Day 19: A boy and his books

This is Miles' favorite corner.  He spends a lot of time "reading" over here and playing with his light box.  Today his preferred book was his animal picture book made by Aunt Michelle.

Day 18: Bubble City

Day 17: A girl and her quilt

Grandma Viertell made Sam and Maggie new quilts for their beds for Christmas this year. Here's a very happy (and cute) girl showing hers off.

Day 16: Fishes.

Yup.  It's a fish tank.  The kids picked out the neat-o neon rocks and plants...and today some neat-o neon tetras to join them...and a frog...and some cloud somethingoranother fish.  Miles loves it so much he's currently crying his eyes out because we won't hold him up there any longer to look at them.  

Day 15: Good Morning Sunshine!

Day 14: Better late than never

In the spirit of project 365, here's a pic of the kids' Christmas Program last night.  Wanna see some more?  Head on over here.

(left-right: Abby, Aidan, Sam, Joel, Maggie, Blake)

They're all within 4 months of each other...age wise that is...and excluding Abby...sorry Abby.  ;-)

Sunday School...with a twist.

Eric taught Sunday School this last week and ended the lesson with a game of Hot Potato- where if you had the "potato" when the music stopped you were out unless you answered a question from the lesson correctly.  My kids are currently attempting their own version.  It goes a little something like this:

A singing "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" ornament is the music.
The potato is an IKEA soccer ball.
The questions I've heard so far include:
     - When does Mommy light candles in the house?  at Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas?
     - When did Miles get his red hair?
     - When does the farmer end the sheep?  (I think this means slaughter...we recently went to a REAL butcher shop to pick up some beef we bought from a friend's farmer-dad.  Animals, meat, and how-the-animal-becomes-meat is on their little minds right now)
     - When did baby Jesus come?
     - When does the farmer mow the sheep's hair?

Acceptable answers so far have included:
     - Halloween and Christmas
     - at zero
     - ?? (this one ended in laughter...not an answer)
     - Christmas (phew, glad they got this one right.)
     - 16. (huh??)
    

When you give your kids a camera.

We got a new camera...almost a year ago.  Since then the kids have taken over our old one.  It's been great, it entertains them for HOURS.  I thought that the simple fact that it kept them busy was a good enough reason to continue to change the batteries on it.  BUT, as it turns out the pictures are pretty fun too.  We took all their pictures off it a few weeks ago and handed the camera over to cousin Ashlynn for a bit so her mom can enjoy the wonders of the camera too.  Here are some of the pictures our budding photographers have taken:

 Daddy.  Needing a shave.

Sam.  Needing eye surgery.
Just kidding.

Mi laughing it up.

Squishy-face Sam tying some Polly Pocket to the bunk bed.  Knots are his specialty.

Sleeping Daddy and Sam...

Cute pic of crooked eye Miles.

Squishy-face Mommy.  Now we know where Sam gets it from.  (must have been a humid day, that's some special hair I'm sporting...)

Daddy-O.

Sam, in the car.  Apparently the camera went on a ride with us one day.

Sam and his stuffed pals during a rest time.  They must have been pretty proud of their bed making skills that day...

Sam's green tongue.

Debby Harding.
What?!?  When did they snap this one?  It's a mystery I tell you, a mystery.

And lastly, a series of self-portraits by Maggie.  There were probably 20+ of these...too funny!