We had a fun time trick-or-treating as usual. This year Chloe was off at Baker’s house with Kailynn and Josiah invited his friend Aditya to come along, so I still had four kids even though one wasn’t mine. 🙂

This year we had: Princess Elena, a dartboard, and Spiderman

Josiah’s friend was the grim reaper. Yikes!

And Chloe & Kailynn were pirates!

And last but not least–our little Levi. (I know, I know… He’s really not so little anymore. )

He amazes me all the time with something he will say or do. And I’m loving having the chance to be home with him alone while the other kids are off at school. He often says the most interesting things. He’s very observant AND articulate, so that lends to hearing him talk a lot. Some may worry he would be the overshadowed 4th child, but he is determined to not let that be the case.

Of course, he is also loving going to Preschool. He’s already talking about how excited he is to ride the bus to Kindergarten next year.

He loves doing puzzles and pulling out board games to pretend to play. I will admit this frustrates me because he’ll leave games askew all over the house but I do like that he’s interested in figuring out how things work.

Levi also learned to ride his bike with no training wheels earlier this fall. He accomplished this on his very first attempt. Of course. Ha! I found this frustrating because I had to painstakingly help Maddie learn last year and it took me hours. Tim took Levi out and *Boom* first try he’s got it. Oh well. Here’s a video of him minutes after starting! Last kid to move out of training wheels! Whoo hoo!

Our Miss Maddie Mae is still full of boundless spunk.

She is starting to read more and discovering how fun it is to be able to look around and read things she can see. I’ll hear her sounding out signs when she’s in the car and labels/things she can find at home. I’ll often find scraps of paper with random words or times written on them. Just the other day she sat at the digital clock and was writing down every minute as it changed. So her paper said: 12:31, 12:32, 12:33, 12:34, 12:35, 12:36, etc. 🙂

Maddie is into all things girly still. She loves dressing up and playing princess. She loves kitties and puppies and she also loves playing with all of her siblings. She is also the MOST affectionate of all our kids and would snuggle all day if possible.

She is also playing piano and has finally rounded the corner of starting to “get it.” She’s now practicing more independently now and is excited about the upcoming recital. Here she is playing a song from last month that she worked on for a while. (Sorry she’s in her pajamas…. we always practice in the morning before school and sometimes that means playing in pajamas still!)

Her favorite thing is probably making up songs and singing them at the top of her lungs. But brace yourself: her songs can go on and on and on… and she joyfully will sing out all her emotions. Just the other day she was singing about how she wants a dog. The lyrics went something like this: “I want a dog, I really really really really want a dog, and it doesn’t matter what color, and it doesn’t matter what kind, and it doesn’t matter if it poops a lot, and it will be so nice, and I will hug it and kiss it every day.” Ha!

Josiah is becoming an avid reader this year. The Maud Heart Lovelace book challenge that they do in 4th grade has been the catalyst (just like it was for Chloe). He was the FIRST in his grade to finish all 10 books and is now reading through the Percy Jackson series.

He just finished up flag football last weekend which was just on Saturday mornings and is now participating in a chess club that meets before school on Wednesday mornings. Today was his first meeting, so I’ll find out soon how that went! He was a little nervous about going this morning–but his friend Aditya is also in it, so I think they’ll have loads of fun.

Josiah continues to be a talented piano player. And although he does not always enjoy practicing, he has rounded the corner of not complaining as much about it, which is fantastic. 😉 Here’s a recording of him playing a song last month:

Math is probably his favorite subject. He loves being challenged with new math problems and is excited to be in both High Potential Math and Reading at school.

Chloe is finally enjoying the traditional middle school life. It’s so much more busy and drama filled than she’s used to, but I’ve told her that is completely normal for middle school. Last year was truly an anomaly with the hybrid school and then online school so she didn’t get a true taste of what it was like until this year. They even had block schedules last year so this is the first year she is walking to all 7 classes throughout the day. It’s been a good change of pace and she’s started to blossom socially.

