The Presidential Library

At the beginning of the week, we made salt dough to go with our science lesson.  They were supposed to make a model of starfish since we read about echinoderms.  They made puny little starfish, set them to the side, and then played with the salt dough making all sorts of things.  It had the consistency of playdoh, but with a salty/grainy texture.  They were even nice siblings and each gave Josiah a portion of the dough.  The three of them have played with it a lot throughout the week.  

Mid-week, we headed to CC so Henry could complete his Memory Master Tutor Proof.  There were only three kids proofing that day.  Two were in classrooms, but the woman Henry was with sat two chairs in the hallway.  It would have been fine since the church was otherwise quiet.  But then, a few minutes into the proof, plumbers showed up.  They were walking down the hallways, talking at a normal volume.  I was a little worried for Henry because he prefers to proof/test in quiet environments with zero distractions.  He did it, though.  It took him about an hour.  After that we played outside until the last child finished.  Tomorrow he has his final Director Proof and then he's done!

Todd planned a little weekend road trip.  The original plan was to go to the Blue Bell ice cream factory, then two different museums.  We piled in the car Friday morning, Todd pulled out his phone to do the GPS, and we discovered the ice cream factory was closed for Good Friday.  So we went to our second stop first.  We headed up to College Station to visit the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.  When Josiah was obsessed with presidents a year ago or so, he mentioned that he would love to visit a presidential library, so we had kept this leg of the trip a surprise.  College Station is home to Texas A&M which has 70,000+ students.  It was no small campus.  The Presidential Library was at one end of the campus.  It ended up being a really neat place to visit.  I always like hearing people's stories, so reading about his early life/growing up was interesting.  There was also a section that housed all the gifts he had been given from different countries.  That was even more enjoyable because Josiah has learned cartography this year, so we recognized all the countries and knew where they were.  The kids' favorite part was sitting in the replica of the Oval Office.  They also liked the real WWII plane and limo.  The presidential limo was a bit smaller than today's Beast.  Josiah browsed the gift shop several times.  He really wanted a $60 pen, but settled on a $5 pen.  I added to my pencil collection.  

From there we found the Texas Bucket List store and studio.  There is a show we watch most weekends called The Texas Bucket List.  The man travels around Texas trying different local restaurants.  The store is where they shoot some of the footage for the show.  It was not a big place, but it was full of Texas gear.  This is where the kids got their souvenirs.  Josiah and Caroline each picked out a mood ring in the shape of Texas.  Henry opted for a t-shirt that had all the major cities of Texas on it.  When we left that store, we had a 50 minute drive back to the hotel.  Every two minutes, Caroline let us know how she was feeling based on the color of her mood ring.  She was often happy, loved, romantic, or calm.  Once she was 'stressed,' but then had to ask what that meant.  

For dinner that night, Henry said he needed something healthy and ordered a giant Caesar Salad with shrimp.  He even let Caroline and I eat some of his greens.  

At the hotel, the kids were happy to find out we got two adjoining rooms.  They claimed the one with two beds for themselves and got nice and comfortable on the bed watching Cartoon Network.  The only trouble was, they could not fall asleep.  They kept coming to the second room to tell me so.  But they could wake up.  I was awakened at 5:36 a.m. to hearing them chatting in their room with the TV on.  I got up and asked them to turn it off and go back to bed.  If I was wearing a mood ring, it would not have shown 'happy' or 'calm.'  They were so excited for the hotel breakfast, that they wanted to make sure they would get first dibs.  Breakfast started at 6:00 a.m.  

After checking out of the hotel, we drove up to Washington-on-the-Brazos to see where Texas declared its independence.  This is where Todd and Josiah went on his 13th birthday weekend.  This day they had people dressed in period pieces outside, so we could ask them questions.  We stopped at the woman washing clothes first.  Caroline was eager to wash clothes and really liked this station.  After the washing and rinsing, they laid the clothes out on the grass.  They said the oxygen released from the grass coupled with the sun shining down bleached their clothes.  From there, we stopped at the printing press, then the blacksmith.  The poor blacksmith was having trouble getting his fire started, so we moved on after that.  Our favorite station was the tailor.  He gave a ton of good information and showed the kids exactly how he sewed the clothes.  We went back to him a few times with questions.  What you cannot see from the pictures was there were tons of caterpillars there.  They were constantly dropping from the trees, so we had to pull them off our clothing a number of times.  We were very glad we were wearing hats!

  

Josiah browsed this gift shop as well.  He really wanted a genuine $80 top hat.  Alas, we left with only our memories from this venture.  

From the tailor, we walked to the Star of the Republic Museum.  That was a very fun museum filled with artifacts from the 1800s.  Josiah and Caroline's favorite part was the playroom where they got to play with all the 1850s stuff.  I found a bench and sat down knowing we would be in there for a while.

