See all previous years: Norman, WI.  The “town” of Norman, WI, hasn’t changed since last year, except for a repaved stretch of road.  Another gorgeous fall day for a mini road trip and some photos!   

I used to be able to lift my baby up to the sign!

    

There were bees by the flowers here, and the boys are both terrified of bees this year, so I snapped a quick picture and didn’t notice I completely washed out the street sign.  Just pretend the next picture goes with this shot of the kids 🙂

We took a fall field trip to Meuer Farm:

The boys unsurprisingly spent most of their time in the giant barn full of hay piles/tunnels:

Otis loved the corn bin:

And Norman enjoyed the challenge of the numbers maze:

Last month, we took a field trip to Sheboygan to go to the Spaceport museum and a stop at the beach afterwards.

Launching stomp rockets they made:

Fun with air and motion:

And a trip to the (chilly) beach:

Not exactly a field trip, but a perk of homeschooling is taking science class to the park!

Children’s Museum dress up/performance:

A different trip to the Children’s museum:

(We just love fun Otis-hair pictures!!)

Library morning at the Brown County Fair:

“Milking a cow” (Fake cow, fake milk)

Veggie race cars

Watching baking soda/vinegar rockets

Fluffy bunny!!

My very own fairest of the fair:

Oat and Baby Cousin Gavin

Norm and Baby Cousin Jazmine

TimberRattlers Tailgating!

Star Wars Night at the TimberRattlers was a blast for the boys.  They loved that everyone was running around lightsaber-battling one another! 

More Star Wars on a different day– Things That Go event at a local park.  Pretty much everything kids love: costumed characters, Legos, vehicles, ice cream!

Both boys have greatly improved their soccer game over last year!  

And they both have earned their goal-scoring ice cream! 

Unfortunately, Norman fell off some monkey bars and broke his arm… so no more soccer for him this season!  He’s taking it pretty well, though.  It helps that he has a cool sling that he designed 🙂

And here are some good ol’ silly summer kid fun pictures:

             

Happy birthday to this smart, sports-loving, curious, incredible SEVEN YEAR OLD!

Norm designed his birthday shirt and the seven-peg Lego cake.  Delicious!!

Happy birthday (last weekend) to our silly, sweet, stubborn, snuggly little Chicken!

He designed and decorated his own birthday cake again this year.

And his birthday shirt!

We took some birthday money to the toy store, and he found a perfect mix of his current obsessions Legos AND Star Wars.  These have been built and rebuilt probably twenty times in the last couple days!

It was a big week, too.  A couple days after he turned five, he lost his first tooth.  And in first-tooth-losing fashion for our children, it is literally lost, since there was no Grandma Cheryl around to find it this time.  Oat was running around the table with friends at their house, and even with half a dozen small children crawling around the floor to look for the tooth, it remains at large.  

A quick look back at past birthdays:

End-of-the-year photo post so A) I don’t start off 2015 already behind and B) I’m not irrationally crushed if my computer somehow loses important photos!

The boys discovered you can play Solitaire with real cards, not just on my phone!

Pretty much every morning, you can find these two checking sports highlights 🙂

Christmas tree-ing:

Norm and Oat got a Wii for Christmas from Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa.  Immediately upon opening the controllers, they started “playing” without anything being hooked up!

Christmas presents were lots of Legos, Star Wars, and Lego Star Wars.  And new clothes for the boys, which I get excited about as a mom 🙂  

 

And now for a bunch of Otis, because he actually lets me take his picture most of the time.  Ha, they are not all from the same day, but he is wearing his favorite Darth Vader shirt in almost all of them!

 

Because the outtakes are always funnier, and without them, well, we wouldn’t have a lot of pictures anyway 🙂

We actually did get a couple good ones, though!

Wishing everyone a very blessed Christmas season!!

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

 

It’s snowing outside, so we are having our own stay-warm snow day inside! The boys mixed up some lotion and conditioner with baking soda to make some fun indoor snow. I added some peppermint essential oil, and Norman said, “Now it smells like Christmas snow!”

When late October/early November rolled around in WI, we had some rare warm days when we could go to the park in shorts and bare feet!

Checking out ladybugs going down the slide.

Now we are much more into the expected winter weather (and the ladybugs have moved into our house).  I don’t have good outside snow pictures yet because it’s TOO COLD for me to be out there!

So now we start finding lots of indoor things to do.  The boys attended a Halloween party with some friends.

Norman asked the balloon guy to make him a pink sword.  Otis asked for “just a plain circle balloon.”  Ha!

They were Lego Ninjago characters Jay and Kai, in case you aren’t familiar with that particular realm of Lego world.

Otis decided all on his own to sort his candy after trick-or-treating.

 

Lots of indoor fun at the children’s museum, playing with sand and “frozen bubbles.”

 

Building Star Wars Ghost ship:

Building paper airplanes:

Building Lego pizza shops:

Coloring/card-making:

Shape-sorting:

 

Taking Daddy out to supper for his birthday:

 

More indoor fun to come in the next few months!!