Field Trips

In a few weeks we have our Family Fun Run, or Run Run as Caroline dubs it.  It's our annual 1K of exercise.  In years past, I have always done a horrible job at the running part, so I thought we should be proactive this year and practice.  Mainly, I wanted the kids to practice staying with me, the slowest of the bunch.  The idea was to make a small loop in our neighborhood.  Two blocks into the slow jog (that I was crushing by the way) Caroline said her stomach hurt.  A block later and Josiah was sitting on the ground with cramps.  The entire loop I had to walk slowly with them, earnestly encouraging them to walk.  I don't know how they can run around the house all day and run all around in the front yard, but not make it two blocks in the neighborhood.  So, now we're going to step up our training so that we're not all pathetic.  Henry was the only one who did well.  It's all that football training he puts himself through.

Henry has been wanting to toss the football a lot more.  Todd taught him how to spiral the ball when he throws it, and Henry's been getting a lot better at that.  I have no idea how to spiral the ball, but every now and then my throws spiral and I get really excited.  However, I have no idea how to replicate it.  Henry puts up with me, though, and I really enjoy tossing it with him.  This weekend, he kept drawing complicated plays on his shirt, telling me he was going to run right, then left, in front of the tree, behind it, then zig-zag again.  I kept saying, "Okay, I throw it when you turn around?"  Got it. That's all I need to know.

We had a couple of field trips this week.  The first was to a play of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  Another mom told me about it, but there were only four tickets left, so this mom graciously took our boys in to see it along with her son.  Josiah really enjoyed it.  Henry said it was good, but he liked the play we saw in the fall better.  Caroline and I had a good time waiting outside the theater.  We sat and she ate while I read a new book for her school.  We walked around the building and watched the MetroRail pass by.  She danced on a big bench.  She ran across the big bench while I filmed it in slow motion.  She had a good time with that.

The big bench.

After the play, we went out to eat at my favorite restaurant ever.  McDonald's.  I did get to talk to the other mom for a couple of hours about homeschooling - it's always nice to compare notes and see what others do.  While we talked, the kids played in the McDonald's Play Place, which ranks up there as my favorite place for them to play.  When we were driving home, Caroline enthusiastically said, "I want to do that again!"  "Go to the theater?"  I asked.  "No, go to McDonald's."  Sigh.
Henry and Caroline both fell asleep on the drive home.  After that everyone got a nice bath.

The next day we went on a field trip to the Apple Store.  I honestly had no idea what to expect for this one, but it was very cool.  The store was in Houston and it was a super big, super nice store.  They had a room upstairs where they gave the kids iPads and taught them how to use ProCreate.  They were able to splice together pictures they took and videos they made into a movie format.  They added their own voice recordings and music already in the program.  It was incredibly easy to do and the boys had a ball doing it.  Caroline was what we would call a cranky mess, but she did enjoy doing it when it was her turn on the iPad (they shared two between the three of them).

Henry having a little too much fun beat-boxing with the voice recorder.

After the lesson was over, we had to walk through the store and the boys wanted to try out every device they sold and kept asking to buy all of them.  While they didn't get the iPad or iPhone, they did get a nice free t-shirt, size Adult Medium.

Sometimes, even though the field trips are fun, the business of the week can wear on the kids.  Caroline showed her crankiness at Apple.  Friday morning, Henry showed his maxing out by totally falling apart over his addition problems.  He just kept crying, "I can't carry [the 1].  It's too hard.  Why do we have to do this?"  Because you have to be able to balance a checkbook, son.  After sending him back upstairs to rest three different times, he finally came back and finished his work well.

At karate on Friday, Caroline played with two friends on the giant tires in the field next door.  After a while, they wanted some refreshments.  They made a pit stop at the water fountain and then Caroline offered them granola bars from our stash.  They ended up eating them in our car because the one little boy wasn't allowed to have one until he finished his lunch and we didn't want to eat in front of him.  So, their 2.5 year old daughter was in our car and she and I were happily chatting away while she ate some granola bars.  After about 10 minutes of chatting, she says, "Whose car is this?"  It's mine.  Five minutes later she asks, "Who are you?"  I'm Caroline's mom.  "Oh."  She was cracking me up.  When it was time to go, her mom said, "Nia, hug your friend goodbye."  Nia came right up and hugged my legs.  It totally made my day.  Then she went and hugged Caroline, too.

