Post-it #39

Look what the boys can do!

Post-it #38

Flowers, (and Oreo's!) from David, September 19, 2012. He knew I'd had a particularly rough morning with the kids in school.

Twenty-Seventh Passage

Every Tuesday, for a part of school, we learn about a part of the body. So we got a roll of paper to trace the boys' bodies on. They turned out looking a little wonky, due to wiggly, ticklish, boys, but hey, adds character, right?

Here's Owen, getting ready to be traced.

 Lydia had a ton of fun helping and getting her own tracing, which she lugged around for awhile.

 After learning about a specific organ, the boys color it, cut it out, and glue it on the paper bodies. Here's William gluing it up.

 Here's Morgan positioning his heart just right.

 Morgan and William holding their hearts in place, until the glue did it for them.

 And here's the boys with their growing bodies!

Twenty-sixth Passage

 On my previous blog, I did a post on Morgan's birthdays that showed highlights of the years he'd had, in picture form. I'll do it for Lydia.

She was born around 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2010. Her due date. 6 lbs, 15 oz.

I loved her then, too.

Morgan met his little sister, and started sweetly singing to her, "Rock-a-bye baby".

She was a great toy to dress up and photograph.

This is the day of her baby blessing.

Her first Halloween.

She's always done this thing where she sticks her lip way out when she's sad.

Because it's adorable...

First Christmas.

A little bald princess.

Also because it's adorable...

Learning to sit up.

Being dressed up again for pictures.

Just starting to eat solids.

First Easter. Yummy grass.

Funniest face.

First Birthday

 A professional shot.

Second Halloween

First younger cousin.

Second Christmas

First ponytail.

Big changes! But happy changes.

 New home, wearing Morgan's shoe.

Loving her brother

Second Easter

Being adorable.

Camping!

Coloring and dress up.

Getting so big.

Twenty-Fifth Passage

Lydia is two! And guess what? All the pictures and video's that I took on her birthday have been deleted permanently. Yeah, yeah, I need to get over it. My brother, Jason, took a some photos though, so we do have some photo documentation! They are all blurry though, but that's often a symptom of trying to catch Lydia on camera.

Anyway, some family came over Labor Day afternoon to celebrate. Lydia was spoiled with many gifts. Clothes and toys. She got some more dress up things though, which she loves to have and play with.

Lydia did great blowing out her birthday candles. I got the whole thing on video... :*( It was actually funny, because she put her lips right up close to the flame, which caused all the women in the room to do their own variations of shrieking to scare her away. But, she got both candles extinguished without any harm to herself or anyone else.

Lydia, at two, is pretty girly. She loves clothes, especially dresses and shoes, and already has a preference for pink. She's a great mommy to her dolly's, and likes to carry them around in blankets. She loves jewelry and pretty things.
Lydia also likes to play with her older brothers. Unfortunatly for her, they don't always share the sentiment, (something about, "Lydia's going to ruin our Legos!" or "Lydia's stealing our cars!")
The trampoline is one of Lydia's favorite things. It doesn't always make sense, because if anyone is up there with her, she gets bounced around a bit, and screams bloody murder. But if she is removed, she screams bloody murder. But she always wants someone right there with her.
That's another Lydia thing at 2. She SCREAMS and whines a lot. We're still working on understanding her gibberish, which is improving, but until we communicate better, I suspect she will keep up the screaming.
But boy do I love my Lydie. She's silly, dramatic, bold, sassy, and adorable. Happy birthday, little Lydie lady!

Twenty-Fourth Passage

School has started! We've survived the first two weeks, but the house has not. Seriously, I don't know how to spend hours a day with the boys doing school, and still manage to do more necessary housework than dishes and laundry. Especially when you add canning and dehydrating into the mix. (Not that I've really done much of that...)

Here are some pictures from the first day of school.

The three boys. Luckily, I posted these pictures on Facebook, otherwise they would be lost forever, along with my other 200+ pictures that I stupidly deleted after failing to transfer them all to my computer, which wouldn't normally be a forever thing, but since I have an iPhone, they are virtually irretrievable because of the lengths apple goes to make their products un-user friendly. :(

And, of course, my fairy princess Lydia needed a picture. She got the shoes for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Nelson, and LOVES them. Always wears them.

After breakfast, and hygiene, and chores, we start school with a little devotional. Songs, prayer, scriptures, and pledge of allegiance. Then we move on to reading and writing.

Morgan:

William:

And Owen:

After reading and writing we do math. Then, depending on the day, we learn some anatomy, or about a state, or we do a craft or science project.

Lydia can make things a little more difficult while we do school. She often colors or plays with toys, but she prefers to get into the boys' pencils or crayons, or make messes of the toys, (our school room doubles as a toy room) or steal away to my closet to try on all my shoes, or go somewhere else in the house and be quiet, which is the scariest of all. Who knows what she could be doing?! But I usually actually just find her playing with her toys in her bedroom.

After lunch we read a book together. Right now we're reading Hole's by Louis Sachar. And we do P.E.

We have sticker charts. If the boys do well all day long, they get to put up a sticker. Once the chart is filled, I'll take them to the dollar store or something, and let them pick a prize. Most days they have all gotten a sticker. William has had tantrums during writing when he gets discouraged, and so missed. Owen has repeatedly colored on the table, so missed out. Morgan threw a giant fit over playing leap frog during P.E. of all things, so didn't get a sticker. But we're learning.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't ever think of the convenience I am giving up in order to keep the boys home for school. Some days it would be really nice to have a whole morning with just me and Lydia and Owen, when I could be productive and get things done. But I don't doubt that it will be worth it in the end. This is what I want. Remember Melanie, this is what you want! 
Yay for homeschool.

Post-it #37

Lydie's hair is kind of at a crazy stage, but it makes for a good Bieber impersonation!

And here is Lydia singing the Bieb's hit song, Baby, Oh.