The center of attention

The boys love their little sister. As you can see, most things revolve around her. What a sweet blessing she is to our family.

Learning is fun

Homeschooling is sometimes challenging, but mostly fun. I realize more and more how fun learning can be. My children are always teaching me, and trying to teach them improves my learning as well. One benefit of homeschooling is that it can be imaginitive and fun, and individualized for strengths and weaknesses. Today, the boys wanted to learn about Africa and "built" an african jungle full of animals. We read stories from Africa, learned about their lives, made hunting masks etc. We also learned about humanitarian efforts in some parts of Africa. It was great!

The other day I threw a pizza party for my sunday school class (ages 14-18). They were all here playing games. Jeffrey was playing a game called "Gobblet" (which we highly recommend - it is a game of strategy, not quite like chess, but similar in reasoning strategies) with some of the older kids. They just couldn't beat him! They would play again and again, with no luck. Finally, with a combined effort of 7 people, including me, we finally won. He is quite an intelligent child, and a little smart alec too. Heehee.

Here are a couple of other pictures.

Addendum

Ironically, after writing Ben's tribute about his last alert, it looks like his last alert turned into two alerts. We are currently experiencing somewhat of a blizzard. Because of the conditions, they are making the crews stay for a double alert. Can I survive one more night with him gone? If I've been doing it for four years, I suppose I can. My dreams of the last alert crushed!:) But now, only about 24 more hours! Such is military life. The wind is blowing at about 50 mph. The snow is blowing, creating huge drifts. We can't open our back door! The joys of not only military life, but of Minot, ND! At least it's not -60 yet!

Tribute to my man

I am sure Ben will feel ill at ease when he reads this, but I think he deserves a tribute. Today he left to go to the missle capsule for his last alert. His job as a "crew dog" in the missle field has been indescribably difficult. He has fought a good fight and has gone out with a bang. Not only is Ben the kind of person that does his job well, but he tries to make it better for others. Although he is moving on to an office job (actually it's in a vault, but it is not 70 feet under ground.) he is still trying to improve the work enviroment and training for others who are wearily going to the capsules. He is a wonderful officer and a true mentor and leader. I am so proud of him for serving his country, for moving forward the cause of liberty, for protecting our freedoms and for sacrificing for the benefit of his family and for others. I am thankful for all those who have and do serve in the armed forces, but I am most especially thankful for Ben. I love him! Perhaps he has flaws, but he is perfect for me. We are excited for him to be home with more scheduled hours and to have him sleep at home more than a few nights a week! Thank you, Ben!

Halloween

Here are a couple of pictures from Halloween. Jeffrey was Harry Potter, William was a ghost, Abel was a pirate, Dallin was a green monster, Benny was a horse, and Grace was a pumpkin. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like when I was growing up that it was so rare to get a little candy bar in our small town. We always got life savers and smarties. Boy is it different now. By the time we trick-or-treat for about half an hour it looks like we stole the whole candy store! Almost all the candy they get is what we coveted when i was a child: candybars, soda pop, even bags of cheetoes! They had tons of fun and I think the candy will last a year! (It should, but I am sure it won't.)

The night before Halloween we were carving pumpkins. The boys did a great job. Dallin was a hoot. He was watching me scoop out the inside of a pumpkin. He decided to help and said while looking at the inside exclaimed, "Oooh. That's disghosting!" That seemed to fit very well for Halloween!