Choir Christmas Concert 2008

Emma and Joseph's music class had their annual Christmas concert this month. This is Emma's fourth year singing with them, but it was Joseph's first time. They both did a great job and Mom did a great job giving them their bells for one song and taking them back after the song was over. Here they are in their uniforms in front of our Christmas tree.

Puppy Love

On Thanksgiving Day, Aunt Jill brought her two new puppies. Sarah fell in love with Sadie and carried her around all evening. She was so sad when they had to go home. Since then, Sarah says that she wants a puppy like Sadie. Maybe one day...

Bells, Cheese, Cold, and Fashionable Ladies

For Emma and Joseph's music class, they are preparing to play the piano by learning how to play on the bells. These are very popular at our house with everyone, including Miriam. She loves to bang on them and she hits hard. (Let's just say we've not only heard it, but also felt her strength.)



Miriam recently showed us that she can sign and say the word "cold." We wanted to document that fact, so we got out the camera and found out that she also knows what to say when the camera is pointed at her. :)



Our children love to dress up. Neil and the kids have discovered all the fun things you can buy at the dollar store for dress up. Here are Emma and Miriam as fashionable ladies.

Outdoor Fun - November 2008

This is Sarah and Miriam on Miriam's bike that is currently a rocker. They were rocking with their puppies.

One day, Emma wanted to help me with Miriam so I could get some work done and Miriam could play outside. Emma ended up pushing her around the quad inside of this toy dump truck and carrying a football. They had a good time.

Rocking with the puppies

Dump truck fun

I've got a football!

Happy Halloween and Other Fall Shots

Pumpkin, Princess Peach, Blue, and SpiderBoy

We had a fun Halloween. We went to Helaman Halls and the students that had candy had a pumpkin picture on their door and we visited three halls. (The girls' dorm had the most people giving out candy, but the boys gave out more since they had fewer visitors.) The kids were very excited to dress up. Emma was Princess Peach from the Nintendo Mario games, Miriam was a pumpkin, Sarah was Blue from Blue's Clues, and Joseph was SpiderBoy (not Spiderman). They got LOTS of candy and had a great time.

Yesterday a group of kids got together and piled up leaves in our quad. Here are some scenes of the fun that followed. We've got a lot of rain today, so it was nice that they could play in the leaves while it was still dry.

Leaf fun - Joseph is on the far left in the blue shirt and Emma is on the far right in the purple shirt.

Joseph's getting ready to throw.

Falling leaves...

Joseph just threw an armful of leaves above his head.

Emma's landing in the pile of leaves after a nice spin jump.

    

Latest Accomplishments - October 2008

There are two pictures sandwiching many videos in this post, so feel free to skip to the pictures.



Emma drew Goombella, a character from the game, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.



Emma has helped teach Miriam the song, "Elmo's World." It's so fun to watch Miriam's tongue do the la-la-la-la part.



We watch a lot of Signing Time at our house and this is Emma helping Miriam sing the theme song for Baby Signing Time. Watch Miriam do the signs for baby, sign, and time.




Since September, Emma and Joseph have been taking music lessons and we listen to their home-study CD all the time. Sarah and Miriam have also learned the songs and love to sing them with their older sister and brother. This is Sarah and Emma trying to get Miriam to sing a song called, "The Red Balloon."



As you can see from the above video, we've been trying to catch Miriam singing the Red Balloon song on camera. I finally got it. See how she sings the up and down parts.



Emma has also taught Miriam how to sing Pat-A-Cake.



Another one of the songs from music class is Do-Re-Mi. Miriam knows Do, for sure. If you watch to the end of this one, you can hear her say, "I did it," and "Bye." She's learning a lot. :)



Sarah has also been practicing her skills as a writer. She wrote this the other night. She only needed help to know how to spell Miriam and our last name. It's fun to watch her figure this stuff out.

September Highlights

Neil is the 11 year old scout leader for our ward. They go on camp-outs, so Neil needed his own tent. Emma, Joseph, and Sarah got to be the first ones to sleep in the tent in the toy room. I think they enjoyed it. 

Every September, they have a family opening social for everyone living at Wymount. This year I got to take all four children by myself as Neil had to go on a camp-out. The children did very well staying with Mom and doing what I asked.

Sleeping in the tent

Inside camping

Joseph and Emma shooting baskets

Everyone with their balloon animals. Emma has a butterfly, Joseph has a T-Rex, and Sarah has a penguin.

Joseph bouncing high.

Emma on the slide

On the 20th of September, we had our annual Stake Family Free-For-All. We got this dress for Emma and she was very excited to have a play dress to pretend to be a princess.

Here is Sarah in her new pajamas we got at the free-for-all. She is also sporting her new haircut, which she got that day. She really likes her hair and her new pajamas.

One early fall day, the children decided to pretend that they were playing in the snow, so they all got dressed up for the occasion. I love the boots with the shorts.

      

The River - August 2008

While we were visiting my family in August, we stayed two nights at my parents' property in northeastern Washington, NOT near Seattle. :) These are some pictures from our visit. We had a great trip.

Can I look silly while Mom is taking my picture?

BEHOLD, A ROCK!

Miriam really had fun walking with rocks in her hands.

Sarah on the swing while the others were fishing

The fish: Emma caught two, but had to throw one back and Joseph caught three, if we remember correctly. They were small, but good to eat.

Emma swinging high on the swing

Miriam and the special rocks

This is the main room of my parents' place. It is a very nice place to relax.

Here is where the kids can wade and throw rocks in the river.

Emily is cleaning the fish.

After they went creek fishing, Grandpa and Emily went river fishing. Here is Emily wading out.

Throwing rocks. I think this is one of the things that my children enjoy the most.

There's my dad fishing WAY out in the middle of the river.

Here's the view facing the river.

Here's the side lawn.

This is Joseph being responsible for moving his car seat back to the car without him being asked to do it. He was very pleased that he could do it without being asked.

Miriam waiting to go.

Emma showing us her Princess Peach and Hello Kitty paper dolls

Sarah showing one of the many Star Wars bobble-head toys we acquired on this trip. This one is Chewbacca on an AT-ST.

Just in case you've never seen how beautiful northeastern Washington is, now you know.

The lake in the background is Loon Lake.