Going back in time....

I haven't posted anything in quite a while.  We've been super busy.  So welcome to this special edition of going back in time to share just a few photos and stories from over the past several weeks, which I'm pretty sure won't be in chronological order. 

There's my babies, all dolled up and ready for church.  They look so grown up and big!  Both of the kids have really stretched out the past few months and judging by the way they're eating, they're going to continue to keep stretching.  I can't seem to keep jeans around for very long that are long enough to fit them!

All duded up and ready for town.  Both Caleb and Sarah generally wear their cowboy hats as often as they can.  We get a lot...and I mean ALOT... of comments concerning their hats.  But it is a genuine part of their attire, so they wear it.  Also notice their cowboy boots.  Yep, we always take a bit of rural southern Iowa with us in whatever direction we're headed to town.

 

Isn't this how every normal person works at a desk?  I'm always telling this boy to sit in his chair, on his butt, to do his work.  Even at the dinner table, we're continually having to tell him to sit in his chair.  He's just got so much energy that sitting still is certainly a skill that he's having to work really hard at having the self discipline to do for longer than fifteen seconds!

Showing off his first book report book.  We started with just a short story book to get the idea.  After this one, he took a few days to read a Magic Treehouse book about Thanksgiving and followed up by giving us a book report on the chapter book. Sarah also gives a report on a book that we've read together, so far all Pinkalicious books.  This is one way we're working on public speaking and presenting a project.  We take part of our Language Arts time to prepare and then when Daddy is in for lunch, the kids do their final presentation.  It also gives the kid not doing their report an opportunity to practice their listening skills, which sometimes need more prompting than presenting does!

And there's the cowboy hat again.

Our shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  The only picture I got this year was the time we spent assembling the boxes.  But over the course of a couple of shopping trips, we picked up toiletries, socks, school supplies and toys to pack the boxes for two little girls and two little boys until they were almost too full to close!  These boxes will be boxed up with millions of other boxes and shipped to areas of the world where they will be gifted to less fortunate children to bless them with Christmas gifts this season.

And there's the cowboy hat again.

Baking time with Mama!  Here, Caleb is helping with the pumpkin pie.  And then....

 

....Sarah helped with the coffee cake for the next morning.  She's cracking eggs in this picture.  For some reason, cracking eggs is a HUGE treat for my kids.  Give 'em an egg to crack and any hint of anything not happy just flees away.

Ignore Sarah's hair.  I can't quite figure out what's going on with it, but I'm almost positive it has something to do with the unbelievable amount of static electricity in our house pulling her wispy hairs out of her braid.

Speaking of baking, I got to bake my niece's birthday cake this year.  She and her mommy (our Aunt Sis, or better known to most of you as Kristin) had just read some Olivia books, so an Olivia birthday cake was requested.  I'm not one on tooting my own horn, but I must say that the picture really doesn't do it justice! It turned out pretty cute, complete with a pearl necklace and a sparkly red dress for the occasion!  By the way, Olivia is a super cute little girl pig cartoon.

And speaking of birthday cakes, this is one I did for a friend's daughter's birthday.  This is the second, and best, Barbie cake I've done. This could have had some improvements on it, but still turned out pretty cute. 

More baking... seems like I'm always baking something.  If it's not something for breakfasts, its something for coffee times, snackies or desserts.  And the kids LOVE to help!  Especially cracking eggs, which we've already covered!  In this picture, Caleb is separating the egg whites out for Cousin Ellie's white birthday cake.

And Sarah helping with the strawberry portion of the cake.  If my kids grow up not knowing much, they'll at least know how to crack eggs and run a hand mixer!

 

Caleb's reading proficiency is growing by the day!  We're reading through Psalms right now for our family devotions in the evening.  Sometimes he can be the one that reads to us for the night.  He loves it when these nights roll around and when they do, you can barely contain his joy!

 

First lost tooth in the Van Zante household!  Since we don't do the tooth fairy (or Easter bunny or  Santa Claus) thing, we had a few family discussions about what our tradition would be.  We finally decided that the loser of the tooth would pick a special dessert to have with the family.  For this tooth, Caleb chose a cherry cheesecake.

On the morning of this particular picture, BOTH  kids not only finished all their math problems in their daily timed tests, but also got ALL of them RIGHT!  It's pretty common for one or the other to ace their time test, but I think both of them acing on the same morning has only happened twice.  Sarah has to finish 15 simple addition and subtraction problems in one minute and Caleb has to finish 28 harder addition or subtraction problems in two minutes.  They were pretty proud of their work, which made the whole rest of the day a very smooth, happy one!

And still on the topic of school, this was a precious answer Caleb gave in one of his workbooks.  We were talking about finding peace through God in troubling times and the workbook page was giving some different Biblical examples of people who found peace by trusting in God.  If you can read the question, it's asking how Jesus could sleep on the boat despite a terrible storm raging around them.  Caleb's answer was simply  because "his Dad is with him".  Now there's a sermon right there, trusting our Heavenly Father as we would our Dad.  I love how my children can make me stop and realize/remember such a humbling truth.

 Well, there ya go folks.  Just a few pictures of the many I could have shared to catch up since the last time I posted.  I'm vowing to myself to do better at keeping up with posting, for my sake!