We Love TECS!

Ben attends 2nd grade at the Thomas Edison Charter School. Unlike where we lived in Colorado, where you can't throw a rock without hitting a charter school, there are only about 4 options in Logan if you don't go to the regular public elementary school. Half of those options are private with private tuition to go right along with it. The other options are Thomas Edison, which has two campuses, one at the north end of the valley and one at the south end. There is also an elementary school on the USU campus.

We are so happy that we chose TECS. Last fall Ben's 2nd grade class was the "subject" of a promotional video for the school that is on their website. Ben was so excited to be in it and kept saying that the Principal told them they were the most famous class in the school!

Here's a link to the video on the school website. It is on the right side "Why They Like TECS Video" Ben can be seen at about 1 minute into it, and if you look quickly, another glimpse about 2 minutes into it. Ben is sitting on the front row next to the projector.

The curriculum is the Spalding method for spelling, reading and writing, which is similar to what he had at Vanguard Charter School in Colorado in first grade. They also do Saxon math one year ahead of grade level. (Ben can tell you all about square roots.) Ben is also excited to have learned cursive this year, and his cursive writing is beautiful! Better than his printing! His teacher, Mrs. Godfrey, has been outstanding, even though this is her first year of teaching! We love this school so much that as we save up and look for a house to buy, one of the number one questions we ask is how far away is it from TECS? We will not be changing schools when we buy a house.

Alex the Toothy Crawler

Ok, I'm trying to get a little caught up on the blogging, since it is the only thing I have that could possibly qualify as a baby book for Alex (I have failed as a mother in the baby book arena for all of my children).

So, he got 4 teeth at once just after the new year. The exact date escapes me, so let's call it January 7th. He sprouted two more top teeth about a week ago. He has been rolling around and up on all fours in February and started officially crawling about three weeks ago. We'll call that February 28th? No, it seems like it was before that, maybe the 21st. Anyway, now, he his pulling himself up on stuff, and even letting go and standing for a second before he falls down. And today at church he was climbing the steps. I just feel like saying

Slow down there, Turbo!

He will turn 9 months this Saturday. I really don't need him to be walking soon. And I've got to get serious about the baby proofing. My other kids never put stuff in their mouths that they weren't supposed to, but Alex is our Hoover. Everything goes in his mouth and he's fast and sneaky about it! I can always tell by the look on his face when he's shoved something in there that I have to retrieve. One of the first things was an old Band-Aid! Gross! He's also had dice, various paper and wrappers. I do try to vacuum regularly, I don't know where he finds this stuff. And he really loves to try to eat shoes, especially Crocs. We're thinking of getting him a baby pair just to play with. So, the playpen has been retrieved from Grandma's house and Alex has to go in it if I have to leave the room for even a second.

Here's some pics:

This nasty scab was the result of playing with his brother Ben. I left the room and returned 10 seconds later to find Ben playfully and gently dragging him by his legs on the carpet. They were both laughing, but I asked Ben to stop. Shaun got home from work about an hour later and said "What's this on Alex's head?" I looked and poor Alex had an oozing rug burn! He never complained, but it sure was gross for about two weeks. Ben now drags him by laying him on a blanket and moving the blanket.

I keep trying to get a good picture of Alex's swoopy hair-do. No matter what it won't lay down in the back. Not that I try... I like it like that, for now, anyway. It won't be so funny when he's 6.

Ben's 8th Birthday Party, Part II

Ben has a lot of friends in 2nd grade. I remember going to back to school night the day before school started last August. I expressed some concern to Ben's teacher that he was new to the school and to the area didn't know anybody. She told me not to worry and that after tomorrow he would have 25 new friends. Well, she wasn't kidding! Ben is always talking about his school day and it seems like he mentions someone new all the time. So, although we like to keep things pretty low-key around here, we ended up inviting Ben's whole class to the Fun Park for pizza and Laser Tag. We had 17 kids from the class plus a few cousins there! The kids had a great time, the parents (us) were glad and also glad when it was over. It was unfortunate that although I had reserved for 17, the party was only set up for 7 when we arrived, so we were a bit cramped in the party room, which made it a challenge to attend to everyone's needs, but we survived and Ben had a great time with his friends.

Here's a tip that worked really well for me, by the way. For both Erik and Ben's parties, I took an individual photo of each guest with the Birthday Boy. I then uploaded them from home to my local Ritz/Wolf Camera store through RitzPix in 3x5 size with a white border around them. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays 3x5s are 6 cents a piece and I picked them up the same day (no shipping). We wrote a thank you note on the back of each and the boys handed them out at school. It worked as great Thank You cards.

Ben's 8th Birthday Party

The Birthday Festivities continued with Ben's Big 8th Birthday. Ben wanted to go ice skating for his family party, but our ice rink has been closed down for the season, so we went to the Eccles Ice Center in North Logan and had a great time! The Ice Center is only a few blocks from Ben's school, and he was able to go with his class and have a few lessons in February during class time. He loved it. Grandma Joy and Grandpa Steve came with since they never miss an opportunity to skate if they can help it! We were all quite impressed and amazed with how steady Ben was on his skates. Its a wonder what a couple of lessons will do! Erik was unsure at first, but by the end of our session was showing a lot more confidence.

Here's Erik skating with my dad on this nifty helper.

