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Since my oldest lost his first tooth, last spring, the tooth fairy has made 4 more visits to the circus. And judging by the giant front tooth dangling from my oldest sons top row, I think she’ll be back again this week! As you may recall, we pulled my son’s first tooth in a very unconventional manner. His second tooth was pulled the normal way by dad. For his third tooth, he was very eager to pull it himself when his grandparents were here, so they could see.

We had a super fun time at the aquarium today for our tutorial fieldtrip. And although we’ve taken the kids two other times over the past 7 years, I think they had way more fun getting to go with their friends…which proves Piglet was right, “It’s so much more friendly with two.” (or 40) Having gone twice before, I kinda wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I had before… yet, I found myself amazed yet again at the incredible creatures our God has created…and I saw things I have never seen before…

Christmas is without a doubt my favorite time of year. I’ve already shared in my last post how I love all the things about Christmas. And I do, even the shopping, baking, prepping for company… I love it all. In fact when Christmas actually gets here I am always a little sad, because truth be told I love the season, the anticipation, the preparation so much that I am sad to see it end when the actual day of Christmas arrives.

Love choosing and cutting down our tree… Love decorating it and passing on the memories to my children of the precious ornaments hung on our tree… Love the wonder of the lights… Love watching them play with toys that only come out once a year… Love seeing them act out the story of Christ’s birth as they play with their nativity sets And this year I love listening to the sounds of Christmas carols fill the house as my son plays them on the piano

This year I decided to follow the example of other friends on face book and post something each day on my status that I was thankful for. It was a really fun way to stop and focus on giving thanks each day. I decided to cut and paste my status updates into a blog post for today so I could record these to look back on later. Here they are starting with today and going backwards to the beginning of November….

My four year old asked for a drink the other day. I always pour the kids small amounts since we have a propensity to spill things round the circus. When I handed her the glass she said to me, “Now Mom, that is what I call HALF FULL!” I couldn’t help but chuckle, guess we know how she sees the world. 

If we gotta rake and bag all these leaves, we may as well take advantage of the seasonal photo op they provide first!

Education is about so much more than book smarts. I’ve known this for awhile and believed it to my core. In fact, this fact alone has dictated so many decisions we make in raising our children, especially since we home school and want to make sure that they are learning more than just “reading, writing, and arithmetic.” Yesterday and today our school time was “interrupted” so that I could spend time one on one disciplining a child for behavior.

I feel busy… these past few months have probably been the busiest I’ve been in quite awhile. Scott worked a ton of overtime, the oldest three played soccer, the girls both did gymnastics, my oldest son started piano lessons, cub scouts is back in action, the home school year began—it takes up way more of my day than it used to…. I am not complaining… I willingly signed up for all of these things (ok… except for the overtime part) and I enjoy them… it’s a stage of life for us that is fleeting, I know.