what's up weekly. (back to school!)

Oh man, you guys.  So much has happened these last couple of weeks!  Buckle up.

First of all, my fourth-born is now a teenager.  I have four teenagers.  Luckily for me, teenagers are fantastic, so it's fun to have another one join the ranks.  (Even if she is pocket-sized and still looks like she's like nine.)

She is sweet-natured and kind and so very creative.  She is often the first one to run to help when she finds something needs to be done, and is always asking if there is anything she can help with.  She is fantastic with babies (though she's too soft for the preschool set - her after-lunch job last year was tucking in Oey at naptime, and Oey had her wrapped around her finger.  It always took like twenty minutes to finally meet all of Oey's demands before finally getting to close the door and come out.  She just doesn't have a taskmaster bone in her body, which makes her vulnerable to exploitation by the underlings.)

She elevates everything she puts her hand to.  She loves making things special - turning a normal lunch into a picnic, setting a table nicely for a weeknight meal, starting handmade Christmas Eve gifts in April so she has time to make them exactly how she wants them.  She loves doing her hair and accessorizing her outfits.  She seems to give everything she does a little extra thought.  I'm so excited to see how the Lord uses that particular gift in her life as she grows.

For her birthday, she chose apple cake and bacon for breakfast (cooked by her pajama-clad mother, looking her finest); grilled cheese and spaghettios for lunch; fried chicken and sweet potato fries for dinner; and a trip to Sonic after dinner for ice cream and time with friends.

  

Bacon in the shape of a claw because it got stuck together in the oven.

Her birthday was the icing on the cake of the last day of summer break.  I had spent the week leading up to it running around town, getting planners bound at the UPS store, picking up holds from the library, stocking up on school supplies, and placing last-minute book orders.

Atticus spent the week working full-time for a guy at our church who owns a construction business.  He learned to frame walls and hang and tape sheetrock.  He loved it, and got along really well with the guys he was working with.  He thinks maybe this will be the path he explores as he gets closer to graduating. (This is his last year of high school! How?!)

And in other growing-up news, we finally got around to piercing Eulalie's ears!  All the other girls had theirs done before they turned a year, and I think that is still the way to go.  But even with her being older, she handled it like a champ.

Todd, marking where he wanted the earring holes to end up.

Knox, never to be left out, marking his own ears.  

The last smile we saw for a few minutes.

Luckily, she cheered up pretty quickly, AND her hair is finally long enough for piggies, so it was a win-win.

This Monday, we started school.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect and I was braced for exhaustion.  While we still have some wrinkles to work out, I actually feel like the week went pretty smoothly.  I still have the same number of grades to teach as last year, so we didn't need to mess too much with the schedule and I've already adapted to the pace of it (unlike in years past when we've added a grade and had to move everything around to fit it all in).  Penelope is taking Oey under her wing and doing some early reading practice with her, so we technically have eight kids doing school each day.

I've started doing morning school in the babies' room (which I obviously need to clean).  It's quieter, and easy to close the door.  Plus, the babies' training potties are in there still, so I can help them when they need me without running all over the house.  In the afternoon, I do readings on the living room couch.

Play-doh has held the attention of the littler ones during school this week.

We waited on jumping into table time this week, and instead left Wednesday morning free to use as flex-time for anyone who was struggling to keep up with the workload or had other issues that might arise that needed attention.  Fortunately everyone seemed to not really need the extra buffer, so we took back-to-school photos and then went out for donuts.

They did this pose without any prompting.  They saw what the big kids were doing and were like, "We've got this."

As of this afternoon, we will have a whole week of school under our belt, and hoping to not jinx anything by saying so, it was relatively smooth and painless.  Tiring, yes. Full, yes.  Baseline overwhelming? No.  It was good.  And dare I say it, it was even a little nice to be back in the routine.  (Do not hear me say I'd rather be doing school work than rotting by the side of the pool, but also... maybe there's a time and place for everything.  I feel like I've read that somewhere important.)