Monkey See, Monkey Do

We usually start our school day off with Ethan selecting a book from the book basket and reading for 20 minutes. The books coordinate roughly with the era of history we're studying, and it's a nicer beginning to his day than starting with something like math. The other day I had told him to begin his reading while I was cleaning up the kitchen. I glanced into the living room and found all three of the boys doing their morning reading. Benny is reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan ... yes, he's pretty advanced for a two-year-old!


Alex selected Uncle Remus Stories.



And Ethan was reading G.A. Henty's In Virginia with Lee.

Play-dough

Alex and Ben have been favoring play-dough this week. They got out the cans of play-doh and found that they don't like it as well as the homemade version. The homemade playdough (if kept in the refrigerator) lasts longer, is nicer to work with, and doesn't leave quite so many crumbles all over the floor.


They don't always use their play-dough toys with it ... sometimes they prefer just rolling pins, cookie cutters, and various toys to stick into it. This week they've wanted to use our bucket of play-dough toys, though.


Benny wanted to wear a tie to church Sunday, but he didn't decide that until we were on our way out the door. To compensate for being told "no", he decided to wear one Monday. Along with his Thomas underwear and no pants. He's quite the trendsetter, that boy.


I love that this can keep them occupied for an hour or more these days.


More pictures here.

Ethan's birthday

Ethan turned nine in January! He was up at 5:00 in the morning, excited to go with Dad to get donuts and come back to open gifts.



Monopoly Jr looks like fun ...


But what's this?


A totally cool robot that is the envy of his little brothers. Alex keeps asking if he'll get one on his birthday.


Lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's, a flag cake, and the AWANA Fair rounded out the day.


Happy Birthday, Ethan! We're proud of the young man you're becoming!

Reading

Alex-isms

As we were standing in line at Walmart, waiting to check out, he turned to me and said, "Know what would be really cool, Mom? If I could turn into a big vacuum and suck up all the frosting and pie. And also muffins."

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He's recently discovered Go, Diego, Go! I was sitting with him as he was watching an episode on Saturday. If you've never seen the show, they encourage children to participate by answering questions, doing motions, and so on. He wasn't participating much, and I thought maybe if I answered the questions he'd be more comfortable doing so as well. I had responded a couple of times, and at the next opportunity to do so I started to answer again. Without even looking at me, he said, "Not gonna happen."

I stifled a laugh and asked, "You don't want to answer the questions?"

He still didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Nope."

All righty then.

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When he's being affectionate. he likes to pat me and say, "Mama, you're too adorable."

Benny's Birthday

Benny's birthday was back in December (yes, I know ... I've been terrible about getting anything posted lately!). We started the day with our tradition of Dad taking the birthday boy to Piggly Wiggly to get donuts and a birthday balloon.


His birthday was on a Friday, and we went down to the N.E.W. Zoo that evening to see their special Christmas displays and take a horse-drawn sleigh-ride. It was cold, but everyone enjoyed the evening!


The next day we had a birthday lunch with Grandma and Grandpa ... and presents! Alex was a very willing helper when it came to opening gifts. He and Ethan had picked out a rubber snake for Benny.


Grandma and Grandpa got him a basket of babies, which he loves!



We got him a ramp racer ... two-sided ramp racer to minimize fighting over it and maximize playing together.


Maybe it should have been three-sided!

The birthday boy and the froggy cake he wanted:


He loves blowing candles out!


It's so hard to believe he's two already. We're so thankful for his lively, funny, entertaining presence in our lives!

Babies

Benny loves to take his "Brr" and pretend he's a "bebe".



He wraps him up in a blanket and carries him around carefully. He's a good little daddy.


(Except when he throws the baby down the basement steps. But we won't talk about that!)

Helper Boy

I put my kids to work early. By two they're experts at doing laundry. Benny's been working so hard he had to turn his hat around.

It's rough being a kid here.



Or maybe he thinks pulling the laundry out and throwing it in the basket is fun ... you never know. But I'll tell you what is definitely fun: pushing the button that turns the dryer light off. Pushing it repeatedly.

Oooh, and dryer balls! Dryer balls are lots of fun.

Blast Off!

You may remember the last time we built a rocket with straws and connectors. Then again, you may not ... it was three years ago! Alex brought me the box of the straws and connectors today and asked if we could pleeeeeease make something ... so we decided on the rocket ship. He loved it, and of course he wanted to get in it and fly to the moon ...


