Cowboys Stadium Homeschool Tour

Yesterday we took the boys on their first field trip...to Cowboys Stadium! Yes, it was quite educational and fun too!

CJ and Mark were so excited to go see what was behind that glass!

Cotton Bowl area with actual "plays" on the windows.

Marky just playing with Daddy's sunglasses!

As soon as we got out on the field, they immediately started tackling eachother! People just laughed and laughed at them!

Football helmet on the endzone

Touchdown!

Peyter loved being free on the field!

Football stance!

The star at the entrance to the locker rooms...Marky was telling us that was a "star" and CJ was just acting silly!

Trying on the uniforms!

Locker Room

Press conference area

The TUNNEL

Marky's turn running out of the tunnel

Peyton's turn

My BROOD!

Picture on the star!

What a fun time full of memories!

Last week and today

Boys making their "burning bush" sculptures out of salt dough. All our projects pertained to the story of Moses last week.
Best little burning bushes I have ever seen! They did so well making these!

The little activity was to make sort of a re-inaction of the story when God turned all the water into blood...we were supposed to do it in the bathtub but anything we can do outside these days we do! At first we were to put soapy bubbles in the pool and let the boys use ladles and measuring cups to explore the soapy bubbles and then we put red food coloring in the water. With the blue pool, it looked more like purple water but they had a blast!

"Cannnnon Balllllll"

By next year Peyton may not have these big dimples so I figure I better capture them now!

This week we're studying the letter G. Today we made our G's outside and decided to use "g"rass to cover them on "g"reen paper!

This lesson was a little tougher...we're talking about math positions, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th....I asked CJ to pick 5 things from the yard and line them up. Then I had him change positions of the items by asking him to switch the places based on 1st, 2nd, 3rd... Getting the corresponding numbers and positions seemed a little confusing. When you think about it, First doesn't sound anything like One and Second doesn't sound like Two so its easy to see where this could get confusing!

We also repeated the reading lesson from last Friday. On Friday I realized that CJ may be more of an auditory learner...after he would sound out the words, he had a hard time telling me what the actual word was after sounding it out. Then if I sounded it out, just as choppy as he had sounded it out first, many times he could tell me what the word was. I'm thinking we may need to use a little tape recorder for him to sound out the words then play back to hear the words in his own voice.

We have alot planned this week. Tuesday, CJ will go to his science class at the Heard Museum while I take Mark and Peyton with me to my Bible study at the church then we have practice that evening, Thursday we will be going on our first homeschool field trip to the Cowboys Stadium, Friday and Saturday we'll be participating in a family campout with the homeschool group and then over the weekend we have 4 birthdays to celebrate! Wonder how we'll get our school work done??? Its already planned out! We'll fit a little more in to Wednesday and Friday and still try to be flexible because you know there will be mess after mess that might require us to detour from our original schedule! Of course those already started this morning with tee tee on the sheets and comforter of Mark's bed-Thursday we'll get the comforter back from the dry cleaner! The comforter on our bed was just there last week when Mark decided to potty on our bed! You'd think this place should smell like cat litter...and it may, we may just be used to it but I certainly hope it doesn't! Then of course there are the mountains of clothes that need to be folded for the second time since Mark likes to throw every item of clothing out of his and CJ's drawers during naptime. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't mixed sizes...its the sorting thats going to take me another hour to do. This is all to be expected and I remember that shortly after I think I'm going to pull my hair out!

Sweet words last night

Its not everyday that I get to sit down and blog and sometimes its a week before I can re-cap. I just put down one of the books that I was reading because I kept thinking about what CJ said last night. At 3 a.m. I heard CJ on the monitor saying, "Come on Marky, I'll help you down." Mark has figured out how to climb up to CJ's bunk despite the fact that there is no ladder because we took it down in an effort to keep Mark off the top bunk. Mark had gotten up in CJ's bed before we all went to sleep so we decided to let him stay since it was bothering CJ. At 3, Mark was sort of whimpering and just disoriented. CJ woke up and was going to head downstairs to our bed and he was trying to help Mark down so that he could come too. Nowadays its not every night that CJ comes down to our bed so when he does in the middle of the night we have started to not object! I got up real fast and went up there to help. I got Mark settled in his bed, he was so tired that he waited to be tucked in while I located his Maddy and his pacie. CJ headed downstairs and I didn't mind since Mark seemed to be fine and ready to go back to sleep. When I got back downstairs CJ was waiting for me and asked for some water. We went to the kitchen, got the water and then I tucked him in the middle of the bed. Before I got in he rose up with his hands in the air, long sleeve batman top on of his choice, with just undies and said, "Mommy, can you please take this shirt off so I can be 'extra' cozy?" Some words are simply sweet sounding in the middle of the night:) I took it off and got in bed, he snuggled up to me with his arm around my neck and simply started snoring again. Its still nice to cuddle even as he gets older and I know once Mark and Peyton get to where they can sleep in a bed other than their own, they probably all join us from time to time and that's just ok with us as long as they have at least gone to sleep first in their own beds! Time just goes by way too fast:)

Cookies etc.

