Trying to get back on this blogwagon...

November 2022 now. Nobody prepared me for how busy things get when you have big kids. Of course little kids keep you busy, but big kids do too. It's just different. But here in this house we've got 2 really big kids, 2 medium kids, and 1 small one. It's a whole mess of stuff happening. All good...

John David is taking a condensed chemistry class at Dallas College in Irving plus working the night shift a few nights a week at Amazon. His sleeping schedule is crazy. Joshua has to put up with it because they share a room. 

Julia is in Australia for YWAM. She's been there since August and leaves next week to go to Indonesia for outreach. She comes home at the end of January and is very missed! It's going to be hard to have her gone during the holidays and she was already gone for her birthday. Luckily we get to facetime with her a lot so that helps!

Aulora is a sophomore still homeschooling and taking classes at Dasche on Mondays and Wednesdays. She has just started working at the church's coffee shop and learned quickly that people buying coffee are often impatient. She is an amazing help at home and she and Nola are great buddies. 

Joshua is a freshman and has the same school situation as Aulora - homeschooling with Dasche. He is less interested in schoolwork than his sister is, but we get it done. He's also playing basketball still. Their record so far this season is 4-1 and he is #11. Both Joshua and Aulora are doing great with Bible Quiz and we are headed to Philadelphia next week for the Gobblefest tournament. This year is 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and 1-3 John. 

Nola is 3 1/2 now and started going to preschool at Trinity this fall. It's been a great decision! Some days she doesn't feel like going (she goes anyway), but usually she does just fine and walks in happily to her teachers, Ms. Poole and Miss Kasey. A couple days ago she insisted she didn't "feel well" and totally played me. I kept her home and she wasn't sick at all. Although if asked how she was feeling she coughed right on cue and immediately felt poorly. How sad. 

John is working from home with his own firm, SL Law. It's going very well and he enjoys his work. His office is in our bedroom which is not ideal. My eye mask and airpods come in very useful since he often works weird hours, especially since one of his main clients in Hawaiian Airlines and the time difference makes for some late night video calls. I've been trapped in the bathroom before after a shower because I couldn't walk behind him during the meeting. I ended up sleeping in my closet a couple hours that night. I think we need a house with a home office. 

More soon. For real this time...

Take Five (oops!)

After a quick five year break, I'm back. Maybe. I stopped because life got a little busy, and while that busy business is still around, I think maybe I can manage a post here and there.

In a nutshell, here's what's happening. John is an attorney at Morgan Lewis in Dallas. John David just finished his freshman year at SAGU while also working at Chickfila. Julia is finishing her Challenge II year (10th grade) tomorrow, Aulora wrapped up Challenge A (7th grade) last week, and Joshua finished CC classes a couple weeks ago. And then there's Nola Charlotte Faith who has never been on the blog before because she was just born in March of 2019.

Another thing I should mention is that all these things that are happening are happening at HOME because the whole country has been quarantined while we deal with a Covid-19 pandemic. That's a whole other post though. One I don't have time for because I've got to go to the grocery store (with a face mask on of course) and get some things for dinner tonight (while never getting within 6 feet of anyone else obviously) before Nola wakes up from her nap.

No worries. I'll be back. Hopefully much sooner than 5 years this time...

Not Your Sister

The girls are playing with little dolls this morning. I overheard a doll conversation. 

Julia's doll: We are going to have garage sale. You have to choose one thing you don't need anymore to go in the garage sale. 

Aulora's doll: Ok. I pick Carrie. 

Julia's doll: What?! You can't pick your sister! Pick something else to put in the sale! 

Captain Davus' 58th Birthday Dinner

Julia made a card for "Captain Davus" based on last year's birthday party. That's a whole other blog post! 

Saturday fun at Cane's and Dave and Buster's

How John David does his hair after a shower.....

Joshua's First Chess Lesson

(With the Mario chess set of course!)

Overheard

Aulora: blah blah blah....[random weirdness] blah blah blah

John David: Aulora, stop that! Don't be weird! 

Aulora: [weirdness continues]

Julia: Ugh. Aulora, don't be surprised when you're 27 years old and still not married. Just don't be surprised....

John David: Yeah Aulora. Your husband isn't going to like all this weird stuff you're doing when you get married. 

Julia: IF. If she gets married. I'm telling you Aulora, don't be surprised. 

Random Julia Pictures

Here's my girl! Julia is the mini-mom in our house. 

Seriously, I could just lay in bed and she would take care of everything for me! She is precious and sweet and smart and so funny sometimes. I can't wait to see what she becomes! (Currently she's deciding between either a school teacher or the president. I could see either one!)

 This was her Classical Conversations class this school year for 4th grade. 

Her teacher was Mrs. Katy and Julia LOVED her!

 On her 10th birthday she wanted to go to Salt Grass Steakhouse. Her chocolate cake was huge!

 Curly hair for Christmas!

 Ahhh. School work. We no longer have a school room and desks, but our year did start that way. When we moved we lost that extra room and now we work at the kitchen table or on beds our couches or the floor. Or the car. Or wherever else we want!

 Math can be so tiring.

 Look who got contacts in May of 2013!

 Julia earned Memory Master last year and this year both in Classical Conversations. So proud of her! I don't have a picture of her doing it this year for some reason. 

 Since we've spent a lot of time in both Houston and Dallas this year Julia has had so many friends! 

(The two city thing has been a blessing and a curse. I think we are definitely ready to live in just one city.)

 I love those Chuck E. Cheese pictures!

 Sleepover time with church friends in Houston.

 Cousin love!!!

 More friends! These are two of her buddies from our CC group here in Dallas. 

 This was the day I looked over and realized my little girl was quickly becoming a young woman. Whoa!!!

 It was a relief to find her still playing with her dolls!

 She and John David have a great relationship. Hahaha!

And of course, there has to be a picture of her with her two little buddies. She loves these two a ton!

Random Aulora Pictures

Random Joshua Pictures

 If you've read my blog since way back, you know my posts used to be WAY more frequent and entertaining. Then life happened - mainly homeschool life! So all those entertaining things are still going on around here, but I'm finding it much more difficult to make time to write about it. 

 I realized the other day that I have gone almost a year without sorting and organizing my digital photos! Gasp! So I'm making a great effort to get back on the posting bandwagon...as best I can. This post is a sort of catch up post for Joshua.

 My little buddy is 6 1/2 and just finished kindergarten. 

He makes us laugh all day long with the quick witted things he says. 

 This picture was from splash night at church last summer. 

He had fun shooting all his friends with his water gun. 

 He loves to hang out with all his grandparents! This is at Shrimpy's (an awesome little hole in the wall place right by Buc-ee's in Madisonville - try their bread pudding!!!) with Grandmamma and Dodie. 

 Playing the ipad in a box? Why not? 

 He LOVES to build with Legos. His personality is very different from John David's though. John David was always very, very particular about his sets and built them completely on his own from the time he was 4. Joshua isn't at all organized and once a set is built (with help from whomever might be passing by) it will probably never be all together again. 

 This was early in the school year. He was practicing skip counting 2's. 

 He definitely still loves Mommy a lot, but he's Daddy's buddy too! He adores Daddy! 

 Joshua and D were working on a Lego set together. 

(Notice the turtle stuffed animal on the table. The kids loves his turtles!)

 Joshua's buddy Jackson in Houston. 

If only they could be next door neighbors!

 It's a selfie!

He practiced "blob mapping" a lot this year with all the continents and oceans. And of course he did it with a green marker - green continues to be his most favorite!