handsful

As Dylan would say “10 Months, baby”

Everything these days is followed up with “baby”…he’s a cool cat.

I had a little mommy / son date with the little man today. Took him to get frozen yogurt on the way to the grocery. His was chocolate with mini m&ms and chocolate sprinkles. He finished every bite without getting even a drop on his shirt. That’s my neat boy.

I’ve gotta share a little conversation we had. Background: Dylan had a green spoon, and I had a pink one.

Dylan: Mommy, why do you have…what’s that?
Me: pink
Dylan: Mommy, why do I have…what’s this?
Me: green
Dylan: Mommy, why do you have…uh…what’s that?
Me: pink
Dylan: Oh, Mommy, why do I have…um…what’s this?

And, on and on, until he finally got the WHOLE sentence out. Remind me next time to get us both the same color spoon. Oh, and to work on his colors.

On the bright side, he can usually count up to 5, knows his name begins with “D”, and can draw a person. The one below, he tells me, is Lainey. I took one picture, and then he stopped me to add in her “really lot” hair.

Dylan is eating more these days, thankfully. I made fried rice with chicken the other night, and he had THREE bowls. Unheard of!

I weighed him today… 28.4 lbs. He’s busting out of his pants! lol…

Dylan (and Lainey) are enjoying talking about China lately, and we’ve borrowed a few videos from the library on Mandarin, Chinese stories, and biographies of children in China. Dylan decides on occasion that he wants to be called Yu Hai. Lainey wants nothing to do with Qing Qin, she doesn’t like it.

We’re getting so close to ONE year!

Homeschooling has a lot of pros and one of them came in handy today.

Flexibility.

Marley and I…along with my friend Kelley, her daughter Kylie, and two of the girls friends Brielle and Kayla…snuck away for a day.

Never heard of it? Half lodge, half crazy water park. We purchased discounted day tickets for homeschoolers and spent the day doing what we both love.

Marley kept herself busy with water slides, swimming, and more water slides.

I sat in a chair and read a book. For longer than 12 minutes uninterrupted. And, had a conversation with another adult. For longer than 12 minutes uninterrupted. We also walked around and took pictures and browsed the gift shop. It was a slice of heaven. Oh, and I never even got wet….Marley thinks I wasted the entire day!

Sorry, no pictures of us boring adults. If you saw my FB status, you know that I wasn’t very picture worthy today.

Silly girls.

Really silly.

I finally dragged her away, only barely convincing her that 7 hours at the water park was plenty. She responded by falling asleep on the chair soon after we arrived home.

It was a great day.

Our new homeschool co-op is giving the kids a true taste of “real school”. The trips middle school American History class is WONDERFUL – and I’m fortunate enough to be an assistant in it. The teacher, my friend Holly, absolutely makes history fun and interesting. So much more than just facts and dates.

She challenged the kids to come up with topics for their presentations that went deeper than just what they’re studying (post civil war, westward migration, by the way) and find topics that enhance / tell more about the time period.

Payton chose the World’s Columbian Exposition…better known as the Chicago’s World’s Fair. He decided to incorporate his love of cartooning (along with his signature character “Harry the Stick Dude”) into the presentation. Payton likes being in front of crowds (like his dad), and loved the attention.

Ethan, being the tech-lover guy, immediately wanted to try his first power pt on the computer…he did all the research and notes, and Randy helped him put it all together. He was a little nervous, but did just fine.

Next week, it’s Marley’s turn. She’s like me…would rather have a stick in her eye than stand up and talk in front of others.

Oh, and did I mention? It’s also our turn to lead the morning devotion for the whole group. Praying on that one already.

It’s all good, for all of us. Getting out of our comfort zones can only bring benefit…nothing is wasted with God.

I’m proud of the effort that my kids are putting into co-op…it’s definitely been a challenge to find our rhythm with the schedule and homework, but I think we’re (almost) there. Being up with the birds and in “school” for 5 1/2 hours for ONE day a week further confirms that I’m happy with homeschooling :)

Dylan, along with some of his buds from the 3’s and 4’s class at church, made their singing debut by singing Jesus Loves Me at our church’s Family Baptism.

We weren’t sure how he’d do. Lainey has always been shy about these things…I was pleasantly surprised that she actually went up on stage during VBS and did her thing this summer. Dylan wasn’t nervous at all, and didn’t hesitate when it was time to perform.

