The Friedman Adventures: Monday, December 26, 2011

Did Santa Come?

Yes, Santa came bearing gifts! It was magical for the boys.
As any kid it would be...toys, games, books left in the den for ME!?
It's raining right now....sounds so peaceful, about 10:30pm on a Monday evening and my bedtime has come & gone. Just a re-run of every night, it seems to happen too much.
I love you boys dearly and know yall enjoyed this Christmas!
Some things to remember:
1. When you say smile to Huff (if you are going to take a pic.) he will give a dashing straight faced look. His smile is his normal everyday happy look. He doesn't force that smile up there when a camera gets in his face or when whatever. I appreciate it and could eat him up for being himself. Huff you are an amazing fella.
2. Samuel got a cap gun for Christmas. Right away he grabs & says "Shot" not shoot "Shot, shot, shot" he loves this. He is crazy for trucks. Specifically asks for the backhoe and if I give him the front loader - I am corrected, "No, Mama this is front loader backhoe please." Wow! He is two! You love to try and makes us laugh and pretty much copy ANYTHING "the guys" (your brothers) do.
3. Baxter, you wanted a rainforest book for Christmas ( among other things) and Christmas morning RAN into the den and grabbed the rainforest book and began explaining to everyone about the page you had turned to...it was the largest flower in the rainforest. You have such a connection with the rainforest and such a soft spot for animals, I hope you continue this.( that is of coarse if it makes you happy)

Merry Christmas Boys!

I love yall!
It's 2011 and Gigi is here- she spent the night with yall.
Nana and Papaw Buck came over - I called them RIGHT when you all got up.
We have been opening presents for 3 hours! a little opposite of what you would have thought....that is because of the last post.
Wii- was their fav. present!
However, they all ran to the Sand Art and created. Samuel is snuggled up with Dada (your blanket) watching a Christmas Thomas movie.
Jeremy got me crazy industrial blender from a Baskin Robbins! it's insane!
Jeremy got a steamer for clothes - mainly b/c he has bad allergies esp. from dust mites.

I am about to do some cooking.......
then go over to Mom & Buck's for the special meal.

love to you all,
mom

It's Christmas Time...so be a consumer.

Wow, it absolutely baffles me how Christmas is so commercialized.
It is about to turn me into a scrooge.
How did it get this way?
It has slowly morphed into a holiday to buy and give.
Such wonderful and loving gestures from the heart and yet it turns into a hectic and panicked time.

It is hard for me to get further aways from all of this "stuff" because everyone thinks you need it, it will help you or make your life easier.

We live in a small house and I mean small. It's 1550 sf and there are 5 of us. Please don't feel sorry for us. I am elated with our home and could eat it up I love it so much. (just a little more closet space) However, all the stuff people give you over time adds up and next thing our small house is about to pop. There is a zen with having a small home. I thought we had it, but apparently we don't yet. We will have to learn to say "no" when giving things or faced with do we need a new one. Anything that comes into this house quickly becomes clutter. Not because I am a neat freak...just ask Jeremy! It's because there is NO place to put it all!

The clutter makes you feel like this lurking monster is hovering over you & you are needing to rid of it. It's more than- oh, that room is messy so clean it. It's more than that and that's why most people are living with so much stuff. What a wonderful present to leave for your family when you pass too. My mom recently told me she was cleaning things out & she said "Why do I have this" "If I passed Stephanie would be cursing me going through all this"
Our house had gotten so clutter it made me feel depressed and upset.

And yet....
here we go again, with our beautifully wrapped boxes under the tree waiting to be opened.

Something to think about and Happy Holidays, please find joy in the little things.

Friedman boys take over the kitchen

Rainforest Mix:

coconut flakes

chocolate chips

pecans

Brazilian nuts

dried pineapple

banana chips

Helping the rainforest in little ways can start in your kitchen.

The Socialization Factor

Peter Yarrow from Peter,Paul and Mary came to Fairhope!

Peter Yarrow on stage reading Puff the Magic Dragon. Baxter and Huff are on stage...notice Huff is holding a dragon!

Here he is singing "Leaving on a jet place"- love this one!

Singing - "If I had a hammer"

He played for an hour and 45 minutes! The room was packed!!! It was pretty awesome.

A new adventure!

We have taken on a new adventure recently and are having a ball so far.

It is a lot of work, but completely rewarding for both parties. We are home-schooling! We are in our 4th week now.

The other day after journal time...I have to admit I peeked in their journals and read, "I want to learn more about the rainforest". This was written by Baxter. They woke up to a surprise on Monday morning: It's RAINFOREST WEEK! They are reading, writing, spelling all things Rainforest!

This is called a unit study.

Video about schooling in 21st century

Great video to watch about schooling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&mid=52

Fall Time Projects- Learning about Leaves and Trees.

Leaf collages
Glue and do!

Let them dry and display for Fall decor~

Nature Books are a great place to record all of the interesting things we've found.

The 3 of yall (Samuel is asleep right now) did leaf rubbings and labeled the NAME
of each tree the leaf was from then put that in your nature books.

Leaf Garland- traced leaves, cut out and then taped to a string.

Football fun!

A Tuscaloosa visit for the first game of the season.

Wow, look at all the people...101,821 to be exact (that is if everyone made it)!!!

First down- Roll Tide Roll!

Just think of all the time that goes into getting the field to look like that!

