Science Birthday Party!

Our oldest, Luke is turning six today! We celebrated his birthday on Sunday when Daddy was off work and Grandma and Grandpa were still able to participate. Luke is our science explorer. He loves all of God's creation and wants to study every aspect of it! So, we chose to have a science themed party to celebrate turning six!

Our table was full of all kinds of creepy crawlies for the party!

Luke's all time favorite food is what he calls "chicken on the bone" or fried chicken! He can clear a bone faster than you can even imagine! So, we all dissected a few chicken bones to celebrate! :)

Luke's siblings all enjoyed the party as well, celebrating Luke's special day!

Luke is ready to go explore God's creation. Watch out bugs, frogs and lizards!!

Luke is absolutely passionate about basketball. He didn't mind soccer, but he LOVES basketball. We are looking for a way to get him on a team next year. He can be seen dribbling a ball at all hours of the day when not occupied with school or other family activities. He is actually getting pretty good. We decided to get Luke an indoor basketball hoop for his birthday. Although Mommy was not especially thrilled at the idea of an indoor gym, we do have three boys, (possibly 4!) so it is inevitable! Now he can practice dribbling and shooting even when it is raining or too hot outside to play!

To end our party we topped off with some dirt cake, complete with worms!

I think I know what to make for Jake's birthday next year.....he licked his bowl clean!!! :)

Thank you Lord for this new year of life you have given our oldest son, Luke. Thank you for his sensitive and generous heart, and for his strong leadership qualities. Thank you for his inquisitive nature and love for all things you have created. May you continue to grow and develop all of these gifts and passions for Your glory throughout his life.  Happy 6th Birthday, Baby Boy!!

Graduation #2

We were glad to have Jeff's parents here for all of our celebrations this weekend. The grandkids love time with Grandma and Grandpa!

On Saturday we were able to participate in a home school Kindergarten graduation. This year we have been a part of a Christian home school group that has been such a blessing to our family. The parents helped to put on a sweet graduation to acknowledge our children's Kindergarten year.

When we originally decided to homeschool Luke for his K year, it was not long after we realized that Ben did not want to be left behind. Although Ben would technically not be in K until this fall, he was able to keep up with Luke every step of the way. For a long time I called it K and Pre-K, but when the boys heard about the graduation, they were mortified that I was considering having Luke graduate and Ben wait for next year. Neither one wanted to graduate without the other! So, although they are not twins, as long as we homeschool and they can handle it, we will be keeping them together! That is definitely one of the beauties of homeschooling! We decide the pace that is best for our children, not a calendar. We are not in any rush, and if we want to take longer for 1st grade, or any other grade, we will!

The graduation was really a special time. It was also such a rush of memories of our first year of official school at home. We are so proud of all that the boys (and our whole family) have learned this year. We are so grateful to God for giving us this amazing responsibility to teach and instruct our children. Although it is by far one of the most challenging things I have ever done, trying to manage a household with so many little ones while teaching, it has also been one of the most rewarding. More importantly, it is the job that has the most far reaching and eternal impacts we have been given at this time. We can't wait to see all that first grade has for Luke and Ben next year!

Full Weekend of Celebration

This weekend was a full weekend of celebration in the Morgan household. We celebrated two graduations and a birthday! We are so proud of Daddy!!! On Friday he graduated with his Bachelor's Degree!!!! It has been such a long journey and a lot of hard work, but he is amazing and was able to finish even while working full time and being a full time busy Dad! Thursday afternoon Jeff and I were invited to a graduation reception at the home of the seminary president, Dr. Akin. It was a wonderful afternoon, and a date to boot! :)

Friday was the actual graduation. We were so glad to have Jeff's family drive down to celebrate with us!

Keeping little ones busy and quiet during a graduation can be tough, but they all did great. (We did have a sweet babysitter at home for Jake since it was right during nap time!)

We joke that it took 6 years to complete, but we are also on the way to having our fifth child in those six years! Not bad with working full time and having a double major. Can I tell you again how proud we are of him?? :):) Luke and Ben are thrilled Daddy is done, especially with his last 40 page senior thesis paper. They know Daddy promised to take them fishing when he was done! We will be taking a family celebration vacation this summer to camp and do just that!

