Sparky, A Cowboy, & #3

I went to Josiah's CC classroom this week.  I had never been in his class in our new group.  I was assigned to be in Henry's class for the first six weeks, and then it always seemed that Henry's class needed more help, so I kept going back there.  But, I was finally glad to see Josiah in action.  What I discovered was that he was doing just fine.  He sat nicely, was quiet when he was supposed to be quiet, and repeated after the tutor when it was time to do so.  Besides being a bit long-winded on his presentation, a habit of his, I don't know how often I'll be in there.  It was good to be reminded that he can do his schooling well and with a good attitude, something that tends to get forgotten when he's home.  When they did tin whistle time, one of the boys who was looking at the sheet music asked, "What's the hashtag for?"  Generational problems, I suppose.  (Sharps.)

Henry usually does school fairly well at home.  For handwriting one day this week, he decided to throw in a little humor.  He was supposed to write "M m," but instead wrote,

I think it's because this book taught him to start his M's at the top, then go down, then back up and do two humps.  I haven't liked that approach because he always turns it into a W, so I've tried to correct that teaching and tell him to start at the bottom.  The arrows, however, were all Henry.

Mid-week, Henry told me he felt like he had to throw up.  He didn't seem like he was sick, so I just casually told him to stand over the trash can.  Then he proceeded to throw up and I felt bad for not really believing him.  Caroline came over, leaned over the trash can with him, watched everything, and talked the whole time.  She would not stay away from the germs.  It must have been a 5-minute bug because after that amount of time, Henry asked for some food.  All day he asked to eat and drink and in no way acted sick.  Maybe he just wanted a day off of school.

Caroline thinks she's ahead of her time in the reading department.  In the car, she asked, "Can you turn the music down?  I'm trying to read my book?"  Well, are you now?  She's 3.  Every word that starts with a "C" is still Caroline.  She's not exactly reading yet.

One thing they never tell you about parenthood is that you'll have to buy a Costco size supply of Scotch tape every few months.  Some days I have to hide the tape just to slow up the usage.  Caroline has been making a lot of "pictures" that consist of very little writing, but she has covered the entire sheet of paper with tape.  This one has an "H" for Henry, a "5" for his age, and half a roll of tape.

For Awana this week, it was Character Quest and the kids were allowed to dress-up.  When the kids first thought about costume ideas, Josiah wanted to be Patrick Henry.  After quoting Patrick Henry's famous, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" to Josiah, he said he didn't like that and asked about Samuel Adams.  All I could think about him was the beer, so I told Josiah we'd have to look him up.  But before we could do that, Josiah decided upon Wingrunner Sparky, his mascot for this Sparks book.

Henry had a tough time figuring out what he wanted to be.  He never said any of his ideas out loud, but he was thinking a lot and finally decided on a cowboy.  A handsome one at that.  This was the first time he put his jeans on in many, many months, so we discovered that he most certainly grew.

Caroline knew right away what she wanted to be.  3.  She wanted to be 3.  So, 3 she was.  She had a three in the front and a three in the back.

At Awana that night, I saw a worker go up to her and hold up three fingers and I could see her mouth, "Are you 3?"  Caroline proudly nodded.  I think the number threw off a few adults, but she was proud nonetheless.

On Saturday, Todd and I participated in our civic duty and voted.  Our library had early voting.  The only person I had no difficulty voting for, and had more than an ounce of confidence in, was our local sheriff.  And that's all I'll say about that.  Todd and I went there separately since the lines were long and we didn't exactly want to have three cranky kids waiting in line for over an hour.  However, we joked about getting up to the voting table, handing them my library card, and asking, "Is this where I pick up my books on hold?"

Newman's Castle & Baptism Revisited

This week we went on a field trip with our CC group to a castle, Newman's Castle.  This man, Mr. Newman, actually built a castle in the middle of the country.  By day he ran his bakery in town, by evenings he built a castle with a friend.  This man allowed our group of 100 to just roam around the whole thing.  Children were running with wooden swords everywhere (provided by Mr. Newman, of course).  He literally lives there, so we were walking through his personal kitchen, bedroom, study, just about every inch of his house.  He didn't mind it at all.  Although it probably doesn't need to be said for a man who lives in a castle that he built with his own hands, but Mr. Newman was not a married man.

