Leon's Birthday Party

For Leon's 7th birthday we decided to have a paint party.  I'm trying to make my life a little easier and do the same type of party for everyone this year.  

It was pretty simple.  I just bought canvases and supplies for everyone and we looked at directions online on how to paint a picture.  

 Leon choose a bunny picture, which was ok because Easter is coming up.

I was a little worried I was going to have seven year olds splashing paint all over the house but it worked out ok.  The kids all took it pretty seriously and did a great job.  We took a few painting breaks for things to dry and the kids ran around hitting the balloons everywhere.  It seemed to be the perfect mix of sitting still and running around.

We also asked for no presents and it was amazing.  This was our first time doing it and it was so nice.  I feel like presents usually take over the party.  And I have to deal with my children thinking about and talking about what people are going to get them for weeks before their party.  So we just talked with Leon about how we weren't going to do presents and that the point is just to have a fun time with friends.  He was a little disappointed, but when the party came he didn't even mention it.

There was a little concern that people wouldn't come because of the social distancing and the coronavirus.  But one one person didn't come because of that and it wasn't a problem at all.

Leon once again asked for a monster cake.  It had a cookie dough frosting between layers and cookies and cream outside frosting with a chocolate ganache.  Delicious.

We did do family presents for him later though.  I don't have a picture but Leon got a new scooter that he is pretty excited about.

 Now I just need to give him a haircut and take some nice pictures of him.

Golden Book and Beluga Whales

Leon is really thriving at school.  I got to go and see him do a presentation a couple weeks ago.  While waiting to go inside I took a picture of some of his hallway work I found.

He did a great job researching and sharing about the beluga whale.  All the parents got to walk around and listen to each child present.  The teacher made a big point about the fact that the kids found the info on their own to put on their posters.

This was also in the hallway, can you spot him?

A few days later Leon won the Golden Book award!  Each month the teacher chooses someone from their class who really emulated a certain character trait and then they get to go to the office and sign the special golden book and get a certificate.  This month's trait was caring.  The teacher said that he was so nice and helped his friends with their work without them even asking, she said that he treats them like his own brother.  When Tucker heard that he was like, "Oh, so he tackles them all the time?"  haha.  I wasn't able to go to the ceremony as it was the exact time of Beatrix's doctors appointment, but Bob, Tucker, and Penelope all got to attend.

Leon was also chosen today to represent his class in a school wide kenken competition.  I had no idea what those were so I had to look it up.  They are pretty much a form of sudoku.  He is really excited about it.

It is nice to hear Leon tell me all the great things about his day when he comes home from school.  I also like his teacher and love that she tries to have as much play in her classroom as possible.

I really hate the hour and fifteen minute bus ride to school and the one recess.  But my latest concern is that not only do they not have recess if it is sprinkling they don't have recess if it is even wet outside!  WET!  Not raining, but just wet.  Moving from Washington, where they definitely play outside in the rain I can't understand this.  Kids need to be outside and they need a chance to run around.  I guess they say they have indoor recess, but what that is is everyone in the gym watching Paw Patrol.  They are not even playing inside, but just sitting quietly watching TV.  Its a little crazy if you ask me.  Ok, rant over... for now, I'm sure I'll complain to Bob about it some more next time it happens, which is like once a week.

Scarlett and Leon in School

For almost a month now Scarlett and Leon have been going to public school.  I love homeschooling and eventually plan to homschool them again.  But right now I just don't feel like I have enough time to teach them all.  This whole thing kind of started because Scarlett got behind in reading.  I wanted her to get extra help from school for just reading, but the school was not willing to let her (even though it is in the DODEA policy that they will).  I decided to go ahead and enroll her so she can get caught up in reading.  I also enrolled Leon for a couple of reasons, I didn't want to send Scarlett alone, Leon is the only one who has never been to public school, and because it is more time consuming for me to teach the children who cannot read well.

Leon is in first grade and is loving it.  I had a parent teacher conference with his teacher and wasn't surprised one bit.  He is right on track and doing great and he has even made friends.  Leon was great at homeschool and in general he is pretty easy to parent.  I knew school would be a breeze for him.

Scarlett is having a little bit of a harder time.  But she is also doing just as I expected.  She struggled with school at home and she struggles with it at school.  She just really doesn't like reading...yet (I'm determined to change that).  She is also very tired all the time.  We have to leave for the bus at 6:45.  That is super early for us.  Scarlett used to not wake up until 7:15.  It is honestly hard to send her to school everyday and then she comes home really tired and grumpy and I'm supposed to get her to do homework. 

Scarlett does like her teacher though and I know that she does have fun at school. Sometimes she says that it is terrible, but I think that she enjoys her school day for about 75% of the time.  It is just easy to fixate on the hard times.  Here she is after school showing me the spoon and ketchup she scored from the cafeteria. 

 We took a couple selfies waiting for the bus on Halloween.

 The bus is the worst part about it.  School doesn't start until 8am but they get on the bus at 6:45.  It is normally a 20 minute drive to their school, but morning traffic adds to that.  Then after the kids arrive at school they sit on the bus for over 30 minutes!  It is horrible.  Basically they use one bus for all the kids in our area.  So they ride with high school and middle school kids who's school starts 30 minutes earlier. Then after dropping the older kids off the elementary kids just sit on the bus.  I think it is crazy that that is allowed.  Another major issue I have with the school is that there is only one recess!  The elementary school is gigantic.  It has about 1,200 students.  I think there are 10 first grade classes this year.

