Please skip if you hate braggy mommy posts. But this is something I'll want to remember, so here goes.
I've been testing Mosey for spelling, to see what level to start him out at. We use a spelling program called "Spelling Power." There are a couple of pre-tests to pinpoint exactly where to start a child so as not to waste his time, but not be too challenging. Mosey is not very comfortable writing yet (i.e., he HATES writing-- I think he would rather have his fingernails pulled out), so we did all these spelling tests verbally. He took the first test, which led us to a more finely tuned second test, which then led us to exactly which study level to start at.
Here are some words which he spelled correctly, verbally (which is much harder, for me at least, than writing them down): garage, color, answer, bakeries, phone, soup, fence, there's, when, apple, dollar, planet, threw, become.
He's starting out at study level D, roughly corresponding to late 4th grade spelling. He's starting out 2 levels beyond where Brigham is, and only 1 behind Joseph.
He's a certified spelling genius!! :-) Well, I don't know about certified. I made that up. But still! I'm impressed! He's a kindergartner!
Now, I am quite sure that precociousness in spelling is NOT an accurate predictor of anything other than being a good speller. LOL! And as far as I know, good spelling is not correlated to future success in anything. I doubt it's even particularly correlated to IQ. But still, I get a kick out of his spelling prowess.
Brigham is also improving on his spelling. He still prefers the phonetic spelling to just about anything, but he's getting better! :-)
(And Brigham is my math boy. He figured out equivalent fractions and finding common denominators BY HIMSELF! Which I think cancels out his spelling challenges).
(And I have to say, since he frequently spies on my blog, Joseph is really awfully smart, too! He is my most common sensical child, and catches on to concepts really fast. He has a phenomenal memory. When we're reading history, and I'm struggling to remember something about what we read several months ago, or last year even, I just have to ask him, and he can spout off whatever it was that I had forgotten about Charles Martel, or Suleiman, or Samuel Champlain. He puts me to shame.)
There. Mommy bragging over. For now.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Minnows
One of my goals this homeschool semester, is to give my boys more outdoor time. They spend lots of time in the backyard, but I want them to have more "wilderness" kinds of experiences (well, as close to wilderness as you can get around here).
Lake Travis is just up the road from us, and there is a park on the lake that we love. Well, it's not really "on" the lake just now, since the lake is still so far down because of the drought we are just getting out of. So it's a park on what used to be the shore of the lake. It's nice, actually, because the boys can follow the stream pretty far down as it winds its way to the lake. The stream makes a pond where there are fish and frogs and hibernating snakes under rocks. There are huge oak trees to climb and sticks to gather and interesting rocks and plants. Good wildernessy sorts of stuff.
So we went there on Wednesday after art. Brigham climbed higher in a tree than he ever has before (he's my climber), and even Mosey got brave and climbed up pretty high. Makes me a bit nervous since if they fell, it would be pretty hard for me to get them to the car myself. But the lake is not far away and I figure I can always call someone for help if I need it, or call 911 if it's an emergency. I'm not going to deprive my boys of being little boys just because of my disability. I watch them the whole time and yell "Be careful!" about 10 times a minute.
Joseph is my animal lover, and always finds bugs and snakes and other critters. He brought Mister this day to explore with him. He also brought a bug net he bought with his own money a couple of weeks ago. He caught several minnows, put them in an old beer bottle he found, and we brought them home to join our goldfish in his bowl. Cool! I wonder how big they grow?
buttons
Another classic Mosey-ism:
This morning while getting ready for church, Mosey came to me with trouble buttoning his suit jacket. I buttoned it for him and he said, "Thanks, Mom! I had a crisis figuring out which button goes in which button hole."
Mosey, may all your crises be so easily solved.
This morning while getting ready for church, Mosey came to me with trouble buttoning his suit jacket. I buttoned it for him and he said, "Thanks, Mom! I had a crisis figuring out which button goes in which button hole."
Mosey, may all your crises be so easily solved.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Good job!
Happy morning! Massachusetts, you have put a great big smile on many people's faces this morning. It would have been nice for this wave of common sense to have hit, oh, let's say a year and 2 months ago, but we'll take what we can get.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Mosey-isms
Mosey has such a funny manner of speaking sometimes, I just have to chuckle. Here are a few things I've heard from him recently.
Then, when Ben commented, "Mosey, you have a very good vocabulary!" he said, "What does vocabulary mean?" :-)
- While I was baking cookies the other day: "Mom, I would like to have a taste of the contents of that bowl."
