Samantha: 116 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 83 Months, Week 5
Owen: 40 Months, Week 2
With the new year starting and our little peanut going home in December, Ben and I were starting to feel like we needed to make more of an effort to stay connected with people. Covid and having a newborn foster baby made us pull away from a lot of different things, and we were feeling pretty isolated. Community groups were starting back up for the next cycle, and Ben and I checked them out to see if any would fit what we were looking for. Unfortunately, there just really weren't any that would work. We didn't want to do a group later in the evening during the week, especially if it met down in Wilkes-Barre where we would have to drive the half an hour back home again. Plus, we don't like our kids being out late on a school night, and it makes our evenings so hectic with trying to eat dinner, rushing out to group, and then the craziness of getting all the kids to bed. Anyways, all that to say, we decided that we would start our own community group with a couple families that were in our last group that met before Covid, as well as a new family we have connected with by being foster parents. All the families have multiple kids with a wide range of ages, so everyone would have someone to play with. We were especially interested in being a part of a group with older kids so Samantha and Aedan would also feel connected in the group. We decided to meet on Sunday afternoons starting at 3:30, so that way we were avoiding week nights and could still get our kids to bed at a decent time on Sunday nights, too. Our plan was to let the kids play while the adults had their Bible study time, then we would take turns eating together, and have time to just hang out and talk, with the general idea that by 6:30 or so people would head out. Ben and I were looking forward to starting up this group, getting connected again, and starting up a Bible study on 1 Samuel. That Sunday we had small group at our house, and we had the kids stay in the basement and play so that way they weren't running around and making messes in every room of the house. All together we have eleven kids between all four families, so it was a little full in the basement, and we don't exactly have the most fun toys down there, but they found things to play with, our kids brought board games down to play, and they had a good time together.
In getting ready for school on Monday morning, here are some papers from school last week. Aedan got a 90% on his weekly reading test and did a couple of worksheets on practicing addition.
That Sunday morning Ben and I decided to take advantage of our time at home to move the bunk beds from Samantha's room to Owen's room (which required partially taking the bed apart and removing the bedroom doors just to make it easier). Ben picked up Owen's new mattress late last week, so we put it on the bottom bunk, and Owen was excited to lay in it and try it out. This is our first step to Owen and Aedan sharing a room, getting Owen used to sleeping in a bigger bed while he is still in the room by himself. He looks so little on that big bed!
Even though Aedan isn't going to sleep in the room with Owen yet, he was excited to climb up on the top bunk when we put the extra mattress on it. Owen can't wait until he can share a room with Aedan. These silly boys are going to be trouble together!
With moving the bunkbeds out of Samantha's room, we put in a nice bed frame that we had gotten from Ben's grandma and haven't had the opportunity to use yet. She thought the bed looked beautiful and really liked the tall headboard. Here is Samantha hugging her Josefina American Girl Doll, enjoying her new bed, and how open her bedroom looked now without a bunkbed in it. (Speaking of looking grown up, look at how beautiful and tall this girl of mine has gotten! I still remember her as a two year old, and it's hard to believe she will be turning ten this year.)
The boys were being super cute and climbed up to the top bunk so that Aedan could read books to Owen. I love the two of them together, and Aedan is such a good big brother to Owen. I love listening to Aedan read, and it makes me so happy that he is so willing to read to Owen. I remember Samantha sitting and reading to Aedan all the time, and now Aedan is doing the same for Owen.
Here is how the bunk beds look in Owen's room. They fit in this corner of the room perfectly, and Owen is now able to use Aedan's PJ Masks comforter set and super hero sheets.
And here is how Samantha's room looked after getting her bed set up. With moving Aedan's shelves out of the room, we were able to get her desk back in by the window where she likes it, so that way she can sit at the window to draw or write and also see out the window. Her room looks so much more grown-up and beautiful now. It was exciting to get the beds switched around and set up, and I feel like everyone has so much more space now.
Here are some pictures I tried to take of Owen that day at nap time, sleeping on his new mattress on the bunk bed for the first time. No more little crib mattress for him!
Here is a pictures of the yummy dessert that Ben made for our small group from "The Great British Baking Show" cookbook. They were filled with homemade whipped cream and raspberry jam, topped with powdered sugar and were definitely very yummy. Do you see how close to the picture in the book they look? Ben is such a talented baker, and I'm enjoying seeing him use and enjoy his new cookbook.
