Be our guest.

Now that Nathan's mom is here for her visit, I can post pictures of the guest room (didn't want to spoil the surprise)...it's mostly finished for now. ;) We started out with a pretty dang boring white basement room (one window, poor light). Throw in some bookshelves from college days and a queen size bed with random bedding, and you'd have our guest room. Not very exciting, eh? 

Back in January, (as part of our rec room reorganization and painting) we cleared it out and painted it. Slowly, since then, we've added new bedding, a bench for blankets, a side table, and other stuff...finally calling it "done" last month when I painted a white tree design on the back wall. Here's the before and after:

(Yeah, sorry I didn't remember to take "before" pictures until we'd already started stripping the room, but you get the idea, lol.) Anyhow, here's a better shot of that back wall:

I'd initially planned to build a headboard for the bed using plywood and covering it with batting and fabric, but ended up opting to paint a tree there instead. ;) I think it turned out pretty well for a free-hand job, don't you?

One of these days, we'll get around to replacing those ugly bookshelves and the strange colored carpet. ;) For now, though, we'll call it done and look forward to having guests come stay with us. :)

Translation.

Just now, totally out of the blue, Micah says to me: 

"Can I eat two hogs at the end of the world?"

Or, at least, that's what I *thought* he said. I was, to say the least, puzzled. I mean, I know the boy is random, but this was pretty out there. I asked him to repeat what he'd said. Turns out, he *actually* said: 

"Can an 'e' do two jobs at the end of a word?"

Yup, sitting around in the family room on a Saturday afternoon after a longish day of soccer games and errands...talking about boys' wish lists and nothing in particular...and the boy wants to know about the various jobs the silent "e" does at the end of a word. Specifically, he wanted to know if it could both make a vowel say its name (in a vowel-consonant-e syllable) and keep a "v" from being at the end of a word (which, to be honest, I didn't know was one of the jobs of the silent "e" until just recently when we were doing our spelling lessons...actually, we've gone over five different jobs so far...go figure).

Anyhow. The word in question? "Slave." As in the new "Slave I" Star Wars Lego set, of course. ;)

Ah, to be inside the mind of a five year old. ;)

And away they go...

Woohoo! Today...finally...was the first day of Options! Here are my guys as we were heading out this morning:

They were pretty excited. :) And, yes, by the way, I just noticed that Micah put on two different socks, LOL! But at least he had on two, right? Even though you can't see that second one. And, yes, I let them all choose their own outfits for the first day. Somehow, I'm pretty sure that if they were girls a lot more thought would have gone into this. ;)

So. We got to the Options site and made sure all three made it to the right rooms to start the day. In the previous years, I've stayed on site all day on the first day to make sure boys transitioned from class to class okay (they change classes every hour...six classes) and to just kind of observe classes to make sure we don't want to make any changes. I didn't stick around this year. It felt weird, but Micah just really didn't need me there and the other two are fine on their own now (each of the last two years it's been at a new site, so there was an issue with figuring out which rooms were where...this year's the same as last year for the most part). So, I dropped my guys off and headed home...made a quick stop to do a little boy-free shopping...got a pot roast going in the crock pot...made lunches for the boys...and headed back to Options to have lunch with my boys. (Normally, I'll just pack the lunches and send them in the morning but I told them I'd come for the lunch hour today.)

Did lunch with my guys and caught up on their mornings. (Technically, I've found that it works considerably better for me to just bring them lunch and watch them eat. Trying to eat at the same time isn't as enjoyable. And, a number of parents come for lunch regularly. Part of this Options program dealio is that the teachers get the lunch hour off, so parent volunteers run the lunch hour and are always welcome to come...this goes for during classes as well as during lunch.) The kids all played outside after eating...my guys and a friend of Asher's all tossed a ball around a good bit. 

Made sure Micah got to the right class after lunch/recess (since he does first grade classes in the afternoon) and headed back off. This time, Nathan and I went out to a somewhat celebratory lunch (he worked from home today). :) I then dropped him back at home and went to do some more window shopping on my own, savoring the non-boy-ness of the situation. I picked up the boys at 3:30 and took them out for a snack and ice cream while we caught up on their day. 

