Thanksgiving "Lite" & Trimming the Tree

We started our week with a "fun" object lesson.  Josiah has been telling us for weeks now that he gets nothing, we give him nothing, he never gets anything.  On and on.  So we gave him what he thinks he gets.  Nothing.

In the pictures he doesn't look that upset, but he was quite upset for a good hour after the sheets went up.  Then he was super helpful and nice for the rest of the day.  It was really nice, but I had a much longer object lesson planned.  The sheets stayed up for 5 days.  Of course with little to do he and Henry wrestled a lot which made for a week of more than normal injuries.  At the moment the sheets are down and not much has changed.  So I have another idea for next week (more long term).

Unfortunately, Caroline did share her stomach bug with Henry and me.  Poor Todd finally gets a few days off of work and he's having to do all parenting/adult duties at home.  For Thanksgiving, Todd cooked the whole meal.  He aimed for it to be ready at 3 p.m.  He timed it perfectly and a few minutes after 3 p.m., he, Josiah, and I sat down to eat.
At 3:05 p.m., Henry and Caroline woke up from their naps.
By 3:15 p.m. Josiah, Caroline, and I were done with our food.
By 3:20 p.m., Henry was done.
All his hard work and it was over so quickly.  He did make a tasty meal.  I did ask what we were thankful for and Henry answered, "I'm thankful for Josiah...wait, Batman.................no, Josiah."

I have to brag on this little guy for just a bit.  Henry is a super sweet kid.  He is generous, funny, and sweet.  He will share pretty much whatever food he is eating.  When we play "Go Fish" he cheers when others get matches even when it means taking cards away from his hand.  He has a nice disposition.  He can still be as stubborn and head strong as any 3 year old, but he's super sweet. And, whenever Josiah is using the restroom for an extended period of time, he'll call Henry in to tell him a story.

Since we were stuck at home all week so we could stay close to our restroom facilities, we decided to put up our Christmas tree on Friday.  We failed our "patience test" of putting up the tree with 3 young kids who want to help with every detail.  However, once the tree was put together all the kids hung the ornaments.  It only took a couple of hours before Caroline let us know that even the "safe" ornaments need to be put up high.  So the top half of our tree is decorated and we have a few stragglers on the bottom for Caroline's pleasure.  The boys and I started to make a paper chain so they could see how many days until Christmas.  However, as we were making it, Henry asked if we could put the "garlic" around the tree and showed me what he meant.  He wanted garland.  So each boy made a really long chain and we decorated the top half again.

We did take advantage of one Black Friday sale.  After our sticker shock of paying full price for shoes last week, I wised up and bought all the kids summer shoes on Friday.  Now we pray I picked the right size.

And a funny story from Caroline.  Todd went to the store to get Gatorade and other provisions.  When he got home, Caroline is yelling "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" over and over again.  I'm trying to shush her to be quieter.  Todd acknowledges her and she says to him, "Shhhh." because Henry's asleep.  I guess the "Shhhhh" negated all the yelling out of "Daddy."

Hopefully next week will be much more exciting since we're all on the mend now.

We Have a Lot to Work On...

Caroline had a huge break through this week.  She has finally mastered the sippy cup with a stopper in it.  I actually thought she'd never master it and we'd just move onto regular cups with her.  She liked her baby sippy cups with the very soft mouthpieces (that had all been chewed through since they've gone through all the kids).  She didn't "get" the ones with the hard mouthpieces, until this week.  Then, the next day she figured out how to drink from straws as she successfully drank both her brothers' drinks (fortunately it was water).  She now insists on picking out which sippy cup from which she would like to drink each day.  Mostly it is a gender neutral ABC123 cup or an animals cup, but if she spies the Lightning McQueen cups in the back she'll ask for that one.

She has enjoyed doing the name puzzles and can actually get a few pieces in the "Josiah" puzzle.  Although she needs help with the "Henry" & "Caroline" puzzles.  She is also putting more words together.  This evening Josiah went to the restroom and Caroline followed after him saying, " 'Siah, Whereareyou?"  She is definitely saying, "Where are you?" but it comes out as one word, and yet it is still distinctly "where are you?"  I think she's heard enough games of hide-and-seek to pick up on this phrase.  We play a lot of hide and seek around here.  I thought it would help the boys learn to count better as I make them count to 20 each time.  Josiah has a strong dislike for the number 15 as well as all the 30s.  He goes from twenty-nine to twenty-ten (I correct him and say "thirty") to forty.  Sigh.  At least we are aware of what we need to work on here.

Josiah started the week with an experiment.  He wanted to freeze a bowl of Cheerios and milk and then observe it throughout the week.  So we did.  He took it out on Day 2 and observed it was frozen.  Day 3 it was frozen and Day 5 it was frozen.  Clearly he has a future in cryogenics.  That reminds me to take it out of the freezer now so that we can get our bowl back.

Josiah finally lost his front tooth.  I think Todd and I are happier that he lost it than he was.  We are thrilled to know that his fingers will no longer be in his mouth constantly wiggling the loose tooth.  We don't do the tooth fairy, but we do have an owl that has a note inside that says, "Whoooooo lost a tooth?  Here's a gift."  with a few coins inside.  He was quite worried that I wouldn't find it because it was still packed up.  Fortunately it was in a box that was from my early packing days which was labeled with a fair amount of detail.  (Towards the end of packing I would just write "garage" on most boxes and I told Todd when we got here that we really needed to open the "garage" boxes because they have a lot of random things in them.)

At CC this week the kids were allowed to dress up like Pilgrims or any historical figure.  Josiah, of course, wanted to participate.  Henry, not so much, despite Josiah's encouragement.  We spent the afternoon before figuring out what he could wear and we went from a Pilgrim to George Washington.  It's sort of the best we could do and he was happy.  Then he "wrote" a George Washington poem and rolled it up like a scroll and put it in his jacket.  He stood up like he was giving a presentation and "read" his poem to us.  After his presentation was over, Caroline got up, stood where he was standing, and proceeded to lift her shirt over her head and smack her belly.  She has become quite proficient at pulling her shirt over her head.  This only started to become a frequent thing with the introduction of long sleeved shirts.  I have no idea why.

This would be the dress rehearsal when he was still happy

Sweet baby Caroline...

Friday morning, Josiah wakes up and wants to dress up immediately.  At 8:30 we are getting ready to go and I notice Caroline had been very quiet all morning.  She is standing next to me in the bathroom as I brush my teeth and I hear a "splash" on the ground.  Up came her breakfast of avocado.  Still in the nice diced cubes.  So there went CC for the day.  Josiah was less than empathetic towards her, yelling at her for messing up his day as she is throwing up for the second and third time.  Again, at least we are aware of what we need to work on around here...  I have to say, I was sort of disappointed that we didn't go either because Josiah and I had practiced his presentation a lot this week.  He was bringing in a lego creation and we had gone through the five things he was going to say about it (without elaborating or going off on tangents).  He had it down.  I'm just hoping he wants to do the same presentation when we meet again.

She was sick all weekend - first it went out one end, then the other.  I fed her lots of rice, rice Chex, fake Cheerios, applesauce, and liquids today.  We're really hoping she didn't share it with the rest of us.

Henry has made a friend at CC.  We had a family join us around week 5 and they have 3 kids (5, 3, & 1 like us).  Their Liam is in the nursery with Henry and they seem to have hit it off.  Today Henry asked if we could call Liam because he wanted to talk to his friend.  He then rattled off his phone number which was about 22 digits long.  I'm glad he has a friend (and from what the nursery workers said, it seems mutual).

This evening Henry drew a picture of our family.  He included George Washington as well.  George has made quite a come back this week.

J, George, H, T, E, & C

Saturday, we went to a real Stride Rite store to finally purchase winter shoes (e.g. not sandals) for Josiah & Caroline.  I had real sticker shock as we always went to a Stride Rite Outlet store before.  The price of their shoes is outrageous!  But all the kids have wide feet so we can't just get any brand of shoes.  Even tiny Josiah, in "less than the 5% for everything" has wide feet.  He got shoes with laces so he can learn how to tie them.  Caroline hopped and ran all over the (very small) store with her new shoes on.  She loves them.  Josiah says he can run faster as well.

I tried to get a picture of J & C with their new shoes when some kid from Siberia snuck in.  Here's hoping Caroline doesn't get her fashion sense from her brothers (as much as she clearly admires them).  

Finally, it is the week before Thanksgiving and we took a walk in nice 80 degree weather today.  As much as we miss Virginia, I'll admit that was pretty nice.

We hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving next week.

Thankful Trees, Trains, & Tinkertoys

This week we started our "thankful tree" for the month of November.  We're a little late in starting, but since we add 5 leaves to it daily, we'll still have plenty of "thanks" on it.  Initially we gathered sticks to put in a vase and hang our leaves from the sticks.  But then I remembered Caroline and decided that was a very bad idea.  So, I drew a tree on a poster board and we tape our leaves to that.  For the first day, I asked the boys what Caroline was thankful for and they said she was thankful for 2 big brothers.  :)  For her other days, I have chosen the things for which she is thankful:  her thumb, her blanket, her shoes, & her cookies.  Speaking of cookies, she can now say "cookie" quite well.  In fact, she says it morning, noon, and night and all times in between.  She loves her cookies.  I think we're going to have to have a cookie fast after this batch is eaten.

Henry would like you to know he drew the sky and Josiah would like you to know he drew the flowers

The boys came home from their Music & More at church on Wednesday with goodies.  Henry had a music CD with his two songs on it that he has to learn for the children's Christmas concert.  We've put the music on and Henry definitely knows the words and hand motions.  He even knows the teacher's directions for the kids because for one song, towards the end, he'll say, "ok, get louder now."  I am really hoping he does all the singing and hand motions when he's at the concert.  We are definitely taking a video!

This afternoon the boys and I went to church to participate in their "Thanksgiving Express."  Basically they got to decorate a box to look like a train.  They had a wrapping station (colored paper to wrap their box), then wheel station, light/license plate station, decoration station (where they wrote what they're thankful for as well as stickers and markers), and a snack station.  All the kids walked around the gym making one long train (with license plates on every car apparently).  The boys really enjoyed it.  Then they watched a Veggie Tales video about being thankful.  Although, given the age range of the children there (Josiah was an older kid in this crowd), 10 minutes into the video, nearly all the kids had gotten up and were running in a huge circle around the gym.  Not one parent attempted to stop them.  I think everyone was thrilled they were getting all their energy out before going home for the evening.

Henry working on his decorations

Todd did a "save" for Caroline at church, too.  Upon dropping her off in her room, she started to cry.  As he was walking away, he heard the lady say to Caroline, "It's ok, would you like some goldfish?"  Noooooooo!!!!  He walked back and kindly said she couldn't eat those foods and we had brought her own snacks.  The idea finally came to me this week to buy stickers that we can put on her wherever we go that indicate her allergies (or in her case, "sensitivities").  On amazon, I found cute (big) stickers that say, "Please do not feed me.  I have allergies."

For school this week, we learned about the underground railroad and slavery.  I wasn't sure if Josiah could understand the concept of slavery, but he asked a lot of questions and seemed to have a decent understanding (for a 5 year old).  We had some really good books from the library that he liked.  We read a book about the patchwork quilt system to help slaves escape the south and he requested we read that a lot.  Also, he has learned to read quite a few words by now and one way we review them (without being boring) is by forming sentences.  We each take turns making sentences and he loves to make funny sentences.  Fortunately we learn a few articles along with our families each week, so we have enough words to make proper sentences.

Henry surprised us during prayer time this week.  We always read the Bible and pray before bed and we give the boys both opportunities to pray if they'd like.  Usually they do as long as they get to pray first.  When Henry prayed, he prayed for "the black man, the white man, and the red man."  Todd and I looked at each other strangely wondering where he got this until we realized he was looking at the color clothing people were wearing.

This week I finished reading the Duggar book written by the four oldest daughters.  I read it hoping to pick up some parenting tips and they really had a lot of good information in it.  One thing their parents do is the Obedience Game.  So we gave it a try.  We had the kids line up and then say something like, "Josiah, I want you to run around the ottoman 3 times, touch the front door, give me five and go back to your spot."  He has to say, "Yes, ma'am/sir, I'd be happy to."  So, they are doing fun things, but we're getting them to respond respectfully and with a good attitude.  We seem to struggle with attitudes around here.  I think not a day goes by that I don't question, "What am I doing wrong?"  At least they really like the game.  Caroline likes it, too, and will sometimes follow our directions, but sometimes she'll just spin in circles over and over again.

Caroline ran out of her soy milk on Monday, so we went early in the morning to Walmart (which has the economy size Organic, non-carrageenan Soy Milk - we buy 5 at a time).  They already have all their Christmas stuff out, including candy.  The boys were very happy to get their very first Pez dispensers.  The store is not very far from our house and Henry had finished his candy before we arrived home.  He's not one to savor things.  During school one day, Henry occupied himself by drawing a picture of the Pez dispensers.

