Whooped

Ugh, another post with no pictures.  Boo. Hiss.  Oh, wait.  I'm booing myself:(  Oh well.  I am sorry - and I've not anything spectacular to excuse the lack of photos.  We've been busy, but with what???   This past week was the local schools' spring break, so we took full advantage of having all of our friends available for play!  We met at the park one day, other days at friends' homes, and yet another here with friends.  I got to visit with my sweet girlfriends too - 2 during the day and even one night out.  It was wonderful but by Thurs. I remembered something very important about my family.  We love our friends and we love to spend time in relationship with these dear families.  Yet, we need rest.  We did manage to do school most days and then we did skip one, but by Fri. we were all whooped. 
Jack was having a friend spend the night, but a turn of events resulted in our "returning" our friend.  Jack made some major mistakes.  All is fine now-trust will have to be regained, as well as some privileges.  I am being purposefully vague here.  The older Jack gets, the more I desire to respect his privacy - his right to make mistakes safely under our roof where he can be loved and trained without fear of having these errors becoming labels that follow him forever.
That being said, all of the children went to bed without protest and slept well til morning.  The busyness finally caught up with me as well and thanks to my amazing husband, I slept til 10!!!  He poked his head in to make sure I was ok and I finally dragged myself out of bed:)  We did stay up past 11 last night, but I really think it had all just worn me out - not to mention the crazy weather does a number on my sinuses.  So, I am praying that I'll be able to sleep tonight!  Oh well - just so long as I'm back on schedule for Mon. we'll be ok.
Today was a great rainy, lazy day.  I am still in my pj's and clearly never left the house.  We all ate all 3 meals here and while I did a bit of cleaning, overall not much was accomplished.  And it felt great!  This is what a Sabbath should be:)  I'm wondering if our family shouldn't adopt the Jewish tradition.  It would vastly ease my guilt over not being able to honor Sunday as our Sabbath.  Something to think about.  
Ryan is finally, and thankfully, over his ear infection but that second molar has not quite broken through.  His overall attitude is much improved:)  He still won't walk more than a few steps, but we are finding him standing on his own randomly in the middle of the room:)  And have I mentioned what a JOY it is to finally have a child who goes to sleep on his own?  Ah-ma-zing!!!!  Praise God for small favors!
Will is really changing - his language is getting so clear and his expressions are a trip.  "Yeah, I had that on my brain," when told what we were having for lunch. 
Ella-Kathryn is going through a bit of a phase, at least we hope it's a phase!  She's struggling to have a joyful heart when asked to do things, and has developed a rather sassy 'tude.  Again, I'm trying to discern if it's a matter of attention, as she's my lone girl and usually so quick to do the right thing with little prompting, or if it's the age (6) where she needs to set some more independence?  We'll see.  Overall she is still such a hambone, entertaining us with her silly faces and goofy expressions.
Jack is such a good kid.  I mean really.  When you're in the thick of it, this parenting thing, it can be so easy to lose sight of your kids hearts while you're furiously focusing on the behaviors.  It's a daily struggle to step back and after seeking Him first, view these precious children as the gifts that they are!  Yes they are human and yes they will err, but these kids of mine are truly fun, bright, enjoyable little people and I am trying to see what He sees:)

Bullets

Here's our life in bulleted format:

• An elderly woman, whose husband is suffering from Althimers and who had recently lost her job, won the $1,000,000 Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes.  The local section of the paper had a photo and I was telling the kids how lovely it was to see someone who really needed that money win!  Ella-Kathryn responded, "Wow, that's almost as good as winning a tent!" (her name was drawn at a church function in the fall and she won a tent.)
• I told will he looked cool.  He told me he wasn't cool, he was awesome. 
• At dinner one night, Will quietly said, while shaking his head, "Daddy, you so, so good."  We kind of smiled at each other, and then I asked him what was daddy good at.  He replied, "Daddy, you so so good at breakfast."
• Discussing Lent and fasting from soemthing that means a great deal to you, Jack got a panicked look on his face and said, "are you going to give me up?"
• While on a shopping trip with EK, she was reading all of the signs and store names.  She asked if we could go to the RackRoom and when I told her no, she asked, "well how about the Shoe Det" by which she meant the Shoe Dept (phonetics, gotta love 'em)
• And in a huge Praise - Ryan has been sleeping through the night-in his crib!!
• Ryan is still recovering from an ear infection (been on antibiotics for about a week and I'm not convinced it's doing its job)
• Homeschool is going great - I am so grateful that we can do this even on the hard days:)
• Ella-Kathryn made me a sign for my door that says "mommy is butiful" - I tried to take it in the best way possible even if she did draw me with a horrific pig nose
• I know I'm insane, but I have baby fever - again...on a trip to the hospital to visit a young friend of ours, I was truly saddened that they had curtained the nursery for the night.  Maybe it was for the best though.  On the phone this morning, Jack told Jeff that I wanted another baby and  I could hear Jeff laughing from across the room:) 

Ok that's it for now and I need to get some pics on here too, so I'll try to work on that!