Caeden is pretty much obsessed with Star Wars, and reads everything he can get his hands on that has anything to do with Star Wars.  He usually has a couple lightsabers on him at all times when he is home.  

We have been taking advantage of the Bloomington Library's Bookmobile, which comes to our village for 1 hour every 3 weeks.  We can search the library's online database and reserve books, cd's and movies to come right to us on the Bookmobile.  (I don't know why we haven't been using it for the 15 years we've lived here!!!) Anyway, this time he reserved 3 huge Star Wars books.  

We've also reserved a lot of dvd's and cd's (including numerous musicals, lately). And, I decided to reserve the first season of Home Improvement last time.  The kids are really enjoying it, so now we are onto the second season.  

Sylvia made waffles the other day, and more peach sauce from fresh peaches.  Good stuff!

Caeden wanted chocolate chip pancakes today, and made them himself.  He was pretty hungry by the time he got them finished.

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Last Swim Meet

Caeden's last swim meet of the season was at LeRoy this evening.  It is such a nice pool.

Caeden has been glad his buddy Cale could come to a couple practices and meets after baseball ended.  He is a good teammate and challenges Caeden to work harder.

Caeden has really learned from and enjoyed both coaches this summer.

When Caeden's 3 events for the evening were over, and he was getting ready to go change clothes, his coaches called him over to the bullpen.  They had put together a freestyle relay for one more event!  It was a super fun way to end the season, swimming with Jack, Nathan and Nate.

Swimming has been such a fun and positive sport in Caeden's life!

Here are his professional swim pictures:

Lexington Invitational

We spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the Lexington swim invitational today.  Caeden swam 50's in back, breast, and free and had a good day.  

He really wanted to make it to the finals this afternoon, and was pretty nervous before each of his races.

There is quite a difference for him this year, since he is in the 11-12 year-old category.  Many of the other swimmers have either been swimming for many years or swim year-round or both. Caeden has never even had swimming lessons and this is his second summer/6-week season of swimming. I am really proud of him for competing, and learning, and having fun with it all!

When I saw Caeden stretch and show his entire ribcage, I really wanted to buy him some ice cream right away!

Even though he didn't make finals, he made improvements!  Caeden swam his best backstroke 50 of the season today, placed 9th, and took almost 6 seconds off his qualifying time!  He also took a little bit of time off his breast stroke, and had a good time in the free as well.

Jeremy spent most of the day as a race timer.  He even covered a second shift so I didn't have to because he knows it really stresses me out to be a timer! 

Annah thought that sitting under a blanket (rather than moving a couple feet forward to be under the tent) was a good way to keep out of the sun.

Sylvia is mad at me because I assigned her Anne of Green Gables for summer reading.  She's not very far into it and is not enjoying it at all.  In fact, she said it makes her not want to read at all.  Her reading teacher for the past 3 years has a kid on the swim team, and was disappointed to hear Sylvia's lack of enthusiasm for the book.

We really enjoy the swim team kids and families and always have fun at meets!

Home Swim Meet

 The Otters hosted a swim meet at the Octavia pool this evening against Flanagan.  Both teams were pretty small, and some events were doubled and tripled up.  The meet was over in an hour!

Jeremy and Annah were both needed as timers, and I took cards from timers and organized them. Caeden swam the 50 freestyle, 50 breaststroke, and 50 backstroke. 

Dawn, Addie, and Reece came to watch the meet!  Caeden was so excited they were there!

 It was a sunny evening!

Dawn was so great to take pictures, since we didn't really have a chance.

 Caeden swam in the lane Jeremy and Annah were timing.

This season, Caeden has done best with his breaststroke. 

Swim Team Season

Caeden started swim practice yesterday, and his swim team had their first meet of the season at Flanagan tonight.  He is so excited!  Swimming is his favorite sport, and he loves every moment of it.

Relay, 50 freestyle, 50 breaststroke, 50 backstroke...

The team is small this year.

Last year, backstroke was Caeden's best.  Tonight he swam the backstroke leg in a medley relay.

Caeden, out in front beginning the second lap of the 50 free, 

and his teammate, Nate, cheering him on...

Caeden came in 1st in the breastroke tonight!

Coach Trevor cheered Caeden on through his 50 backstroke.

What a fun start to the swim season!

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21 days to a new habit

I love my boy.  I love the fact that he enjoys creating with Legos.  This week he's been building various Star Wars ships.

 I love that at age 11 he still very much loves to PLAY.  (We played UNO on his bed Saturday night.)

We are working on learning to WORK.  Our culture emphasizes relaxation and entertainment a LOT, but this boy is struggling with understanding the main purposes or life are NOT relaxation and entertainment!  We're having a hard time motivating him to want to work, learn, strive, and take initiative.  I will admit, those things don't sound fun...but they are definitely important.  We are trying to carefully teach him why these are important qualities in life.

