Alaska State Fair

We headed to beautiful Palmer for the Alaska State Fair today.Another mountain shot, every way you look. The fairgrounds are in a beautiful spot.Katie and a snow-cone... Katie riding the horse, she was a little unsure at first but then she got in to the musci and was bebopping around on her horse.

Petting Zoo. The chickens were Katie's favorite...

Sammy on a big horse...

Sammy on the National Guard obstacle course...

Zucchini at the fair. I bought these monsters for 2.00 each.... What a deal!

Alex and Sammy sliding down the big, high purple slide... (doesn't every fair have one of these?)

Alex on the National Guard Obstacle Course, notice how his competitor is no where to be found,Alex is very fast!
Alex riding his horse, Blacky...

3 kids taking a break outside the reptile house... I stayed outside with Katie on this one, while the "men" went into the slimy creatures...

Geocaching

We made it out geocaching today, the sun came out and moved the clouds away for a bit. It was Katie's first experience. She's looking for "treasures" all over the house now. If you don't know, Geocaching is a free activity, people hide caches of goodies all over the world and mark the longitude and latitude of the location. You can log into a web site (for free) and locate the info on caches and go find them. It gets us out and about in different places that we normally may not go and did I mention the great price of free! It is one of the boys' favorite activites to do. We couldn't find our GPS, it's somewhere, but Mark's work phone worked in a pinch. The boys like to be the holder of the GPS to tell which direction to go and walk in. Both treasures were hidden in old tree trunks and contained small prizes which made their day.

The one treasure was up at the top of a very steep hill. The kids thought they were in the Olympics trying to scale it. And then coming back down Alex had no fear and ran down it. Sammy was much more hesitant and Katie we had to hold her back to keep her from rolling down.

I have to remember the camera, it's been so busy lately I keep forgetting it!

Random

I've been neglecting the blog lately. Just tired from trying to get the school year started and the kids back on a schedule. I kept the schedule pretty similar all summer, but the exhaustion of the new school year starting has us all tired. Plus the pretty sunshine has gone away and we've been stuck in this drippy rain cloud for a few weeks. Makes anyone tired! So, here are some random bullets and one random picture.

*Katie has become more of a mocking bird, you really need to watch what you say as she repeats it. Her new phrases are "all right" and "yeah" . No longer do I get yes mom, I get "Yeah Mom".

Last night we were drawing on a pad on the chair, her pen slipped and wrote on the chair. She got down immediately and went to the bathroom and came back with wet ones and scrubbed and scrubbed at the chair. It was so cute, all on her own she knew she made a mess and cleaned it up!

She's also mastered the art of using the stool to get what she wants from turning the light on, to climbing up on the sink (!), to going to the bathroom (Most of the time she gets it ready, pulls down her pants and runs to find me to tell me!).

Alex and Sammy are doing well. They were nicely seperated from last year's class of bad kids and "have to make new friends" and it is slowly happening. Sammy is currently working on another book. This time he's copying "Pancake, Pancake" and doing an amazing job with his pictures. Alex has been crouping again (start of school, every year) and battling an ear infection all week. I probably pushed him too hard to go to school and should have kept him home, but it was a tough week for me to get off. He never complains so you never know how bad it really is.

Finally here's a picture for you of Katie doing her flashcards with Mark that I talked about last post, the answer was 11 or 8... Have a great weekend! The State Fair has opened in Alaska, if it stops raining in the next week we'll take the kids. It's all the boys are talking about...

Getting back on a schedule

We're in week 3 of work schedule and the kids are finally getting back into the grind of getting up early and going to be early. Alex and Sammy are excited to go to school in the morning and like their teachers and classmates. Let's hope the positive attitudes continue. Katie is happy to go to Nana and Pappy's house. She spends part of the day with Nana and then finishes the last hour up with Pappy until I get there. She has her Pappy wrapped around her little finger!

We're also getting back into the grind of homework. It is always hard to do as the boys have had a long day by the time they get home. 2nd grade homework is getting harder and 1st grade hasn't really kicked in yet, so I have 3 kids going in 3 different directions. Katie has decided she's going to do homework as well. If the boys are writing, she grabs a paper and draws. If Alex counts his fingers, she counts hers and writes on her paper when she is done. If Alex is reading she grabs a book and talks to the pictures. Sammy was working on math flashcards the other night and Katie grabbed them when he was done and was "adding" them too. All answers were eleven!

