Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Because why not?

Hand Prints

We fell into this tradition by accident, but once I realized it could be a thing, I made it one. Every year on this date, I make the boys stamp their hand prints on paper.

We started it in 2011 - Jack's first year on Earth. He was not quite 6 months old. The big boys were nearing 4.



Jason, Shawn, and Jack (left to right)
September 28, 2011



They were all so tiny then.

They keep getting bigger, these boys.  





Shawn, Jason, and Jack (left to right)
September 28, 2012



Bigger.

Shawn, Jason, and Jack (left to right)
September 28, 2013

And bigger.

September 28, 2014
Shawn, Jason, and Jack

And stronger every day.

September 28, 2015
Shawn, Jason, and Jack

It's mind blowing to me. How can they be this big?

I held my hand over Jason's here, and his fingers are only an inch or so shorter than mine. I imagine his hands might be the same size as some smaller adults...

Their handprints are such a visual representation of how much they've changed, a tangible way of seeing the passage of time when sometimes it's so hard to grasp in day to day living of life.

These handprints tell the tale. Our boys are not so little anymore.

Facebooking Part 2

Shawn didn't hesitate when I said he could have a chance to write something on Facebook today. He was ready as soon as the laptop was in front of him.

"What do I write, mom?" he asked. 

I told him to write about the fundraiser, and this is what he came up with. (Spelling is all his own, too. 😜)

How cute is that? Almost as cute as this, I think...

I Gave In

I held off as long as I could, but I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. In the beginning, while the rest of the world's children fell all over themselves with it, my boys were more content to do other things instead. That lasted for the longest time.

And then a few weekends ago the first thinly veiled hint at interest popped up. I heard about kids at school and how they loved it. I was shown countless YouTube videos on it. 

This week brought more targeted requests. "Can we?" and "I sure wish I could..." came up multiple times. Sigh.

I finally relented. Tonight we have officially entered the world of Minecraft.

I have a feeling I'm going to probably be on Mibecraft overload in no time flat.

Cute Big Boy Saturday - Birthday Party!

Tonight we celebrated daddy and grandma's birthday!

The boys were quite eager to participate, too. Who cares if it wasn't their birthdays today? Blowing out the candles and opening presents are fun any time. ;)

Happy Birthday, Isaac and Mom! We love you very much!

Friday Five

Jason's books for AR reading this week were from the "You Wouldn't Want to Be a..." series. He read the one about building skyscrapers and being a pirate's prisoner. He was both repulsed and intrigued while he read both.

"I only liked the books half way." he told me. "They were half way disgusting, too." LOL

~~~

Homework this week included painting some apple pictures in the pointillism style. Apparently they were learning about Georges Seurat...

Because it's second grade. You learn big stuff in second grade. Sheesh.

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This week was grandma's (my mom) birthday and daddy's birthday is tomorrow. Tomorrow we get to celebrate with a little party for the two of them. The boys have been counting down for a while now. They love birthdays. :)

Today also brought the first flip of the calendar to October to find out when their birthday will be. I was informed it will be on a Tuesday. I was also informed that they can't wait.

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We are on this ball and have already picked out costumes for Halloween! They are all going to look pretty cute, too. I am almost not sure how to handle us being this proactive. lol

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We found our first wild monarch butterfly chrysalis outside! So exciting!

Throwback Thursday - September 2013

Brotherly love...

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

He got a little too quiet -- always a dangerous thing around here. I found him sitting in a hole.

Apparently this was a whole lotta fun. Lol

Facebooking

Jason has been anamored by the whole Facebook thing. He loves to watch videos that come up through my feed, and he's been known to tell me to "Facebook this, mom." Lol

So, you can imagine his thrill when he asked if I could put his fundraiser on Facebook. He was even more excited when I told him I'd let him write his own post.

I won't let him have any sort of social media account for a very long time to come, but it was cute to watch him learning how to use the Internet to help him reach his goal. (186 items sold, here Jason comes! 😜)

Conversations With 7 Year Olds

I left the oldest in the bathroom to give him a chance to do his business...

Me: Are you done, yet?

Him: (Sigh) Not yet, mom. Can you just gimme a little peace? 

Lol! You cannot rush these things. I forgot! ;)

Science Fun

Shawn wanted to do some more "experiments" (this was just playing with water), and the other two joined in!

Cute Big Boy Saturday - School Pictures!

Drum roll please........

They did a great job! Both boys are smiling and looking so grown up! Yay!

Shawn's eyes are closed, so we will likely get his pictures retaken, but overall, I am really happy with how they did. Dare I say we have conquered our picture day phobia?!

Friday Five

So this week's spelling pre-tests didn't go as I expected. The words themselves were a bit more challenging, (a list of 20 different homophones), and while Jay spelled them all correctly, he did mix up a few of the homophones.

And Shawn? Shawn politely told his teacher, "No thank you," and didn't even take the test. The teacher in me cringes a little at the thought of that, but at least he was polite about it I guess.

Lol.

There they go again. They never do what I expect them to do!

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The boys have been fighting a head cold this week. It started with Jason, who yesterday remembered the friends he plays with at recess were sick after I had asked him several times. His symptoms have been his usual--nasal congestion and a cough. Shawn has been really cranky and has had a runny nose. Jack had a runny nose for a bit, but I think he's on the mend for the most part.

I'm impressed with us this year. So far the boys have been in school for 4 weeks, and we've only missed one day.

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Jack has taken to getting into the fridge and helping himself to lemons. I'm not sure how to think about this development.

Plus, he's tall enough to reach the top shelf. How can that be?!

