Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday started out with a trip to the doctor's for Henry.  His rash was still all over his body and he told me that morning it "burned."  That didn't sound good.  Pediatrician offices during shortened holiday weeks are always delightful.  Henry contentedly sat back in the waiting room and watched The Little Mermaid.  The doctor said it looked like a strep throat rash and gave us antibiotics.  We totally didn't expect that, so we were very glad we went.  He and I went off to Costco to get his meds and had a bite to eat while we waited.  Henry had asked for some chocolate ice cream, and when we got in line he said, "I think I'll have a hot dog, too."

Josiah was a little upset when I relayed Henry's height and weight after his doctor's appointment.  He went upstairs and weighed himself, coming in 7 pounds lighter than Henry.  Josiah has actually closed the weight gap by a few pounds, so he's doing really well, but to him he only saw he was lighter.  However, when it comes to height, both boys talk about how Josiah is taller and bigger than Henry.  Even so, I spoke with Josiah again about body types and sizes, etc.  I told him some of his strengths with his body, namely he's super agile and flexible.  He can contort his body and move it every which way.  He was pleased with this and made sure everyone knew he was flexible.  ;)

Todd had a moment with Henry this week.  Oftentimes Henry seems more mature than his age, and yet there are times that he is clearly only five.  When he went to bed one night, he wanted to make sure he put on his Ninja Turtle cape that attached to his pajamas when he woke up.  He had put it on his nightstand table which was at his eye level, but he was still worried he'd forget it.  So, he had me write a note that said, "Don't forget to get your cape." and placed it on top of his cape.  The next morning, he brought it downstairs and asked for Todd's help getting it on.  He's still just a little guy wearing a cape thinking he's a superhero.

The boys made a clubhouse in the school room one day.  They were tired of Caroline messing with their things as made clear through their signage.

No girls allowed except Nana
Boys are free, ages 5-10.

The boys were all into magic tricks for the first half of the week.  Nana & Grandad graciously sat through many, many, many magic tricks.  Henry had us pick a card, look at it, then he put it back in the stacked deck and found it.  He had some success with it, through much practice.
Josiah's trick had him spread the cards out face down, we picked a card and held it.  He picked up the rest of the cards and then spread them out face up.  We put our face down card back in his face up deck.  He picked the cards up, shuffled them, flicked the deck for good luck, and then spread them back out face down.  Miraculously ours was the only face up card showing.  While the trick was obvious to any adult watching, it seemed to genuinely surprise Josiah.  He really thought he was doing some magic.

For it being Thanksgiving week you would think that meals would have been set and planned, but poor Grandad & Nana had to deal with lots of failed dinners.  One night my meat wasn't thawed.  Another night we scratched the meal due to forgetting side dishes.  Fortunately Todd cooked them a good steak, they enjoyed a Smashburger another night, and I stayed away from the Thanksgiving meal so that it all turned out well.  Nothing says hospitality like having our guests cook the feast.

We did take the opportunity to take a couple of pictures.  We got a nice one with the Grandparents/Grandkids.

And we got our turkey pictures.

The kids have been a bit on the wild side the whole week it seems.  Grandad has helped get the boys outside by practicing throwing balls.

They made paper airplanes and flew them .

We tried to get a little bit of that energy out at a playground Thanksgiving afternoon.  They had a lot of fun and were very, very loud.  I sort of felt bad for the guys playing basketball that my kids were so loud, but not bad enough to tell them to quiet down.  They played tag which was really fun to watch.  They were running, chasing, screaming, squealing, and just having fun.  Caroline kept asking me to help her, "I want to do the gym."  I don't know why she called it the gym, but she was consistent.

She and Henry swung really well on it.  The boys liked to slide down the parallel bars, too.

It was our goal to paint the front door and weather-treat the fence while Grandad & Nana were visiting.  So far, we've done neither, but I somehow got to paint the downstairs bathroom, even though it was "perfectly fine as it was" according to Todd.

The perfectly fine bathroom of the previous owner.

The previous owner really liked the light, pastel-ish lime greenish color.  She had painted three rooms in the house this color.  I was never a fan of it.  The kids wanted to help out.  They finally got to help paint the wall behind the door.  I documented their painting.

Then while I was doing touch-ups today, Caroline documented my painting.  It was tight quarters and I liked to test out all warnings.  "Do not sit or stand on top step."  Well, we'll just try that out and see what happens.  We'll even do it in flip flops just to make it more interesting.  

