Christmas Candy House Part 2

You get enough houses for a entire city!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

How to make Christmas Candy Houses

First you gather a bunch of candy and fun decorations, then you add in a few kids,

and they all go to work

decorating and creating

Until . . . .

Giraffe Feeding at the Zoo

When you go to feed a giraffe, you realize just how huge they are. . . but that didn't stop Brandon and Sariah

or Morgan

or Jayde

or Christin

Such a fun part of visiting the zoo. Anyone ready to move to Giraffe Manor?

Thanksgiving Day Part 2

Before the leaf raking was done, everyone was in on the action for a photo,

then the leaves were scattered again!

Thanksgiving Day 2009

After eating lots of dinner, everyone headed outside for: a quick game of soccer for the guys,

and after-dinner discussion by the men,

leaf raking started by Tiana,

helped out by Grace,

and scattered by Thomas.

Fall Leaves 2009

Andrew loves to climb trees, play outside and pet the kitties. What a lucky guy that he can spend time at Grandpa and Grandma's house doing just those things.

Miss Tulare County 2009 and Andrew!

Andrew was delighted to have this photo taken with Miss Tulare County 2009-Sara Risvold. As Sara walked by in her beautiful dress and crown, Andrew exclaimed, "Wow, Sara!". He then followed her to tell her she had on a "really pretty dress". He was so pleased to have his photo taken with her, I think his smile tells the rest of the story.

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to all our veterans and May God Bless America.

The boys scout troop is very active for the Veteran's Day Parade and spend the entire day working the parade and helping to run errands and make things go smoothly. We were fortunate enough to have Miss Tulare County 2009-Sara Risvold join us for a photo.
Ray and Grant carrying one of many award banners for the parade. Ray is thrilled to have his photo taken.

James and Ty carrying another banner. Smile James!

Thomas being adorable while waiting for the parade to begin.

My trio of girls giggling and laughing together while waiting for the parade. Our wonderful friend, Mary Beth, is spending the week with us.

Happy Veteran's Day!

The finished pumpkins!

Well, this is almost all the pumpkins. Christin made a beautiful cat, Ray was pretending to be the headless horseman, Andrew made a face on his-his very first time to carve a pumpkin! I don't have a finished photo of James' pumpkin and Morgan's was the cat face in the last post.

Pumpkins anyone?

We had great plans for celebrating All Saints Day on Nov. 1st but with all the kids and myself sick, we cancelled that event. Thanks to terrific grandparents, those who weren't sick on Halloween were able to carve pumpkins.

Lots and lots of hard work produced some beautful pumpkins.

Oh Thomas!

Thomas loves to be outside and will gleefully run into any size mud puddle he can find. One day he was asking to play outside so I slipped a sweatshirt on him and let him out into the backyard. It wasn't long before I found this strange and wonderful creature tracking mud through my kitchen and gazing up at me with big blue eyes.

After a nice bath with lots of soap and shampoo I discovered my sweet Thomas under all the mess!

Andrew's first bike race

Andrew learned to ride his bike without training wheels about a week after he turned four. Part of his motivation was to enter the annual bike race. He practiced riding around Grandpa and Grandma's track for months until he thought he was ready for the race. The long awaited day finally arrived. Grandma found him the way cool outfit. Grandpa cleaned and tuned up his bike. Mom sent off the registration forms and off to the race we went with his own personal family cheering section.

Part of racing is schmoozing with the competition. Notice the little brother action going on!

The action photo was taken just before he crashed into another competitor going the other way. Thankfully no one was permanently injured and he was smiling afterwards. They gave out lots of prizes for the little guys and Andrew was thrilled with his new Batman bike helmet and knee pads! Serious racing action for the under 8 set. Andrew can't wait until next year.

Going to the Fair!

Yes, that is a live alligator that my children are holding. Believe it or not, they were eager to pose for the photo. The guys at Brad's Reptile World told them the alligator was 15 years old. I'm just glad it wasn't any bigger.

Andrew and James are best buds! See any family resemblance??? James helped Andrew onto the rope bridge at the Boy Scout 100 Years of Scouting exhibit. Gotta love that camera smile!

Grandma Jeannie, Thomas and Andrew checking out the touch table in one of the ag buildings. There were interested in all the cotton seeds.

Morgan, Christin and Thomas waving from the top of the huge climbing structure. Thomas loved being allowed to run around and climb like crazy!

Whew.....School is in session!

Wow, the children are enrolled in K12 for school this year and it's been one crazy week. We have four computers set up in the house with one more on the way. This has to be the future of education as it is phenomenal! I'm amazed at the quality of the curriculum. Everyone seems to be getting the hang of all their classwork but they especially seem to enjoy the Powerspeak language classes. We attended a Park Day event last week and have a Teacher meeting this week. Some upcoming events include attending the local museum and the fair. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post from those events soon.

Hugs, Carla

First Day of School 2009

So summer has finally ended. It really does seem to have gone by quickly this year. We are back at school officially today although I think lots of our days provide learning experiences all year round. The children are enrolled in CAVA-California Virtual Academy and are doing most of their classwork online. It's been a great experience for us last year and we're looking forward to another interesting year. We traditionally make a first day of school photo-one with smiles and one with silly faces. I have these for every year that we've been in school. Of course, the little ones aren't in school yet but maybe next year.