Samantha's first day of school...

home school that is. I decided to do something fun for our first day, so Monday we drove to Seattlle with my mom to pick up her cute new Beagle puppy. We started the morning teaching the little girls what the airport is and why we have them. Then spent a while explaining that no we weren't going on an airplane a puppy was coming to us. It was a fun day that exhausted us all. Well probably my mom more then any one. Not every thing was as smooth as silk. Who would think to bring scissors to get your new puppy out of its cage. No worries though Samantha was a quick thinker and took the entire cage apart. Mom almost flipped until I reassured her it was easy to put back together(I don't think she really believed me until I did it back at home). Bonnie is the new puppy and every one loves her. She made the first day of school a lot of fun!

My children are a blessing not a burden!

I only work 1 to 2 days a week and it is amazing how often I hear how that must be the perfect amount. People say "You must love coming here to get away from your kids. It is the perfect little break." I am here to say I hate going to work! Hate is a strong word I often chose not to use, but work is not where I want to spend my time. My children are not people I want to get away from. I would much rather be at home with my family then at work. I am a nurse and as far as working goes caring for others is an area I enjoy, but man if I didn't ever have to go in again I wouldn't argue about it. By the way its not that my work environment is bad or anything to do with where I work, but if these were your cute kids wouldn't you rather be at home too?

Why I home school!

I saw on a friend's blog her post about why she home schools. I loved it. I thought some out there might want to hear my thoughts on it since we just took Samantha out of what some may have seen as the perfect place. I always wanted to home school. When Samantha was little and school was starting I didn't have any solid answers to why, so we decided she would go to public school. Little did I know then you don't have to put your kid in school at age 5. Anyways, by the end of 1st grade I still wanted her home. Jeff finally met other parents at church who felt the same way and had better reasons then I. He agreed and we pulled her at once. I have been home schooling ever since. It was until recently though that the whys of home schooling have fallen in to place. I use to worry about her not being at the same level as other kids her age. I use to worry if we missed a day the world would end. I use to worry about what everyone else would think. Last year was hard for me. I had a ton of guilt because of all of the above thoughts and the fact I was pregnant with twins and not wanting to do a lot else. I also began to listen to non home schooling people tell me I needed a brake. I feel in to the lie that kids are a burden not a blessing. How wrong that is! My chilren are my biggest blessing. I was taking on to much and there would be no way to do it all with the babies and the toddlers. We got a scholarship at that time for Bellingham Christian. We felt that was what the Lord wanted. All summer long I mourned the loose of home schooling. The more I talked to friends who were about to start their year at home the sadder I got. Then school started for Sam. It was a rough start, but I began to understand why I wanted to home school. It took me 9 days exactly to decide BCS was not where Samantha or any of my kids were meant to be. So why do I home school? Its simple really. I want my kids to have a firm foundation when the go out in to the world. I want their days to be influenced by Christ's love not their peers opinion. I want my kids to know that doing your best just means trying your best not getting an A on a paper. I want them to see me living a Godly example of a wife and a mother. I will pause to say here I know may example is flawed because I am a sinner and will never be perfected until our Lord comes back. I want my heart to be for my kids. When they have struggles I want them to know where to turn for true comfort. Do I care any more if they read at the right level or multiple as fast as every one else. No! That is not important! Do I want my kids to learn to compare themselves to others? No! I know that my kids will grow and go out in to a world full of sin and corruption. When they do this I want to rest assured that they have been equipped to handle it with Christ in their heart. I also will take a pause here to say I know that just because I home school and am a believer doesn't mean my kids will turn out to believe. This I will leave in Gods hands, but will try my best to disciple and be a living example full of prayer.

Celebration!!!

My photos will live on! It doesn't matter that I didn't save them on purpose my photos were getting saved on snapfish every time I up loaded them to my computer. Okay from now on I will try better to back up my data, but thank you Lord for keeping my memories safe. This by the way will really be my last blog for a while. I was to excited to not share. Good thing I could use my moms computer.

Forced to take a break!

