Girly Nouns

In Latin this week we're covering feminine nouns. The example our text uses is table. I explained to the boys about masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns in English. Then, I told the boys that in Latin, all tables are girls.

Z found this to be hysterically funny. He laughed and laughed, and even after he finally got his giggles under control, any time I mentioned the word table and he'd start up again.

However, L had a deeper thought. "Mom, are tables girls in Latin because that's who usually serves them?"

sigh

Z's Seventh Birthday

Z had been planning his birthday for months. Originally he wanted a dragon cake like J's, then he wanted a pirate ship cake, and he finally settled on the castle cake. He wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch and have Cheeseburger Soup for dinner.

We celebrated on Sunday so we could celebrate with Grandma & Grandpa L and Aunt Sh (Sunday was the last day of their visit). I baked the cake Saturday morning and then stayed home from church Sunday morning to decorate it. It was a cool, rainy day and I added to much milk to the icing, and it was thinner and heavier than I had planned (normally I make cakes on dry days, since most days, especially mornings, are dry). My first plan to quickly decorate the cake with "stars" didn't work--the stars were droopy and so heavy the turrets started sinking into the cake and tipping. So I went with plan B, and spread the icing on (I'm really bad at spreading icing on, but thankfully I was able to leave it rough looking, since it was supposed to be castle walls) and used a toothpick to make mortar lines. Z was thrilled when he returned home from church.

We headed to Chuck E Cheese with the hope that we'd be able to get home in time to see some of the Packers. If you guys are forced to go this establishment, I recommend taking 1 adult per child. It goes a lot more quickly when all children are able to play their tokens simultaneously. We were in and out of there in under 2 hours, and were able to make it home to see the 2nd half of the Packers game. Z, being the good son that he is, has developed into a loyal Packers fan. He says when he sees them he just gets this feeling he can't describe (and no, all you doubters out there, I don't think it's the feeling that he's about to vomit). L, on the other hand, has decided he likes the Broncos. Of all the teams he could pick, he had to pick the team that beat us in the SuperBowl? Hopefully it's just some sort of rebellious phase. Anyway, the point of this is that we watched the last half of the Packers game (and they won), and it wasn't complete parental neglect of the birthday boy because he's a fan, too.

After the game Z opened presents. He was thrilled. He received a Lego kit, Imaginext dinosaur, Power Ranger sword, and a green scooter. He also received a green football that L picked out for him. And a green bike. Does anyone care to guess what Z's favorite color is?

After some time out front we had dinner. It was "Scrumptious" and "Delicious" according to Z. Then we ate the castle cake.

All in all it was a great day. Z was happy, but claims he feels the same as when he was 6.

The Cake

We celebrated Z's 7th birthday a few days early while we still had family in town. Z requested a castle cake, so that's what he got. I'll have to come back at another time and fill in the details, but I've had requests to see the cake so I thought I'd post it quick.

Our Revised Schedule

Here's our revised schedule. Should we take bets on how many of these I'll have this year?

If you click on the picture, it will take you to an enlarged picture.

I'm Not Saying You Smell Funny, but...

Nan over at Life is Like a Lunchbox is having another giveaway contest. This time it's the Summer Soap Celebration.

Check it out...after all, who doesn't like to smell good?

So Much to Blog, So Little Time

First, I've won an award. Don't tell the boys it's a nice award. They're likely to stage an extravagant protest. Andie over at and the mama thinks I'm nice. Isn't she nice? I'm supposed to give it to 7 other nice bloggers, but all the nice ones I know have received the award already.

Next, Lucky IV has gone to run on the great wheel in the sky. I'm gonna miss him. Since we moved him into the school room, he's been the only one up with me when I exercise in the morning, so we were friends. He got out of his cage Thursday night. We were carrying in groceries when L yelled "There's Lucky!". In the kitchen. This means he got out of his cage and climbed a set of stairs. Cr caught him and returned him to his cage. I noticed this morning that he wasn't watching me, so I checked and he wasn't moving. I don't know if he ate something funky while he was out or if he climbed out because he was already dying.

Finally, I've had to revamp our schedule. I'll post a revised edition hopefully this week. It was too distracting for L to have the little guys in for fun stuff and then trying to buckle down and concentrate on Math and Latin. Two funny notes about L and math. He'd been dragging out his 100 math fact sheets for hours. I started wondering why I was having him do them (he knows his facts and we've got fact review software, too). So after it took him about an hour to do 60 problems, I told him that if he finished the last 40 in under 10 minutes he would only have to do fact sheets on test days. He finished the remaining 40 in 6 minutes. Grrrr. Then a day or two later, he drug his lesson out for about 2 hours, and I was doubting that I'd ever successfully taught him anything. So I told L to put it away and he'd do it when Daddy was home. At 7 o'clock that night, Cr told him he had an hour to finish or he'd be punished. L finished in 20 minutes. Without any errors. Double Grrrr. The next day we did math first and he was able to focus much better, hence the schedule change.

