Benj, Melinda, Jason, Kaitlin, and Samantha

It's October!

We love fall! We especially love October because of the fun things we get to do like go to pumpkin patches. Jason had his first field trip with his preschool class today. We had fun at our favorite fall location, the Lake View Farm.

Free Entertainment

Bubble Art/Science Lesson

Poor Jason has an October birthday so while most of the kids his age are doing real preschool and headed to Kindergarten in a year he is stuck at home for 2 more years with me. We will do a more formal preschool for him next year, but until then we are going to "school" at home and twice a week for 2 1/2 hours with a group of 5 other kids.

The other day we did "Bubble Art." ( click the link for instructions) It was so much fun and turned out great so I thought I would share. It was also a great way to segment into learning about colors and what happens when you mix together primary colors.

Jason has a school bin where he keeps all of the things we are working on such as his Science Journal, the books he is practicing reading, his work pages etc. He loves recapping his lessons in his Journal especially since he can then show daddy what he learned during the day.

I thought my heart would burst last Friday night when he read a whole book by himself to his Grandpa Lloyd. He is working so hard and we are having a lot of fun.

1st Tooth!

My sweet little Samantha got her first tooth! Here are some fun pictures. Look close you can almost see it!

Back at work today

Jason when he woke up this morning:

"Mommy we need to dig a big huge tunnel all the way to Daddy's room at work and stick a hidden microphone in it that says over and over GO HOME, GO HOME, GO HOME."

I think he misses his dad already.

Schedule

With Benj heading back to work next week our blissful summer is about to end. This means all of the wonderful help I have had from him will be gone during the day. Jason has lead a pretty free summer and has enjoyed a little more one on one time since both parents have been home. I decided I needed to make a schedule for his day so when it is just me and the kids at home he will have more ideas that just T.V. and video games to do.

I made magnets that have specific activities on them. I then made a chart with the day split into morning, afternoon and evening. Each morning I will decide which activities I would like Jason to do during the different time periods in the day and put the magnets in the slots. He then has the freedom to choose which activity he wants to do from the specific time period we are in and what activity he would like to do next and move those magnets to the top. Once he has finished up with an activity it goes to the bottom to use again the next day. I hope this will be a good way to limit his T.V., and video game time to once a day and for 30 minutes and help give him a little more structure when he is thinking of things. I am also excited because it will help me make sure we are planning for and doing his "school" time each day. That is the plan at least!

Anyway, I thought I would share!

Trip Home

We got to spend last week in Washington visiting our families. We got out a slip in slide for the kids to play with a day we were there. Jason had a blast running and sliding. Samantha sat and splashed a little in the water. Kaitlin had no fear and insisted on crawling up and down the slip in slide even with the water spraying her in the face. It was funny and she was determined. It was a good day.

Samantha Scooting

We have to share, in all fairness, Samantha's scooting too. She has been doing this around the house for a good month or so which has made Kaitlin very jealous. The tables are turned a little now. Maybe she will watch her sister and learn how to flip over to move. This would greatly improve her bald spot on the back of her head! She is sure cute scooting though.

House Pics

We have been working hard this summer fixing up our new house. And, since we have had some people requesting some pictures of all of our hard work we decided to finally take some. We also made a little movie so you can get the full effect. So far we have just done a LOT of painting, but we did sheet rock and finish over the ceiling in the front room as well and add a chandelier and a light fixture in the front room. For the record too the bathrooms are no longer red. They are now a lovely white :-). If you had seen them before you would know why white is such an improvement!

My rooms are lacking some accessories, but I we will get to the colorful pillows, curtains, and whatnots one of these days :). We love how much more bright and clean the house feels now. So, for our Washington/Utah/Florida/California family (and everyone else who cares ) out there this is for you!

Before:

After:

I am excited to tackle the bedrooms now! The girls room is almost done so stay tuned.

Kaitlin is Crawling!

Last Week

My beautiful sister and her husband flew in from Florida last week to visit! I asked Jason to guess who was coming and I told him to guess someone who he loved very much. He said Julie and Andy right away. Not only did we get to see her cute pregnant belly, but Grandma and Grandpa Murdock came to to visit too. We had a wonderful time! One of the days they were here we went to the Washington County fair here in Hillsboro. We had a great time.

Check out the ADORABLE hats my mom bought the girls. I love them!

Family Pictures

We had some family photos taken on our trip to Utah with the Lloyd family. Check some of them out here!

Thanks Alicia Jones!

Home Repairs

A lot of people have been asking for pictures of our house but the truth of the matter is that we haven't been taking too many because we are working hard this summer to get things how we like them. After thinking for a while we decided that our best option for the living room ceiling would be to sheetrock and finish the bad boy so that's what we did yesterday. Lest you think that I was able to do the whole thing by myself, you would be amazed at how much Melinda put into this one, from helping me move the 100 pound 2 packs of drywall to placing the supports. We make a pretty good team. You can kind of see what it looked like before too in the pictures.

For Grandma Lloyd

Last summer G&G Lloyd went to Ecuador. Grandma discovered these beautiful dresses for the girls. I have been anxiously waiting until the girls were big enough for them. They wore them today to church and were so cute! I didn't get a picture of Samantha in her matching blue dress, but I did get some cute ones of Kaitlin.