Urban Goes Country

Knowing there is likely a mouth surgery in Zoya's near future, we have been trying to help her break her habit of sticking her ENTIRE fist in her mouth for extended periods of time. I had tried everything I could think of.

Leave it to a 12 year old boy to think of this:

Simeon tried to tell Zoya about mouth germs but obviously she has no idea what mouth germs are. Google to the rescue!

Now all we have to say is "Germs!" and she pulls her hand right out of her mouth. Thank you google.

I sure love these boys. I saw them walking back from throwing softballs to Nellie in the pond and I had to run grab my camera. 

I love how they purposely step in the horse manure just cause they're wearing boots and they CAN. A girl would never do that.

All weekend Hope kept reminding me it was "pippy day" at school on Tuesday. I finally informed her this morning that it is actually HIPPY day. She had so many questions about hippies. What did they wear? Were hippies nice to each other? Did they speak the same language that we do today? I found the cutest little hippy dress in a stash of our cousin's hand-me downs. Thanks Elle!

In the comments someone asked why Hope goes to school while the rest of the older kids homeschool. The answer to that is that she  has been watching her siblings go to school for so many years she wanted her turn. There was really no deep thought or prayer that went into the decision, she just was excited to go to kindergarten and so we let her. I am sure we may eventually homeschool her too. 

Today Ava wrote 29 Thank you notes to her Mini Laps Sponsors. She was cracking me up, she kept licking the markers in between cards. If you are getting a thank you note, I'm sure you are glad I told you that! It took 4 of us to write these notes (5 if you count the one taking the photos!)

Please forgive me if you donated and I have seen you or talked to you in the last few weeks and I haven't mentioned anything. We only got the list of donors TODAY. We were blown away at some of the names of people who donated. Some we hardly knew. Wow, you guys are the best.

The 3 littlest ones go to bed at 7:30ish and we try to have a peaceful 'family' time after that. Obviously the whole family can't be in on the 'peaceful' part of our family time, but this is one way we have tried to balance out everybody's needs. Sometimes it's chore night, sometimes family movie night, sometimes family devos or worship. Tonight it was family reading night.

Don't you miss the days when you could take your kids' pictures without them commanding you to not post them on facebook? It's a good thing my kids don't read my blog huh?

I picked this book for Liesel up at the library at 4:00 this afternoon.  By the time she went to bed tonight she was already 3/4 of the way through it. The girl amazes me. I was never a reader. I mean NEVER.

In fact she has inspired me to read Animal Farm and 1984 not because I HAVE to, but because I can. I wonder if I can make it through before it has to be returned to the library in 2 weeks.

Hope is reading Dick and Jane to her dad while he goofs around with his new iPad Zoya's iPad speech device. What a cheater!