CC Begins

I wanted to give all the kids a freshening up before CC began.  So the night before CC, we had a hair cutting party.  The boys' hair had been getting long and Caroline advised me that she wanted a lot of hair off.  She had been talking about shorter hair for quite a few weeks.  So, after cutting all the menfolk, she sat down in my chair.  I was immediately humbled by how the real hairdressers can comb, part, and clip up 3/4 of the hair as quickly and as easily as they do.  Caroline indicated how much she wanted off by pointing to a spot near her shoulder - about 3.5 inches.  I got to work.

After showing her the finished product, she was smiley, but then she said she looked like someone she knows.  I got the impression that wasn't a compliment.  Then she got less smiley.  I told her it was okay if she didn't like it and that it would grow back if she didn't like it so short.  She quietly responded, "I want hair like Rapunzel."  That's a ringing endorsement for my skills....  We'll be on the lookout for Great Clips coupons for future trims.

The kids were really excited for their first day of CC.  We have a wonderful group of families and the kids all get along so nicely.  It is a big blessing to do school alongside them.

Henry gave me only these two expressions: crazy smile or unhappy teen.

Notice she wanted to put her hair up so no one would see her haircut.

Caroline loved that her CC class was all girls.  She made one new friend and got a bit rowdy with some old friends.  She's very happy to be in kindergarten.

Henry came out of his class with big smiles.  He has the same tutor that Josiah had last year and she's awesome.

Josiah liked his class as well.  This was also his first year to start Essentials.  He enjoyed the writing portion the most - making a key word outline from a paragraph.  "It's fun," he says. (Yeah!)  They do 45 minutes of grammar, 45 minutes of writing, and 30 minutes of math games.  We played a game called Number Knockout and it was very challenging.  The tutor rolls three die.  In class she rolled a 1, 4, & 6.  Then we had a grid of numbers from 1-35.  We had to make formulas using only the numbers rolled to cross out as many numbers as possible from the grid.  Ex. (1 x 4) + 6 = 10, cross out 10.  6 - 4 + 1 = 3, cross out 3.  These kids were fast!  It'll definitely build Josiah's math skills to compete in class.

Writing his key word outline - despite his expression, he really enjoyed this.

This weekend we finally got started painting the boys' room.  First they had to clean up their room so we could move the furniture.  That lasted for two-thirds of Saturday.  It wasn't a pleasant two-thirds.  They had Legos hidden in every crevice, under every piece of furniture we moved, you name it, there were Legos underneath.  Once the room was as cleared as it was going to get, we all painted the primer on the lower half of their wall.  The current color was black and we chose a very dark blue to replace it.  They all wanted to help.  When it was Caroline's turn to help, she was happy.  When it was her brother's turn there was a lot of, "When is it my turn?  I want to help!  Can I paint?  I can do the roller.  Is it my turn?  He's painting too far/long/high/low.  Is it my turn?"  Eager helpers, they were.  They all got a turn, and then another turn.  Today we were supposed to paint the top half, but I only got the borders done.  So, our plans for this week will be to paint after we finish our schoolwork.  Who knows, maybe that'll encourage them to focus and finish their work early.  That would be lovely.

Since the boys' mattresses are on the playroom floor, Caroline has been jealous that they got to sleep on the floor and she could not.  So, at 5:30 a.m. for the past two days, she has woken up and climbed into Josiah's bed.  This has caused Josiah to wake up.  Josiah, not wanting Caroline in his bed, came to tell me that she was in his bed and wouldn't leave.  So I was woken up.  Then when I went to get Caroline, Henry has woken up in the process.  It has been a rough two mornings.  At bedtime tonight I reiterated that I really do not want the entire family up at 5:30 a.m.  Especially me.  If you're throwing-up or bleeding, please, wake me.  Otherwise, can you please stay in your beds until the 6 at least, but the 7 would be even better. 

That was pretty much our week.  School. CC group. Painting.  This coming week will be a rinse and repeat. 

Ancient History and a Lizard

We have been getting back into the swing of things with school.  All subjects are going really well for the most part...all except math.  Math seems to elicit whines and moans and complaints.  I cannot understand it.  It was both Todd's and my favorite subject.  What have we done to have kids dislike it?

We are studying Ancient History this year.  We started off with nomads and how they slowly turned into farmers in the Fertile Crescent.  For one of their projects, the kids had to build a nomadic structure using just pieces of wood and an animal skin covering (red sheet for our purposes...).  We had saved some tree branches for this project, so the boys got to work building and rebuilding and tweaking their dwelling.  They had a good time with it.

