It's a New Year!

Happy New Year 2013!
We had a wonderful Christmas break.  We spent a lot of time in our p.j.'s and really enjoyed having Jason around so much.
Now we're heading into our second semester of our second year of homeschooling.  I'm feeling God's peace today.  These are HIS children, and he will teach them (All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children's peace. Is 54:13)  I just pray that the Holy Spirit will be alive in me daily, and he'll work through me to give them the knowledge and understanding that they need to have in this world.  Knowledge that will give them the enjoyment of all God has created for them to use for their pleasure and his glory....may their hearts be always pure before him and their desire to be compassionate servants of other people increased this year.  "Little world changers", as a friend of mine coined this week; I like that.
I'd like to: memorize more scripture, use our microscope to examine things, serve people (wood kindling, meals, homeless supplies, baking, giving money), do more experiments/crafts/hands-on things, get really good at reading skills, more nature study and artist study.

I also really hope to blog more!  I think it would be really good for me to chronicle more of what we are doing as a way for us to remember what we've done and for me to process things as we go along this journey.

So here's the video that I love from that picture of the kids in the previous post....just listen really closely to what Carson says at the very end after he pauses when he stops the bike, makes me laugh every time:

Summer 2011 continued...

It's been so long since I blogged, and SO very much has happened! I'll just have to start with small chunks and give an overview:

This is how the summer started:

We lived at this wonderful townhome for almost 8 years, but as our family grew, so did our desire for some space for the kids to be able to play outside and be free and safe....so we listed our house and decided to see what the Lord would do.

We spent a lot of time at the pool

so much so that these wrinkly toes were a regular sighting.

Downtown on Pacific Ave.

Summer soccer on the Blueberry Bombers team!

Love Spencer's curls!

We had to put our dear sweet Gracie to sleep after she got really sick pretty fast, it was very sad. This is a bad picture, but it reminds me how much we loved her and cared for her right up to the very end of her 11 years.

Carson and I started off the summer with the stomach flu....blah! But Livi wrote a nice little note for Carson. :-)

But, after that we got in some good beach time...

The kids had a lot of fun on this hill, I'll post a video soon about what they were doing here: Love the outfits though. :-)

We went camping over Father's Day Weekend and it was fun to celebrate this wonderful guy!

He had just taken a new (demanding) position at work and the 5 minute commute we were used to was now going to be a 45 minute commute, as Seagate moved their headquarters over the hill to Saratoga at the beginning of June, bummer! But we're thankful for a good job that he likes.

The kids did Vacation Bible Camp (which they LOVED this year!!), and I got to take a wonderful walk one of the mornings on Westcliff, it was just what I needed.

This was the day after my birthday, the day Jason left for Colorado because of his mom's death. We would leave the next day to join him and finish out the month of June there.

So to recap: School got out, Carson and I got sick, we had our house on the market, so there was constant cleaning/straightening/packing, Gracie got really sick and died, we went camping, Jason started a new position at work and a commute, kids did VBC, celebrated my 34th birthday, Jason's mom passed away, trip to Colorado. It was a summer of many ups and downs.

This was just parts of June.....and little did we know at the time, but here's how the summer ended: More on that "Coming Soon".

Colorado Summer 2011

We took a trip to Colorado after Jason's mom suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. It was so surreal being there for this reason. It was a crazy week, completely cleaning out her entire house and dealing with all that comes with such a loss. Jason and his 3 sisters put together a very nice memorial service for her. It was in a beautiful garden setting, full of gorgeous blooming flowers, perfect for her, as she loved gardening and always had pretty blooms in her maple sap buckets and around her yard. Patti was a very kind and generous person, a fabulous cook, a hard worker, and she loved her family. She will be greatly missed.

The back range was gorgeous, still had so much snow!

This is Spencer (Bozo) pre-first-haircut

After!: He looks so much older! I trimmed up the sides quite a bit but just couldn't bare to cut off his gorgeous curls in back. Now it's getting a little long, and someday soon I might have to trim those up a little bit too. None of the other kids had any sort of curl, so it's cute to see him with them. :-)

My dear, sweet Angie:

So wish we lived closer together.

All of Jason's family:

The Cousins:

Spencer was just beginning to learn to walk

Bumpa makes awesome pancakes:

Hanging out at Pearl Street:

Livi wanted to get a feather in her hair....we walked by and she was eyeing another girl getting one so intently, she was thrilled and surprised when I said yes.

Breakfast with Uncle Matt!

Getting the moving truck all ready, Livi's all set in grandma's golden high heels. :-)

Jason and Carson drove the moving truck back to California with some appliances and furniture and other belongings. It was quite a fun adventure for them.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Salt Flats in Utah! We had just been watching a car racing show on Discovery a few days before, so it was cool for the boys to actually get to stop there on their way home and experience it!

I will always love Colorado summer sunsets.

Camping in Big Basin

We had a wonderful camping trip with the Mathison Family last weekend up at Big Basin Redwood state park. This was our 3rd year of camping together and it was such fun! Our kids get along so well together and we enjoy being with their family so much!

This was Spencer's first camping trip....actually he came with us 2 years ago, but he was probably smaller than a poppy seed at that point (we came home and took a pregnancy test and found out we were expecting him!)

He loved it. Since he's not walking yet (13 mos.), he was a little dirt ball all weekend, but he had so much fun crawling all around playing with sticks and rocks and rope. He slept pretty well the first night, at first I was nervous cuz he woke up when we all came in to the tent to go to bed and was confused that we were all sleeping in there with him, but after nursing him he settled back down pretty well, and then the second night I nursed him before I put him in his pack and play and he slept ALL NIGHT LONG! He wasn't even doing that at home, and since that night he has slept thru the night every night.....and that also was the last time I nursed him. Sort of sad, but kind of nice as well. :-) I can tell he still wants to nurse every once in a while, but he's pretty satisfied with his milk and water.

Here he's enjoying a donut:

This is the adorable Breck....having a spoonful of Nutella:

Look at all that dirt all over us! What fun!

It's so hard to get good pictures of this boy....he's constantly moving, but he stopped for a minute to give me a s'more face....this boy loves the campfire, that's where he spent almost all weekend.
These girls all had their Binky Bunnies. I made one for Breck and brought it camping, she was thrilled to get it. I love the fabric for hers. They all were very loved and dirty by the end of the weekend!

We took a great hike up to a waterfall.....don't mind me picking a mango out of my tooth: :-)

Livi found a way to entertain herself by creatively tying up her shoelaces....
Beautiful little girls, such sweet friends:

My boys:
All 6 kids:

The boys:

Wonderful way to start the summer:

Love, love, love being in God's beautiful creation with such great friends.