Samuel's alphabet rhyme

It took what seemed like an prolonged amount of time, but we have finally adjusted to doing school again. Man, it was a hard transition this year. But of course everyone is a year older and so their coursework gets incrementally more difficult and time consuming. Evie's really isn't so hard except for occasional (lately, daily) meltdowns over two digit multiplication. Noah's work is genuinely harder this year though since he's beginning middle school. Plus we do three hours of Classical Conversations for Essentials (Writing, Grammar, Math) on Monday afternoons, so that adds quite a bit to this homeschool family that is used to being done by noon. Ha!

But I think the greatest adjustment has come in adding a third kid to the routine (kind of like when he was born!). Samuel's individual work doesn't take more than 45 minutes at this point but when the other two (and Ezra) are constantly asking for my attention and help, it gets stressful. Being pulled in four different directions is a sure fire way to lose my cool, but we're figuring it out...slowly. Except now we're about three months in and I'm feeling more optimistic. 

Samuel and his alphabet cards he's been memorizing.

Since last year I've been keeping track of their daily work...just in case.

Yesterday felt like a pretty momentous day. For Samuel's reading lesson we added in the final consonant sound, "Z." 

Granted, it's taken us twice as long to get this far as it did with Evie, but Samuel has always been slow to speak. I don't want to go too fast, be frustrated, and have to retread ground. So we've spent these three months learning and memorizing this alphabet rhyme. It teaches the name of the letter, the sound it makes, and an example of how it sounds. It was good for Evie so I only hope that next week, when we actually start applying all these sounds to reading he will get it. He is excited to learn how to read so I hope that'll help.

At three years old Samuel could hardly talk, so today felt like a big deal. It might be hard to understand him because he's going so quickly, but in one minute he recites the entire rhyme. Yay Samuel! Go go go!

the brown road in our backyard

This is the road in our "backyard."

This is what it looks like from my bedroom: a nice big wall of brown dirt. 

Sadly, it previously looked like this. So idyllic, beautiful, and peaceful.

Back in June the National Guard bulldozed the hill and proceeded to make a red road out of it. It is their land so of course they can do what they want with it. But in June we and our neighbors had no idea what was going on. Finally in July I made some phone calls and was put in touch with the officer or General who was in charge. The new road was a part of their Golden Coyote exercises. Apparently they needed practice with their big equipment, plus there's a land owner at the top of the new road that had a special deal with the National Guard to put in a road for their access. However, the guardsmen only finished the road to 30%! The General assured me that they would hire a contractor to finish the road.

The summer passed and the fall was half over before any sign of finishing began. But finally on October 21 the contractor showed up and started moving dirt.

There had been three levels of red dirt and in addition, that culvert absolutely dumped water into our neighbor's yard during the one gully washer storm we had. The first thing the guy in the tractor began to do was dig out the middle of the road. At first I had no idea what they were doing but that didn't stop me from sending far too many photos to my family. 

By the end of the day they had pulled the old culvert out.  

By the following week the road was all smooth, which was a very great improvement to the messy three levels of dirt. My brother wondered what they were going to do over the storm flooding issue since there was no culvert anymore.

See what I mean about improvement?!

At the end of the week they proceeded to dig up the nice smooth mound and put in another culvert! This time they dug down further, all the way to the surrounding ground. The previous culvert had been halfway up the hill.

 Next they had to smooth everything out again, but then they started adding brown dirt along the sides, starting up at the top of the road. They also dug up a square hole just below the culvert and dropped a grate of large rocks into it. I supposed that since they can't connect the culvert to the sewer, this new rock grate drain is the next best thing. I'm sure our neighbor will still get water in her yard though. That hole will just fill up with water and overflow into her yard! 

Two weeks in to this renovation the big equipment started moving the brown dirt over the red right behind our house. I was hoping this was because it was better for planting grass in but there's no sign of that so far.

It was November 3rd, and a beautiful day. We've had amazing weather this fall. This day was like 75 degrees. Anyway, the kids and I sat outside after school and lunch and watched them work. 

