I remember this day, April 24th. It was the day was dreading blogging about because I had so many pictures. I delayed and delayed until now I'm three months behind. Oh well. It was a gorgeous day, one of our first, and we spent our time during piano at Sioux Park playing in the water with the O. family.
Samuel was into bears that day.
Noah had a track meet.
Piano break time.
Brave girl saving worms.
Abigail helped to construct dams to stop a ball they had found.
The dam worked! Celebrate!
I figured out how to combine all my videos so now it's not so bad to blog. But I'm still behind.
Noah and Evie began piano lessons five years ago (beginning summer 2014). Therefore, this year was their fifth spring recital (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018). They really enjoy their lessons with Mrs. Kathy R. She's an excellent teacher!
Noah played "Ballade" by Burgmuller.
It was twice as long as Evie's (still only two minutes).
Look at the pride on his face. 😊
Good job buddy.
I was struck with how tall he was. Look at those legs! We actually had to go out and buy those pants at Walmart because he had dressed in shorts for church before I could recognize what he'd done. He also borrowed Terry's collared shirt since his own was too small for him. I took it out of his closet after that. He looks so grown up!
Snuggling with "Monkey, monkey, MONKEY!!!" who Samuel is obsessed with. Monkey is a menace; Samuel goes nuts when playing with him. Also, he's a lemur. 😅
Evie played a Suzuki song called "Hungarian Folk Song" by Bartok.
Here is her one minute song.
No curtsies allowed; only bows.
Noah sure has grown this year!
They insisted on a silly picture. Great job Noah and Evie!
Anyway, she does Suzuki music with them, which basically means they learn more advanced music than they can read, and they learn it by ear. They also memorize it. All of it.In September of 2016 Noah completed and performed his first Suzuki book (Oh my word, those pictures). And on this day, we finally got around to his second book performance.
He memorized and performed 13 songs! It took him about 20 minutes to get through all of them.
We invited Amanda and her crew over to listen. They were particularly interested since Abigail and Julia also play with Miss Kathy. My and Terry's parents came over too. 👍 Only notice how the girls are seated on all the remaining wood flooring boxes, ha ha.
A small sample.
Miss Kathy had shown me the gift that she had made for him a couple weeks before and all of the sudden I was a lot more motivated to make the recital happen (was supposed to do it over Christmas but forgot amidst all the chaos). Notice the card...a Star Wars TIE Fighter...
She sewed him a Star Wars duffel bag! She used RCC colors and figured he could use it for track and cross country. How perfect is that?! 💙 There's that same Star Wars fabric on the inside.
I made all of Noah's favorite snacks (brickle bites and puppy chow) and everyone stayed to hang out and chat for a while afterwards.
Noah, Abigail, Julia, and Samuel on the old carpeted stairs. Don't they look terrible? The stairs, not the kids. The kids look great. The following week we began completing those stairs in new wood flooring.
See?
The guys in the empty but beautiful new floored living room.
Once everyone left, the kids went to play their weekend video game quota and we hung out upstairs enjoying the fruit of our labors.
Terry did Luna's tricks with her. Here's Play Dead.
She'll also keep a treat on her nose until we give her permission to eat it. This time she launched it off her nose. You can see it flying away, left of her ears. 😂
She can also catch snacks thrown at her, unlike some of those broken dogs who can't. Ha! You can see the snack just about to go into her mouth. 😹
The day after we set up our Christmas tree we headed out for a date. We needed some time away after the hectic month and especially the fall retreat. Cheap food with a coupon at Qdoba was just the ticket.
We went to JCPenney and got Terry his annual new pairs of jeans for Christmas. Once again I found an awful metallic piece of outerwear...
...just like last year! So not as bad as last year but still had to take a picture.
The following week our ice maker, which had been broken for well over a year, randomly started leaking water. I discovered it when I was at the kitchen sink, heard a strange noise, turned around and saw water pouring out the bottom of the fridge.
Suddenly our evening revolved around getting that fixed. Terry couldn't get the water turned off (it appeared the water handle was broken or something) and so he went out to get a new cap. However the cap didn't fit. Terry again pulled and pulled on the water faucet until he nearly broke it, but it turned off. Very strange but such is home ownership.
Trying to get through school that week.
That final weekend of November brought a special outing to Pottery to Paint with a group of homeschoolers. We hadn't done this since maybe 2012 or 2013 and it was such fun.
Amanda and her crew joined us much to the kids' delight. Noah and Moses, the patriarchs...sort of.
Evie and Abigail.
The littles.
I had to prod them over and over to keep painting and embellishing since they seemed to think one simple coat of paint was enough...
...and they turned out so great!
Afterwards we ran a few errands and thought this game at Target was funny...
...since we had just seen this hilarious joke on Facebook. 😆 Terry printed it off and hung it on his office wall along with the rest of his jokes. When we got home Terry started playing Oregon Trail on his computer with the kids. I couldn't stop reciting this joke. "You just died from dissin' Terry." Still makes me smile. 😂
On December 1st the kids had their Christmas piano recital.
Zooming into Evie.
She did great, although she didn't think so. The "piano" sounded more like a horrifically tuned harpsichord and she thought she had done bad. She cried buckets when we got home. However, the piano was just really bad. It wasn't her fault.
Her performance.
Noah followed my advice and played on the keyboard. It sounded better but not great. He played very well though.
And Noah's performance.
The following week, the start of December, Samuel had to write a letter for Grammar.
He opted to write it to his cousin Theo who would be coming for Christmas.
By the time he gets to Grammar everyday he's pretty ready to be done so he wasn't excited to read for me, but here it is. I sent it to Ana and Theo once they got the letter in the mail.
The next day we went to Paige and Zach's baby shower and they played this hilarious balloon belly game. Zach putting on shoes while "pregnant" is extremely accurate.
Just a puppy with a kitty and some other kitties on her shoulder.
I originally started this blog at the dawn of social media, in 2008, after we moved away from home and the second of four children were born. I wanted to share and keep track of our lives. I wanted a record and I loved it. I lost hope, ten years later, of ever recovering from a mountain of puppy pictures and I gave up writing. But now, in 2026, we have moved to Taiwan to be missionaries and I have resurrected my blog. I have always been an archivist and now endeavor to keep another record...and perhaps share my Eva-thoughts, here too.
