Dear Tooth Fairy

Dear Tooth Fairy,
Stephen lost his first tooth today. I'm sorry we don't have anything to show except the empty spot. The tooth went to the same place his sandwich went.
Sincerely,
Stephen's wide-eyed mother

He's been waiting and waiting for it to fall out - our pastor gives the children in church a dollar for every tooth they lose. So before we walk in the church, we've had to check and see if it's close to coming out. It was in there sideways but he wouldn't let us pull it! At lunch today it disappeared...... So much for putting his first tooth in his baby book! Have to wait for the next one.

Stephen's Artwork

Several months ago Stephen entered a creative phase ....paints, drawing, markers, staples, tape, and reams of paper! He has spent hours in this position:

His paper art is probably the most fascinating: you never know when you might need a fire,

or a lantern!

More often he's creating scenes from stories in his mind. This is a ship moored near an island with  mountains.

Then there's a castle on an island being attacked by a dragon.

And keeping with the castle theme - here's a castle, complete with soldiers - all made by hand.

I have no idea where he got the idea for TNT but we didn't have any trouble figuring out what it was. The handle even goes up and down.

A volcano.

And a ferocious fire-breathing dragon.

 I've finally started putting all his drawings and paintings in a box....prolific is a great description right now. He's starting to spend a lot of time using Sketch Up on the computer and that's easier to store...except that he names his files with names like.... woernwerosazpoawej and when you get too many of those, you can't help him find the drawing he wants to work on.

The other evening after showing his Grandpa another one of his creations he said, "God created me to paint." Who knows where his creative streak will take him......now if we can just find the stapler and keep him supplied with tape!

Stephen's Fifth Birthday

As I was sorting through picture files tonight I realized that I'd never posted pictures of Stephen's Fifth Birthday! He wanted to spend the day at the Cincinnati Children's Museum and we enjoyed all the dinosaur events.

Instead of having a cake he wanted a "blueberry pie with "the Counsel of Elrond" on it. That was his birthday gift - there was no way I was going to try to construct something that complicated.

So thankful for the five very interesting years we've had with this little man.

My Kind of Salad

One of my mothering mistakes was not introducing raw vegetables into my boys' live earlier and so......they will not touch a salad now......not even with lots of dressing. They will eat lettuce and tomato on tacos and sandwiches with some reminders of it being good for them but salad? No way. I was extolling the virtues of salad again yesterday and Stephen piped up, "I think I know a salad I would like." I said "tell me about this salad that you would like."  "Oh," he replied, "you start with melty chocolate and add M&M's, mix that up and put a lollypop on the top and you have a candy salad. I would love it!" So would I son, so would I.

And look.......someone else had the same idea! They just forgot the lollypop!

To Blog or not to Blog

I've been sitting here looking at my list of drafts - I have a total of 26 of them. That's a lot of time and energy that I either need to delete or finish! When I look at the drafts I get discouraged from starting a new post (though that's what I had set out to do) and hence, my blogging gets more and more sporadic. The truth is - I should be baking Christmas cookies and I'm just not motivated enough today to get started. So I'm working on procrastinating.

Christmas is coming! The decorations are showing up in our home and around town. I sat here at my computer and Ho Ho'd most of yesterday - I really do love technology at times. No running to 15 stores to see if you're getting the best deal. Just a few clicks you can check prices, reviews, place your order and it's on its way.

School has been in full swing and it's going so well this year. We've found a schedule that works for us. Learning which classes we can do together, which ones I need to teach and which ones in which they use their BJUP Hard Drive. We've added Spanish and art this year which has been a nice change for all of us. This was a fall craft from several weeks ago. They gave them away before I could get a picture of the finished product.

The other Friday night (which is Family night in our home), Philip found a place where we could get a tree this year. We had never heard of Big Tree Plantation but decided to give it a try. It was a fantastic experience! The boys enjoyed tramping around looking at trees, seeing the reindeer, seeing the large Nativity scene, and free hot chocolate. I was so tickled Philip was able to find this place. A little expensive but well worth it to have a live tree that is fresh cut, smells fresh cut and not spray painted green.

Oh, I guess I didn't post about Stephen getting another set of stitches - on his face again no less. So thankful he's not done any permanent damage. This time the handle bar of his scooter smacked him in the face when he fell.

In the bottom picture it still shows some of the black and blue that settled in his eye socket making him look like a little raccoon for a few days.

Here are two clips of the parts that Allan and Stephen had in our Christmas program at church this past Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't realize where Stephen's part was going to be so I wasn't ready and missed the first part of his recitation - it's supposed be "What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I'd give him a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. What can I give Him?  I'll give him my heart." Daniel requested that I not post any pictures of him in the program so I will honor that request.

And now on to Christmas baking!

Birthdays, Birthdays, and more birthdays!

September is the month to have birthdays in my family! My brother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, mother-in-law, son, and myself all have birthdays. And my grandparents had their anniversary in September.

I celebrate mine on the 11th which has become a national day of mourning but since I was born 25 years before it became a national day of mourning, I celebrate life anyhow. This year I thought it would be nice to have a coconut cream pie but didn't want the ones that come from the grocery bakery. Several calls to Servatti's and Bonboneri yielded no results but we finally found an Italian bistro not far away that would sell a whole pie for $45.00 - we skipped the pie! I told the boys I'd take them to McDonald's for my birthday since it accomplishes two purposes, I don't have to cook and they get to play in the Playland and this gives me a break! But it turned out that Philip was free over lunchtime and so we went as a family and I didn't have to pay. It was great - we never get to do stuff like that during the day because of Philip's work schedule so it was a nice family time.

