April Fools

Caroline had her 4-year check-up with the doctor this week.  We confirmed that she is one tall kid.  When the doctor came in the room, he asked, "Whose 4?"  She very excitedly exclaimed, "Me!!  I am. I'm 4!!"  She had a hearing test this time.  The kind with the head phones and you have to raise your hand when you hear the beeps.  Well, the nurse explained it all to her, had Caroline practice raising her hand up and down, up and down, put the ear phones on her and began the test.  When she wasn't getting a reaction from Caroline, despite having obviously started the test, she asked Caroline, "Are you hearing anything?"  Caroline shyly smiled and nodded her head.  "Ok, then raise your hand."  She did just fine after that.  She crushed the eye chart as well.  We weren't too concerned about her eyes or ears, unless you count selective hearing which is a malady for all kids under 5 (or 10, or 18).

She did get two shots, one in each thigh.  I was making her laugh, as I held her upper body down, but afterwards she was limping around.  They hurt for a couple of days, but only when she remembered.

Henry did well at CC this week.  He gave his presentation on Chile.

The boys had to pick a Central or South American country to present on and they picked theirs solely based on how easy the flag was to draw (part of the requirement of the presentation).  So, Henry chose Chile which was very similar to the Texas flag.  Josiah chose Panama.  We learned Chile produces a lot of grapes and copper.

We learned about the salinity of the ocean and made salt water pictures.

It's getting to that time of year where we're finishing up all of our books and activities.  Josiah finished his Awana book this week.  Then, earlier in the week, we had our WAM concert rehearsal.  We are having the 3's, pre-K, and Kindergarten classes all performing together.  The rehearsal was a wonderful disaster with the 3's, so I'm happy we preordered the video.  It should bring us some laughter.  They were to stand on the choir risers (bleacher/stairs kind of thing) during the whole performance.  But our three-year-olds weren't that great at standing in one particular spot for the 45 minute rehearsal.  Plus, all of a sudden they all wanted a speaking line and to talk into the microphone.  One of our boys was supposed to say, "an ox" into the microphone (God is bigger than "an ox."), but when it was his turn, he loudly said, "I love you."   We're going to go out with a bang.

We finished our week with a bit of fun.  The boys really wanted to get Todd with an April Fool's Day joke by giving him a glass full of Jello instead of cranberry juice.  They were looking forward to it all week.  Before I came downstairs that morning, Todd warned me that the boys had made me a piece of toast with mayonaisse instead of butter on it.  He wanted me to react big.  So, I played along, even though I couldn't actually taste the mayonnaise (which I really don't like).  Henry thought it was hilarious to get me.

What they didn't know was that we had some tricks of our own.  I told them that we had to do school that day to make up for what we didn't finish on Thursday.  I gave them each a math drill sheet which is how we usually start every day.  They were NOT happy.


Then I gave them a puzzle that I had made.  It looked like:

T H I S I

O L S D S

O K E A A

F O J Y N

L I R P A

So they had to follow it in a spiral which told them it was an April Fool's Day joke.  They were quite relieved and happy to read that.  

We got them back at dinner though.  Since we had had a huge lunch, we could justify the random dinner meal.  It was "yogurt" (sour cream) with a berry on top, "cranberry juice" (Jello), and some real cheese and crackers.  The sour cream threw them.  They thought it was flavorless yogurt, so that sort of didn't work out.

The Jello was funny (although none of the kids like to eat Jello - somehow I've failed them with this).

So, Todd offered to get them some milk.  That's when it got funny for us.  They took nice big drinks of his buttermilk.  Henry, always willing to try new foods, gave us far less dramatic responses, but he enjoyed the tricks.  He actually tried the buttermilk a few times before deciding he didn't like it.


Josiah dramatically spit his out on his plate.  

After their dinner, what little they ate, we had dessert.  We had a pan of brownies.  This one threw them.  We had to spell it out, like Orange H's, Purple C's, etc.  Brown E's.  Josiah failed to see the humor in it as he was only disappointed they weren't real brownies.  Come on, after all the flavorless yogurt and sour milk?

We also stopped by the Children's Hospital to pick up our race packets for the Fun Run next week.  The kids went back and forth jumping over the giant balls out front countless times.  We were happy no one fell on their face.  We did have a few close calls.  

Caroline barely made it up each ball, but the struggle was worth the slide down.

And now on to one busy week.