Write About Love

The boys have been making use of the chalkboard in the kitchen, and it sure is a nice way to start a day....here they are posing, sweet and silly, with a note for Dean when he was traveling.

Belle and Sebastian

To see just what went on in our own backyard

Harry hanging out at Jack's soccer practice recently
Jack finally got lucky and won $20 from a dollar scratcher....so far, he doesn't seem to need GA, but he hasn't cashed it yet

JB's Comin' Down Slow

Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box

The boys' Book Club is finishing up their third book, Pippi Longstocking, a classic that I remember well. My friend Lisa Weaver and I went to see the movie the week that I moved from SC to VA when I was twelve years old..yikes, what a blast from the past!

Their culminating project is a Cereal Box Book Report, which turned out to be a really fun way to incorporate some of their favorite scenes. The front included identifying information and a picture of their favorite scene from the story, the first side had a list of characters with descriptions, the second side described the setting/s, and the back included a game that related to the story in some way. They are to include a surprise inside that is something real and reflects something about the story.

Here is Harry showing off his box and 'surprise' (this is probably the best shot I've gotten of his three missing teeth, bonus!)
He drew a picture of his favorite scene, the silly one from Chapter 1 where Pippi cracks an egg on her head - he did a great job with the yolk and it falling over her nose

His 'cast of characters' highlights Pippi, her two friends Tommy and Annika, and her monkey Mr. Nilsen

He drew a picture of Pippi jumping from drain cover to drain cover during a game they play, and noted that most of the story took place outside, but a few scenes were inside, including Pippi's 'berthday' (her spelling) party

His favorite part was the back, where he created a maze to get Tommy and Annika to Pippi's birthday party, including obstacles that were birthday-themed: hats, cakes, balloons, and noise makers. He even put a few directions for the non-maze types ;-)

Jack proudly displaying his cereal box before soccer practice

His front cover depicted the scene where Pippi whomps up on two bullies, who end up in a tree. He was really proud of his 'dots, like teachers make on their letters'

He described the same characters, the kids and Pippi's monkey

He mentioned the town and a neighbor's house, where they had a tea party as settings

Jack's back cover had a Differences game, and he took great care with the details of her clothes and shoes that were discussed in the book and her expression.

They had a lot of fun with the project, and since Pippi is such a funny girl, there were a lot of laughs at our house.

Edie Brickell's What I Am

7 And 7 Is

This is what almost 7 looks like on a sunny day
and this is how you squeeze a whole lotta love into a Costco cart

and this is what 6 or so years can do

I'm trying to enjoy it all and not get too nostalgic for the tinies...they're making it easy by being particularly wonderful the last few days. We have big plans tomorrow and the weekend, so hopefully I'll stay motivated to blog about it :-)

Love

What a glorious feeling, HE'S TOOTHLESS again

Harry lost his fourth tooth tonite, and it was a bit of a surprise.....he's practicing his expressive faces for the DI tournament this weekend - how's he doing?!?

He was very worried about her ability to negotiate the heavy rains we're expecting and decided she must have an amazing umbrella. He also insisted on leaving a cookie for her, since she must get really hungry with all that flying around.....(that's his tooth to the left on the plate....it's under his pillow now)

Singing In The Rain

Love TrainS

Happy Valentine's Day

to you and the ones you love

The O'Jays

There's a lady that stands in a harbor

First grade has its first social studies project due at the end of this week. Guess what Jack chose as a great American symbol to study? Surprise! I'm working on the SoL montage from our recent trip to NYC, but suffice it to say today was his second-favorite SoL moment - he is so excited about this project!

She's still in need of robes and a little painting, but she's shaping up nicely. Tops in Jack's book, right in front of this moment.....

Aaron Tippin's Where The Stars And Stripes And The Eagle Fly

And old home scenes of my childhood

Jack had chosen a whole lotta his favorite pix for his week as Star Student. He only took a few in, but I was playing around with them and made this collage....

Randy Travis's Precious Memories

Destination IMAGINATION

Harry liked his first turn at blogging so much that he's asked for another go - this time he wants to tell you all about Destination Imagination.

