My "baby" is 7!

Today my sweet, sweet boy turned 7 years old.  I truly can't believe it.  Time is going by WAY too fast!!

If you know Lucas, you know he LOVES the number 3.  So, when it comes to blowing out birthday candles, he likes to do it 3 times.  Now, you can't just light the candle and blow it out 3 times, you must sing "Happy Birthday" 3 times, too.  :)  Here is round 3!

Facebook catch up....

I often post little funnies that happen throughout the day on FB, so I thought I would add some of them to my blog, too....

February 4, 2013--  This morning Lucas and I were talking about how he will be turning 7 this month. He then asked me how old Logan is. I told him that Logan is 10. He asked if he was going to be 8 next, then 9, then 10 like Logan. I think he thought he would finally catch up to his brother's age. :) We talked about how when he turns 10, Logan won't be 10 because Logan will get older each year, too. He said, "And someday Logan will be 20?" That got him to counting from 20. He got to 29 and I asked him if he knew what came next. He said, "Twenty-ten". :) I told him it was 30 and then he started counting from 30. He's never really counted much past 10 even though I knew he knew more numbers than that. He loves numbers, it just has to be his idea to share what he knows.


January 30, 2013-- At almost 11, I think I hear Lucas. Shaine was sitting at the dining room table (closer to the stairs) and I was in the living room, so I asked him if that was Lucas. It was. He was calling for me. I go up and he asks me about his Super Mario line up (the same one that was watching him eat this morning) that was lined up on his dresser. I get him back into bed and he asks me about his birthday. Apparently he heard me saying he'd be 7 next month and he is super excited that his birthday is coming soon.....LOL! Then he started asking me about every cake he has had on his birthdays. The boy has an excellent memory, so I am in trouble. He is only 6 and already I can't remember them. Thankfully I have pictures and he has requested to see them in the morning. :)

January 30, 2013-- Lucas has an audience watching him eat. Notice the shirt he is wearing, too (Super Mario Brothers). :) Please ignore the trash bag in the back. I promise it isn't trash, but rather some stuff I need to mail to a friend.

January 22, 2013-- You know you are a daddy's girl when...... You are checking your messages and you save the one from your daddy just because. ♥

January 22, 2013-- If there is such a thing as a redneck meal, I'm pretty sure we had it tonight! Fried taters, ham steak, and corn. Certainly not a healthy meal, but it just hit the spot.

January 19, 2013-- Speaking of getting snuggles in, I'm pretty sure Shaine took our "baby" to bed with him tonight. I'd leave him in the bed and join them, but somehow Shaine still gets his half of the bed and Lucas and I share my half. Problem is, Lucas doesn't share that half equally.....LOL! Hmmm. Maybe I should just go get in Lucas's bed..... :)

January 18, 2013-- The other night, I headed upstairs to go to bed. Shaine was already in bed and I heard a noise in my room. It was Logan. He had gone in there to tell Shaine good night. I gave him a hug and told him goodnight. He said, "Can I just stay in here for a while?" When I said yes, he ran and jumped into the bed. 10 is not too old to get some snuggles in. :)

January 18, 2013-- I just remembered something that happened on Wednesday when we went ice skating and wanted to share. Lucas always makes up "games". He has to do certain things in a certain order and then he can move on. If you interrupt him during one of his "games" and not let him complete what he was doing, he gets very upset. Well, he was trying to tell us where he wanted to start his next game and we weren't sure what he was saying. He was yelling and we told him to use his words. Finally we got it. He pointed to a sign on the wall in the rink and said, "I want to start my next game at the Mason sign." Shaine and I just looked at each other. I said, "Did you tell him what that said??". He had not, but the week before Shaine said he did show him the sign on the ice that says George Mason. Yes, it isn't truly reading, but it is the start of it. I know it isn't a huge thing, but I was just surprised by it. :)

January 18, 2013-- I bought Logan a pair of size 5 soccer cleats before fall soccer season started. Tonight I bought him a new pair of soccer cleats......size 7!!! What in the world???

