Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a fantastic day! I was thinking about my family back in North Carolina. I miss them on holidays, even though it has been several years since we have been home for one. We had a very nice Thanksgiving here in Connecticut in any case. I made monkey bread for breakfast (had to start that terrible eating early in the day!) and we laid around in our pajamas watching the Macy's parade all morning. Then it was time to start cooking and getting ready for the big feast! We ate with some friends....there were 33 of us in total. I will miss our CT friends for sure after we move. We have spent so many holidays together now that it will be weird not being together next year. I think that it is only in the military that you can meet someone, and then just a short while later feel like they are a part of your family. Thank goodness the Internet makes it so easy to keep in touch these days. And who knows....maybe we will meet some of our old friends at duty stations again in the future.


Anyway, here are the little turkeys Beth, Matt, and Carrie made this year. Aren't they cute? I call those three my little turkeys all year around, so this project seemed very fitting. I love hearing the things they were thankful for. Some didn't surprise me at all - like Beth naming her kitties, lol. Some I was impressed it - like family, church, and God's world. Some just made me laugh - like a certain child who is thankful for dinosaurs.


And here is my tiny Katy Ann....all tuckered out. I dipped her binks in some candied yams this afternoon. She sucked it sooo hard, and just would not spit it out. I don't think she is quite ready to eat off a spoon though. Maybe next month!

One more month!

We are down to just one more month here in Connecticut. After almost five years here, it is crazy to think about packing up and leaving it all behind. We arrived here with just Baby Beth, and are leaving with Beth, Matt, Carrie, and Baby Katy. Wow, not bad for one tour! Matt got his final orders today, and it all seems very official now. He has three more weeks of work, and then will be helping me tie up loose ends around the house before we head out. I'm kind of sad, but as the weather continues to get colder, wintering in Mississippi is sounding better and better.

In the meantime we are continuing on with school, swim lessons, gymnastics, playdates with friends, and all our usual activities. Beth is just about halfway through her kindergarten math and reading programs now. Matt is just starting his kindergarten year. Yes, I randomly started him in November. He was super jealous of Beth's work, and is really holding his own at the kindergarten level. He is just learning to write, so he can't do the written work that his sister can, but he is turning out to be quite the math and computer whiz. A stereotypical boy I guess!

Beth's book

Her Cover


"het" is the








Table of Contents

Catching up

Things have been busy busy around here!

We have finished one FIAR book, and started another since I last updated. The first one was:

We LOVED this book. It was a great way to learn about geography. I even went out and bought that globe I had been considering for a while. We of course also had to make an apple pie, and it was just the right time of year for us to be able to go pick our own. I think the kids' favorite related activity was painting these apple trees. I saw these online, and the only thing we did differently was using a footprint to make the tree trunk. The leaves were handprints and the apples were fingerprints...it was messy but fun!



Our next book, which we are still working on, is:

The cool thing about this book is it takes place here in Connecticut. In fact the restaurant on the book is on the street where I went to college! It apparently was a real place which closed back in the 70's, but the waterfront in the illustrations still looks very familiar to me. I only wish we had done this book sooner, before the weather got so cold. It would have been a good excuse for a field trip to the beach. We woke up to snow today though.....I think our beach trips are done for the season! This seems early to me, even for Connecticut.

In other news, my kids had their big Gran Prix race last night! They were so excited. This was our first year, and as you can see I had the kids make their own cars. Sadly, they didn't stand a chance against the cars made 100% by parents. I also did not know that you could add weight to the cars. Live and learn, right? Next year I will help them more.

The little yellow one is Carrie's. She was so jealous when they started painting, and then I remembered that I had some plain wooden cars I had picked up some time ago. Next year she will be old enough to be a Cubbie herself.


My Beth girl :)


Finally, I just had to share this picture of my little Katy Ann. Look how she loves her siblings! She is still not sleeping in her bed (at all!) but she has improved in letting me put her down during her awake periods. She especially loves her exersaucer.

Happy Halloween!

Book 4

I guess I really can't really post these by week anymore since some of the books have lasted a bit longer than that.

This past week and a half we have been rowing Madeline.

This was a cute story, and the kids really enjoyed it. We learned some new vocabulary words, studied the art in the book, learned a little about France, and practiced healthy habits. I think the kids' favorite thing was when we coated our hands in a small amount of Vaseline sprinkled with black pepper. The pepper represented germs, and we compared the results of just a quick rinse in the sink verses a good scrubbing with soap and warm water. I hope that lesson will stick with them through the coming flu season!

Since the little girls in the book do everything in two lines of six, we also took this opportunity to learn a little about symmetry. I couldn't resist letting them make symmetrical butterflies, which is something I can remember doing when I was about their age. Beth requested orange and black so they could made Monarchs - her favorite. Our butterflies turned out a little asymmetrical in the end, but it was fun making them. I think I will try them again soon, using glue we squirt on rather than paint brushes.


In other news Beth earned her first Awana patch this week - she is so proud! I need to sew it on still so it's not in this picture. She asks me about it like three times a day. I promised her I would get it done before the next meeting! Their next Awana project is the Grand Prix (it's like the Pinewood Derby, if you have been involved with the Boy Scouts.) I am glad to turn that project over to Daddy.

Brrr...

I think I can finally say fall is here! Connecticut is always jumpy with the season changes. Sometime in September we'll need to get the coats out, and then the next day it will be 90 degrees! It sure makes dressing the kids a pain...it's all about layers yet. Today is down right chilly though. I think we have worn our shorts for the last time this year.

We spent our crisp fall day out apple picking. It's been one of our favorite things about New England, and I will sure miss it. The kids also gathered an assortment of colorful gourds, pumpkins, and mums. As for Mom and Dad....we went in search of the hard cider!

We have just eight more weeks in Connecticut! I feel like the countdown is definitely on. It's been a while since we've done a full fledged military move, and there are just so many details to take care of. Why they make this so confusing I have no idea. You would think that the military would be THE experts on orchestrating moves, you know? Oh well, come hell or high water, we will be arriving in Mississippi in two more months! I just hope we have a place to live. Even a nice hotel room will do. One that takes four kids and two cats, lol.

School is going well. Beth and Matt are like little sponges. I am so glad, since I frequently feel like I don't have enough time to sit down with them one on one. Slowly but surely though we are getting used to having our little Katy with us during the school day. I just can't believe it took four months! I have been doing quite a bit of school with each of them in the evenings too (when Daddy is home) and that has been a huge help. Beth is really starting to read on her own, and that is my main academic goal for her this year. As for Matt....he always asks me when it is going to be his turn to do school. He is so active that I was just going to wait for next year before asking him to do seat work, but he has really surprised me with what he can suddenly do now. He even taught himself how to write his name! He writes it right to left as frequently as not, but still!