Geography

Tried out another garage sale find this morning. It cost me a buck and was missing the playing pieces, but we solved that with HeroClix figures and proceeded to play and learn:

Altogether, I quite enjoyed it. (It's called Passport to Culture.) Everyone answers each question, so lots of education going on. The boys are on the fence still, mostly because I keep beating them, lol, but it's definitely one to add to our geography arsenal. :)

Less than 15 months later...

So. Asher got his braces off today. :) Yes, he only got them in December of 2014. Yes, they estimated a full 24 months before they would come off. But this morning, less than 15 months after getting them, the braces came off. Apparently, Asher's teeth are as flexible as the rest of him and moved into position sooner than anticipated. 

(I'm thinking it also helped that he never had any issues with the braces...no broken brackets or wires or anything between visits. Also, there was some concern about getting them off sooner rather than later to enable him to brush certain areas better, before any permanent damage was done.)

The top two pictures are when he got the braces in December of 2014. The bottom left picture is April 2015 just before he got the bottom braces. And the bottom right picture is just a few minutes ago.

So. Pretty happy boy here. Dr. Ebert's office was fabulous (as usual) and even sang to him and gave him "happy braces off day" gifts like a bottle of sparkling cider and candy bars. Heck, they even gave *me* cookies for bringing him to all his appointments on time. :)

Now he just has his dandy retainers for night-time wear, and all is good. Yay! 

(And, whew...now we'll have a bit of a break between Asher getting out of braces and Micah getting fitted for his, lol. I'm told Micah's probably won't happen until sometime in 2017.)

Leap day

I'm a day late, but here are our "leaping" pictures from yesterday. It's become a bit of a tradition (see 2008 and 2012). Unfortunately, we no longer have a back deck with steps to leap from and I couldn't convince Noah to participate, lol. We were in a bit of a hurry, too, squeezing this in between things, so they're not great. But. They happened. :) 

Happy belated Leap Day to you all! 

Cowboy boots and flip flops

Just so you know...randomly last week, Micah decided to go country. Not sure what brought it on, but the boy raided my closet for boots and a hat then had me take him to buy a denim jacket and a new flannel shirt. (He used gift cards his Nana gave him plus the fact that he'd discovered online that all denim was on sale that day. He was quite pleased with himself, lol.)

For what it's worth, he was discouraged from wearing his ensemble to Options on Monday on account of PE. ;) We'll see how long this lasts...

Relatedly, the weather yesterday just begged for a walk. After a couple times of trying stubbornly to wear the boots on walks, Micah finally admitted defeat. Of course, this apparently meant that flip flops were the appropriate choice. :P So...we made it to the neighborhood park. Then Micah ditched the flip flops and denim jacket and we ended up with pictures like this:

Yup. Regardless of the footwear, I think we're all ready for spring here. :)  

Happy Teacher Moment

Morning schoolwork today...

So. We decided to stop learning Korean (it got really hard really fast, lol...turns out Korean is one of the more difficult languages to learn for native English speakers). This session, then, we began learning sign language. Yesterday, I taught Asher and Micah the alphabet.

Today, as part of our spelling lesson review, I had the boys take turns with one boy spelling out the word in sign language while the other boy called out the letters...thereby incorporating practice both in signing and in interpreting signs, all whilst also reviewing spelling. Score!

*****

(For those who might be interested, I currently have five potential resources for learning sign language:

• Basic Signing Made Easy (this book and dvd was an impulse buy because I found it on clearance at Barnes & Noble for about $2...turns out it's the one that seemed most straight-forward)
• Signing Made Easy
• Signing Illustrated 
• Barron's Flash Cards
• my good friend, Molly...who is an audiologist and knows sign language

So far I've only used the first one but am looking forward to more and remain open to recommendations. Also, the spelling review is just a recap of the All About Spelling lessons that we completed in years past...I've just been trying to review one level per session this year.)