Summer Stations

My oldest has graduated from kindergarden and I am a bit saddened by the whole thing. I have seen the innocence slowly disappear. He is still a sweet kiddo but there has definitely been a change. Sorry about the picture...didn't turn out so well.
So, summer has begun and all our projects are beginning. I ripped off Sunday stations from the Friend magazine and turned it into Summer Stations. It's only been a week, but so far it works for all of us. We have five stations--piano, reading, learning, exercise, and arts/crafts. We just rotate them each morning at 15 minutes a piece. The routine is working out quite nicely. I will have to post some pictures of that later.
They are also working on ice cream cones for reading. I taped an icecream cone to the wall and for each book Brayden reads to me or I read to any of them, we add one scoop. The idea is to have a very tall icecream cone swirling all over the kitchen walls by the end of summer. Ofcourse there are prizes along the way as they reach certain goals.
I guess I can say for atleast this week so far, I have felt like a pretty good mommy.

My baby is growing so fast I can't keep up with her. She has been pretty good so far and has put herself on a good schedule. She is cooing and smiling a lot. I can't keep the other kids off her.

We've had lots of rain and I sent the kids out to jump on the trampoline and they never made it. It was freezing...I don't know how they could stand this. All Lane's doing.

We tried to trap a Dak-Rat (a North Dakota ground squirrel). Can you see it?

Potty-training in progress.

Great kids...the two look-alikes.

Cute girl.

Oh yeah...I should share that Trent got out of deployment and I was soooooo happy. It doesn't happen this way very often so I feel totally blessed. I think God knew I might have a break down without him for 5 months. He's the reason I wake up in the morning. Love you babe!