Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Pattons! Another year has passed, and once again, I’m wondering where it went! We have stayed very busy, but also been very blessed. God has taken good care of us and grown us in big ways!

Julie is now 4 ½. Yikes . . . how is it possible that my baby is so old?? Her big accomplishment this year was learning to read . . . though we aren’t exactly sure how she learned that. Yes, we discovered that she had pretty much taught herself how to read, so we decided that we should probably start working through formal reading lessons with her. She went through her entire reading lesson book – all 100 lessons – in 5 weeks. (In fact, she’s reading this over my shoulder as I type! “Mom, I’m not old!”) What can I say . . . she is smart and

spunky and hilarious. She is often spouting what we like to call “Julie-isms” She has really come up with some deusies. One of my favorites this year was shared by her VBS teacher when she asked the class, “What is sin?” Julie answered without missing a beat, “Sin is when you drink the mouthwash when your mom tells you not to.”  Oh, Julie . . .

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Meg is now 6. She is growing by leaps and bounds in height . . . the weight part is another story!  She’s still our Skinny Minnie but it’s amazing how much food that child can put away. I’m pretty sure that Meg is one of the happiest kids alive. She’s always smiling and giggling and is quick to brighten my day. She is in the first grade this year and is doing an awesome job. She has really enjoyed moving into chapter books this year. Meg spends most of her free time coloring and drawing (along with Julie). Meg and Julie are pretty much attached at the hip.  They love to dress as “twins” and Meg loves to have Julie sit on her lap when they watch movies.  It’s quite amusing as Julie only weighs one pound less than Meg! 

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Emma is 9 and continues to be the athlete of the family. She played her second season of soccer this year and really loved it. They even won 3 games (which is 3 more than they won last year – they never even scored a goal last year!) Soccer is over now and she misses it, but she can frequently be found in the back yard or in the basement kicking her ball around. Emma is in the 3rd grade now and is a very bright little thing. She easily keeps up with Ali in Science and History.  Math isn’t such a favorite of hers anymore since long division came along. Also writing isthe bane of her existence. Unfortunately, Mom requires a lot of that! : ) 

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Ali is 10 now . . . yes we entered the double digits this year! She was on the same soccer team as Emma this fall and improved quite a bit. She enjoys the time with her friends more than the actual soccer part of it, but that’s okay. Ali got braces in January and is eager to get them off (It won’t be long now! They come off on Jan 19.) She is now in her 3rd year of piano lessons with Grandma Patton. She is currently working on “The Entertainer” and “Malagueña” – it’s really fun to watch her progress! She is still quite a bookworm and very happily curls up with a good book during her free time. Ali is in the 5th grade this year . . . last year of Elementary School!  That means that next year she leaves the Children’s Ministry at church and steps into Student Ministries. She is definitely looking forward to that!

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Aaron and I celebrated 11 years of marriage in May! We are loving life and (as previously mentioned) staying busy. This year was a year of being thankful for good health insurance! : ) Aaron had knee surgery in April and developed a staph infection (resulting in another surgery!) I won’t get into all of our medical hassles . . . let’s just say that we are thankful for our healthy family! This spring and summer were spent putting in a hand-me-down pool and deck. (Whew! Glad that’s over, but we sure are glad to have it!) I am determined that we will have NO household projects next summer!

Aaron has now been working for Boeing for 7 years and is still enjoying it. He moved into a new position this year and has a full work load right now. I am still busy homeschooling my girlies and loving that (most days! : ) ) I have my family blog that I (try to) keep up with. (http://www.ourlittlewomen.blogspot.com/) I have also been involved in our Friday morning ladies Bible study, which definitely helps to maintain my sanity!

Overall it has been a very eventful year! We are thankful to have passed another year serving our faithful God. It’s by His grace that we can truly celebrate this season. May your Christmas be filled with the worship of our Savior who was born in a stable for the sole purpose of sacrificing himself on the cross, taking the penalty for our sins. The good news doesn’t end there!  He rose from the grave, conquering over sin and death. That is truly something to celebrate!

Because He lives,

Aaron, Andrea, Alison, Emma, Megan and Julie Patton

Halloween: Part 2

Another Halloween has come and gone!  It was great fun and I'm already hearing "Next year I'm gonna be . . . "  Yikes!

This year we trick-or-treated in the Alligoods neighborhood.  We've been doing Halloween together for 8 years now.  It's so fun to look back at old pictures!  So . . . here are the shots for this year!

