Birthdays_ Johns first!

John LOVES balloons.  

So does everyone else, so it makes for a fun celebration!

John getting impatient while Jason blows up another balloon.

MM snuggling with the baby rabbits on John's birthday.  

Ropping in the rain!  

We feel sorry for the next baby- how can anyone compare with John's cuteness? Those eyes and that curly hair? My goodness!

Henry practicing his roping.

John squatting.  

John copies everything we do.  He loves to hold the fly swatter and smack the ground with it.  

So sweet!

John is also known for his faces- especially this one!

One year ago, he was a tiny baby in my arms. Now he is so big! I always get sentimental on the first birthday!

Margaret Mary singing Happy Birthday to John.  

Oh wait! I get cupcakes too!

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A birthday mess!

We love you John!  You are such a delight! Even in your fussy, whiny times.  :)

Birthdays- Mine

For my 29th birthday, I shared by Amazon wishlist with my parents. We don't have enough money to buy EVERYTHING I want to read in homeschooling and my parents were happy to help us out!  Here are a few pics of the kids enjoying the books:

Yes, Peter is wearing a dress in this pic.  Margaret mary likes to dress him up like a little sister- and he enjoys the attention.  To him- dresses "don't work"  if they don't spin well.  

I don't remember the context of this picture- but he was probably thinking about all the great books his grandma and pawaw brought!

Birthdays!- Margaret Mary turns 6!

These pics are from Margaret Mary's 6th birthday.  On the actual day, she wanted carrot cake and wanton soup. So I made both and then went to a friend's house to share the cake.  It was fun and informal: the way I like to do birthdays. :)  BUT, because her father had his 30th birthday party last year, she wanted something like that for a celebration the weekend after.  We decided on inviting one family over. She kept asking for more, but I did not want to start a habit of huge birthday celebrations for each person in the family every year.  At the last minute, we invited another family, which asked if another family could come as well.  We said yes and I am so thankful we did.  The orignial family who we invited had gotten busy and forgotten! How sad my girl would have been to have no one show up!  God was looking out for her!  She had a great time playing with her friends that came and her Granny, Alyssa and Aunt Eryn who were in town. I am so thankful she had a great day!

At age six, Margaret Mary is independent and creative.  Homeschooling has been such a huge blessing to our relationship.  We laugh and cry over books we read together, we hit walls together (figuratively) and have to find ways over them, we get frustrated and impatient and then apologize and then laugh and cry over books we are reading together again.  It is such a blessing!  The curriculum we use (Ambleside with some Catholic adaptations) fits our family lifestyle and stretches Margaret Mary perfectly. She has learned so much!  We make friends with composers, poets and artists (we spend 12 weeks reading and listening to them) and in fact, MM got upset when I was changing our books out for this next term.  I told her we would make new friends, but she already misses Edgar Degas, A.A. Milne and Joseph Haydn.  As an artist herself, she really connected with Degas and his beautiful ballerina pictures!  The hardest thing for her is copywork:  its a little too mundane for this little artist! She thrives on creating!

Happy birthday to my little princess!  Words can not describe how wonderful you are and how much we love you!

Rabbits here, Rabbits there!

Not related to blog post title, but still a good pic.  Sharing yogurt!

Processing rabbits!

Proud to say our kids are not skeemish at all!  Henry was a little upset but only because we were killing the boy rabbits.  Its tough to be a boy on a farm. But we had to process the boys- they were ripping each other's privates off!  

Peter spent his time "building a pond."  Thanks Grandad!  :)

MM worked on scrapping the meat off the skin so she could salt it down and keep it.  BUT Lucy stole it. And buried it. And we never saw it again. 

More babies!

We probably shouldn't have let them hold them when they were this little...

Joining in the fun!

Nothing is in focus, but is such a pic of what life is like here. 

Peter loves the baby rabbits!

I love the smile on his face!

Peter turns 3 and our trip to Chapel Hill

Peter got a metal loader for his birthday and loved it!  He was so mad on the long car ride because he wanted dirt to play in with his new truck!

Jason had a Fraternus meeting the night of Peter's birthday (the first night of the trip) and so we celebrated with pizza and ice cream at our friend's house.

The next stop was to see Memaw.  John was smitten with her!

Here he is hanging on to her leg.  

Then we had the REAL birthday party the second night with the family.  There were accidentally two cakes, but I don't think Peter minded one bit!

Admiring his trucks.

Who needs a spoon when you have a digger?

Sleepy baby.

He loved the swing a few days later!  John has the sweetest contented faces.  They melt us!

Sweet baby teeth!

Sweet Baby hands!!!

I didn't take any more pics because Jason was busy with the wedding and I was busy with kids. I wish I would have taken some at Keck and Mel's wedding, so when the kids played "wedding" back at the house, I had to take pics!

The Bride and her flowers.

The groom puts flowers in his pocket. 

All love dovey!

The Mass.

John began standing at this time!

Let the dancing begin!  This pic cracks me up because MM was imitating how Mel danced to a T!  

And  no wedding is complete without a dip!

My favorite part was at the end of their "wedding," Henry stopped dancing and imitated a speech Justin gave perfectly:  I don't remember the exact words but it was something like "Thanks for coming, the beer is in the back!"  Too funny!