Jonah Turns 8!

Joanh turned 8 last week and while we didn't get to do our normal birthday festivities because we are still in our 14 day quarentine from international travel (I promise an update is coming soon!), we did get to do the birthday questionarre and it really did help make his birthday more special. 

What is your favorite color? Dark Green

What is your favorite toy? Legos

What is your favorite game? Duos

What is your favorite song?  The Imperial March

What is your favorite animal? Black Bear

What is your favorite book? Harry Potter

What is your favorite movie? Star Wars 9 !

What is your favorite thing to eat? Pizza

Where is your favorite place to go? Different country

What is your favorite outfit? Harry Potter Shirt and black trousers

What do you like to learn about? School  

What have you learned in the last year? King John likes to suck his thumb and say "Mama" (He siad this laughing. He knows that's not quite right but we did learn about John and his mother recently then we watched one of my favorite disney movies as a kid, the animated Robin Hood.)

What is hard for you? Being patient

What is your favorite thing to do as a family? Go hiking

What do you like about Mommy? You do Monkey Butt Time with me 

*Monkey Butt Time is what we call our daily one on one time with each kid/parent combo. It was "supposed" to be "Mind Body Soul Time" but somehow that became Monkey Butt Time. I blame Craig for this.

What do you like about Daddy? He's funny and he tells jokes about broccoli ice cream

What do you like about Lucy?  She's nice and she plays games with me

What do you like about Norah? She climbs on me

What do you like about Jude? He's funny and he makes us laugh.

 What do you like about yourself? That I'm creative

What do you want to be when you grow up? An inventor

Jonah turns 6

Dear Jonah,

You're 6 years old now! We measured you on the wall and then did your birthday interview. You crack me up sometimes. 

Jonah's Birthday Interview:


What is your favorite color? Red

What is your favorite toy? Legos

What is your favorite game? Enchanted Forest

What is your favorite song? Star Wars song! Of course! (Yes, I know. I hear him humming it all the time!)

What is your favorite animal? Gorilla

What is your favorite book? Clone Wars

What do you like to snuggle with at night? Nothing, that's a baby question. Too old for that. 

What is your favorite movie? Star Wars!

What is your favorite thing to eat? Pizza

Where is your favorite place to go? Library - to get Star Wars books. 

What is your favorite outfit? I have no star wars outfits. But I do have a favorite, my batman outfits. My other ones outgrew me. 

What do you like to learn about? Star wars...ha, ha, ha. What about in school? Okay, then. Math.

What have you learned in the last year? Math, math, math. 


What is hard for you? Falling asleep. 

What is your favorite thing to do as a family? Go places, park, nature centers. 

What do you like about Mommy? That you had a baby.  And I like to go on dates with you. 

What do you like about Daddy? That he tells funny jokes. 

What do you like about Lucy?  Lucy's teaches me how to do stuff. 

What do you like about Norah? That she's so funny. 

What do you like about Jude? That he's a tiny baby and that he is someone I can babysit. I'm a good babysitter for him. (Note: He's talking about when I say, "Hey, watch here Jude swing while I go down and switch the laundry" or "I'm going to take a shower while Jude is asleep, tell me if he wakes up and starts to cry". I promise I'm not leaving them unattended for lengthy periods of time :-)

 

What do you like about yourself? That I'm as so crazy. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? A robot maker and inventor - of robots. 

We recently let you watch the original Star Wars series for the first time and well, it was a hit. Now, it's all Star Wars all the time around here! You wanted a Star Wars cake and initially that had me perplexed because all the ones I could find were quite involved and involved lots of black fondant. But you and I figured out a good solution and you loved your cake. The candles as light sabers was your own "invention" and it worked perfectly! 

When one kid really wants to eat Luke and the other really wants Darth Vader and dad is a pretty nice guy :-)

Present time: Star Wars Legos, Star Wars dress up, star wars tees. Plus a really cool robot you got to stay up late coding with-  and some more legos and you've still got a  few more presents in the mail. And Lucy de andsigned made you a cardboard computer and coding "toy." Your family does love to spoil you!

You're worth spoiling a bit. Some stuff comes easy to you, especially math and you've recently taken off with reading. You have some amazing ideas and are always coming up with plans - some feasible, some not as much. But you've also faced some big challenges. You are one of the most determined and persistent kids I know though so you're moving past them and it makes me so proud of you. Your determination does not always make you easy to parent but I can't wait to see how God is going to use those qualities in you as you grow up (well, actually, I can wait, don't get there too fast!). You've always been my "Jojo" but this summer have said you would like to be "Jonah" now. Oh, well, okay then. 

