Henry is Six!

Our week began very well.  Our dryer has been very loudly screeching at the beginning of its cycle for a few weeks now.  It had been getting louder and louder with each passing week and it started to "chirp" through the whole cycle, too.  It's hard to describe just how loud it was, but suffice it to say, you could hear it from anywhere in the house.  Finally, I sought the advice from our homeschooling families, and not only got a name of someone, but that person showed up an hour and a half after I called.  It took him literally ten minutes to take the dryer apart, fix it with new parts, and put it back together.  It's all in what you know.  And now our dryer is gloriously quiet again.

In anticipation of Henry's birthday, I wanted the kids to clean up all of their Legos just in case Henry got some for his birthday.  I started to help them, but after realizing I was the only one working, I told them they needed to do it themselves just to see how much work it takes to put them all away.  In my head, the end result would be that they would miraculously learn that it would be wiser to pick up Legos daily so that they don't have a weekly 5-hour clean up session (it has been mentioned to them a few times before).  The wisdom was lost on them, replaced instead with tears and gnashing of teeth.

We always get the kids birthday balloons the day before their birthday.  This year was no different, but Josiah had also saved his birthday balloons so they could be part of Henry's birthday as well, (which was sweet on his part).  To "save" his balloons, though, Josiah had kept them in his closet for the past month to keep them away from light which he was sure would drain them of their helium.  So, before buying Henry balloons, I asked him if he was going to keep them in the closet or if he was actually going to play with them.  He assured me he'd play with them.

I don't know when Henry woke up on his birthday morning, but I woke up at 5:40 a.m. and heard the boys talking a mile a minute.  The minute it hit 6:00, they were downstairs, with Caroline in tow.  They ate a healthy breakfast of Madagascar smores.

Josiah wrote him a nice card.  Apparently Hulk forgot Henry's age at first.

Then Henry ripped into his gifts.  He gave Josiah a great reaction upon opening his framed portrait gift.

He was on cloud nine to get more Lego kits.  Since they have their birthdays off of school, he was able to start building right away.  He experienced a few problems because Henry only has one speed and that is fast.  Doing Lego kits fast is not always the best.  He'd call out for help and I felt my own blood pressure going up when I sat with him because of his furious pace.  Eventually, they all got built.  Henry was very generous with Josiah and let him help build a lot.

He was beyond happy to get his first remote control car from his cousins.  Strike a pose.

We made it to Which Wich again for lunch.


Then, since I had to teach at WAM the evening of his birthday, we dropped Henry off at Todd's work and they went out to dinner together.  Henry loves spending time with just one of us, so he was happy to have it this way.

Then he somehow managed to stay awake until 8:30 when we got home, so we sang, ate a small piece of cake, and called it a night.

We got some school done the following day.  We tried to make a cloud form in a jar.  We did get fog, but I think the kids were expecting a cohesive cloud-looking object.

We went to a friend's birthday party another morning and they had a big pile of mulch which was quite fun for all the kids.

We finished the week off with our Caring for Katy project.  One weekend a year our church doesn't have services and the whole church goes out into the community to do service projects.  This year our Sunday school class went to a mobile home park which had a Kids Club and we (the skilled laborers) fixed up the building and did some yard work.
The boys cleaned windows, chairs, and baseboards.  They helped me sort books in their library.  But about halfway through they didn't want to work inside anymore.  They wanted to work outside, because they thought there were be a giant mulch pile like the place we served at last year.  That was not the case here, but they wouldn't let up and it made the last half a bit on the frustrating side.  Don't you know we're here to serve others and not always what you want to do.  You're going to serve and you're going to like it!  



Henry had some sweet moments with Caroline.  For his Pizza Hut Book-It reading, he has to read 20 minutes a day.  Lately, he hasn't wanted to read quietly to himself, he wants to read aloud (which is really great), so he usually spends his 20 minutes reading to Caroline.  It's a win-win.

February tends to be a rough month for homeschooling (maybe all schooling).  Attitudes and whining and back-talking seem to pour out with a vengeance.  That was true for us, so we are looking forward to a new month to begin soon.

Pink Hearts and Pink Eyes

We had a very full week off of school.

Monday afternoon, the boys all of a sudden wanted to do extra chores.  Josiah said that he wanted to be the janitor of our house and be in charge.  Then he said he wanted to be the chief janitor and have lower janitors under him, namely Henry.  He followed that up by asking if he could get paid.  I saw where he was going with it, so I told him he could get paid to do extra chores.  He could not get paid to be in management.  So, he started sweeping all the rooms.  Henry swept some as well and cleaned the baseboards in lots of rooms.  It was great.  Then they went outside and swept the front entrance and the back porch area.  They're also big enough now to get the trashcans from the curb and bring them back to the house.  This getting older thing is working out right now.  Especially since they're so eager.  I'm sure the eagerness will fade, but we'll go with it for now.


