A little catch-up

It feels like I blinked and the school year was over! After getting off to a very rough start, Caleb ended up taking off and totally loving first grade at Fresno Christian. We were blessed with an amazing teacher who took our boy under her wing and guided him through the year. Caleb made lots of new friends and excelled academically. As the year came to a close, I found myself feeling really sad! As much as I was looking forward to having both boys home for the summer, I was really sad that he's not going to be in Mrs. Yantis' class anymore! But, I've heard really good things about the second grade teacher and was assured by Mrs. Y that he is going to sail through the year in her class.

As I thought about summer and how I wanted that to go, I was feeling the need to be more intentional with our time, especially on the days that I'm home. I'm still working on a little "routine" (note I did not say schedule) chart to help us chose activities together and in that, limit screen time.  For now, we started a summer reading challenge that Caleb is really enjoying, started a summer journal and started playing all kinds of new card games. I had forgotten how much fun Uno is! I love that he is old enough for family game nights. I have very sweet memories of family games growing up and am loving being in the season where I can start that with my own little family! Along with that, we've had lots of "life lesson" moments in learning a new game and how to be gracious whether you win or lose.  Let me tell you in case you may have forgotten: playing games with a 7 year old is an excellent reminder of our sinful natures!

As for the little man, he is continuing to amaze me just about every day with all his new words.  I am thrilled to have completely lost count of how many words he has now! Although we are still seeing pretty regular tantrums, their frequency and intensity have decreased enormously as he has learned to express himself verbally. And let me tell you, that's a beautiful thing. I can tell just by looking at the expression on his face when he comes and TELLS me what he wants that there is such joy in being able to do that!

The other huge thing on Noah's radar is church! Throughout the fall, winter and spring there were periods of time where he was very cooperative and able to sit through most of the church service while still allowing John and I to focus. The last month or so that we had him in there, though, our time was spent going from activity to activity with him, offering and then picking up snacks he didn't want, chasing him down the aisle when he attempted to bolt and basically nothing other than frustration for mama and papa. So, the last Sunday of May we decided to put him in the 2 year old class. John and I felt enormously blessed to have been able to worship, actually learn from the sermon and fellowship with others. But, I was a bit on edge over the next couple days waiting for the other shoe to drop. Guess what? It never did!!!! He's been two weeks in a row now, has loved it, we've loved it and he's not sick! Thank you, Lord!  I'm sure at some point he will get sick, but at this point, I feel like it would be no different than any other little one. Come fall, we will figure out a new strategy and go from there but in the mean time, we are going to enjoy every minute of our newfound freedom!

Whew! That got really long! And now, perfect timing as always, I'm going to go intervene in a brotherly rumble over Kerjack, the giant gorilla the boys both love!