What to take...

Katie had a project to name some important things to take with her as an immigrant to America in Colonial times. The first thing on her list was books- doesn't sound bad. Then I had to explain to her that a cell phone wouldn't be one of them. She was a little upset that they couldn't call their families from the boat and tell them they were doing okay and to send more corn bread and juice. Somedays it is hard to save the laughter for later, but I think she learned a lot. Her final list looked like this:

1. Books (she has to learn on the boat)

2. Food (she might get hungry)

3. Water (she might get thirsty)

4. Paper and Pen (to write home to her friend M down the street)

5. clothes (an afterthought with some prompting)

First Day of School

We had a big party to celebrate our opening day of school. We introduced our learning adventure for this year- Colonial America. We gave each of the kids a costume and had Captain Moroni come as a guest to tell us about his fight for freedom. I am excited about our learning year. It's been a big thing to put together. I got the idea for the curriculum from courageousbeings.com and am basing this year on their Noble Birthright adventure. However, I've had to write the language arts portion to better suit me, sew costumes, decorate the school room, plan field trips, gather supplies, etc for the year. It almost feels like putting on a play. It's worth it now. A lot of that work will last for the year and I can sit back and enjoy the ride.

The kids loved their first week of school. How it works is they have a certain amount of math and language assignments to do each week and then they can choose their science, history, art, special theme math, music, etc assignments from a list of projects (or come up with their own on mom's approval) that work with our key information for the week. They love having the choice and say they are learning a lot already. It's been great so far. Jon is really getting into the theme as well (I'm so glad I married a man who doesn't mind dressing up like a Nephite for our kids) and is even helping me begin an outline for next year when I plan on writing my own adventure. Fun stuff and also very busy stuff.

Lilly at 9 months

It was really hard to get her to sit still for her 9 month portraits. She's got crawling down this last month and she loves to explore the world around her. Her first experiment when encountering a new object is to put it in her mouth and taste it which was the other difficulty in getting her pictures this month. She's also got her first two teeth in at last and was trying to bite my nose today with them :) She loves to do tricks and we've nicknamed her "monkey" because of it. She'll make sure she is being watched and then will dance or some other thing for people. She also loves waving at people she meets.

Happy Birthday Katie!

Our sweet Katie turned 5 this week! Here is a peak of her pictures :) She says her favorite toy is a barbie house with a barbie. Her favorite movie is Cinderella. Her favorite story is Cinderella. Her favorite thing to do is to make pizza and cookies.

Lilly at 8 months

Our little sweetheart turned 8 months old this last week. She still doesn't crawl but is getting close. She is good at scooting to where she wants to go and she has now pulled herself to a standing position twice on the furniture. She is starting to talk more and it is fun to hear her voice. She continues to love being around people and is very social BUT only if mom or dad are holding her. She is a very calm and good baby and very loved.

Mama's Girl and Silly Boy

I got myself a mama's girl and I love it! Lilly has entered that clingy stage where she likes her parents more then anyone else and her mommy in particular.

First Lemon

Don't the pictures say it all? The funny thing is this is her 3rd or so taste since I didn't have the camera out for her first. She kept going back for more, so maybe it wasn't so bad really.

Lilly at 7 months

Here are some 7 month pictures of Lilly. This month she's learned to stick out her tongue and spit. My favorite new skill that she's learned is to give kisses. She takes your face in both hands and brings your face down to her mouth and then she starts "kissing" or eating you for a second or two, and then let's go with a big grin on her face. Really wet and adorable. She's starting to scoot around a little to move. Other then that she continues to be a really happy, easy-going baby and we sure do love her.

Silly

It always seems like my kids are the most happy when they are being silly :)

Jedi Sam

Samuel got to go to a birthday party for a boy in his class at school this last month. This little boy LOVES Star Wars so the mom created the theme around Jedi training. So cute! Here is Sam dressed up and ready to learn the ways of the Jedi and showing off his light saber moves.

Soccer

I put the boys in the Rec Soccer for this next year. They have a camp they do in the summer for it and then they will start to play games in the Fall. So far they are loving it. Each player got a free soccer ball for signing up and they love playing in the backyard with each other. They've made some new friends already and I think it will be a good experience for them.

Dragons

I was reading to Katie from the book Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George (I got to meet the author yesterday btw- so much fun!- and get my book autographed!). If you love fairy tales these books are for you and my girl LOVES fairy tales. In fact, all my kids do. As the name suggests there are dragons in the book.

So at dinner today Katie says in this growly voice "I am powerful! I am a dragon with huge jagged teeth. Grrrrrrr!"
Samuel tells her "I'm not afraid of you!"
Katie: "You're not afraid of me? I am drinking lions blood (juice) and eating bears (bread and pasta and veggies) so I can be the biggest dragon of them all! Grrrrrrr!"

They then went on to all be dragons roaming the land and eating bears and drinking lions blood so they could grow to be the biggest beasts. Even Lilly was a dragon though her growl was more a fierce sticking out her tongue at you and spitting (a new habit). As they ate more and more bites of their grizzly dragon meals they started to slowly stand up on the chairs like they were growing until they were finished eating and started jumping around on the floor in this jumping jack kind of motion to signify more growth. Then they flew around the house to rescue maidens and do other noble dragon deeds.

