Jeffrey's joyful "noises"

After MUCH anticipation and hunting on Craigslist and ebay, we finally purchased a trombone for Jeffrey. He couldn't wait (and must have asked 100 times....is it here yet?) for it to come in the mail. It finally came!!! It was like Christmas morning, lemme tell ya! He gently and tenderly opened the box and put together his new beauty.....

He was able to get some good tones out of it. And then yesterday, IT started...beginner band!!!!! Again this semseter, the wonderful homeschool mom is teaching band. And it now includes a beginner band. Well, it's actually a beginner "duet" since there ended up only being two boys who were able to be in the "band". And this week, the other boy was sick, soooooo, it turned out to be PRIVATE LESSONS! Not bad for FREE!!!! She doesn't charge for band, she just asks that the moms take turns watching her children during band. Hmmm... play with a cute little toddler girl, and preschool boy and totally adorable 8yo daughter for 45 mintues in exchange for excellent musical instruction....no brainer!!!

Yesterday (Tuesday) and today he had his lesson and loved every mintue of it. I had Jonathan sneak upstairs to take some pictures.

Let the jazz band commence!! :-) For Classical conversations, each family has to give a "family presentation" about their family. The boys are wanting to play a song on their instruments. So I think we'll be working up something fun that Jeffrey can pick up quickly and be ready for in a couple of months. Jonathan and Jeremy are really excited about Jeffrey learning an instrument they can play along with!

Jeremy and Jonathan also started band this week, but I didn't get any photos. They love it as well. We found out that the mom teaching is moving in January (military husband) to Colorado Springs. We're SOOOOO sad! So, we'll enjoy this semester for all it's worth!

Moms on retreat....part 1

This is it....the big weekend away for Julie and I! For our birthday in June, we both asked for and were graciously given a weekend away. So, here we are in Dallas for a weekend full of laughs, fun restaurants (with no chicken nuggets or corn dogs allowed!), movies and LONG conversations. We landed in D/FW this afternoon, got to the hotel, worked out....

See we really worked out....we didn't just pose for the camera!!!

And since we worked out....it was off to The Cheesecake Factory! Oh, yeah!

I even broke from the standard and tried something very new....ahi tuna tartar. NEVER have had this. I know people who really like ahi tuna so I thought I'd give it a try. I mean I figured it wouldn't get much better than at Cheesecake Factory.

Know what, it was good! It didn't taste too fishy at all. So there, I did it. Raw fish.

I also have never had these....avacado egg rolls. They were also very yummy.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some more talking and hanging in jammies!

I "heart" Josiah!...a short but sweet!

Josiah and I were working on school his afternoon. We'd been working ALL DAY LONG because he's having to do two days of work because tomorrow I'm headed off to Dallas to spend the weekend with Julie. We'll be leaving the house in the late morning, so I don't want to leave much, if any, schoolwork undone until tomorrow. Anyway, we were doing some math and he looked over at me and smiled and said "Do you see hearts in my eyes when I look at you since I love you so much?"

Melted heart...I love that boy!!

A day of feasting...

Jeffrey's been studying medieval times the last couple of weeks in history. This week, one of the activites he was suppsed to do was to plan and give a medieval feast. We did it on a pretty small scale, but it was still lots of fun! Welcome to our feast....



First, step over the guard dog! :-)

Receive salt as a gift to those attending the feast.

Let the host wash your hands. (The boys really liked this part!)

The first part of the meal was apples covered with cinnamon and sugar served on "trenchers". Trenchers were essentially very stale biscuits that served as plates. Jeffrey made the trenchers three days before the feast, so yep they were really stale. Mission accomplished! :-)

Between courses the guests were supposed to entertain the crowd. Here's Jeremy playing a medieval tune on his saxophone.

And Jackson singing along, like he always does when Jeremy plays his saxophone. Too bad this one's not a video. It's hilarious to hear him "sing" along!

Next was turkey and cheese, again served on the trencher.

Before the next course, Jonathan read a poem out of "Lord of the Rings".

Ok, vanilla pudding for the last course. I didn't make them eat this one on the trencher. Actually, I certainly would have, I just didn't think of it in time!

And then at the end of the meal, the guests are supposed to eat the trencher. YUCK! I made everyone take a bite, but didn't make anyone eat the whole thing. Disgusting!

Well, these guys like the trenchers!

That's pretty medieval, right! Except I guess back then, these guys would have been living in the house with us. Oh, well, times change!

New kids on the block..um,I mean flock

Ok, call us crazy, but we couldn't turn down an opportunity to add 2 new hens to the farmily when a friend from Michael's work wanted to GIVE them to us! Her husband had actually been in the paper a week or so ago in a story about people keeping hens in their backyard in the city. Michael just commented to her about the newspaper article, and the next thing he knew, she was offering us her two hens. She said she thought they were mean and didn't want them anymore. So, we said "Sure!!" We'd been wanting to add some hens to see if that helped our roosters be a little less aggressive with the hens we have. We'll have to see how that works out! But for now, welcome Rhodie (Rhodelia is her long name) and Ruthie. They look quite a bit like Roadrunners, which is why their names start w/ "R". The first day, we kept them in the coop while the old gang looked on and walked around looking at them and clucking like crazy!

Ruthie, left and Rhodie, Right

I think they are really wondering what on earth they got into!!!!

They pretty much stick together and have learned to stay away from the roosters. Goldie likes having someone she can boss around, since she's been a loner away from the rest of the flock for a long time (at least since Hawkeye and Squanto have plucked all the feathers off of her back). It will be fun to see how the flock comes together in the next couple of weeks. Admittedly, they're not as pretty/cute as our old gang, but we'll see if they improve w/ age! :-) Either way, it's fun to have more hens around! And more eggs later will be awesome, too!!

Dagerath Academy High School opens

Monday was a big day for Dagerath Academy! Dagerath Academy officially opened it's high school branch and welcomed two new honor students! :-) And DA Middle school welcomed Jeffrey into its honors program! As in previous year, the first day of school started w/ "sticky stuff" for breakfast served on china w/ crystal....

I mean, gotta make it a big deal, right!!!

Here's the boys with the principal!

And their teacher...

This year's curriculum will be a little different because we'll be doing Classical Conversations for all of Jonathan and Jeremy's subjects (except math) and about 1/2 of Jeffrey and Josiah's. They will all go to class on Mondays (Jonathan and Jeremy started last Monday) and then do homework for the rest of the week that is assigned. We've not ever done anything like this before; but after the first week last week, Jonathan and Jeremy said they really enjoyed it. But man, the homework load is seriously more than we've ever done. Welcome to high school!!!

Tomorrow morning is the first morning we all go. So at about 7:15 am we'll head out with lunch boxes in hand and smiles on our faces! FUN FUN FUN!!!

Ankle update...

Good news! After visiting the orthopedic dr. yesterday, it seems that Jeremy won't be out for the entire season. He estimates 2 weeks in the cast, 2 weeks in a boot and then he ought to be ready to play. He said these types of injuries heal quickly! Yeah!! Stay tuned!