VBS & Henry's Decision

The kids had a lot of fun at VBS this week.  I was thankful that they all went into their classrooms without getting clingy on Monday morning.  The church we do VBS at is huge-- they had 13 different kindergarten classrooms.  I was worried Caroline wouldn't go in to her classroom, but the excitement of being able to do it for the first time was stronger than her fear of being dropped off.  At pick-up the first day, all three kids said they had a good time.  Henry started right in on his class.  He said he met a boy who spoke only Spanish, Roberto.  Henry told him that he spoke a little Spanish, so they became friends.  Henry said, "Hola."  I'm not sure what other Spanish he threw out there, but apparently the other boy didn't talk at all, so they mostly communicated non-verbally.  Henry said he also met a boy who spoke French, but when Henry said, "Bonjour, mon ami." the kid didn't seem to understand him.  Either Henry's pronunciation was really bad (entirely possible) or the kid didn't speak French (also entirely possible).  Caroline said that she didn't speak in her class at all, but that she still had a good time.  Henry replied that last year he didn't speak in his class either, and he had a good time then as well, but this year he spoke a lot.  I believe it buddy.  That kid talks a mile a minute.

By day 3 of VBS, Henry's teacher told me that he had really taken Roberto under his wing and has come in speaking different Spanish words every day.  They said we should be proud of him.  Awww.  We are.  I asked Henry what Roberto said when he spoke in Spanish.  Roberto just laughed.  So, they had no speech communication for the most part, but they really enjoyed each other.  Henry said Roberto was very funny.  I guess he ditched the French kid.


Henry also made a big decision at VBS.  On the third day, after their "Master Teaching" the teachers gave the kids the opportunity to walk forward to say they wanted to be followers of Jesus.  Henry told us that he walked forward.  He must have been sitting next to Roberto, because he waved him along to walk forward together.  Henry's been talking about getting baptized a lot the past month, so we are elated that he's made this life-changing decision.  As parents, there is basically nothing more important than our kids wanting (on their own) to follow the Lord.

"I love the Lord!"

While they were having fun at VBS, I was having fun ALONE!  I got my hair cut, went to the store without any helpers, and cleaned out a few closets without anyone asking me to save things.  That and a little Miranda Lambert on the radio.  It was good times.  Until next year, VBS.

Every afternoon this week the kids have been busy in the bathroom making popsicle stick boats, putting them in the water, then watching them sink and fall apart.  I suggested glue might make the boats actually float for more than 3 seconds, but they liked that they fell apart.  It gave them the opportunity to make different designs.  They did this for hours this week.  Eventually they added Lego men and clothespins to keep it interesting.  Every afternoon I made them put the sticks outside at our front entrance so they would dry.  The first day they did it, Henry had a major meltdown.  I asked him what he was so worried about and he thought someone would steal the sticks.  "Why would they steal the sticks?" I asked.  "So they can do what we were doing."  I reassured him there were no thieving 7-year olds in the neighborhood looking for popsicle sticks at people's front doors.

This weekend the kids got a package of books from Grandma & Grandpa.  In it there were Mad Libs Junior. The boys have had sooooo much fun doing them.  In the Junior version they don't just say "noun" or "verb," they give a list of nouns/verbs to choose from.  Basically if they could work in "stupid," "million," and some sort of potty humor into the story they were cracking themselves up.  They tried to read the stories to Todd and I but we couldn't understand it over their laughing.  Good times.

Josiah has been on a reading chase this week.  He desperately wanted to get his library reading trophy this weekend, so he was reading 2-3 Encyclopedia Brown books a day.  Previously, he had read a lot, but it was mostly comic book stories which I wouldn't count on his reading log.  He thought he had to finish it before August 1st, so he kicked it in high gear.  Henry had already finished, so they both got their trophies this weekend.

Henry thought his picture should be a reading action shot.

Caroline actually got her trophy a couple of weeks ago, but she wanted to take an action shot like Henry.

The boys were also able to turn in their Half Priced Books logs this weekend, so we're officially done with the summer reading programs.  Josiah went straight for the Garfield comic books.  More illustrating material.  He was able to pick up a Peanuts comic book as well.  Josiah is very much into Garfield.  He reads them constantly, and he reads them to us constantly.  During Caroline's karate class, he was reading them aloud to anyone who would listen.  He had quite a crowd for a while.

