I'm not even going to try to play catch up...

Hello all! I'm not sure if I can keep up with this blogging thing. It was fun for a while, but it's kind of worn off. I have debated just deleting it, but have decided to leave it up and post when I get a chance, even if it's once a month (or less). It's so hard to keep up with everything internet related and still have a "real-life" life. :-) I have so enjoyed reading everyone else's blogs and appreciate the great comments you all have left for me. So, thank you. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year!

Pictures and yet another catch ya'll up post...

Happy November everyone! The holiday season is here, again!!! Brinkley and I walked the mall on Saturday and all the stores are in full Christmas decoration mode. Crazy! Now, for a quick update:

Halloween:
We had a fabulous Halloween! We went with our good friends, the Butlers, to see High School Musical 3 and then out to eat. We ended our night with some trick or treating and hauled home plenty of candy. :-) We had a Hannah Montana, a knight, a Dorothy (Wizard of Oz), and a werewolf. See pictures on shutterfly to figure out which was which!

School:
The kids are having a great school year. Jaten and Brinkley both continue to read books faster than we can get them from the library. Taye is doing well with her reading lessons. She's reading a little now and she gets soooo excited when she sounds something out and then figures out that she actually read a real word! Kye isn't doing any formal school, but enjoys hanging out and listening in.

Life in general:
Josh stays busy with work and family and his constant projects. Right now, he is working on his sand rail, his motorcycle, the back yard, the front yard, and his truck. For those of you who have not heard: Josh's truck was stolen! And then found again! And then the insurance company totalled it! And then we bought it back! So, as it turns out, we live close to the border and vehicles get stolen a lot. :-) Who would have known?!

Anyway, we had recently purchased a used Ford F-250 truck for Josh. Josh previously had a diesel running truck which he converted to run on vegetable oil. We had been wanting to do that again and found a really great deal on this truck, so we bought it. Not too long after we bought it, it was stolen, in broad daylight, from Josh's office building. As it turns out, both people smugglers and drug smugglers like to use the big four wheel drive trucks. It was found across town a week later. It was a mess!!! It had been driven through the desert, hard! The back seat had been torn out to make room for lots of people/drugs. The back windows were spray painted black (so the people/drugs could not be seen from the outside). One of the tires was flat and the wheel was torn up. The windshield was broken. There were multiple dents and tons of scratches along the sides of the truck. So, our insurance company decided it would cost too much to fix everything, so they totalled it. Since the truck was still drivable (with a few things needing to be fixed), we purchased it back from the insurance company for very little cost. Now, we have added the truck to Josh's long line of projects. Whew...

One final note on the truck, it is a sad situation all the way around. It hurt my heart to picture illegals piled in the back of that truck. It wasn't much better to picture drugs instead. Either way, the smugglers are making money on everyone else's heartache.

Let's see, what else? Jaten and Brinkley have been playing volleyball on community teams. They have really enjoyed it. I have too, although adding practices and games into our already busy schedule has been a bit crazy. They only have a couple more weeks and they will be done.


I'm staying excessively busy with kids, homeschool, youth activities at church, hiking, and three online courses. I am taking World Religions, Bio-medical Ethics, and Communication in Health care. All have been interesting and fairly easy courses, but they still take time.

And I think you are officially caught up... Please check out more pictures on the shutterfly link!

P.S. Although this is a politically neutral blog (I have friends and family on both sides), I would like to note that the election/voting process was so much fun to teach my children about. They were so excited on election day! Last Wednesday for school, we watched McCain's concession speech and Obama's speech. I thought they were both amazing. Regardless of your party affiliation, this was an historic election. I discussed with the kids what it means to have an African-American become the President of the United States. I had a really hard time containing my emotion when discussing it with the kids and I think they thought I was crazy. I hope that means that they are essentially color blind and can't understand what it really means to people of our generation and older. Both girls asked questions after I got done talking and Brinkley's first question was, "Yes, but will he be a good president, Mom?" I just answered her with, "I hope so, Brinkley." That's what we do every time we elect a president, right? We hope...