Sounds like they all had a fabulous first day. Here are some of the highlights, according to them:

Noah: Liked music/drama best today (apparently they had some pretty funny books that got acted out) and is most looking forward to Gadgets and Gizmos next week (this week they sorted Lego Mindstorms sets and got things ready). He, obviously, enjoyed PE and thought fingerprinting himself in Investigative Science was cool. Though he didn't come out and say it, it sounds like he's pretty excited about AmeriTowne again and feels cool since he's done it before. 

Asher: Liked PE best but music/drama the least. He generally loves music/drama, but apparently was unhappy at being partnered up with an older *girl* today. I guess they lined up the 3rd graders and had the older kids pick one to "help" for the hour. Asher got picked by someone else before Noah could select him. :) I'm sure he'll live. :) He's pretty happy with his recorder/chimes class, though, and seemed really happy overall...got to see a couple of his good friends in most of his classes.

Micah: Liked PE best (not a huge surprise here, folks...both big brothers have been singing Ms Toni's praises for two years now). When I asked him what his least favorite part of the day was...his answer was "getting ready to go" (because he didn't want to wake up early this morning). ;) According to Micah, though, he pretty much loved his entire day after that. He did, apparently, get a bit lost between first grade reading and rejoining the kindergarten class. From what I can tell, both the kindergarten teacher and the administrator were out looking for him (it's a fairly small building)...as Asher says the kinder teacher came into his class looking for Micah, and it was the administrator who found him. All was well, though, and he doesn't seem disturbed by it at all. (I was told that the reading teacher would see that Micah got back to the kindergarten class at the end of reading, but I guess that didn't happen.)

In any case, Micah promptly decided to go write "happy day" on his calendar when he got home. So. I guess it was a good day. ;) Personally, I was a bit emotional...sad that my baby started kindergarten, proud that he totally didn't need me at all, and giddy to now have a day to myself each week. ;) Woohoo!

Soccer.

By the way, soccer season is officially underway. Though we started practices a couple weeks ago, Saturday was the first day of games. Micah's was first on our agenda. He's now playing 6 kids per side on a bigger field and seems to have really progressed from his delight in just laughing his way around the field without regard to where the ball was. ;) Yup, he actually got right in there and went after the ball and is even trying to show off some moves his big brothers taught him over the summer. ;) Here's his team before the game started:

 
That's Micah with the yellow ball. It's an all new team for him...8 new boys. He's thoroughly happy. :)

After a break for an early lunch, we headed to Asher's game (much less overlap, thank goodness, with just two boys playing soccer this fall!). Asher's team is much more familiar to us...we've played with this coach and most of these boys before. :) Ash's team didn't fare quite as well as Micah's for this first game, but they played well and had fun. :) Here's Asher:

Yes, he's just that much smaller than most of the other boys, lol. Doesn't seem to stop him in the least, though. Fortunately, soccer is one of the few team sports where size isn't nearly as relevant. ;)

So. Whew. One soccer weekend down, seven to go (not counting the fall tournament if Asher's team opts to participate). ;)

(And, in case you were wondering, Noah opted not to do soccer this season. It's complicated. Regardless, he thinks he'll play again next spring. We'll see. ;) In the meantime, he's been very much enjoying taking some one-on-one bike rides with either Nathan or me in our efforts to keep him active (and not totally wired for lack of a physical release)...and as a benefit to ourselves as well, lol.)

Quick Micah funny...

Lest you think that the kid has stopped being hilarious...thought I'd share this little story from earlier today. First, let me remind you about the "place game" that we play as a family...a simple way to pass the time and sneak in a little geography. ;) Well, given that Micah's only just 5 and all, we make allowances for him to make up a few of his own places for the sake of the game. One that he's kept coming back to time and again...Dingdongia. Yes. Really. 

Anyhow. Today we somehow got onto the topic of "if I opened a restaurant..." and Micah's, obviously, was going to be called "Dingdongia." What will Dingdongia serve, you ask? Well, he says...cheeseburgers, ding dongs, ice cream, mac & cheese...and a number of his other favorite foods that he went on to list. After learning from Noah what a slogan is (Noah, meanwhile, was talking up his own "Tacomania" where the slogan would be either "Mmmm...tacos!" or "We love tacos. You should, too."), Micah decided his would be "a ding dong with every meal!" Yup, ding dongs as the side item instead of fries. That's what he said.

Doesn't it make you want to go buy a box of ding dongs right now? ;)