Livia turns 10

10 years ago today I was laying on my bed feeling sorry for myself. I was in labor and for reasons I never figured out or comprehended, my husband decided to get up and go to work, leaving me at home with 6 children. Fortunately, he got home 5 minutes before Livia was born and now we have a LIVELY, LOVELY LIVIA!!! who is 10 years old and brown as a berry.

This picture is the epitome of what home education is all about. Perhaps you'd have to be in the trenches to understand but with home education, nobody cares if you eat your lunch or do your school work with goggles on and spaghetti on your face. This is one of my favorite pictures of Livie who is also affectionately dubbed, Livie, Luvie, Luvie Lou and Luv Bug. I made the dress she is wearing. Bright, wild, large pink paisleys. It was Livie's favorite dress for a long time and she was loathe to give it up.

Her older sister, Autumn made her the skirt last year and gave her the hat for her birthday. This is also one of my favorite pictures of Livie because if you look closely you might see that she is missing a lot of teeth. She was the cutest little girl EVER with all those missing teeth.
Livie has style. She puts together the most unlikely pieces of clothing and it comes out looking great. Today for example she is sporting a denim skirt with felt flowers along the bottom, purplish paisley shirt and an old, long ribbon that I think came from the handle of a suitcase that was my mothers, tied up in her hair with a big floppy bow, skewered to the side of her head.

Yesterday as I was cooking dinner, Livia nonchalantly began telling me about how she had killed a snake outside earlier in the day. I had to work to keep my composure and talk to her about it in a matter of fact sort of way. Its not every 10 year old girly girl who will kill a snake by smashing it with a rock...several times...until even your brothers are looking on in disgust at the carnage before them.

Happy Birthday to my favorite, Livia EVER!