Cousins

Last month was Christian's 4th birthday.  He is such a fun kid to be around.  He was so excited to be 4 just "like Joel."  He has a slight obsession with gum, so we got him all the gum he could chew through for a week-- so like 150 pieces.

Trevor and Joel enjoy giving him special preference because he is the smallest,

youngest, and most vocal.

 

We love his many many words that come out with passion and enthusiasm.

Trevor said, "He is kind, grateful for what he gets, generous,

knows I like dinosaurs, and knows that I like Spiderman."

I just love this picture of these cousins. They are best buds.

Locker Room Dining

During winter I love/hate indoor play structures.  You know, the kind you see attached to Burger King and Carl's Jr.?
This year Trevor asked for certain things for his birthday party.  He basically wanted to re-live his friend's sleep over birthday party from last September with all of the same events and people.  One thing they got to do was go to Carl's Jr. for dinner.  When I asked for further explanation about why Carl's Jr. was so important, he said, "We got to go there and play.  We never get to go there and at Jackson's party we did.  We finally got to 'cross that bridge.' " I got the serious eyes, the voice of emotion, and the eyebrows of drama.

The rest of the conversation went like this.

"Well, Trevor, the reason I don't like to go there is because it smells like a locker room."
"No, it doesn't!"
"It's disgusting."
"It doesn't smell like a locker room, it smells like hamburgers, Mom!"
"Trevor, you don't know what a locker room smells like.  And,  they don't clean them very well."
"Mom.  It's going to be an all-boys party and how about you can go have a girl's night!"
"Okay."

The Locker/Dining Room.

Pillow fight!

Sleeping at 12:30am.  I think that's pretty good for frenzy mode.

Birds of Prey

The volunteers at Birds of Prey  do demonstrations sometimes.  We got front row seats this year and it was awesome.  

Strangest Swans I've ever seen.

Snowmen

Snowmen have a very short life around boys.

 

Roll and stack:

Smile for the click:

 

35 seconds later, wreck, smash, stomp:

Add caption

Cookie Contest

We got to visit with a Texas-loving, Vegemite-licking, Australian and his cute and crazy wifey last month, too.  I'm talking about my sister Jen and her husband Solomon who had some days off and drove up to Idaho.  I heard my Dad was actually able to open his eyes as my sister BASE jumped from the bridge in Twin.  Bravo, Dad! 

Scott's new buyer's agent told me his family has a tradition of decorating cookies and that it's kind of a competition.  I liked it and stole it (thanks, Ken!). 

Jen made this ninja wearing a "budgie smuggler" (that's Australian slang) and decorating a tree in it.  : )  

Solomon won the People's Choice Award that night for his cookie decor which he explained was "a study of the light spectrum in order from high frequency wave lengths to low frequency wave lengths."  He knows how to make rainbows sound amazing!!!!!  

Wendi won the Judge's choice award.  She went with her usual strategy-- make people laugh until tears are falling. 

Wendi's creation close-up.  It depicts her experience as a karate student while in middle school.  She  explained that she is the poor ninja cookie on the bottom. : )

Ice Skating

We went to Idaho Ice World with some good friends, the Hills.  

Here we are pretending we didn't forget how cold it was inside and ICE rink.  Pretending to be cozy in our not-enough clothes.

Kristin and Luke-- what fashionably warm looks like.

Jason and Julia-- right before they practiced the"Iron Lotus."

Salad lover

Trevor is an amazing salad maker.  I think it excites him to be able to make a whole meal mostly by himself without any extra help with appliances.  He actually likes a lot of cooking.  The more independence he is afforded, the more excited he gets.  He has imagined himself opening a restaurant in the future and already asked me to be the cook.  He said I could have fries on my lunch breaks.

This last Christmas, I printed out some coupons for the boys to fill out and give to whomever they like. Trevor gave Scott a coupon for a salad, but he was so excited he couldn't wait until Christmas and gave it to him the first week of December. 

The PET fish

A little while back I played a joke on a exceptionally good-natured, quick witted and very forgiving friend who was selling a huge  fish tank on Craigslist-- complete with cichlids and all .  I made up a fake email "tedrnugget@gmail.com" and then responded to her ad with a request to have some special time with the fish before I commit to purchase.  I said I wanted to pet the fish.

