Homeschool here we come...

Today marked Sophie's first official day of Kindergarten at home! She was enthusiastic to say the least -- up by 6:30am dressed and ready to go. She literally jumped like a kangaroo into our bedroom this morning with an enormous smile on her sweet little face. Her enthusiasm wained a little bit after about an hour of our lesson...Thomas constantly asking for a snack amongst other things did not help. We had to finish our reading during the boys afternoon nap which actually worked quite well. I was asking Soph to think of words that start with the letter "W". She said "water", and then got stumped, so I said "What do you do if you are really really wanting something to happen?" (I'm thinking of "WISH" here) and she says "oh, WHINE." It does start with "W" and was certainly a good laugh! Hopefully we'll get the hang of our school schedule sooner than later. But even if we don't, I'm not too concerned. I can tell I'm going to love this...
I hope my children will too!

Had to take a picture by the front door...
even though we didn't go anywhere:)

Holding her favorite little drawing notebook




I'm Pretty sure she'll be teaching me a thing or two!

Cannot Believe...

Henry is ONE!
Today was his big day and it came and went so quickly.
Mr. T asked about every five minutes {ALL DAY LONG} if it was time for the cake. No sweetheart, not until after dinner...like 8 hours from now. We had a usual day of swim lessons, chores, naps and errands. I took Henry on a little shopping excursion to Antrhopologie to get him a Jelly Cat stuffed dog. It was a fun outing for us and to Patrick's amazement and relief, the doggie was the only thing I purchased. I was thinking I could buy myself a "happy GIVE birthday" present but I refrained. Henry seemed pretty unfazed by his day until we sang happy birthday to him during dinner. He had the sweetest expressions that I had never really seen before tonight. I think he knew he was the man of the moment. Really glad we sang to him during dinner too because he was screaming while we sang to him for his cake. Something about not liking me wiping his eye with a wet cloth. I should have left his goopy eye well enough alone. It was a bummer, but he settled down after nursing and eventually enjoyed his cake and toys.

The first six months of his life were a total blur to me as I adjusted to being a mother of three. The last six months have been wonderful and I cannot imagine our family without our sweet boy. I enjoyed thinking today about Henry's birth and just how amazing it was that he was so healthy despite being 5 weeks premature. Thank you Lord for this gift of life.











Things he likes:
Rollin, rollin, rollin...
His big sister saying "YEEEAAAAHH HENRY!!!!!"
and "you're such a little chunker"
Hiding small choking hazard type objects like marbles in his mouth.
Nursing
Black beans and tomatoes

Nicknames:
Sir Henry
Henry Huggins
Hank
Hen

A great June

We had a fun first month of summer and are thoroughly enjoying the laid back season. Now that the rain has mostly passed we are at the pool pretty much everyday - the kiddos love it and I love the guaranteed naptime that follows. So nice. A huge Whole Foods just opened up the street from our house - we can walk, which is a treat and aside from being a really lovely shopping experience (even with three little ones) they have super yummy gelato. Perhaps that is why everyone behaves so well! I love getting the free samples - last night I tasted $25/lb sopprasetta salami from Italy. Yum. We celebrated Patrick's birthday last weekend and some of my family came for a visit from NM and TX. We had a great time at the cabin and enjoyed watching the cousins (and Patrick of course) play air soft in the woods. H. enjoyed his first "smore" minus the chocolate. Seems like we are just getting started with the whole summer but S. will start school in 6 short weeks! Kindergarten - YIKES! We'll live it up while it lasts!

His new thing: waving hello


Eating gelato while crossing the creek.
Have absolutely no idea why she is pointing.


After the Walk for Alternatives


"Scooter for Alternatives"


Gracie joined us for family movie night


Cousins chillin


Auntie JJ:)


Locked and loaded


Goggle eyes


A valiant return from the air soft war


My nephew feeding H. his first marshmallow


My content girl with a smore




Winnie, S., & Papa John


H. loves his LuLu


A noble attempt to capture the family


This is so our life: a little blurry with a lot of love!

Happy Birthday T man

So very very glad this little guy was born three years ago today.
He makes my heart skip a beat I love him so much.








Things he likes:
Hockey sticks, hockey pucks, hitting hockey pucks really hard with hockey sticks inside the house.
Firetrucks
Playing "baseball" and running the imaginary bases in our backyard.
Broken windows in our house so far:
One
Loves to watch:
Little Bear, The Sandlot, and Miracle.

Presents:
#1 Table hockey set
#2 Ball thrower/tball set
#3 Batting helmet
#4 book: Z is for Zamboni
#5 Goggles

We celebrated on Memorial Day since Patrick had work off. The boys went to the icerink to skate, met at Chick-Fil-A for lunch, played oodles of table hockey and then BB-Qed. It was rainy and chilly so Patrick built a fire in our kiva which Thomas always loves. The highlight of the day for T was having our neighbors Patrick and Mary Sarah (who are super sweet) over for some cake after dinner. When they left Thomas promptly said "I love Mary Saywaa". And he does. And it is really really cute. It was a great day celebrating his sweet life.





Golf cart ride with the Ivers








Showing Henry how to turn on the ball thrower.


Acting like the boys on the Sandlot.

Jolly man

Henry is like this most of the time. Now, if I could just get his siblings to behave....

Kathryn

Patrick's sister, Kathryn, has nine kids. Yes, you read that right. Nine. I am amazed at her life. She is lovely, cheerful, gifted, and so fun. They are leaving to visit her husband's family for Thanksgiving and in preparation she wrote this.
Can you even imagine packing for 11 people?

I love you sweet Sophie

We celebrated Sophie's 5th birhtday on friday. She's been looking forward to being 5 for MONTHS and frequently prefaced things with "when I'm 5..." As an added bonus to her new age, she awoke to the first snow of the season.

Her favorite presents:
Harmonica
Razor Scooter
Super cheesy light up Sleeping Beauty doll.