Lifesong

Summer Weekend

It seems that Ansley has friends over pretty often, or has various activities or sleepovers with her friends. It isn't too often that Christian has friends over and Ansley doesn't. But this weekend we had a friend of Christian's, also named Christian, and they had such a great time of boy fun!

The boys built this car (with John's help, of course) and had a blast pulling each other, having Ansley pull them, and especially having John pull them because he was fast and crazy. They decided to enjoy an ice cream treat on it after dinner on Saturday evening.

It was really fun for Christian to have an opportunity to have some boy fun for a change!

Turning Seven

On Tuesday, we all headed to Gatlinburg with Christian's friend Christian and his family to go snow tubing. It was such a fun day, and we all had a great time!

Wednesday was his official birthday, and we celebrated in typical Greiner style. As is tradition, I do a birthday interview and record the answers here. It's always so fun to see how they change from year to year!

 M(ama): What do you want to be when you grow up?

 C(hristian): Electrical engineer. (His Daddy is his hero.)

 M: What is your favorite thing God made?

 C: My family. (Yes, this boy loves his family fiercely, although friends are starting to become pretty important to him.)

 M: What is your favorite activity?

 C: Playing Legos. (Yes, all the time!)

 M: What is your favorite animal?

 C: A cat and a dog. (He is so sensitive that he would never say just one because he doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings.)

 M: What is your favorite bug?

 C: Beetles. Don't you think they're cool?

 M: What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?

 C: Work, like on projects.

 M: What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?

 C: Snap circuits.

 M: Do you want to be a Dad when you are older?

 C: Yes.

 M: Will you get married?

 C: Maybe.  

 

 (Birthday streamers are a tradition. He and Ansley actually slept in his room, so he got streamers in his doorway. Avery wanted to get in the picture too!)

 M: Who is your favorite friend?

 C: Parker and Christian.

M: Do you have a second favorite friend? (Or, third, in this case.)

 C: John. (He is a new neighbor friend.)

 M: What do you dislike?

 C: Reading!

 M: How old is Dad?

 C: Umm, Dad is 30-something, I think.

 M: How old is Mom?

 C: Oh, I know this one. 20-something, for sure. (Love that boy!)

 M: What is your favorite day?

 C: Saturday, because Dad is home. (I won't take that personally.)

 M: What is your favorite snack?

 C: Cheese and crackers.

 M: What is your favorite place to go?

 C: Target. (A boy after my own heart.)

 M: What is your favorite thing about Ansley?

 C: She plays with me, like, a lot. Most sisters don't play with their brothers.

 M: What is your favorite thing about Daddy?

 C: He is nice.

 M: What is your favorite thing about Mommy?

 C: That you make cookies.

 M: What is your favorite thing about Avery?

 C: (laughter) She is starting to like to play with me a lot!

 

(Birthday donut tradition.)

 (Avery really likes the donut tradition. And the way she says 'munchkin' is totally adorable.)

M: What is the best thing about being seven?

 C: Well, I just turned seven, so I don't know yet. I'm older?

 M: Which would you rather be, a carrot or a fish?

 C: Fish. Are we almost done?

 M: Why?

 C: A carrot isn't alive. Boring!

 M: What does Dad do all day?

 C: He works.

 M: What does Mom do all day?

 C: You take care of us.

 

 (Birthday Legos. You got to open presents at specific times during the day. Mimi brought you your favorite lunch - a McDonald's happy meal.)

 M: What is your favorite thing in the whole wide world?

 C: God, if you are including the Heavens. My family if you aren't. But are we almost done with these questions?

 M: Almost. What is your favorite restaurant?

 C: A seafood place. I love shrimp!

 

 (Snap Circuits. He LOVES this!)

 M: Tell me about God.

 C: He looks like us because we were created in His image. He loves us.

 

(He asked for a Minecraft cake. I'm not a decorator, but Ansley and I worked on this and thought it turned out pretty cute.)

(He chose Cheddar's for dinner with us and Mimi, of course, and then we all came back home for birthday cake.)

(Blowing out his candles.)

I can hardly believe my baby boy is seven! Christian is funny, sensitive, smart, tender-hearted and loving. He loves his family, friends, Legos, Minecraft, and drawing. He is a jokester, and gets upset if he feels like you are angry with him. He is extremely thoughtful, and loves to leave notes and drawings for his family. He loves math (and is very good at it), and doesn't love reading. For the record, he says he will still hold my hand when walking through a store when he's 13, and I'm holding him to that. He also wants to live next-door to us when he grows up, and go to UT so he can be near his family. I love this boy!

Happy Birthday, Christian. We adore you!

