July 2016 Update

     This month we celebrated the 4th of July with a family get together with Jeff's brother and their famliy at their home and and evening fireworks watched from our front yard.  The fireworks weren't as fun as sometimes, but we enjoyed spending time together.  The weekend of the 4th Jeff and I tackled a few projects around the house and got Quinn moved upstairs to the boys room before putting up some decor in the nursery and moving Kade into the crib.  Colt (our night owl) still sleeps in the living room or master bedroom, but I hope to transition him to the nursery soon.
     Then Katy and Kaomi went to VBS at our church, followed by a busy week cleaning the bedrooms.  Kent got to take a trip to New Mexico with Grammy and Jeff's sister and brother-in-law.  Then Katy and Kaomi attended Kid's Praise Camp at our church for a week and participated in three productions of "The Kingdom Connection" and they really enjoyed it.
     I've also worked on cleaning my closet and bathroom this month trying to tackle some much neglected cleaning before we start back to school.  I worked on some school plans and have redone our schedule to include most of the kids in several of the classes we have this year.  We'll see how combining grades works for us, but just looking at our tentative schedule is providing a sense of relief for this teacher/mom who was having trouble trying to fit in "everything" for three different levels.  We have plans to start back to school on August 8th, so this next week we will be trying to put any final details on getting ready for school and I am going to work on cleaning my sewing room/guest room.

Colt and Kade - 1 year old 2016

They're ONE!!

Colt and Kade

Colt (1)

Kade (1)

Merry Christmas -2015

I wrote this letter last week hoping that I would get Christmas cards mailed.  I didn't so I thought I'd post it here.

December 18, 2015

Merry Christmas,

God has blessed our family much over the last year.  Last Christmas we were excited about adding to our family in the Summer of 2015.  In February, we found out that we were going to have two new family member and not just the one.  We walked on clouds for the next couple of weeks.  We bumped our late spring trip to visit family on the east coast up to March, while it would still be safe for Suanna to travel.  In May, we took a family field trip to the Legoland Discovery Center in Grapevine, Texas.  We knew that this would probably be our last time to galavant around as a family for a while.  At the end of June, Suanna’s parents arrived before the babies did and we enjoyed having them join us and see how our family works.  On July 7th, Colt and Kade were born and I sit here now with Kade watching me and laughing while Colt naps in the other room.  It’s been an adjustment to having two babies.  We still sometimes just stop and look at them and are amazed at God’s blessing on our family and comment, “There’s two of them,” or “There’s another one!”  These were two of the comments Quinn (2) has given us.  Since July the months have seemed to fly by.  We spent Thanksgiving at Jeff’s parents home.  We still have some “sleepless” nights, but God is good and when we aren’t sure how much more we can go on very little sleep, He gives the babies a few extra hours of sleep allowing some much needed rest for us as well.  We are continuing to homeschool and have worked to keep a lighter schedule this year.  Kent is in 6th grade, Katy is in 5th grade, Kaomi is in 3rd grade and Clark and Felicity are eagerly anticipating starting their kindergarten program next month.  We are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us this next year.

                            Love,
                        Jeff and Suanna &
            Kent, Katy, Kaomi, Felicity, Clark, Quinn, Colt, and Kade

Memorial Day Walk

Yesterday Katy needed to get her glasses fixed so we stopped at Walmart.  While I was checking out everyone else was seeing how many of them could fit on a bench.

Then on our way home we stopped and took a walk to see a road that has flooded over.  While we were walking it started to rain.

April 2015 Birthdays

Last month we celebrated Jeff and Kent's birthdays.  Kent's 11th birthday was the same weekend that he went camping.  He enjoyed the weekend and came home to have out family celebration.  He wanted to shoot BB guns, so Jeff and Kent set up some targets in the backyard and they had some fun.  The girls even got a chance to shoot the BB guns and Jeff went over gun safety rules with everyone.  Clark and Quinn stayed inside with me and watched out the window.  We had Golden Chick for dinner and Kent had a lemon cake with lemon frosting.

Kent's 11th birthday place

Happy 11th birthday, Kent

Present Time

Jeff's birthday was at the end of the month.  He came home early from work to go running.  It was a beautiful day and when he finished running he and all the kids played outside for a little while, before supper.  We had pasta with meatballs.  I didn't make him a cake, so we had ice cream and cookies for dessert.  We ended the evening with more playing outside and then a game of dice after Clark and Quinn went to bed.