You've always been on the shy side which only makes me sad because not everyone gets to see and hear how funny and clever you can be but I can see your personality start to emerge around others more and more. You seem to be a favorite at church and have made friends young and old.

You're small in size but not in strength. You're super athletic and always climbing up things and doing amazing feats that make my heart skip a beat while I try and be laid back about it. So far no broken bones! Just a lot of baths and a lot of laundry.

Earlier this year when you decided to dig a big pit. Ruined several pairs of shorts but you and your puppy pal burned off a lot of energy. 

You have a great heart. I've seen that grow so much this year as you've had the chance to really ponder some big ideas and your love for God and his Word is such a joy to behold. You're a great brother and can be so loving and kind it melts my heart. I just love your combination of energy and spirit and crazy boy wildness that I can't seem to tame that can switch in an instant to this calm sweet boy who helps his siblings as gently as can be. I can't wait to see what the next year brings to you - and you to it!

Meet the piggies

As I noted before, one goal for this year is to increase Lucy's responsibilities around the house. And what better way than a pet! Well, there might be better ways, but certainly not cuter ways. A few months ago I read these posts on Afterthoughts and realized that Lucy really needed a pet.

We went with guinea pigs. I've always been a fan of the small animal pet, my first post on this blog, all the way back in 2007, was about our last small animal, a hamster named Gus-gus. But guinea pigs are a little sturdier than hamsters if you have an Elmyra in your house. Our is a 4 year old boy but the video isn't too far off. He gets it from me I know. They are also lively during the day and pretty darn cute.

We decided to get them back in November and I was checking out Craigslist quite frequently in hopes of finding just the right ones when I saw a Guinea Pig sitting job pop up. It ended up working out for us so Snow and Coco came to spend a month at our house and gave us a nice chance to see what the responsibilities - and benefits - of Guinea Pig ownership would be before we took the plunge ourselves. And the money we earned was just what we needed to buy their own (and I can say we because both kids are helping with the care of these gals).

They are used to living in a much quieter house than ours and are pretty shy but have slowly come around to us although I think they'll probably be happy to return home next week. But all three kids seemed to be fans so Christmas came and a few Guinea Pig necessities showed up under the tree. 

And on New Years Day the right guinea pigs came along. They were a set of young ones, well socialized and living in a lively house and one week later they are starting to settle in quiet nicely.  We went and each kid got to pick which one they wanted. They were several really pretty ones, with different colors and an Abyssinian with crazy hair that I was routing for. Lucy picked this reddish, 4 month old Teddy Guinea Pig which she named Betsy.

She's already pretty friendly and will gladly eat from Lucy's hand while being held, or snuggle in front of her on the ground. I didn't know much about Teddy's before this but she definitely fits the stereotype of having a friendly and warm personality. Lucy's in love. Betsy is definitely her piggie. 

Jonah waved between a tri colored one that I liked but they decided on a baby white one. The whites were my least favorite but I let his choice stand. She was only 7 weeks old so pretty small and being all white, she kinda looked like a rat. But she's growing on me. 

He, being four years old, has been quite indecisive about her name. I'm a fan of the literary names so Lucy and I were really hoping for a Tacy to match Betsy but he wasn't impressed with that idea. After being Snowco (keep in mind the names of the two we are babysitting), Snowcone, Boo-Boo Butt, back to Snowcone and now, what seems be sticking and my personal favorite of his choices - Coconut. I'm just glad it's not Boo-Boo Butt. I couldn't complain too much about that choice because it was also a literary reference but I think Coconut fits well for a all white piggie and didn't hesitate to praise that idea. 

She's not as calm yet as Betsy  but from what I've read about taming a guinea pig, she's still doing really well. She likes to be held in the cuddle cups I made. Despite Jonah's many attempts, she won't eat from his hand then but will take long things like carrots sticks, celery or lettuce from my hand when she's in her cage. And no shaking or signs of distress when we hold her. And it's only been a week. Jonah doesn't have the patience that Lucy does for sitting with her so I've secretly snuck in a few times to give her some socializing sessions. And while Lucy would say Betsy is her piggie, Jonah says Coconut is his and mine to share. I don't mind that and it is what I expected. But in the next few years, I think that will change. Norah thinks they both belong to her and tries to hug, kiss and pet them all the time. But she does it all without actually touching them which is probably for the best at this point. 

She really doesn't want that carrot. But she'll accept a nose rub. 

Snow and Coco are here for a few more days and I'm waiting on a few parts to finish up Betsy and Coconuts C & C cage so its a bit crazy. I've got piggies upstairs and downstairs and boxes of hay everywhere you turn and I'm still figuring out what style of cage liner I like best before sewing several of those so I'm doing more of the work than I hope to eventually but once that is done and our system is in place, I'll start handing more of the work to Lucy and I think she's excited about that too. That will just leave me with three kids, a husband, 5 chickens and a cat to take care of, easy peasy right?

