More Snow, Children's Museum with Owen, Aedan Reading and Drawing

Samantha: 117 Months, Week 2

Aedan: 84 Months, Week 4

Owen: 41 Months, Week 2

Sunday, February 21st we had a typical day of church in the morning, and then small group at our house that afternoon. We had the kids bring snow stuff along to play outside in all the snow we have gotten, and give them a chance to get some energy out outside, instead of all being trapped in the basement. We shared a prayer request that night about Samantha because she still was having such difficulty sleeping some nights. It's not every night, and we haven't been able to find a clear pattern or figure out if there is anything in particular that triggers it, but it is definitely a problem for both her and us. When she has trouble sleeping, it makes the next day really hard for everyone involved, and we feel particularly bad about it when it's a school night because we know she's not getting enough sleep.

I try to remember to stop and take pictures of things that catch my attention that the kids make and leave around the house, or bring home from school. Because some day I won't find a little Batman and Spider-Man colored and cut out of paper, with a spiderweb as well, laying around on my counter and put up on the kitchen cabinets. Aedan is very creative, and I love seeing the drawings that he makes at school in his free time.

Monday morning we got more snow, and in person school was cancelled again and turned into a Google Classroom day. When I asked Ben how the roads were on his way to campus, he said he was thinking he should have stayed home and worked from home that day. The roads were bad, no snow plows had been out yet, and it was orange or red on Google Maps all the way home. I was worried about him driving home safely on the slippery, snow-covered roads through the mountains.

Here is Aedan's work from his Google Classroom day. He read a passage before answering questions and drawing a picture about it, worked on a problem solving page where he was comparing numbers, did more work with numbers that are greater than or less than, read another passage before answering questions about it and writing a response, as well as the things I have him do like practicing his math facts, reading a book to me, and taking an AR quiz.

Here are some pictures and videos of the snow we got on Monday. As you can tell, we did not need any more snow as we already had quite a lot on the ground. At this point, we are just used to having school cancelled because we have had so many snow days this month. I feel like they've been out of school more than they have been in school. At least we live in a pretty location where it certainly is beautiful to see the snowy landscape around us with the forest and hills covered in snow.

This week was busy for me because in addition to doing my work for my graduate class, I agreed to host a Norwex party, and it was on Tuesday night. I had to do a lot more preparation than I thought I would have to do as far as messaging people, contacting people, and making posts to generate interest. My friend Heather wanted me to post a picture or video of me cleaning and using a Norwex product. I tried to show how good the Envirocloth and Window Cloth were at cleaning Izzy's nose prints off the inside of the car door window, but the picture didn't turn out very good. I tried to use Samantha as a demonstrator of how to use the Envirocloth to clean dirty fingerprints off the bathroom door, but, although it cleaned off a lot, there were still a lot of fingerprints left, so I didn't want to use that video and make people think it's really not that effective. So I finally settled on putting some coal dust on the tile floor and using the Norwex wet mop to clean it up. I felt a little silly recording and posting the video, but I was wanting to do all that I could to set myself up for success with the party, get as many people interested as possible, and try to earn as much free stuff as I could. (It ended up being a huge success! I earned all the levels of hostess prizes, including the mop system, lots of free products, and money to use to spend on other things that I wanted. It was a good amount of work, but it ended up being very worth it in the end.)

Aedan has gotten to be such a good reader, and Owen loves it when he reads to him. Here they are sitting on the rug on the floor in the upstairs hallway, reading a book that was my mom's when she was younger, called "You Will Go to the Moon." I loved seeing how much Aedan enjoyed being read to by Samantha at this age, and it makes me smile to see Aedan carrying on the torch by also reading to Owen.

It was a little disappointing that Monday was another Google Classroom day because it was also the 100th day of school, so that was a little anti-climactic. Aedan was tasked with bringing in 100 of something, so he got a bag and counted out 100 Lego pieces to bring with him to school. What other object would he choose to have 100 of?

I love that the kids' teachers post pictures of them occasionally on ClassDojo, and I like to save them so I have a snapshot of what they are doing in the classroom during the day. Here is Samantha paired up with another girl in her 5th grade math class, working together to solve problems on their white boards.

