Gracie's reading!!! I tried to stop her so she could still be a baby, but no luck. Darn kids! :)
Thanks be to Aunt Katie who gave us a DK phonics book a long time ago and the Leapfrog videos The Letter Factory and Talking Words Factory.

Dentist or Engineer???

The kids have their fiddle lessons tomorrow and I have a class at the same time. I was freaking out about how I was going to get both done and Robyn looked at me and said, "Mom, Dad can take us." And so he CAN! What a revelation!

As the daughter of a dentist, it never even occurred to me to ask Randy such a thing. Engineers have more flexibility in their schedules. Randy has to put his hours in, but he has a lot more freedom to choose what those hours are on a daily basis. He can choose to go to work at 7:00 or 9:00. He can take his lunch earlier or later depending what is going on. He can even work from home if he so chooses. (He doesn't choose work from home often because the computer connection is much faster at work and Colin sidetracks him into playing Super Tux instead of working at home.) Whereas a dentist has to schedule months in advance or change a schedule that was made months in advance.

It was fine to be a dentist's daughter, however, I really like being an engineer's wife. It is good for me.

Here are a few pictures from this week. Robyn loves to read and Caden and Grace are a very willing audience.




Colin and I worked (actually it was more like playing) on food storage this week. We checked the dry pack canner out from the cannery and canned 100 #10 cans of wheat, spelt, rice, macaroni, oatmeal, onions,and beans. Whew!

Caden is growing like crazy! I tried to get a picture of his adorable spiky hair, but the picture doesn't do it justice. His smiles make me melt! I love this kid!

While many of the neighborhood kids were enjoying their first day of school on Monday, we lucky homeschoolers got to take a field trip. Grandpa had the day off work and the weather was absolutely beautiful so we went for a "lesson" on airplanes. Colin and Robyn each got a private airplane ride. Colin thought it was too bumpy. Robyn thought the cars looked like toys. Grace preferred to just look at the airplane, maybe next time she'd like to sit in it. :) We all had a lot of fun. Grace has been asking all day if we could go back to Grandpa and Grandma's house today. Thanks for the great time, Grandpa and Grandma!

We got a MAC!!

Colin has a ton to teach me now. :)

I love being a Mommy! The fourth kid has been soooo much easier than the third kid was. Could it be that my next youngest is three this time around instead of my very oldest being three? Perhaps it is that I have big girls who love to help out. What ever it is, I love it! Robyn changes Caden's first morning diaper while I finish getting ready for the day and Grace entertains him while I cook dinner. Life is GOOD!

We have been learning how to be "curly girls" lately. Isn't Robyn beautiful with her lovely curls?

I restricted Colin's blog so it can only be read by people we invite. If you want an invite, comment on this post and I will see about getting you added. I don't know everyone's email addresses to invite you all. I have comment moderation on so I will not post your addresses for anyone else to see. :)

Swimming Lessons are over for this summer.

We just finished our second two week session of swimming lessons for the summer. It was really fun to watch the kids' progress.

Caden is not into swimming yet, he is a great watcher.













Here they are just warming up for the lesson.

Grace actually got less brave throughout the lessons. It was a good thing for someone so small. She is great at blowing bubbles and doing her kicks.



Robyn can now swim by herself for a bit - hooray! She will be swimming all over the place next year.







Here is Colin coming up for air. He will be off like a rocket as soon as he will get his legs out behind him. He is awesome at treading water.