1st Grade Boy Madness!

Recently, Josiah attended Cole & Reed's 7th birthday party. Cole and Reed live nearby and are fraternal twins and they also go to our church. Their mom had 24 (yes, you read correctly) 24 first grade boys over to her house for a big Lego Star Wars birthday party! All the kids came home on the bus with Cole and Reed (they are both in different classes at school) and they all piled in with all their snow paraphernalia and backpacks, which got dumped just inside the back door. It was quite a pile of stuff!

I stayed to assist Libby (Cole & Reed's brave Mom) and helped to be a referee amongst the sword fighting and rough boy play. I wished my camera hadn't died, or I would have had more picture to share, but this one sums up the energy and excitement that most certainly was hard to contain at the party!

After arriving, they all promptly found all the swords and sword-like items in the house and began dueling in the living room and then proceeded to the sweets table and loaded up on all sorts of Star Wars treats including chocolate dipped pretzel light sabers (in a stunning red and green), Death Stars (a large Whopper type candy), Star Wars characters cookies, chocolate covered Ewoks (gummy bears), Yoda Soda (sprite), Vader-ade (Root beer) and eventually some decked out cupcakes as well. I was helping with the drinks and would say, "Do you want Yoda Soda or Vader-ade?" and most of them looked at me really puzzled until I said, "Sprite or Root beer?"

It was little boy heaven there for sure! At one point, a group of boys (Josiah in the mix) ran up the stairs counting down from 10 and apparently when they got to zero a bomb went off downstairs! Good thing they got upstairs fast!

Another funny moment was trying to find everyone's boots and stuff to go outside and play in the snow. One little guy was like, "I can't find my snow pants....they are black." I am looking around and I say, "Well most all of the pants are black." Then another kept coming over to tell me he couldn't find his boots. Well it turns out that he didn't wear his boots there at all, so that would explain it! His Dad put on his shoes when he got there and I had to chuckle to myself about that one.

And I did not leave the party without a significant 1st grade boy party war wound! As I said, I was helping with all the snow gear and was trying to put all the gloves in one area, pants in another, etc. and I leaned down to grab a glove and WHAM-O...a little boy seeing his mom or dad stood up right underneath me and his head made contact with my glasses which went right into my upper left eye and eyebrow! I was seeing stars there for a minute and starting crying (ack!) 'cause it hurt so bad. The poor little guy felt bad and through tears I said, "It's OK, it was an accident, I will be fine." Nikki (a college gal that lives there too) got me an ice pack to hold on my eye for a bit and then I was OK. I did have a nasty bruise though afterward!

Anyway, it was a joy to see all the boys having fun and especially seeing Josiah have a blast too! Thanks to Libby for the fun party and for inviting Josiah!

A Day in the Life

We are really getting into a groove with homeschooling now and Josiah is doing really wonderfully! He is in 2nd grade math (around lesson 46--160 lessons to complete) and he is finishing up 1st grade in the other subjects (should be done in March sometime I think) and I have seen lots of progress in both his academic work and his behavior. We still have some battles about school here and there, but for the most part, it is smooth sailing now (of which I am VERY thankful!) He is making a card here for his friends' birthday party. He wanted to sign his name in cursive and you can see he is working hard here by the drawn mouth.

Daniel is being a tattle tale here to tell me that Caleb is feeding a cracker to his panda bear (a fact that I was well aware of). You can see his workbook in the background. He is just DYING to start school and begs me to do his workbook most every day! I got him this BrainQuest Kindergarten book and he is just whipping through it. He can write almost all his letters (without me really officially teaching them) and numbers and takes such delight in doing the pages. I am working with him though on finishing what he begins, as sometimes he will start a page and want to just move on if he doesn't want to do it. I have been insisting that he finishes before he goes on as I want him to get in the habit of doing this. I know it will pay off later!

And here is the proof that Caleb was indeed feeding a cracker to his panda bear, as he wanted to be like Miss Naomi who was feeding her dolly. Caleb also is doing a BrainQuest workbook, but I got him the Pre-K one as he isn't quite as interested in academic stuff right now. I am not pushing him to do the pages, but let him choose which page he wants to do. I also insist though that he finishes the pages he chooses though and help him when he is struggling, but he too is also doing very well with his workbook. I have seen a growing interest in him to want to do his workbook and that was the idea with this, to work on his attention span and help him see how fun it can be. I did the same thing with Josiah at first and I found it was very helpful in getting him ready for Kindergarten. There is a certificate in the back of the book and stickers and when they complete a chapter, they get to put a sicker on the certificate. Caleb has completed 3 chapters already!