On Monday, I decided to start the process of looking into preschools for Owen for next year. Some of the registrations take place pretty early in the spring, and I didn't want to miss any deadlines or cut-offs, especially when there is a very certain type of program that I am interested in for Owen. We want something to be most of the day on Tuesdays and Thursday, since those are the days Ben doesn't teach classes, so his schedule would be more flexible for dropping off and picking up Owen. My goal would be to use those two days a week to sub, or maybe sub one day and work on a graduate class the other day. Owen would be taken care of at preschool, so then Ben would be able to continue working on those days. It worked okay this past semester for Ben to stay home while I subbed, but it's not ideal for him to be missing out on a day of work every week, and missing two days would definitely not make sense. I want to start slowly ramping up the days that I sub over these next couple of years before Owen is in kindergarten so that I can increase the likelihood that I could find a full time teaching job at some point. I know it's challenging around here, and there is a lot of competition, so I need to do all I can to get my name out there in the school districts. Plus, Owen needs to go to preschool anyways. He still has two more years before kindergarten because his birthday is September 17th, past the kindergarten cut off, and he definitely is ready for the social interaction and the structure of a preschool program. So far, I was thinking of the Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-2:30 program at the YMCA in Wilkes-Barre. It is right across the street from Ben's office building, so that would be convenient for him to drop him off and pick him up. Plus, they get to go swimming every day of that program, lunch is provided, and I have heard good things about it from some friends whose kids have gone to preschool there.
With Owen now sleeping in the twin bed, I moved the video monitor closer to his head so I could see him. I started using the video monitor back when he got out of his crib and was in the toddler bed so that I could see if he got out of bed not. He has always been really good with that, similar to Aedan, and dissimilar to Samantha. He just knew that he was expected to stay him bed until his sound machine turned green, and he has never tried to push that boundary, which I am so thankful for. I can remember so many times of Samantha getting out of bed and having to sit outside her bedroom door to listen for when she got up so that I could stop her and send her back to her bed. Sometimes I have to remind Owen to be quiet and stop kicking the wall or doing somersaults in his bed, but overall, he is pretty respectful. As I watched him on the monitor that night it made me smile because he was laying on his back, with his hands behind his head, propping his head up, and twirling the little section of hair on the back of his head. He has always been a hair twirler. When he was little he would twirl my hair, and now he just twirls his own. He often does it when he is tired or falling asleep, and it makes me smile to see that doing that comforts him and calms him down as he falls asleep.
Here is some work the kids brought home from school. Aedan had his weekly newsletter with his spelling words and high frequency words to practice reading, a picture that he drew that looks like a scene from Harry Potter. (You can see the wands, a dementor, and a white owl.) He also has a picture of a Christmas scene and a paper from music class.
Samantha has practice with her spelling words that practice the long a and i sounds, her completed math mosaic with simplifying fractions, a spelling test that she 100% on, and a Chapter 6 Science Test that she got 100% on. Way to go, Samantha! She almost always gets 100% on Spelling, Science, and Social Studies tests.
On Tuesday morning it started snowing, and they cancelled school because we were supposed to get snow and then ice. It's always nice to have an unexpected snow day, and the kids were excited to not have to go to school and be able to just stay home and play.
Owen and I watched story time online from the library and then we did the craft together. We heard a story about ballet shoes, so he was able to decorate and put string in for the laces of the ballet shoes. We decided to use dot markers to decorate the shoes, and Owen really liked doing that. He used every color of the rainbow.
This is just a little video of Owen doing his craft. I like to capture his sweet little voice and movements on video so that way I can remember what he was like at a few months over three years old. You can see that he is using his left hand to do the dots, and I must have had a stuffy nose because you can also hear me sniffling on the video.
Later that afternoon we decided to take our sleds on the road right outside our house and sled down our icy street. With how slippery it was and the fact that it wasn't cleaned off yet, we knew it was pretty safe. Plus, we don't have that much traffic on our road anyways. I stayed at the top to help hold the sleds while the kids climbed on and gave them a push down the hill. Ben stayed at the bottom to catch them in case they got going too fast or started going off course. The first video is Owen going down and then his sled turns to the left, and he starts going down the hill into our neighbor's yard across the street. Ben ran over to help him out, but he was fine.
The next video was Samantha's attempt at going down the hill, but we hadn't made enough of a track yet, so it was hard for her to get going. She went down other times where she was able to go faster. Plus, we discovered this sled was cracked on the bottom, so that cracked edge kept rubbing on the ground, pulling snow and ice up into the sled.
