Swinging

I’m Back

It’s been almost a 2 month break since I have last made a blog entry.  We decided to home school again and I have been pouring my energy into setting up our daily routines, curricula and learning centers!  I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!!!  I couldn’t be happier!  Here are some photos to update family and friends on the last 2 months of “Larson Life”!

Briggy Jr. is almost ready for nursery!

Every morning he joins dado at the piano or does a squatting-dancing-jig making us all laugh.

Thayne loves his new trike in any weather!

Mom and Briggy at Gateway Discovery Museum.  We went there for Abby’s Birthday.

Here I am with my Visiting Teacher, Carolyn.  Brig and I have been newly called as the Ward Bear Den Leaders!

Ben’s first batch of bread-he was so proud of himself!

We had to call poison control when Briggy Jr. got into dado’s shoe polish.

A homeschooling moment.

Abby diligently studying her music theory.

Ben shoveling Thayne.

Our snow shoveling buddies!  They wanted to surprise dad with a clean driveway when he got home!

Buddy #4 warmly watching from inside and cheering them on.

The spaghetti photo for the grandparents.

Abby started dance in January.  She is crazy about dancing!!!!!!!

Abby turned 5 in January.  She now has her own e-mail and is about to launch her own blog.  If you want to e-mail her… contact me and I’ll hook you up.

We finished reading Charlotte’s Web and started reading Alcatraz vs. the evil librarians.

For Valentine’s Day we made these mouse mail boxes and went to the Homeschooling Friends party.

Here’s Thayne with his Valentine’s Box.

Here’s my headshot for Mrs. Utah.

These are the wonderful 26 contestants.  I’ve really been impressed by these women and enjoyed getting to know them.

Brigham playing football with Ben in the backyard between pruning our trees.  That’s our new goat Sophie.

Ben, Dado, Sophie and the football.

This is our second goat-Annie.  Yep, we milk her every night and the kids LOVE it!  We’ll see how long that lasts! 

Sophie.

Our first ourside meal of 2009!  We are so excited for Spring to help our yard come alive so we can play outside everyday!  Looking forward to lots of playdates!

Now if you are still reading…. you must be either my mom, mother-in-law or one of my closest best friends.  (or weird internet stalker… why else would you read such a LONG entry?)  So if you are in one of the first three categories… leave me a comment and let me know how you are doing!  Love Karmel

Family work day… fall leaves!

After our November American Mothers meeting, one of our presenters, Tamara, posted to our AMI blog a fantastic article on family work and it’s importance.  Here’s a link so you can have a look-it is sooooo worth your time to stop and read for a few minutes!  FAMILY WORK (read it-read it-read it)

Here’s the family raking a few leaves yesterday.  Brigham saw a professional leaf removal crew using this method of dumping the leaves into buckets and stomping them down prior to dumping into leaf bags.  We tried it and it is an amazing trick-and lots of fun too!  We love our family work time! 

Kid Powered Backyard Fun

 

Here is Ben, Abby, Thayne and some neighborhood kids.  Brigham sometimes hooks up this rope and board behind the riding lawn mover to take the kids for rides.  Well, when he wasn’t available… they got together, hooked up the ropes around themselves and took turns giving each other a ride.  What fun they had!  And I had a blast watching them out the kitchen window.  I thought for sure they would tire before everyone had a turn… but they proved me wrong!

Winter Wonderland

Our first snow of the year. The photos speak for themselves!

Tree House Sack Lunches

Ben created a basket rope system for getting “very important things” into his tree house.  When I saw his creativity… I thought he needed something for the basket besides rocks and sticks.  So I made the kids sack lunches for the tree house.  Who would have known that such a simple thing could make three kids so excited and giggly and spend so much time together in their tree house munching on their goodies.

A few summer memories 2007

The “Sand Pit”

When we moved to our new home last Spring, Brigham wanted more than a sand box. He envisioned a “Sand Pit”. It took 3 truckloads of sand to fill in the hole that was dug and it could still use another to fill it up completely. The kids (and neighbor kids) are daily in digging heaven!

Our Orchard

Part of our new one acre little homestead is an old orchard filled with 3 types of apples, cherries, peaches, pears, apricots, plums, walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts. We had so much fun this past season of harvest trying to figure out what to do with all of our fruit and nuts! Our yard is on the ditch irrigation system, so every 12 days we get on our rubber boots, set the flood gates in place and watch as the water comes rushing towards our property and then creates a 1 acre splash pool. The kids put on their bathing suits and think it’s great! That should explain for you why it looks like Thayne is picking apples in a pool of water.

Home, Home on the range…

Where the deer and the Antelope (elk) play.

We have a lot of deer who call our yard home!  Each morning (almost every morning), they are grazing in our backyard.  Their favorite resting place is to gather beneath our willow tree.  There is a group of five that seem to be the regular backyard crowd.   We sure enjoy watching them.  One time a herd of elk passed through.