Todd took Josiah out to eat just the two of them on Saturday.  They had a good meal together and Henry and Caroline are looking forward to their meals alone with him, too.
 Knowing Todd was taking Josiah out, Caroline kept asking me to bring her to Chick-fil-a all afternoon.  We did end up going out to dinner there.  After she ate, she wanted to play in the playground area, so she played for a while.  At one point, I told her that she could go down the slide one more time and then we had to go.  She climbed back up and was chatting with her new friend up there.  The friend asks Caroline to go down the slide with her and Caroline says, "I can't go down the slide because if I do I'll have to leave."  So, 10 minutes after climbing up for her final slide, Caroline reluctantly slid down.   

Josiah wrote a poem to submit for a contest.  The first prize for his age category is $100.  Some of the criteria were: it had to rhyme, it had to be about nature, it had to be his own work.  Josiah has already been on Amazon and has spent the future prize money on Lego kits.  The contest doesn't even close until May 1st.  Here it is:

Our Time At the Beach

The sand is soft

The air is salty
The umbrellas are cool
The seagulls are naughty

The fries are hot, the ice cream is cold
The popsicles freeze your tongue
The pizza is cheesy yum
While on the rack the pretzels are hung

The boats roam the water
The planes circle the air
Some people like to surf
The trolleys have a fare

Pick up your pail, it's time to go
Our day at the beach is done
Now don't fuss, we're coming again
Tomorrow we'll have some fun

And with that, this week is done.

Spring Break Fun

Spring Break proved to be a break from school, but not a break from anything else.  On Monday, the kids played with friends from Awana.  Our friends have a great backyard and the weather was perfect and no one wanted to leave.  We love having friends close to our house.  As if playing there for three hours wasn't enough, that afternoon we went to the "bug playground" near our house.  It's a little pocket playground in our neighborhood.  It's been a while since we've been and we got to see their growth.  They used to sit side by side on the ladybug, but now they're all too big to do that.

Tuesday we drove into Houston to visit the big Children's Museum.  The museum had a whole Extreme Spring Break thing going on, so we were there with several hundred of our closest Houstonians.  Fortunately, it's a big museum with lots to see so it didn't feel as crowded once we finally got inside.  We visited the news station which we had never done before.  Instead of giving the weather, Henry broke out in dance moves because he could see himself on the TV monitor.

Josiah giving the weather

Dance moves.

Meanwhile Josiah was printing up mayoral flyers to hand out to the people in the museum.  I literally had to stop him from passing them out (and to continue printing more).

The campaigner.

The opponent, with very similar ideas.

They had the hamster balls again.  All the kids got to do them this year.  When Caroline was inside her ball, she was trying to run and the handler guy was having to physically stop her from crashing into the waiting line.  If she was going to do it, she was going to do it at full speed.

They also had a special Ninja Warrior thing.  Sam Sann has been a competitor on American Ninja Warrior for 7 seasons and he's a local who runs a Ninja Warrior gym.  He had some of his students doing the demonstrations.  They were mostly teenage boys, but one of the boys started training when he was 6 (he's 12 now) which has put ideas into our boys' heads that they want to train, too.  Of course, being the Houston area, everything is really spread out and his gym is not exactly close to us.

We had a few moments of getting lost.  Outside they have a huge water area.  Henry was playing with the locks with another little boy.  They were doing it for quite some time, so I was with the other two kids watching Henry from behind.  I guess he finished playing, didn't see me, and started looking.  When I looked up and saw him gone, I knew he was the type of kid that would freak out.  So I left the other two on a bench and went looking.  I found him in less than a minute, but he was already in tears.  We had to have the Stay-Put-And-I'll-Come-Find-You talk.

The locks.

We were at the museum for four hours.  This was what the car looked like when we got home.

On Wednesday we drove in to Todd's work and ate lunch with him.

