Laptop, College, etc.

I am working on my laptop right now. I have plugged it in and testing to see how long it will take for it to crash, or if it might have miraculously fixed itself while being hidden in a closet for the last 3 months. Keeping my fingers crossed as I would really like to have this to work on.

I read with interest this morning that several states have decided to increase their standards (i.e. more testing) for high school graduation and college acceptance. I find this to be very humorus as college professors claim that as government control and testing has increased the skills of the students have actually decreased.

But more than that I question the actual need for so many people to go to college. I grew up with basically no choice in the matter, I always knew that I was going to go to college. Regardless of the fact that I had no idea what I actually wanted to do. I enjoyed college and I loved learning all the different theories and viewpoints. But did I actually learn anything that helped me in the workforce. Only in a round-about way. I learned PowerPoint on one of the first versions because I had to give presentations my senior year. Universities even realize the limited value of their degrees because just about every major now requires internships before graduation.

Why spend the money ( a lot of money) and time to basically purchase a degree that has a very limited skill set. For the majority of people the better option is a tradeschool or community college where they can learn the skills that are actually wanted in the workplace. The reason is because universities and colleges have convinced the business world that the employees they hire have to have 4-yr degrees. I have seen people with college degrees in the workforce whom have absolutely none of the skills needed. They have their hands held by the older workers who might have a year of tradeschool.

When I graduated in 1996, the only entry level job I could find that I felt comfortable doing was as an administrative assistant (I had a degree in human resources). They wanted AAs with college degrees, but I would have never been able to do even that job had I not taught myself typing, and was computer literate and knowledgable in the new programs at the time. It eventually led to positions in marketing, but that was only because I learned on the job. In my experience college was an enjoyable experience, but not necessary for me in my worklife.

I have watched, during this economic downturn, managers with graduate degrees whom were laid off, go back to the community college to learn a new skill that is actually relevant to today's economy.

It is difficult today, because in order to have your resume looked at you need the sheepskin, but once you finish studying theories and philosophies, you better have a technical skill you have picked up at the same time.

So far so good I have had the computer up for about 30 minutes, no crashing yet.

I have decided with regard to my three girls I am not going to absolutely insist that they attend a four-year university. If they want to just go to learn and become "educated" that is fine. If they think that they are going to study a particular technical field for a specific skill, I would rather they studied for two years at a local technical school and then transfer after that if they want to. I don't want them to ever think that just because they went to college they should have it made. If they want to advanced in the workforce, they will need to know how to actually do something!

Four-year college is not for everyone!! And I don't mean some separation based on ability. For the job you want to do a college degree may not be actually necessary. If Public Schools actually did the job they were supposed to do and teach students How to Learn then it wouldn't be considered necessary for students to go to college to learn that. Earlier this century students finished school at 8th grade and went out into the workforce, not necessarily knowing as much information, but what they did know was how to learn and how to teach themselves. Older persons I know never stop learning. They love to learn new things. Students today have no idea how to learn, that they become frustrated with the process and eventually spend very little time learning something new, unless they will be tested on it.

It is crazy to me that all these education experts keep grabbing on to new theories and ideas thinking that they are the next Holy Grail for education, while never realizing that the education they had 30 or 40 years ago was better than what they provide today. I love hearing "My grandmother only finished the 6th grade, but she was always reading shakespeare" or, "my grandfather left school at 14, but he went on to design some electrical component that totally changed the world." Are there not clues in there.

Laptop still operating...better not test my luck.

Peace

Amy

Apologies

I have not been blogging the way that I meant to. Often times I begin to and then stop myself because I find that my post is just too negative or whatever. I find myself 'prettying up' the entry and then I feel "what is the use of this."

I am also finding it hard to actually post as there are three people in the house vying for the use of the computer now, and the location of the computer is difficult. Our computer is in a front room (what would have been a formal living room when the house was built, but is our office, den and guest room), I can hear what is going on the rest of the house but I can't see. This is not good with a two-year-old in the house. We have an older laptop which blanked out on me about four months ago. We have not gotten it fixed yet, as I just couldn't see the need to put money in it with everything else going on.

