Baseball Boy

He’s a chip off the old block and already knows more about baseball than me (which really isn’t saying a whole lot!). At 4 1/2 Aaron has taken a keen interest in watching baseball with his daddy. I think it’s a mixture of loving the sport, loving numbers, loving hanging out with daddy and loving getting to stay up late watching the games.

He’s really been interested in all the other baseball teams and who they are all playing, so Greg ordered these pennant markers from Amazon. I used an old fleece blanket and stapled it onto a bulletin board and the little fleece pennants stick so he can move them around. He likes to arrange them by color or which teams have animals.

Aaron kept asking which team the Cardinals were playing with next, so Greg printed off this calendar for him. He usually goes to bed before the end of the game, so we always have to ask daddy first thing in the morning who won. He also needs to know what the score was, and how many hits and errors each team had. So, we get to practice our hand-writing while Aaron (with much help from me) writes down all this information on his calendar. I’m sure in the next few years he’ll be keeping all kinds of stats just like his daddy used to do when he was his age.

 

Go Cards! 

Do the Locomotion!

This morning we used our Groupon (3 for $10) for Locomotion inflatable play in South Austin. We’d never been to this one, but we loved it! It had just the right balance of play spaces for younger and older children and you can bring your own food and sit at the tables for lunch. We stayed a little over two hours, but would have stayed much longer with just older ones. I’m sure we’ll be back and take advantage of their silly sock Saturday when you get $2 off admission for your kids wearing silly socks. Or, just get another awesome Groupon deal, I love those things!

		Locomotion VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Sweeter than Honey

Last week Aaron was a camper at Hays Hills Baptist Church’s Heroe’s Camp. He had an awesome time each day from 9-12 pm having fun and learning about the Lord with his friends. Each age level learned a song with actions. What a cutie!

Every teacher and parent’s hope is that the things they are teaching their kids are sinking in. The teachers sent home little notes each day telling a little bit about what they discussed and the memory verse for the day. On Friday afternoon Aaron came up to me and said very casually, “Mom, did you know that God’s word is sweeter than honey?”…we haven’t talked about that at home, so I’m sure he picked it up this week at Heroe’s Camp. What a blessing it was for me to hear my son quote scripture! Thank you teachers! You’re planting seeds for God’s Kingdom! This morning I found the verse that Aaron was referring to…

How sweet are your words to my taste,

Sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

It was a much needed reminder for me that even in this season of constant tasks I need to be in God’s word daily. And now I’m thinking about a homeschooling unit on bees and honey and relating it to this scripture. Hmmm.….

The Rainbow and the Storm

Lately I’ve been turning my “official” teacher brain on more and more and trying to get a bit more organized in our day as we prepare to begin homeschooling sometime in the next year. My thinking is I’d rather ease him into a routine rather than wake up one day with a morning full of workbooks and learning activities. But, then again, I get on these “let’s get in a daily routine” kicks every now and then and they fade away. So, we’ll see if this one fades away like a rainbow (pun intended).

I purchase the book “Let’s Play Science” at the Homeschooling conference Greg and I attended last week and today we got to work on our first of these very simple science experiments. It was just filling a glass with water, putting it on a table in front of a sunny window (we’ve got plenty of those in Texas right now) and seeing how a rainbow is made.

At first we weren’t able to get the rainbow to appear…

But a little tweaking and moving around and we got a double rainbow!

We discussed in very simple terms how the water glass breaks the light into these colors and how that might happen in the sky after it rains. If I really had my thinking cap on I would have inserted how God sent a rainbow after the flood, but I lost my thinking cap a few weeks before the twins were born.

Right after we made our rainbow with the sun, we made a rainbow with some paint. Actually, a homemade finger paint recipe I found on a great blog I discovered today…icanteachmychild.com.

I certainly didn’t encourage the twins to eat the paint, but since it’s just made up of flour, salt, water and food coloring, I did take the time to take a picture before the “icky, don’t eat” was announced. I was surprised that Eric didn’t really try to eat the paint, since that child can smell anything edible a mile away.

It’s not a ROY G. BIV rainbow, but it’s a keeper!

And he’s a keeper, too!

In conclusion, lest anyone get too impressed with our day, let me tell you how things progressed after this activity. Usually, the rainbow happens after the storm, but today the storm came after the rainbow with babies whaling for no particular reason, acting really tired, but not wanting to take a nap and finally ending with mommies’ meltdown and sending everyone to their rooms regardless of crying because mommy just couldn’t take it anymore! I spent all my patient mothering skills in the hour it took to do this activity, because there sure wasn’t any left for the rest of the day.

