The Bowling Team in the Sunflower State

Mr. Boy is a Busy Busy Bee

2010-08-16T00:05:00.003-05:00

Mr. Boy loves to read books with animals and some of his favorites have animals by letter. Books for kids commonly use bumblebees for the letter B and Mr. Boy likes to say: "Busy Busy Bee" every time he identifies the little stingers.

Which brings me to another new plan Mama is instituting. Mama likes plans!

In our new house, the kids' toys, DVD's, books, and DVR full of Diegos, Doras, Sesames, and Wonderpets are all upstairs. But when Princess Baby is napping, Mr. Boy cannot be upstairs with her. Because he is a door opening champ and he hates that his playmate is napping and not playing with him. So Mr. Boy is relegated to the living room every afternoon from 2-4. Big J and Mama have both had some REALLY boring afternoons trying to keep Mr. Boy off the stairs and entertained already in the past week in the new house. So far reading cookbooks and singing karaoke have worked, but they are not practical solutions in the long term.

Plus we have a babysitter here 3 afternoons a week and so Mama came up with a plan!!

Mama found an old backpack that is bright yellow and black with a bee on it in the course of unpacking. Perfect! Now we have a place to keep Mr. Boy's special Big Boy activities! Today I stocked the Busy Bee Backpack with preschool worksheets printed from the internet, 2 winnie the pooh puzzles, 2 boxes of word flashcards, crayons, 2 Sesame Street preschool workbooks, and some playdoh with alphabet cookie cutters. Now Mr. Boy has things to keep him busy and learning new things while his sister naps.

Sure beats singing "Tiny Dancer" and "Folsom Prison Blues" repeatedly while Mr. Boy reads us the Sandra Lee cookbook!

New House, New Routine

2010-08-11T18:30:00.002-05:00

Mr. Boy and Princess Baby are growing up a little but they still need a lot of supervision for their daily activities. Because Mama is home alone with them 3 nights a week, We have established a new routine for them.

Mama does it 7 nights a week, but Big J helps us on the nights he is home to give Mama a bit of a break.

5:30-Supper time. This is important because Mr Boy has some issues with eating good food, eating meat, and eating anything some days. But now that we sit up at the table at the same time every night and put small portions of balanced food out--he's been doing super. We sometimes have to reward Mr. Boy with his milk cup or a juice box if he's having an especially hard time finishing his meal, but it is going very well--tonight he ate 2 whole fish sticks!

6:00-Bubble Bath!! Whoo-hoo! Big fun to take a bubble bath in the big new bathtub. We have lots of fun bath toys and Mr. Boy and Princess Baby like to help Mama put them away when the water is all gone. We bought a mesh laundry bag at the dollar store and we just drop those soggy wet toys and animal sponges right in the bag and hang the bag on the shower head--voila! They're dry by the next bath time.

6:20-one last show. Mr. Boy and Princess Baby go into her room and settle into their little chairs and watch Word World, SuperWhy, or Sesame for about 20 minutes. This gives Mama time to put away laundry, check her email, turn on night lights, straighted up rooms, hang up towels, or just breathe for a couple minutes and relax--Mama is TIRED at this time of night because she works till 5:10 or 5:15 and launched right into kid-time and fixing supper time.

6:45-Special Mama time. We go into Mama and Daddy's room and start with a game of Mama Says--it's just like Simon Says and it helps us get our wiggles out. Then we sing! We sing all the favorites, right in the proper order according to Mr. Boy--Old Donald, ABC's, She'll be Coming Round the Mountain (favorite verse? the one about sleeping with Grandma), Row Row Row Your Boat, and B-I-N-G-O. Then Mama Says--come hear the story! And both kids sit with her on the bed and read 2 story books. After the stories are done, we hold hands in a circle and sing Jesus Loves Me and say our prayers. Right now we are particularly praying for Papa because he's been feeling yucky from radiation treatments.

7:00-Into bed! Princess Baby heads to her bed right after the last Amen and gets tucked in with her blankie and her babies. Then Mr. Boy gets to go downstairs with Mama or Big J and sit and drink a little more milk. Then he gets tucked into his bed for the night.

After only 7 days of this new, specific routine, it is going very well. Everybody goes to bed calmly and stays there till morning time. When Big J is home, he fixes Mama and Big J's dinner while Mama does the baths and special time, and relaxes while the grill heats up or the oven cooks food as well. It's Big J's first chance to be by himself all day, so it's a good down time for him, too!

