Egg Hunt

We were blessed to have my hubby home for a whole week this past week! This is NOT the norm and I felt spoiled and did not want him to go back out on the road. It is always such a joy to have us all together as a family. It makes it hard when he leaves, but we know he is working hard and sacrificing to provide for us and we appreciate all that he does. We pray for his safety on a daily basis and eagerly await his phone calls home and his return trips. We miss him terribly while he is away and try to make his home time special. This time we enjoyed hanging out and having fun. We were able to celebrate our sons birthday together as a family and also went to the local egg hunt in town. The kids enjoy collecting these eggs as not only do they have the much loved candy inside, but they also have special golden eggs that you trade in for prizes. My 6yr old was able to find one of the much coveted golden eggs and happily traded it in for a prize which consisted of a basket full of fun things. She was very excited. Here she is before the egg hunt began.< >


The day was beautiful with the sun shining down and it was brisk but tolerable. All our kids were so polite in the hunt for eggs. My poor son had a hole in his bag and eggs kept falling out. The kids around him would eagerly grab the eggs as they fell from the bag without giving a thought to offering it back to him. He finally grabbed the bag and held it closed so no more would fall out. < >

Below is our youngest waiting with daddy for her turn to hunt for eggs. < >



Here she is with me on her egg hunt.

She was the funniest. She would NOT pick up an egg unless no one else wanted it. She would pick it up and if someone came over she would immediately put it back down. Needless to say she only collected about 5 eggs out of the 100 that were their. She was so funny! They all had fun though and we enjoyed the springlike day and getting to spend it together was a definite blessing! We are looking forward to daddy's next trip home and are planning many fun excursions for us all this summer for our family time. I love you babe and miss you terribly. Hurry home soon!

PS: I would love a drive by in between your home times as my wash machine is feeling left out. :)

Birthday Boy

You turned 10 this past week. I cannot believe you are in the double digits! You, on the other hand, remind me daily that you will be a teenager in 3 more years and cannot wait to drive a car! I am perfectly content to enjoy your boyhood for a little longer. You are such a happy child. You are always coming up with imaginative things to do, create, invent, or investigate. Your mind is your playground. You don't need toys as you can invent a game out of a Popsicle stick and some tape. :) You are also very eager to start your own business. You have tried to sell vegetables in our front yard, (this was hard since we live at the end of a private drive in the middle of nowhere). You have tried having your own barbershop and even practiced you hair cutting skills on your sisters dolls, with her permission of course. I was just glad it wasn't your sisters you practiced on! Your latest idea was an oil changing center. This came about after you helped me change the oil in the car. I watched as your enthusiasm grew with this idea and you came up with the price to charge people and informed me very seriously that YOU would collect and keep the money as this would help you in math and counting money. :) Never once did you speak of the work involved though so I am only assuming that I would be YOUR employee and would be doing all the work. :) I often wonder if you will be an entrepreneur when you grow up. Although your mind changes on a daily basis of what you want to be when you grow up. Everything from a truck driver like your daddy to a train engineer to a scientist. The world awaits you my son. You are wonderfully made and I pray that you will indeed be whatever the Lord leads you to be. He has given you so many wonderful talents and gifts that I can only begin to imagine how you will use them. Until then I will sit here and watch you fly around the house with your mind going a mile a minute and your imagination soaring to vast heights that the others can only barely touch. You bring such enjoyment to our house. You are always ready to ham it up and enjoy making other laugh. You are our in-house comic.< >


I am so glad that you are still that sweet boy that everyone always comments to me on. You have a wonderful heart and care so much about others feelings. (Unless one of your sisters gets on your last nerve, then you may not be as caring as usual.) I love that you still love to snuggle, enjoy my hugs and kisses and tickles too. I will miss all this as you get older. I know that one day that snuggle will be our last as you will become too "big" and "grown" to snuggle with your mom. Until then I will enjoy the bouquets of flowers you pick me, the fresh strawberries you seek out for us, and all the other fun times we have together. I love you son!

I Wonder......

Ever had one of those days where you just wonder about everything? Why life is the way it is, what you should do about something, how should you do it? Questioning each scenario, examining every facet of information available then trying to determine the correct direction to take? Ever feel like your brain has turned to mush after all the pondering is through and look something like this?>

I have had those type of days lately and this goofy girl of mine can bring a smile to my face no matter how pressing the matter at hand may be. :)

In our home school experience we took a "wonder" day and explored it using all our scientific materials that were available to us. We gathered specimens we "wondered" about and using magnifying glasses and our handy dandy microscope we were able to unlock some of the mysteries behind bee hives and snake skins and a live lady bug!

Below you can see my 6yr old monopolizing enjoying her discovery. (Notice my son's expression does NOT seem to enthused? Can you wonder why with two little sisters who have a "ME" complex?
Below is another view of her viewing a specimen under intense scrutiny.
They enjoyed observing in great detail their finds and making various hypothesis about them and look forward to finding more things to "wonder" about in the lovely warm spring weather that is to come! I think I may need to order more glass slides......

Crazy Rabid Squirrel

This is a video of a squirrel I took while at the Tree House Exhibit at the Catawba Science Museum. It reminded me of my children at bedtime! It also reminded me of the video Over the Hedge where the squirrel gets all hyped up on caffeine. So funny!

