Thanksgiving

The first day of our break week, the kids spent the morning in their new clubhouse.  Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, they cleaned up the garage and sectioned it off into a clubhouse.  They each had an area to call their own, as well as a meeting table where they gathered when they had club details to discuss.  Monday, they painted a poster for the wall, but after it dried, they decided it would serve better as a rug.  There is a bowling area, a football area, drawing table, and punching bag.  Their bikes were even poised to make a quick exit from the garage if needed.  No detail was left out.  

After all the hours of teamwork and getting along in their clubhouse, the kids came in and wanted to play a game.  Monopoly to be specific.  Henry set it up, though each child insisted they retrieve their own money from the bank.  After a few too many trips to jail and not enough properties bought, Henry bowed out.  We continued playing as a threesome until another child started to get angry over the game, over their properties, over not landing on Chance when they wanted to, etc., etc.  Said child was given one more opportunity to not throw a fit.  When they did so again, the game was put up.  Does Monopoly end in any other way besides anger?  

The calm before the storm.

Later, the kids watched a Bear Grylls Adventure on TV.  It is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but in real life.  Bear is dropped off somewhere in the wilderness and you have to get him to his purposed destination.  Along the way you can choose whether he rappels down a cliff or takes a zipline, whether he eats a frog or a grub, lots of options.  We've killed him many times over, which has gotten Caroline wondering how he's filmed it all if we keep killing him.  She decided that he filmed all the correct options first.  Watching Bear inspired the boys to do their own adventure in the backyard.  They each climbed on our trash can/recycling can and had to make it to the tree without touching the ground.  A bit of Bear in their self-commentary, a bit of The Floor is Lava in their physical activity.  Eventually, after many failed attempts ending in death, they made it to the tree.  While Henry held his trash can steady, Josiah climbed up in the crook of it for a brief moment of celebration.  Mission accomplished. 

Tuesday, Henry wanted to play another board game, but not with his siblings.  He and I played his Minecraft Builders & Biomes board game.  He beat me.  Actually, he crushed me, but not because I let him.  I play to win.  

The kids also made it back to jiu-jitsu this week.  They had missed it for a few weeks due to being sick.  They were reluctant to go since it had been such a long break, but after getting through their first class, they enjoyed it and did even better the second time they went.  Because it was Thanksgiving week, the classes were much smaller which worked out great for them.  

The kids desk areas got even better when we hung up their white boards this week. Eventually they'll get desk chairs, but they've been out of stock at Ikea for quite a while.  We're looking at a specific chair because they have different color cushions and it's best for everyone if the kids have different color chairs.  

Thanksgiving Day we watched a bit of the Macy's parade.  Then the kids wanted to watch the second  Percy Jackson movie, so they did that.  Todd and I got our midday meal going.  We were not in the mood to cook a turkey this year, so we changed it out for steak.  Costco sells this marinated skirt steak and it is really, really good.  We still had some traditional sides - mashed potatoes and gravy, crockpot mac and cheese, and broccoli.  We were stuffed.  Even Benson enjoyed some of the steak.  That backfired a little though, because we then listened to him whine for more steak the entire time we ate dessert.  We had cherry pie for Josiah and sweet potato pie for Caroline.  Henry had some whip cream with his pie.  Just a bit.  Once we finish these pies, we'll get a peach cobbler for Henry.  That way each child has gotten their favorite dessert.  

Josiah made us a turkey tissue box for the table.  

Thanksgiving evening, the kids' neighbor friend knocked on the door and they all went to his house to play his Wii.  They came back slightly argumentative, so we had an early bedtime on Thanksgiving.  They were able to be quiet, read in their rooms, and decompress.  

We didn't forget our Thanksgiving pictures with the turkey.  

I went back to the first year we did the turkey pictures.  They were 2, 4, and 6 back then.  

This weekend, the kids worked on their mime walking downstairs routine.  

