We have been a family of 5 for a month now. Some things are glorious. Some things are difficult. I don't mind admitting that I'm tired, pretty much all the time, I think that's just how it's going to be until the kids grow up for the rest of my life. The coffee cup and I have a little thing going on, ok well actually it's quite serious, we're inseparable really, and honestly when our lips meet there is a lot of hot steamy lovin' going on! Did I mention I'm pretty tired these days? Perhaps I should digress and draw your attention to more wholesome subject matter, like all the things that are glorious about life these days:

• The smell of a tiny baby, all milky and sweet.
• The way my older daughter takes on her sisterly duties with gusto, simply because she can't get enough of this new little person in our lives.
• The way my son will let Kayla grasp his finger when no one seems to be noticing.
• That I am seeing progress in our schooling in just 6 short days (don't get me wrong, we've got a long row to hoe, but still progress in any sense of the word is still glorious).
• We are home, such that it is, it is still home, still our stuff, our friends, our life and I'm glad.
• My husband is renovating our bathroom even as I type this! 
• We have kittens and a mama mouser cat that are sticking around and hopefully eating up the copious amounts of mice on our property.
• Mike got our hot tub refurbished and fired up! Heaven!

 Some things that I'm finding difficult right now are:

• Being tired all the time.  I can't even blame Kayla since I'm only up once a night and then usually she calls for me at a reasonable time in the morning (usually we hang out at 3am ish and 7am ish). She goes right back to sleep and usually I'm free to do the same, except that I really need to get up at 7 so I can get our day on track.  My difficulty stems from the fact that I have a bad habit of staying up until 12am or later, it's the carny in me I guess. All summer we have been rising late (after 9am) and going to bed late (1am ish) so I'm still having trouble getting to bed at a reasonable hour, especially since I like to give Kayla  a dream feed at 11pm ish.  
• Homeschooling.  I thought my kids would enjoy the activities I had in mind, but they have pretty much decided that they don't like school. They have decided this in 6 days.  Matia has gone so far as to say that O Canada is stupid and that she hates the Lord's Prayer. Oh my.  I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.  I'm hoping some object lessons (a paper mache globe) and a trip to the library for some good books will help things a bit.  Other than that we're just going to plug along and by gum and by golly they are going to learn that I'm the boss and they must get with the program and that they are not going to break me! I'm a substitute teacher, they haven't even scratched the surface of what I'm capable of withstanding! Oh ya, it's going to be so fun around here, let me tell you.
• Renovations.  We are redoing our bathroom. We have completely gutted the old one, it was pretty yucky. I am extremely pleased with this project, the only difficulty is that it means we are living in our travel trailer again this fall.  It also means that I have no washer and dryer right now.  I'm not uncomfortable in our travel trailer, and to combat the laundry pile up I went and picked out 7 outfits for each of us and I'm not keeping any more clothing than that in the camper.  Once we run out I need to run to the laundromat or we wear dirty clothes and that is that (or so we shall see). 
• I'm grumpy.  I'm unreasonably grumpy almost all the time.  I pray for God's spirit to grow the fruit of self control in me every day because I just want to bite everyone's head off all the time.  I know some of it is hormones, some is fatigue, some is running out of patience from constant disciplining of preschoolers, some is circumstances outside of my control.  I know I should exercise and get my sleep and my quiet time with the Lord.  Usually I'm getting one out of three. I'll keep on working on it.  Sorry, in advance if I bite your head off.

Over all I'd say the good out weighs the bad. We continue to learn from all of our experiences and we keep on looking forward to our future with optimistic hope.