January is almost over already, but I wanted to share these neat pictures from New Year's Eve.  We went to the hills at some friends' land.

They made this huge bonfire.  Here is my son in front of it to see how big it is:

These brave men are standing on a pallet on a fork lift to put the toilet paper rolls up there:

Watch how the heat causes the toilet paper to unroll almost straight up. 

Some of the toilet paper will eventually break and float down in huge streams, unburned! 

You can feel the heat from this thing from very far away!

I know she isn't a baby anymore, she is a big girl and big helper, when she wants to be! Here she is through the years.  I am so thankful for her.

7 weeks:

7 months:

1 1/2:

2, with her new "baby safe" glasses:

 4:

5:

6:

7:

8!:

15 years ago today, I began the wonderful journey of being a Mommy.  I can hardly believe my girl is 15 now, but I  can hardly remember a time without her.  Here are some pictures of our first little blessing:

3 mos

1st birthday:

2 years old:

3

5:

8:

 10:

11:

13:

15!

PS, she got up at 5:30 this morning to make homemade cinnamon rolls.  She made a huge mess, but they were good.  Then she made her own cake from scratch, and even dinner, spaghetti, using spaghetti squash instead of pasta!

The kids just couldn't wait until the next day, but we did wait until after midnight, on January 1, 2010 to open our time capsule.  It wasn't quite as exciting as we had all hoped.  No long lost toys were in there.  No dollars. I took pictures of some of the items.  I will list the rest at the end of this post.

Pictures of all of us on January 1, 2000:

(some ink got on some of them)

C, above, almost 5

D, age 3

A age 1 1/2

B, 6 weeks!

I had put in a few newspapers:

I put this Y2K book inside, that was obviously useless since nothing happened :) Yes, we did some preparing for that.

Also:

Coins from 1999, and some pennies from the years of our births or high school graduations.

Two Duplos

Lowly Worm in an apple car toy.

My 1999 Calendar

A faded receipt from Albertsons.  It's hard to read, but large red delicious apples were $1.19 a lb.

The kids have been working on our next time capsule to be opened in 2020!  My youngest will be a Senior in High School!  They all said they would come home to open it :)  They wrote about what they are doing now, what they are like, and what they think or hope they will be doing in 10 years.   They added some kind of keepsake, artwork, money, photos.  I will add to it, and I'll try to make it a little more interesting and surprising for them.  I will for sure make the box prettier, seal it up and put it away. Check back here in January 2020 :)

A couple of weekends ago, my two oldest and I went down south to work in an Operation Christmas Child processing center.  For several years now, we have filled shoeboxes to send to needy kids around the world.  This year, friends of ours are volunteers in the organization and invited us to be a part of this great ministry.  We worked for a few hours going through the shoeboxes taking out anything perishable or breakable and made sure they were full enough.  If not, there were extra things to add to the box.  Some of the boxes were so full of great stuff, while others had very little in them.  The kids will also get a gospel booklet in their language.  Here are a few pics:

This man, named Jim, helped us with our many questions. 

Assembly lines:

In one month from today we get to open our time capsule.  I can't believe it has already been 10 years!  When I packed it up, I had 4 kids under 5.  The kids can't wait.  I didn't let them see what I put in it, and they are convinced that they will find some of their long lost toys in there.  It is only a big shoebox, so there is not much in there.  I know of a few things, and honestly, it isn't all that exciting, but I am sure I can't remember everything I put in there!  We have carried the box around with us through 4 different moves.  If I had know I would be blogging about it, I would have made it look prettier.  If you have not done a time capsule, now is a good time!  If your kids will be out of the house in 10 years, it will be a good time to bring them all home for the event.  We will be making another one this January, to be opened in 2020! My youngest will almost be 18!  So stay tuned, on January 1, 2010 we will open the time capsule! Here is the ugly thing unopened and dusty.  I covered our last name with the bookmark.

