Eli has discovered....

peanut butter.

Yes, we know the "ruls" about not starting peanut butter unti at least two years old.

BUT

His diet was beginning to consist of chicken nuggests, yogurt, and fruit snacks. Literally. That is all he would eat. So, we decided to introduce a new staple. He loves it. He is eating peanut butter on Ritz crackers right now for lunch, and he has peanut butter all over his mouth....kinda like a goatie.

And his other new "discovery": cereal with milk. Specifically, Honey Nut Cheerios.

He's got a wet paper towel right now, trying to figure out how to get the peanut butter off of his fingers.

Good luck, buddy.

Don't Be Afraid....

To leave a comment or two :)

Comment lines are open for everyone- no need to register!

My Weird Children: Part Three

Believe it or not, I don't have to make these stories up. I guess enough odd stuff happens when you have four kids. This story is straight to the computer I'm-stopping-cleaning-the-kitchen-to-come-blog-because-I-can't-stop-laughing. Lest anyone think I'm a prude, the following words are blanked out so no one can find this story looking for less than appropriate web sites.

Gavin is standing next to me as I get him a popsicle out of the freezer. He is doing what some might call the "peepee" dance. "Do you need to pee?" I ask him.

"Nope" he replies.

"Is your p*nis bothering you?"

"No"

"What are you grabbing yourself?"

"I'm just enjoying my p*nis"

I am *so* not prepared to be a mother of a little boy..............

Funny Email Subject Line of the Day

I have an email account that I use mainly for signing up on other websites, for promotions, etc. I always get some weird spam, but today I got an email who's subject line made me laugh:

"Ever wish you were home more often with your kids..."

My Weird Children: Part Two

Lauri loves spelling tests. I don't know why, but she just does. She gets so excited when its Pretest or Posttest day. We were on her first review lesson today, and I thought I'd go ahead a quiz her over all of her words- all 75 of them. When I passed this idea of mine on to her, her face lit up with joy.

"How many words?"

"75"

(Insert wide grin here)

"I'm going to need two pieces of paper for that!!!!"

She went on to only miss 4 out of 75.

My Weird Children: Part One

We can start with my oldest, darling daughter: Alyssa

She was on he way up from playing dress up in the basement when I accosted her with, "Hey, Alyssa! I have a special job for you!!!"
Usually this is meant with groans, but so far she was receptive. "What?" she asked cautiously

"Peeling potatoes!"

How might you expect a "normal" 8 year old to respond to this? Running the other direction? Tears and screams of protest? Nope, not my girl.

"YES!!!" she shouted and immediately went to find the bag of potatoes and the peeler. :)

Lauri's Work

Yea! Blogger finally worked for me! I'm not sure how easy this will be to read, but this is Lauri's history narration from Monday. :) I think I need to set my scanner settings darker.

Week 4

Week four is off to a good start. I learned that we can survive a week with a doctor's appointment, a birthday, and preparations for a birthday party. We managed to finish everything I wanted to once again!!!

The most exciting news of the day is that Pete's Pond is back up!!!! We spent many hours last year listening to the squawk of birds and watching patiently for a giraffe or warthog to visit the pond. Most of the time its just gazelles and various birds, but it's still neat to have a "window" to the other side of the world. Yea!!!

I'm trying to upload some of the girls' work, but blogger is being dumb, so I'll try again later.....

You Know It's The Day After A Birthday When....

....the kids all sleep in because we didn't get home from dinner until 10pm

....you let the kids all play at the train table for an hour after breakfast because they're all getting along with no fights

....you only get the basics-math, grammar, spelling- done today (making up for not taking off his actual birthday)

....you were tempted to eat leftover cookie cake for breakfast :)

You Know It's a Birthday When....

....You actually wake the birthday boy up when he's finally sleeping in because daddy has surprises before he leaves for work

....Breakfast: Donuts

....Lunch: Pizza

....Dinner: A restaurant

Happy 4th Birthday Gavin!!!

The Tie Is Broken...

And the girls win!

The kids were *very* excited to learn that they are getting a baby sister. Now they are obsessed with names. Brett and I are kind of stuck on names, so we are open to any and all suggestions.

Boys vs. Girls

Here are my boys:

And here are my girls:

In less than 4 hours until we find out which side is going to win :)

Starting Week Three...

And so far we've been very successful. I thought I might take the opportunity to share what curriculums we are using this year. A lot of what we use is based on recomendations from The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.

Gavin started his first real year of school this year. He is working on a PreK/early Kindergarten level. He is working in Rod & Staff Preschool ABC Series, Phonics Pathways, Handwriting Without Tears (currently in the orange book, but we'll probably repeat it), Go For the Code, and various other materials pulled from websites and books. He is still enthusiastic about his work which is encouraging.

The girls are using the same curriculums just at different levels, so I'll list them together (Lauri/Alyssa):

Spelling :Spelling Workout (level B/level F)

Grammar: Rod & Staff (grade 2/finishing grade 3-soon to be starting on grade 4)

Math: Singapore Math (2A/4A)

History: Story of the World Vol 2 (we are about halfway done with this)

Science: We are doing a review with materials and assignments I have pulled together myself. We are quickly going through types of animals, the human body, and earth science before we start on early Chemistry.

Latin: We are joining a newly formed Latin co-op using Minimus Latin. This will start mid-September.

