Off to Pre-K

Today was the first day of Pre-K for Ben, Maddie, and Jon. We went to meet their teachers, Ms. Deann and Ms. Judy, last week, but today, they were thrilled to get to go to school. I started the morning with a few pictures. Jon and Maddie were pretty serious about school, so it was a challenge to get them to smile their happy, natural smiles. Ben was silly and grump (yes, at the same time). He insisted on sticking his tongue out for almost every picture, and I finally had to get creative and pretend I was doing something else to get a nice picture.

When I was ready for the picture with all three, Ben didn't want to participate. He did stand next to Maddie and Jon for a second, but he had his back to me. I gave up on getting the perfect picture and went for "good enough." That's what our real life is like anyway...

I took the kids to school and they raced off to their new classroom. All three marched right in and started playing. Ben quickly found his name on his desk and sat down and started the worksheet. Jon walked around and read every nametag -- even after he found his. As other kids came into the class, he pointed them in the right direction and showed them their names. Maddie eventually came away from the play kitchen and sat down at her seat. None of them looked back at me ... even once. So I called their names and told them "Bye." They still didn't look up when they said, "See ya, Mama!"

Mouse Paint: Mixing it up

I managed to get most of the regular weekend chores done during the week so we could have another great weekend. The only family chore we had was to clean out the black hole coat closet. We discovered this week that Will's tennis shoes (about 3 months old) no longer fit him, and half the socks in the bins were baby-size. The little kids and I got the closet emptied Friday. They lined up all the shoes and we got rid of all the pairs that were too small. In the end, we found that ALL four kids needed tennis shoes, so we got up bright and early Saturday morning and went to get some for everyone. When we got home, we hung up all the freshly cleaned jackets and coats and purged the ones that were too small. We got rid of all the baby stuff, all the diaper bags, all the extra pull-ups tucked into every purse and backpack. We found and purged parts to the baby carriers, toddler leashes, and little bitty backpacks. We did a LOT!

Because we got so much accomplished, Sunday afternoon was another art-day! Stressful, messy, creative, and fun. I pulled out the acrylic paints and filled the pallets for the kids (ice cube trays). One of our favorite books is called Mouse Paint (Ellen Stroll Walsh, 1995). The kids like it for the cute pictures and because they are reading it now. In the story, three white mice find three pots of paint -- red, yellow, and blue. They climb in, climb out, drip puddles, then dance in them and mix the colors. When I told the kids we would be making our own colors like in Mouse Paint, they were a bit confused until they understood that I was saying MIX! Then the fun really began.

I struggle to sit still while the kids are creating. I like control, planning, and neatness, and I have to practically tie myself to a chair to keep from interfering with their creativity. I discovered last week that the easiest way for me to stay out of the way (while being within reach) is to create something myself. All of us enjoyed playing in the paint. Allen doesn't really like doing the creative arts, but I am SO thankful he is willing to mop the floor when the rinse water is spilled... and I am really thankful when he takes the kids for a bath so I can get the rest cleaned up. After all the mess, I was much more relaxed, and the kids are learning about colors, textures, techniques, and play.

This week, they all mixed their own colors a bit. Each of them chose a main color that was mixed in to the others. Jon chose red, so he mixed red into white, black, yellow, blue, and green. Maddie wanted pink, but I showed her how to do that with the red. Ben wanted yellow, and Will chose blue (though he didn't end up mixing his.) All the mixed colors ended up a bit muddy because we took the water cups away after the table flooded when one spilled.

Ben's YELLOW

Jon's RED

Maddie's RED

 Will's ROBOTS & SUPERMAN

 Sarah's GREEN

I had to giggle when Will told me, "Mama, that looks like a painting like Collage Monet." I guess he's been reading some of the art history books. This was my first time mixing colors like that and I'm anxious to do it again!

Making Ark: Collage

Here it is the end of summer (or, rather, the beginning of the school year) and I've barely made a dent in the art supplies and lessons I so diligently planned. The summer whizzed by, and we were often too busy to get creative with those things. The kids did spend a lot of time this summer creating with paper and crayons, with legos, with mud, and with their thousands of piles of toys. Since we got so much done through the week, we decided that Sunday would be an art day for the kids and me (while Allen helped supervise.) Saturday at dinner, we told the kids we would have an art-day Sunday, but, for some reason, Maddie kept telling us, "I am really excited to make ark!" Even after correcting her and explaining it was ART, she still called it "ark," and now I'm saying it when I want to be silly.

We worked on paper collages, and the kids were thrilled to get to dig into my piles of pretty papers and use glue and scissors. By the end of the day, five of us had some new creations ... and I may have found something I love to do with paper scraps :)

Here is what we ended up with! Ben insisted on using some "scraps" from Sunday school because he wanted "to remember the numbers." He was excited about the rocket, too, but it ended up being mostly covered.

