Monday musings...

...Wouldn't it be fabulous if every time Noah needed a bigger pant size I needed a smaller one? ;) (Yes, I noticed recently that both Noah and Asher need longer pants...again. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if it just weren't so darn boring, lol. Noah gets exactly the same thing as before, just in a bigger size. (He's always been like this...he had the exact same model soccer cleats for four years and has been in basically the same sneaker for even longer.) Asher would be totally fine with different pants but suffers the fate of a second born and ends up with Noah's hand-me-downs for the most part.)

...Noah and Micah had another JOAD tournament yesterday. Both did well in keeping their cool...not horrible performances by any means, but not the scores they were hoping for, so we had some moments of overcoming frustration. Noah managed, though, to post his second and third highest scores for a round and has pretty tough competition (a field of more than a dozen 12-14 year old boys). Micah took second (out of two) but managed to be happy about it and to congratulate his teammate on his first ever first place. Due to the size of the tournament (164 shooters altogether, split over three sessions), I ended up running the yeomen shooters (under 9) during Micah's session. It was actually pretty fun...I love that there are fewer yeomen so we get to know them even when they're on different teams. Here they are at the line:

(Yes, Micah's mohawk is getting a bit long, lol.) On this particular shot, all three hit the bullseye. It was a really close afternoon...as these three ended up scoring only eight points different over 60 shots (a possible 600 points). It's so cool to see the strength of the younger shooters and look forward to watching them over the coming years!

...At Micah's request, we watched "The Sound of Music" last night. His music class at LEAP is apparently singing songs from the movie for their spring program so Micah wanted to watch it. Surprisingly, the other two boys sat and watched the whole thing, too. Noah has now declared that he knows he dislikes musicals, lol. (Micah enjoyed it, for the record. And is now singing to annoy Noah.) ;)

...Finally, just wanted to share some blog posts I've read lately:

14 wonderful words with no English equivalent (love these, especially those first two, lol!)

Just another manic Monday (perfect explanation)

Please don't help my kids (I find this so true...working in particular this year at building the boys' self-sufficiency and remembering that help can take the form of letting them fail...course, remember my ziggurat story? Darned if that teacher didn't give the boy a perfect score on that late paper. Bleh.)

Anyhow. Hope your week is off to a sunny start! 

Thoughts from my morning run...

...trying to run 8 miles when you kinda took December off completely from any form of exercise (beyond stirring cookie batter), is not the most fun thing...

...big dogs left in the bed of your pickup truck make me a little nervous...excuse me while I cross the street and give you a wide berth...

...while I totally get that you might not shovel your snow immediately, it's been 1-2 weeks, folks...what gives? and, yes, the city ordinance requiring you to shovel your snow includes your driveway where it's part of the sidewalk...

...love the sunshine, not so crazy about the glare coming off the ice...

...we should take our outside Christmas lights down (lol...in all fairness, it's been pretty darn cold the last few weekends)...

...wonder if I should get one of those obnoxiously bright running jackets so I'm more visible?...

...I recently read about this lady who finds all sorts of treasure on her runs...I obviously live in the wrong place for that, as this morning all I found was a full size tube of toothpaste (???)...

...though at least I didn't find a dead mouse or a live snake, both of which I've come across during runs before...

And then I was home. ;) So...what's your rule of thumb on the bright running gear and what's the most interesting thing you've found while out on a run (or walk)? Just curious. ;)

Four on Friday

1. Remember how Micah thought he was a koala? :) For Christmas, then, I got him a stuffed koala. He promptly named him "Koalie" and has been loving on him ever since. I wasn't sure how he'd go over since stuffed animals have never been really big hits in our house. But Micah's been crazy attached...asking me to watch Koalie while he does schoolwork or goes to the bathroom...telling folks Koalie's life story (he was orphaned and Micah adopted him and now Noah and Asher are uncles and Nathan is the grandpa/eucalyptus tree...yes, sometimes Koalie snacks off of his grandpa, lol)...styling the mohawks on Koalie's ears...and finding Koalie friends/cousins. Thus, please also meet Bachelor (who's been living on a shelf in my office for decades, having been a college graduation gift) and Gift (a Christmas present from my mom to all three boys, though Asher's become his daddy).

It's so sweet!

