Manning's mommy always says.....

No Manning...

We have a favorite book at our house. It's been a favorite since Mason was the only one.

I haven't been able to blog lately because of technical difficulties. I am way behind my camera is loaded with pictures just waiting for me to show off. I was looking through them and this book came to mind as I was looking at all my pictures of Manning.

In his defense I am posting the last page first.

I do love my Manning Man. He just keeps me on my toes!

He's a big boy now. He eats his own kiddie cone.

Tippy toes trying to reach something on the sink.

His tongue out trying to see and standing on tippy toes.

This boy loves to be naked. It gives him a feeling of empowerment.

Manning's first Picasso. Not even a year old and coloring on the wall.

He loves that his finger can fit up his nose. He doesn't get anything yet but it fits!

And here's a couple of our own No David Moments.

I left the cups out from painting in preschool. He tried to drink from one of them.

He just comes by "Little Stinker" naturally.
But he's such a cute little stinker.

Yes Manning We love you!!

Welcome to our first week of preschool!

Ms. Melissa's Preschool!!

I took pictures on the first day. Bright and smiling faces.

We love to color!

And sing our ABC's

Our first day we learned about apples and made apple prints with real apples.

In the first weeks we learned about the letter B. We got to practice our B sounds

as we colored our "B"ig B's.

We made circles on circle day.

I have always loved teaching. I used to always play school when I was little. All the little kids in my neighborhood were my students. I've always wanted to be a teacher. Now that I am grown up I have taught preschool to many age groups. I worked in the preschool at my high school and when I graduated I started working at a Daycare Center. When I decided to stay home and raise my boys, I started daycare in my home. As Mason got older I wanted to start teaching him. I had all these kids at my house all day I started teaching them too. I started offering preschool to my neighbors' kids too. I took last year off due to being prego and the campaign. This year I got my stuff organized and decided to start up again. This is our second month and we are having a blast. We are learning letter's, shapes, colors, and numbers. And with the holidays coming I am excited for the many projects that we will be making. Starting with Halloween. I love this time of year in preschool. So much fun! I have the biggest class I've had in all my years of teaching and I love it. I started with 5 and I have grown to 8. They are good kids and we have alot of fun learning and playing together.

My Shadows

The other day Mason and I were walking across the parking lot at Winco. Mason looked down and saw our shadows. I now have a phone with a camera on it, so I pulled it out and started taking pictures of our shadows.

When I look at these pictures I can hear in my head the words from one of our very favorite Primary songs:

"Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,

Help me find the way.

Teach me all that I must do.

To live with him some day."

Yep I have a very important job here on Earth. I am responsible for teaching these amazing boys that just happen to be God's children. I will do my best to lead them and guide them, by my example. Having this knowlege makes me want to do my best everyday to be the best I can be.

Preschool time again.

Mason started his second year of preschool with Mrs. Sandy. He loves it there.

One more year and he will be in the big school. He's so excited to go to kindergarten next year.

Silly Boys!

The boys have been very interested in sock puppets lately. They kept running around with perfectly good white socks on their hands. I would find these perfectly good white socks everywhere. Outside, in the bathroom, in the van, and many other places. I gave them each a pair of red socks. And told them these are the only socks we can use for sock puppets. I don't mind if they get lost. Sock puppets the other day turned into playing snakes in the driveway. I thought it was cute. They make me laugh.
I love the moments like this when they play together.

You make me SMILE!

We turned on the sprinker and set up the little pool the other day so the boys could play in the water. Manning was in love with the sprinkler. This kid is fearless when it comes to water. He is my water baby. More than my other kids ever were.
He laughed his head off and just stood there letting it spray him.

He had a blast long after his brothers were done and dried off. He was still going at it.

This kid is everywhere these days. There's no stopping him. He's not afraid of the grass or the concrete he loves being outside.

The funny thing is, he knows he's brave and he gets so excited and proud of himself.

We love this boy!!

Mommy's Plan of attack!

So here's the plan. Due to the fact that my children are not so good at doing chores. I came up with a chore chart. And needless to say... It's been working for a week and a half so far. Given there are some days that they don't do their chores and they don't earn their goal for the day. But they know the consequences and they are learning. To me that is all that matters.

This how it works. The boys have a list of chores (I started easy) and for every chore they do they earn 5 min. on the computer. (That at our house is BIG! We love the computer!) Than for every day they get at least 5 X's ( = 5chores), they get to move their character one space. When they reach the 6 they get the prize they've been working for. Right now we are working to go see a movie at the movie theater. It's been a week and a half and Mattix is to 3 and Mason is to 4. Mason is really responding to the earning minutes thing so far. But has for some reason made himself comfortable with 20 min. a day. (4 chores) He picks the easiest ones and calls it good. I need to think of a way to make it worth his wild. Maybe if Mattix earns it first and gets a date without him, he'll see that he needs to work harder. And not try to defeat the system. Mattix is really good at doing chores. He just ends up going back a number every other day for naughty behavior. I worked hard on this idea. I really hope I can make it work and stick to it.

Nothing is worse than grownups that don't know how to work and apprieciate the value of working hard and earning things.