The Kindergarten Wrap-Up

Christian finished up his Kindergarten year, and is now officially a First Grader! This was my first year teaching two, and it went surprisingly well.

Wait. That's just summer talkin'.

It was actually pretty challenging. For over half the year, I had a babysitter come one or two times a week to watch Avery for me so we could get things done. That worked out really well! But it was only once or twice a week.

(July 2012 to May 2013. Where is that little boy I knew?)

I used My Father's World with Christian this year. I really love their approach, with lots of hands on activities combined with biblical application and lots of books. It was perfect for him! He is now reading short books, and is really ready to move on and start to read longer books and stories.

(September 2012. Fun with Cuisenaire rods.)

My Father's World incorporates Cuisenaire rods, which Christian thought was a lot of fun. We focused on one letter each week, and that letter had a corresponding subject that went with it. There was a book to read each week as well. For instance, for "A" we learned all about apples, and had lots of fun activities and books that went along with that.

(October 2012. Christian's lapbook on apples.)

I supplemented with different things here and there that I knew Christian would be interested in. He really took a liking to lapbooks, so we did a handful of those throughout the year. I also used several Lego printables that we used for measuring things, estimating, counting and sorting. He loved this!

(November 2012. Learning about the election process. Christian is pleading for votes.)

I quickly learned that while Christian is an eager learner and picks things up quickly, he gets bored rather easily with most schoolwork. His eyes light up and he becomes a Model Student, however, when we start talking about math. Math seems to be his thing, and he has even picked up on multiplication this year because he's heard Ansley reviewing it so often. We had lots of fun math lessons with adding and subtracting, sorting, greater than, less than, and fractions to name a few.

(December 2012. Tornado experiment.)

Christian often listened in on Ansley's Science lessons about the planets and stars, and they both enjoying doing experiments together. He is picking up on a lot more than Ansley did at this age, simply because he gets to watch the older learner and observe her learning as well. He is practically a sponge, and he asks questions all day long. Most of them, I can't answer. (How long does it take to get to space? Let's go back and forth naming cities from the Bible. Does lightning really never strike the same place twice? Where does rain come from?) He's moved from "Mom I have a question" to "Can you type this question on Google please?"

(January 2013. On Christian's 6th birthday at his art co-op class.)

The above picture is possibly one of my favorite memories from his Kindergarten year, even though I wasn't actually there. I was sick with a stomach virus, so John took the kids to co-op. Christian brought homemade cookies for his whole class and passed them out. Then his whole class sang happy birthday to him. John videoed it. It was so sweet! For a homeschooled student, it won't be often that his birthday falls on the one day a week he is in school, so it was a fun memory!

(February 2013. Music time. Christian is often our comic relief.)

We also used Mind Benders during our school day, which Christian REALLY loves. They are logic puzzles, which I have to admit is not my strong suit, but he would beg for them every day.

(March 2013. Making birds nests with Mimi.)

Christian took one class at the co-op through our church, which was art. He really loves to draw and make things, so even though the class was technically for 1st-5th graders, he got permission to attend as a Kindergartener. He kept up just fine, and loved to inform me of the various artists they were learning about, as well as show me all his projects. It was so fun for him, and a really good, calm introduction to the classroom environment. Christian is a very sensitive boy, who prefers to be home with his family over just about anything else. Ansley was in the class with him, and he made some sweet friends as well, so he was definitely a pro by the end of the year, and very comfortable in the class.

(April 2013. Reading the Bible.)

Christian has an uncommon (at least in my opinion) love for all things biblical at the ripe old age of 6. He often wants me to read the Bible with him, and he is FULL of questions. He talks a lot about Jesus, and asks really good, heartfelt questions. I often say that I believe he will be a missionary or a pastor when he grows up, although he has never said this. It's like he just can't learn enough about Jesus, and I think at 6 it doesn't seem typical. I find it very endearing.

(Christian's ABC book.)

I made an ABC book for Christian this year, and each week as we learned a new letter, we worked on that page. At the end of the year, I had it bound (well actually Mimi did) into a Kindergarten book for him. I love it, and think it turned out so cute! He is very proud of his work this year!

(The "w" page.)

I will say that I have seen so much growth in Christian this year. He started karate this year, and that has GREATLY helped his confidence! His season of baseball allowed him to learn about teamwork and make friendships. I used to be a little worried about Christian, thinking that he would always tend to be clingy and not make friends easily, but I was wrong. He makes friends very easily, and made several friends in art and baseball that were all on his own. He laughs and talks easily with others, and he is very funny. He is not a "rowdy" boy, and is a rule follower and a good listener. He is super silly, and always trying to make someone laugh.

