80th Birthday

The next weekend we traveled

 for my maternal grandmother's 80th birthday!

Here's a shot of my grandmother and her 4 children.  My mom is on the left.

My mom organized an amazing dinner for the whole family complete with an amazing slide show down memory lane courtesy of my father.  Here is a shot of the whole family.  Other than a handful of people, it's cool to think that I am related to everyone in this picture.  I love my big family!

Here's my grandmother (standing) with her sister on the right and her aunt on the left.  They flew in from Alabama as special birthday surprises.  They had a good visit with each other.  This was the first time Aunt Sara had ever been on a plane.

There was lots of wrestling, football playing, and game playing.  I have fond memories of doing the same when I was a child with my cousins.  Now it's fun to see my kids getting to have the same fun memories.

Lots of cousins up a tree!

We had a great weekend celebrating with Granny Jean!  We look forward to many more years!  

Happy Birthday!

My dear friend

My first weekend away in November was to visit a dear friend that used to live in my town.  She has now moved to Northern Arizona and I was desperate for a visit.  Here's a shot of her beautiful family!

It was just gorgeous where she lives.  It reminded me of parts of Northern NM.  The smells were wonderful, the mountains were majestic, the food was great, and the fellowship was tremendous.

We spent a day hiking in a near by town.  It was chilly on our hike.  It was great to escape the heat for awhile.

It was wonderful seeing her family.  In some ways, things had changed (the kids were bigger and new house), but many other things were not.  Our friendship just picked up where it left off.  I hope our paths cross again soon.  She is such a blessing to my life!

Catch up

I am going to stop apologizing for neglecting the blog, because I am pregnant, married, and have 3 busy children.  Life just keeps happening.  As it so happens, I have a few non-busy days I am going to get caught up and attempt to stay caught up.

Grandparents Day

Crash's school hosted a Grandparent's Day last week.  We were excited to have my parents and my grandmother be able to join him for the day.  He was just positively giddy about the whole thing.  He has been looking forward to that for days.

I realize I am tall, but pictures like these always catch me off guard.

Here's the grandparents with our beloved teacher, Mrs. C.  We are so thankful to have her this year.

They did crafts together.

The kids performed for the grandparents.

I was the parent coordinator for the day.  I led a story time with the book "That's What Grandparents are for."  I had to be super crafty and creative for that day, which is so not me.  Thank goodness for ideas off the internet.

It was a fun day!  It just made Crash's day!  That was worth it all.  What a blessing to have Grandparents!

Enchanted Rock

We took the boys on our first official hike to Enchanted Rock.  It was about a 2 mile round trip so we thought we could handle that.

Everyone had to carry their own water, which was a huge relief to the backs of the parents.  It was fun sharing our love of the outdoors with the kids.  We talked about trail preservation, how to hike, etiquette, and beef jerky.  They actually enjoyed that after tasting it.

Crash loved this outing!  He is quite the hiker.

Hooray we made it to the top!

In addition, to their water bottles they all decided that had to bring a stuffed animal hiking.  Don't ask.  My chatty children made friends with some women visiting from the east at the summit.  They talked these ladies' ears off telling them about tadpoles, stuffed animals, and dinosaur bones.  Thank you ladies for listening to my children!

The nice ladies took a great family picture at the top!

We finished off the day with lunch in the park and a little birding.  It was a fun day!  We look forward to doing it again.

Homeschool Day at SeaWorld

SeaWorld had a homeschool day that we attended.  It was a significantly reduced rate than the usual admission.  There were no rides, but there was lots to see.

Here we are in a our "school uniforms"- our Lego Star Wars shirts.  

I had each of the boys carry a backpack with their own lunch and water.  Brilliant plan on my part.  I did end up carrying Wingman's by the end, but still a lot lighter than lugging 4 lunches and 4 bottles of water in my backpack.

There's a diver in the water feeding the fish.  They loved watching him.

Every where we go we have to have a map for each boy.  They love maps.

We saw the home for the sea lions.  They were putting on quite the show.  They were barking loudly and swimming all over.

Instead of the usual theatric shows they put on, we saw a more educational version.  They demonstrated how they trained the animals.  They brought out some younger whales and sea lions that are training to be in a show some day.  It was a fun day for all!

When we got home, Wingman had to make his own stadium out of blocks for all his dolphins, whales, and sea lions to have a show.  I forgot to take a picture, but it was great.  Apparently, our collection of animals does not include beluga whales so the manatees had to fill in as beluga whales.  That boy has an imagination!

Thank goodness for big brothers

Most nights the Captain reads to the boys.  We are talking 45min to an hour of reading.  I don't know how he does it (my voice tires after about 25 mins), but the boys look forward to it every night.  

One night just as book time began, the Captain had to deal with something at the front door.  I can't remember what I was doing, but I came in to find the Test Pilot had taken over and was reading to his brothers.

They loved every minute of it.  Sweet boys!

Game on

Soccer season has been going well.  I am at the part where I am ready for it to be over.  Both boys have been blessed with great coaches and good teams.

Here's a picture of Crash's team on picture day.  The big boy standing to the right of Crash is G.  We love G. He is a good soccer player, which is even more amazing given his size.  But more than that, he has taken little Crash under his wing. 

