Mom and Me Camp-out

Benjamin and I had a wonderful time together this past weekend at a local boy scout camp.  They invited cub scouts and their moms to come spend the weekend.

Benjamin and I left right from school on Friday afternoon and were there until late Saturday.  The first day we set up our tent and then explored the camp and talked before joining the whole group for an evening around a big bonfire.  We sang songs, drank hot chocolate, the boy scouts did skits and jokes, and we finished with just the two of us reading Percy Jackson in our tent.  When we got up in the morning Benjamin said, "This was the funnest campout!  I'm so glad we came.  Did you have fun?"  "Benjamin," I reminded him, "we have a whole day ahead of us still.  We've just begun!"  "Oh, that's right!" he exclaimed, "I forgot!"  He had only done a small portion of the campout and he already considered it a success.  That made me happy.

Saturday they woke everyone up at 6:45 by screaming "Wake Up Campers!!" as they walked around the tents.  Not appreciated by me since I'd slept poorly (as I always do when camping) and our assigned breakfast time wasn't until 7:45, but Benjamin didn't mind one bit.  We started with a group flag ceremony and then we shot BB guns, slingshots, and bows and arrows,

we made placemats, neckerchief sliders, and sand art (picture below),

 we branded wood and leather, we tied knots and lassoed animals (statues of animals),

 rode a hay wagon, made caramel apples, ate lots of junk food (next year I'm bringing my own food!), and chose a pumpkin from their pumpkin patch.  A station where you could make your own bird house was also available, but he'd made one in cub scouts the week prior and didn't feel like making another.  They also had a station where you could work with a compass and learn about map reading, but Benjamin refused to do it saying, "I don't want this to be ANYTHING like school and I study maps at school." I didn't push it. The whole trip was wonderful.  The weather was cold but the sun shone from time to time, the fall colors were so gorgeous, and it only rained during the night.  We'd brought plenty of warm clothes and blankets so we were fine.  It was so good to be with Benjamin one-on-one doing something other than homework or piano practice.  Being outdoors with him just having fun and learning new things was great.  He and I both came home very happy....and dirty...and over-sugared...and sleep deprived.....but very happy. :)

An Only Child for a Day

School has been going really well for both Bella and Benjamin.  She loves going to school, loves her teachers, the kids, and the work they do.  Her teachers know how to make everything fun and really engage the kids.  Benjamin doesn't have as many fun things to report every day, but he always has positive things to say and he's doing very well.  In the meantime, I have an only child again.  It has been so fun to hang out with Christian and have that one-on-one time with him that I've never had before.  He can be a bit demanding of my time and I have to often remind him that moms have work they have to do too.  They can't just play all day.  But playing with him really is so fun.

We've been having lunch in the tree fort nearly every day.

 Going on 'adventure rides' around the neighborhood.

Going to the kids' museum.

Visiting apple orchards.

Except now it's just Christian jumping on the hay bales.  My yearly tradition of photographing Benjamin on them might finally be over.

The corn box is just so relaxing.

We've also started a word of the day game.  He's learned all his letters and sounds now, thanks to our letter of the week game last year, so I asked him the other day if he'd like to learn to read.  He said yes, so we are starting very simply with a word per day.  Every morning we pick a new 3-4 letter word, and I write it on the window while he draws pictures of it.  Then we talk about it - the letters in it, their sounds, what the word means, etc.  Then I have him practice writing it on paper.  Then throughout the day, I'll bring it up as we're reading books and see it in print or on signs around town or in a song we hear.  I'll ask him to spell it without looking at it and we'll come up with rhyming words and guess how they would be spelled.  He's eating it up.  I am so amazed by how his desire for literacy learning has exploded.  He gets so excited about it.  It's so fun to see.  I have been starting with nouns for now - cat, ball, can, top, etc. - because they are more concrete and easy to work with and draw and play games about.  But hopefully as we go on a bit more, I can start doing sight words - at, the, with, etc. - so that he gets really familiar with them and he could actually read some stories on his own.

This week we went swimming together and afterwards, as we were leaving, we noticed the pool had set up a table with coloring pages and crayons for the kids.  I asked Christian if he'd like to color and he said he would.  He chose one page and I chose another.  I figured I'd color too as long as I was going to be sitting there.  I thought I'd just color until he was ready to go.  An HOUR later, we were still sitting there coloring.  Never had I seen him stay at one task for so long.  It was so much fun!  We dumped out the box and experimented with all the different crayon colors.  Macaroni and Cheese.  Mauvelous.  Purple Mountain's Majesty.  Atomic Tangerine. Asparagus.  Razzle Dazzle Rose.   Half the fun was reading all the unique names.  We talked about all sorts of things as we colored and I thought, "how amazing is this that this is how I get to spend my day?  Pool side with my cutie son just having a blast coloring.  This is truly one of the best parts of being a mom."

I've had request to post pictures of the tree house Kelly built this summer.  So here it is.

When the kids came home, I took another picture with them in it.  There's a solid attached wooden ladder leading from the ground to the first floor, the same kind of ladder from the first to the second, but Benjamin requested there be a rope ladder to the third so he'd have the ability to pull the ladder in and restrict access at times.  We obliged.  That top level really is a fun little hide-away.  The whole fort is a wonderful place to play and I think Kelly did a great job.  The kids love it immensely and are in it all the time.  You feel like a bird nesting in the trees up there.

Just a cute picture of my boys to end.  Getting ready for bed, both in their pjs. I have such cute boys.