This is only week 2?

It was not what we expected.  Week One must have took more out of some of us than expected! If you are on Facebook, you know we had a child in the ER for 12 hours. Dehydration. Hallucinations from the dehydration and eventually passing out.

She was a little better and had 'come to' by the time they transported to a pediatric ER for further evaluation. She thought her ambulance ride was "epic". She's doing much better but we're still watching her closely as she's not 100% just yet.

Our second week of gymnastics was much better for Lily this week. No tears. All smiles.

The kids floated foil boats around the Nile River and we eventually turned the buckets of water into the Red Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf and found a paper plate to represent Babylon.

Our tutor academy, CC, is going extremely well. This week I captured a picture of some of their geography work. The Hebrew Empire.

Our week ended much better than it began. The girls had another set of sisters over for some play time, cupcake decorating and an American Girl movie. 

Such a busy week, sure leads to a very tired weekend though. 

Today I am learning to shop online at Sam's with their new Click N Pull, so we can simply pick up our items at the store Monday night without actually walking the isles, sort of like reserving a library book. 

Kya and I made breakfast for the family this morning while Dale and Aaron were at soccer. I sure hated to miss his game but what a week!

~ Be Blessed ~ 

A Hot April Day

87 degress! Bliss!

We really enjoyed the weather today. After a little "window" school work and a piano lesson, the kids rushed out to play in the sandbox and sprinkler, moving onto snacks and bath.



We'll round out this evening with a trip to Pizza Hut to support our Church's Mission trip to Greece this summer.


Good Times

This boy...

stole my heart


is full of mischief


is learning to be a man


and treat his sisters like princesses


for now he may be my only boy, but he is all boy and he is learning valuable lessons in this house full of girls.

Hoppy Easter

I hope everyone had a very Happy-hoppy Easter...

.... just be careful who you hop on.

Artist Corner

Spending time outdoors painting in God's fresh air. ~ Taking a day off school work to just relax.

A Weekend with Ladybugs and Frogs

It's been a long-long-while since I posted about family life. I bought a new photo software for only 99cents so I had to make a post about our weekend, using my new little software program, of course. So, what do we do with our weekends?

Besides: church, laundry and house cleaning? Well.....

A little furniture moving. A little curtain hanging. A little date with friends. And a lot of gratitude to a servant-leader husband and father!


~ a girls afternoon. lest you get jealous thinking we have this great social life...we don't. it took almost 2 years to get this girls date set. and we are so thankful it finally happened. the girls got manicures and frozen yogurt. it was a sweet date. ~


~purple. certainly chosen by a little girl, not mom. painted a year ago and finally got curtains up this weekend. but we are proud of our tie-backs. dale and i were at a little antique shop next to our favorite coffee shop when 'he' spotted these. thought they were tie-backs then realized on his own they were actually towel hooks. but, i was fancied by them immediately. so not having our girls initials, we went with xoxo for hugs and kisses. and i think they are charming. ~ the bed on the other hand was moved from another room to this room just this weekend. it only took 1 hour for the girls to turn it into a fort and mess up the charm that mother's like and into the charm that children like. at least i can admire the tie-backs. ~


~ uno. guacamole. and 1 great dad. so when we play uno here, it seems like a lot of apologies fly around. we seem to cringe when we have to lay down a card that damages another players chances to win. that sort of makes me warm on the inside that we care so much. of course then we get mean and dirty, well, the girls do, they plot against their mother to make her lose. not fair. not fair! ~ kya makes this 'awesome' guacamole and all for her mom. she does not like guacamole all that much and so it's a labor of love. ~ the man. he's the man. he works his little boo-tay off for his family and we are so grateful for this awesome man. ~

Springtime 2012 is here...

Spring has arrived. It was a short and mild winter this year and some of us (the adults) are thankful for that. We are so glad to be enjoying these beautiful springtime temperatures as we wait on the trees to get their leaves.

It's Spring

From time to time, I look back at my blog here and think "Wow, I have some beautiful kids. And beautiful memories." I don't update much. We all have this thing now, you know, called "Facebook" and it's seem easy to post a picture each day or an album there on a special day. And, well, blog-land gets forgotten about. But what a beautiful collection of memories we gather here on these blogs. Let's be honest, it's really for us, not for the world. We like to look over our entries and remember how precious time is. How fleeting it is that our kids grow up and change. How blessed we are to have these special moments worthy of blogging over, worthy of capturing on camera. Worthy of remembering.

Today I post a few special memories from the past few months.

A family field trip to Annapolis...my sweeties, all 5 of them...how I adore them.


Another family field trip. Washington, D.C's Cherry Blossom Festival. Me and my Bug. She's grown so much and just celebrated her 4th birthday.


My son. My heart-throb. Running through the sprinklers on a warm Easter Sunday. I love him. Oh, I love him!


Look at my beauties. Kya and Autumn, all growing up, becoming such wonderful little ladies. Here they are on Easter Sunday in their "twin dresses". They just bless me so much. It's amazing to watch them grow.


Lord, thank you for these little ones, for my love Dale, for all the blessings you bring me each season of my life.

Blue Hawaii

A little paint brings a lot of smiles to one little girl.
The girls had so much fun actually helping to paint the walls.



Kya wanted her room painted blue. Since her and Autumn share a room, Autumn agreed and off they went with Dad to get blue paint.
BUT
...as we are painting Autumn says something to the effect of 'she'd rather die than sleep in that room with blue walls'. ~ I think she realized she missed her moment to protest the blue when purple is her favorite color. So after some discussion we decided to separate the girls into their own rooms. When we get back from Florida in a few weeks, we will create a "purple Chinese" room for Autumn.

~In the meantime, here is Kya's Blue Hawaii. ~








It's very, very bright, but so are the smiles of the little girl that resides here.

A Walk in the Woods

A walk in our woods on a beautiful June afternoon....