Twirls 'n Curls

My husband and I just took the most amazing trip to China on a 9-day tour with SNA Tours . (highly recommended!!)  Being a stay-at-homeschooling-mom of 3, I rarely get out for an afternoon, much less 9 days!! By the end of the 13-hour plane ride, I was already in heaven. We had been served 3 meals I didn't have to cook, and each seat had its own TV and headphones with hundreds of shows to choose from. I could have spent the remainder of vacation in the plane and done just fine! But there was so much more... this first post is an overview of our tour, then I'll write a few more about our experiences. Admittedly, I was a little skeptical of the accommodations for our trip - after all, we had bought it on Groupon ! But the entire time we stayed at Radisson hotels, which were much more elaborate than most any hotel we've been to in the States (but remember, we do have 3 kids...) Lobby of our hotel - gorgeous!   We spent the first few days in ...

I love having girls. I love the giggles, I love the baby dolls and Barbies. I love fancy dresses with ruffles. I love getting out makeup and nail polish and doing facials, such as I wrote about here . I even love the hair accessories, to a lesser degree. But more than any of those, today I love that, in homeschooling three little girls, any one of them is likely to walk out of their room at any point of the day looking like this: It's great. Life with my crew is so entertaining, we don't even have television. We don't need it! There is ... bling everywhere we look. They say outrageous things, they do outrageous things - I LOVE raising girls! And laughing at with them. And blogging about them. The other day my oldest said something we found hilarious, and she cried in horror, "MOM!! Do NOT blog about this! Or Facebook it!!" Apparently, I've been found out :)

As with any job, there are many parts to our school week I would like to remember, as well as a few I would like to forget. Moments to Remember was created by some bloggy homeschooling friends as a way to hang on to those moments worth hanging on to . Lately I've been reminded of the perks of homeschooling, flexibility being a big one of those. Whether we are planning a vacation or just having "one of those days," I love that school can work around our family's needs. Linsey has been getting the spring break blues, and working outside has freshened her perspective a little. Not many kids can say they recite poetry from inside the family fireplace! I also appreciate that often, we get to include our whole family on projects. Here the girls are making homemade play dough... we made a great mess and had even greater laughs. Oh the memories we will have from our kitchen days...  I absolutely love seeing these sister friendships develop firsthand! ...

People often ask me (or more often my husband!) what it's like raising a houseful of girls. So I thought it would be fun to do a few posts about our everyday adventures, called "Girl Time." At the top of my list of fun "girly" things to do are Spa Days. We've been to a "real nail place" once or twice, but usually it's funner - and cheaper - to indulge ourselves at home.   Manicures and pedicures are a must, at least weekly around here.  (Natalie got a little excited about "tainting" her nails while I was working at church...) Our oldest is super creative and is really good at nails. She enjoys helping her sisters with theirs too.     And the girls LOVE it when I let them do a facial mask with me! I love it too, but probably for a different reason. For me, it's a guaranteed 10 minutes of quiet... I tell them the mask only works if they don't talk :)   And that's our Spa Day! What ki...