I took these pictures yesterday morning before church. As you can see Gabe loves to play on his daddy's laptop. He loves pushing all the keys and turning it off and on. It's one of his favorite things to do along with climbing on top of everything.  the other two were not climbers at all when they were his age, but he climbs up onto everything as you can see. 

Here are some picture of the kids decorating their pumpkins:

Today we covered just about everything in school. Noah is working on his multiplications and lesley did an investigation on collecting, organizing, and analyzing data in math. In writing Lesley wrote a draft about a personal experience. While Noah studied some phonics ..ie..... "eer" as in cheer ..."ear" as in fear...."air" as in stair...."ear" as in pear..."are" as in fare. He is reading Magic Tree House #17 Tonight on the Titanic and Lesley is reading Who Stole Halloween.

I have finished planning our schedule and goals that I would like for us to accomplish during our moving transition. We will take a few weeks off to settle in,  adjust to the time difference, and explore our new surroundings in Italy before we do any school work.

Earlier Lesley and I  put four loaves of banana bread in the oven and it's about time to take them out.

Ciao, Stephanie

Noah found this caterpillar on our cilantro plant about 3 1/2 weeks ago. The kids wanted to document the changes it would go through so we did some reasearch on the computer. We learned that it was a Black swallowtail caterpillar that loves to eat cilantro, carrots, parsley, and dill. It loved parsley the most, thus the kids named it that. We also learned that as a butterfly it's colors protect it from birds who think it is poisonous to eat. Five days after finding it, the caterpillar attached itself to a stick and formed into a chrysalis. It stayed in the chrysalis for ten days before breaking out as a beautiful Black swallowtail butterfly. The kids loved witnessing the changes first hand. We set it free once it's wings were dry enough to fly away.

My...My...My...its been a while. We have been doing so much I don't know where to begin. I finally had surgery on my foot last Friday and they found the needle in 90 minutes. Dr. Rabiotti was hoping it would only take him 15 mins. , but then again he did say it was like finding a needle in a haystack.  I need to wear a special shoe for the next few weeks and allow my foot to heal.

My hubby's birthday was on Oct. 6th and the kids and I had our portraits taken for him. The pictures came out great and he loved them. We also made him a special dinner and bought him a Baskin Robbins oreo ice cream cake. That weekend we went to the pumpkin patch at Bate's Nut Farm. We love going there and picked out several pumpkins to decorate. Gabriel had a blast at the petting zoo. He especially loved chasing the chickens and geese.

On the homeschooling front the kids are progressing in their studies and we are enjoying the Fall season. Aside from school work Leslely has taken an interest in cooking and has been spending a lot of time in the kitchen with me. She prepared dinner for us tonight with a little help from me. ( Seasoned turkey burgers with homemade fries)  Noah also has a  new interest collecting baseball cards. He recently also learned how to in-line skate with some help from Lesley.  Gabriel has learned the signs for "hot", "cracker", and "apple" from his Signing Times DVD. He also got his first hair cut at Bambinos. He cried when he heard the buzzing noise from the hair clippers. At this moment he is recovering from  ear infections in both ears. He was in a lot of pain and miserable Tuesday night.  My poor baby.  I would like to post pictures, but I haven't quite figured out how to do it on this site. Oh well........I'll be back soon.

Stephanie