February 26, 2014

If you are looking for excitement, you have entered the wrong blog.

You know when it's been SO cold for SO long that you have run out of things to do, talk about, and generally think about?

Oh, that's right...you do.  It's just as cold at your house.

I will admit that I love extreme weather and the cold and snow really haven't bugged me at all.  I just feel for my boys, especially Levi, when it doesn't LOOK awful outside but it's too cold to take them out to play.  Their boundless energy gets the better of them.  I don't know how many times I've said, "Levi, go jump on the trampoline."

Anyway, the other day I thought, Muffins. Yes. And we made pumpkin muffins.  To keep Luke occupied I gave him a bin of rice and some measuring cups. He scooped the rice ALL OVER the floor and I basically rice-skated my way around the kitchen.  Levi - I was so proud of him - he used to beat feet out of the kitchen when I pulled out the hand mixer.  As in, up until last week.  When we made our muffins, he said, "I want to help hold the mixer this time."  And he did. He was very brave.

Since there is zero else to report, I will tell you about learning the letter T.

Truck puzzles and gluing T things on a big letter T.

T is for....Total bummer. Levi had a cough and a few sneezes for about two days last week, and that pretty much is the extent of any illness for that kid.  Everything bounces off him and lands on...Luke. Poor Luke.  He was wheezing and had a VERY high respiratory rate by Monday afternoon.  I am the kind of mom who never takes her kid to the doctor unless something very, very drastic is occurring.  Well, this wasn't imminent death, but there were enough subtle signs that sent up a few red flags and I wanted to be on the safe side.  The doctor agreed - she wanted to see him pronto.  He probably has RSV, which for little guys is no joke.  He came home with a nebulizer and albuterol treatments. :(  Thankfully, I've only needed to use it twice so far.

T is for...treasure. We read the parable of the man who sold everything he had to buy a field that had treasure in it.  Then we went on a treasure hunt (Matt has an old chest downstairs, I filled it with random oddball things as "treasure" for the boys to pick through), and colored treasure chests and glued "jewels" on them.

*Luke's lips are blue not due to respiratory distress, but due to the fact that he sucks on markers.*

T is for....teeth!

We looked in a mirror at our teeth, looked at a chart of our different teeth and talked about what they are for, and how to take good care of our teeth.

The boys painted teeth white using tooth brushes and white paint.

Levi sorted "bad" food for the "sad" tooth and "good" food for the "happy" tooth

And then we had these for snacks.  I know, I'm laughing uproariously as I type this.

Februrary 18, 2014

We're back in the saddle again...I felt a little discombobulated when Matt left last week because I didn't have the time I usually have over the weekend to plan out my week.  So I pretty much scrapped everything we usually do - which now that I think of it, correlated with more behavior/discipline issues.  Levi is SUCH a structure and predictability kid, I think he really feels unraveled when several days in a row are just kind of willy nilly.  Huh.

Anyway, this past weekend Matt set out to snow blow the perimeter of the house.  He raked the snow off the roof, which left piles of biblical proportions right by the house.  We spent Valentine's evening shoveling them away. :/  The next morning he shoveled and blew the snow - which has been so light and fluffy! but after being so cold and windblown is very hard-packed - away from the foundation in preparation for the deluge of meltdown that will inevitably occur.  It took all Saturday and Sunday morning and afterward he smelled like one huge gas fume.

Perspective check: I am standing on top of our back yard to take this picture.  You come in the fence, and have to literally climb about three and a half feet UP to walk in the back yard. That fence to my left is five feet high.  I could step over it some parts.

Levi could climb over the fence if he wanted to!

The boys love sitting on the pile by our driveway and pretending it's their 'truck.'

This summer when I'm sweating my buns off, I'll look at the neighbor's tree and remember that the snow was nearly up to its branches only months ago.

Picture of Molly for you, Char. ;)

If we're sitting in the kitchen or living room, we can only see the tops of cars as they drive by!

