What's Been Happening Around Here

I keep meaning to stay caught up on this blog and then before I know it lots of time has passed. It's just been such a busy time and I feel like I don't have time for a lot of things. I really want to start getting back to normal here though. I've started so many posts and then not had the time to finish them.

So what's been taking so much of my time?

For starters, my sweet new baby, Sophie. She is 6 months old now. It's been quite an adjustment to have a little one again. My other kids are 13, 10, and 8 so it's been a while since we had a baby. She had reflux, which caused her to have some bad days, but she's doing much better now. She's never really been a difficult baby. She's actually very happy most of the time and is almost always smiling. However, she doesn't sleep well. She doesn't usually go to sleep until around midnight. Then she still wakes up every 2 to 3 hours at night. I have to say after 6 months of that, I'm so tired and have trouble finding the energy to do everything I want. She also doesn't sleep much during the day. Sometimes she has good days with 2 naps, but not very often. I feel lucky if she has one good nap. Many days the only sleep she gets is falling asleep on me while she's nursing, which means I don't get much time to do anything and can't really type.




Sophie in the middle of a clap, one of her favorite things to do right now.

My 10 year old took this picture. Didn't she do a great job?

 

I mentioned that we moved in March. It was a big move, about 1200 miles. Moving is always difficult with unpacking and organizing. Moving to a new place means you also need to learn where everything is and how to get around. Being homeschoolers adds more to that because I have to research the homeschool laws of this new state, search for homeschool groups, try to find classes and fun things for the kids, and get us out to try to meet new friends. Luckily, homeschooling seems to be very popular here and I've found a lot of activities for us.

Minneapolis

We're mostly on break from school. The kids are all doing some math practice. Colin is still doing Exploring Creation with General Science. I didn't make daily assignments for him and thought he would finish if he just did a little each day. I think he did very little some days though so he still has a couple modules to get through. We've also been reading The Little House on the Prairie series and doing Prairie Primer. The girls have really enjoyed it. I'm so glad because I loved the books when I was little. We've been trying to take advantage of living near some of the Little House sites. Last month we visited Walnut Grove, MN. Hopefully I can write about that soon. We plan to visit De Smet, SD this month.

Walnut Grove

I've been trying to work on school planning for next year. The girls (5th & 3rd grade) will be doing mostly the same thing as last year, just moving up to the next level. Colin's (8th grade) school planning is taking more of my time. I'm feeling a little anxious that this is his last year before high school and want to be sure that we get everything in that is needed. I want him to be pretty independent, but feel that he still needs me to give him quite a bit of direction.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll all settle into a routine soon.