Why do I always have such a mish mash of things?

Remember that message just a few spots below on the email I have been waiting for. Yeah, still waiting. Sent another email Tuesday. Still nothing. I am hurt beyond words at the blatant disrespect by someone I considered a friend. I mean I brought something up, she offered something more to said plan and said she had to check on something before she could say for sure. That was at the beginning of August. The time for said plan is now coming and going very quickly. As in it will be squashed if I don't hear back in the next couple of days. Needless to say if I don't hear back there will be no more emails. Like I said, I'm just frustrated and completely hurt.

Ah well, just had to vent. I'm sure I'm just being oversensitive. As usual.

We are very quickly coming upon Elijah's 6 month mark. Absolutely unbelievable. I will be posting an update on him in a few days with all the goody information.

We have really hit a good routine here in our household. Which is the first time in about a year. It feels absolutely wonderful and I don't feel like I am so skatterbrained anymore. We are still continuing our daily morning bible studies, obviously, but now we are adding in some light schooling too. We are still going through our letters and sound as well as doing copywork for whatever letter we are working on. Throughout the last few months we have been doing the letter of the week program but quite frankly, it is moving way to slow for Faith. She is picking up most letters after the first day. I think we will be moving on to 2 letters a week from now on. 1 letter for a few days, and then moving on to another letter for a few days. We review every letter and its sound everyday. I have also started doing Phonics with her using the Phonics Pathways book. So far so good. I have to admit, teaching someone how to read, for me, is the most intimidating part. It's such a vital part of everything.

Samantha is picking up on some letters to since she sits with us at the table. I'm hoping that means it will be that much easier to teach her to read when the time comes. They still love doing the Starfall.com activities too so we will be keeping that. I've been working with Faith on counting to 50 too. She gets all the numbers until it's time to move up to 30, 40, or 50. She keeps forgetting which one comes next. And working with her on the days of the week and learning about what day yesterday was and what day tomorrow will be. We spend about 30 minutes in the morning on everything. I don't want it to be too rigid since I know we will have the next 15+ years to do formal work. Just keeping it light and fun.

Here are some more pictures from our trip this summer. Sorry it has taken so long to post. I have so many more in my camera that I need to get on the computer.

This is the first time in a long time I caught a REAL smile from Samantha!

Then I got another...

Back to pouty lips
But then yet another smile! My lucky day!



Ah yes, big sisters always have to do all the work...


So sweet!


Just ate...look at that belly pooch!



Just a happy little boy



Yup, still happy


Look what new thing I can do ma!



Enjoying a hay ride...they absolutely loved it







Pictures from Duluth and the North Shore coming soon!