New House Part 1: Mr. Boy's New Room

2010-08-07T19:48:00.002-05:00

Here are a couple photos of Mr. Boy's new bedroom! He has his special Redskins blanket he got for a shower gift before he was even born on his wall--just like in every bedroom he's ever had, his (messy) Elmo bed, and you can see he's got the Little Tyke Slide, too! He's excited that he gets the slide in his room. There is an un-pictured corner of the room that still holds a few boxes, but when that's done he gets to have the play school in his room, too! The walls are a little bare because he is going to be earning some special Go Diego Go stickers for decoration when he fills his next potty chart with stickers. So for now, he's got a few random pieces of sports equipment and his name!

The Stair Safety Gate

2010-08-07T19:18:00.004-05:00

We love our new stair safety gate!!

We got this one, and we love it! It's a Carleson Extra Wide. We bought it from CSN Stores.

Through my friend The Cotton Wife, I was given a contact at CSN Stores and they offered me a gift certificate in order to try ordering one of their products and reviewing it here at the Bowling Team Blog. Since we were moving to the new house with stairs, it was a great time to order our gate through the CSN site. When I clicked there I found they sell nearly every type of item for the home and family you could possibly imagine so I was able to have a choice between many different safety gates when I chose this Carleson one. And the CSN store has free shipping on many items!

I ordered this on a Friday and got it on a Thursday--not too bad when you take into account I put the wrong address with my billing info because I forgot we already had changed our address at the bank!

As you can see in the photo, the extra wide size fit our top of the stairs area really well. It comes as wide as 44 inches and our entry there was 42.5. I believe Carelson also offers additions for larger spaces you might need to gate off. The opening is one that takes 2 hands most of the time--which is a very good thing for keeping the children from opening it up and tumbling down. The little red thing pulls back and then the handle lifts up and you ease on through. (Or you painstakingly help a little person like Mr. Boy or Princess Baby through it and hold your breath as they carefully navigate down the stairs holding the railing!)

The speedy free delivery couldn't have come fast enough, since Princess Baby managed to tumble down those steps on the first day of our living in the house--Papa had the gate installed but didn't get here in time to do it before she had her first spill. Thankfully, she wasn't hurt badly and just got scared mostly, but it sure re-enforced our enthusiasm for it!! The picture of the door with the butterfly on it is Princess Baby's room--you can see how super close the doorway is to the top of the stairs--so even if she wasn't trying to play on the stairs, her enthusiasm for hopping and prancing as she walks could lead to big time trouble if not for the trusty new gate from CSN stores!

8 Thumbs Up from the entire Bowling Team!

We love our new house!!!

2010-08-06T18:18:00.003-05:00

Oh my goodness! Although the month of July was insanely stressful and busy with packing and finding a new house it was SO WORTH IT. Take it from Mama, this is a great house.

We are super happy in it, and life is grand.

Things we each love:

Big J: He loves, not necessarily in this order: our garage with nice shelves and hooks for hanging things; the lawn service included in our rent; our super big bedroom so that Mama's office space is not intrusive, our gigantic closet, and that Mama is happy.

Mr. Boy loves: The stairs, even though he is NOT allowed to play on them; his new room with lots of bright sunshine and his slipper slide right near his bed; the big new bathtub in the big new bathroom--he and Princess Baby can hold a swim meet in there; and the big vanity mirror and sink in the new bathroom--he likes to crouch down below the counter and then watch himself pop up in the mirror.

Princess Baby loves: her new room with her name on the wall by her bed; running and zooming between her room and Mr. Boy's room in the nice wide hallway upstairs; the fact that the play kitchen is now in her bedroom--this morning she microwaved a duck in celebration!

Mama loves: that all the bedrooms and bathrooms (2 of them!!) are soo big and brightly lit by sunshine from big windows (not in the bathrooms), the big open floor plan on the first floor--we have our living/dining/and even an open sided kitchen so the whole family can be together; a pretty fireplace to hang stockings from come December, a garage so it easier to load everyone into the car in all weather; and the gate at the top of the stairs. (More on that in the next post this weekend!)

The move was super hard work, Big J did all the packing and Papa A. and his good friends moved all our boxes and furniture in 3 short hours on Wednesday afternoon. Pastor L. loaned us a van to help with transportation. Grammy and Mrs. H. and M. watched Princess Baby and Mr. Boy for a very long day while everybody else moved and cleaned and got the new house ready for them to see it.

