Going WAYYY back (June)

Catching up on pics, now that I can post the normal way again!  Recognize this guy?  It’s my old high school teacher Mr. Ross at the Maritime Museum's annual Pirate Festival.

As part of the festival we were able to be part of a reenactment.  We hid on a ship while a pirate ship attacked, but then were saved by another ship (an English cutter?  Joseph could tell you the right terminology) that came to defend us and scared them away.  Guns firing, shouting and everything!  Joseph loved it (big surprise). 

The family show.   These boys were beyond adorable.  The younger couldn’t have been much older than Joseph and was part of al the stilt walking, fire juggling, balloon animal acts!

Pirate tug-a-war!

A get-together at the cabin (my gram’s).  Such special times.

We revived a made up game from our childhood; “roofball.”  Almost everyone got into the game!

And of course a swim in the pond.

Love all the boy cousins!

Fuzzy pic, but I was impressed with him jumping with just the noodle.  I was so surprised by this I would never have predicted that by the end of the summer he wouldn’t even need that!

Traditional run up the path!  Roger wouldn’t have it any other way.

How cute is that!!  Charlie is such a fun cousin.  Joseph would like to be just like him!

Summer reading story hour at our library.  Since the new librarian started last year and with the big addition our Shoreham Library (Platt Memorial) has a lot more going on and many more patrons attending events.  We are lucky to have an active local library.

First time fishing!  (Grandpa Fred took Joseph, and cousins Jacob and Jonathan while I worked at the library.)

Reading.

Cousins being silly!

Making progress on getting caught up!  Posting these pictures do make me a bit nostalgic for the warmer weather. It is full on fall now.  Today is chilly and damp.  We have a fire going and this afternoon Joseph and I made apple pizza with the apples we picked last weekend!

Thunderdragon Slide Show

At the end of each year at Joseph’s preschool his teachers gave us a slideshow of Joseph’s pictures from the year.  I have been wanting to share, but couldn’t upload it since we were using broadband (after the lightening strike to the house), but I just got a new wireless router and am back in business.   Thunderdragon by the way was the name of Joseph’s class.

 

		Thunderdragon Slide Show VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

First day of school!

 

Here is a picture of Joseph's first day of kindergarten--over two weeks ago now!  We are getting into the swing of things, but with elementary school and work and my school (I'm taking one graduate class) and family visiting and sports and school events, whew----we have been busy!  I have almost a whole summer worth of pictures to post and hope to work on that soon.  Happy fall everyone!

Gardenlove

I have finally figured out why I love my garden so.  It is like a big science experiment all summer long.  And then the additional fun of all sorts of culinary experimentation.  With the added benefit of being healthy, beautiful, cheap, outside, and so much more. 

Some flowers and herbs on the porch (and the house is all repainted!)

I also planted my first perennial flowers--black eyed susan's given to me by our neighbor.  I put them in all sorts of places.

Most recent picture with the sunflowers blooming!

**Update: I need to eat my words about Joseph playing by himself.  We had a couple good weeks on this front this summer, but lately again, it has again seemed an impossible task.  Frustrating for me.  However, it has helped me feel more excited about kindergarten.  Not just selfishly, but also, Joseph seems to really liked organized activities of any sort and I think kindergarten will provide lots of that!

First trophy!

Joseph has been ogling trophies and hoping for one of his very own for years (and he's only just 5).  He finally got one!

This past week we spent lots of time at Addison County Fair and Field Days (our local agricultural fair which is a HUGE deal around here and was always the highlight of my summer growing up).  We enjoyed lots of what the fair has to offer (and many more pictures will someday by uploaded) but the arm wrestling competition was quite the thrill.  Joseph loves anything competitive and was very excited to enter the arm wrestling competition.  He entered the 5 and under category and bravely got up in front of everyone in the main tent to wrestle his peers.  It is all very official with referees in special shirts, announcers, rules, lots of protocol.  Anyways, he went up 4 or 5 times  . . .  and never lost!  Hence, the first place trophy.  His biggest competition was friend and soon-to-be classmate Tanner who took second.  Brad also entered in the adult competition.  Joseph was of course convinced his amazing dad would get the trophy as well.  Brad won his first round, the lost two, but he put up a great fight and it was very respectable.  They have both been doing exercises every night since to get ready for next year.  I myself have no interest in entering. 

