Life Lately

Posted on December 2, 2018 by jlcleve

These pictures don’t really fit into a category but were taken over the past month. They give a glimpse into every day life around here.

Some of us were really hoping that a Packer picnic would help revitalize the Packer’s season this year. One of us just likes to be contrary…

Micah wanted to try split pea soup in honor of one of his favorite book series, George and Martha. He asked to take a picture for Grandma since she read some many of those stories to him the last time she was here.

Sometimes when we FaceTime with Daddio while he’s away, things get a little bit silly…

Family Updates

Posted on December 1, 2018 by jlcleve

Great Granny A suffered a stroke the week of Thanksgiving and has been in our prayers. We were able to talk to her on Skype on Thanksgiving day – technology is such a gift! We are feeling thankful that she is alive and healing!

Thanksgiving Day was my Grandpa’s birthday. I appreciated getting pictures of him enjoying his special day with the family in Michigan:

The following day our newest member of the family was born in Wisconsin: Edwin (Eddie) Richard! He’s darling and I can hardly wait to meet him. It was really fun to get to see pictures from everyone meeting him for the first time – so I thought I’d share some of my favorite shots!

That sweet little girl making everyone laugh finally needs a proper intro on the site, too. That’s our niece, Salina Jean, and she is just a bundle of joy! Thought I’d post my three current favs of her and also a few pictures from when we met her back at 6 weeks old now that I can show off that darling face!

Micah is anxious to hold his baby cousin, Eddie, at Christmas and the newest baby boy, Joshua (Ashley’s due on Christmas day!), when he comes, too! He recently told me that our house is too boring and we either need a pet or a baby. *insert big eye smiley face here *

Side note: this may be one of my all-time favorite pictures:

It reminded me of these pictures from Florida back in 2012 when Ethan was about 2.5 years old.

Thankful for the gift of family, near and far!

Thanksgiving

Posted on November 30, 2018 by jlcleve

Grandpa Russ drove out to spend Thanksgiving with us again this year. We love this tradition and enjoy having him with us so much. The boys especially enjoy spending time outside with him, looking at and sorting through coins, and eating ice cream! We went out for breakfast at the Original Pancake House one of the mornings he was here, too! Here are some pictures from our time with him around our house:

Before he even arrived, we started our lists of things we for which we give thanks. Micah’s first item was drum lessons. Ethan’s was piano lessons. They also did an acrostic and came up with another nice list. Ethan worked on his first and then Micah joined in later…and when Micah got to “G” he shouted GOD! Next thing I see, Ethan’s crossing off whatever he had written in the “G” and wrote God, too. Ha! Very cute to see him copying his younger brother for once. =)

We spent Thanksgiving day at Ashley and Zach’s place. It was fun to spend the day all together. We split the food up between the two of us and had a pretty fantastic feast, although some were heard “grumbling” about having ham instead of turkey this year. Lots of sibling banter ensued. The boys helped me with various parts of our half of the meal: cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole and green bean casseroles.

That evening, E and I went for a walk around the park in the dark. We got to talk to my Grandpa for his birthday and I snapped a few pictures of the lights. I’ve been walking with this guy to see Christmas lights since he was 6 months old. =)

They came over to our place on Saturday for lasagna and more time together. Our boys put on a very silly play for everyone. It was lots of fun being together again before Grandpa Russ headed home the following morning.

Thanks for coming out, Grandpa Russ! We sure loved having you!

Random November Updates

Posted on November 29, 2018 by jlcleve

Two quick pictures of family to begin the month – 1) we sent our beloved Packers helmet onward and got a picture of Abe enjoying it! and 2) we celebrated Caleb’s 2nd birthday!

Mike was in India for work for a good chunk of November. He had a great trip and really enjoyed being there. We were so thankful that, while he came back feeling exhausted, he did not get sick! He and one of the founders of phData had a layover in Paris for a day while waiting for their Visas to come through, so they enjoyed walking the city a bit! Also, Mike bowled really well at their team-building activity and everyone was pretty proud of him for getting on the leader board for the month. =)

Meanwhile, at home…I did get sick for a couple days while he was gone. The boys handled things incredibly well. We had a little church service at home and even had Chipotle delivered to the house for the boys. Ha! Ethan still was able to go to see cousin Matthew’s play that day, but Micah wanted to stay home to make sure I’d be okay.

Thankfully whatever that sickness was didn’t last long! We had a play date, went out for dinner with Reggie, and I did some painting. We also re-instituted rest time for weeks when Mike is out of town and that really saved my sanity. I just need little breaks so that I can be patient and joyful and not irritable and annoyed. The boys have been rocking these rest times with paint by stickers, listening to story of the world, doing sudoku, etc..

