We're actually doing it!

What if every day was like summer break, and you could play all day long.

What if you never had to catch the school bus and leave your cute little brother behind.

What if recess was spent playing with your best friend.

What if your teacher thought your were the absolute cutest kid she had ever seen, and loved you more than anything in the whole entire world?

What if you could enjoy learning from the comfort of your own home?

We're HOME SCHOOLING! I can hardly believe it, and most days I think to myself "Self, is this actually possible? Am I messing my kids up big time? How can I expect anyone to focus in this chaos?" But other days I think "this is pretty great. I love having these guys home with me!". The decision was not an easy one to make, but I've had this wild idea in my head for a while and always though that in a perfect world I would definitely do it, but the truth of the matter is that it took an imperfect world to make me take the plunge. Registering for school here is different that anyplace I've ever been. You can choose any school in the whole school system, and then they do a lottery in January to see who gets into which school. Well since we registered late we did not get into the school we wanted (That's like 500 feet away from our house) instead they put Porter in one school and Maya in another (from what I hear the school they wanted to send Maya to is the worse school in the district) (a little inconvenient). I drove past the schools and thought they were so scary I wouldn't want to walk by the better yet send my kids into them. Well long story short we're trying it this year. We are only here for a year and a half, how much damage can I really do?

Danny Champion Of The World

So we finished reading Danny the Champion of the world and to celebrate we decided we had to have a midnight feast of roasted pheasant.

Here are our little champions of the world preparing the "pheasant" Can you believe Porter was hesitant to touch it at first? Maya just dived right in.

Here is another little champion dying to help. He talked about chicken for the rest of the day.

Here we are continuing the preparations.

Here is the bird before being shoved ever so carefully into the crock pot to cook all day (it's great to come home from church to an ready dinner)
And here we are enjoying the midnight feast. I voted that Caseys "Chips" (french fries) won the prize for best dish, Casey voted that the "Pheasant" was best, Porter voted for the "Sweet potatoes", Maya was rather fond of the "Pheasant", and I think Bennett liked the Juice best.

Funny story about the sweet potatoes - we have this every year at Thanksgiving and it is my absolute favorite things. Porter really loves them too, and as he was chowing down talking about how good they were Casey said "Do you know where Mom got this recipe?" Porter said no and Casey said "Who do you think gave this recipe to mom? It's the best ol gal ever..." And Porter yelled out "Sarah" (sorry Sarah I guess he thinks of you as an ol gal)

Kickin' it Miles style

Miles was neglected on the last post, so this is for all you who complained about it (MOM).

One of Miles all time favorite activities (at leas he does it frequently).

Miles looking cool and FAT. He's getting so big it's amazing he's already been with our family for a whole month. The time is flying by and it seems like only yesterday he was still a new born.

At least I get plenty of cuddle time with the little guy. I usually have to wait till the other kids are in bed, but we enjoy our evenings.

As a fourth child Miles has to spend a lot of his time on the move. Here he is catching a cat nap in his car seat.

Oh and he wanted me to tell you he loves you "This much"!

Exploring Cambridge

Here we are outside our apartment on our way to find a new park to explore. (can you feel the excitement?)

Around the block from our house there is a tree where a squirel lives, and we see him almost every time we pass. Bennett is a little fascinated by 'squirly'.

I think it looks like Bennett and the fire hydrant have matching hair do's. The fire hydrants are all painted different colors here. I usually make the kids tell me what color they are in spanish (the other day Maya yelled out "Mom, I see a gris y negro one")

Here is Porter playing at the park. There were lots of fun things to play on so obviously he was totally engrossed.

There is sand at most of the parks here and the kids love it, but it's a bit of a pain to clean them up afterwards, especially Bennett who eats it by the handfull.