Then at church today we had a guest preacher, Jon Davis.  Josiah's eyes got wide.  He thought it was Jim Davis' Jon from the Garfield comic strip.  I'm a big fan.  Can you autograph my book?

The rest of the weekend was spent trimming trees after we got a lovely letter from the HOA.  The trend here seems to be to trim your trees really high.  I've always thought they looked goofy to be cut so high, plus I liked the shade of our trees, so we had just left ours alone.  No bueno with the HOA.  Todd did a good job with them.  They are clearly trimmed, but they still look good.  Plus we probably lost 10 lbs sweating in the July heat.  Win-win.


Next week begins August.  We were supposed to start school August 1st, yet given the current state of the homeschool room, that may not happen.  Todd and I spent this evening putting together a few Ikea bookcases to help with the overwhelming number of books, craft supplies, and completed crafts that take up residence in that room.  So, we shall see.  If we have to wait a week, I don't think I'll hear any complaints around here.

Monopoly Skills

We started off our week taking my car in for its annual inspection.  When we gave the man the keys at the desk, he mentioned that he had a batch of cookies in the oven.  So, even though it was 7:45 a.m., the kids were obsessed with these cookies.  "Are the cookies out yet?  Can I have a cookie?  Do you think the cookies are done?  Can I have a cookie?"  Curse you car man!  Of course, when they did come out, he mentioned it to the kids and they were all over them.  When we checked out he gave them balloons.  Josiah spotted a mug of pencils on the counter and asked if he could have one of those as well.  (good eye spotting pencils, son)  So, they left with their hands full of goodies.  I left having passed inspection, so we all had a good morning.

Playing a few games of Uno while they wait for Car Man's cookies.

The kids started their new swim session this week.  They like their new instructor and still love swim.  The instructor brought out the kick boards and made them use them to get floating ducks halfway down the pool.  After their first attempt, he paused and taught them how to kick properly and efficiently.  He's given me good tips for when we're at the pool, so it's been good.  He said they were fast learners which I never would have known without his saying so.  The lessons have been great.

Josiah

We made it back to our community pool on Friday so they could show me what they've learned.  Henry is now able to swim a good distance on his back, arms overhead, feet/legs kicking.  Caroline was teaching me how to float, and I must say, it's been a while since I've floated.  She was a good teacher because I just popped right up and floated.  They spent a lot of time going down the slide again and jumping off the side of the pool.  Still no good pool pictures, though. It's been so hot that I haven't taken the time to take pictures, I just jump right in with the kids.

It has actually been an incredibly hot week.  The Sheriff's office shared a message (on Facebook) from the power companies about conserving energy.  They mentioned putting your thermostat on 78°.  We actually keep ours on 79°, and are totally comfortable, so I thought I'd read the comments people were leaving.  Apparently, people keep their thermostats at 62° and 68°  and 72° and all sorts of freezing cold temperatures.  I was reading some of the funny comments to Todd and we were talking about the post.  The boys caught on and asked what were black-outs and brown-outs.  We explained it to them and they because obsessed with it.  They would not go to bed that evening without asking 100 questions about the potential black-out.  Josiah brought his lightsaber in his bed so he'd have a source of light.  The next morning, both boys came down fully dressed with their clip-on reading lamps in their pockets.  A light source in case of the black-out.  I told them if we needed light during the day we could just open our blinds.  Josiah kept trying to get me to fill up a cooler with ice.  Just in case.  I didn't dare tell them that the worst part of a black-out would be no A/C.  We don't need light.  We need A/C.  We were very happy that the most we had was a power flicker one morning and nothing else.

Caroline and Josiah both had their karate belt tests this week.  Caroline thought her test was easy, but she was testing with a bunch of white belts, so she knew how to do everything.  The funniest part was later, when I was going through the pictures she had a big grin on her face during the sparring.  I get to kick and hit on purpose!

She broke a big board!

Josiah's test was much harder.  The instructor tested them on the usual things, but then taught them new techniques and had them try it out.  It's been a long time since Josiah's had a belt test, so he was very happy to finally be moving up.

I was impressed with his kick.  It looks painful to do!

When the belts were earned, they got to celebrate with ice cream treats.  Caroline opted for a doughnut as she's not a huge ice cream fan.  While the boys were deciding what ice cream to get, Caroline had already found a seat and had her doughnut unwrapped.  She had eaten half of it before the boys even got to the table.  Then when she finished her doughnut before the boys finished their ice cream, she wasn't too happy.  Clearly they had a bigger dessert and she felt she deserved a second dessert.  Not going to happen baby girl.

