Life, Thanks Giving and Flurries

It has been a while since I have posted.

I haven't had that many pictures to post, and although it probably only matters to me, I like a post with pictures. I am definitely a picture person. I love looking at photos. To me they say so much..........they are worth at least a thousands words and thoughts.

The girls made flannel baby blankets.

This was a science project. We were studying human cells.

We used gelatin, ziplock bags, and candy.Two love bugs.
Can you say "Pumpkin Juice!"

November appeared and then ended with some flurries.
Our Thanksgiving was very quiet and restful. It was nice to not have to worry about anything really (school work and work) and just enjoy the company of our little family.

And now here we are at December's doorstep and the door has opened.
Hmm, what will December hold, I wonder, for us.
We put the tree up on Thanksgiving evening and decorated it. The lower half is bare, but Elsa has managed somehow to reach even the high up ornaments. I have a line of them on the TV that need to be put back together. The girls were so eager to put out the presents they had got for each other, but they had to go back into the closet because Miss E was ripping into them.

We've just been keeping busy with school and goals, piano lessons, violin lesson, and Rhaevyn has returned to fencing. Chris has been busy at work. Both girls are trying to learn Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Aeva's recital is coming up next Saturday, and she is a bit nervous, which is something new for her.

Myles is keeping me in stitches with things like............
"Humormous"...which I believe is humongous and ginormous put together.
We also have a dragon that lives on our roof. I haven't exactly caught a glimpse of him yet, he is too quick for me, but Myles spots him out our window a lot flying around. I love the imagination, it makes life exciting and never dull.

Miss Elsa is keeping me on my toes with baths in the sugar canister, contents of my purse strewn about, into the toothpaste, and my favorite...............jumping naked on Myles's bed. If it is quiet and she isn't in the kitchen, my bedroom or the living room, it is safe to bet that she has managed to get her diaper off and ether run free, hide in laundry or jump on a bed.
Well, that is all the happenings around our little happy abode.
Wishing you all a dapper first week of December.

Out of the Mouth of Myles...........

Pumpkin Leg Myles

I love the things that come out of the mouths of kids. It is so funny, entertaining and interesting how their little minds work and how they are so honest in an innocent way.

Two weeks ago Myles was running errands with me. There we were in the van at a stop light, and I was watching five ducks fly round and round in a circle over a house. In my head I was asking myself, "Do they have a home at one of those houses?" Myles commented on the ducks, and then I said, out loud, "I wonder what those ducks are doing?"
Myles replied, " They are flying you silly."
I couldn't help but laugh.

Sunday morning Myles and I read a book about spiders. There was a picture in the book of a spider molting. I was telling him about how my tarantula would do that. How its new body would be so bright and colorful. I told him that it is similar to when snakes shed their skin. They shed their old skin when they grow.
Myles sat next to me at church. At one point he took one of my hands in his, caressed it, and then leaned over to say "You have old skin, mom. I wish you were a snake and could get new skin."
I just about busted a gut.

I love how fulfilling being a mother is. I love the frustrating times, the sleepless nights, the "I love you-s", and the "your the best mom I could ever have-s" (even when you feel you aren't ). I don't know what I did to deserve these children, four great and sweet blessings, but whatever I did I am glad I did it. I can't imagine my life without them.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night........

What a fun Halloween night we had last night.
We decided to think outside the box this year and do something a bit different.

Aeva made a Boo-quet at Activity Days.

For costumes, we decided last night to go on a hunt around the house to see what we had that the kids could dress up in.

Elsa was a little calf.

Here is Princess Aeva.

I thought this was so cute.

Myles wanted to be Darth Mal from Star Wars,

so the girls tried to figure out how to dress him for the part.

I printed out a picture of a Darth Mal face and cut it out.

Elsa didn't know what to make of Myles.

After costumes, it was time for pumpkin carving..........

..........and candy eating.

Time to turn off the lights..............

Spoooooooooky!

Then it was time to take turns reading the Tell Tale Heart by candle light.

To top off the evening we played two rounds of Jenga.

I think we all agreed that thinking outside the pumpkin this year turned out to be a lot of fun.

Just a side note, Myles wrote his name all by himself for the first time this morning.

Last night he wrote the letters in blue. I wrote out his name at the top for him, and then this morning he wrote the green letters just about the blue ones. It is always so fun when your children learn to do something by themselves.

The people he drew in the picture are Oma, Opa and Cash.

Wishing you all a nimble November.

Are We Famous?

Things have been a little hectic around these parts lately.
I have been working at overhauling our school schedule as well as school curriculum.
This has been our first week with "new" ways of doing things, and my goodness what a breath of fresh air it has been.
I have had several great reminders of why we/I wanted to home school. It is like having a light bulb come on. I don't have it completely how I think I want things to go, but that will have to wait until January or possibly next year, (compromise, compromise) but at least things are better now. The girls are back to actually enjoying learning.

