Isaiah's Trip to Utah

Last weekend, Isaiah went on a trip to Utah to go to his sister wedding. His sister, Angela was getting married in the Salt Lake Temple. Most of his family was able to go out for it, and it sounds like they had lots of fun. I thought I would share just a few pictures from the journey.

They went on a few hikes up in the mountains while out there. Here is a picture of the boys on one of them. There is Helaman, Gideon, Samuel, Isaiah, Joe (the groom) and Timothy sitting down.

Here is a picture of Angela and Joe.

And last a picture of Angela and 7 of her sisters.

Michelle, Rosa, Evelyn, Ruthann in the back row. Martha, Angela, and Theresa in middle. Elaine in the front.

Melody @ 9 Months

Little Miss Melody is nine months already. It is so crazy to think in just three short months she will be a year old. She still isn't crawling yet, but is every so close. She will get on her hands and knees from a sitting position and can scoot backwards a little before her little legs give out and she plobs onto her belly. She so wants to be able to move and try to keep up with her brothers and sister.

She has learned to wave hi and bye. I have been telling her bye every morning when Isaiah takes her outside to let the chickens out, and she has started to wave back at me. It was so cute at breakfast the other morning, Carter was waving at her and she was waving right back at him.

Melody has been very fussy this last month. I finally took her to the chiropracter to make sure her back wasn't out. He said it was a little bit, but about a week after that I figured out the problem. She is getting her two top teeth. They still aren't all the way in, but you can see them starting to show. Hopefully once they are in she will start sleeping better.

Her Uncle Gideon has nicknamed her "Shredder" because she will be nicely patting her face or arm and then all of a sudden she will dig in and try to rip your skin off.

Our School Day

I thought I would do a post about our homeschool since it is what we spend most of the day doing. Right now, Benjamin is doing first grade work and Carter is just starting to learn to read. In the mornings, I do math, history, phonics, and reading with Benjamin. Carter does a few pages in a preschool workbook. Amita just gets to hang out with us and has fun. It takes 1-2 hours each morning depending on exactly what we are doing.

The math program I am using is rightstart. It is really fun and teaches math through lots of hands on activities and games. In the picture we are learning about congruent rectangles by making them on a geoboard.

The history program is called Mystery of History. We read a little story and then do an activity that goes with it. We also make figures for each lesson and put them on a timeline. Our last lesson was about Gideon in the bible and we made a clay pot. Here is a picture of our timeline.

After lunch, I have the kids do work folders. It is a system I learned about on another blog. Each kid has file folder with different activities in them. They do each folder and when it is done they move on to the next one. Benjamin has 11 folders and Carter has eight.

Benjamin's folders:

1) after lunch jobs (clear the counter & clean bathroom)

2)math drill (right now he is add 3 to other numbers)

3)Dragonfly lapbook

4)a writing exercise (this changes everyday, to day he copied a nursery rhythm)

5)Literature or History Pockets

6)math review (this changes everyday, today we reviewed the days of the week)

7)Science folder (watched magic school bus today)

8) some thing fun like a game, puzzle coloring sheet (today was a maze worksheet)

9)computer time

10)outside activity (today he rode his bike)

11) evening jobs (clean the playroom & feed animals)

I love using this system because every evening I just fill their folders and then the next day everything is ready for them. It usually takes Benjamin 2-3 hours to go through them depending on the exact activities in them.

We also do a nature walk once a week and then come back and journal about what we saw. This week we studied the pond. I am also reading The Tale of Desperoux at bed time.

Teaching the kids keeps me very busy, but I love every minute.

My Big Girl

I am so excited because Amita is fully potty trained. It is so wonderful to only have one in diapers again. I tried to train her back in the spring because everyone said girls would be easy and train sooner. Well, that wasn't the case, so after six weeks we gave up. I decided to try it again one weekend and within a few days she had figured it completely out. Now she really is my big girl.

Melody @ 8 Months

Melody is growing so fast. She hasn't quite started crawling yet, but is really close. She can turn herself all the way around when she is sitting up. She also will lean all the way forward and almost onto her knees in a crawling position, but then will fall onto her belly. This makes her so mad.

