August/September 2015

UPDATE:  At the end of July Jared accepted a job in Sequim, Washington.  We packed up our house and were planning on moving there to start work in September.  At the end of August we got a very delayed and unfavorable contract which solidified our concerns that this was not the right job and location for our family.   We were looking forward to living in a gorgeous place closer to family, but we feel that for whatever reason our family needs to stay in Texas for now.  We would like to raise our kids in the Northwest, but the timing isn't right for us to move there yet.  So we have decided to change our negative attitude toward Texas and to try to make the best of it while we are here.  

AUDREY BEAR

I had to include an Audrey section because she is growing up so fast!  Here are her stats from her 9 month check up: height 29 inches,  weight 16.5 lb., and head 43 3/4 cm.  Basically she is tall and skinny.

Maddy and Audrey playing through the window at Grandma's house.

Audrey loves playing with her siblings.  She also enjoys carrying around her little finger puppets in her mouth like a puppy dog.

Audrey has begun waving and signing "all done" and "milk."  She also says "ma ma" for mom and "da da" for her daddy. Just yesterday, 9/25, Jared said, "Audrey, say, "I love you Dad." She said a very discernible, though admittedly somewhat like Scooby Doo, "I Ruu Oo Da."

We are also happy to report that Audrey has finally been moved to her own room.   The three older kids are now squished into the other bedroom, but at least now we have a bit of a play room and Jared and I are starting to get a little more sleep at night.

THE MAYBORN

Baylor's Mayborn (Children's and Natural History) Museum has been a life saver on the super hot Texas days when we need to get out of the house.  Here are the kids with their cousins and their 

friend Myles.

                                                        

Maddy dressed as a police officer.

The kids really love the historic village which is part of the museum.  They enjoyed pumping water the old fashioned way.

Studying in the one room school house.

Christian took charge as the teacher/general (everything has to be military to him).

Rocking on the front porch of the farmhouse like true Southerners (well, almost--minus the tobacco and sweet tea).

HAWAIIAN FALLS

One of Jared's co-workers gave us free tickets to Hawaiian Falls (Similar to 7 peaks in Provo) where we had a blast. The kids enjoyed going down water slides, riding waves, and floating down the lazy river.

TRIP TO UTAH

I was very nervous about making the long trip on my own, but after the disappointment about Washington I felt that I needed a little time away to reevaluate my life to go forward with our lives in Texas.  The kids also had their heart set on seeing cousins in Utah and Idaho.  Jared had used up all his time off and we couldn't afford to fly so I took on the task of doing the long drive by myself.  The kids did beautifully on the horrendous 20 hour drive to Utah.   We stopped right outside of Albuquerque after our first day of driving. The kids were sweet and helped me pack up the luggage on the luggage cart.  They said they were making a fancy ride for their dolls and stuffed animals.

The kids of adore visiting Grandma D's house which is full of special playthings she gets for her grand kids to enjoy.  Here are the girls serving tea to their dolls with Grandma's special doll tea set.

Nathan and Maddy had fun dressing up Grandpa's exercise ball with clothes and a creepy jack o' lantern pumpkin mask from the dress up box.

I'm not sure what she is trying to be, but Abby wanted me to take her picture in this get up.

The girls enjoyed playing dolls with their cousin Emily.

They also had fun visiting the newly remodeled Bean Museum with Grandpa.

Grandpa also took them on a trip to the aquarium where Audrey had fun seeing fish for the first time.  

The kids walking a rope bridge in the rain forest section of the aquarium.  They also got to see some cute baby penguins and watch a 4D movie about the Galapagos islands.

Visiting Thomas' grave is always a special part of every Utah trip.  Audrey is about the same age that Thomas was when he passed away.

Audrey loved laying and playing in the grass in Utah.  A luxury that we always took for granted before moving to Texas (which has fire ants and chiggers in the weedy pathetic excuse for grass).  

I had a fun morning with the kids at the BYU museum of art.  They loved the rainbow made of strings.

Nathan at the garden pool by the museum.  At the BYU gift shop he picked out a BYU bat and ball.

Grandpa was kind enough to help teach Nathan how to swing a bat.

My favorite thing about my parents' house is the beautiful view of the mountains and the Provo temple.  Sarah was kind enough to watch my kids so my dad and I could attend together.

