Morgan School is back in session, 2016!!

First day of school 2016!!!

Here is the line up for the Morgan Grace and Truth Academy for 2016-2017:

A full one house school room this year! Jacob is so excited to be in Kindergarten!

Big kid school work!

We even already had our first field trip. A local library was hosting "Dan the Animal Man." He was able to show us all kinds of interesting animals including an alligator, snake, monitor lizard and 100+ pound African tortoise.

Gracie's first day of ballet for 2016! She is moving up to the Ballet Level 2 this year.

Of course it is always a challenge to keep the youngest ones busy during school time. We spent a lot of time with water beads this week.

We are back to studying Ancient Egypt this year. (More about our curriculum choices next time.) Here Gracie is showing the fertile land around the Nile River.

The kids have fun practicing some hieroglyphics this week too. In fact, they keep leaving secret messages in hieroglyphics around the house for me to find.

Gracie likes to do her spelling with lots of rainbow markers, she is such a girl! :)

 

 

Here is a cute video of Gracie reading "Jake the Snake" to Jacob!

We are so grateful for another year to be able to teach our children at home. We are looking forward to a full and busy year of learning and enjoying time together.

A first of many to come.....

During the first week of August our family had the blessing of serving a small community in eastern Kentucky. Lynch is a former coal mining town in the heart of Appalachia. The coal mine is now closed, leaving the town very poor. It is a community entrenched in a lot of hopelessness and all that brings. Our church partnered with Merizdo ministries in Lynch, KY which is bringing the hope and light of Jesus Christ to that community.

Luke and Ben have been interested in participating in a mission trip for some time. It was a huge blessing that they were able to go and serve alongside Jeff. It is a blessing to be a parent who teaches their children about God's love for people, and then gets to watch as their children act it out! It was very moving to watch how much it impacted younger siblings as well. The younger ones prayed every day for the team, and loved hearing about the stories and answered prayers when they returned home.

Early morning send off!!

Ben on the Kentucky/Virginia line!

 

Jeff helped the team with several construction projects. The team was able to pour concrete, replace doors, and even help one family fix some leaking windows. One huge answer to prayer involved a local man with a backhoe. The way the construction project was set up the team was a bit worried about how long it would take to wheelbarrow in all the concrete. A local man "just happened" to drive by with a backhoe and agreed to help them, cutting down the project time exponentially! Of course we know that was God at work, not coincidence!

Luke and Ben loved helping out with the construction projects when they were not involved with other areas of service.

 

The team also did a backyard Bible club for local kids.

Luke and Ben were a big hit with all the kids! They also participated in visiting widows and were loved there too!

Jeff and Luke helped serve Jesus by mucking out some horse stables and caring for horses. The local ministry there has stables that they use to reach out to the community. Luke was in his element of course!

Black Mountain is the highest point in Kentucky!

  

Virginia/Kentucky line, on the way home!

 

Summer Catch Up

This has been a VERY busy summer in the Morgan household! We started out in June with Gracie's ballet recital and a visit from Papa. Then we had an unexpected trip to PA for Jeff's grandfather's funeral.

 

The last week of June Luke participated in a week long nature camp at a local park for his birthday present. He was tired and dirty all week, but loved it! The first day of Luke's camp after dropping him off, we were involved in a pretty serious car accident. A young driver turned left into our Suburban almost totaling it! Thankfully we were okay, and after 40 DAYS in a rental car we finally got our Suburban back home! 

In June all of the kids participated, and Mommy volunteered in, our church Cave Quest VBS, learning about being Jesus' light to the dark world!

Here is a picture of Caleb at VBS! I have a great video of the Jacob singing his heart out with VBS songs at church. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to chop the video so it will meet the limits of what blogger will allow! Let me just tell you though, it is precious! I watch that video to cheer me up if I am having a rough day! 

 

In July we spent a LOT of time in our neighborhood pool cooling off! Luke, Ben, and Gracie were involved in a Runner's Camp. Ben participated in a week long Lego robotics camp for his birthday present. He loved it and has been showing us all new amazing lego creations on a daily basis. In July all of the kids participated in swim lessons and did very well. They are all becoming little fish! The oldest three are going to participate in a fall/winter swim team this year! Gracie loves butterfly stroke like her Mama! Even Jacob can now make it about halfway across the entire length of the pool on his own. He is hoping to be in swim team next year!

In August Luke and Ben were able to participate in their very first mission trip to Kentucky with Daddy! (More on that later It will be it's very own blog post!) Mommy, Gracie, Jacob, Caleb, and Isaac held down the home front while they were away. We were able to use up some old Groupons  to visit new museums for some fun adventures of our own.  

Here is a conglomeration of summer photos to enjoy!

We have discovered this summer a new favorite activity: making homemade slime!

Yes, this is the "baby" in the family pretending to sneeze slime.....lovely!

"Fireworks" on the 4th of July in our backyard with some friends!

Just playing with some cars and looking mighty cute!

More slime.....this time experimenting with colors. Jake was so excited that he was able to make "Army camo green!"

We missed our big brothers and Daddy all week, but had a lot of fun together too!

Mommy even moved our beds around so we could all sleep together!

This is a really fun new play place, all centered on music! The big guitar slide was the favorite.

Morgan band was missing a few members.

Jake loves music so much. He was in heaven at this place!

I overheard this conversation one day while we were out playing. Apparently there was a little boy trying to boss Gracie around and get her to play with him.  Gracie said, "Look, my two oldest brothers are not here, which means I am the oldest and I need to be responsible and help my little brothers. So, PLEASE let me do my job!" Too funny. This girl is such a little Mama anyway, but she really kicked into gear when Luke and Ben were away. She and Jacob were both a huge help!

Time to play at a nearby children's museum!

Yes, this is a live Burmese Python. Yikes!

Jumping play space one afternoon!

Of course we still spent lots of time at the pool too!

Next up......Kentucky!