Cuddles

I love it when they act like they like each other!

Sneaky

Ellie likes to sneak out of her room at night.  The past 3 nights she's been sitting on the steps just waiting to be found.  Apparently she got tired of waiting last night and decided to take a little nap, on the steps!

Fun

Its all fun and games until someone gets a wedgie!

Pool party

The kids went to a pool party last week.  They were very excited to be going to the pool for the first time this year. They had a blast!

4th grade!

My baby is a 4th grader.  Hes been working his butt off trying to get school done early this year and he did it.  Not only has he been doing school during the day with me, but since he's such a night owl, we told him he could do some school at night when the other kids go to sleep.
I've been worried that he's rushing through school and not retaining enough.  While thats probably true for some subjects, like history, today he proved that he's actually retaining some of the things he's learned.
I decided to do a standardized test with Ben.  I found one that you can take at home and get immediate results. Overall I'm not a fan of standardized tests at all, in any way. However, I wanted to get a sense of where he stands and make sure we're doing something right.  It was for informational purposes only.  Ben has no idea that he took a standardized test, what they're for or how he scored. He actually did amazing.
I made the mistake of watching him do most of the test. It drove me crazy to watch him select wrong answer after wrong answer, but I wanted to see what kinds of things they were looking at.  He struggled most in 2 language areas that he should have been able to do with no problems.  It was stuff we've covered each year of school. He knocked the math test out of the park.  They lumped the math portion into two categories and he actually scored in the 96th and 99th percentiles.  I'm shocked!  I thought he'd do well, but he floored me.
How they came up with the scores is a bit confusing.  After seeing the results, I actually called the company to get more information and confirm his scores. Even after hearing the explanation, its still a bit confusing. I don't know that I'm completely convinced he scored that well, but he didn't score below his grade level which is really all I wanted to see.  I guess we really are doing something right!

I insisted that he actually look happy he completed 3rd grade.

Me too!

Jon needed a picture of himself for work.  When Ellie saw what we were doing, she wanted in on the action.

Of course, Zach can't be left out.

Don't even think of being cute or having fun with out Sam. Of course they only seem to want to be cute recently when we're short 1 kid!

Frogs

We've found 3 or 4 frogs in our yard in the past week. We've also seen deer, wild turkeys, geese landing on top of houses, a fox and random animals that you would normally find in the woods.  This is all very new to me.  I feel so country!

Mothers Day

We had a really nice Mothers Day this year.  After doing landscaping Friday and Saturday, a birthday party Saturday afternoon, no naps, dinner with Gram and Corrie and walking Charlie in a crazy amount of heat, we were ready for a low key Sunday.  

After church, Jon cooked the 8 of us an amazing lunch. We relaxed after and got caught up with each other. Gram went to Corries for one last weekend before Corrie heads to Boise and then the rain came.

The babies had a blast out there.  Sam needs some work on just going with it, Ben wanted nothing to do with it.  I think Jon had just as much fun as the rest of them.

It was a fun way to end a great day!

Landscaping

Before

Landscaping has become a traditional mothers day gift for me.  We tackled the yard yesterday and it looks great. The pictures just don't do it justice!

After

Wordless Wednesday: Best buds

Outfit fail

Sam usually does a great job of dressing himself.  I just couldn't let this one slide.  This is his sad face when I told him to change.

Cheese faces...and Sam

Zoo

Jons been working hard recently so he decided to take a day off work and we headed to the zoo.

This was our first trip there with out a stroller.  We were all able to ride the tram together hassle free! It was pretty nice.

They did great.  Well, mostly Zach.  The rest need more time outside and less time playing Minecraft.

The only sad part was the giraffe area is being worked on so those were the only animals we didn't get to see.  Other than that, it was a cold, but fun morning.

Wordless Wednesday: Comfy dog

Tap queen

Corrie had a tap dance recital on Friday.  She did awesome, of course.  Ben did a great job of announcing every song we were about to hear.  Sam was awesome at staying awake. Ellie and Zach took time away from annoying each other to have some fun and enjoy the music! 

Pj's

Its that time again.  Its getting warmer and the kids were in need to new pj's.  Zach just had to have Mater and Ellie was so excited to see pj's that look like a dress.

Jungle Book

Ben and I went back to LCCC on Tuesday to check out a performance of the Jungle Book.  He's currently reading the book so I thought this would be a great school field trip.  It was geared toward an early elementary school audience so it was short.  Ben was a little disappointed they left a lot of details out, but he still enjoyed the show.
I thought it was much more tolerable than Curious George, but when they incorporated some moves from "Thriller" into their jungle dance, they lost me!

Wordless Wednesday: Its not that cold in here!

Weirdo

I just don't understand this kid!

The boys