weary. Hazel has been up at night a bit the past week or so and so have i. i've fallen asleep listening to John explain the intricacies of Star Wars when he was supposed to be working on creative writing, which happens to be very creative as spells everything phonetically.

we had another basketball game friday night, and we lost again. the other kids are just so much bigger than the kids on our team. we came home and ate homemade beef stew. mmm. Margaret's pal, Marissa, stayed the night and all the kids stayed up late playing Monopoly while Brian and i lay in bed watching tv. it's crazy that they're old enough to put themselves to bed.

we worked around the house on saturday, and then met some friends for dinner at Central Market.

went to church on sunday. Hazel is quite popular there. i handed her off to Samuel at one point in the service so that i could get something out of the diaper bag. when i looked up, she was all the way at the end of the aisle, being held by my friend, Robyn. next thing i knew she was on the row behind us being held by someone else.

my mom came and picked up the big 4 after lunch. she and my stepdad were going to take them and my brother's older 2 to the zoo the next day so they wanted them to spend the night. Brian and i got out and walked Hazel in the stroller at Town Lake, then went to dinner at Z Tejas.

Brian went in to the office early on Monday, then came home around 9 or so and we spent the rest of the day together. we decided to go tour old houses, one of our guilty pleasures. we drove down to Lockhart and met with several different realtors to see seven different homes. it was so much fun! we came back to Austin at the end of the day exhausted and hungry, and went over to El Chile for dinner.

we got out and ran together monday morning. that was good. my mom brought the kids back around lunch time on monday. we went over to Jason's Deli, then over to Mueller for a 2 and a half mile walk. that, too, was good.

yesterday was my dear husband's birthday. i am so happy he was born! i made verde chicken enchiladas for dinner since he likes those.

i wrote most of that yesterday, and now it's today, thursday. we just finished school for the week, a very short week since we didn't do school on monday or tuesday. i cleaned the school room and did some lesson planning for next week. it's been a good day. Margaret had a babysitting job midday, but only for a couple of hours. we got a lot of school work done, including some science experiments.

William and John's experiments with salt water/fresh water.

Margaret studying ecosystems.

Hazel is  growing by leaps and bounds.

well, folks, that's all i have time for now.