A Glimpse of Whats Been Happening

I figured its high time for another update on how life has been treating us. Well, we are in my favorite time of year. We had our first frost the other morning, so I had to go and winterize some of my plants.

School is going the same. Still just doing 4 days a week which is very nice. About 10 more lessons and we will be half way through our lessons.

A couple weekends ago, Davids cousin and his family from Tennessee were in the area for another family gathering, and they stayed at our house. We all managed to pack in the house somehow! The kiddos really had fun playing together!

Amber and Rissa are my lizard lovers. I feel sorry for the poor lizards always being hunted down so they could be held, very much against their will I might add!

The other Sunday night we decided to have a camp fire for the kiddos. They thought this was the greatest thing!

Waiting for dark so the fun can begin

Daddy's little shadow 'helping' to get sticks ready for the camp fire

Enjoying a hot dog

Treyton thought the fire was the coolest thing! They had fun roasting hot dogs and making smores.

Nick wanted in on the fun too. The girls fed him some cheese curls that he actually liked!

Multi-tasking

I found the kiddos this neat little bug magnifier. You put a bug inside then you can view it, magnified, from all angles. Well, I wished so bad I had the video camera handy the first time they used the thing. I sent them out with a little container to find an interesting bug. Of all the things to catch, they got a huge, fast, ugly, and mean looking spider. Getting the spider from the container into the viewer proved to be very dramatic to say the least!! In the process of transporting the spider from the container to the viewer, the spider managed to escape! They were trying to accomplish this task on the desk you see pictured. Well, poor Treyton was sitting on the desk seat watching. When the spider escaped, the air was filled with ear piercing screams, the containers went flying, and the spider ended up on the seat with Treyton! All he knew was that the spider that caused such a pandemonium was on him and he could not get out of his seat fast enough and got stuck. I by now decided it was time for me to step in and save the day. To make a long story short, they caught the spider again and had fun viewing it. As sorry as I felt for poor Trey, I could not help but have a good laugh at how the whole thing played out, a little like I kind of expected it to! (~:

Amber and Nick

I think poor Trey needs a brother to help balance him out a little! His sisters are rubbing off on him! He was so proud of this princess get-up!

As a motivator for the school kiddos, they work towards a monthly big reward by keeping their work area neat, sticking to their work and being good. The last reward they earned was an afternoon at Monkey Joe's. A place with indoor inflatables to jump and slide on. Their Daddy surprised them by taking the afternoon off work and going along too!

Life for the Last Month or So

I guess you discovered by now that doing this blog has become low on my list of things to do! Plus, I figured you would get tired of me always putting on school pictures since that is about all life consists of, so anymore you will need to be patient with me till I have time and enough pictures to post, sorry!

Fall has come in the South, my favorite time of year! We still get 90* weather, but it is not humid, so it actually feels good! I have managed to get my Fall cleaning done, including renting a carpet shampooer, it was a slightly unhandy one that caused me to scrub my carpets for 7 hours straight, and my house is small. They do look cleaner and since my muscles feel normal again, I can say it was worth the effort!

Treyton loves his 'pet' Alligator

Treyton found out the hard way that Fire Ants don't like him standing on their house! Those little critters may be small, but they sure have a nasty bite!

Rissa is tracing Treyton with chalk. I was surprised he actually stayed still long enough to let her!

I thought this was cute; and yes, the flowers were for me! (~:

Rissa loves to do school work, when I actually get to it. She is the type who expects perfection, so her first day she kept a tissue handy for the tears that were shed when she ''can't do it right''!                                                                                I guess now is a good time to add a school update. Well, it is going. Somewhere between the time of being newly married 9.5 years ago and adding four kids to the family, I lost the ability to handle stress!!?? I am not sure where during that time that ability fled, but it did. So, I struggle with handling everything, but, I manage! /~:

Here is Jenny very patiently cutting fresh beans for me. I am actually getting some garden goods again. My green beans have started producing, being my favorite fresh veggie, I am thankful for that! I have never had tomatoes last this long either. Once I dumped Epsom Salt on them, they grew taller than me!

