After 4 years & 9 months

We celebrated Joel getting his braces off back in October with caramel apples. I'm not sure Joel would have gotten the braces had he known how long it was going to take. But he's very glad he did it though.

Eliana wasn't quite sure what to do!

We made it!

After a 14-hour day followed by another 12-hour day in the car, we're glad to be at Boomba & Grandpa's (Joel's parents) house relaxing. The kids did extremely well, even Karis! Now we're looking forward to some of Uncle Dave's famous waffles tonight and lots of fun.

Eliana is thankful

Eliana drew a picture of some things she is thankful for. She is bringing it to Cubbies tonight to share with her class.

Check out mom & dad's hands! I also love her E's. She likes them to have lots of extra dashes.

Timeline Card Wall

We have been working on learning our history timeline this year. I wanted to string the cards up, but realized it would take up too much space, so I decided just to put them up with sticky-tac stuff. So here is our "Timeline Gallery" as Joanna calls it.

We also took turns making audio recordings of the card titles to help us learn them, and we can now listen to the CD while looking at the cards.

Hopefully the bottom row will survive this cute little baby once she's walking.

Just like me doll

Joanna received her new American doll last week. She just loves her new doll and loves that she could pick one that looked like her - brown hair & blue eyes! Lots of fun and lots of tea parties ahead. Thanks, Grandma!!

Peek-A-Boo

This video clip of Karis playing peek-a-boo just makes me laugh. I love seeing Karis flapping her arms and legs, and I can't stop smiling while listening to Joanna laughing in the background.

All he wants...

A new cousin

Scott & Rebekah welcomed Chloe Suzanne today! She weighed 8 lb 1 oz. and 19 1/4 long. Big sister, Samantha is staying with us at the "cousins house." We were waiting at piano lessons in the car when we got the news and were talking about Baby Chloe.

We took Samantha to see her new sister tonight.

To see more pictures, you can go to their blog - Team Foster

Chicken Munks

(Joel here again) Recently, we all went on a bike ride together. Eliana rides in the child seat on the back of my bike. We were riding past some hedge (aka osage orange) trees. Hedge trees produce and drop some peculiar inedible "fruit" called hedge apples that look like large, knobby, yellow-green softballs. I call them "boogers" (even though you can't eat them). I don't know why, but they just make me think they ought to be called "boogers." I was remarking about this to Eliana when she immediately informed me that "chicken munks leave those on the ground." I puzzled over that for a few moments and asked here to repeat what she had just said. She informed me again that "chicken munks leave those things on the ground." It took about ten seconds more for me to realize that she thought chipmunks were involved in leaving boogers on the ground. Seen any chicken munks lately? Neither have I, but if you ever see "boogers" in Kansas, you'll know who left them there!

Caleb's new bike

(Joel writing here.) Some things your kids do can just make your heart melt. The other day I was just arriving home from work when Caleb, with the happiest "toothless" grin on his face, called out from the side of the road, "Dad, I'm riding my new bike." I couldn't actually hear what he was saying since the car windows were shut - he had to fill me in later on what he had actually said. But boy, was he happy. My boss had given us a boy's bike about a year ago that his son had outgrown. Caleb is now big enough to handle it, and Tina had let him ride it for the first time. It's hard to put into words the feeling I get when I recall such toothless happiness. After parking the car, I had to go get the camera to record the event of the day.

Pumpkin patch

We went to this very fun pumpkin patch about a week ago. It started off with a cold wind, but it gradually warmed up. We ended up staying the whole day since there were so many fun things to do. First, we took a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch where the "farmer" told the kids some pretty neat things about pumpkins before they all went off to pick their own.

Joanna was even taking notes.

There was lots of other fun stuff to do. Corn pile, climbing, corn maze, right-turn-only maze, playground, paddleboats, pedal cars, etc. I think the most popular for my kids was Boo Mountain and the Floating Trampoline.

Here's Boo Mountain. You go to the top and then slide down through the tube on a sled or a trash can lid. I had to try it cause it looked fun. Well, maybe I tried it a few times.

Here's a clip of Eliana coming out of the "mountain."

She's always making me nervous!

The Floating Trampoline--So Fun! Watch the clip below and see Eliana being gradually bounced down the side.

Hope you enjoyed all the pictures!

Our little inchworm

Karis is crawling around now. It's not a full-blown crawl yet--kind of a cross between an inchworm and an army crawl, sticking her derriere high in the air and then flattening out again. Nothing is safe anymore. The other kids are having a hard time adjusting to not leaving little things out. They always think they are going to come right back to what they are doing, but end up leaving their stuff out and doing something else.

Here's a quick clip of Karis crawling and Eliana squealing into the camera.

The TCGT Club

Today the kids made a best brother & sister club. They named it the TCGT Club which stands for Tweeter (Joanna), Caboogle (Caleb), Goober (Eliana), and Tootles (Karis). They had fun setting up a clubhouse on top of Joanna's bed and making some rules.

Here are the rules which they came up with:

1. Brothers and sisters only
2. Obey always
3. No rough-housing
4. No fussing
5. Teamwork
6. Do a project every day
7a. Share always
7b. Be nice
8. Never be bored
9. Take turns
10. Play with Tootles
11. Never say no
12. Do not talk when some body else is talking.

Rule #1 is cool! As for #8, I remember when I used to be bored.

I love it when they all play together!

Dad's Pizzeria

For our homeschool group, Joanna & Caleb give a presentation every week on different topics. This past week's topic was family traditions. Since Joanna & Caleb are in different rooms they gave the same presentation.

Joel makes pizza pretty much every Sunday night that we are home. He began his pizza making trying to make some good ol' New York style pizza because we really missed it. There was nothing out here like it at the time.

So here are the pictures that the kids used to share our Sunday Night Dad's Pizzeria tradition.

We grind our own wheat for our bread and also for our pizza. I guess you could say that our pizza is just a little good for you!! (I think this fact was the most interesting to the parents watching.)

Of course, the rolling out of the dough...

Joel uses a pizza peel to slide the pizza in the oven onto the preheated stones in the oven. He sprinkles cornmeal on the pizza peel to keep it from sticking.

Oven's getting ready and Caleb starts to spread the sauce.

Mmmmm......Cheese!

Ready for the oven.

The pizza is going in and it's time to wait.

YUM!! One tip for making pizza - It's not done just when the cheese is melted. You want to wait till the cheese starts bubbling and even getting a little brown in some spots.

"We love dad's pizza!"

Karis' friend

Karis enjoyed talking to her friend in the mirror. Watch for yourself in the video below.

First foods

We've just started Karis on some real people food. She hasn't got the hang of actually swallowing very much of it. She gets all excited when she sees the spoon, tastes it and then it all seems to slide on out.

Devouring books and magazines

Well....Karis is anyway. I don't seem to have much time for reading these days.

You can tell how happy she is! She even managed to get the cover off the book in these pictures.

Here's a video clip of her "reading" a magazine.

Narnia

Here is my "Queen Lucy" and "King Peter" dressed up at Exploration Place a week ago. All of the kids just love Narnia, and it's fun to hear them pretending to be there.

Where did it go?

Caleb was eating a bagel with cream cheese today when all of the sudden he realized his very loose tooth had finally fallen out. The only problem--he can't find it.

We think he must have swallowed it!