My Blessed Life: September 2012

Saturday, September 15, 2012

First Day of School 2012-2013

We are into our new school year and this year we have a middle schooler in the house!! Josiah is now in 6th grade! I can't believe it! He is also only 4 1/2 in shorter than me so I'm sure he will be growing taller than me within this school year. Malachi is in 4th grade and Aliyah is in 2nd grade. Yes, Aliyah was in K last year but she has past her way into 2nd grade work this year, although she is about a middle of 3rd grade reading level. She isn't smarter than her brothers.....she just started earlier because of her desire to be like them. One thing we will be focusing on with all the kids this year is SPELLING! They all read way above their grade level and their vocabulary is great.....but their spelling....well...not so great. I've never really used much of a spelling program so far but have a few things I plan to try this year. I look forward to my 7th year of homeschooling and having my kids at home with me as we learn together and grow in our relationships together in amazing ways that being at home nurtures. It will be an exciting year! Make sure you go to the end of this post and read the kids questionnaires.....very cute!

Introducing.....the Carr kids

Sweet baby Elias, 8 1/2 months

technically, this picture was not taken on the same day but was taken the same week and it was too cute to resist!

Judah 2 1/2 yrs, the pre-preschooler :)

the younger boys playing

He is drawing with chalk at his school desk and said "mommy, look, veggie tales" He tried to draw larry the cucumber from veggie tales. I think we have an artist in the family!

He crumbled up his paper.

Aliyah, the second grader, 6 1/2 yrs old.

Malachi the fourth grader, 8 yrs ....almost 9 yrs old.

Josiah, the sixth grader, 10 1/2 yrs old

I just love these kids!!!

Pictures of our school room:

First Day of School Questionnaire:

Josiah
I am 59 1/2 in tall and weigh 75.8 lbs.
My best friend is: God.
My favorite thing to play is: magick (magic).
My favorite color: red
My favorite book: The Hobbit
My favorite T.V. show: Wipe Out
My favorite food: I don't know
When I grow up, I want to be: be a misonare (missionary)
Something I really like: reading
Something I really don't like: breaking a tailbone
My favorite thing about myself: I'm fast
Something I want to do this year: run 8 miles

Malachi
I am 56 in tall and weigh 80.8 pounds.
My best friend's name is: Molly, Iziah, and Tiller (tyler)
My favorite thing to play: magi's
My favorite color: blue
My favorite book: a star wars book
My favorite T.V. show: ant farm
My favorite food: anchata (enchilada)
When I grow up, I want to be: be in the army
Something I really like: to do is play soccer.
Something I really don't like: cats.
My favorite thing about myself: lots of stof (stuff).
Something I want to do this year: is go to Jamestown.

Aliyah
I am 47 1/2 inches tall and weigh 47.8 pounds.
My best friend's name is: Bree, Molly, Andi
My favorite thing to play: littlest pet shop
My favorite color: prple (purple).
My favorite book: jak and ane (Jack and Annie-Magic Treehouse series).
My favorite T. V. show: wip ayt (Wipe Out).
My favorite food: bays frensh toste (daddy's french toast)
When I grow up, I want to: arme grle (army girl)
Something I really like: my momy (mommy)
Something I really don't like: clening ap bog pope (cleaning up dog poop)
My favorite thing about myself: I lik raning (I like running)
Something I want to do this year: go to grte wofl lage (go to great wolf lodge)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

more summer pics

I'm getting so frustrated with this new blogger stuff. I just posted tons of pictures and so many never posted....arghhh....so here are the ones that didn't upload the first time.

33 Random Things about me.....on my 33rd birthday.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I decided to come up with 33 random things about myself. How much did you know about me or how much were you surprised to learn?

33 Random Things About Dena

1. I have grey hair. Lots of grey hair. I’ve been getting grey hair since I was 18 yrs old.

2. I’ve always wanted to be a redhead. My brother has red hair, my biological mother had red hair, and my grandmother had red hair. I was blessed with brown hair. Now I dye it red, to cover the grey.

3. I started college at 17 yrs old and graduated early, in 3 ½ years with a double major at 21 yrs old.

4. My maiden name is Darr. My married name is Carr. I moved up in the alphabet.

5. I love to kiss my children’s feet until they are about 5 years old. Don’t judge me.

6. I would rather not shower for a week while backpacking than dress up and attend a fancy dinner.

7. I have run 3 marathons (26.2 mi) and two 50 k (31mi) races. I plan to run a 50 miler before I turn 34 yrs and hopefully a 100 miler before 35 yrs.

8. I don’t run to loose weight or to get in shape. I run because I love running and find it amazingly freeing, exhilarating, and sometimes painful. When it is painful, I train harder and it becomes easier.

9. I prefer the mountains over the beach any day.

10. I am competitive. I love competing with my husband, who is also very competitive. Sometimes it is playful, sometimes it gets dirty but we always drive each other to reach our potential. However, my biggest competitor is myself.

