Author: Christy

We were headed to Laguna with the Bannings for Memorial Day weekend and thought ahead for once to see if Dick, Claire and Alex were available for a visit. They were and as a bonus, Leah and her family were also there. Max’s wife Erin joined briefly at the end of our visit. Sadly, we were later than expected and Dick didn’t get to hang around very long. But we still had a nice visit. (And we got to see Max when we picked up yummy lunch at his restaurant!)

The three older boys (Logan is almost 4) bonded over the Ninjago iPhone game.

And some toys.

Later, much to my horror, Ezra taught Logan and Blake how to make farting noises. Charming.

They thought it was hysterical.

We got to see Erin for just a few minutes and meet their new addition — Banyan. So cute and tiny!

On the way out, I got this shot of Logan, Finn and Ezra just after they finished comparing Crocs.

Great to see everyone!

The boys bombarded me with awesome Mother’s Day projects today when I picked them up from school. I got a little verklempt when I read their lovely notes!

Translation from Finn-speak: “I love my mom because she loves me.”

Finn also made this “I love you this much” sign.

And Ezra gave me a pot with a snow pea seed and a flower marker he decorated. The pot says, “Mommy, you are the best mom!!! Love, Ezra.”

My heart is full.

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week so I asked the boys to make cards for their teachers. Ezra didn’t want to draw anything, so he wrote [brief] letters.

Finn drew his classroom on one side and then wrote a note on the other. For Ms. Jessica, his math teacher, he drew the D1 classroom and did some math problems on the other side.

I love that each of the S’s in Jessica is going a different direction.

Ms. Vonni, his literacy teacher, got the D2 classroom and a sentence on the other side.

The sentence is his standard version of “I went to the park and I had fun.” Creative spelling is a must.

About a half-hour ago I was making dinner and realized I’d seen the boys ride their bikes past the kitchen window a while back but I hadn’t seen them come back. They are now allowed to go around the block and since we’d had a sudden thunder storm about an hour earlier, they were particularly excited to have sun again and be able to ride. Still, I was a little concerned so I went out to look for them. Here’s where I found them.

Woodworking #11 came up on us fast since, due to a schedule change, Woodworking #10 was only three weeks ago. Bruce decided to switch things up a bit for this class and instead of real woodworking the project was carving plaster. They still had a little woodworking to do when they made a base for their carving, but mostly it was all about the plaster. Bruce built a mold and poured 100 pounds of plaster, in batches of course, to make blocks for carving. It looked pretty cool.

As a sample before class, Bruce carved Rob’s nose — it came out pretty good!

Here are Bruce’s instructions with ideas of things to carve:

The kids ignored the idea of making the base first and got right to the carving.

After the projects were done (or at least after some of them were done) we broke out the slip n slide for some water play since it was a freakishly hot day. I have never seen this group line up in such an orderly manner!

Here’s Finn mid-air.

Jackson’s rock on! move.

Jack opted to go head first.

Olivia, Ashlyn and Terra all had a similar method.

The water was so cold, I can’t really believe they kept going back for another slide. But they did.

After a while, we took a break from water play to have dinner … in various places around the yard.

Here are some samples of finished products.

I don’t have a picture of Jack’s mountain but it was awesome. And his mom told me that he cleared off his dresser so it would have “maximum visibility.” Ha!

I was having a very fun time taking pictures at this class … and I took several hundred. I uploaded some of them here if you want to see more of our super fun evening.

We’d noticed for a while that Finn’s bike was looking a little small for him, but he was reluctant to switch because the next size up is just a bit too big. Finally, after the camping trip where he did a lot of riding, he agreed it was time for an upgrade. Here’s his fancy new bike.

Finn was so excited about his bike that he wrote about it. Keep in mind when you try to read it that he has just started writing and many of his letters are backwards. Oh, and word spacing? Not so important to a Kindergartener.

Translation: “I got a new bike and it is faster than my old bike. It is a blue and black bike.” Yay, Finn!

The boys spend a lot of time riding their bikes on the sidewalk in front of our house. There’s a part of the sidewalk that has been lifted up by tree roots and they use it for jumping. I’m sure they feel like Evel Knievel, but really they’re barely leaving the ground. You’d never know it from their faces though — especially Ezra.

Finn’s approach is a little mellower.

They graduated to crossing the street on their own this weekend. They wanted to go around the block, but the street just north of us doesn’t have sidewalks on the south side, so in order to ride on the sidewalk they have to cross the street. It’s a big step in their world.

I’m trying desperately to catch up with my blogging, so here are some random images I’m shoving into one post. First, while Bruce was on his most recent backpacking trip with Peter, I took the boys to the credit union to open “piggy banker” accounts. It took a little longer than I anticipated and they got a bit unruly, but luckily the bank staff saved the day with coloring books and crazy pencils to keep them busy.

My favorite part of the day was seeing their signatures on the bank forms.

Next, Ezra’s been doing some test prep the last few weeks as second graders participate in state testing for the first time. His literacy practice test came home about a week and a half ago and, as a self-proclaimed grammar nazi, I was horrified to see he missed this one.

I’m pretty sure he knows how to properly use an apostrophe and that it does not, in fact, make things plural. He probably just wanted to torture me. Needless to say, we had a chat about it.

Last Monday Finn and I ran some errands during his sick day (he was coughing a lot), and one of our stops was Cottage. First, I have to say he looked huge in that setting. His former teachers all came to say hi; I think he was a little uncomfortable with the whole thing but he was relatively polite, if a little quiet. When we were ready to leave, we measured him in the little cutout with the tree.

I remember when he started going to Cottage he didn’t even make it into the green part of the tree. *Sigh*

Last but not least, Ezra had two sick days last week when he came down with a random fever. Of course, even though his body was burning up, he felt like he was freezing and since it was a nice warm day, here was the remedy he came up with.

Luckily, the fever didn’t last too long. In fact, his second “sick” day was really just a free day off since his fever was gone but we were obeying the 24-hour fever rule at school. It was a warm day and he couldn’t wait for Finn to get home. They filled up the [very dirty] pond and were happy as clams.