Just like Joel wants to pet his.  For real.  Some things I should remember to not joke about.

Mr. Commentary

Wednesday Trevor went to a Homeschool program with Zoo Boise.  The topic was oceans.  It's an inexpensive class and in it he had a behind the scenes kind of tour with Penguins and the jellyfish.

It was a snowy day and while Trevor was in class, Joel and I played a little in the snow.

I think Trevor liked his class.  When I picked him up, the instructor said goodbye to him and something like, "I liked hearing about all those sharks." (There's my clue.)

When I asked him how he liked it, he said he did, but that he knew way more about sharks than the teacher and that the teacher didn't know anything about a tiny little shark that glows and lives in the deep deep ocean.

He has more and more to say everyday.  I was giving him addition/subtraction flash cards this week to boost his speed and memorization.  He can't just sit still, of course, but I don't make him.  This time he was doing spins on the hardwood floor.  We had pretty good focus this time, but I wasn't getting just answers, I was getting commentary, too.

He would say things like,
"Eighteen minus nine... oh, seriously, that's nine."
"Ten minus 7 is, well, 3 of course!"
"Six plus seven....whaddya know, that's thirteen I guess."
"Thirteen minus eight.....Hate to tell you this, but that's gonna be..... five."

fashion advice

My new dress came in the mail and I tried it on.   Since Scott was not home, I asked my 6 year old who sometimes has an opinion.

Me: Trevor what do you think of this dress?
Trevor: (in once glance)  Oooo... almost makes me faint.
Me: (pause.)    Doessss that mean you like it?
Trevor: Oh, well, yes.  Some people faint because they see something that's so pretty!

Seriously.  This boy is full of it every single day and I can't get enough.

The oldest question

Our rabbit trail discussions in homeschooling are some of my favorite and I think some of the most important.  I get to really know Trevor; hear about his wonderings, know his challenges, and see progress! He really is a thinker -- just like we always suspected from early expressions in his car seat.

Today our first grade level talk about American Culture and how history affects us, was, of course, diverted to dinosaurs.  After some argument about T-Rex habitat and whether or not dinosaurs have been found frozen in ice (we're working on that)  he said, "Well, I know the oldest question ever..... What did the dinosaurs say?!"

Homeschool science

Trevor uses Science Fusion for science curriculum.  I like all of its different parts: book work,  hands on experiments and projects they call "inquiry", online instruction, and books.  This was from his chapter on living things.  He is observing meal worms.  

They stink so bad!

cakes

Keri: Joel, what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?
Joel: I want Toby Mac on a bike with the seat all the way down doing a backflip and sticking the landing on a ramp.

Tamaracks

When the Tamarack trees turn in the fall, you should drive to McCall.  It's beautiful.  This is from November 1.

I like low the road edges are highlighted with gold.

Close up of needles.

Pretty!

This is from the point at Ponderosa Park.  Scott convinced me that I could run up there with him last September.  And by run I mean run for a short distance, jog, walk, pant, then just try not to trip.   It was not easy for me, but we did it!  I look forward to trying again. 

The boys had lots of quality time with Papa.

And enjoyed lots of stair sledding.  Trevor has already considered moving here someday because he loves Papa, McCall, and stairs.

Brrr.....

Smarty pants

My smarty pants niece and her husband left some prank "Squirrel Underwear" and a "Squirrel Coffee Mug."  She knows how we feel about these fluffy tails that wave through our backyard.

I just thought I'd see how daring those squirrels that ate our hammock and chewed our roof and gave me dirty looks over the years really are.

Leaf Raking

We have a lot less trees than we used to have, but it doesn't seem like there are fewer leaves!  Raking season is October thru April for us because we have one super tall oak in the front that doesn't drop all of its leaves until then.  It does like to drop some here and there for 6 months just to say... "Wait for it!  Wait for it...."  and then they drop and I'm raking when all the raking fun has worn off months ago.  It's a stinker of a tree.

Trevor got to help, but our goal was not exactly matching.  I wanted to pick them up and be done. He wanted to jump in a dirty pile of leaves.  And, saying no would be cruel and unusual-- you're only 6 once!

 

Leaf duty get so much more exciting with the power tools.

Daddy is a good sport!