Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Kitten Appreciation

Tyler recently wrote his first research report. I am very proud of how hard he worked on it. He found the right books at the library, read them, took notes, developed an outline, wrote a rough draft then a polished final copy. Whew! That's alot of work! I wanted to share his report with you so it could officially be considered 'published.' Plus it's really sweet and I know you'll enjoy it.

Tyler and his muse, Spots.

Kittens
by Tyler Thomasson

When kittens are playing it is so sweet to watch. I love how they are so soft.
When kittens are born they look like little rats, but when they get a little bigger they get fluffier.
Kittens drink milk from their mom. Then when they're older they eat soft food. When they are about four months old they eat solid food.
They start in their mom's tummy, then they get born and live with their mom. When they are about eight weeks old they can live by themselves.
They play with yarn. They pounce at rats. They play fight with each other.
I like kittens because they are very soft and sweet.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Saturday was a wonderful day. I had been looking forward to Feb. 21 for quite some time and it finally arrived. When it did, it turned out even better than I had hoped it would. What made that day so remarkable?

That's right! Saturday was the 2009 Topeka Awana Bible Quiz. So what, you ask? Topeka can have quizzes all it wants. Why would that make me so happy? Well, this was the very first year for our Awana Clubbers to participate and we were ALL quite excited. Rose Baker, Melody Carpenter, Rick Haigh and I set out at a ridiculously early hour to haul those kids to Topeka. And it was so worth it.
We had seven kids competing in two multiple choice rounds. They would answer 10 questions per round. If they correctly answered all 10 they would "quiz out." This means they received a beautiful purple rosette...and more points!

All of our kids did just great even though I think they were pretty nervous. They carefully listened to the question posed by the Quizmaster (I MUST figure out a way to make people start calling me by that name...or would it be Quizmistress?) then chose their answer. We had two kids "quiz out"! That was great news. Cendall and Brandyn both received ribbons for perfect scores!
Finally, after a long morning of quizzing the competition was complete and it was time for the award ceremony. To be quite frank, I didn't know how points were tabulated but I figured all the big prizes would go to the churches who had brought a whole bunch of kids. Well, lo and behold, guess whose name was called not once, not twice but THREE times??

Wellsville Baptist!! Indeed! We had a girls' and a boys' team that each took fourth place and...one of our boys' teams won first place!

I am so proud of these kids. They worked hard to prepare for the competition. They behaved so very well all day. And most important, they memorized lots of Bible verses that tell them how much God loves them! I know they will remember those verses for a long time.

Thank you so much to the kids who competed so well. And thank you to Rose, Melody and Rick for spending your Saturday with these wonderful boys and girls. Now we can't wait til next year!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Well, we've reached another milestone in the highway of life. Apparently it's not enough that the boys are growing up at hyper-sonic speeds. I guess that when they leave the room as toddlers and return a few minutes later as preteens, I should shrug it all off. Okay, I can do that.

But now we've reached braces. That's right, Luke had his first orthodontic torture session last week and emerged with a whole mouth full of metal. He's thrilled! Nick is seething with envy, which thrills Luke even more. And I'm thankful we can provide them for him. I truly am. But as a person who shuns all form of change, I have to say that it's a real bittersweet moment for me to see him with braces. It's not that I'm attached to his crooked teeth. It's just that this is one more step towards him growing up completely. When they come off, he'll be closing in on 16. Think of that.....16 years old. He'll no doubt have a job, maybe a girlfriend (or two), perhaps his own car. And pressures and worries that a mom doesn't like to think of her baby having.

I know, I'm getting ahead of myself. I've still got him with me for a while yet. I'm so glad. Anyway, here is the very first published picture of Luke 'Brace Face' Thomasson!! You probably can't tell from the photo, but he chose red and blue rubber bands so his mouth is actually quite colorful. I think he looks good in metal.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Outrage Of It All

Getting Chip's hair cut is not one of my favorite things to do. Seriously, it's a long, drawn out, painful process for at least three persons: Chip, known as the 'cuttee,' the hair stylist, hereafter known as the 'cutter,' and myself, a.k.a Mom Who Has To Hold Down A Kicking/Flailing Child. Well, this time I decided to document this ordeal for all the free world to see. I think you'll get a kick out of the progression of the fit.

Here we have a very wary 2-year old. He's not in the chair yet, but he knows what those shiny pointy things the lady is waving around are for.

Not too bad at first, but you can tell he's deciding if he should fall apart or not. Look at his squinty eyes...it's coming.

And it's here! I would hate to be the 'cutter' (remember, the lady with the scissors) in this situation. The pain! The indignity!

Something I've noticed is how in every single picture, I appear to be talking a mile a minute. Even when I've got his face in this stranglehold.

Finally, after the invasive procedure is complete and we are home again, the only thing in the whole world that can make it better is a big plate of french fries and a Barney movie. Whew! I think we're all glad that's over for a couple of weeks.

Monday, February 2, 2009

I was thinking the other day that since the name of our 'Blog is 'The Thomasson Times,' you very well might expect to see activities that indicate how we spend our time. Well, a large chunk of time....let me try that again. A LARGE chunk of our time is spent in the pursuit of homeschooling. Now I know that homeschooling comes in all shapes and forms. Some people load up the family and travel the country, learning facts all along the way. Some people 'unschool' and let the kids lead with their interests. Others, like me, want lots and lots of textbooks and someone to tell me exactly what to do and say. That seems to work pretty well for us.

Since this is such an important area of our lives and no one is ever here whilst it's occurring, I decided to snap some pictures showing a few minutes of typical homeschooling at the Thomasson household. They're not very exciting, just the kids reading and doing work. And the Lord knows that they are very seldom sitting nicely like in these pictures.
But they do give you an idea of what goes on each school day. So I hope you enjoy them! I have a feeling they will become more and more special to me as time goes on. Luke and Nick are going to public school next year and our whole lives will change. Yes, these changes will be exciting and good, but there's a definite downside as well. We've enjoyed these years here at home together and all felt very secure. I know we will like watching them take the first steps towards independence, but I never will forget all the great, slow-paced days of everyone being home together. I haven't always had great days homeschooling, but at least I've had some good minutes each day! At least I still have Tyler and Chip here for a while longer, but having two prepare to go to school makes me all too aware of how quickly time goes.