Failure = experience

Probably the most prominent plague upon homeschooling moms is the thought of failure. All the time. "What-if-I-failed-today?--What-if-I-failed-today?..." runs through my mind nearly constantly. I am trying to overcome it. For example, I'm not even going to try to fill in the gap I left on this blog... unless I feel like it later. (I suspect I post so infrequently in part because it takes YEARS when I do get around to it, so I burn out.) 

Today we did an art activity with blowing paint... It was supposed to look something like this, but it turned out a bit less neat. 

Mine is probably the ugliest of all: a portrait of our family with blow-painted hair and bodies.   :/  So while we made ugly art, I read this article to my kids.

It'll be a good day. Or not. But we'll learn something...

Oliver Lewis Borup

Oliver Lewis Borup was born on Sunday, February 15th at 1:45pm. He weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long.

He is wonderful! He brings such a special spirit into our home, and he is very loved. What's special about Oliver so far? Well, he is very patient with all the kids holding and loving him all the time-- we all love taking naps with him; he was a very alert newborn and has been a champion eater; and, best of all, he is so smiley! He seems to always have a smile for us, since the day he was born.

It is pretty great having six kids! Each one of them is pretty fantastic, and I am so proud and thankful that they are turning out to be such good friends with each other.

And, just for fun, here are some more of Ollie in his blessing clothes:

Will I ever post regularly?!

I don't know. Once a year is regular, right?

Here are some things since last I wrote:

Andrew and Evie were in Seussical last summer. 

We spent some time with Great Grandma and Grandpa

... and we survived the Rexburg Flood of '14

In other news, we bought a house! It's in Hibbard and it's in a great ward (where Mikey has since been called to teach 17 year old Sunday school class and Jamie has been called as a Beehive advisor).  We love that it's in the country and has a whole acre of land!

The front of our house

The reason we bought it

A few days ago was our 12th wedding anniversary! At 12 years, I think we're more in love than ever.

This is us in Hawaii for our anniversary last year. This year we celebrated in Rexburg.