October Fun

I missed a post because I flew away on an airplane for some time with my dear friend, April.  So, today I will treat you all (pun intended) to a special mid-week update.

Okay, I have to go back a bit.  Two weeks ago, we hosted two exchange students for the day on Sunday.  It was so much fun.  We took Laura and Christine down the Columbia River Gorge to see Multnomah Falls and go to a pumpkin patch in Hood River.  A great time was had by all.  These girls were so sweet, and we really enjoyed their willingness to come along for the ride, even when the boys were a little screamy.  Here are a few pictures of that fun!

Paul picks a pumpkin.  He likes 'em to be muddy.

Cute kids with a dead sunflower

Laura, Luke, Paul and Christine outside the entrance to the corn maze

My kids looking like Japanese school children because Daddy told them to be like Mario (the video game).

Bowling with a pumpkin...very popular activity

This was a crazy Pumpkin Funland with scenes from the 2012 Olympics portrayed using...yep...pumpkins!

So hilarious!

 Then a week and a half flew by!  We didn't actually carve our pumpkins until tonight, and yes, it is Halloween.  I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Paul carving

The results!

I just love this picture.  I just love this boy.

Luke carved all by himself.  Nice job, dude!

The lion and the knight

Lookin' Fierce!

Yes, we posed this.

I love this shot because they aren't actually mad at each other...it's an act!

It's late here and I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to end this here.  Happy Halloween, people!

For Ellen

This week has been a little crazy with some sadness thrown in.  I write with a heavy heart because one of Erik's first cousins once removed (his dad's cousin Betty) lost her battle with Parkinson's this week. We were so blessed to know this brave woman who had a smile and a hug for everyone.  We were able to see her this past spring as part of our trip to visit the Young Adult BSF class in San Gabriel, CA.  We shared pictures of the boys and laughed hard together over their antics.  It was a good day.  We miss you, Betty.  We love you.  We are so comforted to know that your suffering is over and you are safe in the arms of Jesus Christ.

In honor of Betty's sister, Ellen, my most faithful blog reader, I will now share the odd, quirky bits that were our lives this week.  I know they make her smile.  And I want to make her smile today.

First I need to share the apple orchard trip from last weekend.  We all piled into the car on Saturday after Erik got home from his BSF Leader's Meeting.  Then we drove through Starbucks. THEN we started the hour plus trip down the Columbia River Gorge.  That is such a beautiful drive.  Our whole family enjoys it.  Erik and I love looking out the windows at the river passing by and the amazing rock formations.  The boys are hugely entertained by the trains that travel both sides of the river and barges on the river itself, not to mention the semi trucks and cars with various state license plates on the road.

Our first stop was lunch at Taco del Mar in Hood River.  Yum.  Then it was on to our first apple orchard.  I really wanted to buy organic apples this year for our sauce, so I googled it and found Mt. Hood Organic Farms.  I was NOT disappointed.  The Apple House is stunning architecture and it has huge crates of organic apples.  I didn't take nearly enough pictures because I was so busy scooping up the school boy sized organic gala apples for $1/pound!  These are the perfect size for the boys and prevent the half eaten apple syndrome that has plagued us a bit since the boys began eating them directly off the core.

Then came the mega deal.  When the nice man who runs the place heard we were going to be saucing, he pointed us to the huge crate of seconds, apples with flaws and therefore priced at $0.75/pound.  ORGANIC, PEOPLE!!  I was super jazzed.  We loaded up our big pink bin and paid the man.  Happy!  Here's a picture of Paul helping load the bin.

Paul is distracted because there was a very sweet dog with whom he ended up spending the rest of the time on this farm.

 And then it was on to the next farm!  It's not a trip to the Hood River Fruit Loop without some time at Kiyokawa Family Orchards and Fruit Stand.  We didn't actually buy any fruit here, but my mom did.  We go for the play area behind the fruit stand.  It rocks.  The boys love it.  Erik and I sat at a picnic table and enjoyed some down time while the boys played.

