Katie's First Birthday Party

Today we had Katherine's first birthday party. We had a kindermusik lady come to do a kindermusik party for Katie and some of her baby friends. It was a garden theme because her name is Katherine Lily. This year has FLOWN by! Here are a bunch of pictures and a short video at the end:

art appreciation

For art appreciation yesterday, we went to the BYU art museum. I told the boys we would walk around and at the end, they would choose their favorite ones to draw sketches of:


Nathan's waterfall:
Alex's waterfall:

Nathan decided he wanted to draw a random colorful dog:

Then he (nathan) chose to draw this Marilyn Monroe,

Which was on a poster:

Here's his interpretation:

Alex chose to draw this:

and I forgot to take a picture of this Alex drew:

Baby had a really bad random bloody nose so she had to stay in her carseat without clothes until it stopped:

Nathan's prayer

One of my favorite things is listening to my boys say their prayers at night. I just put the boys to bed, and the boys decided that we needed to pray about how much money we need to give away when Daddy makes his website and we get millions of dollars. Here's Nathan's prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,
Please let us know how much money to give away.
Thank you for your love.
Thank you for the scriptures.
Oh yea, and please tell me what's a google that can fit in this universe.
Jesus Name, Amen.

Alex's prayer was like unto it, I just don't remember exactly what he said.

A lot of times Nathan will say thank you for "this beautiful, beautiful earth", "the stores and food", and of course his family. One night he said "thank you for our beautiful house". I asked him after what he meant and he said, "even when it's messy, it's still beautiful." It made me appreciate our house more. My kids teach me so much.

Tawnya

We spent the last few days with Todd's family because his sister Tawnya came to visit us from Iowa. They left yesterday and all my boys were sobbing on the way home. It was fun to have her and Jed and Spencer here. We went to the zoo and to the Oquirrh temple open house and just hung out together. She is a great person and I love her and her beautiful family! She always says that I am her example but really, she is my example. I love her!

She made the invitations for Katherine's first birthday and they turned out SO cute!

For more pictures go here:

http://tcreates101.blogspot.com/2009/06/lets-party.html

Thanks so much, Tawnya!

PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Dear Reader,
I'm frustrated with my boys' lack of cleaning and taking care of things. Books always get wrecked because they leave them on the floor and they get stepped on or Baby gets to them; toys get wrecked, crayons, etc... I have art supplies in the school room so they can be creative in their play time, but when I go up there it's a total mess-- markers dried out without lids, paper cuttings everywhere, etc., and it's the same way all over the house. I am NOT going to clean up for them, but I can't be over their shoulders all day telling them to clean up this before they get out that. Please--- any suggestions???? How do normal mothers keep their things nice with kids and their houses clean without having to follow their kids around 24/7 ?????
Thanks in advance,
Kristie

Update: I still want your advice, but what I'm going to try is this: the boys get $5 allowance each Saturday. On the Sunday before (for the next week's allowance), I'll get their allowance in nickels and put it in a jar. If I see a mess they made or something not put away, I will identify their mess as a number 1-10 (10 being the worst mess), and they get that many nickels taken away, and they still have to clean it up. If they clean something up without me having to tell them, I will give them 1-10 nickels in their jar, depending on how great they cleaned. On Sat., they can have whatever is in their jar. I tried to explain to them today, that they have to clean it up anyway, they might as well GET nickels for it, instead of LOSING them. We'll all have jars, and if I don't clean a mess, the kids can take away my nickels, too. I think I am going to take a month or so and just focus on cleaning habits, mine and the kids.
Oh yea, and they have to pay for anything that gets messed up out of their allowance.
I'll let you know how this works.

colonial days

First off, Katherine took THREE steps today!!

Nathan likes to watch Todd play the computer game "World of Goo":
For the Fourth of July, we went to Provo for Colonial Days:

Dad, you'll appreciate this homemade laithe:

Alex and Nathan in front of a pretty, old house in Provo. I love all the trees and shade:

I won!

I won the drawing for a $50 Costco card out of 90 entries! Yipee!
http://formerlyphread.blogspot.com/2009/07/winner-of-costco-cash-card.html

Picture of Katherine and me

I have pictures of Alex and me, and Nathan and me when they were babies, so I got pictures of Katie and me. She was so funny-- she kept sticking her tongue out!
Here is my cute, sweet baby:

pictures and videos

Baby Katie took her first step today! Just one, but she's getting closer to walking!
Baby Katie eating a corn cob:

Alex lost his first tooth! You can see the permenant one already coming in:

Baby Katherine wants to do what the boys do. Winston is squirting the door with water and she thinks it's so funny! Look at those cheeks!

Nathan learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels today!

great store

I have a friend, Diane Hopkins, who has been homeschooling for about 25 years. She started the homeschool group that I belong to (the one I really love). She wrote a small book on how to homeschool that I recommend to anyone thinking about homeschool. She is one of the people I look up to as an example. (I have a list of people in my head who are good examples to me in certain areas.) She has helped me come up with a good curriculum for next year for my family, and helps me with practical advice all the time. She owns a store nearby that has homeschooling curriculum, books, toys, tons of great stuff, that she has used with her own family. She has gone through books and books throughout the last 25 years and found the best and most up-to-date material to put in her store. I recommend that you take a look, and sign up for her email list, (whether you homeschool or not): http://www.lovetolearn.net/

P.S. I started a homeschool blog to journal what we do so I can repeat it for the future. The link is on the sidebar.

Nathan's biography choice

At the library yesterday, we went to the juvenile biography section and I told them to pick out a biography. Nathan picked "Inca Ice Maiden" with a freaky picture of a frozen girl on the front: