The Hanson Crew

Spoken in a soft, cute and innocent four year voice before lunch today... "Thank you Fadder for church today. And thanks for Grandpa Gary being the birthday boy. And for Jesus dying on the cross. Amen."

I am excited to share about a couple changes we made to our kitchen this month. Yesterday, I finally got around to hanging some Christmas lights above the cabinets. We don't have a lot of light in there and because our cabinets have drywall above them instead of an area to display fun decor, I decided to decorate them with lights right above molding that is there. I still hope to apply some black stenciling on the walls across there too one day to finish it off. Here is an attempt at showing you what the lights look like on using my camera phone. The image is not that great... A second project I completed was moving our desktop computer into our kitchen. I had to make a hole in the desk and buy a gadget to help hide the cords so the computer case could go under the desk, and reorganize some of my kitchen stuff for the project. We had been wanting to move it into the kitchen ever since we bought the flat screen for it. The kids will use this computer for school, webkinz, and s

It's funny how Caleb's speech therapist collection has sure grown the past 4 years. We began with Miss Catherine, who has since become Mrs. Catherine and still our favorite. He was able to see Miss Catherine for 2 years at Clay County and where we saw the most improvement. While he was seeing her his second year, he began school district therapy with Mrs. Angela too. We really liked her too, but the relationship ended when we move from Kearney. Once in our Coves home, Caleb saw Mrs. Angela (another therapists with the same name) at the early education center and Miss Jessica at Children's Mercy. Because of schedule conflicts, we switched therapists half way through the school year at the early education center and started seeing Mrs. Diane. She reminded us more of Miss Catherine and we really liked her alot for those 5 months we saw her. Well, when Caleb started Kindergarten this past fall, he began speech at his new elementary school. We were very impressed with Mr

Ashlyn and I enjoyed a Homemaking class together this past week that we hosted in our home. We learned how to make macaroni pizza, teddy bear beach cakes, and watermelon whales. We hope to make them again for future parties. Here are a few pictures decorating the cake, carving out the watermelon, and the finished macaroni pizza. Our wonderful teacher Tenderrlee is in the last photo with the finished products. These classes have been such a wonderful blessing to our family this summer...

Last night our crew went to our first KC Royals baseball game together. John was given some free tickets from the radio station he advertises on. They were really good seats and included free parking. So we paid for $20 worth of hot dogs, pops, and peanuts. We also go a free Hy-vee Fireworks show at the end. It was a great (hot) night! Here are a few pics...

We are slowly preparing for the 2011-12 school year this past week. This means we have ordered our curriculum, bought some supplies, and organized our school room. We are still working on unfinished worksheets, reading, and buying more school necessities the rest of the summer. I am excited for the room. We have 4 divided corners of the room. A play corner, mainly for Jonathan and Caleb, a school corner where we will spend Tues and Thurs mornings, a craft/game corner where we all enjoy playing, and a book nook, specially created for and by Ashlyn ... The play corner (more room without the train table now) The school corner The organized school closet (stocked with new books and supplies) The craft/game corner (along with school supplies on the table) Ashlyn's Book Nook (with an organized book shelf w/books by subject/author/category)

My good friend Svea, fellow FCA 2nd grade mom, has organized Friday field trips for the summer. They are free and fun things to do and see around Kansas City. Last week, we went to the Kansas City Museum (pic above), which we had never been to yet. Tomorrow, we are going on a tour of Hy-Vee, a local grocery store similar to King Soopers in Colorado. We are excited because it is a newer store and we have been promised some free samples and tours of the "back room." We'll let you know how it goes tomorrow night. Following the tour, our crew is going to the Hy-Vee game night at Kaufman Stadium for a KC Royals game. The kids are excited for the game and fireworks and John and I are most excited about buck night hotdogs, peanuts, and drinks...

At the beginning of summer, I signed the kids up for "free" summer bowling at two local bowling alleys. We had hoped to find some garage sale bowling shoes for at least two of the kids, but never found any their sizes. So we finally got around to trying our free bowling coupons this past week. The shoe rental was $17 for all 3 kids, which was a little more than I hoped for. We bowled two games for free. I think the kids enjoyed it, but we probably won't go back again this summer (without John and a $17 gift card!) Caleb won the first game and Ashlyn won the second game. Here are a couple of pictures for the summer memory book...

Yesterday afternoon while Caleb was enjoying the day with Grandma Sue, the rest of our crew went to the $2 movie theatre. I had been trying to convince my children to go see Soul Surfer with me all month, and only Joshua seemed slightly interested. Well when we found out that Thor was the same time, Joshua quickly joined the father/daughter pair who was going to see it. So that left my little buddy to go to Soul Surfer with me. A big bag of M&Ms and the bribe was complete. Jonathan and I saw Soul Surfer while the other 3 saw Thor. We LOVED our movie and the kids liked Thor. Not too bad for a $10 afternoon (oh, $11 counting the dollar store M&Ms)!

