I got the awesome privilege of shooting my girlfriends wedding tonight. What an awesome experience it is when you get to shoot your own friend's wedding. And the best part is you are right there for all the good stuff! She was beautiful and I couldn't be happier for them!!! 
I picked up this neat little book the boys can color pages out of that once colored looks like stained glass. It was a huge hit! They are on amazon for $1.50 new and cheaper used. (Boston colored the pirate and Dallas the shuttle)
Had dinner with my sweet friend Tina and her fiance Bill downtown tonight. Haven't been downtown in a long time and couldn't believe how much new stuff there is down there. We also walked down and got to listen to Sean's old piano teacher play at The Bohemien hotel. It was such a fun night out with them and I'm so looking forward to doing their wedding photography next weekend! (Also a little glimpse of my preggo belly for those of you out of towners)
The boys tried out a karate class tonight. I forget the exact form of marital arts it is but its a form of tae kwon do. Boston was very nervous about it at first. I think he remembered back to the time we tried out gymnastics at the huge gymnastics facility and he was totally overwhelmed by how many people and activities were going on and never tried it. But today there were only the two of them at first and then one other little 5 year old boy joined in. They really seemed to like it and I liked it because this form really seems to emphasis focus, being calm and respect. By the end Dallas really wanted to just come sit down because he was getting very frustrated because I think it might have been hard for him crossing the midline with so many exercises. He said he was hard and started crying. But I think it's probably exactly what he needs. I was very impressed with the patience of the instructor, especially with Dallas. So it looks like this will be what we are doing for sports right now. I keep reading about how beneficial it is for children with Sensory Processing Disorder (what Dallas has) and also how great it is for Kinesthitic learners. So here we go!! Really excited about it! 
Today is National Lefty Day and being the mom of 3 lefty boys we were sure to celebrate today. We started the day out with yummy pancakes and a sign in the school room that read "Lefty Zone-no right handed use allowed." It was really fun for them to have a day to celebrate their leftyness. And I'm so glad they have each other to identify with, because I certainly have no idea what it's like being a lefty. Here's a few things to think about when it comes to lefties:
Dallas work
Boston work
Another cool thing we did today to go along with our bible story about how Jacob tricked his dad and his brother Esau incorporating smell. I dipped qtips into different spices and the boys had to smell them and then smell the containers and find the one that matched. It was really fun. Boston's favorite was vanilla because it smelled like ice cream and Dallas loved the cocoa because it smelled like chocolate. Other smells were chili, garlic, cinnamon, and lime. 
For Phonics we are using Rocket Phonics and today I really got to see the advantages of this program. Boston is a Kinesthetic learner and the man who wrote this program is a Kinesthetic learner and has done extensive studying on it. We do a lot of hands on stuff and games. Today I was so proud of him for his reading and how excited he was to do it. For the first time he wanted to do ANOTHER page instead of just being glad he was done. 
We are also supplementing with Explore the Code. (He used this in school last year and is very familiar with it....along with the fact that Susan Wise Bauer recommends it in her book The Well Trained Mind.) He is on book 1 1/2 right now. A lot of the time (even last year) Boston gets VERY frustrated with reading and sounding out and blending. Today was the first time he didn't complain at all. And on just one page he had about 10 sentences to read and comprehend. I was so proud of him and the excitement he showed when he read it. Mom was beaming! And he was even more excited that he got a sticker to put on the page. (funny how far a sticker goes with kids.) Then on the next page he had to look at the picture, figure out what it was and write that word. He got all of them right (about 8 of them.) Wow. It was just great to see how far he's come!
For math we are using Right Start Mathematics...and I'll talk more about that another day. But today we supplemented with Kids Sudoku for Dummies. I haven't done much Sudoku but I thought this would be a good thinking, mind game for him. We started out with a 4x4 puzzle and he did great. We will keep doing these and see how it goes. 
