Living the Dream

Corbin is border line obsessed with video games, and we have flat out told him that he can't play video games his whole life and that he is going to have to learn how to work when he gets older.

Then his Aunt Celeste married Bryan, one of the Uncles that Corbin sees a lot and enjoys hanging out with, who just so happens to have gotten together with a group of guys that started their own company and designed their own video game.  So Corbin threw Bryan's job back at us and we have since had to change our rhetoric.  According to Corbin, apparently you can just do video games your entire life :)

So now we instead have to point out how hard Bryan works and how smart you have to be in order to create something like that.  No Corbin, he doesn't just play games all day, he creates them and it takes a ton of hard work and dedication and a little bit of luck.  He has watched Uncle Bryan work on the game for a couple of years now and sees how long it takes and how labor intensive it is and now they are finally at a point where they are throwing themselves out there to see if all their hard work will pay off.

For the next 30 days they have put their demo up on kickstarter to try and raise money to finish all the finer elements of the game and create a finished product.  Feel free to check them out and next time you see him, encourage Corbin to stay in school :)

Click on the little "K" if you would like to help back them.

Baptism

Corbin's cousin, Colton, was baptized on Saturday and we were able to attend the baptism.  After the baptism they passed out some blank paper and asked everyone to write down their thoughts and feelings for Colton while he was getting cleaned up and changed.  Corbin ended up sitting father down the bench between his aunt and uncle and so I wasn't able to help him write his letter. (I did inform him that it was a reverent, serious activity and that he needed to not just draw superhero pictures, which is what I find on the back on nearly every assignment he brings home from school these days.)  But those are the only instructions he got and this is what he came up with:

I accidently cut off the cute picture of Colton getting baptized that he drew at the bottom, but here's a translation of his 6-year-old spelling skills:

Colton, You are making me want to get baptized so much! You are so lucky that you get to be baptized. I want you to feel just like Jesus and special like him. When I get baptized I want to feel the same way. I am proud you made that decision. I want you to stay pure, like salt, and not get pepper in. Choose the right decision. -Corbin Miller 

I "borrowed" it really quickly as he was turning it in and took a picture, because it melted my heart and I wanted to remember it.  Proud mom moment, that kid is amazing, and light years ahead of where I was at his age.  Being around him everyday I don't always take the time to stop and ponder how truly amazing he is and then in moments like this I get a glimpse of his little spirit and I realize just how superior he is to me and how he is the one teaching me in this life.  That kid is gonna do great things in this life!

1st Grade

Corbin got his school pictures back on Friday.  It is absolutely perfect, you can see 100% of his little personality in that smile. He is one cute kid and I am so proud of him and the choices he has been making since we sent him out into the world to start school this year.

Last week in church he was bored during sacrament meeting so I told him to read his scriptures.  He pulled them out and started reading on his own in 1st Nephi.  Up until now he has only done family scripture study or read the little children's scriptures with the comic book style pictures.  So it was his first time reading a significant amount from the actual scriptures on his own.  He was surprised to find that he could actually follow most of what he was reading and told me he read about Nephi when he left Jerusalem.  Since he is currently planning on being baptized next year I told him he should keep reading at home too and see if he can read the whole Book of Mormon through once on his own before he gets baptized.  He accepted the challenge and is now working on his new goal.  He was so excited about his new goal that he told me on Wednesday morning that he wanted to take his Book of Mormon in to school for show and tell and tell everyone about his goal.  What a great example that kid is!  After he was done sharing kids can ask questions or make comments.  Corbin called on one of his good friends, who was raising his hand, and told us that Jayden's comment was, "Mormon was a real person!"  We quite like most of his friends as well :)