The Bowling Team is very blessed to live in a lovely new house and have such kind and generous friends and family to help us and make our settling in so much easier.

We can't wait to post pictures of our pretty new home but we gotta get all these boxes out of the way first!

Product Reviewing Coming Soon!

2010-07-25T15:52:00.005-05:00

As I said in my last post, we are moving to a new house in now, about 10 days? Whew! Big J has been doing great with the packing and we got about 30 more boxes today so we're moving along nicely now as we get this show on the road.

Another feature of our new house new to the Bowling Team will be stairs. Our kids have been on Grammy and Papa's stairs but that's about it. So we are going to be ordering this gate and putting it at the top of the stairs.

I am ordering it from CSN stores and we're super excited because that's a website with free shipping! CSN stores have everything from furniture to rugs and kitchen things--even Corelle dishes! Very useful when you figure it is heavy-ish. It's funny because the gate has a little cat door in it. We don't have a cat, but we do have little kids who are mechanically inclined and the main gate fastener looks a lot like the ones on the church nursery gates that Princess Baby and Mr. Boy cannot open.

I'm going to post pictures and write a review of our new gate from CSN Stores as soon as we are moved and have it installed!

Boxes, Boxes Everywhere

2010-07-22T11:31:00.002-05:00

The Bowling Team is relocating! Not far, just about 1 mile.

We are thrilled to be getting a new house! Our current little home served us nicely for our first place in the Sunflower State but we are blessed to be able to upgrade this year.

Our new house was built fairly recently and has the following features we do not enjoy in our current place:
a garage
2 full bathrooms
bigger bedrooms
electric fireplace
lawn care provided by management company (Big J LOVES this one)
free use of a private community swimming pool

That's quite a change for the positive!

We will be experimenting with sleeping arrangements. Our new house has an open floor plan on the ground floor, so even though it is bigger than our current living space, there is not a separate playroom space to house Princess Baby and Mr. Boy's TV, their kitchen, table and chairs, and mountains of toys. So the current plan will be for the tykes to share a bedroom and use our 3rd room as a playroom. I think it will work, since they're the best of friends. It's not an arrangement that is impossible to change if it is too big of a challenge for sleeping, but the idea is worth a shot! Late night giggling will probably happen, but that is OK by Mama--they might sleep later the next morning!

Princess Baby

2010-07-21T16:16:00.003-05:00

Our pretty little Princess Baby is a big 2 year old girl now! (No I'm not changing her name.)

PB celebrated her 2nd birthday in May with a fantastic Princess Party with all her little Sunday school friends and some grown up family and friends, too.

Her favorite person in the entire world is Mr. Boy and they play together all day long, running and giggling and talking all throughout the house. It is a wonder she doesn't conk out on the couch more often as much as those two play!

She is quite the little girly girl. Princess Baby loves to have her hair fixed, wear pretty skirts and dresses, play with her babies, and look in the mirror. Big J has a big affection for looking in the mirror, too, so Mama thinks that PB is a chip off the old block where that is concerned!

PB also loves to sing--just yesterday Mama caught her standing in front of a full length mirror spinning and singing her favorite songs "Old Donald" and her ABC's. She wakes up chatting and goes to sleep grinning and saying "See you later, Mommy!"

Mr. Boy

2010-07-21T16:08:00.002-05:00

Mr. Boy is now a happy, healthy 3 1/2 years old. He's a ray of sunshine as bright as the curls on his head and he has been busy growing and changing the past 6 months. We have learned that Mr. Boy may be a member of the Asperger's Syndrome club, and we've got a super nice Miss Teacher who comes to our house once a week to play games and help Mr. Boy get ready for preschool in the fall. He has some doctors and special helpers to visit with in August and September to help us learn more about how to help Mr. Boy use his Great Brain and enthusiasm to his best advantages.

Things Mr. Boy is currently loving:

swimming! He took swimming lessons with Papa at the pool for 2 weeks and graduated with a certificate full of stickers and a coupon for a free pizza.

cookbooks! Mr. Boy loves to find a type of book he likes and indulge--he is currently obsessed with looking at Mama's Sandra Lee and Pampered Chef cookbooks and has all the pictures memorized by the recipe titles. His favorite picture is of the Tamale Pie in the Sandra Lee book.

