We were at a restaurant this evening and Tim taught the kids how to play music with water glasses. Big E was the first to catch on that the tone of note was based on the amount of water in the glass.

There are milestones along this journey that take my breath away. It’s been seven months of ups and downs, a lot of prayer, and a lot of trusting God to pull us through. My sister sent me this picture the other day and my eyes watered with joy. My father loves the shop. He loves to be there. He enjoys the work. And this week he started back up. This right here is a tangible answer to so many prayers!!

Schoolwork this week has been a stuttering affair. We have nestled it in between rough cuts and revisions of the videos I have been working on. We’ve been focusing on reading and math each day, and the kids have spent a great deal of time outdoors and I have spent a great deal of evenings staring at the computer.

When we sat down this morning the kids asked me to read some more in the latest book we have been reading, “Little Town on the Prairie.” This is the sixth book in the “Little House” series that we have read. We have only three more to go.

We started our reading today on page 185. We read for far longer than I intended, and when we stopped we continued on through other schoolwork. I was surprised this evening when the kids didn’t argue about coming inside for bed and as they hurriedly got themselves ready, I made myself comfortable on the floor in C’s room. They fidgeted with legos and other small toys as I read. At the end of each chapter, the kids would ask me to read “just one more,” and eventually we finished the book!

122 pages read today. My voice is tired. My kids got to bed late. But it was a wonderful way to spend our evening!

So some time tomorrow I need to make a quick escape to the bookstore and pick up the next one.

There’s a corrupt file somewhere in my latest editing project. I know this to be true, because when I sat down at it this evening to make some tweaks, the text formatting was suddenly erratic and jumpy. I’ve been working on this project for the better part of a week with no problems, but sometimes programs get buggy and adjustments must be made.

I never did track down the bad file, but I was able to figure out around what time the offending clip showed up, so I back tracked my work and realized at least three hours would have to be redone. *sigh*

Now it is nearly 1 am, but thankfully I caught up to the point I was at before. Here’s hoping it all stays in place tonight and that by some miracle, my children all sleep in in the morning!

I stayed up late this evening to get some editing done. Usually evenings are the best time for me to edit. I try to get all the school work out of the way before I start. Tonight I waited until the kids were in bed.

But it didn’t last long. The boys had my in their room more times than I can count. I decided to cut my losses and embrace my rocky evening. I shut off all the lights, went upstairs, and snuck into the boys’ room. They were (finally) sound asleep. I found a comfortable place on the floor and just sat there listening to those sweet boys sleep.

It was just the ending I needed for my hectic day.

Today was a beautiful day for a field trip. My sister in law’s family picked the kids and I up this morning and we headed to a nearby Air and Space Museum. (Tim had taken the kids there awhile back, but I had been working at the time, so I hadn’t gotten to go.) I really enjoyed the experience. I think my favorite part was standing next to the Space Shuttle and realizing how huge it is in person. The kids were awed by the many planes and helicopters. The museum also has a mock air traffic control tower you can go in. Since the museum is located next to an airport, you can watch planes as they land and take off. The kids had a wonderful time, made better by the opportunity to spend the day with their cousins.

When the cake came out of the oven this evening it looked close to perfect. Its rounded top was perfectly golden. All I had to do was wait for it to cool down and I could frost it.

My mother came home from the hospital, so we decided tonight would be a good night to have Big E’s birthday party. We had spent the day with friends and on our way home we had gotten pizza from his favorite restaurant and I had picked up the ingredients for his cake.

After dinner the kids went outside to play with one of Big E’s new toys and when I came inside to check on the cake my heart sank. I must not have left it in the oven quite long enough because the beautiful, golden, mound of the cake had collapsed in on itself.

I was pretty disheartened, but it was too late to make another so I grabbed the frosting and stirred in some bright blue food coloring. Even though the cake was cooled enough, the spatula kept catching on it and pulling up the top layer. The only solution was to use a lot of frosting in each area.

Tears started gathering in my eyes as I ran out of blue frosting and a huge chunk of my flattened cake was sitting there uncovered. This just wouldn’t do. It looked awful.

Time was ticking and the kids would soon be inside, so I grabbed random bags and containers from our baking shelf and found a pouch of red frosting.

Slowly I squeezed red frosting to cover the gaping area if my cake. When I was done, the cake was frosted, but obviously it looked EVEN WORSE!! How do I fix this?!?

Now Big E is my compassionate kid and he wouldn’t have cared what it looked like, but I felt like such a failure that I had mutilated his birthday cake in such a dramatic fashion.

I stepped back a moment and stared at my franken-cake. Surely I couldn’t accept defeat. I took a closer examination of the contents of the baking shelf and a plan started to formulate.

Withing five minutes, the hideous birthday cake that would be king turned into a lovely, quirky, underwater cake with an awesome crab holding up the candles.

BIG E LOVED IT! His eyes lit up with his first glance at it. I smiled at how silly I had been to be so upset with myself and felt gratitude that my sweet boy was so happy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIG E!! WE LOVE YOU!!

I was down editing at my computer this evening as Baby E played in the bathtub. Taking baths is one of his favorite things to do, and he talked Tim into fixing one for him. For awhile I heard him splashing and talking to himself. Then after a moments pause I heard him call for Tim. He had an urgent question that needed answering.

“Do spiders sink in water?” he asked.

I actually didn’t hear Tim’s answer but the question made me smile. Baby E is still at the age where he asks a ton of questions. Some of them don’t make sense. Some of them he already knows the answer to. But many of them are like the spider question… He’s trying to figure out how the world around him works. What are the rules? How do things happen? Do spiders sink?

I’m actually surprised how often his questions stumble me. There are so many things about the world around me that I just take for granted, answers I have forgotten over the years, or never knew to begin with.

So tonight I learned something new-

Spiders are covered in water-repellent hairs, which trap a thin layer of air around the body so they can’t get wet. It also means they always float and some can survive under water for hours.

Not sure if you knew that already, but now you do.

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This past week has been pretty difficult and I haven’t spent much time writing. My mother has been ill since last Saturday. Her symptoms came and went in severity, but the other day they got worse so we ended up in the ER and later that day they admitted her. She’s been getting better each day, but they are still trying to track down the culprit of the mystery illness, so please join me in praying for my sweet mama. She is more than ready to be home and we desperately want her here as well. They are running a few more tests, but hopefully it will be soon. Thank you for your prayers!