September:
We started our Carter homeschool with a very nice teacher-student ratio. I began teaching Isaiah (now 6). He is in Kindergarten. This has been a very exciting experience so far. Lots of learning going on for all of us, including the younger two brothers. Elijah is continuing to go to Sycamore Tree Preschool two days a week.
October:
Hunting/Birthday Season:
We celebrated Elijah's 4th birthday on October 7th with his chosen dinner of cold cereal. He thought it was great and picked out the cereal he wanted from the store. It was a big treat because it was not on sale and I did not have a coupon for it. For those of you who know how I do grocery shopping, you know this was a big treat! We topped this healthy dinner off with Elijah's chosen cake--a blue
kitty.
Justin went over to Eastern Washington for his annual deer hunting trip. The Lord blessed him with a doe again this year and we are so thankful for the meat in the freezer.
Then we had another birthday--this time it was the combined birthday party for Isaiah and Elijah with their friends. Since their birthdays are only two weeks apart and so many of their friends are siblings, we decided to do one combined party this year. We went together with a bunch of our family to buy the boys a Wii. This has been a very fun present for the whole family. The party was so much fun with a scavengar hunt and marshmallow guns as the treasure at the end of the hunt. We had a great time shooting marshmallows all over the back yard and deck.
We also had one last birthday party to celebrate with just us. Isaiah's actual birthday was October 21st and we once again had a dinner of cold cereal. Hopefully this does not become a birthday tradition, but it does make dinner preparations pretty simple for me. Isaiah chose a Ben 10 cake.
Our annual trip to Hunter Farms this year was a lot of fun. The pumpkins in the patch were all green because of the cold spring/summer we had. They had to truck pumpkins in from Eastern Washington to place in the fields!
We topped off the month with 3 Jedi Warriors for Halloween. Although I am not too keen on a bunch of candy coming into our house, and we don't celebrate ghosts/goblins/etc., my boys love to dress up and pretend. I made three cream colored fleece tunics and we found some materials in their dressup bin to use for belts and pants and there you have my 3 Jedi warriors. We took them to the mall in Silverdale to do a little trick or treating. It was actually a lot of fun.
November:
Soccer season ended. I helped coach Isaiah's team this year which was a lot of fun. It is amazing to see how much 5 and 6 year olds can improve from the beginning of the season to the end.
We headed over to Prosser to celebrate Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving Day we went up to Justin's mom's in Roosevelt and shared a nice afternoon/evening with that side of the family. My sister, Rachel, and her family were also at my parents' house for the holiday weekend, so it was fun for the cousins to hang out and to spend time all together.
December:
We again headed to Prosser for the holiday. Both of my brothers are home for Christmas break from college in California. My sister is the only one missing as she and her family are in Mexico for Christmas.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shuffling all over the place, but it is a lot of fun. We always celebrate our "Carter Christmas" prior to heading over the mountains so we already have some special private time with just our family. Once the actual holiday hits we know that it will be crazy for a few days. After the actual day(s) of Christmas, we enjoy several days of not much to do except to play with all the new toys!
2009
Only God knows what the new year will bring. We have an opportunity to go on a missions trip to Togo in Africa. Please pray for us as we make decisions regarding our participation in this trip. Micah will turn 2 in March. He is such a special blessing to our family and I am so thankful for each day we have with him. It is hard to imagine what our lives would be like without his mischeviousness to keep us on our toes.
I will make a concerted effort to keep this blog updated more often that I have over these past few months. I pray that all your families are healthy and growing. Thanks for loving my family.
Katie