More from Gehrig

We have this great map of the United States on one side and the World on the other that is laminated, so I keep it in the middle of our table to refer to periodically (any chance I can get for teaching opportunities). This morning as we were reviewing the different continents, I pointed out that my ancestors were from Europe and Lou's ancestors came from Africa. Later this evening, Gehrig came to me and asked me if I knew any stories of his ancestors that I could tell him. Unfortunately, I don't have any by heart, but I was able to pull out a couple of histories that I had for him to read. He found that his great-great-grandfather wrote beautiful poetry. He was so excited about that and told me that he came from a "rich heritage." It inspired him to write another poem. It's in the second half of this paper he wrote and I love it!

God's Garden by Gehrig Harris, Junior

In God's garden I do truly live.
Endlessly I'm learning.
Endlessly I'm living.
And so doth God live.
In my mind and heart.

My love, Gehrig Harris Jr.

The part he circled cracks me up. He wrote, "I found an Indian spear tip. NO SERIESLY, it looked like this." And, truth be told, he actually did find a real arrowhead. His Papa is making a shadow box for it and we're hoping to visit a friend of his that might be able to help us know how old it might be, etc. It is a VERY exciting find for more than just a cute little eight year old!

The Hansen Family Reunion

It's so fun to get together with our Hansen family every other year (we wish it were more often)! We had a wonderful time at the Heber Valley Girl's Camp this year.

It's amazing how genetics work. From the time Grant & Damian were little, we heard they looked alike. The relationship is a bit distant, but the similarities are unmistakable (their mothers are second cousins, what does that make them? Third cousins?).

DAMIAN & GRANT

The lake was mostly dried up, but it left a great place for the kids to make a HUGE mess in mud! Here I am being trailed by a bunch of cutie pies, taking mud covered shoes back to the yurt we stayed in.

The Ropes Course

Gehrig had another chance at a similar course this year and did amazingly well. If you blow the pictures up, you'll see the fear in his face, but he loved it in the end.

Emma had her chance on the ropes course too (just a little modified--not quite so scary).

I love this shot of Mom!

Even Isaiah had a chance. He loved it! What an adventurer. My favorite picture of him is the bottom left where he's sticking out his tongue in concentration.

And yes, I conquered my fear of heights, yet again, and did the SWING. Talk about butterflies! I enjoyed it once I went back and forth a couple of times and wasn't moving quite so high and quite so fast! The zip line is still my favorite, but getting to it is my least favorite.

While waiting to go on the main ropes attraction, we were here with the cutest lady doing a bunch of little games with the kids. They were going on a lion hunt in most of the pictures. Notice the top right picture of Damian jumping. I love it!

Someone got ahold of my camera and took these cute pictures of Carli & Blake.

Utah State Fair

One of the fun things about doing K12 home school is all of the opportunities they provide for us to get in on community events FREE or at a significant discount. We were able to go to the State Fair for $1 total!

Our favorite thing to do was go to the 30 minute shows. The kids had a blast! I tried to capture their darling faces up close while they were watching the shows. I also included a picture from their shooting lesson.

GEHRIG

Apparently, Gehrig hit every target! What a blast!

DAMIAN

EMMA

As you can see, the shooting didn't come as naturally for her!ISAIAH

THE VENTRILOQUIST SHOW

Unfortunately, there are no pictures to show the kids favorite part of this show. I got called out of the audience to participate. I tried to get out of it since I had four small children in the audience, but my sweet friend, Claudia, had come with me to help out, so I didn't have a very good excuse. The ventriloquist had me open my mouth every time he tapped my shoulder and then he did his thing. So. . . .it looked like I was singing a country song with his voice. Claudia said she laughed so hard, she cried. Wish I had a picture of it.

GREG FRISBEE

The kids loved this juggling, fire-eating, magic show.

THE SHARK ENCOUNTER

The only other place I spent money was buying a shark tooth on a necklace for Gehrig. Now he's fascinated with sharks.

BEAR ATTACK

Another fun show with grizzly and brown or black bears (I forget which). These bears have been used in Disney shows, etc.

TINY the CLOWN

Oh yeah, I guess I gave him a small tip for all the cute balloon hats.
Emma was fascinated with the bee display that my friend Margaret was running.

Now, THERE'S a pumpkin!

I have to thank Claudia for coming with me. It was such a fun, memorable day--but it wouldn't have been nearly so fun if I had been trying to keep track of all 4 in that type of setting. She saved my life!

