Oh, To Be A Kid Again...

We had a super early start to our week.  By 4:30 a.m. Monday morning, all three kids were in our bed and Josiah kept whispering to me.  It was storming all night long and the lightning was almost constant.  We have a very large window in our bedroom, though, so it didn't exactly help the situation for us all to be in there watching it.  The news advised us that it would be several days of rain with flooding, but by the end of the week they were calling it a 500-year flood.  Even now, almost a week later, there are many roads still under water.  We were very blessed to not have any flooding in our neighborhood.

By Tuesday, we were all getting a little stir crazy.  It was wet enough outside that there wasn't much we could do out there, but we needed to get out!  So, we went to the library, where we were able to see how the rest of the city's population was doing, because they were stir crazy, too.  Several local school districts had the entire week off due to flooded roads/areas.

Caroline is now at the in-between stage of napping.  Half the time she does not nap, which makes for a nice easy bedtime.  However, the hours from 1 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. are filled with a touch of crankiness on her part.  Or, she takes a nap during the day and then graces us with her presence until 9:30 p.m.  On days she naps, we still put her to bed at her regular time, and then go downstairs.  Not too much time passes until she walks downstairs, sees what we're watching on T.V., sits down, and says, "That's my favorite show!"  So she's been catching up on old reruns of Friends most nights.  Fortunately she doesn't understand them or we'd be forced to watch something less entertaining.  :)

Our late night lady...and friend.

Josiah has been working on his handwriting more lately.  (If you read what he's written, we're working on nouns as ideas,  I don't normally having him write "I feel love for you. My mother feels love for me."  It was in our book, I promise.)  

We have started the Middle Ages in school.  Technically, we weren't going to start them until we started our new school year (July-ish), but Josiah just loves his history books so we started.  We read about the monks in jolly old England.  Our activity to go along with it was to have a meal "monk-style."  Our menu was: lentil soup, bread without butter, apples, and water (plus broccoli and salmon so Todd wouldn't starve).  We had to go to the store to get the lentil soup.  I found the little dispenser that housed the lentil soup, picked one up and put it in my cart, and then had the boys picked out their very non-monkish Chicken 'n Stars and Star Wars Noodle soups.  At dinner time, I opened the cans and discovered I had bought split pea soup instead of lentil.  I love lentil soup.  Split pea, not so much.  So, Todd took one for the team and ate the split pea.  I ate some of Caroline's noodle soup (literally her rotini noodles in chicken broth).  We had our bread without butter.  We had our apples and water.  What we didn't have, that the monks did have, was silence.  The monks ate in silence.  Todd and I were really looking forward to it.  But about 30.2 seconds into our dinner, Caroline piped up, "Why do we have to be quiet?"  Then Henry needed more food.  Josiah wanted to be the head monk and read Scripture throughout the whole meal.     

While monks lived very modestly, with few possessions, and little adornments, we here have been trying to figure out how to decorate our house.  Putting things on the walls takes a lot of thinking...for me.  I shouldn't have worried about it, though, because Henry has been decorating the walls for us.  

He insists on having the tape this way because when it's hidden in the back, it doesn't work as well.  Direct quote.  

The highlight of the kids' week was the fabulous birthday party they went to.  It was at a bounce house place, which is where the boys now want all their future birthday parties.  The boys ran around and bounced and slid down slides for 3 hours.  Poor Caroline still has a rough cough, so she'd play a little, have a coughing fit, get angry at me for making her rest, break free to play again, cough again, anger at resting again, and on and on.  Truly, I wish she had felt better because then I could have played a bit more myself.  Todd likes to say I'm a 12-year old trapped in an adult body.  I take it as an endearing compliment.  (Most pictures were quite blurry, so these were the clearest!)

Josiah at the top in plaid, Henry at the bottom in green.

Henry and Abby working on their synchronization

Releasing my inner child.

Josiah was in his element at P.E. this week, too.  The instructor had them skip and gallop during their warm-up time.  Josiah skipped so well, that the instructor had him skip in front of everyone to show them how to do it right.  It came as no surprise that something which involved large arm and leg movements was something Josiah excelled at.  I am usually always telling him to control his arms and legs and keep them closer to his body.  I am glad he got called out for doing something well.  

There was more kid fun at Awana that evening.  During their game time, we had a game of kickball of adults vs. kids.  I had a fun time being the pitcher for the adults.  Then I got to be a designated runner for an older lady on our team.  I forgot how fun kickball could be.  I was cracking Josiah up when I ran the bases.  He's never seen me run (so gracefully) before.  

