Collin's Family Night Lesson

Sorry everyone....this one is for me (I really wanted to journal about this, and didn't really know where else to do it). Collin was in charge of lesson for Family Night tonight. He chose 1 Samuel 18-20, a story about David and Jonathan. I read him the story and he is suppose to come up with some questions. Usually I really have to help and prompt him - basically I come up with the questions and then during Family Night, he asks them. I was about ready to give up on this idea. But this time I read him the story and then asked him to come up with some questions and he came up with the following 3 questions, literally all on his own, this was his wording and everything....

1. Why did King Saul want to kill David?

2. Why do you think David's friend thought he should go away?

3. Why did David have so many weapons?

Then he wanted to do a project. At first his idea was to have everyone make a paper airplane - not exactly what I had in mind :). I told him it had to be something about the story, so he decided to have everyone draw a picture about the story and then write what it was about. I am so proud of him - after a year of doing Family Night and helping him make the lesson - He has FINALLY got it!! It is so rewarding when you see a years worth of effort pay off!!

Collin's picture

Ella's picture

Bailee

We are watching Bailee and as usual the kids are obsessed with her. She could pretty much care less either way - but they treat her like another member of the family. Collin was so excited when he got home from school and found Bailee at our house. "Bailee will probably want to see all my work from school!" So lucky for Bailee, she got to see ALL of Collin's school stuff - even the folder! As you can see Bailee is overjoyed!

Cole and Ella went on their first date tonight. Kelly and I took the kids to a music class and then out for some ice cream. They were a little shy at first, but warmed up pretty quickly. Before long they were dancing away, and laughing and laughing!! After, we went to a little restaurant near our house and had a some ice cream. They each got their cones, and as soon as they sat down Ella said, "I'll give you a "yittle" bit of my ice cream, if I can try a "yittle" bit of yours"! They had a fun time and were of course adorable! Before we walked out the door Michael told Cole "now no holding hands"....apparently he didn't touch on the "No touching butts or smooching"!!

Making a Snowman

We had some really warm January weather recently, well warm for us Minnesota people - 30 degrees. This kind of weather of course is perfect for building a snowman. Ella really enjoyed building the snowman - Collin just wanted to make snowballs and throw them at everyone!

Alien Hair

Ella thinks it's really funny when we make Madelyn have "alien hair"!

Madelyn and Carly

We had so much fun watching our little friend Carly the other night. Of course I took this opportunity to document Madelyn and Carly's love/hate relationship! Madelyn already talks about Carly all the time. When she pretends to talk on the phone, it is usually to Carly. When she wears her brown boots, they are "Carly's boots", and the high chair is now referred to as "Carly's high chair". So I have no doubt that one day they will be the bestest of friends. However, as much as Madelyn wants to play with Carly, the second they get together, they definitely have a love/hate relationship!! It's kind of hard not to giggle at them most of time!

Marriage

Collin and Ella came up from playing in the basement this afternoon. Collin said "Mommy, Ella has something to ask you". Whatever they had to ask, was very serious, you could tell from their faces. I thought maybe they had broke a window or something. "Ask her", Collin says. "Uhm mommy, can we marry people in our family"? I told them "No". "See told you", says Ella. "Well, why not?", asks Collin. "Because that is what God tells us in the bible", I said. "Oh yes, because I'm going to marry Cole then, because he is my best friend".

Clearly they were having a very intense conversation down in the basement.

Martin Luther King Day

Today the kids must have talked about Martin Luther King Day. When I asked Collin what he had learned about that. He said, "some kids didn't even get to use the drinking fountain. And that there were two different schools, a good school and a bad school. At the bad school it was really dirty and there were not even a lot of swings on the playground." On the back of the paper that he colored he had written....

"I wish that hate had no mor earthquack."

Dreams!

Tonight we drove Torin home from hockey. Collin and Torin were talking on and on about the new marshmallow shooters that Torin got. Ella kept trying to talk with them, but didn't really know what to say about marshmallow shooters. After about 5 minutes of trying to talk and coming up with nothing....she randomly busted in with, "Once I had a dream about a bear that got in our house and we didn't even open the doors for it, really I did". This prompted a 10 minute version of a dream that Torin had about a bear. After Torin finally finished his dream, Collin said, "Once I had a dream sort of like that, except mine was a lot shorter"!! If any of you know Collin's friend Torin (0r his dad, Bjorn), you are for sure laughing right now!

Goalie

Collin got to try being goalie in a game tonight. He was very excited to stop all the goals. The team that we played against was pretty young and so the puck was on the other end of the ice for most of the game. This meant two things. First, Collin didn't get a whole bunch of opportunity to stop pucks. Second, Collin had a lot of spare time on his hands. He spent a lot of the game spinning around in circles, playing in the net, and watching the clock. After the game I asked him if he liked playing goalie. He said, "yes, but it was a little boring. I kept watching the clock because I wanted to play with Torin after hockey". But when I asked him, "Are you excited to skate again or do you want to do goalie more"? He said, "I want to do goalie more".

Some video of Collin practicing being goalie and from the game.

Grandpa can fix anything!

