Did school work until 1, then went out for errands to the post office. Joel made some of his b-day money into a money order and mailed it to WA for his Fencing swords. He won them on E-bay (using my sneaky last minute bidding.) After a snack at Mcd’s, we went to the park to take some bunny pic’s for Grace’s story. Here’s Hannah having fun on the spinning chair and bunny on various things.

Today we had our monthly hike at the Platte river co-op. The lady organizing the hike knows so much about the flora and fauna in the area, it’s been great. This time the kids had a baggie to put their collected stuff in. Hannah thought that was a neat idea.

Grace, Hannah and another little girl (I forgot her name!) are looking at centipedes under the rocks here.

We saw a dead bird, an oriole nest, a lion footprint, and here Grace found a spider and everyone’s looking at it.

We were close to James’ work so after the hike we picked him up and had lunch at Cici’s. The manager (who knows us by our pizza toppings) was surprised to see us in the daytime since we usually go at night.
After that we headed home to work on books for the Author club next week. One week to finish them. The stories are basically done; the kids just need to put in art and pictures. (So we’ll take some pics of bunny tomorrow for Grace’s story.)

This morning Joel and his friend Nick went to fly a plane through the young eagles program.

Joel sat in the pilot’s seat of a Piper Cherokee 4-seater. It was just him and the pilot. Joel took over controls in the air, did a barrel roll (not all the way over) and flew over a lake. He landed the plane (with help) and then the pilot took over to taxi because Joel couldn’t reach the pedals to steer. Joel’s book he has to write this coming week has found its story-how to fly a plane.

I’m excited because the young eagles have an on-line curriculum for aviation, woo-hoo. They also offer internship and scholarships, yeah! We are still looking into Civil Air Patrol starting in Jan. This would be a great compliment to the CAP program. (I asked Joel if he knew whose signature was on the certificate, he said no, I said ‘Han Solo, Indiana Jones, the President in Airforce 1!’ - Harrison Ford is the chairman of the young eagles program.)

While Joel was flying I took the girls to a festival down the street. They got their faces painted, jumped in the bouncy thing, did a cakewalk and ate hot dogs.

The clown made them monkey in a palm tree hats and they each got a pumpkin.

Bethany had to roll hers to the car it was so big. Grace got a twin pumpkin and Hannah got a cute little one. She didn’t quite know that to do with it, so she tried to eat it.

When Joel got back we went to another festival (I know I’m a glutton for punishment.) The kids had to answer Bible questions to get candy, some Grace knew (who built the ark?), some Bethany knew (who betrayed Jesus? And who was blinded on the road to Damascus?), some they had to turn to me (What kind of tree did Zaccheus climb?) Thank you VBS, “Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.”

After that we went to Anthony’s pizza with James and Jeff (who James is training this weekend), and finally home. The snow is almost gone today; we had a high of 60. I think it might snow Monday, we’ll see.

This post is a little long.
My Grandma died last night. She had bone, lung and pancreatic cancer and some other things. When we would go over to her house on Sundays she would have a cookie jar full of iced oatmeal cookies for us to eat. Then we would generally do something like make her yard into a floodplain or use her shammies as Indian hides and get in trouble. We cataloged all the books in her sunroom by gluing index cards in the front of the books. When I was sick she’d slather me with Vicks and put me in her bed with the a/c on frigid while I watched a movie. (One time it was Jaws and I promised myself I wouldn’t go to Galveston that summer.) She went to a Baptist church most of her life and we sang old Hymns there, so here are the words to one that is old, but relevant, Asleep in Jesus:

Asleep in Jesus! Blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes.

Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweet,
To be for such a slumber meet,
With holy confidence to sing
That death has lost his venomed sting!

Asleep in Jesus! Peaceful rest,
Whose waking is supremely blessed;
No fear, no woe, shall dim that hour
That manifests the Savior’s power.

Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for me
May such a blessed refuge be!
Securely shall my ashes lie
And wait the summons from on high.

Asleep in Jesus! time nor space
Debars this precious “hiding place”;
On Indian plains or Lapland snows
Believers find the same respose.