Thursday, we went to a local park and met up with some CC friends.  Some Awana friends ended up coming, too, so the boys had a really great time.  They were playing freeze tag for hours.  Caroline didn't have a friend there, so she hung out with me.  She stayed on the spinny seat for most of the time.  I'd give her a small push (because that seat can spin), but then I'd just look anywhere except at her to save my head from dizziness.

After the park we went to the doctor's office for Henry and Caroline's well-child checks.  Caroline passed her hearing and vision screening.  I told her that meant there was no excuse now when I asked her to pick up her toys and clothes.  I know you can hear me and I know you can see all the things on the floor.  Lately we've had a lot of, "I forgot" and "I didn't hear you." around here.

On Friday, I wanted a day at home.  We did a lot of yard work.  Apparently March is just the time to do yard work around here.  The new buds on the trees push the old leaves off.  We did end up going to one store to get a gift for a girl in Caroline's class.  While we were at the store, we walked down the pen/marker aisle.  Josiah got so excited, "I love all of these things!"  It was a proud mother moment.  I know son, me, too.  Me, too.  

The gift was for a birthday party Caroline was supposed to attend on Saturday.  However, our busy week seemed to have rendered her a bit on the cranky side and after one too many tantrums/talking back/hitting her brothers/yelling at her parents/screaming "It's not fair!" she didn't make it to the birthday party.  She actually went up to her room (not angrily) and took a two hour nap.

We cleaned the inside of the house on Saturday.  The kids repeatedly told us of their displeasure of cleaning during their spring break.  "Well, if you picked it up and put it away when you were done with it, we wouldn't have to clean up today."  I should have just recorded myself saying that statement and put it on loop for the day. 

Caroline was blessed to receive two boxes of dresses from Todd's cousin.  This girl loves dresses.  With each one she pulled out, she'd exclaim, "Oooooo, I can wear this to my wedding."  For church today, Caroline wore a white dress with black polka dots.  Henry mentioned something about her dress, and she replied that she was going to wear it to her wedding.

And, Caroline probably is not going to have a career as an aerospace design engineer.  She drew a picture of the interior of an airplane:

Those are watches falling out of the ceiling so you know what time it is.  "This is your captain speaking, No, we have not lost altitude, we just thought you would be interested in knowing the time."

For the next several weeks, we are going to start working on our CC Memory Master.  Every year for CC if you memorize everything, you get a certificate, t-shirt, and a special dinner.  I told the boys last year that I wanted both of them to try for it this year.  They are both capable of doing it.  Every now and then, Henry will cry that he doesn't think he can do it, but then always follows it with, "but I want the t-shirt..."  He can totally do it.

A Very Sprinkle Birthday

Caroline celebrated her fifth birthday this week.  At 2:30 a.m. on her birthday, Caroline came into our room, got in bed, and said, "I wish it was morning."  Mmm Hmm.  At 4:30 a.m., Josiah came into our room excited about Caroline's birthday.  He came in four more times between 4:30 and 6:00 a.m.  At least Caroline fell back asleep and didn't get up til 6:37 (which is early for her).  I think Josiah may be the type of father that wakes up his kids early in the morning for every holiday.  Wake up!!!  It's your birthday!!  Wake up!!  It's Christmas!!!  Wake up!  It's Administrative Professionals Day!!  He is nothing but enthusiastic.

For breakfast, she had picked out sprinkle donuts with pink frosting.  The only place that I knew that had these donuts was Dunkin Donuts.  I knew I had seen a DD somewhat near our house before, so we headed in the direction of that store.  When, after some time, it became clear that the store was no longer there (it had switched to a Subway), we discussed again.  We could try a donut shop 5 minutes from our house but that was without the guarantee of pink frosting and sprinkles.  That wasn't good enough.  Caroline needed a guarantee.  So, we headed off to the other Dunkin Donuts, much further from our house.  The whole trip took a little more than 90 minutes.  It better have been one durn good pink frosting-sprinkle donut.  The whole drive there I kept saying in my head, this is sort of crazy to drive this far.  It didn't help that we were out with morning commuters.  But look at that face:

After filling up on fried dough with sugar, we came back and Caroline got to play with all of her toys.  Both sets of grandparents know her well and got her two dresses each.  Caroline loves her dresses.  They got her the Goodnight Moon bunny and a Cinderella doll, a Hello Kitty cup and coloring book, and much much more.  She was just screaming in delight with each gift she opened.