I love it when the kids play creatively together. The Barbies and Super Heroes were all in families together, and they were all set up to have a picnic outside together. I love watching the ideas they come up with, and how they can all enjoy playing together, even if they have different interests and are different ages. I know Samantha likes Barbies, but doesn't really like playing by herself. Aedan doesn't really like playing with Barbies, but he is happy to have his Barbie-size super heroes join in the play. These are the moments I will miss when the kids get older and don't want to do this imaginary play anymore. Samantha is already getting to that point sometimes, and it makes me feel a little sad. So I will make a point to stop what I am doing and watch them play, take a few pictures and videos, and capture this moment in my mind to remember.

Here is the little Batman and Spider-Man that Aedan made at school. He decided he wanted to put tape on them and stick them up on the cabinet. Every once in a while he will move them into a different position and create a new scene.

Our vacuum cleaner has not been working, and I had already tried the things you are supposed to do to troubleshoot it. It was still under a warranty, as it is not that old yet, so Ben lovingly agreed to get on the phone with the Shark people to discuss our issue and request a new rolling head attachment, whatever that part is called. After a little bit of convincing, they agreed that it wasn't working properly and said they would send us a new one, which we got a few days later. I was pretty excited about that, as I desperately needed to vacuum, and this hadn't had proper suction for quite a while.

Ben took Samantha to her first gymnastics lesson that evening, since I took Owen last week. He said she was a little out of her element, as she has not taken gymnastics lessons since we lived in Sault Ste. Marie and would go over to Canada for lessons. However, she was excited about trying it and really wanted to learn how to do a cartwheel. He said she was trying hard, but that he would have to give her a pep talk afterwards so she wasn't too hard on herself in comparing herself with other girls in her group that had clearly been doing gymnastics for a long time.

Owen and I don't get to go very many fun places together, and sometimes I think he would just have more fun if he could go places with Samantha and Aedan rather than just me. But, I wanted to do something with him and take him somewhere, so on Wednesday, I decided to take him to the Lewisburg Children's Museum. They have limited days and hours because of Covid, so I was excited we were free on a Wednesday to go, and there wasn't a snow day! It was a little different going with just him, but he had a lot of fun getting my full, undivided attention, and I had fun playing with him without being distracted by housework or other children.

Here he is burying and digging up apples from in the box of wood pellets. Then, he stuck all the apples back up on the tree on the wall. He played with this for a long time.

He especially liked to drive around in this car in the hallway that they have put dotted lines down to make it look like a road. They even have a pretend gas pump, and Owen loves to push the buttons and pretend to fill his car up.

Here he is posing as an astronaut in the science area of the museum.

We got out a bin of some of the hands-on building materials, and he very carefully connected all these magnetic balls and rods to form this circle. He worked really hard on it and was upset when we had to take it apart and put it away before moving on to another exhibit.

In this room they have a "digestive system" that you can climb through, a body where you can match up the organs and bones, a pretend ambulance, and a doctor's office where you can give pretend check-ups and even type things into a computer to get a pretend diagnosis. We probably played in this area for the longest time because he loved pretending to be a doctor and give me check-ups, and also having me pretend to give him check-ups. Sometimes I forget how young he is and how much he still likes to play pretend. He often gets so caught up in playing bigger kid stuff with Samantha and Aedan, that he kind of skips right over this type of play geared more for younger kids his age. It was so fun to imagine and pretend along with him.

Before leaving the museum to go get lunch, we played back in the farm section for a little while, and he enjoyed playing with this Little People farm and animals. As you can tell from the pictures, the museum was very empty that day and we pretty much had the run of the place. He had a great time, and I had a great time with him. I'm so glad I decided to just bring him by himself.

My sweet, adorable, blue-eyed boy!

We got lunch at a local bagel place that I had taken the kids to another time we came to the museum. He got a rainbow bagel with Oreo cream cheese, and although it wasn't the healthiest lunch, he enjoyed it a lot. 

Here is some work the kids brought home from school that day. Aedan drew, colored, and labeled the parts of a flower, with a Ninja Turtle running towards it, of course. He also practiced choosing words to complete a sentence, practiced his spelling words, and drew a couple more pictures of scenes from Dog Man.

Samantha did a couple pages where she practiced her spelling words with long u sounds and did a math page where she multiplied fractions.

