From What I Hear...

End of School (aka: SUMMER)

It's not exactly a news flash, but school is out in the Wariner House.  This year was particularly poignant for Lincoln, as the school's end marks his final moments of elementary school and the beginning of something bigger (and in my case at least, something scarier).  

Here is Lincoln at his 5th Grade Awards ceremony and graduation.    

Lincoln made the A&B Honor Roll all year long and was awarded the Citizenship award.  We are so proud of his accomplishments.  His dyslexia and dsygraphia hasn't made it easy, but over the years, Lincoln has stuck with it and made significant improvements.  Every single teacher Lincoln has ever had, even as early as Kindergarten has voiced nearly the same message:  "Lincoln is a brilliant boy.  He's going places." So I guess, regardless of how Jr High seems to me, I shouldn't worry too much.  Lincoln will manage to find his stride.  

I should keep the following statement in mind:

Trust me, keeping that in mind is way harder than it should be.  

Either way though, it's summer.  Time to enjoy life.  Worries can wait.  (They are quite good at waiting and take great pleasure in jumping you when you least expect it.  Darn things)

So, on to summer.  Is there anything that says summer more than a goggles on a 4-year old? When the boys aren't in the pool, their shooting each other with nerf guns, playing the legos, doing puzzles or games and of course, the spending inordinate amount of time on electronics.
And when our toys aren't cool enough, we simply invite over friends and suddenly our toys have a whole new appeal. And summer wouldn't be complete without food.  We made a Costco run last week and I came home with all sorts of new exciting things.  But I did have two additional helper and they did an amazing job loading the cart.  (btw:  I find that there is a great need for a sarcasm font)Hope your summer is going well.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It has been raining a lot over the last two weeks and with the kids out for the summer but trapped indoors, I knew it was only a matter of time before one of us would lose our mind.  My best solution:  a Festival of Puzzles.  

The Snow White puzzle was a doozy but nothing compared to the expansive blue sky in the New York puzzle.  But Lincoln was a trooper.  He, more than the other boys, liked the problem solving involved in puzzle making.  Kyle enjoyed the smaller and easier puzzles that could be handled in  one sitting and David...he mostly just watched and pretended to help, but it was better than being whiney and destructive, so I called it a win.   
 

A Minute to Win It, but a lifetime to enjoy it

Kyle won't actually turn eight for another week, but due to scheduling issues, we celebrated his birthday last weekend.  In our household, we do big parties at ages 3, 5, 8, 12 and 16 and this year was Kyle's big eight-year old party.  He and his 7 little friends played 6 games from the Minute to Win It website, with some age adjustments.  If you're interested, see below––otherwise, the scroll away.

1.  Noodling Around:  the object is to thread six penne noodles placed around the perimeter of a table onto one uncooked spaghetti noodle in 60 seconds using only your mouth.  If the spaghetti breaks, you lose. Adjustment:  The boys used their hands, not mouth--but only one hand.  Success rate for 8-year olds:  7 out of 8.

2.  On the Nose:  transfer five cotton balls, one at a time, from one bowl to another using only your nose, which you manage by dipping your nose, first into a small quantity of vaseline.  Adjustment:  none.  Success rate for 8-year olds:  4 out of 8.

3.  Bite Me:   transfer five paper bags, which are set on the floor and open, one at a time using only your mouth.  The bags are cut down to 10", 8", 6", 4", 2".  No part of the body can touch the ground, except for the feet.  Adjustment:  we eliminated the 2" bag.  Success rate:  8 out of 8.

4.  Stack Attack:  use 36 plastic cups to erect a triangle-shaped structure and then move them all into one stack within 60 seconds.  Adjustment:  we used 21 cups.  Success rate:  2 out of 8.

5.  Sticky Balls:  roll marbles across the table so that they stop on the double-sided tape.  Complete 5 within 60 seconds.  Adjustment:  we did the width of the table, not the length.  Success rate:  1 out of 8.

6.  Defying Gravity:  keep 3 balloons in the air, using any part of your body for 60 seconds.  Adjustment:  we used only 2 balloons.  Success rate:  0 out of 8.

These games were really easy to put together and the boys had fun doing them.  They seemed to like Sticky Balls the best.  The two games that they all thought would be so easy were the Stacked and Defying Gravity and clearly that wasn't the case.  The Noodling Around one is fairly easy, but it's good to start out with some success.  If I were to do it again, I'd add back in the 2" bag for Bite Me.  It was too easy as it was.  

After the games, we did pizza, root beer floats and then cake and ice cream.

As you can kinda see, Kyle's cake was a number 8.  I stole the idea (with permission) from my good friend, Linda.  It's two bundt cakes, with a section cut out of one cake and then the two cakes jammed together.

After presents, we handed out the marshmallow guns and ammo and then sent the whole lot of them outside to have at it.  Overall, I think it turned out pretty good.  Kyle was happy and that's what matter, I guess.