Oh My Gosh! How Long Has It Been!

I've been gone from blogging for over a month! I'll just get right to the updates!

ASHER
Asher turned 7 months old on Monday. He is almost crawling, in fact, he's crawling backwards and is so close to going forward.


He is a total joy, gets excited at crowds of people, doesn't like to be in a room with less that 2 people, goes to anyone, smiles at everyone and knows how to clap and give kisses.

I took him to choir last night. As we were going down the hall to the choir loft (we were late, of course), he heard the singing, turned and saw all the people down the hall, and just about jumped out of my arms trying to get there. His arms and legs were going at high speeds. We were getting to our seat just as they finished the song, and everyone giggled when they noticed his face lit up with a huge smile and his body very evidently excited. Our choir seems to have adopted him. Even the basses pass him around amongst themselves. It's rare that I have him during rehearsal.

He's sitting up now and eating cereal. I'm taking it slow with eating, cuz he's nursing very well and that's much better for him than anything else.

Here are some videos of his favorite pasttime. I giggle everytime he's in this thing!:

Going . . .

Going . . .

Gone!

Here are some random pics of Asher, taken by Joshua and Hanna:

JOSHUA
Joshua has been showing some signs of responsibility and a love for the outdoors. He has captured and lost dozens of frogs and toads, 3 or 4 salamanders, and one snake! He doesn't like to talk about Karly, the cat we had to give away.
He still loves to bake. Gramma Joan gives him boxes and boxes of cake mixes. I got a call a few weeks ago to bake a cake for a funeral. I told him we had an order for one of his cakes. He said that he doesn't bake for strangers, just family. Here's his most recent creation. Marc loved it! Ate it all, just about.

He's loving homeschooling, said he even would rather homeschool than go to school, which is a huge confession for him! He struggles with Math, though. He's good at it, but he doesn't do well looking at a page full of black and white lines and numbers. If you splash some color in there, he does it with ferver. I can recite the problems orally to him and he finishes in minutes what would take him an hour or more to do on his own. I have to time him to keep him on task. Any suggestions?

He's still in karate, and now he and Hanna have started piano lessons. He's doing well at those, kinda cocky, in fact!

He's been outside every night with Marc, working the dog, collecting corn stalks off the ground from the field next to us, burning boxes and scrap wood, and whatever else those men do. Joshua was pretty excited the other night: Marc let him light his own little fire next to the main one.

Marc and I both hate mice, but Marc has killed many out in the garage. They've never gotten inthe house before. One night, a couple weeks ago, when I saw one run in front of the TV, we were up till about 11:30 trying to track it down. We had the whole kitchen and family room torn apart. We finally gave up and went to bed. The next morning, when Joshua heard about it, he got the broom out of the closet and went after it himself (while I was sitting on top of the counter!). He was almost excited about the prospect of catching a mouse! I realized I had another man in the house! YEAH!

HANNA
Hanna has had some major milestones this past month. She's spoken to 2 more girls, one of them all by herself without any involvement from me. We joined a play group for homeschool kids this year, and Hanna is the oldest in her group. She kind of felt out of place at first, I could tell. The other girls really seemed much younger than her. (There were about 30 kids in her group, I'm guessing) Then, another girl joined the group, the only one who looked Hanna's age. It was her first year also, and she was very shy, standing by her mom the whole first hour. I spoke with her a few times, mainly to introduce Hanna to her and help her realize that she's not the only one who's new and shy. The second hour, both Hanna and Kaitlyn (the new girl) sat against the wall during gym time. I left Asher in the car seat between Hanna and Kaitlyn and left for a couple minutes. He broke the ice and soon they were both playing with him. Then they started playing together. Hanna informed me afterward that she spoke to her. That's HUGE for Hanna! She also made friends with a girl down the road from us who goes to our church. I'm proud of her.

Hanna has no problems in school. It's pretty easy for her. She likes math, and has no problem focusing. She likes to read and in a nutshell is a teacher's dream pupil. She's in gymnastics and loving it.

OUR NEW HOME, FAMILY, ETC
Marc's busy season is in full swing. He's usually up by 6, gone by 6:30. It's crazy at work, so he's exhausted when he gets home. He then works outside in our yard with the kids until dark, then crashes in front of the TV. The other day, he forgot his phone in the car for a few hours. By the time he retrieved it, he had 20 missed calls from customers. Another night, his phone woke me up at 1 a.m. It was a customer (farmer) that was working around the clock to get his stuff done and didn't realize what time it was.

There are a bunch of little, unimportant jobs to be done still, but most of the big stuff is done. We have a deck, which we couldn't wait to get, but now we wish we would've waited, cuz we could use the money. We finally got living room furniture and a bunk bed in Joshua's room that we like. The rugs come Tuesday. Then it's the decorations, and soon it'll be Christmas.

We just got our first flat screen TV. I was thinking it would be nice to have a 40 inch or so in our family room, big enough to have a nice view but not overdoing it. I priced them for Marc and compared brands so Marc could just go and pick out the one he wanted. We get there, look at the 40 inchers, and Marc starts mozeying down the isle to the bigger ones. We left with a 50 inch plasma! Now, mind you, this isn't our rec room. We've got big plans for that baby! (Down the line . . .)

Marc made a new home for his hunting dog. He insulated it, sided it to match our house and put shingles on. Then he built a kennel for it. It's pretty snazzy!










My parents stopped by for a night on Labor Day Weekend on their way to visit their siblings up north. They left on Saturday. On Sunday, I got a call from my mom, then she handed the phone off to one of my closest cousins that I haven't seen for about 6 years or so. She drove up from Kansas on a whim to see family. So, on a whim, I went up to Perham with my 3 cherubs and met my parents, aunts and uncles and a few cousins for one night. It was a great 24 hours!

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough. I'm sorry this was so long in coming! I will have more photos of the kids next time I visit, whenever that will be!