Four should be fun

Dear Jonah,

Four! You are four today! You've been counting down the days for a while. To you, that mostly means saying "tomorrow I'll be four!" and my reminding you that no, you have a X days left. For about two months now. But finally it was actually true.

Lucy saying "There's the birthday boy!"

You're such a simple kid. You didn't have grand plans for your birthday. You wanted homemade pizza with Pepperoni AND sausage. You wanted a dessert with dirt and gummi worms (but not cake, you don't like cake) and you wanted to go to the zoo as a family. And maybe some Legos. Because you are big now. But not too big. I love that you still want me to snuggle with you at night but I fear those days are numbered.

You love to be a boy. Obviously having a big sister has influenced you a bit but the boy is coming out and you are starting to exert yourself more and more. Just this morning Lucy managed to convince you to pretend to be Gaston so she could be Belle but then you decided that Gaston needed to eat Belle instead of want to marry her.  So then she tried Jafar so she could be Jasmine. You'll go along with her plans to spend the morning drawing but decide to draw trucks and cars and helicopters instead of the princess scene she suggests.

You and Lucy continue to be best friends. I love watching you talk to each other. You understand each other in a way no one else can. And you've got to keep up with her. You fill in answers when she takes her exams, you insist on doing math too - and your pretty good!  You are also amazing at puzzles and love to put together spatial type block challenges whether that's games or duplo buildings just based on a single picture. You've started writing your letters and love to sit with Lucy so she can make one for you to copy.

But you don't leave Norah behind. You are a great big brother. You love to sing, to the tune of Oh, Shenandoah, "Oh Norah Jane, I really LOVE you" and you are always watching out for her. Sometimes your help causes more problems that real help but your heart is in the right place. You can make her laugh so easily and you insist on rushing in to her as soon as you hear her wake up from a nap.

I love how I never really know what's gonna come out of your mouth. You show me a drawing of a spider and then proceed to tell me all about it and all the observations you've made and I'm amazed at the mature ideas you have. But then I read the line "wait for him to grow thin again" and you follow up with "and poop."


You're a man of opposites. You have two speeds -  whirling tornado fast or dawdling tortoise slow. Going on a hike with you is a pendulum of "Jonah, wait up for us!" and "Jonah, come on, let's go." One of the most common phrases out of your mouth is "That's not safe" and you rode the carousel three times at the zoo but never on one that went up and down because those were too scary. But I can't count the number of times I've found you about to do something that might kill you - like try to ride your tricycle or bike on our concrete wall or tying a jump-rope around yourself to catch you as you jump out of a tree.

You're skinny and fairly little but really strong and a good athlete - when you feel like it. Overall, you're a stinker. You are the reason we check out books like "No David" and "Harriet, you'll drive me wild" from the library. You probably only wear pants about half the time we are at home (but thankfully, 100% of the time we aren't!) and are often covered in dirt and bruises. But you can be super sweet too. The kind of kid who carefully reads the car his sister drew him before ripping into his presents. You insist on rescuing worms and ants that are caught in rain puddles.

 And when at home, you're volume is most decidedly loud but out and about, you are quiet and introverted. You often tell us you don't want to do something because you are shy. That's okay but I do think everyone else is missing out. Because loud or quiet, fast or slow, you are pretty awesome and I'm glad I have the privilege of being your mom!

Year 1 begins!

Lucy and all her Year 1 books (except those that I only have on the kindle)

We started Ambleside Online Year 1 last week. I'm only planning on us doing four days of school a week so I'm treating each week as a unit so I don't feel behind when we are on week 5 six or seven weeks from now. We are almost done with "Unit" two and still have yet to have a bad day. I know we'll have one eventually, but getting through even a whole week without one is certainly nice, let alone two. I'm sure part of it was getting back into a regular routine again after the holidays but I think at least as much of that was just that Lucy's mind was needing this extra work. She was ready for some deeper ideas to think on. 

The kids and their handicraft for this semester - paper folding!

