um....hello?

I haven't posted in over a month! I'm not even really sure how that happened! Well, I do know how that happened, I just can't believe it's been so long already. I only really have computer time early in the morning before my gang starts waking up, you see. And well...my gang wakes up early...at least the little people wake up early, and so my computer time has been barely enough to keep up with my inbox. There's just no other computer time for me in the day. Trying to write while all the kids are milling around is just pretty much impossible, plus it gives me a major guilt complex. The big kids already help enough with the littles just so we can get through the school day. And I go to bed early with the littles. So it's kind of now or never. So, I have about an hour to catch up on email and do any blog reading and blog writing I'm going to do. And often even that hour is with company. Jack, for example, just came staggering sleep-drunk out of bed and said, "Ask me what's wrong." I said, "What's wrong Jack?" "I need some milk," he said. So I got him some milk, and came back to the computer, and then he came back to me and said, "Where do nightmares live?" lol....

So much has happened that I haven't blogged about....Maria's 14th birthday...and Jack's 6th birthday...and my 35th birthday!....this is birthday season at our house. Henry is SIX months old now and has two big ole teeth. We are wrapping up the letter B on the alphabet path. I told you I was going to do this slowly! I'd planned to be further along by now, but my priority has to be on keeping the bigger kids up on their school work, and we've had a busy month. We've had several field trips and even our first (minor) virus blow through the house. Still, I miss blogging and really want to make an effort to get back on here, even briefly. Of course I have tons of pictures and can't even begin to post all of those I want.

We have had a fun Halloween thus far. I know, it's tomorrow! But we've done a lot already! Maria is a zombie prom queen this year. Funny story there...we bought a lovely lavender formal dress for $9 at Goodwill. It fits her nicely but has spaghetti straps and way too much cleavage. So, we made a sash out of a white sheet...we ironed the words "Prom Queen on it and artfully pinned it to her dress to cover all of the,,,issues. She added a freaky wig, a broken tiara, and death make up. It's quite a sight. Kain is Calvin this year, as in from Calvin and Hobbes. We striped his red t-shirt with black duck tape, spiked his hair, and gave him a stuffed tiger. Jack is a baseball player...we made double use of his Miracle League uniform. Tess is a Halloween butterfly, or fairy, or something, I'm not sure which really. I couldn't figure out what to do for her, and time was running out, so we picked up this frilly orange and black skirt and wing set at Wally World and matched them with black tights and a black leotard. She's very cute. And Henry is wearing a jack-o-lantern sleeper I picked up when Jack was a baby. Wednesday was our church's party, and we came home to have mummy hot dogs and frito pie for dinner. John is off on Sunday and he will get trick or treating detail.

Yesterday was our homeschool group's All Saints' Day party. We were *really* pressed for time there. I couldn't get anyone to focus on costumes ahead of time and no one could make a decision. Maria ended up as St. Anne, with Tess as her little daughter Mary. Jack again wore the baseball uniform,,,I was going to have him go as the patron Saint of baseball, but imagine my surprise to find out at the last minute that the patron Saint of baseball is St. Rita! Thankfully someone suggested St. Sebastian, the patron of athletes...so that worked out well enough in the end. Kain went as St. Kevin, someone we learned about just recently from this sweet book. After failed attempts to pull off a last minute robe from some brown fabric I picked up on the cheap, we finally ended up artfully draping and safety pinning him into it and giving him a small basket of plastic birds for his bird's nest prop.

Ok, I'd better go for now. I'm going to try really, really hard to get back this weekend with some pictures. Just wanted to reassure everyone that nothing terrible has happened, we are all doing quite well, very busy but with good things.