- A couple of weeks ago at the violin repair shop, after being told that the repairs would be $80: "I think that is definitely worth it! And I'm not even being sarcastic!"
- Today he ran inside to show me a worm he had dug up from the backyard. After he finished showing me, he said, "Well, I'm going to resume digging outside."
- A while ago he was upstairs helping me with some reorganization: "Dad, is there any chance you could come over here and help me loosen this drawer so I can empty the contents of the dresser?"
Then, when Ben commented, "Mosey, you have a very good vocabulary!" he said, "What does vocabulary mean?" :-)
Again!!
We got rear-ended on the way home from horseback riding lessons. Just like last spring! Actually, it was a lot harder than last spring. We were turning right from a 60 mph road onto another 60 mph road (gotta love TX speed limits), and so the person behind us was coming pretty fast. I was stopped, waiting for traffic to clear so I could turn right. The car behind me (big white Expedition-- that also made for a bigger crash than the small sedan that hit us last year), saw that the light had changed to green. I couldn't see the light since I was already partly turned right, waiting to merge into traffic. For some reason, she just didn't see us. So she didn't really slow down much, because she knew she could go ahead and turn right, since the light was green. Anyway, we got a huge bump, and I turned into the gas station there on the corner.
The lady was pretty shaken up, she had never been in any kind of car accident before (surprising!).
Our bumper and back doors on the van are pretty well smashed in.
The boys and I are all fine, just some sore necks.
The biggest pain about this (aside from our necks), is that since I can now only drive with hand controls, I won't have a car while the van is being fixed. Annoying!! Unless there are hand-control rentals available, which I kind of doubt.
Funny thing is, last night on our way home from the computer store, Ben and I were talking about driving and how it is by far the most dangerous thing we do every day of our lives. And next day, we're in a wreck!!
My boys are awfully young to have been in 2 wrecks! But I will take any number of minor, non-injury wrecks if they can be spared a bad one.
The lady was pretty shaken up, she had never been in any kind of car accident before (surprising!).
Our bumper and back doors on the van are pretty well smashed in.
The boys and I are all fine, just some sore necks.
The biggest pain about this (aside from our necks), is that since I can now only drive with hand controls, I won't have a car while the van is being fixed. Annoying!! Unless there are hand-control rentals available, which I kind of doubt.
Funny thing is, last night on our way home from the computer store, Ben and I were talking about driving and how it is by far the most dangerous thing we do every day of our lives. And next day, we're in a wreck!!
My boys are awfully young to have been in 2 wrecks! But I will take any number of minor, non-injury wrecks if they can be spared a bad one.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Stuff keeping me busy
In no particular order:
1. Mosey's Wall-E birthday party on Friday with 14!!!!!!! kids! (My previously very consistent rule of 50% attendance to parties was violated when every single kid we invited was able to come).
2. The sad demise of my old laptop. I'm typing on a brand-spanking-new computer right now. Love it. Now on to the arduous process of reinstalling all my programs, rebuilding my bookmarks, trying to remember all of the passwords that my old computer was remembering for me... The usual.
3. Pro-bono photo-shoot with a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives. She wanted me to take pictures for all her campaign promotional stuff. She came on Saturday afternoon. Afterward, I asked her when she needed them. "Tonight!" Oh, my. I got them edited and sent out at 4:34 AM Sunday, and logged in an even 3 hours and 15 minutes of sleep that night (morning?). If she gets elected, I'm pondering what sorts of favors I'm going to call in. :-) (To be fair, a big reason why the editing took sooooooo long had to do with my aforementioned dying laptop-- it was pretty much sputtering out its last tortured breaths that night, and in fact I haven't been able to get it to turn on at all after I sent that last email.)
4. Heater issues. We got our new furnace a week ago Friday. Monday morning we woke up to cold air blowing out of the vents and the temperature down to 63 degrees. Brrr. We had the heating people out 4 different times last week. I think it's finally fixed, though. Knock on wood.
5. Our first formerly-known-as-enrichment-meeting of the year on Thursday night. A crockpot social which went really well! I made a pumpkin custard which was divine, if I do say so myself.
6. Finally sorting through my overflowing in-box on my desk which hadn't been organized (or even really glanced at except to dump more stuff into it) since November. Yeah, that took a while.
7. Other stuff, but I'm too tired to think of them right now. See #3 and my 3 hours and 15 minutes of sleep 2 nights ago. Good night!
