These two crazy boys wanted their own a little photo shoot...

Zeke's FIRST BIRTHDAY!

Zeke turned ONE this morning!!  At 4:13am, if you want to get technical about it.  :)  
He isn't walking yet- first Oelkers baby who isn't walking at his first birthday.  He's a serious little boy who doesn't do a whole lot of smiling.  He's too busy observing everything around him and making crazy faces.  He likes to wander around the house a bit, but mostly he likes to be carried around by his mama.  We love him so, so very much.  Thanking God for my precious baby boy.  What a gift that I get to be his Mama!  

Here are some pics from his day.  Full of snow, nativity toys and dirt cake with worms and a Christmas tree.  

Owl Pellets!

We dissected owl pellets for our science project at CC on Friday.  Eli & Noah loved it.  Their dad is so proud!  :)   In case you didn't know, owl pellets are regurgitated fur, feathers & bones of the prey the owl ate.  It looks and smells lovely!  :)  The boys found some pretty cool rodent bones though!

 

My cute little class!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a little different for the Oelkers family this year.  We didn't do our usual trip to the Turkey Stuffer & swimming fun at Splash in Eugene.  (Jonny is on a frugal kick and the gas money + registration fee wasn't in the budget.)  Plus, I didn't have the boys do as many Thanksgiving crafts or fun Thanksgiving treats.  We did do a Thankful Tree (taped to the wall) but Zeke ripped it off the wall and ate it!

Also... there's been a lot of sadness lately.  A friend who was diagnosed with IV Colon Cancer 18mos ago was sent home from the hospital, after a brutal week, with the news that the chemo was doing more harm than good and that she should quit taking it.  We all knew her time was coming and it left a hole in so many of our hearts.  After two weeks of in-home hospice care, Jesus took her home- the day after Thanksgiving.  There are many thoughts, questions, fears to process.  

I spent the first part of Thanksgiving grieving; I didn't even know her well but was so sensitive about her situation.  I knew she going to go any day and that her two kids were going to enter into adolescents without their mom.  I was also missing my mom and sister A LOT.  Other life issues... just a sad (and hopefully short) season. 

The second part of Thanksgiving shaped up very nice.  God has given us such great neighbors that are like family.  They are always there for us.  Sometimes we see them all the time and sometimes we see them only a few times a month.  It's a beautiful thing.  So thankful for them and that they show the love of Jesus by opening their home and hearts to us.

Some of our Thanksgiving art.

Super cute story.

Cheers!

Kids Table.

Boys watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving.

These two and their games!  Ai yi yi!

Okay, I like to play games too!  And Siah likes to pretend he plays.  :)

New Thanksgiving tradition:  boys get a new Christmas story!  The Legend of the Candy Cane is wonderful!

Reading the story... some of us are picking our nose.

After I put him to bed, I realized I forgot a "Baby's First Thanksgiving" picture!!  So here he is sleeping.

Here he is enjoying is FIRST THANKSGIVING LEFT-OVERS!!  :)

Giving Gratitude to God

How sad that the month of Thanksgiving, the month that most of America is listing thoughts of thanks, I neglect to write out my "Giving Gratitude to God" post.  Shame on me!  

I do have so much to be thankful for...

• A God that is always there
• A God who forgives... over and over and over and over and over
• Grace-  God giving me what I don't deserve
• Mercy-God not giving me what I do deserve
• My health 
• My amazing boys
• My husband
• My own personal handyman!  (So cool how he can just fix things!)
• Ice cream
• Our homeschool community
• Our wonderful church
• A precious, beloved friend
• My boys' friendships
• That we live in such a great area to raise our kids
• The library
• Reading books with my munchkins
• Christmastime!
• Christmas cards
• Christmas music
• Traditions
• The internet  :)
• My grandma
• Cozy sweatshirt and sweatpants
• A good movie
• Naps
• Rainy days (early on in the season I enjoy the rain... by March, not so much)
• God's Word- quiet times have been real sweet lately
• Seeing so clearly how God's Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path
• Seeing my boys repeat verses they've learned and use them in life situations
• Giggling babies
• Teaching my boys
• Cuddling my boys
• Tickling my boys
• Doing puzzles with my boys
• A clean house
• Husband's new job to have kitchen duty after meals that he is home for (initiated by him!!)
•  Foot massages 
• Laughing with my sister
• Just enough money in the bank account
• That I am not a cosmic accident
• That there is purpose to my days
• That there is hope in my life 
• That there is a TRUTH in life (one way) and He (the TRUTH) is so worthy of our praise
• That I have a God who is good, does good, and works all things for good for those who believe and are called according to His purposes.   
• This crazy baby  :)

Zekers!

