Trophies and Teeth

We exhausted ourselves last Sunday.  We spent a lot of time cleaning up the front yard - trimming bushes, pulling many, many weeds, and cleaning it up just in general.  The kids wanted to help pick up all the trimmings and the boys help really well.  Caroline didn't totally understand, because after the boys filled the bucket up with trimmings, she dumped it on the driveway so she could fill it up with trimmings in a different area.


While we did the work, we noticed three dead birds in various areas of the yard.  Unfortunately, this isn't an unusual thing to see, but what made it a bit interesting this time, is that earlier in the day we saw a very big bird in our backyard.  It was guarding a bird that it had just killed, and was plucking its feathers out while other birds swooped down at it.  It was a bit grotesque, but at the same time, our eyes were peeled to the window watching what would happen.  Eventually it flew off with the bird in its claws.  So, the kids got a quick lesson in the food chain.  (Although, they did dissect owl pellets last year, so we reminded them of that.  Birds do eat other birds.)

At church earlier that day, I was part of "preview day" in Henry's classroom.  Basically, I was to observe how they do things to see if I wanted to teach a class come fall.  (Although, really, we all know I just want to be a helper.  I'm a good assistant.)  What I did preview though, was that our child Henry is not shy.  He will still say he doesn't want to go to church, it's not fun, etc.  But what I saw was quite different.  He got the class's attention and had them all count while he balanced on one foot (seeing how long he could go).  He danced for them and his teacher informed me that he liked to dance for them a lot.  He talked to all the boys and was quite boisterous with them.  A little bit crazy if you will.  So, as long as he's in this class, I will never believe him when he says he doesn't like it.

Caroline began her week well.  She earned her library summer reading program trophy.  (Really, all she had to have was 20 books read to her, which we probably could have redeemed for her trophy back in June.  However, it required me entering each of the books in the computer, and therein laid the delay.)  The libraries here do not open until noon on Mondays, so she had to wait til then for us to go.  In the meantime, Josiah did not want to be outdone by his little sister because he had still not read all 20 of his books (I didn't let him read little small books for the program, I wanted him to read harder/longer books.)  So, after whining and complaining that Henry and Caroline got to read easy little books, he hunkered down and read a lot of books, completing his 20.  Then Caroline got mad because she did not want to share in the glory of her trophy day.  But, when the trophies were given, all was forgotten, and both were very happy.


Caroline had another big day this week.  Her first visit to the dentist.  I think it may be a love-hate relationship with her.  She got right up in the chair and did exactly what they asked.  She loved that they gave her a new toothbrush and she got to pick a cheap toy out of the toy basket.  But then the dentist looked at her teeth and asked if she was a thumbsucker.  She told her that she needed to stop sucking and to keep her thumb busy doing other things.  Well, we've reminded Caroline since then not to suck her thumb and she gets angry with us.  "No!  I want to suck my fumb."  So, I have a feeling we're going to have to pony-up and get her some braces down the road.  

After the dentist, we met up with some friends at Chick-fil-a.  The boys got to play with their friend, Bobby, at the playground there.  And I got a little adult time with Bobby's mom.  While, we never considered the name "Bobby" for our boys, I almost wish we did, because Caroline always calls him, "Be-bop" and it cracks me up.  We say Bobby, she says, Be-bop.

Later in the week, we went back to the place where we did our homeschool PE class, but this time we observed the homeschool karate class.  It was merely a formality, because we had already planned to sign the boys up.  And, of course, we had to get all the gear that went with it.  One of the instructors told the boys that they were not allowed to play with the equipment at home until they learned how to use it properly.  At the price it cost, I concurred.  But, we had to get it out to show Todd that evening.  Then it all went back.

The boys all of a sudden decided that they wanted their beds bunked again.  They asked me if I could just do it while Todd was at work.  I took it as a compliment that they thought I was so super beast that I could just hoist Josiah's bed on top of Henry's.  I did wait for my super-beast partner and we got it up fairly easily.  Then we watched the kids just run all around, up and down, just crazy excited to be up high again.  Their room looks huge now, too.

We have now been in this house for a full year and we still have one box just sitting in our living room.  It is full of all the stuff we had on our walls two houses ago.  I've looked through it off and on this past year, but now we're finally getting more on the wall.  Caroline finally got some cute pictures on her wall.  I love getting the pictures hung up.

Caroline finished off her week with another "first."  She saw her first movie in the theater.  We all went to see The Secret Life of Pets.  She did pretty well overall.  Every time a scary looking animal was on the screen, she would ask me, "Are they going to come here?"  I don't know when kids learn that cartoon characters aren't real and certainly are not going to pop out of the screen and into the theater.  But she had fun.  The lighting was horrible in the theater, so we had to get a picture of her at home with her ticket.

The kids have watched a bit of the Olympics so far.  Water polo elicited some interest.  We'll see if they show interest in any of the other sports this week.

Henry being oh, so funny.