Parks & Rain

One child started out their week in a not so fun chair.  Cavities were filled.  Blame was placed on their maternal genes (deep grooves).  Hopefully the pain and discomfort was just enough to prompt proper, regular brushing...

Said child also got a look at the bill so they could see their future if they didn't take care of their teeth properly.  

Caroline earned her last yellow stripe.  Next up is a new belt.  They have three different groups in jiu-jitsu based on height.  Caroline has hung out in the middle group for a long time now.  Most of the kids near her height were eager to move up to the biggest group, often just moving themselves up by standing in it one day.  Still, Caroline hung out with the mediums.  Even after days when the instructors would move her up, the following class she would put herself back in the mediums.  There was some comfort in knowing you could defeat every single kid in your group.  Alas, she has finally (permanently) graduated to the tallest group.  There are many her size in it, which gives her more of a challenge.  

Caroline also did not tell the boys she was earning a stripe, so when her name was called, they perked up.  They knew a treat was coming.  

Mid-week, we met Caroline's friend at the park.  The boys decided to come this time.  Henry spent a lot of time climbing the amazing oaks.  Josiah helped little kids on the zipline a lot.  Caroline and her friend walked around chatting for several hours.  We left when the hangry pains set in.

 

Later that day, the kids were invited to their neighbor friend's Kickstart Ceremony.  He warned us to get there early to ensure we got a seat.  We left the house 45 minutes before the ceremony which was just down the road.  By the time we walked into the gym, it was standing room only.  Caroline really enjoyed the young lady who performed with the num-chuks.  

The following day we met up with friends to get Italian Ice.  They had something called Gelati that was layered soft serve, Italian ice, soft serve, Italian ice.  Caroline chose vanilla soft serve with cake batter Italian ice.  I got the vanilla and strawberry combo and it was quite good.  After treats were eaten, we headed to a neighborhood playground.  Henry found himself another tree and sat in it the whole time.  Caroline and her friend made videos of themselves rolling down the grass.  Afterwards they were both incredibly itchy.  It was more than just rolling in the grass itchy, more like pesticides were on the grass itchy.  So we headed home to shower.  

After this second park, with all the mosquitos and the heat, Caroline said she was going to make her own park when she grew up.  It would be encased entirely in glass with an air conditioned playground inside.  Thinking about the glass walls, she noted, I don't know how many dead birds there will be.  The boys quickly dubbed it the Dead Bird Park.  Good concept, needs some tweaking.    

The next day, Caroline went over to the same friend's house for her 10th birthday party.  It was Caroline's first slumber party and she was equal parts excited and nervous.  She wasn't sure she wanted to do the sleeping over part.  When we got there, they had super cute tents set up.  All the friends arrived quickly and she was perfectly fine.  There was no late night phone call asking me to pick her up, so all went well.  

The next day, after a little resting, we asked Caroline about her time.  They stayed up until 2 or 3 a.m.  We couldn't fall asleep.  They painted on canvases, watched a movie, and talked a lot!  Needless to say, she had a good time.  

This weekend, we went to the Rain concert.  They are the Beatles tribute band that Todd and Josiah saw last year.  We went as a family this year.  Josiah was excited to go all week.  He kept asking if I was as excited as he was.  That excitement continued up until an hour before we left.  Because he started his week at the dentist, we have been encouraging him to eat more vegetables with his meals.  Strongly encouraging.  So, he had a little avocado and a little salad with his dinner the night of Rain.  He ate some, but said it was making him sick and he physically could not eat any more.  We got to the concert and Josiah kept saying how awful his stomach felt.  We found our seats and he said the stomach pains were getting worse.  Right before it started, he took a trip to the bathroom and instantly ridded his stomach of all the greenery.  After that, he felt much better.  I have no idea how a bland avocado and a few leaves of lettuce could prompt such a rejection.  He only missed the first song and a half and was able to enjoy the rest of the music.  

