Eli and the Violin

Eli started taking violin lessons as soon as we moved here. He seems to be catching on. His teacher is Trina C. and she is a lot fun. I am just grateful that he seems to be enjoying it and that I have a violin teacher for all of my kids.  Very blessed.

I think it also helps that Eli is really into earning money these days. He always wants to do money chores so that he can get dollars. Trina has Bach Buck deals where he can earn "money" to spend at her store if he can meet certain challenges she gives him each week. Money speaks to this kid right now. I love it. He is really learning.

Thursday Go Day

Thursday is our busy, on-the-go day.  Violin in the morning, co-op in the afternoon. 

Raef and Zach have violin lessons on Thursday mornings and it lasts from 10am to 11:30am.  That means, I have 90 minutes to kill with three little kids.  

One thing we do, probably about once a month, is hit the local Costco. It is not too far away.  It is usually pretty disastrous with Eli, Harry, and Julia. But it seems that they keep getting a little bit better every time I take them.

Here is Harry and Julia in the cart. Harry was being a real stinker and kept pushing on Julia and nuzzling her.  At first, she thought it was funny, but...

It started to really get on her nerves. I can't blame her. It would bug me too. She must be my daughter.  Harry still thought it was hilarious.  Why stop? He was having fun annoying her to no end.

We also go to the Discovery Children's Museum almost every time.  It has been such a blessing. It is only a mile away from their lessons, and it gives us plenty of time to play. Plus, it is usually pretty empty this time of the week, which makes it a lot easier for me to play zone defense.

Eli is climbing on the cloud structure. He can go all the way to the top by himself.

 Just today we went there and they had lots of fun. We visited the Spark Lab, the DaVinci room and then the <5 room.  And going along with the "Don't annoy Julia" theme...there was a little boy about her age that was following her around with a puppet and putting it in her face. She screamed at him and then pushed him pretty hard. The girl has had lots of practice pushing boys away!  I didn't intervene, but his mom did.  Julia took care of business and the pesky boy left her alone.

Bannister Bedlam

Raef had an adventurous ride this morning, as he was sliding down the bannister. I have always frowned on him doing it, but it first started out innocently just leaning on it and picking his feet up. I think over the weeks he has gotten a lot more daring. So, as I was sitting up in the office, he headed down the stairs and disappears. A few moments later I hear a crash, boom, crackle, and splat. It is all those sounds you never want to hear when you are a mother with little boys in the house. I rushed down the stairs trying to sort out what the heck happened. I see Raef lying on the floor in agony, a casserole dish (that needed to be returned to a neighbor) on the ground and luckily in one piece, and my decorative tile in many, many, many pieces on the floor as well. Raef was very fortunate that he did not break anything on him. There is a green bureau that broke his fall, along with a lamp and that poor decorative tile. The whole episode made my heart skip a few beats, but everything was okay in the end.



The boys had their violin lesson this afternoon. Halfway through it, Rinar walks through the door. I was very surprised. Wow. That was cool. He came straight from the airport to the lesson. I guess he knew where we would be. The last appointment he had in Albuquerque canceled, so he was able to catch an earlier flight. It was fun to have him home early and the kids faces just light up when they see him. I love to see that.

I successfully had school lessons with the boys four days this week. It went really well. Here they are hard at work on Spelling Workout. It is a really good spelling book. I highly recommend it.

Zach is on the second book and to finish up the lesson, it has you give them a spelling test. Well, at first I had him write it, but it was getting overwhelming for him. So, I give him an oral spelling test and then if he gets any wrong, we put it in a "word locker". He doesn't want any words in the locker and I am always trying to get one in there, as an incentive to get him to remember his words. He doesn't spell them wrong very often, so I have only written a few down (true, clue, and grew).

He gets so excited once he spells a word. He jumps up and down and flaps his hands. Zach really loves words and letters. I don't know what he will be when he grows up but I am sure it will involve languages and words, his very favorite thing.

And now, just for fun. Here are some pictures of Eli with his great-grandmothers.