Let's just say Crash is not the most attentive player out there on the field during a game.  He gets distracted by many things like spectators, clouds, telling super hero stories to another child, etc.  Enter G.  He literally will grab, pull, or point Crash to where he is supposed to be.  Crash loves him and probably appreciates the help.  It just warms this mama's heart to see a child helping out my boy.  

Here's the Test Pilot on Team Newcastle United.  They used professional league team's name for the kids' team names.

Here's our team.  We have great coaches.  They balance each other well.  One guy yells in Spanish and the other in English.  It's pretty funny to watch the kids faces as they try to interpret the yells.

Here's the Test Pilot in his goalie garb.  He loves being goalie and has learned a lot this year.

Wingman is excited, because we learned that he gets to play next spring.  Watch out!

Heritage Day

Our local college hosted a Heritage Day describing life on the pioneer in the 1800's in the this area.  I had planned on taking the Test Pilot as a field trip, but when we discovered that Crash's school was going too, we decided to tag along.  

Here is Mountain Man Moses.  He was very interesting.  He demonstrated setting traps, skinning animals, making clothing out of the hides, knife throwing and much more.  The kids loved it.

There were various goats and miniature horses around to pet, which peaked the interest of Wingman.

Crash's class just looked adorable in their matching outfits.  I am a sucker for that sort of thing.

Here they are making rope.

The whole class plus my kids got roped.  That guy was very talented.

We went in a teepee for story time.

The guy gave a very balanced perspective of the Indian vs. White Man pioneer life.  All these speakers really had the kids' attention.

It was a fun and educational day.  We look forward to going back next year.

Sorry for the absence

We will just have to blame this blog absence on him or her.  We are expecting another baby next April.  I have been feeling pretty nauseated and very tired for awhile.  However, the nausea is now gone and the fatigue is easing a bit.

So far everything is going well for both baby and mom.  I am going to try and do better to check up with some posting this weekend.

Corn Maize

Our local homeschool group took a field trip to the South Texas "Maize".  It's a 7 acre corn field with a maze built in throughout.  

They do split the maze into 2 halves.  The Test Pilot, of course, had to do the longer portion first thing.  That boy loves a challenge!

While in the maze, you have to look for numbered posts that give you directions so you can escape the maze. It took us 35 minutes for the longer portion.  And it was very muddy.  The Test Pilot had a great time.

Wingman loved the corn popper.  A big air bag that you could jump on.  They had fun doing that with their friends.

We took a hayride around the owner's farm property.  We learned about cotton picking, pumpkin picking, and hogs.

What's life without a barrel train driven by a tractor.  The boys did this twice.  Mommy gracefully bowed out of this ride.  I don't think I would have fit.

We finished off the day with some great kettle corn for the long drive back home.  They had fun and want to come back.  Mommy is going to need a few days to recuperate from that field trip.

PS-  I got sunburned in October.  Agh!

I love kindergarten!

So Crash is going to a little private Christian school that is literally 1 min and 45 sec drive from my house.  We had heard rave reviews about this teacher and it sounded like the perfect place for our Crash.  It's even better because we knew about 1/2 the children and families already on the first day of school.

Things seem to be going well for him.  He is excited to go each day and I have had no complaints.

Since the school is held at a church they do not have a cafeteria.  So on Wednesdays the moms take turns providing "hot lunch" for all the children and their families.  We signed up for the first week.

I let Crash help pick the menu of all his kid-friendly favorites.  We had corn dogs, fries, and carrots, with a side of chocolate cake.

Wingman and the Test Pilot were so excited to go to his school and help cook and serve lunch.  They were very helpful.

At the end, I walked around passing out the chocolate cake.  I hand Crash his plate and he says with the biggest grin on his face, "I LOVE KINDERGARTEN!"

Apparently, having corn dogs with chocolate cake with your family is the best day ever at Kindergarten.

Bad drought

We are studying Apologia's Zoology focusing on creatures created on Day 5 of creation.  Specifically looking at birds, insects, bats, and butterflies.  We have enjoyed it so far.

The authors recommended regardless of the order of the book, to cover the insect section when it is warm.  So we have begun the insect section because it has been plenty warm.  There are many activities that include observations and experiments with live insects.

So we need to temporarily capture an insect to perform our activities.

I live in a buggy place.  Most years I could sadly admit that if I needed to find an insect, just look somewhere in the bathroom or right out the front door.  Fire ants are everywhere much to my chagrin.

However, this year we can hardly find any bugs.  I am not exaggerating.  There are no fire ant mounds in the backyard.  Very few mosquitoes.  No sugar ants in my kitchen.  We could only find a few bees in the flowers but I am not attempting to catch them.

I guess the drought has affected them too.  So we had a good lesson about the affects of drought on insects as well.

We really need some rain.

First Day of Kindergarten

Our sweet boy, Crash, finally started Kindergarten.  I say finally, because he is been excited since last spring.

Here's a shot in his uniform.  He looks so grown up.  

Here's the new school backpack.

This is him sitting at his new desk.  He was sitting with one of his good buds for pre-K and church.  In fact, he knows about half the class from pre-K and church, which made the first day even better.

Since alphabetically, our family almost always comes first, he was up to present his "All About Me" poster soon.  We went ahead and turned it today.  He was so funny working on that thing.

Mom asks, "What's your favorite food?"
Crash responds, "Lettuce."
Mom responds, "Really? Lettuce?"
Crash states, "Why yes!"

I knew he liked lettuce and salad but who knew it was his favorite.

We are looking forward to a good year!