Fall 2016 - Fun Things

It's been a while, but let's see what we can remember ...

Books -

• Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe - we are going to the play next week, so we read this one.  Logan sometimes got bored, but eventually he really wanted to hear it.  Can't wait to see the play.
• Emil and the Detectives - just finished this one.  An older book, and the kids weren't sure at first, but they LOVED it.
• Jenny's Moonlight Adventure - a cute not too scary Halloween book.
• Andrew and I have been reading in bits and pieces Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.
• Katsu and Andrew have been playing chess in lieu of night time reading.

Fun Things - 

• Odd Squad the movie - this was a major event for the kids this summer, but they loved it.
• Noah had a little birthday party.  We had a few kids over for a play date and sang and then had cupcakes.  He even got a couple presents.  It was fun and felt somewhat festive.  And then Katsu came home and we gave him our big present for him (a sand / water toy).
• OLYMPICS - we had a little opening ceremony party, though the kids got bored after awhile - let's be honest, I got bored after awhile.   We spent a lot of time watching the Olympics.  The boys loved the diving and the gymnastics.  Seth and Logan want to take gymnastics classes now.
• Katsu went to the youth baptismal trip, so we all drove out to Raleigh and dropped him off and then we went to the natural history center.  I was kind of grumpy, but the boys really enjoyed it since it's been a long time since we went.  Then, we picked up Katsu and drove to Chapel Hill.  We ate some yummy food at McAlisters and then went to the Planetarium.  We looked through the exhibits and then we watched a Magic Tree House Planetarium Show.  The boys loved it, except Noah who had a hard time sitting still.  So, I had to take him out at the end, but then I brought him back in for the Night Tonight.  Now, Logan wants a telescope and stars for his room.
• Birthday parties
• Andrew got new glasses.  His prescription changed quite a bit and the boys were somewhat well behaved during his appointment.  In fact, the doctors commented that this was the first time kids were there that they didn't have their eyes twitching by the end.
• Aunt Sarah came in town for several weeks to help with the kids while school started and to have fun with us.
• All the kids had dentist appointments.  It was pretty traumatic for Noah - he cried the whole time - but they all did fine and Logan is getting much better.  No cavities.  No concerns.  Seth still doesn't even have any wiggly teeth.
• Ward movie night - we watched Good Dinosaur.  We thought we had a party beforehand (it turned out not), so we ended up eating at Sonic beforehand.
• ECU started!  I am teaching two classes.  I lecture 9-10 M, W and 8-12 on Friday.
• My birthday.  It was a busy day - the kids had their open house at school.  But Sarah cooked dinner (chicken cordon bleu and cake) for me while I was at that, so that was nice.  I got 
• Watermelon Festival - we went to the parade and it was pretty fun, but so hot and humid.
• Elementary School (Andrew) - the kids started a week after ECU.  Andrew is in Ms. Zell's class and is also in the gifted program.  Ms. Zell seems to be a good teacher for him, but really Andrew is gone for the gifted program so much, it seems like he is hardly there or catching up on things all the time.  He goes to STRIDE (Gifted program) all day Monday.  He also has enrichment math (Thurs), enrichment reading, and super enrichment reading and super enrichment math (I think those are all on Friday).  So, he is gone almost 2 whole days each week.  Plus, he is taking orchestra and learning the viola in place of his regular music class.  It is supposed to be twice a week, but then he was missing all his PE (due to STRIDE) which isn't allowed, so it's just once a week for now.  He is doing pretty well at keeping up with practicing and also piano, though heaven forbid he practice when you tell him.  He does it whenever he feels like it.  He is also doing Battle of the Books (read 18 books and then answer quiz questions on them as a team), Leadership (helping the PE teachers again), and Running Club (they practice twice a week after school for a 5K next month - he is not very good or fast, but he is getting better and seems to somewhat enjoy it).
