Happy Thursday!

Hello All! This week is flying by as usual. Monday we had half a day of school. I just couldn't get into doing it in the morning and that was mostly from trying to play catch up from the weekend mess..... come to think of it, we still didn't get caught up. Haha...

We have been able to get in school each day and it is encouraging to see them learn. I have found some really awesome resources to add in this year and feel good about this. Thank the Lord, this year has been a lot easier so far. This time last year I had already started taking Mama to cancer appointments. This became a daily ordeal and each day lasted from 3 hours to 7 hours, depending on what treatments were being done. So, as you can imagine, this year seems soooo much easier for schooling. God's grace certainly carried up through as that time seems a blurr. Many of our schooling goals were not met and so to see progress this year has been soooo awesome. This is part of life. Life does happen and improvising is constant. Working as a team helps as well. My oldest two really stepped up and were so helpful to watch the wee ones while I was taking care of Mama. I'll never forget that. This is why it's so important to teach teamwork to children.

James has been working at his part time job all week this week while taking vacation time from his full time job. Our oldest son, Dalton, is on his third day of work there too. Yikes! Dalton is turning into a man! He just turned 16 and so this whole work them for him is a lot for me to adjust to. So he's working this week and has school to keep up on.

Today is my "baby's" birthday! She turns FIVE YEARS OLD today!  I am so thankful for that sweet girl. She's a hoot. She already got her present from us last night and she will have fun playing that with her sisters today. For her birthday meal she wanted chicken sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. For her birthday dessert she wants a Dora cake and strawberry ice cream. I think Brittany is taking on the cake. I took cake decorating classes but really do not enjoy it.

Tomorrow I take Mama for a CT scan. We will have school and I will plan for next week's school. We will be doing a lot of studying on mountains due to us going on a trip next Friday, Lord willing. We are all so excited to experience God's creation in another setting. Some of my children have never seen mountains so this is exciting for all of us.