Miscellany.

1. Sorry I went quiet there for a bit...stupid head cold. ;) Better now and feeling fortunate that somehow only Nathan and I got it. (For the record, Nathan had it first, so obviously gave it to me, lol.)

2. Given the head cold dealio, we didn't get much accomplished this past weekend. Did watch a heap of Winter X Games, though. ;) I find that sort of thing fascinating...and appreciate the opportunity to point out to the boys just how dangerous some of that stuff is, lol. Seriously, though, *how* do they do some of that?!

3. We've been on somewhat of a Scrabble roll here lately. My brother got Noah hooked at the start of the month (they played a game, iphone to ipod). After that, Nathan, Noah and I all started a few games (two person games, again via our i-devices). I, of course, have a winning record. To be fair, my brother warned both Nathan and Noah not to play against me. ;) And, um, it's not wrong to whoop on your 11 year old with an 86 point word, right? ("Meditate" since I know you're wondering...got the extra 50 points since it used all my letter tiles and it was also on a triple word score.)

Anyhow, Micah soon got tired of only watching and found our actual board game. Thus far, he's made Nathan play a few games with him. Last night, they finally kept score. Micah won...325-261. ;) (Admittedly, Micah had considerably better tiles toward the end...and I *may* have helped him for a few turns. Really, though, it was less than a handful of turns to finish using up his tiles. He did a great job all on his own.) Micah says he wants to play me next...

4. Please tell me I'm not alone in my irritation with pump containers. Why, oh why, is it that the silly straw things don't reach all the way to the bottom of the containers...such that I always end up with like half an inch of product left in the bottom that I can't pump out?

5. I have a confession. I've totally slacked in the structured homeschooling department this month. Haven't really managed to pick up my lesson plans...at all. On the plus side, though, we've played plenty of educational games, learned new words, continued all our extra-curricular activities (Options, karate and swim team), read a number of books and worked on honing the boys' skills with their new archery equipment. 

6. Also, Nathan and Noah recently started a new curriculum called Code Year that they're both pretty excited about and happy with. 

7. And, Noah's best friend has been supplying him with a list of apps to try. :) One of the apps, in particular, has even made it onto my iphone. I've been having fun with it and love that it encourages both problem solving and spelling. It's called Scribblenauts and apparently started out as a Nintendo game or something. Try it. You'll like it. ;) I had a whole crowd of boys gathered around me before Asher's karate class last week, offering suggestions and watching Micah and me play.

8. I've been purging again. Don't look in my basement guest room. It's a mess. ;) If you're local, anticipate a rockin' garage sale this spring. :)

9. In case you've been waiting for it, the Ormolu shop is currently restocked. I know a few things were sold out, but they're back now. Enjoy! Oooh! And, there's a cool instagram challenge going on and ending Feb 8...totally easy and potentially quick! And another challenge, an un-Valentine Valentine challenge, that also ends next week...cool. :)

10. If I add this last one, it might even seem like "ten on Tuesday" eh? ;)

Giveaway!

Hey. There's an awesome giveaway going on over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. today. Check it out. You won't be sorry! ;)

Also, there's a new post up on the Ormolu blog...

Now you know. :)

First JOAD tournament.

The boys participated in their first JOAD tournament yesterday. Since we've had the bows and gear for less than two weeks, we went into it as a learning opportunity. It went pretty well. :) Here are the boys before we headed to the tournament:

At the tournament:

The top picture shows part of the boys' JOAD team warming up. (We have a fairly large team...more than 40 kids, I think.) Noah and Asher are off on the left.

The second picture is the side room that Micah and the other younger kids were in. Micah's the far right archer. (Yes, he appeared to definitely be the smallest kid at the tournament...out of 112 registered kids.) The younger kids shoot from 9 meters.

The bottom picture shows the main group of compound archers retrieving their arrows after one of the ends. Noah and Asher are on the far right. (Yeah, Asher's the shortest one out there. And, yes, that's a lot of kids, lol. It was crazy busy there.) The older kids all shoot from 18 meters.

In any case, the boys shot well. They all set personal bests and managed to make it through two full rounds (a round is 10 ends...so 30 arrows) without any major breakdowns. Honestly, that was our biggest concern and is one of the things we most value about archery, as it's been helping them work on the ability to brush things off and refocus, if that makes any sense. Also, they've not shot a full two rounds before and were pretty tired by the end. We were there from noon until just before 6 pm.

(This was actually not bad compared to the folks who were there for the entire tournament. It's broken into two parts...the recurve shooters and the compound shooters. Our half of the day started at noon; the recurve shooters started at about 8 am, and most everyone else had to travel (some from as far as Colorado Springs) since this was one of the tournaments that was local for us. Oy.)

And...

Micah brought home a bronze medal!

Yeah, he's pretty pleased with himself. ;) In all fairness, I suppose I should point out that there were only three boys in Micah's division (under 9 year old boys). Still. The other two boys have been doing this a bit and Micah set a personal best that was significantly higher than his previous scores. (His first round was a 223...out of 300. Each of the 30 arrows is counted and the bullseye is a 10...each ring further out decreases a point. I don't think he's ever shot over 200 before or anywhere close, really.) So. He's darn happy. ;) 

Noah would like me to also say that there were about 14 boys in the division that he and Asher are in (9-11 year olds)...most of whom have been doing this for years. ;) Regardless, Noah and Asher held their own, and Noah even managed to improve in his second round.

So. That was our first JOAD tournament. Whew.

World War III

At the start of the school year, I had this brilliant idea to approach history through weapons...to actually capitalize on the boys' interests, ya know? (Yes, I've come to terms with the fact that I have three boys. Boys who are fascinated by weapons and warfare and things that go boom, LOL.) Well. Finally got around to ordering this book and it arrived yesterday. Upon taking it out of the box and presenting it to the boys, I was gifted with the satisfaction of knowing I'm on to something:

They immediately sat around together with that book and proceeded to leaf through it and exclaim about the many weapons they want to read more about. Spent a decent amount of time at it. Warmed my heart. ;) 

And then, they came to "atomic bomb." Micah shouted in delight. The other two stared at him and rebuked him...pointing out that we should *not* like atomic bombs. To this, Micah simply (and immediately) explained that they were going to come in handy for World War III...which, he says, will begin in 2637. Consider yourself forewarned. ;)

Ormolu

Just FYI, I have a layout up over on the Ormolu blog today. Check it out. :) Also, I've been working on updating my gallery over on the left to include these Ormolu projects.