Asleep in Jesus! Far from thee
Thy kindred and their graves may be;
But there is still a blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep.

We started school today with presentation club. Grace did Noah’s ark; here’s Noah and people who are bad, 2 mice, the ark and the rain, the ark floating on the water, the ark hitting a mountain and her speaking:

Bethany did dinosaurs here’s her report:

Who made dinosaurs? What happened to the dinosaurs? Were they real?
Dinosaurs lived a long time ago among people. God made them just like he made you and me and the oceans and the trees.

When the world was flooded by rain for 40 days and nights 2 of each kind of dinosaur were on the ark. Noah didn’t have to take large animals, he could take babies; most kinds of dinosaurs were small to medium. When the dinosaurs came off the ark things were hard. There were volcanoes, rain, drought, snow and storms. Also people weren’t too fond of meat-eating dinosaurs, so they killed them too.

Besides dying from natural causes and from men, the dinosaurs, which were mostly reptiles, faced an ice age that killed some.
We find fossils of Dinosaurs in old rock that has been exposed or when we dig in the ground. I wonder what it would have been like to see a giant T-rex face to face or see a Pteranodon (ter-an-oh-don) flying in the air, probably scary!

Are dinosaurs in the Bible? A large creature that we would call a dinosaur is listed in the Bible in the book of Job.
Job 40
15 “Look at the behemoth,
which I made along with you
16 What strength he has in his loins,
what power in the muscles of his belly!
17 His tail sways like a cedar;

Another dinosaur that breathes fire, people in the middle ages would have called it a dragon, is found in Job 41. The Leviathan
18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth.
So yes, dinosaurs did live with men and were created by God.

After eating lunch we went sledding by the post office. There was a great snow pack on one hill there. Hannah had a much more enjoyable time sledding with me than by herself. I think that’s why she didn’t have too much fun last week, but today she was laughing all the way down. Joel tried to snowboard on his sled, note to self, buy a snowboard!

About 6 pm a friend came over to pick up Joel to go to a BSA thing about aviation tonight. Tomorrow they get to fly in a glider plane and they had to attend the training tonight. I’m getting Joel a disposable camera to take pics with.

After dinner the girls and I (James is working) went to church for a concert and IT ROCKED!! They were so awesome, I wish Sunday worship could JAM that good, but then we’d have a few Christians who would be offended. Grace and Bethany were running around and jumping up and down. Hannah was in the sling clapping and bouncing as I jumped, my knees are going to kill me tomorrow! WOO-HOO, I AM SO PUMPED, AWESOME GOD!

Oh, yeah it’s my birthday, oh yeah. Oh, wait it’s not my birthday, but I have a great present outside.
It’s not in my nature to believe the weatherman up here, much like a true native. His only job is to report 65 days of weather that’s not sunny, but he can’t manage to do it correctly more than 50% of the time. Now I know, it’s a hard job here because of the mountains. They can move fronts and change the weather in the middle of the day. Yesterday it was 64 and sunny and he said we’re going to have a small blizzard tomorrow. Well I want to believe him, but he’s so often wrong that I take the approach of wait and see. If I wake up with snow, then I know he was right.

Well, today I’m inclined to believe. It started snowing about 2 am and by 8am I have 6 inches in the backyard and it’s coming down good. Much to the kids annoyance this is fluffy snow and if we do get the expected 10 inches it won’t be good for sledding until tomorrow, but it will be good for digging a snow fort. We’ll have to watch Hannah so we don’t lose her in a drift! She is going to have trouble walking in this; she had trouble walking in 2 inches on Saturday. We’ll see if Bethany can eat all this snow. Oh, no! I forgot that the snow block maker was in the backyard, we’ll never find it now. Shoot! That would have been great for making a fort, maybe we can dig around where I think it is and try to find it.
Subdivision streets are plowed last. Major intersections first, secondary streets next, high traffic streets within a city, then maybe secondary high traffic, then subdivision main streets, then side streets. So, we’re basically last on the list. But, we can walk to a sledding hill. Also, James made it out the door at 5 am to catch the bus to work so there was only 2 inches then and by the time he comes home everything will probably be plowed.

