Pig Pickin' 2015

We recently had our church's third annual pig pickin', and Penny was in charge of roasting the pig again.

He is getting the hang of it now, and our kids look forward to spending the day outside with Daddy and the other helpers.

As evidenced here, all random objects become play toys while waiting for the pig to roast.  So glad we live right next door to the church so the kids can come and go all day!

Ice skating

The kids had a day off of school a few weeks ago, so I took them to the ice skating rink.  It took them a little bit to warm up, but once they remembered how to skate (from last year) they all did well!

Cole loved wearing hockey skates and skating like the big boys do.

Mead and Laine were both gliding across the ice pretty quickly.  Fun to see them enjoy something they've had to work on - everyone persevered through the falls and had a good time.

Grandparents Day chapel

Friday was Grandparents Day at the kids' school, so they had a special chapel.  This was the first time Cole got to stand on the stage with everyone else, and he was so excited.  He smiled his way through the whole song of "Jesus Loves Me"!

Laine and her class did a nice job singing "I'm in the Lord's Army,"

And Mead and her class sang "The Wise Man Built His House On the Rock."  They all did a great job - makes me so thankful for their school.

Tree chopping

Last week we got two trees cut down near our house.  Both of them were rotting, and both of them had become a potential hazard.

The kids were so excited to climb on them and watch as they were cut into smaller pieces.

The front of our house gets a lot more sun now.  Love Mead's face here as she's on top of the hollowed out tree trunk.  That's a lot of rotten wood!

All Dressed Up

Last week I pointed out to Cole that he had a nice navy sport coat in his closet.  Surprisingly, he wanted me to build an outfit around it for church on Sunday.  (Normally he grumbles about wearing a polo and "nice" shorts to church.)  Well, he looked great!  And he was so excited to dress like Daddy for church.

The girls weren't quite as fancy, but they make a cute threesome!

And on the other end of the spectrum, the girls decided to try on Halloween costumes already - that's the kind of dressing up they like to do!

Soccer and Skating

Mead is playing soccer again this fall.  She had her first game last weekend.

They didn't win the game, but Mead had several good runs bringing the ball up the field.

I'm excited to see how the team does as the season goes on!

Cole has been rolling around the house lately... We bought a used pair of roller skates, at his request, though the girls have gotten good use out of them too.

And here Cole is, creating fun by rolling across the living room on our office chair.  Whatever works!

Back to School

The kids have completed two weeks of school now, and here's their first day of school pictures.

Laine and Mead go to school every morning - all-day school for both of them.

Mead is in first grade.

Laine is in third grade.

Cole goes every afternoon to Junior Kindergarten.  He was unburdened by a backpack this first morning when I took everyone's pictures!

There was a fun welcome sign at the front entrance to the school this year.

Laine has a new teacher this year, Miss Ballard, whom she is absolutely loving.

She's got her own cubby to put all her stuff in.

Mead has Mrs. Nichols, and she is so excited about the new reading loft in her room.  I'll try and get a picture of it for another post.

We've had both Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Byars (below) before for our girls, and they are probably our favorite teachers at the school.  So excited for a good school year for all our kids!

After waiting all morning at home, Cole finally got to come to school.  He's loved going every day - and he doesn't seem to mind missing his nap too much either!

Random, but on the way home from dropping Cole off that first day, Penny, a couple teachers, and I helped catch this injured baby hawk, which was sitting in our front yard.  The teachers took it to the local bird sanctuary, and the people at the bird sanctuary were able to help it recover from a broken "collar" bone (not sure of the official name).  Always something interesting going on around the school!