Homework....

I can't believe how much Jackson has already learned at school this year. He absolutely loves homework (such a blessing!) and he is recognizing sight words, spelling sight words , writing all the time, and doing lots of math stuff too. He loves patterns, counting (high!!) and has even begun some basic addition too. I am so proud of him! On nights that there is no homework to be done (because we have done it all already!!), he will ask me for work! So i have borrowed things from Mema to use to keep him busy and we invested in a "sight word BINGO" game that both he and Eli love! One of the things we borrowed from Mema is this uppercase/lowercase ABC match puzzle. He still gets confused on some of the lower case letters, so he loves this puzzle....
I didn't even tell him to put it in order... but he did. And when he got to the end, he realized that the Nn was left over & he looked over his work & figured out where it went. (you'll have to excuse the head band.....)This is a picture i found on the back of some of the class work that the teacher sent home.... so he must have a girlfriend (again!!)
And this is some homework that we did just this week. He had to write his family tree... Well, they don't make a family tree for grandparents who are divorced, so i thought this was going to get tricky, and spur lots of questions, but he did great and didn't ask questions even though he has so many grandparents (all the more to love him!) I just kept it simple and asked him who my mom was (Nanny) and who my dad was (Grandaddy) and when i asked their real names, he paused on Grandaddy's name.. so i prompted him a little with what Kenneth calls him "papa wayne" and with Nanny he said "fancy" which i thought was hilarious!! This is funny because he knows she likes Fancy Nancy books because her name is Nancy & that name is so close to Nanny that i know it is confusing to him! When we got to Grandad's real name, i asked him what Mema called Grandad & he replied "honey!" so funny!

We had the first nine-weeks parent teacher conference on Monday & i thought he was doing well, but it was really nice to have it confirmed & for her to tell me he is in the highest literacy group in the class! Yay Jackson! They split the kids up for literacy groups based on their levels of reading, phonological awareness, etc. He is currently considered "early emergent" in his writing level and she showed me where they had to draw a picture & write a sentence about it. He drew a picture of the family eating pizza and the sentence looked like this : "ILKTOITPSU" with no spaces (actually the lack of spaces surprised me because he does use them!) I doubt you can figure out what this means, but i did! It reads, "I LK TO IT PSU" with spaces & if you sound it out, he was writing "I like to eat pizza." SO SMART- yes he is!!! The teacher also told me that he scored a 22/30 in his phonological awareness & that it needs to be a 24 in order to be "mastered" and that most kids aren't expected to have this mastered until well after Christmas. Well, let me tell you he DOES have it mastered because the only area he didn't score in was the rhyming words & he must have drawn a blank that day because he has been rhyming since before kindergarten. He loves to rhyme & will randomly say a words & then rhyme it on purpose. So, i feel certain he actually does have that mastered & i am so proud that he is a full 9 weeks ahead of where he is expected to be in all areas and even further in some areas (her assessment, not mine)- she actually said, "he is doing FANTASTIC!" You have no idea how happy this all made me! I am so proud of his hard work & interest in school! This is a video i took of him today after being SO surprised last night when he was able to read this book! They are starting to send home readers for the kids to read every night for the week, send back on Friday & then get a new one on monday. Last night he read 75% of this book independently, and today, almost the whole thing... see for yourself! Can you believe my child can do this? i wasn't expecting so much so soon!! This is broken into 2 videos... but it is the continuation of his reading the book...



Jackson, Mommy is sooooo proud of you!!

Halloween 2009

Well, i am finally uploading halloween pictures well over a week later! Sorry, but it's been hectic around here!

Rebecca & myself had a halloween party over at her house & it was so much fun! We waited to get the boys dressed until the guests almost were arriving, and this was a little touch & go for Eli for several reasons... 1) he didn't get a nap beforehand and 2) he isn't a fan of safety pins, which i had to use to attach the black parts of his costume on his legs & hands.... so he ended up like this......

But he was SO cute! He was a Blue Crayon for halloween this year & we made the costume out of blue long johns. It was so easy & turned out great!
My favorite part is the back of the leg where it says, "blue"....
Jackson decided that he wanted to be a baseball player. We are friends with a family from church who has 4 boys & the majority of them play baseball. She pulled through for me & let me borrow an entire uniform! Yay! So all we did was add a shirt underneath in case the weather was cool and a ball cap from the closet. He looked pretty cute too!
Here is the baseball player with Emma and Leah... a pink kitty & an angel....We convinced Nanny to come too.... Halloween is one of her favorite holidays & she looked really cute with her hair all spikey & the flower head band in. Even her socks were all festive, but i didn't get a picture of those!Kaleb was able to make it to the party too, but these pictures i got of them all dressed up turned out blurry.... but he was batman..... (Uncle Jeremy got some GREAT shots, so i hope he emails them to me... hint hint....)
The hat (crayon tip) kept sliding off & it really aggravated Eli, so i finally just took it off!!And here they are looking at their great score!!
We hope your halloween was as fun as ours was!!

The style of a 5 year old...

Jackson has found these head bands of mine & taken over! Granted, i have NEVER worn one this way, but he seems to think this is the coolest way to wear it.....
Oh, my! We have our work cut out for us in terms of style with this one! He loves to pick out his outfits & days like these where he looks like this, well, it scares me a little! But it does give me a good laugh too.... you gotta see the boots with the mesh shorts & headband to get the full effect...

