One Last Hurrah-Beach Fun!!

Yesterday promised to be a gorgeous day on the beach so we got up and got our stuff done and headed out. We knew we were going to hit the beach at high tide so we opted to go into Seaside first and do our trinket and taffy shopping. I have to go to this one place to get taffy, they make the best. Elizabeth found a cute pair of ear rings for herself and a friend. The boys found a shop that deep fat fries EVERYTHING so naturally they had to get something. Jonathan had the deep fried snickers bar which wasn't too bad, and Nathaniel got the deep fried twinky that was wrapped in bacon. Oh heart attack! He loved it, I thought it was just ok. Tasted like a sweet corndog. We saw one of those guys that likes to dress up like a statue and dances or does tricks. Seth honestly thought he was a robot because the guy had something that would whir like a robot when he moved. We gave Seth a dollar to put in the bucket and the guy was nice enough to put Seth on the pedestal and let us get a picture of the two of them. Seth loved it! After all that we headed out to a spot on the beach and just hung out for a few hours. I hung back under the umbrella shade with the two older boys and the baby and Rob joined the other two in the water. Meredith loves the sand! She couldn't get enough of it :) The ocean...not so much. I walked her down to talk to Rob and she started whimpering then screaming the closer we got to the water. Poor thing. She did kinda get over it and spent some time down by the water with Rob but after a bit she ended back up in the sand with me and the boys. All in all a great day and was nice to get away one last time before school starts back up.

This is how my teenager enjoys the beach now, watching a movie on my iPod :)

Quality time in the sand with her big brother.

Rob could dig in the sand for hours and hours if you let him.

Still watching a movie.

Meredith goofing off while Nate continued to, yep you guessed it, watch his movie :)

She still walks with her arms up, make me laugh every time!

Public School VS School at Home

Well, we had to make a hard decision this past week. We have decided that Seth will stay home with me this year for kindergarten. I will be teaching both Elizabeth and Seth this year with the help of Connections Academy. We had him registered at the local school and were all excited for him to attend his first year up there. BUT, 2 weeks ago I received a notice that said something about welcome to our PM kindergarten class. Just a few days before that I was told Seth had gotten a morning slot which is what we wanted, which is what was going to make time with Elizabeth so much easier. That started the process of phone calls that led to discouragement and more frustration. Our school had to lose a kindy teacher, leaving the remaining teacher with 70+ students to manage. This of course led to only two kindy classes being taught and Seth was moved to afternoon. At last count his class was up to 38 students. Which to me seems like a nightmare. I don't care how good of a teacher you are, that is insane. We called the school to see what could be done, we called the district to complain, knowing none of it was going to do any good but we had to try. No good, this poor teacher is still stuck with 70+ kids and we were stuck with a PM time that was really inconvenient. We did hear the district was kind enough to give the teacher an aid, and then they gave her a permanent substitute teacher to work with her. And I heard a rumor last night that a teacher who retired last year will be offering her services as a volunteer this year. Still, not good enough. Too many kids, and really I start to get claustrophobic just thinking about that many kids in one classroom and then 4 adults trying to manage them all. NO THANK YOU!
When we made the decision in the spring to send him to the local school it was based on factors that, at the time, were adding quite a bit of stress to our lives. At that time I was SURE I couldn't handle starting elementary over again, especially where Elizabeth is now at a point where she is more independent. But now several of those stress factors are gone and after getting angry enough I realized I was more than happy to have Seth home with me this year. Fortunately, I feel I have options and do not need to sit around to wait and see what happens with the school and district.
As it sits Seth is almost completely registered with Connections so we should be getting his books in the next week or two. I'm excited, I haven't actually ever done kindergarten at home. The older boys did it up at the local school and Elizabeth skipped it. So something new to try this year :) Seth was slightly disappointed when we talked to him. However, after explaining the situation the best we could and why we felt he should be home, he ran upstairs and very excitedly told the other kids that he was going to get to stay home to learn with Elizabeth. Very happy the disappointment didn't last long!

Pictures!

