Happy (almost) Halloween!

We were invited to a fabulous Halloween party tonight. Once again, the kids got to dress up. If you are really paying attention, you'll notice that Joshua is Buzz Lightyear for the second year in a row. Megan enjoys any opportunity to wear the full ballerina tu-tu. Daniel is actually wearing his pajamas, but they happen to be Superman pajamas, so it is close enough to being a costume. He is also sporting his supercape that I made him.

Everyone's favorite part of the party was the bobbing for apples. Tanya is holding the bowl steady so that none of the kids dump it down the front of them. Megan did great, she managed to grab a hold of the stem with her teeth and pull the apple right out.
Joshua's apple gave him a little bit of trouble. Daniel was trying to help. Finally, Joshua dunked his whole face in the water and took a big bite out of the apple. He was quite pleased with himself.
Daniel thought about putting his face in the water. For about 2 seconds I thought he was going to. But we all know that Daniel is smarter than that - he just reached in the water and grabbed the apple out, walked over to the bench and started eating it. It was quite funny.
We came home from the party and I threw them all in a nice warm bath. We got a package from Grandma today and it had an awesome bath time toy in it. There are foam roads and street signs and motor vehicles. Daniel was the first one in the tub and the last one out of the tub, he didn't want to give up the toys.

We watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and then everyone went off to bed. We have a bunch of fun stuff planned for tomorrow.

Fun on the Farm

The Future Farmers of America held a little ho-down tonight at the fairgrounds. Determined to get there on time, we actually arrived about 10 minutes too early. According to Kodiak time, that equals about 40 minutes too early. Which worked to our advantage to allow the kids to thoroughly investigate everything before it got too crowded.
Megan ran into some friends. I'm not sure if I was ever the squeal-and-hug kindof girl. These three definitely are. Megan, Jordan and Ava are three peas in a pod. Jordan and Megan are in Sunday School together and Ava and Megan are in ballet together. Between the three of them there is a lot of pink, giggling and hugging. I absolutely love that all three of us moms have very similar parenting philosophies, so the girls not only share pink giggly things in common, but all three are very polite and kind-hearted and generally pretty well-behaved as far as 3 year old girls go. I really couldn't ask for better friends for her to be around.
Aren't they all beautiful? They are so fun together. They are all going to break a lot of hearts in a few years.
The FFA has a cow for it's mascot. The kids got to go inside the pen to pet the cow. I'm surprised Daniel got right in there, too. He was a little hesitant at first, but he warmed up to the idea after a while.
We decided to support the fund raiser by having dinner there. There was a lady walking by as I was helping the kids settle down and getting things opened and fixed up for them. Joshua held up a Cheeto and said 'what's this, I've never had one of these before, is it any good?'. The lady laughed and asked him how old he was and if he had never really had a Cheeto. Actually, we buy the all natural white cheese Cheetos if we really have a need to have Cheetos in the house, but I can't really remember when the last time that was. Who really needs Cheetos, anyway? After about 3 minutes of the kids eating them, I remembered why I don't like them. Very few things are naturally that color orange, and they are wicked messy.
I'm not sure if there were other things going on in town tonight, but there did not seem to be a large amount of people out at this event. Which worked out nicely for us, and allowed the kids some freedom to go sit and listen to the folks that were playing the music. And they had a little extra wiggle-room to dance around.

School this week

I'm learning that Joshua and I both aren't that crazy about a planned curriculum. Fortunately, we are both pretty creative and have been able to manipulate the curriculum to work with us. For example, this week we've been going over the concepts of taller and shorter and longer and shorter. One of his worksheets in the practice book had an assignment with 5 different length lines on it. The directions instructed us to have Joshua draw a line longer than the line that was there, and then draw a line shorter. So we did that the first day. The next day was a review of the concept with the same directions on a very similar worksheet. As I was pouring a glass of juice, I look over and Joshua has completed the worksheet before I even asked him to. He then declared, "This is boring." I had to agree, it was boring. So we decided to use his ruler to measure the line on the paper and walk around the house finding things that were shorter and longer than the line. He was measuring everything from forks to shoes to trying to get the cat to sit still so he could measure her.

Science this week focused on balance. We both love science because it is hands-on. We practiced balancing different things on our heads walking around the living room. Even Daniel got in on that one, but he tried to balance a pumpkin on his head and was very upset when I took it away and gave him a bean bag instead. A big lesson in balance came the night we started our paper mache project. Joshua quickly learned that if he put too much newspaper on one side of our balloon that it was going to roll off the table and make a big mess. He figured it out on his own and explained the concept of balance to me. Today we practiced moving our bodies differently while keeping our balance. Even Daddy got in on it. They were all walking like tall giants and then like small mice and then like crabs and then like dogs. Then we played Simon Says and made up a silly song to the tune of the Farmer in the Dell, but focused on parts of the body - 'there's a bow on my toe, a bow on my toe, hi-ho-the-dairy-o, a bow on my toe' and then we worked our way up with knee, belly, shoulder, head. Joshua did great finding rhyming words and Daniel liked trying to find the parts of his body and Megan just enjoys anything that lets her dance around.

