The Birthday Boys

The October boys

Andrew and Emmaline are inseparable The big kids eating on the porch

The little ones playing a game of Hiss

Elijah opens his gift from us

Gift time is always a favorite

Andrew and Elijah recieved matching "coon" hats from the Burkes

Little Daniel Boone's in the making:)

(Notice that Emmaline is at his side.....so cute!)

On Sunday we had a joint celebration of the October birthdays in the family. The October boys are Andrew (age 4) and Elijah (age 6). It was a warm fall day here in NC and we had a wonderful time cooking out together, playing freeze tag, and of course, eating lots of ice cream cake! Happy Birthday to two very special little boys!!

Fun in Science

My little scientists eagerly anticipating the eruption:)

Step 1: Take water bottle and newspaper and build volcano mountain with glue
Step 2: Paint


Step 3: Make a model village with clay at base of mountain. Mix baking soda and vinegar with a little red food coloring. Voila! A volcano of your very own!
Science is definitely one of their favorite subjects and mine too:)

The Burkes arrive in Wake Forest!

The Burke children and the Shaw children (minus Gideon)
The Burkes arrive at our house in their RV

Getting a big hug from Aunt Kim


Jenny Grace teaching Sarah how to crochet

Emmaline and Andrew playing in the sandox
(AKA Partners in Crime)

The girls hanging out together (Maggie-16, Sarah-8, Jenny Grace-7)

The front of their beautiful home in WF

Gazing at the stars through the Burke's telescope

Emma getting a lift from Samuel to look

Hanging outside together on a beautiful night

Luke playing cards with Gabriel in the family room

Our family is beyond thrilled to have the Burke family as our neighbors here in Wake Forest! They moved into a home 14 minutes from us across town in September. We are so blessed to finally have "family" living nearby:) Kim is David's first cousin and she and her husband have 9 children with one on the way! Needless to say, our children LOVE hanging out with them. Never a dull moment. Literally, the moment we arrive I do not see my children sometimes for hours! They are a precious family and we know that we can look forward to seeing Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dwayne several times a year as well. If only we could get the rest of our family from GA/MO/TN/FL to join us here!! Hint, hint:)

Jamestown: Here we come! (Part 1)

Statue of Pocahontas

(We had been reading several books about her that week)

John Rolfe (Pocahontas' husband)

He was great! He interacted with the kids and really made history come alive.

Archeological digging still in process......really cool to see!

Statue of Captain John Smith overlooking the James River

Model of first Jamestown fort

Glass building in background is where the first statehouse was built

Now the location of artifacts found from archeological dig

Plaque below the wooden cross.....To the Glory of God!


Kids standing where the first permanent English settlement began

Outside the church in the Jamestown settlement

(5th church built on site.....fires destroyed most of the others)

Inside the church

Last weekend, David woke me up on Saturday morning around 9:00 and said, "Let's do it.....let's go to Jamestown today." We had been studying it in school that week, but I did not think we could actually go there and visit....wasn't it a long way? Little did I know that it was only a 2 1/2 hour drive from our house! David had been doing some research that morning on the computer and found a great deal on priceline for a hotel room nearby in Williamsburg for the night. So we literally threw some clothes together and by the afternoon we were walking on the same ground that the early settlers discovered 400 years earlier. How many times do you get to study something and actually go and see it the next day? We all had a lot of fun exploring the area and learning a lot. I wonder where we will be headed this weekend? Maybe we need to study the Caribbean Islands next week?

Jamestown: Here we come! (Part 2)

My Englishmen:)

The kids in front of the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery ships

Inside the ship....sleeping nook

On deck of the Susan Constant (largest one) overlooking the 2 others

Touring the Powhatan village

Touching the deerskin

Outside a Powhatan home

(homes were built by the women in the village)

Luke grinding corn

Standing on a huge map outside the museum with their bows and arrows from our trip

One exhausted kiddo on the way home!

After eating pancakes at the local pancake house in Williamsburg, we headed to the living history museum: Jamestown Settlement. It is a 30,000 square foot living-history museum located a few miles from historical Jamestown. It was built in 2007 in celebration of Jamestown's 400 year birthday. It has a theater, hands-on museum, Powhatan Indian village, 3 replicas of the 3 ships that carried the settlers across the ocean, and James Fort as it would have looked 4oo years ago. It was a lot of fun and we ended up staying there a lot longer than we had anticipated. Definitely a must-see if you ever visit the Williamsburg area.We definitely had some tired kiddos (and big kids!) at the end of the weekend, but it was so worth it!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Luke posing in front of the yummy chocolate fudge cake (Kids picked it out at a local bakery in town)

Reading homemade cards the kids made

Happy Birthday, Daddy! He woke up to a delicious breakfast in bed prepared by the kids: banana pancakes, turkey bacon, eggs and orange juice. The kids wrote a song for him that they performed along with drums and tamporines. If he wasn't already fully awake, he was now! We also took him out to dinner that night and had a yummy fudge cake for dessert. We love you Daddy and hope your day was extra special!

Week 2

Andrew using his blocks to practice writing his B's
One of the advantages of homeschool.....reading while lying on the sofa:)

Andrew working on his computer skills

Painting a map of Columbus' voyage to the New World

The final product

We had another great week here at Shaw Academy:) Together,we learned a lot about Christopher Columbus and his four trips to the Americas. We also did some neat experiments with air pressure and gravity. During Bible (aka BIB...."Bible in bed") the children learned what Jesus' name means ( The Lord Saves) and what the Old Testment says about Jesus. Definitely our favorite part of the day! Hanging out in bed together and reading God's Word.....nothing sweeter on Earth!