Birthday Weekend Photos

Here are a few of the pics from my birthday weekend. Notice how Sandy (the dog) loves his hot dog! He was very thankful to Jordan for dropping the bun! Our neighbors, Mike and Ann, let us swim whenever we want. they have a great inground pool. Our yard is too sloped for a pool so we love going next door! He also work with Holiday Inn Express and he and I are working on setting up board meeting dates for CHEFS meetings. Jacob has finally learned to swim underwater! Yea! No one else can, but Kimberly thinks she can. She is always saying het go may, which translates let go of me!

I don't know if I have explained this but CHEFS is Christian Home Educators Family Support (www.chefsupport.org). I am one of the board members. Some friends and I started the group about a year ago and we are now at 72? families. We run a teaching co-op and have monthly meetings that include all kinds of fairs. I do field trips and book orders, and whatever else I need to do. It is such fun! Anyway, that keeps me busy when i am not homeschooling or running the home. Well, laundry calls.....

Busy week ahead...

Well, yesterday was my 38th birthday and it was wonderful. Clay took the 2 oldest kids on Saturday to Game Stop, and unknown to me, they also went shopping. When they got home they found me making Pb and J sandwiches and surprised me with 2 new dresses and some Bath and Body Works stuff. Later we had an outside picnic and went swimming. We also played outside in the shade. It was really nice. Then on Sunday we baked cookies for VBS and helped decorate the church building. Very nice, indeed. So this week is VBS. It gives me some time with Kimberly since the only days I am working the nursery are Tues and Thurs. She and I will have some fun. We will be pretty busy with VBS, appointments, and gym class this week so I may not post again until the weekend. I have some pics of the kids swimming I want to share, though. Well, time flies and I have to go.............

Get some exercise!

Almost every day the kids can be found riding bikes before lunch. We have to come in around 11am or we will be cooked! And then on Thursday afternoons the oldest three take gymnastics. I tired to get pics of Jacob and Lizzie, too, but I had trouble with the flash and the room light. Plus the motion made shots difficult. I will try again next week. I want some pics of the other two in case we have to drop this activity.

Littlest bookworms

Jordan and Kimberly love to look at books! We read a lot in summer!

Free summer fun (IT'S FREE!)

With money tight, we like to indulge in the free things for fun in summer. Today it was bowling. Every day in summer the local bowling alley allows kids from preK to 12th grade one free game of bowling and free shoe rental! We take them up on this at least once a week, and it's lots of fun, oh, and it's free! Other things to do (that are free) are to go to the library for books, storytime, craft time, special exhibits, movies, and seminars. We go swim at the neighbor's house. We ride bikes and go for walks, and play at the local parks. We walk the mall and spend a quarter each for bubble gum. Oh, and Royse City now has a free sprinkler park which we plan to visit once a month!
Then for some inexpensive fun, we skate once a month on family night when it costs $12 for 4 people with free skate rental, buy crafts on sale at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, or rent a movie once in a long while.
Hope you have fun this summer.

Costs are rising!

Well, I got a notice today that the organic food co-op is closing due to gas cost. We so loved that co-op! I guess we will be eating less fruit, now, or maybe we should cut back the meat since no one eats much of it anyway. Well, anyway, we had the discussion today of the future possibility of dropping gymnastics due to cost. Their poor faces just fell! But what can you do? Got to have food, gas and doctor visits paid for first! I just hope we can still afford to drive to homeschool co-op this fall. That would be crushing to us all to have to skip those classes! But as always, i am sure the Lord will provide what we need and help us to be content with the blessings we have. We have just always been so blessed that we don't know what it really means to do without anything. Our true necessities have always been in place. Our blessings really do overflow, despite rising costs!
Have a blessed day!

Well, here we go again!

Just got back from the pediatrician with Kimberly. She has had a fever for about 2 days and hasn't been breathing well at night so we took her in, given her history. Anyway, this is her third time of having double ear infections since April. We are on our 4th or 5th try at an antibiotic. A new one called Suprax. I got samples since it's so pricey. We have to go back on the 30th to recheck and discuss surgery. What fun! I may ask about food allergies, too. She has been know to have reactions to milk and peanut butter and citrus. She might need testing on the first two, since the symtoms are similar to her illnesses. We will see what the doctor says. I hate to think of trying to feed her if those are true allergies!

rub a dub dub

After all the partying someone needed a bath! Peek-a-boo Kimberly!

Indiana jones Lego

Jacob got this lego kit from his friend Noah. Didn't he do a great job building it?

New Dress

Well, here is Elizabeth modeling the dress she received from Mamaw Carol and Papaw Jerry. Isn't she lovely?

Make a Wish

Luckily we found some candles... I wonder what they wished for? Well, if I know them, and I think I do, Jacob wished to be Indiana Jones and Elizabeth wished for a camera. They got their wishes. She bought a camera with b-day cash and he bought an official Indy hat at Cracker Barrel, which he has worn every day.

The kids have a new tradition of baking and decorating their own cakes. I give them minimal help. Jordan mixed batter, Emily and Elizabeth frosted cakes, and Jacob, Emily and Elizabeth decorated cakes. Kimberly just licked everything! She got the best job, i think! Good job kids!

Wow! The years go by quickly...

Well, here are the birthday kids. Jacob turns 10 today and Elizabeth turned 6 last Wednesday. Can you believe it??? Has it really been that long??? Well, they are beautiful people and have wonderfully individual personalities. Thank the Lord we have them in our lives because they are such a joy and a blessing. Happy birthday sweeties!!!

Finished!!!

I finally finished painting the kitchen and adding new wallpaper/border. Here is the finished product. And for those who didn't see it before, it had pale blue paint with brownish red paper covered in apples and fruit. I like this much better.

Hunt County fair

We took the kids to the Hunt County Fair this past week, and they got to ride some rides. We found out they are not good with fast rides and I am not good with heights - anymore. This is the ferris wheeel Emily and I rode.

Welcome home, troops!

One morning we went down the road to welcome home some soldiers who had been in Iraq. We are standing with another mother and her three girls. Elizabeth and Jordan stayed home since we were out before 7am. One of the soldiers stopped to give Emily a patch he had worn while serving our country. She wore it very proudly to co-op classes later that day! When we arrived home we gave Kimberly a flag and she amused us in the backyard. What a ham!

Creative Builders

These are shots of things our kids built. the top photo is a paper model of King Solomon's temple built by Jacob and Emily for history. The bottom is a Star Wars transproter built from lego by Jacob with some help from dad. Great job kids!!

child prodigy

Here is Kimberly playing piano last fall with jordan. She still loves to "play" music! You go girl!

History Fair

This is from the CHEFS history fair in October. we had been studying Abraham. We set out our ziggurats, mapwork lentil stew and other projects.

These are from october 2007. we went to Autumn at the Arboretum in Dallas and then the second picture is from Halloween. Aren't the kiddos cute with dad?

Flying high!

This was an experiment in flight patterns after building various paper airplanes.
On another note, i think i will use this blog for posting last year's school stuff and keep the current stuff on homeschoolblogger. Anyway

Studying Old Testament Times

While studying bible land geography last fall, we learned about nomadic peoples like Abraham. We made tents, locust biscuits, lentil stew, and tunics to wear. We had lunch in the living room eating lentils, flatbread, and honey!