The Bullfrogs

Ryan has entered into a new stage of life. We enrolled him with Parks and Rec soccer. He has become a Bullfrog!
I'm quite positive that Peter didn't start playing soccer until he was 6. Ryan is most certainly that 5 year old player who is mostly excited about seeing his friends on the field and getting to use his "mad face" when he's going after the ball. He's had a good time and feels quite proud of his uniform. He's had his time on the field chasing balls, kicking them toward the wrong goal, falling down on the field when somebody else gets tripped and getting some great exercise.
I think I remember now why we waited until Peter turned 6 to start organized sports!

A hard goodbye; a cherished friendship

I have put off writing this for two days. My eyes have been brimming with tears for those days so I tried to not think about it. Denial. The tears are emerging as I remember our goodbye hug. Neither she nor I could hardly speak but in my silence I hope she heard me tell her that it has been an amazing 5 years. Heather was my first friend in this new land - this new life - this new place.I met Heather at story time about 3 months after moving to Roxboro. I was lonely, homesick and ready to make new friends. I prayed that morning for God to give me a sign and the boldness to initiate a friendship. The sign was a common paci and the friendship came easily.
Heather and her family also just moved to Roxboro a few months before from Colorado. She had a son Peter's age, a daughter Emma's age and a baby Ryan's age. The kids are all just weeks apart in their birthdays even Heather and I are ten days apart in age.
Over the last five years, we have spent countless hours together, shared birthday parties, play dates at the park, trashed each others houses, been on field trips together, drank lots of coffee, had meals together, cried and laughed together, had a fourth child and watched as Roxboro became each others home.
The kids can hardly remember any other time in their lives other than their time in Roxboro. They can't remember any friends from before the Weigands. They have grown up together. They've been like family to each other. They know each others likes and dislikes.
The time has come for the Weigands to move back to Colorado. It's the right thing for their family to do but it's hard to say goodbye. It was hard to see their van drive away. It was hard to look at my kids and explain how very far away Colorado is from here. It was hard to answer the enevidable question honestly and say, " I have no idea when we'll see them again.". I'm thankful that I didn't hide my tears from them because we have all been touched by their friendship. I want my kids to know that I need friends just like they do. I want them to remember the Weigands and remember that God gave us a tangible gift by placing us together 5 years ago in a little library in a little town with a little green paci.

a new approach

So our family has already logged oh about 20 or so days of school in for this year. Somehow, it still feels like I haven't gotten into my grove yet. We are trying things a little differently this year. It still blows my mind that I've been at this home educating thing for 5 years now. Before my very eyes Peter has become a 4th grader, Emma a 2nd grader, Ryan a kindergartener and Nathan an adorable 2 year old. Needless to say on days that we have fulfilling, productive learning days, the house is a whirlwind of books, toys, learning tools and stuff by the end of it. By Thursday, the end of school week, it's really bad! This year Peter is doing a lot of independent work. I am capitalizing on his love for reading and trying to put before him as many books as I can find. He's enthralled with the American Revolution right now. So there lies the topic for the majority of his reading.
Emma has chosen to study sea animals. So we are discovering and learning about some very amazing and breath taking animals that God has created for us that unfortunately we will only experience through the written work. Have you ever seen a picture of a blue-ringed octopus? It's my new favorite sea creature. It's beautiful, small, and deadly.
In the midst of all this, we have Ryan who is emerging as a kinetic learner. He is happy when he has something to "play" with. I have come to realize and am fine admitting that his alphabet recognition skills are a little behind the others. With five years of experience, I have finally learned that before I know it, he will be reading up a storm like his older siblings and all things will be OK.

I have yet to pull out my well thought out schedule from last year. The planning notebooks books of last year are empty. My lesson planning notebook of this year, is loosely detailed. We are on to yet another season of life. It's not where I'm comfortable; it's not well planned out in the long term. But I think it might work for now or at least until there's another shift in seasons!

Fresh Air

It was Saturday morning and I felt the need to get out of Roxboro, get a little bit of fresh air and exercise. So the kids and I headed across state line into Danville, VA. We have been to the Dan Daniel State park a few times before so I knew this was just where we needed to go. The kids brought their new scooters and Nathan brought his bike. I knew enough to know that Nathan and his bike would only last but so long so I brought the stroller as well!

Nathan and his horses

My boy Nathan has been smitten with horses for a very long time. Really it's been as long as I can remember! He knows exactly where to find the library's section of horse books - the non-fiction section. Unfortunately, we only have about 6 to choose from so we have read them all multiple times. Repetition is developmentally appropriate for this age and I guess it's starting to pay off.

