Rainbows, Birthday's and Hummingbirds

For science lately we've been learning about weather.  There's no better way to learn about seasons/weather than by reading scriptures and showing that God created everything including our weather system.  I incorporated the story of Noah & the ark and the rainbow being God's promise to never destroy the earth by flood again.  We made a fun rainbow craft to go along with our lesson and the kids loved it!

We just used paper plates cut into the shape of rainbows, painted them and glued cotton balls on them to represent clouds.

The 21st was my Mom's birthday.  The kids and I baked chocolate cupcakes and finished them with cream cheese icing.  We spent the evening with her and ordered pizza for supper.  The kids rushed through eating b/c they were so excited to eat some cupcakes!
On Saturday my sister and I took my her out to lunch and then to the movies.  It was great being able to celebrate twice with her.  She's been a blessing to our little family and she's been a wonderful mom. 

Yesterday we found a hummingbird in Bobby's shed.  It was desperately trying to get out so Bobby caught it in Hannah's bug catching kit.  We took a few minutes to observe it before letting it go.
Hannah had never seen a hummingbird in "real live person before!"

 

 

Spring is in the Air

Spring has slowly crept in but summer feels like it's tagging along.  Still, we felt the need to take advantage of this wonderful warm weather so yesterday we took the kids to the park to play.  {It's about time to start play dates again ladies!}  It ended up being a really warm day with the threat of a thunder storm.  This didn't bother the kids in the least and they still had a blast and enjoyed the much needed fresh air and exercise.

 

click on image to see Sammy with his tongue stuck out!

In other news, our chickens are growing like crazy.  They're no longer cute but are still cuddly.  They're especially used to the kids getting into the coop with them and holding them.  Bobby built a big wooden coop outside and they're certainly enjoying the extra room.  It's big enough that the kids can sit inside and hold the chickens or feed them.

 And last of all, just a cute picture of my handsome little prince.  Don't you think he's the cutest boy ever? 

Weekends Are for Parties

Fun costume parties complete with...

 ice cream & delicious cakes

games

crafts

and kids running in circles until they dropped.

 Musical Chairs

 Sam didn't want to dress up at first but quickly decided he wanted to put on his Superman costume after seeing the other guys.

The costumes got crazier as the afternoon progressed...

Have You Seen the Cuteness?

the cuteness that is known as...

     Karen with her beautiful babies.

Uncle Bobby meets Samantha for the first time.

Since the twins are still in the NCCU, Dave decided to return to work and start his leave when they come home.  So he asked if we could come up and help Karen (she had a c-section and wasn't allowed to drive for two weeks.)  So I went up on Sunday and Bobby & the kiddos came up on Thursday.  I spent the week cleaning and driving Karen to the hospital.  And snuggling sweet tiny babies of course!  We have the cutest nieces in the world!

Every one is slowly making progress but continue to keep them in your prayers.  We're all anxious for the day that this little family will all be healthy and home together.

March Madness

We're only half way through March and I'm just about ready for it to be over.  There's a beach somewhere calling my name - calling me to come and rest so that our little family can escape from the family drama and sickness that has plagued us for 3 weeks now!  The Lord has been giving us a serious lesson in being joyful in our trials!  And I must say that I've failed on several occasions...so I guess He's giving me more opportunities to get it right!

We all started the month with a cold -or really some vile virus that was masquerading as a cold.  After a week of coughing, runny noses, and low grade fevers we all developed secondary infections:  Bobby & Hannah had a sinus infection, I had an ear infection and poor little Sammy developed a double ear infection!  As if that wasn't enough, Sammy had an allergic reaction to his antibiotic.  Bobby & I kind of expected this though because my Mom, myself and Hannah are all allergic to penicillin and amoxicillin too.  He didn't have a severe reaction, just broke out into a pinkish/red rash all over his torso and face. 

It's not been all bad though.  The Lord is faithful and has blessed us in many ways this month.  We are all starting to feel better...when Sammy's rash finally disappears we will all be recovered!  Now we are very thankful for good health!!!

We've also been blessed with several babies this month.  Our very dear friends, the Steele's, added a sweet baby girl to their family of four boys on the 11th.  It's been killing me that we've been so sick because we haven't even had the chance to meet her yet!  Hopefully this weekend we will...

Also our twin nieces, Catherine Louise and Samantha Jean, were born on the 15th to Dave & Karen (Bobby's brother & his wife).  They were born at 34.5 weeks so they only weighed 3lbs 2oz each. and are so tiny!   They will be in the NICU for two weeks but are doing great otherwise.  We are most excited to meet these precious little girls and hopefully we'll be making a trip to NC in the next week or so.

We've had a four new additions to our family as well.  Nothing as exciting as a sweet little baby but Bobby bought the kids four chicks on Monday.  The kids absolutely love them and have been wonderful about helping take care of them.  Every time I turn around they have the cage open, petting one of them.  Or else Hannah is asking to hold one.   She's turned into quite the mother hen and could sit all day holding them.   They are super cute and fairly easy to take care of at the moment.  We'll see how things turn out when they grow into big chickens!

And we couldn't do a post about March without mentioning basketball could we?  Every year I fill out a bracket and I'm starting to wonder why.  Bobby reviews my choices and proceeds to tell me that this team lost their leading scorer due to some injury and that team has never made it into the Final Four and most likely never will.  I guess I keep filling them out in hopes that one year I might actually pick the team that wins the whole dang thing and I can gloat over Bobby.  So keep your fingers crossed that Kansas wins this year ;-)  

***To the person who asked about the Phonic books that Hannah has been using:  a sweet friend of ours gave me the whole set.  There are 17 books, some audio tapes (the set is so old it's tapes and not CD's!), charts, games, etc.  I have no idea where she got them and I've found books here and there by searching Amazon & Etsy -keyword Phonetic Storybooks and/or Raceway Phonic Books.  I'll keep searching and let you know if I find a complete set.  They have been a blessing to me in teaching Hannah to read and I hope you can find your own!***

What's Happening with Hannah?

I've noticed that my last few posts have featured Samuel more than Hannah.  We need to rectify this problem and spotlight Hannah for a while.

Our little lady has been learning/doing a lot lately...we've been planting seeds for our summer flowers, we've been to play dates since the weather is cooperating, and she's been painting and coloring like a mad woman.  But her biggest accomplishment so far is learning to read!

A dear friend of ours gave me a complete set of phonic books when Hannah was about 2 or 3 years old.  I stored them away and forgot all about them.  So the past few months I had been trying so hard to teach Hannah to read - no easy feat for sure.  We were just using those Easy Reader books but before we would even get half way through a book we were book frustrated.  I was beginning to think she would never learn to read because I was running out of patience to teach her!!

Then I found the phonic books while I was cleaning.  Whew!  I can't imagine trying to teach someone to read without these.  It's a seventeen book set that begins with 'A' then moves to 'E' and so on and so forth.  After the vowels we'll move on to letter families ('th' 'ch' etc).  

We sat down with the 'A' book and I explained to Hannah what sound the 'a' makes.  She then read every single word on the 'a' vocabulary list by herself!!  Then she preceded to read the entire book with no help!!!  She struggled a little on the 'E' book but still read the whole thing by herself.  We're very proud of her and you can just see on her face that she's proud of herself as well.  I love it!! 

Hannah has always loved to read and I know she's going to love being able to read by herself instead of waiting on Bobby or me. 

Kids Make Me Smile

2am in the morning.