Because of the heat, we've been staying indoors except for swim class.  Henry has entertained himself by playing handball with a ping pong ball.  He hits it against the walls/doors long enough to get himself all sweaty.

Josiah got tracing paper this week as well as good colored pencils, so he's spent his time tracing everything in sight.

We stayed inside this weekend as well.  To pass the time we introduced the kids to Monopoly. 

Todd and I had a lot of reading of the rules.  Apparently he and I didn't play the same way when we were kids.  Todd expected honesty and that if you landed on someone else's property you should give them their rent irregardless of whether or not they spotted you on their property.  I grew up playing that if you landed on someone's property you do everything in your power to get the next person to roll the dice so you don't have to pay the rent.  Fortunately, the rule book sided with me on that one.  It is the property owner's responsibility to pay attention.  We also kept a pot of money in the middle of the board - all the luxury tax and school board payments went there.  Whoever landed on Free Parking got the pot.  That isn't in the rule book, but it's still a better way to play.  Monopoly started off well.  With four players (Todd & Caroline were a team) the properties went fast.  Then it became a negotiation game of trying to buy properties from your neighbor to get all of the same color.  Our kids really need to work on our negotiation skills.  Sometimes they'd offer $1600 for a railroad.  Other times they'd offer $200 for Park Place.  It ended up that we all had a monopoly and we all started buying houses.  Unfortunately, Josiah bought 6 houses to put up on Park Place and Boardwalk.  Once that happened, we all started losing money fast.  Then Josiah became Mr. Generosity.  He'd hold his handful of money and offer Caroline or me $600 "just because."  I don't need no stinkin' charity.  I told him I was just fine.  Caroline took $400.  We've been playing for 2 days now and the game is still going.

Property buying and renting are not the only life skills Caroline learned this week.  She has also taken over getting herself breakfast.  She can now make toast like a champ.  She actually toasts it, allows it to pop up, then flips the bread around and toasts it again. She is her mother's daughter.  She is also a bit heavy handed with the butter.

She's taking ownership of her thumb sucking, too.  Me painting her nail at night just wasn't working for us, so I introduced the bad tasting nail polish to her and have had her paint her thumb herself.  The first day she was pretty upset, but as the week's gone on she's gotten somewhat used to it.  We just have to make sure we do it in the morning.  She'll get upset if we try to do it in the afternoon/evening when she's tired.  But I can't go to sleep...  Also, we have to be vigilant to paint it daily because the pool chlorine seems to take it off. 
 

Next week the kids have VBS at a local church.  I already have lots of plans for what I can accomplish while they're away.  It's really pretty exciting.  First stop, getting a haircut.

Swim Success

We started off the week doing well.  Monday morning I mowed the front yard while the kids all played outside.  When the mowing was done, they helped sweep the clippings all over the driveway and sidewalk.  They asked to help and didn't complain.  Both boys with a broom and Caroline walking around with the dustpan and bucket.  It was great.
Inside we played Upwords, Yahtzee, and Uno.  We read.  We ate.  We were productive.

Tuesday morning the kids all focused their energy on making their cow costumes for Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a.  The boys made their signs and masks themselves which turned out really well.  As with every year, I always think we should laminate these signs so we can just reuse them next year, but then we go to CFA, eat, and the signs inevitably get juice or greasy fries on them.  No one feels like taking the time to do them again when we get home.  So next year it'll be the same scurrying around in the morning to make the costumes.  They ate their free kids meals and then played on the indoor playground.  There were about 20 kids in there playing, so it was slightly chaotic.  We left when I heard Caroline leading the girls in the "Boys not allowed!" chant at the top of the slide.

The kids finished up their session of swim lessons this week.  The last two days there were two instructors helping them, so I could see lots of progress.  They all passed the Yellow Starfish class and have moved up to the Pink Jellyfish.  They'll have two weeks in that and we shall see who moves up from there.  As promised, we went to our neighborhood pool on Friday morning so they could show me all they've learned.  I was very impressed with their skills.  Josiah could swim the full length of the pool.  It wasn't swimming as in freestyle or backstroke, but he was on his back with his hands above his head and his feet were kicking him across.  He did great.  He can float!  Henry and Caroline showed me all they learned with floating and diving for rings/torpedoes.  They all did so well.  I was very happy with their progress.  I cannot wait to see what they can do after another session of lessons.  They also went down the water slide what felt like 100 times.  Each time they got to the top, they'd yell down at me, "Are you ready?  Are you ready? [pause, pause] Are you ready?"  YES! I'm ready!!  I don't have many pictures of the pool, since I'm in the water with them, so here are the boys at break time.

