Fun weekend. My parents came to visit, which was great, as always.

They brought the Christmas present I made for my dad, only because (and this shows how horribly uncrafty I've been feeling lately) I never finished it, and my mom wanted me to show her how she could finish it because they've been using it so much (yay!) that she needs to wash it. How's that for terrible gift giving? Give someone an incomplete present and then just never finish it. Ah, well. Anyway, here's the quilt that I made my dad for Christmas. He has always been a horse guy, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to use Heather Ross's horse fabric. I was quilting each square with embroidery floss, but only finished twelve of them (out of forty) before I gave it to him.
I've been mulling over a pretty huge issue for the past few days. I had always planned on homeschooling the kiddos, and even though Steve wasn't so much on board with it, I figured I could convince him. After all this time, he still hasn't budged. In addition to that, I've been feeling so tired and somewhat overwhelmed lately, as well as nervous about having another baby so soon. Because of all this, I've made the decision not to homeschool (although Steve would tell you that decision was already made long ago). For awhile I was feeling sad about this, but now I've come to terms with it and am perhaps even a little relieved. That decision has been made for awhile now, though, and is not what's been weighing on my mind recently. Thursday night we went to an open house at what will be Emma's future school. Even though she won't be enrolling for kindergarten until next year, we thought it would be a good idea to go check it out. It's a sweet little Montessori-based Catholic school, and I was really impressed with it until someone mentioned that kindergarten is ALL DAY. All day? What's up with that? I do not want to send her away for seven hours a day, five days a week. That would be crazy, considering she has probably never been away from me for seven hours in her entire life. I've since discovered that all day kindergarten is pretty much a standard thing now. I realize it's for the convenience of the mothers who work, and I respect that, but in our particular situation, I think it's crap. Emma is still so young! So, while I was still reeling from that, Steve suggested we sign Emma up for preschool this year to get her accustomed to going there for a whole day. Preschool is also for the entire day, but just two days a week. So that's where we are now. Steve wants to send her to preschool in the fall, and I can see that being helpful so she is not so shocked when she has to go to kindergarten all day, but I can't stop thinking about it and what would really be the best thing. One thing that helps is that when we arrived at the school, Emma was saying that she didn't want to go there because she wanted to homeschool, but after being there for awhile, she seems excited about going to school. I also think it would be nice to have time alone with the babies while Emma is at school a couple times a week. Still, sending her to school for so long is not a decision I can make without a whole lot more consideration. Thankfully, we have until June before the decision has to be made.