I read the book "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. I come from a long line of packrats. I have been trying for several years to get our stuff under control. It is finally getting to a good clicking point. I have the main three rooms (living room, dining room, and kitchen) to the point we can keep them clean pretty easily. As a treat for our hard work, I asked Philip for a piano. At the same time a friend in my book club mentioned that her sister needed to get rid of their piano. So we now have a piano!!!! I LOVE it! Philip drove and picked it up. Moved it in. Cleaned it out. And tuned it for me. (well the tuning really was for him because I couldn't hear the half step off like he could). I love having music in our home. The kids did a number on my viola and so I donated it to a friend to fix up and use for her students. The cello stays in the closet so that it doesn't suffer a similar fate. The piano though, can be out in the open and not destroyed (don't ask about mom's keyboard). I've always loved to watch people play piano. Their hands just float over the keys and land in beautiful sounds. When I am upset Philip plays for me. Lexi likes to pick out the songs by ear. Emi is trying to learn to read music. Johnny watches his sisters play and then memorizes from them. William makes up songs that "sing to his heart". And the little three just love the cause and effect of push a key and hear a sound. It's my favorite thing in my house or maybe tied with my bed. And it definitely sparks a lot of joy for us.
We keep having sicknesses- with this many people it takes a long time to work it's way through. We are getting better at not sharing food/drink and washing our hands. Sammy was sick and so cuddly the other day. Corey was upset that I wasn't holding him. It was hard, but not as hard as having both twins sick at the same time. I'm looking forward to warmer and dry weather so the kids aren't stuck in the house as much. We need to "go outside and get the stink blown off us". They love to be outside and they sleep so nicely after burning off so much energy.
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| Sick babies just want to sleep. |
Alexis decided she wants to write a book series. She has been using my computer when she can to type it up. Emi followed her lead but prefers to hand write her ideas and then type them up afterwards. They began to collaborate. Their characters are joining together to fight the same enemy. It takes a lot of work to get the stories to line up and it is fun to watch them plan it all out. They discovered spell-check for the first time and LOVE it. Lexi treats it like a game- how many words can she spell correctly without the help of spell check. Emi only has a couple paragraphs typed, but a few pages written. Lexi is working on her third page. Other than that, they read all the time and play outside whenever it is nice. Emi worked on a sewing project one afternoon. I love that she hung the fabric to make it easier to cut out the pages.
Johnny is really starting to understand reading. He tries to rush through things and guesses at words rather than sounding them out. But William has starting showing interest and being more advanced than his brother is Johnny's biggest motivator. I love how differently they all learn. Lexi learned to read by asking how to spell words. Emi learned with a computer game- and was motivated by keeping up with Lexi. Johnny prefers a whole-language approach- memorizing the words. William also wants to spell to read. Joseph is still content with being read to. And the babies do their "babble" reading.
The babies are hardly babies any more!!!! They are at a fun stage. They play together and fight each other all the time. They think it is great fun to knock their twin over and lay on him until he cries and Mommy makes them move. They work together to plot mischief and then fight over who gets to act it out. An example of this is when they dumped the laundry basket together. Pushed it to the door together. Then pushed each other off of it so they could be the one to try to open the door handle. They love dogs, cats, and cars and especially having their pictures taken! The girls are still such a great help and I could NOT do any of this without them.
Speaking of cars, Philip got a new car. Well new to him and newer than he usually gets. He is great with cars and can fix most anything, so we always just buy a cheap car and he maintains it. But he really needed a car that could reliably get him to school each day. So we discussed buying a used car from a dealership. He found an inexpensive one online with great gas mileage for his commute. We went to check it out and just as we were pulling up another guy was driving off with it. But we got the same type of car for only $1000 more that was 5 years newer and 40,000 less miles on it. The car we got had only been on the lot for an hour. We consider it a sure blessing. Heavenly Father orchestrated it all perfectly for us. Philip LOVES it!
Philip is on his last month of collision repair classes. After our trip in April he will start with High performance mechanic program. He is excited to have a thorough training of vehicle repair inside and out. He wants to eventually be able to do his own work from home, but plans to get some field experience first.
We had a tornado here in Clarksville. I guess one came really close to us. I had gotten the warning but didn't worry too much about it since the kids were already in bed. But then a pit started in my stomach and I prayed to know for sure if I should wake them up or not. The feeling got worse and my sister texted me that there was a tornado on the street we live off of. So I started to wake up the kids. William didn't want to wake up and I found him back in bed after we noticed he didn't come downstairs. We played charades down in the basement while we waited it out and then I sat in the kids' room with them. William was really worried about what would happen if a tornado came back and I told him we would get another warning and go back downstairs. He asked me to read scriptures about tornadoes to him to understand why we have tornadoes. We read about storms in our scriptures and I sat with them until they went back to sleep. We had two of the neighbors' trampolines blow into our yard and a tree in the back of the property fell over. We are grateful we were kept safe.
That's all for now. I will try to update more regularly. Take care!
