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.) 

My Valentine

Nathan knows me so well. :)

Rather than making a big deal out of Valentine's Day, which I don't really like anyhow...and rather than flowers or candy (okay, I may have asked him to get me some chocolates earlier this week but that was unrelated, lol)...Nathan took me to our favorite local shoe store (that happened to be having a big sale this weekend...yay!) and encouraged me to bring home these lovely shoes:

(It's hard to tell from the picture, but they're a lovely olive-y green...a shade I don't already have in shoes/boots.) 

Yup. That's my kind of (early) Valentine. :) 

Just so you know...

...in case I go missing for awhile here, don't worry. I spent the weekend (7am-8:30pm on Saturday and then 7am-3:30pm on Sunday) helping at the boys' JOAD tournament. (The tournament went pretty well, though the boys didn't shoot great...having not really had enough practice over the last two weeks since we've had house guests.) Then I got to spend the evening enjoying the Super Bowl with my guys...WOOHOOOOO BRONCOS!! Then I pretty much crashed. ;)

So. Today I'm finally starting on my catching up from our 1.5ish weeks of having parents here. (Nathan's parents flew out Saturday morning.) Tomorrow, I'm "supposed" to start our homeschooling back up, though I've yet to prep stuff for that (but I really should start back up since we just took two weeks off). I also had to reschedule our appointment with our accountant that was set for today, since we didn't finish getting our tax information pulled together last week. (Well, my part is pulled together...but we need to get the business stuff in order.) 

So, I may be a bit quiet here this week while I get things back on track. ;) 

Indoor Skydiving

In our efforts to focus on experiences rather than things, one of our Christmas gifts to the boys this year was a family package at iFly in Denver. We finally made it down there to make good on that on Sunday. It was a pretty awesome experience. :) 

After we'd checked in and all, we watched other people in the wind tunnel for a bit before our training session. Then we got suited up:

With our package, we each got two one minute flights. The first one helped to just get a feel for it all, and during the second one we added the "high flight" option where the instructor spun/jumped/took us up the wind tunnel and back down again a few times. It was fantastic (and not as scary or motion-sick-y as I worried!). (Micah did decide at the last minute that the high flight was more than he could handle so got spun around down low, which still looked pretty dang fun.)

Anyhow, our package came with videos of one of our flights (our pick). I then also bought these pictures (which were quite reasonably priced!)...

First up was Nathan...

...then Noah...

...and Micah...

...and me...

...and Asher...

Not to brag or anything, but I was totally the best flyer of the five of us. ;) Honest! The boys will even agree with me, and our instructor (Preston...who was fabulous!) told me so when he handed out flight certificates. Regardless, we all had a fantastic time...yay!

After all that, Nathan's parents (who had fun watching us all) and the five of us grabbed some lunch and hit IKEA before heading home just ahead of the storm.

PSA: If you go and if you have long hair, I HIGHLY recommend braiding it or otherwise securing it in some way. It took a good bit to detangle my hair afterwards and I lost a lot of hair in the process, lol. Fortunately, I have a lot of hair and it grows fast. ;)