Ha ha! Yes, I guess I have been busy on here lately. And busy at home too, so all-over busy. LOL! Yes, these last weeks have been busy and in it all, I have done my best to stay 'out of myself' and focused on the needs of others. This has been the blessing that God promises it will be. Not only does it feel good to serve others, but it is good not to think on worries or concerns too much but to always be praying over them but then, laying them at the foot of the cross and getting on with the days we have here on earth.

I have been so busy planning a bridal shower for my sister and our trip to VA coming up. The whole family will be coming for several days! It will be such a treat to have Alan there,too, at least for some of the week. I am so glad that he had enough vacation days left to take some of them for the week of her wedding. He will only have a couple of days left, and one is already accounted for, so this is a blessing and a sacrifice for him. I am very excited about seeing my sisters again. And grateful that Al is willing, ultimately, to come down for the wedding too.It's great that they will both get to know Alan through this trip!And both get to know the boys and Grace.

We will also be picking my 22 y.o. cousin up from the train station in Philly on Saturday and she will be travelling down to VA with me on Sunday afternoon after church. Al and the kids will be driving up separately, a few days later, so I will miss them for a few days but my cousin and I will have a nice chance to chat and talk about what the Lord is doing in our lives. She is a wonderful young woman; she has a heart after God. I am also happy that she will get to attend our church with us on Sunday and meet our church family. We just love our church family so much!

In addition to all of this planning and doing, I have been babysitting Alan's cousin's daughter who is one year younger than Josh almost everyday while her momma is in training for a new job. It has been fun having her, and very, very busy!;)
It has been so hot that we have spent endless hours upon hours in the sprinklers and 'baby pool' in the yard :) I think I have even lost track of all time and space at many points, we have been out there for so long ha ha :) You know how much the kiddos hate to have to come in from the pool!! I am very worn out when it it time to come in for some quiet, resting time but a good, Summer-fun worn out ( for the most part) :)

This has also been a season of homeschooling ending for this grade, all except for Science counting towards next year that is ( we do much of our Science over the Summer months.) We had Tyler's evaluation meeting Monday night; it went well and we love getting the portfolios all ready because then we have this neat keepsake to save forever :) We have 3rd, 4th and now 5th grades for Tyler and soon we will hopefully add to that all of Josh's work, and then Grace's. And, hopefully, much more for Tyler! We will see where the Lord leads.

I'm looking forward to planning Tyler's 6th grade year this Summer and ordering all of the fun books and supplies that we will use. I know for sure that we will do more with the book My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George. If you have kids any age I promise they will love this book, even as old as teens. It is such a good book, about a boy who lives alone in the woods and trains a falcon. We will also defiantely be doing more in-depth studies about the Universe and Solar System and studying more in-depth about the other continents in the world that we may or may never get to actually visit. I love learning about these different places and cultures too, and sampling the different foods - well, only the non-disgusting one's ;) I know we will definately do some studying on the Egyptians because Ty requested that for this year. The rest will come into place by the end of the Summer, rough-draft plans anyways. I am so glad that Ty is at home with me and not gone from me for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. It was much harder for all of us when they were in school and daycare and I was plugging away at endless hours of court reports and home evaluations for work. God has blessed us, and I am thankful!

Well off to wake up the little people that fell asleep in a heap up in Ty's room with him reading to them! They're like a pile of kittens :) Only Grace is awake~ the only one refusing to submit to the calling temptation of a nice, sweet nap;) That's Ok with me, that means she will go down all the easier at 8:30 tonight and sleep all the more sweetly then! And then, mommy-time! woo hoo! Lol ;) Drop on in for a cup of tea.... :)