New Ultrasound Pics

We had our big anatomy ultrasound today and things are looking great! There was some debate going into the appointment about whether to find out if it was a boy or a girl, but it turned out that the baby wasn't telling! :) the way it was positioned, the tech couldn't get a good look at the baby's bottom. It actually means that we have to have another one done in about a month so they can take a look at the lower spine.

As with our previous children, this one likes to keep its hand in front of its face. We did get this neat shot of the hand open, though, rather than a fist.

Coming May 2010...

Well, it's been killing us to keep it a secret for this long, but...

We're expecting baby #3! Our due date is May 28th, 2010, but if past history has any bearing on it, this one will be a couple weeks early, too.

There's a debate raging between Jeremy and I regarding whether to know if it's a boy or girl ahead of time...He wants to know. I want a surprise! :)

Merry Christmas!

Winter Fun

We got some snow over the weekend.

We ran outside to catch the first flakes that were falling. And Olivia was so excited.

Gabe liked the snow as long as I was holding him but was not so sure when I set him down. He did like to eat it.

Olivia made a Gingerbread House. Well, she had a lot of help from Jeremy and I. She had a good time decorating it and was very proud of our work.

Olivia and Jeremy made a snowman. Olivia thought the snow was very cold to be rolling into balls. She did enjoy putting on the gumballs for his face.

Gabe finally tried to walk a little in the snow.

The Sarine Family Christmas letter

Check out Gabe's guest post over at my in-laws blog... http://sherckle.blogspot.com/

Fun playing with Olivia and Gabe

Olivia's fall lapbook

She did some leaf rubbings and learned to identify the leaves most common in our yard/neighborhood. I set this lapbook up a bit different due to the size of the books and such that we put in it.

"Fall Is" is a minibook that she could read and then colored about fall. The "fall words" is a vocabulary worksheet that she had to identify the words and write out. I folded it aso that it will up full size to show her work.

"Left and Right" and "Beginning Sounds" are also worksheets. Most things in the lapbook came from Enchanted Learing. After leaves and general signs of fall, we talked about apples. We went to an apple orchard (those pics are in a previous post) to pic apples. So we learned a little about them and then made some apple sauce with our apples.

Olivia loves mazes.

Pictures from our fun, fall activites. We took lots of walks to look for and enjoy the signs of fall. She did lots of jumping in the leaves but I never seem to have my camera. I think fall may be her favorite time of year just like mine. The bottom 3 pictures are of our Thanksgiving activities. She had fun acting out the first Thanksgiving. We stayed basic again this year. We referred back to her lapbook from last year. This year we were really able to talk about the idea of being thankful and help her to finally list out things that she was thankful for. Each of the leaves of the little "tree" has things she is thankful for. Some of those were, of course, family members, food, our house, her Rhyme bible, family worship, playing outside and taking walks, singing, and being healthy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We really got Olivia into the Thanksgiving spirit this year. :)

Olivia's Thanksgiving Tree

We cut out a bunch of leaves and had Olivia tell us all the things she was thankful for this year. We wrote them down on the leaves and taped them to her "tree"

She was dying to eat these as they sat in front of her. :)

Olivia's Turkey ("No daddy, they're chickens!") Cookies

Olivia's Little People First Thanksgiving Set

Olivia's Little People Mayflower set

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Pumpkins and Other Pics

Right before Halloween, we took the kiddos to a pumpkin patch to play in the pumpkins and pick out a couple of little ones to take home.

The picks for the day

Gabe thought the big ones were a blast!

Olivia managed to find one that was very lumpy.



Once a month or so, Rebecca takes the young 'uns down to Waxhaw to visit Grandma and Grandpa. This most recent trip, Olivia got to ride a horse all by herself. She was scared at first, but she decided to try it and once she got on, she had a really good time.

And one random Gabe pic:

This is really how he sleeps most of the time. :)

Picking Apples and Other Fall Fun

Well, we've got a backlog of pictures to share with everyone, so we'll try to get caught up over the next couple of posts.

Back in October, we took a day trip to the Orchard at Altapass, a non-profit apple orchard right on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We got to take a hayride and hear some great stories about the history of the area. We also took the opportunity to pick our own apples, right from the tree! At first we thought it was odd that they charged more for pick-you-own than the bags the had in the shop, but after we ate 3 right from the tree, we realized it was probably just smart business. :)

The apples were delicious and Rebecca and Olivia got to make homemade applesauce and apple butter.


Sadly, the colors weren't very good in the mountains that weekend... It had rained just a day or two before and many of the leaves had been knocked to the ground already. Fortunately, when we got back into the neighborhood, we found the colors here to be absolutely spectacular!

Spider Lapbook

Much to my neverending chagrin, Olivia has become fascinated with spiders, while i cannot stand to be in the same room as one without an overwhelming desire to make it into shoe goo. Rebecca and Olivia have been reading Charlotte's Web and Olivia loves to look out our bathroom window, where a spider has set up shop and is dining happily on whatever victims come its way.

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear and O's Dance class

As part of the FIAR (Five in a Row) cirriculum that I have been incorporating into our homeschooling, Olivia and I read Another Celebrated Dancing Bear. I thought it would be good to incorporate with her own dance class. So we made a combination labbook for the book and also for her dance class. I thought it would be a good way to put down the memories of her dance class.

This is her drawing of Max and Boris. They are the two bears in the book. Max teaches Boris to dance.

We made a version of Russian tea.

This is the inside of the lapbook. We looked on the map and talked about Russia. We also worked on some vocabulary and drama words from the book. Olivia was very excited about the Matryoshka dolls. I am now on the lookout for wooden nesting dolls for her. I introduced the clock to her a little bit.

Also, we talked a lot about hospitality. Here is our verse.

The other side of the lapbook is another lapbook.

The story of David in the Bible dancing before the Lord. We talked about why we dance. It is not primarily for performance, although that is fun, but it is for God first. This is true of everything we do.

We summarized the things she has learned in her dance class. The aims that her teachers have for her.

Here is the inside of the dance lapbook. It has tap, ballet, and gymnastics. We looked on the map for the country of orgin of each type of dance and gymnastics.

Below is a closer look at some of the things she has learned as we dance. And we have done many activities at home to reinforce this...

**Note: Sorry about the pictures. I had a really hard time with this post for some reason.**