Our Recent Life in Pictures

I love this time of year! The leaves are just starting to turn colors, and evening walks in the crisp air are so beautiful and refreshing. There has been much activity in the Tapper household, of course, so I wanted to give you a peek into our daily activities.

I love how this picture captures the joy on their faces. They simply love to play together!

We took a walk to the pond. There are so many frogs at the pond. That is why we brought the bucket. Alas, frogs are fast. Very fast. On the way home, our bucket was empty, but Ethan was still smiling. Don't you just love a kid like that!

We have great neighbors...the kind of neighbors that you like to pop through the hedge to visit when you see them out in the yard. However, our particular neighborly hedge was becoming more like a neighborly jungle. Last week, the men attacked the hedge and came out victorious. We now have a manageable, pop-through-friendly hedge, and we had a great backyard bonfire to celebrate! Here's Abby being cute...

...and Ethan enjoying the night. (This boy also qualifies for the "man" title used above as he was a great helping in transporting cut branches back to the fire pit!)

Here we have the conquering of Mount Lawn Tractor by two enthusiastic adventurers.

And here they are topping off the fun with some time on the swings.

I just love this pic!

This one is for any of you who only know the quiet, keep-to-herself Abby. I think she was responding to some silliness prompted by her brother, upping the dramatics by about 5000%!

Since we decided to take an extra year before sending Ethan to school, I did want to make sure I utilized the time wisely and did some things that would help the children to prepare academically. Ethan especially has not been particularly fond of anything that seems to be testing his knowledge levels, so I needed to find a way to introduce concepts without putting on any pressure. Well, I found this simple alphabet banner and hung it in the dining room. Each week, we move the little clothespin marker to the next letter. Our letter of the week game has produced great results! By getting them familiar with just one letter at a time, they seem able to focus and have a lot of fun with it. We look for the letter of the week on road signs, at the park, or in the shapes of nature. We focus on the sounds and get excited about finding words in our daily conversations that start with the letter of the week. It's D-D-D-Delightful!