1. Mosey's Wall-E birthday party on Friday with 14!!!!!!! kids! (My previously very consistent rule of 50% attendance to parties was violated when every single kid we invited was able to come).
2. The sad demise of my old laptop. I'm typing on a brand-spanking-new computer right now. Love it. Now on to the arduous process of reinstalling all my programs, rebuilding my bookmarks, trying to remember all of the passwords that my old computer was remembering for me... The usual.
3. Pro-bono photo-shoot with a candidate for U.S. House of Representatives. She wanted me to take pictures for all her campaign promotional stuff. She came on Saturday afternoon. Afterward, I asked her when she needed them. "Tonight!" Oh, my. I got them edited and sent out at 4:34 AM Sunday, and logged in an even 3 hours and 15 minutes of sleep that night (morning?). If she gets elected, I'm pondering what sorts of favors I'm going to call in. :-) (To be fair, a big reason why the editing took sooooooo long had to do with my aforementioned dying laptop-- it was pretty much sputtering out its last tortured breaths that night, and in fact I haven't been able to get it to turn on at all after I sent that last email.)
4. Heater issues. We got our new furnace a week ago Friday. Monday morning we woke up to cold air blowing out of the vents and the temperature down to 63 degrees. Brrr. We had the heating people out 4 different times last week. I think it's finally fixed, though. Knock on wood.
5. Our first formerly-known-as-enrichment-meeting of the year on Thursday night. A crockpot social which went really well! I made a pumpkin custard which was divine, if I do say so myself.
6. Finally sorting through my overflowing in-box on my desk which hadn't been organized (or even really glanced at except to dump more stuff into it) since November. Yeah, that took a while.
7. Other stuff, but I'm too tired to think of them right now. See #3 and my 3 hours and 15 minutes of sleep 2 nights ago. Good night!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
These books have changed my life
I read two books over the Christmas break which I believe have changed my life. They are both by Dr. Leonard Sax, a psychologist and pediatrician. They are not long, and so interesting, I just inhaled both of them.
The first is called Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. It is absolutely fascinating, and a book I think everyone should read, not just teachers and parents. I think it has huge implications for every part of our society.
The second is called Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men. In my opinion, this is mandatory reading for every parent of boys.
I can't remember where I read a recommendation for these books, but I'm sure glad I did. I am changing some of the ways I am homeschooling my boys. I feel like I understand my boys so much better than I did. I was so worried I was doing something wrong because my boys aren't motivated by the same things I was motivated by as a kid. Now I am not so worried, and also I can see so much more clearly how they are motivated, and what I can do to capitalize on these ways.
I'm also pretty scared for the future of Western society. Sound melodramatic? Go buy these books, and you'll be as scared as I am.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World states, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." This was written in 1995. Now go read these books, written 10 years later, and you'll see how important and prophetic that statement really is.
Go buy both of them right now. They are worth owning. And lending to all your friends.
You can buy Why Gender Matters here.
And Boys Adrift here.
The first is called Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. It is absolutely fascinating, and a book I think everyone should read, not just teachers and parents. I think it has huge implications for every part of our society.
The second is called Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men. In my opinion, this is mandatory reading for every parent of boys.
I can't remember where I read a recommendation for these books, but I'm sure glad I did. I am changing some of the ways I am homeschooling my boys. I feel like I understand my boys so much better than I did. I was so worried I was doing something wrong because my boys aren't motivated by the same things I was motivated by as a kid. Now I am not so worried, and also I can see so much more clearly how they are motivated, and what I can do to capitalize on these ways.
I'm also pretty scared for the future of Western society. Sound melodramatic? Go buy these books, and you'll be as scared as I am.
The Family: A Proclamation to the World states, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." This was written in 1995. Now go read these books, written 10 years later, and you'll see how important and prophetic that statement really is.
Go buy both of them right now. They are worth owning. And lending to all your friends.
You can buy Why Gender Matters here.
And Boys Adrift here.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
My SIX year old!!
Mosey turned six today!
Yesterday Ben took him and the boys to Inner Space Caverns for a tour of the cave. In the gift shop, Mosey fell in love with a cool arrowhead necklace which Ben bought him for a present.
I sent Ben in with my camera (the caves are NOT wheelchair accessible!) and he obliged me by taking some pictures.
My little spelunkers!
On the way back from the caves, I told him the story of his birth, and then we all went to Carinos for dinner.
They put a candle in his dessert which he ended up liking a lot more than the dessert! He smashed it into little waxy bits with his knife.
