Pictures from May

It has been a long time since I updated this blog!  Here are some miscellaneous pictures that show what we have been up to.

Wacky Hair Day!

Sweet Sisters

Just your typical afternoon

Me and Molly

Luke helped me bake chocolate chip muffins

Amelia carries Molly everywhere!  She definitely gets a lot of attention.

Luke with his Legos

Bedtime

Tonight was definitely one of those pulling-out-your-hair, wonder-why-you-ever-had -children bedtimes!  This week has been our first full week of school in a long time, and the kids are TIRED.  The parents are TIRED.  Joel had a big test this week in  his class and has barely slept.  Because of said class, I am responsible for things at home.  Plus, last night the girls started a new gymnastics schedule, we didn't get home until 8pm which is way too late to start bedtime.  It was the only time slot though where they could have their lessons at the same time!

I'm recording this in my blog so I don't forget the challenges of raising kids.  Hopefully one day I can encourage some young mom (assuming my kids turn out all right which is still up for debate).  Each kid was hungry at the exact moment of bedtime.  They didn't want apples or bananas to eat.  They all know to put their pjs on and brush their teeth, but for some reason I have to tell each one individually step by step?  I was also drying the girls' hair because they took showers and Amelia likes to look in the mirror while I dry her hair, and my hair dryer cord won't reach that far, so one half of her head is wet and the other dry.  Joel read Luke a story while the girls were bathing, so of course Amelia wanted the long story after her shower.  And, we have recently been invaded by stink bugs!  I did not miss them at all.  So every few minutes someone starts screaming loudly.  The deal is that if they kill it themselves, they can have a piece of candy, which leads to fights over who "gets" to kill the bug, and it's almost always Amelia anyway.

And this is just the beginning of the bedtime process.  For the next 45 minutes we will be interrupted regularly for drinks, bugs, tattle telling, and "one more hug".  What parent can tell their kid that they can't give them another hug?  I really hope our new neighbors did not hear me yelling, "Come over here so I can pray for you!" when our windows were open.  I don't think that would be the best witness.

Happy 9th Birthday Emma!

This week was Emma's turn.  Luckily for her, we were all healthy!  She had a birthday party at the roller skating rink on Saturday, and then her friends came back to our house for ice cream sundaes.  Of course Joel decorated her birthday chair and blew up lots of balloons.  We let her open one gift on Saturday, and it was a microscope!  She really wanted one and had fun looking at slides.  Sunday morning she opened her other 2 gifts, we gave her my old ipod and headphones.  I had already preloaded lots of Christian songs on it, along with her favorite CD, Toby Mac :)  I love how she likes these songs and goes around singing them!

I can hardly believe it's been 9 years since we brought her home from the hospital.  The time has gone so fast in many ways, but it also feels like she's been here forever.  I remember when we moved into this house and it was summer so I was done teaching, so we went to the park a lot and the library.  She called the swings the "wee".  And then came baby Ya Ya (her name for Amelia).  

This year Emma has been very interested in horses, panda bears, kitties, gymnastics, and music.  Her favorite color is purple.  She has loved her first year of school at Dayspring and is excited to go back next year.  Her favorite subject is recess, of course, followed by PE.  She has gotten all A's on her report cards!  During this past year she has taken her first communion, won the spelling bee, gone to horse camp, started gymnastics, been to many sleepovers, and started to love building with Legos.  She is a big help at home with Amelia and Luke, and she still likes snuggle time with me :)

Ansley

I love this picture of Kayla!

Abbey

Gaeligh

Emmy

Amelia

And Luke, of course

Emma blowing out her candle in her sundae

Emma with her handmade scarf for her and her American Girl dolls

More gifts!

She got to create a sign for her room

Mia decided she wanted to be a present too

The birthday chair

Her reaction when she opened the ipod

I think she likes it, don't you?

For her birthday cereal she chose Cocoa Krispies with marshmallows.  It was a great weekend celebrating her 9th birthday, I am not ready anytime soon to move onto double digits!

Happy 6th Birthday Luke!

Happy 6th Birthday Luke!

This past weekend we celebrated Luke's 6th birthday at home on Easter,  while 4/5 of us were very sick with fevers and coughs.  Luke wants to go camping with Joel once the weather gets warmer (if that ever happens), and one of his gifts was a fishing rod!  He also got some cool walkie talkies to use with his sisters, Joel tested them out and went all the way to the rec center and he could still hear Luke!  

