One Week Away!!

I can't believe that Christmas is only a little over a week away!! We are so pleased this year that we finally get to celebrate Christmas morning here at home with the boys! Of course, we will go and see extended family later that day, but we will begin our day at home. The boys are excited to make cookies for Santa and the idea of waking up to presents the next morning. They have both been constantly telling every Santa we see what they want. Clayton saw someone yesterday in the store with a Santa hat on and called him Santa. I love this age and this time with my boys!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

What do we teach our Children?

Yesterday at Tuesday School when I went to pick the boys up, there was a discussion going on about what we teach our children about Santa. There are some there at church that allow and encourage their children to believe in Santa. There are others, that feel they are lying to their children if they do that and tell them that there is no Santa and that parents buy the presents. Now these children are slightly older than or the same age as my boys and are telling the boys that Santa isn't real...which in turn causes them to come home and ask questions about Santa's reality. When B asked me yesterday, I just turned the question on him and asked what he thought...did he think Santa was real? He said he did, so I told him that maybe he needed to ignore the kids that were saying these things.


So, my questions are: Are we lying to them when we allow them to believe in Santa? I look at it as being a fun part of the season and don't see a problem with it. However, the thoughts are there now.

Tell Santa what you want....

We went to a Parents as Teachers function last night and the boys got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted. Neither of them were shy at all! They told santa over and over what they wanted. Brent told Santa that we were going to leave him cookies and milk and wanted to know what kind he liked. Would plain cookies be alright? Of course, Santa said yes, but then Clayton piped in and told him to make sure he washed his hands before he ate the cookies and milk. Santa got awfully tickled at the boys and told us of another girl who was there earlier in the night. She told him that last year when he ate his cookies and milk he left a huge mess in their kitchen and she and her mom didn't appreciate it and could he please be more careful this year and not make a big mess. Apparently, her dad was standing there and heard all of it and was laughing his head off! Of course, it was dad who ate the cookies last year and made the huge mess, but the girl naturally blamed Santa!

Merry Christmas!

By the way....This guy is local and makes a great Santa, don't you think??

Our Tree 2005

Just wanted to share a pic of our tree for this year...the boys were so excited to put it up and did a really good job helping with the ornamets. Of course, with their help all the ornaments ended up on the bottom 1/3 of the tree, so I went back and moved some so the cat wouldn't have a hay day with them. Enjoy!

Bunk Beds!!!

Saturday, we rearranged a little bit! We decided to turn the spare bedroom into a school room, because school stuff is taking over the dining room and living room! Anyway, that meant the boys would need a different bed setup...so we decided to bunk them. They are so excited. We worked most of the afternoon and evening and finally got it all done. Then Sunday we built some stairs for the top bunk (cuz brent was having a hard time getting to his bed). I've added some pictures. The boys are so excited. The next step is to clean out the spare room and set up their desks for school. There is so much to do, but we are all very happy with the results we've had so far. Brent said yesterday when we got home from Tuesday school, "Tuesday school is fun to go to, but home is even more fun to go to." Gotta love it!

New Game

Brent began the learning of checkers last night. He was thrilled to be taught, but got tired quickly. His favorite part was being crowned and getting to be king. We may have confused him some ...trying to explain strategy and all, but he handled it really well. Considering that the age that is appropriate for that game is 9, he played well. He enjoyed jumping dad's pieces and getting 'quarters'...what he called the pieces.

On sunday night before bed, we taugth them pick up stix. They really enjoyed that game. Clayton even got into that one....he got the black stick, which you can use to pull out the stick you want next so it's not touching the others. Clayton picked up on pick up stix quickly. But then again, so did Brent. He figured that since clayton got the black stick to use, he'd just use his fingers to do the same thing. Clever boys!

All for now!

A New Week

Wanted to give all an update on our upcoming week! It's another busy one, but we'll manage like we always do. Today, this afternoon, I will be filling in for Diana at Slender Lady. She will be back from California tomorrow, but back to work on Thursday. Anyway, today I'm working from 230 til 7, and then tommorrow morning from 7 to 830. The boys will go with me...will be a long day for them, but they will manage. They like it there. Terry is hoping to get off early enough to come pick them up and take them home to start dinner. :)

Tommorrow after I finish work, the boys have Tuesday School, then tomorrow evening we have a Parents as Teachers activity. Thursday is gymnastics and then Thursday night mom and dad will be here for the weekend.

