Off We Go!

To wrap up our Ancient Civilizations unit and to satisfy Matts' love of all things Roman we decided to accompany Reed on a trip to Rome.  Looking at his calendar, he also had to be in Milan the following week. So, we decided to go on an epic Italian Road trip.  It was long, definitely had it's ups and downs, but was a fantastic adventure and lifelong memory.
Get ready for picture overload.

After weeks of waay too much travel, the boys were thrilled to be joining Reed as he got on an airplane.

These boys are FANTASTIC travelers.  If you limit electronics at home, there's no limit to their zombie, I mean-well mannered child, inducing potential.

After a long wait for our luggage, we weren't too thrilled to get a flat tire on our way into the city.

He may look happy here, about 20minutes later we hit complete meltdown.  

These boys were super excited to be in Rome!

Chunky Monkey

We're still in the "practice" stage and have a long way to go, but nothing makes me laugh quite as hard as a chunky monkey running around in his undies.  What makes it even more awesome is how VERY COOL he thinks he is.  He'll spend minutes (an eternity for him) dancing, snapping the waistband and posing in front of the mirror.

Happy Halloween!

Although the pics were a complete fail (a result of trying to track 3 kiddos by myself), our UK Halloween was a complete success!  I felt very cultured as we studied "The Scream" in school and at 2pm we broke loose and partied the day away.  We started with a Halloween party, complete with pinata, then moved onto Trick or Treating (starting a 4:30 b/c it gets dark so early) with some ward friends and then back home for a spooky dinner and movie.  

Party Time!  C was more enamored with the skate board than his costume.

Can you spot a Tasmanian Devil, Verb (from BattleForce 5) and Tom (from Beast Quest)?

To make it all a little more excited we took our 9 year old neighbor out for his first time Trick or Treating.    As the boys ran from house to house (except Little C who would get a piece of Candy and then kick it in the stroller munching it until he needed more) I regaled his Dad with tales of king sized candy bars, 100's of kids coming to the house, and jumping off the balcony to scare them (Uncle David, of course).  

UPDATE:

Decent pics, for posterity.  

It's the Little Things

With just the right adapter we finally have our magic bullet up and running.  Green smoothies; Hello!  Colds and Coughs, Goodbye!

Feed the Birds

Although my boys have yet to watch Mary Poppins, we take the admonition of the bird lady very seriously. 

The Birds are incredibly domesticate and fearless.

Little C still isn't sure about his personal space being encroached on.

G shows him how it's done.

And that it's FUN!

We're getting some Fall weather, which our 'Lanta boys refuse to accept  and dress appropriately.

As long as Daddy's there, it's all fun and games...

until someone gets their hand bit off :)

I've even accepted feeding the swans...Geese are an entirely different matter.

What a great way to spend an afternoon with Daddy!

Cheeky Monkey

After a scoot around the neighborhood Little C came home with  this beauty, compliments of a shop owner :)

Since coming to London Christian has been given a new, and altogether perfect nickname.  Both his nursery leader and our nanny have declared him to be a "cheeky monkey".  Now he runs through the flat, or scoots down the street yelling "I a cheeky monkey, I a cheeky monkey" at the top of his lungs.  

Quality time with the Maniacs

As many of you know, with our quick move and in order to maximize our time here (can you tell I've repeated the reasons again and again), I'm homeschooling these maniacs.  I've got stellar and very structured Math and English programs, and history/science/art curriculum which we tailor to our outings/trips.  Basically we do full class days on M/W, then math/english on T/TH but spend most the day at a museum/exhibit and then Friday we do a light day of math/english and head to the bookstore for their weekly reward (if they've earned it:).  

A month in it's going pretty well.  Amazingly, the Bishop's wife of our current ward has been homeschooling their kids for 13 years, so she's a great resource and support.  I alternate between thinking the boys are thriving and being convinced that I'm scaring them for life.  

Little C, the one I worry about the most.  

He hasn't spent much time without me and now he spends quality time with the nanny while I teach the big boys in the morning.  It does make me really focus when I'm with him and play/read instead of just working parallel to his play.  Plus, our nanny is really good about trading out when he just needs sometime with Mom.  

G loves to learn!  He spurred the bridge unit and his current goal is to build a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean so he can drive Luci and Allie across to London.

 I teach the boys separately for Math and Language Arts and G is doing so well!  He's reading more and more fluently and is flying through Saxon 1.  Also, I realized this guy would only be in school for 3.5hrs in Atlanta and that included recess/snack/cooking class.  So we added in more breaks, a cooking class adn although, I sometimes worry that the other subjects are too advanced, he's picking up a ton.  I called him out the other day because his Rome building looked suspiciously like London Tower bridge.  He proceeded to explain to me that it had arches, it was an aqueduct, it was made of concrete, it had columns and a pediment on top.  So, obviously, Roman!

Matts indulging his "incessions" and expanding his memory.

In some ways I think this is a perfect opportunity for Matts.  Since he was a little guy he has fixated on a subject and now we get to learn and tailor his learning around it!  The Romans, oh the Romans.  I think we've seen every ancient Roman landmark in a 100mi radius of London.  And we're going to Italy the end of this month to see the real deal.  I'm not going to lie, his handwriting is giving me fits, but we're working on cursive, so hopefully that will help things along.  

So, that's that.  We've been lucky to make friends quickly so we have at least a playdate every week and we go on field trips every T and TH, which keeps things exciting.  It's hard, it's crazy, but it's also great fun and letting us have the adventure of our life!