Bueller, Bueller, Anyone?

I totally feel like I skipped school, a little guilt, but so much fun! hehe!
It's been a long time since my last post, but I have a very good reason for it.

Ok, I don't, but if it helps, every time I took a picture, or something funny happened, I thought "I gotta blog about this".

And now it's been too long, so it's really hard to go all the way back even two weeks around here where things move at warp speed. And speaking of warp-speed, I gotta tell you something funny about our new back yard addition.

About 2 weeks ago we purchased a playground structure for our back yard. (you'll get to see pictures later...promise!)
So, I was telling my friend Stephanie about a big purchase we were about to make but didn't tell her what it was, knowing full well that it would intrigue her enough to play along with me on a guessing game that went on all day back and forth through emails. With vary vague clues and a two hour pause in the middle of the day (which built more anticipation). She even got her husband involved in the guessing and the funny part was that she guessed "A life size replica of the Enterprise ship from Star Trek"!!! We had fun playing, thank you Steph for humoring me :)

Good thing they read the instructions' manual...

...because THIS engineer doesn't even know what side goes in or out...

...or left or right! LOL

I can see my little Andrew growing so fast right in front of my eyes (it was hard writing another post on my blog, seeing as it would push down last month's sweet pictures of Andrew). He is now 4months old and rolls all over our family room floor. I removed the big coffee table to give him more room and he LOVES it. He holds on to his toes and just rolls front to back and back to front. He is teething though. :( And that has made for short interrupted naps throughout the day.

Ok, also, another reason for my absence is that we've started school full time. And for me to be effective, I can't multitask! Oh, believe me I still HAVE to m.t. but I limit myself to kids and school with maybe emails once or twice a day.

Can I just tell you how excited I am with this new school year?!?!?! I LOVE it!! It's a Virtual Academy that we do half online and half with workbooks that are shipped to us. And the best part: IT'S ALL FREE!!!!
They have a very well designed website where I keep track of all the kids progress, lessons and planning. Oh, the planning is SOOO easy now since it's done for me and it updates every day according to what the kids got done the previous day. For example, Gabe whizzed through 10 math lessons in one day, so the next day on his schedule, it shows he has Lesson 11 to complete next and say he had History Lesson 2, but didn't get it done today. Well, tomorrow, it will be there for him to complete (and it will adjust the "end-date" back accordingly, like math's will be over on May 12th, but history will be done June 18th)

This is an answer to prayer for my organized chaos lifestyle! Although it takes a lot of juggling to get things done during the day with a toddler and a baby. We did decide to make Ethan have "afternoon kindergarten" that way he can play with Toby while I teach Gabe and Isaac in the mornings. And while Toby sleeps, I can teach Ethan and Gabe and Isaac can do independent studying.
It's a lot of learning for me, but we'll get the hang of it soon. Meanwhile we've met their virtual teachers at a picnic last week and we absolutely are so blessed!!! Gabe's teacher is a very nice, young, christian teacher who got the "teacher of the year" award last year. And listens to the same kind of music we do :)
Isaac and Ethan have the same teacher because she teaches K-5th and she's just a very loving teacher! I couldn't have asked or prayed for any better fits for the kids!

The first week, Ethan had a "story-time" online where all the kids log in to listen and participate in a story reading time with their teacher (who is at her home) and all the other kids on their computers. Ethan was so excited when teacher called his name to point at something on the page! And Toby sat down with us and listened as well :) It was a book we had at home already, so it made it the more familiar for him to sit and listen.

Isaac got to "raise his hand" as well during his virtual time with the teacher and got called on and he looked at me with big eyes. He couldn't believe it was a live session! He typed his answer in and got it right! :)

So, THAT takes up all of our time. And we have P.E. every Wednesday morning at a Community center near our house. Friday school every Friday morning through our Christian HomeSchool Co-op and piano lessons, tutoring, and life in general. It's just a wonderful and at the same time hard time of adjusting time in our lives. But I'm loving every bit of it! Embracing it all and making beautiful memories with our kids. I don't regret any of this. Even when I don't get "me-time". The Lord is teaching me contentment in THIS chapter of life. Mothering, teaching, playing.

Ethan lost his first tooth on Saturday...Gabe is using deodorant for the first time (but thanks to Willow, I've made him a batch of our favorite homemade-non-aluminum "tropical" deodorant). Oh, and his response to me handing him the jar was "YES! Finally!" :)

I've got so much more to post about, but it's getting too late and I've got studying to do for tomorrow's schooling :) (and I love it!)