My fighter boy

It has been a long week. Between scouts (girl and boy), schooling, dentist visits (oh yuck thy name is dentist) and generally crummies I am ready for the weekend. So now that we have made it to Thursday I thought I'd share some lovely pics my sister took of Boyo in July when he went for a visit.

Boyo is in Red

And if you can't win.... Retreat with style!

Home from Sapphire Joust

First a thought about today- As the Baroness of Care Bear (not the real name but funnier) mentioned yesterday. As a Medieval recreation society, we play at war. But there are those who are fighting the good fight and serving far from home and loved ones. Let's give them a moment in prayer or good intentions or thought that they may be safe and protected. May they come home whole and hale. May they be forever remembered if they do not.

Now to the playing at war...

We were at Sapphire Joust this weekend to some fighting, camping and general good times. This was the first camping trip for both kids that wasn't Pennsic and they both loved it!!!!!

Boyo authorized and fought in his first tournament. He is in Red.

He fought double sword the entire tournament and did exceptionally well with them.

And he won the division!!

Boyo with his prize, a treasure box full of chocolate. There was a bit of a mix up at the first court but it was all straightened out and Boyo had a large cheering section with Heads and Anglesey there to support him. The populous made funny comments when he walked down to the Baron and Baroness. Silly things like "Awww, he's so little" "look how cute he is!"

Then when Boyo took a knee in front of the Excellencies (he all but disappeared from sight given his size, hopefully Ursas got a picture of that) There were more Awws.

It was a wonderful presentation for Boyo and he was so proud!!

Some of the mix up was because Boyo wasn't identified as Hubby's son. All the paper work on him was under my name so Boyo is trying to decide on a medieval name.

His choices...

A. Boyo of Headclan

B. Boyo Borsson

C. Boyo the conqueror.

Personally I am voting for A or B as Girlie could be Girlie of Headclan or Girlie Borsdotter.

Log your vote and I'll try and convince the boy.

Leapster meets Didj

We have been a leapster family for a while now. My dad bought the kids one a while back and since then Boyo has progressed in math by leaps and bounds. Girlie has done well too but it really isn't her medium.

When the kids were little they watched the Leapfrog DVDs and that gave them a good idea of how the whole reading thing worked. The Leapster handheld games did the same thing for boyo when it came to multiplication. When we hit that section in his math book, I was so surprised that he already knew almost all the basic facts that he breezed though the end of the book with no problem.

But like all things, Boyo became too advanced for the Leapster games. So last Christmas I looked at getting him a Didj, being the next step up from Leapster without crossing over to a Nintendo DS which doesn't have educational games. But it was too expensive and the reviews weren't that great and it was too new so there were kinks to be worked out.

Last week when the kids and I were at Walmart (don't judge me it is a small town) we went for a walk through the toy aisle and low and behold- the didj was on sale for more than $40 off!! After a brief chat with Hubby, I picked it up and also an extra game for Boyo.

Boyo spent 3 days playing it consistently before the batteries wore out and had to be charged.

So There is the pros and cons for the Didj

Pro

• Educational


• Great graphics


• ability to go online to change or adjust the level of difficulty on the problems


• adaptable -it can be scaled back to Girlie or made tougher for Boyo


• Lots of different math games

Cons

• Expensive


• not a lot of games yet and most seem to be math games


• Most language arts games are not aimed at boys (Nancy drew is the only spelling game I have found)


• doesn't come with a cover like the Leapster so screen can get scratched up.

All in all I really like the games, I wish that it could use the old Leapster cartridges but I see the difference in quality in the graphics so I understand why it can't be so. I really hope they put out more games and continue with more of the older grades (3+).

Hair Day

So after taking the pictures of the kids and Mr. Bunny the other day, Girlie got fed up with the hair falling in her way (if she had tucked it behind her ear it would have solved the problem) but being 5 and a rather impatient sort of girl, she took the scissors and did some damage.

Friday we got it fixed. Here is Girlie before-

Notice the hair on the left side of her head? Hours later it was missing (surprisingly the stuff hanging in her eyes in the picture was still there. The logic of a 5 year old mind astounds me)

We went to the local hair cutting school and they couldn't figure out what to do about Girlie's fallen locks until I suggested this...

Another tooth

Boyo lost another tooth.


This makes 6 teeth gone from his darling little head. And Girlie has a loose one too. When did my babies decide to grow up?

Boyo lost his bottom two teeth at 5. It was almost exactly a year (to the week) before his lost the top ones. We are still waiting for one of those to grow all the way in.

By the way, the newest one lost is the hole on the bottom.

Boyo is already talking about how he is saving his $1 that he will get from the Tooth Fairy. (Boyo likes to save money. Girlie likes to spend it. Oh well.)

When we had our first Tooth Fairy visit, Hubby and I talked about what the going rate on teeth was and we each had different stories on what we got. I remember one year I got a new book, and for the teeth I had pulled, I got $5. Hubby was lucky to get quarters.

How much did you get from the tooth fairy?

Put 'em to work!!

It snowed. Well, it was actually on Monday that it snowed, but still. When it snows I have to park at the bottom of our steep driveway. I also usually get stuck doing the shoveling out. Hubby claims it is because I am home more than he is. We won't discuss that bit of logic.


Anyway after walking down the hill in the dark and icky for 3 days, I cancelled school and told the kids to shovel.


They did.

It may not look steep but where the driveway looks like it ends, it actually drops about 6 feet and does a turn.

At last it was warm enough to melt away the last traces of snow. Yay for 50 degree weather!!!

Hopefully it will be that warm tomorrow as we do the Klondike Derby with the cub scouts. I'll try to take pictures.