Sweet Baby

Monday, Steve and I went to the hospital to welcome our newest nephew on his first day on earth. This is baby number 5 for Steve's sister Laura and her husband Dave, and what a sweet baby he is.

Haiku and Fish Sticks

While studying medieval Japan this week, we made Japanese fabric carp kites (dubbed fish sticks by my 3 year-old nephew.) We also read lots of Haiku poetry. Then we went on a Ginko, or Haiku nature walk and everyone tried their hand at writing some poetry. Although they are not all traditional Haiku, I think they are all beautiful.

Dog Behind Fence by Steve L.

Barking frantically,

The hysterical brown dog

Warns off intruders.

by Daniel

With 2 cousins we made fish kites,

all colorful and white.

We went to a field

scattered about with leaves.

We had lots of energy and ran here and there,

with our kites above and

just behind us they flowed.

by Janey

I am a daisy

born in the spring.

I pop up when

the birdies sing.

by Ellie

When the grass is dead

and the trees don't have leaves,

We go to the dinosaur museum.

Beautiful Flowers

Steve gave me the beautiful mixed bouquet the day before he left town on business. The next morning the long stemmed roses (all 96 of them) arrived by FedEx. They were a gift from Steve's bosses for supporting my husband in the great job he does for his company. He does hard work and I get roses, now that's a deal!

Cousins and Cows

Field Trip Friday found us at Farm Country at Thanksgiving point. An unseasonably warm day, it was perfect for outdoor fun. We invited our cousins along for an extra good time. If you haven't seen their new Soil to Market hands on exhibit, we highly recommend it. I finally had to drag the kids away after an hour at that exhibit alone.

Two Victories

Steve L. competed in two different speech competitions this week. The first was the preliminaries for The Focus on the Founders event held in his Statesmanship Club. He prepared a speech on John Adams and took first place in the event! He will go on to compete in December with all the other Statesmanship clubs in the state.

Saturday he also competed at Weber State University in a homeschool speech and debate tournament. He competed in Spar debate and Impromptu speaking. His dad and I arrived in time to see his last round in each event and see him receive his award for taking 3rd place in Impromptu! Way to go Steve!

Uncle Quinn

We don't get to see nearly enough of Uncle Quinn, so we decided to invite him to dinner and have him all to ourselves. The kids especially loved playing The Great Dalmuti card game and eating brownies and ice cream with him!

Issue 75

Corn Maze

For a birthday present Ellie wanted to go to the corn maze as a family. Thanks for sharing Ellie!

Halloween

The highlight of Halloween is trick-or-treating at Great grandma's' assisted living home.

The Halloween spoils, before they got to pick out their favorites. No family needs that much candy!

Issue 74

Happy Birthday Ellie

How did my baby get to be five years old? What a joy she is! Happy Birthday!

Getting Away from it All

After a crazy busy week at work, Steve needed to bust out and be in nature. I was fighting a cold and the older kids had a Halloween party, so dad took 2 happy campers to Buruston's Pond for some camping and fishing. What a blast!

Issue 73

Bean Musuem by Dad

Ellie the turtle, being attacked by a dinosaur.

Saturday afternoon I took the kids on an outing down to the Bean Museum in Provo Utah, The museum is part of the Provo Campus of BYU. We slipped away to give Noreen a much needed break after very hectic week. I always like to steal away on fun outings myself so it was a treat for me to be with the kids in a fun environment on a Saturday afternoon. I was surprised at ll of the good feelings and nice memories that came back to my mind. I spent most of my schooling years in or around Provo. I attended middle school at a then Provo school, Waterford, and then also received my bachelor's degree in History from BYU. So, it felt like a fun homecoming to be back on campus and telling my children stories. The museum was moderately packed and we had a great time reviewing all of the bird and wildlife exhibits. We have always tried to help our children develop an interest in nature, birds, and the outdoors, I believe since we derive so much pleasure in those items ourselves. We had fun looking at every exhibit and Ellie even participated in the reptile show as a turtle. The show director put a large turtle shell on her back and demonstrated the difficulties that predators have when trying to eat turtles. After the show and our time at the museum we headed to another great spot, the BYU Creamery. Yes, ice cream. I promised Janey that when she finished her reading book, 300+ pages, that we would celebrate with an ice cream. Well, we all benefited from her success with a bite ourselves. Good fun was had by all.

Great-Grandma B

We had Great-grandma B over for a lovely Sunday dinner. It was so wonderful to spend time with her in our home. She is still full of life after almost 87 years! She has 90 Great Grandchildren and 5 more on the way and 21 of her Grandchildren aren't even married yet! She truly is a Great Grandma and we are lucky to have her.