Catch Up Time Again

Since I'm about three weeks behind if you take out the week we were gone, I figure I'm going to just do a picture summary to catch up.  So here we go...

Love watching the kids all enthralled in the same thing.  In this case, the book Picturepedia.  Great book and recommend getting it from the library if you can. Here's the LINK on Amazon to see what it is.

Ninja!!  Inspired by the show "American Ninja Warriors" the three eldest have joined a Ninja class on Thursday's at Gymnastics USA. Unfortunately they only had size Small shirts for the first class so the girls had to wait to get theirs - - so only Brady posed. 

They love it SO much.  The teacher, Chris, is super nice and the class is only six kids total.  In this shot you can see where Aubree is coming off the padded wall after jumping up on it.  They are doing all sorts of stuff - climbing ropes, tumbling, crawling along the underside of balance beams, etc.  They enjoy it so much more than regular gymnastics.  

I decided to go ahead and order the Kindergarten curriculum since Brady was continuing to bug me all the time about doing school and what I had just wanted cutting it for him.

My homeschool cohort, Vasti, who is one year ahead of me in the school curriculum threw a Roman Feast and invited kids and moms to come in Roman attire.  Love these two! 

Part of the group.  I didn't stay with the boys because it was a Friday and I had to get my yard sale-ing in, of course! The girls had a great time though. 

Addision and Calleigh happened to be wearing matching dresses. 

This guy.  He missed the rock climbing in Chattanooga.

Playing the old Egyptian game, Senet.

Brady working on gluing the sea for the second day of creation.

Started up ice skating class again and the Zbaraschuk kids are in it this cycle.  Always more fun to have friends!  Incidentally, Brady really has improved his ice skating. One class a few weeks ago, suddenly he was going quite fast and turning on a dime. 

Studying Esau and Jacob for Bible so we made some lentil stew/soup after we read about Esau giving up the birthright for a bowl of it.  We followed a recipe in our teacher's manual and it was so good (the key ingredient was the lemon!)

We can't let the fall pass by without attending at least one festival.  I took the kids to the one in Windermere where I had lost my phone last year.  Sadly, Duncan was gone all week on business so it was just me and the kids.

Breaking the tissue paper on cups to get a prize inside. 

This was crazy.  You got three throws to knock down jugs with a ball.  Brady went up there and in his three throws, he knocked a jug down on the bottom each time.  Bing, bang, boom.  It was so methodical.  That's my lefty!

Colby was on cloud nine to do a monster truck bouncy house.

The kids were so sweet to each other all evening.  Aubree and Brady paired up to watch each other in the bouncy houses while..

...Calleigh and Colby were a "team."

But above all, they had fun together and I think I actually teared up a little watching them .

Watching a science experiment.  Looking to see the reflection of the fork on the top of the water from the underside.

Punching out some oranges to use on a tree for creation Day 3.

The girls got their shirts!

We had a yard sale at Ron and Elaine's on Friday, October 29.  Since Duncan was out of town, we stayed over Thursday night which made the kids very happy! The sale went great and I made $550 although $250 of that was from selling some big lawn equipment.

The girls with their lemonade/brownie stand.  They made $16...not quite as much as they made last yard sale. 

Ron has been sort of trying to sell this wheelbarrow wheel for several yard sales.  I say sort of because it once belonged to a wheelbarrow of his father's and is thus obviously quite old.  He wasn't sure if he really wanted to sell it.  Someone tried to low ball him and he said "no" and then this lady overheard and said she wanted to buy it for the full price (which was only $25).  She seemed like such a sweet lady so we had to take a picture to document it. 

These kids crack me up sometimes with the things they play.  All hail "King Brady."

This past Sunday was "Let's Move Apopka" which was in place of soccer. The kids participated in a fun run.  Here they are stretching beforehand.

Brady in the yellow getting ready.  Colby is behind him so you can't see him.

Unfortunately, someone accidentally set up this bouncy house/obstacle course right in the middle of the fun run so you had to go through it on your run.  Aubree was REALLY mad about it.  She was taking the run very seriously until she found out about this.

Colby! 

Duncan is trying to train her so that she can go 5K's with him.  The day before she had run two miles with him only walking for a short bit of it.  She is inspired by Duncan's colleague Herb, whose two daughters (ages 12 & 14) did the 5K as part of the Let's Move day.  Both finished first in their age category and the oldest, Lauren, finished FIRST overall for all women.  

Sunday evening we attended a birthday party for Victoria Fulbright and were encouraged to wear costumes.

Arghh Matey!

They had rented giant tricycles and they were so fun to race.  Here's Duncan in the foreground.  He was not victorious unlike yours truly!

Not only did he not win but on the second lap, he took a tumble. 

The girls organizing the Abraham/Isaac/Jacob/Joseph family tree that we had written out on index cards.  

Monday evening (aka, Halloween), we had Trunk or Treasure at our church and we were pretty sure this was that blasted bouncy house from Apopka the day before.  

The game we brought was "Throw the ring on the squash/pumpkin." It was not quite as popular as the game in the background.  A friend from church, Irene, had a basket on the roof of her car and she had kids try to throw a ball into it.  She gave kids who did real money!  Calleigh won a $2 bill and then Aubree got $5 because it was the end of the night and she had run out of $2 bills.  They were quite excited. 

Calleigh with Violet...She looks up to Calleigh and it reminds me of when Calleigh was this age and how she liked the bigger girls.  Calleigh is very kind to her.

Tuesday evening Jennifer, Katrina, and I went to Universal CityWalk to celebrate Katrina's 40th birthday which was the next day.  We wanted to keep her out late so we could be with her when the clock struck midnight and it was officially her birthday.  This is a new restaurant that just opened and it was amazing.  It's a full restaurant not just desserts.  I had some Brussels sprouts with a mild jalapeño sauce and it was to die for.  As for the desserts...a milkshake is...get ready for it...$12!!!  It is an impressive looking milkshake but wowzers!!

Two of these ladies are now 40 and the other one likes to remind us that she's not.

The boys made a new friend at PE...Conner.  

Not sure what happened here but Conner seemed quite pleased.

Okay, I think we are back to the present day.  I will leave you with a couple quotes from my dear Brady.

As he tries to identify the letter "G" and is having a hard time: "I'm trying with my whole entire brain."

As he sits on the potty, he yells out to me: "Mom, pooping is fun!  It's nice to have quiet time and just relax."

Doesn't he sound like pretty much EVERY dude?

Happy Sabbath!