Summer Plans

Our summer plans include:

2 sessions of swim lessons for 2 weeks each for "E" and "I" in level 4, "A1" in level 2 and "A2" in level 1.

Continuing Piano Lessons for "E", "I" and "A1".

"S" is playing on a local baseball team and will be going to church camp for one week.

"E" and "I" will be attending "Kids College" for one week, where they will have two classes, one is rock climbing, the other learning about plants and trees.

We will be moving upstairs in a few weeks to our newly remodeled 3 bedrooms and bathroom as soon as our carpet is installed! It will be so wonderful! I can't wait!

We will have two birthdays to celebrate this summer, "S" turning 15 and "A2" turning 4, which means her birthday party will be Chuck E. Cheese's. We only go there when one of our children turns 4 and we give each person a certain number of tokens, but all the tickets won go to the birthday child to pick out a special birthday prize!

A local church is having VBS on a week when we are free, so "E", "I", "A1" and "A3" will attend that.

I would like to make a trip to the zoo each week and focus on a different part of the zoo each time, but that is up in the air.

I would also like to take a trip up north to go to my brother and sister in law's new house. Or go in a slightly different direction and go see my dad and other family.

Normally, we are not busy during the summer, but with the new baby coming, I thought perhaps I would kick our summer up a notch and let them have lots of fun now, as I will not be leaving the house much after November!

Happy Summer!

Lights Out!

The other night, we had a bad storm and the power went out for a few hours. It was kind of fun! We had the two lanterns lit and the children were eating their dinner at the table with candles lit. I put "A3" to bed and when I came out from the bedroom, "E", "I", "A1" and "A2" were laying on the floor in a circle, around an electic lantern reading or looking at books, while listening to a book on cd on our portable dvd player! It was sweet.

I must confess, I was very glad when the power came back on in the middle of the night

and the air conditioner came back on!

Music to My Ears!

"A1" just started taking piano lessons with Miss Pam last week. She has been begging to learn to play just like her brothers "E" and "I", and now she can!

With our old piano teacher, the boys were using "The Mayron Cole Piano Method" and with Miss Pam, they are using "Bastien Piano".

I will try and post pictures of the children during their piano lessons next week.

Entomology!

I am so excited!

We joined 4-H a few months ago, but have only been able to go to 2 meetings. Most of the kids in our group show Goats and that is about it. We thought about it, but the way this pregnancy has been going, I am not up to taking care of more kids! So, I thought we might just lay low the rest of this year and see what happens with our life and start fresh next year. Then, the newsletter came! It had a few entomology classes and field trips. That is right up our block and now "E", "I" and "A1" are all very excited about catching and displaying insects! I can even use this for science for school!

Update on Me

I obviously complained too much about my minor health problems, because after that I had a huge scare.

We have our basketball goal laying down right now because of huge storms and my husband's car already has a dent from it falling once. I had our big van parked in front of the goal and one night (the night before our home school convention) I went out to the van to get something. It was nice and dark and on my way out, I walked around the goal. On the way back in, with my arms full, I forgot about the goal and before I knew it, I belly flopped right onto the gravel. Scared me! I did end up with a few more bruises and scrapes to add to my collection from spraining my foot, and while I didn't have any cramping or anything, the whole event did not leave me with a peaceful feeling. Fast forward a few hours to Friday and a dear friend watched my children while I went up to the doctors office to make sure we could find heart tones...We did! His or Her heart rate was in the 160's and moving around! What a relief! I even made it to the home school convention in time for the lunch time keynote speaker and drop the boys off at the children's program!

No Laughing Matter!

Our boys are in Royal Rangers (kind of like Boy Scouts) at our church. The 1st and 2nd grade boys are together and my husband in one of the three commanders for this class. Last week, one of the commanders had eaten at a local Mexican fast food restaurant at lunch time. Well...the magical fruit had begun its magic in class and of course, everybody probably knows how little boys react to that!

I went ahead and asked my husband how the little boys did during these smelly times, and he just looked at me and replied, "What do you expect from LAUGHING GAS?!?"