Henry's a  funny kid.  Last night he came into our bed a few hours before dawn.  I heard him running to our room and he runs with a very heavy foot.  As he woke up this morning, he climbed over me to get out of bed, and he said, "I run to your room when I have a bad dream.  I walk to your room when I have a good dream."  But either way, he's coming at 2 a.m.

Today I took Henry to Sonic.  He had been asking me for several days to go just the two of us.  He's a fun kid and good company.  He was very sweet and brought home a bit of his milkshake and his cherry for Josiah.  When Josiah first saw Henry's Sonic cup, he went into meltdown mode, but was very happy to get that cherry.

Our school starts again tomorrow.  Josiah keeps saying we're not starting back up until January, so I'm sure it'll be a good day with lots of happy, focused learning.  

Grandad & Nana Visit

It has been one exciting week for the kids.  It was their sixth week of school, so they have next week off (and, really, that's pretty exciting for me, too).  Our CC group had their last class for the fall semester.  And, most exciting of all, Grandad & Nana came to visit.

We tried to do our bigger, more time consuming projects before they came.  One of those was making our Middle Ages purses.  Apparently, they did not have pockets back then and we learned about how they wore their purses around their belts and robbers would cut their purse strings to steal their money.  So, we sacrificed one of Todd's old t-shirts and cut it up to make three purses.  For the most part the kids sewed theirs pretty well.  We did have a breakdown and tears by one child when they had to have a few stitches taken out.  But we survived it and they enjoyed the final product.  What I learned was that we had to make the purse strings tighter around their waists.  When they were able to get them off easily, they swung them around and used them as slingshots.

Tuesday, the boys enjoyed free pizza at our CC group.  All the kids who sold at least five items through our fundraiser were given a free pizza party.  I was only aware of our boys selling three items each, so if someone out there put them over the top through an online purchase, then thank you.  (Only our director was able to see those.)  The boys thank you for the pizza.  I thank you for not having to figure out lunch for them that day.  (It was also pajama day, which was why the boys were wearing their pjs to school.)


That afternoon, the kids had what Henry dubbed, "the best day ever."  Nana and Grandad arrived safely and had some very excited kids on their hands.

We enjoyed a meal out.  The food was good, and the hugs from Grandad were better.

The next morning, Henry was downstairs early and the minute he heard Nana's voice, he quickly turned himself around and started to run upstairs to her.  But he swung around too quickly and hit his face on the kitchen countertop.  He actually cut the skin just a little, but gave himself quite a shiner for the week.

We were impressed with the boys speaking so maturely to Grandad & Nana.  Josiah, especially, started out talking so nicely and in a normal voice.  (We still have to remind him to not use a baby voice.)  Todd determined that Josiah must feel he has to dumb it down when he talks to us, and that's why we get the baby voice all the time.

Caroline had her WAM music performance at church one evening.  Her class sang three songs with hand motions and then did a little Thanksgiving craft.  She sang her songs well, running to get a quick hug from mom after each number.  She was not the only child to do so.  Todd got to help her with the Thanksgiving craft, which turned out really cute.

On our drive home that evening, Henry serenaded us with three of his apparently ten WAM songs.  If he projects his voice for the performance as well as he did in the car, then I think he'll be a star in his program.  I'm hoping he does his hand motions, too, because those make the best videos.

Caroline has not been eating the best lately.  She just wants to eat carbs for every meal of the day.  So, she's had some nights that she's probably gone to bed a bit hungry.  One night, she woke up at 3:30 a.m.  She cried out like she was in pain.  It woke up both Todd and I.  I went to check on her and put my hand on her back.  "Are you okay, Caroline?  Does something hurt?"  Caroline, still asleep, said, "I'm hungry.  I want to eat cake."  All I could think of was she dreamed we had a cake that she couldn't eat because it was dairy or something.  A nightmare for any food-sensitive child.

Henry and I had a nice quiet morning just the two of us.  He has somehow come down with a rash covering a fair amount of his body.  We can't figure out where it came from, so we may be paying the doctor a visit tomorrow.  So while the others went to church, he and I drew pictures, read books, learned his next Awana verses, and played a mean game of Battleship.  Somehow every time I play him, our boards end up not looking the same at the end.  I sunk his Carrier twice, but somehow missed his Battleship completely.  He did knock one ship off during the game, but said he got it back on in the right spot.  He pulled out a win, but I think it may have had something to do with my ships going after his attacks.

We did get a good picture of Grandad & Nana with the non-rashy kids.

We're looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving week off.