Lucy's doing great with narrating although I knew she'd have a natural bent for it. She's even been disappointed once or twice when I told her that was all the books for the day. "No more narration?! Not even a little bit?" We've been able to keep it at an hour or less (excepting piano and reading aloud practice which we do later on) which left us plenty of time for free play. And even with a yucky day or two, weather wise, we still managed to get outside for over 6 hours each week. I'd say we are off to a strong start. A few memories I want to save:

• After several really good narrations, we did have one "Uhm, I don't really know what's happening" response after we read a portion of the Sword of Damocles. I tried not to panic and told her to think and she what she could remember. Then I bit my tongue and waited patiently until she eventually she came up with a one sentence narration. But that night when I asked her if she wanted to tell her dad about what she did in school, she had a whole bunch to say about that very same story!
• I loved the morals she came up with at the end of our first Aesop Fable, the Wolf and the Kid. She said the lesson for the wolf was that he shouldn't have been distracted, which is pretty close to the original of "Do not let anything turn you from your purpose" (and I hadn't read the original to her yet) and she said the lesson for the Kid was to "listen to your mom!" which is, again, quite true :-)
• We listened to Vivaldi on our way to and from tumbling class. It's a cd of the four seasons and every time the music changed, Lucy would ask, "Is it still spring? Is it summer now? When is winter?"
• We had a late start one morning. Except it wasn't really a late start. Lucy saw a bird at our new window bird feeder. We got out the binoculars and I showed her how to use our field guide. I'm not sure we correctly identified it but it was a good morning. And eventually we did get to the schoolish part. We had to cut math a bit because we had plans for later that morning but nobody felt rushed and it was well worth the detour. 
• Tea time this week was actually hot chocolate and popcorn. We're now joining the AO picture study rotation whereas before I was selecting artists that I think are especially young children friendly. I was a bit nervous but no need. Both kids liked Belasarius begging for Alms. I wasn't planning on explaining it but we were unsure which person was Belsarius was so I pulled up the extra description AO linked to and summarized it. Once I did, both Lucy and I made the connection back to...The Sword of Damocles! We talked a bit about how power can be dangerous. It was a very cool mommy daughter moment and I can't wait to have more. 
• Since Lucy's getting all these new books, I went ahead and decided to let Jonah start MEP Reception. He loves it and at our last midwife appointment, had to tell her all about what's he's doing. 

• While hiking, Lucy found some sort of pod that looked like a little canoe and yelled, "It's paddle to the sea!" Then she started worrying about how the boy is going to get the boat back at the end of the story if it really does start flowing down when the snow melts. I've never read the story but I'm guessing he doesn't. Hope she's ready for that when the time comes. Luckily, we have a while!
• We watched a free kid's knife class (the one from Real Kids Cook Food, only available until Jan 18th!) and then practiced. That night, Jonah and Lucy helped me make breakfast for dinner. I tried to be very hands off and between the two of them, they did almost all of the pancakes and fruit salad, even flipping the pancakes! I realized I had been holding them at a lower level of skills out of habit but they were ready for more and when I gave them the opportunity, they did great! 

Update:

I got a request for a little more information about AO Year 1. The original booklist can be found at the wonderful ambleside online site. I am so grateful for all the work these woman have put into planning this curriculm and offering it to anyone for free! 

I'm still working out whether I prefer hardcopies or kindle (if I have the option). For this first year, free reads excluded, the only ones I think I had to purchase were the James Harriot book, the three D'Aulaire books, Paddle to the Sea and the A.A. Milne and Gyo Fukikawa poetry books. I was able to get all but the D'Aulaire books used for very inexpensive (less than $4 each) and I manged to get all the D'Aulaire books for Year 1 and 2 on sale a few months ago. 

I also choose to get physical copies of Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry book, the Aesop for Children, and Just So Stories when better world books was having a sale and again, I bought used hardcovers for less than a new paperback would have been. And we already owned not just one but two versions of Lamb's Shakespeare so we are certainly set on the Shakespeare front!

I'm still not sure how the e-book versus physical book comparison will go, at least right now while I am the one doing the reading. Right now we are doing school inside at the table but in the spring I'd like to get back to outside schooling so the e-books may win on the front but for now we are enjoying the hard copies. Either way, Ambleside Online is a great deal. I don't consider cost to be the number one priority for picking a curriculum but I certainly won't complain about the low cost either!

The Camel Tradition Continues

Facebook reminded me this morning that three years ago I had posted about our trip to the Way of Lights. I didn't really need this reminded because we went again last night. I'm not sure its worth a trip just for it alone but we were up near there anyway and this gave us the opportunity to get our third newborn with a camel picture. It's become a tradition now. 

 

Norah and I (along with our trusty friend, the green ring sling that was also at each event. I love that thing!)

Here's Lucy's shot (at the state fair when she was about 2 months old)

And Jonah's (at the Way of Lights at about 3 months old.) 

I really never would have guessed when we took that first one that it would be repeated but once we did it twice, we had to keep going and luckily, this is the season for camel spotting. Do any of you have "spontaneous" traditions like this? I'd love to hear about them, especially if they are as random as this one.

