Chillin at COSI

What a blast we had. COSI was empty a week or so ago, and Hendrix enjoyed every moment of his visiting, even cooperating when time to leave, although he had to fight the urge to complain. I was proud of him.

 He was in pipe heaven! This boy is fascinated with pipes, tubes, wires, and many things that connect.

He enjoyed the Ocean but was extra excited to get to Space. He loves the movie Space Chimps, so he knows a lot about space, for an almost 3-year-old anyhow.

He knows so much that when we first went on the capsule and I reached to push the button, Hendrix jumped up and ran off saying, "I don't want go moon. No moon. Stay here on Earth." (The character in the movie accidentally launches himself into space by pushing one button.)
He went down the stairs and studied the underneath. He climbed back up the stairs and studied the entire outside of it. I pointed out that it's just pretend and I promise we won't leave Earth and go to the moon. He believed me.

 He enjoyed landing and moving rovers on the moon, though.

We could have launched the bottle 30 more times, if I hadn't insisted that we move on.

It was a wonderful day of just watching and playing along.

Zanester

It's amazing to me how God uses my kids to share messages and prompt thoughts and prayers. I'm not sure if it gets any clearer than when He uses them to speak to me. The other day, January 22, on the way to school, when were waiting in line to drop him off, Zane asked me about family relationships such as siblings and parents and how DNA and blood are shared between them, and somehow he got to talking about even John Titus has the same blood as him.

Zane went through a list of connections, and from there we went on to how my dad (whose birthday is just a few days away) gets to hold John Titus and his own son Terry James, and how thrilled he must be to have them with him, and so many others he loved dearly. Zane talked about his relatives and those who left impressions: "Even Ryan might be hanging out with your dad and holding John Titus . . ." I chuckled and agreed and thought You know, my dad and Ryan could hang out a little . . . especially as neighbors . . . :-)

This is the investment we're making by transporting our kids to school. I get to listen and talk with them so much during this time, some intentionally and sometimes just random thoughts to ponder and meditate on. And although there are many mornings I wish I could stay in bed, despise going out in the cold, and can't stomach making breakfasts and lunches, I realize that in the big picture I score times like these, you know, the extra big bonuses to parenthood. I'm so blessed.

5-Minute Lessons

Call me crazy or call it the teacher in me, but Hendrix is developing his fine motor skills by painting his toenails silver and by stacking JENGA blocks to play a game. He's also patterning when stacking the blocks correctly. It's the little things . . . ;-)

Buckeyes 2018

I was waiting to sum up the Buckeye season for us until the time was right. It's finally right. :-) Such a big season! The football season started out rough with scandalous news stories and way less than ideal performances, and it ended with emotional wins and a bowing out of admirable head coach.

Eager friends joined us for 1st-time tailgates, our kids fought over who was going to which game, Hendrix proudly rode the bus from our parking spot to tailgate on numerous occasions, kids played and explored with cousins and friends, Hendrix and Hank rolled down the hill and stuck what seemed to be hundreds of organic pieces debris in the sewer drain.

Not Just One Drum

Vanessa has had a wonderful start to 6th grade band. She was chosen to play in a holiday ensemble and travel to different elementary schools to perform. She learned 5 or 6 new songs in 3 weeks and did an amazing job with it all. She's already been told she'll probably need to plan for a spring ensemble too. :-) She was also awarded a scholarship to work with an instructor for extra challenges. As I told her band director, we are just thrilled to see this side of Vanessa blossom in a way we couldn't have predicted, and I so appreciate Mrs. Brocke insightfulness and encouragement along the way!

Vanessa loved doing the bass drum for at least one song. If she had it her way, she would have chosen bass drum for every song, but her ability with the bells and the snare drum resulted in her playing those for most of the songs. She had a snare drum and bells solos and was quite nervous about those, especially with the snare cause it can be so loud, but she didn't miss a beat.

It's diff'rent strokes than what we would have thought for her, but everybody finds a way to shine, and she's finding hers basically all on her own. I'm glad I'm alongside to watch her move her world. :-)

*Sorry for blurriness but these are screenshots from the live feed the instructors shared -- how awesome we watch from the comfort of our own home!

Constructing

He's helping Daddy at work but as he grows and matures, I hope he learns that God loved him before we knew he existed, and although we didn't know at the same time, we learned that we loved him then too.

"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists." ~ Charles Dickens

Breakin'

Hendrix was excited to have Vanessa and Zane home for a couple of weeks. We did a hodge podge of things, from veggin' in our PJs (for longer than we'd like to admit) to releasin' energy indoors and outdoors. We squeezed in a little bit of nothin' and whole lot of hangin'. It was good.

Viewin' Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse!

 There was a lot of racin' Hot Wheels over the entire break.

And a lot of creatin'...

And slimin' . . . (usin' a new kit from the book fair!)

Hendrix taught himself to blow up balloons, so there was a lot of blowin'

We love watchin' Twilight Zone. Here the kids are watchin' the one where the US Air Force visits another planet of really large human like creatures. Zane has always been curious about the episode and little freaked out about it. He was finally able to make sense of it this year.

Bodies were flingin' themselves everywhere but it was awesome to run on our own time.