Our Adventures with Flat Daddy

Have you heard about Flat Daddies? Recently there was an article in Parade talking about one military family and their Flat Daddy. (You can read it by clicking on the word article)

Before Darrick deployed he heard about a program offered from the Red Cross called "Flat Daddy". He thought it would be great for his upcoming deployment. You send in a picture of yourself and in a few weeks you get your Flat Daddy in the mail. I decided to save him for the 2nd half of our deployment, just to have something new and exciting to do.

So while my family was here, we got Darrick applied to his foam board and cut out.

After Sam cut him out he posed for a picture with Darrick!

And we took a family picture!

So stay tuned for our future adventures with Flat Daddy!

Merry Christmas from the Hays Family!

Happy 36th Birthday to ME!

Advent Update

Preschool Christmas Crafts

Yesterday since it was the last day of Preschool before Christmas Break, Naomi brought home some cute projects that she made!

And a special gift for Darrick and I for the tree!

Justin's New Song- Pray

Preschool Christmas Program

Tuesday night Naomi had her Preschool Christmas Program. She was super excited to wear her new Christmas dress, candy cane tights and sparkly silver shoes.

They did a little program called "The best gift of all". It was very cute!

She was so happy with all the friends that came to see her.

Messages for Daddy

Swinging in the Fall

Gingerbread Men

On Tuesday evenings while I attended Bible Study and the boys go to Cadets, Auntie Karen watches Naomi for me. She always has something fun for Naomi to do and this week they decorated Gingerbread. They turned out so cute!

Advent Countdown

Here is how our Advent Countdowns are coming along!

Cloud Pictures

Continuing in our study of clouds we read a book by Eric Carle called "Little Cloud". In it the cloud changes into different shapes and makes cloud pictures.

After we read the book we did a fun craft so we can make a book of our own. We folded papers in half.

Then added some white paint.

Folded in back in half and pressed it slightly.

We all got a lot of laughs opening them up and then saying what we saw!

These were our 3 favorites:

Shrek by Micah

Vampire by Jacob

Skull on a pirate flag by Naomi

Sinterklaas

We have just started getting together once a week with another homeschooling family, the Wellers, to do a lesson. One week I will do it and the next week Stacey will do it. For December we decided to do Christmas around the world. This week I did the lesson and I picked the Netherlands.

They do not have Santa but instead they have St. Nicholas or as they like to call him Sinterklaas. His helpers are called Black Peters and he comes from Spain by boat. The kids had fun comparing and contrasting Santa and Sinterklaas.

Then, thanks to our awesome Dutch Bakery, we sampled some awesome dutch treats: Stroop Waffles and an Almond Stick.

Following their traditions each child got a chocolate letter (the first letter in their name). We also made mini Sinterklaas.

Boys Day Out

Pastor Jim asked me a few weeks ago if he and a young guy from church named Simeon could take Micah and Jacob for a Boys Day Out-well today was the day!

They headed to Seattle and their first stop was to see the Troll under the Bridge.

Then they went to the Ballard Locks.

After lunch at Dick's it was on to Gas Works Park.

They had a great day!

Random pictures

Here are some pictures from the last month or so.

Jacob and Arthur

Making Cards for Daddy. A lady from church gave us a bunch of stuff so the kids could make cards for Darrick. She even gave them each their own little box labeled with their name, scissors, markers and stickers!

The kids got some new hats.

The boys think they are too cool for words...

We had our first snow!

On Halloween night when kids came trick or treating at our door I had the boys take a survey of what they were dressed as so we could graph the results-always homeschooling!!!

Two of my bruises from when I tripped over the kids mini trampoline!