We got her a dollhouse.  She's been talking about one for quite a while now.  When she saw the box, she said, "A dollhouse!  I always wanted a dollhouse!"

Josiah helped me put it together.  We had our trusty Allen wrench in hand and got it all assembled.  Then the kids unpacked all the furniture and after everything was unpacked and put away we realized that the dollhouse came with no dolls.  Lots of furniture, but no one to sit on it.

We looked it up on amazon and found that dollhouse accessories are big business.  I said I'd foot the bill for the dolls, since I really thought it would come with them.  But if the boys wanted the bunk beds set with the space rocket toy, they were footing the bill for that.  Caroline wanted the baby/crib/stroller set.

Her cousins came to the rescue, when they gave her a zoo set that came with people.  So, now she has a zoo area with a caretakers house right next door.

For lunch, the kids had delicious Happy Meal from McDonald's.  I was reminded once again why we never go to McDonald's.  It's not because their food is not exactly the healthiest.  It is because every time we go at least one child throws a tantrum.  Every. Single. Time.  This time it happened to be the birthday girl herself.  When I passed the red boxes of happiness to each child (in the car), Henry had the audacity to look in his box first and announce that the toy was Snoopy.  Caroline ripped her toy out of the box of happiness, threw it on the floor of the car and screamed a loud guttural scream.  She had the boldness to ask me to pick it up for her.  I don't think so.   

Happy again.

In the afternoon, Caroline helped me make her cake.  We made a vanilla cake and she wanted it to look like this:

We made this.  Caroline poured the sprinkles on the cake.  She liked it.  I realized that making a cake and frosting from scratch is really an art and I'm not an artist.

Caroline wanted Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, but it wouldn't have worked well on her actual birthday, so ended up going Saturday.  She finished her meal there with a bowl filled with sprinkles.  Usually I keep track of the number of spoonfuls that make it in her bowl, but somehow I was distracted, because this was one full bowl.  She ate every single one.

I joined the Wheel Watchers Club from Wheel of Fortune.  We watch it nearly every night and the kids always ask if we have a Wheel Watcher number at the end of the show.  Once I signed up, Josiah was convinced that we were going to win the $10,000.  He kept saying that if I won, we'd get $2000 each.  Good division skills, son, but that's probably not exactly how it'll get divided.
Wheel of Fortune popped up again for Josiah's CC presentation.  This week he told his class about Pat Sajak.  He mostly just spoke about the show and that he was the host, but it was a cohesive presentation.  As his tutor said, he made them all want to go watch Wheel of Fortune.

Caroline's presentation was a chunk of sidewalk.  We went on several walks around the neighborhood this week and on one of those, Caroline picked up a chunk of sidewalk that had broken off.  I asked her what she was going to say about it.  She said, "It's a piece of concrete and your feet can go on it."  Then she demonstrated how her foot could go on it.  I thought she'd choose a new birthday gift to talk about, but chunk-of-sidewalk won out.

At church today we saw what Daylight Savings Day combined with the start of Spring Break can do to a class.  The class I help in usually has about 14 kids in it.  Today, it had 6.  One girl who usually stays for both hours, got picked up early.  She was upset because she hadn't done the craft yet (which we do during my hour).  She tried to come back in the class, but then her mom said something to her and the little girl said, "Chalupas?!!" and out she walked.

Todd took the boys to Sam's Club after church where they ate their weight in samples.  They sat down for the Irish beef stew and mashed potatoes.  It's always a good free lunch.

Todd also introduced the kids to the spork.  They were impressed.

This week is spring break.  The kids have a list of things they want to do - Children's Museum, parks/playgrounds, friend's houses.  I have a list of things to do as well.  We are hoping for long days to enjoy it all.

And I'll leave with a quote from Caroline when she plays Guess Who.  As she flips her board so that all the people fall down, she says, "They all bow down to me because I'm the queen."

