Interests, February

We are loving Weird Al Yankovich songs, especially any about Star Wars.


We finished up basketball season. H and I had a great time watching them compete. Mazie is 55 on the yellow team. Lucia is 42 on black team. Elliott is 1 on the black team. 

We love making lists. H and I are both list makers and we seem to have passed this on to our three. The first list below is one Mazie posted over her light switch. The second index card was found outside in the yard.

 

We have had several bouts of bad weather lately. When we have weather warnings, we hang out in the hall. The three always fill their suitcases with things they don't want to lose. Then we all lay around the hall and work on homework or play games. We like when H is home with us because we can listen to her emergency radio.

 We have started our first phase of orthodontics. It is much more advanced from when I had braces. All three have palatal expanders for about six months. We turn them once a week and after time they well make more room in the mouth. Orthodontists do this now rather than pulling teeth. 

 

We had a major mishap the beginning of the month. We have had a dead dogwood tree right off our patio for a while now. I thought it would be lots of fun for Elliott to try to knock the tree over. Well, it ended up being a not so good idea. He started with his body weight, then went to a crow bar. Then Mazie brought him an aluminum bat. That is where it all went wrong. The bat ricocheted off the tree and hit him across the face. 

I think Elliott and I learned a lesson that day.

Finally, we made a huge lifestyle change in February--we got even more pets! Elliott has been wanting a bird for about six months. When Santa didn't bring him one, we told him we'd get him one. His cockatiel is named Frankie. Elliott is taking very good care of him. Frankie loves to ride around on a shoulder and is a happy bird. He is very easy to like.

 Lucia chose a bunny for her new pet. She has several names for her rabbit, but BunBun is the one that seems to have stuck the most. Carrot and cottontail are also names this sweet little love goes by.

 Mazie chose a gerbil for her pet. His name is Little Gary. He likes to make beds and hide his food.

Well Appointment

We went to see Dr. Cathy in January. Everyone is looking good and right where they should be. She used their height charts to predict how tall they each might be.

Lucia
height 53 1/4'
weight 68#
predicted final height 5'6"

Elliott
height 54 3/4'
weight 82#
predicted final height 6'2"

Mazie
height 48"
weight 45 1/2#
predicted final height 5'0"

Interests, January

So, I thought I would do a monthly entry about things we are interested in. Each month I will post several things that are an indication of what we are interested in.

Our good friend GL put us on the Sirius XM Station Kids Place Live. It is fun to listen to. They play a pretty wide assortment of music. Elizabeth Mitchell to the Beatles to Weird Al to

https://www.siriusxm.com/kidsplacelive


 Another thing we are interested in is the dancer Misty Copeland. She is an amazing ballerina and athlete. We love to read about her and watch her dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY0cdXr_1MA


http://www.upworthy.com/misty-copeland-puts-a-21st-century-twist-on-historys-famous-ballet-works?c=ufb1

 We are also loving basketball. We watch a little bit on television but we mostly play it outside and on Saturday mornings.

Autumn

A camping trip on the river with friends.

A camp out birthday party. Fifteen elementary school students. And five adult.

Watching our Bubby Man play football.

All in all, we had a great fall.

Summer of our Content

 Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Henry James

We had a wonderful summer, spent mostly at the beach. We took tennis lessons for two weeks. We took an art camp for a week. We spent a week with friends in Seaside. We fished, ate Popsicles, and enlarged our collection of Beanie Boos.

 Here are portraits they did in their art camp. This day they were studying Modigliani. Elliott is in the black shirt, Lucia in the orange shirt, and Mazie in the yellow shirt.

Now we are off to start second grade, thrilled we will have the same teacher we had for first grade.

Spring of First Grade

Look at these gorgeous children. We are on the downhill slide to summer, first grade winding up. They have had a wonderful year. Lots of reading, math homework every night, piano lessons. Elliott played football in the fall. Lucia and Elliott played basketball for the first time this winter. Elliott is playing baseball (first year not playing Tball) this spring, and Lucia is playing softball (her first time every playing any type of softball) this spring. The girls have taken dance from Ms. Courtney this year for the third year.

Here are some photographs from this past week.

Elliott, today, at opening day for baseball.

 Lucia with her friend A on opening day. These two Diamond Divas combined to get several opponents out today. Lu on first, A at pitcher. It was very fun watching them play today.

 Our Lefty Lu. She got two singles and a double today (I think!).

 Elliott is playing machine pitch for the first time this year. He struck out twice and got a double. He has a great swing and is a fast runner.

 Lucia and Elliott after their games.

Elliott at second base.

This week our elementary school had third quarter honors assembly. We have been so lucky to have wonderful teachers for kindergarten and first grade. Lucia, Elliott, and Mazie are in the same class this year. It was worked out well. They have a wonderful teacher who does a great job with them. They love school. Lucia especially loves math and PE. Elliott loves both reading and math. He astounds us with his multiplication solutions. Mazie is on fire with her reading. Like sizzling and smoking. Below they are getting their A Honor Roll ribbons.

 Mazie and Lucia also won art awards. Mazie got first place for her class and Lucia got third place for her class.

 Mazie's picture in on the top row, between the two self-portraits. It is a picture of bees returning to their hive.

 Here is Elliott's picture that is lovely but did not place. It is also of bees and their hive in a tree. (He insisted he did not win because his picture was hung too high for the judges to really see well. {It was hung on a different hall for the judging.} He is our most competitive child, but he really isn't obnoxious about it. I promise!)

 Lucia drew the striped cat. Hello dynamic creature. (What if I swore to you that was her arm pointing at her picture. Would you believe me?)

Well, that is what we were up to this week. Loving these children and our wonderful lives with them. Maybe I will post again before we graduate high school...?

The stats

I am working on a birthday gift for H and had to gather LEM's height and weight stats. So I thought I'd post the recents here. I found years one through four on the blog, so here are years five and six.

Date of five year appointment: 10/24/12

Lucia
Height 43 3/4"
Weight 40# 6 oz

Elliott
Height 45 1/2"
Weight 50# 4 oz

Mazie
Height 39 3/4"
Weight 31# 6 oz

Date of six year appointment: 1/15/14

Lucia
Height 47"
Weight 50#

Elliott
Height 49"
Weight 65#

Mazie
Height 42 3/4"
Weight 37# 8 oz