Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Harvest

Last night for Family Home Evening we cleaned out the garden. A big winter-type storm is supposed to blow in tonight, dropping temperatures drastically, so we figured we should get everything out that we didn't want to lose.

We were mostly done anyway. We haven't had corn or onions for a while. I don't know why we bother with the carrots - they don't seem to get that big and then we've wasted a whole row of the garden with them. But we did pick two grocery sacks full of tomatoes and about three sacks of peppers. We left the pumpkins, since they like the cold, and will pull them up in a week or two as we are decorating for Halloween.

I don't think we'll do as many tomatoes next year (we had 5 plants). We like having fresh tomatoes for salads and salsa and whatever, but we just ended up so many tomatoes by early September that we ended up giving quite a few away so that they wouldn't go to waste. I did, with substantial help from my friend Nicole, can 6 quarts of tomatoes, but it seems like a whole lot of trouble that doesn't save you that much money, since you can buy tomatoes fairly cheap if you catch a sale. Maybe I'll change my mind - we'll see how much we use this winter. We want to do more onions next year and maybe try some beans and lettuce. But for now, gardening season is over.

Friday, September 25, 2009

The Sam Books

I just realized that I haven't blogged all week. I wish it was because I've been so incredibly busy doing something important like finishing Tessa's baby book, but it's not. All my free time has been taken over by Lego Star Wars. OK, not really. But Henry and William both like me to play with them sometimes and the next thing I know, it's an hour later. Plus, not that much has been going on. Jay has been incredibly busy at work, so I've been on evening duty by myself and by the time everyone is in bed, I'm tired.

William's kindergarten class had a Family Stories and Snacks day on Thursday. All the kids introduced their families by displaying a family banner, we ate doughnuts, and saw a magic show. It was cute and fun and I did take the camera but never took it out of my purse.

William has hit a milestone that is noteworthy, however. He has started bringing home books to read. We call these The Sam Books. They are short little books with a few words that he is supposed to read three times to either Jay or I. We sign a paper stating that he's mastered the book and he brings home the next one in the series. They are silly little books but perfect for kids who are beginning to read. Henry brought home the same books in kindergarten, although he didn't start reading until after Christmas of his kindergarten year. William has been sounding out simple words for a while now, though, so it doesn't surprise me that he has started officially reading.

My favorite thing about reading these books with him are his expressions of exclamation points. He is reading along very nicely and calmly and all of the sudden bellows "Sam! Sam!", as if Sam the lion is standing across the street and he's very earnestly trying to get his attention. It's cute and fun and nice that he's started reading.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Somebody Stop Me

The boys have been anxiously awaiting their copy of the Lego Star Wars computer game. It was $19.99 on Amazon, so I told them if they agreed to forgo their October allowance (they'll still pay tithing and get their savings, just not their $5 spending money) I would pay for the rest of the game. They mulled it over and decided a fun computer game would be worth missing a month of buying baseball cards, so we ordered it. And it arrived on Friday.

It's a fun game. I like it because both kids can play at the same time. Henry is a little impatient with William ("William, quit shooting me!") but they do OK playing it together.

Unfortunately I am becoming a little too interested in it. I spent 40 minutes tonight playing with Henry and trying to unlock another level. Part of me wants to keep playing once he's in bed, but I will resist. It reminds me of a Tonka truck game that William got for his 4th birthday. He could do the game fine, but all the free play areas had to be unlocked by completing the other areas and some of them were a little too hard for him. I distinctly remember spending hours on that stupid game, trying to unlock the free play areas for William to play. He would ask me every morning if I'd done it and look at me with keen disappointment when if I said no. It took more time than I care to admit, but I finally did it. Then he lost interest in the game and in construction trucks in general. Of course he did.

Anyway, I need to find something else to occupy my time. I already finished reading Dan Brown's newest book, The Lost Symbol (a good read, by the way). I guess I could work on Tessa's baby book. {cough, cough}. Anything to keep me away from Lego Star Wars.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Let's Hear it for the Boys!

Kids can be hard. And sometimes as a parent you wonder if the lessons that are really important are sinking in. It's nice to have solid evidence that maybe, just maybe, you're doing an OK job with them.

