The Hanson Crew

John: The Complete Husband by Lou Priolo and The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne (probably others on his Kindle) Deanna: Like Dandelion Dust by Karen Kingsbury and What's in the Bible by R.C. Sproul Ashlyn: From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler at school and a variety of books at home Joshua: Reading through the Magic Tree House books and loving them! Caleb: Enjoying his Bob Books at home (stage A books right now) Jonathan: Reading Scooby-Doo chapters books with mom for the RAFT program at the library

We got about 5 inches of snow yesterday. John got home around 10:30 from work, mainly because of the long day at work for the teams. But he also spent about an hour driving home (it usually takes 20 minutes). He had to weave in and out of parked cars on the interstate near our house because they couldn't make it up a snow packed hill. Then when he got on our street, it got worse. His car didn't make it up our driveway again. This is the 3rd time this winter! Because he was tired and was done driving, he left his car in the driveway crooked.... This morning was a little more eventful! He went out and his car couldn't get to the street right away. But he managed to make it somehow turning his steering wheel and spinning a lot of snow in the air. I saw him turn left out the driveway and thought he was off to work. About 5 minutes later, he came back and said it was horrible. He decided to come back and get my 4-wheel drive car. Well, he couldn't get his car back

Last year when John and I were in Hawaii, grandma Sue made a quilt with Ashlyn. Then Joshua asked her to make him one. Each time the kids helped pick the fabric patterns. This time it was Caleb's turn. She made a beautiful puppy quilt. And Jonathan is already looking forward to his being next. You may need to click on the image to see the prints he picked out better: The front The back

don't lay out fake fruit anywhere! You'll notice the many teeth marks and missing parts of the fake pears in the basket above! Boys will eat just about anything at any age.

a close up shot: Like all of the other times, we are not sure what happened. But he was playing outside all day and says he thinks it was a stick that did it. It is still very red even though you can't see it in the picture.

Yesterday the high was 71 and today the high is 35. Ya gotta love Kansas City winters! Here are a couple pics from yesterday before the freezing temperatures returned and I had to turn our heater back on...

So last week we were given a wonderful free gift...a piano. I had been looking on Craigslist for over a year for a free one, but never had a truck or people to help me the minute I was the first one to respond to getting one. We are all excited! John is most thankful to the men who actually moved it into our house for us, while we were in AZ. Ashlyn has already learned 4 or 5 songs. Joshua has learned 2. We are going to try to learn on our own at first with books from the library and hope to eventually get a piano teacher to visit us. We will also need to get it tuned this summer when we have a little extra money. I will try to record some of our "performances" and share them with you.

Today was beautiful outside. Our huge piles of snow are gone! We are so thankful for the change in climate and the chance to take breaks from school today and go outside. We are looking forward to Spring and leaving the flu season. Although none of us have been diagnosed with the official flu, we have had our share of illness this season. Caleb got off his antibiotic about 2 weeks ago for a sinus infection/ bronchitis , Ashlyn is finishing her antibiotic for staff infection (we are not sure where she got it, but had 2 HUGE sores on her finger and toe which prompted us to go to the Dr. last week - she will lose her fingernail and it is already tons better because of a prescription cream she is using on both infected areas), and now Joshua is on an antibiotic for a horrible ear infection that the Dr. said even an adult would cry from. We have been giving him double doses of pain relief the past 24 hours for the pain. There is still tons lingering in their classrooms at school - s

It's funny how quickly spring and the end of the year are approaching. We have entered the week of school enrollment for next year already! Today I was able to sign up 3 of our 4 children. We enrolled Joshua in 2nd grade and Ashlyn in 5th at Faith Christian Academy again. We just love this private school, especially the 3 day of school time and the 2 days at home. We have decided to send Caleb again to Line Creek next year where he will be enrolled in 1st grade. He hasn't signed up yet, but is excited to go there one more year. We will then decide next Spring if he enters at FCA in first grade or second grade, depending on his speech improvement. The exciting news for this year is that I enrolled our last child in preschool today!! Wow, 4 in school! It was very memorable. We had originally decided to send him on Tues and Thurs preschool so I could focus more on Ashlyn and Joshua's homeschooling stuff while he was in school. But decided last minute to go ahead and

John and I were able to go stay with some family over Valentine's Day weekend (Friday morning through Monday evening) for a couples getaway. It was wonderful! The kids all stayed here with Grandma Sue all weekend and it sounds like they had just as much fun. Our first date was 14 years ago, yesterday, so it was nice to be together all weekend. We relaxed, played cards and games, went to see a movie, went to a Swap Mart (flea market), ate out and took some couch naps. A special thanks to the Grothes (and John's grandparents) for letting us stay with them and hang out with their family all weekend. It was a huge blessing! We love you all very much! Oh, and thanks to United who gave us vouchers in Hawaii last Feb when were stranded there. That's the other reason this trip was possible. We don't plan on traveling much now the rest of the year :) But happily await a few visitors this Spring and Summer!