My Aunt Rebecca is moving into a new condo that has a community pool that she invited us to come enjoy with her.  The kids had a blast and it was really nice to have the pool all to ourselves.

I was happy that my mom got back half way through our visit so that we had a little time with her.  She took us to the Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving Point.  Here are the kids in some of the climbing towers.

Maddy was very brave and held a lizard.

Abby with the lizard.

Audrey really enjoyed the baby water table.

Nathan and Max had fun planning a garden.

Nathan and his floating head.

Butterfly girl Maddy.

Green butterfly Abby.


TRIP TO IDAHO

I drove up from Utah to Idaho with the kids where we met Jared who flew in from Waco on Thursday night. We had a brief, but enjoyable Labor Day weekend with Jared's family in McCall, Idaho where Jared's brother got some cabins to stay in.

We had a delicious breakfast at the Pancake House in McCall.  Lyla and Audrey enjoyed eating/throwing Cheerios while we waited for our food.

The family all together.

Nathan thought the giant Cinnamon rolls they served were pretty neat.

Audrey eating on the floor where she left a lot of food scraps for Bryan's dog Baden.  Fair is fair, so she decided to try out some of his food a couple times before we were able to get her out of it.

Unfortunately the cold, rainy weather kept us inside a lot, but the kids had fun playing and building things with Picasso blocks.

Uncle Craig and Aunt Jessica keeping the kids entertained on the back porch while they waited for dinner.

Audrey had fun meeting Lyla for the first time.

We celebrated Nathan and Kayla's birthdays together.

You can see how his face lit up for his present from Grandma C. who happen to be the "LEGO Grandma."  He was thrilled with the new Star Wars LEGO set she got him.

One of the games we played required bandanas.  Audrey looked like a little pirate in hers.

On Sunday we had to start our long trip back to Texas, which the kids handled pretty well considering that we had to drive 12 hours each day (plus time for food, gas, & potty stops).  It was nice to see family, but we were very happy to finally be back home after traveling for so long.



HOMESCHOOL

We started school a bit later than everyone else because of our trip, but here are our first day of school pictures.  Nathan is a great reader and I'm excited to start teaching him again this year.  Snuggling and reading with my boy is one of my favorite things in life.  He constantly amazes me with the details he remembers about the things he reads and studies.  He is a great listener and he's been listening to Abby and Maddy's lessons for a few years now, so sometimes when I start to teach him something he explains that he already knows it from when I taught the girls. 

Nathan is excited that his cousin Christian is being homeschooled as well.  We sometimes meet them to do our history activities together.  We are studying ancient times and the kids had fun pretending to be Nomads doing "cave paintings" on large pieces of paper and cardboard with their hands.

Maddy is my most self-motivated homeschooler.  She loves to check things off her task list and get things done quickly.  She is a whiz at math and reading and she is getting to be a great writer.  She even knows cursive already since she insisted that I teach her when she was still in 1st grade.  Her music is coming along well, and her piano teacher is impressed by how well she plays for her age.  Maddy is artistic and is excited to have mommy teaching art classes for the co-op this year.

Abby is a book worm, and if I can manage to tear her away from her books, she is very good at piano, math, and writing as well.  She loves to learn about history and she enjoys creating art.  She is now an excellent swimmer and she is looking forward to starting gymnastics again.

One nice things about homeschooling is playing at the park when it's not crowded.  I met Rachel at the park on Friday morning, only to meet 3 other homeschooling families who were also taking advantage of the cooler morning air to visit the park.

ROCK CLIMBING AND KAYAKING

Now that my brother-in-law Stephen works for Baylor, we can sometimes share some of the perks with him.  On home game weekends they are able to get us into the marina where they have kayaks, canoes, and paddle boards for free.  I don't have any pictures of this because my hands were full with paddles and life jackets, but we had a grand time out on the Brazos river.  We then went to the Baylor climbing wall, which is the highest in Texas.  Stephen is now a certified belayer, and he was nice enough to "show us the ropes."

 I was impressed with how well Nathan did climbing the wall.  He actually got pretty high.

 Abby looked like a spider who was made to climb walls.

 She made it all the way to the very top.

 Maddy did great for her size and managed to make it up to the first ledge.

 Jared attempted a much more challenging climb.

 He made it to the top as well.