My 4 girlies.

L-R:  Julie as a Bride, Meg as a Ladybug, Ali as Hermione Granger, Emma as a Mad Scientist, Karis as a Renaissance Princess, Aubrey as an Indian Princess, Jonah as Harry Potter and Daniel as a Storm Trooper.

What??  Harry & Hermione aren't supposed to duel against each other!

That's better!

Some day Ali won't tower over Jonah, but for now, Ali has to squat and Jonah has to stand on his tip-toes. : )

What a pair!

Karis is ALL about the silly pictures!

The 3 Musketeers

Awww . . . aren't they sweet!?

Trick or treat!

Here were the general comments that the kids heard regarding their costumes:

To Julie:  "Aren't you a little young to be getting married?"

also

"Who are you marrying?"  to which she responded "Aaron"

To Jonah:  "Oh, you're Harry Potter!"

usually immediately followed by:

To Ali:  "Who are you?"

Poor Ali.  Hermione just doesn't get the credit she deserves!  : )

It was a great Halloween!  We're thankful for great weather and great friends!

Celebrating 10 Years!

Ten years ago today, I decided that I needed to bring dinner to our new youth pastor and his family.  I didn't figure that I would ever really like them.  Let's face it . . . they could never be the Daniels!  BUT . . . I decided that I ought to do the right thing . . . like it or not.

I never would have imagined that that night was the beginning of one of God's greatest blessings to our family!

I'm so thankful for a decade's worth of friendship that has been so sweet!  We love you guys!

We don't often get pictures that include the adults, but we decided that we needed to get some good ones today!

With my BFF!  : )  Aren't we cute!?

What a crew! 

In 10 years we've gone from a group of six (Jonah was 11 mos and Ali was 6 mos) to a group of 11!

Looking forward to many, many great years!

Halloween (A Bit Early!)

**Can you believe it!?  I've blogged 3 CURRENT events in 5 days!  Amazing!**

Okay . . . so why am I posting Halloween pics when it isn't even Halloween yet?  That's a good question!

We usually do a "Grandparents Halloween" a few days early.  That way the grandparents get to see everyone and we don't have to dedicate our entire Halloween to driving all over creation.  It's a win-win situation!

The other perk to doing things this way is that we get better pictures.  Dressing up for "real" Halloween usually includes gloves, and extra layers of clothing that are necessary for warmth, but take away from the photo-op.  So, yes . . . most of our Halloween pics are taken early . . . but there will certainly be more to come!

So here we go . . .

Here comes the Bride . . .

Yes, there's nothing better than reusing those fancy dresses. Thanks to Uncle Joel and Aunt Laura's wedding, she has a great Halloween costume!

When asked who she was marrying she said "Daddy!" 

I think it's sweet, but sorry babe . . . he's already taken : )

I took this one in response to Julie saying "Mommy, I want you to take my picture!"  I thought it was cute.

Megan as the Ladybug

She was actually supposed to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid.  I bought a $7 costume for her after Halloween last year.  We tried it on this past Wednesday and it was too big!  : )  So we had to scavenge.  Tights and leotard are borrowed from Aubrey.  Skirt and shell are made from my old bathrobe that I happily cut up.  The headband we actually had in our dress up clothes.

Ali as Hermione Granger

Ali was definitely the most excited of the four of them.  She's been thinking about this costume for a long time!

I mad her tie and robe.  I even knitted her scarf!  Great fun!

Emma as the Mad Scientist

This costume was so much fun to put together!  Thanks to Jonah for the labcoat, Jacob for the shirt and Aunt Lydia for the Erlenmeyer Flask (Emma might just have a fit if one more person calls it a beaker!)

Can you say "Sublimation?"

Emma really hammed up her role as the evening wore on.  I'm sure she be quite a piece of work on Halloween!

More to come in a few days!

Bookworm

My girls have always loved books.  There's no secret there.  I've purposefully taught them all to read at a young age because I really wanted to develop a love for reading.  3 of the 4 are reading independently.

Julie had her first reading lesson on her 4th birthday . . . and we haven't touched the book again since then.  I thought it was funny that she already knew the two sounds that were introduced in the first lesson.  We all had a good chuckle.  That's so Julie.

A few weeks ago, her Sunday School teacher had a funny story for us.  He told the class that they were going to read from the book of Deuteronomy.  Julie then piped up:  "I know where that is!"  As her teacher was thinking "Yeah, sure you do!" she picked up her Bible and promptly turned to the book of Deuteronomy.  Weird.

