100 Days of Kindergarten 2009

After an uncertain start, Jonny has been doing well in kindergarten.  He is learning so much – he can read simple books, is getting better at writing (even though he still has a tendency to reverse “b”, “d” and “s’).  He is such a big boy in general, and is usually always ready to help out.

Last week he celebrated his 100th day of kindergarten!  To celebrate, his teachers sent home a family assignment.  Jonny came up with the idea for dragon scales all by himself, but everyone helped with the final project (except for Nate and Ben).  Even though I usually complain about these assignments, I really enjoyed working on this one with the big boys.   It won’t be too many years before they will be too old for art projects, after all.

“It’s a good night to look at pumpkins.”

At least that’s what Jonny kept saying as we had our annual pumpkin carving last night.

We bought our pumpkins almost two weeks ago, but because Mark and Isaac went to the Steelers game last weekend, we did most of our carving last night.  Isaac and Jonny did manage to trace their designs last weekend.  Jonny did a great job tracing his own design this year, although I did have to help him cut it out.  Isaac was able to work completely independently for the very first time!  Mark did all the yucky stuff for all of us (i.e. scooping out the pumpkin innards).

Jonathan was so excited!  All the photos I took of him last night are blurred because he was in a state of constant motion.

I found a Gyarados pattern online for myself.  For those not familiar with Pokemon, Gyarados is a flying water-dragon type creature.  I think it turned out well.  Mark did a creepy skull design.

Both Ben and Nate took very well-timed late evening naps allowing us to finish all four.  Here’s the final result:

I love pumpkins!

A Halloween Tale

Isaac decided to write a Halloween story last week.  Well, it’s sort of “Halloween meets Legend of Zelda”:

Even when he’s not playing video games, he’s still thinking about them!

100 Days of Kindergarten

 

It snowed about an inch last night, and so there was a 2 hour delay for school this morning.  Isaac had a celebration at school because it was his 100th day of kindergarten.  And boy, did his teacher come up with some really cool homework projects for us I mean him to do! 

We had to do a craft using 100 of something.  Isaac and I made the above picture using 100 stick-on snowflakes.  Isaac also had to count out 100 Goldfish crackers to take with him to put into a trail mix they made for everyone.  We sent a note reminding Isaac’s teacher about his peanut allergy, and she made him a separate peanut-free batch.

Isaac made these cool glasses at school:

You know what this means.  Summer break is fast approaching!

In other news, Mark had signed us up for a family membership at the local YMCA about a month ago.  Today I actually plucked up enough courage to set foot in the place.  I had a photo ID made, got a tour of the facility and actually used an elliptical trainer for the first time in my life.  (My trying to figure out how to use it was probably quite amusing to any onlookers, but that’s another story!)   The “workout” only lasted 15 minutes and my legs feel like an interesting combination of fire and rubber tonight.  I hope I didn’t injure anything.

Welcome, Lawrence and Rhoda!

 

Yesterday evening my brother Lawrence and his girlfriend Rhoda arrived at our home after a very long and harrowing travel experience that started some 36 hours before.  Thankfully, they made it safe and sound and in one piece.  The boys immediately took to Rhoda.  They are still a little apprehensive about their Uncle Lawrence…although he gave them ice cream for dessert tonight so he might have won them over after all!

This evening Rhoda got the boys involved in sprucing up our rather drab Christmas stockings.  They had a blast.  Here is the final result:

In other news, I think we burned the motor out on Ben’s syringe pump.  This is the one that we use for his daytime feeds because they are relatively small-volume.  Of course, it is not only a weekend, but a holiday weekend at that, and we haven’t been able to reach anyone at the company to have it looked at.  So we will be using the Zevex Enteralite pump that we normally use for nighttime continuous feedings until we get things worked out, which is OK, I suppose.

Ben spent several hours out shopping with me today and was an angel!  I wore him in his front carrier, and he was very interested in everything that was going on at K-mart and the supermarket.  He stayed awake the entire time, and definitely appears tired out tonight.

Ben tasted some sweet potatoes today and loved them!

Busy Weekend

Yesterday (like so many other families) we went Christmas shopping.  The stores were all packed!  We did manage to get most of our shopping done.  The pictures above were taken at ”Bed, Bath and Beyond” towards the end of our expedition.  Yes, the boys are both busy playing their Gameboys – we figured they would whine less about the boringness of the store and let us shop in peace if they were occupied. 

Last week, Mark bought a kit for a gingerbread house at Wal-Mart.  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.  We put the house together last night, and today after church we decorated it.  It was actually a lot of fun, if a bit messy.  I think Isaac and Jonny ate more candy than they actually put on the house!  They keep asking when we are going to EAT the house.  To me it doesn’t look all that appetizing – we will see!

In other news, Ben seems to have caught a cold.  We are praying this one doesn’t last as long as the last one.  Isaac (who probably gave Ben his cold) seems to be improving every day and will be returning to school tomorrow.

Random Kid Artwork

Isaac and Jonny decided to draw robots today.  They did a great job.  The next picture is to show Ben in the cute new outfit I got from Target, and also to show how Jonny still can’t resist drawing on himself.  He is banned from markers until he is four!

Isaac’s “Family Turkey Project”

 

Yes, we all participated, except for Ben.  Isaac, Jonny and I stuck the decorations on.  Mark made suggestions that were nixed by Isaac (he claims to have done some glueing too – I’m not so sure).  It actually was more fun than I thought it would be.  I am glad we did this on Sunday morning before church because it took ALL DAY to dry.  If we had waited until the last minute like we usually do, Isaac would have had a very soggy piece of paper to take to school this morning.  We await the next “family project” with bated breath….