2012 so far!

I haven't blogged since 2011! Shame on me! :)

This year has been going well. Lots of down time with my boys. I've felt an urge to spend more time at home and not running around, being pulled in a million directions. One of the reasons I wanted to home school was to be able to spend as much time as possible with my children in the short time they are kids. They grow up in a blink of an eye! I'm thinking of dropping MOPS next year (as much as I hate to do that.) We may just do HEARTS and play Upward for right now. Maybe we'll join a home school group. We haven't been able to establish a schedule this year. It's our first year homeschooling and I know it will come, but I feel led to have more routine in our day. Now, we just do school whenever we have time. We used to say a prayer, the Christian pledge, and the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. We haven't done it in a while and Austin reminded me about it the other day. Next school year, I plan on being more organized and stick to a routine.

Brett was ordained as a deacon last month and I'm so proud of him! He was so honored that they asked him. It was an emotional ceremony. His grandfather came and prayed for us. He was Brett's pastor growing up. He baptized him and married us. He also started playing in a bluegrass band at church and is having a blast! They have two gigs coming up. His mom and I got him a drum set for his birthday and he's excited about learning how to play drums. He wants to put Austin in music lessons soon. He really wants us to be a musical family. I hope the children will be excited about learning music!




We're waiting on our tax return so we can buy next years curriculum and other things. I'm so tempted to say "Let's go to Disney again!" but I'm sure Brett would say no! Plus, we'll have a baby so I guess we should wait! We want to either try Christmas 2013 or January 2014. Austin will be 7, Logan will be 4, and Katelynn will be 18 months. Logan was under 2 when we went this year and he did okay. When we came back, I said I would never do it with a baby in diapers but I changed my mind! It wasn't THAT bad! :)

Katelynn's due date in June 10th but I'm betting she'll be born in May. I always go a week or two early. I've lost a lot of weight since I had Logan so I've been trying to keep my weight down this pregnancy. At 21 weeks I still weigh less than I did when I got pregnant with Logan. I feel huge though. I've been walking and trying to eat better. This is the best I've eaten with all three of my babies! Brett and I decided a while ago to stop eating out as much. We made a budget and try to stick to it. We only allotted ourselves $100 a month to eat out. Last month we were $4 under budget! :-D With both the boys, we ate out a lot. We used to go to El Saltillo every Friday for lunch. We haven't been in ages. I'm glad we made the decision to do that, especially since it's helped me keep my weight down this pregnancy!

We're about to start painting our house! It's actually my in-laws house that we rent. We kept thinking we weren't going to put a lot of work into it because we wouldn't be here long. We've been here since Austin was about 8 months old so I guess it's time to stop saying that! It's a great house and has a lot of potential. It needs a lot of updates though. We're hoping the Lord will provide the funds we need to make it the best house it can be for us. We're going to start with paint and go from there. I want new carpets because the numerous dogs who have lived here have made the carpets pretty yucky. :( I think with a little paint and new carpet and bathroom tile, this house can be really great!

I also want to start sewing sometime this year! A lot of my friends who have girls have sewn some really cute stuff and I want to learn. With the boys, I never really thought I could sew something that would look right, but with a girl it seems like I could do some simple patterns and they would be cute!

Better go help Austin finish school so we can eat lunch!