This week Rock turned the big 34 and I made the best pie I’ve ever made in my life!  That is not really saying much because I’ve made very few.  My mother was not a pie maker (to the eternal chagrin of my father) and so I am not a pie maker.  But I’ve made one most years we’ve been married on Rock’s birthday.  Oh, and I always make sure he gets a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.  So here is the beautiful pie he got to enjoy for his birthday.

And I should point out that I had help with this pie.  All the boys helped out.

And also this week Liberty learned to dance.

I’m going to do a blog post each week about what we learned and did in school. I’ll title them all Homeschool Highlights so that if any of you don’t want to see what we did in school you can skip it. Some weeks I’ll write about the academics and some weeks I’ll write about our other experiences that week. But I suppose these posts will evolve over time. Maybe they’ll even morph into their own blog. Who knows!

Our second week of school went great!

• Liberty took her first steps this week and the boys were all there to share in the excitement. She just stood up in the middle of the room and started walking! I thought the boys were going to scare her to death they were all cheering and hollering so loud for her!
• The boys learned their second poem, “Higglety Pigglety Pop”
• For writing this week the boys journaled about their summer vacation… better late than never! Cade’s entry about our trip to the Statue of Liberty was titled, “Liberty Finally Realizes She’s Famous”
• In history we learned about the Code of Justinian and his interesting wife, Theodora from the Byzantine Empire.
• Reagan started piano lessons this week.
• For our field trip we went on a hike at the Watchung Reservation near our home. These boys LOVE being out in nature and we are going to have to do this more than once a week I think!
  
  Lake Surprise

  
  Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick!

  We ended our field trip at the Loop Playground. Reagan pushed Libby on the swing and she loved it!

  

Our next stop in Utah this summer was Uintah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hymas and family.

Libby and Monica hit it off really well, being kindred spirits and all.

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins

Marvelous Mud!

Awesome Uncles!

Liberty was a little unnerved by the similarities between these two.

Cute Cousins!

 
 

We spent a fun day at the lake.
 

Libby and Levi were NOT into the water.

But they liked the sand!

Ummm, what’s wrong with this picture?

Bathing Beauty

We also spent a fun day at the Fair.




Food break

Foot massage

We played at the water park too!

We roasted Smore’s in the back yard.

And just had lots of fun playing around Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Mooching food from Grandma

Playing Piano with Grandma

Playing Pit

The favorite place in all of Grandma’s house.

We had a great time and miss everyone already!  Thanks for the wonderful trip!  (sorry it took so long to tell the story!)

Our first week of homeschooling  (last week) went rather well!  The first couple days were a little rocky just like our trial week back in February.  But once we got into our groove and once I figured out my curriculum and lessons, etc we were running like a well oiled machine for the most part!  Here’s a few highlights:

-We set up an obstacle course around the house for break times that grew each day.  We added a floor of the house to it each day.

-Instead of sitting still at a desk, Reagan got to run and jump around while he answered math questions.

-The boys decided on their own to  memorize several of the extra verses of the primary song Book of Mormon Stories and begged to sing it every morning.

-For science this week, the boys studied an animal of their choice.  We checked out books at the library on Cheetahs and Peregrine Falcons and learned all we could about them.  Then we typed them into Google and watched all the fun videos we could find of these beautiful and amazing animals.  I loved watching and learning right along with them!  Cade was so excited about science this week he was literally running and jumping all over the house.  Here’s a picture of his little page that he wrote for his science binder.

-And the biggest highlight was our first ‘Friday field trip’ to a creek that runs through one of the parks in our town.  The boys have been begging to go fishing here for weeks, so they made their own fishing poles with sticks, string and some bent paper clips and we headed to the park. 

I chose to ignore my irrational fears that someone  would stop us and demand to know why my children were fishing (FISHING!) instead of sitting in a classroom somewhere or that Child Protective Services would show up and haul me away.  It’s striking how strong societal norms and the need for conformity really are.  I’m told it gets easier with time, this being a rebel.  And we had a great time! We hardly saw any fish and none were caught, but we saw some great animal tracks and bugs galore and Levi had a blast running through the creek  in his galoshes.  It was the PERFECT thing for little boys to do.  They wandered all over the creek, climbed the banks, looked at rocks and bugs and it was just wonderfully NATURAL!  And as people walked past us on the path I just smiled, looked them in the eye and said, “Hello!”

Tying the worm on the hook.

  Deer                                             Raccoon

I’ve been meaning to blog about our trip to Utah since we got home from our travels this summer, but just never had the time with school preparations and the fact that we lost these pictures for a while when we got home.  Kudos to my computer genius husband who recovered them for me!

Our first stop in Utah was to visit the Utah Wesels; Derek, Penny and Lincoln and our wonderful Aunts who missed us so much, Alli and Sarin (an adopted Utah Wesel).
We went on a hike up to Stewart Falls, which was probably biting off more than we could chew with 6 little kids and a thunderstorm, but it made for some good memories! I ended up
carrying Levi for a good portion of the hike. 

Hiking buddies

I know, it’s pathetic how much taller she is than me.

And what trip would be complete without Levi falling flat on his face?  This is taken just after he fell.


We managed to finally reach the falls just as the rain started.  We spent a total of 1 minute “enjoying” the view before we had to run for cover.
We had a wonderful time visiting the Utah Wesel’s.   It was great to spend some time with Penny who we haven’t gotten to know much yet!  We sure love her.  And her husband is nice too.

We also spent some time with our good friends the Weiss family.  Wherever they move, we find them!  They can’t get rid of us, no matter how hard they try!

The Hymas and Weiss kids LOVE to tackle Rock.

And the Hymas and Weiss dads (and moms) LOVE to talk!

There’s never enough time with the Weiss’.  We love you guys!

While we were with the Weiss’ we went to visit Derek at the National Guard base where he was training to be deployed to the Middle East.  Der gave us an awesome tour of the Apache helicopter he flies.  The kids (and the dads) were in awe.

That’s a LOT of firepower!

Yeah, well, I’m still older, smarter AND better looking! So there.

I will admit that it was very cool to see how much my little brother knows about this massive amazing machine.   I was proud. 

Thank you for serving our country, Derek!  You are a great example to our boys.  We love you and admire your courage.

Stay tuned for Part II!