The good news is that I mentioned our broken laptop to our pastor and he says that there is someone in the church who fixes computers on the side, so we may get the laptop fixed. This will greatly help me in working on the Holy Spirit Bible Study I am creating for our church, and I will be able to blog a little more. I will be able to set the laptop back up in our main room (kitchen/family room/where we basically live room) and I will be able to be with the girls and get my work done instead of being seperate from them.

I have been pretty negative lately. My feelings have been all over the board with frustration and stress. I think that I probably have a touch of post-partum depression with a bit of end-of-winter blues. This is worrisome for me to some degree with my history of depression, but as long as I acknowlege it I handle it alot better than I used to. My life the last few weeks has been running herd on a sneaky curious toddler while trying to nurse little EM who seems to be in a perpetual growth spurt. These two things do not go together.

The days seem to fly by and I never feel as though I am accomplishing anything. If I could only get a load of laundry all the way done, from wash to folded and put away. But more often lately we just create Mt. Clothing in what is supposed to be my escape reading corner.

I know that this is just a season in my life, but often knowing and feeling do not go hand-in-hand. I have been keeping my gratitude list in my paper journal, this serves to keep me grounded and remind me that no matter what I am feeling, that there is an alternate reality. My husband would love to have me back too, as right now in the evening all I want to do is crawl into a hole by myself. Sometimes I just get so tired of being wanted - Right Now!

Enough of my vent. So if you wonder where I am - I am trying to come up with something similey and upbeat to share.

Peace

Amy

A lot on my mind

I have not blogged in several days. My mother was visiting the first part of the week and we stayed busy. The last couple of days I have had a lot on my mind, some of which I will go into - mainly just to get it on paper (so to speak).

While mom was here we managed to make it to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Sciences, which is always a big hit with MB. This visit was the best yet. We were not overrun with school kids on a field trip, who are generally not being supervised and are very intimidating to younger kids. It was small family groups with children about the same age as mine. MB and K were able to play with the hands-on displays and just had a blast. Unfortunately both my mom and I forgot our cameras.

I did our taxes this week and was excite to realize that our savings should be somewhat replenished when we get our money back that the government has borrowed over the last year. I found one interesting fact out when I did taxes this year: When as a family you drop to one income, lose the other job, get one that pays less and then have a new baby, the government almost pays you money :).

I had a long blog in my mind all about the struggle I have been going through the last week, but I want bore anyone with all of that.Generally, I have been tossing back and forth work, money options. Trying to figure out a way to make our budget figure out right. Trying to find some peace about where I am in my life. I have forgotten about gratitude for what we do have. We are blessed and I just need to stop trying to always solve the problems that I perceive. Every month it works out and that is what I need to remember. But for some reason when I sit down to pay the bills or go on-line to check our balances I freak out. I am totally happy with the decisions we have made, I just doubt myself constantly when it comes to money. Money and security have always been a huge issue for me, and of all things it is the hardest for me to place in the hands of the Lord. So I have decided to try and keep myself on the right track, that in my daily journal I am going to try to write five things I am grateful for everyday.

That is mainly it. I will try to update some homeschooling activities later, we have not done many this week.

Peace

Amy

Perpetual Student

I have always said that if I had all the money I could want I would become a professional student. I love to learn, I always have. Maybe the reason I would like to homeschool my children, I would have rather had been homeschooled. I went to school because I had to, I made good grades because I liked getting good grades. But school academically was extremely easy, it was the social, pick on the one who is different aspect that was miserable for me. I was lucky in that I had a mother somewhat like me in that she loves to read and learn and she is introverted. She was also either a teacher or school librarian as I was growing up. I can remember absorbing the encyclopedia set we had in the house, and I believe that I single-handedly supported the local used bookstore because they went out of business a couple years after I went to college. In college my "fun" courses were Shakespeare, Anthropology and 20th century history with a focus on the influence of Asia.

So since I cannot afford to go back to school just to study for fun, and my dh has asked that we try MB in public school next year, I have decided that I will homeschool myself. I picked up a copy of The Well-Trained Mind and plan to begin working through it as soon as I get the bible study written that I am working on. I have already done a quick review of the first few chapters and I think that it is just what I want to get started. I would also like to add a Latin study in, as my mother had to take it when she was in school but I did not and I have always envied her ability to breakdown words and understand them better.

