November in Photos

This is how he gets cozy when he is watching a little movie.

He pulls up his special chair and arranges his favorite blanket (aka "deet-deet") on his lap every time.

Sarah's fall festival picture. She is wearing all of her "cowboy girl" gear from Grandpa:

Wrangler shirt and jeans and pink boots that light up.

When we bought our house last year everything was set up for wheelchair access. There was a really nice ramp in the garage that made it easy to move in. But, it took up too much space. When the weather got cold, David decided that he was tired of scraping ice off his car every morning. So, he took out the ramp (it was no small task) and built two steps in it's place. Now, we can fit both vehicles in the garage!

Our first (and only-so far) snowfall of the year.

They rolled giant snowballs to make a snowman, but I wouldn't go outside to stack them.

In fact, I took all of these pictures from inside. 

Yeah, I'm wimpy about the cold like that.

We set up the tree the Monday before Thanksgiving because

Grandpa and Grandma Wiseman were here.

We had so much fun when Grandpa, Grandma, and Laura came to visit!

We even got a semi-decent family photo out of it. =)

David has some amazing concentration skills. 

He's doing some editing while little Davey uses dad for a chair.

When Grandpa Chuck came for Thanksgiving he showed up with a full mustache and goatee. Kathryn thought he was scary and didn't believe he was the same Grandpa that she played with at the lake this summer. Then he shaved it off--they enjoyed watching that--and she declared him to be her real Grandpa after all. 

Thanksgiving dinner (Grandpa with a goatee). He made some awesome potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and pie. I made a sweet potato casserole and attempted to make rolls again (failed). 

Sunday morning before church (sans goatee), right before he left. The kids and I all loved having family come visit for the holiday. It was so nice to have the extra help around the house. The kids enjoyed playing games with their grandparents and sharing their talents (they were constantly drawing pictures for them or singing songs they had learned).

Blog trivia: how many times did you spot Davey's blanket in various photos in this post?

Fall Photos

We tried to take some pictures of the kids after church today because they all looked fairly nice, clean, and well groomed. It was hard to get everyone happy in one big group picture. It was also difficult to get the girls to either smile, or not act too silly. I was hoping we'd get something for a Christmas card, but we might have to try again for a group shot. See the progression below:

Random Photos and Activities from September

 I've been really lazy about updating the blog and taking pictures. We've been so busy here. Toward the end of September I went to a seminar in the Tri-cities area (in eastern Washington, just 2.5 hours from our house). The speaker was Robyn Openshaw - aka Green Smoothie Girl. I've read stuff on her blog before and tried to implement some of her ideas. Well, going to seminars like that get me all excited about eating healthy again. So, here's baby David drinking his smoothie. It's mostly fruit, but has some spinach in it too. He loves it!

At the seminar, I won some cool stuff -- including Robyn's 12-step program, cookbooks, and other goodies. That was Friday night. I got to stay the night with a friend (David stayed home with the kids) and the next day I went to the temple there. It was a great little getaway for me.

Sarah and Joseph are playing kindergarten soccer. It's hard to tell in this picture, but Joseph is at the front of the line and Sarah is at the back. They have a ton of fun and get lots of exercise.

And, they get a snack after the game. I think that is secretly why Joseph goes. One funny thing is that the teams are all sort of randomly assigned according to where kids live or go to school. On our kids' team there are 5 LDS kids and one who is not (the coach's son). 

Davey was trying to use a fork to eat his PB&J and we wanted a picture of it, but he stopped once the camera came out. He is getting so big!

He likes to climb up on the chairs and eat the leftovers off the table. Sometimes he sits on the table too if he can't reach what he wants. He also likes to pull chairs up to the kitchen sink and make messes with the water. His all-time favorite activity though is unrolling ALL of the toilet paper--directly into the toilet--then trying to flush it. We've had more than one clogged toilet this week. In fact, he also put the cardboard roll down my toilet and got it very stuck. We're not sure how to prevent this TP obsession since the other kids need to have easy access to the bathroom, toilet, and toilet paper and I can't guard the bathrooms 24/7.

Here's Kathryn on her first day of preschool (sort of--she went in May a few times, but now she's full-time).

Here she's putting on her slippers. 

We have about 50 different house projects that we'd like to do. They're all in different stages of being completed: everywhere from "dreaming about it" (aka the kitchen) to "I just need to do a little touch-up painting and it will be finished". Above is a picture of the master bathroom and the lovely roll-in shower. It seemed like more water rolled out onto the floor than actually went down the drain, so we never used this shower. Instead we trekked down the hall to share the kids' blue bathtub. I really wanted a deep soaking tub because that's what I love when I'm pregnant, and because it would be nice to shower in our own bathroom with a little more privacy. So, I searched for the perfect tub (it took several months), had it shipped to us, and got bids from different contractors/plumbers. At the beginning of September the demolition began.

After a day of work--by a professional (not us!) we had this big hole. Sarah gladly modeled in the picture.

After another day the tub was in it's spot and the concrete board was going up.

