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Caelum is four. Our sweet little bundle of blankets and baby has become a big, bustling boy of four.

I know there's a lot of Caelum's babyhood that is lost in the dark recesses of my mind (see toddler in above picture for explanation), but there are so many sweet memories we've had with him over these past few, FAST years. 

Caelum has always been our rough, tough bruiser.  While I grant his whininess at times, he is a roll with the punches (or deliver them) guy who, when injured, cries for ten seconds then gets back to playing. Caelum: the 9-month old baby teaching his big brother how to go down slides.

Not so surprisingly, Caelum has been drawn to the world of knights and armor. His favorite Christmas gift was a $14 set of armor from Rainbow. Every morning he would get up and put it on, first thing. 

He has the sweetest heart too.  He LOVES his siblings with fervor.  Esmé and Caelum are becoming close friends and play together often. Perhaps that is why she's so good at making gun noises. He has been nothing but sweet and gentle with her, and kindly lets her have his blanket (which does look a lot like hers) or just about anything he has that she wants.

Owen remains his bestest friend.  They play together from the time they get up until they go to bed...and usually for an hour or so after that.  They do schoolwork together and play LEGOS and board games together.

They enjoy wrestling, flipping off the couch, setting up battling "worlds" out of Playmobil toys, and playing basketball, football, or a new one: danger ball.  They are very much like puppy dogs. 

I love seeing their relationship grow and how they interact together. I pray they are friends for life and that each will seek to protect and care for the other (and of course, Essie).

Caelum had a fun birthday.  He came out of his room to a whole lot of balloons in the living room.  He looked down at his body and said, "I look so big!" Grandpa Mantis has a song about wearing one's birthday suit that he sings for everyone's birthday.  On the morning of his birthday, Caelum and Owen were singing it.  Caelum, with the sophisticated humor of a four year old, yelled, "My underwear is my birthday suit!"  The boys thought this was the funniest, most risqué thing ever.  And no, I didn't correct them.

As at all times, we celebrated with food.  Cae chose cinnamon rolls and green smoothies for his breakfast and Waffle House with Daddy for lunch.

We then went to Barnes and Noble so he could pick out his birthday book, and of course we got an M&M Blondie from Starbucks while we were there. He was riding high from the sugar and ready for a treasure hunt when Zach got home.

Zach had made a scavenger hunt which ended with the clues forming a map, leading to Caelum's treasure.  We had given him a telescope and a pirate sword which greatly aided in him finding the X that marked the spot.

Zach came through with a great gift idea for Caelum and Owen: a toolbox with real tools in it.  Caelum has frequently raided Zach's toolbox to get screwdrivers for whatever project he's working on, and now he has his very own set.

We had sweet potato chili and cornbread for dinner (thank you for one healthy choice of food for the day, Caelum!), then a few more presents. Gramma and Grandpa drove in and we had chocolate fudge cake with Bobbi frosting. And, you guessed it, more presents.

 

Having Gramma and "Gampa" there made it really special.  Gramma provided a special birthday edition of her famed Clarabelle stories.

Queenie, Clemsonopoly is getting a lot use around here.

Eating mussels. Cae loved them because he's an old man in a child's body.  You can see how O felt about them.

Caelum my dear, we love you so much and thank God for putting you in our family. When you were three, you asked Jesus into you heart, and now that you are four, I look forward to seeing how he draws you closer to him to the praise of his glory.  I pray that these days don't go too fast and that you'll grow in the fear and knowledge of God, who loves you "even more than I do."  

Get Behind Me, Santa!

How could such a sweet face manage to get the whole family sick? Well, I can guess actually: open-mouth kisses, sharing her food, chewing on everything. No matter how the transfer happened, it happened. We were supposed to host our fellowship group's Christmas party, but we cancelled an hour before as Esmé woke up from her nap with an "extra blanket," let's call it. We all lost a week to a nasty virus.  I don't really want to rehash what that was like, so how about some cute pictures of the kiddos?

This is how germs spread, guys!

A few days ago, I found our "Christmas Countdown" from last year which we had hung on the mantle.  I had cut out these 25 cute Christmas shapes and each day we would take one down and then do the "special Christmas activity" on the back.  I didn't even think of it this year.  I suddenly worried that we hadn't been anticipating Christmas enough.  We have been using the Jesus Storybook Bible for our advent and I made (read: printed, cut, and taped somebody else's) corresponding ornaments. But now, seeing these pictures, I feel like there's been a lot of Christmassy festivities.

Christmas tree shopping - that bow, Queenie!

Decorating the tree

Caelum got to put the angel on top, which was "a little scary"

Decorating Gingerbread cookies

Christmas at the Biltmore House

Gingerbread house makin' with the homeschool friends

"Winters Tail" Christmas at the Nature Center. Esmé strongly declined sitting with Santa

Gingerbread House Exhibition at the Grove Park Inn with friends

Also, we took a "Journey to Bethlehem" at a local church where they recreated the city.  The boys get more out of it each year.  Caelum was really into the Roman soldiers, of course.  Wait til he sees what he's getting for Christmas (spoiler alert: armor). We also sang Christmas carols to our elderly friends at Highland Farms. So I guess we've been in Christmas mode for a while. 