My other favorite story about Corbin recently, happened last week.  Every Monday they have a spelling pretest, then they practice the words all week and on Friday they take their actual test.  If they get 100% on the pretest on Monday she gives them some challenge words to learn instead.  Apparently on Friday after their test she made an off handed comment about how she was going to come up with a really hard challenge word like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for Monday's pretest.  So Corbin came home excited about his new challenge word and tried to spell it for me.  Surprisingly enough he only got three parts wrong, so I corrected those letters for him and he then tried again and has gotten it 100% correct every time since then.  So he went in on Monday and got 100% on the pretest and then she never told them to write supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  So he raised his little hand and told her she forgot and she said, "Oh Corbin I was just kidding I won't really give you a word that long."  To which he replies, "But I learned how to spell it Mrs. Qualls!"  I think she was a little surprised by him so she promised to really include it on the spelling test this week.  I loved that 1. He learned how to spell that word in about 5 minutes and 2. That he is bold enough to raise his hand and call her out on it.

Mr. Mr.

We starting out calling Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson, since he has a last name for a first name.  That has somehow morphed into Mister, Mister.  So when I am in public I have to wonder what people think as I call out for my kids, "Bean, Elle-Bell, Sethers and Mister Mister."  Maybe I should use their actual names that I chose for them sometime :)

He is growing up so fast and being the fourth in a close line of kids I sometimes have to stop and remember to enjoy him among all the chaos.

Last weekend we were watching all the Miller cousins while their mom was in the hospital, having just had a baby.  Everyone was off playing together and enjoying some quality cousin time and Caleb left to go see the new baby so it was just me and my Mr. Mr. hanging out together most of the day.

Had I been at my own home I would seen that as a prime opportunity to lay him down near me and work on something off my ever growing to-do list.  Since I wasn't able to work on stuff though, I instead spent a few hours just holding him and playing with him.

Sometimes I need to remember to do that more.  It is so fun to see little people grow and learn.  They develop so fast!  We love having our little Jefferson around.

Theme Week

The PTA at Corbin's school sponsored a 'Purple Ribbon Week.'  I remember red ribbon weeks from my elementary school days, when we learned about saying No to drugs, but apparently now-a-days the focus is on not bullying.  So in addition to learning about how excluding kids and saying mean things online are forms of being a bully they also encouraged kids to dress up according to various theme days.

Monday was crazy hair day.  Corbin told me he wanted to poke his hair up everywhere.  I told him that was lame and he should do piggy-tails.  He said it would be too embarrassing and everyone would laugh at his funny hair.  I told him that was the whole point and he decided to do it.

(Between the hair, the scrape on his forehead, and the crooked loose tooth, he looked like a total hillbilly!)

So we do his hair all crazy and I go to drop him off at school and we are about a block or two away when he starts to get nervous... 

"Mom, what if you read it wrong and crazy hair day is next Monday?"

"It's today, I promise, they have sent me nothing short of a million reminder notes, phone calls and emails."

We pull up to the school and see kids with colored hair, pig tails, spikes, one girls has balloons worked into her hair, etc.

He gets out of the car and then immediately turns around and gets back in the car and shuts the door, "Mom, this isn't going to work, you are going to have to take me home."

"Um, no.  You have to go to school."

He gets out of the car again, this time takes his hoodie off and wraps it turban style around his head so no one can see his hair.  Then proceeds to stand on the curb next to the car for awhile before getting back in again.

"I can't do it, what am I supposed to do?"

I told him he looked stupid with a hoodie wrapped around his head and that he need to take it off and act confident.  I explained that if he went in acting all nervous and embarrassed it would be awkward and people wouldn't know how to react and he really would be embarrassed.  I explained that instead he should act confident and run in the door and go up to one of his friends and say, "Hey dude, look at my crazy hair!" And then everyone would be excited with you and you'd have them laughing with you, not at you.  He slowly got out of the car again and is standing there, visibly trying to hype himself up so he could go into the school.

Then a car pulls up behind us and one of his good buddies gets out of the car.  Without any hesitation he runs over and tells him almost verbatim everything I just said,

"Hey Jayden, check out my crazy hair!"

I could hear his friend respond, "Cool, look at mine!" and then they ran into the school together.

I am pretty sure that was the greatest lesson that kid has learned in school so far.  While he may not be learning a whole lot in the way of academics he is definitely learning life lessons.

