The Christmas Spirit...a little early

The kids checked out a Veggie Tales Christmas music cd from the library the other day and suddenly it's Christmas music all day every day.  Their favorite?  Feliz Navidad.  They. never. stop. singing. it!!!!  I decided to make the most of the obsession and film them at it.  They really are pretty darn cute. :)

Have you ever read the Ramona Quimby books?  I am currently reading them with Bella and she adores them.  I think because she sympathizes.  There's a lot of Ramona in Bella.  The other day she and Ramona did a very similar thing on the very same day.  I was showering Christian when Bella came to me with a comb stuck in her bangs.  Usually a comb will get stuck on a snarl but can easily be pulled back out.  However, she had turned and turned this comb over in her hair so many times that it was impossible to budge!  I tried and tried, but I finally gave up and told her she'd have to wait until Kelly, with his boy scout knot skills, got home from work.  She walked around with the comb stuck to the front of her head for hours. I'm kicking myself I didn't get a picture!!  I let her stay up late to wait for Kelly and when he finally did come home, it took him 30 minutes to work the comb free.  To keep her occupied while he worked, I offered to read some more from Ramona.  And what should we happen to read, but the chapter where Ramona wanders into a field full of burs and decides to make a crown of burs, which get horribly tangled in her hair!!  In the book there was a picture of Ramona sitting in a chair while her father painstakingly picks out burr after burr.  I died laughing at the irony of the situation.  Bella didn't find it nearly so funny.  Poor thing.  It did finally make me realize that we should take a picture, though.  We had gobs and gobs of hair on the bed when it was all over, but the comb was out, thank goodness.

This picture makes it look like Kelly is holding the comb in place, but really, that comb wasn't going anywhere.  He was drawing out the hair strand by strand with the skewer.

How Bella felt about the whole thing and the fact that I was taking a picture.  She should be happy daddy got it done.  Some missing hair is a lot better than no hair in front at all just before family photos in Utah.  My funny little Ramona.

Life Interfered

Sometimes living life interferes with blogging about life.  Such has been my last month and a half.  I always face the choice between sleeping, cleaning, preparing for church and home school, spending time with Kelly, and blogging and sadly, of all those, blogging is my lowest priority. And I'm really trying to make a habit of never being in bed after midnight so sadly, my blog might continue to suffer.  We shall see.

First off, Bella graduated from preschool.  So cute.  Pretty much the identical ceremony as when Benjamin graduated from the same preschool 2 years ago.  I loved it.  The kids walk down the isle holding hands with a classmate, wearing a sash like a beauty pageant, and then they sing a set of songs as a class.  Then each child gets called up one by one and presented with their diploma as the teacher reads a little about them.  Bella's was "Bella's favorite foods are tortillas and pepperoni pizza.  Her favorite activity at preschool was eating snack.  When she grows up she wants to be a mom."  My favorite was the little boy who wants to be a tiger when he grows up.  Bella and her favorite teacher, Miss Melody:

If you ask Christian, he also wants to be a mom when he grows up.  I was busily cleaning around the toilet the other day (his aim has improved, but it's still a long way from perfect) when he came up to me and said, "I wish I were a mom so I could wear gloves and clean the toilet."
I laughed and said, "Someday soon I'll let you clean the toilet."
"When I'm a girl, right?"
"You will never be a girl."
"But girls are moms!"
"But you're a boy, so you'll be a daddy, just like your daddy."
"But I want to be a mom.  What do daddies do?"
"Go to work."
"I don't want to be a daddy.  I don't want to go to work."
"What do you want to do?"
"Stay home and play.  When I'm a dad, I will stay home and play."

Bella really enjoyed preschool but says she's not sad to be done.  That's kind of how I always felt.  I loved each stage of school but was always happy to move onto the next big and exciting thing.  For Bella that's staying home with me now.  Not terribly exciting, but she's happy about the idea.  We've begun "summer school" as a transition before our next phase.  So, I'm not only home schooling Benjamin, but have added on Bella and Christian for the summer too.  So far it's gone really well.  I combine elements of preschool as preparation for Christian, such as circle time and show and tell, with more advanced activities for the older two, such as science projects and math assignments on the computer.

We do a "daily five" - reading, writing, spelling, math, and social studies/science/art.  I plan an assignment/activity/game per child per section but often they join in on each other's if it looks fun and it takes us 2-3 hours in the morning a couple times a week.  They seem to really like it and get excited to begin.  I never have to force them, which I appreciate a lot.  I'm trying to make the most of the time I have left with Benjamin before he starts 2nd grade at his new school.  He got into the academically accelerated program to which we applied, so we are very excited for him to go there.  Just a little sad too.  I loved having the time with him this past year.  I'm so glad we did that.  It really brought us closer as a family and especially he and I really bonded.  I'm going to miss my boy next year.  Here we are fishing for lettered fish to help Christian learn his letters.  Benjamin is in Kelly's fishing float boat and Christian is pretending the pool table is a boat.  Bella pretending she was standing on the beach.

We tried to get in a few museum and zoo visits before public school officially ended a few days ago.  Sadly, we hit the field trip season.  The places were packed with school groups.  Luckily they usually had to be gone by about 2 and we could then stay and have the place to ourselves.  The three in front of the black bears:

Me and my cutie in front of the rhino:

This summer we're continuing our toddler playgroup for Christian,

 have a park days group for Bella where we meet at a different park each week with preschool friends

 

And we can finally have play dates with Benjamin's friends again now that they aren't in school all day.  We also still have piano and swim lessons.  Sadly soccer is over.  I have loved coaching Benjamin's team.  He's a good player, as were several of the kids on the team.  I loved those kids and really enjoyed being with them.  Christian has requested that I coach him next since I've now coached Bella and Benjamin.  I think that will be a lot of fun.

We've also signed up for Kids Bowl Free.  I don't expect to go too often, but it's but a lot of fun so far.  Except for Bella's refusal to wear the shoes because they weren't cute enough.  She finally came around when she saw she was missing out on the fun.  Next week it's off to Utah!  We can't wait.  It'll be so fun to spend time with family.  Yay for Summer!