I tried my hand at making Salsa with my tomatoes and peppers, it actually turned out good! I also had some 'been in the freezer too long' fruit that I turned into jelly... It was a simple recipe that only used fruit, jello and sugar. Simple and good!

Storytime at the library is going again. There usually is only one or two other kids, so we are the majority!

Amber thought she is getting too old for pre-school storytime, so she was glad to be used as a helper.

A couple weeks ago, David had the fun of going with a group of guys to an Atlanta Braves game in Atlanta. We 'left behind' Mommy's met at the park to let the kiddos play together and help pass the evening!

Life is Busy but Good

I don't have many pictures this time, with school I sort of forget about the camera.

School is still going good, thankfully. Jenny told me the other day that she decided that she likes homeschooling cause she likes the schedule and she wants to get smarter than anybody else. I guess if that is what it takes to motivate her, I will use it!!
I haven't done much school work with Rissa yet, but hope to soon hit the books with her too.

Jenny came in a panic the other night cause her tooth fell out. She has been waiting very long for that to happen, but with her personality, it was very dramatic! (~:

The other day I informed David that we needed a family day. He had been home once for supper all week and I overheard one of the girls saying that "they forget what Daddy looks like"! Working two jobs keeps him away too much sometimes! )~:
He agreed, so we decided to stay close to home and go be a tourist in Augusta GA and visit the Savannah River.
We walked the board-walk, and came across a small playground.

The high-light was riding the tour boat. The tour guide was packed full of information, both history and recent. It was very interesting. He was also nice and left the kiddos go for free!
The mansions you see in the background are actually homes. The owners rent their houses out to Celebrities the week of the Masters Golf Tournament for $25,000 for the week!
I must confess that I for awhile thought that a house like one of these would be nice. Customized swimming pools, lots of room, including master bedrooms that are a whole top story of the house, and even an elevator in most of them. But then I thought of all the cleaning and the mortgage payment of $6,000 a month (yes for real), I decided I will keep my humble little home!

Trey thought the boat ride was fun. He has this thing about alligators, so I was disappointed that we could not see the small spot along the river that sports 25 alligators!




It was also 'kids get to drive the boat day', Amber didn't want to, but the others thought it was fun

I promise this is the last thing about these houses. This particular house is one of four that belongs to the man who owns the largest chain of jewelry stores in the state of SC. He built this one for one reason alone, to host parties.

Me and my babies

I have never known a cat like this one is! He actually hugs the girls, seriously, but I am amazed at what he willingly allows them to do to him!

Ready or Not

Well, that time of year has started once again, school time. David left it up to me what we would do as far as school. Both options had so many good and bad points that I couldn't decide, so I told him to decide and I would do whatever. He chose Homeschool. So, we are going to attempt another year. I decided to try someones suggestion of starting early, then doing four day weeks. So I am going to try that. If the rest of the 174 days go as good as the first six, maybe it won't be too bad!!??
Two weeks ago I suddenly came down with strep throat. I hoped that no one else would get it, but Amber started last night. I guess it is slow in getting around to each culprit. Hopefully it will stop there!!

Checking out their new school books, they each have quite a stack!

Jenny's favorite class, phonics and reading, she thought her reading books are too easy!

One fun thing with Homeschooling is, you can do it wherever you want!

Rissa is doing some skills and pre-school work

Summer programs at the library were a highlight for the kiddos. This one is always their favorite.

They thought the baby alligator was neat

For kiddos last week before we started school, I planned several different fun surprise activities for them.
One was having their best friends over for the day. They were busy all day, one thing they enjoyed doing was going to the neighbors and feeding his horses carrots. I think they about fed a bag full. We all went out to McDonalds for supper too.

One evening we went to a new park in town.

Another surprise for them was taking them to a jumping center in Augusta. Trey was not sure about it, but the rest had a blast!

Treyton's new set of wheels

This cute pair of frogs are regular visitors at our porch-light in the evening.

Trey wanted to ''help Daddy'' put together a new book-shelf for our school books

The other week our church had a "Missionary Awareness'' meal where you honored a missionary with food from that country. We did David's brother and his family and also his sister who are in Honduras. David wanted to do the cake himself, he was quite proud of how it turned out! (~: