Henry, a Mighty Big Fan of Josiah (and Abby)

The boys broke out the pastels this week.  Josiah found them on a high shelf, and since he can read now, he knew what they were right away.  They loved the pastels.  They loved that if they messed up with one of the colors on their picture, they could go right back over it to "erase" the mistake.  I was cleaning up in the kitchen, but could hear their conversations as they were using them.  In between all the words of commendation, I kept hearing Henry break his and saying, "Whoops, the red broke."  "Whoops, I broke the black one."  Of the 12 pastel colors we had, I think he broke 9 of them.  Much like a crayon, though, it doesn't really matter if they're broken.  They still worked.  Henry first worked on a picture of a rainbow.  Sweet, simple.

Meanwhile, Josiah was working on a grass/sky/tree/sun/rosebush/bunny scene.

Henry's next picture was eerily similar to Josiah's.  Henry loves his older brother.

It was clear that the boys have a lot of love for each other, but it became even more clear this week. Henry was invited to the birthday party of one of his classmates, Abby.  Henry was very excited to go and talked about Abby a lot this week.  He picked out a Texas longhorn Christmas tree ornament because he knew she would like it.

He drew two pictures for her, wrote a card for her, and cut out a heart with a picture of a horse in it that he had written, "HENRY, ABBY, HORSE"  He wrapped her gift (she got more than the super cool ornament).  He was geared up to go.  Then Saturday morning came, we got in the car, and as he and I drove to Abby's house he started crying.  Really crying, with big tears coming down his face.  I asked him what was wrong, "It's just not the same without Josiah.  There's nothing to do [in the car], there's nothing to see."  He was so upset to be by himself.  He loves Josiah, and he enjoys his company so much.

Once we got to Abby's house, though, he turned into goofy boy.  He was making us all laugh - just enough goofiness that it was still funny.  And then the party games began.  It started off well.  They had to pin the Snoopy on the doghouse and Henry crushed all his opponents in that.  He got to pick a prize from their prize bucket.  He picked Snoopy bandaids.  (Smart choice for our household.)  Next game they had to guess how many nickels were in a container that they could hold and shake.  These were the guesses from the kids:  100, 10, 30, 20, and then Henry said, confidently and with his finger in the air, "Two Hundred and Thirty-One!"  There were 6 nickels in the jar.  After this game, he lost all the subsequent 6+ games and his goofiness turned into defeat and tears.  After one particular game of a Charlie Brown-style ring toss, he missed all his rings and fell face first on the floor and wouldn't move.  He turned into floppy boy, so I held him in my lap.  The game after that was a game of chance in which they picked numbers out of a jar and you just hoped they picked your number.  His number didn't get called and he just started quietly crying.  At this point, the host noticed and had her husband continue picking numbers until Henry's was called.  Fortunately, after that game, they kids sat down to eat.  Henry was back in his element.  (Note to self.  8+ games is way too many for a 4 year old, especially if he's losing.)

Henry as Charlie Brown

The entire way home from Abby's party, Henry kept talking about her.  We have to invite her over to our house and play all the same games again.  Over and over again, we have to have her over.  Then in the evening as we were getting ready for bed, Henry says, "I miss her.  I love her."

Josiah spent Saturday evening at church with Todd for their Christmas concert.  He really enjoyed it, but told us that he slept through parts of it.  It didn't start until 7pm, a half hour before his bedtime.  He told Todd that he liked to do things just the two of them.  He liked spending time together.

Sunday morning, Henry started to put up a fuss about going to his class at church.  Our typical Sunday struggle with him.  So, this week we let him stay in Big Church with us, if he would willingly go to his Sunday school class afterwards so Todd and I could go to ours.  He agreed, but I believe he lived to regret his Big Church decision.  By the second song in the service, he was already looking bored and chatting and saying he was tired, etc.  Then a little further into service, the kids were dismissed for children's church, so Josiah went to that.  You have to be in first grade at least to attend, so Henry stayed behind.  I looked down at him and he was crying to see Josiah go.  He loves his brother!  I held him some, Todd held him some, He drew pictures, and then said, "I want to go to my class."  :)  He hesitated when we got to the door of his class, but he went in willingly.  When Todd picked him up, his teacher mentioned to Todd that she was going to get harder puzzles for him to do next week since he was so good at puzzles.  Henry's looking forward to that, so here's hoping next week goes easier.

We got our Christmas cards in the mail finally. Henry was eager to sign them, which was awesome.  He even fancied up his letters in some cards which was hilarious. We spent one evening driving around the neighborhoods looking at lights.  There are a lot of houses around here that are decorated, which made the driving fun.

Josiah has been leaving me notes lately.  If I am doing some one-on-one school work with Henry, I will come out to the kitchen to find a note that says, "Sorry Mommy.  I went to play legos.  love, Josiah"  It is neat to see him writing on his own now.  The note actually said, "sorry mommy I wnit to Loege love Josiah."

We learned about Theseus and the Minotaur this week.  As part of that story we built a labyrinth out of Lego for Theseus to go find the Minotaur.  Henry helped out a lot with this.  Josiah, not so much.  Mazes were hard to create out of Lego!  At least, it was not something that we could whip out quickly.  It required thought.  Henry enjoyed moving the Minotaur around and "finding" it as his Lego Theseus went through the maze.  And, you may wonder, why do we learn Greek Mythology at ages 4 and 6.  With the Classical education model we use, we go through cycles.  This year is the Ancients.  We study all about Ancient History and read abbreviated stories about the real or mythological characters in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, etc.  Then when they encounter these same characters later in their education, they are less intimidating (ideally).

We also had a very messy math lesson.  Josiah had to use peanuts in their shells.  We counted by tens and twos.  We shelled them and counted the nuts inside.  Before all of this, I asked the boys to just observe the nuts and tell me everything they could possibly tell me about them.  Then I asked them what they thought was inside the nuts.  Josiah proudly declared, "Peanut butter!"  Henry said, "Almonds!  Wait, no, what's that other one.....Cashews!"  Yep.  Shockingly we found peanuts inside.

Henry licking his salty hand.

 This is how many nights end for us.  Caroline likes to get out of bed and make beds in other areas of the house.  It's what she does.