My friend Heather told me this funny story of something Jonah said a few years ago, when he was about 3 years old...
Her husband is a coffee drinker, through and through. She doesn't touch the stuff, but loves to drink tea. Just to be polite one blustery afternoon, she offered her husband a cup of tea. Jonah looked at her in surprise and said, "Mans don't drink tea! Mans drink coffee!"
I was reminded of this story this morning at our own breakfast table. In our family, I'm the coffee drinker...Mark can't stand it! Andrew said to me, in a somewhat quizzical tone, "Mom, did you know Gramps drinks coffee? And he's a boy."
Oh, the influence your own family has on your perspectives on life!
Friday, March 07, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Our House!
Here's the slideshow of our house! It's also running the side-bar, but the captions aren't visible. So, thought I would post it here, too, for those of you wanting the narrated tour!
Snowman!
Mark had intended to get some shoveling done, but the boys won out and a snowman got built instead! The snowman brings new meaning to asking "Do I have anything in my teeth?" after eating broccoli!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Jacob lately...
Jacob has been a stitch lately. He's just changing so much, and is becoming more and more his own little man.
Every morning, the boys do their chores before breakfast (getting dressed, making beds, Andrew alternates days on vacuuming and collecting the trash, and Jacob feeds the dog).
Jacob is generally very cheerful about doing his chores and gets right to them (hunger will do that to a body, I guess).
One morning I was asking him what he still had to do, and he said "I need to make the dog and feed my bed." Oh, how he giggled when he realized what he had said!
One of his new games is to replicate a scene from a book about a ball game...he puts on his hat, gets his bat and ball, instructs me to say the line about the grandfathers cheering from the stands, and then acts out the ballgame. Sometimes he invites others to play in the ballgame to. But he has one prerequisite to anyone else playing along, which Andrew discovered when he asked if he could play. "Yeah-go get a hat!"
Now to set the stage for this antecdote, you must know that Andrew's reading curriculum is titled "The Scaredy Cat Reading System." (If anyone really wants the title explained, just email me)! It includes a few audio lessons on cd to which Andrew listens, generally Jacob is done with school and is playing quietly with toys by that point.
Today, Andrew had the word "bit" in his spelling list. Not long after that, I saw Jacob pretend to bite Anna on the arm (it really was pretend). I asked him why he was pretending to bite Anna, and he said,
"Remember, mom? It's from Andrew's Scaredy Cat Reading System." Ha!
And the final note on Jacob...
Below is a picture of what he was doing at dinner last night. When we understood what he was calling this little trick, Mark and I busted up laughing. Be the first to post a comment with your guess as to what Jacob actually called this, and you'll be the winner! Check back tomorrow night for the answer!
UPDATE: Yes, Tom, he had been eating with both his fork and spoon...fork for the salad, spoon for the applesauce. I'll post all the comments when I post the answer tonight!
FINAL ANSWER: It is indeed a "forklift!" The grand prize was an all-expenses paid trip to Alaska...regrettably for all the other contestants, my sister Tricia was the first to post the correct answer, and she already lives here...thus she forfeits all rights to any prize claim, and will instead be treated this weekend to a big hug from Jacob himself! Thanks for playing!
Every morning, the boys do their chores before breakfast (getting dressed, making beds, Andrew alternates days on vacuuming and collecting the trash, and Jacob feeds the dog).
Jacob is generally very cheerful about doing his chores and gets right to them (hunger will do that to a body, I guess).
One morning I was asking him what he still had to do, and he said "I need to make the dog and feed my bed." Oh, how he giggled when he realized what he had said!
One of his new games is to replicate a scene from a book about a ball game...he puts on his hat, gets his bat and ball, instructs me to say the line about the grandfathers cheering from the stands, and then acts out the ballgame. Sometimes he invites others to play in the ballgame to. But he has one prerequisite to anyone else playing along, which Andrew discovered when he asked if he could play. "Yeah-go get a hat!"