The last 20 minutes we were there, Caroline attached herself to a little baby girl.  The baby was throwing the ball in the water and Caroline would pick it up and hand it back.  As with all babies, this went on for a very long time.  The mother was kind and let Caroline hang out with her baby.  Caroline really wants a baby sister.  Since that's not going to happen, she gets to play with others and carry around her baby Kevin.

Mid-week our church had a preschool movie night.  The boys were glad that Caroline was in pre-K and was invited to go.  This is the annual event that has the popcorn bar with all the fixins.  We were coming from swim and were late to arrive, so not wanting to be the parent who uses flash photography in the theater, I refrained from taking any pictures.  Needless to say, they filled their popcorn containers up with marshmallows, goldfish, gummy bears, and scoops and scoops of M&M's.  Seriously, including their second and third refills, they probably ate the equivalent of two packages of M&M's.  Not too surprisingly, two-thirds of the way through the movie, many of the preschoolers, hopped up on sugar, were up and walking all over the place not paying a bit of attention to the movie.  It is bittersweet that our kids will be too old for it next year.  With Caroline entering Kindergarten, we have officially finished the preschool years.

This weekend, the boys turned in their summer reading logs to Half-Priced Books and got their $5 book bucks.  Josiah decided fairly quickly on a Garfield comic book (to illustrate again) as well as a Star Wars activity book.  Henry spent the majority of his time reading baby board books, so when I gave the 5-minute warning he hadn't even looked for a book to purchase.  We were in the store for probably 45 minutes, so he had had the time.  He finally decided on a Build Your Own Minion punch-out activity book.  I'm not a big fan of minions, but at that moment I was a big fan of checking out at the register.  The boys have been making minions constantly.  I think Henry likes to make them, but Josiah seems to be the one playing with them.

Josiah has not only been illustrating his new Garfield book, but he's been drawing lots of Garfield pictures, too.  He's getting pretty good at them.  

Todd gave me the gift of new tires today.  We dropped our car off for the annual inspection and they took one look at my tires and said it would fail.  My first thought was, How can you tell that by just looking?  You didn't even do the penny test!  Then we looked at the front tires and were shocked to see how bald they were.  We were incredibly grateful for the protection we had to make it back from Virginia without any issue.

This coming week is supposed to be really hot.  There's another dust cloud from the Sahara that's hanging out overhead.  Apparently it acts like a ceiling keeping all the hot air in, with little chance for rain.  So, yeah,  a week of ridiculously high temperatures and minuscule dust particles in the air.  It'll be an indoor week for the most part.

And since there weren't many pictures this week, here's Caroline in her swim shirt and the shorts she put on to match.  This girl likes color.

Swim Lessons

When we drove into Houston from our trek across the country, we were greeted with an extremely hazy skyline.  The skyscrapers were just shadows in the haze.  We learned later that there was a big dust cloud from the Saharan Desert that had traveled across the ocean and passed through Houston.  We were also greeted with Houston weather - super hot and humid with lots of mosquitoes.   The buzz of mosquito spraying trucks late at night are always a welcome sound. 

The kids have had to adjust back to "house rules" after having "vacation rules" for quite a few weeks.  We're having a break from media and while they complained for the first few days, they've resigned themselves to acceptance (at least there's no media during the day - I can't control when Todd watches TV and they happen to watch along).  One day, I set a timer for reading time and it was very cool that even after the timer went off, they all continued reading.  That'll make your heart feel good.

This week, the kids all began swim lessons.  I put them all in the same class even though Josiah is older and has more experience.  The problem is, he still cannot float.  Floating seemed like an important enough skill in the survival department.  They have absolutely loved swimming lessons.  The first day went great - they were blowing bubbles, dunking their heads under water, and practicing floating.  By the second day, they forgot that they were taking swimming lessons and thought it was a "see what I can do" class.  We discussed the purpose of class and they did much better by the third day.  Now we need to bring them to our neighborhood pool so they can show me all that they've learned and to have a free playing time.

