Puppy Love

Henry learned about conjunctions in his grammar lesson this week.  It only seemed appropriate to watch School House Rocks: Conjunction Junction.  We watched it a couple of times and then Henry was singing it for a couple of days.  Conjunction Junction what's your function?  He's got them down now.  We are able to finish school earlier and earlier each day now.  This past week we finished their Writing and Science books, so it's getting down to math, history, phonics/grammar, handwriting, and reading.  There are three days left.  We are all exhausted and very ready for a break.

One afternoon while we were out in the front yard, Caroline took a walk around our circle.  When she got to the neighbor's house across the street, she noticed our neighbor sitting in her garage with a puppy.  She asked Caroline if she wanted to pet it.  And despite all the times I've quizzed the kids, "When a stranger asks you if you want to pet their puppy, what do you say?" (Answer, "No. Let me ask my mom/dad."), Caroline went to pet the puppy.  She did at least glance in my direction.  At the realization that she was petting a dog, the boys were over there in half a second.  The puppy was a husky-lab mix and was only 6 weeks old.  They had a ball playing with it.  They were giggling and lying on the driveway so it would jump all over them.  They had so much fun.  They really would love a dog.  The owner of the dog told the kids that they could come over any time to play with her.  She clearly didn't understand the incredibly literal nature of our children.  6:00 a.m. the following morning, Josiah says, "Can we go play with Gia? She said we could come anytime."

Another day we had our friend, Ezra over for the whole day.  His parents had to make a visit to the ER, so we had him for a long time.  After we picked him up in the morning, he immediately started in on a long explanation about a game he has played.  I don't know if it was a video game or what, but it was a game and it had chapters.  Ezra also has a little bit of a speech impediment (he's only 5).  Well, in Chapter 2 of this game, Ezra kept talking about a character that sounded exactly like "a$$ angel."  He kept saying it over and over again.  A$$ angel had to fight this person and a$$ angel helped him... I just kept chuckling to myself in the front seat while no one else seemed the slightest bit aware.  By Chapter 3, the a$$ angel was no longer part of the story, so my fun was over.

We played a bit at home and then after much negotiations between all the kids over what playground to go to, we ended up at the splash pad in our neighborhood which has a playground next to it.  They went from splash pad to playground and back again many times.  We had one moment when Henry fell off the monkey bars because his hands were wet.  He just had two kids in his church class with their arms in casts, so I told him not to do that again.  We really don't need a broken arm at the beginning of the summer.  Of course, Josiah had to try the monkey bars after just to see if he could do it.  Guess what? He fell off, but at least he landed on his feet.  The water was fun and refreshing.

running to the playground

Later we went to McDonald's to eat and play before karate class.  McDonald's now has computer games, so instead of running all the fast food calories off on an indoor playground, they just sat there staring at a screen.  Caroline and Ezra did play a few games of tag with some other kids, but for the most part they were pretty sedentary.

We did karate and afterwards we met Todd in the Costco parking lot.  I traded him two pizzas for two kids.  Josiah, Ezra, and I brought the pizzas back to Ezra's house to feed his older siblings, while Todd took our two younger kids home (kicking and screaming) because they desperately needed to go to bed early.  It always feels like a divorced couple when we do those things.  Here's the kids for the weekend...

Meanwhile, back at Ezra's house we hung out until another babysitter came.  Josiah got to play on Ezra's game system for several hours.  From the sounds of it, they tried just about every game he had.  Josiah had a great time, and I am renewed in my efforts not to buy a gaming system.  The kids are thrilled.   Ezra's family also has a dog, so we got the obligatory picture. The dog is still a puppy and was too excited to take a picture with Josiah, so we did our best. (And the ER visit that they thought would be for a pinched nerve, ended up being a spinal compression requiring surgery!)

Today the kids and I went to a birthday party for a little girl that is friend's with Caroline.  Caroline picked out a sparkly notebook to give her.  The sparkles changed from silver if you pushed them up, and sparkly pink if you pushed them down.  Caroline loves sparkles.  Sprinkles and sparkles, those are her loves.  The birthday party had a unicorn theme, so they had unicorn horns, unicorn pinatas, pin-the-horn on the unicorn, unicorn cookies and cake.  They also got to ride in her birthday present - the Frozen mobile.  The birthday girl took Caroline for a drive in the backyard and promptly ran into the tree.  I kept pulling them back to help them move around the tree, but every time she kept running right back into it.  So, I just let them be.  I think they finally abandoned the car at the scene of the accident.