Other updates for the month include both boys still enjoying their instruments:

Sometimes the boys want to “play school” and I always find it very humorous. Micah loves to be the teacher and Ethan absolutely LOVES spelling tests and asks for lots of words.

Hanson’s new CD came out and it’s great. 😉 And we continue to enjoy family night at church – Ethan does Cadets and I teach the kids club for the younger kiddos. Micah has opted to stay in there with me and is my little helper. And the guys love doing battles.

When Daddio comes back home from a trip, we often put pictures from our weeks up on the TV and tell stories to each other.

Homeschool Updates

Posted on November 28, 2018 by jlcleve

Just wanted to try to lump some of the updates together, so this post will be centered around pictures from CC, home, and field trips from the past month. I am sure I say this often, our emotions around homeschooling run high. When things are going smoothly and we have the time and energy to put forth the attitude and effort necessary, we are on top of the world. But for every week of loving it, we definitely have moments of big struggles.

Recently we examined owl pellets at CC (I’m so very grateful to do this kind of thing in community!!!):

Here are some other shots from community day at CC:

We missed one day when I was out sick, so I tried to do it at home…we definitely missed our community!!

We’ve been going on some more field trips with our CC peeps, which has been a lot of fun. We visited the Colorado History Museum downtown and really LOVED it!! We had a tour guide take us through a few of the exhibits and that really enhanced the experience.

And then this week we went to “Drums of the World” at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. We loved it. But I’m happy to say that Micah told me he enjoyed seeing Hanson there better. =)

I think their favorite piece of memory work thus far in Cycle 1 is singing their preposition song. They both like to impress me with it most days of the week. This particular day they asked to videotape it.

And, finally, here are some shots I took around the house:

They had their first “out of this world” day a couple weeks ago, while Mikey was in India! Had to snap a picture for him because it’s quite a difficult feat. =)

Currently reading two books: Mattimeo (a sequel to Redwall – a fun audiobook with various accents and some exciting adventures/battles) and Detectives in Togas (a fun story taking place in ancient Rome).

One-on-One Weekend

Posted on November 12, 2018 by jlcleve

Mike had high hopes of taking Micah away to San Fransisco for his one-on-one weekend, but he ended up needing to fly to Minnesota the day before their trip and Micah ended up feeling more comfortable staying in the state. SO, after hours of flight delays, Mike arrived home after ten pm and the trip was postponed until the following morning. Mike took Micah south about an hour to Great Wolf Lodge for the remainder of the weekend. We were pretty sure this would be just the thing for Micah. Sadly, Micah ended up not feeling well for much of their time and even threw up a few times. Regardless, Micah would tell you that he had a great time!

Here are some pictures from their special time together on the first day:

The following day Micah was feeling much better, but he was still not quite up to his usual cheerful self.

Needless to say, they are going to need a re-do on this whole trip sometime when schedules allow again. =)

Meanwhile…back at home…We had pretty cold all weekend, but I tried to be excited about all of the outdoor activities Ethan had in mind. Ethan and I biked to the tennis courts two days in a row to play some tennis. We played football for a long time, too! We also kept ourselves busy playing lots of games, playing the piano and looking for birds!

We were definitely glad to be together as a family after all of that. Micah requested that only people dressed as wolves/animals play with play dough. =) Quick side note – the play dough was a prize from Sunday School, which I am incredibly happy to report, Micah was SO sad to miss while on his weekend away. Previously, he didn’t even want to go to Sunday School and now he was feeling really bummed to miss even one week of it! Such an answer to prayer.

Random

Posted on November 11, 2018 by jlcleve

This will just be a random post getting us close to caught up on normal life.

I took the boys trick-or-treating. Micah was still King Peter, but Ethan opted for his Chewy costume from last year. We actually walked the block with neighbors we just met that night – I guess there are some nice things about that holiday. 😉

The boys are super helpful around the house. They worked on raking and cleaning up the front yard the other day while I read a book! Amazing.

We checked out owl pellets this week in the science portion of CC. It was a little stinky and kind of gross, but it was pretty awesome at the same time!! Both boys seemed to enjoy finding remains of various rodents the owl had eaten.

CC brings out a lot of joys in our world. The boys have been playing a lot of tin whistle music this week. Ethan even copied down some music so that he doesn’t have to borrow my book when he wants to play. Also, Ethan LOVES diagramming sentences for Essentials. Who knew?!

We got to celebrate cousin Caleb’s 2nd birthday recently. Such a blessing to live by family and celebrate this little guy together!! Apparently we only took a picture of half of the table. Oops.

Lastly, I took a video of Micah’s most recent drum lesson. He seems to be enjoying it!

The Cleve Crew

We do FAITH, FAMILY and FUN!