The past couple of weeks I have done zilch for school work.  Had to jump back on the train.  I'll share these ideas because I love getting ideas from others, so maybe someone else can get some from me.  And it's easier to take a picture of the boys' projects to file them away, than to cram them into a box as a keepsake.  So here ya go:

I started a notebook for Levi...I ordered a pile of dry-erase markers and clicker pens for him to use with it.  I filled it with pages of letters, shapes, and numbers, and he can draw on them, trace them, color them, etc - and they are in plastic sheet covers so we can use them over and over again.  Each week I will put printables from our letter that week as well, and put the theme letter on the front cover.

The first couple of pages are filled with "vocab cards" that I've stuffed in baseball card holders.  Luke LOVES looking at the pictures and pointing at them repeatedly while I call out the word.  Actually, he loves playing with the notebook and drawing in it more than Levi does at the moment.

Yesterday we did animal crafts - can't find the link right now to the website, but it had a ton of animals you can download for free, and you color them and cut them out and put them together.  We painted a handful of "S" animals.  The boys haven't painted in a while so I think this was a welcome change from fighting and time outs.

Ta-da!!  I did the seahorse (I love doing these little art projects!), Luke did the squirrel, and Levi did the stingray and seal.

This morning we painted shapes using foam blocks.  Another hit.

Of course I had to join in :)

Levi rocks his letters but is about 75% on his shapes and numbers.  So I'm trying to come up with fun shape and number activities.  There are a handful of Starfall apps that are simple games involving shapes - I bought one where you build a gingerbread man, and it teaches shapes (2D and 3D).  Levi really likes it.

Then we went downtown because I wanted to get out and do something fun :)  I took the boys to JP's for snacks first.  Because "snacks" start with the letter 'S'.  Yeah, that's why.   

Levi walked up to the counter and said, "Um, hi. My name is Levi.  May I please have a gluten-free muffin and a smoovie like the one Papa had when he went to California?"  I rolled.  One smoothie like the one Papa had when he went to California coming up!  (That would be a mint mocha smoothie made with frozen yogurt.  Matt got one so he could be hopped on caffeine for a late and long flight.)

Then...of COURSE...we had to go to....

Because tree houses.  That's why.

Then we went to Teerman's to look for kitchen towels - that was short lived.  (Levi - hands to yourself.  Hands to yourself. I SAID - handstoyourself. HANDSTOYOURSELF. Let's go.)

Then we went to Sand Castle.  First a tree house, then a wooden castle with a train table in it.  We were the first customers of the day, the only customers while we were there, and the boys played quietly and happily with that train for about twenty minutes. It was supremely lovely.  I bought a floor puzzle that is a map of the U.S. (excited me, not Levi, but we'll be starting some geography soon!), and a small truck for each boy for being so good. :)

If that castle were within our budget, I'd have bought it on the spot and stuck it square in our living room!

February 9, 2014

We talked about patience a lot this week.  I said we talked about it, not that we demonstrated it.

Anyway, we focused some on the letter R (and somehow that led to a lot of talk about rattlesnakes, because Matt has a great rattlesnake story and Levi asks to hear it over and over and over again) and talked about the fruit of patience.  We read the story of Abraham and talked about how God made a promise to him and he had to be very patient to see even a little bit of it fulfilled.

On the heels of the Abraham story, we built a "starry sky" fort.

To make a starry sky fort:

Tip a Pack-n-Play on its side and stick Christmas lights through the mesh.

Cover with a blanket and ta-da!!!  You have a starry sky.

So I told Levi that whenever we look at the starry sky, we can remember that God told Abraham that he would more descendants that the number of stars in the sky.

I dragged these hooligans around the block again on a sort of sunny day.  That workout is no joke.

Levi was so inspired by the John Muir trail that one day when he was bored I pulled out the "tent" again and set up a "campsite" complete with wild animals and a "tree."

Note the wild animals scattered about.

Bear and tree.

He said Molly was a mountain lion.  ((shudder))  If you know me well, you know that mountain lions are one of my biggest ever fears.