They did have fun with the karaoke machine.  Caroline and Josiah would love to have this in our home.  To me, it's much like the gaming system, not necessary for our house.  We already have singing at the top of their lungs all day every day.  I cannot imagine adding a microphone to the mix.

We're planning our trip back east.  Last year we had to get an oil change and rear brakes, this year it was an oil change and front brakes.  The car is ready.  Hopefully the passengers will be ready soon.  We have another busy week ahead.  We have so many play dates, picnics, and birthday parties scheduled that our days are just jammed packed, even if it is mostly fun stuff.

3-on-1 Ball

I had a dentist appointment this week, so I asked a fellow CC mom to watch the kids.  The kids had a blast and did not want to leave when I came to get them.  They had these cool number blocks as well as other blocks and Henry was building lots of castles/towers.  Caroline and her friend Gen kept knocking the towers down, so in retaliation, the boys took the girls' Prince figurine and locked him up in the castle and locked the girls out of the room.  Caroline and Gen came to us and sadly said, "Those boys kept the prince."  Poor Cinderella had no one to ride with her in the coach.

When it was time to leave, Josiah wanted another obligatory picture with their pet.  We have lots of pictures of him with all of our friend's dogs.  This was a very good dog.  Very calm, which helped Caroline immensely.  She's still nervous around most dogs.

School has gone well this week.  For our 45-minute free time that we take after lunch, we've been going out to play ball.  Henry and I toss the football, Josiah and I toss a Nerf baseball, and Caroline and I kick a 4-square ball back and forth.  All at the same time.  They love trying to make me catch/kick them all at once.  Most of the time I drop the ball or miss it entirely in an attempt to block/protect my face.  They get sent to the penalty box for hitting me in the back with their ball, since it means they threw it without me facing them.  Henry racked up the most penalties.  Mostly because he throws the hardest and has the best aim, so his hits had the most impact.

As if that wasn't enough exercise and agility training, the kids have been faithful companions when we do exercise videos in the evening.  They find great joy in the videos because they do "active rest" whenever they feel like it.  Henry said he enjoyed the isometric squat (where you just stay in the squatting position while your thighs burn like the dickens), but when I looked over at him, his bum was resting nicely on our ottoman.  Caroline talks through the entire video.  Literally, the entire video.  Loudly.  Until she gets kicked out of the room if I miss too many transitions to the next exercise (because I couldn't hear the trainer man talking).  But she's all ready to go the next day.  "Ooo, we're going to do the exercise video?  Oooo, I want to do it, too!"

Henry had looked forward to Friday's karate class all week.  During Caroline's class he was going to play football in the field with his friends.  He had studied playbooks and written out plays.  He assigned everyone a real team player's name.  Josiah was Bill O'Brien, the manager.  Henry was Rob Gronkowski.  He was so excited.  But then one of the family's didn't show up, so there went two players.  The other three players are all brothers, but they had gotten a sunburn the day before and their mom wanted them to stay in the shade, that and it was super hot out.  Henry's hopes were dashed.  They did get to toss the football in the shady sidewalk area, but it wasn't the same.  He's going to try again next week.  It has been really hot here this week - mid 90's every day.  Wednesday we broke a record from the 1800s.  I think it was 96 and we felt every bit of it.

Henry got a book from the library about crafts because, in looking through it, he saw a craft on how to make a football helmet.  So, we got started on our paper-mache helmets, but then quickly ran out of glue.  It takes a lot of glue!  We have three layers of newspaper to complete before cutting and painting it, so it'll be a project that we work on this week (if we can ever get to the store for more glue).

We told the kid's about our Disney trip in the fall.  Josiah was very excited - we can always count on him for excitement.  Henry was a little more subdued.  He said that he wanted to go wherever Tom Brady was.  He is slightly obsessed with Tom Brady at the moment.  Caroline was excited that she was going to meet Cinderella, Elsa, & Anna (Frozen characters).  She loves her princesses.  Todd wanted the kids to know about the trip early so they could save up their money in case they wanted to buy anything there.  Also, because they always want to buy Lego kits with their money and the amount of Legos on their floor makes us not want to buy more Lego kits.

We went to Smashburger this week.  Josiah has been asking to get a milkshake there for many weeks now.  We caved this time, but we made him share it with Henry since it was already close to 7:00 p.m.  Those boys sucked it down.  It was as if they wanted to make sure they each got the most, so they just sucked those straws til it was empty.  Then the sugar hit and they were nuts.

