?! Can this be right? Weird.
My family came down in August for a 24 hour visit - what sacrifice!
And the next day we took off for our week-long vacation with John's family at Rehobath Beach, Delaware. "Gricky" is the celebrity word I would use to describe that week. It wasn't that is was terribly hot - just a lot of melting ice cream (sticky) mixed with sand (gritty) resulting in a general feeling of grickiness.
The beach with Gussy is...shall we say, trying? A fully mobile 11 month old is just about the worst type of human bean to take to the beach. I tried to let him learn the lesson by letting himtaste the sand and draw his own conclusions about it but this didn't work. At least he wasn't as bad as Rosie at his age, she actually intentionally dipped her food into the sand before eating it. But after realizing that he wasn't going to stop eating sand I spent my time trying to intercept all of the cigarette butts before they made down the hatch with the sand. Really gross.
We ended up staying a whole extra week due to an unfortunate tennis accident that forced John's grandparents back to the city with an extra week booked at the beach house. It was such a wonderful treat for us (sorry, Betty!) and a wonderful break from all of the home improvement/moving/gardening that occupied us all summer.
John started up the semester immediately. This time he only had one new class and two classes that he had taught before so it was vastly different then last fall when he was a new prof., all new classes and a new baby 2 weeks into the semester. Isn't wonderful that we don't ever have to repeat the exact same things? You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that year.
We also started homeschooling Moses in September for Kindergarten. Such FUN! I love it. I don't love that it isn't my sole occupation though. The cleaning, cooking, laundry doesn't seem to care that I would so much rather be researching curriculum and finding "living books" for my son - it just continues demanding attention. I actually enjoy all of those other things too but the novelty of using my brain for more then cleaning lists and menu plans is sort of addicting.
Moses is doing very well - learning to read and add and subtract. Plus enormous amounts of information about Knights and Castles, Trains and (of course!) Dinosaurs.



Sometime during our study of Knights and Castles, Rosie became enamoured with princesses. That continues to be her all-consuming story of the year.
Thomas has fully enjoyed himself for mom's group and library story time because he's such an extrovert. He runs around in the middle of the kids at story time while the other two kids cling to me like we're on a sinking ship. There's no accounting for temperaments, I suppose.
Let's see - in September he also turned one. No one could have been happier with all the attention, believe me.
Fall went by with all the usual things, picking apples, Halloween, etc.
Anthony turned 5. Oh my goodness. For a certain amount of time it gave him great courage. When people asked him how old he was he would actually say, out loud, "five". Now we've languished to just raising one hand but there was a burst of courage following such an important birthday. It's OK, Rosie tells everybody she meets how old we all are, including me and daddy.
The morning of his birthday we woke up and had this conversation...
Anthony: Am I five right this moment?
Mommy: Yes, today is your birthday!
Anthony (with a puzzled look at his hands and arms): But I don't look 5, I just look 4.
Later in the morning he showed me a picture he'd just drawn, saying, " So...I guess this is what a picture by a five year old looks like."
Also in November I was 34 - 38 weeks pregnant. Therefore we did not travel for Thanksgiving but stayed here in the south and spent the day with John's extended family at the big gathering in D.C. November and December were spent with me in a FRANTIC state trying to get everything ready for Christmas before the baby came and then she came, right on cue. Born on her due date, the feast of St. John of the Cross. We had Christmas at our home with some of John's family stopping in for a very pleasant visit.
My family and dear friend Reenie came down for a week after Christmas where we (by we, I mean John and Reenie) successfully replaced a toilet, a faucet, a stove, put hardware on the cupboards, and finished the window seat. Phew! It was fun for me - I got a very nice upgraded kitchen and a wonderful visit all in one!
Since John started the semester life has been one big blur, just trying to figure out how to handle this...situation (the one with me and many young children alone is a house in the winter). But that's a post for another day.