Today, Henry and Caroline were playing with the neighborhood friend.  They had me walk around the neighborhood with them.  First, to one pocket playground.  Then, to the swings in another section of the neighborhood.  On the walk home, they tried to convince me to drive them to another playground by appealing to my preference for them to play outside vs. staring at screens indoors.  That, and it was the last day of Thanksgiving Break, so they wanted to do one more fun thing.  I acquiesced and drove them to a playground in the next neighborhood over.  

Playground #1:

 

Play Area #2:

Playground #3:

Now it's back to school and work in the morning.  I'm grateful for the time we had off and ready to finish out our semester strong.

Christmas Photo Flops - by Josiah

This is Josiah.  Welcome to the BLOG; my mom's blog about our week. Today I am going to talk about our beautiful Christmas photos. We spent a grueling ten minutes of standing still, getting Benson to stand still, and getting pictures taken. It was during a freezing cold front in November. When you get our card, know that it took a lot of effort and bloopers.  That is what I’m covering. The bloopers.

Benson found something more interesting than the camera:

Benson didn't know what to do:

Benson looking like he's being strangled:

When Benson saw his mom, he went crazy:

The final product:

By the way, Benson's red collar came out of retirement because it was a Christmas color.  

Christmas Pictures with Benson

The boys started the week not feeling well.  They both hung out on the couch all day Monday with coughs and congestion.  However, by Tuesday, they both started to feel better, though they've had lingering congestion all week.  It's been fun to hear them sniffle all week with a box of tissues lying dormant next to them.  Blow your noooooose!! The tissues are right next to you! It's like they know it is one of my biggest pet peeves.  Or, one in particular, likes to cough without fully covering his mouth.  Big fun.   

For media-free Monday we had a drawing competition.  Caroline, Henry, and I were tasked to draw pictures related to Christmas.  Josiah was the judge.  Josiah gave me first place, but Henry cried foul because I looked at a picture and copied it instead of drawing from my own mind.  

Since they were on the mend by Tuesday, we dressed up to take our Christmas photos.  The kids tried to recreate previous years' photos.  They dressed similarly (and were disappointed Caroline's dress from last year no longer fit).  They did similar poses.  We took them in the backyard so that Benson could be out with us. He was totally nuts.  We let him run like mad before we started so he wouldn't try to jump on the kids.  After all the pictures of the kids were taken, Henry insisted we get a solo picture of Benson.  Henry got him by the collar and sat him by the tree.  I started snapping immediately to see what we'd get, but when we looked at the pictures, they were pretty funny.  Benson was giving Henry the side-eye, like, Back-up.  I've got this.  Then he sat and smiled for 20 seconds before he was off again.   

Josiah said this pose looked like an album cover.

And the kids wanted to share the blooper reel, too.

This was our last week of CC for the two younger kids.  Caroline celebrated with a party in her class.    

Josiah has a 15-week semester, so he still has a few weeks to go after Thanksgiving break.  His Challenge group was assigned to draw the Western Hemisphere to display this week.  Josiah drew the countries, but then put a significant amount of effort into drawing his Whopperios in each of the different areas.   

He is still drawing the world each week.  So far he's learned the Americas and all of Europe.  In the spring he'll learn Africa and Asia.  

Josiah's Latin tutoring was cancelled on Friday, so instead of carpooling with his friend, we had his friend came over to play for a few hours.  They did all the usual - video games, food, and light saber battles.  

Saturday we were living like we had just won the lottery.  We put my car in the shop for a tune-up as it had hit 110,000 miles.  Then, when we got home from dropping off my car, we noticed Todd's tire had a bulge/bubble in the sidewall.  Off he went to go buy some tires for his car.  Thank goodness he's the type to save for a rainy day.  The kids asked if we could eat out today.  Uh, no.  We are just going to relish having two fully running cars.  

Henry has defied all rules of Benson not being allowed to get on the furniture.  He's pretty happy with himself.  His goal is to get Benson to sleep with him all night.  

The kids are really looking forward to having the week off for Thanksgiving.  The Texas schools always get the whole week off and after years of telling the kids we don't have to follow Texas schools, it just became easier to follow them for the break weeks.