26 Weeks

25 Weeks

That little smile has returned this week!  He's back to himself, with no teeth to speak of (go figure).  I'm getting very excited to see what this little chunky monkey weighs! 

He is coming along with solids.  And stealing our hearts little by little each day.

14 weeks

Easter, belated

Since everything in our world was so screwy this spring, one of the things that we missed entirely was Easter.

Fortunately, that didn't end up being an issue.  

In the end, we just made our own a week later, and no one was the wiser.  

                       

I'm kind of a kill joy when it comes to the commercialism of Easter.  We don't do the bunny - my kids know that it's just mom and dad - and instead we usually spend the month leading up to Easter learning about the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Of course, this year we cut all of that out too.

I also don't allow a plethora of stuffed animals and candy, because I'm the Easter Grinch.

So what little candy they do get is a BIG deal!  As you can see, it goes pretty quickly.

I have a pretty strict "only if they need it" rule.  Each year, their baskets are filled with items they legitimately need for the upcoming summer season.  Things like sandals, swimsuits, towels, hats, summer jammies or sunglasses.  Maybe a pair of tennis shoes if they've outgrown theirs. 

It just so happened that this year, they all needed a lot.  Somehow, everything just came together such that they needed everything I listed up there.  It was a little excessive, but it was all stuff we would have had to buy anyway.

    

  Leah and Logan have both outgrown their bikes and helmets, and that was a super fun surprise for the kids to wake up to on Easter morning!  Oh my goodness, it was SUCH fun to watch them ride those new bikes up and down the street!  We are almost to the phase where we can actually take family bike rides. Luke just needs to be a little bigger...

We had the hardest time trying to figure out what to get Jacob.  I'm so not an expert on what a teenage boy gets in his Easter basket!  I do believe it was his first ever Easter basket at that, so we tried hard to make it special.  

I LOVE these bright blue hats!  Partly because they're Cubs-colored (GO, Cubs, GO!), but also because they're just so darn practical.  Three bobbing, bright blue heads are so easy to pick out in a crowd!

Little Luke was just an observer this year.  Although, it should probably be noted that he's the only one not to get an Easter basket on his first Easter.  Poor kid.  But, if he wanted to be important, he probably shouldn't have been the fifth born.  ;)

(P.S. How cute is that kid in his froggy jammies?!) 

Even if we had to set aside some of our traditions this year, we still enjoyed ourselves.  There was awesome breakfast and cinnamon rolls, and our usual big Sunday Dinner to celebrate.  

No doubt about it: we are pretty blessed.

And, we've come a long way since the very first one:

 (Funny side note: This is how fast seven years goes... there was a video camera in the background of one of the shots from our first Easter.  Loooong before I had a smart phone, HA!)

The first of the season

We look forward to it every single year.

Costumes this year were probably the most difficult yet.  They initially wanted to be minions.  Until Logan changed his mind and wanted to be Spiderman.  And then Leah changed her mind and wanted to wear her supergirl costume from last year.  And then we went to Disney, and she settled on Belle.  Logan was going to be a fireman.  Until he changed his mind and decided to wear his muscle man costume from last year.  

In the end, we just bought Liv a doggy outfit because she saw it and went nuts over it, which pretty well settled things.  It's the first year my children haven't been coordinated.  I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, right?

They're still pretty darling, though, so it's alright.

Every year, it gets to be more and more fun to watch the new enthusiasm they bring to this holiday, and this year was no exception. 

The very great thing was that, unlike last year when he was literally only home for the day of Halloween, we had Casey around for every part of our celebrations! 

Our little doggie was as happy as could be and grinned and smiled at everyone around - not her usual m.o., I might add.

She even took her turn walking.  With a little help from Daddy.

She melts my heart, that adorable tiny lady.

As always, the kids had such a great time.

Once she was all dressed up, Leah took her princess duties very seriously.

She was very dedicated to the role.  Her tone of voice, movements and gestures all changed, and she became much more elegant and stately.  It was pretty fun to watch. Belle had a rather grand influence on her. 

This is always one of our very favorite traditions.  It is such a joy to watch how they grow and change each year.  And, although I also say it every year (and it's always true!), I think this was our best year yet!

Strassner Academy: Week 5

We had such a fun week!  We spent the whole week absolutely loving our Noah's ark theme.  Here are a few of the highlights:

We built paper arks, 

and lovingly, painstakingly selected animals to walk two-by-two into the it. 

We did shaving cream letters

and spelling practice.

We made THE COOLEST rainbow playdough EVER.

I like this photo, largely due to the liquid starch, food coloring and coffee cup all coexisting right there in the same space.  Somehow, this accurately reflects my life!

Eventually, all those individual colors began to combine.  But in the mean time, this activity was a total hit!

Leah built a model of an animal cell out of a paper plate, including nucleus, cytoplasm, vacuole, mitochondria, cell membrane and golgi bodies to go along with our CC memory work. 

We marched and practiced keeping a steady beat. 

Logan started gymnastics last week, and Leah is hard at work back at ballet, and that has been really fun for both of them.  

We also have been taking advantage of that fact that, with kids back in school, our local parks are ours for the taking!

This week, we went to Subway and picnic-ed at a park we've never been to before.

These spontaneous little adventures are a huge part of what I love about homeschooling.

Llama llama no pajamas

Today, we ventured out to the Stock Show.  This is one of my favorite annual memories from my childhood; I can't say that we actually went every year, but certainly enough that I have very fond memories of sitting in the arena for the rodeo, looking in awe at all the beautiful horses and getting to touch the fluffy sheep.

We got to see a few things: a little bit of the Quarter horse show, some of the fiddle competition, there was a lot of walking around the convention floor.  But by far, the hit of the day was the llamas. 

Especially since one of Leah's favorite books is Llama Llama Red Pajamas.  She was very excited to get to see, touch, and even feed a real life llama!

On our way back to the car, there was this really cool, slightly beat up green wall.  It was the perfect spot to take some pictures...

...but my subject wasn't really in the mood to cooperate, what with it being past her nap time and all. 

It was so much fun to get to carry on this tradition!  There was more than one moment where I had to come to terms with just how surreal it was to be walking into a place that holds so many memories from my childhood as the mommy, with a husband and child to boot. 

Life is pretty great! 

While I don't know if this is something we'll do every single year, it is definitely something I hope to make as much a part of Leah's childhood as it was my own.