In N Out Reading Program

We finally signed up for a library card. Akoy started a reading program for In N Out. For every 5 books he read, he would get a free hamburger. Up to 15 books. They have to be on reading level. Luckily, Akoy's books are shorter. He worked really hard and read us lots of books. He was so happy to get us all free hamburgers. What a great program. I'm so proud of Akoy for working hard and always practicing reading. Even when he doesn't want to! 

Akoy- 4 1/2

Akoy passed his four and a half mark a couple weeks ago. For journal purposes, I wanted to remember a few things about him at this age.

Akoy is absolutely and utterly obsessed with Legos. He liked legos last year but it started growing around his birthday. Slowly it grew more and more. Christmas hit and he got a few more sets, and his own room. BAM, lego central! He likes to build "ships" We probably have at least 20 around the house. Some have guys, some do not. I like looking at each ship, each ship is almost mirror images of each side. If he does one thing, then the other side has to look the same. Just a little OCD about it all... Every once in a while I can't find him, he will always be in his room. I try and make the kids have some quiet time every day. His usually involves Legos. I went and helped in his preschool on Valentines Day, during free time, he played with the teachers legos. I kept trying to get him to play with other learning games, but I wasn't getting very far. He loves his legos. After Bryson finishes the Bar Exam this week, I am hoping we can go see "The Lego Movie" I'm sure Akoy will love it. He loves watching all the different Lego movies on Netflix.  

His reading is getting better by the day. It was so fun to watch him progress and start noticing different things. He gets overwhelmed if there are more then a few sentences on each pages, even though he can read it, he freezes up. "I can't  do it" often is said, until he realized he can. We have made a couple book store trips and we hang out and read a couple books. I bought him the Bob 1st grade sight words set one day. He read all 12 books that first day. I need to look into a library card and start taking him.

Akoy is usually a very good helper. He likes to sing songs to Graham in order to help stop him from crying. Akoy and Lily are definitely siblings. They fight a lot. Akoy gets very upset when lily "reads" a book. Apparently she doesn't know how to read so she can't read books. He is very possessive over his belongings. He does not like to share very much with her. He is a quirky kid. He loves sleeping on the floor. No clue why! He often puts socks on his hands. I think his mind is constantly going and has a hard time calming down and shutting down. One night he put on a beanie, scarf, and a few other things.

We started him in Gymnastics. He has loved it. He has wanted to do it for a long time and we finally caved. Bryson did it growing up and he wanted to be like his dad. He loves going every week and learning new things.

Along with other kids (hopefully!) Akoy loves his screens. Since moving to Utah we have been introduced to TV. The shows just keep coming on! It makes it so hard to turn off the dang tv! ha!  I've tried and been mostly successful taking screens away when he really looses his temper and hits/kicks his sister. Lets be realistic, most kids do that right? Some of his tempers tantrums get loud and aggressive. We are working on that. :)

Overall, he is a great boy. He loves to impress us. He has loved living with Grandma and Grandpa. He has quickly found if mom says no, go ask grandma. Luckily, my mother in law has learned that "no" word. She is still a grandma and likes to make the kids happy. That is okay, after all she is a grandma! They are supposed to be nice!

As I have looked through the last 6 months worth of pictures, I think Akoy has grown out of the selfies phase. I guess he only did that in 2013. After all, that was the word of the year! (for some reason, these pictures are not in order.. oh well)

He was asleep, just opened his eyes in reaction to us putting him on his bed from the floor 

And he's done!

Last week we finished Akoy's reading lessons. It felt so good to be done. We started the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson's" back in September. We had a rough start and a rough ending. I was terrible about sitting down and doing the lessons. It didn't help moving back to Nebraska in the beginning and then moving back to Utah during the end. We were mapped out to finish before we moved but things got to crazy.
I feel like this book really taught Akoy to sound things out and read really well. Sometimes I would wonder why they are making me say certain things or it was silly to teach him that way. However, it was always for a reason and helps him during reading. He loves reading random words throughout the day. Whether it be a sign or something around the house, he usually reads it.
He has an awkward birthday in August. He could either be the youngest or the oldest. I feel like he would get so bored with another year of preschool. But from teaching elementary, the youngest usually struggled in one area or another. Any suggestions?! I hate decisions.
I'm so proud of Akoy for finishing. I took videos throughout the lessons. Its fun to look back and see his progress along the way. He loved his lessons and frequently wanted a couple a day. Each lesson was not easy. Many caused me much stress, especially with a 2 year old wanting attention. For awhile, Bryson would take one lesson at night and I would do the lesson in the morning. It made it much easier and not as much anxiety on one parent.

After Akoy finished all 100 lessons, we went to ice cream. We went after my nieces baptism. Hence the Sunday clothes.

THE LAST STORY! 

Reading to his brother (a couple months ago)

Picking flavors

So proud of himself! 

Our first big snow fall in Nebraska

Nebraska doesn't get a lot of "pretty" snow. Rarely snowman material. This was our first big snowfall. After it snows, everything just turns to ice. Akoy begged us to let them go out for a few minutes. He was dying to make a snow angel. He probably made 10 snow angels.  They would not come in! Lily played in the snow a little bit but mostly hung out on the porch. 

