Year in Review

Here's a glimpse of our year in review in photos.
 

This is the whole family one: we went to San Diego, played in the snow, went camping, explored Goblin Valley, and had a massive garden among other things. 

Hannah's year
 

Ben's year
 

Michelle's year
 

Sam's year

And we look forward to a fabulous 2014!!

Sam's First Coding Experience

We're going to do a more extensive post later on regarding most of 2013, but Sam (now age 9) wanted us to put this up so that he could share his first coding experience.  It's from Khan Academy, which he really likes so far.  This specific one is the hour of coding.

It's the Three Snowmen wishing you all a Happy Holidays!

Here's the coding behind it:

fill(68, 117, 0);

textSize(25);

text("Happy Holidays, Everybody!", 49, 56);

noFill();

ellipse(52, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(77, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(182, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(206, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(313, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(337, 133, 10, 10);

ellipse(64, 312, 100, 100);

ellipse(64, 219, 86, 86);

ellipse(64, 141, 70, 70);

ellipse(195, 312, 100, 100);

ellipse(195, 219, 86, 86);

ellipse(195, 141, 70, 70);

ellipse(325, 312, 100, 100);

ellipse(325, 219, 86, 86);

ellipse(325, 141, 70, 70);

fill(0, 0, 0);

ellipse(64, 190, 10, 10);

ellipse(64, 215, 10, 10);

ellipse(64, 243, 10, 10);

ellipse(195, 190, 10, 10);

ellipse(195, 215, 10, 10);

ellipse(195, 243, 10, 10);

ellipse(325, 190, 10, 10);

ellipse(325, 215, 10, 10);

ellipse(325, 243, 10, 10);

noFill();

ellipse(200, 50, 385, 70);

line(103, 127, 152, 82);

line(240, 127, 256, 82);

line(286, 127, 249, 82);

ellipse(194, 159, -27, 15);

ellipse(65, 159, -27, 15);

ellipse(325, 159, -27, 15);

fill(0, 255, 140);

textSize(25);

text("From the Elliss family.", 49, 387);

Halloween Fun!

We have had an adventurous month it seems and I will try to get some photos up of our activities. But up first, Halloween! I quite like Halloween. Pumpkin carving, Wilson family pumpkin party, costumes (which in my mind means time spent sewing and designing) and candy.
Here are a couple of our pumpkins. These are home grown this year! Sam's is on the left and looks a tad creepy since it is slightly out of focus and he had pushed the mouth piece back in. Michelle's is the middle on with the fringe hair on top. The one on the right is Ben's with Dad's help (a lot of Dad's help). 

Michelle was a fairy. I love this dress. Easy to put together but really fun as well. 

Hannah wanted to be a butterfly so we made up this costume for her. She loved it. The face painting leaves something to be desired but we tried it this year. A little too big and too much. 

The Stick Man. At first he wanted to be a ninja again and I convinced him to try a stick figure, but we went for white on black instead of black on white which is what helped convince him. He loves it and still wears it. (It is just duct tape.) 

Ben got to be a giraffe this year because his costume wasn't done yet when he decided he needed to get sick and spend quality time with mom or dad at the hospital. It was cute, cheap and just a tad small but oh well. Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates will have to wait (although it is mostly together and would finish up fast so maybe for Christmas).

There is a brief look at our recent adventures. We have more: the hospital visit mentioned above, hair cutting, science fair projects, and a camping trip to name a few. 

Injuries

So we have adventurous children. To sum up a few of the medical trips: Ben has ridden an ambulance twice (respiratory issues), Hannah has broken her arm twice, and this summer Michelle got stitches. I was going to put a picture up but it is on my phone as we took those pictures from the doctors office. Sam has alwasy said, I have never had a cast, That's cool that Ben got to ride in an ambulance, etc. Enter this:

After having a cast for less than 24 hours he decided it wasn't as cool as he thought it would be and wondered how long he would have to wear said cast. Fortunately for him, the answer is only three weeks. Obviously it is not a bad break to have such a short cast time.

What did he do? Fell off his bike. And yes he was wearing a helmet (required at our house or mom takes your bike and won't let you ride it anymore). We have the curbs that slope everywhere, not just the driveways. He was riding right next to the curb (like inches away) and decided to turn into a driveway. His bike didn't make that turn well and he came off. Fractured distal radius I believe is what the doctor called it (small break up by the wrist).

And if you see Michelle she will tell you about the hole she got in her head that required 9 stitches this past summer. Monkeys jumping onto the bed gave her that injury.

And the doctor wonders why I am so calm about my kids injuries. Let's just stop with those okay?