We packed his backpack and he insisted he needed trekking poles so I gave him my ski poles.  The stairs were his "mountain."

Before one of our "hikes."

My little hiker. :)  (This was yesterday when he wanted to play this again...augh! The mountain lion is in the background!)

He wanted to build a campfire so I suggested the trampoline and gave him a basket of wood (Luke's board books).

We roasted marshmallows with my fall decorations.

I had no idea he would be so into this but he played this way ALL DAY.

Matt had to make an impromptu trip to California this weekend.  This is his suitcase. Some people use a brightly colored scarf or ribbon or bandana to set their suitcase apart from the others.

My husband uses a dirty old sock.  It certainly will deter others from thinking it's theirs.

February 3, 2014

So my stock answer to Levi every time he asks me what we are having for breakfast/lunch/dinner, or for a snack, or whatever, is "Dirt and worms."  Or if he asks me what we can do, I'll say, "Eat dirt and worms."  He shrieks "NOOOO!!!" every. single. time.  I keep telling him, one of these days I WILL feed you dirt and worms and you just might like it!  More shrieking in protest.

Last week I called his bluff and made "dirt and worms."  The gummy-worm-in-a-bowl-of-pudding- and-crushed-Oreos kind.

He still didn't get it.

He saw me buy the stuff at the store.  I told him it was for dirt and worms.  Protest.

*Organic pudding.  I don't recommend. 

 

 He helped me crush the cookies (gluten free "Oreos" are alarmingly close to the real thing, BTW).  Still protesting the thought of eating dirt and worms. He was not catching on at all.

 

Of course had to play with the crushed cookies.

 

After nap time I served up - ta-da!!! - DIRT AND WORMS!!!!

He didn't buy it.

He said, "NO.  These are GUMMY WORMS."  Dug them out, hopped down and grabbed a cloth napkin out of the cupboard, and wiped the pudding and cookies off the worms, and THEN ate them.  Didn't touch the pudding and cookies.  He was just too repulsed at the thought.

 

Hey!  Who wants to see snow pictures?!  Me neither!  But I want to keep them for posterity's sake.  Feel free to skip over them.  I'll probably look back on them this summer when it's hotter than a horse's patoot and I'm hogging the kiddie pool.

Josiah came over on Saturday morning while Mary did some stuff at church.  It was fun having three little boys in the house AND Matt around!!

Matt and I are really into watching adventure documentaries lately on our Amazon Prime account.  We watched "High Sierra" on Saturday night, which is about hiking the John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney.  One of my bigggggessssst regrets ever is not going to Yosemite while I lived in CA.  I was originally hired to work as a camp nurse at Yosemite Sky Lake, right outside the park, but in a fun twist of events the Lord plopped me in southern Colorado instead. :)

Anyway, the next morning we told Levi about it and he wanted to see it too.  He sat down and watched the whole hour and a half!!!  And today he wanted to watch it again!! haha!!  We'd love to hike some of the JMT when the boys are teens.

Last week we did the letter Q and talked about the fruit of Peace.  We read the story of Jesus calming the storm and talked about how He is the one in whom we should seek peace, when we are afraid, or angry, or sad.  We built a small boat and put it in a little container filled with water, and told the story over and over again, and I would then rock the basin back and forth to create the "storm" and yell like the disciples were yelling, and then Levi would play the part of Jesus and say, "Peace!" and I'd make the "storm" stop.  Not my idea.  Got it from ohamanda.com.

This week we are doing the letter R and our fruit is Patience.  We'll do the story of Abraham and how he had to be patient for what God promised him.  I bought a star fruit to remind us of the story and I have some fun activities planned, that I actually for once thought up myself!!! haha!!

Luke loves to color.  He put Matt's hat on himself. :)

Gave them Bananagrams letters to play with this morning.  Levi is so "project" oriented, he pulled out his trucks and did construction with them.

Luke would make Maria Montessori proud, he's a textbook transferer/sorter.  He eventually neatly transferred his letters to different bowls and spaces.