International Festival

Henry accompanied me on a grocery run this week.  He typically prefers to stay home, so it was interesting to see the aisles he asked to go down.  His siblings usually like to look at the toy aisle and then ask to buy anything with sugar.  Henry did ask to look at Legos.  After browsing the Lego kits, we hit the dog aisle and came home with a flying chicken for Benson.  Benson loves it, but is not quite keen on "drop it" so we can throw it to him again.  It turns into a tug-of-war to get it from him, which is really just another game from his perspective.  He loves it, though.

Josiah earned his first strip on his grey-white belt.  Since the time change, the sun now anoints each stripe picture.  Henry didn't go to this class, so his siblings texted him a photo of them celebrating with Smoothie King.  (They did bring one home for him, but he was a little worried they wouldn't.)   

During the last six weeks of CC, we do orchestra for the fine arts strand.  This year we are listening to pieces by Bach, Handel, & Mozart.  This past week, a mom in our group gave a viola demonstration in which she played a piece by Bach.  She spoke a lot on the viola, the kids asked her a ton of questions, and she took the time to explain it all.  It was incredibly informative and interesting.  So nice to have live musicians!  

The following day, we drove Josiah to his Latin tutoring and stayed in the city where he does it.  We did a Costco run and then headed to a park to play until Josiah was done.  After a competition swinging battle, Henry asked Caroline if she wanted to run the bases on the baseball field.  She did.  They walked over to the field empty handed.  Henry stepped on the pitcher's mound, while Caroline stood ready at home plate.  Henry wound up and threw her an imaginary ball.  Caroline swung her imaginary bat hitting the ball high and deep.  Henry ran to the outfield, caught it, threw towards an empty 2nd base, while he ran to catch the same 'ball'.  Meanwhile, Caroline made her way around the bases, and though Henry tried to get her out at home, she made it.  It was pretty funny to watch from a distance.   

Who swung higher? 

This weekend our church hosted the 1st Annual International Festival.  They had bouncy houses,  obstacle courses, and games for the kids.  They had a lot of food options from food trucks/vendors.  From Venezuelan to Thai, African to Peruvian, French, Italian, Filipino, there were a ton of choices.  Henry tried a Venezuelan arepa with shredded chicken and it was really good (he let us all try it).  Caroline got a sausage on a stick.  That may have been Texan.  ;)  They had a stage with different performances all afternoon.  We saw the Soaring Phoenix Lion Dance group followed by Irish Dancers.  

We didn't understand the concept of the picture at first which is why Josiah is holding the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Mexico.  

They had one man doing caricatures.  We got in line for that soon after we arrived.  Though waiting in the line exercised the kids' patience, they humored us and held out.  An older gentlemen with artists pencils and Crayola black markers did a great job drawing the kids.  They were really happy with the results.  Josiah wanted to have one with just him in it, so that's how they got divided.  

After church today, Todd and Josiah went to a meeting about Josiah's summer Mission trip.  The pastors talked about what they would be doing and all the logistics of the trip.  They also spoke about how the kids can help pay their way by mowing lawns or babysitting.  It is good to sacrifice your time/talents/energy to help pay your way.  Todd talked to Josiah about making sacrifices (of his time) to help out more.  Josiah responded with, "I already sacrificed my kitchen."  Not exactly what we meant...  This week we gave his kitchen to another family in our CC group.  Josiah would have kept it forever, but it is good that other little kids can now enjoy it as much as he did.  

The Christmas Josiah got the kitchen he just shy of 2 years old.  We actually couldn't get him to eat breakfast that morning because he only wanted to play with the kitchen.

Caroline likes to read in bed before falling asleep each night.  Since her birthday, she has made a stuffed animal throne where she reads and often sleeps.  

And so another week begins.  The younger kids only have 3 more weeks of CC.  We have started the countdown.  

Spring Break

Spring Break week.  It was a really nice week where we enjoyed having some down time.  The weather was amazing.  Perfectly sunny warm spring weather.  The kids played outside on Monday with a tennis ball and baseball hats.  They stood in a circle in the front yard, threw the ball up, and they had to catch it in their hat.  By Tuesday, they had given the game a name, Bounce, and moved it to the driveway.  By Wednesday, they had rules and a referee and a game board drawn out in chalk.  One person threw the ball towards the other person, but it had to bounce once in the "Bounce square."  The second person had to catch it in their hat.  The referee sat in a chair to make sure the ball bounced correctly and that the players did not cross the line during their throws.  They played this every day except Friday when we were inundated with smoky air.  There was a fire west of Fort Worth (well over 4 hours away from us).  The strong winds were blowing the smoke all the way down to the Houston area.  