The Velveteen Rabbit

So we were talking a family walk one Sunday afternoon in the neighborhood when Lou said, "Look, there's a rabbit." Just a block or so down the street, he spotted a black lop-eared rabbit hopping across the street. The kids were excited to follow him across the street to catch it. We went from door to door trying to find his owner, but without any luck. So. . .we brought him home for the night. . .and the next night. . .and the next night.

Emma called him Velveteen. She said, "Is this the Velveteen Rabbit?" They really enjoyed having a rabbit for a couple of days while we waited to see if anybody would call from the signs we put up around the neighborhood. No calls came, so I had to be the mean mom and call animal control to come and get it (just in time too, b/c the kids kept getting in his space and Gehrig actually got bit).

One morning when I awoke to a quiet house, I saw that Emma wasn't in her bed. I came downstairs and found her reading to Velveteen. Soooooo cute!

Highlights---September 2009

* Emma whispered that she wanted to tell me a secret during church today. She whispered into my ear, "Jesus loves you. Together Forever. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty." I just love the way a 3 year old's mind works! So cute!

Together Again. . .

Lou, his twin brother Len, and their friend Kevin used to hang out in the good old days at BYU. It's been MANY years since they've all been together, so tonight I have a few minutes to blog because Lou's out on the town with them. Can you tell which one is Lou?

Yep, here he is with Kevin. Luckily, Kevin's wife's (also named Angela) family live in Bountiful, so we get to see him periodically when they come to visit her family. And we've been to Vegas a couple of times to visit him and his family. It's always fun to see them together.

Look at how happy my man is. . .he doesn't have many "guys night outs".

Can you tell which one is Lou in this picture?

Lou and Len were able to spend a little bit of time together last night and today before he heads back to Georgia early tomorrow morning. He came for his wife's sister's funeral. She was only 3 months younger than I am. Long story short, she went into the emergency room 38 weeks pregnant, had an emergency c-section and didn't make it. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, leaving her husband with two beautiful daughters (the older being 3 years old, I think). We were able to attend her funeral today, which was a very well done and beautiful funeral. I'm sure the family could use any prayers in their behalf.

Gehrigisms. . .

I went to check on Gehrig before I went to bed and found this cute little display in his bedroom. He is VERY excited about rocks right now. I love his little museum display!

On another note. . .we were at Walmart this week doing a little grocery shopping and I asked him and Damian to pick something up on the next row and bring it to me. Damian made it back to me, but Gehrig must have wandered off. I was almost finished with my shopping and a little ticked off that he didn't come right back, but didn't get too worried. When we started calling his name and didn't get a response from him, I began to get a little concerned. He lost me once before and went straight to the parking lot looking for me (which was exactly what NOT to do). Luckily, he must have remembered that experience because this time, he actually went to the friendly Walmart greeter and asked for help. I found him at customer service. In the car, he found a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote this clever poem:

I have never been so glad to see you,
Your purse of black, your eyes of blue.

We've been learning about rhyming couplets in Language Arts and I think this is a great example, written by my own little poet!

Singing at the State Capitol Building

The Heralders
The boys sang with this fun home school choir through two performances in the Spring. It was a great experience for them. Emma and Isaiah can't wait to join. We're going to try hip-hop dance, clogging and basketball this fall and hope to join the choir again when the little ones are old enough to be a part of it. Aren't they cute in their red and white? (Damian's in white on the front row, middle. Gehrig's in white on the 2nd row and just to the right of Damian--a mistake to have them so close together, I found out the embarrassing way. . .)

Yeah, should I tell you most most embarrassing moment as a mother so far? Well, at least one of them. While the boys were singing, Gehrig kept poking and bugging Damian. Damian finally turned around and started hitting Gehrig. Of course, Gehrig hit back and I was dying in my seat wondering if I should yank them off the stage or what? AARRRGGG!! BOYS!! How in the heck am I supposed to deal with them? Anyway. . . luckily, Miss Debby, the director, was able to get their attention and get them through the performance. Yeah, I tried not to acknowledge them when they were finished. . .just kidding. But really? Would you have claimed them? Luckily, the news reporters that came to cover the event didn't seem to be there at the time.

They had several free activities at the Capitol Building that day that the boys enjoyed. They also had local vendors giving samples of their food products. The boys are holding up buildings they made with gumdrops and toothpicks. Lou and the little ones stayed home from this one, which did make it easier to go to the different booths with the boys.

School Has Begun--But Not for Us!! Ha!

We had to celebrate the freedom that we have with homeschool while the rest of the kids in the neighborhood went back to school! Instead of doing our school work, we went to a small man-made lake nearby and enjoyed a fun day with some friends. You can tell by the pictures that they had a blast.