1st Quarter 2006 –
SKIING:
A word from Amanda: This year I wanted to try snowboarding, so I had my friend Libby help me with that one day. It was alot harder than skiing in my opinion, but I still had a lot of fun.
I don’t know if I will try it again next year or not. I think I will save the good snow for my first love, skiing.



I try to not even know what Josh is doing on the mountain. I’ve heard he goes pretty fast! When he and his friends get tired of sking then they roll down the mountain!

Every year we go sking with one of the homeschool groups. We go on Tuesdays – 4 times throughout the ski season. Here is a picture taken from the Lodge looking down the road that we drive to/fro.
It’s so nice to ski with a large group of friends because there is always someone to go down a run with the kids and there is always someone in the lodge for me to visit with! This year I made two felted handbags and a couple of scarves while sitting in the lodge. I managed to read a book and take a few naps as well since Nathan stayed home with Tim while the older kids and I went skiing. I tried skiing last year, but didn’t really feel up to it this year… maybe next year.Here’s Emily with and some of her friends. We had a couple of GREAT picture weather days as you can see by the cool snow falling in this picture.Emily and her friends goofing off at lunch time… making duck beaks out of chips (LOL)!
Here are all 3 of the kids waiting their turn in line where I help get everyone through!Nathan helps daddy all day while the kids and I are in Red Lodge. Here the boys were SO TIRED they fell asleep in our bed waiting for me to come and read a story to them.

Nathan likes to get dressed up in his snow suit “stuff” while the rest of us are getting our snow gear ready for sking. His day will come soon enough.

VOLLEYBALL:
Emily played Jr. High volleyball this year. It’s really fun to watch the skill level increase from year to year. She really enjoyed this year because they had a tournament at the end of the season.

Nathan LOVES his kitties! He named them all this year… blackie, whitey, etc (LOL) Here he is with Whitey. It was SO COLD outside, but he really wanted to see his kittie so he dressed himself as best he could and headed outside… he did ok except for not having any pants on (LOL). He didn’t stay out long and then he ended up bringing his kittie into the house.. only to the porch though.
Amanda LOVES playing the guitar. She spends all of her free time looking for new music for the high school worship team band which she leads, transposing it into her range, etc. Nathan likes to join her whenever he can. Here are some pictures of Amanda and her band practicing, Nathan carrying his guitar up to her room, and more… notice the guitar wardrobe… shirt in one picture and cap in another.


JOSH’S BASKETBALL:
Josh played on a Y team this year and he liked it better than the normal camps where the kids only scrimmage. He LOVES basketball just like his dad did when he was in school. We also saw a lot of improvement in his skill level since last year.
School in the winter can be a bit difficult because the boys like to run off and play with Tim all the time. However, it really is nice for Nathan to have someone to play with while the rest of us are doing school! Here Nathan and Tim are playing and finally Josh couldn’t stand it any longer and I sent him off to play while I helped Emily with something. The other pictures are of Nathan getting his “tools” out and his drum so Tim can help him “drum.”

The last Spring Snow? Probably. Our small group from church was scheduled to do something after church today, but when I woke up and saw the snow I knew WE had to have a sledding party. We invited all of them as well as our Pastor out. There were 4 wheelers, the jeep, and our Pastor’s Exterra all out there pulling people around…. on car hoods, sleds, and snowboards! Trucks on the interstate honked and cars on our road slowed down to laugh at us! It was VERY SPUR of the moment and was quite fun. Emily and I went to the store to pick up the makings for home made cheese bisquits, chili, and cherry cobbler. When we got home we only had about an hour before everyone started arriving, but we had the chili in the crockpot, the bisquits out of the oven and the cherry cobbler ready to go in. I should have taken a picture of the pile of coats, hats, gloves, mittens, boots, etc on the porch. The pile was several feet high over the entire floor of the porch and spilling into the kitchen. Spur of the moment things are SO FUN! Everyone had a great time as you can see by the following pictures:Tim pulling people around with our jeep. He was glad it still had the old tires on so it would slide better (LOL)Here you can see everyone in our long narrow field which look like a big 12 acre skating rink (LOL).
Here’s our Pastor snowboarding!
SCHOOL: Amanda really doesn’t like having her picture taken, but I managed to get a few shots of her studying! Her desk is SO CLEAN and organized compared to the rest of ours. She sets her own alarm, gets up and gets started and is VERY SELF MOTIVATED! I rarely have to ask her to do anything because she just knows what to do and does it.

Nathan was helping Tim over at a friend’s shop. While running he wasn’t looking where he was going and ran right into something! OUCH! Poor thing.

I’ve been wanting to get a picture of Josh smiling with his TEETH showing.. he always smiles with his mouth closed… so here are some pictures for the record book (LOL)…. I’m sure he’ll be needing braces down the road like the other 2 older kids.

PORCH REMODEL! Ok. The porch was one of the first things we wallpapered/painted when we moved into this house 15 years ago this year. Almost all of the downstairs has been redone since then… we got a wild hair one day and decided to redo the porch one week while Tim was home without much work to do….. Here are before pictures:AFTER PICTURES: The overall theme/color of the porch fits with the antique/lodge look in the rest of the downstairs:
SCRAPBOOKING: After a night of scrapbooking I had a scare when someone who had been in a wreck down the road tried to get in the house looking for help… evidently I didn’t hear him so he was going to come inside… There have been several instances where I have had friends here to scrapbook and then had an unexpected visitor or even happen so we decided the next time we stay up late to scrapbook we should just use headlamps instead of turning on all of the lights in the house then no one will know we’re home and up (LOL). So, here we are scrapbooking with light and the next picture we are using our headlamps (LOL).,,, thanks to the suggestions from the gals on my SHS loop!

SCHOOL: Josh was working with the math manipulatives and was bored with the designs in the book so he made his own! He LOVES trucks… he builds them out of legos, makes drawings of them, and now he makes them out of every shape imaginable using math manipulatives as well.

Here Nathan has falled asleep in the bathtub waiting to be found during a game of Hide and Seek and in the next picture he fell asleep before he even finished his cereal…. and lots of other pictures of places where Nathan has fallen asleep.

Emily was experimenting with some photography angles and techniques and ended up with this REALLY COOL picture of Nathan!

Emily turns 13! I’m not sure where time has gone, but we now have TWO young adults in our home. Emily LOVES to decorate things and wants to be an architect. Her bedroom has never been one that was “her”. While she was away on a weekend retreat with her youth group, the rest of us worked day/night to makeover her bedroom. She picked out two pictures which she fell in love with, a few accessories, and window shopping to show me what she liked and when she came home it was all done! As you can see by the expression on her face she can’t BELIEVE that we got it all done! This isn’t exactly the BEST picture because she doesn’t show how happy she really was! So, I upload a post-birthday picture as well. See below for before/after pics., but first some pictures from her party:When Amanda turned 13 her Great Aunt Dolores gave her a special sapphire ring and now that Emily is 13 she has also received a ring from Aunt Dolores! We celebrated Em’s birthday at Olive Garden when my aunt was here.SURPRISED AT THE CHANGE IN HER BEDROOM!

BEFORE:
AFTER: