It’s the BACK TO SCHOOL SALE in my shop this week! We haven’t decided on an end date yet, so snatch up these great PDF patterns at fantastic prices while you can!

Also, a big hug and thanks to my husband, Dave, who has been running my shop for me since little Eli was born four weeks ago. He has quickly become an expert Etsy seller and has even made sales graphs for me!

So run over to my shop and type “DAVEROCKS” in the comments section and I’ll refund 15% of your purchase on top of the already low prices! (Discount will come as a Paypal refund after you make your payment).

Thanks to everyone for such nice comments that I never reply to. I’m a slacker, but you ladies (and one or maybe two men, both of whom are members of my family) are utterly fabulous.

Eli cracked a smile at two weeks old, but I haven’t been able to catch it on camera until last week. I just caught the tail end of a smile here and the shot is looking straight up his nose, but you get the idea:

Cute, right? This would be the obligatory brag on my children post that you all love so much. Catherine is a spelling whiz. I kind of suspected it, but now that I’m teaching her and trying to find a word she can’t spell in her grade level work it is quite apparent. I didn’t even bother making her practice this week, she just took the test cold turkey and only missed one. Must run in the family or something weird like that. . .

Seth has turned out to be quite an artiste. He was never interested in coloring or anything art-related, but when you get him going on a project he really excels. I should take some photos of his recent masterpieces and you would agree.

Joseph sat in on Seth’s poetry lesson this week and interpreted the poem before Seth even had time to think about it. Surprised me, to say the least! He doesn’t have much of an attention span, but when he does sit in on lessons he’s definitely learning.

Juliet is the princess of the universe (says she) and having a new baby in the house hasn’t changed her opinion of that a bit. Just as cute and charming as ever. She is conversational all of a sudden which is really fun.

Off to put kids to bed, wish me luck.

We managed to survive our first week of homeschooling this week. It wasn’t a normal week by any stretch of the imagination, what with all the activities we had to go to, but we still got in four days of instruction which is quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself.

This is my lesson plan book from the week:) I think it is going to take us a while to really figure this thing out (I didn’t even attempt Science and we only did Spanish once), but it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

Eli’s blessing was on Sunday which was beautiful. He looked super handsome and Dave did a great job! The dress was hand-sewn by my grandmother for my sister for her baby blessing. All my siblings were blessed in it as well as many others in my immediate and extended family. My mom has been here to help with the first week of school, so she got to be there for his blessing as well.