Today I had a PTA Meeting at Henry's school. After a quick snack, I let Henry take William and Tessa out to play in the playground. Unfortunately, they got locked out of the school (oops) and were let back in by a teacher, thank goodness. Anyway, while I was busy with my meeting, Tessa apparently confided in Henry that she needed to go to the bathroom. And, being the good big brother that he is, he took her. To the bathroom. By himself. He can be incredibly helpful sometimes and today was one of those times. Thanks, Henry!

William had good news to report as well. Today he helped a girl in class. She sits at his table and spilled her crayons all over the floor. He decided to be a good friend and got up and helped her clean them up. He's been listening during our nightly scripture study,apparently - the other night we had a scripture about setting a good example and the ways that we can help people in our lives. Jay and I specifically brought up ways that the boys could be good examples at school - helping someone who has dropped something or fallen, sharing, inviting someone new to play with them at recess. William said that "he felt happy" when he helped his new friend. What a good boy!

It almost makes me forget about all the arguing about baseball cards, the tackling in the living room, and the karate chops that went on around the house this evening. Almost.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

School Days


Why is it that the only one of my children who is enthusiastic about doing homework is the only one who is not required to do any?

Henry treats homework with polite indifference. It's almost beneath him to sit down and do his homework, but he does it to keep the peace. William is slowly adopting a better attitude about homework. The key word is slowly. Jay and/or I still have to sit with him every second and monitor what he's doing, but he doesn't whine quite as much about practicing his handwriting. His favorite thing to do for homework is cut out letters of the alphabet, put tape on the letters, and go around the house looking for items that begin with said letter. My favorite was the day he had to find something starting with the letter B - he taped a piece of paper on Henry (for boy and brother). The hardest so far was O - we finally settled on orange juice, the "on" light switch, and an "open" door. We thought of alot of O words, just none that were on hand and ready to label. Too bad we got rid of our pet octopus.

This exercise is what has inspired Tessa to start doing homework. She loves to follow William around as he labels household items with the letter of the day. Jay made her an additional copy of the letters and she did the same thing. But she took it further. She spent at least half an hour glueing shapes that Jay cut out for her onto a random piece of paper. She cried when it was William's turn to use the safety scissors. She actually begged for more homework, so I googled "preschool writing practice" and printed off a few pages with colors and numbers on them. She proceeded to massacre them with her scissors.

Is this a girl thing or a youngest child thing? Maybe both. I guess it's too much to hope that this fondness for homework carries over for a few more years.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Eeyore Goes to Kindergarten

As you can see, William is learning quite alot at kindergarten. He came home today with a lovely creation called "Life Cycle of a Butterfly", made of pasta. That project is exhibit A as to why I could never be a kindergarten teacher. I'm not nearly creative enough to come up with cute little projects like that. And it worked - William explained the basic lifecycle of a butterfly to a T.

I wish I could say that he's enjoying kindergarten more. He's struggling a bit with his transition. The first full week of school found him practically in tears as he got on the bus because he was going to miss me so much (his words). He was jealous of Tessa because she got to stay home with me more. He pretended that I was there to make himself feel better. Sigh. Its a good thing that he had two years of preschool; I shudder to think of the transition if this was his first experience away from me. I tried to explain that, if you count school (4 hours door to door) and sleeping (11 hours), we still have a whopping 9 hours to spend together every day. It is apparently not enough for William, the homebody.

I think he does OK once he's there. But it's hard to tell. We give him lots and lots and lots of positive reinforcement, but it's hard. He whines about homework. He doesn't like practicing his writing because "I'm not good at it" and "it's hard". The week after next I'll actually be volunteering in his classroom on Tuesday afternoons and I'll be interested to see how he interacts with everyone. I'm guessing he enjoys himself more than he lets on.

This is all new to us, because Henry was Mr. Gung-ho about school from day one. He has, on more than one occasion, cried when he had to stay home from school due to illness. He enjoys school and always has. So I'm not sure what to say to William when he says, "I don't think I want to go to school today." I usually mutter something about how school is what you do when you are a big kid and it's like his job and sometimes we have to do things that we aren't excited about but we do them anyway and school is SO MUCH FUN! Hopefully it will start to sink in. Soon. Someone please say it'll be soon.