We had a photo shoot done of the kids at the end of August. We received the disk recently with all the photos so I thought I'd get some of my favorites up. Julia Shinkle took the photos. They turned out GREAT and we had such a fun time! I love how she is able to capture the eyes of her clients, that's what drew me to her.



One of the few where Meredith was smiling. Unbelievably we couldn"t get her to smile. Too much for her to look at.



Me? I'm not up to something!



LOVE the eyes!







4 Months Old!

Meredith loves this bumbo my friend
lent to us. She loves to be up and looking
around.

Four months? Really? Can't believe she is four months old already! Meredith is growing so fast! I took her into the doctor yesterday and she weighed in at 16 lbs 8 oz and 26.5 inches tall! Dang, she keeps going and she may beat Nathaniel in height :)

Seth and I messing around with her hat :) I love the look on her face here!

Meredith is a non-stop smiler! Everywhere we go people are drawn to her little smile, we get comments on it all the time. She is extremely happy and so laid back. We have finally figured out a nap routine which involves actual naps in her crib so thrilled about that. I was very nervous about starting school back up with Elizabeth because Meredith wasn't taking any real naps during the day. But she has finally settled into a bit of a routine and it helps a lot! We all just love having her here with us!

Three Months Old!

Meredith is 3 months old (yesterday)! Can't believe it. We will be doing her 3 month pictures on Saturday, can't wait. I always get their pictures done at 3, 7, and 12 months.

If you look back at other photos of her in this chair you can see how she has grown by where her head is resting :)

 A few days ago Meredith found her hands, and she is FASCINATED with them! Makes me laugh. She'll get this look of total concentration on her face as she tries to bring them together and then just stares at them once they are clasped. We bought her one one of those little floor gym things and she spends a good amount of time trying to grab the little toys hanging down. Very fun to watch.

We went to the Garlic Festival in North Plains on Saturday. It was fun, a reason to get out of the house for a few hours. I've never seen elephant garlic before. One clove is just HUGE! We got a couple and are going to plant them and see what we get. We walked around the vendors and looked at all the fun things to buy. My dad bought me this cool little dish ( purple of course) that is all spiky in the middle.

You rub the garlic over it and it grates it up. Then you pour olive oil and other spices into it and can make some yummy dip for bread. We tried it last night with one of our giant cloves of garlic. It was delicious!


We discovered a rock climbing wall and all the kids had to try it out. Nathaniel was not with us as he was off on a bike ride with the scouts. Jonathan made it all the way to the top. Elizabeth made it about 1/2 way, I was honestly very surprised. Seth got about 8 feet up, he did pretty good too. On our way out we grabbed some fair food for lunch. Jonathan got some garlic ice cream so we could all try it. Not something I'll ever need to try again :) One lick was enough for me. He did eat the whole thing. It's worth going out at least once to check it out. Like I said a fun reason to get out of the house one weekend in August.

Summer Happenings

We finally managed to get away to the beach a few weeks ago. We met up with the Aunties, Celest and Karen, and just had a really good time! It was a beautiful day and we all went home thoroughly tired and burned :)

They found a LIVE crab this time!

Nathaniel was dead tired. He had done an overnighter with the scouts, stayed up too late, than a 25 mile bike ride that morning, then played on the beach all day. THEN we walked a good 20 mins into Seaside from Celest and Karen's hotel, had dinner, and then walked back. This is him falling asleep at the restaurant waiting for them to call us back :)

Just a cute photo of Meretith and Seth. He sure adores her!

12 YEARS OLD!! Yikes!

We went to a concert in the park this past week. They were doing Hawaiin music. We had a very fun time. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold.

Elizabeth invited her best friend Jill along. We finally managed to get them together for a sleepover, it's been ages! The girls had a very good time together.

Rob and Seth found a vendor selling that long rope licorice. Seth ate all 34 inches before we left the park!

I just laugh every time I see this photo. Rob was messing around and this time when he squeezed her cheeks her eyebrows shot up and I managed to get the photo. Too funny!