The Castle

Since he did own the bakery in town, he provided sandwiches on fresh baked bread for lunch as well as a never-ending supply of freshly baked doughnuts and cookies.  It was so good, I even ate my sandwich with condiments on it.


Josiah made himself scarce for most of the time we were there.  I think he wanted to run with the big boys and we were always trying to figure out where he was.  Henry spent his time between keeping up with Josiah and hanging out with the rest of us.  Caroline and I walked up 4 flights of stairs to the bell tower many times.  By the next day my forearms were quite sore (climbing ladders) and Josiah said his shoulder was sore, probably from wielding a somewhat heavy wooden sword for the better part of 3 hours.

The Bell Tower that we climbed up....a lot!

Caroline hit the tree trunk with her sword.

Josiah and Mr. Newman had something in common - no taste for the ol' ball & chain.

Caroline had no fear of climbing up high things.  She loved being on the giant wheel that opened and closed the drawbridge.  It took a very large man a lot of effort to do it, so there was no issue of her moving anything while up there.

We spent about three hours at the castle, but had to leave to get to karate on time.  By the end of the day, the kids were exhausted.  When we got back to our car after finishing up WAM that evening, Caroline just had a total meltdown because I did not have her water bottle in the car.  It wasn't just, "Gee, I could really use my water bottle at this moment."  It was, "I'm going to scream bloody murder for the whole 20 minute drive home because I'm so tired I don't know what else to do but scream really, really loudly."

This weekend we tried out a new restaurant and after we finished, Henry told me that he really liked it because it was fancy and he liked fancy things.  The restaurant, a Tex-Mex establishment, had hubcaps all over the ceiling in one room, the room we were in had six floor-to-ceiling plastic palm trees, and there was Elvis stuff everywhere.  But it was fancy for a five-year-old.  And what did our boys order in a Tex-Mex restaurant?  Cheeseburgers and fries.  They did look good, though.  Henry asked if we could go back the next day because he wanted to have a fancy meal again.

For church this morning, the boys wanted to dress alike.  They deemed it "red day" and they made up their own pose to go with it.  I've been told tomorrow is "green day" and then "blue day" after that.  I don't know if each day gets its own pose, though.

Caroline wasn't to be outdone by the boys and wanted her picture taken.  Notice the sweater!  We have finally had two cool days.  It is glorious to feel cool air.

But, one of the best parts of the week was that we got Josiah's baptism pictures from the church.  So, here's more of the story of that day:

The morning of Josiah's baptism, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. because that's what I do on big important days.  It was thundering and lightning pretty bad out, which may not be a huge concern except that our church's baptismal is outside.  When 9:30 a.m. rolled around, it was sunny, hot, and about 90% humidity.  One of the pastors said they didn't have to warm the baptismal waters that day (hardy har har) and Todd mentioned how warm the water was.  That would be Texas.  I'm guessing they only have to heat that water maybe one month out of the year here.

Todd got to baptize Josiah.  He said, "Josiah, Do you believe and confess that Christ died for your sins and rose on the third day according to the Scriptures?"  Josiah emphatically said, "Yes, sir, I do Daddy."  (which elicited a laugh from the folks in the sanctuary, which we heard for the first time on the DVD.) Then Todd dunked him.

We do baptism this way because the word baptize literally means, "to immerse."  So, that's why his body is fully immersed.  Also, in the Bible, baptism is always done after a confession of faith.  That's why Baptists don't baptize babies because they cannot confess faith in anything.  The baptism is just an outward sign that you are telling others you believe in Jesus.  Just the same as a wedding band is a sign of marriage.  The pastor told the kids this before they were baptized.  He took off his wedding band and asked the kids if he was still married with it off.  All the kids said, "Yes," except Josiah.  He shook his head, "No."  Basically, we wear the ring as a sign we are married, but it doesn't have any magical powers.  Just like baptism.  It's a sign that we're a believer, but there's nothing magical about getting baptized.  But it is an event to be shared and excited about (much like a wedding ceremony to most).

