Tent

The boys love love love to build tents with Rick on the weekends and these past two weekends the tent has been the biggest yet. We love our basement! The boys will sleep in the tent with Rick and they love to have a movie night so they can get in their sleeping bags and watch movies from inside the tent. BJ fell asleep inside the tent this past weekend while watching a movie, so I grabbed the camera before I had to move him. Who doesn't remember building tents with sheets and blankets?

phone call from teacher

I received one of those phone calls on Wednesday that every parent adores. CJ's teacher called me to tell me two things that he had said/shared that day at school that she thought was just phenominal. One of which was this fantastic story above. She gave each student a piece of bubble gum to chew and the writing prompt was to imagine that they got sucked in to the bubble. So each student wrote a story about the experience of being in the bubble. In my five years of teaching third grade myself, I immediatly noticed that CJ did not do the typical "first, then, next, then, then, then, finally" sequence. I read this story with much more fluidity, as there is action and authentic development of story, not forced. My absolute favorite part, that my heart just melted over, was the ending. How many children's stories to you read that end out of now where and you see the words written "THE END" to signify that the story is over. His ending is so clever, and shows that he's aware of the various endings that he's heard all these years through the millions of stories that we've all read to him! I am personally quite fascinated with story endings in picture books and read alouds, and just so tickled to see CJ writing with such thought. He couldn't wait to read it to me when he got home from school. BTW, he is trying to blow a bubble in the picture:)

Oh we were proud parents!!!

emergent writing

You guys know how much I just celebrate these developments in our little writers. BJ gave this "writing" to me in January and so I thought I'd share with everyone. How precious! I love the scribbles across the page and then a few letters. He's now working on "mommy", "daddy", and his brother's name.

And he's grown so much physically in the recent months that he's wearing his brother's pjs now! Ha ha! Sadly, CJ doesn't have a big brother to grow into his pjs:)

Two weeks ago we had to take BJ to the doctor on Saturday b/c he burned his hand on the fireplace. Long story short, his palm blistered up real quick. The doctor said the were second degree burns and would heal just fine. They wrapped him up and three days later he was just fine. AMAZING how quick a young person's skin can heal.

Well, wouldn't you know it, just Sunday of this week we had to take him back. He hasn't been to this doctor the whole time we've lived here, and now he's gone three times (twice with the hand) in two weeks. We weren't even in the database before! Now we walk in and they recognize us immediately b/c of how badly he was crying with the burned hand.

After xrays ("like Curious George when he swallowed a puzzle piece and had to go to the hospital" according to BJ), it turns out that his big brother pulled too hard on BJ's hand when they were wrestling downstairs, pulling the lower arm bone out of the elbow socket/joint. YIKES! The doctor slowly, and painfully, twisted and popped the bone back in place and BJ was instantly better.

So, we're hoping they don't call CPS on us and that we don't have to go back anytime soon.

CJ has started basketball and has his second game tonight. He LOVES it. Hopefully I'll get a picture up soon.

Emilie

When I don't hear sounds coming from BJ's room, I start to wonder what he might be up to. I was so pleased the other night when I found him quietly "reading" CJ's school library book (Secrets of Droon) in his bed. Doesn't he look so cozy?




How about this outfit?!!! Soccer socks with cowboy boots, sweatpants pulled up!

quick post...

Our lives have changed a bit since both our computers have kicked the bucket. Mine won't even turn on, no surprise, and Rick's only works momentarily. I'm hoping to post this before it freezes up.

Most of you have heard about CJ's poem that was published! We're still quite excited about this accomplishment. More than one person has mentioned to us that they assumed we wrote the poem with CJ. Let me assure you that we did not. This was one of his 'up way past bedtime, writing by nightlight' poems from last spring:)

I took the time to go over last year's calendar this morning...getting off to a slower start last January (sick for two weeks, followed by both boys sick for two more weeks), I totaled up 242 days of exercise last year. That means 242 days of exercising at least 35 minutes or more a day. In reflection, I have to admit I'm proud of this. And, I totaled 1283 miles. Many of them running. The goal this year is to maintain a routine that gets me in the gym 5-6 days a week AND to try new things (yoga, spinning, etc.).

must submit..time is out...

new hats...made with love...

One of our favorite babysitters made the boys new hats over the winter break. She stopped by last night to drop them off. Both boys were delighted to wear them and show them off today at school. Notice the thoughtful UT color selection? We love Nicole:)

snow day

A little perspective...after we dug our way from the front door, to the sidewalk, to our driveway, we dug a little infront of our car to try to get the trashcans. Tomorrow is our trashday...fingers crossed they come to pick up the trash. You can see in these first two pics that the snow by our trashcans (behind Rick) and on back to our garage is really quite high. We couldn't park in our garage if we wanted to! I'm listening to the weather as I type this and we're being warned of chances of flooding over the next three days, as our temps warm up to 40s.



Digging out one step at a time from our porch out to the sidewalk...




View from front porch...



No school today, after I told Francie yesterday that surely schools wouldn't close! These pics will tell you why. We're in shock. We really are. As we approached our house yesterday from the airport, we saw about another foot of snow since the last time we were here, and these large tree branches were blocking our driveway and front walkway. The branches are falling off from the weight of the snow. Then we got at least another 12 inches over night. The boys love it and once again we're so grateful to the Buehlers for sharing their snowsuits with us. Both boys are wearing them today, as we've lost CJ's black ones somewhere.

Don't you know our neighbors must love the 4th of July decor hanging by our front door....still:)

School tomorrow?

Man we miss everyone so much. It's hard to even write about how much we miss you. The boys and I watched our video footage today from our trip.

Going to start dinner...