She has become very clingy to me. I use to be able to lay her in her crib and she would go to sleep. Not anymore. She has to be held to go to sleep. She also likes to just be held a lot more in general. I have to wrap her on me a lot of the day in order to get anything done.

Melody has also started not sleep good at night. She now wakes up almost every hour to two hours and has to be nursed back to sleep. The last few day has been a little better and I am hoping she is getting back to her old routine because I am one tired mommy.

Amita and her are the best of buddies. Whenever I need to get something done that I can't do holding her, I have Amita come play with her and she will be happy for quite awhile. When she wakes up from her naps, Amita will run and climb into her crib and play with her till I can come.

Melody is eating a lot of solids lately. She likes to try about anything she sees me eating. Her favorite foods are pancakes, bananas, and potatoes.

Melody @ 7 Months

What a crazy month Melody has had. She spent most of this month away from home and out west on vacation.

She flow for the first time with me to Idaho and got to visit a lot of new states including Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas.

When I left home she couldn't sit up without help, but after only a few days at Grandma house she had turned into a pro.

Also while there, she learned she can scream and she likes to scream a lot. When she is happy she talks to you in screams, and when she is mad she lets you know by screaming.

Another first for Melody that happen at Grandmas was getting to sit in the grass. Because of the chiggers out here in Missouri, she hasn't really had a good chance to sit in the grass. She really enjoyed it and loved to pull on the grass and try to eat it.

During the trip Melody got her first two teeth. Her bottom front teeth came in.

She is getting so big so fast. Her personality is really starting to show. She loves to be on the go and in the outdoors. She isn't a baby that likes to just sit somewhere and be content.

Vacation with a Twist

Melody and I flow out to Idaho for my friend Tina's wedding. We were going to be gone a week and Isaiah was going to take care of the three older kids while I was away. This was the longest I had ever been away from the kids.

It was so fun to see everyone. The wedding was beautiful and Tina was a gorgeous bride. This is a picture of Maggie, Tina, and me.

Isaiah told me he was taking the kids camping for the weekend and that they would probably be out of phone service. On Monday, he called me to tell me he had emailed me a picture of their campsite and wanted to know if I recognized it. Well, at the time I was in town, so I told him I would look as soon as I got back to the house. My mom dropped me off at the house awhile later. I tried to get on the Internet, but it was being very slow. The whole time I was trying to get the computer to work I keep hearing noise from up stairs (I knew I was the only one home at the time). I decided to go check it out and discover Isaiah and kids hiding out. He had driving all the way from Missouri with the three kids to surprise me and I was surprised. I was so glad to see them because I was missing them really badly.

This is the picture he had emailed me.

Since Isaiah was at the house now, my mom had to have him do some home improvements. Him and the kids ended up painting Monte's old room.
This picture is of Carter, Benjamin, and Jeff's daughter Sydney helping out.

We decided to spend a day at the zoo with Jeff's family. It was pouring down rain when we got there, but cleared up enough for us to walk around the zoo and have a picnic in the park later. As soon as we loaded up in the car to go home it started pouring rain again.

The kids had lots of fun feeding the geese in the park. Here you can see Angel, Annette, and Benjamin feeding them.

On our way home we spent a few days in Salt Lake visiting people. We went on a two hour hike in the mountains, which was my favorite part of the trip. We did take the kids to the Hogel Zoo. It was lots of fun.

The kids snuggling up to a rhino.

This picture is of Benjamin in downtown Denver wading in a stream we found. It is out of order and didn't happen till the last day of the trip.

After Salt Lake, we drove to southern Utah. We found an arch to go climbing around. Benjamin and Carter liked chasing the lizards all over the rocks.

Here is Amita and me under the arch.

Here is Isaiah with the arch behind him.

After, Utah we headed for Denver because Isaiah had a conference to go to. We had fun there too. The only rough day of the whole trip was the 12 hour drive home. Amita had the stomach flu and through up multiple times and Melody decided she was sick of riding and screamed the last 6 hours. I am so glad Isaiah surprised me and we got to turn it into a family vacation.