January 15, 2013-- I was saying in the comments of my last status that Lucas loves babies. Case in point: On Saturday we were at Logan's futsal game (similar to indoor soccer). There was a lady sitting beside me who was probably close to 50 (her boy was playing). Her mom was sitting next to her. Somehow we got to talking and they were talking to Lucas. The older mom told Lucas that the younger mom sitting next to me was her baby. Lucas gets a HUGE smile on his face and says, "I like babies!!!!!" in the most excited, cute voice you can imagine. We all got a good laugh out of that one!! :)

December 22, 2012-- We are watching Santa Claus (not sure which one) and Logan said, "Where do they get these people with pointy ears?" He had asked something similar about Lord of the Rings earlier and I told him they made them look that way that they aren't really that way. I said, "Logan! Again, they are not real." His reply: "They're real people!!!!" Oh my, how do I even keep a straight face.....LOL!

December 21, 2012-- We went out to mail some packages and Logan held out his hands and said, "Is it snowing?". I told him it wasn't, and he said, "Oh. It feels like it." I looked more closely and sure enough it was! It only lasted 10 minutes and didn't stick, but he was super excited that it snowed on the first day of winter.

December 13, 2102-- I just went up to tuck the boys in and I found Lucas in his bed standing on his head with his feet on the top bunk above him. He told me he was "dancing on the ceiling". LOL! That boy totally cracks me up!!

December 6, 2012-- I was talking to two different friends about knowing you are a mom when you use your shirt to wipe your child's nose. This happened this past weekend when we were out cleaning the neighborhood and I forgot to bring tissues along for Lucas. Last night I was in the kitchen and Lucas walked up to me and wiped his nose on my forearm. I was wearing short sleeves. Um. Yuck. Then this morning he came into my room when he woke up and was saying, "My nose. My nose." Before I could even help him, he leaned over and wiped his nose on my pillow case. I just washed my sheets yesterday. I guess I should be happy it is just the pillow case and not the sheet. It is much easier to re-wash a pillow case than it is a sheet. :)

December 3, 2012-- Tonight when Shaine got home from work, he told me he may have accidentally got something in his hair. I had no clue what he meant. He said he used the blue comb to comb his hair before leaving for work and that his hair stayed perfectly in place all day (and Shaine's hair does NOT do that). We inspected the comb and it appears that there was either hair gel (Lucas loves having his hair spiked, so we have some for that) or toothpaste. Upon inspecting the hair gel, I'm fairly certain it was tooth paste because there isn't enough hair gel missing for me to feel that was the culprit. But, Logan has toothpaste almost the same color as the hair gel and he routinely makes a big mess with that all over the sink. My guess is the comb was out and got involved in the toothpaste mess......LOL!

For PaBob...

Dad, a police officer was recently killed in the line of duty and I thought the boys might like to go watch the funeral procession.  They had asked the public to line the streets to show support.  It started near our house, but I decided to go last minute.  In order to get ahead of them, I cut out towards the land fill.  The boys and I ended up at that spot with the tractors near there.  They only had one out on that day, but I did take a picture for you.  :)

Logan wanted me to take another picture to show the tire is as big as him.


Here are the boys watching the procession.

Christmas!

I'm a little late getting these up, but I wanted to share!  I've been saying for a while that I really wanted to cut back on Christmas.  The thought of buying a gift just because it is Christmas makes no sense to me.  To me, it should still be a thought out gift, so that is what I aimed for when buying gifts for the boys.  This resulted in fewer gifts, which resulted in fewer things to have to find a home for after the gifts were opened!  :)

I love this picture. They really are becoming friends. They tell jokes that only the two of them think are funny and they stay up late talking.

Getting the gift opening under way!

Lucas loves the 3 Little Pigs, so I knew he'd love this book: The 3 little wolves and the big bad pig!

He was so excited to see his new "park in the poop shirt" from Yellowstone!

Logan was happy to have a new Yellowstone shirt that fits, too



The company I ordered the shirts from sent the Santa hat for free! They also sent a free Yellowstone Christmas ornament. I thought that was super nice of them!

A new book from Gran and Papa, In the Night Kitchen.  Shaine loved this book when he was a little boy!

This picture cracks me up. Lucas was done! We had to bribe him to continue. This was the last gift we managed to get him to open! 

Logan had to help him open this one.



Building blocks from PaBob and Meme

I got a box!!



Lucas was done unwrapping, but he was still interested to see what was in that box!!

More building blocks from PaBob and Meme!  The boys have been wanting some, so I knew they would be happy!
Lucas asked for a bell from Santa, so he got them each one.

Reading the letter from Santa!

