Santa & A Christmas celebration

We visited with Santa at the annual Santa Breakfast.

William had lots to say to Santa. He asked for a vacuum and a lucky dog.


Zachary thought Santa was terrific. He also asked for a lucky dog.


With cousins after getting goodie bags from Santa.



We also celebrated the season with the animals at the zoo.

Reading about the Ravens


Waiting with Daddy to see the bears come out and get their Christmas gifts.


Cutie patootie

Video games and Reading?

I have to admit I am not a video game player. Nor am I am fan of video games being played in our home. BUT my husband loves video games and I love him so I tolerate it. Now our sons love video games too. We are very selective about what they are exposed to and they are only allowed to play Xbox360 or the NintendoDS on the weekends and for a limited time. I am usually involved in some other task while they play but this past weekend they asked me to play with them. Zachary and I played Beautiful Katamari.

Beautiful Katamari is a very strange game that includes a talking head with captions. I was amazed as Zachary read almost every word of the captions to me. In the span of a 10 minute game he read all of the following aloud:
ordinary
present
princedom
barely
worth
better
adding
explore
remember
yummy
should
orbit
alligator
earth
everything
delish
maybe
playful
satellite
shame

Satellite was the only word on the list that he needed help with and after seeing it a couple of times he recalled it when he saw it again. Ok, so maybe some learning or at least a demonstration of learning can happen with a video game.

Button snowmen

The boys created their own ideas of snowmen. I ordered a big bucket of buttons through Discount School Supply and the boys love to dig in and sort them, spill them (and then they need encouragement to clean them up) and use them for crafts. I have a very special jar of buttons that were formally the button box my mom had throughout my childhood. Lots of different beautiful buttons that I spent hours sorting and digging through. Those buttons are now just for show - not to be glued on a construction paper snowman so I love the boys having their own box of buttons to explore with.


Zachary's snowman is on the left with a carrot nose. William went button crazy!

October continues...

We had a great field trip to Jack London Square/the Port of Oakland. We rode Amtrak to Jack London Square. The 2 hour train ride was great. Our homeschool group had the entire top floor of one train car. The kids had room to roam and play and there were plenty of sights to see as we traveled.

William was THRILLED to be on a big train.


Having friends to play with made the trip fly by.


The boat was really, really crowded. We were not quite at the end of the line in this picture. The covered dock was solid people and it wrapped around a corner until it got to us... it was actually sort of miserably over-crowded. I guess that is what you get for free!


William and his friend Ella at the waterside waiting for the boat.


We couldn't hear most/any of the tour guide information as we toured the Port of Oakland but the kids enjoyed looking out the window at the container ships and giant cranes at work.


Part of our group when we arrived back in Sacramento after a long day.


A day in Davis.

First we visited the Davis History Museum.


Then the Davis Farmers Market's harvest festival.

Petting piglets


Watching cockroach races!


Our annual trick-or-treating on Historic Sutter Street.

Our little rock star - complete with attitude.


The Magic School Bus.



We managed to spend just $7 on both costumes combined - a can of yellow spray paint and iron-on transfer papers! A great reduce-reuse-recycle Halloween!

October

We started the month out, like we always do, with Carl's birthday. I love the last quarter of the year when we are finally the same age!

Carl took his birthday off and we went bowling! The boys first bowling experience. They loved it but the people around us did NOT love them loving it. They had a really hard time grasping the concept of staying in our space. Thankfully the alley was pretty empty and the boys did not get hit with any balls. They were really hilarious when bowling - I will try to get some video uploaded too.


We also celebrated Carl's birthday with a Rock Band party at my parents' house. We now add Rock Band and karaoke on Zachary's learning record as reading practice! He reads lyrics and really rocks! Both kids work on rhythm and color recognition when they play the guitar and drums too :)






Our garden gave us our first taste of our labors. Two tiny radishes! The boys tried to give it a thumbs up but they weren't so impressed with the bitter little veggies. They much preferred the radishes a month or so later.




Our good friends Lincoln and Reagan hatched ducklings and we had the opportunity to meet the new ducklings.



Lincoln and Reagan always show the boys their great computer games.


We go to weekly library storytime but once a month the library has a special storytime. The zoo sanctuary next to the library brings over an animal. The books are all about that animal and the docents talk about the animal and introduce him to the kids. October was owl storytime. The owl performed well, to the children's delight he pooped while out of his cage!


We celebrated our friend Charlotte's birthday with a baby doll party. She had a small party and wanted "her people" there including "Zachaby and Willam". The birthday girl's grandma made these great baby doll slings as well as a doll sized cloth diaper, blanket and pillow! Such a fun birthday favor!


More October coming up next...

September

Lots of walks. The stroller stays at home now and the boys can walk over a mile before whining. The boys got new backpacks and loved them! It is really hard to find little kid sized backpacks that aren't plastered with characters so we gave in and let them get their beloved Thomas and Cars.


We spent a lot of time outside - a favorite outside activity is Moonsand.


We continued to work on our garden.


Our homeschool group had a bike day. We parked our vans and SUVs to block off the entrance to a sports field parking lot that isn't used during the day and the kids biked around and around.


We went on a field trip to Petco. The idea of the field trip was good but the store employee conducting the trip struggled to keep our gang engaged. At one point he was talking about some frogs or snakes in an aquarium and how it was their house. Zachary interrupted and said "it is their HABITAT". Rude little smartie pants.

Garden Update

We have seedlings!

We have 3 of our 4 broccoli seedlings - we suspect the dog stepped on the 4th. He has been in big trouble for standing in the raised beds.



French breakfast radishes


Spinach


Our green onion test worked! These are the green onions purchased at the farmer's market with roots still attached. We stuck them in the dirt, trimed them down and they are growing!


Not pictured - a celery seedling. We are still waiting for our carrot and chard seedlings.

And the best seedlings of all

Summer Wrap Up

It is mid-August and time for a Summer Wrap Up? While summer is technically not over tomorrow starts our school year and Zachary's first official day as a kindergartener!

So a quick re-cap of our busy summer:

We started the summer off with a beautiful event... the marriage of Uncle Corey to Aunt Heather:



We spent a great weekend with out of town family and we were sad to see them go:


Learning never stops, in June we went to the Davis Explorit! Science Center for a safari and lab. We hunted for bugs and checked out the jackrabbits in a nature preserve. Checked out compost and explored their variety of hands on activities.

Checking out the bugs we caught:


Recording his findings:


The 4th of July was celebrated at Grandma & Papa's house with Corey & family.

We watched the parade - the firetrucks are always a favorite.




Nothing quite like a 4th of July tea party:




Just like the rest of the year, a lot of our summer was spent at the park.



Our favorite time of day - bedtime stories


And shortly after those stories


We have yet to brave overnight camping with the boys but we had a great time at our "day camp" at Sly Park. It was an authentic camping day with hot dogs cooked on sticks and smores!








Tomorrow we become "official" homeschoolers. Our charter school requires evidence of learning which in many cases will be photographs so I should have lots of material for keeping this blog updated. Check back soon!