We had such a fun Kindergarten year! I am looking forward to all that First Grade holds for my sweet, happy, fun-loving boy!

4:44 pm

Christian breaking a board at his belt graduation today.

Celebrating Six: Karate Style

We celebrated Christian's birthday today by having a karate party. It's not usually my style to have a pre-fab birthday party (is that even a term?) but Christian has been taking karate for several months now, and he is really into it. He doesn't really seem into sports - and that's okay, or perhaps it will change as he gets older - but we wanted him to have something that was his. Ansley has dance, and now Christian has karate. And I have to say his karate dojo does a fantastic job!

Do you know what a dojo is? Yeah, I had never heard of that term either, but it's a fancy Japanese word for karate place.

So, we went with the karate party. It was the easiest party I've ever done, and it was so fun! The kids all had a great time, and it was VERY active! I think they were all pretty much worn out at the end. So we stuffed them with sugar and sent them home. Perfect!

Karate is a very disciplined sport. It's one of the things I love about it. The party was more laid back than the classes are, but the kids are required to say yes sir, pay close attention and do what they are asked to do. At the beginning of the party, Christian got to help teach the class. He also got to wear a black belt for the entire class, which he thought was really cool. (He is a white belt.)

At first I was a little worried with this many kids running around the room, but he got them attentive and respectful right away. (Not that they aren't normally that way, of course.) This is the assistant teacher, Mr. South, and he did a great job!

They got to do lots of different karate moves, as well as a bunch of fun games. I think the jump kick was enjoyed by all the kids!

Anna Kate and Lydia getting a pretty good kick in!

Ansley kicking. She now wants to take karate. She really enjoyed it!

Kennedy and Parker getting their kick on.

Christian demonstrating his jab, cross to his friends.

Christian taking a little break to share something with Mimi. This would NEVER be allowed during class, but as the birthday boy he gets special privileges. Christian has always had a really special bond with his Mimi.

Then it was time for a little cake break.

We got Christian a Froyoz cake, because that's his favorite place to go. (Frozen yogurt in case you didn't know.)

Everyone singing happy birthday.

Then he got to cut his cake with a samurai sword. That is a tricky word to spell.

They were both trying really hard, until he realized it was an ice cream cake and still somewhat frozen. This picture makes me laugh!

Then it was back to more fun games! It's so cute to see how INTO games kids get.

He taught them how to defend themselves with a kick if they were on the ground, and then they had to prevent him (and a few other Dads) from getting to them!

Agh, I was like a second too late and I just missed Christian actually breaking the board. But this was right after he did it. All the kids got to break a board too, which they thought was cool.

And this is just sweet. Little Jasper couldn't get the hang of breaking it, so Mr. South was really working with him and I just thought it was so sweet to see all the kids so intently rooting for him. I love Christian's pose here. After he broke it, all the kids cheered and yelled. So sweet!

Then it was time to open presents.

What a cute boy!

All the kids gathered around to see what he got.

Umm, I have no idea. But it makes me giggle.

Silly group shot.

This is what they do at the end of every class. Ay-yah!

A super fun celebration of our sweet six year old!

Six

In case you didn't know, I LOVE BIRTHDAYS. I love creating those special traditions that my kids remember year after year and look forward to. And one day, they will be the memories they pass on to their kids. Traditions + memories + photographs = my trifecta of happiness.

Every year, the birthday child gets birthday streamers. My kids talk about it, they look forward to it, and they know it's coming. They even talk about waking up in the middle of the night and seeing them there and how happy it makes them.

We always kick the morning off with birthday donuts. I can't remember where this started; perhaps from my love of donuts, but my kids love it! In fact as soon as Avery saw the box, she said "I want donut."

(Side note: Christian LOVES to make cards; he does it all the time. So last night John and I made him his own special birthday cards. We had them displayed for him this morning. He loved them! You can see the cards in the Instagram photos on the left.)

Then I started having some stomach virus flare up, and Ansley did as well. I wasn't sure how I was going to get Ansley and Christian to their co-op. Thankfully, John was able to come home and take Christian, but Ansley wasn't feeling well so she ended up coming back home. John took some birthday cookies we had made for all the kids in his class (plus his teachers).

His class sang Happy Birthday to him, and John recorded it. It was so cute! I tried to get it on here, but I can't figure it out and I'm running low on patience today. But John did get this cute shot from class.

Isn't that a cute six year old?

