Baby Bunny-

Our little bunny who has the run of the whole back porch has found a place to hide. One day it took me a long time to find him. Gary finally discovered his hiding place. This is the back of one of Tanek's trucks. All night long he runs back and forth on the porch but in the day time you can find him comfortably sitting in the back of the truck. The dogs haven't even been able to find his hiding place.
I had to sneak up to the truck and take the picture backwards to get him. He just sat there and even the flash didn't scare him away. He thinks he owns the place. He is getting bigger and loves to eat carrots most of all.

Tanek See's the Cardiologist

On Wednesday morning Tanek had his annual check up with his Cardiologist. He has a small heart murmur and they check it every year. He was such a big boy and said he had fun at the doctor's.
They even had a chair just his size for him. He also got a cute pillow that ladies from Shiloh Baptist church make for the patients.

They hooked him up for his ekg. At first he wasn't too sure about it, but once he remembered that they don't stick him he was ok.

The tech was very good with him and he was fine watching what they were doing.

All hooked up and ready for the test

She is explaining to him what the ekg is showing and he was quite interested

And in just a short time it was over and time to take off all the stickers

A big smile for mommy

Just one more to go

The doctor comes and checks him and he is good for another year.

All done and that was fun!

Homeschooling with the Grand-daughters!

While I was visiting with the family this past week I had the opportunity to sit in while Hannah and Emily went to school at home. Heather is so creative that she makes everything a learning time. They have so much fun that everyone likes doing this. It made me want to go back to school (well almost) It did encourage me to do more with Tanek. I like that not only is everything interesting and geared to their interest but they have so much fun too. There was snack time, and lunch time and outside time, and lots of learning time. Here Emily is working with some shapes while Heather is reading to them. This was a real neat little thing she was working with putting together patterns.

It was such a nice day we went outside to do some reading. Richard was cutting and edging the yard and a nice big frog jumped out. Heather immediately picked him up and a new lesson started. Hannah and Emily checked this frog out from head to toe. We looked at all his bumps and colors and stretched him out to see how big he was. Emily gave him a drink of water from the fountain out front. After they were through examining him from every aspect they let him go and then Heather read to them about frogs and we drew pictures of frogs. It was all very interesting and I learned some things I didn't know about frogs. Hannah our big nature lover is raising tadpoles in her little water fountain.

We decided he must be the kind of frog that you get frog legs to eat from. He was big, but his legs did not look very appetizing to eat.

Emily had no problem holding him or checking him out. Lots of girls would not have touched him but Emily and Hannah had no problem with that.

He really was a very ugly frog. Some frogs are kinda cute, but this guy was just ugly. Very bumpy and rough skinned. Made for an interesting study on frogs though.

This was the book Heather read to them while we all took turns drawing pictures of frogs.

So nice that on a beautiful spring day you can be outside reading and studying rather than sitting at a desk in a classroom. I think I would have done much better in school if I had been able to have more of this type. I always hated sitting in a classroom . I found it very boring and confining. I am so happy to see how well my 2 grand-daughters are doing with home school and how well Heather is doing teaching it. Kirsten opted to go back to her school as she needed more of a challenge from her peers. I am encouraged to work more with Tanek and use a lot of Heathers style. She is very patient and laid back with them and they love it. Stephanie will be like that too. I will just help fill in the gaps while Stephanie is at work and we will try to make this a fun experience for him. There is so much opportunity and tools to use that are really a lot of fun while they are learning too.

It is also a very good way to have a closer relationship with your children and teach them your values instead of some of the things they are trying to teach that they don't need to learn.

After a fun morning of school we went to lunch. Richard was off on Monday and he worked in the yard while the girls did their school work and then we all got to go to Chipotles for lunch.

It was a fun Monday. Then after school we went to their horseback riding lessons. But that will be for tomorrow.

Look What I Came Home Too!

I LOVE Spring. Before I left I wasn't sure we were going to get much flowers from these Azalea's. but look at them now. When we turned into our drive way I was so surprised how in just 6 days so much had changed. These normally bloom the end of Feb. or the first part of March. Here we are in the middle of April and they are beautiful. So many plants that were just barely coming out of the freeze are really growing now. It was a nice thing to come home too.

These actually separate our yard from the neighbors yard and they planted them, but we get as many flowers on our side as they do so it is a great fence. They are just so pretty and I love walking out and looking at them. Sure wish they lasted all summer.

