We're back...

Well, it's been almost a year since my last blog post. I'm not sure exactly why I stopped last fall, but it was probably a combination of lots of things - our first year homeschooling, coaching Joseph's soccer team, Sarah starting dance classes, Joseph and Sarah starting piano lessons, attending a homeschool co-op every week where I taught a Spanish class to 3rd-6th graders, teaching an online Spanish 101 course for the college, writing the Primary program, singing in the annual Christmas concert, arranging and performing in a flute trio, and David getting called to the High Council (meaning he is super busy on Sundays) -- either way, blogging fell off my to-do list.

So, I decided to start again. I'll tell you a little about what we're up to now and do a "flashback" post every now and then to share some pictures and stories from the past year.

For Grandma Carol - This is the bike you helped Kathryn buy.

August has been a crazy month. We went to Redding for a week and celebrated Joseph's birthday there. (That trip deserves it's own post...I have tons of pictures!)

At the lake

They built this in Redding...can you guess what it is?

7th Birthday - Wild Kratts "Cheetah Power" cake

Along the way, Sarah and Rachel got sick and had terrible coughs, which they passed to the other kids while we were all trapped in the van for the 12 hour drive.

The week after we got home the older kids went to a "Little Farmer" camp at a friend's farm here. They had a great time learning about all the different animals and life on a farm. They got to collect eggs, milk the cow, pick veggies from the garden, make butter, and do lots of fun crafts too. (Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of that). But, their favorite part was swinging on the rope swing that went over the creek and then "accidentally" falling in the water. =)

This past Tuesday was Sarah's first day of school. She is attending an elementary level Montessori school that recently opened here. Her teachers are great and her class is small (11 kids, 2 teachers), with mixed ages from 1st through 3rd grade. So far she is really enjoying the peaceful routine, personal attention, and ability to choose her own work during most of the day there. One day she went on a nature scavenger hunt with her class at the adjacent city park. Another day she played a rousing game of chess with a classmate.

First day of 2nd grade

Joseph and Kathryn are starting homeschool on Tuesday, and little David will start preschool at Montessori in the mornings a few days each week. We decided to NOT do soccer this year, at least not formally. We plan to play a lot of family games in the backyard. Sarah's going do ballet again and, new this year: Celtic soft shoe and hard shoe (tap). All three of the older kids will be taking piano lessons of some variety (either a private lesson, group class, or lesson with mom).

David and I are "back to school" too. Classes have started at the college again and David is teaching his regular load. I'm teaching Spanish 101 online again (this is my 3rd year now). We're doing a homeschool co-op again this year. So, it's looking like another busy fall. I'll try to keep you all updated.

Heather

PS If anyone wants to opt out of the automatic email updates when I make a blog post, just let me know by replying to the email. OR, if you don't get an email and would like to, let me know that, too.

Sarah's Big Day

Sarah celebrated her 6th birthday on March 17th. For breakfast, David took her (and only her) out to eat at a local breakfast restaurant. She LOVED it! She ate tons of waffles, eggs, and sausage and enjoyed getting lots of attention from all the people there.

Then she opened her presents.

And modeled her new dance stuff...

She talked to all her grandparents and lots aunts and uncles.

In the afternoon, she went shopping with Mom to get new shoes, a toy, and pick out an Easter dress. She checked out books from the library and played soccer with Joseph.

She had St. Patrick's day green cupcakes for dessert and enjoyed watching a basketball game later.

She claims it was the "best birthday ever!"

Since her birthday was on Saturday, she got to celebrate it on Friday at school. In Montessori the children take a photograph from each year of their life. They walk around the circle of children one time for each year  of their life while carrying a globe of the earth. The children sing "The earth goes around the sun, tra la la...etc." Every time they make a full revolution, they show the picture for the next year. Here are Sarah's pictures - one for each year.

Born March 17, 2006. She weighed 7lbs 14oz and was 21 inches long.

8ish? weeks old. She looks so cute, I had to include it.

March 2007 - one year old

2 years old

3 years old

4 years old

5 years old

6 years old

Things she loves....

1. Singing - all day, every day. We live in a musical.

2. Playing outside - swinging, playing soccer, playing tag, chasing the cats, and most especially digging in the dirt/mud and planting her own garden.

3. Helping Mom or Dad make dinner.

4. Reading - she surprises us almost every day with new words that she can read.

5. Holding her baby sister, whenever possible.

Happy Birthday Sarah Elizabeth - we love you!!

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.