Adventures in Joyful Living

Hadassah has RSV. Her oxygen levels are low and she has lots of junk in her lungs. We are going to spend a few days in the hospital. We got to take an ambulance right here.

Today is the first day of February. Noah has been waiting for February so that I can sign him up for a home school building class. He took the class before Christmas and has been asking me almost daily if he can take the next class which starts in February. When he found out it was Feb. 1 today he immediately asked if I had signed him up, which in turned started a "sign me up for...." explosion from the rest of the kids. From art to archery to potty class. Yes I did say potty class. That was Benaiah's choice. He said,"Sign me up for Potty Class." Grandma asked him what he was going to do there and he said, "Learn how to go poop on the potty." Which he really needs to learn, I am sick of cleaning underwear everyday :( So if any of you out there are offering a "potty class" let me know!

What a 3 year old does while the rest of us are working on school (with a little help from his 5 year old brother)..........
I would like to tell you that he sits quietly playing with his toys while we are having school, but as you can see that is not the case.

I ran to Target today to pick up a couple birthday presents with the kids. Shopping with 5 kids is exciting. I prefer to go alone, but that rarely happens. Yogurt was also on the list. Yogurt is one of Benaiah's favorite food. He insisted on carrying it. It was one of the big tubs of Yoplait Strawberry flavor. When we got to the checkout, he tried to put it up on the conveyor belt, but missed. It dropped to the floor, broke and yogurt went everywhere. He immediately dropped down to the ground and loudly said, "I will lick it up!" He began to take big licks of it off the floor before I could grab him. Yuck!! We got some great looks from the people around us. Oh the joys of childhood!

January is flying by and I realized I have not posted much this month. We haven't been overly busy with extra activities. But everyday life with 5 kids keeps me busy....laundry, cooking, baking, schooling, reading, cleaning, etc! Noah turned 7 and Emma turned 9 this month. We had a couple great parties to celebrate their big days. Both kids got tool boxes from their dad full of tools. They have been doing some building projects. One project we just completed was Emma's room. We painted and redecorated and also reorganized the closet. I will post pictures tomorrow. It turned out really cute! Thanks to my aunt Tracy for all her great ideas and help! Benaiah is still working on using the potty. Some days he does really good and then the next day he has a few accidents. But he no longer wears diapers, which is wonderful. Well I am off to bed, got to get up early.....Tuesday is bread baking day! I am going to try a new recipe for 10 grain bread. I will let you know how it turns out.

I am finally getting around to potty training Benaiah. We have been so busy in the last few months (traveling to ND, running here and there to classes, church, appointments, etc). I just didn't have the energy to do it. But January is pretty clear of extra activities and we will be able to spend most of our days at home so I thought this would be the perfect time to get Benaiah into big boy underwear. The first couple of days were rough! I did a lot of laundry. Finally last night it clicked! Since then he has been going all by himself with no help or reminders. Hopefully it sticks! He gets 2 pennies every time he uses the potty. He is very excited about his pennies! In a few days, I should only have 1 child in diapers. Woohoo!!