Random Catch Up Pics

So I have been less than diligent about the blog lately, and it makes me a little sad, but I am going to get back into it because I love having this little journal of my family, especially since I can share it with grandparents, etc.

So here's a post full of random pictures from the last few months just to show you a little bit of how cute my kids have been

Parker, purposely giving himself a mustache with his smoothie

Terra, wearing Parker's shoes

Parker and Aria being monsters:

The kids love playing with umbrellas and since it rarely rains they end up using them as a 'tent' (though it did rain a couple of days and they spent lots of time outside with their umbrellas.)

Terra likes to cuddle her blankets and pillows and it is so cute. And when she would do it I would make a comment about how cute it was, so Parker started cuddling up to blankets and pillows to and pointing it out to me so I could say how cute he was.

And this time he asked me to take a picture:

Both the big kids managed to use their smoothie cups to give themselves unibrows:

They got lollipops somewhere (library, I think) and for some reason I thought it was super cute so I took pictures.

Mostly this one,
that little baby hand and holding the lollipop in between those baby cheeks was to die for

More shaving cream and food dye in the bath:

Homeschool Art

Our first unit for homeschool this year was art.

I was SO excited

The kids-- not so much, they were not super interested in it so the unit fizzled out a bit at the end, and so we started our space unit early.

There were a handful of activities that we did that they loved though. 

One, We learned about cave paintings and then I got a refrigerator box from Lowes and the kids were able to color in it like they were coloring cave walls.

Silly, I know- but they loved it.

Next was shapes with toothpicks and Marshmallows

So proud that he did 3D by himself

Of course this was a hit not only because they liked building with them but they also got to eat the marshmallows.

We also pulled this stuff back out and built Temples for FHE because the kids loved it so much.

We worked with mixing colors several ways, 

the kids favorites were in the bath;

We popped water balloons filled with food dye and water while they were in the bath to see different colors mix in the water.

We also melted different colored ice cubes for the same reason.

Making colored ice cubes

Patterns:

Fine motor color matching:

And this was a HUGE hit... salt paintings. 

The kids put glue on paper, sprinkled salt on the glue and then colored with water colors, the paint would bleed and run through the salt.

Aria's salt paintings

Parker's salt paintings

Another one they really loved was drawing on balloons; we drew on inflated balloons and deflated them to watch the images shrink and then also drew on flat balloons and inflated them to watch the image stretch.

All that plus some play with yarn and fingerpaints and such; and it turns out it wasn't a complete failure... at least they had some fun and got some hands on activities out of it, even f they could care less about any of the lessons..

Sleepy

Aria tries to fight naps, but she clearly still NEEDS to take a nap.

Meaning Our evening is going to be rough if she successfully avoids a nap.

One day she apparently decided she didn't want to sleep so she got up to read a book.

Clearly she wasn't tired

New School Year

We started a new school year here on September 3rd

I decided to get some pictures

Parker

And Aria is starting homeschool this year too

Both of my 'big kids'

We've had a lot of fun homeschooling so far. 

I'm so glad we made this decision to teach our children at home and get to watch them learn and grow whie spending lots of time with them!

Goofy

We went to a cousins baptism and I tried to get a picture of my kids

Looks good

More Writing

I have posted things about Parker's writing before, so I'm sorry if you think it's boring to see it again, because I'm pretty sure I will never get tired of his cute little misspelling and messy writing.

A worksheet in his homeschool binder said to draw a picture of himself and then write about the picture:

"A bug in mie sok

I du not like 

the bug in mie sok"

Translates to: A bug in my sock, I do not like the bug in my sock. 

Can you see the bug in the sock in the picture too?

So hilarious!

One day we did an activity where we "drew on the sky' with these mirrors outside.

Here's what Parker did:

Close-ups:

I guy laughing while shooting a rocket

Someone yelling AAAAA as the rocket goes by

The rocket making a fire.

The cutest thing ever...

The best ever...

 Parker wrote a note and put it inside a little box and asked me to leave the room so he could deliver something.

He followed me out of the room and gave me the box, inside was this note:

"Mommy i will nevr frgit how moch i love you"

Of course meaning, 

Mommy, I will never forget how much I love you

And here are his notes he took during General Conference: 

(With translations)

"Jesis Criste is are Saevyeer"

Jesus Christ is our Savior

"We are all made with prfikt love"

We are all made with perfect love.

"Godis nevr hidin even if we are"

God is never hidden, even if we are

"If you needtd holp ask te mishunaeres"

If you need help, ask the missionaries.

"Evreebudee isnot prfikt

evreebudee hastto obay god"

Everybody is not perfect, everybody has to obey God.

I love his writing and I really loved the things he picked up and learned from Conference

15 Months

Terra went to her 15 month appointment and we got her most recent stats:

Height: 31": Just under 75%

Weight 20lbs: Just over 10%

Head circumference: Over 95%

So we've been seeing a trend for her of getting thinner, but at this appointment it broke into the 'underweight' category.

So we're are going to put some effort into getting her a few extra calories and some fattier food, since we don't eat a lot of fat.

She got a few shots which always breaks my heart.

A little about Terra at 15 months:

She is a pretty good eater. She loves oatmeal and smoothies, but her favorite is bananas. She is crazy about them- like screaming throwing herself on the ground because I only let her have 3 (yes, three whole bananas)  for breakfast.

Sneaking blackberries with Aria

Smoothie face, after she ditched the straw

She has learned to move the ladder over to the section of the counter where we keep bananas and can pull them apart and open them herself

Terra is so dramatic right now. Everything causes major tantrums and she gets super pissed pretty easily.
Unfortunately when she gets mad she bangs her head on things. A LOT. She has given herself some big bruises when she got mad and the surface she chose to bang her head on was too hard (concrete, the refrigerator, etc)

She is so smart- you can see her putting things together all the time.

 She is learning new words all the time and talks really well, she also has the CUTEST little voice.

She likes to read books and especially loves books with animals in them.

She already plays pretend quite a bit (I don't think my bigger kids did it this young) maybe it's because she has older siblings, but she pretends to eat and cook, take care of babies, pretends to sleep, drives cars and flies planes, and pretends to be a dog.

Terra loves to play with and copy her big brother and sister so she ends up participating in homeschool when she can:

We love this girl!