Pencils For a Nickel

This has been one incredibly busy week.  Monday was the calm before the crazy.  The weather cooperated and the boys were able to take Henry's new football outside to try it out.  Henry was pretty good at throwing it and Josiah was doing a good job catching it.  They were having a lot of fun.  Henry also used his football as his CC presentation this week, which prompted a football game after lunch.  Henry says his team won, so this may become a regular thing.  Usually the boys all play soccer after lunch.

At CC it was also Dress Your Mom Day.  Apparently, the kids like their mothers to dress up.  Henry's tutor showed up in 4-inch heels.  Another mom had a long flowing dress with a fur stole.  Several others were in dresses or skirts.  The director's daughter wanted her to wear her wedding dress, but she just had a baby, so that wasn't going to happen.  We'll have to see if this becomes a tradition.  We'll need to start an exercise class before next year, so we can all feel comfortable in our fancy outfits.

I had a birthday this week and the kids decided that they would read outside of our bedroom door while I went to sleep like I do for them.  However, after half an hour of lying there, I got up, put them to bed and read outside their doors.

Henry gave me a great card, from my "best kid."  :)

My parents got me an antique pencil dispenser.  There are not many people in this country who can appreciate a pencil dispenser, but I am definitely one who can.  The kids loved it, too, although when she inserted a nickel and the pencil dropped out, Caroline exclaimed, "What? They're not sharpened?"  She has so much to learn about pencils.  The best ones are unsharpened.  Maybe when she gets old enough I can show her the collection I keep in my old Keds shoeboxes.

Todd surprised me with a signed picture from Speaker Paul Ryan.  I happen to find him on the attractive side, so Todd knew of a close contact that could get it signed.  It was hilarious, kind, and slightly embarrassing.

We went to a friend's house for most of the afternoon, so the kids had fun while the moms got adult conversation.  It was wonderful to spend the day with good friends.

The following day we went to a bounce house place to meet up with a CC friend.  It ended up being a homeschool play date with quite a few families there.  By the end of our time, the kids had each made a new friend.  Unfortunately, this particular location was an hour away from us, so it probably won't be a regular thing.

They had a hurricane wind tunnel there, that if you paid $2 it would produce 80 mph winds.  Caroline sneaked her way into several wind tunnel experiences.  Another time all three kids were squeezed into it, but Henry didn't last the whole time which wasn't too surprising.  He's the boy who has nightmares about tornadoes.  It was probably more exposure therapy for him that he hadn't quite signed up for.

Henry left the booth soon after this picture.

Henry has decided that he wanted to learn cursive this week.  He just started following the letter guides we have on the wall and has been trying to write everything in cursive.  So now we're on the hunt for a cursive book so he can learn everything the correct way.  I keep finding signs like this on our white board.

Henry also had a karate test this week for his camo belt-black stripe.  Todd went with him and said he did very well.  When it came time to break the boards at the end, Henry was the 8th kid to go up.  He broke through the first two with ease.  Then came the big board.  All the kids before him had tried to break it, but couldn't.  Henry snapped his foot down and broke it on the first try.  He has no hesitation when he breaks the boards.  Later, he told Todd that the other kids loosened the board up so that it broke easier when it got to him.  That boy has some power to him.

We got a lot of yard work done this weekend.  After playing for a while, Henry came over and helped Todd and I bag leaves.  Then he helped mow nearly the entire front yard.  Later Caroline helped bag up leaves as well.  However, before she helped, she watched our neighbors play basketball for what seemed like a good 45 minutes.  She started off at the end of their driveway, just standing there staring.  I made her sit a bit further back just to give them room to play.  She was literally on the sidewalk in full view of their house and she was loudly saying, "I can't see."  I was pretty sure she could if she looked in their direction, so there she stayed.

Josiah danced around, played with his sticks, and rode his bike and scooter.  He wasn't one for yard work, however, he does still enjoy his barista job.  He makes the coffee every morning now, gets it going, and pours me a mug.

Josiah prefers to be bare-chested most of the time.

We are going to try and finish this week well, because the following week is spring break and we are taking a break from everything.  I have been looking forward to it for the past 6 weeks or so.  We also have one more birthday celebration for one very excited little girl.