After many more days and numerous trips to different stores to look at tile samples, we finally have this beautiful tub/shower. I'm very pleased with the end result and sure enjoy it. Now, I need to finish painting (notice the wall on the left is a lighter beige color while the wall on the right is a darker brownish color--we'll be painting it beige...but I am dreading doing that side because of the toilet, vanity, mirror, light fixture, etc. that are in the way). So, one more project {almost} done!

And, we're already working on the next project. This is a room out in the shop that was nearly finished when we bought the house. All the walls had sheetrock and were taped, but no texture, paint or flooring aside from the plywood. We've been patching holes (hence the pink spackle spots), spraying texture, and laying some of the left over wood floor from our family room. We'll be painting it this week and installing baseboard and window trim. Then, David gets to use the room as his home office.

And baby #5 is....

I'm several weeks behind on blogging because we've been so busy with the start of the new school year.

Sarah loves going to Kindergarten and still enjoys Montessori in the afternoons. Her kinder teacher says that she does very well at school. Her favorite activities include recess, computer lab, library time, and P.E. In Montessori she enjoys painting, singing, reading, and doing various creative projects.

Joseph was a bit jealous at first that he wasn't going to public school too, but he got over it when he realized that he would miss out on all our fun outings and park days if he wasn't at home in the morning. He's also doing homeschool math, reading, and writing with me on occasion.

Sarah and Joseph are also playing soccer this fall. They practice once or twice a week and played their first game last Saturday. They think it's a lot of fun and I think it's great exercise for them.

Kathryn is going to Montessori in the mornings, 4 days a week now. She looks forward to it everyday and her teacher says she is a busy little bee at school, choosing and completing many different work projects every day.

Davey is growing into quite a rambunctious little boy. He climbs onto and into whatever seems interesting, he makes sound effects for his cars, trains, and dinosaurs, and loves to wrestle with Dad. He's very energetic and keeps us on our toes. That's why we're grateful that our next baby will be...

a GIRL! Yay--bring on the cute ruffly, pink clothes. =) Today was my ultrasound and everything looked pretty good. We're excited about having another girl.

Now, we just have figure out how to fit our whole crew into our van. We have enough seats, but squeezing in all the necessary car seats or booster seats is going to be tricky.

Joseph's Big Day -- He's Finally 5

Joseph's birthday was on Monday. He had been counting down the days for nearly two weeks. The fun all started on Sunday when the Primary sang to him and spotlighted him. He had been looking forward to that all year. 

First thing Monday morning he wanted to open his presents. Here's his loot - some awesome kid-sized (real) tools, a tool box, a dinosaur encyclopedia, frisbees, and tons of play dough. 

That morning was also his (and Sarah's) first day of swim lessons. They are true beginners in the "Tadpole" class. Joseph was really excited about going to swim lessons until his teacher made everyone jump into the pool to get started. After much coaxing, both Sarah and Joseph finally jumped in with just a little help. [By Friday this week, they are fearlessly jumping in by themselves, so we've seen a lot of progress].

This is what Joseph chose for his birthday cake. It's Angel Food cake and we served it with whipped cream and lots of strawberries. I just didn't want to get wax all over the cream and strawberries during the birthday candle extravaganza. We succeeded in keeping the whipped cream wax-free, but the inside of the cake had to be completely cut out. It was still too hot when we put the candles in, so they melted like butter. Joseph had the hardest time blowing out his candles--he just couldn't aim his air stream at the flame. It was super funny to watch!

Joseph has been asking for a crib for his little blue doggie for at least a year now. Both Sarah and Kathryn have doll cribs, so he thought that his doggie needed one too. We told him that we'd "get" him one for his birthday. So, using the tools he got from Grandma and Grandpa Wiseman, he worked all afternoon with David out in the shop building this little crib for his doggie. David made the saw cuts, but Joseph did most of the hammering and helped with measurements. Yesterday he and I primed and painted it. It's now red and he adores it.

Some things that Joseph is interested in these days:

1. Reading - he can read most words in simple children's stories. He enjoys reading signs and labels wherever we go.

2. Dinosaurs - he is fascinated by them and wants to learn all about the different species. The encyclopedia he got was just up his alley.

3. Riding his bike (without training wheels) and playing at the park with friends.

4. Learning about different countries while coloring each country's flag. So far he has completed all the flags from North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. In fact, he just loves geography in general. I think he could locate and name more countries at the age of 4 than most high school graduates.

5. Singing - all of our kids love music and singing. At Primary the music leader challenged the kids to memorize the "book" songs. (They're songs that teach the names of all the books in the Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon). Joseph practiced everyday and in only a few weeks he had all three songs memorized. He was one of the first kids to complete the challenge. (Sarah is very close - she has memorized two songs and probably knows the 3rd one 90% of way). 

6. Helping Mom around the house. Joseph is usually very willing to help with different chores and tasks around the house. Of course, he has his grumpy defiant days too, but overall he's such a good boy.

Here is the post about his birthday last year where I posted pictures of him over the years. You can look back at them if you like (just click on the word "Here" at the beginning of the sentence).