Minecraft

This is Minecraft:

 

It's a video game Gavin has become quite interested in the last few weeks. It's the only game he's ever played consistently. He plays it as often as we let him. Monday night when I asked Gavin if he was ready to go to school the next day (he really was still sick) he said, "No, I sick. I stay home and pay minecraft." (When he says "play" it comes out "pay"). In the game basically your character mines for different materials to build houses or any other structures you can think of. It's pretty much up to the player how the game goes, you can basically do whatever you want in the game. Gavin has gotten quite good at it and has built his own house. Today he was not allowed to play it as a punishment for throwing fits (he was warned several times in advance). Late this afternoon he got out his paper and scissors and asked me for a stapler. I said no, so he said, "how 'bout glue?" I got him the glue stick and he got busy:

 

 

 

 

This is what he made 1st. It's a zombie.

 

from Minecraft:

Then he made a spider:

from Minecraft:

 

And a wolf (head is to the right, tail to the left):

 

and sheep:

 

 

 

And a couple more zombies (the one on the right is a fireball zombie):

 

 

 Gavin used a whole glue stick. I think it's awesome. I used to do tons of art projects as a kid (granted never based on video games) and am happy Gavin has started to get into them too. I'm pretty sure Jakes going to get a kick out of the subject matter.

 

♫ I love to spell...

Gavin has been doing well in school so far. His teacher this year is great. She makes him finish his work before doing the fun stuff, so he actually colors and completes his worksheets instead of quickly scribbling them like he did last year. He has learned the first two letters and their sounds introduced by his teacher: the short "I" and short "U" sounds. Unfortunately, Gavin has been home sick the last 2 days with some sort of cold or upper respiratory virus. However, his letters are still on his mind. Today Gavin was watching Super Why and one of the characters was singing the "I love to spell" song. I said to Gavin, "Do you know what I love?" He shook his head no. "You!" He looked at me and said, "I love A."

jokester

Yesterday Gavin told his first joke:
"Why chicken go in the road?"
"Cuz he want to! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Yum?

Gavin still enjoys eating healthy food most of the time. He would probably eat junk all day if I let him, but I don't. One technique that gets him to eat more healthy than he otherwise might be inclined is that if he wants a snack in front of tv it has to be a healthy food. I don't think he even realizes this - it's just his normal. It's usually either cheerios, peanuts, plain popcorn, a smoothie, baby carrots, or an apple . Yesterday we had tacos and burritos for lunch. Gavin didn't want any, I think he was still full from his snack at school. But after lunch while Jake was working on the lawnmower Gavin wanted to rest in front of cartoons and eat a snack. His request was the leaf lettuce I had chopped up for lunch. He ate 3 cereal bowls full of plain leaf lettuce. Today he requested canned peas for his tv snack.

12

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary.

We celebrated by going out to lunch while Gavin played with Brayden.

 Some will tell you that the 12th anniversary present should be linen or silk. We had a different idea:

Actually, this purchase just happened to coincide with our anniversary. Our other riding lawnmower died (the free one), and our push mower isn't working either. After Jake spent several hours trying to fix our push mower yesterday and finding that the only lawnmower repair store in town that answered it's phone has a 3 week waiting list we decided to just go ahead and buy a new riding mower, which we had been hoping to put off until next spring. It's been an expensive year around here. Adoption homestudy update expenses, new kitchen faucet, new trees, new mattresses, car repairs, starting a termite control contract, a new edger, and now a new riding mower on top of the usual. It's only money, right?

Pre-K

Today was Gavin's 1st day of Pre-K. He goes Monday-Friday 9am-noon. There are only 7 kids in his class, and I really like his teacher.

The academic goals for the year are:

• Learn all the letters and the sound they make
• Learn the numbes (at least 1-14)
• Start blending a consanant and vowel together for beginning reading (phonics)

The class will learn 1 letter per week, and each number 1-14 will get 2 weeks of concentration. On Fridays the kids each bring an item for show and tell starting with the letter of the week.  3 of the kids from Gavin class last year, Jorja, Owen, and Kameron, are in his class this year, as well as a neighbor girl of ours, Gemma. I asked Gavin what he played on the playground today. He said princess and dragon. I was glad to find upon further questioning that he was the dragon.

End of summer

We're getting ready for school around here. Gavin starts next Monday. He's attending private school again this year so he can go half days instead of full days at public pre-k. Here are his school supplies:

 Before school starts we wanted to get in a trip to the museum of arts and sciences in Macon with our friends Angela and Brayden. In addition to their usual exhibits including a mini zoo:

they currently have a special exhibit of animatronic dinosaurs:

 bird watching room:

We have had a wonderful summer. Very low-key. Swimming almost every day it didn't rain - Gavin can now dive in our pool to retrieve toys and even leaves. Smoothies. Playing with friends at McDonalds, Burger King, Monkey Joes and our houses. Library trips. A trip to Florida. Playing with all Jake's old transformers. Homemade granola bars. Sleeping in a little. Breakfast in front of cartoons. Good stuff.