I came into the kitchen to find that Naomi's dolly was having a soup feast! She also wanted some tomato sauce apparently too! I had to laugh and then seeing the food reminded me it was snack time, and so put Naomi in her chair and let her have her snack with dolly.

Naomi's first idea was to force feed little dolly, but dolly didn't like that too much and so Naomi had to find other ways to get dolly to eat.

Dolly got a nose-ful of cracker too before Naomi finally decided that perhaps the mouth was the best place for a cracker. She was so funny though and I just laughed and laughed watching her play and eat. While we do school, Naomi usually sits in my lap and colors all over the lesson manuals. I am sure she feels important that she is "doing school" too. Thankfully, she doesn't disrupt the learning too much and just is content to play with the crayons and scribble.

New Clothes from Grandma

Grandma send a whole bunch of new clothes for Miss Naomi and some for the brothers too. You can see here her ruby red slippers that she absolutely LOVES! When I get her dressed, she always looks up at her shoe collection on the dresser and says, "Shooo???" and "Other Shoo???" when we put them on.

One time, I had to put her down in her boots (new at the time) because she DID NOT want to take them off for her nap. Daddy came in there ('cause she wasn't sleeping and making noise) and saw the boots and thought they were causing her to wake up (by catching on the blankets) and so he took them off. Soon afterward, I hear this howling from her room, and not knowing what David did, I went down there and she hollered at me when I came in, "Daddy....BOOO, Daddy.....BOOOO!!" This of course is translated too, "How DARE Daddy take off my precious boots!!" I said, "Did Daddy take your boots off?" And she said in tears, "Yeah!" So I put them back on her and she was quiet afterward and went to sleep. A girl has to have her accessories don't you know!!

Naomi is giving her silly smile face here again. She does this whenever I say, "Smile for the camera!"

Daniel and Caleb just got some shirts this time, but they didn't complain and promptly put them on. Daniel was sporting his whining face here (can't remember why now) and Caleb was oblivious to the whole scene and was making maraca music for us all to enjoy.

I love the fact that they nearly have the same expression here. One might actually think they are twins in this photo!

Daniel decided that in order to smile he needed to say, "Cheesy Robot," and Caleb thought that was a good idea as you can see. Josiah got some new clothes too, but he wouldn't pose for me. I will catch him in them some other time.

Snow Storm #2

We had been hearing from our western Washington friends for some time about the "snow-pacolypse" as it was called that they were having over there and finally we got to see some of that snow also. It snowed pretty much all day from morning until evening on the 19th, but on the 18th (as you can see) we also got quite a lot then as well. Naomi was more excited the 2nd time to be out in the snow and I am quite sure she was very warm and dry, so I am sure that had something to do with it!

Daniel is making a funny face here. I had to stand underneath the deck so that the snow didn't fall on the camera too much. I also took some video of them pulling each other in the sled, but haven't uploaded that yet (but will likely do so on our youtube site soon).

Caleb was "pleased as punch" to be out in the snow and his big grin shows it!

Josiah was trying to throw snow at me in this picture, but the snow was so powdery, it was a failed attempt! We tried to make a snowman too, but it was just not wet enough to make anything. We got the sleds out though and I pulled them around in them for a bit. Josiah also pulled Naomi around a little bit and as the snow piled into the front of the sled, she would brush it out just as quickly. She really enjoyed riding around in the snow though and when she sees it outside she says, "No??? No??" We try to tell her it is "ssss---now," but she won't say the "s" with it just yet. Josiah also thought it was fun to make "backwards snow angels." This is where you lay on your tummy and do a snow angel. He remarked, "This snow angel will have no head."

Daisy Afghan

At our church, we have a "secret sister" thing going on and for my secret sister, I made this afghan. I was going to wait to give it to her at the end of the year, but I finished it early and thought it would be of more use during this cold, winter season!

She apparently likes "Gerber daisies," which are the daisies that are many different colors, so I picked this design because of that. I am hoping she likes the colors. It was a fun afghan to do and didn't really take that long to make. I just did a line or two while David and I watched shows together at night and before I knew it, it was finished! I started around Thanksgiving and finished on Jan. 15th.

Twin Kings

At Awana, the boys learned about King Josiah from the Bible and they made crowns as the craft. The next day they posed for me to show me their handiwork.

Daniel is giving me a big cheesy smile here and Naomi is showing her silly smile face! She squints her eyes and usually makes a funny facial expression of some sort also.