Bethany and Daddy

---pretty good pics, if you can ignore the "Free Gas" tee shirt!

MDO Begins

Jacob and his new MDO teachers. Even after only two days, Jacob is LOVING Mother's Day Out. He really loves being with his best buddies on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This is actually Bethany going in for her second day of MDO. On the first day, she didn't cry a bit! I quickly snapped the pic and headed out with Naomi. Bethany almost immediately stopped crying. She really loves playing with her friends too. The first day when I picked her up, she grabbed the straps for her MDO bag and insisted on carrying it by herself to the van. You can tell that her school makes her feel all grown up and very special!

Church Picnic

And where was Naomi? (you might ask) Well, after some searching, we found her with a boy. She and Luke hung out the whole picnic. And yes, we're already talking pre-arranged marriage with his parents. Just kidding. : )

Today's Fun Lunch

Today I made a little batch of peanut butter play dough (head over to Of Such is the Kingdom for more pics and the recipe) for our lunch. Everybody enjoyed playing with it and eating it! I turned to take Bethany's picture and said, "Smile!" She not only smiled really big, but she also said what sounded a lot like, "Cheese!"

Snack for lunch? Great! A snack that I can play with? Even better!

Naomi and her creation--it started out as a snowman and ended up as a plump angel. So cute!

Bethany Being Herself Again

Bethany snuck one of the oven mitts off the counter and put it on, so we gave her the other one. She toddled around proudly wearing them both.

Then she patted Daddy's cheeks with them. After that, Nate and I stood up and started talking. When we looked at Bethany again, she had stuffed both of the mitts in the trash can! Ha!

Afternoon Hike

We took a little impromptu hike down to Glen Falls this afternoon.

At one point on our hike, Naomi spotted a pinkish leaf. She exclaimed, "A pink leaf! This is what I've been looking for all my life!"

Jacob, of course, promptly fell in, but he didn't say a word in complaint about being wet, and he sure enjoyed himself!

Room of Three

Naomi's corner

Jacob's corner

Bethany's corner

I "helped" the kids clean their room today, so I thought it might be a good day to share their corners. I used to have all their toys mixed up, but after visiting a friend whose boy has his own room, I realized Jacob needed a boy space all his own. They love to play--and there are no lines! Polly Pockets can easily jump right over to the Pirate ship, and the smaller blocks make great pancakes in Naomi's kitchen.

Jacob

Shape Art

Naomi, Jacob, and I participated in this little art project. Can you guess who's is who's?

Naomi Makes Bethany Laugh

Kid Art

the machine

This is my favorite drawing of Jacob's lately. For some reason this turquoise and brown color combo is a favorite of mine. He usually does single line drawings, so the coloring in on this one is special. Maybe I should enter it in an art show?

the mess

This is Bethany's artistic creation. (That knife is a play one, by the way!) When she gets the toys out in the kitchen, they almost always end up spread all over the floor, but I thought this design was especially symmetric. No toy is near another, and pretty much the whole floor was covered. (And for those of you wondering how I cook when all of that is going on; that too is an art.)

Eleven Children, Four Mommas

It's not easy getting 3 1 yos to sit still for a pic!

But it's a lot easier to get the older girls to pose!

Jacob and Graham were in the mood to pose today too!

Yes, we even fed all 11 kiddos together! And they all ate pretty well, too.

Oster News

I thought it might be time for some updates. Our little walker is also feeding herself with a spoon, using a repertoire of words, and climbing, climbing, climbing. Her words include: uh oh, whoa, wow, ow, mama, daddy, Jacob (ay bub), thank you (tee too), Dixie (di dee), no, and all done. The "all done" is because she was standing up in her high chair when she wanted to get down, so I started teaching her the sign language for all done. She learned not only the sign, but also the words and the exact tone (a sing song, "aaaah done") that we were using.

Jacob starts Mother's Day Out on Tuesday. He is soaking up knowledge as well! He knows how to write his name and I constantly get love letters from him. Last week he would fill a page with letters including those in his name. I explained that in order to read the words, he had to line up the letters in a pretty line. Now he conscientiously lines up each letter. Naomi helped him with the above, patiently saying the letters for "momma" as he wrote them down. She also wrote the "from" for him. My job teaching Jacob may be very short-lived. Whatever Naomi learns, she naturally just passes down to her brother. I am considering starting Jacob in a taekwondo class this fall. He got pretty excited when I mentioned it, so it might be a really good fit for him.

Naomi is looking forward to schooling at home. She told me yesterday that she would practice doing school every day until it was really time to start. We will officially begin the third week of September. I'm planning a little class for Naomi and her friends focused around Little House in the Big Woods. Naomi will also be studying Botany, adding, subtracting, measurement and fractions, and history (through making a simple comprehensive timeline). She will probably be writing a lot of letters (like the above) because that is what she really enjoys. This is a note that has been anxiously awaiting delivery to one of our neighbors for a while. (Halley Blair, Do you want to borrow my book? from Naomi) Below is some of Naomi's "practice" for school.

Our Weekend

This past Friday our family set out for Alabama. Bethany, Jacob, and Naomi stayed with their Grandad and Granna while Nate and I went to see G.I. Joe then headed to a cabin by a lake.

On Saturday night the big kids camped out with Grandad. And this is not just backyard camping; my dad is REALLY brave. He took them up to Mount Cheaha where he used to take my brother and me camping. They braved the mist and the wind and the rain and loved every minute of it.

Part of the loving camping included cookies AND roasted marshmallows. I don't think they were supposed to tell me how many sweets they ate, but it's caught here forever in the pictures!

the campsite

Nate and I really enjoyed our get-away. We spent a lot of time quietly floating on rafts in the lake and quietly resting and quietly cooking and eating our meals and quietly talking about all the trips we want our family to take in the future. Did I mention it was a really quiet weekend? Thanks Grandad and Granna and Aunt Kim (who offered the cabin) for a great weekend away!

Bethany Being Herself

Otherwise titled: Bethany Climbs a Chair and Gets Stuck

And Bethany is Finally...

walking!

Momma Runs a Race

No, not a rat race, a real race! I ran a 5-mile on Saturday and lived to tell about it.

It was worth all the pain and discomfort to round a bend somewhere around 4 1/4 miles (not that I was counting : ) and hear my children chanting "Yeah, Momma! Yeah, Momma!" THAT was a good feeling indeed! And for those of you who are interested, the results are here. I just kept telling myself as lots of people passed me along the way, "I bet they don't have three children!"

Lake Winnie