Mimi picked Christian up from his class and brought him home. He opened her gift (a Star Wars Lego watch and a Star Wars suitcase, with a bonus spend the night at her house this week) and he loved that! We were all supposed to go out to lunch, but us girls still weren't feeling very well, so John ended up coming to get him and taking him to lunch and to a few stores to spend some birthday money. He loved this, and they had a great time together. Christian picked out a pocketknife (used only under close supervision) and a new Wii game. After he came home, he and Ansley wanted to play the new Wii game, so they did that for a little bit.

Then it was time to get ready to go to karate. He loves his karate class (and is having a karate birthday party there this Saturday.) After karate, Mimi met us for a birthday dinner at Calhoun's.

After we got home, we enjoyed a birthday pizookie (a pizza cookie), Christian's favorite. I was going to make a birthday cake, but when I asked Christian what he wanted, he said my chocolate chip cookies were his favorite, so I went with the pizookie.

The candles are Legos. Aren't they cute?

Make a wish!

Avery loved it too.

A very fun and happy celebration of our sweet six year old!

The Six Year Interview

As is tradition, I interview my kids every year on their birthday, asking the same questions and recording their responses. I started this when Ansley was four (I think) and it's been a fun tradition ever since. I love going back and seeing the previous year's responses, and marvel (and cry) at how much my kids have grown.

Christian turns six today! I can hardly believe (I know, I say that every year; I'm not sure when I will start realizing that my kids grow up with each passing year) that six years ago today my sweet little boy entered the world. The boy I was afraid to have, because I didn't know boys! Girls are easy, they're like me, but boys were foreign to me. But Christian is quite possibly the sweetest and most thoughtful little boy I've ever known. How silly of me to worry.

Christian was definitely the easiest of my three babies. He was happy, slept well, ate well - he was just laid back. As he approaches six, some of those things have changed, and some haven't. He's not quite as good of an eater. He is happy. He does sleep well. He's pretty laid back, but we also need to throw in sensitive, because his feelings are hurt easily. But thoughtful - you have never met a more thoughtful boy. He is constantly leaving drawings, writing notes, thinking of gifts to buy, for everyone in his family. So, so sweet, yet very boy. (I'm not saying that most boys aren't sweet, I'm just saying....okay, maybe I am saying that.) He is VERY into, well, here, here's what he's into:

On with the interview!

M(ama): What do you want to be when you grow up?

C(hristian): I want to be an artist. No, not an artist! Wait, actually I do. (He always keeps us on our toes.)

M: What is your favorite thing God made?

C: My family. (Yes, this boy loves his family fiercely.)

M: What is your favorite activity?

C: Painting with Mom. (I guess this is something he would like to do as an activity, because, sadly, we rarely do.)

M: What is your favorite animal?

C: Dog. And cat. (See? He doesn't want to hurt his Mom or Dad's feelings by preferring one.)

M: What is your favorite bug?

C: Beetle. (Haha, it just hit me as I'm typing this that he may have meant the car. That would be very Christian-like. Because I'm not aware that he has a preference for beetles.)

M: What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?

C: Make toolwork. (He is very into tools, like his Dad, and he means building stuff with his Dad.)

M: What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?

C: Kitchen things, like cooking.

M: Do you want to be a Dad when you are older?

C: Yes.

M: Will you get married?

C: Yes.  

(You are so, so silly.)

M: Who is your favorite friend?

C: Parker K. (This is our neighbor that he plays with often, and since we have two neighbor Parkers, he has to clarify which one he means. This Parker is 7.)

M: Do you have a second favorite friend?

C: Parker M. (Ah, there's the other neighbor. He is ten.)

M: What do you dislike?

C: Thinking about these questions because it's tricky.

M: What is your favorite song?

C: Jingle Bell Rock.

M: How old is Dad?

C: Umm, Dad is 33. Wait, no, 45!

M: How old is Mom?

C: 24. (I did not even pay him to say that.)

J(ohn): Seriously, you think I'm 20 years older than Mom!?

C: .........

M: What is your favorite day?

C: My birthday.

M: What is your favorite snack?

C: The cookies that you make. They are SO GOOD.

M: What is your favorite place to go?

C: When we go to the mountains.

M: What is your favorite thing about Ansley?

C: She plays with me.

M: What is your favorite thing about Daddy?

C: He does tool work with me.

M: What is your favorite thing about Mommy?

C: That you love on people. (Um, this is why I had a boy right here. Favorite.answer.ever.)

M: What is your favorite thing about Avery?

C: That she likes to play with me. (She does, more and more these days!)

M: What is the best thing about being six?

C: Um, I don't know, I'm taller?

M: Which would you rather be, a carrot or a fish?

C: Fish.

M: Why?

C: Because it swims. I'd get eaten if I was a carrot!

M: What does Dad do all day?

C: Take phone calls.