Jonah's Birthday Interview

Jonah's birthday interview!

What is your favorite color? Orange and Yellow

What is your favorite toy? Train

What is your favorite game? Zingo

What is your favorite song? I don't know. I'll sing it for you. Abide with me, falls the even high (Abide with Me is our hymn this semester)

What is your favorite animal? Cow

What is your favorite book? Where the Wild Things Are

What do you like to snuggle with at night? Baby Cow

What is your favorite movie? Mickey Mouse, the new one (Three Musketeers)

What is your favorite thing to eat? Wormies! (His term for Spaghetti)


Where is your favorite place to go? Where the Wild Things Are Place (referring to this library exhibit)

What is your favorite outfit? Puppy Jammies!

What do you like to learn about? Reading, like when you read to me. 

What have you learned in the last year? Counting and riding my bike

What is hard for you? I don't know....write puppies and cows and things (he means draw). When I'm three I will learn to do that.

What is your favorite thing to do as a family? Play games

What do you like about Mommy? Loving me

What do you like about Daddy? Playing games with daddy

What do you like about Lucy? Playing with you-cee

What do you like about yourself? Like me!

What do you want to be when you grow up? A puppy!

Celebrating Two!

I love the second birthday because they get it. The first the might understand presents and like cake and ice cream but this year, he knew it was coming, he was excited and he can hold up two fingers when you ask his age.

 And now, with most of his presents coming from extended family who live out of town, he knows that when the mailwoman comes, he can run up to her to get a package and say "Happy Birthday to Me!" I'm sure he'll unlearn that soon as the real truth that we all have to come to grasps with replaces it and he comes to understand that mail is normally boring bills or things that go straight to the recycling bin. But for now, the mail enthusiasm is quite charming.

I think this is my favorite cake picture. It's not the most flattering picture of me I've ever seen but on Jonah's side, doesn't that just scream "I'm Two!?" He kept trying to put his whole hand in the cake and was saying "My cake, my dino" over and over again like I didn't know it was actual his. A long day with an airplane flight and no nap probably contributed to the issues but once we moved on to the singing and candles and cake eating part, he did better.

The funny thing is that he doesn't actually like cake, he just eats the ice cream. But he didn't skip the cake because of taste. It was from a box which I hardly ever do but GF baking is still intimidating and I must say that the King Arthur Gluten-Free Cake Mix is superb. Probably my favorite boxed cake ever. With a simple chocolate frosting and a Schleich dino stuck on top.

He got lots of books, some dress up stuff and a bunch of dinos. Here he is with his "Big Dino Thomas" after an unfortunate chin + concrete = urgent care incident. He wanted "Big Dino Thomas" to have a chin band-aid just like he had. That's my sweet, crazy, energetic, injury-prone little boy!

13 months

No monthly pictures anymore but I do want to jot down a few notes about milestones.

• Teeth - 5. He had one at 11 months, 4 at a year and now has added another to the batch.

• Signs - 15+ The ones I can think of right now are book, more, milk, water, eat, all done, potty, kitty, horse, bird, elephant, crocodile, monkey, puppy, phone, sleep, train but I'm pretty sure there are more that are escaping me. At first every animal was kitty, now he defaults to puppy unless he knows the exact sign which reminds me, I really need to look up the sign for giraffe and bunny. 

• Words - Not much. He'll say mama and dada and at times it seems to refer to us, other times not so much.  And occasionally "nana" for banana but not reliably. He does consistently make animals sounds though - neigh and moo, as well as elephant and a monkey sounds. Can you tell he likes animals?

• Other cute stuff - He loves the itsy bitsy spider. He loves to do "How big is Jonah. So Big!" He can point to his mouth, nose, ears and beep-bo (belly button for you non Sandra Boyton readers). He loves give hugs and kisses, especially to Lucy. Every night before I leave the room, I blow Lucy a kiss and now Jonah has started blowing her kisses constantly from the time I tuck her into bed until we are down the hall and into our room.

• He's still a big climber although he's pretty good at it which makes me worry less. At my dad's last weekend, he climbed down from the dining room table without so much as a bump. We finally caved and got a more escape proof booster seat which is good but I never really trust anything to contain or control him. 

• Toddler. Rarely crawls these days and is starting to get annoyed with being carried. Luckily, he's normally okay with being worn as long as I am moving and he is getting better about walking while holding your hand which helps. 

• He's my little guy. I don't have accurate stats since his well baby is next week but he's definitely on the small side. He has enough personality to make up for it though. 

• He loves his hat, he loves his swedish mocassins. Any other clothing is purely optional.