Up, up and away

Ever since I’ve known Mark (which would be high school), he’s had a love of planes.  I don’t know how he does it, but he can spot a plane way up in the sky and tell you what kind it is and more.  He loves them!  He’s always had a dream to get his pilot’s license and while, right now it’s a bit out of our price range, God did allow him to take an introductory lesson.

Our local newspaper ran a deal with an aviation company that offered introductory lesson/flights for a good price.  A really good price.  I didn’t even ask Mark.  I just bought it for him for Christmas.  We had to tell him early though because the coupon expired November 1st.  He was excited none the less and really enjoyed his flight.

It was a small airport so the pilot allowed us (meaning the kids and me) to hang out right outside the airport.  They taxied out in front of us and landed in front of us.   And in between those two times, the kids found things to occupy their time.

Like climbing on columns.
Rocking in chairs.
And hamming it up for the camera.
The airport was hosting a drag racing competition that weekend (which we would have loved to go to had our weekend not been completely full already).  So, the guys in the background were setting up for it.  That provided a lot of the entertainment.
Mark said it was a lot of fun!  If you know Mark he doesn’t get super excited.  But this.  Well, he got as excited as he usually does!  


Mark’s Christmas Flight 01 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.

Taking off!

And landing!

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Dairy Farmin’

Another day in October found us at a dairy farm.  A local farm (meaning about 20 minutes away…that’s the closest dairy farm too), has started an agritourism business both to promote their farm but also so that they can eventually purchase a creamery and sell their own milk.  This is the second year for their Corn “Maize” and it was just as much fun as last year!  The kids had a blast as always.  This was a field trip day and the only set back was that they had the maze marked off so that it was just a simple walk through instead of an actual maze.  That was a bummer.  Other than that, we learned a lot more about dairy farming that I ever knew.  For instance, cows are milked just like we pump milk off our selves.  Except the machine is a bit more high powered!  I know everyone wanted to know that.

Here’s some more pictures before I embarrass myself any further.

Twas a bit nippy and I forgot to bring Bryant a coat.  So, we found one of Zoe’s jackets in the van and wrapped him up.  He was snug as a bug but very tired on the hayride.

Petting zoos are awesome.  Bryant called everything a “goggy” (doggy) but he loved watching the animals!

They had a wonderful play area that included a huge slide, a bunch of wooden structures (like a ship, castle, and the like), and a jumping pillow.  Five kids pretty much dispersed across the whole play area so it was hard for us to get pictures of everyone. 

Aha!  Two in one frame!  We did it!
The corn pits.  Like sand pits but instead of trying to get small grains of sand out of a diaper, the big pieces of corn fall out…and they also fall out of clothes.  For weeks.
By far, our family favorite is the duck race area.  There are four troughs and water pumps at each one.  You can race to see who gets their duck to the other side first.  But, Josiah.  He’s all focus when it comes to that water pump.
I have no idea what it is.  But the kids like it.
Jumping…
off…
the…
haystacks.
Always fun.
My goodness, she’s growing up too, too fast!  Please stop her!
So is this little tyke.  But she’s still got a loooong way to go!
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At the Station

My goal, for the blog at least, is to post once every day this week (during the week).  Wish me luck!

The kids took a field trip to the fire station.  As always, it’s a blast to go to our fire station.  The firemen are always good with the kids and very excited to educate them!

It’s been awhile since we have been.  So, for this trip, I gave Ace the camera.  Here’s the field trip proof straight from Ace’s eye!

That’s just a tidbit of what Ace caught.  I thought that might be all you could handle in one post.  He has a great eye for details!  For the record, Josiah was there.  He just opted out of the photo opportunity (which was done by Mark…obviously since Ace was in the picture).

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Stepping Back in Time

September and some of October was spent frantically trying to get costumes made for five anxious children.  It wasn’t for Halloween, though.  Last year, we had attended a local living history park event called Colonial Times.  We left with a very anxious older daughter asking sweetly if she could have a colonial dress to wear next year.  And of course, if one wants one, they all do.

And I was happy to provide.  Although Mark and I were a little tired as we sewed (yes, we, Mark finally revealed his secret talent of sewing) buttons on to vests at 11:30 at night.

But the results and the smiles were so worth it!

Aren’t they adorable???  Ceili Rain put her dress on and said, “I a princess.”  She saw Zoe in her dress and made the same declaration.  Guess what?  They don’t make boys’ colonial costume patterns unless you want them to look like a mini version of an adult George Washington.  Which I didn’t!  So, I had to get creative.  The knickers are pants bought at Goodwill.  I cut them off and put elastic in the bottom to make them poof and look like short pants.  The shirts are Goodwill too.  I cut the folded over collar off and serged it.  The vests were a lucky find of a pattern of multiple vests.  I had some old looking buttons that we sewed on (Did I mention we did that at 11:30 at night?).

 The rat catcher.  He was trying to recruit new workers for himself.  The sweet little boy in the yellow shirt took him seriously.  He turned around, looked straight at me and in all seriousness announced, “I’m going to go look for rats.”  And took off while his mom was talking.  We quickly got her attention and she called him back and had to break his heart.  So sad.

M. LeFarceur de Villeverte, And if you can translate his name, you’ll get a good giggle.  This guy has actually won awards for his lace making.  But he’s not a lacemaker.  He’s a lace merchant!  Lacemakers are all the poor people…like us.  He was quite the entertainment and after Ceili Rain stopped freaking out over his make up, she enjoyed him too.

