… This little munchkin smiles at me with absolute joy and delight. And laughs excitedly, waves and claps his hands. And crawls around carrying a favorite little toy he’s picked up along the way.

Holy toledo, what a cutie.

… And this adorable guy suddenly calls out to me from his crib tonight, “Mommy, I love you to da whole earf. Mommy, I’m so glad Desus took me to you.” Wow! My heart just fills up and floats right out of me.

I love you to the whole earth, too, my wonderful son. And I’m so incredibly glad Jesus took you to me, too.

… And this little man writes a sweet note to me and puts it by my bed to help me feel better (I’ve got a never-ending cold).

And then writes another one on his magna-doodle that totally makes my day when I find it.

I love you, too, my sweet boy.

Watching my children play in the backyard continues to be one of my favorite pastimes.

It’s hard to imagine a time when they weren’t turning a picnic lunch into an art session.

But having a new little one old enough to join in the fun reminds me…

… That they couldn’t always drive the tractor…

… Or get on and off the tramp by themselves…

… And it reminds me to stop, smile, take a deep breath and let that “all is right with the world” feeling fill my heart.

*Ah*

There’s nothing in the world like it!

And you know the only thing that makes it better?

Throwing in some chickens.

Kids and chickens.

Who on earth knew it could be so fulfilling???

We’ve got some cute little starts going for our vegetable garden this year. Once again, I’m learning more of what works and what doesn’t.

I planted an entire set of seeds (zucchini, pumpkin and cucumber) that did not grow. So then I planted an entire second set of seeds and a few of those grew.

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The pumpkins have been doing the best. Yay!

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Only one of the 12 zucchini seeds I planted grew. And then it died.

So I finally did some zucchini-specific research and tried again.

I “primed” the seeds with 8 hours of soaking before planting and I will let the soil completely dry out between waterings. (No wonder they haven’t done well for me in the past– they don’t like to be wet all the time! Who knew??)

One of them is finally starting to grow– yay!

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Only one of the eight cucumber seeds I planted grew (and it’s still going strong– yay!).

So I did some cucumber-specific research and tried again.

I “primed” the seeds with 5 hours of soaking before folding them in a wet piece of paper and sealing it inside a ziploc bag. After a few days, when I saw their little tales growing, I planted them and look! One is popping up!

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Wish us luck! We’re going to experiment with container gardening one of each vegetable and trellising all our peas along the fence line in containers. We’ll see how it goes!

Something tells me they don’t mean to be targeting a thirty-something gal…

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p.s. After that, he did the life cycle of a chicken! :):)

Recently, I implemented a new “Quiet Work Time” for Brother.

He wakes up from his afternoon nap earlier than his younger brothers, so I tried to think of something independent, productive and quiet that he could do until his brothers woke up.

This is one of the activities he does during “Quiet Work Time”.

I found the abacus at the thrift store (didn’t even notice the missing rod until Charming pointed it out!), the number chart on Amazon and the arithmetic workbook at the dollar store.

Then I taught Brother how to “read” addition problems in his workbook.

And how to transfer the problems onto the beads of the abacus to find the solutions.  After that, he wrote the answers in his workbook (using the number chart to remind him how to write any numbers he’d forgotten).  Finally, I asked him to “read” each completed problem to me outloud to check his work.

Since teaching math to a preschooler is brand new to me, I was relieved when he took to it right away and loved rotating through all the rods of different colored beads.  :)

And I loved watching him work.

I am always amazed at what a dedicated worker and student he is.

Great job, Brother!

At that time in 2008, we didn’t know we were sitting at the very tippy top of the rise in housing prices.  And when it took eight months to sell our old house as housing prices steadily fell, we made a decision to stick with it.  We discussed foreclosing on the old house and walking away, but Charming counseled us to take the loss and pay it all back.  And I’m so glad we did.

Gratefully, we found a buyer for our old home and were miraculously able to take out three substantial loans to pay for our losses in selling it.

That all happened in October of 2008, which was almost three-and-a-half years ago.

And we can hardly believe it, but we’ve paid it all off!

Just this last week, on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, (the exact four-year anniversary for purchasing this home) my husband walked into Key Bank and paid the remaining balance of our last extra mortgage.

If you had told us back in 2008 that we would be able to pay off our debts so quickly while also providing for a growing family of five, we would have had a very hard time believing it.

But we did.  And we didn’t do it alone!

I know Heavenly Father blessed us.  He blessed us to be able to do it.  And He blessed us to learn to rely on Him to be able to do it.

And by experiencing the last three-and-a-half years, we know as Nephi did “that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them”. (1 Nephi 3:7)

So, when we tried to heed His commandment to be honest and pay our debts, He prepared a way for it to happen.

Thank you, Heavenly Father.  Thank you very much!