January 9

We had MOPS last week, and apparently Lily enjoyed it quite a bit. While I edited pictures and worked on blog posts this morning, Lily was a busy little bee. For 20 minutes she ran back and forth from the play kitchen to the living room, and finally she scampered into the kitchen and proudly announced, "The MOPS party is ready!"

She spread the coffee table with a precisely arranged selection of food, and brought all of her baby dolls out to join the party.

Don't let Daisy's presence fool you; she had nothing to do with setting up this MOPS party. She just saw that Lily did something cool and wanted to be part of it, too. 

I mean, seriously. Look at how she arranged everything! She even put the kids' water bottles on the table, with the caps open.

And she spread out a "tablecloth". It's actually a satin cape that she repurposed. We only use table cloths on very special occasions, so I think it's adorable that she thought to add that little detail.

Thumbs up to Eli.

Look at her sweet little face. Can you tell how proud she is? 

Eli thought it was pretty cool, too!

Completely unrelated:  

After lunch it was time for Eli's nap. The big kids always get to watch 20-30 minutes of TV while I put him down. Today, they watched TV with helmets and rain boots on. I have no idea what Daisy is doing with that paint brush on her lips.

Once Lily was down for her nap, we got to work on school. I ordered a new math curriculum for Caleb; at this point I am leaning toward sending Caleb and Daisy to public school in the fall, so I really want to make sure their academics are up to par. I realized that I do better with structured curricula, so I ordered Saxon 3 for Caleb. While he and I worked on math, Daisy did a little bit on her own. Then she drew this picture of our family on her dry erase board:

I'm the one in the green dress and blue heels. Chris has curly hair, Caleb is the tallest kid, then Daisy and Lily, and Eli has curly hair and green clothes. I thought it was a lovely drawing!

After dinner I went to the gym, then stopped by the grocery store to pick up something special - a half cake. Why? Because today was Caleb's half birthday! He is officially seven and a half years old.

He has been acting weird lately about being seven and a half, so I thought he needed a little celebration.

He wouldn't let us sing "Happy Half Birthday" to him, but I think he still enjoyed it.

My seven and a half year old!

After the kids were in bed, Chris and I headed to the basement and started a new exercise program together. It was ridiculously hard, and I was so thankful to have my strong husband grunting and groaning alongside me.

This is our sweaty post-workout selfie. I am typing this 4 days later, and my legs are STILL sore. It was tough, but I am ready to go back for more!