At a very young age Collin has already learned that Grandpa Bina can fix anything....something the rest of us Bina girls have known for years! One of Collin's favorite presents from Christmas is a Rescue Hero airplane that I got at Once Upon a Child. He has played with it non-stop since Christmas. The other night we had some friends over and it got broken. I felt so bad for him that his favorite new toy got broken. Of course Rescue Hero stuff is discontinued so to replace it was $80 (not the $4.95 that I paid). Mommy looked at it and said "I don't think we're going to be able to fix that". So Collin brought it to daddy. Daddy looked at it even harder, but even daddy couldn't think of a way to fix it. A few minutes later Collin brought it back to me and said, "I bet grandpa will be able to fix it". I said "I don't think even grandpa can fix this one". He said, "Yes he can, can't we bring it to him". I didn't have the heart to say no, so we gave it to grandpa. Of course grandpa came through! Collin is so excited to have his airplane back (and that he doesn't have to spend his money to buy a new one). I suggested he make grandpa a Thank You card for fixing it. Collin decided he would put one of his dollars in the card for grandpa! So at a young age, Collin has figured out that grandpa can fix anything and to pay well for quality work!! :)

Good Night Collin

The sight of seeing Collin snuggled up sleeping with monkey is nothing new....but this was a little ridiculous. This is no joke. I went in to check on Collin before going to bed and found him like this. I'm sure that you can all recognize some of the cuddly friends....the build a bear from Scott and Sherry, the turquoise bunny from Grandma Mary, and the care bear from Auntie Megan - and Megan have no fear, the webkinz puppy is buried under there too!

New Chore Charts

We have finally started doing chore charts at our house. The kids are so excited about this. The first day that we did it, I think they spent three hours straight cleaning. We are trying to teach them the value of being a part of our family, math/money skills, and how to save and give money.....if it works out that they love to empty the dishwasher, that works for me!! They are of course SO excited for pay day, that has not died down at all!

Ella's new ballerina skirt

Ella couldn't wait to show her teacher her new ballerina skirt that she got from santa!

Warms my heart!

Every now and then through the temper tantrums, snotty noses, fighting, and sleepless nights, one of the kids does something that makes it all worth while. This was Collin's homework after Christmas break. I of course forgot about it until the morning he was going back to school. It was a crazy morning getting back into the routine of things so I gave him the paper and told him he was suppose to finish the sentence and draw a picture of what he wrote. I intended to let him work at sounding out the first part for a minute and then to come back to help, but of course got busy with something else and forgot. By the time I got back to him he was done and this is what he wrote (all on his own!!)....I would have guessed he would have said "playing with his new ipod"!

Collin LOVES Madelyn

In the last few months Collin has become quite an admirer of Madelyn. All of a sudden he just LOVES her to death!! He has always loved Madelyn, but he is so cute lately. He is always asking me..."mommy take a picture of me and Madelyn" or "Madelyn do you want to snuggle with me" or "Madelyn come here and I will help you" or "I need to give Madelyn a hug good night" (even though he could care less about giving Ella a hug good night).....and so on and so on. If she gets in trouble or hurt he is the first one by her side to comfort her. There is no other way to say it except that he just absolutely ADORES her, and she of course eats it up!! She cries almost every day that he gets out of the van for school. "Collin, Collin, Collin...."

While sick last week and home from school for 3 days, Collin got to spend some unusual one on one time with Madelyn (while Ella was away at school). One day while Ella was at school Collin and Madelyn were playing. Collin said, "mommy come look what I taught Madelyn.....". You can watch the video to see what Collin taught her. I had no idea that she knew how to do this!! Then you can notice that without any prompting at all - Madelyn sees the camera and instinctively starts saying "cheese"!! That's my girl!

Madelyn singing

One of Madelyn's favorite things to do is to sing. It started with Happy Birthday. Once she learned to sing that song, every time she saw a candle burning in the house she would burst into "Happy Birthday"! Now she loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Rock a Bye Baby! Here is some video of her singing.

New Years Eve at the Zoo

We decided to try something new this year for New Years Eve. We picked Matt up at work at noon and headed to the MN Zoo. We had never taken the kids there. Collin has been obsessed with dolphins for over a year now, and I really wanted to take him to see the dolphins there before he outgrew his obsession. We were not sure what to expect outdoors on a freezing 10 degree MN day, but we bundled up and went for it. When we got there, the lady said a lot of the animals come right up to the glass in the winter because there is not so much action. We ended up doing the whole one mile loop outside and got to see some pretty cool animals UP CLOSE - especially the tigers!! We saw tigers, bears hibernating, camels, bison, deer, moose....it was super cool. I think only mom was cold!

Then we went inside and saw the dolphins! We all loved it. They don't really do scheduled dolphin shows anymore, but we were lucky enough to see a short "training session" where the dolphins were practicing some of their tricks. We even got to see them jump one time! We had so much fun!

Video of the dolphins jumping and kids reaction!

Ella's 1st time on skates!

We decided to take the whole clan to open skating one day after Christmas. This was Ella's first time on skates (or maybe second) this year. She can do pretty good. She can get up all by herself and make forward progress. She is a trooper as always, she never gives up or gets frustrated!

Scott and Sherry helping Ella

Some video clips. The first one is from opening skating. Ella'a first time. The second clip is from up at Centerville's outside rink the other day (Ella's 3rd time skating) you can see the improvement already! Also you'll see what is quite possibly the world's slowest, ever recorded goal!