Goofy Paul on a tractor.

Luke in the fort.

Shooting his pretend bow and arrow from the wall of the fort.

So happy!

 It was a pretty successful trip.  The best part was the way my house smelled the next morning when we made our first batch of applesauce.  Erik found the easiest recipe ever for applesauce online, and we have been enjoying that business all week.

BIG pot of yummy goodness

SO pretty!

And now for something COMPLETELY different.  Luke bought himself a mini fig this week with his very own money.  What's a mini fig?  It's a lego guy that has been extremely well marketed.  You buy them in these packages that are opaque and you don't know which one you are getting.  Very exciting in Seven Year Old Land.  I nearly burst out laughing when I saw Luke's mini fig.  First the scene he created around it:

A great battle is clearly taking place, but where is the trusty town pretzel eater?

HERE HE IS!!!

I promise you that Luke created this entirely on his own.  He told me that this guy was caught trying to steal the treasure chest.  Erik's comment:  That was very nice that they let him keep his baked goods when they caught him.  Mommy's opinion:  I love that this guy is dressed in traditional German attire, but he clearly came to this party unprepared.  Mini Figs sans weapons in the Bangsund Household are destined to be strung up, but at least they get to hold onto their snacks.

Speaking of baked goods, I made whole wheat banana bread sweetened with honey and molasses yesterday.  It was amazing and is gone today.  I'm going to try my hand at whole wheat pumpkin bread with the Bangsund Twist next.  Check my next post for that action.

Tasty!

 Lastly, Paul asked if he could clean windows yesterday.  Sure!  I worked on stuff for Roots.  Paul cleaned windows.  Amazing.

He mostly just likes to squirt, but the glass surfaces did look nicer when he was done.

Today is Saturday.  Dave, my fabulous father-in-law, is coming for football in about two hours.  The homemade hummus has been made.  It's going to be a good day.

Pants, Tables, Lapbooks, and More!

It's Friday, so it must be time to blog!  It's been another good week in Bangsund Land.  The boys enjoyed time on their bikes and a trip to the park before the weather became officially autumnal today.  In fact, it is raining earnestly for the first time since July.  I actually aught to be cleaning my kitchen in preparation for a dinner party tonight, but the rain outside and the Starbucks Americano beside me want me to blog instead.  The kitchen will wait.

Speaking of fall weather, Paul emerged from his room dressed like this today:

So, what's the big deal?  He's wearing PANTS and LONG SLEEVES, people!  That's HUGE!  This is the child who did not wear pants or long sleeves once last winter.  NOT ONCE!  I was thrilled.  So thrilled that I took this picture and didn't take the time to remove the red eye.  Oh well.

As long as we are talking about Paul, he had an insanely adorable moment this morning.  He arrived in the living room with two books and proceeded to read one of them to us, Dr. Suess' ABC.  I started shooting video at "I" and ended up with eight minutes of what I think is adorable, but what might just bore those who aren't fans.  Feel free to skip.

Did I mention that we got a new dining room table?  That actually happened two weeks ago, but this news slipped through the blogosphere cracks.  It's a gathering table with long legs that make it taller.  It came with four chairs and a bench that probably seats three to four kids.  I really love it, and so do the boys.  I wax it nearly every day.  It just looks so pretty!

This was right after we got it home.  The boys immediately turned it into a fort, but you get the idea.

Our old table only accommodated four people.  Period.  I like that this one really allows for up to eight.  We could even buy a second bench and seat four adults and six kids.  Now that's a dinner party!

In completely unrelated news, Luke is almost done with his lapbook for My Father's Dragon.  It has turned out so well!  I took some pictures to share with y'all.

Okay.  A little bit of copyright infringement.  I just photo copied the front cover of the book. This is not being published and I'm not making any money from this blog.  And I'm absolutely positive that Luke will not make any money from his lapbook.

The first pages opened.