M: What does Mom do all day?

C: You cook stuff.

(You need two hands now!)

M: What is your favorite thing in the whole wide world?

C: My family. I love my family. That doesn't include heaven, right, because that's not in the world?

M: What is your favorite restaurant?

C: Zoe's Kitchen.

(You LOVE to draw and write notes.)

M: Tell me about God.

C: He loves us and forgives sins.

How we love our sweet boy! Happy Sixth Birthday, Christian! You fill our family with such joy, creativeness and fun! We love, love, love you!

 

4:12 pm

It won't be every year that Christian's birthday falls on a school co-op day (since it's just once a week), but this year it does, so we made cookies this afternoon to pass out in his class tomorrow. He is so excited!

This Week in Kindergarten is Brought to You by the Letter A

This week in school Christian is learning all about the letter "A" and apples.

He is really enjoying our new curriculum, but let's be honest: Kindergarten just doesn't take long when you are teaching one child, especially compared to the Fourth Grader. So I thought I'd spice things up a bit this week. I remembered when Ansley was in Kindergarten and all the fun things we would do, so I figured Christian shouldn't miss out. 

I found a great lapbook from Homeschool Share that was all about apples. If you aren't familiar with Homeschool Share, it is a really great, free resource that has TONS of unit study ideas, tie ins to books and lots of lapbooks. You just download them, and you're all set. I found it so very sweet and encouraging that Christian was SO EXCITED about his lapbook. He couldn't wait to show Mimi when she came over for lunch and to show his Daddy when he got home from work. It was precious.

Lapbooks are really easy to assemble, too. You just take two manila folders and overlap them so there is a little flap hanging over on each side, then glue it down in the middle (like a smaller version of the old school science fair projects). This is the cover of Christian's lapbook.

Here is inside on the left. I let Christian glue his own stuff down. I had to let go my idea of the perfect lapbook. It's still cute, right? And he has much more ownership of it since he did it all himself.

Here is the other side.

We sang apple songs, read apple poems, counted apple seeds, made an apple graph, and had an apple taste test. The taste test was their favorite part!

We had eight different varieties of apples. Christian sorted them by color, and lined them up from biggest to smallest and then smallest to largest.

Then we cut up pieces of each apple for the taste test. Yum!

Like I've mentioned before, usually Ansley and Avery play while Christian and I do school, but today of course everyone joined in. Avery even sensed something fun was going on, and grabbed Bun Bun and joined us at the table. She tried all the varieties, too!

Interesting to note: Mimi and Christian's favorite apple is honeycrisp. Mine and Ansley's favorite apple is sweet tango. Have you ever heard of it? I never had, but picked it up at Kroger, and it is delicious! Ansley and I agree: the perfect, crisp and sweet apple!

Then Mimi joined us (and brought Chick-Fil-A!) and we got to talking about bobbing for apples, so the kids wanted to try it out. We decided we might have to set up a tub and let them bob for apples!

And, of course, monkey see, monkey do, right? She is so silly, and loves when we all laugh at her! Which I find we do quite often.

Yes, she has on three dresses in this photo. She has acquired a bit of a dress obsession!

I had planned on making some apple butter as well, but since I just made pumpkin butter I decided it might be butter overkill.

A fun day learning all about a-a-apples!

Kindergarten Learning

We are wrapping up a unit on the moon for Christian this week. Have I mentioned that I'm so thrilled that we switched his curriculum? It has been a great change, and while it's a bummer that I wasted the money on the other curriculum, I'll take the loss for a happy, eager to learn Kindergartener!

We did some super fun things, like use Oreo cookies to show the phases of the moon, made a moon badge, and watched a video of Neil Armstrong on the moon. We even measured how far we could jump on the moon, and we read lots of fun moon books. The biggest hit of the week was the Moon Cake, though. If you have Kindergarten(ish) aged kids at home, you really have to try this! Christian loved it!

Moon Cake

Grease a 9" round cake pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the "moon sand" right in the pan: 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp salt.

Form 3 craters in the moon - one large crater, one medium crater, and one small crater.

Add 5 Tbsp oil to the large crater.
Add 1 tsp baking soda to the medium crater.
Add 1 tsp vanilla to the small crater.

Pour 1 Tbsp vinegar into the medium crater and watch it bubble  like a volcano. (Christian especially loved this part.)

When the volcano stops, add one cup of milk. Mix everything together to form the moon's surface. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

When cool, sprinkle with "moon dust" (powdered sugar) and enjoy!

Here is our moon cake. The best part is Christian got to do the whole thing (except put it in the oven), which he thought was really fun.

Let me know if you try your own Moon Cake!