No more Training wheels...

As often happens in a house where there are four boys running around the youngest learns to do things a little bit sooner than others. This is, of course, because by this time their parents have learned all the tricks...

Don't believe me...

OK, it is because they have big brothers to look up to...

Probably a little more likely...

However, in the case of Seth and his training wheels there may be another explanation... It started early this summer... Seth would be out riding his bike and it would fall over. We would help him up and the same thing would happen. After a couple of times of falling, we would have to bend the training wheel back in place... It seems that after years of being used (these training wheels have been passed down from one bike to another) they had gotten a little weaker.... As the summer progressed we would be out taking a bike ride and the training wheels would bend or slip off of the support and over Seth would fall. As we began to inspect the training wheels further we realized how worn out they really were.

The options came down to... Get new training wheels or teach Seth to ride without them. So we took them off and off he went. It appears that he had been learning through his many falls, not to rely on the training too much anyway. I actually think the presence of training wheels was causing him to fall more because once they were off he stopped falling. Now he is zooming around with his brothers. We still have to help him get the bike started but he is able to steer, ride and stop along with us.

Johnny Appleseed Festival

When you come to the city of Fort Wayne, you can find the gravesite of the legendary Johnny Appleseed. Each year the city of Fort Wayne holds the Johnny Appleseed Festival, a trip back in time that celebrates colonial life in Indiana.

There are games for the kids...

And shows that explain life during the colonial times. The boys and I are watching a lady with a Possum in this picture.


One of the highlights for the boys was the loud, booming cannon that went off every half hour or so.

Strides of Hope Run...

This year I ran my first ever 5k. The Strides of Hope is a fund raising event for the Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center. My goal was to run the whole thing and to finish it in less than 40 minutes. I ran everything except for 2 short uphills (at the advice of my husband who said it is a waste of energy to run uphill) and finished in 36:50.


On the other side of the road are the walkers who did one lap and cheered us on as we ran!

Bear Football!

Zeke and JJ are also playing flag football this year. They have been assigned to the BEARS. (I know tough for a Packer fan to say "Go Bears" but for our kids we will do it!)

This is their 3rd year of playing flag football and they are both getting to be pretty good. They have learned more about where to go and can even run plays. One of my favorites is when the coach has them run a reverse with each other.

Homeschooling...

I think one of my favorite parts of homeschooling is getting to watch the process of your child's learning. I also have the opportunity to create learning opportunities that help drive the point home. This week we are studying the Vikings landing in the Americas. We have used maps to show where they came from and we created boats to show how they got here. The kids also recorded a little speech about what they learned about the Vikings.

A tasty fall treat...

Today the we picked up a tasty fall treat at the store! The boys loved their caramel apples!

Seth at 4...

Seth's 4th Birthday came on August 4th. In the chaos that has been our past month and a half this is the first chance I have had to get his answers to these questions.

If you could do three things, what would they be?

1. Make a Penguin Egg 2. Find a Black Easter Egg 3. Eat a shark cake

What's the most fun you ever had?
watching Zeke play baseball

What's your favorite meal?
mac and cheese

What's one thing you do well?
playing with noodles

What's one thing you want to get better at?
that's a really hard one... golf

What makes you angry?
that's a hard one too... I don't know.

What's something you would like to see?
Birds

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A Christmas tree maker.

What a silly boy he can be and in case you think he never gets angry... Just 30 minutes before this little quiz he had run up to his bedroom throwing a fit because I told him he couldn't have any more glue today.

Panther Football...

This week we had our first week of flag football. Noah and Seth are playing for the Panthers this year. The best part of watching preschoolers play flag football is figuring out if they are going to run in the right direction.

Noah, being 5 and in his second year of flag football, is the "pro" on the team who seems to have a pretty good idea about what is going on most of the time. He does still have a tendency to run in the wrong direction when he gets the ball, but he runs hard and chases down the flag when he is on defense.
Seth, needs a little more guidance, but he is getting the hang of it. His favorite thing to do is hike the ball to the coach.

Face lift for the house...

One thing that I have always thought was missing from our home was a little color... Not that I don't like the yellow of our house, but a little color adds a lot. Our shed needed repainting so we decided to start there...

This was not the end though... I also think a great place to add a little color is around the windows of the front of the house. My husband, who believes that if you do something it should have a purpose, kept saying that if we were going to put shutters around the windows we should make them functional. In the end, we compromised with some homemade window decorations (no they don't have hinges).

Take me out to the Ball Game...

Our Ft. Wayne Wizards got a new stadium and a new name this summer and the Library offered free lawn seating to the kids as part of their reading program this summer...

Zeke read like crazy early this summer to complete the 6 hours he needed for the baseball tickets. I read to the other boys to meet their requirement.... We were finally able to make the trip to the stadium for one of the Tin Caps final home games.

The Library also gave some other freebies... A folder and a kids meal!

The grass seating was great as it gave us a chance to stretch out and enjoy the game in a more relaxed place...

Zeke kept track of how each player was doing throughout the night...

The Tin Caps didn't win this game, but we did have a great time and Johnny Appleseed even stopped by our section for a visit!


Overall the Tin Caps had a great season and won their division!