Hannah moves from the crib to the bed...

Today I decided to transition Hannah from the crib to the 'big girl' bed. Thankfully, it went very smoothly!

Now maybe we can move Mary Grace from the pack-n-play (currently in the master closet) to the crib!

Christopher and Sarah on the local news...

Back in March, I took the kids along with other homeschool families to the Dallas Heritage Villlage in Old City Park for a field trip.  It just so happened that the local FOX4 news was there the same day video taping a segment for their Lone Star Adventures.  Christopher and Sarah ended up in a couple portions of the video.  Christopher first appears in the lower left corner when a man demonstrates and explains pottery.  Then both Christopher and Sarah appear sitting at a table planting sunflower seeds.  Christopher is wearing a charcoal golf shirt with a white stripe at the top and Sarah is wearing a hot pink t-shirt.  If you click on this link, you can watch it: http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/fox_4_features/Lone_Star_Adventures_Heritage

End of the year program...

We are part of a homeschool co-op called "Classical Conversations" which meets once a week for 12 weeks each semester.  We have finished our first full year with them and have learned a TON! Today was our end-of-the-year program where each of the classes presented some of the material that they have learned throughout the year.  Christopher's class (the abecedarians) presented some of the history sentences that they have learned.  We covered U.S. history this year and what's amazing is that they memorized 22 history sentences in order from 1492 all the way to Sept.11, 2001, plus the preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and all 44 U. S. presidents.  Each of the kids picked his/her favorite history sentence for the program...

Candace picked "In 1866 the 14th Ammendment made all former slaves U.S. citizens and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement."  So she got to stand in front while the rest of the class stood behind her and held up signs saying "Freedom for all".  I think Candace was the most consistent in singing loudly and clearly for every song.  Christopher wasn't singing the words during the presentation, so when I made eye contact with him he said out loud, "Stage fright." Yeah right...

R.J. picked the next song, "In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt and his rough riders defeated the Spanish at the Battle of San Juan Hill, while trying to help the Cubans win their independence." Everybody had a stick horse as one of the rough riders while R.J. had a cowboy hat to boot.  He rode his stick horse around in circles so much during the presentation, I'm surprised he didn't get dizzy and fall over!

Catie picked the next song, "On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing the U.S. to join the allies in World War II."  Remembering that he should sing loudly and clearly, Christopher broke out in the middle of the song but ended up cracking himself up.  Catie (wearing the sailor hat and hawaiian necklace) remained amazingly composed and unaffected by all the commotion going on behind her.

Christopher naturally chose, "In 1969 U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon."  Thankfully he chose to sing loudly and clearly for the song of his choice, but in the middle of the second time through, he decided to interrupt the flow of the song by telling everyone that "My grandmother thinks I'm saying 'moo moo moo'".  Such a clown.  He's the one in the space suit hood while the other kids are holding pictures of outer space.

Even Sarah wanted to stand with the class during the presentation and I think I saw her singing some of the words to the songs.  She has definitely picked up a lot by listening in.  I knew that no matter what they ended up doing on stage it would be funny and adorable, but I think they all did a great job and made it very entertaining!

Mary Grace rolls over...

Mary Grace turns 7 months old tomorrow and rolled over from tummy to back for the first time yesterday.  If you think she's a little behind in the gross motor skills department, I'll have you know that Christopher didn't roll over until he was 11 1/2 months old (same time he started crawling).  So here are 3 short clips of our little chunk flipping herself over.

Christopher writes his first story...

This morning, Christopher began telling me for maybe the hundredth time certain facts and statistics about monsters.  He has always been interested in facts and statistics (i.e. the biggest, the tallest, the deepest, the greatest population, the fastest, etc.) and has some crazy ability to retain facts about everything from dinosaurs, ocean life, mammals, and now the solar system, which is his latest obsession.  I mean, he can tell you off the top of his head the exact temperature of the core of the sun, the lowest temperature recorded on Pluto, Antarctica, how many earths can fit into Jupiter's red spot, what the diameters are of each planet, and he can rattle off the names of more than a dozen stars from our sun to Canis Majoris in order of size.

That said, he likes to apply these statistics to monsters that he has dreamed up in his wild imagination.  The monster I've heard the most about is the Acoelyis monster, which is thousands of feet tall, runs thousands of miles per second, and eats millions of tons of food.  The other day when he was telling me about his imaginary monsters, I suggested that he should write a book about all of his monsters.  He replied, "Well how on earth could I do that?!"  I told him all he had to do was write down the names of each monster and then describe them.  This morning he was flipping through Dr. Seuss's My Book About Me that he got for his 5th birthday last year. This book is great because there are places where kids can fill in their own answers on the pages (i.e. hair & eye color, address, phone number, age, weight, favorite pet, what I want to be when I grow up, etc.).  He had pretty much filled the entire thing out except for the last couple of pages, which were for the child's first story.  He asked me this morning what story he should write, so I suggested that he write about monsters.  To my utter shock and surprise, he sat at the kitchen table for the better part of an hour, intent and focused on filling out both pages with his monster story!  I can hardly get this kid to stay focused long enough to write his full name let alone write a long story.  He had so much fun writing this that he asked for more lined paper to start another story.  What cracks me up is that he writes just like he talks.  If you click on each image, it should enlarge enough to read it.  I've provided a translation below since many of the words are misspelled.  But hey, he's six!  

