Zooming

Jason is chatting with his AVID class this afternoon through Zoom.

Nine!

Happy Birthday, Jack!

Jack on his last day of 7 and his first day of 9!
He grew from 4 1/2 feet to 4 3/4 feet in the year!
(Check out his ear in relation to the light switch! Holy Moly!)

Jack approves the start of his birthday celebration!

A Minecraft Lego set to put together!

Opening up a cell phone that Jason made for him

It was a hit!

He wanted a "cuddly" Forky to add to his stuffy collection.
I think he likes him. :)

Jack lived up his quarantine birthday celebration. He got lots of games and toys, and he made out like a bandit.

Happy Birthday, Jack! We're so excited to see what this year brings for you!

The Last of 8

I popped around the corner to scare him!

This is our last picture of 8 year old Jack. Tonight, when we tucked our boy in bed, we kissed the year of 8 goodbye.

The baby of our babies is going to wake up tomorrow as a 9 year old. It's a little hard to wrap my brain around that idea.

It’s been such a good year for our boy. He's done so many new things and become such a character, never failing to bring a smile to our faces and make us laugh.

He still comes in to wake us every morning by pouncing on his dad's back and flinging himself onto the bed. Then he just curls right into his mama's arms for some snuggles and kisses.

He's found Minecraft and a love of all thing electronic.

Tomorrow, he wakes up an 9 year old. Our baby is growing up so fast.

This year's start isn't the most exciting due to the quarantine. He wanted to have a party and invite some kids from school to celebrate. That isn't going to happen. He's accepted that with grace...and has set his eyes on a family trip to Disneyland once we're all free to venture out into the world again.

Jack, may the year of 9 be as great as possible while bringing you, our sweet boy, all the joy of eight and much, much more!

Cute Big Boy Saturday

"Hey, Jack. Who's going to be 9 in two days?"

"Me!"

Friday Five

Well, this ends week two of social distancing. We've managed to fight off the boredom and still stay home.

Actually, considering how things could be going, I think we are doing pretty well. Arguing and grumpiness has been manageable for all of us. We're still able to get out some energy playing outside. Schooling is coming along...

Go us!

~~~

This week brought with it Zoom meetings with teachers/classes. Jason's had three Zoom sessions so far this week. Shawn has had two.

I'm think Jason likes the session, but he gets super quiet during them.

Shawn is not a fan of it, I don't think. These sessions are still learning sessions, so they've been sort of free for all. It is too chaotic for Shawn. I'm not sure how he's going to like "learning" from the session.

~~~

I've been so proud of Jack working on his calming techniques. Through the Mightier system he's really starting to recognize frustration and how he can control his heart rate and cool down. He's even come to me to ask for help calming himself down with deep breathing. I LOVE it!

~~~

Shawn is so sad that he hasn't been able to go to Target the last several weeks. He's decided that we have to go to Disneyland once things calm down with the stay home order. I'm sure we'll all be ready for a trip once we are finally able to go out, so he may just get his wish!

~~~

The highlight of the week was when we got our groceries delivered. Pretty cool that we can "shop" online and have someone go out and do the actual shopping at the store. Then our groceries were dropped off on our porch. Not too shabby. (And yes, I am aware that it is a slow week when grocery delivery becomes a highlight! lol)

~~~

P.S. Can you believe we've got ourselves an almost 9 year old in the house? NINE! Jack's birthday is Monday!

They're Back!

I think spring is here!

This poor guy took a trip through the garden when
a Frisbee accidentally hit the fence he was on.
Luckily, we found the poor thing, and he was no worse
for wear. Whew! 

We saw a half a dozen of them out there today!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Beating the Boredom

We pretty much took the day off today and spent a lot of time outside. It was much needed!

Sketching

The boys were gifted some sketch books by Puttentang. These two got right to work drawing in their books!

Sketching the cat

Drawing a crowd at the Olympics

Homeschooling Week 2

Jack's really enjoyed learning about the solar system. Today he got to decode solar system facts! He thought it was pretty okay, too! :)

Little Men

These two had a blast playing dad for a while...

Cute Big Boy Saturday - Playing Outside

“Sunny day, sunny day. We’re out bike riding today.” ~Shawn

Friday Five

We made it through our first week at home. Isaac did need to go out 1 time to take a prescription to the pharmacy, but other than that, we stayed home. Not too shabby.

The entire state is on a stay home order now.