Luke narrated his description of Crossing the River for me, and I wrote it down along the tops of the crocodiles.  If you open the kitty cat, Luke wrote, "Elmer gave the cat a saucer of milk."  It's an example of kindness in the book.  The tortoises are a tri-fold with facts about...tortoises!

The rest of the crocodiles.

The inside section.

 My favorite activity was the Main Character fold out in the upper left hand corner.  First, Luke colored Elmer's shirt with red and white stripes, just like the front cover of the book.  I just thought it looked cool.  Then he narrated for me one fact about Elmer for each of the seven pages of this little book.  I'm not kidding.  You string them together into a paragraph, and he would pass the 7th Grade WASL, the test I used to teach to, I mean prepare kids for.  Wanna hear what he narrated?  Sure you do!

"Elmer is a little boy.  Elmer is kind.  Elmer goes to Wild Island to rescue the dragon.  Elmer helps others.  Elmer uses the things in his backpack to distract the animals.  He is brave!  The desire Elmer has to fly is part of the reason he went to Wild Island."

No joke.  This isn't amazing writing for a 7th grader, but it would pass a lot of the standardized tests out there.  For a 2nd grader I think it absolutely rocks.  Yes, I am biased.

Luke also wrote a thank you letter today.  He narrated this to me.  I wrote it down, then he copied it into his own handwriting.  This, by the way, is exactly what he does for language arts nearly every day.  It was a great application of the skills.

I wanted Paul to write his own name, but he was clearly uncomfortable putting his signature on something that he clearly did not compose.  I asked if Luke could write his name.  He was cool with that.  This, by the way, was in response to an Adventure taken with Grandma and Grandpa this week to Station Number 1 here in Portland, also known as The Big House.  They were treated to an extra special tour of the fire station, something that apparently isn't common.  Awesome!

The boys and the pole.

Checking out the truck.

Captain Greg Wong and the boys.

So the last thing that I want to blog about has nothing to do with the boys.  I created a new fall favorite for myself.  I've been wanting to not eat so many carbs at the end of the day because they make me fat.  This leaves me looking for alternatives to the brown rice that I serve with just about everything.  Don't get me wrong.  Brown rice is good for you, but I need to not eat so many carbs at the end of the day...because they make me fat.

Ginger Sesame Stir Fry Stuffed Squash

It's pretty easy.  Saute some chicken.  This is actually Morningstar Farms Chik'n, a vegetarian alternative, but real chicken would work, too.  Then add orange peppers and mushrooms along with two tablespoons of Newman's Own Lite Ginger Sesame dressing.  Steam half an acorn squash in the microwave.  Dump in the goods.  Eat it.  Smile because it tastes amazing AND it's good for you.

Have a great weekend, Three People Who Read My Blog!

Clean Rooms and Lapbooks (What's a lapbook?)

It's Friday afternoon here.  The sun is shining.  The sky is very blue.  The air isn't quite crisp yet, but the wind is blowing so hard that you can't tell.  I know that this beautiful October day is probably due to global warming, but I can't help but enjoy it.

Erik has been developing a gross cold and finally succumbed to his bed today, calling in sick to work.  I had the extra special challenge of trying to keep the boys quiet so he could rest.  We cleaned bedrooms first because they were getting out of control.  I wish I had taken before and after pictures, but I honestly cannot bring myself to photograph that mess.  Just think lots of Lego, some granola bar bits, a few broken Happy Meal toys, about six homemade treasure maps, scattered "treasures" (rocks) everywhere, and a big pile of little boy laundry.  Add trains and track for Paul's room and that pretty much paints the picture for you.  Oh, and don't forget the books.  There are ALWAYS books everywhere, despite the presence of actual book shelves in each boy's room.  But I'm happy to report that things are much better now.  :-)

I did take pictures, but I should explain about them.  In an effort to save myself some time, Erik has enabled his old phone to upload pictures directly to my computer using dropbox.  It's handy.  As soon as I take the picture, it's on my computer.  Fancy, huh?  The only problem is that this is an older phone and the pictures aren't that great.  I'll upload them and you can be the judge.  Do I need a smart phone?  Do I need an iPhone 5?  Or maybe just a 4s?  I hear the camera on the 4s is awesome.  Enough.  Here are the pics.

