1st Day of School- for 5!

Today started the 1st day of the rest of my life... well, maybe not. But it is kind of intimidating to know that I'm now homeschooling 5 kids in 4 different grades! BUT it dawned on me that I've been homeschooling for 7 years now, so it's ok. I can handle this. Right??? By the grace of God at any rate!

Ready?

 Set...

 Learn!

 "Everything is Matter"

 When school's done for the littles, it's time to play!

 I'm really excited about History this year! I completely forgot to do state history with Peter in 4th grade (I never did state history growing up since I lived in Africa, so it never crossed my mind until this summer), so we're changing around his class schedule, and he and Anne are both doing it this year! Part of the class is making Arizona notebooks to contain all the fun stuff they'll learn about. Being two firstborns (personality-wise), they were both just giddy with excitement at getting to label the dividers! They colored their own AZ flags to decorate the fronts and designed their own name labels for the sides of the binders. This is the first time ever that I can remember that when asked by Daddy, "How was your 1st day of school?" Peter actually answered, "Awesome!"

Day 1, success. :)

13th Anniversary

Not only do we love, but we are loved! Christian's parents watched the kids this weekend, our friend Trevor loaned us his nice car, and another friend let us use his timeshare to go to a resort in Scottsdale- to celebrate our 13th anniversary! 

It was so much fun to play, swim, run, eat, dance, laugh out loud (ever seen Business Time? Not really for singles- terribly funny for marrieds), stock up on the most amazing chocolate wine at Trader Joe's... oh, so fun! It was good to recharge before starting school and sending Christian off on a tour!

Tacky looking bag? Yes. But this bag has a long history- Christian gave me a Greek NT in it well before we were dating- a gift to get me ready for the Greek class he convinced me to sign up for. Having a mild crush on him at the time, I saved it. And it shows up just about every anniversary and occasionally Christmases and birthdays. :)

1st night on the town, we ate at Carlos O'Brien's: the Carlos part is the food, the O'Brien's part is the pub.

We took a brief excursion to the McDowell Sonoran Desert Preserve, checking it out for Christian's upcoming extended tour.

I would really hate to get lost in this desert at night!

Cholla cactus skeleton

After coming back north, before getting the kids, we went on a picnic at Kelly Canyon- who needs to hike when there's exercise equipment sitting in the middle of the forest? Random.

August 12, 2013

Growing up

Our youngest "babies" are now four! 

We had a fun, low-key party with family and friends on a beautifully drizzly afternoon! 

Tying strings on the balloons was a real boost to my sanity- it kept them in the kids' hands instead of being bounced off of the adults' heads!

 This is the first year that we've successfully opened shared presents without a meltdown!

"Little sister" K was happy to help with the candles! :)

Christmas in July, Pt. 2

This picture was drawn with a running commentary to the twins on the meaning of the candy canes...

"The cane part, when it's upside down, it's a J for Jesus. When it's upright, it's like a shepherd's staff. The white means that Jesus cleaned away all the blackness in our hearts. And the red is for Jesus' blood. The 3 red stripes are for the red stripes on Jesus' back when the soldiers whipped Jesus. And that is the story of the candy cane." -Anne

Why are we making this picture in July? Who knows. She takes after her mom in some things. :)

Not much

The camera has been rather uninspired, I'm afraid. We've just been catching up from vacation (which has since come back to us for a couple days), sending Peter off to leadership camp, dealing with the garden and chickens and an endless supply laundry.

I commiserate with Moses- ready to just sleep on the job

 

Tunnel update! Christian called the county this morning, and we are almost at the top of the list to be reviewed! Once we're actually in the review process, we should hear within 3 weeks their verdict.

The new layers are just about ready to start laying eggs, the rooster has been showing off his new crowing abilities non-stop, I think we might have mites in their coop. 3 of the older birds have gone bald around their neck and combs, and I'm 95% sure it's not just molting. Grr.

The new "chicken tractor"- home of the new meat chicks!

Cory's going a little crazy, not being able to get at the chicks to "play"!