Our Version

This here is our version of the movie, "Alien." Can you guess why? Lol!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Shawn was walking and working different muscles in the "swing machine"

(Shawn's name for it) this afternoon. He thought it was pretty cool, too!

Still Sorting

He still sorts his M&Ms, and it still makes me smile!

Now blue is the last one he eats and the only color he'll share with me. Ha!

Building a Rocket

Crafting his way to outer space! He spent a long time making his rocket just right, too!

Dribble It

Mr. Joe Cool.

He was very proud of his moves, too!

Cute Big Boy Saturday - Snuggles

Night time silliness...

I don't think we all fit!

Jack cracks me up - smiling while soaking up the spotlight. :)

And a sweet kiss by a big brother snuck in while we were at it. 😍

Friday Five

Today is my last day of vacation, and I go back to work on Monday. I have to say that this whole having everybody in school for the last two weeks of my summer break thing has been pretty awesome. I got SO MUCH DONE! lol. It's amazing what a person can do with a few hours of uninterrupted time during the day. 😊

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Weirdest call of the week: school secretary called to say that one of the boys "may" have swallowed a pebble. (Because OF COURSE. Sigh. I have NO IDEA why he'd think that would be a good idea!) We have never received a definitive answer as to whether the rock was actually swallowed from the child in question, and he seems fine, but man. That was not a call we were expecting. lol

(We have been given repeated assurance that there will be no more rock issues. We shall see.)

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This has been a relatively good week for the boys at school! Jack's class uses a program called Class Dojo to keep track of student behavior. It is so neat to be able to check on him throughout the day and see things like "On task!" and  "Complementary/Helpful" and "Respectful" on his behavior log. The big boys' teacher is using a clip color chart. They are excited to earn tickets for their behavior which they can add in a drawing that their teacher does each week. So proud of our trio! They are happy with their teachers, too.

Can't complain about that!

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This week we experienced a milestone of sorts around these parts. Deodorant is now our friend. I am both happy (yea, less stinkiness!) and sad (my babies are growing up! sniff, sniff) about this development.

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I took a FB quiz that asked: "How Much Sleep Have You Lost From Having Kids?"

Well, I'm not sure that it is entirely accurate when you consider some of the things we've encountered on our parenthood path, but it was kind of funny seeing the results.

Apparently, we've lost 9,900 hours, or 416 days, or 14 months of sleep.

We changed somewhere over 17,820 diapers.

We've read upwards of 894 bedtime stories.

We've sang 13,320 lullabies (probably more...we sing a lot!).

Sheesh. No wonder we're exhausted! LOL!

School Questionnaire!

The big boys had this cute little school questionnaire to do for homework this week. After they finished, I asked Jack the answers, too. I love how they are each his own person and have such different ideas!

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School Questionnaire: (exactly as Jason wrote his answers)

1) What is your name? Jason
2) What do you like to be called? Jay
3) What is your birth date? October 27  How old are you? 9
4) How many brothers and sisters do you have? 2
5) Pets? 2
6) What do you like to do for fun? Playing video games
7) What do you like about school? Reading
8) What do you dislike about school? Writing
9) What is challenging for you? Writing 
10) What do you want to learn about this year? History (Jason has been fascinated by history lately. I love that he wants to pursue this more in school!)
11) What types of books do you want to read this year? Chapter books
12) What is the most important thing you would like me (the teacher) to know about you? I like sports
13) What do you expect from me (the teacher) as your teacher? I expect you to be nice.

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School Questionnaire: (exactly as Shawn wrote his answers)

1) What is your name? Shawn
2) What do you like to be called? Shawn
3) What is your birth date? October 27  How old are you? 9
4) How many brothers and sisters do you have? 2
5) Pets? 2
6) What do you like to do for fun? ride bikes
7) What do you like about school? learning math
8) What do you dislike about school? noise
9) What is challenging for you? the iPad (he means a program they have to do on the iPad that he struggles with)
10) What do you want to learn about this year? show and tell stories
11) What types of books do you want to read this year? car books
12) What is the most important thing you would like me (the teacher) to know about you? I am smart and funny (Be still my heart!)
13) What do you expect from me (the teacher) as your teacher? I want you to clip me up (on the behavior chart in class)

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School Questionnaire: (exactly as Jack answered - I wrote)

