Combining blogs

I am combining our adoption blog and family blog so please go to willadopt.blogspot.com
Thanks

Oliver's 6 birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVER-WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

licking the frosting off his toy wolves.

Nana Renee sent a package with lots of fun birthday stuff for Oliver. The silly string was a big hit with everyone-Travis had never seen it before. They had a blast getting eachother with it. Thanks nana!!

Okay, so I know I am not a professional, but so far, Oliver is ok with me making him his cake. And really I enjoy making something fun for him. I am sure he will get to the age where it's not cool anymore, but for now.....

Oliver and his two new wolves for his birthday. Check out the sliding doo behind him-another gift from Nana renee, window markers. Fun was had by all with these-even mom and dad.

Oliver turned 6 on Sunday. I hope he had a good day-we tried to make it fun and special. He wanted a wolf bday cake and that's all he asked for. He never forgot about Thatcher being able to pick out a toy at the zoo for his bday present-so that's what he wanted to do too. After church, Travis took him to the gift shop and let him pick something out-an arcitc fox-which he thinks is a white wolf. While they were there, I made the bday cake. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I did it and it turned out ok. The goal was met and Oliver loved it, he wanted to play with it and not eat it. But that didn't last long though.

Travis's parents came over and ate pizza and cake with us. Oliver couldn't wait to open his gift, but he says he already knew what it was. Shocker....another wolf toy.

So we can always remember Oliver's bdays by what he was obsessed with at the time, I call it the era of.....

his 1 bday he wasn't really into anything in particular

2-era of the pigs

3-era of the elephant

4-era of the dinosaur

5-era of the dog

6-era of the wolf

He is so fun and we are so thankful God has intrusted us with him.

Ladybug Hill

We have had some beautiful weather the last week or so and trying to make the most of it. While playing outside one day, we noticed a ton of ladybugs all around the rocks under the apple tree. The boys were thrilled to play with so many at once.

We are so thankful for this nice weather and winter is delayed a little longer.

Fall day

It has been so cold lately and the leaves have fallen without turning colors. But today was just right to go out and play, so we raked some leaves into a pile and the kids had fun playing with them. Why do we own toys????
After playing we had home-made chicken noodle soup for supper. It felt good to warm up after the chilly day. We had a great day just being together as a family-we are so blessed!!

Butterfly house

The zoo has a butterfly house and the boys loved going in and seeing them up close. After Oliver got one to get on his finger-he was hooked. They (butterflies) have become cooler than the tigers!

Home made t-shirts

For a craft/playdate. The kids made home-made t-shirts. They each drew a picture and then we printed onto an iron on transfer. We only wasted a couple sheets until we figured it out-but the end result was pretty cute. The kids were proud of their artwork!!!!

BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY

Kids can always find a game with water involved.

The pinata that didn't take as long to break as we thought. Swinging a bat with 6 children around----tense!

Making their bookmarks.

"Do I have something on my face?"

We had a back to school party with another homeschool family. We wanted to do something fun for the start of the new school year, especially since we were going to be homeschooling and wanted the kids to get excited about that.

We grilled and had cupcakes for dessert. The kids played a couple of games like finding hidden pencils with candy attached and a horse pinata(it was almost to cute to hit). They made bookmarks with stickers and got a journal to take home. Everyone wrote down what they wanted to work on this school year and we put those into a container and gave those prayer requests to the Lord. At the end of the school year we will bring them back out to see how God has worked in us in those areas.

At the end of the night, we had a fire and made smores. It ended up being a late night but a fun time fellowshiping with friends.

And the Race is ON!!

The boys have been crazy about race cars lately. So they made their own race cars to have their own races. We cut old cardboard boxes and they chose a color of tissue paper to glue on and they picked their favorite number. Thatcher wasn't too excited to make it, I don't think he could "envision" the end product. But when they were finished they were so excited to "drive" them around and pretend to race.

Homeschool

The new school year was a big change for us. Oliver started Kindergarten. Since we are homeschooling, it wasn't sad to start the school year, but it changed our daily lives drastically. No more lazy days, just playing around. We developed a family master schedule that includes what everyone needs to accomplish in a day, including school. The boys started chore packs to help them learn how to do chores without me reminding them all day long, what to do and how to do it. Our schedule is evolving as we are learning better ways of doing things and different times that work better than others but it's good to feel like we are getting things done that need to be done.
Oliver is doing well in school and is learning a lot. I am so excited for him to learn how to read-that is such a big step.
Travis and I decided we needed to start spending more one on one time with each of the boys. So last night I took Thatcher out on a date. He got to choose what we did and he wanted to go to Target. So we went to the mall and rode the toy cars, he loves to drive anything. The ice cream store was out of business (???) so he got a pink drink from starbucks and we walked around the toy section at target. It was neat to give him my undivided attention and to see his personality come out without his brothers overshadowing. The last thing we did was to get pictures taken in the photo booth at the mall. He loved it because he got his own set of pics as well. We made silly faces and one actually looks like I am getting ready to punch him. Not sure how that happened. I hope we can continue to do this with all the boys.
Oliver then went with Travis this morning for breakfast. He chose Mcdonald's for breakfast and they also went to Starbucks for coffee, more for just visiting.
Next week we will switch, somehow working Sebastian into the mix too.

This is Oliver teaching Thatcher the moves to a song they sing at Vacation Bible School. This was Oliver's first year going and he LOVES it. Of course he was apprehensive at first, but after the first night, it's all he talks about, ALL DAY LONG!! It's wonderful to see him excited about going to CHURCH and learning about GOD.