Remember the last post about letting the boys loose with the cameras to help facilitate their creativity? Well, we won't have any more pic.s temporarily as Wes' creativity broke the camera! Arrggg. I'm going to see if a local camera shop can fix it. I was planning to actually buy Andrew a digital camera since he really seems to have a natural gift for it but it looks like that will be delayed a few months until we can replace or fix our own camera. Oh well, such is life. I keep thinking that we should start a savings fund for all of the damaged items that we'll see as the boys' grow, "The Boy's Damage Fund." I'm terrified already for when they both start driving :).
The boys went camping with Daddy and Grandpa Jorgensen last weekend and had a blast. They also went to Panther Falls with both Grandpa and Grandma. The kids love visiting their grandparents and had such a fun time. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Jorgensen for helping the kids to have such fun memories.
Andrew started his 2nd grade year. Wes will start preschool next Tuesday and is very excited.
I have begun reading a all of the books written by Linda and Richard Eyre such as Teaching Children Values, Teaching Children Responsibility, etc.. I really am enjoying them and like their philosophy as well as their concrete ideas. So en lieu of that, we decided to have a family meeting about creating some family laws and voting on them as well as their consequences. Our laws: Play without hitting (added to this later was hurting, see story to follow). Listen when someone is speaking. Talk with a nice voice.
So shortly after making these rules, very shortly, Weston proceeds to rough house with Andrew and kick him. We pointed out that we had all just voted on and agreed to our new rules to which he replied, "We voted on no hitting!! I kicked him!! I didn't hit!" Ahheemmm. OK, so our rule has an addendum now of no hurting. That little guy had actually thought it through and knew what he was doing! Too smart for his own good.
Andrew continues to be so extremely sensitive and kind about taking care of Greer that it's amazing for me to watch. He really misses her while at school and looks forward to playing with he as soon as he gets home. However, time management is a major problem still. This year he is taking the bus to and from school which is a big treat for him but he missed it (only the 4th day of school) so he walked accompanied by mom and siblings. I'm not sure how much of a punishment it was though since he seemed to love riding his scooter. I might have to think of another consequence besides that one.
Greer is almost walking now but not quite. My back has been giving me problems again. I'm quite sure that I slipped a disc last month (since I couldn't move at all for 3 days straight and then took another week to be independently mobile). Thanks to a fantastic chiropractor I have been doing so much better but with my help out of town last weekend I did too much bending and lifting and have been set back again the last few days. Needless to say that I'm finally ready for Greer to start walking on her own hopefully sooner than later. She has a little sense of humor though and loves to tease. She looks at you and gets a little smile on her face before she does something then laughs. While her vocabulary is still: mama, dada and now ni-ni (for night night) she comprehends really well and uses the signs that she has really proficiently. She's a character, that's for sure.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Our Garden
I decided to try my hand at a garden again this year and dub it my "learning garden" just so I wouldn't be too frustrated if nothing turned out like my first year. We tried a method called Square Foot Gardening which enables you to pack more into a smaller space, perfect for us. Andrew took these pictures.
We planted: cherry tomatoes (doing well), basil (doing very well), oregano (great), marigolds (still trying to bloom), sugar snap peas (my favorite and we've eaten a few off of the vine), swiss chard (not doing so great), pumpkin (withered up after growing a spectacular vine), canteloupe (great vine but yet to produce), and cucumber (we have one gargantuan cucumber that Andrew discovered today). As well as some potted peppers and tomato plants. It's been a great experience.
Budding Photographers and Videographers
I've turned the boys loose this summer with our old video camera and camera. Andrew especially has really taken some amazing pictures. He took some yesterday with my friend's camera. As soon as she forwards them to me I'll be sure to post them. But here are a few as well as the garden pic.s to follow in the next post.
Blackberry picking
Actually this was after our picking. Can I just tell you how blazing hot it is here in NC right now during blackberry picking. Incidentally we also got some *very* tasty peaches off of our own peach tree. Not as good of crop as last year but very tasty nonetheless. Here is Greer enjoying here first taste of blackberries.
Summer field trips
We were able to go to the local water facility called, "The Blue Planet Environmental Center". This is where we got to learn how our lake and river water is filtered and recycled into clean drinking water. Pretty interesting. The boys got to learn some more about conservation as we've been in a drought here for quite some time now. The woman giving the tour said that they have a phrase at their house re: the toilet for the kids that goes something like this, "If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down." Well, if that's the case then my boys were born conservationists seeing as nothing yellow or brown ever goes down!
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