The next day was crazy sock day and this time he happily put on his crazy mummy socks and even picked out a pair of shorts to wear, despite the cold weather, because he wanted everyone to be able to see them.  There was no hesitation getting out of the car this time and he ran into the school without looking back.  He even did a fun pose for me when I asked if I could take a picture of his cool socks.

Seth then starting hoping around trying to mimic Corbin's pose and adamantly stated, "My turn, picture!"

Toddlers are the best people ever!  I will miss the day when we are out of this stage of life and no longer have a two-year-old around at all times.

The last day was wear purple day and since Corbin doesn't own any purple clothes he decided it wouldn't be too embarrassing to ask his little sister if he could borrow her soccer jersey, since soccer wasn't girlie.  I am pretty sure Makelle was beyond excited to have her big brother want something from her and she quickly agreed it would be a great idea.

Veggies

We have been harvesting and canning the last of our produce from the garden lately.  The other night Seth really wanted to help and so he was assigned to scrub potatoes that we had dug up.  I look over and see him standing in a puddle of water surrounded by wet, dirty potatoes and a mouth full of the green beans I had just finished cutting up:

Cheeze!

"Want some, Mom?"

"No, okay, I'll eat it"

It reminded me of the same time two years ago (http://familycm.blogspot.com/2010/09/fun-on-farm-err-garden.html) when Makelle was helping me with our fall harvest:

She clearly found a much more practical use for the raw green beans :)

Purple Bears

Makelle has been playing in another season of soccer this fall.  We had our last game on Saturday and so I figured it was probably time to take some pictures of her playing.  This year she had a girl on her team that was older and far more skilled than everyone else so Makelle's team won every game by a dozen points or so.  The girl's chose their own name and decided to call themselves the 'Purple Bears' which is highly intimidating :)

It was fun to watch her grow and improve her skills over last year.  She has gotten a little more aggressive about fighting for the ball and she is best at controlling the ball with small movements and can pass like a pro when she wants to.  The problem at this age is she never wants to pass because she says that when she does they never pass it back to her and sometimes her own teammates even steal the ball from her, so she got a little frustrated with that aspect.

To encourage teamwork and get her to support her teammates we tried to get her to pay attention to the game and cheer for her friends during the time she spent sitting out.  This resulted in her either screaming loudly or completely distracted playing with her brothers.  The last game she finally found a way to do both when she decided to talk for Jefferson:



He clearly enjoyed the experience as much as she did :)

One week the coach was sick and called Caleb to ask if he could fill in for him.  Makelle loved having her dad coach her team and even scored a goal that game, so I think that week was definitely the highlight of her season.

Helper

Makelle still loves helping with Jefferson.  Most recently she has learned how to change his diaper for me... all by herself!

I am sure Jefferson is grateful for her overly attentive care :)

Firehouse

It is National Fire Safety Week, or something like that, and so the local fire station hosted an open house. We were pretty busy that day and missed most of the earlier festivities, but I managed to make it over with the kids for the last hour while Caleb was at a meeting.  We got to meet some of the firemen and tour the fire station.  It was fun for the kids to see their bedrooms, living quarters and lockers.

They also had the firetrucks and fire engines out with the lights on and the ladder extended up so the kids had fun climbing around and seeing all the buttons, valves and gauges.

Hands down their favorite part of the night was participating in a little display the highway patrol had set up, where you got to buckle up and experience a miniature car crash.  The kids thought it was awesome crashing into each other.  I was surprised at how educational it actually ended up being, Corbin and Makelle were really surprised to see just how much you felt such a small crash.  Hopefully their gong-ho attitude towards buckling up in case of real crash sticks around for awhile.

Pumpkin Patch

We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Lloyd's pumpkin patch again this year.  The kids had fun picking out their own pumpkins. Funny how much their personalities come out in something as simple as selecting a pumpkin.

We starting walking up and saw a little one and pointed it out and asked the kids if anyone wanted it.  Seth immediately volunteered to make it his pumpkin, that kid always follows other's suggestions. 

