Bed Dilemma Over

Jerry was able to fix Gabriel's bed so we are no longer on the search until after the New Year. On to Christmas shopping!

Orion is 7 months old now. Wow time is flying. He stands up every chance he gets and can stand unassisted for 5-10 seconds. Not too much longer before he's walking.

The boys are all doing pretty well. Dominic started homeschooled preK this week. I want him to be ready for kingergarten so he has a math workbook he's doing now (and very much enjoying) and after that we'll start on letters, then colors and shapes. I'll also be helping him learn the following list (from a school teacher friend):

Listen to stories without interrupting
Recognize rhyming sounds
Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
Understand actions have both causes and effects
Show understanding of general times of day
Cut with scissors
Trace basic shapes
Begin to share with others
Start to follow rules
Be able to recognize authority
Manage bathroom needs
Button shirts, pants, coats, and zip up zippers
Begin to control oneself
Separate from parents without being upset
Speak understandably
Talk in complete sentences of five to six words
Look at pictures and then tell stories
Identify rhyming words
Identify the beginning sound of some words
Identify some alphabet letters
Recognize some common sight words like "stop"
Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape
Recognize groups of one, two, three, four, and five objects
Count to ten
Bounce a ball

He knows some of those things but a lot of them he doesn't.

Bed Dilemma

Gabriel's bed broke and I don't see that it's fixable (it's been a long time coming, honestly). If anyone hears of anyone getting rid of a toddler bed in decent condition PLEASE let me know. We can't afford much but it's one of those things where he'll be sleeping on his mattress on the floor until we can find a replacement.

Hidden Blessing

Being a large family we have been struggling a bit recently with money for winter clothes for the boys (not to mention Gabriel needs a winter coat) combined with money for Christmas. Then yesterday inspiration hit me to go through all the bags of clothing in the garage. My goal was to pull out any 12m stuff that would fit Orion (since he's in 9-12m now) but in the process of going through stuff I found a HUUUUUUGE bag FULL of nothing but 4T clothes, half of them winter. I had forgotten about the bag, which was taken from an apartment my mother in law cleaned after the tenants abandoned it. It took two washing machine loads to wash it all, and all the clothing is in like-new condition. Dominic now has a new, fitting wardrobe!

It was my hidden blessing to have the inspiration to go through the clothes in the garage, and the clothes themselves were a hidden blessing. A HUGE thank you to Mom and Dad for the coats they got the three older boys last year...they still fit and are in like-new condition so I only have 1 coat to buy for a boy this year.