Monday I decided that I would take the boys to the library reading time. Its the only day where I can take CJ to the "On My Own" reading time while they have the "Lapsit" story time for Mark and Peyton. We left with 10 books and we have already read all of them! Before we left, I went to exercise class and got home with 30 minutes to shower and get everyone in the car to go. After a 5 minute rushed shower, I got out to go check on things. During my shower time, Mark and Peyton had moved a chair over to the counter and tore open the homemade peanut butter cookies. I walked in to see cookies spread all over the counter and both of them with fistfuls stuffing their faces. Even more, they had tried to fill a cup with water and the water was puddled on the floor with soggy cookies swimming in it. I didn't have time to grab the camera:(

Later, I went in to get Mark from his nap. It was after 5 so I thought it was time to get up! I went upstairs and this time I had to go back downstairs to get the camera. Little toot had taken his diaper off during nap and decided to nap with his Maddy in the cozy bean bag instead of the bed. No tee tee ANYWHERE!! Yay. I took him to the potty and stayed in there trying to get him to go potty. He wouldn't:( We went downstairs and weren't down there for 5 minutes before he pottied on the kitchen floor. I still don't think he really knows when he needs to go. I'm not going to push the training, some things he does tells me that he's ready and some make me believe he needs a little more time!

I have found that this is the best way to play with play-dough. Oh well if the dogs get ahold of it...its better than the carpet! If I can keep Peyton off the table then everything works out well. Poor CJ, he tried to diligently play or make things and his brothers are always trying to tear up his creations:(

School, Hunting, Baseball and Messes

SCHOOL

This will be our 7th week of school! WOW! We are seeing some very cool things coming from these boys! Keep in mind, Mark does not sit for more than 5 minutes at a time-ever. He's still learning. I started to do their Bible reading at breakfast since I have a more captive audience! Two weeks ago Mark couldn't say any of his shapes, as of yesterday he now knows, circle, square, triangle and star! This make me feel good for several reasons-I still do question if I can teach starting from the very basics...because CJ learned a lot of the basic things in preschool. He even learned to potty train in preschool and part of all this makes me feel bad since I don't know how to repeat some of this for Mark. We're all learning together! CJ on the other hand is starting to read better each day...he's sounding out the words as we are working in his reading book and he's remembering sounds that we have just introduced. One of my favorite parts of our day is lying on my bed with him cuddling next to me for our reading work. We do this once Mark and Peyton are down for naps. We need it quiet! I told him the other day that reading with him was one of the best times of the day for me...he hugged me and at the end of our reading and writing, he picked out a crown sticker for me and told me I was the "queen mommy"! He is supposed to pick out stickers for himself after he does his writing work but he always picks them out for me instead :) He is not only learning his basics but he is showing real hearts for the Lord and applying the biblical principles from our reading to real life situations! This homeschooling has been one of the greatest sacrifices for all of us but as long I see the fruitful blessings I know we're making huge impacts on these precious boys!

HUNTING

Clark took CJ on the church dove hunt this past weekend. CJ really enjoyed it, he loves to be out with his dad getting dirty and shooting his little BB gun. Poppy went too and they got to fish in between hunts. At lunch they took a break and CJ had a 2 hour nap in the truck.

BASEBALL

Little, big boy had his first coach-pitch baseball game on Friday. He never had to use the T and hit on the third pitch every time! He was real proud and so were we!

We had someone else who wanted to get dressed up for the game!Here's CJ waving at Grammy and me.

Getting ready to hit for the first time. Looking at his daddy after he had hit his first ball!

Running home!

The hardest part about these games is keeping Mark and Peyton contained and happy. Thankfully Pop held Marky and rationed his skittles for as long as he could while Peyton sat in the stroller at times being loud but for the most part he did pretty good.

Mark and Peyton's Mess
Saturday while Clark and CJ were gone, we cleaned the upstairs and played outside. It was pretty peaceful until Mark woke up from his nap. I went in to his room because he was crying and he typically wakes up pretty groggy but not crying. I walked in and found that he had pulled his poopy diaper off during nap-it must have been during the first part of his nap because he had smeared poop on the floor and the walls and it was caked and dried on him. The amazing thing is that I was sitting right by the monitor reading for most of his nap and I never heard him up to anything...! He had fallen asleep on the floor not on the freshly cleaned sheets thankfully. I put him in the bathtub to soak. He had to soak and I had to scrub him, the walls and the carpet. After I got him cleaned up I went and got the Bissell to clean the carpet but I had to close the doors so that he and Peyton would not come in. While I was cleaning, they figured out how to pull the stuffing out of the upstairs coach and this is what I saw as I was headed back upstairs with the vacuum cleaner...Mark stood at the top and said, "Oh cool" and the proceeded to slide down saying, "This is fun". Maybe he's ready for snow, but I certainly didn't want it on my vacuumed stairs.

I am really wondering if this little girl we are going to have will be any less active than all these boys. It's absolutely always something...I wonder why I even take time to exercise!

Triplet Nieces' First Birthday Party

A year ago our whole family was blessed with 3 sweet little baby girls! They are healthy and growing wonderfully! These pictures are from their "Cat in the Hat" celebration last weekend! In no particular order!

Reagan with her Mommy (my sister Michelle)

Our C.J. enjoying some of Grammy's cake!

Baylee Brynn!

The CAKES that Grammy (my mother) made.

Addison and Pop (my dad)

Our silly boys with their great grandparents Mamaw and Papaw (my grandparents)

C.J. and Mark in the rocks!

The party favors...white chocolate suckers made by mom and Michelle! SO YUMMY:)

Peyton eating his cake!

Reagan and Mark playing on the girls' new swingset!

Baylee, Mamaw and me...Mamaw loves her great-grandbabies!

Grammy (my mom) and Addison ( I think!)

Reagan and Peyton playing!

After the party, we stayed in Waco and took the boys on a little Waco tour. We took a picture in front of Crickets where Clark and I first met almost 9 years ago!

After dinner at Ninfa's

Great Party and Weekend!