We watched a movie a day - Josiah has been trying to get all of the old Spiderman movies from the library since seeing the newest one in the theater.  Of course, everyone else has been, too, so he's been waiting for a while for them to come in.  And, much to his dismay, they're all coming in backwards - Tobey Maguire's 3rd movie arrived first, then his 2nd movie.  (He's still 6th in line to get the his 1st movie.  He's been on the wait list for two months now!)    

One evening, Josiah wanted to paint.  We sat down and were joined by Henry and Caroline.  We used the acrylics this time, so we stayed up a little later to be able to use up the paint we squirted out before it dried up.  Henry did not know what to paint at first.  After many (many) suggestions, he settled on painting a red boat.  He did a very nice boat surrounded by water.  He added a rain cloud, and pondered what to add next in his nautical theme.  Portals.  Two portals were the finishing touch, and they were his favorite parts of the painting.  

Josiah opted for Fortnite characters.

Caroline went abstract.  

Caroline actually drew another picture of me last weekend.  She sat down with her board and asked me my favorite shape.  Trapezoid was the answer.  Then she got to work and drew me (with purple eye shadow) with trapezoids.  

Jiu-jitsu was still open this week, and it was even nicer because the class sizes were smaller with people out on break.  The boys like to "practice" at home all the time.  Although their at-home practice sessions nearly always end with one or more of the following: tears, anger, yelling, unnecessary roughness penalties.  We have a before-class and an at-class demonstration.

Caroline has been doing well at class, too.  The school snapped this picture of her.  (She ended up submitting this kid.)

Henry likes to go on No Gi evenings for jiu-jitsu.  These are the classes where they wear street clothes.  This week's No Gi night happened to be on St. Patrick's Day.  Henry and Josiah were promptly pinched by the Instructor.  He said the options were: 1- take the pinch; or 2- Coach Ross would put you in side control for one minute.  I've included a picture of Coach Ross.  He's massive.  The options were really be pinched or be crushed.  This particular night, the pinch must have lit a fire under Henry because he won their live training part.  He successfully submitted all his peers.  

Henry has been tasked to find a hobby.  He typically has the most free time during the days since he is self-motivated to finish his schoolwork early.  However, he gets frustrated on days when no one else finishes in a timely manner (according to Henry's standard of timely) and he doesn't have anyone to play with.  So, we've suggested/requested/demanded he find a hobby so that his time is well spent and not wasted.  He has decided (it may have been suggested to him) to train Benson.  He got a dog training book at the library.  He read all the training sections and wanted to start with, Sit.  But Benson already knew Sit.  So, Henry said he'd teach him, Down.  But Benson already knew, Down.  Henry then moved on to, Shake.  He did teach him Shake, but Shake is not a very useful command in the grand scheme of things.  So, it was then suggested he teach Benson, Come.  That way when we want him to come in from outside, he'll actually listen to us.  Henry's been using cut up hot dog as a reward and he has gotten Benson to obey Come inside the house.  This week, they'll have to take their training outside.  

Caroline has been concerned about Benson continuing to hurt his nose on the fence, so she's been taking him out on a leash a lot a lot.  They have walked all over the yard at all times of day.  Unfortunately, our neighbor's dog is still getting to the yard next to us, so we're always on guard when Benson goes out.  

I had a very productive week.  Yay.  I had a list of things that I wanted to get caught up on and it just worked out that I got most everything finished.  One morning I was vacuuming out the van.  When I got to the third row seat, it looked like a Coke had exploded back there - the seat was covered, the floor was a mess, and the backs of the seats from the second row had tons of splatter stains.  It is rare for anyone to sit back there anymore so I had no idea when it happened.  It did not come as a big surprise that everyone played the innocent.  I have no idea how this got here! was their dumbstruck response. How could you not know you did something as massive as this?!!  So, all the kids came out to help scrub and our lovely Norwex cloths got all the stains out.  After cleaning the fabric, the kids cleaned the insides of the windows.  Then they asked to wash the car.  After the car was cleaned, we raked a few bags of leaves from the front yard.  We came back inside feeling very accomplished.

Since it was smoky on Friday, the kids pulled out the "I'm bored" jar that we made when they were toddlers.  It is full of popsicle sticks which have activities (for toddlers) written on them.  Nevertheless, they picked a stick and did puzzles.  When that was done, they picked another stick and drew pictures.  They danced (to Beethoven's 5th), then played with playdoh.  As they were nearing the end of their playdoh playing time, I stuck a new activity in the jar, "Clean your stuff off the dining room table."  Magically, they were no longer bored.  

Dancing

Caroline came to the grocery store with me one evening.  We were passing a Corona display when Caroline asked, "Is that Snoop Dogg?"  Yes it is.  It was pretty funny.  She learned who he was from the Super Bowl halftime show.  

