Some Florida Orange Juice

The citrus trees have ripened early this year and the kids have been eating lots of oranges and tangerines from our neighbors yard. This morning for breakfast they decide to squeeze some into orange juice and had lots of fun.

Singing on the Steps

Maddie's 4 year old choir performed on the steps in big church on Sunday night. They sang "God you are my Provider" and "Jesus says love one Another" Maddie can sing them both word perfect with hand motions, but chose to stand like a little statue while everyone was staring at her. She did mover her lips, but no hand motions were performed. It may have had something to do with the little boy in the blue getting so 'into' the song and motions he fell backward and took out a few innocent bystanders....quite hilarious. I just love kids! For all the grandparents who care we have this performance taped and did a separate taping of Maddie actually singing the song!

A little construction of their own.....

Maddie and Sam have spent many hours out on the deck while we have worked on the shed. They built this little ramp system about a month ago with some leftover wood. I thought it was pretty good thinking for a 3&4 year old. Maybe we should let them build the shed..... The really enjoy going up and down the ramps on their bikes and scooters. They have had a few wrecks, but no major injuries. They have really gotten pretty good at staying on the ramps and go pretty fast.
Our little girl is getting big......obviously too big for a trike, but I don't want her to take he real bike off the ramps or we may really have an injury.

Sam loves speed so he is loving this new found freedom. They used to just ride on the upper deck in a circle then have to get off their bikes to go to the lower deck. Yesterday I saw Sam just ride his bike off the deck (totally missing the ramp) and get a little hang time.....he is definitely all boy!

A little 'bumper bikes' is also usually thrown in to just mix things up. I'm very proud of the way they have been playing together and enjoying each other this fall. Of course Maddie occasionally calls for some "alone time", but they are definitely learning two is better than one for most games.

Working Hard!

Over the past few weeks our life has consisted of eating, sleeping, doing school, and work. Not too much exciting to blog about there...but anyway here are a few posts! We have been spending most of our 'free' time working on this shed in the back yard. If we stay much longer in FL we are going to need to change our garage into a school/family room and the first step to that project is to make this shed to put all the garage stuff in. We have definately learned alot as we have been working on the 'weekend' project that we started in August. Troy is doing a great job and I know it will be the best shed in the world when we finish it!

She can do it!

Maddie wrote her name today! I've been trying to get her to write it by herself all year and she always wants me to "make some dots" for her to trace. This morning while I was upstairs making bed and picking up laundry she came down stairs and wrote this on her note pad.....The 1st row is all "m's"

The 2nd row says "Maddie Mom Smi"
She said " Mom come here I wrote Maddie Mom and Sam on my paper!"

I'm pretty sure the little stinker knows more than she lets us in on....

Strumming a Song

I've been working with the kids on strumming the guitar. (Thank you Uncle Josh for giving Sam this little guitar for his birthday!) We still have a lot of work to do, but they are picking it up pretty quickly. We've been working on some Christmas numbers too. Since last year Melissa's kids stole the show at Christmas quoting entire chapters of scripture, we thought we would get our kids ready to do a little number in case there is another impromptu talent show.....Just kidding Meliss!