Big Brother

Ok, so Caleb is a great big brother and just loves Karis. He gives her tons of kisses every day.

But now I know why the youngest child sometimes needs their own space.

Aww, so cute!

Ok, that's good.

Let me out of here!

Now!

Piano man

He just looked so serious - I had to take a picture.

Playdough flowers & cousins

We recently "dissected" a couple of flowers to learn about all the different parts. In the pictures below, we made playdough flowers with all the different parts like the sepals, petals, stamen, carpel and ovule. The playdough I made was a bit too sticky, but it worked okay. We also used q-tips and construction paper for different parts. We were watching the cousins that day, too, so Samantha got to try one.

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Caleb

Eliana

Joanna

Cousin Sam

Cousin Chloe and Karis. Karis likes to help feed the baby.

Bedtime delays

Kids always seem to have another reason to delay going to bed or something that gets them out of bed. Here's one excuse that we found while reading "Peter Pan" that Eliana has in common with the lost boys from the Neverland.

"Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still longer, such as demanding bandages...."

Eliana is the queen of needing another bandaid. She can always find a spot that needs one and it seems to be when she is supposed to be in bed! She laughed when Joel pointed this out in the story - She knew!!

She's got a belly button

Want to see my belly button?

I'm looking...

Still looking...

See!

Joanna's back

My sister e-mailed today asking if Joanna was still at camp =) Guess I haven't posted in a while!!

Joanna's at camp

I dropped Joanna off at camp today - She was very excited. As we got close to the camp, Joanna said that she had good butterflies in her stomach and they were getting bigger.

Joanna is on the far right. Looks like a fun bunch of girls!!

Caleb says he misses Joanna already, cause there's nothing to do without her. We'll see how the week goes!

Karis & Grandfather

Karis thought it was so fun to spray Grandfather with the fountain!

Fun on the Mississippi River

We went out on the boat a couple of times this past weekend. The kids had a great time in the water and on the tubes.

Joanna & Jordan

Caleb & Ian

Caleb

Gretchen & Eliana in BIG BERTHA

Out on the water.

Yes, Joanna & Jordan are out there. BIG BERTHA is so BIG, they had a hard time staying up.

Ok, they're up again.

Ian & Caleb warming up.

The next day they tried the "hot dog" tube. It was a little easier for them to manage.

Cousin Mischief

Gretchen & Eliana found some markers. Need I say more?

Family trip

We had a great time with family last week. My sister-in-law has done a post on their blog. So until I get to my own pictures, you can go here to see some of what we did.

The biggest kid of the bunch

Having a great time with all the family.

Grandfather's having as much fun as the kids, as you can tell from this picture.

Oh, but it is just a kiddie ride!

Little Miss Fix-it

Eliana wanted to fix her princess phone. She thought the batteries were bad so she said, "Mom, I'm going to go out and get a screwdriver."

She found the longest screwdriver in Joel's toolbox.

She got right to work. It didn't look easy.

But she was happy fixing her phone. Turns out it's not the batteries - There's a button that is stuck. She might need dad's help after all.

CFI

Congrats to Joel!

He just passed another flight test. He is now a Certified Flight Instructor. Anybody want to be the guinea pig - er, I mean his first student??

5-day club

I took the kids to a friend's house for a 5-day club last week. The kids said they really liked the missionary story and being with their friends. Joanna said she really liked the cookies too =)

Go here to see a few pictures.

Bowling

We went bowling with some friends last week and the kids had a great time. We signed up for a kids bowl free program. Check it out here if you're interested.

Joanna did well!

Caleb started out on a non-bumper lane. He ended up moving over to a lane with bumpers and did much better!

Eliana did not want to wear those weird bowling shoes.

She eventually tried it - but without the shoes.

Eliana being silly with some friends.

Toofy

Joel's got another nickname for Karis - Toofy.

Dishwasher surfing

Sometimes Karis likes to "help" mommy with the dishwasher. This time she decided she wanted to ride it.

She's quite the surfer. Next time maybe she'll hang ten!

Fishing & A Prince

Also last weekend, we went to our homeschool group's end-of-the-year party. One of the dads has access to his company's recreation area, and it was a lot of fun.

Caleb got to try fishing for the first time. He really enjoyed it, although all he caught was some algae.

Here's our pigtail princess. She also tried her hand at casting the line. She managed to do it quite well (and also caught her share of algae).

Joanna

Guess what's in the trap?

Karis isn't quite sure what to think....

Yep, it's a big ol' bullfrog. No one kissed it. We'll never know if it was a prince or not.

All four

It's not very often that I get all four kids in a picture.

Last weekend we went to a nearby town where Joel had to do some training and we visited the town's little zoo.

Caleb & Eliana - Caleb had to have his picture by this tank at a memorial we passed.

Look ma, no training wheels!

We have another biker in the family! Eliana is a natural.

Joel found a bike being thrown out a couple of weeks ago and just picked it up cause it was PINK! A couple of nights ago our neighbor quickly helped us get the tires all fixed up and ready to go. I didn't think that Eliana was quite ready yet to learn without her training wheels, but she wanted to try tonight. I held onto the back of the seat one time down the street and then she had it no problem.

Here's a video of her tonight. It's a little dark, but enjoy her happy squeals.