She comes home on the bus every day and gets right to work babysitting the younger kids. She is really liking the bonus to her piggy bank by helping out every day, but is also learning that it can be hard work. So far, however, the benefit of being able to purchase some new things for her room are outweighing the cons.

Chloe is still playing French horn and singing in choir (both regular and before school Saber Singers). She is also still going to youth group on Wednesday nights and volunteers in the kids classes on Sunday morning.

This past weekend we went out together and searched for a new dresser for her room. Up until this point she has been sharing a dresser with Maddie so we agreed to purchase her a new one. We scoured the furniture stores and after much debate she chose one from the clearance section (whoo hoo for my pocketbook!). But it was the style she liked so she didn’t care that it was on clearance.

But the biggest news in her world is that she has recently made a great new friend named Laney. And bonus–she’s actually in our neighborhood! She lives just around the corner from us on the same street. She’s been a piano student of mine for a few years, but they hadn’t really talked until now because they are one grade apart. But thanks to traditional middle school mingling they have the same lunch hour and discovered that they get along really well!

We’re at a bit of a standstill with the house since the windows have yet to arrive. I think the insulation is supposed to go in this week, but beyond that we’re just waiting. I really can’t complain since everything has really been trucking along just swimmingly until now. And the best part about the last few days was that Tim and our plumber friend have the plumbing for the upstairs laundry room all roughed in so the inspector can come take a look today. The kids just loved being able to go in and out of the addition over the break. Maddie and Levi found a couple remnant plastic pipe pieces and were stepping on them fast to make them spin. They thought that was so hilarious (and it was great coordination practice for Levi to step on it just right).

Since there won’t be much to update on the house, I thought this would be a good week to highlight each kid and how life is going for them. With all the house stuff I haven’t really posted too much about anything else, so I’ll write about each kid on a day this week.

But before I go, would you like a walk through of the addition? I took a video this weekend so we can remember it before it had walls. I hope you don’t get too motion sick–I tried to turn slowly!

The kids are off school the rest of this week so they have been enjoying a more relaxed pace in their days. Chloe is normally up and out the door at 7:00 or just before, so it’s been nice to have some days to sleep in a little. Tomorrow night my evening lessons all moved up to earlier in the day, so I’ll have an unusual Friday night free with the kids. That will be fun!

In other news, Levi is just loving Preschool. He actually had school still yesterday (Wednesday) even though all of the other kids had it off and it didn’t phase him at all. He happily skipped right off to school. Sometimes I’ll get pictures of what they’re doing at preschool and this was one of the great pictures they took. If you look closely he’s spelled his name on the board!

The days got ahead of me this weekend/week so I’m going to post a few pictures on the days I missed. So, feel free to scroll down to see anything you might have missed.

We’re currently waiting on the windows to come in. They were supposed to be in last week. Then they told him they would be in yesterday… and now they told him they will be in on Monday.

So, fingers crossed they don’t move the delivery date AGAIN!

Everything is linked like a domino chain to the windows. We need the windows in so he can finish the siding, and then the insulation and then the inspector and then the drywall…etc.

I just had to post this picture of the kids–it’s too cute not to share. Grandma Patsy and Grandpa Earl just got back from a trip to Yellowstone National Park and she brought them shirts!

(And don’t be fooled that my kids take perfect pictures every time–you should know that this perfectly wonderful shot took 9 tries…. Ha! But it was so worth it, wouldn’t you agree?!)

Nothing super exciting to post today, except the electricians are here putting in light switches, outlets and smoke detector hook ups. That’s definitely exciting for an adult, but not thrilling for the kids. I thought it might be fun to see how the kids rooms look currently (with the plastic walls).

Also, I get a huge kick out of the fact that when the kids go to bed Chloe’s disco nightlight shines through the plastic into the hallway. This is only a problem you can have if you have plastic walls!