The Other Children :)

My other children, Akoy and Lily. They are great.

Akoy is awesome! He is such a good helper. I love the age 4. Sure, he still throws some fits and acts out, but overall, wonderful! I love this age when they soak everything up. He strives to learn new things and is always asking questions.
Last month we started a reading program with him. "Teach your child to read in 100 days." He LOVES it. Seriously loves it. I hope he keeps it up. It was so fun to see him read his first word "am" to reading a few more words. Now we are about half way through and each lesson has 4-5 sentences each. His excitement when he reads a new word is priceless. Bryson started the program. It took me a week to get involved. Bryson has a way with things, and he made it so exciting for Akoy. I'm pretty sure I could not have done the same. Each day, Akoy does a lesson with both of us. The other day Akoy asked to do 3 lessons in one day! He loves to learn.

A knife and Charlie Brown..???

Poor lady bug has been in that jar for over a week. He cries if we try to let it go.

His first talk in church! 

Apparently this years "word" is selfie. Akoy already knew that.

Lily has had a harder time with the transition of a new baby. She is a momma's girl. It not fun to have your mom always feeding a new baby. So what do you do? Rebel and have lots of accidents! I was doing soooo much laundry. She would be standing in front of me and pee her pants. Ahh! I was getting so upset. Dinners were rough. She wouldn't stay in her seat. Bryson was gone a lot and I probably wasn't the best mom. I was trying. We have since taking a turn for the good. I put Lily back in diapers for nap and bed time. For a week she woke up wet again, but since has stopped. I have worked on giving her more one on one attention. It helps. She still gets jealous but isn't acting out as much. She likes to scream really loud. We are still working on that.
On a better note with Lily, she is really special. I love her so much. She loves the baby and always tries to give him kisses on his head. She always says "oh, so cute!" to him. She has become quite attached to the ipad. It helps when I can't give her attention. Maybe she will pick up on the ABC's like Akoy did.  We took the front off Lily's crib to help out with her hard time. It stayed off for a week. I lost my patience with her and put it back on for a bit. :)

Watching silly youtube videos with dad

Life is a bit more crazy with 3 and I'm not as productive as before but we are surviving! One more month until we move back to Utah! 

Family movie night. (pizza sauce= no shirt)

New Baby = Neglectful parents

As were all eating lunch at the table today, Bryson mentioned things have been going pretty smoothly considering everything. Then I mentioned the events that had already taken place by lunch time.

-Bryson has been super busy with projects this week and hasn't been home much. He has left super early every morning until today. So he slept in a bit. So did I. I had brought Graham back to bed with a binky so he was happy. Our kids woke up at 8 and started playing with various things and watching movies on the ipad. I faintly remember Akoy coming in and telling us that he is making toast for him and Lily. Bryson asked me if it was a good idea. I responded, probably not. Then we went back to sleep. We were both exhausted and you know that point where you can't really think clearly... Yeah, we were there. A little later we woke up the the fire alarm going off. Bryson ran into the kitchen, I grabbed Graham and ran to my closet to put some clothes over my g's. It was thankfully just smoke. Bryson opened the doors to start airing out the house full of smoke and burnt toast smell. Big mistake. The smoke moved into the hallway of the building and set the building alarm off. The firemen had to come now. Even if every things okay. I met the matinence guy out side and told him what had happened. All while holding my week old baby. Guilty of wanting extra sleep and our 4 year old was left to fen for himself. We all waited outside and watched as others were evacuated. Akoy was so excited when he heard the firetrucks come. We watched as the guys all suited up with oxygen tanks and ax's unload the truck. One fireman that stayed with the truck offered the kids to come look at things. Akoy was hesitant because he thought he was in trouble. We were finally able to go back inside after they wrote down all my info.  lovely. I'm glad it was nothing worse though...

-An hour or so later, Lily was yelling for me me and something about peeing. She peed her pants on my bed. I later found the puddle on my nigh-stand dripping down and into all the drawers. Lovely.

-After a bath and as I was drying her hair, Akoy came in to the bathroom. "Mom, I just fell off the counter, but its okay, because I didn't get hurt" Lovely.

-Bryson was warming some pizza up as I was making the kids sandwiches. He noticed a half eaten apple hanging out with the cooking utensils. Just sitting there. One kid was clearly done with their apple and put it in a safe place. We laughed with our tired bodies. Probably too hard.

The fire alarm went off at 9:30. Who knows what else our kids did in the hour and a half we were still sleeping. I payed close attention to them as I sat in my crumb filled rocking chair and nursed the baby.

As we finished our lunch Bryson came up with an analogy. Our life is like learning a language.  Heavenly Father just blinds you enough that you feel like things are going well but in reality the world is crashing down around you and we really don't know the language like we think.

Our kids are crazy but I'm grateful for each of them. We may end at 3 though. I don't know if I have the patience for more kids :) And Akoy said he can't use the toaster until he is 8 years old.

Here is a picture of Akoy with his burnt toast that he ate while waiting for the firetrucks to come.