On the Subject of Holiday Pictures

I realized that the Easter pictures were not the only thing trapped in the camera. I don't think I had ever even looked at the pictures from Christmas.

This one made me chuckle. I always tell Cadence that God must have needed a laugh the day he thought her up....

And what could possibly be harder than trying to take a decent picture of three kids?

Oh, I know, lets add the worlds most obstinate dog, Tasha! Great, now everybody howl!!!!

Holiday Pics

It took me almost a week to free them from my camera, but here are a few pics of the kids from Easter. People at church get a kick out the way our kids love to dress up. The boys almost always wear ties to church, and of course Cadence wants the prettiest, frilliest dress in the closet every day.

We had a nice, quiet Easter which makes it easy to focus on the things that matter - Jesus and family. We did a little egg hunt in the yard (the kids LOVE that part of Easter). I didn't manage to get a picture of Jacob looking for eggs because (even though I hid his a LOT better) he didn't need much help finding his eggs. I cooked a ham for dinner and my mom and Nate stopped by with some dessert.

Notice the hole in our fence in the picture with Cadence? That is from our neighbors having a New Years Eve bonfire! I guess they were running out of wood...

And I leave you with this - a picture of three of my favorite people in all the world. I wish you could see Jacob's outfit better, the boys both had black suits and matching ties (different color shirts). Todd even wore a suit to church so he could match too! Do you know how hard it is to get all three kids to look at the camera? I don't - because I don't think I've ever managed. I believe that it may be impossible.

And tell me, have you ever seen an uglier couch? It was $17 at the Rescue Mission (after Todd's discount, of course!)

School is fun!

I am just about done ordering books and materials for the next school year, and I can hardly contain my excitement! We will being doing Sonlight's Core 3 - American History Part 1, and we love history. I have put a lot of thought into what to do with Gabriel next year (having just turned 4 is reading the ABeka 1st grade readers, excelling at most K math concepts, and is an all around smarty pants). I decided that I will require him to participate in Jacob's "core" activities- that means he will listen to our history, Bible and read-aloud stuff. I'm sure he will keep reading everything in site, but I have (or can get from the library) all the grade 2 Sonlight readers for him, and we will most likely do those on our own schedule.

Math was what I struggled with the most...to start him in a formal math program or not? I decided not. From glancing over the Saxon math placement test it appears he would place in 1st grade now, but I'm not ready for that level of commitment with him. So I will teach him the things I know he needs work on (money, telling time to 1/4 hour, subtraction, patterns) and maybe when he is 5 we will do Saxon 2, maybe.

Not that I'm complaining, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of resources for gifted preschoolers - a lot of what I found on-line was parents saying "Maybe I shouldn't let my 3 year learn to read 'cause I don't want him to be bored in school..."

Only 10 weeks left of Core this year, 2 weeks of math (Jacob will start right in on 54 though) and not too much lang. It's funny how I'm really craving a good long break and at the same time all excited about next year. Does anybody have any tips on getting a wiggly boy to memorize multiplication facts?

Winter Break

Everything worked out okay, even if it did take a little bit of work and some name dropping. I remembered that we have rental coverage on our insurance policy, but Allstate said we couldn't pick up a rental car until our car went into the shop. And we couldn't take our car into the shop until the shop had the parts in. And they told us we had to go to their estimator in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon and we couldn't get anything sooner.

I called my brother-in-law who used be a manager at a big body shop and he said to take the car right to that shop and tell them that Roger said hi. I also called my agent and let him know "I'm not in good hands with... your insurance company." The agent said to go ahead and see what the body shop (who is a direct repair shop) could do for me. When they found out who my brother-in-law was they took a hard look at the van and found it undrivable, which meant I had to leave it right then and a few minuets later I drove off in a rental.

So Sunday morning we got the kids ready and piled them into our rental car. They thought we were taking Todd to church for worship practice (although I think Jacob suspected something different). After about 2 and 1/2 hours of driving Cadence said "Are we going to church? Where are we going?" To which Todd just replied "Watch" and pointed out the window. After another hour Gabe finally said "Are we almost to church? Can I take my new toy in with me when we get there?" I was cracking up, I couldn't believe he still thought we were going to church! Then, when we stopped to go potty Gabe looked at the building and said "Is this our new church?" At which point I chastised Todd for taking a wrong turn and making us miss church :)

When we pulled into Splash Lagoon, the kids were really excited. We had a great time on Sunday, even though the place was packed. I don't have any pics to show for it because the camera batteries aren't holding a charge. Sunday night Cadence got croup and then I woke up really sore Monday morning so we only stayed a few hours on Monday before heading home. But overall it was really fun!