Here is one more project I completed this summer. The ceiling took five coats! Three of primer-two of paint- just to get the ceiling white again! (It used to have dark sky and clouds.)

Here is the dresser I painted to match the room too.

Here is a view of the window. Will this room ever stay this clean again? I wonder....

Here are two photos of my oldest son's new Red Sox themed bedroom. The stripes were a pain to paint but they came out nice we think! The room was originally green so we left one section green to represent the "Green Monster" wall. My son loves it!

Here is me and my family at the family camp in Maine. We added an extension to the dock making it a great place for the boys to jump in now! We had a lot of fun. We swam, relaxed, fished, went boating, picked wild raspberries. I just love summer in Maine! It is my favorite season-okay-I love all four seasons (except mud season!) I am 24 weeks along in this picture and I was sticking my tummy out for the camera to be sure that we didn't miss the fact that I was pregnant. Looks like I don't need to stick my tummy out-it sticks out enough already!!

I have been feeling the baby moving lots and loving every moment of it. This morning my youngest son crawled in bed with me and he got to see my tummy roll! It was so neat! I can't wait to meet our little girl! God has so blessed us!

I kissed my son Connor on his right cheek today.  A few minutes later I had to wipe his face from lunch and he says, "Mommy, I can't feel your kiss anymore."

I asked him if he needed another one on his now clean cheek, he said, "yes!"

What a sweet boy who still desires the feel of mom's kisses on his cheek!!

Here "it" is! Our baby's first ultra sound picture! I am 10 weeks along now. The baby measures 2.96 centimeters. My husband asked, "what is that in inches?" (It's less than 2 inches.)

My uterus is the size of a grapefruit, and healthy. We got to see the baby's tiny heart beating. Can you imagine women choosing an abortion at even this stage-only 10 weeks? The tiny baby is nearly completely formed and is even now growing nails on it's fingers and toes!

Only 10 more weeks before we can find out the sex!

We have had a crazy Spring here in Maine! We got nearly a foot of snow two weeks in a row and another Nor'Easter is expected for tomorrow into Monday!

Here are some pictures of my boys and their cousins building the snowman they named "Chuck"!

Rolling the snowballs!

Lifting the snowballs!

Here's "Chuck" and all the boys!

Can you believe this is April?

Here are the roses my wonderful hubby bought me on Valentine's Day! He had to try four stores in a blinding blizzard before he found one selling roses! Is that love or what? I told the kids how far Daddy had gone out of his way to get the roses and they just said, "Woe!"

Here is my middle son reading the cookbook. He LOVES to make pancakes!

"Take my picture now, Mommy, while I am pouring."

Cooking has become one of our favorite things to do in homeschool. The kids are also taking a cooking class at our co-op and they are having a blast there too!

Here is our home just a few weeks ago-AFTER Christmas-this is January for Pete's sake!Well, Winter is back! The kids didn't even play outside at all yesterday, I was afraid they would get frost bite! We drove to Pizza Hut for their lunch buffet and it was only 4 degrees out! I decided to treat the kids to pizza since DH was away snowmobiling. It was so much fun to drive by the kids' school and know that we had already done our work for the day and were headed out to lunch! The boys were great! The restaurant was quiet and except for a toddler they were the only children there! I think I'm liking this homeschool thing!

Anyway, Brandon said something that struck me as quite interesting at the lunch table. He said something about how he doesn't know why but even though he's homeschooling now he still feels pressured to get his lessons done as quickly as possible. It is even to the point that it frustrates him if he's not finished before lunch!

I took a breath and breathed a sigh of relief, thanking God that we were now homeschooling and we could begin to "relax" a bit. Take our time and  really LEARN. But I can't help but think that "school" has actually CREATED this anxiety in my son. What we used to see as a healthy pressure to do his best and outperform his peers I can now see it may be an actual UNHEALTHY anxiety that he has developed about school work.

I want my kids to DELIGHT in learning, which they do. Before home schooling, the conversations over breakfast before heading out the door to school were always glorious. I would try to cram in some life lesson about God while they were busy discussing how many billions of galazies did God actually create and do we really KNOW that we have discovered ALL of them? (for an example)

Now my boys have all day to discuss and read and learn. We took our first trip to the library on Tuesday. We had not been in about a year (or more!) It was a great time.  I loved watching Jacob pour over the science experiment books he picked out. Connor played with some toys, Brandon ( my best reader) just couldn't decide. All those books were overwhelming maybe? I'm sure as we go back more often Brandon will be more excited to pick out certain books. It's hard, he's at that age where video games is all he thinks about it seems!

I read somewhere that it can take one month for every year that your child was in school for them to actually get "school" out of them. If that's the case, we've got about 5 more months before my son is really able to settle down with his lessons and not feel so "pressured". Time will tell!