Market Days

It was Market Days this week.  One mom from our CC group wanted the kids to have an outlet to both buy and sell items.  The kids were allowed to sell anything they made and there were all sorts of homemade items.  Necklaces, knitted bookmarks, stress balls, tortillas, brownies, decorated pens, etc.  Our boys wanted to participate so we made brownies and chocolate-chip cookies.  The boys helped make the brownies and did a great job, except for being a little heavy-handed with the M&M's on top.  We sold our brownies for $0.25 each.  It seemed reasonable because they weren't that big.  We sold the cookies for $0.25 for a bag of three, which was a steal really, but I wanted to make it easy on the boys to collect the money and make change.

We had to arrive early to set up our table.  There was early interest in the brownies, but by the time the school day began, we had sold all but one bag of the cookies.  At the end of the day we sold everything but one brownie.  The boys actually earned $10.00 profit, but they did not take home $10.00.  They moseyed around to the other tables and kept coming back to their cash box asking me for money.  By the end of the day, between the three of them, they bought two bags of chocolate-chip tortillas, three stress balls, one clay pen (pen decorated with hardened clay), three bags of dinosaur cookies, and a painted rock with the word "Love" on it.  And they would have bought much, much more.  So, what they actually brought home was $2.00 total.  Todd and I tried to give them a business lesson that evening.  They listened dutifully, but I don't think they would have changed any part of the day except they would have bought more.

For science this week, we made a volcano.  I had been putting off this lesson for a couple of days because I knew the experiment that went with it.  We made a "volcano."  We used a water bottle with newspaper wrapped around it as the mountain.  We put some baking soda at the bottom of the bottle and poured some vinegar in.  At first we weren't getting much reaction and I noticed that our vinegar expired nearly two years ago.  The new vinegar helped some, but we weren't getting big explosions.  Finally, we forgot about the measurements that were in the book and we just dumped a lot of baking soda in the bottle and poured in a lot of vinegar.  It worked better.

After the volcano, the boys played with the vinegar and baking soda for a long time.  It was a mess, but a fun one.  Fortunately, Caroline had put herself down for a nap and slept through the whole thing, which helped in that there weren't three kids on the table making a mess.

For history we have read a lot about the Vikings and the lands they invaded.  We made Viking ships.

We also made Alfred the Great statutes.

Every history lesson, Josiah's first words tend to be: "Is there a coloring page?" followed by, "What are we going to make?"  He's an activity-oriented kid.

One morning, the kids wanted to make a banner in the boys room.  It was my understanding from overhearing their conversation that they were making a banner on their wall with their artwork.  At least that was the original plan.  But as the project wore on, all three of them kept coming downstairs for more and more artwork.  I checked on them, and they were no longer making a banner, but a wall.  A LOT of tape was used in this project which eventually fell under its own weight not too long after it was completed/abandoned.

Henry did better at Awana this week.  When I picked him up and he was telling me about his night, he happily announced, "I didn't even cry once."  We'll take it!

Caroline has been climbing the tree in our front yard when we take our morning break on school days.  She loves climbing it and just hanging out watching the boys ride bikes or play frisbee.  With her climbing skills, some days it is hard to believe she is only three.


The boys surprised me one day while I was reading to them.  They have associated reading with eating because I always read the chapter books to them while they eat their lunch.  This particular day, they were eating our new apple straws.  They are veggie straws, but apple flavored.  I'm reading and I hear the boys say they were smoking their apple straws!  What??!!  Todd and I can only figure that they have seen our new neighbors out smoking several times a day and that's where it's coming from.  Now, we pretended to smoke as kids, but that was the good old days when they sold kids candy cigarettes.  The best kind were those that had confectioner's sugar in them and you could make them "puff smoke."  We do need to tell them the dangers of smoking.  I was so surprised at the moment that I only stopped them from what they were doing, and then continued reading.

The kids are in for a surprise this week with a visit from Nana & Grandad.  They know they are coming, but they don't know when they are coming.  (They know it's soon, though, as they watch us clean our house a little more than usual.)  :)

Renaissance Festival

Halloween was Monday.  We had a Costco-sized bag of candy and the boys were chomping at the bit to open it.  Since I wouldn't let them eat as much as they liked, they asked to sort it.  They really just wanted to get their hands on it.  What became very obvious was that Costco gypped us.  A bag of 150 pieces of candy and only 2 Twix and 1 Kit-Kat, my favorites.  I had to take it as a blessing in disguise, so the candy would be less tempting.