Paul's room about four hours after we finished cleaning.  It's still kinda clean.  Yes, that is crayon on the carpet.  Long story...I need to google how to get that business out.

This is the part where Paul smiles.  I'm not in love with the camera on this phone.  Just sayin'.

Luke's room approximately four hours after we finished cleaning.  Again...it's still in decent shape.

Not in love with the camera phone...but totally in love with this kid.  Does he look old to you?

One other cool thing that happened today was the beginning of our very first lapbook experience.  If you don't know what a lap book is, I'll tell you that I didn't either.  I heard about them on the homeschooling forum that I visit from time to time.  It's a method where you use file folders stapled together to create a surface where kids can glue stuff having to do with the literature they are studying.  Two years ago when Luke was doing kindergarten, I downloaded all this stuff to create lapbooks because ALL the kindergarten home school moms were doing it.  Come to find out, they were all ACTUALLY doing the work for their kindergartners!  Seriously.  There was NO way that this non-crafty mom was going to be cutting and pasting after school hours to create something that Luke would probably just junk after a week or so.  And that was the end of lapbooking at Lorene Park Academy.  Until today.

Luke is now pretty adept with his scissors, and he likes coloring much more than previously.  Paul is a completely different child altogether and has always been game to create something that may or may not turn out well.  With this in mind, I tentatively introduced the first mini-activity last week, a cool cut and paste that creates the backpack Elmer Elevator prepared for his trip to Wild Island in the second chapter of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  Both boys loved it.

After the success with the backpack, I decided to bring out some of the other activities.  Luke spent about 20 minutes working on his gorilla and rhino parts today.  It's pretty fun because he colors the animal, cuts out the pocket and then does a little bit of writing and pasting.  The writing either has him remembering parts of the story or finding fun facts to include.  Today he used the index in his science book to find extra facts about rhinos.  Integrated learning, people.  I remember this stuff from college.  Honestly never saw it happen much in the public school classroom with 35 kids to wrangle.  It's MUCH easier with just two.

Luke works diligently while the beginning of his lapbook sits nearby.

Just so you know, I will NOT be adding any extra flair to this thing.  If you google "lapbook" you'll see some A-MAZ-ING stuff that second graders clearly did not create.  Luke's lapbooks will look like a second grader made them.  Because a second grader is going to make them. :-)

Paul, meanwhile, created this scene with a lion attacking a bison in front of a Lego fire station box.  This has nothing to do with anything, but it cracked me up.  Love the cutie five year old hand pointing out the point of attack.

Later Luke turned his stuffed boa into a scabbard for his sword.  He tied that himself.  He's a ninja.  I was impressed.

Dang.  This has been a pretty random blog post.  It's just such a good representation of our lives!  This is what we do.  It's a good life.

Bits of Random Business

We are continuing to enjoy amazing weather here.  The boys are spending lots of time outside on their bikes and even in the sprinkler.  Seriously.  It's been warm here.  Today is a quiet Monday, so I thought I would catch up on the blogging.  I'll start with something super fun we did a little over a week ago with Dave and Lynne.

Over in northwest Portland something special happens every September.  The swifts migrate through on their way to Central America for the winter.  While they are here in town, the bulk of them, we are talking THOUSANDS of birds, spend the night in a huge chimney that just happens to be attached to Chapman Elementary School, where Erik attended for 4th and 5th grades.  Each evening at dusk they flock together and funnel themselves in for the night.  It is WILD to see.  We went and watched with Dave and Lynne.  The boys loved it, and were actually pretty well behaved.  Here are a few shots.

