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.