Another Last First

As Heather gets older, with no younger siblings following in her footsteps, I find myself ticking off the last of the firsts. First teeth, first steps, first day of preschool. 

I remember Wayne's first t-ball game. And Cole's first t-ball game. And today Heather's first t-ball game. Another last first.

Heather has been very excited to start t-ball. She has loved going to the practices and knows many of the kids on her team, some of whom she will be classmates with in the fall.  When we woke this morning to fog, drizzle, and 34 degrees, she was almost in tears to think that her game might get cancelled. Fortunately for her, the rain held off, although the temps were not so cooperative.

 Freezing as shortstop.

 Up to bat. Strike one.

 Strike two.

 Strike three. In t-ball, you get 5 pitches before the coach brings out the batting T.

 On the 4th pitch, she gets a good hit.

 She didn't like running the bases with the helmet on.

 It took an hour and a half to complete the first 2 innings, at which point, we had to subtract her from the game, in order to get to Wayne's minors game at noon.  Heather didn't mind because by that time she was frozen solid and ready to go. Let's hope for better weather next week.

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Last Year at This Time:

Owl Pellet

Remember Wayne's nickname from first grade? Well, Dr. Science is at it again.  Last weekend I was forcing him to help me do some yard work when he was distracted by an owl pellet he found on the ground underneath the front yard maple tree.  At the beginning of the school year, his class did a whole unit on owls and their teacher ordered owl pellets for all of them to dissect, so he knows all about it. There is no delicate way to describe what an owl pellet is, so I'll just insert this explanation I found at Kidwings:

"Owls, like many other birds, eat their food whole. Since birds do not have teeth, they can't chew their food. Therefore, they use their strong and sharp beaks to rip their prey apart and then swallow large chunks whole. The owl slowly digests its meal by separating the softer materials (such as meat) from the harder material (such as bones). It then regurgitates the harder material along with indigestible items such as feathers and fur in the form of a pellet." -Kidwings

I didn't think to take a picture of it before he started to dissect it, but this is a picture I found in a google search.

He took the pellet to school to show his teacher and she let him bring home some of the tools they used in class for the dissection.  (By dissecting an owl pellet, you can learn about what they eat.) He also knew about a site online where he could print out this bone sorting chart.

 The skull looks huge in this picture, but all of the bones were very tiny and delicate. Wayne found 7 mole skulls in the 2 inch pellet.

 After sorting everything out, he glued the bones to construction paper in an approximation of anatomical correctness.

Kind of cool and creepy at the same time.

Dance Assembly

 Dance Assembly as part of the physical Education class. Keep in mind, they only had a few practice sessions, and the kids came up with these routines themselves.

Wayne with the 3rd and 4th grade group.

Cole with the first and second grade group. They're dancing to a song called "I'm Elmo and I Know It." He wants me to make sure you all know that he was very embarrassed to dance to an Elmo song, 8-year-olds are too old for Elmo, he was not in favor of it at all.

And then Wayne was also part of a smaller group with his friends Bailey and Asom.

Happy Easter

Today was GREC's Easter Scramble.

The Easter Bunny was there. Heather actually liked him this year even though it wasn't Daddy.

 There were egg races.

And the scramble for candy on the playground.

Here's an action packed video of one of the sack races, in the age 8 and up range. You'll see Wayne and Cole starting on the left.

Happy Easter!

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Last year at this time:

Proficient With Distinction

Here's where I use my blog to exercise my parental bragging rights.

NECAP results came home with recent report cards, and Wayne, thanks to some great teachers over the years and his own distinctive brain, scored in the "proficient with distinction" range in both math and reading. If you click on the image you can see it a little larger.

 NECAP testing starts in 3rd grade, so Cole being in 2nd grade has not done this yet.

Wayne and Cole both got excellent report cards.

Wayne:

And Cole:

I never take for granted that we have kids who like school and who do so well. I hope they continue this throughout their academic career.

8

Cole turned 8 last weekend!

 He helped decorate his cake while Heather cleaned the frosting bowl.

 He requested yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

 His favorite present was the Hoth Wampa Star Wars Lego set. 

Thanks to everyone for all the singing phone calls,  cards, gifts and Happy Birthday wishes. He had a great day.

In other Cole news, remember when Julie did a post about Estelle bringing home a stuffed animal from school for the  weekend (or night?) Well the 2nd grade here does the same thing. Wayne did this a couple years ago when he was in 2nd grade. This is a stuffed black bear named Rocky. Each student brings it home with them and then in the evening they write in the bear's journal about his experiences.

At our house, Rocky played on the playground, climbed an apple tree, and rode a bike, and suffered through Cole's piano practice.

 He also went to check for eggs in the hen house until chased all over the yard by the rooster.

Who needs a watch dog when this rooster is around?

Such a Nice Weekend

We have been given the gift of a beautiful, warm, sunshiny weekend. And I think these nice days are supposed to last well into the week. Let's all call in sick!

Our weekend started with Heather's milk turning green when she poured it onto her cereal on St. Patrick's Day morning. That was the extent our our St. Patrick's Day celebration.  I had thought of making Irish Stew and soda bread, but decided against spending time in the kitchen on such a sunny day.

Wayne is under the spell of the Harry Potter books, so if you're looking for him these days, this is how you're likely to find him. He's read the first 3 books in the past week and half.  Cole keeps complaining, "I miss Wayne because he's always reading those books!"

 We've started to let the chickens run free outside their pen and Spike hasn't even tried to kill them at all.

 The red hen was the first to start laying eggs, but Heather's little bantam hen is now laying little bantam eggs. They're very cute, but in a recipe, you'd have to use two eggs to equal one of regular size.

And here's the one who's not laying ANY eggs.

Ever since the snow cleared from the yard, Heather has bee working hard to learn how to ride her bike. As of today, she's just about got it.

Hmm, I guess Cole escaped my camera this weekend, but he did lose a tooth. I'll try to get more of him nest post.

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Last Year At This Time:

Signs of Spring

Even though our winter was relatively mild, it seemed like a very long one, so these longer and warmer days have been a welcome treat.  Here are some signs that spring is just around the corner:

Bikes and mud.

 Wayne reads Harry Potter while keeping an eye on the boiling sap.

 Indoor seed starting. I've never had much luck with this, but thought we'd give it a try. Here we have tomatoes and watermelon (?!)

 Another sure sign of Spring? Spike is shedding and not looking so handsome.

Nothing to do with Spring, but adorable none the less, is Heather's concentration as she tries her hand at sewing.

Lego Star Wars - The Final Chapter

It took Wayne all afternoon and most of the evening to learn how to lay down two audio tracks - voice and music, but in the end his persistence prevailed and he figured it out. Ignore the misspelling in the opening scroll. Enjoy this final episode in the Lego Star Wars saga.