Happy 16th Birthday Aaron!!

I am still having trouble believe my first baby is 16 years old.  Aaron is such a great guy and we are so blessed to have him in our family.  He is an amazing son and he makes Randy and I so proud.  He is also the best big brother to his younger siblings.  He is so good to Kristen, Momo and Ian and it just warms my heart when I see him willingly spend time with them.  I am excited to see what God had in store for Aaron's future.  We love you so very much Aaron.  I will never forget the day you were born.  You were so tiny but so perfect.  I am so lucky to be your mama. 

We all went upstairs to wake Aaron up with a big Happy Birthday wish!  This wish also included silly string!!!

We did help him clean it all out of his bed after emptying 3 full cans of silly string.  When Aaron came downstairs, we had 16 balloons waiting for him!

He opened some gifts from us.

I gave Aaron a "charger"!!

We spend the rest of the day just hanging out at home.  That afternoon, a few of Aaron's friends came over and we took them all out to eat at Masato's Jappanese Steakhouse.  Gran Julie also came with us and Johnny, Erin and Jacey met us there.

Momo just being silly after we all ate dinner!

I baked a pound cake for Aaron and also brough sliced strawberries and cool whip.  This has been his request for his cake for the last 10 or so years.  We gave it to the waitress when we got there and after we ate, they brought it out and sang and played drums!

When we were finished there, our next stop was the bowling alley!  Johnny, Erin, Jacey and Gran Julie were not able to come bowling with us but we still had lots of fun.

Ian got very excited after each turn!!!

After we bowled for about an hour, we went to the arcade for a few minutes.

Just Life, School and A Science Experiment.

I never know what kind of pictures I will find when I upload the pictures from my memory card onto the computer.  All of the kids like playing with my camera so it always makes for some interesting pictures!  The following pictures are just a few that I came across in this batch. 
Here is Kristen drying Maggie after giving her a bath one night.  Maggie doesn't really enjoy her bathtime.

I am guessing Ian wasn't happy about something in this picture.  Maybe he was just playing....

Ok, he is looking a little happier now!

I am guessing this was a self picture.......I had to share these gorgeous eyelashes though.

I haven't taken as many school pictures lately.  I need to get better at doing that again.  Here is Ian working on some lacing cards I made for him.  He enjoys doing these.

We just love our frogs!  They have adapted well to their new home.  I don't think I have actually posted pictures of the new tank yet.  You can see it here.  Kristen was hand feeding them.  Yes, the frogs will eat from our fingers.  Penelope will even try to swim into our hand, Kristen says she is trying to cuddle when she does this.

Luigi waving hello!

I call this Home Ec!!

We all did school in the living room in front of the fire one cold morning.

Even Maggie likes to be close to the fire!! 

Morgan worked on another science experiment.  Aaron helped her with this one.  She was learning how blubber helps keep seals, sea lions, walrusus and other sea creatures warm while swimming in arctic waters.  She place a latex glove on both hands.  Next she covered one hand with a thick layer of vaseline to act as blubber, and then placed a second glove on that hand. 

The next step was to put both hands into some ice water and see if the "blubber" helped her keep that hand in the ice water longer.

It did help and she had to pull the single glove hand out first.  She kept the blubber hand in the water almost twice as long!

Here is a picture of me that Ian took one night. 

The Start of 2010

The year has gotten off to a pretty good start for us. We started back with our school work on Jan. 4th. The kids have all been working really hard since then and we have been able to get a lot finished. We've also been having some fun too! Here is Papa ( Randy) before going to a funeral for one of our friend's mama. I was on the road that day to pick Aaron and Heather up from their trip to VA.

I babysat my Jacey one Sunday.  After church we snuggled up for a nice Sunday nap.  Kristen thought it would make a good picture.  There is nothing sweeter than a baby to snuggle!

Momo had some fun doing a science experiment one day.  She was learning about how some whales swim in the arctic waters.  For this experiment she filled two glasses of water but one was left plain and one she added some salt into. 

Stirring in the salt.

The next step was to place both glasses into the freezer for an hour.  She discovered the salt water did not freeze like the plain water did.

While the experiment was going, she worked to finish her whale pocket book.

Kristen was working on her  math.  This unit was on geometry.

Momo doing some language arts.  I think I caught her off guard in this one.

While we were working at the table, we noticed we has a few little visitors at the back door!

I guess this guy was on guard duty.  He was perched up on the grill!

Momo finished the chapter on whales in her science and placed all the notebook activities onto her pages.  She loves doing this at the end of each chapter.

Here she is working on the whale pocket book trying to finish it up.

This is the completed book!

Pocket 1

Pocket 2

Pocket 3 - This one has a model of a baleen. 

A close up view of pocket 2.

A couple of the pages in the "As Big as A Whale" booklet.

Pocket 4 - This one had an activity using homophones and a ( Haiku) poem activity.

Momo's poem.

Penelope and Luigi just "hanging around" in their new tank!

Here is Maggie, doing one of her favorite things.....snuggling up on the couch with her blanket!  She isn't really fond of cold weather.

Blog Awards!!

I was given two blog awards yesterday by my friend, Alison at Wayzley Academy. I feel so special!

Both require me to nominate 10 blogs.. so I am going to nominate each of the 10 for both awards..

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers who’s positivity and creativity inspires others in the blogword.

The Lemonade Stand Award is awarded for being a blogger who shows great attitude and gratitude.

The rules for accepting this award:

- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.

- Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.( the Lemonade Stand one) or ten bloggers who inspire me

- Link the nominees within your post.

- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.



Here are the people I am sending the awards to. I don't have a lot of blogs that I read so I am not sure if I can come up with 10 but I will try! ( Some will be the same ones that Alison awarded as well)



1) Chelita at Shady Bayou Academy. Although I have never met her in person, I feel such a special connection with her.



2)Sadie from The Ugly Gray House. I have "known" Sadie for several years now and I just love to read her blog. She is so inspiring with her crafty and witty ways!



3)Rhonda at Alston Academy. She is just such a sweetheart and I just enjoy seeing her days homeschooling her three girls.



4)Emily from Lift Up Your Hearts. I appreciate Emily's honesty and the fact that she is such a tell it like it is type of person. She is just so genuine and doesn't try to pretend to be something she is not.



5) Sherri from Our Place. I love seeing how Sherri isn't afraid to get right in the middle of the fun her her kids.



6)Alison at Wayzley Academy. I am passing these awards right back to ya girl! I appreciate our friendship and also the fact that you don't always try to sugarcoat things and you just say what you feel!



7)Dani from The (not so) Amazing Adventures of Supermom. Dani is such a fun mama and is always putting others above herself. I think she is just amazing.



8)Jenn at Our Many Beautiful Blessings. I haven't known Jenn for a long time but the time that I have I have really enjoyed. She is a great mama and she loves the Lord and isn't afraid to share Him!



9) Tisha from Sowing Good Seeds. Another great mama. One of my fellow southern homeschooling mamas!



10)Jenn from The Suchniak Six. I love going to Jenn's blog to see all of her amazing pictures and the fun times she has with her family.

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Christmas!

I know, I know! I haven't posted any Christmas pictures yet! I was going to post them all here but after uploading them on facebook I decided I would just post the slide show of my Picasa album here instead. We had a wonderful Christmas here. I think we all really enjoyed the season this year and it was just wonderful to spend the special time of year together. Randy and I took the kids to see some Christmas light displays one night as is our tradition a few days prior to Christmas Eve. My extended family came over to our house Christmas Eve for our annual family Christmas dinner. Gran Julie came over to spend Christmas morning with us and we are so glad she did. The rest of Christmas day, we stayed home and just played and had fun. Aaron left that night to go on a vacation to see some of Heather's family and to a UNC game for the week following Christmas. While they were away, we kept Heather's two mini schnauzers. The Sunday following Christmas we rode over to visit Grandpa and some of the Willis family. We also enjoyed several parties, church activities, ice skating, and more during the Christmas season. It made for a busy month but I wouldn't change a thing! As you can imagine, all the fun means I took LOTS of pictures! For anyone interested in seeing what we were up to in December as we celebrated the birth of Jesus, check out this slide show!