It’s 3 pm and we’re down to a few flakes. I think we ended up with about 9 inches. Here’s Joel plowing:

Here’s Hannah:

Here’s the girls in my fort:

Here’s Joel and his reinforced with umbrellas fort:

And Hannah trying to get up out of the fort, it’s like the Christmas story when she falls down that’s it!

We missed last weeks first meeting of our homeschool groups author club, but made it today. The kids have to write a book, about anything, and draw pictures for it or somehow illustrate it. Bethany is inspired by the Magic tree house books and I think her story is about a girl name Bethany that goes back in time to tell Julius Caesar not to go to his senate meeting, but he goes anyway. I think she will have more than one adventure. Grace is writing a story about Travel bunny (no surprise there!) Joel hasn’t decided what he’s doing yet, but it may be a story set in pirate times or middle age times.

Today James signed papers on the house, so it’s ours. We were renting and our landlord said he wanted to sell back in July, but that didn’t go through. The mortgage guy told James how to fix our credit and we went up 100 points, so now we have a normal home loan with a normal person interest rate, yeah! Who knew? So this is a blessing out of the sky that God dropped on us, it wasn’t like we asked for it or deserved it or managed it by ourselves. So thank you Jesus, now we don’t have to move, again. I baked cookies in our house today and when the kids were playing swords I said, “Hey, go outside and don’t damage my walls!” That felt nice.

Today was great! Hannah’s eye was much better this afternoon and Grace was much happier.
At church we are still on serving. We watched a snippet of a movie with Michael W. Smith in it that we’re showing later this month about serving and then Alan launched into his service. We talked about Saul and how he went from persecutor to servant that was loved by many in the church. Saul said trial, tribulations and tears were his serving and that being humble was paramount. Humble means low thinking and that isn’t derogatory, just to lift others above ourselves and see Jesus in them. He talked about the Father/Son team Hoyt (the one where the Dad pushes his son in a wheelchair or drags him in a boat for marathons and triathlons) and how the Dad is such a servant to his son. I didn’t get to hear the rest because Hannah started crying, so I acted as a servant to the others listening and took her in the hall!
After that we went to Longmont for the Miller farms fall festival.

We were actually looking for the Rocky Mt. Pumpkin patch but found this one instead. (Well I couldn’t read the map and I thought it said turn right, guess it was further down that way, oops!) It was awesome! There was a giant hay pyramid, bouncy things, a pile of dirt (which every kids loves),

trikes, a hay maze, a corn maze, animals and of course pumpkins.
Hannah and Grace jumped in one bouncy thing, then Joel, Bethany and Grace raced each other through the obstacle course bouncy.

We climbed up the hay pyramid and Hannah made it up fine.

Somehow Grace and I got lost in a 3 foot tall maze, but we eventually made it out; Hannah wasn’t so lucky.

We raced trikes and pulled Hannah along in a car then went to the corn maze.

At first we thought this is too easy, everything loops. But after a few loops we got lost and had to backtrack to get out.

All the corn was confusing and at one point a dog jumped out at Grace (it was friendly and wanted to be pet) and before he could lick her she was running down the corn path screaming at the top of her lungs “Help, dog, ahhhh!” finally she stopped and the dog looked at her with anticipation of a pet and received it. We bought the best peanut brittle there, so buttery-yum. After a few more runs through the tires and swings we were off and headed home.

Joel is 12! 12 things about Joel:
1. He was born at home.
2. He used to have redder hair (well, he still does when it grows out a little.)
3. He learned to read when he was 4.
4. He loves his little sisters.
5. He has moved 8 times.
6. He used to share a room with Bethany and Grace. (because we only had 2 rooms.)
7. He has won 3 first place science fair trophies, some 2nd and 3rd place and 1 medal for outstanding speech. (The judges at one fair didn’t believe he had done the research and work by himself, but at another fair he won 1st place and 1st place in speech.)
8. He was voted most improved player on his Hockey team and got knocked into the wall 3 times.
9. He hates math and writing.
10. He can talk up a storm and be very persuasive.
11. He loves building things and taking things apart.
12. Right now he wants to be a video game programmer, archer, build a house and fly a plane.

