Service or Guest

A few nights before Christmas, we took the kids out to see the lights.  There is a neighborhood not too far from us that is known for their lights.  They actually have hay rides that go through the neighborhood because of the sheer number of houses decorated.  While it would be fun to do the hay ride in the future, it turned out for the best that we didn't do it this year because about two streets into the neighborhood we heard this statement from the back seat, "I shouldn't have drank that whole Vitarain at dinner."  So we turned around and made a pit stop at home before heading out to an even closer neighborhood for the remainder of our time that night.

The homeschool community is huge and well connected in this area of town.  We are part of several groups online and in one group, I get 10-20 emails a day with people either asking for advice or looking to buy or sell items.  Most of these I delete right away, but one caught my eye.  "Free desks."  I contacted the woman and we were the first ones to inquire about them, so they were ours!  Henry has been asking for a desk for his new room, so now he and Caroline both have desks of their own.  Completely free.  So awesome!  Of course, now they want chairs.  Swivel chairs to be exact. 

The kids have been using the rowing machine.  Josiah keeps saying he needs to work out.  They've been playing outside with the neighbors for hours at a time - running around, riding bikes, climbing trees.  I told him that is a kid's workout right there.  He still wants to row.  I've given them a 100 stroke limit which takes about 5 minutes, but it's a tiring 5 minutes.  The boys are really enjoying the rowing.  Caroline has liked it, too, but it hurts the arm she broke, so she's taking it slower.

For Christmas Eve we went to an evening service at church.  It was a nice service, mostly singing Christmas Carols.  About mid-way through, they asked all the kids who felt like singing to come to the stage to sing a song together.  Caroline was on her feet as soon as she heard the invitation.  They sang Go, Tell It On The Mountain and she was up there singing away.  When she came back to her seat she whispered to me, "That was fun."  Then at the end of service we sang Silent Night in the candle light.  This is the kids favorite part because they get to hold fire.  I sang with a side eye on them the whole time.

And then it was Christmas.  I think the kids had a really good Christmas this year.

Josiah

Josiah got his favorite "Make Your Own Forky" kit.  This was $3.50 at Five Below, but to him it was like a million dollar gift.  He has a small obsession with Forky.  He literally carries him everywhere he goes around the house.  He changes his expression to fit whatever he's doing, too.  The blue mouth is wax, so it can easily be shaped.  He also got a Kylo-Ren helmet which he's worn a lot.  We didn't know it at the time, but it lights up when he speaks and it lights up brighter the louder he speaks.  So, yay for that.  He got so many gifts from uncles and aunts and grandparents.  He spent the day working on three different Lego kits - Steamboat Willie (while humming Turkey in the Straw nearly all day long), Toy Story Mania, & Star Wars A-Wing Fighter.  He has loved every kit and every moment building them.  He got a new pair of binoculars that he has been using daily. He likes to walk while looking through them, which I'm sure will always end well. He has also used Henry's new thunder stick to scare us.  It is a seemingly small cardboard tube, closed on one end with a long spring attached.  All you do is move the tube and it creates shockingly loud thunder sounds.  Shockingly loud. (Thanks Grandpa.)

Henry

Henry got a giant Nerf gun thing with four guns and a gazillion bullets.  I think we've said, "Only shoot at the doors!" about a gazillion times as well.  We have a neighbor and they always have Nerf gun fights so now Henry can hold his own.  He was gifted a whoopee cushion.  He loves it.  We are so glad he has something to encourage all his potty humor.  His last gift that he opened was Madden Football.  (We did not have a game console up to this point.)  So we made a big deal that he got the game he wanted....just nothing to play it on.  We got Josiah a game, too, just so he wasn't left out.  It was Josiah who said, "Wait.  Does that mean you got a console to play it on?"  (The pictures below are the moment they figured that out.)  The console is Todd's because there is no way I was going to give it to the kids so that they think it's theirs and then there are a ton of arguments about that.  They have played both games every day since.  Henry has been asking for Madden Football for months now, but it has proven to be a pretty tough game which has resulted in a few meltdowns.  Todd told me to call him a durn fool for getting it, so that's been fun.  I've obliged his request.  Many times.

Caroline

Caroline got a gigantic gift of a doll/horse/horse trailer combination.  She's been asking for the horse and trailer for a long time.  She spent a lot of time organizing it and putting in all the little pieces and accessories.  It came with another doll like her Ja'Neesa doll.  This new doll's name was Lily Anna, but Caroline doesn't care about names that comes with dolls.  She promptly named her Lulu.  Caroline (and I) changed these two doll's clothes probably 10 times that day.  She got a roller skating/diner outfit and I put those roller skates on the dolls at least five different times.  Stop taking them off!!!  She was gifted a mermaid/fairy Barbie and she did the same with those - she changed their clothes constantly.  The same with her new Polly Pocket doll from Grandad and Nana.  Thinking about it, that was how she spent her Christmas - changing doll outfits.  What surprised me was her reaction to a jump rope that she was given by Grandma.  She spent a lot of time practicing jumping.  She only got 2-3 jumps in a row, but she had some laser focused practice sessions.  She's going to get it in no time.