Tuesday was Valentine's Day.  It's not a big deal for Todd and I, but all holidays are a big deal for the eldest.  I'm not sure what the kids were expecting, but they were all up before 6:00 a.m.  We took the boys to pick out a doughnut each.

And we got Caroline some hash browns.

We had CC that day, and maybe it was the doughnut, maybe it was getting up super early, but Henry was a bit on the disruptive side.  We ended up coming home for lunch, which wasn't that big of a deal since it was a rainy day and we couldn't play outside anyway.  Henry almost immediately fell asleep in the car, with Caroline not too far behind him.

It was a good thing we had even made it to CC that morning.  I knew we were having big thunderstorms, but I didn't really pay much attention to the "tornado watch."  They have those a lot with big thunderstorms, so I noted it, but that was about it.  Well, we drove to CC (and it wasn't bad out), but when we got there the mom who opened the door for us said they had just gotten out of the bathroom after hiding in there for 20 minutes.  Oh.  Somehow I missed that alert on my phone telling us to take shelter.  Only much later did I see the damage on the internet.  Our part of the city was fine, but another section actually had a F2 tornado touch down.  We have kept this knowledge secret from Henry who won't go to bed at night without us first reassuring him that there will be no floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, or any other major weather system hitting us.

By the middle of the week we went to the local children's museum with some friends.  They had a ton of fun.  Caroline spent a lot of time testing a crash test car.

She cemented her friendship with little Rebekah who thought Caroline was quite funny.

The pulleys are always a draw.


The older kids spent a lot of time in the "Fort Bend Herald" shop and printed off many, many advertisements.  I was surprised at how many  they were capable of printing.

Henry, aka "Stephen Cooper/Copper"

Henry sells himself for $2.

We spent a long time there which exhausted the littles.  On the way to karate, Henry and Caroline could no longer hold on and were totally passed out.  Henry slept through almost his whole class and was not happy to wake up realizing he missed it.  After a 10-minute hug and watching a police traffic stop right in front of us, he got over it.  He helped to set up our mobile dinner station for everyone so they could eat on our drive to WAM.


It was two days later that we discovered what else we got from the Children's Museum.  Pink eye.  Henry woke up Friday with a very pink and crusty eye.  We went to the doctor that morning to get him some drops as soon as possible.  We learned that little Rebekah got pink eye as well.  Unfortunately, that made the rest of the week and the weekend a little rough.  Henry is a very tactile person.  He loves to hug, snuggle, and touch everything.  He cannot walk anywhere without having his hands on the walls, the furniture, whatever may be in his path.  Usually this isn't that big of a problem, except when he has a very contagious eye infection and I don't want him to touch anything.  I was a bit on edge.  It was good Todd was here to shoo me away or calm me down from the germs I could just see invading the other two kids.  As of right now it hasn't spread, but his pediatrician gave a prescription for enough eye drops to handle the whole family if need be (which was very nice).  As of right now we've seen improvement in his eyes and are just hoping he's all better by his birthday next week.

And just to be reminded that a few germs are not the end of the world, on the way home from church, Caroline and I witnessed a helicopter landing right in front of us due to an accident.  It put things in perspective, at least for a time, that we can handle a few, very contagious germs.  (Of course, we got home and Henry was rolling and bouncing all over the couch and putting me on high alert again....)

We are back to homeschool next week to begin again.  Henry is very much looking forward to his birthday week.

Nothing to Report

So, this is a short one. We had a pretty decent week. We got all of our school work and chores done (even me) which was a small miracle. Nothing exciting to report is probably a good thing.

In anticipation of Henry's birthday, Josiah was trying to come up with a gift to give him.  He tried to bargain with me to bring him to the store so he could pick out a giant Lego kit for Henry.  I explained to him that we had already bought him all the gifts he's getting.  So, then he asked if he could put his name on a gift we already bought.  No, that wasn't happening either (we only get him 3 gifts).  So, I told Josiah to draw a picture for Henry and then we could get one of those cheap frames and wrap it up.  He liked that idea and immediately had Henry sit down for a portrait drawing.  He wanted to keep it as just a pencil drawing because that looks "older."