Jack and I are in Mommy and Mrs. C's after-school Destination ImagiNation science, and we make scripts. We always eat snacks, and sometimes we laugh at each other. Jack has a part, I have a part, Erin has a part, Gina has a part, Kaitlyn has a part, Isaiah has a part, and Rashmi is the narrator. But we can't decide who's going to make their parts first because they all want to make them. Sometimes we argue, and sometimes Mrs. C. says "guys, guys, time-out" and sometimes Mommy says "shhh, Jack" when he's interrupting us, and that always distracts me. One by one, we make more parts and every time when we get home, sometimes we make new scripts. We will make some costumes for the play so that people can figure out who we are and what real bugs look like. I am a bedbug, Jack is a tarantula brother, Isaiah's a tarantula brother, Gina is a popcorn lady - gee, she makes good popcorn and I think I could eat all of her popcorn in her popcorn machine! - Erin is a black widow, Kaitlyn is a dog, and Rashmi is our narrator. One day Erin wanted to go to a party, but Gina said no and I said 'I wasn't invited either.' I'm a bedbug and she said 'no bedbugs allowed!' Isaiah said 'we weren't invited either, she said no bad bugs or spiders'. We went to the fair instead, and we had fun. We always love DI, and I love it because it's my favorite thing of my life. The End.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from DI so far - this is all of us trying to show our feelings - we were trying to show 'sad' faces, like how we'd feel if we weren't invited to a party.

This is a picture of me working with my teammates in the back and Jack working with his teammates in the front of the picture. We were making up skits with our bug puppets.

Over and out,

Harry

The Commitments' Destination Anywhere (Harry loved this version - said 'it sounds like jazz, my favorite)

Never know how much I love you

They tell you and you sort of know, but I've been watching this face sleep in almost this exact same position for almost 7 years now, and my heart melts every time. It's one of the first things I noticed holding them both in my arms in the hospital - Harry would lean his head on his left hand. :wub:

He missed his first day ever of school today because he had a little fever this morning. Dean sort of laughs at me about the attendance, but I only missed one day for a family funeral and think it's important that they don't ditch school for every little thing - fevers are another story. Dean and I were just talking about how healthy they have both been...jinx! Harry's fever popped up again just before he snuggled into me for this nap - hoping another day will be all it takes. His good buddy has pneumonia and over 10% of his entire school was out yesterday. Be gone, sickies!

Elvis, and just about everyone one else, singing Fever

Writin' fan letters

The last half of Harry's Star Student week got snowed out, so he got to extend into this week. His friends made notes and pictures to tell him what he means to them last Tuesday, and he had a lot of smiles telling us about all the friends and their writing and drawings. He's looking even more forward to getting to know next week's start student, Alexis, better after experiencing all the fun he had during his turn!

Thanx to his teacher and all his friends for making this week so much fun for Harry!

JB's Pencil Thin Moustache

Son, can you play me a memory

The boys have been playing around with their new musical instruments for the last couple of months, and things are starting to sound more like real songs. Harry even serenaded us with some 'dinner music' earlier today...I could get into that!

He first played this yesterday, with Dean and I in other rooms, both recognizing it....I was flooded with the memory of them sitting at Story Hour with Miss Kitt and doing their 'twinkle hands', trying to follow along....precious memories.

Billy Joel's Piano Man

I was just a bandage

Harry's new hero is the school nurse, who hooked him up with this way-big bandage to cover the cut he got yesterday.

John Ralston's When I Was A Bandage

Leave old pictures in the past?

I have been so slack lately and had no idea where to start to catch up, so I'm going to dig thru the old 'blog' picture file and try to catch up....starting in August 2009

I seem to get a picture of Harry following tire tracks every year, and one of him airborn
And there's always a serious teaching moment with Jack and Daddy

This was a Dean's screen saver for a while....they look so ittybitty....a few of Daddy's favorite things

Their castle and moat, complete with drawbridge

Harry practices hangin' 10

Jack imagines catchin' a wave

A little teamwork goes a long way

It really is a beautiful place, and our hearts are always there

Nickelback's If Today Was Your Last Day

Just another night

Dean is home and all is right with our world tonite.
The boys enjoying their 'working dinner'. It seems like they come home with a whole new vocabulary of working types of phrases from school like this and 'finish-up folder' and a whole lotta others I can't remember at the moment. One of Harry's favorite is 'working ___' - he will seem to do just about anything if I phrase it just right ;-)

You may remember these Valentine's mailboxes that the boys made a few years ago. Jack came up with a brilliant, sweet idea this year. He and Harry put special notes and pictures in the mailboxes for us, and we do the same for them. You always know there's a little bit of love in the box when the flag is up....
......looks like a little sweet for our sweeties!

I try to keep things picked up, but I can't complain too much when the 'mess' is stacks of books they are enjoying. It's been a mix of fiction and non-fiction lately, and they are really enjoying their reading club at school. It's the first time they have been in a real learning environment together - we'll see how it goes. My hopes go out to their teachers that it goes well!