11. I have a horrible singing voice. I sing to my children in strange, silly ways just to make them laugh.

12. I am self-conscious about my body. Even though I am skinny, by other’s measures, I’m just like all other moms that struggle with body image.

13. I watched two people die in my life, my mother and my uncle.

14. I want to complete an ironman triathalon one day. I love running, I enjoy biking, and I only swim when I’m injured and can’t run.

15. I used to cook hamburger helper meals and boxed cake and brownie mixes early in my marriage. I refuse to cook from a box and try to make most things homemade including yogurt, bread, all cookies, cakes, brownies, granola bars, soups, etc.

16. My husband is a better cook than I am and I’ve become a better cook because of him. I love when he cooks for me.

17. I am intrigued by the Amish community and would love to live like them.

18. I grind my own wheat and make my own laundry soap.

19. I love facial hair on my man. However he has not been allowed to have any most of our married life because of jobs.

20. I love spicy foods. I think my father in law loves me because I love spicy foods J

21. I love being a wife and mom more than anything.

22. I ask a lot of questions. I annoy people with my questions but the only honest ones to tell me that I’m annoying is my husband and brother Andrew.

23. I love watching my kids play soccer. I wish I played soccer when I was a kid.

24. The first time I ate Indian food, I thought it was disgusting. It is one of my favorite types of food. It may just be my favorite food now.

25. I like most fish but dislike all other seafood much to my husband’s dismay.

26. I would love to climb K2 one day. Everest is too popular. Maybe one day when my kids are grown and I have lots of money to do it. If I climb K2 one day, I will probably die by freezing to death. I dislike being extremely cold. I get cold very easy.

27. I am supposed to wear glasses but don’t. I don’t wear contacts either. I just don’t drive in the dark and it works for me.

28. I’m not afraid to fart in front of my husband.

29. I love horses. I find them healing.

30. I’m not very tall. Only 5’4. I didn’t have much luck with my biological father standing at about 5’2 or 5’3.

31. I run in vibram 5 finger shoes. I won’t wear traditional running shoes again.

32. My favorite vegetable is a potato because of the taste and versatility. I love them baked, mashed, fried, and in soups.

33. I am passionate about a few things including: homeschooling, homebirths, running, making things homemade, and adoption.

Summer Update (May-August)

It has been a very long time since I've updated this blog....a whole 5 months! So much has taken place in that timeframe so I'll try to recap in this post what has been going on.

May: I had a great mothers day, as I have the sweetest kids. Aliyah lost her first tooth this month! We went camping Memorial Day weekend and got to use our new backcountry kitchen! It came in handy by keeping food on shelves and off of the ground. I loved having a sink to use too. I got to use our dutch oven a little bit and made a quiche, pizza, and brownies in it! Also this same weekend, we woke up to a text from Frank's brother Daniel letting us know that their first daughter was born! We now have a new niece, with a sweet name of Cadence!

June: I dyed my hair red!! I have always wanted to be a redhead and finally did it and love it! The highlight of this month was when Frank's dad and stepmom stopped in for a quick visit. We had a blast those few days that they were here! We took them to the beach and enjoyed visiting at home as well. This time, the water at the beach was much warmer.

July: Frank's maternal grandmother Anne, died suddenly of a heart attack at the beginning of the month about 3 hours after meeting President Obama when he ate at her restaurant. She was a sweet lady and very hard working. We went to her funeral and got to spend some time with family that Frank hasn't seen in many many years, including cousins and their kids. We also go to spend some time with his mom and meet our niece Cadence. After the funeral, we stopped in PA for a few days and got to see my sister and her family again, along with my older brother Mike and his family and my parents. Seeing Mike and my parents was the first time in 3 years! Crazy! It was great to see everyone and I wish we didn't live so far from family.

August: Not much went on this month, just homeschool planning for me and Frank was gone with his JLOTS mission for work. The major thing this month was that we completed our dossier and sent it to our agency!! We are officially now just waiting for our referral!!

As we are into September now, I'll be posting new pictures and such of the kids beginning their new school year. At this moment we are currently at Great Wolf Lodge enjoying the waterpark. It is after 9pm and I'm in the hotel with the two little ones sleeping, while Frank and the big kids are playing a magiquest game.We found a homeschooling coupon deal in which we were able to book 2 nights at GWL for about 60-70% off the normal cost so we decided to pack up some food and spend my birthday (tomorrow) here and enjoy one last big thing this summer! Frank has these 2 weeks off so we are enjoying some time together! This past weekend we were blessed with a free trip to the outerbanks of NC for a marriage retreat. All of our lodging and meals were covered along with childcare during the meetings. The seminar we watched was called "laugh your way to a better marriage". It was hilarious and so great! I highly recommend it to all married couples! The speaker is a Christian pastor and is so stinking funny and doesn't try to make men be women, which I see too often with marriage seminars. Anyhow, it was great! We also had some free time and got to enjoy some great beach time with the kids :)

So here are some of my favorite pictures from this summer. Enjoy! Oh, and some of the pictures I thought I added but they never uploaded so I had to add them again in the end, so they are out of order. Oops!