Day of the dead homeschool study and wreck it Ralph Halloween

10 year anniversary

For our 10th anniversary Bryce and I went to a pepper field project dinner in Decorah.  It was absolutely amazing.

Karen

In August we bought Karen Ito from Japan home to live with us.  She is fantastic.  She loves playing with the kids and hanging out with the family.  She also is her own person at school.  She has lots of friends, even those that don't hang out together.  She has more difficulty with English then the other students and it is sometimes a struggle to keep her grades up, but she is very studious and works very hard.  My favorite moments with her have been late night campfires where she and the boys play hide and seek in the dark and thrift shopping- she bought gorgeous homecoming dress at goodwill for $3.

Karen has taught us how to count to 10 I Japanese but hasn't talked much about her country.  In fact she doesn't even communicate with her family out of fear she will be homesick.  I'm worried about this but it seems to work for her.  Our biggest surprise has been her American appetite.  She is a size 1 and can eat three or four helpings of food.  She loves Everything unhealthy and refers McDonald's over our favorite restaurants.  Everyday she brings her own lunch to school of a Nutella sandwich, chips, and not sure what else.  

She has been a breath of fresh air for our family who has felt stress I entertaining our family at the same time errands need to get done, etc.  I wish she could stay forever.

Madison

Just came back from a three day vacation with the Dallenbach family.  

Day 1- children's museum, swimming at hotel, and a meal at Ella's deli

Day 2- Madison farmers market (cheered on paddle and portage racers), Capitol, zoo, swimming and birthday party with the giuntas, state street dinner

Day 3- mount horeb art fair, pizza at the grumpy troll, cave of the mounds

Link- Age 6

1.  What's you favorite color? Blue

2. What's your favorite toy? Legos 

3. What's your favorite fruit?  Pears

4. What's your favorite movie? The Lego Movie

5. What's your favorite show? Ninjago

6. What's your favorite thing to dress up in?  Batman Pajamas

7. What's your favorite game?  Lego movie video game

8. What's your favorite food? Pizza 

9. What's your favorite animal? Cat

10. What's your favorite song? Everything is Awesome

11. What's your favorite book?  Elephant and Piggie Books

12.  Who is your best friend? Van

13.  Where's your favorite place to go? Lego Land (Even though I haven't been there yet

14. What's your favorite thing to do outside? Imaginary Play- Avengers

15.  What's your favorite thing to drink?  Juice

16. What's your favorite holiday?  Christmas

17. What do you sleep with? a bed

18. What's your favorite thing to ride?  roller coaster (never been on one)

19. What's your favorite number?  I don't have one

20. What do you want to do when you're older? Be a Ninja Jedi

Not much change from last year.

Link and the school age drama

Parenting is hard.  Emotions are hard.

Link has been having a hell of a time being the awesome kid he is around others. 

Today he told me at robotics camp recess he let everyone know that he needed them to wait for him to climb the ladder.  Then he told me they laughed and made fun of him for being scared and sliding on his belly.  Ugg, heart ache.  I knew he stopped playing and was cranky, but he never tells me the real story until weeks later.  Well, today we went to the ladder and practiced climbing until it wasn't scary and I told him how much I admire him for not making fun of others and knowing himself well enough to let them know he needed space.

That same group consists of this kid named garret, who honestly, I'm not a big fan of.  Link, Jameson, and garret are the older kids as brandys.  Link and Jameson get along great, but garret ignores him, rolls his eyes when he sees him, etc.  But the hard part is that Jameson chooses garret over link to play and goes along with not letting link in from time to time.   I have no idea what to do.  I've asked for advice.  I've told brandy.  My next idea is to pull my mom's trick and have garret to our house by himself. I hope this can happen before links birthday next week but I'm uncertain.  Link is so sad he dreads going to brandys, even has mentioned he sometimes wishes he was dead.  Seriously, 5 year olds say this?  What am I going to do when he is 15?  This is so different than at kinderhaus where link had a best buddy and lots of admirers.  I keep reminding him that there are people who adore him and try to set up play dates with them.

Now in addition to this or because of this, I don't know, link has had a major temper lately.  Seeing inside out has helped tremendously.  We are trying to cool anger as our first response.  

Good golly.

On the 18 month old side, Felix is doing great.  He has almost all his teeth in but the canines.  He is signing more, bye, all done, up, nurse.  He is saying mama, batman, ball, and pretty close on some other words too.

Thoughts and emotions on the 4th

This weekend I hung out with my cousin Amy and her husband John.

Amy's dad is a stout republican and she is not sold, but talks to him daily.  She called Jeb bush personable and even when she took a "inside with" test and sided with Hillary Clinton she said she would never vote for her.  Just then the future flashed before me.  I see the election being between Hillary and Jeb.  And unfortunately I see Jeb winning.  It is weird to say but I think more people dislike women in power then they care about other races in power.  I hope I'm wrong, but it is my prediction.

We spent most of the day in Indy and then today went to the Manchester water park and backbone beach.  I wanted to rent a paddle boat but, gasp, I weigh to much.  I would have tipped link and I and with Bryce on to even it we would have been over the 400 lbs limit.  I have been denied things because of my weight before, but the fact that my weight affects my child breaks my heart.  If Bryce and I were both 175 I'd be fine.  😰