Half-hearted school

I sometimes see stuff in Facebook about people doing all sorts of fun creative schoolie stuff with their kids. My kids like schoolie stuff, and I have been wanting to be more productive lately. So after a brief nap and about 1/3 cup of coffee this afternoon I was like "hey, I think I will sit down and prepare some activities for the kids to do to learn numbers and stuff!" So I did.

After the kids were all awake and done with snack I told them I had some school for them to do and they were all excited. I had each kid practice tracing some letters and numbers, which was ok. But I was more excited about fruit loop math- for Jane it was simple addition problems for her to model with fruit loops, and for zeki it was addition problems with larger numbers, followed by some subtraction problems. The kids actually seemed to enjoy this. This was one of the first times I have really worked with Jane on this, and she got really excited when she was able to successfully complete them on her own. 

Ezra did not want to be left out of the action. He is also now developing the skill of pulling up on stuff, and found the little work table where the big kids were playing with fruit loops to be a worthy object of pulling-up practice. Jane was all like "moooommm! Ezzy is trying to grab it! NOOO Ezzy!"

I wonder if I would have been more motivated to continue the school stuff is Ezra had not been so disruptive. I feel like that's kid of the story of my life these days though. How do parents with babies homeschool the older ones? This mini schooling experience validates my plan to not homeschool our children. But we may continue to periodically do half-assed schoolie activities, which can be fun at this stage when there is no real need to actually learn anything.

 

 

 

Today we went to the Midland County Fair! Sadly it was just the kids and me- Justin wasn't feeling well.

In the first area we. He led out there was a bunch of stuff (junk) for sale, but we did see this awesome stuffed armadillo (sadly not for sale).

Next we saw this nice tiny home! It occurred to me that this would be a super fun play house for the kids.

Then we headed to the petting zoo, which turned out to be the best part of the county fair.

There were llamas.

There were adorable baby chicks!

There was a kangaroo!

There was a porcupine (shown with quills out)!

There was a camel.

There was a snake.

We fed the llama.

Then we left the petting zoo to check out the food trucks. Annoyingly, yet not surprisingly, it was the same stock of unoriginal food trucks that appear at all midland- are fairs and stuff. I am always hoping we will find fun, down-home food trucks with unique fare prepared by quirky but enthusiastic cooks. But instead we find a bunch of bored-seeming vendors selling the same funnel cakes, turkey legs, corn dogs, popcorn, etc. we have encountered the same troupe of food trucks at the airshow, 4th of July celebration, mall parking lot carnival, and now the county fair. The kids didn't seem very hungry or enthusiastic about any of the food, so I was just as happy to just get the sno cones, which they loved. 

Then we headed over to the carnival rides. We had planned to do the Ferris wheel, but it was $5 per person, and I would need to ride with the kids, making it cost a total of $15, assuming they did not make me pay for Ezra. So instead I opted to pay $3 each for the big kids to ride the "car merry-go-round" (as Jane called it). They had fun.

Ezzy and I watched.

Then we went home, since everyone was hot, tired and hungry.

First Camping Trip!

This past weekend we went on our first camping trip as a family.  My parents were planning on coming too, but sadly at the last minute my dad found that he had a whole bunch of work to do, with deadlines looming, and decided it was infeasible for him to come.  He was missed. Mama still came!

We went to beautiful Enchanted Rock.  I remember that as a kid my favorite part of camping was hanging out at our campsite- sitting around the fire, toasting marshmallows, trying to turn our tent into a cozy home-away-from-home by filling it with all the stuffed animals my sister and I were able to cram into our duffel bags.  I think that our tot enjoyed these same aspects of camping.

But he was also a great trooper when it came to hiking on the rocks! In fact, we could hardly keep him at the site- he kept wanting to go climb up the rock face that was right nearby.
We didn't sleep so well on Friday night. Our plan was for him to share a sleeping bag with Justin, which kind of worked for several hours.  Little guy slept on and off, interspersed with wiggling, trying to climb out of the bag, and saying "Mama! Dad! Mama! Mama!" Around 3 am I offered to take him in my sleeping bag for a while, thinking, "hey, I'm not really sleeping anyway."  So he spent the next hour or two not sleeping next to me. He finally dozed off around 4, by which time I had to go to the bathroom and was in a rather uncomfortable position, but dared not move for fear of waking the tot.  So we were all pretty tired on Saturday for our big hike, though we adults were able to handle a little bit better than Zeki.  But he didn't his tiredness ruin the hike. He almost dozed off while riding on his daddy's back.
                                                
He enjoyed our snack break. I think out-of-the-ordinary foods are one of the most fun things for kids on any vacation.

