Mornings

I freely admit that I wish my children would sleep later; most mornings they're all up by 6:30 or so. "Sleeping in" around here means sleeping until 7:00, and it never happens that they all sleep that late the same morning!

But Luke loves coming home and having his boys be awake. He goes and takes his contacts out, and then cuddles with any of them that are willing to cuddle. Sometimes he gets lucky, and they're all feeling affectionate. And don't you just love Benny's yawn here?

Bedtime snack and story

The boys were having their bedtime snack while Luke read Ethan's bedtime story. Ethan decided to sit on the toybox while he snacked and listened, and wherever Ethan is ... Alex is.



And wherever Alex and Ethan are ... Benny's not far behind.

Benny

A new school year

So I forgot to take pictures on the first day of school. And the second day. This is the third day, and I haven't taken any pictures yet - but the day isn't over! Maybe I'll remember before the boys get their pajamas on tonight!

In the meantime, here are some from last week. Since we're "Galloping the Globe" this year, we need passports for our travelers. A passport needs a photo, of course. Our official traveler, Ethan:




And Alex gets a passport too, since I'm hoping he can come along for the fun interactive things:



He's gotten to smiling a very deliberate smile, as you can tell from this picture. :)

Almost time for school!

Our summer seems to be going by so quickly! We'll be starting school on August 24th, and I'm really excited about this year! (A little apprehensive, too, but that's a whole different post!) I'm not going to link to all of our subjects this year, but I did want to share a couple that we're really excited about.

We're jumping into geography with Galloping the Globe, a unit study that we'll also use for science, art, cooking, and some Bible. Ethan is especially looking forward to the map work that will come with this, and I think that the study of other countries and cultures will be really good for him.

I've finally found a history program that is what I've been wanting! We're using Truthquest this year. It's a book with commentary and then "living book" recommendations. Best of all, the view of history presented is neither secular nor providential. (I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that Columbus sailed with missionary motives.) Rather, it assumes that men's actions are the result of their beliefs about the "two big questions": Who is God? and who, then, is mankind?

We'll be learning American History, ending up with the Revolutionary War. To cap off our history study, we're using Homeschool in the Woods' Time Travelers: The American Revolution. This will add some great hands-on activities to our study!

Now if I could just find something that would get Ethan excited about handwriting ...

Copy Cat

Ethan has been somewhat frustrated lately by Alex's sudden interest in doing every last thing that Ethan does. Like a little shadow, Alex follows him everywhere. He imitates Ethan, right down to the groan of frustration that Ethan gives because Alex is copying him.

As a mother, it's very entertaining. Ethan disagrees.

But he's actually pretty good about tolerating it. Last week, they'd been playing together chasing each other up and down the hallway, shrieking, until they woke Benny up. Then they decided to do something quiet.

Does that seem backward to anyone else? Shouldn't they be doing the quiet things while Benny is sleeping?

Anyway, Ethan sat down to read. Alex climbed up beside him, pulled a book out of the basket near the chair, and pretended he was reading too.


I love it when Ethan is patient with his little brothers. He's a pretty good kid.


And look at this look of concentration on Alex's face. You'd never know that he picked up a teacher's manual for school next year. There aren't even interesting pictures in it!


**Has anyone noticed that Alex is wearing the same clothes in the last three posts? I've been scheduling my posts to space them out because I only get around to sitting down and going through the pictures on my camera once in a while. And apparently I tend to take pictures more some days than others; either that, or all the cute stuff happened on the same day! Regardless, I just want to be clear that I don't put the same clothes on them day after day.

Cold Snap

We had a couple of days last week when the temperature only got into the 60s. Even for Wisconsin, that's cooler than we expect at the end of June. Alex was prepared, though.


He'll probably make a good boy scout someday.

One of the many uses for an umbrella

My children are fascinated with umbrellas. Ethan used to take one out with him while he played in the sprinkler. (He also wore his fireman costume at the same time, but that's another story.) We had a couple of umbrellas that I got as a promotional gift from something, and so I've always let them play with them and not worried about the umbrellas getting wrecked.

I worried about someone's eye getting poked out with one of the ribs that end up being torn loose from the fabric, but thankfully that hasn't happened. Yet.

Alex has discovered a new way to use the play umbrella.


Yes, this is the umbrella library. Or maybe it's raining books? I'm not sure. But he piled a bunch of books on the umbrella, sat down with them, and screeched when Benny tried to touch them. Fortunately, Benny is easily distracted.



Unfortunately, by the time Alex was done playing, the umbrella was completely wrecked. But did you see that rib sticking out? Their eyes thanked me for throwing it away.

Sitting Pretty

Benny is starting to sit up on his own, although he tends to lean forward and brace himself with his hands on the floor. He doesn't practice sitting very well, though, because as soon as he sees something he wants, he tips over and belly-crawls over to it. He actually looks kind of like an inchworm.


But what a cute inchworm!

