Back to School!!

 This post is quite late...but, better late then never!!  I always imagine life will get so much calmer when school starts...in truth, it gets much busier.  With sports, homework, teaching piano lessons and regular life and responsibilities...I feel quite swamped.  Nonetheless, I love Fall and all the fun that comes with it.

The end of summer brought some fun and exciting events!  Jane got her braces off!!  What a beautiful smile was found underneath!!

 We had some good friends move to Korea, so we had one last get together before they left.  Here are all the sweet friends :)

 One of Elsie's sweet little best friends, Daphne, was part of the family moving, unfortunately.  I think Elsie will always remember her sweet friend :)

 I will miss my sweet friend, as well!!  I just love these ladies!!

 Another exciting event, was when we got a dog.  Her name is Skittles!! She is 9 years old and so well behaved.  We have just fallen in love with this sweet little old lady!

 Naturally, we had our annual Back to School dinner!!  It was so fun!

 Here were the place settings.  Each little item they received had significance!

 I had fun decorating and preparing for this dinner!

 I think the kids enjoyed it as well!!

 I love this tradition.  It is a good time  for us to talk about how we act in school, how we stay safe when we are away from home and the value in hard work!!

 Then the day finally came!!  The kiddos were all so excited to start school!

 Here is Jane starting 4th grade with her good friend!!

 Here is Beckham outside of his school with Elsie, ready to start 2nd grade!!

 Heres' day 2...just because these kids are growing up so fast and are just the most amazing little people ever!!

 Day 2 for our handsome Beckham!

 A week later, it was Elsie's turn to start preschool!!  She goes twice a week and has been loving it!! I cannot believe these kids are so big!!  My heart hurts every time I drop Elsie off to school!! But it is such a pleasure and a blessing to watch each of my kids grow!!

Archeology and Another Fun Visitor!

 In order to continue our learning throughout the summer I try to do lots of fun things with the kids besides just their workbooks!  This year, I put together an archeology activity that was a lot of fun!  First, we used string to section off 6 quadrants and I buried some artifacts.  They kids were the archeologists and had to dig in the rocks to find the artifacts!!  They had a lot of fun doing this!

When they found an artifact they had a log sheet where they recorded their findings!

 It took quite some time to find all the artifacts and log which quadrant they were found in and where.    But they kids were so proud once they had found them all!!

 Next, we came inside and the kids had to record their findings.  For each quadrant, they recorded what they found, described each artifact, and made guesses as to which ancient civilization they thought the artifacts might be from.  They determined that the artifacts were all from ancient Egypt!  Then I had a neat book with lots of information and pictures that we read together and learned lots about ancient Egypt!  It was so fun!

 To continue their work as archeologists, they each had a block with gemstones in it that they had to excavate :)  I found them at Target awhile ago and they were so perfect!!  Everyone thought it was super neat to uncover their gems!

 Elsie was downright amazed by it :)

 For the last part of our archeology activity, I bought some actual Papyrus like they used in ancient Egypt and we studied the ancient Egyptian alphabet.  Then the kids each wrote me a secret message on the papyrus using the hieroglyphic alphabet!!

 The messages were very sweet :)  Elsie chose to just make some art with glitter glue:)

 One day, while Jane was at a special activity days activity at church, Beckham, Elsie and I had a fun little adventure.  We went to the University rock wall.  They were each scared at first, but caught on and got braver and higher with each attempt :)

 We had a special treat this summer! My mom came out to visit us! We were so thrilled to have another visitor.  It had been nearly 2 years since she has made it out to see us, so we knew we had to have some fun adventures with her.  We decided to visit Branson.  On the way, we stopped at the Osceola cheese factory.  I love this place. It has the most wonderful and unique flavors of cheese and tons of treats.

 Once we made it to Branson, we visited the butterfly palace first.  We love this place. Here we are looking at some cool reptiles.

 This cute little, fat frog was my favorite.  He was just chillin and was so darling :)

 The mirror maze is a favorite for my kiddos!

 Then we went into the amazing butterfly habitat!  The kids got to hold and examine all different kinds of unique butterflies.

 The butteries were very friendly:)

 Then we went to a very fun dinner show called the Dixie Stampede!

 During the pre show, Jane got picked to go on stage and play the banjo!  It was awesome :)

 Dinner was delicious, as usual...

 And I just love the show:) We had a blast!

 Then we stopped by an alpine roller coaster just before embarking on the journey home.  Elsie got Grammy to be very brave and go full speed all the way down :)

 It was so amazing just to have Grammy with us.  Here we are eating a yummy homemade apple pie that we bought at the shops on Mainstreet in Warrensburg :)

 Grammy was a trooper the entire time as the kids fought for her attention constantly.  She is such fun Grammy and spent lots of special time with each of them.  Here she is helping the kiddos build an epic fort !!

 We loved having Grammy with us! I miss being near family. Hopefully, that will change soon :) Thanks for coming, Mom!  We loved every second of it :)

Last, but not least, here is Jane...sans braces!!  She got them off and has just a beautiful smile!!