November and December so far

It's been a full couple months, OK a full year :) Back in September Isaac started his first season of soccer, which he just loved. It wasn't a team with games, just learning basic skills in a fun way once a week. He wasn't very thrilled with the idea when we told him about it, but after the first practice he could hardly wait for the next Monday. The season wrapped up in the beginning of November. Another wonderful means of expending the kids energy is the 13-foot trampoline I got off freecycle! It's in great condition, we just need to fix the net, but so far no one has fallen off :) Don't worry, they aren't allowed to jump without us there! I love freecycle :) My parents came up in November in the middle of the pastors' conference at our church so they could watch the kids for part of it anyway. We had a great time together, as always! Never a shortage of house projects to work on either :) We spent Thanksgiving with some friends here in town since all our families live far away. Plenty of kids to play with and lots of food to eat. We all had a great time, but it's just not the same as being home with all the family! No Black Friday shopping for me this year! All I heard was how crazy it is up here. Well, we did stop at Wal-Mart in the small town near us to buy a Christmas tree stand, but it was just about like normal there. Gotta love small towns :) Then it was on to get our very first live tree! Some friends had told us about a nursery about 30 minutes away that gives you a free tree when you buy a gift card of equal value. So we'll go back in the spring to get grass seed and our garden veggies. We were super glad not to have to pull out every little branch of our artificial tree, plus it makes me sneeze and itch from the dust! The tree is so pretty and smells so good! Another first was having an actual tree topper and not a bare branch! That was an after Christmas deal last year :) Since Luke is into everything we put the tree in the foyer to minimize temptation for him. So far he's only gotten to it once :) And the latest big event was the kids being in our babysitter's wedding yesterday! Sarah has been watching the kids for at least two years, and she's just so dear to us all! She and her now husband came over a few months ago to talk with us and ask about our courtship and such. When we had shared how we so quickly felt sure we wanted to marry the other, and both shared such similar visions and desires for life (including seminary), they looked at each other and said "that sounds like us!" They got engaged the next week I think :) I think Sarah must have told the kids something when she was here b/c they weren't very surprised when i told them they were engaged! So Samy has been counting down the days until she got to be a flower girl, while Isaac, on the other hand, would say, "It's so girlish!" They both made it down the aisle, no stage fright at all! Isaac forgot who he was supposed to take the rings to when he got down front though, causing one of those classic AFV moments when he calls out "What??" as i tried to tell him where to go :) oh well! We were so happy to be part of their big day, but I was totally exhausted at the end of it. Luke was cheery for all but a few minutes of the 5 hours we were there! Thank you kind God!!

Blog worthy day

I can't help but blog about my sweet Isaac today!  I was working on Christmas decorations this afternoon while Samy and Luke were both asleep and Isaac was just hanging out in the room with me when he asked (totally out of the blue), "Mom, when did I say Jesus was my Savior?"  I said I wasn't sure he'd ever really said that and asked if he wanted to now.  He said something about being much younger than me, how I was 20 when I did.  Wow, I think I've only mentioned that once, but he's obviously been thinking.  So, I asked if he wanted to ask Jesus to be his Savior and he said yes!  I was so glad Keith was home.  We went out with Keith and prayed with our little guy.  Mommy was just trying not to cry :)  We're praying this is the day of his salvation and that he will walk with the Lord all his life! 

And this afternoon Isaac officially learned to ride his bike without training wheels! He's just growing up so much!
While I'm here, I'll just update on Isaac in general :)  We're plugging right away with our first year of home school.  Isaac's a smart fella, so it's been easy in that aspect.  It's certainly not been like I had envisioned...all those fun art projects and reading historical narratives just haven't happened.  We've stuck with phonics, math and grammar.  And then our Classical Conversations co-op too--which I guess is quite a bit more than most first graders are doing :)  I can't believe all the things these kids are memorizing!  We do a history timeline that goes from Creation to modern America.  We just made it to the ministry of Christ--56 cards so far, and Samy in particular can rattle them off with little hesitation!
The rest of life will have to be updated another day, I'm ready for bed :)

The difference in my children

This part of the post I wrote a couple years ago but is still mostly true:
Samy loves "helping" me put away groceries, wash dishes, load laundry. Isaac responds when asked to help, "You do it." (He wouldn't say that anymore, he'd be glad to help, usually :)
Samy carefully arranges her Little People around the table to eat. Isaac quickly knocks them down.
Samy has to have her 4 baby dolls, 4-5 stuffed animals, 4 blankets, pillow, and her water in her bed all arranged just right to go to sleep. Isaac has his one blankie. (Now he's got quite a few animals in his bed too)
Samy walks her dolls slowly in her stroller. Isaac sees how fast he can run with the stroller (and often rams into something). (That hasn't changed at all!)
When Samy doesn't get her way she is upset for an hour. When Isaac doesn't get his way, he gets over it in 30 seconds. (And neither has this.)