Now to set the stage for this antecdote, you must know that Andrew's reading curriculum is titled "The Scaredy Cat Reading System." (If anyone really wants the title explained, just email me)! It includes a few audio lessons on cd to which Andrew listens, generally Jacob is done with school and is playing quietly with toys by that point.
Today, Andrew had the word "bit" in his spelling list. Not long after that, I saw Jacob pretend to bite Anna on the arm (it really was pretend). I asked him why he was pretending to bite Anna, and he said,
"Remember, mom? It's from Andrew's Scaredy Cat Reading System." Ha!
And the final note on Jacob...
Below is a picture of what he was doing at dinner last night. When we understood what he was calling this little trick, Mark and I busted up laughing. Be the first to post a comment with your guess as to what Jacob actually called this, and you'll be the winner! Check back tomorrow night for the answer!
UPDATE: Yes, Tom, he had been eating with both his fork and spoon...fork for the salad, spoon for the applesauce. I'll post all the comments when I post the answer tonight!
FINAL ANSWER: It is indeed a "forklift!" The grand prize was an all-expenses paid trip to Alaska...regrettably for all the other contestants, my sister Tricia was the first to post the correct answer, and she already lives here...thus she forfeits all rights to any prize claim, and will instead be treated this weekend to a big hug from Jacob himself! Thanks for playing!
Puppet show!
When I got home from water aerobics the other night, there was a puppet theater group anxiously awaiting my return! Andrew had instigated a puppet show (the writing of which he did...it was a list of his spelling words-lol), to which Mark added some dialogue! It was quite cute!
(They simply tipped the dining room table on its side for the theater stage)!
Letters & Drawings
Every day, (well, almost every day), I write a letter to the boys on this big chart paper. Each day I can focus on a different skill for reading, writing, even math or science/social studies. At the beginning of the year, I did more rebus pictures, such as the sun over the word "morning," which I still use. On "Mammoth Mondays," I leave uncapitalized words that should be capitalized, and toss in some capitals in the middle of words, etc. They've learned the formal editing marks to fix it up! On Tangled Tuesdays, I draw a picture to go with a spelling word, write the word "tangled up," and leave blanks for Andrew to write correctly, etc, etc, etc.
Anyway, it's a favorite school activity of both mine and theirs, so they were disappointed when I didn't write a letter on Tuesday, but they were then excited when I said that they could write the letter to Grandma to help her feel better!
It just made me smile to see Andrew add the sun over "morning" just like I do! I helped Jacob write the date, and that was all he wanted to do with writing...he was intent on drawing a picture of Grandma! So, the little green figure on the right is Jacob's drawing! It's amazing to me to watch him draw, because it was just weeks ago that he still wouldn't attempt a drawing of a person without help. Now he's drawing people all over the place! Notice that there are eyes, nose, mouth, even ears and a bit of hair on top!
Then he drew the body, arms, legs, and feet...then the "scribble" over the rest are the pants and "fweatshirt!" Voila! Mom, now you know that you have the honor of being that little green figure on your letter! :)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Baby Walruses
Our snowshoe trek ended at a creek bed, maybe a mile and half from our house. Since we've been studying about the arctic in science, I guess it was just natural, when faced with a wide expanse of snow, for the boys to start flopping themselves around in a game of "Baby Walruses!"
"Outdoor kids"
Now you can see why I haven't blogged in over a week...I was paralyzed by the decision-making process I would have to go through to blog about our snowshoeing day. I took about 70 pictures, and narrowing it down has been a little tough. I hope you like the winning entries. :)
Snowshoe Saturday!
We geared up last Saturday (not as in yesterday, but over a week ago now), to spend the morning snowshoeing in our neighborhood, which happens to be a National Park! :)
It was a glorious day, clear skies, warm temps, and lots of sunshine!
Headed out. Abby had a great time, even though she was a working dog for most of it. Jacob's pace is not conducive to a good work-out, or for having time to make it to new trails, so part of the time he rides in the sled. Abby did great pulling him-we just keep her on the leash so she doesn't take off after a squirrel while dragging him behind!
What's not to love?
Anna's a good lil' rider...she got in a good nap!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)