Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a great, relaxed week preparing for Thanksgiving.  It felt about a year long, which is nice.  We did a little bit of work a couple days and then had some crafting on Wednesday.  I figured this was the best way to bring up being THANKFUL since it's easy to forget while we are running around to family dinners.  :)

Lily is thankful for clothes, her cat and family.

Hunter is thankful for his Dad, food and family.

Nathan is thankful for melting snowmen, toys and planes.

Samuel is thankful for Disney Universe game, his birthday and Christmas.

On Thursday, we celebrated at the Kreger house:

On Friday, we celebrated at the Pettyjohn house:

Our Christmas stuff was already out the weekend before but I saved the pictures for now. Hunter decorating the tree:

Samuel and Lily enjoying seeing the ornaments:

Meanwhile, Nathan is making a "castle" and playing with "his tree".  

Next week starts our Christmas curriculum!!!  We are excited!!

This Week

I actually didn't take any pictures this week!  It was just busy and the camera was never handy.  We were all excited to finish up some things for the month!!  Hard to believe we pick back up in December!  I did check my iphone and have some random pictures from the past week:

Aunt Nikki came to bring gifts to the twins for their birthday and to have supper with me.  :)

Brian is a popular person in this house:

We started getting ready for Christmas here!

Nathan is helping Papa PJ set up their tree, too:

Birthday Week

We did 4 days of school tihs week so let's get those pictures out of the way.  :)  I planned some random things for Nathan to keep him busy.  We played Teddy Bear Mix Up:

And made a scarecrow:

Samuel working on some handwriting skills:

 We finished up the 10 Plagues.  The kids have boils in this picture:

And applying blood for Passover:

It felt like a busy week and, actually, Lily will be doing math tomorrow--yes, on a Saturday!  She didn't get all her lessons in with our running around. :)  

The big news is that Hunter and Lily turned 10!!!!!!  How quickly it goes.  I have plenty of pictures of their celebrations:

The 3 birthday people at my parents' house.  My twins were born on my brother-in-law's birthday so he has to share--he's working on his lottery card from my Grandma Hill in this picture:

Hunter and Lily on their birthday--Nathan is never far away!

Hunter wasn't too surprised to get the video game he wanted:

Lily was happy with her gifts:

We had lunch with Brian's Mom and my Dad at Pizza Ranch and then headed to Brian's Mom's house for presents and to rest up.  :)

Next stop was the library.  We were the only ones on the roof this cold, cold day:

We made a stop to pick up the food they wanted me to make for supper and then came back home for a family movie and, eventually, cake.  I decided on one cake this year but made it blue for Hunter with pink frosting for Lily.  It was yummy!

I'm looking forward to a quieter week next week before the holiday fun begins.  :)

Working Hard

This felt like a long week but it was a productive one!

Nathan learned about 'W' and asked to paint something every day.  :)  This was his last week of regular school until we do a Christmas week--I guess we are pretty far ahead in our schedule!  So, I plan on finding some fun fall and Thanksgiving related things for him to do.

Samuel and Nathan kept busy with the capital letter building set.

I wanted to get a picture of Samuel but he wanted to pretend to sleep.  This is fitting because he pretends to fall asleep frequently during school.  Fun?!  He had another great week of school--very cooperative and willing to do his work these days.

Lily is wearing a tape mustache in this picture--I asked her if she wanted to remove it for the picture but she didn't.  Anyway, this was our {successful} science experiment this week.  They are ripping up green leaves here:

We've been reading about the 10 plagues this week and we act out each one in some small way.  Here is plague 4...the flies.  They are running from infected Egypt to safe Goshen.

Halloween

Busy week this week with Halloween!  We took the actual day off, which may have made the day drag on more.  I think taking the day after would be better since everyone was so worn out!

Pumpkin carving time!  Hunter and Lily did some of their own carving this year, which seemed to work out just fine.  

Nathan as Chop Chop (a Skylander):

Samuel as a skeleton:

Another Chop Chop, this time it's Hunter:

Lily is Clawdeen from Monster High (a werewolf).  She added the mask because she liked it.  :)

We made some monsters on Halloween to pass the time:

And, we did do school the other 4 days.  I only got pictures of Samuel--ironic!  We played some games this week.  Bingo with letter sounds:

And, a market game with letter sounds.  He's doing really well.  He spelled "gas" by himself the other night because he thought it was hilarious but I was pleased to see progress!!

Nathan was pretty quick with school this week--he is feeling too busy these days, I guess.  Hunter and Lily are doing well with all their schoolwork.  Lily devoured the Frog Princess series by E.D. Baker--she has a couple more book reports to do and then she can move on!  Hunter read a book he loved and told me all about it every day so that was really encouraging.  He requested a similar book and I had one more that was like it.  Then, he told me he was reading a book at bedtime so that was amazing!  I think he's feeling like a stronger reader, which makes a difference.  

Time to start thinking about holidays and school breaks!!