i love...

my baby!! :)

fairy

My friend, Mrs. T., has a blog and just the other day posted a picture of a fairy house that her girls had made outside, including a little pond made out of a leaf with little rocks surrounding it. It was so cute and I can't wait to tell my girls about fairy houses and help them make one of their own. But for now, Mrs. T, my oldest found a fairy to live in your fairy house! (I had just taken this picture the morning I read your blog!) :)

birthday girl

Yesterday was my middle child's birthday. She is now four years old. What a difference two and a half years make!! See for yourself...

This is the first picture I took of her. She was eating a cupcake and loved the icing! :) She was 16 months old. Still a baby, but I can see all the personality in her eyes! :)

This was her second birthday. She was growing so much and most definitely went through the "terrible two's" stage. For a while, it seemed she was sitting on the "naughty steps" several times a day. Some days she wore me out, but when she wasn't wearing me out, she was cracking me up!

This was from last year when she turned three. Her face was beginning to look not quite as babyish and she was no longer the baby in the family by this time.

Now she is four. She has reached so many milestones in the two and a half years that I have been here. She is a great big sister and loves her baby brother so much. She and her older sister are best friends and play together very well (ok, most of the time anyways!). :) She is still full of personality and still cracks me up, and thankfully, trips to the "naughty steps" are MUCH less frequent!

I love the way she is eager to "talk to Jesus" before every meal. The way she will sing songs from our "butterfly cd" (Steve Green's Hide'Em In Your Heart CD) while she's playing. The way she loves to dress up in her princess dresses and dance to SCC's Cinderella song. The way she wrinkles her nose when she grins her silly grin and how much expression she can convey in those big, blue eyes!

Middle child, you are growing so fast but for now, I will remember to enjoy giving you "daily squeezes" as you and your sister call them and reading books with you snuggled up on my lap. So happy birthday, my middle child! I'm so glad God has brought you into my life and I can't imagine not getting to see you every morning. I will always be praying that you will continue learning about Jesus and how much He loves you and that you will grow up to love Him and bring Him glory in all that you do. I love you! :)

first official day of kindergarten

Monday was our first official day of homeschool kindergarten! It took us a while to get the curriculum, a new little table, and a new cabinet to store the schoolbooks in. Finally, yesterday, we were ready to get started. My oldest was very excited and couldn't wait. She kept eagerly asking what was next and was a little disappointed to remember that she was going to her homeschool co-op classes today. :)

One thing I LOVE about the Sonlight curriculum is all the wonderful books that comes with it! We read the first poem in our Mother Goose book yesterday, which was Little Bo-Peep. I had never read the entire poem before and we both laughed to learn that the sheep came home but without their tails! Later Little Bo-Peep found them hanging up to dry on a tree! :) Here she is drawing a picture of the poem.

Done with the tree and about to draw a fuzzy black tail hanging on it! Her sheep was black because you can't see white on the white paper....

The baby saw the camera and had to jump in with his typical "cheeese!"

My middle child and my baby did pretty well amusing themselves while I was working on school with the oldest. My middle child will officially join us in kindergarten when she decides she is done drinking milk out of a baby bottle. Hopefully that will be soon! I can't wait to have two kindergarteners! :)

In science, we learned about the rain cycle, which are the pieces she is cutting out in the picture. We also learned how rainbows are made and the correct order of the colors. A very good first day of kindergarten! :)

an evening with jonathan

Last night I babysat my "almost-nephew", Jonathan. He is my best friend, Shannon's, 18 month old. I have babysat him several times, but most often he is almost ready for bed, or already in bed. Last night, however, I got there in time to spend the evening with him. He is SOO cute!!! (and no, I'm not prejudiced at all....!) :) I loved getting to interact with him and getting to see his little personality a little bit more. Here's a little of how our evening went....

First, he ate dinner. He loves to eat and ate everything I gave him...except for the peas that you can see on his tray. He wanted nothing to do with them! :)

Then he got down on the floor and promptly found mommy's purse and pulled the umbrella out and put it back in several times. Then he tried putting the strap over his head and around his neck, trying to imitate mommy when she carries it. (Although she doesn't usually carry it quite like that!)

Then he walked over to the couch, which is hard work, so he put his head on the soft blanket to rest for a minute.

Next he took a minute to discuss my camera with me.

Then it was over to the tv to see how Aunt Kiki would react. The tv is one of his favorite "no no's," and Kiki knows this, so since he wasn't going to get away with that...

...he decided to find the phone...


