Summer Recap

So I'm trying desperately to catch up so I'm calling this post Summer Recap. The summer was absolutely, wonderfully hot and we spent a lot of time outdoors. More importantly we spent many days at the beach!
We celebrated L's 6th birthday.
Her horse cake was just what she wanted.
We picked blueberries with friends.

OK so it was really humid so we didn't pick all that many but it was still fun.
We enjoyed Ludington as usual.
The boys learned how to skim board.
We fished with daddy.
And we spent time with cousins.
We went to the kids first fair. H loved this lamb.
We had our first (and hopefully last) broken bone.
We went horseback riding.


B started really getting the hang of skim boarding!
We did some girly crafts.


Mosheh had surgery that took care of his chronic ear problems. Praise the Lord!
We had a few accidents but all in all it was a great summer.
But the biggest change was daddy started working from home full time which is when "Lunch date with Daddy" started. Here H is waiting by the door for J to finish his meeting so she can go out to Bonnie Doons. Each kid can't wait for their turn to come around again! And that is just a small dose of the fun we had this summer. We are already counting down until Family Beach Night will again be in the weekly schedule.

Ummmm.......

So I've realized that I've failed miserably on blogging this year, especially over the summer. The summer that flew by so fast that I still can't comprehend that our yard is covered in leaves and tomorrow we are heading out to the pumpkin patch. But I really feel bad that I haven't even mentioned that baby #4 is on the way. Ummm.....actually on the way possibly in a few short weeks. I'm determined to get back to blogging like I was. This is my record of life and I don't want huge holes in it! I can barely remember what I had for lunch today. Wait, did I eat lunch today? OK so I don't want to forget the huge details in life along with the small. So my goal is to do a quick over view in the next couple of days of what I've missed and then start fresh. That's my goal......we'll see if it happens.

Surfer Girl

"Whoa dude! Those waves are totally gnarly. I think maybe I'll take a break on the sand and completely and totally chill for a minute before heading back out in the surf."

Summer Fun: Root Beer Stand

So I still haven't figured out why Root Beer stand root beer tastes soooo much better but it most definitely does! We drove over to Elkhart to go to our favorite stand for dinner.
The kids all love root beer but they really love it in big iced mugs.
I couldn't get L to stop drinking so this is a smile mid-gulp.
Is this baby mug not the cutest thing you have ever seen? We refilled it a couple of times out of our HUGE mugs.
Yes everyone drank all their root beer. There wasn't a single drop left. The kids didn't want to cross this off of the Summer Fun list because they want to go again! I'm pretty sure they won't have to be too convincing to get us to take another trip that way.

Summer Fun: Strawberry Picking

Strawberry picking came early this year due to all the hot weather.
H set right to work picking. She isn't that fond of strawberries unless their smashed for shortcake so I don't think she ate a single one.
The boys were trying to beat the girls by filling their box up first.
L was very proud of this BIG strawberry.
So remember how I said H didn't eat any? The other kids made up for it.

After two full boxes were picked we headed home. For some reason the berries seemed to rot extremely quickly. I didn't get any into the freezer and so we had to eat them fast. We were up to the challenge though. Later I'll pick some up for the freezer.

Summer Fun: Let the fun begin!!!

So I can already tell that summer is going to just fly by. It's already the middle of June and I just finished the Summer Fun Wall. We have many fun things planned and the kids are having fun as we move the bees from the "To Do" wall over to the "Done" wall. We always have so much fun with our summer list it makes me think we should start making a list for every season! Want to know what's on the list? You'll just have to wait and see!!!

Toddler Friendship

Best of Friends
Playing house together so nicely.
But at snack time we need to set up our separate corners and guard our cheerios like they're our last meal.

Are you Serious?

WHY.
YES.
SUMMER.
IS.
HERE.
Can you believe it?

Tuesday Morning Recap

Let us recap this fine Tuesday morning in the O house.

• spilled OJ all over the living room window seat.....and I will not even mention the fact that just last evening someone was in HUGE trouble for spilled fruit punch on same said window seat
• Cereal trail from pantry all the way to the above mentioned window seat....apparently baby sister wanted to see if the suspect would share said juice
• completely forgot the dog outside and also forgot to feed him.....pretty sure he'll survive
• half a roll of toilet paper shoved in kids bathroom toilet
• 2 year old who tried to shampoo her hair.......without water.....not in the bathtub.....in her pajamas
• house that was completely spotless just one week ago is....well...not anymore
• have done a little school but not nearly finished

Can I just go back to bed? Please!

Birthday Extravaganza

Since J and H's birthdays are only one day apart it always makes for a very busy couple of days. Add in Passover just two days later and it was absolutely chaotic! I think they both had great birthdays though. I didn't do very well with taking pictures because of the chaos.

J had his birthday off so while the older two kids and I went to co-op he kept H for some special "Birthday Buddy" time. They then met us for lunch and then we headed to the outlet mall for some shopping. We got home and 45 minutes later people showed up for a small party for J.
Here is the RX7 cake. I must say it turned out much better than last year. I guess having more than eight hours of notice that this was the desired cake helped a lot! After everyone left I wanted to crash.......but there was another cake to decorate and a play kitchen to assemble. I started on the cake while J started on the kitchen. I won by a long shot! That kitchen had a million pieces!!!