Here is another video of Owen going down the hill. He went straight this time, but he got going pretty fast and Daddy had to grab him at the bottom before he zoomed right past him.
Here is Aedan going down the hill. He was calling for Daddy, but he wasn't going too fast on that wider black sled.
Here is another attempt by Samantha. She was having a hard time not leaning one direction or another and making her sled go to the left and into our neighbor's yard across the street. She was trying really hard, but I don't think she understood which direction to lean in order to move a certain direction. That's okay though, we were all having fun sledding down the icy road.
Here are some cute pictures and videos I took of Samantha and Owen being silly together after bath time that night. They were playing the songs from Owen's Baby Shark book, running back and forth, and dancing around together. Owen was having a blast with this one-on-one attention from his big sister, and Samantha was doing a great job interacting with him on his level, doing something she knew he would enjoy. Their dance moves are quite unique!
Aedan has super dry skin in the winter time, and his lips always get so chapped and then they turn red from him licking them repeatedly. I try to remind him to put chapstick on frequently, especially at night, but I just feel so bad for him when his lips are so red and raw like this.
After having a fun snow day at home on Tuesday, on Wednesday Aedan freaked out big time when it was time to go to school that morning. He said he didn't want to go because school is so boring. He really is such a homebody, and when he has time at home like that to play, with more free time to do whatever he wants, it is definitely a struggle when he has to go back to school. That morning was difficult because I had a bad headache, and I was trying to schedule a consultation for Samantha's teeth removal that she has to have done before getting braces to fix her crooked teeth.
Here is some work that Aedan brought home from school that day: practice with the long e and long i sound that is spelled with a y, practice using words to complete sentences, and his raccoon art project made with different colored hearts.
I try to sub one day a week, on a Tuesday or a Thursday when Ben can be home with Owen because he doesn't teach classes. On Thursday this week, I subbed at Lehman Jackson in the emotional support classroom in the morning, and then in the other 4th grade class in the afternoon. The day went well and was pretty easy, really. I enjoy teaching at the kids' school, too, because it gives me more of a chance to see them during the day.
Here is a picture of Owen helping Daddy unload the dishwasher that day. We usually assign him the job of helping with the silverware because it's something he can reach and put away all by himself.
Here is some work Samantha brought home from school that day: a Social Studies study guide, practice with their weekly spelling words that have the long e and o sounds, practice with the sentences for the cursive handwriting contest, a Social Studies test that she got 100% on, a math practice test, an art project she made that was displayed in the hall at school, and a math test she got 97% on. She tends to not remember to give us papers from her folder every day like Aedan does, so they pile up and she gives them all to us at once. Samantha always does so well on her schoolwork. I am proud of how hard she works, how diligent of a student she is, how she pays attention in class to her teacher and classmates, and how that pays off with good grades.
Aedan brought home his practice paper for the handwriting contest, a paper from music class, practice filling words in sentences, practice writing his spelling words, and and 80% on his weekly spelling test. I'm not saying that 80% is a bad grade, but spelling is definitely one of Aedan's weakest areas. We practice at home several times before his spelling tests on Thursdays, but it always seems like he struggles to remember, especially if the words are tricky in any way. He went back and added in the letters that he missed that made the word wrong, but my theory is that he is in too big of a rush to be done with the test and he doesn't double check his work, so he gets some wrong that he actually knows how to spell. Plus, as you can see, he has pictures drawn all over his paper, so we have talked about how he shouldn't be drawing on his papers so much, especially if there is work he should be doing or checking. I don't want him rushing through his tests just so he can draw. His drawings do make me laugh though!
On Friday I subbed again for the same 4th grade class that I had subbed the half day for on Thursday afternoon. This teacher was actually Samantha's math teacher last year, and her class was very organized and well behaved. Her plans were clear, and the kids were really good at working independently and quietly. It was one of those classes that was nice to sub for, and my day was not stressful at all.
While Ben was home with Owen, he decided to take him on a little date, since he hadn't done that in a while with Owen. They went to Grotto Pizza for lunch, and these pictures that he took of him are just so sweet. I love his long, fluffy hair, his gorgeous blue eyes, his little boy face with the dimples in his cheeks. He is just so cute to me.
In this picture, however, he looks so grown up. It must be the angle Ben is taking the picture, but he looks older and less like a little boy. Either way, he's still cute. Ben said that Owen really enjoyed having the one-on-one attention from Daddy, that he just talked and talked. They enjoyed their drinks, pizza, and gelato at the end; and I'm sure Owen felt pretty special that he got to go on a date with Daddy just like his big brother and sister do.