2. I think I mentioned that I ordered another word of the year ring for 2013. Well, it came in the mail this week:

I've been wearing them stacked (last year's and this year's rings). Yay! :)

3. Got new running shoes! Though I still have some life left in my Newton's that I bought to start off 2012, I went ahead and used some of my Christmas money on a new pair for 2013:

I LOVE the new color scheme! (I also love that they included the green laces along with the blue ones that came standard!) I'm stoked to wear them as I start my new training plan...gonna run the Colorado half marathon again this May. Wish me luck!

4. Earlier this week, I also got a haircut:

This isn't the best shot, but you get the idea...shorter still, which makes it pretty easy. I'm still getting used to it. What do you think? :)

Well, that's my four for today. Just random little bits to share. How's your 2013 going?

Grandparents' visit

Continuing with my catching up...

Nathan's folks flew out for their annual Christmas to New Year's visit. Given the temperatures and our dislike of way crowded places (particularly during cold and flu season, lol), we mostly stuck to home and just played games and hung out. Beyond that, we also were at the archery range a couple times...(click on any of the photos to make them larger)

...and we took some group photos in our neighborhood park...

...and the boys goofed around in the snow...

...and, ultimately, we even resorted to letting boys play on a big pile of snow in a parking lot to work out the cabin fever...

(Yeah, we weren't sure that would work, but the boys were pretty happy about it and were even sad to leave...which we did, just before the public safety patrol guy came around to tell us to get off, lol.)

And that was pretty much that. ;) 

Catching up...

Sorry I went missing...lots of thinking and trying to get back on track and not a heap to report. ;) So. Lest I get even further behind in this brand new year, I'll try to catch up:

Ziggurats. I had a whole post in my head about this. I was worked up, lol. Then, current/world events made it seem insignificant and it got pushed aside. In short, though, Noah had an assignment for his history class at LEAP. It was an end of term sort of larger project thing and was assigned at least a month in advance of being due. (It was due December 12.) Since I've been really working on getting boys to take responsibility for their own due dates and to apportion their time accordingly, I struggled and told myself to only remind him once a week. And that's what I did (including the week during that time that we had "off" from our own schoolwork...a perfect time to work on a project, wouldn't you say?).

So. Of course, the boy waited until the very last minute...asking me on Monday to go out to get the supplies he needed to build a model ziggurat, spending Monday working on that and then telling me Tuesday that he also needed to write a two page paper about ziggurats. It was all due Wednesday. Did I mention that we still had our normal schoolwork planned for those two days and that we had a gathering with friends in there as well? Yeah. I ended up rescheduling and reworking all my own plans (and telling him all about it so he'd realize how much he was inconveniencing us all, lol). There was also much frustration about how to get the darn thing to stay together, upon realizing that hot glue would not work (something he could have figured out sooner obviously). (Packing tape and stick pins, btw, were the answer.) In the end, here's what he went to class with:

He was going to paint it. We found this awesome spray paint that gave it a sandstone look/texture. (We opted for spray paint because certain eldest sons are a bit anal and we knew that painting by brush wouldn't work so well, as brush strokes drive him crazy.) But. He didn't allow for enough time to test that AND have time to adjust. And our test piece showed that the spray paint had something in it that dissolved the adhesive keeping the foam board together...which obviously was not going to work. So. He left it white. 

Oh, and that paper that was supposed to accompany it? Yeah, he didn't finish that before Wednesday. He told me he'd work on it during class and that would be fine. Right. I was secretly a wee bit happy about this, as I envisioned him learning his lesson and realizing the error of his ways. But. The teacher decided to give Noah an extra week to finish the darn paper! The nerve! And then the teacher was out the following week, so I couldn't even go talk to him about making sure to grade Noah off for lateness. Sigh.

(Just so you know, I actually have gone in and spoken to one of his other teachers about this...making sure they're not cutting him any slack and that I'm totally good with them marking him off for being late. Thus far, I find that the teachers at LEAP are more willing to cut my boys slack because we're homeschoolers and because they're pretty nice boys and know how to look all sweet and like it wasn't their fault...and probably some because I know other parents get upset if you don't. I don't think that's doing my boys any favors, though, so I've said as much.)

Anyhow. That was my ziggurat story. It was longer when I was really worked up. ;) And, to be fair, Noah does seem to have realized the importance of planning ahead a bit more since then. 

Hmmm. This got longer than anticipated. I'll continue catching up in separate posts...