happy belated birthday, dad

robin turned 51 this year and while we did celebrate on the day, we're a little belated getting pics posted. love you dad!

peter and pairs/pears

he loves this game. and he knows all his letters, but refuses to learn how to read. since mike doesn't want to sit on my lap to read or be read to anymore, i think he's afraid if he learns to read himself, i won't let him sit on my lap to read anymore. we still read aloud at night in their room, and try for once a day sometime during the school day, but he likes his special one on one time with mom. and he loves this game (even though he makes up his own rules about it)... love you pete.

field trip: crayola

the week before christmas a friend from mops and i took some of our kids (her youngest 3 of 5 girls and 3 of my youngest 4) to the crayola factory. despite driving through squall like conditions only to have it dry at crayola and at home (strange weather....) and a few wrong turns, we had a really fun time, and had almost the whole factory to ourselves.

more christmas

the boys had the homeschool choir concert which was so much fun (short and festive) and so nice to see them in ties (even if they were a little long, thank you salvation army).



friends gave us free tickets to the christmas production at sight and sound (for us over a $200 value). all peter could talk about was seeing his good friend garrett's new baby brother who sat a few rows in front of us (his dad is our children's pastor at church and in our small group):

karis gave pete a bath and took pictures (thankful she's willing to give the bath and remembers to take pictures):

christmas

i was busy this christmas having surgery on my foot for two (of three) long standing problems (click on two and problems for the specifics if you dare/care) but i managed to take a few pictures (though my memories of christmas day are very sketchy and vicodin tainted).

art work by olivia (14)


check out the art of imitation by peter (5)
olivia made the tree outline and he spent a looonnnggg time putting all the "ornaments" on it, then he drew baby Jesus in the manger
(isn't that the sweetest thing?)

easing back in....

some things we've been busy with the past few months:

picking and freezing (and eating) strawberries




slamball (basketball hoop pulled up to the trampoline)


field day for homeschool co-op
(jack and mike only)

easter cantata/pageant

this year everyone but haley and me had the pleasure of participating in our church's Easter pageant. they used a professional actor from sight and sound to play the part of Jesus, and the tricky part was that he was supposed to pick peter up at the end and carry him out. peter kept saying, "nope. it's not really Jesus. that guy doesn't even go to our church." so they never practiced it.


that's karis holding pete's hand as they walked in for the procession of Jesus entering. olivia is in front of them, and mike is wearing a brown tunic, while jack is wearing a green one. i don't have a great shot of just jack, which is a shame because they were supposed to look adoringly at Jesus, and jack nailed that. his expression was .......... moving. really. that's karis' boyfriend, t.j. playing the guard. at one point, when they came in the side doors, something happened (i think he kicked it and stubbed his toe) where he was trying really hard not to laugh. that kind of took away from the seriousness of the situation being portrayed, but otherwise, well done.




in the picture above you can kind of get a glimpse of jack's expressions.

at this point, below, pete was getting an idea that this was the end and started holding on to olivia *really* tight. but before he knew it, Jesus had scooped him up, olivia had scooped up another girl, and they started quickly walking out the center aisle. once he got to the back and was reunited with his sisters, he was fine. robin and nick were the props guys. i didn't get a picture of them-sorry!

deal of the day

sadly, this is the first year in about 13 that we won't be celebrating easter with my brother and his family. secondary sadness, all of our plastic easter eggs are at their house since last year we were basically homeless.

enter the deal of the day. my favorite local mennonite thrift store had them for sale: .03 for large eggs, .02 for medium size.

so i got 107 eggs for $2.21.

and sorting them kept pete occupied for more than an hour.

helping accountant dad brush up on his math skills

what's going on

one sure fire way to tell what's going on in the house is to look who's been taking pictures with my camera.








pete planted seeds.
he is taking the watering and making sure they get adequate sun (a challenge for sure this time of year!) very seriously.
he is *so excited* at the daily growth.







there is lots of sewing going on.
my mom was just here for a brief visit.
she helped answer some questions about attaching sleeves to a shirt.
i love watching the melding of generations and mutual respect shared.

and i humbly thank God again for bringing us back home.

craziness

the wireless internet didn't want to work all day so i could post these pictures of the craziness of our last 24 hours. tonight we're not expecting any more snow to *fall* but the wind is whipping around the additional 16" we got this go round.


the kids played outside in it most of the day.
the boys enjoyed sliding/jumping/doing flips off of the shed roof into the mounds of snow below.
even pete (he's 4).
i told the 2 little boys to be thankful they had two big brothers because i never would've let them do that without them.


