Last week we spent our field trip day at Aunt Janie’s.  Here are the highlights.

When he actually took  the hay from her hand, it scared her to death and she ran away.

Aunt Janie has a knack for finding fun things for the boys to investigate.  Reagan’s collection of dead things, bones, bugs, and empty critter homes has grown by leaps and bounds since moving here.  This time she found an awesome cow spine for the boys to examine.

Trying to entice Corky to play fetch.  It wasn’t working.

The kids spent the whole afternoon chasing the chickens and then couldn’t figure out why, in the end, the chickens didn’t want to be held.  Aunt Janie had to catch this one for Levi. 
And no, that is not a fleck of dirt on my camera screen nor is it a fleck of dirt on Levi’s forehead.  It is Levi’s 16th attempt to wreck his forehead.  Nothing but a scratch this time, but it will leave ANOTHER scar, mark my words.  However, I Still cannot complain too much.  We have not yet had the pleasure of seeing the inside of an ER here in Boise and we’re going on 9 months!!. 

Look familiar?


This is a sweater that my grandmother made for me when I was Liberty’s age.  The kittens are made from real angora and they are so soft and fuzzy to the touch.  Liberty loves “kitty cats” right now, so this sweater is a favorite.  

Today at lunch Liberty was trying to take off her bandaid and asked, “Where’s the door to my bandaid?”

We have a new whiteboard on our fridge for writing nice messages to each other and this is one Levi left Rock today:

For those who need a translation: You’re Awesome.

This is how we know.

Though there are no buds on the trees yet and no robins chirping, today we were all thrilled to see the farmer plowing his field to get it ready for spring planting.  I am thrilled because that means the world will be green again soon.  But you’d have thought it was Christmas the kids were so excited.  They love to watch all the seagulls and birds that flock to the worms just turned up by the plow.  And they jump on the trampoline as high as they can to wave to the farmer and scream their hellos as he passes.  I guess there is just something exciting about a tractor no matter how old you are.   Especially when the tractor is in your back yard.

Welcome Spring!

Who needs Disneyland!

We are still alive, though the Grandmothers are beginning to doubt as they suffer from lack of grandchild pictures.  But we honestly haven’t had a lot to blog about of late.  I have almost (almost) wished that Levi would fall and break something open just so I would have something to blog about!  But to tide you over.  Here are some funnies.

The other night Cade lost a privilege and was worried he might lose another so Levi, in an attempt to help his brother with the best advice he could think of, said “Say a prayer, Dude!”

A few days ago Rock was putting Liberty in her bed for the night just as I was leaving to go shopping.  Here’s their conversation:
Libby: Can I go with Mommy?
Rock: No.
Libby: Can I go with Mommy?
Rock: No.
Libby: Can I go with Mommy?
Rock: No.
Libby: Can you say yes?

And lastly, tonight I gave the kids some jump ropes that they have been asking for and Liberty thinks hers is called a “grandpa roper”.  We aren’t going to correct her mispronunciation any time soon and I think Grandpa Roper would agree!

This year we are doing things a bit differently in our homeschool.  We had a good year last year, but we spent so much of our time doing the “have to’s” that we didn’t have any time for the “want to’s”.  I was rushing through devotionals and skimping on story times because of how much the boys were working on every day.  This was totally backwards from what I had originally intended for our school.  So we made some changes.  This year story time (reading good books and discussing them) and gospel study and character building take up a much bigger chunk of our school day.  And I am giving the boys more say in what they actually do in each of their subject areas.  This is also something I had originally intended for our homeschool, but wasn’t really happening as we tried to follow someone else’s pre-determined plan.  Now I require that they do certain subjects each day, but they get to choose for the most part what curriculum/resource they use with my ok.  Choice for the kids is such a major reason I chose to homeschool!  Everyone is happier this way. 

Here is a little snippet from school this week.

For history we’ve been learning about the Renaissance and have been studying famous people of that period.  This week it’s been Leonardo da Vinci.  He was such a fascinating man.  I had no idea.  But I should have. Yet another reason I’m homeschooling.  Did you know that he thought of contact lenses, or was the first to invent the bike chain or was the first to invent a clock with both the hour and the minute hand on it?  He designed the first snorkel, and life preserver.  Fascinating!

