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.

Spring Is So Beautiful

some of our iris in bloom

It has been a beautiful spring weekend. Once again we spent many hours outside, which the kids love. This evening was perfect for bike riding out in front of our house. I tried capturing a few pictures of the kids. David now has a new bike helmet and is riding a tricycle.

David's new biker look

Jonathan showing off his new toothless grin

Katherine ever so dainty

Grace watches from the side lines

Happy Easter

Katherine, Grace, Jonathan, and David

The Whole Family

Well, here we are on Easter Sunday. This was an all around fun day for the kids. They did what they love best...play outside. We went to Brooke's parent's house and let the kids run around all day long. Just when they were about to slow down we had an egg hunt and let them eat some candy...the rest is history. David gets the award for the most creative egg hunter. He would find an egg, open it up and dump the candy in his bag, drop the empty shells and move forward. He left a whole trail of empty eggs and a laughing daddy behind him.

The trampoline is always a favorite. Jeffrey got some good snap
shots of our kids in action.

I had a complaint that there were not any pictures of the Harris family included in our Spring Break blog. So here's one for Sherry-

Mia and Grandad

That's all for now...we are still recovering from our fun filled weekend.

We Survived the Tornadoes

For anyone who is interested. We did not get blown away during the two last weekends of big storms. We had large hail both times- up to 3 inches. We are now in the process of getting estimates for our car, van, and house. We will be replacing some of the siding on our house, but will not need a new roof. Our vehicles are banged up pretty good on the left sides, roofs, and hoods. We are thankful to have such minor damage when viewing the devastation that hit other neighboring counties.

Other news... Grace is cutting two more teeth- ouch. David is acquiring new scrapes everyday when conquering the swing set. He is so determined to get on a swing without help that it is painful to watch. He first climbs up the slide, grabs onto the A frame between the slide and the swing, stands on the cross bar to the A frame, grabs the swing chain with one hand while wrapping a leg around it. He then jumps to a straddle over the swing like he is riding a horse. Once he finally pulls his other leg through to sit on the swing he usually slides off the seat. He will repeat the process many times until he gets on. (perhaps I will have pictures next time). Today he has added a nice scrape to his cheek. It is time to invest in a new swing set that has enough swings for everyone- including one lower to the ground!

Spring Break

We are now home from Spring Break. Laundry, cooking, and unpacking make us quickly remember why we love vacation so much. We had a wonderful time in Florida at Grayton Beach. It was our 2nd year in a row to go with Brooke's family to stay in a beach house. The weather some days was chilly as seen in the above picture (click on picture to enlarge), however, we did have one day in the upper 70's.

The highlight of our first day was Jonathan loosing his first tooth. He was eating pizza when he noticed his tooth was suddenly missing. Needless to say, his pizza must have been a bit crunchier that evening! What a big boy.

Grace enjoyed being at the beach with the family, but she was not interested in getting any sand on her. She stayed on the beach blanket or in someone's arms, but she did not explore the land as we had anticipated. What a beach beauty.

David could live on the beach 24/7. He can hardly look at video footage or pictures without asking when we are going back. He was much braver this year about standing near the waves, but he still preferred the small inlet of lake water next to the ocean. David is our little fish.

There is a lake next to our beach house that joins the ocean in high tide. It has a small channel of water that heads towards the ocean that the kids love playing in. This picture shows the deeper section in which they pretend to swim. We only had one day warm enough for them to get submerged in the water.

On a cooler day the kids voted for the option of sand burial. This was a hilarious moment on the beach. At one point there were three floating heads on the sand. David needed help digging himself out of the sand. Jonathan and Katherine wanted to nap there.

The Girls

Our good looking daddy.

The whole family enjoys daddy's time off from work. We can't wait until next year's beach trip.

If You're Happy And You Know It...

Grace is often found in our bed in the early morning. Although it would be nice for her to stay in her bed the whole night, I would not be awakened with such a joyful neighbor (not that Jeffrey is grouchy). Grace wakes up by first clapping her hands together and smiling. Before her eyes even open, Grace anticipates another fun filled day of joy. There is something to be said about this kind of attitude towards the day. Nothing is better than a reminder with a precious face!

Girl's Night Out

Girl's night out was a fun time to reconnect with Kelanie and Rachel, two of my best friends from college. I hardly knew what to do without any kids around. I actually ate a meal without having to cram it down my throat while feeding everyone around me. We so enjoyed our "Shekinah" reunion and time together as friends. The week included several family hang times that were filled with drama, dance, and music. The kids loved it.
Check out Kelanie's new CD at: http://kelanie.com

Where have we been?

The last few weeks have been eventful. Jeffrey has had two weekends in a row travelling, which makes life on the homefront very interesting. Thankfully we had the Winter Olympics to watch each evening. Sandwiched between travel, we tried to celebrate my 30th birthday, but with little success due to sickness (Jeffrey caught an awful cold) and family schedule. Therefore, I am still in my 20's! However, I think this weekend celebration is about to occur. Kelanie, my roomate from college, is visiting so Friday night will be girls' night out on the town. A family party will follow sometime later. This is of great interest to the kids because they want to know when we are finally going to eat cake.
Grace is now crawling, but not at high speed. She is content to crawl across the room to explore something of interest and then hang out for awhile before trying somewhere new. The other kids are thrilled and perplexed. Thrilled because she is such a big girl. Perplexed because she thinks she is such a big girl and it is time to play with all the toys she has seen lying around!

We had a snowy day a couple of weekends ago- and yes, Katherine is trying to make a snow angel in our powdery dusted yard. We have not had enough to really play in yet.

Jonathan is busy teaching Grace how to play the bongos. She really enjoys the attention from her big brother.

Having Kelanie here was so helpful at the park yesterday. It was the first day in many months since we have been at a park. Boy are the kids a lot bigger and braver. David has no fear of anything. I don't know if I can keep up with all of them by myself. Needless to say, Kelanie was a big hit and quite exhausted herself.

Colds, Colds, Colds...

This week we have a continuation of Katherine's cold, which has spread to all the children. These are the moments when 4 children ages 5 and under become very difficult. No one is very amiable. Jonathan and Grace have ear infections. Most moments require constant attention and mediating so everyone can get along. We do a lot of reading and sitting on the couch, the floor, and beds doing anything that will move us forward through the day. Our recent family favorite is reading the Little House book- "On the Banks of Plum Creek." It is the highlight of the evenings with dad. Somehow it is easy to coax dad into reading more than one chapter before going to bed!

Katherine Turns Four Years Old

Over the weekend we celebrated Katherine's four year old birthday. Although she was ill with a fever and cold, she managed to open presents and eat cake and ice cream! We had a simple party with Mia and Grandad. Yesterday was her actual birthday. Jeffrey and I let her stay up later than Jonathan, David, and Grace. She joined us in our bedroom for cake and ice cream. She then spent her special alone time with mommy and daddy doing one of her favorite things- a puzzle. Time alone with mommy and daddy means available help and attention immediately.This is a rare moment in our home. Katherine is especially sensitive to immediate help. I think it is one of her love languages. It's hard to believe how fast four years can go. We don't have to go far to see how much she has grown. When looking through Katherine's baby book we were greatly surprised to find that Katherine and Grace have some identical looks. They sure are some good looks!