I have been a terrible blogger! I truly miss documenting our life on here. In an attempt to catch up, I plan to catch up two months at a time... I can't believe 7 months have gone by since I posted! Alas, here I am.
The day after Labor Day, we began our first official homeschool year. Landon in kindergarten and Olivia in preschool. We chose Heart of Dakota as our curriculum and my sister-in-law loaned me her Sonlight read alouds. We have loved it so far! I truly enjoy the opportunity to watch the lightbulbs go off and my favorite thing to do with the kids is to snuggle down and read lots of good books. It has been hard to figure out how to keep the house clean, plan/cook meals (it feels like they are constantly hungry!), be involved in different activities and homeschool. It's a balancing act I'm trying to figure out, constantly reevaluating what to be involved and what to step back from. Praying for wisdom along the way. We are enjoying it though, and look forward to this school year.
First of all, our sweet James turned one! I can't believe how fast this first year went by. He is such a joy to us. He absolutely loves music! Whenever he hears it, he raises his hand and waves it back and forth. It doesn't matter if it's a hymn or the Wild Kratts theme song, he will get into any music. His other love is balls, he can say, "baw" and gets so excited when he finds one. Landon has a marble works set and James seems to find any stray marbles and puts them in his mouth. I can always tell when he has found one and have to squeeze his cheeks to get it loose. Thankfully he hasn't swallowed one yet!
He had a family birthday party here in town. He was very excited about his football cake! Here he is in Iowa celebrating at one of my favorite restaurants, Hickory Park. It was fun to hear them sing to him their special birthday song and brought back many birthday memories from my childhood.
James also got his first haircut. It was bitter-sweet, he looked so much bigger after Papa was done!
The kids and I got to spend two weeks in Iowa with my family. A friend had given us a couple Monarch caterpillars to watch change into butterflies, so we brought them along too. When we got to Iowa, they had just started to go into their cocoons! There must have been an egg on one of the leaves because we found a baby caterpillar a few days after the two made their cocoons. I love this picture we got of them, at all three stages. It was such a cool thing that the kids and I were able to watch.
October was a busy month with two big weddings! First, my baby brother, the last in our family, got married to a wonderful young woman, Laura. We are thrilled to have her as part of the family!
Landon had the privilege of being the ring bearer - a job he took very seriously :)
Then, Samuel turned 7 year old. I can't believe it's been that long since we held our sweet firstborn boy. The kids and I made a cake and we took balloons out to the cemetery and released them. We wish he was here with us, but we know that the Lord had different plans and that His ways are good. We are so blessed to have these three bundles of joy with us and know that they don't belong to us any more than sweet Samuel does. We treasure each moment the Lord blesses us with. What an eternity we have to look forward to, being with our wonderful Savior forever. No more sadness or pain, the former things being passed away! He is so good.
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