Great Grandpa Twitchell

Our Sweet Great-Grandpa Twitchell came to an untimely end last week. Well, I dont' know if you can call it untimely, seeing as he was 93 in dog years. My mom and dad had Twitchell for 13 years and this week, on my mom's birthday, he ran into the yard of the wrong dog and was attacked and killed. It was a sad day, but here are two things that made us feel a little better about the situation:
#1 We gave Twitchell tons of hugs and cuddles right before he went out for his ill-fated walk.
#2 Twitchell died an honorable death in the heat of battle. A death any dog can be proud of. :)

You were a good dog Twitchell. We hope you have a nice soft stinky slipper to lay your head on in Doggy Heaven :)

The Klein Academy Press

We are excited to announce the launch of our new school virtual newspaper at www.kleinacademypress.blogspot.com . You can also link to it from this blog. If you're ever interested in what in the world the kids are studying, you can check it out. We also have "This day in history" and the "Astronomy picture of the day" among other things like fun links to kid friendly websites or funny videos the kids find. Anyway, we'd love for you to check it out!

Elise at 18 Months

This is a picture of Elise on her first day of Nursery at church. She didn't even look back when we dropped her off. She loves playing with the other kids and I'm glad it's been such an easy transition-but I can't believe she's already so big :).

Elise-Thank you for being such a fun little sister and baby girl!

Visit from the other Klein's

Hunter, Hayden and Hanna came to visit Grandma and Grandpa and so the kids got to spend some fun time together. We went to the baseball game and the amusement park together. It was so fun to see them, all three are growing up so much :)
This game, by the way, is where I was lucky to be featured on the Jumbo-Tron doing a rendition of my hill-billy dance. That was a moment to remember :)

Grant and Hayden both got balls from the game. Grant caught a foul ball, and the third base coach threw the other ball to the boys. They got them signed after the game :)

First Day of Homeschool

Today was our first day of Homeschool and the day that I fall off the radar :) I am excited about the program that Jeff and I designed, though. I really want to focus on self-motivation and independence. This year we're centered a lot on setting goals and having the kids chart their own progress. Then it's all tied together with some healthy competition. I hope it works :)

Here are some random pictures that have nothing to do with homeschool :)

Congratulations to my baby brother David and sweet new bride Megan.

Omaha Trip

We went to Omaha for the weekend. Carter made, um, friends I guess you could say, with this goat at the zoo. Carter was having fun and looking eye to eye with his buddy. But I'm not so sure the goat was messing around. When the goat lowered his head and stared back at Carter I quickly stopped taking pictures and yelled for Carter to give him some space. :) I think Carter may have been seeing stars if he hadn't backed away from their little showdown! One purpose of our Omaha trip was the Mid-America Music Festival. Lauryn and Grant had prepared two pieces on the piano and played them in front of a judge for a score. It was a great experience for the two of them. Their hard work paid off-they both scored at least a 95% and earned a trophy. This is a picture with their teacher who traveled up to support her students.

Here we are listening at the door to Lauryn's pieces. Nobody is allowed in. It's just the child and the judge.

We also got to go to the Winter Quarter's Temple. It's such a beautiful site, and has a lot of history. I have some pioneer ancestors who stopped there on their way out to Utah with the wagon and handcart companies. It's amazing what kind of strength and conviction they showed to walk all the way to Salt Lake. Wow!

The kids decided to sell soda during our neighborhood garage sale. They made $14. What good little entrepreneurs!

Hodge Podge of Fun at the Klein's

To my delight, our berry patch totally took off this year. We had tons of blackberries every day for almost a month. It was so fun to let the kids just pick and eat as many as they could.

This is just one day's worth of berries. Can you say blackberry jam?

Elise definitely enjoyed the blackberry pie we made.

Introducing our new play house! I am so excited because this was the thing I looked forward to most with the basement being finished. It turned out exactly like the picture I drew for Jeff when he asked me what I had in mind. What a handy guy:) The ceiling goes up a little higher above the castle so Carter and Lauryn can actually stand all the way up, though its hard to tell from here.

Elise and Lauryn playing the Wii! :)

Gotta love bubble baths!

Lauryn and Elise were snuggling and Lauryn was reading stories. Elise was not too happy with me disturbing their moment so she was being camera shy. :)

Grant's had his first tennis match. Since this, he played some other matches and two other tournaments. He got to the finals in one and the semi's in the other. It was great experience and lots of fun. We love our new family sport :)

Carter got put into a time out and Elise, who adores him, couldn't let him sit in the corner alone:)