Presidents! We have a book with pictures of the presidents and Mr. Boy loves to read through it and tell us who each picture represents. Millard Fillmore is a favorite but with his little guy way of talking, it sounds more like Miwward Fiwwmowe. But we know who he's talking about!

Tigers! Mr. Boy loves books that have pictures of tigers, a DVD we have about Swamp Tigers and the tigers in the movie 'Kung Fu Panda'.

Mr. Boy is planning to join a pre-school class 2 mornings a week in September and it is going to be a whole new world of making friends and learning in a new environment.

Update on the Team Captains

2010-07-21T16:01:00.003-05:00

Mama and Big J have been busy helming the Bowling Team lately but we've had some time to get more settled, too.

Big J had a nice break from his job for a few months during the slow business months and we all got spoiled rotten having him home--could be why Mama let the blog get ignored?

Now Big J is back to work and we are enjoying the return to our 'real routine.'

Mama has joined the DAR and the missions committee at church to give her some outside projects that aren't career or kid related. The two groups meet often enough to make friends, but not so much that it is a stress to be involved--perfect!

Now that the kids are bigger and older, Mama has had a little more time in the kitchen, rediscovering the love of entertaining she had before Mr. Boy-related morning sickness kicked in about 4 years ago. We had an Asian-themed Father's Day dinner for Papa and Big J in June and last weekend Mama channeled her inner Martha and hosted a tea party for Grammy and her friends. Check out the yummy goods!

what have we missed?

2010-07-21T15:46:00.007-05:00

Gonna try to hit a few highlights of the past un-blogged months here.

So here we go!

Christmas 2009 was our first Kansas Christmas and it was super. We had about 2 feet of snow and it was bitter cold, but Aunt Haley and Uncle Mike came from North Carolina, Uncle Raymond from Seattle, and we had a really fun week of celebrations.

The kids got a new kitchen! It was a big hit, and Princess Baby got a new dolly which was a favorite surprise, too.

We didn't do much by way of vacation this year but we did spend a fantastic day in Wichita on Good Friday with our cousins there. Princess Baby and Mr. Boy especially loved the Children's Exploration Place museum where everything was touchable and there was a special Mr. Potato head exhibit the kids loved.

We also celebrated a very happy Easter here for the 2nd year in a row! Easter is such a wonderful time of year both as it relates to our faith in God and as the earth wakes up from a winter nap! Easter egg hunts at church and at Grammy and Papa's back yard were conducted in full sunshine!

Time for a Revival of the Team Blog!

2010-07-21T15:23:00.002-05:00

Whew, I last posted around Thanksgiving. That's certainly lame, isn't it?

What has happened since then? About 11 billion things, give or take.

But the team is doing excellent, as a group and individually.

We passed our Sunflower State 1 year residency anniversary back in April. That first year flew by super quick. But moving here was a really great decision and we're so happy it has worked out so well.

A great blessing, to be sure.

The blog needs a revival so that I can get my act together and share more of the day to day cuteness, hilarity, and joys we as a team experience together!

I think it would be a self-set up for failure to promise a post a day but 3 a week is my minimum goal.

Princess Baby Is Wigging me OUT!

2009-11-23T21:12:00.002-06:00

I've written many times about how Mr. Boy loves letters and words and sounding things out. And how we have the Leapfrog ABC magnet set.

Mr. Boy has loved to bring us the letters for months telling us what they are and what they sound like.

A couple weeks ago, when Princess Baby started talking a lot, she started carrying around letter magnets and calling them all "D's" because that is a letter she apparently liked.

Tonight after work I was distractedly talking to the sitter before she left and Princess Baby came up to me and handed me a letter and said K. It was a K! So I think, must be a fluke, or Mr. Boy told her. But no, in the course of the next hour, she brought me over a dozen different letters, all with the correct designation. Then I tested her further and sent her to find the N or the O and she brought back the right ones!

Princess Baby isn't just a pretty face, ya'll!

