1st DAY of HOMESCHOOL SCHOOL

we decided to enroll the kids in a homeschool enrichment program this year.

it's 1 day a week ~Mondays.

We chose this enrichment program because it's a snapshot of what a regular school day would look like ~plus they get all the "specials" like PE, music, library, and computers.

Monday the 15th was their first day.

Excited doesn't even begin to describe them.

The girls woke up before 6am ~I made them go back to bed to "rest" (like that really happened).
As soon as they were allowed up, they wanted to start wearing their backpacks. :)

I've never seen them get ready so quickly in the morning!

There is only 1 class for each grade so each of our kids has a buddy in their class ~which makes going to school even more exciting! :)

Andrew is in the 2nd grade class with cousin Jackie.

Biruk and Rebecca are in the 1st grade class ~with each other.

Elizabeth is in the Kindergarten class with her cousin Joanna.



They LOVED school.

LOVED it.

They couldn't stop talking about their amazing day!

Their favorite parts of the day were recess (shocking!), PE, and music.


and what made our hearts sing even more is that, before we left for the morning, we prayed over their day...and I pointed out that some kids might be super scared to go to school 'cuz they wouldn't know anyone. Our kids are lucky that they each have a buddy in class. I asked them to watch for ways they could help others out.

At lunch, Biruk saw a boy sitting all by himself.
Biruk chose to go sit by the boy and be his friend instead of sitting with his siblings and cousins.

ahhhhh....that's our sweetie.

Becca noticed another girl crying at lunch. She and Jackie decided to sit next to her and be her friend and help her feel better.
So proud of both girls.


We can't wait to be bombarded with stories each Monday afternoon!

FRIDAY FAMILY FUN ~ SLIDE ROCK

I think I've mentioned before, John has every other Friday off.

We've had ALOT going on lately.

John really wanted to just get us out of town for the day to have some family fun.

August 5th was one of his Fridays off.

And it was going to be HOT and MUGGY down here in the desert.

So we headed north.

About 2.5 hours north of us is the mountains......and in 1 town they have an area called Slide Rock.

it's a shallow creek running through a canyon ~the rocks are SO smooth you can slide down the rocks in the water.

sounded like a perfect "family fun day" get-away.

our first glimpse of the actual "Slide Rock" area

looks like LOTS of families had the same idea we did. :)

this pic cracks us up -look at the guy on the right, totally posing in OUR picture!

Andrew was the first to fall.

the rocks were SLIPPERY!

and the water is snow run-off so even in August -it's still FREEZING!

Biruk got a good laugh out of Andrew falling. :)

this was one of the deeper slides.

Elizabeth only wanted to go on it with daddy. :)

I think her eyes were closed the entire time!

love how she's holding onto John ~she knows he'll keep her safe.

can you see the uninvited guest to our little party?

Andrew was the first to spot this little snake.
The snake was lurking near the smaller more shallow slide ~which, after seeing him, the girls refused to go down again. :)

We're sure he was a non-poisonous variety and was probably WAY more scared of us (especially after hearing Becca screaming!) than we were of him...but none-the-less....I wasn't too keen on staying in the area either! Call me funny-I'm not thrilled about swimming with snakes.

John took the camera from me for awhile so that he could document I actually WAS there with the family. :)

I almost always take the pics and John wanted to make sure I got in front of the camera a few times.

it was such a great day.

I'm so thankful John insisted on us taking a day and just getting away.

Our family really needed it!

RUNNING AWAY

Becca had been having a rough week.
In general, just a bad attitude and having trouble being nice or respectful.
She'd been threatening to "run away" the whole week.

Over and over I told her how that wasn't the solution.
How much we loved her and didn't want her to leave.

But on Sunday, she was reprimanded for being unkind to Elizabeth.

30 minutes later she came out of her room with her backpack packed and her pillow.
She informed us she was running away.

to the front yard.
She knew enough to know there were "bad guys" out there so she'd be safe if she camped in our front yard.


We decided to call her bluff.
We gave her our rolling duffel bag and told her she could raid our pantry for food.

John got our tent out so she could have shelter.

she lasted outside about 45 minutes -coming in 2-3 times to "negotiate" with us.

She really didn't want to run away -we KNEW that.

She wanted her way.
She wanted to do what she wanted to do without any consequences.

She humbled herself and told us she wanted to stay after she learned we were going out to breakfast to Crack*er Barr*el ~one of our family's fav. b'fast restaurants. :)

At first she tried to negotiate us taking her out to breakfast and THEN she would run-away once we got home (we fear she might be a budding lawyer!).....but since we wouldn't give in on that request, she decided being part of our family wasn't so bad after all.

We're awfully glad she decided to stay. :)

We love her too much to have her away from us....even if it was just the front yard.

JACKLYN'S BIRTHDAY

Jacklyn's birthday was July 12th.
She told grandma what she REALLY wanted to do was go to one of our FUN public pools.

We have some pretty cool pools around here...water slides, lazy rivers, etc etc.

So on the 11th, my mom and I and all the kids (minus the baby) took Jackie to one of the pools.

Everyone had a BLAST!

the kids calls this "the toilet" cuz it swirls around and around. :)

Janae always has "littles" clinging to her. :)

the birthday girl hanging out with Becca

hanging in the lazy river

show me your mad face Joanna!

cheesy!

LOVE this of the 2 girls!


After swimming we came back to our house for lunch, presents, and cake.

she had been wanting a pill*ow pet!

Happy 7th birthday Jackie!!