Joshua's comprehension of stories is incredible. In the past 10 days or so, we've read Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Lion and the Mouse, Henny Penny, The Little Engine that Could, The Little Red Hen, and The Three Little Pigs. When we finish a story we compare and contrast the story to the ones that we've already read (and he uses the words compare and contrast). We have just a few chapters left of his chapter book - The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. We are planning to finish it Saturday night. I borrowed the DVD from the library to surprise him, and I hope we get a chance to watch it Sunday night.

We always start our school session with a reading from our Devotions for Toddlers book and we take a few minutes to get settled in. There is a discussion topic in the Calvert curriculum. This week focused on being 'unique' as a homeschooled student. It discussed helping around the house and around the community. We created a new chore chart for Joshua. He is trying to earn a trip to go bowling.

Math is a little fluffy right now. He knows much more than the math that is in this early part of the curriculum. He's been adding single digit numbers for a few months now in his head with out worksheets. It's just something he started doing one day. Today we sailed through the math lesson, so I decided we should have some fun. We played Chutes and Ladders and he worked on his math skills. So if he was on block 26 and spun a 3, he added the numbers together and then moved to that block. It was fun playing just the two of us. Keith had the other kids engaged in constructing things out of legos.

His reading readiness skills are getting better every day. We love Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and recommend it to anyone that would like to lovingly find a way to help their child read. Joshua's confidence soars when he can do it himself. We are registered as a homeschool in the Pizza Hut Book-it program. However, instead of counting books read (because we'd be earning a pizza a day at this rate!), we count letter sounds that are introduced in the Teach Your Child to Read book. It looks like this week he'll be earning a personal pan pizza certificate (I have a bunch to give him).

The Calvert curriculum is a good curriculum, but it does not include any religious themes. We studied about Moses this week in our My Bible Friends book series. Unfortunately, the VCR has taken a vow of silence. So once Keith figures out how to fix it, we'll be able to watch our videos (and send out the ballet/soccer videos!).

We've been supplementing Calvert with the Core Knowledge Series. This week we continued learning about the continents and began learning specifically about our country. Joshua can not only pick out the U.S. on the map, but he can pick out many of the states and tell me a bit about them. We also look at pictures of where we've been and he tells me what state things are in, like Niagra Falls is in New York, here is New York.

This week Megan stayed awake through nap time. I am considering allowing Joshua some computer time on Starfall.com while I work with Megan on a few skills after lunch. Keith and I are still discussing it, we don't want her to feel pressured, but she keeps asking to play school too.

A trip to Anchorage for the girls!

Our trip to Anchorage turned out to be a very long day. We had to be at the PAX terminal by 6am this morning. Fortunately, I made some blueberry muffins last night and tossed some in Megan's backpack with a pear and a bottle of water for breakfast. She was so funny when I went in to wake her up today. We had really been talking up our adventure all week long. At 5am, I barely cracked her door open and she bolted upright and said 'I'm ready for the girls' adventure with Mommy'. I'm shocked that Daniel slept through the excitement.


We got to Anchorage in no time at all. However, we didn't get off base for over an hour. The base was in lock-down looking for a suspect involved in a hit and run accident. Interestingly, Megan and I happened to see the young man get arrested about 10 feet away from us. All of a sudden lights and sirens and squealing tires were coming down the road pretty fast. I scooped Megan up and stepped inside the building we were standing in front of. The MP's got out with their guns drawn and cuffed the guy and hauled him away. Megan was really interested in the 'boys with the guns'. And as they walked over to give us the all clear, Megan said 'thank you for keeping us safe', it was precious in her adorable little voice. Another funny Megan-ism today was when we were walking outside on the base because it was a beautiful day and I was trying to burn off some of her energy. An man in his late 40's/early 50's wearing a cammo uniform was walking toward us on the sidewalk . He got to where he was just about to pass us and Megan looked at him and said 'hey, my brother has those same pajamas.' The man laughed and smiled at Megan.

Megan and I went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch today. Enjoying some Mommy and Megan time playing games together was well worth missing out on going to the mall. We had a great time and I am amazed at how smart she is and how kind she is to other kids. She's such a little mother hen in the toddler play area.





Her eye appointment went very well. I really like the way the eye exam was done. Much more thorough than the quickie exam Megan had at her preschool physical. (Yes, that would be the physical she had for school, but yet didn't start school this year.) She did great with both eyes and her right eye, but as soon as it was time to check that left eye, she started turning her head to the side and really struggling. Dr. Arnold was incredibly patient and answered my million and one questions about Megan's vision. She does have a deficit in her left eye, but it seems to be getting somewhat better, but definitely not getting any worse. He wants to see us again in 6 months or before we move from Alaska - whichever comes first. And he knows a few good ped eye docs in the Orlando area to refer us to. So we have a prescription for glasses that I am to fill if it looks like she is struggling (and he gave me a checklist of a few signs). She was quite grumpy after having her eyes dilated. She complained that things were 'bluwwey' which I would imagine means 'blurry'. So along with my marching-to-my-own-beat middle child behavior, she has also inherited her left eye vision problems from me. I even made a special point of wearing my glasses today on the trip in case she had to come home with glasses on.

