Tuesday, May 26, 2015

From Labor Day 2014 to St. Patrick's Day 2015

Dancing in a warm summer rain

 Labor Day weekend we went to SWISS DAYS in Janet's home town.  We had sno-cones,
looked at lots of art and crafts, and walked miles it seemed.  We bought bow and arrows and played Robin Hood at Grandma's house in the trees.  The monument the kids are standing on, Janet used to walk around and around every morning before Kindergarten, about a million years ago...old mill stone.  Town hall in the background.

Aurora spent the summer in France and brought back berets.  Oohh La La!


 We are pretty excited when we get a nice rain storm, especially if there is a rainbow.  Aaron and Avery are jumping for joy.

Avery enjoying the last light of a beautiful late summer day, Albuquerque Temple.
sun going down overlooking Albuquerque


Avery's 6th birthday!


Going for a walk

 Our local pumpkin patch has a great harvest festival.  We spent the whole afternoon feeding animals, driving miniature tractors, playing in the corn pit, and racing rubber ducks in troughs while we pumped water.  Finally we picked out our pumpkins and every one carved their own.

 


Avery put teeth in her pumpkin.  Cheese!

Brad's birthday.  Too many to count...

 For school Avery writes the date on her white board.  This day she drew a picture of herself walking a dog to go along with it.  She also is "against cats."  At least for November 18 :)

 Christmas activity at church.  Ho Ho Ho.


Selfie!

 We planned a hike at tent rocks for Spring Break.  We drove all the way there and found that they don't allow dogs anymore.  We had to miss hiking this trip since we had Napoleon with us.  We stopped at the Mormon Battalion Monument on the way home.  We went to the Rio Grande  when we got back to Albuquerque and then had ice cream afterwards.  A few weeks later Aaron and Avery told me that was the best trip ever.  They weren't even disappointed about driving three hours round trip and not getting to hike.  They really like the river.  We just found a dragon fly nymph in a silt sample we collected in January when we visited the Rio Grande.  Madeline had the container in her closet for 4 months and poof!  The nymph turned up.  We had a wonderful time trying to guess what it was and googling "water bug that breathe through their butts" until we figured it out.

 We had a cub scout pack meeting with a "One in a Minion" theme for the Gold and Blue Banquet.  Aaron and Avery had a wonderful time.  One of the things they really liked was the Sundae bar.  We made homemade fudge sauce for it and made about twice as much as needed.  We are still eating fudge sauce that was left over.  No one is complaining.



Avery borrowed my sunglasses for school this day.  She is also wearing the official "homeschool uniform." (Pajamas)  I'm joking - she doesn't wear her pajamas every day.   But she tells me often that she is voting for a pajama day.  Sometimes she wins.
 
We were sorting shapes by attribute and when I wasn't looking, Avery and Aaron built a town out of them.


Madeline's violin performance

 On St. Patrick's Day we had an art day.  We all smelled like Barbasol after we finger painted with green foam paint that we made with shaving cream.  It felt so good and was so squishy!







Avery really likes to ride her scooter.  She is the fastest scooterer in the family.  We are on our way home from a walk with our scooters.  We stopped because Aaron fell and ripped his pants.  He doesn't like to scooter as much as Avery.