He’s back

Merton, that is. Our friendly Elf on the Shelf has made the long trek from the North Pole to once again watch over the boys this Christmas season. Let’s see if it does any good. And if I remember to move the thing every night. I have so many over-achieving friends already posting their little elves getting into all sorts of cute little hijinks on Facebook. I’m sticking with the same goal as last year --- remember to move him. If it happens to be something cute, BONUS! However, this year Merton did bring us an early gift from the North Pole (thank you Pinterest). The boys liked the countdown calendar so much last year we decided to splurge on one again.

Silly boy

Ben is all about making the silly faces these days.

He also loves to put both his hands in his mouth. Sometimes he bites, sometimes he just puts them in there and grins a super huge grin.

P.S. I love his little teeth.

Odd place for a nap

Ben’s new favorite place to rest is the kitchen floor. Right in the middle of everything (including the dust bunnies and food crumbs). Whenever he is whiny and no one will pay attention to him (a girl has to cook dinner once in awhile) he will go into his bedroom and whine until someone gets his pillow and blanket from his bed. Then he brings them into the kitchen and cuddles up right under foot. On this day it probably didn't help that he was also sick. I’m on the fence between cute and gross.

Such a sweetie

Even in a diaper, with his bare little piggies all over my counter and processed cheese hangin’ from his lip this little guy is such a sweetie.

Trimming the tree

I’m not one for traditions. It’s not that I don’t want them, it’s just I’m usually really bad at breaking them therefore it’s easier not to do them. However, we try very hard to always decorate the tree on the Sunday following Thanksgiving. It’s not that I want to get every ounce of Christmas out of the season. Truthfully, I’d rather put it up the week before because then I wouldn’t have to worry about the kids toppling it over on themselves (bah humbug, I know). But, every year I make a calendar for my mom and mother-in-law and I really need Christmas pictures to round out the year. So … we put up the tree. This year went surprisingly well given that Ben had to be right in the middle of everything and help put the new, completely breakable, balls on the tree.

But first, each of the boys had to take a few spins in the Christmas tree skirt (hopefully the only skirt they ever wear). Benny of course looked adorable as always.

Nick really didn’t want to do it, but once it was on he had fun spinning around.

And Zander, well he had to pretend that it was a Power Ranger cape. Everything is a Power Ranger/Megazord something these days. And apparently there were some serious bad guys in our living room this morning because he was at his fighting finest.

Then we got down to the business of decorating. I took very few pictures because my flash was dying and since we had new bulbs getting them tree-ready was a two person job. I got them out of the box, Mike hooked them and the boys put them on the tree. All three took their jobs very seriously. Ben, who was decorating the tree for the first time, grabbed the first ball in the palm of his hand and was so excited I’m surprised he didn’t smash it into a million pieces. But, as long as I reminded him to be gentle he would carefully take the top of the bulb and walk over to Mike for a hook. This spot on the tree was his favorite and is now loaded to the near tipping point with blue and silver balls.

And then came the money shot. I need a picture of all three boys in front of the tree for the calendar. Do you think any of them would cooperate? Surprisingly Nick was the best. Ben was smiling, but with his fingers in his mouth and Zander was mid-fit. And just like last year everyone was in their PJs and some were half-naked. Oh well. I’m sure the grandmas will still love them.

Still suckin’

On the pacifier. I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. It’s not him. It’s me. When he is whiny it’s just easier to pop that sucker in then to deal with him while I am trying to get Nick’s homework done and cook dinner. He doesn’t have it at daycare so I know he can do it. Except as soon as I get to daycare he is pawing at the thing and whining for me to give it to him. I can’t lie. As soon as we get to the car I usually cave. Bad mom. I know. Someday we will get there. Just not today.

Everything Power Rangers

Zander is obsessed with everything Power Rangers. He has been since we discovered nearly every episode ever made in this country and any other English-speaking country. Everything is a Power Ranger. Anything can be a Megazord or morpher. And his little brain is working in overdrive trying to play Power Rangers using the toys we have on hand and the two Rangers we have borrowed from a friend until Christmas. Today he built a Megazord out of Legos and it was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

His megazord. Those little minfigs Power Rangers are fighting the evil villains trying to take over Mariner Bay (Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue – yes I know all of this too).