Mr. Boy on Animal Diets

2009-11-19T23:36:00.003-06:00

Mr. Boy has a new library book with baby animals in it and on the last page there is a tiger cub and the final line says something about him playing hard and needing a snack. The following conversation ensued:

Mama: "What snacks does the tiger eat?"
Mr. Boy: "Tiger eats peanuts."
Mr. Boy then takes the book from me and starts paging back through to the other animals.
Mama: "What does the goat eat?" (The picture is of a lamb but Mr. Boy is obsessed with goats, so he has declared this particular goat-ish looking lamb a goat.)
Mr. Boy: "Goat eats smarshmallows (sic)."
Mama: "What does the Duck eat?"
Mr. Boy: "Duck eats duck food."
Mama: "What does the bunny eat?"
Mr. Boy: "Vegetables and pops. Bunny says pop."
Mama: "What does Mr. Boy eat?"
Mr. Boy: "Mr. Boy eats smarshmallows, peanuts, goldfish, and Mr. Boy no like vegetables."

Maybe Mr. Boy should change his name to Mr. Healthy??

Proud and a little sad

2009-11-12T23:32:00.002-06:00

Today we took Mr. Boy to visit his new preschool. I'm so excited that he's nearly 3 and ready for 2 afternoons a week of big boy school. It's really great.

But I'm sad. My first little baby is growing so fast. He's so tall and smart and talks a blue streak. I cannot believe he's old enough for school. I know it is only pre-school, but here it is. I'm now a mom who has a class list. A mom who will have a kid invited to birthday parties or play dates (assuming he learns to socialize like I hope!). A mom who will talk about spring break and back to school clothes. A mom on the list to help with classroom parties.

This is the beginning of an era in parenting that will last in one form or another for 15 more years. And I thought the baby stage was lasting forever, but I am coming to terms with the fact that everybody saying 'they're only babies for a minute' is so true and suddenly I'm going to be sharing my sweet Mr. Boy with people from all over the place. First it'll be these few half days a month and the next thing I know he'll be borrowing my keys to drive himself to his own school and begging me NOT to attend a class party or social event.

For now I'm choosing to be very excited that Mr. Boy is a strong, healthy kid who is getting a great opportunity to go to a nice Christian pre-school where he'll meet more adults who teach him about love and respect and venture into the wonderful world of friends and learning.

And I'm also going to be secretly rejoicing that Princess Baby is an end-of-spring Birthday girl and won't be old enough for this particular pre-school for another year and a half!!

Raising Bookworms

2009-11-09T19:21:00.002-06:00

As a mom who loves books, it is my hope that Mr. Boy and Princess Baby also learn to really love to read. I never hesitate to buy them books and taking them to story time is a favorite for me as well as the kids.

Story time is especially fun because of all the cool songs and rhymes. We read a couple books and then we get to do "Grand Old Duke of York," and "Head/Shoulders/Knees and Toes," "I Have a Blue Balloon," and the special clapping, hugging, waving bye song we do every week at the end. What has been neat is the fact that when Mr. Boy or Princess B are sad, we can cheer them up easily with a little Duke of York or Clapping song here at home, too.

Books the kids really love the most include: Skippyjon Jones board books, of course the Princess Baby and Princess Baby Night Night stories, one called Duck Dunks about duckies at the beach, Mr. Boy's Wonder Pets animal seek and find book, and our set of books featuring baby Sesame Street characters. We also have a great book of prayers for kids and three awesome picture Bibles.

For Christmas I have stowed away some books about farm animals and some Sandra Boynton specialties like The Belly Button Book and her ABC's book. Wouldn't be Christmas morning without some new books, right?

Belated Happy Halloween!

2009-11-09T19:18:00.002-06:00

The kids enjoyed their first Kansas Halloween very much. They wore a cool pumpkin costume to their respective story times and then on the big day we went Trick-or Treating in Grammy and Papa's neighborhood with our special visitor from Western KS. It was so great to have Great-Granny R. here for a couple days so the kids could get to know her. The fact that it coincided with Halloween fun was just an added bonus. Our church also had a great fall festival night so after T or T-ing, we hit the church where the kids played games and got candy and had a blast.

Scunny School

2009-10-19T12:24:00.003-05:00

Mr. Boy and Princess Baby are so blessed, they go to a church full of people that love them. Mr. Boy goes to kinder church, aka Sunday school for 2-5 year olds. They have snacks and sing songs, say prayers and learn Bible stories and how much Jesus loves them. It is so special. The teacher is a very nice lady named Miss Mary Lou and she even sends us cards and SS papers when we're absent. Princess Baby plays in the nursery and she has a nice lady named Grandma Lola who loves her babies and takes such wonderful care of them. Princess Baby has a little friend who is 2 weeks from her own birthday and they play with the baby dolls and hug them and take good care of them, learning from the best.