This pretty much covers it. We are also going to be loosely studying American History this year. I'll try and post some of the kids' work, but I'm not sure how the scans will show up on this site.

Oh Say Can You Sing

We are working on our heritage Award for Campfire this year. It requires the girls to learn all about our country. Things like: who the current president is, what the original 13 colonies were, be able to recite the Pledge. They also are supposed to learn the words to the Star Spangled Banner. We practiced it a couple times with our poster this morning, and then we moved on to learning the meaning of the Pledge. Eli didn't want us to stop singing. He grabbed the poster and started screaming. He sat there and made us sing two more times before he was satisfied.


I know this picture looks staged, but it's mainly because Eli says "cheese" every time he sees a camera.

Book Report

I've read a couple good books recently, and I thought I'd share. Two of them happen to be children's books.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson: Somehow I missed this book as a child. I read it the other day because I have heard such good things about it, and I want Alyssa to read it this year. I am trying to do more prereading of her material. This was an amazing book, but incredibly sad. I finished it a little after midnight one night, and I proceeded to bawl my eyes out. Maybe part hormones, but mostly incredible writing.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Decamillo: I read this right after Alyssa did. It only took me a little over an hour. It reads like a wonderful fairy tale and has a moral equivilant to an Aesop fable. It is such a beautiful book. It describes love in a most unusal way. I'm planning on reading this to Lauri and Gavin this week.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice:Brett read this awhile back, and he kept bugging me to pick it up. I did, and I managed to finish it in about three days. You definately have to read this as fiction, but it is still amazingly spiritual. Rice's writing flows well, and it is encaptivating to enter into a child Jesus' thoughts.

I need to decide which book I'm going to pick up next. I'm debating between prereading The City of Ember (by Jeanne Duprau) for Alyssa's September book club or Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I may just go ahead and start both. Since they're so incredibly different, I can't imagine that I'll have any trouble keeping them separate :)

Side note on movies: Brett and I watched Rumor Has It last night with Kevin Costner and Jennifer Aniston. A rather odd plot, but we enjoyed it. Shirley MacLaine was hilarious. It was a fun way to spend a Saturday night. Tonight we're watching Flight of the Navigator. Somehow, I missed this as a child (it came out in 1986), but luckily I'm married to the king of 80s juvinile SciFi movies. Pretty funny that I don't remember this movie, especially since its set where I actually lived in 1986. The girls are really enjoying it, but poor Gavin fell asleep about 20 minutes into it.

Taking Matters Into My Own Hands

After being harassed all week by a black and orange spider that made its home in our office window, the battle is done. I emerged victorious. It wasn't bothering me so much when it kept its home in the windowsill, but once it tried to expand its horizons to hanging down the ceiling right by our desk, I knew it had to end. This was no simple house spider. It would freak out everytime the kids would play the keyboard- sticking out one of its legs like it was going to attack. When it was hanging down the ceiling, it doubled it size.

So, with a bottle of 409, I attacked it in mid-air. About a half a bottle later, it began to weaken and gathered enough courage to take a strike at it with my shoe. Aaaah, sweet victory.

What is it about spiderwebs that once your skin touches even the tiniest bit of one, you are then condemned to feel as if spiders are crawling all over you for the rest of the day. Ick. The price I must pay, right?

Why I let my kids arrange a "sleepover" on a school night....

....they cleaned up all the little toys and trash off the floor to make room for their mattresses

....they have voluntarily put themselves to bed at 6:56 (with a special treat of a vcr tape on our portable tv)

....the three of them agreed to the set-up (and the movie!!!) without the slightest hint of an arguement

....all three of them will be sharing this room soon enough, so let it stay special while it can :)

"How do you spell.....???"

I hear this often throughout the day, "How do you spell...mammal?" "How do you spell heaven?" I hear this probably twenty times a day.

BUT....

"HOW DO YOU SPELL......HOW DO YOU SPELL SPAIN?"

is what Brett and I heard last night as we were settling down for bed. Seems poor Lauri was having some type of dream (nightmare?) about writing something on Spain. Which is odd for two reasons: she keeps telling me how much she loves to write reports and we barely even mentioned Spain yesterday except for a quick note on where it was on our Middle Ages map. Then again, dreams aren't supposed to make sense :) As someone who has the craziest dreams while pregnant, I should know that better than others.

Whoo Hoo! Whoo Hoo Hoo!

Yes, that's the Vonage theme. It's often a celebratory song in our house.

Today its because we got a new stove. We went to THE MART last night, and it was delivered today. Brett just walked in, so now I get to try it out with french fries and potatoes. Yum.

That's our exciting news for the day, so once again.....

WHOO HOO! WHOO HOO HOO!

The Second Day

The first day went well. The second day also went well. We've accomplished everything I've planned and then some :)

Attitudes are a little bit crabbier on the second day for all of us- although my body seems to be adjusting to waking up early, my mind last night was not remembering to go to sleep early.

Gavin is still enthusiastic about "doing school". I've been impressed with Lauri's handwriting and her enthusiasm for writing papers. Alyssa is getting back in the swing of things. She loves the new keyboard we got and practices on that whenever she gets a chance. I need to find her a teacher, I have no musical skills.

Brett is enjoying his new job. He seems to be adjusting fine. I am looking forward to hearing how today went, since yesterday was a lot of orientation.

So far, so good.