Thanksgiving

This is what Nate found when he started the dishes on Thanksgiving.  I might let him do the dishes more often.  It must be a sign.

Grant and Emma

 Grant and his good friend Emma--aren't they the cutest?!?

Lego Club

Grant needed to build an animal for his Lego Club.  Here's his turtle.

Reading Practice

We played a game to learn body part words...Grant thought it was the BEST.

Bike Riding

It's way past time to teach Grant to ride his bike.  He got a bike over a year ago, but we ended up packing and moving right after he got it.  Then other things were more important so it didn't happen.  Since we live on the corner it's not the most ideal spot to learn to ride so we went to the parking lot of the school across the street to work on it.  While we were waiting for Nate to come out of the house, Grant was showing some pine cones to Kate...but she was being really stubborn and didn't want to look.  Can you see her little arms crossed?  

 

Nate worked with Grant and I stayed with Kate.  She's not quite ready to ride the tricycle, so she just pushed it around the whole time.

Grant did really well.  Now we just need to find a flat area for him to practice on.  The parking lot only is available on the weekends and our streets are too hilly for a new rider.   

Our Little Composer

One morning, we were working on school.  We took a brief pause so I could gather some materials for our next lesson.  Grant grabbed a piece of paper and started writing his numbers.  Then he moved onto writing musical notes.  He showed it to me and said, "Look, it's music.  Can you play it on the piano?"  So I sat down at the piano and he explained where the first note was supposed to be on the piano.  Then he found a toy skewer for his conductor's baton (from a wooden grilling set we have) and placed himself on the stairs and conducted me.  After each playing, we'd pause so he could go add another note or two.

   Later on, we got out some piano theory books and he really studied them then wrote some more music.  He does NOT want me to teach him about music at this point.  So for now, I'm just letting him play around with it and have fun. I don't know where his sudden interest in music came from but it's been fun to watch.  

Homeschooling: What I'M Learning

 So, we've been working on getting into a groove with homeschooling.  There have been lots of great
things along the way, but a lot of bumps in the road as well.  It's been a very humbling experience for me, highlighting my sin and flaws in ways I never anticipated.  It's required a lot of self-examination and one of the things I've come to realize is that I need to be MUCH more flexible.  These pictures are actually a perfect example of what I'm learning.  I'm not an overly neat person, but a messy house drives...me...insane.  Now that the kids and I are spending so much more time at home due to schooling, messiness makes me even crazier.  I was spinning myself into a frenzy trying to work on schooling and trying to keep my house tidy. The school papers, books, school supplies, art supplies, etc. plus all of the things that Kate gets out to keep herself entertained while Grant and I are working together, plus laundry and meals seemed to create the perfect storm of mess.  I'm learning that I need to relax and focus on what's important.  I learned that I need to spend lots of quality, cheerful, dedicated time with the kids and not panic about the mess in the moment.  So here's what my house looked like one afternoon and instead of feeling flustered and frustrated, I decided it was kind of funny and nothing to panic about.  Here's part of the damage:

I'm learning to focus on what I AM getting done instead of what I'm NOT getting done.  The kids and I had a great day together, got lots of schooling done, and had a fun lunch together.  And what happened when I stopped panicking about the chaos?  I was able to address the mess when Nate got home and it was all in perfect order within an hour...and everyone was smiling by the end of the day instead of feeling frustrated and edgy.

Halloween

The kids practiced trick-or-treating for the whole month of October.  On Halloween, Grant was almost beside himself with excitement and somehow his candy bag ended up on his head.

 Kate loved her ladybug costume.

 Ready to get some candy!

 Me and my cute love bugs

 Kate was in heaven.  She ate SO MUCH CANDY.  She would have different kinds of candy in each fist with her mouth full and grunt, "More candy."  We had to move our candy bin out of her reach because we caught her a couple of times eating candy out of it.  So she was thrilled to be able to eat whatever she wanted.

 Grant, on the other hand, doesn't seem to overdo on candy.  He'll sample a whole bunch of things, but not take it down at the same rate or in the same quantity as his little sister.  (And for some reason, Grant is the one who had the major emotional meltdown the following day, while Kate displayed absolutely no repercussions of her indulgences from the night before.)

