Peaceful

In one word, that's what 3 hours of my day was like. Oddly peaqceful. Aaron and Ethan visited their school today. I stayed to sneak peaks at them throughout the morning, and also had a meeting with some of Ryan's teachers, so by the time I got home, 3 hours were left. It was oddly quiet, but I could definately get used to it. Ya know, by the time they got home I felt totally rejuvinated to take them on and hear about their days, do homework ect ect. I had some great time with Caitlyn, just me and my baby girl. It was surreal. I can't help but feel slightly guilty when I dream about Monday morning when they will all go again and I have the entire day like that again. The sleep I will catch up on, more one on one time with Cate, and study without interuptions. But I am sure the novelty will wear off and I will want the noise and craziness of them all back for the day. The cometitions at the lunch table of who can eat the fastest, or silly stories that you have no idea if they will ever end, or the jokes they come up with that you pretend to think are funny. The boy noises, gross questions, messes, and rocks collected on our nature walks. I haven't had just one in the house for 7 yrs. Teaching them and watching them discover was often the best part of my day. Seasons. They come and go. Yes, I know that just because they are gone for a time during the day doesn't meanI won't get to see those things again. The are boys afterall, and full of energy and life! Dinner is just the same, if not more so since now all 3 of them will have silly stories from school. Nature walks will be relished for weekends and days off.

Another feild trip to the Science center found us watching a movie at the Omnimax Theatre called "Hurricane on the Bayou". Ryan brought along a friend from school named Alex. Four boys after sitting through a documentary with carmel popcorn for snack can get quite obnoxious ya know! It was all great fun!

Singapore Airforce Museum

Another feild trip we went on which was really cool! Yes, we have been taking alot of feild trips lately. I figured, since I only have a few weeks left of teaching the boys before they go to ICS, I might as well have lots of fun with them! So, we take 1-2 feild trips a week for this month. God has blessed us mightly.

Singapore Children's Garden

Last week we went for a felid trip with the Butz's, who homeschool also, to the brand new Chidren's Garden in Singapore. It was really quite nice and the kids had a blast. There were a few places that weren't finished, like a place we could plant flowers, and dye plants. There was a huge tree house made in the middle of a Banyan tree which the boys loved. Their other favorite part was the watering wells. Because the weather is unbelievably hot lately, they stayed in this spot the longest and ended up soaking wet.

International Night

Ryan's school holds a dinner annually to celebrate all the nationalities involved. I think there are 16 contries currently, with a total of just over 300 students. Each country represented put on a specail show or talent. The Korean drums were fascinating, the boys favorite! It was sper cute to see the kindergarteners sing a song in Mandarin while trying to hold up the coordinating signs with Chinese writing. The picture of the boys is Ryan and his new best friend at school, Sok Joon.

This is what I call a real sinus problem! I am not sure why they find it so fascinating to climb up in the nose and sit there but they do. Boys will be boys I guess. This nose is in the Science Center, in the Human Body section. We visited last week while we were trying to0 decide if we wanted to start studying the human body or the animal kingdom for science. After all the hype with the nose, they chose the animal kingdom. Go figure.

Ryan talking to Beca

They may be worlds apart but they remain the best of friends. What a special blessing!

Two wheelin' it

Ethan's learning to ride a two wheeler like his brothers and doing excellent! He has picked it up in less than a month. He can ride on his own now, but has trouble starting, and going over anything but smooth terrain. Give it time and he will be going down the hills like the bigs boys I'm sure.

Today we rode across the bridge to the castle playground to celebrate with him. If you look hard, in the 2nd picture it's the red blob off in the distnace next to the stadium. He did quite well!

Daddy's little girl

There really are no words to describe these few pictures. It's special in many ways.

Go Ethan Go!

Ethan is growing so much these last few weeks, really becoming confident.  It's such a blessing to watch!   Normally he would happily sit on the sidelines and watch at any activity, but we have told him now that he's5 and in Kindergarten he should stasrt to participate.  And, well, he is.   I am so proud of him!  These pictures are of him  running some of the soccer (aka football) drills when we did a free trial class last weekend.  Un- fortunately, we are not joining this team, but we will be joining another team that starts uo next week.

The kiddos and I discovered this cute little place for a picnic while bike riding a few weeks ago.  The trees are short and the limbs almost reach the ground.   They thought it looked like an indian village.  So we went for a picnic one morning before it got too hot.   Caitlyn and I enjoyed sitting on the blanket while the boys had adventures and sword fights.

We are learning about Ancient Egypt in history for homeschool and the boys are really loving it.   We found a pyramid to dig out mummies and different artifacts, they had a great time pretending to be palientologists!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Aaron thoruoghly enjoyed his burthday this year.  It seemed to be the longest birthday for some reason.   We celebrated it together during the day, taking him to the Science Center, then in the evening when Ryan and Daddy wqere home and then on the weekend we took him to Malaysia for more horseback riding.   He loved all the presents sent from gramma's and grampa's!   BTW, you should be getting his thankyou cards soon.   At Rider's Lodge they played games and rode the horses and did a little craft and fed the horses as well.   A great time had by all.

I just thought this was the cutest picture.  Caitlyn was wondering what they were doing, but decided it was more fun to climb all over their legs instead.

Ethans first day of Kindergarten.  

Life has been busy, as usual, but I haven't completely forgotten about the blog.   It may seem as though I have,  and I know you are all wanting pictures.  So, here we go.    First I will give a quick update of what we are all up to, pictures to follow. Steve has been quite busy with his MBA these last 2 months.  Although I don't envy the workload he has, nor the time he has had to spend away from the family, I have to say I am a slight bit jealous of the places he's been to visit.  In August he went to London and Ireland, and this month he is back in the US.    We are all missing him alot and excited for him to finsish his degree, he has wanted this done for a while.   He has been able to have some great influences on his fellow classmates, being a great example for Christ.  I am so proud of him! The children are doing great, nothing new here really.  School is going well on all aspects, and they are enjoying friends and being busy.  Ethan has been growing in alot of ways this month.   He started going to Sunday school, joined gymnastics and also a reading class outside of the home.   All of which he really enjoys!  This is quite exciting because it was onloy a few months aog that he still clung to us, not wanting to go anywhere or participate in any activities.  It's neat to watch his branch out a bit.    Caitlyn is growing quickly and keeping us on our toes.   She is a joy to all! I suppose that's it, so it's time for pictures.  Enjoy!

Aaron and Ethan on thier way back from the jungle ride.

The boys all enjoyed wandering the barns and checking out each horse.  I was so blessed that they haven't developed a fear of animals because we have been living in a big city for a while, not alot of interaction with animals lately.    Actually they were a bit too free for my comfort level, but I tried not to show it.     One of them decided to get really close to Susanna, which took her off gaurd, but it didn't faze her in the least.  We got a kick out of it though, becuase it looked like her was sniffing her armpit, which, as you can imagine, the boys thought was hilarious! Caitlyn was even curios with the horses.   She was very observant and quiet when we were in the barns.  She even tried to touch one of them.   Don't worry, I didn't let her get that close, even I have boundaries for that!