1) What is your name? Jackson
2) What do you like to be called? The Champion
3) What is your birth date? March 23...no? 30.  How old are you? 6
4) How many brothers and sisters do you have? 2
5) Pets? 2
6) What do you like to do for fun? to go down the slide
7) What do you like about school? to sit on the rug (for story time) 
He stopped answering the questions to add this gem: **I love to go to school in outer space. We'll be astronauts!
8) What do you dislike about school? letters and numbers (when I asked for clarification, he said writing them was what he disliked)
9) What is challenging for you? to listen, think, and behave (I actually love this answer. We tell all the boys this mantra before they leave for school. I LOVE that he is really thinking about this and trying to do what we've asked throughout the day even though it is hard. 💚)
10) What do you want to learn about this year? storytelling and Little Red Riding Hood
11) What types of books do you want to read this year? Look Out Below books (I had never heard of these books. After some searching, I found these are a Lego City series!)
12) What is the most important thing you would like me (the teacher) to know about you? I want to go on a school bus trip.
13) What do you expect from me (the teacher) as your teacher? She should do work.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Sing

Jack wants to sing you a little song...

Eye Exam

This guy had an eye exam today! We actually went to a new facility for this visit, and we really liked the doctor and staff. They answered ALL of Jason's many questions. (Jay was even encouraged to pursue the field when he gets older. lol)

Everything looks good with his vision; in fact, his script remained the same. We do have to do a bit of patching to see if we can strengthen his right eye, but we've done that before. No biggie. Recheck in 6 months to see how things are going!

Cannon Ball!

Summer's Over?

Not to us!

(He's trying to shoot a cup off the chair!)

Enjoying the beautiful weather whenever we can. ❤️

Cute Big Boy Saturday

Goodnight kisses...

You'd never guess that they drive each crazy, now would you? Lol

Friday Five

The boys' first week of school is in the books! Everyone seems to be settling into the new year nicely. Can't get much better than that!

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Speaking of settling in nicely, the boys chose to go on a bike ride today as their "reward" for a great week in school. This is pretty huge. They chose bike riding over Target!

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Bike riding has been an experience to say the least.

Jack does a great job riding and racing around on his bike. He hasn't quite figured out the whole stopping the bike thing without the aide of a fence, or a tree, or you know, his brothers' bikes.

Shawn LOVES riding his bike and has asked to do so every single day. His mission on his bike is to ride around the neighborhood so he can say hi to all the neighbors he sees. Today was a bit interesting because Shawn had his first cramp (in his butt). That was not very fun for any of us. But, the positive of that is that we know he's really getting a workout from his riding!

Jason is doing so well! He races around, has great control, and thankfully, also knows how to stop using the brakes rather than the objects around him. His little behind is getting quite the workout from his riding, too. Woohoo!

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When we got the big boys' class list, we were so excited to see that none of the kids who had peanut allergies were in their class this year. That excitement was dashed the first day when they came home to say they had two kids with allergies in their class again this year.

Today, we got notice that Jack's class is also an allergen free classroom. Sigh. I'm not even sure what he's going to eat now--peanut butter is the love of his life.

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Another gem on my phone this afternoon. Bet you can't guess who is the guilty one this time. LOL

Summer Bucket List 2017 - Riding Bikes

This week we were able to do something pretty awesome. We went bike riding!

It was so much fun! The boys did so well, too. In fact, we're going out again tomorrow to celebrate a great first week of school! (Shawn chose bike riding as the Friday activity OVER going to Target. This is huge, people. The kid is hooked!)

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - First Day of School

Bring on the new school year. 1st and 4th grades, we are going to ROCK you!

Summer Bucket List 2017 - Extracting Strawberry DNA

Today we had fun extracting DNA from strawberries. It was fairly easy to do, and the boys really seemed to think the whole process was pretty cool. We did the process three times so each kid got a chance to experiment.

First we made the "extracting solution"
(2 oz of warm water, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1 tbsp of dish soap)

We added some of the extracting solution to a baggie with the strawberry.
Then we smashed the strawberry and mixed it into the solution.

We strained the contents of the baggie through some
coffee filters to remove all of the pulp.

Then we added some cold rubbing alcohol.

See the little white strings? That is the DNA!

Jason is holding up a bit of it between the tweezers.

It was pretty sticky stuff, too. 

"You want me to do what?!"

His favorite part was the smashing. lol

Fun! Now there isn't really anything to do with the DNA after it's extracted except look at it. They all thought it was pretty neat, though!