Can I play with you?

No play time is complete without a good crash.

I'm mad! I'm mad! I'm so... wait, are you taking my picture? I was only kidding.

These boys keep pushing her around

but it looks like she doesn't mind.



Grace at her best -rashy face, dirt ring under the chin, and all. I could wash her up before I take her picture, but then you'd miss the good stuff.



The proper way to ride a tricycle.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with my blog,

but I've been a little tied up.


We are finishing up our second week of school. We are still adjusting the schedule and getting used to our new curriculum, but things are starting to fall into place now. I love Switch on Schoolhouse, even though it has given me such headaches trying to figure out how to use it. Still, I would recommend it to anyone (that is computer literate.)

Joshua working hard at what he does best...

Josyow

Jacob- "Mama, look! I wrote Joshua's name on the note and look where I put it. I put it on his walker so we know who he is!"

It's coming

Whether we like it or not.

It makes no difference how many times we were able to sit in the sun,
or how hot it did or did not get.

The air is getting chilly, the heavy blankets have come out, the kids are not as eager to stay outside all day. Fall is on it's way and I have a feeling it's coming early this year.



Yeah, I know, my pictures have nothing to do with fall. Maybe I should have photoshopped some frost on the mushrooms.
What? You don't get excited over fungus? Come, on... I only shared the cool ones. And I even left out the ones that were oozing red jelly. You'd rather see pictures of the kids? Oh, all right. Here ya go...

What a week

Oooh, let me tell ya...

It's been quite a first week of school. And it's not over yet. A few of our subjects are new this year. We are giving Switched on Schoolhouse a try. But our computer is on the older side and I am less than an expert so I have had some trouble getting set up and started. In a few days, this old thing got a little more memory, an Internet Explorer update, a service pack 3 update, and as much of a clean up and tune up as I could perform. I wont go into detail any more than that because it's 10:30 already and (yawn!) I'm tired and sick and tired of being parked in front of this computer.

So I'll just leave you with a couple pics because my sister keeps asking me "When are you going to update the blog?"
These are for you, Kath.

She's smiling because it's not her purse. The cuter the smile, the less of a scolding she'll get from Courtney.

Pathways

Bout time I got my pictures up, huh?
Just an enjoyable day all around. I love to look across the water and see the kids wandering around. We can sit in one (not so comfy) spot and watch them all. The little ones rarely venture further than the little area where we sit, so it's so relaxing. If only we could get some lawn chairs out there.





Now this is what you call being loved.

So can I ask for some opinions? This boy, as cute as he is, does funny things to my camera. I can never get his coloring right. He always seems to look red. But when I color correct, I can't seem to get his true color. So I usually end up turning it B&W or something creative. I want to know what YOUR favorite is.
That means you - yeah, you know who you are. Be brave, leave a comment ;)

SOOC


B&W

or the soft color I posted yesterday?

Have you ever?

seen such a beautiful baby?

New Beds

These kids are growing up too fast.
The boys have outgrown their toddlers beds. Grace has outgrown her crib... well, no, Joshua has outgrown his bassinet, which means Grace is getting kicked out of her crib. But she's OK with it.


Tony built new beds for the boys. And while he was moving the girl's beds to put the carpet down, both of their beds fell apart, so he ended up building beds for them, too.
Joshua wasn't much help in staining the bed frames.



Jacob trying out his bed. Hmm, it's not too comfy.



He also built a cabinet for Grace that goes around her bed. It all turned out great. I'll post some pictures when it's all put together, but for now it's still pretty much a mess up there with all this moving around.
Grace took her first nap in her new big girl bed today. Courtney took her up and kissed her goodnight and she went right to sleep.
What happened to my baby?

Let me take you on a trip

You thought I already posted my vacation pictures, didn't you? Well, I do have 435 photos to choose from. Too many memories to share...
So here are a few (few, ha) to sum up the week.

We have a four and a half hour drive to look forward to (if we didn't stop, of course, we always stop)

Tony looked back and said "It's gonna be a long trip."



So what do we do while we're there? We eat!


We carve walking sticks.


We sit around the campfire.


We play with cousins.


We go on hikes.




We go on more hikes.


We go on "sandalamer" hunts.




We go on some MORE hikes!


And at night we sit around the campfire some more.




Last year I skipped it, (cant imagine why...) but we always climb the Vista. I always wonder why about halfway up, but I'm always glad we did. The view is amazing.


We got a bit of rain. One drizzly, miserable evening, we decided we were going to have fun despite the weather.
So we went to the beach. We were the only ones there, of course.


Another fun thing to do when it rains... go into town to the toy store. Tony stayed at the cabin but he had the most fun with the toys we came back with.

He looks a bit like someone who should NOT be wielding a gun.


And then the looong trip home.
Sigh...