Luke wanted a chocolate cake, here he is decorating it with sprinkles.

Luke has been waiting for these for awhile - I'm not sure if the gift was for him or more for Joel!  Snap circuits :)

Luke's birthday chair - when he came downstairs there were streamers and light-up balloons decorating the downstairs.

Luke's favorite phrase is "That's wicked cool dude!"  And of course, he does not say it silently.

Along with his cake, Luke wanted chocolate pudding.

Luke has grown so much this past year!  He can read and add, and he's all ready for 1st grade next year.  He still loves Huskies, he currently has 11 of them.  He's very into Legos and his collection is getting bigger with each holiday.  His favorite food is now a donut.  He loves playing soccer.  We've also seen a difference in how many screaming fits he throws, they have definitely decreased.  He enjoys spending time with Joel, no matter what Joel is doing.

Eating

I have been trying lately to get back to my plants-based diet, I have been cheating too much with cheese on pizza, cream cheese on bagels, and way too much sugar.  It always helps me when I find blogs where other people are doing the same thing, here are two that I have found:

www.myplantsbasedfamily.com

www.happyherbivore.com

When I have new recipes to try it usually motivates me!  This morning Luke and I tried a chocolate chip recipe, he was very helpful.  The muffins actually turned out great!  They are a little chewier than regular muffins because of the whole wheat pastry flour, but they taste almost like a dessert.  My goal is to bake muffins and bread more often for the kids to take in their lunches so I won't be sending processed foods with food dyes and other additives.  We will see how long that lasts!

Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 2½ tbsp unsweetened applesauce
• ¼ cup raw sugar
• ½ cup chocolate non-dairy milk
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven 375 F. Spray paper cups with cooking spray, place into a muffin tin and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk applesauce, vanilla and non-dairy milk together. In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cocoa together. Pour dry mix into wet mix in 2-3 batches, stirring to combine. Once combined, gently stir in chocolate chips. Spoon batter into cups and bake 15-20 minutes.

Molly

This weekend we got a cat!  The kids have been begging for a pet, especially Amelia.  She has always loved cats and wanted one to cuddle with her.  It took about a week for Joel to give us his answer - he had a few reservations but the kids were able to clear them up.  So on Sat. we ventured to the Roanoke SPCA and adopted Molly.  She is 6 months old and loves to run around and play.  

The deal is that each week one of the kids is in charge of cleaning out the litter box.  Another kid will be in charge of feeding her.  And the last kid will sweep the kitchen and living room floor every day.  I am writing this her so I have proof of the contract.

After we got home, the girls kept saying, "Is this a dream?  Do we really have a cat?"  They were so excited!  And when we told Amelia that we were going to get a cat, she was oddly silent.  After a few minutes she said she was so excited that she couldn't talk!  The girls want to stay home from school so they can play with her and Luke loves taking care of her during the day.  I think she might get a little overwhelmed when everyone is home and trying to play with her, she tends to look for hiding places.  

Spelling Bee

Spelling Bee

Dayspring held a spelling bee in January and the top 4 kids in each grade got to advance to the Roanoke spelling bee.  Both Emma and Amelia got to go!  We had planned on practicing a lot during the 6 weeks that we had, but, every time I mentioned practicing the girls didn't want to do it just then :)  And with homework and school and gymnastics, the time flew by.  This past Friday we went to Roanoke Valley Christian school to compete against other private school students.  The parents weren't allowed in the rooms, we had to wait in the cafeteria for the kids to return.  We saw a few kids coming back in tears, and I really didn't want to see my girls crying!  

Amelia's class was the first one to return, and when I asked her how she did, she told  me she got 2nd place!  I was amazed because we had only practiced the "easy" words and hadn't even gotten to the "average" or "difficult". She couldn't remember any of the words that she had to spell, but she did remember spelling "holy" incorrectly.

We waited a long time after that for Emma's class to come back!  But finally she was there and I asked her how she did, and she said she "thought" she got 1st place.  I wasn't sure how she couldn't know if she won, and a few minutes later she did say she was the champion (that's what they called the winners).  Emma got a medal and certificate while Amelia got a ribbon and certificate.

 I am so proud of both of my girls for going, competing, and doing so well.  Of course I took lots of pictures, unfortunately my digital camera is broken so the pictures are pretty fuzzy (I took them with my ipod).  But I think you can see how happy they were to be winners!