The Perfect Morning

This week, Megan had girl scout camp. She spent her week playing with other little girls (which is a real treat for her!) and learning some new things and just generally having a blast! The boys and I have had plenty to do to keep us busy but on the last day, Friday, we decided to do something special.

Megan's camp was only half a day that last day so the boys and I stayed at the park where she has camp. There's a very tempting looking pond there and I new the boys would enjoy a morning of fishing. And they did!Todd helped them get all their things ready the night before and I packed a blanket and a few snacks and we were off!

We weren't there 2 minutes until this happened:

 I hadn't even had time to get all our stuff on the bench but I quickly grabbed my camera to grab a shot of the first fish! It took Nick a little longer but he was so very patient.

 They both caught several fish some bigger than others, all thrown back in.

 I saw so much of this:

 Big brother helping little brother. It was the sweetest part of my week.

 There was some looking for frogs...

 But mostly fishing

 And enjoying the peace and quiet. It was a perfect morning :)

Bird Watching

I'm up at 3am waiting for Kristen to get home from work. She took a second job doing displays for American Eagle a couple of times a month simply because she loves it but they don't start until afterhours which means a late night. It has been around midnight the last few times, but this month it's 3am! I told her to call me when she leaves so I can get up and wait for her. I know she's tired and that really worries me. I guess your kids never stop waking you in the middle of the night ;)

Anyway, since I'm awake, and need  to stay that way for a bit, I hopped on to post a few pictures that I forgot to last month.

Early one morning (keep in mind this was last month, before the freaky, blazing heat), I had decided to take my coffee and my devotional readings outside to enjoy the morning. When I have the opportunity to do this, I'm always joined out there by little people as soon as they wake up and realize that Mom's outside! It's so sweet to watch them milling around outside, still in their bedclothes, listening to and watching for the birds. I love mornings that start this way :)

Spotted!

Boys...

This week, we started Christmas break. It was quite unintentional as I'd scheduled school up to the eighteenth, but the boys decided that was unrealistic :) So Christmas break began!

And actually, I don't mind. I LOVE Christmas! I can hardly wait to play Christmas music (November, always) and start pulling out our decorations (immediately after Thanksgiving)! The crafts, the baking...love all of it!

Anyway, don't think these kids aren't learning anything!

They have been left largely to entertain themselves since I've been making countless trips to the basement to return empty boxes and trying to clean this house. This has led to some pretty creative days! Which brings me to my story ;)

On one of those days, they decided to see if one of their stuffed monkeys could use a homemade kite as a hang-glider. They attached it to their kite (I think Nicholas made it in his Seasons class?) and launched him from the second floor stair rail! Usually, I stop this kind of stuff, but that day I let it go (breathe!). I did however make sure Megan found a safe place to stand and still watch the experiments! They spent a good deal of time testing different monkeys (they have quite a collection!) to view fall rates. Afterward, Brandon sat down to figure out how big the kite would have to be to hold one of them. Seriously! Real life math application at it's best :) I love when they do that! And none of this was suggested by me at all!

Now don't get me wrong, there's been lots of video games and other goofing off going on over here ;) But there's also been some very creative Lego building (Nicholas built a beautiful skyscraper), verbal math (Megan has mastered "plus one") and, of course, lots of reading, crafting, Bible lessons, and soon, baking ;) I'm not worried at all about taking some time to enjoy the holidays!

Upwards Closing Program

Last week was the last soccer game of the season, but this past Saturday was the closing program. Since Upwards is a Christian program, there was lots of praise and worship throughout the program.

Some pictures from our morning:
Each child got a medal and a soccerball!

We very much enjoy this program and look forward to the next one!

Evening Stroll

It's still too early to head down to the beach so I thought I'd share a few more pictures :) Last night, I took the boys for a stroll on the beach. The water looked so beautiful as the sun was beginning to set I wanted a closer look!
We stood under the pier and watched the waves come in. The boys loved that.

We Now Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Vacation

Well sort of...

Megan seems to be a bit better. Thank you all for your comments and phone calls! She was feverish for three days and again last night, she's been very tired, and we can't get her to eat much of anything. She's actually a bit more animated this morning so I'm hopeful that we can enjoy our last day here.

Thank God for the pool! We have a great view of the pool (on purpose ;)) so we can easily let the kids go swim and take turns spending some time there with them.

I took the kids down to the beach yesterday while Todd stayed in with Megan. The boys had a great time! So did Kristen and I just hanging out with our books ;)

The water was actually a bit too calm for my boys. They like getting tossed around some ;)
Every now and then a good one would come up!
I'm constantly telling Nicholas to pull up his britches ;)
We plan to squeeze in some more fun today before we have to pack up. We'll be leaving early in the morning for home.

Hello From Ocean Isle!

Yesterday, finally, we left for our family vacation! I can't tell you how excited we all are! It's been two years since we've been here and really, that's just too long. We love it here! Todd usually takes the kids crabbing in the canal and cooks them up for some yummy crab dip ;) But this year, they're going to give clamming a try. Maybe we'll be having a clam bake!

We arrived around noon today, but our condo wasn't ready yet so we had lunch at our favorite restaurant on the island, the Giggling Mackerel. Yippee! We were able to get in around 1:30 and we were in the ocean an hour later! Doesn't this look like a great place??
It isn't very busy down here right now. I guess most people are back to school ;) We are a very spoiled, homeschooling family!

The dock:

Down the beach:
It was a beautiful day! I was happy to spend an hour on the beach before we hit our favorite, little grocery store down here!

I didn't get many pictures of the condo yet, just this one of the boys in their bunks:
There was a tropical storm a ways out in the ocean this week and so the waves are a little choppy and the water isn't as clear as we're used to but I'm sure that it will all settle down soon.

I'm sure we'll be heading down bright and early tomorrow!

Building Again

Last week, we headed up to Easton for some dinner and to browse the new Lego store. Yes, there is an actual store with nothing but Legos ;) We are a Lego-loving family! My kids would spend their whole day building if I let them ;)

So while we were there, I happen to pick up a monthly schedule of events for September. I had forgotten all about it but a couple of days later, Brandon ran across it and WOW was he ever excited! Every month at the Lego store you can do a Mini Build. It's a very small Lego creation made from 25-40 Legos. There's a different model each month. Also on the calendar is a contest to create your OWN mini-build! There are prizes and everything! My boys are very excited! So this is what was going on in our house last week:
Check this out! Yeah, my house is NEVER clean ;)
Here's Nicky's creation:
It's a gorilla! Didn't he do a good job??

Brandon is still working on his. The theme is September so we've been tossing around ideas like crazy! I'll post again when he is ready :)

So much fun!

Brotherly Love

As you may know, we have Family Night on Fridays. We make homemade pizza, have ice cream, watch a movie and/or play games. One other thing is special...we let the boys have a "sleep over".

They have always loved sleeping in the same bed. They take comfort in the fact that they are not alone. They feel safer together. It's really sweet what great friends they are :) They stay up late talking and laughing and just being silly! It's really so cute!

Last night, we let them stay up late to watch a movie. They were so comfy they wanted to sleep in the family room. So we let them ;)

Of course they ARE brothers. Today I fully expect them to be bickering and pestering one another ;)