As we read today about his study of the eye, our history lesson morphed into a fabulous science lesson.  I LOVE it when that happens!  After reading that da Vinci would boil eyeballs in egg whites to make them hard so as to dissect them, the boys were totally hooked.  We read on to learn that he studied the pupil and the way it dilates in the dark and contracts in the light.  So the boys had to try it.  We ran to the bathroom where there was no light and they giggled and screeched with delight as they watched each other’s pupils contract when the lights came on.  We must have done it twenty times.  They made all kinds of discoveries, inferences and conclusions.  They discovered that Cade’s eyes contracted faster than the rest of us.  Why?!  They hypothesized that maybe it’s because he was the only blue eyed person. They remembered that cats eyes are tiny slits during the day but big and round at night.  They were so excited they were fairly dancing with glee.  It was so natural and simple and fun.  It was glorious. 

I found this picture of me in a stack of pictures my parents had.

This is the one we took one of Libby to compare.

I know I’ve said this before and you are undoubtedly sick of hearing it, but I LOVE having a girl.  The other day I actually had a little person pull up a chair and watch me peel potatoes, engrossed.  That has NEVER happened before.  My boys could care less what I do in the kitchen.  And this same little person actually said, “When I’m a mommy I’m going to make
po-ta-toes too.” 

This is so much fun!!!

Anyone who has read Lord of the Rings knows about 2nd Breakfasts, but at our house we often have a Second Christmas! 
For example, when we went to Aunt Janie and Uncle Calvin’s for dinner Christmas night, the kids opened more presents from Janie and Calvin and even their sweet girls got the kids some gifts!  I’m so sad I didn’t take any pictures!!!
Rock’s parents often come right after Christmas for a visit, as they did this year, and we got to celebrate all over again!  And this year Libby and I also took a quick trip to WA to visit my parents to give them their Christmas present and Libby got a THIRD Christmas! 
(I realize that it is now January and I am just now finishing up the Christmas blogs, but I’m not sure I’ve ever finished a Christmas blog before January, so why start now! )

Here’s the G&G Hymas gift exchange:

Levi got a new stuffed animal from G&G.  He now has a dog named Doggy, a fox named Foxy, and a dog named Doxy.

Liberty got a tea set that sings!  She was tickled pink about it!

Even Grandpa had some tea.

Same day, different outfit

Here she is dancing to her Tea Pot (you’ll have to tune out the talking in the background…sorry)

Christmas Eve:

The PJ’s
I didn’t actually get a picture of the jammies this year because we had a little hiccup in the tradition this year.  The pj’s I got for Cade were so big they were falling off of him.  To say he was seriously upset about it would be an understatement.  The thought of going to bed on Christmas eve without his new pj’s was just too much for our over sugared, incredibly hyper and excited eight year old.  He collapsed in tears on the floor.  I really wanted to remind him there were millions of children in the world who don’t get new pajama’s every Christmas but I did feel bad for him because I knew I would have been upset as an eight year old too.   Empathy won out and since I had to go out that night anyway,  I stopped at Target, which was luckily open until 9:00.  Incidentally, I’m considering doing all my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve 1/2 an hour before the stores close because Target was a ghost town!  It was awesome!  
You can see their jammies in the Christmas morning pics below. (Since I’m sure you all wait with baited breath every Christmas season to see what new pajama’s my children get to wear!)

The Nativity


The cub scout shepherd

Mary on her donkey

Mary eating her donkey’s hay

Christmas Morning:
The Presents-
It was love at first sight

The Lego Christmas-Yes, ANOTHER one.

Yep, they make pink yegos!

Candy canes stuck to the candy cane pj’s

This is how Liberty ate her Christmas cereal.  She took them all out of her bowl and then drank the milk.

This kitchen is the other thing Santa brought Liberty.  Feminists would undoubtedly be aghast to note that she is also wearing the tutu from her brothers AND the apron from Rock and I.   Oh, and she’s barefoot too!  But lest anyone worry that she is being totally and completely brainwashed, remember that she is surrounded by boys and their toys all day long, she LOVES to play in the sandbox and get totally muddy and she shoots dart guns with the best of em.  Yes.  She shoots guns.  And so do my boys.

Santa’s helper “Auntie Claus” should feel very good about helping with this because Liberty loves her kitchen.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!  We sure did!