Double Digits!

I have been reading devotionals via email from a pastor that Todd and I both loved in Virginia.  In one of the devotionals, he said that he's been reading a "Proverb a day" for years.  There are 31 Proverbs, so he reads the corresponding Proverb for that day of the month.  I thought this would be a good thing to incorporate into our school morning.  So, Monday, January 7th we read Proverbs 7, entitled, The Wiles of the Harlot.  Here's a snippet (vs. 18-19), "I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 'Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning; Let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey.'"  After I read all the way to the end (because who wanted to end in the middle?!!), Henry said, "What was that about?"  Yeah, we're going to read from a different book of the Bible now. 

The kids have been on cloud nine this week because they met our new neighbors.  They have a boy, nine, and a girl, six.  They are obsessed about playing with them after school lets out and Caroline has been a little put out that the girl has both ballet and gymnastics and it takes up so many of the evenings when they should be playing together.  It was sad the first day we met, because the boy said right off the bat, "my parents are divorced.  I hate going back and forth."  He kept asking our kids if their parents were divorced, then if their grandparents were divorced.  It sounds like it was a recent thing.  Poor guy.  It has been great to have neighborhood kids, but in the newness of it all, it's been a bit obsessive.  At least  the desire to hang out seems to be mutual.  The minute we drove in from church today, they were at our house.  At our driveway, I told them that we had to have lunch and change clothes and then the kids would be out.  No less than five minutes later there was a knock on the door.  Were we done yet?  No.  Not yet.  (There were three more knocks before all our kids made it outside.)  Todd and I have gotten a lot of yard work done just so we can be out front and keep an eye on everyone.  At the rate the kids want to hang out, we may win Yard of the Month.

Caroline has had a big week in school.  She read her Active A book for the first time.  She did well, and it was tough because there are so many words for her.  It's a lot of words when you're sounding everything out!  She also did a word search in school.  Every time she found a word she'd say, "I'm so awesome. Woo hoo, I'm the best."  No confidence problems around here.

Caroline has also graduated from the sock on her hand to just having her thumb taped up at night.  We went this route because it was much cooler.  She is still saying how much she wants to suck her thumb.  It's a hard habit to break, but she's doing so well.  I keep telling her, This is hard, YES!, but you can do hard things.  Even if she watches TV during the day, she doesn't put it in her mouth, whereas before it'd be in there immediately.  (We also use bandaids during the day to keep it covered up if necessary.)  I have noticed her not sucking it in the car either, which used to be an always-sort-of-thing.  It's pretty exciting to finally break this habit. (for me at least, not so much for her)

Mid-week, our church had their annual Winter Blast with the snow and sledding, hot dogs and s'mores.  I realized I've turned into an old curmudgeon because lots of kids kept taking snow from the side wall of the slide.  Either their parents weren't stopping them or they were off by themselves unsupervised.  One middle school girl had a giant chunk in her hands (seriously giant), so I (slightly matter-of-factly/slightly un-Christlike) said, If you take the wall of the slide off, you don't have a slide anymore.  None of the other parents were stopping their kids.  The workers were yelling down at the top of the slide for the kids to stop taking the snow.  I told another group of kids where to find the snow to make snowballs (literally adjacent to the slide - look to your left).  Nobody listened.  Knowing I had no more kind words to say (if I ever did), I had to remove myself from the sledding line because it was driving me nuts.  Our kids had fun, however.

Caroline had two rounds of two s'mores.  When she asked to go back to make more, she was quite put out that I would not allow a fifth.  This year they had a train ride, too.  The kids loved the train ride, so much so that every picture was incredibly blurry.

Then the best part of the week came.  This guy turned double digits!

It is so hard to believe we have a ten-year-old. 

He wanted his presents to be put under the Christmas tree, so we had left it up for him.  Foot Loops for breakfast (which will get the song Footloose stuck in your head all day long).  For his birthday, Josiah wanted to spend the day with his friend, Bobby.  So Bobby's dad dropped him off on his way to work and they really did spend the entire day together.  We went on a field trip with our CC campus to a science class about Pompeii, hung out at the museum, ate at Which Wich, and then we came home for them to have some free time together.  Grandad & Nana got Josiah beyblades and Bobby gifted him the Arena, so they played beyblade battles for 2.5 hours.  I almost suggested they do something different, but that would have been projecting what I considered boring (after 2.5 hrs!), so I stayed mum.

Eventually they did come out of their intense battling when the new neighbor boy came home from school and asked to play.  We went outside for some street races, both cycling and running. 

Henry takes the lead.

We ended the night by going to Awana and eating cake afterwards.  When the cake was done we all collapsed from exhaustion.

Josiah got a (fake) Lego Titanic.  It turned out pretty cool.

Besides beyblades, he also got a Junior Trivial Pursuit game from Grandma & Grandpa that we've played the last two nights.  We've already had to set rules to handicap Todd.  Apparently, he's smarter than the rest of us.  I do call foul on some of the questions, though.  Todd had the question, "What company did Steve Jobs found?" And then it gave choices!  My question for the Science & Nature category was, "What technique did Spock use to render his opponents helpless?"  Answer?  "The Vulcan nerve pinch."  Spock. From Star Trek.  Not Science, Not Nature.

Todd has enjoyed passing down his love for the band KISS to the kids.  The kids may make Todd come to hate KISS, or at least a few of their songs.  They sing, repeatedly, the one lyric, I want to rock-and-roll all night and party every day.  One day this week Henry informed us all, I know four KISS songs. to which Josiah replied, They only have four songs.  Smile to my face, knife to Todd's heart.

10!!!