He woke up this morning and said, "You know what? I actually still feel like I'm five! Maybe tomorrow I will feel more like I am six." I'm not sure what he was expecting, but I hope six will not be a disappointment for him.
He ate Lucky Charms for breakfast-- his birthday cereal of choice, which he generously shared with the rest of us.
Then Mosey's day was marred by a bit of idiocy on the part of his mother...
After church I planned to go wrap his presents which Ben transferred from the back of the van into my closet this morning. But by some sort of six-year-old present-radar, Mosey peeked in there first. He came out to the playroom where I was getting wrapping paper and whispered to Joseph, "I think I might know what my presents are!" I heard him and immediately guessed what he had done. I got mad! He knows not to look for presents! I didn't want to just let it go, I wanted him to really know that it's not ok to do that. So I told him I wasn't going to wrap his presents if he already saw them, and that I would have to talk to Ben when he got back (from after church meetings) to see if we would even give them to him at all. Mosey was not at all repentant, but when I went into the kitchen, I found Joseph sitting at the table in tears. Then it hit me: that was a big mommy FAIL. I asked him if he was upset because I got mad at Mosey. He nodded. I told him I wasn't that mad, but I needed Mosey to know that it wasn't funny for him to sneak around looking for presents. I got Mosey and pulled him on my lap and told him he was a big snickerdoodle, but that we would give him his presents if he promised to forget what they were! He giggled and promised, and I think I was forgiven. Still, I feel a bit rotten about that.
Anyway, after that I got busy cooking-- Mosey requested "some sort of chicken casserole" for dinner and a strawberry cake roll.
Ben took pictures of Mosey and me. I need to get more pictures of the boys with ME, so someday they can look back and remember how much bigger I was than them once upon a time. :-)
I DID wrap his presents, and as it happened, he only saw one of them, so there were still two surprises. He got rollerskates, a digital watch, and the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Mosey was happy about the rollerskates-- I got a pair of adjustable-size rollerblades at Goodwill last week, and Joseph and Brigham are making pretty good progress figuring them out, but they are just too hard for Mosey to balance in. The skates are a lot easier and he took a couple of turns on our tile floor to try them out. He was most excited about the watch. Joseph got a watch for Christmas, and Mosey has been admiring it ever since. I asked him a few days ago what he wanted for his birthday and he said, "All I really want is a watch." He does love it. The boys all watched the movie after dinner tonight and the report I got from Joseph was, "It was awesome! The best Ice Age movie!"
(See all the ashes in our fireplace from our frigid Friday with no furnace? What a mess!)
Mosey wasn't a huge fan of the chicken casserole I made (I thought it was a funny request from him!), but the strawberry cake roll was a big hit.
Click on the picture to see it bigger.
So, that was my boy's big day! He has to use two hands to count his age now.
Yesterday Ben took him and the boys to Inner Space Caverns for a tour of the cave. In the gift shop, Mosey fell in love with a cool arrowhead necklace which Ben bought him for a present.
I sent Ben in with my camera (the caves are NOT wheelchair accessible!) and he obliged me by taking some pictures.
My little spelunkers!
On the way back from the caves, I told him the story of his birth, and then we all went to Carinos for dinner.
They put a candle in his dessert which he ended up liking a lot more than the dessert! He smashed it into little waxy bits with his knife.
He woke up this morning and said, "You know what? I actually still feel like I'm five! Maybe tomorrow I will feel more like I am six." I'm not sure what he was expecting, but I hope six will not be a disappointment for him.
He ate Lucky Charms for breakfast-- his birthday cereal of choice, which he generously shared with the rest of us.
Then Mosey's day was marred by a bit of idiocy on the part of his mother...
After church I planned to go wrap his presents which Ben transferred from the back of the van into my closet this morning. But by some sort of six-year-old present-radar, Mosey peeked in there first. He came out to the playroom where I was getting wrapping paper and whispered to Joseph, "I think I might know what my presents are!" I heard him and immediately guessed what he had done. I got mad! He knows not to look for presents! I didn't want to just let it go, I wanted him to really know that it's not ok to do that. So I told him I wasn't going to wrap his presents if he already saw them, and that I would have to talk to Ben when he got back (from after church meetings) to see if we would even give them to him at all. Mosey was not at all repentant, but when I went into the kitchen, I found Joseph sitting at the table in tears. Then it hit me: that was a big mommy FAIL. I asked him if he was upset because I got mad at Mosey. He nodded. I told him I wasn't that mad, but I needed Mosey to know that it wasn't funny for him to sneak around looking for presents. I got Mosey and pulled him on my lap and told him he was a big snickerdoodle, but that we would give him his presents if he promised to forget what they were! He giggled and promised, and I think I was forgiven. Still, I feel a bit rotten about that.
