Saturday turned into a weirdly stressful day {for me} rolled over from a stressful evening {with Xavier's foot}, so I decided to run away to the movies with the kids. Mike had homework (boo) so we gave him the gift of peace and quiet while we went.
We went to the nearby small single cinema because it's cheap affordable, which is a must with 4 kids (or for us anyways). The movie playing was The Grinch (the new one). I'm not much of a movie critic but it was adorable. The right amount of funny and precious with graphics that were really beautiful.
For an hour and a half I let my troubles melt away and really enjoyed the movie. I knew the cinema would be crowded so we arrived early. I had planned on just sitting in the van so we could go in when the doors unlocked but a line was already forming at the door so we had to get out and wait in line. It wasn't too cold, thankfully, but I did feel bad for Xavier. Had I been thinking I would have sent him to the van to sit and come back to join us when we went in. Alas....I wasn't.
We had to wait 30 minutes for the movie to start since we were there when the doors unlocked. Oh well. Lesson in patience.
Ameliya discovered movie theaters sell candy, not just popcorn. Ha! I bought one Hershey's bar and split it four ways for the kids.
Zayden was a sweet brother and let Xavier prop his leg up over the arm of the chair.
The movie held everyone's attention and we really had a good time. The kids are just old enough that taking them all alone isn't as worrying as it used to be, or as difficult. Each little one needed a potty run (individually, of course) but that wasn't too bad, considering their ages!
This guy....he's a miniature of his dad. I felt something on my back and looked over and he had his arm around me. When I gave him the side eye, he wiggled his eyebrows at me. All the while shoveling popcorn in his mouth. Tiny Micheal Dale.
Yesterday Mike and my Dad went to look at and buy a new (to us) van. When Mike got home the kids threw on shoes and ran out to look at it. After we came back in, Xavier took off his cowboy boots (didn't have on socks) and then (I think) went to push the front door shut with his foot. Apparently the very edge of the metal kick plate had bent up a little and in a fluke accident he caught the crease of his baby toe on that metal and sliced it deep.
At first I did the whole mom "you're okay, buddy" thing, but then as the blood kept dripping I hollered outside to Mike for a better assessment. After a call to our favorite nurse practitioner (whom we are so thankful for) to get her opinion, we decided we'd better get some stitches. Grandma Num came to the rescue for the other 3 kids and Mike and I headed down to urgent care with Xavier. Before we left, she joked with Xabe that he's going to be competing with Papa Curtis in the "most stitches" competition.
Xavier is the "healthy" kid - rarely sick, never had any procedures, etc. He was very unsure how to handle all of this so I told him I usually choose to not watch what the doctors are doing. He decided this was an excellent idea and folded down his hat so he couldn't see.
Truly, as per normal, the numbing shots were the worst part, and then he couldn't feel anything as they put in 4 sutures.
These ladies did a great job with Xavier and he was a pretty good patient. A few tears, a lot of fear, but we handled it.
Daddy checked this home repair off his list first thing this morning. Funny how you don't even notice something like this needs fixed until after the fact.
We're thankful (again) that we aren't parenting all alone - so grateful to the village that stands beside us.
As Thanksgiving morning came to life in the Beeler abode I found myself so very thankful to be in a house with the sounds of happy children playing (our 4 + our niece AJ).
I actually had an early start to my morning and got in Bible study and most of my veggies for the veggie tray worked up before the children rose. As the children puttered down the stairs at their leisure, they munched on easy breakfast foods and fruit and watched the Thanksgiving parade.
Mike was helping his Dad with a house project (so nice to return a favor after all he's helped us with!), so I did little girl hair and started helping kiddos get dressed.
Ameliya is a demanding hair style girl and constantly challenges my expertise. Adelyn opted for two (fresh) braids again and we tied ribbons on the end.
Ignore the #reallife in the background and enjoy the cute girl in the picture.
This year was a Beeler Thanksgiving year, so we went to Mike's Aunt Penny's/Uncle Denny's to spend the day with family. I made our kids do pictures before they ran off. I didn't do a cousin picture, though, because it simply isn't complete anymore without Isa. Soon!
My man for the last 16 Thanksgivings...