My husband hit the jackpot with his gift this year! I've been craving sushi, have no idea why, but he bought me a tray of crunchy shrimp and man was it good! Wow! You can't beat good (cooked!) sushi. 

Then on the 19th Daniel celebrated his 6th birthday! Daddy always takes them out for breakfast on their sixth birthday and so off to First Watch they went early that morning.

 Evening celebration with a birthday supper of stromboli and Doritos with Pop-pop, Gramme, Paul and Myra. His cake was to be a hot air balloon. His birthday was quite the day and I didn't start decorating until 2:30 so it wasn't that great.

 A policeman uniform.

And all policemen must carry guns, with holsters. He was delighted! 

He also got his first pocket knife which is also very cool.

Then came Stephen's fourth birthday on October 2nd. He wanted a clown cake so I used a clown pan that I had and tried to make it colorful. We had Pop-pop and Gramme and our friends Darnell and Amit join us for his birthday supper of lasagne (thought he had wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!). These guys join us twice a week for supper and the boys have just adopted them as part of the family.

 He received several knights with horses and a dragon.

 Darnell playing with the knight

 Happy boy! They have already provided hours of entertainment.

He also received a set of sharks from Gramme and Pop-pop.

No more birthdays now until next spring!

David and Goliath - Told By Stephen's Expressions

Stephen's favorite story and song are "David and Goliath". One day we were having a picnic I just sat and snapped pictures while Philip told the story - his expressions were so funny!

Daddy tells Stephen he'll tell the story of David and Goliath.

A long time ago there was a shepherd boy named David.

While watching sheep he killed a lion and a bear.

His father sent him to check on his brother's who were fighting the Philistines.

At some point daddy missed something important. 

A big giant comes into the valley to mock God's people. David said, "He can't do that - I'll fight him." 

 

David gathers his stones and puts them in his slingshot.

Around and around goes the slingshot and then he let it fly. Pow - right in Goliath's forehead!

Goliath stunned, falls to the ground.

David grabs Goliath's sword....

and cuts his head off.

All in a good day's work!

How Little Boys Think

 Every morning at breakfast Philip reads the Proverb for the day. Today is the 21st so he read,

 ¹ The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He turns it wherever He wishes. 

During the Q&A time Philip asked, "Who has the king's heart in his hand?" Daniel, "God"  Next questions was "And who is the king in this house?" Allan said, "Daddy" and then Philip asked, "Stephen what does God do with the king's heart?" Stephen said, "He turns it, and turns it, (making imaginary swerving small matchbox car motions), and turns it, and CRASH!!!!!"

We had to laugh but I'm so glad God doesn't work like that!

Out of the ordinary

This week was "ordinary" but had a good dose of "out of the ordinary" events that give life some spice. Monday I did something I have never done before. I took my boys on a marathon clothes shopping trip (marathon for us...9:30 am to 3:30 pm). I rarely take them shopping let alone clothes shopping. Since I hate shopping myself, I usually relegate a few hours two or three times a year where I foray into the thrift stores and if no  success there, I take a deep breath and enter the Florence Mall. I've visited the Eastgate Mall 3? times since we've lived here and I by accident ended up in the parking lot of another mall in Cincinnati in the 10 years I've been here but it was purely by accident!

I despise shopping! The prices, the hideous music, the ugliness I have to sort through to find the "nice", the something inside me that starts thinking I "need" some of those trifles I see......it's just best if I stay away. But........

All that being said, my boys were starting to look a little ratty in their Sunday best and I finally dawned on me....my mom always bought their dress clothes and winter/spring coats/jackets. The last thing she bought was a jacket for Allan to have when he went to school in the fall of 2010. So we did the shopping thing together.....and you know what? We loved it! It snow squalled most of the day (as opposed to snow flurries which stick and don't hinder traffic) which added this Christmas/fairyland feel to the day. We hit two Targets, one WalMart, Once Upon a Child, Dillard's, Macy's, JCPenney and Sears. Never mind we only made purchases at Once Upon a Child and Sears..........we presented this as an adventure (which my boys are always game for).....on a hunt to capture some good deals for Sunday clothes. Now that being said, my boys are very verbal about the "ugliness" they saw and the "strange women", "bad music" and the "glittery stuff" (As Allan said, "Put there by people who are trying to steal your money!") but we had a grand old time darting in and out of clothes racks, riding escalators too many times to count, pretending we were on an Artic expedition as we tried to find our van during a snow squall. It was quite an adventure. We broke it up by eating out (always a treat) and riding on the carousel. And we even had some success! Whew......that's one trip down and perhaps only one more to go this year.

 Stephen (excuse the Kool-Aid mustache)

 Daniel - he said the train looked like "kids" clothes but I convinced him that because the train has a 5 on it, it's for 5 year olds.

Allan (Pappy....Allan said to tell you this is his "Lego" smile.....I'm not sure what that means)

We also are full swing back on the school wagon......YEAHHHHHH!!!!! Last fall I focused on Math, Reading, and English since we were keeping life to a bare minimum. Now it's time to get up to speed in spelling, handwriting, science and history. It's been good to be back to the books .

On Friday we had an extracurricular activity take place beside the library. They demolished a house that the school had purchased and so we watched for several hours. The boys thought they were in heaven. Smashing, demolishing, "hunching", and otherwise creating chaos is in their blood. Actually........it was very fun for me too!

The boys' comments were so funny throughout the whole process!

The video below is a shot of something that wasn't planned on in the process but it turned out okay.

It was one time I didn't have any problem keeping their attention all focused on the same place at the same time.

Have a wonderful week!