Finally

Well he finally lost a tooth. 

He was the proudest 7 year old, I’ve ever seen.

Of course the tooth fairy paid him a visit.  Calvin told me he woke up early to see if his tooth was gone, and when I woke him up in the morning his money was on his pillow vs. under like I put it.  He was pleased.

Most of his peers have already lost a lot of teeth by now, so he’s pretty excited to join the club.  Now we’ll see how long it takes for the 3 others that are loose to fall out

Apartment Tour

Well we've been in our new place for 3 months now so it's about time to post some pictures.

I still cannot believe the apartment we've been blessed with.  It has been such a gift to be able to host and entertain with ease and without feeling cramped.  I love that we can send the kids upstairs and that their noise is contained above us.  (I am sure our neighbors are thankful too.)  I love how we can contain most toys upstairs, giving us a place to entertain without having to clean up the entire house and worry about the boys getting out toys 5 minutes before guests are due to arrive.  It feels like a house without the work of maintaining a yard.

So here's the tour.

The only negative of this place is that it's on the 4th floor without a lift (elevator), which makes it a workout to get all our groceries up the stairs and often I'm carrying Judah too.  I call it extra calorie burnage, to keep it positive.  :)

Come on in and take off your shoes and coat.

Head on into our kitchen.

I love and hate the size.  It's a large space to clean and the floor shows every ounce of dirt, stickiness, and crumbs.  I miss my dark tile floors I had in our last apartments, but it makes me have a cleaner kitchen.

Our living room is currently all decked out for Christmas.

I snapped these pictures while the little ornament snatcher was busy.  Usually there are several all over this floor.  Our couch pulls out, and it pretty comfy, so it converts into a great guest room.

We have a toilet downstairs, which is very nice, but with little boys I feel like I'm cleaning this thing all the time.

The boys room is downstairs.  (I've been grateful for the video monitor Mom and Dad.)

Marvin's office is tucked on the side of the stairs, along with our "dryer".  We had intended to buy a dryer once we sold our unneeded furniture in our old apartment since the only place for a drying rack was on the balcony which doesn't work well in the winter.  However after I got into a good routine at our new place we decided that $1,000 would be better saved than spent. 

Marvin built some great shelves for storage under the stairs that holds all or camping, hiking, and outdoor gear that seems to grow by the year.

Upstairs is where we have a big play space for the boys and where we can do school.  Calvin's currently working with his nanny in this picture on his homework for school.  I even have a desk with my craft and sewing supplies, however it's been a coloring center for Micah recently, so I'm sure in time it will transition to a second school desk.

Our bathroom upstairs has a shower and tub.

And our bedroom is upstairs as well.

So there you go, our apartment.  You should stop by sometime.

Rowing

I’ve never spent much time on preschool with Calvin or Micah.  Time just hasn’t allowed it.  Usually my mornings are spent with housework, running, or are meeting someone at the park.  My afternoons are spent in language study.  I’ve always figured my kids were working hard learning a second language so didn’t want to do a formal preschool program, but this year I decided to try something new.  

So Micah and I have been rowing J.  I decided to start with before five in a row this year (BFIAR) vs. Five in a Row, I have books for both, so I’m sure by the time the school year ends we’ll have dipped into the FIAR books. 

So far this is exactly what we needed.  Something that gives Micah my attention, but isn’t too time consuming in the prep for me.  Plus they are really great books we get to read.

Oh and if you have never heard of the curriculum it is literature based.  Each week you choose a book, read it 5 days in a row (hence the rowing) and add some activities to it each day.  Counting, comparison, bible memory, crafts, science, etc.  These activities are already spelled out in the book so it takes the work out for me. 

There are loads of printables for each book, so a quick google search can give us plenty of activities if I don't like the ones suggested in the book suggests.  If you subscribe to FIAR you can also obtain access to free lap books they created.  I’ve enjoyed several other lap book printables I've found on the web and decided to create a book to put them all in.  Thankfully here we can find these sketch books that work perfectly for our school book and I don't have a ton of papers to deal with later.  :)

Micah loves having his own school book, and showing big brother what he’s done while he was at school.  Hopefully this will help with some of the behavioral issues we’re seeing in him as well.  This boy loves attention, but loves one on one time best of all.