Zeke just turned 11 mos a few days ago!  He's so funny lately- making these crazy faces!  Future class clown?  Maybe!  Last week he started stretching his arms in the air like superman while making his crazy face, so now we call him super-baby!  Love, love, love him!  :) 

Oh, and he likes to eat my hair!

Homeschool

Although I've been homeschooling my boys since birth, (essentially), this has been our first year of "offically" homeschooling because Eli is kindergarten age.  (He's an older kindergartener since he has a Sept. birthday).  I'm still figuring things out and love to hear what other families do so that I can learn new ideas or tweak our schedule to fit our family better.  Next week will be our 10th week of Friday school with Classical Conversations.  Aaaannnnd, we LOVE it!  Being a tutor (teacher) keeps me super busy with prep work, but I totally enjoy it.  The boys are doing great and having so much fun.  Even little Siah repeats a lot of what his brothers are learning.  Its a HUGE plus that they have good friends in their classes.  I'm so thankful I heard about this program and that it got to be our first experience with homeschooling.  I love the classical approach of taking advantage of how God has created our minds to learn and absorb information, process and understand it, then practice and teach it.  At the younger level my boys are at, they are simply soaking up grammar-- filling their brains with quality content.  Much like how a baby picks up on speaking the language of his/her family- through repetition and recitation, we learn "grammer sentences"  for history & science, do skip counting for math, look at maps for geography, sing songs for English grammar & Latin.  Yes, they'll eventually learn , Latin!!   And the best part is that God is woven into it all.  Its all for HIS glory!  My four year old Noah can recite the seven classifications of living things... something Jonny teaches his 10th graders.  When this cycle repeats in three years and then again in three years Noah will have it engrained in his 10yr old mind!  Just think how ready he'll be as a tenth grader to soak in richer, deeper knowledge of the topic instead of spending his time memorizing grammar.  I just love that idea!  

Our mornings are sometimes totally CRAZY with Noah being sluggish and pretending not to know how to do the task before him and Eli bossing Noah and Siah spilling crayons all over the floor and Zeke being fussy and refusing to take his morning nap but then some are wonderful morning when Noah is enthusiastically doing his work and Eli is being diligent and Siah is happily mimicking his brothers with his own "notebook" and Zeke is taking a nice long morning nap!  :)  I figure there will be lots of crazy days and lots of wonderful days... the way Mommy responds to them plays a big part too  ;)  I've been taking lots of pictures this fall because I just love my kids and love that I get to stay home and be their teacher!

Here's what a typical day (Mon-Thurs) in our home looks like:
1.)  Morning Cartoons

2.)  After breakfast, the boys do their chores.

3.)  Next we have about five minutes of reading our bibles QUIETLY to ourselves.  Then we put on the armor of God and start school.  There are different things we do for school each day... character traits, math, reading, writing, science, geography, history and CC review. 

4.)  Then we go outside... if its not raining!  If it is raining, we get creative with burning energy indoors, like playing hide-and-go-seek or having dance parties.  Then the boys have quiet play in their rooms (all separated to avoid fighting which is our biggest annoyance lately)  while I make lunch in peace.  :)   When I call, "lunch is ready!!"  they come running!

5.)  After lunch, its nap/quiet time. 

6.)  The afternoons are always a bit different depending how everyone is feeling, how much we got done in the morning, if we need groceries, if we have appointments, etc.  We usually do something like more outside play along with reading stories, or looking at Highlight's Magazines or baking or arts/crafts or experiments/activities or sometimes everyone just does their own thing. 

7.)  On days that Daddy comes home right away, the boys are super excited!!  They like to wait out on the front porch for him and then they usually do some kind of LOUD wrestling play while I finish getting dinner ready.  

And that's about it.... Of course, sometimes our day looks nothing like this.  Sometimes we have to embrace the chaos and just know its going to be a rough day; if reading is all we get done, at least that's something.  Other days I can't stand how messy the house has become and I announce, "Its a cleaning day!!"  You get the picture.  Like everyone else, we do the best that we can and ask God to mold us more into his image because we so desperately need Him!  :)

Here's some video of Eli doing school.