O-dawg's 9th Birthday Party

For our family some kind of birthday party is a must! This year we kept it low key, but it was still a very good party. Owen was blessed to be with his best buddies, all very nice young men, and he had a good time!

One happy little boy!

Piano Recital Videos

Duet ~


Owen ~


Ayva~

1st Piano Recital

The kids had their first piano recital. They each played 2 pieces and also played 2 duets.

It was music to our hearts!!

Such blessings!

When it's the right book...

...he can't put it down!

1st Place Pianist!

We're very proud of Owen and Ayva. Their piano studio had a contest during the month of November. They had to count the beat of their pieces as they played them during practice, play them well, and do theory and flash cards well. Each week they were given points. The results were announced today. Owen and Ayva have taken the gold! They shared first place!

Two by Owen

These are a few of his favorite things:

 Inspired by Mega Mind



Sketches By Owen

Here are a few sketches out of Owen's current sketch book. We have a rubby maid container full of his books! He still loves to draw!

He's starting to only use pencil to draw:

Little Taxonomists

For Science this year we're doing Apologia's Botany. Today Owen and Ayva were little Taxonomists. Taxonomists classify things in nature. So our activity was to classify shoes. We had four kingdoms and we broke them down into phyla, classes and orders if we could.

Yes they are still in their pjs...that's the beauty of homeschooling!!
(PS They are sick, can you see how red Owen's nose is?)

Owen's 8!

Sweet, enthusiastic, creative, bouncy Owen is EIGHT!!

We didn't have time (and mama didn't have energy) to do a full on 8 year old shoot with all our vacations and grandma visiting. But we managed to put on one of his favorite shirts and mess around with his favorite toys for this! There are only a few, but they are totally him!

Boys 'n' Toys!

Building this is such a boy past time! These two boys love to build things with legos. It's the cutest thing to watch!

Both of them work so diligently at making their creation just right.

And here are the creators with their creations.

Father and Son, such a special and unique relationship!

Owen's 1st Game of 2010

Owen has been practicing softball a lot lately. The boys will go outside almost everyday for 30 minutes to an hour, working on hitting, catching and throwing. It paid off at his first game. He hit the first ball thrown to him and made it all the way to 2nd base! Then when he as playing center outfield, he caught a ball and got someone out at 2nd! He was inspired by the movie A League of Their Own a few weeks ago. Sometimes he says that he doesn't like it, but I know he does cause he always has a smile on his face :)

Creative Mind At Work!

Owen is a very, very creative little man. He ♥s to draw pictures and every picture has a story. Even with that creative little mind of his, he has difficultly writing the stories. Spelling, grammar and language are not his forte....yet! He would much rather work on his multiplication table or figure out a word problem than write a story. So, that's been an area that we've been working hard on lately!

DS Maniac!

Owen is a DS Maniac!

Four Years Later

February 2006:February 2010

My, my how time flies!

Owen's writing

If you could have a wild animal in your backyard what would it be? How would you house it, care for it and feed it?

Keeping Each Other Accountable

This is what Owen and Ayva do during quiet time. They are each given an appropriate reading level book, go to the top of Owen's loft bed and read to each other.

They aren't the only ones benefiting from this!

Softball- "take me out to 'lunch'"!

It should be "take me out to the ball game" right? Not for Owen. He's out to lunch 75% of the time at his games. But as you can see from the pics he's the cutes softball player that's out to lunch!

No down and ready here!

Highlights of the night were his 2 hits!!!

Reading and Fun!

Owen has always been a reluctant reader, but that isn't so anymore. Mommy bought him a Magic Tree House set and he doesn't want to put the thing down. He asks to read first thing in the morning! He's having so much fun. We decided to read a chapter and then he summarizes it and draws a picture (because drawing is his favorite!). Daddy and mommy are so proud of him. And Ayva's going to be right behind him, she's taking off with reading as well!

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Holly and Carolyn gave the kids Connect Four and they absolutely LOVE it! Owen challenges everyone and suprisingly Ayva beats him all the time. As a family we think the cover is pretty funny! Doesn't it look like the boy just hit the girl in the eye, and they are laughing about it?