Getting ready for school...

Today finishes our second week of school, but these are pics of Andrew helping get ready by putting together a new bookshelf for our school room.

Then, he felt he needed to have every pencil he owned sharpened before school started. :) So he would sit in the school room among all the boxes I had yet to unpack of school stuff from when I was teaching, plugging away with his little handheld sharpener (though we did eventually find the electric one). At various times during the day he would disappear and be very quiet, so I would just call out to him to see what he was up to...which we do a lot of in this house! He just kept heading back in to work on his pencils!
Our first day of school. It was one of Mark's days off for hunting, so he took this before he headed back out that morning.

Anna lately...

This is what Anna has been up to in August and September...just getting cuter and more interactive by the day!

Boys outside!

One of the best things about living here is the space outside for the boys to play. From the swingset and fort (for which Mark salvaged and put up an old boat steering wheel), to playing with the t-ball set, to riding bikes and scooters, they are outside all the time!
Andrew especially was contantly asking to watch a movie...a request we haven't heard more than once the entire time we've been living here! They're just too busy...we love it! :)

Cutting wood, take 2

On one of Mark's days off for hunting, he spent half of it cutting wood. Our friends Dustin and Christy just moved to a place with a woodstove, so they came to help cut wood in exchange for a few loads of it!

Anna and Christy meeting for the first time...
Trying to get the splitter started. It was quite comical, because for a while both guys were just kneeling down looking at it, but I didn't have my camera then!

The boys watching...though later Jacob came in for a nap, and Andrew was quite a little worker! He and Christy were loading the trailer as the logs were split, each of them going back and forth from the pile to the trailer. Apparently it was Andrew's idea to become more efficient...he stayed up in the trailer, and Christy would bring him the logs to stack...and it worked quite well!









Relaxing after a hard afternoon's work...snuggled in with Anna! Just when we think we have Dustin convinced that this whole having kids thing would be nice, Jacob came trotting in, "Daddy, I have poopy pants." Ha!

Cutting Wood

There's a woodstove at this house, and we cna save some money on fuel and electric if we make the time to cut wood!
Mark planned on spending an evening out at the woodpile, and of course the boys wanted to watch. Anna had fallen asleep in the frontpack on our walk, so I laid her down so I could help load the split logs onto the trailer, and then Andrew got in on the action, too!

Quite the artist...

The boys were just given these "Magna-doodles" at the baby shower for Anna. Andrew brought his pictures to me, and I was so impressed I just had to take a picture! The first is of Lightning McQueen, and the second is of Mater. (If you haven't seen Cars yet, you don't know what you're missing)!

Moose Hunting

Mark was able to take a few days off to go moose hunting (which was regrettably unsuccessful, although it did wonders for him to spend a few days out tramping in the woods instead of tramping around Ace hardware).
Since he was just scouting the woods behind the house, he decided to take Andrew with him for a few hours the first morning. Andrew, of course, was ecstatic, quickly donning his hunting shirt and hat! Jacob, though, was dismayed..."I want to go 'unting, too!"













Mark promised Jacob that he would get a turn, too, and he and Andrew headed out for several hours of scouting. Apparently Andrew did quite well, hiking along, and I think Mark actually got him to be quiet for a bit!















Jacob was anxiously awaiting their return! They headed out, and were back in about 45 minutes! It was too brushy for Jacob to walk through, and Mark couldn't carry him and the gun very well. So they just got out a little ways, sat down on a log to have their snack I packed, and came back! :)

















Throughout the day, I would see the boys just sitting on the little bench, watching where they had last seen Mark hike out. Well, at one point of watching, they actually saw him coming back! I had to call them back from going all the way out to meet him! They are their father's sons! :)

Kindergarten will be such a disappointment...

For those of you who didn't know, we're homeschooling our kids, and Andrew started Kindergarten this year!
We started school last week...hence the continued lack of blogging, despite the fact that we're unpacked and settled in at this point. We're slowly but surely getting into a routine...

At any rate, a few days before we started school, I was asking Andrew what he wanted to learn about in kindergarten.

Andrew: Well, I want to learn about whales.

Me: Sure...we can do that for science sometime this year. (We saw beluga whales a few weeks ago on our way to the fair, so his interest has been piqued).

Andrew: And I want to learn more about Jesus, 'cuz I don't know
enough about Him yet.

