long overdue

Yikes. I really did not intend to go so long between updates. We've been a good kind of busy, with stuff going on but no major catastrophes.

Updates on everyone one by one:

Asher is THRIVING in his new school. He actually talks (!!) about school a lot of the time, though if we just bluntly ask about it, he won't. You have to come at it from the side so he doesn't quite realize what you mean. He had a rough first three weeks, but after a come-to-Jesus conversation, the last four have been MUCH better. They have a color system (green, yellow, red, blue) and in the past four weeks, he was green for all but two days.

His teachers genuinely enjoy him and his stories and he's started having input in class, raising his hand with suggestions or comments. At home, he's a much more pleasant child to be around. He even gets along great with his siblings these days.

I know for sure part of it is the school and the new environment he's in, but I also see that it's that magical maturing that the teachers and principals at TLCA told us happens between Kindergarten and 1st. He's still got his moments, sure, but for the most part, he's actually fun to be around.

We've been reading in the evenings, one chapter at a time, and read through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. He really enjoyed Harry Potter (because he knows where it's at) and he liked Ralph. We haven't picked up our next book yet because I've been exhausted in the evenings or just not here but I'm thinking we'll do something else by Beverly Cleary, maybe Henry Huggins or Ribsy.

He got his first library card today and when the librarian recognized me from my hours spent hanging around her desk as a kid, she got a big grin on her face. He picked out a couple of books to check out and I showed him how to look up books on the computer and find them on the shelf and then how to use the self-check. As we were leaving, he said "Thanks for the tutorial, Mom." I'm not sure if he'll remember how to search and find books (though this is Asher, so probably) but at least he's got that little nugget in his brain somewhere. Now to see how long he can hold on to his card and remember his pin.

He lost three teeth last week, two in the same day. He's got a real jack-o-lantern face right now. But its a cute jack-o-lantern.

Elijah is 5. His world did not change all that much, surprisingly. He had a fabulous Mario birthday party and is already talking about his NEXT Mario party. I just can't with this kid.

He is....hard to describe. He's such a sweetheart and helpful and loving during the day and early afternoon 90% of the time and then almost every evening at bedtime he's just a jerk. He picks on Asher and Eden, he screams at me and Austin, he throws things...there have been more than one occasion that we've physically removed him from his room and made him sleep upstairs by himself. Bedtime is our least favorite time of the day.

He and I read a book together, Charlotte's Web, but he says it fast and has a bit of a speech impediment so it sounded like "Shart's Web." I laughed nearly every night.

He seems to be doing well at CCF, our church's MDO program. He's one of, if not the, oldest kids in the class and he seems to know most of what they're learning. He's been there for 4 years at this point, so he should know all that. He's definitely looking forward to kindergarten next year and honestly, I think he would have done ok in it this year, but I'm ok waiting for him to be "old enough" for it. I don't think we'll have the same issues with Elijah as we did with Asher.

Eden. Oh man. She's just a ball of personality and will. She lives in a world where whatever she thinks or says is the honest truth. If she doesn't like that you told her no, she'll say "Say yes" until you do say yes. Then she's confident she's gotten her way. Woe is you when she realizes she doesn't.

She's still into superheroes and a little bit into ladybugs and some into Mario. So everything she wears is some kind of costume in her mind. She prefers to sleep on the floor of our bedroom instead of in "the ladybug bed" in her room. She doesn't complain when Austin moves her, though. Mostly because she's half asleep. There have been times when we wake up in the middle of the night to tend to Rebekah and Eden has returned to her nook.

Rebekah is just wonderful. She's almost always happy and sweet and content to be doing her own thing. She is Elijah's favorite person and he comes looking for her two or three times a day. She likes to gnaw on whatever she can find, even if it's toes. She still doesn't sleep through the night consistently yet, but she could if she wanted to. She just doesn't want to. She's growing slowly and is petite, but nothing to be concerned about. We've started introducing solids to help her gain weight a little, help her sleep through the night, and to help stretch my milk. My supply is adequate for her, but pumping milk to send to CCF has been a little difficult. I'm barely staying ahead of her, rarely pumping in a week what she consumed the two days she goes. We had planned to do baby-led weaning, like we did with Eden since it's cheaper and easier, but she doesn't have the aversion to purees and being fed that Eden did, so she's had some bananas and applesauce and a bit of yogurt. She liked the fruits, not the yogurt.

She scoots herself all over the place, exploring as much as she can and getting into whatever was left at her level. She loves her siblings and grins whenever she sees them, pops her head up to see what they're doing, and follows them with her head while they play near her.

Austin got a new car for his birthday, a Prius. His old one was 13 years old and we'd had it for almost 10 years. It was dying a slow death and we'd been hoping for a new one for about 16 months when he finally just bit the bullet and got a new car. It's pretty snazzy and he really enjoys it. It reads his texts to him and has a button you push to put it in park. He had it a couple of weeks before I finally got to ride in it.

I've been doing well, too. Cooking and shopping and keeping the household running with errands and doctor's appointments and whatnot. I did manage to slice open my left middle fingertip with a bread knife last week. It's pretty gnarly but didn't necessitate stitches. It almost looks like it has them because of how jagged the cut is. It's interesting to find out how often you use a certain fingertip when you've injured it. I wear a bandaid and a finger cot (seriously looks like a finger sized condom) most days to protect it from water and children and then let it air out overnight. Rebekah still manages to hit it at night while nursing. It'll be a while before it's fully healed and I fully expect an ugly scar, but at least I still have my finger, right? Not that losing a finger is the end of the world. Just would have been a bigger pain (no pun intended) than this.

So we're trucking along. We've got the craft fair coming up, then Thanksgiving with my family in New Braunfels and our only Christmas in Arlington with Austin's parents. Asher's already planning his Minecraft birthday party and we're starting to think about Rebekah's blessing dinner for her birthday. Eden will have a cardio appointment in December and an eye exam in January. Things coming, but nothing super huge or stressful. This year has been exhausting for a lot of reasons and we've still got about 10 weeks or so to go. I'll try to update again in that time. :-)