Snapshot of Life

Hayley is in home school with her mother, as is Nathan. Ages 7 & 5. I think they are learning far more than they could in public school. And it's good for the relationship with mom. Hayley reads a lot and we have to pull her out of her books to do other things. But she's still active and enjoys playing with her brothers and her friends from the other home school or church groups around. Nathan loves everything with wheels. He is also reading some short books to himself sometimes and he seems to love trying to spell words that his brother Matthew challenges him with. He's also our little math man. Matthew, who is about to turn 3 (and who was born there during our short stay in Kansas) likes giving Nathan (and all of us) words to spell ("spell 'blinds'" or "spell 'jeep'"), is a very happy little boy most of the time. Matthew gets involved in whatever home school activities look fun - like art, trips to museums, and active games. Mostly he loves playing with trains.

Living in Utah is actually great. Our neighbors come check on us to see how we're doing, shovel our snow (if we're not super-fast), and take our garbage to the curb. They're amazing people here. So much life experience and so much looking-out-for each other. I've never seen anything quite like it. We feel very included and part of a community that when we get a house of our own (still renting and paying student loans on my small income), we want to buy one in the neighborhood.

Emily has some family in the area and we get to see them fairly regularly. They came over tonight along with some Kansas friends who were here visiting for the church's "General Conference" held every six months. So we had a little family night (which goes: song, prayer, lesson, activity, song, prayer dessert!) and a fun visit with old friends while our brother-in-law actually bathed the kids so we could all talk. Life would seem pretty idyllic. And, yeah, it sort of is. I wonder how long this can last.

The harder side is working long hours and my kids growing up too fast. But it's good overall.