And now our break is over.  We should be refreshed and ready to finish out the school year.  The younger kids only have four more weeks of CC left.  Josiah has six more weeks of Challenge A left.  This spring semester has flown by.  

Caroline is Nine

Caroline turned nine this week.  We have now entered the year of the odd numbers again.  13, 11, 9.

Like Henry, Caroline asked for a scavenger hunt for her gifts.  We had to do different places than we did for Henry, so we struggled a bit with locations.  Caroline had some gigantic gifts this year.  We used quite a few closets for our hiding spots to accommodate size.  She had a lot of fun running around and finding the gifts.  She was super excited to find a giant koala bear from the boys.  She received a lot of fun gifts and has said throughout the week that it was her best birthday ever.  Before breakfast, she opened up balls full of miniature foods.  The coolest part to her was that they were real food items from real brand names.  She said the bacon and hot dogs were her favorite.  She does like those foods for real.  

After a healthy breakfast of mini powdered donuts, she started in with her Plush Craft husky.  She loves these kits - basically you just push a piece of fabric into a hole with most of it sticking out so it looks like fur.  

She played for most of the morning before we met up with Todd for her birthday lunch.  She wanted Spring Creek BBQ, specifically the summer sausage and fries.  Whether they claim it or not, frying is their specialty at Spring Creek.  I got the okra again and it is definitely the best fried okra we've ever had.  We all enjoyed that basket of okra goodness.  Josiah was still recovering from his stomach bug, but he enjoyed several of their fresh baked rolls.  

After lunch, Caroline started in on her diamond art.  At first glance it looked hard, a bit tedious, and maybe a little above her age.  But as she stuck to one packet of colored jewels at a time, the concept seemed easier and she really got into it.  She liked it more than expected which was a pleasant bonus.  She spent the remainder of her school days this week doing diamond art, a little math, diamond art, a little English, more diamond art.  It does take a long time to complete a picture, but she loved the result.  Her goal is to finish the four from the kit and put them in a frame for her room.

Of all the gifts, however, I think her new jean jacket was the favorite.  She wore it her entire birthday and for several days since.  She loves the look and the feel of it.  She loves how she looks in it and it makes her happy. It was a little bittersweet, though, because it seemed like a much more grown-up gift.  

For dinner, she chose her usual fare: crispy chicken, black-eyed peas, and cornbread.  Then it was cake for dessert.  Even her cake choice was more grown up, opting for flowers instead of a character.  

As with all birthdays in this house, they start early and they tend to end early.  Waking up at 5:00 a.m. makes one tired by 8:00 p.m.!

Throughout the week she has worked on her new Lego kit.  She has not completed it yet because she likes to pick the hour before dinner to work on it, and she likes me there in official capacity as Instruction Book Page Turner.  We are about to start Bag 4 of 4 tomorrow.  However, she told me today that she is already on page 200 in her new birthday book!  She does love to read.

Birthday season is officially over in our household.  Whew!

Benson has had a rough week with his nose.  We have neighbors two doors down that have a new dog.  This dog has somehow figured out how to get from its backyard to the backyard next to us.  She then stands on the other side of our fence and barks.  When this first happened, Benson barked so much and sniffed at the fence so intensely, that he came back inside with a bloody nose.  This continued to happen several days this week, so now we have to check before letting him out, or take him out on a leash (which is not ideal since the backyard is his area).  Benson also gave me a shock, because one evening while I was trying to corral him away from the fence, he had gone to the side of our house and jumped so high that he could see over our fence into the neighbor's yard.  He was not scaling it, he literally just jumped 6 feet in the air.  I could not believe how high he had gone.  It was impressive and slightly scary at the same time.  

His nose all red - he wore off all the black.

We had a good week at CC, but the most fun came after.  We had a going away party for a family that is moving to Baton Rouge.  Our CC group met up at a park and the kids got to play on the playground for 2.5 hours.  They played hard!    

This Friday was the last day of school before spring break.  The level of focus was about what you would expect for the last day before spring break.  School work was completed.  I cannot say how much was retained.  

Because we only went to jiu-jitsu once this week, Todd took the kids to the Saturday morning competition class.  This class focuses more on points and scoring for tournament matches.  While our kids do not necessarily want to compete, they have enjoyed the class.  Caroline said she came in second in her group, defeating two opponents, before getting submitted by the third.  Henry finished the class with his fourth white stripe.  There is significantly less complaining about doing a class on a Saturday morning when they know they'll get Smoothie King after in celebration of a stripe.

Finally, Henry decided that Todd and I grew up in the dark ages.  The kids were watching old Disney trailers this afternoon.  When they watched the original Toy Story trailer, Henry told Caroline, "I think this was the first movie in color."  1995 Toy Story came out.  1995.

And poor Josiah didn't make any of the pictures this week.  Here he is coming home from church today.