Halloween festivities

Azure changed her mind multiple times this year about what she was going to be. Last year I bought her a sailor costume and a princess costume on Nov. 1st  (great time to buy clearanced costumes). However, she really wanted to be a pepperoni pizza after seeing the previously mentioned Halloween costume demonstration. That was a little too involved for me to get excited about. I know, way to quell your child's imagination! I admit I am much too intimidated by grandiose projects.

 Maybe she toyed with the idea of being Daddy.

She finally decided on her pirate costume that she had so cleverly put together earlier. And I found this Superman costume at a consignment sale for about $5.

Charles helped me concoct this pumpkin costume out of electrical tape.

Zeke-o-lantern

 We decided to go trick-or-treating on our favorite street in Savannah- Bluff Dr. a rich neighborhood on Isle of Hope overlooking the river. We were not disappointed. Such lovely Southern style homes. We had a great time with the Saavedras.

The stash

Jingle Bells

Vince for some reason thinks that the last words in Jingle Bells is:

"Oh, what fun it has to ride. A little bit ride!"

I'll never sing it the same now.

Soccer Family

*Are you wanting a baby update? Wish me luck in trying to catch up before Zeke comes!*

I became a soccer mom at the end of September. Azure had practices on Tuesdays and games every Saturday. That's about 3 hrs a week of soccer. She amazed us all and scored 6 goals in her first game! She definitely has a knack for the sport so we plan on putting her in every year until she changes her mind. Though, she did need a little coaxing from us in the beginning. She was afraid to play this year b/c she was going to have games and feared she wouldn't do well. This was part of our determination talk.

She hustled at every game. Some kids would just walk or slightly jog. Azure sprinted. She was intense. It was awesome for me and Charles to see her out on the field. Joy in our posterity :)
We talked about switching between art/creative classes and sports. Right before this Azure took 4 wks of violin and seemed to like it. I think we'll pick it back up in a few years. I don't think she's ready (or me either, let's be honest) for intense practicing of an instrument and the violin is pretty serious. Now, that soccer is over we might start piano lessons or do some more art lessons in Jan. We definitely only want to do one lesson at a time. We don't want to overschedule our children. It's going to be a delicate balance I'm sure, once the other children get older and start lessons of their own.

We were really touched when 2 of Azure's friends showed up at her game to support her. Obviously, we don't have any family here and no grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins have ever seen her play soccer. We have been blessed this last year to have the Bryces and Saavedras as our family here. We love them so much!

And I love this little guy!

Fluffernutter break

Azure was the only girl on her team. The boy on the far left's name is Charles Jensen. We all had a hoot with that. Esp since he is Filipino :)

 You did a great job this season Cub, we're so proud of you!

Field Trip Fun

We have deemed Thursdays as our field trip days for homeschool. Back in Sept. we went to Publix, our grocery store of choice, for a tour. I was really impressed with the employees. They did a wonderful job and gave us a ton of free food! Charles said we should go around to different grocery stores every week saying we're on a field trip just to get free groceries ;)

In October we visited the Tybee lighthouse museum. What a spectacular view from the top! With no mountains here you never get an "aerial" view of the city so it's really awe-inspiring to actually get one. It makes me really appreciate living on the coast, esp since I'm a coastal girl at heart :)

Last month we finally visited the Juliette Gordon Low birthplace museum. She was the founder of the girl scouts and was born and raised in Savannah. Every Spring thousands of girl scouts come out here to visit the museum so we thought we might as well too, since we live here. Azure and I read the book, "Daisy and the Girl Scouts" back in May so it was fun to go to her house together- just the 2 of us. Juliette (Daisy) was a talented woman who never had children of her own. But, she was the mother of Girl Scouts and has influenced millions of young girls and lives. Her life story is inspiring.

While there, I received the revelation that one day I will be a tour guide. I am excited for that :)

There have been other numerous field trips but, they are not all documented with the camera. Our most recent field trip was last Thursday to see the gingerbread house display at the Westin. Then we took the ferry across the river and played on River St. with Theresa and Emily V and co.

Talk like a pirate day

We found out Krispy Kreme was giving away a box of free donuts to those who dressed like a pirate and talked like a pirate. Apparently it is an official holiday per wikipedia on Sept. 19. The day before we had seen a presentation at the library about how to make your own Halloween costumes. This very much intrigued Azure. So, when I told her about the free donuts she was all about putting together a pirate costume with what she had on hand. I was very impressed. She put almost all of this together by herself with minimal help from me. This turned out to be a great homeschool lesson :)

Who knew?

