The End of the Year 2006

One Big Happy Family

Here we are just a couple of weeks ago. We are doing great and love hanging out as a family. Most of our days are spent together in our home.

Jeffrey is still working at Encounters Network as Executive Administrator. He still enjoys this and the relationships that he has within this ministry.

Brooke began officially homeschooling this year. The whole family is benefiting in some way from this decision. We love reading books as a family and get to include "daddy" quite often, which he enjoys. Jonathan and Katherine are very excited because they are both reading and consuming books from the library. David can't seem to understand why 3 year olds don't read too. The challenges come for David and Grace who love playing with Jonathan and katherine, but not alone together yet. They do something at the table that represents school but it can be hard to keep a lesson going in these moments. Therefore, with each new bump in the road the schedule has to be rearranged and experimented with until we find some kind of a fit. Usually we try paring an older child with a younger one for an activity. This tends to make the morning a little longer, but everyone is happier.

We stayed here in Spring Hill this Christmas and enjoyed time with Brooke's family as well as a visit from Jeffrey's parents and brother Stephen. Enjoy the pictures!

Grace, 18 months

See my new teeth?

I love to play dress up

Our Beautiful Girls

Can We Get a Smile?

What Parents Live For

Pilgrims and Native Americans

Over the last several weeks we have been reading about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. We have also done many projects. The highlight has been making the Native paper sack outfits and headdress (not to mention the face paint). Grace enjoyed the picture opportunity too.

We also enjoyed going to a museum to learn about the first farmers. Jonathan, Katherine, and David were able to grind corn using a stone grinder.

If your house is feeling a little too small like ours, or a little cold these days, here's a reminder of what it could be: (this is the other side of your bedroom!).

Boy am I reminded to be thankful for our present comforts and communications such as blogs! Have a wonderful thanksgiving. We will be staying at home this year joining the Harris family and some friends here in town. Blessings!

Col. Richard Harris- Change of Command Ceremony

C 130

Last Saturday, Brooke's father, Rich, officially handed over his position as wing commander of the Tennessee Air National Guard base in Nashville. Here are a few pictures of the grandchildren waiting in the wings for Grandad's ceremony.

Once we were inside sitting with the kids, the ceremony lasted for about 30 minutes. I think we offered some entertainment to all the soldiers standing along the side and back of us. Brooke was pulling everything out of her purse to try to distract Grace and keep her quiet. The rest of the kids did great. Grace was passed between Jeffrey and Brooke at least 3 times and was almost escorted out a number of times whenever she let out a sound of disagreement to sitting still. When the ceremony finally ended, the kids were greatly rewarded with the goodies at the reception as well as a trip into Grandad's airplane. This was definately the highlight of the morning.

Katherine

David

Jonathan

Grandad tells us how to fly

Rich will continue working as a civilian at the airguard until December. Then his retirement will be official. What's next for Grandad? The sky is the limit.

JONATHAN'S BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to Jonathan, who is today........6 YEARS OLD!!!!!!

We celebrated his birthday yesterday with Mia (Brooke's mom) who shares the same birthday as Jonathan. He is very excited about his new gifts. He has already used his new rubber stamps several times in an art book journal. Jonathan is very artsy and loves to create all the time. Here is his journal entry from this morning. He is also very excited to try out his new motorcycle legos and computer program. What a big boy he is.

Mia

Mia's blows out the candles

Joanthan's turn

Updated Pictures

Grace is now 14 1/2 months old and quite a cutie. One of her favorite phrases is "I want that." She just dropped her morning nap, which makes homeschooling very interesting. We are still amazed at the similarities between Grace and Katherine's pictures at her same age. Here they are today.



David is on the go constantly. He is always wanting to do what everyone else is doing- including homeschool stuff. He brought me a book the other day and asked to do his reading lesson! AGH! I can't wait until he and Grace begin playing together.

Everyone pile on Daddy! How many can climb on?

That's all for now. Hope you are all well.

Sweet Grace

Grace is walking quite well now. She is very difficult to keep up with outside! She loves exploring the outside world. Every time someone gets ready to go outside she squeals and runs to go too. Today she got into Katherine's dress-up jewelry. She put the bracelets on and held the neclace up to her head to be put on. Barrowing David's glasses was the finishing touch.

Happy, Happy, Birthdays

Birthday at Grandma's (only 2 of David's 6 cousins shown)

Grace turned 1 on June 27th and David turned 3 on July 3rd. These events were a big hit- celebrated at home and in Ohio at Grandma and Grandpa's house with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Grace really enjoyed her cake!

