Monday, January 30, 2012

Dax's first big crash

Well, I knew it was coming since Mark has already had his head glued shut and stapled together. I knew one day Dax would do something to catch up with his big brother. This week while Randy spent all day at the school doing parent teacher conferences, we went to visit my parents in Idaho. It was a great few days visiting Grandma and Grandpa. On Thursday night, I was helping Mark practice piano when I heard a loud crash and then a lot of crying. I looked over and Dax was laying on the wood floor with a plastic stool tipped over. My dad was right there picking him up. I went to help and look him over--I only noticed a small scratch under his eye. So I gave him a hug and when he leaned back to let out a big cry, there was blood pouring down his face. When he had fallen, we are guessing he hit the end table and cut his eyelid. It bled for awhile and we finally decided it wasn't bad enough to merit a doctor visit. Dax took it all very well and although it was swollen at first, by bedtime it looked tons better.
Dax's eye! I told him to make a sad face.

He mostly looked like this through it all--he is one tough cookie.

In fact, it has been fairly minor. It is almost healed and he didn't even get a black eye. He has a slight bruise on his eyelid still and you can see the cut, but it's almost gone. It was a valiant attempt at being like Mark, but he didn't quite make it.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

What did you do last night?

We were out playing in the snow. My boys are so sad this winter. No snow. No sledding. No shoveling. So yesterday after Randy got home and we had dinner, we decided to enjoy a few moments with the snow outside. Yes it was dark, but the boys had fun shoveling the driveway and sledding around the yard. Good thing we went out when we did since most of our snow is melted away already. Here are some of our memories of a snowy night.

Mark is an amazing shoveler.

Dax is getting pretty good, too.

Working hard on the driveway.

Dax taking his turn on the sled.

Randy is a good sport and pulls them around the yard. Here is Mark trying not to fall off!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Pause . . .

As most of you know, I'm sort of an anti-techy. I refuse to have a phone, don't like the Internet in my home, and think that texters should be shot. But the one bit of technology that I love and use quite often is my DVR. It's revolutionized TV watching. Now we pause, rewind, and record anything we want. Apparently this has rubbed off on our boys.

Tonight as Natalie was saying the family prayer, Dax very quietly and reverently said, "Mom, pause the prayer for a minute so I can get a drink!"

~R

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Reading

We've been working really hard on reading at our house since the Christmas Break. Mark is pretty fluent in his reading, but has not been motivated to read individually-- He just wants us to read to him. Dax has the small and capital letters down, and knows their sounds, but cannot read a stitch. We decided this is the perfect time to help both of them take the next step (these are the things we discuss as we lay in bed and stare at the ceiling each night).

We decided that Mark would read simple chapter books and we'd make a dinosaur footprint for each book he completes. We'd place the tracks from his room down the hall to the kitchen. He'd get a reward for reaching the kitchen, and then we can turn him around and head him back to his room. We chose to introduce this activity right after he'd completed a book, so he got to fill out a dino track right away. He was very excited!

Our hallway wall
Mark working on a chapter book--this one is nonfiction.

For Dax, we started by writing a book together. Mom sat Dax down and wrote a simple repetitive book that Dax could then read. It followed the pattern: Dax can see a __________. Dax illustrated the books by gluing on and coloring pictures. So where Dax glued on a volleyball he'd colored blue, the page reads, "Dax can see a blue volleyball." Then we worked on the words: Dax, can, see, and a (he looks at the picture for "blue volleyball," but that is not the focus here, the repetition is). For each word that Dax learns, we put up a train with that word written on it. He, too, is trying to get down the hall to the kitchen. We make sure that we reinforce the words by taking Dax to the trains (they're at his eye level) a few times a day and having him read each word for us. He can also read mom, dad, mark, and I. It is amazing how fast he has learned these words on sight.
Dax with his book, "Dax Can See."

One of the pages of the book--I cut pictures from a coloring book and Dax picked the color. We used a different color for each page--there are eight pages in this book.

We made this book today to learn the word "like." We made a list of things that he liked and printed picture from the Internet. Dax helped me glue them in and told me what words to write. This book has 5 pages.


This has been a lot of fun for our family. We let both the boys choose their reward for reaching the end of the hallway--Mark chose play video games and Dax chose bowling. If you're looking for an idea from a couple of elementary school teachers on how to jump start your kids' reading, give it a try!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Christmas

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Christmas. We celebrated with the Ockeys on the 18th, the Daniels on the 23rd, and just us on Christmas. We love spending time with family and the boys got more than enough toys.

Santa always comes to the Ockey party. Someone told Mark to make a silly face--nice one!

I know this picture is blurry, but my boys were both so excited about this gift from Grandma and Grandpa Daniels.

Mark on Christmas Eve all wrapped in his new blanket.

Dax was definitely most excited for candy in his stocking. 

Mark LOVES his bat cave.

Dax needed a drink after all that candy, but who wants to walk upstairs and use a cup when there is a perfectly good sink right there.

All dressed up and ready for church on Christmas

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