you know what i love? i’ll tell you what i love. i love coming downstairs and finding them like this. you know what else i love? i’ll tell you what else i love. i love finding them like this a few minutes later. now the little sister can read short stories from her reading book to her big brother. and he only had to help her sound out a couple of the words. yup.  that’s what i really, really love.

so for his birthday, mikey requested a party at mulligan’s.  and he wanted to invite his homeschool crew.  we planned to have it on a friday afternoon hoping that the place would be pretty dead in the middle of the day.  and it worked out great. finally time to get this party started! we decided to make this an optional drop-off party and half of the moms took us up on it (hey, a homeschool mom’s gotta take advantage of these rare opportunities and i’m totally on board with that!).  so a BIG thanks to phil and the moms who did stay and help keep everyone together.  i absolutely could…

mikey’s started tae kwon do a few months ago.  he loves it.  good thing, because phil signed him up and paid for a year’s worth of classes because they offered the lowest rate that way.  anyway, three weeks ago was his very first belt test. sooo excited to test for his yellow belt! he asked me to take a punching shot with him looking fierce.  here it is. he didn’t say it, but i could tell he was a little nervous, too. and then it was belt test time. getting ready to do some kicking. that right there is a pretty high kick. excuse me, i was momentarily distracted by…

eight years and one night ago, i was three days shy of my due date.  phil was finishing up his yearlong master of public health program and was getting ready to begin his third year of medical school.  we were living in the university of minnesota’s married student housing.  we had just decided to get ready for bed when all of a sudden, i felt a tightening grip around my belly.  it was more intense than the infrequent and fleeting braxton hicks contractions i had been feeling for the previous few days.  i mentioned it to phil.  we continued getting ready for bed anyway.  the contractions kept coming, and though…

so one of my lofty goals when starting this homeschooling venture was to have each kid make dinner for the family.  which included picking out the meal they wanted to make, writing out a grocery list of the needed ingredients, reading the necessary recipe involved, and finally cook the meal.  with my assistance. what i didn’t count on was how exhausted i’d be pretty much every single day.  and how such a lofty goal felt downright out of reach when keeping up with the laundry, the dishes, and the hundred other simple daily tasks were already proving to be too much for me to handle. but then a couple weeks…