That evening of Josiah's baptism, Henry called me into the bathroom because he had something to show me.  Once in the bathroom, he proceeded to baptize himself in the water.  I guess he was inspired.

Romans 6:4 "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life."

Boomerangs and Yellow Belts

We learned about Japan, China, & Korea during the Middle Ages at the start of the week.  Our activity to go along with it was to eat a Japanese meal.  Apparently they eat a lot of soup, so I followed the quite simple directions in our book and made a soup of chicken broth, thinly sliced mushrooms, scallions, and some thinly sliced meat (we had beef for beef stroganoff, so we tried to make it work).  I did try to add soy sauce to the vegetables when I cooked them, but it ended up getting dissolved in the broth.  We added a bit of rice to our meal and there we had it.  I was shocked that the boys actually ate their whole bowls of soup.  They ate their mushrooms and scallions!  It wasn't horrible, but it would not be a stretch to say that no Japanese person would have tasted it and been reminded of home.

By the middle of the week, we had moved on to the Aborigines of Australia.  We made boomerangs, but they were one-direction boomerangs that were used to strike animals for hunting.  The kids liked them a lot, because basically we just made weapons for them to throw around. (Josiah was trying to look tough in the pictures.)

At WAM, I had to teach/read the story to our class of three-year-olds because the teacher was out.  It was the Good Samaritan, so I brought our book from home which I felt was simple enough and easy to understand.  It would have been easy to understand if I had more than four kids paying attention.  Of course, that was the moment one of our pastors in the church decided to come in our class to see how we were doing.  He actually tried to get some of the less attentive kids to pay attention, but then I felt woefully unprepared to teach the kids with a pastor in the room.  It's at those moments that I wanted to scream, "I'm just a HELPER!" but in reality, I should have come up with better questions to ask the kids about the story.

We saw Henry's WAM teacher in the hallway after and she complimented him on participating that evening. He did the songs and the hand motions with them.  He was really proud and happy that she told me that, so hopefully that'll encourage him to keep at it.  I still have a video on my phone of when he was 3, doing the songs and hand motions at our old church.  I love that video!

Henry had another big night this week.  He tested for his yellow belt and passed it.  He was so proud to show us when we got home from Awana.  Todd said that he sparred with the instructor, he broke a board with his foot (on the third try), hit the dummy, and earned a belt.  He is one happy kid.

We went out to eat Saturday for a late lunch/early dinner.  After a while of eating and observing several fathers glued to their phones and completely ignoring their kids, I told Todd, "I'm glad you're not always on your phone."  To which he replied, "I'm glad you're not an uggo."  (our term for "ugly")  Keeping it real.

We're still playing lots of cards.  Josiah has gotten so much better with winning and losing graciously.  He's even working on strategy by not making a scene when he is dealt the Old Maid advertising his lot to everyone in the game.  Old Maid has become quite the popular game as of late.  The boys love it when Caroline plays because she loves the Old Maid and doesn't want anyone else to have the card (we got cards with people on them, not a regular deck), so she puts it aside and lets her other cards get taken.  If I happen to lose, I exclaim, "Yeah!  I get a maid!"

The boys were super happy to get a package from Grandma & Grandpa. It came in the evening, and they hadn't exactly been behaving at dinner, so we waited to open it. It is always a tough decision to wait until the next morning to open packages, because our boys dream about them all night long, wake up too early, and are as persistent as anything until it is opened. They were not disappointed. Make your own superhero outfits.

We have a packed week coming up with a field trip to a castle and a Fall party.  Maybe if we have a Fall party, we'll actually get some fall weather.  We're still hovering in the 90s on a daily basis around here.  We're getting desperate for temps in the 70s or 80s.