It's my turn to play Papa!

D'Iberville visit

A stroll anyone.

Samuel going for a stroll!
You love these yellow sunglasses - love your stroller & love bike rides too!
I guess just being on the go is fun for you.
Happy tuesday all.

Internet games- good? a must read.

My kids were wanting to play at this website yesterday!

and I did a little research and found this, please read.

This mom blogs as well at www.netfamilynews.org

thanks,

Stephanie

Undercover Mom in ClubPenguin, Part 4: The 'dating' game

by Sharon Duke Estroff

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that at any given moment in any given corner of any given chatroom on ClubPenguin.com, there is someone saying something to the effect of “boys say i” or “beautiful girls come over here” or “are you single?” or “will u be with me?” - which is exactly what Cowboy217 asked me one moonlit night in his igloo.

We’d met earlier that evening at the pizza parlor when I’d heeded Cowboy’s open call for available girls. By the time we got to Cowboy’s crib (which, I might add, was the Taj Mahal of igloos), we’d already swapped at least a dozen heart emoticons. We played a few rounds of “Spin the Lava”, a popular CP party game involving a lava lamp, some truth or dare, and tons of Eskimo kissing, (I’m not kidding with screenshots to prove it) before he popped the question, and I (trying not to think about how appalled Cowboy217 would be if he knew he’d just asked a married, mother of four to go steady) accepted.

Mom Break: I want to start out by recognizing that Club Penguin has excellent safety measures in place to prevent predators from tracking down children via their website. But keeping our kids safe online doesn't simply mean keeping them away from cyber-predators. It means ensuring their social, emotional, intellectual, moral, and physical well-being in both the real and virtual realms. Which is why, of all my undercover mom surprises to date, I found Club Penguin’s sexual undercurrent by far the most unsettling. It's not that every penguin I encountered on CP was engaged in some kind of flirting or dating behavior, but many were. Many, many, many were. It all makes sense if you think about it. The anonymity and lack of adult supervision in children’s virtual social worlds like Club Penguin make them natural spaces for curious kids to act out sexual themes they see in the media, even before they're ready in real life. There's no doubt that pretend romantic play is part of the course and magic of childhood, but Club Penguin is not a kindergarten dress up corner. It is a vastly populous virtual playground where digital natives of all ages and maturity levels share the same turf...and grow up faster together. (I continue to grapple with scope, implications, and complexity of this issue and welcome your insight on the screenshots that follow.)

"Come here all beautiful girls"

"Where the boyz are"

"Spin the lava at my iggy"

"Me playing spin the lava"

"Looking for the ladies"

"Are u takin?"

"One of many prom invites I received"

At the nightclub: "Who is single?" (we're talking 9-to-12-year-olds!)

Invitation to a "Boys Meet Girls Party" at someone's igloo

Dating drama at the pizza parlor - Sharon explained, "The pizza parlor is one of the most popular destinations in ClubPenguin - there's one in every chatroom, so technically there are hundreds, and there always seems to be lots of dating-related talk in them."

Swim Team

Summer '11

the summer of swimming

Swim team practices & swim meets

The boys have been very dedicated.

These are yalls tough mean poses.

Yall like Mama to write- "Eat my bubbles" and GO F.A.S.T!

Yall are swimming 25M Free & 25M Back- and doing great!

We have a big swim meet this Friday- The City Championships in Gulf Shores- yall are swimming in 3 events each. Right now Huff has an ear infection & he is determined it HAS to clear up for the meet.

Barnyard Hullabaloo

When kids put on plays it's soo cute, they either try super hard, they may cry, do something silly...but all in all they will be so proud of themselves for doing it! Huff, did great! Huff was in this play about Old McDonald's Farm & guess who was Old McDonald? You guessed it! Huff...there were really 2- they were the Old McDonald brothers. We were proud of his lead role & he hammed it up.

Thoughts on bad behavior

Are there ever times from the past that make you stop & smile?
How about that make you....mad? mad, so that you may still be a little steamed about it today.

I remember something my 92 grandmother told me before passing away last year. I was laying in my bed talking to her on the phone and she got so in depth about her childhood. She had harbored feeling from her past - so much that she poured out with a cry right then and there. Wow, I thought....she had carried this large burden with her her whole life. Maybe she just didn't know how to forgive and to move forward? That was kinda sad to me.

There are things from the past that can effect everyone's daily lives...in a thought, memory, things we say...or maybe something that we don't take the effort to do.

I think the important thing is to teach our children not to do the same & teach them how to forgive.
If we set an example of negative behavior towards something or someone, guess what? they may model it too one day & might be .... directed to you.

Friedman Book Adventures

During the school year the boys do a good bit of reading in their class, but in the summer we usually fall short. However we are doing free reading program. That is right...it's free! It is reward based, it's created by Sylvan. As parents you can make up the reward or they even offer some as well on the web-site. You choose a book, take a quiz, earn points to get rewards. The boys are super excited about it. Samuel pretends he is reading his books too.

Click here to start your adventure! Book Adventure

Samuel celebrates his second birthday!

Since I hadn't blogged in a while....some of these are a little dated. Samuel when you were 1 & 2 your favorite things were trains! You call them "choo-choos". You pretty much love anything that is big, loud, moves & has wheels. This was a special day. I am guessing you said choo-choo maybe 63 times? Your brothers had a great time too because they loved that it was your special day.