Grandma also got Caroline a sand art kit and a little stuffed cupcake that you push fabric pieces into to give it color and texture.  She loved both of these kits.  We have some arts and crafts kids around here.




I think this was probably their best Christmas for gifts.  They were blessed by receiving so much from grandparents and aunts/uncles.  They all seemed quite happy.

After Christmas we spent a few days cleaning up the kids' rooms.  Not just cleaning, but totally organizing their shelves and really cleaning their rooms.  I was in my element and enjoyed it thoroughly.  (Merry Christmas to me!)  The kids really like their nice clean rooms.  We were able to fit Henry and Caroline's new desks in their rooms, too.

After they all had clean rooms, they were getting a little perturbed at their siblings coming into their room and messing things up, so Josiah created a password system to combat this.  This is how it went down:
Josiah: Every week I'm going to give you [our family] the password to get in my room.  The password this week is, Forky asks a question.  What is a password? [no joke]
Todd: What if Mommy has your laundry and needs to get in your room to put it away and you're not there to let her in?
Josiah: Well...[thinking]...service workers can come in.
Hours later as I was in Josiah's room saying goodnight,  Todd knocked on the door and said:
Forky asks a question.  What is a password?
Josiah: Service or guest?
Todd: Guest
Josiah: Come in.
Me: ......
This kid lives well above his means.

Giant Beatles

This was our last week of school and the kids finished well.  In science, we finally finished our book about the the stars and planets.  For the next semester we're doing the physical world - energy, force, work, momentum.  Way more fun in my opinion.  We started the book early and have been learning about potential and kinetic energy, perpetual motion, force, and friction.  One day we learned about tensile strength, which is the amount of tension that a material can withstand.  They happily tested this on thread, string, and rope.  I knew they could break the thread by pulling on both ends, but I was surprised that they all pulled the string to the breaking point as well.  Obviously there was no chance with the rope.  This should be a fun semester with a lot of cool experiments.


As a review game one day, Henry picked Jeopardy and set to work.  He wrote the whole board up, complete with dollar amounts and daily doubles.  His hosting skills were not too shabby either.  He kept us on task.  In the end Josiah won the game because he got the daily double and, though he only had about $5000 in his bank, he bet $10000, got the question right, which gave him $15000 (Henry doesn't totally understand the whole Daily DOUBLE thing, but I wasn't going to explain it).  At that high of a score it was impossible to catch him.

Earlier in the week I was able to go out two nights in a row.  The first night was meeting a friend for dinner, which was really nice.  The second night was a CC meeting, but it was still at a restaurant with five other moms.  Still a nice time.  The next morning, Caroline woke me up and started right in on me.  "Do we have to do school?  Why did you stay out so late?  What were you doing?  Why do you always go out?"  Yes/8:45? Late?/Chatting/Always? Really?  I hope she appreciates these same questions asked of her in ten years when she goes out with friends.

One day this week Josiah met up with a couple of our CC friends and they delivered Christmas cards to one of the assisted living facilities.  They were supposed to go up to each resident, hand them a card, and say, "Merry Christmas."  Many residents tried to chat with them, which was great.  We saw some smiles on their faces which was wonderful.  Josiah said he loved doing it.  I kept asking him, "Did you say Merry Christmas?"  Oh I forgot, he'd say.  I continuously reminded him to speak loudly.  Speak louder than you think you have to!  He had a lot of fun and it was with two good friends which made it all the better.

Friday was our last day of school.  We finished our lessons early (yay!) and then headed into Houston.  Our main objective was to pick up an erg, however a few blocks from that warehouse Todd found a Giant Beatles Statues landmark.  We stopped, hoping to get Josiah a picture with them, but quickly realized that the statues were part of a brewery.  So we did our best with pictures from the other side of the fence.  As we were walking around trying to get all the angles, I asked the kids if they wanted a picture with George.  No.  Poor George.  Only Caroline took a picture with him.

George

Ringo

On the other side of the Beatles there was a We 💓Houston sign so we took some pictures there, too.