There’s a group in our area that does English Martial Arts.  That includes fencing and other things.  They were there and this year, they let the kids hold their swords.  Can you see the look of utter excitement spread across Liam’s face?  Ceili Rain thought it was cool, although she couldn’t hold it up by herself!

Benjamin Franklin and his wife.  We caught them at tea time!

There were sheep and goats and turkeys and chickens to pet.  And the animals were all more than willing to let us get all around them!

Mark and the kids really enjoyed the blacksmith this year.  They stayed there while Bryant and I got a bit of drink.  They saw him make a nail.  That’s all I know about that.

The toymaker is always a blast!  Except when you’re trying to dodge toys!

Liam enjoyed playing the dulcimer.  He’s got a lot to learn if he’s going to actually play it though!
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Beautiful

At our church, if the father of the house is a Christian, he is encouraged to be the one to baptize his children and those under his house.  The premise being that the husband should be the head of the home especially in spiritual matters.  Mark and I had never really thought much about him baptizing our children until we started attending this church.  After looking through the Bible, we realized that God’s word does not say, “Thou shalt be ordained within the ministry of the church to baptize others.”  And realized what a blessing this would be to us and to our children if he baptized them.

So, Ace was the first one to be baptized by his father.  And it all happened last Sunday.  And, believe it or not, I did not cry buckets of tears.  Mainly, I was too worried that my camera would die before I could get pictures and video.

But it didn’t!  And I did get pictures and video! 

And I’m so thrilled (are you tired of seeing And’s at the beginning of my sentences?)!

We had a lot of firsts that day…church at the lake under a pavilion in the semi cool weather.  Ace getting baptized.  Our kids and us having a wonderful time of fellowship and amazing food afterwards (no joke…at the end of this pregnancy they’re going to have to roll me around if our church keeps fixing amazing food).

 This would be a wonderful picture if blogger would cooperate and put my pictures up as they were saved!
Pastor B went discussed the reason he wanted to be baptized before Mark prayed over him and immersed him.
All total, there were eight baptisms.  It was such a blessing to see the professions of faith and acts of obedience carried by fathers!
And the reason this post is so utterly lacking in wonderful pictures of our day at the lake is because the battery was threatening mutiny on the camera.  Needless to say there was a lot of play in the sand and the water (despite the cool weather and my threat that they would have to ride home in undies if they got wet…and they did) and boat rides.
But, before the camera died I got this:
I love it!  Totally not told to do so but Josiah helped his sister down to the beach area through the wooded area.  I was so proud of his gentlemanly ways!
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At the Drive-In

Labor Day weekend our local (okay, it’s only local because it’s the closest one and it’s about 45 minutes away), drive-in shows a ton of movies.  Last year, we were able to see two kids movies for very cheap.  This year, they only played one.  And I tried to express my dislike in that.  However, we were able to get home before midnight so it worked out good!  We surprised them with the trip and they were all thrilled.

I, however, was less than thrilled as they played on the playground and I got attacked by fire ants.  That was none too fun.

Anyway, they all enjoyed the pre-show playground and the during show snacks.  And then we high tailed it out of there before the other movies started.

This was Bryant’s second drive in movie.  The first he was but a mere babe and totally didn’t care one way or the other as long as he got fed and relaxed.

We were blessed with decent weather too!  It was a slight bit warm before the sun went down but cooled off considerably afterwards.  Even though it’s a drive-in, it was still too warm to sit in cars so the chairs and blankets came out!

This is some intense stuff people!
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Pillow Diving…again

It’s been awhile since I posted a pillow diving photo time, so we’re all due.  Aren’t you all excited?  Mark, of course, is responsible for these awesome action shots!

That’d be Zoe…flipping out.

I totally flipped this correctly but Firefox and Blogger do not like to work together.
Ginger almost got in on it.  This was where Bryant learned “Let’s go.”  But it comes out “et go!”
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Lovely Day

We took advantage of the change to not so humid weather and went bike riding in the not too far distant past.

He totally doesn’t need training wheels and asked for a bike without them for Christmas…to which we replied we could give him one right away.  He got a bit nervous about that but I think he’ll do fine.
Miss Independent!
Don’t worry, all were safe!  Daddy never let go and, for the most part, neither did the babies.
Lining up for a race and Bryant decided to race on foot!
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Finger Painting

It’s 5:30 am on Wednesday.  Yeah, I’ve been up since 3:30 due to being hot, bathroom run, itching (more on that later), and sinus infection.  I have to be up up by 6:15 and ready to get kids up because for some reason I scheduled their dentist appointments for 7:45 in the morning.  My brain is totally fried.

So, I thought I’d post, seeing as how I missed yesterday, have read all my facebook statuses, and am now up to date with blogs I don’t follow.  Priorities you know.

Liam and Josiah are using a new phonics curriculum.  I’ll post more about our homeschool stuff later but I wanted to share this first.  The curriculum suggests using different tactile things to encourage writing letters, etc.  One of the suggestions was finger paint.

So, I grabbed a box of pudding, mixed it up and sent the kids outside with it, plates, and swimsuits on.  They enjoyed it for about ten minutes and then wanted to play in the sprinklers!  They barely even ate the pudding (more for me…yippee!).  As you can see, Liam got a lot out of the tactile letter writing and made a guy.  With a sword. 

Josiah made a river and mountains.

I think we’ll just stick with the whiteboard and paper from here on out.

Ceili Rain thought it’d be fun to just smash her hand in it.  And lick.  I wholeheartedly agreed with her.

And Bryant, well, he still prefers a morning power nap and was down for the count when all the mess occurred.

Now that that is done.  Let’s see if I can catch a thirty minute snooze before time to get up and go.

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