A few I missed

From the first day of Transitional Kindergarten

 

From his actual birthday day

Watching Thomas with Pa

Apple Picking with Nana

Our fun activity with Nana while she was in town was going to pick apples. Mommy goofed a little in that this is the same orchard we're going to next week with Josiah's class. Oops. It'll still be fun.

Discovered that apple picking is more fun on Mama's shoulders. Josiah is extremely bothered by the gnats.

Digging in

 

Our bounty

And there went Nana's heart. As if she still had it.

 

 

Petting a pumpkin. His idea.

Making apple crisp this weekend. Baking = math lessons.
Yes, I let my oldest child sit on the counter top.

First Oreo Dunk

 

Waiting for Nana

He did this on his own initiative.

She made it!

School Days

TK is going well for Josiah! He groans most mornings about going, and most afternoons about homework. But he seems to enjoy both once he starts. We've seen so many changes in him already. For instance, in the pictures above and below. He actually drew something. It's no Degas, but he refused to even try to do so until this year. In the picture above he is swimming in a pool.

 

Doing some homework. We've officially entered that phase. In this assignment, he had to draw pictures of a large, medium and small bear. Being who is, he had to be accurate. The large bear is a polar bear, the medium size is a Grizzly and the small is a sun bear. No Goldilocks for us, thank you.

Another funny homework incident: he had an assignment to think of something loud and something quiet, and write down the word. First, for loud, he named a snapping shrimp. I said that was too long of a word for him to fit in the allotted space. He conceded to blue whale. I went along with it. Jonathan got home from work and was unsure about that a blue whale was a loud animal, so he did some research. He discovered that the blue whale is in fact the second loudest animal on earth.
The first loudest is the snapping shrimp.

Helping Daddy Mow the Grass

Sometimes we like to help Daddy this way, by providing moral support.

Other times we really like to help him with our own efforts.

 

Spider Web

Josiah is so brave on this spider web at our cool new park in town. My timid child has gotten so daring (on some things...).

 

Say "Broccoli"

Nearly every time Micah and I have visited Aldi recently, he's requested to eat the broccoli (unwashed, straight from the cellophane-wrapped package). I can't refuse a child requesting vegetables!
Don't think too much of the situation. He also requests animal crackers and cheez-its.

Josiah's 5th Birthday

We had a blast with Josiah's 5th Birthday Party! Animals/Safari was an obvious theme for this kid. Above Mattie and Josiah organized some of the beach ball animals. We hid them in the yard and then the kids got to take them home as party favors.

Fun Pinterest idea. Though be warned: if you do this the night before, half the balloons will be deflated by the time of the party. Just so you know.

Finding the beach animals and putting them back in the zoo (under the play set).

Good little finder

Having animal races. This was the cheetah race, but we also did kangaroo and zebra.

Freeze tag, only they were hungry lions chasing antelope. Most kids took a turn being the lions in pairs. I paired Josiah with Mattie, and when it was their turn, we looked around after 2 minutes, and Mattie had caught every "antelope." That girl is fast!

Cupcakes

ALL the animals escaped from the zoo

Blowing out his candle. Mattie came and put his arm around him, like she was really proud of him. It was so sweet, I nearly cried. 

 

Cecelia leading a game she organized.

Making some animal face

Sneaking a second cupcake when no one was looking... Don't worry, he only ate the icing ;)

Opening his fun presents

 

So blessed that the Simmons drove all the way from Greensboro. Josiah LOVED having them there, and they hopped into playing like they'd never been apart. I didn't get nearly enough Lee time though!