Piano Lessons

William and James have been taking piano lessons for about a year now.  They are both getting pretty good!  Their goal is to play a hymn so that we can sing it during family night or scripture time.  When James played I couldn't even get through the entire hymn because I was laughing out of shock--he did it!  I am amazed.  I really hope they keep enjoying piano and progressing.

James is only playing his right hand in this video but when he played for family night he played both hands.

 William stumbled a little through this one... but I'm including it for what's going on in the background.

Daily Sunshine

"Mom!  Does this look like a mask?"

Emerging Artist

We have a box of markers, crayons, and pencils that sits on the floor near our bookshelf in the kitchen.  Lydia often gets into it and plays with everything in there.  The other day she found a paper as well and drew her first picture all on her own!!  Such a smart, artistic little baby.

Typical

During the school year we get up at 6:00 to read scriptures before Rich leaves for work.  I'd say this is a pretty typical scene.  But at least we are all there and (mostly) awake.

Back to School

The night before school started we held our 6th annual Back-to-School Feast.  This year our menu consisted of hamburgers, hotdogs, fruit salad, homemade fries and IBC rootbeer.  Yum!  Our theme this year is "Rewind--Be Kind."  We are hoping that this will help the boys be kinder to everyone (especially their brothers) and that a simple reminder to "rewind" will help them to take a "do-over" and try again when they aren't.  We are also encouraging them to look outside themselves and recognize when others are being kind.

This year I even made shirts for them to remember our focus.  I let each boy pick out their favorite color shirt at Hobby Lobby but didn't tell them what it was for.  They were pretty excited when I presented these shirts at our feast.

This year is the end of an era--William's last year of elementary school!  William is in 5th grade this year, James in 3rd, and Alexander in 1st.  Alex was nervous and excited to be going to school all day this year.  He was especially looking forward to eating lunch at school.

(Henry needed to join the photo op too.)

This year Henry is going to pre-school every Tuesday and Thursday.  He is beyond excited!!  I think he really feels like a big boy.

It makes for quiet mornings but after a fun, busy summer it's a nice little break.

Summer misc

In attempt to play catch-up I'm going to post the miscellaneous pictures of our summer here.  Everyone likes to take a bath with Lydia because she loves baths so much.

James found an inch worm.

The boys rearranged their rooms (Henry moved in with the boys and William in with Lydia).  They all play so nicely together (most of the time.)

Lydia just gets more and more fun as time goes on.

We created a water sprinkler with an old pool noodle.  It didn't survive more than 15 minutes but it was fun while it lasted!

William really enjoyed relaxing on the hammock.

And some ninjas invaded our home! (Alex and Henry were so happy that James made their shirts into ninja masks!)