With MB an K, we have begun snuggle reading The Silver Chair from the Narnia series. MB has decided that there are not enough illustrations in the book so she is going to illustrate it for me. This is wonderful, it is such a great way for me to see how much she understands and how she feels about what is going on in the book. She writes, she loves to write the words that she does know, but she does not read proficiently yet, so drawing is a great way to feel out comprehension. Numeracy is coming along, we are working on skip counting by 2's. Science has been covered recently in watching some videos about the Galapagos Islands where her grandparents were earlier this month.

K has been experiencing the joys of behavior modification recently. I will not go into any long details here as I don't really want to relive any of it. I know that it will all be worth it on the other end, but it is tough going through.

My mom is visiting us this week. It should be fun. We will probably head out to some museums.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13

Amy

The deer family that visited us this morning. The buck is on the right and the doe is on the left. The fawn is kind of hidden, but is between the two. 

Morning Visitors

This morning we had the greatest experience. We live in a suburban area, near a very busy highway. There are still some wooded areas around, but very few. I was surprised when I looked out into our backyard and saw just beyond our fence line a family of deer. They were grazing on the new growth in the trees. MB had a great time watching them for almost 45 minutes until they disappeared in the wooded area across the street. I tried to take a picture of them, but they are camouflaged in the trees. It is posted above. The male had a very nice rack of antler and the baby had beautiful markings. This was a a wonderful experience as unfortunately the only time we actually see deer they are sad to say roadkill.

EM had her two month appointment and she is doing great. She is already over 11 pounds which is the largest at this time for any of my girls. She had a heart murmur at birth, but the doctor said that he thought that it had disappeared as he could not pick it up this time. He will check for it again on her next visit. He did say that even if it does show up again it is probably not a big deal. My own mother has a murmur and has never had any trouble with hers.

While I was at the doctor with EM, my MIL came to stay with the big girls. They got to hear all about the trip to the Galapagos Islands that my in-laws just returned from. MB talked her into watching the Galapagos video I had rented from Blockbuster. My MIL was very impressed by all that MB had learned about the islands and the animals while she was gone. This is great to hear since she is probably one of the biggest ones in the family against HS.

Good Day!!

Peace

Amy

Cautiously Excited

Right now I am cautiously excited. The new schedule seems to be working over the last week and a half. After the first couple of days of fussiness, the girls are falling into the routine of it. On of the biggest successes, in my mind, is the quiet reading time. After lunch we cuddle up on the sofa and read 'quiet' books. This tends to put K to sleep and calms MBA down after her morning at preschool. Then we have a couple hours of quiet time afterwards. Today MB did not want to read with us, so she chose to go to her room and read to herself. This is great coming from a child that always seems to need to be with other people. Right now she is back in her room creating a 3-D picture for a story about two explorers, a volcano and a diamond that she made up herself. Both K and EM are taking their naps at the same time, and I have quiet in my house. I need to clean the kitchen, but this peace is just too nice to pass up.

The schedule is working in so many other ways. I have scheduled time with the big girls individually to do structured activities. To try and focus on each of their needs. For K this has been very much working on various behavior changes; sharing, not pinching, and other issues I have notice appearing over the last two months. For MB this is often some focus on reading or math readiness. Because they each have my individual attention for a period of time, they are squabbling and competing for my attention much less at other times of the day.

For me, I am losing that feeling like I am forgetting something or not getting to something that needs to get done. I have specific times each day to sit down and focus on things for the household or for my bible study.

Of course on side effect of this is that I have had time to try and tweak our budget again. This is always so frustrating and even guilt-inducing. I can never seem to get it to come out right. Every month we are provided for and seem to make it, but on paper it never adds up. This always leaves me constantly balancing the budget line and determining which day would be best to send in a payment so that it isn't late, but doesn't clear the account too soon. It is so stressful. DH has tried to help me, but for reasons I won't go into here, it is a job that I will have to keep doing. I read the books on family budgeting and stretching dollars, but I have yet to find the magic key for us. Of course I wish that just by reading the books that my budget woes would just magically fix themselves, but like diet books you just have to do it, and keep with it.