The boys were also very impressed with the Zamboni machine.

Even Shaun had fun and we're looking forward to going again soon! Thanks for a fun evening Ben!

Petersen's Got Talent (?)

Ben brought home a paper for auditions for the school talent show yesterday. He said he wanted to be in it.

"Okay," I said, "what talent will you do?"

He thinks for half a minute and says "I could tell jokes!"

"OK, yeah, maybe we could find you a monologue in the library." (I'm remembering a Laurel and Hardy (?) monologue that two of the Neumann boys did for a Peoria Ward talent show a few years ago).

Unfortunately, the auditions are on Monday, so there's no time to actually put this together. I point this out to him, gently, hoping not to crush his eager spirit.

"I know, I could do math problems and check my answer by adding! We could get a big poster for me to write on and I can show them how I check by adding. I'm very good at that!"

I just love this kid! I briefly picture in my mind Ben standing on a stage in front of the rest of the elementary school showing K - 5th graders his 3 digit borrow-and-carry subtraction skills.

"Um, it looks like to me that this talent show is more of the singing or dancing type...see, here on the paper it says 'dust off those dancing shoes and warm up those pipes...'" In my mind I'm thinking, how do I let him down without squelch his ambition? "Do you want to play a piano song?"

"No." (Despite the fact he loves an audience at time, he also gets embarassed easily.)

I try this: "I know, is it 4th grade that you get to choose an instrument for band or orchestra? What instrument do you want to play?"

"Guitar, no, Drums!"

"OK what if you play your drums in the talent show when you learn how?"

That seemed to satisfy him, but then I had another *brilliant* idea.

"Hey, what if we had our own Petersen Family Talent show for Family Home Evening on Monday?"

He was very excited about that idea and volunteered to make us a "Petersen Family's Got Talent" poster to advertise the event to each other.

My First Baby is Eight!

I cannot believe this day has come. Benjamin turned 8 years old this week. For us LDS folks, 8 is a milestone because kids can get baptized and become a full-fledged member of the church when they are 8 years old. So its a day that I've thought about a lot off and on through the years. I'm proud of myself that I haven't been too emotional about it, but it does definitely make me take a step back to see how far this kid has come! Here's one of my favorite baby photos of Ben:

Ben is such a special kid. Its a privilege as well as a challenge to be his mom. He is definitely a spirited child! He is full of energy, imagination, and brains! Its a little scary to think of what he could be when he grows up. Some days I think he'll be an inventor/astronaut/meteorologist and some days I think he's going to be Jerry Lewis/Steve Martin/Rowan Atkinson. Today I'm really leaning towards Rowan Atkinson, actually. (He got a Masters degree in electrical engineering from Oxford, then while there, got into show business doing comedy skits. Sounds like the trajectory Ben is on as the class clown who also gets straight A's, doesn't it?)

Erik's 5th Birthday

We are going all out for "Birthday Season" around here. Ben and Erik's birthdays fall 7 days apart, so the end of February and beginning of March are pretty festive for us. Last year, Birthday Season was extremely low-key. Shaun even missed Ben's birthday altogether because he had to work a 24 hour shift in a hospital rotation for school last year. It was less happy than we would have all liked since we didn't have a party with friends and it was just pregnant me trying to take care of everything. The boys wanted to have big parties at Chuck E Cheese last year, but we couldn't swing it. We promised then that we would make it up to them next time. The closest equivalent we have here is the Cache Valley Fun Park, so we've booked two reservations on back to back Saturdays. The boys have invited the kids from their school classes for each party, and haven't stopped talking about it for weeks!

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, we went bowling with the grandparents and had a special birthday supper of pancakes (the only food item he will fairly consistently eat that can be construed as dinner food for adults.) We had sausage and ham and eggs with ours...he had green yogurt. White cake with white frosting and plain vanilla Aggie ice cream followed. Shaun always does a great job decorating the cake!





He got some exciting birthday presents including a much anticipated "Golden Dollar" for his Treasure Box from Grandpa Mike:



He also got a cool telescoping tower of markers from Grandma Joy and Grandpa Steve. He immediately requested some paper and this is what he did to test out his new markers:



Yes, the first thing he wrote with the markers was a math problem he thought up and answered himself. Notice he's moved on to subtraction already...kindergarten is still 5 months away!
He is so into Math and has a real knack for it. I forgot to mention this in the last post, but one of his favorite things to do to pass the time waiting or when he asks me to lay by him when he goes to bed is a game he made up called "Math Questions." I think of arithmetic problems and he answers them, like "What's 17 - 3 ?" and he'll think a minute (or not!) and say "14!" This goes on for several minutes, until I can't think up any more numbers and I tell him I'm tired.

Anyway, the big party at the Fun Park was on Saturday. A few of his friends from preschool came and climbed all over the "SoftPlay" which is a big jungle gym with a two-story tall slide. Think McDonald's Playland on steroids. The kids claim to actually catch air when they hit a bump in the slide. I believe them. Its quite a rocket launcher. Here's a few pics:



The cake was a little slower in coming than we thought it would be, so Shaun entertained the kiddos during the waiting time with his favorite magic trick, the disappearing matchstick. (I did not ask him to do this, he just did. He loves this trick! And, preschoolers love it, too!)



Phew! A good time was had by all, but next year will be back to the low-key parties I'm used to!