After all the candy, both kids helped me pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Here's Kate looking for more kids.  

Grant took his job very seriously and would tell the kids, "Okay, now you need to open your bag...good job."  Of course most of the kids were older than him so it was funny to hear him try to explain to them the simple task of opening their bags.

Fashionista

Kate likes to put on any clothes she can find around the house.  Here she's found a pair of Nate's socks.  She also found one of her barrettes and put it in her own hair.  Then she found a small Tupperware container and wore it as a shoe.  I heard a strange clumping sound in the kitchen and found her walking around like this.  She always says, "Pretty!  Nice!"

Backpack

Thank you for the backpack, Auntie Jill!  Kate absolutely loves it and wants to wear it all the time.

All ready to go!

Bedtime Story with Daddy

Kitchen Help

Grant and Kate really wanted to help with dinner one night.  They were so excited and did such a great job.

All was going really well.  Grant offered to grate the cheese.  I told him I didn't think it was a good idea because it was easy to accidentally grate your fingers.  He was SURE that it wouldn't happen so I let him.

Aaaaaand, of course he grated his finger.  And was quite upset.  Kate, on the other hand, was completely unperturbed about the whole thing and just kept sneaking tastes of the cheese during the chaos.

 Daddy had to examine the injury.

Grant pointed an accusing finger at the offending grater.  

(At dinner, Nate commented that his food tasted a bit like Grant's finger and he must have gotten some of Grant's grated finger in his food.  Grant stared at him, wide-eyed and said, "Are you serious?")

Readers

 Normally, when it gets really quiet I get nervous and find two very guilty little faces.  This time I was in for a nice surprise--they were reading!  

Disconcerting Find

Grant spotted this outside our window and asked what kind of bug it was.  I went outside and saw the red hourglass on the spider's belly.  Yech!  (If you click on the picture, you can see it better.)  About a week later we found a huge black widow trying to climb out of our fire pit when we had lit it.  Nate had just put the wood in without his gloves on and was thankful he didn't get bitten.  Then we moved a storage chest that came with the house out to the curb for the garbage man to pick up.  When we moved it, we found about 8 black widows and a bunch of egg sacs living under it.  Since then, we haven't seen any more.  Hopefully, getting rid of the old wood and the storage unit took care of their favorite hiding spots and we won't seem them any more!  I know there are a lot of black widows in this area, so I'm a lot more vigilant these days.

Recent Quotes

(Context: Grant found about 5 teeny, tiny snails on the pavement.)
Grant:  Aaaaah!  I can't stop looking at them!  They're sooooo cute!

(Context: Kate wanted to see a sheet of tattoos Grant had in his hands.)
Grant: You want to hold them?
Kate:  Uh, huh.
Grant: No--they're expensive!  What are you going to do, waste them?

(Context: I'm trying to encourage Kate to use the potty instead of her diapers.  She was complaining in her car seat about her diaper hurting her leg.)
Me: Diapers don't feel good.  You need to wear panties.  Diapers are yucky.  Panties are pretty.
Kate: Panties pretty?  Diapers yucky?
Me: Yes.
Kate:  Panties better!

(Context: Grant and Kate were hanging out in my closet.)
Grant: Kate, this is called a birthmark.  It means I was borned.

Sign of the Times

Grant made this sign for his bedroom door.  It says "You're Not Invited.  Don't" (don't enter?).  The little person on the sign is supposed to be Kate.  She had been acting particularly pesky that day and he decided the only solution was to make his version of a "Keep Out" sign for his room.  We need to work on his hospitality...and of course his spelling.

Beautiful Day

It finally cooled down at our house and we got to open all the windows and doors.  For a good part of the summer, the kids didn't want to go outside at all so I was so happy when they asked to go play outside.  AND they were laughing and having a great time together.  It was a great day.

Pumpkin Carving

 Nate and Grant discuss what it should look like.

 Grant read a book to Kate while Nate was working on the pumpkin.

The finished product.  

(Hmmm...apparently the jack-o-lantern ate Grant's pants.)