At Smashburnger, they give you the container they make the milkshake in so you get the leftovers as well.  I let Caroline try it, but she didn't like it.  I politely ate it for her.  It'd be a shame to waste a perfectly good milkshake.  She still doesn't like all the dairy things the boys eat.  She went without it for so long, that she never developed a taste for some of it.  Milkshakes are not her thing.

Todd and I spent this afternoon cleaning out a flower bed.  It was overgrown with weeds - I really should have taken a "before" picture, but suffice it to say, it was a giant mess.  Todd also cut down one of the tall bushes thing, because clearly some pest had killed it.  This has become our Sunday ritual after church - yardwork.  The flower but-there's-no-flowers bed looks so much better cleared out and mulched.  We didn't quite finish the section, but that'll be next weekend's project.  Then we have the entire other side of the yard to work on.  We'll work until the mosquitoes begin.  We've been fortunate so far to not have many mosquitoes, but we know they're coming.

We're down to 8 more days of school.  We're counting down.  All of us.  :)

Pools and Picnics

We went to the Dollar Store this week.  There were many ladies from a retirement community shopping there as indicated by the name tags they were all wearing.  There were at least 9 ladies, including us, in line to check out, so we were in line for quite a while when the lady in front of us turned around and struck up a conversation with Caroline.  Fortunately, Caroline was in a chatty mood and was telling this woman all the kids names, ages, favorite colors, the fact that she was wearing her favorite dress, and on and on.  She and I spoke some as well.  She had just moved here from California a month ago.  Her daughter lives here.  She has identical twin grandsons who are five years old.  The conversation must have been a little too pleasant for Caroline, because then she asked, "What's your name?"

Kind older lady, "Trish."
Caroline, "How old are you?"
Quickly I said, "Oh, you don't ask people their ages."
Kind older lady, very matter-of-factly, "72."
Caroline, "You look really old."
Me, horrified and in a hushed tone, "Caroline! That's rude!  You don't say such things!"
Kind older lady, "Oh, that's okay.  She's just being honest.  [to Caroline] My mom is 104."
Caroline, pointing to a much older looking lady two carts up, "Is that your mom?"
There were still two ladies in front of our kind older lady, so she and I kept talking as if the above exchange didn't exist, but in my mind we could not get out of the store fast enough.  I told Caroline that she is never to tell someone they look old.  No one.  Ever.  She completely does not understand why.  You don't have to know why, child, you just don't do it!  And the thing was, the lady she said it to didn't look old at all.  She was clearly the youngest of the bunch.

Our friend's invited us to their pool one morning.  We were supposed to go to the Children's Museum together, but they were working on the water pumps/boat area outside which is one of the favorite attractions for some of our kids, so we postponed that trip.  A pool was the next best water place to play.  They had a lot of fun.  Josiah still loves to dive for rings and squid toys.  He does a really good job, but when he is determined to get a ring, he allows nothing to stop him.  Even a lack of air.  I kept telling him, "If you run out of air, just come back for more.  You don't have to force yourself to the bottom of the pool and swallow water."  He was a determined little chap.  He also got quite cold, so he had to take breaks and warm up his little no-body-fat body.  (The rest of us had no trouble maintaining our body temperatures....)  Caroline and Henry had fun with their friend.  It was a good first swim of the season.

A few days later, we went to a park for a picnic with our CC group.  It was our end of year picnic as well as our yearbook signing time.  Obviously this is the first yearbook the kids have ever seen and I don't think they understood the whole "signing" bit until a few older kids got it started.  All the boys were playing and hanging out together.  They even sat at their own picnic table away from the shelter where all the parents and girls were.  We love how well they all get along.  At one point, I was bringing Henry's drink down to him and I passed Josiah.  I noted that he had 4 Oreo cookies in his hand.  Fine, I thought.  He must have finished his lunch (that I never saw him get because I was with Caroline).  Not 5 minutes later, I walked by Josiah again and this time he had 4 Chip's Ahoy cookies in his hand.  So, as we leisurely walked by each other, I commented that he was done getting cookies.  They all played on the playground, the boys started a game of kickball, and the parents all got to chat.  It was a great time.  As glad as we are for the break from CC, it'll be sad to not have the mom-talking time again.  We are so glad to be back at this CC group.  It's just a great fit.

The boys climbing the outside of the playground.

