In my head

I don't think I'm alone in this; I always seem to have something going through my mind as I go throughout my day.  A lot of times it's a quote or a scripture.  This week's content has been quite telling.  Monday and Tuesday I kept trying to push out the title of a random movie/play I saw just a part of several years ago.  "Stop the world I want to get off." Sad.  It was a rough beginning of the week.  I feel very overwhelmed lately.  I simply can't do my everyday tasks, much less anything extra (which isn't good at Christmas time when I want to do so much!).  A couple of nights this week as I got into bed I had a primary children's song going through my head, "Father, we thank thee for the night."  Let's just say I have absolutely no trouble getting to sleep.  

Today, going through my head was the scripture, "Be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work."  (Doctrine and Covenants 64:33). Just now I looked it up to make sure I got it right and I had forgotten what the next line was: "And out of small things proceedeth that which is great."  I think I needed to hear that.

Never a dull moment

It truly is never a dull moment around here.  I am busy as can be from long before the sun rises to long after it has set.  I am truly grateful for the time I am able to spend with these children, even if they can drive me to near insanity at times.  Here are the girls today during a dress-up moment.  Arianna spent a portion of the day in our coat closet.  She decided it would make a good house and she 'moved in'.  (Which meant everything else moved out and was in a mound in the entry way all day.) At one point I was looking for her and she was in the closet reading a Magic Treehouse book with a flashlight.  

Vegetarian Turkey

Must be, my chicken has ESP

A couple of weeks ago, Kenneth half-joking said to the kids that if one of the hens didn't start laying we would have to butcher her.  The kids were really upset by this.  It's not like it was before when we butchered the birds.  Way back then, we didn't know we could let the chickens out of their coop and have them roam the yard without fear of their running away.  Over the past few months these chickens have become good friends to these kids!  Well, the very next day after Kenneth said that, what do you know?  The hen laid her first egg and has been laying ever since.  Now, that's a smart chicken!  Emma especially loves them and takes such good care of them.  She knows which chicken lays which eggs, she can tell the ones apart that I can't.  She even told me the other day that she can tell their noises apart!  It's definitely cool to look out my window and see the kids playing with the chickens.

Here are our daily eggs:

Aren't they pretty?  The blue/green ones are laid by Americanas.

Here are the ladies enjoying digging for bugs.  I miss the leaves.  Sniff.  Sniff.  They are all gone now.

For some reason the girls decided to put the chickens on top of the coop.

Girls with the eggs.  

Science Friday

We learned Newton's Third Law of Motion today and made paper rockets to launch using straws and our breath.  We had a great time together!  I was glad to do a project that was a little more up Grant's alley, too.  Poor guy surrounded by women all day, every day!
Last week was a rough week.  I had too much going on and the kids were fighting me on every front.  So, today was a breath of fresh air in my Homeschoolong world!  The kids did chores and practiced piano without whining and complaining, school work went smoothly and was actually fun, and we laughed and enjoyed time together reading.  I'm thankful for days like these!

Best buddies

Emma got Kate out of her crib when she woke up from her nap.  When I came upstairs, she was reading her a story.  

Later in the day, she played piano with her.

I am so glad Emma loves her so much.  She is such a good big sister!

Autumn Celebrations

I have been loving fall in Kansas. It is so beautiful! As many of you know who know me well, I do not,however,like Halloween.  But, instead of being a Grinch I've tried to celebrate what I love about this time of year.  I told the children we will have an autumn celebration.  We made these beautiful "sun catchers", I made delicious Dolce de Leche to dip apple slices in (way easier than carmel apples!).  I even turned the lights on and let Trick-or-Treaters to come to our house. (We usually shut all the lights off and hide away in some back bedroom so that we don't have to buy candy and answer the door.)  I gave out glowing bracelets this year.  My kids wore theirs to bed!  The kids were delighted to see the other kids coming to our door, but didn't quite get it since they can't really rember the one year we let them Trick-or-treat in Maryland.  In fact, when the other kids came to the door and said trick-or-treat and held out their bags, our kids thought that they were offering THEM candy!  We did go to the Trunk or Treat at Church on the 30th and the kids had fun dressing up for that.  (We just stayed for the indoor activities- not for the passing out of candy part.). The kids didn't seem to miss the candy one bit.  On Saturday when we were all out raking leaves, a neighbor did bring a little brown paper sack of candy to the kids saying they saved it for them since the didn't 't see them on Halloween.  That was very nice of her.  Here are some recent photos of our Autumn Celebrations:

Grant riding through the leaves on our street.  Such a beautiful time of year!

The kids making Fall Leaf Suncatchers.  These were a lot of fun.

Here they are gracing our window.

One of the trees in front of our home.  I love it!

It was hard to get her to sit still long enough to get a decent picture, but let me tell you, she was the cutest elephant West of the Mississippi!

Here she is looking out the window.  Have I mentioned I love having low windows?  This was a trial run of the costume, so when she actually wore it out of the house, she had on the cutest pink and white striped tights on with it.  

View from Grant's window.  I love all those colors!

These are the only pictures we got of us dressed up at the Trunk or Treat at Church- from Kenneth's phone:

I was a cowgirl, Arianna a fancier cowgirl, Grant was a bumblebee, Emma was a Fairie Princess and of course, Kate, was an elephant.  

Get this thing off me, Mom!!!!

Well, that's all for now.  I'll share more beautiful Fall pictures when I get a chance.  Quickly, in other news:  Kate is 9 months old!  She weighed 16 lbs. 8 oz. at her appointment yesterday.  She is healthy and happy, now only if I could get her to sleep past 5 am with this time change!