christmas

our lifelong friends, the snyders, attended christmas eve service with our family and then came back to the house.. we love the snyders! mom and jerry were here too and they KNOW we love them!


and olivia and keri:

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)

7 things i haven't

for the past week, robin, haley (17) and nick (16) have been in vanderwagen, new mexico at broken arrow bible camp on a missions trip. they will be back in 2 days, so i thought i'd post a few things we haven't done/missed while they've been gone.

(picture of robin from the archives, playing family flag football at the park across the street from our house in tally. love that man.)

1.) i haven't grocery shopped. except for special treats for the 4 youngest. and milk.

2.) i haven't missed waking up to a sink of dirty dishes after i went to bed the night before with it clean :)

3.) i haven't put gas in either vehicle.

4.) i haven't competed for who gets to mow the lawn with the riding mower. karis and i are the only 2 here heavy enough, and she's busy working at her new job.

5.) i haven't done much wash. needless to say, we now know who makes the majority of our dirty laundry!

6.) i haven't gotten irritated with the volume of the television. because it hasn't been on :)

7.) i haven't enjoyed adult conversation (daily conversations with robin, sports talk with nick--haven't even watched sportscenter! and who's doing what with whom and why with haley).

i have missed them.
come home soon you three.
lots of love awaits you.

company

last week we had the pleasure of keeping a sweet 10yo girl for 3 nights while her parents were with her brother in washington dc for the future city national competition. her family goes to our church, we've known her mom since she was in high school. alyssa has 3 brothers, so having 2 sisters and their undivided attention for makeovers and hair straightening was a new and lovely experience for her. we loved having her!

on today's agenda

*edited 9:37 pm* nick tested negative for strep. the doctor thinks it's swine flu, though they didn't do the bloodwork (the test is not accurate, and her daughter had it with the exact same symptoms). his fever is down some tonight and he had enough energy to take a shower! romeo has a fever too (apparently from inflammation in his pelvis), got a shot for pain and is on two different pain killers for an apparent bruised tail bone. that will teach him to run away late on a sunday night in the dark, even if it was a full moon.

6:30 wake up/work out/shower and dress

7:40 greet makenna at the door, wake up big girls

8:30 take nick's temp. he can't talk and he looks terrible (it's 103* again. in spite of fever reducing medicine)

9-12 mops (mothers of preschoolers). thankfully i'm not speaking this morning. karis, makenna and olivia go with me. karis drives (still not quite used to that....)

(cancelled nick's oral surgeon check up appt. so i can)
1:15 take nick to doctor for his continuing 103* fever, now accompanied by a throat so sore he cannot speak or get out of bed

4:00 take romeo to the vet since he hasn't walked normally since sunday night (something appears to be wrong between his back legs. he keeps his tail tucked in and won't let me touch it or look at it.) he can hardly do the stairs and doesn't get up from his spot in the sun.

juliet is worried sick.

(picture from last year, raking florida neighbor mr. jim's leaves)

5:30 feed everyone something for dinner. it was supposed to be meatloaf, but i used that ground beef for the world series taco party we had saturday night (when the yankees won!) when we had more people than i originally planned. wishing now i had quickly gone to the store to replace that meatloaf meat....

6:00-9 take haley to gymnastics, pick up her two friends cody and karis from church to take with us. drop them off.

_____ guess what time i'll get to bed tonight? and how many kids will have a heinz list (catch-up school work) from the kind of day their teacher had?

bowling

all summer we've had free bowling coupons (you have to pay for shoes) for the 5 youngest kids (have to be under 16yo) but we hadn't had time when we were all together to be able to use them.

so, the first week we had them all back home for school, we did p.e. at the local bowling alley.

so. much. fun.
while i've loved every age/stage of our kids, and look forward to them being on their own, i will miss the days when it's just us.

artist in residence

haley's co-op class is painting.
she doesn't particularly enjoy it.
but a cup of tea, a pumpkin chocolate chip bar and some afternoon sun is delightful anyway.
and i love seeing the end result of a long labor of love (or at least requirement :)
i love you, talented haley.
i really do want one framed to hang.
just in case you're thinking of christmas yet.....

the scoop

i'm getting emails wondering how it is that all the kids are now being homeschooled again, so i'll tell the story.

mike, reading on a 3rd grade level, and doing math on a 2nd grade level was not going to be challenged or even taught from his level until 3rd grade (after speaking with his principal, we were not offered much hope for this to change for the next several years, according to how they do things at his school). so we had decided to homeschool him at the end of the year last year.

upon hearing this, jack and olivia asked if they could be homeschooled too.
here's a picture of their first day of school. they were choosing an artist to study (they chose rodin. i'm thinking because they saw night at the museum 2:smithsonian and rodin's the thinker was a big star, at least in the trailer).

then our niece jill (robin's sister's daughter) had a baby in july and asked if we would babysit her until a day care they had looked at had an opening the third week in september.

haley and nick started school on the 24th. haley had a culinary track. she would take 2 classes in the morning at the high school, then take a bus to the career technology center for lunch and an afternoon of culinary learning. it quickly (less than a week) became apparent, that not only would these classes be a total waste of time, but it was a dangerous environment for her to be in. she reluctantly agreed to be homeschooled, and quickly turned to be enthusiastically homeschooled. we were able to get her into a painting class at the big high school homeschool co-op that meets at our church, and we've known the director for 20 years.

