Slices of Life

After a long week with lots of trips, we all decided we wanted to stay home on Friday. The boys seemed eager for some real school work.  As soon as they sat down to eat breakfast they asked me to read them a chapter from our Harry Potter book.    After breakfast we cleaned house for 20 or so minutes together.  Once the boys finished cleaning they just sort of gravitated toward the table and got to work. Evan worked on writing number sentences to word problems in his Star Wars math book and finished up the alphabet review pages in his Star Wars reading book. Alec completed 5 pages in his math workbook (by choice as I only asked him to complete two!). Ian complained as he worked through two pages in his math workbook-- one on adding money together, and another on comparing decimals.  He did great and I let him do the second page orally along with me.  He just has it firmly in his head that he hates math, it's hard, and it's stupid. The two older boys ask...

The boys were beside themselves with excitement yesterday morning.  We headed out to try an indoor aerial obstacle course.  We've had a Groupon for Soar Indoors that we bought at the end of the spring and we were waiting for the summer crowds to pass.   We were at Soar Indoors for almost 3 hours.  The boys LOVED it.  I participated with them too and it was a lot of fun.  We were all started on the lower course that's only 2 1/5 feet off the ground.  We are responsible for moving our own harness clips around and the time on the lower course is to make sure that we all have the hang of it before heading to the upper course that is 12 feet off the ground. Evan, Ian and myself found the lower course plenty challenging enough and just stuck to that.  I don't think Evan stopped once.  He became a master at clipping himself in and moving himself through that course! Evan went first and jumped right on.  like being a ti...

We went to the beach!  The forecast showed a hot, sunny week and we plan on taking full advantage of our freedom.  My mother, sister and nephews were joining us and we were all excited for a beach day at a beach with actual waves!  We picked up my mom and headed to the beach.  The beach was quite crowded but we found my sister and her sons and settled down for lots of fun. digging in the sand together Alec boogie boarding Evan met another little boy with the same name and they were soon friends.  They marveled at all the things they had in common and had a ball making up games to play together as they dug in the sand, jumped off dunes, and ran around. Evan and his friend Evan  Ian spent just about the whole day in the water body surfing and boogie boarding.   Alec actually got his feet wet and before I knew it had gone into the ocean too.  He too learned to body surf and had fun boogie boarding also. ...

We dragged the boys to Mt. Wachusett again yesterday for a hike.  They did not want to go hiking but once we got them all dressed and in the car & they were resigned that this was something we were going to do they did cooperate. We listened to Evan's MP3 player in the car on the way there and all the boys sung along to the songs.  I had no idea how many lyrics they knew! We arrived mid- morning and started our trek up the mountain. They hardly complained, though they did ask why we couldn't just drive up it a few times.  We saw a few toads, lots of interesting mushrooms, and took notice of all the different types of trees.  We heard squirrels and some sort of bird of prey.  Alec chose to listen to his MP3 player as he climbed and he was usually a good foot or so in front of us.   I noticed how much better he was getting about dogs too.  Though, not a fan by any means, he no longer runs from them or cowers in fear when he sees the...