On the third day of Christmas

The Chandler family had three beautiful girls

and three very handsome boys.

On the second day of Christmas

The Chandler family had Lydea lose her two front teeth...

On the first day of Christmas

The Chandler family had ... One lovely Christmas tree.

The Pooh Magnet

Yesterday Haylee went to go to the bathroom and she came and got me and said, "Mom, there's a magnet in the toilet, it's the pooh one."

How ironic that the pooh bear magnet was in the the toilet.

Thanksgiving

Karl wanted a break for Thanksgiving -- not a day slaving away in the kitchen. We took a picnic and went to Natural Bridge KY, State Park. We had a great time and then came home to watch a movie and eat a small "Thanksgiving"ish dinner. We were very thankful for a break.

Zach Happy to be out and going somewhere new.
Karl SO THANKFUL for some time off. He didn't even bring any books home! How do you like the no shave November look?

Smile Rebecca -- she tried even though she had a cracker in her mouth.

Loving the picnic and fresh air.

Some fun family photos...

We hiked just over two miles, but we climbed lots of stairs! The kids did great. Rebecca was the only one that needed help and even she did most of it by herself. When we were nearly to the top she turned to me and said, "My knee is tired." So I picked her up and carried her a little way. I put her back down. She walked a few minutes more, then turned to Karl and said,"Now my whole self is tired." He walked really slowly with her to the top and carried her all the way down.

Carson was very funny on the hike. He kept saying, "Here's the bridge! Is this the bridge? Hey, this looks like the natural bridge. Dad, is this the natural bridge? Guys, I think it's around the corner now. We're almost there. Is this it?" After 10 minutes of the same, I took his talking privileges away.

It was a pretty cool site. We walked on top and then went down under it.

The hole in the background is the bridge.

What a long day!

The fun of the of the last week

Breakfast, love breakfast.


Haylee practicing her cords.


Karl playing with school mates before they hit the books.


Hot cocoa for good kids.

Books before bed. Do you love the PJ's?!?

Rebecca--LOVE this!

Zach garbage-head

School at Our House

Carson's school has gone really well this year. I told the kids that if they got their school done by a certain time they could earn computer time. It has done wonders for all, but especially Carson. He is usually done with his studies between 12 and 1, and he is doing so much better on them than he did last year. Amazing! He has also been a great help to me around the house.

One funny story about Carson. We were all sitting around talking the other day and he said, "The rule of he thumb is that ....(just something he learned in math), but we couldn't figure out what he meant. Neither Karl nor I had ever heard of "the rule of the thumb" until it finally clicked to me that he meant, "a good rule of thumb". It was really funny at the time.

Haylee is my slow and easy child with just about everything. She does well in her schooling, and keeps to herself most the day. She is getting into the independant stage. She can cook a few things on her own and likes to do her hair. She just learned to braid. If you look you can see that she braided her own hair in this picture.

Eldon McKay is a funny kid. He just started work books this year. He has math, reading, and spelling. He just finished up the 100 easy lessons to reading. He loves to read and is excited to move on to "bigger" books. He is fun to work with most days, but I guess we all have our days. I just wish you could all spend a day doing school with him he's so cute about it.

Lydea works hard and does a great job. She has had a hard time with what I think is dyslexia, but I'm not sure. Things get better with work though and she works very hard. Her reading aloud has improved greatly this year, which I think has a lot to do with family scriptures in the morning. Her spelling has improved leaps and bounds. We just figured out that one day of oral review really helps her out. And lastly, she does an awsome job in math. She still has a couple of letters and numbers she writes backward, but it's about 1/2 of what it was last year. I'm proud of her for how hard she works.

Rebecca begs and begs for school. Then I sit down with her and do things and she says, "OK, I don't want to do this anymore." I think she wants a workbook. She loves to color and wants something constructive to color, so I will pick a workbook up for her before she loses intrest. In the mean time she is just silly and fun.

Zachary just make school life difficult, but he adds excitement!