Mr. Boy likes to pray to Jesus, he folds his hands, squinches up his face (eyes are open, but he thinks they're closed) and he loves to say AAAAAAMEN!

Here they are all dressed for going to church.

Pumpkin picking!!

2009-10-19T12:16:00.006-05:00

Yesterday the whole team celebrated fall with Grammy and Papa at Westside Market buying pumpkins. It was so fun. We got a nice big one and a little one for Papa to decorate with Mr. Boy and Princess Baby as well as two medium ones for the kids to decorate at home with Mama and Big J. It was very fun and put us in a delicious Halloween/fall mood!

Visiting Great Grandma

2009-10-19T12:13:00.003-05:00

Mr. Boy and Princess Baby were able to go with Mama and Grammy last Thursday to visit Great-Grandma. She lives in assisted living and so it is challenging to keep the toddlers happy there, but they must know how much their Great Grandma adores them because they were super well-behaved and just as sweet as they could be. Mama was so proud.

Going to do better now!

2009-10-19T12:06:00.002-05:00

Because I am now in possession of a working camera, keeping up with this blog will be more fun and way more easy!

Update on the Team:

Big J: He's enjoying his job, possesses a real life KS driver's license and is embracing his Midwestern status.

Mama: busy busy busy with work and loving the one-on-one time she's having with the kids on Big J's work nights

Mr. Boy: no luck potty training, but Mama doesn't care, has progressed from knowing all the letters in the alphabet and being able to identify the starting letter in each word he says to working on the letter combos--ch, st are his first two. Can count to 10 and knows every animal under the sun

Princess Baby: Much less baby than before, but she's a still our happy princess and the youngest, so the name stays! Almost 18 months old now, she's talking more and more, saying sentences like "read the book" and "get down now." She loves to steal toys from Mr. Boy and run squealing and laughing away from him. To his credit, Mr. Boy's not a hitter and expresses his outrage at her verbally only.

REALLY belated family update time

2009-07-21T23:45:00.005-05:00

Mr. Boy and Princess Baby enjoying the summer, the farm, the zoo, and PB's 1st birthday.

Mama and Big J have been super busy enjoying summer with Mr. Boy and Princess Baby so we just now are putting an update on the old family blog.

Big J news: He started his new job this week. He's enjoying it, and we're adjusting to the schedule changes.

Mama news: not much, really. Working, playing, hanging out with the kids and family are the main priorities these days.

Mr. Boy news: much more interesting stuff!

He now knows his ABC's. He knows all the names of almost any animal you can see a picture of in a book or on a flashcard. He is currently obsessed with watching Kung Fu Panda and Babe. He talks non-stop and loves people. He remembers the names of everyone he meets, even after just one time and loves to talk about the people he knows. This summer he's been swimming, been to the big zoo in Salina, the great-grandparents' farm twice, a birthday party for his friend from church, a full 6 weeks of library story times, a puppet show at the library, and loves his life. Still ahead this summer for Mr. Boy is a week of VBS in August where he'll be in the 2 year old class and more fun in the sun!

Princess Baby news:

The little lady started walking the day before her 1st birthday, so she's been off and running for a little over 2 months now. She's still not a huge talker, but she says "hello," "milk," "mama," "dada," "go," "nonononono," and "duck." Sometimes she'll say something that sounds like book, too. She loves books and brings us books all the time, bouncing on her feet until we pick her up to read to her. She also attended 6 weeks of story time and enjoyed it a lot, too. She has also become quite a fixture in the church nursery, no longer wailing and crying all the time but having fun with the other kids and the nice lady Grandma Lola who watches over the kids. She also recently made a smooth transition from bottles to sippy cups without incident. No more Bottles for Bowlings!

Big J has news!

2009-05-08T00:00:00.002-05:00

Big J had a job interview today and he got a great part time job!! We're so pleased to be blessed in this way. He'll be working 3-11 pm 3 days a week. It works great with our schedule and we'll be able to hire sitters for Mr. Boy and Princess Baby for a couple hours a day for Mama to finish up workdays.
Brilliant!
The job starts on July 6, too, so we're happy to keep Big J in vacation/Kansas Adapting mode for about 8 more weeks, too!
We already had a sample babysitter this afternoon during the interview and Miss G was a lovely girl who played great with the kiddos. She's got a sister so we're hoping it works out for Misses G and S to share the job come July. At any rate Mama and Big J are happy to have some sitters on the roster so we don't always have to pester G & G!