Spring Is in the Air

We have felt what the taste of spring feels like here in the mountains. Of course we HAD to go outside and enjoy the crisp air and melting snow. We have done schoolwork outside and mixed in some playtime and bubble blowing and old fashioned monkey business. We have also taken a field trip to a science museum and enjoyed a planetarium show along with petting sharks, seeing an electric eel and other sea creatures and just exploring science. All this while running my ninth grader and her friend back and forth to drama practice each night and other school functions in which I feel like I should put a taxi cab sign on my roof and start charging. :) Busy season it is, but at least the snow is melting and we have seen geese and robins! I think winter is on her way out and spring may just be right around the corner!

Above you see that grass plus 50 degrees means it is bubble blowing time!

My kids have been wanting to ride their bikes for weeks now. So they HAD to get them out and see what it is like riding in the snow. They found out real fast that they needed to stay on the grass. I remember as a kid I couldn't wait to get my bike out the first signs of spring!
Here is my little monkey just hanging around! She is getting so big!
Here she is making a top at the museum.
Here are all the kids having fun testing out the Spin Circle.

Do you see the look on her face? She is rolling different objects to see which rolls faster. She loved this exhibit.
You can't go wrong with Lincoln Logs. I used to LOVE these as a kid and I have to say that they had an awesome amount and I played at this table and had fun building the little houses.
Here is my son building with wood scraps. All of these with wood and creatures were taken in an exhibit called "The Tree House" and it was a favorite among the kids.
Above is a puppet show that I was able to watch. It was very entertaining. :)
Here they are building wind mills with Tinker Toys. Another favorite.

February, the month of snow

February was a month of nothing but snow, snow, and more snow. My oldest, who is in public high school, went a total of about 8 days to school the whole month of February. She is so sick of snow days that she about cries now when she has them. Alas, I am sick of being woke up at 5:55am to a phone ringing and "attention parents and students, school will be closed today". We officially hibernated for the month and have just started getting back out to all the lovely places like the grocery store, library, school, and after school functions. But, today we are back home and no school due to what? More snow! It was a very beautiful snow that came though, nice big puffy flakes that stuck to everything because it was that heavy wet snow that blanketed each and every particle with its lovely puffy whiteness. I don't mind the snow, or even the hibernation. Especially now that it is March and we know spring is just around the corner. My two that are home schooled continued with their studies and we did more crafts and other indoor fun stuff. I also stepped up in my crocheting to actually reading patterns instead of just winging it on my own. You know you lead a quiet life when you finally get out to Wal-mart and get excited because they have gotten in the one crochet needle you have been missing but could never find. I was like a little kid and could not wait to get back home to try it out. We also have been doing a lot of reading. We studied Abraham Lincoln and George Washington for school and read lots and lots of books regarding the two. More on George than Abe right now because we are starting to study the Revolutionary War so it tied in quite nicely. We have enjoyed the winter and have even gotten used to hiking to our car on the days when we have been able to get out. We have been blessed with kind neighbors who brought us to our home with our groceries with their massive 4wheel drive truck when my car would not make it up the drive way. This saved us from having to load the sleds and pull them up the hillside drive to the house. I can now hike up the drive with my 3yr old in tow and not break a sweat nor get winded so I guess it has been good for me. Now if only I could get motivated to actually work out inside, then I might see more results! Instead I have been enjoying the fruits of my children's baking experiences. We have made cookies, brownies, cupcakes. All of which they consume rapidly, but I too manage to snag a few in the process. I look forward to spring and summer where we can get outside more and work off some of these extra winter pounds I have put on. I feel like a bear who is hibernating only I eat all winter instead of sleep! I did manage to sneak off for my birthday in which my hubby came home on a mini drive by and took just me out to dinner. This was very nice. We have started spring cleaning early and in response my children have discovered toys long forgotten and are now playing with them like new found friends. In short we have been just enjoying spending time together and learning new things and, well, waiting for spring! < >
Below are random pics.
Here is my oldest doing what she does best and that is reading and watching movies on the computer.
Here is a pic I took today of the lovely whiteness that covered everything.
Here are just some of my sons trains. My youngest loves to get these out now that we have unearthed them and play with them. Her brother sometimes joins in just to show her how it is done of course. :)
Another picture of how beautiful the snow is on our trees. Here it is covering our apple trees in my back yard.
Here is our poor Miss Hen who has not enjoyed the winter much and comes to the house on occasion to hang out on the step. She gets fed here as my children love to feed her whenever they see her so she is a wise little hen. I will be glad when she is a laying little hen. :)
Here is my old snoopy dog pull toy from when I was little. This may have been my sisters too. I saved it and each of my children have enjoyed pulling him around the house. My youngest now has that pleasure. He is made so well that I think he will be pulled by my grand kids one day! I loved my snoopy dog!
Here is my 3yr old helping me bake cookies. They were yummy lemon sugar cookies and they were MMMMMMMmmmmmmmm so good! The sifter she is using was my Grandma's and it is a favorite among the kids. They love to use it. I remember feeling the same way and I love knowing that I am using something that was once used by my mother and grandmother!


Here are the official cookies that my little ones baked. The blue sugar was an addition my son tried and it was a yummy idea. He can probably bake these by himself as he basically does everything and I just watch him now. He loves to cook. I remember his daddy loved to cook and used to cook for me all the time. He still cooks on occasion, but not so much as he is gone all the time. I did so love it when he cooked though, he is a great cook and what he makes is so yummy. (hint hint darling!)