Then last week I took her to the doctor's office.  While we were waiting, she picked up Green Eggs and Ham and pretty much started reading it to me.  Granted, she pronounced a lot of things wrong (i.e. "make" was macky) but she definitely got the idea.  She did the same thing to Aaron the next day, and he came to me saying "Ummm . . . honey . . . I think we really need to get moving on formal reading lessons for Julie . . . "

So . . . the next day I pulled out the book. 

We use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It's a fabulous book!  One lesson per day . . . if you actually do it 5 days a week (which has never been a strength of mine!) you could get through it in 5 months.  I'm lucky if we do it in a year . . . but that's no big deal.  We always got to the end.  : )

I sat down with her for 20-30 minutes and she whipped through 20 lessons.  Yes . . . my child has pretty much taught herself how to read.  By the end of the next day, she was to lesson 50.  The lessons are getting longer and more challenging, so she will definitely slow down from here on out, but I will be really surprised if she isn't done before Christmas.

Then, today in the van she was reading a book and she said "Mom, this is a *insert strange word that didn't make sense to me* book"  She pronounced this "strange word"  beg (short e)- in - ers.  Accent on 'beg'.  I was confused by what she was saying.  I thought she was making up words and being silly with her sisters.  Then she told me that she read the word herself.  She pronounced the "e" wrong and put the emphasis on the wrong syllable . . . but she read the word "beginners" . . . that's definitely a big step up from "goat" and "kitten."

SO . . . all of that to say . . . I am very curious to see what God has in store for this little munchkin!  I wish I could take credit.  This time I was just the slacker mom  : )  Really I think that what we have here is a spunky little peanut who wants very badly to keep up with her sisters!  : )  I guess there are worse things that she could learn from them!

Pumpkin Patch

Okay . . . my goal is to get caught up on some blogging this week.  I'd really like to add one post per day until I get all of our major later summer/early fall events.  I will be back dating them, so scroll on down over these next few days.

Yes, I'm starting with the current stuff!

Today was our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch with the Alligoods.  It's always a favorite all around. : )

I LOVE taking pictures at the Pumpkin Patch!  If you ask my kids why we go . . . they'll say it's to pick out a pumpkin.  If you ask me . . . it's to take pictures!  I LOVE all of the orange.  Plus it's fun to compare pictures year after year. 

So without further ado . . . here we go . . .

Emma & Karis

Jonah & Ali

The Three Musketeers (aka the Three Stooges)  : )

Julie, Meg & Aubrey

The Fabulous Four

It was windy out there!

We sure have an awesome group of kids!

I love him!

Ali took this one!  We love these guys!

LOOK! 

All 6 of us, in one picture,

and everyone is looking,

and everyone has their eyes open! 

It's a miracle!  : )

I thought this was cute!  J pulling all three of the Littles in the pumpkin cart.  They thought it was awesome!

Go Blue Angels!!

(Okay . . . so I admit it.  I'm totally a blog slacker.  I have had tons of stuff to post and haven't done it.  My excuse is that we reformatted the laptop and I haven't gotten all of my software back on it, so I can't edit my photos.  But this one is a cell phone pic, so here we go . . . )

Our girls started playing soccer last fall.  They played 10 games last season.  Not only did they not win a single game . . . they never even scored a goal.  It was their first year together as a team, and they were definitely overmatched by teams who have been playing together since they were in kindergarten!

This season they're back.  They played a practice game due to a rainout and lost 0-4.  They played a double header last week and lost both.  Not a single goal.  They were definitely feeling discouraged!

But last night made their entire season!!  When the game began, it was obvious that we were more evenly matched than we ever had been.  But they still scored on us.  We were down 0-1.  Bummer.

Then the tide turned and we actually scored our first goal.  You should have heard the parents on the sidelines!  We were a little nuts.  We didn't need to win.  Just a goal . . . that's all we were hoping for!

And then, a few minutes later . . . goal #2!  Yay!!  Then we started praying that time would pass quickly and we could hold onto our lead!  : )

And we did!  I've never seen a happier bunch of kids!  All of their hard work finally paid off!

Here are Ali, Karis & Emma, so excited!

Back to School

Back to school already!  I can't believe it!  After a whirlwind of a summer, we're kicking off a new year.

Ali - 5th Grade

Emma - 3rd Grade

Meg - 1st Grade

Julie - Pre-K

The Fab Four!

Looking forward to a great year!