Jeff's 2015 place setting

Happy Birthday, Jeff!  -2015

Presents

Suanna's Birthday

For my birthday, Katy and Kaomi made me a special place setting.  Katy helped me toast my bagel breakfast.  After Quinn went down for his nap I sewed/mended several items that were waiting for my attention.  Lissie was excited to have me fix a dress that the hem had started coming out of and she's asked me several times when I would fix it.  After lunch we watched "The Princess Diaries."  Then the kids had a short quiet time.  For supper we went out to Fudruckers and the Jeff took us all to Mardel's and I got to pick out a couple pictures that I liked to hang on the wall.  Then we came home and ate homemade gluten free cheesecake that Jeff had made and opened presents.

Suanna's Special Place Setting-2015

From the boys

Felicity's 5th Birthday

Felicity turned 5 last week.  She is growing into such a little lady.  Our theme for the day was Snow.  We didn't have any real snow for her birthday, but we had fun anyway.  At her place setting I gave her a nice warm "snow" dress that was a hand me down from a cousin.  It was a hit.  She put it on right away.  Then she and Daddy went to the donut shop to pick out donuts for her special breakfast.
          

Felicity and Daddy

Happy 5th Birthday, Felicity!

Special "snow" place setting

After breakfast everyone who wanted to colored a "snow" picture.  Then the girls dressed up their American Girl dolls for a snowy day.  While they were doing that Kent and Clark played trains upstairs and Quinn took a nap.  Then they had "snowballs" for a morning snack.  They were donut holes with white icing.

The girls with some of their dolls.

After lunch, we tried out some instant snow.  We weren't able to make a snowman like the can said, but everyone had fun with their hands in it trying to shape it into something or just squeezing it through their fingers.









Then Grammy and Riley came over for a little while and brought Lissie an "Anna" dress from the movie frozen.

Grammy, Riley, and Felicity

 For supper Felicity wanted to go to Miguelitos and then we came home and sang happy birthday to Lissie and she opened her presents.  It was late and everyone was full from supper, so we saved the cake eating until the next day.

Felicity's 5th birthday, "Snow Cake"

Quinn's 2nd Birthday

Last week we celebrated Quinn's second birthday with him.  He likes dinosaurs, so we had a little bit of a dinosaur theme.   I served bagels for breakfast.   In the morning, we made dinosaur sticker papers.  They adorned the table for the rest of the day as part of his decorations.  After lunch we played outside and drew some dinosaurs on the driveway with chalk.  Jeff came home early and we went to the playground, then came home and had pizza for supper.  Grammy and Riley (the dog) came over for cake and brought a present. 

Quinn is 2.

Special Place Setting

Birthday balloon

Dinosaur cake and some dinosaur papers.

Time for cake

at the playground

Time for presents

Kaomi's Birthday -2014

She turned 7 this week.  We took her to pick out a bicycle for her birthday on Labor Day. 

Special Place Setting

Happy 7th Birthday!

She had a bagel with strawberry cream cheese for breakfast.  Then we went outside so she could try riding her bike again.  We had a Frozen themed day.  We made snowmen while listening to the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"  Later we designed sparkly/icy necklaces with iridescent and glitter pony beads.  In the afternoon, I got the doll clothes out for their 18" dolls and the girls had fun picking out new outfits and accessories for their dolls to wear.  Then we had a snack of pink princess goldfish crackers.

Snowmen!

After dinner, we had ice cream cake.  She wanted a strawberry cake, but I couldn't find good strawberry ice cream.  It was vanilla ice cream with strawberry filling.  Kaomi said it was good.

After she opened her presents from her brothers and sisters we went to the playground.  Grammy came by while we were there to wish Kaomi "Happy Birthday".  She left a present for Kaomi at the house.  It was a pink cowboy hat that she was very excited to receive.

Fourth of July

We got up early to go with Jeff to the 5K Liberty run in which he wanted to participate.  There were many participants.  Jeff thought there were somewhere around 400.  He raced well and came in 29th over all and was in 2nd in his age division. 

After the race, we went to the 4th of July parade in Denton.  Then we ate muffins on the square before we returned home.  In the evening we went to Jeff's brother's home and enjoyed visiting with family from both sides and had dinner together.  Several of us went to watch fireworks when it started to get dark.  This was the first year that we had 5 crying kids that wouldn't calm down, so Jeff and I took them to the van.  Kent got to stay with everyone else to watch the show.  We returned home tired from our busy day, but enjoying the freedoms we have in our country because of those who have been fighting for freedom long before our time.