Hanging my head...

Yes, yes. I know it's been weeks since I updated this. (My father in law told me so, lol!) Sigh. I'll work on it. ;) By way of apology, let me catch you up on what's been happening in May...

OPTIONS ENDED
Yup, our "school year" with Options is officially over. The boys had their spring program on May 3 (both sang with their classes), and then the final day on May 10. Both Noah and Asher were happy to receive a little certificate of recognition from their PE classes...for achieving various levels on the national physical fitness "tests." Noah scored his highest on the push-ups and Asher (unsurprisingly) did best on the flexibility dealio (the sit and reach).  

As a special thank you for the boys' teachers, I made up these little shadow boxes:

We also added some chocolate for good measure, lol! Ended up making seven of these. Though the boys each have six different subjects, they have some of the same teachers, thank goodness. ;) Big thanks to all those teachers for inspiring my boys throughout the year!

HOME PROJECTS STARTED BACK UP
Yes, I'm still working on home projects. We took a bit of a break there after our big trip but are starting back at it. Here's one that we finally finished for the dining area:

We took three 12x16 shadow boxes, found some sheet metal that Nathan cut to the same size, spray painted that black, and added the magnets we've been collecting from places we go. Yes, since before we were married, Nathan and I have been collecting magnets from each "destination" we go to. As it happens, we had roughly the same number from before kids and after (first shadow box is before kids...second is after). We deliberately hung the empty third box as a reminder to get out there and go more places. ;)

BETTER THAN AVERAGE YARD SALE HAPPENED
Speaking of home projects...this past Sunday we had our "Better than Average Yard Sale"...or so said all the signs I made. ;) With our boys manning their own little snack, drink & origami stand, I don't think anyone could argue with me that our sale was, indeed, better than average, lol. Here, btw, are our little entrepreneurs:

Noah made up the signs and (thanks in part to his Options AmeriTowne class) worked on explaining economics to his brothers. It really was quite educational, as they worked out their expenses (we relented and only charged them for the stuff they sold instead of the total costs of the supplies...but I did make it into a fraction exercise, lol) and debated where to set their prices and counted their money and divided it by three. Yay for math! ;)

And, yes, they sold origami (that Noah had folded) filled with Jelly Belly candy. (They originally were just going to sell the origami, but I figured that they'd sell more with candy in them so prodded them a bit in that direction, lol. Fortunately, Noah "got" it...the other two money-hungry boys still thought selling things for $5 made more sense, lol.) All in all, after expenses, they made about $23 ($7.50 per boy I think) and were happy.

In case you were wondering, the yard sale part went pretty well, too. ;) We made a decent amount and, perhaps more importantly, finally have use of our front room again! (It's been filled since January when we got the bright idea to clean out the basement, lol.) Here's what it looked like just before we started lugging stuff to the garage:

Scary how much stuff we'd accumulated that we totally didn't need. ;) (Keep in mind that we had a fairly good garage sale last August, too, so this is mostly just from the basement. Oy.)

Anyhow, yard sale is over and as soon as we finish transporting the remaining few boxes to Goodwill and the like, we'll get the garage back, too. ;) Feels good.

(Oh, and for those who have asked how I manage to get the boys to be okay with selling their stuff...it was easy. Our boys are money-hungry. ;) We offered them 5% of the total take if they helped with moving stuff around and all that. You'd be amazed how quickly they can offer things up when they know they'll get a portion of the profit.)

SOCCER CONTINUES
And, of course, May has been full of soccer. I missed Noah's first ever goal but managed to get a shot of the second one:

(I missed the first goal because of the overlap of games. I was at Asher's game that weekend, while Nathan was at Noah's. It would happen that way, of course. I lug the camera to pretty much every game for six seasons and miss the one where he finally scores a goal, lol.) 

With just one game left in the regular season, Noah's team remains undefeated. We're just so happy that they're having a blast and get to play this season together as a team that's all played together before. Next season, they'll all go different directions, as the age brackets require the boys to choose between intermediate or recreational play for the coming year and then competitive or recreational after that. Since intermediate and competitive require additional expense and travel, we'd agreed that all of our boys would have to remain recreational. It just wouldn't be fair to the others on weekends when we wouldn't make all the games. (Obviously, we already have enough issues with overlap with all three in rec, lol.) 

I may have missed Noah's first goal, but I did manage, then, to see Asher's first time at goalie:

He's actually a pretty good little goalie, though he still prefers playing forward. Since the first time, he's played goalie at least a couple more times and has only been scored on once, I think (and that, honestly, was more because his defenders were in the wrong place). He really has no fear and just gets right in there. :)

And then there's Micah. I really thought that being the third boy to play soccer would give him an advantage or something. That, though, presupposes that one *wants* to have an advantage. Oh, he knows all the moves and strategies that his brothers impart to him. He just doesn't care. ;) In reality, Micah just loves to be on the field...doesn't even matter if he's near the ball. ;) At last Saturday's game, I managed to capture some true "Micah moments"...complete with all the little hand gestures he makes throughout a game. My favorite is the "force lightning"...like the emperor uses in Return of the Jedi to try to kill poor Luke Skywalker:

Yup. Micah just loves being on the field. ;) He's cute, though, so it's okay.

Been busy editing pictures from all three teams and prepping team/individual pictures. I volunteer to take team and individual pictures rather than pay the high prices that the assigned professional photographers charge. I make up a nice little 8x10 for each boy and print a handful of 4x6s of that boy in action and then just charge parents the printing costs. Here's a peak at what this year's 8x10s look like:

The end of season parties for Asher and Micah are later this week, with the last game being Saturday. Noah's team will again participate in the spring tournament so will do their end of season stuff then (June 4-6). 

OTHER STUFF OCCURRED 
And, amid all this other stuff...Asher had two more teeth pulled (poor kid has a tough time biting right now, lol)...Micah continues to need to count how many pages each book has (boy loves to count)...I finished up the 200 wedding invites/rsvps/directions for my sister's wedding this summer...we had snow on May 12 for reasons unknown...another Good Grief Blog challenge went up...and homeschooling continues to go well. :)

Whew. So. That's what I've been up to while not blogging. ;) May always seems to get me like that. Will work on updating more regularly, though. Do you forgive me? :)

Comments

[nan]

Forgive you? Yes, and looking forward to more frequent posts! You do such a nice job of presenting the exploits in fun ways.

[CarrieH]

Love the teacher gift--that is one of my very favorite quotes. Maybe I'll make one for our home? Thanks for the fun gift idea

[Jamie Harker]

Love your blog as always! Love to see that you teach your kids about stuff they need to know - and get them on-board by bribery, but making them actually work for it. GOOD JOB! (Seriously). Hope you are doing great!