"Once upon a time I was writing monster facts.  This is what I wrote: from monsters we cannot see to huge monsters (bigger than that).  But that's not all!  There are infinite monsters!  And what kind is the biggest?  The Lone Great Wall Monster.  Yes Sir!  But the Cook Monster which is 15 feet long, it was seen with 100 legs!  But the Pecan Monster is 4 nanometers.  And it was first found in 1956.  4,001 Monster scientists discovered it!  The story has much more to go!  And this monster has a funny name!  Don't guess!  The SooKoo monster!  Which was 187 feet tall.  And do you know how long it is?  400 feet long!!!!!  But the Shoof monster has a very long diet!  Do you want to hear it?  Well it eats 50 goldfish and clownfish a day!  And with itself 9,028 feet tall and 15,256 feet long, this Monster can run 16 mile per hour!  But here is some facts of the Lone Great Wall Monster:  it is the most common monster known.  It lives half of Russia.  It eats 19 tons of ostrich a year!!  Also 900 pounds of emu a day!!!!!!  And the Crab Monster can hop 7,204,454 feet off the ground!  It lays 202 eggs!  But it is the slowest monster known to man!  It walks 1,988 mile per day!  It has 141,997 species and lives for up to 15,000,001 years old!  It does!"

A glimpse of life in March through photos...

Tomorrow is the last day of March but it feels like March just started!

Mary Grace turned 6 months old, started eating cereal and weighed in at 18 lbs. 11 oz. at her 6 mos. check-up.  Hannah weighed 5 1/2 ounces LESS than that at her 12 mos. check-up!  I thought for sure, Mary Grace must be my biggest baby.  But after  sorting through the baby files I found that Sarah weighed over 19 lbs. and Christopher weighed over 20 lbs. at their respective 6 mos. check-ups.

We had a glorious week of Spring Break where we didn't have to be anywhere during the week, so we didn't go anywhere.  It was amazingly relaxing.  Here is Nana with her girls.

Hannah turned 2 on the 27th.  Wouldn't you know she'd have to go and get a black eye just in time for her birthday pictures?  She fell from the bench in our kitchen and hit her upper cheek on something on the way down.  The bruise drained into her eye socket over night giving her this nice little shiner on her fair skin.

Hannah is speaking so much more clearly these days and acting like such a 'big girl'.  She mimics her older sister and wants to do everything herself.  Even though she has officially entered the 'terrible twos', she has retained her very sweet nature, giving hugs and kisses and saying things like, "I wuv you so much" and "Oh, fank you!"

The sisters together at the Chinese restaurant (our favorite spot for birthday celebrations, it seems).  That balloon in the background was the object of much quarreling between the girls and much angst for their mother.  

A sign of the terrible twos: Hannah declared ownership over the balloon, her presents, her food, her water, and anything within reach with these dreaded words, "This is MINE!"  I really don't remember her saying this phrase so repeatedly up until this day.  That box on the table contained a toy sail boat with Jesus and the 12 disciples as figurines.  She even yelled, "This is MY Jee-us...No! That's MY Jee-us!"

She even staked her claim on the whole cake by opening her jaws and putting her tongue on the side of the cake.  "This is most definitely MINE!"

She clearly finished her piece more quickly than I had a chance to finish mine, so she reached over to my plate and said, "This is mine."  I may be a little more than 30 years past the terrible twos, but I asssured her that that piece was MINE.

Afterwards I took the kids to a public playground in Frisco and had a blast.  It was such a pretty evening and we had the whole place to ourselves.  Sarah climbed the highest on everything and, as the oldest girls are want to do, told her brother and sister where to go and what to do next.

Hannah peeks over the wall.

Ever-cautious Christopher.  He never climbs too high or does anything 'too risky'.  This kid is happier reading about or drawing pictures of the solar system (his latest obsession) than he is on a bike.

Happy Mary Grace with her toothless grin and big dimples.

MG is eating cereal like a pro and can't seem to get enough of it.  As you can see, she is starting to sit upright really well.

Saturday afternoon - We came home from a birthday party, got baths and then plopped in front of some cartoons for rest and Hannah just zonked out in the chair next to Sarah.

Mary Grace's first cereal and some retro cartoons for the kids...