After school was done for the day, all three kids went back out to the "fort" and added to it - using duct tape.  There was a steep drop in "authenticity points."  They duct taped the heck out of it until there was no more duct tape to be had.  Unfortunately, we learned the perils of duct tape the following day when they were playing in their fort.  Henry came running inside bawling because there was a lizard trapped on the duct tape and Josiah had tried to rescue it, but had pulled off its tail and it was bleeding.  So, for the next 20-30 minutes I tried to rescue this poor lizard from the duct tape.  All 4 legs were trapped and they were really stuck.  Eventually, he did make it off the tape, but when he ran off he clearly had issues with two of his limbs.  I felt pretty bad for the guy.  We spent the next 20 minutes taking all the duct tape off the fort so we didn't have a repeat incident.

We also read about ancient forms of writing - Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform.  Each child got a piece of clay and was able to carve their names in cuneiform.  They had a lot of fun making them and they turned out better than expected.

We are also studying botany this year.  We have all enjoyed it so far.  We first learned the difference between vascular (plants with tubes) and nonvascular (no tubes) plants.  Moss fits into the nonvascular category.  We went outside and the kids observed the moss, touched it, and wrote about it in their notebooks.

We also did an experiment about how moss soaks up water.  We spilled water on the table (something we are very adept at around here) and put a corner of a paper towel at the edge and watched it soak up the water.  So now every time someone spills around here, which happens to be several times daily, the kids yell, "Moss!" and get a paper towel, put the corner in it and watch it soak up.  With the amount of times they've done that this week, they should remember how moss drinks water for the rest of their lives.

In their free time this week, the boys spent a little time sumo wrestling.  Caroline was their ref.  "1, 2, 3, Sumo!"

The boys also choreographed a play called, "Slap Me."  They walked in the room, tore off their shirts, twisted them up and slapped each other with them.  It was when they tried to rip off their shorts/towels that their show got axed.  I seriously have no idea where they get these ideas.

Todd's cousin Cheryl sent us a whole box of sprinkles, which was a little like Christmas for our Caroline.  The boys immediately claimed the tissue paper and box.  Henry was cutting up the box into squares and wrapping them in tissue paper.  (Someone's getting a cool gift for Christmas.)  Josiah took the tissue paper and tried to make a Halloween costume.  They are suckers for the wrappings.  Meanwhile Caroline wasn't too happy that we didn't make a cake this weekend so that she could try out her sprinkles (or that we wouldn't let her have a bowl of sprinkles as she does at Sweet Tomatoes).

This Saturday, the church where the kids went to VBS was having a movie night with popcorn and candy.  We only had two children that made it to the movie because one child had a lot of incidents and accidents all day long.  The final incident was him kicking his sister in the face because "I didn't see it [her face]."  Really??  It left quite a red mark for a while.  So, we went without said child.  When we got there, Caroline sat front and center.  (Many more joined the audience after this picture.)

As the movie went on, the kids got cold sitting on the concrete floor, so one child sat with me in the chairs and Caroline sat on the carpeted floor in a different area.  The carpeted area had far fewer people and Caroline quickly struck up a friendship with a little girl also named Caroline.  They were chatting the whole time, dancing a bit, sharing food, the whole nine yards.  When we left Caroline said they were best friends.  It'll be a fleeting friendship as we won't go back to that church until next summer, but the fun seemed mutual.

Our church had Promotion Sunday today.  All the kids were able to go up to their new classes.  Caroline was really excited to be in kindergarten.  When we picked her up she said, "It's really different."  Actually, it's really not all that different in what she does, it's much the same just in a different classroom.  Henry was all smiles when we picked him up.  He still had a few friends in his new class, so he was happy.  Josiah was probably happiest of all because now that he's in 4th grade, he no longer needs a security tag.  We don't have to pick him up as long as we have a meeting spot.  We decided that today we would meet at the fish tank after class.  As we're departing at drop-off, Josiah whispers to me, "Can I take the elevator?"  Uh, no.  Glad you asked.  After class it was clear that the fish tank was quite the popular meeting spot as 10-12 other kids were waiting for their parents, too.  Josiah said that he wanted to meet in a different area next week, an area that has chairs because he wants to sit down.  It's tough being in 4th grade.

This week CC begins.  The kids are excited to see their friends again.  There's a lot of talk around here about what their first presentation will be about.  Apparently, "What I Did Over the Summer" isn't exciting enough.  We shall see what they finally choose.

A New School Year Begins

The new school year began on Monday.  We now have an excited 4th grader:

a "this-is-my-prison-sentence" 2nd Grader:

and an enthusiastic Kindergartener:

Caroline impressed me with her creativity skills.  For her first math lesson, she was assigned the task to create something with the pattern blocks and then tell me about it.  Of all the kids I've ever seen use pattern blocks (and it is more than just our 3), I've never seen one build up.  The first day she built four trees.  The second day she built a Christmas tree with two swans at the bottom.  We have an engineering genius on our hands! 

