School Work, Owen Talking, and Enjoying Time Outside

Samantha: 100 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 65 Months, Week 4
Owen: 24 Months, Week 2

Sunday, September 22nd my parents were still here for a visit, and it was a church day, so we enjoyed a little bit of a relaxed morning before heading to church. Owen woke up before the big kids, and he wakes up slowly, so he was more than happy to go cuddle with Grandpa when we came downstairs. It makes my heart happy to see my dad holding my cuddly baby.

The rest of the day went pretty well. Samantha came up with the idea of bringing a picnic lunch and eating at a picnic table by the stream at Hillside Farm. Then, we could have ice cream and see the animals. It was a lovely day outside, so we decided that would be a great idea. Everyone loves Hillside Farm, and it's fun to experience it along with others. The kids didn't eat too great because they were too excited to play in the stream and see the animals, but we had a great time, and the ice cream is always delicious.

Then, once getting back home and getting Owen down for a nap, Ben and I left to go look at suits for him for Tim and Pla's wedding before going to see "Downton Abbey." I had been excited about seeing it for awhile now, and I was excited we could go out on a date while my parents watched the kids at home. We even got a pop and popcorn to share with each other, which I don't think we have ever done on a date before. I loved the movie because I love Downton Abbey, I even re-watched all the seasons before it was time for us to go see this movie. After the movie we went out to dinner at Olive Garden, and it was such a fun date together. We were able to talk and hang out and relax, and then we were back in enough time to help tuck the kids in bed. It was a wonderful date night out together.

After the kids were in bed that night, we were able to talk more and go over some of the papers my dad brought about my grandpa and some of his relatives. Ben got out his computer and logged on to ancestry.com so he could add more information in about my dad's side of the family. I love learning family history, and it was interesting to discover new details about people.

On Monday Grandpa and Grandma stayed around for awhile. Grandpa even walked down with us to the van, which made the kids happy. They are always sad to say good-bye. With the long drive ahead of them, they left shortly after I got the kids off to school, and then Owen and I just spent the morning playing together.

With Samantha and Aedan being in school during the week, I don't have many pictures of them sometimes, so I guess including pictures of their work kind of gives a picture of their week. It's been nice getting work back from school to see what they are learning and how they are doing. I enjoy that they do grades as well, and we can go over any questions that they get wrong with the kids so we can make sure they understand. Here are some tests and quizzes Samantha got back. She was proud of herself for doing so well, and we were very proud of her.

Aedan finished up the overview of the alphabet and then moved on to M as the letter of the week.

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In math they are talking about shapes, as well as how many sides and how many vertices they have.

Tuesday was a little bit busier of a day than usual because Ben went down to Harrisburg with some students for a Draw the Lines competition. They won the university level region for redistricting competition, so they got to go to the state competition, and Ben has taken over supervising that program now. Here are some pictures of the inside of the state capitol building.

The kids did well for me that morning and actually acted like they slept enough over night, which was good considering how tired they have been lately. Once I got them off to school, my job for the morning was to go grocery shopping. It went well, and Owen is always pretty willing and able to do whatever it is I'm doing with me. It's fun being able to spend time with him, even if it is just going grocery shopping together. He gets lots of cute looks from people at the store, especially when he is running around helping me pick produce. The hardest part is keeping him from falling asleep on the way home from the store, and then rushing to get all the groceries put away, have lunch, and get Owen down for a nap.

Here is more work that was brought home on Tuesday.

And here is an example of the spelling work that Samantha is doing in her class.

It seems kind of silly to write about certain weeks sometimes because there really isn't much going on, just normal every day life. Wednesday morning was another somewhat crazy morning because we waited until the last minute to decide if we wanted to submit address labels for the Race for Education at the kids' school. Aedan came home talking about how he really wanted the cool yellow bracelet that they got if they turned in their address labels, so I worked pretty hard to get a list ready on Tuesday night and planned to print it out on Wednesday morning. However, I could not find the write label code and nothing was working as it should, so I ended up having to just take the kids down to the van and finish the labels once I got back home, then going out and dropping them off at school. So, with all that craziness, the morning wasn't great with the kids. They were just not listening and not remembering what they had to do to get ready. It didn't help that I had a huge headache either.

Owen and I didn't have any plans for the day, and it was a beautiful day outside, so we spent the morning playing outside. I took a video of him playing in his car because this is his most favorite thing to do when he plays outside. We have quite the steep driveway, but luckily, we have this small area at the top that is flat where he can ride around, and he has never tried to push the boundary by going too close to the steep part. He keeps saying "Crash!" in this video because that is a game he plays with Samantha and Aedan. They ride around in circles and purposely crash into each other. I guess it's their own version of bumper cars?

I am trying to capture more videos of Owen just talking and playing so I can remember what he was like as a 2 year old. I just love hearing his little voice and the words that he can say. In this video he is looking at his new Paw Patrol book, and he was just flipping through the pages, pointing out different things he saw on the pages, like see?, a sound affect, fireman, digger puppy, and "buck buck" for a chicken, and "ma-mane" for airplane.

Samantha and Aedan had an early release from school that day, so after picking them up from the van a little after 1:00, I let all the kids play together for awhile before finally getting Owen down for his nap a little after 2:00. He was mad about having to go to sleep because he wanted to play with his brother and sister, but it didn't take too long until he passed out on my lap like this. :)

I was hoping that we could have a fun afternoon since Samantha and Aedan were home earlier than usual, but our bad morning of them not listening continued into the afternoon, unfortunately. We had allowed quite a few toys to pile up around the house, so I told them they had to help me clean up before they could play or do something else. However, they just complained and grumbled about it quite a bit, so much so that it took them forever to get it done. However, the night went a little better, and I let Ben do bath time so I could go vacuum and wash the van. After all our summer travels, it was pretty nasty on the inside and definitely needed to be cleaned. It felt so good to have it clean on the inside and outside.

