Seven!

Sweet Mr. Orson is now a big SEVEN-year-old! Could he be any cuter with his hazel eyes and freckles!?! 

Orson didn't want a birthday cake. Instead, he wanted beignets in a huge stack. His birthday fell in the middle of a crazy-busy week, so we didn't get time to make them until two days after his big day, but he didn't complain. They were worth the wait! 

Orson, we all love you so much! You are such a fun kid and bring so much laughter to our home. 

You are brave and always ready to try new things. When something sparks your interest, you take the time to learn all you can about it. You recently quizzed Daddy about ammunition and what all the different kinds of ammo do and why. 

You are amazingly dedicated for one so young. You take the time to do whatever work is asked of you to the very best of your ability. A few weeks ago you were helping me pick all the vegetables in the garden before the first hard frost. I had asked you to pick the grape tomato plant and gave you instructions to pick all the tomatoes including the green ones. When you brought be your bowl I was amazed to see how carefully you'd cleaned EVERY piece of fruit from the plant. You patiently picked even the pea sized green tomatoes (and there were dozens and dozens of them). Thanks for being so dedicated in all you do! 

You've become quite the master Lego builder this year. Not only are you good at following directions for Lego sets more advanced than your age, but you also make up so many fun creations! Army Men (or Tin Soldiers as you call them) are another new interest. 

You are strong! You always have been and I'm constantly amazed by your physical strength. 

You are also so gentle and kind. You STILL come in to our room every morning to cuddle with me. You're always the first one in the house awake, greet me with a sweet "Hi Mommy," then hop in bed and cuddle for a bit until you're ready to go find an early morning snack or start playing. I love those moments! 

You're an avid learner! School each day with you is a joy because you are always so excited and willing to learn. You've also taken great care recently to improve your ASL and watch Daddy carefully to pick up the proper grammer. 

We sure love you Orson and are so blessed to have you in our family. Happy Birthday Buddy! 

Happy Birthday to My Backseat Driver

I have no idea how, but this adorable guy is five year old already! Where has the time gone!?!

He was beyond excited to get a new, bigger bike for his birthday! It was only a matter of minutes before he was used to the bigger sized bike and zooming around the block. There's still no slowing this kid down. 

He wanted a motorcycle cake so I did my best to make a motocross track. Luckily he thought it was perfect. The best thing we did was put trick candles on the cake! It took him a solid 3-4 minutes to get them all blown out and we almost died laughing. 

Another fun birthday gift was a practice drum pad from Aunt Jamie. You quickly found a way to expand your drum set. 

Overall, I think it was a great birthday! 

Conrad, you're such a joy in our family! You're silly, curious, funny, and full of energy and light. You've also become increasingly observant, and I'm often surprised by the deep questions you ask me. 

You're especially observant when it comes to driving. You must carefully study the rules of the road and directions as I drive, because you have a surprisingly vast knowledge of it all. You've become quite the backseat driver! As we're driving, it's very common to hear phrases like: 

"Mom, are your lights on?" 

"How much gas do we have?" 

"How fast are you going?" 

"Do the back wiper"

"You need to get over to the far lane." 

"Why are we going a different way?"

and my personal favorite "The speed limit is a 7 and a 0." 

The impressive thing is, you've learned your way to many of the places we drive frequently. When we tested you, you could tell us exactly which exit to take, where to turn, etc for several different destinations. You definitely won't be one of those youth who have to learn how to get places when they start driving that's for sure. 

Another adorable story... one day you randomly asked me, "Mom, how old will I be when I'm older and deaf?" Confused, I asked you why you thought you would be deaf when you were older. Your logical reply was, "Well, daddy got deaf when he was older." Very true kid! 

It's been so exciting to watch you become excited about learning this year! You love doing school with us. You are thrilled that you can now count to 49 and know some basic addition problems. You are so patient with handwriting and write impressively well for your age. The other morning Hazel reported that someone had written "cat" and "hat" in the steam on the bathroom mirror. I immediately knew it was you because those are the two words besides your name that you know how to spell. 

We sure love you Conrad! Thanks for keeping us steadily supplied with funny quotes, your endless smiles, and of course good driving advice. 

Back to School - Fifth Year of Homeschooling!

The end of August we headed back to school for our FIFTH year of homeschooling! I never in a million years thoughts I'd homeschool my kids. Let alone that we'd still be at it five years later. But, each year gets a bit better, a bit less stressful, a bit more magical. And I can see how far they've come. They're confident, fun, social, hard-working, and smart kids who LOVE to learn! I love being on this journey with them and seeing them grow. 

This year we have.... 

Conrad - Pre K

Conrad loves numbers and building things. This year he's working on learning all his letters and sounds. His favorite part of school is... playing - as it should be in preschool! 

Orson - 1st Grade

Orson continues to improve his reading! He LOVES math. His recent obsession has been flags of the world. He copied dozens of flags from the back on the dictionary and covered his entire room with them. Now we've taken them down and are working on sorting them by continent and finding each one on the map.

Lenora - 3rd Grade! 

Lenora recently caught the book worm bug and is regularly found cuddled up on the couch devouring a new chapter book. She was SO excited to be old enough to officially join the girls for book club this year! She's learning cursive and doing more and more writing assignments. 

Eliza - 6th Grade (First year of Middle School!)

Eliza will make sure you know she's in middle school now. She's excited about her new literature based language arts curriculum this year. She's also loving the online art lessons we found that she does with her friend Abe. Even though Abe's living in Jerusalem right now, they meet on Zoom and do a lesson together each week. Eliza's taking a "transition to scholar" class in our co-op this year and enjoying the harder work load. 

Cake Eliza made for Anne of Green Gables book club

Hazel - 8th Grade! 

Hazel has taken on much more intense workload this year in preparation for high school, and she's rocking it! She taking Algebra 1 from the amazing math teacher she had last year as well as a Shakespeare class and a Constitution/Revolutionary War class through our homeschool co-op. That's in addition to book club, a creative writing class with Rose, and chemistry which we're doing as a family. She's been so responsible managing her reading, assignments, and presentations!

Speaking of Shakespeare... I was asked to co-mentor the Shakespeare class for our homeschool group. Having a class of 18 teenagers and teaching them about acting and Shakespeare is a bit daunting!  First semester we study a play in depth while learning about Shakespeare, his writing, etc, and second semester we produce and perform an entire Shakespeare play. But, it's been a great learning experience for me. I've learned a lot about Shakespeare and even more about working with youth. Plus, it's fun to teach a class as "Queen Justine."

Overall, our year has been off to a smooth start. I feel like this year I think we've found a great balance between getting in the essential subjects (math and language arts) while still allowing time to nurture hearts and creativity with poetry, stories, art, and side projects. Not to mention plenty of time for read alouds! Our flow is sure to be thrown off by the arrival of our cute baby in March, but we'll soak it up while it lasts.