(haley with her bff from florida earlier this year when they came to pa to visit)

after going to school alone for 4 days, nick was asking to be homeschooled too. robin was really not in favor of it, not even considering it, until we compared several classes we had taught karis through homeschooling, to how they were taught in public school. for example, high school biology. the public school in florida and in pennsylvania gave a full credit for biology and never required a dissection or look through a microscope. we used apologia's high school biology and had the sonlight microscope. we dissected a worm, frog, crayfish and trout. that's just one example. and then one of our very good friends in co-op broke his leg and dropped an economics class (almost identical to the marketing class nick was taking in public school this semester) and offered the spot to us (the classes in this co-op fill fast). so we took the opening for nick. now robin says he's more convinced than ever that homeschooling is the best option for us, and Lord willing, we'll continue this way the rest of the way through (yay!)

strasburg railroad

we've had lots of out of town company lately, and it's been fun taking them to different tourist destinations. when the 3 big kids were little, we would take them to the strasburg railroad (i'm sure ticket prices weren't as high back then, but we had a friend who worked there who kindly gave us tickets so i never noticed...). this day we took karis' friend ashley, but nick wasn't with us since he had spent the night at patrick's.

pete was quietly concerned about the whole thing before we got started.
then when we saw thomas the train engine being repaired, he continuously wondered how he got sick and what they were doing to him (and what happened to his face? it wasn't a painted smile)

karis had the camera and saw this kid. she thought the t-shirt was funny.
(and we'll be homeschooling 4 this year! yay!)

halfway through the train ride, there's a nice, quiet picnic grove that you can get off to have lunch or play on the playground. we always do this, and that's usually a way you can differentiate between locals and tourists. it's not an advertised thing, so tourists rarely know it's an option.

freezing corn

i love to freeze corn, and lancaster county has the best. we always wait until the butter and sugar corn comes in (note the yellow and white coloring) because it freezes so well. we did 20 dozen or so and it will all have to stay in sue's freezer, since my little 'ol side by side does not have much room. thanks for hosting us at your house snyders! and for shucking all the corn darrell and cody! we girls had so much fun!

facing the sun

creation2009

now that we have internet in our home again (thank you Lord... and robin...) it's fun to go through the main computer and see what pics are on it that i haven't seen (and to do a test post to see if i remember how from the pc).
i'm not sure which girl is responsible for this picture, taken at creation where they worshiped with 50,000 others while camping, waiting in line for port-a-johns and listening to bands/speakers.

nice job on the picture, girls. how 'bout a guest post?

church suppers

one of the things we love about our church is the wednesday night church suppers in the summer, the first of every month. each one has a theme, and the food is always good. july's theme was a pet show with a message with special guests from animal alley and the grilling done by the pastors (pictured is pastor marv).

we love the integration of all ages together, the opportunity to serve families with young children and the atmosphere of informalness at these get togethers. thanks, gbc!

farewells

these three are very happy to say goodbye to the bathroom all 9 of us have been sharing for the past 6 months.
we praise God for His faithfulness to us--God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

more posts on the new house coming. we won't have internet of our own until the 17th, so i only get to check emails/the blog every 2-3 days or so.

graduation

our firstborn graduated on monday, june 8.
there were 590 or so students in her graduating class.
it was hot (by pennsylvania standards), and held on the football field.
it lasted only 1 hour 45 minutes.
not bad.


coming in with her class.
she was in row 14 on the left side.


they only gave us 3 tickets, so haley was the one who got to come.
bffs


this is only 1/4th of the students

her best friend from church, kara

really excited for that diploma!

she had no idea who this man was.
we are so proud of her.

though i must admit....after 10 years of homeschooling, our blood/sweat/tears intermingling to achieve the goal.... it felt a bit like a 9 month difficult pregnancy, only to give the baby up for adoption. probably a really poor analogy, but painful nonetheless.

as a wise homeschooling friend reminded me, at least she has a diploma that will never be questioned.

we love you karis!

happy 17th birthday, haley

i'm posting pics later than i wanted, but have a few days of the computer crashing every time i tried to upload pictures and people saying they want to buy your house and then not calling back or returning your phone calls, and 4 parties in 3 days, and that's what you get.

we celebrated by having friends meet us at long's park.......

for shaving cream/silly string/water balloon fights.

katie and haley (and just barely jack's shaving creamed head)



rachel, kirsten, haley and jack




nick, patrick, katie



nick, rachel, jack, patrick

rachel, kirsten, bekka and katie

the whole gang

haley (with help from ian) blowing out pretend lit candles (it was too windy to light them)

we attempted to make a tie dye cake, but the colors were kinda gross pre-baked

but once it was baked it turned out great. unfortunately, i didn't count the number of people attending, and there wasn't enough cake to go around. and haley didn't get any. i made a cookie cake for her the next day, but she didn't get any of that either...... i'll make it up to you, honey!

7 things seen this weekend

1. 3yo helping with mountain of mulch


2. forgiven puppies post-baby-bunny-catching
(still upset by that scene)


3. game of wiffle ball with friends
(check out that dew cap!)


4. proud grandparents sending granddaughter off to prom


5. unihibited pre-teens singing "ymca" complete with motions


6. sister love


7. beautiful girls-almost women