Finished

I have finally crossed the finish line in becoming a registered nurse. I graduated last December from school, but I still had to take the licensing exam for the state to get me license. I took it Monday and passed. So now I am a full fledged RN.

Oregon Coast Trip

I found out my Idaho family was taking a trip to the Oregon Coast and I decided to join them at the last minute. I ended up taking Melody and Benjamin, while Amita and Carter stayed with Isaiah. It was so fun to see the family.
This is a picture of the beach closet to our beach house. It was a long hike of stairs to get down to it. The weather was chill and I ended up having to buy jackets for the kids and I, but it was a nice break from the Missouri heat.

We got to the beach house late in the evening, but still had time to walk the beach before it got to dark. Benjamin had a blast chasing the waves.

Jeff and Annette's daughter Mackenzie came with us. She was Melody's buddy.

We spent one whole day on the beach at a place with lots of tide pools. The kids had so much fun exploring and making discoveries.

Melody liked to haul buckets of water from the ocean to a hole she had dug by our chairs.

We also spent one day driving down the coast seeing all the sights.

Here is Nan, all bundled up from the cold wind.

Just a fun picture of some of the brothers and sisters. FYI: I am eight months pregnant on this trip.

Swim Lessons

I have been wanting to put the boys in swim lessons forever and finally there were some in Stockton. They both absolutely loved them and both improved their swimming.

Benjamin learned all of the different strokes and now can pretty much swim by himself.

Carter learned some basic strokes and got a lot more confident in the water. Everyday at the end of class the kids were allowed to jump off the diving board, but Carter never would. Finally, on the last day I told him he had to at least walk to the end of the board and think about it. So he walks to the end of the board and just jumps in. He loved it so much he didn't want to stop. Even after the instructor that was catching them left, he still wanted to and jumped in with no one to catch him. It scared me. I was thinking I was going to have to jump in to save him, but he swam as hard as he could and made it to the edge.

A New School Year

We are starting our new school year, and I am so excited. Benjamin is going into 3rd grade and Carter is starting 1st. I started using Ambleside Online last year and have really fallen in love with it. We will be using it again this year.

Here is a condensed plan for each boy for this year.

Benjamin

History:

He is finishing up the middle ages and starting the renaissance which includes the discovery of America. He will be reading biographies on Joan of arc, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Shakespeare. He will also be reading about Marco Polo's journey.

Literature:

His main lit. books are The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, Children of the New Forest by Marryat, and American Tall Tales.

Science:

He is using Pagoo by Holling Clancy Holling to learn about the life of a hermit crab and Exploring His Creating through Astronomy.

Math:

He is using Rightstart Level D which continues mastering multiplication and introduces division.

Carter:

History:

He is reading short stories about important people in American history in Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.

Literature:

His main books are Stories by Beatrix Potter, Among the Pond People, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Fairy Tales.

Science:

His main focus is different bugs that he read books about and then make lapbooks for.

Math:

He is in Rightstart Level B. He is learning about addition, money and time.

Life Changes

Isaiah and I are very interested in healthy eating and living. We have slowly made changes in our lives to improve our health and well being. I make almost everything from scratch. We have cut out all sugars, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, and the list goes on. Even with all these changes, we still didn't feel good a lot of the time. There were many evening Isaiah would come home from work and find me laying on the couch trying to survive from a headache or brain fog.

Isaiah started doing some research and started reading about celiac disease. Celiac disease is when a person eats gluten (found in wheat, barley and rye) their body kills off all the villi in their small intestine causing decreased absorption of nutrients and inflammation. The signs and symptoms included what we had been having problems with, so we went and got tested. Well, we are both positive.

What does that mean for us? It means a whole new adventure in cooking. I am learning to make breads, pizza crust, pancakes, and cookies with different grains then wheat. It may be surprising to know that there are lots of grains that don't have gluten in them like: millet, corn, rice, amaranth, quinoa, and soy. So lots of new flavors and experimenting for me in the kitchen.

We have been gluten-free for over a month and feel so much better.

Zoo Fun

We buy a zoo pass every year and go to the zoo all the time, so I thought I would include some fun pictures from our last trip since it is so much a part of our lives.

This trip I actually took all four kids by myself. We had so much fun. I let Benjamin have the camera most of the time and he took pictures of all the animals. I included his two best.

It was really cold that day and Amita ended up being sick. She was a really trooper through. She didn't fuss or whine about not feeling good.

We ate our lunch at a park near by and the kids played for a few minutes, but by then it was so cold we were freezing. So we packed up and headed home.

Ring Princess

Isaiah's brother, Helaman, got married and Amita was the ring bearer or ring princess, as we called her. She was very brave about it till she realized she was walking along down the aisle and then she got a little scared. It was really cute to watch her play her part.

Her she is with Helaman and his bride, Royceanne.

All of Isaiah's brothers and sisters were able to make it out for the wedding, so here is a picture of them with their mom, Mary.