The erg was what brought us into Houston and on Saturday, Todd and I spent some time putting it together.  There was a lot of confusion while we put the parts together, because what the instructions did NOT tell us at the start was that we were putting it together in the folded position.  So the foot pedals looked off, the screen you look at was at a weird angle.  Finally after it was all assembled, you pulled this knob and it went into the flattened position and it all made sense.  Our beautiful rowing machine. Todd likes to make fun of my rowing "abilities" and yells out Power 10 whenever he can.  By this time next year we'll be unrecognizable we'll be so buff.  The kids love it, too, I think mostly because the seat is on a slide.  But maybe on those rainy days we can let them get some energy out.  Todd and I are going to challenge each other and try to row across a body of water.  He looked at some distances (the Atlantic, D.C. to N.Y.C.), but they all seemed awfully long.  Maybe we'll start small and do some local waterway.  Maybe start with a creek just to build our confidence.

We were able to get the tree decorated this week.  Caroline had the privilege of putting the star on this year.  To figure out whose turn it was, I went back through all our pictures over the years.  In the process I came across this gem.  Josiah throwing a fit that Henry got to put the star on in 2015.

This year the roles were somewhat reversed and Henry was throwing a fit that Caroline got to put the star on.  The funny thing is, it'll only be a few more years until none of them will want to put it on.

Probably the biggest highlight of the week, however, was the delivery of our brand new dishwasher.  It has been months and months (and months and months) without one and though I did not mind washing dishes, it has been so nice to reclaim the sheer amount of time it took to do them.  Plus, my dry, cracked hands are appreciative.  When the delivery man first came in the kitchen, he measured from our floor to the bottom of our countertop.  He said that we were 1/8" short and that the machine we bought was built like a box.  He asked if I wanted him to try to fit it in anyway.  You betcha.  He did a great job and was able to get the 1/8" too big machine in our 1/8" too small hole.  I was super appreciative for his efforts and have been enjoying it ever since.

The kids are excited for the week ahead.  It should be a good Christmas week.

Winter Blast

The week began and ended very warm.  80° warm.  But right in the middle we had a cold front come through which was perfect because our church had their Winter Blast on Wednesday evening.  It was a nice, cool 46° which made it feel a bit more winter-like.  As the kids were dressing to go to Winter Blast, they put on their warm pants, their hoodies, their hats, and gloves.  Instantly they thought they looked like Murph and Harry, the two robbers from the movie Home Alone.  It didn't take them long to unite in their vision of burglars and throughout the evening they could often be heard saying, "Crowbars up!"  (They put their imaginary crowbars up.)  "Tink."  Always the tink as they hit them together.  That'll bless your heart.

Todd and I were pleasantly surprised that there was no snow pit like in years past.  This pit was always filled with kids being kids, having snowball fights.  The problem had been that it was right next to the line for the sledding hills, so we were often hit by random snowballs.  It wasn't always pleasant.  But this year, no pit.  Yay.  The kids did manage to find a big pile of ice cubes which they used to lob at each other, but we were never hit by these.  They had three snow hills this year, which was great for making the lines move quickly, but it was really hard to figure out when your kid was going to come down a hill.  I got Josiah and Caroline on camera, but not Henry.  Henry only went down once and then said he was done.  Josiah went down a few times, but Caroline was the big sledder this year.  She got right back in line every time.


Caroline was not to be outdone by the boys with her Smores making either.  She was able to roast four marshmallows to the boys' three.  I can't even figure out how she did it.  She's been a sneaky one with desserts this week.  She got in trouble for sneaking some M&Ms in the car.  It was the big candy cane M&Ms which she got at Awana.  She was told not to open it up the night of Awana.  The only reason she got caught was because a few days later Henry was sitting in the backseat of the car and somehow spilled the remaining M&Ms.  When they picked them up, the candy cane was only about one-third full.  So she had opened it and eaten them.  When questioned she said, "It just opened."  Yeah...when you twisted the top off...

All of our kids' method for roasting marshmallows was to stick them directly in the flame, light them on fire, enjoy their glow, then casually blow them out.  Put that on repeat.  Every time.

The Winter Blast had an area that told the Christmas story as well.  They had what appeared to be snow falling, but after it got stuck in your hair you could see that it was just tiny bubbles.  It was still magical to the kids.

We heard the Christmas story at Awana this week as well.  During the time when all the groups are together they had a Happy Birthday Jesus Celebration.  We got cupcakes and then while everyone was eating, they turned the lights off, turned the disco ball on, and said the kids could dance.  I'm not totally sure that's how it went down in Bethlehem.  I could see Josiah and Caroline dancing it up, but Henry was just standing and hanging out.  Too cool for school.  I was with the little 3 year olds that night and one little boy was sitting there on the floor, legs crossed, having nothing to do with the dancing.  I looked at him as a kindred spirit.  I get you little dude.