 It's hard to believe we came here to pursue this dream as newlyweds!! Here is a picture of us when we first arrived on campus!

 

A few cute pics

These are just a few random cute pictures of our little ones to share and hopefully make you smile: Bath time buddies!

Reading buddies! Luke has been a bit worried that when we find out the gender of baby #5 (on June 7th!!) that either Jake or Grace will be left out without a "buddy". We keep assuring him that no matter what it will be okay. They are all so close and such buddies, no one will be left out!

My little kitchen helpers! The kids love helping in the kitchen and one of their all time favorite jobs is husking corn! (Which is fortunate for me since I don't care for this job!) They make quite a team. On Mother's Day Daddy grilled and the kids helped make lunch. They set up their own system of team work all on their own. One would do the initial husking, one was assigned quality control of the silk strings, and the third was assigned to sweep the floor for dropped silks and husks. Then they rotated. It was so cute to watch, all on their own initiative! Of course Jake just looked cute and got in their way trying to "help" too!

Our big girl!

Okay this picture is just a follow up picture from a previous post. Just in case you were wondering, we still call Gracie Hollywood. How she can be so utterly girly with all these brothers is beyond me. A friend at work gave us this outfit that her daughter had outgrown. Gracie loves it! :)

In other news, our big girl is now in a toddler bed. Over the past week she has been crawling out of her bed. Daddy finally switched her crib over to the toddler bed to keep her safe from her crawling antics. She keeps saying her bed is broken and "when is Daddy going to fix it?" :)

Happy Mother's Day!

We are so grateful for our own Mother's (ie. Grandma and Grammy!) and wish we could have spent time with them on Mother's Day!

 

I am so grateful for the awesome and humbling job of motherhood to my precious five! I can not imagine my life without the craziness, the giggles and the hugs. On a joyful note...#5 is moving like crazy already and has been for a few weeks now. Also, it has been a whole week since I got sick last! Whahooooo! We had a wonderful day celebrating as a family. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day too!

April School (Field Trip #2)

Several times a year I have seen advertisements for "farm tours" in nearby counties. The last weekend in April, after lunch and church we decided to head out and tour a few farms as a family to finish up our two month long unit study on farming and planting. The first "farm" we visited was actually a old renovated tobacco farm turned into a vineyard/winery with a few Belgian draft horses and goats to visit. We took a hayride tour of the farm and learned so many amazing things about growing grapes! Here Gracie and Ben are patiently waiting for our turn to go on our hayride.

The next farm we visited raised specialty goats, sheep and rabbits for their fleece/wool. Since it is spring we did get to see lots of baby animals on this farm and sheep dogs (which were a favorite!)

  

After visiting some of the animals we had a chance to feel all the different types of wool. The Angora Rabbits had the softest wool by far!

It was a full afternoon of farm visiting. Each year the tour consists of about 40 farms. You pay a certain amount per vehicle, and you can visit as many of the farms as you want over two days. We are looking forward to going back next year and visiting different farms.

April School (Field trip #1)

This month we continued our studies on planting, farming and all things growing. Incidentally it seems all four of our kids are hitting growth spurts this spring and already growing out of their clothes we bought them. We have had several cold winter like days as well, but all the winter clothes are outgrown! This month we helped Daddy plant some tomato plants in buckets. We also planted broccoli this year, so we will have fun watching both to see how they grow. Already our tomato plants are huge and Daddy is worried we might have to transplant them into a bigger container!

For our first field trip of the month, as a family we went strawberry picking. We try to do this every year, but it always seems in the past we have hit the end of the season before we get out. This year we went very early and had a WONDERFUL selection to pick from and the weather was beautiful. We also went late in the afternoon and the farm was completely empty, no school buses or loads of people. It was so relaxing and fun for our entire family. From now on that is when we will be going to pick strawberries!

 

Jake was too little to pick strawberries, but we did discover that he is in LOVE with strawberries.

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Such a yummy field trip that the whole family could enjoy! This is definitely another home school benefit. Enjoying activities as a family and learning as we go!