Big John's Attack

Here is Big John. (Sorry, Dad! Ethan picked the name.)



Another view of Big John ....

Big John's opponent, Big Yuck Weed (he eats yucky weeds, apparently):

The fight begins, with Big Yuck Weed attacking Big John's leg:

He goes in closer, only to be stung by Big John's fangs! He swims away! Big John is the winner!

Giving Credit...

I forgot to mention that our lapbook booklets came from Homeschool Helper; a great *free* source for free lapbooks, unit studies, and more. If you like that site, you should also check out Homeschool Share; another place for lots of mostly literature-based studies that work well with lapbooking and notebooking.

The Boston Tea Party

Ethan finished another lapbook today, this one on the Boston Tea Party. He wanted his picture taken with it, so here he is.




And here's the inside ...



He can even say "Taxation without representation is tyranny!" Not only that, he understands what it means, too. :) He's really enjoying history! In most of his pretend games lately, the good guys are the colonists and the bad guys are the redcoats. He even did a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party with his pirate ship and little cars. (The little cars represented the tea.) Next up is a study on the heroes (and heroines) of the Revolutionary War.

Three Things Ethan Learned Today

1. It's not a good idea to try to catch dog pee in a bucket.

2. The dog will eat icicles, but he prefers actual dog treats as a reward.

3. It is not a good idea to crawl under your mother's sewing table and press the foot pedal of her sewing machine while she's sewing.

All Dressed Up for Church

Playing with the Camera

They call me The Pus Man

Ethan put this hat on this morning and announced to me, "They call me The Pus Man." Y'know, because he has a white head. (Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up!)




Notice the suitcase. Luke and I are so mean that Ethan has to play with an old suitcase. He fills the elastic pouch with small toys ... a rubber snake, a little man, a dart gun, handcuffs, a harmonica ... and then sets it on end like this:

... so he can stand behind it and pull out things to "surprise" us. It also served as a hunting station this morning. He filled my meat cupboard (that I didn't know I had) with a huge deer (put in a bag with a little bit of moisture to keep it fresh until this evening) and a tom turkey that was trying to hide in a little rubber boot. (It kept trying to squish down into the boot - but the squelching sound it was making as it squished gave its position away.) It was also his electrical repair kit when he decided we were having trouble with our electricity. So you can see it's a very multi-purpose kind of toy.

And now it's time to start school, so the Pus Man and I had better get busy!

A picture of Alex

Literary Disappointment

One of Ethan's Christmas gifts was a set of adapted classics - Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Wind in the Willows, and Moby Dick. Considering his current interest in all things aquatic, we weren't too surprised when he wanted to start with Moby Dick.

He loved it.

He liked the challenge of man against whale. He enjoyed the descriptions of life at sea. He was interested in the way they only used the fat for oil and let the sharks eat the whale meat.

Until we got to the end. Then, his disgust was palpable.

He did NOT think Moby Dick should have won. He felt quite strongly that Ahab should have been able to kill Moby Dick, and the whale should not have been able to kill everyone on the ship. (Except Ishmael, of course.)

He was slightly appeased when Luke told him that he thought Ahab's last throw of the harpoon managed to kill Moby Dick, even though the story didn't specify that. He'll still tell you, though, that the story should have ended differently.

Today's Safety Tip

A safety tip from Ethan:

Don't flip off a swing and land on your face unless you want a bloody lip.

Now you know.

Slime and bugs

Ethan went to a birthday party this weekend that was hosted by a mother who knows what little boys like. One of the party favors he brought home was a vial of slime with a bug in it, similar to these:

He loves his slime. He's played with it to the point that it's filthy - it was gross before, but now it's disgusting! I've also found myself saying things I never thought I would before I became a parent - things like, "Pick up your slime." "Don't rub the slime on your eyes." "No, I don't want to stick my finger in your slime."

So why am I thinking what a cool stocking stuffer these would make for next Christmas? :)

Intellectual stimulation, Ethan-style

Ethan is in a goofy mood in school today. Here are just a few of the conversational gems I’ve heard so far.

**But sir, your beard is on your head! (This was said to me, not Luke. And out of the blue – there was no preceding conversation)
**I’m glad my pencil is out of my nose. (That’s one way to make sure no one else uses your pencil, I guess.)
**Why, why, why, why, goo, goo, blah, blah, goo-eyed woman!
**This is all nonsense. I don’t believe in it.
**Hi, Mrs. Diaper. Hahahaha, I said diaper!
**When I first got up this morning, I went in the bathroom and turned the light on. I squinted my eyes like this (demonstrates squinting) because my bugles were still big from being in the dark. (I did tell him I thought he meant “pupils”.)

And we’re only half way done with school for the day.