~~~

Shawn is a bit disappointed that social distancing means no more Target trips for the foreseeable future. This was a hard pill for him to swallow. He loves him some Target. We instead are going to do our weekly adventure in the back yard. We're going to try riding our bikes back there tomorrow (when the weather is better). Wish us luck!)

~~~

The schools in our county have all finally declared that school will be out through May 1. Right now, kids are working on "enrichment' activities. Starting after the schedule spring break (4/20), their district and my district will begin online learning. We're still not all sure of the specifics yet, but we know this is going to be a work in progress as we adapt to the new normal.

~~~

As far as actual schooling this week, I think it went fairly well overall. The boys do like having a schedule for when we want them to do things. I think they appreciate knowing upfront what is expected from them for the day. I haven't heard the dreaded, "I'm bored," yet so we must be doing something right.

~~~

We're taking things one day at a time and pushing through. Keep on keeping on, right?

Quarantine Day 4

We're still all adjusting to the whole homeschooling thing. New routines and new ways of doing things can be tough on everyone. Dad and Shawn managed to break the monotony a little today. Instead of writing out numbers for their fractions, they used Uno cards to make their fractions. They had lots of fun while they were at it!

Messy hair - don't care! Homeschooling means it doesn't matter!

 They did some more chores.

Washing the cat food dishes/mat.

 And did more art...

He's still working on his Monet piece.

Jack's drawing a rocket!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Camp Out

Day 3 -

Today, the boys talked me into having a camp out in the living room. We dragged their mattresses into the living room, watched a movie, and ate popcorn and candy. I think they had fun. :)

Day 2

Today brought interesting news. The county itself has closed all restaurants (take-out only), bars (take-out only), gyms, and have told vulnerable residents to shelter in place. The CDC is mandating groups of no more than 10 only if maintaining social distance of 6 feet. Beyond that, the governor said in his address this evening that it is possible that school will be out for the remainder of the school year. That will make things interesting for sure. If it does look like the boys will be out for the remainder of the year, I think I'll investigate some home schooling programs to keep us moving forward. I'm not quite ready to move on that yet.

Today we followed the same schedule as yesterday with the exception of a designated creative time. We had a few more struggles to get things on our lists done as we all adjust to the new normal, so we decided to forego that portion of the schedule.

Jack and I worked on a story about the solar system. We did some research on Earth and wrote 6 facts about the planet. I think we have a unit focus for him as we move forward!

Jason continued on his schoolwork.

Shawn did some fractions work and read about Frederick Douglas.

Another day in the books!

Day 1

Today we had our first day of homeschooling. I think over all, it went well. We made sure to give each boy an hour of his own individual "school" time, which I think was good. :)

Jack: Jack wasn't given any work to do from school, so we worked on a few things I knew he needed to learn. First, he did a science experiment to visualize why hand washing is so important. Then he wrote a paragraph about it and typed it up.

"We have to wash our hands before we eat. The germs go away with soap. We did an experiment with pepper and water and soap. We saw invisible germs on our hands can get in to our food unless we use soap. We should wash our hands for 20 seconds."

We ended his hour working on review of addition and multiplication.

Jason: Jason was given a program called IXL to work on, which he did for 20 minutes. He moved on to his math packet and then to his wax museum project he needs to complete.

Shawn: Shawn was given a ton of work to do, so he spent his hour working some of the math work sent home. He was working on reducing fractions, which he found a bit frustrating. He pushed through it though. Tomorrow, we'll likely focus on reading/language arts.

Our day in pictures...

Hard at work. LOL

Creative Time...

Painting the rainbow we saw outside.

"I'm painting a Monet," he said.