How do i take this seriously? I mean, really? But you just gotta love him for it!

Finally.... a Fence!

The week of Halloween, we finally got our fence put up! Yay! We knew as soon as we put an offer on this house that it was in desperate need of a fence. The back yard backs up to thick woods & the left side of the back yard is on a deep slope. I didn't feel safe letting the boys play out back without a fence because i didn't want them back in those woods or anything "from the woods" coming in the back yard. We are so excited it is finally up & it only took them 3 days to get it up! The first day was all posts, the second was the fence boards, & the third day they made the gates & cut out the scallop along the top!

i think it makes the yard look great! At first, i thought it made the back yard look smaller, but i realized that this was because i was looking on from the deck, which is high up on the back of the house. This is my view from the deck... Once i walked to the back corner of the fence, the yard seemed MUCH bigger to me! We have a double gate on one side of the house.....
And we have a walk gate on the other side...I realized after uploading pictures, that i didn't take any from the front of the house (the outside of the fence where it looks the best.... but oh, well! You get the idea!!

The boys have already enjoyed running loose back there & i have already enjoyed having them out there (safe) and i not have to watch their every move!

Lola Girl....

Our sweet Lola girl.... have i mentioned how much we love her??
How can anyone resist such a sweet face? I love her white whiskers & the fact that on one eye, she has black eyelashes. That gives her character!

She waits right here for us anytime she wants to come in the house & happens to be outside....
Or if she happens to want to sharpen her claws.... ;)
Behind her there is our bay window in the kitchen... so she perches herself up on the deck rail & watches us... as soon as we make eye contact... the incessant meowing begins!! She's a chatterbug. And i have to admit... i talk back to her.... (I think we understand one another! ha!)

I'll tell you though... i'm not the only one who understands her......Jackson runs a close second in her book of favorite people!!

A day in the life of....

Or should i say... a SATURDAY in the life of the Moss family. I have a love/hate relationship with Saturdays. It really is a problem, because i LOVE that my family is all together with no pressures to go anywhere or do anything. BUT, because of that.... we are at home & we are ALL at home which means my house ends up looking like this......
There is junk everywhere & if i clean it up.... then i turn around and it looks exactly the same an hour later. So i have decided to let it go. Aren't you all proud?? On this particular Saturday i chose to focus more on the fun the boys were having... doing things like this..... (which didn't last long because it was "too loud." )
Or playing fun games like this.... the boys split up... one on the deck, one on the ground & tossed the Frisbee back & forth....

And who cares if the house is a mess for a few days? That just means we had a good time, right?? ANd the best part was this.....
Do you know what that is?? That's me, in my PJs..... ahhhh... saturdays.....

Art....

At any given day of the week... the corner of my kitchen counter looks like this.....And INEVITABLY, the little black table looks like this..... (Pretty much EVERYDAY....) and this is mild.... trust me......
My kitchen looks like this because my boys are infatuated and obsessed with art of any kind. Seriously, they LOVE to craft... give 'em stickers, glue, markers, or paint & they are content for a long time.
You just have to make sure you are okay with a mess because that is exactly what is to follow!! And they tend to just leave it and walk away....... We are working on that part! I should have taken a picture of the floor... it would have given you better perspective......

An advantage of having a garage....

I have already discovered several advantages to having a garage... but i have to say that by far, my favorite advantage comes not necessarily when it rains, as you would think.... but when Eli falls asleep in the car on those days that he doesn't get a nap before the afternoon carpool line for Jackson....He is such a good napper in general but when he falls asleep in the car, there is no hope- he ALWAYS wakes up when we take him in the house... and then we ALL pay! Not anymore.... because the garage is my friend. I pull in, cut the car off, close the garage door, open Eli's door & then walk my hiney right into the house...... But for those of you wondering.... YES, i do leave my door open to listen out & i check back in periodically!It is so nice & convenient... and i have had to do it farely often.... which works for me! (And for him.... he doesn't mind one bit!!)

A Mitt, too!

Jackson is really getting into baseball these days. He has been playing with his bat & ball outside and is getting really good at hitting the ball. In fact, he about took my head off with a ball one day! This is fun to me because we are a "baseball family". We, meaning, my side of the family. My brother & all my cousins played baseball & i grew up at the ball field. I played softball myself for one year & loved it (but was too chicken to play another year without my sister!) Randy, on the other hand was part of a "basketball family." He grew up living, breathing, & playing basketball & was an excellent player, i might add. So, he says he has a lot to learn if Jackson is going to be a baseball player!

We went to visit Grandaddy & Grandma Tee in Wilmington a couple of weekends ago and the subject of Jackson's growing love of baseball came up. Grandaddy said that Kenneth had outgrown his first baseball mitt that Uncle Jeff had given him. So they went & gave it to Jackson! He was thrilled & Grandaddy showed him a few things about trying to close his hand in the mitt at just the right time when the ball hits the mitt.
They even let Jackson & Kenneth practice in the house. Seriously, this would have never flown when i was a kid. I guess Grandkids really do get away with everything we never did, eh?
And of course, little man wanted a part of the action.... they actually had a bag of mitts from the garage & he picked one out to try out...
So, Grandaddy showed him a thing or two, too!