the funnies

Noah, while doing his copy and spelling work, said, "Mommy, from now on, when I am done doing my spelling, I am going to say, 'May I please be ex-spelled?'"

"I a monkey!"

Update

Yes, I know, it has been a while. I fear I have lost the blogging bug. Part of it is the loss of my camera--I don't feel like taking many pictures since they all come out poorly and part of it is a lack of any interesting anecdotes or happenings that seem worth sharing. Then again, I think it might just be that I have the winter blues. There is also the fact that any free time I have is spent reading. I am a Jane Austen fan, right? Well, my sister, Jen, told me of a website, the Derbyshire Writer's Guild, on which is a plethora of Jane Austen FanFiction. There are so many fun stories to read some that are complete and others that I wait ever-so-patiently for their weekly updates. I can't seem to get enough of Darcy and Elizabeth and all their fellow characters, some new some old, in whatever form the story of Pride and Prejudice can be told. It's fabulous! My very thoughtful father has enabled me in this new addiction by gifting me (and my sisters) with books on Jane Austen for Valentine's Day. What goes better together than Valentine's and Jane Austen, I ask. It was very sweet of him don't you think?

But I do manage to get other things done during the day too. As little as I mention it, I should make it known that we are still homeschooling. Noah is doing so well too. He is now able to read out of level 2 readers and his favorite are the Henry and Mudge books. A couple of days last week he actually brought them to me to read instead of waiting for me to tell him it was time and instead of just reading one chapter like he normally does he read the whole book through. I think he is starting to see how much fun reading can be and that is the most exciting thing to me! We have been working a lot on telling time too. I remembered an old clock that I had put away in a drawer so I got that out and took the plastic cover off and wrote the minutes around the outside and we use that to practice. Now, when he wants to know what time it is he can figure it out for himself and he doesn't even run to the digital clock in the kitchen any more to do it. The living room clock, which seemed so daunting at first because the numbers are Roman Numerals, is a piece of cake to figure out.

For the past couple of weeks we have spent our Thursday afternoons at the Children's Museum because someone organized a series of homeschool science classes. The first was "Bugs and Botany" the second, "Edison's Attic", this week's is the third session and is on inventing and the fourth is "CSI 101" in which the kids will get to solve a crime. Noah has really enjoyed them and Lily has been well entertained exploring in the museum. We will soon start a new session of Monday Homeschool classes as well and this time Lily will have her own pre-school class to participate in and Noah will be playing soccer. If he enjoys it, I will probably sign him up for town soccer in the spring.

This past weekend was a bit out of the ordinary for us. Noah went to his cousin, Alex's, birthday party on Saturday and then spent the night as well and Grammy and Grampy were nice enough to take Ariel and Lily overnight so Luke and I were left childless for most of a day and night. We went and spent the afternoon with U2 at the theatre and finally used a gift card for the Macaroni Grill that we had received for Christmas. It was rather enjoyable and was especially nice to be able to sleep in the next morning and wake up at our own leisure not have to worry about feeding the kids and getting them ready for church and what-not. It of course went by too fast in my opinion but it was also nice to see the kids and know that we had been missed.

Since the last pictures were taken, Noah has lost another tooth. We asked him if he wanted to put them under his pillow for the tooth fairy but he said very matter-of-factly that she isn't real so why would he do that. This of course made his father very proud. He did suggest that maybe we could send them to Grandma because, wouldn't she really like to see his teeth? While I found this very 'endearing' I guess, I thought maybe we shouldn't. He has since forgotten about them and they still sit somewhere in an envelope awaiting the addition of yet more baby teeth. Apparently this marks some sort of rite of passage for him because he announced that he was quite ready to give up his Batman toothbrush for an adult one.

I regret the lack of information on our dear Liliana but she seems to be in a bit of a lull developmentally. Not much is changing for her. Actually she seems to be attempting to remain a baby for as long as she possibly can. She has completely stopped any and all potty-training business and absolutely refuses to give up her pacifier. And all may say, just put your foot down and get it done. Well, I have tried that. I have tried it all. I have gone to my wits-end and back trying to get it done. I have decided that the strain on our relationship is just not worth it and I would much rather that my daughter like me and I like her at this point in her young life. So, those battles have been abandoned for the time being. Please, don't tell the pediatrician, ok?

