Our Week In Review

What did we do in school this week? Well, some of us got to ride the bright yellow school bus!


Inside the bus, son C read a history book to Little Man. We learned about the Vikings this week. Very exciting reading!


Little Man took his first "official" math TEST!


As part of the test he had to build the number "390" and show that he understood place value.


As a class, science happened naturally for us this week. During recess one day a praying mantis was discovered.


It was fairly large.


We found a small grasshopper and fed it to the mantis. In this picture, we're looking at the mantis's belly (he's upside down) and he's holding the yellow grasshopper in his grip, eating it.


We watched him eat the whole thing, talked about life cycles and the food chain, and called it good!

Son G, however, began Apologia General Science this week, and did his first experiment. I remembered from when daughter G did this course that the first experiment was a dramatic one, and I was excited for son G to get to do it.

It involved pouring oil, water, and maple syrup into a glass and then adding 4 different objects. The objects either sank to the bottom or floated on the top of one of the liquids. This demonstrated the existence of atoms, because some liquids and objects have atoms that are less dense than others, allowing other objects/liquids to squeeze through. He had a lot of fun with this, and enjoyed drawing a diagram of it in his lab book.

Overheard.....

This was a conversation I had last week with son L as he and I were driving alone in the van. My apologies in advance to anyone whose children watch the "Sponge Bob" cartoon - no offense is intended. Personal family decision! But I thought this conversation was so insightful, I wanted to share it.

L: "Mommy, why do you let us sometimes watch violent war movies, but you don't let us watch Sponge Bob?"

Me: "That is an excellent question. Can you think of a reason?"

L: "Well, the war movies have a specific lesson you want us to learn."

Me: "That's one reason, certainly."

L: "But I can't figure out what's wrong with Sponge Bob."

Me: "Well, I'm sure that some episodes are better than others. But when I watched a couple of episodes back when you were little, to see if it was appropriate for our family, I was disappointed with the way the characters treated each other. There was quite a bit of disrespect. They sometimes put each other down in the name of "fun". I just didn't want you kids to be watching that and come to think that type of behavior was okay or acceptable in our family. It's kindof like junk food for the mind. A little of it is okay, but a steady diet would make you sick."

L: "Is that why some kids who have a lot of freedom are kindof rude or wild? Cuz they get to watch whatever they want and then they start acting like the characters they see?"

Me: "It could be one reason. Daddy and I really don't want to control you all your life. But we want to teach you how to handle the increasing freedom that you receive as you grow older. Some day you will make your own choices about what books you read, what movies you watch, and what tv shows you see. We want you to know the difference between good and best, and know what pleases the Lord, so you can make the best choices possible."

~~~~~~~~~~ Long Pause~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

L: "I love being a kid! Even though I'll get more freedom when I'm a grown up, I love my life as a kid. I love my family the way it is, and my friends the way they are. I wish things could just stay this way forever."

How I wish I could have known exactly what was going on in his head when he said that!

Before and After

I'm still (as I have time) organizing and nesting in our new red family room. Here are a couple of small painting projects I finished last week. The shelf before:


And the same shelf after, painted black.


Our old preschool cupboard, before (walls were "before" too!):


And after, painted black and repurposed as a media storage unit.



Amazingly it fits all the stuff that was in our old entertainment center (which went to the thrift store) plus some! And organizing it all gave me the opportunity to take out movies/cd's that we really don't use. It feels good to make our space work better for this stage of our family life.

Overheard.....

Little Man overheard a news snippet this evening, in which a mom was defending a questionable parenting decision and said, "I'm one of the best moms I know."

Little Man turned to me and said, "Well, I guess she doesn't know you then!"

Awwww. I love that guy!

Last Blast of Summer!

Labor Day weekend we went to visit some friends of ours who moved away last year. We had such a fun time with them!



Of course it's always exciting to play with new and different toys.


We made s'mores on the grill!




And watched a movie together (Astroboy)


We drove to a lake with a large sandy beach, and had a lake day. Super fun!









Son C decided to dig a pit large enough to bury a person.


We buried Little Man and his friend together up to their necks.



And then we had to dig them out! ;-)

Red

The paint fairies came to our house last weekend. Everyone should have paint fairies. They are AWESOME!! They helped empty the bookcase, and I have to tell you, I did not know how many books we had in there until we took them all out! I should have taken a picture of all the stacks of books lining the walls in our dining room.


The paint fairies taped off the trim.


They primed.


And then they painted!



At the end of the day.....

we had ourselves.....

a rich, deep, warm RED family room!


I took advantage of this opportunity to rearrange the room. Of course, it was painful to put all our mismatched old things back in such a lovely room, but it's a pain I can live with for a while!



This is the picture of our four little children I surprised my husband with on his 40th birthday. Son C was just one month old. (Little did I know there would be one more baby coming!) I have always loved this picture, and it really pops now, in a dark frame against the red.

So, pretend that the blue furniture is beige, that there is a lovely color coordinated area rug in front of the couch, that there is some beautiful decorative thing on the mantle beside the tv, and the encyclopedias are gone from the bookcase with pretties in their place. Can't you just see it??! The tv is a little higher than we'd care for, but my husband already has a plan for building a frame that can lower it for viewing, and put it back on the mantle when not in use.

Finishing the wiring that allows us to have our tv on the mantle and our dvd player in the cabinet was what I wanted to finish before posting "after" pics. It took my husband several hours to do this. Had I known how hard it would be, I may not have asked (glad I didn't know!). The mantle and the built in bookcases on the sides are solid oak. Very hard to drill through. Thank you honey!


And these are the piles behind the couch that I "hid" for the above picture! Still putting all our stuff away......


Thank you paint fairies!!! We love our new room!

Breathe

I breathe him in. Sweet, freshly scrubbed little boy, a lingering scent of shampoo on his slightly damp hair. I rest my lips on his round, still baby-ish cheeks, so soft and smooth, free of the bumps and blemishes that will come someday with puberty. I kiss him gently, not wanting him to stir, but once I start I cannot stop the kisses. Cheeks, eyelids, forehead. I whisper a prayer of thanks and blessing over my sleeping, youngest boy. He is not so little anymore. Only a few more months to be six, and so tall for his age. How hard he tries to keep up with his older siblings! Yet as I watch his chest gently rise and fall with the measured breathing of peaceful sleep, he looks every bit the youngest. Curled in a familiar sideways fetal position, he reminds me of all my babies, and how I watched them sleep when they were little and new. I savor the moment, storing up this memory, and thank God for giving me one more.....

One more baby. One more child of my heart. One more who is still young enough to want to hold my hand, and sit on my lap. Someday all my boys will be grown men, and it will be difficult to distinguish who is younger and who is older, but for now I revel in having one who is so obviously the youngest. One more whispered prayer. One more kiss. One more "I love you."

One more long inhale of his sweet little boy-ness.

Thank you, Lord.