End of Oct / Beginning of November 2016

Blogging with photos again!

I love this day in the week when Calvin gets to define 3 words from the history reading. He learned what a cutworm is and how it destroys a plant by cutting it off near the root of the plant.  This was in the part of history when he learned about Eliza Lucas growing the indigo plant in colonial times and her struggle growing them.  He illustrated it with a photo of the plant saying "noo!" and the cutworm saying "mm...looks good".  I love his creativity.

Violet became quite attached to this lime.  She named it Bob.

fall colors!

Violet's first band performance!  

Calvin claims he reads better upside down.

Violet practicing away...

just a cute lil' punkin' on a rock

I can do it myself, mom!

He cut lots of strips of paper and wrote "Eli" all over all of them and colored Olaf black.

Calvin's astronaut helmet made from magnatiles.  This broke so many times while he tried putting it on it almost wasn't worth taking a picture of.  He claimed his ears stuck out too far so he actually put a rubber band over his ears to tuck them back.

Saying goodbye to Mama Row before she left for AZ.

While showing Violet some stitches on a sweater she made, Calvin put it on and immediately loved how cozy it was, so she let him keep it for the winter.

Daddy and Vanessa went on a date!  She dressed up all pretty and she chose Dad's outfit - the two of them went to Montage where they let her make her own pizza - and they ended the night at Coldstone with ice cream.

Calvin's model "to scale" the size of the huuuge sun compared to the little planets.  The red and white circles on the right of the pic are Saturn and Jupiter - the smaller circles are Mars, Neptune, and Uranus and the tinier ones barely visible are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

since the legos got put away temporarily, the Magnatiles have taken over and this became a little theater stage for the Beanie Boos.

basement stair carpet is in!

Japanese Ferns - basement bathroom color!

a little folding activity Vanessa loved 

in front of the Hearst Center for the Arts on the last day of art classes

Violet's "show-stopping" performance!

carvings mom did with kids - "the Flash", a puppy, Batman, and of course, a mermaid.  

a lazy cowboy, "Mr Yellow", the Flash, Batman, a fairy, and Cleopatra

"candy grins"

another one of Calvin's hilariously creative drawings.  He illustrated "molasses".  The person pouring the molasses starts out happy, then gets bored waiting for the molasses to pour out as the clock time passes, the face gets sadder.  

some random cute boy snuggles.  I love Calvin's grin.

this is so cute and funny.  The hinges on all the doors have two triangular magnatiles on them.  Eli is discovering everything metal that they can stick to.  

He even set up a triangular structure between the metal legs of the stools in the kitchen!  I love this!

He was pretty proud of himself.  

October 2016 (and a pic of Violet's baptism)

Time for another picture-post!

sometimes a killer sunset just needs to be photographed, even though it captures just a tiny glimpse of the original beauty of seeing it with your own eyes

Miss Violet got baptized by her dad - showing publicly she has put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ as her Savior

Mama Row got all the cousins together.  Only Christy was missing from the Hardinger cousins!

:)

Mama Row takes the kids to the library every Thursday afternoon.  She's amazing and the kids love going on outings with her.

She's a born-teacher - can't help but provide some sort of fun lesson along with their trips.

I was blessed to have fun/fellowship/teaching on the topic of prayer over a women's retreat weekend.  It was held in the Retreat Center at Riverview the weekend of Sept 17-18, 2016.  

Kim and I had the privilege and responsibility of leading the other women in worship with music.  This is Emily Dempster giving her testimony and shared that a song sung in worship at Bethany one Sunday is what the Lord used to speak to her heart and caused behavior change.  This was so encouraging.

I attended a Peruvian cooking class with Mama Row one evening and we cooked a quinoa dish, ceviche, and grilled pineapple with nuts.

Our mailbox flowers - zinnias and petunias!  Calvin helped me arrange them by saying "just put the tall ones in the back!"

Calvin is LOVING how to learn write cursive!  He's so good at it.

Cedar River flooded and we went to look at it.  A couple feet lower than the record set in 2008, but still impressive.

work on our basement is making progress!

Vanessa is becoming quite the little reader!

Eli - flying his blue airplane out of the window of the jeep.

counter tops going in!

Calvin came along with me to pick up Eli from preK - and always brings along something Eli loves - in this case, "Dot table, Foxie, and Woofie"

Vanessa's drawing of Rahab and the scarlet cord that helped save her life when the Israelites attacked Jericho.

Eli sporting Calvin's flat-brimmed hat Dave got for him on his recent one day trip to Chicago.  I hear it is a good year for the Cubs.

#twinning

Grandma Jo warming up the kids for a fun time at the gym before their dental appointments.

Eli loved this game in the waiting room at Grandpa Jon's office.

Um, this is Dave's halloween costume.  He got it to go along with "one color night" at Awana that is coming up.  

Grandma Jo also taught the kids how to fold paper into frogs.  They made a whole colony!

Just a snap of Eli "doing airplane" on my feet.

pumpkin pie for breakfast?! Sure! My mom used to give me pumpkin dessert for breakfast when it was leftover.  I can still taste the buttered toasted pecans soaked in whipped cream....mmmm

Violet was gifted a sweet dress from grandma Jo!

Calvin rarely wears a shirt while working on school work...I wonder if this will continue through the winter?