Growing Everyday

There are times, when Beka is at school that Jared gets unbelievably bored. And he is such an outside child, that is winter is killing him. Just today, he asked if he could wear short sleeves because he wanted to pretend it was spring.

"Mommy, it makes me happy to see the snow melt."

"Why is that, Jared?"

"It means spring is coming."

So in order to relieve this boredom, I am trying to come up with activities for him. We might practice writing his name, play tag in the house, or his favorite do a science experiment. Now this can get messy, but he really loves it. The experiment we did most recently was sink and float. Jared collects things from all over the house to do his experiment with. Sometimes, he will even see how many things he can stack before the whole pile sinks.

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With Andrew’s new job came lots of new opportunities and unprecedented flexibility. One of the very nice "perks" of the job is the ability to work from home. Andrew takes advantage of this quite often. The drawback is it leaves him feeling and sometimes acting like a caged bear. He gets really really restless. So being the great wife I am, I tried to come up with something for him to do to get out of the house. And lo and behold, church started a recreational basketball league. Halleluiah. Andrew has played one game so far and may be just a tad out of shape. (I blame it on all the good meals he gets at work.) He came home saying he felt like he was going to die. But I think it is great for him to just get out.

Also, he recently took a trip to Florida to help shoot a commerical. My IT guy is suddenly a marketing and advertising guy too. But he is loving it. The downside it was so warm there I was SOOOOOO jealous. To rub it in Andrew sent me some pictures (posted below) in an email with the subject "do you hate me yet?"

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Well, my daughter is now a big six year old. We had a small party with some of her friends from school here at the house. We decided not to allow the children to bring gifts. We wanted her birthday to be more about being with people than the gifts. Plus, she was so blessed at Christmas, there wasn’t anything she really wanted or needed.

Everyone seemed to have a very good time at the party. We played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and a balloon popping race. Mostly, though, the girls just played together. And Beka did receive wonderful gifts from her grandparents. She received perler beads, stamps, stamp pads, some clothes. Mom, Dad, and Jared got her a sticker maker and a detectives kit.

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Since we had the party, Beka decided we had to decorate too. We made a great spot with streamers and a sign to take pictures in front of.

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Beka received her report card last week. She is doing really well, but she is getting bored with it. Both kids have also been getting bored in the mornings before school. So I have started giving them worksheets and other things to do in the morning to help relieve the boredom.

The things these kids can do is simply amazing. Beka can complete on her own a worksheet filled with simple addition problems. Jared recognizes most of his letters and all numbers up to 10 most of them up to 20. Apparently 11 is a confusing number. We are still working on him writing his name really well. He can write it and if you know what you are looking for you can recognize it.

I am just thankful that they love to learn. Beka wants to do a science project for school this year. Jared is consistently trying to do whatever Beka has to do for school.

A funny story about Beka. Last week she comes running off the bus full of excitement "Mommy, guess what I have homework!" She was so excited. We sat down to do her homework which was one addition word problem. I read it to her, she filled out the equation, and solved it. "Mom, I am ready for the next one." I had to then tell her that was the only problem. She was so disappointed. I just think it is cute that she wants homework.

Jared’s letter a school this week was W. He got to play with my favorite thing…worms. He thought it was great.

Here are some random pictures of the kids over the last few weeks. Things were crazy around here at Christmastime, but our schedule is finally back to normal.

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Mommy apparently doesn’t keep the house clean enough.

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Beka and Jared just love to play in shaving cream. And if you get out water too they can amuse themselves for an hour.

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This is the "swamp" that Jared and Beka built. It also doubles as an obstacle course.