My FIVE year old son!

Eli turned five on Thursday!  In some ways the time has gone so quickly, and in other ways it totally feels like its been about five years.  :)  We had a great day celebrating his birthday; first by having cinnamon rolls for breakfast- his with a birthday candle on top, then he was blessed with some gifts from his family, for lunch we packed up some sandwiches to eat in Daddy's classroom, he requested ravioli for dinner and then we went on a special ice cream date- just Mommy, Daddy and Eli.  As we were driving to get our ice cream Eli, being the sweet boy that he is,  said "This is strange.  It would feel better if Noah and Siah were here.  Next time lets just all go."  Then, before he finished his ice cream, he asked, "Can I finish this at home with Noah?  I think I'll give him the rest."  And finally, to top it off, as we turned the corner onto our street, Eli sat up and very sincerely said, "I can't wait to see what Noah is doing!"

This boy is such a blessing!  He's funny, smart, kind, athletic, and very inquisitive.  Jonny and I were talking about how weird life would feel without Eli in our family.  Like everyone in our family, God has made a specific role for Eli to fill, and none of us would be the same without the wonderful gift of knowing him.

Okay, enough mushy-gushy... here are some pictures of my FIVE year old son!!!

Birthday boy in his new NIKE running shoes!!!  Jonny & I found these months ago on sale at Kohl's and had an additional 30% off coupon to use.  Jonny's running shoes look just like these, so we couldn't resist!  He LOVES them!  (And yes I know he looks like a Duck fan in this pic, but he is a BEAVER fan!  Lets just say he sportin' Green Bay colors for Grandpa Marshall  :)  )

He asked me to give him so many relay races!  Look at those boys go!!!

 Okay, now moving on to his party.  Ugh.... I still feel bad thinking about it.  We first began talking about canceling his party Friday night when Eli wasn't feeling very well.  Saturday he seemed alright, so we thought we'd stay home from church on Sunday morning to take it easy and see how he seemed.  I woke up Sunday morning to very gray storm clouds above.  (The day before was a very hot and beautiful day!)  Eli was acting totally fine, but now the problem was the weather!  Off and on all morning the wind and rain took turns sweeping through our neighborhood.  The weird thing was that the hour-by-hour weather report claimed that it would be partly cloudy with sun by later in the afternoon.  Anyway, by 12:30 we finally made the call to cancel his party that was scheduled for 3:30.  Plus, Noah was acting strangely quiet and still.  But wouldn't you guess it- at exactly 3:30pm, the time of the party, the gray clouds transformed into beautiful white cumulus clouds scattered across a sparkling blue sky!  Even the sun was glimmering down beautiful rays on sunshine!  Ugh!!!  Two weeks of planning out the window for nothing!  My sweet boy, dressed in his Spiderman shirt and disappointed he didn't get to play with his friends, asked if we could "go out and play catch since it turned out to be a nice day."  I felt SO bad.  This will probably be his first memory of me screwing something up for him!  :(  I hope my playing catch, football, and basketball with him in the backyard made up for it.

While Eli and I played, Noah laid under a blanket on the swing on the back patio.  Later this evening
he had a fever of 103!!  Then Eli had one of 102!  What a confusing day...  Here is how we celebrated at home.

I attempted to make a spider web in this hoola-hoop for a game.  The kids were going to trow a ball through the middle hole in the spider web.  I had spider party bags with goodies inside, but room for the kids to fill up with treats from the Spiderman pinata.  I ended up giving most of that stuff to Nona who can use them in her classroom.  Oh well!  :(

Summer Break: Part 4

Here are the last of our summer break pictures!  What a blessed summer we've had, and these are only some of the things we did!

Whoops, this is one I left out from earlier this summer-  canoeing at Sun River!

The boys & I picked so many blackberries this summer!  Its so convenient that they grow all over our neighborhood.  :)

We've planted 10 trees this summer, and helping Dada plant trees is fun because the boys get to play in the mud! 

Silver Falls with Aunt Becky was lots of fun!  The boys handled the hiking just fine, in fact, they ran!  I, on the other hand, had a hard time with a baby in my belly and another on my back.  ;)

My sister is so beautiful!

Siah was such a good sport being carted around in the Ergo.

And of course, playing at the park is always fun.

I LOVE this face!  His sweet eyes, crinkled up nose, chubby cheeks, kissable lips, and even his teeth are SO adorable!

Eating sand and thinking its so funny!

This boy is definitely a WATER baby!

Playing games in the warm sand.

Jumping waves!

The boys in my life. 

This week was the boys' first week in their new playroom!  They LOVED it!  I stayed up late last Sunday night to put it all together for the boys to wake up to Monday morning.  I tried to organize it like some of the preschools I've worked at with a reading corner, dramatic play center, block area, game area, etc.  Our school area is going to be a combination of a writing, art & science center.  Noah has repeatedly said how much he likes it and keeps thanking us for it.  Eli walked around and around, then said how cool it was that there are different areas.  He's so like his mama sometimes!  Siah likes it too; his favorite place to play is in the toy kitchen.

We still have a lot to do to make it just right, but we are loving it so far.  :)

Classical Conversations!

I am so excited about this homeschool program called Classical Conversations!  For quite awhile now, Jonny has had this plan of sending our kids to public school K-4th or 5th grade.  Then he wants to pull them out to homeschool for the rest of their education, maybe considering and praying about having them attend the last couple years of public high school part time.  I've had reservations and concerns about different things, but am mostly just taking the role of prayer and following my husband.

Now some new ideas are being discussed.  We've heard great things about Classical Conversations over the last year, and just about signed Eli up for it this year.  The deadline is today!  I still sorta wish he was doing it this year.  I know he'd love it and learn so much, but there were just too many road blocks preventing us from going ahead with it this year.  The things they will learn, at a young age are amazing!  I'm excited to do it for me!  I want to reclaim my education.  :)

Jonny and I have been talking about what we want to do for the boys' education A LOT lately.  Praying.  Reading.  Praying.  Talking.  More praying.  Jonny now thinks he wants to amend his plan to pull the boys out of public school after 3rd grade.  Anyway, I know that as each family prays and seeks the Lord for wisdom on these things, we may feel led in different directions.  I love to hear how God is working in families who are all doing different things.  The ultimate hope is that our children come to know and love the One who made us.

I was thinking we'd just continue with our little homeschool with Mommy this year.  No curriculum, no program, just Mommy trying to be creative and think of fun ways to teach the boys some basic skills.  At last Sunday's service, as I was praying about all of this stuff, I got up towards the end of worship to go get the boys.  I was stopped by a mommy who said she'd had me on her heart for the past week and wanted to share this curriculum with me.  Its a very basic curriculum based all on character development- things like obedience, faithfulness, integrity, patience, etc.  AWESOME!  That is just what we need right now.  A solid foundation of what godly character looks like is what we've always been working on, but now I might have a few more tools to work with in teaching that to my boys!  Thank you Lord!

On Monday we then found out our neighbor across the street is the director of the Albany Classical Conversations group!  How funny!  We're praying about doing Classical Conversations with Noah next year while Eli is in half-time kindergarten.  I think it'll be a good comparison.  Then we'll pray about what to do for the years after that, but I know we'll always be building on TRUE wisdom- fearing the LORD, knowing Him and walking in obedience to Him.