The Bolin invasion!

We were so excited to have Pam, Dave, Neil, and Mavis come stay with us for a week! We started off with the Harlem Globetrotters the night they all arrived. Everyone survived, although it was a LATE night!

Gramma Pam and Noah

The Globetrotters

I wish I had more pictures because I can't remember again...Pam, help!

Taekwondo; Dan &Family

Noah did about 6 classes of Taekwondo at a studio here in Gainesville. Evan joined him for several classes, but in the end we did not join the studio. He had fun and did learn to count to 10 in Korean while he was there

Dan, Lynn and Amara came to visit in February. We went to the Santa Fe Zoo, to Two-tails Ranch, celebrated Valentine's Day with heart-shaped pizza (Dan &Lynn's tradition), and had other fun times hanging out at our house. Amara eventually adjusted to having more noise stimuli than she is used to and was able to make it through meal time with not too many tears. Sorry your cousins have the tendency to make sudden outbursts, Amara.

 Foster and Uncle Dan modeling Oven Mitts

 Dan and his valentine!

 Dan Bolin Family with heart-shaped pizza!

Skillet cookie! This picture was in with the rest. I cannot remember having Searby's over while Dan and Lynn were in town, but we must have. That is the trouble with not keeping up on the blog...oh well.

Hoggtown Medieval Faire

We decided to take a homeschool fieldtrip to Gainesville's Hoggtown Midieval Faire. We met up with Jen, Kelly, Krystle and their kiddos at the medieval fair in town. It was super hot and crowded so we didn't stay long, but still enjoyed ourselves!

Noah and Foster getting to meet the King and Queen

Noah being "knighted" by the king. I wish I could remember what he said because the boys were both in Got Milk? Shirts and he really had a great line as to what "kingdom" the boys traveled from to visit and what kind of Knights they were all having to do with milk!

Evan, Noah and Landon went into the maze and finally found their way out!

Science Day

Matt and Noah participated in Science Day in Ocala. They built a tower, an egg capsule to launch, a rocket out of card board and tap, and built robotic legos. Noah still talks about the legos and would like to have some. Problem is you have to buy them in sets of ten. If anyone wants to go in on legos at some point, let me know! The science day also prompted an experiment at home.

Tower

Egg Capsule Catapult

Our at home science experiment from a book Uncle Dan and Aunt Lynn got him.

Catching up

We are watching some of our good friends children this weekend. Having just mowed the lawn and with four children napping, I thought it may be a good time to catch up a little on the blog. I am going to start in January...any longer than that and I will probably give up!

In January, Foster decided to LOVE him some collard greens! It was so amazing watching him down those that the video was a must!



Foster is definately the baby of the family and LOV ES to make us laugh. He tries on all sorts of things, but these are some of his favorites:

Noah's cowboy boots come in first,

followed by mom's oven mits,

and bringing up the rear is the Mickey Mouse sunglasses.

time

I honestly don't know where all the time goes. My camera is 80 miles away and I do want to share some photos with you. One of them has nothing to do with my children, but I found it for my mom.

Foster is saying lots of things these days- ball, off, Noah (in his own way), shoes, socks, lights, duck, and others I can't come up with right now. He LOVES lotion. If there is a bottle in sight, he will climb on anything he has to to get to it. He knows how to get it out of the bottle and loves to douse himself in lotion. He is trying to get jumping down. He hasn't figured out how to get his feet off the ground yet, but it is definitely a goal of his. He is wearing 2T clothes and weighs about 25 pounds.

Noah is SO smart! He is reading words that I didn't know he could. Here is an excerpt of a book he read the other day and the only word he didn't know was Cretaceous- "Deep grumbles made rocks tumble and loud Cretaceous booms! Chains of sleeping mountain tops awoke in firey plumes" - from Dinosnores by Kelly DiPucchio. We checked this book out from the library and he read that page to me without having ever heard the book read before! I am continually amazed at how much he knows. He is working on double-digit addition and subtraction, can point out where many countries in the world are and knows several states and their capitals. He reports that his favorite thing to do is play "teach me" and educational app on the iPad that does math, spelling and reading...actually checks handwriting!

This is for my mom. Pictures of other activities and updates coming soon (when I get my camera back :/ )

Quote of the day from Noah

Because I had a $50 bill sitting on the table ready to get deposited from my Pampered Chef Show, Noah looks at it and says, "Mom, fifty dollars equals 5000 cents." Then followed by, "I bet you wanted to know where that came from. It came from my brain."

SO EXCITED!!!

Foster went pee-pee on the potty for the first time on Tuesday night. So I decided to take him several times throughout the day today and he went every single time! I am so excited since he will be 18mo old on Feb 23rd.

Noah's word of the day (yesterday)

As we were driving home from my gramma's house a surprising word used correctly in a sentence by Noah : disinterested.

Just a Bolin fun fact to start the week.

stuff

Seems like there is always stuff to report on, but lots of other stuff gets in the way. Here is some stuff that doesn't really go together, but I thought would be fun to share....

The chick-fil-a on Archer Road is always doing neat events for the kids. The boys and I made a trip to meet Albert and the Chick-fil-a cows. The cheerleaders (or danceretts) were there and the boys both enjoyed the pretty ladies...I think they take after Grampa Dave!

The best part about moving is having a bunch of empty boxes! Noah and I made a box tunnel that had three open ends. He had fun being the "construction worker" who brought mommy tape and pounded on a few places with his hammer for good measure! Foster enjoyed the project too.

One day before the weather was cool, the boys played in our rain water collection buckets. We collect the rain as it pours off of our roof to water our plants with. If God is providing us that resource, we certainly are not going to let it go to waste! Playing in the rain water usually starts with Foster escaping from our back porch and going right for the buckets. We must have just had rain beacuse all of our buckets were full and he was soaked before I could catch up to him. I decided playing in the water would be a good pasttime until daddy got home. I think the boys agreed with my decision!

What is fall without leaves...

We had a birthday party for Baga (my mom) and Baga Sue (my gramma) at our house the weekend after their birthdays. Matt and I made a cake that took about 8 hrs total to make. It consisted of a chocolate frosting over brownie layer over marshmellow creme frosting over chocolate chip cookie over marshmellow creme frosting over cheesecake over chocolate frosting over graham crakers and then in the reverse again. Man was it yummy, man was it rich!

After we celebrated, we raked up leaves and Baga, Baga Sue, Barby and the kids jumped in the leaves. We all had a fun time celebrating!

Elf on the shelf

Our Elf came to our house in November 2011. These are some of "Trix"-as named by Noah- adventures since he has been at our house.

 Trix acting as a tree topper since we don't have one yet

Trix got in a carry-on bag to go to Iowa with us

Trix hid in Gramma Pam's flowers the first day we awoke in Iowa

Trix ate some of Daddy's birthday cake

Trix decided to try a cow ride out 

He thought he would help with wrapping presents, but just got all tangled up.

Wanted to make sure he heard the Christmas songs loud and clear!

 

Visited the true meaning of Christmas

Since there was no snow, Trix decided he would make a snowangel

Back in Gainesville, Trix got in on the decorations.

Checking Noah's stocking to make sure stuff would fit in

Trix hanging out in the kitchen with the lollipop Noah gave him

The letter Trix left Noah since he was going to stay at the North Pole to help with toy production.

So if you have any ideas on where Trix will be tomorrow...send a message my way!

Ashley

December Update

Well, I took Foster to the pediatrician again today and he still has an ear infection:( He had to get an antibiotic shot in his leg and will follow up for the next 2 days with shots. He also is being put back on the nebulizer for some wheezing associated with his cough that has been hanging around for several months now. In other health news, I slipped and fell and fractured my tailbone. The good news is that most daily activities are fine. The bad news is, it takes a while for tailbone fractures to heal.

In Noah news, he has been having a great week at school- all greens! We are still contemplating taking him out of school and homeschooling him. Please pray for this decision because it is a big one for all of us!

15 month check up

Foster had his 15 month check-up today and a recheck for his second (or continuing) ear infection. His stats are 21pounds 11oz, 31.5 inches. Both are 15- 25 percentile...so he is little...just not quite as little as his brother. Foster also still has an ear infection. We are traveling to Iowa tomorrow so pray for a smooth trip and not too much pain for his little ears and pray that antibiotic #3 does its job!