Look what I did.

I just learned to knit. Well I AM learning. I managed a few little rows before I really messed it up and had to take it all out and start it all over. I figure starting over many, many times is just good practice. Thank you to my friend Tina and my grandma for helping me understand. You are both great teachers!

Triops are hatching and growing fast

We bought these things at Hobby Lobby. They are called Triops and they work similar to sea monkeys. They come in dehydrated egg form. You put them in water and supposedly in 18 - 30 hours they hatch.

According to the packaging they can grow up to 2 inches in length and can live up to 75 days. Well ours hatched, four of them. Not in 18-30 hours but in about 48. And these suckers are growing fast! This is one on its first full day after hatching.



To give you some scale, that tea bag (which is actually water conditioning stuff) is 2.5 inches long. Again this is day 1. I'll post more about them in a few days.

Book Tag: Teaching Your Children Life Skills

*Here are the rules:
1)Grab the nearest book.
2)Open the book to page 56.
3)Find the fifth sentence.
4)Post the text of the next two to five sentences.
5)Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one,
Pick the Closest.
6)Tag five people to do the same.

So, this is the book I have beside me right now.



From page 56:

Show him how to estimate the amount of paint needed by first showing him how to compute the area of the walls and ceiling. Once you're ready with everything you need you'll want to take a few minutes to carefully explain the method of painting you employ. Your child can help assemble the necessary materials before starting the job. He can spread out the drop cloth, mix the paint and tape up any areas that need to be protected. Of course each of these tasks will need your direction and supervision.

May I digress? The people who wrote this book, which I have not read yet, have clearly never met my children. When I paint I send them as far away as I possibly can. Now measuring I let them do but once those cans of color are open children are GONE. Good in theory but not in practice.

I tag:
Rochelle A.
Cindy E.
Kayla from Sand in my Dryer

Baby's got RHYTHM!!!

This is the toy that grandma Diane bought for Gabriel. It is a convertible toy that goes from a laying down toy to a sitting up toy and today we discovered he really likes it and this boy's got the moves!!!

He did it!!!!!

Today we caught Gabriel on camera going FORWARD!!! We are both excited and frightened. Watch this and Nana, get your tissues.

A halloween tradition

Last year we discovered this great little pumpkin stand sponsored by Galloping Grace Youth Ranch. It was rather small and cute. They had a few little games and things for the kids and pumpkins galore. This year they had grown considerably. They had MANY more pumpkins and lots of stuff for the kids including a hay maze and a large bucket of dried corn. The kids loved the corn bucket. They scooped and dumped for quite some time whilst Rudy and I searched for the perfect pumpkin.

We found it, called the kids out and they liked it too so it was THE one. Now last year we carved it way too early and by halloween night it looked like a grumpy old man. This year we waited until much closer and also got a tip about putting vaseline on the cut edges to preserve it longer. I hope it lasts this time.

Here are the photos. We voted on a square for a nose and triangle eyes but the mouth is modeled after Lori. What do you think? Did we capture her likeness?

Baby in his high chair

Last night I was taking Gabriel out of the high chair and he leaned forward and grabbed the tray. He kept pulling it back and it took quite a pull to get it away from him.

Matthew Thomas

Named Matthew because we love the name and Thomas after my father. This boy has our heads spinning. He is mischevious and lightning fast. It was very hard for me to do this post because one, there is so much I could say about him and two, I have over 1,000 pictures of him on my computer. He is my angel, with horns. He loves to cuddle me. No one else. Just me. All the time. Here are some photos of my boy.

Making a Gabriel face. I know Gabe wasn't born yet but we see a lot of similarities in this photo.



Matthew and Bandit. He loves animals, especially Dixie.



I love this photo of Matthew. I love the colors.



Another Gabriel face.



Another happy baby shot.

This is Matthew wearing two ties and his vampire teeth. He insisted I take a photo.



This is Mr. Cool posing for a picture in his awesome hat. Notice he is shirtless? As the years have gone on he's come to enjoy NOT being dressed. Most days he can be found running around the house in nothing more than his spider-man undies and maybe a hat or a light saber.