Yesterday was our 17th wedding anniversary!  We had a wonderful time of Christmas shopping and going out to dinner. That's what you do when you get married on Thanksgiving weekend. :)  Here we are at our wedding reception back in November, 1992 in Oregon:

One of the stores we went to yesterday was Costco, "just to see what toys they have".  It was almost closing time, so we didn't have much time, but we found this cute thing:

It is an advent calendar.  Each of the houses have numbered little doors that open.  Even the top of the chimney and the little trees have doors.  I am supposed to fill them with surprises.  Some of the kids' ideas are candy, money, or Lego people.  I better hurry!

Here is the front door open, number 13.  We usually just buy the $1 one with the awful chocolate.  This will be much more fun.  It is just made of styrofoam poster board stuff, but if we are careful, it will last for years. It was only $15!  We placed it on our piano.  I'll probably change it a bit.  The red glass doesn't go.  :)

I got the idea from my friend Daisy , though I should have thought of it myself.   Thanks, Daisy :)

I'm thankful for....

~ Jesus & being forgiven

~ my husband

~ my family

~ children still at home

~ homeschooling

~ cool weather

~ the holidays

~ friends

~ hot tea

~ our home

~ plenty of food

~ dark chocolate

~ popcorn

~ our church

~ email

~ my camera

~ my bed

~ good health

~ our books

~ our computer

~ laughing children

~ camping

~ the beach

~ the mountains

~ the giant trees

~ Thanksgiving at my house

~ and that I don't have to kill then pluck the feathers off the turkey like the woman in the picture is about to go do.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

We had another birthday today!  B is 10 years old!  Here are a few pictures of my cutie pie.

Brand new.  How 'bout that hair!:

8 months:

3 years old, camping in Yosemite:

Age 3 years:

6 years old:

7 years old:

Ten years old!  Getting a Build a Bear puppy whom he named Dusty: 

Our youngest got baptized today!  She is 7 years old, and she decided to follow Jesus in August.  Almost right away she asked about being baptized all on her own.  So when our church announced the first baptism day since then, we signed her up.  She went to a class to make sure she understood that it wasn't being baptized that saves you, only Jesus can do that.  But it is an outward symbol of becoming a Christian, and obedience to God.  So here are a couple of pictures.

Going down....

 Coming up, a new beginning!

I have been a Mom for over 14 years now.  A young mom recently asked me if it gets easier.  It  made me realize just how much my family has changed.  In the first 7 years, I had 5 babies. By the time our youngest was born, the children were 7, 5, 3, & 2.  I changed diapers constantly for almost 10 years.  I was either nursing or pregnant for 10 years!  We started our homeschool. 

2002:

Look at that mischievous face! Still the same after all these years!

In the next 7 years, we moved to another area.  We bought our first house.  We have 5 kids in school.  We have a highschooler!  The kids are now 14, 13 (there have been a few birthdays), 11, 9 & 7.  Wow. They are a huge help around the house. They are becoming more independent and are learning a lot.  And they love the Lord. We all still have a lot to learn, but we are learning together.

 In 7 more years, they will be 14 - 21!  So I am going to enjoy them more than ever.  When they are young, it feels like we will be a mom of littles forever.  Even now, I can't imagine life without them in my home.  But the time will come when they move on and get their own homes and families.  I can hardly bear the thought.  But with God's help, I will continue to train and prepare them for that time, so that they are strong in the Lord and ready for what God has for them.

Here they are last summer, 2009:

My 9yo son has low muscle tone.  For the past few years, he has received hippotherapy, that is, therapy on horseback.  This year he has graduated to "vaulting".  Vaulting is when they do various moves while the horse is moving.  It is really neat to watch a trained vaulter!  Here are some pictures of my son.  He is just beginning, and a bit scared, but he is getting more used to it every time.

Turning around:

Tadaa!:

We went to the beach in August.  It was cold and foggy, but oh so nice to get out of this heat (it was 101 on the first day of fall).  We stayed three nights and each night my 9yos wanted to go to the beach to see the sunset. But we knew that with the fog  we would not get much of a show.  On the last night, he asked again.  And it happened to be 5 minutes before sunset according to our handy dandy tide book.  Everyone thought it would be too foggy, so just my two youngest and I went.  And this is what we saw.

Chase

Our newest addition to our family.  Chase is a Tibetan Terrier, probably mix.  We expect his hair to grow long, though we won't know for awhile.  We got Chase at the SPCA a few weeks ago.  He had had a hair cut, but we took him to the groomers to get it professionally done and he looks great.  He could really use some training, as he has been chewing on certain clothing items! 

After a trip to the groomer:

A new school year has begun!  We started on August 3.  People ask me why we started so early.  Let me explain.  We live in a not so big city that gets very hot in the summer.  Like over 100 degrees for at least a month.  We took 7 weeks off for our summer break.  We don't have a pool, but we did go swimming at a friend's house several times.  Being that we have moved here from the mild climate of the Bay Area in No. California, the heat is hard to get used to. I get so drained just being out there for 10 minutes!  So we spend a lot of time indoors.  We did go camping, and plan to again next week, to the cool beach, and a few other fun things.  But after awhile, the kids start to go stir crazy and need more structure.  But the biggest reason is that I want to take plenty of time off in the cooler months.  Maybe we will actually go hiking in the mountains, or go for a bike ride.  We school for about 36 weeks, that leaves 17 weeks off in the year.  We plan to take 2 weeks off in Oct, 1 in Nov, 3 in Dec, 2 in Feb/Mar, 2 in Apr.  Then another 6  in the summer again. 

We also changed our daily schedule a bit.  Instead of doing math right after Bible, we are doing spelling, then English, then history or science.  We do math and the other subjects after lunch.  This is a great change and it's so nice to be able to mix things up again to keep it interesting!  We also changed up our school room.  We got rid of the too slow kids' computer and gave that desk to our new high schooler.  She loves having her own place for her books and studies.  Here are a few pics of our first day.

I decluttered the tops of the bookcases using those baskets I got from the .99 store and it is so much better now.  I just have to remember to dust up there now and then!

The eager high schooler!

8th grader:

6th grader:

The 3rd grader:

The eager 2nd grader:

Note: the 3 boys in the middle pics got haircuts today, so they look like boys again! 

We had planted 3 watermelon seedlings in the spring.  We had a few tiny watermelons, but they died before getting very big at all.  We ended up only getting one but it was a good one.  We had no idea when it would be ripe, but it had stopped getting bigger.  The leaves were starting to turn brown/yellow.  So we picked it and it was nice and red and juicy.

The only things left in our garden are tomatoes, mostly cherry, and lots of peppers.  So, lots of salsa for us!

I've been wanting an easel for quite awhile now.  I wanted to be able to prop up books of art like Monet and Van Gogh so the kids can become familiar with them.  I wanted to be able to prop up the white board for demonstrations, or to prop up other educational posters.  I had bought one at the office store.  The legs were made of aluminum, I think.  They were so thin and wobbly.  Clearly, it was meant for a nice calm office with a few calm adults and not a room full of homeschooled kids!  So I took it back before it got broken.  One day last spring, the kids made little table easels at Home Depot in the kids workshop.  I love them!  I can prop up small books on the table now!  Then I went to my friend's house and they had one just like it only bigger!  So I studied it and measured it and bought the supplies.  We finally got it built last weekend!  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, a lot of trial and error, but we did it and I love it!  Here it is, being put to good use:

I know I said I wanted to learn or do something new every week.  Ok, so that was a big order.  But, I am doing plenty of firsts this summer, and I will be posting them here. 

The first time I have ever prepared and painted a room! We had to remove the wallpaper, back in March.   Wallpaper Removal

It took a lot more time to scrape off the teeny tiny bits of stubborn wallpaper that you could hardly see, but would mess up a paint job.  I learned about TSP and that helped a lot, getting off more that I hadn't seen!  But, another delay in painting.  Then the taping, buying supplies, picking out paint, and we were finally ready!  Two coats of paint w/ the primer mixed in.  Here are the pictures.  My girls were so happy to get their room back in order.  Their stuff was in the closet for months!

The closet, a little darker shade:

Putting the bed together:

All done!

The purple came out a little darker than I had expected, but they love it.  We will be getting pretty curtains and bedding, and another bed for little sister, too! Probably bunkbeds, as a trundle would take up too much room in there.  It is only about 10 x 7 not counting the closets!