 Both kids got to go on a field trip Mikan picking.  They really enjoyed it.

The Princess and the Pea

All last week the four older kids went to Missoula Children's Theatre and put on a play.  They auditioned on Monday and went to practices all week then had two performances on Saturday.  The audition on Monday was pretty scary for the kids.  They didn't need to have anything prepared ahead of time, but the directors would ask them so say specific lines and do a couple different things.  I was really proud of my kids for just doing that.  It was hard for some of them to say lines in front of people.  I heard from others that in the past lots of kids get cut, but thankfully this year they had room for everyone who tried out.  I hate the idea of kids getting cut from activities they want to do.

Scarlett was a Winter Wind Worker.  Penelope was a Blizzard Bringer.  Tucker was a Grinder, and Leon was the cutest dust bunny ever.

Practices were at different times for different kids so it was a lot of back and forth to and from base for me.  Leon also had the least practices so we got some time together without the older kids.  I had most mornings all week with just Beatrix and Calista.  Having only two kids at home was soooo easy.  I got a ton done!

Another cool thing about they play was that everyone had speaking parts.  My kids each had three lines and they were nervous.  But they didn't forget them and I could even hear them!  Great job guys.

Here are a few videos from the play

Leon's 5! Yearly Video

I told myself I'm going to get all the kids yearly videos done this summer (except Penelope who's birthday is in September) so here you go.  One down four to go.

Leon's 6th Birthday Photography

Where better to take pictures of a six-year-old boy then his neighborhood park?  We snuck out Saturday morning while everyone else was doing chores to take pictures.  Leon was pretty easy to get to do a natural smile.  I just had to pretend to tickle him or tell him not to smile and it worked every time.  He is really such a happy little guy.

We made sure to do lots of playing pictures between posing pictures.  They might be my favorites because they show how Leon actually is.  He never just stands still and smiles.

He is always playing.  Either by himself or with one of his siblings.  Usually Tucker.  They wrestle around quite a bit.  But he isn't against playing with one of the girls either.  Leon can even be pretty helpful with Calista.

True to most six-year-olds Leon can get pretty upset over what seems like small things.  I think he has little brother syndrome because he is always so loud.  He has to be loud to insist he gets a turn or his fare share.  I feel like I'm always asking him to calm down or quiet down.

I made Leon wear jeans for these pictures.  He usually always wears sweats and a t-shirt with tennis shoes.  It is almost like these shoes go by the front door instead of by the other shoes because he cannot remember to put them away, and he is always taking them off and on to run outside.

Leon is very sweet and likes to give me lots of hugs.  Like lots and lots of hugs.  Ok, probably just a couple a day, but they seem to come out of nowhere and sometimes I have to resist pushing him off of me and asking what he is doing.  I have to slow down and remind myself that he is just trying to give me a hug and he is not trying to make me spill the food I'm making for dinner.

These we Leon's favorite pictures.  He just played on the bar for a little bit while I took photos.

It is cherry blossom season here in Japan meaning his birthday pictures will probably always be near the pretty sakura trees.

Happy Birthday Leon!

Leon's 4 Year Video

I caught up on all the kids yearly videos.  Wahoo!!  Here is Leon's 4-year-old video.  I now have a couple months before I need to do his five-year-old video.

Leon's Tooth

Leon lost his tooth!  Below is the before picture.

It was funny because about a month back he was upset and telling me that his tooth hurt.  At first I was like, "wait, we just went to the dentist and you don't have any cavities."  My next thought was that he didn't hit his mouth on anything and so his tooth shouldn't be hurting.  Then I realized that he must have bumped it while eating and that he must have a wiggly tooth.  I tried to tell him that it was just a tooth getting ready to fall out, but it being his first one he wasn't so sure.  After a while of it getting wigglier and wigglier he was ready for it to come out.

I don't know exactly how it happened but a couple hours after the picture was taken the kids were at the park and the tooth came out.  They rushed into the house so excited while Leon held his tooth up in the air and loudly let me know that his tooth fell out.  They were all so happy.  I love that all the kids were excited for Leon to loose his first tooth.

Leon Modeling for Beams

Leon had his first modeling job back in March, but I wanted to wait until the pictures were out for me to post about it.  He was pretty nervous for the whole thing.

But all the people were so nice and helpful for him.  They tried really hard to make him comfortable.  This was the most organized shoot I've ever been to.  He modeled more clothes in less time than any of our other shoots. 

Go here for the website and scroll through the pages to see Leon.  He has quite a few more pictures than I am posting, these are just some of my favorites.

I love these!

Oh man, he is so cute!

This took place right in Harajuku so we stopped for a crem brûlée crepe afterwards.  I think the top of it was pretty yummy, that was the part that was burned.  The rest was just ok.

Tucker fell asleep on the train ride back.

After it was over, I talked to Leon about what he thought about the whole thing.  He said it was ok and doesn't really want to do it again.  Even when the pictures came out online he wasn't very thrilled about it.  I don't think I'm going to sign him up for more jobs unless they are with his siblings or something else fun like that.  He had the experience and that seemed to be enough for him.