Kaylee is Reading

Kaylee is reading!  It is one of my most favorite things to do with my kids, teach them to read.  She is ready, focused, and catching on fast.  It is so exciting!! We use the famous book: Teach Your Child To Read," and it works magic with every child!  She will be going to Oak Farm next school year for PreK and is very excited for that!!

We Love Daddy

Daddy is being smothered!  They were all watching a cartoon on our big bed and I couldn't help but add Baby Nathan to the pile and snap a photo.  These days when our kids are young will pass all to quickly.  I love Nate and every last one of our crew. 

Sweet Kaylee

Yesterday, Kaylee and I got to spend some time together since she had a friend's birthday party to go to.  We had about a 25 minute drive to get there, and during our drive she just started asking me questions, the sweetest questions.  She asked where Jesus was and why he didn't come down.  She knew that he and Heavenly Fatger wanted to help her, but was confused as to how, since they couldn't come down.  I tried to explain that He helps our feelings.  When we pray, He can help us feel better inside, or feel happy.  She mentioned that Jesus couldn't come down, and even if he could he couldn't help everyone at the same time.  Wow!  So I explained who the Holy Ghost is, that he is Heavenly Father and Jesus' helper.  That he can be in lots of places at once and help a lot of people at the same time.  I also explained that sometimes if we need something, Jesus hands can't come down to help, but sometimes He will use another persons hands, to act like Jesus hands, to help us.  We talked about daddy's hands when Daddy gives a blessing on someone's head, that Jesus is using Daddy's hands to bless, since Jesus can't be here to do that.  It was so very sweet.  About 3 or 4 times as she let our conversation set in her mind, she spoke up, saying, "Mom can you talk more about Jesus?"  She wanted to keep learning and hearing about her Savior.  I felt the spirit so strongly in the car, and there is no doubt that she felt something strongly too.  And she didn't want those good feelings to go away.  She wanted more and more.  And as I spoke at a four year old level, I felt inspired how to answer those sweet questions.  The ideas on how to teach her came to my mind.  I love my girl dearly.  I cherish sweet moments like these.

Brian Regan Live

For Valentines Day, Nate got us tickets to see Brian Regan live in Wabash at the Honeywell Center.  We went with the Coudrons and the Keplingers kept our kids for us, all 5 of them!!  So it was a true date night!

Downtown Wabash was super crowded and most restaurants had a very long wait.    We ended up at a small Mexican restaurant that was crowded to the max but had just 2 very busy waitresses trying to run the whole place.  We felt bad for our waitress who was running a million directions at once.  We only had time to scarf down chips and salsa, quest, and bean dip before our show was to start.

The show was awesome.  Brian Regan is just so fun.  He makes the simple occurrances in life seem so hilarious and funny.  Towards the end he started doing some of his classic jokes that we remember from when we were at BYU.  It was real funny to watch him do these live in person since in college we only ever listened to his CDs.  

Afterwards we got some desserts and drove back to our kiddos.  What a fun night out with my love.  I'm so grateful for our date nights, which are so necessary in our crazy hectic and stressful lives.  Thank you so much, Hun 😍.

The season for love

Valentines Day is always a fun holiday season.  The kids got a package from Grandma in Utah full of hearts, goodies, and gifts.  Opening Grandmas packages is like Christmas every time!  It is so much fun for everyone!!

Kaylee made some tissue paper roses with Andrea and made a vase by stamping hearts.  She was so thrilled to give it to me when I came upstairs after work.  I love my girl!!  

The kids made Valentine cookies with Andrea with cookie cutters and frosting!  Yummmmm!

Our Family Tree

Jaxton studied our family tree at school. He gathered names and birthdates in relation to himself. He created a tree out of magazine rippings, and placed each name strategicly on the tree. This is very special for him to learn. Recently when getting on family search.org, I began searching around on the website for individuals within my family tree. The famous orphan on my dad's line has always intrigued me and sparked my curiosity as to how we could find that lost name. Apparently in family search.org many names have been recorded by others.  I was actually able to do a search with dates to determine the father of the orphan.  A little more research is required to finalize that we have the correct name,  however it was pretty amazing to see the names and the dates match perfectly with the story that has been told by word of mouth and passed down through the generations.  I sure hope that if I can find some free time sometime in the near future I can search with my kids and together we can seek out our family line! It is a very exciting work!

Kids Map Work

At Oak Farm, the boys are studying maps quite a bit. They are learning where we are in the world and what is around us. Over time they have been working on maps, starting from the entire globe, and working all the way down to the state of Indiana. They have learned the continents of the earth, they have learned the countries within north America, and currently they are learning about the 50 states in the USA.  Jaxton has picked up the 50 states song that I taught him from when I was a kid in elementary school. Now each of them are working on details of a particular state in the United States.   I am so impressed with their work. I love to put it up for all to see!

My toes taste good!

Snow Days

Snow days are so much fun! For the young and old!

Coopers Tooth

Cooper's tooth was literally hanging by a string. It would wiggle and flop it was really gross. Dad convinced him to tie a piece of floss to the tooth and yank it. He was nervous. But wiggling it with the string got it to fall outwithout having to yank it. Cooper is funny about the tooth fairy. He did not want the tooth fairy to take his teeth away. So he put it in a baggie and had us keep it hidden in our room so that the tooth fairy would not be able to find it. When he's ready he will slip it under his pillow for cash!