That fills us up for the next few days! I probably won't be online much but will try to keep up the blog and answer emails as much as possible.

Better go for now...Clayton just climbed on the couch by the coffee table and knocked off a coffee cup...with coffee in it! He came running to me saying, "I'm so sorry mommy...I didn't mean to!"

Enjoy your week and God bless!
Amanda

wanted to share one of my pics from the botanical gardens! the boys will be going to hannah's tonight for the weekend. they will be going to the pumpkin patch and having some fun.

brent fell last night in gymnastics and hurt his wrist. apparently he was doing a handstand and his arm buckled underneath him. the teacher said she heard it pop, and he just laid on the mat and screamed. anyway, they iced it and although he said it was still sore after class, there was no bruising or swelling. and this morning he is playing just like nothing happened. hasn't complained once of pain or soreness. will watch it and let hannah know so they will watch too. but i'm sure it will be fine.

not sure what we will do this weekend with the boys gone. tg's fall picnic is tomorrow so we will most likely go there for a while. but i told terry that we have never had a weekend where we could do nothing while the boys are gone. so i told him last night i wanted to just do a couple things and then watch football all day! it will be our only day the whole season to do nothing but watch football. then sunday we will visit another church and pick the boys up in the afternoon.

nothing much else to say. hope you all have a good weekend. will send more pictures next week of our vacation. love to all!

Is that a chicken house??

We were driving across town the other day...going to gymnastics, i think....and we drove past some people putting up a metal building in their back yard. brent popped out with, 'hey mom, it looks like they are building a chicken house like we did. but i don't see any chickens.' what a creative mind....now all metal buildings are going to be chicken houses to him! just thought i would share.

aj

Family update

We are doing well....trying to get life back to normal. However, I'm also trying to figure out what 'normal' is anymore! We try everyday to do school, but some days we just play games and read books and call that school. For now I know that is okay, but we will have to get more organized and scheduled before too long.

We are looking for a new congregation to worship with. That is going very slowly as we've not been home much to visit other churches. But we have some time and are doing what we can. It just feels a bit weird to not have a 'home' church right now. As a friends recently put it, we are nomads.

Terry just started back to work after a week off...it looks to be a long few weeks as everyone else is trying to get vacations as well.

I have been working out at an exercise place in here in Perryville and loving it. I'm out of the habit right now, since we've been gone, but am trying to get back into it this week. I'm not sure how much I"ve lost recently, but I'm continuing to exercise and just remain positive about it all.

Brent is now 4 1/2, going on 15. Somedays he is so much of a little boy, and other days he has so much teenager in him, it's hard to deal with. He asks questions of us that I wouldn't think a 4 year-old would think to ask, let alone understand the answer. Every night when they go to bed he wants to have a talk with one of us. The questions/conversations range from "What makes engines work?" to "How do we get electricity?" to "What are germs and how do they make us sick?" That is just the tip of the iceberg. We try to answer everything honestly and do the best we can to help him understand.

Clayton is growing like crazy...mostly in height! Now that we have his anemia fixed he seems to be more like the boy we had when he was a baby....up early, full of energy, and a cutup! He tries to do 'school' with me and Brent...and we are taking it slowly. He struggles with sitting still for more than 2 minutes and would rather play with me than sit and do workbooks....even one page. But we continue to play games and use every non-school method I can think of to help him learn. He is picking up on many of the math concepts we've been working on with Brent, he just doesn't show it as openly as Brent does.

Well, better sign off for now. Will try to keep this up more consistently to keep everyone informed on how we are doing.

Love, the Schafer's

Mid-Week Mania!

Well, we're half way through the week and I acutally feel more tired now than at the beginning of the week....i should feel more rested! This is the first week we've had that's been relatively normal, and it feels more crazy to me!

At least the boys are playing this week though. They're hving bad attitudes with each other....c is cutting molars, b is being very emotional this week. not sure why that is.

T is working a ton of hours...the byos are missing him alot. We'll see what happens this weekend...our first one home (alone) in over a month!

Till then!

Greetings!

Hello to all and greetings! Decided to set up a blog for family to read and keep up with the boys and their happenings.

Will put more in later!