Anyway, after that I got busy cooking-- Mosey requested "some sort of chicken casserole" for dinner and a strawberry cake roll.
Ben took pictures of Mosey and me. I need to get more pictures of the boys with ME, so someday they can look back and remember how much bigger I was than them once upon a time. :-)
I DID wrap his presents, and as it happened, he only saw one of them, so there were still two surprises. He got rollerskates, a digital watch, and the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Mosey was happy about the rollerskates-- I got a pair of adjustable-size rollerblades at Goodwill last week, and Joseph and Brigham are making pretty good progress figuring them out, but they are just too hard for Mosey to balance in. The skates are a lot easier and he took a couple of turns on our tile floor to try them out. He was most excited about the watch. Joseph got a watch for Christmas, and Mosey has been admiring it ever since. I asked him a few days ago what he wanted for his birthday and he said, "All I really want is a watch." He does love it. The boys all watched the movie after dinner tonight and the report I got from Joseph was, "It was awesome! The best Ice Age movie!"
(See all the ashes in our fireplace from our frigid Friday with no furnace? What a mess!)
Mosey wasn't a huge fan of the chicken casserole I made (I thought it was a funny request from him!), but the strawberry cake roll was a big hit.
Click on the picture to see it bigger.
So, that was my boy's big day! He has to use two hands to count his age now.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Baby it's cold outside!!
Last night it got down to 14 degrees. Fahrenheit. Wow. For Austin, that is COLD!!!! 26 degrees below normal, to be exact.
The temperature plummeted on Friday and I don't think it's risen above freezing yet.
Of course, Thursday night was the night our furnace decided to go out. Naturally.
So Friday we did lessons in coats and hats, cuddled up next to our fireplace, and thankfully by 6:30 PM we got a new furnace installed plus a fancy new programmable thermostat. Our furnace was the original in the house, about 26 years old, so I guess it was time for a new one. We also had to get a new air conditioning coil thingamajig, so it wasn't a cheap day, let me tell you. But ya gotta do whatcha gotta do, I guess.
This afternoon the boys went outside and broke pieces of ice from the top of our pool cover, turned on the hoses and watched "ice snakes" emerge and otherwise had fun in the cold.
I really love winter in Austin. You never know what you're gonna get. It's freezing cold now, and it would get pretty annoying after a while, but by Thursday we'll be back up to our normal 60's for the high and 40's for the low. It's kind of fun to have freak cold spells once in a while, as long as I know it'll be over in a few days. :-)
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Ben's birthday
Ben's 35th birthday was last Sunday. Isn't Fast Sunday a lousy day for a birthday? Or maybe it is an extra-special day. Hmm, what does it say about me that my first instinct is that it is a lousy day for a birthday? :-)
So on Saturday evening we went out to eat at Siena, a nice restaurant here in Austin. Ben likes to go eat somewhere nice and have us all dress up for his birthday dinner. Siena was a lot better than the place we went last year, which I pretty much hated. The boys are well-behaved when we go out to eat. They have always been pretty good at restaurants (well, not so much when they were toddlers-- I have nightmares sometimes of a really terrible dinner at Marie Callenders with Ben's parents when the boys were about 21 months old). As a result, we probably go out to eat more than we should. If they were bad, we'd never go out! Anyway, on our way there we were driving west down Capital of Texas Highway and there was the most beautiful sunset I've seen in a while. I said, "Look-- there's God's birthday present to Dad!"
At dinner I started contemplating this 35th birthday of his. 10 years ago we had just found out our IVF attempt had worked, but didn't know about the twins yet. Gosh, that does not seem that long ago! But 10 years from how, he'll be turning 45. Yikes!!!! It is weird to be getting old. (On an only slightly-related tangent, I purchased Season 1 of the X-files and we've been watching a few of them recently. I figured out that in Season 1, Mulder was supposed to be 34 years old. It's funny to think back on watching those episodes the first time around when Mulder and Scully were much older than we were-- when the X-files first came out I was 17 and Ben was 18. And now, those characters are our age or younger. I know getting older is weird for everyone because obviously it is happening for the first time for everyone, but that doesn't mean it isn't still weird!!)