Well my computer has done it. Died! We are getting it fixed, but until then no blogs from this lady. I am only updating today because I am at my moms and can use her computer. We still don't know if our computer will retain any of our info. Just a reminder to always back up your info some how. We had not:(
Caleb now has two teeth and Joshua is working on number one! Samantha is back at home with me for school:) I will post on this later and the girls are still hungry for knowledge. Well that's all for now folks.

Caleb keeps the lead!

What is he doing now you ask. Well getting teeth of course! The first pearly white just made its debut today!(9/18/09) Try to spot it if you can in this beautiful photo.

Tiny I know, but as a nursing mom I can tell you its sharp. His other big boy thing is crawling the real crawl.

You know your tired when..

you let your brother climb on you as you sleep on your grandma's carpet. Joshua was very sleepy!

Home school make over!

Last year I had a 4th grader to do school with. This year its a very eager 4 year old that I wish some days would slow down. The difference in school work is very obvious. 4th grade meant some intense days and a lot of emotion. 4 years old means letters made with play dough and spelling with pretzels. Melia is learning to read and write short words. One of which is cat. She was very clever at snack and used her pretzels to spell it for me. Kellina then presented her version of cat and I taught Melia how to do bat. I couldn't resist taking a photo and blogging it.

Warm September

We have been blessed with a nice warm month of September. Last week we decided to go to the beach just in case the weather decides to leave soon. I had all the little kids plus Aspen(my sisters daughter) and Maria. It was a beautiful day. My kids don't go to the beach for water they go to dig. They worked hard at it. Then they pretended to be on a boat together. This went well till the boat fell on Melia.

I knew we were getting close to leaving when I caught Melia killing time this way!

It was a wonderful day and I think every one enjoyed it. I hope we get a few more nice days to go have fun in.

My loath of mini-blinds!!!

I can't stand mini-blinds. They get dusty, dirty and they are near impossible to clean. My mother-in-law told me to put them in the shower and clean them in there. That sounded like torture and no fun. It turns out it was torture, but since Melia helped it was a lot of fun. She thought it was the best thing ever to give the blinds a shower. They did come out looking very clean and beautiful.

Caleb takes the lead!

Normally Joshua is first to do everything . He was the first to sit, smile, giggle, and crawl. We joke that he's trying to make up for being born second! Well finally Caleb has started a new skill that Joshua hasn't even attempted yet. Caleb pulls himself up. He learned how to go from a crawl position into a sitting position and now he grabs on to anything and pulls to a standing position. Crazy! Walking seems so close now.

Mornings with the Doyles!

This morning was different because my boys woke up happy. My boys are not the type who wake up cooing and singing. NO they wake up crying. This morning though they were sweetly singing back and forth to each other. Is this a turning point? Is the twin talk everyone has warned my about starting? We will have to wait for another morning to see.

The sweetest sounds

Three girls having fun.
Random "I love you mommy" when you think a question is coming.

My little girls singing praise music in the back of the van.

Squeals of delight from the little boys.

Joyous laughter during play time.

"Thank you" from a ten year old in the morning.

Household noise. All of it. The crying, screaming, laughing, talking and signing.

Kellina's version

Kellina is always doing or saying things that crack me up. The most recent was her singing Baa Baa Black Sheep. It went something like this

Bla Bla Black Sheep

Have you any more

Yes sir Yes sir

Three bags full

One for my mater

One for the name

and one mmmmm mmmm mmm

It was beautiful and hard not to laugh.

Mornings with the Doyles!