I Heart Craigslist

I posted the ugly couch on Craigslist yesterday after 4:00 (complete with a picture). It was gone by 2:00 today. I had three people who wanted it. The person who got it said in her email to me "I would totally dig this super groovy sofa bed, pls let me know if you still have it !!!". Uh, "super groovy"? I thought that was a pretty optimistic characterization of the couch, but who am I to argue?

It's the End of an Era, Jethro.

(Start Banjo Hillbilly Music Now)


It's the end of an era here at the Academy. Here is a picture of the sturdiest, ugliest couch ever made. This is the couch that used to hide in the school room under a blue-checked, poorly fitted slipcover. This couch was given to my parents back in the early '90s (and why does back in the early '90s sound so long ago?!). When Cr and I bought our first home, my parents offered us this sofabed for our very empty basement. That was back in the day, before kids, and we still owned a pickup truck. We toted this well made piece of furniture 1100 miles back home. They also donated a lot of other furniture, so the bed of the S10 pickup truck was piled high and tied securely with rope. And we covered it all with a tarp. And we held the tarp in place with duct tape. The only state we didn't get odd looks in was Arkansas. If memory serves me right, we got a few admiring glances and smiles in that fine state. Oh, yeah, and when we got home, it wouldn't fit down the narrowish staircase to the basement, so Cr had to cut the legs off and reattach them. (And Andie, if you notice, this piece of finery is on the back patio)

This is why the era of the ugliest couch ever made is coming to an end. We purchased new living room furniture and it was delivered today. The sofas are microfiber, which we were told is the best choice with 5 boys. We'll see. The coffee table and end tables are new, too. And the paint is new, too (well, it's a few weeks old). I'm pleased with how it's all looking, but it sure smells like a furniture store.


For anyone interested, I posted updated pictures of the schoolroom with the old-upstairs-couch-but-new-to-the-schoolroom couch in the Our School Room post. The boys are excited to have a couch that they can sit on without me screeching "don't sit on that or you'll mess up the slipcover!".

Boys!

--Cr & I were sitting on the couch talking. M came up to us, very distressed and complaining about something. Before we could figure out what was wrong, J came running up and said:

"Oh, here's your toothbrush, M. I couldn't find mine, so I just used yours".

Ick.

--At dinner the other night, Z was eating his fruit salad with his fingers. I told him to use his fork.

Z: "It doesn't work."
Mommy: "So get a spoon."
Z: "That won't work, either."
Mommy: "That's why you need to practice. You need to use your fork to eat your salad."
Z (very frustrated): "I've been practicing for 4 years! And it still doesn't work!".

--Cr had a talk with the older two boys about the birds and the bees. I wasn't home at the time, but Cr told me he'd had a talk with them. I asked him how the boys handled the information, and was told that at the end of the discussion L said, "Ok. But you know, we probably won't think about this a lot for awhile. We've got other things to think about....you know...toys, books...video games..."

--At the dinner table the other night I said "I need to blog that".

L: "What's a blog?
Daddy: "It's where Mommy posts all you boys' most embarrassing moments for the world to read".
(L looks at Z with his eyebrows raised, and they both start laughing)
L (looking serious): What is it really, Dad?

Heh, heh, heh.

Yes, This Is a New Post

While on the phone with my mom the other day, she told me I needed to write a new post. "The last post was in July" she said. With all of J's medical testing, I've been trying to stay busy with non-thinking tasks, and believe it or not, I think when I post here.

Turns out one of my favorite tasks when trying not to think is painting. I spent 4 days a couple of weeks ago painting our main level and both of the boys' bedrooms. I spent Tuesday and yesterday painting the basement.

On Saturday, Cr told me we should put the ugliest, most sturdy couch ever made on the back patio. I reminded him we'd need the bed for when his parents come at the end of the month. He said he knew that, but that putting it out back would force us to get a new couch for upstairs. I told him that if that was his only reason, we should just go look at couches that afternoon. He said nothing.

He took Z and went to a landscaping place, which happens to be near the furniture store. He and Z stopped in and looked at couches. When he got home, he told me to go and take pictures of any I liked. So J & I went to the store and I photographed half a dozen couches. We came home and Cr & I looked at the pictures and decided on our top contender. We all went back to the store and sat on the couch together, and purchased it & the loveseat. And they had the coffee & end tables in stock we wanted, so we went ahead and got those.

This was much more efficient than the last time we bought a couch & loveseat. It was during our honeymoon week. We could agree on nothing. He liked short arms, I liked tall arms; he liked formal fabric, I liked casual fabric. It wasn't a pretty scene, but it was our first real lesson in compromise and we ended up with a set we've liked for 10 years. This set will go in the basement now-the loveseat will go in the playroom and the couch will go in the school room.

I'm so excited! They're due to be delivered on Saturday. I'll take pictures when everything is in place.