A few months ago Charles started digging through his family history and found out that his 6th or 7th great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina! And that some of his ancestors settled there for awhile. And there's a historical site at the battle where he died. Who knew?! So, of course being only 3.5 hrs away we had to make a trip in early September. In their visitor's center we got to watch a video about the battle and his grandfather was mentioned.

I love this pic of Vince with his head bowed in reverence for his ancestor who fought and gave his life here.

We made a weekend trip out of it and headed up to the temple in Columbia too. While Charles was with the youth doing baptisms I took the kids to the Children's Museum since we had yet to go in Columbia. It was pretty good.

Homeschool

Are you wondering how homeschool is going?

People have been asking and this is what I've been saying, "It's good and bad."

Some days have been amazing, like when we did our scripture study together and said she wanted to keep reading. We read her favorite Book of Mormon story about Nephi cutting off Laban's head (plus our previous lesson) for a total of 30 mins, each taking turns reading a verse. Precious, precious moments.

Other times she has been so defiant that I've threatened to put her in school and told her, "I don't want to homeschool you anymore." (which I'm not proud of, but I want to be real on the blog) to which she responded with, "I knew you hated me!" Ugh.

We've also had a lot of fun together. Part of her daily assignment is to read for 15 mins by herself. She usually picks books from the library that she wants to read or sometimes she likes to reread her own favorites like The Cat in the Hat. I love to see her curled up on the couch reading and I especially love to watch her read books to Vince. Except for when he can't see the picture and grabs it out of her hand and she gets mad and then they start fighting. Life is full of bliss and hell every 5 mins. I never noticed that so much as I do now as a mother.

She tends to give up easily, so we talked about determination and what it meant to keep trying even if you make mistakes. After our talk I found this written on her notebook and was really touched. I need this advice as much as she does.

Charles has done a number of science projects with her since he's the science guru. She loves them!

 This post was critical in helping to change my perspective about homeschooling. As bad as it gets some days I can't deny that this is what we are supposed to be doing this year. I have learned so much about myself. I also know that when we decide to homeschool our children again in middle school that it will be a little less intimidating now that I've at least done it once.

Right now we feel good about putting her into public school next year so, I will try to enjoy this last year at home with her, even on bad days.

End of Summer

The last week of July Azure had theater camp. She loved it! The last day they performed some choreographed skits and it was TOO cute. Azure had a blast doing it. You have to be 7 to audition for their plays so we're waiting...

 After doing a counting activity with dried beans she made this masterpiece all on her own! Pretty original alien esp since we don't even have any pics of anything like this in our home. Maybe she's an ET :)

As Charles was about to leave for work one morning he noticed a cookie with a bite taken out and wrote this note to me. I read it to Azure and she confessed and then wrote this note back.

We took the kids bowling for the first time on a kids bowl free day. They loved it!

Other than me being deathly ill for all of May and June, this summer was a fun one! Much better than last summer and all the emotional turmoil I went through.

Family Vacation Part 3

On our last day in DC we went to the DC temple's visitors center (the temple was closed for cleaning) and ate at Cafe Rio one last time. We drove through downtown and stopped at IKEA. Temple, IKEA, AND Cafe Rio makes for one giddy girl :)

We had dinner with the Hoveys and Michelle and her husband. No pics :(

Then we headed to Outer Banks, NC for our camping adventure. It turned out to be quite the adventure due to a huge rainstorm. It rained most of the night and luckily our tarp did us well and we didn't get too wet. The next morning it had cleared up, so we headed to the beach for some fun.

His excited face again :)

We only enjoyed it for about 45 mins until another storm came in. The temperature dropped and the kids were cold and crying and all our towels were wet. So, I had to go buy some new ones. We were all ready to pack up and leave at that point :)

Ominous clouds

We ended our trip with a visit to Mike and Ev's in Raleigh, NC. Always a good time with them. But, yet again no pics :(

Family vacations (esp road trips) with young children is always bittersweet. I think we're getting better at rolling with the punches. I hope so anyway. We are glad for the memories.

Family Vacation Part 2

Tuesday morning we ate at Noodles & Co. before getting on the subway and again lamented the fact that Savannah is lacking in upscale fast food restaurants. Is there a term for places like that- where you don't have to tip?