This isn't about this morning it is a look back at Sept. 8th. Samantha's first day of school. I am a homeschooling mom at heart, but this year Samantha is going to Bellingham Christian. I am so torn about it. I want her to go and love it, but at the same time I wish she were still at home with me. Last year I felt guilt about her homeschooling experience because of bed rest and babies. The christian school had a scholarship program, so Jeff and I prayed about it and decided if we got the scholarship Sam would go. We got it and now she is going. So I guess I should trust in the answered prayer and not be torn. Anyways, back to the morning. I got up at 6:00am to make her lunch and get myself ready. I then realized I would have to go to the grocery store for supplies. We had enough for the day phew! Getting up early meant I got to have some Bible reading time and I am LOVING that! I just got done with Ecclesiastes. Great book about how meaningless our lives here on earth really are. It was powerful reading and I think gave me stregnth to keep going. Then breakfast for the girls and getting dressed. It really helps that Melia now comes down stairs totally ready for the day! Then babies need to be fed. Oh yeah mom needs to eat too! And don't forget my coffee! On the first morning I was even organized enough to put on a crock pot meal so dinner was good to go. Samantha was beautiful, but her first day was rough. Anxiety and nerves got the best of her, but it seems to be smoothing out. She is excited to possibly start learning violin. I will keep every one updated on how it goes and if she comes back home. Melia by the way has now started demanding home school work, so after we get home she starts her school work. She loves to practice writing and doing workbooks. Kellina will not be left behind so she does her work too. Lots of scribbles and colors.

Melia learns to drive!

Not only did she practice driving it was with the big van. She had a blast helping dad park in a feild and doing it in reverse was so fun. When she got done she said to me "Mom you could learn to go backwards too you just need to practice."

Cloth trainers

The company that makes the cloth diapers I use also makes trainer pants. I was so thrilled to learn this because Kellina is a bed wetter. We spend a lot on pull ups. It turns out though Kellina is not a fan and we will not continue the use. She blames them for her wetting. After a night of use she came down and said "These new diapers made me wet the bed!". They are a great product and I am sad it won't work for Kellina. Oh well, maybe with the boys.

How do you do it?

Even though I don't think my family is all that big or difficult to manage some seem to disagree. One of the most asked questions is "How so you do it?". Well here is the answer....
I love this gate. This is not its normal use, but the kids were loving being in it so who am I to stop the fun. The main use for this gate is keeping the boys contained especially when outside and grass is near by.

I spy...

with my little eye. We all know the game. Most of us have probably used it to pass time before, but I have figured out the true reason for this game. Cleaning! I now can get my living room picked up while I nurse. Some may think I'm breaking child labor laws, but the girls love it. I spy a toy I want put away and the race is on. Once the item is found the finder marches it to be put away. With three kids playing cleaning is a breeze and when Jeff comes home he can think its been beautiful all day.

Beautiful Kids!

To see the beautiful Doyle kids just go to this link http://bakersdozen.typepad.com/photos/doyle_proofs/index.html. I now have the hard job of picking my favorites and getting prints. Oh the indecision!

Waterslides!!

We have been wanting to go to the water slides all summer and Kellina's birthday was the perfect excuse. It was a lot of fun! The boys hung out pool side with me. I got some quite time to read and a lot of people enjoying the twins. Joshua is in darker blue if you couldn't guess by the super model pose.

Samantha was so wonderful. It was a day that made me proud. She played with her little sisters all day and didn't once complain about not being able to do what she wanted to do. It was Kellina's day and Samantha helped make that possible.

Kellina turned blue and began to shiver almost as soon as she touched the water, but that didn't stop her. She soon learned that the kitty pool was warmer then where the slides were and she would divide her time between warming up and sliding. At the end of the day Jeff realised he could take the girls down the big slides as long as they sat on his lap. He said the slides scared him, but at the bottom Kellina yelled AGAIN!! They went three times in a row since Kellina was turning three!

Melia went on all the slides she could in the kid pool right away. I know she is not a big dare devil so as soon as she went down the fastest kid pool and her head went under I knew she wouldn't go again. I was right. She only went down with dad after that. She did get enough courage to go on the big slides with dad, but not as many times as Kellina. Although I think it was due to lack of time not lack of desire!
For an idea of how intense the kid slides were enjoy this video of Kellina and Samantha.

Blogging Addict

That's what I am. I was all set to blog about Kellina's water slide birthday, but my photos wouldn't load. When I realized it was due to a dead camera battery and I would have to wait till later I almost had a physical reaction. If only I had this same reaction when I don't get time with God!! How wonderful He is in my life. Everything I do is because of Him. How much more I want to know Him and yearn for him the way I yearn for my blog. Forgive me Lord for this strong hold of my life. May You be the strong hold of my days!