A little while back, our family started watching all of the Harry Potter movies from the beginning. We enjoyed most of them. The younger two missed alot it because we were watching them near bedtime, but everyone will say they have seen them all. Today we used some gift cards to go see the finale in the theatres. We don't all go to the movies often at all. Especially, all 6 of us! So it was pretty exciting. The movie was really good too. We have never read the books so we didn't know the ending before we went. Now we want to start them all over again. We recommend this one too if you like the series. I wonder what series we will begin next...

The kids and I enjoyed a new recipe last night that I learned at a cooking class this summer. It is a twist on Spaghetti, which we eat alot of. The really nice thing about this meal is that it makes 2 pans so you can freeze one for another time. I might use the other for a meal last minute at our home or give it to someone at church needing one. The cost of the meal is less than $10 and you get two meals! It's wonderful. Here is the recipe: Spaghetti Pizza 1 lb Spaghetti 2 eggs 1 cup milk 1/3 cup parmesan cheese 1 lb hamburger (browned and drained) 1 - 46 oz jar/can of spaghetti sauce (or 2 Ragu jars) 1 lb shredded mozzarella cheese 1 pkg sliced pepperoni (you'll probably have some leftover) Cook spaghetti and drain. Divide between 2 buttered (or sprayed with pam) 9x13 pans. Combine eggs, milk, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Pour 1/2 mixture over each pan of spaghetti. Combine hamburger and spaghetti sauce (simmer). Divide between 2 pans. Top each pan with mozz

So after months (really about a year) of praying and deciding, we will have 3 at FCA next year! One 1st grader, one 2nd grader, and one 5th grader! Caleb is very excited and now that I have ordered what feels like a banks worth of textbooks, we are not changing our minds. Caleb did great on his 1st grade test and we feel like re-doing kindergarten at FCA will only make him bored. He would be going from 5 full day of school to 3 half days of school. That class is fairly large and the first grade class has a couple of his church friends in it. He has made enormous strides in speech this past year and know as long as he keeps getting therapy while he is at FCA, he will do great! We have started home schooling today for the rest of the summer to focus on his handwriting and phonogram cards. We are still in contact with Line Creek about receiving 2 days of speech there for the fall, but are pretty confident that will all work out (hopefully on Tues/Thurs so he doesn't miss FCA sc

This is Joshua's last week of coach pitch baseball. I wish I could say he has really enjoyed it, but he hasn't. He has improved though. His friend Caleb from school asked him to play and we are glad he tried it. He said he would like to try another activity next time. Joshua is going to be our boy that loves things like Boy Scouts, Science Experiments, and Drama productions - probably not sports. Here are a few pictures of his last game...

I feel like I should buy one of those "I SURVIVED!" t-shirts for this boys trip. I just knew I would tip over some time on the trip and it never happened! All of our stuff and crew made it back home without being soaked (on accident). It felt great. The weather turned out to be better than we thought. We got there in pouring rain, but it stopped when we got out of the bus. And it only sprinkled most of the first night. The second day was really foggy at first and then only rained here and there. That night was the worst rainfall and we were already in the tent so it was perfect. The last day was pretty hot, but the cold water felt wonderful! Here are a few favorite pictures of the trip (the last one was taken just to show that I was there.) It was sure memorable and I am so glad that I was able to go. I will know each year now what they are talking about when they go back. I have to admit that the Hilton and Mall of America (our girls trip in 2 weeks) does still

Last year was our first annual boys and girls trips. John hopes to take the boys on a canoe trip every summer while Ashlyn and I get away for the 3 days they are gone to enjoy some part of the US. Well this summer, Uncle Chris was planning to go with John, Josh and Caleb on the boys trip. They changed the dates a few times and finally schedule it for tomorrow (the 5th) through the 8th. Ashlyn and I invited Rylee and Aunt Carol to visit Mall of America for 3 days. We are planning on going to the theme park there, shopping, and visiting IKEA. Because Jonathan wasn't included on either trip, we planned our girls trip for a different weekend than the boys trip. That way while we are gone, the boys could all camp out in the backyard or the lake so Jonathan had a mini-boys trip. Well, Uncle Chris went to CO this past week unexpectedly and John tried multiple people to fill in for him. Most people work Wed-Friday and it was hard to find another guy who could take off work that qui

We enjoyed the 4th with my best friend's family in Smithville. We had a BBQ, swam, played at a great playground and watched the fireworks show by the lake. Here are a few pics...