David requested a pair of rollerblades for his birthday. Here are some shots of his first moments wearing them. I was a bit scared.

Here he is outside as the real pro.

Just days before Grace's birthday she began taking steps across the room with more confidence. Here are some of her moves early on.

Bikes! Bikes! Bikes!

We celebrated David's birthday a little early by getting him a new bike today. It has been a big week for bikes at our house. Both Jonathan and Katherine learned how to ride without training wheels. Katherine's little bike blew out a tire and we decided it was time to upgrade. So, Katherine and David both got new bikes. It was an exciting evening. The joy rang out around the culdesac as they made the loops. More birthday days are ahead in the next couple of weeks. For now David is enjoying his first present very much. He kept squealing with excitement While Jeffrey adjusted everything for him. As you can see in the picture he is very, very, pleased.

Katherine was equally pleased with our purchase for her. She now has a bike that matches her helmet. She and Jonathan are travelling at speeds a little bit frightening to me, but they love it. We had an unusually cool evening here so everyone enjoyed being outside for a long time. It was almost chilly for Grace and I on the sidelines. Jeffrey got his bike out and began making the rounds too. The kids love that and pretend they are racing daddy. Jonathan made the comment that he wished Grace had a bike too so everyone could ride together. Well, she does have a little bike, but it may be a while until she is mobile on it! She does like to push it to practice her walking.It won't be long until she is off and running.

One Week Later (June 19th) the bikes are still going. We took the kids to a park that has a mile long, paved trail. Jeffrey brought his bike along and I pushed Grace in the stroller. I think Jonathan and Katherine made five speedy laps on their bikes. David made about one and a half laps with Grace and I. This was the first real exercise I have been able to have in a long time!

Get Set....GO!

Katherine, David, and Jonathan enjoy our new olympic sized pool. They are racing from one end to the other to see who is the fastest swimmer.

Jonathan and David complete their syncronized swimming routine.

Anyone want to play ball?

David practices throwing the football to dad.

Katherine is quite good at softball. She is very determined and would practice for hours if we could keep up. At times she almost knocks you off your feet with her return hit.

One more driving casualty as Grace takes out Jonathan. She loves her brother.

Grace Is Growing Up

Sweet sister kisses

Grace and Katherine match as often as possible-Katherine's suggestion. I'm thankful that Katherine has a sister to match. I might not look as cute in striped overalls!Katherine and Grace are having more and more fun together now that Grace is getting bigger.

Grace's bath tub mirror

Grace loves the "baby" in the mirror

Grace gets very excited and kisses the "baby"

Everyone else is growing up too.

Jonathan has recently taken off in math exploration. He told us "hey, 5+4+2=11." I asked him what on earth made him think of that and he said "my fan." I looked at Jeffrey for an explanation- 5 blades, 4 lights, and 2 chains. Oh. My mind is not naturally mathematical so I am amazed. He also has made the connections of groups of numbers. He said just the other day "6 2's is 12. 3 2's is 6." He and Katherine are also learning to read- at different rates. I really had not been working with Katherine on reading other than letter sounds and a few three letter words. She, however, is so quick with languages that her intuition often helps her to guess the content of a story and what should naturally come next. Needless to say she does not want to be left behind in the world of reading so she is trying with all her might to keep up with Jonathan. The two of them are making our kick off to homeschooling quite easy. I am relieved and really enjoying the process. I hope to always keep learning fun.

David has his own version of school. He is not satisfied to go and play toys alone. He tries very hard to hang out and be patient. When the level of difficulty is too much for him, I always try to include him in any possible way. Jonathan and Katherine enjoy watching his version of our activities. For example, instead of asking him which bear is 3rd in a line, I ask him which bear is red. Jonathan always laughs and thinks it is funny that David is doing colors instead of ordinal position. Because David already knows his colors he always feels quite successful. Another favorite activity is playing store. I allow them to go shopping for an item in the house. They then pay me using pennies and dimes. David always gets to have some change back when he goes shopping. Somehow he does not count by 10's yet! It is hilarious to watch.

God always sends me some kind of teaching activity at just the right time. Suddenly the world is full of learning opportunities and the kids are always ready to learn. Just recently we had a robin build a nest on our front porch light. The kids and I got to see the robin's eggs and see one baby that hatched. For a couple of weeks we watched the mother and father robin feeding the baby bird. They are all gone now, but any time we see a robin in the yard everyone says "there's mama bird."

That's all for now. Hope that you are well wherever you are in the world.