Sunday was his birthday. We have 11:00 church now, which was a huge birthday present for Ben. I do love 11:00 church. After church I gave him the present of a Sunday afternoon nap and I made a birthday cake. From scratch! I made a caramel cake which was really yummy and had way too much butter in it. Mosey's birthday is this Sunday, which means more cake... Not good for the perennial "Eat healthier" New Year's Resolutions.
The boys and I gave Ben two picture frames for his office, each with 5 pictures. Also a watch which Ben bought himself, but gave me to give to him. I like our present-giving arrangement. :-)
So, welcome to the downward slide to 40, Ben!!
These are the pictures in the 1st frame:
(this is the same picture as this, but I color-replaced the shirt to be red to match the red theme of the rest of the pictures. It looks a little weird because the slight reflections on my arms are still blue, but whatever-- don't look too close)
And here are the pictures in the second frame:
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010!!
New Years Eve was a great ending to 2009.
We roasted hotdogs and marshmallows in our fireplace, ate Cheetos and Doritos and s'mores, drank rootbeer floats and sparkling grape juice, and of course destroyed the gingerbread house. Awesome!
Brigham liked the s'mores better than anyone else. Graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow, more chocolate, graham cracker. Yum!
Mosey's marshmallow aflame. It was more fun burning them than eating them.
Mosey had a BigRed float. I didn't realize Big Red was caffeinated. Mosey *just about* made it till midnight as a result. Oops!
Pyromaniacs in the making.
Another marshmallow up in flames!
Joseph is rosy-cheeked from the fire.
Joseph's two favorite stuffed animals right now-- A Webkinz raccoon named Rascal and his black panther named Diablo Gato, both Christmas presents.
Our Christmas tree this year. Ben and the boys did it all! Picked it out, set it up, put on the lights, put on the decorations (that was entirely the boys, I think). They did a good job! We'll never win awards for the most artfully decorated tree, but I love how much fun they had together.
Mister dancing with Ben. I love his expression: "Please, somebody, get me away from this crazy man!"
The highlight of the night was, of course, the destruction of the gingerbread house. At least half of my kitchen implements were used, and a great big mess was made. Little boy heaven.
Look at the mischief in those eyes!
Our gingerbread house before the destruction
Joseph used the garlic press to crush bigger pieces into powder.
Brigham used the meat tenderizer with abandon.
Then it was Mosey's turn. I tried to remind them about every 5 seconds to use the flat side!
Adding a potato masher into the mix.
The funnel was another great tool!
Taking a break to nibble on the rubble.
The final result-- A fantastic scene of chaos and destruction. They devised some sort of narrative to go with it-- something about a bomb and terrorists and policemen and firemen.
We roasted hotdogs and marshmallows in our fireplace, ate Cheetos and Doritos and s'mores, drank rootbeer floats and sparkling grape juice, and of course destroyed the gingerbread house. Awesome!
Brigham liked the s'mores better than anyone else. Graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow, more chocolate, graham cracker. Yum!
Mosey's marshmallow aflame. It was more fun burning them than eating them.
Mosey had a BigRed float. I didn't realize Big Red was caffeinated. Mosey *just about* made it till midnight as a result. Oops!
Pyromaniacs in the making.
Another marshmallow up in flames!
Joseph is rosy-cheeked from the fire.
Joseph's two favorite stuffed animals right now-- A Webkinz raccoon named Rascal and his black panther named Diablo Gato, both Christmas presents.
Our Christmas tree this year. Ben and the boys did it all! Picked it out, set it up, put on the lights, put on the decorations (that was entirely the boys, I think). They did a good job! We'll never win awards for the most artfully decorated tree, but I love how much fun they had together.
Mister dancing with Ben. I love his expression: "Please, somebody, get me away from this crazy man!"
The highlight of the night was, of course, the destruction of the gingerbread house. At least half of my kitchen implements were used, and a great big mess was made. Little boy heaven.
Look at the mischief in those eyes!
Our gingerbread house before the destruction
Joseph used the garlic press to crush bigger pieces into powder.
Brigham used the meat tenderizer with abandon.
Then it was Mosey's turn. I tried to remind them about every 5 seconds to use the flat side!
Adding a potato masher into the mix.
The funnel was another great tool!
Taking a break to nibble on the rubble.
The final result-- A fantastic scene of chaos and destruction. They devised some sort of narrative to go with it-- something about a bomb and terrorists and policemen and firemen.
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