With Aedan getting so good at reading lately, we have been trying to encourage him to read out loud to us, especially before bedtime, during our nightly routine of reading books together. We decided to have him start reading the Magic Treehouse series, starting with book number one, and as you can hear, he is doing a great job of reading the book. I love how he asks me if he's right about the word "information" that he didn't know how to pronounce. But then he noticed I was recording him, and he got a little embarrassed and shy. I love the sweet smile he give me when he says, "Right? Is it Mommy?" and then leans his head over on to my shoulder. He definitely gets tired after a full day at school, and even though it is only 7:30, you can tell he is having a little trouble concentrating and focusing on his reading. Even though Aedan is growing up before my very eyes, I still see the little boy in him that loved to cuddle with me, his cute cheeks that still make him look young at certain times, his big brown eyes, and I am brought right back to the days when he cried for me and wanted me to put him to bed each night. I love hearing him read, and I look forward to keeping up this tradition of reading chapter books like these before bed at night.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Thursday. Aedan practiced his spelling words that focused on adding -es, and he has a worksheet from music class. Samantha isn't as good at emptying out her folder and giving me papers from school, so on Wednesday afternoon she finally emptied out a lot of papers from her folder that had accumulated. She had her weekly math review boxes, some worksheets from a reading packet and daily language review packet, her "Dear Santa" Letter, practice with her spelling words that follow the VCCV pattern, some more reading and language arts practice on various topics as they start thinking about the PSSA testing in the spring, reading questions on the class novel they are reading, "Shiloh," a 97% that she got on a Social Studies test that she used a homework pass for in order to add 5 points to the test for extra credit, giving her a 102% on the test, and some patterned mittens that she made for art class.

Owen has gymnastics every Thursday afternoon now for this current session, so since I took him last week, Ben took him this week. He said he was having fun, but was actually the quiet one around all the crazy ones. There are a few kids in his class who are a little rowdy and don't listen well, and you can often see Owen just looking at them and wondering why they aren't doing what they are supposed to do.

Since everything began with Covid, the library has been posting stories being read online. They also had a packet of crafts you could pick up at the library and do at home that went along with each week's story time. On Friday Owen and I listened to the story time online, and then he worked on making his snowman craft. It was perfect for all the snow we have gotten recently. He takes his crafts very seriously, and he loves using glue sticks. I love how he stands on the chair quite often when he's doing things at the table, or even when he's eating sometimes. After he glued all the circles on, he drew arms, buttons, and a face on his snowman as well.

Friday was a Knight Pride Day and the theme was mismatch day. Samantha and Aedan don't always like to participate in these days, but they were excited to dress crazy and mismatched. Here is a picture of a few girls from Samantha's class dressed up for the day.

Here are the boys from Aedan's class dressed up mismatched. Aedan is standing on the right. He wore shorts over his pants and the flannel shirt over a t-shirt. Pretty mismatched! I was proud of them for dressing up (especially Aedan, because he would be the one who would normally not go for this type of thing).

They had an early dismissal day, so I got some pictures of them at home. You couldn't tell in the picture above, but Aedan had his hair half flat and half spiky. They decided to make crazy faces for me as well!

I love these next couple of pictures because of the look on Aedan's face when Samantha is hugging him and then the next picture when he is just staring at her with such admiration. He loves his big sister so much. He looks up to her, and he loves getting attention like this from her. Also, as I write this post a few months later, I am shocked at how much they have both grown. Aedan looks so much shorter in these pictures. You don't quite realize how much they change and grow until you look back on pictures and notice all the changes that occurred.

They started making these faces because they were tired of me taking pictures of them.

That afternoon, Aedan decided to use his free time at home to draw pictures and scenes from Dog Man. He brought down his art box, spread his paper across the table, and drew this very detailed scene and characters. He colored it in afterwards as well, but I was pretty impressed with how well his drawings were and how much detail he included. He definitely loves to draw and is really enjoying reading graphic novels right now and then trying to copy the characters and scenes from the book onto his own paper.

On Saturday afternoon, it was Aedan's turn for his ninja warrior gymnastics class. I took him that day, and here is what they did. His teacher walked him through the obstacle course. He got himself first in line because he was so excited about doing it. You can see him trying a cartwheel, walking on some planks, jumping over rings, doing the hula hoop, and attempting to do a forward roll. I stopped the video at this point because I was worried about his neck. I didn't know why they didn't stop him from trying to do this wrong. He knows how to do a somersault, so I have no idea why he was trying to go up on his neck like that. After class was over, I had him try it again on the side with me. I don't want him to hurt himself or pull a muscle in his neck because of doing it wrong.

They also had time jumping on the bouncy floor one at a time. In this video he was doing five tuck jumps.

In the next video he was tasked with doing five star jumps, which I think were his favorite kind. It was a good class, he really enjoyed himself, and he had been looking forward to it all week since Samantha and Owen had already had their first weeks of gymnastics.

(Blog about February 21-27, 2021)