Jon spent an hour and a half cutting little circles that he wanted "to just keep it in a baggie, Mama." He was creative with the horse, but you can't tell from the photo that the white paper is cut from the bottom to the horse-body. Why? "So the horse can walk or run." (He wiggles the cuts back and forth to do that.)

Maddie wanted a pretty-pink-paper-heart. We used a square punch to cut the papers she chose, then she pasted them onto another sheet. After that, I helped her draw the heart and showed her how we could cut it. She was really excited that it turned out so .... pink!

This was a project Will enjoyed. He loved being allowed to cut up my pretty papers and any magazines he could find that was older than August. He told stories with his art, but I didn't hear all the details as I was helping the other kids. In the first collage, the evil chef is cooking up some buddies -- the turtle and rabbit have been killed for the soup. Sticking with the food-theme, the second project shows Will eating a big stack of pancakes. Some of the other groceries are in the kitchen, too, and the blue bird is anxious for his breakfast, too.

This is my first big collage, inspired by one of Ben's watercolors from earlier this summer. He had painted a garden with a fence in front, and that's where I got the idea. I had so much fun -- making this AND playing with paper with my kids. :)

First of Second

Seven-and-a-half year old Will was up bright and early this morning. Surprisingly, he was downstairs for breakfast by 6:37am, with his alarm having gone off at 6:35. Thankfully, he was cheerful through the morning routine (though it did take a bit of prompting from my made-up-on-the-spot aria, done just annoyingly enough to bring on the giggles) and we had plenty of time for pictures. I just wish he didn't have to leave so early -- the light is never quite right in the front yard at 7:15. Shadow insisted on being out there with us, and since it was easier to get Will to smile comfortably with the dog involved, he got to stay. Each year I've taken a first-day-of-school picture of Will next to the same tree that isn't so little anymore. My plan was to show how they were growing together, but the tree had quite the growth spurt. This year, Will's second grade teacher is Mrs. Angie Tucker -- we are all hoping for a great year!

A Perfect Sunday

My idea of a perfect Sunday:
- follows a productive Saturday
- everything is prepared for a smooth week
- Sunday school and church
- a tasty lunch (ribs today)
- a yummy dinner (cedar-planked grilled salmon)
- playtime

- naps all around

- popsicles

- early bedtimes

- TODAY!

Getting ready for school

This whole week has been a bit hectic. All the kids have had their turn at being sick and, because of that, we have been home all week. The walls are closing in and its too hot to play outside -- instead of the average five days of over-100-degree weather, we are nearly at 70 days over 100 for this summer. Whew! I've about had enough and I'm ready to be able to send the kids outside without having to worry about heat stroke.

While the kids destroyed the house and constantly made messes played, I started working on the to-do list. Every year about this time, I'm in the mood to clean -- the pull-the-fridge-and-stove-out-and-mop kind of clean. It is another chance for me to have new year's resolutions since it is the start of the school year -- I make more to-do lists, I reprioritize my daily and weekly tasks, I take new classes and find new books to read. This week, we cleaned. We got out all the school supplies and got them ready to go. I sharpened all the pencils (colored and plain) that I had for the kids. The kids cleaned out their art and paper cabinet. Allen defrosted the minifridge and deep-freeze. I made a whole bunch of PBJ's for the freezer, bagged up the grapes and goldfish, and separated the cheese sticks so that lunches each morning could be made in 30-seconds or less. I made out the ten-day menu, went shopping, and got everything ready to go for the week. These are the little things that make my days go so much more smoothly.

Will and I had our alarms set for early each morning so we could get used to waking up early. Monday, we both hit snooze for about an hour. Tuesday, we were down to about 40 minutes. By Thursday, we were both close to being on time. Thursday evening, Will got to meet his second-grade teacher. Strangely, there is only one other person in his class who has ever been in his class before. Miriana is a friend of his from first grade, and Will seems to make friends pretty easily, so I'm not too worried about him being lonely.

I am ready for fall to head this way.

I am ready for school to start.

I am ready for us to have routines again.

I am ready to be able to grocery shop weekly...alone.

I am ready for the kids to get to play with friends again.

I am ready to have a few moments to myself each week.

I am ready to have my menus planned out according to our evening activities.

I am ready for the kids to have a consistently (earlier) bedtime.

I am ready to have a few minutes every so often to have coffee with a girlfriend.

I am ready for the kids to be at school so I can have lunch dates with Allen.

I am ready to enjoy my kids again.

I am ready.

Ben's Heartbeat

Ben was not feeling well, so I was checking to see if his lymph nodes were swollen -- sure enough, they were. After I tucked him in and left the room, he started feeling his neck to try to feel what I had. A few moments later, he came out of his room yelling for me to stop and feel again:
"Mama! Mama! Mama! I have Jesus in my heart! Feel the bump-bump in my neck?"
"Yes -- that's your pulse."
"No, Mama... That's Jesus's heart beating in mine!"
"Really?"
"Yeah. My heart says, 'bump,' and His heart says, 'bump.' It takes us both to say, 'bump-bump!'"

.... and that just about melted my own bump-bump.