Lucas was so upset about going to sleep on Christmas Eve. We chose some cookies for Santa from the sugar cookies we made and Lucas really wanted to stay up and share cookies with Santa. Santa was super nice and saved a bite for him. As you can see, he was super excited about it. 

Lucas's line up. He already had Mario, but got the others for Christmas.

Stocking time!

Brunch....YUM!
The sugar cookies we made a few days before Christmas.  I'm a bad momma and didn't even get a picture of the boys decorating them.  I was icing them and they were decorating them faster than I could  go.     

A first for me....

We took the boys back to the rink and today I joined them on the ice. I must say, I was afraid of falling. I stuck close to the edge, but finally ventured to the middle. Lucas seemed to be pretty happy that his momma was ice skating and Logan was super excited when he saw I wasn't holding the edge. :-)

A natural.....

Yesterday we took the boys ice skating. Logan has been on the ice before, but Lucas never had been. At first, just Logan was out on the ice. We asked Lucas if he wanted to try and he said, "I'm not sure yet". After a few more minutes, he decided he did want to try and he loved it so very much!! He was on the ice less than 2 hours and on his own learned how to skate all by himself! So proud of my sweet Lucas! :)

Mario and Wario riding horses!

The boys had another chance to ride the horses at the fall festival at the church. They both enjoyed it, but Lucas especially. The guy leading Logan's horse was joking that the "city slicker" answered the question of the day correctly. It was, why are stirrups made so that your whole foot doesn't go through them. So that your foot doesn't get stuck. :) He was rather proud of himself!

Here is a video of Lucas on his horse.  Love these sweet boys!

Fall 2012

It wasn't quite peak colors yet, but I was afraid if we waited until after Sandy all the leaves would be on the ground. There are a lot down, but not all. However, I am pleased with the pictures we did get. We were in a hurry because we had soccer that morning, then cleaned up the yard to prep for the storm, then did the pictures, then went to the Air and Scare at the Air and Space Museum.

Air and Scare!

With Sandy due to hit our area, I wasn't so sure going to the fall festival at church on Wednesday was going to happen. I knew the boys were really excited to wear their costumes, so we took them to the Air and Scare at the Air and Space Museum last night. They had lots of fun!

Time4Learning Review

Update on March 21, 2013: If you would like to give Time4Learning a try free for 14 days, I have an access code for you. It really is going well for us!

Go to www.Time4Learning.com to register for a free trial. Apply the coupon code "X14FRTL" instead of a credit card number in Step 2 of the signup process. (Don't forget to agree to the Terms of Service before proceeding!) Register children in Steps 3 and 4. The last step of the registration process (Step 5) will ask trial participants to tell us how they heard about us. Select "Referred by a Time4Learning member" (the first option) and type in the first and last name of the member who referred you (Candi Carson).*** *** In order for members to get their free gift, this step is REQUIRED Enjoy full access to Time4Learning for 14 days


Just over a month ago, I signed up for a free month of Time4Learning in exchange for a review of it. I had been using the same curriculum for 4 years and was searching for something new. Last year, my special needs son was added into the homeschool mix and what I had been doing just wasn't working out for us. A friend had told me about Time4Learning and when I discovered we could try it for free, I decided we should go for it. Right away it helped us get into a routine. I can get Logan set up with it and help him as needed. This allows me to be more hands on with Lucas, which is what he needs. Logan is doing really well and is enjoying the curriculum. Lucas is moving right along with his and enjoys all the games that are incorporated in.

I love that I am able to set up a weekly plan for Logan and print it out. I put an asterisk next to what I want him to get done each day. I can log in on the parent page to check his progress or look on his log in under his portfolio.

A few days ago, our free trial was up and without hesitation, I signed us up for more! We have just finished up week 5 of school and it is going great! One of the other things I love is that you have access to the grade above and below what your child is in. Logan has always struggled in math, so we are able to work on 3rd grade level math while still doing 4th grade in everything else. Just in the few weeks we've been doing it, I've noticed a big improvement in his math skills. I'm hoping we can work through 3rd grade and move on to the 4th grade math.

They offer two levels of Pre-K, too. Lucas is almost done with the second level and then we will move on to the Kindergarten curriculum. Technically, Lucas is in 1st grade, but we are doing things at his pace.

All in all, we're loving Time4Learning. It has made schooling so much easier!!