This New Year - uncharted territory

Adelle will be 21 months old next month. I'm usually preparing to welcome another child into our family around this time. Instead, I'm training for a half marathon and still wearing my skinny jeans, with no plans to pull out my maternity clothes in the future. It's such a nice feeling! So far, I have no baby fever. Our family feels complete and I really like not gaining and having to lose baby weight for a fifth time. No babies in the house is uncharted territory for me. The kids are all getting bigger. I can actually send them outside to play without worrying about Adelle eating rocks (though the occasional mud pie is not unusual).

Hudson turned 7 in December. He is thriving with our new academic homeschool group, Classical Conversations. He gives a presentation every week and it's been so fun to watch his public speaking skills develop. Pierce is his toughest critic watching for good eye contact and poise.

Pierce is 5. He is learning to read and write and spell and add- all the fun stuff. He has a new bruise every day. He still doesn't say his "r"s so everything he says is cute and funny. Last week he asked me if I could speak "Bwitish.". :)

Alayna, is the same little princess she ever was. She's always in one costume or another. My mom gave her a purse-calendar and she loves to "take notes and make lists." She makes up songs daily. One of her most recent she titled, "I will pray for David.". :)

Adelle is our little comedian/monkey. Last night when we were getting ready for bed she grabbed Alayna's dress and pulled it on and started dancing around the room. We all laughed at her so she kept going. The she got on her hands and feet and bear crawled down the hallway. Her endless energy is exhausting, but she is constant joy.

David and I are just trying to keep up and soak in all the fun stuff along with disciplining, training, mess making and clean up. Kids don't come with an off switch or volume control (that's why God made Netflix! Haha, just kidding...sort of).