Henry was not keen on going to the concert.  He reminded us of this fact quite a few times in the days and hours prior.  We told him we would take note of that for next time.  He made it through. 

Caroline really enjoyed all the songs she knew.  She sang along and got into them.  But her lack of sleep from the slumber party was catching up with her as the night went on.  She finally succumbed to sleep the last 30 minutes of the show.  

The best t-shirt we found had written on it: I'm still pissed at Yoko.  

Before going in - the excitement was palpable with these three. 

Purged of all greenery

Henry is on his summer puzzle kick.  He picked the hardest one to start.  Josiah joined him, building one map puzzle after another on top of each other.  He did two different U.S. puzzles, one Europe, one Africa, and one of the world.  

The kids chose to sit three in a row on the way to church this morning.  It reminded me of when they sat three in a row a few years back.

We are grateful for another week.  

Whata Week

Henry started out his week as a sickie.  It seemed to be a bad head cold for the most part, but he threw in a little retching to keep it interesting.  On his worst day, Josiah let Henry play his Switch, but only if he wore latex gloves.  No spreading germs around here.  Henry had a slow week because of it, but was still able to celebrate his Memory Master dinner Friday night.  This year only four kids went for memory master, so it was a pretty small crowd.  They played games and ate, posed for pictures and had cupcakes to celebrate.  It was a nice lowkey evening. 

 

Henry's first and last memory master medals - he's grown a bit.  (Ages 12 and 7)

Todd picked up Henry's cold, so he's had a bit of a rough week as well.

 Josiah went to the orthodontist.  They put the final wire on his bottom teeth this week.  On his next visit, they are going to put the final wire on his top teeth.  The orthodontist said, "we're still pushing for the finish line, but his teeth look good."  As we walked out of the office Josiah muttered, I don't think he has the same definition of 'finish line' that I do.  In Josiah's defense, he's been at said finish line for a good 8 months.  He's ready to cross it!

Midweek, our neighbor friend had his middle school orchestra concert.  He invited us, because for, one, he's the type of kid to invite everyone to everything.  Very much a people person, but, two, because they were playing Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles.  They had the school's choir director sing the lyrics, and he chose a more operatic voice, so it was an interesting rendition.  Caroline sang along and played the air drums.  

What's a girl to do while waiting for the concert, but kick up her heels in the hallways.  -->

The next day, Josiah had a five hour yearbook meeting.  Five. Hours. They met at a library and worked on their page spreads.  Josiah was in charge of the Faces of History pages as well as another class page.  They enjoyed a Chick-fil-a lunch and celebrated finishing the whole thing by being treated to Italian ice.  He was exhausted by the time he got home.  

For Mother's Day we had dinner and a show.  We went out for tacos and when we came home, we made choco-tacos with pizzelles.  

Later in the evening, the kids put on a play.  They had been practicing it for quite a few days.  The boys were two young brothers, Johnny and Jimmy.  Caroline played the role of their older sister as well as their mother.  When in mother mode, she spoke with a British accent and was quite harsh with her words.  She yelled at the boys for making a mess and then said, "I'm going off to the shops."  I hesitantly asked her if she modeled her character after me and was relieved when she said no.  

At the end of the play, Josiah gave me a trophy.  He has been painting it for two weeks now on the kitchen countertop.  He would add super thick layers of paint and let it sit all day to dry.  Originally he said he was making a stage for his stop-motion animations, but it was an award all along.  

They also gifted me with Whatashirt and a Whatacoffee-cozy. 

For Mother's Day at church, my class of 2-3 year olds gave me a much better day.  Last week, I had three kids pee on the floor (two just missed the toilet while sitting on the toilet) and two incident reports - if they fall in class we write it up in case a bruise shows up later.  It was rough!  Today they were much more chill.  The most we had was one little girl who sang Old McDonald at the top of her lungs for a very long time.  At one point she stopped and said, "Nobody's singing with me." before getting right back into it.  

Caroline created a Mother's Day collage:

And so ends another week.