Maryland Trip- Part 2

Baking cookies can be so much fun. All of us had a part in making some yummy chocolate chip cookies. The girls thought they were the best they ever made. Since I normally bake the kind you pull apart and bake these were very good. Emily very much enjoyed licking the spoon, They made SO many cookies I didn't think we could eat them all, but they were almost gone by Sunday when Richard and Heather got home.

You can't help but love this sweet face.

Saturday evening we did pedicures and Emily wanted to do a little modeling for us. She picked out this pretty dress and did some performances for us. She was princess Belle.

All of our beautiful toe nails after we finished. Everyone picked out what they wanted on their toes. Hannah and Emily have especially bright toe nails.

Some random play pictures during the day. Hannah and Emily swinging.

Sweet Hannah

Heathers beautiful tulips. I love these flowers. You don't usually see them growing in Florida.

Sweet Emily with the "boys". These guys are so cute and lovable. If you sit still for very long they will be in your lap.

Emily is proud of her blue gator aid tongue

Maryland Trip - Part 1

This past week I was able to go to Maryland and spend some time with my family up there. Richard and Heather went to a surprise birthday party in Tenn. and I got to spend time with the girls. On Friday evening we had dinner together (taco's of course) and then had a girls evening. Maddie, Kirsten's best friend spent the night too. She is a riot. Maddie, Kirsten and Hannah started out playing Monopoly while I was spending time reading to Emily. After Emily went to bed and Hannah was ready for bed I took over Hannah's place in monopoly. Although at the time I took over Hannah wasn't having much of a monopoly Maddie was totally broke. She was the banker and soon had lots of land and money. (Not sure how she had so much money so quickly). I know she wouldn't borrow from the bank but she ended up skunking Kirsten and me.
Kirsten and I even did some shrewd playing and that didn't even slow her down. Finally, I had to just hand over all my land to her as I had NO money left and landed on one of her properties. Being the kind hearted girl she is, she just put this old nana out on the street. Ha ha. We had fun.

The next morning we fixed blueberry muffins and bacon for breakfast. My sweet Emily helped me make the muffins. Half the fun is getting to lick the bowl .

The girls are patiently waiting for breakfast to cook.

Here they are on the computor traveling around the world on Google Earth map.

Later in the afternoon we went down into the woods to see their fort. It was so nice down there. Even though on Saturday it was kinda cold, down there it was warm because we had the sunshine and no wind. Hannah is our nature girl. She works so hard down there getting all the places made and each of the girls have their own house down there. It really is so pretty down there. Right now all the trees are budding out and there were no critters down there. There is a little creek that runs through too.

The girls play down there for hours and love it. They have a great imagination and spend hours doing all sorts of creative things. It is nice because from the house you can see them and be able to keep an eye on them. I kept looking for snakes because if this was in Florida I would NOT have gone down there. But we didn't see anything like that. Just lots of birds in the trees.

Later in the day they came back up and played in the backyard. I had to snap a picture of them plus the neighbor girl with this car. This is the same car that when Kirsten was little I used to push her all around the house in. It is still going strong.

This was just part of the time I spent there. Lots more pictures coming. It was so much fun to have some time alone with the girls to make some special memories. They are all growing up so fast and I feel like I am missing so much of their lives. When I have the time to be with them I try to make up for the time I am gone. Kirsten now 14, isn't into all the silly little things we used to play, but thankfully Hannah and Emily still are. Kirsten is turning into such a nice young lady and it just fun to sit and talk to her. She has such a good head on her shoulders (and a very pretty one at that). She is the one who always has a book in her hand. Her biggest love is horses and I have lots of those to show later. Hannah, is our nature lover. We had fun watching the birds and she has 2 parakeets in her room. Her whole room is decorated in the bird theme and it is beautiful. Emily is the little performer in the family. She loves to sing and dance and perform. It is fun to watch as they grow and see how God is molding their lives. They are very special girls.

Our big helper!

Tanek loves to help in the yard. I am trying to expose him to the joys of nature. I love working in the yard and watching the birds and papa loves gardening and Tanek is enjoying helping us with all of it. He said "Nana, this is fun" when he planted two new plants and got to water them all by himself. He was quite proud of himself.

It takes a little patience to take the time to let him do it "all by myself" as he loves to tell me, but I think in the long run he is learning some great things that he will enjoy all his life.

He is one happy little gardener!