You've Got the Cutest Little Baby Face!

Superman was fascinated with everything at Rosy's party yesterday! Hubby got a little distracted with the camera and we ended up with more baby pictures than 8 year-old pictures.

Party Hearty last night!

Superman at his Valentine's Banquet last night. One of the other mommies is holding him. They are doing the Hokey-Pokey.

Rosy at her "Baby Shower" Birthday Party. She loved it!

Math Joke

We're packing, and I'm stressing.

In the midst of it all, III has been doing some pretty advanced stuff in math and I have been writing the tests for it. So, my brain is math-fried. I saw this joke online today and I think it is hilarious.

Rosy's b'day is tomorrow and we are having a small, babyshower theme party for her tomorrow after church. I know that III and Hubby will be thrilled, but I do know that she will love it. I'll post pics soon.

Cage Match

Our new playyard, aka "The Cage", is perfect for our family. It has a ton of uses for us. Today, the big kids wanted to go outside to ride bikes, rollerblade, ride scooters, etc. Because our street is kind of busy and I haven't been able to consistantly notice them getting out of the way of traffic, I have to go out when they go out. This has been hard because Superman is only interested in being in his stroller for a little while.

Today we moved the cage outside. We stayed out there for several hours. I could lay on the blanket and read. Superman was in his cage and the big kids were up and down the street. It was one of our better afternoons since Superman has been born.

I'm guessing that it's a sign of the Apocolypse, but we've had two really good school days in a row. We've been completely done around noon both days and have been able to enjoy going out.

And, yes, to Alma and Gram Sam - I did put a hat on that baby right after these pictures. It was very windy outside today and I wanted to take care of his little ears.

School time for Baby Boy

For Christmas my parents gave Superman a set of these differently textured balls. At the time, he had zero interest in them. Now, they fascinate him. He rolls them, chews them, and bangs them. We got 30 minutes of school done this morning while he sat in his walker banging these two balls on each other and everything else he could reach.

Notice his turtle face in the top photo. For some reason he pulls his top lip down to a point and stares at us sometimes. We all think it makes him look like a turtle.

Does that thing come with a lid?

We got all three kids in the new playyard Saturday night, and the first thought I had was, "Does that thing come with a lid?" I'm pretty sure it would be illegal to cage them up in the living room, but there are days when I sure think about it!!!! Either way, I think they are adorable all playing together. Twenty years from now they are going to wonder how big that playyard was if they could all fit in it. They won't believe that they were just that small.

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

Today is my first Blogiversary!!! One year ago, I started my blog. Thanks to Cinda for suggesting it to me, and thanks to everyone who reads it.

I'm not much of a phone talker, so it has been a great way to share Superman's progress without being tied up on the phone for hours. I keep odd hours (stay up late and get up late), and blogging lets me type on my schedule. I'm usually adding to the blog around midnight and it was even later than that during the terrible indigestion of my pregnancy.

Yeah, Papa Deet!

My dad (known as Papa Deet by all the grandkids) and my mom (aka Gram Sam) got us a play-yard! We were at their house a few week-ends ago and little man was all over the place. My mom called this week and told me that she and Daddy had been talking and they had decided that Superman really needed a play-yard. She volunteered to go to Wal-mart and pick one up for him if I wanted her to.

We were up there this week and he really enjoyed it at their house. I set it up first thing this morning, and he is loving it. I've had so much more flexibility now that I can contain him. For the first time in over a month, our couch has cushions. Once he started crawling we had to use the cushions to block the hearth, the television armoire, and the legs of the end tables.

I can't wait until school Monday morning. I think we are going to be able to get a lot more done with him in "Sing-Sing" as my dad calls it.

My Big Boy

Superman had a busy January. He learned to crawl forwards and he learned to pull up. Of course, we immediately tried to baby proof. However, I missed some things. You can't see it in the picture, but I have the outlets covered. It never occured to me that he could pull over the ironing board. I made it just in time to stop him.

He went for a nine month check-up this week. He is 22 1/2 pounds, 30 inches tall, and his head is 47.8cm around. He's about the size of the average 13 month old according to his doctor.

Charley Skedaddle

III's school curriculum is all online. It is a good curriculum for the most part, but sometimes the assignments are extreme. Last week they suggested that he visited the Linneaus' Museum in London to better understand the assignment on animal classification. Obviously, we skipped that one.

He is supposed to read through his work and make a judgement call each day on which parts of the assignment he should complete. He makes a list of things he thinks he should skip because they are too diffiuclt or too involved. (Examples would be trips to London, science experiments that involve live electricity, assignments that involve reading a whole book for one day's work, and things like that.) We are trying to work on his ability to understand what is reasonable and what is extreme.

Earlier this fall, he started "hiding" assignments from us. If he didn't want to do it, he would "forget" to put it on the list. Of course, we check behind him each day, so it NEVER worked. We ALWAYS caught it. Then, if possible, we had to assign him the extra work because it became an integrity issue.

One of his lessons on Nov. 11 assigned him to read a historical fiction book about the Civil War and write tons of stuff about it. It was a HORRIBLE, lenghty, useless assignment and I never would have made him do it, but he chose to "forget" to put it on his list the day after we had sworn that if he ever did that again, he would have to do the assignment "no matter what."

He turned in one messy, misspelled, poorly punctuated version of the book report in December, and got told to do the whole thing over. I am glad to say that after almost 4 months of drudgery, the book report is finished.

Unless you also home school a mule, you can't know how exciting this is to us!!!! What a dark cloud has lifted at our house!

Shouldn't Have Tried It

I was determined to make sure our whole family was at church together this morning. I shouldn't have tried it. Superman is ill and feverish. Any sane mother would have kept him home. Finally, halfway through Sunday School, I gave up and headed home. I've never been so miserable or seen him so miserable. Thankfully, the Tylenol finally kicked in and he is sacked out on the bed now.