It is tough to get this kid to want to get out of bed and go to school.  

He doesn't like riding the bus because kids are vulgar and mean. (I understand.) 

He doesn't like working together with a partner or in a group for assignments in class because understanding come easily for him but explaining how he came about an answer and helping others to figure it out does not come easily. (I understand this too.)  

He doesn't like being feeling bored while being made to wait for others to finish their work.  (I understand.)  

HOWEVER, we are trying to help him see that there are good reasons he should do all of these things, and reasons that they are good things for him to do!

He can be kind to kids on the bus even when they are rude and mean, and be an example of Jesus' love to them.  They may not get to see that anywhere else.

He can take time to think backwards through how he did a math problem and learn to analyze while helping others too.

He can read or help his teachers while waiting for others to finish assignments and learn to use spare time wisely...

Hopefully, if we continue to repeat and reinforce he will learn to stop whining and complaining, and God will grow in him a grateful, helping heart.

Starting last week, I told him he will have no access to any kind of screens--TV, computer, Wii, iPod, Kindle, anything (unless required for homework) for 21 consecutive days--until he can get up and get ready for school (which, for him, includes 6 things: get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on shoes and coat and backpack, and walk to bus stop) while being respectful to me and not making me turn into a crazy, screaming lunatic.  Once he can do that 21 days in a row (which is apparently the length of time it takes to form or break a habit), we will talk about having access to screens again.

The first 2 days, we had to start the 21 days over again.  He is now into no-screen time over spring break.  The next day, he started to get the idea, and did well.  Saturday morning, his Dad woke him up at 5:30, and he was ready to leave the house in 7 minutes.  (I give him an hour on school days.)  When we showed him that he was not giving me the same respect as he gives his dad in this situation, he started to understand.

Sunday morning, I needed to leave the house at 7:20 to get to worship band rehearsal. The main church service doesn't start until 10am, so Jeremy and the girls would leave a couple hours later.  Caeden was wide awake at 6am.  He was excited to go to church, because he hasn't been the last few weeks due to wrestling meets.  He was ready to go in "no time" and begging me to take him with me. We even had time to put some cool purple hair glue in his hair and get to church early.

This morning, I was in bed but awake and heard him literally fall out of bed and onto the floor at 5:57a.m.  He got dressed and came to me saying he was going to go eat and then empty the dishwasher.  He also took his sheets off his bed and to the basement to be washed.  He decided to change his alarm to 6:00 so he would have more time to get ready in the mornings.  We'll see how things progress, I guess!

It is hard to be intentional and work on growing up! I sure do love this kid!!!!!

Love at home

Although the weekend included Variety Show and wrestling Regionals, we actually had more time with the 5 of us at home than we have all year, I think!  Jeremy has been working really long days, including Saturdays, but there may be a little reprieve for a while.  Friday night he brought home pizza and we all ate supper together!!!  He even sat down and played a little Wii with Annah and Caeden.  It was just wonderful to be home enjoying each other's company.  I love these moments the most!

 After the Variet Show, Morgan came home with us and spent the night.  She went to church with us on Sunday while the boys went to wrestling regionals with her family.  We love having Morgan around!

I don't have any photos of Caeden at regionals, but Coach Dad says he wrestling really well.  He was .5 pounds over the limit of the weight class he's been in all season, so he wrestled up a class.  He had some matches against really tough wrestlers, and though he lost, he did well.  That's the end of the season for him, and we are proud of him for working hard--especially these last few weeks--and learning and improving and growing good relationships with his teammates.

Trying something new

I'm going to try a couple new time-saving things with our memory-keeping this year.  For many years, I've organized photos digitally, kept this blog, and also created physical scrapbooks.  I don't have time to do all of that anymore...at least not in the same way.  So, I'm trying out a new system.

Project Life (www.beckyhiggins.com) has a great app I'm learning to use to create digital scrapbook pages with my photos right on my phone--which I use to take almost all my photos now anyway.  So, I can simplify and do everything in one place and just add my pages with photos and stories right to the blog and save a lot of time--I hope!  Here goes...

Clinton Challenge

Very early this morning, we set out for the Clinton Challenge.  

While the coaches were in their meeting, the kids took the initiative to get started stretching and warming up.

Caeden wrestled in the 11-12 age group today, and had some tough 7th grade opponents.  

He won his first match 7-4!

I think Sylvia enjoyed watching wrestling today.  Annah started and finished 2 books.

I love watching Jeremy coach wrestling.  It is HIS THING!

Some of our favorite families and kids are part of the RYWC!

Caeden's second and third matches were tough too.  Although he lost both of them, he wrestled well, and his coach/dad and I are both proud of him.  He was both mentally and physically exhausted when he finished that 3rd match and received his 3rd place trophy.