And one story that was funny for us.  Henry asked about a toy that he hasn't seen since we've been here.  He kept saying that Max and Charlie gave it to him and Josiah.  Josiah said it was a rocket.  It was also an airplane.  We were totally confused, so Henry said he'd draw a picture for us:

Yep, that's the picture.  Then he said it was a cart.  That was my clue.  Tinkertoys.  I always made them a cart out of Tinkertoys.  But we got them as a door prize at MOPS, not from their cousins.  And they didn't make it here.  I threw them away because most of the pieces were so torn up and broken.

And here's Todd pretending to be a gorilla and getting the kids while in their fort.  (We were in the process of getting ready for church which is why Josiah is dressed up and Henry is half undressed.)

Caroline making the gorilla face with Todd

Picture Day

I was a little nervous to write a blog post this week because when I went to upload my photos from the camera, there were only 10 on it.  That is sort of how I chronicle my week, so 10 pictures was a dismal turnout.  Usually there are 60-90 photos per week (including about 20 that are the boys taking blurry pictures of walls, ceilings, and toes).  So, this may be a short one.

Caroline can now say, "Go" and "thank you."  Todd has never heard her say "thank you" yet, so he's suspicious about that one, but the boys and I heard it one day.  It was very clear, but it hasn't been repeated since.  She has gotten fairly good at saying, "go."  She usually says it to tell me to "go and get her something, like a cookie."

Josiah has done really well with his reading.  I think the light bulb went off when we started the different families (-ap, -an, -ad, -at, etc.).  It is neat to hear him sound out words because he desires to know what the word says, not because we're pushing him to sound it out.  He got some free reading material in the mail recently, too.  Being in a rental, we get all sorts of mail for many different people.  This past week we got 3 Lego Club magazines, so we gave one to each of the boys.  Then we went to Sam's Club and the best part was they read the magazines the whole time, oblivious to the many toy aisles and with it the begging us for everything they see.  Score.

Every meal, every snack, every time Josiah eats even the smallest bit of food, he requests that I read him a book.  He likes to eat and read.  While I love that he wants books read to him and I often oblige, I'll be glad when he can start reading books to me!

For his CC presentation this week, he did another movie.  This one was of Pete the Cat and he drew different colored shoes on him for each page.  He sang a song, "I love my white shoes." to go with it.  It turned out cute.  Then this evening Henry pinched his inner thigh on the toilet seat (he really hurt it) and he requested that Josiah show him the Pete the Cat movie he made, so Josiah did the movie for him.  Josiah also read him the Peter Pan book, so it was nice to see Josiah attempt to cheer him up and for Henry to want Josiah to cheer him up.

At school this week, the director took pictures of all the kids and their class.  She went in the nursery and tried to take pictures of the little kids as well.  Caroline did not want to smile for her.  Henry has been wearing his Mickey Mouse sweatshirt for the past week.  It was a gift for Caroline, but he really loves it.  He says that people will think he's Mickey Mouse, but he's really not because he doesn't have yellow shoes.  As if that were the only reason.  Yellow shoes.

Mickey

Josiah's class & his tutor - 7 boys and a girl

One game we play fairly often is, "Who am I?"  Basically we can be anyone, but we usually use Bible characters, super heroes, or animals.  We say, "I am a (wo)man."  "I am in the Old Testament." and on and on until they guess who I am.  The other day, Josiah and Henry were in the back seat playing the game just the two of them.  They were cracking each other up because they could easily guess each other's person.  The best was when Henry said, "I'm a racoon...with a gun."  That would be Rocket Racoon.  The other easy one is, "I am a tree." Groot!

I had a good Thursday evening, as I went to a Ladies Night Out with some ladies at church.  We had a 5 Favorite Things party.  We each brought 5 of our favorite things and we'd leave with 5 different favorite things from the other ladies.  It was a lot of fun and they have a really fun group of ladies.  I even figured my way home in the dark which was even better since I was in a new (to me) part of town.

And cute photos of Henry taking a nap. He still naps 1-2 days a week. He could probably fall asleep every day if we let him, but that would make for pretty miserable evenings since he doesn't want to go to sleep at his regular time when he naps. Interestingly, both naps this week involved Waldo. A book and a puzzle.

