16-month Mollie

Mollie loves baby dolls.

She almost always has one around. It's so cute to watch her hug them and hold them, and she's starting to try and take care of them, too. Like giving them one of her old pacis (that Kate cut the tip off of so it could get closer to their faces and be more realisitic).

Mollie also has a new-found love for baby strollers.

This is one of Kate's that we saved, and I pulled it down when I was getting

all my stuff down for the consignment sale.

Mollie has logged some miles with it!

She is also a fan of shoes. All sizes : )

This is how she asks for 'more' or lets us know that she wants some of whatever is being given out. We've been working with her here and there on some signs, but they never really took. She'll break one out every now and then, but she's mostly just trying to use words now.

*Looking just like me when I was this age!

Speaking of words, the new word around our house is 'Skib'.

That's what Kate has taken to calling Mollie. Random, right?

It all traces back to when she first came home as a newborn last year,

Hudson couldn't say 'Mollie' or 'baby', so he called her 'Be-Be' all the time. Kate would mess around with this silly baby-talk voice and say all these different sounds that rhymed with 'Be-Be'...like 'She-Be', 'The-Be', 'T-Be'. She liked 'T-Be' and kept that for a while...and then sometimes it'd be shortened to 'Tibs'...as in 'C'mon Tibs, let's go'. And now, it's become 'Skib'. Sometimes 'Skibs', but usually 'Skib'. And I think this one is going to stick.

We'll see. I thought the same thing about all Hudson's names, back in the 'Mudson, Mudsie, Mr. Mudsie' days, but that abruptly stopped one day too.

Mudcats game

The Carolina Mudcats are a local minor-league baseball team (affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds). We got a great deal on some tickets and took the whole family, plus our friends Brandon and Emily, over to nearby Zebulon, NC to catch one of the last games of the season.

Here's how you know you are getting close to the stadium...

The kids thought this was so cool. A giant baseball up in the sky!

MUDCATS!!!!!

They do all kinds of fun little things during the inning breaks, like having two teams of three kids each (boys vs. girls) pile into a GIANT pair of whitey-tightys and race.

The girls won, by the way ; )

Or having two teams dress up as hamburger buns and race to put all the parts of the 'hamburger' together first. (Funny to think that our friends George and Catherine got chosen to do this one time when they came to a game! Would've LOVED to see that!!)

This last ditch effort by the team at the bottom of the picture cracked me up...He is literally airborne in the picture! I sure would hate to be the bottom bun on this team!!

And this was all Hudson has talked about since. He's been saying "you remember those hamburgers last night? it was SO 'larious" followed by an emphatic nod and big smile. ('larious is his way of saying hilarious, which is hilarious to me)

Our friends, Brandon and Emily, soon to be newlyweds! 4 weeks to go until their wedding. Josh and I have had the privilege of doing their pre-marital counseling, and Josh will be officiating their wedding in Vero Beach, FL next month! Exciting times : )

Bulgogi

Our friend June Kim is from South Korea, and he wanted to come over and cook for us. I don't know that I've ever had Korean food before. He came to our house and whipped up some Bulgogi and I'm so glad he did! Delicious!

One cool thing we did while June was over was have him read Scripture in Korean during our family worship time. He chose to read John 3:16, and then the kids quoted it afterwards. It's amazing to hear such familiar words spoken in a language that is foreign to us. It was beautiful.

I think our evening with June inspired Hudson to try and change up his hair-do. A few days after June was over, Hudson was very busy with the water in the bathroom one morning, and when he came out, he said "Mama, you like my 'pikeys'? I look like Mr. Noon Kim."

(Pikeys=spikeys)

Posing, saying "June Kimmmm"

LLLC 2011

The boys started their classes at Bay Leaf today, at the Little Lambs Learning Center (LLLC). It was a much anticipated day, and they were both ready to go. Yesterday we got to go over and meet their teachers. Hudson's sent home a fun little project to start off the year. We were to decorate a little paper person to look like Hudson. He and I had great fun working on it together, with a little supervision from big brother.

Checking out the finished product.

He likes it!

The first day is here! Ready to go!

*Seriously, could they stop growing?! Or at least slow it down. They are getting so big! Sometimes I wish that I could freeze time...

Hudson was so excited to hear that his buddy Judson was going to be in class with him.

They've been friends since they were babies (we used to be in small group together).

He was actually talking about 'Nudson' when we were pulling up to the church.

Daniel and Lindsay pulled up a few minutes later so we all walked in together.

I stopped my boys to get a picture by the tree, and Judson wanted to be in it, too.

Hudson makes me laugh here...I can literally see his brain working.

And then, two seconds later, back and perfectly posed! Aren't they all so cute?!

We weren't sure what to expect from Hudson,

since this is his first time ever going to preschool.

But he went right in without a second glance,

and showed his teacher everything that he brought in his bag.

Everything. : )

Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Dawn. Looking forward to a great year with them!

Carter did great, too. He has Mrs. Allison and Mrs. Lori. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about them from friends who know them and/or have had them teach their children, so we're looking forward to a great year with them, too!

*And a fun side-note, Carter's class is in the same room Kate had for Kindergarten : )

I love LLLC. So glad to be here for a third year!

Back to School!

After a nice, long summer break (I think we took about 9 weeks off!), we started school again.

We timed it to start the same day as the seminary began the Fall Semester (Josh's last semester of seminary!?! Can hardly believe that!).

And, I'm a student this semester, too! I'm auditing Dr. Thomas' Hermeneutics class on Monday afternoons. What a privilege to sit under such a gifted teacher. I'm so thankful to have this opportunity. Plus, I've learned what "Hermeneutics" means! It means how to study the Bible. I think that's the best part of the class...it leaves me wanting to read my Bible. Josh has said many times over these past three years that taking these classes stirs his heart to worship God and love Christ more, and now I understand why. It's powerful and I love it. Kind of wish I'd done it before now, but I know God's timing is always perfect. Plus, I'm getting to do it with Rachel, who is auditing the class, too.

Here is my big second grader, fired up about starting school!!

I switched things up this year, and we are using Adventures in My Father's World for Kate's 2nd grade. We'll be doing US History again this year, with a little different emphasis than what we covered last year. We'll cover the early colonists and pilgrims and go all the way through to the early 1900s, plus we'll study all 50 states. We're using Jessie Wise's "First Language Lessons" for English and Singapore Math again.

Kate is super pumped that she'll be learning cursive, and we've got some really cool art and science lined up for the year, plus we'll be learning several hymns.

And of course, we have tons of great books to read!! (both her-to-me and me-to -her)

I'm just as excited about it as she is!!

We had to name and register our school with the state this year since Kate is seven years old. Reed Academy is what we chose (by unanimous decision),

and I love that Kate made a sign for our first day, unprompted.

It says "The Reed Academy is open."

Me and my cutie pie, ready to learn.

And, more exciting news! Our enrollment tripled this year! The boys will be joining us (on the days they don't go to Bay Leaf for preschool). I went ahead and got My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum to use with Carter, although he won't 'officially' start Kindergarten until next year when he's 5. It's phonics based, and a well-rounded, gentle introduction, plus it will correlate well with what they teach up at LLLC. So we're incorporating that into our school days which is really fun! They begin with a study through Creation (from the book of Genesis) and then move into a unit study built around each letter of the alphabet.

Basic math skills, beginning reading and writing are all in there,

plus fun stuff like coloring, cutting and gluing.

With Hudson, we're just having fun and working on coloring and some cutting, plus we do a lot of singing and reading. He is not quite as interested in the whole of it like Carter is, which is fine. I just have Hudson do a little bit with us, and then he is free to play quietly if he wants to.

So fun to be teaching my boys, too. They are pumped about doing school with us! They literally cheer when I say it's time to start and they run to their seats at the table. Love it.

I love, love, love my little book-worm. Reminds me of me at that age. I read all the time, and on a fun side-note, we actually brought home a big box full of classics from Mom's house this summer that I read when I was Kate's age. So we're going to enjoy digging into them this year!

And this is how I find my boys most days after we finish our school time : )

*Lest it seem that we are always all smiley, home-schooling in utopia or something, we most certainly are not. We all struggle with bad attitudes, and frustration, and complaining. As hard as those moments are, and there are a LOT of them throughout our weeks, I welcome them because they remind me that I will fail every time I set out to do this if I'm relying on my own strength to do it. Home-schooling has driven me to depend on the Lord in a way I'm not sure I would have if we had chosen a different path for our family. It sure has been sanctifying, and I know it will continue to reveal sin in all of us. But God's Word tells us that His kindness leads us to repentance, and doing this every week allows for so many teachable moments, invaluable opportunities to train and shepherd my children and their hearts, as well as hear from God about the condition of my own heart and to grow in my relationship with Him.

Plus, I absolutely love this time with them, even the days when I want to tear my hair out. And I know that is evidence of God's grace in my life. Utterly thankful. I honestly would never have said in a million years that I'd be doing this now, and LOVING it. So thankful that God is in control of my life and not me! What a mess I would make of it...

Horseback Riding

Kate has a new-found love for horses.

I'm not sure what sparked it, but it's been going on for several months now.

I got a Groupon a while ago for a (heavily discounted) lesson,

so we thought that would be a fun Daddy date.

We were right! They had a blast,

and this little girl came home

asking when she can ride a horse again...Success.

Silly boys

These two know how to make life fun!