Very beautiful

One of our neighbor's gave us this flower from his yard. The kids love to put things in the vases we have so they brought this in and put it on the dining room table. I took one smell of it and put it outside because it was not a nice smell at all. It sure looks nice but smells yucky. Oh well. We enjoyed seeing it every time we went outside.

Model Success

Ben received a couple models from Gaffa. He decided to work on one of the fighter jets. He was so excited and worked very hard to do it all just right. I'm impressed!

As he worked on the pilots, he realized that he couldn't get them into the seats! There was no way to fit them in with all the stuff already assembled. He became very frustrated (understandably) and had to take some of it apart, cut pieces off and re-glue them just to try and get these guys into the cockpit. Even when he did, they didn't sit right so it has been hard to stay motivated. I didn't look at the instructions again, but maybe it says "follow these if you want an empty cockpit, and go to step (whatever) if you want the pilots in the cockpit." We shall see if he ever completes the plane.

Check out those chicks!

I mean the baby chickens. The kids wanted to play with them so they took a few out into the yard. They are now living in the coop in the garage and it seems to be working just fine. They are just so cute and fluffy and fun to watch. The kids try to handle them a lot while they are young so they are nice when they get older. Unfortunately, I think we may have several roosters that won't be able to stick around for very long.

Can you see the different chickens?

Lots of buffs

Some reds

A couple barred rocks

A couple easter eggers

A good mixture.

Picture Perfect

This is how Naomi fell asleep this afternoon. Well, maybe her siblings staged it but she seemed to enjoy it and we all thought it was so cute. This elephant is the softest animal and I wish I could sleep like this - it is such a cuddly animal.

Camdilyn just playing around - 

she was blocking the way and 

kept saying, "magic word" to open her gate.

Joy School with friends

When I only had three kids, I got involved with Joy School. I just did it at home with my three little kids. We really enjoyed it and if you talk to my oldest three kids, they can share with you some of their memories from Joy School. (We still have Mr. Nobody come and visit us.) 

While we were on the island, I tried to get a group together and do Joy School for my two younger kids (Xiomara and Kemiah at that time). We did it at our house and we had some fun times.

I haven't been very good about doing Joy School with the kids in Michigan, so when some friends mentioned they wanted to start a group, I decided to join them. Domonique was the oldest, Camdilyn was the youngest, Harmonie had two friends her age. I didn't take pictures throughout the year but I did near the end because I wanted to save the memory.

Camdilyn, Eliza, Ruby, Domonique, Harmonie, Henry

Harmonie is the oldest of the three girls.

But not by much because they were born in March and April.

Domonique and Henry - same age and really enjoyed being together.

If my older girls were done with their school work, they could come help out.

It was always fun to have them come and really handy to let them enjoy the younger kids.

They loved snack time.

(I hated it but let them enjoy it.)

Free play time was another favorite time.

It was really a fun school year. The program has changed some since I first started out, (I have version 1.0 and now they have version 2.0) but it's basically the same. I was amazing to watch the kids grow and evolve as we went through the year. Camdilyn couldn't really talk much when we started but by the end she was doing great. Eliza wouldn't talk simply because she was so shy, but she got comfortable and by the end of the year she was fine. (Those are just two of the big examples.) They will certainly miss each other - I think.

A moment in time

We went to the play ground at the Price Nature Center for Family Home Evening tonight. I thought the lighting was good for portraits so I made my kids let me take their pictures. Of course, they weren't dressed nicely but it does give a good record of life.

Just had to have a funny picture.

Yep, he is so funny.

Are all kids like this?

Group funny shots!