Mail Order Fruitcake..and other stuff

We came home this week to find a package sitting by the front door. It was Aunt Iva's yummy fruitcake...as she said, "a taste of Trues in Florida." She also sent a sweet card, toy cars for the boys, two books, and the best part: bubble wrap. Bubble wrap means endless fun around this place.

Some days are chilly around here...finally!!

We practiced drawing a snowman this week and here is Maddox's, complete with a corn cob pipe.

It's about time to break out the classic Christmas movies like Frosty the Snowman (my favorite).

On Friday night, we used our fire pit for the first time (thank you Yani and Alex for passing it on to us!) and made ooey-gooey, white chocolate yummy s'mores. Maddox ALMOST enjoyed it, except he was constantly worried about the coyotes. We saw one earlier in the day and at night you can hear them pretty loud in our woods, so to him, it was a life and death situation. 

Haha.

The boys are into "vanilla chocolate" these days, aka white chocolate.

They tried their first ever white hot chocolate in a "real Starbucks cup" this week and they are hooked. Starbucks has a way of doing that to you.

This week there was no football (phew!).

We went to Lowe's and the boys built wooden cars. It's such a neat program for kids! The boys love getting badges for each project to put on their aprons.

We had to get our tire patched that same day (a nail), and thankfully it was free since we bought our tire from the place that patched it. Free stuff is always a blessing! 

As far as school goes, we started the Turtle unit. Maddox's favorite turtles will always be the Ninja turtles (below).

He is steadily improving in counting, phonics, sight words, our little songs, and is now working on mastering his last name. His least favorite thing is handwriting, so that one might take some time. 

I started reading him his first real chapter book every night. It's called "The Impatient Turtle" by Janette Oke and so far it's kept his attention. I wish our old turtle friend would visit our backyard again...how cool would that be :)

Other random tidbits:

We are keeping up our weekly tradition of a Destin trip topped with a Panera meal eaten outside (above). I LOVE eating outside. So refreshing. And it's fun bird-watching there too (and people-watching of course. Haha).

Jude has mastered the tree swing now and it's his favorite thing to do outside lately. 

Also, Andrew thinks he might have re-injured his hernia, so prayers are appreciated. He's talking to the doctor tomorrow, so hoping for good news. 

Manic Wednesday

Today was a manic Wednesday. I guess since I had a good Monday, there had to be a rough day in there somewhere.

The boys could not get along for even five minutes. I wanted to pull my hair out.

Thank God I went to Mom's Night Out lastnight. I needed it! I got to experience three hours getting to know some great women and chowing down on yummy potato soup and bread. I got the recipe and made the soup tonight and it is definitely a winner.

This week in school, Maddox had to put four pictures in order (of a bird building her nest, sitting on her eggs, feeding the baby birds, then flying out the nest together) and then staple it into a book.




 Then I had him make his own book and "read" it to me through the pictures. Of course his book was about superheroes.

 This is Hulk, the strongest one. And then there is Wolverine. I think he's my favorite. Notice the claws.

Last is Ironman with crazy hair. 

One of the worksheets this week involved him writing different letters and then drawing a picture of something that started with each letter's sound.

We have nest, a granny smith apple, a striped snake, and a lamp. It takes a lot of imagination to see a lamp there, but Maddox said it looks like a lamp to him, so...it's a lamp. 

Yesterday our power went out for the 37th time since the summer (it seems like!!). The front of the house always goes out. It's so weird.

Well, this time they said it was a bad connector on the roof. We'll see. The boys did enjoy watching the man in the bucket go to the top of the pole. And so did Piper!

I made homemade brownies this week....

...and then I felt guilty about all the sweets and candy the boys have been eating since Halloween, and I offered them this for lunch today. 

It's broccoli and carrots with Ranch.

Jude was not having that. Ever. 

Thankfully, not a manic Monday

I woke up to this sweet face (even sweeter because he was still sleeping) this morning. 

Then I turned and there was Maddox, staring at me from the floor, and from the looks of it, he had been up since 5 am (when Andrew gets up). He is my early bird. He immediately wanted to know the plans for the day and then informed me he hated his hair and needed it cut.

He kept talking, all the way to the coffee pot.

But I do love mornings when Jude sleeps late and I can spend time with just Maddox, snuggling on the couch, watching Jake the Pirate, and eating waffles and bacon.

Mr. Sleepyhead finally woke up at 8:00 and then the day kicked off. The Legos got dumped out, my couch turned into a trampoline, he wanted to know where this toy and that toy was, and I apparently didn't put enough cheese on his cheesetoast.

Hello Monday!

School was fun today. Maddox started by reading his sight words.

We're adding "stop" and "and" tomorrow. Then we talked about how it's November now, the date, the weather...we added a new day on the 100 chart and added a straw to the cup. We reviewed shapes, counting, letter sounds, and I read our weekly poem.

Then Mr. Maddox was on his own. Even though he procrastinated, he completed his phonics sheet all by himself. I had to keep saying, "Keep your mind on the paper!" And he did. Kind of. He is easily distracted, especially when it comes to sitting down and doing worksheets.

He has to match the beginning sound of a picture to the correct letter and so far it's all sticking. 

As I well know, he is not a fan of handwriting and it was hard just a month ago teaching him to write upper and lowercase correctly in the lines. I don't think many 5-year-old boys love handwriting. Why would they be, when there are trees to climb and couches to flip off of??