A Week Off

Our week off of school started out great.  The kids had a couple days of down time, painting, playing, just doing their own thing.

I got bathroom tubs and showers cleaned for which we're all thankful.  It had been a while....

Henry lost another tooth.  He's up to five missing teeth at the moment, but instead of holding him back from eating, he's reverted back to his pre-teeth days and just gums his food as if nothing is wrong.  This technique may serve him well 90 years from now.

We spent a lot of this week playing cards.  It was my goal to teach the boys how to both win and lose graciously.  They both have a tendency to celebrate lavishly when they win and fall apart/melt down when they lose.  So, when we made it to the end of a card game (which didn't always happen if one brother knew another brother was going to win and fell apart early), I made them shake hands and say, "Good game."  We had to start somewhere.  Henry kept asking to play "army" (aka "war"), but could not make it through a game.  Josiah wanted to play Old Maid a lot and every time he got a "J" he'd call it a Jake, a Jace, or a Jester, but never a "Jack."  By the end of the week, Josiah has improved greatly on his sportsmanlike conduct.  Henry, well Henry, he has a ways to go.  That boy doesn't like to lose.

By mid-week, we got busy.  We went to a play on Wednesday morning.  It was the Interactive type play again to where they pull from the audience.  It was a homeschool day and there were only about 25 of us in the audience total, so almost everyone got to participate.  It was Meet the Presidents and they went through every president in the U.S. in an hour.  It moved quite fast and I was surprised at how many presidents died in office.  There were only four actors in the play, so they always had the same guy dying again and again.  The boys really enjoyed it, but I think the adults understood it far better.  Caroline watched it, but got hungry shortly after it began and was tortured by her growling stomach for most of it.  From there we went to eat with our friends, then straight to karate, and then onto WAM at church.
Caroline, "We going to Sam?  What is it? Ham?  What do we do at church?"
"WAM, Caroline."
Caroline has been singing all the songs she has learned at WAM, Awana, and church.  She is quite proud and so sings them all really loudly.  The best part is that she tries to teach the boys the songs, however, they already know most of the ones she knows.  "Boys! Boys! I teach you the Cubbies song.  Sing with me.  We are Awana Cubbies, we're happy all day long...."  Henry usually responds, "Carwowine, I already know that." and he sings it 10 decibels higher than her very loud rendition.

The next day we had some friends come over.  They have three kids also and the kids did really well.  I think it was the best play date they've ever had in terms of their controlling their running around and yelling through the house.  My kids were fascinated by their "baby" who was 20 months old.  They now want a baby of their own.  While I miss snuggling a little newborn baby, I do believe our cup runneth over in the children department.

A nervous Josiah finished his week well, passing his test and earning his yellow belt in karate.  He kicked, hit the dummy, sparred, and earned his belt.

While he was doing karate, Henry and Caroline were at Awana.  Henry earned his "wings" and a red jewel so now he says he's officially a Spark. Caroline was very proud of her barn that she made and all the animals in it.

We started this weekend with a special kind of torture.  I had a wonderful idea to get lots of buckets to sort all the Lego pieces.  It took maybe 10 minutes to put the storage organizer together and that was only because Josiah wanted to help with the screwdriver.  I sat down on the floor and began sorting as a middle-aged lady.  Four hours of sorting later, and I stood up a crochety, feeble, hunched-over old lady.  Todd didn't fair much better, but he at least determined that he'd never do that again.  Now I'm just praying it wasn't a pipe dream to get the kids to keep them this way.

School begins again for us tomorrow.  Personally, I cannot wait to get back to the routine of school and everything else.  It sure fills up our days, but we use our time more efficiently that way.  I think the boys probably feel the same, though they'd never admit it.

