Some updates before I get way behind

We got a chair finally. We threw out all the previous options and decided to just get one leather chair instead of two chairs because that is what we really wanted for comfort and durability.

We're putting it to the side of the fireplace and leaving the rest of the room open to walk through and for the kids to play. Having two chairs just seemed to crowd the room so for now one big leather chair seemed good. We looked and looked for a good one and finally found this one from Pottery Barn, the Manhattan chair, on Craigslist for a third of the price! Yay for Craigslist. We also sold our giant TV armoire which held our giant old TV on Craigslist, as well as the TV itself and my white painted table, which we have officially swapped for my Aunt Becky's larger one.

Then, my friend Brigitte found this coffee table in the alley behind her art gallery and thought it would be good for our living room if we could redo it.

It has really cool details and it's a great size. The only problem will be the actual stripping and repainting or restaining it. I'm not exactly trying to hang out in rooms with fumes right now, (being 28 weeks pregnant and all!) and I found out that the flowers on the top of the table are not paint but rather some sort of wallpaper-like decoupaged thing, so it's going to be tricky.

Mornings around here are getting nicer as the sun is up bright and early these days. I hate the winter months where you're getting up in the freezing cold and the dark. Spring is definitely on it's way!

We've officially been off of homeschooling for way too long given Claire's pneumonia week, our week in Colorado, and then a week I spent substituting at Sammmy's school! And now, my big sister is here with her two girls, so of course there are way too many cousins to play with for us to be doing anything school-related. But that's okay. We're just enjoying the school of life right now.

Oh, and breakfast. We're really enjoying breakfast. At least I am. I either eat a bunch of pancakes in the morning...

...or this. Which we call the Aunt Marty sandwich because she and Uncle Bruce made it for us in Colorado. Sooooo yummy.

Claire is in a cute pottery class on Fridays and she brought home this bird sculpture that she made last week. No words needed. I love to look at it in my window sill. It's looks like a platypus or something. It makes me crack up when I see it.

We also went to our "knitting circle" last Saturday again. Here is Claire with her friends Lucy and Dillon. Dillon's mom just pulled her two daughters from a public school that they were attending to start homeschooling so we spent a ton of time talking about curriculum and stuff.

We don't always exactly knit the whole time. The kids play and eat the snacks that we all bring and color and read too. Dillons little sister, Zoe, took Sammy out back to show him how she protects the family's chickens from cats by shooting at them with a bb gun. He is now in love with Zoe.

Look at this little girl. Her name is May. Isn't she so cute? She reminds me of the Coppertone baby.

This is May's mommy who is like, an actual fiber artist or something, teaching another mommy how to spin wool into yarn. These women are way past me. I'm just knitting straight little rows.

It's a great group with great conversation. I love it.

And I got to read through all of Nicky's new Waldorf home school curriculum while drinking coffee so it was a great weekend. However, this week right now is what we've been really looking forward to because my sister Laura is here...so I'll probably have tons of pictures of our adventures by this weekend. I know the Shedd aquarium and American Girl Doll store are on the schedule! And apparently yanking my shirt up and rubbing my belly and saying how big it is getting is also on the schedule because they do that a lot! :)