Latest Bits of Our Life

Natalie had an assignment at school to prepare a report about a mountain lion and create a diorama of it's habitat. She worked very, very hard on it, and I love all the creative little "Natalie" details.

After watching Natalie work on her diorama for several days Emmy decided she wanted to make one too. She likes the British English pronunciation of the word though, and she will correct you every time - DIORAAAAAMA (with a short "o" sound). I absolutely adore her little sun and clouds and animals. It's hard to know what to do with these projects after the assignment is over. I usually hide them for a few days/weeks and wait to see if anyone asks about them. If no one does, I throw them away. If they ARE asked about, I pull them out and we start the process again of hiding and waiting.

One afternoon Natalie and Emmy did a kind deed and "made" our bed. They also left a couple pictures they drew and a picture of Jesus.

Yeah, this also happened one afternoon - Leah and her horse drawn carriage.

Jansen LOVES to play Lego Chima on the computer and Boom Beach on my phone. He has to have his homework and jobs done before he can play either of them, so he is always very motivated after school to complete both of them. He will also do just about any extra job for some extra time to play. I love having some help with bathroom cleaning!

One of Leah's favorite things to do is pull on the cord to the window blinds.

We've been trying some solids with her here and there, but she definitely doesn't seem to care for the pureed "baby food." Bits of pizza are much more up her alley.

She loves sucking on this one little finger.

She loves to hold and grab things and is rolling around front to back and back to front a lot now.

And then there was the time she spit up right onto/into her father's mouth and I made him stop for a picture.

We had such a wonderful time with Steve and Jody here a couple weeks ago. The men took Jansen and Natalie camping, and I'm sure the kids will always remember it. They even rented canoes. The first thing Natalie said to me when they walked in the door the next morning was, "We did all the things you don't want us to do!" 

On Halloween while the kids were at school we did a little exploring and stopped at a really neat antique shop.

This guy keeps the customers in line.

After the antique shop we had lunch at The Apple Store and enjoyed a rare coolish afternoon. 

Nate is building a play set in our backyard almost entirely from discarded wood he has picked up around our neighborhood. It's going to take some time to complete, but we both agreed that the memories made while building it would be great ones and maybe just as fun as actually playing on it.