Things should get a little bit easier in the coming months. I am waiting on a big refund from the OBs office (we did not have insurance at the beginning of my pregnancy so we had to pay everything up front. Insurance did pay them about a month ago, so now we are waiting for our money back) which will go back into our savings account, our tax refund should be decent (if I will ever receive EMs SS# so that I can file), and dh should start picking up his summer pool clients again. So hopefully we will again have a savings I can start breathing a little easier over those 'emergencies' that seem to pop up, like the two new tires we had to put on the van a couple of weeks ago. This will be great, but it still doesn't help the problem of having X coming in and Y going out, and Y is equal to or more than X most months.

I really wish that I could find some way to help this crunch. I used to think that I would like to have my own home virtual assistant business, but while the kids are young I really want to focus on them. That business would be great in about four or five years. But right now I don't know what I want to do. I am not a 'selling' person, so those wahm opps that have one selling stuff is not for me. All these thoughts constantly run through my head during the day, "I want to do something to help the household financially. I want to be able to focus on the girls. What could I do at home with my skills?" I have prayed and tried to turn it all over to God and ask for his guidance. But I seem to be getting a "hold" signal, I am feeling that I am being asked to wait and hold for right now, not rush into anything. This is so hard for someone like me that always wants to rush into new projects and activities. Just wait, ahhhhh. So I pray some more for the strength to keep waiting. And I keep trying to come up with new options, just to drive myself mad.

Okay, back to interesting stuff :). My schedule has also been blessed by little EM. For almost the last week she has begun to sleep through the night (11:30-6:30). I have never had one of my children do this before when they were still nursing, especially at not quite 2 months. I am just amazed, and I have to admit I was a little worried the first couple of nights. I would pop up from a deep sleep and check on her to make sure she was still breathing. She is a great nurser during the day, and in the evenings she is all but permanently attached to my breasts (yeah slings), so she is packing on the pounds and I am getting the best sleep I have had in almost a year.

Well I have managed to use up all the Quiet Time period. Off to the girls.

And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.
Luke 12:29

Amy

Little Successes

Not much recently to blog about. We spent the weekend trying to fend off this bug that invaded our house. I also spent whatever energy I had on cleaning the house for MB's Valentine Party we had Sunday afternoon. This was a make-up party for her birthday in December, when I was on bedrest and expecting to deliver any day with little EM.

The party was a success. We had 5 friends over, all girls. They played with her 'make-up' and painted fingernails. Then played outside as we were blessed with a beautiful day. I am so glad this went well, because I am definitely not a party planning person. I am more of the "just come by and we will hang out" person. So these kids parties terrify me. I keep expecting complete chaos to take over - especially after the cake an ice cream.

Yesterday we just spent recouping and trying to catch up with things around the house. I am still sorting out all the insurance stuff from little EM's birth, so I have been making those phone calls when I can.

I am working on our new schedule, sort of. Working out some of the problems in it. But scheduling time to be with each girl individually, then working all the other household stuff around it seems to be working. The girls seem to be happier in general, although they do have to complain about the structure :). MB is helping me with more of the chores and I have been 'teaching' her how to do laundry. I am surprised at the results of letting her help me. Just by having her help me with the chores around the house we are not arguing as much anymore and she is more content to be alone when I am busy with one of the other girls. She is also picking up her toys without me having to ask anymore. The whining in general is dropping.

So, the past few days have been filled with a lot of little successes. Here is hoping it keeps up!

Peace

Amy

The Bug is Here

We have been infected with the flu bug. Thankfully it is the snotty, coughing, throat on fire bug and not intestinal (if you know what I mean). My dh was the first to succumb to it nearly 3 weeks ago, then Kate. MB fell victim earlier this week, and I was knocked down yesterday. This thing hangs around. My dh is still coughing and sniffling. The girls have had days that they feel great, then the next day they can't breath. I know that I am in for the long haul.

I feel better this morning, it is amazing what 10 straight uninterrupted hours of sleep will do when you are used to getting by on six interrupted hours. I am sure by the end of the day I will feel puny again. But like the Little Engine that Could "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

Peace

Amy

Schedule. We don't need a schedule.

Yes we need a schedule. I used to have a schedule for my day with the girls. But it slipped a little at the beginning of the fall when MB started preschool and each day was a little bit different. Then it totally disappeared at the end of my pregnancy and after little EM was born. It seems like the children have been running our schedule for the last two months. We have improved recently on mealtimes and bedtimes in the last few weeks, but I need to have some semblance of a plan in place for during the day. It is difficult to plan out because each and every day is different for some reason, thankfully my children have "easy adaptibility." I want the schedule to have an order so the chaos doesn't reign anymore, but I want it to be flexible since my oldest is 5 an we are not truly 'schooling' yet.