Learning new things

I am having some technical issues with posting photos (combined with a motivational issue with solving the problem).  But, I thought I would share some thoughts.  Joseph has honed some exciting new skills this summer.  It really is quite an honor--and very interesting--to be part of this amazing process; a process I do realize occurs every day, all the time, all throughout history.  However, he is the only one with whom I have gone through this process!

1) Bike riding:  This is a little old, but sometime this spring/early summer Joseph learned how to ride his bike for real!  As with other skills, when you are helping a youngster learn, you realize how incredibly challenging bike riding really is.  For a long time Joseph found it very frustrating and disheartening.  And then he took off!  Like everything, it's mostly a function of practice and taking risks.  He really learned by just hurling himself down a hill here at our house.  Over and over.  Now he loves it and can ride on the grass and trails around our house, or pretty much anywhere, but his favorite riding by far is all around Bristol with grandpa Bob.  When he goes to Bob's he expects lots of bike rides and boy does he get a work out!  Plus, I can't tell you how many people mention seeing them around town.  It means a lot to all of us-Thanks Bob!

2) Swimming:  This has been the most fun for me personally, since I love to swim!  Before this swimming season it didn't even occur to me that he could possibly actually SWIM and now he does.  Today he swam all the way out to a raft (I did hold him briefly twice so he could rest), jumped in numerous times, and swam back (I think just one rest that time).  I mean, he's not swimming laps, and it's not stylish, but in my book it's swimming.  I fondly remember when he was three or so and still afraid of going underwater and I just yanked him under.  That was a turning point for us and from then on he thought it was fun.  Go mean mommy!  This summer I think the biggest help was when I let him go down a water slide in the deep end where they have changed the rules and you can not wear floaties or have anyone catch you.  I knew he was really close to swimming, and I knew I could jump in if I had to.  And he was dead set on it.  So I let him go down.  Low and behold he came up and swam over to the edge.  Then he did it like 1000 times and pretty much learned to swim.  He did also just finish swim lessons where they are starting to teach strokes as opposed to just doggy paddling.  He surprised me by jumping off the diving board unassisted and loving it (and repeating, over and over)!
 
3) Sleeping in own bed:  Sleeping has generally been a very hard issue in this household and since he turned two and went into a big kid bed he has come into our bed sometime in the middle of the night.  We were all too tired to care very much, and since everyone seemed rested we never fought the battle.  At times we tried some bribery and some limits, but never stuck with any of it.  We always kind of had kindergarten as the cut-off in our head.  And low and behold about two months ago, he started just staying in his room.  I actually think that spending the night with grandma and grandpa (who very wisely just expected him to sleep in his own bed, like the many kids they have raised) might have been what made it happen.  Either way it happened pretty painlessly and we are all very happy about it.  He still usually comes in when Brad leaves for work (5:30 or so) and still is his very cuddly self ;-)

4) Playing by himself:  He actually does this sometimes now and even seems to enjoy it a bit.  Make no mistake he would ALWAYS prefer a playmate, but he can actually entertain himself sometimes.  I have made a very concerted effort to ignore him at times and expect him to entertain himself and actually play with toys.  It is still a bit surprising to me when he actually does this, but so good for my mental health, and I think it's good for him too!  Next I want to try  and get him to play by himself outside . . .

(PS there is another skill too, a skill I was embarrassed to give a bullet . . . he can now take care of ALL potty issues by himself.  It has taken two years for him to learn to wipe himself and it is so great.  Now he can poop when mom is not around, which means a much healthier belly.  Just like sleeping pooping has always been hard for Joseph.  We are making strides.  Sorry to be gross!)