Attempting to find Fall in Tucson...

My friend Ashlie invited the kids and I to head up a mountain with her and see if we could find some leaves changing color. We found approximately two trees on the mountain yellowing. The rest were green. :-( We still managed to have a good time and enjoyed spending time with Ashlie and her cute boys. Ashlie is an amazing photographer and snapped some pictures of the kids while we were up there. You can see some of them on her blog.

Thanks for the fun day, Ashlie!

I take the stairs...

Conversation between Brinkley and a friend:

Friend: "I get to take the bus to school."

Brinkley: "Really? Well I get to take the stairs."
(Brinkley's room on main level, school in the basement)

I love homeschooling!

Cwappa and gwass..

Okay, so my first two children spoke well very early on. By the age of two, both girls spoke in complete sentences with generally perfect grammar. That is what I thought was normal.

Along comes girl number three and by the age of two, she is still just putting a couple of words together. Not to mention, the words that she is putting together are only understood by members of our family, sounds like gibberish to anyone else. I start to get a little worried, but soon she is talking, a lot. Unfortunately, it still tends to sound like a secret twin language or something (and she's not a twin). She just turned five and now she is fairly well understood by all. She cannot, however, say her r or l sounds at all. They sound like w.

Well, apparently, she taught number four how to speak because my son has the same ailment. My purpose in sharing this is to explain that it can make for some funny moments around our house as we try to figure out for sure what Taye and Kye are saying. Kye recently got a "clapper" toy, a cheap thing that makes annoying sounds. He says it "cwappa." Sounds like someone from the East coast saying "crapper." Taye was asking me something recently and getting increasingly frustrated because I was misunderstanding her. I thought she was telling me something about "glass" and she was actually telling me about "grass." She pronounces both "gwass."

I've been teaching Taye to read and as part of those lessons, we review the sounds in a word. So, I will say, "Taye, say rrrrrruuuuuunnnnnn." She will say, "Rrrrrr-Wuuuuuuuunnnnnnn." :-)

Happy 5th Birthday, Taye!!

Taye is 5 years old today!

Taye was the most stubborn Barney baby from the beginning. It took us a year and a half to get pregnant with her, whereas all the other children have come as soon as we even have the thought. :-)

She was also the baldest of all the Barney babies. I had heartburn horribly while I was pregnant with her, so don't believe the old wives' tale about heartburn and hair.

Taye has always been adventurous and determined. She has two older sisters and despite their age difference, has always wanted to be treated just like them. She taught herself to ride a bike without training wheels when she was three. She taught herself how to swim at four. When I told her recently that she was too little to have piano lessons, she enlisted her sister to help teach her the piano. When riding in the sand rail or on Daddy's motorcycle, Taye is the only child of the four who says, "Go faster, Daddy!" She also loves to be cuddled and loves hugs. She currently loves all things Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Camp Rock. When she was just three, she had multiple "boyfriends" at church, preschool, and in the movies. Actually, I think Zac Efron from High School Musical is still her boyfriend. We're a bit nervous for the teen years!!

Taye is fun, makes friends easily, is happy, helpful, and smart. I love her so much and am so grateful she is my daughter! Happy birthday, Taye!!

Volunteering

We have been volunteering as a family for the past year with an organization called The Shyann Kindness Project. TSKP was started by Glenn and Sandy Rosati as a tribute to their daughter, Shyann, who passed away a few years ago. Their goal is to pass on kindness and they do this in various ways. Their website gives plenty of information, please check it out.

Josh and I trade off and on taking the kids to various kindess events. We have been privileged to spread kindness to Iraqi refugees, Mexican special needs children, and children involved in various mentoring programs throughout Tucson. We have witnessed tremendous gratitude, selfless giving, and plenty of kindness. Our hope is to instill a love of service in our children.

For those of you in Tucson, I have little cards I could give you for TSKP so that Metro Car Wash will donate part of the car wash proceeds to TSKP. If you go to Metro Car Wash, that is. :-)