Katie is turning into a little chatterbox, it's amazing to see her growth just on a daily basis when I'm not around her. I could go for a few minutes of quiet at 4:30 am when we wake up, but she wakes up talking. I hurry to get the rice cereal made to keep her happy and give me a minute to breath!

Miss Independent

I was thinking tonight how independent Katie has become over the past 6 months. Tonight she refused to let me wash her hair, she wanted to do it all by herself. And she did a good job! She feeds herself, dresses herself, changes her clothes, packs her lunch... Boy having a girl is a whole different ball game! The boys were so much more needier when they were the same age...

All we have to work on is the night time wandering, just need her to stay in her own bed all night!

Picking Peas

The other night, Katie was helping Mark pick the peas out of the garden. She stuck with him the whole time. Then she came in and we shelled the peas. Boy did she LOVE doing this, especially when she found out how good they tasted. I think she ate more than went in the dish. Now she can't walk by the garden without going in and picking a few peas and then she runs off and eats them...

Cold...

It's 39 degrees this morning at our house... Hope my tomato plant doesn't go into shock. It's been producing lots of tomatoes, but this weather may make it stop that...

More Birthday Pictures

We had a small family birthday party on Sunday for Katie. Here's a shot of the kids all dressed up. Notice Katie being a little lady crossing her legs. (It's amazing what she picks up!) Her she is riding her fabulous gift from her Pappy. He made her a rocking horse that she loves!

Yep I can blow out these candles all by myself. It took her a while but I think she got the idea of what a birthday was. When the presents came out she said Katie Open! Big Brother Alex drew Katie a picture of Dora and Boots. He did a really good job drawing from his memory!

Happy Birthday Katie!

Katie is now 3 years old! She's getting so big so fast!

School Days...

The boys are superexcited to go back to school. We just found out their teachers today and this year we are lucky to get 2 teachers that will fit well with the boys learning style! That does not always happen, that's for sure!

The kids had fun playing at the high school this week, while I worked long hours getting ready. Alex likes watching the big kids practice for football. The library is big and open so the kids can run and run. I still have several Katie sculptures to clean up. She was having fun being creative with tape and book ends!!

My little gal is turning 3 on Monday! Birthday party is tomorrow! She doesn't understand but the boys certainly do. They want a boy cake so they can play with the toys. Oh, no we've waited a long time for a little gal!

Faces Parade

All 3 of my kids have amazing imaginations and it's always amazing to catch them at play. Here's a shot of Babushka Katie..Cool Girl, wearing the shades all through lunch...And Wonder woman, saving the world one flash of light at a time. Batman and spiderman were helping her!

Kateisms

I'm the little helper....

Katie had her wheelbarrow out yesterday and was hauling stones in it up and down the hill just like I was doing. She HAD to be tired but she kept on going...

I was staining the fence and she comes over and grabs a brush and "helps"!

I was putting the lawn mower up in the shed, she yelled, "Momma wait! I help!!" and ran over from the other side of the yard. It was incredible cute and shows her kind nature!

Yep we've been a little busy this week trying to finish up all the chores of summer. I go back to work on Tuesday!

The boys have a battery operated jeep that was handed down from a friend to them. It's my babysitter. I can get my yard chores done if I charge that battery. The boys take turns driving it around and around and little Miss Katie just sits in the passenger seat and holds on for the ride!

Postplacement Visit #1

We had our first postplacement visit from the social worker today. Russian Law requires 4 visits total, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 3 years. Just when we finished up the boys 3 years we adopted Katie so now we are in the cycle again. It went well as we've worked with Caren with the boys, so it's pretty laid back. I usually try to type up some notes ahead of time, so it's more of a visit than a Q & A.

It's hard to believe we are at the 5 month mark!

Alaska Style Merry-Go-Round

There is a wonderful little carving village outside of Sterling Alaska. Usually when we drive through on our marathon fishing trips it's closed. Last trip we did South, we were doing it vacation style so we stopped and let the kids explore all the very uniquely Alaska carvings.
Here's the kids in the Big Chair And the boys riding a Salmon.

And we even did a ride on the Alaska Merry Go Round. It was all hand carved and beautiful. Sammy was riding a Moose.

Katie had a walrus. (She didn't want to get off of it!!)

And Alex was riding a caribou!