Tree Climbing and other fun times with cousins

Night time jumping on the trampoline.

B.A.C. club...keeping the girls out of their tree and club territory, (who were not all that interested in the tree fort anyway).

The kids enjoyed hanging out on the trampoline just to tell stories and plan.

Ethan was easy to see in his orange OSU gear up in the huge tree.

This very tall tree in the backyard provided hours of entertainment for my boys and their cousins. I had to bite my tongue and not be an overbear mom and allow my boys to engage in some manly "dangerous" behaviors. If you look closely at this picture, one of the boys has his hand sticking out waving.

Strawberry picking

We picked strawberries a couple weeks ago at Sauvie Island. I had hoped to get back for more but I found out we have moved into the rasberry and blueberry seasons already. We are going to pick those on Tuesday.

Guitar Practice

Ethan and Levi are taking guitar lessons. Their teacher is a believer and he gives them new worship songs to play each week in addition to their lesson books. They are getting quite a repertoire. I found Ethan practicing in the basement one day pivoting on the ball to play the next song.

Last day for...

The boys played their last baseball game tonight. They lost a close one. Now summer can really begin...

Tonight is our last night with our cousins. The kids are watching "Return of the King", the third of the Lord of the Rings movies. They have watched the other two the past 2 nights.

Corey received an order from Amazon at our house today: two board games - "Axis and Allies: Pacific" and "D-Day Axis and Allies". After the kids worked outside in my yard weeding and trimming bushes, they spent hours playing games. (My yard looks amazing after all the help I got from Anne and her kids these past few days. I hope the weeds don't grow back too quickly.)

This week has flown by and I am guessing that our home with four kids will seem very quiet and calm after the five cousins leave in the morning. I am driving them back to Canada. I wish they lived next door so we could see them every day.

Time with my sister

It is great to have sisters. I am enjoying my time with Anne. We prefer old photos of us to current ones...so here is trip down memory lane.

Fun on schedule for today

My sister is coloring her hair at my house today. Then she will cut my hair.

I was having second thoughts about it this morning as I was remembering several home perm experiences I had with her in high school. Can I trust a person who gave me a bad perm and then laughed so hard she had tears streaming down her face when I finally got a glimpse of it in the mirror?

Natalie wants her hair colored as well. But she will just be a spectator today.

Today's Fun

Todd trimmed a tree.

Natalie and Gracie powerwashed the shed.

The little boys played in the water.

A before picture of the deck.

The boys around Uncle Todd and the deck stain.

Max.

Levi taking a pop break.

Corey being painted into a corner.

Ethan.

Corey and Jack.

The finished deck which isn't quite as red in real life. We used a stain that is supposed to look like redwood. I think it will fade a bit.

The boys being attacked with silly string by the girls.

It is great to have cousins even if they have to live on the other side of the world. It makes our times together that much more appreciated.

Poor baby

Cente got his head caught in the bars.

Six Months

Cente has been a part of our family for 6 months. We love him. And pray for him. We do not know what the future holds for him.

Activities for the week..

The three serious readers on their way to Powell's Books.

A friendly game of Apples to Apples. Grace is reacting to a bad call.

Corey cleaning out our gutters.

Natalie and Grace making jewelry.

Corey helping Grandpa jump-start Uncle Wendell's Jeep.

Creative play

The kids have been having a great time playing with their cousins. Today, the boys were outside in a fort they built in the laurel hedge forming a club...something called the Boys Army Club or Boys Against Cooties...(I kept hearing different interpretations of their sign "B.A.C." so I am not definite on the official title. )They made flags and every 15 minutes or so marched around the yard shouting their own homemade slogans and and pelting Natalie and Grace with pine cones anytime they got close.

Natalie and Grace have been making jewelry. David who is 6 has learned what it is like to have someone younger around. Cente follows him everywhere. I'll post some photos tomorrow.

Fun times ahead

Off to Abbotsford, Canada to pick up Auntie Anne and the 5 cousins from China. YAY!

I haven't posted much lately because I have:

• painful carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists. (May have surgery this summer...if I don't chicken out. Images like the one above, send me back to my wrist braces.)
  
• misplaced my camera for a few weeks.
• a laptop monitor that keeps going black in the middle of my posting.
• been trying to wean myself a bit from too frequent computer moments.
• been working in my yard. I have strawberries, lettuce, and peas ready to eat.
  
• spent much time at the baseball field watching my boys.
  

Quote by one of my boys...

