Sarah, Fletcher March 2012

Cutie pic of Sarah and her best friend, Monika, taken at church on March 4th.

Sarah got her wish on Thursday, March 1st when she was finally allowed to get bangs after months of asking for them. She was quite pleased with the results of her haircut...bangs, super thinned-out hair and many inches cut off at her request.

Fletchie scored the only goal for his team on Saturday (March 3). That was his second goal of the season; his first goal was scored the game before. Ten minutes post-game his face still looks like this...
Fletcher LOVES this in-action photo of him during a game.

Mountain Lab School, Nov.9-11, 2011

Sarah attended Mountain Lab School with her Options school group at Camp Id-ra-ha-je from Wednesday to Friday this week. I was privileged to get to serve as one of the five chaperones. We had a ball with the 22 students that went from Options. The camp shut down for the winter after our group left Friday. It was so fun having the 260 acre camp to ourselves for the three days! They had fabulous staff, food, and lodgings for us which was a big bonus as well! Sarah was a trooper (no Drama Queen, thank You, God!) and did most of the new activities first in our breakout group of 11 students. She just jumped right in and tried all the new activities with no hesitation. I was super proud of her great attitude and willingness to try everything without whining or complaining. For that matter, all the kids were that way! Such a pleasure to chaperone such a fun group of easy going kids. Having no complainers was a huge treat for all of us adults!

The kids took an Orienteering class and learned to read topographical maps and use compasses to navigate around camp and find the targets they were given.
Sarah loved the archery class and did well with the left-handed bow.
Sarah breezed through the low ropes challenge course.
The kids enjoyed collecting kindling and making a fire for lunch on Thursday. They ate their burgers at Teepee Camp, sitting inside the teepees that campers in 4th-6th grades sleep in during Id-ra-ha-je's summer camps.
Sarah scaled "Chimney Cricket," a 5.5 level climb, and tapped the roof of the 45 foot climbing tower.
Sarah's climbing instructor remarked, "She's a natural!" as she quickly climbed the wall.

Sarah tried lots of new things in the Boulder House. Bouldering was super fun, even for the chaperones! The kids even liked their jobs of being spotters for their peers.

Sarah's First Ever Art Exhibit (October 2011)

Sarah's art is now on display in the main hallway of our church. She has her very own wall. I believe she is the youngest artist to have the whole wall to display multiple works. She is so delighted to have this opportunity to display her art.

When Charlie came home from work on Tuesday (Oct.25) and said, "Sarah, I have some exciting news. You've been selected as an artist that can display work at church," he watched the big elephant tears slowly roll out of her eyes and down her cheeks because she was so touched by the opportunity. Charlie was holding back the tears when he saw his daughter get so moved by the surprising news that she'd get a chance to display her work. He had her select some pieces from our home and when he left for work Wednesday, all but two were unframed. When she showed up for youth group on Wednesday night, this (photo above) is what she saw. A whole wall of framed work that her Daddy had spent close to two hours at Michael's having done before the church activities that night in order to surprise her. She was shocked! The tears welled in her eyes yet again!

First Chilly Day (Oct.17) of Fall 2011

Well, besides our snow day on Saturday, Oct. 8th when we got two inches of snow in the morning. The bright sunshine had melted it by that afternoon, though!

Sarah was SO excited to take Noah out to play in the leaves with him. Super cute sister, that Sarah girl!
Love these pictures with the yellow leaves of our front yard tree in the background as Sarah and Noah stand in our doorway.

Sarah presenting her art to the Options students and teachers

Sarah did an amazing job talking about her artwork during morning assembly on Oct.11, 2011 at Options. She prepared thoroughly writing out her "speech" first on notebook paper and then on notecards. She practiced her talk many times out loud the day before and morning of her presentation, and then, she didn't even use her index cards at all during the actual presentation. Way to go, Sarah! Mommy and Daddy were so proud of you. We thought you did an excellent job, sweetie!

Favorite shots from Leadville, CO family adventure day (August 2011)

The whole reason we ventured to Leadville was because Charlie has wanted to visit the town to see the highest airport in North America, the third highest in the world, ever since we lived in Dallas. He has been "flying" out of Leadville's airport on the flight simulator with students for about 10 years and was super excited to see it in person with his own kids. This is a picture of Paris in front of the only runway the airport has. You can clearly see the Rockies to the west of the runway strip. The town sits at 10, 200 feet elevation and look how big the Rockies still look behind Paris!

Paris is holding Colorado's state flower, a columbine.
Loving the color and texture of this doorway Sarah is standing in.
She is oh so grown-up now in many ways...her forever drawings of families of people, HUGE families of people, have varied slightly in the past few weeks to include more and more fashion statements in terms of the individual family member's attire. She still has drawings of huge families, but she also includes fashion designs that she has created for them to wear.
Sarah is dreaming of teaching art (and music and dance) to children in Africa. She says she wants to go to art college and maybe study fashion design, too.
Sarah would like to play on a more competitive soccer team.
Paris would like to play violin and is interested in taking music lessons this year. She would still love to take riding lessons if given the opportunity.
Paris is such a sweet girl who plays well with all her siblings.

She can fight well with them, too. :)

Sarah's Latest Art Pieces

Her Polar Bear (February 2011):

Her watercolor guitar (March 2011):
Her acrylic Cherry Blossoms started and finished on April 12, 2011:
Sarah sure is having fun with her Monart art lessons! She asked me today if she could turn her bedroom into her own art studio...uhhh, no. :)

Charlie and Sarah's trip to VA, April 2011

Sarah is Chuck's first grandchild and Poppy's first great-grandchild.

Sarah loved the attention of her VA family!
The cherry blossoms in D.C. were in full-bloom. LUCKY, Sarah and Charlie!!
Sarah was excited to get to see the White House and Air and Space Museum again after a couple years since the last time. She was even more thrilled to get to go to the National Art Gallery for the first time in her life. She saw SO many amazing works from the best of the best including Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and even a Da Vinci painting, too. It was super fun that we had just studied many of these painters and read some great books about them before her trip. We highly recommend the story books about famous artists by Laurence Anholt who has a great series on different Impressionist painters.

Three Big Kids' Monart Drawing Lesson: Tiger

Paris' tiger drawing:

Fletcher's tiger drawing:Sarah's tiger:
The three tigers from February 2011 art lesson:
The kids were so excited by their drawing lesson projects this week. They had such fun creating these tigers!

Sarah's Monart Class projects from Nov. & Dec. 2010

Sarah so looks forward to her weekly art class. She is beginning to ask for her own art supplies (for her 10th birthday) to experiment with pastels at home in between art lessons. The great thing about Monart is all the supplies are provided for the kids. She is currently working on a sea turtle at Monart which is really cute as well. We couldn't be more pleased for her. We are so thankful she is getting to spend time developing her love of art. If Sarah is not reading, she is most definitely drawing- her two favorite passtimes by far! She is usually drawing with a pen and white computer paper, and most drawings involve families of people. She loves drawing many people on each page and naming all of them is half the fun for her! She often has little story lines for each group of people she's drawn. We talk about different illustrations and illustrators' styles as we read library books each week. I tell Sarah I could totally see her being a published author and illustrator one day!

One of Sarah's recently completed art pieces

Sarah finished this ballerina in just two or three of her Monart art classes. She is LOVING her weekly class!

Noah's sisters holding him for the first time

August 22, 2010:

Sarah with Noah, week one

Sarah loves holding her brother, especially on family walks!
Sarah was so excited to show her new brother off at church!

"I wanna carry him like in South America, Mom!"