MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wrestling

This is Grant's first year in wrestling and today he participated in his first wrestling tournament! He did really well for his first time and had fun, too!

Dave has been taking Grant to practices twice a week up at the high school. Today he helped out at the tournament. There were around 400 people who came from all over to wrestle in this tournament!

Our friend, Josh, and his little boy, Ethan, came to the tournament. Josh used to wrestle at this school and when Grant was younger, Josh taught him some wrestling moves, so it was really special to have Josh come to see Grant wrestle today!

Christmas Tour of Homes 2008

This is the first year I have joined the Christmas Tour of Homes that Boo Mama is hosting. It looked like a lot of fun last year, so I decided to try it! So,thanks to Boo Mama for hosting and to you for dropping by! :-)

Welcome to my home!
When you first walk in, you are greeted by this snowman, who says things like, "Come on in! It's cold outside!"

And it usually IS cold outside!

Here is our dining room~
And here is our tree and stockings~
No mantle for hanging stockings, so we used the bookshelves next to the tree where I would like a fireplace to be someday! :-)


Some ornaments~
My son made this one when he was in preschool. :-)

This little lady came on a package when I was a little girl. We put her on the tree and I used to play with her every year. Now my little girl plays with her every year! :-)

On the buffet~
We have a basket for Christmas cards and a Nativity with figurines that my kids can play with and act out the Christmas story with. We are celebrating the fact that God stepped into history as a baby and lived and died so that we could know and love Him.

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas!

Tree is up!

Getting Our Christmas Tree

A couple of days after Thanksgiving we went to a local tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree.

We took a hay ride out to the field of Balsam Firs and then started looking for the "perfect" tree.

Grant and Kate selected our tree and "helped" Dave cut it down. :-)

Thanks, Mom!

My mom sent me a Borders giftcard last year and while I have used it to purchase a book or two, I mostly use it for "dates" with my kids! They like to go to a bookstore with me and enjoy a snack while looking at books. It makes for a fun and cheap date! :-) I enjoy these relaxing times with my kids and I am always game for a cappuccino, too! :-)

Tea Time

Recently, Katie and her friend, Krystal, went to a fun place in town for tea time.

This shop has hats and gloves and necklaces that young ladies (and older ladies :-) ) can choose from to wear for tea. The girls selected their tea time attire and then were seated.

Along with plenty of giggles, they enjoyed tea and scones with whipped cream and jam.

When you are eight, you can only act like a young lady for so long...

As soon as the girls took off their finery, they were done with all of that sitting and acting proper! Thankfully, their moms agreed to give them some time to run and play together to get it all out of their systems! ;-)

Election 2008

News reports about the election repeatedly use the word, "historic." And so it is. I have to say that I am glad that Americans chose an African-American president. I am glad my children will see that the man in the most powerful position in the world is someone who looks like them. They will see children living in the White House who look like them. They won't see barriers holding them back because of their skin color. They will see that the sky is the limit for what they can accomplish in life. Alleluia! This makes me so happy it moves me to tears.

But, it pains me that I could not vote for the first African-American president of our country. I could not vote for him because of his unwillingness to protect innocent lives. I believe that life is precious; even the life of a baby still growing inside their mother's womb.

So, I feel a mix of incredible sadness and great elation at the outcome of this election. Now that Barack Obama has been elected, I want him to be a great president. I hope he is successful. I will pray that he will make good decisions for our country and be a great leader. I will also pray that he will become a champion of every American-even those yet to be born.

Football Game!

Dave surprised Grant one morning by telling him that the two of them were going to a professional football game that day! Grant was so excited he could hardly stand it. They had their first ride on the light rail, too, since they took it instead of having to deal with parking.

The guys had a great time together watching the game, eating snacks and getting some autographs. And to top it all off, their team won the game! Here are some pics from their fun day.

About This Blog

There are so many interesting blogs out there and I have discovered many that I love to return to again and again. These bloggers have such an engaging way of sharing their lives through words and pictures. I have bookmarked several blogs that I check on an almost daily basis because I like to see what they are up to. When I started this blog three years ago, I wasn't exactly sure what kind of a blog it would be, but it soon became clear how I wanted to use it.

This blog is mostly a scrapbook of our lives, so my kids can look back someday at some of the daily and special things we did while they were growing up. (In fact, I plan to get the blog printed into book form for them at some point.) In an effort to keep up with our busy days, I usually just post the pictures with a brief description of what we were doing and leave it at that. Occasionally I have shared more in depth about things close to my heart and it is fun to interact with others I have met in blogland, but I just don't have the time to post lengthy daily reflections about life most days.

So, if you happen to stop by, you are welcome here and I hope you will leave a comment to say hello! And I would love to go to your blog as well, whether it is a newsy place, a spot for deep reflections, or just a simple family scapbook. Happy blogging!

Halloween '08

This year, our friend, Melissa, and her daughter, Cecily, joined us for some trick-or-treating. We usually just go to houses where we know the families, on our street and the one behind us. After that, we get in the car and head to a nearby church that hosts a, "trunk-or-treating" event we have gone to the past few years. Families from that church park several cars in a big circle with the trunks facing in, decorate their trunks, and hand out candy to little trick-or-treaters. After going to all the trunks, you can go inside where they have pizza and some carnival-type games that kids can play. Attendance at this event has really increased in the last couple of years and we heard of three other churches that hosted their own versions of trunk-or-treat this year. It is a safe way for kids to dress up, get lots of candy and have fun.

