October 22, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
My son wears glasses
which, used in conjunction with patching
are helping to correct his lazy-eye (his right eye, the one on the left of the picture, is focusing on the camera. The left eye is taking a stroll somewhere):
However, due to a tragic run-in with Ettin, his glasses now look like this:
This is not good.
We are now waiting for Giant’s new frames to arrive, which should come sometime next week.
In the meantime:
This may be our only solution.
I simply have to figure out how to keep my hand on his right eye everywhere we go.
October 22, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Giant took on the roll of teacher this morning.
He and Ettin had found our little chalkboards, and he decided to teach Ettin how to draw a dog.
First a head, then a body, and then legs. Oh, and eyes and nose.
Ettin listen and mimicked:
and came up with this:
which, I see now as I post it up here, would look like a bunch of scribbles to anyone who didn’t actually watch Ettin drawing this with Giant.
So let me ‘splain: The circly thing on the right is the head, the liney/boxey thing on the left is the body. Some of those shorter lines are legs. And the dots are enthusiastically drawn eyes.
I love sharing these special moments! Any scribbles Ettin brings to me in the future will now carry a bit more weight to them because of what I watched today.
We started our morning learning time.
We prayed.
We looked at our picture:
“Lehi’s Family Leaving Jerusalem”
Have I mentioned how much I love using the GAK (Gospel Art Kit) resources? I can read the story off the back of the picture, so any brain power that would have been used up trying to remember and recount a story is left over for application and discussion.
Very handy for when most of my brain power is being used just trying to wrangle three little boys!
We looked at our morning message:
I nursed Galoot and read stories:
And then they boys busied themselves while I did dishes and finished tidying up.
Not that one ever really finishes tidying up with three little boys in the home, especially when they are finding things to keep them busy, but I like to pretend to make an effort.
For example, while I was tidying up, the boys were cutting things.
Boxes, papers, etc. All over my living room and dining room.
Ettin sat in his chair at the table and said, “‘hut, ‘hut, ‘hut diggy mommy” [cut, cut, cut diggers mommy] as he worked on this:
This boy LOVES trucks and all manner of “Diggers,” or heavy machinery.
We strolled down to Stay and Play, where the boys played and played. We even did a messy play where we made monsters by decorating floam, which we took home to play with afterward:
Kind of cute, actually.
After lunch, I really wanted to do a craft with Giant. Lately it seems I have my own project I want to do and so working with Giant is put off until later. Although today was no different for me (I wanted to make some thank-you cookies for my Hubby’s friends who were coming to help us with our house), I knew I needed to work with Giant.
So I made some cookie dough:
and then put. it. aside. :
So I could work with my first born son.
On a Hallowe’en craft.
(He REALLY wanted to do some painting while I was making dough. I tried to get him to wait. “That’s okay mommy. I’ll just pretend to paint:
Its cute and sad all at the same time.)
With mommy finally ready for some craft time, we looked at one of the Hallowe’en craft books I got from the library:
And got busy.
We coloured pumpkins and cut them out:
We cut out green strips for arms and legs (Galoot was helping):
Folded them up:
Taped on their arms and legs. Drew faces.
Spilled water all over the table:
“That’s right mom, ‘Crud,’ ” agreed Giant. Thanks Giant, though that’s not exactly what I said.
Ta dah?
Then for the rest of the afternoon the boys and I worked on baking/eating cookies until the work party came.
(ps, the work party was great, accomplishing in one night what probably would have taken my Hubby and I 2-3 years to finish on our own. We are kind of slow.)
(pps, I think the boys ate 20 cookies each. And I never fed them supper. Just so you know.)
October 21, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Wow.
Today was busy.
Too busy.
Trying to stuff in Gym, a library reading/craft program, a frustrating optometrist visit, and a lot of walking into one morning is just too much.
Next week our Wednesday will look much different, but for today…
We prayed.
Well, not right away. First Mommy and Giant were having some issues.
About cleaning.
Or rather, not cleaning.
And some licorice that was given to one boy who was cleaning and not to another who was not cleaning.
(no, I don’t bribe my kids…regularily. However, sometimes it is nice to be able to show immediate consequences for actions that don’t really have natural immediate consequences. So, sometimes, I pull out rewards/thank-yous to help express the positives. Which, in turn, also helps kids realize some tragic negatives)
This, rather bigger boy, was busy throwing a tantrum.
And, since I really wasn’t seeing how I could settle the feelings in our home enough to have productive chalkboard time with Giant, Ettin and I drew some lines on the chalkboard.
I zoomed lines across the board, up the board, and in circles. All the while trying to get Ettin to copy me:
Then Giant came over and asked if he could draw.
As he was no longer grumping, I helped him wash the board and got him some chalk (Ettin had wandered off to play with trains).
He drew a bit, and wanted to tell me abouts what he was drawing. Seeing an opportunity for some relationship rebuilding, I drew some pumpkins with him:
Sometimes, —okay, maybe all the time— relationships are just more important than letters and numbers. That’s what we were working on this morning, apparently.
Then, as I mentioned before, we prayed.
We looked at the Picture of Lehi Prophecying to the People of Jerusalem. We talked about how Heavenly Father loves us so much that he gives us Prophets to teach us what we need to do to be happy and make good choices. And that we can make bad choices and be unhappy, but its better to make the good choices and be happy (I may have been hinting at some earlier choice making here):
Then we ran around town crazy-like:
We went to the Gym.
We went to a Library, “Tales for Tots” program. Here a wonderful lady reads the children stories, sings them songs, plays games with them, and then does a craft with them. Fun! But very tricky with a two year old (the program starts at 3 years old). And a little baby. And a very shy 4 year old who doesn’t want his mom to leave the room to take the 2 year old and baby to the younger kid play area. So, due only to my lack of stamina, I don’t think we’ll be doing this again next week.
Then we went to the optometrist.
Why? Because last night Giant came to us holding his glasses.
In two pieces.
Two very un-fixable pieces.
So now he looks like this (yes, those pics are related to homeschooling. He is watching some ‘educational’ dvds while Mommy finishes up her freezer meal work—and I think I really am done with that now…for a while):
until we can get new frames for him.
In a week, says the frustrating optometrist office, because they have no frames which fit his current lenses.
Poor kid!
October 20, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 2 Comments
We started the day with stories:
We prayed.
We looked at our Gospel Picture:
Esther
We talked about what a brave woman she was. Giant decided he needed to write this down:
“Eztr” [Esther].
Then we looked at our Morning Message:
What fun did our day hold? Like our message said, an apple craft at his friends house!
It was a date:
The boys got good and messy, decorating apples with chocolate and marshmellows and licorice and grapes:
Sooooo Messy!!!
They got cleaned up:
(That is not my camera. I would like it to be.)
Then they played and played and played.
Quite a delightful day!
