My Finger

Rick has this rule that I'm not allowed to use a sharp knife while pregnant. I cut my finger every single pregnancy. Well, now we have a new rule, no using the hand blender. I was making dinner and using is to cut up some chicken. I needed to clean it out so I could use it again and stuck my finger in it and must have hit the "on" switch with my right hand. Intense pain, followed by blood splattering, led to me screaming and the girls crying. I was certain I had cut my finger off, or at least straight to the bone. I had no idea what to do, so I grabbed a dish towel, put pressure on it, and called Rick. Thankfully he was able to come right home and take me to the doctor. I called my parents and they rushed over to keep the kids.
3 stitches later and all is well (except there is still intense pain, which I've heard can last awhile). Thankful I still have my finger and that it was easily fixed. Boy, it hurts though!!!!!!

Art Museum

If you have never taken your children to the children's room at the art museum, PLEASE go! It just opened in May and I found out about it through a few different friends. It's fabulous! We went yesterday with my mom. The Art Museum is easy to find, has free parking, and free admission! 

There are 2 rooms in the children's area (which is on the 2nd floor). The first room is designed for 0-5 year olds and the 2nd is for 6-12 year olds. The 2 rooms are connected and we played in both rooms. 

Here is a picture of the 0-5 year old room. That is a chalkboard table on which kids can draw. 

One note, as soon as we walked in, the attendant told us that Sims was required to have socks or shoes on because it was a state law! He is still a crawler and therefore never wears shoes. Thankfully, Jack had socks and shoes on so I took his socks off and put them on Sims. Shockingly, he kept them on the entire time.

Here is a picture of the Sensory Cubes in the 0-5 year old room. They also had magnets, masks, books, blocks, and many other great things. 

In the older room, Kate and Jack's favorite activity was this area. It was a very long table with pieces of poster board and different colored masking tape. The kids were able to make all kinds of different creations. 

I was barely able to get a picture of Henry. He was running all over the place and having a great time.

Here is Claire making pottery art. You draw on these pots with crayons and then erase them with baby wipes. 

Sims loved the magnet board!

Here is Jack, not wanting to smile because he was busy with his masterpiece. This was a screen in which you use water and a paint brush. At first the "paint" seems invisible, and then slowly the markings appear. 

There were 2 huge screens on the wall. You could either touch the screen to pick your color, or the colors were on the floor and you could tap them with your feet and then write all over the board. Henry and Claire in particular loved this!

There is also an exhibit in which you can put yourself into painting and then email it to yourself. This was Henry's favorite thing. He probably did this 10 times. :) Here is what one of the pictures looked like:

We all went outside afterwards for a snack!

It was a really fun and we will definitely be back!

20 week and 4 week Updates

I'm at the 20 week mark today! Baby boy is very active and moves around all of the time. I actually first felt him move at 14 weeks so he's making sure his presence is known. We've known for 2 weeks now that he is indeed a boy and are very excited about having all of these precious children and about having 4 boys in a row! I realized we will have 4 teenage boys in our house at one time!
We're almost positive we've picked his name but we are sitting on it for awhile just to be sure. We actually picked it out the night of our ultrasound. Kate was the only other child we've decided on that quickly.

In other news, we just passed the 4 week mark in school (this is our 5th week). I can't believe we've already completed 4 weeks! I love having all of those days under our belt in August. That will give us plenty of days available to take off later in the year for baby boy or just because we need a break.

I am very thankful that so far, we are all loving all of our curriculum choices. I couldn't say that a month into schooling last year. I'm going to try and update every month how things are going and our top picks for that month. Our top picks so far are:

1. Singapore math-I'm using the Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade level and all 3 children LOVE it! It is very challenging  but they are all begging to do more than 1 lesson a day! Can't beat that!

2. Apologia Astronomy(with Jr. Notebooks)-I think the jr notebooks make this course. It's great and we are enjoying it. The girls do the notebooks but Henry and even Jack sit in on the lessons and Henry participates in narration. The boys love just looking at the pictures in the book even when it's not "science time."

3. Veritas Press Bible-We are doing Genesis-Joshua this year and will learn 32 events chronologically. I wasn't quite sure how this would work out because it is designed for 2nd-6th grade but it's working beautifully. The kids all love the song that you learn to help remember the 32 events. We spend 1 week on each event which is great for the grammar stage. The kids really soak up the information and we are doing 1 project each week. More are listed but 1 is working out perfectly for us. Kate is able to do the review questions on her own and really likes that.

We'll see how things are going in another month!!

It's a....

Baby looks great and we are all very excited that he will be joining our family soon. Claire said, "Rats!!!" when she found out but is fine now. She saw his picture and said, "Awww, he's so cute!"

Kate said, "I don't know how WE are going to be able to handle this. Boys are SOO messy!!"

I can't believe we are going to have FOUR boys!!!!

Rick and I are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate and hopefully discuss his name. :)

Sims wanted to vote

In my last post, I said that I polled all of the speaking members of our family and the vote was 5-1 girl. Well, Sims decided he wanted to get his vote in before we find out in the morning.

I'm about to fire myself...

We are only in our 2nd week of homeschooling and I think I might need to fire myself....

Strike 1:

Henry-Is that the American flag?
Me-Yes it it
Henry-Then why does it have red and blue on it?


Strike 2:


We are learning a poem that teaches the events of the bible in order. 
One line says, "Did it only in 6 days, and then there came the fall."


Henry: So God created the Earth and then it was the fall, like Christmas??
Me: No, the fall is when Adam and Eve sinned against God, when sin entered the world. 
Henry: So they did that in the fall??


Good thing I started school in July. :)