Enchanted Village - Homeschool Day!

Enchanted Village!

Cousin Cameron taking the dragon out for a spin.

Jordan getting eaten by the ferocious dragon!!

Selah-bean getting ready for a big day at Enchanted Village!

Cousin Cy' and Josh going for a drive.

A wedding!

My brother Brian and his fiance Melissa have set the date for their wedding! May 20th, 2006! So excited for them! It will be a very elegant black and white tie wedding! The best ticker I could find so far is this one:




I am one of her 6 bridesmaids! Woohoo! A reason to buy a fancy new BLACK dress, get the hair done and all that fun stuff... boy it has been way too long since I've done any of that.



And a note just for the happy couple: Love you guys and I pray that your wedding day will be extra special!

A glimpse of the new stoller!

Visiting the neighborhood horses on our walk.

First day of SuMmEr!

Today is the official day of Summer! Although it is not my favorite season, it brings back that childhood excited feeling of sun/water/vacations/etc. I believe we will be taking our "vacation" sometime in September or October, but for this summer we will be...

~ taking the kids to their first major theme park: Enchanted Village.
~ trying to hit all the local parks and making our own notebook of what ones we liked and why.
~ finishing up the last 3 Lifepacs for Jordan's school.
~ doing the annual family reunion in August.
~ celebrating our 9th year wedding anniversary.

We went to our first homeschool curriculum fair on Saturday, ended up ordering the curriculum for next year (Jan.-Nov. 2006). Kaitlyn is getting Lifepac 1st Grade and Jordan is getting Lifepac 3rd Grade. We also joined the HSLDA while at the fair.

We got our new stroller yesterday!!! Love it! I will have to post pictures later.

Oh my... little Josh looks SO BIG with his new hair cut!

Ryan - up close & personal. :oD

The gang... Jordan JUST sneezed and Joshua was in the process. And for some reason I didn't think to take another... go figure. ;o)

Oh JOY!

Melissa (aka "Auntie M") just informed me that there IS a place like Naomi's kitchen here in WA!!! Now I just need to go get a freezer! Woohoo! Check it out: Dinner's Ready!

On another note, we purchased our walking stroller! Now that Mike is home more, during daylight hours, we have been trying to get in a 1.5-2 mile walk every other day or so. Our old Sit n' Stand Stroller is on it's last leg and we needed to upgrade. I really like the Sit n' Stand, but I think this new stroller will be perfect for walking. I can still use the old one for the stores/smaller places.

Mike and the kids picked out what they wanted to make for dinner tonight: Kabobs! So the 3 of them got the beef marinading this morning and will put the rest of it together later tonight for dinner!

More later I hope. :o)

Now THIS is a great find...

if only it was in WA and I had an extra working freezer. Check out Naomi's Kitchen, found out about this on the Large Family Logistics blog site.

Birthdays & Anniversary!

Happy Birthday to Lea and Cheri!!!

And Happy 36th Anniversary to my DAD & MOM!

8 years, 8 months, 8 weeks and 8 days ago...

Mike and I were married! I started this up with our 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day anniversary so we would have another excuse to have a date night... it's still working!

We went out to dinner all by ourselves! G'pa & G'ma watched all FOUR kiddos! Thanks you guys! We had a very nice & QUIET time. ;o)

Our 9th anniversary is August 3rd, 2005! Can't wait!

Today at 10:30am. :o)

Goin' over...

Taking a break for a minute...

Almost there...

He made it!

Ryan at 4 months old!

FOUR months OLD??!!

Ryan is FOUR months old already? Time is flying by WAY TOO fast! My new-little-bambino is now cooing, laughing, rolling over front to back and back to front, turning himself around on his play mat... he actually rolled/scooted his way OFF the mat!!! He tries SO hard to sit up, but he is not ready. He does these mini-sit ups to where he can get his shoulders/head OFF the ground! It makes me tired to watch him! If he is on his tummy he will occasionally get those knees working and I can see the crawling happening in the near future! Yikes! Need to get a gate set up for this little fellow by the stairs asap! I just had to go get the 6-9 months clothes out of storage... the 3-6 month stuff is beginning to get a little snug. Can't believe it.

Jordan is 75% done with 2nd grade... however we don't end until November, so I guess I will be adding in some stuff for the fall quarter. He got his first sunburn the other day (I believe it was the day we had that "weather warning") he faired through it well though. I now have ALL the sunscreen lotions handy so I won't forget again. He just started watching the Star Wars movies and so that is his NEW thing at the moment. ;o)

Kaitlyn is getting better and better each day at her writing, etc. She is still not reading, but she is showing the desire now. She appears to be allergic to something downstairs... I think it is the cat, but not positive. She has expressed her newest desire: a skateboard. And as soon as she can ride her bike w/o training wheels, masters her scooter, and learns how to skate... then she can have one. ;o)

Joshua's painful bruise/lump is finally disappearing, however I'm sure it won't be long before he has some other bump due to him being such a dare-devil. He is peddling his tricycle now, still can't get the scooter to stay UP when he puts both of his feet on it... hmmm... wonder why? He jumps just as high as Jordan & Kaitlyn from the coffee table - yes that is right - they can stand on the coffee table, I'm trying to break them of that habit. He is also driving his sister crazy by saying to her "shuduppunk" meaning 'Shut up punk'. I can't remember how it started, but this is what happens:

Josh: (quietly says to Katie)"shuduppunk"
Katie: "MOM! Josh said 'Shut up punk' to me!"
Josh: "no-I-didn't!" (smiles and runs off laughing)

He also does this new thing where I ask him to do something or to come see me... he will respond, "K mom." and then wander off to do whatever he wants to do. Somewhere in the training he figured out that he only needs to SAY "OK MOM" but doesn't really need to DO what I'm asking. (sigh)THEN when confronted with his disobedience and asked why he is not obeying, he will respond with this really extra-sweet voice, "I dunno" or "I not".

I will try to get some pictures up later today... but it's getting too late to keep on. Can't think straight. G'night!