I Almost Forgot

Our first FULL week of homeschool began today. My MIL had been in town and let me run a quick errand while she started Sister on a worksheet. Upon my return, we walked JJ out to her car and kick started our day by saying The Pledge in the front yard.

Once back inside, we worked on letter sound recognition with a rousing game of bingo-alphabet style. Sister helped Little Man find each letter. It was pretty sweet.

We used bears as math manipulatives today. My how the children LOVED playing with them. Last night I tucked Sister into bed with a red bear and told her how I'd STOLEN one from my 4-P classroom right before Christmas. Mom, of course, found it. She made me take it back to the teacher. I don't remember all the specifics, I just remember the teacher asking me why I'd taken it and my explanation being that I hadn't really actually taken it. Santa had given it to me and that's why Mom had never seen it before.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

-Jeremiah 17:9

Sister sure enjoyed doing math with the bears. After class, she had a little par-tay for those bears. Meanwhile, Little Man had a pile waging war on the office floor.

This morning Sister told me, through teary eyes, that she wants to homeschool until the is "as old as Grandma and Grandpa. Or at least until I have kids."

She also made a "friendship bracelet" while I read aloud to her. She tied it to her ankle and came to me after a few minutes, explaining that her "solar system is getting cut off." I untied the bracelet.

(Sugar babies are from the "treasure chest."

This afternoon Little Man napped in my bed while Sister and I played "re-arrange" upstairs. She and Little Man have begged us to move her bed into his room. They're now sharing a room. Sort of. We aren't quite finished figuring out where to put everything, but that didn't stop her from making invitations for a "Royal Ball."

The "Royal Ball" was held in the playroom. Sister picked out clothes for everyone but The Engineer, but only because he came straight from work. (I wore a hideous dress from college. It was a bit snug.) We danced with the lights down to Van Morrison.

Following dancing, we dined at a beautifully set dinner table (on tiny chairs in the playroom) and enjoyed a delish meal. A piece of bread, lettuce, and a hamburger, plus a side of spaghetti. Oh yum.

And then dessert.

We weren't allowed to leave the Royal Ball until we wrote down whether or not we liked the Ball and what our favorite part was...

Can you read what The Engineer wrote? "I liked the ball. My favorite thing was the hot, tall lady, and the recycling." (Sister saved all our "left overs" to recycle. We just watched an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe documented (?) the process of picking up left over food from "The Strip" in Vegas, and turning it into slop to feed pigs. That's where Sister planned to send left overs from the Royal Ball.)

The Engineer came home with these in hand. I'm not sure how I forgot. I blamed Warrior.

Today is the twelfth anniversary of our very first date. (It's also the twelfth anniversary of the lie I told my parents so I could go on that date. -wow, this is confession post, huh? I told them I'd finished all my summer reading and the accompanying papers...) It was the night before the first day of our senior year. I still remember where we went and what I ate. You should know I'd been in love with him since the ninth grade. That first date with him only helped solidify those feelings.

I dug up an old journal...1998...and found the entry from later that night. Sigh. It was wonderful. Re-reading that tonight made me reflect. Little did I know (but, oh, how I hoped) that would be my last first date. I was clueless as to the journey, the path, upon which God would lead us.

I can't believe it's been twelve years. I can't believe I forgot and he remembered. Happy twelfth anniversary of our first date, baby!