Fall 2012

I have so many snapshots of the kids this past Fall 2012. First of all, we all went to 'Fun Acres' with Jed's residency program and enjoyed the tractor ride, corn maze, and hay ride. This is a fun autumn tradition.

Ben

Ben is reading to his little siblings. Usually he doesn't like to read out loud since it slows him down, so when I 'caught' him reading a book to them, I took a picture. :)

Ben and Eliza were seeing how high they could get on the swing.

Two handsome guys!

Eliza

Eliza takes good care of Charlotte. When Charlotte cries, you can bet that Eliza will be there in a moment trying to comfort her with strokes and songs.

Eliza absolutely LOVES to create artwork. Besides paper and markers, her favorite tools are scissors and tape. She makes pictures and cards and then gives them away to anyone who comes in the door. She taped cut-out triangles of plastic to this cardboard picture and then gave it to her friend with the birthday present.

She also loves to make paper books. She used to tape the pages together, but then I showed her how the stapler works better. She made this book of baby pictures for Charlotte, and wrote on most of the pages, "Cute Baby."

Here she is giving me a picture of a parrot. She said the leaves taped on it were the wings and legs of the parrot, and it had happy tears. It was pretty cute. :)

Eliza loves to sleep with stuffed animals. She is such a sweetheart.

Sam

Sam is the happiest two year old ever. He is full of darling personality.

Sammy is Eliza's pal. Whatever she does, he is right there by her side. All of her ideas are brilliant and he loves to copy what she is saying and doing. In fact, right as I type the two of them are having a tea party and Sam is happily stirring his little cup with his yellow spoon and pretending to drink it. :)

This little baby has a doting big brother who loves her and talks to her throughout the day.

Charlotte

Charlotte is about 5 months old in these pictures. She is such a sweet, happy baby.

Charlotte gets lots of TLC during the day from Sam and Eliza.

She had her first bite of real food on October 27th, when she was almost 6 months old. She wasn't sure quite what to make of it at first, but within a few days she was opening her mouth wide for her bites like a hungry chick. :)

new School Year

September 4, 2012 - Ben's first day of 2nd Grade. 
We snapped some pictures before he went to the bus stop. His teacher this year is Mrs. Jen Woehlke, and Ben was super excited to go to school. It's November now and he still enjoys it, so that's good. :)

After we waved goodbye to Ben's bus, Eliza and Sam played in the yard.
(Eliza made a cute paper bird with a paper, pen, leaves, tape and scissors.)

Later in September, Ben's teacher posted this picture with this caption on their classroom website:
"Ben is the first student in the WHOLE school who has earned enough Accelerated Reading points to be added to the Race. There are other students in our class that aren't far behind. Way to go Ben!!"

The last Accelerated Reading report that Ben brought home (dated 11/2) said that he has completed 183 AR points out of the 15 required for the first trimester. His sweet teacher wrote a note, "Way to go Reading Rockstar!" :)  He likes reading big chapter books, so they end up counting for more points. (A regular children's book like the Bereinstein Bears is half of a point. A basic chapter book like Magic Treehouse is about 3 or 4 points. A more difficult chapter book, like the books in the 39 Clues series, is between 5 to 9 points, a book in the Warriors series is up to 12 points, and a Harry Potter book can be 14 points or more.  He was loving the Warriors series over the summer and into September. Now he is into 39 Clues, and he is starting the Harry Potter series, but I said he could only read the first three of that series... I remember the last ones being kind of dark. He checked out #2 yesterday at school and finished it around dinnertime last night. He got to read it while we were at ballet for Eliza, so he finished it quicker than usual. Because normally I have him do other things after school besides reading.)  Anyway, he loves to read, and the AR points are only a fun afterthought for him. They're definitely not his motivation, though.
Now he is in second place in the school AR race, behind Austin Mills the 5th grader. Yes, I know him by name because Ben told me a few times about how Austin Mills was the boy who beat him last year too, and how he wants to get ahead of Austin Mills... :)  Ben asked me if we could go bowling if he won the race, and I told him that we would go bowling if he was in the top five in the race, so that he wouldn't concern himself too much with competing. :) He hasn't mentioned it for a long time, so I'm glad it's not that big of a deal. :)