Makelle looked around for a cute, round one.

And Corbin picked out the biggest one he could find.

We are getting excited for fall and all the fun festivities that come with it!

Family Home Evening

For Father's Day this year I built Caleb a fire pit, sort of.  More like a part of a fire pit, due to time and budgetary constraints we got the actual fire ring put in, but have had to slowly work on the patio area bit by bit each month, but we are getting there.  Still the pit has been functional and we have loved having little bonfires in the backyard all summer long.

One of our favorite things lately is to build a fire for family home evening on Monday nights.  We round up whatever leaves, pine needles and small sticks have dropped on the grass during the week and throw it into the fire pit.  Then we start the fire and sit around and sing songs and read a story out of the friend while the fire burns down.  Once things have calmed down and we have a nice bed of coals we all roast marshmallows and make s'mores for dessert.

The grass in our backyard is finally starting to fill in and we often end up playing soccer or Frisbee for our family activity and then head in and get the kids ready for bed, smelling like smoke.  Great times!

Or sometimes we play soccer while eating s'mores, best of both worlds, right?

Jefferson is especially grateful that we finally have a backyard of our own and can hardly contain his excitement as he sits in his car seat watching all the fun :)

Beywarriors

We have a friend that referred us to this website that lets you try out new products for free, as long as you agree to host a party at your house demonstrating the product.  They have had movie projectors, soda stream machines, home decor items... stuff I think would be cool to get for free.  We have been selected to receive none of them.  So we signed Corbin up to host a Beyblade party featuring their newest product, Beywarriors, thinking there was no way he'd get picked.  However, he seems to have better luck than us and was chosen to receive a party pack full of free toys to play with with his friends.

It actually worked out really well though because it turned out to be the perfect opportunity to invite some of his new friends from school over so I could meet them and their parents and he could expand his circle of friends.

So on Saturday we played host to 14 kids all battling in a Beywarrior tournament.  I think the boys all had fun and we enjoyed seeing Corbin playing with his little group of new and old friends.  Since the guests included kids from the old neighborhood, new school and cousins from both sides we told him he had to make sure to take turns playing with everyone and making sure no one got left out and I think he did a pretty good job of helping everyone mingle.

I even decorated for him!

Caleb ran the tournament and made sure everyone got to take turns.

Group shot: Daniel, Silas, Ethan, Seth, Colton, Brynn, Makelle, Braxton, Easton, Eric, Logan, Corbin, Wes, and Trey.

Winner's stand. 

Corbin took 3rd place, but since 1st through 3rd won prizes, we made him move down to 4th place with just a ribbon.  Since he got to keep most of the toys we had been sent, it only seemed fair.

He also said he didn't like our rules when we made him answer the door and stay by the door thanking people for coming and seeing them off.  Apparently he would have preferred to yell good-bye from the basement while playing with everyone else who was still waiting for their parents.  We'll have to have more parties in the future, so he can continue to work on his hosting skills.

Girls

Makelle idolizes her older girl cousins.  She pretty much thinks that Rachel and Brynn are the best things ever, so when Rachel was over at our house on Friday Makelle was thrilled when Rachel volunteered to do Makelle's hair for her.  I would say it turned out quite nice:

They both loved the end result :)

Tournament Time

Corbin signed up to play on a competition soccer team this year.  We didn't realize what we were getting ourselves into and it's been a little bit intense for our liking, but a good experience for him all the same.  He plays for the La Roca soccer club and they just started their fall season.

His team also played in their first ever tournament over Labor Day weekend.  He scored a goal in one of the games and his team ended up winning all their games except one that ended in a tie.  That team narrowly beat them out for the champion spot and they ended up coming in second, but I don't think Corbin really cared.  He had a ton of fun playing in a 'real tournament,' and that's really all he cared about.

Team Meeting:

Race to the ball:

#20:

Teamwork:

Group shot:

Go La Roca!

Proud participant:

Final score: