Fall Family Fun

Here are some miscellaneous pics of our adventures this fall:

We braved the crowds on Houston's free museum day. I thought the zoo was included, so when we found out it wasn't we went to the Health Museum instead. It was interesting, but extremely crowded. Maybe next time we should just suck it up and pay. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so cheap!

Tim showing off his superhuman jumping.

We went to NASA for Homeschool Day. The kids (especially Tyler) LOVE space and anything to do with it. Tyler wants to be the first astronaut on Mars. We had a fun time, and Claire loved skipping school!

We finally took down our pool, so now our backyard is a big mud pit. Now our big dilemma is what to do about it. At least the kids made good use out of it, making mud pies and building castles. Tim didn't think Claire would join in on the "fun" (she doesn't like to get dirty, yes she's a lot like me), but I guess the fun factor outweighed the mess factor. Thank goodness Tim took care of cleanup!

We loved having my cousin Nadine and her husband Adam over last weekend! It's nice to finally have someone from my side of the family relatively closeby (they live a few hours away). And it was nice to finally meet Adam. I hope they weren't too bored joining in on our family-friendly activities. Nadine played her flute for us (she got a masters in flute performance) and the kids were mesmerized. It was beautiful. We also enjoyed playing a couple flute-piano duets together.

Pretty in pink

The girls' first matching dresses! Meet Claire and Claire Jr :)

Lil' Lily

Our Lily's gone through many milestones just in these past couple weeks! She's eating rice cereal, sitting on her own, and even starting to crawl! How did this all happen so fast?

B-days

Well, this is happened over a month ago, but of course I have to add a bit about our birthdays. As you can see, the kids had fun trying out Tim's new laptop bag. I also made Tim steak, potatoes, and rolls for dinner, one of his favorite meals. I guess we didn't get any pics from my birthday, but Tim made my day very special, starting with donuts for breakfast, taking us out for Chinese food after our science museum visit, and then making omelets (my request), fruit salad, bacon, and hash browns for dinner (breakfast for dinner is common in our house). He asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I decided a steam mop might be nice. So I researched and researched to choose the best one, got the Eureka EnviroMop, and haven't even used it yet... I kinda forgot that usually the kids are the ones that mop for me, so Tim, Claire, and Tyler have all used it. Tim wasn't so impressed with it. Basically it's just like pushing around a warm wet cloth. So maybe it wasn't the best choice for my birthday present, but hopefully at least I can ditch our worthless old mop and bucket and have more space in our bathroom closet.

Claire in Kinder

It's been over a month now, and Claire's thriving in Kindergarten. We didn't make the decision to send her to school until a week before school started. We already knew that I was going to homeschool Tyler this year, and we pretty much assumed I would teach Claire too. But as we thought it over more and more, and after praying about it, we felt that having her go to school was the right thing for her. And I have already seen many positive effects--she's more outgoing, independent, mature, and excelling even more in reading and writing! Of course, she's really hard to get out of bed in the mornings, and we do have to work on her not yelling at Scott like a teenager... But in all, I'm really happy with how school is going for her.

As for Tyler, I'm glad we decided to homeschool him this year. He's improving in many ways on things that concerned us previously. I'm so proud of him! He's a hard worker and is very thoughtful of others. Today when I was about to mow the lawn Tyler offered to do it. It was really hard for him, especially trying to push it uphill, but he didn't give up and he got it done! I love having him around all the time (we all miss Claire...), and our relationship has really improved. The actual homeschooling has its ups and downs, but I think I'm starting to figure it out. I really appreciate the support and help of homeschooling friends in the ward. It's nice to not be alone in this adventure!