Is sometimes fertile soil

The boys got pansies to plant for now and daffodils for the spring at a fair a couple of weeks ago....and we finally took a moment yesterday to see what will grow

They practiced for their spelling tests today....with their six words of the week (Jack corrected that C when he reread them this morning),

and their word study words. Harry had SC, SN, and SW words while Jack's class worked on long and short vowel sounds. His teacher commented on how improved his writing is - the boy likes to follow a plan :-)

It was a busy week, but a good one. I started volunteering at the local library, and went on a tour of the local food bank and community services, hoping to get involved in doing some good. A friend and I are coaching the Destination Imagination team, which starts in a couple of months. The weekend is going to be a wild one!

Kathy Matea's Seeds

You're playin' with your food

The boys' scout group worked on the food pyramid, and we did an experiment with foods - the kids smeared samples of all sorts of things to see which had the highest fat content (glowing after dry)...the only real surprise is how neat they actually were with it all ;-)

Weird Al Yankovich's Eat It

And the zookeeper is very fond of THEM

Jack's always had a thing for arranging his stuffed animals, and with the recent additions from fairs, he has spent the last two nites grouping and classifying and finding just the right spot for everyone. He assured me tonite that there was still room for him to sleep ;-)
Simon and Garfunkel's At The Zoo

We were headed for the state fair

I caught the State Fair with my three favorite men - despite the rain and Sweet Harry's limp, we had a good time.
Sometimes you just capture personalities perfectly in pix - flirty Dean, Harry saying bring on the rain, and Jack making himself cozy. I sure do love these boys!

Dean and Jack partnered up again for a trip on the ferris wheel....

while Harry and I snuggled and enjoyed the views. Who would have thought it would be so chilly this early?? I'll take any excuse, tho!

Our little daredevils - they tried a racier ride at the last fair but it wasn't a hit with any of us. I think Harry's going to be into wild rides, but Jack is not having it yet. There is a great comparison shot in the slide show to the right, but I couldn't find it in a previous post. The ones from the last two years are linked below :-)

I loved this picture of the two of them posing for Dean - have to see what it looked like from the front, but it had me humming LL's Ugly From The Front all afternoon ;-)

I think I may have a real problem with photoging them from standing in front of fair gates, but this one shows how gimpy Harry was thru the entire thing - what a trooper he was! - and the beginnings of the rain

Our little racers - they've updated some of the cars, but this is a little bit of racing history

Ever the safety boys - looking both ways!

At the last fair, the found the joys of funhouses, and were SO looking forward to this one, which also included a maze....well, the story ends with three of us laughing as Jack describes how he walked "STRAIGHT INTO A SEE-THRU WALL!" We tried to convince him it will be funny after his nose stops hurting ;-)

He worked it for a while...

...but I was able to distract him with a discussion of cartilage - "just like a shark!"....exactly, Daniel-san!

Harry just spent the whole time making funny faces

Who loves Fair Food??

Jack went thru the better part of a bag of cotton candy with no ill effects, but a whole lotta silly!

He drove in deference to Harry's bum leg, and did a great job with the bumper cars!

Then it was game time! Attempting a bottle lift game...anything with a fishing pole!

Jack popped balloons on 5 of 7 attempts, but he was too fast and I was too excited clapping for him to get any good pix. Suffice it to say, you do not want to challenge this kid!

The nice carny helped Harry balance on one leg

and Harry was just a *little* excited to make a few pops of his own!

Gotta love a Daddy Hug of Victory!

It rained, a lot, and I couldn't get any good pix, but kinda liked their shadows walking home

Day is done

and boys are still silly!

Here's what it looked like last year

and two years ago

(they are riding in the same #8 car)

Doug Supernaw's State Fair

The Shape HE'S In

Our sweet Harry has had a rough go of it the last week or so. He's always a favorite among the bugs, mosquitos, and bees...since he's so sweet! We're waiting for the culture to come back to know what has caused this last set of what appear to be bites that have gotten VERY infected. He had one last Saturday, one this Saturday followed by a trip to the doctor on Sunday, and another has started bothering him today...yikes! Poor guy limped all the way thru the fair and almost brought the house down screaming while Dean drained them tonite - not a tear, tho - what a cowboy!

"They must think I'm Bug Pie!"

He fell out on Saturday, and we're watching him closely - hoping for some definitive info about what's going on within the next day.

Hot Apple Pie's The Shape I'm In

TWO many fish in the TANKS

The boys have been patiently waiting for their first pets - we decided Betas were a good choice, and they were thrilled to pick out their own fish and decorate their new habitats!

They marveled at the cool new houses and grr'd at the need to wait 24 hours to condition the water Harry's gravel glows, so he kept the lite on all nite

After the big transfer, the intensity of the first feeding....

We're pleased to introduce .... Harry's Jerry (a la Tom's mouse friend - Jack wouldn't name his Tom, so Harry won a fish at the fair...pix to come)

...and Jack's Bullet, so named because he's so fast! Jack was particularly proud of his tank-decorating and how cool it looked that his turtle is munching on the orange plant ;-)

Good nite rituals. Happy to report everyone is still happily swimming today :-)

Too Many Fish In The Sea

That's What Friends Are FOUR

Game Day 4 went really well - both teams won, tho their league doesn't keep score ;-) Harry wasn't in the mood to pose, but Jack was. I did catch Harry doing his professorial stance, but that's about it for today....

Stevie Wonder

Say the word I'm thinking of

The boys have started 'word study' activities each week; they sort and categorize a series of words thruout the week and have tests on Fridays. They also have 'words of the week' - so far, 5 site words that also test on Fridays. It's kind of cool to have two different classes so that they have more exposure and see different ways to work with words.

Harry is working on consonant blends: sk, sm, sp. He found out that those are harder to find in story books - he went thru three on Wednesday nite before finding examples of all of them, but he did learn that sh and st are REALLY common in kids' books ;-)


He thinks he's ready for both test today, as well as his first reading test on The Mixed-Up Chameleon (and, no, I didn't find this in time for him to watch it, but think he'd dig that!).

********************

Jack's word study this week focused on long vs. short vowel sounds. His final word study activity last nite was sorting and gluing the pictured words.

His practice test was a big success because he only misspelled 'vowls' once and mixed up the date a bit....he did, however, remember to put his whole name and student number at the top along with the crazy date ;-)

He finished his practice test and was waiting for Harry, so he asked if he could turn the page over to write his sentence like in class...sure. Nice sentence(s), sweet boy! We love you, too! Thanx for the reminder about all the good things in life ~

Jack was a little enthusiastic about writing, and I dug out this old book (30+ years). I had this book as a kid but somehow lost it. A co-worker gave hers to me when I joked about toting it around as a kid. (Funny how I remember these things as I'm typing - thank you, blog.) Jack thinks he hit the jackpot and can't wait to 'read all those words - she is so smart to know 35,000 words!' I think 'she' is my friend, who wrote her name in the front - thanx, Doris, for setting another generation along the road to loving words :-)

The Beatles' The Word

After 5 weeks of great school behavior for Harry and steadily improving days for Jack, we took a little trip to the KK yesterday. I obviously need to have a label for Krispy Kreme since I spent hours looking for a good comparison picture and couldn't find one. Add organizing blog to the ToDo list.....

So this is the closest I could find - bonus, Aunt Jackie's happy smile a couple of Christmases ago :-) Can you tell that they used to just barely reach that rail but now it hits their ELBOWS? :sniff: They are getting so big, but these days are among my favorite. Yeah, I've said it before and I'll say it again! These are the best days so far :-)