That night I planned to take Aedan on a date because again, with having our little peanut last semester and Covid shutting everything down, it was difficult to get time away. I was excited to go spend time with just Aedan, and he decided he wanted to buy a Lego set, build it together, and go out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings. Aedan had a certain Lego set in mind that he wanted to get, so we checked at Target first to see if they had it. They didn't, and they also didn't have too many choices that interested him, so we decided to go to Barnes and Noble to see what they had there. He ended up choosing a Flash Set with Poison Ivy and a large robot guy. We bought it and then went over to the tables in the cafe to start building it. Aedan likes to build it all on his own, but he doesn't mind people helping him by getting the next pieces he needs for the next step. It was fun just sitting there watching him build, focusing on following the directions, and so proud of what he was creating. Lego building is definitely his thing.
After we built for a while at Barnes and Noble, I decided it was time to go get some food, so we packed up his Legos and brought them in Buffalo Wild Wings with us to keep building while we waited for our food. I wondered what the people in the restaurant thought about us sitting there building Legos together. I bet they don't see that very often. Aedan is a lot like me with things like this because he is very task-oriented and doesn't want to stop until he is done. He really wanted to stay there and finish building the whole set, but there were quite a lot of pieces! He worked hard, and I tried to help by finding the next pieces for him. Isn't he so cute? He doesn't enjoy posing for pictures most of the time, but he has such a sweet smile, and I hope he always wants to spend time with me, even as he grows up. I hope he knows how much I love him and how special he is to me.
He finished building his Lego set about 7:30, so I took some pictures of him with his creations, as well as a few pictures of the two of us together. I don't have very many pictures with my kids, more pictures of them, and I would like to make it a point to get in more pictures, for their sake and my own.
After taking our pictures, it was time to pack up the Lego creations and head back home. We planned to let Aedan and Owen share a room that night, enjoying their first night in the bunk beds together, so Owen was waiting to go to bed until Aedan got home. We figured we weren't going to move Aedan in the room permanently yet, but we would allow them to have the opportunity to have sleepovers on the weekends, just so they can start getting used to sleeping in the same room together before getting another foster placement. Aedan and Owen were both really excited about sharing a room. Here they are in bed and ready for their first night together!
I have been trying to keep up with pictures the teachers post on ClassDojo, and I saw these pictures posted of Aedan, but I wasn't sure if I had included them or not, so here they are, some pictures of Aedan in his element at school. It's hard having them gone all day and not knowing what they are up to at school or how they are doing, so I enjoy these pictures that their teachers post so that I can at least have a glimpse of what their day is like.
Saturday morning was swim lesson day again, so here are some pictures and videos of Samantha, Aedan, and Owen at their lessons that morning. They are still enjoying them and learning a lot. I don't mind going and sitting in the steamy, warm pool area, and I'm glad they are learning more and gaining confidence in the water. Here is Samantha doing the backstroke down the length of the pool and jumping off the diving platform.
Here are pictures and videos of Aedan's and Owen's swim lessons. Owen's lesson is first, and then Aedan's, so while one is swimming, the other is sitting up in the viewing area with me either reading a book or watching the lesson.
On a whim we decided to go to the roller skating rink right down the street from our house that afternoon. I texted Samantha's best friend, Cadence's mom to see if they would want to join us, and they were available. It was so fun to plan a time to meet up out of school. Samantha and Aedan brought their own roller skates and really did a good job skating around the rink. All that time practicing skating across the patio during the pandemic really paid off! We brought Owen as well and just decided to let him skip his nap that day so we could do something all together as a family. We got skates that clipped over his tennis shoes so Owen could go out on the skating rink as well, as long as someone was holding his hand. Samantha and Cadence had a blast skating around together, and her little brother brought money to play the arcade games which was right up Aedan's alley, so they ran around playing games, earning tickets, and buying silly little prizes. It was a fun way to spend a winter afternoon, and I was so glad the Stanleys could join us as well.
To round of a fairly busy day, Samantha had a T&T game night for the kids to have time to catch up on their books, eat pizza together, and play games like Sardines. Samantha really enjoys going to T&T game nights and hanging out with her AWANA friends. Luckily, the boys didn't have anything to do, so we were able to get those tired boys to bed early that night. We were having a good, but busy weekend so far!
(Blog about January 24-30, 2021)
