Costumes

After a visit to a thrift store and K-Mart, here is what the kids picked out for their costumes.

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Pumkins.

Tonight we got the kids pumpkins carved, here’s the results.

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Song stuck in head.

I’m don’t know what song Bogdan has been singing today but he has been signing it from noon till past bedtime.  I believe it’s a song from church, when I asked him what song it was, he said something but I didn’t understand him, I had him repeat it then he started getting upset so I just said okay.

Today was a decent day all around.  Once a month our church asks any family that wants to, to have a couple of college kids come to their house for lunch.  We have not done it before and decided to try it.  We had two young women, who go to Northwestern college, come home with us.  It was a very enjoyable lunch (chicken divine casserole – a family favorite), then played a board game for a half  hour or so.  The church asks that families get the students back by mid afternoon so they can get to their school work or other activities.  It’s a simple thing that we can do to help some college kids get to know others in the church, plus our kids think it’s fun.  Sounds like we may be doing it quite a bit more often.

I didn’t see thaaat coming.

There are still daily explosions with Bogdan and his temper.  We can have some very nice times throughout the day and usually if Bogdan gets mad and blows up, Kathy or I will see it coming (of course it’s still a little too late to do anything about it).  This morning, however, he went off the deep end for something I thought he would be able to handle.  I was asking him in a very gentle voice to start his chores.  He said “No.”  I asked “How about in five minutes?”  Just like that he jumps up from the floor and shouts “I never get to play, never, never, never, never, never.” – (although he was already playing for thirty to forty minutes)  Then he does his normal routine which consists of going to his room still shouting and very mad saying no one likes him and he hates himself.  It takes a few minutes to bring him back to reality, then it’s the tough part, figuring out how to discipline him without another major fit.

This was just a reminder blog that we can get through these fits but it takes major patience.

Bogdan’s out, Paul’s in.

Bogdan has been doing guitar lessons for about two months, he was very hot and cold on how he felt about it, week to week.  Sometimes even day to day he would change his mind saying it was great and he loved it, to saying it was too hard and he wanted out of his lessons.  Paul on the other hand was talking about starting guitar lessons again but with his old teacher (not the same teacher as Bogdan’s).  We did a little chatting with the two boys and Bogdan’s guitar instructor and decided since we paid for some guitar lessons in advance for Bogdan that Paul could slide on in to Bogdan’s lessen time.  So that’s it, Bogdan’s out and Paul’s in with guitar lessons.  It worked out much better for us because this teacher comes to the house where as with Paul’s other teacher we had to drive seven to eight miles to the building he taught at.  One big difference that I didn’t think about is that Paul uses his electric guitar for practice, Bogdan played an acoustic, much quieter.  I know listening though the lessons will somehow be worth it – for someone.

Hot lunch, awesome!

A way to a mans (boys) heart in through his stomach.  It’s just a saying but why does it seem so true at times.  Prior to each month, the school hot lunch menu for that month comes out, our kids will put their initial on the days that they would like to eat the school lunch.  They fill out the whole month, a copy gets sent back to the school with a payment.  We put a copy, on a wall, in our kitchen and each morning before (or night previous) school  the kids look at it to see if they have to pack a lunch or not.  All our children are happy when they know their getting a hot lunch at school, but Bogdan gets to be a notch above happy when he see’s his initial on the calender for the next days hot lunch.  Tonight, he walked up to the calendar, tried to figure out the day and the date, then asked for help.  He’s getting close to doing it on his own but I did have to help him a little to find the right day.  He saw his initial on the calender for tomorrow and said “Hot lunch, awesome!” and jumped up and down a few times.  He didn’t even read the days menu but just wanted to do a small celebration dance because he was going to get a school lunch. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have to pack their lunch or because it’s a hot lunch, whatever it is, it gets them (all our kids) to smile when their initial is on the calender for that day.

Bad/Good – Sad/Happy – No/Yes…

You may notice the title is word opposites, that’s what we get a lot from our children when we want them to try something new.  The sorry part of it is, it seems they usually enter new activities/ventures by thinking about them in a negative manner (at first).  We could tell the kids we’re going to Disney Land and they would be upset because it’s not Disney World.  Most of the time it’s simple things like going church group activities and doing things as a family that they say ‘No’ to before the idea is laid out.  At that point it’s already in their heads to be upset, then they get sad and whiny about why they have to go.  For Bogdan it was a birthday party he was going to, at first he was happy then he thought about who’s house it was at and he felt he didn’t want to go.  After a small discussion he went and came back saying he had a great time.  Paul, had a church activity for Friday evening, he thought it would be bad and not much to do.  He went then came back saying it was rather fun and he would definitely do it again.  I asked Brenna and Shaylin to help rake leaves over the weekend (if nothing else it was to get them outside in the beautiful weather).  They didn’t want to, when they started out they were both wondering why they always have to work (you know like forty five minutes a week).  After twenty minutes of raking, the pile got to be a good size and they were jumping in the leaves.  Two hours later they came in laughing and giggling and full of leaves.