Henry's week did not begin quite as I had expected.  The first two days of school all subjects went perfectly fine, except math.  This is how it went, "I hate borrowing.  Why did the person invent borrowing?" over and over and over again.  Apparently borrowing from the tens column was not his favorite.  It got to the point of ridiculousness, so for the remaining days I gave him old worksheets from 1st grade just to get him back in the swing of things.  He completed those with no issues at all.  There was no borrowing involved.  

In addition to starting school, we also had our CC orientation at the new church campus.  It was so nice to see everyone again and get excited for CC to begin.  All the kids met their tutors and all are happy.  Caroline was especially happy that her class was all girls.  CC doesn't begin for another week and a half, but we are ready!  The moms were also given an orientation in Essentials (Essentials of the English Language) that Josiah will begin this year.  It is a grammar and writing curriculum for 4th thru 6th graders.  The orientation was entitled "Essentials Without Tears."  Hopefully Josiah's love of creating stories will diminish the number of tears we experience.  He has already spoken to the Essentials director about the end-of-year project.  Each child has to write a report on someone from the time frame studied.  They dress up as the person and read their report to the entire CC group and we have to guess who they are.  This happens at the very last CC meeting of the year.  Josiah has been planning his report since last May.  The idea of dressing up and having people guess is incredibly exciting to him.

After the CC orientation the kids had a dentist's appointment.  Josiah went back with his hygienist.  When she came to talk to me after cleaning his teeth, she said, "It is like talking to a 30-year old man.  He is so polite."  As goofy as that child can be, he can also be incredibly mature.  Then she took Henry back, and after cleaning his teeth, she came back to me and said, "When I handed Henry the mirror to show him how to use the little toothbrush properly, he held the mirror and said, 'that is one good looking guy.'"  And that is Henry.  Todd and I always say he has a little frat boy inside.  Caroline is usually very chatty at the dentist's office.  So when the hygienist gave her the 2-minute brushing timer, I asked her if she could stay quiet for the full 2 minutes.  It took a few tries, but she made it.


We also had a lot of pool time this week.  One day we went to a CC friend's pool and 3 other CC families were there as well.  This neighborhood pool was like a resort.  I took no pictures, but this was from their neighborhood's website.  It was beautiful.

Caroline spent the first 15 minutes throwing a major tantrum because she was around 47" tall and she had to be 48" to ride the water slides.  I didn't budge on the 47" bit because I didn't feel like she could swim from the slide to the side of the pool.  She kept screaming, "I can do it.  I'm old enough.  I can swim."  And I kept saying, They didn't ask you if you can do it, they don't have an age requirement, and you are not 48".  It was BAD.  But she finally got over it and found the pool to be incredibly fun.  It had an area with frogs and lily pads--you would jump from pad to pad and try not to slide back into the water.  She did this nearly the entire 3 hours we were there.  The boys spent their entire time on the slides.  It was so nice that they could swim to the side of the pool.  It offers them (and me) more freedom at pools now.

Another day we had friends come to our neighborhood pool.  Caroline had cried the night before because our pool wasn't as fancy as the other one.  It was the last day the pool was open on weekdays.  With schools starting here next week, the pool will only be opened on weekends now.  I had thought all pools were open until Labor Day and was really looking forward to having quiet swims during the week while the schools were in session.  That was not to be.  The kids swam until they were exhausted.

Henry did show me his freestyle and backstroke:


This weekend we got some paint for the boys room.  I tried to match the paint already on their walls to keep it fairly neutral.  They were allowed to pick out a can of spray paint to paint their bookcases.  That was their individualized pop of color.  Henry picked out Pumpkin Orange.  Josiah picked out Gloss Banner Red.  It'll be like Virginia Tech in their bedroom.  Now I'm waiting for a bit less humidity to start painting.  The humidity's been intense lately.  We have another African dust cloud headed our way, so maybe that'll help.  Despite not liking the dry weather these dust clouds bring, the good thing is that they seem to prevent hurricanes from forming.

To close out the weekend, we spent this evening at a Skeeter's baseball game.  Tonight they had a football giveaway so Henry really wanted to go to this game.  Sunday nights are also kids nights so we got there early.  The kids got in line and had the players sign their pictures/program.  Josiah had drawn two pictures of their mascot, Swatson, and he had the players sign those.

We decided to explore more of the stadium.  They had a splash pad area and an amazing playground with the coolest equipment.

When we made it to our seats, we sat down and Caroline said, "I'm hungry."
1st inning: hot dogs
2nd inning: french fries
3rd inning: ice cream


4th inning: took another walk around the stadium
5th inning: bedtime
There was a little baseball in there, too.

And one last picture.  Henry and Caroline were playing with a stick in our tree.  The stick is thicker than it looks in the picture.  It seemed to hold them, no problem.


This coming week is filled with a lot less "fun" and a bit more work.  I'm sure our students will be overjoyed.