A back yard fire...

The weather is a little more chilly and the other night I wanted to start a fire. It was a perfect Saturday night for it and the boys were excited to make s'mores once we got it going. I love nights like this.

Not Candyland...

I refuse to own or play little people kid games. I don't find them fun and they don't take much strategy to play. Maybe that's why some people enjoy them with kids, but I find them annoyingly and occasionally frustrating.

So instead I attempt to teach the boys games we already owned and played often before having kids. The boys have really taken a shine to playing Daddy's Chess. I'm impressed that they actually play it mostly correctly and remember how each piece moves.

lucius thinks he's got the strategy to win

turns out the tied, only the two kings left on the board

The other night I pulled out our Stratego board game and taught them the rules of the game. Lucius lost right away because he hadn't hid his flag very well, but he quickly learned and they were off on a second game without any help from me. It's impressive how quickly they pick up on the rules and strategy of the games. Plus it's fun they have a shared interest in playing two people board games.

Lucius is growing up...

Lucius, goodness. He's off to kindergarten all day every weekday and it's so weird not having him around the house. It's so quiet around here. But he is LOVING school. He's so excited every morning to wake up and catch the school bus. Lucius doesn't tell us too much about his days at school but what we here is mostly good.

He's getting so big now, trying to sound out words in books. The other day he climbed up on the couch and asked if I would read him a story. I was busy just then and said in a little bit. Soon I started hearing weird sounds coming from his direction. I stopped and tried to figure out what it was, then I realized he was sounding out a word. Of course, he's learning how to sound out letters in Spanish at school and he was trying to sound out an english word. When he finally got to the end of the word I didn't really want to correct him.

L sounding out the word "Aaa...On... OnK...onk... On Ka... Onka-knee... onkaknee!"

The word was 'once'.

He also loves to make up stories and draw pictures, much like Oliver.

This is Lucius creating a Pokemon book cause Oliver's making one.

And he's been loving his new found independence. We let him make his own sandwich the other night for dinner and he thought it was the best thing ever.

Side walk chalk...

The boys have been enjoying the cooler weather and using up the last of our chalk (after having gone out to get more a few weeks ago). I love watching them draw their chalk creations. A lot of times there's a story that goes along with it.

Simple Pleasures: Leaf pile

Lucius is so excited that its now Fall. He works so hard to rack himself a leaf pile. The other day I helped him out a bit so he had one big enough to jump into.

MEA weekend...

The boys had Thursday and Friday off from school because it was MEA weekend. Thursday we went to the library and then had a play date with one of our favorite friends.

Friday we had a lovely stay at home day. I found some of daddy's old art paper and drew comic box sheets for the boys to fill in. The sheets filled their desks- being 18x24 inches big.

They each spent a long time on their comic strip stories.

They're finished sheets: The first two are by Oliver, the Third one is by Lucius.

Afterwards we got down our big art canvas to paint it. Oliver wanted the background to be white this time. So while that was drying they found paint sticks to paint.

When the white was finally dry, they painted. I asked for no pokemon (something they both really wanted to paint) and asked for an abstract tree or Fall scene. Oliver said he remembered a piece of art from art class he'd really like to draw. He tried to tell me about it and then said "Marmee, can you look up Georgia O'Keeffe so I can show you what I'm trying to tell you. Its abstract art"

What I have so far hanging on my wall. I convinced them to make something all their own instead of coping someone else's design. I'm hoping I can have them work on it a little here and there till it's "finished".

 

Lucius and his soccer...

Lucius had his last soccer game yesterday. He SUPER enjoyed playing on a "real team" this Fall. It was fun to see him play, encourage his team mates when he wasn't playing, and trying new positions on the field. He worked so hard all the way till the end of the games.

Till next year Soccer...

Simple Pleasures: Reading...

Daddy and Oliver started reading Harry Potter book one on our road trip coming home. They just recently finished it and Oliver's pretty excited to read book #2 with his Dad.

Family Field Trip...

Since the Little Free Library in our front yard is technically Mormor's, she got a note saying the LFL offices would be having an open house. The Boys love the Little Free Libraries around town and spot them quite frequently when we're out & about. So I thought it'd be fun to join Mormor on a Field trip to the open house. We picked up the boys early from school and drove to their headquarters in Hudson, WI. The boys helped build one of their prefab Little Free Libraries. They also made and colored some bookmarks. We also met the man who built the very first LFL.

Pretty neat!

daily life continues...

Little things that happen on our evenings and weekends together:

We've been trying to get to the library once a week to check out books. Occasional we run into friends there. We love our library.

Lucius saw that a few leaves had fallen from the neighbors tree into our yard and was so excited to rake a leaf pile. It was about 24 leaves, but I wasn't going to stop him.

Saturdays for the past 5 weeks Lucius has had a soccer game. He LOVES it. But last weekend he was playing goalie and the other team scored two points. He really took it hard. He started telling me that he "HATES soccer" and "Hates losing". It was a tough day, but he is back to loving it and plays everyday he can.

Since Lucius got signed up for fall soccer, we offered Oliver a choice of fall classes. He choose to do a mad science NASA space class that meets Tuesday right after school. He's pretty excited about it. The first class the built a rocket that the kids could bring home to launch.

The boys both have homework to do after school. Not too much, which we're happy about. Lucius usually has one day of writting homework that he does some days in the morning before the bus comes, some days in the afternoon right after the buys drops him off. It's been so nice out, we've been trying to do homework outside. Right behind Lucius in this picture is Oliver's spelling words he wrote on the driveway in chalk, verses getting paper.

The other day we stopped at Auntie Mick's house and played for a little while. It was fun to see the boys enjoying their cousins. This wagon picture has a funny story. Cousin Casen is in a Chinese immersion school learning Chinese, while Oliver and Lucius are in a Spanish immersion program at their school. Casen was shouting for Oliver to run in Chinese, Lucius and Max were speaking in English and Oliver told Casen "I am runnning" in  Spanish. I found it most amusing.