On Guard!

I tried to get a good picture of the shields the kids made, but I couldn't get both of them to look at the camera and smile.

In this picture, Luke was smiling, but he wasn't looking at me. He was amused at whatever it was Seth was doing with his shield and screw driver.



Seth had put his screw driver away in this picture, but I have no idea what he was doing with his fingers.



Another picture of some sort of secret hand signal.



And finally my last attempt at a picture to get both of them smiling. At least Luke was cooperative.



I put my camera away and admitted defeat. I know one of these days when Seth is looking through my blog, he's going to wish he had smiled for at least one of the pictures I took of him and his shield.

Studying Creation...

Did you know that the African elephant stands 13 feet tall and is 20 feet long? Its trunk is 300 pounds and its tusks weigh 250 pounds each! We tried to imagine squeezing one of them into our house. Our dining room is about 11 1/2 feet wide. We would need a room twice as big as that to hold the African elephant. Oh, and it would bust through the ceiling. We were fascinated at how large the elephant is. They don't look that big when we see them at the zoo. I need to make a point to find out if the elephants at our zoo are African or Asian. The Asian elephants are smaller than the African ones.

While we were studying about animals, the boys were supposed to make some animals out of playdough. We added in some Mr. Potato Head pieces to make it more interesting. Luke liked wearing the glasses.

Field Trip to the Apex Fire Station

We went with our homeschool group to visit the Apex Fire Station on Friday. I told Luke we were going to meet the firemen. He said, "We're going to eat the firemen?" I had to explain to him the meaning of the word "meet." When we got there, we saw a few of them outside and Luke was scared of them because he thought they were "the mean guys." After convincing him that they were good guys and they help people when they're in trouble, he was finally ready to "meet" them.

The kids really enjoyed sitting in the truck. Luke liked it so much he asked to sit in all of the trucks.

One of the firemen put on his full uniform so the kids could see it. The suit was hot and the poor guy was sweating when he took it off.

They told us that they only fight fire for about 3-5 minutes and then they rotate with someone else while they rehydrate and have their vitals checked. They also have heat sensors inside their helmets that let them know when they are in danger of overheating. They let the kids try on the oxygen tank to see how heavy it is.

I think the moms had just as much fun as the kids, even though we didn't get to sit in the fire truck or take home fire hats like the kids did.

Spelling Fun

How do you get a child that doesn't like to write with traditional writing tools (such as pencils, pens, markers, crayons, etc.) to practice writing his spelling words? Give him a tray filled with flour and a popsicle stick. It will make spelling lessons his favorite part of the day! And when he finishes with his words, chances are, he'll look something like this:

First Day of School!

We actually started school 2 weeks ago, but once again, I'm behind in my blogging.

The kids were really excited about starting school again. After everyone got ready for the day and all the beds were made, we went outside to take our "First Day of School" pictures.

Here's Seth, my big 1st grader:

And Luke, my potty accomplished preschooler. He's been able to identify all the letters and the sounds they make since he was 20 months old, but I'm not bragging or anything. Actually, I can't take any credit for it. He learned it all from a video.

We started our day with a geography lesson. We made a huge map on the floor and labeled all the continents. The boys hopped around Australia like kangaroos, waddled across Antartica like penguins, roared like lions in Africa, climbed the Eiffel tower in Europe, and swam across the Atlantic to America.

Here they are pretending to be statues in Europe (don't worry, they cleaned up all those toys after our geography lesson):

And swimming across the Atlantic:

Then Seth did some math.

And Luke had a snack.

Seth wanted me to take a picture of his leg on the counter.

Then I gave them each a bag and told them to put 5 items in their bags that told me something about who they are.

Luke brought back some legos and a twirly light. The photographer forgot to include the top of his head in his photo.

Seth brought his sandals (because he thinks they're really cool), a water hose sprayer (I still don't know where he got it, but I have a suspicion that it was under his bed), some money, a Bakugan, and the Nintendo PSP.

Then we talked about how a biography is a story that tells about a real person and if we wrote a biography about them (Seth and Luke), we would include stories about the things in their bags. They thought that was really cool. Well, at least Seth did. Luke wanted another snack. We're currently reading a biography about Ben Franklin.

So far, Seth's favorite subjects are spelling and science. Luke likes art and science. And snack.

Happy Birthday, Jesse!

Today we celebrated Jesse's 31st Birthday! We were going to go to the beach this morning, but it was supposed to rain all day. We ended up going to Streets of Southpoint in Durham, where we had lunch at Firebird's. Jesse and Seth happened to be in the bathroom with the manager, and Seth told him that it was Jesse's Birthday. (I'm sure he told him lots of other things, too.) The manager was really nice and sent a free dessert to our table. We got the peanut butter pie and it was super yummy. We left the Durham mall and went to Crabtree Valley mall to visit the Apple, Disney and Lego stores. Then we came home and ate Jesse's cake that I made for him. (I used the Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake recipe, but I made it as a layer cake and thickened the frosting.) I forgot to take a picture, but it turned out pretty good.

The boys picked out presents earlier this week. I asked Luke what he wanted to get Daddy and guess what he chose?

"Look, Daddy, its chocwit!"

"Here. I help you."

"Daddy, I tell you somefin. Can I have some chocwit?"

Seth was extremely eager to have Jesse open the gift from him.

Jesse was excited, too!

It was a Star Wars fighter jet!

"Hey Daddy, when can I have a turn playing with it?"