Lilly at 6 Months

Lilly turned 6 months this last month. She keeps on getting bigger and more beautiful. I finally got a picture of her sucking her thumb. She is not huge into binkies, though she does use them when she is tired to get to sleep, so she's developed this habit of sucking on her thumb. She is the only one of my kids to do so. She's generally a very happy and patient baby and a joy to us all. She loves playing with toys and being with people. She's sitting up very well and can roll over.

Astrofest

A couple of weeks ago BYU had their annual Astrofest where families can come and learn a little about physics. There were demonstrations, tours of the labs, and planetarium shows. By far the favorite for us was making our own rockets and having them launched. Each of the kids worked so hard to make the best rocket they could and were so excited to watch them launch high into the air and then come back down to earth.

Children and reading

I finally got a decent picture of the kids together. The other one is a silly one because they insisted that if they were good they got to do a couple of silly pictures too. They are so fun!

The other day when we woke up it was really quite in the house and we figured that either they were still asleep or up to some mischief. We were pleasantly surprised to find all three of them reading books to themselves in the boy's room.

This last week I had gotten them a children's poetry book because I decided they needed some more exposure to poetry. The weather was really nice outside and I was out reading the book to Lilly while the older three were playing around the yard. Slowly they all three came up on the porch to listen to the poems and Jacob even asked to read some of the poems aloud to everyone. When I told them that I had bought them a book of poetry they started shouting for joy. I must be doing something right.

They all love reading and books. Right now their favorite stories to have me read to them are Grimm's Fairy Tales and we've been really enjoying reading them together. I'm so grateful they can have so many experiences with books and that they want those experiences.

Bee Adventure

Jon and the kids had a bee adventure this last Saturday. When a beehive gets too big it splits and the one half goes looking for a new home. This homeless half ended up in our neighbors front yard in their search and they had to call a bee keeper to come and take the bees away to a home where they would be more appreciated. What an incredible sight!

Checking In

I've been so busy lately! I thought I ought to check in real quick and update everyone on how we are doing.

Easter: The children really enjoyed Easter this year. I hope to post pictures soon. They got to do an Easter Egg Hunt at church. In their baskets I tried to have less candy and more useful things so I put in matching spring jammies- even one for Lilly, jump ropes which they've been happily jumping with ever since, clay dough, and some homemade Sunday journals they can write or draw a picture in once a week about their lives with some fun pens to write in them with.

Piano: I've finally been able to start giving the boys piano lessons- something I've been wanting to do for them for a long time. Right now I'm only giving the boys lessons and won't require lessons for Katie until she reaches her 1st grade year. I found a piano book I really like- John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course. I'll have to post some videos of them playing soon. Even Jon has been using the course to teach himself. I went between having someone else give them lessons and doing it myself but after finding out how much piano lessons cost today (eek!) I decided that I would rather use the money to have them learn something I can't teach them and with a group. My plan at the moment is to require two years and after that they can choose to continue or do another instrument or both.

Homeschooling: Homeschooling Katie has been a very interesting learning experience for me. Her first love is math right now. She asks to do it first every day and usually wants to do a couple of sections at a time. Reading seems to be her least favorite for the moment, though I have hope that she'll grow to love it as it becomes easier for her. We play games to make learning more fun. During April I would hide the words we were working on in Easter Eggs around the house and have her go on a hunt and find them and read them to me. Some of the eggs would have m&m's or other little treats in them. I got her a Hello Kitty notebook (her favorite at the moment) and we are working on making a story book of sentences she can read and then illustrate. She's so funny because when we get to a word that is hard for her or she is feeling lazy she always, always reads it as "tad" after sounding the letters out correctly. Even though her reading seems very slow most of the time, she has been making steady progress and that's what is important.

Church: I just got called to be the Activity Days leader in our ward. I'm really excited to work with the girls in our ward twice a month and get to know them better. I have vague memories of Merrie Miss and how much fun it was. I can even remember my leader's name- Sister Smith. I had my first activity day last week and it was so weird to be out of the house that long without any children and a nice little break.

Arches

The kids helped me clean the house from top to bottom for Spring Break and to celebrate them being so good and helpful we took them out to Arches National Park for the last bit of the break. They had so much fun exploring and climbing. The park is very beautiful and different from anything I've seen before. We hope we can go back again sometime.

Lilly at 4 and 5 months

This is Lilly at 4 months old:

The rest of these are at 5 months old:

I was playing peek a boo with her to get her to smile and didn't quite frame this one right, but I love the smile anyway :)

I'm a bit behind on getting these up. The week Lilly turned 4 months old, my sweet grandma passed away and this got slacked off in the meantime.

Lilly continues to grow and learn. It so fun watching her! At church on Sunday she was very silly tired and was laughing at everyone who would stop and look at her. She's generally very happy. She's been working on getting some teeth in, but I'm sure we have a month to go yet. Just lots of slobber for now and chewing on anything she can get a hold of and put in her mouth. She's not big into rice cereal and gave me the most awful looks the first time I gave it to her. Now she'll eat it but she doesn't care for it and needs to be well rested to go for it. She rolls from side to side now, but not all the way over. She's recently become fascinated with her toes and tries to catch them and eat them all day long. She continues to love baths and is getting really good at splashing in them and giggling at her splashes.

Kindergarten Program

Sam recently had his Kindergarten Program where the class sings all the fun songs they've learned over the year. Sam is great at music and learning lyrics. He did a great job:)