• Elementary School (Seth) - Seth is in Ms. Herring's class.  She is a new teacher this year.  She was also pregnant with twins boys (in addition to her one year old boy) and just had them a week ago.  So, he now has a permanent sub.  I am still not sure how I feel about her.  She seems fine, but I don't think she is engaging him as well as he should be.  He hasn't had any enrichment for math even though he is super far advanced.  As far as I can tell, the only thing that he has done is get a sign up to play the computer game Prodigy at home.  He LOVES this game and is always begging to play.  It gives math problems and then it is kind of like Final Fantasy type game.  The problems have been super hard - long division, greatest common multiples, graphing with coordinates, but he seems to be picking it up.  He didn't get a good grade in writing, but it was based on only one assessment, which I am not very happy about.  He is advanced in reading and has been loving to read Geronimo Stilton books.  They have been doing AR now in second grade, although the teachers don't seem to really know what they are doing.  Seth had a hard time taking the test on chapter books, but got to his goal super fast.  He always tries to take out the very hardest books that they will let him.  He has been learning about sound and music and just turned in a project making an instrument.  He had lots of ideas about using cleaning bottles and made some sort of blowing thing.  He worked on it all by himself and really didn't want any help or input.  Seth is still doing really well with piano.  Both boys are in the book 2B of Alfred Premiere Course.
• Seth went to a birthday party at AirU - a jumping trampoline place and he really wants to go back all the time.
• A couple football parties.  Aunt Sarah even came.
• I don't think we did much for Labor Day.  I don't really remember.  Maybe Katsu painted the walls?
• Sarah went back home.  Andrew was glad to get his room back, but Noah was really sad to miss his little buddy and cried about it for a couple days.
• Noah and Logan had their tea party at the preschool to meet their teachers.  Noah had a rough few days at the beginning of the year, but now he loves preschool and always talks about his friends at preschool and is sad when it's a day when Logan goes and he doesn't.
• Logan is in Ms. Shelley and Ms. Kim's class in the pirate room upstairs and goes 9-12 five days a week.  His room has pirate toys and all kinds of pirate decorations and has had several pirate crafts.  They even celebrated and dressed up for talk like a pirate day.  Ms. Shelley loves Logan and just thinks he is delightful and easy.  Logan is really enjoying the class and seems to be making friends and having fun with the other kids.  He also seems to be learning the letters they study at school pretty well.  Hopefully he will know all the letters by the time he starts kindergarten.  It has been a long slog (he knows all his numbers, though ...)  He keeps getting more literary skills and has started really picking out beginning and ending sounds in all the words he hears, so I am not too worried.  A funny thing from his preschool class - there is another boy who moved into his class who is named Logan F too.  So, Logan goes by Logan Funai.  He especially loves playing in the sand and I finally figured out why - his teacher brings back lots of shells and hides them there.  It's like a treasure hunt.
• Noah is in Ms. Jennifer's class.  He is in a 2 year old class that meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  He really loves the class now.  He plays and has circle time and reads stories and brings home simple crafts.  He plays on the playground for a long time and really enjoys that, too.
• Ward picnic - we had to pick up the meat, but it was at the wrong barbeque place and so we had to drive all around town.  It was kind of crazy and stressful, but the food was good and we brought home tons of leftovers.  Too bad the kids don't like north carolina bbq - more for us!
• High priest breakfast.  They remembered how much Logan liked bacon and got a whole pan full for him to bring home!
• Soccer - Katsu is coaching both teams (Logan and Seth).  It has been a little crazy, especially when it was so hot and we were worried about Katsu getting migraines.  But he has mostly enjoyed the teams (even though so many games have been cancelled due to weather).  And they have basically won all their games for both teams. Kind of crazy.  The season is almost done now - last games on Monday and then there will be a tournament for Seth's group.
• Curriculum Night & Preschool Orientation.  Lots of busy school meetings.
• Andrew had a cub scout activity at the nature center and went hiking and had lots of fun.  Noah and I ended up joining them in the nature center after their hike.
• Talk like a pirate day - Logan dressed up for school and then Logan and Noah and I went to Krispy Kreme with the boys dressed up and each got a box of donuts.  It was a fun day.