We had a great flight back. We were stuck at the PAX terminal in Anchorage for almost 2 hours waiting for our pilot. He had gotten stuck in traffic. Fortunately, Megan had a new coloring book and some markers in her back pack, and she stayed busy. I was so happy to have a friend of mine on the flight that I could sit and chit-chat with during the wait. We didn't get back in the house until almost 8pm. Keith and the boys were watching Superman. Of course I gave Keith the evil eye because I didn't think the boys needed to be watching Superman. But Keith said Joshua's first choice was Shrek, so I conceded to letting them watch 15 more minutes of the movie before teeth brushing and stories.

Another fun-filled weekend

Megan went to a really cute birthday party for one of the girls in her ballet class. It was a Swan Lake themed birthday party. It was really amazing. Megan had a great time. The girls played games and did crafts and had cake and ice cream. It was really funny to watch her interact with her little ballet posse. She is such a girlie-girl.
Megan and I came home from the party and decided to make good on my promise of creating a big paper mache pumpkin. I let the kids help with the first layer of paper, and I've been adding extra layers at night after they go to bed. I'll let them paint it this weekend and we will fill it with our Halloween candy for the Trick or Trunk at AWANA next week. I'll post more pictures of the process when we are done.

A little something for MY side of the family. :)

My apologies to the other side of the family, whose baseball loyalties are with a different team.

This was Thursday evening watching the Red Sox game. Megan was climbing through my closet looking for clothes to dress up in, so I gave her my jersey to put on since it matches so well with her red Snow White heels. My dad would be so proud! Don't forget the headband! She is in a stage where she absolutely must wear a headband every day. I don't mind, since it covers up the hack job she did when she decided to cut her own hair a couple of weeks ago.

Daniel is in a bit of a headband phase right now, too. The headband and the shopping cart are his two favorite things. I think it is hilarious. Keith does not. :)

A variety of Kodiak pictures for the folks down south.

Okay, here's a few more pictures of Kodiak for those that have been asking. This is a shot off our back porch last winter in the afternoon as the sun was going down. Another view of the back yard. This time after a big snow storm. The kids love the snow and beg to go out in it. Last year Daniel did not like walking around in the snow, he would play in one spot. I'm hoping he has more fun this year, since it will be his last chance to see snow for a while.

Here's a picture Keith took when out with his mom during a visit a couple of summers ago. I think this is from the top of Pillar Mountain. I'm pretty sure they drove most of the way and then got out to hike around for a bit.

Here is Keith at work. This picture is about 4 years old, so those of you that are family have probably seen it already. Our kids have all flown in one of the C-130s at different times during our stay here. I think Megan holds the record for the most trips up to Anchorage between all the kids. She sees a fabulous eye doctor up there and has had two visits in the hospital in Anchorage. One for 'unblocking' her blocked tear duct and another for a sedated MRI. While I was Daniel's primary food source, he got to accompany Megan and I to Anchorage a couple of times. But next week, it is just a 'girls trip' to see the eye doctor and maybe something fun like the zoo, depending on how cold it is.

Here are a couple of Grandpa and one of his trips out fishing with Keith. It's so nice to be able to enjoy the outdoors in solitude sometimes. Our beaches are definitely not like the beaches in Florida.

Yes, there really are signs to warn about the bears. I forgot how spoiled I got living in an area that you just take your garbage out to the curb for the trashman. I promise to TRY not to complain when the garbage cans are out in the middle of the street once we get back to Florida. I really dislike having to take the garbage out myself. It's actually Keith's job, but when he is away, it becomes my job and I detest it. Not because I don't like garbage, because after over 5 years of diaper changing, I've become desensitized to gross things, but because I am 5ft 4inches and the bear proof dumpsters must have been made for people much taller than me, since I struggle to get the latch open every time, I just don't have the height to get the leverage I need. Keith has been joking that for the next time he is out of town, he's going to get me a milk crate to keep in the van.

Here's one of Keith out on a 4-wheeling trip with a bunch of people he works with.

Our second winter here we saw some incredible Northern Lights. My friend Susan took these pictures, I cannot take credit for her fantastic work. I did capture quite a bit on the video camera but did not manage to take any still pictures. I've seen some Northern Lights since then, but nothing as amazing as that particular night.

These last two are picturse that Keith has taken from up in a C-130. The top picture is a picture of Kodiak. I love how green it gets here in the summertime. The bottom picture is our neighborhood from the air. When you are looking at the lake, our house is between the 1 and 2 o'clock position. We live in a little house with a fenced-in yard on the lake. There are many more homes in the neighborhood now where the empty lots are in the picture.