Baby Gear

I was surprised to discover that baby gear has changed quite a bit since Ethan was a baby. Two of my new favorite things are sippy cups that don't leak AND don't have a valve! - they're amazing! - and vinyl bibs. The bibs may not actually be new, but I didn't use them with Ethan.

I like them because you can just wash them in the sink, they dry quickly, and they don't get all nasty before wash day. So I was washing one up the other day, and I noticed that they have tags on them. The tag contains directions on how to wash them - ok, I figured, maybe some people need directions on how to wash a vinyl bib. ? Seems a little strange, but I've heard stranger.

Then I see, "Do not iron."

What?

Who would iron plastic?

For that matter, who irons bibs?

Anyway, it was good for a chuckle.

Here's what I saw ...

... when I went to check on Ethan tonight. I've gotta tell ya, this just tickled me! I love it that he's becoming a reader - not just that he's learning to read, but that he loves books. If I knew what the cockles of my heart felt like, I'm sure they'd be warm!





And here's Alex, who falls asleep with his little buddy Gator. He loves that Gator - he rolls around with him and chews on his snout when we put Alex in his crib. I did move Gator so he wasn't right on Alex's face. :)

Random Pictures

About the most exciting this that's happened this week is that Alex got his first tooth. He's got another one coming, so his crankiness hasn't abated much ... but then again, teething is pretty painful for some babies. So we're being very patient. :)

And here are some recent pictures ...

Big Brother, Big Helper

Ethan decided he'd like to help feed Alex his bedtime snack tonight.



He was wearing one of his Christmas gifts - footie pajamas. He'd sighed dramatically when he first saw Alex wearing them this fall, and told me, "I wish I had pajamas with feet on them to keep me all toasty warm.



And here's Yellow, hoping that Alex will share his snack.

Nay or Neigh?

This evening as we finished supper, we were discussing what was for dessert. I pointed out that Luke had requested that I not make any sweets for a while, once we were done with our Christmas goodies. He pointed out that he'd finished the last of the cookies long ago (this morning), and how long did I think he meant to wait?

So we were trying to come up with something quick and that didn't involve much effort on my part (we'll pretend that's because I'm tired, not lazy) and I suggested we dip pretzels in melted white chocolate.

Luke said that didn't sound good to him, but Ethan said, "I'd like some of that!" Jokingly, Luke pointed his fork at Ethan and said, "Nay, I tell you!" Ethan pointed his fork back and said, "Moo, I tell you!"

We did explain the difference between "nay" and "neigh" once we stopped laughing, but that took a while.

A Boy and his Dog

Merry Christmas!

Now we get to clean up a new kind of mess!!! Boy made and "Yellow" made:)

Some People's Kids ...

As the child of a photographer, I can remember seriously disliking having my picture taken. Luke has never enjoyed being photographed; even now, he tolerates family pictures for my sake. How, then, did we end up with a child who has to be in every picture we take?




A note about the rest of the picture ... this is a quilt I made for my Grandma who is in the nursing home. I always mean to take a picture of my finished quilts, and I typically forget. This time I remembered, but Ethan thought he had to be in one of the photos.

My mom tells me not to point out my mistakes to everyone, that they'd never notice otherwise ... so Mom, you may want to stop reading here. Because as I was getting ready to post this, I was looking at the picture of the quilt thinking, that doesn't quite look right. I ran down to my sewing area and checked the pattern; sure enough, I actually assembled it wrong! ALL of the outside and corner pieces are oriented wrong. Try to picture them rotated 180 degrees.

I could take the binding off, pull out all the quilting, disassemble virtually the whole quilt, put it together right, layer, baste, and quilt it again, and bind it again. But, that's just not gonna happen. I'll just have to hope Grandma enjoys it in the spirit it was given. I'll never be able to look at it the same again, though.

Uggh.

Our Family Grows!

We'd like to welcome Asher John Priebe into the world! He was born December 17th, he weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and he was 20 inches long. You can see he has lots of hair! We got to see him today, and he's so precious. Mom and baby are both doing well.



I love this picture. I think it's a great picture of Joe - he's such a good daddy! And isn't Jonas adorable? I'm sure he'll be a wonderful big brother!

Excerpts of Conversation

We have some interesting conversations in our house. Today has been a prime example of this.

We spent a good part of the afternoon making up a story based on a combination of the old show "Airwolf" (Luke and Ethan have been watching episodes of it, thanks to Blockbuster's DVD program) and "The Never Ending Story" (which Ethan has never seen). The plot was loosely borrowed from "Airwolf", and the story is apparently never going to end.

We take turns telling portions of the story, and no matter what I told in my part, the story continues. I can kill off the bad guys, and Ethan's portion then starts with something like, "Well, everyone thought they were dead, but really ..." And the story is revived.

So I won't try to reproduce that story here, but here are a couple of the other things we talked about today.