As I write this I realize that it is probably I that really needs the schedule for accountability to my girls. I need to pocket hole the times I am on the computer and doing household chores, because those two things seem to absorb my day and take me away from participating in the girls' play. The girls are so young they don't need their day 'scheduled' beyond wake-up, nap, bedtime and mealtimes - everything else should be open to their creative directions. I need to better regulate my chores, computer and bible study times so that they neither take over my life, nor disappear.

Cool - I love free-flow writing.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:" Ecclesiastes 3:1

Amy

Winter Blahs

I haven't posted in quite a few days. We are experiencing the mid-winter blahs around here. There really hasn't been a lot to sit down and write about. We just don't have alot of interesting things going on around here and we are all kind of suffering from the blues. MB has been dragging her feet about wanting to go to preschool and I haven't been fighting it too much because I have not had alot of interest in getting out with the weather being what it has been. Plus I have a lot of fun when she is home.

The two big girls are getting over a cold which knocked them down for about a day, since then they have been bouncing off the walls. So far with lots and lots of handwashing I have managed to avoid them passing it on to little EM and myself.

On Sunday I finally got my hand-me-down furniture from my mom. We have been trying to get my mom's old sleeper sofa and a dresser from my old bedroom set up here for a year. I am excited because we can finally set our den/office up as also our guest room for when my mom comes to visit. This is much needed as we lost the room mom would sleep in when we had little EM. The dresser is also so great because our bedroom has had that college student appeal for the last seven years with mismatched small dressers, and now we have one nice one. We were also able to move the smaller dressers into the big girls' room so they each have their own. For some reason rearranging my house always makes me happy.

Yesterday we finally signed up for Blockbuster Home Delivery. I have been wanting to try out these movie services, and with Blockbuster's new deal I finally figured we would watch enough movies to make it worthwhile. I am hoping to use it to watch animal and history documentaries with the girls - they enjoy those so much.

We also celebrated Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday yesterday by baking a cake. We finishe up The Little House in The Big Woods and have started on The Little House on The Prairie. As I thought she likes The Prairie better and is really starting to enjoy the stories.

One last thing, I would like to give thanks to Sarah at Poppins Classical Academy. She mentioned Study Dog. MB loves it. She has sat and worked on it for hours and it has really helped her. It has also helped to spark a new interest in reading.

Enough rambling. Maybe I will have more interesting news soon.

Peace

Amy

Playing Hooky

We played hooky and had a pajama day today. The weather was horrible, I was exhausted and my bible study had been canceled. And I just decided that I was not up to the stress of rushing the girls out into the rain just to take MB to preschool. I decided that there was nothing that we had to absolutely have, therefore -- Pajama Day. We basically did what we wanted and it has actually been a wonderful, productive day! I let MB take the lead most of the day.

We started out with a craft project - making heart shaped "stain glass" using construction paper, tissue paper and clear contact paper. I have to do a craft with 8 4/5 yr olds next week and this will be great - no glue, no paint! They turned out very well and I will will post a picture later.

Then we 'played' school. MB got to be the teacher first. So we drew pyramids and mummies and read about Egyptian women wearing make-up and wigs. We watched a show on PBS recently on Egypt and it has peaked her interest. After that I got to be the teacher and we went over her current sight words. School over for the day.

MB then started writing her numbers. Recently I have been working with her on continuous-stroke writing an the difference in her interest and results have been impressive. For fun she will write her numbers and letters that we have worked on.

After that I caught her looking through one of our science/experiment books. I quickly made myself scarce. She found me sitting at the computer looking at some of the new stuff at www.starfall.com. Which led to her sitting at the computer doing phonics work for the better part of an hour while I played with Kate.

Then she helped me make lunch. During lunch we listen to a CD on the instruments of the orchestra and talked about which ones we liked best. After lunch we read until quiet time, during which she actually took a nap.

This afternoon she has played with magnets and shown me all the things that can be done with two magnets.

For me I haven't been quite as productive, but I sure have had fun. My house is trashed with various toys and books we have dragged out from the girls' bedroom. I managed to get one load of laundry washed and dried, but not folded. The dishwasher has been run and emptied. That is it.