 When we reached the top of the big rock, Zeki was delighted to find this little pool filled with rain water.  It had become quite hot during our hike and the warm clothes we had put on that morning at the campsite were rather uncomfortable.  Little guy got to enjoy rolling up his pants and wading in the little pool.

By the time we left that afternoon, his lack of sleep the previous night and missed nap Friday afternoon caught up to him.

We decided that for future camping trips, if we have a tot and a pregnant mama, the most we should try to do is one night at a time (this trip had originally been intended as a two nighter, but after the first night we didn't think we could enjoy that again).

New Year

And now for a brief year-in-preview for 2013. Shortly before the end of 2012, we got an update on our big event of 2013: O'Shay Baby 2 (OB2 for short) is a girl! So, that being said, here is some stuff that might happen this year, and a few things that have already happened. Zeki greets the new year with some snuggling in bed with Mom & Dad.

For my 27th birthday a couple weeks ago, Justin made me a German chocolate cake from scratch! It was awesome!

Ezekiel continues to delight us, as we observe how much he is learning. Within the past month or so, we realized how good he has become at making messes, so we implemented a policy of "you must put that away before you play with something else." He is catching on impressively well! (At least we, his loving parents, are impressed). He knows where all his toys go, and he is starting to sometimes pick up his toys before he is even asked! He also likes to help me unload the dishwasher. I can hand him his cups and bowls, which we keep in a lower cabinet, and tell him to put them away, which he does. When there is nothing else for him to put away he gets frustrated that he can't help more! He also likes helping with laundry, and will sometimes move clothes around because he thinks something needs to be done with them.

As of my most recent ultrasound (earlier today), OB2 still looks good. She is growing as expected, though the ultrasound tech said she was being a bit of a "stinker" because she wasn't cooperating with the ultrasound tech in getting the images she wanted. I think OB2 and her big brother will have a lot of fun together.

This Spring we hope to get new floors throughout our house. In May or early June we expect to meet our daughter. Needless to say, we are very excited about that. In August Ezekiel will turn two. And now that I think about it, we don't really have any plans in place for 2013 other than those. So this year-in-preview turns out to be more trivial than I had thought.

Old Year

First, a brief year-in-review of 2012: In January Justin finished his Master's degree, and the O'Shay family celebrated by taking a road trip to Florida to see Mari, Chris and Isaac in their new house. The boys got to spend some quality time together.

In February Justin started working full time at Apache, where he continues to enjoy his work! Ezekiel enjoyed some time outside on the deck on one of those cold February days.

In March we got to see some lovely Texas bluebonnets!

In April the Alaskans came back for an Easter visit, and Ezekiel got to participate in his first Easter egg hunt!

In May we got to really start enjoying the warm weather by going to the pool.

In June we went out to East Texas for a crawfish boil.

We also went out to Colorado for a family reunion to celebrate Grandfather's 90th birthday! Zeki got to see his cousin Isaac again.

In July we all enjoyed a trip to the Blue Bell Factory, as Ezekiel continued to develop his flirtatious charm.

In August our dear little guy turned one! He also took his first steps!

In September Ezekiel's love for climbing into things continued to grow. Here we see he has climbed into a drawer and shut it on himself.

We also got to enjoy some nice outside time as the weather got cooler.

And we got some big news about something to happen in 2013.

In October we went to Alaska to visit those eskimoes (see previous post). The scenery was nice too, but my favorite part was spending time with our loved ones.

And Ezekiel got to go trick-or-treating, dressed as the world's cutest zebra, or, "Ezebrakiel".

In November our family in Dallas came down for Thanksgiving and we had a super fun time seeing them. Zeki got to enjoy a wagon ride with his cousin who is just a few months older than him.

We also got a play set at a neighbor's garage sale. Little guy was so excited to play on it, he couldn't even wait for his daddy to finish setting it up.

He also continued to work on using a spoon to feed himself. Breakfast time is when he really likes to joke around with his mommy.

In December he demonstrated the he has inherited his grandma's love of stacking things precariously- he did this all on his own.

He also improved in his ability to stand on top of things, with a posture that says, "look at me!"

He shares his parents' interest in books.

We ended our year the same way we began it- with a trip to Florida! This time the boys were much more interested in interacting.

It was tons of fun having Ezekiel able to really enjoy Christmas for the first time. I even knitted stockings to him and Justin to match the one my grandma made for us years ago!

Looks like I'll save the 2013 year-in-preview for another time.