Monday, September 24, 2012

Our Beautiful Sun!

On our walk this morning Beth and I happened to turn around to look down one of the hills we were walking up and we saw a beautiful red sun. The smoke from the fires in eastern Oregon combined with early morning fog blocked enough of the sun's light that we could look directly at it. I quickly sent a text to Rob to get outside with my camera and get a picture. This is what he got:



Sunday, September 2, 2012

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!

Friday, August 31, 2012

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!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Pictures from the last few months

Well, has been too long. Rob got me this wonderful new camera for my birthday in April. I LOVE it! Unfortunately it can hold like thousands of pictures so I haven't had to dump it yet. Which means I haven't gone through all the pictures. I'm going to attempt to now and just throw some pictures on here from the past 3 months so you can see what we've been up to :)
At the Beach over Memorial Day weekend

Jonathan performing at the Concert in the Park Day for  band
She hates touching grass with her feet

Seth learned to tap from a friend at church
It also included some ballet, these are the cuties he took class with :)


Zoo time!
 
 

Just learning to walk
Park day

 
Elizabeth and her cute friend Leila
 

Friday, May 18, 2012

One Year Old!!!

It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by! Meredith has become quite mobile, she took her first steps the other night. In the past month she has also developed the funniest sound. It's like she's growling, but it's her happy sound. It's just the funniest sound. Thankfully she's started saying more mamamama's and babababa's the last week or so. She's got one or two more teeth, one kept her pretty miserable for almost the whole last month. It finally broke through the other day and she's been much happier. 


For her birthday we just had a small family get-together. The most hilarious part of the whole night is when we let her have her cupcake. She didn't hesitate, once she saw it on her high chair she grabbed it and tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth! Cake and frosting everywhere! None of our kids have gone crazy with their first birthday cake so this was great. So fun to watch her go at it. We gave her a piece of the bigger cake when she was done and she ate that with just as much gusto. She loves cake!



Yay! Clothes! I totally needed bigger clothes!

I can dress myself just fine.


Just love the expression on her face here :)

You guys have totally been holding out on me! I LOVE CAKE!

You don't think I can eat another piece? Just watch me!
Sugar coma setting in?




Showing off one of her new outfits. 


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Meredith's Quilt


Yay! I finally finished it! I finished the top last April but was too big and pregnant to get on the floor to pin it together and then quilt it. I managed to get a few hours to myself last week and I was able to quilt most of it and today just finished up the few mistakes I made in the binding. I loved this design, it was a lot of fun to work with. I want to make another but I think I will use the pattern for three colors. Unfortunately, I can't get the lighting right in any of my rooms so the colors look dull.









Sunday, April 15, 2012

Look Who's 11 Months Old Today!


Getting so tall!
During her 10th month, Meredith finally figured out how to do a normal crawl, go up and down the stairs quickly (though coming down is still iffy), learned to walk around the furniture and acquired one more new tooth on top with another trying to come in. Meredith has also perfected her screeching. I'm not sure how to break a child of this. I am totally up for suggestions. I swear I can feel a little bit of my hearing disappear forever every time she does this. Today at church she stood on her own for a few brief seconds several times. I put her up against the wall at church which is covered in scratchy fabric. She didn't like resting her hands on it so she would keep puling her hands off which left her standing and she didn't know it :) She loves to eat anything we'll give her.



We have pictures of all the other kids asleep in the high chair. Meredith does not fall asleep in her high chair. BUT the other day she was tired enough she fell asleep in her bouncer so I had to grab a photo.


Friday morning was hard for whatever reason for Meredith. I couldn't put her down without her screaming. I tried pulling her pj's off to see if she was too hot. That worked for about a minute and then the screaming started again. A friend came over to use the sewing machine and I needed to put Meredith down so I could rethread it. She was totally content to pull all the diapers off her changing table and she wasn't screaming anymore so I let her. She then got a hold of some batting and starting shredding it. I was saving it for another baby quilt but the no screaming was worth letting her tear it apart. Some days you just have to choose your battles :)