Ezra especially thought it was fun as he sat in the sandbox with his toy tractors.☺ 

I waited a couple weeks hoping they'd do more work after they leveled the brown dirt out, but nothing more has been done. I think they added gravel on top though. 

South of the new road is some of the contractor's (?) equipment just sitting there though... 

I was hoping they'd spread or spray grass seed, hay, and netting over the dirt, but nothing so far. Perhaps it's too late in the season. I hope they'll come back and plant stuff in the spring or else it'll just be a giant weed patch. We used to have such a lovely area of field grass. :( But at least I can still climb up here and take pictures of the sunset!

A closer look at that culvert and drainage grate. 

This is the view we have now from the corner of our yard. Pretty beautiful culvert right? 

So, to recap, this is our current view. Our house and our neighbor's is situated at the low point so it's kind of like living in a bowl surrounded by a wall of dirt. 

But at least it's not three levels of red dirt anymore!

However, it used to look like this. So sad :(

a second platform storage bed

Terry's sister made a special request of Terry a couple months ago, after he finished our night stands. She asked him to make them a platform storage bed frame like the one he made us two years ago. About a month or so later, at the beginning of October, he took the plunge and got to work. After one weekend of work he had the frame complete. 

Samuel randomly hopped up and posed like this when Terry was taking a picture to send to Shari and Jesse. Ha! 

The following weekend was spent on finishing the drawers, trim and a lot of other little things.

The third weekend was spent sanding, cleaning, staining, and finishing. Oof! This project took a lot more time than we remembered but it did go together with fewer mistakes.

It was hard to tell what it would look like once it was all put together. 

I sent these pictures to Shari and Jesse to make sure they were happy with the color they chose. They were! 

The day before Halloween, after the wood had cured for nearly 48 hours, Jesse came and helped load and set up the bed at their house. 

Boom baby! 

Halloween 2016

Halloween fell on a Monday this year but we were ready for it. 

Two days before we carved the kids' pumpkins that Terry's dad gets them every year. Actually Evie opted for two coats of purple over cutting into hers.

Noah and Evie, are majorly freaked out by pumpkins innards, especially Noah, but Ezra had no qualms with going for it.

Samuel did well too.  

Ezra wanted to also paint his green but started out with a tweeny little brush. 

Samuel's favorite color is red so of course he had to paint his as well.  

Shari, Jesse, and all three of their girls came over about 5:45pm and we were ready to hit the pavement. Here are the kids with each of their respective pumpkins. Samuel was a cowboy. Noah a Rush hockey player. He was so relieved not to have to be anything silly. Ezra was Batman though Terry wore the mask. Evie was Hermione - she carried around a Harry Potter book and a wand for a while before her arm got tired.

The whole group of cousins minus Rebekah who Shari was carrying. 

Noah, Evie, Samuel, Grace, Ezra, and Sarah

Hitting up our neighbor two doors down. We walked for two miles!

Two doors up had the most impressive pumpkin display. They even grew them all themselves!

weddings

While catching up on the blog, I found several photos I had never posted from recent weddings and since we just attended another one yesterday, I wanted to share. 

Just before my trip to visit my sister in May, all six of us attended my cousin Tyler's wedding.

Tyler, David, Kara, me, Laura, and Heather

They had a photo booth that was hilariously amusing. These photos have been on our fridge for months and now they are finally eternally secure on the blog ;)

Several months later was long-time student Molly's beautiful wedding at Chapel in the Hills. It was October first and I couldn't believe how perfect the weather was, but then again yesterday, November 6, her sister Meghan, was married in Spearfish Lodge (but I forgot to take any photos on account of being exhausted from the Fall Retreat) and the weather was equally flawless. 

The six pack was owning the back row!

I had to wipe my eyes several times during Molly's wedding. And look how beautiful!

At the reception we took full advantage of the fun involved in the Polaroid photo booth.

Terry and I, Evie and Zoe, Evie and Samuel, Evie and Ezra. Obviously, Evie was a huge fan.

I love this photo of Noah and Evie with silly Steven.

I am also quite fond of this one of Terry and I :)

We sat with Russ and Denise and their girls and it was either Terry or Russ who said, "Every crumb matters" while Ezra licked his plate. He he he.