This is a pretty accurate picture of the last week around here. Sick kids… absolutely no reading… and a little bit of knitting (when I finally manage to get Alex to sleep on my chest).

I’m loving knitting with this yarn, although whatever possessed me to start to knit a sweater for me in fingering weight yarn I’ll never know. What was I thinking? Perhaps it will be done for Christmas?

Whatever this bug my poor little ones have is pretty nasty. I managed to kick it pretty fast in the older ones with lots of echinacea with goldenseal, herbal biotics, and some emergenC. Alex on the other hand isn’t old enough for those things so he wasn’t so lucky. We spend the day in emergency yesterday when he started turning blue when he was coughing. I was finally allowed to bring him home but he is hardly nursing and having a very hard time breathing so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to stay out. Sick babies are not fun.

He looks cute. It’s an act. Don’t buy it.

My husband started a new job recently, he is working for himself now and had to purchase a truck. We decided to go to a nearby big city to do this and figured we might as well spend a couple extra days and take the kids to a huge, super fun mall.

There is a giant indoor water park, indoor theme park, and tons of shopping there. It would have been the perfect vacation had a certain baby not been even more miserable than normal while we were there (apparently that is possible, who knew?). I kept him in the beco most of the time which helped. I think I lost 6lbs packing that boy!

They all had a blast in the wave pool. I had a blast reading my book.

Maybe there is hope for Alex liking the water after all! It didn’t last long but he did have some fun.

The mall has a fabulous thing where certain times of the day families can go to the park and ride rides or go to the water park for only $20, it was great.

We did have a pretty good time, I definitely had a lot of fun shopping!! However, we won’t be attempting a trip like that until Alex is MUCH older.

I’m making pretty good progress on Luke’s Easter milo, unfortunately I’m at the end of my yarn now and that means either taking all of my kids to the yarn store (ha!) or waiting until my husband is home on a weekend so I can go. Luke might not be getting a milo for Easter after all.

I’m reading Smart Parenting for Smart Kids on my kindle right now. Mary’s preschool teacher recommended it to me. She has completely blown her teachers away at school, they asked if we have considered having her tested for the gifted program at one of the schools here. We haven’t decided what to do, I am still leaning rather heavily towards homeschooling but we will probably check the program out just to see what they offer.

I’m re-reading The Well Trained Mind again also. I really like the idea of a classical education but I think it might be a little bit too structured for us, I want our kids to have the freedom to follow their interests and any rabbit trails that we might come across.

Well, I did it! It took until the very last minute but I went through all the toys in Mary’s room, Luke’s room, and in the living room. Of course I only ended up with one before picture…

Here is the after:

One big job I tackled was our books. I went through all the books in Mary’s room, all my schooling books, all our Catholic books, and all our picture books. It was a big job but my book shelves look great now. Mary had a huge pile of books at the end of her bed and they are nice and organized now:

It’s so nice not to have a ton of books falling off of that shelf!

Her toys are all organized into bins as well. It’s so nice to be in there

Luke’s room looks great too but I have no pictures. He is sleeping in there now.

I got super ambitious this afternoon and went through all of Alex’s clothes as well. I have a big bag for the consignment store, along with a big box of toys. I had gone through Mary’s and Luke’s not too long ago so they didn’t need to be gone through again.

I’m looking forward to the kitchen next week… I have a few cupboards that desperately need some attention.

There has been lots of knitting going on around here lately. I am trying to finish a Milo for my big boy to match the one I finished for his brother last week. I also dug my daughter’s tiny tea leaves sweater out hoping to finish it for Easter.

It would seem my knitting has come a loooong way since I started this sweater last year and it’s full of mistakes!! I have resisted the urge to frog the whole thing as my daughter is rather attached to it so I decided to finish it and let her use it as a play sweater.

I used Ginny’s pattern for a newborn hat with a bit of lace (I would link but I’m on my phone and I don’t think I can) and some beautiful merino wool for this cute set for my soon to be born niece… I was so sure it was going to be a girl. However, I have an adorable new nephew now and have to find a new baby gift!! My husband finds it quite funny.

Still doing lots of Lenten reading but Mary and I have also started looking through my favourite sewing books to find an Easter dress pattern.