~~~

Plans for the weekend: Shawn wants to paint. Jason wants to play Wii. (I'm not sure where that came from because the Wii hasn't been used in ages.) Jack wants to play with Play-doh.

We're wild.

~~~

The boys brought home their school fundraiser packets. Jason has in his head that he is going to win every one of the prizes. I tried explaining that he's probably going to find it hard to sell 182 items. I'm not sure he thinks I'm serious. lol

Painting Time!

They asked to paint, so paint they did. Apparently they are going to put together an art show, too. Go figure. Lol

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

He wanted me to squish him and take his picture. I obliged. :)

Sigh

Sometimes I see him standing somewhere, and I am blown away. 

He is so big now. 

How did that happen?

He Asked For One

Jack has been asking for a bell pepper for what seems like ages. We haven't indulged him in the request for several reasons (seriously kid? You want a bell pepper when you won't even eat chocolate? Your choices are suspect. Just saying.), but mainly it's because we just don't think of it. Let's face it, bell peppers aren't at the top of our shopping list.

Anyway, Jack went to the grocery store with Isaac and asked again for his bell pepper. So, Isaac bought him one.

Jack had the funniest reaction when he was handed the bell pepper before dinner tonight ...

He hugged it! Lol. 

Then he checked it out some more...

Then he tried a bite...

And he promptly gave it back. Lol!

I doubt that he's going to be asking for more any time soon. ;)

Summer Bucket List 2015 - How We Did

Well, even if school was our end of summer, the official end of summer came on Monday with Labor Day. As much as we wanted to deny it, summer has come and gone. Boo.

As our official goodbye, I thought it would be nice to go back to our bucket list and see how we did. You know, for a lazy summer of only doing small trips/things here and there, we managed to do 30 things from our list! How amazing is that?! I honestly think that this was the most productive summer we've had yet. :)

Without further ado, here is our list with notes on what we did.

Summer Bucket List 2015

*Shawn wants to pick fruit (from our own garden!), see animals, and eat at a restaurant (we managed to go out a few times even)

*Jason wants to learn to write in handwriting, go to Toys R Us again (He didn't get TRU, but he did get Target toy aisle visits instead), and buy cars (now to create the perfect display for the cars he chose)

*Jack wants to play

Plant a garden (So. Much. Fun!)

Santa Paula agricultural museum

Sub Zero ice cream made with nitrogen

Lemonade stand

Have a water balloon fight (This was pretty funny to watch. Note to self: Work with the boys on their aim. lol)

Make a family tree (We started working on our family tree and had lots of talks about relatives and their stories.)

Do experiments (This was the summer for science, especially for Shawn!)

Make Popsicles (Fun, but not the hit that I thought they'd be. Bummer)

Have a scavenger hunt
Raise butterflies and let them go (We LOVED this and did it twice. Now we are raising Monarch caterpillars outside.)

Visit a Firehouse

Paint something (Jack loves to paint. He managed to paint a number of water color pictures this summer)

Donate something to the needy (Many of our baby things have now gone on to other homes)

Record ourselves reading our favorite book

Swim (our wading pool was a HUGE success this year!)

Go to the beach

Make butter in a jar

Go on a boat

Go on a picnic

Do some crafts (The big one we did was for Father's Day. We managed to some small crafts here and there, too. I am going to be so sad when they don't want to do crafts any more.)

Create a family tradition (Mom's theater is our new family tradition--they have asked for more "movie" days since then.)

Watch a movie at the movie theater

Have a sleepover in the living room
Go camping
Play in the backyard (So much playing in the backyard this year!)
See an animal we've never seen (We definitely saw lots of fun animals at the Aquarium of the Pacific)
Do a random-act-of-kindness

Go to the park
Go to a museum (The Discovery Cube museum was a hit, too!)
Go on a nature hike
Lie in the backyard and look at the stars

See fireworks (Love watching the fireworks out on our front yard)

Go to the zoo (We did this just before school let out)
Go see the jets at the airport
Visit friends (We didn't do this as much as we may have liked, but we did see friends.)

Go to the fair (Fair food was a hit this year!)

Take the train
Take family pictures (Yay!)

Go to the zoo at the local college
Go to an aquarium (We had a great, although hot, time at Aquarium of the Pacific.)
Go to a water/amusement park (Knott's Berry Farm!)
Cook something for a meal with mommy and daddy
Create a back yard slip and slide
Learn to skip rocks
Read a chapter book together (We read one of those choose your own ending books because I thought it would be really fun. lol. They didn't see it as as much fun as I thought they would.)
Do a special project with mommy and daddy (We made our planters for the garden as our special project.)
Catch a frog

Cute Big Boy Saturday

In the Jack vs the concrete competition...

The concrete won. 

Friday Five

Well, the awesome school work continues to come home. It is just so cool to see how well both boys are doing! Both of them got 100% on their 20 word spelling tests. The also both got 100% on their social studies tests. Way to go, guys!

The teacher sent home a note that said that the kids who get 100% on their spelling tests at the end of the week will take a pretest of the next week's words on Monday. Should they spell them all correctly, they'll be given grade 3 and 4 spelling bee challenge words.

Jason has decided that this may not be a good deal. "Why do I want to have such hard words, mom?" lol. Shawn has not commented either way. We shall see. If I had to call it, I think Shawn will test out of next week's words and get the harder list. Jason is iffy, but watching his brother get challenge words will likely be all the motivation he needs. ;-)