Though there are many differences between Isaac and Samy, I love seeing them compromise because of their friendship.  Here are a few fun examples of things I'm certain wouldn't happen if they were both boys or both girls: playing "battle princess" or "Super Megan", Samy's love for Star Wars too, when Belle becomes a Jedi, lightsaber fights all over the yard, Isaac watching Tangled and Beauty and the Beast multiple times b/c his sister likes them, and the one I  hear most often "Let's play Legos and princesses!"  :)  I just love how they've learned to combine their favorite things so they are playing together.  There are fights, of course, but who wants to hear about that!  I need to be reminded of the grace that is there b/c many days it feels like all I see are fights.

From December 2008

Was just looking at all the posts I began and never finished.  This one is from December 2008 and it's just fun to see how much Isaac has changed:

Time sure does fly by! Isaac is almost 3 and a half and Samy is almost 20 months old now! They change quickly and grow up way too fast.

Isaac loves puzzles and is getting really good at them. Maybe he got mommy's logical thinking skills :o) His vocabulary seems to expand everyday and he's quite the chatterbox. I think my favorite thing he says a lot is when he calls me or Keith or Samy a "turkey goose!"

October around here

Ah, the first snow of the season. Wait, there are still green leaves on the trees! This just ain't right my friends.  The kids were out having a snow ball fight with a neighbor yesterday.  I slipped on the icy driveway this morning (when I locked the kids and I out of the house leaving for church).  This is just craziness!  But it really is still pretty, though a bit weird to see green leaves with snow on them!

Last night was the Harvest Party at our church.  It was pouring snow all day yesterday and Keith was rather concerned about the roads b/c they were saying it was going to freeze, but we knew the kids would be so disappointed if we didn't go.  So we set out and by the time we were out of our little town there was almost no snow on the ground!  Crazy how different the weather can be just a few miles away.
Samy was Rapunzel and I made her a long braid out of yarn.  (if you look close at the pictures you can see her cast!)  Isaac was Anakin Skywalker, wearing the Jedi cape I made for him and armed with his lightsaber!  Our neighbor was dressed up as Rapunzel too and had her own yarn braid :)

Time to get to church, but hoping to update on the kids later!

Colonial us

It has been a very colonial beginning to our school year! A few others ladies and I decided to make our own little Classical Conversations (CC) co-op at my house rather than shell out the big bucks to do it with the official one. We meet every other week and the kids (five actually doing school and two babies) have a blast! This year CC is focusing on American history, which worked out well with our family vacation to Williamsburg. I made Samy a very simple colonial dress to help her get into it a little more. We read some books about the time period too, but they still preferred climbing trees and playing in the dirt to seeing all the cool historic buildings :) Oh well! We also spent some time at the pool, mini golfing, ice cream eating, and (the kids favorite part) watching Episodes 1 and 2 of Star Wars that we borrowed from friends :) I, on the other hand, LOVED Williamsburg and would love to go every year! They had this fun game called RevQuest where they give you a set of instructions when you check in and special bandannas to wear. You meet your secret informant who starts you off on your secret mission and tells you to beware of spies (anyone not wearing the same color blue as the bandanna). Isaac and Samy liked the secret spy part and kept Daddy from getting us thrown in jail when someone started asking him questions related to our secret mission. Isaac said, "He's a spy, Dad! Stop talking to him!" You are given clues and have to find answers around Williamsburg and then text answers to get the next clue and if you are successful in saving the person from danger by figuring out the whole message then you get a little coin with the year and Colonial Williamsburg on it. It was so much fun, though the clues were way over our kids' heads. I sure enjoyed it :) Well, we completed our mission a little after the time of the ceremony where you receive your coin (you find out the secret time and place when you finish the game), and we were leaving the next morning, which was a big bummer! But God was so kind to allow us to see our "secret informant" we had met that morning and I asked her if it was possible to get the little prize for the kids. She was so kind and met us behind a building and went through the whole thing with us about the mission and giving us all our coins. It was great!

And then we also took a field trip with lots of friends to a colonial farm nearby in late September. We got to card and spin wool, crush grain, make candles by dipping wicks into beeswax, play some games from the time period, and then explore the farm while talking with a farmer's wife (very in character!). We even pulled weeds in the garden :)

Isaac's birthday party

Is it sadder that it took us a month to have his birthday party or that it took me two months to post pictures?? :)

My big boy certainly had a blast at his Star Wars party!  He invited a few friends and their families for an evening of Jedi training, galactic grilling and Wookiee cookies.  Keith trained all the young Jedi to be ready for battle: running through a little obstacle course, whacking Storm Troopers while avoiding Princess Leia, balancing, "thermal detonator" toss, and then finally destroying the Death Star pinata (that took me a week to make and 30 seconds to destroy).