Penelope is crawling all over the table and having a great time. She laid down for quiet time for over an hour and didn't fall asleep so I am opting for a crazy baby the rest of the day and an early bedtime.
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Eli, Liesl, Xai and I put together this puzzle globe this morning. It was pretty cool! It had approximately 171 pieces, individually numbered, so we could put it together from the inside out. I liked it because it gave rise to "ah-has" like the fact that Nemo was taken to where Lily is now, in Australia...and where in the world Australia even is; helped us practice our counting up to 170 (reinforcing it for Eli and helping Liesl recognize the larger numbers) and we had to work together and have patience when the pieces seemed to not be fitting. That working together is truly one of the hardest parts with these temperamental, fickle souls. For instance, Eli is not posing in the picture because he was mad that I wouldn't let him have the juice he didn't get at breakfast because he spent most of breakfast pouting because I was making him do our breakfast routine (motto, scripture, song and prayer) which he had deliberately missed. Ah, seven. So fun and contrary.
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Hyrum spent a long time today out in the snowy weather digging a hole for us to bury our cow in. I am super sad and discouraged about my ability to take care of animals. In re-evaluating our resources--sanity among the most scant lately--I am re-homing our rabbits, hopefully our hound dog. We still have our calf and are doing what we can for him, but other than chickens and crazy cats, I'm failing pretty epically at sustaining animal health. I guess it is time to focus on other things and be real about my abilities. Still sad about the cow.
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Hyrum's been teaching a ballroom dance class in two locations for the past four week and doing such a great job! Just last Monday he taught two new families with four and five kids respectively who were totally new to it and did so well! I assured the moms that if the kids keep coming, it only gets better. I loved watching my kids--Hyrum, Piper, Havala and Maia--all patiently and supportively work with each person they partnered up with. I love the empathy, compassion and patience that they show in situations like this. We are definitely working on it at home with each other, as well, but it is great seeing it in a public setting like this, especially when people are being so vulnerable and learning something new like this.
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We finally got our first kind of snowfall! It is still not enough for the epic sledding experience that Elijah is craving, but good enough to stick and make it feel like winter.
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Liesl and Eli have been learning two very important things: how to read and how to hopefully stop having accidents at night as often. It can be challenging keeping up with the laundry in this place! This morning I focused on teaching kiddos and kind of checked out of everything else so the laundry continues to pile up. I am so far behind, Quinn has actually been opening up the new garments he ordered months ago because he is running out, poor dear.
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Gotta run and get Havala. I'll take Penelope along so hopefully she can get a little nap and Maia so I can take her to ice cream as a reward for finishing her second Life of Fred book. She is flying through them, affirming my belief that when the time is right and the kids is ready, learning flies!
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