Todd's Birthday & Dewberry Farm

Todd and I have learned that it is not exactly fun to take three kids to the grocery store all by ourselves.  However, the kids have learned that it is fun to go one-on-one with us to the store.  I took Josiah to Costco one evening, gave him a $5 and stepped waaaaaaaay back as he went up to the counter and ordered and paid for his own churro.  He kept looking back at me for reassurance, but he had probably the nicest lady at the register.  She was a young lady, but she spoke to him like a proud grandma.  "Well, Hi.  How are you?" she spoke in her sweetest voice.  "You have a good day!"  Then he bought two waters for us from the machine and we sat for a while.  He had wanted to go that evening to get Henry and himself the same type of workbook that Caroline had gotten.  He was excited to surprise Henry with it when he got home.  By the very next evening, Henry was already on page 111 of his book.  Josiah was a bit disappointed, because he thought the workbook was in lieu of our regular school.  Not quite, buddy boy.  Nice try.

Henry went with me to Sam's Club today.  He specifically wanted to go because he wanted to get on a particular cart.  We couldn't find what he wanted, so he settled for a flatbed.  It was just big enough to hold our bag of chips and deli meat.  He happily munched on a Three Musketeers from the free-osk.

All three kids were very, very excited for Todd's birthday.  They sang to him multiple times in the morning and the boys gave him their gifts they had made almost a month ago.
Josiah made him a card,

and his gift was three puzzles that he had made.

Henry made him a card,

and his gift was a tube to hold up that said, "Go Team!" and a #1 finger thing that said, "Go Todd."  (We're working on "space between words" in school, I promise.)

I got him a super cool $7 t-shirt from Walmart and a new picture for his picture frame.  It was a pretty exciting birthday.

One of the best things, though, was that I made him a gluten-free, dairy-free pumpkin bread.  It wasn't looking hopeful when I saw the batter and it looked a bit grainy like most gluten-free items.  But, it magically turned out fairly moist and edible.  Caroline loved it which made me so happy.  It isn't often we score well with her food.  She's been asking to have some of Daddy's cake at every meal.

Todd got the day after his birthday off, which worked out well because Henry had to stay home with him while I took the other two to Dewberry Farm with our homeschool group.  Unfortunately, Henry has been disrespectful a lot lately and had been given many warnings about his behavior.  At CC, he's been falling apart if he doesn't win at a game or he's hidden under a table when things haven't gone his way.  He's also cheered when the other kids have missed answers.  Not good stuff.  He had had more than enough warnings, so he was told if he didn't get in line he wasn't going.  He told us he had an awesome time with Todd.

The morning of Dewberry it was actually cool and not humid.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  We got in the car to make the drive out and five minutes after we left the house, Caroline announced she was hungry.  Five minutes after that she had to use the bathroom.  Didn't you just go???!!  She had to wait til we got there as it was a long drive and we had to be there at a certain time.

This time we didn't have to stay with our group, so we had the run of the place.  They wanted to do the zipline first and they both rocked it.  They wanted me to stay with Caroline since she was little, but she shocked them with her hanging-on abilities.  I didn't mind running with her, but I had no fear of her falling off either. (Caroline on the left, Josiah on the right.)

Caroline loved the pedal cars.

The giant bouncy thing was a hit.

The hoppity-hop swings were fun, but Josiah spun around a little too long.


We even made it out to the itty-bitty pumpkin patch where they got to each pick one out.

When we got home, Josiah immediately gave his pumpkin to Henry.  He said he got it for him, which was sweet.

Josiah's favorite part of the day was seeing our old CC group.  He saw his favorite tutor and got to give her a big hug.  It made his day.

Even after hours at the farm that day, we still made it to karate that afternoon and we couldn't miss Crazy Hair day at Awana that evening.  We were an exhausted bunch that night.

After such a good week, Josiah's weekend did not begin very well.  He got caught in our guest room going through a bucket of confiscated toys that no longer belong to the kids.  He was sneaking some out.  Then I discovered he had also gone through the closet where I keep all their birthday and Christmas gifts.  I was so mad, that I didn't know what to do with him.  I did tell him that everything he saw in there he would not be getting.  I'm either returning what was specifically his, or giving it to Henry, or keeping it for a future birthday party.  I'm sure it'll be funny some day, but not this week.

This coming week is our week off of school.  We are all very excited about it.