Fall fun 2010

August, September, October, and November…………might as well throw most of December in as well.

School has been going well for both big kids, as well as for Elam who goes to Aunt Christy’s house for home school preschool with Hannah and Benjamin.

Gibson makes good grades but fusses when I make him study.  He’d rather play outside with the neighborhood kids or put a football helmet on and pretend to throw, receive and tackle invisible players.

Haven says school is boring, but she says that about most things.  She won’t admit it, but she loves to read.  She’d rather watch Disney all afternoon and night, but instead, she plays outside, or colors pictures.  She’s a good little artist and for a TVaholic, she likes PE.

Gibson will be starting Basketball soon and hopefully, Haven can start either dance or gymnastics.  She really wants to take horse back riding lessons as well as ice skating.

Elam is having a blast learning along side his cousins at his Aunt Christy’s house.  Christy is a great teacher and I enjoy being the side kick.  They are learning a lot, and we both enjoy watching the process.

Beau comes along for school and likes to sing along.  He participates with most of the art projects, but mostly he eats Christy out of house and home while we are there.

We go about twice a week.  Lately we’ve all battled too much sickness to have school, but that’s the beauty of homeschool.  No one’s behind and we can finish whenever we want!

Andrew did his fair share of home school over the past year and a half.  He graduated this past Saturday with his MBA from our alma mater, UT Martin.  He participated in a small ceremony, just for MBA graduates.  He was part of the first on-line MBA program offered by UTM.  He did not walk for the big graduation, but that’s routine.  He had a good excuse last time since he was getting married that same day May 13th, 2000.  The small ceremony was just about all the kids could handle anyway.

It was nice being in Martin again.  It has grown and changed in many ways.  The most shocking was the gigantic bank that has taken the place of the church where Andrew’s dad was minister of music for so long and where Andrew and I got married.  I wish I had been able to see it before it was torn down.  We also drove by our old apartment and the softball fields where  Andrew proposed.  Lots of nice memories of Martin TN.  The kids didn’t care much for my reminiscing, but I didn’t care.  It’s not all about them.

It was also bitter sweet to walk down the hall way which use to house a big dance picture that I was in at UT Martin.  That was over 10 years ago, so, of course, I’ve been upgraded for a newer model.  Oh well.

After our trip to Martin, we had a quick Christmas celebration in Clarksville with Papa and Grani and Uncle Daniel and Aunt Christy and Hannah and Benjamin.  It was the only time we could find, but it worked out well.

The next day, Andrew lead worship at our new church.  He’s been doing this quite often over the last 2 months.  He enjoys it so much.  I do too!  It’s nice to see him use his passion for music for worship. 

We will end the year with my family coming for Haven’s birthday and the actual Christmas day.  Then, I get to ring in the new year at the Cadillac Ranch while Andrew plays bass for a guy he met a church.  He gets to mostly play rock n roll this time!

I’m looking forward to this next year.  I think God has some amazing things planned for the Littleton family.  I pray He can use us for His glory and to reach the lost.

Here are some fall pics.

Haven missed Halloween b/c she was sick.  That’s happened before, when she was almost 2.

The kids received upgraded bikes from Grani and Papa for Christmas.Fun in the Fall rain!

Aunt Robin came for a few weeks in November.  She and Martha, our cat who came with the house, bonded during her visit.

This is how  Gibson did homework in the warmer afternoons of Fall.  Martha joined him first, followed by Elam and then Austin from down the street.  Austin is a little boy in Haven’s class.  He and his older sister and brother come to play often.  They brought his sister’s Guiney Pigs.  They were so cute!

Just to mess with your mind a little, if Haven had been a boy, this is what my life would be!  Haven is truly my “Haven!”

We had cousin time and school time at our house one day.  It’s so nice living close to cousins and getting to see them often!

In preparation for Christmas, we drew names for gifts.  I had a lovely assistant!

Haven playing the bass xylophone at her music performance.  She did a great job.  We missed Gibson’s performance because she finally caught the stomach bug the rest of us had and we had to stay home.  Only Andrew made it out unharmed!  Thankfully, both Grani and Papa were able to attend Gibson’s performance.

 

Here is Andrew leading worship at Life church on the Sunday we were getting snow.  The kids also sang a song a church that morning.

Below that is me making the kids take pictures in the cold right before the snow!  Ha ha!

“Mom it’s freezing! Can we be done?!”

Now some actual snow, which makes the cold so much better.

Martha needed a warm lap.

The snow was fun and beautiful.  Everyone except Beau enjoyed it.  They missed two days of school.  I don’t have pictures of Gibson b/c he was off sledding with the neighborhood boys.

I’ll add pictures of Martin and Andrew’s graduation and Christmas later.

Oooooooklahoma

So, in July we went to Oklahoma for Grandad’s birthday.  First we bought a house.  A house that needed work.  A house that needed to be purchased earlier in the summer, but, that’s not how it happened.  More on that later.

It was in Oklahoma, at the River Walk in Tulsa where I discovered my camera was broken.  If you’ve been keeping up, I had just started really playing with all the settings.  Settings that can only be set if you can see the screen on the back, which for some reason is cracked internally.

I still managed to take a few pictures blind.

      These are the twins….I mean triplets.

My kids played in a fountain later after eating ice cream.  If I had had some shampoo, we could have taken care of bath time right there!

She’s having fun. I think Elam is too. Beau was going really slow. I think that’s a smile. Now Elam looks tortured.

Gibson went with his Grani and Papa and cousins.  He did that alot on this trip.  He’s still doing that.  I wonder why.

And here is my ONE picture from the coolest birthday party ever at the Tulsa Aquarium.  My camera even has an AQUARIUM setting that I’ve never used!  Aaaaaahhhh!

I took more videos, but for some reason, my videos aren’t working either.  I love technology.

I’m glad we were able to celebrate Grandad in Oklahoma.  He is a very special man.  I love seeing all of Andrew’s family.  They are my family too.  I also loved being back in Oklahoma.  I miss it and miss everyone there.  But, I am thrilled to live in Tennessee again.

However, in order to live in TN, you have to have a house.  We were able to take our time and try to recover from the move, but 9 months after moving to Clarksville, we went ahead and moved into our own house.  Sort of.

More on that next time.