Becoming a man

Becoming a man is hard work.

Lesson #1: Make sure you drink things that have tons of ingredients you can't pronounce, and don't even notice.

Lesson #2: Headphones. Apparently they are an important ingredient. As all three of my men, or men-in-training all have them on as much as possible.

Lesson #3: Act like other men or men-in-training.

Even if it means washing windows.

Lesson #4: Learn to tie a Double Windsor.

Lesson #5: Deer in headlights look when standing next to a girl for photo. This apparently is a very important part of becoming a man.

Lesson #6: When girls dance (and they do)...

be as FAR away as you can be.

Some recent great pics of my kids

And now, I have to do a little update on Logan. He really has gotten left behind lately as the other two go on to greater heights of fun learning experiences.

Lately, Logan has taken to some "guys" as he calls them. They are Power Rangers (remember those?), and they were a gift from a long ago neighbors yardsale. My plan was to toss them in the Goodwill bag, but he found them and has carried them around ever since. He talks to his 'guys'. His 'guys' fight. His 'guys' talk and play. His 'guys' sleep with him. And if they are in sight, a full on breakdown happens until his 'guys' are in his hands, curled up with him in his bed. He asks for his 'guys' when he can not find them and we have to help him find them again. He really likes to carry all three.... but he only has two hands, so occasionally, he will volunteer me to be his 'guy holder'.

Another favorite is airplanes. He has two airplane figurines. I think they are both jet fighters. Those bash together mid flight and come crashing to the ground at least once a day with a huge "shooo, shooo, boom!" He is pretty much the cutest thing ever. He still loves going Bye Bye, he still loves seeing airplanes in the air and yelling and signing... but signing is quickly being paired with talking. "More Please" is a favorite phrase, as is "more juice", and "Please mine". They are, for now, paired with the signs, but I can see the day where he is clear enough that he doesn't need the signs and another one of my babies stops being a baby.

He was 20 mos a couple days ago.

our timelines

In school, the kids are learning about history. We are starting at the beginning with the ancients and moving forward until now over the next 4 years. I have no idea if we will homeschool for that long... but it stands to reason that the study of history should start at the beginning no matter whether you will get to the present or not. But first, considering even Alex had not had history before, we had to start with exactly what history was. So we started with our own history. I had the kids sit down with sheets of paper and put a line in the center of them with receipt tape. Then I asked them to tell me something they remembered... as far back as they could think of. Alex remembered Cyan being born. Cyan remembered Baby Cake. We started there and moved forward until now, writing things down, printing/copying pictures of things, looking things up for specific dates. When that was done, we talked about before they could remember and how we knew those dates. Some of them, I saw the pictures and could tell by what season it was, or what outfit they were in what time in their lives it had to have been. Some of them were in the baby books because not even I remembered them. We wrote all those down as well. Then I explained that that is the way people study history.

These are the timelines they made. Click on the picture for a bigger version. They are pretty sweet... I love how both of them remember the 'dumb bunny', which will forever be named that, because the night before we were to release her, she jumped into the top of her box and broke her own neck.

I am pretty sure making this timeline made it into their memories. :)

Making fresh apple cider with grandpa Randy and Margret... and mom of course.

Look who lives in our tree!

These little guys live in the tree down the block about 100 ft from our house. There are two. You can see one of them's ear is covering the others nose in this picture here. Isn't that cute?

Walking bunnies, shucking peas:

Just a quite update on us. We are all doing really well. Alex is off for the yearly 6wks with his dad in FL and the kids here miss him a lot. Cyan has been taking Domino for a walk every couple days. She seems to love it, although she wanders around and eats dandilions, which we are more than fine with. ;) We have plenty.

Cyan and the neighbor girl were shucking peas for me last week... they were a HUGE help and I got to put these fresh organic peas into our fried rice that night. :)

Logan is a WHRILWIND of baby right now. Into absolutely everything and everywhere and screeching all the time. Full blown toddler mode. It is crazy.

Hmm... I wonder who did it. Looking for clues:

Funny, I think this is the culprit:

And in other news...

Lego City

The big kids built this lego city. It is a city from another planet. Something with Jedi.

Here you can see a junk yard owner bargining with the pilot that needs the new to him item. The pilot is getting heated.

Life going on per normal outside the Jedi mine.

Where the workers are mining... something. Jewels of some sort. In the background you can see Darth Vader doing... something.

Obi Wan in his new profession as a truck driver.

This must be the Empire's jail. They left some one in here a bit too long.

Target practice. Every Jedi must compete with driods during training. Seems only fitting the would train with them too.

Having Boys...

The front of my Mother's Day card from Alex this year. Beautiful isn't it?

The inside of my Mother's Day card this year. Yes, it says, if you die, we will miss you. I laughed. Gotta love having boys.


The other day I came home to this on our white board.

Having boys is an every day adventure. God, I love them.

What the kids are up to...

Observing nature (4/12) Nesting little bird:

Nesting chickadee (5/1):

Getting over chicken pox (4/19).

Learning to respect other peoples dogs (yes, it is healing very well) (4/24).

Perfecting new found tallents (4/11), survival skills via Boyscouts:

Starting to really read. (5/1)

Learning to use the hose. (5/4)

And of course, life is not complete, without sound effects (4/16).

Quill Writing and homemade ink

Alex and grandma Shari made ink while she was here. Alex has been saving it in a little bottle in his room, and this last week, we made him a quill out of a peahen feather we found at the farm the day before Easter. He has gotten really creative with it and has even started making up some of his own poetry... it is wonderful!

Alex's Pyramid

This was a project he did for school. A paper mache pyramid, complete with one that isn't done (to show the structure) and covered in sand. It turned out really cool! Next time he wants to put little Egyptian men working around it, or something like that. I am keeping an eye out for Egyptian figurines for next time. :) We are working on the Acients next year, so we will have plenty of Egypt study time.