Family Update

We're still living on the southern tip of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, with Daniel working as the Assistant Manager of Kiptopeke State Park and Kimberly staying busy at home with the kids.  We decided to homeschool, beginning with pre-kindergarten for Caedmon and Ansley.  

 (Pictured: Daniel with Emalyn in the hospital)

(Pictured: Kimberly at 37 weeks pregnant with Baby #4)

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 Caedmon is four years old and will be five in March.  He's into all things boy, including legos, matchbox cars and jets, and spending every moment he can outside on his bike or in his dirt pile.  Caedmon constantly amazes us, whether it be riding a two-wheel bike with no training wheels, beginning to read, or taking care of his sisters. He's thoughtful, loving, and smart.  (Pictured here: Posing with his bike)

Ansley is three and a half and spends many of her days wearing her pink leotard and tutu.  She loves taking care of her multitude of baby dolls, always wants to snuggle, cannot get enough of her newest sister, and enjoys helping her Momma in the kitchen.  She is sweet, affectionate, and always wants to help.  (Pictured here:  Dressed for Halloween as Tinkerbell)

Eleri is a year and a half and, well, where do we begin?  She is into everything, always wanting to be a part of the action, constantly making us laugh, and consistently testing our patience.  She loves shoes, being outside with Caedmon, kissing Emalyn, and pushing things around the house.  (Pictured here: A typical day-in-the-life of Eleri)  

 Emalyn is three weeks old and is as sweet as can be!  She is nursing well, sleeping well, and is an all around laid back and wonderful baby.  Emalyn is truly a gift and has been an amazing addition to our family.  (Pictured here: Relaxing near a window)  

The big kids came to the hospital to meet "New Baby", as we'd been calling her.  They've been enamored with her ever since then and still can "hardly believe that New Baby came"!  We cherish these kids and pray that as they grow in age, that their relationships with each other would deepen and strengthen even more.

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2012 was busy, fun, and...eventful to say the least.  2013 will likely not slow down much for our family.  

Life continues to prove itself to be tiring and exciting and crazy and we're finding we wouldn't want it any other way as we journey through together.

Emalyn Shiloh

Announcing our newest addition....Emalyn Shiloh Jordan.  She was born on December 31st at 1:07 pm, weighing 8 lbs 14 oz and measuring 20 3/4 inches long.  She's as sweet as can be and is absolutely adored by all of us.  Here are some pictures I took of her today: 

And, yes, she looks like her brother and sisters!

PreK at Home

Well, today was the official start to our homeschool adventures.  I'm putting this on the family blog, but am seriously considering starting another blog to keep up with homeschool stuff.  (yep, because I do so well keeping up with the one blog we have)

Background:  If you'd asked me several years ago (as many of you did), if I planned to homeschool, an emphatic "no" was my reply.  But...over the last year or so, it's been something we've been thinking and praying more and more about.  It started because of where we live.  The options for PreK are as follows:  1. a full day every day program for 4 y.o. at the elementary school or 2.  through the local (quite expensive) Christian school in which we could choose days/times.  Neither of these were actual options because I don't think a 4 year old should be in school all day and the Christian school just wasn't in the budget.  So, we decided to "school" the kiddos at home.  The more we've thought and researched and prayed, we've decided to take it a year at a time, but very possibly will homeschool through at least mid-elementary school.  I'll do another post (another day) of why we are choosing this path (the lack of PreK options was only the beginning of this process/decision for us).

So, on to what we did today:
First, the obligitory first-day-of-school pictures.  Poor Caedmon has been sick for several days, he's pretty pitiful, yet excited to start school. 

 Ansley is excited to be a part of our school-time.

 

This is where most of our school stuff is kept. Since it's PreK, we don't have a ton of "curriculum". All of our books are on a shelf next to the couch.

Today, since it was Day 1 (and Caedmon is still under the weather), we were pretty low key.  OK, let's be real.  This is PreK...at home...it's always going to be pretty low key. 

I wrote their names with chalk and they "painted" over the letters with water.  Caedmon can write his name independently, but I still wanted to give him tracing practice.  The kids enjoyed this and did this several times.

