Sunday morning, we woke up and opened presents from us and from Grandma and Grandpa. Andrew got a whole bunch of new books by Rick Riordian from us and from his grandparents, he got 3 new games - Stratego, Ticket to ride expansion pack, and Sleeping Queens. While we were trying to get ready for church, Andrew started to put all the stickers wrong on the Stratego pieces which caused a lot of drama, but we all finally did manage to get to church, albeit with many tears. The boys had a lot of fun playing Stratego in the afternoon and we also had time for some more cake, looking through Andrew's photo books, calling grandma, having family home evening, and enjoying the birthday on the rainy rainy day. I still can't believe he is 8 years old!
Andrew has been begging me to do homeschool lately. I think he gets bored at school - it goes slow. I also think he is lazy and thinks he could get away with doing a lot less and playing a lot more if he were at home. Speaking of lazy, Andrew's handwriting has gotten atrocious! Like horribly bad that I can't read it, his teacher is starting to not be able to read it, and sometimes, he can't read it. She finally sent home some papers with things marked wrong just because she couldn't read it and comments about the general sloppiness. Katsu and I spoke to Andrew about it and he brought home work the next day that seriously looked like it was from a book. Like night and day. Andrew is just so sloppy about everything because he likes to rush, but if he takes his time he can always do a very nice job. This is true about pretty much everything. He'll rush through math or piano and make lots of mistakes, but when he does it slow, he does well.
School has been fine. He is sad they have no more breaks except Memorial Day and is ready for the end of the year. They have been a unit on mealworms at school and have all had mealworms and he will come home and give us some updates on which life stage they are in. They had the school spelling bee. Andrew was 3rd in his class, so he got to go to the 2nd grade spelling bee. He did pretty well - he came in 6th. He knew right when he made a mistake (according to Katsu - I couldn't go because I was at work), but he will tell you now that he did it on purpose because he didn't want to be in the bee anymore (right, Andrew - this kid will NEVER and I mean never fess up to anything less than favorable). But he still did a lot better than I expected as spelling is not his strongest suit - he frequently mis-spells his spelling words!
Andrew played his season of soccer. Katsu says that he tried really hard and made a lot of improvement - I didn't go to all the games and practices this time around. He played pretty well ... he just isn't aggressive and doesn't put his all in when it comes to running and trying to get the ball, so he isn't super competitive at this stage. He loves talking to his teammates and wants his team to win, though. He keeps track of the points always. His team went to the tournament and won the first couple games. He really wanted his team to win the whole thing, but sadly, it was not to be. We are still undecided on doing soccer or other sports again in the future.
The ward has been completely incommunicado about either his baptism or Cub Scouts. We have taken a few steps to planning the baptism ourselves, but Cub Scouts isn't going to happen without some of their input - Andrew is pretty particular that he doesn't want to participate, and that is fine by me.
Otherwise, Andrew is busy with his nose in a book, building and playing, running around, and causing havoc.
Fun Things
- Jump Rope for Heart (he got enough donations to get a couple ducks and a free jump rope)
- Starting soccer
- Friend's birthday party at Jump Fit.
- Ward Chili cookoff and talent show.
- Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick's Day - I also made a little treasure hunt with clues for the boys to find some candy leprachaun hats that I had made. The boys loved it and had a lot of fun finding it hiding in Katsu's closet.
- Little Princess musical - I went with Seth and Andrew. The boys were perplexed at the beginning by all the singing and kept asking me when it was going to be done. The first act did start out pretty slow, but I think they enjoyed it. They kept asking me when "half time" was - i.e., intermission. They fell fast asleep on the drive home, all tangled on top of each other. Pretty cute.
- Neighborhood easter egg hunt - boys rode their bikes over and grabbed tons of eggs. A cold day, but a lot of fun. Seth and Andrew were too cool to take a picture with the easter bunny, silly boys.
- Went to feed the homeless with Katsu.
- Katsu was out of town a couple times, so extra time with mom (and more TV time than usual).
- Watching the play of Treasure Island with Katsu. We had tried listening to the book on tape on a trip earlier, so I think Seth sort of knew the story. The story was pretty well done and Seth enjoyed it.
- A sort of abbreviated Easter celebration week - we talked about Palm Sunday, watched some of the church Easter videos, did a Jesus dinner on Thursday and had hot cross buns, but Katsu was out of town most of the week and then he was home for a day and then we were out of town, so it was kind of crazy.
- Easter egg hunts at school - they all came home with tons of candy and toys and eggs. Craziness!
- SPRING BREAK!!! On Friday morning, we drove to Williamsburg and then we went straight to Busch Gardens. We bought season passes and were able to get free ones for Seth and Logan. The first day, we went to the first Sesame Street place and did all the rides and ended up waiting in line for awhile. Once, we got outside of that part of the park, we were able to see lots of other things. There were rides for the kids everywhere and lots of fun ones. We even got to see animals and watch a couple shows - Irish Dancing and a wild animal encounter show. After we were all thoroughly worn out, we checked into our hotel. We were staying in a vacation rental and had two big bedrooms and a full kitchen and a patio. The boys LOVED it. We went to Trader Joes and got all of our favorite foods and ate like kings over the weekend. The second day, we had breakfast and then went to Busch Gardens again. This time, we had a better idea where to go and we didn't wait in as many lines. We got to ride everything and it was really fun. The boys all had a blast. Once we were worn out and had done everything, we went back to the resort. The boys all went to mini golf and the pool while Noah took a nap. They LOVED it, especially the mini golf. Then, they came home and all slept in one of the bedrooms and got to watch Nick and all the cable shows. They were in paradise. And even better - on Sunday morning, they woke up and the Easter bunny had come. They ran all over searching for eggs. We packed up, checked out, and drove to Great Wolf Lodge and bought a wand and the boys worked together and did MagiQuest, for like 5 hours! By then, we beat the first dragon and were SO worn out!!! So, we drove back to NC to enjoy the rest of the spring break.
- The rest of the spring break, we just relaxed.
- One day of spring break, I took the boys to an Andean and South American music concert. Andrew seemed to enjoy it alright, but didn't love it.
- Pirate Fest - the boys got to see a BMX show while chowing on free chips and drinks. Seth was walking in his cleats the whole time from soccer which was a little tiring, but it's always fun to see the whole town dressed up as pirates and we even saw a live mermaid this year! The boys played games and earned candy along the river and then we cooled off with some ice cream. It was a lot of fun, even after two tiring soccer games!
- Camping with Dad and Andrew and Seth for a ward campout. The boys had a blast - smores, foil dinners, playing with friends, in the water, etc.
- Field day at school
- Children's Day - the boys went to the Chinese buffet
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