Our New Pet Samuel

Have you ever heard of a stray parakeet? I hadn't until now. Samuel showed up at our house last Tuesday. Jonathan came in from playing outside and told me there was a parrot outside. I laughed and told him they didn't live in the wild around here. Later I went outside to get something and the kids all yelled "there's the parrot." I looked up in the tree to which they were pointing and saw a parakeet. I was pretty surprised and began talking to him. I'm not quite sure why I believed he would come to me but I tried calling him down out of the tree. Eventually he walked his way towards me along a tree branch. It was then that he won my heart over. He was so cute. He flew down and landed near me and let me pick him up. I quickly took him inside the house and placed him under a basket.

Two days later we got a cage from a friend of ours while waiting to see if anyone would respond to our signs "Found Parakeet." Needless to say no one did and so Samuel is our new addition. We all hope he is adjusting well. We are probably a lot louder and more active than the house he came from! He is very sweet and will let most of us hold him. He still needs time to build more trust. The kids love him.

David attempts to hold Samuel very still

Winter Days...

It is difficult to style Grace's hair these days. We are trying "piggy tales" now that her hair is getting longer. She likes to look at them in the mirror. However, she only leaves the "piggy tales" in for half of the day- if that long.

Here are Jonathan, David, and Katherine bundled up like they are in New York! With the excitement over our small amount of snow, one would think we were in New York. David was eating handfuls of snow that he scraped off any surface he could find. By the end of their time outside, David came to the door with a mouth full of dirt from our flower bed!

Yards everywhere had snowmen for several days after the thin layer of snow melted off of the grass. The kids are hoping for more snow before the winter ends.

Katherine Turns 5 Years Old

Happy Birthday Katherine!

Katherine requested a purple cake and many other colors with stripes and poke-a-dots and hearts. Thankfully, I was able to show her some ideas that swayed her in the direction seen above. She said it was my most beautiful cake ever. What a relief and complement after all her previous specific desires.

One of her gifts was a tea set. She and the boys immediately had a tea party following her birthday party. Jeffrey was trying to find out how one has a tea party. The boys seemed to get it and were wondering why they never received a tea set! The next day I poured peppermint tea into the tea pot, cream in the cream pitcher, and sugar in the sugar jar. The cups were emptied faster than Katherine could keep up the refills. She finally said with exasperation, "I would like to drink my tea, but no one will stop asking me for more!" I think she was allowed a little empathy for my daily routine. It was rather humorous to listen to them at play because Katherine is quite a linguist. She attaches narration to all of her play activity. You often hear her place the tag "she said" on the end of her made up conversations. During the tea party, part of her narration went like this "although they kept asking for more tea she was patient but stern." I almost laughed out loud.

Everyday we try to allow time for reading to the kids. It amazes us the vocabulary Katherine picks up from these times. Jeffrey reads in the evenings and I read at nap time. We have to keep two different books going so Jeffrey doesn't miss out on what happens while he is at work. Some of our favorites in the last couple of months have been The Adventures of Doctor Dolittle, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, and Sadie and Angus. I hope we can keep up these reading times for many years to come.

Katherine loves skirts and dresses with tights. She would wear them everyday if I could keep them clean. Above you can see how delighted she was to receive this new outfit from Grandma and Grandpa.

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!