The Adventures of the Flea Market

Twice a year there is a huge flea market at the local university, and we usually try to get over there to browse around and see what treasures we can find for a couple bucks. It was a beautiful day, and this year, one of the main attractions was climbing trees:




The excitement must have been too much! Brenner had to have all of his new goodies piled around him when we got back to the car. (How kind of someone to let him have all the cars and trucks he could find in their toy boxes for his $1!)

Fall Fun

The weather these days is so beautiful, and the kids are just itching to go camping. So we got together with some friends and had a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and flew kites when the wind picked up.

Brenner was excited to get in the car and head over to this little adventure:


No, Brenner did not eat all of those hot dogs....Not that he wouldn't have tried had I let him...

Aile was pretty proud of herself for roasting her own hot dog...even when it fell in the ashes...

Learning to share?

Aile wants Brenner to share a toy with her. "Can I have turn, please?" she says.

"No," Brenner says simply.

Mommy steps in. "Brenner, the kind thing to say would be: "Sure, Aile, you can have a turn next!"

"Ok," Brenner says. He turns to Aile: "Aile, after my turn, I'll have another turn!"

Big Boy Brenner

Brenner has accomplished yet another major milestone this year! Yeah Brenner! We had Brenner's big "Potty Training Party" one Sunday, and with the help of Thomas the Train, we celebrated in high choo choo style with each success! Brenner had a great day, and over the next couple of weeks has seemed to master this new skill quite successfully (after a number of regrets on Mommy's and Miss Nicole's floors! He says "sorry!") :) We are proud of you Brenner! Good job!

Aile and Anaya go to school...

...but they don't go far! :) We are homeschooling this year! Pre-Kindergarten, but our enthusiastic students might fool you into thinking this is a college prep course! They love to learn, and are having a great time with our character-based curriculum. Since I am posting this so late, I can cheat and bring it up to date more, hee hee. :) So far, we have learned about being Attentive, Obedient, Truthful and are now learning about Gratefulness. Each lesson has a nature story, and historical story (about Abraham Lincoln), and many crafts, games, object lessons, and a song to use in teaching the character trait.

Here's Aile on her first morning of Pre-K:

Here are Aile and Anaya displaying their "Attentive Deer" that they made during craft time. Using animals to portray character traits has proved to be quite a success, and helpful in general with parenting as well, surprisingly enough.

Aile's 5th Birthday (yes, I know it is long past...)

Better late than never, eh?! :) With the school year starting (to be covered soon) and also Brenner potty training (also to be covered soon), keeping up with the blog has fallen to the wayside, to say the least! But I really want to have a record of our family happenings to look back on. So even if everyone else out there has long moved on, I am still going to post a few more outdated entries to catch myself up in the logbook. Hope you don't mind... :)

Since, oh, about February of this year, Aile has been asking (rather, already planning) to have a "pink poodle in Paris" birthday party. This idea came, of course, by way of an unsolicited party magazine that arrived in our mailbox. Aile LOVES to get mail (this is extreme understatement), so she gobbled it right up and found the 5th birthday party of her dreams... The rest is history:

This first picture is from Aile's Sabbath School class. They sang to her and prayed with her, and promoted her to the next class.



Oma apparently did not have the grandma magic touch at this moment! All three little grandbabies were howling! I think Claire started first, followed by Ashlyn, then Caelum. Too much sympathy here, or just didn't want to be left out? :)

Brenner's favorite part of the party: the noise makers! No break in character here...

Caelum's Dedication

August 23 was the big day for Caelum to be dedicated. We waited and did it on this day because we thought it would be a good commemoration of Aile's birthday as well, and she was very excited about that. So here they are on that morning, ready to head out to church:

Sean's cousin, Kevin, who is also the youth pastor at our church, did the dedication service for us, and it was really nice. A few of the ideas that he spoke of included the following:

Caelum Scott Pitts
Born March 19, 2008

Caelum: the name means “the Sculptor’s Chisel” or also “angelic”
Scott: means “from Scotland” and is Lindsey’s maiden name

Significance of being dedicated on this day: It is also Aileana’s 5^th birthday, and she considers it an extra blessing that her baby brother is to be dedicated on this day. She has been learning about what it means to be dedicated to the Lord as a child (we’ve read the stories of how Samuel was brought to the temple, and also how Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to be dedicated at the temple).

As a parent, what it means to me to dedicate my child to the Lord, which also fits in a bit with the meaning of his name: “How earnestly and perseveringly the artist labors to transfer to canvas a perfect likeness of his model; and how diligently the sculptor hews and chisels out the stone into a counterpart of the copy he is following. So the parents should labor to shape, polish, and refine their children after the pattern given them in Christ Jesus. As the patient artist studies, and works, and forms plans to make the results of his labors more perfect, so should the parent consider time well spent that is occupied in training the children for useful lives and fitting them for the immortal kingdom.” EGW, Child Guidance 467

Bible verse: 2 Corinithians 4:7, talking about jars of clay. The basic idea is we are weak, but He is strong, so we give our lives over to God and let Him “sculpt” us and speak through us and live in us.

“The same God, who in the beginning said, ‘Let there be light,’ also made His light shine in our hearts to give us knowledge of God’s glory as seen in the face of Christ. We are only jars of clay, filled with the treasures of the gospel to show that its power is from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:6,7 (Clear Word)

Each child dedicated in our church gets a handmade quilt with the child's name and birthdate embroidered on it , as well as a nice gift tag from the lady's quilting ministry. This is a picture of Caelum's quilt, which is very nice. Brenner got one when he was dedicated too, and it hangs on his bedroom wall. Caelum's will probably have the same honor, as we really appreciate the work and love that went into this beautiful quilt.