Grandma brought cake pops!  She's so great.  And Luke's knee is his first case of major road rash from crashing his bike earlier in the day.  He's a tough guy, though, and wouldn't miss the swifts!

We are all pretty enthralled.  Except Paul.  He's probably asking for more food. :-)

If I had a better camera, you might be able to experience how awesome this looked.  LOTS of little bitty birds flying down a chimney!  Trust me.  It was cool.

The next big event in our world involved shoes.  Every fall I notice that the shoes Luke was wearing the previous spring seem to have grown smaller.  Mysterious, huh?  So every fall we buy Luke new shoes.  Paul likes hand-me-downs, but this year was a little different.  I received a coupon for 20% off your entire purchase at Famous Footwear and decided to take Luke over there while Paul was at BSF with Oma on Wednesday.

We walked in the door and I asked Luke, "I hope they have something you like, buddy."

He quickly replied, "Let's see if they still have the Lego shoes!"  Luke had been in this store six months previous when we bought his cleats for football.  Apparently he saw Lego shoes at that time.  The crazy awesome news is that they still had them AND they were on sale.  Love it.  We bought both boys pairs because Mommy is a second born and couldn't bear the thought of Paul not getting a pair.  I had a coupon, people!

The new shoes!

The bottom of the new shoes.  Yes, you can actually attach Legos to the bottom.  Luke has talked about making his shoes taller than the house.  I'll be sure to blog it if it happens.

We also did some academics last week.  Here are a few shots of the fun.

We studied the lungs this week, so then we built one.  It was pretty cool.

 Paul, for whom maps are optional, decided to do "From Rome to Canterbury" tracing the path Augustine might have taken.  Luke is doing the Gupta Empire in India AND the beginnings of Islam from Mecca to Medina.  We fell a little behind in our map work, but both of my children are still destined to be MUCH smarter than their mother.

The boys did their map work on the couch using clipboards last week.  It was fun!

Then we did our Kiwi Crate craft on Friday.  It always comes with two projects.  On Friday the boys "sewed" cutie pieces of fruit out of fabric and then stuffed their creations with cotton balls.  It was great.  Then today (Monday) we decorated the pre-made aprons and they played Farmer's Market.  It was adorable.

Paul starts work on his apple with his pear in the foreground.  He never actually finished his apple because a neighbor dropped by and while I was chatting with her, he snipped the yarn WAY too short.  But he doesn't care, so it's all good!

Apple!

Luke and his fruit.  Cute!

Then came the aprons.  Okay.  Here's the deal.  Neither boy wanted to decorate their aprons.  They just wanted to play with the pretend money.  So I decorated the aprons!  They sent these great fabric crayons and stencils.  I couldn't resist.  Both boys are thrilled with the results.  :-)

The boys look goofy in this shot, but it's the best one of the aprons. ;-)

I think I will finish off with a little something that has nothing to do with anything.

The Oregon Ducks are a really good football team.  I like watching them play.  My father-in-law converted me from a die-hard UW Husky (and we were dying pretty hard at the time) to a Duck.  It wasn't a hard sell.  The Ducks were under Mike Bellotti at the time.  They won more than they lost.  It was fun to cheer with my dad-in-law.  That was about eleven years ago.  I've been a Duck fan for eleven years.  I remember Joey Harrington.  I was sad when Dennis Dixon was injured in 2007.

But NOW folks are saying they can't believe I'm a Ducks fan!  These are people that knew me when I lived closer to Seattle than Eugene.  These folks knew my rather severe devotion to the Huskies at the time.  I think THEY think that I've jumped on board the Ducks train recently and am just a fair weather fan.  Not so, my friends.  I can prove it.  Most of my Ducks t-shirts are size L or XL, and we ALL know that I haven't worn those sizes in years.  ;-)

One more thing.  Why do people hate the Ducks?  Is it because they win or because Chip Kelly gives hilarious interviews right before half time?  Unknown.