Every once in awhile Owen will just mention people's names, and on Thursday while I was changing his diaper, he kept talking about Oliver and Brielle, so I decided to have him record a little video saying their names, "I love you," and "bye-bye." His little voice and word pronunciation is just so adorable. Two year olds really are so fun and precious.

Here's some more work from Aedan. I love that they are practicing their handwriting and working on forming the letters correctly. I feel like that was something they didn't emphasize much at Bahweting, so Samantha never really had a strong foundation for her handwriting. I think Aedan is doing pretty well with his Ms though, and look at how neat his name is!

Thursday was a pretty good day. I had Bible study in the morning, which seems like it will be a really good group of women. We are studying women of the Bible, and I have enjoyed getting back into reading and studying the Bible more again. Plus, the other women in the Bible study seem nice, like people that would be good to be friends with and get to know more. Then, that evening we decided to go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant together, which went pretty well. The only weird thing that happened was after getting the kids to bed, the power went off for about four hours, from about 9:00 to 1:00 in the morning. There wasn't a storm or anything, but it kind of threw off everyone's sleep a little because we didn't have our normal sounds and use of monitors. Samantha woke up at one point and came downstairs to see what happened. We reassured her that it was okay, that the power had gone out, and that it would come back on at some point. Then, when the power came back on, I had to get up and turn off lights that were on around the house, so everyone's sleep was a little disrupted that night.

Since Samantha and Aedan don't have to be down waiting for the van until about 8:45, they usually have plenty of time to play since they are usually up at 7:00 every day. Friday morning they all came downstairs dressed as super heroes, even Owen joined in in a Wonder Woman costume. They are so cute when they play games like this that everyone enjoys.

Friday morning was a busy one for Owen and I because I had to go get blood drawn, and Owen had his 2 year well child check-up, and then had to have his finger pricked for a lead test. His weight was 29 pounds 6.4 ounces which put him in the 67th percentile. His height was 2 feet 10.8 inches which put him in the 69th percentile. The nurse was very amused with Owen and all the words he knew as he sat in my lap looking at books, and she asked me questions about his development. It all went well, but took most of the morning and made Owen an unhappy boy. We had to wait for quite awhile in the pediatrician's office, and he was getting pretty impatient. However, everything checked out fine and he was growing and developing just as he should. He did not like the doctor trying to look down his throat and got quite grumpy about it. I'm not sure if it's because he remembered when I took him to the walk-in clinic, and he had the strep test done or what, but he did not like it and cried for quite awhile after that. Getting his finger pricked and blood squeezed out of it was also not a pleasant experience for the poor little guy, and he left the doctor with three band-aids, two on his leg from immunizations and one on his finger. He still talks about the band-aids he got at the doctor that day.

As a way to make the morning a little better, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts on the way home and I got him this awesome spider donut. He loved it, and immediately started running around the restaurant. I love this little boy so much. He has such a sweet, silly, friendly demeanor.

The rest of the day went on like normal with eating lunch, getting Owen down for a nap, and then I washed the sheets and towels, which I usually do on Fridays, as well as reheating coffee from the morning. Ah, the fun tasks of a stay at home mom.

It has been our Saturday tradition for as long as I can remember to make pancakes for breakfast. Samantha and Aedan take advantage of not having to get up and get ready for school right away, while Owen is always in the kitchen with us, watching us get breakfast ready. He loves to be involved, and to climb on a chair so he can "see," I got a few pictures of Daddy and his little kitchen helper.

There was another birthday in the family on Saturday, so I had the kids record a video wishing Grandpa a happy birthday as well.

Our Saturday morning was a little busy as we had several things that were all going on at the same time. Samantha started an acting class at a local theater in Wilkes-Barre called the KISS Theater. They are doing a Christmas performance called "The Week After Christmas," and we decided to sign Samantha up because she liked being in Willy Wonka Jr. so much when we lived in Sault Ste. Marie. Plus, this performance was for younger kids, so she would fall right in the middle of the age range, and they only rehearsed on Saturdays from 10:00-12:30, so it wasn't a huge time commitment or something that would keep her out late at night during the school week. She was pretty nervous when she first went in because she didn't know what to expect and didn't know anyone. The parents stayed for a short orientation meeting where they went over expectations of the program and things like that. Then, the boys and I were off to Kirby Park for a MOPS play date. Ben had an orientation thing for interested students to go to for the morning, so we were all spread out in different directions. He did join us at the park for awhile and was able to meet some of the other dads of the MOPS moms. It was a really nice day, and the boys had a blast at the playground. We stayed there for quite awhile because we didn't really have a reason not to. In fact, we were still there when it was almost time to pick up Samantha, so we all ended up just meeting at Wendy's and ate lunch in Wilkes-Barre before heading back home for the rest of the day.

Like I said earlier, our weather was just great that day, and we encouraged the kids to play outside as much as possible, enjoying the warm weather and free time to play how they liked. Here are some pictures Ben took around our house and of the kids playing in the driveway. You can see just a touch of color coming on the trees on the mountain in the background. Fall is right around the corner, and we will enjoy this warm weather while we can. I just love our house and our property. We got a wonderful place to live, and I am so grateful.

(September 22-28, 2019)