Halloween weekend

Here are the highlights of our halloween weekend.  Saturday we hung out together - just relaxing.  That evening we headed to the Medford parade, a long-time family tradition.

Enjoying hot chocolate while they wait for the parade to start. 

Mom, Dad and Indy join the picture. 

This kids interacting with the pirate.  Garrett wanted to know where his eye patch was. 

Love him! 

 The daddy's with the 1 year olds.

The grandchildren did not want to get a picture all together.  

Esther as a princess. 

Olivia as a butterfly. 

Garrett as some sort of Bakugon (sp) character. 

Gideon the giraffe. 

Nora the pumpkin with all the kids.

How do you potty train?

It has begun.  Potty training with Gideon.  I have a feeling we will be in this for a long time.  I am not encouraged at his lack of enthusiasm or bribeability (if that's even a word).  However, I am able to get him to sit on the potty for long amounts of time.  And have had success with him actually going #1 on the potty, so we press on.

The kids can often be found reading to him.  And he is often sitting on the potty in front of the TV.  Neither scenario works for him. . .see below for his trigger.

All alone in the closet - then he will go.

And he must be all alone, NOT playing peek-a-boo with Nora.  Even if it is so cute.

What I like about Garrett

Homeschooling gives me a unique opportunity to daily see my children living life.  I know these are things that I would find out eventually, but in a matter of 2 weeks I have learned so much about my second child.  He has been such a pleasant surprise to home school.  Last year, we took it easy with kindergarten.  He enjoyed himself and we didn't push it too hard.  Knowing what was coming this year, because I did it with Olivia last year, I was worried about him.  I worried that he would be unfocused, unmotivated, and just plain uninterested.  He has proven me wrong!!  This kid is determined to get his work done, and get it done fast.  We are working on doing your work efficiently and with your best effort, not necessarily as fast as you can go.  When I give him seat work, he sets to his task.  Most of the time there's no tears, arguing, or whining.  I am amazed when I look down after giving him a paper how much he's gotten finished without a word.  He doesn't look around at what Olivia is doing, he doesn't try to catch a glimpse of the TV in the other room, he just does his work.  I love it!  And him!

And then there's his art.  This kid is NOTHING like Josh or I in this area.  Josh is artistic, but his creations never come out the way he pictures, so he doesn't enjoy the process.  I don't like the process, because everything I make looks horrible.  Garrett never asks for my help.  He creates his masterpieces within the guide lines of the craft, but always strays away to give it his own unique flare.  He sits, content in his creativity and final product, like no other kid I've ever seen.  I love that he is so different in this area than most of the rest of us in the family.

 Garrett's watercolor and crayon name.  He did all his letter's himself (the girls both asked for help to make it look like the sample).  And his "camo" like painting is nothing like what it was 'suppose' to look like, but he didn't care. . .and I think it looks great.

Just for comparison sake, this is Esther's paper.  She started out wanting to write her own name, but quickly asked me to write her name because she didn't like the way it was turning out.  Her painting is closer to what the sample looked like, blocks of color separated by the spaces in the letters and lines.