• We celebrated Angel Moroni Day by talking about how he appeared to Joseph Smith and then finding little scripture treasures made of chocolate.
• General Conference - we went though the 72 hour kits and ate up all the expiring food (probably a bad idea since the hurricane went through the next week ...) and the boys listened to a couple of the talks even, especially when they played bingo with the M&Ms.  It was a pretty fun weekend and nice to all be together at home.  Soccer games were cancelled due to rain, so we didn't even have to go anywhere.
• US Marine Band - Katsu took the boys.  Seth and Logan both fell asleep almost instantly, but Andrew really enjoyed the band and was very interested in the music.
• I have been in charge of the walking school bus - and we had our walk to school day.  The police accompanied us in the morning and we had banners.  The kids were a little wild, but they had a lot of fun.  They got goody bags and snacks in the afternoon on the way home.  Low key, but fun.
• Noah went and saw the puppet lady at the mall.  He didn't want to go, but he enjoyed it in the end and wants to go back another time.
• Andrew had a field trip to go and see an orchestra performance.  He enjoyed it.  We were supposed to have a performance that evening, but it was cancelled due to the hurricane.
• The hurricane blew through on Saturday Oct. 8.  Everything was cancelled, of course.  We sat at home and waited and watched.  The wind and rain were something treacherous.  We brought in everything from outside, thankfully, because it was much worse than we expected.  I have never seen such a storm.  Poor Noah was so scared - he was just wandering around saying "Rain hurt me" over and over again.  The other boys were a little nervous, but not too bad, but Noah would not go to sleep at all unless he was between me and Katsu.  He is still scared of any rain or storms, poor thing.  Our neighbor's trampoline flipped over their fence, but thankfully, other neighbors tied it down before it could have caused any damage.  We didn't lose power or anything harmful.  There was a huge amount of flash flooding in town, even the road behind ours was flooded badly in parts and many many roads were closed on Saturday and Sunday.  We did get a bit of water damage from rain coming through around the outdoor outlet cover, but thankfully nothing too bad.
• We just had a combined sacrament meeting service on Sunday.  Kind of crazy to see the damage from the storm.
• School - all of them - was cancelled for the entire next week.  We didn't venture far beyond the store and once to the library.  Many streets were closed and then Greenville started flooding from the Tar river through the whole week before finally peaking water levels on Friday.  Far from us, but not too far.  The whole region was flooded really.  Craziness.
• Preschool finally started the next week, but Andrew and Seth were still out on Monday.  We finally got our piano tuned (which the boys found somewhat interesting) and then we played a rousing game of Monopoly.  Boys finally went back to elementary school on Tuesday with a 2 hour delay.  And ECU started as well.  Katsu couldn't go to ECU the very first day it was closed (Monday the 10th), but he went into the lab most days the week it was closed, though sometimes came home early.  Thankfully the weather was good the week they were out, so they spent lots of time playing with friends and outside.
• The fire truck came to preschool.  According to Noah's teacher, he was petrified of it and refused to get on it.  I guess it was a little too big - he loves looking at them from afar.  Logan seemed to enjoy it.
• Thursday, on the way home from preschool, the car broke down.  Thankfully, Katsu could come and help out.  And thankfully, we were able to drive the car to the shop without needing a tow truck and the shop could look at it right away.  They had to order a part and the car could just stop anytime, so we have been down to one car, but hopefully it will be done on Monday.  We'll see!
• Friday, Katsu took Andrew, Seth, and Logan to see ECU's family fare production of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  Katsu wasn't super impressed, but the kids enjoyed it and enjoyed spending time with him, of course.  They went to McDonald's afterwards and played checkers and had ice cream.
• Saturday, ALL the boys went and cleaned the church, then a full day of soccer boys, and then ALL the boys went to a church's fall festival.  We drive by it every day on the way to preschool or ECU and decided to try it.  The boys LOVED it.  There were 8 bouncy houses!  Plus cotton candy, hot dogs, and games and candy.  They stayed for a long time and loved it.