Eli is 7!!

Eli...

is smart and energetic, enthusiastic about just about everything, sometimes overly so. He loves to play rowdy but will also get in dress-up with Hannah or play Barbies.  Favorite shows are still Blues Clues and My Little Pony, along with How Things are Made, Minute to Win It, or Wipe Out.  Favorites movies are Rio and Charlotte's Web. The books he always picks at the library are Scooby Doo chapter books.  He's a great reader and does excellent at school. His favorite subject is math and he likes charts and order like Mommy but is also very artistic and will spend a long time working on a drawing or picture. He loves fishing, soccer, riding bikes, and board games. He spends most of his playtime building with Legos.

And here's how he answered these questions:

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How old are you? 7

What makes you happy? Going to Chuck E Cheese

What is your favorite animal? Cheetah

What is your favorite thing to eat? Cherry pie (which is TOTALLY random because we never have cherry pie!!)

What is your favorite thing to do? Go to waterparks that have a really cool water slide

What is your favorite TV show? How Things are Made

What are you really good at? Running

What is your favorite movie? Rio

What is your favorite color? Red

Who is your best friend? Lleyton

What do you and Mom do together? Go shopping

What do you and Dad do together? Go to ice cream shops with Grandpa

What is your favorite sport? Soccer

Where is your favorite place to go? Going on bumper boats

What is your favorite book? A racecar book

What do you want to be when you grow up? A jet driver to go around the world and find out things that happened a long time ago

What is your favorite Bible story? When Jesus walks on the water and goes to see his disciples in the boat in a storm

What is your favorite kind of boat? (he wanted me to ask him this) a motorboat that is light blue

What is favorite game? Pictureka

Happy 7th year, Eli!! We love you!!!

Someone is missing...

... a tooth!

The story? It had been loose for a few weeks probably but still pretty tight in there.  But we were at a friend's birthday party last Saturday when Eli came up to me saying his tooth was bleeding, and when I looked it was hanging on by a thread.  It was ready and time to come out.  Knowing birthday cake (eating) was still happening, I took him to the bathroom to inspect and do some jiggling.  After making a call to the hubster for moral support, and gradually becoming surrounded by little friends, I finally got it twisted outta there.  Did I tell you I HATE the loosing-teeth phase??  Accckkk!!!  But I did it!  Eli was surprisingly absolutely calm, not even the least bit afraid, and he insisted that it didn't hurt at all.  SO PROUD! 

We took these pictures as soon as we got home, and Brother wanted to be in them too. So these are those pictures too!  

Growing up more and more every day!

Soccer player!

In trying to keep reign of our schedules we have so avoided signing the kids up for extra curricular activities. They already do AWANA Wednesday nights, and one night a week I usually have ladies Bible study, but now this year we are giving soccer a go for Eli on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the month of September.  He's loving it, and it's fun to watch him the learning the basics of the game.  He's usually right in the middle of the action, keeping with the ball!  And Daddy, being a former soccer player himself, sure is a proud parent!

(These pictures are from his first practice)

School time!

School started here in the middle of August.  Eli is in First Grade and he really likes his teacher and the schoolwork! He's doing very well!  Homework started this year and I appreciate that our school really promotes parent involvement. They view school as a partnership, and I like that.

And Hannah has started her second year of preschool, 3 mornings a week.

Praying our children grow in amazing ways this year and that they shine the light of Jesus in all that they do!

Look...

...who decided to try again at riding his bike without training wheels! He's doing great! So proud!

Just a short clip:

a moment in time.

(Eli watching over Hannah's shoulder as she is writing Eli's name in her notebook) Eli: "It's E-L-I but that's not quite right. The dot has to be floating in the air." 

LOL "floating in the air" what a cute way to put it. 

I love my babies.

Christmas Holiday Concert

A couple weeks ago the kids had their Christmas programs. The same night, the same time, in two separate towns. And Kevin had to work that night. So Grandma and Grandpa came to the rescue so they could take Hannah to her program and I could attend Eli's. I couldn't stand having our family split like that.  I want to spend great effort through the years having the kids support one another in their activities. And if that means we can't sign up for certain things, then that's how it'll be. But for that Friday night, that's how it had to be.

Being a school program, of course Eli's choirs couldn't sing about anything ACTUALLY about Christmas and Jesus. It was some goofy program about Santa in the 50s. But the great thing to watch was Eli participating and having fun with it. Such joy.

After the elementary kids were done with their portion of the concert, there was an intermission so parents could retrieve their kids from their classrooms. While there they took a few class pictures.

Look at Eli. You can tell he's getting so comfortable in his own skin and proud of his class. I'm so proud of him and happy to watch him grow!

Eli - School Update.

Just thought I'd update about how Eli is doing in school.... He really likes it, he's doing very well and absorbing the new information quickly, he's making friends, and behaves well for his teacher.  He never has any homework yet, but I do some things with him at home after school.  So far it seems he's mostly doing things with beginning reading and graphing things occasionally.  But I know he can do more.  He's very smart with his numbers and just "gets it" easily. So not only do we practice flashcards with his sight words and lay them out to make sentences and practice spelling and sounding things out, I give him number problems.

Here are some of the things we've done lately:

adding big numbers!! though we're still practicing how to SAY them

fractions

teaching him Sudoku!  this website goes step by step, building up to this full-size game where just a few numbers are missing

somewhere along the way (this summer I think) Eli got really good at coloring.  Coloring a picture completely and staying in the lines.

I'm so proud of our little school boy!!

AWANA 2011-12

Here is our Sparkie and Cubbie for the year!  Eli's 2nd year and Hannah's first year! I wanted the kids to stand close together so I told Hannah to hug Eli and they started posing like a married couple.  Too cute!  And the last one is too goofy to not post, with Eli and his extremely fake smile and Hannah just looking like a goon! =) Love those kids!

School pictures. Sort of.

Today were school pictures for Eli.  While walking down for the bus I decided to snap a few pictures of my own first, while he's looking all handsome n all. So glad I did! Look how sweet he looks!!

Day 2: The Big Yellow Bus

Eli came home from his first day of school with a weekly newsletter in his bag, listing what the menu is for the week and a list of students for grades K-6, and other information for upcoming events and so forth.  Well, being the Type A that I am, I cross-referenced Eli's bus list with the class lists, so I could find out who was going to be on Eli's bus and how old they are!  There were 6 kids or so I couldn't find on the class lists so they must be older than 6th grade, but the rest of the kids were scattered across all 7 grades, including 3 other kindergartners! That made me feel better seeing there would be three other kids from ELI'S CLASS! 

We got up this morning following our normal school routine which so far is going very smoothly! and we went out to wait for the bus, making sure not to be late or he'll be left!  I asked Eli if he was nervous about the bus and he said No!  =)

 We waited... 

We listened quietly...

 We thought we heard something coming down the road...

And sure enough...

A yellow bus with flashing lights popped over the hill!

A bus was coming just for ELI!!   Ooo, I felt so proud!

He climbed right on...

 and without looking back...

 off he went!

And I enjoyed a day with my two littles.

Then

in the afternoon, while Carter was still napping, we started waiting again

In great anticipation

of that yellow school bus!

Here it comes in the distance!

we're so close to town we can see almost the whole ride

We're so proud of our boy! And you better believe we're ALL going to be there waiting to tell him so!