...and make a few phone calls just to see if anyone was out there. I "talked back" on my cell phone and we practiced saying "hi!" several times. As you can see, talking on the phone and keeping a paci in your mouth, all while saying "hi" takes some major talent! :)

After the phone calls, a drum session was called for. But then Jonathan decided to try a new activity - putting the drum stick in his mouth and "puffing" it out.

Aunt Kiki thought this was rather funny...which made Jonathan think that just maybe it really was pretty funny, so he tried it one more time and decided that...

It was.

Last was bathtime, pj's, two lift-the-flap books (Jonathan thinks that ALL books should be lift-the-flap books!), and off to bed! A fabulous way to spend a Sunday evening! :)

singing baby

Those of my friends who have facebook pages may have seen this video clip. But for those of you who don't...here is a short clip of my baby. He, for quite some time now, even before he turned one last January, has loved to "sing". He doesn't know enough words to sing an actual song quite yet, but is definitely getting there. He sings most often when we are in the car, just the two of us, after taking the girls to preschool, or on the way to pick them up. My oldest's voice can be heard in the background, so sorry if it distracts from his little voice. :) I can't wait to hear him joining in and singing songs like Jesus Loves Me with his sisters! :) For now though, this is his own made up "song." :)

a day without the girls

Today was the girls' first day of homeschool co-op classes. Lauren's little sister, Reegan, went last year to this particular one, so it came highly recommended by her family and the girls were excited to get to go to school with a friend. That left me at home with the baby for the day. He definitely does NOT like being an only child! :) He was mopey all morning and would often look up and remember that no sisters were around to play with and would burst into tears and say very sadly, "byebye!" and ask where his sister was. He required lots of extra hugs and kisses and cuddles, which is most definitely one of the perks of my job!! :) Here's just a little bit of how our morning went...

For some reason, underneath the kitchen table was the play spot of choice today. :) A perfect little hiding spot, just his size! :)

Trying to climb back out proved to be a bit more tricky since he wanted to stand up, but couldn't. :)

The toy of choice today was this stethescope. He used it as a "so" (phone). We both got lots of phone calls on it as he kept holding it up to my ear and then his. :) I wish I had a video camera so I could have gotten him "talking" on the phone.


While he was playing on the "phone", I took a minute to check email and a friend's blog page. He likes to sit next to me whenever I happen to be on the computer during the day and when my friend's page popped up, he got very excited about their picture. He got very close so he could see better and said, "Daddy! Hey daddy!" (He calls all grown men daddy at the moment.) Then he pointed out the "babies" and waved and said hi and hey to everyone in the picture. :)

Yay! The best part of the day! His sisters come home! :) We brought Reegan back with us for a couple hours as well. When we went to pick them up, he kept calling out his oldest sister's name in a questioning voice as if to say, ok, where are you??? (My middle child's name is a little bit harder to pronounce.)

Showing off their big kid backpacks. They had a great first day of their new co-op school and we just got our table and chairs for our own homeschool and my oldest almost cried when I was getting ready to leave because she wanted to do more school right then! :) We'll see how long that eagerness lasts....hopefully a lot longer than I think! :}

pitiful girlie

Well, this has been an eventful weekend. My kiddos left Thursday evening in their RV for the weekend which gave me the luxury of an extra day off last Friday. Saturday was dinner at my mom's with my family and Michael's family - always a fun time! :) Sunday evening was Boomsday and a friend let us into one of the buildings on campus where we went up to the top (7th) floor and played games and chatted while in the cool, airconditioned, crowd-free study area with a huuuuge window! Definitely the way to view the fireworks! By the time the fireworks actually started, more people had thought of our great spot, so we had a crowd of children on the floor in front of us, oohing and awwing and making things more magical, as children tend to do. :)

The view from our window. See the bridge with arches? That's where they shoot the fireworks from...as pictured below...

Fireworks!! I brought my camera but totally forgot that the SD card was still in my computer!! Grr...so I took a quick pic with my cell phone.

Meanwhile, my kiddos were having a blast! The brought back a framed picture for me...here it is...

It's even better in real life! :)

However, Sunday evening, my oldest had just hopped on her bike and fell off, hurting her arm. They thought it would be just fine so they went ahead and stayed the night. By this morning, she couldn't move it without causing major pain and they were beginning to be afraid she had broken it. They called me to stay with the younger two while they took her to the ER. Thankfully, it is sprained, not broken, but I have actually heard that a sprain can be more painful than a bone break. So, her weekend has ended slightly differently than planned - lots of extra tv time instead of outside riding her bike time. Hopefully she will be as good as new very soon so we can get started on our kindergarten! :)

Such a sad little smile! Not even ice cream and two small snow cones (homeade - yummy!) cheered her up completely!