The boys all on the see-saw.

Josiah reading the yearbook.

For Mother's Day weekend, (see how I threw an extra day in there), we did what I love.  Cleaned the house.  We cleaned almost the whole downstairs - toys put away, floors mopped, counters cleared and cleaned, we even did the dreaded dusting.  It looked great.  The we worked outside, Todd taking down branches and us bundling them up for the garbage men.  Another second love - hard work.  We were sweaty, sore, and tired by the end, but we got a lot accomplished.

The boys played in the branches before we broke them down to be bundled.

We also got to go out to eat yesterday.  Today we got stuffed salmon to bake.  Any weekend without cooking is a good one.

On Thumb Sucking Watch:
On the first night that I painted Caroline's nail, I could hear her making noises in the night, noises of disgust and whimperings.  She even spit in her bed while sleeping.  She came in our room in the morning and said she was going to throw up.  She didn't, but it tasted that bad.  She said she couldn't suck her thumb because it tasted bad.  That's right honey bear.  Then we went to the pool and it must have taken all the polish off because she was back to sucking it that evening.  Then the next few nights, every time I went in to polish her nail, she was either sucking it or it was under her pillow.  Another few nights, I went to bed early and didn't do it.  Then last night, I polished it again.  She woke up with that bad taste again and came to our bed.  But then this afternoon she was sucking it again!   Now the game is on.  Forget about dabbing her nail.  We are painting the mess out of it.  We may even paint the skin, too, just for good measure.  We are going to break this habit.  I'm determined to get it done before her front teeth grow back in.

So that was our week.  We have about three more weeks of school, so we're just trying to finish well at this point.  

Swatson's Signature and WAM Concert

Josiah has been into Garfield and Peanuts comic books lately.  He discovered them at the library and continues to check them out.  For one Garfield comic book, he tabbed about 25 pages that he wanted me to copy so he could color them in.  We did that a few weeks ago and he has enjoyed coloring them in.  But then he handed me a newer book and it had about 50 pages tabbed (we counted).  This put it at about $5, so I told him we could just go to Half Priced Books, buy an entire comic book for cheaper and he could just color the entire book.  So we did.  Josiah picked out a Garfield and a Peanuts book, and Henry picked out a three-in-one Garfield book.  And they've both enjoyed coloring them ever since.  It's the older kid version of a coloring book.


Of course, while we were there, Caroline wanted to look at the kid's section.  Usually they're in that section for a good half hour when I have to drag them out of it.  This time, Caroline was looking around and quickly said, "Oh! We can go now.  I found what I wanted."  What she found was a princess set with a tiara, necklace, gloves, wand, and rings.  She has loved it all.

Since this picture was taken not quite a week ago, a ring has now been lost (at church, where she was advised not to wear her jewelry), the jewel has come out of the necklace, the gloves got a tear in them that has been mended, and the other ring was lost in the house, but now found.

One night this week, Caroline wanted to read Green Eggs & Ham to Todd and I before bed.  The problem was, she didn't know the words.  So, I read the whole book to her first and then she wanted to read it back to us.  This is how her re-reading went:
"Would you like them in a house?
Would you like them with a mouse?"
[turns page]
"No!"
[turns page]
"Would you like them with a fox?
Would you like them in a box?"
[turns page]
"No!"
The book goes a bit faster when you don't have to read, "I would not eat them in a house, I would not eat them with a mouse.  I would not eat them in a box, I would not eat them with a fox.  I would not eat them here or there, I would not eat them anywhere."  Dr. Seuss should have just considered, "No!"

Tuesday we went a park with friends.  It is actually a YMCA summer camp place that is open to the public, so it was a huge place that had five separate playgrounds spread about with lots of open fields.  The weather forecast said it was to be overcast.  It was overcast with a bit of pouring rain sprinkled in.  That didn't stop any of the kids from playing however.  They were only disappointed the monkey bars got too slippery to cross.  We made the rounds to each of the playgrounds and the kids all got entirely filthy.  I mean they were covered head-to-toe in dirt.  You could just see all the dirt in their hair.  Dirt in the hair, smile on the face.