She does have a new favorite past time and that is playing computer games. In one sense this is a good thing because it does mean that she has mastered the hand-eye coordination necessary to work the track-ball. However, from the moment she wakes up til the time she goes to bed she asks me if she can play games. As I am unwilling for her to spend the entire day staring at the computer screen, the words "Not right Now", "No" and "Maybe Later" are heard more often than normal around here. I will say at least that the games she plays are mostly educational. So, they aren't a complete waste of time. Hopefully soon the out of doors will be more appealing than they are right now and will provide a better distraction from said games and other sedentary pursuits. I cannot wait for spring.

So, that is our life in a nutshell. Sorry for the absence of posts recently. You'll have to wait and see if the lull has indeed lifted...

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

Translation: "John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

A Memory Verse

Sorry, this one is a bit shaky...I couldn't help laughing a bit.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

On Thursday we got our first major snow of the season. It was quite the storm: it started in the late morning and came down 2-3 inches an hour for a while. They had closed all the schools ahead of time and after it started most businesses closed (including Luke's) and parts of the 2 major highways were closed throughout the state as well. By the time it was done late in the evening we had approximately 11 inches of snow on the ground.

I was reminded of "The Long Winter" in the Little House series. What a depressing story that was! I can't imagine being pounded by blizzard after blizzard in which you can't see 2 feet in front of you and it's so cold that the wood stove only manages to warm a small area right around it. I say thank goodness for insulation and furnaces and global warming for that matter! I'm sure places even further north than we are get really hard winters with more snow than I've experienced but I doubt it's on that scale anymore.

A train stuck in the snow in Southern MN, March 29, 1881

Saturday the kids spent some time out side playing in the snow. They had a grand time and lasted longer than I expected.

And today we are stuck at home because of more winter weather. This time it is a yucky "wintry mix" . It was raining when we woke up and now it is snowing and up where my sister and brother-in-law live it is even worse...they can't get out of their driveway and since we go to their house for church we have had to call it off this week. So, next week we will have to catch up in our Advent celebration. Can you believe that Christmas is next week?!

New Pictures

Apparently it takes my "cranky" sister bugging me before I will update my blog. So here's the latest pics of the kids:

Baking Fall inspired sugar cookies:

YUM!

And here they are just bein' silly.

(I made Noah's hat and scarf. Lily's was a gift to me from Nina, my knitting instructor)

Life has been quiet here lately. We've had no visitors and made no trips and thank goodness we have not been sick with the stomach bug like some of my blogging friends are posting about. We are planning a trip back to the 'Burgh for Christmas/New Years however (please make note all those who are reading this and live there...starting Dec 29th) and I am really looking forward to spending the holidays there with my family for the first time in I think 8 years...entirely too long!

In other news out of left field: I have discovered a strange connection between Connecticut and Western PA. Apparently we are drawn to this area for unexplained reasons. I have been having very "It's a small world" experiences recently and several have been with people from that area. Just yesterday I discovered that friends, who we met recently through Monday Homeschool Classes, grew up in New Castle. She actually knew about Geveva College...no one here has ever even heard of Geneva College! Very interesting (well, it was to me anyway).

Picnic

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day--sunny and warm but not hot (finally!). Noah had asked a while back to eat lunch outside and I finally remembered on a good day and at lunch time. So, I pulled out the well-used CU blanket and made the kids pb&j and cut up some apples and we had a nice lunch on the lawn. It was so warm that I was lulled into a snooze while the kids finished up (they are really slow eaters, especially when distracted) and Noah re-raked the pile of leaves he had un-raked while looking for a missing Hot Wheel car (if I had known Noah meant to play with them in the leaves, I would have tried to dissuade him from such a potentially hazardous idea). He was rather forlorn since not only could he not find said car, but he had a big job to do. I, on the other hand, very much enjoyed the rest. I did take pity on him eventually though and gave him a little help. Anyway, here are a few shots:

Maple Leaf Rag

Sorry it's been an age since I've posted anything. There's no real reason for it besides a lack of interesting things to post about and well, I'm just a blogging slacker I guess. Before I "lose my sister's heart", here are some fun fall pictures:



And we can compare them to the fun fall pictures from last year and see how the chillins' have changed.

What do you think?

That's all I have time for now but I promise I will post more soon.

A New Adventure

Several weeks ago, Luke and I discovered a cute toy store near his office called the Creative Toymaker. It was so cute and had all kinds of toys that your typical chain toy store doesn't have as well as all kinds of homeschooling supplies. When I told my friend Jill about it she wanted to check it out too so, we piled all of our kids into her van and headed out to Glastonbury together. Jill is rather resourceful though and what was supposed to be a short morning jaunt turned into a blueberry adventure. She had gone on-line and discovered an orchard nearby that was picking blueberries so after the toy store that's what we did. We turned up the drive, piled out of the van, grabbed our buckets and got on the tractor-pulled-wagon that would take us to the blueberries.

On our way we could look out over miles of pretty fields and hills and off in the distance we could see the whole city of Hartford. We passed by an orchard of pear trees that were absolutely loaded with the almost-in-season fruit. The kids of course were more excited about the tractor ride than the blueberries at that point but were more than happy to start picking once we got into the rows of bushes. I had never been blueberry picking before so I listened too as Jill explained to the kids which berries were the best to pick and quickly got the hang of gently pulling off bunches of the round ripe berries and dropping them into the bucket that hung from my neck. We all of course had to sample the goods and even Noah, who has never really liked them, admitted that they were sweet and tasty. He picked quite a few by himself but I ended up topping off his bucket along with my own and Lily's, well, there were more crushed and half-eaten berries in there so I emptied it and handed it off to Jill to fill since she was wishing she had gotten a bigger bucket.

Once we had gotten enough we waited for the tractor to come back to pick us up to take us back down to the stand where we paid for our hard-earned treasure. Then it was time to head back to our house where we shared a quick lunch. It really was a great day. Time spent with friends is always really special but even more so when you can do something together as novel and rewarding as picking your own fruit.

The kids: Nicolas, Sophia, Noah, Lily, and little Elias down in front

Hooray for Blueberries!

A Day at the Beach

Yesterday we decided to head to the beach instead of languishing in the heat for another day. Luke's parents were staying with friends in RI who have a "bungalow" (that's what they call their camper at a campground) near the ocean so we called them up and asked if we could join them for the day. We headed out nice and early to make sure we could get a parking space since the lots tend to fill up quite quickly. We hit the sand with our wagon filled with all the necessary accoutrements: towels, beach blanket, chairs, the cooler full of drinks and fruit, and of course, sand toys. Luke's parents and their friends, the Greenwoods, arrived and brought an umbrella and beach shelter for us to use and a boogie board for Noah.

The water was great--pretty warm and the waves weren't too big. The kids got braver and braver as the day went on though Lily wouldn't leave our arms she would let us go further and further out with her to enjoy the waves. Noah had a blast jumping the waves and even tried the boogie board. He's not quite big enough to actually stay on it though and got flipped upside down several times before calling it quits. When they weren't in the water they were digging in the sand and looking for neat rocks. We tried to build a castle but the bucket broke on one of the first attempts.

I of course managed to get a nice sunburn even though I put on sunscreen and spent a lot of time in the water. Somehow the sun is so much stronger on the beach--probably because it's not only beating down on you but also being reflected back at you from the sand and the water. I did enjoy swimming in the waves and even attempted to 'ride' some of the bigger ones in. It was a lot of fun.

I took a lot of pictures but a lot of them didn't turn out for some reason. Here are the ones that did.

The Greenwoods invited us back to their campsite for dinner so we headed out around 4pm. We got to shower and get all the sand and seaweed off and enjoy a great meal cooked on the fire. By the time we left the kids were more than ready to go to sleep, which they did shortly after we got in the car. They went straight to bed in their new bunk beds when we got home. The perfect end to a great day.

Another Scorcher

It's been a really hot week: every day a little hotter than the one before. Today it is 91 degrees and there is not a cloud in sight to break the intensity of the sun (even though the humidity is pretty high and they're calling for scattered thunderstorms). I have taken Noah and his friend Sophia to swimming lessons every morning and sweated it out while they frolicked in the water and complained of being cold. I would have paid money to be able to get in with them. It's a good thing the lessons are only 35 minutes long. Next week is supposed to be more of the same but Sophia's mom will be going to the pool while I will get to stay with her two younger kids and Lily at her nicely air conditioned house. I am so glad that we were able to get the kids in the same session because I can't even imagine having to take Lily with me. It would have been a battle every day to keep her out of that pool and I probably would have fainted from heat exhaustion. I met another homeschooling mom there and another who goes to the women's Bible Study I used to attend and will be again in September. As big as this town is, it's still got a small-town feel to it, which is really nice.