Piñatas and Water Fun

In preparation for CC this week, Josiah drew some pictures for his friends.  Two classmates received Mario-themed drawings of Bowser and Toad.  Another wanted a picture of herself from the Gala.  He asked if there were more requests, and he's been busy with portraits ever since.  

At CC, Josiah's classmates spent part of their day reading each other their short stories.  His director had printed a spiral bound booklet so everyone had copies of all the stories.  Josiah also collected the signatures of all his classmates in case they got to be famous some day.  They took a brief break for lunch, and afterwards had their blue book exams Escape Room style.  Josiah was in a group of three and they seemed to work together well and escaped first.  He is officially done with Challenge B and moves on to high school (gulp) in the fall!  

While Josiah was busy in class, Henry, Caroline, and I were setting up for our end of year party.  Caroline helped fill the piñatas.  I helped with the filling of 1210 water balloons.  

Before the fun was to be had, we came together as a community to hand out certificates of achievement and took a lot of class pictures.  Caroline was not shy during her picture with her Essentials tutor.  Here, hold this over my head.  

Henry received his certificates for Foundations, Essentials, and Memory Master.  He also graduates from Foundations/Essentials, so we have a tradition on our campus to make timeline cards for the kids.  In CC, we sing (parts of) the timeline song each week.  The song is 12 minutes long on the CD as it tries to jam pack all the major events from the history of the world.  These kids have been learning this song since they were four years old, so they know it well.  To commemorate the event, we make the graduates their own timeline card with a description of their life thus far on the back.  Henry moves up to Challenge A next year.  

From there we gathered outside to destroy the piñata.  Henry was tasked with getting the rope around a tree limb.  The first tree proved to be too difficult because he could never get a clear shot of the limb, so we moved on to choice number two.  He succeeded much faster with this one.  He was also not about to let go of the rope and so became the piñata teaser/rope puller for everyone.  He had a tendency to pull it pretty high for the kids he knew best.  That included his sister.  Despite everyone's best efforts, despite going through all the kids and all the adults, the pinata had not broken.  Everyone had hit the belly area thinking the candy was in it.  Meanwhile, the candy was safely tucked away in the head.  To finish it off, they let the son of the piñata maker have a go at it and he decimated the head.  The intensity of his blows were so hard that the candy was quite decimated as well!

At some point the Challenge kids came out to try their hand at the Elmo piñata.  And because Josiah is the saver that he is, we now have remnants of the Elmo piñata in our garage.  I'm going to use it for something...

After the candy was horded, we had a big potluck lunch.  Caroline had her favorite hot dogs that make their way to each of these events.  Then came the water fun.  They tried a water balloon toss to start.  After a few minutes, they switched gears and just let the kids go at it.  The battle, though brief, was on.  1200 water balloons lasted about 8 minutes.  Then came the fun part of picking up 1200 shattered water balloon parts.  This took slightly longer than 8 minutes.  Henry was not keen to get wet during this time, so he watched the battle perched up high.  He stayed there until his friends decided to start throwing balloons in his direction at which time he ran for the safety of the church.

To keep the fun going, there were water guns and a big bouncy house water slide.  Henry finally changed into his water clothes so he could have fun, too.  Somehow I have no photographic evidence of it.  

By the time everything was all over and cleaned up, we were a tired bunch.  But not tired of water games, because the following day, the kids asked to play with water in the backyard.  Benson joined in the fun as well.  

Josiah earned another stripe on his belt.  He has also officially grown out of his gi and moved up to adult sizes. Kid sizes were fun because the pants had an elastic waist.  The adult gi pants have fat cord belts.  

Caroline finished out her week at her Awana award ceremony.  She earned her Book 2 Excellence Award and afterwards enjoyed the cookies and lemonade with a friend.  She is definitely sad for the end of all her activities.  She really enjoys her CC and Awana friends.  Many play dates must be made to make it through the summer.  

And so a new week begins.  CC is done, but school is not.  The kids are thrilled.