Jonathan and I were able to meet some friends at Fun Run yesterday. Our friends, the Caudles were visiting from North Carolina. It was a great time catching up with them and seeing their adorable children. Here are a few shots from the fun... Jonathan enjoying his Panda Express in the car before we went in. (not recommended, of course!) Jonathan enjoying the slides Me, Jennie, and Lisa posing for the camera

It's official. All 3 of the boys have some form of speech impediment and they get it from me. I caught myself 4 times today mispronouncing key sounds in words. It just kept happening. I laughed at first, but toward bedtime I started thinking, I can't talk! And yes, I am teaching all 3 boys to talk better with therapy sheets in my spare time. I can see us all now in 5 years - the four of us having our own little conversations that John and Ashlyn will never understand. I'll keep you posted...

This year the kids seemed a little more interested in the Superbowl. Ashlyn asked us who the Steelers were the night before and Joshua went on and on about the lunch conversations they had Friday about who was going to win. We don't watch much football around here. In fact, I don't know if other than a Husker game once, they have ever really watched football. This would kill my step dad who made football Sundays a priority in our home growing up. Either way, John told the boys that they would all watch this one together and "hang out." So all 4 kids made a snack bar for the game. They had a hot dog stand, a drink display, and chips and snacks for sale. I wish I had taken a picture of it all. It was very creative. Other than some pretty inappropriate commercials, cold hot dogs and a really long game, I think they enjoyed themselves. I was able to catch up on some computer work I have been doing. Maybe next year we will skip the traditional Superbowl Party

Caleb was so excited to climb for the mail (the postman, however, left us a nice note to remove all the snow the city forgot to move in front of our mailbox - notice the mailbox across the street is almost buried) The snow in the back yard was about 12" everywhere with some 14" drifts. Our trusty shoveler s again - they did this 5 times over a 24 hour period!

I have to admit that one thing I love about public school is the many different "special" classes they offer. They have Music, PE, Computer Lab, Library and Art classes rotated throughout their normal class work week. Caleb loves all 5 classes and can't decide which is his favorite. It is also so neat to go to the school and see how all 5 of those teachers love Caleb and know him so well. That would be a hard job to remember all the K-5 th students that file through your classes each week. Either way, he always is so excited to share what he has done that day. I think I must have been out of the loop recently in music class though. Last I had heard, they were playing a variety of instruments and working on harmony between them all. When I got back from my trip, we were all hanging out in our bedroom catching up from the week. All of a sudden, Caleb started dancing. We were cracking up and wondered where he learned the dance he was dancing. We asked him to do it

I wish I got some of this on video, but I didn't. So here are a few intersections on camera. Notice that cars just wiggle their way through traffic, trying not to hit the pedestrians and motorcycles weaving in and out of the cars driving. Lanes don't really matter and horns are a way of letting you know they are coming over...

On the first day, ready to begin.... And our last day, right before school started...

Here is the small town we were able to minister to last week...it is about 20 minutes from Santa Domingo where we stayed.

More videos and photos coming soon....it's so windy and we have about 10 inches so far! John has shoveled 4 times already! I am able to work on my DR pictures now so they should be on here soon too.

It sounds like everything went very smooth at home while I was out of the country last week (minus one day Joshua forgot his coat and lunch for school). It snowed right after I left so John took the kids sledding a couple times. The first time, Caleb smashed his face into the cement. I was able to see that picture on FB one day I logged on without knowing it happened! The picture looked alot worse than his actual face when I got home. The second time they all went, Caleb was at school while the others were home schooling. Jonathan through a big fit and didn't want to go down the big hill. But after a little push, he loved it. Here is that video story (3 videos in all) and a couple pictures from sledding: It's funny to hear how differently school time went without me. But, it all seemed to work. I haven't seen any missing homework and most of their grades were close to what they usually are with my teaching. Both Grandma Sue and Grandma Peggy helped watch Jonathan