Quest for Knowledge

 This year the theme for coop is Quest for knowledge knights and Princesses, James is so very excited to have his own coop. I am only doing one this year, for 3 and 4 year olds, and we kept it to six kids, I hate leaving people out, but last year we had seven and it got a little crazy so we just did a first come first serve and it worked out perfect. I have had to tell a few moms we were full but I tried to convince the one Mom to start another group and sent people her way so hopefully that will work out for them. Our little group is adorable the kids are great, James is one of the older kids, there is another little boy that is two weeks younger then him and one that turned four in sept. But they are all pretty close.  For four boys in the group it has been way better then I expected. They are all so good. And want to learn and play. It is great. The first day I did knight and princess pictures for their castle board that welcomes them to coop (that picture is on my phone, I need to do a phone dump)  We learned about fairy tales and make believe, We also learned about knights and princesses, We did Jack and the been stalk the kids planted beans and while they were working a Magic bean stalk grew in the backyard and when they climbed it there was treasure to be found in the form of golden nuggets!

 What a cute group I am so thankful for great Mom's who do this with me and have so much fun with us and let us have fun with their little ones, Hooray for another year of coop every year is such a joy I just can't wait to see what we learn and do.

Dig, Dig Dig!

 This first picture is drum roll, the site of our next large project, aka our house. Doug and I partnered with another couple and we are doing a small development project, Our new home (and hopefully the one we stay in for a few years) has finally started, this is half the development (above) all smoothed out ready to go, And below we are a digging!  I had to see it with my own eyes

 Our friend AJ owns the excavation company that is digging our whole, He stopped digging to play with the kids, the little girl in green is a friend I had with us that day. He had them all throw rocks in it and check out the machines, They had a great time and keep asking to go check out our hole, James is sure that a House will pop up out of no where that will be done and ready to live in of course,  MMMM not quite my little one we have a lot of work to do, but we are excited it is finally underway!

Labor Day

 I won't lie Labor day was a bit of a bust for us, the campsite we reserved was calling for snow, We decided to make the best of it and stay home and camp out in the back yard, or kind of. We had some learning fun with dry ice, which was completely unrelated to the evening it just so happened we had been delivered a package with dry ice in it so I told Doug we should do some fun things with it and the kids, he immediately looked and me and said dry ice bombs really? he was so excited, UM NO, Oh my word that is not AT ALL what I had in mind.... So we stuck with my idea of just teaching them about it and what happens to it when water is put on it, we compared it to normal ice, you know the norm, no bomb kind of things..... Sheesh Then we had dinner and roasted Marshmallows and made smores, It was fun, this was suppose to be our fun camping trip with Grandma and Grandpa, so They put up their trailer in the back yard and slept outside with the kids, or they started to,  It didn't really end up that way, My Mom ended up having to go in an ambulance to the hospital where she stayed for 11 days, She had to have surgery and well gave us quite the scare, thankfully she is home now and stating to  recover I hope. It has been a very crazy couple of weeks. We are thankful for a lot of things actually like that we didn't go camping had we been away from help I am not sure what we would have done with Mom or how she would have faired, I am thankful for a baby monitor that picked up noise across the house and piped it into my ear so I could be there for My mom when she needed me. I am thankful for a husband that follows the spirit and moved us into my parents home for no good reason other then he thought we should, Right place Right time I am thankful for a loving Father who stands beside his wife and holds her hand even when it is really tough and never leaves her even when his body says enough is enough I am thankful for that example of  love.  Mostly I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to answer my prayers and let my Mom live, at least one more day, I know there is no guarantee, When it is time it is time, but the very selfish part of me prays it is not her time anytime soon. We have had so much loss in our family this year I just am so thankful that she pulled through and is still here.  We spent a lot of time visiting her in the hospital and then when she finally got to come home the kids have spent a ton of time Nursing her back to health, needless to say we have been working on teaching empathy which is not innate, what better time then with a Grandma who needs a little extra help. Anyways so labor day this year nyah, I could have done without it....