  

We had one more section to visit - Barrington Farm which was the home of the last president of the Republic of Texas.  Todd said it was a mile down the road.  All the kids asked to drive to it.  But looking at the map, it was 3/4 of a mile down a footpath.  None were too happy when I said we could walk it.  We had to work off that hotel breakfast.  Once we got walking, however, the boys skipped ahead as happy as could be.  There were giant cows along the path, so that made it fun.  The weather was perfect - low 80s and overcast. 

At the house, we were able to walk through the rooms and touch everything.  In the backyard, the kids tried their hand at 1850s toys.  Caroline ran with the hoop like she had been doing it all her life.  

If the kids had been wearing their mood rings on the walk back to the car, they would have shown, "tired, agitated, hangry, and profoundly cranky."  

All of our drives took us down two-lane country roads.  They were hilly roads, too, so at some points the kids put their hands up like a roller coaster when we went up and down.  Houston is so incredibly flat, that even the hills were an exciting part of the trip.  There were no crops, only cattle.    

We got home Saturday evening and we were tired.  Sleep came quickly.  We actually had to rush a little bit to get to church this morning because all slept in later than usual.  It was a hurry-up-and-wait situation.  We made it to church with 11 minutes to spare.  We left Todd to save our seats and the kids and I went outside to get some Easter pictures.  I've always told them, it'll only take one minute if they just smile.  Pose they did, and we got some good pictures.  

Happy Easter!

Chalk Festival

The kids have started puppet shows again.  They hadn't played with the puppets in quite a while, but one afternoon they came up with a whole story line.  It wasn't the most wholesome of storylines, but it did have a beginning, middle, and conclusion.  Basically, Josiah and Caroline were kidnappers.  They kidnapped their puppets, Al Dente & Sandra.  Henry's puppet, Officer Frank, was on the job to find the missing puppets.  Officer Frank was just a few steps behind until they all ended up on the subway together.  Frank sat next to Caroline who was pregnant.  He became suspicious of her pregnancy and it was discovered that she was hiding Sandra under her shirt.  At least Officer Frank was the hero in the end and rescued the kidnapped puppets.  He was quite lenient, however, letting them off with a warning.

The Subway Car

Josiah had an orthodontist appointment and the orthodontist gave him a look over and said we were coming into the final stretch.  They are going to do a lot of work on him next visit to finish up the alignment.  They put a four-strand rubber band across his top four teeth to close the gap that had been created when they moved his teeth back.  He definitely felt the pull by day's end, but he was also very encouraged by the words, "final stretch."  

When we went to CC this week, Josiah was wearing a hat that he puts on to pretend to be Michael Jackson.  I didn't think much of it.  Josiah is always accessorizing.  But at lunch, we were invited to watch skits from the Challenge A kids.  They were acting out the fallacies they have learned in Fallacy Detective.  Josiah played Michael Jackson in his skit.  A little bit of a moon walk.  A glove on one hand.  He takes his character acting seriously.  He also has quite the eclectic taste in music.  His current favorites are Michael Jackson, The Beatles, & Queen.  Lots of Bohemian Rhapsody listening around here.  

Henry is working on his Memory Master right now.  He's passed his Parent and Peer Proofs already.  This coming week he has his big Tutor Proof where he has to say everything from all 7 subjects for all 24 weeks with zero errors.  We have been doing Ancient History this year, so the history sentences and geography focus on that time frame.  He should do fine.  The hardest part for him is going to talk at a speed that people can understand.  It often feels that his goal in life is to do everything as quickly as possible.  

When Todd vacuums the living room, he take the job seriously.  Benson is always giving us reasons to vacuum.  

The boys did jiu-jitsu Saturday morning.  They took a break from their normal warm-ups and did shuttle run races.  It was three to a race, but because of the odd number of students, Josiah was left to go by himself, so the Professor had two other coaches race against him.  Josiah's youth and ability to change directions quickly helped seal his victory.  Then all the winners from each heat went against each other for an ultimate winner.  Henry beat out all of the kids, but the final race was against Coach Claudia and Professor Mike.  When they lined up, Professor Mike let the class know that he was his middle school's Shuttle Run Champion.  Prof Mike still had it in him and eeked out the win, but Henry made him earn it.

Josiah's first race:

Henry's first race:

Henry's last race:

This weekend we went to a Chalk Festival.  I thought that Josiah might like it since he has done a lot of chalk art.  We got there towards the beginning, while many of the artists were still working on their artwork.  They were pretty amazing, though.  