On a positive note, Tessa seems to be (and I hesitate to say it because I really don't want to jinx it) potty trained. She hasn't had an accident in quite a while and is in underwear full time, even when we leave the house. She tells us when she needs to go and insists on going by herself, which is a nice change from our little Eeyore, who insisted on having company for months after he learned how to do his business like a big boy. She is even waking up dry most mornings but I still have two packages of princess pullups so I imagine we'll keep her in her "nighttime underwear" for a bit longer, just to avoid accidents. But she's doing great! And we're glad and so proud of her. I guess girls really are easier to potty train. Thank goodness. I don't think I had another months-long saga of accidents and tears in me.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away....

...a great adventure took place. Cue the Star Wars theme. Grab the popcorn and get ready for a fun movie.

Tonight we introduced the kids to Star Wars. The original. The movie that came out in 1977 and that I saw at least 10 times that summer (the summer I was 8). I loved that movie so much. I remember thinking what a dreamboat Han Solo was and holding my breath as Luke destroyed the Death Star. Good times, I tell you.

Henry started asking if he could watch Star Wars last week. Apparently he has been playing the Lego Star Wars computer game at a friends house and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I have the original movies on VHS tape (we still have lots of those around here) and we figured why not? There's nothing objectionable about them. They are fun. And there's something for everyone; even Tessa got on board after Henry told her that there was a princess in the movie.

They loved it! And Jay and I enjoyed it more than I thought we would, after all these years. We quoted dialogue to each other and laughed at some of the cheesiness of it all. William kept saying, "I love this movie", mainly after the battle scenes, and "This is just like Star Tours", a ride that they rode twice at Disneyland.

The only problem was that, from the computer game, Henry is aware of all kinds of stuff that comes up later - like Yoda and the Ewoks. So it looks like viewings of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are in our future.

I think we need to stock up on popcorn.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Rocket Man


During the month of August, Henry's Cub Scout pack (do they call them packs?) made rockets. He was quite excited about it. It took him two weeks to actually fashion the rocket and get it ready to launch. Last night was the big night. All the Cub Scouts (8, 9, and 10 year olds) launched their rockets. The results were mixed. Most of them did well - a few even flew past the big field behind our church into a neighbor's yard. A few crashed and burned on takeoff (luckily those kids had pretty good senses of humor about it). Henry's was about in the middle - it flew well into the field but not the farthest. He was happy and he and William had fun running after the rocket as it was launched.

You would have thought that Henry was a NASA engineer launching a manned expedition to another planet the way he approached this activity. Yesterday morning he informed me that he was planning to take it easy at recess today because he expected to be running pretty far to fetch his rocket after its launch. He invited the entire neighborhood, I think. Every person he saw received a "come on over to the church for rockets" talk. It was pretty funny. But he and other boys seemed to have fun, which of course is what the whole thing was about anyway.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

A Child's Prayer

Jay and I are trying very hard to teach our children how to pray. We pray as a family each morning and before meals and the kids say their prayers at night before they go to bed. We try to remind them to give some thought to their prayers; we ask them to think of two things that they are thankful for and two things to ask for help with in each prayer. Some days are better than others, especially with the boys. They seem to rush through their prayers. But Tessa seems to be getting it, as evidenced by her prayer last night for Family Home Evening:

"Heavenly Father, thank you for today.
Thank you for my toy. Thank you for my poo-poo."

Can you tell we're potty training? Sigh.

It's actually going really well. The first two days were a bit rough, but she only had two accidents on Sunday and none since then. She did her first poop in the potty on Monday and earned a trip to Shopko to pick out a new toy (hence the "thank you for my toy" in her prayer). Hopefully she can make it the 2+ hours through preschool today without an accident, but I'll put a Pullup over her underwear just in case.

She even stayed dry through the night last night and went to the bathroom this morning when she got up. It's progress and we're happy about it. Once she is fully potty trained, we'll officially put the baby days behind us, for better or worse. I guess since we won't have to fork out money for diapers/wipes/Pullups anymore for the first time in over 8 years, that would definitely fall in the "for better" category.