We ate too much good food, enjoyed visiting, the children played hard, and we shared many laughs. We missed Kea, Miguel, and Isa, but they were absolutely where they needed to be - at home getting to know each other and resting.
Mike and Grandma Betty playing chicken foot...
Papa George and Zayden taking a break with a show on the iPad...
The littles having some water bead fun...
AJ taste testing the pumpkin bars she helped make. She gave them 2 thumbs up!
Mia whole heartedly approved of Breanna's homemade healthy Jell-O. She became a Jell-O addict this summer when she was so sick.
Candy cane at Thanksgiving? Sure. (grin)
I'm so thankful for the 1-on-1 time we had with this girl this week. We really got to know each other, and as an aunt it's a delight to see her come to me with a hug or a story or a need. We enjoyed treating her to "fun auntie/uncle" things this week!
No nap Thanksgiving meant she crashed after she ate an early supper. She's precious though.
She roused for jammies and a craft. Thanks, Aunt Penny!
We hope your day felt as full of love as ours did!
With the arrival of a new little sister, Adelyn came north to stay with Grammy & Papa this week. While Grammy was working, AJ came to Gigi's house to play and "do preschool." On Wednesday she decided to stay for a sleepover and we had so much fun! We feel grateful to have gotten to keep her overnight.
The girls helped me mix up the pumpkin bars before supper. You'll have to ask one of them sometime what happened when Mia accidentally turned the mixer on high speed before all the ingredients were incorporated into each other. Ha. While the bars were cooling, we ate and had baths.
AJ didn't make a peep while I got the tangles out of her hair after her bath, and she let me put in two lovely long braids. She was so pleased with them. She danced and spun them around until I was afraid she'd be sick from going in circles!
Frosting time!
The girls helped me mix (and taste) and spread the frosting over the bars.
As the night wound down, AJ was very excited to sleep with Mia! She opted to leave her braids in and was happy to bunk down. We showed her that Xavier and Natalee were nearby, and where Uncle Mike and I slept in case she needed us. Besides one little moment of losing her teddy bear, we didn't hear a peep out of her all night!
She woke up happy as a clam the next morning! Hopefully we can have more bunking parties when her family comes to town to visit!
I worked hard to plan a fun couple of days of school this week for the kids (both "big" and "little") since it was Thanksgiving week. It's easy to get stuck in the rut of "math lesson, reading lesson, etc = school day done" and not get enough hands on time in! It has been fun watching my friend, Chelsie, begin her homeschooling journey, and she has re-inspired me to plan hands on fun, especially for my bigger kids (it's easier for me to plan preschool fun - I'm a preschool teacher in my heart).
Chelsie is a fan of STEM activities and when she shared some one day I became aware of how much Xavier loved them. All that to say, I'm trying harder!
CORE
We kept the big kids' reading workbooks in the cabinet this week and traded that time in for free reading instead. I scheduled 30 minutes on Monday, 45 minutes on Tuesday, and 60 minutes on Wednesday. The kids did read one chapter per day of Justin Morgan Had a Horse on Monday and Tuesday. We also finished listening to the Thorton Burgess book Buster Bear last week and this week we switched to his book Reddy Fox. We are really enjoying the Burgess books and often listen to them at breakfast or lunch using the free Librivox app.
Formal spelling and writing lessons were put off this week.
Instead of math lessons on the computer, Natalee and Xavier each chose 5 Thanksgiving foods and we had my Facebook friends vote on which was their favorite. They had to read and tally the votes and then organize their information into a bar graph!
Because they got so many votes, they had to decide how to mark their bar graph integers to get all the votes in.
Xavier's was counted by 2's.
Natalee's was counted by 3's so she could get up to 76 votes for noodles!
We had gotten a little off track in history so we used this week to catch up. Our reading focused on George Washington becoming our first president, the Cherokee Native Americans, and we continued our historical fiction book on Lewis and Clark.
I was very excited to find a set of five Thanksgiving STEM activities for science.
Using the inspiration from this post, the kids did Mini Mayflower, Protect-a-Pilgrim, and Pumpkin Picker on Monday and Corn Cultivator and Transport a Turkey on Tuesday.