On Wednesday, the kids had their last WAM and Boys of Iron.  The church has started renovating certain areas, so instead of moving the kids to different rooms for the last night, they hired an illusionist to entertain them altogether in one giant room.  I wasn't in the room, but apparently Caroline and her friend volunteered to help with a trick.  When he put the microphone to their mouths, after asking their names, Caroline said she spoke very loudly into the microphone, "Caroline Cockrell!"  Josiah later told me he was embarrassed by her loudness.
To commemorate the beginning of the construction demo, all the kindergarten and first graders got to put their hand prints on a wall that was coming down.  They posted a photo and Henry told us which was his.  It was the blurry orange one because he tried to jump and smack his hand on the wall, leaving a big blur.  He was pretty pleased with himself.

Josiah got to go to another Skeeter's baseball game this weekend.  We were all originally going to go as a family because it was a Star War's theme, but this week has been particularly bad with the youngest two with regards to constant picking on each other/pushing/hitting/kicking/tripping/name calling/on and on and on.  Mid-week, we went to the ballpark to pick up the tickets for Saturday's game.  On the drive, Henry said that if he had known he wouldn't have been able to go to the game, he would have behaved.  So we got a nice little lesson about behaving because it's the right thing to do.  Speaking kindly because it's the right thing to do, not just because you get a baseball game out of it.  Caroline fights with her fists, Henry with his words.  Henry was melancholic that day, but it hasn't changed a whole lot in the bickering department since then.

So, Josiah got to go.  He was so excited because of the Star Wars theme.  They were giving out Swatson bobble-heads, but what Josiah was really excited for was Swatson's signature.  He brought a Sharpie to the park and waited in the line with the other kids and got him to sign his picture from the program.


Todd said that he watched a different, younger kid, try to get one of the players to sign a baseball card.  The player looked at the card and said, "That isn't me.  He's coming."  Apparently, quite a few on the team are sporting beards and they're a little hard to tell apart.

Josiah also got a Skeeter's helmet ice cream bowl.  He was a happy camper.

We finished today with our big WAM concert.  The theme was God of This City.  In all the years the boys have done WAM, they have never sung the songs on their own, either at home or in the car, as much as they have done this semester.  They were just really good songs.  All the kids seemed to enjoy them and they sang their hearts out.  I worked with the kindergarten class and we were impressed that they actually stood there and sang for the concert.  In every rehearsal we had, they were messing with the mics, stepping on the speakers, pulling their shirts up to show their bellies, putting their arms in their shirts, just about everything except paying attention.  It's always nice when they finish well and look and sing in the correct direction.  Caroline had been through several dress rehearsals with us, so she was pretty familiar with the concert.  She was singing and dancing to the music in her seat.  When we asked her what her favorite song was, she said, "The ballet-ers."  She really wants to do ballet.

After the WAM concert, we went out to Tutti Frutti.  It's a frozen yogurt shop where you serve yourself.  You put however much frozen yogurt you want into your bowl, and then add however many toppings you want.  We pretty much let the kids get what they wanted since this was a special occasion.  Caroline finished first.  Her bowl came in at 7.8 oz.  They boys bowls were past 14 oz. each.  It cost nearly $20 for three frozen yogurt cups because they were so generously filled.

Caroline's bowl was a bit smaller, but she still couldn't eat it all.

While they were eating their frozen yogurt, I saw coloring pages for the kids.  They could turn it in for a free glitter tattoo (oh joy), but it was also a contest and the top three prizes were $25 gift cards to Tutti Frutti.  I got three in hopes that they win because I think it's going to take a $25 gift card to get me back there.

We are on a mission to stop Caroline's thumb sucking.  I found a very bitter tasting nail polish that had tons of reviews on Amazon saying how well it worked.  So, one evening, after Caroline was fast asleep, I painted her thumb.  Actually, I just put a dab on her thumbnail because some of the reviews commented on the strength of the flavor.  The next morning I was watching her like a hawk.  She wasn't sucking her thumb at all, which was pretty good since she usually sucks it a bit in the morning as she's waking up.  Later that same day, she was drinking out of a tiny doll teacup and her thumb accidentally touched her mouth.  She clearly reacted to the taste, but blamed it on the teacup.  I was pretty impressed with how great it was working.  Then that evening, she started sucking her thumb and I just couldn't believe it - the taste didn't seem to be affecting her at all.  It was then I realized I had painted the wrong thumb.  How she can suck her right thumb for five years and I go and paint the left one is beyond me.  She's getting both painted tonight.  I'm making it fail proof.

And that was our week.  Coming up, we have our year end picnic with our CC group, which should make for a fun day.  I have to say, though, I'm looking forward to a week with completely nothing extra to do.  From the looks of the calendar, though, that'll come in July.