Can't See the Forest for the Trees

In this case, Nathan can't see that he has gotten a bike for Christmas because he is too busy looking in his stocking.

Fleas Navidad!

We hope you and your family will have a wonderful Christmas!

Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making. ~Leigh Hunt

Our New Family Member

Please welcome our latest family member! Today we adopted this 7-week old beagle/dachsund mix from the local pound. The puppy was an early Christmas gift from Rebecca to her little brothers. They are ecstatic! We're still deciding on a name . . .

Thanksgiving Harmony

Well, we're not the Osmonds or the Lennon Sisters, but we do actually sing together on occasion- just no public performances, please! Here we are singing some Thanksgiving hymns.

We are blessed to have just spent a week with my family in Arkansas. We love to be together and talk, eat, shop, watch football, hike, play games, etc. It is so nice to be in a family that gets along so well that our main argument at Thanksgiving is over what is preferable - white meat or dark meat?

Before and After

Here are before and after pictures! I thought it was very
"sweet" of the orthodontist to give her a stash of the candy
that is normally forbidden to the wearers of braces!

Dudes

Here are Nathan and Caleb getting ready to go foraging the neighborhood for candy.


Yes, Caleb has too much gel in his hair. He was dressed as a spy and wanted me to spike his hair up. Then he changed his mind, but I had already put the gel in, so I had to put more gel in to get it to go back down. It was really nasty.

After getting candy, we settled in to watch the movie "Luther" since October 31st is also Reformation Day even though Halloween gets all the press. We've been doing a little mini-unti on the Reformation, and we really loved this movie. We even ate a whole container of gummi worms to commemorate the Diet of Worms. If you don't know what that is, you need to study some history.

More Pics from Charleston

Surf's up!

On the flight deck of the Yorktown

Our Trip to Charleston

We spent this past week in Charleston while Terry attended a business conference there. We did five field trips in five days: Ft. Sumter, Patriot's Point, Fort Moultrie, Old Exchange Place and the Charleston Fire Museum. We also spent some time in the surf on Isle of Palms!

The last two days of our trip we had rainy weather, so we didn't get to enjoy downtown Charleston as much as we would have liked (we saw a lot of it, though, but have no pictures since we were in a downpour). We'll just have to go back. We also didn't get to see any of the plantations around Charleston.

I think Caleb's favorite part was just hanging out at Embassy Suites. He loved to go to the workout room and go to the lobby during "happy hour." He met businessmen from all over the country. We met the folks staying in the room on either side of us. On one side, there was little girl and her parents who were staying there while their house was repaired from a flood. She and Rebecca spent some time together. On the other side was a woman attending the same conference as Terry. Caleb spent quite a bit of time talking to her, and she made a point of telling us that he was one of the most delightful children she had ever met. That happened on the same day that I was getting ready to revoke every priviledge he has for being so difficult!

I think God sent this lady with her fresh perspective to encourage Terry and me.

Rebecca's favorite part by far was getting to eat pralines! She had never tried them before, and they give out fresh, warm samples downtown.She has already been searching the internet for recipes and is determined to learn how to make them just like they did.

Living Timeline Class

I am teaching a "Living Timeline" class at co-op this year. This past week we did a timeline of Egypt, and this little girl is representing when the Romans took over Egypt. All the kids have outfits or props and then we have fun sending one student out of the room, mixing up the timeline and then letting him/her try to put everyone in the right order. If you'd like to see more pictures from the timelines we've done so far, check out http://www.livingtimelineclass.shutterfly.com/. The password is "timeline".

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Noah turned eight years old on September 21st! He was so excited that his birthday was on a co-op day. After co-op, we brought three little boys home with us to celebrate. They had a treasure hunt, broke a pinata and just spent lots of time playing.

Soccer Season is Here!

All our boys are playing soccer this year. Caleb and Noah are playing for the Lakeridge Tigers (8-9 year olds). Terry is coaching the Lakeridge Warriors (10-11 year olds), and Nathan plays on his team. We have four to five games per week to attend. Both Caleb and Nathan have scored goals for their teams. Nathan's team only has a few subs, so most of the boys have to play the entire game. It's quite a workout.

What's up with the running?

I'm not sure how Caleb got so interested in running recently, but he's been running sometimes 4 or 6 miles a day. The first day he ran in Crocks, but I convinced him to put on some running shoes instead.

Caleb ran in the Eastman Road Race on Friday night and took eighth place.

One side-effect is that he seems to be much better behaved since he started running. Maybe he just really needed to run off some energy instead of focusing all his efforts on getting the best of his brothers.

How do you like my new bathroom?

The mirror is the biggest change. First I painted the room, then Terry bought and installed this new mirror and lighting, changed the hardware to chrome (including the towel bars) and fixed the blinds.

This Week's Science Lesson

We did a unit study on the children's book "Lentil" this week, and for our science lesson we studied how tastebuds work. We built a model of the tongue out of playdough and tested our taste buds with all sorts of sweet, salty, bitter and sour tastes. Sweet is preferred around here as you can tell by the "Koolaid smile" on Noah.

Caleb, the civil engineer

I am preparing to teach a Bridge-Building class this year at our co-op. I imagine there will be a little more interest in bridges due to the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota.

In our family, Caleb is our bridge-builder. This week he built a model of the "Firth of Forth" bridge in Scotland. He likes to pretend he has super human strength.

The canon crew

We had a great time on our trip to the Northeast in June. We had twenty-four days of camping and sightseeing in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We saw lots of cool Revolutionary War sites and the boys got to drill as an artillery unit using the canon. We saw a huge re-enactment of the French and Indian War at Fort Ticonderoga.
We also spent time in big cities like Philadelphia, Boston and New York and traveled by train, subway, ferry , tram, sailboat (and conversion van).

The purpose of this trip was to immerse ourselves in early American history. We also threw in a little family fun by visiting the beach, biking on Cape Cod and hiking in New Hampshire.

Our favorites: Once Upon a Nation story stops (Philadelphia), Monmouth Battlefield (because the curator took the time to teach the boys how to use the canon), U.S.S. Constitution Museum and Plimouth Village

Our not-so-favorites: taking the train from Newark to NYC, visiting the observation deck of the Empire State Building (most of the kids were scared of heights and we had to wait in a long line), Cambridge (though we did have some great burgers there)