Me: That's wonderful that you want to learn more about Jesus...that
will make God very happy. We'll learn more about Jesus for Bible
class. (Thanks, Lord, for that encouragement...he actually wants to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus)!

Andrew: And I'm ready to learn how to drive a car.

Me: (Lord, help me!) Well, that's a good idea, but usually you wait till you're about 16 to do that. You have about 11 years to wait.

Andrew: Yeah, I guess I should wait till I'm bigger.

Of wax and boogers...

Jacob, for whatever reason, tends to have very waxy ears, which I frequently attempt to clean out. (No, I don't use a Qtip and I don't enter the ear canal, for those who may fear I'm damaging his ear drum!)

One day, I saw him stick his finger in his ear, looked at the wax thereon, and brought it to me.
"Mommy, 'ere's a piece of my ear." (He has almost a scottish brogue, not saying the /h/ sound and all)

The inevitable was him picking his nose, and the concept was the same! The booger? A piece of his nose!

Then the other day he poked his finger in Anna's ear.

Me: Jacob, why did you poke your sister in the ear?

Jacob: I'm just getting 'er wax!

Baby Shower!

Our church is mission church of a large Baptist church in Soldotna. They help support the ministry of our church in various ways, from prayer support to helping with big projects or needed items! The kids' Sunday School at their church is spending time focusing on different missionaries, and right now our family is their focus! So they've been praying for us, and thought of a project to bless us: a baby shower for Anna!
We were incredibly blessed by the outpouring of love that they gave us! It was just a wonderful time, from games for all the kids (and one for adults, too!), an exhortation from Scripture to teach our children of the Lord, to great food, a beautiful cake, and tons of gifts-even some for the boys! It was quite overwhelming to see the
love and care that went into the shower for us, and we are so grateful to have such a supportive parent-church! Thanks especially to Trish and Suzanne for coordinating the myriad of details and projects! They brought in presents for the kids to wrap, the kids painted a little shelf and frame for Anna, and helped create the diaper wreath-just to name a few! May God bless them all ten-fold for their blessing to us!

More from the new swingset...

I've finally had a chance to sort through all my pictures to get them all in the right folders! The past few weeks, it seems like I have 2 or 3 people's pictures for everything going on in our life, so I needed to get them all filed by event rather than by each person's camera! So, I wanted to share more of our first day with the swingset!

Anna's Dedication

On Sunday September 2nd, 2007 we dedicated Anna to the Lord. It was a very special service. Mark's Dad officiated, and my sister Rebecca sang a beautiful song for Anna..."Hold onto Jesus". Anna wore the same christening dress that both my Mom and I wore when each of us were baptised as infants.

























We really appreciated the cake my mom made for the after service reception.
An attempt at a "have all the kids looking at the camera" family picture...

Sailing!

For our anniversary this year, Mark got us a Resurrection Bay sailboat excursion! Since we had a newborn around for our anniversary this year, we decided to wait till later in the summer, and it worked out well for childcare to go while Mark's parents were here!
We had a fabulous time...there were only two other people besides the captain and his wife, and we all got to help raise the sails. There was full wind, sunny skies, and several sea otters to watch! They even served us drinks and snacks, and I had fun experimenting with different angled shots of the sails.
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, had dinner out before heading home, and marveled at all that has happened in the last nine years!

Moving Day...

Thanks to our families and some friends from church, we had a pretty smooth moving day! We did the bulk of it after church...my mom brought lunch, and then we got them all working!

Andrew was so excited to help pack his room, and Jacob found furniture outside on a trailer highly entertaining! (Until he fell and got a huge gash on his head...to match the scar he has on the other side of his head from falling last Christmas. I was up at the new house, so Mark called and warned me about his fall before they came up here and I saw him with blood matted in his hair)!

Rebecca had the job of settling the boys room, and by bedtime she had it looking quite cozy!









One of the best benefits to living here is the yard...there's a great backyard and plenty of driveway for bike riding-all far from the highway, and within sight of almost all the windows of the house! And, as God's timing would have it, some folks from town are moving out of state and were selling their swingset for a great deal! So we had our families here to help us move on the last Sundy of August, and then everyone was here the next Sunday for Anna's dedication service, so we got the swingset and set it up then! I love the picture of getting the swingset situated...Mark and the boys with each of the grandfathers...Grandpa Milligan, Gramps Joy, and Papa Ikerd (their "adopted" grandpa here in Moose Pass).