Football Practice

I came home from running an errand the other day to this

The boys were having a little football practice.  (It was too windy and dusty to have it outside.)  I'd mentioned to Jeremy that maybe he could help Samuel with his blocking so that's what they were doing.  Philip's whole job was to be the quarterback, which meant he said "hike" whenever Jeremy told him to, or whenever he felt like it, or both.  It was pretty funny. 

Gettting Closer

We're third in line with the house moving company at the moment so it's looking like the house will move the week of October 7th.  They called last Monday afternoon and said the job that is first in line was pushed back a week and would we be ready to move by Thursday?  Unfortunately we had to say no because there was just too much to do in two days, especially because the farmers just started on beans so Jeremy is swamped at work.  But now we have a target date so we can start checking the last few things off the list and schedule the plumber/heating guy and the electrician to come unhook everything before the move, along with the company that's going to frame the laundry room right after the move (otherwise we'll have a big corner of the basement still exposed).  Looks like things are going to get moving again soon!
Chad came and filled in around the house for us (thanks!).

You can kind of see where the ramp in used to be.

The kids like being able to get up close to the basement and are enjoying the echo.  They also climbed down in through the egress windows the other day and ran around.  Julia and Philip couldn't get out by themselves though.

The dirt pile is a bit diminished but the kids still love climbing it.

Good thing this one is cute

because he's a handful!

When he gets mad it takes him a long time to get over it...

Apple Orchard 2012

We went to the orchard a little earlier than usual this year so there were tons of apples to pick. 

 

We chose pumpkins too because the orchard has a $15 family entry fee this year that I didn't want to pay twice.  Then after we were finished paying and were heading out they tell me if you buy more than $40 worth of fruit, which we did, you don't have to pay the entrance fee again if you come back.  Oh well, we'll just enjoy our pumpkins for six weeks before Halloween...

The kids climbed the hay pyramid (which is much taller than this picture makes it look!),

 enjoyed a hay rack ride,

 and played on the tire swing, playset, tricycles and a tire tower.   I especially like the picture in the bottom row when I got all three boys swinging at once.  :)  The kids really liked the corn maze too.  So do I because you can't get lost in it, all the paths eventually lead out, but it's hard to get a picture in a corn maze!

We enjoyed a lot of apples.  Philip ate apples the whole time we were there.  They should have weighed him on the way in and again on the way out- he definitely ate his entrance fee.

We have some applesauce, apple bread and apple cake making in our future!

Flag Football

Samuel is playing flag football this fall.  (Thomas didn't want to and since the age division would have put the boys on two different teams I didn't push it at all.  Maybe next year we'll get him to try it.)  It involves practice twice a week and a game on Saturdays.  So we went to his game this Saturday.

They get a chance to play every position.  Samuel played lineman, running back and something I've forgotten in this particular game.  They "don't keep score" which I think is silly.  Everyone there knows who won and by how many touchdowns even though the official numbers aren't written down anywhere.  I'm okay with winning and losing football games.  That's how football works.  It's important to learn how to be good winners and good losers.  I guess he is learning that- just unofficially.  I thought his coach was taking "losing" a little bit hard for a game where they "don't keep score" and the kids being 3rd and 4th graders but then I'm not a sports person.  I have always said I could never play sports professionally because I just couldn't bring myself to care that much about whether my team won or lost.  That and I've never been in shape in my life.  But I digress...
Samuel is enjoying himself and learning about football and that's what it's all about.

Trains 2012

They changed the train riding weekend and we would have forgotten except Adam B was kind enough to send us a reminder email.  We'd have hated to miss our annual rides. 
There was a little extra excitement when a spark from a steam engine started some brush on fire.  But the engineers worked quickly to put it out and the local volunteer fire department came and soaked down the area so thankfully it didn't amount to anything.
Look!  I'm in a picture!

 Philip is down there by Jeremy's feet.

A fun time as usual!

Hmm,

Someone took it upon herself to cross off two boxes and give herself a smile for putting away her boots and another for putting one toy away.

All chores and smiles now have to be mommy-approved.

We Have a Floor!

They came bright and early to start work.

The dirt pile provided the best vantage point.

The cement yard doesn't have a pumper truck and the pumper truck doesn't have a cement yard.  Seems inefficient to me, but it's interesting to watch the cement truck fill the pumper.

We watched them pour about half of it and then we had to take off for Jeremy's great uncle's funeral.  When we got home it was finished!

Not much to look at but it means that soon we will have a house moving date!

Dear Alfie Kohn,

I know how you feel about rewards.  And you make some very valid points.  It's akin to bribery.  We don't want our kids to think they should get something every time they do a little work.  We don't want them to feel like work is only valuable if you get something in return.  And we definitely don't want to have to continually "up the ante" to get them to do what they should be doing any way.  But Alfie, chore time around here has been ugly.  Not just ugly, U.G.L.Y.  Tears and fits and complaining and ignoring and "why do I have to do this-life is hard when you have a mean mom" ugly.  So like the ex-teacher that I am I made some charts.

And lo and behold chores got done.  With no tears.  No yelling.  No fits. No me having to stand over the kids looking like a mean mom while they work.  Even dinner went better.  No one was still grumpy about having had to do chores or having had to convince the kids to do them.  And Alfie, we all work for a reward to some extent.  Would you still give lectures if you weren't paid?  Maybe you would, but would you do it if you never changed one person's mind?  Would you lecture just because you really love it?  I might teach simply for the love of teaching but if I never impacted one kid's life, never saw the pride in a kid's eye when they accomplished something they'd been working hard for, never saw their smiling faces, I don't think I would.  There's no accomplishment in teaching to an empty room.  And we all want to accomplish something.  Even if we're not working for an earthly reward many of us work for the reward of spending eternity with God in Heaven.  The Ultimate Reward.  So Alfie, I've thought about it a lot, and I'm okay with rewarding my children for a job well done.  I don't plan to reward them for every little thing they ever do, I don't plan to take them to Disney World because they did all their chores for a year without complaining.  And I do plan to have days when we work simply for the glory of God.  But for now, three days of no yelling, complaining or fits during chores is well worth my money.  We'll keep working on understanding the intrinsic value of work.  And until then they'll learn that a job well done has concrete value-50 cents in this case. 

Wow

Samuel entered two things for 4-H at our county fair, and both went to the state fair.  So we (and our 50,000 best friends) went to the state fair over Labor Day weekend.  At the state fair his rubber band car earned a purple and his robot a blue! 

The rubber band car

The robot

I hope he doesn't expect to do that well on everything every year!  :)