I did manage to look through the Carolina Biological Supply Company catalogue that my mom sent us. I had to keep wiping the drool off the corner of my mind and repeating "she is only five, she is only five. " Carolina Biological Supply is a supply company for science classroom materials and carry just about anything you could imagine from test tubes to dissection animals to computer programs and videos. But most of the supplies are really for middle school science and up. Although they did have some neat terranium and worm farm kits. But I believe that we could do those ourselves.

My husband is late coming home because he is playing in a community basketball league for his company's team. So it is almost 8 pm and I have only just put the potatoes on to boil for shepherds pie. The girls have been feed and changed into clean PJs. They are watching The Fox and the Hound while I write this.

I should probably go and finish dinner and be available for MB if she starts having questions about the movie - it is the first time she is watching it and if I remember correctly they are some difficult sections.

Peace

Amy

Why I love the Blog World

Dy at Classic Adventures has an interesting post on deep blogs. I have been working in my head on a post to thank all of you in the blogging community for the help you have been to me over the past year. A year-and-a-half ago I found this blogging community. I had just given notice at work and was working out my last two months. I had no idea how I was going to handle being at home with my girls, but I knew that I had to do it. So I began lurking, and lurking, and lurking some more. And through it all it has been the blogs of other sahm and homeschooling families that have been my earthly sanity saver.

I have opened posts to read and have found other moms going through the exact same day that I was having. I have learned new ways to try to connect to my children. I have had laughs just when I needed them.

I know that there is a community, and cyber-frienships that exist. But there are also a lot like me out there. Staying in the background, reading and gaining so much. The posts don't have to be deep, they just have to be, because you don't know who is reading and who needs your wisdom or just your humor.

Thanks to all you bloggers who put your life out there for us to learn from.

Amy

This 'n That

Since the two big girls escaped outside to play while I was nursing little EM, I figured that I would actually eat some lunch and do a quick blog.

I was going to write yesterday, but had second thoughts as it was just going to be one long vent. Anyway by the time the girls were all in bed last night I couldn't even remember what I was going to vent about. A reminder to myself that most things are fleeting, and if I do not give it a chance to seed in my brain, then it won't grow into something bigger.

We have been busy around here, we are talking about the Five Senses and I have been trying to come up with some fun demonstrations for MB on using the senses, especially ones in which I take away her sight and make her guess what she is hearing, tasting or touching. MB has been going through my books for science and experiements and has come up with a long list of ones "We Have To Do!" I love to do science and if we would only spend half the time it takes me to set-up an experiement on it, then I would be happy. I try to pick out the ones that MB and Kate won't have to wait too long on, but science is not quick and that is hard for impatient little girls.

We are working our way through The Little House in The Big Woods. MB is not in love with it, and I am thinking that I should have started with one of the others like On the Banks of Plum Creek first because it has Laura actually doing more. Reading The Little House is difficult because MB has to know how or why something happens and the book goes into a lot of detail about everyday items and activities during the late 1800's. I am constantly stopping and having to find a picture or describe something to the best of my ability, and it just makes the story very jerky to listen to and remember the Big Picture. We only have a few more chapters so I am trying to decide which book we read next. MB wants to read The Silver Chair in the Narnia series. We have read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy. She has enjoyed the others. This one she picked out because she liked the illustrations of the Marsh-wiggles. I have a really old book from The Childhood of Famous Americans Series on George Washington and I thought that might be a good one to read for February. (OT, my mother was a 1st and 2nd grade teacher about 25 yrs ago before she became a school librarian, and I have boxes of books in my garage for that age group - and these 30+ yr old books are wonderful especially the non-fiction. They do not write books like this anymore) Back on topic; We could also continue on the Laura Ingalls books because her birthday is this month also. It is so nice to have a problem like trying to decide which good literature I am going to read next.

I have to leave soon, but I wanted to tell ya'll about the bible study I am working on so I will just give you a tease and fill in later more of the details. I have a working title of The Holy Spirit, The God Angel on Your Shoulder.

I have to leave for my six-week post-partum appointment. It is really hard for me to believe that we have been blessed with little EM for six weeks already. I either feel like she has been here forever because she just fits in so well or I feel like we just got her because the time has flown by.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Matthew 6:8

Amy