Daniel Boone

For about 6 months now Weston has loved everything Daniel Boone. He even used 20 dollars of his own money to buy the complete Season 1 with Fess Parker. It also happens to be in black and white, but Weston doesn't seem to mind :) Of course he HAD to dress up as Daniel Boone for Halloween.
After checking out frontiersmen costumes online I decided to try to make one using a brown turtleneck, a glue gun and some fringe. Little did I know that just the fringe was over $6 per yard and it would have taken several yards to do it right! Scratch that idea. On our way out of the store I noticed some brown suede-ish fabric that already had the fringe on the edge. I bought one yard and figured I could come up with something.
The shirt turned out surprisingly well considering I didn't have a pattern and I'm definitely not a perfectionist. I did figure out you can't just start sewing the sleeve on and go all the way around one direction. The sleeve ended up halfway down the back. I also did a fair amount of ripping out and re-sewing. It probably would have been smarter to buy a costume online, but Weston is thrilled and I gained some confidence to jump in and try new things. You never know....they might just turn out!

God's Valentine

This is how the jam happened to land in Elsie's yogurt one day. It thought it was so cute I had to take a picture. Life is full of reminders of God's love for us. I admit I'm often too busy and distracted to stop and take note, but I couldn't miss this little valentine!

Noah is 3!

I'm a little late posting for Noah's 3rd birthday. Mike and I are a little shocked that our "baby" is 3 years old now! For the first time in almost 9 years we're not buying any diapers!
So much has happened in these 3 years. Noah has turned out to be our most "spunky" of the 4 kids. His intensity is so much fun and definitely adds to the challenge of parenting. This boy is full of life!

Noah and his "brudder". Noah LOVES "Destin" (he can say Weston but calls his Destin out of habit). Most of their time together is spent playing Daniel Boone or soldier or some other fierce game. Although they're over 5 years apart in age, they really love and enjoy one another....well, most of the time.

It's hard to believe Elsie was only about 20 months old when Noah was born. They are now really starting to play well together and I frequently hear them giggling over some shared joke from another room. From the day he was born Grace has been Noah's biggest fan. She loved to help take care of him and hold him. She is such a nurturer. I look forward to seeing what their relationship will look like as they grow into adults.

Being a 4th-born child, Noah is definitely parented very differently than Weston was. He really didn't play with baby toys for very long, but started playing with the older kids as soon as he was able to toddle after them. He's definitely big for his britches sometimes. At about 2 years old he considered himself on the same level as his 7 year-old brother :) I love this picture! Noah was such a butterball baby!

Hard to believe our baby is 3! Notice his gun is tucked into his cowboy boot and he's holding his horse "Oosta".

My mom made an awesome "Bob the Builder" birthday cake for his party! Noah started planning his birthday party months in advance.

Mike and I took Noah out to dinner at Red Robin for his birthday. You can tell he was excited :)

Passport to the World!

I'm well aware I've got a lot of blog catching-up to do. :) Until then, I'll just post this picture from today. Weston and Grace are holding their passports to explore the world! We'll be "visiting" one country every few weeks over the course of our homeschool year. I issued the kids their official passports today before starting our study of Mexico. The kids had to apply for their passports by filling out applications and writing me fake checks.

We'll have to keep the blog updated on our adventures!