this is looking out the atelier window....
yes, it is covered with snow. it is *that* windy.

and this is a picture of mike's frostbite that he actually got a few years ago while visiting my sister in michigan. it flares up any time he gets really cold. i know because when i was in college (messiah, fall of '84) my roommate and i walked to mcdonalds and i had a hole in my boot and got frostbite on my big toe. every time it gets cold it flares up the same way.

ah, well.
wasn't it helen keller who said life is an adventure or nothing at all?

north museum of science and natural history

we love that our library offers free family passes to some local museums. this month we took advantage of the one to the north museum of science and natural history. instead of bemoaning the fact that we so rarely can do field trips with all 7 kids, i've decided to embrace the relative ease of keeping track of only 4 (and console myself with the fact that the oldest 3 have been to many, many more museums, even if they don't remember all of them).

it doesn't look very big from the outside, but inside there was so much to do. i feel like we went through it quickly, and we were there for over 2 hours. the discover room alone (with all those delightful labeled boxes of things the kids could touch, including animal feet, skulls, native american things, etc.). we're getting ready to study astronomy in the spring, so their whole section on that was inspiring, not to mention the traveling exhibit on blood suckers which was very well done and full of information.

scenes from christmas 1

from the creativity files of olivia----
i gave her these and told her to try making a nativity scene or something christ-massy.

she returned them like this (three wise men):



the boys had fun making an igloo at the end of the driveway:


3!! some were easier to get in and out than others.....

snow..

we ended up getting about 12/15 inches. church was canceled but our friends, the hurlberts, came for lunch anyway. there's an awesome sledding hill behind our development that the kids have enjoyed going to. karis was supposed to go to work at qvc (christmas rush you know) but robin got the car stuck just past our driveway (they hadn't plowed our street yet).

at one point, it was windy and the snow was really coming down, and mike looked at me with his big smile and said, "mom! blizzards are SO MUCH BETTER than hurricanes!" and went on his merry way. gotta love those southern born boys...

all in all, we are so thankful for snow. it's wonderful, quiet, pure, miraculous joy. thanks Lord!

poor baby boy

is on day four of a fever, and just doesn't feel well. at least he looks comfy (barb--that's the new duvet cover/pillowcase from ikea. the cheapest one there--$9 for the set) and he has his faithful panda to keep him company.

landis valley museum

another benefit of the library is a free family museum pass to some local museums. we were planning on going to another museum about an hour away, but their special festivities were cancelled due to the weather. it turned out to be for the best anyway, since it was only gray and slightly drizzly and robin got to go with us. the girls were all busy, so it was just me and the boys. fun!

they already had the visitor center decorated for christmas. the museum shop was having an open house, with carolers dressed in time period garb and free refreshments. jack saw his awana teacher, and robin met up with an old co-worker.

i love it all, but i especially liked the school house. that is, until the boys got carried away in their make believe outhouse adventure (but all that pretending did send us on a quest to find the nearest "real" bathroom).
silly boys.

finally 4

after the panda cake fiasco of september pete insisted he was still 3 because he hadn't had his panda cake yet (remember, we only served cupcakes). apparently, in his mind at least, you don't actually turn the next year until you've had the cake you requested.

i guess we waited a little bit too long to finally make the panda cake. after we made this, sang to him, and he blew out 4 candles. we asked him how old he was now and he said, "five."

try to convince him otherwise.

(the scrape on the side of his face is where he hit a tree branch while jumping out of a tree he climbed in the backyard)

neighborhood gatherings

have been happening frequently around here, mostly in the under 13 crowd.
our kids haven't had trees of their own in a while to make piles of leaves in, so they were eager to start raking.

they quickly gained a gathering of followers.the gloves prevent the "red hots" (rope burns).

(click to enlarge)

some just got buried.
some buried themselves.all had a great time.

fire safety house

one thing the pennsylvania homeschool law really emphasizes is fire safety.
it's required to be taught (with proof in the portfolio!) every year.
(and yet, it was not taught in one grade out of the 6 we were in public school last year)
so we took up the opportunity when the local township fire department had their inflatable learning house at hands on house.
jack, olivia, mike and pete had fun.

this was from inside. a little girl actually got her foot stuck in the rope ladder that went to the top of the slide. she needed two firemen to get her out (sounds like a joke, but it's all true! olivia tried to help her before the firemen climbed in and rescued her).