Happy Birthday Maddie!

Bekah's friend, Maddie, turned 5 last week and she had a Build-a-Bear party! I don't know if Bekah has ever been so excited about a birthday party. She got to make her own BAB and she was thrilled!! Brandon came with us to the party and helped Maddie's brother make his BAB. Brandon also was very excited about the party, and when we got home he pulled out his BAB (the one Uncle Clint and Aunt Cat got him when he was 2) and now he wants some new clothes for his bear!

Maddie was happy when Bekah arrived!

Here are the kids marching with their animal "skins" on their heads! I think all the girls chose the bunny rabbit, except Bekah who chose a puppy dog. (This girl really wants a dog for a pet! She asks all the time if we can get one!)

After you stuff your animal, put his heart in, and sew him up, you get to wash him!

Then you get to pick out clothes for your animal.

Bekah also got hairbows since her animal was a girl!

The whole crew!

They each got a "house" to carry their animal in, and they each got a birth certificate. When we got home I had to find Brandon's birth certificate too. He realized that his bear is now 7 years old!

Then they got a hot dog lunch at Costco!

And of course there was yummy cake!

Happy Birthday Maddie! We are thankful that Bekah has such a good friend!

Friends

Recently our friends Justin and Kara and Kyla moved away. We are excited that Justin is now the pastor of a church in Missouri, and he is following God's call on his life, but we were sad to see them go. They have been gone about 3 weeks, and we are adjusting to life without them around! But, we are very excited that Kara and Kyla are coming to stay with us this weekend! Kara had already booked a wedding (she's a photographer) so she is coming back for that this weekend. They should be arriving sometime this afternoon and will be here until Monday morning. Bekah has been counting down the days, and now today is Kyla Day! We are soooo excited! I thank God for the blessing of good friends.

My First 5K

On Saturday, I got to run my first ever official 5K (that is 3.1 miles). I know that is not a long distance to a real runner, but I had to work hard to be able to do it. It's been about a year and a half since I first started trying to run. I've been wanting to try a 5K for the last 6 months or so, I just never could find a good Saturday to try it. It seems like whenever there was a race I wanted to participate in, we were out of town or had plans or something. So, I was excited to finally have one scheduled on the calendar for October 17th. Of course I wasn't planning on it being 40 degrees outside when I signed up! So, I had to purchase some new warmer running clothes, but hopefully they will get lots of good use.
I was very excited when my friend, Debbie, decided she would run it with me. It was also her first 5K.

Here are me and Debbie freezing before the run!

Now we are in line getting ready to get started. We lined up close to the back of the pack so we wouldn't be trampled by all the "serious" runners! I did a bunch of reading online before the race, so I knew we needed to not start out too fast. I had read if you start out in the front of the pack you might try to keep up with the faster pace and then have a hard time finishing the race.

It took forever to get the race started. I'm sure it wouldn't have been bad if it wasn't so cold outside!

Finally, we are getting close to the start line.

And we're off! We were about 15 seconds behind the start of the race clock.

Todd and the kids hung out at the start/finish line during the race. They had a bouncy house for the kids to enjoy. I think there were other festivities thay got cancelled due to the cold weather. Todd snapped this picture of the finish line.

Here I am getting very excited that I can see the finish line!

I sprinted in as fast as I could at the end. It was nice to pass all those people that I had been trailing most of the race!

The time on the race clock was 33:20, but since I was about 15 seconds behind the clock, my time was 33:05. My personal goal was to run it in no more than 34 minutes, and to not stop and walk any at all during the race. I was very happy to make it in under my goal time and without walking any during the race!

My friend Debbie made it in at about 38:15.

We survived! We were so happy! We hung around after the race for the awards and door prizes. Well, I never win anything so I was shocked when they called my race number for a door prize! I won a $50 gift card that is good at several restaurants - Outback, Carrabas, etc. I'm looking forward to using that!

Now I am ready to run another one. Todd says maybe he'll start running and do it with me. That would be great!

Cornucopia Farm

Last week we got to go on a field trip to Cornucopia Farm. They had lots of fun stuff for the kids to do there. The kids also got to learn a lot about how to grow a pumpkin and about all the different types of pumpkins. It was a rainy morning, and we were afraid we might not get to go on our field trip. However, the rain pretty much stopped while we were there, other than a little bit of drizzly rain occasionally. The kids wore boots, old clothes and jackets and we made the most of it. We especially enjoyed getting to hang out with our friends Merideth, Roger and Victoria at the farm!

This was like a big sand box, only it was filled with corn instead of sand.

This was our wagon ride out to the "pumpkin patch". The real pumpkin patch was too muddy to get to in the wagon, so they prepicked a bunch of pumpkins and just laid them on the ground in the corn field.

Showing off their pumpkins!

They got to learn about farm animals and actually fed a calf!

Brandon learned that pigs are used in diabetes research.

Weeeee!

Our friends, Roger and Victoria!

Happy Fall!

Rubber duck races!

They also had a big corn maze and a soybean maze, but due to the weather, we opted not to do that. It looked like fun, so I was a little bummed, but it was still a great day.

Hidden Hill Nursery

In the kids' science club, we studied botany last month. Our field trip was a visit to the Hidden Hill Nursery. The kids had a great time, and we learned a lot about plants. We'd like to go back again and take Daddy so he can get some good pictures. Hopefully we can do that next spring when everything is in bloom. Here are some pictures from our day.

This is Brandon sitting inside a tree!

Listening to the tour guide

A cool tree - all the branches are curvy and twisted.

It's kind of like Narnia - a door to another world!

School Days

Here are the kids working hard on school. They typically do not work in the same room together because they are distracting to each other, so this is a rare occasion. We have been plugging along at school and are now in our 9th week of the year. Brandon has been learning about ancient Rome and what the world was like at the time when Jesus was born and growing up. He really does love learning about history and recalls history facts very well. In math, he has been mastering fractions this year. He can now add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions. The kids have science together, and we have been studying the 5 senses. Last week they learned about sound waves and the inner workings of our ears.
Bekah has finally decided that reading is fun, and she wants to read all the time! She is working on adding and subtracting in math. She still loves to color and do art projects as often as possible.
On a typical day, Brandon gets up at 7:30 and gets ready for school. He has school time with Mommy first and then goes to his room for independent work while Mommy does school with Bekah. We break for lunch, and that is when Mommy reads aloud a chapter book to the kids. We are currently reading The Bronze Bow which is a fictional story about some children who were alive during the years of Jesus's earthly minstry and how he impacts them. We usually do science together after lunch, and then the kids do chores. Then Brandon has to finish up his independent work, and Bekah and I take turns reading. I read a picture book to her, and then she reads one to me! At 4:00 Brandon goes to karate on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays we have art class or Boys Book Club and then Bekah goes to dance class. Bekah is in a Keepers club on one Monday afternoon of the month, and we are a part of a science club that meets two afternoons a month. We stay very busy and the time passes quickly. I haven't planned an official fall break, but we may have to take one soon!