Today Luke had the day off but had to go to the doctor for a long over due physical (I really hope he gets a good report) so we weren't able to do any special day trips like we wanted to. Instead, he spent the morning putting together bunk beds for the kids. Gone are the Thomas the Tank Engine toddler bed and the crib that has been a constant fixture for over 5 years now. The kids are "napping" in there right now. And I say "napping" because I think they are experiencing the newness of the beds rather than sleeping in them. Noah doesn't even take naps anymore but he was thrilled at the possibility today. He has been so excited about these bunk beds for so long and now, finally, he has achieved the dream. It remains to be seen whether either of them will actually achieve a dream state in them however. So far, Lily has not been climbing in and out of her bed, which was my biggest concern, so that's a good sign.

I plan on remaining cosseted in my room for the rest of the day enjoying the cool of the air conditioner. We do not have any downstairs and it is rather steamy down there. Who knows what dinner will be tonight since I don't plan on turning on any heating elements in the kitchen. Last night we had pizza delivered and watched a movie on the laptop while we dined in the bedroom. You just can't do pizza every night though.

And here is Noah now--apparently he wasn't that tired after all. He reports that Lily is indeed asleep. Success!

Summertime Fun

Becky and I took our kids to a friend's swimming pool today. Ann has offered the use of her pool every summer but this is the first time we decided to take her up on it and am I glad we decided to today because it was H-O-T hot! The kids had a blast too.

Ariel was brave and got a running start off the diving board

Noah and Alex playing in the shallow end

Lily waving to the crowd before her first jump to Auntie Becky

Beautifully executed!

Noah's first leaps into the pool

Noah and Lily both love the water and they seem to get braver every time they are in a pool. Today they both jumped in from the side and from the diving board. Of course, they were wearing floaties and they jumped into waiting arms but I still think it's pretty cool that they did it. Noah starts swimming lessons next week so hopefully he will learn to feel safe in the water without the mask and floaties.

Father's Day

Here are some pictures from Father's Day. I think Luke would agree that it was an enjoyable day...the kids helped me make a t-shirt for him by decorating it with their handprints and I made his favorite banana pancakes for breakfast and then we spent the rest of the day with his family at his sister's house. We had an excellent meal including Charlie's famous ribs and two kinds of dessert: strawberry shortcake and chocolate-frosted orange poke cake made by the resident cake artiste (Becky)...yum.

I couldn't help taking this picture--it was hysterical how much Lily really enjoyed her bread

Luke played 'baseball' with the kids (Alex at bat)

I know, I wasn't very diligent with the camera again...sorry.

Bubble Heads

Just some cute pictures of the kids having fun in their bath. It seems like too long since I last posted so I had to put someting up...

Playtime with Daddy

This is another long video but it's cute. Feel free to stop when it gets too boring.

Silly Kids

I just wanted to post this picture cause it was so darn cute. All year the preschool class has taken turns hosting "Boots" the kitty and we have to journal about our time with him. So, this was the picture I took for Noah's last journal entry on his last day with Boots, whom he is holding along with his favorite stuffed animal, Spot (Boots is the black and white one). While I thought the idea was cute in the beginning, it gradually became rather annoying especially when everytime we brought Boots home he looked rattier and rattier and I'm sure is infested with all sorts of lovely germs. But the kids just loved Boots and every one of them was so excited each and every time it was their turn and we'll always have somewhat fond memories of that kitty. Boots will now be retired to the classroom windowsill with the rest of the previous years 'friends' and I'm sure he deserves the rest.

P.S. Noah's preschool graduation ceremony is tomorrow. I'll be sure to post more on that...

Fun with Laundry Baskets

Posting those pictures of Lily made me remember taking several other pictures of the kids in laundry baskets. If there is an empty basket around, you can guarantee that one of them will be in it, pushing it around, giving each other rides, making beds for themselves or their stuffed animals, etc. And usually they end up getting hurt by them too: they tip over very easily, inevitably hitting them in the face and tumbling them to the floor. Yet they are not dissuaded from commandeering them for their games.

I don't get it.