What Mr. Boy is learning right now

2009-04-30T01:08:00.003-05:00

After Mr. Boy was able to learn over 40 states in his United States book, Mama realized that she should take advantage of this apparent gift of memory and retention and try to spend one-on-one time with him to help him learn some basics.

Mama's main focus lately has been colors, letters, big boy things, and a Bible memory verse.

Colors are going OK. Some colors he always gets right, like orange and yellow. He has a clear favorite in blue, however, because when randomly asked what color things are, "blue" is far and away the most popular answer. When he's on a roll, he knows K-State Purple, blue, pink, orange and yellow. But that requires focus and Mr. Boy is smart, but he's got the attention span of a gnat on speed.

For letters we're employing 3 different tools and it is working so well. In his Easter basket, Mr. Boy received the Leapfrog Fridge Phonics toy and he loves to carry around his letters and consistently identifies many of his favorites (J, X, W, U, P, O, T, A, E, M, and N) correctly. Mama also got lucky at a local 'next to new' sale and found a stuffed Leap toy that has a full alphabet keypad on it's tummy. Mr. Boy loves his talking frog that comes with many letter, number, and color games, plus it is personalized with a little computer in back--so the stories and songs feature his own name. Mama also got a box of Sesame Street ABC flashcards for Mr. Boy and he loves to snuggle in her lap and discuss what all his favorite characters are doing in the pictures. Then when the cartoon side of the cards are exhausted, he tolerates going over the bold faced letters on the back very nicely. Between the 3, success is at hand!

In the world of "big boy training," Mr. Boy is getting a soft sell on giving up his bottles and diapers. Mama is very reticent about potty training and Big J doesn't want a boy who won't sleep at night, so no aggressive stances have been taken, but the books "No More Diapers for Ducky" and "No More Bottles for Bunny" are big favorites to read over and over, so hopefully some of that message will sink in? The fabulous Frog toy also has a special Potty computer chip insert thing and so a lot of the songs and stories Frog tells Mr. Boy are big boy activity related. One big boy thing Mr. Boy is doing very well is helping pick up toys, throwing away trash, and bringing Princess Baby a toy now and then. He gets a lot of praise for his big brother and big boy helper accomplishments, and seems to puff up with pride at the compliments.

Our current Bible verse is "Children obey your parents." Mr. Boy is a good little boy but he's very, very curious and busy and has a bad habit of not listening very well. So we're really trying to impart the value of obedience to him. He's learning the ABC's and colors WAY faster than obedience, but that's OK, we still adore our curly-haired Mr. Boy!

Let's Roll!

2009-04-24T09:32:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the newly founded Bowling Team Blog.

Since we left so many awesome pals back in VA, and we have so many relatives and friends, we thought we should make a blog to share what the Team is up to, share photos, update everyone on Mr. Boy and Princess Baby.

What we're doing now:

Big J is adjusting to life in the Midwest. He's finding his way around town, appreciating the lack of traffic, loving the new house setting with lots more room to roam, and hunting down the perfect part time job to fit our schedule and needs. He's also gearing up to teach music lessons in the fall once we have all our other important stuff organized.

Mama is getting used to living in KS again after 14 years away. So far it has been worth the stress and wear and tear of the move. Working in the transplanted Home Office, aka Desk in the Corner of the Bedroom picked up as seamlessly as we hoped it would--the work routine came together so well.

Mr. Boy is quickly adapting to his new home. He loves living so close to his grandparents, he runs around in the backyard whacking things with his baseball bats and giggling, and enjoying "Special Mama Time" aka Homeschool Preschool every night. At our new church Mr. Boy has a new friend, Noah, and he has been going to Children's Church eagerly. He loves his "class" as he calls it and even learned his first memory verse: "You are the Christ, son of the Living God."

Princess Baby is rapidly approaching her big 1st birthday on May 13 and she's just a lovely little lady already. She is sleeping all night every night now in her new room. It took about 2 weeks to adjust but she's doing beautifully now. Grandpa taught her to stand on her own and she's just dying to take off and walk. She loves to crawl around and explore, indoors and out. Indoors she comes around corners in the hallway or rooms and pops her head around with a big 4-tooth grin. Outside she tries to eat leaves and laughs at her bat-wielding brother.