Another look at the garden

This has been a fantastic year for our garden. We contribute it to good dirt and consistent watering (amazing right?). So here are some more pictures so we can brag about how great our garden is.

This tomato plant is my favorite. At the nursery it was called Sweet 100 but the gal who was helping me said she calls them the gardners candy because sometimes they don't even make it in the house. It truly is producing lots of tomatoes so they do make it in the house and then I eat them with everything. This will be planted again next year because if I am ever going to get my kids to eat a fresh tomato it would be like this. 

This was early in the producing time. We got a lot of green beans from our two little rows of plants. Good thing I didn't plant more, no one but me likes them but they are so easy to grow. We did try out fried green beans which Justin said made them more edible. 

Another day of picking. More green beans, lots of small tomatoes, some big tomatoes, several cucumbers, and squash. Oh and some corn (that was mighty tasty) and a few apples (we are still working on the apples, knowing when they are ripe and such). 

Let me tell you about my squash plants. I bought a hungarian squash plant which makes a squash kind of like a pumpkin but bluish in color. I also bought a yellow squash and a zucchinni plant and we planted pumpkins and cucmbers (and later more cucumbers) and we had a volunteer plant growing which we really didn't know what it was. I haven't grown squash in a couple of years because we got squash bugs and they ate my plants. Well we did get squash bugs this year but after my plants were big enough that it really didn't matter. Look at that picture! There is one growing all the way to the opposite end of the box and out of it. They are growing into the tomatoes. They are everywhere. The zucchinni plant is not zucchinni, I don't know what it is but I want to grow it again. And I just figured out what the volunteer plant is: it is a winter squash. Justin's parents gave us a giant winter squash last year and we didn't know what to do with it and it got dinged so it started getting mushy so we threw it out in our garden (maybe it should have gone to the compost bin first). So I have a very hardy winter squash plant (I transplanted it and it still thrived) and really probably shouldn't be picking them yet. I wondered why they were thicker outer layer than the other squash. We also have four pumpkins growing so far. I shredded up 4 of my squashes one day and that gave me 22 cups of shredded squash. I still don't like squash bugs but they can have a go at my plants now.  

Yes, this has been a good garden year. Anyone need some squash or green beans? 

First Day of School

We survived the summer and have headed back to school. The older kids started last week so we have settled into our routine there. Get up and out the door. They were excited to start school.

Here we have Sam. He started fourth grade. If you flat out ask him he will probably tell you he doesn't like it but I think he does, at least a little bit.  But, it is "the hardest grade I have ever had." To which he is told: "And they just keep getting harder." We are supportive like that. 

Hannah is way excited to go back to school, after all, her teacher does this thing called super Friday. She doesn't know what that is entirely except that everyone else loves it. She loves going to school and learning and at recess she says she has started playing raquetball. Not sure how that works exactly but she loves it.

And here we have Michelle who started Kindergarten. She was very thrilled to start school. She had to wait a week after the other kids but was excited to go. And I am excited for her. Kindergarten helps my kids like each other again. One goes to school for a couple of hours and when they come home they are ready to play with the younger one without as many arguments. Here's hoping it works for Michelle and Ben. 

Camping Trip

We did manage a camping trip this summer and it included two hikes! This came as a dismay to some kids and was fine for others. It was fun to be up in the mountains for the weekend. Here are pictures from the first hike which was Silver Lake and Lake Solitude.
 

 

I don't know for sure who took the above pictures, but from this picture we can narrow it down. Every time we came to a big rock Michelle and Ben wanted their picture taken.  This was fine for the first quarter mile or so, then we tried to get them to just keep moving.
 

And this is what moving looks like for the little ones. They alternated who was on Dad's shoulders with Mom carrying one sometimes. And yes, Michelle wore a skirt the whole time, but then that is nothing new.
 

I believe this is Lake Solitude but don't quote me on that. We did this hike two years ago for Justin's birthday and there was snow on the ground (the kids remembered the snowball fight) but there was no snow anywhere around here.
 

But there was a cave. This was also remembered and this time flashlights came with us so they could check it out. There are sparkly rocks inside is what I was told (I was playing keep Ben managed).
 

We also hiked to Donut Falls which Sam declared not the greatest since he almost didn't get to climb any rocks. We had to limit how far we went because I didn't need anymore injuries that weekend (there will be a post of Michelle's injuries when I get the pictures off my phone) and my children are part monkey and feel the need to climb and jump over and from everything. It was a great weekend. Fairly relaxing and a dinner of dutch oven chicken and peach cobbler that were both declared delicious by Sam! He even ate the cobbler! Yes I am that surprised. Only a couple more weeks of summer left.