Patriotic Kids

Leah Sings

I'm sure her nursery teachers will be proud!

Here is Leah's rendition of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam"

Yet Another Snow Day...

When I realized that it was QUIET and everyone was entertaining themselves, I went to investigate with my camera in hand. This is what I found.


It looks like THIS outside...



This is what it looks like inside...


Elijah is typing a story on the kids' computer


Leah is creating a 'dinner party' by emptying out the drawer of plastic ware.


Hannah is playing with her Littlest Petshop animals.


Pete is grading tests (in his pajamas at 3pm...

We Built a SNOWMAN!!!

We don't get tons of snow here, and when we do it never seems to be good snowman making snow. The first winter we lived here we were able to make a snowman with the girls who lived in our apartment complex, but that was 3 years ago.

The weather man predicted we would get 1 to 2 inches of snow, and it seemed likely that it might be even less. However, when I went to bed last night we'd already gotten at least 2 inches and the grass was completely covered... When we woke up this morning, there was a good six inches of snow! Pete and I each shoveled half of our drive way, and it became QUITE apparent that this was good packing snow (not good for shoveling driveways though!!).

We bundled the kids up to build that ever elusive snowman!! Leah and Elijah weren't much help, but Hannah and I built one :)

School Photos Fall 2009

Here are the kids' school pictures. I think they turned out quite nicely!!


I believe Leah wins the award for cutest kid :)


Elijah looks like such a little man!!


This was taken a week before Hannah got her glasses. She looks a bit different with them, but beautiful regardless!!

We Got a Piano!!!

I've always wanted a piano, and now I finally have one!

I took a year of piano lessons in 5th grade, but we didn't have a piano at home. So, I got permission to use a piano at school and I practiced during lunch recess.

Hannah and Elijah have been asking to take piano lessons for a while now, and I was debating on what to buy. I could get a $200 keyboard at Target which would probably be fine, or maybe a nice digital piano... both would allow the kids to practice wearing headphones. But I finally decided I wanted a REAL piano.

On Wednesday, I went to a local music store (I wasn't even sure they'd have pianos) just to look. The rest is history, I guess!

The piano teacher has been called, and hopefully she can fit in both kids (she thinks it's iffy about Elijah starting lessons... so I may try and find a Suzuki method teacher for him)

I ordered a couple of John Thomson (red books) piano books that I used, and they should arrive today. I can't wait!

I decided to surprise the kids, so I didn't tell them about the piano. Leah really liked it, and played for a good 15 minutes. Elijah was very surprised, but only played for a few minutes. After he realized he couldn't play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, he decided to do something else. I can't wait to see how Hannah reacts. This morning she told me she couldn't wait until we got a piano, and we walked around the house deciding where we should put a piano. She decided the entry way was the "only" place we had. I think she'll be surprised to see it where the rocker used to be.

Random pictures to round out October

Hannah's new glasses!


My first quilting project finally finished!!! Four, far from perfect, but cute placemats :)


Hannah's zebra mask that she made at school.


Hannah transferring a design onto her pumpkin.


Hannah's cat and Elijah's pirate pumpkins.




Pre Trick or Treat


Sweeties!!!!

Recent Videos

Haircuts

Elijah got tired of his curls and asked for a "no hair" cut...

Here's Mr Curly Locks in his PJ's last night...


Here he is after his haircut this afternoon!


I can't decide if it makes him look older or younger... But it certainly makes him look different!


Leah got her hair cut as well. I just had them cut it like mine :)




With her curls, it makes her hair look much thicker than it is! She looks really cute :)

Labor Day

Pete's school is in session on Labor Day and he has to teach, so we can never make any real plans for Labor Day. However, the kids and I still ended up having a pretty full day! I didn't take pictures of everything though...

First we went grocery shopping. That's always interesting with all three kids! We went to the new Walmart that's a few extra miles down the road because the kids hadn't been there, and that Walmart has fish (the kind that are still swimming!) and ours doesn't. I love the brand new BIG carts that fit 3 kids... the older ones at our store can be difficult to push. Imagine that, pushing almost 100 lbs of kids can be difficult! Elijah and Leah were LOUD, but everyone was fairly well behaved.

After I got the groceries put away and everyone had a snack we headed back out and went to PetSmart. We are toying with the idea of getting a small pet like fish or gerbils/hamsters so we went to scope out our options. The kids loved looking at the animals (there were dog and cat adoptions going on outside as well... those puppies and kittens were SOOOO cute!!) and were especially taken with the birds. I don't think we are ready for birds yet... I think we've settled on a couple of gerbils, but I don't know if we'll get them at PetSmart. Elijah's teacher rescued some from the humane society... so I'll see if there are any that need us :)

Then we got lunch at Sonic... yummy :)

Then I decided we need some sun after the nasty thunderstorm we had last night, so we headed out to the zoo. Now, I usually try to go to our zoo during the week when no one is there, so it was much more crowded that I'm used to. But it was still a nice hour plus walk and we absorbed plenty of vitamin D!!

When we got home Pete said that there was a picnic at his school (their lame attempt to make it up to everyone for having school on a holiday, I suppose), so we packed everyone up and had a free dinner along with many, MANY college students. It was moved indoors because of the mud, so we had an air conditioned picnic which was nice after a humid afternoon at the zoo.

Then to top off our night, we had our weekly FAMILY NIGHT!!!


Thanks to my friend, Barb, I had the great idea to make cupcake cones for our treat. They look kind of wonky, but they turn out fine.


A rousing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos (I believe Hannah was the champ!)


We each frosted and sprinkled our cone.


Yum!


Some people just ate the cake with no frosting...


Leah had me add more sprinkles SEVERAL times!!

It was a fabulous day, especially considering we had no plans...

Exercise in Randomness

Facebook has taken over my life, or so it seems. It has taken away much of my motivation to blog... But, I like to think of my blog as a journal, something that will be around for many years. So, I'm going to try to keep updating at least a few times a month...

We've definitely had an interesting week and a half! School started on August 12, and Hannah is now in first grade and Elijah is in his 2nd year of Montessori preschool (pre-kindergarten year).


Here are the kids on the first day of school.

Hannah has quite possibly the coolest teacher EVER! So, here are a few pictures from her class blog.


The class on the new nature trail behind the school (Hannah is at the back in the blue skirt)


Mr. R explains something to the class


Hannah and her friends build a house for their shoes using gum drops and toothpicks.



Here is Elijah working on our traditional beginning of school bag decorating project. All the kids at Montessori have identical school bags, so decorating them is an easy way to know you have the right bag at the end of the school day.



Leah will be starting preschool (though not Montessori, since she won't be 3 for another year) after Labor Day, so she needed a school bag too.



Elijah and I made a Lego tower that reached the ceiling!



Not to be outdone, Hannah had to try her hand at it as well.



Last Saturday, when there was a 0% chance of rain, we had a nice little rain storm... and the kids splashed in the puddles and generally got soaking wet.








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On Monday, my dryer broke in the middle of laundry day... so I had to buy a new dryer. It wouldn't be delivered for 2 days, so I got a clothes line as well.



Elijah and I made an 'airplane' from a diaper box



The beautiful NEW dryer... it's pretty amazing ;)



Leah and Elijah wanted to do some preschool stuff at home, so we


played with play-doh


painted at the easels


and poured beans.

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Today, Hannah and I discovered MORE than THIRTY cicada shells on our crabapple tree. I guess we just had one of those 17 year cycles!