Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving my brother, Monte, came for a visit. He drove from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky for the weekend. We had lots of fun with him. For Thanksgiving, we were going to eat dinner at my sister Diane's house. There ended up being about thirty people there plus a whole bunch of kids. Diane always does an excellent job of hosting. Below are some pictures of are crazy fun Thanksgiving.

This picture is out of order and I don't know how to get it to the right spot, so just bare with me. It is at Diane's house with everyone dishing up their plates.

Here is Monte trying to get ready for dinner with three kids watching him. Benjamin had fun trying on his hat.

We got to Diane's at two. The house was very busy with everyone getting last minute things done. Here is Diane finishing the potatoes with Marcy and Courtney standing behind her.

In order to fit everyone for dinner, there were tables set up from the front door all the way to the other end of the house. Here is a picture of the kids little table. On the the other side of the table is Carter and Matthew. Then Brooke. Elisa and Aaron have their backs to us. And last is Benjamin.

This is the teenager table. From the left there is Carson, Monte, Travis, Dustin, and Courtney.

Even the younger kids had their own table. Here is Lily and Alaina eating their dinner.

The two youngest there were Melody and Alyssa. They are six weeks apart.

Here is Monte with Melody. She likes to play with his ribbons on his uniform.

And last is a picture of Diane, Monte and me.

Trimming the Tree

The kids have been begging for weeks to put up the Christmas tree. They each get to buy a new ornament for the tree every year. We had bought the new ornaments a few weeks ago and the kids wanted so bad to put them up. Every evening when Isaiah gets done with work they ask about it. So, Saturday we decided to put it up.

Here is Isaiah and the kids figuring out what pieces go where.

Isaiah and Benjamin getting the star on top. Carter calls it the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The whole family in front of the tree before we put ornaments on. We took this with the timer on the camera, and I can hardly believe we got everyone (except Melody) to be looking and smiling.

Amita helping hang ornaments.

Isaiah bought a Santa suit a few years ago to surprise the kids. Well, they always knew it was him. Here is him and Melody having fun with it.

Here is my little village going up. I use to trying and get everything arranged just right, but now Benjamin has so much fun placing everything, that I just let him do it.

It was a really fun evening. The kids had a blast. Melody loved trying to get all the new "toys." The bottom two feet of the tree is bare just to keep her family eating any of the decorations.

Melody @ 10 Months

You know those cute little babies that just sit so nice and play. They love to go for rides in their car seat and are happy and content. Sleep all night in their crib Well, that is NOT Melody. She is a spicy know what she wants girl.

She loves to be held all the time, but will decided she sees something on the ground that looks fun. I put her down and then with in seconds she realizes it is boring down there and lets me know she wants back up.

She also hates to ride in her car seat or the car for that matter. As soon as I strap her in she starts screaming. Let me just say even a short trip to town can be torture at times. Her older brother Benjamin was exactly the same way.

Melody use to sleep in her crib, but once she become mobile that went out the window. Now she sleeps in my bed and even then she is very restless during the night.

Melody has learned to crawl and that has really helped her become happier. She loves to make a mess of what ever the older kids are doing. She can also pull herself up to a standing position while holding on to something. Just recently, she has started to walk a few steps along the couch.

She has gotten her top two teeth in, but two more are trying to come in.

Melody is my only baby that didn't lose all their baby hair and go through a bold stage. Her hair is getting long enough for me to put into one little ponytail. The picture below is of her and her hair all done up.

Corn Mazes & Pumpkins

Every fall we try to go to a corn maze. This year we found one way out in the country. It took us about two hours to find because I forgot to bring the directions with me, but once we got there we had a lot of fun.Here is Benjamin being his crazy goofy self.

Here is all of us still lost in the maze.

Amita and Carter thought it was fun to leave trails of corn, so we could see where we had been.

After the maze, we went on a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and let the kids each pick a pumpkin.

A few days later, I let the kids paint their pumpkins.

Carter took great care in covering his pumpkin in different colors.

Amita mixed all her paint together and then put it on her pumpkin.

Here is little Melody with her pumpkin. I had painted a cutie face on it, but then Amita thought she should paint on it too.

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.