What do you think?

Who does Naomi look like the most?

I think I might need to post new pictures every week.  I took these 10 days ago and already she looks different.

The Danger Zone

We decided it would be fun to have a little birthday party for Noah since he recently turned 4.  I did it the beginning of August, while my mom was here.  It went really well.  Three of his little friends came.  It was Star Wars themed.  Everyone got a light saber made of a foam noodle and duct tape.

Then they entered the Danger Zone--the backyard, decorated with big red streamer X's.  My kids thought the X's were so cool!  There were some Star Wars Potato Heads set up to do ring toss with.

The ring toss didn't last too long.  It was more fun to just shoot the Potato Heads with squirt guns.

After the ring toss game was destroyed, a bad guy happened to show up.  It's a good thing we had lots of Jedi around with their light sabers and lasor blasters (squirt guns).

Fortunately he was defeated.  We had some water balloons to throw, but they didn't work too well.  They just kept bouncing off the bad guy. 

Unfortunately, three more bad guys showed up.  By the way, my very nice brother helped me with these bad guys.  I drew the storm troopers and Mike drew Darth Vader. 

All the Jedi had to work together to defeat these bad guys.

 After all the fighting, it was time for a snack.  They had chicken nuggets, watermelon and chips. 

 The meal was finished off with snow cones.  Then the Jedi were nice enough to destroy the Danger Zone for me by squirting all the streamers and then throwing them away.  How nice!

First Day of School!!

Here's the "First Day of School" Post.  This first picture depicts how Leah's feeling about school.

This second picture depicts how Eli's feeling about school.

Here comes the bus.

Eli was so sweet to sit with Leah on the bus.  He also made sure she got to her classroom this morning.  It helped that their rooms are right next to each other.  Their two classes even share a coat closet.  The rooms are a bit jumbled in the school because of all the classes they have to keep adding because of all the students.  Having Eli close to Leah has made it easier for me to see her go.  I was a bit sad today, but I didn't cry.

Noah and I had a fun first day of school also.  We went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens with two of our favorite people.

We walked around for a long time, had snacks and fed the fish.  It was really nice, especially the part where all the walking helped Noah take a long nap!

Guess where Leah's going on Tuesday....

This is what my kitchen wall has looked like since October, when we moved into our new home.  It's looked like this because I was homeschooling Leah for kindergarten with the plan that she will skip it and go to first grade instead.  It was not an easy task.  First, I made up all my own lessons.  Second, Leah doesn't always like me, thus making it very difficult to teach her.  It was a long year that even extended through the summer.  I wanted her to remember what I had taught her, so she had worksheets to do all summer (and by all summer I really mean some of the summer; I had a baby after all) to keep her little brain working.

Now that the summer is over and school starts on Tuesday, the decision has been made.  Leah will be a first grader!!!  She took all the testing this past week and did really well.  I will now brag a bit about how well she did.

The first portion of the test was academic.  Leah had to be proficient with material given half way through first grade.  I don't understand why Leah has to know first grade stuff to skip kindergarten, but she does.  If she does well enough, then she can continue to the next portion of the test.  It took about two hours for Leah to complete.  And she did really well.  She can read on a third grade level and does math and writes on a second grade level.  The only thing she didn't do quite well enough on was spelling.  Fortunately, she was only .1 points away from where she needed to be, so they let her continue. 

The second part was a cognitive intelligence test (or something like that, basically an IQ test).  This one took an hour and she did really well.  She scored in the 99th percentile.  She's such a smarty pants!!

All the time and effort I put into teaching her totally paid off.  I don't think she did so well because of my awesome teaching.  She's just a bright girl!  I know she's going to do really well in first grade.  She's so excited.  Look forward to the "First day of School" post where you'll see her picture. 

Guess who's one month old today...

Pics of the Faves

Parenting 101

Lesson #15 

Attention class, we have a very important lesson for today.  The lesson can be simply stated: When teaching your children about their private parts, it's a good idea to tell them the real names for their parts instead of silly names. 

Here are three examples to illustrate the importance of this lesson.

Example #1
Background: In the Bell house, the name for the "boy part" is noodle.
Setting: The kitchen table at dinner time
Children involved: Eli and Noah

At dinner one night, a few weeks ago, Noah leaned over to Eli and said, "Hey Eli, when Grammy comes, we can play with our noodles."

Reaction: Mike, Eli, and I all just laughed.  We realized that Noah was not talking about "boy parts"; he was talking about the foam noodles in the coat closet we bought for his birthday party.  It still sounded really funny.

Example #2
Background: I don't know where Leah learned the term "nuts" for part of a boy.
Setting: In the kitchen one afternoon
Children involved: Leah

One afternoon, Leah asked me simply, "Mom, what if a boy got pregnant and the baby came out of his nuts?" 

Reaction:  I tried so hard not to laugh while I replied, "I don't know.  I guess it would hurt a lot."

Example #3
Background: Here comes that term "nuts" again
Setting: In the living room while watching Men's Olympic diving
Children involved: Leah

One day, we were watching a men's Olympic diving event.  After a Chinese diver (I think) went, it showed him just waiting for his score in his little speedo.  Leah commented, "Look.  That guy's nuts are brown." 

Reaction:  I quickly looked at the TV screen to make sure his nuts really weren't showing.  Fortunately, they weren't.  It was his nipples that were brown and showing.  That's what she was talking about and I have no idea why she called them nuts.  I told her they were his nipples.  She knows that word. 

There is your parenting lesson for the day.  Keep it in mind when you're teaching your children.  Use the proper words, or keep using silly words like I plan to.  It makes for more interesting dinner conversations.

Oh and by the way...

Noah's 4!!!!

I didn't blog about it until now because I wasn't feeling that great that day.  That's because Naomi was on her way.  It was a major object of concern and prayer that I not have Naomi on or before Noah's birthday.  I didn't want them to share the day and I also didn't want to be in the hospital for Noah's big day.  So she nicely waited until the next morning to come.  Now we get to have two days of birthday parties every July.  How fun is that going to be?!?!?!

Here are a few pictures from the day:

The birthday person gets to pick their breakfast.  This is what Noah chose. 

See if you notice a theme in some of his presents.

He wanted blue cupcakes and strawberry ice cream for dessert.  I tried really hard to get him to choose something chocolately, but he wouldn't. 

Noah had a great day.  He turned 4 and the very next day became a big brother.  Those are two very exciting things!