Josiah finished his week up with some special Daddy time.  They had a delicious burger and then picked up a few items at the hardware store.  Todd's been busy with small repairs around here.  

Next week we have our last CC meeting for the year.  It will be bittersweet as we'll be going to a different group next year (one that is closer to home).  That and I think we'll be taking sweet baby Caroline into the doctor's to get that cough checked out.  

Baking and Selling

Josiah is a good kid.  He is smart and creative.  He has tons of energy and loves to play.  But Josiah also likes to talk using a character/cartoon voice a lot.  It became apparent this week that we needed to take more drastic measures with changing that.  Lately it has seemed like he doesn't even know how to speak using his real voice anymore.  So, now, every time he says anything to me using a character and/or baby voice (he likes to throw that in there, too), I just say, "What?"  And he has to repeat it.  And I will ask, "What?" ad nauseum until he says whatever it is using a real voice.  We have tried to couch it in the fact that he should use the voice that God gave him.  It is his unique voice and it should be heard in its original form.  It has led to a bit of frustration on his part.  Hopefully, he will use that frustration to be more proactive in his speech.  He's not the type to just clam up and be quiet as a reaction to all my "what's" either.  He's a talker.

Josiah has also been watching the Kid's Baking Championship on Food Network with Todd.  He has enjoyed it so much that he went through all of my cake recipes and pulled out a stack that he wanted to try.  His criteria seemed to be: 1-Any and all cheesecakes & 2-Anything with blueberries.  So the first cake he made was a blueberry cake.  He wanted to do it all by himself, but since he is not yet proficient in fractions, I thought I'd better help.  (When you read the recipe: "One, one, line, two, tablespoons baking soda." I think you need help with the measuring.)  I knew he wanted to do all of the mixing/baking and so I told him at the beginning that he could do it all.  And yet, he seemed to doubt me, because EVERY step he would say, with much anticipation, "Can I do it?"

When we put the batter in the pan, it went: Batter, blueberry pie filling, batter, crumb topping.  But when we cut into it, the pie filling sank.  It was a very heavy cake, but it did taste good.  At least to most of us.  Henry asked that next time we make a cake with, "no blueberries, actually no berries at all."  He has never been a blueberry lover.

Our neighborhood newsletter had a map of our neighborhood in it with all of the playgrounds shown.  There ended up being a playground within walking distance of our house.  It was down a street we never had any reason to turn on, so we never knew it was there.  So, we made the trek and the kids all had fun.

On Saturday, we joined our neighborhood, and participated in the community yard sale.  There were three other houses very close to ours with their own sales, so it helped create a lot of traffic.  Josiah wanted to sell water bottles.  He set up shop.  His original asking price was $2.00 for room temperature water.  I told him 50 cents at the most.  He was not as interested in manning his station as he was in shopping at our neighbor's sales.  So he had zero profit.

Henry wanted to sell granola bars.  He put about six granola bars in a bag, sat down, and read a book while he waited for customers.  Every now and then he got hungry, so he'd eat a bar.  I think he ate about four of the bars.  Josiah ate two.  Again, no profit.

Todd graciously brought Josiah and Caroline to a few of the neighbor's sales where we nabbed a great beach chair for Caroline for only $2 (in excellent condition).  She also picked up two small stuffed animals, because you know, she didn't have enough already.

Josiah picked up a Spiderman plane.  Then he spent the next several hours getting upset that I would not take him around to more sales to spend his remaining 40 cents.

Sitting at a yard sale makes the time pass super slowly.  Todd spun the boys around for a while, until he couldn't stand up straight. 


We sold quite a bit of stuff (and brought three boxes worth to Goodwill after).

After the yard sale, Todd managed to find more energy to cut down some tree limbs.  The trees were hanging so low that we were having to duck to get around half of the yard.  He said when he was cutting, that he looked up and there was a dove staring at him.  There she was sitting on her nest.  So, he left her alone.

The next day we noticed that she had a baby in there with her.  We couldn't get a good picture of both of them, though.  A branch always got in the way.

By the end of the afternoon, we were all so tired that we spent our $37.80 yard sale profit on dinner.  At least we have less stuff in the house now. 


Caroline spent some of her afternoon tying up her brothers.

