4/27/11
Nathanael's first Pinewood Derby... yes, we still have his old Amarillo Council patch... though we've bought the new one, I haven't put it on yet. Now I can put on that and his newly awarded Bobcat!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
April 27th 365 challenge
4/27/11
Nathanael's first Pinewood Derby... yes, we still have his old Amarillo Council patch... though we've bought the new one, I haven't put it on yet. Now I can put on that and his newly awarded Bobcat!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
April 25th 365 challenge
4/25/11
Michael is getting new glasses within the week... yay! Good vision again!
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Kansas City Missouri temple- April 24th, 2011
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| new windows! |
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| Stake Center is coming along, too. |
You can see new plants, new benches, new windows, lots of different little changes each week even though largely the temple looks the same from week to week. So exciting to think that next year about this time, all the flowers will be in bloom and we will most likely be preparing for an open house and a dedication!
April 24th 365 challenge
4/24/11
Happy Easter! On the fun side, Christopher was very happy to find another egg.
April 23rd 365 challenge
4/23/11
Coloring eggs... annual tradition. Yes, we actually eat them all. Yes, it's a lot of eggs. It's fun.
Friday, April 22, 2011
April 22nd 365 challenge
4/22/11
I love looking into my children's eyes... this is Liberty. She'll be 18 months in a few weeks. She knows her name, her family's names or what they go by, where her eyes, nose, ears, tongue, hair, belly and feet are and can give you five or a fist bump. She will talk your ear off but you may not understand the words. She likes milk, her baby doll and GloWorm, dancing and singing and playing, and when I look into her eyes I am reminded of the precious responsibility I have been given to raise her and teach her.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
April 20th 365 challenge
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| He's happier than he looks :) |
4/20/11
Happy Birthday Dad! We surprised him with something he's been eying at Sam's Club ever since he first saw it over a year ago... a professional double sided waffler maker! We will give him the rest of his presents on Friday when we really celebrate, but this way we get waffles...
Liberty- I wanna sing and dance!
(title in honor of my brothers Tim and Jason... and Ray Steven's song...) Here is our little princess dancing to the beat of her own drum... um... plus the piano keyboard background music... plus her own notes... plus her own singing. Liberty the musician!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
April 19th 365 challenge
4/19/11
Ay, mi Timoteo. Of course after taking this, he jumped right over and wanted to see it. He laughed. I love my boys... they are each their own, unique challenge. (and so are my girls!)
Monday, April 18, 2011
April 18th 365 challenge
4/18/11
Family Home Evening treat... shortbread from the Redwall cookbook made by Benjamin, real whipped cream, and of course, strawberries.
Kansas City Missouri temple- April 17th and 365 challenge
4/17/11
Kansas City Temple from the Shoal Creek exit road. We love our temple!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
April 15th 365 challenge
It's a silly cousin sandwich. Ethan being surrounded by Samuel and Nathanael making funny faces.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
April 13th 365 challenge
Liberty wants to go outside... however, it's dinner time and there are too many reasons that she doesn't understand for her not to go. So she's happy with watching bunnies, squirrels, and bugs from the window.
A giraffe lives in Washington...
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| See? He's there in Washington... This lovely map was printed on 25 sheets of paper then taped together. I'll include the cool link! There are lots of maps on there, continents and states, countries and the whole world! And any size. |
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| The giraffe is moving to Kansas. Maybe to Missouri, he hasn't touched down yet. This map was printed to be part of our display for our Around the World fair with our homeschool group. We did a display about the United States. |
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| Kids at work. Nathanael is upset that Benjamin drew cheese in Wisconsin instead of letting him... they both did, eventually. No giraffes were harmed in the making of this map. Timothy wrote random letters in about 20 of the states. Things died down after a while and Michael helped me finish up with adding color and stuff to the states that got ignored. Like New Jersey. |
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| No flash photography. More hard work on the map. (I had just reminded Benjamin about chores, I believe) |
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| Finished product... the only one that didn't contribute directly was Liberty. She slept, instead. |
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| At the fair, setting up. You can even see the hurricane off the coast of Florida. |
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| All the kids with the display at the fair. |
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| Final product.... |
And the giraffe now is in the Dinosaur box. Making new friends, of course.
Link to cool map site: MegaMaps
April 12th 365 challenge
4/12/11
Ready for the Around the World Fair with our homeschool group! (Christopher wants out and Liberty is watching Samuel's funny faces...) We were USA. More on this later, too.
April 11th 365 challenge
4/11/11
Happy 11th birthday Emilie! (on the 11th day of April, 2011...) More on that later!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Kansas City Missouri temple- April 10th, 2011
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| Windy day! Stake Center and temple. |
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| From the southeast |
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| South side |
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| From the southwest corner |
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| From the west... with the new sign! |
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| Northwest corner |
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| Northeast corner |
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| From the east |
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| New stake center |
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| From the southeast again. |
Friday, April 8, 2011
April 8th 365 challenge
4/8/11
What? No Vivaldi?