Mini Mayflower - This challenge gave them trouble and that surprised me! They made their first vessel quite large with very heavy sails and added oars and rafts. All that weight sank it and even after several revisions they never could get her to float. They started again with a much simpler design and had success.
Protect-a-Pilgrim - They each made separate structures, Xavier's of popsicle sticks, foil, and coffee filter
and Natalee's of a paper plate and tinfoil.
Pumpkin Picker - Xavier designed a more complex device and had to make a couple of revisions to get it to work the way he desired.
Natalee made a simple tong type device.
Her's worked because she used glue and it had dried just enough to make it sticky but not enough to hold the sticks still. She and I discussed what would happen to her device after the glue was set and she didn't have a hinge arm anymore.
Corn Cultivator - the kids were less imaginative with this design but did show how their devices worked.
NON-CORE
Natalee and Xavier had art class on Monday and worked on decorating their thankful pages in their art journals. Both girls also had ballet. Natalee did not have piano lessons this week.
I planned quite a bit of art (for me!) into our short week. On Monday we made turkeys using coffee filters for the feathers (colored with washable markers and sprayed with water to blend).
On Tuesday I did a color wheel activity with the younger ones, so I planned one for the older two with a lesson in complimentary colors. They had to draw out their own wheels and also had to mix their secondary colors, because I only gave them the primary colors.
I also let the older two do the same finger painting activity that I set up for the younger ones - because we all need to finger paint now and again, right?
Natalee's projects...she wasn't into posed pictures.
Wednesday's inspiration was a fit together sponge painting activity...
Each child interpreted this differently, and I tried to keep my mind loose and let them. Some projects are about a specific outcome (i.e. color wheel) and some projects, like this one, are about the experience.
And hand turkeys....read below to see how these came about.
Xavier's...
Natalee's...
PRESCHOOL
I tried to do some "outside the norm" activities for the younger kiddos - and then on Tuesday afternoon Mia asked me if we were going to make hand turkeys. Ha. Apparently some things never get boring.
On Monday we started with Cup Turkeys. Each kiddo got a cup turkey, a dice, and a bowl of pony beads. They had to roll their dice, count how many, and add that many beads to the pipe cleaner feathers on their cup turkey. They loved this and it held their attention longer than I thought it would!
They got to do coffee filter turkeys also, so next they colored and sprayed their coffee filters.
Mia rounded out her Monday by getting in on the STEM action and sat at the little table taping popsicles together for a LONG time Monday morning. She created a raft/boat and was very pleased with herself.
AJ was with us on Tuesday so I held most of the activities until then.
The kids started with Cup Turkeys again while I set up for another activity.
Color sorting turkeys were next. I gave each child a turkey body and four feathers (green, yellow, red, blue). We assembled their turkeys and then I gave them a sheet of dot stickers and they sorted the color of dots onto the correct feather.
{googly eyes for every project!}
Then it was time to get out the paint. Working with the youngers one at a time, they painted a color wheel. We laid down our red, yellow, and blue first and then I helped them mix their paints to make orange, purple, and green!
After these dried, I cut them out, gave them 2 different colors of feathers and we patterned them. A head, more googly eyes, and legs...Voila!
I kept thinking the little ones would get weary of my activities and want to go play, but alas, they kept asking for more!
I pre-drew little turkey bodies and lightly outlined in pencil where feathers should be. We got out the sparkly paint and the plan was to use one finger to dot feathers on (grin).
"Gigi's house is for messes!"
The kids decided we needed brown to finger paint the turkey!
After they dried it was time for more googly eyes (he, he, he) to finish up this little cutie.
On Wednesday these guys joined the big kids for the fit together sponge painting project. While painting, they also practiced their manners, colors, and patience, as they had to request the colors they wanted by saying, "please pass the ...... plate."
Somehow sponge painting turned into hand painting (he, he, he) and instead of getting upset I painted their little fingers and made hand turkeys (Mia was thrilled).
Is there anything cuter than a hand turkey, really?
Ameliya's...
Zayden's....
Adelyn's...
Daddy/Uncle Mike was home Wednesday which is always a treat! We made a library trip to restock on books for the long weekend.
We ended school on Wednesday this week and enjoyed a long weekend with family and fun!