~~~

The boys had their picture day on Tuesday. Considering how ... um, not well things have gone in the past, I am taking their assurances of smiles all around with a grain of salt. lol

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Jack ate the first carrot out of our garden! There is no picture of the carrot; he ate it too quickly. lol. The best I could do was this shot of a nearly gone carrot on its way into Jack's mouth.

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It has been hot around these parts, so hot that I put a fan in the big boys' room at night to help cool things off. They both think that this was officially the best idea ever. lol. 

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And what does Jack do to cool off? Well, he strips down, lays on the floor by the screen door, and directs the fan straight at him.

Smart boy. I think we'd all do that if we could.

When You Were My Age...

The boys' social studies work this week is to ask one of their parents (in this case, mom) questions about how things were when they were young and compare the answers to their own lives. They then are creating a booklet of what they learn. I've added a bit of commentary to some of the answers because I want to remember these silly boys just the way they were. :)

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#1. Where did (do) you live and what kind of home did (do) you have?
Me: My mom lived in *insert city where I lived* in a ranch style home.
Jason: I live in *insert our current city* in a ranch style home.
Shawn: I live at home in *insert current city*.

#2 What was (is) your favorite book?
Me: My mom's favorite book was Where the Red Fern Grows.
Jason: The Book with No Pictures.
Shawn: Green Eggs and Ham

#3 How did you get to the grocery story and home again?
Me: My mom went by car. (After which I was asked, "Mom, there were cars when you were little?")
Jason: by car
Shawn: We drive.

#4 What did (do) you do for fun?
Me: My mom played outside.
Jason: I play outside.
Shawn: I water the plants.

#5. What kind of music did (do) you listen to?
Me: My mom listened to 90's music.
Jason: Tayler Swift (his spelling)
Shawn: Rock and Roll

#6. What did (do) you wear to school?
Me: My mom wore clothes. ("Look, mom. I almost wrote 'cloths' instead of 'clothes.' That would be funny if you just wore cloths, mom.")
Jason: clothes
Shawn: shoes and socks (That was all he'd say, too. I tried to point out that he probably wear more than just shoes and socks, but he looked at me like I was an idiot. Shoes and socks it was. Ahem.)

#7. If you had (have) a television, what was (is) your favorite show?
Me: My mom's favorite show is Scoobe Doo. (their spelling)
Jason: Tom & Jarry. (even with the ampersand!)
Shawn: I like Yo Gabba Gabba and Team UmiZoomi.

#8 What kind of phone did (do) you have?
Me: My mom had a cordless phone.
Jason: We have a cell phone.
Shawn: We have a sell phone. (What is this we business?)

Chess