We received a very wonderful gift and surprise the other day.
Let me back track a bit. A person at our church asked if they could paint a portrait of the girls. This was during the summer. The girls had been seen wearing white one Sunday, and this person loved the white with their dark hair. One Saturday, I put the girls' hair up in buns and they dressed all in white (or almost all white), and a picture was taken of them. The picture was used for the portrait.
Thank goodness it isn't like long ago where you had to sit absolutely still while your portrait was done.
Anyway, it is finished! I had to laugh when we put it up on the piano (not sure where to hang it yet) and Aeva turned to me and asked, "are we famous?" When we have studied portraits in art it has always been of very famous or wealthy people that got their portraits painted.
Anyway, here is the finished product.


Chris and I were studying it last night and were thinking how interesting it was that the personality of each girl shows, right down to Rhaevyn putting one foot on the other. That is so her.
We feel so blessed and privileged to have this beautiful work of art of two of our precious girls.
Just two random and fuzzy pictures.
I peeked into the girls' room last week, and there were Myles and Aeva working side by side.
It was just too precious.



Hope you are all enjoying your month of October. Can you believe November will be here next week?

Field Trip

Today we had a field trip to the pumpkin patch.
This was our first visit to this particular one.
Normally as a whole family we go to a different one, but I thought this would be a fun outing for the kids.
We surprised Myles and didn't even tell him where we were going.
We told him to look for a red barn and when he spotted one to let us know.
He was quite excited when we pulled into the parking lot.
They had a hay bale maze, a hay pyramid, animals to see and pet, and of course a pumpkin patch.
I thought I'd be hip and dress all the kids in Halloween colors and take some pictures.
Wouldn't you know it, this is the day the camera decided not to work, as you can see from the following photo. And this was one of the better ones.

Myles petting a goat.

Elsa stuck her hand out and one of the goats licked it. She laughed half heartedly and then decided she did not like that one bit.
She loved petting the bunny though. She couldn't get enough of that.
Myles fed a llama.
Then it was off to the hay pyramid.
I did take video, but that is not wanting to upload.
And too bad because I was going to show you the height at which I fell.......dragging Elsa with me. Luckily I don't think anyone but our teacher saw me fall so ungracefully. She came rushing over. The hay is pretty soft, so between that and my padding I am fine. I was so focused on Elsa while I was falling, so I think she managed to fair the best. She didn't cry. She was probably thinking "what is my crazy mother doing?"
Here is my one picture from the hay bale maze. I followed Elsa through the tube.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the pumpkin patch my camera pretty much was telling me it was dysfunctional. Aeva got the biggest pumpkin, while Rhaevyn and Myles picked out some tiny ones.

The weather was great, the company was fantastic and we really had a lot of fun :)

Wooly Bear, Wooly Bear, What Do YOu See?

I see Myles looking at me!

There are tons of Wooly Bear caterpillars around here. The past couple of days we have seen them crawling across the roads.

Yesterday I finally saw one on a road where I could pull over and catch it.

Myles has been wanting to see one up close. So I pulled over, emptied out a container from the car, and pushed the little fellow in. Myles was so happy.

Then when I went to pick Aeva up from her piano lesson I saw two more. They were on a very quiet road. I got out of the car with an empty Ziploc bag. They must have seen me coming because one totally disappeared, and the one that had been sunning himself was making a bee line for cover.

When I got home I told Myles I had a surprise for him.

He squealed in delight, ran to get the other caterpillar and said "Oh we have another friend for you my friend!"

They have names: Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and the other is Fuzzy. They have a nice little home in a mason jar with thin tree branches and strawberry leaves. We cleaned out their humble abode this morning. They are quite messy creatures in the bathroom department.

And we have discovered the reason for that. Tonight we looked closely at the strawberry leaves and vines we had put in there. We were amazed to see huge round openings in the leaves where green used to be. Then the most amazing thing was that we got to actually watch them eat.

It was so fascinating to see these little creatures eat.

Science class doesn't get any better than watching nature up close like that.

Last night Myles said to me "Oh mom, they will make a cocoon and we will have beautiful butterflies." I let him know that unfortunately they will turn into tiger moths. He was very put out by this bit of information.

I think we may release A.P.P and Fuzzy back into the wild tomorrow. Myles says he is ready to have them go back outside.

Slow and Steady

I am slow at getting the new blog entries up, but I am steadily working towards accomplishing the task.
Everyone is getting in on school work around here.
I logged on to the online literature circle for Aeva, and Elsa climbed up onto the chair with
the book, ready to go!

I just loved this picture because it looks like Myles has hands coming out of his head.

He set the timer, put the camera on the foot board of the bed and pressed the picture button.

Viola!

Myles's science experiment this week was crashing colors.

I don't think the experiment quite turned out like it was supposed to, or maybe

just how I thought it was supposed to turn out, but it was a lot of fun for Myles.

We ended up doing the experiment twice because I thought maybe

I'd read the directions wrong, or the soap had been added too fast.

By the end of the second try we just decided to scrap it and make our own fun

with the crashing colors.

On Saturday Rhaevyn's friend came over for a play date.
All the kids enjoyed dipping Oreo cookies in milk and white chocolate.
They also decorated with Halloween and fall sprinkles.
Lots of fun, and oh so chocolaty good!

The finished products or works of art.

Going crazy with all that sugary goodness.

Myles shows what he made.

Sweet is Myles's favorite new word.

Everything is "sweet!"

So, we are wishing you all a sweet week.