Finishing up October

I've been really behind with posting things lately. That's what happens during the first trimester, I guess. Exhaustion and nausea take over and anything that isn't essential doesn't get done. I'm a little over 12 weeks now and hopefully the nausea will be finished soon. It is better during the days, just not so good at night. One day/night at a time....

Anyways, after being in our family for a solid 35+ years, we sold our couch. I know. It's hard to believe. I bought another couch from a friend and worked on cleaning and repairing it, added new pillows, etc. We couldn't really justify buying a brand new couch when we have 5 small children and a dog who will likely spill something, draw something, or ruin something on it.

 We also sold the laz-boy recliner that had a lovely hole in the seat cushion and purchased two leather chairs for the living room. (Ever heard of Joss & Main? I got an amazing deal on chairs on that website. Check it out!) 

Even though I have wanted something different for a while, I still felt really sentimental about letting them go. It made me a little sad to watch them drive away in the back of someone's truck. But it should tell me something about our decorating style when both items were bought by people purchasing them for their elderly parents in nursing homes :) It was time for a change! I'll take a pic soon of the new couch and chairs.

These two cutie pies are already 16 months old. They are just hilarious. James is walking and running all over the place. Elizabeth will do a few steps at a time and is gaining confidence.  They are just so funny to watch together. They have also started showing how they like to take care of each other. James will go get Elizabeth's lovie and give it to her. And yesterday James was crying and Elizabeth went over and hugged him and patted him on the back. She accidentally knocked him down in the process, but she was trying to comfort him! They will say a few words, make lots of babbling sounds, and love to read books.  They like to get cereal out of the cabinet, dump it on the kitchen floor, and enjoy a snack together. They really like taking baths and love their toothbrushes. They actually slept with their toothbrushes one night this week. It's a blast watching them grow and learn every day.

We had lots of fun getting dressed up for Halloween. Our neighborhood does not have many little kids and no one goes trick or treating so we always go to a friend's house for Halloween. Before we headed out this year though, the kids had a small "parade" with our neighbors, meaning they walked through the cul-de-sac acting silly!

We then headed over to our friend's to eat pizza before trick-or-treating. These are the kids from just our two families. We are quite the group walking down the street and knocking on doors!

 This year the babies were super cute giraffes.

Will was Willie, from Duck Dynasty

 Anna was Sofia the First (princess)

 Catherine was a chef and carried a mixing bowl to collect her halloween candy

We have eaten way too much Halloween candy the past few days! We had a great October and are enjoying the fall weather, leaves, and looking forward to Thanksgiving.

Starting Fall with some apple picking

Nothing starts fall off like a field trip for apple picking! We enjoyed spending the morning with Will's kindergarten class last week to pick apples, go on a tractor ride, and enjoy some apple donuts. The babies really loved the donuts too! 

I'm excited for fall and enjoying the crispness in the air! 

Tball!

Will started on a Tball team a few weeks ago.  He has always loved baseball and is really excited to be on a team this year. 

As we are discovering, doing a team sport is a full family commitment! He has games two nights a week from 5:30 til 7pm and sometimes has practices on Saturday mornings. It's only a 7 week season, so the chaos will be short lived. In the meantime, we are trying to keep 4 other kids entertained at the ball fields and feed everyone a late dinner a few times per week. 

So far he has had two games and has loved them! He also loves that his best friend from school is on his team. Before his first game, he wanted to know if we needed to buy tickets to his first game and how many fans would be there! 

It's really entertaining to watch a group of 5 year old boys chase after a baseball, give their best swing at bat, and slide into home base just for the fun of it. And then there's the kid who is standing in the outfield yelling "mom, I need to go potty!" And the kid who randomly comes out of the dugout to the stands to give his mom a hug. Pretty cute! 

So here's to our first Tball season! 

Back to school.

All 3 big kids are back in school. Catherine started about two weeks ago and is in second grade. So far this year has been an easier transition than last year since she was more familiar with the school and her classmates. She is in the Learning Community again this year, which is a cluster of 1st-5th grade classes. The teachers can move students into different groups for writing and math based off of ability, not grade level. She really likes her teacher and is even riding the bus home this year! 

Anna is in K3 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She was very excited to discover that she gets to go EVERY Tuesday and Thursday, not just this week. She gets really excited about packing and carrying her lunchbox. 

Will is in K5 this year. He says that he is not excited about it but I think he will really enjoy it. He's soooo close to reading on his own and I think with the focused effort and encouragement from his great teacher that he will "get it" really soon. He's also really good at math and can do addition and subtraction very easily in his mind. 