Waiting for their class on the first day.

Three in a row.

In the pool, Josiah tends to throw his body all over  - bobbing up and down in the water, throwing himself backwards, he's constantly moving.  Henry's far more reserved and less comfortable.  His floating was quite stiff the first day, but he's relaxed more each following day.

I'm exited to see each of them swim the length of the pool.  It may not happen for all of them this summer, but it will be a big accomplishment when it does happen.

The 4th of July hit mid-week and for us it was a very rainy day.  We tried our hand at Great Grandpa's 3-D puzzle that Great Grandma gave us.

What we learned was that Great Grandpa is a puzzle-master-genius and though we gave it a valiant effort over several days, we finally gave in and put it up, to be tried again in a few years.  It was hard!

Josiah showed up as John Adams and read the Preamble to the Constitution to us all.  While it was a good speech, we'll have to teach him the Declaration of Independence, slightly more appropriate for the 4th.

Caroline and I made a Patriotic cake.  What we envisioned was a layer cake with red on the top, followed by thick white frosting, and a blue cake on the bottom.  What we ended up with was a peachy colored top layer, a thin layer of white frosting, and a greenish layer on the bottom.  A bit more food coloring would have helped.  That, and we need to learn how to make our own frosting, so we can have enough to cover a two-layer cake.  She enjoyed helping make the cake...

...and eating it.  Despite its looks, it did taste good.

The rain made for a lazy day and Caroline fell asleep mid-day.  While she slept, Todd introduced the boys to the 80's comedian, Gallagher, and his Sledge-o-matic.  At the end of each of his performances, Gallagher brings out the Sledge-o-matic, a giant wooden mallet, and smashes it down on apples, heads of lettuce, mustard bottles, pineapples, anything really.  The boys found it hilarious.  They were cracking up, but they also repeated everything Gallagher said, so you could only hear about half of his routine.  Unfortunately, the two jokes the boys found funniest were the ones with innuendo that they didn't understand.  One in particular was about a lady in North Dakota who had 22 children.  She bought the Sledge-o-matic and never had a problem having children again.  Neither did her husband.  Ba-dum-bum. The boys think it's because she used the Sledge-o-matic on her own kids.  Not quite...  Of course, this was the joke they were relating on the drive to church this morning.  Don't share it in your class!!

We didn't see too many fireworks this year, unless you count A Capital Fourth on TV.  I'm guessing it was because of the rain, but we let the kids stay up til 9 p.m. hoping there would be more to see.  They weren't happy to go to bed, yet fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.  A little after 9, the fireworks really got started.

Henry finished out his week earning a new belt in karate.  There were only three kids testing so Henry had Mr. Gregory testing him the entire time.   I wasn't sure if we should have put off testing for a while since we haven't been to karate in a month, but Henry wanted to do it.  It was a lot of work and a lot of moves/kicks/hits/forms/self-defense that he had to remember, but he did really well.

He easily broke all three boards on the floor at the end.  This time they held a board up in the air and he had to try and kick and break it.  He wasn't able to do that, but he gave it a good try.

Saturday morning, Josiah busied himself with summer school lessons for Todd and I.  All three kids were busy in the dining room getting things set up.  When they came out to get Todd and me, Josiah said, "Don't gasp when you walk in."  That wasn't a comforting thought.  He had taped up dinosaur pictures on our blinds.  I think that was the gasping moment.  (We don't like to tape things on our blinds because we've had blinds break...)  They gave us a few math papers to do and we each had to draw a picture before it devolved into all three kids talking at once and there was no order to anything.  We deemed summer school over, but I did offer to do some school with the boys if they were interested.  They weren't.


Josiah has gasping on his mind, because when I came downstairs this morning, Josiah said, "Don't gasp when you walk in the school room."  Hmmm.  You do know how I like to start my mornings. Apparently the kids had an early morning painting session, and they hadn't exactly cleaned it up yet.

Next week is just a nice, easy week, just swim and karate.  I'm hoping to get a few closets cleaned up, assuming I don't have too many helpers around trying to get me to save everything from the trash bin.

While I'm sitting here writing this blog, Todd and Caroline are playing Guess Who? behind me.  I heard Caroline say, "You look like this guy, Daddy, and Mommy looks like her."  When I saw the pictures I laughed out loud.