He did great during the rehearsal.

However, they turned on the overhead screens during the actual performance and Dylan spent most of the time staring behind him, trying to find himself. Sigh.

Managed to catch him actually facing forward.

Grand finish!

He was so happy afterwards, running around with his friend, Brianna.

Always the gentleman.

We’re looking forward to watching Dylan on stage again…and, we’ll be sure and remind him to look out at the crowd this time :)

Some days, it seems like Fall is right around the corner. But, this weekend was warm so we headed out on the boat.

Time for Lainey to try the new ski trainer.

Two tries and she was getting discouraged. Plus, her teeth were chattering. The water is getting a little chilly.

As they say, third time’s the charm. She popped right up and rode around without falling once.

She’s so little back there!

Granma and Granpa were with us yesterday to watch all the kids do their water tricks. No pictures, but Ethan wakeboarded and the girls did double kneeboards. I assumed you’d seen enough pictures of those things (sorry, kids!)

So, Lainey is officially a pre-skier. Dylan is psyched to try it next year!

I feel like I say this all the time.

Our days are so full and busy, that it’s been hard lately to find time to blog. And, because we’ve been so swamped, the camera hasn’t been my first (or second) thought these days. I literally go from helping someone with history, to loading the dishwasher, to taking Dylan to the potty, back to history, check dinner in the oven, etc. etc. Not good! But, definitely my season in life right now.
Anyway…

Thought I’d let ya’ll know, I got a call from our pediatrician yesterday saying that all of Dylan’s bloodwork came back within normal. So, he’s just little.

(time out to take Dylan to the potty)

Seriously, I didn’t make that up…

So, I guess we just have to assume that his parents were small/short and he’s perfectly within normal range. Maybe he’ll hit a mongo growth spurt one day, and maybe he won’t. As long as he’s healthy and happy, I really don’t care. In the meantime, we’ll encourage him to eat and add instant breakfast powder to his milk. Maybe he’ll change his mind about doughnuts? That could help.

August 29th was our wedding anniversary. 19 years, thanks for asking :) We took everyone out for dinner that night, like we always do for our anniversary. Romantic, eh? The littles looked so cute, I snapped a quick picture.

Yes, Lainey wore those shoes. Her only other options were 2 pairs of flip flops – one very old and the others didn’t match. She BEGGED to wear these and I decided “why not?” Of course, at the restaurant she immediately took them off. Notice Dylan has his NCSU shoes on – his brothers dressed him. Not sure I’m digging the shoes with that shirt, but sometimes you just have to let things go. I finally learned that a few kids ago.

Usually our anniversary is just that…a dinner out with the kids. This year, Randy took it up a notch. We drove into Charlotte last Thursday night to spend a night, just the two of us. Randy managed to get us a discounted rate at the Ritz-Carlton in town. Yeah, I know! I was blown away, and stumbled all over my words when the bellman asked if he could take my bags. I’m so used to THAT kind of treatment, ya know?

We had a lovely dinner in town, got to sleep late the next morning, breakfast brought TO the room, and then a tandem massage appt at the spa. Oh my. After our massages, we showered and changed in the spa (seperately, of course) and the shower had 16 shower heads. 4 in the ceiling, and 12 all around. I could have stayed there forever.

When we drove back in the next day, I was picturing what my house might look like. Afterall, our 6 kids had been there, by themselves, for the last 18 hours or so. Without me there to nag. What did we come home to? A CLEAN house. I mean clean…even the microwave was clean. And, the girls had baked us 19 (exactly) heart shaped sugar cookies and arranged them in the shape of a 19. We were both astounded and crazy proud. Mostly proud! Maybe I should cut back on the nagging afterall?

So, that was our last week’s event. We stayed busy over the long weekend, carting kids here and there, going to corn mazes (Abbey) and fun youth leader cookouts (all of us). Monday was spent inside, given we were pelted with rain off and on the whole day. Randy has been needing to work on the kids computers, so he started that process. Apparently the littles thought their computers could use a little attention, too. I walked by to see this.

I managed to finish this blog, in between helping Dylan with his dress up clothes, getting Lainey juice, and starting a quick dinner before we all head out to Wed night church.

I can now mark “blog this week” off my to-do list. Ahhhh….