Birthday Season:)

It is birthday season at our house! Grace's was Feb. 19th, Elizabeth's was March 3rd and mine was yesterday (March 12th). I feel all birthdayed out. Don't get me wrong I love birthday's but they require a lot of work and preperation on my part. I love doing everything I do for everyone's birthday.I think it is important that everyone feels special on their birthday. I just tend to stress out about the details. Especially when it comes to my own. I know that's silly, but I finally have come to the conclusion that if I want to have a special birthday I'm going to have to make it that way myself.  So that requires some work on my part. Yesterday I made myself a new skirt to go with my birthday sweater, "wrapped" my gifts with the girls ( we put my birthday gifts in gift bags), made a delicious birthday cake (Reese's birthday cake), and did my usual mom stuff like making meals, and feeding a baby and I even took time to bath myself. Looking at the list of stuff I did yesterday it doesn't seem like I did that much but the day flew by very quickly. The important thing is I had a good birthday. I enjoyed making my cake and sewing my skirt. I really enjoyed my kids wishing me happy birthday multiple times during the day and the cards that they gave me. It was sweet, Elizabeth was coloring all sorts of coloring pages for my birthday. The fridge was covered in her art projects that she had made for me.
This week I was busy with grocery shopping, doing the budget, paying bills, planning menus, making freezer meals (I was able to make enough enchiladas for 4 meals and enough chili for 4 dinners and 4 lunches) and all the other shopping that comes with payday week for me.  I even managed to mop my kitchen floor which was embarrassingly filthy and I won't tell you how long it had been since the last mopping. Also I did my birthday shopping which took much longer than I had hoped. I was shopping for clothes which seems to take me longer these days because I am so picky. I just don't want to spend money on something I don't end up wearing. I know, the life a housewife is so exciting isn't it?

What's going on with the rest of the family?

Poor Jon has not been feeling well. He had one illness after another with the kids and now he is having some joint pain. The pain is severe enough that he missed three days of work and is constantly taking pain medication still. It started a week ago Friday. He is going to a specialist next week to try and figure out what is wrong.

Samuel has been having fun this week making Lego pirate ships. He also keeps busy with his homework and he is always a great help. Samuel has gotten really good about doing his homework without being told to. He is really excited about the pinewood derby that is coming up.

Joseph has also been enjoying his Lego's and building pirate ships. Joseph is really good about doing his homework. He is supposed to read for 20 minutes every night and write a few sentences. He does that every night before bed. What a great habit. He has come to love science books because of that. His teacher was telling me that when reading together with other kids in his class that he gets the other kids really excited about his current science related books that he enjoys. She also says that she really doesn't want to lose him next year because he is such a great kid and because he is so much fun.

Elizabeth is my little crafter and she is so much like me that it is frustrating at times :)  She has so many projects going that her room is always covered in paper, crayons and markers. She is always so proud of what she can do. Like she loves to dance and she brags that she is a great ballet dancer. Sometimes I wish I had the confidence that she has.

Grace is my little chef. She loves to help me make a lot of our meals. When the older kids are at school she will follow me around and help me with whatever I'm working on at the time or she quietly plays by herself. I love listening to her playing by herself and using her imagination. Grace's favorite song is the ABC song, we have to sing it for our family home evening every time.

William is always happy. He has become really active. He is constantly moving his arms, and kicking his legs and now he is rolling over quite a bit. I'm sure it won't be long before he starts crawling. He is now 5 month's old and I can't imagine life without my sweet boy.We all love him like crazy! The other day we played duck, duck, goose for family home evening. I carried William around while playing the game and he laughed and laughed. It was a lot of fun. The kids really enjoyed it too.