Well, summer's gone and here we are - at it again! Elizabeth went to sports camps all summer long and it was a nice break for her. She found out she loves tennis, soccer, and golf. She almost got over her fear of water by snorkeling and canoeing. Lizzie is now taking piano lessons and is on the tennis and soccer teams.

We've changed some of our curricula this year. Elizabeth is "officially" in 3rd grade according to our school district, but is working completely on a 4th grade level in all subjects. So smart! She reads ALL the time! Yesterday, she finished Island of the Blue Dolphins and picked up D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths and is already almost finished with that!

Here are some links to our curriculum choices this year.

http://www.memoriapress.com/index.html

http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/

http://saxonpublishers.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/saxonmath_home

http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/home.html

http://www.peacehillpress.com/

I'm starting Tori and Katie on preschool - A Beka 2K http://www.abeka.com/

So far, we've all been having lots of fun! The girls are learning so much so fast!

Here's Lizzie dribbling the ball at UK soccer camp. She starts team practice tonight! (I know y'all think soccer isn't a real sport, but soccer (football to the rest of the world) ranks as the world's most popular sport and Lizzie doesn't like playing softball.)

She is also on the tennis team and took golf lessons last month. We're grooming a little country clubber.

My future's so bright; I gotta wear shades!

Look! We can drink out of cups!

Here's Lizzie at a fishing tournament with her Dad and friends. Obviosuly, she didnt win with that little minnow! We'll try again next year!

Katie really got into the cake! She climbed on top of the table to better get her hands in it!

Here are the girls eating outside on their new picnic table. I could hardly get them to all look my way for the picture!

Lizzie prayed her sinner's prayer on March 2nd and got baptized on Resurrection Sunday! Praise God! She was so brave even though she is terrified to go under water. I am so proud of her!

This is how we spent our New Year's. mwa-ha-ha to those of you in the snow!

Happy Holidays from us to you!

(and thanks to Seamus the cat for getting Tori to smile for the picture!)

My eldest daughter has made it her goal for the past three Halloweens to choose costumes that do not exist in any store and, therefore, must be special ordered, well in advance, to ensure delivery before the aforementioned holiday.
First, it was the fairy princess costume which I undertook to make to save money. HA! I could have purchased three or four decent fairy costumes for the cost of that venture, but NO ONE ELSE looked like her on Halloween! Oh, the tulle, the flowers, the ribbons - clouds of PINK! Ballerinas at the Joffrey Ballet would have envied this costume! I think we are still paying off the debts to JoAnn's and Hancock's.
Then, last year - she had to be The Statue of Liberty. Ah, my little historian in the making. I had to oblige so noble a request. I ordered the costume rather than attempting to sew it. The plain olive green robe arrived with a battery-powered little torch and pointy foam headdress (albeit a little crushed and bent). Alas, no tablet! In fear of her disappointment, I wisely reminded her that she only had two hands and could not also hold the tablet. So, for the most part, she was thrilled with her costume and skipped along with her Disney princess trick or treat bag in one hand and that torch in the other. The only problem was that after she announced, "Trick or Treat!" most of the people felt an incredible need to sing "God Bless America" to her. It impeded her speedy progress through the neighborhood to acquire enormous amounts of candy. So much for patriotism. It's all about the candy.
Now this year, she had to be Princess Leia. Of course, we're in Hawaii and we just don't have the luxury of shopping that the Mainland does. You have to take what you get here. Sure, I could have made a white robe and replicated the cool belt. But, hey, I have a toddler and a baby! I would rather spend money and very little effort! So, I searched and searched the web to find a costume that WASN'T the slave girl bikini and DIDN'T cost more to ship here than the costume is worth. Thankfully, I accomplished that. Whew!
Now, my middle daughter has some kind of angel/fairy costume that Dad picked out (because she really doesn't care yet!) but please note that she is holding her toothbrush. This child must brush her teeth 60 times per day. She climbs onto the bathroom sink to suck out all the toothpaste and play with floss. So I figure, the costume has wings...
VOILA! She's the tooth fairy!
Now, the youngest doesn't know anything about all these things yet...so on the saga continues...

Here's one of the daily rainbows over our house.

Here we are at the Hale Koa beach at sunset! We LOVE it here!

Happy 4th to everyone! We're off to Hawaii soon! Yay!

Here's Daddy with his 3 girls!

Here's our newest addition: Katherine! She was born Friday and was a whopping 10 pounds, 9.8 ounces! Big sisters are happy and proud!

Here's one of the critters attacking our parsley! We have oodles of black swallowtail caterpillars! It's really neat though!

Here's our garden now. We've had so much rain that the herbs are growing like crazy! We have so many squash blossoms and they'll probably be ripe at the same time! Unfortunately, we have little red bugs (aphids? mites?) all over our lettuce. We've eaten the first harvest of squash and beans and peas. YUM! We're still waiting for the carrots to grow big enough to pull. The broccoli didn't make it. Oh, well!

Here's Lizzie standing next to her garden. The peas are getting really tall and the green beans have purple flowers! The lettuce, squash and carrots are happy with all the rain we've had recently. It's sunny and warm the next few days, so we'll see what happens.

Here are the girls in their Easter dresses. It's been a rainy spring so far...hopefully it will clear up and get warm soon!