Golden birthday!

My baby girl turned six!!!

It was hard for me to allow this birthday. ;)

Birthday pancakes!

The shirt she is wearing sums her up perfectly, it says, "Though she be but little, she is fierce!" So very true. :) She is an adorable force to be reckoned with! 

Opening presents from the brothers. :) She was so thoughtful and sweet and thankful for every little thing. Also her grandpa brought over the doll, since named Jack, and she is in love with her baby. Such a little mommy.

For her dinner she picked a spinach salad with strawberries, crumbly cheese, and candied pecans, and noodles in a home made creamy mushroom sauce with little shrimps. What six year old picks such things? Ha ha! 

For her birthday treat, chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. And I am not kidding! She chose chocolate ice-cream topped with a mint patty and chocolate chips. Oh and mint leaves on top. So fancy! ;) 

She is crazy for the chocolate!

This year was a big deal as far as birthdays go. It was her golden birthday. :) She turned six on the sixth. So we threw her a golden birthday party. She was so excited, for months before hand! Her auntie is good at decorating and had some golden supplies on hand, so she came over and helped decorate. She did an amazing job and the party was fantastic!

The weather ended up taking a turn for the worst so I had to squeeze a whole heck of a lot of people into my house! Also some how I didn't buy enough of the masks for our craft project and so my sweet mom ran to the store on short notice to grab some more. I have the most wonderful people in my life. :)

I wish I had thought to take some pictures of Leiella in her golden dress before the party started. With her hair all curled up. She was something else!!! Super fancy! :) This is the only picture I can post, for privacy reasons. You conveniently can't tell who this kid is because of the awesome mask he made, unless you know him, in that case he is unmistakable, unforgettable and uniquely him. :) They have been best friends since they were little itty-bitty babies!

So there you have it. A golden birthday. A baby girl a year older. It's so hard for me to wrap my brain around my youngest being six! This has all been so exciting and although it's hard to say good bye to the littler years, I love seeing what she is becoming and I'm thrilled to see what is yet to come! Although I wouldn't mind if it all slowed down a little bit!

Another year and still so much to learn...

The school year has started again! Actually it never stopped, ha ha! We did school work through out the summer. It was suppose to be half days but one of my kids was really struggling so it often turned into whole days. It was sort of awful. So I started this school year already feeling burnt out, which is not a good way to start!

I've had to come to terms with the fact that two of my kids have learning disabilities. I had come to terms with one of them having learning disabilities at the beginning of last year and kept struggling along with the other hoping things would just get better. But they didn't. So I got a complete evaluation done for him as well, both cognitive and academic, and sure enough, major problems. I cried pretty hard. It's such an awful feeling, but at the same time in a weird way a relief. Because this just means we have to meet him where he is at. There is always a way to reach every child just not always in the main stream way. What works for many just won't work for them. So it relieves the pressure of trying to keep them at grade level and wondering if you are just doing something wrong. Which I sort of was in a way. I was trying to keep him on a curriculum that works wonders for so many children but doesn't work for him. I have two children that are advance, each a whole grade level or more ahead and two that are struggling. It's quite a challenge to meet each one exactly where they are at! But I've come to realize that one of my children (the one that was most recently tested) is an auditory learner and so we are moving in that direction and changing it all up this year! Every year I think I've finally got it all figured out and then suddenly everything gets tossed upside down! Ha ha!

So anyways we have also decided to go on a full year schedule. Which means every fourth week we will be taking off. Three weeks on, one week off, all year round. We tend to go through the summers anyways and I like it better for the most part, they don't forget things that way. :) This was our first week off and I have to say I think I'm going to love this new schedule. We have been able to catch up on a read a loud we had gotten behind on, we've read books and watched videos on wild edibles, and read some other books just for fun. They've played card games, and Yahtzee, worked on crossword puzzles and Sudoku and a 1000 piece puzzle. Banden got his microscope out and had time to just mess around with it and have fun. It's like a week of unschooling (look it up it's a real thing, ha ha!) mixed in with structured homeschooling. Good balance if you ask me, I'm hoping it works out in the long run. We will see! 

A whole new school year!

4th grade

3rd grade

4th grade

1st grade

Leiella LOVES doing "real" schoolwork as she calls it. :D She found kindergarten rather boring last year.

All organized and ready to go!

First day at the learning center. They just love their classes there! Leiella was over the moon excited that she finally got to take classes like her brothers and didn't have to just wait all day in the family room anymore. I almost cried when I left her in her first class. Her little voice telling the classroom what her name was, her determined straight back and attention to her teacher. Oh man it was too much! 

So there you have it. Adventures in homeschooling. ;)

Spoiled on my birthday

I think I might have had the best birthday ever!

So unknown to me Banden had a plan with his dad to wake him up before he left for work. Which is pretty early in the morning! He wanted to decorate the house for me before I woke up on my birthday. He told his dad that I always decorate for them and he wanted me to have a turn. I'm telling you he's one of the most thoughtful kids I've ever known! Anyways he raided the party drawer, which I will admit was very low on birthday party decor. He didn't let that faze him. ;) Using 4th of July deco, Christmas deco and odds and ends he worked his magic. Ira woke up at one point in all of this and helped as well. He even put all his little origami birds on top of the ceiling fan for a fun surprise! 

So anyways I woke up to this!

Totally unexpected! And they were so quiet. I didn't even hear them! I guess Ryder wisely told Banden not to wake his siblings, something he was going to do because he didn't want them to feel left out. But Ryder knew that would just wake me up and not only ruin the surprise but make me really grumpy. ;)

Leiella was devastated by this though because she thought she was going to get to help. So of course she started to melt down and Banden felt so bad. He's so sensitive! We came up with the idea of her making my chai tea, with a little help, and that cheered her right up. :)

She just wanted to be part of the spoil mom party. ;)

They were so creative and went all out! I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that they are old enough to do stuff like this now! 

They stapled little origami birds to the ends of the streamers!

I made myself some rainbow catchers on my birthday. :) Ryder and I actually got a weekend away the weekend before my birthday. His birthday and my birthday are four days apart. So we went and spoiled ourselves with a birthday get away! It was really nice. Anyways I found these rainbow catchers in a little shop and bought a couple. I'd been wanting some for a while but hadn't gotten around to buying any. I added the beads myself and had a lot of fun with that. The kids and I totally love them. In the morning the one in the front window casts rainbows all around the room and in the afternoon the one in the kitchen window does the same. It's so cheery and beautiful, now I want more and more and more! ;)

This kids spoiled me rotten all day long!!!

I feel so blessed to have these beautiful souls in my life. They bring so much to my world. They are so kind and thoughtful. I often feel so undeserving of their love and yet they give it so freely, so willingly, so enthusiastically! They are so forgiving and fun and crazy loving. How did I get so lucky?

Must have birthday boy photos

So I realized that I posted about the birthday zip line adventure without posting any birthday pictures! That just won't do. ;)

Double digit birthday pancakes! Ahhhhh!!!

So big and strong!

He truly is the best big brother ever! He is growing into such a kind hearted compassionate young man. It warms my heart.

There ended up being a freak down pour so what else is a mommy to do but let her boys run barefoot through puddles while waiting for their sister's singing rehearsal to be over. ;) It was his birthday after all!

They thought it was fantastic, despite Ira's face in this picture, he's just being a goon. The boy can't be serious for more than a second. Atty is not out there because he is sane and was in the nice dry toasty warm car with me. ;)

When we got home we discovered a rainbow! I thought this was pretty cool to be on Banden's tenth birthday because the day I found out I was having a boy there was a rainbow in the sky. :) I even took a picture of it and put it in his baby book.

Such a handsome young man!

Banden wanted birthday cookie sandwiches. They were delicious and totally grain free and sweetened with maple syrup. And really, really, really good!!!

Happy ~silly~ birthday!

Love this epic photo bomb, ha ha! Thought I was getting a picture of just the boys... Nope!

So there you have it. My first born baby boy turned ten. Sigh. How does time fly so fast?