And that reminds me, we had a rough patch in our morning when we realized that the yard service people had trimmed so many great climbing branches from the boys' beloved tree.

Jude held up his fist through the window as the lady dragged the branches out the yard. I don't how in the world I have such a fiery child. He shocks me every day (and keeps me laughing). Maybe one day his fiery, determined nature will be used for good and great things. I sure hope so.

Now what interests Maddox in school, besides the science stuff and books, is learning about money. I made Montessori-style index cards with real coins taped on them so he could get the touch aspect to learning. Real money is more exciting anyway than a picture of money on a worksheet.

He saved $15 and finally spent it today on a Jake the Pirate treasure chest, spyglass, compass, and sword. He was so excited that he got his own receipt. His whole "I'm saving all my money for light up shoes" went out the window when Nana told him she would buy him some light up shoes.

So, now he's back at zero.

My house is not always this messy, but if the boys are awake, it might be! Haha. 

Maddox really enjoyed matching animals to their habitats, too. We're talking this week about birds and their nests, but also talking about other animals and their homes. 

The fun part of the morning was building their very own nests. Lastnight I got a bunch of scraps together (like string, yarn, sticks, feathers, fake grass) and today they used them to build the nests. They topped them off with leftover plastic Easter eggs and some birds. While they perfected their nests, I read them a book about bird facts. We learned that birds are the only animals to have feathers. We also learned about all kinds of birds, what they eat, how they fly, how they make a nest, and migration. Maddox said, "Oh! Birds write letters in the sky too!" (talking about their V shape when they fly)

And Jude was amazed that penguins were birds too.

Here are the nests!

Maddox's, of course, was the "biggest and best." (in his own words)

Will the brotherly competition ever end? 

November is Here!

November has arrived and I'm still looking for the cold weather. I'm thinking we are going to have a warmer Florida winter this year than last. Still, I'm craving some warm cocoa and soup. I just can't help it.

November makes me excited for the holidays! I can start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas!! Woohoo. I love this time of year. I miss my family so much and can't wait to see them in a few weeks for good times and of course, the big turkey feast.

Yesterday was packed full of fun. That's how I like my weekends (except, it tired me out so much, we just sat home all day today being lazy).

We kicked off the day at the library, where Maddox got an armful of books AND more candy. Everyone is trying to get rid of their Halloween candy.

Then, we drove to Destin Commons and had lunch plus a playdate with Maddox's old friend, Everson. He had not seen Everson since July so they were both really, really excited. They are already talking about Skyping each other and when the next playdate will be.

Everson's mom took this adorable picture of them playing.

We wrapped up the day in Niceville at a friend's Harvest Party. Maddox got to wear his football costume one more time and added even more goodies to his candy stash. Thankfully, he and Jude have been sharing with me, but I probably don't need it. Sugar = cavities for this girl.

I was happy that Maddox got out there and played all the games and had a great time. He has come a long way in a year! Once so shy he wouldn't play at the park if any other kids were there, he now gets out there and has fun. I talk to him daily about being friendly, about not missing out, etc., and it has really paid off. I don't mind if he's an introvert and shy (I was as a kid too), but I don't want him to be scared. 

 He did the best at throwing ping pong balls into cups, but we need to work on the egg race! Haha. Poor guy dropped his egg before the race even started. But he tried everything, did a good job, laughed, ate goodies, and loaded up on candy. And with that, Halloween is wrapped up and now it's time for some November fun and hopefully cooler weather.

Halloween Week!

Halloween week included a lot of fun and a little bit of spooky. We met up with some friends and made homemade slime, aka "oobleck," out of water, food coloring, and corn starch. It was both a solid and a liquid and super icky, which the boys loved of course. Maddox wanted to make his own at home later but he dumped in all the food coloring before I noticed and then his hands went in it and...well, he looked like the Hulk for a few hours. Jude dipped his hands on purpose because he wanted really really badly to turn into the Hulk.

Maddox had fun with the Halloween theme this week. He drew us in the pumpkin patch and told me he had $10 so he could buy the biggest pumpkin there.

They made pumpkin graphs and Maddox designed a "13-eyed monster" with our abundance of google eyes. Apparently, monsters wear high heels.

I'm happy to say we wrapped up the Apple unit. I traced Maddox's hand/arm and he cut it out and added the "apples" with Qtips and red paint. 

On Halloween Eve, I surprised the boys with a spooky bath, complete with spider web, fake bugs,glow-in-the-dark spiders, and green-tinted bath water. Maddox loved it, but Jude was being grumpy. 

I re-used the spider web late that night, so they woke up to a spider web game where they had to crawl under it to claim a special treat (sour patch kids). Now that they are older, the holidays are even more fun!

After all this fun, Halloween Day was actually one of those days that went by too slow...AND it rained! The boys kept wanting to go trick or treating, at 3...at 4...at 5. FINALLY,  6 PM came and we hit the street. We left behind a cute little candy setup, complete with lights and a foam pumpkin stuffed with caramel apple suckers. Sadly, the wind blew the pumpkin into the bushes, along with the suckers :( But, I threw them into the candy bowl when we got back, and by 8:30 PM, all we had left were a few bat rings, a tattoo, and two airheads. 

It took a few hours before the sugar high wore off, but luckily we were all in bed by midnight.