After I shushed one of my boys for peppering me with sooo many questions about soooo many varied topics one after another.... he shrugged his shoulders and said with a grin"Hey, I am a Renaissance man, mom."

The strange children one raises when one homeschools.

Actually, later my kids and I were having a conversation about several people we know and my kids remarked that these children were weird and began to blame homeschooling. I nipped that in the bud quickly. My thesis is that kids are like their parents. If a kid is weird, don't first blame their education; look at mom and dad. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And I can remember some pretty strange classmates in my public high school.

Our Plum Tree

Our plum tree is loaded with fruit this year!

Pests

Birds are eating our strawberries. Slugs are eating my garden. Racoons and possums are eating the cat food. A dog ate our chicken. Ants are eating anything else we drop.... the yard is teeming with pesky animal life.

Natalie

Nan's first comment upon hearing she gets to take classes at the charter school: "Yay! Do I get to go "back to school" clothes shopping?"

Ethan pitching

Trying to beat dad at Blockus

A fun evening pasttime lately.

Our nightly visitors

If the cats have not finished their food for the day, we have several guest who are happy to eat the leftovers. We have had nightly visits from this pair plus several possums. These guys are so tame it is scary. They won't run if we yell at them. They just back up a couple steps and wait for us to go back inside.

And then there were 3...and a happy dog.

We now have the legal limit of chickens at our house. We had 4 and were waiting to see if one was a rooster. Last week, a neighbor dog ran into our backyard. The chicks would have been safe as they were in a fenced enclosure, but Levi's hen flew up in a panic right into the jaw of the dog and it was over in a snap. It was a bit traumatic and now we have very skiddish chicks.

What school looks like in the fall

I applied for admission for my kids to Alliance Charter Academy in Oregon City this spring. It is a school run by the Oregon City School district for homeschoolers. Students may sign up to take some classes at the Academy but most of their learning is done at home and the school provides the parents an allotment amount to buy curriculum of their choice and assigns each family an "education specialist" who meets with the students weekly and collects samples of work from each subject monthly.

I did not hold out much hope for their being admitted. We were told that there were 60 students in district on a waiting list and that we were 80th on the out of district list so we have no chance. I was surprised to get the call last week offering the kids spots in the school. The lady I spoke with said that because Natalie is a high schooler we got in. They have to keep the ratio of high schoolers, middle schoolers, and elementary students equal and because she got in, all three are in. Yay.

So, we are thinking that Natalie will be taking Spanish, Speech and Debate, and a Writing/Literature class in the fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ethan will take Spanish, Band, and a Video making class. And Levi will take a science class, Colonial American history class, Band and PE. The kids are pretty excited about this. So am I!

Immunization Drama

My kids were accepted to take classes as a charter school this fall in Oregon City... I'll comment on this later...and a requirement for admission is that they are current on all their immunizations. So last Thursday I loaded them into the van and we headed to the doctor's office.

Everything started out okay...after a 30 minute wait in front of the nurses station, Natalie was called back. She got her two shots and returned. Ethan was next. Again, 2 shots and back to the waiting room. Levi was next and he wanted me to go with him. He needed 4 shots (although I now have learned that the nurse lied to me about their needing one of their shots...and I am not very happy about it.)

Because he had a baseball game that evening, I asked the nurse to put the 2 least painful shots in his right arm in case he need to pitch. The nurse gave him two shots in the right and then gave him the first of two in the left. Right after the needle went into his arm, he turned white and looked at me and said "I don't feel right." The nurse saw him point to his throat and say that it felt funny. She quickly laid him down, put on a blood pressure cuff, looked in his mouth, and then called a doctor.

The pediatrician was right down the hall, and came rushing in. Levi was not struggling to breath but looked like he was close to passing out. They put an oxygen monitor on him...and the doctor said his body was reaction to having 3 shots given in such quick succession.

Then while we are standing over Levi, Natalie came running back into the room yelling "Something is wrong with Ethan." He had been walking around the waiting room, when he got lightheaded and began staggering and then vomiting. So he was brought back to the nurses station looking all pasty white and had to lie down.

Aghhhh!

My boys are pretty skinny. (Healthy and active...and they do eat.) But when Levi was lying there his ribs were all visible and the doctor looked at me and asked have your children had anything to eat today. I wanted to say "Can't you smell the pizza my son just threw up?"

Levi told me he wouldn't be able to travel to China with us someday if we go because he was not going to get another shot ever.

On the way home he asked me "Mom, what is the most scared you have ever been?" I asked "Why?" and he said "Today was the scariest day ever for me."