Zach prepares in his own way: a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy celebrating our Savior's birth!

It's Musiiiiic!

Our Classical Conversations fall semester has been over for a month now, but I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn't post a little bit about the "variety show."

Background: CC South Asheville (the co-op group we did last year) had reached capacity, with about eight families on the waiting list.  They decided to start another South Asheville group which would meet three minutes from our house (as opposed to 15 minutes like the other one).  There were probably six families from our church with us in the original group, and I felt like we needed to branch out and meet some new families - albeit, still mainly Christian homeschoolers...not too stretching, I guess.

 

The new group is much smaller.  Owen is in the 5-7 year old class (pictured above, minus one kid) and as you can guess, he loves it. It's been nice getting to know a new group of people and Owen had no problem making the switch, though some of his best buds were in the other group.  We still see those guys at least once a week between church and our fellowship group, so I knew the friendships would hold strong.

 I am so glad that Cae is such a trooper when it comes to CC.  It is particularly helpful as Esmé is less obliging. Some babies just hate  missing their morning nap

Our little corner that I claimed each week and tried to keep Esmé from scooting out of.

Now on to the good stuff. To celebrate the end of the semester, the director organized a potluck and show for the kids to participate in. Anyone could do anything they wanted to do...on a stage...with a microphone.  You can imagine how that went.  Let me give you one example: Owen.  He played "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on his tin whistle, with Zach and Es holding the music for him.  It was short, sweet, and appropriate, as they had been learning how to play the tin whistle during Music.  After he finished, he grabbed the mic and yelled, "Yeahhhhhhhhh!  Woooooooh!"  This shouldn't have surprised me as Owen was MCing during the rehearsal: "Next up, we have Hope singing a song from Frozen. IN COSTUME!!!" No fear of stage fright for this kid.  We've signed him up for drama classes this January because hey, we're homeschoolers.  That's the kind of stuff we do.  And he is going to love it. 

 

The group of younger kids then sang America the Beautiful and the President's Song, both of which Caelum participated in, loudly and clearly.  My kids placed themselves front and center. We're a shy bunch, we are.  The video clip isn't uploading, but consider yourself spared.

At Home With Owen

It is Owen's turn for a little update.  I thought since he is right here with me (he is my BT, as the Ashtons would say), he could take a look at the pictures I've chosen and provide the commentary on each one.  I'm sure his narration will be revealing as to what he's into these days.

 

"Here's a picture of us watching Clemson football. CLEMSON!"

 

"This is when I crossed a whole big river at a park."

"This is when I was doing something like a tea party for CC."

"This is when we crossed the other side of a big tree to a little island at Biltmore. I was feeling scared but then I felt good because I could look at Caelum and see how he did it."

"Esmé!  You're in this picture. We were going to Tallahassee to see our cousins, but we stopped for pizza in Macon, Georgia.  This is me, Caelum, and Esmé looking out a window."

"Ooh. This is when I rided Tyler's big blue motorcycle that went fast."

 

Upon seeing this picture, Owen started reciting the Clemson schedule and the numbers and positions of thesenior players.  He stares at the schedule a lot because it's right where we do reading and math. "We like this team, the Clemson Tigers."

"This is when I was doing math and I was needing Mom's help."

"This is when we were doing school in our tree house. This is when I was doing math. I like to do math in the tree house."

"This is when we played a game and you had to read the word if it was a different card, but there was a card that you would really like, it was "eat a treat." You would get to eat one of your Cheerios."

{I know, I know.  In what world does one Cheerio equal "a treat"? Still, if you knew how many times we played this "game," you would stop judging me for being so stingy with the sweets."}

"I remember that! This is at Bearwallow Mountain and we're at the top of it where cows used to be."

"This is at Biltmore when we were riding bikes before we got ice cream at a Biltmore ice cream shop."

"This is when we were at somewhere by Chimney Rock.  We were learning about the American Revolution. This is when I was drawing with a feather pen."

"This is in the kitchen of my house and that's the shirt I was wearing."

"Ahh, that's when we saw the band play before Clemson played NC State and we went to the game and Clemson won: 41 to 0. Zero is what NC State had."

"This is when we were at the game watching Clemson play NC State. Dad was taking the picture. And I'm sure the score from now was 28 to 0."

"This is when we were watching a fire that Dad made. Esmé was with us too by the blazing heat."

"This is when Esme keeped on hugging me so that I couldn't get out and she did it for maybe five minutes."

"This is at Craggy Gardens when we were at the top, when we were looking down and we saw our car. Clemson fans we are!"

"this is when me and mom were in a leaf pile." <He typed this one by himself.

So, there you have it.  Owen, through his own eyes. My sweet, cautious, handsome, Clemson-obsessed boy.  This post was going to feature details on our homeschooling, but turns out Owen basically covered it: some reading games, math, and lots of field trips. I can't believe we're halfway through his Kindergarten year!  He'll be six in two months.  We sure do love this guy.