Thankfully the Elmo cake was just as easy. I think we finally got to bed at 1am.

The gift is all set......finally.

Even though I was tired, the two year old excitement made it all worth it.


Brother even wrote a special birthday song. It was about three lines and he used her name about ten times. It's the thought that counted. It was a fun and relaxing day. Now I know why I didn't take a ton of pictures. Just thinking back to this weekend makes me need a nap!!!

Let's Pretend For a Moment

This afternoon we headed out to enjoy the sunshine and the spring birds singing.

Considering we live in the Midwest Arctic, snow attire was still necessary.

It didn't take me long to realize that those spring birds were saying,"Why on earth did we fly north so early? It's still FREEZING up here!!!"

I think H is losing hope that spring will ever get here. Did I ever mention this child was NOT meant to live in the cold weather! She did set a new record for staying out in the snow. A much impressive 15 minutes!!! I was ready to come in after 12 so she beat me. It was nice to pretend for a moment that Spring was here.....sort of.

IAHE Homeschool Convention and Our Mini Getaway

So J and I got away this weekend and headed to the State Homeschool Convention. We had a great time. Now we love going to the convention but we also love the "getaway" part. After our first day at the convention we headed out to buy a new camera and then went out to eat at Don Pablo's.

Oh how I've missed you my queso. We have been craving this ever since the one in our area left. It was great to get a queso fix!

This years conference talked much about America's heritage and foundations of Bible truths like always. I love that part of it! It's always so encouraging to me to hear why I'm homeschooling and why I need to continue and for the Biblical basis of it to be taught before you. I know all of that but sometimes it's nice to be reminded.

This is my favorite part of the whole thing. The Vendor Hall!!! We found many great things. J and I finally took the plunge and bought Rosetta Stone. It is such a big investment but they were offering a discount so it was the best time to buy. J and I have decided that we will buy one language over the next couple of years to spread out the cost. J wants the kids to be at least trilingual by the time they enter the 6th grade. We'll see. We bought Spanish this year and Hebrew, Chinese, French, and Farsi are on the list of possibilities for next year. I love that we could get the Spain version of Spanish. My grandma is going to be so proud!!! Once the kids get older we'll let them choose a language too. We also came up with what we want to do for science. Unfortunately we didn't find a curriculum that was exactly what we were looking for so we've decided to make up our own for the kids. I'm using suggestions from curriculum's and piecing them together. A little more work for me but that's OK. I think it will be worth it.

It was a great time away. We quickly learned why the hotel we stay in was so crazy busy. There was an NFL recruiting event going on all weekend and the hotel was the headquarters. We also saw Charles Barkley one night while we were waiting for our car to be brought up. He was one I actually recognized. I'm sure we saw lots of people my dad would've loved to see but since we don't follow sports we had no clue! We also got to have dinner with my Grandpa and his wife which was nice. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for married couple's to take get aways on their own without kids. Of course, the Key's trip will be hard to out do but we still enjoy these mini get aways.

Pressing On

So one of my other goals for 2010 was to stay up with my blogging. I'm failing miserably. Instead I've been pouring all my energy into getting back in the Word, training up my kids, educating my kids, being a wife, and keeping a home. So I guess blogging should fall behind those things. That 90 day Bible Study I'm doing is teaching me a lot. Not because of my victories but because of my failures with it. OK so it will probably end up being more like a 6 month Bible study but I'm pressing on and I'm seeing some priorities that have to be put back in order. Well this last month has definitely not lacked fun times.

Here are the cupcakes that I made for Groundhogs day. They were a pain but the kids loved them so they were worth it. We had an indoor BBQ to help forget that winter was here for a little while longer.

Co-op is back in session and the kids and I are loving it as usual. Here is a picture of the first morning before we left. H was not quite sure as you can see but she has done amazing so far. It's amazing how much she changed in that two month break. She now looks forward to going to see friends.

We are all ready for spring. Winter naps are pretty good though.

So it's not much but it is a wee little pony tail. I think it's awfully cute!

So our family is not a winter family. We are a "lay on the beach every day, all day" kind of family. We've talked about taking up skiing so we could have a winter activity to look forward to. It sounds like fun......if it didn't involve cold and snow. The older kids are wanting to learn so I guess I'll have to suck it up one of these days. One Family Night we decided that we were going to shovel and do some sledding on our hill.

H was all set to go.

Exactly 10 minutes later she was back inside. I guess she didn't realize that shoveling and sledding involved cold and snow. She spent the rest of the evening watching out the front window with her snack. Did I mention it took me 15 minutes to get her all bundled up?

L wasn't completely sold on the idea either.

Some of us spent more time sledding than shoveling. In B's defense, he does shovel for me on his own quite often.

We made Valentine's for friends.

Who we spent an afternoon with. It was filled with laughter, playing, pizza, and sweet goodies.

Despite feeling so sick of winter I'm telling myself that this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it......and have a little fun at the same time.