I love kindergarten!

So Crash is going to a little private Christian school that is literally 1 min and 45 sec drive from my house.  We had heard rave reviews about this teacher and it sounded like the perfect place for our Crash.  It's even better because we knew about 1/2 the children and families already on the first day of school.

Things seem to be going well for him.  He is excited to go each day and I have had no complaints.

Since the school is held at a church they do not have a cafeteria.  So on Wednesdays the moms take turns providing "hot lunch" for all the children and their families.  We signed up for the first week.

I let Crash help pick the menu of all his kid-friendly favorites.  We had corn dogs, fries, and carrots, with a side of chocolate cake.

Wingman and the Test Pilot were so excited to go to his school and help cook and serve lunch.  They were very helpful.

At the end, I walked around passing out the chocolate cake.  I hand Crash his plate and he says with the biggest grin on his face, "I LOVE KINDERGARTEN!"

Apparently, having corn dogs with chocolate cake with your family is the best day ever at Kindergarten.

Bad drought

We are studying Apologia's Zoology focusing on creatures created on Day 5 of creation.  Specifically looking at birds, insects, bats, and butterflies.  We have enjoyed it so far.

The authors recommended regardless of the order of the book, to cover the insect section when it is warm.  So we have begun the insect section because it has been plenty warm.  There are many activities that include observations and experiments with live insects.

So we need to temporarily capture an insect to perform our activities.

I live in a buggy place.  Most years I could sadly admit that if I needed to find an insect, just look somewhere in the bathroom or right out the front door.  Fire ants are everywhere much to my chagrin.

However, this year we can hardly find any bugs.  I am not exaggerating.  There are no fire ant mounds in the backyard.  Very few mosquitoes.  No sugar ants in my kitchen.  We could only find a few bees in the flowers but I am not attempting to catch them.

I guess the drought has affected them too.  So we had a good lesson about the affects of drought on insects as well.

We really need some rain.

First Day of Kindergarten

Our sweet boy, Crash, finally started Kindergarten.  I say finally, because he is been excited since last spring.

Here's a shot in his uniform.  He looks so grown up.  

Here's the new school backpack.

This is him sitting at his new desk.  He was sitting with one of his good buds for pre-K and church.  In fact, he knows about half the class from pre-K and church, which made the first day even better.

Since alphabetically, our family almost always comes first, he was up to present his "All About Me" poster soon.  We went ahead and turned it today.  He was so funny working on that thing.

Mom asks, "What's your favorite food?"
Crash responds, "Lettuce."
Mom responds, "Really? Lettuce?"
Crash states, "Why yes!"

I knew he liked lettuce and salad but who knew it was his favorite.

We are looking forward to a good year!

A new season of soccer

Crash and the Test Pilot started a new soccer season this past weekend.

I don't have any pictures, because I forgot the camera in my quest to keep us from passing out from heat stroke and keep our fair skins from being burned to a crisp.

It was supposed to be a high of 103 degrees that day.  Each boy had 2 soccer games-one at 10am and one at 12pm.

The 10am game went really well for both boys.  The coaches took frequent water breaks besides quarter/half breaks.  It was a success.

The noon game not so much.  There was such a difference in all the kids playing or not playing in some cases. The temperature was drastically warmer by that point.  So many of the kids were just standing around on all the fields.  Or they would jog to get the ball instead of the sprint they would normally do.  Thankfully, they shortened the noon game so we could all get out of the heat.

Both boys moved up in age divisions this year.  Crash did really well.  I was a little apprehensive about him being in this league, but so far so good.  God blessed us with a great coach that we know personally.  We could not ask for better.  He is still pretty clueless about positions and such but he can run.  So he at least looks like he knows what he is doing.  And he has fun!

The Test Pilot moved to a league where they have goalies and he is so excited.  Remember, he likes being goalie or defender because "they don't have to run so much."  Boy, was he mistaken.  He ran a lot during both games.  Let's just say our defense lacks a little bit (or a lot but who is counting) so he found himself one on one with a striker and the ball many times.  He did really good!  He had a lot of stops and did a lot of sprinting.  It was a good first outing.

Wingman just runs around the field telling anyone he sees that he gets to play soccer when he is 4 years old.

It was a good day after we cooled off.  I will post pictures in their uniforms next game.  Hopefully, with cooler temps by then.

Nefarious criminal

Well, it turns out I am not married to a mild mannered aeronautical engineer, but rather a nefarious criminal.  It's official.  He was sent by certified mail his official court summons.  What was this dastardly crime that my once innocent husband committed?

WASTING WATER

I am soooo not kidding.  He was officially served with papers citing him for this terrible crime and ordered to appear in court this Friday.  There is a picture attached to the paperwork, but the worker has his finger in the picture so you can not even tell what it is.

Apparently, one of our evil sprinkler heads in the front yard isn't shooting at exactly 180 degrees and it is causing some droplets of water to fall to the curb instead of the grass.  And I mean droplets.  It's not like a stream of water is running from our sprinklers.

I realize that we are in the middle of one of the worst droughts in my state, that we are at Stage 3 water restrictions (which we abide by religiously), and there is no rain in sight.

But really!  We are using our tax payers dollars sending a civil servant around checking sprinkler heads at 5:41am on a Sunday.

Hopefully, they won't incarcerate my husband after the first offense.  In all seriousness, it's probably just a fine, but still.  I could think of a lot better uses of that young man's time and our court system than to prosecute water wasters.

Mother of boys

This is just a random post of oddities that I have run into lately as the mother of boys.

1.  You must watch Star Wars with them and be an expert on all things Star Wars.  You have to be prepared to answer questions like, "Why does Queen Amidala need a decoy?"

2.  Potty training with boys just stinks.  They don't care.  They don't like my plan.  They just don't care.  Enough said.

3.  Never thought I would say this one.  "Please stop standing on your head during story time."

4.  We have rules on when it's appropriate to use light sabers and when it is not.  You must be very specific.

5.  I am sure other kids do this too.  Two of my boys, who can be rather picky eaters, have started trying to bargain how much dinner they have to eat to get dessert.  It's amazing how full they can be after 2 bites of fish, but if there is dessert to be had they have plenty of room in that tummy.  We are working on this one.

6.  These boys are relatively little, and they are about to eat me out of house and home.  I keep joking that we need a dairy cow in the back yard.  They currently drink 4 gallons of milk a week.  I am soooo in trouble when they turn into teenagers.

Boys!

First Day of School #1

The Test Pilot started school yesterday.  He's a big 3rd grader now.  We are continuing homeschooling with him.  (Crash starts later.)

We are using the same Core curriculum as last year, but changed a few subjects to try a slightly different approach this year.  I am feeling more brave picking curriculum.  We added Spanish, which surprisingly he loves.

It went well yesterday.  I am sure our schedule will need a little more tweaking as the days and weeks go on, but so far so good.

I still can't believe he is a 3rd grader.  They grow so fast!