Home School

So the last month has been a little slow on the school work side of things for Adelle but she has kept busy with productive things. She is still taking three classes through Eagles Peak Charter School : Art, The Solar System for science, and The World Around Us for history/social studies. She is also continuing in the homeschool band with Orange Coast Music Arts learning to play the clarinet and recently added the drums class to her schedule. She is very excited to march in the Seal Beach Christmas parade this weekend playing Jingle Bells Rock on the clarinet. While I was busy taking care of the two little ones the last month Adelle has taken advantage of the free time at home to read what she chooses by herself.  Most importantly to her was finishing all the Harry Potter books and she has now moved on to Nancy Drew. Unfortunately for her all that free time is coming to an end. We started back with math and copywork last week and are adding back more subjects each week until we get back to our regular routine. Wish me luck!

 

200,000 miles

Our Subaru Forester (looks like this but not this actual car-I didn't have a photo handy!) reached a big milestone this weekend, 200,000 miles. We weren't in the car together so Joel took a video of it on his phone. (Is that against the hands free device phone law?)We are very proud of it. We've had this baby longer than we've had Adelle! We are especially grateful to our friend, Bryce, who has kept this car running without breaking our bank and taught Joel how to fix many things on the car. Though getting three kids into the back seat is not fun and making a minivan look really appealing, we are praying this car keeps running for awhile longer. 

One last photo

First Bath

Sueight thought I was a bad mom when I told her that Jude had his first bath this weekend, at

 2 1/2 weeks old. But to our defense his cord was not cooperating. It feel off after two weeks but continued to bleed and be all gooey so the Dr. told us at his 2 week appt (where he weighed 9.14!) to wait a couple more days for a bath. He didn't cry at all during the bath. What at tough guy!

Jude - 10 days old

Joel and Jude had a little photo shoot last weekend. Here are a few of the photos. Photos cannot do justice to how cute he really is! He is modeling some of our new prefold cloth diapers and a wool soaker that I made from a thrift store sweater. I made Maeve one too and some sweater pants from the sleeves. Felted wool is fun to work with. I also crocheted a few soakers for him and one for Maeve but the ones I made him were too small for him and the one I made Maeve was too small for her so he now wears the purple one with the ruffled edges. Oh well. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. I apparently need some help with my sizing on crocheted items. The booties I made him are too small too but our friends just had a baby boy 8 weeks early that I can send those to. Pray for little Keaton as he is in the NICU in Provo weighing only 3 pounds. 

Smith Family

While Joel was gone for two weeks in October working on a project for BYU Law School he got to go to his grandma's home in New Jersey and spend the afternoon with her and his Uncle David. I haven't ever met either of them and Joel hasn't seen them in 15 years but he had a nice visit. It was fun to see all the photos of the home where my MIL grew up. I have heard so much about it. All of our family is so spread out it makes it hard to see people very often so I was glad that Joel was able to visit with Grandma Jenneth and David. 

Dade's Quilt

One of my last projects to finish before Jude arrived was this quilt for our nephew. I purchased the fabric last Thanksgiving with the help of my SIL, Sharon. I thought the flannel lasso was perfect for our little Texas nephew transplanted to Seattle. But flannel is not that fun to work with so this will probably be my first and last flannel quilt. When I began quilting when I was pregnant with Adelle I thought I would make one for all our nieces and nephews but the year we had Maeve, we also had 4 nieces so that idea was thrown out the window. And this year along with Jude we will be have 5 new nieces/nephews so now if each sibling's family gets one quilt sometime in my life I will be doing good. I love quilting but it just takes so much time to finish one. 

Just the 5 of us...

It was a sad day Saturday because my mom left us after visiting for a month. As soon as we dropped her off at the airport Maeve declared that she "needed grammy". She has a lot of needs these days. So far we have survived 2 days being parents of three children without Mom's extra hands. We will see how well I do when Joel goes back to school tomorrow. It is so nice to be in a clean house. My mom worked hard while she was here and we appreciate it. Thank you!

While Mom was visiting we took her to Balboa Island for a balboa bar and to Ruby's Diner on Balboa Pier for dinner. Joel thought this photo of the cashier at the diner was pretty neat. She looked just like the picture of Ruby herself. 

Maeve waiting patiently for her chicken fingers. She is so sweet with baby Jude so far, giving him soft kisses and touches. We will see how long that lasts.  

Bees

What is happening to all the bees? We went outside this weekend to play in the yard and the sidewalk was covered in dead bees. We have seen a lot over the last few months but this was the most at one time. Since being stung by a bee while cartwheeling in the grass a few months ago Adelle is deathly afraid of them, even dead ones, so our play time outside was cut short. With all the bees dying what is that going to do to our orange trees?