But, momma said there’d be days like this, and God’s love  and forgiveness is constant and never ending, so this mamma will live to spend another day full of surprises with her boys again! 

A Little Adventure

 

It was another fun-filled week of reading and movie watching and this time the star of the show was Stuart Little. The book is fifteen chapters of adventures that this mouse-like boy (or boy-like mouse) has in the big world. Aaron listened to the imaginative stories intently as Stuart figured out how to make the best of the situations in which he found himself.

This link gives a much more thoughtful analysis and includes study questions and assignments for older students. We are just enjoying reading E.B. White and will give “The Trumpet of the Swan” a turn next.

We finished the book last night and so this afternoon was time to enjoy the movie. It was cute family film full of adventure, but nothing like the book in terms of story line.  I’ll never understand why Hollywood feels the need to add a couple of incidental curse words (d**m) and (what the HE double hockey sticks) that were so quick and unimportant that Aaron didn’t notice them, but an older child likely would.  But, besides the potty mouth cats, it was an enjoyable story of acceptance, friendship, family and courage.

RIP Scrapbooking

It’s been a long-time coming, but it’s time to say goodbye to scrapbooking forever. Really, what has kept me going this long is the 50+ scrapbooks that my Grandma Brown did during her lifetime. Before scrapbooking was a popular hobby I remember her sitting at her kitchen table sticking all the pictures in with those little corner thingies. She always did them on black paper, so she had a silver pen to write with and I always wanted to use that silver pen, but she never let me :( . We used to laugh at my grandma because she would take pictures of pictures on the wall. But, now as and adult, I understand her desire to preserve all the wonderful memories of life. She was a meticulous record keeper and probably would have loved to blog, or at least read mine :)

I did my first scrapbooking page 11 years ago during my senior year of college. I actually remember sitting up all night at my apartment in Roanoke, IL (where I student taught) because I loved this hobby so much. Since then I’ve completed 10 full albums. But, with a fourth child coming, I just don’t have the time to keep up with it. And, I don’t have the brainpower to get into digi-scrapping. But, I do love taking pictures and preserving memories, so I hope to do that with this blog. It’s easy, mess free and money free….what more could you want? In the time it takes me to scrapbook one little page I can write an entire post about our week. We’re planning on getting a nice new camera sometime soon and I’ll try to recruit one of my photography gals to teach me a little something. Also, I’ve been writing more here and really enjoying it. I’ll be the first to admit that I stink at grammar, so I’m not even going to try. In high school they kept putting me in advanced placement English classes and I never understood why because I never understood all the million grammar rules. So, I’m just going to write what comes to my mind. And, it does help to know that people are actually reading this. So, make a comment every now and then so I know I’m not just talking to myself.

Dino Daze and Family Fun *Free* Day!

 

Well, it feels like book report week here! This week we also read “Finding the First T. Rex”. It was a much shorter chapter book about…well, obviously. It was filled with facts and Aaron and I had another great time reading another great book. So, on to the field trip…

This isn’t where we went, but this is a building in downtown Austin that Aaron has claimed as “his building”. We’ll have to figure out what it is and maybe do another field trip there someday. Now onto the real field trip…

We went to the Texas Natural Science Center on the campus of the University of Texas. Four floors of old stuff from Texas. Entry fee…$0! There is even free street parking right outside the museum on the weekends. Here is a Pterosaur found in Texas and Aaron claiming that he doesn’t like to get his picture taken.

And here is Mommy next to a T. Rex skull and Aaron still not wanting his picture taken, but mommy holding him against his will…you know…to preserve the wonderful memory forever. But, really, he did want to be there!

Some more Texas animals on another floor. And, daddy!

Ahhh….that’s better! Nothing like sitting on a replica dinosaur vertebrae to brighten your day!

After the museum we headed back South to the Austin Science and Nature Center for a picnic and to let the kiddos run. Entry fee…$0!

Lunchtime!

Exploring inside the museum.

My little paleontologist digging for dinosaur bones in the Dino Pit.

And my even littler paleontologists.

And here is Aaron learning a valuable lesson that algae grows in slow moving water and is slippery. This is what I love about boys. When I was little I would have come up screaming and crying, Aaron just says “Can I go swimming now?”

We had a great family fun day, and did I mention it was all *free*!! And, one of the best moments was a nice quiet ride back to Kyle. Even though Aaron is completely faking sleeping here, he was tired out from all the fun.

But this tuckered out picture is completely genuine!