Gender Reveal Party!

I have never been one for surprises. I unwrap and then secretly rewrap gifts at Christmas time. I like to know things ASAP. It has been the same way with our babies. I don't know how some people can wait to find out the gender until the baby is actually in their arms. Not me! However... I was sort of forced into waiting a little bit this time around. 

I had some abnormal blood work, so my doc sent me to a specialist who made an appointment for me as soon as they were able which happened to be a day that James couldn't get off work. (By the way, the ultrasound was normal. They did a more extensive blood screening which I will get the results of in a little over a week, but the doctor said she expects it to be okay). When she asked if I wanted to know the gender I said, "of course"but then I remembered the promise I made to my sweet love who couldn't be there and said, "actually, maybe you could write it down for me so my husband and I can find out together." Thankfully they sealed the envelope otherwise I would've totally peaked!

When I picked up my boys from my girlfriends house I told her I had the results sealed in the car and she excitedly asked if she could make a cake for us. I happily obliged. The cake turned into a party! I've never done that before. I loved it! It was so exciting.

I have some great friends here. I have always been blessed with wonderful friends everywhere we have lived and each time I feel so honored to be surrounded by these incredible people. My girlfriend got a couple of our other friends involved in the planning and they threw together this party for us! 

And the inside of the cake was...... 

PINK!!!!!!

Oh my goodness!!! We are getting a baby GIRL!!!!!!!!! I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea, but am soooo excited. I had convinced myself that it was a boy and I was completely okay with that. Ezra and Makai both decided before cutting the cake that they wanted a baby sister and James has been talking about wanting a baby girl this whole pregnancy.

I have felt worse this time around and am showing differently (which I attributed all to still nursing Dek-O), but it turns out it really is a GIRL! AHHH! She will be here somewhere around July 19th and we will be ready with clothes and bows and all assortments of girly things that I never could indulge in before. I used to push myself past little girl clothes and look back longingly and now I get to linger in that section for a bit!!! I have to go shopping RIGHT NOW!

Homeschool

We have had an interesting start at our homeschooling adventure. There are so many things I love about it and so many reasons I try to remind myself that I love when there are days that I don't particularly love it. Truth be told, it is tough for me and I am struggling daily with the battle in my mind about so many different things. I'll stay away from all the confusion that fills my brain and just move on to the fun things we have actually done this year...

Ezra is in Kindergarten. While I am still learning what that means for him, we are exploring the things that he wants to learn. I have no doubt that he is learning a lot this year even on days that my efforts are lacking and I am grateful for that. He is fascinated by so much.

Because there are two other children floating around the house and a sometimes very sick mommy, we have to be flexible with how things are structured... I have recently changed our schedule to have a daily focus subject. We will cover other subjects, but spend most of our time on just one for the day. Thursday is strictly our science day. Ezra's favorite day of the week by far! Friday is generally a craft day/make-up day/occasional field trip day.

He is reading books by himself now and is doing so great at figuring out tricky words. He even reads entire versus of the scriptures mostly by himself and he gets so much pride from that. It is making all those incredibly stressful reading lessons so worth it.

We have had some fun units such as: dinosaurs, jellyfish, volcanoes, geysers, gravity, and hearts. We have also had some not so exciting, but still educational units. Thank goodness for pinterest or most of our lessons would be not so exciting. It's fun when I get a little creative all on my own, but that's rare.

We have also started attending a monthly homeschooling class at the aquarium lab. They get to learn about creatures and they bring in a special guest for them to discover. It's a fun change for Ez to be in a somewhat standard class setting once in awhile.

Makai got to participate a little as well which was fun. Ez is in the striped shirt. He's sitting next to his buddy Haley. We do a co-op fairly regularly with her and they have a great time together. We do experiments, crafts and the even helped each other learn to tell time. It's so fun. He did so well in this class and is such a well behaved child. I had no doubt he would be, but it was fun to see what he is like when mommy isn't in charge.

Ez at the Aquarium before heading to his class. 

All in all, I don't regret my decision to homeschool him. Do I think I'll do it next year? I'm still torn. I have two (almost three) other babies that need my attention and I'm not sure I'm the type of supermom that can divide myself equally. I feel like I'm giving up if I put him in public school, but I also feel like I might be holding him back if I don't. Ugh... It really is the toughest decision to me because I feel so passionately for homeschooling... I guess we'll see what happens. If we lived in a different area I think my heart wouldn't be in such turmoil about it.

For now though we still have some time and some fun ahead of us. I plan to continue schooling throughout the summer (if pregnancy and baby #4 allow me to), so I'll try to be better about tracking our progress and adventures.