But I'm not tired!

Benny was tired. His tummy was full. His diaper was clean. But when I laid him down to sleep, he cried. After a few minutes, I got him up again. Maybe he wasn't tired after all. Maybe I misjudged his cues. I put him in the swing, and he was happy. But five minutes later, this is what I saw:



I guess he was tired after all.

Percy for Sale!

The boys got out Ethan's Thomas the Tank Engine stuff a while back, and have been playing with it. Although Ethan is a little big - and Alex is a little too small - to play with it the way it's intended to be used. But hey, what fun is it to play with a toy the way it's supposed to be played with, anyway?

So on this day, Ethan took four pieces of curved track and fastened them around his waist.

(Around his waist. Four pieces of track! Why do all the skinny genes go to the little boys?)




Then he put Percy the train on the track, and proceeded to hawk his wares.

"Percy for Sale!"


Alex didn't want to be left out, of course. That red thing in his hand here? That's James.



So if you're looking for a train, come on over. We can supply all your railway needs!

Summer Fun

A couple of Sundays ago, the boys and I went outside to play for a while before naps. Luke had just filled the pool up that weekend, but it wasn't warm enough to actually swim in yet. What is it about water that draws children? The boys were immediately drawn to it. Do you know what they're doing here?



Throwing things in the water.



What things? Oh, rocks. And later, dirt and sticks. That was Alex though, not Ethan.


And Benny just sat in the shade, chewed on his toy, and watched carefully so he'd know just how to do it next summer.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

Alex is two now! Yesterday we celebrated with a small party. There were presents:



Big brother Ethan was a willing helper in opening the gifts:


Grandma helped him figure out the fishing pole:


The bubble maker was a huge hit!


Ethan bought the swords for Alex (with his own money, he's quick to point out!) and got two so they could play together:


There were puppy dog cupcakes:



That boy has a sweet tooth!


Happy Birthday Alex!

At The Parade

Waiting patiently...

...only for so long!

Our Grampa marching

In awe

The sirens are too loud!

At Gramma's - Grampa lives there too

Cousins

What a beautiful baby!

My Three Little Guys

Benny And Grampa

This is what REALLY makes me happy!

For Ginnie (and everyone else)

Alex, our real basket case!

Benny's first "real food" - other than the occasional bite of ice cream that Dad sneaks in.

Waiting for the mono-rail train to come in at the Minnesota Zoo.

Go ahead hide my stool!

Bedtime Story

Ethan asked if he could read Alex his bedtime story recently. They both seemed like they enjoyed it!

Learning to Jump

Ethan and Alex have a little step stool that they find useful in a number of situations. (Alex especially likes it. He uses it to get into all the things that have been put up out of his reach.) Alex enjoys standing up on it - it seems to make him feel very brave.

Lately Luke has been trying to get him to jump off of it.

(Why are we teaching him to jump off things? I'm not sure. Apparently my lack of understanding is directly related to the fact that I'm female.)

Anyway, Alex is a little afraid to try jumping off the stool, but he still wants the fun of doing it. This is his solution.

Transitions

Ethan has always called us Mama and Papa. A few years ago, he started using Mom and Dad when he talked about us to someone else. Every once in a while, he'd ask if he could call me Mom. I always told him yes, knowing the time would come when Mama was too childish for him.

He'd call me Mom a time or two, and then forget all about it. I never made a big deal out of it, but I was always secretly pleased when he'd revert to Mama.

A week or so ago, he started calling us Mom and Dad. He'd do it very self-consciously, waiting for us to say something about it. When we didn't, eventually he asked me if I'd noticed anything. I told him yes, that I'd noticed he was calling us Mom and Dad. He waited expectantly, wondering what our reaction would be. I told him that was fine, that we'd always known that someday he'd get big enough to want to call us that.

We haven't talked about it anymore, but the slips of calling us Mama and Papa are getting fewer and fewer. It's becoming more natural for him to say Mom and Dad, although when he forgets Luke and I exchange a smile when he's not looking.

Sometimes it seems like he's growing up so quickly. I guess time really does fly!

Spring Celebration

We did something a little different for our Easter activities this year. After reading this blog post, I decided to try celebrating spring the way she described. So on the first day of spring, we had our first "Spring Day"!

We started the day with bunny-shaped pancakes.


Then we took a short break to play with the Striking Venom. Because, you know, nothing says "spring" like robots fighting humans with laser guns.


Next we dyed eggs. Ethan was looking forward to this!




It was Alex's first time, of course, so he wasn't anticipating quite as much.




He really enjoyed it though.


And Alex found out what happens when you drop an egg on the floor.



That was so much fun I had to take the eggs away because he started spiking them like they were footballs.

Later we had a scavenger hunt (I forgot to take pictures during that). They found candy at a couple of the clue stops, and the big prize was a Hungry Hippo Game.



Adult supervision required, of course, until Alex is a little older.