Having fun with Pretzels; Prep Time; Prayer Time and Pee!

On Saturday, while we were eating lunch we pulled out the pretzels. My kids are kind of funny, they are not really crazy about then. Josiah just took them, broke then in half and said "broke, Mommy". But then when I showed them you can write words with them, they all wanted some. Jesse and I wrote his name. Not really sure what Riley is doing with hers and then Joel also wrote his name. Hey, you can teach anything with food!

Jesse doing the "Pretzel Dance".Then Sunday afternoon, I had to get dinner together quickly because I had a meeting at 4:30pm and would not be back until about 6:30pm or so. So during dinner I prepped my meat loaf and potatoes. Since Joel has really started getting interested in cooking, I let him cut the potatoes. He feels so big with that knife!! Can I tell you, these were some GREAT potatoes. I roasted them with some wonderful seasonings. Every body thought they were AWESOME!Before dinner it was time to pray! We let Josiah pray for us. He usually keeps his eyes open so he can see what he has on his plate when he thanks God for his food. But this time I told him to close his eyes and put his hands together. This is what we got... So cute!

Finally, yesterday I thought it might be a good day to start potty training my little JoJo. I really thought he was ready. He has been telling me when he goes. He will even come up to me sometimes and tell me to change his diaper. So I decided to pull out the underwear and see what would happen. Well, let me tell you...I am glad he has a LOT of underwear. He just kept wetting himself. But at the end of the afternoon yesterday he actually told me when he did pee. He didn't do that in the morning. So he was getting more a wear of it. So I had HIGH homes for today. We started early and peed in the potty 2x in the morning (only because I made him sit there for about one hour). But then at one point he peed in his potty so we got a sticker and put our underwear on. And while we were eating our marshmallow he peed again. At that point I decided that we are not ready yet. I am going to wait a couple of months and then try again. I am very proud of him, he did poop in the potty one time yesterday. And instead of getting a marshmallow I let him play the WII. He always wants to play but had he had never do it. So we told him that if he pooped on the potty he would be able to play the WII. Can I tell you, he was so excited. He got to box on WII Spots. He loved it. (See pictures below).So this might help me with the potty training when I start again. Enjoy the pictures.

Homework has officially started!

So many of you know about the summer reading program our school district has done for the past two years now. it is called "No book left unread" and you are to keep up with how many pages you read through out the summer. Well, many of you know that Joel is just a little competative. So this is a perfect program for him. Last year he ready about 3000 pages (I think) and he really wanted to beat that. So this year (Drum Roll, Please)...he read 10,226 pages.

Many times this summer I would find Joel in his bed like this.Then on Tuesday Jesse brought some papers home and I noticed he had written some numbers backwards so since he asks every day if he has home work, I decided to go ahead and make him some homework. I wrote the numbers he had messed up on our white board and made him write them. He loved it (as you can tell from his face). We had to keep it on the board until daddy got home that night. Now Riley had her first 1st grade project due today. We pretty much had all week to work on it. She had to make a time line of something important in her life. So we made a time line of our family. We started with mommy & daddy getting married then Joel born, Riley born, Jesse born, Josiah born and finally Nellie born. Can I tell you, she had so much fun.And I have to say, I did too. Terry and I both herlped her. He did the outline of the timeline and I got to help her with the fun part-the crafty part:) We pulled out my Cricut and she made all the people in our family with it. She did so good! I could tell she loved every minute of it. And the thing she was most excited about, she got to stay up late one night to work on it. She picked out the people's outfits and glued them on. Lilli let her borrow her glitter glue so she got to "fancy up" my wedding dress and her dress. She also wrote all the names and dates on the time line herself. She did an awsome job. We both had a lot of fun:)

Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest hight!

Let's go fly a kite

Up to the highest height

Let's go fly a kite

And send it soaring

Up through the atmosphere

Up where the air is clear

Oh, let's go fly a kite

From the Movie: Mary Poppins

So last week, Jesse found the kite that he had gotten from his friend Burton for his 5th birthday. We had put it away for a "windy day". But in the middle of a South Carolina Summer it is hard to find a windy day. SO...we decided to try to fly it anyway. Jesse and Daddy "build" the kite and then we drove to Y and tried to fly the kite. I really didn't think it was going to work. But I was wrong. I guess if you just keep running it will stay up in the air. The kids had a lot fun running in front of the kite. Hopefully we will be able to fly it again soon on a windy day.
Thanks Burton for the kite. Jesse had a lot of fun with it and we look forward to flying it again very soon!