And this is what Nick does while his brother is saving the world. He’s not one for using his imagination. He’d rather take a nap. Makes it kind of hard to decide what to get him for Christmas.

Happy 7th Birthday to Nick!

How can it be that my first-born is 7 years old today? It seems like just yesterday I was at my baby shower wondering what the heck was happening (my water broke and I had no clue). This has been a trying and rewarding seven years (hopefully for both of us). In many ways Nick is the guinea pig of the family, helping us figure out as we go what works and what doesn’t.

Since today was a school day (and we had already celebrated his birthday twice) we opted for a “special” breakfast of cake batter pancakes with special icing and sprinkles on top. Nick humored me and said he liked them, but he only ate two which was a dead giveaway that he really wasn’t all the keen on them. Oh well, Ben loved them and gobbled them up over the next couple of days. I really need to learn to stick with what we know works. Special treats never seem to go over too well in this house.

So here is a little about Nick at 7:

• He is in first grade and doing quite well. His reading skills are coming along, despite some concerns early on and his spelling skills are far exceeding our expectations. His school does a nongraded spelling so kids are working at the level they need, not the level of the rest of their class. One of his classmates is in a group with 3rd and 4th graders. Nick is still at a first grade level, but has skipped several lists/weeks based on his assessment scores. And his weekly tests have been nearly perfect! He is very much like his father so math comes easy for him. He flies through his nightly homework with very little to no help at all. Socially, I’m not sure where he stands. He didn’t want a birthday party with friends and hasn’t been invited to many parties this year, but he seems happy to go to school and his teacher didn’t mention anything so I am going to go with everything is just fine there, too.
• At home, he loves to be with Ben. Sometimes the feeling is mutual, sometimes it isn’t. He also loves to pick on Zander. I cherish those few blessed moments when the two of them get along enough to give me a few minutes of peace and quiet.
• Here are a list of favorites, straight from the horse’s mouth: food – pizza; movie – Power Rangers; television show – Spongebob; book – Where the Sidewalk Ends and Mammoth Academy; toy – LEGOS; place to go – Chuck E. Cheese.
• He wants to be a pilot when he grows up.
• He weighs 74 pounds and is 53 inches/4 feet 4 inches tall. Just tall enough to ride almost every roller coaster in Florida (at least twice).
• He is not very good at entertaining himself, but is an angel when someone is entertaining him. He loves playing games with us. Right now his favorites are UNO, Racko, Mancala, Mille Borne and Skip Bo.
• He has lost six teeth (four on the bottom and two on the top).
• And I want to say how much he loves to sit on my lap and cuddle with me (even though it is very hard given he is 74 pounds) but I was told I can’t put that on the Internet. Oops.

Learning to read

I took these pictures for a friend who is debating between Catholic and public schools. She wanted to know what Nick was reading in first grade because her son wasn’t bringing home books to read. Since just a couple of weeks into the school year Nick has brought home a book nearly every night (holiday weekends are the exception) that must be read as the family. This is in addition to the three times a week math homework and weekly 12 or 13 word spelling lists. I thought, since I had the pictures, I might as well write a little about Nick’s reading journey.

Learning to read has been a struggle for Nick to this point. In kindergarten he started learning sight words and struggled mightily to get them memorized. This led us to hiring a weekly tutor and enrolling him in the Reading Recovery/Title 1 reading program at school for three weeks this summer. He made good progress, but was still just a little behind heading into first grade. Early in the year he was tested for Title 1 reading help and failed (passed, I guess) making the cut. I saw this as both good and bad. Good – he wasn’t among the most troubled readers in his class. Bad because I knew he still needed the extra help. Being above poverty isn’t that great if you are only making an extra $10 every month. He started the year reading at a level six. He was not in the lowest reading group, but was in the one right up from it, so second lowest out of four.

Those first few weeks of bringing books home were awful. He hated reading and got very frustrated with himself when he was unable to do it well. It probably didn’t help that Mike and I got frustrated with him too. But, together we learned some new reading strategies and made a renewed effort to work together to help instead of fighting each other every single night.

Apparently, it’s working. He is now reading at a level 12 (I’m writing this on Dec. 9 and these photos were taken on Nov. 19), which is smack dab where he should be at this time of the year. His teacher is confident that if he continues to progress at this rate he will be fully ready for second grade reading by the end of the school year! We are both very excited about this. His confidence is building with every book and now he looks forward to (mostly) reading to me or Mike every night. We still have moments of self-doubt and days when he just isn’t into it, but on a whole, it’s a much different experience than it was just 10 weeks ago. I actually look forward to seeing what book he brings home every night and sneaking a peek at the back to see what level he’s reading today.