Benny had to have his turn as well. This is the face I got when I asked him to look at me and smile. (And of course, this is why real photographers don't tell kids to smile!)


So we decided to send 'em both to the moon! Here they are blasting off.


Ethan was almost too big for the rocket this time.


This is my somewhat pitiful attempt to get all three of them in a picture together. Well, they're all in the picture, but only Alex is actually looking at the camera, and he has a pretty cheesy grin.


You may notice that Benny is disassembling the rocket. He completed that project shortly after the picture-taking ended, much to Alex's chagrin. It's hard to have a destructive little brother!

Clippity Clop

The boys have a new game they play. They call it Clippity Clop - well, Alex does. Benny's not talking enough yet to call it anything. It's easy to play, though. They each put on one rubber boot and chase each other up and down the hallway.

Notice how they both have their boot on the same foot?



They think it's extremely funny.


On this particular morning, Ethan got into the game with them. That, of course, meant Yellow wanted to play too.


I'm not sure what exactly Ethan is doing here, but he certainly seems to be having a good time!

Vacation

Luke had a week of vacation in September, and one of the things we did was go over to the Mall of America to visit the Aquarium (and the Lego store!). The boys loved the aquarium. (Luke and I thought it was overpriced for as small as it was, but that may be because we're cheap and old.)

They loved the tanks of jellyfish.

Here's Benny trying to hug some!

There were lots of oohs and aahs and pointing, although it was a little challenging to capture it because there was always something else just as exciting coming up!

The Lego store was closed for remodeling, but Ethan was a trooper and enjoyed browsing through the much smaller version they had open. We also got to stop on the way home at Cousin Trevor's football game!

Pictures ...

Since I'm not going to catch up with all the posts I was going to write, I just posted pictures here. Some of them are repeats from other blog posts, but some are new. Enjoy!

The Fire Station

Our local homeschool group recently had a field trip to the fire station. Ethan and Alex loved it! One of several things they got to do was spray the fire hose. They did it together since Alex needed a bit of help.



They both thought it was great!

The summer is over, we started school a couple of weeks ago, and despite my good intentions there are many blog posts that haven't been written. I have pictures of family gatherings, a field trip to the fire station (although I may share just one picture from that anyway), and summer activities that I had intended to post about. I am in awe of the moms that homeschool, run a business on the side, do all kinds of creative things with their kids, and find time to blog about all of it - I am not nearly that good!

So instead, I'll just post these pictures of my boys. They are all pictures that make me want to grab the boys and hold on to them ... maybe if I hug them tight enough they won't grow up so fast ...

Wishes

I was helping Alex in the bathroom today, and as we pulled his pants up he was muttering to himself.

"What are you saying?" I asked him.

"I just wish we could turn this into dirt," he said, gesturing at the floor. "Then I'd turn into a steam roller and you'd turn into a crane and Benny would turn into a cement mixer and Ethan would turn into a dump truck."

"What about Papa?"

"Ah, let's see ... he'd be a digger. And Yellow would be a fence."

And that would be a perfect world to a three-year-old.

Too bad it's the end of summer ...

... rather than the beginning! Luke and I have been talking about (and saving towards) buying a motor home for a while. There are a lot of reasons we thought it would be a good purchase, and a lot of traveling with the boys we'd like to do. Luke's been watching Craigslist and the Buyer's Guide all summer, and we've gone and looked at a couple that weren't right for one reason or another. This last week, he saw one in the Buyer's Guide that looked like just what we wanted. We went and looked at it Tuesday evening, and ended up buying it! Here are some pictures, mostly for those of you who have let me know you're anxious to see what it looks like. (Hi Dad!)

Outside:

Standing in the "kitchen" area, facing the front (the couch turns into a bed, and there's a bunk over the cab):

And this one is standing by the bunk/driver's seat area. The sink, microwave, and stove are on the right, and the refrigerator is on the left. There's a small hallway with the toilet and vanity on one side, and the shower on the other. Then there's a queen-size bed in the back.

There's no dinette because it's been modified to accommodate the needs of the previous owner. His son was handicapped, and it was too difficult to get him into the dinette. There is a small table that flips up in between the two chairs; I forgot to take a picture of that.

So what do the kids think?




They love it!

(They also like to make funny faces.)