Woah!

Well this happened yesterday!! I'm still in complete shock! Definitely hasn't hit me yet. I really didn't think we could get pregnant without working for it. Josh is in complete denial and wants me to take another test before we say for sure I am. Now to decide if we want to try a birthing center birth this time around and when we want to tell people. I'm a little nervous to tell people this time since it's baby #5 and I don't think they're going to be as happy this time.

So torn!!!

Last year we homeschooled Alexis and it went amazing! She did so awesome. We started 1st Grade homeschooling her last week and it's going well so far. I know she longs to go to an actual school though. She wants to make friends and have that social interaction. So at the end of the week we decided to go check out a local Christian School. The school looked great on their website but once we got there it was even more amazing. They rank high in pretty much everything. They require all the children at a certain grade (I forget which one but I think 3rd grade) to be in band and choir. These were HUGE selling points to us because Alexis is very musically talented and I really think she has the potential to be AMAZING! For her age, she already is. She loved it and of course begged us to let her go there. The biggest issue is that we are only a one income family. The principal kept telling us that we needed to just trust in the lord and he'd provide for us. I truly believe he will but I can't help but feeling so nervous. What if it's not his plan for us to do this? What if we do this and then hit a huge financial snag and could use the money? We have 4 children that we have to think about. This money could help us pay off debt. How do we chose which is more important? I've been praying so much about this and still feel so torn. My heart tells me that we should do this for her but my gut is so nervous. And I know that Josh is super torn as well. I just wish there was a way to get a grant or something to help make this happen for her!

I'm going to college!!!

First I'll start off by saying that I am not going for anything fancy and wont be going for my Bachelors degree or anything but I'm still pretty excited and nervous to be going to school for the first time as a mother. Last time I was in school was when I was in high school so this is a big step for me. I've always been really into the internet and computers and recently I designed my own website using a website builder. While doing this I learned a lot about html coding and really grew an interest for it. So I've decided I'm going to get a career certificate in web design and development. I'll be starting this summer semester off with the Student Development course that is required by the school since I'm a first time college student. Then in fall I'll start the actual career courses. I'm going all in and will be taking 4 classes in the first semester! AH! Praying my kids will be super helpful and take it easy on me during this time. I've talked to God a lot about it and really feel this is something I need to do. I know I would regret it if I didn't at least try. Plus, once I finish I should hopefully be able to add onto my design "business" or get a freelance job working from home. I'm excited to be starting this new chapter in my life and so happy that I have a husband who is there to support and help me through it!

Adoption? Is it right for us?

Yesterday at church the pastor wasn't there so one of the bishops gave the talk. It was Mothers Day so he talked a lot about moms and how we shape our children. He went on to talk about all the children without mothers and how we need to do more for them to help shape them to be good people. I know he wasn't saying "Go out there and adopt" but it really got me thinking about adoption. I have to say it was the most effected I've ever been, leaving church. I really started thinking hard about how adoption is always been something that I thought I'd want to do eventually in my life. We have a strong loving relationship and I know we have more love to give.

So after church I kept thinking about it more and more and finally decided to mention to Josh how I was feeling. Turns out, it was something that he was thinking about days ago. So of course when I get home I jump right on the computer and start looking up more info. So right now we're going to be doing lots of research and contacting different places for more info. And we'll obviously be doing lots of praying about it.

20 Months!!!

Today my baby is 20 months old! It really has flown by so quickly! Today we have also been nursing for 20 months which is a huge milestone for us.. He's officially my longest nursed baby and shows no signs of weaning anytime soon. Alexis nursed for 15 months and weaned herself while we were on vacation in Wyoming and then the twins nursed for 19.5 months. I weaned them though so that we could start trying for Bentley. I feel like I could be ready for him to wean soon but then it kinda makes me sad at the same time. He's our last baby so once we weans, that's it. No more breastfeeding ever again for me.. That's really bittersweet for me... 

Family Vacation!

One of the best parts of homeschooling is that we can take our family vacations whenever we want! It's been 2 years since we've seen my side of the family so this year we decided we needed to get out west to Wyoming to see them! Thankfully Josh had a lot vacation time so we were able to take a 2 week vacation.. We have small children so I was worried how they'd be on such a long drive (takes 24.5 hrs without stops) so I asked for advice in a few of my big family groups. One thing that was suggested was that we leave really early in the morning before the kids wake up so that they'd sleep several hours at the beginning of the trip.. So we decided we'd leave at 3 am... Well the kids woke up moving them from their beds to the car and they were WAY too excited to sleep haha. 

Girls enjoying our trip!

First part of our trip was great! Girls were LOVING it! After a while though, they realized that this trip was going to be a lot longer than they originally thought. Payton was by far the worst! By the end of the day she was tired of being in her car seat. We ended up just trying to sleep in our car on the way there which we really regretted. Anyway, we eventually made it and it was absolutely gorgeous!

My brother also has 4 kids and we hadn't met their youngest yet so it was pretty excited meeting him and getting all of the kiddos together! I think that is one of the hardest parts about living so far away. I wish our children could grow up together and be close. It was really nice though because this visit my entire family took time off work so there was never any downtime. We got to spend a lot of time together. Even my Auntie Heidi came up from New Mexico so we got to see her too! 

I'm hoping that we can make it out there again next year! I can't wait to see everyone again! 

Homeschooling so far!

This current school year was our first year homeschooling. It's all so overwhelming when you're first starting out and not really sure which curriculum is going to best suite your family. Plus, with Alexis only being in kindergarten, we weren't sure what her learning style was. To be honest, I never really did that great in school so the thought of teaching my children seemed very scary for me. How could I teach them when I didn't really feel book smart haha. Well, we're almost through our first year of homeschooling and honestly, it's been very easy! Alexis is very eager to learn and is very smart. We went with Lifepac this year. We were torn between it and Horizons. Horizons was a little more expensive and faster paced, so we decided Lifepac would be a good place to start. With Alexis being so smart it's been frustrating for her to stick to the same topic for a long time. She just wants to move on to the next topic. She's caught on to reading which is exciting! She's always been very into books so being able to actually read them makes her happy.