That evening we did trick-or-treating in the house.  Todd and I hid in different rooms and the kids came knocking on our doors.  When I was in the boys' room, I put on their Lowe's apron and pretended I just got home from work.  Another time I wore their Spiderman blanket and told them, "With great power, comes great responsibility."  Todd gave them socks and underwear instead of candy at one door.  Another time Todd gave them real candy and he gave Henry that one precious Kit-Kat.  My heart broke just a little.

At CC this week, we had a visit from Rocket Man.  It was one of the fathers from our group, and while I do not know exactly what he does for a living, he shot off several rockets in the field next to the church.  The boys loved the rockets and how high they went.  One went very, very high, and after its parachute popped out, the wind took it too far away to reclaim.  Rocket Man was awesome, though, and related everything back to God the Creator.  The boys both gave their presentations on the Saturn V rockets.  Josiah also made a small lunar rover that he spoke about as well.  They had a good day.

We learned about earthquakes during science this week.  We talked about seismographs and how they work, and then we "made" one.  All three kids got to try each position.  In the picture, Henry is turning the rolling pin covered in paper while Josiah is holding the pencil to record the earth's movement.  The brown box was the earth and Caroline shook it to produce the earthquake.  Josiah's markings were supposed to look like an earthquake occuring.  Since it was three kids recreating an earthquake, the markings were a bit chaotic, but I think they got the idea.  They had fun at least.

We also took a field trip to the Renaissance Festival.  We were very blessed to get free admission tickets, and we appreciated that all the more as we realized that very little in the Festival was free.  The kids liked the jousting in the arena, but they didn't totally understand what was happening.  Right outside the arena, however, was a jousting game and they totally loved it.  Josiah missed the ring his first two passes, but got the ring his final two passes.

Henry got the ring his first two passes, but missed it the last two.

Caroline loved the ride.  Before it was her turn, I told her what she was supposed to do.  She said, yes, she understood.  The man who strapped her into the horse explained it to her as well.  Use the pole to hook the ring.  Yes, she nodded, she understood.  Then they pushed her off and she held her pole completely upright with a big grin on her face.  We have no idea what she was aiming for, but she had a lot of fun riding her horse.

Josiah thought that since it was a Renaissance Festival, and daVinci was from the Renaissance Period, that they would have real daVinci paintings there.  He wanted the Mona Lisa.  He didn't get that, but he did get lots of people dressed up in period costumes.  I don't know how they did it, because it was very, very humid.

Barbarian

They tried the bows and arrows and the boys each hit the back hay wall with an arrow, which made them very happy.


They made their way through a three story cage maze as well.  Josiah made his way through it fairly fast, but the littles kept showing up at the entrance, so they got sent back.

Next year we'll have to plan better because we missed the blacksmith and the glassblower, which was a little disappointing.  We did enjoy having everyone call us "my lord" and "my lady" with slight British accents the whole time.  

I think the busy week got the best of Henry.  Being overtired often equals lots of tears.  At Awana, he started crying the minute we got in his room.  Thrown by this, I tried to get him to tell me what was wrong.  It finally came out that he was assigned to table #6 which met across the hall.  (They try to divide the boys up a little to keep the noise level from going through the roof.)  Henry was upset because he didn't want to be away from Josiah because he liked to visit with him during the evening.  They very graciously moved him to another table.  But then he had more tears when he got hurt during game time, and again when they mistakenly gave him only one jewel when he had earned two for his wings.  He cried again in the car when we wouldn't let him have his light on for the drive home.  Bedtime never felt so good for him that night.

The boys reaped the benefits of reading by cashing in their Book-It pizza certificates.  This was a highlight of my youth - a personal pan pizza each month - and I was happy that they allowed homeschoolers to participate.  It has been years since we've had Pizza Hut pizzas.  We have stuck to Papa John's because of their deal when the Texans win.  So, Henry opened his box and the first words out of his mouth were, "Where's the garlic sauce?"  Then he ate some and said the pizza was greasy.  He clearly did not understand that was exactly why it was good!


We ended our weekend on a happy note.  Our washing machine finally died earlier this week.  We spent one evening at Lowe's looking at new ones.  Todd and I looked while Josiah opened and closed every single washer and dryer they sold.  Henry and Caroline looked on with jealousy in their eyes and whines in their mouths that Josiah got to touch everything and they wanted out of the cart.  After a few days of not being able to do laundry, we are happy to have that precious appliance back in the house again.

We are already down to the last two weeks of CC for the year.  This fall has flown by so far!  The boys are looking forward to selling some baked goods at Market Days at CC this week.  A chance to earn some cash!