First two weeks of school.

Last week was the first week of school for all my kids.  Robert and Isabelle are being homeschooled and Austin is going to Kindergarten at Chinook.  Rob took this pictures of all the kids on their first day of school.  I think he did a great job.

Robert has a hard time taking pictures seriously.

 This is Austin's first day of school at Chinook.

 This is his teacher Mrs. Rice.

 Our first Friday we had a tea party.  I made english scones and cucumber sandwiches.  We had pink lemonade instead of tea.  Then we all read poems from Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's book of Verses".

 Robert had a cub scout campout in his leader's back yard.  This night they went on a walk in her woods and ran into a bunch of yellow jackets.  Robert and his leader ended up getting the worst of it.  We found two live yellow jackets in his underpants!!  Lots of swelling and itching, no fun!  Needless to say, all of the boys went home after that incident.

 We are studying Astronomy this year for science.  Robert is in his jammies since his bug bites were still bugging him.  This is our rendition of the Solar System.  Our Jupiter got a little deflated!

 My friend Marcie has a horse and offered to let our kids ride it.  Plus, Isabelle wrote Marcie a sweet note with a picture asking her if we could come.  Here is Talia's turn on the horse.

 Marcie said that Austin was a natural rider.  He did very well with Charlie the horse.

 Talia went and hugged the other horses when her turn was over.

 Robert was nervous on the horse, but Marcie was so easy and sweet with them that Robert said that she helped him to overcome his fears. :)

 Isabelle was in heaven on her turn.  She was very comfortable on the horse.  She said she wants to check out books on how to ride horses now.

 Marcie let her brush the horse,

 and help put the horse away.

We had a good start to school!

The rest of summer

  

So, here is just a conglomeration of a bunch of other things we did this summer.  We went to the Salmon Creek trail a number of times this summer and biked it with the kids.  This occasion I did a run and Isabelle was very motivated to pick a bunch of blackberries so we could make a pie.

  

Isabelle was getting upset that Talia was eating her hard work, so Robert started picking blackberries just for Talia.  What a sweet brother.

  

Yes, Isabelle got the blackberry pie she wanted.  This was my first attempt at a blackberry pie and a lattice top.  I am enjoying pies more than I thought I would.

I took the 3 youngest kids to Oaks Park (Robert didn't want to go).

  

Yes, Austin did draw that moustache himself...

 We went to a party for our neighbor Pearl, who is leaving.  We are so sad!

 

Playing in the splash area of Esther Short Park.

  

Isabelle created wings for her Barbie.  I thought that was pretty smart. :)

 

These friends couldn't attend pig day, so we gave them some pig stuff anyways.  Could you tell Savannah was into it?!  She was crawling around and snorting like crazy, what a cutie!

  

Robert did a great job making this bottle rocket for scouts.

  

Robert with friend Cameron.

  

We went to Fort Clatsup, the last stop Lewis and Clark made before they returned.  This is Isabelle hugging a statue of Sacagawea.

  

We got some instruction on how to obey some orders with guns in the military.

  

Fort Clatsup was right by the ocean.

   

I love my kids, they are so cool!

  

   

Talia had a hard time finding a hat that would fit her in Seaside.

  

We had to go to the hat shop in Seaside because Austin has been asking for a top hat for like 6 months!!Also, he has asked if he could be Abraham Lincoln for Halloween.  Isabelle wants to be Queen Elizabeth from England, so we got her this "imperial" crown.  I love that my kids want to be historical characters for Halloween.

  

Seaside was filled with Hood to Coasters, so we ended up finding a less crowded beach to play on.

   

Then we celebrated Cameron's birthday that night.

  

The next day Isabelle wanted to wear her queen crown to church.  I didn't think that would quite be church appropriate attire, so I promised her a princess hairdo instead.  She was so happy with how it turned out that she wanted her picture taken.

  

I have started doing the FHE lessons put together by our BYU friend Jennifer Lund, on the Proclamation on the family.  Here is the link if you want to check it out.... 

http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7905%3Afamily-proclamation-lessons&catid=5116%3Afamily-proclamation-lessons&Itemid=200001

These are pics from when we talked about the gift of having a body.  For our activity we made sugar cookie bodies.  They turned out so fun. :)

    

Austin is quite the man about town now that he has his top hat.  This day he even sported a tail.

 

This is the only sad picture we have from our homeschool "Not back to School" party at the park. We go to this every year and we had lots of fun.  Homeschool, here we come!!