Isabelle's 9th Birthday!

Isabelle woke up very early to start celebrating her ninth birthday!

She walked into my room and sat on the edge of my bed, and I made no movement because I was very tired from being up late the night before. However, I was awake! Isabelle wanted to make sure I knew she was there, so she gave a few little bounces on the bed! Ha!

Her gifts were waiting for her!

She has been longing for bonsai tree forever and here it is!

Joseph looks on as she opens a present!

The computer age and ds are the rage around here!

Isabelle totally enjoys watching food network. Here she is overseeing Daddy's food preparations!



Her favorite salad: Caprese! (Mmmm..I have to agree!)



Oh yeah..helping Mom bake! I guess!

She requested marble cake with butter cream frosting!
It's vanilla/chocolate on the inside. We cheated and bought decorations!

Talking to the Aussie grandparents!

Dinner is ready. Her other request was fettucini alfredo!

Singing Happy Birthday!

Blowing out the candles!

We had a wild storm last night, so we spent the remaining part of the evening in the basement!

That is the crazy hail coming down.

Joseph's 7'th Birthday!

We all celebrated Joseph's birthday yesterday! Starting at around 6:15 AM!!! Isabelle woke up first and was excited for him! He opened presents in bed first! We have surely reached the lego stage of life!

Joseph requested a vanilla cake with chocolate chips in it. I made it the day before and yesterday we iced it with chocolate cream cheese icing! I sent the rest off to work with Brendon today, because we must not keep evil things (cake!) in our house!


Later on in the evening our good friends came over for pizza and cake! YUMMO!

Singing Happy Birthday!

We love to be silly! That was DK from Mario Kart on his cake!
It was hillarious to lick the chocolate (poop) off of his bottom!
Hahahahahah!

Good night everyone!

Joseph loves smilebox creations, so below is a scrapbook with music of his day!

Joseph's 7th Birthday!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

A Registered Letter!

Two days ago we received one of those peach colored slips from the postlady, saying she missed us and had a registerd letter for us to pick up. The next day she deliverd the package from the Aussie cousins, and I talked to the post lady and she told me if I signed it and gave it to her she would deliver it today at noon!


She delivered as promised!


The letter was from Nanny and Pa!


We opened it as fast as we could, of course!



Inside were individual cards for each child!


They opened their cards, and the biggest bunch of squealing and jumping, and screaming and yelling ensued that I have ever seen from opening a card! It was like they won the lottery!!!!
They got some money from the grandparents for their birthdays! Holy cow! They've never had more than a dollar or two, so this totally took the cake! If I had known I would have turned on my cam corder! Mom was here so she took some pictures that I actually was in too!



Basking in the glow!

Packages!

A special package arrived in the mail today!

Thank you for the wonderful birthday presents Auntie Rell!!!

and Trent, Ambrose, Xavier, Courtney and Liana!!!

We love you!!!

XXXOOO

I am just thinking about next week!

It's both our childrens birthdays, not to mention

the week leading up to Easter!

Ummm..can you say busy!

What have we been doing?

This month has flown by. I did not anticipate it being such a busy month, and so

I'm playing "catch up" in so many areas right now.

Here are a few highlights.

Isabelle is very into Harry Potter right now.

There she is with her nose in a book!

She says, on occasion, that it's unfair to have to do

school work because she really is dying to read the next plot in

Harry Potter!

Here are Sarah and Mavis trying to get in the screen porch.

Believe me, if we did not lock the door they could certainly

get in. Sarah pushes the handle down and then quickly inserts her paw

in the opening and voila she's in!

One day, while I was gone of coure, Daddy took the kids

to Wendy's! They received a "spy" pack in the

kids meal and this is Joseph "mug" shot!

Here is Isabelle's "mug" shot!

They are some scary looking spies!

The kids felt St. Francis needed to understand how important

sun protection is! Or? I'm not sure what the deal is, but this is what

I found in the backyard!

I have made great progress on keeping my downstairs in great ordermost days, but this week I'm beat. I did actually DO the laundry, but here it is waiting for me to take it upstairs and put it away!

(Do you see that Harrpy Potter book on the chair?)

This month I ran the Atlanta Womens 5K and got a PR!

It's not fast by most runners standards, but I'm happy!

I ran 29:53!

************

Now, I'm trainig for my first triathlon. It's going to be tough, for me, but

it's fun. I think swimming is the hardest. I, also, actually, need a

road bike. I have a mountain bike and that will do, unless I stumble

across a great deal. I found one on Craigs list, but I need to win the lottery

or something! (Does anyone have a 48 cm or 19inch bike? Ha!)

*************

Isabelle and Joseph just finished up their basketball season, and are

going to be doing flag football this spring.

**************

Brendon is still working our garden. He planted some cucumbers, squash and

watermelon last night. The lettuces are looking awesome. I think we will be

eating lots of lettuce! Do you want some?

**************

Well, that's all folks!

My Backyard

All the lovely little seeds on our kitchen table!

The three beds that are planted thus far!

The lettuces and greens.

We moved the garden to the other side of the yard this year. There was just not enough sunshine on the otherside. We also started alot of seeds indoor this year, so alot of the seedlings are still on my kitchen table.

Snow Day!

It started snowing in the middle of church this morning!

I leaned over and whispered to Joseph, "Look it's snowing!"

He leaned across somebody to "whisper" to Isabelle, "LOOK

SIS IT'S SNOWING"!!!!

We hurried home.....

...to play in the snow and make a Georgia snowman!

Brendon made a delicious soup/stew! I thought it looked pretty,

so I snapped a quick picture!

It was delicious and warming!

Symphony

We have been listening to Haydn at home while we do our lessons.

We found out that the Atlanta Symphony Ochestra and Chorus were

performing The Creation by Haydn, and decided it would be a

fun first symphony visit for the kids. We happened to have a cd recording of

this piece and so we started listening to it exclusivly at home.

This is just before we left home to go out. We took the camera with us, but

accidentally left it in the car! It was really a nice performance.

We did listen to it at home in English, but it was performed in German, however

there were screens with the words in English.

Joseph really liked the bass soloist, and Isabelle thought the

dress the soprano wore was really pretty!

My sick little girl

She got an earache last night, and still today.

Valentine Boxes

We started with this:

Isabelle's Valentine Box

Joseph's Valentine Box

I don't know about you, but I sure used to love to create my

Valentine Card box!

A picture you've never seen!

Do y'all have a picture we've never seen?

This is Isabelle in the middle.

Her good friend Madison on the left, and Jake is an Aussie kid that lives in Atlanta.

How are you doing?

Hello! It's been awhile!

We enjoyed our holidays with our family!

Christmas Eve

Brendon, Isabelle and Joseph always make a gingerbread house together!

After the New Year, we started to homeschool! We are studying with a homeschool program, called Veritas Classical Schools. Each Wednesday the kids go to class for 5 hours, and we follow along with the humanities curriculum the rest of the week at home. On Tuesdays they are taking an art class, which they are really loving! We do our own math program. It is called Right Start Math, and it's actually alot of fun! I researched alot of math programs and decided on this one because I really liked the manipulatives plus so many people love it. When I got the big box, we were all excited! The first few days for me, were sort of frustrating, because I was trying to figure it out, but now we are sailing along!

How are you? Especially the one's I don't see that often! Aunt Jan? Kristen? (I keep updated by reading your blog!) Alison? Shelley? Anyone else? Please drop a line and let me know how you are doing!

A Day with Nanny

Thanksgiving Day