We have started to buy the horses carrots. Whenever he hears that somebody is heading to the grocery store, he reminds them to buy " more carrots for the horses".

He just loves these 4 friends.

He wants so desperately for these horses to be living at his house.

The big 9

I have become a very inconsistent blogger these past months. It's like 3 weeks since Peter's birthday and not even a peep from me about it. Yikes-We did celebrate the big day. The last year before double digits in grand style. He decided he wanted a "Ryan size" party. So we invited just about everyone we could think of, ordered a cake from Costco and played a great game of kickball.

Yes, this is a picture of Peter flinging Nathan across home plate. Yes, Nathan has a gigantic grin on his face. No, he didn't get hurt. Yes, Peter still adores his baby brother.
I found a picture recently of Peter's 5th birthday party. We had our neighbors and a family from church over. It's such a blessing to see how God has provided friends for our family over the years.
Peter is an amazing 9 year old. He has taught me a lot of over these 9 years.

Watermelon

This evening's weather felt like a gift. It was a perfect night to dig into the remaining half of a watermelon we had in the fridge.My kids are quite excited when they find out that the watermelon in our fridge has seeds in it. There happens to be a certain Daddy in our family that grew up having watermelon seed spitting contests.
The tradition seems to have been successfully handed down. Too bad Nathan hasn't quite figured out how to escape the spitting.
Although, he really didn't seem to mind having a face and head covered in seeds.
It's nights like this that I truly enjoy my kids. They are a gift.

July in review

Seeing as it has been an entire month since my last post, I figured I needed to do one large update. So here goes my first attempt at Windows movie maker!

Happy 90th Great Gram

Just about 12 hours after Philip arrived home from Jamaica, we headed in down to Charlotte. Philip's grandmother was turning 90 and her family was throwing her a surprise party.It was really fun to see the surprise on her face. Philip's mom is Betty's oldest daughter. She has 4 sons who live with their families in either Minnesota or Denver. Although, Betty had her 4 grandchildren and 6 great children with her this night, she has many many more up north. Many of the others, sent cards and pictures to help her celebrate. I hope when I turn 90, I'm able to have as much fun and love as Betty. It was a blessing to be able to celebrate with all the family.

Organization

I've been thinking for sometime that Nathan's room needed a little organization. The little guy had basically a basket overflowing with books and a train table in his room. I was hoping to bring some toys out of the living room and kids room to his so there was more reason to play in his room. So last night when I passed by this cool looking bookshelf at Costco, I went for it. This morning while only Nathan and I were awake and the coffee was still brewing, I assembled the shelf and brought a little order to his room. Although the shelves did bring order and toys and even the interest of playing, it also brought chaos! I never really had to pay much attention to straightening up Nathan's room but I see that now he'll have ample opportunities to learn the clean up song!

Day 9 of 9

We are hours away from the return of the mission team from Jamaica. The kids and I decided that we would make the trip to Raleigh so we can be there when Philip and the others get off the airplane or should I say get to the baggage claim. My kids don't ever go to the airport so I figured this would be a fun outing although definitely not as fun as it used to be.
Ryan is resting up for the big adventure!Nathan having already had his nap is ready to play with our new family friends. He is in love with horses so when we saw these at the dollar store this morning I couldn't resist. I think we might actual go back to buy a couple more horses so everyone has one. Nathan has just started referring to himself in the third person. He calls himself, "NayNay". It's just about as cute as he is.

West Virginia

With Philip being in Jamaica and my sister having had a new baby, I couldn't think of a better place to spend a few days. The 5 1/2 hr drive with 4 kids on my own was not something I was looking forward to but I knew once we got there it would have been worth it. And it definitely was- baby Cal is precious and the cousins played together from sun up to sun down.It was hard for Nathan to decide which cousin pairs to follow around and try to convince that they should play with him.
It's definitely getting harder to get everybody to look the same way and actually smile- not to mention get the lighting right so nobody has to squint.
I tried my hand at taking some photos of Cal while we were at the park one morning. He was a trooper and a cutie.
It's getting increasingly hard to figure out what to feed all these guys and the grown-ups. I can't imagine what it will be like in 5 years. Hopefully some of them will be doing the cooking and cleaning up by then.
I baby sat all the kids one morning while my sister had a doctor's appointment. I ( or I should say Charlotte, Peter, Nathan, Emma and then finally myself) got to feed Cal his first bottle. He took it like a champ no matter who was holding it or if they were paying attention to him.
This time away reminded my that relationships matter. It's not always easy to travel, to sleep in somebody else's bed, to manage a house with 11 people in it but it's worth it. I'm so thankful that my kids are growing up to know their cousins deeply and that we are taking time to invest in each others' lives.