I only wish that publishers would make these books available in some sort of progressive family set. They are (that I can find) only made for schools and can only be bought in classroom sets. Trying to find books at the library that mimic this style of writing and use appropriate age-level words has been nearly impossible.

Another birthday (party), another year

This is the first year in several that we haven’t spent the weekend before Nick’s birthday in Des Moines so Mike could run the Living History Farms race. His injured foot (won’t heal for a year) has rendered him unable to run and we opted to save the cash we would have spent on the hotel room instead of heading down anyway. So, we had Nick’s birthday party this weekend and for the most part it was just like every other year. I didn’t send out invitations which meant that I forgot to invite my grandma until the very last minute and everyone came over, ate a little, watched Nick open his presents and then went home. Yeah for birthdays. Nick is into absolutely nothing except Legos (and even that is questionable as he puts them together and then leaves them to collect dust or be destroyed by his brother) which made shopping for him loads of fun.

This was probably his most used present --- Mancala from his great-grandma. It requires one-on-one contact from us which means he asks to play it all the time. His other favorite gift was Rack-O, a game my dad and I used to play all the time when I was little.

This was the Power Rangers motorcycle that Zander bought for Nick. I’m pretty sure Zander actually bought it because he knew Nick wouldn’t care if he took it and never let it go. Whatever, Nick didn’t seem to mind and Zander was happy as a clam.

Nick always wants brownies instead of a birthday cake which makes decorating a little difficult, but I tried my best this year. Thankfully, I did finally find Wilton frosting tips that stayed on the tubes of icing which made my design slightly less hideous. The good thing, Nick has never had a store-bought cake and he doesn’t seem to mind my less-than-stellar decorating skills.

After presents were opened Nick coerced Justin into helping him put the LEGO motorcycle hauler that he and my sister got for Nick together. I don’t think Justin was much of a help, but it was fun watching them together.

Chuck E. Cheese

Nick has never wanted a friend birthday party and this year was really no different. I nearly had to twist his arm to get him to invite even one friend to Chuck E. Cheese with us for his birthday dinner. He chose Parker, one of the only little boys to invite him to a party this year. I am not a huge fan of Chuck E. Cheese. Too many unsupervised kids and too much noise for my liking. But the boys like it, so off we went. Thankfully my mom was able to watch Ben so Mike and I would be better able to keep an eye on the three bigger boys (no way was I letting Parker out of my sight).

We had more than our fair share of excitement for the evening too. During dinner Nick pulled out one of the snaggle baby teeth that had been hanging on by a thread. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it bled like crazy and kind of freaked Nick out.

Getting a little nervous …

and not so happy.

But, he quickly got over it and went on with his evening.

Parker was pretty good at this game given his age and size.

My boys love tickets. They will stand in front of the machines and shot gun coins just to see how long of a string of tickets they can accumulate. Case in point.

Zander is no different. Games like this are quickly forgotten in all their two or three ticket glory.

Now this is more his style.

And time for “cake” and presents.

Celebrating Thanksgiving

I forgot my camera for our traditional Thanksgiving celebration with my family and I worked through most of the celebration with Mike’s family, so these will have to suffice for Thanksgiving 2012. Zander’s daycare class put on a little Thanksgiving Day program for us and then invited families to stay and enjoy a potluck Thanksgiving meal. Zander was a little pilgrim and did a great job putting on a show for the whole class. Yes, the whole class participated, but Zander’s voice was often heard loud and clear above all the others. Such a change from my shy Nick.

This is one of Zander’s best little daycare/preschool buddies, Janiyah. She is always there in the morning waiting when I drop Zander off.

After Miss Julie read a couple Thanksgiving Day stories the little people put on their show. I can’t even tell you what songs they sang because I was too busy laughing at my little showman.






Then Zander ate one of the best meals of his life. The child who rarely eats meat asked for thirds and fourths of this turkey. I found out later it was nothing more than a frozen turkey slices in gravy. He repeatedly told me how “delicious” it was and asked if we could go to Hy-Vee to buy some.
Here is a video. That voice you hear, that's him.