Jack has had a real struggle this week with being too talkative and interrupting. If have no idea where he gets that :blush:, let alone the fact that he gets a double dose! It's been quite a while since he's had a 'yellow day' which means his teacher had to warn him about his behavior....he's had TWO this week, so he wrote his teacher this email:

Let's hope the self-control kicks back in soon! He's awfully sweet, so I have faith
Cat Stevens

I Just Want To Bang On The Drum All Day

Jack very proudly performing his first song

Todd Rundgren's Bang On The Drum

HIS MOMMY, she wrote HIM a letter

So, it was Harry's turn for having a parent write a letter, and he opted for me. It was much harder than I thought - it's easy to write something personal to him, but to make it something he would want to share with his friends was a bigger challenge. It's fairly cheesy, and of course I thought of a million things I left out after I sent it, but he laughed and smiled and seemed happy....he couldn't tell Dean any of it on the phone tonite, so who knows?!?

They have a snow day tomorrow, so he'll miss out on bringing in his favorite book, or possibly he'll do that and show-n-tell on Friday.

Dear Mrs. W and Room 116,

I hope you’ve been having a fun time getting to know more about our Dearest Harry this week. Some of you have known him for a long time and know that he can be the nonstop-talking class clown or as quiet as a mouse. You have probably seen Harry read and spell like a champ, but you may not know how happy it makes him to have good friends like you. You could never hope for a more thoughtful, loyal friend or a sillier playmate; if you love music, have a poor sense of direction, or like to laugh, Harry’s your guy!

Harry is the heart, musician, comedian, cruise director, and Human Garmin for our family. He always wants to be sure that everyone he loves is safe and happy. He has a twin brother named Jack who he loves more than anything! Harry is one minute younger, so that makes him the ‘little’ brother, but he may be the most mature person in our entire family. He has a great memory for anything he ever sees or hears, and he can easily imitate characters that he hears in movies or television shows. He and Jack love to act out entire episodes of their favorite tv shows like Curious George and Rescue Heroes.

Here’s a little poem I wrote about Harry and what he means to us:

Harry is the youngest one
And he loves every song ever sung!
His smile is so sunny
And he likes to be funny.

He’s very friendly and kind.
If you want to be boss, he may not mind.
Harry is so curious
But sometimes he’s nervous.

He loves to laugh and tell stories,
Draw houses and maps,
But he hates, how he hates
Homework and naps!

He loves to create
And stay up late
He loves the moon
And Name That Tune

He loves to spell
And read as well
Harry loves to sing and play piAHno
And go, go, go!

Thank you, Harry, for bringing so much love, music, joy, and direction to our family. You truly are my sunshine, and I’m the luckiest Mommy in the world!

We all love you,
Mommy

Joe Cocker's The Letter

Well, train, train, take me on out of this town

We have a guest writer today at TAoHJ - first-timer Harry has been thrilled about writing 'a blog'....so here goes. The video at the end shows a bit of his (non-toilet-related) joy

When we were going to NYC, we had to go to bed early. The next day, we woke up, we had to wake up early to go to the train station. I wanted to get on the train. I was so excited! My thinking bubble was "My heart is thinking we will get on the train now!" When I was on the train, I took my new Puzzle Manias out. I wanted to do some fun activities. I used some pens and some pencils. I put the stickers on one of the activities on Puzzle Mania. It was a squeaky house. When I made that, I wanted I was doing a great job! When I was in the bathroom, the power went out. When I flushed the toilet, the toilet water flushed blue. The train back to Virginia, the water of the toilet flushed regular. There was a white thing that went up when you flushed the toilet. After you flushed the toilet, there was a weird sound like this "nnnnnnn" I was sad that we didn't stay in New York.

M: Are you finished?
H: Nope! Still more!

"Are you finished with that activity, Mom?" I said.
I loved it when we were in NYC because of DoubleTree.
The End


Blackfoot's Train, Train

Can't read-a my poker face

Guess whose turn it is?? Funny what a pose can hide - He's really excited....
...I mean really excited!

Have a great week, little man! We are so happy you finally get your turn :-)

Lady Gaga's Poker Face

Leaving on a FAST TRAIN

Yikes, it's been so long, I don't know where to start....so I'm just jumping in with the morning's trip prep. It seems like we could have just bought a couple of new suitcases and skipped the train, hotel, and adventures in NYC....oh, wait all that excitement is to come! They have been having a blast practicing their suitcase steering skills, making their own lemonade stand and other imaginative whatnot out of the suitcases....

I have about a gazillion pix from the last month and hope to get through them before my aging brain forgets all the stories and adventures we've been having....thanx for visiting and being patient!

John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane