This is arguably the world’s cutest two-year-old (she’s three now) decorating Baby Samuel Earl’s grave. She also happens to be my favorite (and only) sister’s little girl. ;o) I’m not sure why the date on the photo says 11/26/2002 as the picture was taken by my sister back in May of this year.

Eaglewood hasn’t even packed for his trip tomorrow yet and already the question of the day has been “do I still have to (insert name of chore here) today?”. Sigh.

Here are some pictures of things I have been crocheting. In case you are curious, the denim quilt top (it isn’t finished yet) is made out of all of the old jeans our family could destroy as well as all of the old jeans we could beg off of family members!

I am a dirty rotten m&m sniffer! Eaglewood and the kiddos think it is hilarious that I love the smell, but find them too sweet to eat. ;o)

Pookie and I ran away from home today. We couldn’t help ourselves really. The sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, and I actually had access to a vehicle! Since cheap entertainment is a MUST for us, we checked out the sales at our local Half Price Book store (50 cent classics), and visited a local church bazaar. We met a lot of interesting and talented people at the church bazaar and had a good time. While we primarily went there shopping for ideas, we did buy a few things that we plan to give as gifts. The silver jewelry handmade in India was particularly interesting to us. A very pleasant young lady who took an interest in us and was willing to tell us all about it didn’t exactly hurt either. ;o) We also enjoyed the elderly couple with the great sense of humor. All things considered, we may have benefited more from meeting some of our neighbors than from the actual bazaar.

Sorry for the lack of posting here. Eaglewood left yesterday on his first trip with the new company that will require a hotel stay. Other than missing him a LOT, life goes on as usual around here. He should be back tomorrow. YEA! The children and I are planning to make one of his favorite meals tomorrow to welcome him home. I’ve been busy putting some of this hyper-active energy to use cleaning house. Nothing unusual there. However, my children are starting to give me that sympathetic “she can’t help it, it’s a mom thing” look again. / Pookie is especially prone to this when I pick up something that someone else has knocked over while walking through a store. Does ANYBODY else do that, or am I really some sort of freak? Frankly, I just hate the idea of leaving work for someone else to do… Homeschooling is going well for all of us this year. Everyone tends to be staying ahead in most subjects, but NOT in math. We are just sort of holding our own in math this year (I hope!). Ditto and Pookie are starting a current events project based on the Ten Commandments. It should prove quite interesting.

If you have more than one child, you have definitely had one of THOSE days… You know the ones where you have to be somewhere ON TIME with all of your dear progeny in tow and looking neat. Those days when you find yourself shouting things like “No, don’t brush your brother’s teeth. Brush your teeth!” and “No, don’t brush the cat’s teeth either!” while climbing halfway into your refrigerator to find where you stashed the cheese chunks to go with the crackers you are packing because you’re too much of a tightwad to even consider fast food. Those days where you are putting your pantyhose on with one hand while helping your toddler get his socks and shoes on with the other and defrosting a bag of chicken in your armpit while searching desperately for your industrial-sized-can’t-possibly-get-lost-even-in-this-kitchen crockpot? I love those days.

After a week or so of illness at my house, I’m back! Did you miss me? I wish I could say that we have had an unusually stellar week of homeschooling here in spite of our illness (mild flu), but that just isn’t the case. The bigger children and I took a couple of days off due to feeling yucky, but other than that things have just continued on like normal. I’ve been crocheting quite a bit in my leisure time these days. Ditto is still learning computer languages and writing simple programs. Pookie is following her artistic pursuits and enjoying being outdoors more with the cooler weather. The Psycho Monkey Boys are busy being really loud! Eaglewood doesn’t actually have any leisure time these days. Poor baby.

In case you somehow missed it, David Kupelian has a great article out called “The War On Fathers“. I highly recommend it.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.