We had been finishing school by noon most every day this week.  It was glorious.  The kids had so much time to play and enjoy the afternoons.  I actually got things crossed off my to do list.  It was a great way to end our six weeks.  Next week, we'll take off from school at home, though we do have CC.  It is sort of a fun CC because the boys get to bring in Valentine's and they're quite excited.

Caroline does not have a Valentine exchange in the nursery at CC, but she did get to exchange them at Awana.  She signed her name to each of them, and then said that she was going to pass them out and if the kids said they didn't like the picture (from Frozen) that she gave them, that she was going to tell them, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."  That's my girl.  Happy Valentine's Day.

She is still loving karate.  At the end of her class on Friday, she walked out with a new belt.  They don't have belt tests at her level, but after a certain number of classes they just get a new colored belt.  She is very excited and proud to have it.  She's one karate-loving girl.

The kids have also been enjoying doing Gracie Games with Todd in the evenings.  He's been doing it off and on with them for months.  The Gracie Jiu-jitsu people have put out a series of bully-proof games to teach your kids and they are super fun, but they're also teaching them lots of self defense skills.  I'm just glad I get to sit back and watch Todd do all the hard work.

This weekend we also enjoyed 48 pieces of chicken.  Todd entered a contest with El Pollo Loco here and he won one of their Super Bowl platters.  He picked it up on Saturday and we've been eating chicken ever since.  It did give me an opportunity to make chicken broth, which I've always wanted to do.  I put lots of our chicken bones in with water, let it cook for 5 hours or so and we ended up getting 12 cups of chicken broth out of it.

And that was our slightly non-exciting week.  I'm looking forward to a breather next week.

Talkative at Three

The Super Bowl was in Houston this year.  Caroline told us that people in her class were talking about the Super Bowl and I guess her teacher asked if she was going to watch it.  She said, "No, I don't have that movie."  Then after we had been watching it for some time, the boys were talking about "the Super Bowl" and she kept saying she wanted to watch it.  She had no idea it was a football game.  Todd and I are pretty convinced that she and Henry thought it was a talking competition.  They both used a week's worth of words during the first half alone.

Caroline has had a lot to say this week.  While I was making dinner the other night, we had this conversation,
Caroline - "Mommy?"
E - "Yes."
C - "I love you most of the time."
E - "Well, I love you all of the time."
C - "Well, I love you most of the time."
Thank you....let me get back to making you a delicious, well-balanced meal.

She also talks a lot about her wishes lately.  She'll often say, "I wish I could do the iPad."  (or insert whatever she wants to do).  I'll tell her, no, because she's already done it for the day, and she'll always reply, "I know, but I wish."  This conversation is repeated all throughout the day with whatever she wishes to do.

She was also the star of the show at the dentist office this week.  We had morning appointments, but when they called to confirm it they said they had an 8:30 opening and I stupidly said, "Sure."  Sometimes I think I only have one child and that child is Josiah who is up and alert at 6:00 a.m. every day.  But I don't, I have three kids who all need to eat and get their teeth flossed and brushed, plus leave early to beat the morning traffic.  We did make it, but I won't make that mistake again.  Once there, Caroline talked nonstop.  It is an open dentist office, so I stayed with Henry while he was being worked on, while another hygienist took Josiah and Caroline.  I could hear Caroline talking the whole time.  "I'm three.....I like all the colors in the rainbow."  Fortunately everyone seemed to enjoy her chatter.  She's not a shy one.

We did get some school done this week.  Actually, Josiah's been doing great lately.  He's enjoying multiplication which is awesome, plus he has had it as his goal to finish school by noon each day.  That has made him focus better, work more efficiently, and he doesn't whine and complain nearly as much.  It's been great.  We're studying weather in science now, and we were learning about air currents.  We used a pan of water, put a cup of boiling water under it at one end, and a cup of frozen/ice water at the other end.  Then we put a drop of food coloring in each area to see how they would react, which is similar to what happens in warm air vs. cold air.

 The molecules are moving fast in the warm water/air.  It was neat to watch, but it took a little long for the kids.  They just wanted to get their hands in there and swirl up the water.

The boys ended their week with karate belt tests.  Henry went first and was going for his yellow-black belt.  They really worked him.  He showed his fists and kicks.

He sparred with Mr. Thomas.

He broke his board, and he earned his new belt.

Josiah was worked pretty hard himself.  He had to do his forms.

Hit with his instructor.

He broke a board as well, and earned his orange-black belt.

They were pretty proud of their new colors.

The boys also had a fun time riding their old bike.  It looks like a clown bike now.  It's even too small for Caroline.