I have been working on changing up the chore chart.  Sweeping had to go because the skill level was just not there yet, so I had an open spot on each of the boys' list.  At first I didn't know what task to give them, and then it came to me as I walked into their bathroom the other night.  The smell of urine was strong.  I knew which male was the culprit.  But after cleaning the toilet and the floor all around it, I decided they could wet-mop the bathroom floors.  Easy, and very, very necessary.

We only have two more weeks of CC left and we have quite a few activities that end in the next couple of weeks.  We are looking forward to a more relaxed May before the summer begins!

Arts & Crafts and Messy, Messy Days

This week was filled with arts and crafts.

Caroline can be hit or miss when we do school together.  Sometimes it is completely necessary to have her out of the school room so that we can focus on the assigned task.  Other times she insists on participating with us no matter what it is.  And then there are those in-between times.  If she is given paper, old magazines, scissors, and a glue stick, she is able to sit quietly for a good bit of time.  She loves to cut and glue.

When I bought the boys their pastels, I had no clue how messy they were.  I could see that they were similar to chalk in consistency, but I really did not know what a gigantic mess they could make.  Henry drew seven pictures while Josiah only finished four or five.  The pastel dust was everywhere - all over the table, their clothes, arms, heads, just everywhere.  But they love them, so I just gritted my teeth knowing it would all clean up in the end.

As if the pastels were not bad enough, the boys asked for the billionth time to use the finger paints.  They've been asking for probably two years now and I've always said, "I don't have the special paper to use for it."  I promise, that was a truth.  I have even looked for it, but haven't found it.  I did spend the better part of last weekend cleaning up the homeschool room and found a big roll of  thick paper that they could use, so I conceded.  There is no way on God's green earth that I could be an art teacher.  I just cringed (internally) through it all.  More clothes washed, more bodies bathed.  

Henry spent a lot of the week coloring.  He did not want to be interrupted with it, either.  He just sat quietly working through a Bible activity book for days.  Since he is beginning to learn to read, he is always trying to figure out the directions in the activity books.  He's got the color-by-number pages down.

 Josiah made himself and his siblings Honey Nut Cheerio Bee making kits.  They looked pretty good.  Josiah has been making characters/mascots/etc. like these for a long time.  And they all have to get laminated.

"Time to build Tim the Bee"

Josiah's Bee

We finished our week by doing the Texas Children's Hospital Fun Run.  They have two race routes: the 1k and the 3k.  The boys were telling us all week long that they wanted to do the shorter route.  I think it was because they wanted to finish to get to the snacks and fun at the end.  While waiting in line to start, Todd noticed the Texans cheerleaders.  I snapped a picture and he informed me I could get a better one when we got closer up.

So, I took one when we got closer.  Cool shoes.

Caroline had a rough start to the race.  She tripped and fell twice right off the bat.  The second time, Todd tripped over her because she went down so fast.  But she got up and after that the kids all ran really well.  All 1k of it.


In keeping with last year, they stopped again at the hydration station at the 1/2k mark.  They all medaled, because they're awesome.

Lots of free snacks were enjoyed at the end and then we had a sea of inflatables in front of us.  The lines were not bad at all, so there were quite a few that they would play in and then immediately get back in line.

We left with a lot of swag.  I asked the kids what they enjoyed the most about it.  Henry said he liked the running best, "because it is healthy."  (He's all about "healthy" now because of a PBS game online called Fizzy's Lunch Lab with the evil villain, "Fast Food Freddie.")
Caroline's favorite of the day was the school bus ride.  The shuttle we took from the parking lot to the race.  Can you tell they're homeschool kids?

On the bus!

The kids' new plates arrived in the mail.  Josiah's plates had the latest movie themes, "Superman vs. Batman" and "Captain America (Ironman): Civil War."

Henry went the superhero route as well.

Caroline liked brown.

Henry finished his week with some ice cream.  I gave him the bowl.  He walked into the dining room, turned off the light, and sat down to eat it.  He has a fear that if he eats ice cream with the lights on that it'll melt.  He sure is cute.

Here We Go Again to Urgent Care...

Well, I guess Henry didn't think I had enough to write about this week, so he thought he'd make things a little more interesting this afternoon.  All three kids like to sit on one chair during computer time.  One child has access to the mouse while having their time on the computer.  The other two siblings are not-so-quiet observers.  Henry was one such observer, when he decided to jump off the chair.  Unfortunately he did not calculate distance, depth, or anything else because he hit his head on the corner of the chair.  It wasn't a horrible cut compared to other cuts we've had around here, but it looked just deep enough that it could possibly require medical attention.  So, off he and I went to the Urgent Care facility.  I was hoping for some glue to the forehead and then send us on our way.  Henry treated this visit as a spa treatment.  After putting some lidocaine on the cut, they offered him a juice box.  He partook.

Then after they glued him up, they offered him a popsicle.  He partook.

He was just lounging in the chair like all was cool in the world.  I guess when you've had people work on your face three times in three years you just get used to it.  I was happy that they used glue and not stitches.  He has had a tendency in the past to not keep all the stitches in for the allotted period of time.  I should probably check Amazon to see if they carry skin healing glue and just keep a tube around here.

Our weekend was busy enough as it was.  Saturday, Josiah, dressed as Waldo, woke me up by saying, "Your toast is getting cold."  That got me out of bed fast, because I was worried what else he had prepared along with the toast.  Fortunately, this meal was much more simplistic than others he's made.  It was a Waldo birthday party.

That would be a "hunk" of cheese stick in the middle of the mildly toasted bread.

He had his whole crew with him, Henry as Woof, and Caroline as Odlaw.  He had even gotten down the Happy Birthday sign which I cautiously asked, "How?" since it was up on a high shelf.

We spent the afternoon at the Symphony.  Fortunately, it was a casual children's symphony as you can see by our attire.

Henry, allowing my genes in him to come to the surface, started getting sleepy as soon as the lights went down.  (I fell asleep probably during every single play or performance that I went to throughout school. Once the lights went down I just fell asleep.  I could not control it.)

Caroline, however, did not stop moving throughout the entire performance.  She was walking around our aisle, drawing, talking, in-the-chair, out-of-the-chair, in my lap, out of my lap, pointing at the instruments, checking out what all the other audience members were doing and reporting it back to me, etc.  Nevertheless, as soon as every song was over, she would stand at attention and clap just as loud and emphatic as could be.  She gave those musicians a standing ovation for every musical number.

This was the last number in which they were following a dance.

Earlier in the week, the kids put on their own musical performance for me.  Josiah was on trombone, Henry was on flute (that was played like a clarinet), and Caroline was on drums.  They each wrote out their sheet music and played in perfect harmony.

Look at that expression on his face!

Mid-week, we met with a lady from our new church because she wanted to talk to Josiah about his decision to follow Jesus.  She just wanted to make sure he understood his decision and what it all meant.  Then she took him (and us) on a tour of their baptismal and how it all worked.  Their baptismal pool was outside, so Josiah was able to climb on the rocks to look at it.  Well, Henry and Caroline did not want to be left out of the mix and so scrambled to look at it as well.  Caroline was curious about the temperature and depth of the water, so she decided to put her left leg in.  The church had a safety barrier in the water when not in use, so she only got the water up to mid-calf, but it was just par for the course for us.  The nice lady giving us the tour offered us a towel, and I just thought, no, let her live with a wet leg.  She'll survive.  Needless to say, our tour ended quickly after that.

So, Josiah had this nice conversation about following Jesus and just the day before he tried to demonstrate what that meant.  Caroline had thrown her doll over the ledge and it got stuck in the light.

Knowing she would get in trouble for it, Josiah quickly told me that he would take her punishment for her just as Jesus took the punishment for his sin.  I was impressed.  Henry joined in as well, saying he would take her punishment.  Then I said the punishment would be "no computer" (which is always the punishment because that's what they love the most), Josiah said, "Oh, I'm not going to take her punishment."  Is that what Jesus would have done, son?

Caroline got promoted from her mattress on the floor.  We bought her a bed frame, so now she has a real bed.  It looks a bit like a hospital bed, so I think we're going to have to get a bed skirt to pretty it up.

Finally, where we live we see cows whenever we leave the house.  It was funny when we first moved here, but we've since gotten used to it.  However, at Awana this past Friday, there were cows grazing in the meadow behind the church.  They were right up to the fence so they were pretty close to where we were.  At the opening ceremonies, the director always asks, "Whose ready for Awana?"  Then the kids all shout.  So he did, the kids shouted, and the cows, who had all been grazing nicely, suddenly looked up at us.  I tried to get a picture later of how close they were, but it's a little fuzzy and dark.  

And, thus, a new week begins.  I would say, hopefully a less injury-prone week, but that just seems fruitless.  Let's just hope it's a happy week.  Injuries and all.