Gearing Up….

That’s the title I wish mimicked my activity right now!  Gearing up for… uh… perhaps a new baby???  Yeah, that’s right that little cute guy who is 1 year old??  The one that puts everything in his mouth and likes to go after plants…. and the one who can find a book and rip it in a heartbeat!  Have I mentioned that I homeschool and that our house is book central.  very room is like a library with books EVERYWHERE!  Have I also mentioned it’s like a tornado struck this house???

My dad stayed overnight, passing through to Nebraska, on his way to a hunting trip.  I was so embarrassed by my house!  It literally is a wreck.  And I think to myself, how in the world are you going to do this with a one year old???  Oh my!  Your prayers would be appreciated!  It is go-go-go from this Thursday through Thanksgiving in this house!  Literally non-stop.  I mentioned before that 4 days after we return jabber Jaw celebrates a birthday.  I have opted to have it all out, so that I have very little to prepare.  After all I will be tired, jet-lagged and adjusting with a new member of the family.  Who knows how well Small Fry is going to take it everything. :-)

I have not packed a stitch and we leave on the first leg of our journey in 2 days.  We will be visiting friends back north and then The King Fish will fly up a day later, and I will pick him up at the airport.  Then we will fly to Russia, pick up our munchkin, hope all goes well with all the final documents, and fly back 5 days later.  It will be crazy and fast paced.  I can’t even begin to “go there”.  But I know this, I can’t stress and I need to rest.  I was stressed on our last trip to Russia and did not sleep hardly at all over there.  That for sure helped weaken my immune system in which I caught a nasty cold.  I am not going there again.  So, I’m trying to do things in spurts and what doesn’t get done (here at the house) will just have to wait until we get back. 

One thing I just have to say.  I am so darn proud of my boys.  They have worked so hard to get their outside classes done ahead of time.  They have studied hard to take a Science test ahead of time, and they have worked everyday on their writing assignments.  Tiger Shark has written and illustrated a mystery case.  It’s pretty good too! I’m proud of his illustrations as he spent a lot of time on the ones he drew!  Jabber Jaw has written a 4 paragraph book review and a movie review as well.  He had picked Remember the Titans as a movie to review, and we received that homework assignment 1 week ahead of his class.  But he opted to do the book review first (due 2 weeks from now), because it was a much harder assignment.  Well, he had not written the movie review and was going to hand it in this Wednesday.  But today in his class his teacher gave class examples of movie reviews for the students and guess what her example was??  Remember the Titans!  She explained everything, the theme and conflict etc.  So, we all decided poor jabber Jaw had to pick another movie.  He searched and searched and finally chose Robots.  He told both The King Fish and I that Robots already had the theme built in.  So, naturally we asked what’s the theme (or moral) then?  Now, Jabber Jaw has an uncanny video memory.  He can watch a movie once or twice and catch details that most people would completely miss.  Evidently over the gate of the Bigwell factory is a saying… “You can shine no matter what you’re made of.”  (Or something like that)  Jabber Jaw said there was a song about it in there too, and he sang and danced it for us.  Cracked all of us up too!  So, he has written his movie review, and we are pretty much done.  We took our science test today. Go boys!  So proud of them! 

I have another brag to share.  Some people might be appalled by this, and I’m sorry if you are.  But today during Jabber Jaws class we have an hour to kill and Tiger Shark has outgrown all his long pants.  He has 1 pair of jeans and that’s it!  So, knowing he needs pants, but not wanting to spend a fortune to outfit him in an abundance of clothes, I went to our local thrift store.  I am so grateful for them!  I found him 4 pair of pants, 4 pair of shorts, 2 shirts, 1 shirt for The King Fish and a sweater for Jabber Jaw, plus three belts.  Here’s what I paid…. $35.  For all of it!  Amazing!  Tiger Shark definitely knows the value of a dollar and told me “we have to go back there again to find clothes”.  Both my boys are not very clothes conscious yet.  They just need something to wear that hopefully fits and looks decent.  Sometimes they get it where it looks good, and sometimes it totally doesn’t match (think stripes and plaid).  Those times I do send them back up to change.  But my point is: they are so not materialistic, and thankfully they aren’t around kids who put a lot of stock in clothing and image.  Sometimes I wish they would take a little more time with their clothing choices, but mostly, I’m just thankful that they view clothing as more of a necessity.  Not in the latest trend…. but in clothes that are decent and look good, even if they are second hand.  They actually love seeing how little they can spend in second hand places.  Most of their Nintendo ds games come second hand as well.  When either has money to spend, they would rather get more for their money from a used store, than less from let’s say, Toys ‘R Us.  I’m not sure whether to feel bad for their future wives, or be glad for them…..  lol!

I have photos from Trick or Treating to share too!  My goodness another amazingly proud moment.  (They are everywhere in this post aren’t they?)  The King Fish and I had two costumes we could have used for Small Fry.  One was a lion.  But he was a lion last year.  Then we had a pirate costume, and he could’ve been a pirate, but I think that costume could wait another year.  I remembered this robot costume that I saw in the attic.  It is homemade by the King Fish.  Small Fry will sometimes walk around the house saying in a robot voice, “I am a Robot.”  So, the King Fish went up to the attic, and what I thought was just the outside robot box turned out to be the whole homemade costume, saved from when Jabber Jaw was three years old!  Can you believe that???  The whole handmade costume we saved for 8 years?? That my friends is unbelievable to me. So, we had a great costume for our little guy, and with everything else on our plates, we didn’t have to scramble.  I will leave you with some photos.  The first is Small Fry with his grandpa (my dad). 

 

The robot lights glowed with the help of an illumistick.

The King Fish designed this well huh?

My three boys.  Our robot, a Miami Dolphins football player, of course! 

And Tiger Shark was a bag of jelly beans! Lots of fun!