The had an area for the kids to try their hand at it.  They had regular sidewalk chalk as well as pastels.  Josiah and Caroline chose pastels, which gave them a much more vibrant picture.  Henry did not want to get his hands dirty, so his shadow pretended to draw on Josiah's Peely art.  Instead, Henry sat on the curb with me and played with dirt and dried leaves.  Because he didn't want to get his hands dirty...  

Henry's shadow hand 'drawing'

Caroline drew a sunset over the ocean. 

She drew another one the next day on our driveway. 

This past week the pollen has been crazy.  Everything is yellow.  The weather people said that the oak pollen count is typically between 3000-4000, and that they've never seen it go above 6000.  This past week the numbers each day have been 9000-10000.  The weather guy said that meant there were 9000 pollen particles floating around an area the size of a washing machine.  They called it insanely high numbers.  Todd feels it!  We would love a bit of rain this week to clean out the air.  Oak trees are everywhere here. In all the planned neighborhoods (which is most of them), they plant two in each front yard, four in each corner lot.  (That would also help explain why everyone around here eventually has foundation problems...)

This girl loves her dog.  It is amazing that she has come from not wanting him, to not being able to keep her hands off of him. 

Walking Through Platform 9¾

In jiu-jitsu this week, the kids learned how to fight the sport of jiu-jitsu.  They set the class up tournament style.  In Caroline's group, they had six girls.  They rotated between being: Athlete 1, Coach 1, Referee/Score Keeper, Athlete 2, Coach 2, & audience.  They were learning how to score the match and how to watch it from a wider lens to instruct the athlete on what their next move should be. Caroline tied in her first match, but she was so close to winning. 

The next day, Caroline earned her third white stripe.  Best part, Smoothie King.  

Josiah's diet has changed somewhat since he's had braces.  There are foods that have been too crunchy for him to eat with the braces (carrots), so he's had to change some of his fruit and vegetable choices.  For a long while he ate frozen corn kernels.  Not the best, but better than nothing.  However, green vegetables have always a necessity in my book.  One night we put a salad on his dinner plate.  It was a measly portion of salad because I knew there would be resistance.  Even still, he was told to not leave the table until it was eaten.  Your growing body needs it!  You'll thank me later!  He was made to go back and finish it quite a few times.  Finally, at the end of the evening, he said he was done.  I checked the trash later to find a few lettuce leaves on top.  I took a picture and texted it to him.  That looks like salad.  He shot back, Looks like cilantro.  

Caroline was finally able to bring some cookies to her class to celebrate her birthday.  It was a little late because there were a few March birthdays as well as a going away party, so we waited til a free day.  She was very happy to bring in a treat.

April Fool's Day snuck up on us.  It always seems to do that.  We changed out all the photo frames with Tom Holland's Spiderman.  Unimpressed, Josiah noticed them and said, "Tobey Maguire is a better Spiderman."  The kids also noticed that Tom Holland was either stretched out long or squeezed short.  Yep.  I took one picture and manipulated it.  Todd decorated their caricature pictures.  All day, Josiah kept asking, "Is that it?"  Were there any more tricks?  I kept telling him, sorry, there wasn't any more.  I couldn't tell if he was disappointed that we didn't do more or he relieved for the same thing.  So, since we were unsure, we did one more trick.  Before bed, Todd went upstairs and squeezed mustard in each of their toothpaste tubes.  If anything, it told us who was lying when we asked if they had brushed their teeth.  

Surprisingly, we had successful dentist visits this week.  Yay for no cavities.  

This weekend started with a hefty dose of complaining and talking back.  I combatted that by writing up a chore list for each child.  Part of that included some outdoor work  We all raked and mowed, mulched and swept.  After working in the yard, we emptied the garage and swept it out.  We found the source of that awful smell from a few weeks back.  Considering it didn't smell anymore, the deceased rodent was in a pretty gross state.  Following that, our garage had the pleasant smell of bleach.  After much needed showers, the kids gave themselves rides around our circle on the dolly.  

We finished out the weekend on a really high note.  Josiah has started volunteering in the church nursery every other weekend.  So far he has been assigned to help in pre-K classrooms.  This morning, as we were leaving church, a woman said that she could not have done class without him.  She said he was a really good helper and thank you for raising him right.  Without skipping a beat, Caroline sarcastically said, "We'll see about that."  That was really awesome to hear (about Josiah).  He's a good kid and a very good helper.  About 30 minutes earlier, a different woman came up to me and said that she was walking outside when three boys ran past her into the building.  Henry was with them, but stopped to hold the door open for her.  Such a gentleman.  In talking to Henry about it later, he said that he held the door, #1 to be nice, but #2 because when he holds open that particular door, it reflects the brick on the glass.  He pretends it's like Harry Potter going through the brick wall on Platform 9¾.  So there was that.