Crazy Zeke & Silly Kaelyn

This evening I took the kids out in the front yard to play with my camera to take some pictures. Zeke, the ever-posing child that he is...did a great job. K was pretty grumpy so her pictures were a little more "forced."

I just love his sweet smile..

Zeke is such a jewelry guy. Anything falls into his catagory of acceptable jewelry and he never takes it off. There is often something adorning every limb. He is always wearing something....usually some of Kendall's woven artwork, plus the dolphin necklace we found him in Germany. The new additions are some plastic bracelets he got from National Night out on Tuesday. When he starts to look like Mr. T, I will sometimes remove a few items during his bath and "forget" to put them back on.

Zeke loves his bike. He especially enjoys riding it inside the house...around the big loop that connects the bedrooms, living area and kitchen.

I think it is safe to say that Zeke is not always the most attentive child in the world. Details are not Zeke's strength. Brad & I are forever asking about his day, asking what he did, who did he play with. Typical Zeke response, "I don't know." Argh!

Today Zeke and I spent about 20 minutes walking around the house to find items that started with the letter "M" to fill his homework bag. We went through a lengthy discussion about beginning M sounds, what items started with M, which did not. After we found 4, we decided to sit and write cards for the names of the 4 items. When we sat down, we started with the first item...monkey. I said, "ok, first is the monkey." He asked, "how do you spell that?" I said, "what does it sound like, Mmmmm-onkey."
Z: I don't know
J: What do all these items have in common?
Z: I don't know
J: (starting to get a little annoyed) What was the homework? What have we been walking around the house looking for?
Z: I don't know
J: Zeke! Mmmmmonkey, Mmmmmouse, Mmmmmagnet, Mmmmmmommy....what do those words start with????
Z: Oh yeah, "M"
SHEESH! It's like pulling teeth with this one! This one has the attention of a 6 month old...really.

It is difficult to see in the picture, but I am very proud of Zeke's homework (once we finished). Zeke has not previously shown a lot of interest in writing, but today he did a very nice job making cards to identify the "M" items that he put in his homework bag. Of course, when I had him take the picture with his cards, he had to make a super-silly face. He has to support that "tough guy" image he is creating for himself.

Just when I thought that Kaelyn had forgotten everything from her ISR (her water survival training course that she took when she was 6 months old), she laid down in the bathtub tonight, trying to float on her back in the water. I am going to have to fill it more tomorrow night to see if she can still do it.