Somehow I made it three whole months without a blog post this time.  I'm going for a record.  Actually, I would really like to get back into blogging.  Even if it is only once a month.  I want to be able to look back and read what was going on in our lives at any given point. 
In the three months I haven't written we've had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and a host of happy wonderful events in between.  There have also been a few illnesses but nothing serious.  Seth came down with his first cold on Thanksgiving day which he ended up on antibiotics for.  That was a miserable experience!  And all three kids have colds right now (as well as the adults, actually) but nothing too serious so far. 
We just returned, last week, from a two week stay in PA.  It was great fun to visit with family and friends during the Christmas season!   The best part was watching Lydia, Anna and MaCayla play together.  Cousins are fun. :)  Soon Katie and Seth will be joining in too. 
Seth's Christmas gift to us was heading off on his two little feet.  He'd been wobbly walking a few steps here and there for a while but on Christmas day he took off like an old pro. He's now walking everywhere and doesn't need to find something to pull himself up on to get back on his feet if he falls over.  The first week or so that he was walking I thought I was going to go nuts and never be able to get anything done while he was awake again! He is SO busy.  But we've adjusted to the new normal, put a gate up at the bottom of the stairs and life continues normally once again. 
One of my goals for this year is to do a little more school time than we had been doing.  I want to get into a consistent schedule of some sort.  It seems that things are always 'coming up' though. Such as our current state of illness.  The girls, especially Lydia, this morning were whiny enough without introducing the idea of sitting down to work on lessons.  They did get some learning time in that they didn't know about, haha, but no sit-down-and-work time.  We did puzzles and played a game with letters.  I guess that's good enough for today. 
Anna is doing great with her letters and numbers. Her recognition and reciting skills are good.  She needs some work on writing but she can write her name now. 
Lydia is more in favor of math than reading/phonics, as it has been for a while, but she can read simple stories if I MAKE her.  I'm holding myself back and trying not to push her.  I'd like to see her initiate it for herself at some point.  I think it will go so much easier if I wait until she's ready to do it on her own. I just keep telling myself 'she's only four, she's only four....'.  It's just a tad frustrating to see her ABLE to do things but not WILLING to do them.  I suppose that's part of having children.  :)
I guess that's enough of an update for now.  I would like to get some time to exercise before the kids wake up from naps. :)