Don't get me wrong, I love listening to and playing Vivaldi. Right now a friend and I are trading, or even bartering, musical knowledge. I know how to play violin and viola. She is wonderful on the piano. We worked out an arrangement where she is teaching some of my children to play piano and I am teaching some of her children to play the violin.
We were talking yesterday and it seems that kids on both sides of the equation might be a little disappointed at how slow things are going... we're still working on holding the violin and bow correctly and learning notes and proper posture at the piano, for example. They may have been expecting to play Mozart or Vivaldi (or Star Wars themes) after a whole week! This might be a lesson in patience and perseverance as well. Emilie wanted to play without the music because she could, but she was forgetting that it wasn't just the first lesson she needed to know. Violin students are realizing they need to work on holding the violin without getting tired before they can really work on learning big musical numbers. There are different steps to take to get to bigger and better things.
It struck me that this is how we all are... at least a little bit. We want to jump right into the good stuff without the preliminaries. We want to be the soccer star right off without doing the drills. We want to do the cool multivariable calculus stuff that they do on Numb3rs without learning the algebra. (what? Not everyone wants to do that? hmm.) We want to have the knowledge of the scriptures and the testimonies of the prophets without the study, fasting and prayer. We want to have a beautiful house without the work cleaning and remodeling or landscaping. We want to lose the weight without training our bodies. We want to make perfect bread and bagels without the research and practice and trial and error. We want to write the number one best seller without hours of revision and review and learning proper grammar and story development.
Heavenly Father tells us in 2 Nephi 28:30, "For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept , here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have."
This is how we learn, this is how our loving Heavenly Father teaches us. We learn a little at a time, and when we can handle more, He gives us more. He knows how we can best grow into our possibilities, a little at a time!
I am learning from my children each and every day, but I learned more about myself by watching these, well, these 14 children yesterday at my house and hearing the different musical lessons played by many little hands (ok, Michael's hands are bigger than mine now, but you know what I mean!). What am I reaching for that I am not willing to take the intermediate steps necessary? How can I do better at setting my goals and then making the time to work on them? I know some of this comes with years of experience, maturity, and lots of trials. We'll get there. As long as we know there is always lots for us to learn, we're on the right track. It's just figuring out what to learn first that might be tricky.
We were talking yesterday and it seems that kids on both sides of the equation might be a little disappointed at how slow things are going... we're still working on holding the violin and bow correctly and learning notes and proper posture at the piano, for example. They may have been expecting to play Mozart or Vivaldi (or Star Wars themes) after a whole week! This might be a lesson in patience and perseverance as well. Emilie wanted to play without the music because she could, but she was forgetting that it wasn't just the first lesson she needed to know. Violin students are realizing they need to work on holding the violin without getting tired before they can really work on learning big musical numbers. There are different steps to take to get to bigger and better things.
It struck me that this is how we all are... at least a little bit. We want to jump right into the good stuff without the preliminaries. We want to be the soccer star right off without doing the drills. We want to do the cool multivariable calculus stuff that they do on Numb3rs without learning the algebra. (what? Not everyone wants to do that? hmm.) We want to have the knowledge of the scriptures and the testimonies of the prophets without the study, fasting and prayer. We want to have a beautiful house without the work cleaning and remodeling or landscaping. We want to lose the weight without training our bodies. We want to make perfect bread and bagels without the research and practice and trial and error. We want to write the number one best seller without hours of revision and review and learning proper grammar and story development.
Heavenly Father tells us in 2 Nephi 28:30, "For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept , here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have."
This is how we learn, this is how our loving Heavenly Father teaches us. We learn a little at a time, and when we can handle more, He gives us more. He knows how we can best grow into our possibilities, a little at a time!
I am learning from my children each and every day, but I learned more about myself by watching these, well, these 14 children yesterday at my house and hearing the different musical lessons played by many little hands (ok, Michael's hands are bigger than mine now, but you know what I mean!). What am I reaching for that I am not willing to take the intermediate steps necessary? How can I do better at setting my goals and then making the time to work on them? I know some of this comes with years of experience, maturity, and lots of trials. We'll get there. As long as we know there is always lots for us to learn, we're on the right track. It's just figuring out what to learn first that might be tricky.
April 7th 365 challenge
4/7/11
Starting to make Halupki... this was fun, first thing in the morning. Halupki is the Slovenian version of stuffed cabbage rolls. I was happy, they turned out pretty good! Oddly enough, I didn't take any pictures of my kids yesterday even though they were as funny as ever.
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