We also heard that Chipotle restaurants will give free burritos to anyone dressed in tin foil on Halloween night, so of course we had to check it out! When we got there, we saw a long line of people wearing tin foil hats, belts and other creations, waiting for their free burritos. So, we joined the line and started twisting and crimping foil into headbands, bracelets, hats and belts. And, yes, we all got free burritos! We took the burritos home and will enjoy them for dinner tonight. That was a fun way to end the evening, and how can you say no to a free meal? ;-)

Science Class

The days are flying by ~ I can't believe it is already the middle of October! The kids and I have been enjoying our school days together. Today we did a couple of the experiments in the Sonlight science curriculum we are using this year. The kids loved it! I like this format, too. We watch a DVD and then do the experiment. All the supplies are in the kit. Science is not my strong suit, so having it all laid out like that makes it enjoyable for me, too.

Saturday Night At The Movies

We watched the first half of the movie, "Fiddler On The Roof" Saturday night and now we are all walking around singing, "If I Were A Rich Man." Grant tries to dance like Tevya in the movie when he sings it, which is quite amusing. :-) I haven't seen this movie for a long time and had forgotten how good it is! (Well, except for the dream sequence, which would have been a little too scary for the kids, but we fast-forwarded through that.) We are planning on watching the second half next Saturday.

Here's Life Inner City

These are the people my husband and I work with. What a great group! We are so blessed.

Game Time

Grant's football team, the Cyclones, has started playing games against other teams now. It is kind of exciting when they play at night under the bright lights. Grant is learning a lot and having a blast! He has gotten to play a number of different positions so far. The coach gives out a candy bar award for good blocking after each game and Grant won the first one! The player across from him on the other team kept scooting sideways so Grant would not hit him. :-)

School Started!

We started school on Monday and took pictures in front of the flag like we do every year on the first day of school. Summer seemed to really fly by this year and it is hard to believe that we are back to our school routine already. But, I am glad to have a regular schedule and I really enjoy teaching my kids. I love the fall and the whole, "back to school" excitement. I got the kids little gifts that were waiting for them at their seats on Monday morning ~ just some fun little things from the dollar bin at Target, like a new pencil box, crayons, gel pens, glue sticks and a mini globe. They were thrilled. :-)

Kate is in 3rd grade now. Third grade! How did that happen? I remember third grade so well and am trying to see things through her eyes and imagine how she feels about things that happen in her life and with her circle of friends.

Grant is in 4th grade this year. That sounds so grown up to me and I can't believe he is old enough to be in that grade already. His work load has increased since third grade and he is having some trouble adjusting to that, but it is mostly his attitude that is making it difficult for him. He is a good student when he wants to be.














We had a great first day and we are looking forward to a great school year! :-)

Our Curriculum

Reading, writing, phonics, spelling
Writing Road To Reading (Reading Works)

Abeka readers and library books

Language, grammar

Writing Road To Reading, Abeka language workbooks

Cursive practice

Abeka cursive workbook, daily writing assignments

Math
Math-U-See (Kate-Gamma, Grant-Delta)

History
The Story Of The World, Vol.4: The Modern Age (Book and Activity Book)

Science
Plant Life (Books: Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening, Usborne Flower Sticker Book, Midwest Book Of Wildflowers)

Batteries, Your Body, Weather (Sonlight Discover & Do DVD and Usborne Book Of Science Activities, vol.3)

Art
Painting, Drawing (How Great Thou Art curriculum)

Co~op Art Class

Music
Color The Classics (Godly Composers & Christmas Classics)

Piano Lessons

Co~op Music Class

P.E.
Tackle football (Local Recreational City League) (Grant)

Co~op P.E. Class

Playing outside with friends :-)

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State Fair

Every year, the kids ask if we can go to the fair and every year, we think about it and then the time flies by and we never quite make it to the fair. This year, though, we finally did it. Dave and I are not really that big on the fair, but we actually had the best time this year of any of the times we have gone. Maybe it was more fun for us since Grant and Kate are older now and want to try so many things at the fair. It was fun watching them get so excited about everything.

We spent a lot of time looking at the animals and even watched 4H people show their goats. We thought the kids might get tired of it, but they were so intrigued with the whole thing. There is a building called, "The Miracle of Birth," where pregnant sheep or cows actually give birth right where you can watch, if you happen to be in there at the right time. We waited forever for a cow to give birth and finally pulled the kids away, but they did not want to go. They were just sitting there watching this cow walk around the pen. It would have been exciting to see the birth, but it could have been hours until that happened. We did get to see chicks hatching, which was exciting, too.

By evening we headed to the midway, where all the rides were lit up. The kids had ridden a few rides at the "kidway" earlier in the day, where the rides are more tame. This is the last time we will be able to do that, though, as Grant especially is ready for the real deal. Both Grant and Katie wanted to play some of the carnival games to try to win prizes, so we checked them all out and they chose the ones they wanted. Katie actually won a stuffed monkey at one game and a crown at another! She was thrilled. But, poor Grant. He played the same game over and over because he was sure he could win a guitar and burst into tears when it did not happen. For some reason, getting a free yardstick a little later soothed the wound of losing the guitar. (I do not quite understand how that works, but I think he just wanted something in his hands that he had "won!" :-) )

So, we had a good time and yes, we ate way too much, but isn't that part of the fair experience? :-)

Another Day at the Lake

We are trying to enjoy every last bit of summer before it ends and the school year begins, so we hit the lake again recently. This is such a quick and easy way to feel like you are on vacation. We usually get to the lake in the morning and and grab a spot along the beach with a grill. We grill burgers and hotdogs for lunch and dinner and hang out at the beach all day. It is so relaxing. Dave and I have had the chance to have some great conversations and the kids are happy campers because they can play in the water all day. So, it is becoming a favorite way for our family to spend a hot summer day! :-)