January 2013

After we got back from our big Christmas vacation, we still had about a week before the older kids went back to school, so it was nice for them to be able to sit around and relax at home.

Here’s Henry teaching himself how to draw dinosaurs:


And the younger four having a little tea party:


And Cynthia pretending to be Rachel’s baby:


And Rachel in curlers doing some late-night Harry Potter reading in my bed:

And all six of them hanging out together and playing with some of Tristan’s legos:

Then school started again, and Henry and Cindy were back on their own, doing their favorite things:
Puzzles (I bought some bins for Henry’s new Star Wars puzzles, and he loved doing all of them at a time and then setting them up in a line next to their bins):               


Legos:


Just like with his puzzles, Henry loves to put together each of his sets, and line them all up in a row:

Working out together:                                                    


Cindy made sure to always stay hydrated by exercising with her sippy cup full of applesauce in her mouth:


And just standing around being cute:                 


I don’t know why, but when my kids are little and don’t know any better I love tucking in their shirts and then pulling their pants up way high so they are nice and tidy.  I just think it looks so funny.  My poor kids.


Cynthia was starting to suspect that something was wrong with her jammies, maybe because I couldn’t stop laughing at her.


Giving her best cheesy double-chinned smile:


Which she may or may not have inherited from her mama:


Also in January – basketball games for Tristan and Oliver.


And a science project for Oliver:                                  


And the end of reading lessons for Henry.  He is now the 5th of my kids to finish this reading lesson book, and I couldn’t believe how quickly he got through all the lessons.  None of my kids have ever been quite that motivated.


Part of that motivation came from the “when you’re done with reading lessons” prize we had decided on – he had suggested that maybe we could buy him an enormous lego set, and I had suggested that since we already have a room full of legos, maybe Tristan would let Henry take apart and rebuild one of his big sets.  Henry thought this was the best idea in the world.  He turned on his laser focus, and seriously finished the last 10 lessons in less than 3 days.  With my other kids sometimes those long lessons at the end with big stories would take up to 45 minutes each, but not with Henry – he blew through the last 5 lessons all in one morning.

I told him he would have to wait until Tristan got home from school that day to pick out a lego set, and he almost couldn’t handle the waiting.  He kept asking what time Tristan was going to get home, and when I told him it would be a little bit after he got up from his nap, he said, “okay, Mom, well I think I'm tired – I’ll just go take my nap right now!” (It was 9:30 in the morning).                              


Tristan finally got home and Henry got right to work.  I don’t think he moved from that spot until he was done figuring out how to build that thing:                     


And now he reads anything he can get his hands on, all the time.  I love it!


The end.