Kathy comes up with some fun ideas like going for walks by the creek or walking the three quarters of a mile to McDonald’s but it’s so hard to get them all to be excited about the same thing we let a lot of fun things slide.  Kathy and I planned on the family going to a hotel for fun but decided against it because we knew they gripe about what the hotel name is, what the breakfast food is, how big the pool is, who sleeps on what bed and so on.  Our focus for the next few months is positive thinking – I hate the thought of it (just kidding) so if you see us around you may need sunglasses because we might shine with happiness.

“I want little pancake, Daddy.”

We have pancakes about once a week, I would usually fit about three pancakes in the griddle at a time.  They were small (4 inches or so) but that way I could let more than one child get started eating and have more cakes cooking, ready to eat – seconds, thirds,  fourths…  A while back, Bogdan asked if I could make him a big pancake (I suppose he was used to that) I said “Yes.”  I would make his pancake first then make small ones for the others to share.  The first few weeks I made his, he ate the whole cake and still ate more.  Each week I made his hotcake slightly bigger.  The one week I made the cake as big as the griddle (it was huge 8 – 9 inches), he ate for a half hour on the one cake an still had a little left, he wasn’t one hundred percent full but I could tell he was just tired of eating the same pancake.  I said he didn’t have to finish it so he took me up on it.  The next time we had pancakes he said “I want little pancake, Daddy.”  Now he eats the same size pancake as the rest of the family.

Aunt and Uncle on Roof – Helicopter Trying to Rescue!

Back when Paul was about four or so, he let fly some hum dinger stories, believing it happened within our own extended family.  One was about when his Grandma was home, by herself and a fire broke out, he had the details but it ended up she was lucky to be alive and only owned what clothes she was wearing.  Another was his cousin was in a car accident and had to be in a body cast.  The stories were something he saw on the news or other source, the dramatic events were not related at all to our family.  The main story (fib) that I remember him telling was one that he put ‘aunt and uncle’ in place of the real people.  There were two people and a dog, on a roof, because of major flood waters and there was a helicopter hovering overhead trying to rescue them.  He told this story to his Sunday school teacher (like he did with most of his stories) and next thing you know the teacher told me they were praying for our Aunt and Uncle and their dog who are stranded on a roof top.  I had no idea what they were talking about but did figure it out by talking to Paul and asking a few questions.

Kathy and I know Bogdan tells some stories, now and then, where the truth gets stretched.  Bogdan had his last soccer game, of the season, on Monday.  I didn’t make it to the game, when Bogdan came home from the game he was all excited to fill me in on the details.  He was talking ninety miles an hour, Kathy was in the kitchen catching most of what he was saying.  I wasn’t able to take it all in but I do remember him saying something like ” I scored Daddy – Jason pass it to Joseph, Joseph pass it to Andrew, Andrew pass it to me then I kick little and little again then kick hard and it went in the score.”  He was really pumped up about it, I said “Good job.”  Kathy poked her head around the corner and asked Bogdan, “Was that today that you scored?”  He said “Yes.”  She was at the game.  Then she said “No, now let’s think if we’re telling Daddy the truth.”  He said he was telling the truth.  Kathy asked “Are you sure?”  He said “YES”  got really mad and angry, started saying things like – people don’t like him and believe him and that he is bad.  Then he ran down the hall (crying) to his room.  Just another daily meltdown.

And yet another birthday party to go to for Bogdan – he has been to about four classmates parties plus Paul’s, Brenna’s and Shaylin’s so far in the last four months.

Catch up

Well, I am done working mid nights, it was only two nights but they were twelve hour shifts and  didn’t allow me to use my time too effectively.  At least now I can catch up on what the pictures were about from yesterday.  It’s pretty simple, I had to force the kids outside to help with raking the leaves.  Once they were moving towards the outside (they were a bit grumpy to have to stand up and do something), most of them did well with their job but apparently it was still too much for Shaylin – that’s why the pictures show Paul, Brenna and Bogdan outside working and Shaylin inside by the computer.  We did make Shaylin do some house work before allowing her to get behind the computer but I was surprised she did not want to stay outside with the others.  It was funny though when the leaves were raked and the pile was huge that Shaylin did decide it would be o.k. to go out to play in them.  She asked if she could be part of  jumping in the leaf pile, they said alright but did make her wait til the premo jumping was done.

School has been going best for Bogdan, I think a lot of it is because he’s not forced to keep his grades up with the rest of the class (which is nice).  Brenna has a lot of good days in school, Paul says school is semi good and Shaylin  is still working on busting in to a good friendship with whoever will allow.