 Eleri wanted in on the action, so this is how she started out.  She ended up just sucking on the Qtips, so I took away the Qtips and black board and it turned into a dump-the-water-and-splash-it.  That was OK, it was good exploration time for the poor, neglected 3rd child.

 Our finished project for the day:  Our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom name trees.

Like I said, I'm seriously considering making a separate blog for homeschool stuff, so if I do, I'll share more details there...

Happy Easter!

My Babies

I'm just gonna ignore the fact that it's been over 4 months since my last post and move on.   Here are some cute recent pictures of the kids :)  Oh, and a quick update for each kid:

Caedmon: is loving "activity" time and looks forward to it every day (that we actually do it).  This last week we did some number activities and learned about what God made on each day of creation.  Homeschool practice for me?  Perhaps.

Ansley: decided she wanted to start pottying in the potty last week.  She's had minimal accidents and has actually had a few days of "dry all day", dry naptimes, and dry nighttimes.  The reward of "Ms" is working, as is being able to pick big girl Dora undies on her dry days instead of wearing the thicker training undies.

Eleri: got her 2 bottom teeth and started crawling all in a matter of 2-3 weeks.    She's been the "worst" teether of the 3 kids, but not inconsolable.  The big kids love that she's crawling now and get so excited when they see her coming.  She has such a personality and cracks me up all the time.  I can't believe we're well into party-planning mode for her already!

Needless to say, we've all been busy.  But as I'm watching all my babies grow up so quickly, I am finding it easier to savor the memories and enjoy my time with them.  OK...so here are some of the promised pictures.

 Here are the bigs playing out in the snow.

 Caedmon and Eleri favor each other the most, but this picture really shows the similarities between her and Ansley.  (Look at their noses!)

 Sweet sisters!

 Caedmon's Halloween costume from when he was 18 months old!  He still puts it on for funsies...love it!

 My recent favorite way to do Ansley's hair:  cute and it stays put!

 Playing outside: March 1st and supposed to be 75 degrees!

Eleri is 6 months old!

Well, she's actually 6 months + a couple weeks, but whatev!! 

Our sweet Eleri turned 6 months old on October 15th.  She's got big brown eyes like her siblings (and her daddy) and she continues to favor Caedmon, although some of her expressions are beginning to remind me of Ansley. 

At 6 months Eleri:

• started solids and loves 'em!  She started rice cereal on her 6-month-day and has since eaten bananas and avocado.  Sweet potatoes are on the menu for this week.  She eats "solid" food once a day, although I think I'm going to start increasing it.
• started drinking water from a sippy cup and is quite the champ.
• is nursing anywhere from 5-8 times a day. The 8x comes when she's waking up at night. 
• (speaking of waking at night), she's gone through sleep-through-the-night phases, but now regularly wakes up around 1 and 4 (seriously?!)  Sometimes I think I'm going to let her fuss and train her to sleep through the night.  Sometimes I would just rather just nurse her and enjoy the snuggles.  Don't judge!
• will take a bottle!  (Neither of the other kids would still take a bottle at this age; although it's rare that she needs to use a bottle, it's nice to be able to have milk stored up just in case)
• is wearing some 6-9 month clothes and some 12 (!) month clothes.
• weighed 16 lbs 7 oz at her WBC (60 %ile) and was in the 90 %ile for height (I don't remember how "tall" she was)
• is *almost* able to sit up unassisted.  Give her another week or so.
• is most definitely a thumb sucker.
• has grown quite attached to her elephant lovey.

OK...enough with the info, onto some pics...

Her 5 month cupcake picture!

 She loves to go on adventures...like apple picking!

She looks like Caedmon here.

 Ha!  This is her sad face...although, she hardly ever fusses in the bumbo!

 The girls love to cuddle in Ansley's big girl bed!  (A takes such good care of her)

She reminds me of Ansley in the above picture.

 Had to include the leg rolls!

 Six month cupcake picture!

 Tiramisu cupcake...yummy!  Recipe here.