January 5, 2018

(click here for today's pictures)

• As I laid in bed this morning, I debated skipping school today. Tomorrow is my birthday after all but I acted like a grown up and made sure that school happened and happened well. We did have ourselves a big breakfast this morning-cinnamon toast made by Whitman, fried eggs and scrambled eggs made partly by Campbell. I wish that I could manage a warm breakfast every morning but that's not going to happen.
• We have a couple of Google Minis around here and last night, Robby spoke into the one downstairs and played his voice onto the ones upstairs. I believe that he told Whitman to be quiet. Whatever he did tell Whitman, he heard it and didn't think that it was Robby talking to him. Instead, he was convinced that it was God. This morning, I heard Whitman saying to the Google Mini, "Hey froogle, talk like God" over and over again.
• School was a bit wild this morning with Whitman being here, but he is so interested in doing his own school that he sat by me for a the longest working on his workbook. He even scribbled out a new Christmas list and on it was "more school." I guess he wants another school workbook for Christmas next year.
• My Keaton is so improving in her reading, Reagan and Graham are doing great on their writing. Anderson is my math king, and Campbell was alphabetizing everything today. We all finished by noonish.
• Whitman convinced me to let him paint his bread like he did in Ms. Jennifer's class last year. It is just a bit of milk and food coloring to make the paint. I thought everyone would want to do it too, especially Campbell and Keaton, but Anderson was the only other one who did. Anderson painted a flag and we even sang the Star Spangled Banner to it.
• Afterwards, it was chore time. I did make the kids do some extra chores today-I used the "it's my birthday" line and plan on using it quite a few more times this month.  When the chores were completed, I walked around the house filling a bag of trash. I have decided that I am going to take 40 bags of trash out of this house this year. 
• This was the second afternoon that at 5:30, Robby and I laid down and took a nap. Wonder if we have mono or something? Ha! Probably not, but our room is just so cozy. We stayed in our room until the kids sounded like they were going to tear the house down. 
• We then loaded up and headed to Eat My Catfish. We have been talking about going there for a while and began our evening with fried pickles. They were kind of spicy and heavy but good. Robby had ordered the family platter (fries, beans, hushpuppies, 10 fish pieces and 4 chicken pieces). That would be plenty for all of us, and it wasn't too long before they delivered our food.
• We were still passing it out and opening up boxes when the server came back asking if our order was right. He knew we hadn't gotten our fish and we offered to send our wrong food back but he said he couldn't do that. So we ended up with 2 pints of beans, fries, hushpuppies, 4 chicken pieces and around 40 pieces of catfish. Yes, you read that right-40. We brought home 20 pieces of fish (I counted them as I wrapped them in foil to put in the fridge.) I am not sure what happened but it definitely worked out in our favor.
• On the way home, we stopped to pick up some ice cream and the kids sang Happy Birthday to me to begin my birthday celebration. The kids went to bed a bit early since tomorrow will be a busy day.