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Caleb’s 7th Birthday: 20 Questions

April 13, 2013 by 2 Comments

Last year, we started this tradition of asking the birthday kiddo 20 questions on his/her birthday.

Here are Caleb’s questions and answers.

Caleb, opening a birthday card

Caleb, opening a birthday card

My favorite food is: that soup we just ate.
My favorite sport to play is: baseball.
The coolest person on Earth is: Daddy.
My favorite movie to watch is: Brave, when we stand in line at Sam’s Club. (*Editorial note: I watched Brave last fall and didn’t think it was appropriate for our kiddos at their ages. Little stinker watches it in the checkout line, apparently.)
My favorite thing to learn about in school is: science.
If I could go anywhere in the world, I’d go to: Mongolia.
My favorite color is: blue.
When I grow up, I’m going to: be a construction worker.
Three words that describe me are: I love baseball.
When I was little, I used to: be naughty.
My favorite season of the year is: summer break from school.
The snack I like the best is: donuts!
My favorite thing about church is: that we get to learn about Jesus.
My favorite Scripture verse is: Psalm 27:1 – “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”
My favorite song is: We Will Rock You
One of my best friends is: Isaac.
My favorite thing to do outside is: play with Isaac.
If I had one wish it would be: to play baseball, which I got, which was so cool.
My best memory is: that Jaden’s first word was “Bible.”
My birthday dinner this year is: chicken tarragon soup, bread, and root beer floats

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Caleb’s 7th Birthday: Celebration

April 13, 2013 by 1 Comment

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I decorated the door to Caleb and Jaden’s room the night before his birthday, so that he would wake up to this in the morning. Typically, Jaden wakes up last, so I was pretty sure Caleb would have a good chance of breaking through his streamers himself.

What I didn’t count on was that Jaden would wake up in the middle of the night, crying from growing pains. And I would have to untape the bottom few streamers and army crawl into the room with a tiny cup of children’s ibuprofen in my hand at 2:30am. Oh, motherhood.

The birthday boy, on the morning of his big day

The birthday boy, on the morning of his big day

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For breakfast, he enjoyed homemade crepes with Eurocrem (like Nutella) and bananas. Served on the red plate, of course.

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And then we had a really fun day with Miss Jana (my dear friend since birth!) and her boys at Frederik Meijer Gardens and the Grand Rapids Public Museum. Good times were had by all. :-)

Can you tell it was a little (lot) chilly that day?

Can you tell it was a little (lot) chilly that day?

That evening, Aunt Alonna joined us for Caleb’s dinner of choice: tarragon chicken soup and homemade rolls, with root beer floats for dessert. After dinner, he opened his gifts.

He loves his new snorkel set from Grandma and Grandpa Rumley.

He loves his new snorkel set from Grandma and Grandpa Rumley.

I played a little bit of an April Fools’ joke on him by wrapping a box within a box within a box for his gift.

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He was happy with the outcome anyway.

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We gave him a small set of Legos, a pair of sunglasses, and the paper in the picture above, which told him that he’ll need the sunglasses to play baseball on a team, starting this spring. Playing baseball on a team was the one thing he asked for this year.

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Happy 7th birthday, Caleb Aaron!

April 12, 2013 by 1 Comment

*His birthday was April 1. Life is busy. I’m late.

Caleb, opening a birthday card

Caleb, opening a birthday card

Dear Caleb,

How can it be that you’re 7 years old already? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we moved into the house we built, and I was 30 weeks pregnant with you?

But here we are, and you’re somewhere between a baby and a young man. You are so sweet I want to squeeze you, and sometimes you’re so exasperating I don’t know what to do with you. I grew up with sisters. I am a girl. I will never understand your need to jump, yell, hit, kick, run, and scream. But I am glad to know that God made you that way. And I’m glad that you’re starting baseball soon, so maybe some of that energy will work itself out. :-)

I’m excited to see you play on a team for the first time. You have a God-given athletic ability, and I hope you use it to His glory. I think you’ll love playing baseball on a team.

I’m really proud of you for working so hard to learn verses. This winter, you memorized all of Psalm 27, and then your class recited it in front of the church. That was amazing, and brought tears to my eyes. Never stop memorizing God’s Word, Caleb. You will never regret it.

Daddy and I are so thankful that you are a child of God, and our prayer for you is that you would serve God with your whole heart, just like the Caleb in the Old Testament. We pray that you grow more and more into a man of God with each year that passes.

Happy birthday, Buddy! We love you!

Mommy

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My 3 Favorite Boys

December 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

He’s the best daddy, and they are the sweetest sons. I’m blessed!

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Three students, one teacher, and one little distraction

August 20, 2012 by 10 Comments

We made it! Day ONE of the Rumley Family Homeschool 2012-13 is complete!

It went really smoothly, and if I can pry my tired body out of bed at 6:45 every morning, the smoothness might continue. Might.

Behind the smoothness of it all was this slightly panicky feeling that I was doing a juggling act and about to drop something.

But, you know. That’s motherhood and homeschooling for you.

I’m loving our new school room. It’s all set up, except for a pad I need to make for a bench…Which I’ll try to post about later, if I remember. ;-) We have more space, especially in the hugamongous closet, which is great for this mama who has tons of crafting supplies besides the actual school supplies!

Here are a couple of pictures of the school room…

Looking into the school room from the door

The view from the other end of the room…The door on the left is the big closet.

Our big ol’ whiteboard (Steelcase employee sales, I love you.)

Alrighty then, would you like to see pictures of all the kids on their first day of school? No? Well, it’s my blog, so I’m posting them anyway.

Our sweet third grader just keeps growing and growing…Where’d my little baby go?

Our silly first grader…Sorry for the blurry picture. I just couldn’t resist his mischievous smile in this one.

Our pretty little kindergarten girl…so excited to begin school!

And the 3-year-old who was only a little bit distracting today

Did you notice that the girls wore pretty dresses? They came down this morning with those on. I thought it was awfully sweet of them to dress up for our first day.

So.

I’ll admit, it was a little tricky to juggle three kids’ educations. We do history, science, and read-alouds all together. But each of the kids needs separate math and spelling lessons, and Grace also does English lessons. It’s a little crazy!

But it’s also more convenient in a way to have Ava in school, because she stays in the school room the whole time, which means that Jaden sticks around the school room, too. In previous years, Ava and Jaden have played in another room while I did lessons with Grace and Caleb…and that translated into a lot of naughtiness.

So, more juggling and less naughtiness. I think I can handle that.

A fun dynamic of having three in school is “Buddy Time.” Today, while I was teaching Grace’s spelling lesson, Caleb helped Ava practice her phonograms…

And then while I was teaching Caleb’s spelling lesson, Grace helped Jaden learn some phonograms…

The older kids were so kind to the younger kids when they were “teaching” them. I think this is going to be a really good thing for the kids. The teaching role will help solidify concepts that the big kids have already learned, and, well, it’s always good for the littles to learn new things! Not to mention that it’s a huge help to me!

I was especially excited this afternoon to find that Grace’s handwriting has improved as she’s gotten older. She has beautiful cursive, don’t you think?

Grace’s diagnostic test for spelling…She’s spelling at a 3rd grade, 9th month level (i.e. almost 4th grade)…Not too bad. :-)

And I was also happy that Ava FINALLY got to open her new math books and start learning. She’s been asking for so long…but we just didn’t have time with the move this summer. So, her happy day is finally here!

I know that we will have difficult school days where one or all of us feel like quitting…but today was a good day, and I’m praising God for that! Homeschooling is such a gift to our family!

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