QB Noah

Noah's first flag football season is underway!  He's had two weeks of practices and games so far.  There are six boys on his team, and they have a great mix of skills and talents.  Four of the boys prefer to be the runners/receivers.  One boy likes being the center.  Noah is the quarterback.

 

Noah loves getting the plays from the coach, making sure everyone knows the play, and executing it.  At this point in the season, most plays involve handing off the ball to the runner.

 

  It's the perfect position for Noah!

 

Here are four video clips showing Noah in action.  He's number 17, and his jersey is black in some clips and gray in others.  He's always the quarterback.  I love watching his reaction after the play has finished.  He's covering his ears in one or two of the clips because the referee's whistle was bothering him.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proud Mommy

 Isaac has overheard Noah practicing a lot of spelling words this year.

 

Yesterday, Isaac decided that he wanted some spelling words for himself.  He took out a whiteboard and some dry erase markers, and I handed him a paper that had some rhyming words that we had been talking about earlier that day - cat and sat.

 

I said, "Here are your spelling words.  You can write them on the whiteboard just like Noah does."

 

Isaac got right to work and I had to leave the room to continue making dinner.

 

Many minutes passed.

 

All of a sudden, Isaac started hysterically laughing.  Laughing uncontrollably.

 

He said, "Mommy, I wrote a word!"

 

I said, "That's great!" from the kitchen, figuring that he had written cat or sat and he thought it was so cool that he was laughing.

 

I should stop here and interject that Isaac is just beginning to write.  He is learning letter formation in preschool and he occasionally writes random letters for fun.  He can write his name independently, but he has never written any other word by himself.

 

The combination of knowing letters, letter sounds, the ability think of what to write, physically form the letters, and also writing them in the correct order is a complex task.  It's a complex skill that doesn't usually take place until some time in kindergarten.

 

Ok, now back to the story...

 

The hysterical laughter continued.  I began to wonder what could possibly be so funny.

 

Isaac called out to me, "Mommy!  I wrote a word!"

 

Then he said, "Mommy!  I wrote an inappropriate word!" and continued to howl with laughter.

 

Well, that got my attention.  I came into the room to see what he wrote all by himself.  It wasn't cat or sat.  It was:

 

There you have it. 

 

Our four-year-old figured out how to write "poop" all by himself.  His very first written word other than his name.

 

Since then, I've found "poop" written on a few other pieces of paper around the house. 

 

Oh, and Isaac now claims it's not an inappropriate word anymore because he's writing about the poop deck on the Titanic.  He has asked me how to spell "deck" so maybe that will be his next written word.

 

What can I say.  Isaac is always surprising us, so it makes sense that his first written word would be a surprise too.  I'm a proud mommy. 

Michigan FANatic!

Noah has become a huge fan of University of Michigan sports!  

He started closely following the Michigan football team this year, and after the season was over he started following the basketball team.  His favorite website is MGoBlue.com, and he checks in each day to check scores, read press releases and see what game is next on the schedule.

Here are some pictures that follow a few days in the life of a Michigan FANnatic:

Noah and Matt playing football in the backyard

Isaac sets up the tripod to be the photographer for the football game

Noah looks like he's going to burst with excitement!  

If you look closely, you can see a blue shirt peeking out from under his uniform shirt.  He had slept in his  Michigan shirt the night before, and he had decided to keep the shirt on and just put his uniform shirt over it for school the next day.  We had to pry the shirt off him that night so we could wash it!

On another day, Noah did homestudy while wearing his pajamas, with his Michigan shirt over his pajamas.

Noah is playing on a flag football team, and his season starts tomorrow.  He needed new cleats, and when he saw these neon maze and blue cleats, he absolutely had to have them! 

Noah is watching Michigan play Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinal today.  One of the huge benefits of homestudy is that Noah worked hard all morning and completed an entire day of schoolwork.  Then he was finished and ready to watch a basketball game at noon on a Friday.  How cool is that?

Oh, and if you look closely, you can see that Noah is wearing his favorite Michigan shirt with UNC shorts.

It's fun to have a Michigan FANatic in the house!

Just Dance!

Did you know that Isaac has some pretty awesome dance moves?  

Here's some dancing to brighten your day!

Snow Much Fun

We had SNOW much fun last week! 

 

Our official snow accumulation was 8.4 inches over 3 days!  That's the most snow we've seen here over the last 12 years.  It was beautiful fluffy power snow, which was soon covered with a layer of ice, which was covered with 3 or 4 more inches of powder snow.

 

Which meant lots of fun for us all!

Guess who?

Guess who?

Watching the snow come down

Our street view - looking one way

 

Our street view - looking the other way

Our deck

I spy some furniture!

The sledding in our neighborhood was great!  Noah and his friend Ryan are on the sled in the middle of the picture, and Isaac is on the left pulling a sled up the hill

The snowman is taller than Isaac!

 

 

Sledding on a layer of ice in our backyard

 

The most awesome sledding ever! 

 

This was a hill in our neighborhood where Matt made a double jump.  Noah and Isaac are on the sled together and they earned a perfect 10.0 for Olympic form and speed!

 

We had our sledding fun for the year, and now we're back to 70 degrees again.

 

Snow in the South is the best! 

 

All the fun without all the prolonged agony of a long winter!

Lego Contest Winner!

Noah entered a Lego contest in January, and when he went to the mailbox last week, he discovered that he won his category! 

 

He was over-the-moon excited!

He was even more excited to open the package and find that there was a free Lego kit inside!

Yessss!

And a real certificate!

Noah immediately started building the new kit while Isaac looked on

 

He entered the contest under the "Augmented Kit" category: Taking an existing Lego-created kit and completely changing it into a new creation.

 

Noah's Lego Contest Entry Photos:

The Police Station Kit before it was augmented

The Police Station Kit after it was augmented

 

Text from Noah's contest entry:

"Noah augmented the Lego Police Station kit to add a helipad on top, he expanded the jail, and he also augmented the Lego Mobile Police Unit and placed it on the road behind the police station so the officers could check for robbers on the road.  Next to the augmented police station is a large construction area where Lego guys are constructing an even larger police station."

 

Noah took the "after" picture by himself, without even knowing that we were going to enter it into a contest!  Isn't that cool?

 

So, we have a winner in the house! 

 

Congratulations Noah!

Reading is Dangerous!

Isaac is starting to read!  He has started reading signs along the road and words around the house, as well as the first few BOB books.  He is tickled that he can actually read the words on the pages of books!

 

Isaac loves to do things to surprise us, so he likes to say things like "This may knock you off your chair" or "This may knock your socks off" because you'll be so surprised by the wonderful thing that he's about to do.

 

It became a joke that we that we should wear a helmet so we don't hit our head when we fall off our chair from surprise when Isaac reads to us.  So naturally, in this picture and video, I'm sitting next to Isaac while he's reading and I'm wearing my helmet.  That just looked so fun that Isaac put on his helmet too.  Reading can be so surprising that you need to wear a helmet, of course!

 

Here's a video of Isaac reading:

We know Isaac has something else to surprising planned when he gets a glimmer in his eye and says "Get your helmet on!"

 

Who knows what surprises will come our way next?