Homeschool in full swing

With winter days, homeschool for Tate is full-speed ahead. He is winding down first grade, and should be ready to start second in May. This is Tate working on spelling words. He likes to get up early and get it all done. He had to wait for Mom to have her coffee before he could take his spelling test!

Sam is not officially doing "school" yet, but he loves to practice. He has gotten the hang of pattern blocks in recent weeks. We are very proud of him.

Notice Penny is his helper and had to be included in the picture! Sam wants me to tell you that he knows how to find the right block to fit the picture now. Good job!

Tate's blog all by himself -- Meet The Pets!

This is Tate's first ever attempt to add original material to our blog site. He put much thought into what to contribute. He likes seeing us on-line! I typed exactly what he dictated and added exactly the photos that he chose. (Remember, he is six!!)

"Sneakers has a little sister. Penny is his little sister. Tonight they are camping out with Sammy and me. I hope you get good sleep. Here are pictures I took today. I hope you enjoy them. Sneakers is mine (I named him because sometimes he sneaks out and goes to Starbucks while I am sleeping) and Penny used to be mine but Sam has had her and taken care of her since he was a baby. Now he loves her. "

I took this by myself. Daddy barely gets in our pictures so I wanted him to be on my blog.

I took this by myself. Sam is taking care of our pets.

Sneakers! I caught you this time! No more stealing cookies!!! No sirrie bob!

Sneakers, who are you talking to? Penny? Yes, Tate, how did you know?

Sammy, get a seat for Penny, don't set her on your head!

Bye, family and friends. Thank you for visiting my first blog. And thank you for visiting Sneakers first blog, now he is on-line like Penny. From Tate.

Hanging Out with Uncle M

These are from last fall, when we had a bon fire at Uncle Micah's place. He had cleared some brush and he let all the nephews and nieces come and run around all over his land. We also celebrated the September birthdays (mine is best)
These are the kids (minus baby -- he wasn't living here yet -- plus Uncle Scott) playing on the hay. Yes, we like to color coordinate!

Sam on Micah's tractor

Micah's house has some sort of rope thing that the kids (And Uncle Scott) were trying to swing on...

Sam liked to wander all around behind the house and explore

Lacey and Sam

Micah grilled us a feast and we enjoyed catching up with each other.

See what I mean? Color coordinated! You can see Matt playing with his phone almost able to escape my picture! Scott tried to escape (seated leaning back) but I got him, too! The kids are all Becky's!

CHEEEEEESEEEE!

Aren't they adorable?

Yummy dinner! Thanks Uncle Micah!

Happy Birthday to US!!! I turned 21 and Micah turned, well ... I guess that makes him like 14. Go figure. He must be SO SMART to already have a house!

After dinner and cookie dough (and gifts!), we went outside for the bon fire!

Dance party!

Still newlyweds...

Arg. I am man. I build fire.

Kids EVERYWHERE!

Kids

Tate, Sam, and Mikey with big boy boots

Still stuck together, these two

Can you believe they AREN'T actually sisters? One of these is the mom...

And one of THESE is the mom, too!

I love Grandma and no I won't let her go.

We all love Grandma

Lacey (minus two front teeth) is always in front of my camera. How does this keep happening?

We finally sat down and all sang campfire songs. Or rather, Sam insisted that we all sing "Wheels on the Bus," which thanks to Mothers-Day-Out at church is the ONLY song that he knows. And he knows it, all the verses. He sang loudly and wanted us all to do the motions!

Here we are making the wheels go "round and round, round and round."

Relaxing under the stars

Sammy trying to shove his roasted marshmallow down my throat!

More singing

The sibs. Good night!

Snow!

It snowed here today! The boys played in our front yard (where we are in these pictures) until he said Penny was cold (Penny is his stuffed white dog that goes everywhere with us). Then he cried because his hands were cold. Oh well, at least I got a picture first of smiley boys!

We tried to get Tate to take a picture of Chris and I, but he was not that interested. He just wanted to play! I don't blame him.

Yummy Oatmeal

Breakfast with boys (and Penny). They wanted to move their chairs so they could sit together. Then Sam fed Penny ... that was a nice mess.

The Camo Boots Have Arrived!!!

Yes, they arrived. I saw the box from e-Bay under the mail
box as I was backing out for a little trip to the library.
We pulled over so I could put them right on. The ONLY
place we went, the library (a place where many fashion
rules are ignored or even blatantly and systematically
violated), there were comments, stares, looks of envy
all around. (Okay, maybe I was imagining a little...

or was it the bright pink hat and bright orange sweater?? Oh well)

Then, a group of teenage girls finally
asked what the rest of the crowd was wondering....
"WHERE did you get those AMAZING boots???!!" I
smiled. I can't wait to show my sweet husband, just in
time for our ten year anniversary. It is all I have talked about since I
first bid on them two weeks ago. What a fun way to shop!

"Put ON your underwear by yourself!"

Now that Sam is potty trained, even at night (Praise God!), I am moving along to the next step of teaching him to dress himself. Undies are hard, I get that. But after his bath tonight, I asked him to please put them ON his body (he has been getting them and carrying them around asking for help). This is what I saw when I walked in the room. He smiled and said "I did it! I am Mr. Undie Head!!"

Once I stopped laughing and grabbed the camera, they were both in the act. I never knew how creatively you can get underwear onto your body. I edited out body parts!

You can really see Tate has lost BOTH of his front teeth in this picture. He is adorable!