Eliza had her first day of preschool on September 18th. Her preschool is at Ben's Elementary School, Monday through Thursday for three hours in the afternoon. She loves it!  She has two teachers, Miss Bonnie and Miss Alex, who are the sweetest teachers ever. Eliza invited them to come to her Church Primary Program in October, and they both came! And Miss Bonnie brought her husband along, too. Wasn't that so sweet of them to come see her? (They also knew another family in the program, which helped make it more fun for them, I'm sure.) Anyway, she loves preschool.

Labor Day 2012

 We took the fam to the Stake Labor Day picnic on September 3, where there was food, games, a playground, a softball tournament, and even rides in sportscars. Ben almost immediately went off on his own. He's like a teenager - he loses no time in ditching the old folks and shaking off the little siblings. :) I found him later at the sportscar rides, where he was rearing to get as many rides as they would let him. When a new corvette pulled up to give some rides, Ben ran right up and asked him if he could have a ride. Then he jumped in, buckled up, and was ready to roll. :)

While Ben was lovin' the sportscars, I took Eliza and Sam to watch Jed play softball, and then we left to check out the firetruck and meet the firemen.  We had a fun day!

Birthday Party

Our really good friends, the Balmforths, invited a few families over for a big birthday party on September 1st. It was a lot of fun! 
Ben is busily unwrapping a candy bar while the music is paused in the Hot Potato game.  I love this picture of Jed. I captured that sweet smile that our kids do.  Now I know exactly where they got it.

Our friend, Trevor Davis, is rounding up the kids for the pinata. I just love Sam and Eliza in this picture. What face is Sam pulling? And why is Eliza licking her balloon?

Sam, being the youngest in line, was the first to get to hit the pinata. He grabbed the bat that was offered to him and aimed it right at the pinata like a joust, handle first. It was so hilarious! No one fixed the bat for him - it was just way too funny to watch him attacking the pinata with the handle!

Me with two of my best friends, Anona Davis and Jenny Balmforth. We are all parting ways in July 2013 (husbands finishing residencies) and we're starting to feel a little sentimental about our remaining time together. I love these girls!

Summer's last hoorah!

 My friend, Annie Christensen, had a fun backyard water party for all the kids. She made this 'water blob', which was a big hit!

 I took the kids to the Toledo Zoo with a bunch of other moms and kids. The hippos were especially fun to watch. They can swim effortlessly and fast under the water, bounding around in big long leaps. Cool to see them so active!  (That's Eliza watching them through the window.)

 
Gotta stop off at the children's playground at the zoo. Luckily we were heading home after this, since Sam was wearing a wet shirt and a diaper after his free-for-all playtime in the wading stream. 

Sweet little Charlotte tagged along and was her usual content self.

My friend, Jenny Balmforth, and I went together to Eastern Market in downtown Detroit.  There were lots of booths of vegetables and produce, homemade salsas and hummus, whole grains and baked goods, and even homegrown mushrooms. It was a fun place to spend a morning.

The kids had fun exploring. Here are Eliza and Liesel, with Sam and Charlotte in the background. They each got to buy flavored honey sticks, too. 

Elizabeth Park for FHE

For Family Home Evening on Monday, August 27th, we took the kids to Elizabeth Park, where we played and ate our $5 pizza dinner. :) It was a really fun outing.

We did lots of target shooting with the slingshot. We had tons of ammo with all the acorns on the ground. 

We went on a walk through the woods...

The path ended at the edge of a little river (an offshoot of the Detroit River), and Ben ended up jumping in and swimming around!  Eliza was in tears on the shore, worrying about Ben drowning.  The river wasn't deep, wide, or fast, and there was no cause for concern, but all the reassurances we gave her (even from Ben) would not make her feel better.  She finally calmed down when we called Ben to come out so we could head back. Poor sweet Eliza was not enjoying his spontaneity at all!

I absolutely love Michigan. Isn't this beautiful?