Once we got back into DC, Azure and I returned to the Natural History Museum so we could go into the butterfly garden. This was my favorite part of the trip. For Easter 2011 I bought her a Fancy Nancy book about Nancy visiting a butterfly garden and having an azure butterfly land on her. Since then we have wanted to see one ourselves and go to a butterfly garden. Now was our chance.

We had to reserve tickets and then wait for our time slot. Luckily the entomologists were around the corner with live samples. Azure got to hold a Madagascar beetle (fancy name for HUGE cockroach), a caterpillar, and a grasshopper.

This is not Azure's hand. Unfortunately Charles had the camera, thus no pics of our own.

I was impressed she wanted to hold this guy. I certainly didn't want to!

We had a great experience inside the butterfly garden. Azure really wanted a butterfly to land on her, especially an azure butterfly.  A couple landed on me and I was just as excited as Azure because I had never seen a butterfly so close up before. I could see their long, spirally tongue so clearly. God's creations are so magnificent. It was humbling to remember how attentive to detail God is. If He cares so much about the anatomy of a butterfly, surely He cares about us. And not only our anatomy!

We were about to exit the garden and still not one butterfly had landed on Azure. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. Having just felt that wave of love and truth, I suggested that we pray together to ask Heavenly Father to let a butterfly land on her. So, we waited and waited. I began to get a little anxious whether or not this prayer would be answered and trying to decide how I was going to explain that sometimes we pray for things that aren't God's will. But, finally one did land on her. Thank goodness!

Afterwards we headed over to the American History Museum, which I wish we had had more time at. I really enjoyed it but, only got to see less than half of it. My favorite was the display of the original flag that inspired the song, "The Star-Spangled Banner." They had the music playing as part of the moving display and it was really well done. Definitely played on my emotions and I was sobbing reading about it. I do have a patriotic heart. God bless America! (Please bless us with a life supporting president tomorrow ;)

They had one of the original sunstones from the Nauvoo temple there! I was so surprised! Yay for our church history getting recognized as a big part of American history, because it clearly was!

We ended the night with some yummy Thai food with Cath. It started to rain as we were walking back to our car and we all got soaked.

Vincey growing up

Today Vince all on his own pointed to my belly and said, "Mommy, that's your baby in dair?"

"Yes! It's the baby. Do you know his name? What's the baby's name?"

"Baby Zete."

It was so cute! And yes, we're 99.9% decided that the baby is Zeke (Ezekiel). Still not sure about a middle name.

They always ask me to take a picture of them sitting on the couch

Reading "Winnie the Pooh"

He has finally taken a liking to Letter Factory! Azure started watching it around 14 months so she could recite the whole alphabet right after turning 2. We tried getting Vince excited about watching it but, he's resisted until about 6 wks ago. He can now sing the whole alphabet- though there is an occasional mix up. He can also say what sound each letter makes with about 95% accuracy.

For those of you who know me intimately well, you might have noticed that I do a strange thing with my hands when I talk to myself and/or get excited. I have done it since childhood and still do it today. Vince has picked this up from me and I LOVE it! You can see him kind of doing it as I pour honey on his pancake in the above pic- sweet treats always excite him.

And he can count to 11 now too! Sometimes he remembers that 12 comes next and sometimes not. He also knows most of his colors. That was slow going for awhile but, it's all suddenly clicked for him. It is so fun to see his neurons connecting. I love this stage of rapid mental growth!

During Conference weekend he fell out of his crib for the first time trying to climb out so we took his mattress out and he's now sleeping on it on the floor. It works for now until we decide how we're going to situate sleeping arrangements once Zeke needs the crib.

As you can see, he doesn't always stay on his bed

He calls cereal "sirs". I bought some different flavors of Chex "sirs" when they were on sale. After waking up one morning, he told me he wanted "the pie one sirs". Of course, I didn't know what he was referring to, so I had to pull them all out and ask which one he wanted. It happened to be the apple cinnamon Chex. "Pie one sirs" is now a common phrase in our household spoken by me and Charles because it is just too funny to not say.

We start swimming lessons next week! It's his first lesson/class of any kind. He's well overdue for one. Azure is upset that she has to sit and watch me and Vince swim in the pool. I think it'll be good for her. I've explained that Vince has had to just sit and watch her play soccer for 2 yrs now along with art lessons, and theater camp, gymnastics, etc.

My sweet boy brushing my hair :) He has a fetish with hair. He always asks to touch mine ("Mommy, you have some brown hairs") and twirls his own to fall asleep at night.

Dress up! I think she looks like her Gma here.