Here's where we spent our weekend

It was spectacular, and I hope to share more about it later, but for now I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry and cleaning and errands and last minute lesson planning. (School starts again tomorrow! We're so excited!) Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, too!

This made me cry last year, too.

From the introduction to "September" in Mrs. Sharp's Traditions:

"This month, as Mrs. Sharp takes a walk outside and the dry leaves rustle pleasantly beneath her feet, she pauses to reflect on how quickly the time has flown and how quickly her children have grown up. As you take your walks this month, dear Reader, imagine each gold and brown leaf lying on the ground as a day from your children's lives that's already past. Can you really afford to wait even one more day to begin sowing the seeds of loving memories into their young lives?"

I love my kids.

I worked last night until one, stayed late charting until a little after two, had a small snack when I got home and was in bed at about a quarter to three, and then got up with Kristen at six thirty. I changed her diaper and set her up with some Little People play sets on the living room floor, then got cozy on the couch with a pillow and blanket and dozed happily while she played. The rest of my kids joined us a short while later, raiding the sack of snack cookies my dad dropped by last night, watching cartoons, drawing, and playing while I continued to rest. I must have been sleeping better than I realized, though, because shortly before nine, I was awakened by Kristen asking to climb up in my lap. As I reached for her, I noticed a sheet of paper lying across my chest. It was a message from my sweet Caitlyn:

Stop sleeping! LOL, didn't I feel like a horrible mother! I called Caitlyn to me and playfully asked, "Did you leave this message for Mommy?"

"I wanted you to fix me some breakfast," she sheepishly replied.

"But baby, why didn't you just ask me?"

"I didn't want to wake you up!"

Oh, my sweet, sweet girl. :)

Our girls' (finally!) finished room

We started rearranging the children's rooms months ago! They had decided they didn't want to share anymore, after all, but the only way we could fit all the girls together was to put them in Dylan's old room, and move Dylan into the formerly pink and green girls' room. (It's now a darling blue and green...I'll try to have pictures of that soon, too!) But I was lazy and never really did much beyond the basic moving and rearranging of all their furniture, and then early pregnancy exhaustion set in, followed by illness that I never thought would end (we're all finally better!). So, at long last, I've finally finished their room! I really love the pale blue of their walls and didn't really want to change it, so we just touched up a few places and accented with bright, girlie colors! I changed out the bright pink monkey bedding they had been using in the room they shared with Dylan for the softer, pastel comforter from their old room. I like it much more! Of course, we might change it all over again once the baby's born (I'm already planning possible designs in my mind!) but for now we're really loving it!

Dancing Dragon

My children astound me. Dylan recently discovered that he can create super cute movies by using our Paint program to draw characters, which he then uploads into Microsoft Movie Maker. He arranges them in the storyboard, alters the speed of each clip, chooses music, adds titles and credits, and the end results are just amazing! Here is one of my absolute favorites, based on Dav Pilkey's Dragon books, which he and Caitlyn have really been enjoying lately. So cute!

Locks of Love

Caitlyn asked us a while back if she could get her hair cut short, and, while we wanted to respect her wishes, Darren and I were really sad to think of losing her long, beautiful hair! Then I remembered hearing about a wonderful non-profit organization called Locks of Love, which "provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." What an awesome way to turn our "loss" into a beautiful gain for another child! I looked up the website with Caitlyn and told her all about it, and she was so excited to donate her hair to this worthy cause! We learned that the minimum length they need is ten inches, and I warned Caitlyn that this would leave her hair very short, but she wanted to go ahead and do it! We are so proud of her! Here are some pictures from before, during, and after the hair cut we gave her yesterday afternoon. I thinks she looks absolutely darling with her new hair style, and I love that her generous gift will be used to help someone else!