Wednesday

Today was a good Wednesday. The kids were happy and getting along most of the day. My sister in law Korey came over and we enjoyed spending some time together before she was so good to tend our children so Mr. Carter could take me out for a pre-Valentines Day outing. We were able to go out to a nice dinner alone at a local Mexican restaurant we had never been to before. It was really nice just getting out and being able to talk and enjoy each others company without the constant chattering of children. Then we went to DQ and got a delicious chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard, which we shared. It was really great having time together tonight and we cannot thank Korey enough for all her help! Especially since she kept baby Carter at home!! He was mildly cranky and did not take a nap like he was supposed to but overall, I think he did very well for being away from his parents for the second time in his life.

On a separate note, I have been working with the kids during school time on memorization, music and reading. We are currently singing lots of primary songs from our church's children's hymnbook and the kids just LOVE to sing them! They are doing so well and are so enthusiastic I just am so excited that they are anxious about having school singing time. It is so refreshing after all the grief I used to get about having school time. We are reading the scriptures (currently in the 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon right now) and are working on memorizing 1 Nephi 3:7. The kids are doing very well with it and will have it down very soon. They are also memorizing the Articles of Faith and are working to pass them off with their teacher at church on Sundays. We have down Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and are working on 6 this week. I am so very proud of them and feel so lucky to have such wonderful children!!

On a crafty note, I am still diligently working on a dress for a very special little girl...it is taking much longer than I had supposed but is turning out more beautiful than I hoped! So that's good. I whipped up a hat tonight for Gwenna to match the one I made for her American Doll she got from Aunt Sarah for Christmas this year. She loves to be matchy and I made 2 others before this one trying to get the sizing right! Very tedious but worth the smiles I get in return. I am still being playfully teased by Mr. Carter for not finishing his scarf that I started last year for him or the socks I told him I would make him years ago!! I feel just awful about it but I keep putting it off for whatever reason I am not really sure....hopefully I will get to them very soon so he will have to find something else to tease me about! :) I still have a couple other projects in the works that I need to get done. It is hard to find the amount of time needed to complete the projects I have going while juggling homeschool, house work, cooking, cleaning, nursing and mothering. I love what I do and I do my best to manage my time the best I can.

Ooh! I almost forgot! I added sewing to Lily's curriculum this past Monday and she took to it very well! She told me repeatedly how fun she thought sewing was and is already starting a list of things she wants to make. I helped her get started on the sewing machine and she sewed a patchwork quilt top for her American Girl Doll! She had to do quite a bit of seam ripping but did a very nice job! Next Monday we will work on putting a border on the quilt, adding batting, hand quilting it and then binding it. I hope her enthusiasm remains as we progress to harder projects! Sewing is rather rewarding in an instant gratification type way, much more so than crochet. Lily has been taught to crochet by myself and a friend of ours and it is just not something that she is interested in doing. At least she is discovering what she enjoys and that really is the point.

I hope to get to blogging a lot more so look for more coming your way soon!! Thanks for reading :)