Summer Where Have You Gone...

Pumpkin Harvest! Pumpkins were definitely the most exciting to grow.

Jane thinks her duck is Jemima.

Jacob ran out the door yelling, "The apples are ready!!!"

My baby!!

I wish she was more cuddly like Ezra but she can't sit still for a moment.

This is a beautiful fall day I got to spend with just the three littles. The leaves were floating and the sunlight was shining through the trees. I was in heaven.

                                                              Our ROOSTER Frodo.

Seasons 

By Charlie 2013

The leaves are falling every color

What could be so beautiful.

But then there’s something round and cold and white

Thousands of them falling slowly to the ground.

After that little buds are coming and little animals are getting born.

Then the animals are big.

Apples are so ready, waiting for someone to eat them off their tree.

School Room Snapshot 2014

                           

Charlie made the picture of our theme this year:

“The Savior was the Master Teacher…We would see most of His ministry being teaching. And yet almost none of that teaching was done in a church building. His teaching was out where the people were. It was in highways and byways and hillsides and seashores and in homes.

~Elder Holland

 Jacob writes letters to exciting people and has received a letter back every time thus far!
 We had special visit with the Brenan's. It was such a treat to spend some time with their family! We all fell in love with the little boys- such darlings. Craig is a professional trombone player (currently number one on the national jazz list FYI) so he did a mini trombone session with each of the kids on their own instruments. It was seriously awesome. I love being inspired by talented people.

Jenna and I have known each other for a long time. We don't get to see her very often but when I do see her I always feel so happy. She's one of those sunshiney people. 

 Jacob loves math so we made a math kit for him to play with in his free time. 

It's full of math games and puzzles etc.

 We are starting Hazel young on the geoboard.

Scarlet is progressing so quickly already. She's like a human sponge. I wish my brain was that spongy. 

 

 Our first study unit was about bridges. Bridges are actually really extra amazing 

when you start learning about them.

 All the different types of bridges.

 Jacob's Love of Learning class is Chess this semester. 

Jane is doing Kitchen Class and Charlie is doing Wood Burning.

Ez

Ezra. He LOVES smoothies- PB ones with carob chips.

He also loves Doogh and hummus and pita and rice and eggs- lots of Baba foods.

 When he sings Primary songs he says "Judeeba" instead of "Judea"

His two front teeth got knocked out. So Sad. His toofies were perfect!

He was having a tantrum and Tim asked him if he wanted granola or milky and he answered, "granilkies" He realized how funny it came out and stopped crying.

He's learning to use the potty- he can often be found running around the house shouting, "Potty Power!" or singing, "No more diapers for me."

 He still doesn't pay much attention to Hazel. These photos are not a usual occurrence.

 We went into the kitchen after FHE for our zucchini cake and found it all half eaten by Ezra.

We got this Kinetic Sand for Ez to play with while we study and it's been so awesome. He spends lots of time playing with it. I highly recommend.

 We've been listening to Peter and the Wolf together and Ezra especially likes it. I made him these finger puppets to go with the story.

 Ezra is obsessed with TRAINS ever since we went to the Railway Museum. We got to ride a real steam engine which was actually really cool and he's been stuck on trains ever since.

He makes all objects into trains by placing them in a row. He loves to do it with the buckets in our kitchen. He has us all sit down on his train and then he says the cutest things like, "All aboard! Do you want to go faster? Where should we go? To the store to get milk? What song do you want? Hosanna? Can you see the smoke coming out?" Stuff like that. It makes me so happy to see his imagination growing.

I've been searching for a train table for him but haven't found the right one yet.

These are some shots from the Railway Museum. The kids were so excited to dress up.

Road Tripp'in

We got to go to Utah this summer to visit Timmy's fam and for Double J's wedding. I tried to have lots of car games prepared to help make the time in the car bearable. We took our time on the way down- we stayed with friends and did some other fun things. 

Here's some of my preparations.

Before we left our favorite pals came for a visit and a few days later we stopped in Calgary on our way to Utah for a visit at their place. How awesome is that?! A visit sandwich.

 We had an early birthday celebrations for Amber.

 Then we had a Sunday Feast

 Popcorn Party

 We went to a vegetarian Thai restaurant (my two favorite adjectives in one restaurant plus with our besties. That's a win win...) and experienced literally the best food I have ever eaten on planet earth-well, besides the Persian food we eat at my parents house and the food in Dubai...

 This picture of Lily is just so great!

 After all the fun with the Walters we headed to Callway Park for our first time. The kids had a blast.

 More weird car game moments...

glow sticks are hours of fun in a dark car.

 

 Next on our list was Waterton. It was painful to visit though because we miss it. The weather was amazing too so that didn't help. We hiked Bear's Hump with the Michel's and then stayed with them for a night. We really enjoyed spending time with them- so lucky to have such good people to learn from and spend time with.

 We always try to visit BYU whenever we go to Utah. We LOVE the Bean Museum.

 Bickenstaff's Toy Store

 These guys went for a quick dip between the wedding sealing and the reception.

 I loved visiting Temple Square with the kids. It was lovely. I wished we had more time to spend there but we'll just have to chip away at seeing everything one trip at a time.

 Eating healthy is def tricky in the car. We ended up with some unusual car snacks...

Hazel was unsually fussy on the way home- I wondered why but then found these two rocks in her car seat when we got home. Poor Hazel!! No wonder!