"This says "door stop" but it's really crack cocaine." (Said while holding a door stop.)

"No mystery can dissolve us!" (And yes, he knows what dissolve means. I asked him, and he defined it for me.)

"I live in a cabin all by myself, and my brother ... (brief pause while he comes up with a name) ... Tom lives in a cabin near me. It's actually like a duplex. A cabin duplex. But we both died.

Now, you may think that I'm taking these out of context, or that if I related the whole conversation, they'd make more sense. You'd think so, but no. No, you'd be wrong. It actually just gets more confusing the longer you talk to him, sometimes. And, truthfully, each of these statements were the beginning of the conversation today.

Honestly, a discussion is not going to a good place when it starts out using "door stop" and "crack cocaine" in the same sentence.

So now, I'm going to go sew in blessed silence, since both boys are in bed.

On the Bottom

"The bottom of the deep ocean is not an easy place to live. There is little food and it is dark and cold. Much of the seabed is covered with soft clays or mudlike oozes made of skeletons of tiny sea animals and plants. The ooze on the vast open plains of the abyss can reach several hundred yards thick. Animals walking along the bottom have long legs to avoid stirring it up. Some grow anchored to the seabed and have long stems to keep their feeding structures clear of the ooze. Food particles can be filtered out of the water, for example, by the feathery arms of the sea lilies ..."

*****************************************************************************

Are you confused? Wondering if you are at the right blog? :) This is from a book that Ethan brought to me one night last week. This is what he read to me! The bolded words he needed help with, but the rest he sounded out on his own. I don't know why he's able to read this ... we haven't gotten nearly this far with his phonics lessons. I can only assume that he got his natural ability from his mother ...

Alex Laughing

Alex has an infectious laugh, the way babies often do. In this video, he's laughing because I'm pretending to eat one of his toys ... until he notices Luke has the camera out. Then he stops laughing!

It actually took us several tries to get this video, because he'd clam up the minute he saw the camera. Luke finally was able to "sneak" a minute of him laughing before he noticed. After Luke stopped videoing, he told Alex, "Ha! We tricked you!" And Alex cried. Most likely because he was overtired, but the timing of it was still pretty funny.

Changing career plans

I suppose when you're five (almost six!) that career plans tend to change rather frequently. Lately Ethan has decided that rather than be a good pirate, he would like to be a helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard. (Specifically, he wants to pilot an HH-65 Dolphin.) Because we try to encourage his interests, whatever they may be at the current time, we got several books out of the library about the Coast Guard - its aircraft, boats and cutters, duties and missions, and so on.

We were reading tonight about the history of the Coast Guard, and learned that it used to be called the United States Revenue Cutter Service, and one of its primary duties was to fight pirates and smugglers along the Atlantic Coast.

Ethan's delight was tinged with regret that he was born two centuries too late to help the Revenue Cutter Service battle pirates. On the other hand, they didn't have helicopters in the late 1700's or early 1800's.

Alex's new skills

Alex has learned to do a couple of new things lately. Last Wednesday, he started giving kisses when you ask for them. If he feels like it, anyway! He doesn't like to kiss Luke - Luke's had a beard lately, and it prickles him I guess.

He's also started sitting up on his own for a bit, before he tips to one side or the other. He loves that! He likes being able to see what's going on better than he can when he's laying on the floor.

Here's Alex's big brother helping him sit up a little longer, for a better picture. Notice Ethan's hat hair - he's been playing outside in all our snow!

Christmas Ornaments

Saturday we made some Christmas ornaments - painted glass balls (you paint the inside! less mess!) and stockings that are cut on a fold to make pockets. Here's Ethan, getting ready to glue the cut edges of his stockings to make the pockets:

Here's the one of the stockings:

Here's the rest of our mess, including the painted balls. In the background, you can see Ethan laughing at the spit he drooled onto his sleeve. Crazy child.

Here he's painting the stockings:

And here's Alex, watching:

And we had garland and lights decorating the kitchen, a cd of Christmas music playing, and turkey soup bubbling on the stove. It all sounds and looks so idyllic, doesn't it? That's because I didn't take pictures of Ethan wiping glue from his fingers onto the table runner!, Alex fussing because we'd spent the morning running around and he missed his morning nap, Ethan telling me how bored he was after painting two balls, or me worrying about where Luke was because he was coming home from hunting in the snow storm. Ahh, now that's more realistic, isn't it? Oh well, we had fun in spite of all that!

Swinging

I realize that this slideshow probably just shows what a horrible photographer I am. There's a delay on our camera, and it makes it so hard to get good pictures of that boy! But indulge me ... because in my (completely unbiased, of course) opinion, even the goofy pictures are just adorable!

My Big Baby

Ethan was playing in the baby's high chair tonight, pretending he was strapping himself into a jet and preparing for takeoff. So I slapped the tray on and took his picture. He wouldn't wear the bib I wanted him to, though ...

I see the moon, the moon sees me ...

Luke took these pictures of the moon through the viewfinder of the telescope my parents bought him for his birthday/Christmas gift. He and Ethan have been having a great time looking at the moon and stars with it ... they can just point it out the livingroom window to use it. The pictures are cool, but they really don't do justice to the detail you can see when you're actually using the telescope.

My Quirky Child

Ethan likes numbers - he always has. He'll go through phases where he seems to favor certain numbers. Right now his favorite number is 9,203. That's how everything is measured. His Lego jet? It can travel 9,203 mph. The tower he built out of Tinkertoys? If it was real it'd be 9,203 feet high. Waiting for a pan of cookies to bake and cool sufficiently to eat? It seems like it's been 9,203 hours! Wondering how old people can get? Nope, they won't live to be 9,203. He's definitely my quirky boy.

He came flying out of his bedroom this evening after I'd put him to bed, telling me he was scared. I asked him what he was scared of, and he said, "Buffalo." Buffalo? Really? Well, maybe there were 9,203 of them. I guess that would be scary.

I'm not making a mess, Mama, I'm building something!



Yeah, and I'm watching!

Ethan's First Lapbook!

This year for History, we are doing something called lapbooking. (This wasn't in my original plan, but I really didn't care for the history book I bought for Ethan. So we're improvising!) Here's how it works - we read lots of books about our subject (in this case, the Pilgrims). Then we make "mini-books" detailing the highlights of what Ethan's learned. At this point, being in Kindergarten and all, I help him quite a bit. When we're done, we compile them all into the lapbook - a file folder that's been refolded. He's had a great time doing this, and he's retained a fair amount of information!

The cover represents why the Pilgrims came to America - it's a Bible with "Freedom to Worship" written inside it. I took a picture of the inside, but taking a picture of a piece of paper with penciled writing on it doesn't tend to work so well. :)



When you open the book up, there are our mini books! We have shaped books - the hat tells what the men's work was and the pumpkin tells what they ate. There's a pocket with a miniature Plymouth Rock in it with 1620 written on it, to commemorate the year the Pilgrims landed. There's a petal book with women's work listed on the petals, and a picture of the Mayflower with our summation of the Mayflower Compact. On the left is the Story of Squanto book, and a book that folds out telling what Squanto taught the Pilgrims in order to help them survive the second winter. There is also a map of the New England coast on the back, with Plymouth marked.

One of the neat things about a lapbook is that the student gets to show them off to the grown-ups in his life. And of course, everytime he does, he's actually reviewing all he's learned!

Stinker Baby

This is the face I got after I asked Alex if he was throwing soggy graham crackers on the floor that I had JUST mopped.


I think he knows what he's doing - how about you?

By the way, I'm typing this with both boys on my lap. That's a challenge for ya! But Alex is getting so grabby, the way babies do, and he keeps putting the caps lock on and adding extra spaces. Ethan is encouraging him and laughing his head off. He really is a stinker baby!

Say What?

The following conversation took place last night as I was reading Ethan a story before bed. One of the characters was named Uncle Booker T.

Ethan: (snicker, snicker)
Me: What's so funny?
Ethan: What you just said! (snicker, snicker)
Me, more than a little confused: What part of what I just said?
Ethan, laughing out loud now: Uncle Booger! Ha, ha! That's such a funny name for someone!
Me, also laughing now, because let's face it - Uncle Booger would be a funny name: No, it's Booker. With a "k".
Ethan, somewhat disappointed: Oh, ok.

So we continued to read, but Ethan continued to snicker and mutter "Uncle Booger" under his breath every time I read the name Uncle Booker T. I guess he just likes the sound of "Uncle Booger" better!

Shoes and Hats

Luke took this picture yesterday ... I thought it was cute! Big and small, I love them all! (Ha! Now you know why I don't have a future as a poet!)

The state of our living room ...

If you imagine this covering most of the floor space not occupied by furniture, you can understand the challenge it can be to cross the living room without stepping on toys that seem to be designed to inflict as much pain as possible on an adult foot. Some days, the mess also spreads into the kitchen, because Ethan's favorite place to play is in the doorway between the two rooms. It drives his father nuts! But at least Ethan is good about cheerfully picking them up each night.

Happy Birthday!

I know this blog is supposed to be about Ethan and Alex, but if it weren't for Luke, neither one of them would be here! So happy birthday to the best husband and papa we could wish for - we all love you a whole lot!

My Three Guys

Quote of the day

Ethan is very excited at the prospect of the weekend, because it means no school. His reason is very simple.

"If there's no school, then there's no waste of time!"

Not to lay blame or anything, but that's Luke's son talking.