September Celebrations

Mom (otherwise known as Grandma Berger at our house) celebrated her 60th birthday this September!

It turned out to be a suprise birthday party for Mom, who thought we were celebrating Christin's birthday which is also this month. It wasn't until some of the local people who hardly even know Christin started arriving, that Mom suspected it was for her.

We had an apple theme for her party, and everyone was to bring an apple recipe or an apple! Mom even got a personalized blue Grandma sweatshirt decorated with apples from her 16, make that 17 grandkids!!!


Here are Mom and Christin pretending to blow out their candles on their birtday pie, but actually trying to let the other one blow them out!

Guess What?

Wow, it has been a busy, hectic week. Some of the high-lights include tornado watches and warnings (with Christin getting to spend a time in the freezer at the grocery story, TWICE!), play practice for NunSensations, picking the last few things from the garden and covering the tomatoes before the frost hit, picking more apples, celebrating with a suprise 60th birthday party for mom, and working at the Lake Benton News. (I recently had my 2nd article published and love using PhotoShop!).]
Oh, and we found out we're pregnant!

BLAG

Blog + Brag = BLAG

Isaiah cannot walk yet, but sure tries. He gets into everything, and when any door is even slightly open, it is a race to see if he can get there before anyone closes it. Then when he does get to the door, he stops to see if you are going to try to stop him! Then he enjoys throwing a little tantrum, banging his head on the floor and everything!!!

He is using more signs, one of his current favorites is "please," but I think he still prefers "bath!"
The things he can sign are:

• Bath (his first sign, and his favorite!)
• I want
• Pick me up
• More
• All done
• What time is it? (usually followed by 'Bath')
• Please (His latest and new favorite)

He also does "so-big," "all done" and actions to the song "Way up in the sky, the little birds fly" to name a few.
He can say a few words that we understand, too:

• "Mom"
• "Dad"
• sometimes "Grandma"
• "Uh-oh!" = I dropped something
• "Ooooo" = moo
• "DeeDay" = D.J.
• "ap" = apple
• "op" = popcorn (which he dovours)
• "Mee-ew" = meow (the newest sound)
  

1st Day of School

School has started, and fortunately, the kids did NOT miss the bus... because we are HOME-SCHOOLING. It is going quite well; and the kids seem to enjoy it too. There are a LOT of homeschoolers in the Marshall/Pipestone area. So many that MACHEA (Marshall Area Christian Homeschool Educators Association) divided into 3 subgroups, and we can pick and choose in which activities we would like to participate. They meet the 1st & 3rd Friday and the other group meets the 2nd Friday of each month, so by the end of the week we can do some real active learning. We are doing Geography, Phy.Ed., Music, Drama, Spanish, and Biology with this group. We are going to disect a bunch of animals and the groups are multi-age (K to 12th) so there is a lot of learning from eachother as well.

It is always busy here though. We are canning one last round of apples before our other tree ripens with the first frost. I have never seen so much applesauce!!! Fortunately it will be eaten.

Isaiah cannot walk yet, but sure tries. He gets into everything, and when any door is even slightly open, it is a race to see if he can get there before anyone closes it. Then when he gets there, he stops to see if you are going to try to stop him, and then he enjoys throwing a little tantrum, head banging on the floor and everything!!!

Today, DJ taugh him to hold his nose and make noises, and Isaiah just loved it. I think he could tell his voice sounded different, it lasted for more than a half an hour I think.

Crikey!

It was a very sad week at our house!

As you know, Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter died over the weekend. While we don't watch a lot of TV, the kids did ocassionally watch and enjoy the Crocodile Hunter. We watched the Discovery Channel's broadcast of all of his interviews, etc. The boys had a good cry, and we talked about how much his kids will miss their dad. All good stuff to talk about at such a time.

But to make matters worse, Sunday afternoon, David found two kittens (that he didn't yet know we had) had been killed by the tom cat. I later found the other two, killed as well.

It was a very sad week at our house!


David doing his best 'Crocodile Hunter' impersonation during the 2005 county fair.

Not to be out-done, William & Jacquie got in on the action as well.