Hello again!

Has it really been nearly two weeks since I last posted here? I just don't see how that can be. I do know, however, that rather than getting better after I last wrote, we all actually took a turn for the worse and spent most of the next week sick! And I remember losing our internet connection for a few unfortunate days after that, and then being busy with work and Halloween preparations...and somehow, time has just gotten away from me!

So what else have we been doing, besides recuperating? Well, let's see. We did make it out to the Pumpkin Patch on it's last open weekend, which was a LOT of fun but which, due to my absentmindedness, I have no pictures of. (Actually, I have the pictures, I'm just unable to transfer them from my camera! My dang USB cable has been highly uncooperative as of late, but rather than special ordering a new one, we opted instead a few weeks ago to just buy a card reader to transfer our pictures to the computer. This works just dandy, when you actually remember to put the card back into the camera when you're done transferring images! Otherwise, all the photos you take the next time will be stored on your camera's internal memory, and there they will stay, until you finally have to special order a new cord, anyway! Sigh.)

Halloween was great fun this year. We opted to keep our own party very low key, in favor of attending a festival at Gym Magic that night. I was really glad we went, because I'm still sometimes plagued by that guilty feeling of depriving my children of the typical school experiences I loved as a child...such as Halloween festivals! We stayed for about an hour before coming home to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, which was so much fun! The trick-or-treat containers I had helped the kids make earlier in the day were filled by the time we got home!







On Saturday Dylan and Caitlyn attended their final gymnastics and ballet classes for this term. It was really sweet, and parents were invited to sit in to watch the classes and to see the kids receive certificates. I'm a little sad that it's over, but we've decided to take this next term off to have our weekends free over the holidays, and then we'll re-enroll them in the Spring. Caitlyn says she wants to try gymnastics next time, and Dylan's looking forward to the swimming classes. I'm sure they'll have fun no matter what they choose!

After their classes, we headed over to the park for our annual Renaissance Faire, which we'd been looking forward to for months! This was the first year that Dylan and Caitlyn wore costumes; these clothes from their costume trunk were just so perfect that I couldn't resist dressing them up! We spent the next four hours eating, watching performances, strolling the grounds, and--another first for us--taking a canoe ride on the lake! Dylan really, really wanted to take a ride with Caitlyn, but she wouldn't go unless I went, too...so the three of us hopped on board and enjoyed being paddled around the lake by two friendly Boy Scouts! I love how excited my kids look in these pictures. And I especially love the one of Dylan hugging my (already ridiculously large) bump. Too sweet!

Yesterday, with much help from Darren, I tried to get the house (and the school room in particular) back into order. These past several weeks have just been too unorganized, and I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. With early pregnancy exhaustion and sickness behind me (for the most part) now, I feel like I'm finally ready to get back into some sort of more structured rhythm again. I think the time change will help. We (the kids and I) were all up before seven this morning! I want to work my way back to getting up at 5:30 with Darren like I used to, and I really need to get better about planning our lessons. I know that we are learning every day, but I felt so much more confident and secure when I had actual lessons planned out for each day. I think we're getting there again. I'm considering today a brand new start!