Matthew was a very happy baby. I think he has just learned to stand in this photo and was very proud of his accomplishment.



Any of you who know Matthew AT ALL, know that he is the fast and the curious. In this photo we snuck around the corner with the camera to catch him playing in Nana's bathroom. He still plays in bathrooms ALL THE TIME!!



Just a cute photo of him. I like the way the sun is on his head.

Harvesting

We may have gotten a late start this year but we still managed a reasonable harvest for our very first garden. We have quite a few VERY green tomatoes. We've bagged them up to try and ripen them inside. We also got plenty of parsley. Our mint is doing okay and Katlyn planted a lavendar plant that is doing well. I hope it survives the winter here.

Lori Danielle

Here she is. Lori Danielle. With her its all about the attitude. She makes the faces, says the funny things. She has her father's wit and her mother's sense of humor. She is the most dramatic of my girls. She can make you laugh or make you cry. Here are some photos.

Devi Anna

So here is my post about my eldest child Devi. She is now thirteen years old and becoming quite the beautiful young lady. She has now and always has had the most beautiful eyes. From the day she was born. You know the type ladies, the gal who never has to wear mascara. Yeah, that's Devi. Her hobby is reading. Anytime she can have her nose in a book or an audio book playing on her ipod she does. Her most recent accomplishment was auditioning for two plays. For this she had to memorize a monologue. She did great but sadly there were no parts for her age range in either play. Here are some great photos of her through the years:











Sadly, we did not have a digital camera when Devi was a baby so we don't have many of her photos on the computer. I've managed to find the few young ones that I had scanned in over time.

I got my new hard drive and all my photos back!!!

So in case any of you were thinking maybe I only had one kid...I am starting a daily post of each of my OTHER kids. Today will be Katlyn. The fun thing about Katlyn is that she's my left-handed, free-spirited, creative and artistic child. As a baby and yound child she was always doing silly things and most of the time had on some kind of costume on. See photos for examples.









Even now Katlyn often spends much of her day in imaginary play. She likes to plan activities, build things, take things apart and she LOVES anything related to art.

It has always been amazing to me how 5 children in one family can all be so very different. Tune in next time to learn all about Devi.

Can I just brag a little?

I know every parent thinks their baby is the cutest thing in all the world. But look at this...





As soon as I get my back up drive back in my computer I'll post some beauties of my other kids too!

A new milestone

Gabriel has reached a new milestone today. He's been teasing us with it the last few days and today did it on his own for real! Watch this:

My little reader...

At the beginning of this year we dove into the mystical realm of kindergarten. I started homeschooling the girls after they had all gonet o public school. Each of them already knew how to read so teaching Matthew to read has been a big concern for me this year. Everyone told me not to worry. Just give it to him and he'll soak it right up. So that's what I've been doing. We started schooling in August and now he's beginning to read shot 3 letter words. He even let me get this one on camera. Notice the lack of a shirt? That's just Matthew. I even asked if he wated to put one on before I recorded and he said, "Nah".

A Shout out to my friend down under

I have a very good friend in Australia named Robyn. She watches my blog pretty regular for updates and even shows her 3 year old son Joel photos and videos of the kids. Here is a shout out to Joel

Jedi Master

Luke, I AM your father....no Matt, I AM your brother!

Dance Baby, Dance

We had Mary and Ruth over last night and the kids decided to have a dancing party. Watch this:

I know I post a lot of "cute talking baby"....

But this one really is cute. Gabriel said Mama for the first time yesterday. The major significance there is that all 4 of my other kids said Dada first so this is truly special for me.

More cute talking baby

This was taken during Katy's horse show. The kids were great and Katlyn did well. She got a 3rd place and a 4th place ribbon. I will photo and post later. We're still exhausted from the weekend.

What happened????

Today we recreated a photo hanging in my office of Rudy holding Lori in his lap while she sleeps and he works on his computer.



She was just a baby then and now she is eight years old and its just not the same anymore!

Sleepy boy

I think Matthew was tired today. He was up on the couch watching Lori play on the computer and just fell asleep.