Valentine's Day is upon us!

Hey all! Hope you all enjoyed Valentine's Day on Friday. Our family has postponed it until Wednesday, how do we do that you say? We are home-educated, we can do anything! So on Thursday evening we cancelled our coop plans for Valentine's Day due to the weather. But as we woke Friday morning, we were all sick. A little fever here, stuffed up there, vomit here, runny nose there, coughing here, losing voice there......... it was all here and there floating around our house. So as Brennan joyfully announced at 7 am, "Happy Valentine's Day Mom", I politely said, "Thank you Brennan, but it has be postponed until next Wednesday". This was not out of the ordinary to him because in the last few weeks we have had so many schedule changes because of winter weather. The snow comes, 3 days later it is 60 degrees and it is all gone. This coming Friday is supposed to hit 70 degrees. So now that we have made it to Sunday, we are all on the mend. Brennan had a basketball game tonight and we were very proud of his sportsmanship! Sadly, Jenna Grace had to miss her cheerleading game because of illness on Saturday. We have a fun filled few weeks. We made perfume for our Egyptian mummies (they kids have faces to show how stinky it is!) We also made real snow cones from our snow outside. We took a trip to the History Museum and the kids took a class there. We also visited Marbles Museum, Ava Jane loves it there (as do the other children). We were finishing up learning about the human body and our study of China. The kiddos made some clay bowls and we finished reading our most recent favorite lamplighter book, titled "Basil". "Basil" was written in 1856 by Charlotte O'Brien. All the lamplighter books we read were written in the 1800s, early 1900s and every single one we read is our favorite. I am also including a few pictures from the play "Heidi" that Brennan was in at the end of January. We are looking forward to attending this month's cyt play on the 22nd, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Sarah had her 4 year old well check up and all is well and she is right around 50% for her height, weight, and head measurements. She screamed louder than most when she got her vaccinations. She was the first one to fight off the nurses, we had to hold her down. It doesn't surprise me, as she is a child that God has provided with tremendous leadership qualities. She is very determined but underneath has one of the sweetest hearts I have had the pleasure on knowing. I got to have a special date with Jenna Grace and Sarah at Red Robin; they got speckled lemonade and smoothies. We took a picture of ourselves together, it looks rather funny. Well as we get ready to celebrate presidents day, let us all remember what unites us. The reason George Washington didn't want to be a king, is because he worshipped the "King of kings". I am thankful he set the precedent that no president alone would have too much power.

Happy Chinese New Year 2014

This year is the year of the horse, how are you celebrating? We made a Chinese lantern (Thanks Lauren) and read the Story of Ping which takes place in China. I love that we are always learning new things! I had no idea that the Chinese celebrated their new year for 15 days, if you want to learn more as we did, feel free to click the link. So this past Christmas, each member of our family gave Jesus a gift. I chose to give Him this blog. I committed to update this blog at least once a month, but hopefully more often. God has revealed time and time again that this is a way to honor our extended family and friends! We have had a wonderful January. We got to see a Frozen at the theater, WOW was that a great movie. I am pretty sure it is my favorite animated movie. The music was wonderful and it was a rich story of genuine love. Which always reminds me of my favorite story, God's story for us. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. Sarah now tries to freeze us all and she likes to be called "Elsa". We are studying ancient history and are learning a lot about the human body. :) You can also see in the picture where the kids made a snowman on a skewer out of foods. That was really fun! (Thanks Kristin) Doing school work has turned comical when both Ava Jane and Mazie are awake and out with us. Those two are partners in crime and their primary offense is getting us off task. They are both so cute, they woo us over! I am SO thankful we got an invisible fence for Mazie, it was my Christmas present. Honestly, if we didn't get the fence I am not sure we could have kept her. She loves to run wild and now she can do that :) Brennan got started back to basketball and Jenna Grace is doing cheerleading. Brennan was also in a play "Heidi" which was a wonderful experience. He was a mountain kid and one of Clara's friends. The entire play was a testimony of God's faithfulness......... amazing! Brennan, Jenna Grace, and Sarah all enjoy going to AWANA on Sunday evenings. We had a wonderful visit with Gramma and Pop-Pop this month when they came to visit. They got to see Brennan's play, Jenna Grace 's cheerleading, to go to church with us and pick up kiddos from AWANAs. Then they got a nice warm day to play before they had to head back to the bitter cold in PA. As they left, snow came our way. We had several inches of pretty snow and the kids were thrilled to get to play with their sleds and their neighborhood friends. Jeff worked from home for 3 days and we tried to be somewhat quiet, that is rather comical. Somewhat quiet is a mild roar as opposed to the entire zoo. There was a lot of hot chocolate and hot tea for a few days. Jenna Grace had a special date with Daddy and they went to a frozen yogurt shop and the craft stores. She also had a special date with Mommy as we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant together. Jeff took Brennan and Jenna Grace to Home Depot and they made box calendars that are pretty cool. The kids enjoyed making their own markers with their marker set (thank you Gramma and Pop-Pop) and Mazie is enjoying her dog bed (thank you Granny Bee and Pappy.

Noahs landing

Held snakes, pet a crocodile, and heard a bird sing old macdonald had a farm !!! Great field trip Friday !

Happy Halloween ! It was George Washington, Colonial girl and bat girl this year :)

Moved play set and blue claw baseball

Jeff and David spent a large portion of Sunday moving the play set to the side of the yard. Brennan and Jenna Grace were good helpers as well ! It looks great and we are excited that it is no longer in the middle of the yard.

Jeff and I got to go on a date Saturday night, we walked a lot in mall but no baby yet !

Brennan is playing his game right now, playing second base score is 10 to 1 his team the blue claws are winning !!!

Sweet tees

Today is Jenna Grace's first sweet tees practice! She was very excited !!!

Twinkle twinkle little star

Jenna Grace and Brennan started back with piano lessons this week :)! We had a great week visiting with friends and family! Brennan has one more reading book and then he is officially done with all first grade work! We are looking forward to starting our new school year on August 20th!

Check out this video on YouTubeof Jenna Grace playing twinkle twinkle :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBrdGXAJUBA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Scrabble

Brennan beat me at his first game of real scrabble! I didn't even help him !