Letter F Week & Micah's birthday: Week of October 19, 2015

 First thing Monday morning, Micah had to try out his new Nerf crossbow. The first attempt was to knock down a Duplo block tower. However, this proved to be a bit much for the little Nerf darts. So we switched our strategy to trying to hit a target in a box.

Little brother got his turn as well.

Our lunch time dessert was leftover birthday cake/cookie. Henry was thrilled that we saved him the "H" (which is, of course, his favorite letter).

This photo isn't the best, but Mommy tried to capture this moment - she walked into the living room to see that the boys had dragged the little trampoline all the way up the stairs from the basement and were attempting to get a Nerf dart down from on top of the cornice by jumping up as high as they could to reach it. When she asked what they were doing, Micah told her, "The Bible says to keep trying your best and never give up." He couldn't provide a scripture reference for that one, but he gave Mommy a good laugh anyway (and she helped get the dart down).

 Monday was Micah's actual birthday, so we kept the celebration going by visiting the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum with Grandma. After dinner it was soccer in the front yard with Daddy. While the kids played outside, Mommy emptied the fridge which wasn't working. It appeared that would be an expensive fix (though the fridge was only 2 years old!) and wouldn't be repaired for a week and a half. So into the coolers the food must go!

Working on those goalie skills.

While the boys practiced ball in the yard, Helen took the opportunity to prepare for driver's ed.

Tuesday morning, Helen brought out her shirt she decided she wanted to wear that day. Fashion opinions already!

At the library, Henry ended up staying in Micah's class. So Mom and Helen attended her class together. It was fun to focus on just one for a bit.

Our favorite tree in the backyard is showing off her glory these days!

At the end of our library class, Micah started not feeling so well and asked to leave. He laid on the couch all afternoon and slept after saying his head hurt. Too much birthday partying perhaps? Thankfully, after Dad came home, they played outside and he seemed to be better. And after dinner, he was back to normal.

When it was too dark to play outside, they came in and did a round of "The Crawling Game" with Helen.

After a night of bad sleep in which each kid woke up (Micah to go potty, Helen to eat, and Henry because he wet the bed... all about 1.5 hours apart, so we dealt with kids all night long), Micah woke up saying he was going to throw up, but was back to normal after breakfast. Thankfully, he was fine the rest of the week.
For the letter "F" Mommy introduced the kids to the song "Five Green and Speckled Frogs," which Henry especially liked.

On our walk down the driveway in the afternoon, Micah was proud of the giant leaf he found.

After we got back, Henry tried to hitch a ride with Helen.

Another turkey sighting.

Wednesday evening the kids asked Mom to take their photo together. It was just pure silliness.

Why not throw in an elephant head...

Mom had started prepping a game for the kids to find the letter of the week out of a group of letters each morning. She had mixed up letters on the magnetic board the night before. However, Daddy got a hold of the game before he left early in the morning and we found a surprise waiting for us.

Our math lesson focused on making a chart - to show how many of each kind of animal crackers we had.

First sort the animals by shape, then fill in the graph.

The boys insisted that Mommy draw images of the animals for each column... so it was a bit of work for her as well.

Henry's modified chart - with the number of boxes already prepared for him.

Micah's chart, showing how many of each animal he received. Of course, they promptly ate the animals after the project was finished.

 Our next project for the morning involved washing our pumpkins. Then we decided to head over to the indoor playground at The Commons in Brighton.

Helen liked looking out the window just as much as the play area.

Helen has started giving kisses to her family members (and her baby doll) at bedtime. (Kisses = more of a lick with a smacking sound.) She is eager to give her brothers a smooch, but although she leans in to kiss Daddy, she refuses to kiss his cheek like the boys. It dawned on us that perhaps this is because he is currently growing his hunting season beard. Sure enough, she was more than willing to "kiss" the top of his head tonight. A blessing of having a daddy who shaves his balding head!

Three Roes on a trampoline.

The boys enjoyed the tunnel slide while Helen had fun waiting for them tehre.

A little bit of video of Helen's unique crawl.

Playing on the soccer field is almost more fun than the playground for our crew.

In the evening, Henry wanted to do "Five Green & Speckled Frogs" - again. Here's his rendition.

Next, he wanted to be the camera man...

And the next morning there was another letter F message from Daddy when we got up.

 Friday afternoon, it was time to carve and paint our Halloween pumpkins.

Helen was fascinated with her containers and their lids at dinner.

Math play in the evening.

Meanwhile, Helen was trying out her throwing arm with the football in the living room.

 Saturday we attended the Fall Festival at St. Matthew for the first time. After all that fun, we had to get some work done. The boys did fall yard work on Sunday afternoon. They like being Daddy's helpers!