Balloons, Batcaves, & Bills

This week was an "off" week for our CC homeschool group which is always nice.  We always need extra time to catch up on our memory work.  This week, Josiah learned the "-at" family in his phonics/beginning reading lessons.  He learned how to read: bat, cat, hat, mat, pat, rat, & sat.  This boosted his confidence a lot about reading and has since tried to read more in books.  We are doing the "-ap" family next.  He now asks to do his Alphabet Island (our curriculum) lessons first thing which is encouraging.  As part of his CC work, they learn how to skip count from 1s to 14s (basically multiplication tables).  So, Todd introduced Josiah to his Schoolhouse Rocks DVDs and they became a daily request.  In addition to the different "numbers" songs, we listened to "I'm just a bill" song a lot.  It's catchy and educational and Josiah asked more about how bills become laws, so that's a win.

"I'm Just a Bill"

Josiah has also been practicing his tin whistle and has gotten quite good at playing Mary Had a Little Lamb.  It surprised me how quickly he picked it up.  He seems to really enjoy it.  Another stepping stone to get to the beloved tuba.  With it, we are teaching him about the different notes (whole, half, quarter, etc.) so it's a math lesson all tied into one.

He has also perfected a new trick when climbing the walls.  He can now turn around!  

Of course, Caroline watches everything he does and now tries it herself.  

This week she has also tried to climb out of her crib.  She hasn't made it yet, but she's awfully close.  It will not be good when she's able to do this because I anticipate she'll head straight for top bunk.  

She has also taken to throwing the boys' lego creations.  She picks them up and hurls them so they crash into a bunch of pieces.  It is not good.  The boys have come up with one way to try and protect their batmobile, batwings, etc. in their newly dubbed batcave:

The Batcave

She is turning into the little artist herself.  She is often drawing lines and dots.  Short lines, long lines, and many dots.  After making some marks on a paper, she holds it up for us all to admire it.  (And you must admire it or she will yell at you until you do.)

Speaking of artwork, Henry had a prolific week of drawing.  He did superheroes, balloons, and ninja turtles.  He did very well!  Every time he shows his Superman picture he is always humming the Superman tune thing (da-da-da-daaaaaa).  Something like that...

Superman

Batman

The Flash

The Joker

Caroline especially loves the balloon pictures.  She is obsessed with balloons right now and can pick them out in books in an instant.  Henry was nice enough to draw a balloon picture for her which we hung near her crib.  On Thursday, we did a balloon release as a celebration of life for our friend's baby.  It would have been her second birthday that day.  The kids were excited to do it, but then showed a bit of reluctance to release their balloons.  Josiah let go when I said to, but Henry held on for a while and Caroline only let go by mistake.  

J letting go; H holding on.

We also played "teacher" to each other earlier in the week.  I drew a picture upside down and the boys had to follow my directions step by step and then turn it over to see what the picture was.  They had a good time and then each took a turn giving directions and creating a picture.  (I had them do a queen, Josiah drew a king, and Henry had us draw a robot.)  They both did really well at giving directions.  We then tried it a second time and things fell apart.  

The kids each got $5 in their Halloween cards from Grandma & Grandpa so we went to Five Below to spend it.  Josiah got a transformer and Henry got a skateboard.  They were super excited.  When we got home, Caroline quickly claimed the skateboard as her own and fortunately understood me when I said to sit on it and move around that way.  I always have a fear now that she's going to knock out the other front teeth.  They seem so vulnerable!

She's a cutie!

Speaking of Halloween, we did not go trick-or-treating (we did the fall festival at church last week).  At the last minute, Josiah decided he wanted to dress in costume, so he dressed as Captain America and knocked on our bedroom door.  I'd answer it in funny voices and give him candy.  We did this quite a few times.  Henry was talking to Todd about trick-or-treating and said, "If we can't go trick-or-treating, can we just go to people's houses to visit?"  He's a funny one. 

On Saturday it finally got cold.  For the first time we wore long sleeve shirts and jackets.  The boys were very excited to get their blankets back on their beds and even slept a long time that night.  (Yeah!)

And just a few more things:

Josiah made a marshmallow bridge.  It was not exactly steady as it was made out of mini-marshmallows and toothpicks, but it was fun for him to make.

Caroline ate cold refried beans tonight.  It was our intention to give them to her warm, but she got a taste of the cold ones when I spilled a drop on the counter top.  She ate 3 bowls of it.  I hate to see what awaits me tomorrow in the diaper department.

Todd reading the kids a bedtime book.  Caroline is always right there with the boys.