Grace is doing better and better. We went to GS yesterday and celebrated the founder’s b-day (Juliette Low) and made birthday cards for a nursing home, about 60 cards. They were so cute; I know whoever ends up with them will like them. We took Joel and a friend to Fat city (like CEC’s on steroids) to play, Grace wore a mask and everybody had a good time. It’s a lot different on Friday night though!
Today we woke up to 5 inches of fresh powder; I didn’t even know it was going to snow. I woke the kids up and we went to Krispy Kreme (the pumpkin doughnuts are in, yum!) and then sledding by the post office. Hannah decided she would rather eat snow than sled, Grace was wearing a mask and throwing snowballs, Bethany was eating snow and sledding and Joel and Austin were trying to make it down the hill and over a bump someone made, he made it finally.

James made it home this afternoon and got Joel his present a new bow and arrows and a target (so we won’t have any more shooting at the fence.) Hannah awoke with a red eye (she poked herself last night with a flower stem.) It looked better this morning, but after her nap she must have been rubbing it, her eye was red and swollen and running. I gave her some allergy meds and eye drops and now it’s almost back to normal. (I think the rubbing of the flower petals into her eye was bothering it more than the actual poke.)
So now we’re baking Joel a family cake and going to sing Happy B-day while he wears the birthday hat, and for tomorrow, rest!

Today started bright and early at 4 am with a breathing treatment and decline of O2 to see how Grace would handle it. She did well and by 8 am we were talking about getting out at 5pm. Here she is in the bed with bunny and his breathing mask.

We had the hardest time keeping the “face necklace” in Grace’s nose. She had about 4 circles and tape holding it down and it still poked out of her nose. Hannah ran up and down the hall finally wearing herself out.

We managed to get 4 days of schoolwork done between yesterday and today, there was a computer to use down the hall so we could log on and fill out tests and stuff. (And so Joel could play puzzle pirates.) Joel had a all 100’s on math tests (add/subtract, rename fractions and mixed numbers), a few 80’s in history, 100 in literature, vocabulary and grammar. Bethany had a 100 on her spelling test and all 100’s on grammar/literature, she only missed 1 problem in math and finished her Pompeii book. After lunch we let Grace sleep and they determined that we’d have to go home with an oxygen tank for naps and nighttime (for right now, we see the doc on Monday and maybe it will stop then.) She has breathing treatments every 4 hours or as needed (and the cutest mask with a dinosaur on it.)

Here she is getting up and pushing bunny around the hall, steroids make her hyper (as if she wasn’t already.)

It’s going to be crazy around here while she’s on this steroid for 6 more days, it makes her super wacky silly. It’s like we’re back in March getting a CAT scan of her brain to see what’s happening there. She’s running around talking nonsense, yelling and constantly changing her mind about if she wants bread or cereal or yellow Jell-O or red Jell-O. So that is a bear, but I’m SOOOOOOO glad we’re home tonight. The thing I miss the most from the hospital is the food, it was really good and I didn’t have to cook it or cleanup after it, that was nice!
James and his boss made it safely to MN and are resting after loading a U-haul truck to start driving back tomorrow. So let’s see: we’re making a cake for Joel tomorrow, he’s 12, and then another cake with Daddy on Saturday, or Sunday we’ll see what happens. Joel has already marked money for a Nintendo system he’s bidding on at E-bay, 1 day to see if he wins! I’m ready for bed and hopefully Grace will start to wear down in a little while. Oh, and we had to move Grace’s eye surgery back to the end of Dec. The doc didn’t want to risk anesthesia with weak lungs, I’m all over that. So, tomorrow another day and a break from school in honor of Joel’s b-day, you’re only 12 once.

Grace has been so kissy-kissy and huggy lately, I wrote this:

Whisper softly
In my ear that you love me.
Gently kiss me on the cheek as you pass by.
Throw your arms round my neck
And squeeze tight-
That is my Mommy lullaby.