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.