We did have a full week of school.  Josiah even set up Monopoly for us to do as a review game one day.  For review games, I ask a child a question from CC, then they take their turn.  Ask a question. Take a turn.  Ask a question.  Take a turn.  It would be a bazillion times quicker to get through review by just asking the questions one after the other (rapid fire) and be done with it, but the kids like review games.  So, two hours later, we were still playing Monopoly, we had only gotten 6 of the 12 weeks worth of questions asked, Henry had quit the game in anger because he had the potential to lose, Caroline was kicking tail, and I was pretty over it.

We have one more week of school before our Christmas break.  May it be filled with eagerness to do their work and may they finish well!

Countdown to Christmas

We had a good first half of the week while Grandad and Nana were still here.  The boys got some baseball practice in nearly every day much to their delight.  Grandaddy helped them improve their skills for next season.  Caroline photobombed their baseball picture while sweeping the backyard.  She loves to sweep outside, particularly in the grass.    It does not translate to enjoying sweeping inside.  We're working on that.

We also got Grandaddy's help to fix our dryer.  It blew a fuse and fortunately the part arrived before he left.  When it came time to put our dryer back against the wall, we called in our trusty worker, Slim.  He shimmied himself behind the dryer and coiled up the dryer duct to keep it as straight as possible.  We really appreciate his slight frame in times like these.


We were able to play more games while Grandaddy and Nana were here since we didn't do full school days.  One day we broke out Todd's old game, Hangman.  It was Caroline verses me.  As she set up her tiles, she said that there was only one word she knew how to spell.  I figured it out pretty quickly, so I started guessing Q and K and Z to keep the game going.  She ended up figuring my word out quicker than I thought, and so won the game.

Caroline was also banned from media for a few days, so she got around that quickly and drew up her own smart phone complete with Netflix, email, Facebook, games, and glare line.  She actually sat there and talked on the phone and pretended to play games.  The influence of media!...

Mid-week we had a very solemn, very quiet drive to the airport.  There were three super sad kids in the backseat who had to say good bye to Grandad and Nana.  They are very much missed around here.

To make their leaving even harder, we started school back full time much to everyone's delight.  We have almost finished our science book for the semester, so we are doing the last few experiments.  We've been reading about space and specifically the Apollo programs, NASA, and most recently about the International Space Station.  We were reading about zero gravity and micro-gravity and the related experiment attempted to simulate (as best we could) zero gravity-esque water bubbles.  They each had a sheet of wax paper and two drops of water.  They were able to move those water bubbles around using a butter knife.  They separated them, joined them, moved them all around.  It was a lot of fun for them and slightly reminiscent of playing with the ball of mercury from a broken thermometer back in the day, albeit significantly less toxic.


This weekend we tried a new building program at Home Depot.  The kids were able to make a Christmas Countdown.  The difference between Lowes Build and Grow and Home Depot is wood glue.  Home Depot puts wood glue on the tables so you glue your pieces together before hammering the nails in.  They don't tell you how much glue to use, however, so Josiah, who was working independently, was quite generous with his amounts. By the time he got home, he noticed his blocks were stuck to his base.  He thought it would be "18" Days Til Christmas forever.  Fortunately for Josiah, Todd was able to pry them loose.  The kids got pins to put on their aprons when they completed the project.  (A plus from the iron-on patches at Lowes.)

That same afternoon, Caroline had a birthday party to go to.  She was told to dress up in a princess dress as it was a very princess party.  The party was really nice and they had a whole spread of lots of fruits and vegetables, sandwich rolls, and a basket of pigs-in-a-blanket.  Caroline passed by anything remotely healthy and ate her royal weight in pigs-in-a-blanket.  I never knew she liked them.  Shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door and who should arrive but Elsa.  First, she put make-up on all the girls, minus Caroline who said she didn't like make-up.  Then she attempted to tell the story of Frozen.  She was interrupted nearly every other word by very eager 5 and 6 year olds telling Elsa her own story.  It was hilarious. These girls knew every single tiny detail of Frozen.  Then they all stood and sang, Let It Go, followed by dancing lessons and princess waving instruction.  Caroline had a great time.  When Elsa left, all the girls gathered at the front window of the house and watched her walk away.  One girl asked the others, "Do you think it was the real Elsa?"

Our Cinderella - Caroline's favorite princess

Singing Let It Go

The kids are eager to do Christmas decorations.  We did get the tree up, though no ornaments are on it.  Caroline has been using it as a hospital with different floors.  The bottom branches are the waiting room and the patient rooms are the higher branches.  She plays with her small dolls and stuffed animals in it.  If we can keep this going, we can just put all the small stuffed animals in it and not have to get a single ornament out!  So easy.  I don't think the kids will go for that, though. 
Our radio station has started playing Christmas music as well.  Caroline sings her own version of Jingle Bells.  Her verse reads, "Oh what fun it is to ride in a one hoe sleigh."  Picture that.