If you have children in school, you know how many papers and projects they bring home. It's hard to decide which ones to keep and where to keep them. So far my system (which I actually start when they're two) is to create an envelope for each child for each year. I will eventually get a large plastic box or tote for each child and put their envelope for each year in there. I keep the envelopes close to the kitchen so that I can easily add a paper or picture to them on a daily or weekly basis. I love to look back and see how their handwriting has changed or how they colored. I also add notes they write to us, special papers from church, etc. 

And this was our back to school shopping supplies. That's a lot of glue and pencils!!

Riding bikes

Last Saturday was beautiful weather and we enjoyed the morning by riding bikes with the big kids on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. 

When Catherine was learning to ride her bike without training wheels at the beginning of the year, we promised her that we would all go ride bikes on the trail as a reward outing. 

It was a beautiful morning and we had great fun. We even found this bike for 7 people at a local bike shop!! When the babies ate big enough we could all ride together. Isn't this the craziest bike?? 

We love doing fun activities like this with the kids as they're getting older. They're so much fun. 

Digging

Enjoying time digging in the yard and playing with neighbors for some afternoon fun! 

Morning craft

Today the kids and I made piñatas out of toilet paper tubes decorated with tissue paper. Catherine saw the idea in a magazine and has been begging to make them. They're pretty cute little crafts and will be perfect for the party the kids want to have with the neighbors today--nothing special to celebrate, just celebrating a summer day. 

Our resident chef

Catherine loves to cook. She loves to watch cooking shows on tv and YouTube , read cookbooks, and think of creative dishes on her own. Soon she'll be cooking us dinner!

Here are a few of her creations from the past few days. 

One morning she made me breakfast. An English muffin with artfully arranged fruit. 

For a snack one day she made herself this banana with peanut butter and grapes. She's into food presentation! 

This morning she made homemade Reece's cups at 6am. She melted the chocolate, added peanut butter, and refrigerated them. They actually tasted just like a Reece's cup and was quite the treat before we even had breakfast. 

A Really Fun Week

Last week we had the opportunity to host a missionary family for the week. They are church pastors in Trujillo, Peru and have been home in Louisiana for the past 10 months (to have a baby). They came to town last week for the annual General Assembly conference for our church denomination. We had a great time getting to know them and our kids loved making new friends. After the first night, their two oldest kids had slumber parties upstairs with our kids every night and cried when they left. It was a little busy having 8 kids in the house all week, but totally worth it. One of the reasons we bought the house we live in is because we wanted to be able to host missionaries and guests, and I'm so glad we have the ability to do that.

You can check out more info about them at www.perumission.org and www.stuing.blogspot.com

 Here are our big kids' memories from the week:

Catherine: This was a really fun week with them here. We loved it. It was hard to say goodbye. I love playing with Satomi, Sam, and Ezra. I hope they come and visit us again. And I love this picture. I loved when she slept in my room, played Barbies with me, and loved seeing her and Anna dress up like princesses. 

Will: I liked playing with Sam, shooting the bow and arrow and I didn't want them to leave.

Anna: I didn't want them to leave. I had fun with them. It was hard to say goodbye to them. I had fun with her sleeping in my room, playing Barbies and dress up with her. 

and please note--this is what happens when you take two crawling babies outside. they crawl in opposite directions!!

Teeth teeth everywhere!

It seems like every day we have some kind of teeth activity going on here! 

Will lost his first tooth this morning! It wasn't wiggly at all until yesterday when he accidentally bit down on a Popsicle stick really hard and it made it very loose. This morning we pulled it right out! He was pretty excited!! 

Catherine has lost 3 teeth in the past 3 weeks! She likes to take self-portraits afterwards. She is definitely in the snaggle-tooth stage. Her mouth is so small that I'm not sure where all these big teeth are going to go! 

Unfortunately the tooth fairy occasionally forgets or is delayed in her visits to Catherine!  Oops! But I think Catherine understands now that the tooth fairy is often busy and tired and not perfect :)

And sweet Elizabeth has 4 teeth coming in at the same time! Two top and two bottom, for a total of 8! She's been a little grumpy and clingy because of them and I will be glad when they're all the way in. She's been teething and chewing on everything, including Will's bow and arrow. Don't worry-- it's not sharp! Just a suction cup! 

B

If I can just make sure all these people brush all of these teeth every day we should be doing ok!

Trying new things

New things we are trying this summer- 

Tennis and gymnastics!