I've neglected blogging, reading blogs and anything else that requires uninterrupted time these days since 3 very active kids and a baby keep my life FILLED with interruptions!  In the past I would blog or visit the internet when the kids were napping or in bed for the night, but with homeschooling filling up my mornings, I've found my afternoons and evenings filled with endless laundry, dishes, preparing dinner, dishes, more laundry, etc.  Anyway, this week is Spring Break and I'm using the occasion to do some serious spring cleaning, rearranging and relaxing fun while the laundry or dishwasher is going.  One of the "projects" on my to do list for this week was to start Mary Grace on rice cereal.  She is 6 months old, wearing 9-12mos. size clothes, chunky as ever and yet, starting to wake up early from all of her naps.  This is always a sure sign that the baby needs something more substantial than the heavy cream I've been serving her!  So the first video is MG's first taste of cereal.  Nana was here today and served as the camera woman for the event.  What's fun is that all 4 kids are featured in the video and I'm pretty certain all 4 kids had their first rice cereal in that same bouncy chair that Mary Grace was sitting in today.

The second video is of Christopher and Sarah watching an old Tom & Jerry cartoon.  I grabbed the video recorder because Christopher was in stitches laughing out loud throughout the entire episode and it just cracked me up!  What is it with boys and physical humor?  Watching this old classic made me realize how utterly tame today's cartoons (or computer animations) are by comparison.  Tom & Jerry, as well as all the old Merry Melodies, are filled with characters hitting, bonking, tripping, slapping, shooting, falling, and blowing each other up with ACME brand dynamite; a perfect recipe for entertaining a 5 year old boy.

While we were away...

John and I just got back from a reunion with our cohort in St. Louis.  I'll write about that later if I get time, but I wanted to quickly jot down some of the funny things the kids said while we were away and immediately after we returned.

After we loaded the kids into the van and kissed them good-bye, Nana (John's mom) told me that Hannah was saying, "Bye bye, Mindy" as they were pulling out of our driveway.

One cold morning, Nana firmly told the kids that they had to keep their shoes on if they wanted to play outside.  After a while, Sarah approached Nana and said, "Nana, can I take my shoes off now, 'cuz my foots are bored."  

After Nana and Pop bathed the kids Monday evening, Christopher threw the towel into the bathtub that was still filled with water.  When I learned of this, I said, "Christopher - what in the world did you do that for?  We don't put bath towels in the water!"  He looked at me and earnestly asked, "Then why do we call it a 'bath towel'?"

When we arrived to pick up the kids at Nana and Pop's house, they were all going crazy trying to tell us all of the fun things they did while we were away.  I then said, "Ok, now I want to hear a report from Nana and Pop on how you guys behaved while Mommy and Daddy were away."  As Nana began to gush about how good they were, Christopher interrupted, "Well, there was some disobedience, but NO consequences!"  

The other day while we were driving to the grocery store, Christopher said, "Mommy, that sign says 40 miles per hour...Pop told me to tell you how fast you're supposed to drive."

Yesterday, the kids and I walked to the playground and Nana drove to meet us there.  Sarah was riding her bike and said, "Mommy and Chri-ofer are walking and I'm riding my bike.  But Chri-ofer doesn't like to ride his bike because he's scared...and Hannah and Mary Grace ride in the stroller because they're babies...but Nana can't walk to the playground because she's old."

Last night the kids went to the Explorer Kids program at our church.  After the puppet show, the teacher asked the kids if they knew of anyone they could tell about Jesus.  She then asked if anyone had a sister or grandmother they could tell.  Christopher raised his hand and yelled, "My grandmother is 67 years old!"

Copy cats

One of the funniest, adorable, and sometimes alarming things that you get to witness as a parent is your children copying your behavior and manerisms or repeating what you say.  I thought it was pretty comical that Christopher would begin his answer to almost every question with, "Well..." until I heard Sarah do it on a regular basis.  Then I realized that's how I begin all of my answers to their questions; they simply learned this response from me.  

After a very full morning of homeschooling on Wednesday, I persuaded my wiggly 5-year-old to get through his history timeline and Latin memory work with the promise of a Starburst upon completion.  As soon as he was finished, he triumphantly took his Starburst into the family room to show Nana, who was reading books to Sarah.  Sarah naturally wanted one too, so she came into the kitchen to see where the stash was.  I had her sit down and simply go through her number recognition so that she could earn a treat just like Christopher did.  She took great pride and satisfaction in this.  After she picked out a sucker for herself, she said, "I want to take another one to give to Hannah."  I let her take one to Hannah, who was happily playing in the toyroom. Moments later, I heard Sarah asking Hannah her catechism questions while dangling the tasty sucker behind her back!  "Hannah, who made you?  Who made you, Hannah?"  Ha!  She was making Hannah "earn" her treat as well.  Hilarious.

Sarah's latest funnies...

Phonics Phun:

While I am happy to report that Sarah, now age 4, is able to make the L sound in words like "color" and "yellow", I am also tickled to share what she confidently told us yesterday:

"Mommy, F says ffff ffff fff as in fank you very much!"

Random:

Today during lunch while Sarah was munching on a cookie, she said, "Mommy, I just love to pee in the gwass!"